The Pleasures of Life by Sir John Lubbock
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Sir John Lubbock >> The Pleasures of Life
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Such peace of mind is indeed an inestimable boon, a rich reward of duty
fulfilled. Well then does Epictetus ask, "Is there no reward? Do you seek
a reward greater than that of doing what is good and just? At Olympia you
wish for nothing more, but it seems to you enough to be crowned at the
games. Does it then seem to you so small and worthless a thing to be good
and happy?"
In Bernard of Morlaix's beautiful lines--
"Pax erit illa fidelibus, illa beata,
Irrevocabilis, Invariabilis, Intemerata.
Pax sine crimine, pax sine turbine, pax sine rixa,
Meta Laboribus, inque tumultibus anchora fixa;
Pax erit omnibus unica. Sed quibus? Immaculatis
Pectore mitibus, ordine stantibus, ore sacratis."
What greater reward can we have than this; than the "peace which passeth
all understanding," "which cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver
be weighed for the price thereof." [9]
[1] Colton, _Lacon, or Many Things in Few Words_.
[2] _i.e._ spirit.
[3] Omar Khayyam.
[4] Two robbers destroyed by Theseus.
[5] Epictetus.
[6] Emerson.
[7] Epictetus.
[8] King Alfred's _Boethius_.
[9] Job.
CHAPTER III
A SONG OF BOOKS.
"Oh for a booke and a shadie nooke,
Eyther in doore or out;
With the grene leaves whispering overhead
Or the streete cryes all about.
Where I maie reade all at my ease,
Both of the newe and old;
For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke,
Is better to me than golde."
OLD ENGLISH SONG.
Of all the privileges we enjoy in this nineteenth century there is none,
perhaps, for which we ought to be more thankful than for the easier access
to books.
The debt we owe to books was well expressed by Richard de Bury, Bishop of
Durham, author of _Philobiblon_, written as long ago as 1344, published in
1473, and the earliest English treatise on the delights of
literature:--"These," he says, "are the masters who instruct us without
rods and ferules, without hard words and anger, without clothes or money.
If you approach them, they are not asleep; if investigating you
interrogate them, they conceal nothing; if you mistake them, they never
grumble; if you are ignorant, they cannot laugh at you. The library,
therefore, of wisdom is more precious than all riches, and nothing that
can be wished for is worthy to be compared with it. Whosoever therefore
acknowledges himself to be a zealous follower of truth, of happiness, of
wisdom, of science, or even of the faith, must of necessity make himself a
lover of books." But if the debt were great then, how much more now.
This feeling that books are real friends is constantly present to all who
love reading. "I have friends," said Petrarch, "whose society is extremely
agreeable to me; they are of all ages, and of every country. They have
distinguished themselves both in the cabinet and in the field, and
obtained high honors for their knowledge of the sciences. It is easy to
gain access to them, for they are always at my service, and I admit them
to my company, and dismiss them from it, whenever I please. They are never
troublesome, but immediately answer every question I ask them. Some relate
to me the events of past ages, while others reveal to me the secrets of
Nature. Some teach me how to live, and others how to die. Some, by their
vivacity, drive away my cares and exhilarate my spirits; while others give
fortitude to my mind, and teach me the important lesson how to restrain my
desires, and to depend wholly on myself. They open to me, in short, the
various avenues of all the arts and sciences, and upon their information I
may safely rely in all emergencies. In return for all their services, they
only ask me to accommodate them with a convenient chamber in some corner
of my humble habitation, where they may repose in peace; for these friends
are more delighted by the tranquillity of retirement than with the tumults
of society."
"He that loveth a book," says Isaac Barrow, "will never want a faithful
friend, a wholesome counsellor, a cheerful companion, an effectual
comforter. By study, by reading, by thinking, one may innocently divert
and pleasantly entertain himself, as in all weathers, so in all fortunes."
Southey took a rather more melancholy view:
"My days among the dead are pass'd,
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old.
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day."
