Book 8 — CHAPTER LAST.

“Thus, my friends,” said Lenardo, after a short preamble, “if we survey the most populous provinces and kingdoms of the firm earth, we observe on all sides, that wherever an available soil appears, it is cultivated, planted, 282shaped, beautified, and, in the same proportion, coveted, taken into possession, fortified, and defended. Hereby we bring home to our conceptions the high worth of property in land, and are obliged to consider it as the first and best acquirement that can be allotted to man. And if, on closer inspection, we find parental and filial love, the union of countrymen and townsmen, and therefore the universal feeling of patriotism, founded immediately on this same interest in the soil, we cannot but regard that seizing and retaining of space, in the great or the small scale, as a thing still more important and venerable. Yes, Nature herself has so ordered it! A man born on the glebe comes by habit to belong to it: the two grow together, and the fairest ties are spun from their union. Who is there, then, that would spitefully disturb this foundation-stone of all existence; that would blindly deny the worth and dignity of such precious and peculiar gifts of Heaven?

“And yet we may assert, that if what man possesses is of great worth, what he does and accomplishes must be of still greater. In a wide view of things, therefore, we must look on property in land as one small part of the possessions that have been given us. Of these the greatest and the most precious part consists especially in what is movable, and in what is gained by a moving life.

“Towards this quarter we younger men are peculiarly constrained to turn; for, though we had inherited from our fathers the desire of abiding and continuing, we find ourselves called by a thousand causes nowise to shut our eyes against a wider out-look and survey. Let us hasten, then, to the shore of the ocean, and convince ourselves what boundless spaces are still lying open to activity, and confess, that, by the bare thought of this, we are roused to new vigor.

“Yet, not to lose ourselves in these vast expanses, let us direct our attention to the long and large surface of so many countries and kingdoms combined together on the face of the earth. Here we behold great tracts of land tenanted by Nomades, whose towns are movable, whose life-supporting household goods can be transferred from place to place. We see them in the middle of the deserts, on wide green pasturages, lying, as it were, at anchor in their desired haven. Such movement, such wandering, becomes a habit with them, a necessity: in the end they grow to regard the surface of the world as if it were not bulwarked by mountains, 283were not cut asunder by streams. Have we not seen the North-east flow towards the South-west; one people driving another before it, and lordship and property altogether changed?

“From over-populous countries, a similar calamity may again, in the great circle of vicissitudes, occur more than once. What we have to dread from foreigners, it may be difficult to say; but it is curious enough, that, by our own over-population, we ourselves are thronging one another in our own domains, and, without waiting to be driven, are driving one another forth, passing sentence of banishment each against his fellow.

“Here now is the place and season for giving scope in our bosoms, without spleen or anger, to a love of movement; for unfettering that impatient wish which excites us to change our abode. Yet whatever we may purpose and intend, let it be accomplished, not from passion, or from any other influence of force, but from a conviction corresponding to the wisest judgment and deliberation.

“It has been said, and over again said, Where I am well is my country! But this consolatory saw were better worded, Where I am useful is my country! At home you may be useless, and the fact not instantly observed: abroad in the world, the useless man is speedily convicted. And now, if I say, Let each endeavor everywhere to be of use to himself and others, this is not a precept or a counsel, but the utterance of life itself.

“Cast a glance over the terrestrial ball, and for the present leave the ocean out of sight: let not its hurrying fleets distract your thoughts, but fix your eye on the firm earth, and be amazed to see how it is overflowed with a swarming ant-tribe, jostling and crossing, and running to and fro forever! So was it ordained of the Lord himself, when, obstructing the Tower of Babel, he scattered the human race abroad into all the world. Let us praise his name on this account, for the blessing has extended to all generations.

“Observe now, and cheerfully, how the young, on every side, instantly get into movement. As instruction is not offered them within doors, and knocks not at their gates, they hasten forthwith to those countries and cities whither the call of science and wisdom allures them. Here, no sooner have they gained a rapid and scanty training, than they feel themselves impelled to look round in the world, whether here and there some profitable experience, applicable to their objects, 284may not be met with and appropriated. Let these try their fortune! We turn from them to those completed and distinguished men, those noble inquirers into nature, who wittingly encounter every difficulty, every peril, that to the world they may lay the world open, and, through the most impassable, pave easy roads.

