c. } ••M«*«" ,: J^m(MM Wd |) UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES =J MY FAVORITE BOOK-SHELF MY FAVORITE BOOK-SHELF A COLLECTION OF INTERESTING ^ INSTRUCTIVE READING FROM FAMOUS AUTHORS By CHARLES JOSSELYN Author or '« T H E TRUE NAPOLEON" PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS, SAN FRANCISCO 1903 j*j ' * J J* J J. * J » J J .J 3 . * J > J J » > ■» ■'J J i J J J J ^ J J J J J J J J J J J J J '"^'. I.. '.'',:- /'W' '^y Copyright, 1903 by Charles Josselyn The Tomoyk Press San Francisco .*: .'• 1 01 3 6OI4 T7^ -vu. TO MY WIFE 0) c CO 3 " 18423 o ■q. Q NOTE 1 desire to acknowledge the courtesy of the following authors and publishers for their permission to reprint the selcftions made from their copyrighted books : Harper & Brothers, for extrafts from Sir Walter Scott's Journal. The Century Company, for extrafts from Paul L. Ford's " Life of Franklin." Doubleday, Page & Company, for extrafts from Francis Whiting Halsey's "Our Literary Deluge." Houghton, Mifflin & Company, for extradls from Addison P. Russell's "A Club of One." Charles Scribner's Sons, extrads from Robt. Grant's Book. Professor David Starr Jordan, for his courteous consent to use extrafts from his book. George Barrie & Sons, for extrafls from the works of Viftor Hugo, translated by W. Walton. Hardy, Pratt & Company, for extrafts from the works of Honore dc Balzac, translated by Katherine P. Wormley. C.J. MY FAVORITE BOOK-SHELF CONTENTS Addison .....------i Bacon ...-------- 7 Balzac - - - - - - - - - - -ll Boswell's Johnson .------.- 23 Chesterfield ...-...-.. •^y Dawson, George ...----.. j^ Dickens - - - - - - - - - - "S5 Ford, Paul L. --------- jg Froude -----------65 Goldsmith ___.----.- 72 Grant, Robert ----------76 Gronow, Captain --------- yg Halsey, Francis W. .-.----.-88 Holmes, Oliver W. -------- gy Hugo, Victor - - - - - - - - - -101 Hume, David ---------- io8 Hunt, Leigh - - - - - - - - - -lii Huxley - - - - - - - - - - - 116 JoHNSONIANA - - - - - - - - - -122 Jordan, David Starr -------- 126 Lamb, Charles - - - - - - - - - -132 Lever, Charles --------- 1^7 Lytton, Bulwer - - - - - - - - -166 Macaulay - - - - - - - - - - 181 Mathews, William -._--_--- 200 Montaigne -.-.-_---. 204 OuIDA -_.-------- 208 Pascal - - - - - - - - - - - 212 Prime, W. C. 213 Rousseau - - - - - - - - - - 217 vii MY FAVORITE l^l^^ii^iM ,1 RUSKIN ......-..-- 219 Russell, Addison P. ...__-.. 224 schohenhauer ---------- 238 Scott, Sir Walter - - - - - - - - 250 Stearns, Charles W. --------- 264 Thackeray ---------- 270 Tyndall - - - - - - - - - - -282 Vlll BOOK-SHELF PREFACE In this busy age little time is found by those engaged in a6tive pursuits to read thoroughly, or study deeply, the great works of the illustrious dead, or of those living writers whose fame seems sure. Primarily then, for the use and enjoyment of busy people this book is made up principally from the writings of those whose work has become classic; in some instances, the seledlions gleaned from correspondence and journals present brief sketches of their lives. Romance, Science, Philosophy, Religion and Art are touched in the seledlions comprising the result of many years of atten- tive reading. Many of the passages will probably be familiar; but as most of them have been sele6led from the works of writers long dead and negleded, perhaps, by the world in gen- eral, it may not only be a pleasure, but a profit as well, to have the reader's attention again called to them. The current of many a life has been changed and its living made the better by a calm perusal of the philosophy of life. Such close observers of the great problem as Thackeray, Hugo, Lever and Bulwer, who look on life from the stand- point of romance, are here grouped together with many of the serious and even pessimistic philosophers, such as Schopen- hauer and Hume, as well as with Tyndall and Huxley, who deal with the matter from the cold uncompromising height of Science. It is the personality of these authors I wish in evidence in my work, and not my own. It would be presumption on the part of any man, at this late day, to do more than call the atten- tion of the reading public to their works. They are well able to speak for themselves, and, as they often do, teach us how to live as well as how to die ! ix MY FAVORITE BOOK-SHELF ADDISON. I have often thought that if the minds of men were laid open, we should see but little difference between that of the wise man and that of the fool. There are infi- 11 , • 1 The Difference nite reveries, numberless extravagancies, and a between the Wise perpetual train of vanities which pass through ^^^^ ^„j ^^^ p^gi^ both. The great difference is that the first knows how to pick and cull his thoughts for conversation, by sup- pressing some and communicating others; whereas the other lets them all indifferently fly out in words. This sort of discretion, however, has no place in private conversation between intimate friends. On such occasions the wisest men very often talk like the weakest; for indeed the talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud. TuUy has therefore very justly exposed a precept delivered by some ancient writers, that a man should live with his enemy in such a manner, as might leave him room to become his friend; and with his friend in such Friends and a manner, that if he became his enemy, it should Enemies. not be in his power to hurt him. The first part of this rule, which regards our behaviour towards an enemy, is indeed very reasonable, as well as very prudential; but the lat- ter part of it which regards our behaviour towards a friend, savours more of cunning than of discretion, and would cut a man off from the greatest pleasures of life, which are the free- doms of conversation with a bosom friend. Besides, that when a friend is turned into an enemy, and (as the son of Sirach calls him) a bewrayer of secrets, the world is just enough to accuse the perfidiousness of the friend, rather than the indiscretion of the person who confided in him. MY FAVORITE MM Discretion does not only show itself in words, but in all the circumstances of adion ; and is like an under agent of Provi- dence, to guide and dired: us in the ordinary concerns of life. Will Honeycomb, who loves to show upon occasion all the little learning he has picked up, told us yesterday at the Club, that he thought there might be a great deal said Transmigration for the transmigration of souls, and that the of Souls. Eastern parts of the world believed in that doc- trine to this day. Sir Paul Rycant, says he, gives us an account of several well-disposed Mahometans that purchase the freedom of any little bird they see confined to a cage, and think they merit as much by it, as we should do by ransoming any of our countrymen from their captivity at Algiers. You must know, says Will, the reason is, because they consider every animal as a brother or sister in disguise, and there- fore think themselves obliged to extend their charity to them, though under such mean circumstances. They'll tell you, says Will, that the soul of a man, when he dies, immediately passes into the body of another man, or of some brute, which he re- sembled in his humour or his fortune when he was one of us. As I was wondering what this profusion of learning would end in. Will told us that Jack Freelove, who was a fellow of whim, made love to one of those ladies who throw away all their fondness on parrots, monkeys, and lap-dogs. Upon going to pay her a visit one morning, he writ a very pretty epistle upon this hint. Jack, says he, was conducted into the parlour, where he diverted himself for some time with her favorite monkey, which was chained to one of the windows; till at length observ- ing a pen and ink by him, he writ the following letter to his mistress, in the person of the monkey; and upon her not com- ing down so soon as he expected, left it in the window, and went about his business. The lady soon after coming into the parlour, and seeing her monkey look upon a paper with great earnestness, took it up, BOOK-SHELF and to this day is in some doubt, says Will, whether it was writ- ten by Jack or the monkey. Madam: Not having the gift of speech, I have a long time waited in vain for an opportunity of making myself known to you; and having at present the convenience of pen, ink, and paper by me, I gladly take the occasion of giving you my history in writing, which I could not by word of mouth. You must know, madam, that about a thousand years ago I was an Indian Brach- man, and versed in all those mysterious secrets which your Eu- ropean Philosopher, called Pythagoras, is said to have learned from our fraternity. I had so ingratiated myself by my great skill in the occult sciences with a daemon whom I used to converse with, that he promised to grant me whatever I should ask him. I desired that my soul should never pass „ / J"j.P^ , ,,-,-' , 1 • 1 yartousBoatNHab- mto the body or a brute creature; but this he itations. told me, was not in his power to grant me. I then begged, that into whatever creature I should chance to transmigrate, I might still retain my memory and be conscious that I was the same person who lived in different animals. This he told me was in his power, and accordingly promised on the word of a daemon that he would grant me what I desired. From that time forth I lived so unblamably that I was made President of a college of Brachmans, an office which I dis- charged with great integrity till the day of my death. I was then shuffled into another human body, and afted my part so well in it, that I became first minister to a prince who reigned upon the banks of the Ganges. I here lived in great honour for several years, but by degrees lost all the inno- cence of the Brachman, being obliged to rifle and oppress the people to enrich my sovereign ; till at length, I became so odious that my master to recover his credit with his subjects, shot me through the heart with an arrow, as I was one day addressing myself to him, at the head of his army. MY FAVORITE Upon my next remove, I found myself in the woods, un- der the shape of a jackal, and soon listed myself in the service of a lion. I used to yelp near his den about midnight, which was his time of rouzing and seeking after his prey. He always followed me in the rear, and when I had run down a fat buck, a wild goat, or an hare, after he had feasted very plentifully upon it himself, would now and then throw me a bone that was but half-picked for my encouragement; but upon my being un- successful in two or three chaces, he gave me such a confounded gripe in his anger, that I died of it. In my next transmigration I was again set upon two legs, and became an Indian tax-gatherer; but having been guilty of great extravagances, and being married to an ex- The Indian pensive jade of a wife, I ran so cursedly in debt, Tax-gatherer. that I durst not show my head: I could no sooner step out of my house, but I was arrested by somebody or other that lay in wait for me. As I ventured abroad one night in the dusk of the evening, I was taken up and hurried into a dungeon, where I died a few months after. f^'^j^'My soul then entered into a flying-fish, and in that state led a most melancholy life for the space of six years. Several fishes of prey pursued me when I was in the The Flying water, and if I betook myself to my wings, it Fiih. was ten to one but I had a flock of birds aiming at me. As I was one day flying amidst a fleet of English ships, I observed a huge sea-gull whetting his bill and hovering just above my head; upon my dipping into the water to avoid him, I fell into the mouth of a monstrous shark that swallowed me down in an instant. 'ii;. ~. I was some years afterwards, to my great surprise, an emi- nent banker in Lombard Street; and remembering how I formerly suffered for want of money, became so , , ,' very sordid and avaricious, that the whole town Lombard btreet • \ \ r t • iiri ii Banker cned shame or me. 1 was a miserable little old fellow to look upon, for I had in a manner starved myself, and was nothing but skin and bone when I died. BOOK-SHELF I was afterwards very much troubled and amazed to find myself dwindled into an emmet. I was heartily concerned to make so insignificant a figure, and did not know but some time or other 1 might be reduced to a rr,i a . ... D . , The Ant. mite it 1 did not mend my manners. 1 there- fore applied myself with great diligence to the offices that were allotted me, and was generally looked upon as the notablest ant in the whole molehill. I was at last picked up as I was groaning under a burden, by an unlucky cock-sparrow that lived in the neighborhood, and had before made great dep- redations upon our commonwealth. I then bettered my condition a little, and lived a whole summer in the shape of a bee; but being tired of the painful and penurious life I had undergone in my two last transmigrations, I fell into the other extreme ^, ^ and turned drone. As I one day headed a party to plunder an hive, we were received so warmly by the swarm which defended it, that we were most of us left dead on the spot. I might tell you of many other transmigrations which I went through : how I was a town-rake, and afterwards did pen- ance in a bay gelding for ten years ; as also how I was a tailor, a shrimp, and a tom-tit. In the ^^^ Tailor. last of these my shapes I was shot during the The Shrimp. Christmas holidays by a young Jack-a-napes, who must needs try his new gun upon me. But I shall pass over these and several other stages of life, to remind you of the young beau who made love to you about six years since. You may remember, madam, how he masked, and danced, and sung, and played „,, ^ , a thousand tricks to gain you, and how he was at last carried off by a cold that he got under your window one night in a serenade. I was that unfortunate young fellow, whom you were then so cruel to. Not long after my shifting that unlucky body, I found myself upon a hill in Ethiopia, where I lived in my present grotesque shape, till I MY FAVORITE was caught by a servant of the English fad:ory, and sent over into Great Britain. I need not inform you how I came into your hands. You see, madam, this is not the first time that you have had me in a chain: I am, however, very happy in this my captivity, as you often bestow on me those kisses and caresses which I would have given the world for, when I was a man. I hope this discovery of my person will not tend to my disadvan- tage, but that you will still continue your accustomed favors to Your most devoted Humble servant, Pugg. P. S. — I would advise your little shock dog to keep out of my way for as I look upon him to be the most formidable of my rivals, I may chance one time or other to give him such a snap as he won't like. BOOK-SHELF BACON. A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he have lost no time; but that happeneth rarely. Generally, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second; for there is a youth in thoughts as well Of Youth and as in ages; and yet the invention of young men 4?^- is more lively than that of old, and imaginations stream into their minds better, and, as it were, more divinely. Natures that have much heat, and great and violent desires and perturbations, are not ripe for adion till they have passed the meridian of their years ; as it was with Julius Caesar and Sep- timius Severus ; of the latter of whom it is said, " Juventutem egit erroribus, imo furoribus plenum " (he passed his youth full of errors, of madness even) ; and yet he was the ablest emperor, almost, of all the list; but reposed natures may do well in youth, as is seen in Augustus Caesar, Cosmus Duke of Florence, Gaston de Foix, and others. On the other side, heat and vi- vacity in age is an excellent composition for business. Young men are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projedis than for settled business; for the experience of age, in things that fall within the compass of it, dire6teth them; but in new things abuseth them. The errors of young men are the ruin of business; but the errors of aged men amount but to this, that more might have been done, or sooner. Young men, in the condud: and manage of adions, embrace more than they can hold, stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end without consideration of the means and degrees ; pursue some few principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first ; and that, which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retrad them, like an unready horse, that 7 MY FAVORITE will neither stop nor turn. Men of age objed: too much, con- sult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Certainly it is good to compound employments of both; for that will be good for the present, because the virtues of either age may corre6t the defeats of both; and good for succession, that young men may be learners, while men in age are adors; and lastly, good for externe accidents, because authority followeth old men, and favor and popularity youth; but for the moral part, perhaps, youth will have the pre- eminence, as age hath for the politic. A certain Rabbin, upon the text, "Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams," inferreth that young men are admitted nearer to God than old, because vision is a Of Toutb and clearer revelation than a dream ; and certainly the ^gf- more a man drinketh of the world the more it intoxicateth; and age doth profit rather in the powers of understanding, than in the virtues of the will and affe(^tions. There be some have an over-early ripeness in their years, which fadeth betimes; these are, first, such as have brittle wits, the edge whereof is soon turned; such as was Hermogenes the rhetorician, whose books are exceedingly subtle, who after- wards waxed stupid. A second sort is of those that have some natural dispositions, which have better grace in youth than in age; such as is a fluent and luxuriant speech, which becomes youth well, but not age; so Tully saith of Hortensius: '■^ Idem manebat, neque idem decebat." (He remained the same, but with the advance of years was not so becoming.) The third is of such as take too high a strain at the first, and are magnani- mous more than tra6t of years can uphold; as was Scipio Afri- canus, of whom Livy saith, in effe6t, " Ultima primis cedebani." (The close was unequal to the beginning.) There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic. A man's own observation, what he finds good of, and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health; but it is a safer conclusion to say, "This agreeth not well with me, therefore I 8 BOOK-SHELF will not continue it;" than this, "I find no offense of this, there- fore I may use it:" for strength of nature in youth passeth over many excesses, the effed;s of which must be felt in old age. Discern of the coming on of years, n and think not to do the same things still; for Health. age will not be defied. Beware of sudden change in any great point of diet, and if necessity enforce it, fit the rest to it; for it is a secret both in nature and state, that it is safer to change many things than one. Examine thy customs of diet, sleep, exercise, apparel, and the like; and try in anything thou shalt judge hurtful to discontinue it by little and little; but so, as if thou dost find any inconvenience by the change, thou come back to it again; for it is hard to distinguish that which is gen- erally held good and wholesome, from that which is good par- ticularly, and fit for thine own body. To be free-minded and cheerfially disposed at hours of meat, and of sleep, and of exer- cise, is one of the best precepts of long lasting. As for the passions and studies of the mind, avoid envy, anxious fears, anger fretting inwards, subtle and knotty inquisitions, joys and exhilarations in excess, sadness not communicated. Entertain hopes, mirth rather than joy, variety of delights, rather than surfeit of them; wonder and admiration, and therefore novel- ties; studies that fill the mind with splendid and illustrious ob- jed:s, as histories, fables, and contemplations of nature. If you fly physic in health altogether, it will be too strange for your body when you shall need it; if you make it too familiar, it will work no extraordinary effedl when sickness cometh. I com- mend rather some diet for certain seasons, than frequent use of physic, except it be grown into a custom ; for those diets alter the body more, and change it less. Despise no new accident in your body, but ask opinion of it. In sickness resped health principally; and in health, adion; for those that put their bodies to endure in health, may, in most sicknesses, that are not very sharp, be cured with only diet and tendering. Celsus could never have spoken it as a physician, had he not been a wise man withal, when he giveth it for one of the great precepts of health MY FAVORITE and lasting, that a man do vary and interchange contraries, but with an incHnation to the more benign extreme. Use fasting and full eating, but rather full eating; watching and sleep, but rather sleep; sitting and exercise, but rather _ * exercise, and the like. So shall nature be cher- Rfgtmen :rj . , , , , . t-ii • • HeaUb ished and yet taught masteries, rhysicians are some of them so pleasing and conformable to the humor of the patient, as they press not the true cure of the disease; and some other are so regular in proceeding accord- ing to art for the disease, as they respedt not sufficiently the condition of the patient. Take one of a middle temper; or, if it may not be found in one man, combine two of either sort; and forget not to call the best acquainted with your body, as the best reputed for his faculty. lO BOOK-SHELF BALZAC Every life has its climax, a period when causes are at work, and are in exa6l relation to results. This midday of life, when living forces find their equilibrium and put forth their productive powers with full effed, is com- ^^^^' ^ ^J^'^^^ men not only to organized beings but to cities, DeatFTnemands. nations, ideas, institutions, commerce, and com- mercial enterprises, all of which, like noble races, and dynasties, are born to rise and fall. From whence comes the vigor with which this law of growth and decay applies itself to all organ- ized things in this lower world? Death itself in times of scourge, has periods when it advances, slackens, sinks back, and slumbers. Our globe is perhaps only a rocket a little more con- tinuing than the rest. History, recording the causes of the rise and fall of all things here below, could enlighten man as to the moment when he might arrest the play of all his faculties; but neither the con- querors, nor the ad:ors, nor the women, nor the writers in the great drama will listen to the salutary voice. Why are there no modern pyramids to recall ceaselessly the one principle which dominates the common-weal of nations and of individual life ? When the effed: produced is no longer in dired: relation nor in equal pro- , !^ "\, ° , , . . . I ^ , *^ and Stones tell us portion to the cause, disorganization has begun. of the Past. And yet such monuments stand everywhere; it is tradition and the stones of the earth which tell us of the past, which set a seal upon the caprices of indomitable destiny, whose hand wipes out our dreams, and shows us that all great events are summed up in one idea. Troy and Napoleon are but poems. I I MY FAVORITE Some moralists hold that love is an involuntary passion, the most disinterested, the least calculating, of all the passions except maternal love. This opinion carries with e e/orme j^. ^ yulgar error. Though the majority of men Must Inspire Love , ^. r i r ^ • • or Fear. "^^Y "^ ignorant or the causes or love, it is none the less true that all sympathy, moral or physi- cal, is based upon calculations made either by the mind, or by sentiment or brutality. Love is an essentially selfish passion. Self means deep calculation. To every mind which looks only at results, it will seem at first sight singular and unlikely that a beautiful girl should love a poor lame fellow with red hair. Yet this phenomenon is completely in harmony with the arithmetic of middle-class sentiments. To explain it, would be to give the reason of marriages which are constantly looked upon with sur- prise, marriages between tall and beautiful women and puny men, or between ugly little creatures and handsome men. Every man who is cursed with some bodily infirmity, no matter what it is, — club-feet, a halting gait, a humped back, excessive ugliness, claret stains upon the cheek, Roguin's species of deformity, and other monstrosities the result of causes beyond the control of the sufferer, — has but two courses open to him ; either he must make himself feared, or he must practise the virtues of exquisite loving-kindness ; he is not permitted to float in the middle currents of average conduct which are habitual to other men. If he takes the first course he prob- ably has talent, genius, or strength of will ; a man inspires terror only by the power of evil, respedt by genius, fear through force of mind. When a man crushed by misfortune is once able to make the fidtion of a hope for himself by a series of arguments, more or less reasonable, with which he bolsters him- Hope Born of self up to rest his head, it often happens that he Illusions. is really saved. Many a man has acquired energy from the confidence born of illusions. Possibly, hope is the better half of courage; indeed, the Catholic 12 BOOK-SHELF religion makes it a virtue. Hope! has it not sustained the weak, and given the fainting heart time and patience to await the chances and changes of life? "Listen," said Claparon, after a pause. "Such master- strokes need men. There's the man of genius who hasn't a sou — like all men of genius. Those fellows spend their thoughts and spend their money just as it comes. Imagine a pig rooting round a truffle-patch ; he is followed by a jolly fellow, a moneyed man, who listens for the grunt as piggy finds the succulent. Now when the man of genius has found a good thing, the mon- eyed man taps him on the shoulder and says, "What have you got there? You are rushing into the fiery furnace, my good fellow, and you haven't the loins to run out again. There's a thousand francs ; just let me take it in hand and manage the affair." Very good! The banker then convokes the traders: " My friends, let us go to work; write a prospectus ! Down with humbug!" On that they get out the hunting-horns and shout and clamor, "One hundred thousand francs for five sous! or five sous for one hundred thousand francs ! Gold mines ! Coal mines!" in short all the clap-trap of commerce. We buy up men of arts and sciences; the show begins; the public enters; it gets its money's worth, and we get the profits. The pig is penned up with his potatoes, and the rest of us wal- low in bank-notes. There it all is, my good sir! Come go into the business with us. What would you like to be, — pig, buzzard, clown, or millionaire? Refled; upon it; I have now laid before you the whole theory of the modern loan system. Come and see me often; you'll always find me a jovial, jolly fellow. French joviality — gayety and gravity — all in one — never injures business; quite the contrary. Men who quaff the sparkling cup are born to understand each other. Come, another glass of champagne! it is good I tell you! It was sent to me from Epernay itself, by a man for whom I once sold quantities at a good price — I used to be in wines. He shows his gratitude and remembers me in my prosperity; very rare, that. MY FAVORITE Society abhors sorrows and the sorrowful, hates them like a contagion, and never hesitates in its choice between them and " Liugb and the vice, vice is luxury. No matter how majestic WorU Laughs with grief may be, society knows how to belittle it, Tou: Weep, and and to ridicule it with a witticism; it draws cari- Tou Weep Alone:' matures and flings them at the heads of dethroned monarchs in return for affronts it fancies it has received. Like the young Romans of the Circus, society has no mercy for the dying gladiator; it battens on gold, it lives by cruel mockery. " Death to the weak" is the cry of that equestrian order which exists among all the nations upon earth; and the sentence is written on hearts that are sodden in opulence or swollen by aris- tocracy. Look at the children in a college school; behold there a minature image of society, all the more true because it is art- less and honest. See those poor helots, creatures of pain and mortification, placed between contempt and pity; the gospel tells such as they are of heaven ! Go a little lower in the scale of organized beings. If a fowl falls sick in a poultry yard, all the others peck at it, pluck out its feathers, and finally kill it. Faithful to its code of selfishness, the world punishes sorrows that dare to invade its feasts and dim its pleasures. Whoever suffers in body or soul, or lacks power and money, is a pariah in society. Let him stay in his own desert; if he crosses the bor- ders of it he enters ar6lic regions, he encounters cold looks, cold manners, cold hearts; he is fortunate if he escapes insult in places where he ought to look for consolation. Stay on your deserted beds, ye dying! Old men, live alone beside your smouldering hearths! Poor portionless girls, freeze or burn in your solitary chambers! If the world tolerates a misfortune it is that it may fashion it to its own uses, find some profit in it, saddle it, bit it, put a pack upon its back, and make it serve a purpose. Trembling companion of some old countess, look gay! bear the whimsies of your pretended benefactress, carry her poodle, amuse her, fathom her, but be silent. And you, king of valets out of livery, impudent parasite, leave your char- a(^ter behind you ; feed with your amphitryon, weep with his H BOOK-SHELF tears, laugh with his laughter, and call his witticisms wit; if you want to deny his virtues, wait till he falls. No, the world never honors misfortune; it drives it away, reviles, chastises, or kills it. There are people who come at last to perceive that they have nothing more to gain from those who know them well. To such they have shown the hollowness of their natures; they know themselves judged and Craving for severely judged ; yet so insatiable is their crav- Flattery. ing for flattery, so devouring their desire to assume in the eyes of others the virtues which they have not got, that they court the esteem and afFeftion of strangers who do not know them and therefore cannot judge them, taking the risk of losing all such credit eventually. There is also another class of minds born selfish, who will not do good to friends or neighbors because it is their duty to do it, while by paying atten- tion to strangers they secure a return of thanks and praise which feeds their self-love. The nearer people stand to them the less they will do for them ; widen the circle, and they are more ready to lend a helping hand. There is no doubt that ideas strike with a force propor- tionate to the vigor of their conception ; they hit the mark at which they are aimed by some such mathemat- ical law as that which guides the shell when it The Dynamic leaves the mouth of the cannon. The effects 1^^^- are various. There are tender natures which ideas penetrate and blast to ashes; there are vigorous natures, skulls of iron, from which the thoughts and wills of other men glance off like bullets flattened as they strike a wall ; others again, are soft and cottony, and into them ideas sink dead, like cannon-balls that bury themselves in the earthworks of a fortifi- cation. 15 MY FAVORITE However coarse the fibre of the individual, let him be held by a strong and genuine afFeftion, and he exhales, as it were, an essence which illuminates his features, inspires 7 f^ his gestures, and gives cadence to his voice. It StrenPtbofGenutne , ° . ° , i i n i i AfTeaion happens sometimes that the dullest soul under the lash of passion attains to such eloquence of thought, if not of language, that it seems to move in luminous air. Are not our loftiest emotions the poetry of the human will? The peasant, however, would rather listen to the man who prescribes for his body than to the priest who discourses on the salvation of his soul. The one can talk to him ^""''^1 ^''"^'' about the land he cultivates, the other is obliged and Relt7tous ^ , , ,.,,.. ,° Consolation ^° converse or heaven, about which he is in these days, unfortunately, little interested. I say un- fortunately, for the doctrine of a future life is not only a conso- lation but a proper means of government. Is not religion the only power that can uphold social laws ? France has recently vindicated God. When religion was done away with, the Govern- ment was forced to set up the Terror to compel the enforcement of the laws; but it was only human terror, and it passed away. When a peasant is ill and nailed to a sick-bed, or convales- cent, he is forced to listen to reason and argument; and he will understand both if presented clearly. That was the thought that made a doctor of me. I reckoned with my peasantry and for them ; I gave them only such advice as would be certain in its effedts, and would therefore constrain them to recognize the soundness of my views. With peasants it is essential to be in- fallible. Infallibility was the making of Napoleon; it would have made a god of him if the universe had not resounded with his fall at Waterloo. If Mohammed was able to create a reli- gion after conquering a third of the globe, it was because he concealed from the world the spectacle of his death. To the village mayor and the great conqueror the same principle applies; the nation and the distrid; are of the same i6 BOOK-SHELF flock; the breed is the same. I was rigorous towards those I was forced to help with money; if I had not shown firmness they would all have scoffed at me. Peasants, quite as often as men of the world, end by making light of those whom they cheat. To be duped is to be weak; „ ^''^"^^ ^,, . ■' 111- T I 1 Lroverns All strength governs all thmgs. 1 have never de- Thinzs. manded a penny of any one for my medical services, unless from those who are known to be rich ; but I have left no one in ignorance of the proper price of them. I never give away medicines unless the sick person is indigent. If my peasantry do not pay me, they at least know the amount of their debt; sometimes they ease their consciences by bringing me oats for my horses, or wheat, when it is not too dear. If the miller were to offer me only a few eels for my services, I should tell him he was generous for so trifling a matter. Such politeness bears fruits; in winter he will give me a few sacks of flour for the poor. People have hearts if we don't blight them. I have come to think more of good and less of evil than I used to. It is not enough to be an upright man, we must be seen to be one. Society does not exist on moral ideas only; to last, it requires adiions that are in harmony with such ideas. In most of the rural districts, out of j? /■''■'^^ r every hundred families whom death deprives of monies. their head, only a few, gifted with lively sensi- bility, preserve a remembrance of the dead for any length of time ; the others totally forget them before the end of the year. Is not such forgetfulness a sore thing ? Religion is the heart of a people; it is the expression of their feelings, which it raises by giving them an objed:. Without a God visibly worshiped, religion would not exist, and human laws would have little real vigor. Though the conscience belongs to God alone, the body falls under the social law; therefore, is it not the beginning of atheism to efface the outward signs of religious grief, and not to exhibit forcibly to the eyes of children who cannot yet refledl — 17 MY FAVORITE indeed, to the eyes of all who learn by example — the duty of obeying laws by a visible submission to the decrees of Provi- dence, who afflidls and consoles, and gives and takes away the blessings of life? I confess that having passed through my period of scoffing and scepticism, I have, here in this place, learned to understand the value of religious ceremonies, of family solemnities, and the importance of certain usages and celebra- tions around the domestic hearth. The base of all society must be with the family. There, where law and power take their rise, obedience should be taught. Seen in all their consequences the family bond and paternal authority are two principles which are still too little developed in our new legislative system. The family, the distridt, and the department represent our whole country. Laws should therefore be based on those three great divisions. In my opinion, the marriage of men and women, the birth of children, the death of fathers, cannot be surrounded with too many observances. That which makes the strength of Catholicism, that which has rooted it so firmly in the man- ners and morals of the people, is precisely the splendor by which it associates itself with the solemn things of life, and surrounds them with ceremonies, so simple and appealing, yet so grand whenever the priest rises to the height of his mission, and makes his office accord with the sublimity of Christian morality. Misers have no belief in a future life; the present is their all in all. This thought casts a terrible light upon our present epoch, in which, far more than at any former Le eitta opes period, money swavs the laws and politics and Dimmed by lerres- ^ i i • • i i i i trial Pleaiures. morals. Institutions, books, men, and dogmas, all conspire to undermine a belief in a future life, — a belief upon which the social edifice has rested for eighteen hundred years. The grave as a means of transition is little feared in our day. The future which once opened to us beyond the requiems, has now been imported into the present. To obtain per fas et i8 BOOK-SHELF nefas a terrestrial paradise of luxury and earthly enjoyment, to harden the heart and macerate the body for the sake of fleeting possessions, as the martyrs once suffered all things to reach eter- nal joys, this is now the universal thought — a thought written everywhere, even in the very laws which ask of the legislator, "What do you pay?" instead of asking him, "What do you think?" When this doctrine has passed down from the bour- geoisie to the populace, where will this country be? In all situations women have more cause for suffering than men, and they suffer more. Man has strength and the power of exercising it; he a6ls, moves, thinks, occupies himself; he looks ahead and sees consolation in ^^ -^ . the future. But the woman stays at home; she Women is always face to face with the grief from which nothing distracts her; she goes down to the depths of the abyss which yawns before her, measures it and often fills it with her tears and prayers. To feel, to love, to suffer, to devote her- self, — is not this the sum of woman's life? Brillat-Savarin defended the science of good eating from convidion ; but perhaps he has not sufficiently insisted on the real pleasure a man finds at table. Digestion, which sets to work the forces of the human Gastric body, produces within the epicure an inward tu- Inebriation. mult equivalent to the highest enjoyments of love. Such a vast development of vital energy is felt, that the brain annuls itself in the interests of the secondary brain which exists in the diaphragm, and intoxication ensues from the very inertia of all the faculties. The boa-constrid:ors gorged with buffalo are found so drunk that they will let themselves be killed. Is there a man over forty who dares to go to work after dinner? And for this reason all great men are sober. Conva- lescents recovering from serious illness, to whom nourishment is carefully doled out, have often observed a species of gastric ine- briation produced by a single chicken wing. The virtuous 19 MY FAVORITE Pons, whose enjoyments were concentrated in the mechanism of his stomach, was otten in the condition of such convalescents; he extraded from good Hving all the sensations '' it was capable of bestowing; and so far he had Pons obtained them daily. No one dares bid farewell to a fixed habit. Many a suicide has stopped short on the threshold of death, as he remembered the cafe where he played his nightly game of dominoes. That certain created beings should have the power of fore- seeing events in the germ of causes, just as a great inventor sees an art or a science in some natural phenomenon I c eer unobserved by the ordinary mind, is by no Sees the Future in (. \ . \ . ■^ . the Past means one or those abnormal exceptions to the order of things that excite a clamor; it is simply the working of an obscure natural faculty, which is, in a meas- ure, the somnambulism of the spirit. This proposition, on which every method of deciphering the future rests, may or may not be called absurd, — the faft remains. Observe also that for the Seer to predict the general events of the future is no greater ex- hibition of power than to reveal the secrets of the past. In the creed of the incredulous the past and the future are alike undis- coverable. If past events have left their traces, it is reasonable to infer that coming events have their roots. Whenever a soothsayer tells you, minutely, fadls of your past life known to yourself alone, he can surely tell you the events which existing causes will produce. The moral world is cut out, so to speak, on the pattern of the natural world; the same efFefts will be found everywhere, with the differences proper to varied environ- ments. Thus, just as the body is actually projedted upon the atmosphere, and leaves within it the spectre which the daguer- reotype seizes, so ideas, real and potential creations, imprint themselves upon what we must call the atmosphere of the spirit- ual world, produce effects upon it, remain there spe6trally (it is necessary to coin words to express these unnamed phenomena); and hence, certain created beings endowed with rare faculties can 20 BOOK-SHELF clearly perceive these forms, or these tracks of ideas. As to the means employed in such visions, the marvel of them is readily explained as soon as the hand of the enquirer has arranged the objeds by the aid of which he Man Is a is to be shown the incidents of his life. All Microcosm. things are linked together in the phenomenal world. Every motion springs from a cause; every cause is a part of the Whole; consequently the Whole exists in the slight- est motion. Rabelais, the greatest mind in the humanity of modern times, a man who combined within himself Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Aristophanes, and Dante — declared three centu- ries ago that man was a microcosm ; Swedenborg, the great Swedish prophet, said that the earth was man ; the prophet and the precursor of scepticism met upon the ground of this great- est of all formulas. All things are predestined and foreknown in the life of man as in the life of his planet. The smallest chances and changes, even the mists futile and insignificant, are under a law. Consequently, great events, great purposes, great thoughts, have their necessary reflex in lesser thoughts, lesser adions; and this law is so strid, that if some conspirator were to shuffle and cut a pack of cards, he could write, in so doing, the secrets of his conspiracy to be read by the Seer, otherwise called Bohemian, gypsy, fortune-teller, charlatan, etc. The splendid gifts which make a Seer are usually found among those whom Society calls "common or unclean." These brutish beings are the chosen vessels in whom God has poured the elixirs which amaze humanity. Such beings have furnished the prophets, the St. Peters, the hermits of history. Whenever thought can be kept to its integrity, rounded as it were within itself, when it is not frittered in conversation, or spent in schemes, in literary work, in the speculation of science, in admin- istrative eflfort, in the conceptions of an inventor, in the services of war, it is apt to burn with intense fires of prodigious intensity, just as the uncut diamond holds its rays within itself. Let the occasion come, and at once this spiritual force breaks out ; it has wings to waft it over space, the eye divine that sees the all of 21 MY FAVORITE existence; yesterday it was carbon; tomorrow, under the flow of the mysterious fluid which pervades it, it is a diamond of the purest water. Men of superior mind, with all Fortune-tellers ^y^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^j^^jj. intelled well wom, can never Generally l?norant, . , 111 if Inspired exercise these supreme powers unless through miracles, which God occasionally permits. Thus it happens that necromancers and fortune-tellers, both male and female, are nearly always mendicants with untutored minds, beings apparently of coarse fibre, pebbles rolled over and over by the torrents of poverty, ground down in the ruts of existence, where they have exhausted only their physical endurance. The prophet, the seer, is Martin the laborer, who made Louis XVIII tremble as he told him a secret known only to the king; it is a Mademoiselle Lenormand, a cook like Madame Fontaine, some half-idiotic negro woman, some herdsman living among his horned beasts, a fakir sitting on the bank of a pagoda, who, by killing the flesh, has won for the spirit the untold powers of somnambulic faculties. It is in Asia that the heroes of occult science have been found throughout all time. It often happens that persons gifted with these powers who in their ordinary lives remain their ordinary selves, — for they fulfil as it were the same physical and chemical functions as the conducting medium of an eledlric current, sometimes mere inert metal, then again the channel of mysterious fluids, — these people sinking back into their natural condition, betake them- selves to practises and schemes which bring them into the police courts; and even, as in the case of the famous Balthazar, to prison or the galleys. A proof of the enormous power which necromancy wields over the masses is that the life or death of a poor musician depended on the horoscope which Madame Fontaine was about to draw for Madame Cibot. 22 BOOK-SHELF BOSWELL'S JOHNSON Johnson was fifty-four years old when in 1763 Boswell was introduced to him at that memorable interview in Tom Davies's back parlor. The acquaintance soon grew into friendship, and lasted without diminution till „. fl""^. ^ . , ohnson s death m 1704. let dunng these Johnson. twenty-one years, as Croker has established by an elaborate calculation, the friends were together only two hun- dred and seventy-six days including the time spent on the tour in Scotland, only one hundred and eighty as recorded in the biography. Boswell's plan therefore and the scale on which he wrought it necessitated many gaps which had to be filled up somehow. They are for the most part surprisingly well filled; for not only did he spare himself no labor in colledling materials (even, as he boasts, to running half over London to fix a date correctly ), but he was scarcely less dexterous in utilizing the information and the wit of others than he was in employing his own. He frequently laments his delay in writing down his friend's conversation while it was still fresh in his memory, whereby its original flavor was too often impaired if not wholly lost. Yet he had so soaked his mind in Johnson that to the baldest and most meagre reports with which his friends could furnish him he was able to give something of the natural touch. But his work had been so - ^/'.^/^^fi. 1 jiji 11 •• 11- ¥ Utihztng Infor- long delayed that many had anticipated him; mation. Hawkins (a dull fellow, no doubt, though his book is not quite the worthless thing that, following Boswell's lead, it has been the fashion to represent it), Mrs. Thrale, Strahan, Craddock and others. They have perished or survive only under his shadow ; but at the time they did in some measure interfere with him. He borrowed from them as much as he dared, but the law of copyright, which none of them were 23 MY FAVORITE disposed to waive In favor of one who so jealously guarded his own interests, made this comparatively little. Sometimes, too, Johnson would not be in the humor for talking, especially when the pair were alone. *' I constantly watched," says Boswell, "every dawning of communication from that great and illumi- nated mind;" but the dawning was apt occasionally to broaden into a tempestuous day. "Sir, you have only two topics, yourself and me; I am sick of both." When the great mind was in that temper, even Boswell's unwearied assiduity and obstetric skill were baffled. Another of his favorite methods of extracting illumination was to talk at the Doctor, or about him, in the presence of a third person, and this too would sometimes hang fire. " Never speak of a man in his pres- ence," he was once told; "it is always indelicate, and may be offensive." Nor was his somewhat brusque use of the Socratic method always countenanced ; he would not seldom be re- minded that " Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen." Lord Chesterfield, to whom Johnson had paid the high compliment of addressing to his Lordship the "Plan" of his Dictionary, had behaved to him in such a manner as to excite his contempt and indignation. The world has been for many years amused with a story confidently told, and as confidently repeated with additional circumstances, that a sudden disgust was taken by Johnson upon occasion of his having been one day kept long in waiting in his Lordship's ante-chamber, for which the reason assigned was, that he had company with him; and that, at last, when the door opened, out walked Johnson^s^D.sgust q^^^^^ Gibber; and that Johnson was so vio- Cbesterfield lently provoked when he found for whom he had been so long excluded, that he went away in a passion, and never would return. I remember having men- tioned this story to George Lord Lyttleton, who told me he was very intimate with Lord Chesterfield; and holding it as a well-known truth, defended Lord Chesterfield by saying that, 24 BOOK-SHELF " Gibber, who had been introduced famiharly by the back stairs, had probably not been there above ten minutes." It may seem strange even to entertain a doubt concerning a story so long and so widely current, and thus implicitly adopted, if not sanc- tioned, by the authority which I have mentioned; but Johnson himself assured me that there was not the least foundation for it. He told me that there never was any particular inci- dent which produced a quarrel between Lord Chesterfield and him; but that his Lordship's continued negled was the reason why he resolved to have no connection with him. The following is an extrad: from his famous letter to Lord Chester- field:— " Seven years, my Lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to His Letter to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the Chesterfield. verge of publication, without one adt of as- sistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not exped, for I never had a patron before. " The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks. "Is not a patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had it been kind, but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. " I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obli- gations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the Public should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself." 25 MY FAVORITE ■A-ffl inf A 'fnf A. ^ fa-jfg H 'inf / ^ t^ ^ Johnson having now explicitly avowed his opinion of Lord Chesterfield did not refrain from expressing himself concerning that nobleman with pointed freedom: "This „ . - man," said he, " I thought had been a lord opinion of ., Tz-ii' 1 Him among wits, but 1 find he is only a wit among lords." And when his letters to his natural son were published, he observed that " they teach the morals of a courtezan and the manners of a dancing-master." "Idleness is a disease which must be combatted; but I would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular plan of study. I myself have never persisted in any plan for ,, „ . two days together. A man ought to read just How to Read. .,.■'. ° , ,,. r ii i"' as inclination leads him, tor what he reads as a task will do him little good. A young man should read five hours a day, and so may acquire a great deal of knowledge." To a man of vigorous intelleft and ardent curi- osity like his own, reading without a regular aim may be bene- ficial; though even such a man must submit to it, if he would attain a full understanding of any of the sciences. Johnson was much attached to London; he observed that a man stored his mind better there than anywhere else; and that in remote situations a man's body might be feasted, r ... " ^ but his mind was starved, and his faculties apt to Liking for - ' . . ^ London. degenerate rrom want or exercise and compe- tition. "No place," he said, "cured a man's vanity or arrogance so well as London; for no man was either great or good per se until compared with others not so good or great." He said " Goldsmith should not be forever attempting to shine in conversation; he has not the temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails. Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of chance ; a man may be beat at times by 26 BOOK-SHELF one who has not a tenth part of his wit. Now Goldsmith's putting himself against another is like a man laying a hundred to one who cannot spare the hundred. It is , „, ,, ^1 » LM A u IJ 4. Goldsmith Should not worth a mans while. A man should not ^^, ^,,^^p,,,shine lay a hundred to one unless he can easily spare ^^ Conversation. it, though he has a hundred chances for him; he cannot but get a guinea, and he may lose a hundred. Gold- smith is in this state. When he contends, if he gets the better, it is a very little addition to a man of his literary reputation ; if he does not get the better, he is miserably vexed." A young lady who had married a man much her inferior in rank, being mentioned, a question arose how a woman's relations should behave to her in such a situation; and, while I recapitulated the debate, and recoiled: _ "„ P^"^"" 1 •*^i 1/1 • rivT °f lll-^siorted what has since happened (the marriage or Mrs. Marriages. Thrale to Piozzi), I cannot but be struck in a manner that delicacy forbids me to express. While I contended that she ought to be treated with an inflexible steadiness of dis- pleasure, Mrs. Thrale was all for mildness and forgiveness, and according to the vulgar phrase, "making the best of a bad bargain." Johnson: "Madam, we must distinguish. Were I a man of rank, 1 would not let a daughter starve who had made a mean marriage; but having voluntarily degraded herself from the sta- tion which she was originally entitled to hold, I would support her only in that which she herself had chosen, and would not put her on a level with my other daughters. You are to con- sider, Madam, that it is our duty to maintain the subordination of civilized society; and when there is a gross and shameful deviation from rank, it should be punished so as to deter others from the same perversion." Talking of melancholy, he said: "Some men, and very thinking men, too, have not those vexing thoughts. Sir Joshua Reynolds is the same all the year round. Beauclerk, except 27 MY FAVORITE when ill or in pain, is the same. But I believe that most men have them in the degree in which they are capable of having them. If I were in the country and M. W./V Sbou/J ^^j.^ distressed by that malady, I would force Not be Diverted .^ . \ . , •' ' . t i- i by Dririkirtp. niyscli to take a book; and every time 1 did it I should find it the easier. Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking." Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. One of these is the cry against the evil of luxury. Now the truth is that luxury pro- duces much good. Take the luxury of buildings in London. Does it not produce real advantage in the conveniency and ele- gance of accommodation, and this all from the exertion of in- dustry ? People will tell you, with a melancholy face, how many builders are in jail. It is plain they are in jail, not for building, for rents are not fallen. A man gives half a guinea for a dish of green peas. How much gardening does this occasion? How many laborers does the competition to have such things early in the market keep in employment? You will Luxury Produces hear it said very gravely, "Why was not the Good. half-guineas thus spent in luxury given to the poor? To how many might it not have afforded a good meal!" Alas! has it not gone to the industrious poor, whom it is better to support than the idle poor? You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity. Suppose the ancient luxury of a dish of peacocks' brains were to be revived, how many carcasses would be left to the poor at a cheap rate? And as to the rout that is made about people who are ruined by extravagance, it is no mat- ter to the nation that some individuals suffer. When so much general productive exertion is the conse- quence of luxury, the nation does not care though there are debtors in jail; nay, they would not care though their creditors were there too. 28 BOOK-SHELF We talked of employment being absolutely necessary to preserve the mind from wearying and growing fretful, especially in those who have a tendency to melancholy; and I mentioned to him a saying which some- pteven^t"^ body had related of an American savage, who, Fretfulness. when an European was expatiating on all the advantages of money, put this question: "Will it purchase occupation? " Johnson: "Depend upon it. Sir, this saying is too refined for a savage. And, Sir, money will purchase occupation; it will purchase all the conveniences of life; it will purchase variety of company; it will purchase all sorts of entertainment." We talked of drinking wine. Johnson: "I require wine only when I am alone. 1 have then often wished for it, and often taken it." Spottiswoode: "What, by way of a com- panion. Sir?" Johnson: "To get rid of myself, to send my- self away. Wine gives great pleasure, and every pleasure is of itself a good. It is a good, unless counterbalanced by evil. A man may have a strong reason not to drink wine, and that may be greater than the pleasure. Wine makes a man better pleased with himself I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others. Sometimes it does. But the danger is that while a man grows better pleased with him- ,^. ^"\. => . , *, . , (jtives a Man self, he may be growmg less pleasmg to others. Nothing. Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what has been locked up in frost. But this may be good, or it may be bad." Spottiswoode: "So, Sir, wine is a key which opens a box; but this box may be either full or empty?" Johnson: "Nay, Sir, con- versation is the key : wine is a picklock which forces open the box and injures it. A man should cultivate his mind so as to have that confidence and readiness without wine, which wine gives." Boswell: "The great difficulty of resisting wine is 29 MY FAVORITE T^ M from benevolence — tor instance, a good, worthy man asks you to taste his wine, which he has had twenty years in his cellar." Johnson: "Sir, all this notion about benevolence arises from a man's imagining himself to be of more importance to others than he really is. They don't care a farthing whether he drinks wine or not." Sir Joshua Reynolds: "Yes, they do for the time." Johnson: "For the time! If they care this minute they forget it the next. And as for the good, worthy man; how do you know he is good and worthy? No good, worthy man will insist upon another man's drinking wine. As to the wine twenty years in the cellar, — of ten men, three say this merely because they must say something; three are telling a lie when they say they have had the wine twenty years; three would rather save the wine; one, perhaps, cares I allow it is something to please one's company; and people are always pleased with those who partake pleasure with them. But after a man has brought himself to relinquish the great personal pleasure which arises from drinking wine, any other consideration is a trifle. To please others by drinking wine is something only, if there be nothing against it. I should, however, be sorry to offend worthv men : " ' Curst be the verse, how well so e'er it flow. That tends to make one worthy man my foe.' " Boswell: "Curst be the springs the water.'' Johnson: "But let us consider what a sad thing it would be if we were obliged to drink or do anything else that may happen to be agreeable to the company where we are." Langton : " By the same rule you must join with a gang of cut-purses." Johnson: "Yes, Sir; but we must do justice to wine, we must allow it the power it possesses. To make a man pleased with himself, let me tell you, is doing a very great thing." 