A Private History of Happiness (3 page)

Staying in Edinburgh and then Manchester had been a difficult time for a shy man who loved open spaces. But this morning was better. Small pleasures joined together to yield a moment of special happiness, perhaps when he least expected it.

First, there was his simple pleasure in running free by the River Derwent after many days spent in cramped and uncongenial cities. Early morning let him be alone at last, something he was used to. Mist
covered everything, turning the world new, making a real beginning to more than just another day. There is something about the phrase “sparkling congealed dew” that captures the way this sight was a tactile pleasure. It was as if the early light were sticking to all surfaces, and yet there can be nothing smoother than something that sparkles.

The fog played over the waters, creating miniature images of water and stone, “a ripple against some rock.” In Audubon’s words, these impressions are curiously sudden and real. The small ripples seem to emerge into existence as if out of some original chaos. They are tiny acts of creation.

In a foreign country, and a misty vale, he felt strange, as if this place was nowhere on earth—“a subterraneous passage.” But one sound proved that the world was still there. Birdsong! Audubon had spent so much of his life watching birds in America. For him, this was the first sound in the world, and the best, too. And he recognized the species—jackdaws. This, too, was part of his happiness. He was in a strange country, but the things he loved were there as well. That was all he needed.

Through the misty haziness, little fragments of his surroundings appeared, “the tops of the trees, the turrets of the castle.” Objects are far more poignant when they materialize this way. Seemingly weightless, they hang in the air, free of all the usual downward pressures, just as Audubon himself must have felt free on that autumn morning.

Buoyed up, he went back to his search for financial support with renewed vigor. It was the song of jackdaws that told him on that morning he was fully alive. His glorious paintings have done the same for countless viewers.

Friedrich Schleiermacher, philosopher, writing a letter to his sister

BERLIN
• AUGUST 13, 1797

Carl [Schleiermacher’s younger brother] and I have conceived the idea, which has been approved by the doctors, that it would be very good for us both, but more especially for me, to bathe frequently. Now, as there is a very well-arranged bathing-house at about a hundred paces from my lodgings, Carl comes several times a week at five or six o’clock in the morning to fetch me. Of course, he finds me still in bed, and with me that means the same as asleep; and what a pleasurable awaking it is, when I hear his footsteps in the passage, and he comes in so full of friendliness and bids me good morning. In the greatest hurry I then don my clothes; in the meantime he fills a pipe, and then we start. In a safe bathing-room we lave our limbs in the somewhat coldish waters of the Planke, a little tributary of the Spree [a river running through Berlin]; at first shuddering at the cold, then laughing at our own cowardice; and, after the plunge, feeling extremely well and cheerful. On our return, Carl breakfasts with me, generally on milk, or, on festive occasions, on chocolate; and while this is being partaken of, we chat, or read, or perhaps play a game at chess, and then each to his work. As Carl cannot begin his occupations in the laboratory before seven, he does not neglect any duty in consequence of this bathing, and it has procured to us many a happy hour which we should not otherwise have enjoyed.

Today we have again had one of our bathing mornings, and subsequently we graced our breakfast by sensible reading of a chemical work.

Friedrich Schleiermacher was a hospital chaplain in Berlin when he wrote this letter to his sister, Charlotte, with whom he maintained an open and extremely personal correspondence. In his late twenties, he was beginning to participate in the intellectual life of the city. There was a new emphasis on individual experience and imagination that he was coming to share, as he emerged from many years of private doubt and melancholy. He would soon be the leading figure in
European religious thought, but in 1797 he was still making his way.

Here he is telling their sister about his visits from his younger brother, Carl, who was pursuing the new science of chemistry at a laboratory in Berlin. They have decided to go bathing several mornings a week. He explains that this is “approved by the doctors,” perhaps because it might otherwise be seen as frivolous. The family tradition was puritanical.

In his theology, Schleiermacher would later emphasize, against the strict tradition he grew up in, that human beings are made of both body and spirit and that the physical dimension cannot be dismissed as merely an obstacle to salvation. In this letter, he talks of a “pleasurable awaking” that feels like both a spiritual and a bodily pleasure.

As he got dressed, he could smell the scent of his brother’s pipe tobacco. It was the beginning of an experience that engaged all his senses. Together, they went to the appointed and safe bathing place, where they plunged into the “somewhat coldish waters,” leaving them “shuddering.” Then the shudder turned to laughter and the gusto of being fully alive in this world for another day.

They returned home “feeling extremely well and cheerful,” healthy in both body and mind. The breakfast was also special. The brothers enjoyed little harmless pleasures, a touch of self-indulgence. Milk ordinarily, yes, but sometimes even chocolate! (Hot chocolate was perfect after the cold dip.) The chemical book was part of this pleasure, since knowledge was also something to be appreciated.

