The Varieties of Religious Experience — William James
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p. 82'enmity against God,' and did n't sit down and whine and groan against non-existent evil. I have done wrong things enough in my life, and do them now ; I miss the mark, draw bow, and try again. But I am not conscious of hating God, or man, or right, or love, and I know there is much ' health in me ' ; and in my body, even now, there dwelleth many a good thing, spite of / consumption and Saint Paul.
In another letter Parker writes : " I have swum in clear sweet waters all my days ; and if sometimes they were a little cold, and the stream ran adverse and something rough, it was never too strong to be breasted and swum through.
From the days of earliest boyhood, when I went stumbling through the grass, ... up to the gray-bearded/yAr'T manhood of this time, there is none but has left me honey in v / / the hive of memory that I now feed on for present delight. /\ When I recall the years ... I am filled with a sense of sweetness and wonder that such little things can make a mortal so exceedingly rich.
But I must confess that the chiefest of all my delights is still the religious. Another good expression of the ^ once-born ' type of consciousness, developing straight and natural, with no element of morbid compunction or crisis, is contained in ; the answer of Dr. Edward Everett Hale, the eminent ■ Unitarian preacher and writer, to one of Dr. Starbuck's \ / circulars.
I quote a part of it : — " I observe, with profound regret, the religious struggles which come into many biographies, as if almost essential to the formation of the hero.
I ought to speak of these, to say that any man has an advantage, not to be estimated, who is / born, as I was, into a family where the religion is simple and rational ; who is trained in the theory of such a religion, so that he never knows, for an hour, what these religious or irreligious struggles are. I always knew God loved me, and I was always^ grateful to him for the world he placed me in.
I always liked 7 to tell him so, and was always glad to receive his suggestions to me. ... I can remember perfectly that when I was coming to manhood, the half-philosophical novels of the time had a deal p. 83to say about the young meu and maidens who were facing the f '■ problem of life. I had no idea whatever what the problem 7 *^ of life was.
To live with all my might seemed to me easy ; to learn where there was so much to learn seemed pleasant and almost of course ; to lend a hand, if one had a chance, natural ; and if one did this, why, he enjoyed life because he could '^S^.^.^^^t^ not help it, and without proving to himself that he ought to en- j^ J joy it. ...
A child who is early taught that he is God's child, \(^'^^^/ ^ that he may live and move and have his being in God, and that / he has, therefore, infinite strength at hand for the conquering of any difficulty, will take life more easily, and probably will make more of it, than one who is told that he is born the child of wrath and wholly incapable of good." ^ One can but recognize in such writers as these the presence of a temperament organically weighted on the side of cheer and fatally forbidden to linger, as those of opposite temperament linger, over the darker aspects of the universe.
In some individuals optimism may become quasi-pathological. The capacity for even a transient sadness or a momentary humility seems cut off from them as by a kind of congenital ansesthesia.^ 1 Starbuck : Psychology of Religion, pp. 305, 306. 2 " I know not to what physical laws philosophers will some day refer the feelings of melancholy.
For myself, I find that they are tlie most voluptuous of all sensations," writes Saint Pierre, and accordingly he devotes a series of sections of his work on Nature to the Plaisirs de la Ruine, Plaisirs des Tombeaux, Ruines de la Nature, Plaisirs de la Solitude — each of them more optimistic than the last. This finding of a luxury in woe is very common during adolescence.
The truth-telling Marie Bashkirtseff expresses it well : — J " In this depression and dreadful uninterrupted suffering, I don't condemn life. On the contrary, I like it and find it good. Can you believe it ? I find everything good and pleasant, even my tears, my grief. I enjoy weeping, I enjoy my despair. I enjoy being exasperated and sad. I feel as if these were so many diversions, and I love life in spite of them all. I want to live on.
It would be cruel to have me die when I am so accommodating. I cry, I grieve, and at the same time I am pleased — no, not exactly that — I know not how to express it. But everything in life pleases \ me. I find everything agreeable, and in the very midst of my prayers for /
p. 84The supreme contemporary example of such an inability to feel evil is of course l^alt_Wliitman.
" His favorite occupation," writes his disciple, Dr. Bucke, " seemed to be strolling or sauntering about outdoors by himself, looking at the grass, the trees, the flowers, the vistas of light, the varying aspects of the sky, and listening to the birds, the crickets, the tree frogs, and all the hundreds of natural sounds. It was evident that these things gave him a pleasure far beyond what they give to ordinary people.
Until I knew the man," continues Dr. Bucke, " it had not occurred to me that any one could derive so much absolute happiness from these things as he did. He was very fond of flowers, either wild or cultivated ; liked all sorts. I think he admired lilacs and sunflowers just as much as roses. Perhaps^ indeed, no man \ who ever lived liked so many things and disliked so few as Walt Whitman. 2l11 natural objects seemed to have a charm for him.
All sights and sounds seemed to please him. He appeared to like (and I believe he did like) all the men, women, and children he saw (though I never knew him to say that he liked any one), but each who knew him felt that he liked him or her, and that he liked others also. I never knew him to argue or dispute, and he never spoke about money.
He always justified, sometimes playfiiny, sometimes quite seriously, those who spoke harshly of himself or his writings, and I often thought he even took pleasure in the opposition of enemies. When I first knew [him], I used to think that he watched himself, and would not allow his tongue to give expression to fretfulness, antipathy, complaint, and remonstrance. It did not occur to me as possible that these mental states could be absent in him.
After long observation, however, I satisfied myself that such absence or unconsciousness was entirely real. He never spokfe deprecatingly of any nationality or class of men, or time in the world's history, or against any trades or occupations — not even against any animals, insects, or inanimate things, nor any of the happiness, I find myself happy at being miserable.
It is not I who undergo all this — my body weeps and cries ; but something inside of me which is above me is glad of it all. Journal de Marie Bashkirtseff, i. 67.
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