30 BOOK-SHELF His friend, Dr. Lawrence, having now suffered the greatest affliction to which a man is liable, and which Johnson himself had felt in the most severe manner; Johnson wrote to him in an admirable strain of sympathy Letters of and pious consolation. Condolence. Dear Sir: At a time when all your friends ought to show their kind- ness, and with a charad:er which ought to make all that know you your friends, you may wonder that you have yet heard nothing from me. I have been hindered by a vexatious and incessant cough, for which within these ten days I have been bled once, fasted four or five times, taken physick five times, and opiates, I think six. This day it seems to remit. The loss, dear Sir, which you have lately suifered I felt many years ago, and know, therefore, how much has been taken from you, and how little help can be had from con- solation. He that outlives a wife, whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes and fears and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good or evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and aftion is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless, till it is driven by ex- ternal causes into a new channel. But the time of suspense is dreadful. Our first recourse in this distressed solitude is, perhaps, for want of habitual piety, to a gloomy acquiescence in necessity. Of two mortal beings, one must lose the other; but surely there is a higher and better comfort Letters of to be drawn from the consideration of that Provi- Condolence. dence which watches over all, and a belief that the living and the dead are equally in the hands of God, who will reunite those whom he has separated, or who sees that it is 31 MY FAVORITE best not to reunite. 1 am, dear Sir, your most afFedionate and most humble servant, Sam. Johnson. Jan. 20, 1780. Letter written to Boswell on his father's death. Dear Sir: I have struggled through this year with so much infirmity of body and such strong impressions of the fragility of life, that death, whenever it appears, fills me with melancholy; and I can- not hear, without emotion, of the removal of any one whom I have known, into another state. Your father's death had every circumstance that could enable you to bear it; it was at a mature age, and it was expeded; and as his general life had been pious, his thoughts had doubtless for many years past been turned upon eternity. That you did not find him sensible must doubtless grieve you; his disposition towards you was undoubtedly that of a kind though not of a fond father. Kindness, at least ad:ual, is in our power, but fondness is not; and if by negligence or impru- dence you had extinguished his fondness, he could not at will rekindle it. Nothing then remained between you but mutual forgiveness of each other's faults, and Advice to Boswell ^,^^^^1 desire of each other's happiness. I Oft his • . Father's Death. ^^^^^ '°"g ^° know his final disposition of his fortune. You, dear Sir, have now a new station, and have there- fore new cares and new employments. Life, as Cowley seems to say, ought to resemble a well-ordered poem, of which one rule, generally received, is that the exordium should be simple, and should promise little. Begin your course of life with the least show, and the least expense possible; you may at pleasure increase both, but you cannot easily diminish them. Do not think your estate your own, while any man can call upon you for money which you cannot pay; therefore, begin 32 BOOK-SHELF with timorous parsimony. Let your first care be not to be in any man's debt. When the thoughts are extended to a future state, the present Hfe seems hardly worthy of all those principles of con- dud: and maxims of prudence which one generation of men has transmitted to another; but upon a closer view, when it is per- ceived how much evil is produced and how much good is impeded by embarrassment and distress, and how little room the expedients of poverty leave for the exercise of virtue, it grows manifest that the boundless importance of the next life enforces some attention to the interest of this. Be kind to the old servants, and secure the kindness of the agents and fadlors; do not disgust them by asperity or unwel- come gaiety or apparent suspicion. From them you must learn the real state of your affairs, the characters of your tenants, and the value of your lands. Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell; I think her ex- pectations from air and exercise are the best that she can form. I hope that she will live long and happily. I forgot whether I told you that Rasay has been here; we dined cheerfully together. I entertained lately a young gentleman from Corrichata- chin. I received your letters only this morning. I am, dear Sir, Yours, etc., Sam. Johnson. London, Sept. 7, 1782. His generous humanity to the miserable was almost beyond example. The following instance is well attested: Coming home late one night, he found a poor woman lying in the street, so much exhausted that she could not His Generous walk; he took her upon his back and carried Humanity. her to his house, where he discovered that she was one of those wretched females who had fallen into the lowest state of vice, poverty and disease. Instead of harshly upbraid- ing her, he had her taken care of with all tenderness for a long 33 MY FAVORITE time, at a considerable expense, till she was restored to health, and endeavored to put her into a virtuous way of living. To one who said in his presence, "he had no notion of people being in earnest in their good professions, whose pradise was not suitable to them," he gave this reprimand: "Sir, are you so grosslv ignorant of human nature as not to know that a man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good pradise?" The Dodor, from the time that he was certain that his death was near, appeared to be perfectly resigned, was seldom or never fretful or out of temper, and often said to his faithful ser- vant, who gave me this account, "Attend, Francis, to the salva- tion of your soul, which is the objed of greatest importance." He also explained to him passages in the Scripture, and seemed to have pleasure in talking upon religious subjeds. On Monday, the 13th of December, the day on which he died, a Miss Morris, daughter to a particular friend of his, called, and said to Francis, that she begged to „ J '\ r be permitted to see the Do6tor, that she might Death and Last ' , , . • 1 1 • 1 1 • Hoards. earnestly request him to give her his blessing. Francis went into his room, followed by the young lady, and delivered the message. The Doctor turned himself in the bed and said, " God bless you, my dear ! " These were the last words he spoke. His difficulty of breathing increased until about seven o'clock in the evening, when Mr. Barber and Mrs. Desmoulins, who were sitting in the room, observing that the noise he made in breathing had ceased, went to the bed, and found he was dead. When it is considered that, "amidst sickness and sorrow," he exerted his faculties in so many works for the benefit of man- kind, and particularly that he achieved the great and admirable Dictionary of our language, we must be astonished at his reso- lution. The solemn text, "Of him to whom much is given, much will be required," seems to have been ever present in his 34 BOOK-SHELF mind, in a rigorous sense, and to have made him dissatisfied with his labors and ads of goodness, however comparatively great; so that the unavoidable consciousness of his superi- ority was, in that resped, a cause of disquiet, h^ G^'^t^M^ \ He suffered so much from this, and from the Restonubility. gloom which perpetually haunted him and made solitude frightful, that it may be said of him, "If in this life only he had hope, he was of all men most miserable." He loved praise when it was brought to him ; but was too proud to seek for it. He was somewhat susceptible of flattery. As he was general and unconfined in his studies, he cannot be consid- ered as master of any one particular science; but he had accum- ulated a vast and various colledion of learning and knowledge, which was so arranged in his mind, as to be ever in readiness to be brought forth. But his superiority over other learned men con- sisted chiefly in what may be called the art of thinking, the art of using his mind: a certain continual power of seizing the use- ful substance of all that he knew, and exhibiting it in a clear and forcible manner; so that knowledge, which we often see to be no better than lumber in men of dull understanding, was in him true, evident and adual wisdom. His moral precepts are practical; for they are drawn from an intimate acquaintance with human nature. His maxims carry convidion; for they are founded on the basis of common sense, and a very attentive and minute survey of real life. His mind was so full of imagery that he might have been perpet- *^ Moral ually a poet; yet it is remarkable that however Prlaical rich his prose is in this respeft, his poetical pieces, in general, have not much of that splendor, but are rather dis- tinguished by strong sentiment and acute observation, conveyed in harmonious and energetic verse, particularly in heroic couplets. Though usually grave and even awful in his deportment, he possessed uncommon and peculiar powers of wit and humour; he frequently indulged himself in colloquial pleasantry; and the heartiest merriment was often enjoyed in his company; with this great advantage, that as it was entirely free from any poisonous 35 MY FAVORITE tin(5ture of vice or impiety, it was salutary to those who shared in it. He had accustomed himself to such accuracy in his com- mon conversation, that he at all times expressed his thoughts with great force and an elegant choice of language, the effect of which was aided by his having a loud voice and a slow, deliber- ate utterance. In him were united a most logical head with a most fertile imagination, which gave him an extraordinary advan- tage in arguing; for he could reason close or wide, as he saw best for the moment. Exulting in his intelledual strength and dexterity, he could, when he pleased, be the greatest sophist that ever contended in the lists of declamation ; and, from a spirit of contradiction and a delight in showing Conscientious in his powers, he would often maintain the wrong Argument. side with equal warmth and ingenuity; so that when there was an audience, his real opinions could seldom be gathered from his talk; though when he was in company with a single friend, he would discuss a subjedt: with genuine fairness; but he was too conscientious to make error permanent and pernicious by deliberately writing it; and in all his numerous works he earnestly inculcated what appeared to him to be the truth, his piety being constant, and the ruling principle of all his condud:. Such was Samuel Johnson, a man whose talents, acquire- ments and virtues were so extraordinary that the more his char- acter is considered, the more he will be regarded by the present age, and posterity, with admiration and reverence. 36 BOOK-SHELF LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS TO HIS SON. A man is fit for neither business nor pleasure who either cannot, or does not, command and dired his attention to the present objed:, and in some degree banish for that time all other obie<5ls from his thoughts. If ^, . "^ 111 c \ J- ''^"K ^^ ^ at a ball, a supper, a party or pleasure, a man Time. were to be solving, in his own mind, a problem of Euclid, he would be a very bad companion, and make a very poor figure in that company ; or, if in studying a problem in his closet he were to think of a minuet, I am apt to believe that he would make a very poor mathematician. There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time. The Pensionary de Witt, who was torn to pieces in the year 1672, did the whole business of the Re- public, and yet had time left to go to assemblies in the evening, and sup in company. Being asked how he could possibly find time to go through so much business, and yet amuse himself in the evenings as he did, he answered. There was nothing so easy; for that it was only doing one thing at a time, and never putting off anything until tomorrow that could be done today. This steady and undissipated attention to one objed; is a sure mark of superior genius, as hurry, bustle and agitation are the never- failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind. There is no surer sign in the world of a little weak mind than inattention. Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well; and nothing can be done well without attention. It is the sure answer of a fool, when . , , . , , . , . , Attentton. you ask nim about anythmg that was said or done, where he was present, that "truly he did not mind it." And why did not the fool mind it? What had 37 MY FAVORITE he else to do there but to mind what was doing? A man of sense sees, hears and retains everything that passes where he is. I desire I may never hear you talk of not minding, nor complain, as most fools do, of a treacherous memory. Mind not only what people say, but how they say it; and if you have any sagacity you may discover more truth by your eyes than by your ears. People can say what they will, but they cannot look just as they will; and their looks frequently discover what their words are calculated to conceal. Observe, therefore, people's looks care- fully when they speak, not only to you, but to each other. I have often guessed by people's faces what they were saying, though I could not hear one word they said. The most mate- rial knowledge of all, I mean the knowledge of the world, is never to be acquired without great attention; . ,.^ and I know many old people, who, though they * have lived long in the world, are but children still as to the knowledge of it, from their levity and inattention. Certain forms, which all people comply with, and certain arts which all people aim at, hide in some degree the truth, and give a general exterior resemblance almost to every- body. Attention and sagacity must see through that veil, and discover the natural charafter. If a man with whom you are but barely acquainted, to whom you have made no offers, nor given any marks of friendship, makes you, on a sudden, strong professions of his, receive them with civility, but do not repay them with confidence; he certainly means to deceive you; for one man does not fall in love with another at sight. If a man uses strong protestations or oaths to make you believe a thing, which is of itself so likely and probable, that the bare saying of it would be sufficient, depend upon it he lies, and is highly in- terested in making you believe it; or else he would not take so much pains. I know no one thing more offensive to a company than inattention and distra(ition. It is showing them the usual con- tempt; and people never forgive contempt. No man is distrait with the man he fears or the woman he loves, which is a 78 BOOK-SHELF proof that every man can get the better of that distradlon when he thinks it worth his while to do so; and take my word for it, it is always worth his while. For my own part I would rather be in company with a dead man ^ , ., , '-■'.-, ,, Inattention, than with an absent one; tor it the dead man gives me no pleasure, at least he shows me no contempt; whereas the absent man, silently indeed, but very plainly, tells me that he does not think me worth his attention. Besides, can an absent man make any observations upon the characters, customs and manners of the company? No. He may be in the best companies all his lifetime (if they will admit him, which, if I were they, I would not) and never be one jot the wiser. 1 never will converse with an absent man ; one may as well talk to a deaf one. It is, in truth, a practical blunder to address ourselves to a man who we see plainly neither hears, minds nor understands us. Moreover, I aver that no man is in any degree fit for either business or conversation who cannot and does not dire(5t and command his attention to the present subjedt, be that what it will. The first thing necessary in writing letters of business is extreme clearness and perspicuity ; every paragraph should be so clear and unambiguous that the dullest fellow in the world may not be able to mistake it, nor . „ ^'^^"^^^ , ,. , •', . . . , , ' , and Lorreilness in obliged to read it twice in order to understand Business Letters. it. This necessary clearness implies a correct- ness, without excluding an elegance of style. Tropes, figures, antitheses, epigrams, etc., would be as misplaced and as imperti- nent in letters of business as they are sometimes (if judiciously used) proper and pleasing in familiar letters upon common and trite subjeds. In business an elegant simplicity, the result of care, not of labor, is required. Business must be well, not affeCledly, dressed, but by no means negligently. Let your first attention be to clearness, and read every paragraph after you have written it, in the critical view of discovering whether it is 39 MY FAVORITE possible that any one man can mistake the true sense of it, and correct it accordingly. Letters of business will not only admit of, but be the better for, certain graces ; but then they must be scattered with a sparing and with a skilful hand; they must fit their place exadly. They must decently adorn without incumbering, and modestly shine without glaring. People will in a great degree, and not without reason, form their opinion of you, upon that which they have of your friends; and there is a Spanish proverb which says, "Tell me whom you live with and I will tell you who you are." One may fairly suppose that a man who makes a knave or fool his friend has something very bad to do or to conceal. But at the same time that you carefully decline the friendship of knaves and fools, if it can be called friendship, there is no occasion to make either of them your enemies, wantonly and unprovoked ; for they are numerous bodies, and I would choose a secure Chotce neutrality than alliance or war with either of of Friends and , •' Company. ^^^m. _ _ You may be a declared enemy to their vices and follies without being marked out by them as a personal one. Their enmity is the next dangerous thing to their friendship. Have a real reserve with almost everybody, and have a seeming reserve with almost nobody, for it is very disagreeable to seem reserved and very dangerous not to be so. Few people find the true medium ; many are ridiculously mysterious and reserved upon trifles, and many imprudently communicative of all they know. The next thing to the choice of your friends is the choice of your company. Endeavor, as much as you can, to keep company with people above you. There you rise, as much as you sink with people below you; for (as I have men- tioned before) you are whatever the company you keep is. Do not mistake when I say company above you, and think that I mean with regard to their birth; that is the least consideration; hut I mean with regard to their merit and light in which the world considers them. 40 BOOK-SHELF Of all the men that I ever knew in my life — and I knew him extremely well — the late Duke of Marlborough possessed the graces in the highest degree, not to say engrossed them, and indeed he got the most by them; for I will venture — contrary to the custom of profound historians, who always assign deep cause for great events — to ascribe the better half of the Duke of Marlborough's greatness and riches to those graces. He was eminently illiterate, wrote bad English and spelled it still worse. He had no share of what is commonly called parts; that is, he had no brightness, nothing shining in his genius. He had, most undoubtedly, an excellent good plain understanding, with sound judgment. But these alone would probably have raised him but something higher than they found him, which was page to King James the Second's Queen. There the graces protected and promoted him, for while he was an ensign of the guards, the Duchess of Cleveland, then favorite mistress to Charles the Second, struck by those very graces, gave him five thousand pounds, with which he ^ ^ 'f^^M L ' immediately bought an annuity for his life of ouch's Success. five hundred pounds a year, of my grandfather, Halifax, which was the foundation of his subsequent fortune. His figure was beautiful, but his manner was irresistible to either man or woman. It was by this engaging, graceful manner that he was enabled during all his war to conned: the varied and jar- ring powers of the Grand Alliance, and to carry them on to the main objed; of the war, notwithstanding their private and sepa- rate views, jealousies and wrongheadednesses. Whatever court he went to — and he was often obliged to go himself to some resty and refradory ones — he as constantly prevailed and brought them into his measures. The Pensionary Heinsius, a venerable old minister, grown gray in business, and who had governed the Republic of the United Provinces for more than forty years, was absolutely governed by the Duke of Marlbor- ough, as that Republic feels to this day. He was always cool, and nobody ever observed the least variation in his counte- nance; he could refuse more gracefully than other people could 41 MY FAVORITE grant; and those who went away from him the most dissatisfied as to the substance ot their business were yet personally charmed with him, and in some degree comforted by his manner. With all his gentleness and gracefulness no man living was more con- scious of his situation nor maintained his dignity better. A man who does not solidly establish, and really deserve, a charader of truth, probity, good manners and good morals at his first setting out in the world may impose r- iTr°n"i 4 and shine like a meteor for a very short time. Liar If til Be An . ... . . i i "^ • • i , Old One. "^^ ^^^^ ^^^Y soon vanish and be extmguished with contempt. People easily pardon in young men the common irregularities of the senses, but they do not forgive the least vice of the heart. The heart never grows bet- ter by age; I rather fear worse, always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older. But should a bad young heart, accom- panied with a good head (which by the way seldom is the case), really reform in a more advanced age from a consciousness of folly as well as of its guilt, such a conversion would only be thought prudential and political, but never sincere. A man's moral character is more delicate than a woman's reputation for chastity. A slip or two may possibly be forgiven her, and her character may be clarified by subsequent and continued good condud, but a man's moral charadter once tainted is irreparably destroyed. Enjoy pleasures, but let them be your own, and then you will taste them, but adopt none; trust to nature for genuine ones. The pleasures that you would feel you XT 'J^^V must earn; the man who gives himself to all Nature for uenutne ^ . ... o i i t Pleasures. i^^^s, none sensibly, bardanapalus, 1 am con- vinced, never in his life felt any. Those only who join serious occupations with pleasures feel either as they should do. Alcibiades, though addidted to the most shameful excesses, gave some time to philosophy and some to business. 42 BOOK-SHELF Julius Caesar joined business with pleasure so properly that they mutually assisted each other; and though he was the husband of all the wives at Rome, he found time to be one of the best scholars, almost the best orator, and absolutely the best general there. An uninterrupted life of pleasures is as insipid as con- temptible. Some hours given every day to serious business must whet both the mind and the senses to enjoy those of pleas- ure. A surfeited glutton, an emaciated sot, and an enervated libertine never enjoy the pleasures to which they devote them- selves; they are only so many human sacrifices to false gods. The pleasures of low life are all of this mistaken, merely sensual and disgraceful nature; whereas those of high life, and in good company (though possibly in themselves not more moral), are more delicate, more refined, less dangerous and less disgraceful, and in the common course of things, not reckoned disgraceful at all. In short, pleasure must not, nay, cannot, be the business of a man of sense and character, „ '^z Xr. , . .... 1- r 1 • 1 T • Business and a lime but It may, and is, his relier, his reward. It is r^j. pleasure. particularly so with regard to the women who have the utmost contempt for those men that, having no char- adter nor consideration with their own sex, frivolously pass their whole time in ruelles and at toilettes. They look upon them as their lumber, and remove them whenever they can get better furniture. Women choose their favorites more by the ear than by any other of their senses, or even their understandings. The man whom they hear the most commended by the men will always be the best received by them. Such a conquest flatters their vanity, and vanity is their universal, if not their strongest, passion. A distinguished shining character is irresistible with them; they crowd to, nay, they even quarrel for, the danger, in hopes of the triumph. Though, by the way, to use a vulgar expression, she who conquers only catches a Tartar, and becomes the slave of her captive. Mais c est la leur affaire. Divide your time between useful occupations and elegant pleasures. The morning seems to belong to study, business or serious conversations with men 43 FAVOR of learning and figure, not that I exclude an occasional hour at a toilette. From sitting down to dinner, the proper business of the day is pleasure, unless real business, which must never be postponed for pleasure, happens accidentally to interfere. In good company the pleasures of the table are always carried to a certain point of delicacy and gratification, but never to excess or riot. Plays, operas, balls, suppers, gay conversations in polite and cheerfijl companies, properly conclude the evenings, not to mention the tender looks that you may dired: and the sighs that you may offer upon these several occasions to some propitious or unpropitious female deity, whose character and manners will neither disgrace nor corrupt yours. This is the life of a man of real sense and pleasure; and by this distribution of your time and choice of your pleasures, you will be equally qualified for the busy or the beau monde. Pray let no quibbles of lawyers, no refinements of casuists, break into the plain notions of right and wrong, which every man's right reason and plain common sense sug- The gests to him. To do as you would be done by Golden Rule. is the plain, sure and undisputed rule of morality and justice. Stick to that and be convinced that whatever breaks into it, in any degree, however speciously it may be turned, and however puzzling it may be to answer it, is, notwithstanding, false in itself, unjust and criminal. Common sense (which in truth is very uncommon) is the best sense I know of; abide by it, it will counsel you the best. Mankind is more governed by appearances than by reali- ties; and, with regard to opinion, one had better be really rough and hard, with the appearance of gentleness and Appearances : softness, than just the reverse. False and True. Pew people have penetration to discover, attention enough to deserve, or even concern enough to examine beyond the exterior; they take their notions 44 BOOK-SHELF from the surface, and go no deeper; they commend as the gen- tlest and best-natured man in the world, that man who has the most engaging exterior manner, though possibly they have been once in his company. An air, a tone of voice, a composure of countenance to mildness and softness, which are all easily acquired, do the busi- ness, and without farther examination, and pos- sibly with the contrary qualities, that man is w'^llr reckoned the gentlest, the modestest and the best- Bubble natured man alive. Happy the man who with a certain fund of parts and knowledge gets acquainted with the world early enough to make it his bubble, at an age when most people are the bubbles of the world, for that is the common case of youth. They grow wiser when it is too late; and, ashamed and vexed at having been bubbles so long, too often turn knaves at last. "Without any extraordinary efforts of genius I have dis- covered that nature was the same three thousand years ago as it is at present; that men were but men then as well as now; that modes and customs vary very ^i^'^^", r 1 1 u -1 L Always the often, but that human nature is always the same. ^^^^ And I can no more suppose that men were better, braver or wiser fifteen hundred or three thousand years ago than I can suppose that the animals or vegetables were better than they are now. A vulgar man is captious and jealous; eager and impetuous about trifles. He suspeds himself to be slighted, thinks every- thing that is said is meant for him ; if the com- pany happens to laugh, he is persuaded they The laugh at him ; he grows angry and testy, says Vulgar Man. something very impertinent, and draws himself into a scrape by showing what he calls a proper spirit and assert- ing himself. A man of fashion does not suppose himself to be 45 MY FAVORITE 141^1 either the sole or principal objedis of the thoughts, looks or words of the company, and never suspedls that he is either slighted or laughed at, unless he is conscious that he deserves it. And if (which very seldom happens) the company is absurd or ill-bred enough to do either, he does not care two pence, unless the insult be so gross and plain as The to require satisfaction of another kind. As he Vulgar Man. is above trifles, he is never vehement and eager about them; and, wherever they are concerned, rather acquiesces than wrangles. A vulgar man's conversation always savors strongly of the lowness of his education and com- pany. It turns chiefly upon his domestic afi^airs, his servants, the excellent order he keeps in his own family, and the little anecdotes of the neighborhood, all which he relates with empha- sis as interesting matters. The most disagreeable composition that I know in the world is that of strong animal spirits, with a cold genius. Such a fellow is troublesomely a6live, frivolously busy, foolishly lively, talks much, with little meaning, ' and laughs more with less reason ; whereas, in my opinion, a warm and lively genius, with a cold constitution, is the perfection of human nature. If you would particularly gain the afi^edion and friendship of particular people, whether men or women, endeavor to find out their predominant excellency, if they have one, and their prevailing weakness, which every- "'■^' body has, and do justice to the one and something more than justice to the other. Men have vari- ous objects in which they may excel, or at least would be thought to excel; and though they love to hear justice done to them where they know that they excel, yet they are most and best flattered upon those points where they wish to excel, and yet are doubtful whether they do or not. As for example: Cardinal Richelieu, who was undoubtedly the ablest statesman of his 46 BOOK-SHELF time, or perhaps of any other, had the Idle vanity of being thought the best poet too ; he envied the great Corneille his reputation, and ordered a criticism to be written upon the " Cid." Those, therefore, who flattered skilfully, said little to him of his abilities in state afi^airs, or at least but en passant^ and as it might naturally occur; but the incense which they gave him, the smoke of which they knew would turn his head in their favor, was as a bel esprit and a poet. Why ? Because he was sure of one excellency and distrustful of the other. You will easily discover every man's prevailing vanity by observing his favorite topic of conversation, for every man talks most of what he has most a mind to be thought to excel in. Touch him but there and you touch him to the quick. The Sir late Sir Robert Walpole, who was certainly an Robert Walpok. able man, was little open to flattery on that head, for he was in no doubt himself about it; but his prevailing weakness was to be thought to have a polite and happy turn to gallantry, of which he had undoubtedly less than any man living; it was his favorite and frequent subjed; of conversation, which proved, to those who had any penetration, that it was his pre- vailing weakness ; and they applied to it with success. There are two inconsistent passions which, however, fre- quently accompany each other like man and wife, and which, like man and wife, are commonly clogs upon each other. I mean ambition and avarice; the Cardinal latter is often the true cause of the former, and Mazarin. then is the predominant passion. It seems to have been so in Cardinal Mazarin, who did anything, submitted to anything, and forgave anything for the sake of plunder. He loved and courted power like an usurer, because it carried profit along with it. Whoever should have formed his opinion or taken his meas- ures singly from the ambitious part of Cardinal Mazarin's character would have found himself often mistaken. Some who had found this out made their fortunes by letting him cheat them at play. 47 MY FAVORITE On the contrary, Cardinal Richelieu's prevailing passion seems to have been ambition, and his immense riches only the natural consequences of that ambition gratified; „. , ,. and vet I make no doubt but that ambition had Rubelieu. ^ \ • • i i r i now and then its turn with the rormer and avarice with the latter. Richelieu, by the way, is so strong a proof of the inconsistency of human nature that I cannot help observing to you that, while he absolutely governed both his king and his country, and was, in a great degree, the arbiter of the fate of all Kurope, he was more jealous of the great reputation of Corneille than of the power of Spain, and more flattered of being thought, what he was not, the best poet, than at being thought, what he certainly was, the greatest states- man in Kurope; and affairs stood still while he was concerting the criticism upon the "Cid." Could one think this possible if one did not know it to be true? Though men are all of one composition, the several ingredients are so differently propor- tioned in each individual, that no two are exad:iy Vanity alike, and no one at all times like himself. The of Richelieu. ablest man will sometimes do weak things, the proudest man mean things, the honestest man ill things, and the wickedest man good ones. Study individuals then ; and if you take, as you ought to do, their outlines from their prevailing passion, suspend your last finishing strokes till you have attended to and discovered the operations of their inferior passions, appetites and humours. A man's general char- acter may be that of the honestest man in the world; do not dispute it — you might bethought envious or ill-natured; but at the same time do not take this probity upon trust to such a degree as to put your life, fortune or reputation in his power. This honest man may happen to be your rival in power, in interest or in love, three passions that often put honesty to most severe trials, in which it is too often cast; but first analyze this honest man yourself, and then only will you be able to judge how far you may or may not with safety trust him. 48 BOOK-SHELF A man of the best parts and the greatest learning, if he does not know the world by his own experience and observation, will be very absurd, and consequently very unwelcome, in company. Knowledge of He may say very good things, but they ^^^ World. will probably be so ill-timed, misplaced or im- properly addressed that he had much better hold his tongue. Full of his own matter, and uninformed of or inattentive to the particular circumstances and situations of the company, he vents it indiscriminately; he puts some people out of countenance, he shocks others, and frightens all, who dread what may come next. A system-monger who, without knowing anything of the world by experience, has formed a system of it in his dusty cell, lays it down, for example, that ( from the general nature of mankind) flattery is pleasing. He _, will therefore flatter. But how? Why, indis- criminately. And instead of repairing and heightening the piece judiciously with soft colors and a delicate pencil, with a coarse brush and a great deal of whitewash he daubs and besmears the piece he means to adorn. His flattery ofi^ends even his patron, and is almost too gross for his mistress. A man of the world knows the force of flattery as well as he does; but then he knows how, when and where to give it; he proportions his dose to the constitution of the patient. He flatters by application, by inference, by comparison, by hint, and seldom diredtly. In the course of the world there is the same difi^erence, in everything, between system and practise. Achilles, though invulnerable, never went a h'll to battle but completely armed. If you find that you have a hastiness in your temper, which unguardedly breaks out into indiscreet sallies or rough expres- sions, to either your superiors, your equals or your inferiors, watch it narrowly, check it carefully, and call the suaviter in modo to your assistance; at the first impulse of passion be silent 49 MY FAVORITE till you can be soft. Labor even to get the command of your countenance so well, that those emotions may not be read in it, a most unspeakable advantage in business. On Control the other hand, let no complaisance, no gentle- of Temper. ness of temper, no weak desire of pleasing on your part, no wheedling, coaxing nor flattery on other people's make you recede one jot from any point that reason and prudence have bid you pursue; but return to the charge, persist, persevere, and you will find most things attain- able that are possible. A yielding, timid weakness is always abused and insulted by the unjust and the unfeeling; but when sustained by the for titer in re^ is always respected, commonly successful. In your friendships and connexions, as well as in your enmities, this rule is particularly useful ; let your firmness and vigor preserve and invite attachments to you, Control but, at the same time, let your manner hinder of Temper. the enemies of your friends and dependents from becoming yours; let your enemies be disarmed bv the gentleness of your manner, but let them feel at the same time the steadiness of your just resentment; for there is great difference between bearing malice, which is always ungenerous, and a resolute self-defense, which is always prudent and justi- fiable. Never show the least symptoms of resentment which you cannot, to a certain degree, gratify; but always smile where you cannot strike. There would be no living in „ Courts, nor indeed in the world, if one could not Resentment. , . .. i i i • r conceal and even dissemble the just causes or re- sentment, which one meets with every day in a(5live and busy life. Whoever cannot master his humour enough, pour faire bonne mine a mauvais jeu^ should leave the world and retire to some hermitage in an unfrequented desert. By showing an unavailing and sullen resentment, you authorize the resent- ment of those who can hurt you, and whom you cannot hurt; 50 BOOK-SHELF and give them that very pretence, which perhaps they wished for, of breaking with and injuring you; whereas the contrary behaviour would lay them under the restraints of decency, at least, and either shackle or expose their malice. Besides, cap- tiousness, sullenness and pouting are most exceedingly illiberal and vulgar. Constant experience has shown me that great purity and elegance of style, with a graceful elocution, cover a multitude of faults in either a speaker or a writer. For my own part, I confess (and I believe that most . „ ^g^"^^ 1 r -1X1 -c I 1 1 1 '^ hpeaktns, and people are or my mmd) that ir a speaker should Wntinp. ungracefully mutter or stammer out to me the sense of an angel, deformed by barbarisms and solecisms, or larded with vulgarisms, he should never speak to me a second time, if I could help it. Nothing sinks a young man into low company, both of women and men, so surely as timidity and diffidence of himself. If he thinks that he shall not, he may depend upon it he will not, please. But with proper o ;/- ^ r, *^ , , 11 c • S^(f- Confidence. endeavors to please, and a degree or persuasion that he shall, it is almost certain that he will. How many people does one meet with everywhere who with very moderate parts and very little knowledge push themselves pretty far simply by being sanguine, enterprising and persever- ing? They will take no denial from man or woman; difficulties do not discourage them ; repulsed twice or thrice they rally, they charge again, and nine times in ten prevail at last. In business (talents supposed) nothing is more effedual or successful than a good, though concealed, opinion of one's self, a firm resolution and an unwearied perseverance. None but madmen attempt impossibilities, and whatever is possible is one way or another to be brought about. If one method fails try another, and suit your methods to the characters you have to do with. 51 MY FAVORITE I am convinced that the consciousness of merit makes a man of sense more modest, though more firm. A man who displays his own merit is a coxcomb, and a man ,, . who does not know it is a fool. Merst. . c . . ... A man or sense knows it, exerts it, avails himself of it, but never boasts of it, and always seems rather to under than over value it, though, in truth, he sets the right value upon it. A man who is really diffident, timid and bashful, be his merit what it will, never can push him- self in the world; his despondency throws him into inadlion, and the forward, the bustling and the petulant Consciousness will always get the better of him. The manner of Merit. makes the whole diffisrence. What would be impudence in one manner is only a proper and decent assurance in another. A man of sense and knowledge of the world will assert his own rights and pursue his own objects as steadily and intrepidly as the most impudent man living, and commonly more so; but then he has art enough to give an outward air of modesty to all he does. This engages and prevails, whilst the very same things shock and fail from the overbearing or impudent manner only of doing them. I repeat my maxim, Suaviter in modoy sed for titer in re. A man of sense may be in haste, but can never be in a hurry, because he knows that whatever he does in a hurry he must necessarily do very ill. He may be in „ haste to despatch an affair, but he will take care not to let that haste hinder his doing it well. Little minds are in a hurry when the objeft proves, as it commonly does, too big for them; they run, they hare, they puzzle, confound and perplex themselves; they want to do everything at once, and never do it at all. But a man of sense takes the time necessary for doing the thing he is about well, and his haste to despatch a business only appears by the con- tinuity of his application to it; he pursues it with a cool steadi- ness and finishes it before be begins any other. 52 BOOK-SHELF DAWSON. [ Much of the life of the compiler has been spent in the country, amongst the trees and silent streams, believing, as he ever has, that there we The '* Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. Author a Confessed Sermons in stones, and good in everything." Angler. The following article from the pen of a brother angler appeals to him so strongly that he cannot refrain from reproducing it. Then, again, the book "The Pleasures of Angling" is on his " favorite book-shelf," and it is a fit and loving companion for all the wealth of wit and wisdom found in the pages of those here associated with it. No lover of angling will fail to read with enthusiasm the following description of a fight with a royal trout] : During a short afternoon I landed from a deep pool in Cold Brook fifty splendid trout, and fished three hours for one. It was on this wise : For an hour or more before sunset a trout which I estimated to weigh more , , 111 • Royal Sport. than three pounds kept the water m constant agitation and myself in a fever of excitement. I cast for him a hundred times at least. With almost every cast he would rise, but would not strike. He would come up with a rush, leap his full length out of the water, shake his broad tail at me, as if in derision, and retire to repeat his aggravating exploits as often as the fly struck the water. Other trout rose, almost his equal in dimensions, and were taken, but their capture soon ceased to afford me the slightest pleasure. The sun was rapidly declining. We had eight miles to row, and prudence dictated a speedy departure. But I was bound to land that trout "if it took all summer." I tried almost every fly in my book 53 MY FAVORITE in vain; I simply witnessed the same provoking gyrations at every cast. If, however, I threw him a grasshopper disconnedled from mv line, he would take it with a gulp; but the moment I affixed one to the hook and cast it ever so gently, up he came and down he went unhooked, with the grasshopper inta6t. I was puzzled, and as a last resort I sat quietly down hopeless of achieving success so long as light enough remained for the wary fellow to deted: the shadow of rod or line. The sun soon set. Twilight gently began its work of obscuration, and in due time just the shadow I desired fell upon the surface of the pool. I then disrobed my leader of its quartette of flies, put on a large miller, and with as much caution as if commissioned to surprise a rebel camp, and with like trepidation, I chose my position. Then, with a twist of the wrist, which experts will comprehend, I dropped my fly as gently as a zephyr just where the monster had made his last tantalizing leap, when, with the ferocity of a mad bull and with a quick dash which fairly , „ startled me in the dim twilight, he rose to my Royal Sport. ... ,-i , -tl • miller, and with another twist or the wrist, as quick and as sudden as his rise, / struck him! I have been present in crowds when grand victories have been suddenly announced, and when my blood has rushed like eleftric currents through my veins as I joined in the spontaneous shout of the multitude, but I have passed through no moment of more intense exhilaration than when I knew, by the graceful curve of my rod and by the steady tension of my trusty line, that I was master of the situation. He pulled like a Canastoga stallion, and "gave me all I knew" to hold him within the restricted circle of the deep pool, whose edges were lined with roots and stumps and things equivalent. It was half an hour's stirring contest, and the hooting of the owl in the midst of the darkness which enveloped us was the trout's requiem. When I landed him and had him fairly in quad, will it be deemed silly for me to say that I made the old woods ring with such a shout as one can only give when conscious of having achieved a great victory? 54 BOOK-SHELF DICKENS. Why is it that we can better bear to part in spirit than in body, and while we have the fortitude to ad: farewell, have not the nerve to say it? On the eve of long voy- ages or the absence of many years, friends who ^ nffi" l are tenderly attached will separate with the usual y^^^ ^^^ Dirge. look, the usual pressure of the hand, planning one final interview for the morrow, while each well knows that it is but a poor feint to save the pain of uttering that one word, and that the meeting will never be. Should possibilities be worse to bear than certainties? We do not shun our dying friends; the not having distinctly taken leave of one among them, whom we left in all kindness and affediion, will often embitter the whole remainder of a life. And let me linger in this place, for an instant, to remark that if ever household affedions and loves are graceful things, they are graceful in the poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and the proud to home may ,, ^^. ^, 1 r J 11 111-11 Home tn the be rorged on earth, but those that Imk the poor p^^^ man to his humble hearth are of truer metal and bear the stamp of heaven. The man of high descent may love the halls and lands of his inheritance as a part of himself; as trophies of his birth and power; his associations with them are associations of pride and wealth and triumph ; the poor man's attachment to the tenements he holds, which strangers have held before, and may tomorrow occupy again, has a worthier root, struck deeper into a purer soil. His household gods are flesh and blood, with no alloy of silver, gold or precious stone; he has no property but in the affec- tions of his own heart; and when they endear bare floors and walls, despite of rags and toil and scanty fare, that man has MY FAVORITE his love of home from God, and his rude hut becomes a solemn place. Oh, if those who rule the destinies of nations would but remember this — if they would but think how hard it is for the very poor to have engendered in their hearts, that love of home from which all domestic virtues spring, when they live in dense and squalid masses where social decency is lost, or, rather, never found, if they would but turn aside from the wide thor- oughfares and great houses, and strive to improve the wretched dwellings in by-ways where only Poverty may walk, many low roofs would point more truly to the sky than the loftiest steeple that now rears proudly up from the midst of guilt and crime and horrible disease to mock them by its contrast! In hollow voices from Workhouse, Hospital and Jail, this truth is preached from day to day, and had been proclaimed for years. It is no light matter, no outcry from the working vulgar, no mere question of the people's health and comforts that may be whistled down on Wednesday nights. In love of home, the love of country has its rise; and who are the truer patriots or the better in time of need — those who venerate the land, owing to its wood, and stream, and earth, and all that they produce, or those who love their country, boasting not a foot of ground in all its wide domain? It was a very quiet place, as such a place should be, save for the cawing of the rooks who had built their nests among the branches of some tall old trees, and were calling . „ . to one another high up in the air. First, one A Rookery. i , i • i i • ^ i • ,1 • sleek bird, novenng near his ragged house as it swung and dangled in the wind, uttered his hoarse cry, quite by chance, as it would seem, and in a sober tone as though he were but talking to himself. Another answered, and he called again, but louder than before; then another spoke, and then another; and each time the first, aggra- vated by contradiction, insisted on his case more strongly. Other voices, silent till now, struck in from boughs lower down 56 BOOK-SHELF and higher up and midway, and to the right and left, and from the tree-tops; and others arriving hastily from the grey church turrets and old belfry window, joined the clamor which rose and fell, and swelled and dropped again, and still went on; and all this noisy contention amidst a skimming to and fro, and light- ing on fresh branches, and frequent change of place, which satirized the old restlessness of those who lay so still beneath the moss and turf below, and the strife in which they had worn away their lives. Where in the dull eyes of doating men are the laughter and light of childhood, the gaiety that has known no check, the frank- ness that has felt no chill, the hope that has never withered, the joys that fade in blossoming? Where in the sharp lineaments of rigid and unsightly death is the calm beauty of slumber, telling of rest for the waking hours Childhood and Age, that are past, and gentle hopes and loves for Sleep and Death. those which are to come? Lay death and sleep down, side by side, and say who shall find the two akin. Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image. S7 MY FAVORITE FRANKLIN FROM PAUL LEICESTER FORD'S WORK. "A man," wrote Franklin, " who makes boast of his ances- tors doth but advertise his own insignificance, for the pedigrees of great men are commonly known " ; and else- Personahty where he advised : " Let our fathers and grand- Pedizree fathers be valued for their goodness, ourselves for our own." Clearly this objed:ion extended to pride of birth alone, and not to knowledge of one's forebears, for Franklin himself displayed not a little interest in his progen- itors, and when he went to England as the agent of his colony, he devoted both time and travel to searching out the truth con- cerning them. Nor was he, in fad:, wholly without conceit of family. In default of discovered greatness in his kindred, he expressed pleasure in an inference that the family name was derived from the old social order of small freeholders, and that, therefore, they were once the betters of the yeomen and feudatories. It was during his stay in France that he gave a public tes- timony to the value he set upon books. A town in Massachu- setts named itself " Franklin," and its minister. Knowledge the Reverend Nathanael Emmons, a connexion l^ot Noise. of Franklin, wrote to him and asked him if he would not, as a sort of sponsorial present, give the town a bell for its church, to be placed in a steeple they pro- posed to eredt. " I have advised the sparing themselves the expense of a steeple," the utilitarian wrote a friend, whom he requested to sele6t books to the value of twenty-five pounds, and these obtained, he sent them in lieu of the bell. Apparently the substitute was satisfactory, for the minister preached a ser- mon on the gift, and when it was printed, the dedicatory page ran: "To his Excellency, Benjamin Franklin, President of the 58 BOOK-SHELF State of Pennsylvania, the Ornament of Genius, the Patron of Science and the Boast of Man, this Discourse is inscribed, with the greatest deference, humiHty and gratitude, by his obHged and most humble servant, the Author." His library was his chief resource in the last years of his life, when his malady kept him within doors, and, for the most part, confined to his bed. "In the inter- vals of pain he amused himself with reading and „. ^° ^ . . f , , . . , , ° . tils Resource wntmg, his grandson states ; and another wit- ^^ j ness chronicles that, " When able to be out of bed, he passed nearly all his time in his office, reading and writ- ing and in conversation with his friends ; and when the boys were playing and very noisy, in the lot in front of the office, he would open the window and call to them : ' Boys, boys, can't you play without making so much noise ? I am reading, and it dis- turbs me very much.' I have heard the servants in his family say that he never used a hasty or angry word to any one." ** Some men grow mad by studying much to know. But who grows mad by studying good to grow ? " asked Poor Richard, and the same epigram-maker asserted that '* He that lives well is learned enough." On January 6, 1706, the very day Franklin was born, he was baptized in the Old South Church, in Boston. If trustworthy tradition be given credence, he was carried thither through the deep snow by his mother, and this . , 1^^/f 1 1 a. L-L 111 11J1-1 L r in the Old South act, which now would be held little short or mur- church. der, was no less perilous then, as is proved by the fearful death rate among the mothers and children of New Eng- land. But the Calvanistic faith of the Puritans maintained that the physical danger of either matricide or infanticide was as nothing compared with the spiritual risk of the babe dying unbaptized, and so convention decreed that both parent and 59 MY FAVORITE offspring should be exposed without loss of time, rather than doom the little one to eternal damnation. Not quite six weeks before his death, at the request of a friend, he wrote out what he had come to believe: "You desire to know something of my Franklin' i religion. It is the first time I have been ques- Creed. tioned upon it, but I cannot take your curiosity amiss and shall endeavor in a few words to gratify it. Here is my creed : I believe in one God, the Creator of the Universe; that He governs it by His Providence; that He ought to be worshipped. The most acceptable service that we render to Him is doing good to His other children. The soul of man is immortal and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its condudt in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them, as you do, in whatever sedt I meet with them. " As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you par- ticularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is like to see ; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity, though it is a question I do not dog- matize upon, having studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expert soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respedled and more observed ; especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, bv distinguishing the unbelievers in his govern- ment of the world with any peculiar mark of displeasure. I shall only add, respecting myself, that having experienced the goodness of that Being in conducting me prosperously through a long life, I have no doubt of its continuance in the next, though without the smallest conceit of meriting such goodness." 