Next to the encounter of death in our own bodies, the most sensible calamity to an honest man is the death of a friend; and we are not in truth without some generous instances of those that have preferred a friend’s life before their own; and yet this affliction, which by nature is so grievous to us, is by virtue and Providence made familiar and easy.
To lament the death of a friend is both natural and just; a sigh or a tear I would allow to his memory: but no profuse or obstinate sorrow. Clamorous and public lamentations are not so much the effects of grief as of vain-glory. He that is sadder in company than alone, shows rather the ambition of his sorrow than the piety of it. Nay, and in the violence of his passion there fall out twenty things that set him a-laughing. At the long-run, time cures all, but it were better done by moderation and wisdom. Some people do as good as set a watch upon themselves, as if they were afraid that their grief would make an escape. The ostentation of grief is many times more than the grief itself. When any body is within hearing, what groans and outcries! when they are alone and private, all is hush and quiet: so soon as any body comes in, they are at it again; and down they throw themselves upon the bed; fall to wringing of their hands, and wishing of themselves dead; which they might have executed by themselves; but their sorrow goes off with the company. We forsake nature, and run over to the practices of the people, that never were the authors of anything that is good. If destiny were to be wrought upon by tears, I would allow you to spend your days and nights in sadness and mourning, tearing of your hair, and beating of your breast; but if Fate be inexorable, and death will keep what it has taken, grief is to no purpose. And yet I would not advise insensibility and hardness; it were inhumanity, and not virtue, not to be moved at the separation of familiar friends and relations: now, in such cases, we cannot command ourselves, we cannot forbear weeping, and we ought not to forbear: but let us not pass the bounds of affection, and run into imitation; within these limits it is some ease to the mind.
A wise man gives way to tears in some cases, and cannot avoid them in others. When one is struck with the surprise of ill-news, as the death of a friend, or the like; or upon the last embrace of an acquaintance under the hand of an executioner, he lies under a natural necessity of weeping and trembling. In another case, we may indulge our sorrow, as upon the memory of a dead friend’s conversation or kindness, one may let fall tears of generosity and joy. We favor the one, and we are overcome by the other; and this is well: but we are not upon any terms to force them: they may flow of their own accord, without derogating from the dignity of a wise man; who at the same time both preserves his gravity, and obeys nature. Nay, there is a certain decorum even in weeping; for excess of sorrow is as foolish as profuse laughter. Why do we not as well cry, when our trees that we took pleasure in, shed their leaves, as at the loss of our satisfactions; when the next season repairs them, either with the same again, or others in their places. We may accuse Fate, but we cannot alter it; for it is hard and inexorable, and not to be removed either with reproaches or tears. They may carry us to the dead, but never bring them back again to us. If reason does not put an end to our sorrows, fortune never will: one is pinched with poverty; another solicited with ambition, and fears the very wealth that he coveted. One is troubled for the loss of children; another for the want of them: so that we shall sooner want tears than matter for them; let us therefore spare that for which we have so much occasion. I do confess, that in the very parting of friends there is something of uneasiness and trouble; but it is rather voluntary than natural; and it is custom more than sense that affects us: we do rather impose a sorrow upon ourselves than submit to it; as people cry when they have company, and when nobody looks on, all is well again. To mourn without measure is folly, and not to mourn at all is insensibility. The best temper is betwixt piety and reason; to be sensible, but neither transported nor cast down. He that can put a stop to his tears and pleasures when he will is safe. It is an equal infelicity to be either too soft or too hard: we are overcome by the one, and put to struggle with the other. There is a certain intemperance in that sorrow that passes the rules of modesty; and yet great piety is, in many cases, a dispensation to good manners. The loss of a son or of a friend, cuts a man to the heart, and there is no opposing the first violence of his passion; but when a man comes once to deliver himself wholly up to lamentations, he is