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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10826-0.txt b/10826-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7195282 --- /dev/null +++ b/10826-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3002 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10826 *** + +THE BOOK-BILLS OF NARCISSUS + +AN ACCOUNT RENDERED BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + +WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY ROBERT FOWLER + +1895 + + + + +TABLE OF CHAPTERS + + I. INTRODUCTORY + II. STILL INTRODUCTORY, BUT THIS TIME + OF A GREATER THAN THE WRITER + III. IN WHICH NARCISSUS OPENS HIS 'GLADSTONE' + IV. ACCOUNTS RENDERED + V. AN IDYLL OF ALICE SUNSHINE, WHICH + REALLY BELONGS TO THE LAST CHAPTER + VI. THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS + VII. THE CHILDREN OF APOLLO +VIII. GEORGE MUNCASTER + IX. THAT THIRTEENTH MAID + X. 'IN VISHNU-LAND WHAT AVATAR?' + + + + +TO MILDRED + + Always thy book, too late acknowledged thine, + Now when thine eyes no earthly page may read; + Blinded with death, or blinded with the shine + Of love's own lore celestial. Small need, + Forsooth, for thee to read my earthly line, + That on immortal flowers of fancy feed; + What should my angel do to stoop to mine, + Flowers of decay of no immortal seed. + + Yet, love, if in thy lofty dwelling-place, + Higher than notes of any soaring bird, + Beyond the beam of any solar light, + A song of earth may scale the awful height, + And at thy heavenly window find thy face-- + know my voice shall never fall unheard. + +_December 6th,_ 1894. + +NOTE.--_This third edition has been revised, and Chapter V. is entirely +new_. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +INTRODUCTORY--A WORD OF WISDOM, FOUND WRITTEN, LIKE THE MOST ANCIENT, ON +LEATHER + +'Ah! old men's boots don't go there, sir!' said the bootmaker to me one +day, as he pointed to the toes of a pair I had just brought him for +mending. It was a significant observation, I thought; and as I went on +my way home, writing another such chronicle with every springing step, +it filled me with much reflection--largely of the nature of platitude, I +have little doubt: such reflection, Reader, as is even already, I doubt +less, rippling the surface of your mind with ever-widening circles. Yes! +you sigh with an air, it is in the unconscious autobiographies we are +every moment writing--not those we publish in two volumes and a +supplement--where the truth about us is hid. Truly it is a thought that +has 'thrilled dead bosoms,' I agree, but why be afraid of it for that, +Reader? Truth is not become a platitude only in our day. 'The Preacher' +knew it for such some considerable time ago, and yet he did not fear to +'write and set in order many proverbs.' + +You have kept a diary for how many years? Thirty? dear me! But have you +kept your wine-bills? If you ever engage me to write that life, which, +of course, must some day be written--I wouldn't write it myself--don't +trouble about your diary. Lend me your private ledger. 'There the action +lies in his true nature.' + +Yet I should hardly, perhaps, have evoked this particular corollary from +that man of leather's observation, if I had not chanced one evening to +come across those old book-bills of my friend Narcissus, about which I +have undertaken to write here, and been struck--well-nigh awe-struck--by +the wonderful manner in which there lay revealed in them the story of +the years over which they ran. To a stranger, I am sure, they would be +full of meaning; but to me, who lived so near him through so much of the +time, how truly pregnant does each briefest entry seem. + +To Messrs. Oldbuck and Sons they, alas! often came to be but so many +accounts rendered; to you, being a philosopher, they would, as I have +said, mean more; but to me they mean all that great sunrise, the youth +of Narcissus. + +Many modern poets, still young enough, are fond of telling us where +their youth lies buried. That of Narcissus--would ye know--rests among +these old accounts. Lo! I would perform an incantation. I throw these +old leaves into the _elixir vitae_ of sweet memory, as Dr. Heidegger +that old rose into his wonderful crystal water. Have I power to make +Narcissus' rose to bloom again, so that you may know something of the +beauty it wore for us? I wonder. I would I had. I must try. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +STILL INTRODUCTORY, BUT THIS TIME OF A GREATER THAN THE WRITER + +On the left-hand side of Tithefields, just as one turns out of Prince +Street, in a certain well-known Lancashire town, is the unobtrusive +bookshop of Mr. Samuel Dale. It must, however, be a very superficial +glance which does not discover in it something characteristic, +distinguishing it from other 'second-hand' shops of the same size and +style. + +There are, alas! treatises on farriery in the window; geographies, +chemistries, and French grammars, on the trestles outside; for Samuel, +albeit so great a philosopher as indeed to have founded quite a school, +must nevertheless live. Those two cigars and that 'noggin' of whiskey, +which he purchases with such a fine solemnity as he and I go home +together for occasional symposia in his bachelor lodging--those, I say, +come not without sale of such treatises, such geographies, chemistries, +and French grammars. + +But I am digressing. There is a distinguishing air, I but meant to say, +about the little shop. Looking closer, one generally finds that it comes +of a choice bit of old binding, or the quaint title-page of some tuneful +Elizabethan. It was an old Crashaw that first drew me inside; and, +though for some reason I did not buy it then, I bought it a year after, +because to it I owed the friendship of Samuel Dale. + +And thus for three bright years that little shop came to be, for a daily +hour or so, a blessed palm-tree away from the burden and heat of the +noon, a holy place whither the money-changers and such as sold doves +might never come, let their clamour in the outer courts ring never so +loud. There in Samuel's talk did two weary-hearted bond-servants of +Egypt draw a breath of the Infinite into their lives of the desk; there +could they sit awhile by the eternal springs, and feel the beating of +the central heart. + +So it happened one afternoon, about five years ago, that I dropped in +there according to wont. But Samuel was engaged with some one in that +dim corner at the far end of the shop, where his desk and arm-chair, +tripod of that new philosophy, stood: so I turned to a neighbouring +shelf to fill the time. At first I did not notice his visitor; but as, +in taking down this book and that, I had come nearer to the talkers, I +was struck with something familiar in the voice of the stranger. It came +upon me like an old song, and looking up--why, of course, it was +Narcissus! + +The letter N does not make one of the initials on the Gladstone bag +which he had with him on that occasion, and which, filled with books, +lay open on the floor close by; nor does it appear on any of those +tobacco-pouches, cigar-cases, or handkerchiefs with which men beloved of +fair women are familiar. And Narcissus might, moreover, truthfully say +that _it_ has never appeared upon any manner of stamped paper coming +under a certain notable Act. + +To be less indulgent to a vice from which the Reader will, I fear, have +too frequent occasion to suffer in these pages, and for which he may +have a stronger term than digression, let me at once say that Narcissus +is but the name Love knew him by, Love and the Reader; for that name by +which he was known to the postman--and others--is no necessity here. How +and why he came to be so named will appear soon enough. + +Yes! it was the same old Narcissus, and he was wielding just the same +old magic, I could see, as in our class-rooms and playgrounds five years +before. What is it in him that made all men take him so on his own +terms, made his talk hold one so, though it so often stumbled in the +dark, and fell dumb on many a verbal _cul-de-sac_? Whatever it is, +Samuel felt it, and, with that fine worshipful spirit of his--an +attitude which always reminds me of the elders listening to the boy +Jesus--was doing that homage for which no beauty or greatness ever +appeals to him in vain. What an eye for soul has Samuel! How inevitably +it pierces through all husks and excrescences to the central beauty! In +that short talk he knew Narcissus through and through; three years or +thirty years could add but little. But the talk was not ended yet; +indeed, it seemed like so many of those Tithefields talks, as if in the +'eternal fitness of things' it never could, would, or should end. It was +I at last who gave it pause, and--yes! indeed, it was he. We had, +somehow, not met for quite three years, chums as we had been at school. +He had left there for an office some time before I did, and, oddly +enough, this was our first meeting since then. A purchaser for one of +those aforesaid treatises on farriery just then coming in, dislodged us; +so, bidding Samuel good-bye--he and Narcissus already arranging for 'a +night'--we obeyed a mutual instinct, and presently found ourselves in +the snuggery of a quaint tavern, which was often to figure hereafter in +our sentimental history, though probably little in these particular +chapters of it. The things 'seen done at "The Mermaid "' may some day be +written in another place, where the Reader will know from the beginning +what to expect, and not feel that he has been induced to buy a volume +under false pretences. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +IN WHICH NARCISSUS OPENS HIS 'GLADSTONE' + +Though it was so long since we had met--is not three years indeed 'so +long' in youth?--we had hardly to wait for our second glass to be again +_en rapport_. Few men grow so rapidly as Narcissus did in those young +days, but fewer still can look back on old enthusiasms and superannuated +ideals with a tenderness so delicately considerate. Most men hasten to +witness their present altitude by kicking away the old ladders on the +first opportunity; like vulgar lovers, they seek to flatter to-day at +the expense of yesterday. But Narcissus was of another fibre; he could +as soon have insulted the memory of his first love. + +So, before long, we had passed together into a sweet necropolis of +dreams, whither, if the Reader care, I will soon take him by the hand. +But just now I would have him concern himself with the afternoon of +which I write, in that sad tense, the past present. Indeed, we did not +ourselves tarry long among the shades, for we were young, and youth has +little use for the preterite; its verbs are wont to have but two tenses. +We soon came up to the surface in one, with eyes turned instinctively on +the other. + +Narcissus' bag seemed, somehow, a symbol; and I had caught sight of a +binding or two as it lay open in Tithefields that made me curious to see +it open again. He was only beginning to collect when we had parted at +school, if 'collect' is not too sacred a word: beginning to _buy_ more +truly expresses that first glutting of the bookish hunger, which, like +the natural appetite, never passes in some beyond the primary +utilitarian stage of 'eating to live,' otherwise 'buying to read.' Three +years, however, works miracles of refinement in any hunger that is at +all capable of culture; and it was evident, when Narcissus did open his +'Gladstone,' that it had taken him by no means so long to attain that +sublimation of taste which may be expressed as 'reading to buy.' Each +volume had that air--of breeding, one might almost say--by which one can +always know a genuine _bouquin_ at a glance; an alluvial richness of +bloom, coming upon one like an aromatic fragrance in so many old things, +in old lawns, in old flowers, old wines, and many another delicious +simile. One could not but feel that each had turned its golden brown, +just as an apple reddens--as, indeed, it had. + +I do not propose to solemnly enumerate and laboriously describe these +good things, because I hardly think they would serve to distinguish +Narcissus, except in respect of luck, from other bookmen in the first +furor of bookish enthusiasm. They were such volumes as Mr. Pendennis ran +up accounts for at Oxford. Narcissus had many other points in common +with that gentleman. Such volumes as, morning after morning, sadden +one's breakfast-table in that Tantalus _menu_, the catalogue. Black +letter, early printed, first editions Elizabethan and Victorian, every +poor fly ambered in large paper, etc. etc.; in short, he ran through the +gamut of that craze which takes its turn in due time with marbles, +peg-tops, beetles, and foreign stamps--with probably the two exceptions +of Bewick, for whom he could never batter up an enthusiasm, and +'facetiae.' These latter needed too much camphor, he used to say. + +His two most cherished possessions were a fine copy of the _Stultitiae +Laus_, printed by Froben, which had once been given by William Burton, +the historian, to his brother Robert, when the latter was a youngster of +twenty; and a first edition of one of Walton's lives, 'a presentation +copy from the author.' The former was rich with the autographs and +marginalia of both brothers, and on the latter a friend of his has +already hung a tale, which may or may not be known to the Reader. In the +reverent handling of these treasures, two questions inevitably forced +themselves upon me: where the d----l Narcissus, an apprentice, with an +allowance that would hardly keep most of us in tobacco, had found the +money for such indulgences; and how he could find in his heart to sell +them again so soon. A sorrowful interjection, as he closed his bag, +explained all:-- + +'Yes!' he sighed, 'they have cost me thirty pounds, and guess how much I +have been offered for them?' + +I suggested ten. + +'Five,' groaned my poor friend. 'I tried several to get that. "H'm," +says each one, indifferently turning the most precious in his hand, +"this would hardly be any use to me; and this I might have to keep +months before I could sell. That I could make you an offer for; what +have you thought of for it?" With a great tugging at your heart, and +well-nigh in tears, you name the absurdest minimum. You had given five; +you halve it--surely you can get that! But "O no! I can give nothing +like that figure. In that case it is no use to talk of it." In despair +you cry, "Well, what will you offer?" with a choking voice. "Fifteen +shillings would be about my figure for it," answers the fiend, +relentless as a machine--and so on.' + +'I tried pawning them at first,' he continued, 'because there was hope +of getting them back some time that way; but, trudging from shop to +shop, with many prayers, "a sovereign for the lot" was all I could get. +Worse than dress-clothes!' concluded the frank creature. + +For Narcissus to be in debt was nothing new: he had always been so at +school, and probably always will be. Had you reproached him with it in +those young self-conscious days of glorious absurdity, he would probably +have retorted, with a toss of his vain young head:-- + +'Well, and so was Shelley!' + +I ventured to enquire the present difficulty that compelled him to make +sacrifice of things so dear. + +'Why, to pay for them, of course,' was the answer. + +And so I first became initiated into the mad method by which Narcissus +had such a library about him at twenty-one. From some unexplained +reason, largely, I have little doubt, on account of the charm of his +manners, he had the easy credit of those respectable booksellers to whom +reference has been made above. No extravagance seemed to shake their +confidence. I remember calling upon them with him one day some months +following that afternoon--for the madness, as usual, would have its +time, and no sufferings seemed to teach him prudence--and he took me up +to a certain 'fine set' that he had actually resisted, he said, for a +fortnight. Alas! I knew what that meant. Yes, he must have it; it was +just the thing to help him with a something he was writing--'not to +read, you know, but to make an atmosphere,' etc. So he used to talk; and +the odd thing was, that we always took the wildness seriously; he seemed +to make us see just what he wanted. 'I say, John,' was the next I heard, +at the other end of the shop, 'will you kindly send me round that set +of' so-and-so, 'and charge it to my account?' 'John,' the son of old +Oldbuck, and for a short time a sort of friend of Narcissus, would +answer, 'Certainly,' with a voice of the most cheerful trust; and yet, +when we had gone, it was indeed no less a sum than £10, 10s. which he +added to the left-hand side of Mr. N.'s account. + +Do not mistake this for a certain vulgar quality, with a vulgar little +name of five letters. No one could have less of that than Narcissus. He +was often, on the contrary, quite painfully diffident. No, it was not +'cheek,' Reader; it was a kind of irrational innocence. I don't think it +ever occurred to him, till the bills came in at the half-years, what +'charge it to my account' really meant. Perhaps it was because, poor +lad, he had so small a practical acquaintance with it, that he knew so +little the value of money. But how he suffered when those accounts did +come in! Of course, there was nothing to be done but to apply to some +long-suffering friend; denials of lunch and threadbare coats but nibbled +at the amount--especially as a fast to-day often found revulsion in a +festival to-morrow. To save was not in Narcissus. + +I promised to digress, Reader, and I have kept my word. Now to return to +that afternoon again. It so chanced that on that day in the year I +happened to have in my pocket--what you might meet me every day in five +years without finding there--a ten-pound note. It was for this I felt +after we had been musing awhile--Narcissus, probably, on everything +else in the world except his debts--and it was with this I awoke him +from his reverie. He looked at his hand, and then at me, in +bewilderment. Poor fellow, how he wanted to keep it, yet how he tried to +look as if he couldn't think of doing so. He couldn't help his joy +shining through. + +'But I want you to take it,' I said; 'believe me, I have no immediate +need of it, and you can pay me at your leisure.' Ten pounds towards the +keep of a poet once in a lifetime is, after all, but little interest on +the gold he brings us. At last I 'prevailed,' shall I say? but on no +account without the solemnity of an IOU and a fixed date for repayment, +on which matter poor N. was always extremely emphatic. Alas! Mr. George +Meredith has already told us how this passionate anxiety to be bound by +the heaven above, the earth, and the waters under the earth, is the most +fatal symptom by which to know the confirmed in this kind. Captain +Costigan had it, it may be remembered; and the same solicitude, the same +tearful gratitude, I know, accompanied every such transaction of my +poor Narcissus. + +Whether it was as apparent on the due date, or whether of that ten +pounds I have ever looked upon the like again, is surely no affair of +the Reader's; but, lest he should do my friend an injustice, I had +better say--I haven't. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +ACCOUNTS RENDERED + +Nothing strikes one more in looking back, either on our own lives or on +those of others, than how little we assimilate from the greatest +experiences; in nothing is Nature's apparent wastefulness of means more +ironically impressive. A great love comes and sets one's whole being +singing like a harp, fills high heaven with rainbows, and makes our +dingy alleys for awhile bright as the streets of the New Jerusalem; and +yet, if five years after we seek for what its incandescence has left us, +we find, maybe, a newly helpful epithet, maybe a fancy, at most a +sonnet. Nothing strikes one more, unless, perhaps, the obverse, when we +see some trifling pebble-cast ripple into eternity, some fateful second +prolific as the fly aphis. And so I find it all again exampled in these +old accounts. The books that mean most for Narcissus to-day could be +carried in the hand without a strap, and could probably be bought for a +sovereign. The rest have survived as a quaint cadence in his style, have +left clinging about his thought a delicate incense of mysticism, or are +bound up in the retrospective tenderness of boyish loves long since gone +to dream. + +Another observation in the same line of reflection also must often +strike one:--for what very different qualities than those for which we +were first passionate do we come afterwards to value our old +enthusiasms. In the day of their bloom it was the thing itself, the +craze, the study, for its own sake; now it is the discipline, or any +broad human culture, in which they may have been influential. The boy +chases the butterfly, and thinks not of the wood and the blue heaven; +but those only does the man remember, for the mark of their beauty upon +him, so unconsciously impressed, for the health of their power and +sweetness still living in his blood--for these does that chase seem +alone of worth, when the dusty entomological relic thereof is in limbo. +And so that long and costly shelf, groaning beneath the weight of Grose +and Dugdale, and many a mighty slab of topographical prose; those +pilgrimages to remote parish churches, with all their attendant ardours +of careful 'rubbings'; those notebooks, filled with patient data; those +long letters to brother antiquaries--of sixteen; even that famous +Exshire Tour itself, which was to have rivalled Pennant's own--what +remains to show where this old passion stood, with all the clustering +foliage of a dream; what but that quaint cadence I spoke of, and an +anecdote or two which seemed but of little import then, with such +breathless business afoot as an old font or a Roman road? + +One particular Roman road, I know, is but remembered now, because, in +the rich twilight of an old June evening, it led up the gorsy stretches +of Lancashire 'Heights' to a solemn plateau, wide and solitary as +Salisbury Plain, from the dark border of which, a warm human note +against the lonely infinite of heath and sky, beamed the little +whitewashed 'Traveller's Rest,' its yellow light, growing stronger as +the dusk deepened, meeting the eye with a sense of companionship +becoming a vague need just then. + +The seeming spiritual significance of such forlorn wastes of no-man's +land had, I know, a specially strong appeal for Narcissus, and, in some +moods, the challenge which they seem to call from some 'dark tower' of +spiritual adventure would have led him wandering there till star-light; +but a day of rambling alone, in a strange country, among unknown faces, +brings a social hunger by evening, and a craving for some one to speak +to and a voice in return becomes almost a fear. A bright +kitchen-parlour, warm with the health of six workmen, grouped round a +game of dominoes, and one huge quart pot of ale, used among them as +woman in the early world, was a grateful inglenook, indeed, wherein to +close the day. Of course, friend N. joined them, and took his pull and +paid his round, like a Walt Whitman. I like to think of his slight +figure amongst them; his delicate, almost girl-like, profile against +theirs; his dreamy eyes and pale brow, surmounted by one of those dark +clusters of hair in which the fingers of women love to creep--an +incongruity, though of surfaces only, which certain who knew him but 'by +sight,' as the phrase is, might be at a loss to understand. That was one +of the surprises of his constitution. Nature had given him the dainty +and dreamy form of the artist, to which habit had added a bookish touch, +ending in a _tout ensemble_ of gentleness and distinction with little +apparent affinity to a scene like that in the 'Traveller's Rest.' But +there are many whom a suspicion of the dilettante in such an exterior +belies, and Narcissus was one of them. He had very strongly developed +that instinct of manner to which sympathy is a daily courtesy, and he +thus readily, when it suited him, could take the complexion of his +company, and his capacity of 'bend' was well-nigh genius. Of course, all +this is but to say that he was a gentleman; yet is not that in itself a +fine kind of originality? Besides, he had a genuine appetite for the +things of earth, such as many another delicate thing--a damask +rose-bush, for example--must be convicted of too; and often, when some +one has asked him 'what he could have in common with so-and-so,' I have +heard him answer: 'Tobacco and beer.' Samuel Dale once described him as +Shelley with a chin; and perhaps the chin accounted for the absence of +any of those sentimental scruples with regard to beefsteaks and certain +varieties of jokes, for which the saint-like deserter of Harriet +Westbrook was distinguished. + +A supremely quaint instance of this gift of accommodation befell during +that same holiday, which should not pass unrecorded, but which I offer +to the Reader with an emphatic _Honi soit qui mal y pense_. Despairing +of reaching a certain large manufacturing town on foot in time to put up +there, one evening, he was doing the last mile or two by rail, and, as +the train slackened speed he turned to his companions in the carriage to +enquire if they could tell him of a good hotel. He had but carelessly +noticed them before: an old man, a slight young woman of perhaps thirty, +and a girl about fifteen; working people, evidently, but marked by that +air of cleanly poverty which in some seems but a touch of ascetic +refinement. The young woman at once mentioned _The Bull_, and thereupon +a little embarrassed consultation in undertone seemed to pass between +her and the old man, resulting in a timid question as to whether +Narcissus would mind putting up with them, as they were poor folk, and +could well do with any little he cared to offer for his accommodation. +There was something of a sad winningness in the woman which had +predisposed him to the group, and without hesitation he at once +accepted, and soon was walking with them to their home, through streets +echoing with Lancashire 'clogs.' On the way he learnt the circumstances +of his companions. The young woman was a widow, and the girl her +daughter. Both worked through the day at one of the great cotton mills, +while the old man, father and grandfather, stayed at home and 'fended' +for them. Thus they managed to live in a comfort which, though +straitened, did not deny them such an occasional holiday as to-day had +been, or the old man the comfort of tobacco. The home was very small, +but clean and sweet; and it was not long before they were all sat down +together over a tea of wholesome bread and butter and eggs, in the +preparation of which it seemed odd to see the old man taking his share. +That over, he and Narcissus sat to smoke and talk of the neighbouring +countryside; N. on the look-out for folk-lore, and especially for any +signs in his companion of a lingering loyalty of belief in the +traditions thereabout, a loyalty which had something in it of a sacred +duty to him in those days. Those were the days when he still turned to +the east a-Sundays, and went out in the early morning, with Herrick +under his arm, to gather May-dew, with a great uplifting of the spirit, +in what indeed was a very real act of worship. + +But to my story! As bedtime approached Narcissus could not but be aware +of a growing uneasiness in the manner of the young woman. At last it was +explained. With blushing effort she stammered out the question: Would he +object to share his bed with--the old man? 'Of course not,' answered N. +at once, as though he had all the time intended doing that very thing, +and indeed, thought it the most delightful arrangement in the world. + +So up to bed go the oddly consorted pair. But the delicious climax was +yet to come. On entering the room, Narcissus found that there were two +beds there! Why should we leave that other bed empty?--he had almost +asked; but a laughing wonder shot through him, and he stopped in time. + +The old man was soon among the blankets, but Narcissus dallied over +undressing, looking at this and that country quaintness on the wall; and +then, while he was in a state of half man and half trousers, the voice +of the woman called from the foot of the stairs: Were they in bed yet? +'Surely, it cannot be! it is too irresistibly simple,' was his thought; +but he had immediately answered, 'In a moment,' as if such a question +was quite a matter of course. + +In that space he had blown the candle out, and was by the old man's +side: and then, in the darkness, he heard the two women ascending the +stairs. Just outside his door, which he had left ajar, they seemed to +turn off into a small adjoining room, from whence came immediately the +soft delicious sounds of female disrobing. They were but factory women, +yet Narcissus thought of Saint Agnes and Madeline, we may be sure. And +then, at last--indeed, there was to be no mistake about it--the door was +softly pushed open, and two dim forms whispered across to the adjoining +bed, and, after a little preliminary rustle, settled down to a rather +fluttered breathing. + +No one had spoken: not even a Goodnight; but Narcissus could hardly +refrain from ringing out a great mirthful cry, while his heart beat +strangely, and the darkness seemed to ripple, like sunlight in a cup, +with suppressed laughter. The thought of the little innocent deception +as to their sleeping-room, which poverty had caused them to practise, +probably held the breath of the women, while the shyness of sex was a +common bond of silence--at least, on the part of the three younger. It +was long before Narcissus was able to fall asleep, for he kept picturing +the elder woman with burning cheek and open eyes in a kind of 'listening +fear' beneath the coverlet; and the oddity of the thing was so original, +so like some _conte_ of a _Decameron_ or _Heptameron_, with the +wickedness left out. But at last wonder gave place to weariness, and +sleep began to make a still odder magic of the situation. The difficulty +of meeting at breakfast next morning, which had at once suggested itself +to N.'s mind, proved a vain fear; for, when he arose, that other bed was +as smooth as though it had lain untouched through the night, and the +daughters of labour had been gone two hours. But it was not quite +without sign that they had gone, for Narcissus had a dreamlike +impression of opening his eyes in the early light to find a sweet +woman's face leaning over him; and I am sure he wanted to believe that +it had bent down still further, till it had kissed his lips--' for his +mother's sake,' she had said in her heart, as she slipped away and was +seen no more. + +'If this were fiction, instead of a veracious study from life,' to make +use of a phrase which one rarely finds out of a novel, it would be +unfitting to let such an incident as that just related fall to the +ground, except as the seed of future development; but, this being as I +have stated, there is nothing more to say of that winning _ouvrière_. +Narcissus saw her no more. + +But surely, of all men, he could best afford that one such pleasant +chance should put forth no other blossom save that half-dreamed +kiss;--and how can one ever foresee but that our so cherishable spray of +bloom may in time add but another branch to that orchard of Dead Sea +fruit which grows inevitably about all men's dwellings? + +I do not suppose that Narcissus was really as exceptional in the number +and character of his numerous boyish loves as we always regarded him as +being. It is no uncommon matter, of course and alas! for a youth between +the ages of seventeen and nineteen to play the juggler at keeping three, +or even half-a-dozen, female correspondents going at once, each of whom +sleeps nightly with copious documentary evidence of her sole and +incontrovertible possession of the sacred heart. Nor has Narcissus been +the only lover, I suspect, who, in the season of the waning of the moon, +has sent such excuses for scrappy epistolary make-shifts as 'the +strident din of an office, an air so cruelly unsympathetic, as frost to +buds, to the blossoming of all those words of love that press for +birth,' when, as a matter of fact, he has been unblushingly eating the +lotus, in the laziest chair at home, in the quietest night of summer. +Such insincerity is a common besetting sin of the young male; +invariably, I almost think, if he has the artistic temperament. Yet I do +not think it presents itself to his mind in its nudity, but comes +clothed with that sophistry in which youth, the most thoroughgoing of +_philosophes_, is so ingenious. Consideration for the beloved object, it +is called--yes! beloved indeed, though, such is the paradox in the order +of things, but one of the several vestals of the sacred fire. One cannot +help occasional disinclination on a lazy evening, confound it! but it +makes one twinge to think of paining her with such a confession; and a +story of that sort--well, it's a lie, of course; but it's one without +any harm, any seed of potential ill, in it. So the letter goes, maybe to +take its place as the 150th of the sacred writings, and make poor +Daffodilia, who has loved to count the growing score, happy with the +completion of the half-century. + +But the disinclination goes not, though the poor passion has, of +course, its occasional leapings in the socket, and the pain has to come +at last, for all that dainty consideration, which, moreover, has been +all the time feeding larger capacities for suffering. For, of course, no +man thinks of marrying his twelfth love, though in the thirteenth there +is usually danger; and he who has jilted, so to say, an earl's daughter +as his sixth, may come to see + + 'The God of Love, ah! benedicite, + How mighty and how great a lord is he' + +in the thirteenth Miss Simpkins. + +But this is to write as an outsider: for that thirteenth, by a mystical +process which has given to each of its series in its day the same primal +quality, is, of course, not only the last, but the first. And, indeed, +with little casuistry, that thirteenth may be truly held to be the +first, for it is a fact determined not so much by the chosen maid as by +him who chooses, though he himself is persuaded quite otherwise. To him +his amorous career has been hitherto an unsuccessful pursuit, because +each followed fair in turn, when at length he has caught her flying +skirts, and looked into her face, has proved not that 'ideal'-- + + 'That not impossible she + That shall command my heart and me'-- + +but another, to be shaken free again in disappointment. In truth, +however, the lack has been in himself all this time. He had yet to learn +what loving indeed meant: and he loves the thirteenth, not because she +is pre-eminent beyond the rest, but because she has come to him at the +moment when that 'lore of loving' has been revealed. Had any of those +earlier maidens fallen on the happy conjunction, they would, doubtless, +have proved no less loveworthy, and seemed no less that 'ideal' which +they have since become, one may be sure, for some other illuminated +soul. + +Of course, some find that love early--the baby-love, whom one never +marries, and then the faithful service. Probably it happens so with the +majority of men; for it is, I think, especially to the artist nature +that it comes thus late. Living so vividly within the circle of its own +experience, by its very constitution so necessarily egoistic, the +latter, more particularly in its early years, is always a Narcissus, +caring for nought or none except in so much as they reflect back its own +beauty or its own dreams. The face such a youth looks for, as he turns +the coy captured head to meet his glance, is, quite unconsciously, his +own, and the 'ideal' he seeks is but the perfect mirror. Yet it is not +that mirror he marries after all: for when at last he has come to know +what that word--one so distasteful, so 'soiled' to his ear 'with all +ignoble' domesticity--what that word 'wife' really expresses, he has +learnt, too, to discredit those cynical guides of his youth who love so +well to write Ego as the last word of human nature. + +But the particular Narcissus of whom I write was a long way off that +thirteenth maid in the days of his antiquarian rambles and his +Pagan-Catholic ardours, and the above digression is at least out of +date. + +A copy of Keats which I have by me as I write is a memorial of one of +the pretty loves typical of that period. It is marked all through in +black lead--not so gracefully as one would have expected from the 'taper +fingers' which held the pencil, but rather, it would appear, more with +regard to emphasis than grace. Narcissus had lent it to the queen of the +hour with special instructions to that end, so that when it came to him +again he might ravish his soul with the hugging assurance given by the +thick lead to certain ecstatic lines of _Endymion,_ such as-- + + 'My soul doth melt + For the unhappy youth;' + 'He surely cannot now + Thirst for another love;' + +and luxuriate in a genial sense of godship where the tremulous pencil +had left the record of a sigh against-- + + 'Each tender maiden whom he once thought fair.' + +But it was a magnanimous godship; and, after a moment's leaning back +with closed eyes, to draw in all the sweet incense, how nobly would he +act, in imaginative vignette, the King Cophetua to this poor suppliant +of love; with what a generous waiving of his power--and with what a +grace!--did he see himself raising her from her knees, and seating her +at his right hand. Yet those pencil-marks, alas! mark but a secondary +interest in that volume. A little sketch on the fly-leaf, 'by another +hand,' witness the prettier memory. A sacred valley, guarded by smooth, +green hills; in the midst a little lake, fed at one end by a singing +stream, swallowed at the other by the roaring darkness of a mill; green +rushes prosperous in the shallows, and along the other bank an old +hedgerow; a little island in the midst, circled by silver lilies; and in +the distance, rising from out a cloud of tangled green, above the little +river, an old church tower. Below, though not 'in the picture,' a quaint +country house, surrounded by a garden of fair fruit-trees and wonderful +bowers, through which ran the stream, free once again, and singing for +joy of the light. In the great lone house a solitary old man, cherished +and ruled by--'The Miller's Daughter.' Was scene ever more in need of a +fairy prince? Narcissus sighed, as he broke upon it one rosy evening, +to think what little meaning all its beauty had, suffering that lack; +but as he had come thither with the purpose, at once firm and vague, of +giving it a memory, he could afford to sigh till morning's light +brought, maybe, the opportunity of that transfiguring action. He was to +spend an Easter fortnight there, as the guest of some farmer-relatives +with whom he had stayed years before, in a period to which, being +nineteen, he already alluded as his 'boyhood.' + +And it is not quite accurate to say that it had no memory for him, for +he brought with him one of that very miller's daughter, though, indeed, +it was of the shadowiest silver. It had chanced at that early time that +an influx of visitors to the farm had exceeded the sleeping room, and he +and another little fellow had been provided with a bed in the miller's +house. He had never quite forgotten that bedroom--its huge old-fashioned +four-poster, slumbrous with great dark hangings, such as Queen Elizabeth +seems always to have slept in; its walls dim with tapestry, and its +screen of antique bead-work. But it was round the toilet table that +memory grew brightest, for thereon was a crystal phial of a most +marvellous perfume, and two great mother-of-pearl shells, shedding a +mystical radiance--the most commonplace Rimmel's, without doubt, and the +shells 'dreadful,' one may be sure. But to him, as he took a reverent +breath of that phial, it seemed the very sweetbriar fragrance of her +gown that caught his sense; and, surely, he never in all the world found +scent like that again. Thus, long after, she would come to him in +day-dreams, wafted on its strange sweetness, and clothed about with that +mystical lustre of pearl. + +There were five years between him and that memory as he stepped into +that enchanted land for the second time. The sweet figure of young +womanhood to which he had turned his boyish soul in hopeless worship, +when it should have been busied rather with birds' nests and +rabbit-snares, had, it is true, come to him in dimmer outline each +Spring, but with magic the deeper for that. As the form faded from the +silver halo, and passed more and more into mythology, it seemed, indeed, +as if she had never lived for him at all, save in dreams, or on another +star. Still, his memory held by those great shells, and he had come at +last to the fabled country on the perilous quest--who of us dare venture +such a one to-day?--of a 'lost saint.' Enquiry of his friends that +evening, cautious as of one on some half-suspected diplomacy, told him +that one with the name of his remembrance did live at the +mill-house--with an old father, too. But how all the beauty of the +singing morning became a scentless flower when, on making the earliest +possible call, he was met at the door with that hollow word, 'Away'--a +word that seemed to echo through long rooms of infinite emptiness and +turn the daylight shabby--till the addendum, 'for the day,' set the +birds singing again, and called the sunshine back. + +A few nights after he was sitting at her side, by a half-opened window, +with his arm about her waist, and her head thrillingly near his. With +his pretty gift of recitation he was pouring into her ear that sugared +passage in _Endymion_, appropriately beginning, 'O known unknown,' +previously 'got up' for the purpose; but alas! not too perfectly to +prevent a break-down, though, fortunately, at a point that admitted a +ready turn to the dilemma:-- + + 'Still + Let me entwine thee surer, surer ...' + +Here exigency compelled N. to make surety doubly, yea, trebly, sure; but +memory still forsaking him, the rascal, having put deeper and deeper +significance into his voice with each repetition, dropped it altogether +as he drew her close to him, and seemed to fail from the very excess of +love. An hour after, he was bounding into the moonlight in an +intoxication of triumph. She was won. The beckoning wonder had come down +to him. And yet it was real moonlight--was not that his own grace in +silhouette, making a mirror even of the hard road?--real grass over +which he had softly stept from her window, real trees, all real, +except--yes! was it real love? + +In the lives of all passionate lovers of women there are two +broadly-marked periods, and in some a third: slavery, lordship, and +service. The first is the briefest, and the third, perhaps, seldom +comes; the second is the most familiar. + +Awakening, like our forefather, from the deep sleep of childish things, +the boy finds a being by his side of a strange hushing fairness, as +though in the night he had opened his eyes and found an angel by his +bed. Speech he has not at all, and his glance dare not rise beyond her +bosom; till, the presence seeming gracious, he dares at length stretch +out his hand and touch her gown; whereon an inexplicable new joy +trembles through him, as though he stood naked in a May meadow through +the golden rain of a summer shower. Should her fingers touch his arm by +chance, it is as though they swept a harp, and a music of piercing +sweetness runs with a sudden cry along his blood. But by and by he comes +to learn that he has made a comical mistake about this wonder. With his +head bent low in worship, he had not seen the wistfulness of her gaze on +him; and one day, lo! it is she who presses close to him with the timid +appeal of a fawn. Indeed, she has all this time been to him as some +beautiful woodland creature might have seemed, breaking for the first +time upon the sight of primitive man. Fear, wonder inexpressible, +worship, till a sudden laughing thought of comprehension, then a lordly +protectiveness, and, after that--the hunt! At once the masculine +self-respect returns, and the wonder, though no less sweet in itself, +becomes but another form of tribute. + +With Narcissus this evolution had taken place early: it was very long +ago--he felt old even then to think of it--since Hesperus had sung like +a nightingale above his first kiss, and his memory counted many trophies +of lordship. But, surely, this last was of all the starriest; perhaps, +indeed, so wonderful was it, it might prove the very love which would +bring back again the dream that had seemed lost for ever with the +passing of that mythical first maid so long ago, a love in which worship +should be all once more, and godship none at all. But is not such a +question all too certainly its own answer? Nay, Narcissus, if indeed you +find that wonder-maid again, you will not question so; you will forget +to watch that graceful shadow in the moonlight; you will but ask to sit +by her silent, as of old, to follow her to the end of the world. Ah me! + + 'How many queens have ruled and passed + Since first we met; + How thick and fast + The letters used to come at first, + How thin at last; + Then ceased, and winter for a space! + Until another hand + Brought spring into the land, + And went the seasons' pace.' + +That Miller's Daughter, although 'so dear, so dear,' why, of course, she +was not that maid: but again the silver halo has grown about her; again +Narcissus asks himself, 'Did she live, or did I dream?'; again she comes +to him at whiles, wafted on that strange incense, and clothed about in +that mystical lustre of pearl. + +Doubtless, she lives in that fabled country still: but Narcissus has +grown sadly wise since then, and he goes on pilgrimage no more. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +AN IDYLL OF ALICE SUNSHINE, WHICH REALLY BELONGS TO THE LAST CHAPTER + +If the Reader has heard enough of the amourettes of the young gentleman +upon whose memoirs I am engaged, let him skip this chapter and pass to +the graver chapters beyond. My one aim is the Reader's pleasure, and I +carry my solicitude so far that if he finds his happiness to lie outside +these pages altogether, has no choice among these various chapters, but +prefers none to any, I am quite content. Such a spirit of +self-abnegation, the Reader must admit, is true love. + +Perhaps it was an early unconscious birth-impulse of the true love some +day to be born in his heart, that caused Narcissus to make a confession +to his Miller's Daughter, on one of their pretty decorative evenings, +when they sat together at the fireside, while the scent of the climbing +roses, and the light of the climbing moon, came in at the window. + +The immediate effect of the confession was--no wonder--to draw tears. +And how beautiful she looked in tears! Who would dive for pearls when +the pearl-fisheries of a woman's eyes are his to rifle? + +Beautiful, beautiful tears, flow on--no dull, leaden rain, no mere +monotonous deluge, but a living, singing fountain, crowned with such +rainbows as hang roses and stars in the fine mist of samite waterfalls, +irradiated by gleaming shafts of lovely anger and scorn. + +Like Northern Lights on autumn evenings, the maiden's eyes pierced +Narcissus through and through with many-coloured spears. There was +thunder, too; the earth shook--just a little: but soon Narcissus saw the +white dove of peace flying to him through the glancing showers. For all +her sorrow, his was the peace of confession. His little lie had been +acknowledged, his treason self-betrayed. + +And it was this. + +I have hinted that Narcissus, like the Catholic Church, worshipped many +saints. At this time, one of them, by a thrilling coincidence, chanced +to have her shrine at a boarding-school, some fifteen miles or so from +the mill-pond on whose banks the Miller's Daughter had drawn into her +lovely face so much of the beauty of the world. Alice Sunshine, shall we +call her, was perhaps more of a cherub than a saint; a rosy, laughing, +plump little arrangement of sunshiny pink and white flesh, with blue +eyes and golden hair. Alice was not overburdened with intellectuality, +and, like others of her sex, her heart was nothing like so soft as her +bosom. Narcissus had first been in love with her sister; but he and the +sister--a budding woman of the world--had soon agreed that they were not +born for each other, and Narcissus had made the transfer of his tragic +passion with inexpensive informality. As the late Anthony Trollope would +finish one novel to-night, and begin another to-morrow morning, so would +Narcissus be off with the old love this Sunday, and visibly on with the +new the next. + +Dear little plump, vegetable-marrow Alice! Will Narcissus ever forget +that Sunday night when the church, having at last released its weary +worshippers, he stole, not as aforetime to the soft side of Emily, but +to the still softer side of the little bewildered Alice. For, though +Alice had worshipped him all the time, and certainly during the whole of +the service, she had never dared to hope that he would pass her dashing, +dark-eyed sister to love _her_--little, blonde, phlegmatic, blue-eyed +Alice. + +But Apollo was bent on the capture of his Daphne. Truth to say, it was +but the work of a moment. The golden arrow was in her heart, the wound +kissed whole again, and the new heaven and the new earth all arranged +for, in hardly longer time than it takes to tell. + +In youth the mystery of woman is still so fresh and new, that to make a +fuss about a particular woman seems like looking a gift-horse of the +gods in the mouth. The light on the face of womanhood in general is so +bewilderingly beautiful that the young man literally cannot tell one +woman from another. They are all equally wonderful. Masculine +observation leads one to suppose that woman's first vision of man +similarly precludes discrimination. + +Ah me! it is easy to laugh to-day, but it was heart--bleeding tragedy +when those powers that oughtn't to be decreed Alice's exile to a +boarding-school in some central Africa of the midland counties. + +The hemorrhage of those two young hearts! But, for a time, each +plastered the other's wounds with letters--dear letters--letters every +post. For the postal authorities made no objection to Narcissus +corresponding with two or more maidens at once. And it is only fair to +Alice to say, that she knew as little of the Miller's Daughter as the +Miller's Daughter knew of her. + +So, when Narcissus was reciting _Endymion_ to his Miller's Maid, it was +not without a minor chord plaining through the major harmonies of the +present happiness; the sense that Alice was but fifteen miles away--so +near she could almost hear him if he called--only fifteen miles away, +and it was a long three months since they had met. + +It now becomes necessary to admit a prosaic fact hitherto concealed +from the Reader. Narcissus rode a bicycle. It was, I must confess, a +rather 'modern' thing to do. But surely the flashing airy wheel is the +most poetical mode of locomotion yet invented, and one looks more like a +fairy prince than ever in knickerbockers. Whenever Narcissus turned his +gleaming spokes along some mapped, but none the less mysterious, +county--road, he thought of Lohengrin in his barge drawn by white swans +to his mystic tryst; he thought of the seven-leagued boots, the flying +carpet, the wishing-cap, and the wooden Pegasus,--so called because it +mounted into the clouds on the turning of a peg. As he passed along by +mead and glade, his wheel sang to him, and he sang to his wheel. It was +a daisied, daisied world. + +There were buttercups and violets in it too as he sped along in the +early morning of an unforgotten Easter Sunday, drawn, so he had +shamelessly told his Miller's Daughter, by antiquarian passion to visit +the famous old parish church near which Alice was at school. +Antiquarian passion! Well, certainly it is an antiquarian passion now. + +But then--how his heart beat! how his eyes shone as with burning kohl! +That there was anything to be ashamed of in this stolen ride never even +occurred to him. And perhaps there was little wrong in it, after all. +Perhaps, when the secrets of all hearts are revealed, it will come out +that the Miller's Daughter took the opportunity to meet Narcissus' +understudy,--who can tell? + +But the wonderful fresh morning-scented air was a delicious fact beyond +dispute. That was sincere. Ah, there used to be real mornings then!