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A Liberal Genius
A Liberal Genius
Pepys spent part of a certain winter Sunday, when he had taken physic,
composing "a song in praise of a liberal genius (such as I take my own to be)
to all studies and pleasures." The song was unsuccessful, but the Diary is, in
a sense, the very song that he was seeking; and his portrait by Hales, so
admirably reproduced in Mynors Bright`s edition, is a confirmation of the
Diary. Hales it would appear, had known his business; and though he put his
sitter to a deal of trouble, almost breaking his neck "to have the portrait
full of shadows," and draping him in an Indian gown hired expressly for the
purpose, he was preoccupied about no merely picturesque effects, but to
portray the essence of the man. Whether we read the picture by the Diary or
the Diary by the picture, we shall at least agree that Hales was among the
number of those who can "surprise the manners in the face." Here we have a
mouth pouting, moist with desires; eyes greedy, protuberant, and yet apt for
weeping too; a nose great alike in character and dimensions; and altogether a
most fleshly, melting countenance. The face is attractive by its promise of
reciprocity. I have used the word greedy, but the reader must not suppose that
he can change it for that closely kindred one of hungry; for there is here no
aspiration, no waiting for better things, but an animal joy in all that comes.
It could never be the face of an artist; it is the face of a viveur - kindly,
pleased and pleasing, protected from excess and upheld in contentment by the
shifting versatility of his desires. For a single desire is more rightly to be
called a lust; but there is health in a variety, where one may balance and
control another.
The whole world, town or country, was to Pepys a garden of Armida.
Wherever he went, his steps were winged with the most eager expectation;
whatever he did, it was done with the most lively pleasure. An insatiable
curiosity in all the shows of the world and all the secrets of knowledge,
filled him brimful of the longing to travel, and supported him in the toils of
study. Rome was the dream of his life; he was never happier than when he read
or talked of the Eternal City. When he was in Holland, he was "with child" to
see any strange thing. Meeting some friends and singing with them in a palace
near The Hague, his pen fails him to express his passion of delight, "the more
so because in a heaven of pleasure and in a strange country." He must go to
see all famous executions. He must needs visit the body of a murdered man,
defaced "with a broad wound," he says, "that makes my hand now shake to write
of it." He learned to dance, and was "like to make a dancer." (He learned to
sing, and walked about Gray`s Inn Fields "humming to myself (which is now my
constant practice) the trillo." He learned to play the lute, the flute, the
flageolet, and the theorbo, and it was not the fault of his intention if he
did not learn the harpsichord or the spinet. He learned to compose songs, and
burned to give forth" a scheme and theory of music not yet ever made in the
world." When he heard "a fellow whistle like a bird exceeding all," he
promised to return another day and give an angel for a lesson in the art.
Once, he writes, "I took the Bezan back with me, and with a brave gale and
tide reached up that night to the Hope, taking great pleasure in learning the
seamen`s manner of singing when they sound the depths." If he found himself
rusty in his Latin grammar, he must fall to it like a schoolboy. He was a
member of Harrington`s Club till its dissolution, and of the Royal Society
before it had received the name. Boyle`s Hydrostatics was "of infinite
delight" to him, walking in Barnes Elms. We find him comparing Bible
concordances, a captious judge of sermons, deep in Descartes and Aristotle. We
find him, in a single year, studying timber and the measurement of timber; tar
and oil, hemp, and the process of preparing cordage; mathematics and
accounting; the hull and the rigging of ships from a model; and "looking and
improving himself of the (naval) stores with" - hark to the fellow! - "great
delight." His familiar spirit of delight was not the same with Shelley`s; but
how true it was to him through life! He is only copying something, and behold,
he "takes great pleasure to rule the lines, and have the capital words wrote
with red ink"; he has only had his coal - cellar emptied and cleaned, and
behold, "it do please him exceedingly." A hog`s harslett is "a piece of meat
he loves." He cannot ride home in my Lord Sandwich`s coach, but he must
exclaim, with breathless gusto, "his noble, rich coach." When he is bound for
a supper party, he anticipates a "glut of pleasure." When he has a new watch,
"to see my childishness," says he, "I could not forbear carrying it in my hand
and seeing what o`clock it was an hundred times." To go to Vauxhall, he says,
and "to hear the nightingales and other birds, hear fiddles, and there a harp
and here a Jew`s trump, and here laughing, and there fine people walking, is
mighty divertising." And the nightingales, I take it, were particularly dear
to him; and it was again "with great pleasure" that he paused to hear them as
he walked to Woolwich, while the fog was rising and the April sun broke
through.
