Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

includes organic actions. Organic actions, however, and the actions which we class as intelligent, comprehend when taken together all the phenomena of vitality. Hence, then, it follows, that in seeking out a characteristic common to both, we are in fact seeking out the characteristic of vital actions in general -the characteristic by which they are distinguished from non-vital actions. Our point of departure must be an inquiry after that peculiarity displayed alike by all the processes of life.

Before proceeding to this inquiry, it may be well to remark, that any conclusion to which it may lead, must be expected to have very little apparent bearing upon our special topic. The more general is any truth, the more vague it is. The greater the range and the more diverse the character of the phenomena, the less apparent relation will a proposition which is true of them all, have to each. Little connection is visible between the axiom-"Things that are equal to the same thing are equal to one another," and the theorems of Euclid. The law that portions of matter attract each other with a force varying inversely as the square of the distance, does not seem to offer any explanation of the perturbations of Uranus, or the rising of a balloon. Similarly, we may be sure, à priori, that a fact predicable equally of all the infinitely varied actions going on in living bodies, must give little obvious promise of explain. ing the phenomena classed under the title of Psychology; and especially those highly complex phenomena of human intelligence, with which, in the minds of most, that title is associated.

ON OLD AGE.

CICERO.

What, therefore, should I fear, if after death I am sure either not to be miserable or to be happy? Although who is so foolish, though he be young, as to be assured that he will live even till the evening? Nay, that period of life has many more probabilities of death than ours has: young men more readily fall into disease, suffer more severely, are cured with more difficulty, and therefore few arrive at old age. Did not this happen so, we should live better and more wisely, for intelligence, and reflection, and judgment reside in old men, and if there had been none of them, states could not exist at all. But I return to the imminence of death. What charge is that against old age, since you see it to be common to youth also? I experienced not only in the case of my own excellent son, but also in that of your brothers, Scipio, men plainly marked out for the highest distinction, that death was common to every period of life. Yet a young man hopes that he will live a long time, which expectation an old man cannot entertain. His hope is but a foolish one; for what man can be more foolish than to regard uncertainties as

certainties, delusions as truths? An old man indeed has nothing to hope for; yet he is in so much the happier state than the young one; since he has al ready attained what the other is only hoping for. The one is wishing to live long, the other has lived long. And yet, good gods! what is there in man's life that can be called long? For allow the latest period: let us anticipate the age of the kings of the Tartessii. For there dwelt, as I find it recorded, a man named Arganthonius at Gades, who reigned for eighty years, and lived a hundred and twenty. But to my mind, nothing whatever seems of long duration, in which there is any end. For when that arrives then the time which has passed has flowed away; that only remains which you have secured by virtue and right conduct. Hours indeed depart from us, and days and years; nor does past time ever return, nor can it be discovered what is to follow. Whatever time is assigned to each to live, with that he ought to be content: for neither need the drama be performed by the actor, in order to give satisfaction, provided he be approved in whatever act he may be; nor need the wise man live till the plaudite. For the short period of life is long enough for living well and honorably; and if you should advance further, you need no more grieve than farmers do when the loveliness of springtime hath past, that summer and autumn have come. For spring represents the time of youth, and gives promise of the future fruits: the remaining seasons are intended for plucking and gathering in those fruits. Now the harvest of old age, as I have often said, is the recollection and abundance of blessings previously secured. In truth everything that happens agreeably to nature is to be reckoned among blessings. What, however, is so agreeable to nature as for an old man to die? which even is the lot of the young, though nature opposes and resists. And thus it is that young men seem to me to die, just as when the violence of flame is extinguished by a flood of water; whereas old men die, as the exhausted fire goes out, spontaneously, without the exertion of any force; and as fruits when they are green are plucked by force from the trees, but when ripe and mellow drop off, so violence takes away their lives from youth, maturity from old men; a state which to me indeed is so delightful, that the nearer I approach to death, I seem as it were to be getting sight of land, and at length, after a long voyage, to be just coming into harbor.

