Part 7

They have their hardships, their weary times, their trials of every sort, but the inexhaustible vivacity inherent in them acts as wings to bear them lightly over the bad places, where wayfarers of the ordinary sort must be broadly shod to pass without being engulfed. It is practically inextinguishable, and it makes existence comparatively easy.

"The merry heart goes all the day, The sad tires in a mile-a."

[Sidenote: The enemy.]

The chief enemy of lightheartedness is the constant companionship of the grim, the glum, the gloomy, and the grumpy, the solemn and the pragmatical. Who shall compute what bright natures suffer in an environment like this? Day after day, to sit at table opposite a countenance made rigid with a practised frown, now deeply carved upon the furrowed brow; to long for sunshine and blue skies, and be for ever in the shadow of a heavy cloud; to feel that every little blossom of joyfulness that grows by the wayside is nipped and shrivelled by the east wind of a gloomy nature; this, if it last long enough, can subdue even lightheartedness itself; can, like some malarial mist, blot out the very sun in the heavens from the ken of those within its influence.

[Sidenote: The cultivation of humour.]

More pains should be taken to develop the sense of fun and the possibilities of humorous perception of girls and boys. They should be taught to look at the amusing side of things. But teachers are so afraid of "letting themselves down," of losing dignity (especially those who have none to lose!), that they cannot condescend to the study of the humorous. Oh, the pity of it! For it tends to the life-long impoverishment of their pupils.

_A BIT OF EVERYDAY PHILOSOPHY._

[Sidenote: A useful verb.]

[Sidenote: The love of simple pleasures.]

[Sidenote: On human and other songsters.]

The French have a verb for which we English have no equivalent. It is "_savourer_," which in one dictionary is translated "To relish; enjoy." It sounds rather a greedy word, and would indeed be so if it applied only to the pleasures of the table. But fortunately there are for most of us other delights in life than those connected with the gustatory organs, and it is these that we would fain _savourer_, as Linnaeus did when he fell on his knees on first seeing gorse in bloom, and thanked God. "How gross," remarks a character in a modern novel, "to give thanks for beef and pudding, but none for Carpaccio, Bellini, Titian!" Just so. And apart from the deep appreciation of genius, have we not a thousand daily joys for which we might give thanks, if only we could attain to the realisation of them? We let them pass us by, and but vaguely recognise them as bits of happiness which, if duly woven into the woof of life, would brighten it as no jewels ever could. It is good to encourage the love of simple pleasures. It is the way to keep our souls from shrinking. For some of us the song of the lark is as exquisite a pleasure as any to be found in the crowded concert-room. Both are delights, but the compass of the spirit may not always be great enough to embrace the two. To listen to the voice of a Patti is not possible to us all, even only once in a lifetime, and alas! there is but one Patti! Du Maurier says a lovely thing about her singing: "Her voice still stirs me to the depths, with vague remembrance of fresh girlish innocence turned into sound." With other singers the critical spirit of the audience is apt to awake and spoil everything. Music must be perfect, to be perfectly enjoyed. And how often do we find perfection in the concert-room? With how many singers can we let ourselves float far from reality into the region of the ideal, secure from jar of false note, or twisted phrase to suit the singer? And have we not often to shut our eyes because the frame in which the golden voice is bodied is in dissonance with its beauty? With the lark we are safe, and the nightingale sings no false note. The robin is plump, but never fat and shiny! The plaintive cry of the plover is not spoiled for us by a vision of some thirty teeth and pink parterres of gum. Our enjoyment of the blackbird's mellow whistle is not marred by a little printed notice to the effect that he craves the indulgence of the audience as he has been attacked by hoarseness; and the flute-like melody of the thrush has not its romance eliminated by a stumpy figure or want of taste in dress. Do I not remember a great contralto singing to us some stirring strains and wearing the while an agony in yellow and grass-green? And did not even S---- himself alter the last mournful phrase of "The Harp that once" into a wild top-yell in order to suit his voice? No! With nature's choristers we are safe.

[Sidenote: Our ungrateful folly.]

But do we half appreciate them? Not half, I am very sure. Do we give thanks for the blue of the skies, the green of the trees, the sweet air that we breathe, the glowing sunset, and the starlit heavens? It is true philosophy to _savourer bien_ these inexpensive joys; and, oddly enough, the more we do so the less we shall feel inclined to grumble and feel discontented when a pall of dingy fog hides away the blue and dims the green and gives us sulphur to breathe instead of the lovely air that invigorates and rejoices.

[Sidenote: Things to be thankful for.]

We owe an enormous debt to the writers of books, and especially to biographers of interesting lives, to novelists, travellers who write of what they have seen and thus share their experiences with us, poets who sing down to us of the sunny heights of the ideal life, and those photographic storytellers who delineate for us the workers of our world, of whose lives we should otherwise know so little. It almost rises to the height of epicurean philosophy to increase the joys of life by realising them to the full as they deserve to be realised. An hour spent with some delightful author may seem a little thing, but it is well worth saying grace for.

