The Pleasures of Life by Sir John Lubbock

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Life must be measured rather by depth than by length, by thought and
action rather than by time. "A counted number of pulses only," says Pater,
"is given to us of a variegated, aromatic, life. How may we see in them
all that is to be seen by the finest senses? How can we pass most swiftly
from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest
number of vital forces unite in their purest energy? To burn always with
this hard gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.
Failure is to form habits, for habit is relation to a stereotyped
world:... while all melts under our feet, we may well catch at any
exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge, that seems, by a
lifted horizon, to set the spirit free for a moment."

I would not quote Lord Chesterfield as generally a safe guide, but there
is certainly much shrewd wisdom in his advice to his son with reference to
time. "Every moment you now lose, is so much character and advantage lost;
as, on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefully, is so much
time wisely laid out, at prodigious interest."

And again, "It is astonishing that any one can squander away in absolute
idleness one single moment of that small portion of time which is allotted
to us in the world ... Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and
enjoy every moment of it."

"Are you in earnest? seize this very minute,
What you can do, or think you can, begin it." [3]

There is a Turkish proverb that the Devil tempts the Idle man, but the
Idle man tempts the Devil. I remember, says Hilliard, "a satirical poem,
in which the Devil is represented as fishing for men, and adapting his
bait to the tastes and temperaments of his prey; but the idlers were the
easiest victims, for they swallowed even the naked hook."

The mind of the idler indeed preys upon itself. "The human heart is like a
millstone in a mill; when you put wheat under it, it turns and grinds and
bruises the wheat to flour; if you put no wheat, it still grinds on--and
grinds itself away." [4]

It is not work, but care, that kills, and it is in this sense, I suppose,
that we are told to "take no thought for the morrow." To "consider the
lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
and yet even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and
to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye
of little faith?" It would indeed be a mistake to suppose that lilies are
idle or imprudent. On the contrary, plants are most industrious, and
lilies store up in their complex bulbs a great part of the nourishment of
one year to quicken the growth of the next. Care, on the other hand, they
certainly know not. [5]

"Hours have wings, fly up to the author of time, and carry news of our
usage. All our prayers cannot entreat one of them either to return or
slacken his pace. The misspents of every minute are a new record against
us in heaven. Sure if we thought thus, we should dismiss them with better
reports, and not suffer them to fly away empty, or laden with dangerous
intelligence. How happy is it when they carry up not only the messages,
but the fruits of good, and stay with the Ancient of Days to speak for us
before His glorious throne!" [6]

Time is often said to fly; but it is not so much the time that flies; as
we that waste it, and wasted time is worse than no time at all; "I wasted
time," Shakespeare makes Richard II. say, "and now doth time waste me."

"He that is choice of his time," says Jeremy Taylor, "will also be choice
of his company, and choice of his actions; lest the first engage him in
vanity and loss, and the latter, by being criminal, be a throwing his time
and himself away, and a going back in the accounts of eternity."

The life of man is seventy years, but how little of this is actually our
own. We must deduct the time required for sleep, for meals, for dressing
and undressing, for exercise, etc., and then how little remains really at
our own disposal!

"I have lived," said Lamb, "nominally fifty years, but deduct from them
the hours I have lived for other people, and not for myself, and you will
find me still a young fellow."

The hours we live for other people, however, are not those that should be
deducted, but rather those which benefit neither oneself nor any one else;
and these, alas! are often very numerous.

"There are some hours which are taken from us, some which are stolen from
us, and some which slip from us." [7] But however we may lose them, we can
never get them back. It is wonderful, indeed, 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.

Some years ago I paid a visit to the principal lake villages of
Switzerland in company with a distinguished archaeologist, M. Morlot. To
my surprise I found that his whole income was L100 a year, part of which,
moreover, he spent in making a small museum. I asked him whether he
contemplated accepting any post or office, but he said certainly not. He
valued his leisure and opportunities as priceless possessions far more
than silver or gold, and would not waste any of his time in making money.

