The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford | Page 4

with exalted subjects, which are out of the ordinary road which
ordinary humanity treads; but we who are not remarkable make a very
great mistake if we have anything to do with them. If we wish to be
happy, and have to live with average men and women, as most of us
have to live, we must learn to take an interest in the topics which
concern average men and women. We think too much of ourselves. We
ought not to sacrifice a single moment's pleasure in our attempt to do
something which is too big for us, and as a rule, men and women are
always attempting what is too big for them. To ninety-nine young men
out of a hundred, or perhaps ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and
ninety-nine out of a hundred thousand, the wholesome healthy doctrine
is, "Don't bother yourselves with what is beyond you; try to lead a
sweet, clean, wholesome life, keep yourselves in health above
everything, stick to your work, and when your day is done amuse and
refresh yourselves."
It is not only a duty to ourselves, but it is a duty to others to take this
course. Great men do the world much good, but not without some harm,
and we have no business to be troubling ourselves with their dreams if
we have duties which lie nearer home amongst persons to whom these
dreams are incomprehensible. Many a man goes into his study, shuts
himself up with his poetry or his psychology, comes out, half
understanding what he has read, is miserable because he cannot find
anybody with whom he can talk about it, and misses altogether the far
more genuine joy which he could have obtained from a game with his
children or listening to what his wife had to tell him about her
neighbours.
"Lor, miss, you haven't looked at your new bonnet to-day," said a

servant girl to her young mistress.
"No, why should I? I did not want to go out."
"Oh, how can you? why, I get mine out and look at it every night."
She was happy for a whole fortnight with a happiness cheap at a very
high price.
That same young mistress was very caustic upon the women who block
the pavement outside drapers' shops, but surely she was unjust. They
always seem unconscious, to be enjoying themselves intensely and
most innocently, more so probably than an audience at a Wagner
concert. Many persons with refined minds are apt to depreciate
happiness, especially if it is of "a low type." Broadly speaking, it is the
one thing worth having, and low or high, if it does no mischief, is better
than the most spiritual misery.
Metaphysics and theology, including all speculations on the why and
the wherefore, optimism, pessimism, freedom, necessity, causality, and
so forth, are not only for the most part loss of time, but frequently
ruinous. It is no answer to say that these things force themselves upon
us, and that to every question we are bound to give or try to give an
answer. It is true, although strange, that there are multitudes of burning
questions which we must do our best to ignore, to forget their existence;
and it is not more strange, after all, than many other facts in this
wonderfully mysterious and defective existence of ours. One fourth of
life is intelligible, the other three-fourths is unintelligible darkness; and
our earliest duty is to cultivate the habit of not looking round the
corner.
"Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry
heart; for God hath already accepted thy works. Let thy garments be
always white, and let not thy head lack ointment. Live joyfully with the
wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which He
hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy
portion in life."
R. S.
This is the night when I must die, And great Orion walketh high In
silent glory overhead: He'll set just after I am dead.
A week this night, I'm in my grave: Orion walketh o'er the wave: Down
in the dark damp earth I lie, While he doth march in majesty.
A few weeks hence and spring will come; The earth will bright array

put on Of daisy and of primrose bright, And everything which loves the
light.
And some one to my child will say, "You'll soon forget that you could
play Beethoven; let us hear a strain From that slow movement once
again."
And so she'll play that melody, While I among the worms do lie; Dead
to them all, for ever dead; The churchyard clay dense overhead.
I once did think there might be mine One friendship