when they draw towards their worst, the idea of death is like a bed to lie on. I should bear false witness if I did not declare life happy. . . . I feel kindly to the powers that be; I marvel they should use me so well; and when I think of the case of others, I wonder too, but in another vein, whether they may not, whether they must not, be like me, still with some compensation, some delight. To have suffered, nay, to suffer, sets a keen edge on what remains of the agreeable. This is a great truth, and has to be learned in the fire.1 Not only do I believe that literature should give joy, but I see a universe, I suppose, eternally different from yours; a solemn, a terrible, but a very joyous and noble universe, where suffering is not at least wantonly inflicted, though it falls with dispassionate partiality, but where it may be and generally is nobly borne; where above all (this I believe; probably you don't: I think he may, with cancer) any brave man may make out a life which shall be happy for himself, and, by so being, beneficent to those about him. And if he fails, why should I hear him weeping? I mean if I fail, why should I weep? why should you hear me? Then to me morals, the conscience, the affections, and the passions are, I will own frankly and sweepingly, so infinitely more important than the other parts of life, that I conceive men rather triflers who become immersed in the latter; and I will always think the man who keeps his lip stiff, and makes "a happy fireside clime," and carries a pleasant face about to friends and neighbours, infinitely greater (in the abstract) than 1 From letter to William Archer, October 30, 1885. an atrabilious Shakespeare or a backbiting Kant or Darwin.1 Yes, if I could believe in the immortality business, the world would indeed be too good to be true; but we were put here to do what service we can, for honour and not for hire; the sods cover us, and the worm that never dies, the conscience, sleeps well at last; these are the wages, besides what we receive so lavishly day by day; and they are enough for a man who knows his own frailty and sees all things in the proportion of reality. The soul of piety was killed long ago by that idea of reward. Nor is happiness, whether eternal or temporal, the reward that mankind seeks. Happinesses are but his wayside campings; his soul is in the journey; he was born for the struggle, and only tastes his life in effort and on the condition that he is opposed. How, then, is such a creature, so fiery, so pugnacious, so made up of discontent and aspiration, and such noble and uneasy passions-how can he be rewarded but by rest? I would not say it aloud; for, man's cherished belief is that he loves that happiness which he continually spurns and passes by; and this belief in some ulterior happiness exactly fits him. He does not require to stop and taste it; he can be about the rugged and bitter business where his heart lies; and yet he can tell himself this fairy tale of an eternal tea-party, and enjoy the notion that he is both himself and something else; and that his friends will yet meet him, all ironed out and emasculate, and still be lovable -as if love did not live in the faults of the beloved only, and draw its breath in an unbroken round of 1 From letter to William Archer, November 1, 1885. forgiveness! But the truth is, we must fight until we die; and when we die there can be no quiet for mankind but complete resumption into--what?—God, let us say—when all these desperate tricks will lie spellbound at last.1 Life is not all Beer and Skittles. The inherent tragedy of things works itself out from white to black and blacker, and the poor things of a day look ruefully Does it shake my cast-iron faith? I cannot say it does. I believe in an ultimate decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, should still believe it! 2 on. I have trod the upward and the downward slope; I have longed for all, and bid farewell to hope; 1 From letter to Edmund Gosse, January 2, 1886. WRITERS QUOTED ALCOTT, LOUISA MAY. ["Life, Letters, and Journals," ed. by E. D. Cheney, (1889)]. ANDERSEN, HANS CHRISTIAN ["Story of my Life" (1852)]. ARNOLD, MATTHEW PAGE 258 162 232 [“Poetical Works” (1890); “Letters,” collected and BACON, FRANCIS (VISCOUNT ST. ALBANS) ["The Poems of Francis Bacon,” ed. by A. B. Grosart BALZAC, HONORÉ DE . ["Correspondence," trans. by C. L. Kenney (1878)]. BARBAULD, ANNA LETITIA. ["Works," ed. by L. Aikin (1825)]. 25 145 79 BEDDOES, THOMAS LOVELL . 150 ["Poetical Works," ed. by E. Gosse (1890); "Letters, BISMARCK, PRINCE BLACKIE, JOHN STUART ["Life and Letters," trans. by H. M. Dunston (1882)]. ["Table-Talk," ed. by Charles Lowe (1895)]. ["The Day-Book of J. S. Blackie," selected and 151 202 176 85 ["Poems," ed. by W. B. Yeats (1893)]. |