He must always be doing something agreeable, and, by preference, two
agreeable things at once. In his house he had a box of carpenter`s tools, two
dogs, an eagle, a canary, and a blackbird that whistled tunes, lest, even in
that full life, he should chance upon an empty moment. If he had to wait for a
dish of poached eggs, he must put in the time by playing on the flageolet; if
a sermon were dull, he must read in the book of Tobit or divert his mind with
sly advances on the nearest women. When he walked, it must be with a book in
his pocket to beguile the way in case the nightingales were silent; and even
along the streets of London, with so many pretty faces to be spied for and
dignitaries to be saluted, his trail was marked by little debts "for wine,
pictures, etc.," the true headmark of a life intolerant of any joyless
passage. He had a kind of idealism in pleasure; like the princess in the fairy
story, he was conscious of a rose - leaf out of place. Dearly as he loved to
talk, he could not enjoy nor shine in a conversation when he thought himself
unsuitably dressed. Dearly as he loved eating, he "knew not how to eat alone;"
pleasure for him must heighten pleasure; and the eye and ear must be flattered
like the palate ere he avow himself content. He had no zest in a good dinner
when it fell to be eaten "in a bad street and in a periwigmaker`s house"; and
a collation was spoiled for him by indifferent music. His body was
indefatigable, doing him yeoman service in this breathless chase of pleasures.
On April 11, 1662, he mentions that he went to bed "weary, which I seldom am";
and already over thirty, he would sit up all night cheerfully to see a comet.
But it is never pleasure that exhausts the pleasure - seeker; for in that
career, as in all others, it is failure that kills. The man who enjoys so
wholly and bears so impatiently the slightest widowhood from joy, is just the
man to lose a night`s rest over some paltry question of his right to fiddle on
the leads, or to be "vexed to the blood" by a solecism in his wife`s attire;
and we find in consequence that he was always peevish when he was hungry, and
that his head "aked mightily" after a dispute. But nothing could divert him
from his aim in life; his remedy in care was the same as his delight in
prosperity; it was with pleasure, and with pleasure only, that he sought to
drive out sorrow; and, whether he was jealous of his wife or skulking from a
bailiff, he would equally take refuge in the theatre. There, if the house be
full and the company noble, if the songs be tunable, the actors perfect, and
the play diverting, this old hero of the secret Diary, this private self -
adorer, will speedily be healed of his distresses.
Equally pleased with a watch, a coach, a piece of meat, a tune upon the
fiddle, or a fact in hydrostatics, Pepys was pleased yet more by the beauty,
the worth, the mirth, or the mere scenic attitude in life of his fellow -
creatures. He shows himself throughout a sterling humanist. Indeed, he who
loves himself, not in idle vanity, but with a plenitude of knowledge, is the
best equipped of all to love his neighbors. And perhaps it is in this sense
that charity may be most properly said to begin at home. It does not matter
what quality a person has: Pepys can appreciate and love him for it. He "fills
his eyes" with the beauty of Lady Castlemaine; indeed, he may be said to dote
upon the thought of her for years; if a woman be good - looking and not
painted, he will walk miles to have another sight of her; and even when a lady
by a mischance spat upon his clothes, he was immediately consoled when he had
observed that she was pretty. But, on the other hand, he is delighted to see
Mrs. Pett upon her knees, and speaks thus of his Aunt James; "a poor,
religious, well - meaning, good soul, talking of nothing but God Almighty, and
that with so much innocence that mightily pleased me." He is taken with Pen`s
merriment and loose songs, but not less taken with the sterling worth of
Coventry. He is jolly with a drunken sailor, but listens with interest and
patience, as he rides the Essex roads, to the story of a Quaker`s spiritual
trials and convictions. He lends a critical ear to the discourse of kings and
royal dukes. He spends an evening at Vauxhall with "Killigrew and young
Newport - loose company," says he, "but worth a man`s being in for once, to
know the nature of it, and their manner of talk and lives." And when a rag -
boy lights him home, he examines him about his business and other ways of
livelihood for destitute children. This is almost half - way to the beginning
of philanthropy; had it only been the fashion, as it is at present, Pepys had
perhaps been a man famous for good deeds. And it is through this quality that
he rises, at times, superior to his surprising egotism; his interest in the
love affairs of others is, indeed, impersonal; he is filled with concern for
my Lady Castlemaine, whom he only knows by sight, shares in her very
jealousies, joys with her in her successes; and it is not untrue, however
strange it seems in his abrupt presentment, that he loved his maid Jane
because she was in love with his man Tom.
