THE ART OF LIVING.
"Deem no man, in any age, Gentle for his lineage. Though he be not highly born, He is gentle if he doth What 'longeth to a gentleman."--_Chaucer_.
"Every one is the son of his own work."--_Cervantes_.
"Serve a noble disposition, though poor; the time comes that he will repay thee."--_George Herbert_.
"Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold, which the owner knows not of."--_Swift_.
"Let not what I cannot have My cheer of mind destroy."--_Cibber_.
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The Art of Living deserves a place among the Fine Arts. Like Literature, it may be ranked with the Humanities. It is the art of turning the means of living to the best account,--of making the best of everything. It is the art of extracting from life its highest enjoyment, and, through it, of reaching its highest results.
To live happily, the exercise of no small degree of art is required. Like poetry and painting, the art of living comes chiefly by nature; but all can cultivate and develop it. It can be fostered by parents and teachers, and perfected by self-culture. Without intelligence, it cannot exist.
Happiness is not, like a large and beautiful gem, so uncommon and rare, that all search for it is vain, all efforts to obtain it hopeless; but it consists of a series of smaller and commoner gems, grouped and set together, forming a pleasing and graceful whole. Happiness consists in the enjoyment of little pleasures scattered along the common path of life, which, in the eager search for some great and exciting joy, we are apt to overlook. It finds delight in the performance of common duties, faithfully and honourably fulfilled.
The art of living is abundantly exemplified in actual life. Take two men of equal means,--one of whom knows the art of living, and the other not. The one has the seeing-eye and the intelligent mind. Nature is ever new to him, and full of beauty. He can live in the present, rehearse the past, or anticipate the glory of the future. With him, life has a deep meaning, and requires the performance of duties which are satisfactory to his conscience, and are therefore pleasurable. He improves himself, acts upon his age, helps to elevate the depressed classes, and is active in every good work. His hand is never tired, his mind is never weary. He goes through life joyfully, helping others to its enjoyment. Intelligence, ever expanding, gives him every day fresh insight into men and things. He lays down his life full of honour and blessing, and his greatest monument is the good deeds he has done, and the beneficent example he has set before his fellow-creatures.
The other has comparatively little pleasure in life. He has scarcely reached manhood, ere he has exhausted its enjoyments. Money has done everything that it could for him. Yet he feels life to be vacant and cheerless. Travelling does him no good; for, for him history has no meaning. He is only alive to the impositions of innkeepers and couriers, and the disagreeableness of travelling for days amidst great mountains, among peasants and sheep, cramped up in a carriage. Picture galleries he feels to be a bore, and he looks into them because other people do. These "pleasures" soon tire him, and he becomes _blasé_. When he grows old, and has run the round of fashionable dissipations, and there is nothing left which he can relish, life becomes a masquerade, in which he recognizes only knaves, hypocrites, and flatterers. Though he does not enjoy life, yet he is terrified to leave it. Then the curtain falls. With all his wealth, life has been to him a failure, for he has not known the Art of Living, without which life cannot be enjoyed.
It is not wealth that gives the true zest to life,--but reflection, appreciation, taste, culture. Above all, the seeing eye and the feeling heart are indispensable. With these, the humblest lot may be made blest. Labour and toil may be associated with the highest thoughts and the purest tastes. The lot of labour may thus become elevated and ennobled. Montaigne observes that "all moral philosophy is as applicable to a vulgar and private life as to the most splendid. Every man carries the entire form of the human condition within him."
Even in material comfort, good taste is a real economist, as well as an enhancer of joy. Scarcely have you passed the doorstep of your friend's house, when you can detect whether taste presides within it or not. There is an air of neatness, order, arrangement, grace, and refinement, that gives a thrill of pleasure, though you cannot define it, or explain how it is. There is a flower in the window, or a picture against the wall, that marks the home of taste. A bird sings at the window-sill; books lie about; and the furniture, though common, is tidy, suitable, and, it may be, even elegant.
The art of living extends to all the economies of the household. It selects wholesome food, and serves it with taste. There is no profusion; the fare may be very humble, but it has a savour about it; everything is so clean and neat, the water so sparkles in the glass, that you do not desire richer viands, or a more exciting beverage. Look into another house, and you will see profusion enough, without either taste or order. The expenditure is larger, and yet you do not feel "at home" there. The atmosphere seems to be full of discomfort. Books, hats, shawls, and stockings in course of repair, are strewn about. Two or three chairs are loaded with goods. The rooms are hugger-mugger. No matter how much money is spent, it does not mend matters. Taste is wanting, for the manager of the household has not yet learnt the Art of Living.
