A Private History of Happiness (12 page)

It was well judged. In the son’s carefully kept accounts, very little is spent for wine, but there are frequently small entries for “Oranges, Apples, Sugar Plums and Spice.”

Kings come and go (Charles II was dying), but the human heart lives on in such private moments.

Hannah Mary Rathbone, looking after her dying mother-in-law, writing in her journal

NEAR LIVERPOOL
• APRIL 1839

While dressing, my mother[-in-law] said, “I have a sharp pain in my head, but it is going off.” I tried to help her to dress, and she said I could help her if I could only tell her what she wanted.

After breakfast I was reading to her in Bishop Wilson’s
Sacra Privata
[book by Bishop Thomas Wilson], the Wednesday morning meditations. Observing that she pressed her hands against her head, I asked if I should leave off; she made no reply, and I took her hand and begged her to lie down. She said “Yes,” but did not attempt to move, and seemed unable to collect her thoughts, repeating the word “Yes.” She seemed much distressed and kept feeling with her hands, saying, “Who, who?” [. . .]

Love and affection for her family seemed to fill her whole heart and mind. Once, when I thought she wished me to leave the room, she turned to me and said, “Thee, I never wish thee to leave the room,” and putting her face close to mine, whispered, “I wish thee always to be in the room.”

On her own daughter Hannah entering the bedroom, “Is this Hannah, my Hannah? Oh that is a comfort.” Again, on hearing the voice of her son Richard, “Is not that my dear Dicky’s voice? Bless him, bless him, bless him,” adding slowly and distinctly, “Thy will be done as it is in Heaven.” Another time to me, “Hannah Mary, oh my dear child, how didst thou get here? Do get me some pocket handkerchiefs, I have been so in want of them.” To her son, “Richard, dear Richard,” and as he stooped down to her she kissed him very affectionately, and putting his hand to her lips kissed it several times.

She expressed great thankfulness for all the kindness of her children, saying, “All has been done that can be done.”

Hannah Mary Rathbone had come with her husband, Richard, and their small child to stay with her elderly mother-in-law at the Rathbone country estate Greenbank, outside Liverpool. Originally, they
had come to escape the works going on at their own home in Liver-pool, where Richard was a successful merchant: “Richard and I and the baby came to stay at the Cottage [Greenbank] while our own house was being painted.” It started off as a pleasant stay, but there was a shadow: “April 2, 1839. We moved down to the Cottage. Several days passed very comfortably, and we enjoyed ourselves very much, but I was greatly struck with my mother[-in-law]’s increased feebleness.”

Richard’s mother, also called Hannah Mary, had been ill for some time. She had lived a rich life here at Greenbank, the beloved home for her and her family. Her husband had died many years before, but the house had remained a center for family and community.

Now she was in pain and increasingly cut off from the world, “unable to collect her thoughts.” But the deepest feelings of her life remained strong: “Love and affection for her family.”

These were the emotions that had motivated and enriched the older Hannah Mary’s whole life. Now they found their final expression in moments of deep human contact as she was losing her bearings in the world, simple moments like “putting her face close to mine.” In the gathering mist, her loving bond remained: “Is this Hannah, my Hannah? Oh that is a comfort,” she said, and also: “Is not that my dear Dicky’s voice? Bless him, bless him, bless him.” These bright bursts of recognition shone like a beam on the gathering family. In these moments, a fundamental happiness broke through, the flavor of a whole life lived to the full.

Ann Warder, wife of a businessman, writing in her diary

PHILADELPHIA
• JUNE 7, 1786

[June] 6th
—At dinner a violent shower detained us long, but the good horses and no stopping soon carried us the twenty miles [to Philadelphia] where mother [John Warder’s mother], Aunt Hooten [. . .], her husband, cousin John Hooten, the four Parkers and [John’s] sister Emlen were impatiently awaiting our arrival, which they were not at all apprised of ’till I got upstairs, when it would not be in my power to do justice to all the joy and affection shown me. It was one hour and a half before my dearest [John] arrived owing to the fatigue of the poor cattle. My arrival had prepared dear mother for the pleasure she had so much anticipated—think then of her delight to see one who was always the darling, after ten years absence. The evening was spent with the family, sister Emlen, Billy and Sally Morris, and J. Fry [. . .]

[June] 7th
—I rested well in mother’s best bed, the room large and house spacious. Below are the shop and counting house in front; one large and one small parlor back, a delightful entry from the street to the yard. Upstairs is a good drawing room and three large chambers, with the same size cool passage, and in the best sitting room is Johnny’s picture, which is an excellent likeness. After breakfast I hastily prepared to receive company which came in such numbers that I should have been quite tired out did not one frequently make their appearance whom I had before seen.

