A Private History of Happiness Read Online Free Page B

1813
    Last Tuesday I began to read with Crommelin the second book of Virgil. I declare that this reading greatly pleased me. We made good progress, without getting too far or perfectly understanding what we were reading; but how beautiful this Virgil is and what a pleasure in one’s life to get to know such great authors.
    This Crommelin is one of my very oldest friends whom I have been very happy to rediscover. He has been wandering for a long time in foreign towns and he returned at last to his hometown. He has acquired lots of knowledge and is also a very passionate friend of literature.

    In 1813, Willem was eighteen years old, living in his father’s home in Amsterdam. They were well-off people, though not extravagantly wealthy. All around, there was the excitement and clamor of Napoleonic Europe: the French emperor held power in the Low Countries at the time. His invasion of Russia had failed, but there was still the last energy of the regime in the air. Willem had just begun to keep a journal, which in fact accompanied him through the rest of his life. Most of it was to be in Dutch, but during these early years he wrote in French.
    He was an energetic person, serious and focused. Later on, he became a leading poet, a religious thinker, and also a founder of the Dutch textiles industry. Here, though, he recorded an ordinary Tuesday when two young men sat down together and opened a large volume with text in Latin. It was one of the works that Willem knew were considered the classics of the European past.
    Perhaps because of the contemporary French Empire, he turned to the story of the legendary founding of the original European empire, ancient Rome. Virgil’s first-century BCE epic poem described the story of Aeneas, as he made his way from defeated Troy to the site of the future city of empire.
    Willem’s friend was about the same age but he had more experience of the world. Crommelin had been “for a long time in foreign towns.” They had lost touch during those years. Now, Willem was glad to pick up the threads of their old friendship. He was impressed by how much his friend knew about life. Above all, though, he was happy because they shared the same passion for reading. As they sat together, turning the pages and struggling to understand the Latin sentences, they were kept going by this shared intensity. It was a day of real communion together.
    Their Latin was perhaps a little weak. They were not able to understand everything perfectly, but they kept on going as best they could. This was not a mechanical exercise in translation. Even though they did not grasp everything perfectly, they made out enough to realize “how beautiful this Virgil is” and to have a genuine experience of literature—“what a pleasure in one’s life to get to know such great authors.”
    This was really a threefold moment of friendship, since the two young men were joined in spirit by a third companion, the poet Virgil himself. It was almost as if he was there with them. The friends felt that they had entered into the select company of ancient European civilization.
    There was also time to chat about their lives. Willem was eager to learn about his friend’s travels—and became upset when he heard how restrictive Crommelin’s father had been: “His father, though, is a bigoted man. He never allowed his son to go to see a play or to have a game of cards. What ridiculous childishness!”
    All of it together made up this moment of friendship: the ancient story, the associations with their school days, and the gossip about their lives. While outside Napoleonic Europe entered its last years, two young men had a happy Tuesday together.

A Climb to the Top of the Hill
    Kamo no Chomei, poet and former courtier, composing a short memoir
    THE FOOTHILLS OF MOUNT HINO, JAPAN • 1212
    At the foot of the hill stands a wooden hut, which is where the hill’s caretaker resides. With him lives a young child [the caretaker’s son] who