The Pleasures of Life

CHAPTER 9. THE TROUBLES OF LIFE.

We have in life many troubles, and troubles are of many kinds. Some sorrows, alas, are real enough, especially those we bring on ourselves, but others, and by no means the least numerous, are mere ghosts of troubles: if we face them boldly, we find that they have no substance or reality, but are mere creations of our own morbid imagination, and that it is as true now as in the time of David that “Man disquieteth himself in a vain shadow.”

Some, indeed, of our troubles are evils, but not real; while others are real, but not evils.

“And yet, into how unfathomable a gulf the mind rushes when the troubles of this world agitate it. If it then forget its own light, which is eternal joy, and rush into the outer darkness, which are the cares of this world, as the mind now does, it knows nothing else but lamentations.” [1]

“Athens,” said Epictetus, “is a good place,–but happiness is much better; to be free from passions, free from disturbance.”

We should endeavor to maintain ourselves in

“That blessed mood

In which the burden of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight,

Of all this unintelligible world

Is lightened.” [2]

So shall we fear “neither the exile of Aristides, nor the prison of Anaxagoras, nor the poverty of Socrates, nor the condemnation of Phocion, but think virtue worthy our love even under such trials.” [3] We should then be, to a great extent, independent of external circumstances, for

“Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage,

Minds innocent and quiet take

That for a hermitage.

“If I have freedom in my love,

And in my soul am free;

Angels alone that soar above

Enjoy such liberty.” [4]

Happiness indeed depends much more on what is within than without us. When Hamlet says the world is “a goodly prison; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one of the worst,” and Rosencrantz differs from him, he rejoins wisely, “Why then, ’tis none to you: for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.” “All is opinion,” said Marcus Aurelius. “That which does not make a man worse, how can it make his life worse? But death certainly, and life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure, all these things happen equally to good men and bad, being things which make us neither better nor worse.”

“The greatest evils,” says Jeremy Taylor, “are from within us; and from ourselves also we must look for our greatest good.”

“The mind,” says Milton, “is its own place, and in itself

Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”

Milton indeed in his blindness saw more beautiful visions, and Beethoven in his deafness heard more heavenly music, than most of us can ever hope to enjoy.

We are all apt, when we know not what may happen, to fear the worst. When we know the full extent of any danger, it is half over. Hence, we dread ghosts more than robbers, not only without reason, but against reason; for even if ghosts existed, how could they hurt us? and in ghost stories, few, even those who say that they have seen a ghost, ever profess or pretend to have felt one.

Milton, in his description of death, dwells on this characteristic of obscurity:

“The other shape,

If shape it might be call’d that shape had none

Distinguishable, in member, joint, or limb;

Or substance might be call’d that shadow seem’d,

For each seem’d either; black he stood as night;

Fierce as ten furies; terrible as hell;

And shook a deadly dart. What seem’d his head

The likeness of a kingly crown had on.”

The effect of darkness and night in enhancing terrors is dwelt on in one of the sublimest passages in Job–

“In thoughts from the visions of the night,

When deep sleep falleth on men,

Fear came upon me, and trembling,

Which made all my bones to shake.

Then a spirit passed before my face;

The hair of my flesh stood up.

It stood still, an image was before mine eyes.

There was silence; and I heard a voice saying

Shall mortal man be more just than God?”

Thus was the terror turned into a lesson of comfort and of mercy.

We often magnify troubles and difficulties, and look at them till they seem much greater than they really are.

“Dangers are no more light, if they once seem light; and more dangers have deceived men than forced them: nay, it were better to meet some dangers half way, though they come nothing near, than to keep too long a watch upon their approaches; for if a man watch too long, it is odds he will fall asleep.” [5]

Foresight is very wise, but foresorrow is very foolish; and castles are at any rate better than dungeons, in the air.

Some of our troubles, no doubt, are real enough, but yet are not evils.

