Chapter IV: Part 4

I entered the building, and found one large room of the same appearance as I have before described, being full of bottles, which preserve the wasted experience. Each bottle had a label giving a history of its contents. This room made me consider how erroneous is the common opinion concerning the efficacy of experience. It is usually said, that we are not to be taught by what happens to others, but only by what befalls ourselves, yet I think most who reflect on their lives must confess that the warnings they give themselves are to little purpose. To prove the vanity of experience, I would have any man consider how often he has failed to effect that improvement in his own character or conduct, which he now promises himself shall be very soon concluded. When we have every day endeavoured not to do a thing, and have yet done it every day for some years past, we are still convinced that to-morrow it really will be omitted; such is the authority of experience over our judgment. A stone, says Aristotle, being thrown up a thousand times does not learn to ascend. In many laudable endeavours, men benefit no more by experience than the stone, but still come back to the same place. I think, therefore, it may be said that experience has just force enough to make men lament that they are doing wrong, but not enough to make them do right.

In this room I saw many persons examining their own bottles, where they found the follies which they had diligently repeated after learning the bad consequences of them. They all were struck with melancholy at finding how many occasions of becoming prudent they had neglected. Gamblers found here the frequent losses and turns of fortune which had warned them of ruin, and in defiance of which they had proceeded with admirable resolution. The spendthrift was reproached with having still forgotten the want and difficulty which many times in his life had admonished him of the habits by which he was now a beggar.

I read with some amusement the histories on many of these bottles. One of them containing the wasted experience of a friend of mine, a member of parliament, records his endeavours to be an orator. Though every experiment has been conclusive in favour of silence, he still persists in his design of being the first orator in the House of Commons. Next to this bottle is one, which proves that experience has no greater force against poetry. It belongs to the author of a yearly volume, the reception of which every year has bid him desist from being a poet, but has not retarded the composition for the year following.

I observed a gentleman of my acquaintance studying attentively the label of his own bottle, which was covered with a long narration of neglected warnings, for he is thoroughly conversant with almost every enterprise of imprudence. He told me that he should take possession of his bottle, and carrying it to the earth make use of it to resist temptations; for he had seen another man drink a small quantity out of his bottle, by which he was immediately inspired with experience, and resolute against all follies. My friend, therefore, intended to have recourse to his bottle upon every urgent occasion, and so keep himself prudent as long as its contents lasted. I have since inquired the success of his scheme, and learned that at first, on the approach of any dangerous allurement, he applied himself to his bottle, and by a few drops mixed with water was quite fortified against it, having a painful remembrance and awe of former evils. While the influence of his draught continued, he remembered only the satiety and weariness of pleasure, with every inconvenience and shame of his several transgressions. These visions of prudence soon passed away, and each separate temptation required a new draught. But when the first charm of temperance was over, another difficulty occurred; for when an opportunity of being frail was expected, it required as much firmness to drink from the bottle as to resist without drinking. He still, however, continued this excellent medicine; but took care to be austere only when there was no occasion of enjoyment, and when any pleasure was near, he carefully abstained from the bottle. Timing his draughts thus judiciously, he still benefits by past experience.

Not long after I had quitted this house, I arrived at a valley which yielded a sound quite different from all the rest, not resembling either the human voice or any instrument that I had ever heard. Being told that it was the valley of Cant I did not wonder that it should give an unintelligible noise. I entered the valley, and found myself in the midst of these sounds, which I had been unable to interpret, and I then discovered that they were the religious tones which have prevailed in England since the first introduction of cant. There were no articulate words, but only tones in every variety of zeal and devotion.

I found here a gentleman very learned in antiquities, who was delighted with this multitude of noises; for he said that the most eloquent and faithful historian being unable to describe a sound, we have had no real knowledge of the tones of different sects, though we read much about them, but here he had found the authentic whining of every persuasion in past times. He listened attentively, endeavouring to assign the tones to their respective ages, which he imagined himself able to do with great exactness, though I knew not by what rules he was guided. He declared he should catch specimens of all these sounds, and shut them up in a box, so as to have by him all the tones in which our ancestors have served God, and thus supply a great defect in history.

I did not stay long amongst these strange noises, which at different times have served as piety, but passing further into the valley, I found cant under another representation. I was surrounded by a vast multitude of faces, or appearances of faces, which hovered in the air without being allied to bodies, or any other visible support. These faces were employed in the different contortions and grimaces which have been thought acceptable to God by adherents of the several sects. I was not a little amused by the violent endeavours of these faces; I saw features let out to an immoderate length; eye-brows with wonderful skill conveyed to a place far remote from that where nature had settled them: and eyes most ingeniously put out of sight without the lids being shut. Some of these artists had great advantages from nature in uncommon gifts of ugliness, and others had by industry supplied their natural defects in that endowment.

