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still spread on the remotest hill, if the distant sky is still invested with the delicate hues of promise, and the gentle radiance of hope, pursuit remains a pleasure; and the pilgrim, ever lighthearted, passes heedlessly over the barren wastes, and climbs with cheerful ardour each rugged mountain. But suppose that brilliant star to be blotted out of the sky; suppose the lustre of the horizon to have faded into the dank and gloomy shades of a cloudy evening; suppose the pursuit to be now without an object, and the blood which hope had sent merrily through the veins, to gather and curdle round the desponding heart. Then it is, that life is abandoned to persecuting fiends, and the springs of joy are poisoned by the demons of listlessness.

The scholar and the Christian have theirs guarantied against despair. The desire for intelligence is never satisfied but with the attainment of that wisdom which passes all understanding; and the eye discerning the bright lineaments of its perfect exemplar, can set no limits to the sacred passion, which recognises the connexion of the human mind with the divine, and places before itself a career of advancement, to which time itself can never prescribe bounds. But it is not with these high questions that we are at present engaged. We have thrown open the book of human life; we are to read there of this world and its littleness, of the springs of present action, of the relief of present restlessness.

We have said, that the pursuit of a noble object is in itself a pleasure. It is to the mind which holds up no definite object to its wishes, that the universe seems deficient in the means of happiness, and joy becomes a prey to the fiend of ennui.

Let us develop this principle more accurately. Let us examine into the nature of ennui, and fix with exactness its true signification. Let us see if it be a principle of action widely dif fused. Let us ascertain the limits of its power; let us trace its influences on individual character. Perhaps the investigation may lead us to a more intimate acquaintance with our nature.

Ennui is the desire of activity without the fit means of gratifying the desire. It presupposes an acknowledgment of exertion as a duty, and a consciousness of the possession of powers suited to making an exertion. It is itself a state of iddleness, yet of disquiet. It is inert, yet discontented.

Such is ennui in itself. In its effects, it embraces a large class of human actions, and its influences are widely spread throughout every portion of mental or physical effort. To trace these effects, and to prescribe their limits, will be a part of our object; t present we would observe, that wherever a course of conduct the result of physical want, of a passion for intelligence, a zeal glory, or to sum up a great variety of theories in one, of a and enlightened self-love, there there is no trace of ennui.

But when the primary motives of human conduct have failed of their effect, and the mind has become a prey to listlessness, the career, then pursued, let it be what it may, is to be ascribed to the pain of ennui. When the mind gnaws upon itself, we have ennui; the course which is pursued to call the mind from this self-destructive process, is to be ascribed to the influence of that passion.

Are our definitions indistinct? Let us attempt illustration. When the several powers and affections of man are, in the usual course of existence, called into healthy exercise, on objects sufficient to interest and satisfy them; this is happiness. When those powers and affections are exercised by objects sufficient to excite them in their highest degree, but where, being thus excited, there exists no harmony between the mind and its pursuits, where the affections are aroused without being soothed, where the chime is rung, but rung discordantly, there is misery. Where the powers of the mind are vigorous but unoccupied; where there exist a restless craving, an inquiet mobility, yet without any definite purpose or commensurate object, there is ennui.

The state of mind is strongly delineated in the language of the sacred writer.

"I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do; and behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly; for what can the man do that cometh after the king? Even that which hath already been done. Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness; and I perceived also, that one event happeneth to them all. Then I said in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity. For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is, in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? As the fool. Therefore, I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me; for all is vanity and vexation of spirit."

Or, to take an example from the earliest monument of Grecian genius. Achilles, in the pride of youth, engaged in his favourite profession of arms, making his way to an immortality secured to him by the voice of his goddess mother, sure to gain the victory in any contest, and selecting for his reward the richest spoils and the fairest maid, Achilles, the heroic heathen, was then fully and satisfactorily employed, and according to his semi-barbarous notions of joy and right, was happy within his own breast, and was happy in the world around him. When the same youthful warrior was insulted by the leader under whose banners he had rallied, when the private recesses of his tent were invaded, and his domestic peace disturbed, his mind was strongly agitated by love, anger, hatred, the passion for strife, and the intense effort at forbearance; and though there was here room

enough for activity, there was nothing but pain and misery. But when the dispute was over, and the pupil of the Centaur, trained for strife, and victory, and glory, separated from the army, and gave himself up to an inactive contemplation of the struggle against Troy, his mind was abandoned to the sentiment of discontent, and his passions were absorbed in the morbid feeling of ennui. Homer was an exact painter of the human passions. The picture which he draws of Achilles,* receiving the subsequent deputation from the Greeks, illustrates our subject exactly. It was in vain for the hero to attempt to sooth his mind with the melodies of the lyre; his blood kindled only at the music of war; it was idle for him to seek sufficient pleasure in celebrating the renown of heroes; this was but a vain effort to quell the burning passion for surpassing them in glory. He listens to the deputation, not tranquilly, but peevishly. He charges them with duplicity, and avows that he loathes their king like the gates of hell. He next reverts to himself: The warrior has no thanks, he exclaims in the bitterness of disappointment-"The coward and the brave man are held in equal honour." Nay, he goes further, and quarrels with providence and fixed destiny.— After all, the idler, and the man of many achievements, each must die." To-morrow, he adds, his vessels shall float on the Hellespont. The morning dawned; but the ships of Achilles still lingered near the banks of the Scamander. The notes of battle sounded, and his mind was still in suspense between the fiery impulse for war and the haughty reserve of revenge.

