Intellectual life

Front matter

PRESENTIiD RY

I

Philip Gilbert Hamerton.

Preface

I PROPOSE, in the following pages, to consider the possibilities of a satisfactory intellectual life under various conditions of ordinary human existence. It will form a part of my plan to take into account favorable and unfavorable influences of many kinds; and my chief purpose, so far as any effect upon others may be hoped for, will be to guard some who may read the book alike against the loss of time caused by unnecessary discouragement, and the waste of effort which is the consequence of misdirected energies.

I have adopted the form of letters addressed to persons of very different position in order that every reader may have a chance of finding what concerns him. The letters, it is unnecessary to observe, are in one sense as fictitious as those we "find in novels, for they have never been sent to anybody by the post. yet the persons to whom they are addressed are not imaginary. I made it a rule, from the beginning, to think of a real person when writing, from an apprehension that by dwelling in a world too exclusively ideal 1 might lose sight of many impediments which beset all actual lives, even the most exceptional and fortunate.

-vi PREFACE.

The essence of the book may be expressed in a few sentences, the rest being httle more than evidence or illustration. First, it appears that all who are born with considerable intellectual faculties are urged towards the intellectual life by irresistible instincts, as water-fowl are urged to an aquatic life; but the lower animals have this advantage over man, that as their purposes are simpler, so they attain them more completely than he does. The life of a wild duck is in perfect accordance with its instincts, but the life of an Intellectual man is never on all points perfectly in accordance with his instincts. Many of the best intellectual lives known to us have been hampered by vexatious impediments of the most various and complicated kinds ; and when we come to have accurate and intimate knowledge of the lives led by our intellectual contemporaries, we are always quite sure to find that each of them has some great thwarting difficulty to contend against. Nor is it too much to say that if a man were so placed and endowed in every way that all his work should be made as easy as the ignorant imagine it to be, that man would find in that very facility itself a condition most unfavorable to his intellectual growth. So that, however circumstances may help us or hinder us, the intellectual life is always a contest or a discipline, and the art or skill of living intellectually does not so much consist in surrounding ourselves with what is reputed to be advantageous as in compelling every circumstance

PREFACE. vii

and condition of our lives to yield us some tribute of intellectual benefit and force. The needs of the intellect are as various as intellects themselves are various: and if a man has got high mental culture during his passage through life it is of little consequence where he acquired it, or how. The school of the intellectual man is the place where he happens to be, and his teachers are the people, books, animals, plants, stones, and earth roimd about him. The feeling almost always predominant in the minds of intellectual men as they grow older, is not so much one of regret that their opportunities were not more abundant, as of regret that they so often miissed opportunities which they might have turned to better account.

I have written for all classes, in the conviction that the intellectual life is really within the reach of every one who earnestly desires it. The highest culture can never be within the reach of those who cannot give the years of labor which it costs; and if we cultivate ourselves to shine in the eyes of others, to become famous in literature or science, then of course we must give many more hours of labor than can be spared from a life of practical industry. But I am fully convinced of this, convinced by the observation of living instances in all classes, that any man or woman of large natural capacity may reach the tone of thinking which may justly be called intellectual, even though that thinking may not be expressed in the most perfect language.

viii PBEFACE.

The essence of intellectual living does not reside in extent of science or in perfection of expression, but in a constant preference for higher thoughts over lower thoughts, and this preference may be the habit of a mind which has not any very considerable amount of information. This may be very easily demonstrated by a reference to men who lived intellectually in ages when science had scarcely begun to exist, and when there was but little literature that could be of use as an aid to culture. The humblest subscriber to a mechanics' institute has easier access to sound learning than had either Solomon or Aristotle, yet both Solomon and Aristotle lived the intellectual life. Whoever reads English is richer in the aids to culture than Plato was, yet Plato thought intellectually. It is not erudition that makes the intellectual man, but a sort of virtue which delights in vigorous and beautiful thinking, just as moral virtue delights in vigorous and beautiful conduct. Intellectual living is not so much an accomplishment as a state or condition of the mind in which it seeks earnestly for the highest and purest truth. It is the continual exercise of a firmly noble choice between the larger truth and the lesser, between that which is perfectly just and that which falls a little short of justice. The ideal life would be to choose thus firmly and delicately always, yet if we often blunder and fail for want of perfect wisdom and clear light, have we not the inward assurance that our aspira-