Being soon satisfied with this morality I left the faces frowning for their faith, and walking on saw a crowd of hands in the air performing their office also in the rites of cant. Some pairs of hands appeared to be preaching, and others praying; some were held upwards for a time, then stretched out, probably to the conviction of all who listened; some were clasped together with a violent effort of the muscles.

As soon as I had walked out of the district of hands, I found the air darkened by a flight of religious tracts, a crowd of which hovered round me in the air. When I appeared amongst them they rushed to me and opened themselves before my eyes that I might read them, struggling and contending with each other for the preference. Many of these tracts had been great travellers, and bore on the outside the names of the places they had visited. Some of them had preached in the East Indies, others in the West; and I felt a pride in considering how great a part of the world we supply with cant; nor is there the least fear of our stock being exhausted.

In another part of the valley I found a book recording the designs of cant, which are not yet completed. The first I cast my eye upon was a project to suppress eating, drinking, and breathing on a Sunday, particularly amongst tradesmen. Rabelais mentions some people whose practice was to breakfast on yawning; but this proposed law would make it serve for breakfast and dinner too on one day in every week. It appeared that the authors of this design have great hopes of persuading parliament very soon to enforce yawning on Sunday, and also of inducing people voluntarily to devote fifty-two days of the year to that laudable exercise, most advantageous to the public and most pleasing to heaven.

After this valley I came to another, whence issued a great uproar, which I found was the debates of parliament. I was soon in the midst of them, and heard a formidable din on various subjects, together with the many sounds of acquiescence and dissent. English orators will be pleased to find their speeches preserved in this manner; for it may spare them the expense and solicitation by which they must obtain a place in certain volumes for what they have said. I observed here several renowned senators who listened with exemplary attention to their own harangues. The speeches are preserved by this valley more faithfully than they can be by printing; for they are uttered without the loss of a single hesitation, repetition, or any other beauty with which they were first delivered. A speech, by losing these delays loses much of its length, which is now acknowledged the chief merit of oratory, as appears by the practice in both our houses of parliament. Cicero being asked which oration of Demosthenes he thought the best, answered, "The longest." All speeches are now estimated by the same rule, but our English orators far excel the ancients in duration; and we have many who, on any important subject, are at least two hours more eloquent than Demosthenes. In judging of speeches by their length there is this great convenience, that there can be no dispute about the superiority of one to another; for when speeches were praised according to the force of reasoning, choice of words, and other particulars once in esteem, it was impossible from the difference of taste in men that they should agree which of two speeches had those merits in the greatest perfection; but now the preference between two orations can make no question, provided the clock be carefully consulted.

I may mention in this place a project which I have devised for greatly improving the debates in parliament, and freeing the despatch of business. In explaining my plan, I must confess that it is borrowed, having been practised in the following case with great success. A married woman once complained to a female friend of the bitter and incessant disputes between herself and her husband, and asked advice about the means of avoiding them. Her friend answered that she had in her possession a certain water, of singular virtue in preventing quarrels between married people, and she would give her a bottle of it, with instructions for using it to that excellent purpose. Having filled a bottle with the peaceful liquid, she presented it to her friend, desiring that whenever her husband was beginning to be angry and contentious, she would fill her mouth with this water, and keep it there till he had become perfectly quiet. Soon after, the wife came back to have the bottle replenished, and to thank her friend for the miraculous cure and peace effected in her household, for the water had put an end to all disputes. Now I have been informed by a great chemist that the water of the Thames has the same wonderful property; and my contrivance is, that every member of parliament, at the beginning of each debate, should hold a sufficient quantity of it in his mouth, until the question be passed. I am convinced that this practice would infinitely improve the deliberations of our senate, by preventing the delays of business, and the perplexing of many subjects.

In the building which I next entered, the lost friendships of English people are preserved. I found a large room filled with urns of a beautiful shape, each of which contains a past friendship. On the outside of the urn is inscribed the cause which alienated the two friends, the duration of their kindness, with some other circumstances. I became melancholy at surveying this great assemblage of urns, and reflecting on the instability of friendship. When we lose our kindness towards a friend, we commonly pass into the contrary emotion, and entertain something like aversion towards him. Two men thus altered cannot meet without uneasiness; and I believe most people very early in life can name several whose presence reproaches them in this manner.

There is often no reason to be assigned for these separations: we formerly loved our friend without knowing why, and now his voice, his countenance, his gestures give us offence, which is equally inexplicable. We may be mortified that our judgment in reasoning is so liable to vary at different times of our life; but perhaps this want of firmness in our affections is still more lamentable.