60 BOOK-SHELF This was written while FrankHn was suffering almost con- stant physical torture, which he endured, so an eye-witness tells us, " with that calm fortitude which charafterized him through life." No repining, no peevish expression, ever escaped him during a confinement of two years, in which, I believe, if every moment of ease could be added together, it would not amount to two whole months. Even when the intervals of pain were so short that his words were frequently interrupted, 1 have known him to hold discourse in a sublime strain of piety. To judge Frankin from the literary standpoint is neither easy nor quite fair. It is not to be denied that as a philosopher, as a statesman and as a friend, he owed much of his success to his ability as a writer. His letters His Literary charmed all, and made his correspondence eagerly Attainment. sought. His political arguments were the joy of his party and the dread of his opponents. His scientific dis- coveries were explained in language at once so simple and so clear that plow-boy and exquisite could follow his thought or his experiment to its conclusion. Yet he was never a literary man in the true and common meaning of the term. Omitting his uncompleted autobiography and his scientific writings, there is hardly a line of his pen which was not privately or anony- mously written, to exert a transient influence, fill an empty column, or please a friend. The larger part of his work was not only done in haste, but never revised or even proof- read. Yet this self-educated boy and busy, pradical man gave to American literature the most popular autobiography ever written, a series of political and social satires that can bear comparison with those of the greatest satirists, a private correspondence as readable as Walpole's or Chesterfield's ; and the coUedion of Poor Richard's epigrams has been oftener printed and translated than any other produd;ion of an American pen. 6i MY FAVORITE Of this life he has left a pleasant pidture in his " Dialogue with the Gout," in which the disease accuses him of the follow- ing condud: : Dialogue GouT : Let us examine your course of with the Gout, life. While the mornings are long and you have leisure to go abroad, what do you do ? Why, instead of gaining an appetite for breakfast by salutary exercise, vou amuse yourself with books, pamphlets or newspapers, which commonly are not worth the reading. Yet you eat an inordinate breakfast, four dishes of tea with cream, and one or two buttered toasts, with slices of hung beef, which I fancy are not things the most easily digested. Immediately afterwards you sit down to write at your desk or converse with persons who apply to you on business. Thus the time passes till one, without any kind of bodily exercise. But all this I could pardon, in regard, as you say, to your sedentary condition. But what is your practise after dinner? Walking in the beautiful gardens of those friends with whom you have dined would be the choice of men of sense ; yours is to be fixed down to chess, where you are found to be engaged for two or three hours ! This is your perpetual recrea- tion, which is the least eligible of any for a sedentary man, because, instead of accelerating the motion of the fluids, the rigid attention it requires helps to retard the circulation and obstrudl internal secretions. Wrapt in the speculations of this wretched game, you destroy your constitution. What can be expedled from such a course of living but a body replete with stagnant humours, ready to fall a prey to all kinds of dangerous maladies if I, the Gout, did not occasionally bring you relief by agitating those humours, and so purifying or dissipating them '^. If it was in some nook or alley in Paris, deprived of walks, that you played at chess after dinner, this might be excusable ; but the same taste prevails with you in Passy, Auteuil, Mont- martre or Sanoy, places where there are the finest gardens and walks, a pure air, beautiful women and most agreeable and instructive conversation, all which you might enjoy by fre- quenting the walks. But these are rejected for this abominable 62 BOOK-SHELF game of chess. Fie, then, Mr. Franklin ! But amidst my instrudions I had almost forgotten to administer my wholesome corre(5tions ; so take that twinge — and that! Franklin: Oh! Eh! Oh! Ohoh ! As much instruc- tions as you please, Madam Gout, and as many reproaches ; but pray, madam, a truce with your corredions ! Gout : Do you remember how often you have promised yourself, the following morning, a walk in the grove of Boulogne, in the garden of de la Muette, or in your own garden, and have violated your promise, alleging Dialogue at one time it was too cold, at another too warm, «"'^^ ^^^ Gout. too windy, too moist, or what else you pleased, when in truth it was too nothing but your insuperable love of ease ? Franklin: That, 1 confess, may have happened occa- sionally, probably ten times in a year. Gout : Your confession is very far short of the truth ; the gross amount is one hundred and ninety-nine times. Franklin: Is it possible ? Gout: So possible that it is fad; you may rely on the accuracy of my statement. You know Mr. Brillon's gardens, and what fine walks they contain ; you know the handsome flight of an hundred steps, which lead from the terrace above to the lawn below. You have been in the pradise of visiting this amiable family twice a week after dinner, and as it is a maxim of your own that " a man may take as much exercise in walking a mile up and down stairs as in ten on level ground," what an opportunity was here for you to have had exercise in both these ways! Did you embrace it, and how often? Franklin : I cannot immediately answer that question. Gout : I will do it for you ; not once. Franklin : Not once ? Gout : Even so. During the summer you went there at six o'clock. You found the charming lady, with her lovely children and friends, eager to walk with you and entertain you with their agreeable conversation ; and what has been your 63 MY FAVORITE choice? Why, to sit on the terrace, satisfying yourself with the fine prospect, and passing your eye over the beauties of the gar- den below, without taking one step to descend and walk about in them. On the contrary, you call for tea and the chess-board ; and lo ! you are occupied in your seat till nine o'clock, and that besides two hours play after dinner; and then, instead of walk- ing home, which would have bestirred you a little, you step into your carriage. How absurd to suppose that all this carelessness can be reconcilable with health without my interposition ! Franklin: I am convinced now of the justness of Poor Richard's remark, that " Our debts and our sins are always greater than we think for." 64 BOOK-SHELF F R O U D E. I admire that ancient rule of the Jews that every man, no matter of what grade or calling, shall learn some handicraft; that the man of intelleft, while, like St. Paul, he is teaching the world, yet, like St. Paul, he may be burdensome to no one. A man was not considered entitled to live if he could not keep himself from starving. slZI h/v" a Trade. Surely those university men who had taken honors, breaking stone on an Australian road, were sorry spec- tacles ; and still more sorry and disgraceful is the outcry coming by every mail from our colonies : " Send us no more of what you call educated men ; send us smiths, masons, carpenters, day- laborers ; all of those will thrive, will earn their eight, ten or twelve shillings a day ; but your educated man is a log on our hands; he loafs in uselessness till his means are spent, he then turns billiard-marker, enlists as a soldier, or starves," It hurts no intelled to be able to make a boat or a house, or a pair of shoes or a suit of clothes, or hammer a horse-shoe ; and if you can do either of these, you have nothing to fear from fortune. " I will work with my hands, and keep my brain for myself," said some one proudly, when it was proposed to him that he should make a profession of literature. Spinoza, the most pow- erful intelledual worker that Europe had produced during the last two centuries, waving aside the pensions and legacies that were thrust upon him, chose to maintain himself by grinding objed-glasses for microscopes and telescopes. Now, without taking a transcendental view of the matter, literature happens to be the only occupation in which the wages are not in proportion to the goodness of the work done. It is not that they are generally small, but the adjustment of them 65 MY FAVORITE is awry. It is true that in all callings nothing great will be pro- duced if the first objed: be what you can make by them. To do what you do well should be the first thing, the Ltterature ot vvages the second ; but except in the instances Pata in Frotortton r \ • \ i i- i i r to Its Worth. °^ which I am speakmg, the rewards or a man are in proportion to his skill and industry. The best carpenter receives the highest pay. The better he works, the better for his prosped:s. The best lawyer, the best dodor, commands most practise and makes the largest fortune. But with literature, a different element is introduced into the problem. The present rule on which authors are paid is by the page and the sheet; the more words, the more pay. It ought to be Great Literars exadly the reverse. Great poetry, great philoso- Work is the Fruit of phy, great scientific discovery, every intellediual Long Thought and production which has genius, work, and perma- Patient and Painful nence in it, is the fruit of long thought, and patient Elaboration. ^^^ painful elaboration. Work of this kind, done hastily, would be better not done at all. When completed, it will be small in bulk ; it will address itself for a long time to the few and not to the many. The reward for it will not be meas- urable, and not obtainable in money except after many genera- tions, when the brain out of which it was spun has long returned to its dust. Only by accident is a work of genius immediately popular, in the sense of being widely bought. No colledled edition of Shakespeare's plays was demanded in Shakespeare's life. iMilton received five pounds for " Paradise Lost." The distilled essence of the thought of Bishop Butler, the greatest prelate that the English Church ever produced, fills a moderate- sized o6tavo volume; Spinoza's works, including his surviving letters, fill but three; and though they have revolutionized the philosophy of Europe, have no attractions for the multitude. A really great man has to create the taste with which he is to be enjoyed. There are splendid exceptions of merit eagerly recog- nized and early rewarded — our honored English Laureate for 66 BOOK-SHELF instance, Alfred Tennyson, or your own countryman, Thomas Carlyle. Yet even Tennyson waited through ten years of depre- ciation before poems which are now on every one's lips passed into a second edition. Carlyle, Carlyle s , * ^ , , / . Iranscendent whose transcendent powers were welcomed m Genius their infancy by Goethe, who long years ago was recognized by statesmen and thinkers in both hemispheres as the most remarkable of living men ; yet, if success be measured by what has been paid him for his services, stands far below your Belgravian novelist. A hundred years hence, perhaps, people at large will begin to understand how vast a man has been among them. If you make literature a trade to live by, you will be tempted always to take your talents to the most profitable mar- ket ; and the most profitable market, will be no Uard Conditions assurance to you that you are making a noble Under Which or even a worthy use of them. Better a thou- Impecunious Talent sand times, if your objed; is to advance your Works. position in life, that you should choose some other calling of which making money is a legitimate aim, and where your success will vary as the goodness of your work ; better for yourselves, for your consciences, for your own souls, as we use to say, and for the world you live in. Therefore, I say, if any of you choose this mode of spend- ing your existence, choose it deliberately, with a full knowledge of what you are doing. Reconcile yourselves to the condition of the old scholars. Make up your minds to be poor ; care only for what is true and right and good. On those conditions you may add something real to the intellectual stock of man- kind, and mankind in return may perhaps give you bread enough to live upon, though bread extremely thinly spread with butter. Inaugural Address at the University OF St. Andrew's. 67 MY FAVORITE The thing which has taken root and become strong has thriven only because it had Hfe in it — and the question which we ought to ask of any organized system, poHti- The Quick and cal or spiritual, is not whether it is good or evil, the Dead. but whether it is alive or dead. If it is alive, we may take the rest for granted. Age follows age, families remain from father to son on the same spot and subje(::ted to the same conditions. Where the conditions work to create happiness, favorable impressions are formed and are handed on, and deepen with the progress of the years. Where they work ill, displeasure, at first imperceptible, changes to anger and then to impatience, and then to scorn and rage, and adive enmity. The spectator, looking back from a distant period, sees a worthless government tyrannising for generations, or sees an exploded creed continuing to mislead the world after every ad:ive mind has divined its falsehood. He is impatient for the catastrophe. He wonders how men of sense could bear so long with the intolerable. He thanks God with snug self-satisfac- tion that he is not such a fool as his ancestors. Nature, happily, is more enduring than we are ; or rather we, wise as we think ourselves, are in turn bearing unconsciously with theories and systems which philosophers will equally see to have been at this moment dying or dead, and they will meditate on our patience with equal perplexity or with equal self-complacence. Religions which have exerted a real influence over masses of mankind have always begun in genuine conviftion. They have contained an answer to questions which Re igtons uit e ,^^^ were anxiously asking at the time when Baied Upon , . . , y l- i i j Genuine Conviaion. they origmated, and to which they appeared to give a credible reply. Once accepted, they petrify into unchanging forms. Knowl- edge increases ; religion remains stationary. Fresh problems rise, for which they provide no solution, or a solution transpar- ently false; and then follow the familiar phenomena of disinte- gration and failing sanations and relaxed rule of adlion, and, 68 BOOK-SHELF along with these, the efforts of well-meaning men to resist the irresistible — reconciliations of religion and science, natural the- ologies reconstruded on philosophic bases, with at intervals unavailing efforts to conceal the cracks in the theory by elabo- rate restorations of ritual ; or again, on the other side, the firm avowal of disbelief from the more sincere and resolute minds, such as rings out in the lines of Lucretius. With Lucretius we are all familiar: not less interesting — perhaps more interesting, as showing the working of more com- monplace intelled:s — is the treatise "On the Nature of Gods," which Cicero wrote almost at . ..^ '^ ff n^f » . ', . . Indifferent to Man s the same time when Lucretms was composmg interests. his poem, and which contains the opinions of the better sort of educated Romans. That such a dialogue should have been written by a responsible and respectable person in Cicero's position, is itself a proof that religion was at its last gasp. Tradition had utterly broken down: serious men were looking in the face the fads of their situation, and were asking from experience what rule they were living under ; and experi- ence gave, and always must give, but one reply. Men are taught to believe in an overruling Providence; they look for evidence of it, and they find that, so far as human power extends over nature there are traces of a moral government; but that it is such a government as man himself establishes for the protec- tion of society, and nothing more. To what we call good and evil, nature as such is indifferent, and nature submits to man's control, not as he is just or unjust, believing or sceptical, but as he understands the laws by which the operations of nature are direc5led. The piety of the captain does not save his ship from the reefs. He depends on his knowledge of navigation. Prayer does not avert the pestilence; but an understanding of the conditions of health. The lightning strikes the church, but spares the gambling house provided with a conducting rod. Disease and misfortune, or the more mighty visitations of the earthquake, the famine, the inundation, make no distinction between the deserving and the base. The house falls and spares 69 MY FAVORITE the fool, while it cuts short a career which might have been precious to all mankind. This is the truth so far as experience can teach ; and only timidity or ignorance, or a resolution, like that of Job's friends, to be more just than God, can venture to deny it ; and thus arises the dismayed exclamation which has burst in all ages from the hearts of noble-minded men: Why are the wicked in such prosperity? Not that they envy the wicked any miserable enjoyment which they may obtain for themselves, but because they see that all things come alike to all, and that there is no difference — that as it is with the wise man, so it is with the fool ; as with him that sacrifices, so with him that sacrifices not. The manifest disregard of moral dis- tin(5lions discredits their confidence in Providence, and sends a shuddering misgiving through them that no such power as a moral providence exists anywhere beyond themselves. Young men, as we know, are more easily led than driven. It is a very old story that to forbid this and that (so curious and contradictory is our nature) is to stimulate a L ^ f '^ n'^ ^r i; deslre to do it. But place before a boy a figure the On/y Profitable ^ , , i i • • i • i Teaching. °* ^ ^oble man ; let the circumstances m which he has earned his claim to be called noble be such as the boy himself sees around himself; let him see this man rising over his temptation, and following life victoriously and beautifully forward, and, depend on it, you will kindle his heart as no threat of punishment here or anywhere will kindle it. In life, as in art, and as in mechanics, the only profitable teaching is the teaching by example. Your mathematician, or your man of science, may discourse excellently on the steam- engine, yet he cannot make one; he cannot make a bolt or a screw. The master workman in the engine-room does not teach his apprentice the theory of expansion or of atmospheric pres- sure; he guides his hand upon the turncock, he pradiises his eye upon the index, and he leaves the science to follow when 70 BOOK-SHELF the pradlise has become mechanical. So it is with everything which man learns to do ; and yet for the art of arts, the trade of trades, for life, we content ourselves with teaching our children the catechism and the commandments; we preach them ser- mons on the good of being good, and the evil of being evil ; in our higher education we advance to the theory of habit and the freedom of the will ; and then, when failure follows failure, we hug ourselves with a complacent self-satisfied refledion that the fault is not ours, that all which men could do we have done. The freedom of the will! — as if a blacksmith would ever teach a boy to make a horseshoe, by telling him he could make one if he chose. 71 MY FAVORITE GOLDSMITH. From such a picture of nature in primeval simplicity, tell me, my much-respe6led friend, are you in love with fatigue and solitude? Do you sigh for the severe frugality The Vices of of the wandering Tartar, or regret being born Nations. amidst the luxury and dissimulation of the polite? Rather tell me, has not every kind of life vices peculiarly its own ? Is it not a truth, that refined countries have more vices, but those not so terrible; barbarous nations few, and they of the most hideous complexion ? Perfidy and fraud are the vices of civilized nations, credulity and vio- lence those of the inhabitants of the desert. Does the luxury of the one produce half the evils of the inhumanity of the other? Certainly, those philosophers who disclaim against luxury have but little understood its benefits; they seem insensible, that to luxury we owe not only the greatest part of our knowledge, but even of our virtues. It may sound fine in the mouth of a declaimer, when he talks of subduing our appetites, of teaching every sense to be content with a bare sufficiency, and of supplying only the wants of nature; but is there not more satisfaction in indulging those appetites, if with innocence and safety, than in restraining them? Am I not better pleased in enjoyment, than in the sullen satis- faction of thinking that I can live without enjoyment? The more various our artificial necessities, the wider is our circle of pleasure ; for all pleasure consists in obviating necessities as they rise ; luxury, therefore, as it increases our wants, increases our capacity for happiness. » Examine the history of any country remarkable for opu- lence and wisdom, you will find they would never have been wise had they not been first luxurious ; you will find poets, philosophers, and even patriots, marching in luxury's train. 72 BOOK-SHELF The reason is obvious : we then only are curious after knowl- edge, when we find it connected with sensual happiness. The senses ever point out the way, and refle(ition comments upon the discovery. Inform a native Luxury and of the desert of Kobi, of the exad: measure of Wisdom. the parallax of the moon, he finds no satisfaction at all in the information ; he wonders how any one could take such pains, and lay out such treasure, in order to solve so useless a difficulty; but conneft it with his happiness, by showing that it improves navigation, that by such an investigation he may have a warmer coat, a better gun, or a finer knife, and he is instantly in raptures at so great an improvement. In short, we only desire to know what we desire to possess; and whatever we may talk against it, luxury adds the spur to curiosity, and gives us a desire of becoming more wise. But not our knowledge only, but our virtues, are improved by luxury. Observe the brown savage of Thibet, to whom the fruits of the spreading pomegranate supply food, and its branches a habitation. Such a character , "'^"^j b has few vices, I grant, but those he has are of Luxury. the most hideous nature: rapine and cruelty are scarcely crimes in his eye ; neither pity nor tenderness, which ennoble every virtue, have any place in his heart ; he hates his enemies and kills those he subdues. On the other hand, the polite Chinese and civilized European seem to love their enemies. I have just now seen an instance where the English have succored those enemies, whom their own countrymen adlually refused to relieve. The greater the luxuries of every country, the more closely, politically speaking, is that country united. Luxury is the child of society alone. The luxurious man stands in need of a thou- sand different artists to furnish out his happiness ; it is more likely, therefore, that he should be a good citizen, who is con- nected by motives of self-interest with so many, than the abste- mious man who is united to none. 73 MY FAVORITE In whatsoever light, therefore, we consider luxury, whether as employing a number ot hands, naturally too feeble for a more laborious employment ; as finding a variety of occupation for others who might be totally idle, or as furnishing out new inlets to happiness without encroaching on mutual property ; in what- ever light we regard it, we shall have reason to stand up in its defense, and the sentiment of Confucius still remains unshaken : "That we should enjoy as many of the luxuries of life as are consistent with our own safety and the prosperity of others ; and that he who finds out a new pleasure is one of the most useful members of society." Age, that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire of living. Those dangers, which in the vigor of youth, we had learned to despise, assume new terrors as we 4 7 i h T^''^-^''^^f grow old. Our caution increasing as our years Livinz. increase, fear becomes at last the prevailing pas- sion of the mind; and the small remainder of life is taken up in useless efforts to keep off our end, or provide for a continued existence. Strange contradiction in our nature, and to which even the wise are liable! If I should judge of that part of life which lies before me, by that which I have already seen, the prospedt is hideous. Experience tells me, that my past enjoyments have brought no real felicity; and sensation assures me, that those I have felt are stronger than those which are yet to come. Yet experience and sensation in vain persuade; hope, more powerful than either, dresses out the distant prospe(5l in fancied beauty, some happiness in long perspedive still beckons me to pursue, and, like a losing gamester, every new disappointment increases my ardor to continue the game. Whence, my friend, this increased love of life, which grows upon us with our years — whence comes it, that we thus make greater efforts to preserve our existence, at a period when it becomes scarcely worth the keeping? Is it that nature, attentive to the preservation of mankind, increases our wishes to live, 74 BOOK-SHELF while she lessens our enjoyments, and, as she robs the senses of every pleasure, equips imagination in the spoil? Life would be insupportable to an old man, who, loaded with infirmities, feared death no more than in the vigor of manhood; the num- berless calamities of decaying nature, and the consciousness of surviving every pleasure, would at once induce him, with his own hand, to terminate the scene of misery; but happily the contempt of death forsakes him, at a time when it could be only prejudicial; and life acquires an imaginary value, in proportion as its real value is no more. Our attachment to every obje6t around us increases, in general, from the length of our acquaintance with it. " I would not choose," says a French philosopher, "to see an old post pulled up with which I had been long acquainted." A mind long habituated to a certain set of objects, insensibly becomes fond of seeing them ; visits them from habit, and parts from them with reludlance; hence the avarice of the old in every kind of possession. They love the world and all that it produces ; they love life and all its advantages, not because it gives them pleasure, but because they have known it long. There is an unspeakable pleasure attending the life of a volunteer student. The first time I read an excellent book it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I read over a book I have perused before Friendship in it resembles the meeting with an old one. We Books. ought to lay hold of every incident of life for improvement, the trifling as well as the important. It is not one diamond alone which gives lustre to another; a common coarse stone is also employed for that purpose. Thus I ought to draw advantage from the insults and contempt I meet with from a worthless fellow. His brutality ought to induce me to self-examination, and corred: every blemish that may have given rise to calumny. IS MY FAVORITE ROBERT GRANT. Those of us who are in the thick, of life are apt to forget to take down from our shelves the comrades we loved when we were twenty-one — the essayists, the historians, emora ijctng ^^ poets and novelists whose delightful pages influence of Trashy \ ^• r i 11 Literature. ' ^^^ ^"^ literature or the world. An evening at home with Shakespeare is not the depressing experience which some clever people imagine. One rises from the feast to go to bed with all one's aesthetic being refreshed and fortified as though one had inhaled oxygen. What a contrast this to the stuffy taste in the roof of the mouth, and the weary, dejed:ed frame of mind which follows the perusal of much of the current literature which cozening booksellers have induced the book club secretary to buy! A very little newspaper reading and a limited amount of seleded reading will leave time for the hobby or avocation. Every man or woman ought to have one; something apart from business, profession or housekeeping, in which he or she is interested as a study or pursuit. In this age of the world it may well take the form of educational, economic or philanthropic investigation or co-operation, if individual tastes happen to incline one to such work. The prominence of such matters in our present civilization is, of course, a magnet favorable to such a choice. In this way one can, as it were, kill two birds with one stone, develop one's own resources and perform one's duty toward the public. But, on the other hand, there will be many who have no sense of fitness for this service, and whose predi- ledtions lead them toward art, science, literature or some of their ramifications. The amateur photographer, the extender of books, the observer of birds, are alike among the faithful. To have one hobby, and not three or four, and to persevere slowly but steadily in the fulfilment of one's selection, is an important 76 BOOK-SHELF faftor in the wise disposal of time. It is a truism to declare that a few minutes in every day allotted to the same piece of work will accomplish wonders; but the result of trying will convince the incredulous. Indeed, one's avocation should progress and prevail by force of spare minutes allotted daily and continuously; just so much and no more, so as not to crowd out the other claimants for consideration. Fifteen minutes before breakfast, or between kissing the children good-night and the evening meal, or even every other Saturday afternoon and a part of every holiday, will make one's hobby look well fed and sleek at the end of a few years. Was ever an American mother, who knew anything, por- trayed in fidion.? The American daughter is commonly pre- sented as a noble-souled, original creature, whose 7-^^ Average principal mission in life, next to or incidental to American Daugh- refusing the man who is not her choice, is to let ter' s Opinion of her own parents understand what weak, ignorant, ^^^ Parents. foolish, unenlightened persons they are in comparison with the rising generation — both parents in some measure, but chiefly and utterly the mother. She is usually willing to concede that her father has a few glimmering ideas, and a certain amount of horse-sense business sense, not very elevating or inspiring, yet something withal. But she looks upon her poor dear mother as a feeble-minded individual of the first water. What we read in contemporary fid:ion in this realistic age is apt to be photo- graphed from existing conditions. The newly created species of our homes does not always reveal these sentiments in so many words; indeed, she is usually disposed to conceal from her parents as far as possible their own shortcomings, believing often, with ostrichlike complacency, that they have no idea what she really thinks of them. Quite frequently late in life it dawns upon her that they were not such complete imbeciles as she had adjudged them, and she revises her convi6tions accordingly. But often she lives superior to the end. It would be an excellent thing for the American girl if her eyes could be defi- 17 MY FAVORITE nitely opened to the fad that her parents, particularly her mother, are much more clever than she supposes, and that they are reallv her best counsellors. But, on the other hand, is not the American mother herself chiefly responsible for this attitude of loving contempt and sweet but unfilial condescension on the part of her own flesh and blood? It sometimes seems as though we had fallen vidims to our reludlance to thwart our children in any way lest we should destroy their love for us. But is it much preferable to be loved devotedly as foolish, weak and amiable old things, than to be feared a little as individuals capable of exercising authority and having opinions of our own.^ The extraordinary personality of Abraham Lincoln is undoubtedly the best apotheosis yet presented of unadulterated Americanism. In him the native stock was free , "" , from the foreign influences and suggestions thf [sttcol . " cio American which aff^edied, more or less, the people of the East. His origin was of the humblest sort, and yet he presented saliently in his character the naturalness, nobility and aspiring energy of the nation. He made the most of himself by virtue of unusual abilities, yet the keynote of their influence and force was a noble simplicity and far-sighted inde- pendence. In him the quintessence of the Americanism of thirty years ago was summed up and expressed. In many ways he was a riddle at first to the people of the cities of the East in that, though their soul was his soul, his ways had almost ceased to be their ways; but he stands before the world today as the foremost interpreter of American ideas and American temper of thought as they then existed. 78 BOOK-SHELF REMINISCENCES AND RECOLLECTIONS OF CAPTAIN GRONOW. Amongst the curious freaks of fortune there is none more remarkable in my memory than the sudden appearance, in the highest and best society in London, of a young man whose ante- cedents warranted a much less conspicuous career: I refer to the famous Beau Brummell. We have innumerable instances of soldiers, lawyers, and men of letters, elevating themselves from the most humble stations, and becoming the companions of princes and lawgivers ; but 'there are comparatively few ^^^^ Brummell, examples of men obtaining a similarly elevated Parasite position simply from their attractive personal appearance and fascinating manners. Brummell's father, who was a steward to one or two large estates, sent his son George to Eton. He was endowed with a handsome person, and distin- guished himself at Eton as the best scholar, the best boatman, and the best cricketer; and, more than all, he was supposed to possess the comprehensive excellences that are represented by the familiar term of "good fellow." He made many friends amongst the scions of good families, by whom he was considered a sort of Crichton ; and his reputation reached a circle over which reigned the celebrated Duchess of Devonshire. At a grand ball given by her Grace, George Brummell, then quite a youth, appeared for the first time in such elevated society. He immediately became a great favorite with the ladies, and was asked by all the dowagers to as many balls and soirees as he could attend. At last the Prince of Wales sent for Brummell, and was so much pleased with his manner and appearance, that he gave him a commission in his own regiment, the loth Hussars. Unluckily, Brummell, soon after joining his regiment, was thrown from his horse at a grand review at Brighton, when he broke his 79 MY FAVORITE classical Roman nose. This misfortune, however, did not afFed: the fame of the beau ; and although his nasal organ had under- gone a slight transformation, it was forgiven by his admirers, since the rest of his person remained intadt. When we are prepossessed by the attractions of a favorite, it is not a trifle that will dispel the illusion; and Brummell continued to govern society, in conjunction with the Prince of Wales. He was remarkable for his dress, which was generally conceived by him- self; the execution of his sublime imagination A Dignified being carried out by that superior genius, Mr. Dandy. Weston, tailor, of Old Bond Street. The Regent sympathized deeply with Brummell's labors to arrive at the most attractive and gentlemanly mode of dressing the male form, at a period when fashion had placed at the disposal of the tailor the most hideous material that could possibly tax his art. The coat may have a long tail or a short tail, a high collar or a low collar, but it will always be an ugly garment. The modern hat may be spread out at the top, or narrowed, whilst the brim may be turned up or turned down, made a little wider or a little more narrow; still it is inconceivably hideous. Pantaloons and Hessian boots were the least objec- tionable features of the costume which the imagination of a Brummell and the genius of a Royal Prince were called upon to modify or change. The hours of meditative agony which each dedicated to the odious fashions of the day have left no monu- ment save the colored caricatures in which these illustrious per- sons have appeared. Brummell, at this time, besides being the companion and friend of the Prince, was very intimate with the Dukes of Rut- land, Dorset and Argyle, Lords Sefton, Alvan- Popular with ley and Plymouth. In the zenith of his popu- the Nobility. larity he might be seen at the bay window of White's Club, surrounded by the lions of the day, laying down the law, and occasionally indulging in those witty remarks for which he was famous. His house in Chapel Street corresponded with his personal "get up"; the furniture 80 BOOK-SHELF was in excellent taste, and the library contained the best works of the best authors of every period and of every country. His canes, his snuff-boxes, his Sevres china were exquisite; his horses and carriages were conspicuous for their excellence; and, in fa6l, the superior taste of a Brummell was discoverable in everything that belonged to him. But the reign of the king of fashion, like all other reigns, was not destined to continue forever. Brummell warmly espoused the cause of Mrs. Fitzherbert, and this of course offended the Prince of Wales. I refer to the ^^^ Fitzherbert. period when his Royal Highness had abandoned that beautiful woman for another favorite. A coldness then ensued between the Prince and K\s proi'eg'e ; and finally, the mirror of fashion was excluded from the royal pres- ence. A curious accident brought Brummell again to the dinner- table of his royal patron; he was asked one night at White's to take a hand at whist, when he won from George Harley Drummond twenty thousand pounds. A Heavy This circumstance having been related by the Wager. Duke of York to the Prince of Wales, the beau was again invited to Carlton House. At the commencement of the dinner, matters went off" smoothly; but Brummell, in his joy at finding himself with his old friend, became excited and drank too much wine. His Royal Highness, who wanted to pay off" Brummell for an insult he had received at Lady Chol- mondeley's ball, when the beau, turning towards the Prince, said to Lady Worcester, "Who is your fat friend?" had Invited him to dinner merely out of a desire for revenge. The Prince therefore pretended to be affronted with Brummell's hilarity, and said to his brother, the Duke of York, who was present, " I think we had better order Mr. Brum- Who's Tour mell's carriage before he gets drunk." Where- P'^^ Friend? upon he rang the bell, and Brummell left the Royal presence. This circumstance originated the story about the beau having told the Prince to ring the bell. I received 8i MY FAVORITE these details from the late General Sir Arthur Upton, who was present at the dinner. The latter days of Brummell were clouded with mortifica- tions and penury. He retired to Calais, where he kept up a ludicrous imitation of his past habits. At last he got himself named consul at Caen; but he afterwards lost the appointment, and eventually died insane, and in abjed: poverty, at Calais. The members of the clubs in London, many years since, were persons, almost without exception, belonging exclusively to the aristocratic world. " Mv tradesmen," as London Clubs King Allen used to call the bankers and the mer- in 1814. chants, had not then invaded White's, Boodle's, Brookes's, or Wattiers's, in Bolton Street, Pic- cadilly, which, with the Guards', Arthur's and Graham's, were the only clubs at the West Knd of the town. White's was decidedly the most difficult of entry; its list of members com- prised nearly all the noble names of Great Britain. The politics of White's Club were then decidedly Tory. It was here that play was carried on to an extent which made many ravages in large fortunes, the traces of A Big which have not disappeared at the present day. Winning. General Scott, the father-in-law of George Can- ning and the Duke of Portland, was known to have won at White's two hundred thousand pounds; thanks to his notorious sobriety and knowledge of the game of whist. The general possessed a great advantage over his companions by avoiding those indulgences at the table which used to muddle other men's brains. He confined himself to dining oflF something like a boiled chicken, with toast and water; by such a regimen he came to the whist-table with a clear head, and possessing as he did a remark- able memory, with great coolness and judgment, he was able honestly to win the enormous sum of two hundred thousand pounds. At Brookes's, for nearly half a century, the play was of a more gambling character than at White's. Faro and macao 82 BOOK-SHELF were indulged in to an extent which enabled a man to win or to lose a considerable fortune in one night. It was here that Charles James Fox, Selwyn, Lord Carlisle, Lord Robert Spencer, General Fitzpatrick, and other Faro great Whigs, won and lost hundreds of thou- '^"<^ Macao. sands; frequently remaining at the table for many hours without rising. On one occasion. Lord Robert Spencer contrived to lose the last shilling of his considerable fortune, given him by his brother, the Duke of Marlborough; General Fitzpatrick being in much the same condition, they agreed to raise a sum of money in order that they might keep a faro bank. The members of the club made no objection, and ere long they carried out their design. As is generally the case, the bank was a winner, and Lord Robert bagged as his share of the proceeds ^100,000. He retired, strange to say, from the foetid atmos- phere of play, with the money in his pocket and never again gambled. George Harley Drummond of the famous banking- house. Charing Cross, only played once in his life at White's Club at whist, on which occasion he lost ^{"20,000 to Brummell. This event caused him to retire from the banking-house of which he was a partner. Lord Carlisle was one of the most remarkable vidlims amongst the players at Brookes's, and Charles Fox, his friend, was not more fortunate, being subsequently always in pecuniary difficulties. Many a time, after a long night of hard play, the loser found himself at the Israelitish establishment of Howard and Gibbs, then the fashionable and patronized money-lenders. These gentlemen never failed to make hard terms with the bor- rower, although ample security was invariably demanded. The Guards' Club was established for the three regiments of Foot Guards, and was conduded upon a military system. Billiards and low whist were the only games in- dulged in. The dinner was, perhaps, better A Noble than at most clubs, and considerably cheaper. I Swindler. had the honour of being a member for several years, during which time I have nothing to remember but the 83 MY FAVORITE most agreeable incidents. Arthur's and Graham's were less aris- tocratic than those I have mentioned; it was at the latter, thirty years ago that a most painful circumstance took place. A noble- man of the highest position and influence in society was detected in cheating at cards, and after a trial which did not terminate in his favour, he died of a broken heart. Upon one occasion, some gentlemen of both White's and Brookes's had the honour to dine with the Prince Regent, and during the conversation the Prince inquired what sort of dinners thev got at their clubs; upon which Sir Thomas Stepney, one of the guests, observed that their dinners were always the same, "the eternal joints, or beefsteaks, the boiled fowl with oyster sauce, and an apple-tart — this is what we have, sir, at our clubs, and very monotonous fare it is." The Prince, without further remark, rang the bell for his cook, Wattier, and in the presence of those who dined at the royal table, asked him whether he would take a house and organize a dinner club. Wattier as- sented and named Madison, the Prince's page, manager, and Labourie, the cook, from the royal kitchen. The club flour- ished only a few years, owing to the high play that was carried on there. The Duke of York patronized it and was a member. I was a member in 1816, and frequently saw his Royal High- ness there. The dinners were exquisite; the best Parisian cooks could not beat Labourie. The favourite game played there was macao. Upon one occasion Jack Bouverie, brother of Lady Heytesbury, was losing large sums and became very irritable; Raikes, with bad taste, laughed at Bouverie, and attempted to amuse us with some of his stale jokes; upon which Bouverie threw his play-bowl, with the few counters it contained, at Raikes's head; unfortunately it struck him, and made the city dandy angry, but no serious results followed this open insult. I frequently met the famous Madame de Stael in Paris dur- ing the years 181 5 and 1816. She was constantly at Madame Crauford's in the Rue d'Anjou St. Honore, and at Lady Ox- ford's in the Rue de Clichy. She was very kind and affable 84 BOOK-SHELF to all the English, and delighted to find herself once more in sight and smell of the ruisseau de la Rue du Bal, which she once said she preferred to all the romantic scenery of Switzerland and Italy. She was a large, mascu- ^"^'^ ^'^^'^'^^ Ime-lookmg woman, rather coarse, and with a Looking- Woman. thoracic development worthy of a wet nurse. She had very fine arms, which she took every opportunity of dis- playing, and dark, flashing eyes, beaming with wit and genius. Her career was a chequered one, and her history is a ro- mance. The only child of the Minister Necker, in troublous times she married the Swedish Ambassador at Paris, the Baron de Stael, in 1786. Full of Exiled from great and noble sentiments, she took up the P'^ris in 1802. cause of the unfortunate Louis XVI and his Queen with generous ardour. She arranged a plan of escape for the King in 1792, and did not fear to present to the revolu- tionary tribunal, in 1793, ^ petition in favour of Marie Antoi- nette. She remained in Paris during the Dired:ory; and it was under her influence and protedlion that Talleyrand obtained ofiice in 1796. She was always opposed to Napoleon, and was exiled by him from Paris in 1 802. She returned, however, and her presence was tolerated till the appearance of her book, " De I'Allemagne," the sentiments and allusions of which were decidedly hostile to the imperial despotism which then oppressed nearly the whole of Europe. The book was seized by the Em- peror's police, and Madame de Stael was again exiled, and did not return until 1 8 1 5 to Paris, where she died in 1 8 1 7, aged fifty- one. Admirable as her writings were, her conversation surpassed them. She was "well up" on every subjed. Her salons were filled with all the most celebrated persons of her time. The statesmen, men of science, poets, lawyers, sol- diers, and divines, who crowded to hear her, were Her Hatred astounded at her eloquence and erudition. Dis- of Napoleon. dain and contempt for her personal charms or mental powers was one of the causes of the hatred she had vowed to the first Napoleon; and, unequal as a contest between 85 MY FAVORITE the greatest Sovereign of the age and a woman would at first sight appear, there is no doubt that, by her writings and sarcastic savings, which were echoed from one end of Europe to the other, she did him much injury. Talleyrand, when he married Madame Grand, a beautiful but illiterate idiot, said he did so to repose himself after the eternally learned and eloquent discourses of ^ ,, . Madame de Stael, with whom he had been very lalleyrana. . . ^^ . n i- i mtimate. Un one occasion, alludmg to her masculine intellect and appearance, while she was holding forth at great length, he said, ''Ei/e est homme a parler jusqua demain mating At another time, when he was with her in a boat, and she was talking of courage and devotion, qualities in which the ci-divant bishop was notoriously deficient, she put the question, " What would you do if I were to fall into the water?" "Ah, madam, you must be such a good swimmer!" A pretty saying of Madame de Stael's is cited, which shewed her good taste and good feeling. A person in a large company, in beholding her and Madame Reca- ,, . „, mier, — the most beautiful woman in France, and Madame Kecamter. i-iii ir i i i who prided herselr not so much on her personal appearance as on her intelledlual gifts, — said, "Here is wit" (pointing to Madame de Stael) "and beauty" (pointing to Madame Re'camier). Madame de Stael answered, "This is the first time I was ever praised for my beauty." The person in England who was the great objed: of Madame de Stael's admiration, and in the praise of whom she was never weary, was Sir James Mackintosh, one of the greatest men of the age, and certainly the best read man of the- day. She also lived on most intimate terms with the celebrated orator and publicist, Benjamin Constant; but her liaison was supposed to be a Platonic one; indeed, she was secretly married, in 1810, to M. de Rocca, a young officer of hussars, who was wounded in Spain, and who wrote a very interesting account of the Penin- sular war. Madame de Stael was perhaps at times a little overpower- 86 BOOK-SHELF ing, and totally deficient In those "brilliant flashes of silence" which Sydney Smith once jokingly recommended to Macaulay. In fadt, as a Scotchman once said of Johnson, she was "a robust genius, born to grapple with whole libraries, and a tremendous conversationist." ,. . , o ■•/ A • 11 ri T-vi TTv/Tii Madame de btael. A story is told or the Duke or Marlbo- rough, great-grandfather of the present Duke, which always amused me. The Duke had been for some time a confirmed hypochondriac, and dreaded anything that could in any way ruffle the tranquil monotony of his existence. It is said that he remained for three years without pronouncing a single word, and was entering the fourth year of his silence, when he was told one morning that Madame la Baronne de Stael, the authoress of " Corinne," was on the point of arriving to pay him a visit. The Duke immediately recovered his speech, and roared out, "Take me away, take me away!" to the utter astonishment of the circle around him, who all declared that nothing but the terror of this literary visitation could have put an end to this long and obstinate monomania. 87 MY FAVORITE FRANCIS WHITING HALSEY. It is a universal and much-expressed regret that the literary output has of late years become almost a flood. On all sides one hears complaints of it. Men and women The Enormous are perplexed to know where they shall begin Output. their reading and where end it. The books published in Great Britain alone now number each year 6,000, and perhaps they have gone up to 7,000, of which only about 1,500 are new editions. These figures have not yet been reached in America, but they have been very nearly approached; so that in the two countries we have each year about 11,000 books, though many of these are necessarily counted twice, having been brought out in both continents. Books as they come from the press are in fad: fast becom- ing what many newspapers and magazines have been — publica- tions whose term of life is ephemeral. They Literature exist as the favourites of a month, or possibly a Short-lived. year; then, having had their brief summer-time of success, they silently go their destined way. Oblivion overwhelms them. Not ten per cent of any one year's books can hope to linger a year after their publication in the popular memory even as names. Meanwhile, though the publishers never before were so deluged with manuscripts, there is something to be thankful for in the fa6l that only a very small proportion of the Be"!^Books ^^^ writing adivity going on ever finds repre- Ij^^ sentation in printed books. A few years ago Frederick Macmillan declared publicly in Lon- don that his house in one year had accepted only 11 manu- script5 out of 315 submitted. Inclined as we may be to blame 88 BOOK-SHELF the publishers for our deluge, these fads show us how substan- tial is our debt to them. They have served us most effedlually as a dam. Authors themselves have caught this fever and habit of rapid produ(ition. Once fame has come to them, they strive more and more to meet the demand for their writings, a process certain to ruin their art; and yet few withstand the temptation. One author records, as if he were proud of the achievement, that he can regularly produce i,ooo words in a day. Another can write 1,500, while the most accomplished of all in that line can produce 4,000. Trollope told us he could average 10,000 words a week, and when pushed could more than double the output. Writing done at this rate of speed is not literature and cannot be. It is simply job work, the work of day labourers — and in no sense the work of genius or inspiration. Confiding readers who may indulge a belief that some of the popular books of the day of this description are to remain fairly permanent additions to English literature, should recall to their minds the titles of some ^'^'''^^^^"''''" of the most popular favourites of half a century short-lived. or more ago. Here are an even dozen such: "Ringan Gilhaize," by John Gait (1823); "The Pilgrims of Walsingham," by Agnes Strickland (1825); "Two Friends," by the Countess of Blessington (1825); "Now and Then," by Samuel Warren (1848); "Over Head and Ears," by Button Cook (1868); "Temper and Temperament," by Mrs. Ellis (1846); "Modern Society," by Catherine Sinclair (1837); "Wood Leighton," by Mary Howitt (1836); "Round the Sofa," by Mrs. Gaskell (1859); "The Lost Link," by Thomas Hood (1868); "Lady Herbert's Gentlewoman," by Eliza Mete- yard (1862); "Called to Account," by Annie Thomas (1867). Few readers now living know anything of these books. The younger generation probably never heard of one of them. At the same time there came from the publishers other books in small editions, of which the fame is greater now than it ever was — those of Ruskin, Tennyson, Emerson, Hawthorne, and 89 MY FAVORITE Carlvle, which have become permanent additions to the glory of the EngHsh tongue. The causes of our deluge, once we refled: on the intelledlual history of the past twenty or thirty years, are plainly to be seen. They lie in the greater efficiency of the common h"r' schools, the increase in attendance at colleges, Deluzc ^^ enormous growth of libraries, free and other- wise, the spread of such systems of instruction as are provided at Chautauqua, the growth of periodical litera- ture, from reading which the public passes by a natural process of intuition to reading books, the free travelling libraries, and along with these causes the very important one of the general decline in the cost of printing books and magazines. To get an education has become the mere matter of taking the time to get it. One lies within the reach of all who seek it. How keen and widespread has become the appetite for reading is seen in the familiar fadl that popular magazines find their largest support in small and distant communities. Many purely literary period- icals have their subscribers scattered through small towns from Maine to Texas, from Florida to the State of Washington. Readers in such localities have become a mainstay of book pub- lishers also. The sale from the Arnold collection in May, 1901, of a copy of the first edition, containing the first title page, of Mil- ton's "Paradise Lost," for I830, may or may Pecuniary not be the highest price that will ever be paid Rewards. for a copy of that scarce book; but it starts reminiscences of the strangely unequal rewards which authorship has given from the earliest to the latest times. The money paid to Milton for the copyright of that poem was exactly %^o^ in instalments of $25 each, his estate afterward receiving an additional ^25. Milton was an explorer into an unknown world. He went farther among the possibilities of the English tongue than any 90 BOOK-SHELF other man, save one, had gone before him. The world, how- ever, did not know what he had done until long afterward. He, in the meantime, had sold his book for what he could get, and the world, when it saw what he had accomplished, no longer had a chance to reward him. Strange, indeed, in other ways, have been the rewards which literature has bestowed. When we think of the princely sums writers have earned in our day, it is startling to remember Burns and his immortal poverty, or The Rewards Milton selling "Paradise Lost" for a picayune. of Literature. A negro poet in our day, Paul L. Dunbar, does better than Burns or Milton did. Scarcely a year had passed after his "Lyrics of Lowly Life" came out, when more than 5,000 copies had been sold. He was the most widely read poet of a year. In England one of the magazines, following a French custom, had "crowned" a volume of verse by Stephen Phillips, and the newspapers chronicled as a great success the sale of 500 copies, with another of 700 as on the press. But here was the coloured man, whom nobody had crowned, boasting 5,000 copies. It is not poetry, nor is it other literature of a creative kind, that wins the largest pecuniary rewards. It is usually the man who performs some great feat, perhaps in exploration, and then writes a book. It was this fa6t that made General Grant a most successful writer, made Stanley another, and Nansen a third. The returns these authors gained raised them to independence. Of all writings, save those just named, it is fidion that yields the largest returns, because the sales are so enormous. The contrast between the returns which Gibbon received and those which poured into the lap of „ / ""7!!°^ o 1 , 1111 J 1 Profits tn Modern bcott would probably be as great, and perhaps FiSlion. even greater, were they writing in our times. With the increase Gibbon might now secure, there would be corresponding increase for Scott. Froude in his later life had an ampler reward than Gibbon; and ampler than Scott's have been 91 MY FAVORITE the sales of Dickens and Thackeray, Mrs. Ward, Du Maurier, and Crawtord. When "Saracinesca" a few years ago was an- nounced as already in its one hundred and tenth thousand, "Mr. Isaacs" in its fifty-fifth, and "Sant' Ilario" (a sequel though it be) in its forty-fourth, one was tempted to count up what even the ordinary royalty would return to Mr. Crawford; but here we might forget that the modern noveHst often secures greater sums than a simple fixed royalty would have yielded, because he sells for a large lump sum on the "progressive royalty " plan. But even Mr. Crawford's sales have since been far outdone. In the late summer of 1901 the following reports were made for other books, as here named; and these figures have, of course, been increased since then : David Harum _ . _ Richard Carvel - - - - The Crisis - . . - Janice Meredith . _ . Eben Holden . . . Quincv Adams Sawyer D'ri and I - To Have and to Hold The Christian ... The Eternal City . . . An English Woman's Love Letters Black Rock f , , The Sky Pilot j ^"^"^^^ ""^'^ ' 520,000 copies. 420,000 320,000 275,000 265,000 200,000 100,000 285,000 200,000 100,000 250,000 500,000 Even if we reckon the royalty on these books as only ten per cent, handsome sums of money were secured for writing them — sums which in authorship may be called princely. Twenty years ago, when all the world was reading Longfel- low or Tennvson, Howells or Charles Reade, an author was writing in Brooklyn, of whom the upper world Jn Anonymous knows absolutely nothing. Under a pseudonym Writer. (which shall be nameless here) he numbered read- ers by many, many thousands. His stories went into scores of homes where Howells' have gone into one, and great was his reward. 92 BOOK-SHELF These conditions have not been pecuHar to America. They are true also in England, where in cheap weekly papers, or in cheap paper-bound volumes, authors unknown to Mayfair and BeWavia, to stately country _ , , „ , ^ , , '-' , r J 1 hpbemeral tame. homes and to seashore resorts, have round read- ers by hundreds of thousands. There was the author of " Gideon Giles," which in its day had more readers than " Vanity Fair " or " Henry Esmond," " David Copperfield," or "Our Mutual Friend," and which at one bound sent the cir- culation of the paper in which it appeared from 100,000 copies per week to 500,000. Its author's name is now overwhelmed in forgetfulness. There, too, was the creator of "Jack Hark- away," whose stories were universally popular in their time, but are now unknown, and I believe unprinted. It has come within the experience of most booksellers and publishers to observe books of high merit which have made their way regardless of praise or blame, in any public place, — books which have triumphantly Books of passed the ordeal of criticism, whether of sweep- High Merit. ing condemnation or of perfundiory praise. They made their way in spite of all that was said or not said ; praise denied or praise bestowed ; and in spite of notoriety conferred by newspapers. Often these were books by authors never heard of before. Perhaps they had been published anonymously and were books with which the publishers began with little faith. One shining example we have in a book now historic in many ways that was long hawked about London in vain for a pub- lisher, one over which the publisher who finally took it, on noting its cold reception from the public, uttered many a groan ; but a work now famous as are few books of recent times — Car- lyle's " Sartor Resartus." Again, to take a book of our own day and one of the most widely read, Mr. Ford's "The Honourable Peter Stirling." Its success illustrates how to a work of some distind: merit recog- nition will come eventually, whatever may have been its early 93 MY FAVORITE fate. Mr. Ford's success certainly was not made by the critics. Thev had all reviewed his book and in the main favourably; but it made no special headway until long afterward, Tbf Honourable when a demand started up in San Francisco, Peter Stirling. spreading thence through the Middle West, and now it still spreads. Here we see how there had grown up an army of book readers, remote from great centres of life and trade, and independent of critics and newspaper notoriety in determining the fate of a book. The truth is, and it should be oftener acknowledged, that there exists no recognized court of opinion — certainly no court of final appeal, in so far as any chosen body of / ^ 'r^'^rr r culturcd men may constitute one. One court the Only Test of . . .,•' ,, , ., ir- Worth. alone exists m the world — the tribunal or time. Criticism may go right or may go wrong; a whole generation may negled: or condemn a book; the book, in fadt, may become scarce and almost forgotten; but if it have within its covers the seeds of immortal life. Time will save it, and a tribunal greater than critics fix its place and for- Criticism ^^^j. j^^j^ j^ ^j^^j.^_ Has No Lasting „... ..,^. ,.,_ _ £frg^ Lnticism in itselr is not a nigh rorm or literature, and it is proper that it should not be. When it shines at all, it shines as by a borrowed light. It must always be an ephemeral thing. It is a familiar discovery for men to find as they grow in years that they grow in appreciation of the best books. No man ever opens Shakespeare without finding some- Something thing new, and the same is true of Milton and New in All dreat „, ° '^ „ , ,,, , i r i i Writers Lhaucer, or Byron and Wordsworth, or Landor and Thackeray, of Hawthorne and Fielding. Here are staunch and life-long friends who never weary us, who are always hospitable and in good temper, and who can be trusted to maintain faithfully more than half the friendship. 