A man

Front matter

A MAN.

BY

Rev. Ji D. bell.

Part First. Paper I

INTRODUCTORY.

REPRESENTATIVE INVALIDS.

I. A Gentleman of Leisure page 14

II. Laboriosus 18

III. Hypochondriacus 24

PAPER II.

THE SENSES.

I. The Beautiful 36

II. Pliysiopathy 45

in. The Eye and the Ear 47

IV. The Seasons 49

V. Utilitarianism 52

PAPER III.

THE STUDENT.

II. Pleasures 62

III. Health 68

IV. Idealization 77

V. The Dreamer 80

VI. The Recluse , 84

(vii)

viii Contents.

PAPER IV.

THE INTELLECTUAL SIDE OF LOVE.

I. Imagination 90

II. Reason 94

III. Assimilation 98

IV. Contrast.... 106

PAPER V.

THE THINKER.

I. Character 122

II. Traits 134

III. Posthumous Influence 158

IV. Manliness 161

PAPER VI.

CONVERSATION.

I. Language 170

II. Congeniality 173

III. Gossip 178

rV. Loquacity 182

V. Egotism 185

PAPER VII.

WIT AND LAUGHTER.

I. At the Table 193

II. In Conversation 196

III. Before the Audience 199

IV. Dullness 202

V. Affected Gravity 205

VI. The Sportive and the Serious 209

VIL The Witling 218

VIIL Laughter 221

Contents. ix

PAPER VIII.

TEARS.

I. The Tenderness of Jesus 224

II. Lachrymae Inanes ► 230

III. Amiable Softness - 234

Part Second. Paper I

ASPIRATION.

I. Capacity 246

II. Energy 251

III. Continuity in Endeavor 255

lY . Balance 265

V. Habit 282

VI. Temperament 300

VII. Courage 318

PAPER II.

GENIUS.

I. Government ,. 330

II. Custom 334

III. Improvement 336

IV. Personality , 338

V. Regulation 348

PAPER III.

THE DISCOVERER.

I. Pythagoras 351

II. Archimedes 358

III. Newton 364

X Contents.

PAPER IV.

THE INVENTOR.

I. Accident 373

II. Inventive Genius 375

III. The Inventor's Joy 379

PAPER V.

THE WRITER.

I. Originality 404

II. The Essayist 417

III. The Bliss of the Writer 425

IV. Power and Fame 428

PAPER VI.

THE THREE INSPIRATIONS.

I. The Poet 436

II. The Orator 440

III TheHero 448

Part First. A Man

PAPER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

REPEESENTATIVE INVALIDS.

I HAVE a riddle which, to some people, is not a riddle. Do you know the difference between life and existence? and the difference between ivorh and labor? Do you rejoice in strength of body and in a sweet elevation of soul, so that, to use Coleridge's happy simile, your head is like ''the head of a mountain in blue air and sunshine"? Cheerfulness, Addison tells us, is a habit. Have you this ? Are aspiration and occupation so much to you, that, without them, you are sure you would soon sink and fade, from ennui ? In short, have you learned how to keep yourself so young, that a hundred years would not make you cease loving to live and living to love ? If so, then I have no riddle for you. Furthermore, you may, then, believe, if you will, that it is not chiefly for you, and such as you, that this book is designed. I write these pages, not so much for some people as for other people. They will, 2 (13)

14 A Man.

more especially, court the attention of gentlemen of leisure, of my friend Laboriosus and such as he, and of my friend Hypochondriacus and such as he.

A GENTLEMAN OF LEISURE.

Every person should, to some extent, pay for his daily bread, in the Scriptural way — that is, by sweating for it. I knew a man— believe me, reader, this is more than fiction ; — I knew a man who was a brisk worker in the fields. His energy was observed and lauded by many.

It was refreshing to walk along the borders of his acres, and look on the great gardens he had made. Few persons knew better than he how to raise corn, having broad, grand leaves ; wheat, responding to the summer wind, like a lake of green waters ; clover covering the soil, like a soft and gorgeous carpet.

