The Pleasures of Life by Sir John Lubbock
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Sir John Lubbock >> The Pleasures of Life
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THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
CONTENTS.
PART I
CHAPTER I
THE DUTY OF HAPPINESS
CHAPTER II
THE HAPPINESS OF DUTY
CHAPTER III
A SONG OF BOOKS
CHAPTER IV
THE CHOICE OF BOOKS
CHAPTER V
THE BLESSING OF FRIENDS
CHAPTER VI
THE VALUE OF TIME
CHAPTER VII
THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL
CHAPTER VIII
THE PLEASURES OF HOME
CHAPTER IX
SCIENCE
CHAPTER X
EDUCATION
PART II
CHAPTER I
AMBITION
CHAPTER II
WEALTH
CHAPTER III
HEALTH
CHAPTER IV
LOVE
CHAPTER V
ART
CHAPTER VI
POETRY
CHAPTER VII
MUSIC
CHAPTER VIII
THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE
CHAPTER IX
THE TROUBLES OF LIFE
CHAPTER X
LABOR AND REST
CHAPTER XI
RELIGION
CHAPTER XII
THE HOPE OF PROGRESS
CHAPTER XIII
THE DESTINY OF MAN
PREFACE
Those who have the pleasure of attending the opening meetings of schools
and colleges, and of giving away prizes and certificates, are generally
expected at the same time to offer such words of counsel and encouragement
as the experience of the world might enable them to give to those who are
entering life.
Having been myself when young rather prone to suffer from low spirits, I
have at several of these gatherings taken the opportunity of dwelling on
the privileges and blessings we enjoy, and I reprint here the substance of
some of these addresses (omitting what was special to the circumstances of
each case, and freely making any alterations and additions which have
since occurred to me), hoping that the thoughts and quotations in which I
have myself found most comfort may perhaps be of use to others also.
It is hardly necessary to say that I have not by any means referred to all
the sources of happiness open to us, some indeed of the greatest pleasures
and blessings being altogether omitted.
In reading over the proofs I feel that some sentences may appear too
dogmatic, but I hope that allowance will be made for the circumstances
under which they were delivered.
HIGH ELMS,
DOWN, KENT, _January 1887_.
PREFACE
TO THE TWENTIETH EDITION.
A lecture which I delivered three years ago at the Working Men's College,
and which forms the fourth chapter of this book, has given rise to a good
deal of discussion. The _Pall Mall Gazette_ took up the subject and issued
a circular to many of those best qualified to express an opinion. This
elicited many interesting replies, and some other lists of books were
drawn up. When my book was translated, a similar discussion took place in
Germany. The result has been very gratifying, and after carefully
considering the suggestions which have been made, I see no reason for any
material change in the first list. I had not presumed to form a list of my
own, nor did I profess to give my own favorites. My attempt was to give
those most generally recommended by previous writers on the subject. In
the various criticisms on my list, while large additions, amounting to
several hundred works in all, have been proposed, very few omissions have
been suggested. As regards those works with reference to which some doubts
have been expressed--namely, the few Oriental books, Wake's Apostolic
Fathers etc.--I may observe that I drew up the list, not as that of the
hundred best books, but, which is very different, of those which have been
most frequently recommended as best worth reading.
For instance as regards the _Sheking_ and the _Analects_ of Confucius, I
must humbly confess that I do not greatly admire either; but I recommended
them because they are held in the most profound veneration by the Chinese
race, containing 400,000,000 of our fellow-men. I may add that both works
are quite short.
The _Ramayana_ and _Maha Bharata_ (as epitomized by Wheeler) and St.
Hilaire's _Bouddha_ are not only very interesting in themselves, but very
important in reference to our great oriental Empire.
The authentic writings of the Apostolic Fathers are very short, being
indeed comprised in one small volume, and as the only works (which have
come down to us) of those who lived with and knew the Apostles, they are
certainly well worth reading.
I have been surprised at the great divergence of opinion which has been
expressed. Nine lists of some length have been published. These lists
contain some three hundred works not mentioned by me (without, however,
any corresponding omissions), and yet there is not one single book which
occurs in every list, or even in half of them, and only about half a dozen
which appear in more than one of the nine.