[Sidenote: Gratefulness indeed!]

I forget who was the good man who, having been engaged to the girl of his heart for ten long years, made up his mind one day to ask her to allow him to kiss her, and who fervently said grace both before and after the operation. He was a philosopher! To possess a grateful spirit is to increase the happiness of life. Nature is so liberal with her good gifts that we take them too much as a matter of course. "How blessings brighten as they take their flight!" If sudden blindness were to fall upon us we should then find out too late how many pleasures come to us through the eyes.

[Sidenote: Appreciating everyday pleasures.]

"Must our cedars fall around us ere we see the light behind?" It is good to teach young people to appreciate the infinite, everyday pleasures that surround them. It adds immensely to their happiness, and their natural animal spirits will not be apt to disappear with youth as they too often do. There is a sort of cultivation for them in appreciation of the pleasures of art and science, apart from the mere knowledge they pick up. They can see the sunlight through the cedars and the moonlight through the waving branches of the pines. And what a feast life may be for the young in these days, when literature, art, and science are all brought within reach of the people. To hear one of Sir Robert Ball's lectures on astronomy is an introduction to a new world, a world that is immeasurable by any mere mortal thought. Pictures, sculpture, and the modern marvels of photography "come not in single spies, but in battalions." The heirs of all the ages are wealthy indeed. They can never count their riches, and usually neglect them because they cost nothing. Free libraries and public picture galleries all over the land are caviare to the general, though some find manna and nectar in them, and human working bees find honey.

[Sidenote: Another secret of happiness.]

Another secret of happiness in daily life is the appreciation of the friendship and affection which we are inclined to hold but lightly until we are threatened with their loss. To awake to a full sense of its value is to learn to appreciate it as we never did before. The young mother with her children about her is apt to let small worries cloud over the happiest time of her life. When she looks back at it, when the young ones have all grown up and gone from her, she wonders at herself for having ignored home joys. Children are troublesome, no doubt, and they are noisy little creatures and anxieties to boot. "A child in a house is a wellspring of pleasure," says Martin Farquhar Tupper, a writer already forgotten, but one who said many a true thing. A child in a house is also a wellspring of worry, many a mother might add, but would she be without it? Not for worlds. She is happier far than she knows. If she would only realise it she would be less likely to be sharp-tempered to the little troublesome darlings that crowd about her when she is busy, a sharpness that brings sometimes a sting of terrible remorse in its train.

"If we knew the baby fingers, Pressed against the window pane, Would be cold and stiff to-morrow-- Never trouble us again--

Would the bright eyes of our darling Catch the frown upon our brow?-- Would the prints of rosy fingers Vex us then as they do now?"

[Sidenote: The sunny side.]

And with friends we have little estrangements that are not in the least worth while, if we would only realise it. Life is so short that there should be no room for squabbles! To walk on the sunny side of the way is wisdom, but how many of us are wise? There are some who diligently gather up the thorns and fix their gaze upon the clouds. Far better store the sunbeams and enjoy the roses!

"Strange we never prize the music Till the sweet-voiced bird has flown; Strange that we should slight the violets Till the lovely flowers are gone.

Strange that summer skies and sunshine Never seem one-half so fair, As when winter's snowy pinions Shake their white down in the air!"

_DEADLY DULNESS._

"We sit with our feet in a muddy pool, and every day of it we grow more fond."--RUSSIAN POET.

[Sidenote: The apathetic majority.]

Ninety out of every hundred women bury their minds alive. They do not live, they merely exist. After girlhood, with its fun and laughter and lightheartedness, they settle down into a sort of mental apathy, and satisfy themselves, as best they can, with superficialities--dress, for instance. There are thousands of women who live for dress. Without it the world for them would be an empty, barren place. Dress fills their thoughts, is dearer to them than their children; yes, even dearer than their pet dogs! What could heaven itself offer to such a woman? She would be miserable where there were no shops, no chiffons. The shining raiment of the spiritual world would not attract her, for she could not differentiate her own from that of others. And when beauty goes, and the prime of life with its capacity for enjoyment is long over, what remains to her? Nothing but deadly dulness, the miserable apathy that seizes on the mind neglected.

[Sidenote: Mental neglect.]

For it is pure neglect! To every one of us has been given what would suffice to us of spiritual life, but most of us bury it in the body, swathe it round with wrappings of sloth and indolence, and live the narrow life of the surface only. Scratching like hens, instead of digging and delving like real men and women, our true life becomes a shadow in a dream. Look at the stolid faces, the empty expression, the dull eyes, the heavy figures of all such! Do they not tell the tale of deadly dulness with its sickly narrative of murdered powers, buried talents, aspirations nipped in the bud, longings for better things suffocated under the weight of the earthly life?

