in the leisurely hour of a thoughtful person, the scene. A subdued buzz filled the air: after the day's toil is over, and when there is people were constantly coming in and going nothing more to look forward to in the way out: and moving from place to place: every of work. Sit down, my friend, in an easy-one had his hat on, and of course every one's chair by the fireside: feel that you have head was uncomfortable. There were no plenty of time: then let these pages be read easy-chairs on which to lean back and read: in quiet. people were sitting on forms, leaning forward on tables, and reading in that posture. It was between eleven and twelve o'clock A.M.; and one felt that the day's task of work was yet to do. And when, under all these impressions, I turned over the leaves, I declare I did not recognize my own arti cle. It seemed thoroughly out of keeping with every thing there. I could not understand it, or follow it, or sympathize with it, in that feverish, hurried atmosphere. It was a faintly flavored thing, that had no chance by the side of short, thrilling, exciting tales, in this and that clever periodical. How the pages ever got dirty, I cannot imagine; for I know I could not have read them there myself. Do not, friendly reader, try to peruse my essays in such a place. They cannot stand it. Laudanum, suitably applied, is an efficient medicine; but it would produce no effect if rubbed on the palm of the hand. And the writer's essays, which he gladly believes have served some good and kindly ends to many sympathetic though unknown friends, will never serve these ends unless they are read in the fashion on which I have already insisted. Therefore would I (so to speak) label this article or dissertation not simply with its title, but with that further direction which is given on the preceding page. Let me carry my idea to a greater length. I said that most bottles of med Let me explain why I say so much of the external circumstances which I hold to be absolutely essential to the proper reading of this essay, and of many which have gone before it. One day in the month of January of this year, I went to a certain large institution in a certain great city, where newspapers and periodicals are provided for the amusement and instruction of many hundreds of readers. I think I see it yet, the great, lofty, vaulted chamber, where scores of newspapers were extended on frames, and scores more lay on tables; while many readers roved from printed sheet to printed sheet, like the bee from flower to flower; and many more, silent and intent, were going eagerly at the paper which they held most dear. I see it yet, the magazine-room, where there lay on certain tables copies of every monthly and quarterly published in Britain, a vast array. And there, not, as in my humble dwelling, a cherished and solitary guest, but only a unit in a multitude, it lay, sad-colored externally, but radiant within with intellectual and moral brightness, the MAGAZINE ON FRASER, SUITABLE ALIKE FOR COUNTRY AND FOR Town. Advancing as towards a friend, I seized the periodical, and carelessly turned over its leaves amid that hum of men, and that slamming of opening and shutting doors. At length my eye rested on a certain article. It is unneces-icine bear not only the name of their consary to specify what the article was about; let it suffice to say that its title began with Concerning; that modest word to which no reviewer has hitherto done justice, which hints that though the essay may say various things about a subject, it does not pretend to exhaust the subject, but leaves a vast deal more to say. With much satisfaction I perceived that the pages which bore that article were remarkably dirty. Indeed, I do not think I ever saw dirtier pages: and by a subtle process of ratiocination, I arrived at the conviction that those dirty pages must have been pressed by many hands, while the lines they bore were read by many eyes. My first emotion was one of exultation. I am a popular author, thought I to myself! And considering that hardly any of my neighbors know that I ever wrote for the press, and that my nearest relations seldom take the trouble of perusing my articles, the extreme novelty of the reflection produced a pardonable elation. But other thoughts followed. I felt the influence of tents, but directions for the use of their contents. This is not so, however, with all. Sometimes, when the medicine has been taken for a long time, it bears only The Mixture as formerly. The patient, it is understood, knows so well how to take it, and when, that it is needless to repeat the direction for its use. Let me please myself with the belief that many valued friends, when they discern an essay with the old initials, will know, without telling anew, how it ought to be read. It is The Mixture as before. Let it be taken in the old way. And kindly try to put up with a fashion, both in thought and word, which you may truly