“To sleep away his hours
In desperate sloth, miscalled philosophy.”
He wished to be a man among men. His ambition was first to teach himself, and then to teach the world. He wished to elevate the tone of society; to raise it from its fallen state. His was no splendid dream of revolutionizing the social world; he had no fond hope of creating an Utopia out of this busy, bustling America of the XIXth century. But he knew that life was too precious to be dedicated solely to the one selfish, absorbing pursuit of wealth; that the entire surrender of mind and heart and life itself to the accumulation of money was corrupting our people and exercising a baleful influence over the whole nation. Our merchants rival the merchant princes of Italy in wealth and enterprise; why should they not rival them also in their princely tastes? The palaces, the gardens, the galleries, the libraries, of Florence, Venice, and Genoa, “all tell the story of great thoughts and noble tastes which gold and trade may nurture when nobleness [pg 804] and greatness deal with them.” We should take time to cultivate the beautiful as well as the useful; the poetical as well as the practical. The artist should be patronized as well as the artisan. Time should be given to the refinement, the grace, the sweetness of life. We have followed too long and too earnestly the false philosophy taught in “Poor Richard's Almanac,” that money-getting is a sort of secular religion, and “there will be sleeping enough in the grave.” Our American life is one long “fitful fever.” We give no time to rest. Repose, a cultivated leisure, is not idleness. An elegant essay on this subject—leisure[187]—by a distinguished Baltimore lawyer, should be read and pondered by our eager and restless people, who are devoured by their business as Actæon was by his own dogs. “I mean,” says this writer, “the rest which is won and deserved by labor, and which sweetens and invigorates it and furnishes its reward. Whence comes this doctrine, that life, to be anything, must be for ever in motion? There is no process of physical development which does not need and depend upon repose. To all the green and beautiful things that deck the earth—the flowers that give it perfume, and the fruits and foliage that make it glad—there is needful the calm sunshine and the peaceful shade, the gentle rain and the yet gentler dew. Not a gem that flashes but has been crystallized in the immovable stillness of the great earth's breast. I believe that to be false philosophy which denies to individuals their seasons of leisure and meditation; teaching them that existence was meant to be nothing but a struggle.” Our very amusements are unwholesome and dangerous: the midnight “German,” the lascivious drama, the race-course, the steamboat excursion, the political meeting. The priceless time of youth should have some better employment than dancing and novel-reading. Our young men should be taught that life is too valuable, time too precious, to be frittered away in idle pleasures, in frivolous amusement, in heartless dissipation. Our young women should be taught that there is something nobler in life than the passing triumphs of the ball-room, gay flirtations, and dazzling toilets.
Thoughts like these occupied Ernest D'Arcy on that bright October morning—thoughts that stirred his heart and mind, and made him eager for the glorious work. With a soul longing to “be up and doing,” he was compelled to sit idle in the golden prime of his manhood. These were the moments of his greatest despondency, when all the brightness seemed gone from his life, and all the hope from his soul. Sitting there in the library that morning, D'Arcy recalled the beautiful lines of Miss Procter in “My Picture”:
“He had a student air,
With a look half sad, half stately,
Grave, sweet eyes and flowing hair.”
The library-door was opened, and there came in one who was always welcome—Mary D'Arcy.
“Ernest, I have a letter from Edith Northcote,” Mary said. “She will be here to-morrow.”
“I am glad to hear it. From all you have told me about Miss Northcote, I think I shall like her.”