A Private History of Happiness (23 page)

In these words, the deep satisfaction of the intrepid traveler shone through the scholarly text. What greater happiness could there be for a man driven to cross oceans and deserts, ridges and valleys, when almost everybody else stayed close to home?

Jarena Lee, traveling preacher, writing a personal memoir

PHILADELPHIA
• 1836

The Rev. Richard Williams was to preach at Bethel Church, where I with others were assembled. He entered the pulpit, gave out the hymn, which was sung, and then addressed the throne of grace; took his text, passed through the exordium, and commenced to expound it. The text he took is in Jonah, 2nd chap. 9th verse
—“Salvation is of the Lord.” But as he proceeded to explain, he seemed to have lost the spirit; when in the same instant, I sprang, as by altogether supernatural impulse, to my feet, when I was aided from above to give an exhortation on the very text which my brother Williams had taken.

I told them I was like Jonah; for it had been then nearly eight years since the Lord had called me to preach his gospel to the fallen sons and daughters of Adam’s race, but that I had lingered like him, and delayed to go at the bidding of the Lord, and warn those who are as deeply guilty as were the people of Nineveh.

During the exhortation, God made manifest his power in a manner sufficient to show the world that I was called to labor according to my ability, and the grace given unto me, in the vineyard of the good husbandman.

I now sat down, scarcely knowing what I had done, being frightened. I imagined that for this indecorum, as I feared it might be called, I should be expelled from the church. But instead of this, the Bishop [Richard Allen] rose up in the assembly, and related that I had called upon him eight years before, asking to be permitted to preach, and that he had put me off; but that he now as much believed that I was called to that work, as any of the preachers present. These remarks greatly strengthened me, so that my fears of having given an offence, and made myself liable as an offender, subsided, giving place to a sweet serenity, a holy joy of a peculiar kind, untasted in my bosom until then.

Jarena Lee was born to free African American parents in New Jersey in 1783. She was sent early to work as a servant and had little formal
schooling. By 1818, she was a widow with two children of her own, living in Philadelphia.

Years before, she had asked the pastor of Bethel Church in Philadelphia, the Rev. Richard Allen (who would become the first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church), for permission to fulfill her sense of vocation by preaching. He had refused. But on this Sunday in about 1818, she felt called again.

The minister that day, the Rev. Richard Williams, was getting ready to preach. Then he paused or stumbled. Jarena Lee stood up and took the theme of his text, “Salvation is of the Lord.” This was her moment. Words sprang into her mind. There were no women preachers in this church. But today she felt called by God to address her congregation, publicly.

Thinking of Jonah, who held back from preaching the message of the Lord, she “told them I was like Jonah.” Now she had found her own voice, and was able to keep going because “the Lord had called me to preach his gospel.” Her words were flowing, mixing her own story with the text of the Bible. Her voice must have been ringing around the whole church, a great burst of expression that she had held in for so long.

When she was done, though, she expected a hostile response. She sat down again, “frightened.” Instead, Bishop Allen himself, the man who had refused her previous request, rose to declare her spiritual right to speak. “He now as much believed that I was called to that work.” That was a moment of affirmation that her inner power was unquestionable. Before the entire congregation, their bishop endorsed with all his authority her lonely assertion of the spiritual force within her.

From Jarena Lee’s heart flowed an absolute happiness, the peace of being herself in the world. In that blessed finale to her daring, she felt her fears
“giving place to a sweet serenity, a holy joy of a peculiar kind, untasted in my bosom until then.” She became one of the first black women to preach, traveling to many places to address various audiences, and also holding prayer meetings. Through that one moment of joyous assurance, she now had gained the courage for a lifetime.

George Eliot, novelist, writing a letter to a friend

GRANADA, SPAIN
• FEBRUARY 21, 1867

We have had perfect weather ever since the 27th of January
—magnificent skies and a summer sun. At Alicante, walking among the palm trees, with the bare brown rocks and brown houses in the background, we fancied ourselves in the Tropics; and a gentleman who travelled with us, assured us that the aspect of the country closely resembled Aden on the Red Sea. Here, at Granada, of course it is much colder, but the sun shines uninterruptedly; and in the middle of the day, to stand in the sunshine against a wall, reminds me of my sensations at Florence in the beginning of June. The aspect of Granada as we first approached it was a slight disappointment to me, but the beauty of its position can hardly be surpassed. To stand on one of the towers of the Alhambra and see the sun set behind the dark mountains of Loja, and send its afterglow on the white summits of the Sierra Nevada, while the lovely Vega [fertile plain] spreads below, ready to yield all things pleasant to the eye and good for food, is worth a very long, long journey. We shall start tomorrow evening for Cordova—then we shall go to Seville, back to Cordova, and on to Madrid.