It is said by Swift that every man is born with a certain portion of friendship, which he is to distribute amongst those he lives with, so that he cannot give to one without taking from another. I think there is some truth in this observation; and it may explain the cessation of many friendships, which otherwise would be very mysterious. There are some who pretend to have an unlimited stock of this commodity, and are liberal in bestowing it upon all who approach them; but this alacrity in loving only confirms the maxim of Swift: for the little value of the kindness, which in this case falls to the share of each, proves that friendship is not to be so divided.

On many of these urns I read the causes of estrangement. Some friends had lost their kindness for each other by being too long separate, others by being too long together; some by having different interests, and others by pursuing the same thing.

Lord Bacon says that admonition is the chief office and benefit of friendship; but I found here numberless instances of friends having been divided for ever by too faithful an execution of this office.

In wandering about when I had left the house of friendship I approached a valley, which I learned was the receptacle of lost vanity, and I was surprised to hear of such a place, because I had always thought that this endowment is never lost, but remains with a man till his death. Having often seen it in full vigour after the decay of strength, memory, benevolence, and almost every faculty, I had supposed that where it once is it must be inseparable from a human being, and consequently that it wanted no asylum in the moon.

I had always thought it the chief mitigation of old age, that whoever is in that difficulty, though he should lose every other ease, can still keep his vanity, which is certainly the principal comfort of life.

But I found there was here a valley full of this excellent attribute without any loss to the owners; for the vanity kept in this place is the fruitless ostentation of those who erroneously believe themselves admired, and are at the pains to assume a superiority which is altogether groundless.

When I arrived at the edge of the valley, I saw first a crowd of what I conceived to be young men employed in very singular movements; but on walking amongst them, I found they were only the outsides of men, or rather apparitions. They were all dressed with exact propriety; and I soon discovered that these shadows represented the elaborate behaviour of that race of men who claim greatness from a superiority in moving about. Each of these figures was engaged in executing the gestures peculiar to it in walking along a street, in entering a room, in bowing, and in every other momentous transaction. They went through their arts very rapidly, so as to make a great confusion in the different duties and situations of life. Their gestures passed from the park to the opera, and thence to a ball-room without the least delay, the exploits of each place being performed with wonderful despatch. Many of these figures smiled perpetually, and some with great skill. It was a ridiculous thing to see them bowing without any provocation, and performing other gestures, which there was nothing to justify.

They had no voice, but they moved their lips, and greatly excelled in conversation so far as it is a beauty to the eye. But all the gifts exhibited here had been lost by the dulness of mankind, the superiority of these men being of such a nature that no one could discover the grounds upon which they reasoned.

I had a wish to take one of these actors a prisoner, thinking he might be an useful warning to certain young men of my acquaintance. I therefore seized the one of greatest pretensions, and compressed him till he was concealed within the palms of my hands, but, notwithstanding this restraint, I felt him endeavouring to continue his exercises. I then suddenly let him go, when, being instantly restored to his size and shape, he began without delay to renew the practice of his accomplishments. Supposing, therefore, that he would not lose his energy by a temporary confinement, I again pressed him into a small compass and secured him in a pocket-book. When, at my return to the earth, he was released to his right dimensions, he retained all his vigour, and still he goes through his manoeuvres without cessation.

When I advanced farther into this valley I found it filled with a great variety of characters, innumerable shapes of people being engaged in a rapid exhibition of their several kinds of vanity, all being transacted in silence, for none of the apparitions could speak. I was amused by the loftiness and pretence of these shadows: here and there I saw a learned lady dictating to all round with authoritative gestures, nodding with great erudition, and sometimes stretching out an instructive finger. Several shapes of young men wandered about quite unable to suppress their greatness through having spoken once in parliament. The authors, too, are very abundant here: I remarked the appearance of a man which seemed to labour extremely with its dignity, and I discovered that the person whom it represented had fought a duel the day before. One figure sat with a look of greatness, but quite immovable: this was the ostentatious reserve of one of those men who would impose their silence upon the world as learning and superiority, and so much mistake the reception given them as to construe dislike into respect. This error, indeed, is not at all uncommon: every one must know people who fancy themselves universally esteemed only because they put a visible constraint on every company they enter.

When I looked at the great crowd assembled here, all believing themselves admired, and all really despised, I could not help considering how very little admiration there is in the world, and how many are in pursuit of it. If we except the few solitary men of remarkable genius, who in the vast crowd that is left obtains any real admiration? Still the belief of being admired is what gives life all its spirit. Mankind is in a perpetual plot to obtain applause, and yet every one prides himself on detecting vanity, and denies to all others what he expects from them. He who in conversation hears any thing ostentatiously spoken remarks the vanity of it to his neighbour, who secretly imputes to him an equal vanity for pretending to this quick discernment of a fault.