--not +merely interrupted nights. + +And it was the Easter-morning of romance. There was a sweet passionate +Sabbath-feeling everywhere. Sabbath-bells, and Sabbath-birds, and +Sabbath-flowers. There was even a feeling of restful Sabbath-cheer about +the old inn, where, at last, entering with much awe the village where +Alice nightly slept--clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, +--Narcissus provided for the demands of romance by a hearty +country breakfast. A manna of blessing seemed to lie thick upon every +thing. The very ham and eggs seemed as if they had been blessed by the +Pope. + +It was yet an hour to church-time, an hour usually one of spiteful +alacrity; but this morning, it seemed, in defiance of the clock, cruelly +unpunctual. After breakfast, Narcissus strolled about the town, and +inquired the way to Miss Curlpaper's school. It stood outside the little +town. It was pointed out to him in the distance, across billowy clouds +of pear and apple-blossom, making the hollow in which the town nestled +seem a vast pot-pourri jar, overflowing with newly gathered rose-leaves. + +Had the Miller's Daughter been able to watch his movements, she would +have remarked that his antiquarian ardour drew him not to the church, +but to a sombre many-windowed house upon the hill. + +Narcissus reconnoitred the prison-like edifice from behind a hedge, then +summoned courage to walk past with slow nonchalance. All was as dead and +dull as though Alice was not there. Yet somewhere within those +prison-walls her young beauty was dressing itself to meet the spring. +Perhaps, in delicious linen, soft and white, she was dashing cool water +about her rosebud face, or, flushed with exhilaration, was pinning up +the golden fleeces of her hair. Perhaps she was eating wonderful bacon +and eggs! Could she be thinking of him? She little knew how near he was +to her. He had not written of his coming. Letters at Miss Curlpaper's +had to pass an inspection much more rigorous than the Customs, but still +smuggling was not unknown. For success, however, carefully laid plans +and regular dates were necessary, and Narcissus' visit had fallen +between the dates. + +No! there was no sign of her. She was as invisible as the moon at +mid-day. And there were the church-bells beginning to call her: 'Alice, +Alice, put on your things!' + + 'Alice, Alice, put on your things! + The birds are calling, the church bell rings; + The sun is shining, and I am here, + Waiting--and waiting--for you, my dear. + + Alice, Alice, doff your gown of night, + Draw on your bodice as lilies white, + Draw on your petticoats, clasp your stays,-- + Oh! Alice, Alice, those milky ways! + + Alice, Alice, how long you are! + The hour is late and the church is far; + Slowly, more slowly, the church bell rings-- + Alice, Alice, put on your things!' + +Really it was not in Narcissus' plans to wait at the school till Alice +appeared. The Misses Curlpaper were terrible unknown quantities to him. +For a girl to have a boy hanging about the premises was a capital crime, +he knew. Boys are to girls' schools what Anarchists are to public +buildings. They come under the Explosives Acts. It was not, indeed, +within the range of his hope that he might be able to speak to Alice. A +look, a long, immortal, all-expressive look, was all he had travelled +fifteen miles to give and win. For that he would have travelled fifteen +hundred. + +His idea was to sit right in front of the nave, where Alice could not +miss seeing him--where others could see him too in his pretty +close-fitting suit of Lincoln green. So down through the lanes he went, +among the pear and apple orchards, from out whose blossom the clanging +tower of the old church jutted sheer, like some Bass Rock amid rosy +clustering billows. Their love had been closely associated from its +beginning with the sacred things of the church, so regular had been +their attendance, not only on Sundays, but at week-night services. To +Alice and Narcissus there were two Sabbaths in the week, Sunday and +Wednesday. I suppose they were far from being the only young people +interested in their particular form of church-work. Leander met Hero, it +will be remembered, on the way to church, and the Reader may recall +Marlowe's beautiful description of her dress upon that fatal morning: + + 'The outside of her garments were of lawn, + The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn; + Her wide sleeves green, and bordered with a grove, + Where Venus in her naked glory strove + To please the careless and disdainful eyes + Of proud Adonis, that before her lies; + Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain, + Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain....' + +Alice wore pretty dresses too, if less elaborate; and, despite its +change of name, was not the church where she and Narcissus met, as the +church wherein Hero and Leander first looked upon each other, the Temple +of Love? Certainly the country church to which Narcissus +self-consciously passed through groups of Sunday-clothed villagers, was +decked as for no Christian festival this Sabbath morning. The garlands +that twined about the old Norman columns, the clumps of primroses and +violets that sprung at their feet, as at the roots of gigantic beeches, +the branches of palm and black-thorn that transformed the chancel to a +bower: probably for more than knew it, these symbols of the joy and +beauty of earth had simpler, more instinctive, meanings than those of +any arbitrary creed. For others in the church besides Narcissus, no +doubt, they spoke of young love, the bloom and the fragrance thereof, of +mating birds and pairing men and maids, of the eternal principle of +loveliness, which, in spite of winter and of wrong, brings flowers and +faces to bless and beautify this church of the world. + +As Narcissus sat in his front row, his eyes drawn up in a prayer to the +painted glories of the great east window, his whole soul lifted up on +the wings of colour, scent, and sound--the whole sacred house had but +one meaning: just his love for Alice. Nothing in the world was too holy +to image that. The windows, the music, the flowers, all were metaphors +of her: and, as the organ swirled his soul along in the rapids of its +passionate, prayerful sound, it seemed to him that Alice and he already +stood at the gate of Heaven! + +Presently, across his mingled sensations came a measured tramp as of +boy-soldiers marching in line. You have heard it! You have _listened_ +for it!! It was the dear, unmistakable sound of a girls' school on the +march. Quickly it came nearer, it was in the porch--it was in the +church! Narcissus gave a swift glance round. He dare not give a real +searching look yet. His heart beat too fast, his cheek burned too red. +But he saw it was a detachment of girls--it certainly was Alice's +school. + +Then came the white-robed choristers, and the white-haired priests: _If +we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not +in us; but, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive +us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness_. + +DEARLY BELOVED BRETHREN.... + +His heart swelled with a sobbing exaltation of worship such as he had +not known for years. You could hardly have believed that a little +apple-dumpling of a pink and white girl was the real inspirer of that +look in his young face that made old ladies, even more than young ones, +gaze at him, and remark afterwards on the strange boy with the lovely +spiritual expression. + +But, all the time, Narcissus felt that Alice's great eyes were on him, +glowing with glad surprise. The service proceeded, but yet he forbore to +seek her. He took a delight in husbanding his coming joy. He would not +crudely snatch it. It would be all the sweeter for waiting. And the fire +in Alice's eyes would all the time be growing softer and softer. He +nearly looked as he thought of that. And surely that was her dear voice +calling to him in the secret language of the psalm. He sang back to her +with a wild rapture. Thus the morning stars sang together, he thought. + +And when the prayers laid lovely hands across the eyes of the +worshippers, still he sought not Alice, but prayed for her as perhaps +only a boy can: O Lord God, be good to Alice--already she is one of thy +angels. May her life be filled with light and joy! And if in the time to +come I am worthy of being ever by her side, may we live our lives +together, high and pure and holy as always in thy sight! Lord, thou +knowest how pure is my love; how I worship her as I worship the holy +angels themselves. But whatsoever is imperfect perfect by the +inspiration of thy Holy Spirit.... + +So prayed the soul of the boy for the soul of the girl, and his eyes +filled with tears as he prayed; the cup of the wonder and holiness of +the world ran over. + +Already, it seemed, that Alice and he lay clasped together in the arms +of God. + +So Narcissus prayed and sang his love in terms of an alien creed. He +sang of the love of Christ, he thought but of the love of Alice; and +still he refrained from plucking that wonderful passion-flower of her +glance. + +At length he had waited the whole service through; and, with the last +hallowed vibrations of the benediction, he turned his eyes, brimful of +love-light, greedily, eagerly, fearful lest one single ray should be +wasted on intermediate and irrelevant worshippers. + +Wonderful eyes of love!--but alas! where is their Alice? Wildly they +glance along the rosy ranks of chubby girlhood, but where is their +Alice? + +And then the ranks form in line, and once more the sound, the ecstatic +sound it had seemed but a short time before, of girls marching--but +no!--no!--there is no Alice. + +In sick despair Narcissus stalked that Amazonian battalion, crouching +behind hedges, dropping into by-lanes, lurking in coppices,--he held his +breath as they passed two and two within a yard of him. Two followed +two, but still no Alice! + +Narcissus lay in wait, dinnerless, all that afternoon; he walked about +that dreary house like a patrol, till at last he was observed of the +inmates, and knots of girls gathered at the windows--alas! only to +giggle at his forlorn and desperate appearance. + +Still there was no Alice ... and then it began to rain, and he became +aware how hungry he was. So he returned to his inn with a sad heart. + +And all the time poor little Alice lay in bed with a sore throat, +oblivious of those passionate boyish eyes that, you would have thought, +must have pierced the very walls of her seclusion. + +And, after all, it was not her voice Narcissus had heard in the church. +It was but the still sweeter voice of his own heart. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS + +I hope it will be allowed to me that I treat the Reader with all +respectful courtesy, and that I am well bred enough to assume him +familiar with all manner of exquisite experience, though in my heart I +may be no less convinced that he has probably gone through life with +nothing worth calling experience whatsoever. It is our jaunty modern +fashion, and I follow it so far as I am able. I take for granted, for +instance, that every man has at one time or another--in his salad days, +you know, before he was embarked in his particular provision +business--had foolish yearnings towards poesy. I respect the mythical +dreams of his 'young days'; I assume that he has been really in love; +but, pray press me not too curiously as to whether I believe it all, as +to whether I really imagine that his youth knew other dreams than those +of the foolish young 'masherdom' one meets in the train every morning, +or that he has married a wife for other than purely 'masculine' reasons. + +These matters I do not mind leaving in the form of a postulate--let them +be granted: but that every man has at one time or another had the craze +for saving the world I will not assume. Narcissus took it very early, +and though he has been silent concerning his mission for some time, and +when last we heard of it had considerably modified his propaganda, he +still cherishes it somewhere in secret, I have little doubt; and one may +not be surprised, one of these days, to find it again bursting out 'into +sudden flame.' + +His spiritual experience has probably been the deepest and keenest of +his life. I do not propose to trace his evolution from Anabaptism to +Agnosticism. The steps of such development are comparatively familiar; +they have been traced by greater pens than mine. The 'means' may vary, +but the process is uniform. + +Whether a man deserts the ancestral Brahminism that has so long been +'good enough for his parents,' and listens to the voice of the Buddhist +missionary, or joins Lucian in the seat of the scornful, shrugging at +augur and philosopher alike; whether it is Voltaire, or Tom Paine, or +Thomas Carlyle, or Walt Whitman, or a Socialist tract, that is the +emancipator, the emancipation is all one. + +The seed that is to rend the rock comes in all manner of odd, and often +unremembered, ways; but somehow, it is there; rains and dews unnoticed +feed it; and surely, one day the rock is rent, the light is pouring in, +and we are free! It is often a matter of anguish that, strive as we may, +it is impossible to remember what helping hand it was that sowed for us. +Our fickle memory seems to convict us of ingratitude, and yet we know +how far that sin is from us; and how, if those sowers could but be +revealed to us, we would fall upon their necks, or at their feet. + +I talked of this one day with Narcissus, and some time after he sent me +a few notes headed 'Spiritual Pastors,' in which he had striven to +follow the beautiful example set by Marcus Aurelius, in the anxiously +loving acknowledgment with which he opens his meditations. I know he +regarded it as miserably inefficient; but as it does actually indicate +some of the more individual side of his experience, and is, moreover, +characteristic in its style, I shall copy a few passages from it here:-- + +'To some person or persons unknown exceeding gratitude for the +suggestion, in some dim talk, antenatal it would almost seem, that Roman +Catholics might, after all, be "saved." Blessed fecundating suggestion, +that was the earliest loophole! + +'To my father I owe a mind that, once set on a clue, must follow it, if +need be, to the nethermost darkness, though he has chosen to restrict +the operation of his own within certain limits; and to my mother a +natural leaning to the transcendental side of an alternative, which has +saved me so many a time when reason had thrown me into the abyss. But +one's greatest debt to a good mother must be simply--herself. + +'To the Rev. Father Ignatius for his earnest preaching, which might +almost have made me a monk, had not Thomas Carlyle and his _Heroes_, +especially the lecture on Mahomet, given me to understand the true +significance of a Messiah. + +'To Bulwer for his _Zanoni_, which first gave me a hint of the possible +natural "supernatural," and thus for ever saved me from dogmatising in +negatives against the transcendental. + +'To Sir Edwin Arnold for his _Light of Asia,_ also to Mr. Sinnett for +his _Esoteric Buddhism,_ books which, coming to me about the same time, +together with some others like them, first gave some occupation to an +"unchartered freedom," gained in many forgotten steps, in the form of a +faith which transfigured my life for many months into the most beautiful +enthusiasm a man could know,--and which had almost sent me to the +Himalayas! + +'That it did not quite achieve that, though much of the light it gave me +still remains, I owe to R.M., who, with no dialectic, but with one bald +question, and the reading of one poem, robbed me of my fairy palace of +Oriental speculation in the twinkling of an eye. Why it went I have +never really quite known; but surely, it was gone, and the wind and the +bare star-light were alone in its place. + +'Dear Mac., I have not seen you for ever so long, and surely you have +forgotten how that night, long ago, you asked with such a strange, +almost childlike, simplicity: "_Is_ there a soul?" But I have not +forgotten, nor how I made no answer at all, but only staggered, and how, +with your strange, dreamy voice, you chanted for comfort:-- + + '"This hot, hard flame with which our bodies burn + Will make some meadow blaze with daffodil; + Ay! and those argent breasts of thine will turn + To water-lilies; the brown fields men till + Will be more fruitful for our love to-night: + Nothing is lost in Nature; all things live in Death's despite. + + * * * * * + + '"So when men bury us beneath the yew + Thy crimson-stained mouth a rose will be, + And thy soft eyes lush blue-bells dimmed with dew; + And when the white narcissus wantonly + Kisses the wind, its playmate, some faint joy + Will thrill our dust, and we will be again fond maid and boy. + + '"... How my heart leaps up + To think of that grand living after death + In beast and bird and flower, when this cup, + Being filled too full of spirit, bursts for breath, + And with the pale leaves of some autumn day, + The soul, earth's earliest conqueror, becomes earth's last great prey. + + '"O think of it! We shall inform ourselves + Into all sensuous life; the goat-foot faun, + The centaur, or the merry, bright-eyed elves + That leave they: dancing rings to spite the dawn + Upon the meadows, shall not be more near + Than you and I to Nature's mysteries, for we shall hear + + '"The thrush's heart beat, and the daisies grow, + And the wan snowdrop sighing for the sun + On sunless days in winter; we shall know + By whom the silver gossamer is spun, + Who paints the diapered fritillaries, + On what wide wings from shivering pine to pine the eagle flies. + + * * * * * + + '"We shall be notes in that great symphony + Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres, + And all the live world's throbbing heart shall be + One with our heart; the stealthy, creeping years + Have lost their terrors now; we shall not die-- + The universe itself shall be our Immortality!" + +Have you forgotten how you chanted these, and told me they were Oscar +Wilde's. You had set my feet firmly on earth for the first time, there +was great darkness with me for many weeks, but, as it lifted, the earth +seemed greener than ever of old, the sunshine a goodlier thing, and +verily a blessedness indeed to draw the breath of life. I had learnt +"the value and significance of flesh"; I no longer scorned a carnal +diet, and once again I turned my eyes on the damsels in the street. + +'But an influence soon came to me that kept me from going all the way +with you, and taught me to say, "I know not," where you would say, "It +is not." Blessings on thee who didst throw a rainbow, that may mean a +promise, across the void, that awoke the old instinct of faith within +me, and has left me "an Agnostic with a faith," quite content with "the +brown earth," if that be all, but with the added significance a mystery +gives to living;--thou who first didst teach me Love's lore aright, to +thee do I owe this thing. + +'To J.A.W. I owe the first great knowledge of that other love between +man and man, which Whitman has since taught us to call "the dear love of +comrades"; and to him I owe that I never burned those early rhymes, or +broke my little reed--an unequivocal service to me, whatever the +public, should it be consulted, may think. + +'To a dear sister I owe that still more exquisite and subtle comradeship +which can only exist between man and woman, but from which the more +disturbing elements of sex must be absent. And here, let me also thank +God that I was brought up in quite a garden of good sisters. + +'To Messrs. C. and W., Solicitors and Notaries, I owe, albeit I will say +no thanks to them, the opportunity of that hardly learned good which +dwells for those who can wrest it in a hateful taskwork, that faculty of +"detachment" which Marcus Aurelius learnt so long ago, by means of which +the soul may withdraw, into an inaccessible garden, and sing while the +head bends above a ledger; or, in other words, the faculty of dreaming +with one side of the brain, while calculating with the other. Mrs. +Browning's great _Aurora Leigh_ helped me more to the attainment of that +than any book I know. + +'In their office, too, among many other great things, I learnt that a +man may be a good fellow and hate poetry--possibility undreamed of by +sentimental youth; also that Messrs. Bass and Cope are not unworthy of +their great reputation; and I had various nonsense knocked out of me, +though they never succeeded in persuading me in that little matter of +the "ambrosial curls." + +'Through Samuel Dale I first came to understand how "whatever is" _can_ +be "best," and also won a faith in God which I rather caught by +infection than gained by any process of his reasoning. Of all else I owe +to Samuel, how write? He knows. + +'To a certain friend, mentioned last because he is not least, I owe: the +sum of ten pounds, and a loving companionship, up hill and down dale, +for which again I have no words and no--sovereigns.' + +When I first read through these, I was somewhat surprised at the +omission of all reference to books which I know marked most striking +periods in Narcissus' spiritual life: _Sartor Resartus_, Thoreau's +_Walden_, for example, Mr. Pater's _Marius the Epicurean_, and +Browning's _Dramatis Personae_. As I reflected, however, I came to the +conclusion that such omission was but justice to his own individuality, +for none of these books had created an _initiative_ in Narcissus' +thought, but rather come, as, after all, I suppose they come to most of +us, as great confirming expressions of states of mind at which he had +already arrived, though, as it were, but by moonlight. In them was the +sunrise bringing all into clear sight and sure knowledge. + +It would seem, indeed, that the growth of the soul in the higher spirits +of our race is analogous to the growth of a child in the womb, in this +respect: that in each case the whole gamut of earlier types is run +through, before the ultimate form is attained in which it is decreed +that the particular vital energy shall culminate. And, as in the +physical world the various 'halts,' so to say, of the progress are +illustrated by the co-existence and continual succession of those +earlier types; so in the world of mind, at every point of spiritual +evolution, a man may meet with an historical individuality who is a +concrete embodiment of the particular state to which he has just +attained. This, of course, was what Goethe meant when he referred to +mysticism as being a frame of mind which one could experience all round +and then leave behind. To quote Whitman, in another connection:-- + + 'We but level that lift + To pass and continue beyond.' + +But an individuality must 'crystallise out' somewhere, and its final +value will not so much depend on the number of states it has passed +through, as how it has lived each on the way, with what depth of +conviction and force of sincerity. For a modern young man to thus +experience all round, and pass, and continue beyond where such great +ones as St. Bernard, Pascal, and Swedenborg, have anchored their starry +souls to shine thence upon men for all time, is no uncommon thing. It is +more the rule than the exception: but one would hardly say that in going +further they have gone higher, or ended greater. The footpath of pioneer +individualism must inevitably become the highway of the race. Every +American is not a Columbus. + +There are two ways in which we may live our spiritual progress: as +critics, or poets. Most men live theirs in that critical attitude which +refuses to commit itself, which tastes all, but enjoys none; but the +greatest in that earnest, final, rooted, creative, fashion which is the +way of the poets. The one is as a man who spends his days passing from +place to place in search of a dwelling to his mind, but dies at last in +an inn, having known nought of the settled peace of a home; but the +other, howsoever often he has to change his quarters, for howsoever +short a time he may remain in any one of his resting-places, makes of +each a home, with roots that shoot in a night to the foundations of the +world, and blossomed branches that mingle with the stars. + +Criticism is a good thing, but poetry is a better. Indeed, criticism +properly _is_ not; it is but a process to an end. We could really do +without it much better than we imagine: for, after all, the question is +not so much _how_ we live, but _do_ we live? Who would not a hundred +times rather be a fruitful Parsee than a barren _philosophe_? Yes, all +lies, of course, in original greatness of soul; and there is really no +state of mind which is not like Hamlet's pipe--if we but know the 'touch +of it,' 'it will discourse most eloquent music.' + +Now, it was that great sincerity in Narcissus that has always made us +take him so seriously. And here I would remark in parenthesis, that +trivial surface insincerities, such as we have had glimpses of in his +dealings, do not affect such a great organic sincerity as I am speaking +of. They are excrescences, which the great central health will sooner or +later clear away. It was because he never held an opinion to which he +was not, when called upon, practically faithful; never dreamed a dream +without at once setting about its translation into daylight; never +professed a creed for a week without some essay after the realisation of +its new ideal; it was because he had the power and the courage to glow +mightily, and to some purpose; because his life had a fiery centre, +which his eyes were not afraid of revealing--that I speak of his great +sincerity, a great capacity for intense life. Shallow patterers of +divine creeds were, therefore, most abhorrent to him. 'You must excuse +me, sir,' I remember his once saying to such a one, 'but what are you +doing with cigarette and salutaris? If I held such a belief as yours, I +would stand sandalled, with a rope round my waist, before to-morrow.' + +One quaint instance of this earnest attitude in all things occurs to me +out of his schooldays. He was a Divine Right man, a fiery Jacobite, in +those days; and, probably not without some absurd unconfessed dream in +his heart that it might somehow help the dead old cause, he one +afternoon fluttered the Hanoverian hearts--all the men we meet in street +and mart are Hanoverians, of course--of our little literary club by +solemnly rising 'to give notice' that at the following meeting he would +read a paper to prove that 'the House of Hanover has no right to the +English throne.' Great was the excitement through the fortnight +intervening, extending even to the masters; and the meeting was a full +one, and no little stormy. + +Narcissus rose with the air of a condemned Strafford, and with all his +boyish armoury of eloquence and scorn fought over again the long-lost +battle, hiss and groan falling unheeded into the stream of his young +voice. But vain, vain! hard is the Hanoverian heart in boy, as in man, +and all your glowing periods were in vain--vain as, your peroration told +us, 'was the blood of gallant hearts shed on Culloden's field.' Poor N., +you had but one timorous supporter, even me, so early your _fidus +Achates_--but one against so many. Yet were you crestfallen? Galileo +with his 'E pur si muove,' Disraeli with his 'The time will come,' wore +such a mien as yours, as we turned from that well-foughten field. Yes! +and you loved to take in earnest vague Hanoverian threats of possible +arrest for your baby-treason, and, for some time, I know, you never +passed a policeman without a dignified tremor, as of one who might at +any moment find a lodging in the Tower. + +But the most serious of all N.'s 'mad' enthusiasms was that of which the +Reader has already received some hint, in the few paragraphs of his own +confessions above, that which 'had almost sent him to the Himalayas.' + +It belongs to natures like his always through life to cherish a half +belief in their old fairy tales, and a longing, however late in the day, +to prove them true at last. To many such the revelations with which +Madame Blavatsky, as with some mystic trumpet, startled the Western +world some years ago, must have come with most passionate appeal; and to +Narcissus they came like a love arisen from the dead. Long before, he +had 'supped full' of all the necromantic excitements that poet or +romancer could give. Guy Mannering had introduced him to Lilly; Lytton +and Hawthorne had sent him searching in many a musty folio for Elixir +Vitas and the Stone. Like Scythrop, in 'Nightmare Abbey,' he had for a +long period slept with horrid mysteries beneath his pillow. But suddenly +his interest had faded: these phantoms fled before a rationalistic +cock-crow, and Eugenius Philalethes and Robert Fludd went with Mejnour +and Zanoni into a twilight forgetfulness. There was no hand to show the +hidden way to the land that might be, and there were hands beckoning and +voices calling him along the highway to the land that is. So, +dream-light passing, he must, perforce, reconcile himself to daylight, +with its dusty beam and its narrow horizons. + +Judge, then, with what a leaping heart he chanced on some newspaper +gossip concerning the sibyl, for it was so that he first stumbled across +her mission. Ironical, indeed, that the so impossible 'key' to the +mystery should come by the hand of 'our own correspondent'; but so it +was, and that paragraph sold no small quantity of 'occult' literature +for the next twelve months. Mr. Sinnett, doorkeeper in the house of +Blavatsky, who, as a precaution against the vision of Bluebeards that +the word Oriental is apt to conjure up in Western minds, is always +dressed in the latest mode, and, so to say, offers his cigar-case along +with some horrid mystery--it was to his prospectus of the new gospel, +his really delightful pages, that Narcissus first applied. Then he +entered within the gloomier Egyptian portals of the _Isis_ itself, and +from thence--well, in brief, he went in for a course of Redway, and +little that figured in that gentleman's thrilling announcements was long +in reaching his hands. + +At last a day came when his eye fell upon a notice, couched in suitably +mysterious terms, to the effect that really earnest seekers after divine +truth might, after necessary probation, etc., join a brotherhood of +such--which, it was darkly hinted, could give more than it dared +promise. Up to this point Narcissus had been indecisive. He was, +remember, quite in earnest, and to actually accept this new evangel +meant to him--well, as he said, nothing less in the end than the +Himalayas. Pending his decision, however, he had gradually developed a +certain austerity, and experimented in vegetarianism; and though he was, +oddly enough, free of amorous bond that might have held him to earth, +yet he had grown to love it rather rootedly since the earlier days when +he was a 'seeker.' Moreover, though he read much of 'The Path,' no +actual Mejnour had yet been revealed to set his feet therein. But with +this paragraph all indecision soon came to an end. He felt there a clear +call, to neglect which would be to have seen the light and not to have +followed it, ever for him the most tragic error to be made in life. His +natural predisposition towards it was too great for him to do other than +trust this new revelation; and now he must gird himself for 'the +sacrifice which truth always demands.' + +But, sacrifice! of what and for what? An undefined social warmth he was +beginning to feel in the world, some meretricious ambition, and a great +friendship--to which in the long run would he not be all the truer by +the great new power he was to win? If hand might no longer spring to +hand, and friendship vie in little daily acts of brotherhood, might he +not, afar on his mountain-top, keep loving watch with clearer eyes upon +the dear life he had left behind, and be its vigilant fate? Surely! and +there was nothing worth in life that would not gain by such a devotion. +All life's good was of the spirit, and to give that a clearer shining, +even in one soul, must help the rest. For if its light, shining, as now, +through the grimy horn-lantern of the body, in narrow lanes and along +the miasmatic flats of the world, even so helped men, how much more must +it, rising above that earthly fume, in a hidden corner no longer, but +in the open heaven, a star above the city. Sacrifice! yes, it was just +such a tug as a man in the dark warmth of morning sleep feels it to +leave the pillow. The mountain-tops of morning gleam cold and bare: but +O! when, staff in hand, he is out amid the dew, the larks rising like +fountains above him, the gorse bright as a golden fleece on the +hill-side, and all the world a shining singing vision, what thought of +the lost warmth then? What warmth were not well lost for this keen +exhilarated sense in every nerve, in limb, in eye, in brain? What potion +has sleep like this crystalline air it almost takes one's breath to +drink, of such a maddening chastity is its grot-cool sparkle? What +intoxication can she give us for this larger better rapture? So did +Narcissus, an old Son of the Morning, figure to himself the struggle, +and pronounce 'the world well lost.' + +But I feel as I write how little I can give the Reader of all the +'splendid purpose in his eyes' as he made this resolve. Perhaps I am the +less able to do so as--let me confess--I also shared his dream. One +could hardly come near him without, in some measure, doing that at all +times; though with me it could only be a dream, for I was not free. I +had Scriptural example to plead 'Therefore I cannot come,' though in any +case I fear I should have held back, for I had no such creative instinct +for realisation as Narcissus, and have, I fear, dreamed many a dream I +had not the courage even to think of clothing in flesh and blood; like, +may I say, the many who are poets for all save song--poets in chrysalis, +all those who dream of what some do, and make the audience of those +great articulate ones. But there were one or two trifling doubts to set +at rest before final decision. The Reader has greatly misconceived +Narcissus if he has deemed him one of those simple souls whom any quack +can gull, and the good faith of this mysterious fraternity was a +difficult point to settle. A tentative application through the address +given, an appropriate _nom de mystère_, had introduced the ugly detail +of preliminary expenses. Divine truth has to pay its postage, its rent, +its taxes, and so on; and the 'guru' feeds not on air--although, of +course, being a 'guru,' he comes as near it as the flesh will allow: +therefore, and surely, Reader, a guinea per annum is, after all, +reasonable enough. Suspect as much as one will, but how gainsay? Also, +before the applicant could be admitted to noviciate even, his horoscope +must be cast, and--well, the poor astrologer also needed bread and--no! +not butter--five shillings for all his calculations, circles, and +significations--well, that again was only reasonable. H'm, ye-e-s, but +it was dubious; and, mad as we were, I don't think we ever got outside +that dubiety, but made up our minds, like other converts, to gulp the +primary postulate, and pay the twenty-six shillings. From the first, +however, Narcissus had never actually entrusted all his spiritual +venture in this particular craft: he saw the truth independent of them, +not they alone held her for him, though she might hold them, and they +might be that one of the many avenues for which he had waited to lead +him nearer to her heart. That was all. His belief in the new +illumination neither stood nor fell with them, though his ardour for it +culminated in the experience. One must take the most doubtful +experiment seriously if we are in earnest for results. + +So next came the sacred name of 'the Order,' which, Reader, I cannot +tell thee, as I have never known it, Narcissus being bound by horrid +oaths to whisper it to no man, and to burn at midnight the paper which +gave it to his eyes. From this time, also, we could exchange no deep +confidences of the kind at all, for the various MSS. by means of which +he was to begin his excursions into Urania, and which his 'guru' sent +from time to time--at first, it must be admitted, with a diligent +frequency--were secret too. So several months went by, and my knowledge +of his 'chela-ship' was confined to what I could notice, and such +trifling harmless gossip as 'Heard from "guru" this morning,' 'Copying +an old MS. last night,' and so on. What I could notice was truly, as +Lamb would say, 'great mastery,' for lo! Narcissus, whose eyes had never +missed a maiden since he could walk, and lay in wait to wrest his +tribute of glance and blush from every one that passed, lo! he had +changed all that, and Saint Anthony in an old master looks not more +resolutely 'the other way' than he, his very thoughts crushing his flesh +with invisible pincers. No more softly-scented missives lie upon his +desk a-mornings; and, instead of blowing out the candle to dream of +Daffodilia, he opens his eyes in the dark to defy--the Dweller on the +Threshold, if haply he should indeed already confront him. + +One thrilling piece of news in regard to the latter he was unable to +conceal. He read it out to me one flushed morning:-- + + '_I--have--seen--him--and--am--his--master_,' + +wrote the 'guru,' in answer to his neophyte's half fearful question. +Fitly underlined and sufficiently spaced, it was a statement calculated +to awe, if only by its mendacity. I wonder if that chapter of Bulwer's +would impress one now as it used to do then. It were better, perhaps, +not to try. + +The next news of these mysteries was the conclusion of them. When so +darkly esoteric a body begins to issue an extremely catchpenny 'organ,' +with advertisements of theosophic 'developers,' magic mirrors, and +mesmeric discs, and also advertises large copies of the dread symbol of +the Order, 'suitable for framing,' at five shillings plain and seven and +sixpence coloured, it is, of course, impossible to take it seriously, +except in view of a police-court process, and one is evidently in the +hands of very poor bunglers indeed. Such was the new departure in +propaganda instituted by a little magazine, mean in appearance, as the +mouthpieces of all despised 'isms' seem to be, with the first number of +which, need one say, ended Narcissus' ascent of 'The Path.' I don't +think he was deeply sad at being disillusionised. Unconsciously a +broader philosophy had slowly been undermining his position, and all was +ready for the fall. It cost no such struggle to return to the world as +it had taken to leave it, for the poet had overgrown the philosopher, +and the open mystery of the common day was already exercising an appeal +beyond that of any melodramatic 'arcana.' Of course the period left its +mark upon him, but it is most conspicuous upon his bookshelves. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +THE CHILDREN OF APOLLO + +'He is a _true_ poet,' or 'He is a _genuine_ artist,' are phrases which +irritate one day after day in modern criticism. One had thought that +'poet' and 'artist' were enough; but there must be a need, we +regretfully suppose, for these re-enforcing qualifications; and there +can be but the one, that the false in each kind do so exceedingly +abound, that none can be taken as genuine without such special +certificate. The widespread confusion with the poet of the rhetorician +and sentimentalist in verse, and again of the mere rhymer without even +rhetoric, not to refer to finer differentiation of error, is also a +fruitful source of bewilderment. The misuse of the word has parallels: +for instance, the spurious generic use of the word 'man' for 'male,' +the substitution of 'artist' for 'painter.' But here we have only to +deal with that one particular abuse. Some rules how to know a poet may +conceivably be of interest, though of no greater value. + +Of course, the one first and last test is his work, but 'how to know +poetry' is another matter, which I do not propose treating of here; my +intention rather being to dot down a few personal characteristics--not +so much his 'works' as his 'ways.' I write as they come into my head; +and to any Reader about to cry out against digression, let me add: I +write thinking of Narcissus; for know all men, friend or Philistine, if +you have yet to learn it, my Narcissus is a poet! + +First, as to the great question of 'garmenting.' The superstition that +the hat and the cloak 'does it' has gone out in mockery, but only that +the other superstition might reign in its stead--that the hat and cloak +cannot do it. Because one great poet dispensed with 'pontificals,' and +yet brought the fire from heaven, henceforward 'pontificals' are humbug, +and the wearer thereof but charlatan, despite--'the master yonder in +the isle.' Pegasus must pack in favour of a British hunter, and even the +poet at last wear the smug regimentals of mediocrity and mammon. Ye +younger choir especially have a care, for, though you sing with the +tongues of men and angels, and wear not a silk hat, it shall avail you +nothing. Neither Time, which is Mudie, nor Eternity, which is Fame, will +know you, and your verses remain till doom in an ironical _editio +princeps_, which not even the foolish bookman shall rescue from the +threepenny box. It is very unlikely that you will escape as did +Narcissus, for though, indeed, + + 'He swept a fine majestic sweep + Of toga Tennysonian, + Wore strange soft hat, that such as you + Would tremble to be known in,' + +nevertheless, he somehow won happier fates, on which, perhaps, it would +be unbecoming in so close a friend to dilate. + +The 'true' poet is, first of all, a gentleman, usually modest, never +arrogant, and only assertive when pushed. He does not by instinct take +himself seriously, as the 'poet-ape' doth, though if he meets with +recognition it becomes, of course, his duty to acknowledge his faculty, +and make good Scriptural use of it. + +He is probably least confident, however, when praised; and never, except +in rare moments, especially of eclipse, has he a strong faith in the +truth that is in him. Therefore crush him, saith the Philistine, as we +crush the vine; strike him, as one strikes the lyre. When young, he +imagines the world to be filled with one ambition; later on, he finds +that so indeed it is--but the name thereof is not Poesy. Strange! sighs +he. And if, when he is seventeen, he writes a fluent song, and his +fellow-clerk admire it, why, it is nothing; surely the ledger-man hath +such scraps in his poke, or at least can roll off better. 'True bards +believe all able to achieve what they achieve,' said Naddo. But lo! that +ambition is a word that begins with pounds and ends with pence--like +life, quoth the ledger-man, who, after all, had but card-scores, a +tailor's account, and the bill for his wife's confinement in his pocket. + +All through his life he loves his last-written most, and no honey of +Hybla is so sweet as a new rhyme. Let no maid hope to rival it with her +lips--she but interrupts: for the travail of a poet is even as that of +his wife--after the pain comes that dear joy of a new thing born into +the world, which doting sipping dream beware to break. Fifty repetitions +of the new sweetness, fifty deliberate rollings of it under the tongue, +is, I understand, the minimum duration of such, before the passion is +worked off, and the dream-child really breathing free of its +dream-parent. I have occasionally come upon Narcissus about the +twenty-fifth, I suppose, and wondered at my glum reception. 'Poetry gone +sour,' he once gave as the reason. Try it not, Reader, if, indeed, in +thy colony of beavers a poet really dwells. + +He is a born palaeontologist: that is, he can build up an epic from a +hint. And, despite modern instances, the old rule obtains for him, he +need not be learned--that is, not deeply or abundantly, only at +points--superficially, the superficial would say. Well, yes, he has an +eye for knowing what surfaces mean, the secret of the divining rod. +Take it this way. We want an expression, say, of the work of Keats, want +to be told wherein lies his individuality. You take Mr. Buxton Forman's +four volumes, and 'work at' Keats! and, after thirty nights and days, +bring your essay. On the morning of the thirtieth the poet read again +the _Grecian Urn_, and at eventide wrote a sonnet; and on the morning of +the thirty-first, essay and sonnet are side by side. But, by the +evening, your essay is in limbo--or in type, all's one--while the sonnet +is singing in our heart, persistently haunting our brain. Some day the +poet, too, writes an essay, and thus plainly shows, says the essayist, +how little he really knew of the matter--he didn't actually know of the +so-and-so--and yet it was his ignorance that gave us that illuminating +line, after all. + +I doubt if one would be on safe ground in saying: Take, now, the subject +of wine. We all know how abstemious is the poetical habit; and yet, to +read these songs, one would think 'twas Bacchus' self that wrote, or +that Clarence who lay down to die in a butt of Malmsey. Though the +inference is open to question, + + 'I often wonder if old Omar drank + One half the quantity he bragged in song.' + +Doubtless he sat longest and drank least of all the topers of Naishapur, +and the bell for Saki rang not from his corner half often enough to +please mine host. Certainly the longevity of some modern poets can only +be accounted for by some such supposition in their case. The proposition +is certainly proved inversely in the case of Narcissus, for he has not +written one vinous line, and yet--well, and yet! Furthermore, it may +interest future biographers to know that in his cups he was wont to +recite Hamlet's advice to the players, throned upon a tram-car. + +The 'true' poet makes his magic with the least possible ado; he and the +untrue are as the angler who is born to the angler who is made at the +tackle-shop. One encumbers the small of his back with nameless engines, +talks much of creels, hath a rod like a weaver's beam; he travels first +class to some distant show-lake among the hills, and he toils all day +as the fishermen of old toiled all night; while Tom, his gardener's son, +but a mile outside the town, with a willow wand and a bent pin, hath +caught the family supper. So is it with him who is proverbially born not +made. His friends say: 'O, you should go to such-and-such falls; you 'd +write poetry there, if you like. We all said so'; or, 'What are you +doing in here scribbling? Look through the window at the moonlight; +there's poetry for you. Go out into that if you want sonnets.' Of +course, he never takes his friends' advice; he has long known that they +know nothing whatever about it. He is probably quite ignorant of +metrical law, but one precept instinct taught him from the beginning, +and he finds it expressed one day in Wordsworth (with a blessed comfort +of assurance--like in this little, O, may be like, somehow, in the great +thing too!): 'Poetry is emotion remembered in tranquillity.' The +wandlike moments, he remembers, always came to him in haunts all remote +indeed from poetry: a sudden touch at his heart, and the air grows +rhythmical, and seems a-ripple with dreams; and, albeit, in whatever +room of dust or must he be, the song will find him, will throw her arms +about him, so it seems, will close his eyes with her sweet breath, that +he may open them upon the hidden stars. + +'Impromptus' are the quackery of the poetaster. One may take it for +granted, as a general rule, that anything written 'on the spot' is +worthless. A certain young poet, who could when he liked do good things, +printed some verses, which he declared in a sub-title were 'Written on +the top of Snowdon in a thunderstorm.' He asked an opinion, and one +replied: 'Written on the top of Snowdon in a thunderstorm.' The poet was +naturally angry--and yet, what need of further criticism? + +The poet, when young, although as I said, he is not likely to fall into +the foolishness of conceit which belongs to the poetaster, is yet too +apt in his zeal of dedication to talk much of his 'art,' or, at least, +think much; also to disparage life, and to pronounce much gratuitous +absolution in the name of Poetry:-- + +Did Burns drink and wench?--yet he sang! + +Did Coleridge opiate and neglect his family?--yet he sang!! + +Did Shelley--well, whatever Shelley did of callous and foolish, the list +is long--yet he sang!!! + +As years pass, however, he grows out of this stage, and, while regarding +his art in a spirit of dedication equally serious, and how much saner, +he comes to realise that, after all, art but forms one integral part, +however great, of a healthy life, and that for the greatest artist there +are still duties in life more imperative than any art can lay upon him. +It is a great hour when he rises up in his resolution first to be a man, +in faith that, if he be such, the artist in him will look after +itself--first a man, and surely all the greater artist for being that; +though if not, still a man. That is the duty that lies' next' to all of +us. Do that, and, as we are told, the other will be clearer for us. In +that hour that earlier form of absolution will reverse itself on his +lips into one of commination. Did they sing?--yet they sinned here and +here; and as a man soweth, so shall he reap, singer or sot. Lo! his +songs are stars in heaven, but his sins are snakes in hell: each shall +bless and torment him in turn. + +Pitiable, indeed, will seem to him in that hour the cowardice that dares +to cloak its sinning with some fine-spun theory, that veils the +gratification of its desires in some shrill evangel, and wrecks a +woman's life in the names of--Liberty and Song! Art wants no such +followers: her bravest work is done by brave men, and not by sneaking +opium-eaters and libidinous 'reformers.' We all have sinned, and we all +will go on sinning, but for God's sake, let us be honest about it. There +are worse things than honest sin. If, God help you, you have ruined a +girl, do penance for it through your life; pay your share; but don't, +whatever you do, hope to make up for a bad heart by a good brain. +Foolish art-patterers may suffer the recompense to pass, for likely they +have all the one and none of the other; but good men will care nothing +about you or your work, so long as bad trees refuse to bring forth good +fruit, or figs to grow on thistles. + +We have more to learn from Florentine artists than any 'craft mystery.' +If the capacity for using the blossom while missing the evil fruit, of +which Mr. Pater speaks in the case of Aurelius, were only confined to +those evil-bearing trees: alas! it is all blossom with us moderns, good +or bad alike, and purity or putrescence are all one to us, so that they +shine. I suppose few regard Giotto's circle as his greatest work: would +that more did. The lust of the eye, with Gautier as high-priest, is too +much with us. + +The poet, too, who perhaps began with the simple ambition of becoming a +'literary man,' soon finds how radically incapable of ever being merely +that he is. Alas! how soon the nimbus fades from the sacred name of +'author.' At one time he had been ready to fall down and kiss the +garment's hem, say, of--of a 'Canterbury' editor (this, of course, when +very, very young), as of a being from another sphere; and a writer in +_The Fortnightly_ had swam into his ken, trailing visible clouds of +glory. But by and by he finds himself breathing with perfect composure +in that rarefied air, and in course of time the grey conviction settles +upon him that these fabled people are in no wise different from the +booksellers and business men he had found so sordid and dull--no more +individual or delightful as a race; and he speedily comes to the old +conclusion he had been at a loss to understand a year or two ago, that, +as a rule, the people who do not write books are infinitely to be +preferred to the people who do. When he finds exceptions, they occur as +they used to do in shop and office--the charm is all independent of the +calling; for just as surely as a man need not grow mean, and hard, and +dried up, however prosperous be his iron-foundry, so sure is it that a +man will not grow generous, rich-minded, loving, and all that is golden +by merely writing of such virtues at so much a column. The inherent +insincerity, more or less, of all literary work is a fact of which he +had not thought. I am speaking of the mere 'author,' the +writer-tradesman, the amateur's superstition; not of men of genius, who, +despite cackle, cannot disappoint. If they seem to do so, it must be +that we have not come close enough to know them. But the man of genius +is rarer, perhaps, in the ranks of authorship than anywhere: you are +far more likely to find him on the exchange. They are as scarce as +Caxtons: London possesses hardly half-a-dozen examples. + +Narcissus enjoyed the delight of calling one of these his friend, 'a +certain aristocratic poet who loved all kinds of superiorities,' again +to borrow from Mr. Pater. He had once seen him afar off and worshipped, +as it is the blessedness of boys to be able to worship; but never could +he have dreamed in that day of the dear intimacy that was to come. 