The Pleasures of Life by Sir John Lubbock

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There are other forms of Music, which though not strictly entitled to the
name, are yet capable of giving intense pleasure. To the sportsman what
Music can excel that of the hounds themselves. The cawing of rooks has
been often quoted as a sound which has no actual beauty of its own, and
yet which is delightful from its associations.

There is, however, a true Music of Nature,--the song of birds, the whisper
of leaves, the ripple of waters upon a sandy shore, the wail of wind or
sea.

There was also an ancient impression that the Heavenly bodies give out
music as well as light: the Music of the Spheres is proverbial.

"There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims;
Such harmony is in immortal souls
But while this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." [6]

Music indeed often seems as if it scarcely belonged to this material
universe, but was

"A tone
Of some world far from ours,
Where music, and moonlight, and feeling are one." [7]

There is Music in speech as well as in song. Not merely in the voice of
those we love, and the charm of association, but in actual melody; as
Milton says,

"The Angel ended, and in Adam's ear
So charming left his voice, that he awhile
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear."

It is remarkable that more pains are not taken with the voice in
conversation as well as in singing, for

"What plea so tainted and corrupt
But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil."

It may be true as a general rule that

"The man that hath no Music in himself
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;" [8]

but there are some notable exceptions. Dr. Johnson had no love of music.
On one occasion, hearing that a certain piece of music was very difficult,
he expressed his regret that it was not impossible.

Poets, as might have been expected, have sung most sweetly in praise of
song. They have, moreover, done so from the most opposite points of view.

Milton invokes it as a luxury--

"And ever against eating cares
Lap me in soft Lydian airs;
Married to immortal verse
Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out;
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running;
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony."

Sometimes as a temptation; so Spenser says of Phaedria,

"And she, more sweet than any bird on bough
Would oftentimes amongst them bear a part,
And strive to passe (as she could well enough)
Their native musicke by her skilful art."

Or as an element of pure happiness--

"There is in Souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitched, the ear is pleased
With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave;
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again and louder still
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on." [9]

As touching the human heart--

"The soul of music slumbers in the shell,
Till waked and kindled by the master's spell,
And feeling hearts--touch them but lightly--pour
A thousand melodies unheard before." [10]

As an education--

"I have sent books and music there, and all
Those instruments with which high spirits call
The future from its cradle, and the past
Out of its grave, and make the present last
In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die,
Folded within their own eternity." [11]

As an aid to religion--

"As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
To all the blessed above,
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high.
The dead shall live, the living die,
And music shall untune the sky." [12]

Or again--

"Hark how it falls! and now It steals along,
Like distant bells upon the lake at eve.
When all is still; and now it grows more strong
As when the choral train their dirges weave
Mellow and many voiced; where every close
O'er the old minster roof, in echoing waves reflows.
Oh! I am rapt aloft. My spirit soars
Beyond the skies, and leaves the stars behind;
Lo! angels lead me to the happy shores,
And floating paeans fill the buoyant wind.
Farewell! base earth, farewell! my soul is freed."

The power of Music to sway the feelings of Man has never been more
cleverly portrayed than by Dryden in "The Feast of Alexander," though the
circumstances of the case precluded any reference to the influence of
Music in its noblest aspects.

Poets have always attributed to Music--and who would wish to deny it?--a
power even over the inanimate forces of Nature. Shakespeare accounts for
shooting stars by the attraction of Music:

"The rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the Sea-maid's music."

Prose writers have also been inspired by Music to their highest eloquence.
"Music," says Plato, "is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe,
wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety
and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that
is good, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but
nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form." "Music," said
Luther, "is a fair and glorious gift from God. I would not for the world
renounce my humble share in music." "Music," said Halevy, "is an art that
God has given us, in which the voices of all nations may unite their
prayers in one harmonious rhythm." Or Carlyle, "Music is a kind of
inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the
infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into it."

Let me also quote Helmholtz, one of the profoundest exponents of modern
science. "Just as in the rolling ocean, this movement, rhythmically
repeated, and yet ever-varying, rivets our attention and hurries us along.
But whereas in the sea blind physical forces alone are at work, and hence
the final impression on the spectator's mind is nothing but solitude--in a
musical work of art the movement follows the outflow of the artist's own
emotions. Now gently gliding, now gracefully leaping, now violently
stirred, penetrated, or laboriously contending with the natural expression
of passion, the stream of sound, in primitive vivacity, bears over into
the hearer's soul unimagined moods which the artist has overheard from his
own, and finally raises him up to that repose of everlasting beauty of
which God has allowed but few of his elect favorites to be the heralds."