Being now told that I was near the valley of lost labour, I walked towards it, expecting a very large collection of curiosities, if here were the efforts of all those Englishmen, who have been laborious to no purpose. The end of the valley, where I entered, was occupied by a vast crowd of students. Innumerable shapes or apparitions of men were here reading for future eminence, being destined to no other reward than the remembrance of their industry. Each of them fixed his eyes on his book with great zeal, removing them from time to time as if to enjoy a vision of his future greatness. I could not avoid some melancholy thoughts at seeing the pale resolute faces of these persons, who had given up their health and pleasure for the sake of disappointment, and I considered how much endeavour there is in the world, and how little reward.

These shadows appeared to be of various ages, some not arrived at manhood, and others far advanced in life, representing the different periods at which men desist from trying to be great. Some had given up renown as soon as they became men, others did not despair to the end of their lives, but in their old age were still preparing to be famous in spite of experience. He who means to be eminent usually fixes an early time for the first appearance of his genius: the time arrives, and his genius has not yet appeared, but this is no just cause of despair; for he has only fallen into the common error of expecting a too hasty success, and he gives a new allowance of time with the same confidence as before. In the mean time he has a comfort, that early fame is often pernicious, and his greatness will be more secure by beginning later. He is also encouraged by the celebrated men who were unknown till long after his age,--a reflection which has supported many a pensive candidate for fame. These hopes and alleviations occur at certain cheerful moments, but there are many hours when the hardship of not being famous is bitterly felt. And despair, though often deferred, must come at last, in which emergency consolation is to be sought in the notorious injustice of the world, and its ignorance of merit. The sufferer in this disaster has not mistaken his own abilities, but the judgment of other men: he has failed, not from a deficiency of true genius, but from the want of some dexterity, or fraudulent art, without which genius cannot be manifested. Thus a man encourages himself in his youthful hopes by the sagacity of the world, which insures success to real ability, and afterwards in his despair he comforts himself by the dulness of the world, which denies all opportunity to genius. After the final disappointment, therefore, he is still a great man in secret, and corrects the injustice of the world, by privately maintaining himself in his true rank. I believe it is little suspected how many of these concealed men of genius there are.

Having passed through these laborious readers, I came to a company of writers equally industrious. A crowd was here afflicted in the composition of books never to be read. Amongst these authors, I saw two or three of my acquaintance, whom I had never suspected of such practices, so carefully had they concealed their infirmity, intending, probably, to surprise the world with the sudden appearance of a great work; but through the inexorable temper of booksellers, or some other impediment, the surprise had never occurred.

The sight of these unsuspected writers confirmed an opinion I have long had, that the clandestine authors are a very numerous race. And whatever mortification there may be in finding that what we have written is not to be a book, yet a writer of this kind has great advantages by his concealment; for his work, not spreading beyond himself, he is sure of unanimous approbation, and is the only author who can securely write without censure. Besides which, while his works are confined to his desk, he may assign that to himself as an excuse for their not having been read; but he who by publication has given men an opportunity of reading him, which they have declined, has no justification. To my friends, therefore, who must write, I recommend secrecy as the best art to defend their works from censure, ridicule, neglect, feeble praise, and other calamities incident to a book.

In examining these appearances of authors, I observed that there were some of every rank in life; many of them betrayed that they could not be clothed without difficulty, while several seemed to belong to the highest order of society. All gave proofs of being affected by the force and merit of what they were writing; some appeared ready to weep for the distress which they were causing in a romance; and others were much diverted by their own wit. I saw two or three authors who could not contain their laughter at every new sentence that came from their pens. The works were of various kinds, with which all these persons were trying to enrich the world. I looked over the shoulders of some, and saw poems and novels, politics, history, divinity, and every other undertaking.

Leaving the authors, and advancing farther into the valley of lost labour, I saw a crowd of young men, who with much energy were throwing their bodies into many different postures. At first I could not imagine the purpose of this peculiar diligence, but soon discovered that these young men were in the practice of oratory, and that all the strange attitudes I saw were for parliament. As I approached the orators, I found they were reciting speeches to these gestures, each having a mirror before him, to direct that part of eloquence which lies in the arms and legs. All of them argued vehemently with their limbs, and I lamented that so many convincing gestures should have been lost.

After seeing many other lost labours, which it would be tiresome to enumerate, I left the valley, and before I had gone far, observed a pretty woman, with a disconsolate countenance, sitting to rest herself, as it appeared, from some fruitless search. I asked whether I could assist her in finding what she wanted, and she gladly accepted of my aid, informing me that she was in quest of her husband's affection, which she had unaccountably lost, two years after their marriage, and had vainly attempted to regain. She had been told that somewhere near the place where she now sat there was a receptacle for the lost affection both of husbands and wives, but she had not yet succeeded in finding it. I comforted her with observing, that a place which should contain all the lost love of married people must be of considerable extent, and therefore easily found.

