The Book of Months

by E. F. Benson

Pray, then, that you may continue to want, not that you may continue to get; for the getting in a manner comes of its own accord, and it is the ability to want that we must keep alive. We may feel quite certain that the world is big enough; there are plenty of things to want if only we have the power of wanting. For wanting means just this—the capacity of growth. To want no longer, means that one is old—old not only in years (indeed, such an old age may come to an unbearded lad, in which case we laugh, and say, ‘Look at that cynic of twenty’), but old in fibre, inelastic, set, rigid. Nor does it, I think, much matter what one wants—again I beg the patient reader to remember that I am not talking of the great spiritual needs—as long as it is not harmful. But for any sake try to be keen about something.

At this point my reflections, to tell the truth, touched me somewhat on the raw, for what have I wanted every day for the last two years? That which I cannot get—Margery. And yet how shall I say that I cannot get her, when, if I knew all, I might know that these silent daily longings of mine have brought me, perhaps, a little nearer to that dear spirit, that without them I should have been a little more ill-tempered, a little nastier, than I am. Anyhow, I want to want. For I do not yet acquiesce, I cannot yet believe, that the world holds nothing for me but that. Here am I walking along this road of life. All down it I meet every day new faces, new people, new factors. One sees but a few yards ahead; then there is a corner, and round that corner will come others, looking like myself for that which their soul needs. Oh, hurrying footsteps, coming ever nearer, is there not one among you all that will stop when you reach me, and go no further in your quest? Is there not one which shall, while still a great way off, strike on my ear as distinct and utterly different from all others—one which I recognise, though I have never yet seen her to whom that step belongs. Among these miles of eager human eyes, shall not some day mine eyes seek other eyes, and find there that which has been predestined for me by God? O Margery, my dear friend, how you will welcome her (should I find her), for her sake and for mine, when we meet in the everlasting habitations!

Another train of birthday reflections led to this conclusion: ‘Give up the pursuit of anything which seems to you of doubtful gain.’ For there are so many indisputably good and real pursuits in the world, that it cannot possibly be worth while pursuing what may not be wholly good, and may possibly be not wholly real. Here I have a certain small right to speak, for in the last year I have given up something which seemed to me of possibly doubtful gain, and I have found that it was a wise step. That which I have given up is singularly known as ‘the world.’ I once thought that it was a good thing to see hundreds of people, to multiply acquaintances, to be able to say, ‘Charming party! —— was there, and ——, and ——,’ naming people who really concerned me as little as I really concerned them; telling myself—even then, I think, I had some secret notion of conscience-salving—that to live in the bubble and roar of the world was stimulating. So no doubt it is, but a stimulant is not necessarily healthy. Thus it seemed to me (one can only speak for one’s self) to come under the head of ‘doubtful gain.’ But it is a quite certain gain to study the habits of the ill-content Jackmanni—I am sorry for introducing that again, but I cannot get over it—it is a quite certain gain to read a good book; to try to learn the Fugues and Preludes—provided, of course, the incidental pain to others is not more than they should be reasonably asked to bear; to be in the open air, and, above all, to do your work, whatever it is. If you have none, get some. It hardly matters at all what it is, so long as it is harmless. But merely to go from dinner to dance is a doubtful gain. You would do better—at least, I should—to talk to a friend for half an hour, and then, if you wish for the crowd merely, as I often do, walk for ten minutes up and down Piccadilly. For if that does not give you the food you want, you may be sure you will not find it anywhere else.

Another most fascinating hobby, though I expect it is extremely easy to give too much time to it, is the pursuit of health. Certainly it is more easy of accomplishment to most people than the pursuit of happiness, and the one, to a very large extent, implies the other. For the pursuers of happiness, for the most part, are Hedonists. They think—and herein err very greatly—that to multiply pleasure tends to make one happy. In point of fact, it does nothing of the kind, for pleasures are to some extent obtainable by most people, whereas happiness is almost completely a matter of temperament. And the happy temperament cannot possibly have anything to do with pleasures. No amount of pleasure will foster it at all; whereas, if you have got the happy temperament, almost everything by that mysterious alchemy is turned into pleasure—even as a rose-tree turns that which its root-fibres suck from the earth into blossom. And certainly health is a great help to happiness, for to be well—really well—makes ‘the mere living,’ as Browning says, a joy, and at times it seems enough to be alive. For which would you rather be—a bilious man, with all the pleasures of the world at his disposal, or well, with ‘the book of verses underneath the bough,’ and a thrush, maybe, singing of what should be above you?