You see the same contrast in cottage life. The lot of poverty is sweetened by taste. It selects the healthiest, openest neighbourhood, where the air is pure and the streets are clean. You see, at a glance, by the sanded doorstep, and the window-panes without a speck,--perhaps blooming roses or geraniums shining through them,--that the tenant within, however poor, knows the art of making the best of his lot. How different from the foul cottage-dwellings you see elsewhere; with the dirty children playing in the gutters; the slattern-like women lounging by the door-cheek; and the air of sullen poverty that seems to pervade the place. And yet the weekly income in the former home may be no greater, perhaps even less, than in that of the other.
How is it, that of two men, working in the same field or in the same shop, one is merry as a lark,--always cheerful, well-clad, and as clean as his work will allow him to be,--comes out on Sunday mornings in his best suit, to go to church with his family,--is never without a penny in his purse, and has something besides in the savings bank,--is a reader of books and a subscriber to a newspaper, besides taking in some literary journal for family reading; whilst the other man, with equal or even superior weekly wages, comes to work in the mornings sour and sad,--is always full of grumbling,--is badly clad and badly shod,--is never seen out of his house on Sundays till about midday, when he appears in his shirt-sleeves, his face unwashed, his hair unkempt, his eyes bleared and bloodshot,--his children left to run about the gutters, with no one apparently to care for them,--is always at his last coin, except on Saturday night, and then he has a long score of borrowings to repay,--belongs to no club, has nothing saved, but lives literally from hand to mouth,--reads none, thinks none, but only toils, eats, drinks, and sleeps;--why is it that there is so remarkable a difference between these two men?
Simply for this reason,--that the one has the intelligence and the art to extract joy and happiness from life,--to be happy himself, and to make those about him happy; whereas the other has not cultivated his intelligence, and knows nothing whatever of the art of either making himself or his family happy. With the one, life is a scene of loving, helping, and sympathizing,--of carefulness, forethought, and calculation--of reflection, action, and duty;--with the other, it is only a rough scramble for meat and drink; duty is not thought of, reflection is banished, prudent forethought is never for a moment entertained.
But look to the result; the former is respected by his fellow-workmen and beloved by his family,--he is an example of well-being and well-doing to all who are within reach of his influence; whereas the other is as unreflective and miserable, as nature will allow him to be,--he is shunned by good men,--his family are afraid at the sound of his footsteps, his wife perhaps trembling at his approach,--he dies without leaving any regrets behind him, except, it may be, on the part of his family, who are left to be maintained by the charity of the public, or by the pittance doled out by the overseers.
For these reasons, it is worth every man's while to study the important Art of living happily. Even the poorest man may by this means extract an increased amount of joy and blessing from life. The world need not be "a vale of tears," unless we ourselves will it to be so. We have the command, to a great extent, over our own lot. At all events, our mind is our own possession; we can cherish happy thoughts there; we can regulate and control our tempers and dispositions to a considerable extent; we can educate ourselves, and bring out the better part of our nature, which in most men is allowed to sleep a deep sleep; we can read good books, cherish pure thoughts, and lead lives of peace, temperance, and virtue, so as to secure the respect of good men, and transmit the blessing of a faithful example to our successors.
The Art of Living is best exhibited in the Home. The first condition of a happy home, where good influences prevail over bad ones, is Comfort. Where there are carking cares, querulousness, untidiness, slovenliness, and dirt, there can be little comfort either for man or woman. The husband who has been working all day, expects to have something as a compensation for his toil. The least that his wife can do for him, is to make his house snug, clean, and tidy, against his home-coming at eve. That is the truest economy--the best housekeeping--the worthiest domestic management--which makes the home so pleasant and agreeable, that a man feels when approaching it, that he is about to enter a sanctuary; and that, when there, there is no alehouse attraction that can draw him away from it.
Some say that we worship Comfort too much. The word is essentially English, and is said to be untranslateable, in its full meaning, into any foreign language. It is intimately connected with the Fireside. In warmer climes, people contrive to live out of doors. They sun themselves in the streets. Half their life is in public. The genial air woos them forth, and keeps them abroad. They enter their houses merely to eat and sleep. They can scarcely be said to _live_ there.
How different is it with us! The raw air without, during so many months of the year, drives us within doors. Hence we cultivate all manner of home pleasures. Hence the host of delightful associations which rise up in the mind at the mention of the word Home. Hence our household god, Comfort.
