Part 20

The thrush from his holly, the lark from his cloud, Their chorus of rapture sung jovial and loud; From the soft vernal sky to the soft grassy ground, There was beauty above me, beneath, and around.

The mild southern breeze brought a shower from the hill, And yet, though it left me all dripping and chill, I felt a new pleasure, as onward I sped, To gaze where the rainbow gleamed broad overhead.

O such be life’s journey! and such be our skill To lose in its blessings the sense of its ill; Through sunshine and shower may our progress be even, And our tears add a charm to the prospect of heaven.

BISHOP HEBER

MORAL HINTS.

BY L. MARIA CHILD.

Probably there are no two things that tend so much to make human beings unhappy in themselves and unpleasant to others, as habits of fretfulness and despondency; two faults peculiarly apt to grow upon people after they have passed their youth. Both these ought to be resisted with constant vigilance, as we would resist a disease. This we should do for our own sakes, and as a duty we owe to others. Life is made utterly disagreeable when we are daily obliged to listen to a complaining house-mate. How annoying and disheartening are such remarks as these: “I was not invited to the party last night. I suppose I am getting to be of no consequence to anybody now.” “Yes, that is a beautiful present you have had sent you. Nobody sends me presents.” “I am a useless encumbrance now. I can see that people want me out of their way.” Yet such observations are not unfrequently heard from persons surrounded by external comforts, and who are consequently envied by others of similar disposition in less favorable circumstances.

No virtue has been so much recommended to the old as cheerfulness. Colton says: “Cheerfulness ought to be the viaticum of their life to the old. Age without cheerfulness is a Lapland winter without a sun.”

Montaigne says: “The most manifest sign of wisdom is continued cheerfulness.”

Dr. Johnson says: “The habit of looking on the best side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.”

Tucker says: “The point of aim for our vigilance to hold in view is to dwell upon the brightest parts in every prospect; to call off the thoughts when running upon disagreeable objects, and strive to be pleased with the present circumstances surrounding us.”

Southey says, in one of his letters: “I have told you of the Spaniard, who always put on his spectacles when about to eat cherries, that they might look bigger and more tempting. In like manner, I make the most of my enjoyments; and though I do not cast my eyes away from my troubles, I pack them in as little compass as I can for myself, and never let them annoy others.”

Perhaps you will say: “All this is very fine talk for people who are naturally cheerful. But I am low-spirited by temperament; and how is that to be helped?” In the first place, it would be well to ascertain whether what you call being naturally low-spirited does not arise from the infringement of some physical law; something wrong in what you eat or drink, or something unhealthy in other personal habits. But if you inherit a tendency to look on the dark side of things, resolutely call in the aid of your reason to counteract it. Leigh Hunt says: “If you are melancholy for the first time, you will find, upon a little inquiry, that others have been melancholy many times, and yet are cheerful now. If you have been melancholy many times, recollect that you have got over all those times; and try if you cannot find means of getting over them better.”

If reason will not afford sufficient help, call in the aid of conscience. In this world of sorrow and disappointment, every human being has trouble enough of his own. It is unkind to add the weight of your despondency to the burdens of another, who, if you knew all his secrets, you might find had a heavier load than yours to carry. You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. Why not make earnest efforts to confer that pleasure on others? You will find half the battle is gained, if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy. If you habitually try to pack your troubles away out of other people’s sight, you will be in a fair way to forget them yourself; first, because evils become exaggerated to the imagination by repetition; and, secondly, because an effort made for the happiness of others lifts us above ourselves.

Those who are conscious of a tendency to dejection should also increase as much as possible the circle of simple and healthy enjoyments. They should cultivate music and flowers, take walks to look at beautiful sunsets, read entertaining books, and avail themselves of any agreeable social intercourse within their reach. They should also endeavor to surround themselves with pleasant external objects.

