XII.
CONDUCT.
Hazlitt, in one of his discursive essays, says, "I stopped these two days at Bridgewater, and when I was tired of sauntering on the banks of its muddy river, returned to the inn and read Camilla. So have I loitered my life away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me best. I have wanted only one thing to make me happy; but wanting that have wanted everything." Alas! who has not wanted one thing? Fortunatus had a cap, which when he put on, and wished himself anywhere, behold he was there. Aladdin had a lamp, which if he rubbed, and desired anything, immediately it was his. If we each had both, there would still be something wanting—one thing more. Donatello's matchless statue of St. George "wanted one thing," in the opinion of Michel Angelo; it wanted "the gift of speech." The poor widow in Holland that Pepys tells us about in his Diary, who survived twenty-five husbands, wanted one thing more, no doubt—perhaps one more husband. "Hadst thou Samson's hair, Milo's strength, Scanderbeg's arm, Solomon's wisdom, Absalom's beauty, Crœsus's wealth, Cæsar's valor, Alexander's spirit, Tully's or Demosthenes's eloquence, Gyges's ring, Perseus's Pegasus, and Gorgon's head, Nestor's years to come, all this," saith Burton, "would not make thee absolute, give thee content and true happiness in this life, or so continue it." Proverbially, we never are, but always to be, blest. "A child," said the good Sachs, "thinks the stars blossom on the trees; when he climbs to the tree-tops, he fancies they cluster on the spire; when he climbs the spire, he finds, to reach them, he must leave the earth and go to heaven." There is an old German engraving, in the manner of Holbein, which represents an aged man near a grave, wringing his hands. Death, behind, directs his attention to heaven. In the palace Sciarra is a very expressive picture by Schedone. On the ruins of an old tomb stands a skull, beneath which is written—"I, too, was of Arcadia;" and, at a little distance, gazing at it in attitudes of earnest reflection, stand two shepherds, struck simultaneously with the moral. What we have is nothing, what we want, everything. "All worldly things," says Baxter, "appear most vain and unsatisfactory, when we have tried them most." The prize we struggled for, which filled our imagination, when attained was not much; worthless in grasp, priceless in expectation. The one thing we want is one thing we have not—that we have not had.
"I saw the little boy,
In thought how oft that he
Did wish of God, to scape the rod,
A tall young man to be.
"The young man eke that feels
His bones with pain opprest,
How he would be a rich old man,
To live and lie at rest:
"The rich old man that sees
His end draw on so sore,
How he would be a boy again,
To live so much the more."
This hunger, this hope, this longing, is our best possession at last, and fades not away, unsubstantial as it may seem. It builds for each one of us magnificent castles. "All the years of our youth and the hopes of our manhood are stored away, like precious stones, in the vaults; and we know that we shall find everything convenient, elegant, and splendid, when we come into possession." Curtis, in one of his exquisite sketches, treats this element of us as no other author has. He calls it his Spanish property. "I am the owner," he says, "of great estates; but the greater part are in Spain. It is a country famously romantic, and my castles are all of perfect proportions, and appropriately set in the most picturesque situations. I have never been to Spain myself, but I have, naturally, conversed much with travelers to that country, although, I must allow, without deriving from them much substantial information about my property there. The wisest of them told me that there were more holders of real estate in Spain than in any other region he had ever heard of, and they are all great proprietors. Every one of them possesses a multitude of the stateliest castles. From conversation with them you easily gather that each one considers his own castles much the largest and in the loveliest positions.... It is remarkable that none of the proprietors have ever been to Spain to take possession and report to the rest of us the state of our property there. I, of course, cannot go, I am too much engaged. So is Titbottom. And I find that it is the case with all the proprietors. We have so much to detain us at home that we cannot get away. It is always so with rich men.... It is not easy for me to say how I know so much as I certainly do about my castles in Spain. The sun always shines upon them. They stand large and fair in a luminous, golden atmosphere, a little hazy and dreamy, perhaps, like the Indian summer, but in which no gales blow and there are no tempests. All the sublime mountains, and beautiful valleys, and soft landscapes, that I have not yet seen, are to be found in the grounds. They command a noble view of the Alps; so fine, indeed, that I should be quite content with the prospect of them from the highest tower of my castle, and not care to go to Switzerland. The neighboring ruins, too, are as picturesque as those of Italy, and my desire of standing in the Coliseum and of seeing the shattered arches of the aqueducts, stretching along the Campagna, and melting into the Alban Mount, is entirely quenched. The rich gloom of my orange groves is gilded by fruit as brilliant of complexion and exquisite of flavor as any that ever dark-eyed Sorrento girls, looking over the high plastered walls of Southern Italy, hand to the youthful travelers, climbing on donkeys up the narrow lane beneath. The Nile flows through my grounds. The Desert lies upon their edge, and Damascus stands in my garden. I am given to understand, also, that the Parthenon has been removed to my Spanish possessions. The Golden Horn is my fish preserve; my flocks of golden fleece are pastured on the plain of Marathon, and the honey of Hymettus is distilled from the flowers that grow in the vale of Enna—all in my Spanish domains. From the windows of these castles look the beautiful women whom I have never seen, whose portraits the poets have painted. They wait for me there, and chiefly the fair-haired child, lost to my eye so long ago, now bloomed into an impossible beauty. The lights that never shone glance at evening in the vaulted halls, upon banquets that were never spread. The bands I have never collected play all night long, and enchant the brilliant company, that was never assembled, into silence. In the long summer mornings the children that I never had, play in the gardens that I never planted.... I have often wondered how I shall ever reach my castles. The desire of going comes over me very strongly sometimes, and I endeavor to see how I can arrange my affairs so as to get away. To tell the truth, I am not quite sure of the route,—I mean, to that particular part of Spain in which my estates lie. I have inquired very particularly, but nobody seems to know precisely.... Will you tell me what you consider the shortest and safest route thither, Mr. Bourne? for, of course, a man who drives such an immense trade with all parts of the world will know all that I have come to inquire.' 'My dear sir,' answered he, wearily, 'I have been trying all my life to discover it; but none of my ships have ever been there—none of my captains have any report to make. They bring me, as they brought my father, gold-dust from Guinea; ivory, pearls, and precious stones from every part of the earth; but not a fruit, not a solitary flower, from one of my castles in Spain. I have sent clerks, agents, and travelers of all kinds; philosophers, pleasure-hunters, and invalids, in all sorts of ships, to all sorts of places, but none of them ever saw or heard of my castles, except one young poet, and he died in a mad-house.'... At length I resolved to ask Titbottom if he had ever heard of the best route to our estates. He said that he owned castles, and sometimes there was an expression in his face as if he saw them.... 'I have never known but two men who reached their estates in Spain.' 'Indeed,' said I, 'how did they go?' 'One went over the side of a ship, and the other out of a third story window,' answered Titbottom. 'And I know one man that resides upon his estates constantly,' continued he. 'Who is that?' 'Our old friend Slug, whom you may see any day at the asylum, just coming in from the hunt, or going to call upon his friend the Grand Lama, or dressing for the wedding of the Man in the Moon, or receiving an embassador from Timbuctoo. Whenever I go to see him, Slug insists that I am the pope, disguised as a journeyman carpenter, and he entertains me in the most distinguished manner. He always insists upon kissing my foot, and I bestow upon him, kneeling, the apostolic benediction. This is the only Spanish proprietor in possession, with whom I am acquainted.'... Ah! if the true history of Spain could be written, what a book were there!"
"Gayly bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
"But he grew old,
This knight so bold,
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.