94 BOOK-SHELF i -^ I^IM^l know it now with a new convidlion. May that new convidiion not be vain ! Piozzi. The following is a Hst of the prices which the Streatham colleftion of portraits, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, brought at audion in May, 1816: — Lord Sandys • • Lord Lyttleton • Mrs. Piozzi • • Goldsmith I 33 Sir J. Reynolds • Sir R. Chambers David Garrick • Baretti .... Dr. Burney • • Edmund Burke Dr. Johnson • . jQ. s. Purchased by 36 15, Lady Downshire, his heir; 43 I, Mr. Lyttleton, his son; 81 18, S. Boddington, Esq., a rich mer- chant; 7, Duke of Bedford; 128 2, R. Sharp, Esq., of Park Lane; 84 o. Lady Chambers, his widow; 183 15, Dr. Charles Burney, Greenwich; 31 10, Stewart, Esq., I know not who; 84 o. Dr. C. Burney, of Greenwich, his son; 252 o, R. Sharp, Esq.; 378 o, Watson Taylor, Esq. At Mr. Taylor's sale, it passed into the hands of Sir Robert Peel. Piozzi. He repeated poetry with wonderful energy and feeling. He was seen to weep whilst he repeated Goldsmith's character of the English in his "Traveller," beginning "Stern o'er each bosom," &c. Hawkins. Johnson asked one of his executors, a few days before his death, "Where do you intend to bury me?" He answered, "In Westminster Abbey." "Then," continued he, "if my friends think it worth while to give me a stone, let it be placed over me so as to proted my body." 125 MY FAVORITE DAVID STARR JORDAN. "What can the college do for me?" It may do many things for you, if you are made of the right stuff; for you can- not fasten a two-thousand-dollar education to a fifty-cent boy. The fool, the dude, and the shirk come out of college pretty much as they went in. They dive deep in the Pierian springs, as the duck dives in the pond, and they come up as dry as the duck does. The college will not do everything for you. It is simply one of the helps by which you can win your way to a noble manhood or womanhood. Whatever you are, you must make of yourself; but a well-spent college life is one of the greatest helps to all good things. So, if you learn to use it rightly, this the college can do for you: It will bring you in contact with the great minds of the past, the long roll of those who, through the , J'^.. ^"j^ ages, have borne a mission to young men and for Me? young women, from Plato to Emerson, from Homer and Euripides to Schiller and Browning. Your thought will be limited not by the narrow gossip of today, but the great men of all ages and all climes will become your brothers. You will learn to feel what the Greek called the "consolations of philosophy." To turn from the petty troubles of the day to the thoughts of the masters is to go from the noise of the street through the door of a cathedral. If you learn to unlock these portals, no power on earth can take from you the key. The whole of your life must be spent in your own company, and only the educated man is good company for himself. The uneducated man looks on life through narrow windows and thinks the world is small. The college can bring you face to face with the great problems of nature. You will learn from your study of nature's laws more than the books can tell you of the grandeur, the I 26 BOOK-SHELF power, the omnipotence of God. You will learn to face great problems seriously. You will learn to work patiently at their solution, though you know that many generations must each add its mite to your work before any answer can be reached. It is true that thrift sometimes passes beyond virtue, degen- erating into the vice of greed. Because there are men who are greedy — drunk with the intoxication of wealth and power — we sometimes are told that wealth and power are criminal. There are some that hold that thrift is folly and personal ownership a crime. In the new Utopia all is to be for all, and no one can claim a monopoly, not even of himself. There may be worlds in which this shall be true. It is not true in the world into which you have been born. Nor can it be. In the world we know, the free man should have a reserve of power, and this power is represented by money. If thrift ever ceases to be a virtue, it will be at a time long in the future. Before that time comes, our Anglo-Saxon race will have passed away and our civilization will be forgotten. The dream of perfect slavery must find its realization in some other world than ours, or with a race of men cast in some other mold. A man should have a reserve of skill. If he can do well something which needs doing, his place in the world will always be ready for him. He must have intelligence. If he knows enough to be good company for A Reserve of himself and others, he is a long way on the road ^^^^l- toward happiness and usefulness. To meet this need our schools have been steadily broadening. The business of education is no longer to train gentlemen and clergymen, as it was in England; to fit men for the professions called learned, as it has been in America. It is to give wisdom and fitness to the common man. The great reforms in education have all lain in the removal of barriers. They have opened new lines of growth to the common man. This form of university extension is just beginning. The next century will see its continuance. It will see a change in educational ideals greater even than those 127 MY FAVORITE of the revival of learning. Higher education will cease to be the badge of a caste, and no line of usefulness in life will be beyond its helping influence. The man must have a reserve of character and purpose. He must have a reserve of reputation. Let others think well of us; it will help us to think well of ourselves. ^ ^1 ""^'^ , No man is free who has not his own good of Lharatler and . . . .,, , . ° Reputation opmion. A man will wear a clean conscience as he would a clean shirt, if he knows his neighbors exped it of him. He must have a reserve of love, and this is won by the service of others. "He that brings sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from himself." He must form the ties of family and friendship; that, having something at stake in the goodness of the world, he will do something toward making the world really good. When an American citizen has reserves like these, he has no need to beg for special favors. All he asks of legislation is that it keep out of his way. He demands no form of special guardianship or protedion. He can pay as he goes. The man who cannot has no right to go. The flag of freedom can never float over a nation of deadheads. In his relations with others, the scholar must be tolerant. Culture comes from contact with many minds. To the uncul- tured mind, things unfamiliar seem uncouth. Culture outlandish, abhorrent. A wider acquaintance Lomei rrom • i i rr • r • i i • Contaa ^\u\ the aitairs or our neighbor gives us more respect for his ideas and ways. He may be wrong-headed and perverse; but there is surely something we can learn from him. So with other nations and races. Each can teach us something. In civilized lands the foreigner is no longer an outcast, an obje6t of fear or abhorrence. The degree of tolerance which is shown by any people toward those whose opinions differ from their own is one of the best tests of civili- zation. It is a recognition of individuality and the rights of the individual in themselves and in others. 128 BOOK-SHELF A Swiss watchmaker said the other day: "Your American manufadlurers cannot establish themselves in Europe. The first sample you send is all right, the second lot begins to drop ofF, the third destroys your rep- p v ^ V utation, and the fourth puts an end to your iVork. trade. All you seem to care for is to make money. What you want is some pride in your work." If this has been true of American watchmakers, it should be true no longer. The work that lasts must be, not the quickest, but the best. Let it be done, not to require each year a fresh coat of paint, but done as if to last forever, and some of it will endure. This world is crowded on its lower floor, but higher up, for cen- turies to come, there will still remain a niche for each piece of honest work. I have spoken of the training of the hand; but all training belongs to the brain, and all kinds of training are of like nature. The hand is the servant of the brain, and can receive nothing of itself. There is no such . , ^^ ^" r- , . ° . . !• • -17/- '-f ^"^ oervant of thmg as manual trammg as distmguished rrom ^^^ Brain. training of the intelled:. There is brain behind every a(5t of the hand. The muscles are the mind's only ser- vants. Whether we speak of training an orator, a statesman, or a merchant, or a mechanic, the same language must be used. The essential is that the means should lead toward the end to be reached. An ignorant man is a man who has fallen behind our civil- ization and cannot avail himself of his light. He finds himself in darkness in an unknown land. He stumbles over trifling obstacles because he does not under- ., „ ^[^ '\ , , o TT 1- n 1 • T-L ^'' Darkness but Stand them. He cannot direct his course. 1 he ignorance.'' real dangers are all hidden, while the most inno- cent rock or bush seems a menacing giant. He is not master of the situation. We have but one life to live; let that be an effedlive one, not one that wastes at every turn through the loss of knowledge or lack of skill. What sunlight is to the eye, edu- I 29 MY FAVORITE cation is to the intelled:, and the most thorough education is always the most pracflical. No traveler is contented to go about with a lantern when he could as well have the sun. If he can have a compass and a map also, so much the better. But let his equipment be fitting. Let him not take an ax if there be no trees to chop, nor a boat unless he is to cross a river, nor a Latin grammar if he is to deal with bridge-building, unless the skill obtained by mastering the one gives him an insight into the other. It takes a thorough education to make a successful business man. Not the education of the schools, we say, — and it may be so; but if so, it is the fault of the schools. Education Neces- ^^ ^^ i ^ ^^ ^^^j^^ ^^^ business men, as well sary to Make a Good ■^ T j • l c • Business Man ^^ ^° make good men m any other profession. They ought to fit men for life. Why do the great majority of merchants fail? Is it not because they do not know how to succeed? Is it not because they have not the brains and the skill to compete with those who had both brains and training? Is it not because they do not realize that there are laws of finance and commerce as inexorable as the law of gravitation? A man will stand ered: because he stands in accordance with the law of gravitation. A man or a nation will grow rich by working in accord with the laws which govern the accumulation of wealth. If there are such laws, men should know them. What men must know the schools can teach. The schools will indeed do a great work if they teach the existence of law. Half the people of America believe this is a world of chance. Half of them believe they Absurd Belief are victims of bad luck when they receive the in Luck. rewards of their own stupidity. Half of them believe that they are favorites of fortune, and will be helped out somehow, regardless of what they may do. Now and then some man catches a falling apple, picks up a penny from the dust, or a nugget from the gulch. Then his neighbors set to looking into the sky for apples, as though apples came that way. Waiting for chances never made any- 130 BOOK-SHELF body rich. The Golden Age of California began when gold no longer came by chance. There is more gold in the black adobe of the Santa Clara Valley than existed in the whole great range of the Sierras until men sought for it, not by luck or chance, but by system and science. Whatever is worth having comes because we have earned it. There is but one way to earn any- thing, that is to find out the laws which govern production, and to shape our adions in accordance with these laws. Good luck never comes to the capable man as a surprise. He is prepared for it, because it was the very thing he has a right to exped. Sooner or later, and after many hard raps, every man who lives long enough will find this out. When he does so, he has the key to success, though it may be too late to use it. 131 MY FAVORITE CHARLES LAMB. I confess that I do feel the differences of mankind, national or individual, to an unhealthy excess. I can look with no indifferent eye upon things or persons. What- Apathies and ever is, is to me a matter of taste or distaste ; or Antipathies. when once it becomes indifferent, it begins to be disrelishing. I am, in plainer words, a bundle of prejudices — made up of likings and dislikings — the veriest thrall to sympathies, apathies, antipathies. In a certain sense I hope it may be said of me that I am a lover of my species. I can feel for all indifferently, but I cannot feel towards all equally. The more purely English word that expresses sympathy will better explain my meaning. I can be a friend to a worthy man, who upon another account cannot be my mate or fellow. I cannot like all people alike. Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages, ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by The Origin of the term Cho-fang, literally, the Cook's holiday. Roast Pig. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother), was accidentally discovered in the manner following: The swine-herd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to colled mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bo-bo, a great lub- berly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of 132 BOOK-SHELF his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian make-shift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more im- portance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labour of an hour or two at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely suffer- ers, an odour assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from ? Not from the burnt cottage — he had smelt that smell before — indeed this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young fire-brand. Much less did it resemble that of any known weed, herb, or flower. A premonitary moistening at The Origin of the same time overflowed his nether lip. He Roast Pig. knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for before him no man had known it), he tasted — crackling! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding, that it was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and, surrendering himself to the new- born pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the MY FAVORITE smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoul- ders as thick as hail-stones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure which he experienced in his lower regions had rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of his situation, something like the following dia- logue ensued: "You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? Is it not enough that you have burnt me down three houses with your dog's tricks, and be hanged to you, but you must be eating fire, and I know not what — what have The' Origin of you got there, I say? " Roast Pig. " O father, the pig, the pig, do come and taste how nice the burnt pig eats!" The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt pig. Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morn- ing, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, "Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only taste — O Lord!" with such-like barbarous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke. Ho-ti trembled every joint while he grasped the abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorched his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn, tasted some of its flavour, which, make what sour mouths he would for a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father and son fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had despatched all that remained of the litter. BOOK-SHELF Bo-bo was stridlly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the neighbors would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable wretches, who could think of improving upon the good meat which God had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It was observed that Ho-ti's cottage was burnt down now more frequently than ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break out in broad day, others in the night-time. As often as the sow farrowed, so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a blaze; and Ho-ti himself, which was the more remarkable, instead of chastising his son, seemed to grow more indulgent to him than ever. At length they were watched, the terrible mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to take their trial at Pekin, then an incon- siderable assize town. Evidence was given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and verdid: about to be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury begged that some of the burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might be The Origin of handed into the box. He handled it, they all ^o'^^t Pig- handled it, and burning their fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all the fadls, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given, to the sur- prise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all present — without leaving the box, or in any manner of consul- tation whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdid: of Not Guilty. The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the mani- fest iniquity of the decision; and, when the court was dismissed, went privily, and bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few days His Lordship's town house was observed to be on fire. The thing took wing, and now there was nothing but fires to be seen in every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the distrid. The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of 135 MY FAVORITE archited:ure would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, savs niv manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery, that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked [burnt^ as they called it) without the necessity of consuming a whole house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a gridiron. Roasting by the string, or spit, came in a century or two later, I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the manuscript, do the most useful, and seemingly the most obvious arts, make their way among man- kind. Without placing too implicit faith in the account above given, it must be agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so danger- ous an experiment as setting houses on fire (especially in these days) could be assigned in favour of any culi- The Origin of nary objed, that pretext and excuse might be Roast Pig. found in ROAST PIG. I speak not of your grown porkers — things between pig and pork — those hobbledehoys — but a young and tender suckling — under a moon old — guiltless as yet of the sty — with no original speck of the amor immunditi^e^ the heredi- tary failing of the first parent, yet manifest — his voice as yet not broken, but something between a childish treble, and a grumble — the mild forerunner, or praludium of a grunt. He must be roasted. I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate them seethed, or boiled — but what a sacrifice of the exterior tegument! There is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that of the crisp, tawny, well-watched, not over-roasted, cracklings as it is well called — the very teeth are invited to their share of the pleasure at this banquet, in overcoming the coy, brittle resist- ance — with the adhesive oleaginous — O call it not fat — but an indefinable sweetness growing up to it — the tender blossoming of fat — fat cropped in the bud — taken in the shoot — in the first innocence — the cream and quintessence of the child-pig's yet pure food — the lean, not lean, but a kind of animal manna — 136 BOOK-SHELF or rather, fat and lean (if it must be so) so blended and running into each other, that both together make but one ambrosian result, or common substance. Behold him, while he is doing — it seemeth rather a refresh- ing warmth, than a scorching heat, that he is so passive to. How equably he twirleth round the string! — Now he is just done. To see the extreme sensibility of that tender age, he hath wept out his pretty eyes — radiant jellies — shooting stars. See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he liethl Wouldst thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness and indocility which too often accompany maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obsti- nate, disagreeable animal — wallowing in all manner of filthy con- versation — from these sins he is happily snatched away — Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade. Death came with timely care. His memory is odoriferous — no clown curseth, while his stomach half rejedleth, the rank bacon — no coal-heaver bolteth him in reeking sausages — he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure — and for such a tomb might be content to die. He is the The Origin of best of sapors. Pine-apple is great. She is -^^^-f' P^g- indeed almost too transcendent — a delight, if not sinful, yet so like to sinning, that really a tender-conscienced person would do well to pause — too ravishing for mortal taste, she woundeth and excoriateth the lips that approach her — like lovers' kisses, she biteth — she is a pleasure bordering on pain from the fierceness and insanity of her relish — but she stoppeth at the palate — she meddleth not with the appetite — and the coarsest hunger might barter her consistently for a mutton chop. Pig — let me speak his praise — is no less provocative of the appetite than he is satisfactory to the criticalness of the censori- ous palate. The strong man may batten on him, and the weak- ling refuseth not his mild juices. Unlike to mankind's mixed charaders, a bundle of virtues MY FAVORITE and vices, inexplicably intertwisted, and not to be unravelled without hazard, he is — good throughout. No part of him is better or worse than another. He helpeth as far as his little means extend, all around. He is the least envious of banquets. He is all neighbours' fare. I am one of those, who freely and ungrudgingly impart a share of the good things of this life which fall to their lot (few as mine are in this kind), to a friend. I protest I take as great an interest in my friend's pleasures, his relishes, and proper sat- isfactions, as in mine own. " Presents," I often say, "endear Absents." Hares, pheasants, partridges, snipes, barn-door chickens (those "tame villatic fowl !"), capons, plovers, brawn, barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as I receive them. I love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue of my friend. But a stop must be put somewhere. One would not, like Lear, give everything. I make my stand upon pig. Methinks it is an ingratitude to the Giver of all good flavours, to extra-domiciliate, or send out of the house, slightingly (under pretext of friend- ship, or I know not what) a blessing so particularly adapted, predestined, I may say, to my individual palate — it argues an insensibility. I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school. My good old aunt, who never parted from me at the end of a holiday without stuffing a sweetmeat, or some The Coxcombry nice thing, into my pocket, had dismissed me of Charity. one evening with a smoking plum-cake, fresh from the oven. On my way to school (it was over London Bridge) a gray-headed old beggar saluted me (I have no doubt at this time of day that he was a counterfeit) I had no pence to console him with, and in the vanity of self- denial, and the very coxcombry of charity, school-boy-like, I made him a present of — the whole cake! I walked on a little, buoyed up, as one is on such occasions, with a sweet soothing of self-satisfadtion ; but before I had got to the end of the bridge, my better feelings returned, and I burst into tears, think- ing how ungrateful I had been to my good aunt, to go and give •38 BOOK-SHELF her good gift away to a stranger, that I had never seen before, and who might be a bad man for aught I knew; and then I thought of the pleasure my aunt would be taking in thinking that I — I myself, and not another — would eat her nice cake, and what should I say to her the next time I saw her; how naughty I was to part with her pretty present, and the odour of that spicy cake came back upon Remorseful my recolledion, and the pleasure and curiosity Self-Demal. I had taken in seeing her make it, and her joy when she sent it to the oven, and how disappointed she would feel that I had never had a bit of it in my mouth at last — and I blamed my impertinent spirit of alms-giving and out-of-place hypocrisy of goodness, and above all I wished never to see the face again of that insidious, good-for-nothing, old gray imposter. Our ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing these tender victims. We read of pigs whipped to death with some- thing of a shock, as we hear of any other obsolete custom. The age of discipline is gone by, or it would be curious to inquire (in a philosophical light merely) what effed: this process might have towards intenerating and dulcifying a substance nat- urally so mild and dulcet as the flesh of young pigs. It looks like refining a violet. Yet we should be cautious, while we con- demn the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdom of the pradise. It might impart a gusto. I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young stu- dents, when I was at St. Omer's, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry on both sides, "Whether, supposing that the flavour of a pig who obtained his death by whipping, superadded a pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible suff^ering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in using that method of putting the animal to death?" I forget the decision. His sauce should be considered. Decidedly a few bread crumbs, done up with his liver and brains, and a dash of mild sage. But banish, dear Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole hogs to your palate, steep MY FAVORITE them in shalots, stuff them out with plantations of the rank and guilty garlic; vou cannot poison them or make them stronger than they are — but consider, he is a weakling, a flower. To be strong-backed and neat-bound is the desideratum of a volume. Magnificence comes after. This, when it can be afforded, is not to be lavished upon all kinds of .. books indiscriminately. I would not dress a set ■^ ' of magazines, for instance, in full suit. The deshabille, or half-binding (with Russia backs ever) is our costume. A Shakespeare or a Milton (unless the first editions), it were mere foppery to trick out in gay apparel. The possession of them confers no distinction. The exterior of them (the things themselves being so common) strange to say, raises no sweet emotions, no tickling sense of property in the owner. Thomson's Seasons, again, looks best (I maintain it) a little torn and dog's-eared. How beautiful to a genuine lover of read- ing are the sullied leaves, and worn-out appearance, nay, the very odour (beyond Russia) if we could not forget kind feelings in fastidiousness, of an old "Circulating Library" Tom Jones or Vicar of Wakefield ! How they speak of the thousand thumbs, that have turned over their pages with delight! Of the lone sempstress whom they may have cheered (milliner, or harder- working mantua-maker) after her long day's needle-toil, running far into midnight, when she has snatched an hour, ill spared from sleep, to steep her cares, as in some Lethean cup, in spelling out their enchanting contents! Who would have them a whit less soiled? What better condition could we desire to see them in? Shall I be thought fantastical, if I confess, that the names of some of our poets sound sweeter, and have a finer relish to the ear, — to mine, at least — than that of Milton or of Shakespeare? It may be, that the latter are more staled and rung upon in common discourse. The sweetest names, and which carry a per- fume in the mention, are Kit Marlowe, Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden, and Cowley. 140 BOOK-SHELF Much depends upon when and where you read a book. In the five or six impatient minutes, before the dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking up the Faerie Queene for a stop-gap, or a volume of Bishop Andrewe's ^ °" '!i'''"\h sermons? Milton almost requires a solemn p^^^^ service of music to be played before you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which, who listens, had need bring docile thoughts and purged ears. Winter evenings, the world shut out, with less of ceremony the gentle Shakespeare enters. At such a season, the Tempest, or his own Winter's Tale; these two poets you cannot avoid reading aloud — to yourself, or (as it chances) to some single person listening. More than one, and it degenerates into an audience. Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incidents, are for the eye to glide over only. It will not do to read them out. I could never listen to even the better kind of modern novels without extreme irksomeness. A newspaper, read out, is intol- erable. In some of the Bank offices it is the custom (to save so much individual time) for one of the clerks — who is the best scholar — to commence upon the Times or the Chronicle, and recite its entire contents aloud pro bono publico. With every advantage of lungs and elocution, the effedt is singularly vapid. In barbers' shops and public houses a fellow will get up, and spell out a paragraph, which he communicates as some discovery. Another fellow with his selection. So the entire journal tran- spires at length by piecemeal. Seldom-readers are slow readers, and without this expedient, no one in the company would prob- ably ever travel through the contents of a whole paper. A poor relation is the most irrelevant thing in nature, a piece of impertinent correspondency, an odious approximation, a haunting conscience, a preposterous shadow lengthening in the noontide of your prosperity, an unwelcome remembrancer, a perpetually recurring mortification, a drain on your purse, a more intolerable dun upon your pride, a drawback upon suc- cess, a rebuke to your rising, a stain in your blood, a blot on 141 MY FAVORITE your scutcheon, a rent in your garment, a death's head at your banquet, Agathocles' pot, a Mordecai in your gate, a Lazarus at vour door, a lion in your path, a frog in your chamber, a fly in vour ointment, a mote in your eye, a triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends, the one thing not needful, the hail in harv^est, the ounce oi sour in a pound of sweet. He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you "that is Mr. ." A rap, between familiarity and respect; that demands, and, at the same time, seems to despair The Poor of entertainment. He entereth smiling and em- Relation. barrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake, and draweth it back again. He casually looketh in about dinner time — when the table is full. He ofl^sreth to go away, seeing you have company — but is induced to stav. He filleth a chair, and vour visitor's two children are accommodated at a side table. He never cometh upon open days, when vour wife says with some complacency, " My dear, per- haps Mr. will drop in today." He remembereth birth- davs, and professeth he is fortunate to have stumbled upon one. He declareth against fish, the turbot being small — yet suffereth himself to be importuned into a slice against his first resolution. He sticketh by the port, — yet will be prevailed upon to empty the remainder glass of claret, if a stranger press it upon him. He is a puzzle to the servants, who are fearful of being too obsequious, or not civil enough, to him. The guests think "they have seen him before." Every one speculateth upon his condition; and the most part take him to be — a tide-waiter. He calleth you by your Christian name, to imply that his other is the same with your own. He is too familiar by half, yet you wish he had less diffidence. With half the familiarity he might pass for a casual dependent; with more boldness he would be in no danger of being taken for what he is. He is too humble for a friend, yet taketh on him more state than befits a client. He is a worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as he bringeth up no rent — yet 'tis odds, from his garb and demeanour, that your guests take him for one. He is asked to make one at the 142 BOOK-SHELF whist table; refuseth on the score of poverty and resents being left out. When the company break up, he proffereth to go for a coach, and lets the servant go. He recolleds your grand- father; and will thrust in some mean and quite unimportant anecdote of — the family. He knew it when it was not quite so flourishing as "he is blest in seeing it now." He reviveth past situations, to institute what he The Poor calleth — favourable comparisons. With a refledl- Relation. ing sort of congratulation, he will inquire the price of your furniture; and insults you with a special com- mendation of your window curtains. He is of the opinion that the urn is the more elegant shape, but, after all, there was something more comfortable about the old tea-kettle — which you must remember. He dare say you must find a great convenience in having a carriage of your own, and appealeth to your lady if it is not so. Inquireth if you have had your arms done on vellum yet; and did not know till lately, that such-and-such had been the crest of the family. His memory is unseasonable; his compliments perverse; his talk a trouble; his stay pertinacious; and when he goeth away, you dismiss his chair into a corner, as precipitately as possible, and feel fairly rid of two nuisances. There is a worse evil under the sun, and that is a female Poor Relation. You may do something with the other; you may pass him off tolerably well; but your indi- gent she-relative is hopeless. "He is an old The Female Poor humourist" you may say, "and affeds to go Relation. threadbare. His circumstances are better than folks would take them to be. You are fond of having a char- after at your table, and truly he is one." But in the indications of female poverty there can be no disguise. No woman dresses below herself from caprice. The truth must out without shuffling. "She is plainly related to the L s; or what does she at their house?" She is, in all probability, your wife's cousin. Nine times out of ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb is something between a gentlewoman and a beggar, yet H3 MY FAVORITE the former evidently predominates. She is most provokingly humble, and ostentatiously sensible to her inferiority. He may require to be repressed sometimes, but there is no raising her. You send her soup at dinner, and she begs to be helped after the gentlemen. Mr. requests the honour of taking wine with her; she hesitates between Port and Madeira, and chooses the former, because he does. She calls the servant Sir^ and insists on not troubling him to hold her plate. The house- keeper patronizes her. The children's governess takes upon her to corredt her, when she has mistaken the piano for a harp- sichord. I believe that there are constitutions, robust heads and iron insides whom scarce any excesses can hurt; whom brandy ( I have seen them drink it like wine), at all events 5 '■"fi'^^""^ whom wine, taken in ever so plentiful a measure, of iVine on , . . / . in Different People. ^^" ^° "° worse mjury to, than just to muddle their faculties, perhaps never very pellucid. On them this discourse is wasted. They would but laugh at a weak brother, who trying his strength with them, and coming off foiled from the contest, would fain persuade them that such agonistic exercises are dangerous. It is to a very different description of persons I speak. It is to the weak, the nervous; to those who feel the want of some artificial aid, to raise their spirits in society to what is no more than the ordinary pitch of all around them without it. This is the secret of our drinking. Such must fly the convivial board in the first instance, if they do not mean to sell themselves for a term of life. To be an objed: of compassion to friends, of derision to foes; to be suspe(fted by strangers, stared at by fools; to be esteemed dull when you cannot be witty; to be applauded as witty when you know that you have been dull; to be called upon for the extemporaneous exercise of that faculty which no premeditation can give; to be spurred on to efforts which end in contempt; to be set on to provoke mirth which procures the procurer hatred; to give pleasure and be paid with squinting 144 BOOK-SHELF malice; to swallow draughts of life-destroying wine which are to be distilled into airy breath to tickle vain auditors; to mortgage miserable morrows for nights of madness; to waste whole seas of time upon those who pay it back in little inconsiderable drops of grudging applause, are the wages of buffoonery and death. I have seen a print after Correggio, in which three female figures are ministering to a man who sits fast bound at the root of a tree. Sensuality is soothing him, Evil Habit is nailing him to a branch, and Repug- ^'""'^f'f' ^"' , <=> . - . '. , .^ o cepttoti of the Moral nance at the same mstant or time is applying a Degenerate. snake to his side. In his face is feeble delight, the recolledion of past rather than the perception of present pleasures, languid enjoyment of evil with utter imbecility to good, a Sybaritic effeminacy, a submission to bondage, the springs of the will gone down like a broken clock, the sin and the suffering co-instantaneous, or the latter forerunning the former, remorse preceding adiion, all this represented in one point of time. When I saw this, I admired the wonderful skill of the painter. But when I went away, I wept, because I thought of my own condition. Oh, if a wish could transport me back to those days of youth, when a draught from the next clear spring could slake any heats which summer suns and youthful exercise had power to stir up in the blood, how gladly would I return to thee, pure element, the drink of children and of child-Hke holy hermit! In my dreams I can sometimes fancy thy cool refreshment purl- ing over my burning tongue. But my waking stomach rejeds it. That which refreshes innocence only makes me sick and faint. Twelve years ago, I was possessed of a healthy frame of mind and body. I was never strong, but I think my constitu-* tion (for a weak one) was as happily exempt from the tendency to any malady as it was possible to be. I scarce knew what it MY FAVORITE was to ail anything. Now, except when I am losing myself in a sea of drink, I am never free from those uneasy sensations in head and stomach, which are so much worse A Sorrowful to bear than any definite pains or aches. At that Confession. time I was seldom in bed after six in the morn- ing, summer and winter. I awoke refreshed, and seldom without some merry thoughts in my head, or some piece of a song to welcome the new-born day. Now, the first feeling which besets me, after stretching out the hours of recumbence to their last possible extent, is a forecast of the wearisome day that lies before me, with a secret wish that I could have lain on still, or never awaked. Business which, though never very particularly adapted to my nature, yet as something of necessity to be gone through, and therefore best undertaken with cheerfulness, I used to enter upon with some degree of alacrity, now wearies, affrights, per- plexes me. My favourite occupations in times past now cease to enter- tain. I can do nothing readily. Apphcation for ever so short a time kills me. 146 BOOK-SHELF CHARLES LEVER It is a very high eminence to attain when a man's integrity and ability throw such a light about him that they illumine not alone the path he treads in life, but shine brightly on those who follow his track, making an atmos- „,V!^jn'^ ^" .t ,.,,, .. o^^,. Abtltty Illumine the phere m which all around participate. 1 o this Path of Life. height had Dunn arrived, and he stood the con- fessed representative of those virtues Englishmen like to honor, and that charader they boast to believe national, the man of suc- cessful industry. The fewer the adventitious advantages he derived from fortune, the greater and more worthy did he appear. He was no aristocrat, propped and bolstered by grand relatives. He had no Most Noble or Right Honorable connexions to push him. He was not even gifted with those qualities that win popular favor, — he had none of those graces of easy cordiality that others possess, — he was not insinuating in address, nor ready in speech. They who described him called him an awk- ward, bashful man, always struggling against his own ignorance of society, and only sustained by a proud consciousness that whispered the "sterling stuff that was inside" — qualities which appeal to large audiences, and are intelligible to the many. Ay, there was indeed his grand secret. Genius wounds deeply, talent and ability offend widely, but the man of mere common- place faculties, using common gifts with common opportunities, trading rather upon negative than upon positive properties, suc- ceeding because he is not this, that, and t'other, plodding along the causeway of Hfe steadily and unobtrusively, seen by all, watched and noticed in every successive stage of his upward progress, so that each may say, " I remember him a barefooted boy, running errands in the street, — a poor clerk at forty pounds a year, — I knew him when he lived in such an alley, up so many pairs of stairs ! " Strange enough, the world likes all H7 MY FAVORITE -5"-^fnT n l^^i^ Q'inf a WWP -^ ^ff? a InT-S— «^ this; there is a smack of self-gratulation in it that seems to say, "If I liked it, 1 could have done as well as he." Success in life won, these men rise into another atmosphere, and acquire another appreciation. They are then used to point the moral of that pleasant fallacy we are all so fond of repeating to each other, when we assert, amongst the blessings of our glori- ous Constitution, that there is no dignity too great, no station too high, for the Englishman who combines industry and integrity with zeal and perseverance. Shame on us, that we dare to call fallacv that which great Lord Chancellors and Chief Justices have verified from their own confessions; nay, we have even heard a Lord Mayor declare that he was, once upon a time, like that "poor" publican! The moral of it all is, that with regard to the Davenport Dunns of this world, we pity them in their first struggles, we are proud of them in their last successes, and we are about as much right in the one sentiment as in the other. The world, — the great world of man, — is marvellously identical with the small ingredient of humanitv of whose aggre- gate it consists. It has moods of generosity, distrust, liberality, narrowness, candor, and suspicion, — its fevers of noble impulse, and its cold fits of petty meanness, — its high moments of self- devotion, and its dark hours of persecution and hate. Men are judged differently in different ages, just as in every-day life we hear a different opinion from the same individual, when crossed by the cares of the morning and seated in all the voluptuous repose of an after-dinner abandonnement. Davenport Dunn. Estrangement from the world often imparts to the stories of the past, or even to the characters of fiction, a degree of interest which, by those engaged in the a6tual „.„ _ work of life, is only accorded to their friends or Pitturinf' Power , . ' . ■' , . . , . , . of Fanes relatives; and thus, to this young girl in her iso- lation, such names as Raleigh and Cavendish — such charaders as Cromwell, Lorenzo de'Medici, and Napo- 148 BOOK-SHELF leon — stood forth before her in all the attributes of well-known individuals. To have so far soared above the ordinary accidents of life as to live in an atmosphere above all other men, — to have seen the world and its ways from an eminence that gave wider scope to vision and more play to speculation, — to have medi- tated over the destinies of mankind from the height of a station that gave control over their adions, — seemed so glorious a priv- ilege that the blemishes and even the crimes of men so gifted were merged in the greatness of the mighty task they had imposed upon themselves; and thus was it that she claimed for these an exemption from the judgments that had visited less dis- tinguished wrong-doers most heavily. "How can I, or such as I am, pronounce upon one like this man? What knowledge have I of the conflid: waged within his deep intelligence? How can I fathom the ocean of his thoughts, or even guess at the difficulties that have opposed, the doubts that have beset him? I can but vaguely fashion to myself the end and object of his journey ; how, then, shall I criticise the road by which he travels, the halts he makes, the devious turnings and windings he seems to fall into?" In such plausibilities she merged every scruple as to those she had deified in her own mind. "Their ways are not our ways," said she; "their natures are as little our natures." Davenport Dunn. Most men who have attained to high stations from small beginnings, have so conformed to the exigencies of each new change in life as to carry but little of what they started with to their position of eminence; grad- ^, ^ jp t ually assimilating to the circumstances around them as they went, they flung the past behind them, only occupied with those qualities which should fit them for the future. Davenport Dunn. There is often a remarkable fitness — may we call it a "pre- established harmony"? — between men and the circumstances of their age, and this has led to the opinion that it is by the events 149 MY FAVORITE themselves the agents are developed ; we incline to think dif- ferently, as the appearance of both together is rather in obedi- ence to some overruling edid: of Providence, The Hour and which has alike provided the work and the the Man. workmen. It would be a shallow reading of history to imagine Cromwell the child of the Revolution, or Napoleon as the accident of the battle of the sedions. Davenport Dunn. Honor. There's great promise in a fellow when he can be a scamp and a man of honor. When dissi- pations do not degrade and excesses do not cor- rupt a man, there is a grand nature ever beneath. Good heavens ! how little do we know about our children's hearts! How far astray are we as to the natures that have grown up beside us, imbibing, as we thought, our hopes, ^ ^,.,, our wishes, and our prejudices! We awake some Our Children. . ,. i ^\ • a u day to discover that some other mriuence has crept in to undo our teachings, and that the fidelity on which we would have staked our lives has changed allegiance. Sir Brook Fossbrooke. Vain fellows get quizzed for their vanity, and selfish men laughed at for their selfishness, and close men for their avarice; but there is a combination of vanity, egotism, up Like a small craftiness, and self-preservation in certain Rocket — Down ^ .. , . ,, * ^^ii Like a Stick. fellows that is totally repugnant to all compan- ionship. Their lives are a series of petty suc- cesses, not owing to any superior ability or greater boldness of daring, but to a studious outlook for small opportunities. They are ever alive to know the "right man," to be invited to the "right house," to say the "right thing," Never linked with whatever is in disgrace or misfortune, they are always found back- ing the winning horse, if not riding him. Such men as these, so long as the world goes well with them, and events turn out fortu- 150 BOOK-SHELF nately, are regarded simply as sharp, shrewd fellows, with a keen eye to their own interests. When, however, the weight of any mis- fortune comes, when the time arrives that they have to bear up against the hard pressure of life, these fellows come forth in their true colors, swindlers and cheats. Sir Brook Fossbrooke. Have you ever noticed the effeft that a dodor's presence produces in the society of those who usually consult him, — the reserve, — the awkwardness, — the constraint, — the apologetic tone for this or that little indis- The DoSior's cretion, — the sitting in the draught or the extra Personality. glass of sherry.? So is it, but in a far stronger degree, when an old man of the world like myself comes back amongst those he formerly lived with, — one who knew all their past history, how they succeeded here, how they failed there, — what led the great man of fashion to finish his days in a colony, and why the Court beauty married a bishop. Ah sir, we are the physicians who have all these secrets in our keeping. It is ours to know, what sorrow is covered by that smile, how that merry laugh has but smothered the sigh of a heavy heart. It is only when a man has lived to my age, with an unfailing memory, too, that he knows the real hollowness of life, — all the combina- tions falsified, all the hopes blighted, — the clever fellows that have turned out failures, or worse than failures, — the lovely women that have made shipwreck through their beauty. It is not only, however, that he knows this, but he knows how craft and cunning have won where ability and frankness have lost, — how intrigue and trick have done better than genius and integ- rity. With all this knowledge, sir, in their heads, and stout hearts within them, such men as myself have their utility in life. They are a sort of walking conscience that cannot be ignored. The railroad millionaire talks less The Mirror boastfully before him who knew him as an errand- of the Past. boy; the grande dame is less superciliously inso- lent in the presence of one who remembered her in a very different charader. Sir Brook Fossbrooke. MY FAVORITE Now, the value the world sets on that which is not for sale is very unlike its estimate for the same commodity when brought to market. The light claret your friend pro- Purchased nounced a very pleasant little wine at your own Flattery. table, he would discover, when offered for pur- chase, to be poor, washy, and acrid. The horse you had left him, and whose performance he had encomiumized, if put up to audion, would be found spavined, or windgalled, or broken-down. Such a stern test is money, so fearfully does its coarse jingle jar upon all the music of flattery, and make discord of all compliment. To such a pitch is the process car- ried, that even pretty women, who as wives were objed:s of admiration to despairing and disappointed adorers, have become by widowhood very ordinary creatures, simply because they are once more " in the market." It is well for us that heaven itself was not in the "Price Current," or we might have begun to think lightly of it. At all events we'd have higgled about the cost, and tried to get there as cheaply as might be. Sir Brook Fossbrooke. It is a cruel aggravation of the ills of old age to have a heart and a brain alive to the finest sense of injury. We know very little what are the sources of those intem- perate outbreaks we so often complain of, — what sore trials are ulcerating the nature, what agonizing maladies, High-Strung what secret terrors, what visions of impending Temperaments. misery ; least of all do we know or take count of the fa(5l that it is out of these high-strung temperaments we obtain those thrilling notes of human passion and tenderness coarser natures never attain to. Let us bear with a passing discord in the instrument whose cadences can move us to very ecstasy. Sir Brook. Fossbrooke. Stretched upon a large old-fashioned sofa, where a burgo- master might have reclined with "ample room and verge 152 BOOK-SHELF enough" in all the easy abandonment of dressing-gown and slippers; the cool breeze gently wafting the window-blind to and fro, and tempering the lulling sounds from wood and water; the buzzing of the summer insedts, Unrealized and the far-off carol of a peasant's song, — I Hopes. fell into one of those delicious sleeps in which dreams are so faintly marked as to leave us no disappoint- ment on waking: flitting shadow-like before the mind, they live only in a pleasant memory of something vague and undefined, and impart no touch of sorrow for expectations unfulfilled, for hopes that are not to be realized. I would that my dreams might always take this shape. It is a sad thing when they become tangible; when features and looks, eyes, hands, words, and signs, live too strongly in our sleeping minds, and we awake to the cold reaHty of our daily cares and crosses, tenfold less endurable from very contrast. No ! give me rather the faint and waving outline, the shadowy perception of pleasure, than the vivid pi6lure, to end only in the conviction that I am but Christopher Sly after all. Still I would not have you deem me discontented with my lot; far from it. I chose my path early in life, and never saw reason to regret the choice. How many of you can say as much? I felt that while the tender The Great Prize ties of home and family, the charities that grow i" W^- up around the charmed circle of a wife and children, are the great prizes of life, there are also a thousand lesser ones in the wheel, in the kindly sympathies with which the world abounds; that to him who bears no ill-will at his heart — nay, rather loving all things that are lovable, with warm attachments to all who have been kind to him, with strong sources of happiness in his own tranquil thoughts — the wander- ing life would oflFer many pleasures. Most men live, as it were, with one story of their lives, the traits of childhood maturing into manly features; their history consists of the development of early charader in circumstances of good or evil fortune. They fall in love, they marry, they MY FAVORITE grow old, and they die, — each incident of their existence bearing on that before and that after, Hke Hnk upon link of some great chain. He, however, who throws himself like L »/ '"^.- I a plank upon the waters, to be washed hither (/ic- Most of the J 1 • I ^ -1 -1 1 • 1 • 1 Present. ^^'^ thither as wmd or tide may drive him, has a very different experience. To him life is a succession of episodes, each perfect in itself; the world is but a number of tableaux, changing with climate and country, — his sorrows in France having no connection with his joys in Italy; his delights in Spain living apart from his griefs on the Rhine. The past throws no shadow on the future; his philosophy is to make the most of the present. Arthur O'Leary. The practised eye speedily detedls in the chara6ter and arrangement of a chamber something of its occupant. In some houses, the absence of all decoration, the simple n , , Puritanism of the furniture, bespeaks the life of Reveals the . , , . i • i r i Man. quiet souls whose days are as devoid or luxury as their dwellings. You read in the cold gray tints the formal stiffness and unrelieved regularity around the Quaker-like flatness of their existence. In others there is an air of ill-done display, a straining after effedt, which shows itself in costly but ill-assorted details, a mingling of all styles and eras without repose or keeping. The bad pretentious pidures, the faulty bronzes, meagre casts of poor originals, the gaudy china, are safe warranty for the vulgarity of their owners; while the humble parlor of a village inn can be, as I have seen it, made to evidence the cultivated tastes and polished habits of those who have made it the halting-place of a day. We might go back and trace how much of our knowledge of the earliest ages is derived from the study of the interior of their dwellings; what a rich volume of information is conveyed in a mosaic; what a treatise does not lie in a frescoed wall! Arthur O'Leary. 154 BOOK-SHELF A man's own resources are the only real gratifications he can count upon. Society, like a field-day, may offer the occasion to display your troops and put them through ^U • U . U y V • -^ Man's Own their manoeuvres; but, believe me, it is a rare „ Resources and a lucky day when you go back richer by ^/,^^ i/duable. one recruit, and the chance is that even he is a cripple, and must be sent about his business. People, too, will tell you much of the advantage to be derived from associating with men of distinguished and gifted minds. I have seen some- thing of such in my time, and give little credit to the theory. You might as well hope to obtain credit for a thousand pounds because you took off your hat to a banker. Arthur O'Leary. Let moralists talk as they will about the serenity of mind derivable alone from a pure conscience, the peaceful nature that flows from a source of true honor, and then look abroad upon the world and count the hundreds The Felicities whose hairs are never tinged with gray, whose of Fraud. cheeks show no wrinkles, whose elastic steps suffer no touch of age, and whose ready smile and cheerful laugh are the ever-present signs of their contentment, — let them look on these and refled: that of such are nine-tenths of those who figure in lists of outlawry, whose bills do but make the stamps they are written on of no value, whose creditors are legion and whose credit is at zero, and say which seems the happier. To see them, one would opine that there must be some secret good in cheating a coachmaker, or some hidden virtue in tricking a jeweller; that hotel-keepers are a natural enemy to mankind, and that a tailor has not a right even to a decimal fraction of honesty. Never was Epicurean philosophy like theirs; they have a fine liberal sense of the blackguardisms that a man may commit, and yet not forfeit his position in society. They know the precise condition in life when he may pra6tise dishonesty; and they also see when he must be circumsped. They have one rule for the city and another for the club ; and, better than MY FAVORITE all, they have stored their minds with sage maxims and wise reflections, which, like the philosophers of old, they adduce on every suitable occasion; and many a wounded spirit has been consoled by that beautiful sentiment, so frequent in their mouths, of — **Go ahead ! for what's the odds so long as you're happy?" Arthur O'Leary. No man's heart is consecrated so entirely to one passion as a gambler's. Hope with him usurps the place of every other feeling, Hope, however rude the shocks it The Gamester's meets from disappointment, however beaten and Hope. baffled, is still there; the flame may waste down to a few embers, but a single spark may live amid the ashes, yet it is enough to kindle up into a blaze before the breath of fortune. At first he lives but for moments like these; all his agonies, all his sufferings, all the torturings of a mind verging on despair are repaid by such brief intervals of luck. Yet each reverse of fate is telling on him heavily ; the many disappointments to his wishes are sapping by degrees his confidence in fortune. His hope is dashed with fear; and now commences within him that struggle which is the most fearful man's nature can endure. The fickleness of chance, the way- wardness of fortune, fill his mind with doubts and hesitations. Sceptical on the sources of his great passion, he becomes a doubter on every subjed; he has seen his confidence so often at fault that he trusts nothing, and at last the ruling feature of his character is suspicion. When this rules paramount, he is a perfedt gambler; from that moment he has done with the world and all its pleasures and pursuits; life offers to him no path of ambition, no goal to stimulate his energies. With a mock stoicism he affedts to be superior to the race which other men are running, and laughs at the collisions of party and the con- tests of politics. Society, art, literature, love itself, have no attractions for him then; all excitements are feeble compared .56 « BOOK-SHELF with the alternations of the gaming-table; and the chances of fortune in real life are too tame and too tedious for the impa- tience of a gambler. Arthur O'Leary. The respectable vagabonds of society are a large family, much larger than is usually supposed. They are often well- born, almost always well mannered, invariably well dressed. They do not, at first blush, appear „ . , „ , . , ^ ' r ^},- Social Parasites. to discharge any very great or necessary rundtion in life; but we must by no means from that, infer their inutility. Naturalists tell us that several varieties of inse(5l existence we rashly set down as mere annoyances have their peculiar spheres of usefulness and good; and doubtless these same loungers contribute in some mysterious manner to the welfare of that state which they only seem to burden. We are told that but for flies, for instance, we should be infested with myriads of winged tormentors, insinuating themselves into our meat and drink, and rendering life miserable. Is there not something very similar performed by the respectable class I allude to? Are they not invariably devouring and destroying some vermin a little smaller than themselves, and making thus a healthier atmosphere for their betters ? If good society only knew the debt it owes to these defenders of its privileges, a "Vagabond's Home and Aged Asylum" would speedily figure amongst our national charities. The Fortunes of Glencore. As in the dreariest landscape a ray of sunlight will reveal some beautiful eff^eds, making the eddies of the dark pool to glitter, lighting up the russet moss, and giving to the half- dried lichen a tinge of bright color. The Light of so will, occasionally, memory throw over a life Other Days. of sorrow a gleam of happier meaning. Faces and events, forms and accents, that once found the way to our hearts, come back again, faintly and imperfedtly it may be, but with a touch that revives in us what we once were. ^S7 MY FAVORITE It is the one sole feature in which self-love becomes ami- able, when, looking back on our past, we cherish the thought of a time before the world had made us sceptical and hard-hearted. The Fortunes of Glencore. Now the friendship between a bygone beauty of forty — and we will not say how many more years — and a hackneyed, half-disgusted man of the world, of the same age. Birds of a is a very curious contrast. There is no love in Feather. it; as little is there any strong tie of esteem; but there is a wonderful bond of self-interest and mutual convenience. Each seems to have at last found "one that understands him"; similarity of pursuit has engen- dered similarity of taste. They have each seen the world from exadly the same point of view, and they have come out of it equally heart-wearied and tired, stored with vast resources of social knowledge, and with a keen insight into every phase of that complex machinery by which one-half the world cheats the other. The Fotunes of Glencore. On the table in front of the invalid a whole regiment of bottles, of varied shape and color, were ranged, the contents being curious essences and delicate odors, every one of which entered into some peculiar stage of that elaborate process Sir Horace Upton went through, each morning of his life, as a preparation for the toils of the day. Adjoining the bed stood a smaller table, covered with various medicaments, tin6tures, essences, infusions and extracts, whose subtle qualities he was well skilled in, and The but for whose timely assistance he would not Hypochondriac. have believed himself capable of surviving throughout the day. Beside these was a bulky file of prescriptions, the learned documents of dodors of every country of Europe, all of whom had enjoyed their little sun- shine of favor, and all of whom had ended by "mistaking his case." These had now been placed in readiness for the approach- .58 BOOK-SHELF ing consultation with " Glencore's dodor"; and the valet still glided noiselessly from place to place, preparing for that event. "I'm not asleep, Fritz," said a weak, plaintive voice from the bed; "let me have my aconite, — eighteen drops; a full dose to-day, for this journey has brought back the pains." "Yes, Excellenz," said Fritz, in a voice of broken accent- uation. " I slept badly," continued his master, in the same com- plaining tone. "The sea beat so heavily against the rocks, and the eternal plash, plash, all night irritated and worried me. Are you giving me the right tincture?" " Yes, Excellenz," was the brief reply. "You have seen the dodor, — what is he like, Fritz?" A strange grimace and a shrug of the shoulders were the valet's only answer. "I thought as much," said Upton, with a heavy sigh. " They called him the wild growth of the mountains last night, and I fancied what that was like to prove. Is he young ? " A shake of the head implied not. "Nor old?" Another similar movement answered the question. " Give me a comb, Fritz, and fetch the glass here." And now Sir Horace arranged his silky hair more becomingly, and having exchanged one or two smiles with his image in the mirror, lay back on the pillow, saying, " Tell him I am ready to see him." Fritz proceeded to the door, and at once presented the obsequious figure of Billy Traynor, who, having heard some details of the rank and quality of his new patient, made his approaches with a most defer- A Celtic Son ential humility. It was true, Billy knew that my "f Galen. Lord Glencore's rank was above that of Sir Horace, but to his eyes there was the far higher distindion of a man of undoubted ability, — a great speaker, a great writer, a great diplomatist; and Billy Traynor, for the first time in his life, found himself in the presence of one whose claims to dis- MY FAVORITE tinc^^ion stood upon the lofty basis of personal superiority. Now, though bashfulness was not the chief charafteristic of his nature, he really felt abashed and timid as he drew near the bed, and shrank under the quick but searching glance of the sick man's cold gray eyes. " Place a chair, and leave us, Fritz," said Sir Horace; and then turning slowly round, smiled as he said: "I'm happy to make vour acquaintance, sir. My friend, Lord Glencore, has told me with what skill you treated him, and I embrace the fortunate occasion to profit by your professional ability." "I'm your humble slave, sir," said Billy, with a deep, rich brogue; and the manner of the speaker, and his accent, seemed so to surprise Upton that he continued to stare at him fixedly for some seconds without speaking. "You studied in Scotland, I believe?" said he, with one of the most engaging smiles, while he hazarded the question. "Indeed, then, I did not, sir," said Billy, with a heavy sigh; "all I know of the ars medicatrix I picked up, — currendo per campos^ — as one may say, vagabondizing through life, and watching my opportunities. Nature gave me the Hippocratic turn, and I did my best to improve it." "So that you never took out a regular diploma?" said Sir Horace, with another and still blander smile. " Sorra one, sir ! I'm a dodor just as a man is a poet, — by sheer janius ! 