Part 9

Men of genius who have concentrated all their powers on some one favorite profession or pursuit are often thus triumphed over by the vulgar, whose eyes are more observant of the familiar objects and details of daily life and of the scenes around them. Wordsworth and Coleridge, on one occasion, after a long drive, and in the absence of a groom, endeavored to relieve the tired horse of its harness. After torturing the poor animal's neck and endangering its eyes by their clumsy and vain attempts to slip off the collar, they at last gave up the matter in despair. They felt convinced that the horse's head must have swollen since the collar was put on. At last a servant-girl beheld their perplexity. "La, masters," she exclaimed, "you dont set about it the right way." She then seized hold of the collar, turned it broad end up, and slipped it off in a second. The mystery that had puzzled two of the finest intellects of their time was a very simple matter indeed to a country wench who had perhaps never heard that England possessed a Shakespeare.

James Montgomery was a great lover of flowers, and few of our English poets have written about the family of Flora, the sweet wife of Zephyr, in a more genial spirit. He used to regret that the old Floral games and processions on May-day and other holidays had gone out of fashion. Southey tells us that in George the First's reign a grand Florist's Feast was held at Bethnall Green, and that a carnation named after his Majesty was _King of the Year_. The Stewards were dressed with laurel leaves and flowers. They carried gilded staves. Ninety cultivators followed in procession to the sound of music, each bearing his own flowers before him. All elegant customs of this nature have fallen into desuetude in England, though many of them are still kept up in other parts of Europe.

Chaucer who dearly loved all images associated with the open air and the dewy fields and bright mornings and radiant flowers makes the gentle Emily,

That fairer was to seene Than is the lily upon his stalkie greene,

rise early and do honor to the birth of May-day. All things now seem to breathe of hope and joy.

Though long hath been The trance of Nature on the naked bier Where ruthless Winter mocked her slumbers drear And rent with icy hand her robes of green, That trance is brightly broken! Glossy trees, Resplendent meads and variegated flowers Flash in the sun and flutter in the breeze And now with dreaming eye the poet sees Fair shapes of pleasure haunt romantic bowers, And laughing streamlets chase the flying hours.

D.L.R.

The great describer of our Lost Paradise did not disdain to sing a

SONG ON MAY-MORNING.

Now the bright Morning star, Day's harbinger, Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose Hail bounteous-May, that dost inspire Mirth and youth and warm desire; Woods and groves are of thy dressing, Hill and dale do boast thy blessing. Thus we salute thee with our early song, And welcome thee and wish thee long.

Nor did the Poet of the World, William Shakespeare, hesitate to

Do observance to a morn of May.

He makes one of his characters (in _King Henry VIII_.) complain that it is as impossible to keep certain persons quiet on an ordinary day, as it is to make them sleep on May-day--once the time of universal merriment-- when every one was wont "_to put himself into triumph_."

'Tis as much impossible, Unless we sweep 'em from the doors with cannons To scatter 'em, _as 'tis to make 'em sleep On May-day Morning_.

Spenser duly celebrates, in his "Shepheard's Calender,"

Thilke mery moneth of May When love-lads masken in fresh aray,

when "all is yclad with pleasaunce, the ground with grasse, the woods with greene leaves, and the bushes with bloosming buds."

Sicker[043] this morowe, no longer agoe, I saw a shole of shepeardes outgoe With singing and shouting and iolly chere: Before them yode[044] a lustre tabrere,[045] That to the many a hornepype playd Whereto they dauncen eche one with his mayd. To see those folks make such iovysaunce, Made my heart after the pype to daunce. Tho[046] to the greene wood they speeden hem all To fetchen home May with their musicall; And home they bringen in a royall throne Crowned as king; and his queene attone[047] Was LADY FLORA.

_Spenser_.

This is the season when the birds seem almost intoxicated with delight at the departure of the dismal and cold and cloudy days of winter and the return of the warm sun. The music of these little May musicians seems as fresh as the fragrance of the flowers. The Skylark is the prince of British Singing-birds--the leader of their cheerful band.

LINES TO A SKYLARK.

