"The Publican Yonder
Tells Me To Think Of My Pint And Pipe And Let Everything Else Go To
The Devil,
And the tombstone here tells me to reflect with dread -
a much finer expression by-the-bye than reflect with
Anxious mind,
as I have got it - that in a very little time I must die, and lie
in the ground till I am called to judgment. Now, which is most
right, the tombstone or the publican? Why, I should say the
tombstone decidedly. The publican is too sweeping when he tells
you to think of your pint and pipe and nothing else. A pint and
pipe are good things. I don't smoke myself, but I daresay a pipe
is a good thing for them who like it, but there are certainly
things worth being thought of in this world besides a pint and pipe
- hills and dales, woods and rivers, for example - death and
judgment too are worthy now and then of very serious thought. So
it won't do to go with the publican the whole hog. But with
respect to the tombstone, it is quite safe and right to go with it
its whole length. It tells you to think of death and judgment -
and assuredly we ought to of them. It does not, however, tell you
to think of nothing but death and judgment and to eschew every
innocent pleasure within your reach. If it did it would be a
tombstone quite as sweeping in what it says as the publican, who
tells you to think of your pint and pipe and let everything else go
to the devil. The wisest course evidently is to blend the whole of
the philosophy of the tombstone with a portion of the philosophy of
the publican and something more, to enjoy one's pint and pipe and
other innocent pleasures, and to think every now and then of death
and judgment - that is what I intend to do, and indeed is what I
have done for the last thirty years."
I went on - desolate hills rose in the east, the way I was going,
but on the south were beautiful hillocks adorned with trees and
hedge-rows. I was soon amongst the desolate hills, which then
looked more desolate than they did at a distance. They were of a
wretched russet colour, and exhibited no other signs of life and
cultivation than here and there a miserable field and vile-looking
hovel; and if there was here nothing to cheer the eye there was
also nothing to cheer the ear. There were no songs of birds, no
voices of rills; the only sound I heard was the lowing of a
wretched bullock from a far-off slope.
I went on slowly and heavily; at length I got to the top of this
wretched range - then what a sudden change! Beautiful hills in the
far east, a fair valley below me, and groves and woods on each side
of the road which led down to it.
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