Trivia | Page 5

right. Such things do happen."
"But my dear Sir," I burst out, in the rudest manner, "think what life
is--just think what really happens! Why people suddenly swell up and
turn dark purple; they hang themselves on meat-hooks; they are
drowned in horse-ponds, are run over by butchers' carts, and are burnt
alive and cooked like mutton chops!"

A Precaution
The folio gave at length philosophic consolations for all the ills and
misfortunes said by the author to be inseparable from human
existence--Poverty, Shipwreck, Plague, Love-Deceptions, and
Inundations. Against these antique Disasters I armed my soul; and I
thought it as well to prepare myself against another inevitable ancient
calamity called "Cornutation," or by other less learned names. How
Philosophy taught that after all it was but a pain founded on conceit, a
blow that hurt not; the reply of the Cynic philosopher to one who
reproached him, "Is it my fault or hers?"; how Nevisanus advises the
sufferer to ask himself if he have not offended; Jerome declares it
impossible to prevent; how few or none are safe, and the inhabitants of
some countries, especially parts of Africa, consider it the usual and
natural thing; How Caesar, Pompey, Augustus, Agamemnon, Menelaus,
Marcus Aurelius, and many other great Kings and Princes had all worn
Actaeon's badge; and how Philip turned it to a jest, Pertinax the
Emperor made no reckoning of it; Erasmus declared it was best winked

at, there being no remedy but patience, _Dies dolorem minuit_; Time,
Age must mend it; and how according to the best authorities, bars, bolts,
oaken doors, and towers of brass, are all in vain. "She is a woman," as
the old Pedant wrote to a fellow Philosopher....

The Great Work
Sitting, pen in hand, alone in the stillness of the library, with flies
droning behind the sunny blinds, I considered in my thoughts what
should be the subject of my great Work. Should I complain against the
mutability of Fortune, and impugn Fate and the Constellations; or
should I reprehend the never-satisfied heart of querulous Man, drawing
elegant contrasts between the unsullied snow of mountains, the serene
shining of stars, and our hot, feverish lives and foolish repinings? Or
should I confine myself to denouncing contemporary Vices, crying
"Fie!" on the Age with Hamlet, sternly unmasking its hypocrisies, and
riddling through and through its comfortable Optimisms?
Or with Job, should I question the Universe, and puzzle my sad brains
about Life--the meaning of Life on this apple-shaped Planet?

My Mission
But when in modern books, reviews, and thoughtful magazines I read
about the Needs of the Age, its Complex Questions. its Dismays,
Doubts, and Spiritual Agonies, I feel an impulse to go out and comfort
it, to still its cries, and speak earnest words of Consolation to it.

The Birds
But how can one toil at the great task with this hurry and tumult of
birds just outside the open window? I hear the Thrush, and the
Blackbird, that romantic liar; then the delicate cadence, the wiry
descending scale of the Willow-wren, or the Blackcap's stave of
mellow music. All these are familiar--but what is that unknown voice,
that thrilling note? I hurry out; the voice flees and I follow; and when I
return and sit down again to my task, the Yellowhammer trills his
sleepy song in the noonday heat; the drone of the Greenfinch lulls me
into dreamy meditations. Then suddenly from his tree-trunks and forest
recesses comes the Green Woodpecker, and mocks at me an impudent

voice full of liberty and laughter.
Why should all the birds of the air conspire against me? My concern is
with the sad Human Species, with lapsed and erroneous Humanity, not
with that inconsiderate, wandering, feather-headed race.

High Life
Although that immense Country House was empty and for sale, and I
had got an order to view it, I needed all my courage to walk through the
lordly gates, and up the avenue, and then to ring the door-bell. And
when I was ushered in, and the shutters were removed to let the
daylight into those vast apartments, I sneaked through them, cursing the
dishonest curiosity which had brought me into a place where I had no
business. But I was treated with such deference, and so plainly regarded
as a possible purchaser, that I soon began to believe in the opulence
imputed to me. From all the novels describing the mysterious and
glittering life of the Great which I had read (and I had read many), there
came to me the enchanting vision of my own existence in this Palace. I
filled the vast spaces with the shine of jewels and stir of voices; I saw a
vision of ladies sweeping in their tiaras down the splendid stairs.
But