If these authorities, or even a majority of them, had concurred in their
recommendations, I would have availed myself of them; but as they differ
so greatly I will allow my list to remain almost as I first proposed it. I
have, however, added Kalidasa's _Sakuntala_ or _The Lost Ring_, and
Schiller's _William Tell_, omitting, in consequence, Lucretius and Miss
Austen: Lucretius because though his work is most remarkable, it is
perhaps less generally suitable than most of the others in the list; and
Miss Austen because English novelists were somewhat over-represented.
HIGH ELMS,
DOWN, KENT, _August 1890_.
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART I
"All places that the eye of Heaven visits
Are to the wise man ports and happy havens."
SHAKESPEARE.
"Some murmur, when their sky is clear
And wholly bright to view,
If one small speck of dark appear
In their great heaven of blue.
And some with thankful love are fill'd
If but one streak of light,
One ray of God's good mercy gild
The darkness of their night.
"In palaces are hearts that ask,
In discontent and pride,
Why life is such a dreary task,
And all good things denied.
And hearts in poorest huts admire
How love has in their aid
(Love that not ever seems to tire)
Such rich provision made."
TRENCH.
CHAPTER I.
THE DUTY OF HAPPINESS.
"If a man is unhappy, this must be his own fault; for
God made all men to be happy."--EPICTETUS.
Life is a great gift, and as we reach years of discretion, we most of us
naturally ask ourselves what should be the main object of our existence.
Even those who do not accept "the greatest good of the greatest number" as
an absolute rule, will yet admit that we should all endeavor to contribute
as far as we may to the happiness of our fellow-creatures. There are many,
however, who seem to doubt whether it is right that we should try to be
happy ourselves. Our own happiness ought not, of course, to be our main
object, nor indeed will it ever be secured if selfishly sought. We may
have many pleasures in life, but must not let them have rule over us, or
they will soon hand us over to sorrow; and "into what dangerous and
miserable servitude doth he fall who suffereth pleasures and sorrows (two
unfaithful and cruel commanders) to possess him successively?" [1]
I cannot, however, but think that the world would be better and brighter
if our teachers would dwell on the Duty of Happiness as well as on the
Happiness of Duty, for we ought to be as cheerful as we can, if only
because to be happy ourselves, is a most effectual contribution to the
happiness of others.
Every one must have felt that a cheerful friend is like a sunny day, which
sheds its brightness on all around; and most of us can, as we choose, make
of this world either a palace or a prison.
There is no doubt some selfish satisfaction in yielding to melancholy, and
fancying that we are victims of fate; in brooding over grievances,
especially if more or less imaginary. To be bright and cheerful often
requires an effort; there is a certain art in keeping ourselves happy; and
in this respect, as in others, we require to watch over and manage
ourselves, almost as if we were somebody else.
Sorrow and joy, indeed, are strangely interwoven. Too often
"We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought." [2]
As a nation we are prone to melancholy. It has been said of our countrymen
that they take even their pleasures sadly. But this, if it be true at all,
will, I hope, prove a transitory characteristic. "Merry England" was the
old saying, let us hope it may become true again. We must look to the East
for real melancholy. What can be sadder than the lines with which Omar
Khayyam opens his quatrains: [3]
"We sojourn here for one short day or two,
And all the gain we get is grief and woe;
And then, leaving life's problems all unsolved
And harassed by regrets, we have to go;"
or the Devas' song to Prince Siddartha, in Edwin Arnold's beautiful
version:
"We are the voices of the wandering wind,
Which moan for rest, and rest can never find.
Lo! as the wind is, so is mortal life--
A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife."
If indeed this be true, if mortal life be so sad and full of suffering, no
wonder that Nirvana--the cessation of sorrow--should be welcomed even at
the sacrifice of consciousness.
But ought we not to place before ourselves a very different ideal--a
healthier, manlier, and nobler hope?
Life is not to live merely, but to live well. There are some "who live
without any design at all, and only pass in the world like straws on a
river: they do not go; they are carried," [4]--but as Homer makes Ulysses
say, "How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rest unburnished; not to
shine in use--as though to breathe were life!"
Goethe tells us that at thirty he resolved "to work out life no longer by
halves, but in all its beauty and totality."
"Im Ganzen, Guten, Schoenen
Resolut zu leben."
