| Now
in the midsummer heats, when the roar and discord of
cities become unbearable, and hard thought and reading
are almost an impossibility, the spirit of life, if
it calls at all, beckons to us with illusive finger
from the far-off hill-countries or breezy shores. Under
the open sky is the suitable place for summer existence
whenever it can drop for a space the fetters of toil.
The country-ways and shady lanes, the clover-scented
meadows melodious with song of birds, and drowsy tinkle
or gurgle of brooks, under the grasses, where the bumble
bee soars with a dreamy hum, or the greedy dragon-fly
skims the lazy air—all call us with their drowsy
suggestions and somnolent sounds. Happy is the man who
can throw off his age and responsibility with his office
clothes and city cares, and hie him to the shores of
some rushing river or some pebbly lake, and dream or
ruminate as best may please him, and let the winds of
heaven and the glad sunlight drench him, body and soul,
and blow out all the sickly fancies from heart and brain.
The far summer hazes, the far summer sounds, that quiet
tired nerves and revive jaded energies, are better than
all the elixirs discovered by man. But many of us are
not contented to study and drink in nature's draughts
and nature's voices alone; we need a companion from
the world, and we often choose a book as one the least
liable to bore us, as it can be taken up and laid down
at leisure. We want something that will charm and soothe,
rather than worry and excite. It is a difficult thing
to recommend books to readers nowadays, the taste for
the new sensational is so strong, and I, for one, prefer
the old-time books to the new. For delightful and self-forgetting
charm, give me Washington Irving, especially his legend
of the Hudson River and his Tales of the Alhambra. Another
charming writer who was of his day and had something
akin to Irving in his genius was Donald G. Mitchell,
who, by-the-bye, still lives. His pen name is Ike Marvell,
and his earlier essays had a charm all their own. Another
delightful American writer is John Burroughs, whose
works many have read. For those who love nature and
nature's studies Burroughs is a never-dying friend.
He is a hunter of the woods and fields and the companion
of birds and trees. A delightful out-door writer of
to-day, who is a poet, is Maurice Thompson. He is much
akin to Burroughs, but adds the additional charm of
song to his great love of the common mother. But most
of us are not contented with nature alone, in either
field or sky or book. We may turn our backs on dull
care, but we cannot forget our human brother, and even
in our books he is of enduring interest; so the story,
the drama of to-day, be it realistic or romantic, must
claim our attention. Here I would ask those of this
spirit if they have read the remarkable tales of Bjornsterne,
the great Norse writer of to-day. Any young and thoughtful
reader who has not done so will find a freshness and
charm, a strength and simplicity not found in any other
writer. He mirrors Norway, her mountains and deep fjords,
her strong, rugged and intellectual people, who are
so much akin to us, and yet so much grander in their
desire for supreme attainment. Bjornsterne's stories
read like beautiful poems. They have an epic quality
and a dramatic strength that is unique. Arne is a very
beautiful tale, and like all the rest of his work is
in contradistinction to all other European works, close
to nature, human, hopeful and inspiring. It is fitting
reading for young men and young women. Where there is
pathos it is the pathos of reality. A beautiful, a strong,
a human writer is the great poet and novelist of the
north, and the reader will find his work in keeping
with the out-door life, as in his pages he will find
the strength of the hills, the beauty of the skies and
waters, and the freshness and hope of the morning.
C.
My
dear Francesca—I am glad you have resolved to
keep a journal. The word sounds more portentous than
"diary," and is a sign that you are in earnest.
I suppose every one sooner or later makes up his or
her mind to keep either one or the other; the sense
of it being a duty takes hold upon one very strongly,
and may be a survival from the time when it was certainly
a social duty, if not a moral one; and then the feeling
that we all have that our lives are slipping away and
leaving no visible trace urges us to write day by day
the things we have been thinking and doing. We feel
a sort of consternation when we reflect that we cannot
tell where we were this time two years ago, or what
we thought at the time of the Northwest Rebellion, and
we take refuge in the pages of our every-day book, and
hope to escape the imputation that we have not lived.
Many of us never find time to complete the good intention
that blossomed in our youth, and go down without a chronicle
of our deeds or misdeeds, and the excuse that so many
of us make, "want of time," is really the
death of many another pleasant occupation. That you
have time and the will to undertake the writing of a
journal, or "Gurnal," as Sir Walter used to
spell it, is really a piece with your general good fortune,
and you must succeed or bear the blame of having failed
when every wind and tide were with you. There must be
something pleasant about the occupation you have resolved
upon, for truly it is an occupation, and I hope you
will never allow it to descend to anything less. At
present we expect posterity to get an idea of our age
from the novels we write, and from our newspapers, but
I do not imagine the image will be a faithful one. Our
novels have hardly any true pictures of social life,
and our papers have none; to judge from the one we are
merely thinking machines, with our eyes fixed, like
the monks of Athos, upon the centre of our beings, and
our daily journals give the idea more and more strongly
that the contemplation by each man of his neighbor's
vice is the chiefest of our pleasures. So you have just
as good a chance to make a lively picture of manners
and customs as had Pepys or Cellini, and the manners
and customs will be of as much interest to the succeeding
age. And so you have a chance for fame, and your effort
will be of the most disinterested kind, for no one except
myself and a few others will have any idea of your labors,
and you can never reach any tangible reward unless it
be that all the while you will be enjoying the laugh,
as it were, upon your own age. I need not advise you
as to the sort of thing to write; you have read Pepys,
Benvenuto, Cellini, Walpole, and Sir Walter so you will
easily see that everything, no matter how personal,
may have an interest if it is set down properly. You
need not even omit to tell us that on Tuesday last you
made twenty pots of strawberry jam, and you might even
preserve the recipe in order that coming generations
may test the quality of your confection.
S.
The
greatest difficulty that a man meets with in life is
generally that which faces him at the very outset: the
question of deciding upon an occupation. It means the
wasting or the saving of a life. A life spent in an
occupation out of harmony with one's natural bent can
never be quite happy or genuinely faithful even in the
most fortunate circumstances; while a life of congenial
labor, unsubjected to any exceeding pressure, is really
the supreme happiness. Each man has been gifted by nature
with some special inclination, more or less marked,
which points him to his life pursuit. Unhappily this
original and individual bent is very often not sufficiently
urgent, not imperious enough in its call, to induce
the young man to throw himself confidently upon it,
trusting to its genuineness. He yields to the dictation,
or persuasion, or example of others, or else blindly
enters upon the first offered field of activity without
considering whether it corresponds in any degree with
that irrepressible vision in his own soul. It is well
for a man not to be idle, and to lay hold of any honorable
pursuit rather than be so; but he should never allow
himself to consider any occupation permanent but the
one that is naturally his. He should never rest for
a moment till he has found and claimed his appointed
place. Each life is a force intended by nature to be
exerted upon some particular line. If it is set to work
on any other its usefulness is dissipated, often totally
annulled. Such a life is in abeyance, and its possessor
may be truly said not to have lived. A great responsibility
in this matter rests upon parents, who frequently have
it in their power to vine and educate and make clear
the way for their children's special talents. We know
how often they are blind enough to do the very reverse,
not only neglecting to render any assistance to this
natural inclination, but even endeavoring to guide or
force the minds of their children into such paths as
appear desirable or honorable to them. Such parents
are responsible for a fair proportion of the mental
or moral ruin we see about us.
L.
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