This man had shining horses, in whose friendly eyes he could see his own face, as in so many mirrors. He had cows and oxen, each one of which was a large, mild creature whose lungs were like a pair of bellows, throwing out breaths of warm and healthful air.

And all day long, this man was cheerful. Vigor glowed in his honest countenance. He whistled while he worked, and was not the less amiable when he was the more weary.

But, one day, he said to his bright-eyed and industrious wife : '^ We have, for many years, kept our hands busy amid these agricultural scenes ; let

A Gentleman of Leisure. 15

us, now, move down into the village, and make the residue of our days holidays."

The fair woman replied, with delight, saying that " she had often thought how happy they would be, if they should become residents of the village, and have no more hard work to do."

Time passed on ; and the wish of the farmer and his wife was accomplished. Their new home was situated on a pleasant street. They found it easy to attend all the meetings of their church. Their neighbors were enterprising villagers. ''How much more pleasant," said the Avife, ''is our village home than was our home in the country ! Here, our cares are few. We have, now, no hard tasks. What years of ease and delight are before us ! "

The dear woman little thought, when she uttered these words, of the important truth, that, if the human mind has long been accustomed to daily and engrossing occupation, it cannot long be happy, even in the most beautiful of situations, without such occupation.

More time elapsed. The farmer became dispirited. The village into which he had moved, lost its power to animate him. When he walked in the street, every man whom he met seemed to him to have something to do, and to look coldly at him. because he was idle. When he entered the stores, the merchants seemed to him to treat him with indifference. It was rarely that a man of business had more than a moment to spend in conversation with him. The grocer, the mechanic, the shopkeeper, the lawyer, the hardware dealer, and even the barber seemed to him to be ever in good spirits.

All the villagers seemed to him to have some business and to be happy, excepting himself.

His look became less and less strong. The vivid consciousness of capacity — that feeling which makes the soul aspiring and self-reliant — -was not felt by him, all the day. He thought that his neighbors considered him lazy, and that his friends deemed him a bore. He almost envied the lot of the poor men around him, whose daily bread was the more sweet to them, because they had paid drops of sweat for it — that price for bread, which, in this world, God wishes to be always current.

To this sad lounger, no chair proved a chair of ease, and no costly luxury turned out as relishable as he thought it would. He tried to find pleasure in whittling sticks, but did not succeed. He sought to amuse himself in reading the newspapers, but failed. He was uneasy in the justice's court, in the store, in the shop of the mechanic, in the grocery, and in the hotel, because he knew that he had no business in either of these places. If he rode with a friend to a neighboring city or village, he soon became weary of the place, because he had no business in it. In the streets of his own village, he was self-distrusting, dumpish, and wretched, because he had no business there. If, at any time, he was one of the crowd witnessing a dog fight, he came from the scene, exhibiting shame in his face, because he knew that he had no business there.

He entered the door of his own house, with a gloomy physiognomy. Fro^m morning till night, his soul expressed no pleasant smile, and gave out no merry laugh. Health forsook his blood. The

A Gentleman of Leisure. 17

old brightness went out of his eyes. Disease made its nest in his brain. Ah ! that lounging farmer ! how wearily he passed those days which he dreamed would be holidays ! How woefully he labored because he had nothing to do !

But, at length, he fortunately resolved to go to work.

^'Let us now," said he to his wife, "move back into the country, and keep our hands busy, there, as long as we shall live."

The pale-faced woman answered him, with a thrill of gladness: "Be it so."

She, too, had experienced the habitual languor and misery resulting from a want of adequate occupation. In consequence of a renouncement of regular and engrossing tasks, her brain had become sick. Her countenance beamed not, as it used to beam. It had faded. She had become feeble and dyspeptic. She had lost both the briskness and the bloom of her former self.