We are not satisfied merely with a home. It must be comfortable. The most wretched, indeed, are those who have no homes--the homeless! But not less wretched are those whose homes are without comfort--those of whom Charles Lamb once said, "The homes of the very poor are no homes." It is Comfort, then, that is the soul of the home--its essential principle--its vital element.
Comfort does not mean merely warmth, good furniture, good eating and drinking. It means something higher than this. It means cleanliness, pure air, order, frugality,--in a word, house-thrift and domestic government. Comfort is the soil in which the human being grows,--not only physically, but morally. Comfort lies, indeed, at the root of many virtues.
Wealth is not necessary for comfort. Luxury requires wealth, but not comfort. A poor man's home, moderately supplied with the necessaries of life, presided over by a cleanly, frugal housewife, may contain all the elements of comfortable living. Comfortlessness is for the most part caused, not so much by the absence of sufficient means, as by the absence of the requisite knowledge of domestic management.
Comfort, it must be admitted, is in a great measure _relative_. What is comfort to one man, would be misery to another. Even the commonest mechanic of this day would consider it miserable to live after the style of the nobles a few centuries ago; to sleep on straw beds, and live in rooms littered with rushes. William the Conqueror had neither a shirt to his back, nor a pane of glass to his windows. Queen Elizabeth was one of the first to wear silk stockings. The Queens before her were stockingless.
Comfort depends as much on persons as on "things." It is out of the character and temper of those who govern homes, that the feeling of comfort arises, much more than out of handsome furniture, heated rooms, or household luxuries and conveniences.
Comfortable people are kindly-tempered. Good temper may be set down as an invariable condition of comfort. There must be peace, mutual forbearance, mutual help, and a disposition to make the best of everything. "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith."
Comfortable people are persons of common sense, discretion, prudence, and economy. They have a natural affinity for honesty and justice, goodness and truth. They do not run into debt,--for that is a species of dishonesty. They live within their means, and lay by something for a rainy day. They provide for the things of their own household,--yet they are not wanting in hospitality and benevolence on fitting occasions. And what they do, is done without ostentation.
Comfortable people do everything in order. They are systematic, steady, sober, industrious. They dress comfortably. They adapt themselves to the season,--neither shivering in winter, nor perspiring in summer. They do not toil after a "fashionable appearance." They expend more on warm stockings than on gold rings; and prefer healthy, good bedding, to gaudy window-curtains. Their chairs are solid, not gimcrack. They will bear sitting upon, though they may not be ornamental.
The organization of the home depends for the most part upon woman. She is necessarily the manager of every family and household. How much, therefore, must depend upon her intelligent co-operation! Man's life revolves round woman. She is the sun of his social system. She is the queen of domestic life. The comfort of every home mainly depends upon her,--upon her character, her temper, her power of organization, and her business management. A man may be economical; but unless there be economy at home, his frugality will be comparatively useless. "A man cannot thrive," the proverb says, "unless his wife let him."
House-thrift is homely, but beneficent. Though unseen of the world, it makes many people happy. It works upon individuals; and by elevating them, it elevates society itself. It is in fact a receipt of infallible efficacy, for conferring the greatest possible happiness upon the greatest possible number. Without it legislation, benevolence, and philanthropy are mere palliatives, sometimes worse than useless, because they hold out hopes which are for the most part disappointed.
How happy does a man go forth to his labour or his business, and how doubly happy does he return from it, when he knows that his means are carefully husbanded and wisely applied by a judicious and well-managing wife. Such a woman is not only a power in her own house, but her example goes forth amongst her neighbours, and she stands before them as a model and a pattern. The habits of her children are formed after her habits: her actual life becomes the model after which they unconsciously mould themselves; for example always speaks more eloquently than words: it is instruction in action--wisdom at work.
First amongst woman's qualities is the intelligent use of her hands and fingers. Every one knows how useful, how indispensable to the comfort of a household, is the tidy, managing, handy woman. Pestalozzi, with his usual sagacity, has observed, that half the education of a woman comes through her fingers. There are wisdom and virtue at her finger-ends. But intellect must also accompany thrift: they must go hand in hand. A woman must not only be clever with her fingers, but possessed of the power of organizing household work.
There must be Method. The late Sir Arthur Helps observed, that "as women are at present educated, they are for the most part thoroughly deficient in _method_. But this surely might be remedied by training. To take a very humble and simple instance. Why is it that a man-cook is always better than a woman-cook? Simply because a man is more methodical in his arrangements, and relies more upon his weights and measures. An eminent physician told me that he thought women were absolutely deficient in the appreciation of time. But this I hold to be merely one instance of their general want of accuracy, for which there are easy remedies: that is, easy if begun early enough."