Of all the periods of life there is a definite limit, but of old age there is no limit fixed; and life goes on very well in it so long as you are able to follow up and attend to the duty of your situation, and, at the same time, to care nothing about death; whence it happens that old age is even of higher spirit and bolder than youth. Agreeable to this was the an swer given to Pisistratus, the tyrant, by Solon; when on the former inquiring "in reliance on what hope he so boldly withstood him," the latter is said to have

answered, "old age." The happiest end of life is this -when the mind and the other senses being unimpaired, the same nature, which put it together, takes asunder her own work. As in the case of a ship or a house, he who built them takes them down most easily; so the same nature which has compacted man, most easily breaks him up. Besides, every fastening of glue, when fresh, is with difficulty torn asunder, batasily when tried by time. Hence it is that that short remnant of life should neither be greedily cov. eted, nor without reason given up: and Pythagoras forbids us to abandon the station or post of life without the orders of our commander, that is, of God. There is, indeed, a saying of the wise Solon, in which he declares that he does not wish his own death to be unattended by the grief and lamentation of friends. He wishes, I suppose, that he should be dear to his friends. But I know not whether Ennius does not say with more propriety: "Let no one pay me honor with tears, nor celebrate my funeral with mourning."

He conceives that a death ought not to be lamented which an immortality follows. Besides, a dying man may have some degree of consciousness, but that for a short time, especially in the case of an old man, after death, indeed, consciousness either does not exist, or it is a thing to be desired. But this ought to be a subject of study from our youth to be indifferent about death; without which study no one can be of tranquil mind. For die we certainly must, and it is uncertain whether or not on this very day. He, therefore, who at all hours dreads impending death, now can he be at peace in his mind? Concerning which there seems to be no need of such long discusio, when I call to mind not only Lucius Brutus, who was slain in liberating his country; nor the two Decii, who spurred on their steeds to a voluntary death; nor Marcus Attilius, who set out to execution that he might keep a promise pledged to the enemy; nor the two Scipios, who even with their very bodies sought to obstruct the march of the Carthaginians; nor your grandfather, Lucius Paulus, who by his death atoned for the temerity of his colleague in the disgraceful defeat at Canne; nor Marcus Marcellus, whose corpse not even the most merciless foe suffered to go without the honor of sepulture; but that our legions, as I have remarked in my Antiquities, have often gone with cheerful and undaunted mind to that place from which they believed that they should never return. Shall, then, well-instructed old men de afraid of that which youg men, and they not only ignorant, but mere peasants, despise? On the whole, as it seems to me indeed, a satiety of all pursuits causes a satiety of life. There are pursuits peculiar to boyhood; do therefore young men regret the loss of them? There are also some of early youth; does that now settled age, which is called middle life, seek after these? There are also some of this period; neither are they looked for by old age. There are some final pursuits of old age; accordingly, as the pursuits of the earlier parts of life fall into disuse, so

also do those of old age; and when this has taken place, satiety of life brings on the seasonable period of death.

Indeed I do not see why I should not venture to tell you what I myself think concerning death, because I fancy I see it so much the more clearly, in proportion as I am less distant from it. I am persuaded that your fathers, Publius Scipio and Caius Lælius, men of the greatest eminence and very dear friends of mine, are living; and that life too which alone deserves the name of life. For whilst we are shut up in this prison of the body we are fulfilling as it were the function and painful task of destiny, for the heaven-born soul has been degraded from its dwelling-place above, and as it were buried in the earth, a situation uncongenial to its divine and im• mortal nature. But I believe that the immortal gods have shed souls into human bodies, that beings might exist who might tend the earth, and by contemplat ing the order of the heavenly bodies, might imitate it in the manner and regularity of lives. Nor have reason and argument alone influenced me thus to be lieve, but likewise the high name and authority of the greatest philosophers. I used to hear that Pythago. ras and the Pythagoreans, who were all but our neighbors, who were formerly called the Italian philosophers, had no doubt that we possess souls derived from the universal divine mind. Moreover the argu ments were conclusive to me which Socrates delivered on the last day of his life concerning the immortality of the soul, he who was pronounced by the oracle of Apollo the wisest of all men. But why say more? I have thus persuaded myself, such is my belief: that since such is the activity of our souls, so tenacious their memory of things past, and their sagacity regarding things future so many arts, so many sciences, so many discoveries, that the nature which comprises these qualities cannot be mortal; and since the mind is ever in action and has no source of motion, because it moves itself, I believe that it never will find any end of motion, because it never will part from itself; and since the nature of the soul is uncompounded, and has not in itself any admixture heterogeneous and dissimilar to itself, I maintain that it cannot undergo dissolution; and if this be not possible, it cannot perish: and it is a strong argument, that men know very many things before they are born, since when mere boys, while they are learning difficult subjects, they so quickly catch up number. less ideas, that they seem not to be learning them for the first time, but to remember them, and to be calling them to recollection. Thus did our Plato argue.

THE JOURNEY OF A DAY.