We walked on together, and making inquiries, were directed to a large building where the affection which has dropped out of the bosoms of married people is preserved in the shape of small hearts, white and shining, like alabaster. On each is an inscription, recording the fault of the wife or husband, by which it had been lost. On one male heart I read "Decay of beauty," that being the wife's misconduct, by which this heart had been estranged from her. Almost every heart alleged some excellent reason for the ceasing of affection, such as a hasty temper, jealousy, dulness, vivacity, scolding, growing old, the having been married _two_ years, with many other equally good causes for the discontinuance of domestic kindness. On some of the hearts was a blank, and no reason assigned for the alienation, which intimated that the affection of the husband or wife had not been extinguished by any violence, but had gone out of itself.

I saw a considerable number both of men and women searching for the hearts that they desired to regain. There is no name on any of these hearts, but all people were enabled to discover that which had once loved them, by a very singular property in the heart; for when they took hold of that which had formerly entertained a kindness for them, it instantly began to beat and palpitate violently, though to the eye it appeared common alabaster; but if it had never felt any passion for them it remained perfectly still.

There was an old man who seized every female heart that he met with; and as I came up to him, I heard him mutter, "This certainly beats a little." He then requested me to feel the heart, which he held in his hand, and give my judgment whether there was any thing amounting to a real palpitation while he held it. I could not perceive the least motion, except from the trembling of his hands, which greatly mortified him. He told me he had been married late in life to a young woman, who had very soon become extremely cool towards him, though he had done nothing to displease her, and always spoke to her with the greatest kindness. I represented to him that unless he was quite sure he had once been really possessed of her heart it was vain to search for it here; but he declared he was confident that when he married the lady her heart was his own, though it escaped from him in so singular a manner soon after. He then continued to try all the hearts in his way, imagining a palpitation in each.

One male heart was vehemently disputed by half-a-dozen women, each of whom pleaded a lawful claim to it, and, indeed, it actually beat whichever of them held it, thus owning a passion for them all. One of them was wife to this heart; but her right was contested by the others, on the pretence that the palpitation of the heart when she touched it was much weaker than when it was held by any of them. There were many other hearts, both male and female, which, having been pluralists, were disputed by many competitors, each of whom was able to produce a real palpitation.

I was informed that somebody had invented a method by which these hearts might restore the lost affection; and as the wife whom I accompanied had found the heart of her husband, I explained to her the invention, which she has since practised with complete success. According to the direction given her, she dissolved the heart in a certain liquid, and, keeping it in a bottle, secretly mixed a small quantity with whatever her husband drank. The effect was, that after the first draught he intimated some return of kindness, which still increased as he proceeded through the bottle; and when he had drank the whole heart he had resumed all his former affection.

When I had left this building, I soon arrived at another which contains groundless fears. I entered it, and found, as in many others, a spacious room filled with bottles, containing the apprehensions that have troubled mankind without necessity. On studying the labels of these bottles, I thought the fears of men little less wild and visionary than their hopes; and it appeared to me that the worst calamities of life are those which are never to happen. Moralists have often praised the concealment of the future from man as a most ingenious invention against approaching evils; but since we are so much tormented by evils that are not coming, I think this ignorance is but an imperfect security.

I diverted myself in reading the terrors with which these bottles are stored. Every gale of wind supplies them with apprehensions from those who are at sea; and I was surprised to observe how many people there are who, in a thunder-storm on shore, are fully convinced that the lightning will choose their persons in preference to every other spot where it could light. Great numbers in a trifling sickness had suffered all the horrors of approaching death. I knew not before how many there are who use the precaution of being always uneasy, and have so much foresight as to lose all the comfort of life.

One part of this room is assigned to public fears, which are contained in large urns. These are the apprehensions which have seized a great part of our nation from time to time. There is great variety in the nature of them. At one time a small party of men are suddenly convinced that all the rest of the nation are soon to be mad by agreement at the same instant, leaving only themselves in possession of reason: every thing they see tends to a general insanity; and by the expectation of this event they are much harassed, as is reasonable. Sometimes those who are earnest in religion apprehend that the people, at a stated time, are going to disbelieve Christianity and abolish it. And sometimes the farmers of England are seized with a belief that parliament, instigated by a bad ministry, intends to pass a law forbidding the practices of ploughing and sowing, to the manifest injury of agriculture.