Time passed on ; and the farmer and his wife became hale and happy again. To him, were restored the country appetite, the love of horses, of cows, of the great mild ox, of the hen cackling out its feeling of nameless joy in the pleasant forenoons, of the chivalrous and genial dog, of tillage, of growing corn, of thriving wheat beautiful both for its inimitable greenness and its graceful undulations, and of the broad meadows of bee-haunted clover. He whistled again, just as he had been used to whistle. The sallowness of his face passed away. His former cheerfulness returned. He was a man again.

To her, were restored the vivacity and the vigor 2* B i8 A Mm.

which she used to possess. Her mind and body which, in all that long lapse of unphilosophic leisure, did scarcely more than exist, had again become filled with life. She delighted in her domestic avocations. She almost coveted weariness itself, provided it might not be the weariness resulting from inactivity. The energetic woman bloomed again. How strong she was ! How free from pain and discontent ! How blessed both in her wakefulness and in her sleep !

It is the aim of the foregoing simple picture of life, to set forth the truth, that it is possible for a person to labor while he is doing nothing. He may labor under a burden of ennui. Every gentleman of popular leisure, is an invalid. You should not wish to be conscious of life, and yet unemployed. Half of every day may properly be time to you for repose ; but woe to you if you try to make time for repose of every day's other half! True leisure is defined by Dr. Franklin, as time for doing something useful. '^This leisure," says he, ^'the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man, never."

Consider, now another representative invalid.

H.

LABORIOSUS.

Grood writers make a distinction between work and labor. In work, you find joyous courage, sociability, heartiness, briskness; in labor, you find petulance, a slavish taciturnity, and the languor of illsupplied waste. The Israelites under Solomon, worked; the Israelites under Pharaoh, labored.

Laboriosus. 19

Work sweetens life ; labor turns life into dull and painful existence.

Hence it may be inferred, that, in many cases, successful industry, if it is labor and only that, is an evil. A competence may cost all that can make it enjoyable. The mistake of unnumbered industrious men, is, that they do not combine a manly intellectual activity with physical occupation.

Laboriosus purchases a farm, paying down part of the price. He takes possession, immediately, expecting that, under his economical management, the farm itself will, in a few years, furnish the remainder. He thinks he will be very industrious, so that he may hasten the time when he shall be entirely free from debt. In accordance with this thought, he carefully plans his tasks, for the year, for the month, for the week, for the day, for the hour. He toils hard. He does not work — he lahoi^s. The hot sweat oozes through the pores of his skin. His weight continually diminishes. He comes to his table panting, and goes from it panting. His robustness becomes less and less. The Anakims themselves, had they toiled on land as Laboriosus does, would have become lean. He holds his plow, he uses his hoe, he sows his grain, he reaps his harvest, he sells his produce — all this, as if he were born for nothing higher.

See, now, what a price this man is paying for his farm ! Is money all ? Does not his impatience to become the sole owner of those few acres, cost him much of his capacity for noble intellectual attainments, and for those raptures which are ex]3erienced by progressive minds ? Does it not cost him social

20 A Man.

sympathies, those kindly feelings which are designed to be the foundation of the highest gentility? Does it not cost him those more tender affections, the continued culture of which would have given beauty and loveliness to his character ? Does it not cost him deep spiritual longings, the basis of those habits of solitary contemplation and devotion, which insure daily intercourse with the Father in Heaven ?

And with these inestimable treasures, Laboriosus throws into the scale, how much of the symmetry and the strength of his body ! how much slavish fatigue ! how much excessive perspiration abounding with choice elements of vital energy! how much manly bloom ! See how the form of Laboriosus, which was once so erect, is bowed, as if he were accustomed to bite the dust ! See how his skin, once so smooth and fresh with young health, is hardening and drying on the over-exerted parts of his frame ! Calculate, if you can, the amount of geniality which his farm costs him ; the amount, also, of rosy flesh which he can never buy back, and of vigor which, in his prime, when it should be most abundant, will, perhaps, be nowhere.