Imagine, in the words of Aikin, "that we had it in our power to call up
the shades of the greatest and wisest men that ever existed, and oblige
them to converse with us on the most interesting topics--what an
inestimable privilege should we think it!--how superior to all common
enjoyments! But in a well-furnished library we, in fact, possess this
power. We can question Xenophon and Caesar on their campaigns, make
Demosthenes and Cicero plead before us, join in the audiences of Socrates
and Plato, and receive demonstrations from Euclid and Newton. In books we
have the choicest thoughts of the ablest men in their best dress."
"Books," says Jeremy Collier, "are a guide in youth and an entertainment
for age. They support us under solitude, and keep us from being a burthen
to ourselves. They help us to forget the crossness of men and things;
compose our cares and our passions; and lay our disappointments asleep.
When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have
nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation."
Sir John Herschel tells an amusing anecdote illustrating the pleasure
derived from a book, not assuredly of the first order. In a certain
village the blacksmith having got hold of Richardson's novel, _Pamela, or
Virtue Rewarded_, used to sit on his anvil in the long summer evenings and
read it aloud to a large and attentive audience. It is by no means a short
book, but they fairly listened to it all. At length, when the happy turn
of fortune arrived, which brings the hero and heroine together, and sets
them living long and happily together according to the most approved
rules, the congregation were so delighted as to raise a great shout, and
procuring the church keys, actually set the parish bells a-ringing.
"The lover of reading," says Leigh Hunt, "will derive agreeable terror
from _Sir Bertram_ and the _Haunted Chamber_; will assent with, delighted
reason to every sentence in _Mrs. Barbauld's Essay_; will feel himself
wandering into solitudes with _Gray_; shake honest hands with _Sir Roger
de Coverley_; be ready to embrace _Parson Adams_, and to chuck _Pounce_
out of the window instead of the hat; will travel with _Marco Polo_ and
_Mungo Park_; stay at home with _Thomson_; retire with _Cowley_; be
industrious with _Hutton_; sympathizing with _Gay_ and _Mrs. Inchbald_;
laughing with (and at) _Buncle_; melancholy, and forlorn, and
self-restored with the shipwrecked mariner of _De Foe_."
Carlyle has wisely said that a collection of books is a real university.
The importance of books has been appreciated in many quarters where we
might least expect it. Among the hardy Norsemen runes were supposed to be
endowed with miraculous power. There is an Arabic proverb, that "a wise
man's day is worth a fool's life," and another--though it reflects perhaps
rather the spirit of the Califs than of the Sultans,--that "the ink of
science is more precious than the blood of the martyrs."
Confucius is said to have described himself as a man who "in his eager
pursuit of knowledge forgot his food, who in the joy of its attainment
forgot his sorrows, and did not even perceive that old age was coming on."
Yet, if this could be said by the Arabs and the Chinese, what language can
be strong enough to express the gratitude we ought to feel for the
advantages we enjoy! We do not appreciate, I think, our good fortune in
belonging to the nineteenth century. Sometimes, indeed, one may even be
inclined to wish that one had not lived quite so soon, and to long for a
glimpse of the books, even the school-books, of one hundred years hence. A
hundred years ago not only were books extremely expensive and cumbrous,
but many of the most delightful were still uncreated--such as the works of
Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer Lytton, and Trollope, not to mention
living authors. How much more interesting science has become especially,
if I were to mention only one name, through the genius of Darwin! Renan
has characterized this as a most amusing century; I should rather have
described it as most interesting: presenting us as it does with an endless
vista of absorbing problems; with infinite opportunities; with more
interest and less danger than surrounded our less fortunate ancestors.
Cicero described a room without books, as a body without a soul. But it is
by no means necessary to be a philosopher to love reading.
Reading, indeed, is by no means necessarily study. Far from it. "I put,"
says Mr. Frederic Harrison, in his excellent article on the "Choice of
Books," "I put the poetic and emotional side of literature as the most
needed for daily use."
In the prologue to the _Legende of Goode Women_, Chaucer says:
"And as for me, though that I konne but lyte,
On bokes for to rede I me delyte,
And to him give I feyth and ful credence,
And in myn herte have him in reverence,
So hertely, that ther is game noon,
That fro my bokes maketh me to goon,
But yt be seldome on the holy day,
Save, certynly, when that the monthe of May
Is comen, and that I here the foules synge,
And that the floures gynnen for to sprynge,
Farwel my boke and my devocion."