These epidemic fears are so frequent in England that every body must remember a great number of them. Sometimes they seem to invade the country of their own accord, and at other times are contrived by the invention and industry of certain statesmen,--for one of these terrors has often power to ruin or secure a ministry; so that the great wisdom of state in England is a skill in prompting and regulating fears. I know not whether there is more art or fortune in the beginning and progress of a fear: very able men often undertake to be the authors of one without any success; and in spite of the reasoning with which they tell the world to be afraid, not a man will consent to feel any alarm. Sometimes a most plausible apprehension is invented, and sent into the world with the countenance of eminent men, and every other advantage for its promotion, and yet it can obtain no credit, but is almost immediately lost, while, at another time, a terror is obscurely raised, and, although without probability, favour, or any arts of advancement, it is instantly spread and established.

It is vain to oppose a successful fear: a wise minister attacked by one will enrol himself under it, and be as much terrified as any body. These apprehensions differ much in duration, the life of some being only a few weeks, and others lasting for many months, or even for some years.

I have said that the public fears are kept in large urns, with this difference from the private fears, that a bottle contains the apprehensions of only one person, while an urn holds the terror of a whole party, each public fear having an urn to itself. Every urn is inscribed with the name of the fear that it preserves, and is larger or smaller according to the numbers who have been possessed by its contents. On one urn I read "Popery," on another, "Revolution."

But while I was reading the names of these past disturbances, a fearful clamour rushed into the room, sounding like the sudden shout of a vast crowd, but incessantly repeated. I found it was a public terror newly arrived from the earth, and the guardian of the room made haste to secure it. He brought an urn, the size of which he had determined by his ear, and enticed the uproar into it by a proceeding very similar to the art which inveigles a swarm of bees into a hive. This clamour was the repetition of a single word by thousands of voices. What the word was I shall not disclose; for since it has very lately been a prevalent fear, some excellent persons not yet dispossessed, on learning its departure to the moon, would be distressed by the fatal security that has befallen us.

It is possible that a skilful statesman might employ these urns in his service by letting out some terror judiciously chosen at a time favourable to its progress. I am not able to say whether it would prosper a second time, or return instantly to the moon, as having been discharged, but I think the experiment worthy of being tried by any administration that wants aid. Great care and judgment would be required in the selection of a fear for release, lest it should turn against its deliverers.

I next entered a building filled with the unavailing projects of Englishmen, and spent a short time in examining these enterprises, which are political, moral, religious, mechanical, and chemical. The collection has been much enriched by recent contributions. Many excellent designs of the present age for the benefit of England and the rest of the world are here honourably preserved. I saw numerous projects for making morality: every virtue had some contrivance to be practised by; and these schemes appeared very easy of execution, requiring nothing for their success except the universal concurrence of mankind in receiving them.

I found here plans for dispensing with all laws, and extinguishing crime by a general resolution of men in favour of virtue, for preventing the birth of children by argument, for discontinuing war throughout the world, for converting all nations to the true religion, that is, the religion of the projector.

Amongst all the noble schemes that I saw here, I most admired those which were not content with the improvement of England, but designed the good of the whole world, such as the plan last mentioned, for including all the inhabitants of the globe in one religion. The means of effecting so great a work were not described, but the inventor of this unanimity was said to have devised so infallible a project, that for spreading truth over the earth he required nothing but a steam vessel, and undertook by a few tons of coal to convince all mankind.

I saw many other English schemes for the welfare of distant nations, so that not a people was to remain vicious, ignorant, or oppressed. In examining these ample designs, I felt a secret pride in the noble spirit of some amongst my countrymen; and it appeared to me that nothing has been so much improved in modern times as the virtue of humanity. Men were formerly satisfied with relieving the distresses which they saw and heard; but there is now a large body of men in England who busy themselves with the troubles of distant nations, and consider all sufferings on the farther side of the globe as their own calamities. It is well known how many persons of all ranks in England pined away under the lashes inflicted upon the negroes in the West Indies. Others could not be cheerful as long as Greece was under the dominion of Turkey; and another party, who were not concerned either about Greece or the negroes, regarded themselves as the most unfortunate of men because in India widows sometimes burned themselves at the funerals of their husbands. How would one of the ancient moralists admire the dismay which has been caused in England by the conflagration of an old woman in the East!

It is observable that one who is thoroughly inspired with this remote pity disdains to do a kindness in his own hemisphere, and despises that superficial humanity which makes us supply the wants of those who are immediately round us. He can only pity at a distance, and feels compassion in proportion to the number of leagues that intervene between him and the sufferer. He can see with firmness the starvation of those who live near him, but shudders to think that a man may be hungry two thousand miles off. Thus he claims a share in the misery of every man at a sufficient distance: a lash inflicted on the other side of the Atlantic makes a mark upon his back--he is flogged with the negro, enslaved with the Greek, and burned to ashes with the Indian widow.

