ATTRACTIVE MELANCHOLY.
MISANTHROPIC melancholy, if it be genuinely and not merely superficially misanthropic, is almost always repellent, probably because insatiable selfishness lies at the root of it. But there is a good deal of melancholy in the world which is only superficially misanthropic, and a good deal more which is almost pure and undiluted goodness ; and melancholy of these kinds is one of the most fascinating elements in human life. Carlyle's melancholy was probably a mixture of the two. It was certainly not wholly free from the restlessness of an overbearing egotism, but it had also a very large element of tenderness and geniality in it. That is why we hardly ever know what we do feel to Carlyle. Sometimes we love him and sometimes we hate him, and sometimes we laugh out at the strange mixture of feelings with which his overbearing nature inspires us. We have heard the same said of Dr. Johnson, but his melancholy seems to us much freer from egotism than Carlyle's, and, on the whole, melancholy of a purer and nobler kind. But in all those whose melancholy is most attractive, there is a singular mixture of reverence and pity, such as Dr. Johnson showed throughout life in the passionate piety of his prayers, and in the tenderness with which he would go out to get oysters for his sick eat, and cherish the most cross-grained of his poor pensioners. Carlyle could show the same, but, as we have said, in less degree and with, more distinct traces of egotism. But amongst the recent examples of men whose melancholy has been in the highest degree attractive, perhaps the most re- markable was the late Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh, of whom a charming and most delicate study has just been published* by one of the youthful friends in whose society he took so much delight. What was it that made this man, of whose literary work only two or three volumes of miscellaneous writings are known to the world, " Rab and his Friends" being perhaps the most popular, and his sketch of little Marjory Fleming (Sir Walter Scott's pet) the most exquisite, so much more fascinating than even his own fascinating work ? We believe that it was the singularly delightful mixture of tenderness, humour, and melancholy in his life and conversation. No man ever
• Edinburgh David Douglas.
understood animals so well ; no man ever loved children better ; no man ever discerned more clearlythe glory as well as the gloom of life ; and no man ever felt that gloom more pro- foundly, not in the fashion of what one might fairly call Swift's selfish fury,—if Swift were really in any way respon- sible for his own Balla indignagio,—but in the way of real
bewilderment when the light he loved so much and in which he basked so gratefully, suddenly left him, and a great mist appeared to blot out for him even the hand of God. Pity and reverence were the two chief elements iu his nature, though to them was added a keenness and vivacity of perception which would alone have been enough to ensure happiness, had not the pity been so unusually deep and tender. But keenness and vivacity of perception alone would never have given Dr.
John Brown the fascination which made him, as one of his friends said of him, "act as a magnet in a room," and draw every one towards him. " I'll tell Dr Brown,' was the thought that came first to his friends on hearing anything genuine, pathetic, or queer," says the writer of the beautiful little notice to which we have already referred ; and the gleam as of sunlight that shone in his eyes, and played round his sensitive mouth as he listened, acted as inspiration, so that friends and even strangers he saw at their best ; and their best was better than it would have been without him. They brought him of their treasure, figuratively and literally too, for there was not a rare engraving, a copy of an old edition, a valuable autograph, anything that any one in Edinburgh greatly prized, but sooner or later it found its way to Rutland Street, 'just that Dr. Brown might see it.' It seemed to mean more, even to the owner himself, when he had looked at it and enjoyed it." What was it that gave him this magnetic attractiveness? Partly, no doubt, his fine sympathy and vigilant observation, for his friends hardly knew what to think of a saying or a thing till he had appreciated it; but even more, we think, that pathetic melancholy which so often made him close his eyes as if to rest himself from sad visions, and which made every one who loved him (and that was almost every one who knew him) wish to minister to him food for pleasant reflections. And how surely did his presence teach them what to say, so as to go to his heart, teaching them to speak to him with just a dash of serious tenderness, and a dash of playful humour such as he loved to hear. "When one day he spoke of driving with him as if it were only a dull thing to do, I told him that when he asked me, I always came most gladly, and that I looked upon it as a means of grace.'
