The Pleasures of Life by Sir John Lubbock
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Sir John Lubbock >> The Pleasures of Life
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On the whole our plan seems the best, though it does not offer adequate
encouragement to discovery and research. We do not appreciate how much we
owe to the discoveries of such men as Hunter and Jenner, Simpson and
Lister. And yet in the matter of health we can generally do more for
ourselves than the greatest Doctors can for us.
But if all are agreed as to the blessing of health, there are many who
will not take the little trouble, or submit to the slight sacrifices,
necessary to maintain it. Many, indeed, deliberately ruin their own
health, and incur the certainty of an early grave, or an old age of
suffering.
No doubt some inherit a constitution which renders health almost
unattainable. Pope spoke of that long disease, his life. Many indeed may
say, "I suffer, therefore I am." But happily these cases are exceptional.
Most of us might be well, if we would. It is very much our own fault that
we are ill. We do those things which we ought not to do, and we leave
undone those things which we ought to have done, and then we wonder there
is no health in us.
We all know that we can make ourselves ill, but few perhaps realize how
much we can do to keep ourselves well. Much of our suffering is
self-inflicted. It has been observed that among the ancient Egyptians the
chief aim of life seemed to be to be well buried. Many, however, live even
now as if this were the principal object of their existence.
Like Naaman, we expect our health to be the subject of some miraculous
interference, and neglect the homely precautions by which it might be
secured.
I am inclined to doubt whether the study of health is sufficiently
impressed on the minds of those entering life. Not that it is desirable to
potter over minor ailments, to con over books on illnesses, or experiment
on ourselves with medicine. Far from it. The less we fancy ourselves ill,
or bother about little bodily discomforts, the more likely perhaps we are
to preserve our health.
It is, however, a different matter to study the general conditions of
health. A well-known proverb tells us that every one is a fool or a
physician at forty. Unfortunately, however, many persons are invalids at
forty as well as physicians.
Ill-health, however, is no excuse for moroseness. If we have one disease
we may at least congratulate ourselves that we are escaping all the rest.
Sydney Smith, ever ready to look on the bright side of things, once, when
borne down by suffering, wrote to a friend that he had gout, asthma, and
seven other maladies, but was "otherwise very well;" and many of the
greatest invalids have borne their sufferings with cheerfulness and good
spirits.
It is said that the celebrated physiognomist, Campanella, could so
abstract his attention from any sufferings of his body, that he was even
able to endure the rack without much pain; and whoever has the power of
concentrating his attention and controlling his will, can emancipate
himself from most of the minor miseries of life. He may have much cause
for anxiety, his body may be the seat of severe suffering, and yet his
mind will remain serene and unaffected; he may triumph over care and pain.
But many have undergone much unnecessary suffering, and valuable lives
have often been lost, through ignorance or carelessness. We cannot but
fancy that the lives of many great men might have been much prolonged by
the exercise of a little ordinary care.
If we take musicians only, what a grievous loss to the world it is that
Pergolesi should have died at twenty-six, Schubert at thirty-one, Mozart
at thirty-five, Purcell at thirty-seven, and Mendelssohn at thirty-eight.
In the old Greek myth the life of Meleager was indissolubly connected by
fate with the existence of a particular log of wood. As long as this was
kept safe by Althaea, his mother, Meleager bore a charmed life. It seems
wonderful that we do not watch with equal care over our body, on the state
of which happiness so much depends.
The requisites of health are plain enough; regular habits, daily exercise,
cleanliness, and moderation in all things--in eating as well as in
drinking--would keep most people well.
I need not here dwell on the evils of drinking, but we perhaps scarcely
realize how much of the suffering and ill-humor of life is due to
over-eating. Dyspepsia, for instance, from which so many suffer, is in
nine cases out of ten their own fault, and arises from the combination of
too much food with too little exercise. To lengthen your life, says an old
proverb, shorten your meals. Plain living and high thinking will secure
health for most of us, though it matters, perhaps, comparatively little
what a healthy man eats, so long as he does not eat too much.
