—Dies, ni fallor, adest, quem semper
acerbum,
Semper honoralum, sic dii voluistis, habebo.[“That day I shall always recollect with grief; with reverence also, for the gods so willed it”]
Virgil. Ænid v. 49.
And now the rising day renews the year,
A day
for ever sad, for ever dear.Dryden
From my own Apartment, June 5.
There are those among mankind who can enjoy no relish of their
being, except the world is made acquainted with all that relates to
them, and think every thing lost that passes unobserved; but others find
a solid delight in stealing by the crowd, and modelling their life after
such a manner, as is as much above the approbation as the practice of
the vulgar. Life being too short to give instances great enough of true
friendship or good-will, some sages have thought it pious to preserve a
certain reverence for the manes of their deceased friends; and have
withdrawn themselves from the rest of the world at certain seasons, to
commemorate in their own thoughts such of their acquaintance who have
gone before them out of this life. And indeed, when we are advanced in
years, there is not a more pleasing entertainment than to recollect, in
a gloomy moment, the many we have parted with that have been dear and
agreeable to us, and to cast a melancholy thought or two after those
with whom, perhaps, we have indulged ourselves in, whole nights of mirth
and jollity. With such inclinations in my heart I went to my closet
yesterday in the evening, and resolved to be sorrowful; upon which
occasion I could not but look with disdain upon myself, that, though all
the reasons which I had to lament the loss of many of my friends are now
as forcible as at the moment of their departure, yet did not my heart
swell with the same sorrow which I felt at that time; but I could
without tears reflect upon many pleasing adventures I have had with
some, who have long been blended with common earth. Though it is by the
benefit of nature that length of time thus blots out the violence of
afflictions; yet, with tempers too much given to pleasure, it is almost
necessary to revive the old places of grief in our memory, and ponder
step by step on past life, to lead the mind into that sobriety of
thought which poizes the heart, and makes it beat with due time, without
being quickened with desire, or retarded with despair, from its proper
and equal motion. When we wind up a clock that is out of order, to make
it go well for the future, we do not immediately set the hand to the
present instant, but we make it strike the round of all its hours,
before it can recover the regularity of its time. Such, thought I, shall
be my method this evening; and since it is that day of the year which I
dedicate to the memory of such in another life as I much delighted in
when living, an hour or two shall be sacred to sorrow and their memory,
while I run over all the melancholy circumstances of this kind which
have occurred to me in my whole life.
The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the death of my
father, at which time I was not quite five years of age; but was rather
amazed at what all the house meant, than possessed with a real
understanding why nobody was willing to play with me. I remember I went
into the room where his body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it.
I had my battledore in my hand, and fell a-beating the coffin, and
calling “Papa;” for, I know not how, I had some slight idea that he was
locked up there. My mother catched me in her arms, and, transported
beyond all patience of the silent grief she was before in, she almost
smothered me in her embraces; and told me in a flood of tears, “Papa
could not hear me, and would play with me no more, for they were going
to put him under ground, whence he could never come to us again.” She
was a very beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was a dignity
in her grief amidst all the wildness of her transport; which, methought,
struck me with an instinct of sorrow that, before I was sensible of what
it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of
my heart ever since. The mind in infancy is, methinks, like the body in
embryo; and receives impressions so forcible, that they are as hard to
be removed by reason, as any mark with which a child is born is to be
taken away by any future application. Hence it is that good-nature in me
is no merit; but having been so frequently overwhelmed with her tears
before I knew the cause of any affliction, or could draw defences from
my own judgment, I imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly
gentleness of mind, which has since ensnared me into ten thousand
calamities; from whence I can reap no advantage, except it be that, in
such a humour as I am now in, I can the better indulge myself in the
softnesses of humanity, and enjoy that sweet anxiety which arises from
the memory of past afflictions.
We that are very old are better able to remember things which
befel us in our distant youth than the passages of later days. For this
reason it is that the companions of my strong and vigorous years present
themselves more immediately to me in this office of sorrow. Untimely and
unhappy deaths are what we are most apt to lament; so little are we able
to make it indifferent when a thing happens, though we know it must
happen. Thus we groan under life, and bewail those who are relieved from
it. Every object that returns to our imagination raises different
passions, according to the circumstance of their departure. Who can have
lived in an army, and in a serious hour reflect upon the many gay and
agreeable men that might long have flourished in the arts of peace, and
not join with the imprecations of the fatherless and widow on the tyrant
to whose ambition they fell sacrifices? But gallant men who are cut off
by the sword, move rather our veneration than our pity; and we gather
relief enough from their own contempt of death, to make that no evil,
which was approached with so much cheerfulness, and attended with so
much honour. But when we turn our thoughts from the great parts of life
on such occasions, and, instead of lamenting those who stood ready to
give death to those from whom they had the fortune to receive it; I say,
when we let our thoughts wander from such noble objects, and consider
the havoc which is made among the tender and the innocent, pity enters
with an unmixed softness, and possesses all our souls at once.
Here (were there words to express such sentiments with proper
tenderness) I should record the beauty, innocence, and untimely death,
of the first object my eyes ever beheld with love. The beauteous virgin!
how ignorantly did she charm, how carelessly excel? Oh death! thou hast
right to be bold, to be ambitious, to the high, and to the haughty; but
why this cruelty to the humble, to the meek, to the undiscerning, to
the thoughtless? Nor age, nor business, nor distress, can erase the
dear image from my imagination. In the same week I saw her dressed for a
ball, and in a shroud. How ill did the habit of death become the pretty
trifler? I still behold the smiling earth——A large train of disasters
were coming on to my memory, when my servant knocked at my closet-door,
and interrupted me with a letter, attended with a hamper of wine, of the
same sort with that which is to be put to sale on Thursday next at
Garraway’s coffee-house. Upon the receipt of it, I sent for three of my
friends. We are so intimate, that we can be company in whatever state of
mind we meet, and can entertain each other without expecting always to
rejoice. The wine we found to be generous and warming, but with such an
heat as moved us rather to be cheerful than frolicsome. It revived the
spirits, without firing the blood. We commended it until two of the
clock this morning; and, having to-day met a little before dinner, we
found that, though we drank two bottles a man, we had much more reason
to recollect than forget what had passed the night before.