The Bed-Book of Happiness.
by Harold Begbie.
FOREWORD
"It is worth," said Dr. Johnson, "a thousand pounds a year to have the habit of looking on the bright side of things."
It is worth more than all money to have the capacity, the power, the will to see the bright side of things, to possess the a.s.surance that there is a veritable and persisting bright side of things, when the mind is gloomed by physical weakness and the heart is conscious only of languor and distress. At such a dull time even a long-established habit may desert us; with our faculties clouded and obscured we are tempted to doubt the entire philosophy of our former life; we sink down into the sheets of discomfort, and roll our heads restlessly on the pillow of discontent; we almost extract a morbid satisfaction from the fuliginous surrenderings of pessimism. Mrs. Gummidge at our bedside might be as unwelcome as Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, or Zophar the Naamathite; but there is a Widow in the soul of all men as mournful and lugubrious as the tearful sister of Mr. Peggotty, and in our weakness it is often this dismal self-comforter we are disposed to summon to our aid. "My soul is weary of my life," cried Job; "I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul."
Now, there is not a wise doctor in the world, nor any man who truly knows himself, but will acknowledge and confess the enormous importance to physical recovery of mental well-being. The thing has become plat.i.tudinous, but remains as difficult as ever. If Christian Science on its physiological side had been an easy matter it would long ago have converted the world. The trouble is that obvious things are not always easy. It is obvious to the victim of alcoholic or nicotine poisoning that he would be infinitely better in health could he abjure alcohol or tobacco; he does not need to be philosophised or theologised into this conviction; he knows it better than his teachers. His necessity is a superadded force to the will within his soul which has lost the power of action. And so with the will of the sick person, who knows very well that if he could rid himself of dejection and heaviness his health would come back to him on swallows" wings. Obvious, palpable, more certain than to-morrow"s sun; but how difficult, how hard, nay, sometimes how impossible! An honest man like Father Tyrrell confesses that in certain bouts with the flesh faith may desert us, even the religious faith of a life-time may fall in ruins round our naked soul.
I was once speaking on this subject to Sir Jesse Boot, telling him how hard I had found it to amuse and distract the mind of one of my children in the extreme weakness which fell upon her after an operation. I told him that I had searched my book-shelves for stories, histories, anthologies, and journeyings; that I had carried to the bedside piles of books which I thought the most suitable; and that I had read from these books day after day, succeeding for some few minutes at a time to interest the sick child, but ending almost in every case with failure and defeat. I found that humour could bore, that narrative could irritate, that essays could worry and perplex, that poetry could depress, and that wit could tease with its cleverness. Moreover, I found that one could not go straight to any anthology in existence without coming unexpectedly, and before one was aware of it, upon some pa.s.sage so mournful or sad or pathetic that it undid at a sentence all the good which had been done by luckier reading. My friend, who is himself a great reader, and who has borne for some years a heavy burden of infirmity, agreed that cheerful reading is of immense help in sickness and also confessed that it is difficult to find any one book which ministers to a mind weakened by illness or tortured by insomnia.
The present volume is the outcome of that conversation. I determined to compile a book which from the first page to the last should be a happy book, a book which would come to be a friend of all those who share in any way the sickness of the world, a book to which everybody could go with the sure knowledge that they would find there nothing to depress, nothing to exacerbate irritable nerves, nothing to confirm the mind in dejection. And on its positive side I said that this book should be diverse and changeful in its happiness. I planned that while cheerfulness should be its soul, the expression of that cheerfulness should avoid monotony with as great an energy as the book itself avoided depression. My theory was a book whose pages should resemble rather an _olla podrida_ of variety than a tautological joint of monotonous nutriment. And I sought to fill my wallet rather from the crumbs let fall by the happy feasters than from the too familiar table of the great masters.
"To muse, to dream, to conceive of fine works, is a delightful occupation." But one must go from conception to execution, crossing the gulf that separates "these two hemispheres of Art." "The man," says Balzac, "who can but sketch his purpose beforehand in words is regarded as a wonder, and every artist and writer possesses that faculty. But gestation, fruition, the laborious rearing of the offspring, putting it to bed every night full fed with milk, embracing it anew every morning with the inexhaustible affection of a mother"s heart, licking it clean, dressing it a hundred times in the richest garb only to be instantly destroyed; then never to be cast down at the convulsions of this headlong life till the living masterpiece is perfected which in sculpture speaks to every eye, in literature to every intellect, in painting to every memory, in music to every heart!--this is the task of execution."
Even the compiler knows something of this pa.s.sion of the artist, experiences some at least of the convulsions of this headlong life, makes acquaintance certainly with this task of execution. To conceive such a volume as a Bed-Book of Happiness is one matter, to make it in very fact a Bed-Book of Happiness is another and a much harder matter.