PREFACE. ix

tion has not been all in vain, that it has brought us a little nearer to the Supreme Intellect whose effulgence draws us whilst it dazzles? Here is the true secret of that fascination which belongs to intellectual pursuits, that they reveal to us a little more, and yet a little more, of the eternal order of the Universe, establishing us so firmly in what is known, that we acquire an unshakable confidence in the laws which govern what is noti» and never can be, known.

PART I. THE PHYSICAIi BASISo

:jetter pages

lo To a young man of letters who worked

III. To a student in uncertain health ........ 27

lYo To a muscular Christian ...» 42

Yo To a student who neglected bodily exercise . ... C

yi. To an author in mortal disease 5i

VII. To a young man of brilliant ability, who

had just taken his degree. o*?

Part II. The Moral, Basis

1. To a :^ioralist who had said that there was a want of moral fibre in the intellectual,

especially in poets and artists 87

IL To an undisciplined writer 80

III. To a friend who suggested the speculation "which of the moral virtues was most essential to the intellectual life " 91

lYo To a moralist who said that intellectual culture was not conducive to sexual morality... 98 idi CONTENTS.

Part III

L To a friend who recommended tAe author to learn this thing and that 104

II. To a friend who studied many things. . . 110

III. To the same 120

IVo To a student of literature 130

Yo To a country gentleman who regretted that his son had the tendencies of a

dilettant 134

TI. To the principal of a French college 137

Til. To the same 143

/III. To a student of modern languages. ..... 149

IX. To the same 153

X. To a student who lamented his defective memory. 165

SI. To a master of arts who said that a certain distinguished painter was half-educated .,,... 170

Part IV. The Poweb Of Time

f. To a man of leisure who complained of

want of time 176

XI. To a young man of great talent and energy

who had magnificent plans for the future 185 xH. To a man of business who desired to make himself better acquainted with literature, but whose time for reading was

limited. 200

lYc To a student who felt hurried and driven. 207 To To a friend who, though he had no profession, could not find time for his various intellectual pursuits 212

CONTENTS. xiii

PART Yo

THE INFLUENCES CF MONEY.

LKTTER PAGE

I. To a very ricli student 216

11. To a genius careless in money matters. . . 224 IIIo To a student in great poverty 239

PAET YI.

CUSTOM AND TRADITION.

I. To a young gentleman who had firmly resolved never to wear anything but a gray

coat 246

II. To a conservative who had accused the

author of a want of respect for tradition 254

III. To a lady who lamented that her son had intellectual doubts concerning the dogmas of the church . . 263

lYo To the son of the lady to whom the preceding letter was addressed 269

Yo To a friend who seemed to take credit to himself, intellectually, from the nature of his religious belief o . . 276

Tie To a Roman Catholic friend who accused the intellectual class of a want of reverence for authority 28C

PART YII.

WOMEN AND MAEEIAGE.

I. To a young gentleman of intellectual tastes, who, without having as yet any particular lady in view, had expressed, in a gene7'al way, his determination to get married 285

XIV

CONTENTS.

5JETTER, PAGK

II. To a young gentleman who contemplated

marriage 291

III. To the same 299

lYo To the same 306

Vo To the same. -312

VI. To a solitary student 322

VII. To a lady of high culture who found it difficult to associate with persons of

her own sex 325

VIII. To a lady of high culture 330

IX. To a young man of the middle class, well educated, who complained that it was difficult for him to live agreeably with his mother, a person of somewhat authoritative disposition, but uneducated 333

PAKT YIII.

AEISTOCRACY AND DEMOCKACYo

Ic To a young English nobleman. ............ 341

Ho To an English democrat ....... .......... . 358

PAET IX.

SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.