Life indeed must be measured by thought and action, not by time. It
certainly may be, and ought to be, bright, interesting, and happy; and,
according to the Italian proverb, "if all cannot live on the Piazza, every
one may feel the sun."
If we do our best; if we do not magnify trifling troubles; if we look
resolutely, I do not say at the bright side of things, but at things as
they really are; if we avail ourselves of the manifold blessings which
surround us; we cannot but feel that life is indeed a glorious
inheritance.
"More servants wait on man
Than he'll take notice of. In every path
He treads down that which doth befriend him
When sickness makes him pale and wan
Oh mighty Love! Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him." [5]
Few of us, however, realize the wonderful privilege of living, or the
blessings we inherit; the glories and beauties of the Universe, which is
our own if we choose to have it so; the extent to which we can make
ourselves what we wish to be; or the power we possess of securing peace,
of triumphing over pain and sorrow.
Dante pointed to the neglect of opportunities as a serious fault:
"Man can do violence
To himself and his own blessings, and for this
He, in the second round, must aye deplore,
With unavailing penitence, his crime.
Whoe'er deprives himself of life and light
In reckless lavishment his talent wastes,
And sorrows then when he should dwell in joy."
Ruskin has expressed this with special allusion to the marvellous beauty
of this glorious world, too often taken as a matter of course, and
remembered, if at all, almost without gratitude. "Holy men," he complains,
"in the recommending of the love of God to us, refer but seldom to those
things in which it is most abundantly and immediately shown; though they
insist much on His giving of bread, and raiment, and health (which He
gives to all inferior creatures): they require us not to thank Him for
that glory of His works which He has permitted us alone to perceive: they
tell us often to meditate in the closet, but they send us not, like Isaac,
into the fields at even: they dwell on the duty of self denial, but they
exhibit not the duty of delight:" and yet, as he justly says elsewhere,
"each of us, as we travel the way of life, has the choice, according to
our working, of turning all the voices of Nature into one song of
rejoicing; or of withering and quenching her sympathy into a fearful
withdrawn silence of condemnation,--into a crying out of her stones and a
shaking of her dust against us."
Must we not all admit, with Sir Henry Taylor, that "the retrospect of life
swarms with lost opportunities"? "Whoever enjoys not life," says Sir T.
Browne, "I count him but an apparition, though he wears about him the
visible affections of flesh."
St. Bernard, indeed, goes so far as to maintain that "nothing can work me
damage except myself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me, and
never am a real sufferer but by my own fault."
Some Heathen moralists also have taught very much the same lesson. "The
gods," says Marcus Aurelius, "have put all the means in man's power to
enable him not to fall into real evils. Now that which does not make a man
worse, how can it make his life worse?"
Epictetus takes the same line: "If a man is unhappy, remember that his
unhappiness is his own fault; for God has made all men to be happy." "I
am," he elsewhere says, "always content with that which happens; for I
think that what God chooses is better than what I choose." And again:
"Seek not that things should happen as you wish; but wish the things which
happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.... If
you wish for anything which belongs to another, you lose that which is
your own."
Few, however, if any, can I think go as far as St. Bernard. We cannot but
suffer from pain, sickness, and anxiety; from the loss, the unkindness,
the faults, even the coldness of those we love. How many a day has been
damped and darkened by an angry word!
Hegel is said to have calmly finished his _Phaenomenologie des Geistes_ at
Jena, on the 14th October 1806, not knowing anything whatever of the
battle that was raging round him.
Matthew Arnold has suggested that we might take a lesson from the heavenly
bodies.
"Unaffrighted by the silence round them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,
These demand not the things without them
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.
"Bounded by themselves, and unobservant
In what state God's other works may be,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see."
It is true that
"A man is his own star;
Our acts our angels are
For good or ill,"
and that "rather than follow a multitude to do evil," one should "stand
like Pompey's pillar, conspicuous by oneself, and single in
integrity." [6] But to many this isolation would be itself most painful,
for the heart is "no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that
joins to them." [7]
If we separate ourselves so much from the interests of those around us
that we do not sympathize with them in their sufferings, we shut ourselves
out from sharing their happiness, and lose far more than we gain. If we
avoid sympathy and wrap ourselves round in a cold chain armor of
selfishness, we exclude ourselves from many of the greatest and purest
joys of life. To render ourselves insensible to pain we must forfeit also
the possibility of happiness.