When Bruce found himself approaching the sources of the Nile, a thousand sentiments of pride rushed upon his mind; it seemed to him, that destiny had marked out for him a more fortunate and more glorious career, than for any European, kings or warriors, conquerors or travellers, that had ever attempted to penetrate into the interior of Africa. This was a moment of exultation and triumphant delight. But when that same traveller had actually reached the ultimate object of his research, he has himself recorded the emotions which were awakened within him. At the fountain-head of the Nile, Bruce was almost a victim to sentimental ennui.

In this anecdote of the Abyssinian traveller, we have an example of the rapidity with which ennui treads on the heels of triumph, and banishes the feelings of exulting joy. We will cite another, where misery was followed and consummated by ennui. The most eloquent of the Girondists was Vergniaud. It

* Iliad. ix. 187-190.

Iliad. ix. 310-320.

Iliad. Pope renders this-Alike regretted in the dust he lies. But it is an expression of discontent with destiny, which sets a common limit to life, and not to men, whose regrets may be unequal.

was he that in the spirit of prophecy compared the French revolution to Saturn, since it was about to devour successively all its children, and finally to establish despotism with its attendant calamities. The rivalship of the Mountain in the Convention, the unsuccessful attack on Robespierre, the trial and condemnation of Louis XVI., the defection of Dumourier and its consequences, had doubtless roused the mind of the fervent but unsuccessful orator to the highest efforts which the decline of power, and the consciousness of wavering fortunes, and the menace of utter ruin, patriotism, honour, and love of life, could call forth. At last came the day, fraught with horrors, when the clamours of a despotic and inexorable mob, claimed of the convention Vergniaud and his associates, the little refuse of republican sincerity, to be the victims of their fiendish avidity for blood. Who will doubt, that during that fearful session the mind of Vergniaud was agitated in the extreme, that the highest possible excitement called him into the highest possible activity? Here there was no room for listlessness, and quite as little for happiness. The guarantees of order were failing, and the friends of order were to be buried under the same ruins with the remains of regular legislative authority. Vergniaud retired from the scenes where the foulest of the dogs of war were howling for their prey, and and when Gregoire found him out in his hiding-place, the republican orator, though robbery and massacre were triumphant in the city, was discovered reading Tacitus. Why? From affectation? Surely not; Gregoire's visit was unexpected. From cool philosophy? still less, for it was the season of peril for an irritable man. The studies of Vergniaud on that day were the studies of one suffering from ennui.

Ennui was the necromancer which conjured up the ghost of Cæsar on the eve of the battle of Philippi. And when Brutus esteemed that battle lost, which in truth had been won, he had yet to wrestle with that unseen enemy, and enter on a new contest, where he was sure to be overthrown. The execution of Madame Roland was a scene, as far as she was concerned, of intense and unmitigated suffering; but when Brutus dared to despair of virtue, the atrocious sentiment was dictated, not by the spirit that had dared to plan the liberties of the world, but by the demon of ennui, which in an evil hour had possessed himself of the patriot's soul.

Finally, for we have surely made ourselves intelligible, if it is possible for us to do so-the timid lover, whose affections are moved, yet not tranquillized, who gazes with the eyes of fondness on an object that seems to be of a higher world, and admires as the stars are admired, which are acknowledged to be beautiful yet are never possessed; the timid lover, neither wholly doubting, nor wholly hoping, the sport alternately of joy and of

sorrow, full of thought and full of longing, feeling the sentiment of rapture yield to the faintness of uncertain hope, is half his time a true personification of ennui.

That ennui is a principle of action widely diffused, will hardly be denied by any careful observer of human nature. No individual can conscientiously claim to have been always and wholly free from its influences, except where there has been a life springing from the purest sources, sanctified by the early influence of religious motives, and protected from erroneous judgments by the constant exercise of a healthful understanding. For the rest, though few are constantly afflicted with it as an incurable evil, there are still fewer who are not at times made to suffer from its influence. It stretches its heavy hand on the man of business and the recluse; it makes its favourite haunts in the city, but it chases the aspirant after rural felicity, into the scenes of his rural listlessness; it makes the young melancholy, and the aged garrulous; it haunts the sailor and the merchant; it appears to the warrior and to the statesman; it takes its place in the curule chair, and sits also at the frugal board of old fashioned simplicity. You cannot flee from it; you cannot hide from it; it is swifter than the birds of passage, and swifter than the breezes that scatter clouds. It climbs the ship of the restless who long for the suns of Europe; it jumps up behind the horseman who scours the woods of Michigan; it throws its scowling glances on the attempt at present enjoyment; it scares the epicurean from his voluptuousness, and when the ascetic has finished his vow, it compels him once more to repeat the tale of his beads.

To the influence of ennui must be traced the passion for strong excitement. When life has become almost stagnant, when the ordinary course of events has been unable to excite any strong interest, ennui assumes a terrific power over the mind, and clamours for emotion, though that emotion is to be purchased by scenes of horror and of crime. "What a magnificent spectacle,' said the Parisian mob, "how interesting a spectacle to see a woman of the wit and courage of Madame Roland on the scaffold!" And it is precisely the same power, which excites the sensitive admirer of works of fiction to ransack the shelves of a library for works of thrilling and "painful" interest.

To the same kind of restless curiosity we have to ascribe the passionate declamations of the tragic actor, and the splendid music of the opera; the cunning feats of the village conjuror, and the lascivious pantomime of the city ballet-dancers; the disgusting varieties of bull-fights, and the celebrated feats of pugilism; the locomotive zeal of the great pedestrians, and the perfect quiescence of the "pillar saints."

The habits of ancient Rome illustrate most clearly the extent to which this passion for strong sensations may hurry the pub

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