Time indeed, is a sacred gift, and each day is a little life. Just think
of our advantages here in London! We have access to the whole literature
of the world; we may see in our National Gallery the most beautiful
productions of former generations, and in the Royal Academy and other
galleries the works of the greatest living artists. Perhaps there is no
one who has ever found time to see the British Museum thoroughly. Yet
consider what it contains; or rather, what does it not contain? The most
gigantic of living and extinct animals; the marvellous monsters of
geological ages; the most beautiful birds, shells, and minerals; precious
stones and fragments from other worlds; the most interesting antiquities;
curious and fantastic specimens illustrating different races of men;
exquisite gems, coins, glass, and china; the Elgin marbles; the remains of
the Mausoleum; of the temple of Diana of Ephesus; ancient monuments of
Egypt and Assyria; the rude implements of our predecessors in England, who
were coeval with the hippopotamus and rhinoceros, the musk-ox, and the
mammoth; and beautiful specimens of Greek and Roman art.

Suffering may be unavoidable, but no one has any excuse for being dull.
And yet some people _are_ dull. They talk of a better world to come, while
whatever dulness there may be here is all their own. Sir Arthur Helps has
well said: "What! dull, when you do not know what gives its loveliness of
form to the lily, its depth of color to the violet, its fragrance to the
rose; when you do not know in what consists the venom of the adder, any
more than you can imitate the glad movements of the dove. What! dull, when
earth, air, and water are all alike mysteries to you, and when as you
stretch out your hand you do not touch anything the properties of which
you have mastered; while all the time Nature is inviting you to talk
earnestly with her, to understand her, to subdue her, and to be blessed by
her! Go away, man; learn something, do something, understand something,
and let me hear no more of your dulness."

[1] Shakespeare.

[2] Waller.

[3] _Faust_.

[4] Luther.

[5] The word used [Greek: merimnaesaete] is translated in Liddell and
Scott "to be anxious about, to be distressed in mind, to be cumbered with
many cares."

[6] Milton.

[7] Seneca.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL.

"I am a part of all that I have seen."--TENNYSON.

I am sometimes disposed to think that there are few things in which we of
this generation enjoy greater advantages over our ancestors than in the
increased facilities of travel; but I hesitate to say this, not because
our advantages are not great, but because I have already made the same
remark with reference to several other aspects of life.

The very word "travel" is suggestive. It is a form of "travail"--excessive
labor; and, as Skeat observes, it forcibly recalls the toil of travel in
olden days. How different things are now!

It is sometimes said that every one should travel on foot "like Thales,
Plato, and Pythagoras"; we are told that in these days of railroads people
rush through countries and see nothing. It may be so, but that is not the
fault of the railways. They confer upon us the inestimable advantage of
being able, so rapidly and with so little fatigue, to visit countries
which were much less accessible to our ancestors. What a blessing it is
that not our own islands only--our smiling fields and rich woods, the
mountains that are full of peace and the rivers of joy, the lakes and
heaths and hills, castles and cathedrals, and many a spot immortalized in
the history of our country:--not these only, but the sun and scenery of
the South, the Alps the palaces of Nature, the blue Mediterranean, and the
cities of Europe, with all their memories and treasures, are now brought
within a few hours of us.

Surely no one who has the opportunity should omit to travel. The world
belongs to him who has seen it. "But he that would make his travels
delightful must first make himself delightful." [1]

According to the old proverb, "the fool wanders, the wise man travels."
Bacon tells us that "the things to be seen and observed are the courts of
princes, especially when they give audience to ambassadors; the courts of
justice while they sit and hear causes; and so of consistories
ecclesiastic; the churches and monasteries, with the monuments which are
therein extant; the walls and fortifications of cities and towns; and so
the havens and harbors, antiquities and ruins, libraries, colleges,
disputations and lectures, when any are; shipping and navies; houses and
gardens of state and pleasure near great cities; armories, arsenals,
magazines, exchanges, burses, warehouses, exercises of horsemanship,
fencing, training of soldiers, and the like; comedies, such whereunto the
better sort of persons do resort; treasuries of jewels and robes; cabinets
and rarities; and, to conclude, whatsoever is memorable in the places
where they go."