George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, was forty-seven when she went on this winter vacation to Spain. She wrote back to her friend and publisher, John Blackwood, in rainy London. A few years ago, his firm had published Eliot’s novels
Adam Bede
,
The
Mill on the Floss
, and
Silas Marner
, and in the process he and Eliot had gotten to know and like each other. One of the reasons she had come to Spain was to try and complete a long poem that she would publish the following year as
The Spanish Gypsy
.

The trip to Spain also had more personal motives. She was traveling with her partner, George Henry Lewes. They had been a couple since 1853, though he had been unable to obtain a divorce from his wife and so could not marry Eliot. This made their relationship scandalous in the rigid world of polite England. But it did not stop her from being a popular author, who had earned enough to make such trips possible.
Lewes’s health had weakened, and so she brought him to find some warmth and respite from London’s winter, the fog and damp.

Here in Spain, the sun was shining brightly and the whole sky lit up and was “magnificent.” Eliot had a feeling of space. This country was wonderful and simple and full of new experiences.

In Alicante, on the Mediterranean shore, the palm trees and the brown rocks made her feel as if they had left Europe and gone far south. In Granada, one of the beautiful cities of Andalusia, the whole of her pleasure in being here was present in one simple moment: “in the middle of the day, to stand in the sunshine against a wall.” At that poised hour, when the day was almost summery, she could stand against a wall and just let the sunshine fall on her. This was as simple as any human experience could be. It was a moment of pure sensation: the warmth and the texture of the wall at her back and the sun on her face.

This almost tactile feeling reminded Eliot of her “sensations at Florence in the beginning of June.” Perhaps she closed her eyes. This way she could more readily bring back the memory of Italy and blend it with the experience here and now in Spain. The comparison of sunshine and warmth was a way for her body to think and feel and remember.

George Eliot was one of the most intellectually engaged nineteenth-century novelists and also a journalist of ideas. She was a philosopher of politics and psychology. Here she had the unusual happiness of shaking off all complexity and just taking in the sensation of warming sunshine on a winter’s day.

Walter Scott, novelist and poet, writing in his journal

EDINBURGH
• NOVEMBER 25, 1825

I had a bad fall last night coming home. There were unfinished houses at the east end of Atholl Place, and as I was on foot, I crossed the street to avoid the material which lay about; but, deceived by the moonlight, I stepped ankle-deep in a sea of mud (honest earth and water, thank God), and fell on my hands. Never was there such a representative of Wall in Pyramus and Thisbe [Act V of Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
]
—I was absolutely rough-cast. Luckily Lady S. had retired when I came home; so I enjoyed my tub of water without either remonstrance or condolences.

Cockburn’s hospitality will get the benefit and renown of my downfall, and yet has no claim to it. In future though, I must take a coach at night
—a control on one’s freedom, but it must be submitted to.

Sir Walter Scott was already a well-known poet when, in 1814, he published his first historical novel,
Waverley
. It was soon followed by many others and by 1825 he was, at the age of fifty-four, a wealthy and famous author, living with his wife in Edinburgh. Then a widespread financial crisis caused his publisher, Constable, to go bankrupt the following year. Scott lost much of his money.

On this November 25, Scott was walking through Edinburgh in the dark, after an evening with friends. There was no modern street lighting. It felt more like wandering in the woods, and “deceived by the moonlight, I stepped ankle-deep in a sea of mud.” He reflected wryly that at least it was only “honest” mud, nothing worse: the streets were full of muck. He was even able to see the funny side, imagining himself looking like the stage character who impersonates the Wall that divides the lovers Pyramus and Thisbe in the little drama performed by the yokels in Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
: “I was absolutely rough-cast.”

Creeping into his home, he found there was a silver lining since, by good fortune, “Lady S. had retired when I came home.” His wife,
Charlotte, was already asleep. (There is a sweet affection about the name he gave her, “Lady S.,” as if they laughed together at the grand title.) He could have his bath in peace, “without either remonstrance or condolences,” that is, free of his wife’s loving anxiety or criticism. By the time it was ready, the hour was later still. Everything was quiet.

At the end of that day, Scott “enjoyed” his bath. This little pool of warm water was the perfect antidote to what had seemed the cold “sea of mud” into which he had fallen in the darkness of the street. Regrettably, this fall would mean taking coaches in the future at night, and thus one less freedom that he must have enjoyed until now—a nighttime stroll.

But the time in the tub was simple and perfect. All his senses were now feeling better again. Letting go. Just immersed in warm water in the quiet night. Aware of all his troubles, evading nothing, knowing also the ups and downs of domestic life, he still thoroughly enjoyed the bath.