LETTER VIII. OF INDEPENDENCE.

We distinguish many kinds of liberty. That which we owe to equal laws, without being indispensable to a philosopher, renders the attainment of happiness more easy to him. However men differ in their political opinions, they all have an instinctive desire to be free. Every one is reluctant and afraid to submit himself to the capricious power of those about him. The thirst of power is only another form of this ardor for independence.

With what interest we read in history of those ignorant tribes, unknown to fame, whose liberty and simple manners at once astonish and delight us? When visiting the isles of Greece, where the charm of memory rendered the view of their actual slavery more revolting, what delight the traveller experiences in traversing the little isle of Casos which had never submitted to the Ottoman yoke! He there found the usages of the ancient Greeks, their costume, their beauty and their amiable and elevated natural manner. This isle is but a rock. But its dangerous shores have defended it against tyranny. Associations with the songs of Homer and Hesiod are renewed. Such a picture delights even a people whose manners are refined to a degree tending to depravation. Thus those opulent citizens who find the country a place of exile still decorate their splendid halls with landscapes and flowers.

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Let not a sensitive and wandering imagination kindle too readily at the recitals of travellers. Were we to transport ourselves to one of those remote points of the earth where felicity is represented to have chosen her asylum, new usages, manners and pleasures, and a foreign people every moment reminding us that we are strangers, would, perhaps, give birth to the most painful regrets. When in our youth we were charmed as we read of the prodigies of Athens and Rome, we uttered the wish that we had been born in those renowned republics. There is little doubt that, had our wish been realized, we should be glad to escape their storms, in exchange for obscurely tranquil days.

It is a distinguished folly which impels men far from their country in search of happiness. The greater portion, deceived in their hopes after having wandered amidst danger, die with regret and sorrow, worn out with vexation resulting from the broken ties and remembrances of home. Home is the last thought that comes over the departing mind. ‘Et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos.’ Ubi patria ibi bene is an adage which contains as much wise observation as elevated patriotism. Our country is our common mother. We ought to love and sustain her more firmly in her misery than in her prosperity.

Whatever manners, opinions and talents we carry into another country, we are still strangers there. The manners which we adopt are new and irksome. The eye sees nothing to awaken dear and embellished remembrances; and we find in the heart of no one the reverberating chord of ancient friendship and sympathy. We always regret the places where we knew the first pleasures[69] and the first pains, and saw the first enchanting visions of life; the cherished spots where we learned to love and be loved. If, returning there, drawn back by an invincible sentiment, after a long absence we see it again, what sorrows await us! We find ourselves strangers in our own country. We ask for our parents and friends who departed in succession. The blows were struck at long intervals. We receive them all in a moment. We return to shed tears only on the tombs of our fathers![15]

Retreat and competence everywhere supply a wise man a degree of independence. Even when the sport of oppression and injustice, he yields to these evils as the caprices of destiny. He would be free in the midst of Constantinople under the government of the Sultan.

Another kind of liberty is the portion of but a few in our own country—the liberty of disposing of our whole time at our choice. To those who understand not the value of time, this liberty bequeaths a heavy bondage. But to those who have learned the secret of happiness it is of inestimable value. The privilege of the favored possessor of opulence is a high one. Neither the slave of business, fashion, opinion or routine, it is in his power at awaking to say ‘this day is all my own.’[15a]

But moralists exclaim, ‘you must pay your debt: you must render yourselves useful to society.’ Let me not be understood to inculcate the doctrine of indolence. Industry will have wings and power when you unite it to freedom. But how many repeat the hackneyed cry of ‘the debt to society,’ who, in the choice of their profession, had never a thought but of its honors and emoluments! This man whose industry in the pursuit of his[70] choice proves that his toil is his pleasure, that man who is in earnest to serve every one whom he can oblige and who might have shone, had he chosen it, in the career of ambition, but who, modest, proud, studious and free, lives happily in the bosom of retreat, has this man done nothing to acquit his debt? Is his example useless to society?

If my condition deny me leisure and independence in regard to the disposal of my time, without bestowing much concern upon the choice of my profession, I should choose that most favorable to free thoughts, to breathing the open air, and, as much as might be, in view of a beautiful nature. I should consider it as a most important element in my happiness that I should be chiefly conversant with people of compatible characters. The profession of an advocate, perpetually conversant with the follies, vices and crimes of society, is one of the most trying, both to integrity and philosophy. That of the physician, continually witnessing groans, tears and physical suffering, however painful to sensibility, may become the source of high reflected pleasure to a generous and humane heart. I would avoid a function the disquieting responsibility of which would disturb my sleep. Above all, I should dread one of high honor and emolument, connected with proportionate uncertainty of tenure.

The balance of enjoyment being taken into view, I should prefer an occupation of privacy. It would be more easy at once to obtain and preserve. It would expose me less to envy and competition. Exempt from the inquietudes inspired by severe labors, and the ennui of important etiquette, I should at least find an absolute independence, every evening, at the relinquishment[71] of my daily routine of occupation, and I should suffer no care for the morrow; I would learn to enhance the charms of my condition by thinking of the agitation, regrets and alarms of those who are still swept by the whirlwinds of life. In this way I would imitate him who, to procure a more delicious repose, placed his couch under a tent near the sea, to be lulled by the dashing of its waves and the noise of its storms. But it is time to contemplate the most useful kind of liberty, the only indispensable kind, and happily one which is accessible to all. It is the liberty resulting from self-command and inward mastery of ourselves. It has a value to cause all others to be forgotten—a value which no other kind can replace.

What liberty can that man enjoy who is the slave of ambition? A gesture, a look of the eye, a smile affrightens him and causes him painful and trembling calculations what that sinister sign of his master may presage.

Look at the opulent merchant whose hopes are the sport of the winds, seas, robbers, changes of trade, municipal regulations, and a crowd of agents who seem subordinate, but who really command him.

Whatever kind of liberty we aim to possess, we may certainly conclude that the surest means to enjoy it is to have few wants. But how restrain our wants? The greater portion are happily placed by their condition where they are ignorant of the objects which most powerfully excite and seduce desire. The golden mean secludes them from many temptations full of the bitterest regret, and exacts of them little effort of wisdom. In the class of men of leisure and elevated mind there are two means of rising above many wants.

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The more austere philosophers have altogether disdained those pleasures which they could never hope to obtain. Reducing themselves to the limits of the strictest necessity, they indemnify themselves for some privations by the certainty of being secured from many pains, and by the sentiment of conscious independence. This is, doubtless, one of the surest means of obtaining independence; and they who attempt to employ any other, differ from the vulgar by their principles rather than their conduct.

How many objects, of which the contemplation awakens the desires, would have nothing dangerous if we could always exercise a stern self-control over our minds! The surest means of exercising this self-control is to reduce the number of our wants. To do it, I admit, demands a rare elevation of mind and the exercise of a high degree of philosophy. But since its value is beyond its cost, let us dare to acquire it.

While the fleeting dreams of pleasure hover around us, let reason still say to us, ‘an instant may dissipate them.’ Let us, then, be ready to find a new pleasure in the consciousness of our firmness and our masculine and vigorous independence. An enlightened mind reigns over pleasures; and while they glitter around, enjoys all that are innocent; but disdains a sigh or a regret when they have taken wings and disappeared.

I commend the example of Alcibiades, the disciple of the graces and of wisdom, who astonished in turn the proud Persian by his dignity, and the Lacedemonian by his austerity. His enemies may charge him with incessant change of principle. To me he seems always the same, always superior to the men and circumstances that surround[73] him. Such strong mental stamina resemble those robust plants that sustain, without annoyance, the extremes of heat and cold.