For, to begin with, one"s judgment is not nearly so free and one"s field of selection not nearly so wide as the anthologist"s whose book is for all sorts and conditions of men, who may be as merry as he wishes on one page, as solemn as he chooses on the next, and as pathetic or sentimental as he likes on the page beyond. One has had to reject, for instance, humour that is too boisterous or noisy, wit that is too stinging and acrimonious, anecdotes that are touched with cruelty, essays that, otherwise cheerful, deviate into the shadows of a too sombre reflection. One has sought to compile a book of cheerfulness that is kind and of happiness that is quiet and composed. One has had always in mind the invalid just able to bear the effort of listening to a melodious voice. To amuse, to distract, to divert, and above all to charm--to bring a smile to the mind rather than laughter to the lips--has been the guiding principle of this book, and the task has not been easy. It is really extraordinary, to give but one instance of my difficulties, how frequently the most amusing work of comic writers is ruined by some chuckling jests about coffins, undertakers, or graves. If any reader in full health miss from this throng of glad faces, this muster of elated hearts, the most amusing and delightful of his familiar friends, let him ask himself, before he pa.s.s judgment on the anthologist, before he mistake a deliberate omission for a careless forgetfulness, whether those good friends of his, amiable and welcome enough at the dinner-table, are the companions he would choose for his most wearisome hours or for the bedside of his sick child. And if in these pages another should find that which neither amuses nor diverts his mind, that which seems to him to miss the magic and to lack the charm of happiness, let him pa.s.s on, with as much charity as he can spare for the anthologist, remembering the proverb of Terence and counting himself an infinitely happier man for this clear proof of his superior judgment.
I wished to include in this book, from the literature of other countries, such gentle, whimsical humour as one finds in the letters of FitzGerald or the Essays of Lamb. But, with all my searching I could find nothing of that kind, and judges whom I can trust a.s.sure me that no other literature has the exquisite note of happiness which sounds through English letters so quietly, so cheerfully, and so contentedly.
Therefore my Bed-Book is almost entirely an English Bed-Book, for I liked not the biting acid of Voltaire"s epigrams any more than the rollicking and disgustful coa.r.s.eness of Boccaccio or Rabelais. It is an interesting reflection, if it be true, that English literature is _par excellence_ the literature of Happiness.
"He who puts forth one depressing thought," says Lady Rachel Howard, "aids Satan in his work of torment. He who puts forth one cheering thought aids G.o.d in His work of beneficence." I have acted in the faith that life is essentially good, that the universe presents to the natural intuition of man a bright and glorious expression of Divine happiness, that to be fruitful, as George Sand has it, life must be felt as a blessing. One of the characters in a novel by Dostoevsky says, "Men are made for happiness, and any one who is completely happy has a right to say to himself, "I am doing G.o.d"s will on earth." All the righteous, all the saints, all the holy martyrs were happy."
Happiness, in its truest and only lasting sense, is the condition of a soul at unity with itself and in harmony with existence. To bring the sick and the sad and the unhappy at least some way on the road to this blissful state, is the purpose of my book; and it leaves me on its travel round the world with the wish that to whatever bedside of sickness, suffering, and lethargy it may come, it may bring with it the magic and contagious joy of those rare and gracious people whose longed-for visits to an invalid are like draughts of rejoicing health. I hope that my fine covers may soon be worn to the comfort of an old garment, that my new pages may be quickly shabbied to the endearment of a familiar face, and that the book will live at bedsides deepening and sweetening the reader"s affection for its faded leaves till it come to seem an old, faithful, and never-failing friend, one who is never at fault and never a deserter, and without whom life would lose one of its fondest companionships.
THE BED-BOOK OF HAPPINESS
THEISSE [Sidenote: _Richter_]
In his seventy-second year his face is a thanksgiving for his former life, and a love-letter to all mankind.
RICHTER [Sidenote: _Carlyle_]
We have heard that he was a man universally loved, as well as honoured ... a friendly, true, and high-minded man; copious in speech, which was full of grave, genuine humour; contented with simple people and simple pleasures; and himself of the simplest habits and wishes.
BROKEN STUDIES [Sidenote: _Richter_]
I deny myself my evening meal in my eagerness to work; but the interruptions by my children I cannot deny myself.
THE GREAT CONDe [Sidenote: _Percy Anecdotes_]
The Great Conde pa.s.sing through the city of Sens, which belonged to Burgundy, and of which he was the governor, took great pleasure in disconcerting the different companies who came to compliment him. The Abbe Boileau, brother of the poet, was commissioned to make a speech to the Prince at the head of the chapter. Conde wishing to disconcert the orator, advanced his head and large nose towards the Abbe, as if with the intention of hearing him more distinctly, but in reality to make him blunder if possible. The Abbe, who perceived his design, pretended to be greatly embarra.s.sed, and thus began his speech: "My lord, your highness ought not to be surprised to see me tremble, when I appear before you at the head of a company of ecclesiastics; were I at the head of an army of thirty thousand men, I should tremble much more." The Prince was so charmed with this sally that he embraced the orator without suffering him to proceed. He asked his name; and when he found that he was brother to M. Despreaux, he redoubled his attentions, and invited him to dinner.
The Prince on another occasion thought himself offended by the Abbe de Voisenon; Voisenon, hearing of this, went to Court to exculpate himself.