Mr. Gladstone has told us that the splendid health he enjoys is greatly
due to his having early learnt one simple physiological maxim, and laid it
down as a rule for himself always to make twenty-five bites at every bit
of meat.
"Go to your banquet then, but use delight,
So as to rise still with an appetite." [1]
No doubt, however, though the rule not to eat or drink too much is simple
enough in theory, it is not quite so easy in application. There have been
many Esaus who sold their birthright of health for a mess of pottage.
Moreover, it may seem paradoxical, but it is certainly true, that in the
long run the moderate man will derive more enjoyment even from eating and
drinking, than the glutton or the drunkard will ever obtain. They know not
what it is to enjoy "the exquisite taste of common dry bread." [2]
And yet even if we were to consider merely the pleasure to be derived from
eating and drinking, the same rule would hold good. A lunch of bread and
cheese after a good walk is more enjoyable than a Lord Mayor's feast.
Without wishing, like Apicius, for the neck of a stork, so that he might
enjoy his dinner longer, we must not be ungrateful for the enjoyment we
derive from eating and drinking, even though they be amongst the least
aesthetic of our pleasures. They are homely, no doubt, but they come
morning, noon, and night, and are not the less real because they have
reference to the body rather than the soul.
We speak truly of a healthy appetite, for it is a good test of our bodily
condition; and indeed in some cases of our mental state also. That
"There cometh no good thing
Apart from toil to mortals,"
is especially true with reference to appetite; to sit down to a dinner,
however simple, after a walk with a friend among the mountains or along
the shore, is no insignificant pleasure.
Cheerfulness and good humor, moreover, during meals are not only pleasant
in themselves, but conduce greatly to health.
It has been said that hunger is the best sauce, but most would prefer some
good stories at a feast even to a good appetite; and who would not like to
have it said of him, as of Biron by Rosaline--
"A merrier man
Within the limit of becoming mirth
I never spent an hour's talk withal."
In the three great "Banquets" of Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch, the food
is not even mentioned.
In the words of the old Lambeth adage--
"What is a merry man?
Let him do what he can
To entertain his guests
With wine and pleasant jests,
Yet if his wife do frown
All merryment goes down."
What salt is to food, wit and humor are to conversation and literature.
"You do not," an amusing writer in the _Cornhill_ has said, "expect humor
in Thomas a Kempis or Hebrew Prophets;" but we have Solomon's authority
that there is a time to laugh, as well as to weep.
"To read a good comedy is to keep the best company in the world, when the
best things are said, and the most amusing things happen." [3]
It is not without reason that every one resents the imputation of being
unable to see a joke.
Laughter appears to be the special prerogative of man. The higher animals
present us with proof of evident, if not highly developed reasoning power,
but it is more than doubtful whether they are capable of appreciating a
joke.
Wit, moreover, has solved many difficulties and decided many
controversies.
"Ridicule shall frequently prevail,
And cut the knot when graver reasons fail." [4]
A careless song, says Walpole, with a little nonsense in it now and then,
does not misbecome a monarch, but it is difficult now to realize that
James I. should have regarded skill in punning in his selections of
bishops and privy councillors.
The most wasted of all days, says Chamfort, is that on which one has not
laughed.
It is, moreover, no small merit of laughter that it is quite spontaneous.
"You cannot force people to laugh; you cannot give a reason why they
should laugh; they must laugh of themselves or not at all.... If we think
we must not laugh, this makes our temptation to laugh the greater." [5]
Humor is, moreover, contagious. A witty man may say, as Falstaff does of
himself, "I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in
other men."
But one may paraphrase the well-known remark about port wine and say that
some jokes may be better than others, but anything which makes one laugh
is good. "After all," says Dryden, "it is a good thing to laugh at any
rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness,"
and I may add, of health.