But this depends on the time at our disposal, and the object with which we
travel. If we can stay long in any one place Bacon's advice is no doubt
excellent; but for the moment I am thinking rather of an annual holiday,
taken for the sake of rest and health; for fresh air and exercise rather
than for study. Yet even so, if we have eyes to see we cannot fail to lay
in a stock of new ideas as well as a store of health.

We may have read the most vivid and accurate description, we may have
pored over maps and plans and pictures, and yet the reality will burst on
us like a revelation. This is true not only of mountains and glaciers, of
palaces and cathedrals, but even of the simplest examples.

For instance, like every one else, I had read descriptions and seen
photographs and pictures of the Pyramids. Their form is simplicity itself.
I do not know that I could put into words any characteristic of the
original for which I was not prepared. It was not that they were larger;
it was not that they differed in form, in color, or situation. And yet,
the moment I saw them, I felt that my previous impression had been but a
faint shadow of the reality. The actual sight seemed to give life to the
idea.

Every one who has been in the East will agree that a week of oriental
travel brings out, with more than stereoscopic effect, the pictures of
patriarchal life as given us in the Old Testament. And what is true of the
Old Testament is true of history generally. To those who have been in
Athens or Rome, the history of Greece or Italy becomes far more
interesting; while, on the other hand, some knowledge of the history and
literature enormously enhances the interest of the scenes themselves.

Good descriptions and pictures, however, help us to see much more than we
should perhaps perceive for ourselves. It may even be doubted whether some
persons do not derive a more correct impression from a good drawing or
description, which brings out the salient points, than they would from
actual, but unaided, inspection. The idea may gain in accuracy, in
character, and even in detail, more than it misses in vividness. But,
however this may be, for those who cannot travel, descriptions and
pictures have an immense interest; while to those who _have_ traveled,
they will afford an inexhaustible delight in reviving the memories of
beautiful scenes and interesting expeditions.

It is really astonishing how little most of us see of the beautiful world
in which we live. Mr. Norman Lockyer tells me that while traveling on a
scientific mission in the Rocky Mountains, he was astonished to meet an
aged French Abbe, and could not help showing his surprise. The Abbe
observed this, and in the course of conversation explained his presence in
that distant region.

"You were," he said, "I easily saw, surprised to find me here. The fact
is, that some months ago I was very ill. My physicians gave me up: one
morning I seemed to faint and thought that I was already in the arms of
the Bon Dieu. I fancied one of the angels came and asked me, 'Well, M.
l'Abbe how did you like the beautiful world you have just left?' And then
it occurred to me that I who had been all my life preaching about heaven,
had seen almost nothing of the world in which I was living. I determined
therefore, if it pleased Providence to spare me, to see something of this
world; and so here I am."

Few of us are free, however much we might wish it, to follow the example
of the worthy Abbe. But although it may not be possible for us to reach
the Rocky Mountains, there are other countries nearer home which most of
us might find time to visit.

Though it is true that no descriptions can come near the reality, they may
at least persuade us to give ourselves this great advantage. Let me then
try to illustrate this by pictures in words, as realized by one of our
most illustrious countrymen; I will select references to foreign countries
only, not that we have not equal beauties here, but because everywhere in
England one feels oneself at home.

The following passage from _Tyndall's Hours of Exercise in the Alps_, is
almost as good as an hour in the Alps themselves:

"I looked over this wondrous scene toward Mont Blanc, the Grand Combin,
the Dent Blanche, the Weisshorn, the Dom, and the thousand lesser peaks
which seem to join in the celebration of the risen day. I asked myself, as
on previous occasions, How was this colossal work performed? Who chiselled
these mighty and picturesque masses out of a mere protuberance of the
earth? And the answer was at hand. Ever young, ever mighty-with the vigor
of a thousand worlds still within him-the real sculptor was even then
climbing up the eastern sky. It was he who raised aloft the waters which
cut out these ravines; it was he who planted the glaciers on the mountain
slopes, thus giving gravity a plough to open out the valleys; and it is
he who, acting through the ages, will finally lay low these mighty
monuments, rolling them gradually seaward, sowing the seeds of continents
to be; so that the people of an older earth may see mould spread, and corn
wave over the hidden rocks which at this moment bear the weight of the
Jungfrau." And the Alps lie within twenty-four hours of London!