But I doubt whether, if he had enjoyed our advantages, he could have been
so certain of tearing himself away, even in the month of May.
Macaulay, who had all that wealth and fame, rank and talents could give,
yet, we are told, derived his greatest happiness from books. Sir G.
Trevelyan, in his charming biography, says that--"of the feelings which
Macaulay entertained toward the great minds of bygone ages it is not for
any one except himself to speak. He has told us how his debt to them was
incalculable; how they guided him to truth; how they filled his mind with
noble and graceful images; how they stood by him in all vicissitudes--
comforters in sorrow, nurses in sickness, companions in solitude, the old
friends who are never seen with new faces; who are the same in wealth and
in poverty, in glory and in obscurity. Great as were the honors and
possessions which Macaulay acquired by his pen, all who knew him were well
aware that the titles and rewards which he gained by his own works were as
nothing in the balance compared with the pleasure he derived from the
works of others."
There was no society in London so agreeable that Macaulay would have
preferred it at breakfast or at dinner "to the company of Sterne or
Fielding, Horace Walpole or Boswell." The love of reading which Gibbon
declared he would not exchange for all the treasures of India was, in
fact, with Macaulay "a main element of happiness in one of the happiest
lives that it has ever fallen to the lot of the biographer to record."
"History," says Fuller, "maketh a young man to be old without either
wrinkles or gray hair, privileging him with the experience of age without
either the infirmities or the inconveniences thereof."
So delightful indeed are books that we must be careful not to forget other
duties for them; in cultivating the mind we must not neglect the body.
To the lover of literature or science, exercise often presents itself as
an irksome duty, and many a one has felt like "the fair pupil of Ascham
(Lady Jane Gray), who, while the horns were sounding and dogs in full cry,
sat in the lonely oriel, with eyes riveted to that immortal page which
tells how meekly and bravely (Socrates) the first martyr of intellectual
liberty took the cup from his weeping jailer." [1]
Still, as the late Lord Derby justly observed, [2] those who do not find
time for exercise will have to find time for illness.
Books, again, are now so cheap as to be within the reach of almost every
one. This was not always so. It is quite a recent blessing. Mr. Ireland,
to whose charming little _Book Lover's Enchiridion_, in common with every
lover of reading. I am greatly indebted, tells us that when a boy he was
so delighted with White's _Natural History of Selborne_, that in order to
possess a copy of his own he actually copied out the whole work.
Mary Lamb gives a pathetic description of a studious boy lingering at a
bookstall:
"I saw a boy with eager eye
Open a book upon a stall,
And read, as he'd devour it all;
Which, when the stall man did espy,
Soon to the boy I heard him call,
'You, sir, you never buy a book,
Therefore in one you shall not look.'
The boy passed slowly on, and with a sigh
He wished he never had been taught to read,
Then of the old churl's books he should have had no need."
Such snatches of literature have indeed, special and peculiar charm. This
is, I believe, partly due to the very fact of their being brief. Many
readers miss much of the pleasure of reading by forcing themselves to
dwell too long continuously on one subject. In a long railway journey, for
instance, many persons take only a single book. The consequence is that,
unless it is a story, after half an hour or an hour they are quite tired
of it. Whereas, if they had two, or still better three books, on different
subjects, and one of them of an amusing character, they would probably
find that, by changing as soon as they felt at all weary, they would come
back again and again to each with renewed zest, and hour after hour would
pass pleasantly away. Every one, of course, must judge for himself, but
such at least is my experience.
I quite agree, therefore, with Lord Iddesleigh as to the charm of
desultory reading, but the wider the field the more important that we
should benefit by the very best books in each class. Not that we need
confine ourselves to them, but that we should commence with them, and they
will certainly lead us on to others. There are of course some books which
we must read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. But these are exceptions.
