Adventures in the Moon, and Other Worlds

by Earl John Russell Russell

I took notice of a lady with a very grave countenance, who was making a most diligent search amongst the bottles of that time, from which she dated the absence of her own cheerfulness, but still she was unable to find one bearing her name. I heard another lady, her companion, endeavouring to persuade her that she had always been as phlegmatic as she was then, and not at any part of her life able to furnish the contents of a bottle, so that it was vain to search for vivacity which was neither there nor in any other place. The solemn lady, however, was resolved to be lively, and not finding any mirth that she could justly claim, she prepared to invade the bottle of some other person, which, she said, would do no injury; for the person whom she should despoil might take her bottle in exchange, since it was undoubtedly there, though at that moment she could not find it. Accordingly she released the cork of a bottle which, by the explosion, seemed to have been very well provided with merriment, and she inhaled it all to the concluding laugh; but raising her head after this instigation, she remained as sedate as before, and found to her great disappointment that she could not be lively with the spirits of another person. I afterwards saw the same theft committed by others, and in every case it proved that the bottled spirits were ineffectual in any person except the owner. This might perhaps have been foretold, as we frequently see persons who have no vivacity of their own, endeavour, without success, to borrow it from others, though not out of a bottle. I speak of the emulation of those who, being solemn by birth, attempt vivacity by a strict execution of those gestures, looks, and sayings which they have observed to be the practice of lively persons, and with all their study can never contrive that those gestures, looks, and sayings shall be received as life and spirit, though in certain people they pass without dispute.

I saw an unfortunate lady in great distress: she had been endeavouring to practise my contrivance upon the bottle which preserved her spirits; but by being too slow to intercept them as they hastened out, and then by holding her head in a wrong place she had suffered the whole mirth to escape, and it flew laughing through a window as if in derision of her. The poor girl stood at the window in despair to hear herself laughing at a distance, being now condemned to hopeless dejection for the rest of her life. I had, however, the satisfaction of restoring many to a cheerful mind; and it was a great amusement to see the melancholy faces of many as they entered this room, and the happy countenances with which they left it after exhilarating themselves in this manner.

Having entertained myself here some time, I departed, and continued my wandering journey. It was not long before I came to another building which I entered, and found it full of bottles like the last. These contain the hopes, which have never been fulfilled, and to the eye they appear to hold a clear transparent liquor. Upon each bottle is the name of the person to whom it belongs, together with a short account of the hopes within, and the circumstances in which they were entertained. At the first glance on the outside of the bottles, I saw coronets, mitres, riches, and other amusements, in great abundance, which made me think, that if, as we often hear asserted, hope is the most agreeable employment of the mind, it is with great injustice that we complain of the misery of life. According to the same doctrine, we ought to rejoice that so few of the advantages within sight are attainable, because what is once gained can no longer be hoped for, and the chief delight from it, therefore, must be lost. The happiness of every man ought to be estimated, not by the number of his successes, but by the multitude of his hopes; and whatever seeming adversity he may have laboured under, yet if nature has provided him with an alacrity in hoping, he must be declared a prosperous man. For some, the most unfortunate in their undertakings, yet have through life been succeeding in prospect, and thus been fully recompensed for actual disappointment. The office of this passion is to make men equal in happiness, since every advantage obtained must take away a hope.

Seeing on one of these bottles the primacy of England, as the hope contained in it, I looked for the name in some curiosity, to know who had aspired so high, expecting it to be some celebrated divine. The name was that of a clergyman, who had passed his whole life on a curacy of a hundred pounds a year. He had died at the age of seventy-six, and no doubt his age, poverty, and infirmities had been greatly relieved by the expectation of being primate. The office of prime minister had for many years been the hope of a man, who had been known to speak in parliament twice, on one of which occasions he was manifestly applauded. To be the greatest of English poets, was hoped for by a young man, on no other provocation than the having written some verses in a newspaper. A family of two fine boys and four beautiful girls, was the secure hope of a lady who had been married at the age of forty-six.

I found here many hopes so fantastical, and having so little regard for possibility, that they made me think less incredible a certain wish, recorded by Rabelais, which I had before thought a high strain of imagination. The projector of this wish desired that, a certain church being filled with needles from the floor to the roof, he might be in possession of as many ducats as would be required to fill all the bags, which could be sewn with these needles, till every one of them had lost either its point or its eye. This computation of a livelihood, hardly exceeds in boldness some of the designs which I observed here.

I saw an old man reading the bottle which contained his own past hopes; he laughed heartily at their extravagance, declaring that to have fulfilled them all he must have lived a thousand years, and that many of them could not have been accomplished unless all mankind had been in a confederacy to complete his schemes. Some bottles contained a vast number of hopes, the owner having had so much fertility in hoping; other persons seemed to have had no room for more than one hope at a time. I amused myself with pursuing the hopes of a man from youth to age, and observing the variation in the different stages of life. Some of the young hopes diverted me; a girl of sixteen had been entirely occupied with the hope that the outline of her nose might improve before she grew up. Another young lady of the same age had been equally busy with the hope of her hair becoming darker.

Seeing my own name on a bottle I read my early hopes, which however I do not intend to divulge. I was surprised by the extravagance and absurdity of them; for till that moment I had imagined myself a rational man, and I could not conceive how such projects had ever been let into my brain.

I observed another old man studying his bottle and recapitulating the brilliant hopes of his youth. He lamented that he was no longer capable of transacting such visions, and declared he would try to recover the faculty of hope by drinking the contents of the bottle. Accordingly, having obtained a glass, he drew the cork and poured out the liquor, which sparkled like champagne, and he drank it hastily, seeming to think that the escape of every bubble was the loss of a hope. He finished the draught, which was about a pint, and was immediately thrown into the most violent transports. All the hopes of his life took possession of him at once, and he fancied himself about to perform some mighty exploit, though unable to conjecture what it was to be. His words, looks, and gestures were wild and incoherent; and if two friends by whom he was accompanied had not taken him into custody, he would probably have attempted some dangerous enterprise. They forced him out of the room, and I afterwards heard that it was several hours before his delirium abated; and even when he had recovered his composure of mind he remained subject to occasional visions, and from time to time is still elevated by chimerical fancies.

It occurred to me that, although the whole bottle of hope swallowed at once produced madness, yet perhaps a small quantity at a time might be drunk with benefit and encouragement in the decline of life; and I resolved to take my bottle with me for cheerfulness in old age, the bottles of hope not being fastened to the shelves like those containing lost spirits, which I have mentioned before. On one occasion since, having been a little dispirited, I drank a very small quantity of my hopes diluted with water, and found a very agreeable elevation of mind from it.

One caution, however, is to be observed, which I learned from the example of an old gentleman, who had brought his bottle of hopes from the moon, and had recourse to it after it had stood undisturbed for some time. By standing still the several hopes had been separated from each other, so that he had poured out a single hope from the top, and drunk that alone. It appeared that the hopes were arranged according to their weight, and not according to the order in which they had entered the bottle; that which he drank first, therefore, happened to be one of his early youth. It was a hope that he might obtain favour with a certain married woman of great beauty, and, according to the most received opinion, by no means inaccessible; but, after he had prosecuted his plot for three years without an approach to success, he discreetly resolved to abandon it, and accordingly the hope flew up into its bottle. This hope, being now swallowed from the top, possessed him again with all its former vehemence. It had been perfectly suitable to the time of life when he had first entertained it, but agreed very ill with his present venerable appearance.