The Pleasures of Life | Page 8

sympathetic mother, ever ready to shelter us from the cares and anxieties of this world, and to guide us in the paths of peace.
To shut oneself up from mankind is, in most cases, to lead a dull, as well as a selfish life. Our duty is to make ourselves useful, and thus life may be most interesting, and yet comparatively free from anxiety.
But how can we fill our lives with life, energy, and interest, and yet keep care outside?
Many great men have made shipwreck in the attempt. "Anthony sought for happiness in love; Brutus in glory; Caesar in dominion: the first found disgrace, the second disgust, the last ingratitude, and each destruction." [1] Riches, again, often bring danger, trouble, and temptation; they require care to keep, though they may give much happiness if wisely spent.
How then is this great object to be secured? What, says Marcus Aurelius, "What is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing and only one--philosophy. But this consists in keeping the daemon [2] within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing nothing without a purpose, yet not falsely and with hypocrisy, not feeling the need of another man's doing or not doing anything; and besides, accepting all that happens, and all that is allotted, as coming from thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came; and, finally, waiting for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded." I confess I do not feel the force of these last few words, which indeed scarcely seem requisite for his argument. The thought of death, however, certainly influences the conduct of life less than might have been expected.
Bacon truly points out that "there is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death.... Revenge triumphs over death, love slights it, honor aspireth to it, grief flieth to it."
"Think not I dread to see my spirit fly Through the dark gates of fell mortality; Death has no terrors when the life is true; 'Tis living ill that makes us fear to die." [3]
We need certainly have no such fear if we have done our best to make others happy; to promote "peace on earth and goodwill amongst men." Nothing, again, can do more to release us from the cares of this world, which consume so much of our time, and embitter so much of our life. When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace; content, as Epictetus says, "with that which happens, for what God chooses is better than what I choose."
At any rate, if we have not effected all we wished, we shall have influenced ourselves. It may be true that one cannot do much. "You are not Hercules, and you are not able to purge away the wickedness of others; nor yet are you Theseus, able to drive away the evil things of Attica. But you may clear away your own. From yourself, from your own thoughts, cast away, instead of Procrustes and Sciron, [4] sadness, fear, desire, envy, malevolence, avarice, effeminacy, intemperance. But it is not possible to eject these things otherwise than by looking to God only, by fixing your affections on Him only, by being consecrated by his commands." [5]
People sometimes think how delightful it would be to be quite free. But a fish, as Ruskin says, is freer than a man, and as for a fly, it is "a black incarnation of freedom." A life of so-called pleasure and self-indulgence is not a life of real happiness or true freedom. Far from it, if we once begin to give way to ourselves, we fall under a most intolerable tyranny. Other temptations are in some respects like that of drink. At first, perhaps, it seems delightful, but there is bitterness at the bottom of the cup. Men drink to satisfy the desire created by previous indulgence. So it is in other things. Repetition soon becomes a craving, not a pleasure. Resistance grows more and more painful; yielding, which at first, perhaps, afforded some slight and temporary gratification, soon ceases to give pleasure, and even if for a time it procures relief, ere long becomes odious itself.
To resist is difficult, to give way is painful; until at length the wretched victim to himself, can only purchase, or thinks he can only purchase, temporary relief from intolerable craving and depression, at the expense of far greater suffering in the future.
On the other hand, self-control, however difficult at first, becomes step by step easier and more delightful. We possess mysteriously a sort of dual nature, and there are few truer triumphs, or more delightful sensations, than to obtain thorough command