“But observe also, on beaten highways, how dust on dust, in long, cloudy trains, mounts up, betokening the track of commodious, top-laden carriages, in which the rich, the noble, and so many others, are whirled along; whose varying purposes and dispositions Yorick has most daintily explained to us.

“These the stout craftsman, on foot, may cheerily gaze after; for whom his country has made it a duty to appropriate foreign skill, and not, till this has been accomplished, to revisit his paternal hearth. In still greater numbers do traffickers and dealers meet us on our road: the little trader must not neglect, from time to time, to forsake his shop, that he may visit fairs and markets, may approach the great merchant, and increase his own small profit, by example and participation of the boundless. But yet more restlessly do we descry cruising on horseback, singly, on all high and by ways, that multitude of persons whose business it is, in lawful wise, to make forcible pretension to our purses. Samples of all sorts, prize catalogues, invitations to purchase, pursue us into town-houses and country-houses, and wherever we may seek refuge: diligently they assault us and surprise us; themselves offering the opportunity, which it would have entered no man’s mind to seek. And what shall I say of that people which, before all others, arrogates to itself the blessing of perpetual wandering, and, by its movable activity, contrives to overreach the resting and to overstep the walking? Of them we must say neither ill nor good,—no good, because our League stands on its guard against them; no ill, because the wanderer, mindful of reciprocal advantage, is bound to treat with friendliness whomsoever he may meet.

“But now, above all, we must mention with peculiar affection the whole race of artists; for they, too, are thoroughly involved in this universal movement. Does not the painter wander, with palette and easel, from face to face? and are not his kindred laborers summoned now this way, now that, because in all places there is something to be built and to be fashioned? More briskly, however, paces the musician on his way: for he peculiarly it is that for a new ear has provided 285new surprise, for a fresh mind fresh astonishment. Players, too, though they now despise the cart of Thespis, still rove about in little choirs; and their moving world, wherever they appear, is speedily enough built up. So likewise, individually, renouncing serious, profitable engagements, these men delight to change place with place, according as rising talents, combined with rising wants, furnish pretext and occasion. For this success they commonly prepare themselves by leaving no important stage in their native land untrodden.

“Nor let us forget to cast a glance over the professorial class: these, too, you find in continual motion, occupying and forsaking one chair after the other, to scatter richly abroad on every side the seeds of a hasty culture. More assiduous, however, and of wider aim, are those pious souls who disperse themselves through all quarters of the world to bring salvation to their brethren. Others, on the contrary, are pilgriming to seek salvation for themselves: they march in hosts to consecrated, wonder-working places, there to ask and receive what was denied their souls at home.

“And if all these sorts of men surprise us less by their wandering, as, for most part, without wandering, the business of their life were impossible, of those, again, who dedicate their diligence to the soil, we should certainly expect that they, at least, were fixed. By no means! Even without possession, occupation is conceivable; and we behold the eager farmer forsaking the ground which for years had yielded him profit and enjoyment: impatiently he searches after similar or greater profit, be it far or near. Nay, the owner himself will abandon his new-grubbed clearage so soon as, by his cultivation, he has rendered it commodious for a less enterprising husbandman: once more he presses into the wilderness, again makes space for himself in the forests,—in recompense of that first toiling a double and treble space; on which also, it may be, he thinks not to continue.

“There we shall leave him, bickering with bears and other monsters, and turn back into the polished world, where we find the state of things no whit more stationary. Do but view any great and regulated kingdom: the ablest man is also the man who moves the oftenest; at the beck of his prince, at the order of his minister, the Serviceable is transferred from place to place. To him also our precept will apply, Everywhere endeavor to be useful, everywhere you are at home. Yet if we observe important statesmen leaving, 286though reluctantly, their high stations, we have reason to deplore their fate; for we can neither recognize them as emigrators, nor as migrators,—not as emigrators, because they forego a covetable situation without any prospect of a better even seeming to open; not as migrators, because to be useful in other places is a fortune seldom granted them.

“For the soldier, again, a life of peculiar wandering is appointed: even in peace, now this, now that, post is intrusted to him; to fight, at hand or afar off, for his native country, he must keep himself perpetually in motion, or readiness to move; and not for immediate defence alone, but also to fulfil the remote purposes of nations and rulers, he turns his steps towards all quarters of the world; and to few of his craft is it given to find any resting-place. And as in the soldier courage is his first and highest quality, so this must always be considered as united with fidelity; and, accordingly, we find certain nations famous for trustworthiness, called forth from their home, and serving spiritual or temporal regents as body-guards.