I have been told that in omitting any mention of smoking I was overlooking
one of the real pleasures of life. Not being a smoker myself I cannot
perhaps judge; much must depend on the individual temperament; to some
nervous natures it certainly appears to be a great comfort; but I have my
doubts whether smoking, as a general rule, does add to the pleasures of
life. It must, moreover, detract somewhat from the sensitiveness of taste
and of smell.
Those who live in cities may almost lay it down as a rule that no time
spent out of doors is ever wasted. Fresh air is a cordial of incredible
virtue; old families are in all senses county families, not town families;
and those who prefer Homer and Plato and Shakespeare to hares and
partridges and foxes must beware that they are not tempted to neglect this
great requisite of our nature.
Most Englishmen, however, love open air, and it is probably true that most
of us enjoy a game at cricket or golf more than looking at any of the old
masters. The love of sport is engraven in the English character. As was
said of William Rufus, "he loves the tall deer as he had been their
father."
An Oriental traveler is said to have watched a game of cricket and been
much astonished at hearing that many of those playing were rich men. He
asked why they did not pay some poor people to do it for them.
Wordsworth made it a rule to go out every day, and he used to say that as
he never consulted the weather, he never had to consult the physicians.
It always seems to be raining harder than it really is when you look at
the weather through the window. Even in winter, though the landscape often
seems cheerless and bare enough when you look at it from the fireside,
still it is far better to go out, even if you have to brave the storm:
when you are once out of doors the touch of earth and the breath of the
fresh air gives you fresh life and energy. Men, like trees, live in great
part on air.
After a gallop over the downs, a row on the river, a sea voyage, a walk by
the seashore or in the woods
"The blue above, the music in the air,
The flowers upon the ground," [6]
one feels as if one could say with Henry IV., "Je me porte comme le Ponte
Neuf."
The Roman proverb that a child should be taught nothing which he cannot
learn standing up, went no doubt into an extreme, but surely we fall into
another when we act as if games were the only thing which boys could learn
upon their feet.
The love of games among boys is certainly a healthy instinct, and though
carried too far in some of our great schools, there can be no question
that cricket and football, boating and hockey, bathing and birdnesting,
are not only the greatest pleasures, but the best medicines for boys.
We cannot always secure sleep. When important decisions have to be taken,
the natural anxiety to come to a right decision will often keep us awake.
Nothing, however, is more conducive to healthy sleep than plenty of open
air. Then indeed we can enjoy the fresh life of the early morning: "the
breezy call of incense-bearing morn." [7]
"At morn the Blackcock trims his jetty wing,
'Tis morning tempts the linnet's blithest lay,
All nature's children feel the matin spring
Of life reviving with reviving day."
Epictetus described himself as "a spirit bearing about a corpse." That
seems to me an ungrateful description. Surely we ought to cherish the
body, even if it be but a frail and humble companion. Do we not own to the
eye our enjoyment of the beauties of this world and the glories of the
Heavens; to the ear the voices of friends and all the delights of music;
are not the hands most faithful and invaluable instruments, ever ready in
case of need, ever willing to do our bidding; and even the feet bear us
without a murmur along the roughest and stoniest paths of life.
With reasonable care, then, most of us may hope to enjoy good health. And
yet what a marvellous and complex organization we have!
We are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made. It is
"Strange that a harp of a thousand strings,
Should keep in tune so long."
When we consider the marvellous complexity of our bodily organization, it
seems a miracle that we should live at all; much more that the innumerable
organs and processes should continue day after day and year after year
with so much regularity and so little friction that we are sometimes
scarcely conscious of having a body at all.
And yet in that body we have more than 200 bones, of complex and varied
forms, any irregularity in, or injury to, which would of course grievously
interfere with our movements.
We have over 500 muscles; each nourished by almost innumerable blood
vessels, and regulated by nerves. One of our muscles, the heart, beats
over 30,000,000 times in a year, and if it once stops, all is over.
In the skin are wonderfully varied and complex organs--for instance, over
2,000,000 perspiration glands, which regulate the temperature and
communicate with the surface by ducts, which have a total length of some
ten miles.
