VOL. I.]

A Journal of Choice Reading,

SELECTED FROM FOREIGN CURRENT LITERATURE.

SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1866.

MISERY-MONGERS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

"JOHN HALIFAX."

"Poor fellow," said A. to B., looking after C. (a mutual friend) with mingled regard and regret. "He will never be happy himself, nor make any other human being happy."

It was most true. Poor C. was a very worthy man; an honest, kindly, and well-intentioned man; well-to-do in business; in his domestic relations rather fortunate than otherwise; blessed with good health, good looks, and rather more than the average of brains. Altogether an enviable person externally. Yet his friend, apparently much less lucky than himself, regarded him with the profoundest pity. “No, C. will never be happy. Nothing in this world would ever make him happy." And nothing ever did.

[No. 16.

own littleness. Consequently, he is saved at once
from a hundred vexations which dog the heels of
a mental Chang -a seven-foot giant of genius-
who is always measuring himself with Tom, Dick,
and Harry, and requiring, or fancying he requires,
larger clothes, longer beds, and bigger hats than they.
When Tom, Dick, and Harry, annoyed at these
very much taller than themselves, cut him up in re-
exactions, find that the small son of Anak is not so
views or snub him in society, great is the vexation
of spirit he endures. But your real giant, who never
thinks of Tom, Dick, and Harry at all, takes the
matter quite calmly: whatever be his own altitude,
he sees before him an ideal far higher than himself,
and ten times higher than anything they see, and
this keeps him at once very humble in his own
essayist, though decidedly not a man of genius, has
opinion, and very indifferent to theirs. The present

is your

row

them neither strutting like peacocks nor marching C. is no uncommon character. He was a misery-known a good many such, and has always found on stilts, but moving about as mild and tame as the monger: one of those moral cuttle-fishes who carry If elephant in the Zoological Gardens, and as apabout with them, and produce out of their own organism, the black liquid in which they swim. second-rate, your merely clever man, who, they could only swim in it alone! Is it any good parently unconscious of their own magnitude. It these poor creatures, to show their own likeness, who, without any real woe, contrive to make them- ape-like, is always rattling at the bars of his cage; eagerly holding out his paw for the nuts and apples selves and everybody about them thoroughly miser- mopping and mowing to attract attention, and of public appreciation, which, if he does not get able? Can we shake them out of their folly by a word of common sense? Probably not; your confirmed misery-monger is the most hopeless being in why he sits and howls! creation; but there are incipient stages of the complaint, which, taken in time, are curable. To such, it may not be unadvisable to present these incurables as a wholesome "shocking example." Misery-mongers (the word is not to be found in Johnson, yet it suits) are those who do not really suffer affliction, but make a trade of it, and often a very thriving business too. They are scattered among every class, but especially they belong to the genus irritabile," the second or third rate order of people who live by their brains. Not the first order, for the highest form of intellect is rarely miserable. True genius of the completest kind is not only a mental but a moral quality. Itself creates the atmosphere it lives in: a higher and rarer air than that of common earth.

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"Calm pleasures there abide; - majestic pains." To a really great man, the petty vanities, shallow angers, and morbid crotchets of smaller natures are unknown. Above all, genius gives to its possessor a larger, clearer vision; eyes that look outwards, the source of not inwards. That enormous Ego so many puny woes to lesser minds rarely grows rampant in a man who is great enough to know his

Such people have rarely suffered any dire calamreal sorrow more often gives a steadiness ity or heart-deep blow. To have sat down with sorand balance to the whole character, and leaves behind a permanent consistent cheerfulness, more touching, and O how infinitely more blessed than the mirth of those who have never known grief! Also, after deep anguish comes a readiness to seize upon, make the best of, and enjoy to the uttermost, known famine will never waste even a crumb again. every passing pleasure: for the man who has once Rather will he look with compassionate wonder at the many who scatter recklessly their daily bread of comfort and peace; who turn disgusted from a simple breakfast, because they are looking forwards to a possible sumptuous dinner; or throw away contemptuously their wholesome crust, because they see, with envious eyes, their opposite neighbor feeding on plum-cake.

