Literary and historical miscellanies

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ESSAYS :

I. THE DOCTRINE OF TEMPERAMENTS, 1824, - - 1

I

Ennui is a word whicli tlie Erencli invented, thougli of all nations in Europe they know tlie least of it; while the Turks, with their untiring gravity, lethargic dignity, blind fatahsm, opium-eating, and midnight profligacies, have undoubtedly the largest share. Next to the Tm'ks, the English suffer most from it. Hear the account which their finest poetical genius of the present century gives of liimself, when he was hardly of age :

" With pleasure drugged he almost longed for woe, And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades below."

The complaints of a young man in the bloom of life and the vigor of early hope, cannot excite much sympathy. But in his fullest maturity he stiU draws the appalling picture of unalleviated ennui, in language that was the mournful echo of his mind.

" 'Tis time this heart should be unmoved, Since others it has ceased to move ; Yet, though! canot be beloved,

Still let me love."

ENNUI.

" My (lays are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of love are gone ; The worm, the canker, and the grief Are mine alone."

Such was the harassed state of Lord Byron, at the epoch which seemed to promise him a crowded succession of exciting sensations. He was strugghng for honor on the parent soil of glory; he was surrounded by the stir and tumult of barbarous warfare ; he had the consciousness, that the eyes of the civilized world Avere fixed upon his actions ; he professed enthusiasm in behalf of hberty ; and yet there was not irritation enough in the new and busy life of the camp, to overcome his apathy. He only sought to give away his breath on the field, and take his rest in a soldier's grave.

The literature of the hour is essentially transient. The pubhc mind seizes rapidly every discovery ; and rightly claims the instant distribution of truth. But mth this is connected a feverish excitement for novelty. The world, in the earhest period of which accounts have reached us, foUowed after the newest strains ; and now the voice of the past, aU musical as it is with the finest harmonies of human intelligence, is lost in the jangling din of temporary discussions. Philosophy steals fi'om the crowd, and hides herself in retirement, awaiting a better day; erudition is midervalued, and ahnost disappears. It would seem, as though the wise men of

V old frowned in anger on the turbulence of tlie petty passions, and withdrew from the contentious haunts, where wisdom has no votaries, and tranquiUity no followers. In the days of ancient Hberty, the pubhc places rung with the nervous eloquence of sublime philosophy ; and the streets of Athens offered nothing more attractive than the keen discussions, the piercing satire, and the calm philanthropy of Socrates. But now it is ephemeral politics which rule the city and the country; the times of deep reflection, of slowly matming thought, are gone by ; the age of studious learning is past, and every thing is carried along the rushing current of public economy, or of private business. Life is divided between excited passions and morbid indifference.

And is this current so strong, that it cannot be resisted ? Can we never separate om-selves from the throng, and with dispassionate coolness, watch the various emotions and motives, by which society is swayed ?

The morahsts, who utter their oracles in the commonplace complaints of a heathenish discontent, tell us, that we are born but to pursue, and pm'sue but to be deceived. They say that man in his eagerness for earthly honors, is like the child that chases the gaudy insect ; the pursuit idle ; the object worthless. They tell us, that it is but an illusive star, which beams from the summit of the distant hiU ; advance, and its hght vecedes ; ascend, and a wider space is yet to be traversed, and a higher hill is seen beyond. And they tell us, that this is vanity. But how poorly have they studied the secrets of the human breast ! How imperfectly do they understand the feebleness and the strength of man's fortitude ! If glory still rests on the remotest hill, if the distant sky is stUl invested with the delicate hues of promise, pursuit remauis a pleasure ; and the pilgrim, ever hght-hearted, passes heedlessly over each rugged barrier. But suppose the alluring star to be blotted out ; the lustre of the horizon to have faded into the shades of a cloudy evening ; the pursuit to be now without an object ; and the blood which hope had sent merrily through the veins, to curdle round the desponding heart. Then it is, that the springs of joy are poisoned by the demons of Hstlessness.

