Character — Ch12c - The Discipline of Experience, cont.

The case of Flinders the navigator, who suffered a six years' imprisonment in the Isle of France, was one of peculiar hardship.

In 1801, he set sail from England in the INVESTIGATOR, on a voyage of discovery and survey, provided with a French pass, requiring all French governors [21notwithstanding that England and France were at war] to give him protection and succour in the sacred name of science.

In the course of his voyage he surveyed great part of Australia, Van Diemen's Land, and the neighbouring islands.

The INVESTIGATOR, being found leaky and rotten, was condemned, and the navigator embarked as passenger in the PORPOISE for England, to lay the results of his three years' labours before the Admiralty.

On the voyage home the PORPOISE was wrecked on a reef in the South Seas, and Flinders, with part of the crew, in an open boat, made for Port Jackson, which they safely reached, though distant from the scene of the wreck not less than 750 miles.

There he procured a small schooner, the CUMBERLAND, no larger than a Gravesend sailing-boat, and returned for the remainder of the crew, who had been left on the reef.

Having rescued them, he set sail for England, making for the Isle of France, which the CUMBERLAND reached in a sinking condition, being a wretched little craft badly found.

To his surprise, he was made a prisoner with all his crew, and thrown into prison, where he was treated with brutal harshness, his French pass proving no protection to him.

What aggravated the horrors of Flinders' confinement was, that he knew that Baudin, the French navigator, whom he had encountered while making his survey of the Australian coasts, would reach Europe first, and claim the merit of all the discoveries he had made.

It turned out as he had expected; and while Flinders was still imprisoned in the Isle of France, the French Atlas of the new discoveries was published, all the points named by Flinders and his precursors being named afresh.

Flinders was at length liberated, after six years' imprisonment, his health completely broken; but he continued correcting his maps, and writing out his descriptions to the last.

He only lived long enough to correct his final sheet for the press, and died on the very day that his work was published!

Courageous men have often turned enforced solitude to account in executing works of great pith and moment.

It is in solitude that the passion for spiritual perfection best nurses itself.

The soul communes with itself in loneliness until its energy often becomes intense.

But whether a man profits by solitude or not will mainly depend upon his own temperament, training, and character.

While, in a large-natured man, solitude will make the pure heart purer, in the small-natured man it will only serve to make the hard heart still harder: for though solitude may be the nurse of great spirits, it is the torment of small ones.

It was in prison that Boetius wrote his 'Consolations of Philosophy,' and Grotius his 'Commentary on St. Matthew,' regarded as his masterwork in Biblical Criticism.

Buchanan composed his beautiful 'Paraphrases on the Psalms' while imprisoned in the cell of a Portuguese monastery.

Campanella, the Italian patriot monk, suspected of treason, was immured for twenty-seven years in a Neapolitan dungeon, during which, deprived of the sun's light, he sought higher light, and there created his 'Civitas Solis,' which has been so often reprinted and reproduced in translations in most European languages.

During his thirteen years' imprisonment in the Tower, Raleigh wrote his 'History of the World,' a project of vast extent, of which he was only able to finish the first five books.

Luther occupied his prison hours in the Castle of Wartburg in translating the Bible, and in writing the famous tracts and treatises with which he inundated all Germany.

It was to the circumstance of John Bunyan having been cast into gaol that we probably owe the 'Pilgrim's Progress.'

He was thus driven in upon himself; having no opportunity for action, his active mind found vent in earnest thinking and meditation; and indeed, after his enlargement, his life as an author virtually ceased.

His 'Grace Abounding' and the 'Holy War' were also written in prison.

Bunyan lay in Bedford Gaol, with a few intervals of precarious liberty, during not less than twelve years; [217] and it was most probably to his prolonged imprisonment that we owe what Macaulay has characterised as the finest allegory in the world.

All the political parties of the times in which Bunyan lived, imprisoned their opponents when they had the opportunity and the power.

Bunyan's prison experiences were principally in the time of Charles II.

But in the preceding reign of Charles I. , as well as during the Commonwealth, illustrious prisoners were very numerous.

The prisoners of the former included Sir John Eliot, Hampden, Selden, Prynne [218] [21a most voluminous prison-writer], and many more.

It was while under strict confinement in the Tower, that Eliot composed his noble treatise, 'The Monarchy of Man.'

George Wither, the poet, was another prisoner of Charles the First, and it was while confined in the Marshalsea that he wrote his famous 'Satire to the King.'

At the Restoration he was again imprisoned in Newgate, from which he was transferred to the Tower, and he is supposed by some to have died there.

The Commonwealth also had its prisoners.

Sir William Davenant, because of his loyalty, was for some time confined a prisoner in Cowes Castle, where he wrote the greater part of his poem of 'Gondibert': and it is said that his life was saved principally through the generous intercession of Milton.

He lived to repay the debt, and to save Milton's life when "Charles enjoyed his own again."

Lovelace, the poet and cavalier, was also imprisoned by the Roundheads, and was only liberated from the Gatehouse on giving an enormous bail.