Wanderer through the wilds of air! Freely as an angel fair Thou dost leave the solid earth, Man is bound to from his birth Scarce a cubit from the grass Springs the foot of lightest lass-- _Thou_ upon a cloud can'st leap, And o'er broadest rivers sweep, Climb up heaven's steepest height, Fluttering, twinkling, in the light, Soaring, singing, till, sweet bird, Thou art neither seen nor heard, Lost in azure fields afar Like a distance hidden star, That alone for angels bright Breathes its music, sheds its light

Warbler of the morning's mirth! When the gray mists rise from earth, And the round dews on each spray Glitter in the golden ray, And thy wild notes, sweet though high, Fill the wide cerulean, sky, Is there human heart or brain Can resist thy merry strain?

But not always soaring high, Making man up turn his eye Just to learn what shape of love, Raineth music from above,-- All the sunny cloudlets fair Floating on the azure air, All the glories of the sky Thou leavest unreluctantly, Silently with happy breast To drop into thy lowly nest.

Though the frame of man must be Bound to earth, the soul is free, But that freedom oft doth bring Discontent and sorrowing. Oh! that from each waking vision, Gorgeous vista, gleam Elysian, From ambition's dizzy height, And from hope's illusive light, Man, like thee, glad lark, could brook Upon a low green spot to look, And with home affections blest Sink into as calm a nest! D.L.R.

I brought from England to India two English skylarks. I thought they would help to remind me of English meadows and keep alive many agreeable home-associations. In crossing the desert they were carefully lashed on the top of one of the vans, and in spite of the dreadful jolting and the heat of the sun they sang the whole way until night-fall. It was pleasant to hear English larks from rich clover fields singing so joyously in the sandy waste. In crossing some fields between Cairo and the Pyramids I was surprized and delighted with the songs of Egyptian skylarks. Their notes were much the same as those of the English lark. The lark of Bengal is about the size of a sparrow and has a poor weak note. At this moment a lark from Caubul (larger than an English lark) is doing his best to cheer me with his music. This noble bird, though so far from his native fields, and shut up in his narrow prison, pours forth his rapturous melody in an almost unbroken stream from dawn to sunset. He allows no change of season to abate his minstrelsy, to any observable degree, and seems equally happy and musical all the year round. I have had him nearly two years, and though of course he must moult his feathers yearly, I have not observed the change of plumage, nor have I noticed that he has sung less at one period of the year than another. One of my two English larks was stolen the very day I landed in India, and the other soon died. The loss of an English lark is not to be replaced in Calcutta, though almost every week, canaries, linnets, gold-finches and bull-finches are sold at public auctions here.

But I must return to my main subject.--The ancients used to keep the great Feast of the goddess Flora on the 28th of April. It lasted till the 3rd of May. The Floral Games of antiquity were unhappily debased by indecent exhibitions; but they were not entirely devoid of better characteristics.[048] Ovid describing the goddess Flora says that "while she was speaking she breathed forth vernal roses from her mouth." The same poet has represented her in her garden with the Florae gathering flowers and the Graces making garlands of them. The British borrowed the idea of this festival from the Romans. Some of our Kings and Queens used '_to go a Maying_,' and to have feasts of wine and venison in the open meadows or under the good green-wood. Prior says:

Let one great day To celebrate sports and floral play Be set aside.

But few people, in England, in these times, distinguish May-day from the initial day of any other month of the twelve. I am old enough to remember _Jack-in-the-Green_. Nor have I forgotten the cheerful clatter--the brush-and-shovel music--of our little British negroes--"innocent blacknesses," as Lamb calls them--the chimney-sweepers,--a class now almost _swept away_ themselves by _machinery_. One May-morning in the streets of London these tinsel-decorated merry-makers with their sooty cheeks and black lips lined with red, and staring eyes whose white seemed whiter still by contrast with the darkness of their cases, and their ivory teeth kept sound and brilliant with the professional powder, besieged George Selwyn and his arm-in-arm companion, Lord Pembroke, for May-day boxes. Selwyn making them a low bow, said, very solemnly "I have often heard of _the sovereignty of the people_, and I suppose you are some of the young princes in court mourning."

My Native readers in Bengal can form no conception of the delight with which the British people at home still hail the spring of the year, or the deep interest which they take in all "the Seasons and their change"; though they have dropped some of the oldest and most romantic of the ceremonies once connected with them. If there were an annual fall of the leaf in the groves of India, instead of an eternal summer, the natives would discover how much the charms of the vegetable world are enhanced by these vicissitudes, and how even winter itself can be made delightful. My brother exiles will remember as long as life is in them, how exquisite, in dear old England, is the enjoyment of a brisk morning walk in the clear frosty air, and how cheering and cosy is the social evening fire! Though a cold day in Calcutta is not exactly like a cold day in London, it sometimes revives the remembrance of it. An Indian winter, if winter it may be called, is indeed far less agreeable than a winter in England, but it is not wholly without its pleasures. It is, at all events, a grateful change--a welcome relief and refreshment after a sultry summer or a _muggy_ rainy season.