SAMUEL JOHNSON "THE RAMBLER." Obidah, the son of Abensina left the caravansera early in the morning and pursued his journey through the plains of Indostan ile was fresh and vigorous

with rest; he was animated with hope; he was incited by desire; he walked swiftly forward over the valleys, and saw the hills gradually rising before him. As he passed along, his ears were delighted with the morning song of the bird of paradise, he was fanned by the last flutters of the sinking breeze, and sprinkled with dew by groves of spices; he sometimes contemplated the towering height of the oak, monarch of the hills; and sometimes caught the gentle fragrance of the primrose, eldest daughter of the spring: all his senses were gratified, and all care banished from the heart.

Thus he went on till the sun approached his meidian, and the increasing heat preyed upon his strength; he then looked round about him for some more commodious path. He saw, on his right hand, a grove that seemed to wave its shades as a sign of invitation; he entered it, and found the coolness and verdure irresistibly pleasant. He did not, however, forget whither he was traveling, but found a narrow way bordered with flowers, which appeared to have the same direction with the main road, and was pleased that, by the happy experiment, he had found means to unite pleasure with business, and to gain the rewards of diligence without suffering its fatigues. He, therefore, still continued to walk for a time, without the least remission of his ardour, except that he was sometimes tempted to stop by the music of the birds, whom the heat had assembled in the shade, and sometimes amused himself with plucking the flowers that covered the banks on either side, or the fruit that hung upon the branches. At last the green path began to decline from its first tendency, and to wind among hills, and thickets, cooled with fountains and murmuring with water-falls. Here Obidah paused for a time, and began to consider whether it were longer safe to forsake the known and commen track; but remembering that the heat was now in its greatest violence, and that the plain was dusty and uneven, he resolved to pursue the new path, which he supposed only to make a few meanders, in compliance with the varieties of the ground, and to end at last in the common road.

Having thus calmed his solicitude, he renewed his pace, though he suspected that he was not gaining ground. This uneasiness of his mind inclined him to lay hold on every new object, and give way to every sensation that might soothe or divert him. He listened to every echo, he mounted every hill for a fresh prospect, he turned aside to every cascade, and pleased himself with tracing the course of a gentle river that rolled among the trees, and watered a large region with innumerable circumvolutions. In these amusements the hours passed away uncounted, his deviations had perplexed his memory, and he knew not towards what point to travel. He stood pensive and confused. afraid to go forward lest he should go wrong yet conscious that the time of loitering was now past. While he was thus tortured with uncer tainty, the sky was overspread with clouds, the day

vanished from before him, and a sudden tempest gathered round his head. He was now roused by his danger, to a quick and painful remembrance of his folly; he now saw how happiness is lost when ease is consulted; he lamented the unmanly impatience that prompted him to seek shelter in the grove, and de. spised the petty curiosity that led him on from trifle to trifle. While he was thus reflecting, the air grew blacker, and a clap of thunder broke his medita tion.

He now resolved to do what remained yet in his power; to tread back the ground which he had passed, and try to find some issue where the wood might open into the plain. He prostrated himself on the ground, and commended his life to the Lord of na ture. He rose with confidence and tranquility, and pressed on with his sabre in his hand, for the beasts of the desert were in motion, and on every hand were heard the mingled howls of rage and fear, and ravage and expiration; all the horrors of the darkness and solitude surrounded him; the winds roared in the woods and the torrents tumbled from the hills. Work'd into sudden rage by wint'ry show'rs, Down the steep hill the roaring torrent pours; The mountain shepherd hears the distant noise. Thus forlorn and distressed, he wandered through the wild without knowing whither he was going, or whether he was every moment drawing near to safety or to destruction. At length, not fear, but labor, began to overcome him; his breath grew short, and his knees trembled, and he was on the point of lying down in resignation to his fate, when he beheld through the brambles the glimmer of a taper. le advanced towards the light, and finding that it proceeded from the cottage of a hermit, he called humbly at the door, and obtained admission. The old man set before him such provisions as he had col. lected for himself, on which Obidah fed with eager. ness and gratitude.

When the repast was over, "Tell me," said the hermit, "by what chance thou hast been brought hither; I have been now twenty years an inhabitant of the wilderness, in which I never saw a man before." Obidah then related the occurrences of his

journey without any concealment or palliation.

[ocr errors]

'Son,” said the hermit, “ let the errors and follies, the dangers and escapes of this day, sink deep into thy heart. Remember, my son, that human life is the journey of a day. We rise in the morning of youth, full of vigour, and full of expectation; we set forward with spirit and hope, with gayety and with diligence, and travel on awhile in the straight road of piety towards the mansions of rest. In a short time we remit our fervor, and endeavor to find some mitigation of our duty, and some more easy means of obtaining the same end. We then relax our vigour, and resolve no longer to be terrified with crimes at a distance, but rely upon our own constancy, and ven ture to approach what we resolved never to touch.