Moreover, much of what we call evil is really good in disguise, and we
should not "quarrel rashly with adversities not yet understood, nor
overlook the mercies often bound up in them." [8] Pleasure and pain are,
as Plutarch says, the nails which fasten body and soul together. Pain is a
warning of danger, a very necessity of existence. But for it, but for the
warnings which our feelings give us, the very blessings by which we are
surrounded would soon and inevitably prove fatal. Many of those who have
not studied the question are under the impression that the more
deeply-seated portions of the body must be most sensitive. The very
reverse is the case. The skin is a continuous and ever-watchful sentinel,
always on guard to give us notice of any approaching danger; while the
flesh and inner organs, where pain would be without purpose, are, so long
as they are in health, comparatively without sensation.
"We talk," says Helps, "of the origin of evil;... but what is evil? We
mostly speak of sufferings and trials as good, perhaps, in their result;
but we hardly admit that they may be good in themselves. Yet they are
knowledge--how else to be acquired, unless by making men as gods, enabling
them to understand without experience. All that men go through may be
absolutely the best for them--no such thing as evil, at least in our
customary meaning of the word."
Indeed, "the vale best discovereth the hill," [9] and "pour sentir les
grands biens, il faut qu'il connoisse les petits maux." [10]
But even if we do not seem to get all that we should wish, many will feel,
as in Leigh Hunt's beautiful translation of Filicaja's sonnet, that--
"So Providence for us, high, infinite,
Makes our necessities its watchful task.
Hearkens to all our prayers, helps all our wants,
And e'en if it denies what seems our right,
Either denies because 'twould have us ask,
Or seems but to deny, and in denying grants."
Those on the other hand who do not accept the idea of continual
interferences, will rejoice in the belief that on the whole the laws of
the Universe work out for the general happiness.
And if it does come--
"Grief should be
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate,
Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free:
Strong to consume small troubles; to commend
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end." [11]
If, however, we cannot hope that life will be all happiness, we may at
least secure a heavy balance on the right side; and even events which look
like misfortune, if boldly faced, may often be turned to good. Oftentimes,
says Seneca, "calamity turns to our advantage; and great ruins make way
for greater glories." Helmholtz dates his start in science to an attack of
illness. This led to his acquisition of a microscope, which he was enabled
to purchase, owing to his having spent his autumn vacation of 1841 in the
hospital, prostrated by typhoid fever; being a pupil, he was nursed
without expense, and on his recovery he found himself in possession of the
savings of his small resources.
"Savonarola," says Castelar, "would, under different circumstances,
undoubtedly have been a good husband, a tender father; a man unknown to
history, utterly powerless to print upon the sands of time and upon the
human soul the deep trace which he has left; but misfortune came to visit
him, to crush his heart, and to impart that marked melancholy which
characterizes a soul in grief; and the grief that circled his brows with a
crown of thorns was also that which wreathed them with the splendor of
immortality. His hopes were centered in the woman he loved, his life was
set upon the possession of her, and when her family finally rejected him,
partly on account of his profession, and partly on account of his person,
believed that it was death that had come upon him, when in truth it was
immortality."
It is however, impossible to deny the existence of evil, and the reason
for it has long exercised the human intellect. The Savage solves it by the
supposition of evil Spirits. The Greeks attributed the misfortunes of men
in great measure to the antipathies and jealousies of gods and goddesses.
Others have imagined two divine principles, opposite and antagonistic--the
one friendly, the other hostile, to men.
Freedom of action, however, seems to involve the existence of evil. If any
power of selection be left us, much must depend on the choice we make. In
the very nature of things, two and two cannot make five. Epictetus
imagines Jupiter addressing man as follows: "If it had been possible to
make your body and your property free from liability to injury, I would
have done so. As this could not be, I have given you a small portion of
myself."