An Englishman, however, must always prefer the keener but more wholesome frigidity of his own clime. There, the external gloom and bleakness of a severe winter day enhance our in-door comforts, and we do not miss sunny skies when greeted with sunny looks. If we then see no blooming flowers, we see blooming faces. But as we have few domestic enjoyments in this country--no social snugness,--no sweet seclusion--and as our houses are as open as bird-cages,--and as we almost live in public and in the open air--we have little comfort when compelled, with an enfeebled frame and a morbidly sensitive cuticle, to remain at home on what an Anglo-Indian Invalid calls a cold day, with an easterly wind whistling through every room.[049] In our dear native country each season has its peculiar moral or physical attractions. It is not easy to say which is the most agreeable--its summer or its winter. Perhaps I must decide in favor of the first. The memory of many a smiling summer day still flashes upon my soul. If the whole of human life were like a fine English day in June, we should cease to wish for "another and a better world." It is often from dawn to sunset one revel of delight. How pleasantly, from the first break of day, have I lain wide awake and traced the approach of the breakfast hour by the increasing notes of birds and the advancing sun-light on my curtains! A summer feeling, at such a time, would make my heart dance within me, as I thought of the long, cheerful day to be enjoyed, and planned some rural walk, or rustic entertainment. The ills that flesh is heir to, if they occurred for a moment, appeared like idle visions. They were inconceivable as real things. As I heard the lark singing in "a glorious privacy of light," and saw the boughs of the green and gold laburnum waving at my window, and had my fancy filled with images of natural beauty, I felt a glow of fresh life in my veins, and my soul was inebriated with joy. It is difficult, amidst such exhilarating influences, to entertain those melancholy ideas which sometimes crowd upon, us, and appear so natural, at a less happy hour. Even actual misfortune comes in a questionable shape, when our physical constitution is in perfect health, and the flowers are in full bloom, and the skies are blue, and the streams are glittering in the sun. So powerfully does the light of external nature sometimes act upon the moral system, that a sweet sensation steals gradually over the heart, even when we think we have reason to be sorrowful, and while we almost accuse ourselves of a want of feeling. The fretful hypochondriac would do well to bear this fact in mind, and not take it for granted that all are cold and selfish who fail to sympathize with his fantastic cares. He should remember that men are sometimes so buoyed up by the sense of corporeal power, and a communion with nature in her cheerful moods, that things connected with their own personal interests, and which at other times might irritate and wound their feelings, pass by them like the idle wind which they regard not. He himself must have had his intervals of comparative happiness, in which the causes of his present grief would have appeared trivial and absurd. He should not, then, expect persons whose blood is warm in their veins, and whose eyes are open to the blessed sun in heaven, to think more of the apparent causes of his sorrow than he would himself, were his mind and body in a healthful state.

With what a light heart and eager appetite did I enter the little breakfast parlour of which the glass-doors opened upon a bright green lawn, variegated with small beds of flowers! The table was spread with dewy and delicious fruits from our own garden, and gathered by fair and friendly hands. Beautiful and luscious as were these garden dainties, they were of small account in comparison with the fresh cheeks and cherry lips that so frankly accepted the wonted early greeting. Alas! how that circle of early friends is now divided, and what a change has since come over the spirit of our dreams! Yet still I cherish boyish feelings, and the past is sometimes present. As I give an imaginary kiss to an "old familiar face," and catch myself almost unconsciously, yet literally, returning imaginary smiles, my heart is as fresh and fervid as of yore.

A lapse of fifteen years, and a distance of fifteen thousand miles, and the glare of a tropical sky and the presence of foreign faces, need not make an Indian Exile quite forgetful of home-delights. Parted friends may still share the light of love as severed clouds are equally kindled by the same sun. No number of miles or days can change or separate faithful spirits or annihilate early associations. That strange magician, Fancy, who supplies so many corporeal deficiencies and overcomes so many physical obstructions, and mocks at space and time, enables us to pass in the twinkling of an eye over the dreary waste of waters that separates the exile from the scenes and companions of his youth. He treads again his native shore. He sits by the hospitable hearth and listens to the ringing laugh of children. He exchanges cordial greetings with the "old familiar faces." There is a resurrection of the dead, and a return of vanished years. He abandons himself to the sweet illusion, and again

Lives over each scene, and is what he beholds.

