do you find life amusing in these days? for my part, on the whole, it seems rather depressing, and i fear that my opinion is not altogether personal. as i observe the lives of my contemporaries, and listen to their talk, i find myself unhappily confirmed in the opinion that they do not get much pleasure out of things. and certainly it is not from lack of trying; but it must be acknowledged that their success is meagre. where can the fault be?
some accuse politics or business; others social problems or militarism. we meet only an embarrassment of choice when we start to unstring the chaplet of our carking cares. suppose we set out in pursuit of pleasure. there is too much pepper in our soup to make it palatable. our arms are filled with a multitude of embarrassments, any one of which would be enough to spoil our temper. from morning till night, wherever we go, the people [81]we meet are hurried, worried, preoccupied. some have spilt their good blood in the miserable conflicts of petty politics: others are disheartened by the meanness and jealousy they have encountered in the world of literature or art. commercial competition troubles the sleep of not a few. the crowded curricula of study and the exigencies of their opening careers, spoil life for young men. the working classes suffer the consequences of a ceaseless industrial struggle. it is becoming disagreeable to govern, because authority is diminishing; to teach, because respect is vanishing. wherever one turns there is matter for discontent.
and yet history shows us certain epochs of upheaval which were as lacking in idyllic tranquillity as is our own, but which the gravest events did not prevent from being gay. it even seems as if the seriousness of affairs, the uncertainty of the morrow, the violence of social convulsions, sometimes became a new source of vitality. it is not a rare thing to hear soldiers singing between two battles, and i think myself nowise mistaken in saying that human joy has celebrated its finest triumphs under the greatest tests of endurance. but to sleep peacefully on the eve of battle or to exult at the stake, men had [82]then the stimulus of an internal harmony which we perhaps lack. joy is not in things, it is in us, and i hold to the belief that the causes of our present unrest, of this contagious discontent spreading everywhere, are in us at least as much as in exterior conditions.
to give one's self up heartily to diversion one must feel himself on a solid basis, must believe in life and find it within him. and here lies our weakness. so many of us—even, alas! the younger men—are at variance with life; and i do not speak of philosophers only. how do you think a man can be amused while he has his doubts whether after all life is worth living? besides this, one observes a disquieting depression of vital force, which must be attributed to the abuse man makes of his sensations. excess of all kinds has blurred our senses and poisoned our faculty for happiness. human nature succumbs under the irregularities imposed upon it. deeply attainted at its root, the desire to live, persistent in spite of everything, seeks satisfaction in cheats and baubles. in medical science we have recourse to artificial respiration, artificial alimentation, and galvanism. so, too, around expiring pleasure we see a crowd of its votaries, [83]exerting themselves to reawaken it, to reanimate it most ingenious means have been invented; it can never be said that expense has been spared. everything has been tried, the possible and the impossible. but in all these complicated alembics no one has ever arrived at distilling a drop of veritable joy. we must not confound pleasure with the instruments of pleasure. to be a painter, does it suffice to arm one's self with a brush, or does the purchase at great cost of a stradivarius make one a musician? no more, if you had the whole paraphernalia of amusement in the perfection of its ingenuity, would it advance you upon your road. but with a bit of crayon a great artist makes an immortal sketch. it needs talent or genius to paint; and to amuse one's self, the faculty of being happy: whoever possesses it is amused at slight cost. this faculty is destroyed by scepticism, artificial living, over-abuse; it is fostered by confidence, moderation and normal habits of thought and action.
an excellent proof of my proposition, and one very easily encountered, lies in the fact that wherever life is simple and sane, true pleasure accompanies it as fragrance does uncultivated flowers. be this life hard, hampered, devoid of all things ordinarily [84]considered as the very conditions of pleasure, the rare and delicate plant, joy, flourishes there. it springs up between the flags of the pavement, on an arid wall, in the fissure of a rock. we ask ourselves how it comes, and whence: but it lives; while in the soft warmth of conservatories or in fields richly fertilized you cultivate it at a golden cost to see it fade and die in your hand.
ask actors what audience is happiest at the play; they will tell you the popular one. the reason is not hard to grasp. to these people the play is an exception, they are not bored by it from over-indulgence. and, too, to them it is a rest from rude toil. the pleasure they enjoy they have honestly earned, and they know its cost as they know that of each sou earned by the sweat of their labor. more, they have not frequented the wings, they have no intrigues with the actresses, they do not see the wires pulled. to them it is all real. and so they feel pleasure unalloyed. i think i see the sated sceptic, whose monocle glistens in that box, cast a disdainful glance over the smiling crowd.