to understand, that though some tears deserve compassion, others are yet ridiculous. A grief that is fresh finds pity and comfort, but when it is inveterate it is laughed at, for it is either counterfeit or foolish. Beside that, to weep excessively for the dead is an affront to the living. The most justifiable cause of mourning is to see good men come to ill ends, and virtue oppressed by the iniquity of Fortune. But in this case, too, they either suffer resolutely, and yield us delight in their courage and example, or meanly, and so give us the less trouble for the loss. He that dies cheerfully, dries up my tears; and he that dies whiningly, does not deserve them. I would bear the death of friends and children with the same constancy that I would expect my own, and no more lament the one than fear the other. He that bethinks himself, how often friends have been parted, will find more time lost among the living, than upon the dead; and the most desperate mourners are they that cared least for their friends when they were living; for they think to redeem their credits, for want of kindness to the living, by extravagant ravings after the dead. Some (I know) will have grief to be only the perverse delight of a restless mind, and sorrows and pleasures to be near akin; and there are, I am confident, that find joy even in their tears. But which is more barbarous, to be insensible of grief for the death of a friend, or to fish for pleasure in grief, when a son perhaps is burning, or a friend expiring? To forget one’s friend, to bury the memory with the body, to lament out of measure, is all inhuman. He that is gone either would not have his friend tormented, or does not know that he is so: if he does not feel it, it is superfluous; if he does, it is unacceptable to him. If reason cannot prevail, reputation may; for immoderate mourning lessens a man’s character: it is a shameful thing for a wise man to make the weariness of grieving the remedy of it. In time, the most stubborn grief will leave us, if in prudence we do not leave that first.
But do I grieve for my friend’s sake or for my own? Why should I afflict myself for the loss of him that is either happy or not at all in being? In the one case it is envy, and in the other it is madness. We are apt to say, “What would I give to see him again, and to enjoy his conversation! I was never sad in his company: my heart leaped whenever I met him; I want him wherever I go.” All that is to be said is, “The greater the loss, the greater is the virtue to overcome it.” If grieving will do no good, it is an idle thing to grieve; and if that which has befallen one man remains to all, it is as unjust to complain. The whole world is upon the march towards the same point; why do we not cry for ourselves that are to follow, as well as for him that has gone first? Why do we not as well lament beforehand for that which we know will be, and can not possibly but be? He is not gone, but sent before. As there are many things that he has lost, so there are many things that he does not fear; as anger, jealousy, envy, etc. Is he not more happy in desiring nothing than miserable in what he has lost? We do not mourn for the absent, why then for the dead, who are effectually no other? We have lost one blessing, but we have many left; and shall not all these satisfactions support us against one sorrow?
The comfort of having a friend may be taken away, but not that of having had one. As there is a sharpness in some fruits, and a bitterness in some wines that please us, so there is a mixture in the remembrance of friends, where the loss of their company is sweetened again by the contemplation of their virtues. In some respects, I have lost what I had, and in others, I retain still what I have lost. It is an ill construction of Providence to reflect only upon my friend’s being taken away, without any regard to the benefit of his being once given me. Let us therefore make the best of our friends while we have them; for how long we shall keep them is uncertain. I have lost a hopeful son, but how many fathers have been deceived in their expectations! and how many noble families have been destroyed by luxury and riot! He that grieves for the loss of a son, what if he had lost a friend? and yet he that has lost a friend has more cause of joy that he once had him, than of grief that he is taken away. Shall a man bury his friendship with his friend? We are ungrateful for that which is past, in hope of what is to come; as if that which is to come would not quickly be past too. That which is past we are sure of. We may receive satisfaction, it is true, both from the future and what is already past; the one by expectation, and the other by memory; only the one may possibly not come to pass, and it is impossible to make the other not to have been.