"There are but seven notes in the scale; make them fourteen," says Newman,
"yet what a slender outfit for so vast an enterprise! What science brings
so much out of so little? Out of what poor elements does some great master
in it create his new world! Shall we say that all this exuberant
inventiveness is a mere ingenuity or trick of art, like some game of
fashion of the day, without reality, without meaning?... Is it possible
that that inexhaustible evolution and disposition of notes, so rich yet so
simple, so intricate yet so regulated, so various yet so majestic, should
be a mere sound, which is gone and perishes? Can it be that those
mysterious stirrings of the heart, and keen emotions, and strange
yearnings after we know not what, and awful impressions from we know not
whence, should be wrought in us by what is unsubstantial, and comes and
goes, and begins and ends in itself? it is not so; it cannot be. No; they
have escaped from some higher sphere; they are the outpourings of eternal
harmony in the medium of created sound; they are echoes from our Home;
they are the voices of Angels, or the Magnificat of Saints, or the living
laws of Divine Governance, or the Divine Attributes; something are they
besides themselves, which we cannot compass, which we cannot utter, though
mortal man, and he perhaps not otherwise distinguished above his fellows,
has the gift of eliciting them."

Poetry and Music unite in song. From the earliest ages song has been the
sweet companion of labor. The rude chant of the boatman floats upon the
water, the shepherd sings upon the hill, the milkmaid in the dairy, the
ploughman at the plough. Every trade, every occupation, every act and
scene of life, has long had its own especial music. The bride went to her
marriage, the laborer to his work, the old man to his last long rest, each
with appropriate and immemorial music.

Music has been truly described as the mother of sympathy, the handmaid of
Religion, and will never exercise its full effect, as the Emperor Charles
VI. said to Farinelli, unless it aims not merely to charm the ear, but to
touch the heart.

There are many who consider that our life at present is peculiarly prosaic
and mercenary. I greatly doubt whether that be the case, but if so our
need for Music is all the more imperative.

Much as Music has already done for man, we may hope even more from it in
the future.

It is, moreover, a joy for all. To appreciate Science or Art requires some
training, and no doubt the cultivated ear will more and more appreciate
the beauties of Music; but though there are exceptional individuals, and
even races, almost devoid of any love of Music, still they are happily but
rare.

Good Music, moreover, does not necessarily involve any considerable
outlay; it is even now no mere luxury of the rich, and we may hope that as
time goes on, it will become more and more the comfort and solace of the
poor.

[1] Morris.

[2] Plato.

[3] Crowest.

[4] _Rowbotham, History of Music_.

[5] Wakefield.

[6] Shakespeare.

[7] Swinburne.

[8] Shakespeare.

[9] Cowper.

[10] Rogers.

[11] Shelley.

[12] Dryden.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE.

"Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee."

JOB.

"And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything."

SHAKESPEARE.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE.

We are told in the first chapter of Genesis that at the close of the sixth
day "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."
Not merely good, but very good. Yet how few of us appreciate the beautiful
world in which we live!

In preceding chapters I have incidentally, though only incidentally,
referred to the Beauties of Nature; but any attempt, however imperfect, to
sketch the blessings of life must contain some special reference to this
lovely world itself, which the Greeks happily called [Greek: chosmos]
--beauty.

Hamerton, in his charming work on _Landscape_, says, "There are, I
believe, four new experiences for which no description ever adequately
prepares us, the first sight of the sea, the first journey in the desert,
the sight of flowing molten lava, and a walk on a great glacier. We feel
in each case that the strange thing is pure nature, as much nature as a
familiar English moor, yet so extraordinary that we might be in another
planet." But it would, I think, be easier to enumerate the Wonders of
Nature for which description can prepare us, than those which are
altogether beyond the power of language.

Many of us, however, walk through the world like ghosts, as if we were in
it, but not of it. We have "eyes and see not, ears and hear not." To look
is much less easy than to overlook, and to be able to see what we do see,
is a great gift. Ruskin maintains that "The greatest thing a human soul
ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a
plain way." I do not suppose that his eyes are better than ours, but how
much more he sees with them!

We must look before we can expect to see. "To the attentive eye," says
Emerson, "each moment of the year has its own beauty; and in the same
field it beholds every hour a picture that was never seen before, and
shall never be seen again. The heavens change every moment and reflect
their glory or gloom on the plains beneath."

The love of Nature is a great gift, and if it is frozen or crushed out,
the character can hardly fail to suffer from the loss. I will not, indeed,
say that a person who does not love Nature is necessarily bad; or that one
who does, is necessarily good; but it is to most minds a great help. Many,
as Miss Cobbe says, enter the Temple through the gate called Beautiful.

There are doubtless some to whom none of the beautiful wonders of Nature;
neither the glories of the rising or setting sun; the magnificent
spectacle of the boundless ocean, sometimes so grand in its peaceful
tranquillity, at others so majestic in its mighty power; the forests
agitated by the storm, or alive with the song of birds; nor the glaciers
and mountains--there are doubtless some whom none of these magnificent
spectacles can move, whom "all the glories of heaven and earth may pass in
daily succession without touching their hearts or elevating their
minds." [1]

Such men are indeed pitiable. But, happily, they are exceptions. If we can
none of us as yet fully appreciate the beauties of Nature, we are
beginning to do so more and more.