Accordingly, to manage a household efficiently, there must be Method. Without this, work cannot be got through satisfactorily either in offices, workshops, or households. By arranging work properly, by doing everything at the right time, with a view to the economy of labour, a large amount of business can be accomplished. Muddle flies before method; and hugger-mugger disappears. There is also a method in spending--in laying out money,--which is as valuable to the housewife, as method is in accomplishing her work. Money slips through the fingers of some people like quicksilver. We have already seen that many men are spendthrifts. But many women are the same. At least they do not know how to expend their husband's earnings to the best advantage. You observe things very much out of place--frills and ruffles and ill-darned stockings--fine bonnets and clouted shoes--silk gowns and dirty petticoats; while the husband goes about ragged and torn, with scarcely a clean thing about him.
Industry is of course essential. This is the soul of business; but, without method, industry will be less productive. Industry may sometimes look like confusion. But the methodical and industrious woman gets through her work in a quiet, steady style,--without fuss, or noise, or dust-clouds.
Prudence is another important household qualification. Prudence comes from cultivated judgment: it means practical wisdom. It has reference to fitness, to propriety; it judges of the right thing to be done, and of the right way of doing it. It calculates the means, order, time, and method of doing. Prudence learns much from experience, quickened by knowledge.
Punctuality is another eminently household qualification. How many grumblings would be avoided in domestic life, by a little more attention being paid to this virtue. Late breakfasts and late dinners,--"too late" for church and market,--"cleanings" out of time, and "washings" protracted till midnight,--bills put off with a "call again to-morrow,"--engagements and promises unfulfilled,--what a host of little nuisances spring to mind, at thought of the unpunctual housewife! The unpunctual woman, like the unpunctual man, becomes disliked, because she consumes our time, interferes with our plans, causes uneasy feelings, and virtually tells us that we are not of sufficient importance to cause her to be more punctual. To the business man, time is money, and to the business woman it is more,--it is peace, comfort, and domestic prosperity.
Perseverance is another good household habit. Lay down a good plan, and adhere to it. Do not be turned from it without a sufficient reason. Follow it diligently and faithfully, and it will yield fruits in good season. If the plan be a prudent one, based on practical wisdom, a ll things will gravitate towards it, and a mutual dependence will gradually be established among all the parts of the domestic system.
We might furnish numerous practical illustrations of the truth of these remarks, but our space is nearly filled up, and we must leave the reader to supply them from his or her own experience.
There are many other illustrations which might be adduced, of the art of making life happy. The management of the temper is an art full of beneficent results. By kindness, cheerfulness, and forbearance, we can be happy almost at will; and at the same time spread happiness about us on every side. We can encourage happy thoughts in ourselves and others. We can be sober in habit. What can a wife and her children think of an intemperate husband and father? We can be sober in language, and shun cursing and swearing--the most useless, unmeaning, and brutal of vulgarities. Nothing can be so silly and unmeaning--not to say shocking, repulsive, and sinful--as the oaths so common in the mouths of vulgar swearers. They are profanation without purpose--impiety without provocation--blasphemy without excuse.
This leads us to remark, in passing, that in this country we are not sufficiently instructed in the Art of Good Manners. We are rather gruff, and sometimes unapproachable. Manners do _not_ make the man, as the proverb alleges; but manners make the man much more agreeable. A man may be noble in his heart, true in his dealings, virtuous in his conduct, and yet unmannerly. Suavity of disposition and gentleness of manners give the finish to the true gentleman.
By Good Manners we do not mean Etiquette. This is only a conventional set of rules adopted by what is called "good society;" and many of the rules of etiquette are of the essence of rudeness. Etiquette does not permit genteel people to recognize in the streets a man with a shabby coat though he be their brother. Etiquette is a liar in its "not at home,"--ordered to be told by servants to callers at inconvenient seasons.
Good manners include many requisites; but they chiefly consist in politeness, courtesy, and kindness. They cannot be taught by rule, but they may be taught by example. It has been said that politeness is the art of showing men, by external signs, the internal regard we have for them. But a man may be perfectly polite to another, without necessarily having any regard for him. Good manners are neither more nor less than beautiful behaviour. It has been well said that "a beautiful form is better than a beautiful face, and a beautiful behaviour is better than a beautiful form; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts."
