A Private History of Happiness (6 page)

It was as if they owned this dawn. George Cutler had his second breakfast, full of gossip and chatter this time.

What made this moment so unique was the contrast with the solemn “magnificence” of the night on his way there. It made him appreciate the warmth of human friendship, having just experienced alone the overwhelming expanse of the universe. Here, at the lodging house, breakfast was a happy time for friends together.

Robert Burns, poet and farmer, writing a letter to a friend

SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS
• JUNE 30, 1787

On our return, at a Highland gentleman’s hospitable mansion, we fell in with a merry party, and danced till the ladies left us, at three in the morning. Our dancing was none of the French or English insipid formal movements; the ladies sung Scotch songs like angels, at intervals; then we flew at the Bab at the bowster, Tullochgorum and Loch Erroch side [Highland dances], etc. like midges sporting in the sun, or craws [crows] prognosticating a storm [. . .] When the dear lasses left us, we ranged round the bowl till good-fellow hour of six; except a few minutes that we went out to pay our devotions to the glorious lamp of day peering over the towering top of Benlomond [mountain]. We all kneeled; our worthy landlord’s son held the bowl; each man a full glass in his hand; and I, as priest, repeated some rhyming nonsense, like Thomas a Rhymer’s prophecies.

Robert Burns, now regarded as the national poet of Scotland, was twenty-eight when he wrote this letter to his friend James Smith about a summer night in the wild Scottish Highlands. Burns had published his first book of poems, which instantly turned him from a struggling farmer into a literary celebrity. Now he was escaping from Edinburgh, where he had been feted, into the countryside.

Burns loved his summer trip in the Highlands, which he described in another letter to his friend as “a country where savage streams tumble over savage mountains, thinly overspread with savage flocks.” This June 30 was the best night of a wonderful summer of freedom.

There were two great social pleasures that night. First, there was the company that was dancing together, men and women, until three in the morning: “the ladies sung Scotch songs like angels, at intervals; then we flew at the Bab at the bowster, Tullochgorum and Loch Erroch side.”
These were fiddle tunes that he could play himself.
They had danced the popular dances. They knew these rhythms, because they had grown up with them. These were the songs and tunes of a rural way of life, and he was happy that the members of the party could share this music together.

At the height of the enjoyment, Burns suddenly had a vision as if from far away. He seemed to see them all, moving like tiny insects in the air, “like midges sporting in the sun.”

The vision only amused him, and now another, perhaps even greater, pleasure followed the dancing. After the women had gone to bed, the men carried on drinking until six in the morning. Noticing the light in the sky, they went outside and welcomed the dawn together. They all kneeled, with the landlord’s son holding the ceremonial bowl and Burns “as priest” chanting some crazy rhymes to greet the new day. It was fun but also held a deeper happiness. He experienced an absolute joy at being alive, alive together with friends in the Highlands to see a new “day peering over the towering top of Benlomond.”

Later in the same letter he confessed to being still unsure of his path in the world, since he had “yet fixed on nothing with respect to the serious business of life. I am, just as usual, a rhyming, mason-making, raking, aimless, idle fellow.” Doubts lurked in his mind about whether he really wanted the life that his literary success was bringing him.

But on this night, he had been briefly free of those nagging doubts. It was the company of friends that had freed him from his inner struggles.

Mary Russell Mitford, writer, composing a letter to a friend

READING, BERKSHIRE
• APRIL 5, 1814

I think you must have guessed, my dear Sir William [Elford], when I talked of presumptuous hopes, or rather presumptuous wishes (I don’t think I got so far as hopes), that I was impudent enough to desire [. . .] that you would favour us with a visit here [. . .]

I suspect, however, that you have as much pleasure in pleasing as in being pleased
—in making happy as in being happy; that in default of greenhouse plants (and our greenhouse is a real vegetable churchyard—a collection of dead stumps and withered leaves), you will be well content with cowslips and wood anemones; and instead of beaux and belles, will graciously accept the company of a whole flight of nightingales whom I have invited to meet you. And, in conclusion, that unless it is absolutely inconvenient (and, unreasonable as you may think me, I am not unreasonable enough even to wish you to come if it is), you will give your poor little fat friend the happiness of seeing you.

Mary Mitford lived with her parents just outside the English town of Reading. They had a grand house that her father, a doctor, had built. But he had only been enabled to do so by the proceeds of a winning lottery ticket that Mary had chosen at the age of ten. An extravagant gambler from an aristocratic background, his losses were on the way to ruining the family despite this good fortune, as he had done before—that was why she was looking round at the ramshackle greenhouse.

Mary Mitford was a resilient woman. In her late twenties, she was already a recognized poet and, some years later, would also become an extremely successful novelist, maintaining her parents when all else had failed. Sir William Elford, her correspondent, was a gentleman artist with whom she had become friendly. Their correspondence was regular and detailed. He was married, with two children, and his friendship with Mitford was a close one, without romantic undertones on either side.