For most of us the early summer has a special charm. The very life is
luxury. The air is full of scent, and sound, and sunshine, of the song of
birds and the murmur of insects; the meadows gleam with golden buttercups,
it almost seems as if one could see the grass grow and the buds open; the
bees hum for very joy, and the air is full of a thousand scents, above all
perhaps that of new-mown hay.

The exquisite beauty and delight of a fine summer day in the country has
never perhaps been more truly, and therefore more beautifully, described
than by Jefferies in his "Pageant of Summer." "I linger,'" he says, "in
the midst of the long grass, the luxury of the leaves, and the song in the
very air. I seem as if I could feel all the glowing life the sunshine
gives and the south wind calls to being. The endless grass, the endless
leaves, the immense strength of the oak expanding, the unalloyed joy of
finch and blackbird; from all of them I receive a little.... In the
blackbird's melody one note is mine; in the dance of the leaf shadows the
formed maze is for me, though the motion is theirs; the flowers with a
thousand faces have collected the kisses of the morning. Feeling with
them, I receive some, at least, of their fulness of life. Never could I
have enough; never stay long enough.... The hours when the mind is
absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live, so that the
longer we can stay among these things so much the more is snatched from
inevitable Time.... These are the only hours that are not wasted-these
hours that absorb the soul and fill it with beauty. This is real life, and
all else is illusion, or mere endurance. To be beautiful and to be calm,
without mental fear, is the ideal of Nature. If I cannot achieve it, at
least I can think it."

This chapter is already so long that I cannot touch on the contrast and
variety of the seasons, each with its own special charm and interest, as

"The daughters of the year
Dance into light and die into the shade." [2]

Our countrymen derive great pleasure from the animal kingdom, in hunting,
shooting, and fishing, thus obtaining fresh air and exercise, and being
led into much varied and beautiful scenery. Still it will probably ere
long be recognized that even from a purely selfish point of view, killing
animals is not the way to get the greatest enjoyment from them. How much
more interesting would every walk in the country be, if Man would but
treat other animals with kindness, so that they might approach us without
fear, and we might have the constant pleasure of watching their winning
ways. Their origin and history, structure and habits, senses and
intelligence, offer an endless field of interest and wonder.

The richness of life is wonderful. Any one who will sit down quietly on
the grass and watch a little will be indeed surprised at the number and
variety of living beings, every one with a special history of its own,
every one offering endless problems of great interest.

"If indeed thy heart were right, then would every creature be to thee a
mirror of lifer and a book of holy doctrine." [3]

The study of Natural History has the special advantage of carrying us into
the country and the open air.

Not but what towns are beautiful too. They teem with human interest and
historical associations.

Wordsworth was an intense lover of nature; yet does he not tell us, in
lines which every Londoner will appreciate, that he knew nothing in nature
more fair, no calm more deep, than the city of London at early dawn?

"Earth has not anything to show more fair;
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at its own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!"

Milton also described London as

"Too blest abode, no loveliness we see
In all the earth, but it abounds in thee."

But after being some time in a great city, one feels a longing for the
country.

"The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise." [4]

Here Gray justly places flowers in the first place, for when in any great
town we think of the country, flowers seem first to suggest themselves.

"Flowers," says Ruskin, "seem intended for the solace of ordinary
humanity. Children love them; quiet, tender, contented, ordinary people
love them as they grow; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in them
gathered. They are the cottager's treasure; and in the crowded town mark,
as with a little broken fragment of rainbow the windows of the workers in
whose heart rest the covenant of peace." But in the crowded street, or
even in the formal garden, flowers always seem, to me at least, as if they
were pining for the freedom of the woods and fields, where they can live
and grow as they please.

There are flowers for almost all seasons and all places. Flowers for
spring, summer, and autumn, while even in the very depth of winter here
and there one makes its appearance. There are flowers of the fields and
woods and hedgerows, of the seashore and the lake's margin, of the
mountain-side up to the very edge of the eternal snow.

And what an infinite variety they present.

"Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one." [5]

Nor are they mere delights to the eye; they are full of mystery and
suggestions. They almost seem like enchanted princesses waiting for some
princely deliverer. Wordsworth tells us that

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

Every color again, every variety of form, has some purpose and
explanation.

And yet, lovely as Flowers are, Leaves add even more to the Beauty of
Nature. Trees in our northern latitudes seldom own large flowers; and
though of course there are notable exceptions, such as the Horse-chestnut,
still even in these cases the flowers live only a few days, while the
leaves last for months. Every tree indeed is a picture in itself: The
gnarled and rugged Oak, the symbol and source of our navy, sacred to the
memory of the Druids, the type of strength, the sovereign of British
trees; the Chestnut, with its beautiful, tapering, and rich green, glossy
leaves, its delicious fruit, and to the durability of which we owe the
grand and historic roof of Westminster Abbey.