'Tis the study of nature makes both one and the other; that is, when there's the raal stuff, — th.t divinus afflatus^ — inside. Without you have that, you're only a rhymester or a quack." " You would, then, trace a parallel between them ?" said Upton, graciously. "To be sure, sir! Ould Heyric says that the poet and the phvsician is one : *« ' For he who reads the clouded skies. And knows the utterings of the deep. Can surely see in human eyes The sorrows that so heart-locked sleep.* i6o BOOK-SHELF The human system is just a kind of universe of its own; and the very same faculties that investigate the laws of nature in one case is good in the other." " I don't think the author of ' King Arthur' Physk and supports your theory," said Upton, gently. Poetry. " Blackmoor was an ass; but maybe he was as great a bosthoon in physic as in poetry," rejoined Billy, promptly. "Well, Dodlor," said Sir Horace, with one of those plaintive sighs in which he habitually opened the narrative of his own suffering, " let us descend to meaner things and talk of myself. You see before you one who, in some degree, is the reproach of medicine. That file of prescriptions beside you will show you that I have consulted almost every celebrity in Europe; and that I have done so unsuccessfully, it is only necessary that you should look on these worn looks — these wasted fingers — this sickly, feeble frame. Vouchsafe me a patient hearing for a few moments, while I give you some insight into one of the most intricate cases, perhaps, that has ever engaged the faculty." It is not our intention to follow Sir Horace through his statement, which in reality comprised a sketch of half the ills that the flesh is heir to. Maladies of heart, brain, liver, lungs, the nerves, the arteries, even the bones, contributed their aid to swell the dreary catalogue, which, indeed, contained the usual contradidiions and exaggerations incidental to such histories. We could not assuredly expert from our reader the patient atten- tion with which Billy listened to this narrative. Never by a word did he interrupt the description; not even a syllable escaped him as he sat; and even when Sir Horace had finished speaking, he remained with slightly drooped head and clasped hands in deep meditation. " It's a strange thing," said he, at last; "but the more I see of the aristocracy, the more I'm convinced that they ought to have doctors for themselves alone, just as they have their own tailors and coachmakers, — chaps that could devote themselves i6i MY FAVORITE to the study of physic for the peerage, and never think of any other disorders but them that befall people of rank. Your mistake, Sir Horace, was in consulting the regular middle-class practitioner, who invariably imagined there must The Aristocracy ^^ ^ ^j^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^_ Ought to Have r. a j j 11 Their Our, Doaors. . "And^you set me down as a hypochon- driac, then," said Upton, smiling. " Nothing of the kind ! You have a malady, sure enough, but nothing organic. 'Tis the oceans of tindtures, the sieves full of pills, the quarter-casks of bitters you're takin', has played the divil with you. The human machine is like a clock, and it depends on the proportion the parts bear to each other, whether it keeps time. You may make the spring too strong, or the chain too thick, or the balance too heavy for the rest of the works, and spoil everything just by over-security. That's what your dod:ors was doing with their tonics and cordials. They didn't see, here's a poor washy frame, with a wake circulation and no vigor. If we nourish him, his heart will go quicker, to be sure; but what will his brain be at? There's the rub! His brain will begin to go fast, too, and already it's going the pace. 'Tis soothin' and calmin' you want; allaying the irritability of an irrascible, fretful nature, always on the watch for self-torment. Say-bathin', early hours, a quiet, mopin' kind of life, that would, maybe, tend to torpor and sleepiness, — them's the first things you need; and for exercise a little work in the garden that you'd take interest in." "And no physic?" asked Sir Horace. " Sorra screed! not as much as a powder or a draught, — barrin'," said he, suddenly catching the altered expression of the sick man's face, " a little mixture of hyoscy- xj p, , amus I'll compound for you myself. This, and a friction over the region of the heart, with a mild embrocation, is all my tratement." "And you have hopes of my recovery ?" asked Sir Horace, faintly. " My name isn't Billy Traynor if I'd not send you out of 162 BOOK-SHELF this hale and hearty before two months. 1 read you like a printed book." " You really give me great confidence, for I perceive you understand the tone of my temperament. Let us try this same embrocation at once; I'll most implicitly obey you in every- thing." "My head on a block, then, but I'll cure you," said Billy, who determined that no scruples on his side should mar the trust reposed in him by the patient. " But you must give your- self entirely up to me; not only as to your eatin' and drinkin', but your hours of recreation and study, exercise, amusement, and all, must be at my biddin'. It is the principle of harmony between the moral and physical nature constitutes the whole sacret of my system. To be stimulatin' the nerves, and lavin' the arteries dormant, is like playing a jig to minuet time, — all must move in simultaneous adiion; and the cerebellum, the great flywheel of the whole, must be made to keep orderly time. D'ye mind ?" " I follow you with great interest," said Sir Horace, to whose subtle nature there was an intense pleasure in the thought of having discovered what he deemed a man of original genius under this unpromising exterior. " There is but one bar to these arrangements: I must leave this at once; I ought to go today. I must be off tomorrow." " Then I '11 not take the helm when I can't pilot you through the shoals," said Billy. " To begin my system, and see you go away before I developed my grand invigoratin' arca- num, would be only to destroy your confidence in an elegant discovery." "Were I only as certain as you seem to be " began Sir Horace, and then stopped. " You'd stay and be cured, you were goin' to say. Well, if you didn't feel that same trust in me, you'd be right to go; for it is that very confidence that turns the balance. Quid Bab- bington used to say that between a good physician and a bad one there was just the difference between a pound and a guinea. 163 MY FAVORITE 1 But between the one you trust and the one you don't, there's all the way between Billy Traynor and the Bank of Ireland! " " On that score every advantage is with you," The Difference said Upton, with all the winning grace of his in- Betxveen DoSlors. comparable manner; "and I must now bethink me how I can manage to prolong my stay here." And with this he fell into a musing fit, letting drop occasionally some stray word or two, to mark the current of his thoughts. "The Duke of Headwater's on the thirteenth; Ardroath Castle the Tuesday after; Morehampton for the Derby day. These easily disposed of. Prince Boratinsky, about that Warsaw affair, must be attended to; a letter, yes, a letter, will keep that question open. Lady Grencliffe is a difficulty; if I plead illness, she'll say I'm not strong enough to go to Russia. I'll think it over." And with this he rested his head on his hands, and sank into profound refle6lion. " Yes, Doctor," said he, at length, as though summing up his secret calculations, "health is the first requisite. If you can but restore me, you will be — I am above the mere personal consideration — you will be the means of conferring an important service on the King's govern- ment. A variety of questions, some of them deep and intricate, are now pending, of which I alone understand the secret mean- ing. A new hand would infallibly spoil the game; and yet, in my present condition, how could I bear the fatigues of long interviews, ministerial deliberations, incessant note-writing, and evasive conversations?" " Utterly impossible!" exclaimed the dodor. " As you observe, it is utterly impossible," rejoined Sir Horace, with one of his own dubious smiles; and then, in a manner more natural, resumed: "We public men have the sad necessity of concealing the sufferings on which others trade for sympathy. We must never confess to an ache or a pain, lest it be rumored that we are unequal to the fatigues of office; and so is it that we are condemned to run the race with broken health, and shattered frame, alleging all the while that no exertion is too much, no effort too great for us." 164 BOOK-SHELF "And maybe, after all, it's that very struggle that makes you more than common men," said Billy. " There's a kind of irritability that keeps the brain at stretch, and renders it equal to higher efforts than ever „ IT^r >- ^ , ■ 1 1 t 1 T-» • • (^reat Men for Lon- accompany good everyday health. Dyspepsia is ^^^^^^ Sickness. the soul of a prose-writer, and a slight ossification of the aortic valves is a great help to the imagination." "Do you really say so?" asked Sir Horace, with all the implicit confidence with which he accepted any marvel that had its origin in medicine. " Don't you feel it yourself, sir?" asked Billy. " Do you ever pen a reply to a knotty state-paper as nately as when you've the heartburn ? are you ever as epigram- matic as when you're driven to a listen slipper? — „ " igestion ,, ,•' . .. . . ^ K a bpur to Literary and when do you give a minister a jobation as Composition. purtily as when you are laborin' under a slight indigestion ? Not that it would sarve a man to be permanently in gout or the colic; but for a spurt like a cavalry charge, there's nothing like eatin' something that disagrees with you." "An ingenious notion," said the diplomatist, smiling. "And now I'll take my lave," said Billy, rising. "I'm going out to gather some mountain-colchicum and sorrel, to make a diaphoretic infusion ; and I've got to give Master Charles his Greek lesson; and blister the colt, — he's thrown out a bone spavin'; and, after that. Handy Carr's daughter has the shakin' ague, and the smith at the forge is to be bled — all before two o'clock, when ' the lord ' sends for me. But the rest of the day, and the night too, I'm your honor's obaydient." And with a low bow, repeated in a more reverential manner at the door, Billy took his leave and retired. .65 MY FAVORITE BULWER LYTTON One of the most common, yet, when considered, one of the most touching characiteristics of receding life, is in its finer perception of external nature. You will find „ - men who, m youth and middle age, seemmg Perceptions of , ' < . ., . D-' o J scarcely to notice the most striking reatures or some untamiliar landscape, become minutely observant of the rural scenery around them when the eye has grown dim and the step feeble. They will deted: more quickly than the painter the delicate variations made by the lapse of a single day in the tints of autumnal foliage — they will distin- guish, among the reeds by the river-side, murmurs that escape the dreamy ear of the poet. Caxtoniana. The London sparrows, no doubt, if you took them into the forest glens of Hampshire, would enjoy the change very much ; but drop the thrush and linnet of Hamp- _ shire into St. [ames's Square, and they would Sparrows. ^ , •' , ^ r» i r i reel very uneasy at the prospect before them. You might fill all the balconies round with prettier plants than thrush and linnet ever saw in the New Forest, but they would not be thrush and linnet if they built their nests in such coverts. Caxtoniana. The town temperament has this advantage over the rural — a man may by choice fix his home in cities, yet have the most lively enjoyment of the country when he visits ^^' ^lITT"" '^ ^°'" recreation; while the man who, by choice, the Great City. Settles habitually in the country, there deposits his household gods and there moulds his habits of thought to suit the life he has selected, usually feels an adtual distress, an embarrassment, a pain, when from time to i66 BOOK-SHELF time he drops a forlorn stranger on the London pavement. He cannot readily brace his mind to the quick exertions for small objeds that compose the activity of the Londoner. He has no interest in the gossip about persons he does not know; the very weather does not affe(^l him as it does the man who has no crops to care for. When the Londoner says, "What a fine day!" he shakes his head dolefully, and mutters, "Sadly in want f»> ram. Nature has no voice that wounds the self-love; her coldest wind nips no credulous affediion. She alone has the same face in our age as in our youth. The friend with whom we once took sweet counsel we have left Honesty of in the crowd, a stranger — perhaps a foe! The Nature, woman, in whose eyes, some twenty years ago, a paradise seemed to open in the midst of a fallen world, we passed the other day with a frigid bow. She wore rouge and false hair. But those wild flowers under the hedgerow — those sparkles in the happy waters — no friendship has gone from them! their beauty has no simulated freshness — their smile has no fraudulent deceit. Caxtoniana. In connexion with this spiritual process, it is noticeable how intuitively in age we go back with strange fondness to all that is fresh in the earliest dawn of youth. If we never cared for little children before, we „ f^f . J 1- I 1 11-1 1-1 uelt^nts tn delight to see them roll m the grass over which Youthful Scenes. we hobble on crutches. The grandsire turns wearily from his middle-aged care-worn son to listen with infant laugh to the prattle of an infant grandchild. It is the old who plant young trees; it is the old who are most saddened by the autumn and feel most delight in the returning spring. Caxtoniana. It is amusing to read the ingenious hypotheses framed by critics who were not themselves poets, in order to trace in 67 MY FAVORITE Shakespeare's writings the footprints of his bodily life. I have seen it inferred as proof positive, from the description of the samphire-gatherer, that Shakespeare must have The Clairvoyance stood on the cliffs of Dover. I have followed of Genius. the indudions of an argument intended to show, from the fidelity of his colourings of Italian scenery, that Shakespeare must have travelled into Italy. His use of legal technicalities has been cited as a satisfactory evidence that he had been an attorney's clerk; his nice percep- tion of morbid anatomy has enrolled him among the sons of i^sculapius as a medical student; and from his general tendency to philosophical speculation it has been seriously maintained that Shakespeare was not Shakespeare at all. So fine a philoso- pher could not have been a vagabond stage player; he must have been the prince of professed philosophers — the Lord Chancellor of Nature — Bacon himself, and no other. But does it not occur to such discriminating observers, that Shakespeare's knowledge is no less accurate when applied to forms of life and periods of the world, into which his personal experience could not possibly have given him an insight, than it was when applied to the description of Dover cliff, or couched in a metaphor bor- rowed from the law courts? Possibly he might have seen with his own bodily eyes the samphire-gatherer hanging between earth and sky; but with his own bodily eyes had he seen Brutus in his tent on the fatal eve of Philippi? Possibly he might have scrawled out a deed of conveyance to John Doe; but had he any hand in Caesar's will, or was he consulted by Mark Antony as to the forensic use to which that will could be applied in obtaining from a Roman jury a verdidt against the liberties of Rome? To account for Shakespeare's lucidity in things done on earth before Dover Cliff had been seen by the earliest Saxon immigrant, there is but one supposition agreeable to the theory that Shakespeare must have seen Dover Cliff with his own bodily eyes because he describes it so well: Shakespeare must have been, not Lord Bacon, but Pythagoras, who lived as Kuphorbus in the times of the Trojan war, and who, under l68 BOOK-SHELF some name or other (why not in that of Shakespeare?) might therefore have been Hving in the reign of EHzabeth, linking in one individual memory the annals of perished states and extin- guished races. But then it may be said that "Shakespeare is an exception to all normal mortality ; no rule applicable to inferior genius can be drawn from the specialty of that enigmatical monster." This assertion would not be corredl. Shakespeare is indeed the peerless prince of clairvoyants — " Nee viget quidquam simile aut secundum." But the scale of honour descends down- ward, and down, not only through the Dii Majores of Genius, but to many an earthborn Curius and Camillus. The gift of seeing through other organs than the eyes is more or less accurately shared by all in whom imagination is strongly concentered upon any selected objedt, however distant and apart from the positive The Clairvoyance experience of material senses. Certainly if there °f Genius. were any creature in the world whom a quiet, prim, respectable printer could never have come across in the flesh and the blood, it would be a daring magnificent libertine — a roue of fashion the most exquisitely urbane — a prodigal of wit the most riotously lavish. It was only through clairvoyance that a Richardson could ever have beheld a Lovelace. But Richardson does not only behold Lovelace, he analyses and dis- sedls him — minutes every impulse in that lawless heart, unravels every web in that wily brain. The refiners on Shakespeare who would interpret his life from his writings, and reduce his clair- voyance into commonplace reminiscence, would, by the same process of logic, prove Richardson to have been the confidential valet of Wilmot Lord Rochester; or, at least in some time of his life, to have been a knavish attorney in the Old Bailey of love. Nothing is more frequent among novelists, even third- rate and fourth-rate, than "to see through other organs than their eyes." Clairvoyance is the badge of all their tribe. They can describe scenes they have never witnessed more faithfully than the native who has lived amid those scenes from his cradle. 169 MY FAVORITE Not unfrequently we find the world according high position to some man in whom we recognize no merits commensurate with that superiority which we are called upon The Mastery of to confess; no just claims to unwonted defer- Mediocrity. ence, whether in majestic genius or heroic virtue; no titles even to that conventional homage which civilized societies have agreed to render to patrician ancestry or to plebeian wealth. The moral chara6ter, the mental attributes, of this Superior Man, adorned by no pomp of heraldic blazonry, no profusion of costly gilding, seem to us passably mediocre; yet mediocrity, so wont to be envious, acknowledges his emi- nence, and sets him up as an authority. He is considered more safe than genius; more prad:ical than virtue. Princes, orators, authors, yield to his mysterious ascend- ancy. He imposes himself on gods and men, quiet and inex- orable as the Necessity of the Greek poets. Why or wherefore the Olympians should take for granted his right to the place he assumes, we know not, we humbler mortals; but we yield, where they yield, — idle to contend against Necessity. Yet there is a cause for every effed:; and a cause there must be for the superiority of this Superior Man, in whom there is nothing astonishing except his success. Caxtoniana. Easy to keep out of debt! Certainly not. Nothing in life worth an effort is easy. Do you exped to know the first six books of Euclid by inspiration? Whatever The Difficulty ^^ culture on earth, till we win back our way of Keeping Out • T^ 11 . c of Debt ^^^^ Eden, we must earn by the sweat or our brow or the sweat of our brain. Not even the Sybarite was at ease on his rosebed — even for him some labour was needful. No hand save his own could uncrumple the rose- leaf that chafed him. Each objedt under the sun refleds a diffi- culty on the earth. " Every hair," says that exquisite Publius Syrus, whose fragments of old verse are worth libraries of modern comedies — "every hair casts its shadow." I 70 BOOK-SHELF But think, O young man ! of the obje6t I place before you, and then be ashamed of yourself if you still sigh, "Easy to preach, and not easy to pradise." I have no in- terest in the preaching; your interest is immense ^ ' '■r'^"^ in the practise. That obje(^l not won, your of Debt. heart has no peace, and your hearth no security. Your conscience itself leaves a door open night and day to the tempter; — night and day, to the ear of a debtor, steal whispers that prompt to the deeds of a felon. Three years ago you admired the rising success of some — most respectable man. Where is he now? In the dock, in the jail, in the hulks? What! that opulent banker, whose plate dazzled princes! or that flourishing clerk, who drove the high-stepping horse to his office? The same. And his crime? Fraud and swindling. What demon could urge so respedlable a man to so shameful an adt? I know not the name of the demon, but the cause of the crime the wretch tells you himself. Ask him : what is his answer? " I got into debt, — no way to get out of it but the way which I took — to the dock, to the jail, to the hulks !" Easy to keep out of debt ! No, my young friend, it is difficult. Are you rich ? The bland tradesman cries, " Pay when you please." Your rents or your father's allowance will not be due for three months ; your purse, in the meanwhile, cannot afford you some pleasant vice or some innocent luxury, which to young heirs seems a want; you are about to relinquish the vice or dispense with the luxury; a charming acquaintance, who lives no one knows how, though no one lives better, introduces an amiable creature, sleek as a cat, with paws of velvet hiding claws of steel; his manners are pleasing, his calling — usury. You want the money for three months. Why say three? Your name to a bill for six months, and the vice or the luxury is yours the next hour! Certainly the easy thing here is to put your name to the bill. Presto! you are in debt — the demon has you down in his books. Are you poor? Still your charafter is yet without stain — and your character is a property on which you can borrow a trifle. But when you borrow on your charader, ^7 MY FAVORITE it is your charad:er that you leave in pawn. The property to you is priceless, and the loan that subjedls it to be a pledge unredeemed is — a trifle. Caxtoniana. The man who succeeds above his fellows is the one who, early in life, clearly discerns his objed:, and towards that object habitually diredls his powers. Thus, indeed, even ^ . genius itself is but fine observation strengthened by fixity of purpose. Every man who observes vigilantly and resolves steadfastly grows uncon- sciously into genius. Caxtoniana. Keep to the calling that assures you a something out of which you may extra(i:t independence — until you are independ- ent. Give to that calling all your heart, all your , mind. If I were hatter, or tailor, or butcher, or baker, I should resolve to consider my call- ing the best in the world, and devote to it the best of my powers. Independence once won, then be Byron or Scott if you can. Independence! Independence! the right and the power to follow the bent of your genius without fear of the bailiff and dun should be your first inflexible aim. To attain independence, so apportion your expenditure as to spend less than you have or you earn. Make this rule imperative. I know of none better. Lay by something every year, if it be but a shilling. A shilling laid by, net and clear from a debt, is a receipt in full for all claims in the past, and you go on with light foot and light heart to the future. " H ow am I to save and lay by ? " saith the author, or any other man of wants more large than his means. The answer is obvious — " If you cannot increase your means, then you must diminish your wants." Every skilled labourer of fair repute can earn enough not to starve, and a surplus beyond that bare suffi- ciency. Yet many a skilled labourer suffers more from positive privation than the unskilled rural peasant. Why? Because he encourages wants in excess of his means. Caxtoniana. 172 BOOK-SHELF Whatever you lend, let it be your money, and not your name. Money you may get again, and, if not, you may con- trive to do without it; name once lost you cannot get again, and, if you can contrive to do without it, you had better never have been born. Caxtoniana. Mark the emphatic distinction between poverty and needi- ness. Poverty is relative, and therefore not ignoble ; neediness is a positive degradation. If I have only ^^loo a year, I am rich as compared with the majority Relative of my countrymen. If 1 have ^^5,000 a year. Affluence. I may be poor compared with the majority of my associates; and very poor compared to my next door neighbour. With either of these incomes I am relatively poor or rich; but with either of these incomes I may be positively needy, or positively free from neediness. With the ^^loo a year I may need no man's help; I may at least have "my crust of bread and liberty." But with ^^5,000 a year I may dread a ring at my bell; I may have my tyrannical masters in servants whose wages I cannot pay; my exile may be at the fiat of the first long-suffering man who enters a judgment against me; for the flesh that lies nearest to my heart some Shylock may be dusting his scales and whetting his knife. Nor is this an exag- geration. Some of the neediest men I ever knew have a nom- inal ^5,000 a year. Every man is needy who spends more than he has; no man is needy who spends less. I may so ill manage my money that, with ^5,000 a year, I purchase the worst evils of poverty — terror and shame; I may so well manage my money that, with ^100 a year, I purchase the best blessings of wealth — safety and resped;. Man is a kingly animal. In every state which does not enslave him, it is not labour which makes himjlessjroyally lord of himself — it is fear. Caxtoniana. How helpless is an old man who has not a farthing to give or to leave! But be moderately amiable, grateful and kind, and. MY FAVORITE though you have neither wife nor child, you will never want a wife's tenderness nor a child's obedience if you have something to leave or give. This reads like satire; it is sober truth. Caxtoniana. Talk of the power of knowledge! What can knowledge invent that money cannot purchase? Money, it is true, cannot give you the brain of the philosopher, the eye of The Power of the painter, the ear of the musician, nor that Money. inner sixth sense of beauty and truth by which the poet unites in himself, philosopher, painter, musician; but money can refine and exalt your existence with all that philosopher, painter, musician, poet, accomplish. That which they are your wealth cannot make you; but that which they do is at the command of your wealth. You may colled: in your libraries all thoughts which all thinkers have confided to books; your galleries may teem with the treasures of art; the air that you breathe may be vocal with music; better than all when you summon the graces they can come to your call in their sweet name of Charities. You can build up asylums for age, and academies for youth. Pining Merit may spring to hope at your voice, and " Poverty grow cheerful in your sight." Money well managed deserves indeed the apotheosis to which she was raised by her Latin adorers; she is Diva Moneta — a Goddess. Caxtoniana. It is a great motive to economy, a strong safeguard to con- du(5l, and a wonderful stimulant to all mental power, if you can associate your toil for money with some end dear to your affedtions. Caxtoniana. Better to have one first-rate pi6ture in a modest drawing- room than fifty daubs in a pompous gallery. Better to have one handsome horse in a brougham than four screws in a drag. Better to give one pleasant tea-party than a dozen detestable dinners. Caxtoniana. ^74 BOOK-SHELF A man of very moderate means can generally afford one cfFed: meant for show, as a requisite of station, which, of its kind, may not be surpassed by a millionaire. Those who set the fashions in London are never ^ , rr the richest people, (jood taste is intuitive with some persons, but it may be acquired by all who are observant. In matters of show, good taste is the elementary necessity; after good taste, concentration of purpose. With money as with genius, the wise master of his art says, "There is one thing I can do well; that one thing I will do as well as I can." Money, like genius, is effective in proportion as it is brought to bear on one thing at a time. Money, like genius, may comprehend success in a hundred things — but still, as a rule, one thing at a time; that thing must be completed or relin- quished before you turn to another. Mere dandies are but cut flowers in a bouquet — once faded they can never reblossom. In the drawing-room, as everywhere else. Mind in the long run prevails. And O well-booted Achaian ! for all those substantial ^. . , , J , . , . , ,, , Time 15 Money. good things which money well managed com- mands, and which, year after year as you advance in life, you will covet and sigh for, — yon sloven, thick-shoed and with cravat awry, whose mind, as he hurries by the bow- window at White's, sows each fleeting moment with thoughts which grow not blossoms for bouquets but corn-sheaves for garners — will, before he is forty, be far more the fashion than you. He is commanding the time out of which you are fading. And time, O my friend, is money! time wasted can never con- duce to money well managed. Caxtoniana. Repose is not always possible. The patient cannot stop in the midst of his career — in the thick of his schemes. Or, supposing that he rush ofi^ to snatch a nominal holiday from toil, he cannot leave Thought behind him. Thought, like Care, mounts the steed and climbs the bark. ^7S MY FAVORITE A brain habitually aftive will not be ordered to rest. It is not like the inanimate glebe of a farm, which, when exhausted, you restore by the simple precept, " Let it lie The Ever-Bus\ fallow." A mind once cultivated will not lie Brain. fallow for half an hour. If a patient, habitu- ated to reflection, has nothing else to meditate, his intelled and fancy will muse exclusively over his own ail- ments; — muse over a finger-ache, and engender a gangrene. What, then, should be done? Change the occupation, vary the culture, call new organs into play; restore the equilibrium deranged in overweighting one scale by weights thrown into another. To sail round the world, you must put in at many har- bours, if not for rest, at least for supplies. We are not sent here to do merely some one thing, which we can scarcely suppose that we shall be required to do again, when, crossing the Styx, we find ourselves in f^ry eternity. Whether I am a painter, a sculptor, a Trade. poet, a romance-writer, an essayist, a politician, a lawyer, a merchant, a hatter, a tailor, a me- chanic at factory or loom, it is certainly much for me in this life to do the thing I profess to do as well as I can. But when I have done that, and that thing alone, nothing more, where is my profit in the life to come? I do not believe that I shall be asked to paint pictures, carve statues, write odes, trade at Exchange, make hats or coats, or manufacture pins and cotton prints, when I am in the Kmpyrean. Whether I be the grandest genius on earth in a single thing, and that single thing earthy — or the poor peasant who, behind his plough, whistles for want of thought, — I strongly suspeCt it will be all one when I pass to the Competitive Examination — yonder! On the other side of the grave a Raffaelle's occupation may be gone as well as a ploughman's. This world is a school for the education not of a faculty, but of a man. Just as in the body, if I resolve to be a 176 BOOK-SHELF rower, and only a rower, the chances are that I shall have, indeed, strong arms, but weak legs, and be stricken with blind- ness from the glare of the water; so in the mind, if I care but for one exercise, and do not consult the health of the mind alto- gether, I may, like George Morland, be a wonderful painter of pigs and pig-sties, but in all else, as a human being, be below contempt — an ignoramus and a drunkard! We men are not fragments — we are wholes; we are not types of single quali- ties — we are realities of mixed, various, countless combinations. In fine, whatever the calling, let men only cultivate that calling, and they are as narrow-minded as the Chinese when they place on the map of the world the Celestial Empire, with all its Tartaric villages in full Stultified detail, and out of that limit make dots and lines. Singleness. with the superscription, " Deserts unknown, inhabited by barbarians!" Every man of sound brain whom you meet knows some- thing worth knowing better than yourself. It is a wondrous advantage to a man, in every pursuit or avocation, to secure an adviser in a sensible woman. In woman there is at once a subtle delicacy of ta6t, and a plain soundness of judgment, which are rarely A Female combined to an equal degree in man. A woman. Mentor. if she be really your friend, will have a sensitive regard for your character, honour, repute. She will seldom counsel you to do a shabby thing, for a woman-friend always desires to be proud of you. At the same time, her constitu- tional timidity makes her more cautious than your male friend. She, therefore, seldom counsels you to do an imprudent thing. By female friendships I mean pure friendships — those in which there is no admixture of the passion of love, except in the mar- ried state. A man's best female friend is a wife of good sense and good heart, whom he loves, and who loves him. If he have 177 MY FAVORITE that, he need not seek elsewhere. But supposing the man to be without such a helpmate, female friendships he must still have, or his intellect will be without a garden, and there will be many an unheeded gap even in its strongest fence. Better and safer, ot course, such friendships where disparities of years or circum- stances put the idea of love out of the question. Middle life has rarely this advantage; youth and old age have. We may have female friendships with those much older, and those much younger than ourselves. Moliere's old housekeeper was a great help to his genius; and Montaigne's philosophy takes both a gentler and a loftier character of wisdom from the date in which he finds, in Marie de Gournay, an adopted daughter, "certainly beloved by me," says the Horace of essayists, "with more than paternal love, and involved in my solitude and retirement, as one of the best parts of my being." Female friendship, indeed, is to man '•'■pr^esidium et dulce decus'' — the bulwark and sweet ornament of his existence. To his mental culture it is invalu- able; without it all his knowledge of books will never give him knowledge of the world. Chance happens to all, but to turn chance to account is the gift of few. Cures that baffle science are effefted by imagination. The best education is that which wakes up the mind to educate itself. Caxtoniana. All men who do something tolerably well, do it better if their energies are cheered on. And if they are doing something for you, your praise brings you back a very The Power of good interest. Some men, indeed, can do noth- Praise. jng good without being braced by encourage- ment — it is true, that is a vanity in them. But we must be very vain ourselves if the vanity of another seriously irritates our own. l^he humours of men are, after all, subjects more of comedy than of solemn rebuke. And vanity is a very .78 BOOK-SHELF useful humour on the stage of life. It was the habit of Sir Godfrey Kneller to say to his sitter, " Praise me, sir, praise me : how can I throw any animation into your face if you don't choose to animate me?" And laughable as the painter's desire for approbation might be, so bluntly expressed, I have no doubt that the sitter who took the hint got a much better portrait for his pains. Every ad:or knows how a cold house chills him, and how necessary to the full sustainment of a great part is the thunder of applause. I have heard that when the late Mr. Kean was performing in some city of the United States, he came to the manager at the end of the third ad: and said, " I can't go on the stage again, sir, if the Pit keeps its hands in its pockets. Such an audience would extinguish iEtna." And the story saith that the manager made his appearance on the stage, and assured the audience that Mr. Kean, having been accus- tomed to audiences more demonstrative than was habitual to the severer intelligence of an assembly of American citizens, mistook their silent attention for disapprobation; and, in short, that if they did not applaud as Mr. Kean had been accustomed to be applauded, they could not have the gratification of seeing Mr. Kean a6t as he had been accustomed to ad:. Of course the audience — though, no doubt, with an elated sneer at the Britisher's vanity — were too much interested in giving him fair play to withhold any longer the loud demonstration of their pleasure when he did something to please them. As the fervour of the audience rose, so rose the genius of the a6tor, and the contagion of their own applause redoubled their enjoyment of the excellence it contributed to create. A hasty temper is an infirmity disagreeable to others, undig- nified in ourselves — a fault so well known to every man who has it, that he will at once acknowledge it to be a fault which he ought to corred:. In social intercourse, if his charader be generous and his heart sound, a man does not often lose a true friend from a quick word. 179 MY FAVORITE Richelieu did not command his temper in the sphere of his private household : he commanded it to perfedion in his ^ administration of a kingdom. The life of no "^D a" ^ subjed, and the success of no scheme, depended Temperament. °" ^^^ chance whether the irritable minister was in good or bad humour. When asked on his deathbed if he forgave his enemies, he replied, conscientiously ignorant of his many offences against the brotherhood between man and man, " I owe no forgiveness to enemies; I never had any except those of the state." Nor is it our favourite vices alone that lead us into danger — noble natures are as liable to be led astray by their favourite virtues. Men of really great capacities for pradical business will generally be found to indulge in a prediledion for works of fancy. 180 BOOK-SHELF MACAU LAY. The following letters are given not only as a specimen of fine epistolary correspondence in one so young, from thirteen to twenty years of age, but to show, that most lovely of all charaderistics, filial affedion: — Shelford, February 22, 18 13. My Dear Papa: — As this is a whole holiday, I cannot find a better time for answering your letter. With resped: to my health, I am very well, and tolerably cheerful, as Blundell, the best and most clever of all the scholars, is very Juvenile kind, and talks to me, and takes my part. He Correspondence. is quite a friend of Mr. Preston's. The other boys, especially Lyon, a Scotch boy, and Wilberforce, are very good natured, and we might have gone on very well, had not one , a Bristol fellow, come here. He is unanimously allowed to be a queer fellow, and is generally charadlerized as a foolish boy, and by most of us as an ill-natured one. In my learning I do Xenophon every day, and twice a week the "Odyssey," in which I am classed with Wilberforce, whom all the boys allow to be very clever, very droll, and very impudent. We do Latin verses twice a week, and I have not yet been laughed at, as Wilberforce is the only one who hears them, being in my class. We are exercised also once a week in Eng- lish composition, and once in Latin composition, and letters of persons renowned in history to each other. We get by heart Greek grammar or Virgil every evening. As for sermon-writ- ing, I have hitherto got off with credit, and I hope I shall keep up my reputation. We have had the first meeting of our debat- ing society the other day, when a vote of censure was moved for upon Wilberforce; but he, getting up, said, "Mr. President, I 181 MY FAVORITE ^<^w.... V ri / \ n ^"-ai- .. .y If I /o\ 111 ^v,»;^ ..>' in / \ 111 ^-" i^ beg to second the motion." By this means he escaped. The kindness which Mr. Preston shows me is very great. He always assists me in what I cannot do, and takes me to walk out with him every now and then. My room is a delightful, snug little chamber, which nobody can enter, as there is a trick about open- ing the door. I sit, like a king, with my writing-desk before me; for (would you believe it?) there is a writing-desk in my chest of drawers; my books on one side, my box of papers on the other, with my arm-chair and my candle; for every boy has a candlestick, snuffers, and extinguisher of his own. Being pressed for room, 1 will conclude what I have to say tomorrow, and ever remain your affediionate son, Thomas B. Macaulay. Shelford, April 20, 18 13. My Dear Mama: — Pursuant to my promise, I resume my pen to write to you with the greatest pleasure. Since I wrote to you yesterday, I have enjoyed myself more than I have ever done His Early since I came to Shelford. Mr. Hodson called Reading. about twelve o'clock yesterday morning with a pony for me, and took me with him to Cam- bridge. How surprised and delighted was 1 to learn that I was to take a bed at Queen's College in Dean Milner's apartments! Wilberforce arrived soon after, and I spent the day very agree- ably, the dean amusing me with the greatest kindness. I slept there and came home on horseback to-day just in time for dinner. The dean has invited me to come again, and Mr. Pres- ton has given his consent. Ihe books which I am at present employed in reading to myself are, in Knglish, " Plutarch's J.ives," and Milner's " Ecclesiastical History"; in French, Fenelon's " Dialogues of the Dead." I shall send you back the volumes of Madame de Genlis's/)(?//7j romans as soon as possible, and I should be very much obliged for one or two more of them. Everything now seems to feel the influence of spring. The trees are all out. The lilacs are in bloom. The days are long, 182 BOOK-SHELF and I feel that I should be happy were It not that I want home. Even yesterday, when I felt more real satisfaftion than I have done for almost three months, I could not help feeling a sort of uneasiness, which indeed I have always felt more or less since I have been here, and which is the only thing that hinders me from being perfe6tly happy. This day two months will put a period to my uneasiness. "Fly fast the hours, and dawn th' expefled morn," Every night when I lie down I refled that another day is cut off from the tiresome time of absence. Your affectionate son, Thomas B. Macaulay. In the course of the year 1814 Mr. Preston removed his establishment to Aspenden Hall, near Buntingford, in Hertford- shire, a large old-fashioned mansion, standing amidst extensive shrubberies and a pleasant, un- Removal to dulating domain, sprinkled with fine timber. Aipenden Hall. The house has been rebuilt within the last twenty years, and nothing remains of it except the dark oak paneling of the hall in which the scholars made their recitations on the annual speech-day. The very pretty church, which stands hard by within the grounds, was undergoing restoration in 1873 ; and by this time the only existing portion of the former internal fittings is the family pew, in which the boys sat on drowsy summer afternoons, doing what they could to keep their impressions of the second sermon distindt from their reminis- cences of the morning. Here Macaulay spent four most indus- trious years, doing less and less in the class-room as time went on, but enjoying the rare advantage of studying Greek and Latin by the side of such a scholar as Maiden. The two com- panions were equally matched in age and classical attainments, and at the university maintained a rivalry so generous as hardly to deserve the name. Each of the pupils had his own cham- ber, which the others were forbidden to enter under the penalty • 83 MY FAVORITE of a shilling fine. This prohibition was in general not very stridly observed, but the tutor had taken the precaution of placing Macaulay in the room next his own: a proximity which rendered the position of an intruder so exceptionally dangerous that even Maiden could not remember having once passed his friend's threshold during the whole of their stay at Aspenden. In this seclusion, removed from the delight of family inter- course (the only attraction strong enough to draw him from his His Unerring boolcs) the boy read widely, unceasingly, more Memory and Capac- than rapidly. The secret of his immense acquire- ityfor i^ick ments lay in two invaluable gifts of nature: an Reading. unerring memory, and the capacity for taking in at a glance the contents of a printed page. During the first part of his life he remembered whatever caught his fancy, without going through the process of consciously getting it by heart. As a child, during one of the numerous seasons when the social duties devolved upon Mr. Macaulay, he accompanied his father on an afternoon call, and found on a table the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," which he had never before met with. He kept himself quiet with his prize while the elders were talking, and on his return home sat down upon his mother's bed, and repeated to her as many cantos as she had the patience or the strength to listen to. At one period of his life he was known to say that, that if by some miracle of vandalism all copies of "Paradise Lost" and "The Pilgrim's Progress" were de- stroyed off the face of the earth, he would undertake to reproduce them both from recollection whenever a revival of learning came. In 1813, while waiting in a Cambridge coffee-room for a post- chaise which was to take him to his school, he picked up a country newspaper containing two such specimens of provincial poetical talent as in those days might be read in the corner of any weekly journal. One piece was headed " Reflections of an Kxile," while the other was a trumpery parody on the Welsh ballad "Ar hyd y nos," referring to some local anecdote of an hostler whose nose had been bitten off by a filly. He looked them once through, and never gave them a thought for forty 184 BOOK-SHELF T^ t?) years, at the end of which time he repeated them both without missing, or, as far as he knew, changing a single word. As he grew older, this wonderful power became impaired so far that getting by rote the compositions of others was no longer an involuntary process. He has noted in his Lucan the several occasions on which he committed to memory his favorite pas- sages of an author whom he regarded as unrivaled among rhetoricians, and the dates refer to the year 1836, when he had just turned the middle point of life. During his last years, at his dressing-table in the morning, he would learn by heart one of the little idyls in which Martial expatiates on the enjoyments of a Spanish country-house or a villa-farm in the environs of Rome — those delicious morsels of verse which (considering the sense that modern ideas attach to the name) it is an injustice to class under the head of epigrams. Macaulay's extraordinary faculty of assimilating printed matter at first sight remained the same through life. To the end he read books faster than other people ///^ Faculty for skimmed them, and skimmed them as fast as Assimilating any one else could turn the leaves. " He Printed Matter at seemed to read through the skin," said one who ^^^^* Sight. had often watched the operation. And this speed was not in his case obtained at the expense of accuracy. Anything which had once appeared in type, from the highest effort of genius down to the most detestable trash that ever consumed ink and paper manufadured for better things, had in his eyes an authority which led him to look upon misquotation as a species of minor sacrilege. With these endowments, sharpened by an insatiable curi- osity, from his fourteenth year onward he was permitted to roam almost at will over the whole expanse of literature. He composed little beyond his school exercises, which themselves bear signs of having been written in a perfundory manner. At this period he had evidently no heart in anything but his reading. 185 MY FAVORITE AsPENDEN Hall, August 23, 181 5. My Dear Mama: — You perceive already in so large a sheet and so small a hand the promise of a long, a very long letter; longer, as I intend it, than all the letters which you send in a half-year together. I have again begun my life of sterile monotony, unvarying labor, the dull return of dull exercises in dull uni- formity of tediousness. But do not think that I complain. My mind to me a kingdom is. Such perfeft joy therein I find As doth exceed all other bliss That God or nature hath assigned. Assure yourself that I am philosopher enough to be happy, I meant to say not particularly unhappy, in solitude; but man is an animal made for society. I was gifted with Fhiloiopher reason, not to speculate in Aspenden Park, but Enough to be . , t , . , ^ , Happs ^^ mterchange ideas with some person who can understand me. This is what 1 miss at Aspen- den. There are several here who possess both taste and read- ing, who can criticise Lord Byron and Southey with much ta(5t and "savoir du metier." But here it is not the fashion to think. Hear what I have read since I came here. Hear and wonder! 1 have in the first place read Boccaccio's "Decam- eron," a tale of an hundred cantos. He is a wonderful writer. Whether he tells in humorous or familiar strains the follies of the silly Calandrino, or the witty pranks of Buffalmacco and Bruno, or sings in loftier numbers Dames, knights, and arms, and love, the feats that spring From courteous minds and generous faith, or lashes with a noble severity and fearless independence the vices of the monks and the priestcraft of the established reli- gion, he is always elegant, amusing, and, what pleases and sur- prises most in a writer of so unpolished an age, strikingly delicate and chastised. I prefer him infinitely to Chaucer. If you wish for a good specimen of Boccaccio, as soon as you have 186 BOOK-SHELF finished my letter (which will come, I suppose, by dinner-time) send Jane up to the library for Dryden's " Poems," and you will find among them several translations from Boccaccio, partic- ularly one entitled "Theodore and Honoria." But truly admirable as the bard of Florence is, I must not permit myself to give him more than his due share of my letter. I have likewise read " Gil Bias," with unbounded admiration of the abilities of Le A Fortnight^ Sage. Maiden and 1 have read "Thalaba" Reading. together, and are proceeding to the " Curse of Kehama." Do not think, however, that I am negled:ing more important studies than either Southey or Boccaccio. 1 have read the greater part of the "History of James I" and Mrs. Montague's essay on Shakespeare, and a great deal of Gibbon. I never devoured so many books in a fortnight. John Smith, Bob Hankinson, and I, went over the "Hebrew Melodies" together. I certainly think far better of them than we used to do at Clapham. Papa may laugh, and indeed he did laugh me out of my taste at Clapham ; but I think that there is a great deal of beauty in the first melody, "She walks in beauty," though indeed who it is that walks in beauty is not very exactly defined. My next letter shall contain a production of my muse entitled "An Inscription for the Column of Waterloo," which is to be shown to Mr. Preston to-morrow. What he may think of it I do not know. But I am like my favorite Cicero about my own productions. It is all one to me what others think of them. I never like them a bit less for being disliked by the rest of mankind. Mr. Preston has desired me to bring him up this evening two or three subjedis for a declamation. Those which 1 have selected are as follows: ist, a speech in the char- ad:er of Lord Coningsby impeaching the Earl of Oxford; 2nd, an essay on the utiHty of standing armies; 3rd, an essay on the policy of Great Britain with regard to Continental possessions. I conclude with sending my love to papa, Selina, Jane, John ("but he is not there," as Fingal pathetically says when in enu- merating his sons who should accompany him to the chase he 187 MY FAVORITE inadvertently mentions the dead Ryno), Henry, Fanny, Hannah, Margaret, and Charles. Valete, T. B. Macaulay. Cambridge, January 5, 1820. My Dear Father: — Nothing that gives you disquietude can give me amuse- ment. Otherwise 1 should have been excessively diverted by Resents His ^^^ dialogue which you have reported with so Father' s Accusation much vivacity ; the accusation; the predidlions; of Being a and the elegant agnomen of "the novel-reader" '' ^ovel-Readerr f^j. ^hj^h I am indebted to this incognito. I went in some amazement to Maiden, Romilly, and Barlow. Their acquaintance comprehends, I will venture to say, almost every man worth knowing in the university in every field of study. They had never heard the appellation applied to me by any man. Their intimacy with me would of course prevent any person from speaking to them on the subjed in an insulting manner; for it is not usual here, whatever your unknown informant may do, for a gentleman who does not wish to be kicked down-stairs to reply to a man who mentions another as his particular friend, " Do you mean the blackguard or the novel-reader?" But I am fully convinced that, had the charge prevailed to any extent, it must have reached the ears of one of those whom I interrogated. At all events I have the consola- tion of not being thought a novel-reader by three or four who are entitled to judge upon the subje6t; and whether their opinion be of equal value with that of this John-a-Nokes against whom I have to plead, I leave you to decide. But stronger evidence, it seems, is behind. This gentleman was in company with me. Alas that I should never have found out how accurate an observer was measuring »/" / • / my sentiments, numbering the novels which I Are Mathematical / . . , , . ° i i •,• c Blocks criticised, and speculating on the probability or my being plucked. " I was familiar with all the novels whose names he had ever heard." If so frightful an 188 BOOK-SHELF accusation did not stun me at once, I might perhaps hint at the possibility that this was to be attributed almost as much to the narrowness of his reading on this subje It Read Aloud, ^ever ventured on this experiment in the pres- ence of any except his own family and his friend Mr. Ellis, it may well be believed that, even within that restrifted circle, he had no difficulty in finding hearers. "October 25, 1849. ^7 birthday. Forty-nine years old. I have no cause of complaint. Tolerable health; competence; liberty; leisure; very dear relations and friends; a great, I may say a very great, literary reputation. ** Nil amplius oro. Mail nate, nisi ut propria haec mihi munera faxis. (My only prayer is, O son of Maia, that thou wilt make these blessings my own!) But how will that be? My fortune is tolerably secure against anything but a great public calamity. 