But Laboriosus has, at length, paid for his acres, and for all that is on them. ''Have I not," he says, " done well, in these few years ? Behold my possessions ! They are paid for. I am free from debt." Do you not see how great a mistake the man expressed in those five last words ? Did not Laboriosus, in paying for his farm, draw immensely on capital which was infinitely more valuable than gold ? Leaving out of view his intellectual indebtedness, I ask, when, in all his future years, will he

Laboriosus* 21

be able to make good his long and excessive drainage of that fund of vitality, which he bore in his body ? And whose was this priceless fund ? Whose is a man's wonderful organism, with its outer and inner powers, its myriad of delicate links connecting element with elementj organ with organ ? Let Paul answer this question. '' Glorify God," says he, ^'in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." The will of God is, that a man be free both from remorse of conscience, and from dyspepsia, w^hich has been rightly called the remorse of a guilty stomach. Your neighbor would commit homicide if he should willfully take your life ; and if you should willfully take it, you would commit suicide. Now, suppose that you should find your neighbor taking your life, little by little, in some careless manner of his own. Then, you know it would be his duty to cease, at once, from his course of action. But suppose you should discover, that you yourself were, in some careless manner, taking your own life. Then, would it not be your duty to discontinue, as soon as possible, your suicidal practices ? Mark the reflection which the true answer to this question, casts on Laboriosus. It was God's property which this man carried in his body. He was only a steward. His office, with respect to all his powers, is expressed in those words of Scripture : "Occupy till I come." How great, therefore, was his sin, when he shut his eyes to the value of those powers, in the just use of which he might have secured to himself a timely competence, a blissful culmination of manhood, and blessed years afterward!

22 A Man.

May I not presume to ofter here, for the benefit of all the Laboriosi, a few words of plain counsel ?

Unhappy men ! you are industrious. Many of you are mechanics ; a larger number of you are farmers. You possess minds naturally strong. Some of yoUj there is little doubt, are possessors of latent genius. How you might have moved the race, had you but cultivated your early longings for a firm and powerful character ! Now, . see what you are. In body, you are jaded. In intellect, you are dwarfed. Instead of living, you selfishly and painfully exist. You know not the bliss of thought. "What you might have been, you are not, and never will be. You are utterly wanting in public-spiritedness. You hardly read the news of the day. At the polls, you cast your ballots, with indifference. You read no works of literature. You visit no galleries of the fine arts. You attend no college commencements. You go to hear no literary or scientific lectures. I know not what reason I have, for thinking you will ever peruse these pages. You exhibit no patriotism. You know your country but little better than the snail knows the forest in which it has its shell. Should one of you be required to move his building, for the sake of a railroad, or some other public project, how, then, would his ignoble selfishness reveal itself in blind resistance ! I do not see, that you are advancing toward anything intellectually worthy. It is true that you are ever adding to your possessions. But your possessions are little worth, in comparison with those of a developed and cultivated mind. You have admirable houses ; but you have not admirable souls. Your acres abound with fine

Laboriosus. 23

crops ; but your minds do not abound with fine thoughts. Your happiness is unreal. In your eagerness for more, you do not enjoy the property which you have abeady accumulated. Lorenzo Dow, it is said, once observed, concerning a certain grasping, avaricious farmer, that, if he had the whole world inclosed in a single field, he would hardly be content without a patch on the outside for potatoes. How many a Laboriosus has the spirit of that farmer !

But, dear Laboriosi ! can you not, even in this late day, begin a good work of intellectual culture ? Can you not become glad thinkers? This is not impossible. There is little impossible to him who wills. It is true, you cannot succeed, as you would have done, had you engaged in the work of education, at some earlier stage of life. But you can, at least, honor yourselves. You can make yourselves appear before Grod, in better character, as his stewards. Generous and genial, you can become. Surely, you can lose some of your love of self, and can gain, in place thereof, a little genuine love of country. Grod help you so to do ! And may the time not be far hence, when this world will look new to you; when different will seem to you all grand objects in nature, all that is only beautiful, all voices, languages, laws, books, men ; and when, as you stand by the far-reaching railway and behold the steaming and snorting iron horse, speeding by, with his train of magnificent chariots, causing the air to vibrate as if it were shaken by many winds, and making the great earth tremble, you will be

24 A Man.

moved to exclaim : '^Here is my country ! how can I add to lier greatness and her splendor?''