[Sidenote: Merely domestic.]

We were never meant to narrow down to the circle of the home, in our thoughts at least. Yet this is what most of us do. To be domestic is right and good, but to be domestic only is a sinful waste of good material. Remember, oh massive matron! the days of girlish outlook into what seemed a rosy world. Think back to the days when it thrilled you to hear of high and noble deeds, when your cheeks flushed and your eyes brightened in reading of Sir Galahad and his quest, of the peerless Arthur and the olden days of chivalry, when deeds of "derring-do" on battlefield or in the humble arena of life set the pulses throbbing with quick appreciation.

[Sidenote: The way out.]

Is it all lost? All gone? Dead and buried? Is the spirit for ever outweighed by its fleshly envelope, the body? The earthly part of us is apt to grow overwhelming as the years roll on. But it can be fought against. We need not limit ourselves, as we so often do, to the daily round, the common task. There are wings somewhere about us, but if we never use them we shall soon forget we have them. What dwindled souls we have after a long life, some of us! "Whom the gods love die young," with all their splendid possibilities undamaged by the weight of the flesh. But we can avert the awful apathy of the spirit if we will. We can live full lives, if only sloth will let us. Indolence is the enemy who steals our best and brightest part, and opens the door to the dulness that settles down upon us, brooding over the middle-aged, and suffocating the mental life.

[Sidenote: Cultivating wider sympathies.]

How many of us women read the newspapers, for instance? The great world and its doings go on unheeded by us, in our absorption in matters infinitesimally small. We fish for minnows and neglect our coral reefs. "We deem the cackle of our burg the murmur of the world." It fills our ears to the exclusion of what is beyond. And yet the news of the universe, the latest discoveries in science, the newest tales of searchings among the stars, to say nothing of the doings of our own fellow creatures in the life of every day, should be of interest. But we think more of the party over the way, and the wedding round the corner. Is it not true, oh sisters?

[Sidenote: A fatal error.]

The more we stay at home, the less desire we have to go out and about, to freshen our thoughts, enlarge the borders of our experiences, and widen our sympathies. It is fatal. We sink deeper daily in the slough of dire despond. But it should be struggled against. There are lives in which the duly recurrent meal-times are absolutely the chief events. Think of it! Is such a life ignoble? At least, it contains no element of the noble, the high, the exalted.

"My sheathed emotions in me rust, And lie disused in endless dust."

So sings a poet of the day, and he expresses for us what we must all feel in moments of partial emancipation from the corroding dulness that threatens to make us all body, with no animating spirit.

To associate freely with our fellow creatures may not be a complete panacea for this dreaded ill, but it at least will take us out of our narrow selves to some degree.

"A body's sel's the sairest weicht," when it is unillumined by a bright spirit. And every spirit would be bright with use if we but gave it a fair chance.

"Thou didst create me swift and bright, Of hearing exquisite, and sight. Look on Thy creature muffled, furled, That sees no glory in Thy world."

[Sidenote: Provincialism.]

Perhaps we are too comfortable in our apathy and ignorance, in our cosy homes and pretty rooms, by our bright fires, and surrounded by the endless trivialities of life, to look beyond. We are "provincial" in our thoughts, circumscribed, cabined, cribbed, confined, for want of being thrust forth to achieve our own seed time and harvest, that inner garnering with the real labour of which no stranger intermeddleth, save to encourage from without, or the deeper to enslave the mind in deadly dulness.

[Sidenote: "Comfortable couples."]

There are "comfortable couples" who live together for half their lives, and in mutual sympathy help to deaden in each other every wish for higher things. An unhappy marriage is better than this accord in common things, this levelling down of the spirit to the commonplaces of existence.

[Sidenote: Novel-reading.]

Novel-reading is a considerable factor in flattening and deadening the mind. Fiction, to those who do not misuse it, is the most delightful recreation, an escape from the material to the airy realms of fantasy. But there are girls and women who spend hours of every day in reading novels. "Three a week," one girl confessed to not long since. The mind soon gets clogged with overmuch fiction for food. It should never be allowed to supersede general reading. In this case it is idleness, nothing more, and tends to the encouragement of that mental indolence which soon enslaves the soul.

[Sidenote: Remedies worse than the disease.]

[Sidenote: The penalty of cowardice.]

[Sidenote: Possibilities.]