"poor stupid creatures, ignorant and gross!"
and yet they are the true livers, while he is an artificial product, a mannikin, incapable of [85]experiencing this fine and salutary intoxication of an hour of frank pleasure.
unhappily, ingenuousness is disappearing, even in the rural districts. we see the people of our cities, and those of the country in their turn, breaking with the good traditions. the mind, warped by alcohol, by the passion for gambling, and by unhealthy literature, contracts little by little perverted tastes. artificial life makes irruption into communities once simple in their pleasures, and it is like phylloxera to the vine. the robust tree of rustic joy finds its sap drained, its leaves turning yellow.
compare a fête champêtre of the good old style with the village festivals, so-called, of to-day. in the one case, in the honored setting of antique costumes, genuine countrymen sing the folk songs, dance rustic dances, regale themselves with native drinks, and seem entirely in their element. they take their pleasure as the blacksmith forges, as the cascade tumbles over the rocks, as the colts frisk in the meadows. it is contagious: it stirs your heart. in spite of yourself you are ready to cry: "bravo, my children. that is fine!" you want to join in. in the other case, you see villagers disguised as city folk, countrywomen made hideous [86]by the modiste, and, as the chief ornament of the festival, a lot of degenerates who bawl the songs of music halls; and sometimes in the place of honor, a group of tenth-rate barnstormers, imported for the occasion, to civilize these rustics and give them a taste of refined pleasures. for drinks, liquors mixed with brandy or absinthe: in the whole thing neither originality nor picturesqueness. license, indeed, and clownishness, but not that abandon which ingenuous joy brings in its train.
this question of pleasure is capital. staid people generally neglect it as a frivolity; utilitarians, as a costly superfluity. those whom we designate as pleasure-seekers forage in this delicate domain like wild boars in a garden. no one seems to doubt the immense human interest attached to joy. it is a sacred flame that must be fed, and that throws a splendid radiance over life. he who takes pains to foster it accomplishes a work as profitable for humanity as he who builds bridges, pierces tunnels, or cultivates the ground. so to order one's life as to keep, amid toils and suffering, the faculty of happiness, and be able to propagate it in a sort of salutary contagion among one's [87]fellow-men, is to do a work of fraternity in the noblest sense. to give a trifling pleasure, smooth an anxious brow, bring a little light into dark paths—what a truly divine office in the midst of this poor humanity! but it is only in great simplicity of heart that one succeeds in filling it.
we are not simple enough to be happy and to render others so. we lack the singleness of heart and the self-forgetfulness. we spread joy, as we do consolation, by such methods as to obtain negative results. to console a person, what do we do? we set to work to dispute his suffering, persuade him that he is mistaken in thinking himself unhappy. in reality, our language translated into truthful speech would amount to this: "you suffer, my friend? that is strange; you must be mistaken, for i feel nothing." as the only human means of soothing grief is to share it in the heart, how must a sufferer feel, consoled in this fashion?
to divert our neighbor, make him pass an agreeable hour, we set out in the same way. we invite him to admire our versatility, to laugh at our wit, to frequent our house, to sit at our table; through it all, our desire to shine breaks forth. sometimes, also, with a patron's prodigality, we offer him the [88]beneficence of a public entertainment of our own choosing, unless we ask him to find amusement at our home, as we sometimes do to make up a party at cards, with the arrière-pensée of exploiting him to our own profit. do you think it the height of pleasure for others to admire us, to admit our superiority, and to act as our tools? is there anything in the world so disgusting as to feel one's self patronized, made capital of, enrolled in a claque? to give pleasure to others and take it ourselves, we have to begin by removing the ego, which is hateful, and then keep it in chains as long as the diversions last. there is no worse kill-joy than the ego. we must be good children, sweet and kind, button our coats over our medals and titles, and with our whole heart put ourselves at the disposal of others.
let us sometimes live—be it only for an hour, and though we must lay all else aside—to make others smile. the sacrifice is only in appearance; no one finds more pleasure for himself than he who knows how, without ostentation, to give himself that he may procure for those around him a moment of forgetfulness and happiness.
when shall we be so simply and truly men as not to obtrude our personal business and distresses upon [89]the people we meet socially? may we not forget for an hour our pretensions, our strife, our distributions into sets and cliques—in short, our "parts," and become as children once more, to laugh again that good laugh which does so much to make the world better?
here i feel drawn to speak of something very particular, and in so doing to offer my well-disposed readers an opportunity to go about a splendid business. i want to call their attention to several classes of people seldom thought of with reference to their pleasures.
it is understood that a broom serves only to sweep, a watering-pot to water plants, a coffee-mill to grind coffee, and likewise it is supposed that a nurse is designed only to care for the sick, a professor to teach, a priest to preach, bury, and confess, a sentinel to mount guard; and the conclusion is drawn that the people given up to the more serious business of life are dedicated to labor, like the ox. amusement is incompatible with their activities. pushing this view still further, we think ourselves warranted in believing that the infirm, the afflicted, the bankrupt, the vanquished in life's battle, and all [90]those who carry heavy burdens, are in the shade, like the northern slopes of mountains, and that it is so of necessity. whence the conclusion that serious people have no need of pleasure, and that to offer it to them would be unseemly; while as to the afflicted, there would be a lack of delicacy in breaking the thread of their sad meditations. it seems therefore to be understood that certain persons are condemned to be always serious, that we should approach them in a serious frame of mind, and talk to them only of serious things: so, too, when we visit the sick or unfortunate; we should leave our smiles at the door, compose our face and manner to dolefulness, and talk of anything heartrending. thus we carry darkness to those in darkness, shade to those in shade. we increase the isolation of solitary lives and the monotony of the dull and sad. we wall up some existences as it were in dungeons; and because the grass grows round their deserted prison-house, we speak low in approaching it, as though it were a tomb. who suspects the work of infernal cruelty which is thus accomplished every day in the world! this ought not to be.
