Даниэль Дефо - Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe - With His Vision of the Angelick World

This is the truly agreeable person, and the only one that can be called so in the world; his company is a charm, and is rather wondered at than imitated. ‘Tis almost a virtue to envy such a man; and one is apt innocently to grieve at him, when we see what is so desirable in him, and cannot either find it or make it in ourselves.

But take this with you in the character of this happy man, namely, that he is always a good man, a religious man. ‘Tis a gross error to imagine that a soul blackened with vice, loaded with crime, degenerated into immorality and folly, can be that man – can have this calm, serene soul, those clear thoughts, those constant smiles upon his brow, and the steady agreeableness and pleasantry in his temper, that I am speaking of; there must be intervals of darkness upon such a mind. Storms in the conscience will always lodge clouds upon the countenance, and where the weather is hazy within it can never be sunshine without; the smiles of a disturbed mind are all but feigned and forged; there may be a good disposition, but it will be too often and too evidently interrupted by the recoils of the mind, to leave the temper untouched and the humour free and unconcerned; when the drum beats an alarm within, it is impossible but the disturbance will be discovered without.

Mark the man of crime; sit close to him in company; at the end of the most exuberant excursion of his mirth, you will never fail to hear his reflecting faculty whisper a sigh to him; he will shake it off, you will see him check it and go on. Perhaps he sings it off, but at the end of every song, nay, perhaps of every stanza, it returns; a kind of involuntary sadness breaks upon all his joy; he perceives it, rouses, despises it, and goes on; but in the middle of a long laugh in drops a sigh; it will be, it can be no otherwise; and I never conversed closely with a man of levity in my life but I could perceive it most plainly; ‘tis a kind of respiration natural to a stifled conviction – a hesitation that is the consequence of a captivated virtue, a little insurrection in the soul against the tyranny of profligate principles.

But in the good man the calm is complete – it is all nature, no counterfeit; he is always in humour, because he is always composed:

He’s calm without, because he’s clear within.

A stated composure of mind can really proceed from nothing but a fund of virtue; and this is the reason why it is my opinion that the common saying, that content of mind is happiness, is a vulgar mistake, unless it be granted that this content is first founded on such a basis as the mind ought to be contented with, for otherwise a lunatic in Bedlam is a completely happy man; he sings in his hutch, and dances in his chain, and is as contented as any man living. The possession or power which that vapour or delirium! has upon his brain makes him fancy himself a prince, a monarch, a statesman, or just what he pleases to be; as a certain duchess is said to have believed herself to be an empress, has her footmen drawn up, with javelins, and dressed in antic habits, that she may see them through a window, and believe them to be her guards; is served upon the knee, called her majesty, imperial majesty, and the like; and with this splendour her distempered mind is deluded, forming ideas of things which are not, and at the same time her eyes are shut to the eternal captivity of her circumstances; in which she is made a property to other persons, her estate managed by guardianship, and she a poor demented creature to the last degree, an object of human compassion, and completely miserable.

The only contentment which entitles mankind to any felicity is that which is founded upon virtue and just principles, for contentment is nothing more or less than what we call peace; and what peace where crime possesses the mind, which is attended, as a natural consequence, with torment and disquiet? What peace where the harmony of the soul is broken by constant regret and self-reproaches? What peace in a mind under constant apprehensions and terrors of something yet attending to render them miserable; and all this is inseparable from a life of crime:

For where there ‘s guilt, there always will be fear.

Peace of mind makes a halcyon upon the countenance, it gilds the face with a cheerful aspect, such as nothing else can procure; and which indeed, as above, it is impossible effectually to counterfeit.

But I return to the subject of conversation, from which this digression is made only to show that the fund of agreeable conversation is, and can only be, founded in virtue; this alone is the thing that keeps a man always in humour, and always agreeable.

They mistake much who think religion or a strict morality discomposes the temper, sours the mind, and unfits a man for conversation. ’Tis irrational to think a man can’t be bright unless he is wicked; it may as well be said a man cannot be merry till he is mad, not agreeable till he is offensive, not in humour till he is out of himself. ’Tis clear to me no man can be truly merry but he that is truly virtuous; wit is as consistent with religion as religion is with good manners; nor is there anything in the limitations of virtue and religion, I mean the just restraints which religion and virtue lay upon us in conversation, that should abate the pleasure of it; on the contrary, they increase it. For example: restraints from vicious and indecent discourses; there’s as little manners in those things as there is mirth in them, nor indeed does religion or virtue rob conversation of one grain of true mirth. On the contrary, the religious man is the only man fully qualified for mirth and good humour, with this advantage, that when the vicious and the virtuous man appears gay and merry, but differ, as they must do, in the subject of their mirth, you may always observe the virtuous man’s mirth is superior to the other, more suitable to him as a man, as a gentleman, as a wise man, and as a good man; and, generally speaking, the other will acknowledge it, at least afterward, when his thoughts cool, and as his reflections come in.