The Wanderer (Burney)/Volume 4/Chapter 75
CHAPTER LXXV.
In this cottage, Juliet, again, witnessed another scene of life; and one which, serene and soothing, appeared, upon its opening, to exclude all evil.
The dwelling of the shepherd, or husbandman, had already in its favour the imagery of poesy, and the ardent predilection of juvenile ideas; and, with the vivacity of a heart always open to hope, Juliet hailed in it, at once, tranquillity and contentment.
Paid for his work by the day, the labourer had no anxiety for the morrow; the ground he was to plough, or till, or sow, was not his own; the goodness, badness, and variations of the weather touched not his property, nor endangered his subsistence. Be the seasons, therefore, what they might, he was not to be pitied.
Yet though his sound repose, the fruit of his toil, was undisturbed by elemental strife, he waked not to active hope; he looked not forward to sanguine expectation: the changes which could do him no mischief, could not bring him any advantage. No view of amelioration to his destiny enlivened his prospect; no opening to better days spurred his industry; and, as all action is debased, or exalted, by its motive; and all labour, by its object; those who struggle but to eat and sleep, may be saved from solicitude, but cannot be elevated to prosperity. He could not, therefore, be envied.
Two of the young men were married, and their wives, strong and healthy like themselves, worked almost as laboriously. Juliet found them as worthy as they were industrious; and hoped, by exciting their kindness, to add the interest of gentle amity to peace and rural enjoyment. But, though pleased and satisfied with their characters, and honouring their active and useful lives, she sought vainly to content herself with their uncultured society; and soon saw, with regret, how much the charm, though not the worth, of innocence depends upon manners; of goodness, upon refinement; and of honesty upon elevation. There was much to merit her approbation; but not a point to engage her sympathy; and, where the dominion of the character falls chiefly upon the heart, life, without sympathy, is a blank. The unsatisfied soul sighs for communion; its affections demand an expansion, its ideas, a developement, that, instinctively, call for interchange; and point out, that solitude, sought only by misery, remorse, or misanthropy, is as ungenial to our natural feelings, as retirement is salubrious.
She had here time and opportunity to see the fallacy, alike in authors and in the world, of judging solely by theory. Those who are born and bred in a capital; who first revel in its dissipations and vanities, next, sicken of its tumults and disappointments, write or exclaim for ever, how happy is the country peasant's lot! They reflect not that, to make it such, the peasant must be so much more philosophic than the rest of mankind, as to see and feel only his advantages, while he is blind and insensible to his hardships. Then, indeed, the lot of the peasant might merit envy!
But who is it that gives it celebrity? Is it himself? Does he write of his own joys? Does he boast of his own contentment? Does he praise his own lot? No! 'tis the writer, who has never tried it, and the man of the world who, however murmuring at his own, would not change with it, that give it celebrity.
Though natively endowed with that first, perhaps of worldly blessings, high animal spirits, Juliet, from an early experience of the vicissitudes of fortune, was become meditative. She looked with an intelligent desire of information, upon every new scene of life, that was presented to her view; and every class of society, that came within her knowledge: she now, therefore, with equal clearness and concern, saw how false an idea is conceived, at a distance, not only of the shepherd's paradise, but of the general happiness of the country life;—save to those who enjoy it with a large family to bring up; or with means not alone competent to necessity, but to benevolence; which not alone give leisure for the indulgence of contemplation, and the cultivation of rural taste, of literature, and of the fine arts; but which supply means for lightening the labours, and softening the hardships of the surrounding poor and needy. Then, indeed, the country life is the nearest upon earth, to what we may conceive of joys celestial!
The verdure of the flower-motleyed meadow; the variegated foliage of the wood; the fragrance and purity of the air, and the wide spreading beauties of the landscape, charm not the labourer. They charm only the enlightened rambler, or affluent possessor. Those who toil, heed them not. Their eyes are upon their plough; their attention is fixed upon the harvest; their sight follows the pruning hook. If the vivid field catches their view, it is but to present to them the image of the scythe, with which their labour must mow it; if they look at the shady tree, it is only with the foresight of the ax, with which their strength must fell it; and, while the body pants but for rest, which of the senses can surrounding scenery, ambient perfumes, or vocal warblers, enchant or enliven?
Juliet now, herself an inhabitant of the cottage, which, hitherto, she had only beheld in perspective, smiled, yet sighed at her mistake, in having considered shepherds and peasants as objects of envy. O ye, she cried, who view them through your imaginations! were ye to toil with them but one week! to rise as they rise, feed as they feed, and work as they work! like mine, then, your eyes would open; you would no longer judge of their pleasures and luxuries, by those of which they are the instruments for yourselves! you would feel and remark, that yours are all prepared for you; and that they, the preparers, are sufferers, not partakers! You would see then, as I see now, that the most delightful view which the horizon can bound, affords not to the poor labourer the joy that is excited by the view of the twilight through which it is excluded; but which sends him home to the mat of straw, that rests, for the night, his spent and weary limbs.
Then, as she looked around, from the summit of the hill upon which stood the small seminary for children, which she frequently visited, Oh that Elinor, she cried, escaping from the pressure of her passions, would expand her feelings by contemplating the works of God! Oh Father of All!—Who can reflect, yet doubt, that Man, placed at the head of these stupenduous operations, lord of the earthly sphere, can fail to be destined for Immortality? Yet more, who can examine and meditate upon the uncertain existence of thy creatures,—see failure without fault; success without virtue; sickness without relief; oppression in the very face of liberty; labour without sustenance; and suffering without crime;—and not see, and not feel that all call aloud for resurrection and retribution! that annihilation and injustice would be one! and that Man, from the very nature of his precarious earthly being, must necessarily be destined, by the All Wise, and All Just, for regions that we see not; for purposes that we know not;—for Immortality!