We thus enter the bowers of ease, and repose in the shades of security. Here the heart softens, and vig. ilance subsides; we are then willing to enquire whether another advance cannot be made, and whether we may not, at least, turn our eyes upon the gardens of pleasure. We approach them with scruple and hesitation; we enter them, but enter timorous and trembling, and always hope to pass through them without losing the road of virtue, which we, for a while, keep in our sight, and to which we propose to return. But temptation succeeds temptation, and one compliance prepares us for another; we in time lose the happiness of innocence, and solace our disquiet with sensual gratifications. By degrees we let fall the remembrance of our original intention, and quit the only adequate object of rational desire. We entangle ourselves in business, immerge ourselves in luxury, and rove through the labyrinths of inconstancy, till the darkness of old age begins to invade us, and disease and anxiety obstruct our way. We then look back upon our lives with horror, with sorrow, with repentance; and wish, but too often vainly wish, that we had not forsaken the ways of virtue. Happy are they, my son, who shall learn from thy example not to despair, but shall remember, that though the day is past, and their strength is wasted, there yet remains one effort to be inade; that reformation is never hopeless, nor sincere endeavours ever unassisted; that the wanderer may ut length return after all his errors; and that he who implores strength and courage from above, shall rind danger and difficulty give way before him. Go now, my son, to thy repose; commit thyself to the care of Omnipotence; and when the morning calls ugin to toil, begin anew thy journey and thy life."

MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE.

JAMES BEResford.

While you are laughing, or talking wildly to your. self in walking, suddenly seeing a person steal close by you, who, you are sure, must have heard it all, then In an agony of shame, making a wretched attempt to sing, in a voice as like your talk as possible, in hopes of making your hearer think that you had been only singing all the while.

Seeing the boy who is next above you flogged for a repetition which you know you cannot say even half so well as he did.

Entering into the figure of a country-dance with so much spirit as to force your leg and foot through the muslin drapery of your fair partner.

After walking in a great hurry to a place, on very urgent business, by what you think a shorter cut, and supposing that you are just arriving at the door you want-" NO THOROUGHFARE!"

Stopping in the street to address a person whom You know rather too well to pass him without speaking, and yet not quite well enough to nave a word to

[ocr errors]

say to him, he feeling himself in the same dilemma; so that, after each has asked and answered the question, How do you do, sir?" you stand silently face to face, apropos to nothing, during a minute, and then part in a transport of awkwardness.

As you are hastening down the Strand, on a matter of life and death, encountering, at an arch-way, the head of the first of twelve or fourteen horses, who, you know, must successively strain up with an overloaded coal wagon before you can hope to stir an inch, unless you prefer bedevilling your white stock. ings and clean shoes by scampering and crawling, among and under, coaches and scavengers' carts, etc., etc., in the middle of the street.

Walking half over London, side by side with a cart containing a million iron bars, which you must out-bray, if you can, in order to make your companion hear a word you have further to say upon the subject you were earnestly discussing before you were joined by this infernal article of commerce.

Walking briskly forwards, while you are looking backwards, and so advancing towards another passenger (a scavenger) who is doing the same; then meeting with the shock of two battering-rams, which drives your whole stock of breath out of your body, with the groan of a pavier. At length, during a mutual burst of execrations, you each move for sev eral minutes from side to side, with the same motion, vainly endeavoring to pass on.

On your entrance at a formal dinner party, in reaching up your hat to a high peg in the hall, bursting your coat from the arm-hole to the pocket.

At night, after having long lain awake, nervous, restless, and unwell, with an ardent desire to know the hour and the state of the 'weather, being at last delighted by hearing the watchman begin his cry, from which, however, he allows you to extract no more information than "past . . . clock . . . morning!" then, after impatiently lingering through another hour for the sound of your own clock (which had before been roared down by the watchman) being roused to listen by its preparatory click and purr, followed by one stroke-which you are to make the most of the rest being cut short by a violent fit of coughing with which you are seized at the instant. Being accelerated in your walk by the lively application of a chairman's pole a posteriori, his “ by your leave" not coming till after he has taken it. During the endless time that you are kept waiting at a door in a carriage while the ladies are shopping, having your impatience soothed by the setting of a saw close at your ear.

Sitting on the last row, and close to the partition of an upper box, at a pantomime, and hearing all the house laughing around you, while you strain your wrists, neck, and back with stretching forward-in vain.