Manner is the ornament of action; indeed a good action, without a good manner of doing it, is stripped of half its value. A poor fellow gets into difficulties, and solicits help of a friend. He obtains it, but it is with a "_There_-take that; but I don't like lending." The help is given with a kind of kick, and is scarcely accepted as a favour. The manner of the giving long rankles in the mind of the acceptor. Thus good manners mean kind manners,--benevolence being the preponderating element in all kinds of pleasant intercourse between human beings.
A story is told of a poor soldier having one day called at the shop of a hairdresser, who was busy with his customers, and asked relief,--stating that he had stayed beyond his leave of absence, and unless he could get a lift on the coach, fatigue and severe punishment awaited him. The hairdresser listened to his story respectfully, and gave him a guinea. "God bless you, sir!" exclaimed the soldier, astonished at the amount. "How can I repay you? I have nothing in the world but this"--pulling out a dirty piece of paper from his pocket; "it is a receipt for making blacking; it is the best that was ever seen; many a half-guinea I have had for it from the officers, and many bottles I have sold; may you be able to get something for it to repay you for your kindness to the poor soldier." Oddly enough, that dirty piece of paper proved worth half a million of money to the hairdresser. It was no less than the receipt for the famous Day and Martin's blacking; the hairdresser being the late wealthy Mr. Day, whose manufactory is one of the notabilities of the metropolis.
Good manners have been supposed to be a peculiar mark of gentility, and that the individual exhibiting them has been born in some upper class of society. But the poorest classes may exhibit good manners towards each other, as well as the richest. One may be polite and kind towards others, without a penny in the purse. Politeness goes very far; yet it costs nothing. It is the cheapest of commodities. But we want to be taught good manners, as well as other things. Some happy natures are "to the manner born." But the bulk of men need to be taught manners, and this can only be efficiently done in youth.
We have said that working men might study good manners with advantage. Why should they not respect themselves and each other? It is by their demeanour towards each other--in other words, by their manners--that self-respect and mutual respect are indicated. We have been struck by the habitual politeness of even the poorest classes on the Continent. The workman lifts his cap and respectfully salutes his fellow-workman in passing. There is no sacrifice of manliness in this, but rather grace and dignity. The working man, in respecting his fellow, respects himself and his order. There is kindness in the act of recognition, as well as in the manner in which it is denoted.
We might learn much from the French people in this matter. They are not only polite to each other, but they have a greater respect for property. Some may be disposed to doubt this, after the recent destruction of buildings in Paris. But the Communists must be regarded as altogether exceptional people; and to understand the French character, we must look to the body of the population scattered throughout France. There we find property much more respected by the people than amongst ourselves. Even the beggar respects the fruit by the roadside, although there is nobody to protect it. The reason of this is, that France is a nation of small proprietors,--that property is much more generally diffused and exposed,--and parents of even the lowest class educate their children in carefulness of and fidelity to the property of others.
This respect for property is also accompanied with that respect for the feelings of others, which constitutes what is called Good Manners. This is carefully inculcated in the children of all ranks in France. They are very rarely rude. They are civil to strangers. They are civil to each other. Mr. Laing, in his "Notes of a Traveller," makes these remarks: "This deference to the feelings of others in all that we do is a moral habit of great value when it is generally diffused, and enters into the home training of every family. It is an education both of the parent and child in morals, carried on through the medium of external manners.... It is a fine distinction of the French national character, and of social economy, that practical morality is more generally taught through manners, among and by the people themselves, than in any country in Europe."[1]
[Footnote 1: SAMUEL LAING--_Notes of Traveller, on the Social and Political State of France, Prussia, Switzerland, Italy, and other Parts of Europe_, p. 55.]
The same kindly feeling might be observed throughout the entire social intercourse of working men with each other. There is not a moment in their lives in which the opportunity does not occur for exhibiting good manners--in the workshop, in the street, and at home. Provided there be a wish to please others by kind looks and ways, the habit of combining good manners with every action will soon be formed. It is not merely the pleasure a man gives to others by being kind to them: he receives tenfold more pleasure himself. The man who gets up and offers his chair to a woman, or to an old man--trivial though the act may seem,--is rewarded by his own heart, and a thrill of pleasure runs through him the moment he has performed the kindness.