'If +he could but know me as I am,' he had sighed; but that was all. With the +almost childlike naturalness which is his greatest charm he confessed +this sigh long after, and won that poet's heart. Well I remember his +bursting into our London lodging late one afternoon, great-eyed and +almost in tears for joy of that first visit. He had pre-eminently the +capacity which most fine men have of falling in love with men--as one +may be sure of a subtle greatness in a woman whose eye singles out a +woman to follow on the stage at the theatre--and certainly, no other +phrase can express that state of shining, trembling exaltation, the +passion of the friendships of Narcissus. And although he was rich in +them--rich, that is, as one can be said to be rich in treasure so +rare--saving one only, they have never proved that fairy-gold which such +do often prove. Saving that one, golden fruit still hangs for every +white cluster of wonderful blossom. + +'I thought you must care for me if you could but know me aright,' +Narcissus had said. + +'Care for you! Why, you beautiful boy! you seem to have dropped from the +stars,' the poet had replied in the caressing fashion of an elder +brother. + +He had frankly fallen in love, too: for Narcissus has told me that his +great charm is a boyish naturalness of heart, that ingenuous gusto in +living which is one of the sure witnesses to genius. This is all the +more piquant because no one would suspect it, as, I suppose, few do; +probably, indeed, a consensus would declare him the last man in London +of whom that is true. No one would seem to take more seriously the _beau +monde_ of modern paganism, with its hundred gospels of _La Nuance_; no +one, assuredly, were more _blasé_ than he, with his languors of pose, +and face of so wan a flame. The Oscar Wilde of modern legend were not +more as a dweller in Nirvana. But Narcissus maintained that all this was +but a disguise which the conditions of his life compelled him to wear, +and in wearing which he enjoyed much subtle subterranean merriment; +while underneath the real man lived, fresh as morning, vigorous as a +young sycamore, wild-hearted as an eagle, ever ready to flash out the +'password primeval' to such as alone could understand. How else had he +at once taken the stranger lad to his heart with such a sunlight of +welcome? As the maid every boy must have sighed for but so rarely found, +who makes not as if his love were a weariness which she endured, and the +kisses she suffered, cold as green buds, were charities, but frankly +glows to his avowal with 'I love you, too, dear Jack,' and kisses him +from the first with mouth like a June rose--so did that _blasé_ poet +cast away his conventional Fahrenheit, and call Narcissus friend in +their first hour. Men of genius alone know that fine _abandon_ of soul. +In such is the poet confessed as unmistakably as in his verse, for the +one law of his life is that he be an elemental, and the capacity for +great simple impressions is the spring of his power. Let him beware of +losing that. + +I sometimes wonder as I come across the last frivolous gossip concerning +that poet in the paragraphs of the new journalism, or meet his name in +some distinguished bead-roll in _The Morning Post_, whether Narcissus +was not, after all, mistaken about him, and whether he could still, +season after season, go through the same stale round of reception, +private view, first night, and all the various drill of fashion and +folly, if that boy's heart were alive still. One must believe it once +throbbed in him: we have his poems for that, and a poem cannot lie; but +it is hard to think that it could still keep on its young beating +beneath such a choking pressure of convention, and in an air so 'sunken +from the healthy breath of morn.' But, on the other hand, I have almost +a superstitious reliance on Narcissus' intuition, a faculty in him which +not I alone have marked, but which I know was the main secret of his +appeal for women. They, as the natural possessors of the power, feel a +singular kinship with a man who also possesses it, a gift as rarely +found among his sex as that delicacy which largely depends on it, and +which is the other sure clue to a woman's love. She is so little used, +poor flower, to be understood, and to meet with other regard than the +gaze of satyrs. + +However, be Narcissus' intuition at fault or not in the main, still it +was very sure that the boy's heart in that man of the world did wake +from its sleep for a while at the wandlike touch of his youth; and if, +after all, as may be, Narcissus was but a new sensation in his jaded +round, at least he was a healthy one. Nor did the callous ingratitude of +forgetfulness which follows so swiftly upon mere sensation ever add +another to the sorrows of my friend: for, during the last week before he +left us, came a letter of love and cheer in that poet's wonderful +handwriting--handwriting delicious with honeyed lines, each word a +flower, each letter rounded with the firm soft curves of hawthorn in +bud, or the delicate knobs of palm against the sky. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +GEORGE MUNCASTER + +When I spoke of London's men of genius I referred, of course, to such as +are duly accredited, certificated, so to say, by public opinion; but of +those others whose shining is under the bushel of obscurity, few or +many, how can one affirm? That there are such, any man with any happy +experience of living should be able to testify; and I should say, for +fear of misunderstanding, that I do not use the word genius in any +technical sense, not only of men who can _do_ in the great triumphal +way, but also of those who can _be_ in their quiet, effective fashion, +within their own 'scanty plot of ground'; men who, if ever conscious of +it, are content with the diffusion of their influence around the narrow +limits of their daily life, content to bend their creative instincts on +the building and beautifying of home. It is no lax use of the word +genius to apply it to such, for unless you profess the modern heresy +that genius is but a multiplied talent, a coral-island growth, that +earns its right to a new name only when it has lifted its head above the +waters of oblivion, you must agree. For 'you saw at once,' said +Narcissus, in reference to that poet, 'that his writing was so +delightful because he was more so.' His writings, in fact, were but the +accidental emanations of his personality. He might have given himself +out to us in fugues, or canvases, or simply, like the George Muncaster +of whom I am thinking, in the sweet breath and happy shining of his +home. Genius is a personal quality, and if a man has it, whatever his +hand touches will bear the trace of his power, an undying odour, an +unfading radiance. When Rossetti wrote 'Beauty like hers is genius,' he +was not dealing in metaphor, and Meissonier should have abolished for +ever the superstition of large canvases. + +These desultory hints of the development of Narcissus would certainly be +more incomplete than necessity demands, if I did not try to give the +Reader some idea of the man of genius of this unobtrusive type to whom I +have just alluded. Samuel Dale used to call himself 'an artist in life,' +and there could be no truer general phrase to describe George Muncaster +than that. His whole life possesses a singular unity, such as is the +most satisfying joy of a fine work of art, considering which it never +occurs to one to think of the limitation of conditions or material. So +with his life, the shortness of man's 'term' is never felt; one could +win no completer effect with eternity than he with every day. Hurry and +false starts seem unknown in his round, and his little home is a +microcosm of the Golden Age. + +It would even seem sometimes that he has an artistic rule over his +'accidents,' for 'surprises' have a wonderful knack of falling into the +general plan of his life, as though but waited for. Our first meeting +with him was a singular instance of this. I say 'our,' for Narcissus and +I chanced to be walking a holiday together at the time. It fell on this +wise. At Tewkesbury it was we had arrived, one dull September evening, +just in time to escape a wetting from a grey drizzle then imminent; and +in no very buoyant spirits we turned into _The Swan Inn_. A more dismal +coffee-room for a dismal evening could hardly be--gloomy, vast, and +thinly furnished. We entered sulkily, seeming the only occupants of the +sepulchre. However, there was a small book on the table facing the door, +sufficiently modern in appearance to catch one's eye and arouse a faint +ripple of interest. 'A Canterbury,' we cried. 'And a Whitman, more's the +wonder,' cried Narcissus, who had snatched it up. 'Why, some one's had +the sense, too, to cut out the abominable portrait. I wonder whose it +is. The owner must evidently have some right feeling.' + +Then, before there was time for further exclamatory compliment of the +unknown, we were half-startled by the turning round of an arm-chair at +the far end of the room, and were aware of a manly voice of exquisite +quality asking, 'Do you know Whitman?' + +And moving towards the speaker, we were for the first time face to face +with the strong and gentle George Muncaster, who since stands in our +little gallery of types as Whitman's Camarado and Divine Husband made +flesh. I wish, Reader, that I could make you see his face; but at best I +have little faith in pen portraits. It is comparatively easy to write a +graphic description of _a_ face; but when it has been read, has the +reader realised _the_ face? I doubt it, and am inclined to believe that +three different readers will carry away three different impressions even +from a really brilliant portrait. Laborious realism may, at least, I +think, be admitted as hopeless. The only chance is in a Meredithian +lightning-flash, and those fly but from one or two bows. I wonder if an +image will help at all here. Think on a pebbly stream, on a brisk, +bright morning; dwell on the soft, shining lines of its flowing; and +then recall the tonic influence, the sensation of grip, which the +pebbles give it. Dip your hand into it again in fancy; realise how +chaste it is, and then again think how bright and good it is. And if you +realise these impressions as they come to me, you will have gained some +idea of George Muncaster's face--the essential spirit of it, I mean, +ever so much more important than the mere features. Such, at least, +seemed the meaning of his face even in the first moment of our +intercourse that September dusk, and so it has never ceased to come upon +us even until now. + +And what a night that was! what a talk! How soon did we find each other +out! Long before the maid knocked at the door, and hinted by the +delicate insinuation of a supposed ring that there was 'a budding +morrow' in the air. But our passionate generosity of soul was running in +too strong a tide just then to be stemmed by any such interference; it +could but be diverted, and Muncaster's bedroom served us as well wherein +to squat in one of those close, rapt circles of talk such as, I think, +after all, men who love poetry can alone know--men, anyhow, with _a_ +poetry. + +Bed, that had for some time been calling us, unheeded as Juliet's nurse, +had at last to be obeyed; but how grudgingly; and how eagerly we sprang +from it at no late hour in the morning, at the first thought of the +sweet new thing that had come into the world--like children who, half +in a doze before waking, suddenly remember last night's new wonder of a +toy, to awake in an instant, and scramble into clothes to look at it +again. Thus, like children we rose; but it was shy as lovers we met at +the breakfast-table, as lovers shy after last night's kissing. (You may +not have loved a fellow-man in this way, Reader, but we are, any one of +us, as good men as you; so keep your eyebrows down, I beseech you.) + +One most winsome trait of our new friend was soon apparent--as, having, +to our sorrow, to part at the inn door right and left, we talked of +meeting again at one or the other's home: a delicate disinclination to +irreverently 'make sure' of the new joy; a 'listening fear,' as though +of a presiding good spirit that might revoke his gift if one stretched +out towards it with too greedy hands. 'Rather let us part and say +nought. You know where a letter will find me. If our last night was a +real thing, we shall meet again, never fear.' With some such words as +those it was that he bade us good-bye. + +Of course, letters found all three of us before a fortnight had gone +by, and in but a short time we found his home. There it is that George +should be seen. Away he is full of precious light, but home is his +setting. To Narcissus, who found it in that green period when all +youngsters take vehement vows of celibacy, and talk much of 'free love,' +all ignorant, one is in charity persuaded, of what they quite mean, that +home was certainly as great and lasting a revelation as the first hour +of 'Poetry's divine first finger-touch.' It was not that his own +home-life had been unhappy, for it was the reverse, and rich indeed in +great and sweet influences; but it was rather, I think, that the ideal +of a home is not so easily to be reached from that home in which one is +a child, where one is too apt to miss the whole in consideration of +one's own part in it, as from another on which we can look from the +outside. + +Our parents, even to the end, partake too much of the nature of +mythology; it always needs an effort to imagine them beings with quite +the same needs and dreams as ourselves. We rarely get a glimpse of +their poetry, for the very reason that we ourselves are factors in it, +and are, therefore, too apt to dwell on the less happy details of the +domestic life, details which one ray of their poetry would transfigure +as the sun transfigures the motes in his beam. Thus, in that green age I +spoke of, one's sickly vision can but see the dusty, world-worn side of +domesticity, the petty daily cares of living, the machinery, so to say, +of 'house and home.' But when one stands in another home, where these +are necessarily unseen by us, stands with the young husband, the +poetry-maker, how different it all seems. One sees the creation bloom +upon it; one ceases to blaspheme, and learns to bless. Later, when at +length one understands why it is sweeter to say 'wife' than +'sweetheart,' how even one may be reconciled to calling one's Daffodilia +'little mother'--because of the children, you know; it would never do +for them to say Daffodilia--then he will understand too how those petty +details, formerly so '_banal_,' are, after all, but notes in the music, +and what poetry can flicker, like its own blue flame, around even the +joint purchase of a frying-pan. + +That Narcissus ever understood this great old poetry he owes to George +Muncaster. In the very silence of his home one hears a singing--'There +lies the happiest land.' It was one of his own quaint touches that the +first night we found his nest, after the maid had given us admission, +there should be no one to welcome us into the bright little parlour but +a wee boy of four, standing in the doorway like a robin that has hopped +on to one's window-sill. But with what a dear grace did the little chap +hold out his hand and bid us good evening, and turn his little morsel of +a bird's tongue round our names; to be backed at once by a ring of +laughter from the hidden 'prompter' thereupon revealed. O happy, happy +home! may God for ever smile upon you! There should be a special grace +for happy homes. George's set us 'collecting' such, with results +undreamed of by youthful cynic. Take courage, Reader, if haply you stand +with hesitating toe above the fatal plunge. Fear not, you can swim if +you will. Of course, you must take care that your joint poetry-maker be +such a one as George's. One must not seem to forget the loving wife who +made such dreaming as his possible. He did not; and, indeed, had you +told him of his happiness, he would but have turned to her with a smile +that said, 'All of thee, my love'; while, did one ask of this and that, +how quickly 'Yes! that was George's idea,' laughed along her lips. + +While we sat talking that first evening, there suddenly came three +cries, as of three little heads straining out of a nest, for 'Father'; +and obedient, with a laugh, he left us. This, we soon learnt, was a part +of the sweet evening ritual of home. After mother's more practical +service had been rendered the little ones, and they were cosily 'tucked +in,' then came 'father's turn,' which consisted of his sitting by their +bedside--Owen and Geoffrey on one hand, and little queen Phyllis, +maidenlike in solitary cot, on the other--and crooning to them a little +evening song. In the dark, too, I should say, for it was one of his wise +provisions that they should be saved from ever fearing that; and that, +whenever they awoke to find it round them in the middle of the night, it +should bring them no other association but 'father's voice.' + +A quaint recitative of his own, which he generally contrived to vary +each night, was the song, a loving croon of sleep and rest. The +brotherhood of rest, one might name his theme for grown-up folk; as in +the morning, we afterwards learnt, he is wont to sing them another +little song of the brotherhood of work; the aim of his whole beautiful +effort for them being to fill their hearts with a sense of the +brotherhood of all living things--flowers, butterflies, bees and birds, +the milk-boy, the policeman, the man at the crossing, the grocer's pony, +all within the circle of their little lives, as living and working in +one great _camaraderie_. Sometimes he would extemporise a little rhyme +for them, filling it out with his clear, happy voice, and that tender +pantomime that comes so naturally to a man who not merely loves +children--for who is there that does not?--but one born with the +instinct for intercourse with them. To those not so born it is as +difficult to enter into the life and prattle of birds. I have once or +twice crept outside the bedroom door when neither children nor George +thought of eavesdroppers, and the following little songs are impressions +from memory of his. You must imagine them chanted by a voice full of the +infinite tenderness of fatherhood, and even then you will but dimly +realise the music they have as he sings them. I run the risk of his +forgiving my printing them here:-- + + MORNING SONG. + + Morning comes to little eyes, + Wakens birds and butterflies, + Bids the flower uplift his head, + Calls the whole round world from bed. + Up jump Geoffrey! + Up jump Owen!! + Then up jump Phyllis!!! + And father's going! + + EVENING SONG. + + The sun is weary, for he ran + So far and fast to-day; + The birds are weary, for who sang + So many songs as they? + The bees and butterflies at last + Are tired out; for just think, too, + How many gardens through the day + Their little wings have fluttered through. + + And so, as all tired people do, + They've gone to lay their sleepy heads + Deep, deep in warm and happy beds. + The sun has shut his golden eye, + And gone to sleep beneath the sky; + The birds, and butterflies, and bees + Have all crept into flowers and trees, + And all lie quiet, still as mice, + Till morning comes, like father's voice. + So Phyllis, Owen, Geoffrey, you + Must sleep away till morning too; + Close little eyes, lie down little heads, + And sleep, sleep, sleep in happy beds. + +As the Reader has not been afflicted with a great deal of verse in these +pages, I shall also venture to copy here another little song which, as +his brains have grown older, George has been fond of singing to them at +bedtime, and with which the Reader is not likely to have enjoyed a +previous acquaintance:-- + + REST.[1] + + When the Sun and the Golden Day + Hand in hand are gone away, + At your door shall Sleep and Night + Come and knock in the fair twilight; + Let them in, twin travellers blest; + Each shall be an honoured guest, + And give you rest. + + They shall tell of the stars and moon, + And their lips shall move to a glad sweet tune, + Till upon your cool, white bed + Fall at last your nodding head; + Then in dreamland fair and blest, + Farther off than East and West, + They give you rest. + + Night and Sleep, that goodly twain, + Tho' they go, shall come again; + When your work and play are done, + And the Sun and Day are gone + Hand in hand thro' the scarlet West, + Each shall come, an honoured guest, + And bring you rest. + + Watching at your window-sill, + If upon the Eastern hill + Sun and Day come back no more, + They shall lead you from the door + To their kingdom calm and blest, + Farther off than East or West, + And give you rest. + +Arriving down to breakfast earlier than expected next morning, we +discovered George busy at some more of his loving ingenuity. He half +blushed in his shy way, but went on writing in this wise, with chalk, +upon a small blackboard: '_Thursday_--_Thor's-day_--_Jack the Giant +Killer's day_'. Then, in one corner of the board, a sun was rising with +a merry face and flaming locks, and beneath him was written, +'_Phoebus-Apollo';_ while in the other corner was a setting moon, '_Lady +Cynthia_. There were other quaint matters, too, though they have escaped +my memory; but these hints are sufficient to indicate George's morning +occupation. Thus he endeavoured to implant in the young minds he felt so +sacred a trust an ever-present impression of the full significance of +life in every one of its details. The days of the week should mean for +them what they did mean, should come with a veritable personality, such +as the sun and the moon gained for them by thus having actual names, +like friends and playfellows. This Thor's-day was an especially great +day for them; for, in the evening, when George had returned from +business, and there was yet an hour to bedtime, they would come round +him to hear one of the adventures of the great Thor--adventures which he +had already contrived, he laughingly told us, to go on spinning out of +the Edda through no less than the Thursdays of two years. Certainly his +ingenuity of economy with his materials was no little marvel, and he +confessed to often being at his wits' end. For Thursday night was not +alone starred with stories; every night there was one to tell; sometimes +an incident of his day in town, which he would dress up with the +imaginative instinct of a born teller of fairy-tales. He had a knack, +too, of spreading one story over several days which would be invaluable +to a serial writer. I remember one simple instance of his device. + +He sat in one of those great cane nursing chairs, Phyllis on one knee, +Owen on the other, and Geoffrey perched in the hollow space in the back +of the chair, leaning over his shoulder, all as solemn as a court +awaiting judgment. George begins with a preliminary glance behind at +Geoffrey: 'Happy there, my boy? That's right. Well, there was once a +beautiful garden.' + +'Yes-s-s-s,' go the three solemn young heads. + +'And it was full of the most wonderful things.' + +'Yes-s-s-s.' + +'Great trees, so green, for the birds to hide and sing in; and flowers +so fair and sweet that the bees said that, in all their flying hither +and thither, they had never yet found any so full of honey in all the +world. And the birds, too, what songs they knew; and the butterflies, +were there ever any so bright and many-coloured?' etc., etc. + +'But the most wonderful thing about the garden was that everything in it +had a wonderful story to tell.' + +'Yes-s-s s.' + +'The birds, and bees, and butterflies, even the trees and flowers, each +knew a wonderful fairy-tale.' + +'Oh-h-h-h.' + +'But of all in the garden the grasshopper knew the most. He had been a +great traveller, for he had such long legs.' + +Again a still deeper murmur of breathless interest. + +'Now, would you like to hear what the grasshopper had to tell?' + +'Oh, yes-s-s-s.' + +'Well, you shall--to-morrow night!' + +So off his knees they went, as he rose with a merry, loving laugh, and +kissed away the long sighs of disappointment, and sent them to bed, +agog for all the morrow's night should reveal. + +Need one say that the children were not the only disappointed listeners? +Besides, they have long since known all the wonderful tale, whereas one +of the poorer grown-up still wonders wistfully what that grasshopper who +was so great a traveller, and had such long legs, had to tell. + +But I had better cease. Were I sure that the Reader was seeing what I am +seeing, hearing as I, I should not fear; but how can I be sure of that? +Had I the pen which that same George will persist in keeping for his +letters, I should venture to delight the Reader with more of his story. +One underhand hope of mine, however, for these poor hints is, that they +may by their very imperfection arouse him to give the world 'the true +story' of a happy home. Narcissus repeatedly threatened that, if he did +not take pen in hand, he would some day 'make copy' of him; and now I +have done it instead. Moreover, I shall further presume on his +forbearance by concluding with a quotation from one of his letters that +came to me but a few months back:-- + +'You know how deeply exercised the little ones are on the subject of +death, and how I had answered their curiosity by the story that after +death all things turn into flowers. Well, what should startle the wife's +ears the other day but "Mother, I wish you would die." "O why, my dear?" +"Because I should so like to water you!" was the delicious explanation. +The theory has, moreover, been called to stand at the bar of experience, +for a week or two ago one of Phyllis' goldfish died. There were tears at +first, of course, but they suddenly dried up as Geoffrey, in his +reflective way, wondered "what flower it would come to." Here was a +dilemma. One had never thought of such contingencies. But, of course, it +was soon solved. "What flower would you like it to be, my boy?" I asked. +"A poppy!" he answered; and after consultation, "a poppy!" agreed the +others. So a poppy it is to be. A visit to the seedsman's procured the +necessary surreptitious poppy seed; and so now poor Sir Goldfish sleeps +with the seed of sleep in his mouth, and the children watch his grave +day by day, breathless for his resplendent resurrection. Will you write +us an epitaph?' + +Ariel forgive me! Here is what I sent: + + 'Five inches deep Sir Goldfish lies; + Here last September was he laid; + Poppies these, that were his eyes, + Of fish-bones are these blue-bells made; + His fins of gold that to and fro + Waved and waved so long ago, + Still as petals wave and wave + To and fro above his grave. + Hearken, too! for so his knell + Tolls all day each tiny bell.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: From a tiny privately-printed volume of deliciously +original lyrics by Mr. R.K. Leather, since republished by Mr. Fisher +Unwin, 1890, and at present published by Mr. John Lane.] + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THAT THIRTEENTH MAID + + 'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'-- + _Merchant of Venice_. + + +It occurs to me here to wonder whether there can be any reader +ungrateful enough to ask with grumbling voice, 'What of the book-bills? +The head-line has been the sole mention of them now for many pages; and +in the last chapter, where a book was referred to, the writer was +perverse enough to choose one that never belonged to Narcissus at all.' +To which I would venture to make humble rejoinder--Well, Goodman Reader, +and what did you expect? Was it accounts, with all their thrilling +details, with totals, 'less discount,' and facsimiles of the receipt +stamps? Take another look at our first chapter. I promised nothing of +the sort there, I am sure. I promised simply to attempt for you the +delineation of a personality which has had for all who came into contact +with it enduring charm, in hope that, though at second-hand, you might +have some pleasure of it also; and I proposed to do this mainly from the +hints of documents which really are more significant than any letters or +other writings could be, for the reason that they are of necessity so +unconscious. I certainly had no intention of burdening you with the +original data, any more than, should you accept the offer I made, also +in that chapter, and entrust me with your private ledger for +biographical purposes, I would think of printing it _in extenso_, and +calling it a biography; though I should feel justified, after the varied +story had been deduced and written out, in calling the product, +metaphorical wise, 'The private ledger of Johannes Browne, Esquire'--a +title which, by the way, is copyright and duly 'entered.' Such was my +attempt, and I maintain that I have so far kept my word. Because whole +shelves have been disposed of in a line, and a ninepenny 'Canterbury' +has rustled out into pages, you have no right to complain, for that is +but the fashion of life, as I have endeavoured to show. And let me say +in passing that that said copy of Mr. Rhys's Whitman, though it could +not manifestly appear in his book-bills, does at the present moment rest +upon his shelf--'a moment's monument.' + +Perhaps it would be well, before proceeding with this present 'place in +the story,' to set out with a statement of the various 'authorities' for +it; as, all this being veritable history, perhaps one should. But then, +Reader, here again I should have to catalogue quite a small library. +However, I will enumerate a few of the more significant ones. + +'Swinburne's _Tristram of Lyonesse_, 9/-, less dis., 6/9.' + +All that this great poem of 'springtide passion with its fire and +flowers' meant to Narcissus and his 'Thirteenth Maid' in the morning of +their love, those that have loved too will hardly need telling, while +those who have not could never understand, though I spake with the +tongue of the poet himself. In this particular copy, which, I need +hardly say, does not rest upon N.'s shelves, but on another in a sweet +little bedchamber, there is a tender inscription and a sonnet which +aimed at acknowledging how the hearts of those young lovers had gone out +to that poet 'with mouth of gold and morning in his eyes.' The latter I +have begged leave to copy here:-- + + 'Dear Heart, what thing may symbolise for us + A love like ours; what gift, whate'er it be, + Hold more significance 'twixt thee and me + Than paltry words a truth miraculous, + Or the poor signs that in astronomy + Tell giant splendours in their gleaming might? + Yet love would still give such, as in delight + To mock their impotence--so this for thee. + + 'This book for thee; our sweetest honeycomb + Of lovesome thought and passion-hearted rhyme, + Builded of gold, and kisses, and desire, + By that wild poet whom so many a time + Our hungering lips have blessed, until a fire + Burnt speech up, and the wordless hour had come.' + +'Meredith's _Richard Feverel_, 6/-, less dis., 4/6.' + +Narcissus was never weary of reading those two wonderful chapters where +Lucy and Richard meet, and he used to say that some day he would beg +leave from Mr. Meredith to reprint at his own charges just those two +chapters, to distribute to all true lovers in the kingdom. It would be +hard to say how often he and his maid had read them aloud together, with +amorous punctuation--caresses for commas, and kisses for full-stops. + +'Morris' _Sigurd the Volsung_, 12/-, less dis., 9/-.' + +This book they loved when their love had grown to have more of earnest +purpose in it, and its first hysteric ecstasy had passed into the more +solemn ardours of the love that goes not with spring, but loves even +unto the winter and beyond. It is marked all through in pencil by +Narcissus; but on one page, where it opens easily, there are written +initials, in a woman's hand, against this great passage:-- + + 'She said: "Thou shalt never unsay it, and thy heart is mine indeed: + Thou shalt bear thy love in thy bosom as thou helpest the earth-folk's + need: + Thou shalt wake to it dawning by dawning; thou shalt sleep and it shall + not be strange: + There is none shall thrust between us till our earthly lives shall + change. + Ah, my love shall fare as a banner in the hand of thy renown, + In the arms of thy fame accomplished shall it lie when we lay us adown. + O deathless fame of Sigurd! O glory of my lord! + O birth of the happy Brynhild to the measureless reward!" + So they sat as the day grew dimmer, and they looked on days to come, + And the fair tale speeding onward, and the glories of their home; + And they saw their crowned children and the kindred of the kings, + And deeds in the world arising and the day of better things: + All the earthly exaltation, till their pomp of life should be passed, + And soft on the bosom of God their love should be laid at the last.' + +And on the page facing this lies a pressed flower--there used to be +two--guarded by these tender rhymes:-- + + 'Whoe'er shall read this mighty song + In some forthcoming evensong, + We pray thee guard these simple flowers, + For, gentle Reader, they are "ours."' + +But ill has some 'gentle Reader' attended to the behest, for, as I said, +but one of the flowers remains. One is lost--and Narcissus has gone +away. This inscription is but one of many such scattered here and there +through his books, for he had a great facility in such minor graces, as +he had a neat hand at tying a bow. I don't think he ever sent a box of +flowers without his fertility serving him with some rose-leaf fancy to +accompany them; and on birthdays and all red-letter days he was always +to be counted upon for an appropriate rhyme. If his art served no other +purpose, his friend would be grateful to him for that alone, for many +great days would have gone without their 'white stone' but for him; +when, for instance, J.A.W. took that brave plunge of his, which has +since so abundantly justified him and more than fulfilled prophecy; or +when Samuel Dale took that bolder, namely a wife, he being a +philosopher--incidents, Reader, on which I long so to digress, and for +which, if you could only know beforehand, you would, I am sure, give me +freest hand. But beautiful stories both, I may not tell of you here; +though if the Reader and I ever spend together those hinted nights at +the 'Mermaid,' I then may. + +But to return. I said above that if I were to enumerate all the books, +so to say, 'implicated' in the love of Narcissus and his Thirteenth +Maid, I should have to catalogue quite a small library. I forgot for the +moment what literal truth I was writing, for it was indeed in quite a +large library that they first met. In 'our town' there is, Reader, an +old-world institution, which, I think, you would well like transported +to yours, a quaint subscription library 'established' ever so long ago, +full of wonderful nooks and corners, where (of course, if you are a +member) one is sure almost at any time of the day of a solitary corner +for a dream. It is a sweet provision, too, that it is managed by ladies, +whom you may, if you can, image to yourself as the Hesperides; for there +are three of them; and may not the innumerable galleries and spiral +staircases, serried with countless shelves, clustered thick with tome on +tome, figure the great tree, with its many branches and its wonderful +gold fruit--the tree of knowledge? The absence of the dragon from the +similitude is as well, don't you think? + +Books, of all things, should be tended by reverent hands; and, to my +mind, the perfunctory in things ecclesiastical is hardly more +distressing than the service of books as conducted in many great +libraries. One feels that the _librarii_ should be a sacred order, +nearly allied to the monastic, refined by varying steps of initiation, +and certainly celibates. They should give out their books as the priest +his sacrament, should wear sacred vestments, and bear about with them +the priestlike _aura_, as of divine incarnations of the great spirit of +Truth and Art in whose temples they are ministrants. The next step to +this ideal ministry is to have our books given out to us by women. +Though they may understand them not, they handle them with gentle +courtesy, and are certainly in every way to be preferred to the youthful +freckled monster with red spines upon his head, and nailed boots, 'the +work of the Cyclops,' upon his feet, whose physiognomy is contorted by +cinnamon-balls at the very moment he carries in his arms some great +Golden-lips or gentle Silver-tongue. What good sweet women there are, +too, who would bless heaven for the occupation! + +Well, as I said, we in that particular library are more fortunate, and +two of the 'subscribers,' at least, did at one time express their +appreciation of its privileges by a daily dream among its shelves. One +day--had Hercules been there overnight?--we missed one of our fair +attendants. Was it Aegle, Arethusa, or Hesperia? Narcissus probably +knew. And on the next she was still missing; nor on the third had she +returned; but lo! there was another in her stead--and on her Narcissus +bent his gaze, according to wont. A little maid, with noticeable eyes, +and the hair Rossetti loved to paint--called Hesper, 'by many,' said +Narcissus, one day long after, solemnly quoting the Vita Nuova, 'who +know not wherefore.' + +'Why! do _you_ know?' I asked. + +'Yes!' And then, for the first time, he had told me the story I have now +to tell again. He had, meanwhile, rather surprised me by little touches +of intimate observation of her which he occasionally let slip--as, for +instance, 'Have you noticed her forehead? It has a fine distinction of +form; is pure ivory, surely; and you should watch how deliciously her +hair springs out of it, like little wavy threads of "old gold" set in +the ivory by some cunning artist.' + +I had just looked at him and wondered a moment. But such attentive +regard was hardly matter for surprise in his case; and, moreover, I +always tried to avoid the subject of women with him, for it was the one +on which alone there was danger of our disagreeing. It was the only one +in which he seemed to show signs of cruelty in his disposition, though +it was, I well know, but a thoughtless cruelty; and in my heart I always +felt that he was too right-minded and noble in the other great matters +of life not to come right on that too when 'the hour had struck.' +Meanwhile, he had a way of classifying amours by the number of verses +inspired--as, 'Heigho! it's all over; but never mind, I got two sonnets +out of her'--which seemed to me an exhibition of the worst side of his +artist disposition, and which--well, Reader, jarred much on one who +already knew what a true love meant. It was, however, I could see, quite +unconscious; and I tried hard not to be intolerant towards him, because +fortune had blessed me with an earlier illumination. + +Pray, go not away with the misconception that Narcissus was ever base to +a woman. No! he left that to Circe's hogs, and the one temptation he +ever had towards it he turned into a shining salvation. No! he had +nothing worse than the sins of the young egoist to answer for, though he +afterwards came to feel those pitiful and mean enough. + +Another noticeable feature of Hesper's face was an ever-present +sadness--not as of a dull grief, but as of some shining sorrow, a +quality which gave her face much arresting interest. It seemed one +great, rich tear. One loved to dwell upon it as upon those intense +stretches of evening sky when the day yearns through half-shut eyelids +in the west. One continually wondered what story it meant, for some it +must mean. + +Watching her thus quietly, day by day, it seemed to me that as the weeks +from her first coming went by, this sadness deepened; and I could not +forbear one day questioning the elder Hesperides about her, thus +bringing upon myself a revelation I had little expected. For, said she, +'she was glad I had spoken to her, for she had long wished to ask me to +use my influence with my friend, that he might cease paying Hesper +attentions which he could not mean in earnest, but which she knew were +already causing Hesper to be fond of him. Having become friendly with +her, she had found out her secret and remonstrated with her, with the +result that she had avoided Narcissus for some time, but not without +much misery to herself, over which she was continually brooding.' + +All this was an utter surprise, and a saddening one; for I had grown to +feel much interest in the girl, and had been especially pleased by all +absence of the flighty tendencies with which too many girls in public +service tempt men to their own destruction. She had seemed to me to bear +herself with a maidenly self-respect that spoke of no little grace of +breeding. She had two very strong claims on one's regard. She was +evidently a woman, in the deep, tragic sense of that word, and a lady in +the only true sense of that. The thought of a life so rich in womanly +promise becoming but another of the idle playthings of Narcissus filled +me with something akin to rage, and I was not long in saying some strong +words to him. Not that I feared for her the coarse 'ruin' the world +alone thinks of. Is that the worst that can befall woman? What of the +spiritual deflowering, of which the bodily is but a symbol? If the first +fine bloom of the soul has gone, if the dream that is only dreamed once +has grown up in the imagination and been once given, the mere chastity +of the body is a lie, and whatever its fecundity, the soul has nought +but sterility to give to another. It is not those kisses of the +lips--kisses that one forgets as one forgets the roses we smelt last +year--which profane; they but soil the vessel of the sacrament, and it +is the sacrament itself which those consuming spirit-kisses, which burn +but through the eyes, may desecrate. It is strange that man should have +so long taken the precisely opposite attitude in this matter, caring +only for the observation of the vessel, and apparently dreaming not of +any other possible approach to the sanctities. Probably, however, his +care has not been of sanctities at all. Indeed, most have, doubtless, +little suspicion of the existence of such, and the symbol has been and +is but a selfish superstition amongst them--woman, a symbol whose +meaning is forgotten, but still the object of an ignorant veneration, +not unrelated to the preservation of game. + +Narcissus took my remonstrance a little flippantly, I thought, evidently +feeling that too much had been made out of very little; for he averred +that his 'attentions' to Hesper had been of the slightest character, +hardly more than occasional looks and whispers, which, from her cold +reception of them, he had felt were more distasteful to her than +otherwise. He had indeed, he said, ceased even these the last few days, +as her reserve always made him feel foolish, as a man fondling a fair +face in his dream wakes on a sudden to find that he is but grimacing at +the air. This reassured me, and I felt little further anxiety. However, +this security only proved how little I really understood the weak side +of my friend. I had not realised how much he really was Narcissus, and +how dear to him was a new mirror. My speaking to him was the one wrong +course possible to be taken. Instead of confirming his growing intention +of indifference, it had, as might have been foreseen, the directly +opposite effect; and from the moment of his learning that Hesper +secretly loved him, she at once became invested with a new glamour, and +grew daily more and more the forbidden fascination few can resist. + +I did not learn this for many months. Meanwhile Narcissus chose to +deceive me for the first and only time. At last he told me all; and how +different was his manner of telling it from his former gay relations of +conquest. One needed not to hear the words to see he was unveiling a +sacred thing, a holiness so white and hidden, the most reverent word +seemed a profanation; and, as he laboured for the least soiled wherein +to enfold the revelation, his soul seemed as a maid torn with the +blushing tremors of a new knowledge. Men only speak so after great and +wonderful travail, and by that token I knew Narcissus loved at last. It +had seemed unlikely ground from which love had first sprung forth, that +of a self-worship that could forgo no slightest indulgence--but thence +indeed it had come. The silent service my words had given him to know +that Hesper's heart was offering to him was not enough; he must hear it +articulate, his nostrils craved an actual incense. To gain this he must +deceive two--his friend, and her whose poor face would kindle with +hectic hope, at the false words he must say for the true words he _must_ +hear. It was pitifully mean; but whom has not his own hidden lust made +to crawl like a thief, afraid of a shadow, in his own house? Narcissus' +young lust was himself, and Moloch knew no more ruthless hunger than +burns in such. Of course, it did not present itself quite nakedly to +him; he persuaded himself there could be little harm--he meant none. + +And so, instead of avoiding Hesper, he sought her the more persistently, +and by some means so far wooed her from her reticence as to win her +consent to a walk together one autumn afternoon. How little do we know +the measure of our own proposing! That walk was to be the most fateful +his feet had ever trodden through field and wood, yet it seemed the most +accidental of gallantries. A little town-maid, with a romantic passion +for 'us'; it would be interesting to watch the child; it would be like +giving her a day's holiday, so much sunshine 'in our presence.' And so +on. But what an entirely different complexion was the whole thing +beginning to take before they had walked a mile. Behind the flippancy +one had gone to meet were surely the growing features of a solemnity. +Why, the child was a woman indeed; she could talk, she had brains, +ideas--and, Lord bless us, Theories! She had that 'excellent thing in +woman,' not only a voice, which she had, too, but character. Narcissus +began to loose his regal robes, and from being merely courteously to be +genuinely interested. Why, she was a discovery! As they walked on, her +genuine delight in the autumnal nature, the real imaginative appeal it +had for her, was another surprise. She had, evidently, a deep poetry in +her disposition, rarest of all female endowments. In a surprisingly few +minutes from the beginning of their walk he found himself taking that +'little child' with extreme seriousness, and wondering many 'whethers.' + +They walked out again, and yet again, and Narcissus' first impressions +deepened. He had his theories, too; and, surely, here was the woman! He +was not in love--at least, not with her, but with her fitness for his +theory. + +They sat by a solitary woodside, beneath a great elm tree. The hour was +full of magic, for though the sun had set, the smile of her day's joy +with him had not yet faded from the face of earth. It was the hour +vulgarised in drawing-room ballads as the 'gloaming.' They sat very near +to each other; he held her hand, toying with it; and now and again their +eyes met with the look that flutters before flight, that says, 'Dare I +give thee all? Dare I throw my eyes on thine as I would throw myself on +thee?' And then, at last, came the inevitable moment when the eyes of +each seem to cry 'O yes!' to the other, and the gates fly back; all the +hidden light springs forth, the woods swim round, and the lips meet with +a strange shock, while the eyes of the spirit close in a lapping dream +of great peace. + +If you are not ready to play the man, beware of a kiss such as the lips +of little Hesper, that never knew to kiss before, pressed upon the mouth +of Narcissus. It sent a chill shudder through him, though it was so +sweet, for he could feel her whole life surging behind it; and was the +kiss he had given her for it such a kiss as that? But he had spoken much +to her of his ideas of marriage; she knew he was sworn for ever against +that. She must know the kiss had no such meaning; for, besides, did she +not scorn the soiled 'tie' also? Were not their theories at one in that? +He would be doing her no wrong; it was her own desire. Yet his kiss did +mean more than he could have imagined it meaning a week before. She had +grown to be genuinely desirable. If love tarried, passion was +awake--that dangerous passion, too, to which the intellect has added its +intoxication, and that is, so to say, legitimised by an 'idea.' + +Her woman's intuition read the silence and answered to his thought. +'Have no fear,' she said, with the deep deliberation of passion; 'I +love you with my whole life, but I shall never burden you, Narcissus. +Love me as long as you can, I shall be content; and when the end comes, +though another woman takes you, I shall not hinder.' + +O great girl-soul! What a poltroon, indeed, was Narcissus beside you at +that moment. You ready to stake your life on the throw, he temporising +and bargaining as over the terms of a lease. Surely, if he could for one +moment have seen himself in the light of your greatness, he had been +crushed beneath the misery of his own meanness. But as yet he had no +such vision; his one thought was, 'She will do it! will she draw back?' +and the feeble warnings he was obliged to utter to keep his own terms, +by assuring his conscience of 'her free-will,' were they not +half-fearfully whispered, and with an inward haste, lest they should +give her pause? 'But the world, my dear--think!' 'It will have cruel +names for thee.' 'It will make thee outcast--think!' + +'I know all,' she had answered; 'but I love you, and two years of your +love would pay for all. There is no world for me but you. Till to-night +I have never lived at all, and when you go I shall be as dead. The world +cannot hurt such a one.' + +Ah me, it was a wild, sweet dream for both of them, one the woman's, one +the poet's, of a 'sweet impossible' taking flesh! For, do not let us +blame Narcissus overmuch. He was utterly sincere; he meant no wrong. He +but dreamed of following a creed to which his reason had long given a +hopeless assent. In a more kindly-organised community he might have +followed it, and all have been well; but the world has to be dealt with +as one finds it, and we must get sad answers to many a fair calculation +if we 'state' it wrongly in the equation. That there is one law for the +male and another for the female had not as yet vitally entered into his +considerations. He was too dizzy with the dream, or he must have seen +what an unequal bargain he was about to drive. + +At last he did awake, and saw it all; and in a burning shame went to +Hesper, and told her that it must not be. + +Her answer was unconsciously the most subtly dangerous she could have +chosen: 'If I like to give myself to you, why should you not take me? It +is of my own free-will. My eyes are open.' It was his very thought put +into words, and by her. For a moment he wavered--who could blame him? +'Am I my brother's keeper?' + +'Yes! a thousand times yes!' cried his soul; for he was awake now, and +he had come to see the dream as it was, and to shudder at himself as he +had well-nigh been, just as one shudders at the thought of a precipice +barely escaped. In that moment, too, the idea of her love in all its +divineness burst upon him. Here was a heart capable of a great tragic +love like the loves of old he read of and whimpered for in sonnets, and +what had he offered in exchange? A poor, philosophical compromise, +compounded of pessimism and desire, in which a man should have all to +gain and nothing to lose, for + + 'The light, light love he has wings to fly + At suspicion of a bond.' + +'I would I did love her,' his heart was crying as he went away. 'Could I +love her?' was his next thought. 'Do I love her?'