194 BOOK-SHELF My liberty depends on myself, and I shall not easily part with it. As to fame, it may fade and die; but I hope that mine has deeper roots. This I cannot but perceive, that even the hasty and imperfed articles which 1 Applame and r 1 7- /• ; 1 r, ■ 1 11 Apprectation of wrote ror the Edinburgh Review are valued by a ^^^ PForld. generation which has sprung up since they were first published. While two editions of Jeffrey's papers, and four of Sydney's, have sold, mine are reprinting for the seventh time. Then, as to my ' History,' there is no change yet in the public feeling of England. I find that the United States, France, and Germany confirm the judgment of my own country. I have seen not less than six German reviews, all in the highest degree laudatory. This is a sufficient answer to those detradors who attribute the success of my book here to the skill with which I have addressed myself to mere local and temporary feelings. I am conscious that I did not mean to address myself to such feelings, and that I wrote with a remote past, and a remote future, constantly in my mind. The applause of people at Charleston, people at Heidelberg, and people at Paris has reached me this very week; and this consent of men so differ- ently situated leads me to hope that I have really achieved the high adventure which I undertook, and produced something which will live. What a long rigmarole! But on a birthday a man may be excused for looking backward and forward." On the last day of February, 1856, Macaulay writes in his journal: " Longman called. It is necessary to reprint. This is wonderful. Twenty-six thousand five hundred copies sold in ten weeks! I should not wonder if I made twenty thousand pounds clear this year by literature. Pretty well, considering that, twenty-two years ago, I had just nothing when my debts were paid; and all that I have, with the exception of a small part left me by my uncle, the general, has been made by myself, and made easily and honestly, by pursuits which were a pleasure to me, and without one insinuation from any slanderer that I was not even liberal in all my pecuniary dealings." MY FAVORITE March 7th. Longman came, with a very pleasant an- nouncement. He and his partners find that they are overflow- ing with money, and think that they cannot ^r^// ay Jnvest it better than by advancing to me, on the Thousand Pounds, "sual terms, of course, part of what will be due to me in December. We agreed that they shall pay twenty thousand pounds into William's Bank next week. What a sum to be gained by one edition of a book! I may say, gained in one day. But that was harvest day. The work had been near seven years in hand. I went to Westbourne Terrace by a Paddington omnibus, and passed an hour there, laughing and laughed at. They are all much pleased. They have, indeed, as much reason to be pleased as I, who am pleased on their account rather than on my own, though I am glad that my last years will be comfortable. Comfortable, however, I could have been on a sixth part of the income which I shall now have. The wealth which Macaulay gathered prudently he spent royally; if to spend royally is to spend on others rather than yourself. From the time that he began His Great to feel the money in his purse, almost every Liberality. page in his diary contains evidence of his inex- haustible, and sometimes rather carelessly regu- lated, generosity. " Mrs. X applied to me, as she said, and as I believe, without her husband's knowledge, for help in his profession. He is a clergyman; a good one, but too Puri- Judicious Gifts tanical for my taste. I could not promise to ask and Charity. any favors from the Government; but I sent him twenty-five pounds to assist him in sup- porting the orphan daughters of his brother. I mean to let him have the same sum annually." " I have been forced to refuse any further assistance to a Mrs. Y , who has had thirty-five pounds from me in the course of a few months, and whose de- mands come thicker and thicker. I suppose that she will resent my refusal bitterly. That is all that 1 ever got by conferring 196 BOOK-SHELF benefits on any but my own nearest relations and friends." " H called. 1 gave him three guineas for his library sub- scription. I lay out very little money with so much satisfaction. For three guineas a year, I keep a very good, intelligent young fellow out of a great deal of harm, and do him a great deal of good." " 1 suppose," he writes to one of his sisters, " That you told Mrs. Z that I was not angry with her; for to-day I have a letter from her begging for money most vehemently, and saying that, if I am obdurate, her husband must go to prison. I have sent her twenty pounds, making up what she has had from me within a few months to a hundred and thirty pounds. But I have told her that her husband must take the consequences of his own adts, and that she must exped no further assistance from me. This importunity has provoked me not a little." In a contemporary account of Macaulay's last illness it is related that on the morning of Wednesday, the 28th of Decem- ber, he mustered strength to diftate a letter addressed to a poor curate, inclosing twenty-five His Last pounds; after signing which letter he never Illness. wrote his name again. Late in the afternoon of the same day I called at Holly Lodge, intending to propose myself to dinner, an intention which was abandoned as soon as I entered the library. My uncle was sitting, with his head bent forward on his chest, in a languid and drowsy reverie. The first number of the Cornhill Magazine lay unheeded before him, open at the first page of Thackeray's story of " Lovel the Widower." He did not utter a word, except in answer; and the only one of my observations that at this distance of time I can recall suggested to him painful and pathetic refledions, which altogether destroyed his self-command. On hearing my report of his state, my mother resolved to spend the night at Holly Lodge. She had just left the draw- ing-room to make her preparations for the visit (it being, I suppose, a little before seven in the evening), when a servant 197 MY FAVORITE arrived with an urgent summons. As we drove up to the porch of my uncle's house, the maids ran, crying, out into the darkness to meet us, and we knew that all was over. We Hf Died found him in the library, seated in his easy-chair, Without Pain. and dressed as usual; with his book on the table beside him, still open at the same page. He had told his butler that he should go to bed early, as he was very tired. The man proposed his lying on the sofa. He rose as if to move, sat down again, and ceased to breathe. He died as he had always wished to die — without pain; without any formal farewell; preceding to the grave all whom he loved; and leaving behind him a great and honorable name, and the mem- ory of a life every ad;ion of which was as clear and transparent as one of his own sentences. It would be unbecoming in me to dwell upon the regretful astonishment with which the tidings of his death were received wherever the English language is read; and quite unnecessary to describe the enduring grief of those upon whom he had lavished his affedtion, and for whom life had been brightened by daily converse with his genius, and ennobled by familiarity with his lofty and upright example. "We have lost (so my mother wrote) the light of our home, the most ten- der, loving, generous, unselfish, devoted of friends. What he was to me for fifty years how can I tell? What Left a Stainless a world of love he poured out upon me and Reputation. mine! The blank, the void, he has left — fill- ing, as he did, so entirely both heart and intel- le(5t — no one can understand. For who ever knew such a life as mine passed as the cherished companion of such a man?" He was buried in Westminster Abbey, on the 9th of Jan- uary, i860. The pall was borne by the Duke of Argyll, Lord John Russell, Lord Stanhope, Lord Carlisle, Bishop Wilber- force, Sir David Dundas, Sir Henry Holland, Dean Milman, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, the Lord Chancellor, and the Speaker of the House of Commons. "A beautiful sunrise," wrote Lord Carlisle. " The pall-bearers met in the Jerusalem Chamber. The last time I had been there on a like errand was 198 BOOK-SHELF His Funeral. at Canning's funeral. The whole service and ceremony were in the highest degree solemn and impressive. All befitted the man and the occasion." He rests with his peers in Poet's Corner, near the west wall of the south transept. There, amidst the tombs of Johnson, and Garrick, and Handel, and Goldsmith, and Gay, stands conspicuous the statue of Addison ; and at the feet of Addison lies the stone which bears this inscription: — THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY. Born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, October 25, 1800. Died at Holly Lodge, Campden Hill, December 28, 1859. "His body is buried in peace. But his name liveth for evermore." 199 MY FAVORITE WILLIAM MATHEWS. All of the great poets have at some time been accused of being great thieves; but nothing can be more foolish than most of these attempts to rob them of their fame. All of the Poets Every great writer is necessarily indebted Plagiarists. both to his contemporaries and to his predeces- sors. The finest passages in prose and poetry are often but embellished recolledlions of other men's pro- dudiions. Thought and memory, it has been no less finely than justly said, are the Alpheus and the Arethusa of metaphy- sics; commit any material to the latter, and after a long period of forgetfulness, by some subterranean transition, it will appear floating on the surface of the former, as though it had been thrown up from no other sources than those of pure invention. Had Shakespeare, thousand-souled as he was, been confined from childhood to a desert island, could he have written the poorest of his matchless dramas; or could Newton, unaided by the preceding mathematicians, have discovered the law of gravi- tation? What, indeed, is every great poem but a compendium of the imagination of centuries? What the masterpieces of painting, but a combination of the finest lines and the most exquisite touches of earlier and inferior artists, — or the noblest works of statuary, but a blending into one form of angelic beauty of the loveliest features and most graceful lineaments wrought by hands and chisels long ago crumbled into dust? In all ages, the greatest literary geniuses have been the greatest borrowers. Omniverous devourers of books, with memories like hooks of steel, they have not The Celestial scrupled to seize and to turn to account every Thief. good thought they could pick up in their read- ings. Milton, who has been called "the celes- tial thief," boldly plagiarized from Dante and Tasso, and all of 200 BOOK-SHELF them from Homer; and who believes that Homer had no reser- voir of learning to draw from, no mysterious lake of knowledge, into which he could now and then throw a bucket? Goethe laughed the idea of absolute originality to scorn, and declared that it was an author's duty to use all that was suggested to him from any quarter. "What is a great man," asks Emerson, "but one of great affinities, who takes up into himself all arts, sciences, all knowables, as his food? Every book is a quota- tion; and every house is a quotation out of all forests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors." There are some minds, and those, too, really produ6tive, that require the provocation of more suggestive and stimulating ones to make them Everything is work. They need the fertilizing pollen of other ^ Rotation. men's thoughts to make them produdlive. To attrad every available thing to itself is a natural charadleristic of the magnetic ardor genius. All these great poets had enormous powers of assimila- tion; and it is evident to every scholar who reads their works, that the metal in which they wrought was not dug newly from the earth, but, like the Corin- Literary thian brass of the ancients, was melted up from Thieves. the spoils of a city. Occasional accidental coin- cidences of thought and expression will not detract from a writer's just fame. It is only the habitual and conscious thief, the man who lives by plunder, and who thus shows himself to be both weak and wicked, that merits the pillory. Literal, bald borrowing, whether of the plan or treatment — the sub- stance to form, the thoughts or expressions, of a work, is abso- lutely indefensible; but he is not a thief who borrows the ideas of a hundred other men and repays them with compound inter- est. It is one thing to purloin finely tempered steel, and another to take a pound of literary old iron, and convert it in the furnace of one's mind into a hundred watch-springs, worth each a thousand times as much as the iron. When Genius borrows, it borrows grandly, giving to the borrowed matter a 20I MY FAVORITE life and beauty it lacked before. When Shakespeare is accused of pilfering, Landor replies: "Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies, and brought them into life." It has been said of Pope that, whatever jewel he appropriated, he set it in gold. Perhaps the best definition of legitimate appropriation was given by Hegel, when Cousin was accused of stealing his ideas. " Cousin," said he, " has caught some small fishes in my pond, but he has drowned them in his own sauce." This was quite different from the case of a patchwork essay read by a Mr. Fish, of which an old lady com- plained that it was "so full of pollywogs that she couldn't see the Fish." The most original thinkers have been most ready to acknowledge their obligations to other minds, whose wisdom has been hived in books. Gibbon acquired from Great Men Have j^j^ ^^^^ cc^^ ^^^ly and invincible love of read- Owed Their Success . i • i >. i j i j .r i ij to Reading. ^"g» which, he declared, he would not ex- change for the treasures of India." Dr. Franklin traced his entire career to Cotton Mather's "Essays to do Good," which fell into his hands when he was a boy. The current of Jeremy Bentham's thoughts was directed for life by a single phrase, "The greatest good of the greatest number," caught at the end of a pamphlet. Cobbett, at eleven, bought Swift's "Tale of a Tub," and it proved what he considered a sort of "birth of intellect." The genius of Faraday was fired by the volumes which he perused while serving as an apprentice to an English book- seller. One of the most distinguished personages in Europe, showing his library to a visitor, observed that not only this col- ledtion, but all his social successes in life, he traced back to the first franc from the cake-shop to spend at a bookstall. Lord Macaulay, having asked an eminent soldier and diplomatist, who enjoyed the confidence of the first generals and statesmen of the age, to what he owed his accomplishments, was informed that he ascribed it to the fadl that he was quartered in his young 202 BOOK-SHELF days in the neighborhood of an excellent library, to which he had access. The French historian Michelet attributed his mental inspiration to a single book, a Virgil, he lived with for some years; and he tells us that an odd volume of Racine, picked up at a stall on the quay, made the poet of Toulon. ^^If the riches of both Indies," said Fenelon, "if the crowns of all the kingdoms of Europe were laid at my feet, in exchange for my love of reading, I would spurn them all." Books not only enrich and enlarge the mind, but they stimu- late, inflame, and concentrate its activity; and though without this reception of foreign influence a man may be odd, he cannot be original. The greatest genius is he who consumes the most knowledge and converts it into mind. What, indeed, is college education but the reading of certain books which the common sense of all scholars agrees will represent the science already accumulated? 203 MY FAVORITE MONTAIGNE. Our religion hath had no surer humane foundation than the contempt of life. Discourse of reason doth not only call and summon us unto it. For why should we Contempt of Life ^^^^^ ^^ j^^^ ^ ^j^j^^ s^Kich, being lost, cannot a dure rounaattori . , -, r» i • i i i for Religion. bemoaned.'^ But also, smce we are threatned by so many kinds of death, there is no more incon- venience to feare them all, than to endure one: what matter is it when it cometh, since it is unavoidable? Socrates answered one that told him: The thirty tyrants have condemned thee to death. And Nature them, said he. What fondnesse is it to carke and care so much, at that instant and passage from all paine and care? As our birth brought us the birth of all things, so shall our death the end of all things. Therefore is it as great follie to weepe, we shall not live a hundred yeeres hence, so to waile we lived not a hundred yeeres ago. Death is the beginning of another life. So wept we, and so much did it cost us to enter into this life; and so did we spoile us of our ancient vaile in entring into it. Nothing can be grievous that is but once. Is it reason so long to feare a thing of so short time? Long life or short life is made all one by death. For long or short is not in things that are no more. Aristotle saith, there are certaine litle beastes alongst the river Hyspanis that live but one day; she which dies at eight a clocke in the morning, dies in her youth; and she that dies at five in the afternoon, dies in her decrepitude; who of us doth not laugh, when we shall see this short moment of continuance to be had in consideration of good or ill fortune? The most and the least in ours, if we compare it with eternitie, or equall it to the lasting of mountaines, rivers, stars and trees, or any other living creature, is no lesse ridiculous. But nature compels us to it. Depart (saith she) out of this world, even as you came into it. The same way you 204 BOOK-SHELF came from death to life, returne without passion or amazement from life to death ; your death is but a peece of the world's order, and but a parcell of the world's life. All the time you live, you steale it from death : it is at her charge. The con- tinuall worke of your life is to contrive death ; you are in death during the time you continue in life; for, you are after death, when you are no longer living. Or if you would rather have it so, you are dead after life; but during life you are still dying; and death doth more rudely touch the dying than the dead, and more lively and essentially. If you have profited by life, you have also beene fed thereby, depart then satisfied. If you have not knowne how to make use of it, if it were unprofitable to you, what need you care to have lost it? To what end would you enjoy it longer? Wherefore doe Physitians labour and pradiise before hand the conceit and credence of their patients, with so many false promises of their recoverie and Suggestive health, unlesse it be that the effect of imagina- Therapeutics. tion may supple and prepare the imposture of their deco6lion. There are certaine barren and thornie sciences, which for the most part are forged for the multitude; they should be left for those who are for the service of the world. As for my- selfe, I love no books but such as are pleasant and easie, and which tickle me, or such as comfort and counsell me, to dired: my life and death. If Physitians doe no other good, at least they doe this, that betimes they prepare their patients unto death, by little undermining and cutting-off the use of life. Both in health and in sicknesse, I have willingly Are°"iVor!l^^Than seconded and given myselfe over to those appe- ^^^ Disease. tites that pressed me. I allow great authority to my desires and propensions. I love not to cure one evill by 205 MY FAVORITE another mischiefe. I hate those remedies that importune more than sicknesse. To be subjedl to the cholike, and to be tied to abstaine from the pleasure I have in eating oysters, are two mis- chiefes for one. The disease pincheth us on the one side and the rule on the other. Since we are ever in danger to misdoe, let us rather hazard ourselves to follow pleasure. Most men doe contrary and thinke nothing profitable that is not painfull: Facility is by them suspeded. Mine appetite hath in divers things very happily accommodated and ranged itselfe to the health of my stomake. Being young, acrimony and tartnesse in sawces did greatly delight me, but my stomake being since glutted therewith, my taste hath likewise seconded the same. Wine hurts the sicke; it is the first thing that, with an invincible distaste, brings my mouth out of taste. Whatsoever I receive unwillingly or distastefully hurts me, whereas nothing doth it whereon I feed with hunger and rellish. I never received harm by any adion that was very pleasing unto me. And yet I have made all medicinall conclusions largely to yeeld to my pleasures. And when I was yong, I have as licentiously and inconsider- ately as any other, furthered al such desires as possessed me: A Souldier of Love's hoast, I was not without boast. It is surely a wonder, accompanied with unhappinesse, to con- fesse how yong and weake I was brought under its subjection. Nay, shall I not blush to tell it? It was long before the age of choise or yeeres of discretion; I was so yong, as I remember nothing before. Physitians commonly enfold and joyne their rules unto profit, according to the violence of sharpe desires or earnest longings, that incidently follow the sicke. No Defend^Mt From 'o"g'ng desire can be imagined so strange and Myielf.'" vicious, but nature will apply herselfe unto it. And then how easie is it to content one's fantasie? In mine opinion this part importeth all in all; at least more and beyond all other. The most grievous and ordinary 206 BOOK-SHELF evills are those which fancy chargeth us withall. That Spanish saying doth every way please me : " God defend me from my- selfe." Being sicke, I am sorry I have not some desire may give me the contentment to satiate and cloy the same: Scarsly would a medicine divert me from it. So doe I when I am in health; I hardly see anything left to be hoped or wished for. It is pitty a man should bee so weakned and enlanguished that he hath nothing left him but wishing. The art of physicke is not so resolute, that whatever wee doe we shall be void of all authority to doe it. Shee changeth and shee varieth according to climats; according to the moones. If your Physitian think it not good that you sleepe, that you drinke wine, or eate such and such meates, care not you for that; I shall finde you another that shall not be of his opinion. The diversity of physicall arguments and medicinall opin- ions embraceth all manner of formes. I saw a miserable sicke man, for the infinite desire he had to recover, ready to burst, yea, and to die with thirst; whom not long since another Phy- sitian mocked, utterly condemning the other's counsell as hurtfull for him. A man must give sicknesses their passage; and I finde that they stay least with me, because I allow them their swinge, and let them doe what they list. And contrary to common received rules, I have without ayd, or art, ridde myselfe of some, that are deemed the most obstinately lingring and unremoovably obstin- ate. Let Nature worke. Let hir have hir will : She knoweth what she hath to doe, and understands hir selfe better than we doe. Life is in itself neither a good nor an evil; it is the theatre of good or evil as you make it. And if you have lived one day you have seen all ; one day is the same and like to all days. There is no other light, no Life What other darkness; this very sun, this very moon, '^"'^ Make It. these very stars, this very order and revolution of the universe, is the same which your ancestors enjoyed, and which will be the admiration of your posterity. 207 MY FAVORITE O U I DA. "A young man married is a man that's marred." That's a golden rule; take it to heart. Anne Hathaway, I have not a doubt, suggested it: experience is the sole ^ asbestos, only unluckily one seldom gets it Anne Hathaway before one's hands are burned irrevocably. Shakespeare took to wife the ignorant, rosy- cheeked Warwickshire peasant girl at eighteen! Poor fellow! I picture him, with all his untried powers, struggling like new- born Hercules for strength and utterance, and the great germ of poetry within him, tingeing all the common realities of life with its rose hue; genius giving him power to see with godlike vision the "fairies nestling in the cowslip chalices" and the golden gleam of Cleopatra's sails; to feel the "spiced Indian air" by night, and the wild working of kings ambitious lust; to know by intuition, alike the voices of nature unheard by common ears, and the fierce schemes and passions of a world from which social position shut him out! I pidure him in his hot, imaginative youth, finding his first love in the yeoman's daughter at Shottery, strolling with her by the Avon, making her an "odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds," and dressing her up in the fond array of a boy's poetic imaginings! Then — when he had married her, he, with the passionate ideals of Juliets and Violas, Ophelias and Hermiones, in his brain and heart, must have awakened to find that the voices so sweet to him were dumb to her. The "cinque spotted cowslip bells" brought only thoughts of wine to her. When he was watching "certain stars shoot madly from their spheres" she most likely was grumbling at him for mooning there after curfew bell. When he was learning Nature's lore in "the fresh cup of the crimson rose," she was dinning in his ear that Hammet and Judith wanted worsted socks. When he was listening in fancy to the 208 BOOK-SHELF "sea-maid's song," and weaving thoughts which a world still stands reverentially to listen, she was buzzing behind him, and bidding him go card the wool, and weeping that, in her girlhood, she had not chosen some rich glover or ale-taster, instead of idle, useless, wayward Willie Shakespeare. Poor fellow! He did not write, I would swear, without fellow-feeling, and yearn- ing over souls similarly shipwrecked, that wise saw: "A young man married is a man that's marred." Held in Bondage. The uneducated are perhaps unjustly judged sometimes. To the ignorant both right and wrong are only instincts; when one remembers their piteous and innocent con- fusion of ideas, the twilight of dim comprehen- „. , ^'^J°^' ^ , . , , , ,, ° r 1 1 r • Rich and a Law for sion m which they dwell, one reels that ortentimes ^;^^ p^^^^ the laws of cultured men are too hard on them, and that, in a better sense than that of injustice and reproach, there ought indeed to be two laws for rich and poor. In Maremma. A woman who is ice to his fire, is less pain to a man than the woman who is fire to his ice. There is hope for him in the one, but only a dreary despair in , ..... , , rr^. , ,•' . / i . . Ificompatibtltty. the other. 1 he ardours that mtoxicate him in the first summer of his passion serve but to dull and chili him in the later time. Friendship. A man cast forth from his home is like a ship cut loose from its anchor and rudderless. Whatever may have been his weakness, his off^ences, they cannot absolve you from your duty to watch over your husband's Conjugal soul, to be his first and most faithful friend, to Obligations. stand between him and his temptations and perils. That is the nobler side of marriage. When the light of love is faded and its joys are over, its duties and its mercies remain. Because one of the twain has failed in these the other is not acquitted of obligation. Wanda. 209 MY FAVORITE Marriage, as our world sees it, is simply a convenience; a somewhat clumsy contrivance to tide over a social difficulty. Moths. There is a chord in every human heart that has a sigh in it if touched aright. When the artist finds the key-note which that chord will answer to — in the dullest as in the highest — then he is great. Signa. The desire to be "great" possessed her. When that insa- tiate passion enters a living soul, be it the soul of a woman-child dreaming of a coquette's conquests, or a crowned The Canker in hero craving for a new world, it becomes blind the Crown. to all else. Moral death falls on it; and any sin looks sweet that takes it nearer to its goal. It is a passion that generates at once all the loftiest and all the vilest things, which between them ennoble and corrupt the world — even as heat generates at once the harvest and the mag- got, the purpling vine and the lice that devour it. It is a pas- sion without which the world would decay in darkness, as it would do without heat, yet to which, as to heat, all its filthiest corruption is due. Tricotrin. No matter! he must have race in him. Heraldry may lie; but voices do not. Low people make money, drive in state, throng to palaces, receive kings at their tables n/ , irrn n- n bv the forcc of gold ; but their antecedents Blood Will Tell. / , 9 ' . ^, . , always croak out m their voices. 1 hey either screech or purr; they have no clear modulations; besides, their women always stumble over their train, and their men bow worse than their servants. Tricotrin. The man who puts chains on another's limbs is only one shade worse than he who puts fetters on another's free thoughts and on another's free conscience. Chandos. 2IO BOOK-SHELF God must be deaf, or very cruel. Look; everything lives in pain; and yet no God pities and makes an end of the earth. I would, if I were He. Look — at dawn, the other day, I was out in the wood. I came upon t a d Cr I? a little rabbit in a trap; a little, pretty, soft black-and-white thing, quite young. It was screaming in its horrible misery; it had been screaming all night. Its thighs were broken in the iron teeth; the trap held it tight; it could not escape, it could only scream — scream — scream. All in vain. When I had set it free it was mangled as if a wolf had gnawed it; the iron teeth had bitten through the fur, and the flesh, and the bone; it had lost so much blood, and it was in so much pain, that it could not live. I laid it down in the bracken and put water to its mouth, and did what I could; but it was of no use. It had been too much hurt. It died as the sun rose; a little, harmless, shy, happy thing, you know, that never killed any creature, and only asked to nibble a leaf or two, or sleep in a little round hole, and run about merry and free. How can one care for a God since He lets these things be? Men care for a God only as a God means a good to them. Men are heirs of heaven, they say; and in right of their herit- age, they make life hell to every living thing that dares dispute the world with them. You do not understand that, — tut! You are not human then. If you were human, you would begrudge a blade of grass to a rabbit, and arrogate to yourself a lease of immortality. Folle-Farine. I have heard a very great many men and women call the crows carrion birds, and the jackals carrion beasts, with an infi- nite deal of disgust and much fine horror at what they were pleased to term " feasting on Chacun a Son corpses," but I never yet heard any of them Gout. admit their own appetite for the rotten "corpse" of a pheasant, or the putrid haunch of a deer, to be anything except the choice taste of an epicure. Puck. 21 I MY FAVORITE PASCAL. How comes it that this man who lost a son only a few months ago, and is worried by lawsuits and petty squabbles, seemed this morning the victim of despair, Fortune Enables gho^ld SO soon have forgotten all his sorrows? One to Ltve a Life „ . , , . °. , . . of Pleasure. "^ "°^ surprised; his mind is at present ab- sorbed in watching a boar which his dogs have been pursuing for the last six hours. Nothing more is needed. Man, however disconsolate, if he can be drawn into amuse- ment, behold him happy for the moment! And man, however happy, if his mind be not diverted and filled with some passion or amusement that may drive away ennui, will soon fall a vidim to vexation and discontent. And what contributes chiefly to the happiness of the great, is that they are surrounded by many who assist them to drive care away, and that their fortune enables them to lead a life of pleasure. Let them not say that I have said nothing new; the arrangement of the materials is new. When they play tennis, it is the same ball with which they both play, N f nu ^^^ ^"^^ directs it better than the other. I might just as well be told that I had made use of old words. The same thoughts by a differ- ent arrangement form quite a different work, so also the same words by the difference of their arrangement form other thoughts. There is nothing so insupportable to man as to be in entire repose, without passion, occupation, amusement. Entire Repose OX application. Then it is that he feels his own Insupportable. nothingness, isolation, insignificance, dependent nature, powerlessness, emptiness. Immediately there issue from his soul ennui, sadness, chagrin, vexation, despair. 21 2 BOOK-SHELF W. C. PRIME. Why Peter Went A -Fishing. The light of the long Galilee day was dying out beyond the peaks of Lebanon. Far in the north, gleaming like a star, the snowy summit of Hermon received the latest ray of Simon Peter as the twilight before gloom and night should ^" Angler. descend on Gennesaret. The white walls of Bethsaida shone gray and cold on the northern border of the sea, looking to the whiter palace of Herod at its farther extrem- ity, under whose very base began the majestic sweep of the Jordan. Perhaps the full moon was rising over the desolate hills of the Gadarenes, marking the silver pathway of the Lord across the holy sea. The stars that had glorified His birth in the Bethlehem cavern, that had shone on the garden agony and the garden tomb, were shining on the hillsides that had been sandified by His footsteps. The young daughter of Jairus looked from her casement in Capernaum on the silver lake, and remembered the solemn grandeur of that brow, which now, they told her, had been torn with thorns. The son of her of Nain climbed the rocks which tower above his father's place of burial, and gazed down into the shining water, and pondered whether He who had been murdered by the Jerusalem Hebrews had not power to say unto himself "Arise!" Never was night more pure, never was sea more winning; never were the hearts of men moved by deeper emotions than on that night and by that sea when Peter and John, and other of the disciples, were waiting for the Master. Peter said, " I go a-fishing." John and Thomas, and James and Nathanael, and the others, said, "We will go with you," and they went. Fishermen never lose their love for the employment. And it is notably true that the men who fish for a living love their 213 MY FAVORITE work quite as much as those who fish for pleasure love their sport. Find an old fisherman, if you can, in any seashore town, who does not enjoy his fishing. There are days, Patience of without doubt, when he does not care to go out, the Angler. when he would rather that need did not drive him to the sea; but keep him at home a few days, or set him at other labor, and you shall see that he longs for the toss of the swell on the reef, and the sudden joy of a strong pull on his line. Drift up alongside of him in your boat when he is quietly at his work, without his knowing that you are near. You can do it easily. He is pondering solemnly a question of deep importance to him, and he has not stirred eye, or hand, or head for ten minutes. But see that start and sharp jerk of his elbow, and now hear him talk, not to you — to the fish. He exults as he brings him in, yet mingles his exultation with something of pity as he baits his hook for another. Could you gather the words that he has in many years flung on the sea-winds, you would have a history of his life and adventures, mingled with very much of his inmost thinking, for he tells much to the sea and the fish that he would never whisper in human ears. Thus the habit of going a-fishing always modifies the character. The angler, I think, dreams of his favorite sport oftener than other men of theirs. There is a peculiar excite- ment in it, which perhaps arises from somewhat of the same causes which make the interest in searching for ancient treasures, opening Egyptian tombs, and digging into old ruins. One does not know what is under the surface. There may be something, or there may be nothing. He tries, and the rush of something startles every nerve. Let no man laugh at a comparison of trout-fishing with antiquarian researches. 1 know a man who has done a great deal of both, and who scarcely knows which is most absorbing or most remunerating; for each enriches mind and body, each gratifies the most refined tastes, each becomes a passion unless the pursuer guard his enthusiasm and moderate his desires. Trout-fishing is employment for all men, of all minds. It 214 BOOK-SHELF tends to dreamy life, and it leads to much thought and refledion. I do not know in any book or story of modern times a more touching and exquisite scene than that which Mrs. Gordon gives in her admirable biography of her father, the leonine Christo- pher North, when the feeble old man waved his rod for the last time over the Dochart, where he had taken trout from his boy- hood. Shall we ever look upon his like again. -^ He was a giant among men of intelledual greatness. Of all anglers since apostolic days, he was the greatest; and there is no angler who does not look to him with veneration and love, while the English language will forever possess higher value that he has lived and written. It would be thought very strange were one to say that Wilson would have never been half the man he was were he not an angler. But he would have said so himself, and I am not sure but he did say so, and, whether he did or not, I have no doubt of the truth of the saying. _, . , ., , 'ti 1 1 riiT^i Lnrtstopner North. It has happened to me to nsh the Uochart from the old inn at Luib down to the bridge, and the form of the great Christopher was forever before me along the bank and in the rapids, making his last casts as Mrs. Gordon here so tenderly describes him : " Had my father been able to endure the fatigue, we too would have had something to boast of; but he was unable to do more than loiter by the riverside close in the neighborhood of the inn — never without his rh L t c t rod. * * * How now do his feet touch the heather? Not as of old with a bound, but with slow and unsteady step, supported on the one hand by his stick, while the other carries his rod. The breeze gently moves his locks, no longer glittering with the light of life, but dimmed by its decay. Yet are his shoulders broad and unbent. The lionlike presence is somewhat softened down, but not gone. He surely will not venture into the deeps of the water, for only one hand is free for 'a cast,' and those large stones, now slip- pery with moss, are dangerous stumbling-blocks in the way. Besides, he promised his daughters he would not wade, but, on 215 MY FAVORITE the contrary, walk quietly with them by the river's edge, there gliding *at its own sweet will.' Silvery bands of pebbled shore, leading to loamy-colored pools, dark as the glow of a southern eye, how could he resist the temptation of near approach? In he goes, up to the ankles, then to the knees, tottering every other step, but never falling. Trout after trout he catches, small ones, certainly, but plenty of them. Into his pocket with them, all this time manoeuvering in the most skillful manner, both stick and rod: until weary, he is obliged to rest on the bank, sitting with his feet in the water, laughing at his daughters' horror, and obstinately continuing the sport in spite of all remonstrance. At last he gives in and retires. Wonder- ful to say, he did not seem to suffer from these imprudent liberties." And Mrs. Gordon gives us another exquisite pidlure in the very last days of the grand old Christopher: "And then he gathered around him, when the spring mornings brought gay jets of sunshine into the little room where he lay, the relics of a youthful passion, His Farewell to one that with him never grew old. It was an the Flies. affecting sight to see him busy, nay, quite ab- sorbed, with the fishing tackle scattered about his bed, propped up with pillows — his noble head, yet glorious with its flowing locks, carefully combed by attentive hands, and falling on each side of his unfaded face. How neatly he picked out each elegantly dressed fly from its little bunch, drawing it out with trembling hand along the white coverlet, and then, replacing it in his pocket-book, he would tell ever and anon of the streams he used to fish in of old, and of the deeds he had performed in his childhood and youth." There is no angler who will not appreciate the beauty of these pictures, and I do not believe any one of us, retaining his mental faculties, will fail in extremest age to recall with the keenest enjoyment of which memory is capable, the scenes of our happiest sport. 2i6 BOOK-SHELF ROUSSEAU Towns are the sink of the human race. At the end of some generations races perish or degenerate; it is necessary to renew them, and it is always the country which furnishes this renewal. I have derived from the condu(^t of my father a great moral maxim, the only one perhaps of practical use in life, that we should avoid placing ourselves in situations where duties are found in opposition to our ^ .'^^ '" ^ J , , , r . , , . opposition to Our mterests, and where the loss or our neighbors is interests our gain, assured of this, that in such situations, however sincere our love of virtue may be, it becomes, sooner or later, imperceptibly less and less, and we become unjust or criminal in pradise, without ceasing to be just and virtuous in thought. The tone of good conversation is flowing and natural; it is neither heavy nor frivolous; it is learned without pedantry, lively without noise, polished without equivoca- tion. It is made up of neither lectures nor The Art of epigrams. Those who really converse, reason Conversation. without arguing, joke without punning, are skillful to unite wit and reason, maxims and sallies, ingenious raillery and severe morality. They speak of everything that every one may have something to say; they do not investigate too closely, for fear of wearying; questions are introduced as if by the by, and are treated with rapidity; precision leads to ele- gance; each one gives his opinion and supports it with few words; no one attacks with heat another's opinion; no one sup- ports his own obstinately. They discuss in order to enlighten themselves, and leave off discussing where dispute would begin; 217 MY FAVORITE every one gains information; every one amuses himself, and everv one goes away satisfied; nay, the sage himself may carry away from what he has heard matter worthy of silent medita- tion. 2i8 BOOK-SHELF R U S K I N Has not the man who has worked for the money a right to use it as best he can? No; in this respedt, money is now exactly what mountain promontories over public roads were in old times. The barons fought for Bags, Crags them fairly : the strongest and cunningest got ^"<^ R^gi- them, then fortified them, and made every one who passed below pay toll. Well, capital now is exadly what crags were then. Men fight fairly (we will, at least, grant so much, though it is more than we ought) for their money ; but, once having got it, the fortified millionaire can make everybody who passes below pay toll to his millions, and build another of his money castle. And I can tell you, the poor vagrants by the roadside suffer now quite as much from the bag-baron as ever they did from the crag-baron. Bags and crags have just the same result on rags. I have not time, however, tonight to show you in how many ways the power of capital is unjust; but this one great principle I have to assert — you will find it quite indisputably true — that whenever money is the principal object of life with either man or nation, it is both got ill, and spent ill; and does harm both in the getting and spending; but when it is not the principal obje6l, it and all other things will be well got, and well spent. And here is the test, with every man, of whether money is the principal objedl with him, or not. If in mid-life he could pause and say, " Now I have enough to live upon, I'll live upon it; and having well earned it, I will also well spend it, and go out of the world poor, as I came into it," then money is not principal with him; but, if having enough to live upon in the manner befitting his charader and rank, he still wants to make more and to die rich, then money is the principal objed with him, and it becomes a curse to himself, and gen- erally to those who spend it after him. For you know it must 219 MY FAVORITE be spent some day; the only question is whether the man who makes it shall spend it, or some one else. And generally it is better for the maker to spend it, for he will know best its value and use. This is the true law of life. And if a man does not choose thus to spend his money, he must either hoard it or lend it, and the worst thing he can generally do is to lend it; for bor- rowers are nearly always ill-spenders, and it is with lent money that all evil is mainly done, and all unjust war protracted. The Crown of Wild Olives. Everybody in this room has been taught to pray daily, "Thy kingdom come." Now, if we hear a man swear in the streets, we think it very wrong, and say he '* Thy Kingdom "takes God's name in vain." But there's a Come.'' twenty times worse way of taking His name in vain, than that. It is to ask God for what we dont want. He doesn't like that sort of prayer. If you don't want a thing, don't ask for it: such asking is the worst mockery of your King you can mock Him with; the soldiers striking Him on the head with the reed was nothing to that. If you do not wish for His kingdom, don't pray for it. But if you do, you must do more than pray for it; you must work for it. And to work for it, you must know what it is: we have all prayed for it many a day without thinking. Observe, it is a kingdom that is to come to us; we are not to go to it. Also, it is not to be a kingdom of the dead, but of the living. Also, it is not to come all at once, but quietly; nobody knows how. "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation." Also, it is not to come outside of us, but in the hearts of us: "the kingdom of God is within you." And, being within us, it is not a thing to be seen, but to be felt; and though it brings all substance of good with it, it does not consist in that: "the king- dom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost": joy, that is to say, in the holy, healthful and helpful Spirit. Now if we want to work for this kingdom, and to bring it and enter into it, there's just one con- 220 BOOK-SHELF dition to be first accepted. You must enter it as children, or not at all. "Whosoever will not receive it as a little child shall not enter therein." And again, "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." The Crown of Wild Olives. The true instruments of reformation are employment and reward, not punishment. Aid the willing, honor the virtuous, and compel the idle into occupation, and there will be no need for the compelling of any into ^p^^'''°J'fJJ'f the great and last indolence of death. The be- ^y^^ ^r y^^^ ginning of all true reformation among the crim- inal classes depends on the establishment of institutions for their adive employment, while their criminality is still unripe, and their feelings of self-resped, capacities of affedtion, and sense of justice not altogether quenched. That those who are desirous of employment should be always able to find it, will hardly, at the present day, be dis- puted; but that those who are undesirous of employment should of all persons be the most stridtly compelled to it, the public are hardly yet convinced. If the damage of the principal thoroughfares in their cap- ital city, and the multiplication of crimes more ghastly than ever yet disgraced a nominal civilization, do not convince them, they will not have to wait long before they receive sterner les- sons. For our negled: of the lower orders has reached a point at which it begins to bear its necessary fruit, and every day makes the harvest darker and more sure. The great principles by which employment should be regulated may be briefly stated as follows: I. There being three great classes of mechanical powers at our disposal, namely: {a) vital muscular power; (^) natural mechanical power of wind, water, and eled:ricity ; and (r) arti- ficially produced mechanical power, it is the first principle of economy to use all available vital power first, then the Inexpen- sive natural forces, and only at last to have recourse to artificial 221 MY FAVORITE E^i -•4-^3) fffl s lai ^>—'^>-e'iai a ^afS- r^^-Qlof H STA—eSi power. And this, because it is always better for a man to work with his own hands to feed and clothe himself, than to stand idle while a machine works for him; and if he cannot by all the labor healthily possible to him feed and clothe himself, then it is better to use an inexpensive machine — as a wind-mill or water-mill, than a costly one like a steam-engine, so long as we have natural force enough at our disposal. Whereas at present we continually hear economists regret that the water-powers of the cascades or streams of a country should be lost, but hardly ever that the muscular power of its idle inhabitants should be lost; and, again, we see vast districts, as the south of Provence, where a strong wind blows steadily all day long for six days out of seven throughout the year, without a wind-mill, while men are continually employed a hundred miles to the north in digging fuel to obtain artificial power. But the principal of all to be kept in view is that in every idle arm and shoulder throughout the country there is a certain quantity of force, equivalent to the force of so l^itnl Force \ r \ II'* • much ruel; and that it is mere insane waste to Mechanical Force. ^'S ^^"^ ^^"^ ^°'" °^^ force, while the vital force is unused; and not only unused, but in being so, corrupting and polluting itself. We waste our coal and spoil our humanity at one and the same instant. Therefore, when- ever there is an idle arm, always save coal with it, and the stores of England will last all the longer. And precisely the same argument answers the common one about "taking employment out of the hands of the industrious laborer." Why, what is "employment" but the putting out of vital force instead of mechanical force? We are continually in search of means of strength — to pull, to hammer, to fetch, to carry; we waste our future resources to get power, while we leave all the living fuel to burn itself out in mere pestiferous breath and produdion of its variously noisome forms of ashes ! Clearly, if we want fire for force we want men for force first. The industrious hands must have so much to do that they can do no more, or else we need not use machines to help them: then use the idle hands first. 222 BOOK-SHELF Instead of dragging petroleum with a steam-engine, put it on a canal, and drag it with human arms and shoulders. Petroleum cannot possibly be in a hurry to arrive anywhere. We can always order that and many other things time enough before we want them. So the carriage of everything that does not spoil by keeping may most wholesomely and safely be done by water-tra6tion and sailing vessels, and no healthier work nor better discipline can men be put to than such adive porterage. 2. In employing all the muscular power at our disposal, we are to make the employments we choose as educational as possible. For a wholesome human employment is the first and best method of education, mental as well as bodily. A man taught to plow, row or steer well, and a woman taught to cook properly and make dress neatly, are already educated in many essential moral habits. Labor considered as a discipline has hitherto been thought of only for criminals; but the real and noblest fundlion of labor is to prevent crime, and not to be i?^formatory, but Formatory. 223 MY FAVORITE ADDISON P. RUSSELL. Excellence is not matured in a day, and the cost of it is an old story. The beginning of Plato's Republic was found in his tablets written over and over in a variety of ^f'ui ways. It took Virgil, it is stated, three years to the Capacity for •' , . 11 ^ Takinz Pains. compose his ten short eclogues; seven years to elaborate his Georgics, which comprise little more than two thousand verses; and he employed more than twelve years in polishing his i^neid, being even then so dis- satisfied with it, that he wished before his death to commit it to the flames. Horace was equally indefatigable, and there are single odes in his works which must have cost him months of labor. Lucretius's one poem represents the toil of a whole life- time. Thucydides was twenty years writing his history, which is comprised in one o6tavo volume. Gibbon wrote the first chapter of his work three times before he could please himself. Montesquieu, alluding in a letter to one of his works, says to his correspondent, "You will read it in a few hours, but the labor expended on it has whitened my hair." Henri Beyle transcribed his History of Painting in Italy seventeen times. Sainte-Beuve often spent a whole week on two or three o6tavo pages. Gray was so fastidious in polishing and perfe6ting his Elegy, that he kept it nearly twenty years, touching it up and improving it. There is a poem of ten lines in Waller's works, which he himself informs us, took him a whole summer to put into shape. Malherbe would spoil half a quire of paper in composing and discomposing and recomposing a stanza. It is reckoned that during the twenty-five most prolific years of his life he composed no more than, on the average, thirty-three verses per annum. There is a good story told of him, which illustrates amusingly the elaborate care he took with his poems. A certain nobleman of his acquaintance had lost his wife, and 224 BOOK-SHELF was anxious that Malherbe should dedicate an ode to her memory, and condole with him in verse on the loss that he had sustained. Malherbe complied, but was so fastidious in his composition, that it was three years before the elegy was com- pleted. Just before he sent it in, he was intensely chagrined to find that his noble friend had solaced himself with a new bride, and was, consequently, in no humor to be pestered with an elegy on his old one. When dying, his confessor, in speaking of the happiness in heaven, expressed himself inaccurately. "Say no more about it," said Malherbe, "or your style will disgust me with it." Miss Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Tasso. Hume, and Fox, have all recorded the trouble Pope. they took. Tasso was unwearied in correding; La Fontaine. so were Pope and Boileau. The Cambridge Dante. manuscript of Milton's Lycidas shows numerous erasures and interlineations. Pascal spent twenty days in perfecting a single letter. The fables of La Fontaine were copied and recopied over and over again. Alfieri was laboriously painstaking in composition. We are told that if he approved of his first sketch of a piece — after laying it by for some time, nor approaching it again until his mind was free of the subjed: — he submitted it to what he called "development" — writing out in prose the indicated scenes, with all the force at his command, but without stopping to analyze a thought or corred: an expres- sion. He then proceeded to verify at his leisure the prose he had written, seleding with care the ideas he thought best, and rejedling those which he deemed unworthy of a place. Nor did he even yet regard his work as finished, but incessantly polished it, verse by verse, and made continual alterations. Moliere composed very slowly, although he liked the contrary to be understood, and many pieces supposed to have been written upon the spur of a royal command had been prepared some time previously. He said to Moliere. Boileau, " I have never done anything with Sheridan. which I am truly content." Sheridan, when urged by the publisher, Ridgeway, to finish his manuscript of 225 MY FAVORITE The School for Scandal, declared that he had been nineteen years endeavoring to satisfy himself with the style of it, but had not succeeded. Joubert had a habit from his twentieth year to his seventieth, of jotting down with pencil the best issues of his meditation as they arose; and out of this chaos of notes was shaped, many years after his death, a full volume of Thoughts, "which," says the translator, " from their freshness and insight, their concise symmetry of expression, their pithi- ness, their variety, make a rich, enduring addition to the litera- Addison. ture of France, and to all literature." Addison Lamb. wore out the patience of his printer; frequently, Tennyson. when nearly a whole impression of a Spectator Dickens. ^^g worked off, he would stop the press to insert a new preposition. Lamb's most sportive essays were the result of most intense labor; he used to spend a week at a time in elaborating a single humorous letter to a friend. Ten- nyson is reported to have written Come into the Garden, Maud, more than fifty times over before it pleased him ; and, Locksley Hall, the first draught of which was written in two days, he spent the better part of six weeks, for eight hours a day, in altering and polishing. Dickens, when he intended to write a Christmas story, shut himself up for six weeks, lived the life of a hermit, and came out looking as haggard as a mur- derer. His manuscripts show that he wrote with the greatest care, and scrupulously revised his writing in order to render each sentence as perfect as might be. He made his alterations so carefully that it is difficult to trace the words which he had originally written. Moore thought it quick work if he wrote seventy lines of Lalla Rookh in a week. Ten years elapsed between the first sketch of Goldsmith's Trav- Moore. eller and its completion. The poet's habit was Goldsmith. to set down his ideas in prose, and when he had turned them carefully into rhyme, to continue retouching the lines with infinite pains to give point to the sen- timent and polish to the verse. 226 BOOK-SHELF As to compensation, it is stated that Goethe's works were not in his own time commercially successful. After his return from Italy, the edition of his collected works, which he had compared and revised with „ , „ , , 1 • I 11 1 • 11-1 Poets Poor Pay. labor and with care, sold, as his publisher com- plained, only "very slowly." Coleridge gained little or no money by his writings. He says, "I question whether there ever existed a man of letters so utterly friendless, or so unconneded as I am with the dispensers of contemporary reputation, or the publishers in whose service they labor." Paradise Lost had a very limited sale, till, fifty years after its publication, it was brought into light by the criticisms of Addison. Campbell for years could not find a bookseller who would buy The Pleasures of Hope. Twelve years elapsed before the first five hundred copies of Emerson's Nature were purchased by the public. Fortune, it has been truly said, has rarely condescended to be the companion of genius; others find a hundred byroads to her palace; there is but one open, and that a very indifferent one, for men of letters. Cer- Poverty of the vantes, the immortal genius of Spain, is sup- Immortals. posed to have wanted bread; Le Sage was a vi6tim of poverty all his life ; Camoens, the solitary pride of Portugal, deprived of the necessaries of life, perished in a hos- pital at Lisbon. The Portuguese after his death, bestowed on the man of genius they had starved the appellation of Great. Vondel, the Dutch Shakespeare, to whom Milton was greatly indebted, after composing a number of popular tragedies, lived in great poverty, and died at ninety years of age; then he had his coffin carried by fourteen poets, who, without his genius, probably partook of his wretchedness. The great Tasso was reduced to such a dilemma that he was obliged to borrow a crown from a friend to subsist through the week. One day Louis XIV asked Racine what there was new in the literary world. The poet answered that he had seen a melancholy spec- tacle in the house of Corneille, whom he found dying, deprived 227 MY FAVORITE even of a little broth. "You," said Goldsmith to Bob Bryan- ton, "seem placed at the center of Fortune's wheel, and, let it revolve ever so fast, are insensible to the motion. I seem to have been tied to the circumference, and whirled disagreeably round, as if on a whirligig. O gods! gods! here in a garret, writing for bread, and expecting to be dunned for a milk- score!" It has been related that while Madame Titiens was receiving an ovation for her singing of Kathleen Mavourneen, the author of the song sat weeping in the audience, the poorest and obscurest man present. The most popular song ever written in the British Islands, that of Auld Lang Syne, is anonymous, and we know no more of the author of the music than we do of the . ,, r o author of the words. Aula Lan? byne. k it \ r -n ■> r t ■ Much or Burns great tame rests upon this song, in which his share amounts only to a few emendations. The Last Rose of Summer is said to be made up in great part of an old Sicilian air, originating nobody knows when. Home, Sweet Home was written in a garret in the Palais Royal, Paris, when poor Payne was so utterly destitute and friendless that he knew not where the next day's dinner was to come from. Christopher North is described as "long-maned and mighty, whose eyes were 'as the lightnings of fiery flame,' and his voice like an organ bass; who laid about ^, . , ,. , him, when the fit was on, like a Titan, breaking Christopher North. , , , , ' , ', , ^ small men s bones; who was loose and careless in his apparel, even as in all things he seemed too strong and primitive to heed much the niceties of custom." In his youth, he "ran three miles for a wager against a chaise," and came out ahead. Somewhat later he "gained a bet by walking toe and heel, six miles in two minutes within the hour." When he was twenty-one, height five feet eleven inches, weight eleven stone, he leaped, with a run, twenty-three feet, " on a 228 BOOK-SHELF slightly inclined plane, perhaps an inch to a yard," and "was admitted to be ( Ireland excepted) the best far leaper of his day in England." He could jump twelve yards in three jumps, with a great stone in each hand. "With him the angler's silent trade was a ruling passion. He did not exaggerate to the Shep- herd in the No<5tes, when he said that he had taken a hundred and thirty in one day out of Loch Aire, as we see by his letters that even larger numbers were taken by him." Of his pugilistic skill, it is said by De Quincey that "there was no man who had any talents, real or fancied, for thumping or being thumped, but he had experienced some preeing of his merits from Mr. Wil- son." " Meeting one day with a rough and unruly wayfarer, who showed inclination to pick a quarrel concerning right of passage across a certain bridge, the fellow obstructed the way, and making himself decidedly obnoxious, Wilson lost all patience, and offered to fight him. The man made no objection to the proposal, but replied that he had better not fight with him, as he was so and so, mentioning the name of a (then not unknown) pugilist. This statement had, as may be supposed, no effed: in dampening the belligerent intentions of the Oxonian ; he knew his own strength, and Cbnstopher North ,.,.,, T ^ ° ^ . . as a Pugilist and nis skill, too. In one moment oit went his Pedestrian. coat, and he set to upon his antagonist in splendid style. The astonished and punished rival, on recover- ing from his blows and surprise, accosted him thus: 'You can only be one of the two : you are either Jack Wilson or the devil.' " His pedestrian feats were marvelous. "On one occasion," writes an old classmate of Wilson's at Oxford, " having been absent a day or two, we asked him on his return to the common room where he had been. He said, 'In London.' 