No More Learning

Of the Influence of Enthusiasm upon
Happiness.
1 The course of my subject necessarily leads
me here to treat of happiness. I have
hitherto studiously avoided the word, because
now for almost a century it has been the
custom to place it principally in pleasures so
gross, in a way of life so selfish, in calcula-
tions so narrow and confined, that its very
image is sullied and profaned. It, however, 1
may be pronounced with confidence, that of
all the feelings of the human heart enthu-
siasm confers the greatest happiness, that
indeed it alone confers real happiness, alone
can enable us to bear the lot of mortality in
every situation in which fortune has the
power to place us.
x| Vainly would we reduce ourselves to sen-
sual enjoyments; the soul asserts itself on
every side. Pride, ambition, self-love, all
these are still from the soul, although in
them a poisonous and pestilential blast mixes
dd2
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? 404 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
with its essence. Meanwhile, how wretched
is the existence of that crowd of mortals,
who, playing the hypocrite with themselves
almost as much as with others, are con-
tinually employed in repressing the generous
emotions,, which struggle to revive within
their bosoms, as diseases of the imagination,
which the open air should at once dispel.
How impoverished is the existence of those,
who content themselves with abstaining
from doing evil, and treat as weakness and
delusion the source of the most beautiful
deeds and the most noble conceptions!
From mere vanity they imprison themselves
in obstinate mediocrity, which they might
easily have opened to the light of know-
ledge, which every where surrounds them;
they sentence and condemn themselves to
that monotony of ideas, to that deadness of
feeling, which suffers the days to pass, one
after the other, without deriving from them
any advantage, without making in them any
progress, without treasuring up any matter
for future recollection. If time in its course
had nbt cast a change upon their features,
what proofs would they have preserved of
its having passed at all? If to grow old
and to die were not the necessary law of our
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? INFLUENCE OP ENTHUSIASM. 405
nature, what serious reflection would ever
have arisen in their minds ? / % ^ 0 ^
Some reasoners there are, who object that
enthusiasm produces a distaste for ordinary
life; and that as we cannot always remain
in the same frame of mind, it is more for
our advantage never to indulge it: and why
then, I would ask them, have they accepted
the gift of truth, why of life itself, since
they well knew that they were not to last
for ever? Why have they loved (if indeed
they ever have loved), since death at any
moment might separate them from the ob-
jects of their affection? Can there be a
more wretched economy than of the faculties
of the soul? They were given us to be im-
proved and expanded, to be carried as near
as possible to perfection, even to be prodi-
gally lavished for a high and noble end.
The more we benumb our feelings and
render ourselves insensible, the nearer (it
will be said) we approach to a state of ma-
terial existence, and the more we diminish
the dominion of pain and sorrow over us.
This argument imposes upon many; it con-
sists, in fact, in recommending to us to make
an attempt to live with as little of life as
possible. But our own degradation is al-
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? 406 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
ways accompanied by an uneasiness of
mind, for which we cannot account, and
which unremittingly attends upon us in se-
cret. The discontent, the shame, and the
weariness, which it causes, are arranged by
vanity in the garb of impertinence and con-
tempt; but it is very rare that any man can
settle peaceably in this confined and desert
sphere of being, which leaves him without
resource in himself when he is abandoned
by the prosperity of the world. Man has a
consciousness of the beautiful as well as of
the virtuous; and in the absence of the for-
mer he feels a void, as in a deviation from
the latter he finds remorse.
It is a common accusation against enthu-
siasm, that it is transitory; man were too
much blessed, if he could fix and retain
emotions so beautiful; but it is because
they are so easily dissipated and lost, that
we should strive and exert ourselves to pre-
serve them. Poetry and the fine arts are
the means of calling forth in man this hap-
piness of illustrious origin, which raises the
depressed heart; and, instead of an unquiet
satiety of life, gives an habitual feeling of
the divine harmony, in which nature and
ourselves claim a part.
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? INFLUENCE OP ENTHUSIASM. 407
There is no duty, there is no pleasure,
there is no sentiment, which does not bor- .
row from enthusiasm I know not what *
charm, which is still in perfect unison with.
the simple beauty of truth.