--but that is a +question that always needs longer than one day to answer. + +Already he was as much in love with her as most men when they take unto +themselves wives. She was desirable--he had pleasure in her presence. He +had that half of love which commonly passes for all--the passion; but he +lacked the additional incentives which nerve the common man to face that +fear which seems well-nigh as universal as the fear of death, I mean the +fear of marriage--life's two fears: that is, he had no desire to +increase his worldly possessions by annexing a dowry, or ambition of +settling down and procuring a wife as part of his establishment. After +all, how full of bachelors the world would be if it were not for these +motives: for the one other motive to a true marriage, the other half of +love, however one names it, is it not a four-leaved clover indeed? +Narcissus was happily poor enough to be above those motives, even had +Hesper been anything but poor too; and if he was to marry her, it would +be because he was capable of loving her with that perfect love which, of +course, has alone right to the sacred name, that which cannot take all +and give nought, but which rather holds as watchword that _to love is +better than to be loved_. + +Who shall hope to express the mystery? Yet, is not thus much true, that, +if it must be allowed to the cynic that love rises in self, it yet has +its zenith and setting in another--in woman as in man? Two meet, and +passion, the joy of the selfish part of each, is born; shall love follow +depends on whether they have a particular grace of nature, love being +the thanksgiving of the unselfish part for the boon granted to the +other. The common nature snatches the joy and forgets the giver, but the +finer never forgets, and deems life but a poor service for a gift so +rare; and, though passion be long since passed, love keeps holy an +eternal memory. + + 'Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords + with might; + Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, pass'd in music + out of sight.' + +Since the time of fairy-tales Love has had a way of coming in the +disguise of Duty. What is the story of Beauty and the Beast but an +allegory of true love? We take this maid to be our wedded wife, for her +sake it perhaps seems at the time. She is sweet and beautiful and to be +desired; but, all the same, we had rather shake the loose leg of +bachelordom, if it might be. However it be, so we take her, or maybe it +is she takes us, with a feeling of martyrdom; but lo! when we are home +together, what wonderful new lights are these beginning to ray about +her, as though she had up till now kept a star hidden in her bosom. What +is this new morning strength and peace in our life? Why, we thought it +was but Thestylis, and lo! it is Diana after all. For the Thirteenth +Maid or the Thirteenth Man, both alike, rarely come as we had expected. +There seems no fitness in their arrival. It seems so ridiculously +accidental, as I suppose the hour of death, whenever it comes, will +seem. One had expected some high calm prelude of preparation, ending in +a festival of choice, like an Indian prince's, when the maids of the +land pass before him and he makes deliberate selection of the fateful +She. But, instead, we are hurrying among our day's business, maybe, our +last thought of her; we turn a corner, and suddenly she is before us. Or +perhaps, as it fell with Narcissus, we have tried many loves that proved +but passions; we have just buried the last, and are mournfully leaving +its grave, determined to seek no further, to abjure bright eyes, at +least for a long while, when lo! on a sudden a little maid is in our +path holding out some sweet modest flowers. The maid has a sweet mouth, +too, and, the old Adam being stronger than our infant resolution, we +smell the flowers and kiss the mouth--to find arms that somehow, we know +not why, are clinging as for life about us. Let us beware how we shake +them off, for thus it is decreed shall a man meet her to have missed +whom were to have missed all. Youth, like that faithless generation in +the Scriptures, always craveth after a sign, but rarely shall one be +given. It can only be known whether a man be worthy of Love by the way +in which he looks upon Duty. Rachel often comes in the grey cloak of +Leah. It rests with the man's heart whether he shall know her beneath +the disguise; no other divining-rod shall aid him. If it be as +Bassanio's, brave to 'give and hazard all he hath,' let him not fear to +pass the seeming gold, the seeming silver, to choose the seeming lead. +'Why, _that's_ the lady,' thou poor magnificent Morocco. Nor shall the +gold fail, for her heart is that, and for silver thou shalt have those +'silent silver lights undreamed of' of face and soul. + +These are but scattered hints of the story of Narcissus' love as he told +it me at last, in broken, struggling words, but with a light in his face +one power alone could set there. + +When he came to the end, and to all that little Hesper had proved to +him, all the strength and illumination she had brought him, he fairly +broke down and sobbed, as one may in a brother's arms. For, of course, +he had come out of the ordeal a man; and Hesper had consented to be his +wife. Often she had dreamed as he had passed her by with such heedless +air: 'If I love him so, can it be that my love shall have no power to +make him mine, somehow, some day? Can I call to him so within my soul +and he not hear? Can I wait and he not come?' And her love had been +strong, strong as a destiny; her voice had reached him, for it was the +voice of God. + +When I next saw her, what a strange brightness shone in her face, what a +new beauty was there! Ah, Love, the great transfigurer! And why, too, +was it that his friends began to be dissatisfied with their old +photographs of Narcissus, though they had been taken but six months +before? There seemed something lacking in the photograph, they said. +Yes, there was; but the face had lacked it too. What was the new +thing--'grip' was it, joy, peace? Yes, all three, but more besides, and +Narcissus had but one name for all. It was Hesper. + +Strange, too, that in spite of promises we never received a new one. +Narcissus, who used to be so punctual with such a request. Perhaps it +was because he had broken his looking-glass. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +'IN VISHNU-LAND WHAT AVATAR?' + +'If I love you for a year I shall love you for ever,' Narcissus had said +to his Thirteenth Maid. He did love her so long, and yet he has gone +away. Do you remember your _Les Misérables_, that early chapter where +Valjean robs the child of his florin so soon after that great +illuminating change of heart and mind had come to him? Well, still more +important, do you remember the clue Hugo gives us to aberration? There +is comfort and strength for so many a heart-breaking failure there. It +was the old impetus, we are told, that was as yet too strong for the new +control; the old instinct, too dark for the new light in the brain. It +takes every vessel some time to answer to its helm; with us, human +vessels, years, maybe. Have you never suddenly become sensitive of a +gracious touch in the air, and pondered it, to recognise that in some +half-unconscious act you had that moment been answering for the first +time the helm of an almost forgotten resolution? Ah me, blessed is it to +see the prow strongly sweeping up against the sky at last! + +'Send not a poet to London,' said Heine, and it was a true word. At +least, send him not till his thews are laced and his bones set. He may +miss somewhat, of course; there is no gain without a loss. He may be in +ignorance of the last _nuance_, and if he deserves fame he must gain it +unaided of the vulgar notoriety which, if he have a friend or two in the +new journalism, they will be so eager to bestow; but he will have kept +his soul intact, which, after all, is the main matter. It is sweet, +doubtless, to be one of those same mushroom-men, sweet to be placarded +as 'the new' this or that, to step for a day into the triumphal car of +newspaper renown, drawn by teams of willing paragraph-men--who, does it +never strike you? are but doing it all for hire, and earning their bread +by their bent necks. Yet for those to whom it is denied there is solid +comfort; for it is not fame, and, worse still, it is not life, 'tis but +to be 'a Bourbon in a crown of straws.' + +If one could only take poor foolish Cockneydom right away outside this +poor vainglorious city, and show them how the stars are smiling to +themselves above it, nudging each other, so to say, at the silly lights +that ape their shining--for such a little while! + +Yes, that is one danger of the poet in London, that he should come to +think himself 'somebody'; though, doubtless, in proportion as he is a +poet, the other danger will be the greater, that he should deem himself +'nobody.' Modest by nature, credulous of appearances, the noisy +pretensions of the hundred and one small celebrities, and the din of +their retainers this side and that, in comparison with his own +unattended course, what wonder if his heart sinks and he gives up the +game; how shall his little pipe, though it be of silver, hope to be +heard in this land of bassoons? To take London seriously is death both +to man and artist. Narcissus had sufficient success there to make this a +temptation, and he fell. He lost his hold of the great things of life, +he forgot the stars, he forgot his love, and what wonder that his art +sickened also. For a few months life was but a feverish clutch after +varied sensation, especially the dear tickle of applause; he caught the +facile atheistic flippancy of that poor creature, the 'modern young +man,' all-knowing and all-foolish, and he came very near losing his soul +in the nightmare. But he had too much ballast in him to go quite under, +and at last strength came, and he shook the weakness from him. Yet the +fall had been too far and too cruel for him to be happy again soon. He +had gone forth so confident in his new strength of manly love; and to +fall so, and almost without an effort! Who has not called upon the +mountains to cover him in such an hour of awakening, and who will +wonder that Narcissus dared not look upon the face of Hesper till +solitude had washed him clean, and bathed him in its healing oil? I +alone bade him good-bye. It was in this room wherein I am writing, the +study we had taken together, where still his books look down at me from +the shelves, and all the memorials of his young life remain. O _can_ it +have been but 'a phantom of false morning'? A Milton snatched up at the +last moment was the one book he took with him. + +From that night until this he has made but one sign--a little note which +Hesper has shown me, a sob and a cry to which even a love that had been +more deeply wronged could never have turned a deaf ear. Surely not +Hesper, for she has long forgiven him, knowing his weakness for what it +was. She and I sometimes sit here together in the evenings and talk of +him; and every echo in the corridor sets us listening, for he may be at +the other side of the world, or but the other side of the street--we +know so little of his fate. Where he is we know not; but if he still +lives, _what_ he is we have the assurance of faith. This time he has not +failed, we know. But why delay so long? + + +_November_ 1889--_May_ 1890. _November_ 1894. + + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Book-Bills of Narcissus +by Le Gallienne, Richard + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10826 *** diff --git a/10826-h/10826-h.htm b/10826-h/10826-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2abcb14 --- /dev/null +++ b/10826-h/10826-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3387 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" + content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of + The Book-Bills of Narcissus, + by Richard Le Gallienne. +</title> +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + * { font-family: Times;} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + font-size: 12pt; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; } + PRE { font-family: Courier, monospaced; } + // --> +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10826 ***</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h1>THE BOOK-BILLS OF NARCISSUS</h1> +<center> +AN ACCOUNT RENDERED BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE +</center> +<p> </p> +<center> +WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY ROBERT FOWLER +</center> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<center> +1895 +</center> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<hr> + + + +<a name="RULE4_1"><!-- RULE4 1 --></a> +<h2> + TABLE OF CHAPTERS +</h2> + +<pre> + I. <a href="#CH1">INTRODUCTORY</a> + II. <a href="#CH2">STILL INTRODUCTORY, BUT THIS TIME OF A GREATER THAN THE WRITER</a> + III. <a href="#CH3">IN WHICH NARCISSUS OPENS HIS 'GLADSTONE'</a> + IV. <a href="#CH4">ACCOUNTS RENDERED</a> + V. <a href="#CH5">AN IDYLL OF ALICE SUNSHINE, WHICH REALLY BELONGS TO THE LAST CHAPTER</a> + VI. <a href="#CH6">THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS</a> + VII. <a href="#CH7">THE CHILDREN OF APOLLO</a> +VIII. <a href="#CH8">GEORGE MUNCASTER</a> + IX. <a href="#CH9">THAT THIRTEENTH MAID</a> + X. <a href="#CH10">'IN VISHNU-LAND WHAT AVATAR?'</a> +</pre> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<a name="RULE4_2"><!-- RULE4 2 --></a> +<p><b>TO MILDRED</b></p> + +<pre> + Always thy book, too late acknowledged thine, + Now when thine eyes no earthly page may read; + Blinded with death, or blinded with the shine + Of love's own lore celestial. Small need, + Forsooth, for thee to read my earthly line, + That on immortal flowers of fancy feed; + What should my angel do to stoop to mine, + Flowers of decay of no immortal seed. + + Yet, love, if in thy lofty dwelling-place, + Higher than notes of any soaring bird, + Beyond the beam of any solar light, + A song of earth may scale the awful height, + And at thy heavenly window find thy face— + know my voice shall never fall unheard. +</pre> +<p> +<i>December 6th,</i> 1894. +</p> +<p> +NOTE.—<i>This third edition has been revised, and Chapter V. is entirely +new</i>. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH1"><!-- CH1 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER I +</h2> + +<p> +INTRODUCTORY—A WORD OF WISDOM, FOUND WRITTEN, LIKE THE MOST ANCIENT, ON +LEATHER +</p> +<p> +'Ah! old men's boots don't go there, sir!' said the bootmaker to me one +day, as he pointed to the toes of a pair I had just brought him for +mending. It was a significant observation, I thought; and as I went on +my way home, writing another such chronicle with every springing step, +it filled me with much reflection—largely of the nature of platitude, I +have little doubt: such reflection, Reader, as is even already, I doubt +less, rippling the surface of your mind with ever-widening circles. Yes! +you sigh with an air, it is in the unconscious autobiographies we are +every moment writing—not those we publish in two volumes and a +supplement—where the truth about us is hid. Truly it is a thought that +has 'thrilled dead bosoms,' I agree, but why be afraid of it for that, +Reader? Truth is not become a platitude only in our day. 'The Preacher' +knew it for such some considerable time ago, and yet he did not fear to +'write and set in order many proverbs.' +</p> +<p> +You have kept a diary for how many years? Thirty? dear me! But have you +kept your wine-bills? If you ever engage me to write that life, which, +of course, must some day be written—I wouldn't write it myself—don't +trouble about your diary. Lend me your private ledger. 'There the action +lies in his true nature.' +</p> +<p> +Yet I should hardly, perhaps, have evoked this particular corollary from +that man of leather's observation, if I had not chanced one evening to +come across those old book-bills of my friend Narcissus, about which I +have undertaken to write here, and been struck—well-nigh awe-struck—by +the wonderful manner in which there lay revealed in them the story of +the years over which they ran. To a stranger, I am sure, they would be +full of meaning; but to me, who lived so near him through so much of the +time, how truly pregnant does each briefest entry seem. +</p> +<p> +To Messrs. Oldbuck and Sons they, alas! often came to be but so many +accounts rendered; to you, being a philosopher, they would, as I have +said, mean more; but to me they mean all that great sunrise, the youth +of Narcissus. +</p> +<p> +Many modern poets, still young enough, are fond of telling us where +their youth lies buried. That of Narcissus—would ye know—rests among +these old accounts. Lo! I would perform an incantation. I throw these +old leaves into the <i>elixir vitae</i> of sweet memory, as Dr. Heidegger +that old rose into his wonderful crystal water. Have I power to make +Narcissus' rose to bloom again, so that you may know something of the +beauty it wore for us? I wonder. I would I had. I must try. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH2"><!-- CH2 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER II +</h2> + +<center> +STILL INTRODUCTORY, BUT THIS TIME OF A GREATER THAN THE WRITER +</center> +<p> +On the left-hand side of Tithefields, just as one turns out of Prince +Street, in a certain well-known Lancashire town, is the unobtrusive +bookshop of Mr. Samuel Dale. It must, however, be a very superficial +glance which does not discover in it something characteristic, +distinguishing it from other 'second-hand' shops of the same size and +style. +</p> +<p> +There are, alas! treatises on farriery in the window; geographies, +chemistries, and French grammars, on the trestles outside; for Samuel, +albeit so great a philosopher as indeed to have founded quite a school, +must nevertheless live. Those two cigars and that 'noggin' of whiskey, +which he purchases with such a fine solemnity as he and I go home +together for occasional symposia in his bachelor lodging—those, I say, +come not without sale of such treatises, such geographies, chemistries, +and French grammars. +</p> +<p> +But I am digressing. There is a distinguishing air, I but meant to say, +about the little shop. Looking closer, one generally finds that it comes +of a choice bit of old binding, or the quaint title-page of some tuneful +Elizabethan. It was an old Crashaw that first drew me inside; and, +though for some reason I did not buy it then, I bought it a year after, +because to it I owed the friendship of Samuel Dale. +</p> +<p> +And thus for three bright years that little shop came to be, for a daily +hour or so, a blessed palm-tree away from the burden and heat of the +noon, a holy place whither the money-changers and such as sold doves +might never come, let their clamour in the outer courts ring never so +loud. There in Samuel's talk did two weary-hearted bond-servants of +Egypt draw a breath of the Infinite into their lives of the desk; there +could they sit awhile by the eternal springs, and feel the beating of +the central heart. +</p> +<p> +So it happened one afternoon, about five years ago, that I dropped in +there according to wont. But Samuel was engaged with some one in that +dim corner at the far end of the shop, where his desk and arm-chair, +tripod of that new philosophy, stood: so I turned to a neighbouring +shelf to fill the time. At first I did not notice his visitor; but as, +in taking down this book and that, I had come nearer to the talkers, I +was struck with something familiar in the voice of the stranger. It came +upon me like an old song, and looking up—why, of course, it was +Narcissus! +</p> +<p> +The letter N does not make one of the initials on the Gladstone bag +which he had with him on that occasion, and which, filled with books, +lay open on the floor close by; nor does it appear on any of those +tobacco-pouches, cigar-cases, or handkerchiefs with which men beloved of +fair women are familiar. And Narcissus might, moreover, truthfully say +that <i>it</i> has never appeared upon any manner of stamped paper coming +under a certain notable Act. +</p> +<p> +To be less indulgent to a vice from which the Reader will, I fear, have +too frequent occasion to suffer in these pages, and for which he may +have a stronger term than digression, let me at once say that Narcissus +is but the name Love knew him by, Love and the Reader; for that name by +which he was known to the postman—and others—is no necessity here. How +and why he came to be so named will appear soon enough. +</p> +<p> +Yes! it was the same old Narcissus, and he was wielding just the same +old magic, I could see, as in our class-rooms and playgrounds five years +before. What is it in him that made all men take him so on his own +terms, made his talk hold one so, though it so often stumbled in the +dark, and fell dumb on many a verbal <i>cul-de-sac</i>? Whatever it is, +Samuel felt it, and, with that fine worshipful spirit of his—an +attitude which always reminds me of the elders listening to the boy +Jesus—was doing that homage for which no beauty or greatness ever +appeals to him in vain. What an eye for soul has Samuel! How inevitably +it pierces through all husks and excrescences to the central beauty! In +that short talk he knew Narcissus through and through; three years or +thirty years could add but little. But the talk was not ended yet; +indeed, it seemed like so many of those Tithefields talks, as if in the +'eternal fitness of things' it never could, would, or should end. It was +I at last who gave it pause, and—yes! indeed, it was he. We had, +somehow, not met for quite three years, chums as we had been at school. +He had left there for an office some time before I did, and, oddly +enough, this was our first meeting since then. A purchaser for one of +those aforesaid treatises on farriery just then coming in, dislodged us; +so, bidding Samuel good-bye—he and Narcissus already arranging for 'a +night'—we obeyed a mutual instinct, and presently found ourselves in +the snuggery of a quaint tavern, which was often to figure hereafter in +our sentimental history, though probably little in these particular +chapters of it. The things 'seen done at "The Mermaid "' may some day be +written in another place, where the Reader will know from the beginning +what to expect, and not feel that he has been induced to buy a volume +under false pretences. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH3"><!-- CH3 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER III +</h2> + +<center> +IN WHICH NARCISSUS OPENS HIS 'GLADSTONE' +</center> +<p> +Though it was so long since we had met—is not three years indeed 'so +long' in youth?—we had hardly to wait for our second glass to be again +<i>en rapport</i>. Few men grow so rapidly as Narcissus did in those young +days, but fewer still can look back on old enthusiasms and superannuated +ideals with a tenderness so delicately considerate. Most men hasten to +witness their present altitude by kicking away the old ladders on the +first opportunity; like vulgar lovers, they seek to flatter to-day at +the expense of yesterday. But Narcissus was of another fibre; he could +as soon have insulted the memory of his first love. +</p> +<p> +So, before long, we had passed together into a sweet necropolis of +dreams, whither, if the Reader care, I will soon take him by the hand. +But just now I would have him concern himself with the afternoon of +which I write, in that sad tense, the past present. Indeed, we did not +ourselves tarry long among the shades, for we were young, and youth has +little use for the preterite; its verbs are wont to have but two tenses. +We soon came up to the surface in one, with eyes turned instinctively on +the other. +</p> +<p> +Narcissus' bag seemed, somehow, a symbol; and I had caught sight of a +binding or two as it lay open in Tithefields that made me curious to see +it open again. He was only beginning to collect when we had parted at +school, if 'collect' is not too sacred a word: beginning to <i>buy</i> more +truly expresses that first glutting of the bookish hunger, which, like +the natural appetite, never passes in some beyond the primary +utilitarian stage of 'eating to live,' otherwise 'buying to read.' Three +years, however, works miracles of refinement in any hunger that is at +all capable of culture; and it was evident, when Narcissus did open his +'Gladstone,' that it had taken him by no means so long to attain that +sublimation of taste which may be expressed as 'reading to buy.' Each +volume had that air—of breeding, one might almost say—by which one can +always know a genuine <i>bouquin</i> at a glance; an alluvial richness of +bloom, coming upon one like an aromatic fragrance in so many old things, +in old lawns, in old flowers, old wines, and many another delicious +simile. One could not but feel that each had turned its golden brown, +just as an apple reddens—as, indeed, it had. +</p> +<p> +I do not propose to solemnly enumerate and laboriously describe these +good things, because I hardly think they would serve to distinguish +Narcissus, except in respect of luck, from other bookmen in the first +furor of bookish enthusiasm. They were such volumes as Mr. Pendennis ran +up accounts for at Oxford. Narcissus had many other points in common +with that gentleman. Such volumes as, morning after morning, sadden +one's breakfast-table in that Tantalus <i>menu</i>, the catalogue. Black +letter, early printed, first editions Elizabethan and Victorian, every +poor fly ambered in large paper, etc. etc.; in short, he ran through the +gamut of that craze which takes its turn in due time with marbles, +peg-tops, beetles, and foreign stamps—with probably the two exceptions +of Bewick, for whom he could never batter up an enthusiasm, and +'facetiae.' These latter needed too much camphor, he used to say. +</p> +<p> +His two most cherished possessions were a fine copy of the <i>Stultitiae +Laus</i>, printed by Froben, which had once been given by William Burton, +the historian, to his brother Robert, when the latter was a youngster of +twenty; and a first edition of one of Walton's lives, 'a presentation +copy from the author.' The former was rich with the autographs and +marginalia of both brothers, and on the latter a friend of his has +already hung a tale, which may or may not be known to the Reader. In the +reverent handling of these treasures, two questions inevitably forced +themselves upon me: where the d——l Narcissus, an apprentice, with an +allowance that would hardly keep most of us in tobacco, had found the +money for such indulgences; and how he could find in his heart to sell +them again so soon. A sorrowful interjection, as he closed his bag, +explained all:— +</p> +<p> +'Yes!' he sighed, 'they have cost me thirty pounds, and guess how much I +have been offered for them?' +</p> +<p> +I suggested ten. +</p> +<p> +'Five,' groaned my poor friend. 'I tried several to get that. "H'm," +says each one, indifferently turning the most precious in his hand, +"this would hardly be any use to me; and this I might have to keep +months before I could sell. That I could make you an offer for; what +have you thought of for it?" With a great tugging at your heart, and +well-nigh in tears, you name the absurdest minimum. You had given five; +you halve it—surely you can get that! But "O no! I can give nothing +like that figure. In that case it is no use to talk of it." In despair +you cry, "Well, what will you offer?" with a choking voice. "Fifteen +shillings would be about my figure for it," answers the fiend, +relentless as a machine—and so on.' +</p> +<p> +'I tried pawning them at first,' he continued, 'because there was hope +of getting them back some time that way; but, trudging from shop to +shop, with many prayers, "a sovereign for the lot" was all I could get. +Worse than dress-clothes!' concluded the frank creature. +</p> +<p> +For Narcissus to be in debt was nothing new: he had always been so at +school, and probably always will be. Had you reproached him with it in +those young self-conscious days of glorious absurdity, he would probably +have retorted, with a toss of his vain young head:— +</p> +<p> +'Well, and so was Shelley!' +</p> +<p> +I ventured to enquire the present difficulty that compelled him to make +sacrifice of things so dear. +</p> +<p> +'Why, to pay for them, of course,' was the answer. +</p> +<p> +And so I first became initiated into the mad method by which Narcissus +had such a library about him at twenty-one. From some unexplained +reason, largely, I have little doubt, on account of the charm of his +manners, he had the easy credit of those respectable booksellers to whom +reference has been made above. No extravagance seemed to shake their +confidence. I remember calling upon them with him one day some months +following that afternoon—for the madness, as usual, would have its +time, and no sufferings seemed to teach him prudence—and he took me up +to a certain 'fine set' that he had actually resisted, he said, for a +fortnight. Alas! I knew what that meant. Yes, he must have it; it was +just the thing to help him with a something he was writing—'not to +read, you know, but to make an atmosphere,' etc. So he used to talk; and +the odd thing was, that we always took the wildness seriously; he seemed +to make us see just what he wanted. 'I say, John,' was the next I heard, +at the other end of the shop, 'will you kindly send me round that set +of' so-and-so, 'and charge it to my account?' 'John,' the son of old +Oldbuck, and for a short time a sort of friend of Narcissus, would +answer, 'Certainly,' with a voice of the most cheerful trust; and yet, +when we had gone, it was indeed no less a sum than £10, 10s. which he +added to the left-hand side of Mr. N.'s account. +</p> +<p> +Do not mistake this for a certain vulgar quality, with a vulgar little +name of five letters. No one could have less of that than Narcissus. He +was often, on the contrary, quite painfully diffident. No, it was not +'cheek,' Reader; it was a kind of irrational innocence. I don't think it +ever occurred to him, till the bills came in at the half-years, what +'charge it to my account' really meant. Perhaps it was because, poor +lad, he had so small a practical acquaintance with it, that he knew so +little the value of money. But how he suffered when those accounts did +come in! Of course, there was nothing to be done but to apply to some +long-suffering friend; denials of lunch and threadbare coats but nibbled +at the amount—especially as a fast to-day often found revulsion in a +festival to-morrow. To save was not in Narcissus. +</p> +<p> +I promised to digress, Reader, and I have kept my word. Now to return to +that afternoon again. It so chanced that on that day in the year I +happened to have in my pocket—what you might meet me every day in five +years without finding there—a ten-pound note. It was for this I felt +after we had been musing awhile—Narcissus, probably, on everything +else in the world except his debts—and it was with this I awoke him +from his reverie. He looked at his hand, and then at me, in +bewilderment. Poor fellow, how he wanted to keep it, yet how he tried to +look as if he couldn't think of doing so. He couldn't help his joy +shining through. +</p> +<p> +'But I want you to take it,' I said; 'believe me, I have no immediate +need of it, and you can pay me at your leisure.' Ten pounds towards the +keep of a poet once in a lifetime is, after all, but little interest on +the gold he brings us. At last I 'prevailed,' shall I say? but on no +account without the solemnity of an IOU and a fixed date for repayment, +on which matter poor N. was always extremely emphatic. Alas! Mr. George +Meredith has already told us how this passionate anxiety to be bound by +the heaven above, the earth, and the waters under the earth, is the most +fatal symptom by which to know the confirmed in this kind. Captain +Costigan had it, it may be remembered; and the same solicitude, the same +tearful gratitude, I know, accompanied every such transaction of my +poor Narcissus. +</p> +<p> +Whether it was as apparent on the due date, or whether of that ten +pounds I have ever looked upon the like again, is surely no affair of +the Reader's; but, lest he should do my friend an injustice, I had +better say—I haven't. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH4"><!-- CH4 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER IV +</h2> + +<center> +ACCOUNTS RENDERED +</center> +<p> +Nothing strikes one more in looking back, either on our own lives or on +those of others, than how little we assimilate from the greatest +experiences; in nothing is Nature's apparent wastefulness of means more +ironically impressive. A great love comes and sets one's whole being +singing like a harp, fills high heaven with rainbows, and makes our +dingy alleys for awhile bright as the streets of the New Jerusalem; and +yet, if five years after we seek for what its incandescence has left us, +we find, maybe, a newly helpful epithet, maybe a fancy, at most a +sonnet. Nothing strikes one more, unless, perhaps, the obverse, when we +see some trifling pebble-cast ripple into eternity, some fateful second +prolific as the fly aphis. And so I find it all again exampled in these +old accounts. The books that mean most for Narcissus to-day could be +carried in the hand without a strap, and could probably be bought for a +sovereign. The rest have survived as a quaint cadence in his style, have +left clinging about his thought a delicate incense of mysticism, or are +bound up in the retrospective tenderness of boyish loves long since gone +to dream. +</p> +<p> +Another observation in the same line of reflection also must often +strike one:—for what very different qualities than those for which we +were first passionate do we come afterwards to value our old +enthusiasms. In the day of their bloom it was the thing itself, the +craze, the study, for its own sake; now it is the discipline, or any +broad human culture, in which they may have been influential. The boy +chases the butterfly, and thinks not of the wood and the blue heaven; +but those only does the man remember, for the mark of their beauty upon +him, so unconsciously impressed, for the health of their power and +sweetness still living in his blood—for these does that chase seem +alone of worth, when the dusty entomological relic thereof is in limbo. +And so that long and costly shelf, groaning beneath the weight of Grose +and Dugdale, and many a mighty slab of topographical prose; those +pilgrimages to remote parish churches, with all their attendant ardours +of careful 'rubbings'; those notebooks, filled with patient data; those +long letters to brother antiquaries—of sixteen; even that famous +Exshire Tour itself, which was to have rivalled Pennant's own—what +remains to show where this old passion stood, with all the clustering +foliage of a dream; what but that quaint cadence I spoke of, and an +anecdote or two which seemed but of little import then, with such +breathless business afoot as an old font or a Roman road? +</p> +<p> +One particular Roman road, I know, is but remembered now, because, in +the rich twilight of an old June evening, it led up the gorsy stretches +of Lancashire 'Heights' to a solemn plateau, wide and solitary as +Salisbury Plain, from the dark border of which, a warm human note +against the lonely infinite of heath and sky, beamed the little +whitewashed 'Traveller's Rest,' its yellow light, growing stronger as +the dusk deepened, meeting the eye with a sense of companionship +becoming a vague need just then. +</p> +<p> +The seeming spiritual significance of such forlorn wastes of no-man's +land had, I know, a specially strong appeal for Narcissus, and, in some +moods, the challenge which they seem to call from some 'dark tower' of +spiritual adventure would have led him wandering there till star-light; +but a day of rambling alone, in a strange country, among unknown faces, +brings a social hunger by evening, and a craving for some one to speak +to and a voice in return becomes almost a fear. A bright +kitchen-parlour, warm with the health of six workmen, grouped round a +game of dominoes, and one huge quart pot of ale, used among them as +woman in the early world, was a grateful inglenook, indeed, wherein to +close the day. Of course, friend N. joined them, and took his pull and +paid his round, like a Walt Whitman. I like to think of his slight +figure amongst them; his delicate, almost girl-like, profile against +theirs; his dreamy eyes and pale brow, surmounted by one of those dark +clusters of hair in which the fingers of women love to creep—an +incongruity, though of surfaces only, which certain who knew him but 'by +sight,' as the phrase is, might be at a loss to understand. That was one +of the surprises of his constitution. Nature had given him the dainty +and dreamy form of the artist, to which habit had added a bookish touch, +ending in a <i>tout ensemble</i> of gentleness and distinction with little +apparent affinity to a scene like that in the 'Traveller's Rest.' But +there are many whom a suspicion of the dilettante in such an exterior +belies, and Narcissus was one of them. He had very strongly developed +that instinct of manner to which sympathy is a daily courtesy, and he +thus readily, when it suited him, could take the complexion of his +company, and his capacity of 'bend' was well-nigh genius. Of course, all +this is but to say that he was a gentleman; yet is not that in itself a +fine kind of originality? Besides, he had a genuine appetite for the +things of earth, such as many another delicate thing—a damask +rose-bush, for example—must be convicted of too; and often, when some +one has asked him 'what he could have in common with so-and-so,' I have +heard him answer: 'Tobacco and beer.' Samuel Dale once described him as +Shelley with a chin; and perhaps the chin accounted for the absence of +any of those sentimental scruples with regard to beefsteaks and certain +varieties of jokes, for which the saint-like deserter of Harriet +Westbrook was distinguished. +</p> +<p> +A supremely quaint instance of this gift of accommodation befell during +that same holiday, which should not pass unrecorded, but which I offer +to the Reader with an emphatic <i>Honi soit qui mal y pense</i>. Despairing +of reaching a certain large manufacturing town on foot in time to put up +there, one evening, he was doing the last mile or two by rail, and, as +the train slackened speed he turned to his companions in the carriage to +enquire if they could tell him of a good hotel. He had but carelessly +noticed them before: an old man, a slight young woman of perhaps thirty, +and a girl about fifteen; working people, evidently, but marked by that +air of cleanly poverty which in some seems but a touch of ascetic +refinement. The young woman at once mentioned <i>The Bull</i>, and thereupon +a little embarrassed consultation in undertone seemed to pass between +her and the old man, resulting in a timid question as to whether +Narcissus would mind putting up with them, as they were poor folk, and +could well do with any little he cared to offer for his accommodation. +There was something of a sad winningness in the woman which had +predisposed him to the group, and without hesitation he at once +accepted, and soon was walking with them to their home, through streets +echoing with Lancashire 'clogs.' On the way he learnt the circumstances +of his companions. The young woman was a widow, and the girl her +daughter. Both worked through the day at one of the great cotton mills, +while the old man, father and grandfather, stayed at home and 'fended' +for them. Thus they managed to live in a comfort which, though +straitened, did not deny them such an occasional holiday as to-day had +been, or the old man the comfort of tobacco. The home was very small, +but clean and sweet; and it was not long before they were all sat down +together over a tea of wholesome bread and butter and eggs, in the +preparation of which it seemed odd to see the old man taking his share. +That over, he and Narcissus sat to smoke and talk of the neighbouring +countryside; N. on the look-out for folk-lore, and especially for any +signs in his companion of a lingering loyalty of belief in the +traditions thereabout, a loyalty which had something in it of a sacred +duty to him in those days. Those were the days when he still turned to +the east a-Sundays, and went out in the early morning, with Herrick +under his arm, to gather May-dew, with a great uplifting of the spirit, +in what indeed was a very real act of worship. +</p> +<p> +But to my story! As bedtime approached Narcissus could not but be aware +of a growing uneasiness in the manner of the young woman. At last it was +explained. With blushing effort she stammered out the question: Would he +object to share his bed with—the old man? 'Of course not,' answered N. +at once, as though he had all the time intended doing that very thing, +and indeed, thought it the most delightful arrangement in the world. +</p> +<p> +So up to bed go the oddly consorted pair. But the delicious climax was +yet to come. On entering the room, Narcissus found that there were two +beds there! Why should we leave that other bed empty?—he had almost +asked; but a laughing wonder shot through him, and he stopped in time. +</p> +<p> +The old man was soon among the blankets, but Narcissus dallied over +undressing, looking at this and that country quaintness on the wall; and +then, while he was in a state of half man and half trousers, the voice +of the woman called from the foot of the stairs: Were they in bed yet? +'Surely, it cannot be! it is too irresistibly simple,' was his thought; +but he had immediately answered, 'In a moment,' as if such a question +was quite a matter of course. +</p> +<p> +In that space he had blown the candle out, and was by the old man's +side: and then, in the darkness, he heard the two women ascending the +stairs. Just outside his door, which he had left ajar, they seemed to +turn off into a small adjoining room, from whence came immediately the +soft delicious sounds of female disrobing. They were but factory women, +yet Narcissus thought of Saint Agnes and Madeline, we may be sure. And +then, at last—indeed, there was to be no mistake about it—the door was +softly pushed open, and two dim forms whispered across to the adjoining +bed, and, after a little preliminary rustle, settled down to a rather +fluttered breathing. +</p> +<p> +No one had spoken: not even a Goodnight; but Narcissus could hardly +refrain from ringing out a great mirthful cry, while his heart beat +strangely, and the darkness seemed to ripple, like sunlight in a cup, +with suppressed laughter. The thought of the little innocent deception +as to their sleeping-room, which poverty had caused them to practise, +probably held the breath of the women, while the shyness of sex was a +common bond of silence—at least, on the part of the three younger. It +was long before Narcissus was able to fall asleep, for he kept picturing +the elder woman with burning cheek and open eyes in a kind of 'listening +fear' beneath the coverlet; and the oddity of the thing was so original, +so like some <i>conte</i> of a <i>Decameron</i> or <i>Heptameron</i>, with the +wickedness left out. But at last wonder gave place to weariness, and +sleep began to make a still odder magic of the situation. The difficulty +of meeting at breakfast next morning, which had at once suggested itself +to N.'s mind, proved a vain fear; for, when he arose, that other bed was +as smooth as though it had lain untouched through the night, and the +daughters of labour had been gone two hours. But it was not quite +without sign that they had gone, for Narcissus had a dreamlike +impression of opening his eyes in the early light to find a sweet +woman's face leaning over him; and I am sure he wanted to believe that +it had bent down still further, till it had kissed his lips—' for his +mother's sake,' she had said in her heart, as she slipped away and was +seen no more. +</p> +<p> +'If this were fiction, instead of a veracious study from life,' to make +use of a phrase which one rarely finds out of a novel, it would be +unfitting to let such an incident as that just related fall to the +ground, except as the seed of future development; but, this being as I +have stated, there is nothing more to say of that winning <i>ouvrière</i>. +Narcissus saw her no more. +</p> +<p> +But surely, of all men, he could best afford that one such pleasant +chance should put forth no other blossom save that half-dreamed +kiss;—and how can one ever foresee but that our so cherishable spray of +bloom may in time add but another branch to that orchard of Dead Sea +fruit which grows inevitably about all men's dwellings? +</p> +<p> +I do not suppose that Narcissus was really as exceptional in the number +and character of his numerous boyish loves as we always regarded him as +being. It is no uncommon matter, of course and alas! for a youth between +the ages of seventeen and nineteen to play the juggler at keeping three, +or even half-a-dozen, female correspondents going at once, each of whom +sleeps nightly with copious documentary evidence of her sole and +incontrovertible possession of the sacred heart. Nor has Narcissus been +the only lover, I suspect, who, in the season of the waning of the moon, +has sent such excuses for scrappy epistolary make-shifts as 'the +strident din of an office, an air so cruelly unsympathetic, as frost to +buds, to the blossoming of all those words of love that press for +birth,' when, as a matter of fact, he has been unblushingly eating the +lotus, in the laziest chair at home, in the quietest night of summer. +Such insincerity is a common besetting sin of the young male; +invariably, I almost think, if he has the artistic temperament. Yet I do +not think it presents itself to his mind in its nudity, but comes +clothed with that sophistry in which youth, the most thoroughgoing of +<i>philosophes</i>, is so ingenious. Consideration for the beloved object, it +is called—yes! beloved indeed, though, such is the paradox in the order +of things, but one of the several vestals of the sacred fire. One cannot +help occasional disinclination on a lazy evening, confound it! but it +makes one twinge to think of paining her with such a confession; and a +story of that sort—well, it's a lie, of course; but it's one without +any harm, any seed of potential ill, in it. So the letter goes, maybe to +take its place as the 150th of the sacred writings, and make poor +Daffodilia, who has loved to count the growing score, happy with the +completion of the half-century. +</p> +<p> +But the disinclination goes not, though the poor passion has, of +course, its occasional leapings in the socket, and the pain has to come +at last, for all that dainty consideration, which, moreover, has been +all the time feeding larger capacities for suffering. For, of course, no +man thinks of marrying his twelfth love, though in the thirteenth there +is usually danger; and he who has jilted, so to say, an earl's daughter +as his sixth, may come to see +</p> +<pre> + 'The God of Love, ah! benedicite, + How mighty and how great a lord is he' +</pre> +<p> +in the thirteenth Miss Simpkins. +</p> +<p> +But this is to write as an outsider: for that thirteenth, by a mystical +process which has given to each of its series in its day the same primal +quality, is, of course, not only the last, but the first. And, indeed, +with little casuistry, that thirteenth may be truly held to be the +first, for it is a fact determined not so much by the chosen maid as by +him who chooses, though he himself is persuaded quite otherwise. To him +his amorous career has been hitherto an unsuccessful pursuit, because +each followed fair in turn, when at length he has caught her flying +skirts, and looked into her face, has proved not that 'ideal'— +</p> +<pre> + 'That not impossible she + That shall command my heart and me'— +</pre> +<p> +but another, to be shaken free again in disappointment. In truth, +however, the lack has been in himself all this time. He had yet to learn +what loving indeed meant: and he loves the thirteenth, not because she +is pre-eminent beyond the rest, but because she has come to him at the +moment when that 'lore of loving' has been revealed. Had any of those +earlier maidens fallen on the happy conjunction, they would, doubtless, +have proved no less loveworthy, and seemed no less that 'ideal' which +they have since become, one may be sure, for some other illuminated +soul. +</p> +<p> +Of course, some find that love early—the baby-love, whom one never +marries, and then the faithful service. Probably it happens so with the +majority of men; for it is, I think, especially to the artist nature +that it comes thus late. Living so vividly within the circle of its own +experience, by its very constitution so necessarily egoistic, the +latter, more particularly in its early years, is always a Narcissus, +caring for nought or none except in so much as they reflect back its own +beauty or its own dreams. The face such a youth looks for, as he turns +the coy captured head to meet his glance, is, quite unconsciously, his +own, and the 'ideal' he seeks is but the perfect mirror. Yet it is not +that mirror he marries after all: for when at last he has come to know +what that word—one so distasteful, so 'soiled' to his ear 'with all +ignoble' domesticity—what that word 'wife' really expresses, he has +learnt, too, to discredit those cynical guides of his youth who love so +well to write Ego as the last word of human nature. +</p> +<p> +But the particular Narcissus of whom I write was a long way off that +thirteenth maid in the days of his antiquarian rambles and his +Pagan-Catholic ardours, and the above digression is at least out of +date. +</p> +<p> +A copy of Keats which I have by me as I write is a memorial of one of +the pretty loves typical of that period. It is marked all through in +black lead—not so gracefully as one would have expected from the 'taper +fingers' which held the pencil, but rather, it would appear, more with +regard to emphasis than grace. Narcissus had lent it to the queen of the +hour with special instructions to that end, so that when it came to him +again he might ravish his soul with the hugging assurance given by the +thick lead to certain ecstatic lines of <i>Endymion,</i> such as— +</p> +<pre> + 'My soul doth melt + For the unhappy youth;' + 'He surely cannot now + Thirst for another love;' +</pre> +<p> +and luxuriate in a genial sense of godship where the tremulous pencil +had left the record of a sigh against— +</p> +<pre> + 'Each tender maiden whom he once thought fair.' +</pre> +<p> +But it was a magnanimous godship; and, after a moment's leaning back +with closed eyes, to draw in all the sweet incense, how nobly would he +act, in imaginative vignette, the King Cophetua to this poor suppliant +of love; with what a generous waiving of his power—and with what a +grace!—did he see himself raising her from her knees, and seating her +at his right hand. Yet those pencil-marks, alas! mark but a secondary +interest in that volume. A little sketch on the fly-leaf, 'by another +hand,' witness the prettier memory. A sacred valley, guarded by smooth, +green hills; in the midst a little lake, fed at one end by a singing +stream, swallowed at the other by the roaring darkness of a mill; green +rushes prosperous in the shallows, and along the other bank an old +hedgerow; a little island in the midst, circled by silver lilies; and in +the distance, rising from out a cloud of tangled green, above the little +river, an old church tower. Below, though not 'in the picture,' a quaint +country house, surrounded by a garden of fair fruit-trees and wonderful +bowers, through which ran the stream, free once again, and singing for +joy of the light. In the great lone house a solitary old man, cherished +and ruled by—'The Miller's Daughter.' Was scene ever more in need of a +fairy prince? Narcissus sighed, as he broke upon it one rosy evening, +to think what little meaning all its beauty had, suffering that lack; +but as he had come thither with the purpose, at once firm and vague, of +giving it a memory, he could afford to sigh till morning's light +brought, maybe, the opportunity of that transfiguring action. He was to +spend an Easter fortnight there, as the guest of some farmer-relatives +with whom he had stayed years before, in a period to which, being +nineteen, he already alluded as his 'boyhood.' +</p> +<p> +And it is not quite accurate to say that it had no memory for him, for +he brought with him one of that very miller's daughter, though, indeed, +it was of the shadowiest silver. It had chanced at that early time that +an influx of visitors to the farm had exceeded the sleeping room, and he +and another little fellow had been provided with a bed in the miller's +house. He had never quite forgotten that bedroom—its huge old-fashioned +four-poster, slumbrous with great dark hangings, such as Queen Elizabeth +seems always to have slept in; its walls dim with tapestry, and its +screen of antique bead-work. But it was round the toilet table that +memory grew brightest, for thereon was a crystal phial of a most +marvellous perfume, and two great mother-of-pearl shells, shedding a +mystical radiance—the most commonplace Rimmel's, without doubt, and the +shells 'dreadful,' one may be sure. But to him, as he took a reverent +breath of that phial, it seemed the very sweetbriar fragrance of her +gown that caught his sense; and, surely, he never in all the world found +scent like that again. Thus, long after, she would come to him in +day-dreams, wafted on its strange sweetness, and clothed about with that +mystical lustre of pearl. +</p> +<p> +There were five years between him and that memory as he stepped into +that enchanted land for the second time. The sweet figure of young +womanhood to which he had turned his boyish soul in hopeless worship, +when it should have been busied rather with birds' nests and +rabbit-snares, had, it is true, come to him in dimmer outline each +Spring, but with magic the deeper for that. As the form faded from the +silver halo, and passed more and more into mythology, it seemed, indeed, +as if she had never lived for him at all, save in dreams, or on another +star. Still, his memory held by those great shells, and he had come at +last to the fabled country on the perilous quest—who of us dare venture +such a one to-day?