The scholar and the Christian have guarantees against despair. The desire for intelligence is never satisfied but "with the attainment of that wisdom which passes aU understanding ; and the mind discerning the bright lineaments of its perfect exemplar, can set no hmits to the sacred passion, which recognises the connection of the human with the divine, and places before itself a boundless career of advancement. But it is not with these high questions that we are at present engaged. We have thrown open the book of human life ; we are to read there of this world and its littleness, of the springs of present action, of the relief of present restlessness.

We have said, that the pursuit of a noble object is in itself a pleasure. It is to the mind which shuns the forming a definite design, that the universe seems deficient in the means of happiness, and existence becomes a prey to the fiend of ennui.

Let us analyze this sensation more accurately. Let us fix with exactness the true signification of ennui. Let us see if it be mdely diffused. Let us ascertain the hmits of its influence. Perhaps the investigation may lead us to a more intimate acquaintance with our nature.

II

Ennui is the desire of activity without the fit means of gratifying the desire. It presupposes an acknowledgment of exertion as a duty, and a consciousness of the possession of powers suited to making an exertion. It is itseK a state of idleness, yet of disquiet ; a discontented inertness ; an indeterminate craving and ceaseless mobihty, without any commensm'ate pm'pose. Wherever a course of conduct is the result of cheerful efforts to gain a hvehhood, of a passion for mteUigence, a zeal for glory, or to sum up a great variety of theories in one, of a just and enlightened self-love, there no vestige of ennui can be found. But should the primary motives of human effort fail, should the mind become" a prey to hstlessness and gnaw upon itself, all its devices to escape from this self- destructive process, are to be ascribed to tbe presence of ennui. The most energetic of onr race, in the very crisis of their career, if perchance they are compelled to hesitate in the choice of their measures, and must wait fresh tidings before rushing to the field of action, may suffer from its torments diu-ing the hours of expectation, which ahke refuse to be filled up or to pass away. Industry itself may tire of its task ; and its longings for rehef and change may bring with it disgust at its routine and a sense of weariness that can yet find no rest. Even the most indefatigable zealot, on attaining the result of his long, and hearty, and well directed efforts, may at the very moment of perfect success give way to the sentiment of satiety or of lassitude, and suffer the pain of discovering that all is vanity and vexation of spirit, and that there is no profit under the sun.

It is ennui that stupefies the dull preacher, who yawns over his weekly office and reads a lifeless sermon of which " the saw " puts the sinner to sleep. Often in the endless repetitions of the lawyer you may plainly see how he loathes

" To drudge for the dregs of men.

And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen.'* The life of Napoleon, in the very moment of most imminent danger, presents a marvellous instance of ennui. While the allies were collecting around him m their utmost strength, he was himself wavering in his purposes, and reluctant to decide on the retreat to 4

50 ENNTJI.

Leipsic. An eye-witness relates, " I liave seen Mm at that time seated on a sofa, beside a table on whicli lay his charts, totally unemployed, unless in scribbling mechanically large letters on a sheet of white paper." So heavily and slowly dragged the hours of suspense for the mighty warrior, at a time, when, in his own language, nothing but a thunderbolt could have saved him. Or, to take an example from the earhest monmnent of Grecian genius. Achilles, ia the pride of youth, engaged in his favorite profession of arms, making his way to an immortality secured to him by the voice of his goddess mother, sure to gain the victory in any contest, and selecting for his reward the richest spoils and the fairest maid, Achilles, the heroic heathen, was fully and satisfactorily employed, and according to his semi-barbarous notions of joy and right, was happy within his own breast, and was happy in the world around him. When the same youthful warrior was insulted by the leader under whose banners he had ralHed, when the recesses of his tent were invaded and his domestic peace disturbed, his mind was strongly agitated by love, anger, hatred, the passion for strife, and the intense effort at forbearance ; and though there was here room enough for activity, there was nothing but pain and misery. But when the dispute was over, and the pupil of the Centaur, trained for strife, and victory, and glory, withdrew from the army, and gave himseK up to an inactive contemplation of the struggle against Troy, his energies were absorbed in the morbid feeling of ennui. Homer was the truest painter of the human passions. The picture which he draws of Achilles, receiving the subsequent deputation from the Greeks, illustrates our subject exactly. It was in vain for the hero to attempt to soothe his mind with the melodies of the lyre; his blood kindled only at the music of war : it was idle for him to seek pleasure in celebrating the renown of heroes ; this was but a vain effort to quell the burning desire to surpass them in glory. He Hstens to the deputation, not tranquilly, but peevishly. He charges them with dupHcity, and avows that he loathes their king hke the gates of hell. He next reverts to himself: "The warrior has no thanks," he exclaims in the bitterness of disappointment ; " the coward and the brave man are held in equal honor." Nay, he goes further, and quarrels with providence and fixed destiny. "After all," says he, " the idler, and the man of many achievements, each must die." "To-morrow," he adds, "my vessels shall float on the Hellespont." The morning dawned ; but the ships of Achilles still lingered near the banks of the Scamander. The notes of the battle sounded, and he was still in suspense between the fiery impulse for war and the haughty reserve of revenge.