Our states of feeling, and even our characters, are influenced by the things we habitually look upon or listen to. A sweet singer in a household, or a musical instrument played with feeling, do more than afford us mere sensuous pleasure; they help us morally, by their tendency to harmonize discordant moods. Pictures of pleasant scenes, or innocent objects, are, for similar reasons, desirable in the rooms we inhabit. Even the paper on the walls may help somewhat to drive away “blue devils,” if ornamented with graceful patterns, that light up cheerfully. The paper on the parlor of Linnæus represented beautiful flowering plants from the East and West Indies; and on the walls of his bedroom were delineated a great variety of butterflies, dragon-flies, and other brilliant insects. Doubtless it contributed not a little to the happiness of the great naturalist thus to live in the midst of his pictured thoughts. To cultivate flowers, to arrange them in pretty vases, to observe their beauties of form and color, has a healthy effect, both on mind and body. Some temperaments are more susceptible than others to these fine influences, but they are not entirely without effect on any human soul; and forms of beauty can now be obtained with so little expenditure of money, that few need to be entirely destitute of them.

Perhaps you will say, “If I feel low-spirited, even if I do not speak of it, I cannot help showing it.” The best way to avoid the intrusion of sad feelings is to immerse yourself in some occupation. Adam Clarke said: “I have lived to know that the secret of happiness is never to allow your energies to stagnate.” If you are so unfortunate as to have nothing to do at home, then, the moment you begin to feel a tendency to depression, start forth for the homes of others. Tidy up the room of some helpless person, who has nobody to wait upon her; carry flowers to some invalid, or read to some lonely old body. If you are a man, saw and split wood for some poor widow, or lone woman, in the neighborhood. If you are a woman, knit stockings for poor children, or mend caps for those whose eyesight is failing; and when you have done them, don’t send them home, but take them yourself. Merely to have every hour of life fully occupied is a great blessing; but the full benefit of constant employment cannot be experienced unless we are occupied in a way that promotes the good of others, while it exercises our own bodies and employs our own minds. Plato went so far as to call exercise a cure for a wounded conscience; and, provided usefulness is combined with it, there is certainly a good deal of truth in the assertion; inasmuch as constant helpful activity leaves the mind no leisure to brood over useless regrets, and by thus covering the wound from the corrosion of thought, helps it to become a scar.

Against that listless indifference, which the French call ennui, industry is even a better preservative than it is against vain regrets. Therefore, it seems to me unwise for people in the decline of life to quit entirely their customary occupations and pursuits. The happiest specimens of old age are those men and women who have been busy to the last; and there can be no doubt that the decay of our powers, both bodily and mental, is much hindered by their constant exercise, provided it be not excessive.

It is recorded of Michael Angelo, that “after he was sixty years old, though not very robust, he would cut away as many scales from a block of very hard marble, in a quarter of an hour, as three young sculptors would have effected in three or four hours. Such was the impetuosity and fire with which he pursued his labors, that with a single stroke he brought down fragments three or four fingers thick, and so close upon his mark, that had he passed it, even in the slightest degree, there would have been danger of ruining the whole.” From the time he was seventy-one years old till he was seventy-five, he was employed in painting the Pauline Chapel. It was done in fresco, which is exceedingly laborious, and he confessed that it fatigued him greatly. He was seventy-three years old when he was appointed architect of the wonderful church of St. Peter’s, at Rome; upon which he expended the vast powers of his mind during seventeen years. He persisted in refusing compensation, and labored solely for the honor of his country and his church. In his eighty-seventh year, some envious detractors raised a report that he had fallen into dotage; but he triumphantly refuted the charge, by producing a very beautiful model of St. Peter’s, planned by his own mind, and in a great measure executed by his own hand. He was eighty-three, when his faithful old servant Urbino, who had lived with him twenty-six years, sickened and died. Michael Angelo, notwithstanding his great age, and the arduous labors of superintending the mighty structure of St. Peter’s, and planning new fortifications for Rome, undertook the charge of nursing him. He even watched over him through the night; sleeping by his side, without undressing. This remarkable man lived ninety years, lacking a fortnight. He wrote many beautiful sonnets during his last years, and continued to make drawings, plans, and models, to the day of his death, though infirmities increased upon him, and his memory failed.

Handel lived to be seventy-five years old, and though afflicted with blindness in his last years, he continued to produce oratorios and anthems. He superintended music in the orchestra only a week before he died. Haydn was sixty-five years old, when he composed his oratorio of The Creation, the music of which is as bright as the morning sunshine. When he was seventy-seven years old, he went to a great concert to hear it performed. It affected him deeply to have his old inspirations thus recalled to mind. When they came to the passage, “It was light!” he was so overpowered by the harmonies, that he burst into tears, and, pointing upwards, exclaimed: “Not from me! Not from me! but thence did all this come!”

