A Private History of Happiness (22 page)

Pehr Kalm, naturalist, writing in his botanical journal

SWEDESBORO, NEW JERSEY
• APRIL 20, 1749

This day I found the strawberries in flower, for the first time this year; the fruit is commonly larger than that in Sweden but it seems to be less sweet and agreeable.

The annual [cereal] harvest, I am told, is always of such a nature that it affords plenty of bread for the inhabitants, though it turns out to greater advantage in some years than it does in others. A venerable septuagenary Swede called Aoke Helm assured me that in his time no absolutely barren crop had been met with, but that the people had always had pretty plentiful crops [. . .]

The peach trees were now everywhere in blossom; their leaves were not yet come out of the buds, and therefore the flowers showed to greater advantage; their beautiful pale red colour had a very fine effect and they sat so close that the branches were entirely clad with them. The other fruit trees were not yet in flower; however, the apple blossoms began to appear.

Pehr Kalm was the son of a Swedish pastor. He was born in 1716 and lived for most of his life in the Swedish-speaking community in Finland. Though from a poor background, he received strong support from teachers and professors—one of whom was the famous botanist Carolus Linnaeus—during a promising academic career. By the time he was thirty, he was a professor of economics at the academy in Turku, Finland. He was also a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

It was the Swedish Academy that sent him in September 1748 on a trip to North America. It had several different purposes. Since he was an expert botanist, he was asked to survey the plant life of the continent. He was also to report on social developments, particularly among the large number of migrants from Sweden. He had letters of introduction to eminent Americans, and he did in fact befriend Benjamin Franklin.

Kalm kept a journal during his stay in North America that lasted from September 1748 until February 1751. He included many botanical details, since this was at the core of his work. But at the same time, in a plain and modest fashion, he also gave expression to his feelings about the visit and the new world it was disclosing to him.

When he wrote this passage, he was living in the Swedish community of Raccoon (now Swedesboro) in southern New Jersey. This was where he observed his first American spring. After what had certainly been a long and hard winter, the signs of the warmer season were now all around him. The first fruit blossom was out, and the strawberries were “in flower.”

He must have asked the Swedish settlers if the strawberries fulfilled their promise, and they were rather critical of this American variant, preferring the old Scandinavian berries that they remembered. This led to some pleasant conversation about the area and its agriculture. Here the advantages of the New World began to emerge. The elderly Mr. Helm was clearly somebody Kalm trusted to be truthful when he declared that this was a place that gave them “pretty plentiful crops.” The implied contrast was with their native land, where cereal harvests had sometimes failed and led to hardship and even famine in the eighteenth century. New Jersey might have strawberries that were less sweet, but on the other hand they were bigger, and the cereal harvests were also on a generous scale.

It was as if Kalm absorbed this sense of plenty around him and began to see this strange place differently. He looked up and saw the spring suddenly all around him. The peach trees were “everywhere in blossom”; “their beautiful pale red colour had a very fine effect.”

He looked more closely. The blossoms seemed to hug the branches tightly, there were so many of them. These trees were fitting symbols of the place, gently fertile and neat and with the promise of a good harvest. This was a world fit for living—and he was happy to be part of it.

Pehr Kalm got married as well while he was in Raccoon. He brought back to Sweden and Finland more than a fine scholarly record of North America. Life itself blossomed for this sensitive scientist in the New Jersey countryside in the spring of 1749.

Jane Welsh Carlyle, diarist and writer, composing a letter to a friend

LONDON
• AUGUST 1836

I ought not to regret my flight into Scotland since it has made me take with new relish to London. It is a strange praise to bestow on the Metropolis of the world, but I find it so delightfully still here! Not so much as a cock crowing to startle nervous subjects out of their sleep; and during the day no inevitable Mrs. this or Miss that, brimful of all the gossip for twenty miles around, interrupting your serious pursuits (whatever they may be) with calls of a duration happily unknown in cities. The feeling of calm, of safety, of liberty which came over me on re-entering my own house was really the most blessed I had felt for a great while.

Jane Baillie Welsh was born in 1801 and moved from her native Scotland to London in 1834, some eight years after marrying the historian Thomas Carlyle. She was now in her middle thirties, a lively and independent spirit in the social and intellectual world of literary London. Their marriage had its strains, though, since both of them were subject to moods of doubt and depression. They were not always at ease with one another, yet they also had a deep dialogue through all the ups and downs.

Jane Carlyle had been suffering from ill health and in 1836 had decided to take a trip home to rural Scotland, hoping that she would recover there, free from the strains of urban life. Now, after a few months, she had come back home to their house in Chelsea, in the heart of London. In this letter to her friend Miss Hunter, she recorded her astonished happiness at returning to her Chelsea home in the “Metropolis of the world.”