Two years later, Schleiermacher preached an Easter sermon to the king of Prussia, in which he imagined the end of life: “But the last heartbeat is not really the end of life; life ceases with the last thought and feeling that our spirit brings forth in union with its body.” Those mornings spent with his brother had given him a deep sense of renewal; each morning had been a chance to plunge afresh into life itself.

Hsu Hsia-k’o, gentleman traveler, starting his travel journal

T’IEN-T’AI SHAN, CHINA
• MAY 13, 1613

Rained in the morning, but we set off. A ride brought us to a fork in the road. The mountains being steep and the road slippery, we alighted from our horses and walked. Now after some bends we were up on a ridge, and here the sunshine lit up the wet mountain.

Hsu Hsia-k’o was from a well-off family and he was a scholar. At thirty-one, this was his first trip into such remote territory as this sparsely peopled, mountainous region, a land of monasteries and holy places. Some Buddhist monasteries, founded as early as the middle of the third century CE, were close by.

Taking with him some servants and a friend who was a monk, Hsu set off into the rainy morning. This was the first day of their adventure, a damp spring morning in China. Unfamiliar mountains rose high into the sky around him. Here the Taoists, whom he admired, found the fundamental elements of existence: earth, water, and sky.

Yesterday had been a bright and cloudless day. But today it was dreary, and there were even rumors of tigers in this part of the world. It was alarming to think of these great cats being nearby, and they were even reported to have killed people during the past month. Altogether it could have been an anxious and unsettling morning, but the travelers set off resolutely.

Through the rain, they advanced up the slope. At first, they rode on horseback. But soon, they had to dismount and walk. Gradually, the weather changed. The way curved from side to side up the mountain. At last the gradient eased off and they had reached the ridge. With perfect synchronicity, the sun came out.

Suddenly, the mountainside glittered from all the water. The discomfort of journeying through the rain had turned into magic on
that first morning of Hsu’s new life. The mundane had become sublime. Difficulty had turned into a blessing. Round one corner, he had arrived instantaneously in a different world.

Here on a suddenly bright day, a man just past his youth had seen the clean, sharp outline of everything. He was on his way to the first summit. The whole day opened up beautifully after that first glitter of sunlight: “Gurgling springs and dewy hills. The azaleas too were aflame on the green hillsides.”

Until then, Hsu Hsia-k’o had had no clear goals or precise ambitions. Pursuing this journey and then others, he became one of the great travelers and travel writers in Chinese history. This first moment of happiness as he rounded the last bend on the slippery mountain road was enough to send him on his way in life itself.

Henry White, clergyman and amateur scientist, writing in his diary

FYFIELD, HAMPSHIRE
• CHRISTMAS DAY, 1784

Christmas Day, very bright morn. Trees beautifully powdered with rime [icy frost], more severity of freezing than any since the very first beginning, very little wind but the air amazingly keen. Sound of bells heard from all the villages on every side. Service at Fyfield. Riding not unpleasant over the open fields and downs. Trees powdered most amazingly by the rime, make a very picturesque appearance at Tidworth.

In 1784, Henry White, a middle-aged vicar in the small English village of Fyfield, noticed that something was wrong with the weather. From the middle of summer, there was a thick, poisonous-smelling fog. The autumn was also strange. Not only did the fog persist but the temperatures fell lower than he could remember, and he had been recording them for many years.

Christmas Eve had ended with the unsettling return of this weird fog, as he had recorded sitting in his vicarage: “Thermometer at sunset down to 20 [Fahrenheit], very thick rimy, stinking fog came on after sunset. Very bitter, fierce frost again tonight. The thermometer registered 10 [Fahrenheit].”

By “rimy,” White meant cold and icy. He had gotten used to talking about this “rimy, stinking fog” as he noted the strangeness of the December cold in his diary. He was too scientific to feel superstitious about this mysterious fog, but it was clearly associated with the bitterness of the nights.

In fact, he was recording a Europe-wide event, the cloud of sulfurous smoke that followed a huge volcanic eruption in Iceland that occurred in 1783/84. It caused many deaths across Europe, and the several years of bad harvests that followed may even have contributed to the unrest that led to the French Revolution in 1789. This intruding fog was indeed a widespread threat, making its presence felt in the English countryside on Christmas Eve.

Henry White and his wife, Elizabeth, had lived at the vicarage for more than twenty years. Their eldest son was at university, their youngest child was five. They were busy with family life and local duties, caring for the poor of the parish. But this stinking fog seemed to have come into their world like a malevolent external power.

But now, as he looked outside on Christmas morning, something was different. He temporarily omitted to record the precise temperature. No longer the amateur scientist, he was awake to something special in the air. The wind had calmed down. The air was “amazingly keen.” It was as if the world was insisting that he notice it. And also that he notice his own presence.