—of a 'lost saint.' Enquiry of his friends that +evening, cautious as of one on some half-suspected diplomacy, told him +that one with the name of his remembrance did live at the +mill-house—with an old father, too. But how all the beauty of the +singing morning became a scentless flower when, on making the earliest +possible call, he was met at the door with that hollow word, 'Away'—a +word that seemed to echo through long rooms of infinite emptiness and +turn the daylight shabby—till the addendum, 'for the day,' set the +birds singing again, and called the sunshine back. +</p> +<p> +A few nights after he was sitting at her side, by a half-opened window, +with his arm about her waist, and her head thrillingly near his. With +his pretty gift of recitation he was pouring into her ear that sugared +passage in <i>Endymion</i>, appropriately beginning, 'O known unknown,' +previously 'got up' for the purpose; but alas! not too perfectly to +prevent a break-down, though, fortunately, at a point that admitted a +ready turn to the dilemma:— +</p> +<pre> + 'Still + Let me entwine thee surer, surer ...' +</pre> +<p> +Here exigency compelled N. to make surety doubly, yea, trebly, sure; but +memory still forsaking him, the rascal, having put deeper and deeper +significance into his voice with each repetition, dropped it altogether +as he drew her close to him, and seemed to fail from the very excess of +love. An hour after, he was bounding into the moonlight in an +intoxication of triumph. She was won. The beckoning wonder had come down +to him. And yet it was real moonlight—was not that his own grace in +silhouette, making a mirror even of the hard road?—real grass over +which he had softly stept from her window, real trees, all real, +except—yes! was it real love? +</p> +<p> +In the lives of all passionate lovers of women there are two +broadly-marked periods, and in some a third: slavery, lordship, and +service. The first is the briefest, and the third, perhaps, seldom +comes; the second is the most familiar. +</p> +<p> +Awakening, like our forefather, from the deep sleep of childish things, +the boy finds a being by his side of a strange hushing fairness, as +though in the night he had opened his eyes and found an angel by his +bed. Speech he has not at all, and his glance dare not rise beyond her +bosom; till, the presence seeming gracious, he dares at length stretch +out his hand and touch her gown; whereon an inexplicable new joy +trembles through him, as though he stood naked in a May meadow through +the golden rain of a summer shower. Should her fingers touch his arm by +chance, it is as though they swept a harp, and a music of piercing +sweetness runs with a sudden cry along his blood. But by and by he comes +to learn that he has made a comical mistake about this wonder. With his +head bent low in worship, he had not seen the wistfulness of her gaze on +him; and one day, lo! it is she who presses close to him with the timid +appeal of a fawn. Indeed, she has all this time been to him as some +beautiful woodland creature might have seemed, breaking for the first +time upon the sight of primitive man. Fear, wonder inexpressible, +worship, till a sudden laughing thought of comprehension, then a lordly +protectiveness, and, after that—the hunt! At once the masculine +self-respect returns, and the wonder, though no less sweet in itself, +becomes but another form of tribute. +</p> +<p> +With Narcissus this evolution had taken place early: it was very long +ago—he felt old even then to think of it—since Hesperus had sung like +a nightingale above his first kiss, and his memory counted many trophies +of lordship. But, surely, this last was of all the starriest; perhaps, +indeed, so wonderful was it, it might prove the very love which would +bring back again the dream that had seemed lost for ever with the +passing of that mythical first maid so long ago, a love in which worship +should be all once more, and godship none at all. But is not such a +question all too certainly its own answer? Nay, Narcissus, if indeed you +find that wonder-maid again, you will not question so; you will forget +to watch that graceful shadow in the moonlight; you will but ask to sit +by her silent, as of old, to follow her to the end of the world. Ah me! +</p> +<pre> + 'How many queens have ruled and passed + Since first we met; + How thick and fast + The letters used to come at first, + How thin at last; + Then ceased, and winter for a space! + Until another hand + Brought spring into the land, + And went the seasons' pace.' +</pre> +<p> +That Miller's Daughter, although 'so dear, so dear,' why, of course, she +was not that maid: but again the silver halo has grown about her; again +Narcissus asks himself, 'Did she live, or did I dream?'; again she comes +to him at whiles, wafted on that strange incense, and clothed about in +that mystical lustre of pearl. +</p> +<p> +Doubtless, she lives in that fabled country still: but Narcissus has +grown sadly wise since then, and he goes on pilgrimage no more. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH5"><!-- CH5 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER V +</h2> + +<center> +AN IDYLL OF ALICE SUNSHINE, WHICH REALLY BELONGS TO THE LAST CHAPTER +</center> +<p> +If the Reader has heard enough of the amourettes of the young gentleman +upon whose memoirs I am engaged, let him skip this chapter and pass to +the graver chapters beyond. My one aim is the Reader's pleasure, and I +carry my solicitude so far that if he finds his happiness to lie outside +these pages altogether, has no choice among these various chapters, but +prefers none to any, I am quite content. Such a spirit of +self-abnegation, the Reader must admit, is true love. +</p> +<p> +Perhaps it was an early unconscious birth-impulse of the true love some +day to be born in his heart, that caused Narcissus to make a confession +to his Miller's Daughter, on one of their pretty decorative evenings, +when they sat together at the fireside, while the scent of the climbing +roses, and the light of the climbing moon, came in at the window. +</p> +<p> +The immediate effect of the confession was—no wonder—to draw tears. +And how beautiful she looked in tears! Who would dive for pearls when +the pearl-fisheries of a woman's eyes are his to rifle? +</p> +<p> +Beautiful, beautiful tears, flow on—no dull, leaden rain, no mere +monotonous deluge, but a living, singing fountain, crowned with such +rainbows as hang roses and stars in the fine mist of samite waterfalls, +irradiated by gleaming shafts of lovely anger and scorn. +</p> +<p> +Like Northern Lights on autumn evenings, the maiden's eyes pierced +Narcissus through and through with many-coloured spears. There was +thunder, too; the earth shook—just a little: but soon Narcissus saw the +white dove of peace flying to him through the glancing showers. For all +her sorrow, his was the peace of confession. His little lie had been +acknowledged, his treason self-betrayed. +</p> +<p> +And it was this. +</p> +<p> +I have hinted that Narcissus, like the Catholic Church, worshipped many +saints. At this time, one of them, by a thrilling coincidence, chanced +to have her shrine at a boarding-school, some fifteen miles or so from +the mill-pond on whose banks the Miller's Daughter had drawn into her +lovely face so much of the beauty of the world. Alice Sunshine, shall we +call her, was perhaps more of a cherub than a saint; a rosy, laughing, +plump little arrangement of sunshiny pink and white flesh, with blue +eyes and golden hair. Alice was not overburdened with intellectuality, +and, like others of her sex, her heart was nothing like so soft as her +bosom. Narcissus had first been in love with her sister; but he and the +sister—a budding woman of the world—had soon agreed that they were not +born for each other, and Narcissus had made the transfer of his tragic +passion with inexpensive informality. As the late Anthony Trollope would +finish one novel to-night, and begin another to-morrow morning, so would +Narcissus be off with the old love this Sunday, and visibly on with the +new the next. +</p> +<p> +Dear little plump, vegetable-marrow Alice! Will Narcissus ever forget +that Sunday night when the church, having at last released its weary +worshippers, he stole, not as aforetime to the soft side of Emily, but +to the still softer side of the little bewildered Alice. For, though +Alice had worshipped him all the time, and certainly during the whole of +the service, she had never dared to hope that he would pass her dashing, +dark-eyed sister to love <i>her</i>—little, blonde, phlegmatic, blue-eyed +Alice. +</p> +<p> +But Apollo was bent on the capture of his Daphne. Truth to say, it was +but the work of a moment. The golden arrow was in her heart, the wound +kissed whole again, and the new heaven and the new earth all arranged +for, in hardly longer time than it takes to tell. +</p> +<p> +In youth the mystery of woman is still so fresh and new, that to make a +fuss about a particular woman seems like looking a gift-horse of the +gods in the mouth. The light on the face of womanhood in general is so +bewilderingly beautiful that the young man literally cannot tell one +woman from another. They are all equally wonderful. Masculine +observation leads one to suppose that woman's first vision of man +similarly precludes discrimination. +</p> +<p> +Ah me! it is easy to laugh to-day, but it was heart—bleeding tragedy +when those powers that oughtn't to be decreed Alice's exile to a +boarding-school in some central Africa of the midland counties. +</p> +<p> +The hemorrhage of those two young hearts! But, for a time, each +plastered the other's wounds with letters—dear letters—letters every +post. For the postal authorities made no objection to Narcissus +corresponding with two or more maidens at once. And it is only fair to +Alice to say, that she knew as little of the Miller's Daughter as the +Miller's Daughter knew of her. +</p> +<p> +So, when Narcissus was reciting <i>Endymion</i> to his Miller's Maid, it was +not without a minor chord plaining through the major harmonies of the +present happiness; the sense that Alice was but fifteen miles away—so +near she could almost hear him if he called—only fifteen miles away, +and it was a long three months since they had met. +</p> +<p> +It now becomes necessary to admit a prosaic fact hitherto concealed +from the Reader. Narcissus rode a bicycle. It was, I must confess, a +rather 'modern' thing to do. But surely the flashing airy wheel is the +most poetical mode of locomotion yet invented, and one looks more like a +fairy prince than ever in knickerbockers. Whenever Narcissus turned his +gleaming spokes along some mapped, but none the less mysterious, +county—road, he thought of Lohengrin in his barge drawn by white swans +to his mystic tryst; he thought of the seven-leagued boots, the flying +carpet, the wishing-cap, and the wooden Pegasus,—so called because it +mounted into the clouds on the turning of a peg. As he passed along by +mead and glade, his wheel sang to him, and he sang to his wheel. It was +a daisied, daisied world. +</p> +<p> +There were buttercups and violets in it too as he sped along in the +early morning of an unforgotten Easter Sunday, drawn, so he had +shamelessly told his Miller's Daughter, by antiquarian passion to visit +the famous old parish church near which Alice was at school. +Antiquarian passion! Well, certainly it is an antiquarian passion now. +</p> +<p> +But then—how his heart beat! how his eyes shone as with burning kohl! +That there was anything to be ashamed of in this stolen ride never even +occurred to him. And perhaps there was little wrong in it, after all. +Perhaps, when the secrets of all hearts are revealed, it will come out +that the Miller's Daughter took the opportunity to meet Narcissus' +understudy,—who can tell? +</p> +<p> +But the wonderful fresh morning-scented air was a delicious fact beyond +dispute. That was sincere. Ah, there used to be real mornings then!—not +merely interrupted nights. +</p> +<p> +And it was the Easter-morning of romance. There was a sweet passionate +Sabbath-feeling everywhere. Sabbath-bells, and Sabbath-birds, and +Sabbath-flowers. There was even a feeling of restful Sabbath-cheer about +the old inn, where, at last, entering with much awe the village where +Alice nightly slept—clothed in white samite, mystic, +wonderful,—Narcissus provided for the demands of romance by a hearty +country breakfast. A manna of blessing seemed to lie thick upon every +thing. The very ham and eggs seemed as if they had been blessed by the +Pope. +</p> +<p> +It was yet an hour to church-time, an hour usually one of spiteful +alacrity; but this morning, it seemed, in defiance of the clock, cruelly +unpunctual. After breakfast, Narcissus strolled about the town, and +inquired the way to Miss Curlpaper's school. It stood outside the little +town. It was pointed out to him in the distance, across billowy clouds +of pear and apple-blossom, making the hollow in which the town nestled +seem a vast pot-pourri jar, overflowing with newly gathered rose-leaves. +</p> +<p> +Had the Miller's Daughter been able to watch his movements, she would +have remarked that his antiquarian ardour drew him not to the church, +but to a sombre many-windowed house upon the hill. +</p> +<p> +Narcissus reconnoitred the prison-like edifice from behind a hedge, then +summoned courage to walk past with slow nonchalance. All was as dead and +dull as though Alice was not there. Yet somewhere within those +prison-walls her young beauty was dressing itself to meet the spring. +Perhaps, in delicious linen, soft and white, she was dashing cool water +about her rosebud face, or, flushed with exhilaration, was pinning up +the golden fleeces of her hair. Perhaps she was eating wonderful bacon +and eggs! Could she be thinking of him? She little knew how near he was +to her. He had not written of his coming. Letters at Miss Curlpaper's +had to pass an inspection much more rigorous than the Customs, but still +smuggling was not unknown. For success, however, carefully laid plans +and regular dates were necessary, and Narcissus' visit had fallen +between the dates. +</p> +<p> +No! there was no sign of her. She was as invisible as the moon at +mid-day. And there were the church-bells beginning to call her: 'Alice, +Alice, put on your things!' +</p> +<pre> + 'Alice, Alice, put on your things! + The birds are calling, the church bell rings; + The sun is shining, and I am here, + Waiting—and waiting—for you, my dear. + + Alice, Alice, doff your gown of night, + Draw on your bodice as lilies white, + Draw on your petticoats, clasp your stays,— + Oh! Alice, Alice, those milky ways! + + Alice, Alice, how long you are! + The hour is late and the church is far; + Slowly, more slowly, the church bell rings— + Alice, Alice, put on your things!' +</pre> +<p> +Really it was not in Narcissus' plans to wait at the school till Alice +appeared. The Misses Curlpaper were terrible unknown quantities to him. +For a girl to have a boy hanging about the premises was a capital crime, +he knew. Boys are to girls' schools what Anarchists are to public +buildings. They come under the Explosives Acts. It was not, indeed, +within the range of his hope that he might be able to speak to Alice. A +look, a long, immortal, all-expressive look, was all he had travelled +fifteen miles to give and win. For that he would have travelled fifteen +hundred. +</p> +<p> +His idea was to sit right in front of the nave, where Alice could not +miss seeing him—where others could see him too in his pretty +close-fitting suit of Lincoln green. So down through the lanes he went, +among the pear and apple orchards, from out whose blossom the clanging +tower of the old church jutted sheer, like some Bass Rock amid rosy +clustering billows. Their love had been closely associated from its +beginning with the sacred things of the church, so regular had been +their attendance, not only on Sundays, but at week-night services. To +Alice and Narcissus there were two Sabbaths in the week, Sunday and +Wednesday. I suppose they were far from being the only young people +interested in their particular form of church-work. Leander met Hero, it +will be remembered, on the way to church, and the Reader may recall +Marlowe's beautiful description of her dress upon that fatal morning: +</p> +<pre> + 'The outside of her garments were of lawn, + The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn; + Her wide sleeves green, and bordered with a grove, + Where Venus in her naked glory strove + To please the careless and disdainful eyes + Of proud Adonis, that before her lies; + Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain, + Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain....' +</pre> +<p> +Alice wore pretty dresses too, if less elaborate; and, despite its +change of name, was not the church where she and Narcissus met, as the +church wherein Hero and Leander first looked upon each other, the Temple +of Love? Certainly the country church to which Narcissus +self-consciously passed through groups of Sunday-clothed villagers, was +decked as for no Christian festival this Sabbath morning. The garlands +that twined about the old Norman columns, the clumps of primroses and +violets that sprung at their feet, as at the roots of gigantic beeches, +the branches of palm and black-thorn that transformed the chancel to a +bower: probably for more than knew it, these symbols of the joy and +beauty of earth had simpler, more instinctive, meanings than those of +any arbitrary creed. For others in the church besides Narcissus, no +doubt, they spoke of young love, the bloom and the fragrance thereof, of +mating birds and pairing men and maids, of the eternal principle of +loveliness, which, in spite of winter and of wrong, brings flowers and +faces to bless and beautify this church of the world. +</p> +<p> +As Narcissus sat in his front row, his eyes drawn up in a prayer to the +painted glories of the great east window, his whole soul lifted up on +the wings of colour, scent, and sound—the whole sacred house had but +one meaning: just his love for Alice. Nothing in the world was too holy +to image that. The windows, the music, the flowers, all were metaphors +of her: and, as the organ swirled his soul along in the rapids of its +passionate, prayerful sound, it seemed to him that Alice and he already +stood at the gate of Heaven! +</p> +<p> +Presently, across his mingled sensations came a measured tramp as of +boy-soldiers marching in line. You have heard it! You have <i>listened</i> +for it!! It was the dear, unmistakable sound of a girls' school on the +march. Quickly it came nearer, it was in the porch—it was in the +church! Narcissus gave a swift glance round. He dare not give a real +searching look yet. His heart beat too fast, his cheek burned too red. +But he saw it was a detachment of girls—it certainly was Alice's +school. +</p> +<p> +Then came the white-robed choristers, and the white-haired priests: <i>If +we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not +in us; but, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive +us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness</i>. +</p> +<center> +DEARLY BELOVED BRETHREN.... +</center> +<p> +His heart swelled with a sobbing exaltation of worship such as he had +not known for years. You could hardly have believed that a little +apple-dumpling of a pink and white girl was the real inspirer of that +look in his young face that made old ladies, even more than young ones, +gaze at him, and remark afterwards on the strange boy with the lovely +spiritual expression. +</p> +<p> +But, all the time, Narcissus felt that Alice's great eyes were on him, +glowing with glad surprise. The service proceeded, but yet he forbore to +seek her. He took a delight in husbanding his coming joy. He would not +crudely snatch it. It would be all the sweeter for waiting. And the fire +in Alice's eyes would all the time be growing softer and softer. He +nearly looked as he thought of that. And surely that was her dear voice +calling to him in the secret language of the psalm. He sang back to her +with a wild rapture. Thus the morning stars sang together, he thought. +</p> +<p> +And when the prayers laid lovely hands across the eyes of the +worshippers, still he sought not Alice, but prayed for her as perhaps +only a boy can: O Lord God, be good to Alice—already she is one of thy +angels. May her life be filled with light and joy! And if in the time to +come I am worthy of being ever by her side, may we live our lives +together, high and pure and holy as always in thy sight! Lord, thou +knowest how pure is my love; how I worship her as I worship the holy +angels themselves. But whatsoever is imperfect perfect by the +inspiration of thy Holy Spirit.... +</p> +<p> +So prayed the soul of the boy for the soul of the girl, and his eyes +filled with tears as he prayed; the cup of the wonder and holiness of +the world ran over. +</p> +<p> +Already, it seemed, that Alice and he lay clasped together in the arms +of God. +</p> +<p> +So Narcissus prayed and sang his love in terms of an alien creed. He +sang of the love of Christ, he thought but of the love of Alice; and +still he refrained from plucking that wonderful passion-flower of her +glance. +</p> +<p> +At length he had waited the whole service through; and, with the last +hallowed vibrations of the benediction, he turned his eyes, brimful of +love-light, greedily, eagerly, fearful lest one single ray should be +wasted on intermediate and irrelevant worshippers. +</p> +<p> +Wonderful eyes of love!—but alas! where is their Alice? Wildly they +glance along the rosy ranks of chubby girlhood, but where is their +Alice? +</p> +<p> +And then the ranks form in line, and once more the sound, the ecstatic +sound it had seemed but a short time before, of girls marching—but +no!—no!—there is no Alice. +</p> +<p> +In sick despair Narcissus stalked that Amazonian battalion, crouching +behind hedges, dropping into by-lanes, lurking in coppices,—he held his +breath as they passed two and two within a yard of him. Two followed +two, but still no Alice! +</p> +<p> +Narcissus lay in wait, dinnerless, all that afternoon; he walked about +that dreary house like a patrol, till at last he was observed of the +inmates, and knots of girls gathered at the windows—alas! only to +giggle at his forlorn and desperate appearance. +</p> +<p> +Still there was no Alice ... and then it began to rain, and he became +aware how hungry he was. So he returned to his inn with a sad heart. +</p> +<p> +And all the time poor little Alice lay in bed with a sore throat, +oblivious of those passionate boyish eyes that, you would have thought, +must have pierced the very walls of her seclusion. +</p> +<p> +And, after all, it was not her voice Narcissus had heard in the church. +It was but the still sweeter voice of his own heart. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH6"><!-- CH6 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER VI +</h2> + +<center> +THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS +</center> +<p> +I hope it will be allowed to me that I treat the Reader with all +respectful courtesy, and that I am well bred enough to assume him +familiar with all manner of exquisite experience, though in my heart I +may be no less convinced that he has probably gone through life with +nothing worth calling experience whatsoever. It is our jaunty modern +fashion, and I follow it so far as I am able. I take for granted, for +instance, that every man has at one time or another—in his salad days, +you know, before he was embarked in his particular provision +business—had foolish yearnings towards poesy. I respect the mythical +dreams of his 'young days'; I assume that he has been really in love; +but, pray press me not too curiously as to whether I believe it all, as +to whether I really imagine that his youth knew other dreams than those +of the foolish young 'masherdom' one meets in the train every morning, +or that he has married a wife for other than purely 'masculine' reasons. +</p> +<p> +These matters I do not mind leaving in the form of a postulate—let them +be granted: but that every man has at one time or another had the craze +for saving the world I will not assume. Narcissus took it very early, +and though he has been silent concerning his mission for some time, and +when last we heard of it had considerably modified his propaganda, he +still cherishes it somewhere in secret, I have little doubt; and one may +not be surprised, one of these days, to find it again bursting out 'into +sudden flame.' +</p> +<p> +His spiritual experience has probably been the deepest and keenest of +his life. I do not propose to trace his evolution from Anabaptism to +Agnosticism. The steps of such development are comparatively familiar; +they have been traced by greater pens than mine. The 'means' may vary, +but the process is uniform. +</p> +<p> +Whether a man deserts the ancestral Brahminism that has so long been +'good enough for his parents,' and listens to the voice of the Buddhist +missionary, or joins Lucian in the seat of the scornful, shrugging at +augur and philosopher alike; whether it is Voltaire, or Tom Paine, or +Thomas Carlyle, or Walt Whitman, or a Socialist tract, that is the +emancipator, the emancipation is all one. +</p> +<p> +The seed that is to rend the rock comes in all manner of odd, and often +unremembered, ways; but somehow, it is there; rains and dews unnoticed +feed it; and surely, one day the rock is rent, the light is pouring in, +and we are free! It is often a matter of anguish that, strive as we may, +it is impossible to remember what helping hand it was that sowed for us. +Our fickle memory seems to convict us of ingratitude, and yet we know +how far that sin is from us; and how, if those sowers could but be +revealed to us, we would fall upon their necks, or at their feet. +</p> +<p> +I talked of this one day with Narcissus, and some time after he sent me +a few notes headed 'Spiritual Pastors,' in which he had striven to +follow the beautiful example set by Marcus Aurelius, in the anxiously +loving acknowledgment with which he opens his meditations. I know he +regarded it as miserably inefficient; but as it does actually indicate +some of the more individual side of his experience, and is, moreover, +characteristic in its style, I shall copy a few passages from it here:— +</p> +<p> +'To some person or persons unknown exceeding gratitude for the +suggestion, in some dim talk, antenatal it would almost seem, that Roman +Catholics might, after all, be "saved." Blessed fecundating suggestion, +that was the earliest loophole! +</p> +<p> +'To my father I owe a mind that, once set on a clue, must follow it, if +need be, to the nethermost darkness, though he has chosen to restrict +the operation of his own within certain limits; and to my mother a +natural leaning to the transcendental side of an alternative, which has +saved me so many a time when reason had thrown me into the abyss. But +one's greatest debt to a good mother must be simply—herself. +</p> +<p> +'To the Rev. Father Ignatius for his earnest preaching, which might +almost have made me a monk, had not Thomas Carlyle and his <i>Heroes</i>, +especially the lecture on Mahomet, given me to understand the true +significance of a Messiah. +</p> +<p> +'To Bulwer for his <i>Zanoni</i>, which first gave me a hint of the possible +natural "supernatural," and thus for ever saved me from dogmatising in +negatives against the transcendental. +</p> +<p> +'To Sir Edwin Arnold for his <i>Light of Asia,</i> also to Mr. Sinnett for +his <i>Esoteric Buddhism,</i> books which, coming to me about the same time, +together with some others like them, first gave some occupation to an +"unchartered freedom," gained in many forgotten steps, in the form of a +faith which transfigured my life for many months into the most beautiful +enthusiasm a man could know,—and which had almost sent me to the +Himalayas! +</p> +<p> +'That it did not quite achieve that, though much of the light it gave me +still remains, I owe to R.M., who, with no dialectic, but with one bald +question, and the reading of one poem, robbed me of my fairy palace of +Oriental speculation in the twinkling of an eye. Why it went I have +never really quite known; but surely, it was gone, and the wind and the +bare star-light were alone in its place. +</p> +<p> +'Dear Mac., I have not seen you for ever so long, and surely you have +forgotten how that night, long ago, you asked with such a strange, +almost childlike, simplicity: "<i>Is</i> there a soul?" But I have not +forgotten, nor how I made no answer at all, but only staggered, and how, +with your strange, dreamy voice, you chanted for comfort:— +</p> +<pre> + '"This hot, hard flame with which our bodies burn + Will make some meadow blaze with daffodil; + Ay! and those argent breasts of thine will turn + To water-lilies; the brown fields men till + Will be more fruitful for our love to-night: + Nothing is lost in Nature; all things live in Death's despite. + +</pre> +<pre> + + '"So when men bury us beneath the yew + Thy crimson-stained mouth a rose will be, + And thy soft eyes lush blue-bells dimmed with dew; + And when the white narcissus wantonly + Kisses the wind, its playmate, some faint joy + Will thrill our dust, and we will be again fond maid and boy. + + '"... How my heart leaps up + To think of that grand living after death + In beast and bird and flower, when this cup, + Being filled too full of spirit, bursts for breath, + And with the pale leaves of some autumn day, + The soul, earth's earliest conqueror, becomes earth's last great prey. + + '"O think of it! We shall inform ourselves + Into all sensuous life; the goat-foot faun, + The centaur, or the merry, bright-eyed elves + That leave they: dancing rings to spite the dawn + Upon the meadows, shall not be more near + Than you and I to Nature's mysteries, for we shall hear + + '"The thrush's heart beat, and the daisies grow, + And the wan snowdrop sighing for the sun + On sunless days in winter; we shall know + By whom the silver gossamer is spun, + Who paints the diapered fritillaries, + On what wide wings from shivering pine to pine the eagle flies. + +</pre> +<pre> + + '"We shall be notes in that great symphony + Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres, + And all the live world's throbbing heart shall be + One with our heart; the stealthy, creeping years + Have lost their terrors now; we shall not die— + The universe itself shall be our Immortality!" +</pre> +<p> +Have you forgotten how you chanted these, and told me they were Oscar +Wilde's. You had set my feet firmly on earth for the first time, there +was great darkness with me for many weeks, but, as it lifted, the earth +seemed greener than ever of old, the sunshine a goodlier thing, and +verily a blessedness indeed to draw the breath of life. I had learnt +"the value and significance of flesh"; I no longer scorned a carnal +diet, and once again I turned my eyes on the damsels in the street. +</p> +<p> +'But an influence soon came to me that kept me from going all the way +with you, and taught me to say, "I know not," where you would say, "It +is not." Blessings on thee who didst throw a rainbow, that may mean a +promise, across the void, that awoke the old instinct of faith within +me, and has left me "an Agnostic with a faith," quite content with "the +brown earth," if that be all, but with the added significance a mystery +gives to living;—thou who first didst teach me Love's lore aright, to +thee do I owe this thing. +</p> +<p> +'To J.A.W. I owe the first great knowledge of that other love between +man and man, which Whitman has since taught us to call "the dear love of +comrades"; and to him I owe that I never burned those early rhymes, or +broke my little reed—an unequivocal service to me, whatever the +public, should it be consulted, may think. +</p> +<p> +'To a dear sister I owe that still more exquisite and subtle comradeship +which can only exist between man and woman, but from which the more +disturbing elements of sex must be absent. And here, let me also thank +God that I was brought up in quite a garden of good sisters. +</p> +<p> +'To Messrs. C. and W., Solicitors and Notaries, I owe, albeit I will say +no thanks to them, the opportunity of that hardly learned good which +dwells for those who can wrest it in a hateful taskwork, that faculty of +"detachment" which Marcus Aurelius learnt so long ago, by means of which +the soul may withdraw, into an inaccessible garden, and sing while the +head bends above a ledger; or, in other words, the faculty of dreaming +with one side of the brain, while calculating with the other. Mrs. +Browning's great <i>Aurora Leigh</i> helped me more to the attainment of that +than any book I know. +</p> +<p> +'In their office, too, among many other great things, I learnt that a +man may be a good fellow and hate poetry—possibility undreamed of by +sentimental youth; also that Messrs. Bass and Cope are not unworthy of +their great reputation; and I had various nonsense knocked out of me, +though they never succeeded in persuading me in that little matter of +the "ambrosial curls." +</p> +<p> +'Through Samuel Dale I first came to understand how "whatever is" <i>can</i> +be "best," and also won a faith in God which I rather caught by +infection than gained by any process of his reasoning. Of all else I owe +to Samuel, how write? He knows. +</p> +<p> +'To a certain friend, mentioned last because he is not least, I owe: the +sum of ten pounds, and a loving companionship, up hill and down dale, +for which again I have no words and no—sovereigns.' +</p> +<p> +When I first read through these, I was somewhat surprised at the +omission of all reference to books which I know marked most striking +periods in Narcissus' spiritual life: <i>Sartor Resartus</i>, Thoreau's +<i>Walden</i>, for example, Mr. Pater's <i>Marius the Epicurean</i>, and +Browning's <i>Dramatis Personae</i>. As I reflected, however, I came to the +conclusion that such omission was but justice to his own individuality, +for none of these books had created an <i>initiative</i> in Narcissus' +thought, but rather come, as, after all, I suppose they come to most of +us, as great confirming expressions of states of mind at which he had +already arrived, though, as it were, but by moonlight. In them was the +sunrise bringing all into clear sight and sure knowledge. +</p> +<p> +It would seem, indeed, that the growth of the soul in the higher spirits +of our race is analogous to the growth of a child in the womb, in this +respect: that in each case the whole gamut of earlier types is run +through, before the ultimate form is attained in which it is decreed +that the particular vital energy shall culminate. And, as in the +physical world the various 'halts,' so to say, of the progress are +illustrated by the co-existence and continual succession of those +earlier types; so in the world of mind, at every point of spiritual +evolution, a man may meet with an historical individuality who is a +concrete embodiment of the particular state to which he has just +attained. This, of course, was what Goethe meant when he referred to +mysticism as being a frame of mind which one could experience all round +and then leave behind. To quote Whitman, in another connection:— +</p> +<pre> + 'We but level that lift + To pass and continue beyond.' +</pre> +<p> +But an individuality must 'crystallise out' somewhere, and its final +value will not so much depend on the number of states it has passed +through, as how it has lived each on the way, with what depth of +conviction and force of sincerity. For a modern young man to thus +experience all round, and pass, and continue beyond where such great +ones as St. Bernard, Pascal, and Swedenborg, have anchored their starry +souls to shine thence upon men for all time, is no uncommon thing. It is +more the rule than the exception: but one would hardly say that in going +further they have gone higher, or ended greater. The footpath of pioneer +individualism must inevitably become the highway of the race. Every +American is not a Columbus. +</p> +<p> +There are two ways in which we may live our spiritual progress: as +critics, or poets. Most men live theirs in that critical attitude which +refuses to commit itself, which tastes all, but enjoys none; but the +greatest in that earnest, final, rooted, creative, fashion which is the +way of the poets. The one is as a man who spends his days passing from +place to place in search of a dwelling to his mind, but dies at last in +an inn, having known nought of the settled peace of a home; but the +other, howsoever often he has to change his quarters, for howsoever +short a time he may remain in any one of his resting-places, makes of +each a home, with roots that shoot in a night to the foundations of the +world, and blossomed branches that mingle with the stars. +</p> +<p> +Criticism is a good thing, but poetry is a better. Indeed, criticism +properly <i>is</i> not; it is but a process to an end. We could really do +without it much better than we imagine: for, after all, the question is +not so much <i>how</i> we live, but <i>do</i> we live? Who would not a hundred +times rather be a fruitful Parsee than a barren <i>philosophe</i>? Yes, all +lies, of course, in original greatness of soul; and there is really no +state of mind which is not like Hamlet's pipe—if we but know the 'touch +of it,' 'it will discourse most eloquent music.' +</p> +<p> +Now, it was that great sincerity in Narcissus that has always made us +take him so seriously. And here I would remark in parenthesis, that +trivial surface insincerities, such as we have had glimpses of in his +dealings, do not affect such a great organic sincerity as I am speaking +of. They are excrescences, which the great central health will sooner or +later clear away. It was because he never held an opinion to which he +was not, when called upon, practically faithful; never dreamed a dream +without at once setting about its translation into daylight; never +professed a creed for a week without some essay after the realisation of +its new ideal; it was because he had the power and the courage to glow +mightily, and to some purpose; because his life had a fiery centre, +which his eyes were not afraid of revealing—that I speak of his great +sincerity, a great capacity for intense life. Shallow patterers of +divine creeds were, therefore, most abhorrent to him. 'You must excuse +me, sir,' I remember his once saying to such a one, 'but what are you +doing with cigarette and salutaris? If I held such a belief as yours, I +would stand sandalled, with a rope round my waist, before to-morrow.' +</p> +<p> +One quaint instance of this earnest attitude in all things occurs to me +out of his schooldays. He was a Divine Right man, a fiery Jacobite, in +those days; and, probably not without some absurd unconfessed dream in +his heart that it might somehow help the dead old cause, he one +afternoon fluttered the Hanoverian hearts—all the men we meet in street +and mart are Hanoverians, of course—of our little literary club by +solemnly rising 'to give notice' that at the following meeting he would +read a paper to prove that 'the House of Hanover has no right to the +English throne.' Great was the excitement through the fortnight +intervening, extending even to the masters; and the meeting was a full +one, and no little stormy. +</p> +<p> +Narcissus rose with the air of a condemned Strafford, and with all his +boyish armoury of eloquence and scorn fought over again the long-lost +battle, hiss and groan falling unheeded into the stream of his young +voice. But vain, vain! hard is the Hanoverian heart in boy, as in man, +and all your glowing periods were in vain—vain as, your peroration told +us, 'was the blood of gallant hearts shed on Culloden's field.' Poor N., +you had but one timorous supporter, even me, so early your <i>fidus +Achates</i>—but one against so many. Yet were you crestfallen? Galileo +with his 'E pur si muove,' Disraeli with his 'The time will come,' wore +such a mien as yours, as we turned from that well-foughten field. Yes! +and you loved to take in earnest vague Hanoverian threats of possible +arrest for your baby-treason, and, for some time, I know, you never +passed a policeman without a dignified tremor, as of one who might at +any moment find a lodging in the Tower. +</p> +<p> +But the most serious of all N.'s 'mad' enthusiasms was that of which the +Reader has already received some hint, in the few paragraphs of his own +confessions above, that which 'had almost sent him to the Himalayas.' +</p> +<p> +It belongs to natures like his always through life to cherish a half +belief in their old fairy tales, and a longing, however late in the day, +to prove them true at last. To many such the revelations with which +Madame Blavatsky, as with some mystic trumpet, startled the Western +world some years ago, must have come with most passionate appeal; and to +Narcissus they came like a love arisen from the dead. Long before, he +had 'supped full' of all the necromantic excitements that poet or +romancer could give. Guy Mannering had introduced him to Lilly; Lytton +and Hawthorne had sent him searching in many a musty folio for Elixir +Vitas and the Stone. Like Scythrop, in 'Nightmare Abbey,' he had for a +long period slept with horrid mysteries beneath his pillow. But suddenly +his interest had faded: these phantoms fled before a rationalistic +cock-crow, and Eugenius Philalethes and Robert Fludd went with Mejnour +and Zanoni into a twilight forgetfulness. There was no hand to show the +hidden way to the land that might be, and there were hands beckoning and +voices calling him along the highway to the land that is. So, +dream-light passing, he must, perforce, reconcile himself to daylight, +with its dusty beam and its narrow horizons. +</p> +<p> +Judge, then, with what a leaping heart he chanced on some newspaper +gossip concerning the sibyl, for it was so that he first stumbled across +her mission. Ironical, indeed, that the so impossible 'key' to the +mystery should come by the hand of 'our own correspondent'; but so it +was, and that paragraph sold no small quantity of 'occult' literature +for the next twelve months. Mr. Sinnett, doorkeeper in the house of +Blavatsky, who, as a precaution against the vision of Bluebeards that +the word Oriental is apt to conjure up in Western minds, is always +dressed in the latest mode, and, so to say, offers his cigar-case along +with some horrid mystery—it was to his prospectus of the new gospel, +his really delightful pages, that Narcissus first applied. Then he +entered within the gloomier Egyptian portals of the <i>Isis</i> itself, and +from thence—well, in brief, he went in for a course of Redway, and +little that figured in that gentleman's thrilling announcements was long +in reaching his hands. +</p> +<p> +At last a day came when his eye fell upon a notice, couched in suitably +mysterious terms, to the effect that really earnest seekers after divine +truth might, after necessary probation, etc., join a brotherhood of +such—which, it was darkly hinted, could give more than it dared +promise. Up to this point Narcissus had been indecisive. He was, +remember, quite in earnest, and to actually accept this new evangel +meant to him—well, as he said, nothing less in the end than the +Himalayas. Pending his decision, however, he had gradually developed a +certain austerity, and experimented in vegetarianism; and though he was, +oddly enough, free of amorous bond that might have held him to earth, +yet he had grown to love it rather rootedly since the earlier days when +he was a 'seeker.' Moreover, though he read much of 'The Path,' no +actual Mejnour had yet been revealed to set his feet therein. But with +this paragraph all indecision soon came to an end. He felt there a clear +call, to neglect which would be to have seen the light and not to have +followed it, ever for him the most tragic error to be made in life. His +natural predisposition towards it was too great for him to do other than +trust this new revelation; and now he must gird himself for 'the +sacrifice which truth always demands.' +</p> +<p> +But, sacrifice! of what and for what? An undefined social warmth he was +beginning to feel in the world, some meretricious ambition, and a great +friendship—to which in the long run would he not be all the truer by +the great new power he was to win? If hand might no longer spring to +hand, and friendship vie in little daily acts of brotherhood, might he +not, afar on his mountain-top, keep loving watch with clearer eyes upon +the dear life he had left behind, and be its vigilant fate? Surely! and +there was nothing worth in life that would not gain by such a devotion. +All life's good was of the spirit, and to give that a clearer shining, +even in one soul, must help the rest. For if its light, shining, as now, +through the grimy horn-lantern of the body, in narrow lanes and along +the miasmatic flats of the world, even so helped men, how much more must +it, rising above that earthly fume, in a hidden corner no longer, but +in the open heaven, a star above the city. Sacrifice! yes, it was just +such a tug as a man in the dark warmth of morning sleep feels it to +leave the pillow. The mountain-tops of morning gleam cold and bare: but +O! when, staff in hand, he is out amid the dew, the larks rising like +fountains above him, the gorse bright as a golden fleece on the +hill-side, and all the world a shining singing vision, what thought of +the lost warmth then? What warmth were not well lost for this keen +exhilarated sense in every nerve, in limb, in eye, in brain? What potion +has sleep like this crystalline air it almost takes one's breath to +drink, of such a maddening chastity is its grot-cool sparkle? What +intoxication can she give us for this larger better rapture? So did +Narcissus, an old Son of the Morning, figure to himself the struggle, +and pronounce 'the world well lost.' +</p> +<p> +But I feel as I write how little I can give the Reader of all the +'splendid purpose in his eyes' as he made this resolve. Perhaps I am the +less able to do so as—let me confess—I also shared his dream. One +could hardly come near him without, in some measure, doing that at all +times; though with me it could only be a dream, for I was not free. I +had Scriptural example to plead 'Therefore I cannot come,' though in any +case I fear I should have held back, for I had no such creative instinct +for realisation as Narcissus, and have, I fear, dreamed many a dream I +had not the courage even to think of clothing in flesh and blood; like, +may I say, the many who are poets for all save song—poets in chrysalis, +all those who dream of what some do, and make the audience of those +great articulate ones. But there were one or two trifling doubts to set +at rest before final decision. The Reader has greatly misconceived +Narcissus if he has deemed him one of those simple souls whom any quack +can gull, and the good faith of this mysterious fraternity was a +difficult point to settle. A tentative application through the address +given, an appropriate <i>nom de mystère</i>, had introduced the ugly detail +of preliminary expenses. Divine truth has to pay its postage, its rent, +its taxes, and so on; and the 'guru' feeds not on air—although, of +course, being a 'guru,' he comes as near it as the flesh will allow: +therefore, and surely, Reader, a guinea per annum is, after all, +reasonable enough. Suspect as much as one will, but how gainsay? Also, +before the applicant could be admitted to noviciate even, his horoscope +must be cast, and—well, the poor astrologer also needed bread and—no! +not butter—five shillings for all his calculations, circles, and +significations—well, that again was only reasonable. H'm, ye-e-s, but +it was dubious; and, mad as we were, I don't think we ever got outside +that dubiety, but made up our minds, like other converts, to gulp the +primary postulate, and pay the twenty-six shillings. From the first, +however, Narcissus had never actually entrusted all his spiritual +venture in this particular craft: he saw the truth independent of them, +not they alone held her for him, though she might hold them, and they +might be that one of the many avenues for which he had waited to lead +him nearer to her heart. That was all. His belief in the new +illumination neither stood nor fell with them, though his ardour for it +culminated in the experience. One must take the most doubtful +experiment seriously if we are in earnest for results. +</p> +<p> +So next came the sacred name of 'the Order,' which, Reader, I cannot +tell thee, as I have never known it, Narcissus being bound by horrid +oaths to whisper it to no man, and to burn at midnight the paper which +gave it to his eyes. From this time, also, we could exchange no deep +confidences of the kind at all, for the various MSS. by means of which +he was to begin his excursions into Urania, and which his 'guru' sent +from time to time—at first, it must be admitted, with a diligent +frequency—were secret too. So several months went by, and my knowledge +of his 'chela-ship' was confined to what I could notice, and such +trifling harmless gossip as 'Heard from "guru" this morning,' 'Copying +an old MS. last night,' and so on. What I could notice was truly, as +Lamb would say, 'great mastery,' for lo! Narcissus, whose eyes had never +missed a maiden since he could walk, and lay in wait to wrest his +tribute of glance and blush from every one that passed, lo! he had +changed all that, and Saint Anthony in an old master looks not more +resolutely 'the other way' than he, his very thoughts crushing his flesh +with invisible pincers. No more softly-scented missives lie upon his +desk a-mornings; and, instead of blowing out the candle to dream of +Daffodilia, he opens his eyes in the dark to defy—the Dweller on the +Threshold, if haply he should indeed already confront him. +</p> +<p> +One thrilling piece of news in regard to the latter he was unable to +conceal. He read it out to me one flushed morning:— +</p> +<pre> + '<i>I—have—seen—him—and—am—his—master</i>,' +</pre> +<p> +wrote the 'guru,' in answer to his neophyte's half fearful question. +Fitly underlined and sufficiently spaced, it was a statement calculated +to awe, if only by its mendacity. I wonder if that chapter of Bulwer's +would impress one now as it used to do then. It were better, perhaps, +not to try. +</p> +<p> +The next news of these mysteries was the conclusion of them. When so +darkly esoteric a body begins to issue an extremely catchpenny 'organ,' +with advertisements of theosophic 'developers,' magic mirrors, and +mesmeric discs, and also advertises large copies of the dread symbol of +the Order, 'suitable for framing,' at five shillings plain and seven and +sixpence coloured, it is, of course, impossible to take it seriously, +except in view of a police-court process, and one is evidently in the +hands of very poor bunglers indeed. Such was the new departure in +propaganda instituted by a little magazine, mean in appearance, as the +mouthpieces of all despised 'isms' seem to be, with the first number of +which, need one say, ended Narcissus' ascent of 'The Path.' I don't +think he was deeply sad at being disillusionised. Unconsciously a +broader philosophy had slowly been undermining his position, and all was +ready for the fall. It cost no such struggle to return to the world as +it had taken to leave it, for the poet had overgrown the philosopher, +and the open mystery of the common day was already exercising an appeal +beyond that of any melodramatic 'arcana.' Of course the period left its +mark upon him, but it is most conspicuous upon his bookshelves. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH7"><!