BOOKS.
OUTDOOR PHILOSOPHY.*
THE love of liberty is one of the fundamental passions of human nature. However much civilisation has overlaid life with a crust of conventionalities, the instinct of liberty is only thrust deeper down to spring up again in individuals with still stronger protest. How to live a life of liberty will always be a question of supreme interest to the human race. One interesting fact in this protest against constraint is that it asserts itself the most, and takes more active forms, in America than in the ancient civilisations. It may be that the traditions of the race tell in favour of liberty. The character of its first settlers may have left an indelible strain behind ; or it may be that, the nation itself being so large, and at the same time so homogeneous, a sense of independence is encouraged such as often springs up in a large clan of relations who look for little outside themselves. Anyhow, it is America that is found to furnish exceptional cases of individual liberty both of thought and action.
It is difficult to rank the remarkable men that America
• Liberty and a Lining. By Philip G. Hubert, jun. New York and London : G. P. Putnam's Sons. has produced in this direction. We have our latter-day philosophers; but even the most original of them bear the mark in their lives of centuries of philosophic con- ventionality. Take Carlyle, for instance, perhaps the least moulded to foregone form of any man of thought in modern days. But with all his individuality, he was not able to avoid looking at life through other people's spectacles. a no way could he say " I will lead my own life and carry out my own theories, whatever others may say and think." Far from this, he desired praise with the passion of a schoolgirl If his work went unrecognised, he was miserable in mind and body. If court was not paid to him, he felt life hardly worth the living. Never once did he and Mrs. Carlyle say : "What is the world's opinion to us We know the truth, and by the truth we will live and be happy." But this is not the case with many of the philosophers America has produced. If their thoughts have not gone very deep, at least their actions have gone as deep as their thought. The one does not belie the other. Both in Emerson and in Thoreau we have the philosopher of action, and this in itself is a great mark of strength. Why does this seem possible in the New Country and impossible in the Old?
A little book called Liberty and a Living helps to answer the question. The line between money-making and culture in America is to all appearance a marked one. Perhaps this springs from the comparative absence of large inherited fortunes. As a rule, men do not make large savings for their family. The sons are expected to begin at the beginning, and get into harness early. Per- haps, too, the comparative ease with which fortunes may still be made in America may have something to do with it. Steady, unceasing grind will, as a rule, command a considerable in- come in the long-run ; so that it is worth a man's while to con- centrate his thoughts in the one direction. The shafts of a cart give real support to the horse, and nothing is more distracting to the main object than diversity of thought. A brilliant intellect, such as Mr. Gladstone's, may be able to endure it, but nine-tenths of the ordinary kind of business minds would run to seed under any such disturbing efforts. In England the line between money-making and intellectual thought is not so sharply drawn. In the Old Country it requires more than unceasing grind to command success. A man must stand apart from his fellows in some distinctive way before he can hope to make a fortune. Industry must be allied to some other qualities to make its mark. Consequently, any degree of intellectual attainment counts in England, and as a rule helps to attain an end which could not be gained by industry alone. Anyhow, whatever the reasons may be, it is only in America that a life such as is described by Mr. Hubert is possible. If we are to take his description of him- self and his family, the life is indeed Arcadian. In early middle-life, he comes to the resolve to abandon a pro- fessional career in New York, in favour of life in a country cottage fifty miles off, on an income of some $500—that is to Bay, about 2100—a year. He builds himself a charming small house, with one enormous living- room. He fishes, he sails, he shoots, he gardens. He lives among his children and his books, and, above all, which counts for more than anything in the success of such a life, he possesses a wife who, apparently, is of the same tastes as himself. The entire family is of one mind. In all there is the same absence of desire for town pleasures, the same passionate love of music; and, what is still more unique, both wife and children prove willing and intelligent listeners to nightly readings of his favourite authors. Given such unusual tastes and acquisitions, and who is there who will say that Mr. Hubert is not the happiest of men ? One of the three things pronounced " beautiful " by the son of Sirach is "a man and a wife that agree together," and Wisdom is justified of her children. But the readers of Mr. Hubert's fascinating little volume are not necessarily so fully blest. With no children, or still worse, children who are drawn to the pleasures of the city ; with a wife not musical, nor perhaps quite so interesting a talker nor so interested a listener as she was at eighteen,—would such a life be a success ? Given strong outdoor tastes, and to some men the country and liberty are worth all the luxuries the world can produce. But man at bottom is a gregarious animal. We are not all Thoreaus, who can live and die in the solitude of the back- woods. We, unfortunately, are not all possessed by the spirit
of Emerson, who is made happy by six acres and no cow. If we were, we might be happier, and perhaps better men ; but vie must all ran in our own grooves, and it may be some little comfort for those who are compelled to lead it, to reflect that, if a city life is not ideal, it has its great merits. In the town we can choose our own friends and go our own ways ; we can say our say without much fear of it being sufficiently noticed for men to take offence, or to call us to account. There is, in a certain sense, no such liberty as that afforded by a large city. With ordinary success, a fairly kindly temper, and some tact, a man may avoid coming up much against people who are distasteful to him ; and if he has the strength of mind to live his own social life, he will certainly find friends who will sympathise both with his tastes and with his means. If in New York money-making means the discarding of all intellectual tastes, it is not the case in London. An educated man may command his few hundreds a year professionally, and yet share in the cultivated thought of the day, if not in the social tittle-tattle of the fashionable clubs. And whether he be a man of city tastes, or tastes gratified by a few paternal or acquired acres, it is only the absence of a resolute intention to do what is most congenial to himself, irrespective of what others will say. that will keep him, either in England or America, from leading a life as contented and as cultured as that so graphically and pleasantly described by Mr. Hubert.
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