When Bruce approached the sources of the NUe, a thousand sentiments of pride rushed upon his mind ; he seemed to himself more fortunate and more glorious than any European king or wariior, conqueror or traveller, that had ever attempted to penetrate into the interior of Africa. This was a moment of exultation and trimnphant delight. But when he had actually reached the ultimate object of his research, he has himself recorded the emotions which were awakened within him. At the fountain-head of the Nile, Bruce was almost a victim to sentimental ennui.

In this anecdote of the Abyssinian traveller, we have an example of the rapidity with which disgust treads on the heels of triumph. We "will cite another, where misery was followed and consummated by ennui. The most eloquent of the Girondists was Vergniaud. It was he that in the spirit of prophecy compared the French revolution to Saturn, since it was about to devoiu: successively aU its children, and finally to establish despotism with its attendant calamities. The rivalship of the Mountaui in the Convention, the unsuccessful attack on Robespierre, the trial and condemnation of Louis XVI., the defection of Dumomier and its consequences, had roused the mind of the fervent but foredoomed orator to the strongest efforts which the consciousness of wavering fortunes and the menace of utter ruin, patriotism, honor, and love of life, could call forth. At last came the day, fraught with horrors, when the clamors of a despotic and inexorable mob, claimed of the Convention Vergniaud and his associates, the little remnant of repubhcan sincerity, to be the vietims of their fiendish avidity for blood. Who will doubt, that during that fearful session the highest possible excitement called him into the highest possible activity ! Here there was no room for listlessness, and quite as little for happiness. The guarantees of order were faihng, and friends were to be buried under the same ruins with the remains of regular legislative authority. Vergniaud retired from the scenes where the foulest of the dogs of war were howling for their prey, and when Gregoire found him out in his hiding-place, the republican orator, though robbery and massacre were triumphant in the city, was discovered reading Tacitus. Why ? Erom affectation ? Surely not ; Gregoire's visit was unexpected. Trom cool philosophy ? StiU less. The studies of Vergniaud on that day were the studies of a man burning for action, and having nothing before him but the heavy weariness of idle hours that seemed to lag forever.

Ennui was the necromancer which conjured up the ghost of Csesar on the eve of the battle of Phillippi. And when Brutus prematurely esteemed the day lost, he had yet to wrestle with that unseen enemy, and enter on a new contest, where he was sure to be overthrown. " Oh liberty ! What crimes are committed in thy name," cried Madame Roland as she passed to the scaffold through intense and unmitigated suffering, dignifying the scene by the majesty of her own fortitude. The Roman had no such nobleness of nature ;

" Oh virtue ! thou art but a name," lie exclaimed, as he resolved on suicide. When Brutus dared to despair of vutue, the atrocious sentiment was dictated, not by the spirit that had aspired to restore the hberties of the world, but by the demon of ennui, which in an evil hour had possessed itself of the pretended patriot's soul.

