A Private History of Happiness (5 page)

Like other poets of her time, Anna Seward was inclined to draw general lessons and give advice. It was particularly tempting for a woman who was developing a literary reputation to prove that she was as serious a writer as the men. This poem is a sonnet, one of the most difficult forms of Western poetry. It divides in the middle of the ninth line, and the latter part is certainly moral and religious.

But the beginning is different.

There was no greater happiness for Anna Seward than this moment of opposites—warmth and cold, inside and outside, waking and dreaming. This December morning, the world once again kept its covenant with her, as it does for all people on good days.

Willem de Clercq, student, writing in his journal

AMSTERDAM
• 1813

Last Tuesday I began to read with Crommelin the second book of Virgil. I declare that this reading greatly pleased me. We made good progress, without getting too far or perfectly understanding what we were reading; but how beautiful this Virgil is and what a pleasure in one’s life to get to know such great authors.

This Crommelin is one of my very oldest friends whom I have been very happy to rediscover. He has been wandering for a long time in foreign towns and he returned at last to his hometown. He has acquired lots of knowledge and is also a very passionate friend of literature.

In 1813, Willem was eighteen years old, living in his father’s home in Amsterdam. They were well-off people, though not extravagantly wealthy. All around, there was the excitement and clamor of Napoleonic Europe: the French emperor held power in the Low Countries at the time. His invasion of Russia had failed, but there was still the last energy of the regime in the air. Willem had just begun to keep a journal, which in fact accompanied him through the rest of his life. Most of it was to be in Dutch, but during these early years he wrote in French.

He was an energetic person, serious and focused. Later on, he became a leading poet, a religious thinker, and also a founder of the Dutch textiles industry. Here, though, he recorded an ordinary Tuesday when two young men sat down together and opened a large volume with text in Latin. It was one of the works that Willem knew were considered the classics of the European past.

Perhaps because of the contemporary French Empire, he turned to the story of the legendary founding of the original European empire, ancient Rome. Virgil’s first-century BCE epic poem described the story of Aeneas, as he made his way from defeated Troy to the site of the future city of empire.

Willem’s friend was about the same age but he had more experience of the world. Crommelin had been “for a long time in foreign towns.” They had lost touch during those years. Now, Willem was glad to pick up the threads of their old friendship. He was impressed by how much his friend knew about life. Above all, though, he was happy because they shared the same passion for reading. As they sat together, turning the pages and struggling to understand the Latin sentences, they were kept going by this shared intensity. It was a day of real communion together.

Their Latin was perhaps a little weak. They were not able to understand everything perfectly, but they kept on going as best they could. This was not a mechanical exercise in translation. Even though they did not grasp everything perfectly, they made out enough to realize “how beautiful this Virgil is” and to have a genuine experience of literature—“what a pleasure in one’s life to get to know such great authors.”

This was really a threefold moment of friendship, since the two young men were joined in spirit by a third companion, the poet Virgil himself. It was almost as if he was there with them. The friends felt that they had entered into the select company of ancient European civilization.

There was also time to chat about their lives. Willem was eager to learn about his friend’s travels—and became upset when he heard how restrictive Crommelin’s father had been: “His father, though, is a bigoted man. He never allowed his son to go to see a play or to have a game of cards. What ridiculous childishness!”

All of it together made up this moment of friendship: the ancient story, the associations with their school days, and the gossip about their lives. While outside Napoleonic Europe entered its last years, two young men had a happy Tuesday together.

Kamo no Chomei, poet and former courtier, composing a short memoir

THE FOOTHILLS OF MOUNT HINO, JAPAN
• 1212

At the foot of the hill stands a wooden hut, which is where the hill’s caretaker resides. With him lives a young child [the caretaker’s son] who sometimes comes to visit me. When he has nothing else to do, he joins me for a stroll. He is sixteen and I am sixty; but although our ages are far apart, we take pleasure in the same things. Sometimes we pick grass and berries, or gather yams and parsley. Other times, we go down to the rice paddies at the foot of the hill, and make sheaves of the leftover ears.

On fine days we climb up to the peak; gazing at the distant sky over my old home, we see Mt. Kohata, Fushimi village, Toba and Hatsukashi. Nobody owns this view, and nothing will stop us from enjoying it [. . .] Depending on the season, on the way home we gather cherry blossoms, or look for maple leaves, or snap off bracken, or pick fruit and nuts; some of these I offer to the Buddha, and some I take home with me.