This divine gift it is for us to use wisely. It is, in fact, our most
valuable treasure. "The soul is a much better thing than all the others
which you possess. Can you then show me in what way you have taken care of
it? For it is not likely that you, who are so wise a man, inconsiderately
and carelessly allow the most valuable thing that you possess to be
neglected and to perish." [12]
Moreover, even if evil cannot be altogether avoided, it is no doubt true
that not only whether the life we lead be good and useful, or evil and
useless, but also whether it be happy or unhappy, is very much in our own
power, and depends greatly on ourselves. "Time alone relieves the foolish
from sorrow, but reason the wise." [13] and no one was ever yet made
utterly miserable excepting by himself. We are, if not the masters, at any
rate almost the creators of ourselves.
With most of us it is not so much great sorrows, disease, or death, but
rather the little "daily dyings" which cloud over the sunshine of life.
Many of our troubles are insignificant in themselves, and might easily be
avoided!
How happy home might generally be made but for foolish quarrels, or
misunderstandings, as they are well named! It is our own fault if we are
querulous or ill-humored; nor need we, though this is less easy, allow
ourselves to be made unhappy by the querulousness or ill-humors of others.
Much of what we suffer we have brought on ourselves, if not by actual
fault, at least by ignorance or thoughtlessness. Too often we think only
of the happiness of the moment, and sacrifice that of the life. Troubles
comparatively seldom come to us, it is we who go to them. Many of us
fritter our life away. La Bruyere says that "most men spend much of their
lives in making the rest miserable;" or, as Goethe puts it:
"Careworn man has, in all ages,
Sown vanity to reap despair."
Not only do we suffer much in the anticipation of evil, as "Noah lived
many years under the affliction of a flood, and Jerusalem was taken unto
Jeremy before it was besieged," but we often distress ourselves greatly in
the apprehension of misfortunes which after all never happen at all. We
should do our best and wait calmly the result. We often hear of people
breaking down from overwork, but in nine cases out of ten they are really
suffering from worry or anxiety.
"Nos maux moraux," says Rousseau, "sont tous dans l'opinion, hors un seul,
qui est le crime; et celui-la depend de nous: nos maux physiques nous
detruisent, ou se detruisent. Le temps, ou la mort, sont nos remedes."
"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven." [14]
This, however, applies to the grown up. With children of course it is
different. It is customary, but I think it is a mistake, to speak of happy
childhood. Children, however, are often over-anxious and acutely
sensitive. Man ought to be man and master of his fate; but children are at
the mercy of those around them. Mr. Rarey, the great horse-tamer, has told
us that he has known an angry word raise the pulse of a horse ten beats in
a minute. Think then how it must affect a child!
It is small blame to the young if they are over-anxious; but it is a
danger to be striven against. "The terrors of the storm are chiefly felt
in the parlor or the cabin." [15]
To save ourselves from imaginary, or at any rate problematical, evils, we
often incur real suffering. "The man," said Epicurus, "who is not content
with little is content with nothing." How often do we "labor for that
which satisfieth not." More than we use is more than we need, and only a
burden to the bearer. [16] We most of us give ourselves an immense amount
of useless trouble; encumber ourselves, as it were, on the journey of life
with a dead weight of unnecessary baggage; and as "a man maketh his train
longer, he makes his wings shorter." [17] In that delightful fairy tale,
_Alice through the Looking-Glass_, the "White Knight" is described as
having loaded himself on starting for a journey with a variety of odds and
ends, including a mousetrap, in case he was troubled by mice at night, and
a beehive in case he came across a swarm of bees.
Hearne, in his _Journey to the Mouth of the Coppermine River_ tells us
that a few days after starting on his expedition he met a party of
Indians, who annexed a great deal of his property, and all Hearne says is,
"The weight of our baggage being so much lightened, our next day's journey
was much pleasanter." I ought, however, to add that the Indians broke up
the philosophical instruments, which, no doubt, were rather an
encumbrance.
When troubles do come, Marcus Aurelius wisely tells us to "remember on
every occasion which leads thee to vexation to apply this principle, that
this is not a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune." Our
own anger indeed does us more harm than the thing which makes us angry;
and we suffer much more from the anger and vexation which we allow acts to
rouse in us, than we do from the acts themselves at which we are angry and
vexed. How much most people, for instance, allow themselves to be
distracted and disturbed by quarrels and family disputes. Yet in nine
cases out of ten one ought not to suffer from being found fault with. If
the condemnation is just, it should be welcome as a warning; if it is
undeserved, why should we allow it to distress us?
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