All men take up arms indeed for the de-
fence of the land which they inhabit, when
circumstances demand this duty of them;
but if they are inspired by the enthusiasm of
their country, what warm emotions do they
not feel within them? The sun, which shone
upon their birth, the land of their fathers,
the sea which bathes their rocks*, their
many recollections of the past, their many
hopes for the future, every thing around
them presents itself as a summons and en-
couragement for battle, and in every pulsa-
tion of the heart rises a thought of affection
and of honour. God has given this country
to men who can defend it; to women, who,
for its sake, consent to the dangers of their
brothers, their husbands, and their sons. At
the approach of the perils which threaten it,
* It is easy to perceive, that by this phrase, and by those
which follow, I have been trying to designate England; in
fact, I could not speak of war with enthusiasm, without
representing it to myself as the contest of a free nation for her
independence.
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? 408 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
a fever, exempt from shuddering as from
delirium, quickens the blood in the veins.
Every effort, in such a struggle, comes from
the deepest source of inward thought. As
yet nothing can be seen in the features of
these generous citizens but tranquillity;
there is too much dignity in their emotions
for outward demonstration; but let the sig-
nal once be heard, let the banner of their
country wave in the air, and you will see
those looks, before so gentle, and so ready
to resume that character at the sight of mis-
fortune, at once animated by a determina-
tion holy and terrible! They shudder no
more, neither at wounds nor at blood; it is
no longer pain, it is no longer death, it is an
offering to the God of armies; no regret, no
hesitation, now intrudes itself into the most
desperate resolutions; and when the heart is
entirely in its object, then is the highest en-
joyment of existence! As soon as man has,
within his own mind, separated himself from
himself, to him life is only an evil; and if it
be true, that of all the feeliDgs enthusiasm
confers the greatest happiness, it is because,
more than any other, it unites all the forces
of the soul in the same direction for the same
end.
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? INFLUENCE OF ENTHUSIASM. 409
The labours of the understanding are con-
sidered by many writers as an occupation
almost merely mechanical, and which fills up
their life in the same manner as any other
profession. It is still something that their
choice has fallen upon literature; but have such
men even an idea of the sublime happiness
of thought when it is animated by enthu-
siasm? Do they know the hope which pe-
netrates the soul, when there arises in it the
confident belief, that by the gift of eloquence
we are about to demonstrate and declare some
profound truth, some truth which will be at
once a generous bond of union between us
and every soul that sympathizes with ours?
Writers without enthusiasm, know of
the career of literature nothing but the criti-
cisms, the reviling, the jealousies which at-
tend upon it, and which necessarily must
endanger our peace of mind, if we allow
ourselves to be entangled amongst the pas-
sions of men. Unjust attacks of this nature
may, indeed, sometimes do us injury; but
the true, the heartfelt internal enjoyment
which belongs to talent, cannot be affected
by them. Even at the moment of the first
public appearance of a work, and before its
character is yet decided, how many hours of
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? 410 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
happiness has it not already been worth to
him who wrote it from his heart, and as an
act and office of his worship! How many
tears of rapture has he not shed in his soli-
tude over those wonders of life, love,
glory, and religion^Has he not, in his trans-
ports, enjoyed the air of heaven like a bird;
the waters like a thirsty hunter; the flowers
like a lover, who believes that he is breath-
ing the sweets which surround his mistress?
In the world, we have the feeling of being
oppressed beneath our own faculties, and
we often suffer from the consciousness that
we are the only one of our own disposition,
in the midst of so many beings, who exist
so easily, and at the expense of so little in-
tellectual exertion; but the creative talent of
imagination, for some moments at least, sa-
tisfies all our wishes and desires; it opens to
us treasures of wealth ; it offers to us crowns
of glory; it raises before our eyes the pure
and bright image of an ideal world; and so
mighty sometimes is its power, that by it we
hear in our hearts the very voice and accents
of one whom we have loved.
Does he who is not endowed with an en-
thusiastic imagination flatter himself that he
is, in any degree, acquainted with the earth
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? INFLUENCE OF ENTHUSIASM. 411
upon which he lives, or that he has travelled
through any of its various countries? Does
his heart beat at the echo of the mountains?
or has the air of the south lulled his senses
in its voluptuous softness? Does he per-
ceive wherein countries differ, the one from
the other? Does he remark the accent, and
does he understand the peculiar character of
the idioms of their languages? Does he hear
in the popular song, and see in the national
dance, the manners and the genius of the
people? Does one single sensation at once
fill his mind with a crowd of recollections?
Is Nature to be felt without enthusiasm?
