Nothing contributes more to the advancement of earthly felicity, than a reliance on those maxims which teach us to do as much good as possible, and to take things just as we find them; for it is certainly true that no characters are so unhappy as those who are continually finding fault with every thing they see. My barber at Hanover, while he was preparing to shave me, exclaimed, with a deep sigh, “It is terribly hot to day,” “You place heaven,” said I to him, “in great difficulties. For these nine months last past, you have regularly told me every other day, It is terribly cold to day.” Cannot the Almighty, then any longer govern the universe, without these gentlemen barbers finding something to be discontented with? “Is it not,” I asked him, “much better to take the seasons as they change, and to receive with equal gratitude, from the hand of God, the winter’s cold, and the summer’s warmth?” “Oh! certainly,” replied the barber.
Competency, and content, therefore, may in general, be considered as the basis of earthly happiness; and solitude, in many instances, favors both the one and the other.
Solitude not only refines the enjoyments of friendship, but enables us to acquire friends from whom nothing can alienate our souls, and to whose arms we never fly in vain.
The friends of Petrarch sometimes apologized to him for their long absence. “It is impossible for us,” said they, “to follow your example; the life you lead at Vaucluse is contrary to human nature. In winter you sit like an owl in the chimney corner. In summer you are running incessantly about the fields.” Petrarch smiled at these observations. “These people,” said he, “consider the pleasures of the world as the supreme good; and cannot bear the idea of renouncing them. I have friends whose society is extremely agreeable to me: they are of all ages, and of every country. They have distinguished themselves both in the cabinet and in the field, and obtained high honors for their knowledge of the sciences. It is easy to gain access to them, for they are always at my service; and I admit them to my company, and dismiss them from it whenever I please. They are never troublesome, but immediately answer every question I ask them. Some relate to me the events of past ages, while others reveal to me the secrets of nature. Some teach me how to live, and others how to die. Some, by their vivacity, drive away my cares, and exhilarate my spirits; while others give fortitude to my mind, and teach me the important lesson how to restrain my desires, and to depend on myself. They open to me, in short, the various avenues of all the arts and sciences; and upon their information I safely rely in all emergencies. In return for all these services, they only ask me to accommodate them with a convenient chamber in some corner of my humble habitation, where they may repose in peace: for these friends are more delighted with the tranquillity of retirement, than with the tumults of society.”
Love! the most precious gift of heaven,
“The cordial drop Heav’n in our cup has thrown,
To make the bitter load of life go down,”
appears to merit a distinguished rank among the advantages of solitude.
Love voluntarily unites itself with the aspect of beautiful nature. The view of a pleasing landscape makes the heart beat with the tenderest emotions. The lonely mountain and the silent grove increase the susceptibility of the female bosom, inspire the mind with rapturous enthusiasm, and, sooner or later, draw aside and subjugate the heart.
Women feel the pure and tranquil pleasures of rural life with a higher sensibility than men. They enjoy more exquisitely the beauties of a lonely walk, the freshness of a shady forest, and admire with higher ecstacy the charms of nature. Solitude is to them the school of true philosophy. In England, at least, where the face of the country is so beautiful, and where the taste of its inhabitants is hourly adding to it new embellishments, the love of rural solitude is certainly stronger in the women than the men. A nobleman who employs the day in riding over his estates or in following the hounds, does not enjoy the pleasures of rural life with the same delight as his lady, who devotes her time, in her romantic pleasure grounds, to needle work, or to the reading of some instructive, interesting work. In this happy country, indeed, where the people, in general, love the enjoyments of the mind, the calm of rural retirement is doubly valuable, and its delights more exquisite. The learning which has of late years so considerably increased among the ladies of Germany, is certainly to be attributed to their love of retirement: for, among those who pass their time in the country, we find much more true wit and rational sentiment, than among the beaux esprits of the metropolis.