I have described two representative invalids. I begin, now, to describe a third.

ni.

HYPOCHONDKIACUS.

Hypochondriacus differs from Laboriosus, much as a day of unmitigated dismalness may be said to differ from a day on which there is an alternation of gloom and sunshine. He is, habitually, a sad man. He possesses, however, some amiable qualities. I know not, that he is ever cynically sullen. He growls at nobody. He is not misanthropic. He is harmless. This is one side of my friend's character. Concerning the other side, I have much to say of traits which are, at least, unpleasant. For Hypochondriacus has, I think, led an unmanly life. There was no need for him to become a hypochondriac ; and why did he not learn that, like a man ?

A disease, partly physical, and partly mental, possesses him. It is hypochondriasis. It is morbid melancholy. Cullen has named, as its prominent symptoms, '' a languor, listlessness, or want of resolution and activity, with respect to all undertakings; a disposition to seriousness, sadness, and timidity, as to all future events, and an apprehension of the worst or most unhappy state of them." But some of these symptoms are, perhaps, thrown out, more impressively, in those words of Burchell, in G-oldsmith's delightful story of the Vicar of Wakefield. •'Physicians," says he, ^'tell us of a disorder in which the whole body is so exquisitely sensitive, that the slightest touch gives pain : what some have thus suflered in their persons, this gentleman felt in his mind. The slightest distress, whether real or fictitious, touched him to the quick; and his soul labored under a sickly sensibility of the miseries of others/*

Hypochondriacus is a person who has rarely anything pleasant to say. His very laugh is doleful. There seems ever the same want of warmth in the hand with which he returns the pressure of an adieu or of a welcome ; and, so far as I have observed, his countenance is never entirely unclouded. If there happens a short interval, in the conversation one is holding with him, he is accustomed to fill it with the lugubrious sigh of ^'Oh dear me!" He would scarcely be Hypochondriacus, but for that sigh. How bright soever be the day, how happy soever be the occasion, you would hear it, should you be with him, I dare not say how many times. Fortune salutes Hypochondriacus, only to receive his mournful " Oh dear me ! " He peruses a fresh letter, containing pleasant words from an old and valued friend ; but when he has come to its close, he breathes his dismal " Oh dear me ! " His attention is called to a vivid rainbow on the clouds, to the beautiful prattle of a child, or to a charming new book ; but, in every such instance, Hypochondriacus has usually one and the same dreary utterance; and that utterance is '^ Oh dear me!" I have, often, silently inquired why it is that life, in this goodly world, continually presents to my friend aspects so deeply somber. Few bereavements has 3

26 A Man.

he, over which to mourn. Friends have neither betrayed nor forsaken him ; and, surely, he has no enemies so bitter as to slander him. Furthermore, he is the possessor of what men call a handsome property and an honorable name. 'Why does he pay that devotion to sorrow, which he does pay, through all the beautiful springs and summers, autumns and winters ?

After thus communing with myself, one day, I rose from my chair, intending to visit Hypochondriacus, and unbosom to him the burden of these my musings concerning him. I found him sitting in his room, alone. I seated myself at his side. We talked, for a few moments, on various topics. By-and-by, I purposely discontinued our unimportant intercourse, so that I might get for a text to wiiat I was ready to say, a fresh repetition of my friend's melancholy sigh. According to my expectation, the sigh came ; and I began.

Hypochondriacus, said I, why do you so often give utterance to this plaintive sigh ? Have you been less fortunate than other men ? Have you experienced so much affliction and grief, that your life has become to you a burden ? Do you find nothing, either in the natural world or in the world of thought, that has power to call into joyful exercise the higher powers of your soul ?