Workpeople need to practise good manners towards each other the more, because they are under the necessity of constantly living with each other and amongst each other. They are in constant contact with their fellow-workmen, whereas the richer classes need not mix with men unless they choose, and then they can select whom they like. The working man's happiness depends much more upon the kind looks, words, and acts of those immediately about him, than the rich man's does. It is so in the workshop, and it is the same at home. There the workman cannot retire into his study, but must sit amongst his family, by the side of his wife, with his children about him. And he must either live kindly with them--performing kind and obliging acts towards his family,--or he must see, suffer, and endure the intolerable misery of reciprocal unkindness.
Admitted that there are difficulties in the way of working men cultivating the art of good manners--that their circumstances are often very limited, and their position unfavourable, yet no man is so poor but that he can be civil and kind, if he choose; and to be civil and kind is the very essence of good manners. Even in the most adverse circumstances a man may try to do his best. If he do--if he speak and act courteously and kindly to all,--the result will be so satisfactory, so self-rewarding, that he cannot but be stimulated to persevere in the same course. He will diffuse pleasure about him in the home, make friends of his work-fellows, and be regarded with increased kindness and respect by every right-minded employer. The civil workman will exercise increased power amongst his class, and gradually induce them to imitate him by his persistent steadiness, civility, and kindness. Thus Benjamin Franklin, when a workman, reformed the habits of an entire workshop.
Then, besides the general pleasure arising from the exercise of Good Manners, there is a great deal of healthful and innocent pleasure to be derived from amusements of various kinds. One cannot be always working, eating, and sleeping. There must be time for relaxation--time for mental pleasures--time for bodily exercise.
There is a profound meaning in the word Amusement; much more than most people are disposed to admit. In fact, amusement is an important part of education. It is a mistake to suppose that the boy or the man who plays at some outdoor game is wasting his time. Amusement of any kind is not wasting time, but economizing life.
Relax and exercise frequently, if you would enjoy good health. If you do not relax, and take no exercise, the results will soon appear in bodily ailments, which always accompany sedentary occupations. "The students," says Lord Derby, "who think they have not time for bodily exercise, will sooner or later find time for illness."
There are people in the world who would, if they had the power, hang the heavens about with crape; throw a shroud over the beautiful and life-giving bosom of the planet; pick the bright stars from the sky; veil the sun with clouds; pluck the silver moon from her place in the firmament; shut up our gardens and fields, and all the flowers with which they are bedecked; and doom the world to an atmosphere of gloom and cheerlessness. There is no reason nor morality in this, and there is still less religion.
A benevolent Creator has endowed man with an eminent capacity for enjoyment,--has set him in a fair and lovely world, surrounded him with things good and beautiful,--and given him the disposition to love, to sympathize, to help, to produce, to enjoy; and thus to become an honourable and a happy being, bringing God's work to perfection, and enjoying the divine creation in the midst of which he lives.
Make a man happy, and his actions will be happy too; doom him to dismal thoughts and miserable circumstances, and you will make him gloomy, discontented, morose, and probably vicious. Hence coarseness and crime are almost invariably found amongst those who have never been accustomed to be cheerful, whose hearts have been shut against the purifying influences of a happy communion with nature, or an enlightened and cheerful intercourse with man.
Man has a strong natural appetite for relaxation and amusement, and, like all other natural appetites, it has been implanted for a wise purpose. It cannot be repressed, but will break out in one form or another. Any well-directed attempt to promote an innocent amusement, is worth a dozen sermons against pernicious ones. If we do not provide the opportunity for enjoying wholesome pleasures, men will certainly find out vicious ones for themselves. Sydney Smith truly said, "In order to attack vice with effect, we must set up something better in its place."
Temperance reformers have not sufficiently considered how much the drinking habits of the country are the consequences of gross tastes, and of the too limited opportunities which exist in this country for obtaining access to amusements of an innocent and improving tendency. The workman's tastes have been allowed to remain uncultivated; present wants engross his thoughts; the gratification of his appetites is his highest pleasure; and when he relaxes, it is to indulge immoderately in beer or whisky. The Germans were at one time the drunkenest of nations; they are now amongst the soberest. "As drunken as a German boor," was a common proverb. How have they been weaned from drink? Principally by Education and Music.
Music has a most humanizing effect. The cultivation of the art has a most favourable influence upon public morals. It furnishes a source of pleasure in every family. It gives home a new attraction. It makes social intercourse more cheerful. Father Mathew followed up his Temperance movement by a Singing movement. He promoted the establishment of musical clubs all over Ireland: for he felt that, as he had taken the people's whisky from them, he must give them some wholesome stimulus in its stead. He gave them Music. Singing classes were established, to refine the taste, soften the manners, and humanize the mass of the Irish people. But we fear that the example set by Father Mathew has already been forgotten.