No, the miserable people whom one meets are not the really unhappy ones, or rather those who have actual misfortune to bear, there being a wide distinction between misfortune and unhappiness. How often do we see moving in society, carrying everywhere a pleasant face, and troubling no one with

It may seem a dreadful doctrine to poetical people; but two thirds of a man's woes usually beginin his stomach. Irregular feeding, walking, and sleeping, with much too regular smoking, are the cause of half the melancholy poetry and cynical prose with which we are inundated. Also of many à miserable home, hiding its miseries under the decent decorum which society has the good taste and good feeling to abstain from prying too closely into; and of not a few open scandals, bankruptcies, and divorce cases. If a modern edition of the Miseries of Human Life were to be written, the author might well trace them to that unsanitary condition, first of body and then of mind, into which civilization, or the luxurious extreme of it, has brought us, and upon which some of us rather pride ourselves, as if it were a grand thing to be "morbid "; quite forMiserable getting the origin of the word, and that such a condition, whether mental or physical, or both combined, is, in truth, not life, but the beginning of death, to every human being.

Every Saturday,

April 21, 1866.

MISERY-MONGERS.

whose the cheerful, chattering breakfast-table? departure to business, or elsewhere, causes a sudden nay, whose very rise in the domestic barometer? quitting a room gives a sense of relief as of a cloud lifted off? Yet he may have many good qualities, but they are all obscured and rendered useless by the incessant recurrence to and absorption in self, the which is the root of all his endless woes. And, alas! as he wishes to be while believing himselfthat of most important person in his circle, our miserable friend fills really the lowest place therein, the one whom nobody trusts, nobody leans upon; whom everybody has to help, but who is never expected to help anybody. How could he? for in him is lacking the very foundation of all helpfulness, the strong, brave, cheerful spirit which, under all circumstances, will throw itself out of itself sufficiently to understand and be of use to its neighbor. Truly, as regards usefulness, one might as well attempt to labor in an unlighted coal-mine as to do one's work in the world in an atmosphere of perpetual gloom. Nature herself scorns the idea. Some of her operations are carried on in tender temporary shadow, but only temporary. Nothing with her is permanently dark, except the corruption of the grave. Wherever, in any man's temperament, is incurable sadness, morbid melancholy, be sure there is something also corrupt; something which shrinks from the light because it needs to be hid; something diseased, in body or mind, which, so far from being petted and indulged and glossed over with poetical fancies, needs to be rooted out with a hand, gentle, indeed, but strong and firm as that of the good surgeon, who deals deliberately present pain for future good.

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grow
into great bars between him and
filmy meshes
the sky, he thinks with his petty web he has blurred
the whole creation.

Poor wretch! if he could only pull it down and
sweep it away!-if he could accept his lot, even
though a hard one, an afflicted stomach, sensitive
nerves, a naturally bad temper, or an unnaturally
Be sure you do not suffer alone; many another is
empty purse. Still, my friend, grin and bear it!
him a helping hand, and strengthen yourself by the
much worse off than you. Why not try to give
giving of it? For we do not wish to make a mock
of you, you miserable misery-monger, since you
the bottom of your most contemptible shams. We
are much to be pitied; and there is a sad reality at
would rather rouse you to forget yourself, and then,
And supposing these should remain in greater or
be sure, you will gradually forget your sufferings.
less degree, as the necessary accompaniment of your
individual lot or peculiar idiosyncrasy, still, accord-
ing to the common-sense argument of the sage
author of "Original Poems," remonstrating with
an unwashed child,

"If the water is cold, and the comb hurts your head,
What good will it do you to cry?"
Alack! we are exceedingly like naughty children;
we do not enjoy being made clean.

How much wiser is it to hide our Also, so far as it is possible, to wrongs, to smother our vexations, to bear our illnesses, whether of body or mind, as privately and silently as we can. bear them ourselves alone, thankful for sympathy, and help too, when it comes; but not going about beseeching for it, or angry when we do not get it, having strength enough to do without it, and rely solely on the Help Divine.