'When did you return?' 'This morning.' ' How did you come? ' 'On foot.' As we all expressed surprise, he said, 'Why, the fad: is, I dined yesterday with a friend in Grosvenor Square, and as I quitted the house, a fellow who was passing was impertinent and insulted me, upon which I knocked him down; and as I did not choose to have myself called in question for a street row, I at once 229 MY FAVORITE started, as I was, in my dinner dress, and never stopped until I ^ot to the college gate this morning, as it was being opened.' Now this was a walk of fifty-eight miles at least, which he must have got over in eight or nine hours at most, supposing him to have left the dinner-party at nine in the evening." Some years later, he walked, his wife accompanying him, "three hundred and fifty miles in the Highlands, between the fifth of July and the twenty-sixth of August, sojourning in divers glens from Sab- bath unto Sabbath, fishing, eating and staring." Mrs. Wilson returned from this wonderful tour "bonnier than ever," and Wilson himself, to use his own phrase, "strong as an eagle." One of their resting-places was at the schoolmaster's house in Glenorchv. While there "his time was much occupied by fish- ing, and distance was not considered an obstacle. He started one morning at an early hour to fish in a loch which at that time abounded in trout, in the Braes of Glenorchy, called Loch Toila. Its nearest point was thirteen miles distant from his lodgings at the schoolhouse. On reaching it and unscrewing the butt-end of his fishing-rod to get the top, he found he had it not. Nothing daunted he walked back, breakfasted, got his fishing-rod, made all complete, and oflF again to Loch Toila. He could not resist fishing on the river when a pool looked inviting, but he went always onward, reaching the loch a second time, fished round it, and found that the long summer day had come to an end. He set off for his home again with his fish- ing-basket full, and confessing somewhat to weariness. Passing near a farmhouse whose inmates he knew (for he had formed acquaintance with all), he went to get some food. They were in bed, for it was eleven o'clock at night, and , ,^„ after rousing them, the hostess hastened to sup- IVhisky and Milk. ... i, ji i- ■' ply him; but he requested her to get him some whisky and milk. She came with a bottle full, and a can of milk, and a tumbler. Instead of a tumbler, he requested a bowl, and poured the half of the whisky in, along with half the milk. He drank the mixture at a draught, and while his kind hostess was looking on with amazement, he 230 BOOK-SHELF poured the remainder of the whisky and milk into the bowl, and drank that also. He then proceeded homeward, perform- ing a journey of not less than seventy miles." Prodigious! It beat the achievement of Phidippides, who, according to tradition, ran from Athens to Sparta, one hundred and twenty miles, in two days. But here is a street scene, related to his daughter by a lady who saw it, which illustrates the tremendous professor of moral philosophy still further. " One summer afternoon, as she was about to sit down to dinner, her servant requested her to look out of the window, to see a man cruelly beating his horse. The sight not being a very gratifying one, she declined, and proceeded to take her seat at the table. It was quite evi- dent that the servant had discovered something more than the ill-usage of the horse to divert his attention, for he kept his eyes fixed on the window, again suggesting to his mistress that she ought to look out. Her interest was at length excited, and she rose to see what was going on. In front of her house (Moray Place) stood a cart of coals, which the poor vi6tim of the carter was unable to drag along. He had been beating the beast most unmercifully, when His Battle with at that moment Professor Wilson, walking past, ^he Carter. had seen the outrage and immediately interfered. The lady said that from the expression of his face, and vehe- mence of his manner, the man was evidently 'getting it,' though she was unable to hear what was said. The carter, exasperated at this interference, took up his whip in a threatening way, as if with the intent to strike the professor. In an instant that well- nerved hand twisted it from the coarse fist of the man as if it had been a straw, and walking quietly up to the cart he unfastened its trams, and hurled the whole weight of coals into the street. The rapidity with which this was done left the driver of the cart speechless. Meanwhile poor Rosinante, freed from his burden, crept slowly away, and the professor, still clutching the whip in one hand, and leading the horse in the other, proceeded through Moray Place to deposit the wretched animal in better keeping than that of his driver." Another of his " interferences " 231 MY FAVORITE occurred during vacation time in the south of Scotland, when the professor had exchanged the gown for the old "sporting jacket." On his return to Edinburgh, he was obliged to pass through Hawick, where, on his arrival, finding it to be fair-day, he readily availed himself of the opportunity to witness the amusements going on. These happened to include a "little mill" between two members of the local "fancy." His interest in pugilism attraded him to the spot, where he soon discovered something very wrong, and a degree of injustice being perpe- trated which he could not stand. It was the work of a moment to espouse the weaker side, a proceeding which naturally drew down upon him the hostility of the opposite party. This result was to him, however, of little consequence. There was nothing for it but to beat or be beaten. He was soon in "position," and before his unknown adversary well knew what was coming, the skilled fist of the professor had planted such a "facer" as did not require repetition. Another "round" was not called for; and leaving the discomfited champion to recover at his leisure, the professor walked coolly away to take his seat in the stage-coach, about to start for Edinburgh. Is h ^iP\ '^ ^"y wonder that such a gigantic specimen of ^Ijg human nature was thought by the steady-going and saintly Edinburghers, who tried men by the mathematics and the catechism, to be preposterously unfit for the chair of ethics in their hallowed university.'' It is said that when Leonardo da Vinci had finished his celebrated pidture of the Last Supper, he introduced a friend to inspedl the work privately, and give his judg- , J J ,r. . ment concerning it. "Exquisite!" exclaimed Leonardo da ymct. i • r • i rr i • i his tnend; "that wme-cup seems to stand out from the table as solid, glittering silver." There- upon the artist took a brush and blotted out the cup, saying, " I meant that the figure of Christ should first and mainly attra6l the observer's eye, and whatever diverts attention from Him must be blotted out." Could we poor mortals just as readily 232 BOOK-SHELF blot out of our lives whatever diverts attention from the real good that is in us, how differently would we appear to others! Just before going to India, Macaulay wrote to Lord Lans- downe : " I feel that the sacrifice which I am about to make is great. But the motives which urge me to make it are quite irresistible. Every day that I live ^ . 1 become less and less desirous of great wealth. But every day makes me more sensible of the importance of a competence. Without a competence, it is not very easy for a public man to be honest; it is almost impossible for him to be thought so. I am so situated that I can subsist only in two ways: by being in office, and by my pen. Hitherto literature has been merely my relaxation — the amusement of perhaps a month in the year. I have never considered it as the means of support. I have chosen my own topics, taken my own time, and dictated my own terms. The thought of becom- ing a bookseller's hack; of writing to relieve, not the fullness of the mind, but the emptiness of the pocket; of spurring a jaded fancy to reludlant exertion ; of filling sheets with trash merely that the sheets may be filled; of bearing from publish- ers and editors what Dryden bore from Tonson, and what, to my own knowledge. Mackintosh bore from Lardner, is horrible to me. Yet thus it must be if I should quit office. Yet to hold office merely for the sake of emolument would be more horrible still. The situation in which I have been placed, for some time back, would have broken the spirit of many men. It has rather tended to make me the most mutinous and unmanageable of the followers of the Government. I tendered my resignation twice during the course of the last session. I certainly should not have done so if I had been a man of fortune." Whenever one of Macaulay's books was passing through the press, he extended his indefatigable industry and his scru- pulous precision to the minutest mechanical drudgery of the literary calling. There was no end to the trouble that he MY FAVORITE devoted to matters which most authors are only too glad to leave to the care and experience of their publisher. He could not rest until the lines were level to a hair's Macaulay^s breadth, and the punctuation correct to a comma; Precision. until every paragraph concluded with a telling sentence, and every sentence flowed like running water. Thackeray said, " He reads twenty books to write a sentence; he travelled a hundred miles to make a line of description." The last use the great man made of his pen was to sign a letter he had dictated, inclosing twenty -five pounds to a poor curate. Some one has said, that to have a true idea of man, or of life, one must have stood himself on the brink of suicide, or on the door-sill of insanity, at least once. Between the It does seem impossible that easy-going people, Millstones. who have been easily prosperous, who have uni- formly enjoyed good health, who have always been free from distressing care, should know at all what is inevitably and perfectly known by being between the millstones. *' We learn geology," says Emerson, "the morning after the earthquake, on ghastly diagrams of cloven mountains, upheaved plains, and the dry bed of the sea." ''Sweetness out It is only an experience of the awful that fully of Woe.'' opens the eyes of the understanding upon the dread abysses of extremity and possibility. To know life, it is necessary to have struggled hard in the midst of it; to feel for the suffering, we must have suffered acutely our- selves. " Before there is wine or there is oil, the grape must be trodden and the olive must be pressed." The sweetest char- afters, we know, often result from the bitterest experiences. The weight of great misfortunes, and the perpetual annoyance of petty evils, only tend to make them stronger and better. Patience and resignation under multiplied ills can hardly be con- ceived by those who have only trodden at will, without burdens, over safe and pleasant ground in easy sandals. They look upon 234 BOOK-SHELF life and inquire, "What would the possession of a hundred thousand a year, or fame, and the applause of one's country- men, or the loveliest and best-beloved woman, of any glory and happiness, or good fortune, avail to a man, who was allowed to enjoy them only with the condition of wearing a shoe with a couple of nails or sharp pebbles inside of it?" Good men, knowledge of the world teaches us, are not easily found amongst those who have never known misfortune: "the heart must be softened by sufferings, to make it constant, firm, patient, and wise." As there are fishes which are intended by nature for great sea-depths, so there are human beings to whom severe pressure seems to be suited, and who seem to thrive best when every weight is upon them. Birds of Paradise, from the very nature of their plumage, cannot fly except against the wind. One of the most marvelously beautiful of all the many species of the humming-bird is only to be found in the crater of an extinguished volcano. We know that Scott dictated that fine love story, the Bride of Lammermoor, from a bed of torment; and that so great was his suffering that when he rose from his bed, and the published book was placed in _..„ j^i ,., ,, 1-j iin •!•• Dictate a from a his hands, he did not recollect one single inci- Bed of Pain. dent, character, or conversation it contained. We know, too, that many of Hood's most humorous pro- ductions were dictated to his wife, while he himself was in bed from distressing and protraded sickness. His own family was the only one which was not r, ,, , .«, , .,., i-i 1 /"•• A 1 11 tiood s Last Joke. dehghted with the Comic Annual, so well thumbed in every house. "We ourselves," said his son, "did not enjoy it till the lapse of many years had mercifully softened down some of the sad recollediions con- nected with it." It is recorded of him, that upon a mustard plaster being applied to his attenuated feet, as he lay in the direst extremity, he was heard feebly to remark, that there was "very little meat for the mustard." 235 MY FAVORITE Lamb, in his isolation and dreariness and gloom, wrote and wrote to keep his mind from preying on itself. You remember the story of the black pin which the lady wore ««7"A Ri IP " ^^ ^ brooch — repeated some time ago by Holmes in one of his happy little speeches. Her husband had been confined in prison for some political offense. He was left alone with his thoughts to torture him. No voice, no book, no implement — silence, dark- ness, misery, sleepless self-torment; and soon it must be mad- ness. All at once he thought of something to occupy these terrible unsleeping faculties. He took a pin from his neckcloth and threw it upon the floor. Then he groped for it. It was a little obje6t, and the search was a long and laborious one. At last he found it, and felt a certain sense of satisfadiion in diffi- culty overcome. But he had found a great deal more than a pin — he had found an occupation, and every day he would fling it from him and lose it, and hunt for it, and at last find it, and so he saved himself from going mad: and you will not wonder that when he was set free and gave the little objeft to which he owed his reason and, perhaps, his life, to his wife, she had it set round with pearls and wore it next her heart. Sheridan, from being regarded at school as "a most impen- etrable dunce," rose to be, in many respedts, one of the most distinguished men in the world. His speech on Sheridan's Mag- the impeachment of Warren Hastings, Burke netic Oratory. declared to be "the most astonishing effort of eloquence, argument, and wit, united, of which there was any record or tradition." Fox said, "all that he had ever heard, all that he had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished like vapor before the sun." Pitt acknowledged " that it surpassed all the eloquence of ancient and modern times, and possessed everything that genius and art could furnish to agitate and control the human mind." At the close of it occurs this celebrated passage: "Justice I have now before me, august and pure; the abstrad: idea of all that 236 BOOK-SHELF would be perfe6t in the spirits and the aspirings of men ! — where the mind rises, where the heart expands — where the counte- nance is ever placid and benign — where her favorite attitude is to stoop to the unfortunate — to hear their cry and to help them, to rescue and relieve, and to succor and save: — majestic from its mercy; venerable from its utility; uplifted, without pride; firm, without obduracy; beneficent in each preference; lovely, though in her frown ! " The speech occupied five hours and a half in the delivery. An anecdote is given as a proof of its irresistible power in a note upon Bissett's History of the Reign of George III: "The late Mr. Logan, well known for his literary efforts, and author of a most masterly defense of Mr. Hastings, went that day to the House of Commons, prepossessed for the accused and against the accuser. At the expiration of the first hour he said to a friend, 'All this is declamatory assertion without proof;' when the second was finished, 'This is a most wonderful ora- tion;' at the close of the third, 'Mr. Hastings has aded very unjustifiably;' the fourth, 'Mr. Hastings is a most atrocious criminal;' and at the last, ' Of all monsters of iniquity, the most enormous is Warren Hastings.'" 237 MY FAVORITE SCHOPENHAUER. Schopenhauer does not dired the imagination to anything outside this present life as making it worth while to live at all; his objed is to state the fadts of existence as they immediately appear, and to draw conclusions as to what a wise man will do in the face of them. It is an obvious fa.6t, which cannot be called in question, that the principal element in a man's well-being, — indeed in the whole tenor of his existence, — is what he is One Fiew made of, his inner constitution. For this is of Life. the immediate source of that inward satisfaction or dissatisfa(5tion resulting from the sum total of his sensations, desires and thoughts; whilst his surroundings, on the other hand, exert only a mediate or indiredl influence upon him. This is why the same external events or circumstances affed no two people alike; even with perfectly similar surround- ings every one lives in a world of his own. For a man has immediate apprehension only of his own ideas, feelings and volitions; the outer world can influence him only in so far as it brings these to life. The world in which a man lives shapes itself chiefly by the way in which he looks at it, and so it proves difi^erent to diflferent men; to one it is barren, dull and super- ficial; to another rich, interesting and full of meaning. On hearing of the interesting events which have happened in the course of a man's experience, many people will wish that simi- lar things had happened in their lives, too, completely forgetting that they should be envious rather of the mental aptitude which lent those events the significance they possess when he describes them. To a man of genius they were interesting adventures; but to the dull perceptions of an ordinary individual they would have been stale, everyday occurrences. This is in the highest 238 BOOK-SHELF degree the case with many of Goethe's and Byron's poems, which are obviously founded upon adual fadts; where it is open to a foohsh reader to envy the poet because so many dehghtful things happened to him, instead of envying that mighty power of phantasy which was capable of turning a fairly common experience into something so great and beautiful. In the same way, a person of melancholy temperament will make a scene in a tragedy out of what appears to the sanguine man only in the light of an interesting conflict, and to a phleg- matic soul as something without any meaning. This all rests upon the fad: that every event, in order to be realized and appreciated, requires the co-operation of two fadlors, namely, a subjed; and an objed; although these are as closely and neces- sarily conneded as oxygen and hydrogen in water. The life of every man is stamped with the same charader throughout, however much his external circumstances may alter; it is like a series of variations on a single theme. No one can get beyond his own individuality. ° t>"^ fij- ^' An animal, under whatever circumstances it is q^„ hdividualitf. placed, remains within the narrow limits to which nature has irrevocably consigned it; so that our endea- vours to make a pet happy must always keep within the com- pass of its nature, and be restrided to what it can feel. So it is with man ; the measure of the happiness he can attain is deter- mined beforehand by his individuality. More especially is this the case with the mental powers, which fix once for all his capacity for the higher kinds of pleasure. If these powers are small, no efforts from without, nothing that his fellow-men, or that fortune can do for him, will suffice to raise him above the ordinary degree of human happiness and pleasure, half animal though it be. His only resources are his sensual appetite, — a cosy and cheerful family life at the most, — low company and vulgar pastime; even education, on the whole, can avail little, if anything, for the enlargement of his horizon. For the high- est, most varied and lasting pleasures are those of the mind, however much our youth may deceive us on this point; and MY FAVORITE the pleasures of the mind turn chiefly on the powers of the mind. It is clear, then, that our happiness depends in a great degree upon what we are^ upon our individuality, whilst lot or destiny is generally taken to mean only what we have, or our reputation. Health outweighs all other blessings so much that one may really say that a healthy beggar is happier than an ailing king. A quiet and cheerful temperament, happy in the ,• I !]/! n'h enjoyment of a perfe6lly sound physique, an ' Blessings intellect clear, lively, penetrating and seeing things as they are, a moderate and gentle will, and therefore a good conscience — these are privileges which no rank or wealth can make up for or replace. For what a man is in himself, what accompanies him when he is alone, what no one can give or take away, is obviously more essential to him than everything he has in the way of possessions, or even what he may be in the eyes of the world. An intellectual man in com- plete solitude has excellent entertainment in his own thoughts and fancies, whilst no amount or diversity of social pleasure, theatres, excursions and amusements, can ward ofi^ boredom from a dullard. A good, temperate, gentle character can be happy in needy circumstances, whilst a covetous, envious and malicious man, even if he be the richest in the world, goes miserable. Nay, more; to one who has the constant delight of a special individuality, with a high degree of intelleft, most of the pleasures which are run after by mankind are perfectly super- fluous; they are even a trouble and a burden. You may see many a man, as industrious as an ant, cease- lessly occupied from morning to night in the endeavour to increase his heap of gold. Beyond the narrow horizon of means to this end, he knows nothing; his mind is a blank, and conse- quently unsusceptible to any other influence. The highest pleasures, those of the intellect, are to him inaccessible, and he tries in vain to replace them by the fleeting pleasures of sense in which he indulges, lasting but a brief hour and at tremendous cost. And if he is lucky his struggles result in his having a 240 BOOK-SHELF really great pile of gold, which he leaves to his heir, either to make it still larger, or to squander it in extravagance. A life like this, though pursued with a sense of earnestness and an air of importance, is just as silly as many another which has a fool's cap for its symbol. What a man has in himself is, then, the chief element in his happiness. Because this is, as a rule, so very little, most of those who are placed beyond the struggle with penury, feel at bottom quite as unhappy as „. y^^'^^^^^y ^ •", ... ?• • -T-1 • ^^- 1 Rich, but Inwardh those who are still engaged m it. 1 heir minds p^^^^ are vacant, their imagination dull, their spirits poor, and so they are driven to the company of those like them, where they make common pursuit of pastime and entertainment, consisting for the most part in sensual pleasure, amusement of every kind, and finally, in excess and libertinism. A young man of rich family enters upon life with a large patrimony, and often runs through it in an incredibly short space of time, in vicious extravagance; and why? Simply because here too, the mind is empty and void, and so the man is bored with existence. He was sent forth into the world outwardly rich but inwardly poor, and his vain endeavour was to make his external wealth compensate for his inner poverty, by trying to obtain every- thing from without^ like an old man who seeks to strengthen himself as King David or Marechal de Retz tried to do. And so in the end one who is inwardly poor comes to be also poor outwardly. In general, nine-tenths of our happiness depends upon health alone. With health, everything is a source of pleasure; without it, nothing else, whatever it may be, is enjoyable; even the other personal blessings, — a great mind, a happy tempera- ment, are degraded and dwarfed for want of it. Abnormal sensitiveness produces inequality of spirits, a predominating melancholy, with periodical fits of unrestrained liveliness. A genius is one whose nervous power or sensitive- ness is largely in excess; as Aristotle has very corredly observed: Men distinguished in philosophy, politics, poetry or art, appear 241 MY FAVORITE to be all of a melancholy temperament. And when a morbid afFedion of the nerves, or a derangement of the digestive organs plays into the hand of an innate tendency to gloom, this tend- ency may reach such a height that permanent discomfort pro- duces a weariness of life. A man never feels the loss of things which it never occurs to him to ask for; he is just as happy without them; whilst another, who may have a hundred times as much, Riches Like feels miserable because he has not got the one Sea-water. thing which he wants. In fad:, here too, every man has an horizon of his own, and he will exped just as much as he thinks it possible for him to get. If an objed within his horizon looks as though he could confi- dently reckon on getting it, he is happy; but if difficulties come in the way, he is miserable. What lies beyond his horizon has no effisd at all upon him. So it is that the vast possessions of the rich do not agitate the poor, and conversely, that a wealthy man is not consoled by all his wealth for the failure of his hopes. Riches, one may say, are like sea-water: the more you drink, the thirstier you become; and the same is true of fame. The loss of wealth and prosperity leaves a man, as soon as the first pangs of grief are over, in very much the same habitual temper as before; and the reason of this is, that as soon as fate diminishes the amount of his possessions, he himself immedi- ately reduces the amount of his claims. But when misfortune comes upon us, to reduce the amount of our claims is just what is most painful; when once we have done so, the pain becomes less and less, and is felt no more; like an old wound which has healed. We should always recoiled that To-day comes only once, and never returns. To live a life that shall be entirely prudent and discreet, and to draw from experience all the instrudion it contains, it is requisite to be constantly thinking back, — to make a 242 BOOK-SHELF kind of recapitulation of what we have done, of our impres- sions and sensations, to compare our former with our pres- ent judgments — what we set before us and struggle to achieve, with the ad:ual result and rhkn h satisfadiion we have obtained. To do this is to get a repetition of the private lessons of experience, — lessons which are given to every one. However close the bond of friendship, love or marriage, a man, ultimately, looks to himself, to his own welfare alone ; at most, to his child's, too. The less necessity 7-/;^ i^^^ there is for you to come into contad: with man- Contaa You Have kind in general, in the relations whether of ^i^h Mankind, the business or of personal intimacy, the better off Better. you are. Loneliness and solitude have their evils, it is true; but if you cannot feel them all at once, you can at least see where they lie; on the other hand, society is insidious in this respeft; as in offering you what appears to be the pastime of pleasing social intercourse, it works great and often irreparable mischief. The young should early be trained to bear being left alone; for it is a source of happiness and peace of mind. It follows from this that a man is best off if he be thrown upon his own resources and can be all in all to himself; and Cicero goes so far as to say that a man who is in this condition cannot fail to be very happy. ,, "! J"^ ^ 1 • 1 • ir u 1 .u Mrf« -f Company 1 he more a man has m himselr, the less others Enough. can be to him. The feeling of self-sufficiency ! it is that which restrains those whose personal value is in itself great riches, from such considerable sacrifices as are demanded by intercourse with the world, let alone, then, from adually practising self-denial by going out of their way to seek it. Ordinary people are sociable and complaisant just from the very opposite feeling; to bear other's company is easier for them than to bear their own. Moreover, resped: is not paid in this world to that which has real merit; it is reserved for that which has none. So retirement is at once a proof and a result of 243 MY FAVORITE being distinguished by the possession of meritorious qualities. It will therefore show real wisdom on the part of any one who is worth anything in himself, to limit his requirements as may be necessary, in order to preserve or extend his freedom, and, — since a man must come into some relations with his fellow- men — to admit them to his intimacy as little as possible. One man's company may be quite enough, if he is clever; but where you have only ordinary people to deal with, it is advisable to have a great many of them, so that some advantage may accrue by letting them all work together. When men of the better class form a society for promoting some noble or ideal aim, the result almost always is that the innumerable mob of humanity comes crowding in, too, as it always does everywhere, like vermin — their objed: being to try to get rid of boredom, or some other defe6t of their nature; and anything that will effed; that, they seize upon at once, with- out the slightest discrimination. Some of them will slip into that society, or push themselves in, and then, either soon destroy it altogether, or alter it so much that in the end it comes to have a purpose the exadt opposite of that which it had at first. As a general rule it may be said that a man's sociability stands very nearly in inverse ratio to his intellectual value: to say that "so and so" is very unsociable is almost tantamount to saying that he is a man of great capacity. It is really a very risky, nay, a fatal thing, to be sociable; because it means contact with natures, the great majority of which are bad morally, and dull or perverse Solitude versus intellectually. To be unsociable is not to care Sociability. about such people; and to have enough in one- self to dispense with the necessity of their com- pany is a great piece of good fortune; because almost all our sufferings spring from having to do with other people; and that destroys the peace of mind which, as I have said, comes next after health in the elements of happiness. Peace of mind is impossible without a considerable amount of solitude. The Cynics renounced all private property in order to attain the bliss 244 BOOK-SHELF of having nothing to trouble them; and to renounce society with the same objed: is the wisest thing a man can do. The prime reason for social intercourse is mutual need; and as soon as that is satisfied, boredom drives people together once more. If it were not for these two reasons, a man would probably eledt to remain alone; if only because solitude is the sole condition of life, which gives full play to that feeling of exclusive import- ance which every man has in his own eyes, as if he were the only person in the world! a feeling which in the throng and press of real life soon shrivels up to nothing, getting, at every step, a painful dementi. Rascals are always sociable. Men of great intelledl live in the world without really belonging to it; and so, from their earliest years, they feel that there is a perceptible difference between them and other people. But it is only gradually, with Intelka Prefers the lapse of years, that they come to a clear un- Isolation. derstanding of their position. Their intellectual isolation is then reinforced by a6hial seclusion in their manner of life; they let no one approach who is not in some degree emancipated from the prevailing vulgarity. After sixty, the inclination to be alone grows into a kind of real natural instind; for at that age everything combines in favour of it. For, provided the mind retains its faculties, the amount of knowledge and experience we have acquired, together with the facility we have gained in the use of our powers, makes it then more than ever easy and interesting to us to pursue the study of any subjed:. Old Age and As a matter of fad, this very genuine Solitude. privilege of old age is one which can be enjoyed only if a man is possessed of a certain amount of intelled; it will be appreciated most of all where there is real mental power; but in some degree by every one. It is only people of very barren and vulgar nature who will be just as sociable in their old 245 MY FAVORITE age as they were in their youth. But then they become trouble- some to a society to which they are no longer suited, and at most manage to be tolerated ; whereas they were formerly in great request. Give mature and repeated consideration to any plan before you proceed to carry it out; and even after you have thoroughly turned it over in your mind, make some con- R h^TI °'^ G <^^ssion to the incompetency of human judgment; j^head. ^^^ ^^ ^^Y always happen that circumstances which cannot be investigated or foreseen will come in and upset the whole of your calculation. Each day is a little life; every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death. You should regard all your private affairs as secrets, and, in respedt to them, treat your acquaintances, even though you are on good terms with them, as perfect strangers, letting them know nothing more than they can see for themselves. For in course of time, under altered circumstances, you may find it a disadvantage that they know even the most harmless things about you. Pain is felt to be something positive, and hence its absence is the true standard of happiness. And if, over and above freedom from pain, there is also an absence of boredom, the essential conditions of earthly happiness are attained; for all else is chimerical. To estimate a man's condition in regard to happiness, it is necessary to ask, not what things please him, but what things trouble him; and the more trivial these things are in themselves, the happier the man will be. To be irritated by trifles a man must be well off; for in misfortune trifles are unfelt. 246 BOOK-SHELF To make extensive preparations for life — no matter what form they may take — is one of the greatest and commonest of follies. Such preparations presuppose, in the first place, a lone life, the full and complete ,, / ^^„ " ^ ^^ . ^ r -1 I 1 r Make Preparations term or years appomted to man — and how tew r^^ i^f^^ reach it! and even if it be reached, it is still too short for all the plans that have been made; for to carry them out requires more time than was thought necessary at the begin- ning. And then how many mischances and obstacles stand in the way ! How seldom the goal is ever reached in human affairs ! And lastly, even if the goal be reached, the changes which Time works in us have been left out of the reckoning; we forget that the capacity, whether for achievement or for enjoyment, does not last a whole lifetime. So we often toil for things which are no longer suited to us when we attain them; and again, the years we spend in prepar- ing for some work, unconsciously rob us of the power for car- rying it out. How often it happens that a man is unable to enjoy the wealth which he acquired at so much trouble and risk, and that the fruits of his labour are reserved for others ; or that he is incapable of filling the position which he has won after so many years of toil and struggle. Fortune has come too late for him; or, contrarily, he has come too late for fortune, — when, for instance, he wants to achieve great things, say, in art or literature: the popular taste has changed, it may be; a new generation has grown up, which takes no interest in his work ; others have gone a shorter way and got the start of him. Instead of always thinking about our plans and anxiously looking to the future, or of giving ourselves up to regret for the past, we should never forget that the pres- ent is the only reality, the only certainty; that The Present h the future almost always turns out contrary to ^he Only Reality. our expectations; that the past, too, was very different from what we suppose it to have been. Both the past and the future are, on the whole, of less consequence than we 247 MY FAVORITE think. Distance, which makes objeds look small to the out- ward eye, makes them look big to the eye of thought. The present alone is true and adtual; it is the only time which pos- sesses full reality, and our existence lies in it exclusively. Therefore we should always be glad of it, and give it the wel- come it deserves, and enjoy every hour that is bearable by its freedom from pain and annoyance with a full consciousness of its value. We shall hardly be able to do this, if we make a wry face over the failure of our hopes in the past, or over our anxiety for the future. It is the height of folly to refuse the present hour of happiness, or wantonly to spoil it by vexation at by- gones or uneasiness about what is to come. There is a time, of course, for forethought, nay, even for repentance; but when it is over let us think of what is past as of something to which we have said farewell; and of the future as of that which lies beyond our power, in the lap of the gods. But in regard to the present, let us make it as agreeable as possible; it is the only real time we have. Even in the case of evils which are sure to happen, the time at which they will hap- pen is uncertain. A man who is always preparing for either class of evil will not have a moment of peace left him. There is no great harm in the fad: that a man's bodily strength decreases in old age, unless, indeed, he requires it to make a living. To be poor when one is old is , „ a great misfortune. If a man is secure from A?e and Poverty. , ° , • i • i i i i i i that, and retams his health, old age may be a very passable time of life. Its chief necessity is to be comfortable and well off; and, in consequence, money is then prized more than ever, because it is a substitute for failing strength. In the place of wanting to see things, to travel and learn, comes the desire to speak and teach. At that time of life what a man has in himself is of greater advantage to him than ever it was before. 248 BOOK-SHELF The greatest boon that follows the attainment of extreme old age is euthanasia^ an easy death, not ushered in by disease, and free from all pain and struggle. For let a man live as long as he may, he is never con- scious of any moment but the present, one and indivisible; and in those late years the mind loses more every day by sheer forgetfulness than ever it gains anew. An Easy Death. 249 MY FAVORITE SIR WALTER SCOTT. I On the death of Sir Walter Scott in 1832, his entire liter- ary remains were placed at the disposal of his son-in-law, Mr. John Gibson Lockhart. Among these remains „. ^ , were two volumes of a Journal which had been His Journal. . i o- tit \ r <^ r, kit kept by Sir Walter from 1825 to 1832. Mr. Lockhart made large use of this Journal in his admirable life of his father-in-law. Writing, however, so short a time after Scott's death, he could not use it so freely as he might have wished, and, according to his own statement, it was "by regard for the feelings of living persons" that he both omitted and altered; and indeed he printed no chapter of the Diary in full. There is no longer any reason why the Journal should not be published in its entirety, and by the permission of the Hon. Mrs. Maxwell-Scott it now appears exadily as Scott left it — but for the correction of obvious slips of the pen and the omission of some details chiefly of family and domestic interest. THE JOURNAL. (Edinburgh) November 20, 1825. I have all my life regretted that I did not keep a regular Journal. I have myself lost recolle6lion of much that was interesting, SuggeiteJ by and I have deprived my family and the public Byron's Notes. of some curious information, by not carrying this resolution into effet^t. I have bethought me, on seeing lately some volumes of Byron's notes, that he probably had hit upon the right way of keeping such a memo- randum-book, by throwing aside all pretence to regularity and order, and marking down events just as they occurred to recol- lection. 1 will try this plan; and behold I have a handsome locked volume, such as might serve for a lady's album. 250 BOOK-SHELF November 21st. I am enamoured of my Journal. I wish the zeal may but last. Once more of Ireland. 1 said their poverty was not exaggerated; neither is their wit — nor their good-humour — nor their whim- . . , „,.^ . , , .. o , . Irish IVit. sical absurdity — nor their courage. Wit. I gave a fellow a shilling on some occasion when sixpence was the fee. " Remember you owe me sixpence, Pat." "May your honour live till I pay you!" There was courtesy as well as wit in this, and all the clothes on Pat's back would have been dearly bought by the sum in ques- tion. Good-Humour. There is perpetual kindness in the Irish cabin; butter-milk, potatoes, a stool is offered, or a stone is rolled that your honour may sit down and be out of the smoke and those who beg every- ^,,.,^G..^-//«...«r. where else seem desirous to exercise tree hos- pitality in their own houses. Their natural disposition is turned to gaiety and happiness; while a Scotch- man is thinking about the term-day, or, if easy on that subjed, about hell in the next world — while an Englishman is making a little hell of his own in the present, because his muffin is not well roasted — Pat's mind is always turned to fun and ridicule. They are terribly excitable, to be sure, and will murther you on shght suspicion, and find out next day that it was all a mistake, and that it was not yourself they meant to kill at all at all. Dined with Sir Robert Dundas, where we met Lord and Lady Melville. My little nieces (ex officio) gave us some pretty music. I do not know and cannot utter a note of music; and complicated harmonies seem to ^y^^y^^ Without me a babble of confused though pleasing sounds. Feeling. Yet songs and simple melodies, especially if con- neded with words and ideas, have as much effed on me as on most people. But then I hate to hear a young person sing without feeling and expression suited to the song. 1 cannot 251 MY FAVORITE bear a voice that has no more life in it than a pianoforte or a bugle-horn. There is something about all the fine arts, of soul and spirit, which, like the vital principle in man, defies the research of the most critical anatomist. You feel where The Touch of it is not, yet you cannot describe what it is you Genius. want. Sir Joshua, or some other great painter, was looking at a picture on which much pains had been bestowed — "Why, yes," he said in a hesitating man- ner, "it is very clever, very well done — can't find fault; but it wants something; it wants — it wants, damn me — it wants that" — throwing his hand over his head and snapping his fingers. Tom Moore's is the most exquisite warbling I ever heard. Next to him, David Macculloch for Scots songs. The last, when a boy at Dumfries, was much admired by Burns, who used to get him to try over the words which he composed to new melodies. He is brother of Macculloch of Ardwell. November 30th. I am come to the time when those who look out of the windows shall be darkened. I must now wear spectacles constantly in reading and writing. First Uses though till this winter I have made a shift by Spe^acks. using only their occasional assistance. Although my health cannot be better, I feel my lameness becomes sometimes painful, and often inconvenient. Walking on the pavement or causeway gives me trouble, and I am glad when I have accomplished my return on foot from the Parlia- ment House to Castle Street, though I can (taking a competent time, as old Braxie said on another occasion) walk five or six miles in the country with pleasure. Well, such things must come, and be received with cheerful submission. My early lameness considered, it was impossible for a man labouring under a bodily impediment to have been stronger or more adtive than I have been, and that for twenty or thirty years. Seams will slit, and elbows will out, quoth the tailor; and as I was fifty-four on 15th August last, my mortal vestments are none 252 BOOK-SHELF of the newest. Then Walter, Charles and Lockhart are as active and handsome young fellows as you can see; and while they enjoy strength and activity I can hardly be said to want it. I have perhaps all my life set an undue value on these gifts. Yet it does appear to me that high and independent feelings are naturally, though not uniformly or inseparably, connected with bodily advantages. Strong men are usually good-humoured, and adive men often display the same elasticity of mind as of body. These are superiorities, however, that are often misused. But even for these things God shall call us to judgment. December 7th. I have much to comfort me in the present asped: of my family. My eldest son, independent in fortune, united to an affed;ionate wife — and of good hopes in his profession ; my second, with a good Domestic Matters deal of talent, and in the way, I trust, of culti- ^" Harmony. vating it to good purpose; Anne, an honest, downright, good Scots lass, in whom I would only wish to cor- real a spirit of satire; and Lockhart is Lockhart, to whom 1 can most willingly confide the happiness of the daughter who chose him, and whom he has chosen. My dear wife, the partner of early cares and successes, is, I fear, frail in health — though I trust and pray she may see me out. Indeed, if this trouble- some complaint goes on — it bodes no long existence. My brother was affefted with the same weakness, which before he was fifty brought on mortal symptoms. The poor Major had been rather a free liver. But my father, the most abstemious of men, save when the duties of hospitality required him to be very moderately free with his bottle, and that was very seldom, had the same weakness which now annoys me, and he, I think, was not above seventy when cut off. Square the odds, and good-night, Sir Walter, about sixty. I care not, if I leave my name unstained, and my family properly settled. December 14th. Affairs very bad in the money-market in London. It must come here, and I have far too many engage- 253 MY FAVORITE oTA—xSi ;^^] ments not to feel it. To end the matter at once, I intend to borrow ^10,000, with which my son's marriage contract allows me to charge my estate. At Whitsunday and Th F CI d Martinmas I will have enough to pay up the incumbrance of ^3,000 due to old Moss's daughter, and ;^'5,ooo to Misses Ferguson, in whole or part. This will enable us to dispense in a great meas- ure with bank assistance, and sleep in spite of thunder. I do not know whether it is this business which makes me a little bilious, or rather the want of exercise during the season of late, and change of the weather to too much heat. Thank God, my circumstances are good, — upon a fair balance which I have made, certainly not less than ^40,000 or nearly ^^50,000 above the world. But the sun and moon shall dance on the green ere carelessness, or hope of gain, or facility of getting cash, shall make me go too deep again, were it but for the disquiet of the thing. December i8th. Ballantyne called on me this morning. My extremity has come. Cadell has received letters from Lon- don which all but positively announce the fail- _. . , rx. ure of Hurst & Robinson, so that Constable &" tmancial Disaster. „ ^ ,, . ' . , Co. must Follow, and 1 must go with poor James Ballantyne for company. I suppose it will involve my all. But if they leave me ^500, I can still make it j^ijOOO or ^1,200 a year. And if they take my salaries of ^1,300 and X300, they cannot but give me something out of them. I have been rash in anticipating funds to buy land, but then I made from ^5,000 to ^{^ 10,000 a year, and land was my temptation. I think nobody can lose a penny — that is one comfort. Men will think pride has had a fall. Let them indulge their own pride in thinking that my fall makes them higher, or seems so, at least. I have the satisfaftion to recollect that my prosperity has been of advantage to many, and that some at least will forgive my transient wealth on account of the innocence of my intentions, and my real wish to do good to I 254 BOOK-SHELF the poor. This news will make sad hearts at Darnick, and in the cottages of Abbotsford, which I do not nourish the least hope of preserving. It has been my Delilah, and so I have often termed it; and now the recollection of the extensive woods I planted, and the walks I have formed, from which strangers must derive both the pleasure and profit, will ex- cite feelings likely to sober my gayest moments. I have half resolved never to see the place again. How could I tread my hall with such a diminished crest? How live a poor, indebted man, where I was once wealthy, the honoured? My children are provided; thank God for that. I was to have gone there on Saturday in joy and prosperity to receive my friends. My dogs will wait for me in vain. It is foolish, but the thoughts of parting from these dumb creatures have moved me more than any of the painful reflections I have put down. Poor things, I must get them kind masters ; there may be yet those who loving me may love my dog because it has been mine. 1 must end this, or I shall lose the tone of mind with which men should meet distress. Affeaionfor His Dogs, I find my dogs' feet on my knees. I hear them whining and seeking me everywhere — this is nonsense, but it is what they would do could they know how things are. Poor Will Laidlaw! Poor Tom Purdie! this will be news to wring your heart, and many a poor fellow's besides to whom my prosperity was daily bread. Ballantyne behaves like himself, and sinks his own ruin in contemplating mine. I tried to enrich him indeed, and now all — all is gone. He will have the Journal still, that is a comfort, for sure they cannot find Ballantyne and a better editor. They — alas! who will they be — Cade II. the unbekannten Obern who are to dispose of my all as they will? Some hard-eyed banker; some of those men of millions whom I described. Cadell showed more kind and personal feeling to me than I thought he had possessed. He MY FAVORITE ^^^ says there are some properties of works that will revert to me, the copy-money not being paid, but it cannot be any very great matter, I should think. Another person did not afford me all the sympathy I expedted, perhaps because I seemed to need little support, yet that is not her nature, which is generous and kind. She thinks that I have been imprudent, trusting men so far. Perhaps so, but what could I do? I must sell my books to some one, and these folks gave me the largest price; if they had kept their ground I could have brought myself round fast enough by the plan of 14th December. I now view matters at the very worst, and suppose that my all must go to supply the deficiencies of Constable. I fear it must be so. His connexions with Hurst and Robinson have been so intimate that they must be largely involved. This is the worst of the concern; our own is com- paratively plain sailing. An odd thought strikes me: when I die will the Journal of these days be taken out of the ebony cabinet at Abbotsford, and read as the transient pout of a man worth n '^ J 1 /6o,ooo, with wonder that the well-seeming Hecotne of the . ^ Journal? Baronet should ever have experienced such a hitch? Or will it be found in some obscure lodging-house, where the decayed son of chivalry has hung up his scutcheon for some 20s a week, and where one or two old friends will look grave and whisper to each other, "Poor gentle- man," "A well-meaning man, nobody's enemy but his own, thought his parts could never wear out, family poorly left; pity he took that foolish title!" Who can answer this question? December 22d. I wrote six of my close pages yesterday, which is about twenty-four pages in print. What is more, I think it comes off twangingly. The story is so very interesting in itself, that there is no fear of the book answering. Superficial it must be, but I do not disown the charge. Better a superfi- cial book, which brings well and strikingly together the known 256 BOOK-SHELF and acknowledged fads, than a dull boring narrative, pausing to see further into a millstone at every moment than the nature of the millstone admits. Nothing is so tire- some as walking through some beautiful scene A Little Se/f- with a minute philosopher, a botanist, or pebble- Criticism. gatherer, who is eternally calling your attention from the grand features of the natural scenery to look at grasses and chucky-stones. Yet in their way, they give useful informa- tion; and so does the minute historian. Gad, I think that will look well in the preface. My bile is quite gone. I really believe it arose from mere anxiety. What a wonderful con- nexion between the mind and body! December 27th. Worked at Pepys in the evening, with the purpose of review for Lockhart. Notwithstanding the de- pressing effefts of the calomel, I feel the pleasure of being alone and uninterrupted. Few men, Faculty of Not leading a quiet life, and without any strong or Being Bored. highly varied change of circumstances, have seen more variety of society than I — few have enjoyed it more, or been bored^ as it is called, less by the company of tiresome people. I have rarely, if ever, found any one out of whom I could not extrad amusement or edification ; and were I obliged to account for hints afforded on such occasions, I should make an ample dedu6lion from my inventive powers. Still, however, from the earliest time I can remember, I preferred the pleasure of being alone to waiting for visitors, and have often taken a bannock and a bit of cheese to the wood or hill, to avoid dining with company. As I grew from boyhood to manhood I saw this would not do; and that to gain a place in men's esteem I must mix and bustle with them. Pride and an excitation of spirits supplied the real pleasure which others seem to feel in society, and certainly upon many occasions it was real. Still, if the question was, eternal company, without the power of retiring within yourself, or solitary confinement for life, I should say, 257 MY FAVORITE "Turnkey, lock the cell!" My life, though not without its fits of waking and strong exertion, has been a sort of dream, spent in — «' Chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy." I have worn a wishing-cap, the power of which has been to divert present griefs by a touch of the wand of imagination, and gild over the future prosped: by prospers more The Wishing fair than can ever be realized. Somewhere it is C'Jp- said that this castle-building — this wielding of the aerial trowel — is fatal to exertions in a6tual life. I cannot tell ; I have not found it so. I cannot, indeed, say like Madame Genlis, that in the imaginary scenes in which I have adled a part I ever prepared myself for anything which actually befell me; but I have certainly fashioned out much that made the present hour pass pleasantly away, and much that has enabled me to contribute to the amusement of the public. Since I was five years old I cannot remember the time when I had not some ideal part to play for my own solitary amusement. January 22, 1826. I feel neither dishonoured nor broken down by the bad — now really bad — news I have received. I have walked my last on the domains I have Reconciled to planted — sate the last time in the halls I have His Fate. built. But death would have taken them from me if misfortune had spared them. My poor people whom I loved so well! There is just another die to turn up against me in this run of ill-luck; /'. ^., if I should break my magic wand in the fall from this elephant, and lose my pop- ularity with my fortune. Then Woodstock and Bony may both go to the paper-maker, and I may take to smoking cigars and drinking grog, or turn devotee, and intoxicate the brain another way. In prosped of absolute ruin, I wonder if they would let me leave the Court of Session. I would like, methinks, to go abroad, "And lay my bones far from the Tweedy 258 BOOK-SHELF But I find my eyes moistening, and that will not do. I will not yield without a fight for it. It is odd, when I set myself to work doggedly, as Dr. Johnson would say, I am exadly the same man that I ever was, neither low-spirited nor distrait. In pros- perous times I have sometimes felt my fancy and powers of language flag, but adversity is to me at least a tonic and bracer; the fountain is awakened from its inmost recesses, as if the spirit of affliction had troubled it in his passage. January 24, 1826. I went to the Court for the first time to-day, and, like the man with the large nose, thought everybody was thinking of me and my mishaps. Many were, undoubtedly, and all rather regrettingly ; Vassal to the some obviously affeded. It is singular to see Public for Life. the difference of men's manner whilst they strive to be kind or civil in their way of addressing me. Some smile as they wish me good-day, as if to say, "Think nothing about it, my lad; it is quite out of our thoughts." Others greeted me with the affeded gravity which one sees and despises at a funeral. The best bred — all, I believe, meaning equally well — just shook hands and went on. A foolish puff in the papers, calling on men and gods to assist a popular author, who, having choused the public of many thousands, had not the sense to keep wealth when he had it. If I am hard pressed and meas- ures used against me, I must use all means of legal defense, and subscribe myself bankrupt in a petition for sequestration. It is the course I would have advised a client to take, and would have the effed of saving my land, which is secured by my son's contract of marriage. I might save my library, etc., by assist- ance of friends, and bid my creditor's defiance. But for this I would, in a court of honour, deserve to lose my spurs. No, if they permit me, I will be their vassal for life, and dig in the mine of my imagination to find diamonds (or what may sell for such) to make good my engagements, not to enrich myself. And this from no reludance to allow myself to be called the Insolvent, which I probably am, but because I will not put out 259 MY FAVORITE of the power of my creditors the resources, mental or literary, which yet remain to me. July 8, 1827. I did little to-day but arrange papers, and put bills, receipts, etc, into apple-pie order. I believe the fair prospe6l I have of clearing off some incum- Thorns in brances, which are like thorns in my flesh, nay. His Flesh. in my very eye, contribute much to this. 1 did not even correct proof-sheets; nay, could not, for I have cancelled two sheets, instante Jacobo^ and I myself being of his opinion; for, as I said yesterday, we must and will take pains. The fiddle-faddle of arranging all the things was troublesome, but they give a good account of my affairs. The money for the necessary payments is ready, and therefore there is a sort of pleasure which does not arise out of any mean source, since it has for its objed the prospeft of doing justice and achieving independence. July 23, 1827. Constable's death might have been a most important thing to me if it had happened some years ago, and I should then have lamented it much. He has Injuries lived to do me some injury; yet, excepting the l)fath '^^^ £,S->^^'^-> ^ t^i"'^ most unintentionally. He was a prince of booksellers; his views sharp, powerful, and liberal ; too sanguine, however, and, like many bold and successful schemers, never knowing when to stand or stop, and not always calculating his means to his objeds with mercantile accuracy. He was very vain, for which he had some reason, hav- ing raised himself to great commercial eminence, as he might also have attained great wealth with good management. He knew, I think, more of the business of a bookseller in planning and executing popular works than any man of his time. In books themselves he had much bibliographical information, but none whatever that could be termed literary. He knew the rare volumes of his library not only by his eye, but by the touch, when blindfolded. Thomas Thomson saw him make 260 BOOK-SHELF this experiment, and that it might be complete placed in his hand an ordinary volume instead of one of these libri rariores. He said that he had over-estimated his memory; he could not recoiled that volume. Constable was a violent-tempered man with those that he dared use freedom with. He was easily over- awed by people of consequence, but, as usual, took it out of those whom poverty made subservient to him. Yet he was gen- erous and far from bad-hearted. In person good-looking, but very corpulent latterly; a large feeder and deep drinker till his health became weak. He died of water in the chest, which the natural strength of his constitution set long at defiance. I have no great reason to regret him; yet I do. If he deceived me, he also deceived himself. December 24, 1827. My refledions on entering my own gate were of a very different and more pleasing cast than those with which I left my house about six weeks ago. I was then in doubt whether I should fly my , . ^ '^^^, 1111 J Lining to the country or become avowedly bankrupt, and sur- Cloud. render my library and household furniture, with the life-rent of my estate, to sale. A man of the world will say I had better done so. No doubt, had I taken this course at once, I might have employed the ^25,000 which I made since the insolvency of Constable and Robinson's houses in com- pounding my debts. But I could not have slept sound as I now can, under the comfortable impression of receiving the thanks of my creditors and the conscious feeling of discharging my duty like a man of honour and honesty. I see before me a long, tedious and dark path, but it leads to true fame and stain- less reputation. If I die in the harrows, as is very likely, I shall die with honour; if I achieve my task, I shall have the thanks of all concerned, and the approbation of my own conscience. And so I think I can fairly face the return of Christmas Day. December 30, 1827. Looking back to the conclusion of 1826, I observe that the last year ended in trouble and sickness, 261 MY FAVORITE with pressures for the present, and gloomy prospers for the future. The sense of a great privation so lately sustained, to- gether with the very doubtful and clouded nature Rowing with of my private affairs pressed hard upon my mind. the Tide. \ am now perfedly well in constitution; and though I am still on troubled waters, yet I am rowing with the tide, and less than the continuation of my exer- tions of 1827 may, with God's blessing, carry me successfully through 1828, when we may gain a more open sea, if not exactly a safe port. Above all, my children are well. Sophia's situ- ation excites some natural anxiety ; but it is only the accom- plishment of the burthen imposed on her sex. Walter is happy in the view of his majority, on which matter we have favourable hopes from the Duke of Wellington. Anne is well and happy. Charles's entry upon life under the highest patronage, and in a line for which I hope he is qualified, is about to take place presently. For all these great blessings it becomes me well to be thankful to God, who in His good time and good pleasure sends us good as well as evil. May 8, 1 83 I. I have suffered terribly, that is the truth, rather in body than in mind, and I often wish I could lie down and sleep without waking. But I will fight it out if I can. It would argue too great an attachment of consequence to my liter- ary labors to sink under. Did I know how to begin, I would begin this very day, although I knew I should sink at the end. After all, this is but a fear and faintness of heart, though of another kind from that which trembleth at a loaded pistol. My bodily strength is terribly gone: perhaps my mental, too! May II, 1 83 1. Very weak, scarce able to crawl about without the pony — lifted on and off" — and unable to walk half a mile save with great pain. May 12, 1 83 I. Resolved to lay by Robert of Paris, and take it up when I can work. Thinking on it really makes my 262 BOOK-SHELF head swim, and that is not safe. Miss Ferrier comes out to us. This gifted personage, besides having great talents, has conversation the least exigeante of any author, female at least, whom I have ever seen among ,.. _ the long list I have encountered, simple, full of humour and exceedingly ready at repartee; and all this without the least affedation of the blue stocking. Lockhart describes the closing scene in Scott's life as fol- lows: "As I was dressing on the morning of Monday, the seventeenth of September, 1832, Nicolson came into my room, and told me that his master had The Closing awoke in a state of composure and conscious- Scene. ness, and wished to see me immediately. I found him entirely himself, though in the last extreme of feeble- ness. His eye was clear and calm — every trace of the wild fire of delirium extinguished. * Lockhart,' he said, ' I may have but a minute to speak to you. My dear, be a good man — be virtuous — be religious — be a good man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here.