when you find men or women whose lives are lost in hard tasks, or in the painful office of seeking [91]out human wretchedness and binding up wounds, remember that they are beings made like you, that they have the same wants, that there are hours when they need pleasure and diversion. you will not turn them aside from their mission by making them laugh occasionally—these people who see so many tears and griefs; on the contrary, you will give them strength to go on the better with their work.
and when people whom you know are in trial, do not draw a sanitary cordon round them—as though they had the plague—that you cross only with precautions which recall to them their sad lot. on the contrary, after showing all your sympathy, all your respect for their grief, comfort them, help them to take up life again; carry them a breath from the out-of-doors—something in short to remind them that their misfortune does not shut them off from the world.
and so extend your sympathy to those whose work quite absorbs them, who are, so to put it, tied down. the world is full of men and women sacrificed to others, who never have either rest or pleasure, and to whom the least relaxation, the slightest respite, is a priceless good. and this minimum of [92]comfort could be so easily found for them if only we thought of it. but the broom, you know, is made for sweeping, and it seems as though it could not be fatigued. let us rid ourselves of this criminal blindness which prevents us from seeing the exhaustion of those who are always in the breach. relieve the sentinels perishing at their posts, give sisyphus an hour to breathe; take for a moment the place of the mother, a slave to the cares of her house and her children; sacrifice an hour of our sleep for someone worn by long vigils with the sick. young girl, tired sometimes perhaps of your walk with your governess, take the cook's apron, and give her the key to the fields. you will at once make others happy and be happy yourself. we go unconcernedly along beside our brothers who are bent under burdens we might take upon ourselves for a minute. and this short respite would suffice to soothe aches, revive the flame of joy in many a heart, and open up a wide place for brotherliness. how much better would one understand another if he knew how to put himself heartily in that other's place, and how much more pleasure there would be in life!
i have [93]spoken too fully elsewhere of systematizing amusements for the young, to return to it here in detail.[b] but i wish to say in substance what cannot be too often repeated: if you wish youth to be moral, do not neglect its pleasures, or leave to chance the task of providing them. you will perhaps say that young people do not like to have their amusements submitted to regulations, and that besides, in our day, they are already over-spoiled and divert themselves only too much. i shall reply, first, that one may suggest ideas, indicate directions, offer opportunities for amusement, without making any regulations whatever. in the second place, i shall make you see that you deceive yourselves in thinking youth has too much diversion. aside from amusements that are artificial, enervating and immoral, that blight life instead of making it bloom in splendor, there are very few left to-day. abuse, that enemy of legitimate use, has so befouled the world, that it is becoming difficult to touch anything but what is unclean: whence watchfulness, warnings and endless prohibitions. one can hardly stir without encountering something that resembles unhealthy pleasure. among young people of [94]to-day, particularly the self-respecting, the dearth of amusements causes real suffering. one is not weaned from this generous wine without discomfort. impossible to prolong this state of affairs without deepening the shadow round the heads of the younger generations. we must come to their aid. our children are heirs of a joyless world. we bequeath them cares, hard questions, a life heavy with shackles and complexities. let us at least make an effort to brighten the morning of their days. let us interest ourselves in their sports, find them pleasure-grounds, open to them our hearts and our homes. let us bring the family into our amusements. let gayety cease to be a commodity of export. let us call in our sons, whom our gloomy interiors send out into the street, and our daughters, moping in dismal solitude. let us multiply anniversaries, family parties, and excursions. let us raise good humor in our homes to the height of an institution. let the schools, too, do their part. let masters and students—school-boys and college-boys—meet together oftener for amusement. it will be so much the better for serious work. there is no such aid to understanding one's professor as to have laughed in his company; and conversely, to be well understood [95]a pupil must be met elsewhere than in class or examination.
and who will furnish the money? what a question! that is exactly the error. pleasure and money: people take them for the two wings of the same bird! a gross illusion! pleasure, like all other truly precious things in this world, cannot be bought or sold. if you wish to be amused, you must do your part toward it; that is the essential. there is no prohibition against opening your purse, if you can do it, and find it desirable. but i assure you it is not indispensable. pleasure and simplicity are two old acquaintances. entertain simply, meet your friends simply. if you come from work well done, are as amiable and genuine as possible toward your companions, and speak no evil of the absent, your success is sure.