And yet, some of us who have gone through a ay, even Some of us feel rather severe course of lavatory education, can understand the blessings of a sunshiny face, in the midst of inevitable sorrow. the peace that dwells ever at the core of a contented heart, which, though it has ceased to expect the happiness of others. And many of us still show much happiness for itself, is ever ready to rejoice in A healthy temperament, though not insensible to in daily life the quiet dignity of endurance; of not sorrow, never revels in it or is subdued by it; it ac-dwelling upon or exaggerating unavoidable misforcepts it, endures it, and then looks round for the tune; of putting small annoyances in one's pocket, best mode of curing it. We cannot too strongly instead of flourishing them abroad in other people's novel-writing, and made her private wrong a public impress on the rising generation-who, like the faces, like the jilted spinster who "rushed into young bears, have all their troubles before them that suffering is not a normal, but an abnormal state; nuisance." and that to believe otherwise is to believe that this world is a mere chaos of torment made for the amusement of the omnipotent-not God, but Devil for some inscruwho rules it. Pain must exist table end-inseparable from the present economy of the world; but we ought, out of common sense and common justice, and especially religion, to reFor to that point it must always come. The man gard it, not as the law of our lives, but as an accident, usually resulting from our breaking that law. He is perpetually saying to his We cannot wholly prevent suffering, but we can who is incurably and permanently miserable is not guard against it, in degree; and we never need only an offence to his fellow-creatures, but a sinner Creator, " Why hast Thou made me thus? Why wholly succumb to it till we succumb to the univer- against his God. sal defeat, preparatory to the immortal victory. of how brief, at best, not have made me as I wanted to be, and have given When one thinks of death is our little day, and how quickly comes the end me such and such things which I desired to have? that levels all things, what folly seems the habit of I know they would have been good for me, and then misery?-for it grows into a mere habit, quite in- I should have been happy. I am far wiser than dependent of causes. Why keep up this perpetual Thou. Make me what I choose, and grant me what And so he lives, holding up his melancholy face, moan, and always about ourselves, because we are not I require, or else I will be perpetually miserable." rich enough, or handsome enough, or loved enough,because other people have better luck than we? Pos- poor fool! as an unceasing protest against the wisOverclouded at sibly they have; and possibly not: for we all know dom eternal,-against the sunshiny sky, the pleasant our own private cares, but few of us know our neigh-earth, and the happy loving hearts that are always bor's. And so we go on, always finding some pet griev- to be found somewhere therein. ance to nurse, and coaxing it from a trifling vexation times, doubtless, yet never quite losing their happiinto an incurable grief or an unpardonable wrong. ness while there is something left them to love, Little matter what it is; to a man of this tempera- though it be but a dirty crying child in the streets, Such people may be unhappy, may have to sufment any peg will do whereon to hang the gloomy whom they can comfort with a smile or a half-penny. pall, self-woven, of perpetual sorrow. Or else he spins it, spider-like, out of his own bowels, and when its fer acutely for a time, but they will never become

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--

ay,

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misery-mongers. Theirs is a healthiness of nature which has the power of throwing off disease to the final hour of worn-out nature. Their souls, like their bodies, will last to the utmost limit of a green old age, giving and taking comfort, a blessedness to themselves and all about them. In their course of life many a storm may come; but it never finds them unprepared. They are sound good ships, well rigged, well ballasted; if affliction comes, they just "make all snug," as the sailors say, and so are able to ride through seas of sorrow into a harbor of peace, finally, into that last harbor, where may Heaven bring at last every mortal soul, even miserymongers!