Ann Warder was the daughter of English Quakers who lived in Ipswich, Suffolk. In her late twenties, she was visiting America for the first time. Her American husband, John Warder, also a Quaker, had come from Philadelphia to England a decade ago, on business, and had stayed on. Married for several years, they had three children, though only the eldest son, Jeremiah, came with them on this trip. They had left England in late April, and sailed to New York.

On this very last leg of a long journey, Ann Warder had come on ahead, to meet her in-laws for the first time: John’s mother and a
long train of older and younger relations. Reaching the house, she hurried through the door, presumably opened by a servant, before anybody noticed. She was now in the room with them. How would she be received?

The main reason for their journey to America was a dispute in John’s family over his father’s will. But if she had any doubts about her reception, they were immediately dispelled by such a welcome that “it would not be in my power to do justice to all the joy and affection shown me.” It was like the sun coming out in a burst of warmth, the hints of cloud and mist melting away in its glow. She was happy because she was happily received: so happiness passes between people and they create the feeling for each other.

Then she watched as her husband arrived and was received with still deeper joy by her mother-in-law. She understood the older woman’s “delight to see one who was always the darling, after ten years absence.” The young Englishwoman was warmed by a double glow: first her own acceptance by the American in-laws, and then the warmth of this moment of deep restoration between mother and son. She was as joyful this time as witness as she had been “one hour and a half before” when she had been the central character.

A sense of belonging and peace filled Ann Warder’s next morning, as she woke up to her new surroundings. She had “rested well in mother’s best bed, the room large and house spacious.” Everything was fine, bright, and airy. The outer world reflected her state of mind.

Two years later, she would in fact move her family to Philadelphia, never to return to England.

John Evelyn, writer and scientist, writing in his diary

LONDON
• FEBRUARY 9, 1665

I went to St. James’s Park, where I saw various animals, and examined the throat of the Onocrotylus, or pelican, a fowl between a stork and a swan; a melancholy waterfowl, brought from Astrakhan by the Russian Ambassador; it was diverting to see how he would toss up and turn a flat fish, plaice, or flounder, to get it right into its gullet at its lower beak, which, being filmy, stretches to a prodigious wideness when it devours a great fish. Here was also a small waterfowl, not bigger than a moorhen, that went almost quite erect, like the penguin of America; it would eat as much fish as its whole body weighed; I never saw so insatiable a devourer, yet the body did not appear to swell the bigger. The Solan geese here are also great devourers, and are said soon to exhaust all the fish in a pond. Here was a curious sort of poultry not much exceeding the size of a tame pigeon, with legs so short as their crops seemed to touch the earth; a milk-white raven; a stork, which was a rarity at this season, seeing he was loose, and could fly loftily [. . .] The park was at this time stored with numerous flocks of several sorts of ordinary and extraordinary wild fowl, breeding about the Decoy, which for being near so great a city, and among such a concourse of soldiers and people, is a singular and diverting thing [. . .] There were withy-pots, or nests, for the wild fowl to lay their eggs in, a little above the surface of the water.

John Evelyn was in his mid-forties when he spent a clement winter day in London’s first Royal Park. St. James’s Park had recently been landscaped by King Charles II, who also opened it to the public. The king himself frequently went there, to feed the birds. It was as much an early zoological garden as a place of recreation. Evelyn was a passionate observer of both animal and plant life who wrote many books, including pioneering works about forest trees, natural history, and gardening. These interests were an important part of this wonderful February outing.

Evelyn partially went to the park to look at the various birds. It was a pelican that first caught his attention, a gift from Russia to the restored English king (Charles II had returned from exile in 1660). Evelyn loved the pelican, as children still do today in zoos around the world. He found it “diverting to see” how the bird maneuvered a big fish into its beak, and loved the pouch’s “prodigious wideness.” He felt real pleasure at being in the presence of something so ingenious, rare, and picturesque. It was the detail that entranced him.

From there, being now in an appreciative mood, he went on to admire another water bird that seemed even more impressive an eater of fish: “I never saw so insatiable a devourer.” He was expecting the bird to become bloated with all the fish it consumed, and was amazed when it remained the same little bird.

After such sights, everything in this garden of curiosities pleased him. He relished every little detail of these creatures: short legs and milk-white feathers, tameness and appetite, as well as the hubbub of the breeding flocks. All of these small pleasures merged into one sensation of happiness when he thought that this entire park was “near so great a city, and among such a concourse of soldiers and people.” The large and the small were beautifully bound together in a genuine appreciation of the natural world, brought to a capital of the human world.

Mary Wortley Montagu, author and traveler, writing a letter to a friend