I. To a lady who doubted the reality of intellectual friendships 374

11. To a young gentleman who lived much in

fashionable society 379

III. To the same 384

lY. To the same 391

Yo To a young gentleman who kept entirely

out of company. 397

VI. To a friend who kindly warned the author

of the bad effects of solitude . . ...... 402

CONTENTS. XT

PAET X.

INTELLECTUAL HYGIENICS. liKTTER PAGE

I. To a young author whilst he was writing

his first book 415

II. To a student in the first ardor of intellectual ambition 422

III. To an intellectual man who desired an

outlet for his energies 431

lYo To the friend of a man of high culture

who produced nothing 441

Y. To a student who felt hurried and driven 446 VI. To an ardent friend who took no rest. . 451

VII. To the same 456

VIII. To a friend (highly cultivated) who congratulated himself on having entirely abandoned the habit of reading newspapers 46G

IX. To an author who appreciated contemporary literature 470

X. To an author who kept very irregular

hours 476

?AET XL

TRADES AND PEOFESSIONS.

L To a young gentleman of ability and culture who had not decided about his profession , 488

11. To a yoimg gentleman who had literary

and artistic tastes, but no i^rof ession 499

III. To a young gentleman who wished to devote himself to literature as a profession 604 IV To an energetic and successful cotton

manufacturer, 513 xvi CONTENTS.

I*ETTER PAGE

Y. To a young Etonian who thought of hecoming a cotton-spinner 522

PART XII.

STJEBOUlSrDIIirGS,

I. To a friend who often changed his place of

residence 580

II. To a friend who maintained that surroundings were a matter of indifference to a

thoroughly occupied mind 539

III. To an artist who was fitting up a magnificent new studio 546

THE

INTELLECTUAL LIFE.

PAET I.

Letter I. To A Young Man Of Letters Who Worked Excessively

Mental labor believed to be innocuous to healthy persons-* Difficulty of testing this — Case of the poet Wordsworth—* Case of an eminent living author — Case of a literary clergyman—Case of an energetic tradesman — Instances of two Londoners who wrote professionally — Scott's paralysis- Byron's death — All intellectual labor proceeds on a physical basis.

So little is really known about the action of the nervous system, that to go into the subject from the physiological point of view would be to undertake a most difficult investigation, entirely beyond the competence of an unscientific person like your present correspondent. You will, therefore, permit me, in reference to this, to leave you to the teaching of the most advanced physiologists 2

^ THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE.

of the time ; but I may be able to offer a few practical suggestions, based on the experience of intellectual workers, which may be of use to a man whose career is likely to be one of severe and almost uninterrupted intellectual labor.

A paper was read several years ago before the members of a society in London, in which the author maintained that mental labor was ^never injurious to a perfectly healthy human organization, and that the numerous cases of l)reak-down, which are commonly attributed to excessive brain- work, are due, in reality, to the previous operation of disease.

This is one of those assertions which cannot Ibe answered in a sentence. Concentrated 'within the briefest expression it comes to this, that mental labor cannot produce disease, but may aggravate the consequences of disease ■which already exists.

The difficulty of testing this is obvious ; for BO long as health remains quite perfect, it remains perfect, of course, whether the brain is "used or not ; and when failure of health becomes manifest, it is not always easy to decide in what degree mental labor may have been the cause of it. Again, the accuracy of so general a statement cannot be proved by any number of instances in its favor, since it is Universally admitted that brain-work is not the only cause of disease, and no one affirms that it is more than one amongst many causes which may impede the bodily functions.

When the poet Wordsworth was engaged in composing the ' ' White Doe of Eylstone, " he received a wound in his foot, and he observed that the continuation of the Hterary labor increased the irritation of the wound ; whereas by suspending his work he could diminish it, and absokite mental rest produced a perfect cure. In connection with this incident he remarked that poetic excitement, accompanied by protracted labor in composition, always brought on more or less of bodily derangement. He preserved himself from permanently injurious consequences by his excellent habits of life.

