The Portland daily press., 1874-08-20
Away with Envy.

1t is not for the sake of novelty that we
introduce Mr.. Beecher again. But it is
strange and suggestive-that confession of his
about his health and his nervous apprehen-
sion of death. Here is person who any
time these twenty years has presented him
self to the Imagination of all Americans as the
very type of healthful manhood. His temper
ament seemed to be such that he dwelt in
continual sunshine, and was at all times over
flowing with breezy joyeusness that COM
muncated itself to all around him land, in
fact, through the medium of his lofty pulpit
and the press, to all his countrymen. Yet
this same man has carried in his heart
great shadow ever since 1855, long before the
cruel troubles of his later life. He has gone
into the pulpit hundred times, he says,
doubling whether he should ever get through
his sermon alive, aud speaking with the i'm
FASHIONED earnestness of dying man while
he chung to his desk for support sheer ner-
vousness, probably, and a part of the hypo-
chondriac tendency which he appears to
have inherited, and which manifests itself
also in unaccountahe attacks of mental de-
preston and spiritual agony. Just at this
time, too, comes paragraph in relation to
George Sand, the greatest perhaps of living
women, if not the most intellectual woman
of any age or country. The author of Soon
suelo' is also very nervous; every line of her
face indicates care and mental torture. She
says to inquiring friends that such an i'm
agination as hers is curse to its possessor, on
account of the indefnable unrest which it
brings. And 1t has been understood for sew
eral years that one of our youngest and APP
parently most vigorous public men. whose
name is now very eonspicuously before the
country, is victim to the same curious anx-
iety which has rendered Mr.. Beecher for
many years extremely restless and appreben-
sive, if not unhappy. He,.. too, constantly
expects, and with infinite dread, the stroke
of fate. Appearing to us all as a man whose
exalted position, genius, power and future
prospects should produce steady satsfac-
ton, pride and content, he is nevertheless in
an especial manner subject to mental depres-
sion.
Common people, who look with mingle
awe and envy upon the fame or magnifcence
of the great, need to learn anew at frequent
intervals the trite lesson that the tempera-
ment of genius is not that of happiness, and
that the station of life most conducive to gen.
uine contentment is that of the ordinary citi
zen whom fortune has given position free
from the perils of absolute poverty, and
at the same time relieved from the greater
perils of fame and public responsibility. This
is the one string on which Horace specially
harped and Holy Writ adds its potent sane
ton, but the world has not learned the lesson
yet. So each man goes on mad with his too
keen appreciation of the glories and advan-
tages of those just before him, and bringing
himself headaches and heartaches in striving
to oyertake them. The country boy, leaning
on a gate and ''betting' as he saw the Presi-
dent go by that "that fellow has chicken pie
for dinner every day of his life,' was a little
cruder in his admiration than the rest of us.
We are too often ready to "bet," mentally at
least, that our Presidents, Senators, leading
professional men or richest merchants must
find it delightful to exercise such power-in-
toxicating to enjoy such fame. But the Pres
ident, ten to one, was too harassed or too
dyspeptic to enjoy such viands as might be
served to him and relished them less than his
rural admirer did the coarser fare of his hum
BILE home. And it is pretty certain that
large proportion of the men we felicitate,
have got some hidden wound.
Let us not disturb the quiet of our lives in
this pleasant middle zone of existence, this
region of equatorial Gains where we dwell,
by envying any of these people. We are
practically their peers after all. II is likely
that from the height of the gods we may all
look alike, as the different orders and HER
arches of ants do TO us, when we look down
upon their swarming cities.