Tyndall's writings also contain many vivid descriptions of glaciers; those
"silent and solemn causeways ... broad enough for the march of an army in
line of battle and quiet as a street of tombs in a buried city." [2] I do
not, however, borrow from him or from any one else any description of
glaciers, for they are so unlike anything else, that no one who has not
seen, can possibly visualize them.

The history of European rivers yet remains to be written, and is most
interesting. They did not always run in their present courses. The Rhone,
for instance, appears to have been itself a great traveler. At least there
seems reasons to believe that the upper waters of the Valais fell at first
into the Danube, and so into the Black Sea; subsequently joined the Rhine
and the Thames, and so ran far north over the plains which once connected
the mountains of Scotland and of Norway--to the Arctic Ocean; and to have
only comparatively of late years adopted their present course into the
Mediterranean.

But, however this may be, the Rhine of Germany and the Rhine of
Switzerland are very unlike. The catastrophe of Schaffhausen seems to
alter the whole character of the river, and no wonder. "Stand for half an
hour," says Ruskin, "beside the Fall of Schaffhausen, on the north side
where the rapids are long, and watch how the vault of water first bends,
unbroken, in pure polished velocity, over the arching rocks at the brow of
the cataract, covering them with a dome of crystal twenty feet thick, so
swift that its motion is unseen except when a foam globe from above darts
over it like a falling star;... and how ever and anon, startling you with
its white flash, a jet of spray leaps hissing out of the fall, like a
rocket, bursting in the wind and driven away in dust, filling the air with
light; and how, through the curdling wreaths of the restless crushing
abyss below, the blue of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows
purer than the sky through white rain-cloud; ... their dripping masses
lifted at intervals, like sheaves of loaded corn, by some stronger gush
from the cataract, and bowed again upon the mossy rocks as its roar dies
away."

But much as we may admire the majestic grandeur of a mighty river, either
in its eager rush or its calmer moments, there is something which
fascinates even more in the free life, the young energy, the sparkling
transparence, and merry music of smaller streams.

"The upper Swiss valleys," as the same great Seer says, "are sweet with
perpetual streamlets, that seem always to have chosen the steepest places
to come down, for the sake of the leaps, scattering their handfuls of
crystal this way and that, as the winds take them, with all the grace, but
with none of the formalism, of fountains ... until at last ... they find
their way down to the turf, and lose themselves in that, silently; with
quiet depth of clear water furrowing among the grass blades, and looking
only like their shadow, but presently emerging again in little startled
gushes and laughing hurries, as if they had remembered suddenly that the
day was too short for them to get down the hill."

How vividly does Symonds bring before us the sunny shores of the
Mediterranean, which he loves so well, and the contrast between the
scenery of the North and the South.

"In northern landscapes the eye travels through vistas of leafy boughs to
still, secluded crofts and pastures, where slow-moving oxen graze. The
mystery of dreams and the repose of meditation haunt our massive bowers.
But in the South, the lattice-work of olive boughs and foliage scarcely
veils the laughing sea and bright blue sky, while the hues of the
landscape find their climax in the dazzling radiance of the sun upon the
waves, and the pure light of the horizon. There is no concealment and no
melancholy here. Nature seems to hold a never-ending festival and dance,
in which the waves and sunbeams and shadows join. Again, in northern
scenery, the rounded forms of full-foliaged trees suit the undulating
country, with its gentle hills and brooding clouds; but in the South the
spiky leaves and sharp branches of the olive carry out the defined
outlines which are everywhere observable through the broader beauties of
mountain and valley and sea-shore. Serenity and intelligence characterize
this southern landscape, in which a race of splendid men and women lived
beneath the pure light of Phoebus, their ancestral god. Pallas protected
them, and golden Aphrodite favored them with beauty. Olives are not,
however, by any means the only trees which play a part in idyllic scenery.
The tall stone pine is even more important.... Near Massa, by Sorrento,
there are two gigantic pines so placed that, lying on the grass beneath
them, one looks on Capri rising from the sea, Baiae, and all the bay of
Naples sweeping round to the base of Vesuvius. Tangled growths of olives,
and rose-trees fill the garden-ground along the shore, while far away in
the distance pale Inarime sleeps, with her exquisite Greek name, a virgin
island on the deep.