Women who have the command of money, and who might turn it to such noble uses in a world of suffering and sadness, spend enormous sums in playing games of chance or backing horses to win. When they lose, their irritability is a source of discomfort to all around them--and they generally lose! Others play cards, risking high sums of money, and endeavour to create by this means, some interest in life. They little know what stores they have within them, lying ignored and neglected--almost forgotten. The more numerous our sources of pleasure the fuller and wider will be our lives. Even pain and suffering play their part in life, in living, and it is cowardice to shirk our full development for fear that it may entail some sorrow and deep-felt pang of sympathy that is helpless to assuage the sadness of a troubled world. Anything is better than deadly dulness, which rusts our faculties, benumbs our feeling, dulls our appreciativeness of all that is above and beyond us, and lowers us to the level of inanimate creation. Who would choose the existence of a cabbage when she might disperse her thoughts among the stars? Who would be content with the comfortable hearthrug-life of a pet dog or tame cat when she might explore the recesses of science in company with masterminds, soar to heaven's gate in spirit, and expand in intelligence until she felt herself a part of infinity? Contentment is ignominious, when it deprives us of our birthright. Let us, rather, be disconsolate till we attain it. Till then, Divine is Discontent.

_THE PLEASURES OF MIDDLE AGE._

[Sidenote: Youth and middle age.]

In some lives middle age is far happier than youth, with its tumults, its restlessness, its perpetual effervescence, its endless emotions. Youth looked back upon from the vantage ground of middle age is as a railway journey compared with a summer day's boating on a broad, calm river. There was more excitement and enjoyment attached to the railway journey, but the serene and peaceful quiet of the pleasant drifting and the gentle rowing are by no means to be despised.

[Sidenote: Crossing the half-way ground.]

When youth first departs a poignant regret is felt. So much that is delightful goes with it, especially for a woman. About thirty years of age, an unmarried woman feels that she has outlived her social _raison d'etre_, and the feeling is a bitter one, bringing with it almost a sense of shame, even guilt. But ten years later, this, in its turn, has passed, and a fresh phase of experience is entered on. One has become hardened to the gradual waning of youth, and the loss of whatever meed of attractiveness may have accompanied it. New interests spring up, especially for the married woman, with home and husband and children. The girls are marrying and settling down in their new homes, and the sons are taking to themselves wives, or establishing themselves in bachelor quarters, where they may live their own lives according to their own plan.

[Sidenote: The period of adjustment.]

The loss of the young ones is acutely felt at first, but after a while the fresh voices and gay laughter are less missed in the home, and the sense of loneliness begins to pass away. The sons who called or wrote so frequently at first, missing the father's companionship and the mother's tenderness, begin to fall off a little in their attentions, and are sometimes not seen for weeks at a time. The daughters become more and more absorbed in their own home lives, and though they seldom fall off in duty to the father and mother as sons do, their heart is less and less in the matter. It is inevitable! There is sadness in it, but no deep grief, as a rule. As the ties slacken, one by one, to be only now and then pulled taut, when occasion for sympathy in joy or sorrow arises, the process is so gradual and so natural that it is robbed of suffering. And as one of Nature's decrees is that which causes us to adjust ourselves to altered surroundings after change or loss, we accept the altered circumstances, and allow our thoughts and feelings to grow round what is left to us.

[Sidenote: The aftermath.]

[Sidenote: Compensations.]

And then comes a strange and beautiful aftermath, when there is a harvest of intellectual pleasures and the revival of a joy in life. Many and many a project, formed in younger days, but forgotten or submerged in the fulness of existence during intermediate years, is carried out during this late Indian summer, when health and spirits, energy and capacity, seemed to have renewed themselves like the eagle. Music, long neglected, begins again to play a happy part in the lives of some. In others, the brush is taken up after long years of abstinence, and the alchemy of art transforms into beautiful fruitfulness what else might have been a barren desert, now blossoming like a rose; or, journeys into far lands, longed for all through life, are at last undertaken, with an eagerness of delighted anticipation that would not disgrace youth itself. This wonderful world is explored with keenest curiosity, with results of strange and unexpected enrichment of heart and brain. Is it not true that the more we see of human nature the more lovable we find it? Contrast the broad views and generous charity of those who have travelled far and wide with the censorious and critical attitude of the women who measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves. A wider outlook and a broader grasp of circumstances are among the consequences of living a fuller life.

[Sidenote: Insular natures.]

There are, it is true, women who, though they may stay at home through all their lives, are incapable of the carping criticism, the inexhaustible reprobation, and the endless hard judgments in which so many of the members of our sex indulge when youth is past and they begin to be embittered. Even these might be cured of lack of charity by a more comprehensive knowledge of the world and its inhabitants; by freeing themselves from insular prejudices and a sort of provincialism of opinion that is the outcome of narrow and limited experience. Some of them, at least, might benefit in this way; but it is to be feared that there are a few in whose nature harshness is inherent, and whose leisure will always be spent in deriding the motes they so distinctly see in their neighbours' eyes. They have scarcely sufficient kindliness to try to get them out.

[Sidenote: Dormant talents.]

[Sidenote: New occupations.]