Think of the miles of arteries and veins, of capillaries and nerves; of
the blood, with the millions of millions of blood corpuscles, each a
microcosm in itself.
Think of the organs of sense,--the eye with its cornea and lens, vitreous
humor, aqueous humor, and choroid, culminating in the retina, no thicker
than a sheet of paper, and yet consisting of nine distinct layers, the
innermost composed of rods and cones, supposed to be the immediate
recipients of the undulations of light, and so numerous that in each eye
the cones are estimated at over 3,000,000, the rods at over 30,000,000.
Above all, and most wonderful of all, the brain itself. Meinert has
calculated that the gray matter of the convolutions alone contains no less
than 600,000,000 cells; each cell consists of several thousand visible
atoms, and each atom again of many millions of molecules.
And yet with reasonable care we can most of us keep this wonderful
organization in health; so that it will work without causing us pain, or
even discomfort, for many years; and we may hope that even when old age
comes
"Time may lay his hand
Upon your heart gently, not smiting it
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations."
[1] Herrick.
[2] Hamerton.
[3] Hazlitt.
[4] Francis.
[5] Hazlitt.
[6] Trench.
[7] Gray.
CHAPTER IV.
LOVE.
"Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below and saints above;
For love is heaven and heaven is love."
SCOTT.
CHAPTER IV.
LOVE.
Love is the light and sunshine of life. We are so constituted that we
cannot fully enjoy ourselves, or anything else, unless some one we love
enjoys it with us. Even if we are alone, we store up our enjoyment in hope
of sharing it hereafter with those we love.
Love lasts through life, and adapts itself to every age and circumstance;
in childhood for father and mother, in manhood for wife, in age for
children, and throughout for brothers and sisters, relations and friends.
The strength of friendship is indeed proverbial, and in some cases, as in
that of David and Jonathan, is described as surpassing the love of women.
But I need not now refer to it, having spoken already of what we owe to
friends.
The goodness of Providence to man has been often compared to that of
fathers and mothers for their children.
"Just as a mother, with sweet, pious face,
Yearns toward her little children from her seat,
Gives one a kiss, another an embrace,
Takes this upon her knees, that on her feet;
And while from actions, looks, complaints, pretences,
She learns their feelings and their various will,
To this a look, to that a word, dispenses,
And, whether stern or smiling, loves them still;--
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, or in denying grants." [1]
Sir Walter Scott well says--
"And if there be on Earth a tear
From passion's dross [2] refined and clear,
'Tis that which pious fathers shed
Upon a duteous daughter's head."
Epaminondas is said to have given as his main reason for rejoicing at the
victory of Leuctra, that it would give so much pleasure to his father and
mother.
Nor must the love of animals be altogether omitted. It is impossible not
to sympathize with the Savage when he believes in their immortality, and
thinks that after death
"Admitted to that equal sky
His faithful dog shall bear him company." [3]
In the _Mahabharata_, the great Indian Epic, when the family of Pandavas,
the heroes, at length reach the gates of heaven, they are welcomed
themselves, but are told that their dog cannot come in. Having pleaded in
vain, they turn to depart, as they say they can never leave their faithful
companion. Then at the last moment the Angel at the door relents, and
their Dog is allowed to enter with them.
We may hope the time will come when we shall learn
"Never to blend our pleasures or our pride,
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels." [4]
But at the present moment I am speaking rather of the love which leads to
marriage. Such love is the music of life, nay, "there is music in the
beauty, and the silver note of love, far sweeter than the sound of any
instrument." [5]
The Symposium of Plato contains an interesting and amusing disquisition on
Love.
"Love," Phaedrus is made to say, "will make men dare to die for their
beloved--love alone: and women as well as men. Of this, Alcestis, the
daughter of Pelias, is a monument to all Hellas; for she was willing to
lay down her life on behalf of her husband, when no one else would,
although he had a father and mother; but the tenderness of her love so far
exceeded theirs, that she made them seem to be strangers in blood to their
own son, and in name only related to him; and so noble did this action of
hers appear to the gods, as well as to men, that among the many who have
done virtuously she is one of the very few to whom they have granted the
privilege of returning to earth, in admiration of her virtue; such
exceeding honor is paid by them to the devotion and virtue of love."