-- CH7 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER VII +</h2> + +<center> +THE CHILDREN OF APOLLO +</center> +<p> +'He is a <i>true</i> poet,' or 'He is a <i>genuine</i> artist,' are phrases which +irritate one day after day in modern criticism. One had thought that +'poet' and 'artist' were enough; but there must be a need, we +regretfully suppose, for these re-enforcing qualifications; and there +can be but the one, that the false in each kind do so exceedingly +abound, that none can be taken as genuine without such special +certificate. The widespread confusion with the poet of the rhetorician +and sentimentalist in verse, and again of the mere rhymer without even +rhetoric, not to refer to finer differentiation of error, is also a +fruitful source of bewilderment. The misuse of the word has parallels: +for instance, the spurious generic use of the word 'man' for 'male,' +the substitution of 'artist' for 'painter.' But here we have only to +deal with that one particular abuse. Some rules how to know a poet may +conceivably be of interest, though of no greater value. +</p> +<p> +Of course, the one first and last test is his work, but 'how to know +poetry' is another matter, which I do not propose treating of here; my +intention rather being to dot down a few personal characteristics—not +so much his 'works' as his 'ways.' I write as they come into my head; +and to any Reader about to cry out against digression, let me add: I +write thinking of Narcissus; for know all men, friend or Philistine, if +you have yet to learn it, my Narcissus is a poet! +</p> +<p> +First, as to the great question of 'garmenting.' The superstition that +the hat and the cloak 'does it' has gone out in mockery, but only that +the other superstition might reign in its stead—that the hat and cloak +cannot do it. Because one great poet dispensed with 'pontificals,' and +yet brought the fire from heaven, henceforward 'pontificals' are humbug, +and the wearer thereof but charlatan, despite—'the master yonder in +the isle.' Pegasus must pack in favour of a British hunter, and even the +poet at last wear the smug regimentals of mediocrity and mammon. Ye +younger choir especially have a care, for, though you sing with the +tongues of men and angels, and wear not a silk hat, it shall avail you +nothing. Neither Time, which is Mudie, nor Eternity, which is Fame, will +know you, and your verses remain till doom in an ironical <i>editio +princeps</i>, which not even the foolish bookman shall rescue from the +threepenny box. It is very unlikely that you will escape as did +Narcissus, for though, indeed, +</p> +<pre> + 'He swept a fine majestic sweep + Of toga Tennysonian, + Wore strange soft hat, that such as you + Would tremble to be known in,' +</pre> +<p> +nevertheless, he somehow won happier fates, on which, perhaps, it would +be unbecoming in so close a friend to dilate. +</p> +<p> +The 'true' poet is, first of all, a gentleman, usually modest, never +arrogant, and only assertive when pushed. He does not by instinct take +himself seriously, as the 'poet-ape' doth, though if he meets with +recognition it becomes, of course, his duty to acknowledge his faculty, +and make good Scriptural use of it. +</p> +<p> +He is probably least confident, however, when praised; and never, except +in rare moments, especially of eclipse, has he a strong faith in the +truth that is in him. Therefore crush him, saith the Philistine, as we +crush the vine; strike him, as one strikes the lyre. When young, he +imagines the world to be filled with one ambition; later on, he finds +that so indeed it is—but the name thereof is not Poesy. Strange! sighs +he. And if, when he is seventeen, he writes a fluent song, and his +fellow-clerk admire it, why, it is nothing; surely the ledger-man hath +such scraps in his poke, or at least can roll off better. 'True bards +believe all able to achieve what they achieve,' said Naddo. But lo! that +ambition is a word that begins with pounds and ends with pence—like +life, quoth the ledger-man, who, after all, had but card-scores, a +tailor's account, and the bill for his wife's confinement in his pocket. +</p> +<p> +All through his life he loves his last-written most, and no honey of +Hybla is so sweet as a new rhyme. Let no maid hope to rival it with her +lips—she but interrupts: for the travail of a poet is even as that of +his wife—after the pain comes that dear joy of a new thing born into +the world, which doting sipping dream beware to break. Fifty repetitions +of the new sweetness, fifty deliberate rollings of it under the tongue, +is, I understand, the minimum duration of such, before the passion is +worked off, and the dream-child really breathing free of its +dream-parent. I have occasionally come upon Narcissus about the +twenty-fifth, I suppose, and wondered at my glum reception. 'Poetry gone +sour,' he once gave as the reason. Try it not, Reader, if, indeed, in +thy colony of beavers a poet really dwells. +</p> +<p> +He is a born palaeontologist: that is, he can build up an epic from a +hint. And, despite modern instances, the old rule obtains for him, he +need not be learned—that is, not deeply or abundantly, only at +points—superficially, the superficial would say. Well, yes, he has an +eye for knowing what surfaces mean, the secret of the divining rod. +Take it this way. We want an expression, say, of the work of Keats, want +to be told wherein lies his individuality. You take Mr. Buxton Forman's +four volumes, and 'work at' Keats! and, after thirty nights and days, +bring your essay. On the morning of the thirtieth the poet read again +the <i>Grecian Urn</i>, and at eventide wrote a sonnet; and on the morning of +the thirty-first, essay and sonnet are side by side. But, by the +evening, your essay is in limbo—or in type, all's one—while the sonnet +is singing in our heart, persistently haunting our brain. Some day the +poet, too, writes an essay, and thus plainly shows, says the essayist, +how little he really knew of the matter—he didn't actually know of the +so-and-so—and yet it was his ignorance that gave us that illuminating +line, after all. +</p> +<p> +I doubt if one would be on safe ground in saying: Take, now, the subject +of wine. We all know how abstemious is the poetical habit; and yet, to +read these songs, one would think 'twas Bacchus' self that wrote, or +that Clarence who lay down to die in a butt of Malmsey. Though the +inference is open to question, +</p> +<pre> + 'I often wonder if old Omar drank + One half the quantity he bragged in song.' +</pre> +<p> +Doubtless he sat longest and drank least of all the topers of Naishapur, +and the bell for Saki rang not from his corner half often enough to +please mine host. Certainly the longevity of some modern poets can only +be accounted for by some such supposition in their case. The proposition +is certainly proved inversely in the case of Narcissus, for he has not +written one vinous line, and yet—well, and yet! Furthermore, it may +interest future biographers to know that in his cups he was wont to +recite Hamlet's advice to the players, throned upon a tram-car. +</p> +<p> +The 'true' poet makes his magic with the least possible ado; he and the +untrue are as the angler who is born to the angler who is made at the +tackle-shop. One encumbers the small of his back with nameless engines, +talks much of creels, hath a rod like a weaver's beam; he travels first +class to some distant show-lake among the hills, and he toils all day +as the fishermen of old toiled all night; while Tom, his gardener's son, +but a mile outside the town, with a willow wand and a bent pin, hath +caught the family supper. So is it with him who is proverbially born not +made. His friends say: 'O, you should go to such-and-such falls; you 'd +write poetry there, if you like. We all said so'; or, 'What are you +doing in here scribbling? Look through the window at the moonlight; +there's poetry for you. Go out into that if you want sonnets.' Of +course, he never takes his friends' advice; he has long known that they +know nothing whatever about it. He is probably quite ignorant of +metrical law, but one precept instinct taught him from the beginning, +and he finds it expressed one day in Wordsworth (with a blessed comfort +of assurance—like in this little, O, may be like, somehow, in the great +thing too!): 'Poetry is emotion remembered in tranquillity.' The +wandlike moments, he remembers, always came to him in haunts all remote +indeed from poetry: a sudden touch at his heart, and the air grows +rhythmical, and seems a-ripple with dreams; and, albeit, in whatever +room of dust or must he be, the song will find him, will throw her arms +about him, so it seems, will close his eyes with her sweet breath, that +he may open them upon the hidden stars. +</p> +<p> +'Impromptus' are the quackery of the poetaster. One may take it for +granted, as a general rule, that anything written 'on the spot' is +worthless. A certain young poet, who could when he liked do good things, +printed some verses, which he declared in a sub-title were 'Written on +the top of Snowdon in a thunderstorm.' He asked an opinion, and one +replied: 'Written on the top of Snowdon in a thunderstorm.' The poet was +naturally angry—and yet, what need of further criticism? +</p> +<p> +The poet, when young, although as I said, he is not likely to fall into +the foolishness of conceit which belongs to the poetaster, is yet too +apt in his zeal of dedication to talk much of his 'art,' or, at least, +think much; also to disparage life, and to pronounce much gratuitous +absolution in the name of Poetry:— +</p> +<p> +Did Burns drink and wench?—yet he sang! +</p> +<p> +Did Coleridge opiate and neglect his family?—yet he sang!! +</p> +<p> +Did Shelley—well, whatever Shelley did of callous and foolish, the list +is long—yet he sang!!! +</p> +<p> +As years pass, however, he grows out of this stage, and, while regarding +his art in a spirit of dedication equally serious, and how much saner, +he comes to realise that, after all, art but forms one integral part, +however great, of a healthy life, and that for the greatest artist there +are still duties in life more imperative than any art can lay upon him. +It is a great hour when he rises up in his resolution first to be a man, +in faith that, if he be such, the artist in him will look after +itself—- first a man, and surely all the greater artist for being that; +though if not, still a man. That is the duty that lies' next' to all of +us. Do that, and, as we are told, the other will be clearer for us. In +that hour that earlier form of absolution will reverse itself on his +lips into one of commination. Did they sing?—yet they sinned here and +here; and as a man soweth, so shall he reap, singer or sot. Lo! his +songs are stars in heaven, but his sins are snakes in hell: each shall +bless and torment him in turn. +</p> +<p> +Pitiable, indeed, will seem to him in that hour the cowardice that dares +to cloak its sinning with some fine-spun theory, that veils the +gratification of its desires in some shrill evangel, and wrecks a +woman's life in the names of—Liberty and Song! Art wants no such +followers: her bravest work is done by brave men, and not by sneaking +opium-eaters and libidinous 'reformers.' We all have sinned, and we all +will go on sinning, but for God's sake, let us be honest about it. There +are worse things than honest sin. If, God help you, you have ruined a +girl, do penance for it through your life; pay your share; but don't, +whatever you do, hope to make up for a bad heart by a good brain. +Foolish art-patterers may suffer the recompense to pass, for likely they +have all the one and none of the other; but good men will care nothing +about you or your work, so long as bad trees refuse to bring forth good +fruit, or figs to grow on thistles. +</p> +<p> +We have more to learn from Florentine artists than any 'craft mystery.' +If the capacity for using the blossom while missing the evil fruit, of +which Mr. Pater speaks in the case of Aurelius, were only confined to +those evil-bearing trees: alas! it is all blossom with us moderns, good +or bad alike, and purity or putrescence are all one to us, so that they +shine. I suppose few regard Giotto's circle as his greatest work: would +that more did. The lust of the eye, with Gautier as high-priest, is too +much with us. +</p> +<p> +The poet, too, who perhaps began with the simple ambition of becoming a +'literary man,' soon finds how radically incapable of ever being merely +that he is. Alas! how soon the nimbus fades from the sacred name of +'author.' At one time he had been ready to fall down and kiss the +garment's hem, say, of—of a 'Canterbury' editor (this, of course, when +very, very young), as of a being from another sphere; and a writer in +<i>The Fortnightly</i> had swam into his ken, trailing visible clouds of +glory. But by and by he finds himself breathing with perfect composure +in that rarefied air, and in course of time the grey conviction settles +upon him that these fabled people are in no wise different from the +booksellers and business men he had found so sordid and dull—no more +individual or delightful as a race; and he speedily comes to the old +conclusion he had been at a loss to understand a year or two ago, that, +as a rule, the people who do not write books are infinitely to be +preferred to the people who do. When he finds exceptions, they occur as +they used to do in shop and office—the charm is all independent of the +calling; for just as surely as a man need not grow mean, and hard, and +dried up, however prosperous be his iron-foundry, so sure is it that a +man will not grow generous, rich-minded, loving, and all that is golden +by merely writing of such virtues at so much a column. The inherent +insincerity, more or less, of all literary work is a fact of which he +had not thought. I am speaking of the mere 'author,' the +writer-tradesman, the amateur's superstition; not of men of genius, who, +despite cackle, cannot disappoint. If they seem to do so, it must be +that we have not come close enough to know them. But the man of genius +is rarer, perhaps, in the ranks of authorship than anywhere: you are +far more likely to find him on the exchange. They are as scarce as +Caxtons: London possesses hardly half-a-dozen examples. +</p> +<p> +Narcissus enjoyed the delight of calling one of these his friend, 'a +certain aristocratic poet who loved all kinds of superiorities,' again +to borrow from Mr. Pater. He had once seen him afar off and worshipped, +as it is the blessedness of boys to be able to worship; but never could +he have dreamed in that day of the dear intimacy that was to come. 'If +he could but know me as I am,' he had sighed; but that was all. With the +almost childlike naturalness which is his greatest charm he confessed +this sigh long after, and won that poet's heart. Well I remember his +bursting into our London lodging late one afternoon, great-eyed and +almost in tears for joy of that first visit. He had pre-eminently the +capacity which most fine men have of falling in love with men—as one +may be sure of a subtle greatness in a woman whose eye singles out a +woman to follow on the stage at the theatre—and certainly, no other +phrase can express that state of shining, trembling exaltation, the +passion of the friendships of Narcissus. And although he was rich in +them—rich, that is, as one can be said to be rich in treasure so +rare—saving one only, they have never proved that fairy-gold which such +do often prove. Saving that one, golden fruit still hangs for every +white cluster of wonderful blossom. +</p> +<p> +'I thought you must care for me if you could but know me aright,' +Narcissus had said. +</p> +<p> +'Care for you! Why, you beautiful boy! you seem to have dropped from the +stars,' the poet had replied in the caressing fashion of an elder +brother. +</p> +<p> +He had frankly fallen in love, too: for Narcissus has told me that his +great charm is a boyish naturalness of heart, that ingenuous gusto in +living which is one of the sure witnesses to genius. This is all the +more piquant because no one would suspect it, as, I suppose, few do; +probably, indeed, a consensus would declare him the last man in London +of whom that is true. No one would seem to take more seriously the <i>beau +monde</i> of modern paganism, with its hundred gospels of <i>La Nuance</i>; no +one, assuredly, were more <i>blasé</i> than he, with his languors of pose, +and face of so wan a flame. The Oscar Wilde of modern legend were not +more as a dweller in Nirvana. But Narcissus maintained that all this was +but a disguise which the conditions of his life compelled him to wear, +and in wearing which he enjoyed much subtle subterranean merriment; +while underneath the real man lived, fresh as morning, vigorous as a +young sycamore, wild-hearted as an eagle, ever ready to flash out the +'password primeval' to such as alone could understand. How else had he +at once taken the stranger lad to his heart with such a sunlight of +welcome? As the maid every boy must have sighed for but so rarely found, +who makes not as if his love were a weariness which she endured, and the +kisses she suffered, cold as green buds, were charities, but frankly +glows to his avowal with 'I love you, too, dear Jack,' and kisses him +from the first with mouth like a June rose—so did that <i>blasé</i> poet +cast away his conventional Fahrenheit, and call Narcissus friend in +their first hour. Men of genius alone know that fine <i>abandon</i> of soul. +In such is the poet confessed as unmistakably as in his verse, for the +one law of his life is that he be an elemental, and the capacity for +great simple impressions is the spring of his power. Let him beware of +losing that. +</p> +<p> +I sometimes wonder as I come across the last frivolous gossip concerning +that poet in the paragraphs of the new journalism, or meet his name in +some distinguished bead-roll in <i>The Morning Post</i>, whether Narcissus +was not, after all, mistaken about him, and whether he could still, +season after season, go through the same stale round of reception, +private view, first night, and all the various drill of fashion and +folly, if that boy's heart were alive still. One must believe it once +throbbed in him: we have his poems for that, and a poem cannot lie; but +it is hard to think that it could still keep on its young beating +beneath such a choking pressure of convention, and in an air so 'sunken +from the healthy breath of morn.' But, on the other hand, I have almost +a superstitious reliance on Narcissus' intuition, a faculty in him which +not I alone have marked, but which I know was the main secret of his +appeal for women. They, as the natural possessors of the power, feel a +singular kinship with a man who also possesses it, a gift as rarely +found among his sex as that delicacy which largely depends on it, and +which is the other sure clue to a woman's love. She is so little used, +poor flower, to be understood, and to meet with other regard than the +gaze of satyrs. +</p> +<p> +However, be Narcissus' intuition at fault or not in the main, still it +was very sure that the boy's heart in that man of the world did wake +from its sleep for a while at the wandlike touch of his youth; and if, +after all, as may be, Narcissus was but a new sensation in his jaded +round, at least he was a healthy one. Nor did the callous ingratitude of +forgetfulness which follows so swiftly upon mere sensation ever add +another to the sorrows of my friend: for, during the last week before he +left us, came a letter of love and cheer in that poet's wonderful +handwriting—handwriting delicious with honeyed lines, each word a +flower, each letter rounded with the firm soft curves of hawthorn in +bud, or the delicate knobs of palm against the sky. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH8"><!-- CH8 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER VIII +</h2> + +<center> +GEORGE MUNCASTER +</center> +<p> +When I spoke of London's men of genius I referred, of course, to such as +are duly accredited, certificated, so to say, by public opinion; but of +those others whose shining is under the bushel of obscurity, few or +many, how can one affirm? That there are such, any man with any happy +experience of living should be able to testify; and I should say, for +fear of misunderstanding, that I do not use the word genius in any +technical sense, not only of men who can <i>do</i> in the great triumphal +way, but also of those who can <i>be</i> in their quiet, effective fashion, +within their own 'scanty plot of ground'; men who, if ever conscious of +it, are content with the diffusion of their influence around the narrow +limits of their daily life, content to bend their creative instincts on +the building and beautifying of home. It is no lax use of the word +genius to apply it to such, for unless you profess the modern heresy +that genius is but a multiplied talent, a coral-island growth, that +earns its right to a new name only when it has lifted its head above the +waters of oblivion, you must agree. For 'you saw at once,' said +Narcissus, in reference to that poet, 'that his writing was so +delightful because he was more so.' His writings, in fact, were but the +accidental emanations of his personality. He might have given himself +out to us in fugues, or canvases, or simply, like the George Muncaster +of whom I am thinking, in the sweet breath and happy shining of his +home. Genius is a personal quality, and if a man has it, whatever his +hand touches will bear the trace of his power, an undying odour, an +unfading radiance. When Rossetti wrote 'Beauty like hers is genius,' he +was not dealing in metaphor, and Meissonier should have abolished for +ever the superstition of large canvases. +</p> +<p> +These desultory hints of the development of Narcissus would certainly be +more incomplete than necessity demands, if I did not try to give the +Reader some idea of the man of genius of this unobtrusive type to whom I +have just alluded. Samuel Dale used to call himself 'an artist in life,' +and there could be no truer general phrase to describe George Muncaster +than that. His whole life possesses a singular unity, such as is the +most satisfying joy of a fine work of art, considering which it never +occurs to one to think of the limitation of conditions or material. So +with his life, the shortness of man's 'term' is never felt; one could +win no completer effect with eternity than he with every day. Hurry and +false starts seem unknown in his round, and his little home is a +microcosm of the Golden Age. +</p> +<p> +It would even seem sometimes that he has an artistic rule over his +'accidents,' for 'surprises' have a wonderful knack of falling into the +general plan of his life, as though but waited for. Our first meeting +with him was a singular instance of this. I say 'our,' for Narcissus and +I chanced to be walking a holiday together at the time. It fell on this +wise. At Tewkesbury it was we had arrived, one dull September evening, +just in time to escape a wetting from a grey drizzle then imminent; and +in no very buoyant spirits we turned into <i>The Swan Inn</i>. A more dismal +coffee-room for a dismal evening could hardly be—gloomy, vast, and +thinly furnished. We entered sulkily, seeming the only occupants of the +sepulchre. However, there was a small book on the table facing the door, +sufficiently modern in appearance to catch one's eye and arouse a faint +ripple of interest. 'A Canterbury,' we cried. 'And a Whitman, more's the +wonder,' cried Narcissus, who had snatched it up. 'Why, some one's had +the sense, too, to cut out the abominable portrait. I wonder whose it +is. The owner must evidently have some right feeling.' +</p> +<p> +Then, before there was time for further exclamatory compliment of the +unknown, we were half-startled by the turning round of an arm-chair at +the far end of the room, and were aware of a manly voice of exquisite +quality asking, 'Do you know Whitman?' +</p> +<p> +And moving towards the speaker, we were for the first time face to face +with the strong and gentle George Muncaster, who since stands in our +little gallery of types as Whitman's Camarado and Divine Husband made +flesh. I wish, Reader, that I could make you see his face; but at best I +have little faith in pen portraits. It is comparatively easy to write a +graphic description of <i>a</i> face; but when it has been read, has the +reader realised <i>the</i> face? I doubt it, and am inclined to believe that +three different readers will carry away three different impressions even +from a really brilliant portrait. Laborious realism may, at least, I +think, be admitted as hopeless. The only chance is in a Meredithian +lightning-flash, and those fly but from one or two bows. I wonder if an +image will help at all here. Think on a pebbly stream, on a brisk, +bright morning; dwell on the soft, shining lines of its flowing; and +then recall the tonic influence, the sensation of grip, which the +pebbles give it. Dip your hand into it again in fancy; realise how +chaste it is, and then again think how bright and good it is. And if you +realise these impressions as they come to me, you will have gained some +idea of George Muncaster's face—the essential spirit of it, I mean, +ever so much more important than the mere features. Such, at least, +seemed the meaning of his face even in the first moment of our +intercourse that September dusk, and so it has never ceased to come upon +us even until now. +</p> +<p> +And what a night that was! what a talk! How soon did we find each other +out! Long before the maid knocked at the door, and hinted by the +delicate insinuation of a supposed ring that there was 'a budding +morrow' in the air. But our passionate generosity of soul was running in +too strong a tide just then to be stemmed by any such interference; it +could but be diverted, and Muncaster's bedroom served us as well wherein +to squat in one of those close, rapt circles of talk such as, I think, +after all, men who love poetry can alone know—men, anyhow, with <i>a</i> +poetry. +</p> +<p> +Bed, that had for some time been calling us, unheeded as Juliet's nurse, +had at last to be obeyed; but how grudgingly; and how eagerly we sprang +from it at no late hour in the morning, at the first thought of the +sweet new thing that had come into the world—like children who, half +in a doze before waking, suddenly remember last night's new wonder of a +toy, to awake in an instant, and scramble into clothes to look at it +again. Thus, like children we rose; but it was shy as lovers we met at +the breakfast-table, as lovers shy after last night's kissing. (You may +not have loved a fellow-man in this way, Reader, but we are, any one of +us, as good men as you; so keep your eyebrows down, I beseech you.) +</p> +<p> +One most winsome trait of our new friend was soon apparent—as, having, +to our sorrow, to part at the inn door right and left, we talked of +meeting again at one or the other's home: a delicate disinclination to +irreverently 'make sure' of the new joy; a 'listening fear,' as though +of a presiding good spirit that might revoke his gift if one stretched +out towards it with too greedy hands. 'Rather let us part and say +nought. You know where a letter will find me. If our last night was a +real thing, we shall meet again, never fear.' With some such words as +those it was that he bade us good-bye. +</p> +<p> +Of course, letters found all three of us before a fortnight had gone +by, and in but a short time we found his home. There it is that George +should be seen. Away he is full of precious light, but home is his +setting. To Narcissus, who found it in that green period when all +youngsters take vehement vows of celibacy, and talk much of 'free love,' +all ignorant, one is in charity persuaded, of what they quite mean, that +home was certainly as great and lasting a revelation as the first hour +of 'Poetry's divine first finger-touch.' It was not that his own +home-life had been unhappy, for it was the reverse, and rich indeed in +great and sweet influences; but it was rather, I think, that the ideal +of a home is not so easily to be reached from that home in which one is +a child, where one is too apt to miss the whole in consideration of +one's own part in it, as from another on which we can look from the +outside. +</p> +<p> +Our parents, even to the end, partake too much of the nature of +mythology; it always needs an effort to imagine them beings with quite +the same needs and dreams as ourselves. We rarely get a glimpse of +their poetry, for the very reason that we ourselves are factors in it, +and are, therefore, too apt to dwell on the less happy details of the +domestic life, details which one ray of their poetry would transfigure +as the sun transfigures the motes in his beam. Thus, in that green age I +spoke of, one's sickly vision can but see the dusty, world-worn side of +domesticity, the petty daily cares of living, the machinery, so to say, +of 'house and home.' But when one stands in another home, where these +are necessarily unseen by us, stands with the young husband, the +poetry-maker, how different it all seems. One sees the creation bloom +upon it; one ceases to blaspheme, and learns to bless. Later, when at +length one understands why it is sweeter to say 'wife' than +'sweetheart,' how even one may be reconciled to calling one's Daffodilia +'little mother'—because of the children, you know; it would never do +for them to say Daffodilia—then he will understand too how those petty +details, formerly so '<i>banal</i>,' are, after all, but notes in the music, +and what poetry can flicker, like its own blue flame, around even the +joint purchase of a frying-pan. +</p> +<p> +That Narcissus ever understood this great old poetry he owes to George +Muncaster. In the very silence of his home one hears a singing—'There +lies the happiest land.' It was one of his own quaint touches that the +first night we found his nest, after the maid had given us admission, +there should be no one to welcome us into the bright little parlour but +a wee boy of four, standing in the doorway like a robin that has hopped +on to one's window-sill. But with what a dear grace did the little chap +hold out his hand and bid us good evening, and turn his little morsel of +a bird's tongue round our names; to be backed at once by a ring of +laughter from the hidden 'prompter' thereupon revealed. O happy, happy +home! may God for ever smile upon you! There should be a special grace +for happy homes. George's set us 'collecting' such, with results +undreamed of by youthful cynic. Take courage, Reader, if haply you stand +with hesitating toe above the fatal plunge. Fear not, you can swim if +you will. Of course, you must take care that your joint poetry-maker be +such a one as George's. One must not seem to forget the loving wife who +made such dreaming as his possible. He did not; and, indeed, had you +told him of his happiness, he would but have turned to her with a smile +that said, 'All of thee, my love'; while, did one ask of this and that, +how quickly 'Yes! that was George's idea,' laughed along her lips. +</p> +<p> +While we sat talking that first evening, there suddenly came three +cries, as of three little heads straining out of a nest, for 'Father'; +and obedient, with a laugh, he left us. This, we soon learnt, was a part +of the sweet evening ritual of home. After mother's more practical +service had been rendered the little ones, and they were cosily 'tucked +in,' then came 'father's turn,' which consisted of his sitting by their +bedside—Owen and Geoffrey on one hand, and little queen Phyllis, +maidenlike in solitary cot, on the other—and crooning to them a little +evening song. In the dark, too, I should say, for it was one of his wise +provisions that they should be saved from ever fearing that; and that, +whenever they awoke to find it round them in the middle of the night, it +should bring them no other association but 'father's voice.' +</p> +<p> +A quaint recitative of his own, which he generally contrived to vary +each night, was the song, a loving croon of sleep and rest. The +brotherhood of rest, one might name his theme for grown-up folk; as in +the morning, we afterwards learnt, he is wont to sing them another +little song of the brotherhood of work; the aim of his whole beautiful +effort for them being to fill their hearts with a sense of the +brotherhood of all living things—flowers, butterflies, bees and birds, +the milk-boy, the policeman, the man at the crossing, the grocer's pony, +all within the circle of their little lives, as living and working in +one great <i>camaraderie</i>. Sometimes he would extemporise a little rhyme +for them, filling it out with his clear, happy voice, and that tender +pantomime that comes so naturally to a man who not merely loves +children—for who is there that does not?—but one born with the +instinct for intercourse with them. To those not so born it is as +difficult to enter into the life and prattle of birds. I have once or +twice crept outside the bedroom door when neither children nor George +thought of eavesdroppers, and the following little songs are impressions +from memory of his. You must imagine them chanted by a voice full of the +infinite tenderness of fatherhood, and even then you will but dimly +realise the music they have as he sings them. I run the risk of his +forgiving my printing them here:— +</p> +<pre> + MORNING SONG. + + Morning comes to little eyes, + Wakens birds and butterflies, + Bids the flower uplift his head, + Calls the whole round world from bed. + Up jump Geoffrey! + Up jump Owen!! + Then up jump Phyllis!!! + And father's going! + + EVENING SONG. + + The sun is weary, for he ran + So far and fast to-day; + The birds are weary, for who sang + So many songs as they? + The bees and butterflies at last + Are tired out; for just think, too, + How many gardens through the day + Their little wings have fluttered through. + + And so, as all tired people do, + They've gone to lay their sleepy heads + Deep, deep in warm and happy beds. + The sun has shut his golden eye, + And gone to sleep beneath the sky; + The birds, and butterflies, and bees + Have all crept into flowers and trees, + And all lie quiet, still as mice, + Till morning comes, like father's voice. + So Phyllis, Owen, Geoffrey, you + Must sleep away till morning too; + Close little eyes, lie down little heads, + And sleep, sleep, sleep in happy beds. +</pre> +<p> +As the Reader has not been afflicted with a great deal of verse in these +pages, I shall also venture to copy here another little song which, as +his brains have grown older, George has been fond of singing to them at +bedtime, and with which the Reader is not likely to have enjoyed a +previous acquaintance:— +</p> +<pre> + REST.[<a href="#note-1">1</a>] + + When the Sun and the Golden Day + Hand in hand are gone away, + At your door shall Sleep and Night + Come and knock in the fair twilight; + Let them in, twin travellers blest; + Each shall be an honoured guest, + And give you rest. + + They shall tell of the stars and moon, + And their lips shall move to a glad sweet tune, + Till upon your cool, white bed + Fall at last your nodding head; + Then in dreamland fair and blest, + Farther off than East and West, + They give you rest. + + Night and Sleep, that goodly twain, + Tho' they go, shall come again; + When your work and play are done, + And the Sun and Day are gone + Hand in hand thro' the scarlet West, + Each shall come, an honoured guest, + And bring you rest. + + Watching at your window-sill, + If upon the Eastern hill + Sun and Day come back no more, + They shall lead you from the door + To their kingdom calm and blest, + Farther off than East or West, + And give you rest. +</pre> +<p> +Arriving down to breakfast earlier than expected next morning, we +discovered George busy at some more of his loving ingenuity. He half +blushed in his shy way, but went on writing in this wise, with chalk, +upon a small blackboard: '<i>Thursday</i>—<i>Thor's-day</i>—<i>Jack the Giant +Killer's day</i>'. Then, in one corner of the board, a sun was rising with +a merry face and flaming locks, and beneath him was written, +'<i>Phoebus-Apollo';</i> while in the other corner was a setting moon, '<i>Lady +Cynthia</i>. There were other quaint matters, too, though they have escaped +my memory; but these hints are sufficient to indicate George's morning +occupation. Thus he endeavoured to implant in the young minds he felt so +sacred a trust an ever-present impression of the full significance of +life in every one of its details. The days of the week should mean for +them what they did mean, should come with a veritable personality, such +as the sun and the moon gained for them by thus having actual names, +like friends and playfellows. This Thor's-day was an especially great +day for them; for, in the evening, when George had returned from +business, and there was yet an hour to bedtime, they would come round +him to hear one of the adventures of the great Thor—adventures which he +had already contrived, he laughingly told us, to go on spinning out of +the Edda through no less than the Thursdays of two years. Certainly his +ingenuity of economy with his materials was no little marvel, and he +confessed to often being at his wits' end. For Thursday night was not +alone starred with stories; every night there was one to tell; sometimes +an incident of his day in town, which he would dress up with the +imaginative instinct of a born teller of fairy-tales. He had a knack, +too, of spreading one story over several days which would be invaluable +to a serial writer. I remember one simple instance of his device. +</p> +<p> +He sat in one of those great cane nursing chairs, Phyllis on one knee, +Owen on the other, and Geoffrey perched in the hollow space in the back +of the chair, leaning over his shoulder, all as solemn as a court +awaiting judgment. George begins with a preliminary glance behind at +Geoffrey: 'Happy there, my boy? That's right. Well, there was once a +beautiful garden.' +</p> +<p> +'Yes-s-s-s,' go the three solemn young heads. +</p> +<p> +'And it was full of the most wonderful things.' +</p> +<p> +'Yes-s-s-s.' +</p> +<p> +'Great trees, so green, for the birds to hide and sing in; and flowers +so fair and sweet that the bees said that, in all their flying hither +and thither, they had never yet found any so full of honey in all the +world. And the birds, too, what songs they knew; and the butterflies, +were there ever any so bright and many-coloured?' etc., etc. +</p> +<p> +'But the most wonderful thing about the garden was that everything in it +had a wonderful story to tell.' +</p> +<p> +'Yes-s-s s.' +</p> +<p> +'The birds, and bees, and butterflies, even the trees and flowers, each +knew a wonderful fairy-tale.' +</p> +<p> +'Oh-h-h-h.' +</p> +<p> +'But of all in the garden the grasshopper knew the most. He had been a +great traveller, for he had such long legs.' +</p> +<p> +Again a still deeper murmur of breathless interest. +</p> +<p> +'Now, would you like to hear what the grasshopper had to tell?' +</p> +<p> +'Oh, yes-s-s-s.' +</p> +<p> +'Well, you shall—to-morrow night!' +</p> +<p> +So off his knees they went, as he rose with a merry, loving laugh, and +kissed away the long sighs of disappointment, and sent them to bed, +agog for all the morrow's night should reveal. +</p> +<p> +Need one say that the children were not the only disappointed listeners? +Besides, they have long since known all the wonderful tale, whereas one +of the poorer grown-up still wonders wistfully what that grasshopper who +was so great a traveller, and had such long legs, had to tell. +</p> +<p> +But I had better cease. Were I sure that the Reader was seeing what I am +seeing, hearing as I, I should not fear; but how can I be sure of that? +Had I the pen which that same George will persist in keeping for his +letters, I should venture to delight the Reader with more of his story. +One underhand hope of mine, however, for these poor hints is, that they +may by their very imperfection arouse him to give the world 'the true +story' of a happy home. Narcissus repeatedly threatened that, if he did +not take pen in hand, he would some day 'make copy' of him; and now I +have done it instead. Moreover, I shall further presume on his +forbearance by concluding with a quotation from one of his letters that +came to me but a few months back:— +</p> +<p> +'You know how deeply exercised the little ones are on the subject of +death, and how I had answered their curiosity by the story that after +death all things turn into flowers. Well, what should startle the wife's +ears the other day but "Mother, I wish you would die." "O why, my dear?" +"Because I should so like to water you!" was the delicious explanation. +The theory has, moreover, been called to stand at the bar of experience, +for a week or two ago one of Phyllis' goldfish died. There were tears at +first, of course, but they suddenly dried up as Geoffrey, in his +reflective way, wondered "what flower it would come to." Here was a +dilemma. One had never thought of such contingencies. But, of course, it +was soon solved. "What flower would you like it to be, my boy?" I asked. +"A poppy!" he answered; and after consultation, "a poppy!" agreed the +others. So a poppy it is to be. A visit to the seedsman's procured the +necessary surreptitious poppy seed; and so now poor Sir Goldfish sleeps +with the seed of sleep in his mouth, and the children watch his grave +day by day, breathless for his resplendent resurrection. Will you write +us an epitaph?' +</p> +<p> +Ariel forgive me! Here is what I sent: +</p> +<pre> + 'Five inches deep Sir Goldfish lies; + Here last September was he laid; + Poppies these, that were his eyes, + Of fish-bones are these blue-bells made; + His fins of gold that to and fro + Waved and waved so long ago, + Still as petals wave and wave + To and fro above his grave. + Hearken, too! for so his knell + Tolls all day each tiny bell.' +</pre> +<center> +FOOTNOTES: +</center> +<p> +<a name="note-1"><!-- Note Anchor 1 --></a>[Footnote 1: From a tiny privately-printed volume of deliciously +original lyrics by Mr. R.K. Leather, since republished by Mr. Fisher +Unwin, 1890, and at present published by Mr. John Lane.] +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH9"><!-- CH9 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER IX +</h2> + +<center> +THAT THIRTEENTH MAID +</center> +<pre> + 'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'— + <i>Merchant of Venice</i>. +</pre> +<p> +It occurs to me here to wonder whether there can be any reader +ungrateful enough to ask with grumbling voice, 'What of the book-bills? +The head-line has been the sole mention of them now for many pages; and +in the last chapter, where a book was referred to, the writer was +perverse enough to choose one that never belonged to Narcissus at all.' +To which I would venture to make humble rejoinder—Well, Goodman Reader, +and what did you expect? Was it accounts, with all their thrilling +details, with totals, 'less discount,' and facsimiles of the receipt +stamps? Take another look at our first chapter. I promised nothing of +the sort there, I am sure. I promised simply to attempt for you the +delineation of a personality which has had for all who came into contact +with it enduring charm, in hope that, though at second-hand, you might +have some pleasure of it also; and I proposed to do this mainly from the +hints of documents which really are more significant than any letters or +other writings could be, for the reason that they are of necessity so +unconscious. I certainly had no intention of burdening you with the +original data, any more than, should you accept the offer I made, also +in that chapter, and entrust me with your private ledger for +biographical purposes, I would think of printing it <i>in extenso</i>, and +calling it a biography; though I should feel justified, after the varied +story had been deduced and written out, in calling the product, +metaphorical wise, 'The private ledger of Johannes Browne, Esquire'—a +title which, by the way, is copyright and duly 'entered.' Such was my +attempt, and I maintain that I have so far kept my word. Because whole +shelves have been disposed of in a line, and a ninepenny 'Canterbury' +has rustled out into pages, you have no right to complain, for that is +but the fashion of life, as I have endeavoured to show. And let me say +in passing that that said copy of Mr. Rhys's Whitman, though it could +not manifestly appear in his book-bills, does at the present moment rest +upon his shelf—'a moment's monument.' +</p> +<p> +Perhaps it would be well, before proceeding with this present 'place in +the story,' to set out with a statement of the various 'authorities' for +it; as, all this being veritable history, perhaps one should. But then, +Reader, here again I should have to catalogue quite a small library. +However, I will enumerate a few of the more significant ones. +</p> +<p> +'Swinburne's <i>Tristram of Lyonesse</i>, 9/-, less dis., 6/9.' +</p> +<p> +All that this great poem of 'springtide passion with its fire and +flowers' meant to Narcissus and his 'Thirteenth Maid' in the morning of +their love, those that have loved too will hardly need telling, while +those who have not could never understand, though I spake with the +tongue of the poet himself. In this particular copy, which, I need +hardly say, does not rest upon N.'s shelves, but on another in a sweet +little bedchamber, there is a tender inscription and a sonnet which +aimed at acknowledging how the hearts of those young lovers had gone out +to that poet 'with mouth of gold and morning in his eyes.' The latter I +have begged leave to copy here:— +</p> +<pre> + 'Dear Heart, what thing may symbolise for us + A love like ours; what gift, whate'er it be, + Hold more significance 'twixt thee and me + Than paltry words a truth miraculous, + Or the poor signs that in astronomy + Tell giant splendours in their gleaming might? + Yet love would still give such, as in delight + To mock their impotence—so this for thee. + + 'This book for thee; our sweetest honeycomb + Of lovesome thought and passion-hearted rhyme, + Builded of gold, and kisses, and desire, + By that wild poet whom so many a time + Our hungering lips have blessed, until a fire + Burnt speech up, and the wordless hour had come.' +</pre> +<p> +'Meredith's <i>Richard Feverel</i>, 6/-, less dis., 4/6.' +</p> +<p> +Narcissus was never weary of reading those two wonderful chapters where +Lucy and Richard meet, and he used to say that some day he would beg +leave from Mr. Meredith to reprint at his own charges just those two +chapters, to distribute to all true lovers in the kingdom. It would be +hard to say how often he and his maid had read them aloud together, with +amorous punctuation—caresses for commas, and kisses for full-stops. +</p> +<p> +'Morris' <i>Sigurd the Volsung</i>, 12/-, less dis., 9/-.' +</p> +<p> +This book they loved when their love had grown to have more of earnest +purpose in it, and its first hysteric ecstasy had passed into the more +solemn ardours of the love that goes not with spring, but loves even +unto the winter and beyond. It is marked all through in pencil by +Narcissus; but on one page, where it opens easily, there are written +initials, in a woman's hand, against this great passage:— +</p> +<pre> + 'She said: "Thou shalt never unsay it, and thy heart is mine indeed: + Thou shalt bear thy love in thy bosom as thou helpest the earth-folk's need: + Thou shalt wake to it dawning by dawning; thou shalt sleep and it shall not be strange: + There is none shall thrust between us till our earthly lives shall change. + Ah, my love shall fare as a banner in the hand of thy renown, + In the arms of thy fame accomplished shall it lie when we lay us adown. + O deathless fame of Sigurd! O glory of my lord! + O birth of the happy Brynhild to the measureless reward!" + So they sat as the day grew dimmer, and they looked on days to come, + And the fair tale speeding onward, and the glories of their home; + And they saw their crowned children and the kindred of the kings, + And deeds in the world arising and the day of better things: + All the earthly exaltation, till their pomp of life should be passed, + And soft on the bosom of God their love should be laid at the last.' +</pre> +<p> +And on the page facing this lies a pressed flower—there used to be +two—guarded by these tender rhymes:— +</p> +<pre> + 'Whoe'er shall read this mighty song + In some forthcoming evensong, + We pray thee guard these simple flowers, + For, gentle Reader, they are "ours."' +</pre> +<p> +But ill has some 'gentle Reader' attended to the behest, for, as I said, +but one of the flowers remains. One is lost—and Narcissus has gone +away. This inscription is but one of many such scattered here and there +through his books, for he had a great facility in such minor graces, as +he had a neat hand at tying a bow. I don't think he ever sent a box of +flowers without his fertility serving him with some rose-leaf fancy to +accompany them; and on birthdays and all red-letter days he was always +to be counted upon for an appropriate rhyme. If his art served no other +purpose, his friend would be grateful to him for that alone, for many +great days would have gone without their 'white stone' but for him; +when, for instance, J.A.W. took that brave plunge of his, which has +since so abundantly justified him and more than fulfilled prophecy; or +when Samuel Dale took that bolder, namely a wife, he being a +philosopher—incidents, Reader, on which I long so to digress, and for +which, if you could only know beforehand, you would, I am sure, give me +freest hand. But beautiful stories both, I may not tell of you here; +though if the Reader and I ever spend together those hinted nights at +the 'Mermaid,' I then may. +</p> +<p> +But to return. I said above that if I were to enumerate all the books, +so to say, 'implicated' in the love of Narcissus and his Thirteenth +Maid, I should have to catalogue quite a small library. I forgot for the +moment what literal truth I was writing, for it was indeed in quite a +large library that they first met. In 'our town' there is, Reader, an +old-world institution, which, I think, you would well like transported +to yours, a quaint subscription library 'established' ever so long ago, +full of wonderful nooks and corners, where (of course, if you are a +member) one is sure almost at any time of the day of a solitary corner +for a dream. It is a sweet provision, too, that it is managed by ladies, +whom you may, if you can, image to yourself as the Hesperides; for there +are three of them; and may not the innumerable galleries and spiral +staircases, serried with countless shelves, clustered thick with tome on +tome, figure the great tree, with its many branches and its wonderful +gold fruit—the tree of knowledge? The absence of the dragon from the +similitude is as well, don't you think? +</p> +<p> +Books, of all things, should be tended by reverent hands; and, to my +mind, the perfunctory in things ecclesiastical is hardly more +distressing than the service of books as conducted in many great +libraries. One feels that the <i>librarii</i> should be a sacred order, +nearly allied to the monastic, refined by varying steps of initiation, +and certainly celibates. They should give out their books as the priest +his sacrament, should wear sacred vestments, and bear about with them +the priestlike <i>aura</i>, as of divine incarnations of the great spirit of +Truth and Art in whose temples they are ministrants. The next step to +this ideal ministry is to have our books given out to us by women. +Though they may understand them not, they handle them with gentle +courtesy, and are certainly in every way to be preferred to the youthful +freckled monster with red spines upon his head, and nailed boots, 'the +work of the Cyclops,' upon his feet, whose physiognomy is contorted by +cinnamon-balls at the very moment he carries in his arms some great +Golden-lips or gentle Silver-tongue. What good sweet women there are, +too, who would bless heaven for the occupation! +</p> +<p> +Well, as I said, we in that particular library are more fortunate, and +two of the 'subscribers,' at least, did at one time express their +appreciation of its privileges by a daily dream among its shelves. One +day—had Hercules been there overnight?