Chapter IX: Part 9

There are a great many women whose capacities and desires seem much beyond their opportunities. This is especially true of our New England, who stimulates the brains of her children, and consigns many of her daughters to a secluded life with small scope for action. There are many women who, being unmarried, or being married and childless, or left by the flight of the young birds to brood an empty nest, have not the full natural outlet of a woman's activities and affections, and suffer consciously or unconsciously from a partial emptiness and idleness of what is best in them. The burden upon such lives is that of isolation. Isolation may be in the midst of a crowd as well as in solitude; it is when the heart is not filled that we are truly alone. And this real solitude, this isolation of the affections from their proper objects, is something so bad, so against the law of our nature, that, broadly speaking, it is a matter not so much for endurance as for speedy getting rid of. Do you feel yourself alone and empty-hearted? Then you have necessity indeed for fortitude and brave endurance, but above all and before all you are to get out of your solitude. You cannot command for yourself the love you would gladly receive; it is not in our power to do that; but that noble love which is not asking but giving,--that you can always have.

Wherever your life touches another life, there you have opportunity. The finest, the most delicate, the most irresistible force lies in the mutual touch of human lives. To mix with men and women in the ordinary forms of social intercourse becomes a sacred function when one carries into it the true spirit. To give a close, sympathetic attention to every human being we touch; to try to get some sense of how he feels, what he is, what he needs; to make in some degree his interest our own,--that disposition and habit would deliver any one of us from isolation or emptiness. There is but one sight more beautiful than the mother of a family ministering happiness and sunshine to them all; and that is a woman who, having no family of her own, finds her life in giving cheer and comfort to all whom she reaches, and makes a home atmosphere wherever she goes. Though she have not the joy of wife and mother, she has that which is most sacred in wifehood and motherhood. She shares the blessedness of that highest life the earth has seen, of him who, having no home nor where to lay his head, brought into other homes a new happiness, and who spoke the transforming word, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

Take, again, the case of an invalid, who is for a long period shut out by illness or weakness from all ordinary activities. There are many such to whom pain and physical endurance are less trying than the feeling of being excluded from use and service, and having their moral life stunted or disordered by this stoppage of the natural play of the faculties. There are kinds of illness, especially those of the nervous system, which seem to invade the seat of the will and soul itself, to irritate the temper and sap the resolve and foster a self-centring egotism, by a power that is literally irresistible. Before such experiences as this one thought rises: it is part of mankind's business to lessen, and so far as possible to extirpate, these maladies. The individual sufferer must meet as best he can the conditions thrust upon him, but to prevent such conditions from arising is the lesson for the rest of us. We are only beginning to appreciate how largely the salvation of mankind must be worked out through physical means. The pestilences, the transmitted diseases, the insanities, the nervous disorders, bred of violated law,--all these and the like curses, which not merely destroy human life but degrade it, are to be fought and extirpated. We must secure for soul-life some fair room and chance as against these pests and tyrants. Here lies the noblest work of science; here, in prevention rather than in cure, lies the best field of that unsurpassed profession, the physician's. And, too, in this preventive work each man must learn to be his own physician, and minister to himself.

But what, meantime, is our disabled and secluded invalid to do? He is like a man set to fight a battle with one arm tied behind him. Others may pity, but for him his disablement must be a motive to greater exertion; he must supply by courage and skill the place of the lacking strength. It is what man can do under limitations and disabilities that shows his high-water mark of achievement. Any one can be cheerful in perfect health, but to be cheerful under weakness and pain,--_that_ is worth trying for! To be considerate and unselfish, when one is at ease and has all he wants, does not cost much; but to take thought for others and to spare them, and to be sympathetic with their joys and troubles, when pain forces you to be self-conscious, and long endurance tempts you to become self-centred,--well, if you can do that, you are good for something. If you can do that, have no fear that you are useless. Such fruit is rare enough to be precious. The lessons taught from many a sick-bed of bravery and gentleness and love,--we get no other teaching so good as that. There is many a family where it is the one who can do the least who does the most,--where it is the invalid's room from which goes out the strongest influence of patience and sweet courage and that divine quality which transforms trouble.