"What a fulness of enjoyment," says Channing, "has our Creator placed within our reach, by surrounding us with an atmosphere which may be shaped into sweet sounds! And yet this goodness is almost lost upon us, through want of culture of the organ by which this provision is to be enjoyed."
How much would the general cultivation of the gift of music improve us as a people! Children ought to learn it in schools, as they do in Germany. The voice of music would then be heard in every household. Our old English glees would no longer be forgotten. Men and women might sing in the intervals of their work,--as the Germans do in going to and coming from their wars. The work would not be worse done, because it was done amidst music and cheerfulness. The breath of society would be sweetened, and pleasure would be linked with labour.
Why not have some elegance in even the humblest home? We must of course have cleanliness, which is the special elegance of the poor. But why not have pleasant and delightful things to look upon? There is no reason why the humbler classes should not surround themselves with the evidences of beauty and comfort in all their shapes, and thus do homage alike to the gifts of God and the labours of man. The taste for the beautiful is one of the best and most useful endowments. It is one of the handmaids of civilization. Beauty and elegance do not necessarily belong to the homes of the rich. They are, or ought to be, all-pervading. Beauty in all things,--in nature, in art, in science, in literature, in social and domestic life.
How beautiful and yet how cheap are flowers. Not exotics,--but what are called common flowers. A rose, for instance, is among the most beautiful of the smiles of nature. The "laughing flowers," exclaims the poet! But there is more than gaiety in blooming flowers, though it takes a wise man to see the beauty, the love, and the adaptation, of which they are full.
What should we think of one who had _invented_ flowers; supposing that, before him, flowers were unknown? Would he not be regarded as the opener-up of a paradise of new delight? should we not hail the inventor as a genius, as a god? And yet these lovely offsprings of the earth have been speaking to man from the first dawn of his existence until now, telling him of the goodness and wisdom of the Creative Power, which bade the earth bring forth, not only that which was useful as food,--but also flowers, the bright consummate flowers, to clothe it in beauty and joy!
Bring one of the commonest field-flowers into a room, place it on a table or chimneypiece, and you seem to have brought a ray of sunshine into the place. There is a cheerfulness about flowers. What a delight are they to the drooping invalid! They are like a sweet draught of enjoyment, coming as messengers from the country, and seeming to say, "Come and see the place where we grow, and let your heart be glad in our presence."
What can be more innocent than flowers! They are like children undimmed by sin. They are emblems of purity and truth, a source of fresh delight to the pure and innocent. The heart that does not love flowers, or the voice of a playful child, cannot be genial. It was a beautiful conceit that invented a language of flowers, by which lovers were enabled to express the feelings that they dared not openly speak. But flowers have a voice for all,--old and young, rich and poor. "To me," says Wordsworth,
"The meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
Have a flower in the room, by all means! It will cost only a penny, if your ambition is moderate; and the gratification it gives will be beyond price. If you can have a flower for your window so much the better. What can be more delicious than the sun's light streaming through flowers--through the midst of crimson fuchsias or scarlet geraniums? To look out into the light through flowers--is not that poetry? And to break the force of the sunbeams by the tender resistance of green leaves? If you can train a nasturtium round the window, or some sweet peas, then you will have the most beautiful frame you can invent for the picture without, whether it be the busy crowd, or a distant landscape, or trees with their lights and shades, or the changes of the passing clouds. Any one may thus look through flowers for the price of an old song. And what pure taste and refinement does it not indicate on the part of the cultivator! A flower in the window sweetens the air, makes the room look graceful, gives the sun's light a new charm, rejoices the eye, and links nature with beauty. The flower is a companion that will never say a cross thing to any one, but will always look beautiful and smiling. Do not despise it because it is cheap, and because everybody may have the luxury as well as yourself. Common things are cheap, but common things are invariably the most valuable. Could we only have fresh air or sunshine by purchase, what luxuries they would be considered; but they are free to all, and we think little of their blessings.
There is, indeed, much in nature that we do not yet half enjoy, because we shut our avenues of sensation and feeling. We are satisfied with the matter of fact, and look not for the spirit of fact, which is above it. If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower. We want more loving knowledge to enable us to enjoy life, and we require to cultivate the art of making the most of the common means and appliances for enjoyment, which lie about us on every side.
