The Recreations of a Country Parson Part 3

Primary--Idleness, and excessive self-indulgence;

Secondary--Penances, and self-inflicted tortures.

Primary--Swallowing whole all that is said or done by one's party;

Secondary--Dread of quite agreeing, or quite disagreeing on any point with any one; and trying to keep at exactly an equal distance from each.

Primary--Following the fashion with indiscriminate ardour;

Secondary--Finding a merit in singularity, as such.

Primary--Being quite captivated with thought which is striking and showy, but not sound;

Secondary--Concluding that whatever is sparkling must be unsound.

I hardly know which tendency of the following is the primary, and which the secondary; but I am sure that both exist. It may depend upon the district of country, and the age of the thinker, which of the two is the action and which the reaction:

1. Thinking a clergyman a model of perfection, because he is a stout dashing fellow who plays at cricket and goes out fox-hunting; and, generally, who flies in the face of all conventionalism;

2. Thinking a clergyman a model of perfection because he is of very grave and decorous deportment; never plays at cricket, and never goes out fox-hunting; and, generally, conforms carefully to all the little proprieties.

1. Thinking a bishop a model prelate because he has no stiffness or ceremony about him, but talks frankly to everybody, and puts all who approach him at their ease;

2. Thinking a bishop a model prelate because he never descends from his dignity; never forgets that he is a bishop, and keeps all who approach him in their proper places.

1. Thinking the Anglican Church service the best, because it is so decorous, solemn, and dignified;

2. Thinking the Scotch Church service the best, because it is so simple and so capable of adaptation to all circ.u.mstances which may arise.

1. Thinking an artisan a sensible right-minded man, knowing his station, because he is always very respectful in his demeanour to the squire, and great folks generally;

2. Thinking an artisan a fine, manly, independent fellow, because he is always much less respectful in his demeanour to the squire than he is to other people.

1. Thinking it a fine thing to be a fast, reckless, swaggering, drinking, swearing reprobate: Being ashamed of the imputation of being a well-behaved and (above all) a pious and conscientious young man: Thinking it manly to do wrong, and washy to do right;

2. Thinking it a despicable thing to be a fast, reckless, swaggering, drinking, swearing reprobate: Thinking it is manly to do right, and shameful to do wrong.

1. That a young man should begin his letters to his father with HONOURED SIR; and treat the old gentleman with extraordinary deference upon all occasions:

2. That a young man should begin his remarks to his father on any subject with, I SAY, GOVERNOR; and treat the old gentleman upon all occasions with no deference at all.

But indeed, intelligent reader, the swing of the pendulum is the type of the greater amount of human opinion and human feeling. In individuals, in communities, in parishes, in little country towns, in great nations, from hour to hour, from week to week, from century to century, the pendulum swings to and fro. From Yes on the one side to No on the other side of almost all conceivable questions, the pendulum swings. Sometimes it swings over from Yes to No in a few hours or days; sometimes it takes centuries to pa.s.s from the one extremity to the other. In feeling, in taste, in judgment, in the grandest matters and the least, the pendulum swings. From Popery to Puritanism; from Puritanism back towards Popery; from Imperialism to Republicanism, and back towards Imperialism again; from Gothic architecture to Palladian, and from Palladian back to Gothic; from hooped petticoats to drapery of the scantiest, and from that backwards to the mult.i.tudinous crinoline; from crying up the science of arms to crying it down, and back; from the schoolboy telling you that his companion Brown is the jolliest fellow, to the schoolboy telling you that his companion Brown is a beast, and back again; from very high carriages to very low ones and back; from very short horsetails to very long ones and back again--the pendulum swings.

In matters of serious judgment it is comparatively easy to discern the rationale of this oscillation from side to side. It is that the evils of what is present are strongly felt, while the evils of what is absent are forgotten; and so, when the pendulum has swung over to A, the evils of A send it flying over to B, while when it reaches B the evils of B repel it again to A. In matters of feeling it is less easy to discover the how and why of the process: we can do no more than take refuge in the general belief that nature loves the swing of the pendulum. There are people who at one time have an excessive affection for some friend, and at another take a violent disgust at him: and who (though sometimes permanently remaining at the latter point) oscillate between these positive and negative poles. You, being a sensible man, would not feel very happy if some men were loudly crying you up: for you would be very sure that in a little while they would be loudly crying you dovvn.