In one sick-room in a foreign land, for years a home-loving woman has been an exile; a woman of active and eager disposition, with large, executive capacity and ripe experience, shut up almost to idleness; a woman of large benevolence, who had entered on work of peculiar excellence and attractiveness, cut off from all such activities. This, with frequent pain, with fluctuation of hope and discouragement as to the future; and yet there is about her an atmosphere as serene as the Alpine heights that look down upon her, as cheerful as the sunny Alpine pastures with their tinkle of sheep-bell and hum of mountain bee. Her constant thought goes out to distant friends and brings them near; her close attention follows the march of the world's great interests, the fortunes of England and Russia and America, the course of freedom and reform; a sense of nature's beauty, trained to fineness through years of enforced quietude, brings exquisite ministrations; she shares the lives of the little circle of friends about her; heart and mind are at rest in the peace of God. Patience has had her perfect work.

Up, friend! leave your law case, your sermon, your accounts, and come out for an hour into this delicious March day, bracing as winter and sweet as spring. The new life of the year is stirring in the trees whose tops begin to redden, and in the brown pastures where watchful eyes can already see the green. The joy of the season is singing in a million bluebirds' and robins' throats; the cocks crow gayly; the caw of the big black crow flapping overhead with ragged wing has a cheery tone. All living creatures feel the tingle and throb of the great tide of life that sweeps in with the returning sun. See yonder two dogs, how they frolic, how they crouch and wheel and charge and roll each other over and pretend to bite. "Pure mongrels," both of them, and as happy as if they were the most aristocratic of Irish setters! See near by the tree full of flowers that has lasted the winter through. That is a tulip-tree, holding up its thousand delicate ghostly cups. Its grand trunk rises straight and unbroken full thirty feet, then branches in symmetry, and holds up as if to catch the sunshine and the rain its fairy goblets. And here is an oak that has not yet let go its grip on last year's dead leaves. How sharply the snow rattled on them, as if clashing on the iron which naturalists say the sturdy tree holds in its blood! Who ever sees these last oak leaves fall? And who knows where this dry, dead grass vanishes when the green blades fill all its room? Look at the horse-chestnut; already its buds are shiny. It must wait a good while before their

"little hands unfold,
Softer 'n a baby's be at three days old."

Sharp whistles the wind to-day, but it is the breath of life that it breathes into us. It comes down from yonder hills where the snow is shining yet. Grandly on the horizon lies Mount Tom, like a crouching lion, guardian over the fair valley. Where the mountain line breaks, between him and his twin sentinel, Holyoke, we know that the broad Connecticut sweeps past Hockanum. The glorious river,--what an unfailing joy it is to the eye as it curves and winds on its leisurely, steadfast course to the sea! Here at our feet is another river, a little brook flowing in clear stream over the roadside sand, born of the last snow-drift and living till the sun drinks it up. And beside it are half a dozen happy boys, paddling with their bare feet, making mud dams, scraping new channels and short cuts for the stream.

How black is the still water of this pond, smooth as a steel mirror! what perfect pictures it gives back of its woody and snow-touched banks! The woods above are solemn as that grandest work of man, an Old World cathedral, and free as only the Lord's own works are free, with the music of the wind in the great pine-tops; the gracious, infinite sky revealing itself through their tracery; the columnar trunks swaying now like a ship's masts. How at evening the setting sun glows through their black shafts; how ethereal the light that then fills the spaces of the wood; how the stars look down through the branches in the living stillness of the night! A few steps, and below us in the hollow we see the city, all its commonplaceness charmed away, the vulgar noises of the streets blended in a soft murmur. Not one human life moves in those streets, commonplace and vulgar though it may seem, but has its own charm and beauty, if we could find the right view-point, or if our sight went deep enough.

Across a plowed field darts in swift zigzag a gleam of blue; then, perched on a fence-rail, sends a thrilling song. The bluebird is the true voice of early spring, as is the bobolink of later spring. Bobolinks and apple-blossoms come together in the prodigal time of May. Our Northern spring is the most arrant of coquettes,--the most delicious in allurement, the swiftest in retreat. One day she seems to pour her whole heart out to us, and we think she is ours once and for all; next day she pelts us with sleet; buffets, freezes us; she--nay, she is gone, and we never shall see her again; it is the sourest shrew in the whole sisterhood of the year that has come in her stead! But the true lover thinks not so. He knows her woman's heart,--coying it a little, holding back her treasure till she sees if her worshiper be faithful, to pour it out all unstinted at the last, when May's perfect bridal day shall usher in the full and fruitful marriage blessing of the year.

On this June morning, place yourself here, under the shade of this noble, wide-spreading apple-tree on a garden lawn. Last night the earth was washed by showers, and a thunder-storm cleared the air. This morning a fresh northwest wind breaks the clouds, and opens pure, sweet depths of sky. Around us the flowers of early summer are blooming. Over the grass trip the young birds, mottle-breasted robins and bluebirds; the trees ring with frequent song; from the barnyard comes cheery cackle and cluck, and the chickens stray forth to investigate the secrets and riches of the world. A catbird pours out an opera in which he takes all the parts in succession, and the voice of the wind rises and falls in mysterious, delicious cadence.

"Oil and wine:" the oil poured on the wounds to soothe and heal, the wine drunk to revive and hearten with cordial life. The Hebrew symbolism has its roots in strong material soil: its imagery is vigorous and ruddy,--"wine of gladness," "oil of joy," "wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart." A modern psalmist might add, "and coffee which uplifts his spirit, and tobacco which soothes his cares."

Jesus chose, as the two symbols by which he would be remembered, bread and wine. Bread stands for nourishment and substantial support, wine for exhilaration and joy. When his disciples were full of the sorrow of approaching parting, he showed them that the loss was only in semblance: the reality was to be a higher energy, a purer joy,--bread to eat, wine to drink,--not death, but life. The sorrow attendant on death and loss is to be esteemed but the pangs that usher in life. "A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world."

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." What a key-note is that,--how jubilant, tender, strong!

As the earth revolving passes alternately into light and shadow, so human life in its divine appointment moves by turns through sorrow and through joy. Each has its service for the soul, as for the earth has day and night each its ministry and message. Of pain come hardihood and strength and sympathy. What a sapless, fibreless thing is a man untrained by endurance and untaught by suffering! How flaccid in muscle, how narrow in intelligence, how shallow in affection!

Yet, as to an all-beholding eye the sun pours light through all the planetary spaces, and the night, which to us on the world's darkened side seems all-enfolding, is in truth but a shadowy fleck in the vast sun-steeped sphere: so, of the soul's universe, the native, all-pervasive element is conscious good. Gladness is man's proper atmosphere. It is by the impulse of his deepest nature that he seeks joy, it is by the force of spiritual gravitation that he is drawn to it. But two hard lessons await him. One is, that to reach that goal he must trust himself to a higher Power, his own effort and purpose being to obey that Power. The other is, that the goal is not for one alone, but for all; and he can reach it only as he shares the common lot, making himself partner in the vicissitudes of his comrades, rejoicing with them that rejoice and weeping with them that weep. On our long voyage the stars by which we steer must be Duty and Love. The stars guide us, the winds and currents bear us, to the port of perfect good. The instinct of our journey's end we call Hope; the instinct by which we cleave to our true course, even when wholly doubtful of its end, and though false lights beckon us alluringly,--that instinct we call Faith.

Open your eyes upon the world on such a morning as this. Forget your own cares long enough to really see, but for a moment, yonder spray of roses waving in the breeze. Watch the play of light and shade in the flickering leaves overhead. Listen to the chorus of voices from bird, insect, and wind. The wine of gladness! Nature pours it in a sparkling flood, unceasing by day and night, for every one who will drink.

Nature pours the wine of gladness, but only from the mingling of human hearts comes the oil of tenderness. From sorrow it gets its sacred fragrance, from mutual service it draws its healing power, from the bitterness of parting it wins the sweetness of an inexpressible hope.

