Solitude not only restrains inordinate desires, but discovers to mankind their real wants; and where a simplicity of manners prevails, the real wants of men are not only few, but easily satisfied; for being ignorant of those desires which luxury creates, they can have no idea of indulging them. An old country curate, who had all his life resided upon a lofty mountain near the lake of Thun, in the canton of Berne, was one day presented with a moor-cock. The good old man, ignorant that such a bird existed, consulted with his cook-maid in what manner this rarity was to be disposed of, and they both agreed to bury it in the garden. If we were all, alas! as ignorant of the delicious flavor of moor-cocks, we might be all as happy and contented as the simple pastor of the mountain near the lake of Thun.
The man who confines his desires to his real wants, is more wise, more rich, and more contented, than any other mortal existing. The system upon which he acts is, like his soul, replete with simplicity and true greatness; and seeking his felicity in innocent obscurity and peaceful retirement, he devotes his mind to the love of truth, and finds his highest happiness in a contented heart.
A calm and tranquil life renders the indulgence of sensual pleasures less dangerous. The theatre of sensuality exhibits scenes of waste and brutality, of noisy mirth and tumultuous riot; presents to observation pernicious goblets, overloaded tables, lascivious dancing, receptacles for disease, tombs with faded roses, and all the dismal haunts of pain. But to him who retires in detestation from such gross delights, the joys of sense are of a more elevated kind; soft, sublime, pure, permanent, and tranquil.
Petrarch one day inviting his friend, the cardinal Colonna, to visit his retirement at Vaucluse, wrote to him, “If you prefer the tranquillity of the country to the noise of the town, come here and enjoy yourself. Do not be alarmed by the simplicity of my table, or the hardness of my beds. Kings themselves are frequently disgusted by the luxury in which they live, and sigh for comforts of a more homely kind. Change of scene is always pleasing; and pleasures, by occasional interruption, frequently become more lively. If, however, you should not accord with these sentiments you may bring with you the most exquisite viands, the wines of Vesuvius, silver dishes, and every thing else that the indulgence of your senses requires. Leave the rest to me. I promise to provide you with a bed of the finest turf, a cooling shade, the music of the nightingales, figs, raisins, water drawn from the freshest springs; and, in short, every thing that the hand of Nature prepares for the lap of genuine pleasure.”
Ah! who would not willingly renounce those things which only produce disquietude in the mind, for those which render it contented! The art of occasionally diverting the imagination, taste, and passions, affords new and unknown enjoyments to the mind and confers pleasure without pain, and luxury without repentance. The senses deadened by satiety, revive to new enjoyments. The lively twitter of the groves, and the murmur of the brooks, yield a more delicious pleasure to the ear than the music of the opera, or the compositions of the ablest masters. The eye reposes more agreeably on the concave firmament, on an expanse of waters, on mountains covered with rocks, than it does on all the glare of balls and assemblies. In short, the mind enjoys in solitude objects which were before insupportable, and reclining on the bosom of simplicity, easily renounces every vain delight. Petrarch wrote from Vaucluse to one of his friends, “I have made war against my corporeal powers, for I find they are my enemies. My eyes, which have rendered me guilty of so many follies, are now confined to the view of a single woman, old, black, and sunburnt. If Helen, or Lucretia had possessed such a face, Troy would never have been reduced to ashes, nor Tarquin driven from the empire of the world. But, to compensate these defects, she is faithful, submissive, and industrious. She passes whole days in the fields, her shrivelled skin defying the hottest rays of the sun. My wardrobe still contains fine clothes, but I never wear them; and you would take me for a common laborer or a simple shepherd; I, who formerly was so anxious about my dress. But the reasons which then prevailed, no longer exist: the fetters by which I was enslaved are broken: the eyes which I was anxious to please are shut; and if they were still open, they would not perhaps, now be able to maintain the same empire over my heart.”
Solitude, by stripping worldly objects of the false splendor in which fancy arrays them, dispels all vain ambition from the mind. Accustomed to rural delights and indifferent to every other kind of pleasure, a wise man no longer thinks high offices and worldly advancement worthy of his desires. A noble Roman was overwhelmed with tears on being obliged to accept of the consulship, because it would deprive him for one year of the opportunity of cultivating his fields. Cincinnatus, who was called from the plough to the supreme command of the Roman legions, defeated the enemies of his country, added to it new provinces, made his triumphal entry into Rome, and at the expiration of sixteen days returned to his plough. It is true, that the inmate of an humble cottage, who is forced to earn his daily bread by labor, and the owner of a spacious mansion, for whom every luxury is provided, are not held in equal estimation by mankind. But let the man who has experienced both these situations, be asked under which of them he felt the most content. The cares and inquietudes of the palace are innumerably greater than those of the cottage. In the former, discontent poisons every enjoyment; and its superfluity is only misery in disguise. The princes of Germany do not digest all the palatable poison which their cooks prepare, so well as a peasant upon the heaths of Limbourg digests his buck-wheat pie. And those who may differ from me in this opinion, will be forced to acknowledge, that there is great truth in the reply which a pretty French country girl, made to a young nobleman, who solicited her to abandon her rustic taste, and retire with him to Paris: “Ah! my lord, the further we remove from ourselves, the greater is our distance from happiness.”