EinaUy, to take but one more example, the timid lover, whose affections are moved, yet not tranquilhzed, who gazes with the eyes of fondness on an object that seems to be of a higher world, and admires as the stars are admired, which are acknowledged to be beautiful yet are never possessed ; the timid lover neither whoUy doubting, nor wholly hoping; the sport alternately of joy and of sorrow ; full of thought and full of longing ; feehng the sentiment of rapture yield to the faintness of uncertain hope, is half his time a true personification of ennui.

III

That the activity of ennui is widely diffused, will hardly be denied by any careful observer of human nature. No individual can conscientiously claim to have been always and wholly free from its temptations, except where there has been a life springing from the purest sources, sanctified by the early influence of rehgious motives, and protected from erroneous judgments by the steady exercise of a healtliM understanding. For tlie rest, though few are constantly afflicted with it as an incurable evil, there are stiU fewer who are not at times made to suffer from its . assaults. It lays its heavy hand ahke On the man of business and the recluse ; it has its favorite haunts in the city, but it chases the aspirant after rm-al fehcity, into the scenes of his rural hstlessness ; it makes the young melancholy, and the aged garrulous ; it haunts the sailor and the merchant ; it appears to the warrior and to the statesman ; it takes its place in the curule chair, and sits also at the frugal board of old-fashioned simpHcity. You cannot flee from it ; you cannot hide from it; it is swifter than the birds of passage, and swifter than the breezes that scatter clouds. It climbs the ship of the restless who long for the sims of Europe ; it jumps up behind the horseman who scours the woods of Michigan; it throws its scowhng glances on the attempt at present enjoyment ; it scares the epicurian from his voluptuousness, and when the ascetic has finished his vow, it compels him to repeat the tale of his beads.

To the prevalence of ennui must be traced the craving for intense excitement. When life has become almost stagnant, and the ordinary course of events proves unable to awaken any strong interest, ennui assumes a terrific power, and clamors for emotion, though that emotion is to be purchased by scenes of hoiTor and of crime. " What a magnificent entertainment ! " said the Parisian mob, '* how interesting a spectacle to see a woman of the wit and courage of Madame Roland pass under the guillotine ! " And the sensitive admirer of works of fiction ransacks the shelves of a library for novels of thrilling and " painftd " interest.

To the same kind of restless vacancy we have to ascribe the demand for the vehement declamations of the tragic actor, and the splendid music of the opera ; the cunning tricks of the village conjuror, and the lascivious pantomime of the city ballet-dancers; the disgusting varieties of buU-fights, and the mm'derous feats of pugilism. It has sometimes driven men to indulge the locomotive zeal of the professed pedestrians, and sometimes to seek the perfect quiescence of the " piUar saints."

The habits of ancient Rome illustrate most clearly the extent to which the passion for strong sensations may hurry the public mind into extravagances, and repress every sentiment of sympathy and generosity. Ambition itself is not so reckless of human life as ennui ; clemency is a favorite attribute of the former ; but ennui has the tastes of a cannibal, and the sight of human blood, shed for its amusement, makes it greedy after a renewal of the dreadful indulgence. The shows of the ancient gladiators were attended by an infinitely more numerous throng than is ever gathered by any modern spectacle. The fondness for murderous exhibitions raged with such vehemence, that they were at length introduced as an attraction at the banquet, and the guests, as they reclined at table in the luxmy of physical ease, have been wet by the life-blood of the womided gladiators.

Quinetiam exlularare viris convivia csede Mos ohm, et miscere epulis spectacula dira Certantmn ferro, ssepe et super ipsa cadentum Pocula, respersis nonparco sanguine mensis. Time would fail us were we to illustrate the various atrocities which attended these diversions, designed to amuse the most refined population of Rome ; or even to enumerate the various classifications in the art of murder on the stage. And let it not be supposed, that the life of one of these combatants was the more safe, because it depended on the interposition of the Roman fair. The signals in token of relenting clemency, proceeded commonly from the multitude ; the more usual signal, made by virgins and matrons, demanded the continuance of the combat unto death. We call Titus the dehght of the human race, and praise his commonplace puerihty, perdidi diem, though it was the exclamation of conceit, rather than of manhness. It was this philanthropist, this favorite of humanity, who caused the vast Roman amphitheatre to be erected, as it were a monument to all ages of the barbarous civihzation of the capital of his empire. And as to the numbers who appeared on these occasions, was it a pair? or a score? We will not ask after the massacres commanded and consummated by a Tiberius or a Cahgula. Trajan was a discreet prince; disposed to introduce habits of industry. Yet he kept up a succession of games to cheat the population of Kome of ennui, during a hundred and twenty-three days, in which time ten thousand gladiators were decked for sacrij&ce.