“Another class of persons indispensable to governments, and also of extreme mobility, we see in those negotiators who, despatched from court to court, beleaguer princes and ministers, and overnet the whole inhabited world with their invisible threads. Of these men, also, no one is certain of his place for a moment. In peace, the ablest of them are sent from country to country; in war, they march behind the army when victorious, prepare the way for it when fugitive: and thus are they appointed still to be changing place for place; on which account, indeed, they at all times carry with them a stock of farewell cards.

“If hitherto at every step we have contrived to do ourselves some honor, declaring, as we have done, the most distinguished portion of active men to be our mates and fellows in destiny, there now remains for you, my beloved friends, by way of termination, a glory higher than all the rest, seeing you find yourselves united in brotherhood with princes, kings, and emperors. Think first, with blessings and reverence, of the imperial wanderer Hadrian, who on foot, at the head of his army, paced out the circle of the world which was subject to him, and thus in very deed took possession of it. Think then with horror of the Conqueror, that armed wanderer, against whom no resistance availed, no wall or bulwark could shelter armed nations. In fine, accompany with honest sympathy those hapless exiled princes who, 287descending from the summit of the height, cannot even be received into the modest guild of active wanderers.

“And now, while we call forth and illustrate all this to one another, no narrow despondency, no passionate perversion, can rule over us. The time is past when people rushed forth at random into the wide world: by the labors of scientific travellers, describing wisely and copying like artists, we have become sufficiently acquainted with the earth to know moderately well what is to be looked for everywhere.

“Yet, for obtaining perfect information, an individual will not suffice. Our society is founded on the principle that each in his degree, for his purposes, be thoroughly informed. Has any one of us some country in his eye, towards which his wishes are tending, we endeavor to make clear to him, in special detail, what was hovering before his imagination as a whole: to afford each other a survey of the inhabited and inhabitable world is a most pleasant and most profitable kind of conversation.

“Under this aspect we can look upon ourselves as members of a Union belonging to the world. Simple and grand is the thought, easy is its execution by understanding and strength. Unity is all-powerful; no division, therefore, no contention, among us! Let a man learn, we say, to figure himself as without permanent external relation: let him seek consistency and sequence, not in circumstances, but in himself; there will he find it; there let him cherish and nourish it. He who devotes himself to the most needful will, in all cases, advance to his purpose with greatest certainty: others, again, aiming at the higher, the more delicate, require greater prudence even, in the choice of their path. But let a man be attempting or treating what he will, he is not, as an individual, sufficient for himself; and, to an honest mind, society remains the highest want. All serviceable persons ought to be related with each other; as the building proprietor looks out for an architect, and the architect for masons and carpenters.

“How and on what principle this Union of ours has been fixed and founded is known to all. There is no man among us who at any moment could not to proper purpose employ his faculty of action, who is not assured that in all places whither chance, inclination, or even passion may conduct him, he will be received, employed, assisted,—nay, in adverse accidents, as far as possible, refitted and indemnified.

“Two duties we have most rigorously undertaken,—first, 288to honor every species of religious worship; for all of them are comprehended more or less directly in the Creed: secondly, in like manner to respect all forms of government, and, since every one of them induces and promotes a calculated activity, to labor according to the wish and will of constituted authorities, in whatever place it may be our lot to sojourn, and for whatever time. Finally, we reckon it our duty, without pedantry or rigor, to practise and forward decorum of manners and morals, as required by that reverence for ourselves which arises from the three reverences, whereto we universally profess our adherence; having all had the joy and good fortune, some of us from youth upwards, to be initiated likewise in the higher general wisdom taught in certain cases by those venerable men. All this, in the solemn hour of parting, we have thought good once more to recount, to unfold, to hear and acknowledge, as also to seal with a trustful farewell.

“Keep not standing, fixed and rooted,

Briskly venture, briskly roam:

Head and hand, where’er thou foot it,

And stout heart, are still at home.

In each land the sun does visit:

We are gay whate’er betide.

To give space for wand’ring is it

That the world was made so wide.”

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