—we missed one of our fair +attendants. Was it Aegle, Arethusa, or Hesperia? Narcissus probably +knew. And on the next she was still missing; nor on the third had she +returned; but lo! there was another in her stead—and on her Narcissus +bent his gaze, according to wont. A little maid, with noticeable eyes, +and the hair Rossetti loved to paint—called Hesper, 'by many,' said +Narcissus, one day long after, solemnly quoting the Vita Nuova, 'who +know not wherefore.' +</p> +<p> +'Why! do <i>you</i> know?' I asked. +</p> +<p> +'Yes!' And then, for the first time, he had told me the story I have now +to tell again. He had, meanwhile, rather surprised me by little touches +of intimate observation of her which he occasionally let slip—as, for +instance, 'Have you noticed her forehead? It has a fine distinction of +form; is pure ivory, surely; and you should watch how deliciously her +hair springs out of it, like little wavy threads of "old gold" set in +the ivory by some cunning artist.' +</p> +<p> +I had just looked at him and wondered a moment. But such attentive +regard was hardly matter for surprise in his case; and, moreover, I +always tried to avoid the subject of women with him, for it was the one +on which alone there was danger of our disagreeing. It was the only one +in which he seemed to show signs of cruelty in his disposition, though +it was, I well know, but a thoughtless cruelty; and in my heart I always +felt that he was too right-minded and noble in the other great matters +of life not to come right on that too when 'the hour had struck.' +Meanwhile, he had a way of classifying amours by the number of verses +inspired—as, 'Heigho! it's all over; but never mind, I got two sonnets +out of her'—which seemed to me an exhibition of the worst side of his +artist disposition, and which—well, Reader, jarred much on one who +already knew what a true love meant. It was, however, I could see, quite +unconscious; and I tried hard not to be intolerant towards him, because +fortune had blessed me with an earlier illumination. +</p> +<p> +Pray, go not away with the misconception that Narcissus was ever base to +a woman. No! he left that to Circe's hogs, and the one temptation he +ever had towards it he turned into a shining salvation. No! he had +nothing worse than the sins of the young egoist to answer for, though he +afterwards came to feel those pitiful and mean enough. +</p> +<p> +Another noticeable feature of Hesper's face was an ever-present +sadness—not as of a dull grief, but as of some shining sorrow, a +quality which gave her face much arresting interest. It seemed one +great, rich tear. One loved to dwell upon it as upon those intense +stretches of evening sky when the day yearns through half-shut eyelids +in the west. One continually wondered what story it meant, for some it +must mean. +</p> +<p> +Watching her thus quietly, day by day, it seemed to me that as the weeks +from her first coming went by, this sadness deepened; and I could not +forbear one day questioning the elder Hesperides about her, thus +bringing upon myself a revelation I had little expected. For, said she, +'she was glad I had spoken to her, for she had long wished to ask me to +use my influence with my friend, that he might cease paying Hesper +attentions which he could not mean in earnest, but which she knew were +already causing Hesper to be fond of him. Having become friendly with +her, she had found out her secret and remonstrated with her, with the +result that she had avoided Narcissus for some time, but not without +much misery to herself, over which she was continually brooding.' +</p> +<p> +All this was an utter surprise, and a saddening one; for I had grown to +feel much interest in the girl, and had been especially pleased by all +absence of the flighty tendencies with which too many girls in public +service tempt men to their own destruction. She had seemed to me to bear +herself with a maidenly self-respect that spoke of no little grace of +breeding. She had two very strong claims on one's regard. She was +evidently a woman, in the deep, tragic sense of that word, and a lady in +the only true sense of that. The thought of a life so rich in womanly +promise becoming but another of the idle playthings of Narcissus filled +me with something akin to rage, and I was not long in saying some strong +words to him. Not that I feared for her the coarse 'ruin' the world +alone thinks of. Is that the worst that can befall woman? What of the +spiritual deflowering, of which the bodily is but a symbol? If the first +fine bloom of the soul has gone, if the dream that is only dreamed once +has grown up in the imagination and been once given, the mere chastity +of the body is a lie, and whatever its fecundity, the soul has nought +but sterility to give to another. It is not those kisses of the +lips—kisses that one forgets as one forgets the roses we smelt last +year—which profane; they but soil the vessel of the sacrament, and it +is the sacrament itself which those consuming spirit-kisses, which burn +but through the eyes, may desecrate. It is strange that man should have +so long taken the precisely opposite attitude in this matter, caring +only for the observation of the vessel, and apparently dreaming not of +any other possible approach to the sanctities. Probably, however, his +care has not been of sanctities at all. Indeed, most have, doubtless, +little suspicion of the existence of such, and the symbol has been and +is but a selfish superstition amongst them—woman, a symbol whose +meaning is forgotten, but still the object of an ignorant veneration, +not unrelated to the preservation of game. +</p> +<p> +Narcissus took my remonstrance a little flippantly, I thought, evidently +feeling that too much had been made out of very little; for he averred +that his 'attentions' to Hesper had been of the slightest character, +hardly more than occasional looks and whispers, which, from her cold +reception of them, he had felt were more distasteful to her than +otherwise. He had indeed, he said, ceased even these the last few days, +as her reserve always made him feel foolish, as a man fondling a fair +face in his dream wakes on a sudden to find that he is but grimacing at +the air. This reassured me, and I felt little further anxiety. However, +this security only proved how little I really understood the weak side +of my friend. I had not realised how much he really was Narcissus, and +how dear to him was a new mirror. My speaking to him was the one wrong +course possible to be taken. Instead of confirming his growing intention +of indifference, it had, as might have been foreseen, the directly +opposite effect; and from the moment of his learning that Hesper +secretly loved him, she at once became invested with a new glamour, and +grew daily more and more the forbidden fascination few can resist. +</p> +<p> +I did not learn this for many months. Meanwhile Narcissus chose to +deceive me for the first and only time. At last he told me all; and how +different was his manner of telling it from his former gay relations of +conquest. One needed not to hear the words to see he was unveiling a +sacred thing, a holiness so white and hidden, the most reverent word +seemed a profanation; and, as he laboured for the least soiled wherein +to enfold the revelation, his soul seemed as a maid torn with the +blushing tremors of a new knowledge. Men only speak so after great and +wonderful travail, and by that token I knew Narcissus loved at last. It +had seemed unlikely ground from which love had first sprung forth, that +of a self-worship that could forgo no slightest indulgence—but thence +indeed it had come. The silent service my words had given him to know +that Hesper's heart was offering to him was not enough; he must hear it +articulate, his nostrils craved an actual incense. To gain this he must +deceive two—his friend, and her whose poor face would kindle with +hectic hope, at the false words he must say for the true words he <i>must</i> +hear. It was pitifully mean; but whom has not his own hidden lust made +to crawl like a thief, afraid of a shadow, in his own house? Narcissus' +young lust was himself, and Moloch knew no more ruthless hunger than +burns in such. Of course, it did not present itself quite nakedly to +him; he persuaded himself there could be little harm—he meant none. +</p> +<p> +And so, instead of avoiding Hesper, he sought her the more persistently, +and by some means so far wooed her from her reticence as to win her +consent to a walk together one autumn afternoon. How little do we know +the measure of our own proposing! That walk was to be the most fateful +his feet had ever trodden through field and wood, yet it seemed the most +accidental of gallantries. A little town-maid, with a romantic passion +for 'us'; it would be interesting to watch the child; it would be like +giving her a day's holiday, so much sunshine 'in our presence.' And so +on. But what an entirely different complexion was the whole thing +beginning to take before they had walked a mile. Behind the flippancy +one had gone to meet were surely the growing features of a solemnity. +Why, the child was a woman indeed; she could talk, she had brains, +ideas—and, Lord bless us, Theories! She had that 'excellent thing in +woman,' not only a voice, which she had, too, but character. Narcissus +began to loose his regal robes, and from being merely courteously to be +genuinely interested. Why, she was a discovery! As they walked on, her +genuine delight in the autumnal nature, the real imaginative appeal it +had for her, was another surprise. She had, evidently, a deep poetry in +her disposition, rarest of all female endowments. In a surprisingly few +minutes from the beginning of their walk he found himself taking that +'little child' with extreme seriousness, and wondering many 'whethers.' +</p> +<p> +They walked out again, and yet again, and Narcissus' first impressions +deepened. He had his theories, too; and, surely, here was the woman! He +was not in love—at least, not with her, but with her fitness for his +theory. +</p> +<p> +They sat by a solitary woodside, beneath a great elm tree. The hour was +full of magic, for though the sun had set, the smile of her day's joy +with him had not yet faded from the face of earth. It was the hour +vulgarised in drawing-room ballads as the 'gloaming.' They sat very near +to each other; he held her hand, toying with it; and now and again their +eyes met with the look that flutters before flight, that says, 'Dare I +give thee all? Dare I throw my eyes on thine as I would throw myself on +thee?' And then, at last, came the inevitable moment when the eyes of +each seem to cry 'O yes!' to the other, and the gates fly back; all the +hidden light springs forth, the woods swim round, and the lips meet with +a strange shock, while the eyes of the spirit close in a lapping dream +of great peace. +</p> +<p> +If you are not ready to play the man, beware of a kiss such as the lips +of little Hesper, that never knew to kiss before, pressed upon the mouth +of Narcissus. It sent a chill shudder through him, though it was so +sweet, for he could feel her whole life surging behind it; and was the +kiss he had given her for it such a kiss as that? But he had spoken much +to her of his ideas of marriage; she knew he was sworn for ever against +that. She must know the kiss had no such meaning; for, besides, did she +not scorn the soiled 'tie' also? Were not their theories at one in that? +He would be doing her no wrong; it was her own desire. Yet his kiss did +mean more than he could have imagined it meaning a week before. She had +grown to be genuinely desirable. If love tarried, passion was +awake—that dangerous passion, too, to which the intellect has added its +intoxication, and that is, so to say, legitimised by an 'idea.' +</p> +<p> +Her woman's intuition read the silence and answered to his thought. +'Have no fear,' she said, with the deep deliberation of passion; 'I +love you with my whole life, but I shall never burden you, Narcissus. +Love me as long as you can, I shall be content; and when the end comes, +though another woman takes you, I shall not hinder.' +</p> +<p> +O great girl-soul! What a poltroon, indeed, was Narcissus beside you at +that moment. You ready to stake your life on the throw, he temporising +and bargaining as over the terms of a lease. Surely, if he could for one +moment have seen himself in the light of your greatness, he had been +crushed beneath the misery of his own meanness. But as yet he had no +such vision; his one thought was, 'She will do it! will she draw back?' +and the feeble warnings he was obliged to utter to keep his own terms, +by assuring his conscience of 'her free-will,' were they not +half-fearfully whispered, and with an inward haste, lest they should +give her pause? 'But the world, my dear—think!' 'It will have cruel +names for thee.' 'It will make thee outcast—think!' +</p> +<p> +'I know all,' she had answered; 'but I love you, and two years of your +love would pay for all. There is no world for me but you. Till to-night +I have never lived at all, and when you go I shall be as dead. The world +cannot hurt such a one.' +</p> +<p> +Ah me, it was a wild, sweet dream for both of them, one the woman's, one +the poet's, of a 'sweet impossible' taking flesh! For, do not let us +blame Narcissus overmuch. He was utterly sincere; he meant no wrong. He +but dreamed of following a creed to which his reason had long given a +hopeless assent. In a more kindly-organised community he might have +followed it, and all have been well; but the world has to be dealt with +as one finds it, and we must get sad answers to many a fair calculation +if we 'state' it wrongly in the equation. That there is one law for the +male and another for the female had not as yet vitally entered into his +considerations. He was too dizzy with the dream, or he must have seen +what an unequal bargain he was about to drive. +</p> +<p> +At last he did awake, and saw it all; and in a burning shame went to +Hesper, and told her that it must not be. +</p> +<p> +Her answer was unconsciously the most subtly dangerous she could have +chosen: 'If I like to give myself to you, why should you not take me? It +is of my own free-will. My eyes are open.' It was his very thought put +into words, and by her. For a moment he wavered—who could blame him? +'Am I my brother's keeper?' +</p> +<p> +'Yes! a thousand times yes!' cried his soul; for he was awake now, and +he had come to see the dream as it was, and to shudder at himself as he +had well-nigh been, just as one shudders at the thought of a precipice +barely escaped. In that moment, too, the idea of her love in all its +divineness burst upon him. Here was a heart capable of a great tragic +love like the loves of old he read of and whimpered for in sonnets, and +what had he offered in exchange? A poor, philosophical compromise, +compounded of pessimism and desire, in which a man should have all to +gain and nothing to lose, for +</p> +<pre> + 'The light, light love he has wings to fly + At suspicion of a bond.' +</pre> +<p> +'I would I did love her,' his heart was crying as he went away. 'Could I +love her?' was his next thought. 'Do I love her?'—but that is a +question that always needs longer than one day to answer. +</p> +<p> +Already he was as much in love with her as most men when they take unto +themselves wives. She was desirable—he had pleasure in her presence. He +had that half of love which commonly passes for all—the passion; but he +lacked the additional incentives which nerve the common man to face that +fear which seems well-nigh as universal as the fear of death, I mean the +fear of marriage—life's two fears: that is, he had no desire to +increase his worldly possessions by annexing a dowry, or ambition of +settling down and procuring a wife as part of his establishment. After +all, how full of bachelors the world would be if it were not for these +motives: for the one other motive to a true marriage, the other half of +love, however one names it, is it not a four-leaved clover indeed? +Narcissus was happily poor enough to be above those motives, even had +Hesper been anything but poor too; and if he was to marry her, it would +be because he was capable of loving her with that perfect love which, of +course, has alone right to the sacred name, that which cannot take all +and give nought, but which rather holds as watchword that <i>to love is +better than to be loved</i>. +</p> +<p> +Who shall hope to express the mystery? Yet, is not thus much true, that, +if it must be allowed to the cynic that love rises in self, it yet has +its zenith and setting in another—in woman as in man? Two meet, and +passion, the joy of the selfish part of each, is born; shall love follow +depends on whether they have a particular grace of nature, love being +the thanksgiving of the unselfish part for the boon granted to the +other. The common nature snatches the joy and forgets the giver, but the +finer never forgets, and deems life but a poor service for a gift so +rare; and, though passion be long since passed, love keeps holy an +eternal memory. +</p> +<pre> + 'Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords + with might; + Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, pass'd in music + out of sight.' +</pre> +<p> +Since the time of fairy-tales Love has had a way of coming in the +disguise of Duty. What is the story of Beauty and the Beast but an +allegory of true love? We take this maid to be our wedded wife, for her +sake it perhaps seems at the time. She is sweet and beautiful and to be +desired; but, all the same, we had rather shake the loose leg of +bachelordom, if it might be. However it be, so we take her, or maybe it +is she takes us, with a feeling of martyrdom; but lo! when we are home +together, what wonderful new lights are these beginning to ray about +her, as though she had up till now kept a star hidden in her bosom. What +is this new morning strength and peace in our life? Why, we thought it +was but Thestylis, and lo! it is Diana after all. For the Thirteenth +Maid or the Thirteenth Man, both alike, rarely come as we had expected. +There seems no fitness in their arrival. It seems so ridiculously +accidental, as I suppose the hour of death, whenever it comes, will +seem. One had expected some high calm prelude of preparation, ending in +a festival of choice, like an Indian prince's, when the maids of the +land pass before him and he makes deliberate selection of the fateful +She. But, instead, we are hurrying among our day's business, maybe, our +last thought of her; we turn a corner, and suddenly she is before us. Or +perhaps, as it fell with Narcissus, we have tried many loves that proved +but passions; we have just buried the last, and are mournfully leaving +its grave, determined to seek no further, to abjure bright eyes, at +least for a long while, when lo! on a sudden a little maid is in our +path holding out some sweet modest flowers. The maid has a sweet mouth, +too, and, the old Adam being stronger than our infant resolution, we +smell the flowers and kiss the mouth—to find arms that somehow, we know +not why, are clinging as for life about us. Let us beware how we shake +them off, for thus it is decreed shall a man meet her to have missed +whom were to have missed all. Youth, like that faithless generation in +the Scriptures, always craveth after a sign, but rarely shall one be +given. It can only be known whether a man be worthy of Love by the way +in which he looks upon Duty. Rachel often comes in the grey cloak of +Leah. It rests with the man's heart whether he shall know her beneath +the disguise; no other divining-rod shall aid him. If it be as +Bassanio's, brave to 'give and hazard all he hath,' let him not fear to +pass the seeming gold, the seeming silver, to choose the seeming lead. +'Why, <i>that's</i> the lady,' thou poor magnificent Morocco. Nor shall the +gold fail, for her heart is that, and for silver thou shalt have those +'silent silver lights undreamed of' of face and soul. +</p> +<p> +These are but scattered hints of the story of Narcissus' love as he told +it me at last, in broken, struggling words, but with a light in his face +one power alone could set there. +</p> +<p> +When he came to the end, and to all that little Hesper had proved to +him, all the strength and illumination she had brought him, he fairly +broke down and sobbed, as one may in a brother's arms. For, of course, +he had come out of the ordeal a man; and Hesper had consented to be his +wife. Often she had dreamed as he had passed her by with such heedless +air: 'If I love him so, can it be that my love shall have no power to +make him mine, somehow, some day? Can I call to him so within my soul +and he not hear? Can I wait and he not come?' And her love had been +strong, strong as a destiny; her voice had reached him, for it was the +voice of God. +</p> +<p> +When I next saw her, what a strange brightness shone in her face, what a +new beauty was there! Ah, Love, the great transfigurer! And why, too, +was it that his friends began to be dissatisfied with their old +photographs of Narcissus, though they had been taken but six months +before? There seemed something lacking in the photograph, they said. +Yes, there was; but the face had lacked it too. What was the new +thing—'grip' was it, joy, peace? Yes, all three, but more besides, and +Narcissus had but one name for all. It was Hesper. +</p> +<p> +Strange, too, that in spite of promises we never received a new one. +Narcissus, who used to be so punctual with such a request. Perhaps it +was because he had broken his looking-glass. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH10"><!-- CH10 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER X +</h2> + +<center> +'IN VISHNU-LAND WHAT AVATAR?' +</center> +<p> +'If I love you for a year I shall love you for ever,' Narcissus had said +to his Thirteenth Maid. He did love her so long, and yet he has gone +away. Do you remember your <i>Les Misérables</i>, that early chapter where +Valjean robs the child of his florin so soon after that great +illuminating change of heart and mind had come to him? Well, still more +important, do you remember the clue Hugo gives us to aberration? There +is comfort and strength for so many a heart-breaking failure there. It +was the old impetus, we are told, that was as yet too strong for the new +control; the old instinct, too dark for the new light in the brain. It +takes every vessel some time to answer to its helm; with us, human +vessels, years, maybe. Have you never suddenly become sensitive of a +gracious touch in the air, and pondered it, to recognise that in some +half-unconscious act you had that moment been answering for the first +time the helm of an almost forgotten resolution? Ah me, blessed is it to +see the prow strongly sweeping up against the sky at last! +</p> +<p> +'Send not a poet to London,' said Heine, and it was a true word. At +least, send him not till his thews are laced and his bones set. He may +miss somewhat, of course; there is no gain without a loss. He may be in +ignorance of the last <i>nuance</i>, and if he deserves fame he must gain it +unaided of the vulgar notoriety which, if he have a friend or two in the +new journalism, they will be so eager to bestow; but he will have kept +his soul intact, which, after all, is the main matter. It is sweet, +doubtless, to be one of those same mushroom-men, sweet to be placarded +as 'the new' this or that, to step for a day into the triumphal car of +newspaper renown, drawn by teams of willing paragraph-men—who, does it +never strike you? are but doing it all for hire, and earning their bread +by their bent necks. Yet for those to whom it is denied there is solid +comfort; for it is not fame, and, worse still, it is not life, 'tis but +to be 'a Bourbon in a crown of straws.' +</p> +<p> +If one could only take poor foolish Cockneydom right away outside this +poor vainglorious city, and show them how the stars are smiling to +themselves above it, nudging each other, so to say, at the silly lights +that ape their shining—for such a little while! +</p> +<p> +Yes, that is one danger of the poet in London, that he should come to +think himself 'somebody'; though, doubtless, in proportion as he is a +poet, the other danger will be the greater, that he should deem himself +'nobody.' Modest by nature, credulous of appearances, the noisy +pretensions of the hundred and one small celebrities, and the din of +their retainers this side and that, in comparison with his own +unattended course, what wonder if his heart sinks and he gives up the +game; how shall his little pipe, though it be of silver, hope to be +heard in this land of bassoons? To take London seriously is death both +to man and artist. Narcissus had sufficient success there to make this a +temptation, and he fell. He lost his hold of the great things of life, +he forgot the stars, he forgot his love, and what wonder that his art +sickened also. For a few months life was but a feverish clutch after +varied sensation, especially the dear tickle of applause; he caught the +facile atheistic flippancy of that poor creature, the 'modern young +man,' all-knowing and all-foolish, and he came very near losing his soul +in the nightmare. But he had too much ballast in him to go quite under, +and at last strength came, and he shook the weakness from him. Yet the +fall had been too far and too cruel for him to be happy again soon. He +had gone forth so confident in his new strength of manly love; and to +fall so, and almost without an effort! Who has not called upon the +mountains to cover him in such an hour of awakening, and who will +wonder that Narcissus dared not look upon the face of Hesper till +solitude had washed him clean, and bathed him in its healing oil? I +alone bade him good-bye. It was in this room wherein I am writing, the +study we had taken together, where still his books look down at me from +the shelves, and all the memorials of his young life remain. O <i>can</i> it +have been but 'a phantom of false morning'? A Milton snatched up at the +last moment was the one book he took with him. +</p> +<p> +From that night until this he has made but one sign—a little note which +Hesper has shown me, a sob and a cry to which even a love that had been +more deeply wronged could never have turned a deaf ear. Surely not +Hesper, for she has long forgiven him, knowing his weakness for what it +was. She and I sometimes sit here together in the evenings and talk of +him; and every echo in the corridor sets us listening, for he may be at +the other side of the world, or but the other side of the street—we +know so little of his fate. Where he is we know not; but if he still +lives, <i>what</i> he is we have the assurance of faith. This time he has not +failed, we know. But why delay so long? +</p> +<p> +<i>November</i> 1889—<i>May</i> 1890. <i>November</i> 1894. +</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<center> +THE END +</center> +<p> </p> +<hr> +<p> +Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty at the Edinburgh +University Press +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10826 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6721ae1 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10826 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10826) diff --git a/old/10826-8.txt b/old/10826-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4a6711 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10826-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3421 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Book-Bills of Narcissus, by Le Gallienne, Richard + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Book-Bills of Narcissus + An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne + +Author: Le Gallienne, Richard + +Release Date: January 25, 2004 [EBook #10826] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK-BILLS OF NARCISSUS *** + + + + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Garrett Alley and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +THE BOOK-BILLS OF NARCISSUS + +AN ACCOUNT RENDERED BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + +WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY ROBERT FOWLER + +1895 + + + + +TABLE OF CHAPTERS + + I. INTRODUCTORY + II. STILL INTRODUCTORY, BUT THIS TIME + OF A GREATER THAN THE WRITER + III. IN WHICH NARCISSUS OPENS HIS 'GLADSTONE' + IV. ACCOUNTS RENDERED + V. AN IDYLL OF ALICE SUNSHINE, WHICH + REALLY BELONGS TO THE LAST CHAPTER + VI. THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS + VII. THE CHILDREN OF APOLLO +VIII. GEORGE MUNCASTER + IX. THAT THIRTEENTH MAID + X. 'IN VISHNU-LAND WHAT AVATAR?' + + + + +TO MILDRED + + Always thy book, too late acknowledged thine, + Now when thine eyes no earthly page may read; + Blinded with death, or blinded with the shine + Of love's own lore celestial. Small need, + Forsooth, for thee to read my earthly line, + That on immortal flowers of fancy feed; + What should my angel do to stoop to mine, + Flowers of decay of no immortal seed. + + Yet, love, if in thy lofty dwelling-place, + Higher than notes of any soaring bird, + Beyond the beam of any solar light, + A song of earth may scale the awful height, + And at thy heavenly window find thy face-- + know my voice shall never fall unheard. + +_December 6th,_ 1894. + +NOTE.--_This third edition has been revised, and Chapter V. is entirely +new_. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +INTRODUCTORY--A WORD OF WISDOM, FOUND WRITTEN, LIKE THE MOST ANCIENT, ON +LEATHER + +'Ah! old men's boots don't go there, sir!' said the bootmaker to me one +day, as he pointed to the toes of a pair I had just brought him for +mending. It was a significant observation, I thought; and as I went on +my way home, writing another such chronicle with every springing step, +it filled me with much reflection--largely of the nature of platitude, I +have little doubt: such reflection, Reader, as is even already, I doubt +less, rippling the surface of your mind with ever-widening circles. Yes! +you sigh with an air, it is in the unconscious autobiographies we are +every moment writing--not those we publish in two volumes and a +supplement--where the truth about us is hid. Truly it is a thought that +has 'thrilled dead bosoms,' I agree, but why be afraid of it for that, +Reader? Truth is not become a platitude only in our day. 'The Preacher' +knew it for such some considerable time ago, and yet he did not fear to +'write and set in order many proverbs.' + +You have kept a diary for how many years? Thirty? dear me! But have you +kept your wine-bills? If you ever engage me to write that life, which, +of course, must some day be written--I wouldn't write it myself--don't +trouble about your diary. Lend me your private ledger. 'There the action +lies in his true nature.' + +Yet I should hardly, perhaps, have evoked this particular corollary from +that man of leather's observation, if I had not chanced one evening to +come across those old book-bills of my friend Narcissus, about which I +have undertaken to write here, and been struck--well-nigh awe-struck--by +the wonderful manner in which there lay revealed in them the story of +the years over which they ran. To a stranger, I am sure, they would be +full of meaning; but to me, who lived so near him through so much of the +time, how truly pregnant does each briefest entry seem. + +To Messrs. Oldbuck and Sons they, alas! often came to be but so many +accounts rendered; to you, being a philosopher, they would, as I have +said, mean more; but to me they mean all that great sunrise, the youth +of Narcissus. + +Many modern poets, still young enough, are fond of telling us where +their youth lies buried. That of Narcissus--would ye know--rests among +these old accounts. Lo! I would perform an incantation. I throw these +old leaves into the _elixir vitae_ of sweet memory, as Dr. Heidegger +that old rose into his wonderful crystal water. Have I power to make +Narcissus' rose to bloom again, so that you may know something of the +beauty it wore for us? I wonder. I would I had. I must try. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +STILL INTRODUCTORY, BUT THIS TIME OF A GREATER THAN THE WRITER + +On the left-hand side of Tithefields, just as one turns out of Prince +Street, in a certain well-known Lancashire town, is the unobtrusive +bookshop of Mr. Samuel Dale. It must, however, be a very superficial +glance which does not discover in it something characteristic, +distinguishing it from other 'second-hand' shops of the same size and +style. + +There are, alas! treatises on farriery in the window; geographies, +chemistries, and French grammars, on the trestles outside; for Samuel, +albeit so great a philosopher as indeed to have founded quite a school, +must nevertheless live. Those two cigars and that 'noggin' of whiskey, +which he purchases with such a fine solemnity as he and I go home +together for occasional symposia in his bachelor lodging--those, I say, +come not without sale of such treatises, such geographies, chemistries, +and French grammars. + +But I am digressing. There is a distinguishing air, I but meant to say, +about the little shop. Looking closer, one generally finds that it comes +of a choice bit of old binding, or the quaint title-page of some tuneful +Elizabethan. It was an old Crashaw that first drew me inside; and, +though for some reason I did not buy it then, I bought it a year after, +because to it I owed the friendship of Samuel Dale. + +And thus for three bright years that little shop came to be, for a daily +hour or so, a blessed palm-tree away from the burden and heat of the +noon, a holy place whither the money-changers and such as sold doves +might never come, let their clamour in the outer courts ring never so +loud. There in Samuel's talk did two weary-hearted bond-servants of +Egypt draw a breath of the Infinite into their lives of the desk; there +could they sit awhile by the eternal springs, and feel the beating of +the central heart. + +So it happened one afternoon, about five years ago, that I dropped in +there according to wont. But Samuel was engaged with some one in that +dim corner at the far end of the shop, where his desk and arm-chair, +tripod of that new philosophy, stood: so I turned to a neighbouring +shelf to fill the time. At first I did not notice his visitor; but as, +in taking down this book and that, I had come nearer to the talkers, I +was struck with something familiar in the voice of the stranger. It came +upon me like an old song, and looking up--why, of course, it was +Narcissus! + +The letter N does not make one of the initials on the Gladstone bag +which he had with him on that occasion, and which, filled with books, +lay open on the floor close by; nor does it appear on any of those +tobacco-pouches, cigar-cases, or handkerchiefs with which men beloved of +fair women are familiar. And Narcissus might, moreover, truthfully say +that _it_ has never appeared upon any manner of stamped paper coming +under a certain notable Act. + +To be less indulgent to a vice from which the Reader will, I fear, have +too frequent occasion to suffer in these pages, and for which he may +have a stronger term than digression, let me at once say that Narcissus +is but the name Love knew him by, Love and the Reader; for that name by +which he was known to the postman--and others--is no necessity here. How +and why he came to be so named will appear soon enough. + +Yes! it was the same old Narcissus, and he was wielding just the same +old magic, I could see, as in our class-rooms and playgrounds five years +before. What is it in him that made all men take him so on his own +terms, made his talk hold one so, though it so often stumbled in the +dark, and fell dumb on many a verbal _cul-de-sac_? Whatever it is, +Samuel felt it, and, with that fine worshipful spirit of his--an +attitude which always reminds me of the elders listening to the boy +Jesus--was doing that homage for which no beauty or greatness ever +appeals to him in vain. What an eye for soul has Samuel! How inevitably +it pierces through all husks and excrescences to the central beauty! In +that short talk he knew Narcissus through and through; three years or +thirty years could add but little. But the talk was not ended yet; +indeed, it seemed like so many of those Tithefields talks, as if in the +'eternal fitness of things' it never could, would, or should end. It was +I at last who gave it pause, and--yes! indeed, it was he. We had, +somehow, not met for quite three years, chums as we had been at school. +He had left there for an office some time before I did, and, oddly +enough, this was our first meeting since then. A purchaser for one of +those aforesaid treatises on farriery just then coming in, dislodged us; +so, bidding Samuel good-bye--he and Narcissus already arranging for 'a +night'--we obeyed a mutual instinct, and presently found ourselves in +the snuggery of a quaint tavern, which was often to figure hereafter in +our sentimental history, though probably little in these particular +chapters of it. The things 'seen done at "The Mermaid "' may some day be +written in another place, where the Reader will know from the beginning +what to expect, and not feel that he has been induced to buy a volume +under false pretences. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +IN WHICH NARCISSUS OPENS HIS 'GLADSTONE' + +Though it was so long since we had met--is not three years indeed 'so +long' in youth?--we had hardly to wait for our second glass to be again +_en rapport_. Few men grow so rapidly as Narcissus did in those young +days, but fewer still can look back on old enthusiasms and superannuated +ideals with a tenderness so delicately considerate. Most men hasten to +witness their present altitude by kicking away the old ladders on the +first opportunity; like vulgar lovers, they seek to flatter to-day at +the expense of yesterday. But Narcissus was of another fibre; he could +as soon have insulted the memory of his first love. + +So, before long, we had passed together into a sweet necropolis of +dreams, whither, if the Reader care, I will soon take him by the hand. +But just now I would have him concern himself with the afternoon of +which I write, in that sad tense, the past present. Indeed, we did not +ourselves tarry long among the shades, for we were young, and youth has +little use for the preterite; its verbs are wont to have but two tenses. +We soon came up to the surface in one, with eyes turned instinctively on +the other. + +Narcissus' bag seemed, somehow, a symbol; and I had caught sight of a +binding or two as it lay open in Tithefields that made me curious to see +it open again. He was only beginning to collect when we had parted at +school, if 'collect' is not too sacred a word: beginning to _buy_ more +truly expresses that first glutting of the bookish hunger, which, like +the natural appetite, never passes in some beyond the primary +utilitarian stage of 'eating to live,' otherwise 'buying to read.' Three +years, however, works miracles of refinement in any hunger that is at +all capable of culture; and it was evident, when Narcissus did open his +'Gladstone,' that it had taken him by no means so long to attain that +sublimation of taste which may be expressed as 'reading to buy.' Each +volume had that air--of breeding, one might almost say--by which one can +always know a genuine _bouquin_ at a glance; an alluvial richness of +bloom, coming upon one like an aromatic fragrance in so many old things, +in old lawns, in old flowers, old wines, and many another delicious +simile. One could not but feel that each had turned its golden brown, +just as an apple reddens--as, indeed, it had. + +I do not propose to solemnly enumerate and laboriously describe these +good things, because I hardly think they would serve to distinguish +Narcissus, except in respect of luck, from other bookmen in the first +furor of bookish enthusiasm. They were such volumes as Mr. Pendennis ran +up accounts for at Oxford. Narcissus had many other points in common +with that gentleman. Such volumes as, morning after morning, sadden +one's breakfast-table in that Tantalus _menu_, the catalogue. Black +letter, early printed, first editions Elizabethan and Victorian, every +poor fly ambered in large paper, etc. etc.; in short, he ran through the +gamut of that craze which takes its turn in due time with marbles, +peg-tops, beetles, and foreign stamps--with probably the two exceptions +of Bewick, for whom he could never batter up an enthusiasm, and +'facetiae.' These latter needed too much camphor, he used to say. + +His two most cherished possessions were a fine copy of the _Stultitiae +Laus_, printed by Froben, which had once been given by William Burton, +the historian, to his brother Robert, when the latter was a youngster of +twenty; and a first edition of one of Walton's lives, 'a presentation +copy from the author.' The former was rich with the autographs and +marginalia of both brothers, and on the latter a friend of his has +already hung a tale, which may or may not be known to the Reader. In the +reverent handling of these treasures, two questions inevitably forced +themselves upon me: where the d----l Narcissus, an apprentice, with an +allowance that would hardly keep most of us in tobacco, had found the +money for such indulgences; and how he could find in his heart to sell +them again so soon. A sorrowful interjection, as he closed his bag, +explained all:-- + +'Yes!' he sighed, 'they have cost me thirty pounds, and guess how much I +have been offered for them?' + +I suggested ten. + +'Five,' groaned my poor friend. 'I tried several to get that. "H'm," +says each one, indifferently turning the most precious in his hand, +"this would hardly be any use to me; and this I might have to keep +months before I could sell. That I could make you an offer for; what +have you thought of for it?" With a great tugging at your heart, and +well-nigh in tears, you name the absurdest minimum. You had given five; +you halve it--surely you can get that! But "O no! I can give nothing +like that figure. In that case it is no use to talk of it." In despair +you cry, "Well, what will you offer?" with a choking voice. "Fifteen +shillings would be about my figure for it," answers the fiend, +relentless as a machine--and so on.' + +'I tried pawning them at first,' he continued, 'because there was hope +of getting them back some time that way; but, trudging from shop to +shop, with many prayers, "a sovereign for the lot" was all I could get. +Worse than dress-clothes!' concluded the frank creature. + +For Narcissus to be in debt was nothing new: he had always been so at +school, and probably always will be. Had you reproached him with it in +those young self-conscious days of glorious absurdity, he would probably +have retorted, with a toss of his vain young head:-- + +'Well, and so was Shelley!' + +I ventured to enquire the present difficulty that compelled him to make +sacrifice of things so dear. + +'Why, to pay for them, of course,' was the answer. + +And so I first became initiated into the mad method by which Narcissus +had such a library about him at twenty-one. From some unexplained +reason, largely, I have little doubt, on account of the charm of his +manners, he had the easy credit of those respectable booksellers to whom +reference has been made above. No extravagance seemed to shake their +confidence. I remember calling upon them with him one day some months +following that afternoon--for the madness, as usual, would have its +time, and no sufferings seemed to teach him prudence--and he took me up +to a certain 'fine set' that he had actually resisted, he said, for a +fortnight. Alas! I knew what that meant. Yes, he must have it; it was +just the thing to help him with a something he was writing--'not to +read, you know, but to make an atmosphere,' etc. So he used to talk; and +the odd thing was, that we always took the wildness seriously; he seemed +to make us see just what he wanted. 'I say, John,' was the next I heard, +at the other end of the shop, 'will you kindly send me round that set +of' so-and-so, 'and charge it to my account?' 'John,' the son of old +Oldbuck, and for a short time a sort of friend of Narcissus, would +answer, 'Certainly,' with a voice of the most cheerful trust; and yet, +when we had gone, it was indeed no less a sum than £10, 10s. which he +added to the left-hand side of Mr. N.'s account. + +Do not mistake this for a certain vulgar quality, with a vulgar little +name of five letters. No one could have less of that than Narcissus. He +was often, on the contrary, quite painfully diffident. No, it was not +'cheek,' Reader; it was a kind of irrational innocence. I don't think it +ever occurred to him, till the bills came in at the half-years, what +'charge it to my account' really meant. Perhaps it was because, poor +lad, he had so small a practical acquaintance with it, that he knew so +little the value of money. But how he suffered when those accounts did +come in! Of course, there was nothing to be done but to apply to some +long-suffering friend; denials of lunch and threadbare coats but nibbled +at the amount--especially as a fast to-day often found revulsion in a +festival to-morrow. To save was not in Narcissus. + +I promised to digress, Reader, and I have kept my word. Now to return to +that afternoon again. It so chanced that on that day in the year I +happened to have in my pocket--what you might meet me every day in five +years without finding there--a ten-pound note. It was for this I felt +after we had been musing awhile--Narcissus, probably, on everything +else in the world except his debts--and it was with this I awoke him +from his reverie. He looked at his hand, and then at me, in +bewilderment. Poor fellow, how he wanted to keep it, yet how he tried to +look as if he couldn't think of doing so. He couldn't help his joy +shining through. + +'But I want you to take it,' I said; 'believe me, I have no immediate +need of it, and you can pay me at your leisure.' Ten pounds towards the +keep of a poet once in a lifetime is, after all, but little interest on +the gold he brings us. At last I 'prevailed,' shall I say? but on no +account without the solemnity of an IOU and a fixed date for repayment, +on which matter poor N. was always extremely emphatic. Alas! Mr. George +Meredith has already told us how this passionate anxiety to be bound by +the heaven above, the earth, and the waters under the earth, is the most +fatal symptom by which to know the confirmed in this kind. Captain +Costigan had it, it may be remembered; and the same solicitude, the same +tearful gratitude, I know, accompanied every such transaction of my +poor Narcissus. + +Whether it was as apparent on the due date, or whether of that ten +pounds I have ever looked upon the like again, is surely no affair of +the Reader's; but, lest he should do my friend an injustice, I had +better say--I haven't. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +ACCOUNTS RENDERED + +Nothing strikes one more in looking back, either on our own lives or on +those of others, than how little we assimilate from the greatest +experiences; in nothing is Nature's apparent wastefulness of means more +ironically impressive. A great love comes and sets one's whole being +singing like a harp, fills high heaven with rainbows, and makes our +dingy alleys for awhile bright as the streets of the New Jerusalem; and +yet, if five years after we seek for what its incandescence has left us, +we find, maybe, a newly helpful epithet, maybe a fancy, at most a +sonnet. Nothing strikes one more, unless, perhaps, the obverse, when we +see some trifling pebble-cast ripple into eternity, some fateful second +prolific as the fly aphis. And so I find it all again exampled in these +old accounts. The books that mean most for Narcissus to-day could be +carried in the hand without a strap, and could probably be bought for a +sovereign. The rest have survived as a quaint cadence in his style, have +left clinging about his thought a delicate incense of mysticism, or are +bound up in the retrospective tenderness of boyish loves long since gone +to dream. + +Another observation in the same line of reflection also must often +strike one:--for what very different qualities than those for which we +were first passionate do we come afterwards to value our old +enthusiasms. In the day of their bloom it was the thing itself, the +craze, the study, for its own sake; now it is the discipline, or any +broad human culture, in which they may have been influential. The boy +chases the butterfly, and thinks not of the wood and the blue heaven; +but those only does the man remember, for the mark of their beauty upon +him, so unconsciously impressed, for the health of their power and +sweetness still living in his blood--for these does that chase seem +alone of worth, when the dusty entomological relic thereof is in limbo. +And so that long and costly shelf, groaning beneath the weight of Grose +and Dugdale, and many a mighty slab of topographical prose; those +pilgrimages to remote parish churches, with all their attendant ardours +of careful 'rubbings'; those notebooks, filled with patient data; those +long letters to brother antiquaries--of sixteen; even that famous +Exshire Tour itself, which was to have rivalled Pennant's own--what +remains to show where this old passion stood, with all the clustering +foliage of a dream; what but that quaint cadence I spoke of, and an +anecdote or two which seemed but of little import then, with such +breathless business afoot as an old font or a Roman road? + +One particular Roman road, I know, is but remembered now, because, in +the rich twilight of an old June evening, it led up the gorsy stretches +of Lancashire 'Heights' to a solemn plateau, wide and solitary as +Salisbury Plain, from the dark border of which, a warm human note +against the lonely infinite of heath and sky, beamed the little +whitewashed 'Traveller's Rest,' its yellow light, growing stronger as +the dusk deepened, meeting the eye with a sense of companionship +becoming a vague need just then. + +The seeming spiritual significance of such forlorn wastes of no-man's +land had, I know, a specially strong appeal for Narcissus, and, in some +moods, the challenge which they seem to call from some 'dark tower' of +spiritual adventure would have led him wandering there till star-light; +but a day of rambling alone, in a strange country, among unknown faces, +brings a social hunger by evening, and a craving for some one to speak +to and a voice in return becomes almost a fear. A bright +kitchen-parlour, warm with the health of six workmen, grouped round a +game of dominoes, and one huge quart pot of ale, used among them as +woman in the early world, was a grateful inglenook, indeed, wherein to +close the day. Of course, friend N. joined them, and took his pull and +paid his round, like a Walt Whitman. I like to think of his slight +figure amongst them; his delicate, almost girl-like, profile against +theirs; his dreamy eyes and pale brow, surmounted by one of those dark +clusters of hair in which the fingers of women love to creep--an +incongruity, though of surfaces only, which certain who knew him but 'by +sight,' as the phrase is, might be at a loss to understand. That was one +of the surprises of his constitution. Nature had given him the dainty +and dreamy form of the artist, to which habit had added a bookish touch, +ending in a _tout ensemble_ of gentleness and distinction with little +apparent affinity to a scene like that in the 'Traveller's Rest.' But +there are many whom a suspicion of the dilettante in such an exterior +belies, and Narcissus was one of them. He had very strongly developed +that instinct of manner to which sympathy is a daily courtesy, and he +thus readily, when it suited him, could take the complexion of his +company, and his capacity of 'bend' was well-nigh genius. Of course, all +this is but to say that he was a gentleman; yet is not that in itself a +fine kind of originality? Besides, he had a genuine appetite for the +things of earth, such as many another delicate thing--a damask +rose-bush, for example--must be convicted of too; and often, when some +one has asked him 'what he could have in common with so-and-so,' I have +heard him answer: 'Tobacco and beer.' Samuel Dale once described him as +Shelley with a chin; and perhaps the chin accounted for the absence of +any of those sentimental scruples with regard to beefsteaks and certain +varieties of jokes, for which the saint-like deserter of Harriet +Westbrook was distinguished. + +A supremely quaint instance of this gift of accommodation befell during +that same holiday, which should not pass unrecorded, but which I offer +to the Reader with an emphatic _Honi soit qui mal y pense_. Despairing +of reaching a certain large manufacturing town on foot in time to put up +there, one evening, he was doing the last mile or two by rail, and, as +the train slackened speed he turned to his companions in the carriage to +enquire if they could tell him of a good hotel. He had but carelessly +noticed them before: an old man, a slight young woman of perhaps thirty, +and a girl about fifteen; working people, evidently, but marked by that +air of cleanly poverty which in some seems but a touch of ascetic +refinement. The young woman at once mentioned _The Bull_, and thereupon +a little embarrassed consultation in undertone seemed to pass between +her and the old man, resulting in a timid question as to whether +Narcissus would mind putting up with them, as they were poor folk, and +could well do with any little he cared to offer for his accommodation. +There was something of a sad winningness in the woman which had +predisposed him to the group, and without hesitation he at once +accepted, and soon was walking with them to their home, through streets +echoing with Lancashire 'clogs.' On the way he learnt the circumstances +of his companions. The young woman was a widow, and the girl her +daughter. Both worked through the day at one of the great cotton mills, +while the old man, father and grandfather, stayed at home and 'fended' +for them. Thus they managed to live in a comfort which, though +straitened, did not deny them such an occasional holiday as to-day had +been, or the old man the comfort of tobacco. The home was very small, +but clean and sweet; and it was not long before they were all sat down +together over a tea of wholesome bread and butter and eggs, in the +preparation of which it seemed odd to see the old man taking his share. +That over, he and Narcissus sat to smoke and talk of the neighbouring +countryside; N. on the look-out for folk-lore, and especially for any +signs in his companion of a lingering loyalty of belief in the +traditions thereabout, a loyalty which had something in it of a sacred +duty to him in those days. Those were the days when he still turned to +the east a-Sundays, and went out in the early morning, with Herrick +under his arm, to gather May-dew, with a great uplifting of the spirit, +in what indeed was a very real act of worship. + +But to my story! As bedtime approached Narcissus could not but be aware +of a growing uneasiness in the manner of the young woman. At last it was +explained. With blushing effort she stammered out the question: Would he +object to share his bed with--the old man? 