The opening paragraph in this letter expressed her modest hope that he might come to visit, since she was unable to travel at that time to see him in Bath. Her letter was full of the sound of her voice, as if she was talking in person. She talked, especially, about happiness, playing with the theme when she elegantly complimented Sir William on his taste for giving pleasure to others. In other words, he would be glad to cheer her up, even if it was no great treat for him. It was a beautifully modulated plea for his company. It also suggested that she already began to feel happy even in imagining his arrival at her rather somber home. She signed herself with a modest smile as his “little fat friend,” “fat” being a way she sometimes referred to herself that was wryly relaxed.

Her humor started to light up the world around her, turning the ruined greenhouse into “a real vegetable churchyard,” a sight worth seeing. She seemed to become happier about her home and her life, as she began to see them through the eyes of a visiting friend. The greenhouse was derelict, but instead there was the natural beauty of “cowslips and wood anemones.” It was not the society world of Bath, with all the “beaux and belles” like in a Jane Austen ballroom; she could conjure up “a whole flight of nightingales” instead. That was the “company” she imagined inviting to welcome her visitor.

The nightingales were already singing in Mary Mitford’s thoughts as she wrote the letter. It would be another moment of happiness when he arrived, but she was happy enough already just thinking of it for now.

Sarah Connell, schoolgirl, writing in her diary

ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS
• JANUARY 10, 1808

Saturday 9th [. . .] In the afternoon Papa and myself set off in a sleigh for Andover [. . .] We stopped some time at Hill’s tavern, and arrived at Aunt Osgood’s [in Andover] at about five o’clock. Received a friendly welcome from Harriot and her Mama [Mrs. Osgood]. [. . .] I had so much to hear, and say, that I did not retire till late.

Sunday 10th. There was no meeting [Quaker assembly] here all day [. . .] In the evening [. . .] Papa, Harriot and myself went over to Doctor Kittredge’s. Papa promised to meet them in Gloucester on the Wednesday following. Had a long and friendly chit-chat with Harriot. We sat around the blazing hearth, sweet sociability prevails, and cheerfulness smiles throughout our little circle. May the angel of domestic peace hover over our dwelling.

Sarah was sixteen when she wrote this cheerful record of a return visit. She was going to see friends with whom she had gone to school at Andover, until she had returned home to her family in Newburyport, Massachusetts, six months before. She went with her father, George Connell, a sea captain and merchant, and was happiest of all to see Harriot Osgood, her cousin and best friend, with whom she had shared a room at the Osgood home during the school year. The Kittredges had a large, hospitable house nearby, where Sarah had also spent many good days; Maria Kittredge was another close school friend.

When Sarah had moved back to Newburyport, it had been one of the saddest moments of her young life: “Painful indeed were my sensations on leaving Aunt Osgood’s happy dwelling, and the moment that separated me from friends so tenderly beloved will never be obliterated from my mind.” She had known she would miss Harriot: “I felt a reluctance to bid farewell to that literary institution, of which I had long been a member. My busy imagination pictured my beloved Harriot and myself, walking cheerfully to the Academy, our books in
our hands, anxious only to recite well. But no longer shall we tread together the path of literature.”

Until six months ago, she and Harriot had spent most of each day together, and they had talked for long evenings about everything. Now that she had come for a visit, the old ease was still there. The two young women picked up where they had left off: “Papa, Harriot and myself went over to Doctor Kittredge’s.” At last, she could have “a long and friendly chit-chat with Harriot.”

There was no strangeness between them. They had not, as she might have feared, grown apart. It was just perfect “chit-chat,” the most relaxed thing in the world—companionship that was slow and easy, never in a rush to be done and gone. Simply being together was the point of this special occasion.

Sarah was aware why she felt so good. It was because here, “sweet sociability prevails, and cheerfulness smiles.” This was real human contact, with the added comfort of a fire crackling in the background. There is something quite philosophical about this moment, when a young person realizes that one secret of her happiness is something within reach, almost too common to be noticed.

Horace, poet and philosopher, writing to a friend

OUTSIDE ROME
• SEPTEMBER 22, CA. 20 BCE

If you can sit upon a paltry seat,
My friend Torquatus, and endure to eat
A homely dish, a salad all the treat:
Sir, I shall make a feast, my friends invite,
And beg that you wou’d sup with me tonight.
My liquor flow’d from the Minturnian vine,
In Taurus’ Consulship, ’tis common wine;
If you have better, let your flasks be sent;
Or let what I, the lord, provide, content.
My servants sweep and furnish ev’ry room,
My dishes all are cleans’d against you come:
Forbear thy wanton hopes, and toil for gain,
And Moschus’ cause; ’tis all but idle pain.
Tomorrow Caesar’s Birthday comes, to give
Release to cares, and a small time to live.
Then we may sleep ’till Noon, and gay delight
And merry talk prolong the summer’s night.