A very eminent living author, whose name I do not feel at liberty to mention, is always prostrated by severe illness at the conclusion of each of his works ; another is unwell every Sunday, because he does not write on that day, and the recoil after the mental stretch of the week is too much for him.

In the case of Wordsworth, the physical constitution is believed to have been sound. His health at seventy -two was excellent ; the two other instances are more doubtful in this respect, yet both these writers enjoy very fair health, after the pressure of brain-work has been removed for any considerable time. A clergyman of robust organization, who does a good deal of literary work at intervals, told me that, whenever he had attempted to Eaake it regular, the consequence had always been distressing nervous sensations, from which at other times he was perfectly free. A tradesman, whose business affords an excellent outlet for energetic bodily activity, told me that having attempted, in addition to his ordinary work, to acquire a foreign language which seemed likely to be useful to him, he had been obliged to abandon it on account of alarming cerebral symptoms. This man has immense vigor and energy, but the digestive fimctions, in this instance, are sluggish. However, when he abandoned study, the cerebral inconveniences disappeared^ and have never returned since.

Two Londoners who followed literature as a profession, and who both worked to excess, had cerebral attacks of a still more decided kind. One of them, after his recovery, resolved to regulate his work in future, so that it might never pass the limits of moderation. He is now living, and in possession of a remarkably clear and richly furnished intellect. The other, who returned to his old habits, died in two years from softening of the brain. I am not aware that in these cases there was any other disease than that produced by an immoderate use of the mental powers.

The health of Sir Walter Scott— we have this on his own testimony — was uncommonly robust, and there is every reason to believe that his paralysis was brought on by the excessive labor which resulted from his pecuniary embarrassments, and that without sucli excessive mental labor and anxiety he would have preserved his health much longer. The death of Byron was due, no doubt, quite as much to habits of dissipation as to poetical excitement; still it is probable that he would have borne either of these evil influences if it had not been accompanied by the other ; and that to a man whose way of life was so exhausting as Byron's was, the addition of constant poetical excitement and hard work in production, may be said without exaggeration to have killed him. We know that Scott, with all his facility, had a dread of that kind of excitement, and withdrew from the poetical arena to avoid it. V/e know, too, that the brain of Southey proved ultimately unable to endure the burden of the tasks he laid upon it.

Difhcult as it may be in some instances to ascertain quite accurately whether an overworked man had perfectly sound bodily liealtb to begin with, obvious as it may be that in many breakdowns the final failure lias been accelerated by diseases independent of mental work, the facts remain, that the excessive exercise of the mental powers is injurious to bodily health and that all intellectual labor proceeds upon a physical basis. No man can safely forget this, and act as if he were a pure spirit, superior to physical considerations. Let me then, in other letters on this subject, direct your attention to the close connection which exists between intellectual production and the state of the body and the brain ; not with the authority of a physician, but with the sympathy of a fellow-laborer, who has learned something from his own experience.

and still more from the more varied experi ence of his friends.

Letter II. To A Young Man Of Letters Who Worked Excessively

Mental labor rarely compatible with the best physical conditions—Wordsworth's manner of composition — Mr. W. F. A. Delane— George Sand working under pressure— Sir Walter Scott's field-sports— Physical exercise the best tranquilhzer of the nervous system — Eugene Sue — Shelley's love of boating — Nervousness the affliction of brain-workers— Nature's kindly warning— Working by spurts— Beckford— Byron— Indolence of men of genius fortunate — Distressing nature of cerebral fatigue.

It is possible that many of the worst results of intellectual labor may be nothing more than indirect results. We may suffer, not from the work itself, but from sedentary confinement, from want of exercise, from insufficient variety and amusement.