ed inhabitants of the modern lath and plaster abominations at four times the rent, as are the quiet and repose and retirement that belong to those old houses. But it was the surroundings of the cottage that made its great delight. For it stood off the road, from which it was quite hidden, nested down into the midst of a lovely garden, full of old-fashioned flowers and some newer ones, roses especially, one of which it was part of Nelly's self-imposed morning duties to gather, all gemmed and heavy with dew, to put it in her father's button-hole, before he started on his daily rounds. He used to boast that from May till November he never was without one. There were little belts and screens of Portugal laurels and yew, and sunny bits of lawn, one of which boasted a magnificent Himalaya pine THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER. feathering to the ground, and borders blazing with MILES and miles away from London, and nearly color and sunlight, and shady nooks, cool and green, an hour's drive from the nearest railway station, of rock-work clothed with ferns and ground-ivy and there is a village, as little known as might be ex- periwinkle and violets. The house itself, and all its pected from so remote a position. It is a charming-dependencies, were tapestried with Virginia creeper, ly pretty village, the houses, each with more or less clematis, jasmin, ivy, and crimson China roses, and of garden to it, scattered about, not ranged into against the coach-house wall, in the face of the any attempt at a street. There is a green, which southwest sun, was trained a vine that in even is green, and not parched and brown, and there the moderately hot summers yielded rich clusters of village boys play cricket in the long summer even-yellow-tinted, sweet-watered grapes southern vineings; and above it is a heathery common, bounded yards need not have despised. For the place was by a fir-wood, whose auburn trunks and boughs warm and dry and sheltered, and everything about burn in the sunset; while below, winding softly it throve, and seemed to take pleasure in growing through flat, rich pastures, a trout-stream glides be- and spreading, and Nelly loved and tended them tween its fringes of sedges and bulrushes and tall all, and they rewarded her. water myosotis, blue as turquoises in the sun.

Just out of the village stands the house with which we chiefly have to do. It is inhabited by Dr. Britton; he is an M. R. C. S., and used to make a fight to be called Mr. Britton, his proper title; but the village would not have it; his profession was doctoring, and doctor he was, and doctor he should be called; and so doctor he was called, till he had become so used to it, that any other prefix to his name would have sounded strange and unfamiliar. He was a widower, and had two children, -a son, who had married early and foolishly, and who had emigrated, which was about the best thing he could do, and a daughter, Nelly, who lived with him, and kept his house, and looked after him, from his shirt-buttons to such of his correspondence as a woman could attend to. For Mr. Britton was a much cleverer medico than village doctors and general practitioners are wont to be, and his practice was large and widely extended; all the county families for miles round employing his services for any but such cases as they conceived required the attendance of a London physician.

To this home Nelly had come as a little child, after her mother's death, and she remembered no other. That was a good many years ago, for she was now two-and-twenty, though she hardly looked so much. For she was a little thing, plump, with a round face, smiling dark eyes, and a bright brown complexion; one of those girls whose good looks consist in perfect health, in coloring and expression, and a certain freshness of appearance - freshness moral as well as physical-that keep the owner young for long. Her uneventful and unambitious life had hitherto passed in that happy monotony that is best suited to such natures as hers; cheerful, bright, contented ones, that take the daily duties of their humble lives as pleasures, not sacrifices, and are yet not without a touch of refinement that makes the duties less prosaic. She need not have been now keeping her father's house, had she been minded to keep a house of her own. Two years ago her father had had a half-pupil, half-assistant, Mr. Baker, who had a little money of his own, and expected to have some more, and who would fain have had her promise to become Mrs. Baker when he should have ac

him, very sorry. But she could not marry him. When she thought of her father as a companion (for not being in the faintest degree in love, she looked at the two men in this light), and then thought of Mr. Baker, she felt it could never, never be. And she had not for a moment, at any time, regretted or repented her decision, but went on in her quiet way, taking her chance of what the future might bring

The house in which Mr. Britton and his daughter quired sufficient age and instruction "to set up on lived was very unnecessarily large for so small a his own hook," as he expressed it. But Nelly had family. It could not be called a good house or a not been so minded. She did not care for Mr. Bapretty house, and yet, especially for the summer, it ker; she first laughed at him, and then, when he was much pleasanter than many a better and hand-became piteous in consequence, she was sorry for somer one. It was old, and the rooms were low, and those on the ground floor had beams across the ceilings, and the windows might have been larger with advantage, and the doors fewer and better placed. But the walls were thick, and there was abundance of space, and closets and cupboards enough to stow away all the goods and chattels of a large family. And there was a snug little stable for the Doctor's good roadster, and a chaise-house, and cow-her. house, and poultry-house, and larder and dairy, and Among Dr. Britton's occasional patients was a all that wealth of out-houses that can only be found very grand family indeed. The Earl of Leytonnow appertaining to old-fashioned middle-class tene-stone had an estate about three miles from Summerments, and which are as unattainable to the wretch- | field, and there he passed a part of every year with

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