The Birch is the queen of trees, with her feathery foliage, scarcely
visible in spring but turning to leaves of gold in autumn; the pendulous
twigs tinged with purple, and silver stems so brilliantly marked with
black and white.

The Elm forms grand masses of foliage which turn a beautiful golden yellow
in autumn; and the Black Poplar with its perpendicular leaves, rustling
and trembling with every breath of wind, towers over most other forest
trees.

The Beech enlivens the country by its tender green in spring, rich green
in summer, and glorious gold and orange in autumn, set off by the graceful
gray stems; and has moreover, such a wealth of leaves that in autumn there
are enough not only to clothe the tree itself but to cover the grass
underneath.

If the Beech owes much to its delicate gray stem, even more beautiful is
the reddish crimson of the Scotch Pines, in such charming contrast with
the rich green of the foliage, by which it is shown off rather than
hidden; and, with the green spires of the Firs, they keep the woods warm
in winter.

Nor must I overlook the smaller trees: the Yew with its thick green
foliage; the wild Guelder rose, which lights up the woods in autumn with
translucent glossy berries and many-tinted leaves; or the Bryonies, the
Briar, the Traveler's Joy, and many another plant, even humbler perhaps,
and yet each with some exquisite beauty and grace of its own, so that we
must all have sometimes felt our hearts overflowing with gladness and
gratitude, as if the woods were full of music--as if

"The woods were filled so full with song
There seemed no room for sense of wrong." [6]

On the whole no doubt, woodlands are less beautiful in the winter: yet
even then the delicate tracery of the branches, which cannot be so well
seen when they are clothed with leaves, has a special beauty of its own;
while every now and then hoar frost or snow settles like silver on every
branch and twig, lighting up the forest as if by enchantment in
preparation for some fairy festival.

I feel with Jefferies that "by day or by night, summer or winter, beneath
trees the heart feels nearer to that depth of life which the far sky
means. The rest of spirit found only in beauty, ideal and pure, comes
there because the distance seems within touch of thought."

The general effect of forests in tropical regions must be very different
from that of those in our latitudes. Kingsley describes it as one of
helplessness, confusion, awe, all but terror. The trunks are very lofty
and straight, and rising to a great height without a branch, so that the
wood seems at first comparatively open. In Brazilian forests, for
instance, the trees struggle upward, and the foliage forms an unbroken
canopy, perhaps a hundred feet overhead. Here, indeed, high up in the air
is the real life of the forest. Everything seems to climb, to the light.
The quadrupeds climb, birds climb, reptiles climb, and the variety of
climbing plants is far greater than anything to which we are accustomed.

Many savage nations worship trees, and I really think my first feeling
would be one of delight and interest rather than of surprise, if some day
when I am alone in a wood one of the trees were to speak to me. Even by
day there is something mysterious in a forest, and this is much more the
case at night.

With wood, water seems to be naturally associated. Without water no
landscape is complete, while overhead the clouds add beauty to the heavens
themselves. The spring and the rivulet, the brook, the river, and the
lake, seem to give life to Nature, and were indeed regarded by our
ancestors as living entities themselves. Water is beautiful in the morning
mist, in the broad lake, in the glancing stream or the river pool, in the
wide ocean, beautiful in all its varied moods. Water nourishes vegetation;
it clothes the lowlands with green and the mountains with snow. It
sculptures the rocks and excavates the valleys, in most cases acting
mainly through the soft rain, though our harder rocks are still grooved by
the ice-chisel of bygone ages.

The refreshing pour of water upon the earth is scarcely greater than that
which it exercises on the mind of man. After a long spell of work how
delightful it is to sit by a lake or river, or on the seashore, and enjoy

"A little murmur in mine ear,
A little ripple at my feet." [7]

Every Englishman loves the sight of the Sea We feel that it is to us a
second home. It seems to vivify the very atmosphere, so that Sea air is
proverbial as a tonic, and makes the blood dance in our veins. The Ocean
gives an impression of freedom and grandeur more intense perhaps than the
aspect of the heavens themselves. A poor woman from Manchester, on being
taken to the seaside, is said to have expressed her delight on seeing for
the first time something of which there was enough for everybody. The sea
coast is always interesting. When we think of the cliff sections with
their histories of bygone ages; the shore itself teeming with seaweeds and
animals, waiting for the return of the tide, or thrown up from deeper
water by the waves; the weird cries of seabirds; the delightful feeling
that with every breath we are laying in a store of fresh life, and health,
and energy, it is impossible to over-estimate all we owe to the sea.

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