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with whom they could associate; some, whom they could call their friends, and with whom they could participate in their good or evil fortune. The influence of the desire of esteem may be overruled and annulled; the sentiments of filial and parental affection may be extinguished; the light of conscience may be put out; and yet they may find themselves unable, (and in point of fact, this is almost invariably the case,) to sunder entirely the tie, which binds them to their follow-men. They can bear the pain, so insupportable to an unperverted and ingenuous mind, of having their names cast out as evil; but they are unable to endure the wretchedness of an entire and absolute seclusion from society.

§. 144. Proofs of the natural desire of society from the confessions and conduct of those who have been deprived of it.

Let us now attend a moment, in the third place, to the condition of those, who are so unfortunate as to be separated from society, particularly from their friends. We presume to say, that it will require no further proof than is involved in the mere statement itself, when we assert that the grief they suffer is in all ordinary cases sincere and deep; and that not unfrequently it is extreme. If the record of human misery could at once be unfolded to our view, it would abundantly appear in respect to multitudes, who have perished in prison and in exile, that it was the deprivation of human society, particularly the society of their friends, which infused the deadliest ingredient into their cup of suffering. the social propensity be not natural to us, it is not easy to explain, why an exclusion from intercourse with our fellowmen should be attended with such unspeakable wretched

ness.

If

Even the stern and inflexible Coriolanus, for whom all the forms of danger and even death seem to have had no terrors, could not endure his protracted banishment from Rome without bitter complaint, "Mullo miserius seni exilium esse.'

If we felt at liberty thus to take up the time of the reader, we might without doubt illustrate the subject by some affecting statements. It will answer our purpose, however, briefly to recur to a single incident in the history of the Republic of Venice. In the year 1450, a young man by the

name of Foscari, the only surviving son of the Doge of the same name, was banished from the Republic, on a charge, of which it was subsequently ascertained that he was innocent. Having suffered the wretchedness of banishment for five long years, he at last wrote to the Duke of Milan, imploring his assistance; but the letter was put into the hands of the Venetian Council of Ten. As the laws of the Republic forbade any application to foreign princes in any thing, which related to the Government of Venice, the Council considered the circumstance such as to require, that he should be sent for, and tried upon this new crime. Being brought before them, he made this remarkable statement to the Council:-That he wrote the letter in the full persuasion, that the merchant, whose character he knew, would betray him, and deliver it to them; the consequence of which, he foresaw, would be his being ordered back to Venice, the only means he had in his power of seeing his parents and friends; a pleasure for which he had languished with insurmountable desire, for some time, and which he was willing to purchase at the expense of any danger or pain. The event showed that he was sincere in what he said, for on being ordered back to the place of his banishment, he died in a short time of pure anguish of heart.

§. 145. Further proofs and illustrations of the natural origin of the principle of sociality.

The considerations, which have hitherto been advanced, are plain, obvious, and incontrovertible; showing undeniably that society is man's natural element, and that his permanent removal from it is attended with immeasurable pain. Such instances as those last referred to, which unfortunately are found thickly scattered in history, indicate how much of truth and nature there is in the following passage of Thompson's Agamemnon;

"Cast on the wildest of the Cyclad isles,

"Where never human foot had marked the shore,
"These ruffians left me. Yet believe me, Arcas,

"I never heard a sound so dismal as their parting oars.

But we proceed, in the fourth place, to remark, that there is another class of facts of a very interesting character, which not only show the existence of this propensity, but il

lustrate its strength in a most striking manner. Facts can be brought to show, that the desire of society is so inseparable from man's nature and so strong, that, if men are entirely excluded from the company of their fellow-men, they will establish an acquaintance and companionship with sheep, dogs, horses, goats, mice, spiders, any thing whatever, which has life and motion.

"As the old man crept out of his little hut, (says Walter Scott,) his two she-goats came to meet him, and licked his hands in gratitude for the vegetables, with which he supplied them from his garden."* The Black Dwarf acknowledged

the gratitude of these animals, and asserted, that, outcast and deformed as he was, the finest shape that ever statuary moulded would be an object of indifference or of alarm, should it present itself instead of the mutilated trunk, to whose services they were accustomed.

