CHAP. XI.] Fichte and Cobbett. 341 now-but a land of toil, where every joy but strengthens us for greater labour. Hand-in-hand we shall traverse it, and encourage and strengthen each other, until our spirits-oh, may it be together!-shall rise to the eternal fountain of all peace." The married life of Fichte was very happy. His wife proved a true and highminded helpmate. During the War of Liberation she was assiduous in her attention to the wounded in the hospitals, where she caught a malignant fever, which nearly carried her off. Fichte himself caught the same disease, and was for a time completely prostrated; but he lived for a few more years and died at the early age of fifty-two, consumed by his own fire. What a contrast does the courtship and married life of the blunt and practical William Cobbett present to the æsthetical and sentimental love of these highly refined Germans! Not less honest, not less true, but, as some would think, comparatively coarse and vulgar. When Cobbett first set eyes upon the girl that was afterwards to become his wife, she was only thirteen years old, and he was twenty-one-a sergeant-major in a foot regiment stationed at St. John's in New Brunswick. He was passing the door of her father's house one day in winter, and saw the girl out in the snow, scrubbing a washing-tub. He said at once to himself, "That's the girl for me." He made her acquaintance, and resolved that she should be his wife so soon as he could get discharged from the army. On the eve of the girl's return to Woolwich with her father, who was a sergeant-major in the artillery, Cobbett sent her a hundred and fifty guineas which he had saved, in order that she might be able to live without hard work until his return to England. The girl departed, taking with her the money; and five years iater Cobbett obtained his discharge. On reaching Cobbett and his Wife. 342 [CHAP. XI. London, he made haste to call upon the sergeantmajor's daughter. "I found," he says, "my little girl a servant-of-all-work (and hard work it was), at five pounds a year, in the house of a Captain Brisac; and, without hardly saying a word about the matter, she put into my hands the whole of my hundred and fifty guineas, unbroken." Admiration of her conduct was now added to love of her person, and Cobbett shortly after married the girl, who proved an excellent wife. He was, indeed, never tired of speaking her praises, and it was his pride to attribute to her all the comfort and much of the success of his after-life. Though Cobbett was regarded by many in his lifetime as a coarse, hard, practical man, full of prejudices, there was yet a strong undercurrent of poetry in his nature; and, while he declaimed against sentiment, there were few men more thoroughly imbued with sentiment of the best kind. He had the tenderest regard for the character of woman. He respected her purity and her virtue, and in his Advice to Young Men,' he has painted the true womanly woman-the helpful, cheerful, affectionate wife—with a vividness and brightness, and, at the same time, a force of good sense, that have never been surpassed by any English writer. Cobbett was anything but refined, in the conventional sense of the word; but he was pure, temperate, selfdenying, industrious, vigorous, and energetic, in an cminent degree. Many of his views were, no doubt, wrong, but they were his own, for he insisted on thinking for himself in everything. Though few men took a firmer grasp of the real than he did, perhaps still fewer were more swayed by the ideal. In word-pictures of his own emotions, he is unsurpassed. Indeed, Cobbett might almost be regarded as one of the greatest prose poets of English real life. CHAP. XII.] The Discipline of Experience. 343 CHAPTER XII. THE DISCIPLINE OF EXPERIENCE. "I would the great would grow like thee, And knowledge, but by year and hour And men are better shew'd what is amisse, By th' expert finger of calamitie, Than they can be with all that fortune brings, Who never shewes them the true face of things."-Daniel, "A lump of wo affliction is, Yet thence I borrow lumps of bliss; -Erskine's Gospel Sonnets. "Crosses grow anchors, bear as thou shouldst so Thy cross, and that cross grows an anchor too."-Donne "Be the day weary, or be the day long, At length it ringeth to Evensong."-Ancient Couplet. PRACTICAL wisdom is only to be learnt in the school of experience. Precepts and instructions are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only. The hard facts of existence have to be faced, to give that touch of truth to character which can never be imparted by reading or tuition, but only by contact with the broad instincts of common men and women. To be worth anything, character must be capable of standing firm upon its feet in the world of daily work, temptation, and trial; and able to bear the wear-andtear of actual life. Cloistered virtues do not count for much. The life that rejoices in solitude may be only 344 Evils of Seclusion. [CHAP. XII. rejoicing in selfishness. Seclusion may indicate contempt for others; though more usually it means indolence, cowardice, or self-indulgence. To every human being belongs his fair share of manful toil and human duty; and it cannot be shirked without loss to the individual himself, as well as to the community to which he belongs. It is only by mixing in the daily life of the world, and taking part in its affairs, that practical knowledge can be acquired, and wisdom learnt. It is there that we find our chief sphere of duty, that we learn the discipline of work, and that we educate ourselves in that patience, diligence, and endurance which shape and consolidate the character. There we encounter the difficulties, trials, and temptations which, according as we deal with them, give a colour to our entire after-life; and there, too, we become subject to the great discipline of suffering, from which we learn far more than from the safe seclusion of the study or the cloister. Contact with others is also requisite to enable a man to know himself. It is only by mixing freely in the world that one can form a proper estimate of his own capacity. Without such experience, one is apt to become conceited, puffed-up, and arrogant; at all events, he will remain ignorant of himself, though he may heretofore have enjoyed no other company. Swift once said: " It is an uncontroverted truth, that no man ever made an ill-figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them." Many persons, however, are readier to take measure of the capacity of others than of themselves. "Bring him to me," said a certain Dr. Tronchin, of Geneva, speaking of Rousseau - bring him to me, that I may see whether he has got anything in him!"-the probability being that Rousseau, who knew himself better, 66 CHAP. XII.] The School of Experience. 345 was much more likely to take measure of Tronchin than Tronchin was to take measure of him. A due amount of self-knowledge is, therefore, necessary for those who would be anything or do anything in the world. It is also one of the first essentials to the formation of distinct personal convictions. Frederic Perthes once said to a young friend: "You know only too well what you can do; but till you have learned what you cannot do, you will neither accomplish anything of moment, nor know inward peace." Any one who would profit by experience will never be above asking help. He who thinks himself already too wise to learn of others, will never succeed in doing anything either good or great. We have to keep our minds and hearts open, and never be ashamed to learn, with the assistance of those who are wiser and more experienced than ourselves. The man made wise by experience endeavours to judge correctly of the things which come under his observation, and form the subject of his daily life. What we call common sense is, for the most part, but the result of common experience wisely improved. Nor is great ability necessary to acquire it, so much as patience, accuracy, and watchfulness. Hazlitt thought the most sensible people to be met with are intelligent men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be. For the same reason, women often display more good sense than men, having fewer pretensions, and judging of things naturally, by the involuntary impression they make on the mind. Their intuitive powers are quicker, their perceptions more acute, their sympathies more lively, and their manners more adaptive to particular ends. Hence their greater tact as displayed in the |