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take so wide a range where custom has prescribed ceriairi modes of speaks ing , living and acting , as in scenes vvhich are placed beyond the controul of fashion and fancy . Personal liberty * a freedom from those
restraints which in large towns are for ever crossing our inclinations , is unspeakably precious to unsophisticated man : yet this idea of liberty , delicious as it is , will never remain long upon the mind . It may be the first and the most powerful thought which
presses upon us when we begin a life seqluded from the observation of the world , but it must soon share the fate of all other solitary feelings , and cease to impart either comfort or delight : for the pleasure of doing- what we like , is , after all , nothing more nor less than the most solitary and sensual of the beasts of the forest may contest with us ; and the less the desire of serving , pleasing and improving others , mingles with our daily
habitudes , the closer is our approximation to them . Freedom , to be dujy enjoyed by a rational being , must be a rational and active freedom . Man is degraded as soon as he tries to live above the sympathies of human nature , quite as surely , though not perhaps so obviously , as when he voluntarily places himself below them .
So with regard to religion . I do not wish to revive the ancient dispute between the recluse and the dweller in this world : but I cannot help just mentioning , that one sect of our modern poets * has thrown a degree of sacredness over its tenets by pretending to a much more intimate
communion with the Deity than is allowed to the members of its rival contemporary sects . I cannot forbear entertaining great doubts as to the foundation on which this pretension rests ; for , taking
a survey of what has been , it does not seem that the holiest among men have been those who have lived in the abstract contemplation of the Deity .
It is easy , it is . natural , when we come forth among the works of God , to lift up our hearts at once to the source of beauty and blessing , for then no intervening object Wems to inter-- ii i , m ' ' ¦¦ ' ¦¦ * ' ¦ . 1 m - ' ¦' " ' «¦ ¦ i ** wmiiiii . ' ¦¦ »' " ¦ »"¦ ' ¦ ? The lulu * Poets . rfV * l
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pose between earth and heaveq . Continued communion with the worl 4 lowers the tone of our minds : there is a worldliness contracted by intercourse with the great and vain , which it is well to set right , arid to send the " life and blood" of virtuous
enthusiasm once in a * while through the heart * A view of the works of God , apart from the ways of man , commonly does this . It purifies , rectifies and refines . - Yet we have many proofs that the attempt to live above the world is as unnecessary to the
perfection , as it is fatal to the usefulness of a character . * ' Men ought to know , " says Bacon , ** that on the theatre of the world it is only for God and the angels to be spectators . " But is the view which revelation and
reason lead us to take of even the Divine Being , that of a passive and quiescent spectator ? Or , is he not rather continually operating to produce and perfect the harmony of crea * tion ? And shall we think ourselves
at liberty to remain enraptured , but indolent spectators of his work , when he calls us to lift up our feeble hands in its support ? So with regard to genius . —I very
much doubt whether thought is ever so lofty and inventive , as it is in the minds of those vrho enjoy a pretty large , or , at least , an active communion with their fellow-creatures .
Would Milton have written better had his mind been less worked upon by the passing events of his time ? Would Shakespeare have described the most simple and secluded scenes
of nature with more beauty , had his whole life been past in the contemplation of them ? Would Franklin have thought more profoundly , orf in general , to better purpose , had he re'tired from thecares of the world to
indulge in solitary reflection ? Perhaps , too , the habits of inaction , which female education often engenders , have a strong tendency to keep down the powers of mind possessed by that sex , below their natural level .
The sickly dreams of sentiment in which they are led to indulge , often from a dearth of better employment , prove * the little connexion' which a life of leisure and speculation has with strong and inventive genius . However , it must be confessed , to
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Thoughts on a Country Life . G $£
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1819, page 669, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1778/page/17/
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