Can common men address to her the tale of
their mean interests and low desires? What
have the sea and the stars to answer to the
little vanities with which each individual is
content to fill up each day? But if the soul
be really moved within us, if in the universe
it seeks a God, even if it be still sensible to
glory and to love, the clouds of heaven will
hold converse with it, the torrents will listen
to its voice, and the breeze that passes
through the grove seems to deign to whisper
to us something of those we love.
xThere are some who, although devoid of
enthusiasm, etill believe that they have a
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? 412 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
taste and relish for the fine arts; and indeed
they do love the refinement of luxury, and
they wish to acquire a knowledge of music
and of painting, that they may be able to
converse upon them with ease and with taste,
and even with that confidence which be-
comes the man of the world, when the sub-
ject turns upon imagination, or upon Na-
ture; but what are these barren pleasures,
when compared with true enthusiasm ? --
What an emotion runs through the brain when
we contemplate in the Niobe that settled
look of calm and terrible despair which seems
to reproach the gods with their jealousy of
her maternal happiness? What consolation
does the sight of beauty breathe upon us!
Beauty also is from the soul, and pure and
noble is the admiration it inspires. To feel
the grandeur of the Apollo demands in the
spectator a pride which tramples under foot
all the serpents of the earth. None but a
Christian can penetrate the countenance of
the Virgins of Raphael, and the St. Jerome
of Domenichino. None but a Christian can
recognise the same expression in fascinating
beauty, and in the depressed and grief-worn
visage; in the brilliancy of youth, and in
features changed by age and disfigured
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? INFLUENCE OF ENTHUSIASM. 413
by suffering! --the same expression which
springs from the soul, and which, like a ray
of celestial light, shoots across the early
morning of life, or the closing darkness of
age!
VCan it be said that there is such an art as
that of music for those who cannot feel en-
thusiasm? Habit may render harmonious
sounds, as it were, a necessary gratification
to them, and they enjoy them as they do the
flavour of fruits, or the ornament of colours;
but has their whole being vibrated and
trembled responsively, like a lyre, if at any
time the midnight silence has been suddenly
broken by the song, or by any of those in-
struments which resemble the human voice?
Have they in that moment felt the mystery
of their existence in that softening emotion
which reunites our separate natures, and
blends in the same enjoyment the senses of
the soul? Have the beatings of the heart
followed the cadence of the music? Have
they learned, under the influence of these
emotions so full of charms, to shed
those tears which have nothing of self
in them; those tears which do not ask for
the compassion of others, but which relieve
ourselves from the inquietude which arises
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? 414 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
from the need of something to admire and
to love ? ^
The taste for public spectacles is universal,
for the greater part of mankind have more
imagination than they themselves think; and
that which they consider as the allurement
of pleasure, as a remnant of the weakness
of childhood which still hangs about them,
is often the better part of their nature:
while they are beholding the scenes of fic-
tions, they are true, natural, and feeling;
whereas in the world dissimulation, calcu-
lation, and vanity, are the absolute masters
of their words, sentiments, and actions. But
do they think that they have felt all that a
really fine tragedy can inspire, who find in
the representation of the strongest affections
nothing but a diversion and amusement?
Do they doubt and disbelieve that rapturous
agitation, which the passions, purified by
poetry, excite within us? Ah! how many
and how great are the pleasures which spring
from fictions! The interest they raise is
without either apprehension or remorse; and
the sensibility which they call forth has
none of that painful harshness from which
real passions are hardly ever exempt.
What enchantment does not the language
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? INFLUENCE OF ENTHUSIASM. 415
of love borrow from poetry and the 6ne arts!
How beautiful is it to love at once with the
heart and with the mind! thus to vary in a
thousand fashions a sentiment which one
word is indeed sufficient to express, but for
which all the words of the world are but
poverty and weakness! to submit entirely to
the influence of those master-pieces of the
imagination, which all depend upon love,
and to discover in the wonders of nature and
genius new expressions to declare the feel-
ings of our own heart!
What have they known of love, who have
not reverenced and admired the woman
whom they loved, in whom the sentiment
is not a hymn breathed from the heart, and
who do not perceive in grace and beauty the
heavenly image of the most touching passions?