Thus the intenseness of this passion is evident from the method of rehef which it required. We may also remark, that superstition itself, interwoven as it is with all the fears and weaknesses of humanity, subjects the human mind to a bondage less severe and less permanent than that of the terrific craving after something to dissipate the weariness of the heart. At Rome the sacrifices to the heathen deities were abolished before the games of the gladiators were suppressed ; it was less difficult to take from the priests their spoils, from the altars their victims, from the prejudices of the people their rehgious faith, than to rescue from ennui the miserable wretches whose lives were to be the sport of the idle. The laws already forbade offering the bull to Jove, when the poet stiU had to pray that none might perish in the city mider the condemnation of pleasm^e,

Philosophy itself offers no guarantee against the common infirmities of Hstlessness. Many a stoic has resisted the attacks of external e\Tl with an exemplary fortitude, and has yet failed in his encounter with time. Strange, indeed, that time should be an incumbrance to a sage ! Strange indeed, that, when life is so short, and the range of thought boundless, and time the most precious of gifts, dealt out to us in successive moments, a possession which is most coveted, and can the least be hoarded, which comes, but never returns, which departs as soon as given, and is lost even in the receiving, — strange, indeed, that such a grant, so acceptable, so fleeting, and so irrevocable, should ever press severely upon a philosopher !

And yet wisdom is no security against ennui. The man who made Europe ring with his eloquence, and largely contributed to the spirit of repubhcan enthusiasm, wasted away for months in a state of the most foolish torpidity, under the idea that he was dying of a polypus at his heart. Nay, this speculatist, who presumed to believe himseK skilled in the ways of man and an adept in those of women, who dared to expound rehgion and proposed to reform Christianity, who committed and confessed the meanest actions, and yet, as if in the presence of the Supreme Arbiter of life and before the tribunal of Eternal Justice, arrogated to himself an equahty with the purest in the innumerable crowd of the immortal — he, the proud one, would so far yield to ennui, as to put the final and eternal welfare of his soul at issue on the throw of a stone. " Je men vais," he says to himself, "je men vais jeter cette pierre contre Varhre qui est vis-a-vis de moi : si je le toitche, signe de solid ; si je la manque, signe de damnatioii."

But Jean Jacques passes for a madman. The temperate Spinoza, being cut off from active life and from social love, necessarily encountered a void within himself. It was his favorite resource to catch spiders and teach them to fight ; and when he had so far made himself master of the natm'e of these animals, that he could get them as angry as game cocks, he would, all thin and feeble as he was, break out into a roar of laughter, and chuckle to see his champions engage, as if they, too, were fighting for honor.

Poor Spinoza ! It may indeed be questioned, whether his whole philosophy was not a sort of pastime with him. It may be, that he was ingenious because he could not be quiet, and wrote from a want of something to do. At any rate it has fared strangely with his works. The world had well-nigh become persuaded, that Spinoza was but a name for the most desolating form of atheism, and next he is canonized. The skeptic Bayle heaps ridicule upon the great Jewish dialectician; the dreamer Novahs, who liimself died of ennui, revered him as a model of sanctity.

