The Bed-Book of Happiness Part 19

So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot--filled him pretty near up to the chin--and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and gave him to this feller, and says:

"Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his forepaws just even with Dan'l, and I'll give the word." Then he says, "One--two--three--jump!" and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off, but Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders--so--like a Frenchman, but it wan't no use--he couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as an anvil, and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anch.o.r.ed out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was, of course.

The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder--this way--at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, "Well, _I_ don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."

Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, "I do wonder what in the nation that frog throwed off for--I wonder if there ain't something the matter with him--he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow." And he ketched Dan'l by the nap of his neck, and lifted him up and says, "Why, blame my cats, if he don't weigh five pounds!" and turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was and he was the maddest man--he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him. And--

(Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got up to see what was wanted.) And, turning to me as he moved away, he said: "Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy--I ain't going to be gone a second."

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of the enterprising vagabond _Jim_ Smiley would be likely to afford me much information concerning the _Rev. Leonidas W._ Smiley, and so I started away.

At the door I met the social Wheeler returning, and he b.u.t.tonholed me and recommenced:

"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn't have no tail, only just a short stump like a bannanner, and--"

"Oh! hang Smiley and his afflicted cow!" I muttered good-naturedly, and, bidding the old gentleman good-day, I departed.

THE CHARMING FRENCHMAN

BOSSUET [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

As for the happiness itself, of which he would give us a just idea, the purely spiritual and internal happiness of the soul in the other life, he sums it up in an expression which concludes a happy development of the subject, and he defines it: _Reason always attentive and always contented_. Take reason in its liveliest and most luminous sense, the pure flame disengaged from the senses.

ROUSSEAU [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

It is from him that the sentiment of nature is reckoned among us, in the eighteenth century. It is from him also that is dated, in our literature, _the sentiment of domestic life; of that homely, poor, quiet, hidden life, in which are acc.u.mulated so many treasures of virtue and affection_. Amid certain details, in bad taste, in which he speaks of robbery and of eatables, how one pardons him on account of that old song of childhood, of which he knows only the air and some words st.i.tched together, but which he always wished to recover, and which he never recalls, old as he is, without a soothing charm!

JOUBERT [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

Taste, for him, is the literary conscience of the soul....

M. Joubert was, in his day, the most delicate and the most original type of that cla.s.s of honest people which the old society alone produced,--spectators, listeners who had neither ambition nor envy, who were curious, at leisure, attentive, and disinterested, who took an interest in everything, the true amateurs of beautiful things. "To converse and to know--it was in this, above all things, that consisted, according to Plato, the happiness of private life." This cla.s.s of connoisseurs and of amateurs, so fitted to enlighten and to restrain talent, has almost disappeared in France since every one there has followed a profession. "We should always," said M. Joubert, "have a corner of the head open and free, that we may have a place for the opinions of our friends, where we may lodge them provisionally. It is really insupportable to converse with men who have, in their brains, only compartments which are wholly occupied, and into which nothing external can enter. Let us have _hospitable hearts and minds_."

Life is a duty; we must make a pleasure of it, so far as we can, as of all other duties. If the care of cheris.h.i.+ng it is the only one with which it pleases Heaven to charge us, we must acquit ourselves gaily and with the best possible grace, and poke that sacred fire, while warming ourselves by it all we can, till the word comes to us: That will do.

MME D'HOUDETOT [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

In the years to which we refer--that is, the years immediately preceding 1800--there were gathered in the salon of this charming old lady the remnants both of fas.h.i.+onable and philosophical society--never, indeed, entirely exiled thence. It may be said of Mme d'Houdetot that her ideal existence was always bounded by that Montmorency valley where the ardent devotion of Jean Jacques has engraved her memory, as it were, in immortal characters. There, again and again, her idyllic spring-time renewed its bloom, and the freshness of her impressions continued unimpaired until her dying day. She even remained in the country during the Reign of Terror, her retreat being respected, and her relatives flocking about her; and "I can readily believe," writes Mme de Remusat, in a charming portrait of her venerable friend, "that she retains, of those frightful days, merely the memory of the increased tenderness and consideration which they procured for her."

MME DE ReMUSAT [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

O mothers, gather your children about you early. Dare to say, when they come into the world, that your youth is pa.s.sing into theirs. O mothers, be mothers, and you will be wise and happy!

DIDEROT [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

If the _Encyclopedia_ was in Diderot's time considered his princ.i.p.al social work, his princ.i.p.al glory in the eyes of the men of to-day consists in his having been the first to create the emotional and eloquent style of criticism. It is through this that he has become immortal, through this that he will be for ever dear to us journalists of every sort and condition. Let us bow down to him as our father, and as the founder of this style of criticism.