Here, I paused. Hypochondriacus, turning his sad eyes round, so that he might look into my own, replied :

" I concluded, a long time ago, that there is but little real enjoyment possible to a man, in this dreary world. Consider how much each one of us must, from the cradle to the grave, experience of confusion and trouble, of toil and weariness, of affliction and anguish ! The life we here live seems to me little better than a slow journey across a land of malaria and mourning. Does not every season, as it rolls round, measure off a new period of perplexities and distresses ? What is there, either in the natural world or in the world of thought, that is well adapted to inspire profound cheerfulness ? Does not the former contain as much deformity as beauty ? as much to appall as to please ? And is not the latter darkened by the effect of infirmities and diseases, sins and crimes, strifes and tumults ? Be assured, that Experience, man's most stern teacher, has given you few severe lessons, if you are not yet able to see a reason for frequent and doleful sighs/'

Thus spoke Hypochondriacus. I confess, that, for awhile, I hardly knew what answer I should give to his words of complaint. My usual mood of cheerfulness had been disturbed, by the painful conviction that there was one person, in this interesting world, to whom all the days seemed dismal. I replied, however, in as appropriate a manner, as I could, under circumstances so peculiar. I told him, that he had, certainly, taken a false view of life. He had ignored the brighter aspects of our earthly state. Countless sources of pleasure are accessible to us. We need not live long, unrejuvenated. ITature presents innumerable objects of beauty and animation, adapted to keep the senses youthful. There are, also, the possibilities of delightful social experience. The intercourse of kindred may be

28 A Man.

made to afford magical felicities. There is sweetness in friendship. In true patriotism, there are manly pleasures. And every act of real philanthropy, is, according to a certain law of human nature, always followed by a deep and blessed satisfaction of the soul. I bade him rouse himself from his melancholy languor, and go forth on the adorned earth, and among men, with the light of cheerful thoughts and amiable wishes beaming in his eyes. In this manner, I, at that time, treated the question at issue between us. Hypochondriacus responded, in a few words, partaking of the same morbid sadness which characterized those he had previously spoken. He admitted, that some persons are much happier than others ; but he conceived them able to be so, simply because they are less thoughtful and hence more light-hearted than others. But a true view of human life, he insisted, cannot but dispose a candid, reflecting person to be almost habitually sad and taciturn. I lingered, a short time, in silence; and then returned to my study. Seating myself there, I began to give the subject which had been so inadequately discussed, a thorough though solitary reconsideration. Turning it on every side, I endeavored to view it, in all its aspects and bearings. Hypochondriacus, said I to myself, is a man of representative peculiarities. He is one of a large class of persons, whose souls the sunshine seems never to penetrate. For, among the various classes of mankind, I find two that are marked by nearly opposite characteristics. To the former, belong those persons who seem, wherever they are, to realize joy and satisfaction. They never murmur. They have what Coleridge calls "the sweet breath of hope and advancement." If sickness or adversity assails them, they endure the assault with cheerful patience. Forgetful of all the ills and the miseries which they themselves have suffered, they persistently refuse to think that they have ever languished either in sorrow or in pain. In short, they make the journey of life, as joyfully as travelers in the East make the ascent of the Nile — that " Paradise of Travel " ; and seem to go chirping through j^outh, chirping through manhood, chirping through old age, and chirping on into the other world !

To the latter class, belong, on the contrary, those who are not often wanting in melancholy repinings ; who receive through their senses few exhilarating impressions from the natural world ; who know not the fruition of genuine life. These persons are ill acquainted with ITature. They rarely commune with her. They heed not her teachings, her requirements, her munificence in respect to merited rewards, her just severity in respect to deserved punishments. When, with a gentle spirit, she corrects them for carelessly or willfully breaking her wholesome laws, they pout, and call her cruel. When she specially favors them, they imagine that she is playing on them some cunning trick. They seem to turn with suspicion from the very birds which sing in and sing out the softer seasons. Their religion — so much as they have — takes a color of sickliness from their dogged adhesion to a multitude of gloomy absurdities. In their prayers, they adopt almost the language and the tone of

30 A Man.

despair itself; and I cannot but think that, if the Lord should directly answer any one of their petitions, his answer would be some rebuke for their perpetual complaint and their indisposition to trust him and his goodness.