Bones and I

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

The scene thus conjured up awoke its corresponding fancies.

“Have you never reflected,” said I, “on the utter fallacy of that French proverb which affirms, ‘Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte’? Unless indeed it refers to immorality, the downward career of which beats the rolling stone of Sisyphus in a canter. But on all other journeys through life, it seems to me that not only the first steps, but the first leagues, are intensely laborious and unsatisfactory. Disappointment lies in wait at every milestone, and the traveller feels tired already ere he has reached the crest of the first hill. All crowns, I grant you, like those of the Isthmian Games, are mere parsley at best; but in these days no competitor ever wins that worthless head-dress till he is so bald that common decency demands a covering. Where are the heaven-born statesmen now, to rule the destinies of continents at twenty-six? the generals and admirals, who became world-wide heroes within ten years of corporal punishment at school? the poets full-fledged in immortality before their whiskers were grown? Where, in short, will you point me out a single instance of any individual attaining fame until his zest for it has passed away—winning his pedestal till his poor legs are too tired to stand straight thereon—making his fortune till he is too old to enjoy it; or, indeed, getting anything he wants when he wants it? Lazarus has no dinner—Dives has no appetite—Struggler, who thinks he has both, is sure to be kept waiting that extra half-hour, which sickens him, and finds he can’t eat his soup when it comes!

“What up-hill work it is, that beginning of the pilgrimage. And how confidently we start in the glorious ignorance of youth, heads erect, backs straightened, footsteps springing like a deer, with an utter disregard of warning, a sovereign contempt for advice. Like myself, I doubt not you have scaled many a hill, even when you carried more flesh than you do now. Don’t you remember, in the clear, pure mountain air, how near the top looked from the valley down below? Don’t you remember how, about noonday, still full of strength and spirit, though having done a stalwart spell of work, you spied the ridge that you were convinced must be your goal, and strained on, panting, heated, labouring, yet exultant, because success was so nearly within your grasp? A few more strides—hurrah! your chin is level with the ridge, and lo! there is another precisely similar to be surmounted at about the same angle and the same distance. Not yet discouraged, only a little startled and annoyed; till another and another have been gained, and so surprise becomes disappointment, vexation, misgiving, discomfiture, and lastly, but to the strongest natures, despair! Even with these, when the real summit has been at length attained, all their long-looked-for enjoyment resolves itself into the negative satisfaction of rest; and for one who thus arrives exhausted at his destination, think how many a footsore, quivering, way-wearied wanderer must lie out all night shelterless, on the barren, wind-swept hill.

“It seems that the process, termed at Newmarket ‘putting a race-horse through the mill,’ is practised with the human subject till he has learned the disheartening lesson that labour pushed to exhaustion borders on pain—that heartbreaking efforts, while they lower the tone of our whole system, are apt to destroy the very efficiency they are intended to enhance. I have heard good judges affirm that even at Newmarket they are apt to overtrain their horses. Do you not think that we, too, should run the race of life on better terms were we not put so pitilessly ‘through the mill’?”

Here my companion allowed himself a mild gesture of dissent, clasping his bony fingers over his knotted knees, as if prepared to go into the subject at length. “You are one of those people,” said he, “who seem to think the world is intended for a place of uninterrupted rest and enjoyment—a sort of ‘Fiddler’s Green,’ as sailors term their paradise, where it is to be ‘beer and skittles’ every day and all day long. You would have no ‘small end to the horn,’ as my friends over the water say; and what sort of music do you think you could blow out of it? You would have food without hunger, rest without labour, energy without effort. You would be always going down-hill, instead of up. And think where your journey would end at last! You object to the mill, you say, and yet it is that same process of grinding which converts the grain into flour fit for bread. Look at the untried man, the youth embarking on his career, vain, ignorant, sanguine, over-confident, prejudiced. How is he to learn his own powers, his capabilities of endurance, his energy under difficulties, above all, his readiness of resource, save by repeated disappointment and reverse? You have alluded to statesmen, commanders, and poets, who, in seven-leagued boots, as it were, reached the top of the hill at one stride. But Pitt’s was an abnormal temperament—a grey head upon green shoulders—an old man’s heart beating its regular pulsations within the slender compass of a young man’s waistcoat. Nelson’s chivalrous and romantic disposition preserved him from the overweening vanity and self-esteem that might have been looked for as the result of such brilliant achievements at so early an age. His mad, absorbing passion, too, may have scored many a furrow in the hero’s heart, while his young brow remained smooth and fair as marble. ‘On vieillit bientôt sur le champ de bataille!’ and the first Napoleon’s aphorism holds good no surer on the field of honour than in the lists of love. Shelley’s fate was scarcely an enviable one; and did you like Byron any better after you had read his letters and learned the demoralising effects, even on such genius as his, of temples crowned by an immortal Fame, ere yet the beard had sprouted on his chin?

“Alexander of Macedon, indeed, conquered the world before he was thirty, and—drank himself to death ere he had reached his prime!

“The fact that he does not care one straw about it, is the very antidote to preserve a man from the subtle poison of success. He who has been long climbing the ladder finds that when he looks over the parapet all sense of elevation and consequent giddiness is gone. Whatever others may think, to his own perceptions he is on a level with the rest of his kind—can judge of them, and for them, from the same point of view; and, more important still, experiences no misgivings that he may topple down and break his neck. Ambition is a glorious lure, no doubt, tempting the climber to noble efforts, skilful, vigorous, and well-sustained. But when he has reached the fancied resting-place so ardently desired, what does he find? A keener air, a scantier foothold, a sentry-box instead of a feather-bed, a stern necessity for further exertion, where he expected indulgence and enjoyment and repose.

“Duty is a cold-eyed monitress, reserved, inflexible, severe; Ambition, a high-born lady, haughty, capricious, unfeeling, like those dainty dames of old patrician Rome,

‘Who in Corinthian mirrors their own proud smiles behold;

Who breathe of Capuan odours, and shine in Spanish gold;’