But we liave a stronger example tlian either of these. The very philosopher, who first declared experience to be the basis of knowledge, and found his way to truth through the safe places of observation, gives in liis own character some evidences of participation in the common infirmity. He said very truly, that there is a foolish corner even in the brain of the sage. Yet if there has ever appeared on earth a man possessed of reason in its highest perfection, it was Aristotle. He had the gift of seeing the forms of things, undisturbed by the confusing splendor of their hues ; his facidties, like the art of sculptm'e, represented objects with the most precise outlines and exact images ; but the world in his mind was a colorless world. He understood and has explained the secrets of the human heart; but he performs his moral dissections with the coolness of an anatomist, engaged in a delicate operation. The nicety of his distinctions, and his deep insight into nature, are displayed without passion, while his constant effort after the discovery of new truth, never for one moment betrays him into mysticism, or tempts him to substitute shadows for realities. One would think, that such a master of analysis was the personification of self-possession ; that his unruffled mind would always dwell in the serene regions of intelligence ; that his step would rest on the firm ground of experience ; that his progress to the sublime temple of truth and of fame, would have been ever secure and rapid; that happiness itseK would have blessed him in his tranquil devotedness to exalted pursuits.

In the mouth of Pindar, hfe might be called a dream, and it would but pass for the effusion of poetic melancholy. But when the sagacious philosopher asserts, that aU hope is but the dream of wakmg man, the solemn expression of discontent is but the sad confession of his own unsatisfied curiosity ; and nothing but the wonderful vigor of his mind could have preserved him from settled gloom.

Again the venerable sage examined into the sources of happiness. It does not consist, he affirms, in voluptuous pleasures, for they are transient, brutahzing, and injurious to the mind ; nor in public honors, for they depend on those who bestow them, and it is not fehcity to be the recipient of an uncertain bounty; nor yet does happiness consist in riches, for the care of them is but a toil ; and if they are expended, it is plainly a proof, that contentment is sought for in the possession of other things. In his view, happiness consists in the pursuit of knowledge, and in the practice of virtue, under the auspices of mind, and nature, and fortune. He that is inteUigent, and young, and handsome, and vigorous, and rich, is alone the happy man. Did the world need the subhme wisdom, the high endowment of the Stagyrite, to teach, that neither the poor, nor the dull, nor the aged, nor the sick, can share in tlie higliest blessings of mortal being? When it is remembered that Aristotle was favored above all his contemporaries in intellectual gifts, we invite the reader to draw an inference as to the state of his mind, which still demanded the beauties of personal attractions, and the lavish Hberahty of fortune.

When asked what is the most transient of fleeting things, the philosopher made but a harsh answer, in naming "gratitude;" but his mind must have been sadly a prey to ennui, when he could exclaim, " My friends ! there are no friends."

He was not wilhng to sit or stand stiU, when he gave lessons in moral science ; but walked to and fro in constant restlessness. Indeed, if tradition reports rightly, he did not wait the will of Heaven for his release from weariness, but in spite of all his sublime teachings and all his expansive genius, he was content to die as the fool dieth.

But ennui kiUs others beside philosophers. It is not without example, that men have died by their own hand, because they have attained their utmost wishes. The man of business, finding himself possessed of a sufficient fortune, retires from his wonted employments ; but the habit of action remains, and becomes a power of terrific force. In such cases, the sufierer whiles away Hstless hours of intense suffering; the mind preys upon itseK, and sometimes hfe ebbs of itself, sometimes suicide is committed.

Saul went out to find Ms father's asses. Pleased with the humble employment he made search with a light heart and an honest one. But, seeking asses, he found a kingdom ; and tranquillity fled when possession was complete. The reproofs of conscience and discontent with the world produced in him a morbid melancholy, and pain itself would have been to him a welcome refuge from ennui.

We detect the same subtle spirit at work in the slanders in which gossips find relief. Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and fives of their neighbors for all their amusement ; and if a story is told of more than common interest, ennui is sure to have its joy in adding embeUishments. If hours did not hang heavy, what would become of scandal ? Time, the common enemy, must be passed, as the phrase is, and the phrase bears its own commentary ; and since the days of glacUators are gone by, what better substitute than blackening the reputation of the living? To the pusillanimous and the idle, scandal is the condiment of life ; and whUe backbiting furnishes their entertainment abroad, domestic quarrelling fills up the leisure hours at home. It is a pretty general rule, that the medisante is a termagant in her household ; and, as for our own sex, in nine cases out of ten, the evil tongue belongs to a disappointed man.