Mark Rutherford’s Deliverance · Chapter 8 (2/2)

My worst enemy at this time was ill health, and it was more distressing than it otherwise would have been, because I had such responsibilities upon me. When I lived alone I knew that if anything should happen to me it would be of no particular consequence, but now whenever I felt sick I was anxious on account of Ellen. What would become of her⁠—this was the thought which kept me awake night after night when the terrors of depression were upon me, as they often were. But still, terrors with growing years had lost their ancient strength. My brain and nerves were quiet compared with what they were in times gone by, and I had gradually learned the blessed lesson which is taught by familiarity with sorrow, that the greater part of what is dreadful in it lies in the imagination. The true Gorgon head is seldom seen in reality. That it exists I do not doubt, but it is not so commonly visible as we think. Again, as we get older we find that all life is given us on conditions of uncertainty, and yet we walk courageously on. The labourer marries and has children, when there is nothing but his own strength between him and ruin. A million chances are encountered every day, and any one of the million accidents which might happen would cripple him or kill him, and put into the workhouse those who depend upon him. Yet he treads his path undisturbed. Life to all of us is a narrow plank placed across a gulf, which yawns on either side, and if we were perpetually looking down into it we should fall. So at last, the possibility of disaster ceased to affright me. I had been brought off safely so many times when destruction seemed imminent, that I grew hardened, and lay down quietly at night, although the whim of a madman might tomorrow cast me on the pavement. Frequently, as I have said, I could not do this, but I strove to do it, and was able to do it when in health.

I tried to think about nothing which expressed whatever in the world may be insoluble or simply tragic. A great change is just beginning to come over us in this respect. So many books I find are written which aim merely at new presentation of the hopeless. The contradictions of fate, the darkness of death, the fleeting of man over this brief stage of existence, whence we know not, and whither we know not, are favourite subjects with writers who seem to think that they are profound, because they can propose questions which cannot be answered. There is really more strength of mind required for resolving the commonest difficulty than is necessary for the production of poems on these topics. The characteristic of so much that is said and written now is melancholy; and it is melancholy, not because of any deeper acquaintance with the secrets of man than that which was possessed by our forefathers, but because it is easy to be melancholy, and the time lacks strength.

As I am now setting down, without much order or connection, the lessons which I had to learn, I may perhaps be excused if I add one or two others. I can say of them all, that they are not book lessons. They have been taught me by my own experience, and as a rule I have always found that in my own most special perplexities I got but little help from books or other persons. I had to find out for myself what was for me the proper way of dealing with them.

My love for Ellen was great, but I discovered that even such love as this could not be left to itself. It wanted perpetual cherishing. The lamp, if it was to burn brightly, required daily trimming, for people became estranged and indifferent, not so much by open quarrel or serious difference, as by the intervention of trifles which need but the smallest, although continuous effort for their removal. The true wisdom is to waste no time over them, but to eject them at once. Love, too, requires that the two persons who love one another shall constantly present to one another what is best in them, and to accomplish this, deliberate purpose, and even struggle, are necessary. If through relapse into idleness we do not attempt to bring soul and heart into active communion day by day, what wonder if this once exalted relationship become vulgar and mean?

I was much overworked. It was not the work itself which was such a trial, but the time it consumed. At best, I had but a clear space of an hour, or an hour and a half at home, and to slave merely for this seemed such a mockery! Day after day sped swiftly by, made up of nothing but this infernal drudgery, and I said to myself⁠—Is this life? But I made up my mind that never would I give myself tongue. I clapped a muzzle on my mouth. Had I followed my own natural bent, I should have become expressive about what I had to endure, but I found that expression reacts on him who expresses and intensifies what is expressed. If we break out into rhetoric over a toothache, the pangs are not the easier, but the worse to be borne.

I naturally contracted a habit of looking forward from the present moment to one beyond. The whole week seemed to exist for the Sunday. On Monday morning I began counting the hours till Sunday should arrive. The consequence was, that when it came, it was not enjoyed properly, and I wasted it in noting the swiftness of its flight. Oh, how absurd is man! If we were to reckon up all the moments which we really enjoy for their own sake, how few should we find them to be! The greatest part, far the greatest part, of our lives is spent in dreaming over the morrow, and when it comes, it, too, is consumed in the anticipation of a brighter morrow, and so the cheat is prolonged, even to the grave. This tendency, unconquerable though it may appear to be, can to a great extent at any rate, be overcome by strenuous discipline. I tried to blind myself to the future, and many and many a time, as I walked along that dreary New Road or Old St. Pancras Road, have I striven to compel myself not to look at the image of Hampstead Heath or Regent’s Park, as yet six days in front of me, but to get what I could out of what was then with me.

The instinct which leads us perpetually to compare what we are with what we might be is no doubt of enormous value, and is the spring which prompts all action, but, like every instinct, it is the source of greatest danger. I remember the day and the very spot on which it flashed into me, like a sudden burst of the sun’s rays, that I had no right to this or that⁠—to so much happiness, or even so much virtue. What title-deeds could I show for such a right? Straightway it seemed as if the centre of a whole system of dissatisfaction were removed, and as if the system collapsed. God, creating from His infinite resources a whole infinitude of beings, had created me with a definite position on the scale, and that position only could I claim. Cease the trick of contrast. If I can by any means get myself to consider myself alone without reference to others, discontent will vanish. I walk this Old St. Pancras Road on foot⁠—another rides. Keep out of view him who rides and all persons riding, and I shall not complain that I tramp in the wet. So also when I think how small and weak I am.

How foolish it is to try and cure by argument what time will cure so completely and so gently if left to itself. As I get older, the anxiety to prove myself right if I quarrel dies out. I hold my tongue and time vindicates me, if it is possible to vindicate me, or convicts me if I am wrong. Many and many a debate too which I have had with myself alone has been settled in the same way. The question has been put aside and has lost its importance. The ancient Church thought, and seriously enough, no doubt, that all the vital interests of humanity were bound up with the controversies upon the Divine nature; but the centuries have rolled on, and who cares for those controversies now. The problems of death and immortality once upon a time haunted me so that I could hardly sleep for thinking about them. I cannot tell how, but so it is, that at the present moment, when I am years nearer the end, they trouble me but very little. If I could but bury and let rot things which torment me and come to no settlement⁠—if I could always do this⁠—what a blessing it would be.