As soon as the Prince saw him he turned away from him. "Thank G.o.d!" said Voisenon, "I have been misinformed, sir; your highness does not treat me as if I were an enemy." "How do you see that, M. Abbe?" said his highness coldly over his shoulder. "Because, sir," answered the Abbe, "your highness never turns your back upon an enemy." "My dear Abbe,"
exclaimed the Prince and Field-Marshal, turning round and taking him by the hand, "it is quite impossible for any man to be angry with you."
A CLa.s.sICAL a.s.s [Sidenote: _Percy Anecdotes_]
The a.s.s, though the dullest of all unlaughing animals, is reported to have once accomplished a great feat in the way of exciting laughter.
Marcus Cra.s.sus, the grandfather of the hero of that name, who fell in the Parthian War, was a person of such immovable gravity of countenance that, in the whole course of his life, he was never known to laugh but once, and hence was surnamed Agelastus. Not all that the wittiest men of his time could say, nor aught that comedy or farce could produce on the stage, was ever known to call up more than a smile on his iron-bound countenance. Happening one day, however, to stray into the fields, he espied an a.s.s browsing on thistles; and in this there appears to have been something so eminently ridiculous in those days that the man who never laughed before could not help laughing at it outright. It was but the burst of a moment; Agelastus immediately recovered himself, and never laughed again.
MEMORY [Sidenote: _Percy Anecdotes_]
A player being reproached by Rich for having forgot some of the words in "The Beggar"s Opera," on the fifty-third night of its performance, cried out, "What! do you think one can remember a thing for ever?"
"COME IN HERE"
[Sidenote: _Percy Anecdotes_]
Burton, in his "Melancholy," quoting from Poggius, the Florentine, tells us of a physician in Milan who kept a house for the reception of lunatics, and, by way of cure, used to make his patients stand for a length of time in a pit of water, some up to the knees, some to the girdle, and others as high as the chin, _pro modo insaniae_, according as they were more or less affected. An inmate of this establishment, who happened, "by chance," to be pretty well recovered, was standing at the door of the house, and, seeing a gallant cavalier ride past with a hawk on his fist, and his spaniels after him, he must needs ask what all these preparations meant. The cavalier answered, "To kill game." "What may the game be worth which you kill in the course of a year?" rejoined the patient. "About five or ten crowns." "And what may your horse, dogs, and hawks stand you in?" "Four hundred crowns more." On hearing this, the patient with great earnestness of manner, bade the cavalier instantly begone, as he valued his life and welfare; "For," said he, "if our master come and find you here, he will put you into his pit up to the very chin."
A POPE INNOCENT [Sidenote: _Percy Anecdotes_]
When King James I. visited Sir Thomas Pope, knt., in Oxfordshire, his lady had lately brought him a daughter, and the babe was presented to the King with a paper of verses in her hand; "Which," quoth Fuller, "as they pleased the King, I hope they will please the reader."
See, this little mistress here, Did never sit in Peter"s chair, Or a triple crown did wear, And yet she is a Pope.
No benefice she ever sold, Nor did dispense with sins for gold, She hardly is a se"nnight old, And yet she is a Pope.
No king her feet did ever kiss, Or had from her worse look than this; Nor did she ever hope To saint one with a rope, And yet she is a Pope.
A female Pope you"ll say, a second Joan!
No, sure she is Pope _Innocent_, or none!
A GOOD PARAPHRASE [Sidenote: _Percy Anecdotes_]
On the eve of a battle an officer came to ask permission of the Marechal de Toiras to go and see his father, who was on his death-bed. "Go," said the general, "you honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land."
IRISH PRIEST [Sidenote: _Percy Anecdotes_]
An Irish peasant complained to the Catholic priest of his parish that some person had stolen his best pig, and supplicated his reverence to help him to the discovery of the thief. The priest promised his best endeavours; and, his inquiries soon leading him to a correct enough guess as to the offender, he took the following amusing method of bringing the matter home to him. Next Sunday, after the service of the day, he called out with a loud voice, fixing his eyes on the suspected individual, "Who stole Pat Doolan"s pig?" There was a long pause, and no answer; he did not expect that there would be any; and descended from the pulpit without saying a word more. A second Sunday arriving without the pig being restored in the interval, his reverence, again looking steadfastly at the stubborn purloiner and throwing a deep note of anger into the tone of his voice, repeated the question. "Who stole Pat Doolan"s pig? I say, who stole _poor_ Pat Doolan"s pig?" Still there was no answer, and the question was left as before, to work its effect in secret on the conscience of the guilty individual. The hardihood of the offender, however, exceeded all the honest priest"s calculations. A third Sunday arrived, and Pat Doolan was still without his pig. Some stronger measure now became necessary. After service was performed his reverence, dropping the question of "Who stole Pat Doolan"s pig?" but still without directly accusing any one of the theft, reproachfully exclaimed, "Jimmie Doran! Jimmie Doran! you trate me with contimpt."
Jimmie Doran hung down his head, and next morning the pig was found at the door of Pat Doolan"s cabin.