"What has she felt of love, who has not seen
in the object of her choice an exalted protec-
tor, a powerful and a gentle guide, whose
look at once commands and supplicates, and
who receives upon his knees the right of
disposing of her fate? How inexpressible
is the delight which serious reflections, united
and blended with warm and lively impres-
sions, produce! The tenderness of a friend,
in whose hands our happiness is deposited,
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? 416 RELIGTON AND ENTHUSIASM.
ought, at the gates of the tomb, in the same"
manner as in the beautiful days of our youth,
to form our chief blessing; and every thing
most serious and solemn in our existence
transforms itself into emotions of delight;
when, as in the fable of the ancients, it is the
office of love to light and to extinguish the
torch of life.
'If enthusiasm fills the soul with happiness,
by a strange and wondrous charm, it forms
also its chief support under misfortune; it
leaves behind it a deep trace and a path of
light, which do not allow absence itself to
efface us from the hearts of our friends. It
affords also to ourselves an asylum from the
utmost bitterness of sorrow, and is the only
feeling which can give tranquillity without
indifference.
Even the most simple passions, which
every heart believes itself capable of feeling,
even filial and maternal love, cannot be felt
in their full strength, unless enthusiasm be
blended with them. How can we love a
son without indulging the flattering hope
that he will be generous and gallant, without
wishing him that renown which may, as it
were, multiply his existence, and make us
hear from every side the name which our
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? INFLUENCE OF ENTHUSIASM. 41?
own heart is continually repeating? Why
should we not enjoy with rapture the talents
of a son, the beauty of a daughter? Can
there be a more strange ingratitude towards
the Deity, than indifference for his gifts?
Are they not from Heaven, since they render
it a more easy task for us to please him
whom we love?
Meanwhile, should some misfortune de-
prive our child of these advantages, the same
sentiment would then assume another form:
it would increase and exalt within us the
feeling of compassion, of sympathy, the hap-
piness of being necessary to him. Under all
circumstances, enthusiasm either animates or ?
consoles; and even in the moment when the'
blow, the most cruel that can be struck, .
reaches us, when we lose him to whom we ,
owe our own being, him whom we loved as a
tutelary angel, and who inspired us at once
with a fearless respect and a boundless con-
fidence, still enthusiasm comes to our assist-.
ance and support. It brings together within
us some sparks of that soul which has passed
away to heaven; we still live before him, and
we promise ourselves that we will one day
transmit to posterity the history of his life.
Never, we feel assured, never will his paternal
VOL, III. E E
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? 418 RELIGION AND BNTHUSIASM.
hand abandon us entirely in this world; and
his image, affectionate and tender, still in-
clines towards us, to support us, until we
are called unto him.
And in the end, when the hour of trial
comes, when it is for us in our turn to meet
the struggle of death, the increasing weak-
ness of our faculties ; the loss and ruin of our
hopes; this life, before so strong, which
now begins to give way within us; the
crowd of feelings and ideas which lived with-
in our bosom, and which the shades of the
tomb already surround and envelope; our
interests, our passions, this existence itself,
which lessens to a shadow, before it vanishes
away, all deeply distress us; and the com-
mon man appears, when he expires, to have
less of death to undergo. Blessed be God,
however, for the assistance which he has
prepared for us even in that moment; our
utterance shall be imperfect, our eyes shall
do longer distinguish the light, our reflections,
before clear and connected, shall wander
vague and confused; but Enthusiasm will not
abandon us, her brilliant wings shall wave
over the funeral couch; she will lift the veil
of death; she will recall to our recollection
those moments, when, in the fulness of
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? INFLUENCE OF ENTHUSIASM. 419
energy, we felt that the heart was imperish-
able; and our last sigh shall be a high and
generous thought, reascending to that heaven
from which it had its birth.
Y " O France! land of glory and of love!
"if the day should ever come when enthu-
"siasm. shall be extinct upon your soil, when
"all shall be governed and disposed upon
"calculation, and even the contempt of
"danger shall be founded only upon the
"conclusions of reason, in that day what
"will avail you the loveliness of your climate,
"the splendour of your intellect, the general
"fertility of your nature? Their intelligent
"activity, and an impetuosity directed by
"prudence and knowledge, may indeed give
"your children the empire of the world;
"but the only traces you will leave on the
"face of that world will be like those of the
"sandy whirlpool, terrible as the waves,
"and sterile as the desert *! "
? This last sentence is that which excited in the French
police the greatest indignation against my book. It seems to
me, that Frenchmen at least cannot be displeased with it.
F. ND OF THE THIED AND LAST VOLUME.
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? Printed by W. Clowes,
Northumberland. court, Strand, London.
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