Solitude, by moderating the selfish desires of the heart, and expelling ambition from the breast, becomes a real asylum to the disappointed statesman or discarded minister; for it is not every public minister who can retire, like Neckar, through the portals of everlasting fame. Every person, indeed, without distinction, ought to raise his grateful hands to heaven, on being dismissed from the troubles of public life, to the calm repose which the cultivation of his native fields, and the care of his flocks and herds, afford. In France, however, when a minister, who has incurred the displeasure of his sovereign, is ordered to retire, and thereby enabled to visit an estate which he has decorated in the highest style of rural elegance, this delightful retreat, alas! being considered a place of exile, becomes intolerable to his mind: he no longer fancies himself its master; is incapable of relishing its enchanting beauties; repose flies from his pillow; and turning with aversion from every object, he dies at length, the victim of spleen, petulance, and dejection. But in England it is just the reverse. There a minister is congratulated on retiring, like a man who has happily escaped from a dangerous malady. He feels himself still surrounded by many friends much more worthy than his adherents while in power; for while those were bound to him by temporary considerations of interest, these are attached to him by real and permanent esteem. Thanks, generous Britons! for the examples you have given to us of men sufficiently bold and independent to weigh events in the scales of reason, and to guide themselves by the intrinsic and real merits of each case: for notwithstanding the freedom with which many Englishmen have arraigned the dispensations of the Supreme Being; notwithstanding the mockery and ridicule with which they have so frequently insulted virtue, good manners, and decorum; there are many more among them, who, especially at an advanced period of their lives, perfectly understand the art of living by themselves; and in their tranquil and delightful villas think with more dignity, and live with more real happiness, than the haughtiest noble in the zenith of his power.
Of the ministers who retire from the administration of public affairs, the majority finish their days in cultivating their gardens, in improving their estates, and, like the excellent de la Roche, at Spire, certainly possess more content with the shovel and the rake, than they enjoyed in the most prosperous hours in their administration.
It has, indeed, been said, that observations like these are common to persons who, ignorant of the manners of the world, and the characters of men, love to moralize on, and recommend a contempt of, human greatness; but that rural innocence, the pure and simple pleasures of nature, and an uninterrupted repose, are very seldom the companions of this boasted solitude. Those who maintain this opinion, assert, that man, though surrounded with difficulties, and obliged to employ every art and cunning to attain his ends, feels with his success the pleasing power which attaches to the character of master, and fondly indulges in the exercise of sovereignty. Enabled to create and to destroy, to plant and to root up, to make alterations when and where he pleases, he may grub up a vineyard, and plant an English grove on its site; erect hills where hills never were seen; level eminences to the ground; compel the stream to flow as his inclination shall direct; force woods and shrubberies to grow where he pleases; graft or lop as it shall strike his fancy; open views and shut out boundaries; construct ruins where buildings never existed; erect temples of which he alone is the high priest; and build hermitages in which he may seclude himself at pleasure. It is said, however, that this is not a reward for the restraints he formerly experienced, but a natural inclination; for that a minister must be, from the habits of his life, fond of command and sovereignty, whether he continues at the head of an extensive empire, or directs the management of a poultry yard.
It would most undoubtedly discover a great ignorance of the world, and of the nature of man, to contend that it is necessary to renounce all the inclinations of the human heart, in order to enjoy the advantages of solitude. That which nature has implanted in the human breast must there remain. If, therefore a minister, in his retirement, is not satiated with the exercise of power and authority, but still fondly wishes for command, let him require obedience from his chickens, provided such a gratification is essential to his happiness and tends to suppress the desire of again exposing himself to those tempests and shipwrecks which he can only avoid in the safe harbor of rural life. An ex-minister must sooner or later, learn to despise the appearances of human greatness, when he discovers that true greatness frequently begins at that period of life which statesmen are apt to consider a dreary void; that the regret of being no longer able to do more good, is only ambition in disguise; and that the inhabitants of the country, in cultivating their cabbages and potatoes, are a hundred times happier than the greatest minister.