I had now been wandering in our satellite almost a fortnight, according to the earth, and almost a day according to the moon, for I arrived there in the morning, and the day was now almost ended. I have not related all that I saw, but selected a few of the most remarkable places that I visited; nor have I instructed the world in what manner I provided for my own personal comforts, according to the practice of many travellers, who rescue every one of their meals from oblivion, and never eat or drink without recording it. I have also omitted all mention of the moon's inhabitants, because they are to be fully described by other travellers.

When I left the House of Projects, I was informed that I was very near to the Valley of Lost Time, and I hastened towards it, that I might observe whatever was there, before it should be dark. I descended into the valley, and found myself surrounded by the sounds of innumerable clocks. These sounds did not proceed from any visible mechanism, but lived in the air like the other preserved clamours. They are the ghosts of minutes and hours that have perished. It was remarkable that in this confused clamour, every man knew his own time, and could distinguish the hours he had lost when he heard them struck; yet he knew not what it was that discovered them to him: all were alike in sound; only at the striking of particular hours, he was seized with a conviction that he heard his own time.

There were many persons in the valley, and I observed that some of them heard their own lost hours with great emotion. They turned pale, trembled, and were overpowered by the reproach. And not only could a man discern his own losses amongst these sounds, but knew what particular hour or minute of his past life he was listening to, which very much aggravated the rebuke. Men heard the striking of the very crisis which might have saved, enriched, or advanced them. In some men the emotion from these sounds continued a long time, others soon recovered themselves.

I saw two or three running about in chase of their time with a hat, as a boy follows a butterfly. The hours were very nimble, escaping by an irregular flight, and the pursuit was long continued in vain. At last one of these men succeeded in the capture of a portion of time, which he had followed with much perseverance. The chase being finished close to me, I heard the stifled hours striking under his hat. As he had been present in the room of lost spirits when I had shown the means of recovering mirth from the phial containing it, he had contracted a high opinion of my skill and invention in rendering available these regained prizes, and he now earnestly consulted me about the means of making the time under his hat serve the purpose which it ought to have been applied to before. He told me he was a London tradesman, and not very prosperous, through the misapplication of three particular days which he now had in captivity. A few years ago he had been in pursuit of a rich widow, from whom though he had extorted no promise, yet he had been convinced that she was waiting only till a decorous time had elapsed since her first husband. But this confidence ruined him: he was absent three days with some friends; and on returning to his vocation found the lady had so much resented his neglect of office as to supply his place with another candidate, whom soon after she married. "Now," he continued, "I have caught these three days, and here they are, but still I know not how to make them answer my purpose. However, since you, sir, could restore a lady her spirits out of a phial, perhaps you can restore me my widow from under a hat."

"I fear," said I, "your case is beyond my skill; for I know not how the noise under your hat can by any artifice prevent the widow from having been married as you remember. Whatever use you make of these sounds, I fear you must still have misemployed the three days and lost the widow. It appears to me, that the only way of retrieving lost time is to make better use of what remains; I therefore advise you to make diligent search for another rich widow, and when you have found one, remember you are not to have a respite of three days."

"So, then, I have come to the moon in vain," he said; "and I may as well let these three days go again, after I have taken so much trouble to catch them."

"No," I answered: "a contrivance occurs to me by which, perhaps, they may be useful."

"What is that?" he inquired eagerly.

"You may shut them up in a box," said I, "and always keep them by you, to remind you of former neglect, and enforce vigilance in case of another widow." He seemed to think this an ineffectual invention for correcting his former mistake; however he carried away his three days with a discontented face.

Another man, who had stood in dismay, and quite overcome by the striking of his lost hours, hearing what I said, declared he would try the same expedient, and keep his misemployed time in a box for the sake of prudence and industry in time to come; and immediately he betook himself to the chase.

I saw a pretty young woman in pursuit of some portion of time, which she seemed to consider a valuable opportunity. It led her up and down at her utmost speed: but at last, as I stood in its course, it was entangled in the skirts of my coat; I seized it before it could escape, and presented it to her. It was a single hour: she accepted it with joy; but I could not prevail upon her to tell me what advantage she had lost with this hour. This young woman, and some other persons, followed their time very earnestly with a confused notion of benefit from it, when it should be caught, though without any plan for applying it to a real purpose. The truth was, that most of those who heard the striking of their own hours, by awe and regret from the sound, were incapable of thinking accurately, and were driven by a desire of retrieving the past they knew not how.