If you should ever happen to feel for one day an extraordinary lightness and exhilaration of spirits, you will know that you must pay for all this the price of corresponding depression--the hot fit must be counterbalanced by the cold. Let us thank G.o.d that there are beliefs and sentiments as to which the pendulum does not swing, though even in these I have known it do so. I have known the young girl who appeared thoroughly good and pious, who devoted herself to works of charity, and (with even an over-scrupulous spirit) eschewed vain company: and who by and bye learned to laugh at all serious things, and ran into the utmost extremes of giddiness and extravagant gaiety. And not merely should all of us be thankful if we feel that in regard to the gravest sentiments and beliefs our mind and heart remain year after year at the same fixed point: I think we should be thankful if we find that as regards our favourite books and authors our taste remains unchanged; that the calm judgment of our middle age approves the preferences of ten years since, and that these gather strength as time gives them the witchery of old remembrances and a.s.sociations. You enthusiastically admired Byron once, you estimate him very differently now. You once thought Festus finer than Paradise Loft, but you have swung away from that. But for a good many years you have held by Wordsworth, Shakspeare, and Tennyson, and this taste you are not likely to outgrow. It is very curious to look over a volume which we once thought magnificent, enthralling, incomparable, and to wonder how on earth we ever cared for that stilted rubbish. No doubt the pendulum swings quite as decidedly to your estimate of yourself as to your estimate of any one else. It would be nothing at all to have other people attacking and depreciating your writings, sermons, and the like, if you yourself had entire confidence in them. The mortifying thing is when your own taste and judgment say worse of your former productions than could be said by the most unfriendly critic; and the dreadful thought occurs, that if you yourself to-day think so badly of what you wrote ten years since, it is probable enough that on this day ten years hence (if you live to see it) you may think as badly of what you are writing to-day. Let us hope not. Let us trust that at length a standard of taste and judgment is reached from which we shall not ever materially swing away. Yet the pendulum will never be quite arrested as to your estimate of yourself. Now and then you will think yourself a block-head: by and bye you will think yourself very clever; and your judgment will oscillate between these opposite poles of belief. Sometimes you will think that your house is remarkably comfortable, sometimes that it is unendurably uncomfortable; sometimes you will think that your place in life is a very dignified and important one, sometimes that it is a very poor and insignificant one; sometimes you will think that some misfortune or disappointment which has befallen you is a very crushing one; sometimes you will think that it is better as it is. Ah, my brother, it is a poor, weak, wayward thing, the human heart!

You know, of course, how the pendulum of public opinion swings backwards and forwards. The truth lies somewhere about the middle of the arc it describes, in most cases. You know how the popularity of political men oscillates, from A, the point of greatest popularity, to B, the point of no popularity at all. Think of Lord Brougham.

Once the pendulum swung far to the right: he was the most popular man in Britain. Then, for many years, the pendulum swung far to the left, into the cold regions of unpopularity, loss of influence, and opposition benches. And now, in his last days, the pendulum has come over to the right again. So with lesser men. When the new clergyman comes to a country parish, how high his estimation!

Never was there preacher so impressive, pastor so diligent, man so frank and agreeable. By and bye his sermons are middling, his diligence middling; his manners rather stiff or rather too easy.

In a year or two the pendulum rests at its proper point: and from that time onward the parson gets, in most cases, very nearly the credit he deserves. The like oscillation of public opinion and feeling exists in the case of unfavourable as of favourable judgments. A man commits a great crime. His guilt is thought awful. There is a general outcry for his condign punishment. He is sentenced to be hanged. In a few days the tide begins to turn. His crime was not so great. He had met great provocation. His education had been neglected. He deserves pity rather than reprobation. Pet.i.tions are got up that he should be let off; and largely signed by the self-same folk who were loudest in the outcry against him. And instead of this fact, that those folk were the keenest against the criminal, being received (as it ought) as proof that their opinion is worth nothing at all, many will receive it as proof that their opinion is ent.i.tled to special consideration. The principle of the pendulum in the matter of criminals is well understood by the Old Bailey pract.i.tioners of New York and their worthy clients. When a New Yorker is sentenced to be hanged, he remains as a cool as cuc.u.mber; for the New York law is, that a year must pa.s.s between the sentence and the execution. And long before the year pa.s.ses, the public sympathy has turned in the criminal's favour. Endless pet.i.tions go up for his pardon. Of course he gets off. And indeed it is not improbable that he may receive a public testimonial. It cannot be denied that the natural transition in the popular feeling is from applauding a man to hanging him, and from hanging a man to applauding him.

Even so does the pendulum swing, and the world run away!

CHAPTER IV.

CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS.

Many persons do not like to go near a churchyard: some do not like even to hear a churchyard mentioned. Many others feel an especial interest in that quiet place--an interest which is quite unconnected with any personal a.s.sociations with it. A great deal depends upon habit; and a great deals turns, too, on whether the churchyard which we know best is a locked-up, deserted, neglected place, all grown over with nettles; or a spot not too much retired, open to all pa.s.sers-by, with trimly-mown gra.s.s and neat gravelled walks.