Though he suffered and lost all for the Stuarts, he was forgotten by them at the Restoration, and died in extreme poverty.

Besides Wither and Bunyan, Charles II.

imprisoned Baxter, Harrington [21the author of 'Oceana'], Penn, and many more.

All these men solaced their prison hours with writing.

Baxter wrote some of the most remarkable passages of his 'Life and Times' while lying in the King's Bench Prison; and Penn wrote his 'No Cross no Crown' while imprisoned in the Tower.

In the reign of Queen Anne, Matthew Prior was in confinement on a vamped-up charge of treason for two years, during which he wrote his 'Alma, or Progress of the Soul.'

Since then, political prisoners of eminence in England have been comparatively few in number.

Among the most illustrious were De Foe, who, besides standing three times in the pillory, spent much of his time in prison, writing 'Robinson Crusoe' there, and many of his best political pamphlets.

There also he wrote his 'Hymn to the Pillory,' and corrected for the press a collection of his voluminous writings.

[219] Smollett wrote his 'Sir Lancelot Greaves' in prison, while undergoing confinement for libel.

Of recent prison-writers in England, the best known are James Montgomery, who wrote his first volume of poems while a prisoner in York Castle; and Thomas Cooper, the Chartist, who wrote his 'Purgatory of Suicide' in Stafford Gaol.

Silvio Pellico was one of the latest and most illustrious of the prison writers of Italy.

He lay confined in Austrian gaols for ten years, eight of which he passed in the Castle of Spielberg in Moravia.

It was there that he composed his charming 'Memoirs,' the only materials for which were furnished by his fresh living habit of observation; and out of even the transient visits of his gaoler's daughter, and the colourless events of his monotonous daily life, he contrived to make for himself a little world of thought and healthy human interest.

Kazinsky, the great reviver of Hungarian literature, spent seven years of his life in the dungeons of Buda, Brunne, Kufstein, and Munkacs, during which he wrote a 'Diary of his Imprisonment,' and amongst other things translated Sterno's 'Sentimental Journey;' whilst Kossuth beguiled his two years' imprisonment at Buda in studying English, so as to be able to read Shakspeare in the original.

Men who, like these, suffer the penalty of law, and seem to fail, at least for a time, do not really fail.

Many, who have seemed to fail utterly, have often exercised a more potent and enduring influence upon their race, than those whose career has been a course of uninterupted success.

The character of a man does not depend on whether his efforts are immediately followed by failure or by success.

The martyr is not a failure if the truth for which he suffered acquires a fresh lustre through his sacrifice.

[2110] The patriot who lays down his life for his cause, may thereby hasten its triumph; and those who seem to throw their lives away in the van of a great movement, often open a way for those who follow them, and pass over their dead bodies to victory.

The triumph of a just cause may come late; but when it does come, it is due as much to those who failed in their first efforts, as to those who succeeded in their last.

The example of a great death may be an inspiration to others, as well as the example of a good life.

A great act does not perish with the life of him who performs it, but lives and grows up into like acts in those who survive the doer thereof and cherish his memory.

Of some great men, it might almost be said that they have not begun to live until they have died.

The names of the men who have suffered in the cause of religion, of science, and of truth, are the men of all others whose memories are held in the greatest esteem and reverence by mankind.

They perished, but their truth survived.

They seemed to fail, and yet they eventually succeeded.

[2111] Prisons may have held them, but their thoughts were not to be confined by prison-walls.

They have burst through, and defied the power of their persecutors.

It was Lovelace, a prisoner, who wrote: "Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take That for a hermitage."

It was a saying of Milton that, "who best can suffer best can do."

The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty.

They have struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted, only to grasp the sand and expire.

They have done their duty, and been content to die.

But death hath no power over such men; their hallowed memories still survive, to soothe and purify and bless us.

"Life," said Goethe, "to us all is suffering.

Who save God alone shall call us to our reckoning?

Let not reproaches fall on the departed.

Not what they have failed in, nor what they have suffered, but what they have done, ought to occupy the survivors."

Thus, it is not ease and facility that tries men, and brings out the good that is in them, so much as trial and difficulty.

Adversity is the touchstone of character.

As some herbs need to be crushed to give forth their sweetest odour, so some natures need to be tried by suffering to evoke the excellence that is in them.

Hence trials often unmask virtues, and bring to light hidden graces.

Men apparently useless and purposeless, when placed in positions of difficulty and responsibility, have exhibited powers of character before unsuspected; and where we before saw only pliancy and self-indulgence, we now see strength, valour, and self-denial.

As there are no blessings which may not be perverted into evils, so there are no trials which may not be converted into blessings.

All depends on the manner in which we profit by them or otherwise.

Perfect happiness is not to be looked for in this world.

If it could be secured, it would be found profitless.

The hollowest of all gospels is the gospel of ease and comfort.

Difficulty, and even failure, are far better teachers.

Sir Humphry Davy said: "Even in private life, too much prosperity either injures the moral man, and occasions conduct which ends in suffering; or it is accompanied by the workings of envy, calumny, and malevolence of others."