Bloom's Literary Themes - ymerleksi - home

224
The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift
question the reality and the intensity of this misanthropy. It was one of
his strange habits to celebrate his birthday by reading the third chapter
of the Book of Job, in which the patriarch cursed bitterly the day of
his birth. “I hate life,” he once wrote on learning the early death of a
dear friend, “when I think it is exposed to such accidents, and to see
so many thousand wretches burdening the earth while such as her die
makes me think God did never intend life for a blessing.” “Life,” he
wrote to Pope, “is not a farce: it is a ridiculous tragedy, which is the
worst kind of composition.”
The melancholy of Swift was doubtless essentially constitutional,
and mainly due to a physical malady which had long acted upon his
brain. His nature was a profoundly unhappy one, but it is not true that
his life was on the whole unprosperous. Very few penniless men of
genius have had the advantages which he obtained at an early age by
his connection with Sir William Temple. He tasted in ample measure
all the sweets of literary success, and although his political career was
chequered by grave disappointments he obtained both in England
and in Ireland some brilliant triumphs. A deanery in an important
provincial capital, where he was adored by the populace, and where he
had warm friends among the gentry, may not have been all to which
he aspired, but it was no very deplorable fate, and although the income
attached to it was moderate and at one time greatly diminished, it was
sufficient for his small wants and frugal habits. Above all, few men
have received from those who knew them best a larger measure of
affection and friendship. But happiness and misery come mainly from
within, and to Swift life had lost all its charm.
NOTE
1. “With a whirl of thought oppress’d,
I sunk from reverie to rest.
A horrid vision seized my head,
I saw the graves give up their dead!
Jove, arm’d with terrors, burst the skies,
And thunder roars and lightning flies!
Amazed, confused, its fate unknown,
The world stands trembling at his throne!
While each pale sinner hung his head,
Jove, nodding, shook the heavens, and said: