of life. To say nothing of mind, there are no hours so precious to health as those of the morning; and if you were less of a Whig in your philosophy, and would submit to a little force to make you rise early, you would not be thus pale and ill at ease.' CHAPTER XX. MORE ARGUMENT-METHOD AND NECESSARY OCCUPATIONS. So many hours must I tend my flock; SHAKSPEARE. "AND whence, and what could be the force?" asked Tremaine, in reply to the observation of Evelyn which concluded the last chapter. "Why that's the difficulty," said Evelyn, "as you have, in addition to your system, the misfortune to be so independent in situation." Pray observe that I have no system," interrupted Tremaine. "And pray observe that I wish you had," repeated his friend; " or if not, at least such a pursuit as you could systematically follow." "Odious!" cried Tremaine. "Useful!" retorted the Doctor; "useful to interest, to health, to the spirits, the happiness, the very life-blood of man!" "You speak ex cathedra," said Tremaine," and almost persuade me to become a machine. It is certainly true that you seem in robust health, and I may one day be glad to learn how you contrive to dispose of your time, with so many irksome demands upon it as you choose to encourage, and yet preserve that air of contentment which seems to animate you. It is the destruction of my hours by impertinent fools formerly, and tasteless business now, which takes me from my leisure, and to which the indisposition that wears me is certainly owing." "If I have what you would give me," answered Evelyn, "it is owing to that very division of time which I recommend, and which you reprobate. The leisure I possess enables me to make what allotments of it I please; and by giving every hour its appropriate duty, I am enabled not only to perform it, but perform it with pleasure." "You astonish me," replied Tremaine; "is it possible that you can call it pleasure to reduce yourself to a mere machine ?" "Even so," returned Evelyn: "and in doing this I know not that I am acting otherwise than in the very scope and design of my nature." "Impossible! impossible!" retorted Tremaine ; and with an energy that seemed to confer a momentary pleasure upon him, he broke out with The poet's eye, in a fine phrenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing "Very beautiful," said Georgina, pleased with his whole look, manner, and feeling. "But the application," added her father. "It is easy," replied Tremaine ; "for do you conceive that a mind thus rolling in phrenzy, thus brilliant in fancy, thus enthusiastic in feeling, can possibly be tied down to rules and hours, like a piece of brute earth, or, to speak more appropriately, like monotonous clock-work?" 66 Luckily for mankind," said Evelyn, "we are not all of us poets." "But we might be," returned Tremaine, interrupting him, "and should, if it were not for those vile trammels in which most of us are unhappily condemned to live." "Doubting your unhappily."" replied Evelyn, “I particularly doubt it as derived from what you call tram mels, for I was going on to observe, that it is from those very trammels that all which is called order arises; and the happiness of order in society, I suppose I need not point out to a legislator like you.' "It will do very well for tinkers and tailors," said Tremaine," with vivacity, "for tradesmen, and secretaries, and lawyers: they must do their work, answer their letters, and attend their causes. But we are talking of men of leisure, and, pray observe, men of imagination." "It is to these I direct my remark," said Evelyn, "and as a professor of idleness, I would presume to lay it down, ex cathedrá if you please, that an order of time, established for the various occupations of even men of leisure, would make them probably wiser, and certainly happier, than they generally are." "What says Miss Evelyn?" asked Tremaine. SO "Oh! papa thinks for me," answered Georgina, you need not ask. But even in paradise, in the passages you alluded to just now, our first parents were forced to divide their time properly (for I am afraid it would shock you to say systematically), in order to perform the business which, even to them, was committed by Heaven." "Such a moralist as you would go far to convert me," said Tremaine, while her father nodded his approbation; but can you seriously and sincerely say (barring the beauty of the description) that the address of Adam to his helpmate (for so, indeed, we may here call her) does not exhibit a very constrained and homely life? To be always digging a garden, cleaning walks, or watering plants! Confess this is but a vulgar sort of paradise, after all; utterly subversive of the sprightly graces, the sparkling companionship of modern life, and more worthy a market-gardener and his dame than the prince and princess of the world." "He said this with an energy so animated, an air so graceful, and a voice so impressive, that Georgina could not help being struck. She laughed, however, and was about to reply, when her father interrupted her by saying, "We have wandered from the point, good folks; which is, not what is the best occupation, but whether some occupation is not essential." "Thought is occupation," observed Tremaine. "I grant you, and a very delightful one: but were we all mere thinkers, what would become of the world?' "And yet this leisure, which you so much dread," continued Tremaine, this sweet otium, is the best gift for which we pray the gods. At least so sings Horace, in his famous Ode; and he knew men as well as you or I*." "Yes! but his suppliant was an active merchant and 'Prensus Ægæo,' before he prayed. For while his ship gave her sails to the breeze, and was likely to fill his coffers, he never thought of otium." "You would destroy the great sweetener of life," said Tremaine. "Believe me not," pursued Evelyn; "I would only make it still more sweet." "By what?" "By being earned." "Earned?" "Yes! this I take to be the great secret of human conduct. The lounger, who was envied by his friend the barrister, toiling down to the courts, goes to the bottom of this subject in three words. 'You are happy,' said his friend; you have no term.'- Alas! yes!' answered the lounger, but I have no vacation.' I remember when my theory first arose upon this subject;-but perhaps I fatigue you." 6 "Quite the contrary," said Tremaine, with good breeding; "I may not agree, but I love to hear you." Georgina looked pleased. "'Twas in an old chateau in Languedoc," said Evelyn, "where I passed a month with a middle-aged man, who thought he was tired of the world." "And was he not so ?" asked Tremaine. “You shall hear. We moralized every day at dinner over a motto in large golden letters, above the great fire * Otium Divos prensus Ægæo. place, placed there in the time of Louis XIII. "Sound and true," continued Evelyn; • Thou "and had my friend, the owner of the chateau, observed it, he would perhaps now be alive." "How did he die," asked Tremaine. 66 Why he was over-run with indolence, from having a large fortune," answered Evelyn. Tremaine did not like the answer and Evelyn continued. “He did not make business, and from sheer want of something to do, (being too good for vicious pursuits,) he took to eating, without earning it by fatigue; he languished all day for his dinner, with no pretence for it but having eaten his breakfast; a thousand amiable qualities, and even talents, were lost in this crapulence; and he died at forty of no disease but indigestion." "At forty!" exclaimed Tremaine ; "but pray why did he retire?" "Somebody got before him in the army," replied Evelyn. Tremaine reddened more and more. "He grew disgusted," continued his friend, "and thought that, by disgust, he had earned a right to retire. He said he was fond of books, and would educate his daughters. But they grew too troublesome, as daughters generally do (looking at Georgina); so they were sent au couvent, and he died." "And yet I suppose he read and thought," observed Tremaine. "Not much of either; his reading was too light." "What would you have had him do ?" said Tremaine, with a little spleen. "Dig in his garden," retorted Evelyn, "and then think, or read as lightly as he pleased." "Mere useless, and therefore thankless labour," persisted Tremaine," when a gardener would do it so much better." "You forgot Diocletian's cabbages," answered Evelyn. |