But there is no applying of consolation to fresh and bleeding sorrow; the very discourse irritates the grief and inflames it. It is like an unseasonable medicine in a disease; when the first violence is over, it will be more tractable, and endure the handling. Those people whose minds are weakened by long felicity may be allowed to groan and complain, but it is otherwise with those that have led their days in misfortunes. A long course of adversity has this good in it, that though it vexes a body a great while, it comes to harden us at last; as a raw soldier shrinks at every wound, and dreads the surgeon more than an enemy; whereas a veteran sees his own body cut and lamed with as little concern as if it were another’s. With the same resolution should we stand the shock and cure of all misfortunes; we are never the better for our experience, if we have not yet learned to be miserable. And there is no thought of curing us by the diversion of sports and entertainments; we are apt to fall into relapses; wherefore we had better overcome our sorrow than delude it.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CONSOLATION AGAINST BANISHMENT AND BODILY PAIN.
It is a masterpiece to draw good out of evil; and, by the help of virtue, to improve misfortunes into blessings. “It is a sad condition,” you will say, “for a man to be barred the freedom of his own country.” And is not this the case of thousands that we meet every day in the streets? Some for ambition; others, to negotiate, or for curiosity, delight, friendship, study, experience, luxury, vanity, discontent: some to exercise their virtues, others their vices; and not a few to prostitute either their bodies or their eloquence? To pass now from pleasant countries into the worst of islands; let them be never so barren or rocky, the people never so barbarous, or the clime never so intemperate, he that is banished thither shall find many strangers to live there for their pleasure. The mind of man is naturally curious and restless; which is no wonder, considering their divine original; for heavenly things are always in motion: witness the stars, and the orbs, which are perpetually moving, rolling, and changing of place and according to the law and appointment of Nature. But here are no woods, you will say, no rivers, no gold nor pearl, no commodity for traffic or commerce; nay, hardly provision enough to keep the inhabitants from starving. It is very right; here are no palaces, no artificial grottoes, or materials for luxury and excess; but we lie under the protection of Heaven; and a poor cottage for a retreat is more worth than the most magnificent temple, when that cottage is consecrated by an honest man under the guard of his virtue. Shall any man think banishment grievous, when he may take such company along with him! Nor is there any banishment but yields enough for our necessities, and no kingdom is sufficient for superfluities. It is the mind that makes us rich in a desert; and if the body be but kept alive, the soul enjoys all spiritual felicities in abundance. What signifies the being banished from one spot of ground to another, to a man that has his thoughts above, and can look forward and backward, and wherever he pleases; and that, wherever he is, has the same matter to work upon? The body is but the prison or the clog of the mind, subjected to punishments, robberies, diseases; but the mind is sacred and spiritual, and liable to no violence. Is it that, a man shall want garments or covering in banishment? The body is as easily clothed as fed; and Nature has made nothing hard that is necessary. But if nothing will serve us but rich embroideries and scarlet, it is none of Fortune’s fault that we are poor, but our own. Nay, suppose a man should have all restored him back again that he has lost, it will come to nothing, for he will want more after that to satisfy his desires than he did before to supply his necessities. Insatiable appetites are not so much a thirst as a disease.
To come lower now; where is the people or nation that have not changed their place of abode? Some by the fate of war; others have been cast by tempests, shipwrecks, or want of provisions, upon unknown coasts. Some have been forced abroad by pestilence, sedition, earthquakes, surcharge of people at home. Some travel to see the world, others for commerce; but, in fine, it is clear, that, upon some reason or other, the whole race of mankind have shifted their quarters; changed their very names as well as their habitations; insomuch that we have lost the very memorials of what they were. All these transportations of people, what are they but public banishments? The very founder of the Roman empire was an exile: briefly, the whole world has been transplanted, and one mutation treads upon the heel of another. That which one man desires, turns another man’s stomach; and he that proscribes me to-day, shall himself be cast out to-morrow. We have, however, this comfort in our misfortune; we have the same nature, the same Providence, and we carry our virtues along with us. And this blessing we owe to that almighty Power, call it what you will; either a God, or an Incorporeal Reason, a Divine Spirit, or Fate, and the unchangeable Course of causes and effects: it is, however, so ordered, that nothing can be taken from us but what we can well spare: and that which is most magnificent and valuable continues with us. Wherever we go, we have the heavens over our heads, and no farther from us than they were before; and so long as we can entertain our eyes and thoughts with those glories, what matter is it what ground we tread upon?