"On the wilder hills you find patches of ilex and arbutus glowing with
crimson berries and white waxen bells, sweet myrtle rods and shafts of
bay, frail tamarisk and tall tree-heaths that wave their frosted boughs
above your head. Nearer the shore the lentisk grows, a savory shrub, with
cytisus and aromatic rosemary. Clematis and polished garlands of tough
sarsaparilla wed the shrubs with clinging, climbing arms; and here and
there in sheltered nooks the vine shoots forth luxuriant tendrils bowed
with grapes, stretching from branch to branch of mulberry or elm, flinging
festoons on which young loves might sit and swing, or weaving a
lattice-work of leaves across the open shed. Nor must the sounds of this
landscape be forgotten,--sounds of bleating flocks, and murmuring bees,
and nightingales, and doves that moan, and running streams, and shrill
cicadas, and hoarse frogs, and whispering pines. There is not a single
detail which a patient student may not verify from Theocritus.

"Then too it is a landscape in which sea and country are never sundered.
The higher we climb upon the mountain-side the more marvellous is the
beauty of the sea, which seems to rise as we ascend, and stretch into the
sky. Sometimes a little flake of blue is framed by olive boughs, sometimes
a turning in the road reveals the whole broad azure calm below. Or, after
toiling up a steep ascent we fall upon the undergrowth of juniper, and lo!
a double sea, this way and that, divided by the sharp spine of the jutting
hill, jewelled with villages along its shore, and smiling with fair
islands and silver sails."

To many of us the mere warmth of the South is a blessing and a delight.
The very thought of it is delicious. I have read over again and again
Wallace's graphic description of a tropical sunrise--of the "sun of the
early morning that turneth all into gold." [3]

"Up to about a quarter past five o'clock," he says, "the darkness is
complete; but about that time a few cries of birds begin to break the
silence of night, perhaps indicating that signs of dawn are perceptible in
the eastern horizon. A little later the melancholy voices of the
goatsuckers are heard, varied croakings of frogs, the plaintive whistle of
mountain thrushes, and strange cries of birds or mammals peculiar to each
locality. About half-past five the first glimmer of light becomes
perceptible; it slowly becomes lighter, and then increases so rapidly that
at about a quarter to six it seems full daylight. For the next quarter of
an hour this changes very little in character; when, suddenly, the sun's
rim appears above the horizon, decking the dew-laden foliage with
glittering gems sending gleams of golden light far into the woods, and
waking up all nature to life and activity. Birds chirp and flutter about,
parrots scream, monkeys chatter, bees hum among the flowers, and gorgeous
butterflies flutter lazily along or sit with full expanded wings exposed
to the warm and invigorating rays. The first hour of morning in the
equatorial regions possesses a charm and a beauty that can never be
forgotten. All nature seems refreshed and strengthened by the coolness and
moisture of the past night, new leaves and buds unfold almost before the
eye, and fresh shoots may often be observed to have grown many inches
since the preceding day. The temperature is the most delicious
conceivable. The slight chill of early dawn, which was itself agreeable,
is succeeded by an invigorating warmth; and the intense sunshine lights up
the glorious vegetation of the tropics, and realizes all that the magic
art of the painter or the glowing words of the poet have pictured as their
ideals of terrestrial beauty."

Or take Dean Stanley's description of the colossal statues of Amenophis
III., the Memnon of the Greeks, at Thebes--"The sun was setting, the
African range glowed red behind them; the green plain was dyed with a
deeper green beneath them, and the shades of evening veiled the vast rents
and fissures in their aged frames. As I looked back at them in the sunset,
and they rose up in front of the background of the mountain, they seemed,
indeed, as if they were part of it,--as if they belonged to some natural
creation."

But I must not indulge myself in more quotations, though it is difficult
to stop. Such extracts recall the memory of many glorious days: for the
advantages of travel last through life; and often, as we sit at home,
"some bright and perfect view of Venice, of Genoa, or of Monte Rosa comes
back on you, as full of repose as a day wisely spent in travel." [4]

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