* He paused, and I said, 'Shall I send for Sophia and Anne? ' 'No,' said he, 'don't disturb them. Poor souls! I know they were up all night — God bless you all.' With this he sunk into a very tranquil sleep, and, indeed, he scarcely afterwards gave any sign of consciousness, except for an instant on the arrival of his sons." 263 MY FAVORITE CHARLES W. STEARNS It happened, several years ago, that I was one of a crowd coming out of a New York theatre, and thinking to myself, how thoroughly I had enjoyed the play, when Absorbed in near the door I heard some one say, " Well, Business. that's enough for me; I don't want to hear any more such stuff as that." And what do you, reader, suppose was the piece that had failed to please at least this one individual, and perhaps many others? It was Shake- speare's Midsummer Night's Dream, put upon the stage in the most liberal manner, and conscientiously performed by an excel- lent company. I had rather more than a nodding acquaintance with this dissatisfied gentleman, and perhaps his remark was intended as much for my ear as for his intelligent, bright-eyed little wife. She merely replied, glancing at me, "Probably the Doctor won't agree with you. But don't, Fred, be always tell- ing what you think; you don't give time enough to such things to appreciate them." I knew enough of this man to be aware that he was full of average intelligence and a fair education. He could write off- hand, and correc^tly enough, a letter, or anything else he had occasion to compose. He was liberal, had a relish for humor, was a good observer, and told a story well. Having plenty of common sense about such things as concerned himself, he never affefted an interest in what he did not understand, or really cared nothing about. I knew that, when a boy, he had been for years at a very respectable " academy " in his native village, where boys were also taught some of the higher branches. But he had escaped as early as possible from the narrow sphere of the school-room, to enter upon the game or business of life. And the business of life was indeed to him a game — in which the chances were to be studied, opportunities boldly seized, and finesse often employed. 264 BOOK-SHELF He had been successful, was living in a good house, while his wife had her coupe, her India shawls, and her diamonds. That was more than ten years ago. But his fortunes have since changed, and he is now one of several dozen clerks in a large establishment, and lives, quite contentedly, perhaps, with his family in the fourth story of a boarding-house, to which he often carries, for his evening recreation, an armful of his em- ployer's account-books. The change in this man's fortunes was certainly not dire6tly owing to his being incapable of relishing one of Shakespeare's plays. But yet there is a connection between the two fads. This may be illustrated by the J^"' j^^lf^i c ^u -j-'jiT • j-u Time for Thinking case or another individual 1 am acquainted with, ^^^ Readin? now over seventy years old, and whose whole life has been a success, a pleasant journey. Nearly forty years ago, I can recoiled, he kept a hardware store in a thriving inland country town, and only of late years has his name disappeared from over the door. One of his sons and myself were cronies together, and had the run of each other's houses. Among the most distinct of my very early recolledions, is their quiet fire- side of a winter's evening, where the father used often to read to his wife from a set of Aiken's " British Poets," and very often, too, from Shakespeare's plays, which he had bought at a book-audion in New York, whither he went on business just twice every year. In fad:, he never returned from the city with- out bringing a few books in that same black leather trunk; and we boys used to be in great haste to get at them, to find if there were any engravings or pidures in them. Among those books were not only Gibbon, Hume, Robertson, Johnson, Goldsmith, and the S-pe£lator, but also some of Scott's earlier and best novels, and even a ten-volume copy of Byron. For this country hardware dealer was no Puritan, though descended by father and mother from Puritan stock that had been in the country over two hundred years. Moreover, these same books, like the bricks in the chimney that Jack Cade built, "are alive at this day to testify it;" for I have seen them within the past 265 MY FAVORITE year, and their owner, too. He is by far the wealthiest man in the county, made so by the common course of trade, followed in a routine way, without speculation, grasping, or overreaching; but, as I suppose, by simply keeping what, more or less, daily came to his hand. Nor do I believe there was ever any parsi- mony or meanness in his management; but, as far back as I can recoiled:, the expenditure in his family was more liberal, apparently, than in any other of that small community. Pros- perity, tranquillity and good health have now made his figure rather portly, which, with a bright eye and countenance made intelligent by the habit of reading, combine altogether to give him a somewhat patrician look. He has travelled with his family in Europe, and been once in Congress. He is very fond of a rubber of whist, for which he has plenty of time, and his most weighty cares now are, a model farm with choice imported stock. His children and grandchildren are prouder and fonder of him than of all else that belongs to them. The different result in the careers of these two men is, I contend, chiefly owing to one of them having been able, and the other not able, to sit down quietly for an hour with a book in his hand. One looked upon business as a necessity, a duty, to be steadily and carefully attended to day by day, and from which some change or recreation was to be as regularly sought. The other looked upon business as a game to be played boldly and smartly, and in such a way that its excitements made all other things seem tedious and insipid. The poor fool who thus pursues it, is impatient even of the hours spent in sleep or at the table. The diversions sought by such a mind, if any, are of a kind only to still further increase the mental heat, instead of cooling and allaying it. There is, in such a life, no conserva- tive or tranquillizing agent. As a resource, a change from the ordinary cares and toils of life, reading is a sedative that composes the mind and restores its calm and regular movements. Like a temperate and whole- some drink, it at once refreshes and nourishes, and may be safely taken in large and frequent draughts. Most men need some- 266 BOOK-SHELF thing like a balance-wheel to equalize the operation of their mental and moral powers, and to prevent the imagination and fancy from domineering over the reason and judgment, to break the sudden shocks of passion „ /^ h"^ d and interest, and to carry the mind past sea- Nourishes. sons of weariness, depression, disappointment, or afflidion. A man without any such conservative provision in his nature is the fool of chance, and every wind that blows. His mind, ill regulated from the start, becomes rapidly more and more disordered by the tear and excitement of each succeeding day. His only relief is in other excitements still more frivolous and unsatisfadiory, until his increasing restlessness is looked upon, even by the very servants who witness it, with less of compassion than contempt. This miserable condition can never be the fate of the read- ing man. To him, a few books in his house are as a couch, on which his mind can repose for an hour or two ^„y Vocation Is of each day, and then he returns calm and Dignified When refreshed to his customary business. Moreover, Pursued by a Read- any kind of business or vocation is dignified and *"^ ^^"- made honorable, when pursued by such a man — a man who reads, and has some knowledge and ideas outside of his neces- sary daily occupations. But the man who knows nothing, and can think of nothing beyond his business, whether that is forg- ing horse-shoes, selling cambrics, painting pictures, or preparing law cases, degrades that business, and is degraded by it, and who does not know that we have narrow-minded and miserably igno- rant professional men, artists, and merchants, as well as black- smiths? Unvaried toil of any kind is mean and degrading. Reading is no loss of time to the business man, by allow- ing his rivals to pass him in the race. For this life is not a race depending upon one short and exhausting effort; it is a voyage, a journey of alternate a(5lion and Occasional repose. Continued adion without repose pro- Recreation. duces a mental heat or fever that is unfavorable to the exercise of the judgment, without which the greatest 267 MY FAVORITE talents achieve no results. The artist who has worked for many hours over his composition, until, wearied and confused, he begins to doubt as to some of the details or effects of his piece, loses no time by shutting up his studio, and passing the evening in pleasant society, or at the play. On returning in the morn- ing, as he unlocks his door, and catches the first view of his work, he can judge of it almost as clearly as though it were that of some other person. Even the statesman, harassed by his rivals, or burdened with some problem of domestic or foreign policy, may wisely take his gun or his rod, or unmoor his little boat for a few hours' sail; and, on returning to his office, his burdens and difficulties will probably not be found greater, but less, than when he left them; simply because he comes back stronger and with cooler judgment to cope with them. Even the scholar, who has so much to learn that he weighs time to the utmost grain, will end with becoming little better than one of his own vocabularies, unless he gives some hours of each day to his family and the general interests of society. Thus it is that any pursuit, though in itself the most dignified, when it is so followed as to keep the mind always bound to it, always in harness, becomes after a while a slavish, physical habit. The mind then works mechanically and without judgment, and there- fore does much to no purpose, reaping in the end neither hap- piness nor respedt as the fruit of its labors. Against this, what better and more perfedt safeguard for the man of business, than the habit of reading? The reading of Shakespeare's plays is the best kind of intel- lectual discipline. It vigorously exercises all the mental facul- ties, improves the taste, teaches a forcible use Readingi from of words, accustoms the ear to the harmony of Shakespeare. language, and opens a treasury of practical wis- dom that delights and instructs us from the period of youth to the latest years of life. No preparation is needed for any one to begin the reading, nor any aid beyond that affiDrded by a good edition with a few foot-notes to explain 268 BOOK-SHELF obsolete words and some few obscure passages. Indeed, with- out these aids, nearly all that he wrote may be easily understood at a first reading — more easily, I will assert, than are some authors of the present day. No poetry, and least of all, dra- matic poetry, can be read hastily, as we read a newspaper or a novel. The reader must take time to form images in his own mind of the scenes and the action, the appearance, situation, manners, and tones of the persons represented, along with their characters and purposes ; in short, he must try to do for himself exactly what is done for him on the stage. If we desire it, Shakespeare will give us a knowledge of the world before we enter it. Nor is it the rustic only who may need this knowledge. The man of business, living in a great metropolis, but absorbed in one Othello, pursuit, and seeing only the same set of people '^ Novice. from one year's end to another, may be almost as unsophisticated as the Green-mountain boy; and he would often appear so, were it not for his tailor, and one or two other persons whom he employs. Even Othello, at sixty, after all his campaigns, was a novice in the world, compared to the least of all the other personages in the play. Had he been a reading man — a reader of good poetry and plays — he never could have been so duped and betrayed. 269 MY FAVORITE THACKERAY. I like to think of a well-nurtured boy, brave and gentle, warm-hearted and loving, and looking the world in the face with kind, honest eyes. What bright colours it wore y , then, and how you enjoyed it! A man has not many years of such time. He does not know them whilst they are with him. It is only when they are passed long away that he remembers how dear and happy they were. Pendennis. How lonely we are in the world! how selfish and secret, everybody! You and your wife have pressed the same pillow for forty years and fancy yourselves united. Psha, does she cry out when you have the gout, or do you lie awake when she has the toothache? Your artless daughter, seemingly all inno- cence and devoted to her mamma and her piano-lesson, is think- ing of neither, but of the young Lieutenant with whom she danced at the last ball. The honest, frank boy just returned from school is secretly speculating upon the money you will give him and the debts he owes the tart-man. The old grandmother, <^ ,r L crooning in the corner and bound to another world within a few months, has some business or cares which are quite private and her own; very likely she is thinking of fifty years back, and that night when she made such an impression, and danced a cotillion with the Captain before your father proposed for her: or, what a silly little overrated creature your wife is, and how absurdly you are infatuated about her, — and, as for your wife — O philo- sophic reader, answer and say, — do you tell her all? Ah, sir — a distinct universe walks about under your hat and under mine — all things in nature are different to each — the woman we look 270 BOOK-SHELF at has not the same features, the dish we eat from has not the same taste to the one and the other; you and I are but a pair of infinite isolations, with some fellow-islands a little more or less near to us. Pendennis. It was a jovial time, that of four-and-twenty, when every muscle of mind and body was in healthy adion, when the world was new as yet, and one moved over it spurred onwards by good spirits and the delightful capa- y. bility to enjoy. If ever we feel young after- wards it is with the comrades of that time; the tunes we hum in our old age are those we learned then. Some- times, perhaps, the festivity of that period revives in our memory; but how dingy the pleasure-garden has grown, how tattered the garlands look, how scant and old the company, and what a num- ber of the lights have gone out since that day! Grey hairs have come on like daylight streaming in — daylight and a headache with it. Pleasure has gone to bed with the rouge on her cheeks. Pendennis. What is it you want.-* Do you want a body of capitalists that shall be forced to purchase the works of all authors, who may present themselves, manuscript in hand.? Everybody who writes his epic, every driveller Genius who can or can't spell, and produces his novel ^"^ ^^g^- or his tragedy, are they all to come and find a bag of sovereigns in exchange for their worthless reams of paper,'' Who is to settle what is good or bad, saleable or otherwise? Will you give the buyer leave, in fine, to purchase or not.-* Why, sir, when Johnson sate behind the screen at Saint John's Gate, and took his dinner apart, because he was too shabby and poor to join the literary bigwigs who were regaling themselves round Mr. Cave's best table-cloth, the tradesman was doing him no wrong. You could n't force the publisher to recognize the man of genius in the young man who presented himself before him, ragged, gaunt, and hungry. Rags are not a proof of 271 MY FAVORITE genius ; whereas capital is absolute, as times go, and is perforce the bargain-master. It has a right to deal with the literary inventor as with any other; if I produce a novelty in the book- trade, I must do the best I can with it; but I can no more force Mr. Murray to purchase my book of travels or sermons, than I can compel Mr. Tattersall to give me a hundred guineas for my horse. I may have my own ideas of the value of my Pega- sus, and think him the most wonderful of animals; but the dealer has a right to his opinion, too, and may want a lady's horse, or a cob for a heavy, timid rider, or a sound hack for the road, and my beast won't suit him. Which is the most reasonable and does his duty best: he who stands aloof from the struggle of life, calmly contemplating it, or he who descends to the ground, and takes mo Ordered ^^^ |^ ^j^^ contest? That philosopher holds butjerm? and ^ , j i i r i i j Success? ^ great place amongst the leaders or the world, and enjoys to the full what it has to give of rank and riches, renown and pleasure, who comes, weary-hearted, out of it, and says that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Many a teacher of those whom we reverence, and who steps out of his carriage up to his carved cathedral place, shakes his lawn ruffles over the velvet cushion, and cries out that the whole struggle is an accursed one, and that the works of the world are evil. Many a conscience-stricken mystic flies from it altogether, and shuts himself out from it within convent walls (real or spiritual), whence he can only look up to the sky, and contemplate the heaven out of which there is no rest, and no good. But the earth, where our feet are, is the work of the same Power as the immeasurable blue yonder, in which the future lies into which we would peer. Who ordered toil as the condi- tion of life, ordered weariness, ordered sickness, ordered poverty, failure, success — to this man a foremost place, to the other a nameless struggle with the crowd — to that a shameful fall, or paralysed limb, or sudden accident — to each some work upon the ground he stands on, until he is laid beneath it. 272 BOOK-SHELF As you sit, surrounded by respedt and affection ; happy, honoured, and flattered in your old age; your foibles gently indulged; your least words kindly cherished; your garrulous old stories received for the hun- . ^ / t'"^ t ■ •', , P . • I 1 •/- 1 r I 1 IS Dead; Long Live dredth time with dutirul rorbearance, and never- ^^^ King. failing hypocritical smiles; the women of your house constant in their flatteries; the young men hushed and attentive when you begin to speak; the servants awe-stricken; the tenants cap in hand, and ready to adt in the place of your worship's horses when your honour takes a drive — it has often struck you, O thoughtful Dives! that this resped, and these glories, are for the main part transferred, with your fee-simple to your successor — that the servants will bow, and the tenants shout, for your son as for you; that the butler will fetch him the wine (improved by a little keeping) that's now in your cel- lar; and that, when your night is come, and the light of your life is gone down, as sure as the morning rises after you and without you, the sun of prosperity and flattery shines upon your heir. Men come and bask in the halo of consols and acres that beams round about him; the reverence is transferred with the estate; of which, with all its advantages, pleasures, resped and good-will, he in turn becomes the life-tenant. How long do you wish or expe6l that your people will regret you? How much time does a man devote to grief before he begins to enjoy? A great man must keep his heir at his feast like a liv- ing memento mori. If he holds very much by life, the presence of the other must be a constant sting and warning. " Make ready to go," says the successor to your honour; "I am wait- ing; and I could hold it as well as you." You must bear your own burthen, fashion your own faith, think your own thoughts, and pray your own prayer. To what mortal ear could I tell all if I had a mind? or who could under- stand all? Who can tell another's shortcomings, lost opportu- nities, weigh the passions which overpower, the defedls which incapacitate reason? what extent of truth and right his neigh- 273 MY FAVORITE hour's mind is organised to perceive and to do? what invisible and forgotten accident, terror of youth, chance or mischance of fortune, may have altered the current of life? A grain of sand may alter it, as the flinging of a pebble may end it. Who can weigh circumstances, passions, temptations, that go to our good and evil account, save One, before whose awful wisdom we kneel, and at whose mercy we ask absolution? Pendennis. If authors sneer, it is the critic's business to sneer at them for sneering. He must pretend to be their superior, or who would care about his opinion? And his livelihood is to find fault. Besides, he is right sometimes; and the stories he reads, and the characters drawn in them, are old, sure enough. What stories are new? All types of all characters march through all fables; tremblers and boasters; victims and bullies; dupes and knaves; long-eared Neddies, giving themselves leonine Nothing New airs; TartufFes wearing virtuous clothing; lovers Under the Sun. and their trials, their blindness, their folly and constancy. With the very first page of the human story do not love, and lies, too, begin? So the tales were told ages before i?isop; and asses under lions' manes roared in Hebrew; and sly foxes flattered in Etruscan; and wolves in sheep's clothing gnashed their teeth in Sanscrit, no doubt. The sun shines to-day as he did when he first began shining; and the birds in the tree overhead, while I am writing, sing very much the same note they have sung ever since they were finches. There may be nothing new under and including the sun; but it looks fresh every morning, and we rise with it to toil, hope, scheme, laugh, struggle, love, sufi^er, until the night comes and quiet. The Newcomes. There is no good (unless your taste is that way) in living in a society where you are merely the equal of everybody else. Many people give themselves extreme pains to frequent com- pany where all around them are their superiors, and where, do 274 BOOK-SHELF what you will, you must be subject to continual mortification. The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors. Be the cock of your village; the queen of your coterie. I am like Cassar, and of a noble mind: if I Be the Cock of cannot be first in Piccadilly, let me try Hatton l^our Village. Garden, and see whether I cannot lead the ton there. If I cannot take the lead at White's or the Travel- lers', let me be president of the Jolly Sandboys at the Bag of Nails, and blackball everybody who does not pay me honour. With a shilling's worth of tea and muffins you can get as much adulation and resped: as many people cannot purchase with a thousand pounds' worth of plate and profusion, hired footmen turning their houses topsy-turvy, and suppers from Gunter's. Adulation ! why, the people who come to you give as good par- ties as you do. Resped! the very menials, who wait behind your supper-table, waited at a duke's yesterday, and adually patronize you ! You can buy flattery for twopence, and you spend ever so much money in entertaining your equals and betters, and nobody admires you ! The writer of these veracious pages was once walking through a splendid English palace standing amidst parks and gardens, than which none more magnificent has been seen since the days of Aladdin, in company The Skeleton in with a melancholy friend, who viewed all things ^ke Closet. darkly through his gloomy eyes. The house- keeper, pattering on before us from chamber to chamber, was expatiating upon the magnificence of this pidture; the beauty of that statue; the marvellous richness of these hangings and carpets, and so on; when, in the very richest room of the whole castle. Hicks, such was my melancholy companion's name, stopped the cicerone in her prattle, saying in a hollow voice, "And now, madam, will you show us the closet where the skel- eton is?'' The scared functionary paused in the midst of her harangue; that article was not inserted in the catalogue which she daily utters to visitors for their half-crown. Hicks's ques- 275 MY FAVORITE tion brought a darkness down upon the hall where we were standing. We did not see the room; and yet I have no doubt there is such a one; and ever after when I have thought of the splendid castle towering in the midst of shady trees, under which the dappled deer are browsing; of the terraces gleaming with statues, and bright with a hundred thousand flowers; of the bridges, and shining fountains, and rivers, wherein the castle windows reflecft their festive gleams, when the halls are filled with happy feasters, and over the darkling woods comes the sound of music; — always, I say, when I think of Castle Blue- beard, it is to think of that dark little closet, which I know is there, and which the lordly owner opens shuddering, after mid- night, when he is sleepless and must go unlock it, when the palace is hushed, when beauties are sleeping around him uncon- scious, and revellers are at rest. Have we not all such closets, my jolly friend, as well as the noble Marquis of Carabas? At night, when all the house is asleep but you, don't you get up and peep into yours? When you in your turn are slumbering, up gets Mrs. Brown from your side, steals downstairs like Amina to her ghoul, clicks open the secret door, and looks into her dark depository. Did she tell you of that little affair with Smith long before she knew you? Psha! who knows any one save himself alone? Who, in showing his house to the closest and dearest, doesn't keep back the key of a closet or two? Surely a fine furious temper, if accompanied with a certain magnanimity and bravery, which often go together with it, is one of the most precious and fortunate gifts Successful with which a gentleman or lady can be endowed. Antagonism. A person always ready to fight is certain of the greatest consideration amongst his or her family circle. The lazy grow tired of contending with him; the timid coax and flatter him; and as almost every one is timid or lazy, a bad-tempered man is sure to have his own way. It is he who commands, and all the others obey. If he is a gourmand he 276 BOOK-SHELF has what he likes for dinner; and the tastes of all the rest are subservient to him. She (we playfully transfer the gender, as a bad temper is of both sexes) has the place which she likes best in the drawing-room ; nor do her parents, nor her brothers and sisters, venture to take her favourite chair. If she wants to go to a party, mamma will dress herself in spite of her headache; and papa, who hates those dreadful soirees, will go upstairs after dinner and put on his poor old white neckcloth, though he has been toiling at chambers all day, and must be there early in the morning — he will go out with her, we say, and stay for the cotillion. If the family are taking their tour in the summer, it is she who ordains whither they shall go, and when they shall stop. If he comes home late, the dinner is kept for him, and not one dares to say a word though ever so hungry. If he is in good humour, how every one frisks about and is happy ! How the servants jump up at his bell and run to wait upon him! How they sit up patiently, and how eagerly they rush out to fetch cabs in the rain ! Whereas, for you and me, who have the tempers of angels, and never were known to be angry or to complain, nobody cares whether we are pleased or not. Our wives go to the milliners and send us the bill, and we pay it; our John finishes reading the newspaper before he answers our bell and brings it to us; our sons loll in the arm-chair which we should like; fill the house with their young men, and smoke in the dining-room; our tailors fit us badly; our butchers give us the youngest mutton; our tradesmen dun us much more quickly than other people's, because they know we are good- natured; and our servants go out whenever they like, and openly have their friends to supper in the kitchen. I protest the great ills of life are nothing — the loss of your fortune is a mere flea-bite; the loss of your wife — how many men have supported it, and married comfortably afterwards? It is not what you lose, but what you have daily to bear that is hard. I can fancy nothing more cruel, after a long easy life of bachelorhood, than to have to sit day after day with a dull. 277 MY FAVORITE handsome woman opposite ; to have to answer her speeches about the weather, housekeeping, and what not; to smile appro- priately when she is disposed to be lively (that - . , „ . laughine; at the jokes is the hardest part), and Social Boredom. i i -^ • • i • to model your conversation so as to suit her in- telligence, knowing that a word used out of its downright signification will not be understood by your fair break- fast-maker. Women go through this simpering and smiling life, and bear it quite easily. Theirs is a life of hypocrisy. What good woman does not laugh at her husband's or father's jokes and stories time after time, and would not laugh at breakfast, lunch and dinner, if he told them? Flattery is their nature — to coax, flatter and sweetly befool some one is every woman's business. At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands outside the bed feebly beat time. And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet ,,, smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, "Adsum!" and fell back. It was the word we used at school when names were called; and lo, he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the pres- ence of the Master. The Newcomes. The world deals good-naturedly with good-natured people, and 1 never knew a sulky misanthropist who quarrelled with it, but it was he, and not it, that was in the wrong. The rule of a father over his family, and his conduct to wife and children — subjects over whom his power is monarchi- cal — any one who watches the world must think The King of with trembling sometimes of the account which the Fireside. many a man will have to render. For in our society there's no law to control the King of the Fireside. He is master of property, happiness, life almost. He is free to punish, to make happy or unhapf')y — to ruin or to 278 BOOK-SHELF torture. He may kill a wife gradually, and be no more ques- tioned than the Grand Seignor who drowns a slave at midnight. He may make slaves and hypocrites of his children; or friends and freemen ; or drive them into revolt and enmity against the natural law of love. Fortune, good or ill, as I take it, does not change men and women. It but develops their chara(iters. As there are a thou- sand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write, so „ ^ eeping r r ' Secrets of the the heart is a secret even to him (or her) who Heart. has it in his own breast. Who hath not found himself surprised into revenge, or adiion, or passion, for good or evil, whereof the seeds lay within him, latent and unsuspected, until the occasion called them forth? What is the meaning of fidelity in love, and whence the birth of it? 'Tis a state of mind that men fall into, and de- pending on the man rather than the woman. We love being in love, that's the truth on't. If ^ ~ Love. we had not met Joan, we should have met Kate, and adored her. We know our mistresses are no better than many other women, nor no prettier, nor no wiser, nor no wittier. 'Tis not for these reasons we love a woman, or for any special quality or charm I know of; we might as well demand that a lady should be the tallest woman in the world, like the Shropshire giantess, as that she should be a paragon in any other charader, before we began to love her. Esmond. Vanity Fair — Vanity Fair! Here was a man, who could not spell, and did not care to read — who had the habits and the cunning of a boor; whose aim in life was petti- fogging; who never had a taste, or emotion, or A Social enjoyment, but what was sordid and foul ; and Monstrosity. yet he had rank, and honours, and power, some- how; and was a dignitary of the land, and a pillar of the state. 279 MY FAVORITE He was high sheriff, and rode in a golden coach. Great minis- ters and statesmen courted him; and in Vanity Fair he had a higher place than the most brilliant genius of spotless virtue. Vanity Fair. "I think I could be a good woman," said Rebecca, "if I had five thousand a year. I could dawdle about in the nursery, and count the apricots on the wall. I could water The Magic Touch plants in a green-house, and pick off dead leaves of Midas. from the geraniums. I could ask old women about their rheumatisms, and order half a crown's worth of soup for the poor. I shouldn't miss it much out of five thousand a year. I could even drive out ten miles to dine at a neighbour's, and dress in the fashions of the year before last. I could go to church and keep awake in the great family pew; or go to sleep behind the curtains, with my veil down, if I only had practise. I could pay everybody, if I had but the money. This is what the conjurors here pride them- selves upon doing. They look down with pity upon us miser- able sinners who have none. They think themselves generous if they give our children a five-pound note, and us contemptible if we are without one." And who knows but Rebecca was right in her speculations — and that it was only a question of money and fortune which made the difference between her and an hon- est woman? If you take temptations into account, who is to say that he is better than his neighbour? A comfortable career of prosperity, if it does not make people honest, at least keeps them so. An alderman coming from a turtle feast will not step out of his carriage to steal a leg of mutton; but put him to starve and see if he will not purloin a loaf. I know few things more affeding than that timorous debasement and self-humiliation of a woman. How she owns that it is she, and not the man, who is guilty; how she takes all the faults on her side; how she courts in a manner punishment 280 BOOK-SHELF for the wrongs which she has not committed, and persists in shielding the real culprit! It is those who injure women who get the most kindness from them — they are born timid and tyrants, and maltreat those who are humblest before them. Which of the dead are most tenderly and passionately de- plored ? Those who love the survivors the least, I believe. The death of a child occasions a passion of grief and frantic tears, such as your end, brother „ 'i' J^^ . ... . . ^. . ^ r • Dead are Most reader, will never mspire. 1 he death or an m- Deplored? fant which scarce knew you, which a week's ab- sence from you would have caused to forget you, will strike you down more than the loss of your closest friend, or your first-born son — a man grown like yourself, with children of his own. We may be harsh and stern with Judah and Simeon — our love and pity gush out for Benjamin — the little one. And if you are old, as some reader of this may be or shall be, old and rich, or old and poor — you may be one day thinking for yourself — "These people are very good round about me; but they won't grieve too much when I am gone. I am very rich, and they want my inheritance — or very poor, and they are tired of supporting me." Vanity Fair. 281 MY FAVORITE T Y N DAL L. The kingdom of science cometh not by observation and experiment alone, but is completed by fixing the roots of obser- vation and experiment in a region inaccessible to both, and in dealing with which we are forced to fall back upon the piduring power of the mind. 1 hold the nebular theory as it was held by Kant, Laplace, and William Herschel, and as it is held by the best scientific intellects of to-day. According to it, our sun The Nebular and planets were once diffused through space as Theory. an impalpable haze, out of which, by condensa- tion, came the solar system. What caused the haze to condense? Loss of heat. What rounded the sun and planets? That which rounds a tear — molecular force. For reons, the immensity of which overwhelms man's conceptions, the earth was unfit to maintain what we call life. It is now covered with visible living things. They are not formed of matter different from that of the earth around them. They are, on the contrary, bone of its bone, and flesh of its flesh. How were they introduced? Was life implicated in the nebula — as part, it may be, of a vaster and wholly Unfathomable Life; or is it the work of a Being standing outside the nebula, who fashioned it and vitalized it; but whose own origin and ways are equally past finding out? As far as the eye of science hath hitherto ranged through nature, no intrusion of purely creative power into any series of phenomena has ever been observed. The assumption of such a power to account for special phenomena, though often made, has always proved a failure. It is opposed to the very spirit of science; and I therefore assumed the responsibility of holding up, in contrast with it, that method of nature which it has been 282 BOOK-SHELF the vocation and triumph of science to disclose, and in the appli- cation of which we can alone hope for further light. Holding, then, that the nebulae and the solar system, life included, stand to each other in the relation of the germ to the finished organism, 1 reaffirm here, not arrogantly, or defiantly, but without a shade of indistinctness, the position laid down at Belfast. Not with the vagueness belonging to the emotions, but with the definiteness belonging to the understanding, the scien- tific man has put to himself these questions regarding the introduftion of life upon the earth. The Creative He will be the last to dogmatize upon the sub- Hypothesis. je<5t, for he knows best that certainty is here for the present unattainable. His refusal of the creative hypothe- sis is less an assertion of knowledge than a protest against the assumption of knowledge which must long, if not forever, lie beyond us, and the claim to which is the source of perpetual confusion upon earth. With a mind open to conviction he asks his opponents to show him an authority for the belief they so strenuously and so fiercely uphold. They can do no more than point to the book of Genesis, or some other portion of the Bible. Profoundly interesting, and indeed pathetic, to me are those attempts of the opening mind of man to appease its hun- ger for a cause. But the book of Genesis has no voice in scientific questions. To the grasp of geology, which it resisted for a time, it at length yielded like potter's clay ; its authority as a system of cosmogony being discredited on all hands, by the abandonment of the obvious meaning of its writer. It is a poem, not a scientific treatise. In the former aspe6t it is forever beautiful : in the latter aspeft it has been, and it will continue to be, purely obstructive and hurtful. To knowledge its value has been negative, leading, in rougher ages than ours, to physical, and even in our own "free" age, to moral violence. Bishop Butler accepted with unwavering trust the chronol- ogy of the Old Testament, describing it as "confirmed by the 283 MY FAVORITE natural and civil history of the world, collefted from common historians, from the state of the earth, and from the late inven- tions of arts and sciences." These words mark The- Riddle of progress ; and they must seem somewhat hoary the Rocks. to the bishop's successors of to-day. It is hardly necessary to inform you that since his time the domain of the naturalist has been immensely extended — the whole science of geology, with its astounding revelations regard- ing the life of the ancient earth, having been created. The rigidity of old conceptions has been relaxed, the public mind being rendered gradually tolerant of the idea that not for six thousand, nor for sixty thousand, nor for six thousand thou- sand, but for aeons embracing untold millions of years, this earth has been the theatre of life and death. The riddle of the rocks has been read by the geologist and palaeontologist, sub-cambrian depths to the deposits thickening over the sea-bottoms of to-day. And upon the leaves of that stone book are, as you know, stamped the characters, plainer and surer than those formed by the ink of history, which carry the mind back into abysses of past time, compared with which the periods which satisfied Bishop Butler cease to have a visual angle. The lode of discovery once struck, these petrified forms in which life was at one time active, increased to multitudes and demanded classification. They were grouped in ^ '/"/.i\ . genera, species, and varieties, according to the Forms of Life Lie ° ' Jl . ' . , . . ' , ° , Lowest Down. degree or similarity subsisting between them. Thus confusion was avoided, each objedt being found in the pigeon-hole appropriated to it and to its fellows of similar morphological or physiological character. The general facit soon became evident that none but the simplest forms of life lie lowest down; that, as we climb higher among the superim- posed strata, more perfedt forms appear. The change, however, from form to form, was not continuous, but by steps — some small, some great. "A section," says Mr. Huxley, "a hundred feet thick will exhibit at different heights a dozen species of Ammonite, none of which passes beyond the particular zone of 284 BOOK-SHELF limestone, or clay, into the zone below it, or into that above it." In the presence of such fads it was not possible to avoid the question: Have these forms, showing, though in broken stages, and with many irregularities, this unmistakable general advance, been subjected to no continuous law of growth or variation ? Had our education been purely scientific, or had it been sufficiently detached from influences which, however ennobling in another domain, have always proved hindrances and delu- sions when introduced as faftors into the domain of physics, the scientific mind never could have swerved from the search for a law of growth, or allowed itself to accept the anthropomor- phism which regarded each successive stratum as a kind of me- chanic's bench for the manufacture of new species out of all relation to the old. 285 MY FAVORITE BOOK-SHELF INDEX ADDISON, !. Banker of Lombard Street, 4. Ganges, The, 3. Indian Brachman, 3. Indian Tax-gatherer, 4. Pugg, 6. Pythagoras, 3. Rycant, Sir Paul, 2. Sirach, i. Tully, I. Will Honeycomb, 2. BACON, 7. Augustus Caesar, 7. Celius, 9. Cosmus, Duke of Florence, 7. Foix, Gaston de, 7. Hortensius, 8. Julius Csesar, 7. Livy, 8. Scipio Africanus, 8. Septimus Severus, 7. Tully, 8. BALZAC, II. Aristophanes, 21. Balthazar, 22. Brillat-Savarin, 19. Cibot, Madame, 22. Claparon, 13. Dante, 2 1 . Epernay, 13, Fontaine, Madame, 22. Fortune-teller, The, 20. Hippocrates, 21, Lenormand, Mademoiselle, 22. Louis the XVIII, 22. Martin the Laborer, 22. Napoleon, 1 1 . Pons, The Virtuous, 20. Pythagoras, 2 1 . Rabelais, 2 1 , Saint Peters, The, 2 1 . Soothsayer, The, 20. Swedenborg, 2 1 . The Terror, 16. Troy, II. BOSWELL'S JOHNSON, 23. Barber, Mr., 34. Beauclerk, 27. Chesterfield, Lord, 24. Cibber, Colley, 24. Cowley, 32. Craddock, 23. Croker, 23. Desmoulins, Mrs., 34. Francis, his Servant, 34. Goldsmith, 26. Langton, 30. Lawrence, Letter to Dr., 31. Letter to Boswell on his Father's Death, 32. Letter to Chesterfield, 25. Lyttleton, George, Lord, 24. Piozzi, 27. Rasay, 33. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 27—30. Socratic Method, The, 24. Spottiswoode, 29. 287 MY FAVORITE Strahan, 23. Thrale, Mrs., 23-27. Tom Davies's Back Parlor, 23. CHESTERFIELD, LORD, ^-j. Achilles, 49. Alcibiades, 42. Business Letters, 39. Charles II, 41 . "Cid," The, 47. Cleveland, Duchess of, 41. Corneille, 47. Euclid, A Problem of, 37. Grand Alliance, The, 41. Halifax, Lord, 41 . Heinsius, The Pensionary, 41. Julius Caesar, 43. Marlborough, Duke of, 41. Mazarin, Cardinal, 47. Pensionary, de Witt, 37. Richelieu, 46. Sardanapalus, 42. System-monger, A, 49. Walpole, Sir Robert, 47. DAWSON, GEORGE, 53. Trout-fishing, 53. DICKENS, CHARLES, 55. Childhood and Age, 57. Love of the Poor for Home, 55. Parting with the Living and the Dead, 55. Rookery, A, 56. FORD, PAUL LEICESTER, 58. Emmons, Rev. Nathanael, 58. Franklin, The Many-Sided, 58. Franklin's Birth, 59. Creed, 60. His Suffering, 61 . His Literary Attainments, 61. Dialogue with the Gout, 62. FROUDE, 65. Butler, Bishop, 66. Carlyle, Thomas, 67. Cicero, 69. College Graduates in Australia, 65. Goethe, 67. Job's Friends, 70. Lucretius, 69. Milton, 66. '« On the Nature of Gods," 69. Paul, Saint, 65. Shakespeare, 66. Spinoza, 65, 66. Tennyson, Alfred, 67. GOLDSMITH, 72. Chinese, The Polite, 73. Confucius, Unshaken, 74. Friendship in Books, 75. Perfidy and Fraud the Vices of Civilized Nations, 72. Thibet, The Brown Savage of, 73- GRANT, ROBERT, 76. Daughter, The American, 77. Hobby, Have One, 76. Lincoln, 78. Mother, The American, 77. Shakespeare, An Evening with, 76. GRONOW, REMINISCENCES AND RECOLLECTIONS OF CAPTAIN, 79. Alvanley, Lord, 80. Argyle, Duke of, 80. Bouverie, Jack, 84. Brummell, Beau, 79. At Eton, 79. A sort of Crichton, 79. Sent for by the Prince of Wales, 79. 288 BOOK SHELF In the Duchess of Devonshire's Circle, 79. Commission in loth Hussars, 79- Remarkable for His Dress, 80. His House in Chapel St., 80. Intimate with the Nobility, 80. Offends the Prince, 81. Dismissed by the Prince, 8 i . Wins ^20,000, 82. Poverty of His Latter Days, 8 2 . Dies Insane at Calais, 82, Canning, George, 82. Carlisle, Lord, 83. Carlton House, 8 1 . Cholmondeley's Ball, Lady, 8i. Constant, Benjamin, 86. •' Corinne," 87, Crauford, Madame, 84. ♦♦De TAllemagne," 85. Dorset, Duke of, 80. Drummond, George H., 81-83. Fitzherbert, Mrs., 81. Fitzpatrick, General, 83. Fox, Charles James, 83. Graham's, 82-84. Grand, Madame, 86. Guards' Club, The, 83. Hcytesbury, Lady, 84. Howard and Gibbs, 83, Johnson, 87. London Clubs in 1814, 82. White's, Boodle's, Brookes's, Wattier's, Guards', Arthur's, 82. Louis XVI, 85. Macaulay, 87. Mackintosh, Sir James, 86. Marie Antoinette, 85. Marlborough, Duke of, 87. Napoleon, 85. Necker, Minister, 85. Oxford, Lady, 84. Plymouth, Lord, 80. Portland, Duke of, 82. Raikes, 84. Recamier, Madame, 86. Rocca, M. de, 86. Rutland, Duke of, 80. Scott Wins ^200,000, Gen., 82. Sefton, Lord, 80. Selwyn, 82. Smith, Sydney, 87. Spencer, Lord Robert, 83. Stael, Madame de, 84. Stepney, Sir Thomas, 84. Talleyrand, 86. Upton, Sir Arthur, 82. Wattier's Club, Founding of, 84. Weston the Tailor, 80. White's Club, 81. ' < Who' s Your Fat Friend ? " 8 1 . Worcester, Lady, 81. York, Duke of, 84. HALSEY, FRANCIS WHITING, 88. An Englishwoman's Love Letters, 92. Arnold Collection, The, 90. Burns, 91. Byron, 94. Carlyle, 90. Chaucer, 94. Charlotte Bronte, 95. Chautauqua System, 90. Countess of Blessington, 89. Crawford, Marion, 92. "David Copperfield," 93. ♦•David Harum," 92. Dickens, 92. Du Maurier, 92. Dunbar, Paul L., The Negro Poet, 91. Emerson, 89. 289 MY FAVORITE Fielding, 94. Froude, 91 . Gibbon, 91 . Grant, General, 91. Hawthorne, 89—94. "Henry Esmond," 93. Hood, Thomas, 89. Howells, W. D., 92. '•Jack Harkaway," 93. "Jane Eyre," 95. "Janice Meredith," 92. Landor, 94. Lincoln, 95. Longfellow, 92. " Lyrics of Lowly Life," 91. Macmillan, Frederick, 88. Milton, 90, 91, 94. Nansen, 91 . "Our Mutual Friend," 93. Palgrave, 96. "Paradise Lost," 90. Phillips, Stephen, 91. Reade, Charles, 92. Ruskin, 89. Scott, Sir Walter, 91. Shakespeare, 94, 95. Stanley, 91. "Temper and Temperament," 89. Tennyson, 89-92. Thackeray, 94. "The Christian," 92. " The Crisis," 92. "The Eternal City," 92. "The Golden Treasury," 96. Trollope, Anthony, 89. " Vanity Fair," 93. Wordsworth, 94. HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL, 97- Browne, Sir Thomas, 99. Walker, Mr., 99. HUGO, VICTOR, loi. Babylon, 105. Civilizations of India, Chaldea, Persia, Assyria, Egypt, 107. Coliseum, The, 103. Guttenberg, 1 01-103. Louis XIV, 104. Luther, The Sword of, 104. Nineveh, 105. Pyramids, The, 103. Rome, 105. Thebes, 105. Voltaire, 104. HUME, DAVID, 108. Ajax, 109. Alexander the Great, 1 10. Anthony, 109. Ccesar, 109. Cassius, 109. Conde, Prince of, 1 10. Longinus, 109. Parmenio, 1 10. HUNT, LEIGH, in. Blue Pill, The, 114. Vitellius, 1 15. HUXLEY, 116. Cassar in Britain, 116. Eohippus, The, 120. JOHNSONIANA, 122. Goldsmith, 125. Piozzi, 122-125. Portraits, Prices Paid for, 125, JORDAN, DAVID STARR, 126. Philosophy, the Consolations of, 126. LAMB, CHARLES, 132. Book Bindings, 140. 290 BOOK-SHELF Correggio's Pifture, 145. Cowley, 140. Drayton, 140. Drummond of Hawthornden, 140. Faerie Queen, The, 141. Locke, 136. Marlowe, Kit, 140. Relation, The Poor, 141. Roast Pig, The Origin of, 132. LEVER, CHARLES, 147. Arthur O'Leary, 152-157. Dunn, Davenport, 147—150. Fortunes, The Fortunes of, 157- 165. Fossbrooke, Sir Brooke, 150—152. Glencore, Lord, 159. Traynor, Billy, 159. Upton, Sir Horace, 158. LYTTON, BULWER, 166. Bacon, 168. Brutus at Philippi, 168. Caxtoniana, 166-180. Gournay, Marie de, 178. Kean, the Aftor, 179. Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 179. Mark Antony, 168. Moliere, 178. Montaigne, 178. Morland, George, 177. Pythagoras, 168. Richelieu, 180. Shakespeare's Writings, 168, 9. MACAULAY, THOMAS BAB- INGTON, 181. Aspenden Hall, 183. Bacon, 189. Blundell, a Schoolmate, 181. Cambridge, 188. Funeral and Pall-bearers, 198, 9. Gray, 189. Hodson, Mr., 182. Holly Lodge, 197. ♦' Lay of the Last Minstrel," 184. Leeds Bagmen, 191. Leonardo da Vinci, 194. Maiden, a Schoolfellow, 183. Milton, 189. Napoleon, 194. "Paradise Lost," 184. Preston, Mr., 181. Queen's College, Cambridge, 182. "Refleftions of an Exile," 184. Shelford, His School, 181. Stoddart's Sons as Pupils, 190. '♦The Pilgrim's Progress," 184. Wilberforce, a Schoolmate, 181. MATHEWS, WILLIAM, 200. Cobbet, 202. Faraday, 202. Fenelon, 203. Michelet, 203. Swift's "Tale of a Tub," 202. MONTAIGNE, 204. Aristotle, 204. Hyspanis, The River, 204. OUIDA, 208. Hammet, 208. Hathaway, Anne, 208. Judith, 208. Shakespeare, 209. PASCAL, 212. PRIME, W. C, 213. Galilee, Sea of, 213. Gordon, Mrs., Christopher North's Daughter, 215. Lebanon, 213. North, Christopher, 215. 291 MY FAVORITE BOOK-SHELF ROUSSEAU, 217. RUSKIN, JOHN. 219. Vital Power, 221. RUSSELL, ADDISON P., 224. " Auld Lang Syne," 228. •' Bride ot" Lammermoor" written on a Sick Bed, 235. Cervantes Wanted Bread, 227. «« Home Sweet Home," 228. Hood, Thomas, 235. Macaulay's Letter to Lord Landsdowne, 233. North's Wonderful Pedestrian and Pugilistic Feats, Christopher, 228. Sheridan's Impeachment of Warren Hastings, 236. Tennyson, 226. •* The Last Rose of Summer," 228. SCHOPENHAUER, 238. His Philosophy, 238. SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 250. Ballantyne, 254. Byron's Notes, 250. Cadell, 255. Constable's Death, 260. Dogs, His, 255. Dundas, Sir Robert, 251. Ferrier, Miss, 263. Hurst and Robinson, 254-256. Last Words, His, 263. Lockhart, John G,, 250-253. Maxwell-Scott, Mrs., 250. Pepys, Worked at, 257. Suffering, His, 262. STEARNS, CHARLES W., 264. THACKERAY, 270. TYNDALL, 282. Butler, Bishop, 283. Herschel, 282. Huxley, 284. Kant, 282. Laplace, 282. 292 PRESS REVIEWS OF THE TRUE NAPOLEON THE TRUE NAPOLEON, a Cyclopedia of Events in His Life, by Charles Josselyn, is without a doubt the most entertaining biography of the great Emperor yet written. Mr. Josselyn has expended time and labor over this valuable and important volume, which the reader will thankfully appreciate. Its place is in the home library as well as in the scholar's, and its worth is not only a vigorous delineation of the man, but a stirring pifture of those epoch-making times. — Times -Union ^ Albany, New York. UNQLTESTIONABLY, Mr. Josselyn's book will do something towards correfting popular fallacies in regard to Napoleon's character. The information concerning his personality and private life has been carefully gleaned from many works, and sifted out of the intrigues and scandals which arose around him. Much light is thrown upon him, and the volume becomes a decidedly interesting and also unique memoir. — Detroit Free Press, OF NAPOLEONIC literature there truly is no end, and it would appear as an utter impossibility to discover anything that might add to the value of the colleftion. Charles Josselyn, however, has performed the miracle. In the manner in which he treats his subjeft, he gives an insight into the true character of the Corsican General, which the bare fafts of history cannot supply. Accompanying the text, too, is a mass of both official and private documents bearing upon the incidents related, and often giving authoritative light upon heretofore mooted questions. In faft, one of the chiefest values of the book is this colleftion of documents, very many of which have never been hitherto published. — The Post, Denver, July 6, 1902. NO COLLECTOR of Napoleonana will be content without Mr. Jos- selyn's valuable compilation, made as it is upon original lines. Ines- timable as the work must prove to professed colleftors, it has also strong claims upon the general reader, owing to its well-judged con- densation and arrangement of leading events in the career of the greatest man of modern times. At this late day no new word could easily be said about Napoleon. Mr. Josselyn has not tried to say it, but he has nevertheless made a book of endur- ing interest and value. — New Orleans Item, July 6, 1902. PRESS REVIEWS OF THE TRUE NAPOLEON THE Buffalo Commercial, after referring to Rose's, Wilson's and Rose- berry's books on Napoleon, speaks of The True Napoleon as follows: "In many details, this is the most popular publication of the three — the one for which the busy man or woman who cannot read much will be most grateful. It is as though the author had gone into some library full of Napoleonic literature, made extensive notes, culled from the best sources what is most entertaining, and then printed them for the reader's benefit. The result is a marvellously interesting book, that can be opened at any page, read at any point, and catches the reader's attention at once." MR. JOSSELYN has worthily filled the office of compiler. Such an office is usually looked upon as an humble one ; but to sift out and arrange thousands of fafts requires more than mere patience and industry ; it means intelligence ; a sense of proportion and power of combination, especially when the book is intended for the general reader. — The Book News, July, 1902. ONE OF the most satisfying and intensely interesting contributions to the immense mass of literature on the great Emperor of the French is The True Napoleon, written by Charles Josselyn. The True Napoleon is not a life of the great Emperor in the usual acceptance of the term ; it is rather, as the author claims, a cyclopedia of events in his life, comprising a compilation of anecdotes and opinions incident to himself and times, grouping interesting fafts in such a way as to save many who are interested in the life of Napoleon the trouble of wading through many volumes to find that which they would like to read. The book is, as its title represents, a diflionary of events, and as such it will take high rank as one of the most valuable contributions to Napolconia. — The Western Trade Journal. THE VOLUME is replete with those features of the man's career which appeal to the curious as well as to the thoughtful. Some one has said that Napoleon's life contains the material for a hundred ordinary novels. Mr. Josselyn' s treatment of the multiplied incidents in his life is of the sort to fascinate every reader. — St. Louis Republic. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 3 1947 Form L-S am-l.'UiSiOS) UNIVKKSriY ol CAi^lKUKJNlA AT T.OS ANCxELES ''^ r^^^^ UA J>' 6014 J79m ^I^SSS ... MnRf.RVf^C>UTf ^^^i^^ooo 4A6 709 SMITH BROS. itationcry.Pictmts lf.2-J64 13th St.