Agathon is even more eloquent--
Love "fills men with affection, and takes away their disaffection, making
them meet together at such banquets as these. In sacrifices, feasts,
dances, he is our lord--supplying kindness and banishing unkindness,
giving friendship and forgiving anmity, the joy of the good, the wonder of
the wise, the amazement of the gods, desired by those who have no part in
him, and precious to those who have the better part in him; parent of
delicacy, luxury, desire, fondness, softness, grace, regardful of the
good, regardless of the evil. In every word, work, wish, fear--pilot,
comrade, helper, savior; glory of gods and men, leader best and brightest:
in whose footsteps let every man follow, sweetly singing in his honor that
sweet strain with which love charms the souls of gods and men."
No doubt, even so there are two Loves, "one, the daughter of Uranus, who
has no mother, and is the elder and wiser goddess; and the other, the
daughter of Zeus and Dione, who is popular and common,"--but let us not
examine too closely. Charity tells us even of Guinevere, "that while she
lived, she was a good lover and therefore she had a good end." [6]
The origin of love has exercised philosophers almost as much as the origin
of evil. The Symposium continues with a speech which Plato attributes in
joke to Aristophanes, and of which Jowett observes that nothing in
Aristophanes is more truly Aristophanic.
The original human nature, he says, was not like the present. The Primeval
Man was round, [7] his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four
hands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set
on a round neck and precisely alike. He could walk upright as men now do,
backward or forward as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at
a great rate, whirling round on his four hands and four feet, eight in
all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this
was when he wanted to run fast. Terrible was their might and strength, and
the thoughts of their hearts great, and they made an attack upon the gods;
of them is told the tale of Otys and Ephialtes, who, as Homer says, dared
to scale heaven, and would have laid hands upon the gods. Doubt reigned in
the celestial councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with
thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of
the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other
hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. At
last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said;
"Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and mend their
manners; they shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two, which
will have a double advantage, for it will halve their strength and we
shall have twice as many sacrifices. They shall walk upright on two legs,
and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them
again and they shall hop on a single leg." He spoke and cut men in two,
"as you might split an egg with a hair."... After the division the two
parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together.... So ancient
is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our
original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man. Each of
us when separated is but the indenture of a man, having one side only,
like a flat-fish and he is always looking for his other half.
And when one of them finds his other half, the pair are lost in amazement
of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the
other's sight, as I may say, even for a minute: they will pass their whole
lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one
another. For the intense yearning which each of them has toward the other
does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something
else, which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of
which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment.
However this may be, there is such instinctive insight in the human heart
that we often form our opinion almost instantaneously, and such
impressions seldom change, I might even say, they are seldom wrong. Love
at first sight sounds like an imprudence, and yet is almost a revelation.
It seems as if we were but renewing the relations of a previous existence.
"But to see her were to love her,
Love but her, and love for ever." [8]
Yet though experience seldom falsifies such a feeling, happily the reverse
does not hold good. The deepest affection is often of slow growth. Many a
warm love has been won by faithful devotion.
Montaigne indeed declares that "Few have married for love without
repenting it." Dr. Johnson also maintained that marriages would generally
be happier if they were arranged by the Lord Chancellor; but I do not
think either Montaigne or Johnson were good judges. As Lancelot said to
the unfortunate Maid of Astolat, "I love not to be constrained to love,
for love must arise of the heart and not by constraint." [9]
Love defies distance and the elements; Sestos and Abydos are divided by
the sea, "but Love joined them by an arrow from his bow." [10]
Love can be happy anywhere. Byron wished
"O that the desert were my dwelling-place,
With one fair Spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And, hating no one, love but only her."
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