believe is not intended to be either egotistical or affected. But now to my proper task. I have certain suggestions to offer Concerning the Worries of Life, and How to Meet them. I am quite aware that the reader of a metaphysical turn, after he has read my essay, may be disposed to find fault with its title. plan which is to be advocated for the treat The ment of the Worries of Life, can only in a modified sense be described as Meeting them. You cannot be said to face a thing on which you turn your back. You cannot accurately be described as meeting a man whom you walk away from. You do not, in strictness, regard a thing in any mode or fashion, which you do not regard at all. But, after intense reflection, I could devise no title that set out my subject so well as the present: and so here it is. Perfection is not generally attainable in human doings. It is enough, if things are so, that they will do. No doubt this is no excuse for not making them as good as one can. But the fact is, as you get older, you seldom have time to write down any plausible excuse, before you see a crushing answer to it. The man who has thought longest comes back to the point at which the man stands who has hardly thought at all. He feels, more deeply year by year, the truth of the grand axiom, that Much may be said on Both Sides. Now, my reader, you shall have, in a very brief space, the essence of my theory as to the treatment of human worry. that after the bustle of the day, you have this quiet retreat where you may rest, and refit yourself for another day with its bustle. But the conversation goes on. Nothing is talked of but the failings of the servants and the idleness and impudence of your boys; unless indeed it be the supercilious bow with which Mrs. Snooks that afternoon passed your wife, and the fact that the pleasant dinner-party at which you assisted the evening before at Mr. Smith's, has been ascertained to have been one of a second-chop character, his more honored guests having dined on the previous day. Every petty disagrecable in your lot, in short, is brought out, turned ingeniously in every possible light, and aggravated and exaggerated to the highest degree. The natural and necessary result follows. An hour, or less, of this discipline brings all parties to a sulky and snappish frame of mind. And instead of the cheerful and thankful mood in which you were disposed to be when you sat down, you find that your whole moral nature is jarred and out of gear. And your wife, your daughters, and yourself, pass into moody sullen silence, over your books-books which you are not likely for this evening to much appreciate or enjoy. Now, I put it to every Let us picture to ourselves a man, living in a pleasant home, in the midst of a beautiful country. Pleasing scenes are all around him, wherever he can look. There are ever-sensible reader, whether there be not a great greens and grass, fields and hedgerows, hills and streams; in the distance the sea, and somewhat nearer, the smoke of a little country town. Now, what would you think of this man, if he utterly refused to look at the cheerful and beautiful prospects which everywhere invite his eye; and spent the whole day gazing intently at the dunghill, and hanging over the pigsty? And all this though his taste were not so peculiar as to lead him to take any pleasure in the contemplation of the pigsty or the dunghill; all this, though he had a more than ordinary dislike to contemplate pigsties or dunghills? No doubt you would say, the man is a monomaniac. And yet, my reader, don't you know (possibly from your own experience) that in the moral world many men and women do a thing precisely analogous, without ever being suspected of insanity? Don't you know that multitudes of human beings turn away from the many blessings of their lot, and dwell and brood upon its worries? Don't you know that multitudes persistently look away from the numerous pleasant things they might contemplate, and look fixedly and almost constantly at painful and disagreeable things? You sit down, my friend, in your snug library, beside the evening fire. The blast without is hardly heard through the drawn curtains. Your wife is there, and your two grown-up daughters. You feel thankful deal too much of this kind of thing. Are there not families that never spend a quiet evening together, without embittering it by raking up every unpleasant subject in their lot and history? There are folk who, both in their own case and that of others, seem to find a strange satisfaction in sticking the thorn in the hand further in: even in twisting the dagger in the heart. Their lot has its innumerable blessings, but they will not look at these. Let the view around in a hundred directions be ever so charming, they cannot be got to turn their mental view in one of these. They persist in keeping nose and eyes at the moral pigsty. Oh, what a blessing it would be if we human beings could turn away