I do not sympathize with the taste which converts a burying-place into a flower-garden or a fashionable lounge for thoughtless people: let it be the true 'country churchyard,' only with some appearance of being remembered and cared for. For myself, though a very commonplace person, and not at all sentimentally inclined, I have a great liking for a churchyard. Hardly a day pa.s.ses on which I do not go and walk up and down for a little in that which surrounds my church. Probably some people may regard me as extremely devoid of occupation, when I confess that daily, after breakfast, and before sitting down to my work (which is pretty hard, though they may not think so), I walk slowly down to the churchyard, which is a couple of hundred yards off, and there pace about for a few minutes, looking at the old graves and the mossy stones. Nor is this only in summer-time, when the sward is white with daisies, when the ancient oaks around the gray wall are leafy and green, when the pa.s.sing river flashes bright through their openings and runs chiming over the warm stones, and when the beautiful hills that surround the quiet spot at a little distance are flecked with summer light and shade; but in winter too, when the bare branches look sharp against the frosty sky, and the graves look like wavelets on a sea of snow. Now, if I were anxious to pa.s.s myself off upon my readers as a great and thoughtful man, I might here give an account of the profound thoughts which I think in my daily musings in my pretty churchyard. But, being an essentially commonplace person (as I have no doubt about nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand of my readers also are), I must here confess that generally I walk about the churchyard, thinking and feeling nothing very particular. I do not believe that ordinary people, when worried by some little care, or pressed down by some little sorrow, have only to go and muse in a churchyard in order to feel how trivial and transient such cares and sorrows are, and how very little they ought to vex us. To commonplace mortals, it is the sunshine within the breast that does most to brighten; and the thing that has most power to darken is the shadow there. And the scenes and teachings of external nature have, practically, very little effect indeed. And so, when musing in the churchyard, nothing grand, heroical, philosophical, or tremendous ever suggests itself to me.

I look with pleasure at the neatly cut walks and gra.s.s. I peep in at a window of the church, and think how I am to finish my sermon for next Sunday. I read over the inscriptions on the stones which mark where seven of my predecessors sleep. I look vacantly at the lichens and moss which have overgrown certain tombstones three or four centuries old. And occasionally I think of what and where I shall be, when the village mason, whistling cheerfully at his task, shall cut out my name and years on the stone which will mark my last resting-place. But all these, of course, are commonplace thoughts, just what would occur to anybody else, and really not worth repeating.

And yet, although 'death, and the house appointed for all living,'

form a topic which has been treated by innumerable writers, from the author of the book of Job to Mr. d.i.c.kens; and although the subject might well be vulgarized by having been, for many a day, the stock resort of every commonplace aimer at the pathetic; still the theme is one which never can grow old. And the experience and the heart of most men convert into touching eloquence even the poorest formula of set phrases about the tremendous Fact. Nor are we able to repress a strong interest in any account of the mult.i.tude of fashions in which the mortal part of man has been disposed of, after the great change has pa.s.sed upon it. In a volume ent.i.tled G.o.d's Acre, written by a lady, one Mrs. Stone, and published a year or two since, you may find a great amount of curious information upon such points: and after thinking of the various ways of burial described, I think you will return with a feeling of home and of relief to the quiet English country churchyard. I should think that the shocking and revolting description of the burning of the remains of Sh.e.l.ley, published by Mr. Trelawney, in his Last Days of Shelhy and Byron, will go far to destroy any probability of the introduction of cremation in this country, notwithstanding the ingenuity and the eloquence of the little treatise published about two years ago by a Member of the College of Surgeons, whose gist you will understand from its t.i.tle, which is Burning the Dead; or, Urn-Sepulture Religiously, Socially, and Generally considered; with Suggestions for a Revival of the Practice, as a Sanitary Measure.

The choice lies between burning and burying: and the latter being universally accepted in Britain, it remains that it be carried out in the way most decorous as regards the deceased, and most soothing to the feelings of surviving friends. Every one has seen burying-places of all conceivable kinds, and every one knows how prominent a feature they form in the English landscape. There is the dismal corner in the great city, surrounded by blackened walls, where scarce a blade of gra.s.s will grow, and where the whole thing is foul and pestilential. There is the ideal country churchyard, like that described by Gray, where the old elms and yews keep watch over the graves where successive generations of simple rustics have found their last resting-place, and where in the twilight the owls hoot from the tower of the ivy-covered church. There is the bare enclosure, surrounded by four walls, and without a tree, far up the lonely Highland hill-side; and more lonely still, the little gray stone, rising above the purple heather, where rude letters, touched up by Old Mortality's hands, tell that one, probably two or three, rest beneath, who were done to death for what they firmly believed was their Redeemer's cause, by Claverhouse or Dalyell. There is the churchyard by the bleak sea-sh.o.r.e, where coffins have been laid bare by the encroaching waves; and the niche in cathedral crypt, or the vault under the church's floor. I cannot conceive anything more irreverent than the American fashion of burying in unconsecrated earth, each family having its own place of interment in the corner of its own garden: unless it be the crotchet of the silly old peer, who spent the last years of his life in erecting near his castle-door, a preposterous building, the progress of which he watched day by day with the interest of a man who had worn out all other interest, occasionally lying down in the stone coffin which he had caused to be prepared, to make sure that it would fit him.