As regards by far the larger number, it is probably better to read them
quickly, dwelling only on the best and most important passages. In this
way, no doubt, we shall lose much, but we gain more by ranging over a
wider field. We may, in fact, I think, apply to reading Lord Brougham's
wise dictum as regards education, and say that it is well to read
everything of something, and something of everything. In this way only we
can ascertain the bent of our own tastes, for it is a general, though not
of course an invariable, rule, that we profit little by books which we do
not enjoy.
Every one, however, may suit himself. The variety is endless.
Not only does a library contain "infinite riches in a little room," [3]
but we may sit at home and yet be in all quarters of the earth. We may
travel round the world with Captain Cook or Darwin, with Kingsley or
Ruskin, who will show us much more perhaps than ever we should see for
ourselves. The world itself has no limits for us; Humboldt and Herschel
will carry us far away to the mysterious nebulae, beyond the sun and even
the stars: time has no more bounds than space; history stretches out
behind us, and geology will carry us back for millions of years before the
creation of man, even to the origin of the material Universe itself. Nor
are we limited to one plane of thought. Aristotle and Plato will transport
us into a sphere none the less delightful because we cannot appreciate it
without some training.
Comfort and consolation, refreshment and happiness, may indeed be found in
his library by any one "who shall bring the golden key that unlocks its
silent door." [4] A library is true fairyland, a very palace of delight, a
haven of repose from the storms and troubles of the world. Rich and poor
can enjoy it equally, for here, at least, wealth gives no advantage. We
may make a library, if we do but rightly use it, a true paradise on earth,
a garden of Eden without its one drawback; for all is open to us,
including, and especially, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, for which
we are told that our first mother sacrificed all the Pleasures of
Paradise. Here we may read the most important histories, the most exciting
volumes of travels and adventures, the most interesting stories, the most
beautiful poems; we may meet the most eminent statesmen, poets, and
philosophers, benefit by the ideas of the greatest thinkers, and enjoy the
grandest creations of human genius.
[1] Macaulay.
[2] Address, Liverpool College, 1873.
[3] Marlowe.
[4] Matthews.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHOICE OF BOOKS.
"All round the room my silent servants wait
My friends in every season, bright and dim,
Angels and Seraphim
Come down and murmur to me, sweet and low,
And spirits of the skies all come and go
Early and Late."
PROCTOR.
And yet too often they wait in vain. One reason for this is, I think, that
people are overwhelmed by the crowd of books offered to them.
In old days books were rare and dear. Now on the contrary, it may be said
with greater truth than ever that
"Words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think."
Our ancestors had a difficulty in procuring them. Our difficulty now is
what to select. We must be careful what we read, and not, like the sailors
of Ulysses, take bags of wind for sacks of treasure--not only lest we
should even now fall into the error of the Greeks, and suppose that
language and definitions can be instruments of investigation as well as of
thought, but lest, as too often happens, we should waste time over trash.
There are many books to which one may apply, in the sarcastic sense, the
ambiguous remark said to have been made to an unfortunate author, "I will
lose no time in reading your book."
There are, indeed, books and books, and there are books which, as Lamb
said, are not books at all. It is wonderful how much innocent happiness we
thoughtlessly throw away. An Eastern proverb says that calamities sent by
heaven may be avoided, but from those we bring on ourselves there is no
escape.
Many, I believe, are deterred from attempting what are called stiff books
for fear they should not understand them; but there are few who need
complain of the narrowness of their minds, if only they would do their
best with them.
In reading, however, it is most important to select subjects in which one
is interested. I remember years ago consulting Mr. Darwin as to the
selection of a course of study. He asked me what interested me most, and
advised me to choose that subject. This, indeed, applies to the work of
life generally.
I am sometimes disposed to think that the readers of the next generation
will be, not our lawyers and doctors, shopkeepers and manufacturers, but
the laborers and mechanics. Does not this seem natural? The former work
mainly with their head; when their daily duties are over the brain is
often exhausted, and of their leisure time much must be devoted to air and
exercise. The laborer and mechanic, on the contrary, besides working often
for much shorter hours, have in their work-time taken sufficient bodily
exercise, and could therefore give any leisure they might have to reading
and study. They have not done so as yet, it is true; but this has been for
obvious reasons. Now, however, in the first place, they receive an
excellent education in elementary schools, and in the second have more
easy access to the best books.
