Aristippus of old lived up to his own motto; namely, "Good cheer is no hindrance to a good life." Few men reason about their appetites, but they give way to them until disease reminds them they are made of mortal stuff. Even Plutarch used to indulge at times in riotous living, saying, "You cannot reason with the belly; it has no ears." Addison has pithily recorded his own ideas of this matter. "When I behold a fashionable table set out in all its magnificence," he says, "I fancy that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with other innumerable distempers, lying in ambuscade among the dishes. Nature delights in the most plain and simple diet. Every animal but man keeps to one dish. Herbs are the food of this species, fish of that, and flesh of a third. Man falls upon everything that comes in his way; not the smallest fruit or excrescence of the earth, scarce a berry or a mushroom, can escape him." It is among the easiest of all things to outsit both our health and our pleasure at the table. "The pleasures of the palate," said shrewd old Seneca, "deal with us like Egyptian thieves, who strangle those whom they embrace."
Thackeray said towards the close of his life, that his physicians warned him habitually not to do what he habitually did. "They tell me that I should not drink wine, and somehow I drink wine; that I should not eat this or that, and, guided by my appetite for this or that, I disregard the warning."
Eminent men are not unlike the rest of humanity in a desire for some sort of recreation, and each one finds it after his own natural bent or fancy. Literature is capable of affording the most rational and lasting enjoyment to cultured minds, but physical exercise has also its reasonable demands. The late Victor Emmanuel found recreation only in hunting, having a number of lodges devoted to this purpose in different parts of Italy. McMahon, late President of France, was also an ardent sportsman. William the Conqueror passed all his leisure in the hunting-field; and President Cleveland hastens with rod and gun to pass his vacation in the Adirondack region. Henry V. occupied a whole day at a time upon his one game,—tennis. Cardinal Mazarin, while virtual ruler of France, used to shut himself up in his library and pass an hour daily in jumping over the chairs. Louis XVI. had a passion for constructing intricate locks and keys, many curious specimens of which are still extant in the Cluny Museum. Charles II. in his leisure hours enjoyed practical chemistry. John Milton wiled away the long hours of his blindness, when not engaged in composing and dictating, by playing upon a cabinet organ; and Chief Justice Saunders was given to the same recreation. The Duke of Burgundy had a singular fancy for constructing mechanical traps and surprises in his house and grounds, so that visitors were liable to encounter practical jokes at every turn.
We might cover pages in enumerating the resorts of notable people in their instinctive search after necessary recreation from sterner duties. Man must be doing something in order to be happy; action being quite as necessary to the health of body and brain as thought. Schiller declared that he found the greatest happiness of life to consist in the regular discharge of some mechanical duty. "Cheerfulness," says the shrewd and practical Dr. Horne, is "the daughter of employment; and I have known a man come home from a funeral in high spirits, merely because he had the management of it." It is in our unoccupied moments that discontent creeps into the mind; busy people have no time to be very miserable. Amusements are not without a double purpose, and it is only a mistaken zeal which argues against those that are innocent. "Let the world," says that wise old philosopher Robert Burton, "have their May-games, wakes, whatsunales, their dancings and concerts; their puppet-shows, hobby horses, tabors, bagpipes, balls, barley-breaks, and whatever sports and recreations please them best, provided they be followed with discretion."
Sir George Cornewall Lewis, a scholar as well as a statesman, found delight in a variety of intellectual work. He shirked as well as he could all invitations to parties, balls, and dinners, and once despairingly exclaimed, when he was called from his studies to enter into some form of amusement, "that life was tolerable were it not for its pleasures."
CHAPTER V.
Leonardo da Vinci, the inspired painter of the "Last Supper" upon the walls of the time-worn Milan convent,[89] is said to have had a strange inclination for dirt. One biographer tells us he grovelled in it. Da Vinci was a great engineer and scientist, as well as artist. The face of Judas in the group seated at the table carries with it a legend. The artist entertained a bitter enmity towards a priest of the Cathedral who had worked him some vital injury, either real or imaginary. His revenge was clear to him; his enemy's hated features were impressed upon his mind, and so, a little modified to suit the supposed treacherous character of the disciple, were made to constitute those of Judas at the moment when he contemplates the betrayal of his Master. The likeness was too plain not to be recognized by those who knew of the ill feeling existing between the artist and priest. The result was that the latter was virtually banished from the city, as he asked to be, and was transferred to Rome.