In 1212, when he wrote this passage, Kamo no Chomei was living alone in a small hut that he had built in the mountains. He had been a successful poet at the Japanese court, but eight years ago, he had taken Buddhist vows and given up court life, retiring to his secluded home.

This text is from a work called
Hojo-ki
(
The Ten-Foot-Square Hut
).
Other passages give more detail of that hut and the setting. For example, there were luxuriant clumps of bracken fern growing along the east side of the hut, while to the north there was a little garden with a modest fence of brushwood. The hut merged with the natural world.

Everything was carefully arranged in Kamo no Chomei’s solitary home. There was a small shrine, placed so that it caught the light of the setting sun. He had boxes of poetry books and the music of nature in the background, a harp, and a writing desk by the window. It was all neat—and could have been lonely.

But he was friendly with the man who looked after the hillside. Such an easygoing relationship between different social ranks was possible only outside the finely tuned society of court and capital. Here people of every rank talked to each other.

Even more surprising, as he acknowledged, was his companionship with the caretaker’s son: “He is sixteen and I am sixty; but although our ages are far apart, we take pleasure in the same things.” It was the most spontaneous friendship, founded on a natural convergence of tastes and inclinations. This was different from all the rigid distinctions with which he had lived at court.

Together, former courtier and young peasant wandered the countryside and shared simple pleasures. As equals, they roamed the fields or searched for berries, nuts, and other little things.

There were many happy moments together. The finest was when they climbed “up to the peak” and the old man looked out across the land. From this vantage point, next to his friend, he saw the places where he had lived—and once been important: “Gazing at the distant sky over my old home, we see Mt. Kohata, Fushimi village, Toba and Hatsukashi.” He had turned down a request by the emperor that he should return to his post among the poets. He did not want to be back down there among the wealthy and the powerful, the ambitious and the proud.

Up here
,
the view was free in every sense. He was able to enjoy the moment—with his young friend, but without needing permission from anyone.

George Cutler, law student, writing in his diary

LITCHFIELD, CONNECTICUT
• NOVEMBER 29, 1820

For the moon was bright, the snow full of reflection, I full of breakfast, and Nate [his horse] full of fire; while the cocks of the country crowed about us for music and the stars shot this way and that about the heavens, as if making a display of fireworks for our amusement. All was silent. As we rose [rode up] the hills and looked back upon the far distance which ran down the valley to the southeast, the two extremes of the splendour of the united powers of snow and moonbeams and the contrasted darkness of the deep ravines into which light would not penetrate, filled the whole view. I often stopped to admire the cold but burnished beauties of the prospect and felt the magnificence of the scene.

I found George up, though I little expected it when I turned a corner to take a look at his window. I had little thought of seeing a light there at that time of the night
—I ran upstairs, opened the door an inch and inquired if Mr. Gibbs lived there. Then we laughed ourselves to death and disturbed the neighbours. Mr. Chambers in the backroom inquired who the Devil had come, and being told, said, he “thought t’was him.”

Breakfasted there and told stories till I thought I had told too many [. . .]

When I turned my face homeward I felt the inconvenience of 3 pairs of pantaloons, 2 of stockings, 2 shirts and 2 great coats.

Now I think my ride too good a one to grumble about.

George Cutler had come to the town of Litchfield in Connecticut to study law with Judge Tapping Reeve, after graduating from Yale University in 1816. This was the first formal law school course in the country, and Cutler was admitted fully to the American Bar in 1821. Meanwhile, he had a number of friends taking the same course. There was a girls’ academy nearby, too, and so Litchfield was full of young people like Cutler and his friend and fellow student George Gibbs,
with whom he shared this fine breakfast recorded on a cold November morning.

George Cutler loved Litchfield. He liked the people and the setting, as another entry (of the same year) in his diary shows: “Aug. 18 (Evening). Miss Talmadge here is certainly elegant; there is no such woman in New Haven. Litchfield is certainly an extraordinary place for beauty. The mountain air gives them the expression of health.” At the end of September, he had taken the oath as an attorney. It was a successful time.

This very early morning at the end of November gave him the special moment to seal his happiness. He was already in a good mood when he set off, having had an early breakfast, with his horse equally lively. He felt as if nature was staging a grand performance for him, with shooting stars and moonbeams and music from the crowing cocks.

But he became even happier when he met his friend. He arrived at the lodging house where George Gibbs resided, and to his surprise saw a light in Gibbs’s room. Eagerly, he “ran upstairs” and, jokingly, asked formally for “Mr. Gibbs.” Then their peals of laughter rang out loud in the silence. It was a wonderful feeling. They also had the pleasure of annoying the man in the backroom.