Ruskin has observed that he does not wonder at what men suffer, but he
often wonders at what they lose. We suffer much, no doubt, from the faults
of others, but we lose much more by our own ignorance.
"If," says Sir John Herschel, "I were to pray for a taste which should
stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of
happiness and cheerfulness to me through life, and a shield against its
ills, however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would
be a taste for reading. I speak of it of course only as a worldly
advantage, and not in the slightest degree as superseding or derogating
from the higher office and surer and stronger panoply of religious
principles--but as a taste, and instrument, and a mode of pleasurable
gratification. Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and
you can hardly fail of making a happy man, unless, indeed, you put into
his hands a most perverse selection of books."
It is one thing to own a library; it is quite another to use it wisely. I
have often been astonished how little care people devote to the selection
of what they read. Books, we know, are almost innumerable; our hours for
reading are, alas! very few. And yet many people read almost by hazard.
They will take any book they chance to find in a room at a friend's house;
they will buy a novel at a railway-stall if it has an attractive title;
indeed, I believe in some cases even the binding affects their choice. The
selection is, no doubt, far from easy. I have often wished some one would
recommend a list of a hundred good books. If we had such lists drawn up by
a few good guides they would be most useful. I have indeed sometimes heard
it said that in reading every one must choose for himself, but this
reminds me of the recommendation not to go into the water till you can
swim.
In the absence of such lists I have picked out the books most frequently
mentioned with approval by those who have referred directly or indirectly
to the pleasure of reading, and have ventured to include some which,
though less frequently mentioned, are especial favorites of my own. Every
one who looks at the list will wish to suggest other books, as indeed I
should myself, but in that case the number would soon run up. [1]
I have abstained, for obvious reasons, from mentioning works by living
authors, though from many of them--Tennyson, Ruskin, and others--I have
myself derived the keenest enjoyment; and I have omitted works on science,
with one or two exceptions, because the subject is so progressive.
I feel that the attempt is over bold, and I must beg for indulgence, while
hoping for criticism; indeed one object which I have had in view is to
stimulate others more competent far than I am to give us the advantage of
their opinions.
Moreover, I must repeat that I suggest these works rather as those which,
as far as I have seen, have been most frequently recommended, than as
suggestions of my own, though I have slipped in a few of my own special
favorites.
In any such selection much weight should, I think, be attached to the
general verdict of mankind. There is a "struggle for existence" and a
"survival of the fittest" among books, as well as among animals and
plants. As Alonzo of Aragon said, "Age is a recommendation in four
things--old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust,
and old books to read." Still, this can not be accepted without important
qualifications. The most recent books of history and science contain or
ought to contain, the most accurate information and the most trustworthy
conclusions. Moreover, while the books of other races and times have an
interest from their very distance, it must be admitted that many will
still more enjoy, and feel more at home with, those of our own century and
people.
Yet the oldest books of the world are remarkable and interesting on
account of their very age; and the works which have influenced the
opinions, or charmed the leisure hours, of millions of men in distant
times and far-away regions are well worth reading on that very account,
even if to us they seem scarcely to deserve their reputation. It is true
that to many, such works are accessible only in translations; but
translations, though they can never perhaps do justice to the original,
may yet be admirable in themselves. The Bible itself, which must stand
first in the list, is a conclusive case.
At the head of all non-Christian moralists, I must place the
_Enchiridion_ of Epictetus, certainly one of the noblest books in the
whole of literature; it has, moreover, been admirably translated. With
Epictetus, [2] I think must come Marcus Aurelius. The _Analects_ of
Confucius will, I believe, prove disappointing to most English readers,
but the effect it has produced on the most numerous race of men
constitutes in itself a peculiar interest. The _Ethics_ of Aristotle,
perhaps, appear to some disadvantage from the very fact that they have so
profoundly influenced our views of morality. The _Koran_, like the
_Analects_ of Confucius, will to most of us derive its principal interest
from the effect it has exercised, and still exercises, on so many millions
of our fellow-men. I doubt whether in any other respect it will seem to
repay perusal, and to most persons probably certain extracts, not too
numerous, would appear sufficient.
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