Part 4 (1/2)
Wilt see a man all his own wealth, His own music, his own health,-- A man whose sober soul can tell How to wear her garments well: Her garments that upon her sit, As garments should do, close and fit; A well-clothed soul that's not oppressed, Nor choked with what she should be dressed; A soul sheathed in a crystal shrine, Through which all her bright features s.h.i.+ne, As when a piece of wanton lawn, A thin, aerial veil is drawn O'er beauty's face, seeming to hide, More sweetly shows the blus.h.i.+ng bride: A soul, whose intellectual beams No mists do mask, no lazy streams: A happy soul that all the way To heaven rides in a summer's day?
Wouldst see a man whose well-warmed blood Bathes him in a genuine flood,-- A man whose tuned humors be A seat of rarest harmony?
Wouldst see blithe looks, fresh cheeks beguile Age; wouldst see December smile?
Wouldst see nests of new roses grow In a bed of reverend snow?
Warm thought, free spirits flattering Winter's self into a spring?
In sum, wouldst see a man that can Live to be old, and still a man Whose latest and most leaden hours Fall with soft wings, stuck with soft flowers; And when life's sweet fable ends, Soul and body part like friends; No quarrels, murmurs, no delay, A kiss, a sigh,--and so away,-- This rare one, reader, wouldst thou see?
Hark within, and thyself be he.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: Triangular decoration of two intertwined griffins]
III.
FELLOWs.h.i.+P.
”Health is the first good lent to men, A gentle disposition then, Next competence by no by ways, Lastly with friends to enjoy one's days.”
HERRICK.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative banner of two birds among leaves and flowers]
FELLOWs.h.i.+P.
I.--HOSPITALITY.
Evelyn writes of the manners and architecture of his times: ”'Tis from the want of symmetry in our buildings, decorum in our houses, that the irregularity of our humors and affections may be shrewdly discerned.”
But not every builder is gifted with the genius and personal qualities to harmonize the apartments to the dispositions of the inmates. I confess to a partiality for the primitive style of architecture commended by Evelyn, and question whether in our refinements on these we have not foregone comforts and amenities essential to true hospitality.
What shall make good to us the ample chimney-piece of his day, with the courtesies it cherished, the conversation, the cheer, the entertainments? Very welcome were the s.p.a.cious yards and hospitable door-knockers on those ancestral mansions, fast disappearing from our landscape, supplanted by edifices and surroundings more showy and pretentious; yet, with all their costliness, looking somewhat asquint on the visitor, as if questioning his right to enter them; and, when admitted, seem unfamiliar, solitary, desolate, with their elaborate decorations and furnis.h.i.+ngs. Can we not build an elegant comfort, convenience, ease, into the walls and apartments, rendering the mansion an image of the n.o.bilities becoming the residence of n.o.blemen? To what end the house, if not for conversation, kindly manners, the entertainment of friends.h.i.+ps, the cordialities that render the house large, and the ready receptacle of hosts and guests? If one's hospitalities fail to bring out the better qualities of his company, he fails of being the n.o.ble host, be his pretensions what they may. Let him entertain the dispositions, the genius, of his guests, the conversation being the choicer banquet; for, without baits for these, what were the table but a manger, alike wanting in elegancy as in hospitality, and the feast best taken in silence as an animal qualification, and no more.
What solitude like those homes where no home is, no company, no conversation, into which one enters with dread, and from which he departs with sadness, as from the sight of hostile tribes bordering on civilization, strangers to one another, and of mixed bloods! Civility has not completed its work if it leave us unsocial, morose, insultable.
Sympathy wanting, all is wanting; its personal magnetism is the conductor of the sacred spark that lights our atoms, puts us in human communion, and gives us to company, conversation, and ourselves.
”Oh wretched and too solitary, he Who loves not his own company; He'll find the weight of it many a day, Unless he call in sin and vanity, To help to bear it away.”
The surest sign of age is loneliness. While one finds company in himself and his pursuits, he cannot be old, whatever his years may number.
Perhaps those most prize society who find the best in solitude, being equal to either; strong enough to enjoy themselves aside from companies they would gladly meet and repay by a freedom from prejudices and scruples in which these share and pride themselves, yet whose exclusiveness thrusts them out of their own houses and themselves also.
”It ever hath been known, They others' virtues scorn who doubt their own.”