I HAVE had some debate with myself, whether what are called myths and parables, and similar compositions of a representative nature, are in keeping with this work; yet, considering that the early Christians recognized the Logi of the classical writers as not inconsistent with the gravity of their own literature, not to mention the precedent afforded by the sacred text, I think I may proceed, without apology to myself or others, to impart to the reader in confidence, while it is fresh on my mind, a conversation which I have just had with an intimate English friend, on the general subject to which these columns are devoted. I do not say that it was of a very important nature; still to those who choose to reflect, it may suggest more than it expresses. It took place only a day or two ago, on occasion of my paying him a flying visit.
My friend lives in a spot as convenient as it is delightful. The neighbouring hamlet is the first station out of London of a railroad; while not above a quarter of a mile from his boundary wall flows the magnificent river, which moves towards the metropolis through a richness of grove and meadow of its own creation. After a liberal education, he entered a lucrative business; and, making a competency in a few years, exchanged New Broad Street for the “fallentis semita vitæ.” Soon after his marriage, which followed this retirement, his wife died, and left him solitary. Instead of returning to the world, or seeking to supply her place, he gave himself to his garden and his books; and with these companions he has passed the last twenty years. He has lived in a largish house, the “monarch of all he surveyed;” the sorrows of the past, his creed, and the humble chapel not a stone’s throw from his carriage-gate, have saved him from the selfishness of such a sovereignty, and the oppressiveness of such a solitude; yet not, if I may speak candidly, from some of the inconveniences of a bachelor life. He has his own fixed views, from which it is difficult to move him, and some people say that he discourses rather than converses, though, somehow, when I am with him, from long familiarity, I manage to get through as many words as he.
I do not know that such peculiarities can in any case be called moral defects; certainly not, when contrasted with the great mischiefs which a life so enjoyable as his might have done to him, and has not. He has indeed been in possession of the very perfection of earthly happiness, at least as I view things;—mind, I say of “earthly;” and I do not say that earthly happiness is desirable. On the contrary, man is born for labour, not for self; what right has any one to retire from the world and profit no one? He who takes his ease in this world, will have none in the world to come. All this rings in my friend’s ears quite as distinctly as I may fancy it does in mine, and has a corresponding effect upon his conduct; who would not exchange consciences with him? but still the fact remains, that a life such as his is in itself dangerous, and that, in proportion to its attractiveness. If indeed there were no country beyond the grave, it would be our wisdom to make of our present dwelling-place as much as ever we could; and this would be done by the very life which my friend has chosen, not by any absurd excesses, not by tumult, dissipation, excitement, but by the “moderate and rational use,” as Protestant sermons say, “of the gifts of Providence.”
Easy circumstances, books, friends, literary connexions, the fine arts, presents from abroad, foreign correspondents, handsome appointments, elegant simplicity, gravel walks, lawns, flower beds, trees and shrubberies, summer houses, strawberry beds, a greenhouse, a wall for peaches, “hoc erat in votes”;—nothing out of the way, no hot-houses, graperies, pineries,—“Persicos odi, puer, apparatus,“—no mansions, no parks, no deer, no preserves; these things are not worth the cost, they involve the bother of dependants, they interfere with enjoyment. One or two faithful servants, who last on as the trees do, and cannot change their place:—the ancients had slaves, a sort of dumb waiter, and the real article; alas! they are impossible now. We must have no one with claims upon us, or with rights; no incumbrances; no wife and children; they would hurt our dignity. We must have acquaintance within reach, yet not in the way; ready, not troublesome or intrusive. We must have something of name, or of rank, or of ancestry, or of past official life, to raise us from the dead level of mankind, to afford food for the imagination of our neighbours, to bring us from time to time strange visitors, and to invest our home with mystery. In consequence we shall be loyal subjects, good conservatives, fond of old times, averse to change, suspicious of novelty, because we know perfectly when we are well off and that in our case “progredi est regredi.” To a life such as this, a man is more attached, the longer he lives; and he would be more and more happy in it too, were it not for the memento within him, that books and gardens do not make a man immortal; that, though they do not leave him, he at least must leave them, all but “the hateful cypresses,” and must go where the only book is the book of doom, and the only garden the Paradise of the just.