He smiled, but shook his head rather sadly, and I was afraid I had ventured too far. We did not refer to it again, but weeks after he came up to me in the dining-room at Rutland Street, and without one introductory remark, said,—' Means of grace to-morrow at half-past two." It was in driving home on this occasion that he told his young companion of the difficulty he found in recalling the voices of those whom he had lost, and spoke of his wife's voice. "'For three
months,' he said, I tried to hear her voice and could not; but
at last it came, one word brought it back.' He was going to say the word, and then he stopped, and said, No, it might spoil it." This was the man who had such an intimate sympathy with all the dogs in his neighbourhood, that when asked if he had looked so eagerly out of the carriage because he had recognised an acquaintance, he answered, "No, it's a
dog I don't know,"—to him a much more remarkable occur- rence than the recognition of any one he did know. Yet with all
this eagerness of friendly feeling for half the world, the belts of cloud in his life were more remarkable than the gleams of sunshine ; the involuntary shutting of the eyes was at least as characteristic as the quick humour of his smile ; the sense of pathos which his presence left upon one, deeper than the sense of genial and sunny wit. And to our thinking, though he could not have been the universal magnet he was without his humour and swiftness of glance, still less could he have been that magnet without his gentle and pathetic sadness.
What is it that makes such a character so fascinating ? To a very considerable extent, of course, its wide and delicate sym- pathy. The nature that could discriminate, as Dr. John Brown did, the characters of men, the characters of children, and the characters of dogs, and so delineate them that thousands of readers have made them into familiar friends, more intimate even than their own intimates, could not but fascinate. But Dickens had a far greater power of delineation, and yet nothing like the same exquisite attractiveness. To a very great extent, it was the deep but gentle melancholy which sprinkled the light of Dr. John Brown's humour with dark lines, such as our chemists have foun& in the sunbeam when broken up by a prism. All melancholy, even Swift's fierce scorn of the world, has its attraction for those who feel the power to cheer and beguile it, as Stella's and Vanessa's sad lives " sufficiently prove. But the morose melancholy of Swift could attract only the very few. The playful and pathetic .melancholy of such lives as Cowper's or Dr. John Brown's, attracts almost all who can enter into qualities so rare and fine. What has given Virgil and Gray and Matthew Arnold their singular elegiac charm, except the genuine pathos which penetrates their highest verse ?—and yet, exquisite as that poetic pathos is, it is hardly so attractive to the world in general as the same sort of pathos when shot with humour, like Dr. John Brown's. It is not merely that such melancholy inspires a deep desire to cheer it, —for that would affect only the personal friends of a man during his lifetime,—but that it inspires also a deep affection for the nature which reflects bright and dark alike with so unresisting an acquiescence. There is no charm greater than that of feeling a new capacity for sadness stealing into you from a nature at once richer in the sources of heartfelt gaiety, and yet richer at the same time in the sources of heartfelt tragedy than your own. It produces something of the same kind of impression as that produced upon us by a midnight sky full of stars and flashes of electric light, an impression at once awful and beautiful, at once subduing and inspiring. Poets from the very beginning of all history have tried to make us feel, and, indeed, have succeeded in making us feel, that the pain of life, though deeper in many respects than its happi- ness, is deeper rather because it is the only instrument by which the human mind, with so great an inborn tendency to contract round finite objects, is quickened to admit into it a larger universe than it could otherwise ever be made to embrace. The great sufferers of the world have taught us this even better than the poets, but perhaps their teaching has been too lofty for all our moods. The lesser sufferers of the world, like Johnson and Cowper and Dr. John Brown, have taught us the same lesson with that mixture of humour which has adapted it to less elevated natures and less purely religious moods. In lives like these we have learned how close is the source of laughter to the source of tears, and how much deeper and nobler is the laughter which comes from a source nearly akin to that of sorrow, than the laughter which is all comedy ; and how much more the mind is raised and widened by it. Of all the subordinate influences which have purified the world, —of all those which must be reckoned second to pure and un- defiled religion,—probably the sweet, or at least genial melan- choly of natures rich at once in the brighter and darker streaks of human destiny, has been the most effective, because the most endearing.
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