I feel sorry, too, for the poor old Pope, who when he dies is laid on a shelf above a door in St. Peter's, where he remains till the next Pope dies, and then is put out of the way to make room for him; nor do I at all envy the n.o.ble who has his family vault filled with coffins covered with velvet and gold, occupied exclusively by corpses of good quality. It is better surely to be laid, as Allan Cunningham wished, where we shall 'not be built over;' where 'the wind shall blow and the daisy grow upon our grave.' Let it be among our kindred, indeed, in accordance with the natural desire; but not on dignified shelves, not in aristocratic vaults, but lowly and humbly, where the Christian dead sleep for the Resurrection.

Most people will sympathize so far with Beattie, though his lines show that he was a Scotchman, and lived where there are not many trees:--

Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down, Where a green gra.s.sy turf is all I crave, With here and there a violet bestrown, Fast by a brook, or fountain's murmuring wave; And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave!

But it depends entirely upon individual a.s.sociations and fancies where one would wish to rest after life's fitful fever: and I have hardly ever been more deeply impressed than by certain lines which I cut out of an old newspaper when I was a boy, and which set out a choice far different from that of The Minstrel. They are written by Mr. Westwood, a true poet, though not known as he deserves to be. Here they are:--

Not there, not there!

Not in that nook, that ye deem so fair;-- Little reck I of the blue bright sky, And the stream that floweth so murmuringly, And the bending boughs, and the breezy air-- Not there, good friends, not there!

In the city churchyard, where the gra.s.s Groweth rank and black, and where never a ray Of that self-same sun doth find its way Through the heaped-up houses' serried ma.s.s-- Where the only sounds are the voice of the throng, And the clatter of wheels as they rush along-- Or the plash of the rain, or the wind's hoa.r.s.e cry, Or the busy tramp of the pa.s.ser-by, Or the toll of the bell on the heavy air-- Good friends, let it be there!

I am old, my friends--I am very old-- Fourscore and five--and bitter cold Were that air on the hill-side far away; Eighty full years, content, I trow, Have I lived in the home where ye see me now, And trod those dark streets day by day, Till my soul doth love them; I love them all, Each battered pavement, and blackened wall, Each court and corner. Good sooth! to me They are all comely and fair to see-- They have old faces--each one doth tell A tale of its own, that doth like me well-- Sad or merry, as it may be, From the quaint old book of my history.

And, friends, when this weary pain is past, Fain would I lay me to rest at last In their very midst;--full sure am I, How dark soever be earth and sky, I shall sleep softly--I shall know That the things I loved so here below Are about me still--so never care That my last home looketh all bleak and bare-- Good friends, let it be there!

Some persons appear to think that it argues strength of mind and freedom from unworthy prejudice, to profess great indifference as to what becomes of their mortal part after they die. I have met with men who talked in a vapouring manner about leaving their bodies to be dissected; and who evidently enjoyed the sensation which such sentiments produced among simple folk. Whenever I hear any man talk in this way, my politeness, of course, prevents my telling him that he is an uncommonly silly person; but it does not prevent my thinking him one. It is a mistake to imagine that the soul is the entire man. Human nature, alike here and hereafter, consists of soul and body in union; and the body is therefore justly ent.i.tled to its own degree of thought and care. But the point, indeed, is not one to be argued; it is, as it appears to me, a matter of intuitive judgment and instinctive feeling; and I apprehend that this feeling and judgment have never appeared more strongly than in the n.o.blest of our race. I hold by Burke, who wrote, 'I should like that my dust should mingle with kindred dust; the good old expression, "family burying-ground," has something pleasing in it, at least to me.' Mrs.

Stone quotes Lady Murray's account of the death of her mother, the celebrated Grissell Baillie, which shows that that strong-minded and n.o.ble-hearted woman felt the natural desire:--

The next day she called me: gave directions about some few things: said she wished to be carried home to lie by my father, but that perhaps it would be too much trouble and inconvenience to us at that season, therefore left me to do as I pleased; but that, in a black purse in her cabinet, I would find money sufficient to do it, which she had kept by her for that use, that whenever it happened, it might not straiten us. She added, 'I have now no more to say or do:' tenderly embraced me, and laid down her head upon the pillow, and spoke little after that.

An instance, at once touching and awful, of care for the body after the soul has gone, is furnished by certain well-known lines written by a man not commonly regarded as weak-minded or prejudiced; and engraved by his direction on the stone that marks his grave.

If I am wrong, I am content to go wrong with Shakspeare:

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here: Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.