our mind's eye at will, as we can our physical! As we can turn away from an ugly view in the material world, and look at a pleasing one; if we could but do the like in the world of mind! As you turn your back on a dunghill, or a foul, stagnant ditch: if you could so turn your back on your servants' errors, on your children's faults, on the times when you made a fool of yourself, on the occasions when sad disappointment came your way,— in short, upon those prospects which are painful to look back upon! You go to bed, I may assume, every evening. How often, my friend, have you tossed about there, hour after hour, sleepless and fevered, stung by care, sorrow, worry: as your memory per though it be close at hand. And in like manner, we may get our mind so under control, that in ordinary cases it will answer the rein. We may acquire, by long-continued effort, the power to turn our back upon the worry—that is, in unmetaphoric fanguage, to think something else. sisted in bringing up again a thousand circumstances which you could wish forever forgot: as cach sad hour and sad fact came up and stuck its little sting into your heart! I do not suppose that you have led a specially wicked life; I do not write for blackguards; I suppose your life has been innocent on the whole, and your lot prosperous:I have often occasion to converse with I assume no more than the average of petty poor people about their little worries, their vexations, mortifications, and worries. You cares and trials; and from the ingenious remember how that noble man, Sir Charles way in which they put them, so as to make Napier, tells us in his Diary, that sometimes, them look their very worst, it is sometimes when irritated by having discovered some easy to see that the poor man or woman more than usually infamous job or neglect, has been brooding for long hours over the or stung by a keener than ordinary sense of painful thing, turning it in all different ways, the rascally injustice which pursued him till the thing has been got into that precise through life, he tossed about all night in a point of view in which it looks its very uglihalf-frantic state, shouting, praying, and est. It is like one of those gutta-percha blaspheming. Now, whether you be a great heads, squeezed into its most hideous grin. or a little man, when you lay your head on And I have thought, how long this poor soul your thorny pillow, have you not longed must have persisted in looking at nothing oftentimes for the power of resolutely turn- but this dreary prospect before finding out ing the mind's eye in another direction than so accurately the spot whence it looks most that which it was so miserable a thing for you dreary. I might mention one or two amusto contemplate? We all know, of course, ing instances; but I do not think it would how some, when the mind grew into that per- be fair to give the facts, and I could not insistent habit of looking in only one direc- vent any parallel cases unless by being mytion, of harboring only one wretched thought, self painfully worried. And we all know which is of the essence of madness, have that, apart from other reasons, it is impolitic thought, as they could not turn away the to look too long at a disagreeable object, for mind's eye at will to blindfold the mind (so this reason-that all subjects, pleasing or to speak) altogether: to make sure that it painful, greaten on our view if we look at should see nothing at all. By opium, by them long. They grow much bigger. You strong drink, men have endeavored to re- can hardly write a sermon (writing it as duce the mind to pure stupefaction, as their carefully and well as you can) without being sole chance of peace. And you know too, persuaded before you have done with it, that kindly reader, that even such means have the doctrine or duty you are seeking to ensometimes failed of their sorrowful purpose; force is one of the very highest possible imand that men have madly flung off the bur-portance. You feel this incomparably more den of this life, as though thus they could strongly when you have finished your disfling off the burden of self and of remembrance. I have said that it would be an unspeakable blessing if we could as easily turn the eyes away from a moral as from a physical pigsty; and in my belief we may, to a great degree, train ourselves to such a habit. You see, from what I have just said, that I do not think the thing is always or entirely to be done. The only way to forget a thing is to cease to feel any interest in it; and we cannot cheat ourselves into the belief that we feel no interest in a thing which we intensely desire to forget. But though the painful thing do not, at our will, quite die away into nothing, still we may habituate ourselves to look away from it. Only time can make our vexations and worries fade into nothing though we are looking at them: even as only distance in space can make the pigsty disappear, if we retire from