She began by admitting that she now felt a “new relish” for the city from which she had been trying to escape. Her taste for this urban world, the excitement she had felt when she had first arrived here, had returned. She was amused at herself and her laughter can be heard
behind her words. She realized that her friend, and indeed most people, would assume that the rural life was quiet and peaceful, the urban life full of noise and stress. But to her, on the contrary, it was a delight not to be woken by the crowing of the cock, which stood in her witty way for the whole “hubbub” of country living. Then she picked out the apparently friendly neighbors, who would have been regarded as a virtue of rural life by many other people. The countryside did not mean friendliness to her either, any more than peace. She was just relieved to have no more visitors to deal with, and no more seemingly endless gossiping conversations to endure!

With a touch of self-mocking humor, Jane Carlyle realized she was not presenting herself in a very appealing light—but she could not help it. She was just so glad to be back in London.

When she came to record the moment of her arrival at home, she dropped the wit and the playfulness from her letter. She was simply overwhelmed by the joyful sensation of being back in her Chelsea house. She had a sudden and all-encompassing “feeling of calm, of safety, of liberty,” and it transformed her whole perspective on her life.

This was a moment of happiness that had a beautifully balanced quality. She was at ease; she felt relieved of the anxiety that belonged to her experience of the world beyond London. But more than that, she felt confident now, light and able to move around. She was back in her own space. She was realizing, as if for the first time, just how happy this home could be.

Benjamin of Tudela, rabbi and traveler, composing his travel account

TUDELA, SPAIN
• CA. 1173

From the Valley of Jehoshaphat the traveller immediately ascends the Mount of Olives, as this valley only intervenes between the city [Jerusalem] and the mount. From hence the Dead Sea is distinctly visible. Two parasangs [ancient measurement of distances] from the sea stands the salt pillar into which Lot’s wife was metamorphosed; and although the sheep continually lick it, the pillar grows again, and retains its original state. You also have a prospect over the whole valley of the Dead Sea, and of the brook of Shittim, even as far as Mount Nebo.

Benjamin of Tudela was born in 1130 in the Jewish community of Tudela, Spain, the son of a distinguished rabbi. Though he also became a rabbi, he left his town and country around 1165 and embarked on a journey through parts of Europe, Asia, and North Africa. He returned to Spain in around 1173. His record of that journey became a celebrated travel book.

In twelfth-century Europe, most people spent their whole lives in one place. Aristocrats, clergy, and pilgrims were the exception. Journeys were physically difficult, the roads poor and the countryside dangerous. There was also a deeper reason why journeys such as Benjamin’s were few. Knowledge came from tradition and from the authority of old and revered books; personal experience was not regarded as a useful basis for understanding the world.

Benjamin of Tudela was a learned man who had studied all the authorities in Jewish tradition. His father, Jonah, was a leading figure in Spanish Judaism. Yet the son decided to find out about the world—and about Jewish communities in different places—for himself. He did not do this to challenge the established order. Everywhere he went, across Europe, the Middle East, and beyond, he consulted the appropriate sources and listened to local authorities. Yet he did
look for himself, too, and this led to some very personal and fulfilling moments.

This passage describes his arrival near Jerusalem in around 1170—the city that was holy, as he knew, to Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

The hills and valleys over and through which he walked carried names stretching back many centuries in the Hebrew texts. He climbed the Mount of Olives, noting that only one valley separated it from the city of Jerusalem.

From the summit, he saw that “the Dead Sea is distinctly visible.” This moment was personal and moving and had an unmistakable tang of happiness. Looking round from the top of the Mount of Olives, he really could see the water in the distance, even “a prospect over the whole valley of the Dead Sea.” Not far from it, he thought he identified the biblical pillar of salt that Lot’s wife had become (this was perhaps a combination of local lore and scripture). Here he was, a man taking in an amazing view, a world stretching all around him.

He had walked this day on sacred and historic ground. He had gone to the Mount of Olives, where generations of Jews had their tombs, including, it was said, some of the prophets. It was to this mount that King David had fled during a crisis in his life.

From the top, Benjamin of Tudela could also discern Mount Nebo, where it was written that Moses was granted a glimpse of the Promised Land. It may even have been, so scholars said, his divinely ordained burial place.

His perspective swept across time as well as space. Hard to believe there was so much of the world! Difficult to believe that he was really there, in that place, seeing it all for himself! It is no wonder that such moments gave him a unique authority of his own, such as could almost rival the ancient texts, as the original preface to his travel account acknowledged: “The above-mentioned Rabbi Benjamin was a man of wisdom and understanding, and of much information; and after strict inquiry his words were found to be true and correct, for he was a true man.”