Linnæus was past sixty-two years old when he built a museum at his country-seat, where he classified and arranged a great number of plants, zoöphytes, shells, insects, and minerals. Besides this, he superintended the Royal Gardens, zealously pursued his scientific researches, corresponded by letter with many learned men, taught pupils, and lectured constantly in the Academic Gardens. His pupils travelled to all parts of the world, and sent him new plants and minerals to examine and classify. In the midst of this constant occupation, he wrote: “I tell the truth when I say that I am happier than the King of Persia. My pupils send me treasures from the East and the West; treasures more precious to me than Babylonish garments or Chinese vases. Here in the Academic Gardens is my Elysium. Here I learn and teach; here I admire, and point out to others, the wisdom of the Great Artificer, manifested in the structure of His wondrous works.” It is said that even when he was quite ill, the arrival of an unknown plant would infuse new life into him. He continued to labor with unremitting diligence till he was sixty-seven years old, when a fit of apoplexy attacked him in the midst of a public lecture, and so far impaired his memory that he became unable to teach.

The celebrated Alexander von Humboldt lived ninety years, and continued to pursue his scientific researches and to publish learned books up to the very year of his departure from this world.

The Rev. John Wesley continued to preach and write till his body was fairly worn out. Southey, his biographer, says: “When you met him in the street of a crowded city, he attracted notice, not only by his band and cassock, and his long hair, white and bright as silver, but by his pace and manner, both indicating that all his minutes were numbered, and that not one was to be lost.” Wesley himself wrote: “Though I am always in haste, I am never in a hurry; because I never undertake more work than I can go through with perfect calmness of spirit.” Upon completing his eighty-second year, he wrote: “It is now eleven years since I have felt any such thing as weariness. Many times I speak till my voice fails me, and I can speak no longer. Frequently I walk till my strength fails, and I can walk no farther. Yet even then I feel no sensation of weariness, but am perfectly easy from head to foot. I dare not impute this to natural causes. It is the will of God.” A year later, he wrote: “I am a wonder to myself. Such is the goodness of God, that I am never tired, either with writing, preaching, or travelling.”

Isaac T. Hopper, who lived to be past eighty, was actively employed in helping fugitive slaves, and travelling about to exercise a kindly and beneficent influence in prisons, until a very short time before his death. When he was compelled to take to his bed, he said to me: “I am ready and willing to go, only there is so much that I want to do.”

Some will say it is not in their power to do such things as these men did. That may be. But there is something that everybody can do. Those whose early habits render it difficult, or impossible, to learn a new science, or a new language, in the afternoon of life, can at least oil the hinges of memory by learning hymns, chapters, ballads, and stories, wherewith to console and amuse themselves and others. A stock of nursery rhymes to amuse little children is far from being a foolish or worthless acquisition, since it enables one to impart delight to the little souls,

“With their wonder so intense, And their small experience.”

Women undoubtedly have the advantage of men, in those in-door occupations best suited to the infirm; for there is no end to the shoes that may be knit for the babies of relatives, the tidies that may be crocheted for the parlors of friends, and the socks that may be knit for the poor. But men also can find employment for tedious hours, when the period of youthful activity has passed. In summer, gardening is a never-failing resource both to men and women; and genial qualities of character are developed by imparting to others the flowers, fruit, and vegetables we have had the pleasure of raising. The Rev. Dr. Prince of Salem was always busy, in his old age, making telescopes, kaleidoscopes, and a variety of toys for scientific illustrations, with which he instructed and entertained the young people who visited him. My old father amused himself, and benefited others, by making bird-houses for children, and clothes-horses and towel-stands for all the girls of his acquaintance who were going to housekeeping. I knew an old blind man, who passed his winter evenings pleasantly weaving mats from corn-husks, while another old man read to him. A lathe is a valuable resource for elderly people; and this employment for mind and hands may also exercise the moral qualities, as it admits of affording pleasure to family and friends by innumerable neatly-turned little articles. The value of occupation is threefold to elderly people, if usefulness is combined with exercise; for in that way the machinery of body, mind, and heart may all be kept from rusting.

A sister of the celebrated John Wilkes, a wise and kindly old lady, who resided in Boston a very long time ago, was accustomed to say, “The true secret of happiness is always to have a little less time than one wants, and a little more money than one needs.” There is much wisdom in the saying, but I think it might be improved by adding, that the money should be of one’s own earning.