XXXIII. TO THE SAME.
Wrexham, Sunday, July 15, 1794.[50]
Your letter, Southey! made me melancholy. Man is a bundle of habits, but of all habits the habit of despondence is the most pernicious to virtue and happiness. I once shipwrecked my frail bark on that rock; a friendly plank was vouchsafed me. Be you wise by my experience, and receive unhurt the flower, which I have climbed precipices to pluck. Consider the high advantages which you possess in so eminent a degree—health, strength of mind, and confirmed habits of strict morality. Beyond all doubt, by the creative powers of your genius, you might supply whatever the stern simplicity of republican wants could require. Is there no possibility of procuring the office of clerk in a compting-house? A month’s application would qualify you for it. For God’s sake, Southey! enter not into the church. Concerning Allen I say little, but I feel anguish at times. This earnestness of remonstrance! I will not offend you by asking your pardon for it. The following is a fact. A friend of Hucks’ after long struggles between principle and interest, as it is improperly called, accepted a place under government. He took the oaths, shuddered, went home and threw himself in an agony out of a two-pair of stairs window! These dreams of despair are most soothing to the imagination. I well know it. We shroud ourselves in the mantle of distress, and tell our poor hearts, “This is happiness!” There is a dignity in all these solitary emotions that flatters the pride of our nature. Enough of sermonizing. As I was meditating on the capability of pleasure in a mind like yours, I unwarily fell into poetry:[51]—
’Tis thine with fairy forms to talk,
And thine the philosophic walk;
And what to thee the sweetest are—
The setting sun, the Evening Star—
The tints, that live along the sky,
The Moon, that meets thy raptured eye,
Where grateful oft the big drops start,
Dear silent pleasures of the Heart!
But if thou pour one votive lay,
For humble independence pray;
Whom (sages say) in days of yore
Meek Competence to Wisdom bore.
So shall thy little vessel glide
With a fair breeze adown the tide,
Till Death shall close thy tranquil eye
While Faith exclaims: “Thou shalt not die!”
“The heart-smile glowing on his aged cheek
Mild as decaying light of summer’s eve,”
are lines eminently beautiful. The whole is pleasing. For a motto! Surely my memory has suffered an epileptic fit. A Greek motto would be pedantic. These lines will perhaps do:—
All mournful to the pensive sages’ eye,[52]
The monuments of human glory lie;
Fall’n palaces crush’d by the ruthless haste
Of Time, and many an empire’s silent waste—
········
But where a sight shall shuddering sorrow find
Sad as the ruins of the human mind,—
Bowles.
A better will soon occur to me. Poor Poland! They go on sadly there. Warmth of particular friendship does not imply absorption. The nearer you approach the sun, the more intense are his rays. Yet what distant corner of the system do they not cheer and vivify? The ardour of private attachments makes philanthropy a necessary habit of the soul. I love my friend. Such as he is, all mankind are or might be. The deduction is evident. Philanthropy (and indeed every other virtue) is a thing of concretion. Some home-born feeling is the centre of the ball, that rolling on through life collects and assimilates every congenial affection. What did you mean by H. has “my understanding”? I have puzzled myself in vain to discover the import of the sentence. The only sense it seemed to bear was so like mock-humility, that I scolded myself for the momentary supposition.[53] My heart is so heavy at present, that I will defer the finishing of this letter till to-morrow.
I saw a face in Wrexham Church this morning, which recalled “Thoughts full of bitterness and images” too dearly loved! now past and but “Remembered like sweet sounds of yesterday!” At Ross (sixteen miles from Gloucester) we took up our quarters at the King’s Arms, once the house of Kyrle, the Man of Ross. I gave the window-shutter the following effusion:[54]—
Richer than Misers o’er their countless hoards,
Nobler than Kings, or king-polluted Lords,
Here dwelt the Man of Ross! O Traveller, hear!
Departed Merit claims the glistening tear.
Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health,
With generous joy he viewed his modest wealth;
He heard the widow’s heaven-breathed prayer of praise,
He mark’d the sheltered orphan’s tearful gaze;
And o’er the dowried maiden’s glowing cheek
Bade bridal love suffuse its blushes meek.
If ’neath this roof thy wine-cheer’d moments pass,
Fill to the good man’s name one grateful glass!
To higher zest shall Memory wake thy soul,
And Virtue mingle in the sparkling bowl.
But if, like me, thro’ life’s distressful scene,
Lonely and sad thy pilgrimage hath been,
And if thy breast with heart-sick anguish fraught,
Thou journeyest onward tempest-tost in thought,
Here cheat thy cares,—in generous visions melt,
And dream of Goodness thou hast never felt!
I will resume the pen to-morrow.