Dion and the Sibyls. A romance of the first century

Front matter

§i gmnant* ai tlje first tetorg. BY MILES GERALD KEON, COLONIAL SECRETARY", BERMUDA. ~™ IN TWO VOLS.— VOL. I. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, 8, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1866. LONDON: PRINTED ET WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARINQ CROSS- Those who are so good as to care to read the narrative of which the title stands above — but wish for the narrative alone — can skip this chapter and the next. The next, indeed, contains the setting, and, in some sense, the lighting of a picture, for which a strong light was necessary and a fit setting desirable. B PART THE FIRST.

Chapter I

The greatest puzzle in the world is the amount of happiness which is secured by different per sons ; and how much of it is co-extensive with having, and how much with not having, " one's own way." I believe that if men had all to pass through a certain room, or hall, where they could obtain, for the asking, a ticket rendering it impossible they should ever die while this world lasted, but leaving the state of human affairs in all other respects the same, a large per centage (at and after early manhood) would refuse that ticket ; and of those who demanded it, not a few would walk out of the room with very solemn faces indeed. And yet I do not believe that people grow less happy — but less unhappy — the longer they live. The subject opens before me so extremely vast that I stop here. But I should think myself neither worthy to ask for the supposed ticket, if procurable, nor fit to do without it, if I forbore all attempt to say what I purpose to leave expressed in this narrative.

Many could express it better, and would be better entitled ; but there are things which come well from those worse entitled — because a testimony, which would perchance tell rather against than for the person who bears it, is so clearly disinterested that it has a value of its own. Again, some who would be worthier to speak remain silent, and others are practically regarded as but a greater and more corporate class of egotists ; egotists, as it were, for ideas with which they are, in all ways, identified. I myself come out of the great middle wastes of common experience, claiming no superiority, and bearing the bramble-scars of that Selva selveggia mentioned by Dante, through which we all have passed, with more or less damage, hunting happiness while chased by destiny. But we hunt "upon the trail" after vestiges and signs, and are hunted " at gaze ;" seen ourselves, but seeing neither that from which we vainly fly, nor that which we vainly seek and vainly follow, until we are eluded completely by the latter, and overtaken by the former beyond any more escapes, any more delays.

When this happens, we shall, it is certain, be much wiser about our fate ; we shall know how it feels when we feel it. But shall we also be wiser about happiness ? Will our knowledge of it be actual or merely negative ? What it is, where it is, in what it consists, how it is secured ? How it has been secured by those who have secured it ? One thing is certain, we shall know all about happiness theoretically whatever happens. I think many of us, the intelligent among us, know it even now, with a sort of dormant or germinal knowledge, such as that with which a lad, who understands the fifth proposition in Euclid, knows the sixth before he has examined it, for already he possesses the materials out of which he could, if he made the necessary effort, reason for himself up to it, and far beyond.

Pascal, out ofthe first elements and mere defini tions of mensuration, went, without a master, through the chief difficulties of Euclid's pro blems. In short, there can be no doubt that it is in the power of any intelligent person to know what is happiness. But yet, none being happy — the immense majority being so far from it that they cannot believe, or conceive, or realise that any person, whoever he may be, is to be truly esteemed happy on earth — it follows that the majority of us are practically ignorant of what happiness is ; for we all seek it continually by a law of our very being, far more imperious, primary, irresistible, and immutable than even that by which we seek nourishment for our bodies ; which last law is but a negative, incom plete, and accidental supplement of the other, compelling a provision against wretchedness rather than supplying any pledge of felicity.

There is a profound puzzle here, that we should all have the germs of this knowledge and none of us the knowledge. It will not, for instance, be contended that we know what it is, but know it, at the same time, to be unattainable. If we really did know it to be unattainable, this world would be an incipient hell, and we should not exhaust our entire being, from childhood to the grave, in one unbroken and prodigious con tinuance of the endeavour to attain what we were all the time conscious that we could never attain. We are not all frantic maniacs, yet this endeavour is the universal and unceasing occupation of the human race, and of every individual in it. No such notion, in fact, of unattainableness in felicity prevails. The con trary is nearer to the fact : " Hope springs perennial in the human breast ; Man never is, but always to be, blest."

If what I have to recount and to state shall assist any one human being to arrive completely and practically at this momentous knowledge, all that can then be said is, that these pages will have been the indifferent dead means, the trivial instrument, in producing a result which I would not barter for " the sea's wealth," for the throne of a continent, for the fame of a Newton, for the life of a thousand years in honour, health, and power, or for all the glory that was ever de served in this world by one class of men and conferred by it upon another. Certainly no slight or ordinary object is im plied in such an avowal ; and lest it should be misunderstood, I think it prudent here to em phatically repeat something. It is only this — I have no technical, nor professional, nor doctorial claims of any kind to advance.

I am not a recluse, nor yet " a strange, odd sort of person." I am no preacher, nor teacher, nor lecturer, nor projector, nor promoter, nor agent, nor missionary, nor martyr, nor saint, nor censor. I have pursued honour, not wholly in vain, in some common, open arenas. I have taken my part — and I suppose it is not over yet — in the battles of life. On certain occasions I have struggled victoriously against very considerable odds. Better, abler, more gifted men have succumbed around me, and I have trembled for myself when I saw them sink. Inferiority shuddered to witness all their strength, vigour, genius, and courage overwhelmed at its side. Some famous men have been, and are, my friends, and some great men, both in the true and the false sense of the epithet, I have seen, known, and studied.

I have mixed with many classes in various and large communities ; have sojourned in four continents ; have conversed in the languages of those whose ideas reflected, contradicted, or enlarged my own ; have watched the rage of modern business with infectious suspense and sympathy ; and amidst the monu ments, the arts, the traditions, and the litera tures, where so much human passion and human intelligence have spent their noblest toil, have experienced my share of emotion. I have erred, and suffered, and blundered ; encountered checks, and afterwards looked back upon them ; received directions and given directions. I have striven and been beaten ; have striven and prevailed ; have missed my turn and had my turn. I have known both kinds of disappointment, that of failure and that which better deserves the name — I mean the disappointment of success.

When disappointed by failure, we console ourselves with the hope of prospering better another time ; but when our purpose is accomplished, and it yields us not a shred of that satisfaction the thought of which had stimulated us to our attempt, where is then the solace ? Who can fill an infinite void ? Who can dry " immediate tears ?" It is done every day. Now, I am not a " superior person ;" I wish I was. I am no reprover of others, officially or officiously. In fine, I am anything you may please to conclude, except traitor, coward, or liar. I would much rather be something better ; but such as we are, we are. And now, while you pass, will you listen to me, friend, for awhile ?