his attention that he could not take it off until he had got through. What the people thought of him for reading in that manner as he walked along the street, he knew not; nor did he once think, he was so taken up with his book. He felt as though he would give the world to write in so enchanting a style; and to that end he carried his old volume constantly in his pocket, that by committing, as it were, to memory, those sweetly flowing lines, he might stand a chance to fall into the imitation of them. He took another curious method to catch Addison's charming style; he would select some favourite chapter out of the Spectator, make short summaries of the sense of each period, and put them for a few days aside; then without looking at the book, he would endeavour to restore the chapter to its first form, by expressing each thought at full length.
These exercises soon convinced him that he greatly lacked a fund of words, and a facility of employing them; both of which he thought would have been abundantly supplied, had he but continued his old trade of making verses. The continual need of words of the same meaning, but of different lengths, for the measure; or of different sounds, for the rhyme, would have obliged him to seek a variety of synonymes. From this belief he took some of the papers and turned them into verse; and after he had sufficiently forgotten them, he again converted them into prose.
On comparing his Spectator with the original, he discovered many faults; but panting, as he did, for perfection in this noble art, nothing could discourage him. He bravely persevered in his experiments, and though he lamented that in most instances he still fell short of the charming original, yet in some he thought he had clearly improved the order and style. And when this happened, it gave him unspeakable satisfaction, as it sprung the dear hope that in time he should succeed in writing the English language in the same enchanting manner.
CHAPTER X
About this time, which was somewhere in his sixteenth year, Ben lighted on a very curious work, by one Tryon, recommending vegetable diet altogether, and condemning "animal food as a great crime." He read it with all the avidity of a young and honest mind that wished to renounce error and embrace truth. "From start to pole," as the racers say, his conscience was under the lash, pointing at him as the dreadful Sarcophagist, or Meat-eater alluded to by this severe writer. He could not, without horror reflect, that, young as he was, his stomach had yet been the grave of hundreds of lambs, pigs, birds, and other little animals, "who had never injured him." And when he extended the dismal idea over the vast surface of the globe, and saw the whole human race pursuing and butchering the poor brute creation, filling the sea and land with cries and blood and slaughter, he felt a depression of spirits with an anguish of mind that strongly tempted him, not only to detest man, but even to charge God himself with cruelty. But this distress did not continue long. Impatient of such wretchedness, he set all the powers of his mind to work, to discover designs in all this, worthy of the Creator. To his unspeakable satisfaction he soon made these important discoveries. 'Tis true, said he, man is constantly butchering the inferior creatures. And it is also true that they are constantly devouring one another. But after all, shocking as this may seem, it is but dying: it is but giving up life, or returning a something which was not their own; which for the honour of his goodness in their enjoyment, was only lent them for a season; and which, therefore, they ought not to think hard to return.
Now certainly, continued Ben, all this is very clear and easy to be understood. Well then, since all life, whether of man or beast, or vegetables, is a kind loan of God, and to be taken back again, the question is whether the way in which we see it is taken back is not the best way. It is true, life being the season of enjoyment, is so dear to us that there is no way of giving it up which is not shocking. And this horror which we feel at the thought of having our own lives taken from us we extend to the brutes. We cannot help feeling shocked at the butcher killing a lamb, or one animal killing another. Nay, tell even a child who is looking with smiles on a good old family horse that has just brought a bag of flour from the mill, or a load of wood from the forest, that this his beloved horse will by and by be eaten up of the buzzards, and instantly his looks will manifest extreme distress. And if his mother, to whom he turns for contradiction of this horrid prophecy, should confirm it, he is struck dumb with horror, or bursts into strong cries as if his little heart would break at thought of the dismal end to which his horse is coming. These, though very amiable, are yet the amiable weaknesses of the child, which, it is the duty of man to overcome. This animal was created of his God for the double purpose of doing service to man, and of enjoying comfort himself. And when these are accomplished, and that life which was only lent him is recalled, is it not better that nature's scavengers, the buzzards, should take up his flesh and keep the elements sweet, than that it should lie on the fields to shock the sight and smell of all who pass by? The fact is, continued Ben, I see that all creatures that live, whether men or beasts, or vegetables, are doomed to die. Now were it not a greater happiness that this universal calamity, as it appears, should be converted into an universal blessing, and this dying of all be made the living of all? Well, through the admirable wisdom and goodness of the Creator, this is exactly the case. The vegetables all die to sustain animals; and animals, whether birds, beasts, or fishes, all die to sustain man, or one another. Now, is it not far better for them that they should be thus continually changing into each other's substance, and existing in the wholesome shapes of life and vigour, than to be scattered about dying and dead, shocking all eyes with their ghastly forms, and poisoning both sea and air with the stench of their corruption?
This scrutiny into the economy of nature in this matter, gave him such an exalted sense of nature's Great Author, that in a letter to his father, to whom he made a point of writing every week for the benefit of his corrections, he says, though I was at first greatly angered with Tryon, yet afterwards I felt myself much obliged to him for giving me such a hard nut to crack, for I have picked out of it one of the sweetest kernels I ever tasted. In truth, father, continues he, although I do not make much noise or show about religion, yet I entertain a most adoring sense of the Great First Cause; insomuch that I had rather cease to exist than cease to believe him all wise and benevolent.
In the midst, however, of these pleasing speculations, another disquieting idea was suggested.—Is it not cruel, after giving life to take it away again so soon? The tender grass has hardly risen above the earth, in all its spring-tide green and sweetness, before its beauty is all cropped by the lamb; and the playful lamb, full dressed in his snow-white fleece, has scarcely tasted the sweets of existence, before he is caught up by the cruel wolf or more cruel man. And so with every bird and fish: this has scarcely learned to sing his song to the listening grove, or that to leap with transport from the limpid wave, before he is called to resign his life to man or some larger animal.
This was a horrid thought, which, like a cloud, spread a deep gloom over Ben's mind. But his reflections, like the sunbeams, quickly pierced and dispersed them.
These cavillers, said he, in another letter, are entirely wrong. They wish, it seems, long life to the creatures; the Creator wishes them a pleasant one. They would have but a few to exist in a long time; he a great many in a short time. Now as youth is the season of gaiety and enjoyment, and all after is comparatively insipid, is it not better, before that pleasant state is ended in sorrow, the creature should pass away by a quick and generally easy fate, and appear again in some other shape? Surely if the grass could reason, it would prefer, while fresh and beautiful, to be cropped by the lamb and converted into his substance, than, by staying a little longer, to disfigure the fields with its faded foliage. And the lamb too, if he could but think and choose, would ask for a short life and a merry one, rather than, by staying a little longer, degenerate into a ragged old sheep, snorting with the rattles, and dying of the rot, or murrain.
But though Ben, at the tender age of sixteen, and with no other aid than his own strong mind, could so easily quell this host of atheistical doubts, which Tryon had conjured up; yet he hesitated not to become his disciple in another tenet. Tryon asserted of animal food, that though it gave great strength to the body, yet it contributed sadly to grossness of blood and heaviness of mind; and hence he reasoned, that all who wish for cool heads and clear thoughts should make their diet principally of vegetables. Ben was struck with this as the perfection of reason, and entered so heartily into it as a rare help for acquiring knowledge, that he instantly resolved, fond as he was of flesh and fish, to give