Without any such reproach, it was impossible to stand in this valley, and hear the destruction of time all round, without sorrow for the waste of this commodity. There was a reasoning in the place not to be opposed. I considered that time and money being the two things most earnestly desired in our world, the ingenuity of men is chiefly exercised in devising arts for the waste of both. It appeared to me also that amongst all the errors in the plan of a human being, the most fatal is that the present moment should be so much the most plausible instant of our lives, and capable of persuading us to whatever it chooses. By universal agreement and practice, the present time is for ease and enjoyment, the future for abstinence, resolution, and insatiable industry; and since the present moment is only one, while our future moments, by the blessing of Providence, may be many, we judge that this distribution of time is greatly to the advantage of industry and virtue, and we seem to be treating ourselves with admirable severity, when we allot no portion of our lives to pleasure, except the present moment; but in this computation it is forgotten that life is made of present moments. The bargain, however, is concluded; and pleasure exacts the observance of it by still claiming the present moment, while industry, abstinence, and other virtues included in the agreement, stand waiting for their turn with helpless simplicity.

While I was engaged in these thoughts, I first heard the striking of my own lost hours, which impressed upon me a horror that I cannot describe. I knew each particular hour as I heard it, and remembered the abused opportunities which I had long before ceased to lament. I stood in the persuasion and despair of having lived in vain, and no more thought of inquiring into the grounds of this trouble and conviction, than we do in an anxious dream. Suddenly I was seized with a desire of recovering what I had thrown away: I reproached myself with wandering for amusement in the moon, and resolved to return without delay, in order to use my remaining hours with rigorous frugality. I instantly set out, and travelled with great zeal, nor did I lose the impression from the sound of my lost time till I had nearly completed the journey.

At last, however, the illusion left me, and I was able to regard time as the frivolous bauble which I have always considered it, except under the deception of this valley. For however scrupulously we may turn every moment to advantage, our most probable conclusion in every undertaking is, that we are labouring to provide ourselves with repentance; and to me it seems that a secure contempt of time, and an easy trifling with that portion of it called human life, is the only adequate remedy against the common lot of man, who, according to a celebrated author, "is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed."

Is it not a great folly that we, who know we are immortal beings, should always perplex ourselves about the hurry and use of time? For when we have before us such a supply as eternity, it is surely absurd to be sparing of hours and days.

I regret that by this groundless consternation my travels in the moon were so prematurely ended. I design another journey, and hope it may produce something more worthy of being read than this imperfect narrative.

* * * * *

MAHOMET AND THE SPIDER.

A DIALOGUE.

(_A Cave in Mount Hara._)

MAHOMET SPEAKS.

I begin to be very much tired of this cave, and my thoughts grow so dull, that I have added only one line to the Koran during the last two days. Yet here I must stay; for if I go out, and live amongst men, they will never allow me to be a prophet; my doctrine will not be received unless it comes out of a cave. Such is the nature of men: provided they have not seen me for a month, and know not where I have been, they are convinced of my intelligence with heaven, and do not consider that any man might hide himself for a month, and so be a prophet. If they see me write, they will not receive my words as revelation; but whatever I compose out of their sight is unquestionably inspired. Certainly this solitude is irksome. My only companion is that spider on the wall. I begin to think he is the happiest of the two: it has never occurred to him to be a prophet, and write a Koran, but he keeps his web in repair, and eats flies, like other spiders.

SPIDER.

Are you already weary of your mission?

MAHOMET.

Great God! what do I hear? Surely it was the spider that reproved me in a human voice!

SPIDER.

Yes, it was I who spoke; and my exercise of this faculty, by no means common in a spider, may renew your diligence by showing the protection of God. But pray recover from your alarm: in the course of your mission you have met worse dangers than a talking spider. The truth is, though you have seen me mending my web, and catching flies, I am, nevertheless, far from being a spider, but one of the most important angels in heaven, who have been sent to watch over you in this concealment. I have been grieved to see you make so little progress for the last two days: you have remained with your eyes fixed, and seemingly in thought, but your meditations have not increased the Koran.

MAHOMET.

It is true, thou sacred angel, or spider, whichever I am to call you, for my thoughts have been troubled by doubts.

SPIDER.

What have you been doubting about?

MAHOMET.

I was prepared to write a chapter enjoining prayer. I was going to command all men to kneel at certain times for prosperity, obedient children, and long life; but when I revolved the matter in my mind, I could not help acknowledging to myself, that prayer is a very ineffectual device, for a man may pray every hour in the day, and fail in all his undertakings. What multitudes of prayers are offered, and how few accomplished! With what confidence then can I bid men improve their fortunes by prayer, when so little sagacity is required to see that praying does not regulate events?

Men will be apt to reason concerning the blessings they want as I reasoned about the mountain. Having called it several times without observing in it the least preparation for complying with my request, I concluded that the ordinary exertion of my own legs would be a more effectual expedient for reaching it, than any entreaties; and so a man, who has tried to grow rich by prayer will be convinced that human industry is far more efficacious.