it still looking in its direction. But we may turn our back on the pigsty, and so cease to behold it course than you did when you began it. So with an essay or an article. Half in jest, you chose your subject; half earnestly, you sketched out your plan; but as you carefully write it out, it begins to grow upon you that it would be well for the human race would it but listen to your advice and act upon it. It is so also with our worries, so with all the ills of our lot, so especially with any treachery or injustice with which we may have been treated. You may brood over a little worry till, like the prophet's cloud, it passes from being of the size of a man's hand into something that blackens all the sky, from the horizon to the zenith. You may dwell upon the cruelty and treachery with which you have been used, till the thought of them stings you almost to madness. Who but must feel for the abandoned wife, treated unquestionably with scandalous barbarity, who broods over her wrongs till she can think of nothing else, and can hardly speak or write without attacking her unworthy hus CONCERNING THE WORRIES OF LIFE. band? You may, in a moral sense, look at apprehension is possible, in all cases in which Some one has used you ill-cheated you, misrepresented you. An ugly old woman, partially deaf, and with a remarkably husky voice, has come to your house without any invitation, and notwithstanding the most frigid reception which civility will permit, persists in staying for ten days. You overhear Mr. Snarling informing a stranger that your essays in Fraser are mainly characterized by conceit and ill-nature (Mr. Snarling, put on the cap). Your wife and you enter a drawing-room to make a forenoon visit. But there are mortals who are always rakMiss Limejuice is staying at the house. Your friend, Mr. Smith, drove you down in ing up unpleasant subjects, because they his drag, which is a remarkably handsome have a real delight in them. Like the morturn-out. And entering the drawing-room bid anatomist, they would rather look at a somewhat faster than was expected, you sur- diseased body than a healthy one. Well, in prise Miss Limejuice, still with a malignant the case of their own lot, let such be ingrin on her extraordinarily ugly countenance, dulged. At first, when you find them every telegraphing across the room to the lady of time you see them, beginning again the tedithe house to come and look at the carriage. ous story of all their discomforts and worries, In an instant the malignant grin is exchanged you are disposed to pity them, tedious and for a fawning smile, but not so quickly but uninteresting though the story of their slights that you saw the malignant grin. A man and grievances be. Do not throw away pity has gone to law with you about a point upon such. They are not suitable objects of which appears to you perfectly clear. Now, charity. They have a real though perverted don't sit down and think over and over again enjoyment in going over that weary narraExclude them tion. It makes them happy to tell at length these petty provocations. from your mind. Most of them are really how miserable they are. They would rather too contemptible to be thought of. The look at the pigsty than not. Let them. It noble machinery of your mind, though you is all quite right. But unhappily such peobe only a commonplace, good-hearted mor- ple, not content themselves to contemplate tal, was made for something better than to grind that wretched grist. And as for greater injuries, don't think of them more than you can help. You will make yourself miserable. You will think the man who cheated or misrepresented you an incarnate demon, while probably he is in the main not so bad, though possessed of an unhappy disposition to tell lies to the prejudice of his acquaintRemember that if you could see his conduct, and your own conduct, from his point of view, you might see that there is much to be said even for him. No matter how wrong a man is, he may be able to persuade himself into the honest belief that he is in the right. You may kill an apostle, and think you are doing God service. You may vilify a curate, who is more popular than yourself; and in the process of vilification, you may quote much Scripture and shed many tears. Very, very few offenders sce their offence in the precise light in which you do while you condemn it. So resolve that in any complicated case, in which mis ance. pigsties, generally are anxious to get their been crippled, their views embittered, their trust to him as loving children might gather whole nature soured, by a constant discipline at the kindest parent's knee. I am content of petty whips and scourges, and little prick- to look at a pigsty when needful: God ining needles, applied (in some cases through tends that we should oftentimes look at such pure stolidity and coarseness of nature) by in the moral world; but God intends that we an ill-mated wife. It is only by