Mental labor is seldom compatible with the best physical conditions; it is so sometimes, however, or may be made so by an effort of will and resolution. Worasworth composed his poetry in the open air, as he walked, and so preserved himself from the evil of close confinement to the desk. Mr. W. F. A. Delane, who did so much for the organization of the Ti^nes newspaper when it was under his management, began by doing law reports for that paper, in London and on circuit. His appearance of rude health surprised other members of his profession, but he accounted for it by the care he took to compensate for the bad air and sedentary la* bor in the courts of law by travelling between the assize towns on horseback, and also by a more than commonly temperate way of life, since he carefully avoided the bar dinners, eating and drinking for health alone. It is possible to endure the most unhealthy labor when there are frequent intervals of invigorating exercise, accompanied by habits of strict sobriety. The plan, so commonly resorted to, of trying to get health in stock for the rest of the year by a fortnight's hurried travelling in the autumn, is not so good as Mr. Delane's way of getting the week's supply of health during the course of the week itself.

It happened once that George Sand was hurried by the proprietor of a newspaper who wanted one of her novels as a feuilleton. She has always been a careful and deliberate worker, very anxious to give all necessary labor in preparation, and, like all such conscientious laborers, she can scarcely endure to be pushed. However, on this occasion she worked overtime, as they say in Lancashire^ and to enable herself to bear the extra pressure she did part of the work at night in order to keep several hours of daylight clear for her walks in the country, where she lived. Many writers, in the same sitvation, would have temporarily abandoned exercise, but George Sand clung to it all the more at a time when it was especially necessary that she should be well. In the same way Sir Walter Scott counterbalanced the effects of sedentary occupation by his hearty enjoyment of field-sports. It has been supposed that his outdoor exercise, which to weaker persons appears excessive, may have helped to bring on the stroke of paralysis which final* ly disabled him ; but the fact is, that when the stroke arrived Sir Walter had altered his habits of life in obedience to what he believed to be his duty, and had abandoned, or nearly so, the active amusements of his happier years. I believe rather that whilst he took so much exercise his robust constitution not only enabled him to endure it without injury, but required it to keep the nervous system healthy, in spite of his hard work in literary composition. Physical exercise, when the constitution is strong enough to endure it, is by far the best tranquillizer of the nervous system which has yet been discovered, and Sir Walter's life at Abbotsford was, in this respect at least, grounded on the true philoso^ phy of conduct. The French romancer, Eugene Sue, wrote till ten o'clock every moru' ing, and passed the rest of the day, when at his country house, either in horse-exercise, or field-sports, or gardening, for all of which he had a liking which amounted to passion. Shelley's delight was boating, which at once exercised his muscles and relieved his mind from the weariness of incessant invention or speculation. It will generally be found, that whenever a man of much intellectual distinction has maintained his powers in full activity, it has been by avoiding the bad effects of an entirely sedentary life.

I well believe that a person naturally robust, with a, clear and powerful bra^in, could bear twelve or fourteen hours' work every davj^ for years together so far as the work itself is concerned, if only so large an expenditure of time left a sufficient margin for amusement, and exercise, and sleep. But the privation of exercise, by weakening the digestive and assimilative powers, reduces the flow of healthy and rich blood to the brain — the brain requires an enormous quantity of blood, especially when the cerebral matter is rapidly destroyed by intellectual labor —and usually brings on nervousness, the peculiar affliction of the over-driven mental laborer. This nervousness is Nature's kindly warning, preserving us, if we attend to it in time, from much more serious consequences. The best preventive of it, and often the only cure, is plenty of moderate exercise. The customs of the upper classes in England happily j)rovide this in the best shape, that of amusement enjoyed in society, but our middle classes in large towns do not get nearly enough of it, and the most studious are always strongly tempted to neglect it altogether.

Men of great imaginative power are commonly addicted to a habit which is peculiarly dangerous. They work as race-horses work, with the utmost intensity of effort during short spaces of time, taxing all their powers whilst the brilliant effort lasts. When Beckford wrote the wonderful tale " Vathek " in his twentieth year, he did it at a single sitting, which lasted for three days and two nights, and it cost him a serious illness. Several of the best poems by Byron were written, if not quite with equal rapidity, still on the same principle of composition at white heat. In cases of this kind, Nature provides her own remedy in the indolence of the imaginative temperament, which leaves large spaces of time for the action of the recuperative processes. The same law governs the physical energies of the carnivora, which maintain, or recover, their capacity for extraordinary effort by intervals of absolute repose. In its long spaces of mental rest the imaginative temperament recruits itself by amusement, which in England usually includes physical exercise of some kind.

