sight in business, his capacity of living within his income, or his balance at his banker's. We all admit that prudence is an admirable virtue, and occasionally lament, about Christmas, when bills fall in, that we do not inherit it in a greater degree. But we speak about it in quite a cool way. It does not touch us with enthusiasm. If a calculating-machine had a hand to wring, it would find few to wring it warmly. The things that really move liking in human beings are the gnarled nodosities of character, vagrant humours, freaks of generosity, some little unextinguishable spark of the aboriginal savage, some little sweet savour of the old Adam. It is quite wonderful how far simple generosity and kindliness of heart go in securing affection; and, when these exist, what a host of apologists spring up for faults and vices even. A country squire goes recklessly to the dogs, yet if he has a kind word for his tenant when he meets him, a frank greeting for the rustic beauty when she drops a curtsy to him on the highway, he lives for a whole generation in an odour of sanctity. If he had been a disdainful, hook-nosed, prime minister, who had carried his country triumphantly through some frightful crisis of war, these people would, perhaps, never have been aware of the fact; and most certainly never would have tendered him a word of thanks, even if they had. When that important question, "Which is the greatest foe to the public weal-the miser or the spendthrift?" is discussed at the artisans' debating club, the spendthrift has all the eloquence on his side-the miser all the votes. The miser's advocate is nowhere, and he pleads the cause of his client with only half his heart. In the theatre, Charles Surface is applauded, and Joseph Surface is hissed. The novel-reader's affection goes out to Tom Jones, his hatred to Blifil. Joseph Surface and Blifil are scoundrels, it is true, but deduct the scoundrelism, let Joseph be but a stale proverbmonger and Blifil a conceited prig, and the issue remains the same. Good humour and generosity carry the day with the popular heart all the world over. Tom Jones and Charles Surface are not vagabonds to my taste. They were shabby fellows both, and were treated a great deal too well. But there are other vagabonds whom I love, and whom I do well to love. With what affection do I follow little Ishmael and his broken-hearted mother out into the great and terrible wilderness, and see them faint beneath the ardours of the sunlight. And we feel it to be strict poetic justice and compensation, that the lad so driven forth from human tents should become the father of wild Arabian men, to whom the air of cities is poison, who work not with any tool, and on whose limbs no conqueror has ever yet been able to rivet shackle or chain. Then there are Abraham's grandchildren, Jacob and Esau-the former, I confess, no favourite of mine. His, up at least to his closing years, when parental affection and strong sorrow softened him, was a character not amiable. He lacked generosity, and had too keen an eye on his own advancement. He did not inherit the noble strain of his ancestors. He was a prosperous man; yet in spite of his increase in flocks and herds,-in spite of his vision of the ladder with the angels ascending and descending upon it,-in spite of the success of his beloved son,-in spite of the weeping and lamentation of the Egyptians at his death,-in spite of his splendid funeral, winding from the city by the pyramid and the sphinx,-in spite of all these things, I would rather have been the hunter Esau, with birthright filched away, bankrupt in the promise, rich only in fleet foot and keen spear; for he carried. into the wilds with him an essentially noble nature—no brother with his mess of pottage could mulct him of that. And he had a fine revenge; for, when Jacob, on his journey, heard that his brother was near with four hundred men, and made division of his flocks and herds, his man-servants and maid-servants, impetuous as a swollen hill-torrent, the fierce son of the desert, baked red with Syrian light, leaped down upon him, and fell on his neck and wept. And Esau said, "What meanest thou by all this drove which I met?" and Jacob said, "These are to find grace in the sight of my lord;" then Esau said, "I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself." O mighty prince, didst thou remember thy mother's guile, the skins upon thy hands and neck, and the lie put upon the patriarch, as, blind with years, he sat up in his bed snuffing the savoury meat? An ugly memory, I should fancy! Commend me to Shakspeare's vagabonds, the most delightful in the world! His sweet-blooded and liberal nature blossomed into all fine generosities as naturally as an apple-bough into pink-blossoms and odours. Listen to Gonsalvo talking to the shipwrecked Milan nobles camped for the night in Prospero's isle, full of sweet voices, with Ariel shooting through the enchanted air like a falling star : "Had I the plantation of this isle, my lord, I' the commonwealth I would by contraries No occupation-all men idle-all! And women too, but innocent and pure; No sovereignty; All things in common nature should produce, To feed my innocent people. I would with such perfection govern, sir, To excel the golden age." What think you of a world after that pattern? "As You Like It" is a vagabond play, and verily, if there waved in any wind that blows a forest peopled like Arden's, with an exiled king drawing the sweetest humanest lessons from misfortune; a melancholy Jacques, stretched by the river bank, moralising on the bleeding deer; a fair Rosalind, chanting her saucy cuckoo song; fools like Touchstone-not like those of our acquaintance, my friends; and the whole place, from centre to circumference, filled with mighty oak bolls, all carven with lovers' names,—if such a forest waved in wind, I say, I would, be my worldly prospects what they might, pack up at once, and cast in my lot with that vagabond company. For there I should find more gallant courtesies, finer sentiments, completer innocence and happiness, more wit and wisdom, than I am like to do here even, though I search for them from shepherd's cot to king's palace. Just to think how those people lived! Carelessly as the blossoming trees, happily as the singing birds, time measured only by the patter of the acorn on the fruitful soil! A world without debtor or creditor, passing rich, yet with never a doit in its purse, with no sordid care, no regard for appearances; nothing to occupy the young but love-making, nothing to occupy the old but perusing the "sermons in stones" and the musical wisdom which dwells in "running brooks!" But Arden forest draws its sustenance from a poet's brain: the light that sleeps on its leafy pillows is "the light that never was on sea or shore.” We but please and tantalise ourselves with beautiful dreams. |