It happens, unfortunately too often, that by some false step, intentional or unintentional, we have missed the right road, and gone wrong. Can we then retrace our steps? can we recover what is lost? This may be done. It is too gloomy a view to affirm that

There are two noble sayings of Socrates, that to do evil is more to be avoided than to suffer it; and that when a man has done evil, it is better for him to be punished than to be unpunished.

We generally speak of selfishness as a fault, and as if it interfered with the general happiness. But this is not altogether correct.

The pity is that so many people are foolishly selfish: that they pursue a course of action which neither makes themselves nor any one else happy.

“Every man,” says Goethe, “ought to begin with himself, and make his own happiness first, from which the happiness of the whole world would at last unquestionably follow.” It is easy to say that this is too broadly stated, and of course exceptions might be pointed out: but if every one would avoid excess, and take care of his own health; would keep himself strong and cheerful; would make his home happy, and give no cause for the petty vexations which embitter domestic life; would attend to his own affairs and keep himself sober and solvent; would, in the words of the Chinese proverb, “sweep away the snow from before his own door, and never mind the frost upon his neighbor’s tiles;” though it might not be the noblest course of conduct; still, how well it would be for their family, relations, and friends. But, unfortunately,

“Look round the habitable world, how few

Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue.” [6]

It would be a great thing if people could be brought to realize that they can never add to the sum of their happiness by doing wrong. In the case of children, indeed, we recognize this; we perceive that a spoilt child is not a happy one; that it would have been far better for him to have been punished at first and thus saved from greater suffering in after life.

It is a beautiful idea that every man has with him a Guardian Angel; and it is true too: for Conscience is ever on the watch, ever ready to warn us of danger.

We often feel disposed to complain, and yet it is most ungrateful:

“For who would lose,

Though full of pain, this intellectual being,

Those thoughts that wander through Eternity;

To perish rather, swallowed up, and lost

In the wide womb of uncreated thought.” [7]

But perhaps it will be said that we are sent here in preparation for another and a better world. Well, then, why should we complain of what is but a preparation for future happiness?

We ought to

“Count each affliction, whether light or grave,

God’s messenger sent down to thee; do thou

With courtesy receive him; rise and bow;

And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave

Permission first his heavenly feet to lave;

Then lay before him all thou hast; allow

No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow,

Or mar thy hospitality; no wave

Of mortal tumult to obliterate

The soul’s marmoreal calmness: Grief shall be

Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate;

Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free;

Strong to consume small troubles; to commend

Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end.” [8]

Some persons are like the waters of Siloam, and require to be troubled before they can exercise their virtue.

“We shall get more contentedness,” says Plutarch, “from the presence of all these blessings if we fancy them as absent, and remember from time to time how people when ill yearn for health, and people in war for peace, and strangers and unknown in a great city for reputation and friends, and how painful it is to be deprived of all these when one has once had them. For then each of these blessings will not appear to us only great and valuable when it is lost, and of no value when we have it.... And yet it makes much for contentedness of mind to look for the most part at home and to our own condition; or if not, to look at the case of people worse off than ourselves, and not, as people do, to compare ourselves with those who are better off.... But you will find others, Chians, or Galatians, or Bithynians, not content with the share of glory or power they have among their fellow-citizens, but weeping because they do not wear senators’ shoes; or, if they have them, that they cannot be praetors of Rome; or if they get that office, that they are not consuls; or if they are consuls, that they are only proclaimed second and not first.... Whenever, then, you admire any one carried by in his litter as a greater man than yourself, lower your eyes and look at those that bear the litter.” And again, “I am very taken with Diogenes’ remark to a stranger at Lacedaemon, who was dressing with much display for a feast, ’Does not a good man consider every day a feast?’ ... Seeing then that life is the most complete initiation into all these things, it ought to be full of ease of mind and joy; and if properly understood, would enable us to acquiesce in the present without repining, to remember the past with thankfulness, and to meet the future hopefully and cheerfully without fear of suspicion.”

[1] King Alfred’s translations of the Consolations of Boethius.

[2] Wordsworth.

[3] Plutarch.

[4] Lovelace.

[5] Bacon.

[6] Dryden.

[7] Milton.

[8] Aubrey de Vere.