Keenness of perception, in fact, I soberly believe to be the greatest cause of happiness (and so, necessarily, of pleasure, since happiness turns the most trivial incidents and sensations of the moment into pleasure) that is within our reach. And so inextricably is the mind and soul bound up with the body, that—apart from great spiritual enthusiasm or ecstasy—this keenness of perception can scarcely be reached except through a certain cleanly healthiness. In fact, it presupposes a temperament of almost divine serenity to enjoy a day on which one has influenza; whereas there is a sort of health, which is probably within the reach of most people, in which, from the heightened keenness of perception it brings with it, the smallest things are causes of joy or laughter.

This may sound a mere vain piece of optimism, but the truth of the matter is that three-quarters of the world are not nearly so well as they can and should be. Almost everybody, in fact, is greedy and lazy, and laziness and greed are more certain progenitors of discontent than any other ancestors I can think of. To eat rather more than one wants, to drink rather more than one should, is to feel disinclined for one’s work or one’s pleasure. And to be disinclined for a thing means, with most of us, to miss the pleasure of the doing. But to be inclined for work or pleasure implies that we find a nugget of happiness therein, for it is this alchemy of inclination which turns trivial incidents to gold, for the keenness turns the dross of mere achievement into happiness.

It is thus that the happy temperament may most readily be cultivated by those who have not naturally got it. Some have it, a royal birthright, worth more to its possessor than the piled crowns of the Great Powers; but by others it has to be cultivated. And to cultivate keenness of perception by means of health is the simplest and most practicable method. And the organ in which ill-health mainly resides is, to put the matter frankly, the liver, because, as a rule, we eat and drink too much, avoid air as if it was strychnine, and do not take enough exercise. Thus my prescription is worth trying: Eat and drink less, open your windows more, and, if your work permits of it, be out-of-doors more. It may, of course, be easily possible that, to do your work properly, you have to sit in a stuffy room, and neglect your health somewhat; if so, let your health take care of itself by all means, and get through with your work. But short of that, let your health receive the attention it deserves. It is a very sound investment, and will yield you excellent returns.

Dear God, in spite of May and June, how happy You allow me to be! How You have allowed me, in consideration of my foolishness, to find in life so much happiness! To-day, for instance, a golden sun was swung in a blue sky when I awoke, and only half-dressed I breakfasted in this shelter in the garden where I am writing now. Three yards off was the Jackmanni with its purple buds, a little beyond a Crimson Rambler climbing up an apple-tree. On the grass stood two green tubs briming with nasturtiums; up the garden bed ran the row of sweet-peas. All breakfast-time a thrush sat on the apple-bough and sang the song that can never be learned, and which no one ever taught it. Then, still out-of-doors, I sat and worked, and about twelve came a great bunch of lilac from a neighbour. Lunch-time brought two friends, and after lunch we hit little silly golfballs over the great back of the down with matchless enthusiasm. And now I sit here again, as evening is beginning to fall, and the birds which were mute in the heat of the day are tuning up for evensong; again the thrush is on the apple-bough, and an occasional silver flute of a note tells me that mating-time is not yet over with the nightingales. The bees still hunt in the drowsy and closing flowers, and swifts still race with shrill whistlings through the divided air, but every moment the stillness of evening gains on the beautiful noises of life, like a waveless tide creeping up the wrinkled sand of the sea-shore. Already the sun is low, and soon the lengthening shadows will cease to be shadows, and the velvet blue of the night will darken in the turquoise-coloured skies. Already the night-flowering stocks and the tobacco-plant are opening, and, as they open, spread sweet webs of incense, low-lying from their heaviness, over the grass, and the pale moths begin to hover over the flowers. Dusk comes, and its cool benediction rests and recuperates the day—wearied earth, and it and its little inhabitants rest with bowed heads a moment, like some child at its mother’s knee, drinking in quiet. The pause has come, day is over, it is not yet quite time to sleep; be still, then, cease to move or worry or think. Lie open to the air and the stars, let your life pause, breathe deep, make no effort, and the thrush and the stars and the green things will communicate with that which is within you by direct ways.

Then as dusk deepens into night thought comes back; but thought, too, is driven inwards, going home to roost, and for a little while, as I walk in this dewy grass by the sweet-peas, Margery will be leaning on my arm, talking to me of the days that were—talking, too, in a way I do not yet fully understand, of the days that will be. Outside on the road I can hear unknown footsteps passing up and down, and every now and then she seems to say to me, ‘Hush! Listen!’ But the steps pass on. It is not yet.