Let us hear him, for once, at length: "So the women and W. Hewer and I
walked upon the Downes, where a flock of sheep was; and the most pleasant and
innocent sight that ever I saw in my life. We found a shepherd and his little
boy reading, far from any houses or sight of people, the Bible to him; so I
make the boy to read to me, which he did with the forced tone that children do
usually read, that was mighty pretty; and then I did give him something, and
went to the father, and talked with him. He did content himself mightily in my
liking his boy`s reading, and did bless God for him, the most like one of the
old patriarchs that ever I saw in my life, and it brought those thoughts of
the old age of the world in my mind for two or three days after. We took
notice of his woollen knit stockings of two colors mixed, and of his shoes
shod with iron, both at the toe and heels, and with great nails in the soles
of his feet, which was mighty pretty; and taking notice of them, `Why,` says
the poor man, `the downes, you see, are full of stones, and we are faine to
shoe ourselves thus; and these,` says he, `will make the stones fly till they
ring before me.` I did give the poor man something, for which he was mighty
thankful, and I tried to cast stones with his horne crooke. He values his dog
mightily, that would turn a sheep any way which he would have him, when he
goes to fold them; told me there was about eighteen score sheep in his flock,
and that he hath four shillings a week the year round for keeping of them; and
Mrs. Turner, in the common fields here, did gather one of the prettiest
nosegays that ever I saw in my life."
And so the story rambles on to the end of that day`s pleasuring; with
cups of milk, and glow - worms, and people walking at sundown with their wives
and children, and all the way home Pepys still dreaming "of the old age of the
world" and the early innocence of man. This was how he walked through life,
his eyes and ears wide open, and his hand, you will observe, not shut; and
thus he observed the lives, the speech, and the manners of his fellow - men,
with prose fidelity of detail and yet a lingering glamour or romance.
It was "two or three days after" that he extended this passage in the
pages of his Journal, and the style has thus the benefit of some reflection.
It is generally supposed that, as a writer, Pepys must rank at the bottom of
the scale of merit. But a style which is indefatigably lively, telling, and
picturesque through six large volumes of everyday experience, which deals with
the whole matter of a life, and yet is rarely wearisome, which condescends to
the most of fastidious particulars, and yet sweeps all away in the forthright
current of the narrative, - such a style may be ungrammatical, it may be
inelegant, it may be one tissue of mistakes, but it can never be devoid of
merit. The first and the true function of the writer has been thoroughly
performed throughout; and though the manner of his utterance may be childishly
awkward, the matter has been transformed and assimilated by his unfeigned
interest and delight. The gusto of the man speaks out fierily after all these
years. For the difference between Pepys and Shelley, to return to that half
whimsical approximation, is one of quality but not one of degree; in his
sphere, Pepys felt as keenly, and his is the true prose of poetry - prose
because the spirit of the man was narrow and earthly, but poetry because he
was delightedly alive. Hence, in such a passage as this about the Epsom
shepherd, the result upon the reader`s mind is entire conviction and unmingled
pleasure. So, you feel, the thing fell out, not otherwise; and you would no
more change it than you would change a sublimity of Shakespeare`s, a homely
touch of Bunyan`s, or a favored reminiscence of your own.
There never was a man nearer being an artist, who yet was not one. The
tang was in the family; while he was writing the journal for our enjoyment in
his comely house in Navy Gardens, no fewer than two of his cousins were
tramping the fens, kit under arm, to make music to the country girls. But he
himself, though he could play so many instruments and pass judgment in so many
fields of art, remained an amateur. It is not given to any one so keenly to
enjoy, without some greater power to understand. That he did not like
Shakespeare as an artist for the stage may be a fault, but it is not without
either parallel or excuse. He certainly admired him as a poet; he was the
first beyond mere actors on the rolls of that innumerable army who have got
"To be or not to be" by heart. Nor was he content with that; it haunted his
mind; he quoted it to himself in the pages of the Diary, and, rushing in where
angels fear to tread, he set it to music. Nothing, indeed, is more notable
than the heroic quality of the verses that our little sensualist in a periwig
chose out to marry with his own mortal strains. Some gust from brave
Elizabethan times must have warmed his spirit, as he sat tuning his sublime
theorbo. "To be or not to be. Whether `tis nobler" - "Beauty retire, thou dost
my pity move" - "It is decreed, nor shall thy fate, O Rome"; - open and
dignified in the sound, various and majestic in the sentiment, it was no
inapt, as it was certainly no timid, spirit that selected such a range of
themes. Of "Gaze not on Swans," I know no more than these four words; yet that
also seems to promise well. It was, however, not a probable suspicion, the
work of his master, Mr. Berkenshaw - as the drawings that figure at the
breaking up of a young ladies` seminary are the work of the professor attached
to the establishment. Mr. Berkenshaw was not altogether happy in his pupil.
The amateur cannot usually rise into the artist, some leaven of the world
still clogging him; and we find Pepys behaving like a pickthank to the man who
taught him composition. In relation to the stage, which he so warmly loved and
understood, he was not only more hearty, but more generous to others. Thus he
encounters Colonel Reames, "a man," says he, "who understands and loves a play
as well as I, and I love him for it." And again, when he and his wife had seen
a most ridiculous insipid piece, "Glad we were," he writes, "that Betterton
had no part in it." It is by such a zeal and loyalty to those who labor for
his delight that the amateur grows worthy of the artist. And it should be kept
in mind that, not only in art, but in morals, Pepys rejoiced to recognize his
betters. There was not one speck of envy in the whole human - hearted egotist.
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