It was under the stroke of a great bereavement, the death of his child, that Emerson, in the "Threnody," gave utterance to highest consolation soaring out of sorrow's darkness. It was under the shadow of that loss that he heard the voice,--

"Saying, What is excellent,
As God lives, is permanent;
Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain,
Heart's love will meet thee again."

It is the same voice that speaks through all the ages. It speaks through Isaiah, "to give beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." It speaks in Paul, when in one sentence he gives the relation with God and his fellows into which man may come when out of darkness is born light. "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."

Where, asks the stricken heart, shall I find the God of comfort? O heart, only God himself shall answer you! But know this, that the very end and purpose of grief is that it shall be comforted. Comfort? The word has no meaning except to those who have mourned; was never stamped with its sacred significance except by those who had been through the deep waters of grief. "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." A man child, a woman child, He trains you to fullness of stature, to greatness of experience, to capacity for noble joy, for heart-sufficing love. To greatness and to joy he calls us, and draws us slowly by the changing years. The cross is the symbol of a passing experience. The end, the attainment, is figured to us by that face of Nature which is the face of God, with the strength of the mountains, the gladness of the sunlight, the freedom of the sky, the infinitude of the ocean.

The ripe days of early autumn open their best joys only to the sturdy walker, who turns his back on the streets to seek the country roads, and leaves the roads behind him to explore the forest nooks, the ravines, and the sheltered meadows, hidden deftly away from the incurious traveler, and keeping a wild sweetness for him who finds them out for himself. If one is in good tune, he may get the finest flavor of such a walk by taking it alone, or with only rarely perfect companionship. The ideal companion is one who can fully enjoy, who will help you to glimpses through another pair of eyes, and who will never obtrude inopportunely between yourself and nature. If a satisfactory human comrade be not at hand, one may find these qualities in no ordinary degree in--a good dog. But then to appreciate them one must be a true dog-lover, a gift which is, alas! denied to some otherwise exemplary and worthy people.

What does the dog think of it all? He has his own keen pleasures. His nose is an organ of intelligence and enjoyment which his master does not possess. He explores woodchuck holes; he tracks real or imaginary squirrels; one barks and scolds at him from a high limb, and throws him into a delicious fever of excitement. As Fox said the greatest pleasure in life was to win at cards, and the next greatest to lose at cards, so apparently the dog finds even an unsuccessful chase to be the second best joy he knows. Look at him, tense and motionless with excitement, as he watches the noisy chatterer overhead! No doubt the squirrel will brag to all his acquaintances of how he openly defied and triumphed over his huge enemy.

A chestnut bough swings low, and with hospitable hand proffers a half-open burr, out of which shine the glossy brown nuts. Sweet is the taste of the nuts. Sweet is the crisp red apple into which we bite, and with just a hint of the flavor of stolen fruit.

What audacious pen will try to reproduce or even dryly catalogue the glories poured out for eye and ear, for heart and brain, upon a bright and cool September day? The deep-glowing sumacs, the asters purple and white mixed with flaming goldenrod, in a splendid audacity of color such as only One artist dare venture on; the occasional dash of scarlet upon a maple, a first wave of the great tide that is sweeping up to cover the whole north country; the masses of yet unbroken green left neither dimmed nor dusty by the generous, moist summer; the oaks that will long hold their green flag in unchanging tint, as if "no surrender" were written on it, and then, last of all the trees, change to a hue of matchless depth and richness, like the life-blood of a noble heart that shows its full intensity only just before death's translation falls upon it; the separate tint of each leaf and vine, "good after its kind;" the soft whiteness of the everlastings in the hill-pastures; the reaped buckwheat fields heaped with their sheaves, stubble and sheaves alike drenched in a fine wine of color; the solemn interior of the woods, with the late sunlight touching the shafts of the pines; the partridge-berry and the white mushroom growing beneath, as in a cathedral one sees bright-faced children kneeling to say their prayers at the foot of the solemn pillars; the masses of light and of shadow--one cannot say which is the tenderer--lying on the cool meadows as evening draws on; the voice of unseen waters, the voice of the wind in the pines.

And so, with song, with autumn colors, with sunset lights, the Mother calls her children home.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Chief End of Man, by George S. Merriam