This fortunate indolence of men of genius would in most instances ensure their safety if they were not impelled by necessity to labor beyond the suggestions of inclinatio«i. The exhausted brain never of itself seeks the additional exhaustion of hard work. You know very well when you are tired, and at such times the natural man in you asks plainly enough for rest and recreation. The art is so to arrange our lives that the natural man may sometimes have his way, and forget, if only for a time, the labors which lead to weariness—not to that pleasant woariness of the

THE PHYSICAL BASIS. 2t

Dody which promises soundest sleep, but the distressing fatigue of the exhausted spirit which is tortured by the importunity of ideas which it is unable to express, and apprehensions that it cannot dismiss, which fights through the sleepless night the phantoms of unconquerable horror.

Note.— The bad effect of literary composition on the physical state which was observed by Wordsworth in his own case was also noticed by SheUey dui'ing the composition of the " Cenci," which, he said, had been a fine antidote to nervous medicines, and kept, he beheved, the pain in his side " as sticks do a fire. ' ' These influences are best obsei'ved in people whose health is delicate. Although Joubert, for example, had an extremely clear intellect, he could scarcely write at all on accoimt of the physical consequences. I have come to the conclusion that hterary work acts simjyly as a strong stimulant. In moderate quantities it is not only innocent, but decidedly beneficial; in excess it acts like poison on the nervous system. What constitutes excess every man has to find out by his own experience. A page was excess to Joubert, a chapter was moderation to Alexandre Dumas.

Letter III. To A Student In Uncertain Health

Habits of Kant, the philosopher — Objection to an over-minute regularity of habit— Value of independence of character— Case of an English ciitlior— Case of an Eui^lish resident in Paris — Scott an abundant eater anc. drinker — Goethe also — An eminent French publisher — Turgot — Importance of good cookery — Wine drinking — Ale — The aid of stimulants treacherous — The variou:: off ects of tobacco — Tea and coffee— Case of an English clergyman — Balzac— The Arabia custom o^" coffee-drinking — Wisdom of occasionally using stimulants.

Immanuei. Kant, who was a master in the art of taking care of himself, had by practice aer;aired a dexterous mode of folding himself up in the bed-clothes, by passing them over and under his shoulders, so that, when the operation was complete, he was shut up like the silkworm in his cocoon. ' ' When I am thus snugly folded up in my bed," he would say to his friends, "I say to myself, can any m.an be in better health than I am? "

There is nothing in the lives of philosophers more satisfactory than this little passage. If Kant had said to himself, ' ' Can anybody be wiser, more learned, more justly deserving of immortal fame than I am? " we should have felt, that however agreeable this ojpinion might have been to the philosopher who held it, his private satisfaction stood in need of confirmation from without ; and even if he had really been all this, we might have reflected that wisdom and learning still leave their possessor exx3osed to the acutest kinds of suffering. But when a philosopher rolls himself up at night, and congratulates himself on the possession of perfect health, we only think what a happy man he was to possess that first of blessings, and what a sensible man to know the value of it ! And Kant had a deeper happiness in this reflection than any which could spring from the mere consciousness of possessing one of the unearned gifts of nature. The excellence of his health was due in part to a sufficiently good constitution, but it was due also to his own extreme carefulness about his habits. By an unceasing observation of his own bodily life, as far as possible removed from, the anxiety of hypochondriacs, he managed to keep the physical machine in such regular order, that for more than thirty years he always rose precisely at the same minute. If his object had been health for health's sake, the result would still have been well worth any sacrifices of momentary inclination that it cost him ; but Kant had a higher purpose. He well knew that the regularity of the intellectual life depended entirely on the regularity of the bodily functions, and, unlike the foolish men alluded to by Goethe who pass the day in complaining of headache, and the night in drinking the wine that produces it, Kant not only knew that regular health was necessary to his work as a philosopher, but did everything in his power to preserve it. Few intellectual laborers have in this respect given evidence of such persistent strength of will.