I must not be too egotistically garrulous in print, or I would now attempt to describe the various ways in which I have spent a summer's day in England. I would dilate upon my noon-day loiterings amidst wild ruins, and thick forests, and on the shaded banks of rivers--the pic-nic parties--the gipsy prophecies--the twilight homeward walk--the social tea-drinking, and, the last scene of all, the "rosy dreams and slumbers light," induced by wholesome exercise and placid thoughts.[050] But perhaps these few simple allusions are sufficient to awaken a train of kindred associations in the reader's mind, and he will thank me for those words and images that are like the keys of memory, and "open all her cells with easy force."

If a summer's day be thus rife with pleasure, scarcely less so is a day in winter, though with some little drawbacks, that give, by contrast, a zest to its enjoyments. It is difficult to leave the warm morning bed and brave the external air. The fireless grate and frosted windows may well make the stoutest shudder. But when we have once screwed our courage to the sticking place, and with a single jerk of the clothes, and a brisk jump from the bed, have commenced the operations of the toilet, the battle is nearly over. The teeth chatter for a while, and the limbs shiver, and we do not feel particularly comfortable while breaking the ice in our jugs, and performing our cold ablutions amidst the sharp, glass-like fragments, and wiping our faces with a frozen towel. But these petty evils are quickly vanquished, and as we rush out of the house, and tread briskly and firmly on the hard ringing earth, and breathe our visible breath in the clear air, our strength and self-importance miraculously increase, and the whole frame begins to glow. The warmth and vigour thus acquired are inexpressibly delightful. As we re-enter the house, we are proud of our intrepidity and vigour, and pity the effeminacy of our less enterprising friends, who, though huddled together round the fire, like flies upon a sunny wall, still complain of cold, and instead of the bloom of health and animation, exhibit pale and pinched and discolored features, and hands cold, rigid, and of a deadly hue. Those who rise with spirit on a winter morning, and stir and thrill themselves with early exercise, are indifferent to the cold for the rest of the day, and feel a confidence in their corporeal energies, and a lightness of heart that are experienced at no other season.

But even the timid and luxurious are not without their pleasures. As the shades of evening draw in, the parlour twilight--the closed curtains--and the cheerful fire--make home a little paradise to all.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in

_Cowper_.

The warm and cold seasons of India have no charms like those of England, but yet people who are guiltless of what Milton so finely calls "a sullenness against nature," and who are willing, in a spirit of true philosophy and piety, to extract good from every thing, may save themselves from wretchedness even in this land of exile. While I am writing this paragraph, a bird in my room, (not the Caubul songster that I have already alluded to, but a fine little English linnet,) who is as much a foreigner here as I am, is pouring out his soul in a flood of song. His notes ring with joy. He pines not for his native meadows--he cares not for his wiry bars--he envies not the little denizens of air that sometimes flutter past my window, nor imagines, for a moment, that they come to mock him with their freedom. He is contented with his present enjoyments, because they are utterly undisturbed by idle comparisons with those experienced in the past or anticipated in the future. He has no thankless repinings and no vain desires. Is intellect or reason then so fatal, though sublime a gift that we cannot possess it without the poisonous alloy of care? Must grief and ingratitude inevitably find entrance into the heart, in proportion to the loftiness and number of our mental endowments? Are we to seek for happiness in ignorance? To these questions the reply is obvious. Every good quality may be abused, and the greatest, most; and he who perversely employs his powers of thought and imagination to a wrong purpose deserves the misery that he gains. Were we honestly to deduct from the ills of life all those of our own creation, how trifling, in the majority of cases, the amount that would remain! We seem to invite and encourage sorrow, while happiness is, as it were, forced upon us against our will. It is wonderful how some men pertinaciously cling to care, and argue themselves into a dissatisfaction with their lot. Thus it is really a matter of little moment whether fortune smile or frown, for it is in vain to look for superior felicity amongst those who have more "appliances and means to boot," than their fellow-men. Wealth, rank, and reputation, do not secure their possessors from the misery of discontent.