Before Diderot's time, the French style of criticism had been, firstly, as offered by Bayle, of a precise, inquiring, and subtle tone. Fenelon represented criticism as an elegant and delicate art, while Rollin exhibited its most useful and honest side. From a due sense of decency, I refrain from mentioning the names of Freron and Des Fontaines. But nowhere yet had criticism acquired anything like vividness, fertility, and penetration; it had not yet found its soul. Diderot was the first to find it. Naturally inclined to look over defects, and to admire good qualities, "I am more affected," he remarked, "by the charms of virtue than the deformity of vice; I quietly turn away from the wicked and _fly forward to meet the good_. If there happens to be a beautiful spot in a book, a character, a picture, or a statue, it is there that I let my eyes rest; I can only see this beautiful spot, I can only remember it, while the rest I nearly forget. What do I become when everything is beautiful!" This inclination to welcome everything with enthusiasm--this sort of universal admiration--undoubtedly had its danger. It is said of him that he was singularly happy "in never having encountered a wicked man nor a bad book." For, even if the book were bad, he would unconsciously impute to the author some of his own ideas. Like the alchemist, he found gold in the melting-pot, from the fact he had placed it there himself. However, it is to him that all honour is due for having introduced among us the fertile criticism of _beauties_, which he subst.i.tuted for that of _defects_. Chateaubriand himself, in that portion of the _Genius of Christianity_ in which he eloquently discourses on literary criticism, only follows the path opened by Diderot....

"A pleasure that I enjoy alone affects me but slightly, and is of short duration. It is for my friends as well as myself that I read, that I reflect, that I write, that I meditate, that I listen, that I look, that I feel. In their absence I am still devoted to them; I am continually thinking of their happiness. If I am struck with a beautiful line, they must know it. If I meet with a fine pa.s.sage, I promise myself to impart it to them. If I have before my eyes some enchanting spectacle, I unconsciously plan a description of it for their benefit. I have consecrated to them the use of all my senses and faculties; and it is perhaps for this reason that everything becomes somewhat enriched in my imagination and exaggerated in my discourse. Nevertheless, the ungrateful creatures sometimes reproach me."

LA BRUYeRE [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

That philosopher, always accessible, even in the deepest studies, who tells you to come in, for you bring him something more precious than gold or silver, _if it is the opportunity of obliging you._

SABBATH BELLS [Sidenote: _Anon._]

Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding!

The church bells they du ring, Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding!

An' seems they bells du zing: "O merry be! O merry be!

The work it all be done, Zee, peas and brocoli du graw Tremenjus in the zun; An' hot it is, an' calm it is, Bees buzz an' cattle doze; Zo, laze about, an' talk about, All in your Zunday clo's."

_Ding--ding-a-ding_! Ding--ding-a-ding_!

Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding!

The church bells merry ring, Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding!

An,' dang it! doan't they zing?-- "O rest awhile! O rest awhile!

Vor 'tis amazin' sweet To watch the white-heart cabbages All bustin' in the heat; Zo, zit about, an' stand about, Beside ov Early Rose, An' puff a pipe, an' think ov things, All in your Zunday clo's."

_Ding--ding-a-ding_! Ding--ding-a-ding_!

Dong! Dong! Dong!

There's a shadow on the marn, Dong! Dong! Dong!

The one larst bell du warn: "O fulish mun! O fulish mun!

Life be no more than gra.s.s, It glitters in the s.h.i.+nin' zun-- Until the Reaper pa.s.s!

An', hark! I call 'ee up to prayer, Wi' pa.s.sen, clerk, an' schule, Come up along, an' take thee seat Thou ole pig-headed fule!"

_Dong_! _Dong_! _Dong_!

UNCLE TOBY AND THE FLY [Sidenote: _Sterne_]

My uncle _Toby_ was a man patient of injuries;--not from want of courage,--I have told you in a former chapter, "that he was a man of courage":--And will add here, that where just occasions presented, or called it forth,--know no man under whose arm I would have sooner taken shelter;--nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness of his intellectual parts;--for he felt this insult of my father's as feelingly as a man could do;--but he was of a peaceful, placid nature,--no jarring element in it,--all was mixed up so kindly within him; my uncle _Toby_ had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly.

--Go--says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time,--and which, after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him;--I'll not hurt thee, says my uncle _Toby_, rising from his chair, and going across the room, with the fly in his hand,--I'll not hurt a hair of thy head;--Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape;--go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?--This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

I was but ten years old when this happened: but whether it was, that the action itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity, which instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most pleasurable sensation;--or how far the manner and expression of it might go towards it;--or, in what degree, or by what secret magick,--a tone of voice and harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find a pa.s.sage to my heart, I know not;--this I know, that the lesson of universal good-will then taught and imprinted by my uncle _Toby_ has never since been worn out of my mind: And tho' I would not depreciate what the study of the _Literae humaniores,_ at the University, have done for me in that respect, or discredit the other helps of an expensive education bestowed upon me, both at home and abroad since;--yet I often think that I owe one half of my philanthropy to that one accidental expression.