Although the fictitious delineations of this celebrated writer are hardly less valuable in relation to the human mind, than if they were given as the authentic details of history, we find, in his Life of Napoleon, an incident parallel to the above, and which throws light on the subject before us. Speaking of the banishments and other forms of suffering, connected with the French Revolution, he remarks, that "Strangers are forcibly affected by the trifling incidents, which sometimes recall the memory of those fearful times. A venerable French ecclesiastic being on a visit at a gentleman's house in North Britain, it was remarked by the family, that a favorite cat, rather wild and capricious in his habits, paid particular attention to their guest. It was explained, by the priest giving an account of his lurking in the waste garret, or lumber room, of an artisan's house, for several weeks. In this condition he had no better amusement than to study the manners and habits of the cats which frequented his place of retreat, and acquire the mode of conciliating their favor. The difficulty of supplying him with food, without attracting suspicion, was extreme, and it could only be placed near his place of concealment in small quantities, and at uncertain times. Men, women, and children, knew of his being in that place; there were rewards to be gained by The Black Dwarf, Chap. v11.

discovery, life to be lost by persevering in concealing him ; yet he was faithfully preserved, to try upon a Scottish cat, after the restoration of the Monarchy, the arts which he had learned in his miserable place of shelter during the reign of Terror. The history of the time abounds with similar instances."*

§. 146. Other illustrations of a similar kind.

The instances of the preceding section are introduced to show, that men, if deprived of human society, will endeavor to satisfy the natural demands of their propensities, by forming a species of intimacy with the lower animals; a circumstance, which seems to us decisively to evince not only the innate existence, but the great strength of the social tendency. There are multitudes of other facts of the same kind, and still more striking than those, which have already been noticed. Baron Trenck, for instance, in order to alleviate the wretchedness of his long and dreadful imprisonment, made the attempt, and was successful in it, to tame a mouse. The mouse, according to his account of him, would not only play around him and eat from his hand; but discovered extraordinary marks of sagacity, as well as of attachment.

"This intelligent mouse, (he remarks,) had nearly been my ruin. I had diverted myself with it during the night; it had been nibbling at my door, and capering on a trencher. The sentinels happened to hear our amusement, and called the officers; they heard also, and added all was not right in my dungeon. At day-break, my doors resounded; the townmajor, a smith, and mason entered. Strict search was begun ; flooring, walls, chains, and my own person were all scrutinized, but in vain. They asked what was the noise they had heard. I mentioned the mouse, whistled, and it came and jumped upon my shoulder. Orders were given that I I earnestly entreated that The officer on guard gave

should be deprived of its society; they would at least spare its life. me his word of honor he would present it to a lady, who would treat it with the utmost tenderness.

"He took it away, turned it loose in the guard room, but it was tame to me alone, and sought a hiding-place. It had fled to my prison door, and at the hour of visitation, ran in

Scott's Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Chap. xvI.

to my dungeon, immediately testifying its joy by its antic leaping between my legs. It is worthy of remark that it had been taken away blindfold, that is to say, wrapped in a handkerchief. The guard room was a hundred paces from my dungeon. How then did it find its master? Did it know or did it wait for the hour of visitation? Had it remarked the doors were daily opened?

All were desirous of obtaining this mouse, but the major carried it off for his lady; she put it into a cage, where it pined, refused all sustenance, and in a few days was found dead. The loss of this little companion made me for some time quite melancholy."

§. 147. Other instances in illustration of the same subject.

Mr. Stewart, in illustrating this very subject, makes the following statement. "The Count de Lauzun was confined by Louis XIV for nine years in the Castle of Pignerol, in a small room where no light could enter but from a chink in the roof. In this solitude he attached himself to a spider, and contrived for some time to amuse himself in attempting to tame it, with catching flies for its support, and with superintending the progress of its web. The jailor discovered his amusement and killed the spider; and the Count used afterwards to declare, that the pang he felt on the occasion could be compared only to that of a mother for the loss of a child."

More recently we find statements of a similar purport in the interesting little work of Silvio Pellico, which gives an account of his Ten Years' Imprisonment.-"Being almost deprived of human society, (he remarks), I one day made acquaintance with some ants upon my window; I fed them; they went away, and ere long the place was thronged with these little insects as if come by invitation. A spider too had weaved a noble edifice upon my walls, and I often gave him a feast of gnats or flies, which were extremely annoying to me, and which he liked much better than I did. I got quite accustomed to the sight of him; he would run over my bed, and come and take the precious morsels out of my hand."

On a certain occasion, being detected in conversation with his fellow-prisoner Count Orobini, Pellico was not only

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