flying from should look at clover fields and fragrant their own firesides that they can escape the flowers whenever we can do so without a derunceasing gadfly, with its petty, irritating, eliction of duty. I am quite sure that when never-ending sting. They live in an atmo- the Blessed Redeemer went to the marriage sphere of pigsty. They cannot lift their at Cana of Galilee, he did not think it his eyes but some ugly, petty, contemptible duty to cast a gloom and a damp over the wrong is sure to be crammed upon their festive company there. Do not misunderaching gaze. And it must be a very sweet stand me, my spiteful acquaintance. There and noble nature that years of this training is a time to mourn, as well as a time to will not embitter. It must be a very great dance; and in this life we shall have quite mind that years of this training will fail to enough of the former time, without seeking render inconceivably petty and little. Oh! for supererogatory woes. I am not afraid, woful and miserable to meet a man of fifty myself, to look upon the recent grave; I would or sixty, an educated man, who in this world train my children to sit upon the daisied of great interests and solemn anticipations, mound, pensive, but not afraid, as I told can find no subjects to talk of but the neg- them that Christianity has turned the sepullect of his wealthy neighbor, the extortion- chrum into the koyuninpiov,-the burying-place ate price he is charged for sugar, the care-into the sleeping-place; as I told them how lessness of his man-servant, the flirtations the Christian dead do but sleep for the Great of his maid-servants, the stiffness of Lord Awaking. But I should not think it right to Dunderhead when he lately met that empty-break in upon their innocent cheer by rushpated peer. In what a petty world such a ing in and telling them that their coffin man lives! Under what a low sky he walks: would soon be coming, and that their grave how muggy the atmosphere he breathes! was waiting in the churchyard. There are You remember Mr. Croaker, in Goldsmith's times enough and events enough which will Good-natured Man. Whenever he saw a tell them that. Don't let us have Mr. Croaker. number of people cheerful and happy, he al- And don't let us fancy that by making ourways contrived to throw a chill and damp selves miserable, we are doing something over the circle by wishing, with a ghastly air, pleasing to God. It is not his purpose that that they might all be as well that day six we should look at pigsties when we can honmonths. I have known many Croakers. I estly help it. No doubt, the erroneous behave known men who, if they saw a young lief that God wishes that we should, runs fellow quite happy in his lot and his work, through all religions. India, Persia, Arabia, hopeful and hearty, would instantly try to have known it, no less than Rome, England, suggest something that might make him un- Scotland; the fakir, the eremite, the monk, happy; that might pull him down to a con- the Covenanter, have erred together here. genial gloom. I have known persons who, The Church of England, and the Church of if they had looked upon a gay circle of Scotland, are no more free from the tendency sweet, lively girls, rosy and smiling, would to it, than the Church of Rome; and the have enjoyed extremely to have (in a moral grim Puritan, who thought it sinful to smile, sense) suddenly brought into that fair circle was just as far wrong as the starved monastic a hearse and a coffin. And I have been and the fleshless Brahmin. Every now and filled with fiery indignation, when I knew then, I preach a sermon against this notion; that such persons, really acting from malig- not that people nowadays will actually nant spite and bitterness to see others happy, would probably have claimed to be acting from religious motives, and doing a Christian duty. The very foundation, and primary axiom, in some men's religious belief, is, that Almighty God is spitefully angry to see his creatures happy. Oh, what a wicked, mischievous lie! God is love. And we know it on the highest of all authorities, that the very first and grandest duty he claims of his creatures, is to love him with heart and soul and strength and mind; not to shrink before him, like whipped slaves before a capricious, sulky tyrant; but to love him and scourge and starve themselves; but that they carry with them an inveterate belief that it would be a fine thing if they did. Here is the conclusion of the last sermon; various friendly readers of Fraser have sent me fancy specimens of bits of my discourses; let them compare their notion of them with the fact: "It shows how all men, everywhere, have been pressed by a common sense of guilt against inflicted punishment. But we, my friends, know God, which they thought to expiate by selfbetter than that. Jesus died for us; Jesus suffered for us; His sufferings took away our sins; our own sufferings, how great soever never |