A snug and a clean home, no matter how tiny it be, so that it be wholesome; windows into which the sun can shine cheerily; a few good books (and who need be without a few good books in these days of universal cheapness?)--no duns at the door, and the cupboard well supplied, and with a flower in your room! There is none so poor as not to have about him these elements of pleasure.
But why not, besides the beauty of Nature, have a taste for the beauty of Art? Why not hang up a picture in the room? Ingenious methods have been discovered--some of them quite recently--for almost infinitely multiplying works of art, by means of wood engravings, lithographs, photographs, and autotypes, which render it possible for every person to furnish his rooms with beautiful pictures. Skill and science have thus brought Art within reach of the poorest.
Any picture, print, or engraving, that represents a noble thought, that depicts a heroic act, or that brings a bit of nature from the fields or the streets into our room, is a teacher, a means of education, and a help to self-culture. It serves to make the home more pleasant and attractive. It sweetens domestic life, and sheds a grace and beauty about it. It draws the gazer away from mere considerations of self, and increases his store of delightful associations with the world without, as well as with the world within.
The portrait of a great man, for instance, helps us to read his life. It invests him with a personal interest. Looking at his features, we feel as if we knew him better, and were more closely related to him. Such a portrait, hung up before us daily, at our meals and during our leisure hours, unconsciously serves to lift us up and sustain us. It is a link that in some way binds us to a higher and nobler nature.
It is said of a Catholic money-lender that when about to cheat, he was wont to draw a veil over the face of his favourite saint. Thus the portraiture of a great and virtuous man is in some measure a companionship of something better than ourselves; and though we may not reach the standard of the hero, we may to a certain extent be influenced by his likeness on our walls.
It is not necessary that a picture should be high-priced in order to be beautiful and good. We have seen things for which hundreds of guineas have been paid, that have not one-hundredth part of the meaning or beauty that is to be found in Linton's woodcut of Rafaelle's Madonna, which may be had for twopence. The head reminds one of the observation made by Hazlitt upon a picture, that it seems as if an unhandsome act would be impossible in its presence. It embodies the ideas of mother's love, womanly beauty, and earnest piety. As some one said of the picture: "It looks as if a bit of Heaven were in the room."
Picture-fanciers pay not so much for the merit, as for the age and the rarity of their works. The poorest may have the _seeing eye_ for beauty, while the rich man may be blind to it. The cheapest engraving may communicate the sense of beauty to the artizan, while the thousand-guinea picture may fail to communicate to the millionaire anything,--excepting perhaps the notion that he has got possession of a work which the means of other people cannot compass.
Does the picture give you pleasure on looking at it? That is one good test of its worth. You may grow tired of it; your taste may outgrow it, and demand something better, just as the reader may grow out of Montgomery's poetry into Milton's. Then you will take down the daub, and put up a picture with a higher idea in its place. There may thus be a steady progress of art made upon the room walls. If the pictures can be put in frames, so much the better; but if they cannot, no matter; up with them! We know that Owen Jones says it is not good taste to hang prints upon walls--he would merely hang room papers there. But Owen Jones may not be infallible; and here we think he is wrong. To our eyes, a room always looks unfurnished, no matter how costly and numerous the tables, chairs, and ottomans, unless there be pictures upon the walls.
It ought to be, and no doubt it is, a great stimulus to artists to know that their works are now distributed in prints and engravings, to decorate and beautify the homes of the people. The wood-cutter, the lithographer, and the engraver, are the popular interpreters of the great artist. Thus Turner's pictures are not confined to the wealthy possessors of the original works, but may be diffused through all homes by the Millars, and Brandards, and Wilmotts, who have engraved them. Thus Landseer finds entrance, through woodcuts and mezzotints, into every dwelling. Thus Cruikshank preaches temperance, and Ary Scheffer purity and piety. The engraver is the medium by which art in the palace is conveyed into the humblest homes in the kingdom.
The Art of Living may be displayed in many ways. It may be summed up in the words,--Make the best of everything. Nothing is beneath its care; even common and little things it turns to account. It gives a brightness and grace to the home, and invests Nature with new charms. Through it, we enjoy the rich man's parks and woods, as if they were our own. We inhale the common air, and bask under the universal sunshine. We glory in the grass, the passing clouds, and the flowers. We love the common earth, and hear joyful voices through all Nature. It extends to every kind of social intercourse. It engenders cheerful goodwill and loving sincerity. By its help we make others happy, and ourselves blest. We elevate our being and ennoble our lot. We rise above the grovelling creatures of earth, and aspire to the Infinite. And thus we link time to eternity; where the true Art of Living has its final consummation.