At the play, the sickening scraps of naval loyalty which are crammed down your throat faster than you can gulp them in such after pieces as are called

"England's Glory," "The British Tars," etc., with the additional nausea of hearing them boisterously applauded.

On packing up your own clothes for a journey, because your servant is a fool-the burning fever into which you are thrown, when, after all your standing, stamping, lying, kneeling, tugging, and kicking at the lid of your trunk, it still peremptorily refuses to approach nearer than half a yard to the lock.

A chaise window glass, that will not be put down when it is up, nor up when it is down.

Tearing your throat to rags in abortive efforts to call back a person who has just left you, and with whom you have forgotten to touch on one of the most important subjects which you met to discuss.

After having left a company in which you have been galled by the raillery of some wag by profession, thinking, at your leisure, of a repartee, which, if dis. charged at the proper moment, would have blown him to atoms.

After relating at much length, a scarce and curious anecdote, with considerable marks of self-complacency at having it to tell, being quietly reminded by the person you have been so kindly instructing that you had it from himself!

In conversation inadvertently touching the string which you know will call forth the longest story of the flattest proser that ever droned.

Being compelled by a deaf person, in a large and silent company, to repeat some very washy remark three or four times over, at the highest pitch of your voice.

In reading a new and interesting book being reduced to make a paper-knife of your finger.

On arriving at that part of the last volume of an enchanting novel in which the interest is wrought up to the highest pitch, suddenly finding the remaining leaves, catastrophe and all, torn out.

Writing on the creases of paper that has been sharply doubled.

The moment in which you discover that you have taken in a mouthful of fat by mistake for turnip.

At a formal dinner, the awful resting time which Occasionally intervenes between the courses.

In the depth of winter trying in vain to effect a union between unsoftened butter and the crumb of a very stale loaf, or a quite new one.

Cracking a hard nut with your teeth, and filling the gap left by the grinder you have knocked out with black, bitter dust.

At the instant of drawing the cork, starting back from the eagerly expected burst of froth, but without the least occasion either for your hopes or fears, the liquor all remaining in the bottle as quiet as a lamb.

Dropping something, when you are either too lame or too lazy to get up for it; and almost breaking your ribs, and quite throwing yourself down, by stretching down to it over the arm of your chair, without reaching it at last

Suddenly recollecting, as you lie at a very late hour of a Lapland night, that you have neglected to see, as usual, that the fires are all safe below; then, after an agonizing interval of hesitation, crawling out, like a culprit, and quivering down stairs.

At a long table, after dinner, the eyes of the whole company drawn upon you by a loud observation that you are strikingly like Mrs. or Miss particu. larly when you smile.

The mental famine created among poor students by the modern luxury of the press-hot-pressed paper-Bulmer's types-vignettes in every page, etc., obliging every reader with less than £5,000 per an num to seek for all his knowledge of new books by hearsay; or through the glimmering medium of those wills-o-the-wisp, the reviewers; or out of the circu lating library, where nothing circulates-but the catalogue!

Catching a glimpse, at a corner of a street, of your oldest and dearest friends, Punch and his party, all in full squeak and scuffle; from whom, however, the cruel decorums of age and character oblige you, anter "snatching a fearful joy," to tear yourself away.

Wandering from one shop to another in search of a book, and finding twenty copies of it, of a date immediately before and after that of the only edition which will be of any use to you, and which you, consequently, never find.

The state of writhing torture into which you are occasionally thrown by the sudden and unexpected questions or remarks of a child before a large company; a little wretch of your own, for instance, that will run up to an unmarried lady (one who would rather be thought a youthful sinner than an elderly saint), and then harrow you by crying out, before you have time to gag it, "Now, do, miss-let me count the creases in your face-there's one, there's two, there's three," etc.; or, accosting another lady in the same explicit strain, electrifies you by breaking out with, "Why do you come here so often? for, do you know, my aunt always says she can't abide you -don't you, aunt?" etc., etc.

Taking a step more or a step less than you want in going up or down stairs.

The task of inventing a new dinner every morning devolving on you in the long absence of your wife. On shaking off a long reverie, the sudden consciousness that, during the whole of your absent fit, your eyes have been intently fixed on a letter which a stranger is writing or reading close at your elbow.

THE UTOPIAN IDEA OF PLEASURE.

SIR THOMAS MOORE-"UTOPIA."

They think it is an evidence of true wisdom for a man to pursue his own advantages as far as the laws allow it. They account it piety to prefer the pubiic good to one's private concerns. But they think it unjust for a man to seek for his own pleasure, by

« ForrigeFortsett »