'Of course not,' answered N. +at once, as though he had all the time intended doing that very thing, +and indeed, thought it the most delightful arrangement in the world. + +So up to bed go the oddly consorted pair. But the delicious climax was +yet to come. On entering the room, Narcissus found that there were two +beds there! Why should we leave that other bed empty?--he had almost +asked; but a laughing wonder shot through him, and he stopped in time. + +The old man was soon among the blankets, but Narcissus dallied over +undressing, looking at this and that country quaintness on the wall; and +then, while he was in a state of half man and half trousers, the voice +of the woman called from the foot of the stairs: Were they in bed yet? +'Surely, it cannot be! it is too irresistibly simple,' was his thought; +but he had immediately answered, 'In a moment,' as if such a question +was quite a matter of course. + +In that space he had blown the candle out, and was by the old man's +side: and then, in the darkness, he heard the two women ascending the +stairs. Just outside his door, which he had left ajar, they seemed to +turn off into a small adjoining room, from whence came immediately the +soft delicious sounds of female disrobing. They were but factory women, +yet Narcissus thought of Saint Agnes and Madeline, we may be sure. And +then, at last--indeed, there was to be no mistake about it--the door was +softly pushed open, and two dim forms whispered across to the adjoining +bed, and, after a little preliminary rustle, settled down to a rather +fluttered breathing. + +No one had spoken: not even a Goodnight; but Narcissus could hardly +refrain from ringing out a great mirthful cry, while his heart beat +strangely, and the darkness seemed to ripple, like sunlight in a cup, +with suppressed laughter. The thought of the little innocent deception +as to their sleeping-room, which poverty had caused them to practise, +probably held the breath of the women, while the shyness of sex was a +common bond of silence--at least, on the part of the three younger. It +was long before Narcissus was able to fall asleep, for he kept picturing +the elder woman with burning cheek and open eyes in a kind of 'listening +fear' beneath the coverlet; and the oddity of the thing was so original, +so like some _conte_ of a _Decameron_ or _Heptameron_, with the +wickedness left out. But at last wonder gave place to weariness, and +sleep began to make a still odder magic of the situation. The difficulty +of meeting at breakfast next morning, which had at once suggested itself +to N.'s mind, proved a vain fear; for, when he arose, that other bed was +as smooth as though it had lain untouched through the night, and the +daughters of labour had been gone two hours. But it was not quite +without sign that they had gone, for Narcissus had a dreamlike +impression of opening his eyes in the early light to find a sweet +woman's face leaning over him; and I am sure he wanted to believe that +it had bent down still further, till it had kissed his lips--' for his +mother's sake,' she had said in her heart, as she slipped away and was +seen no more. + +'If this were fiction, instead of a veracious study from life,' to make +use of a phrase which one rarely finds out of a novel, it would be +unfitting to let such an incident as that just related fall to the +ground, except as the seed of future development; but, this being as I +have stated, there is nothing more to say of that winning _ouvrière_. +Narcissus saw her no more. + +But surely, of all men, he could best afford that one such pleasant +chance should put forth no other blossom save that half-dreamed +kiss;--and how can one ever foresee but that our so cherishable spray of +bloom may in time add but another branch to that orchard of Dead Sea +fruit which grows inevitably about all men's dwellings? + +I do not suppose that Narcissus was really as exceptional in the number +and character of his numerous boyish loves as we always regarded him as +being. It is no uncommon matter, of course and alas! for a youth between +the ages of seventeen and nineteen to play the juggler at keeping three, +or even half-a-dozen, female correspondents going at once, each of whom +sleeps nightly with copious documentary evidence of her sole and +incontrovertible possession of the sacred heart. Nor has Narcissus been +the only lover, I suspect, who, in the season of the waning of the moon, +has sent such excuses for scrappy epistolary make-shifts as 'the +strident din of an office, an air so cruelly unsympathetic, as frost to +buds, to the blossoming of all those words of love that press for +birth,' when, as a matter of fact, he has been unblushingly eating the +lotus, in the laziest chair at home, in the quietest night of summer. +Such insincerity is a common besetting sin of the young male; +invariably, I almost think, if he has the artistic temperament. Yet I do +not think it presents itself to his mind in its nudity, but comes +clothed with that sophistry in which youth, the most thoroughgoing of +_philosophes_, is so ingenious. Consideration for the beloved object, it +is called--yes! beloved indeed, though, such is the paradox in the order +of things, but one of the several vestals of the sacred fire. One cannot +help occasional disinclination on a lazy evening, confound it! but it +makes one twinge to think of paining her with such a confession; and a +story of that sort--well, it's a lie, of course; but it's one without +any harm, any seed of potential ill, in it. So the letter goes, maybe to +take its place as the 150th of the sacred writings, and make poor +Daffodilia, who has loved to count the growing score, happy with the +completion of the half-century. + +But the disinclination goes not, though the poor passion has, of +course, its occasional leapings in the socket, and the pain has to come +at last, for all that dainty consideration, which, moreover, has been +all the time feeding larger capacities for suffering. For, of course, no +man thinks of marrying his twelfth love, though in the thirteenth there +is usually danger; and he who has jilted, so to say, an earl's daughter +as his sixth, may come to see + + 'The God of Love, ah! benedicite, + How mighty and how great a lord is he' + +in the thirteenth Miss Simpkins. + +But this is to write as an outsider: for that thirteenth, by a mystical +process which has given to each of its series in its day the same primal +quality, is, of course, not only the last, but the first. And, indeed, +with little casuistry, that thirteenth may be truly held to be the +first, for it is a fact determined not so much by the chosen maid as by +him who chooses, though he himself is persuaded quite otherwise. To him +his amorous career has been hitherto an unsuccessful pursuit, because +each followed fair in turn, when at length he has caught her flying +skirts, and looked into her face, has proved not that 'ideal'-- + + 'That not impossible she + That shall command my heart and me'-- + +but another, to be shaken free again in disappointment. In truth, +however, the lack has been in himself all this time. He had yet to learn +what loving indeed meant: and he loves the thirteenth, not because she +is pre-eminent beyond the rest, but because she has come to him at the +moment when that 'lore of loving' has been revealed. Had any of those +earlier maidens fallen on the happy conjunction, they would, doubtless, +have proved no less loveworthy, and seemed no less that 'ideal' which +they have since become, one may be sure, for some other illuminated +soul. + +Of course, some find that love early--the baby-love, whom one never +marries, and then the faithful service. Probably it happens so with the +majority of men; for it is, I think, especially to the artist nature +that it comes thus late. Living so vividly within the circle of its own +experience, by its very constitution so necessarily egoistic, the +latter, more particularly in its early years, is always a Narcissus, +caring for nought or none except in so much as they reflect back its own +beauty or its own dreams. The face such a youth looks for, as he turns +the coy captured head to meet his glance, is, quite unconsciously, his +own, and the 'ideal' he seeks is but the perfect mirror. Yet it is not +that mirror he marries after all: for when at last he has come to know +what that word--one so distasteful, so 'soiled' to his ear 'with all +ignoble' domesticity--what that word 'wife' really expresses, he has +learnt, too, to discredit those cynical guides of his youth who love so +well to write Ego as the last word of human nature. + +But the particular Narcissus of whom I write was a long way off that +thirteenth maid in the days of his antiquarian rambles and his +Pagan-Catholic ardours, and the above digression is at least out of +date. + +A copy of Keats which I have by me as I write is a memorial of one of +the pretty loves typical of that period. It is marked all through in +black lead--not so gracefully as one would have expected from the 'taper +fingers' which held the pencil, but rather, it would appear, more with +regard to emphasis than grace. Narcissus had lent it to the queen of the +hour with special instructions to that end, so that when it came to him +again he might ravish his soul with the hugging assurance given by the +thick lead to certain ecstatic lines of _Endymion,_ such as-- + + 'My soul doth melt + For the unhappy youth;' + 'He surely cannot now + Thirst for another love;' + +and luxuriate in a genial sense of godship where the tremulous pencil +had left the record of a sigh against-- + + 'Each tender maiden whom he once thought fair.' + +But it was a magnanimous godship; and, after a moment's leaning back +with closed eyes, to draw in all the sweet incense, how nobly would he +act, in imaginative vignette, the King Cophetua to this poor suppliant +of love; with what a generous waiving of his power--and with what a +grace!--did he see himself raising her from her knees, and seating her +at his right hand. Yet those pencil-marks, alas! mark but a secondary +interest in that volume. A little sketch on the fly-leaf, 'by another +hand,' witness the prettier memory. A sacred valley, guarded by smooth, +green hills; in the midst a little lake, fed at one end by a singing +stream, swallowed at the other by the roaring darkness of a mill; green +rushes prosperous in the shallows, and along the other bank an old +hedgerow; a little island in the midst, circled by silver lilies; and in +the distance, rising from out a cloud of tangled green, above the little +river, an old church tower. Below, though not 'in the picture,' a quaint +country house, surrounded by a garden of fair fruit-trees and wonderful +bowers, through which ran the stream, free once again, and singing for +joy of the light. In the great lone house a solitary old man, cherished +and ruled by--'The Miller's Daughter.' Was scene ever more in need of a +fairy prince? Narcissus sighed, as he broke upon it one rosy evening, +to think what little meaning all its beauty had, suffering that lack; +but as he had come thither with the purpose, at once firm and vague, of +giving it a memory, he could afford to sigh till morning's light +brought, maybe, the opportunity of that transfiguring action. He was to +spend an Easter fortnight there, as the guest of some farmer-relatives +with whom he had stayed years before, in a period to which, being +nineteen, he already alluded as his 'boyhood.' + +And it is not quite accurate to say that it had no memory for him, for +he brought with him one of that very miller's daughter, though, indeed, +it was of the shadowiest silver. It had chanced at that early time that +an influx of visitors to the farm had exceeded the sleeping room, and he +and another little fellow had been provided with a bed in the miller's +house. He had never quite forgotten that bedroom--its huge old-fashioned +four-poster, slumbrous with great dark hangings, such as Queen Elizabeth +seems always to have slept in; its walls dim with tapestry, and its +screen of antique bead-work. But it was round the toilet table that +memory grew brightest, for thereon was a crystal phial of a most +marvellous perfume, and two great mother-of-pearl shells, shedding a +mystical radiance--the most commonplace Rimmel's, without doubt, and the +shells 'dreadful,' one may be sure. But to him, as he took a reverent +breath of that phial, it seemed the very sweetbriar fragrance of her +gown that caught his sense; and, surely, he never in all the world found +scent like that again. Thus, long after, she would come to him in +day-dreams, wafted on its strange sweetness, and clothed about with that +mystical lustre of pearl. + +There were five years between him and that memory as he stepped into +that enchanted land for the second time. The sweet figure of young +womanhood to which he had turned his boyish soul in hopeless worship, +when it should have been busied rather with birds' nests and +rabbit-snares, had, it is true, come to him in dimmer outline each +Spring, but with magic the deeper for that. As the form faded from the +silver halo, and passed more and more into mythology, it seemed, indeed, +as if she had never lived for him at all, save in dreams, or on another +star. Still, his memory held by those great shells, and he had come at +last to the fabled country on the perilous quest--who of us dare venture +such a one to-day?--of a 'lost saint.' Enquiry of his friends that +evening, cautious as of one on some half-suspected diplomacy, told him +that one with the name of his remembrance did live at the +mill-house--with an old father, too. But how all the beauty of the +singing morning became a scentless flower when, on making the earliest +possible call, he was met at the door with that hollow word, 'Away'--a +word that seemed to echo through long rooms of infinite emptiness and +turn the daylight shabby--till the addendum, 'for the day,' set the +birds singing again, and called the sunshine back. + +A few nights after he was sitting at her side, by a half-opened window, +with his arm about her waist, and her head thrillingly near his. With +his pretty gift of recitation he was pouring into her ear that sugared +passage in _Endymion_, appropriately beginning, 'O known unknown,' +previously 'got up' for the purpose; but alas! not too perfectly to +prevent a break-down, though, fortunately, at a point that admitted a +ready turn to the dilemma:-- + + 'Still + Let me entwine thee surer, surer ...' + +Here exigency compelled N. to make surety doubly, yea, trebly, sure; but +memory still forsaking him, the rascal, having put deeper and deeper +significance into his voice with each repetition, dropped it altogether +as he drew her close to him, and seemed to fail from the very excess of +love. An hour after, he was bounding into the moonlight in an +intoxication of triumph. She was won. The beckoning wonder had come down +to him. And yet it was real moonlight--was not that his own grace in +silhouette, making a mirror even of the hard road?--real grass over +which he had softly stept from her window, real trees, all real, +except--yes! was it real love? + +In the lives of all passionate lovers of women there are two +broadly-marked periods, and in some a third: slavery, lordship, and +service. The first is the briefest, and the third, perhaps, seldom +comes; the second is the most familiar. + +Awakening, like our forefather, from the deep sleep of childish things, +the boy finds a being by his side of a strange hushing fairness, as +though in the night he had opened his eyes and found an angel by his +bed. Speech he has not at all, and his glance dare not rise beyond her +bosom; till, the presence seeming gracious, he dares at length stretch +out his hand and touch her gown; whereon an inexplicable new joy +trembles through him, as though he stood naked in a May meadow through +the golden rain of a summer shower. Should her fingers touch his arm by +chance, it is as though they swept a harp, and a music of piercing +sweetness runs with a sudden cry along his blood. But by and by he comes +to learn that he has made a comical mistake about this wonder. With his +head bent low in worship, he had not seen the wistfulness of her gaze on +him; and one day, lo! it is she who presses close to him with the timid +appeal of a fawn. Indeed, she has all this time been to him as some +beautiful woodland creature might have seemed, breaking for the first +time upon the sight of primitive man. Fear, wonder inexpressible, +worship, till a sudden laughing thought of comprehension, then a lordly +protectiveness, and, after that--the hunt! At once the masculine +self-respect returns, and the wonder, though no less sweet in itself, +becomes but another form of tribute. + +With Narcissus this evolution had taken place early: it was very long +ago--he felt old even then to think of it--since Hesperus had sung like +a nightingale above his first kiss, and his memory counted many trophies +of lordship. But, surely, this last was of all the starriest; perhaps, +indeed, so wonderful was it, it might prove the very love which would +bring back again the dream that had seemed lost for ever with the +passing of that mythical first maid so long ago, a love in which worship +should be all once more, and godship none at all. But is not such a +question all too certainly its own answer? Nay, Narcissus, if indeed you +find that wonder-maid again, you will not question so; you will forget +to watch that graceful shadow in the moonlight; you will but ask to sit +by her silent, as of old, to follow her to the end of the world. Ah me! + + 'How many queens have ruled and passed + Since first we met; + How thick and fast + The letters used to come at first, + How thin at last; + Then ceased, and winter for a space! + Until another hand + Brought spring into the land, + And went the seasons' pace.' + +That Miller's Daughter, although 'so dear, so dear,' why, of course, she +was not that maid: but again the silver halo has grown about her; again +Narcissus asks himself, 'Did she live, or did I dream?'; again she comes +to him at whiles, wafted on that strange incense, and clothed about in +that mystical lustre of pearl. + +Doubtless, she lives in that fabled country still: but Narcissus has +grown sadly wise since then, and he goes on pilgrimage no more. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +AN IDYLL OF ALICE SUNSHINE, WHICH REALLY BELONGS TO THE LAST CHAPTER + +If the Reader has heard enough of the amourettes of the young gentleman +upon whose memoirs I am engaged, let him skip this chapter and pass to +the graver chapters beyond. My one aim is the Reader's pleasure, and I +carry my solicitude so far that if he finds his happiness to lie outside +these pages altogether, has no choice among these various chapters, but +prefers none to any, I am quite content. Such a spirit of +self-abnegation, the Reader must admit, is true love. + +Perhaps it was an early unconscious birth-impulse of the true love some +day to be born in his heart, that caused Narcissus to make a confession +to his Miller's Daughter, on one of their pretty decorative evenings, +when they sat together at the fireside, while the scent of the climbing +roses, and the light of the climbing moon, came in at the window. + +The immediate effect of the confession was--no wonder--to draw tears. +And how beautiful she looked in tears! Who would dive for pearls when +the pearl-fisheries of a woman's eyes are his to rifle? + +Beautiful, beautiful tears, flow on--no dull, leaden rain, no mere +monotonous deluge, but a living, singing fountain, crowned with such +rainbows as hang roses and stars in the fine mist of samite waterfalls, +irradiated by gleaming shafts of lovely anger and scorn. + +Like Northern Lights on autumn evenings, the maiden's eyes pierced +Narcissus through and through with many-coloured spears. There was +thunder, too; the earth shook--just a little: but soon Narcissus saw the +white dove of peace flying to him through the glancing showers. For all +her sorrow, his was the peace of confession. His little lie had been +acknowledged, his treason self-betrayed. + +And it was this. + +I have hinted that Narcissus, like the Catholic Church, worshipped many +saints. At this time, one of them, by a thrilling coincidence, chanced +to have her shrine at a boarding-school, some fifteen miles or so from +the mill-pond on whose banks the Miller's Daughter had drawn into her +lovely face so much of the beauty of the world. Alice Sunshine, shall we +call her, was perhaps more of a cherub than a saint; a rosy, laughing, +plump little arrangement of sunshiny pink and white flesh, with blue +eyes and golden hair. Alice was not overburdened with intellectuality, +and, like others of her sex, her heart was nothing like so soft as her +bosom. Narcissus had first been in love with her sister; but he and the +sister--a budding woman of the world--had soon agreed that they were not +born for each other, and Narcissus had made the transfer of his tragic +passion with inexpensive informality. As the late Anthony Trollope would +finish one novel to-night, and begin another to-morrow morning, so would +Narcissus be off with the old love this Sunday, and visibly on with the +new the next. + +Dear little plump, vegetable-marrow Alice! Will Narcissus ever forget +that Sunday night when the church, having at last released its weary +worshippers, he stole, not as aforetime to the soft side of Emily, but +to the still softer side of the little bewildered Alice. For, though +Alice had worshipped him all the time, and certainly during the whole of +the service, she had never dared to hope that he would pass her dashing, +dark-eyed sister to love _her_--little, blonde, phlegmatic, blue-eyed +Alice. + +But Apollo was bent on the capture of his Daphne. Truth to say, it was +but the work of a moment. The golden arrow was in her heart, the wound +kissed whole again, and the new heaven and the new earth all arranged +for, in hardly longer time than it takes to tell. + +In youth the mystery of woman is still so fresh and new, that to make a +fuss about a particular woman seems like looking a gift-horse of the +gods in the mouth. The light on the face of womanhood in general is so +bewilderingly beautiful that the young man literally cannot tell one +woman from another. They are all equally wonderful. Masculine +observation leads one to suppose that woman's first vision of man +similarly precludes discrimination. + +Ah me! it is easy to laugh to-day, but it was heart--bleeding tragedy +when those powers that oughtn't to be decreed Alice's exile to a +boarding-school in some central Africa of the midland counties. + +The hemorrhage of those two young hearts! But, for a time, each +plastered the other's wounds with letters--dear letters--letters every +post. For the postal authorities made no objection to Narcissus +corresponding with two or more maidens at once. And it is only fair to +Alice to say, that she knew as little of the Miller's Daughter as the +Miller's Daughter knew of her. + +So, when Narcissus was reciting _Endymion_ to his Miller's Maid, it was +not without a minor chord plaining through the major harmonies of the +present happiness; the sense that Alice was but fifteen miles away--so +near she could almost hear him if he called--only fifteen miles away, +and it was a long three months since they had met. + +It now becomes necessary to admit a prosaic fact hitherto concealed +from the Reader. Narcissus rode a bicycle. It was, I must confess, a +rather 'modern' thing to do. But surely the flashing airy wheel is the +most poetical mode of locomotion yet invented, and one looks more like a +fairy prince than ever in knickerbockers. Whenever Narcissus turned his +gleaming spokes along some mapped, but none the less mysterious, +county--road, he thought of Lohengrin in his barge drawn by white swans +to his mystic tryst; he thought of the seven-leagued boots, the flying +carpet, the wishing-cap, and the wooden Pegasus,--so called because it +mounted into the clouds on the turning of a peg. As he passed along by +mead and glade, his wheel sang to him, and he sang to his wheel. It was +a daisied, daisied world. + +There were buttercups and violets in it too as he sped along in the +early morning of an unforgotten Easter Sunday, drawn, so he had +shamelessly told his Miller's Daughter, by antiquarian passion to visit +the famous old parish church near which Alice was at school. +Antiquarian passion! Well, certainly it is an antiquarian passion now. + +But then--how his heart beat! how his eyes shone as with burning kohl! +That there was anything to be ashamed of in this stolen ride never even +occurred to him. And perhaps there was little wrong in it, after all. +Perhaps, when the secrets of all hearts are revealed, it will come out +that the Miller's Daughter took the opportunity to meet Narcissus' +understudy,--who can tell? + +But the wonderful fresh morning-scented air was a delicious fact beyond +dispute. That was sincere. Ah, there used to be real mornings then!--not +merely interrupted nights. + +And it was the Easter-morning of romance. There was a sweet passionate +Sabbath-feeling everywhere. Sabbath-bells, and Sabbath-birds, and +Sabbath-flowers. There was even a feeling of restful Sabbath-cheer about +the old inn, where, at last, entering with much awe the village where +Alice nightly slept--clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, +--Narcissus provided for the demands of romance by a hearty +country breakfast. A manna of blessing seemed to lie thick upon every +thing. The very ham and eggs seemed as if they had been blessed by the +Pope. + +It was yet an hour to church-time, an hour usually one of spiteful +alacrity; but this morning, it seemed, in defiance of the clock, cruelly +unpunctual. After breakfast, Narcissus strolled about the town, and +inquired the way to Miss Curlpaper's school. It stood outside the little +town. It was pointed out to him in the distance, across billowy clouds +of pear and apple-blossom, making the hollow in which the town nestled +seem a vast pot-pourri jar, overflowing with newly gathered rose-leaves. + +Had the Miller's Daughter been able to watch his movements, she would +have remarked that his antiquarian ardour drew him not to the church, +but to a sombre many-windowed house upon the hill. + +Narcissus reconnoitred the prison-like edifice from behind a hedge, then +summoned courage to walk past with slow nonchalance. All was as dead and +dull as though Alice was not there. Yet somewhere within those +prison-walls her young beauty was dressing itself to meet the spring. +Perhaps, in delicious linen, soft and white, she was dashing cool water +about her rosebud face, or, flushed with exhilaration, was pinning up +the golden fleeces of her hair. Perhaps she was eating wonderful bacon +and eggs! Could she be thinking of him? She little knew how near he was +to her. He had not written of his coming. Letters at Miss Curlpaper's +had to pass an inspection much more rigorous than the Customs, but still +smuggling was not unknown. For success, however, carefully laid plans +and regular dates were necessary, and Narcissus' visit had fallen +between the dates. + +No! there was no sign of her. She was as invisible as the moon at +mid-day. And there were the church-bells beginning to call her: 'Alice, +Alice, put on your things!' + + 'Alice, Alice, put on your things! + The birds are calling, the church bell rings; + The sun is shining, and I am here, + Waiting--and waiting--for you, my dear. + + Alice, Alice, doff your gown of night, + Draw on your bodice as lilies white, + Draw on your petticoats, clasp your stays,-- + Oh! Alice, Alice, those milky ways! + + Alice, Alice, how long you are! + The hour is late and the church is far; + Slowly, more slowly, the church bell rings-- + Alice, Alice, put on your things!' + +Really it was not in Narcissus' plans to wait at the school till Alice +appeared. The Misses Curlpaper were terrible unknown quantities to him. +For a girl to have a boy hanging about the premises was a capital crime, +he knew. Boys are to girls' schools what Anarchists are to public +buildings. They come under the Explosives Acts. It was not, indeed, +within the range of his hope that he might be able to speak to Alice. A +look, a long, immortal, all-expressive look, was all he had travelled +fifteen miles to give and win. For that he would have travelled fifteen +hundred. + +His idea was to sit right in front of the nave, where Alice could not +miss seeing him--where others could see him too in his pretty +close-fitting suit of Lincoln green. So down through the lanes he went, +among the pear and apple orchards, from out whose blossom the clanging +tower of the old church jutted sheer, like some Bass Rock amid rosy +clustering billows. Their love had been closely associated from its +beginning with the sacred things of the church, so regular had been +their attendance, not only on Sundays, but at week-night services. To +Alice and Narcissus there were two Sabbaths in the week, Sunday and +Wednesday. I suppose they were far from being the only young people +interested in their particular form of church-work. Leander met Hero, it +will be remembered, on the way to church, and the Reader may recall +Marlowe's beautiful description of her dress upon that fatal morning: + + 'The outside of her garments were of lawn, + The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn; + Her wide sleeves green, and bordered with a grove, + Where Venus in her naked glory strove + To please the careless and disdainful eyes + Of proud Adonis, that before her lies; + Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain, + Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain....' + +Alice wore pretty dresses too, if less elaborate; and, despite its +change of name, was not the church where she and Narcissus met, as the +church wherein Hero and Leander first looked upon each other, the Temple +of Love? Certainly the country church to which Narcissus +self-consciously passed through groups of Sunday-clothed villagers, was +decked as for no Christian festival this Sabbath morning. The garlands +that twined about the old Norman columns, the clumps of primroses and +violets that sprung at their feet, as at the roots of gigantic beeches, +the branches of palm and black-thorn that transformed the chancel to a +bower: probably for more than knew it, these symbols of the joy and +beauty of earth had simpler, more instinctive, meanings than those of +any arbitrary creed. For others in the church besides Narcissus, no +doubt, they spoke of young love, the bloom and the fragrance thereof, of +mating birds and pairing men and maids, of the eternal principle of +loveliness, which, in spite of winter and of wrong, brings flowers and +faces to bless and beautify this church of the world. + +As Narcissus sat in his front row, his eyes drawn up in a prayer to the +painted glories of the great east window, his whole soul lifted up on +the wings of colour, scent, and sound--the whole sacred house had but +one meaning: just his love for Alice. Nothing in the world was too holy +to image that. The windows, the music, the flowers, all were metaphors +of her: and, as the organ swirled his soul along in the rapids of its +passionate, prayerful sound, it seemed to him that Alice and he already +stood at the gate of Heaven! + +Presently, across his mingled sensations came a measured tramp as of +boy-soldiers marching in line. You have heard it! You have _listened_ +for it!! It was the dear, unmistakable sound of a girls' school on the +march. Quickly it came nearer, it was in the porch--it was in the +church! Narcissus gave a swift glance round. He dare not give a real +searching look yet. His heart beat too fast, his cheek burned too red. +But he saw it was a detachment of girls--it certainly was Alice's +school. + +Then came the white-robed choristers, and the white-haired priests: _If +we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not +in us; but, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive +us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness_. + +DEARLY BELOVED BRETHREN.... + +His heart swelled with a sobbing exaltation of worship such as he had +not known for years. You could hardly have believed that a little +apple-dumpling of a pink and white girl was the real inspirer of that +look in his young face that made old ladies, even more than young ones, +gaze at him, and remark afterwards on the strange boy with the lovely +spiritual expression. + +But, all the time, Narcissus felt that Alice's great eyes were on him, +glowing with glad surprise. The service proceeded, but yet he forbore to +seek her. He took a delight in husbanding his coming joy. He would not +crudely snatch it. It would be all the sweeter for waiting. And the fire +in Alice's eyes would all the time be growing softer and softer. He +nearly looked as he thought of that. And surely that was her dear voice +calling to him in the secret language of the psalm. He sang back to her +with a wild rapture. Thus the morning stars sang together, he thought. + +And when the prayers laid lovely hands across the eyes of the +worshippers, still he sought not Alice, but prayed for her as perhaps +only a boy can: O Lord God, be good to Alice--already she is one of thy +angels. May her life be filled with light and joy! And if in the time to +come I am worthy of being ever by her side, may we live our lives +together, high and pure and holy as always in thy sight! Lord, thou +knowest how pure is my love; how I worship her as I worship the holy +angels themselves. But whatsoever is imperfect perfect by the +inspiration of thy Holy Spirit.... + +So prayed the soul of the boy for the soul of the girl, and his eyes +filled with tears as he prayed; the cup of the wonder and holiness of +the world ran over. + +Already, it seemed, that Alice and he lay clasped together in the arms +of God. + +So Narcissus prayed and sang his love in terms of an alien creed. He +sang of the love of Christ, he thought but of the love of Alice; and +still he refrained from plucking that wonderful passion-flower of her +glance. + +At length he had waited the whole service through; and, with the last +hallowed vibrations of the benediction, he turned his eyes, brimful of +love-light, greedily, eagerly, fearful lest one single ray should be +wasted on intermediate and irrelevant worshippers. + +Wonderful eyes of love!--but alas! where is their Alice? Wildly they +glance along the rosy ranks of chubby girlhood, but where is their +Alice? + +And then the ranks form in line, and once more the sound, the ecstatic +sound it had seemed but a short time before, of girls marching--but +no!--no!--there is no Alice. + +In sick despair Narcissus stalked that Amazonian battalion, crouching +behind hedges, dropping into by-lanes, lurking in coppices,--he held his +breath as they passed two and two within a yard of him. Two followed +two, but still no Alice! + +Narcissus lay in wait, dinnerless, all that afternoon; he walked about +that dreary house like a patrol, till at last he was observed of the +inmates, and knots of girls gathered at the windows--alas! only to +giggle at his forlorn and desperate appearance. + +Still there was no Alice ... and then it began to rain, and he became +aware how hungry he was. So he returned to his inn with a sad heart. + +And all the time poor little Alice lay in bed with a sore throat, +oblivious of those passionate boyish eyes that, you would have thought, +must have pierced the very walls of her seclusion. + +And, after all, it was not her voice Narcissus had heard in the church. +It was but the still sweeter voice of his own heart. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS + +I hope it will be allowed to me that I treat the Reader with all +respectful courtesy, and that I am well bred enough to assume him +familiar with all manner of exquisite experience, though in my heart I +may be no less convinced that he has probably gone through life with +nothing worth calling experience whatsoever. It is our jaunty modern +fashion, and I follow it so far as I am able. I take for granted, for +instance, that every man has at one time or another--in his salad days, +you know, before he was embarked in his particular provision +business--had foolish yearnings towards poesy. I respect the mythical +dreams of his 'young days'; I assume that he has been really in love; +but, pray press me not too curiously as to whether I believe it all, as +to whether I really imagine that his youth knew other dreams than those +of the foolish young 'masherdom' one meets in the train every morning, +or that he has married a wife for other than purely 'masculine' reasons. + +These matters I do not mind leaving in the form of a postulate--let them +be granted: but that every man has at one time or another had the craze +for saving the world I will not assume. Narcissus took it very early, +and though he has been silent concerning his mission for some time, and +when last we heard of it had considerably modified his propaganda, he +still cherishes it somewhere in secret, I have little doubt; and one may +not be surprised, one of these days, to find it again bursting out 'into +sudden flame.' + +His spiritual experience has probably been the deepest and keenest of +his life. I do not propose to trace his evolution from Anabaptism to +Agnosticism. The steps of such development are comparatively familiar; +they have been traced by greater pens than mine. The 'means' may vary, +but the process is uniform. + +Whether a man deserts the ancestral Brahminism that has so long been +'good enough for his parents,' and listens to the voice of the Buddhist +missionary, or joins Lucian in the seat of the scornful, shrugging at +augur and philosopher alike; whether it is Voltaire, or Tom Paine, or +Thomas Carlyle, or Walt Whitman, or a Socialist tract, that is the +emancipator, the emancipation is all one. + +The seed that is to rend the rock comes in all manner of odd, and often +unremembered, ways; but somehow, it is there; rains and dews unnoticed +feed it; and surely, one day the rock is rent, the light is pouring in, +and we are free! It is often a matter of anguish that, strive as we may, +it is impossible to remember what helping hand it was that sowed for us. +Our fickle memory seems to convict us of ingratitude, and yet we know +how far that sin is from us; and how, if those sowers could but be +revealed to us, we would fall upon their necks, or at their feet. + +I talked of this one day with Narcissus, and some time after he sent me +a few notes headed 'Spiritual Pastors,' in which he had striven to +follow the beautiful example set by Marcus Aurelius, in the anxiously +loving acknowledgment with which he opens his meditations. I know he +regarded it as miserably inefficient; but as it does actually indicate +some of the more individual side of his experience, and is, moreover, +characteristic in its style, I shall copy a few passages from it here:-- + +'To some person or persons unknown exceeding gratitude for the +suggestion, in some dim talk, antenatal it would almost seem, that Roman +Catholics might, after all, be "saved." Blessed fecundating suggestion, +that was the earliest loophole! + +'To my father I owe a mind that, once set on a clue, must follow it, if +need be, to the nethermost darkness, though he has chosen to restrict +the operation of his own within certain limits; and to my mother a +natural leaning to the transcendental side of an alternative, which has +saved me so many a time when reason had thrown me into the abyss. But +one's greatest debt to a good mother must be simply--herself. + +'To the Rev. Father Ignatius for his earnest preaching, which might +almost have made me a monk, had not Thomas Carlyle and his _Heroes_, +especially the lecture on Mahomet, given me to understand the true +significance of a Messiah. + +'To Bulwer for his _Zanoni_, which first gave me a hint of the possible +natural "supernatural," and thus for ever saved me from dogmatising in +negatives against the transcendental. + +'To Sir Edwin Arnold for his _Light of Asia,_ also to Mr. Sinnett for +his _Esoteric Buddhism,_ books which, coming to me about the same time, +together with some others like them, first gave some occupation to an +"unchartered freedom," gained in many forgotten steps, in the form of a +faith which transfigured my life for many months into the most beautiful +enthusiasm a man could know,--and which had almost sent me to the +Himalayas! + +'That it did not quite achieve that, though much of the light it gave me +still remains, I owe to R.M., who, with no dialectic, but with one bald +question, and the reading of one poem, robbed me of my fairy palace of +Oriental speculation in the twinkling of an eye. Why it went I have +never really quite known; but surely, it was gone, and the wind and the +bare star-light were alone in its place. + +'Dear Mac., I have not seen you for ever so long, and surely you have +forgotten how that night, long ago, you asked with such a strange, +almost childlike, simplicity: "_Is_ there a soul?" But I have not +forgotten, nor how I made no answer at all, but only staggered, and how, +with your strange, dreamy voice, you chanted for comfort:-- + + '"This hot, hard flame with which our bodies burn + Will make some meadow blaze with daffodil; + Ay! and those argent breasts of thine will turn + To water-lilies; the brown fields men till + Will be more fruitful for our love to-night: + Nothing is lost in Nature; all things live in Death's despite. + + * * * * * + + '"So when men bury us beneath the yew + Thy crimson-stained mouth a rose will be, + And thy soft eyes lush blue-bells dimmed with dew; + And when the white narcissus wantonly + Kisses the wind, its playmate, some faint joy + Will thrill our dust, and we will be again fond maid and boy. + + '"... How my heart leaps up + To think of that grand living after death + In beast and bird and flower, when this cup, + Being filled too full of spirit, bursts for breath, + And with the pale leaves of some autumn day, + The soul, earth's earliest conqueror, becomes earth's last great prey. + + '"O think of it! We shall inform ourselves + Into all sensuous life; the goat-foot faun, + The centaur, or the merry, bright-eyed elves + That leave they: dancing rings to spite the dawn + Upon the meadows, shall not be more near + Than you and I to Nature's mysteries, for we shall hear + + '"The thrush's heart beat, and the daisies grow, + And the wan snowdrop sighing for the sun + On sunless days in winter; we shall know + By whom the silver gossamer is spun, + Who paints the diapered fritillaries, + On what wide wings from shivering pine to pine the eagle flies. + + * * * * * + + '"We shall be notes in that great symphony + Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres, + And all the live world's throbbing heart shall be + One with our heart; the stealthy, creeping years + Have lost their terrors now; we shall not die-- + The universe itself shall be our Immortality!" + +Have you forgotten how you chanted these, and told me they were Oscar +Wilde's. You had set my feet firmly on earth for the first time, there +was great darkness with me for many weeks, but, as it lifted, the earth +seemed greener than ever of old, the sunshine a goodlier thing, and +verily a blessedness indeed to draw the breath of life. I had learnt +"the value and significance of flesh"; I no longer scorned a carnal +diet, and once again I turned my eyes on the damsels in the street. + +'But an influence soon came to me that kept me from going all the way +with you, and taught me to say, "I know not," where you would say, "It +is not." Blessings on thee who didst throw a rainbow, that may mean a +promise, across the void, that awoke the old instinct of faith within +me, and has left me "an Agnostic with a faith," quite content with "the +brown earth," if that be all, but with the added significance a mystery +gives to living;--thou who first didst teach me Love's lore aright, to +thee do I owe this thing. + +'To J.A.W. I owe the first great knowledge of that other love between +man and man, which Whitman has since taught us to call "the dear love of +comrades"; and to him I owe that I never burned those early rhymes, or +broke my little reed--an unequivocal service to me, whatever the +public, should it be consulted, may think. + +'To a dear sister I owe that still more exquisite and subtle comradeship +which can only exist between man and woman, but from which the more +disturbing elements of sex must be absent. And here, let me also thank +God that I was brought up in quite a garden of good sisters. + +'To Messrs. C. and W., Solicitors and Notaries, I owe, albeit I will say +no thanks to them, the opportunity of that hardly learned good which +dwells for those who can wrest it in a hateful taskwork, that faculty of +"detachment" which Marcus Aurelius learnt so long ago, by means of which +the soul may withdraw, into an inaccessible garden, and sing while the +head bends above a ledger; or, in other words, the faculty of dreaming +with one side of the brain, while calculating with the other. Mrs. +Browning's great _Aurora Leigh_ helped me more to the attainment of that +than any book I know. + +'In their office, too, among many other great things, I learnt that a +man may be a good fellow and hate poetry--possibility undreamed of by +sentimental youth; also that Messrs. Bass and Cope are not unworthy of +their great reputation; and I had various nonsense knocked out of me, +though they never succeeded in persuading me in that little matter of +the "ambrosial curls." + +'Through Samuel Dale I first came to understand how "whatever is" _can_ +be "best," and also won a faith in God which I rather caught by +infection than gained by any process of his reasoning. Of all else I owe +to Samuel, how write? He knows. + +'To a certain friend, mentioned last because he is not least, I owe: the +sum of ten pounds, and a loving companionship, up hill and down dale, +for which again I have no words and no--sovereigns.' + +When I first read through these, I was somewhat surprised at the +omission of all reference to books which I know marked most striking +periods in Narcissus' spiritual life: _Sartor Resartus_, Thoreau's +_Walden_, for example, Mr. Pater's _Marius the Epicurean_, and +Browning's _Dramatis Personae_. As I reflected, however, I came to the +conclusion that such omission was but justice to his own individuality, +for none of these books had created an _initiative_ in Narcissus' +thought, but rather come, as, after all, I suppose they come to most of +us, as great confirming expressions of states of mind at which he had +already arrived, though, as it were, but by moonlight. In them was the +sunrise bringing all into clear sight and sure knowledge. + +It would seem, indeed, that the growth of the soul in the higher spirits +of our race is analogous to the growth of a child in the womb, in this +respect: that in each case the whole gamut of earlier types is run +through, before the ultimate form is attained in which it is decreed +that the particular vital energy shall culminate. And, as in the +physical world the various 'halts,' so to say, of the progress are +illustrated by the co-existence and continual succession of those +earlier types; so in the world of mind, at every point of spiritual +evolution, a man may meet with an historical individuality who is a +concrete embodiment of the particular state to which he has just +attained. This, of course, was what Goethe meant when he referred to +mysticism as being a frame of mind which one could experience all round +and then leave behind. To quote Whitman, in another connection:-- + + 'We but level that lift + To pass and continue beyond.' + +But an individuality must 'crystallise out' somewhere, and its final +value will not so much depend on the number of states it has passed +through, as how it has lived each on the way, with what depth of +conviction and force of sincerity. For a modern young man to thus +experience all round, and pass, and continue beyond where such great +ones as St. Bernard, Pascal, and Swedenborg, have anchored their starry +souls to shine thence upon men for all time, is no uncommon thing. It is +more the rule than the exception: but one would hardly say that in going +further they have gone higher, or ended greater. The footpath of pioneer +individualism must inevitably become the highway of the race. Every +American is not a Columbus. + +There are two ways in which we may live our spiritual progress: as +critics, or poets. Most men live theirs in that critical attitude which +refuses to commit itself, which tastes all, but enjoys none; but the +greatest in that earnest, final, rooted, creative, fashion which is the +way of the poets. The one is as a man who spends his days passing from +place to place in search of a dwelling to his mind, but dies at last in +an inn, having known nought of the settled peace of a home; but the +other, howsoever often he has to change his quarters, for howsoever +short a time he may remain in any one of his resting-places, makes of +each a home, with roots that shoot in a night to the foundations of the +world, and blossomed branches that mingle with the stars. + +Criticism is a good thing, but poetry is a better. Indeed, criticism +properly _is_ not; it is but a process to an end. We could really do +without it much better than we imagine: for, after all, the question is +not so much _how_ we live, but _do_ we live? Who would not a hundred +times rather be a fruitful Parsee than a barren _philosophe_? Yes, all +lies, of course, in original greatness of soul; and there is really no +state of mind which is not like Hamlet's pipe--if we but know the 'touch +of it,' 'it will discourse most eloquent music.' + +Now, it was that great sincerity in Narcissus that has always made us +take him so seriously. And here I would remark in parenthesis, that +trivial surface insincerities, such as we have had glimpses of in his +dealings, do not affect such a great organic sincerity as I am speaking +of. They are excrescences, which the great central health will sooner or +later clear away. It was because he never held an opinion to which he +was not, when called upon, practically faithful; never dreamed a dream +without at once setting about its translation into daylight; never +professed a creed for a week without some essay after the realisation of +its new ideal; it was because he had the power and the courage to glow +mightily, and to some purpose; because his life had a fiery centre, +which his eyes were not afraid of revealing--that I speak of his great +sincerity, a great capacity for intense life. Shallow patterers of +divine creeds were, therefore, most abhorrent to him. 'You must excuse +me, sir,' I remember his once saying to such a one, 'but what are you +doing with cigarette and salutaris? If I held such a belief as yours, I +would stand sandalled, with a rope round my waist, before to-morrow.' + +One quaint instance of this earnest attitude in all things occurs to me +out of his schooldays. He was a Divine Right man, a fiery Jacobite, in +those days; and, probably not without some absurd unconfessed dream in +his heart that it might somehow help the dead old cause, he one +afternoon fluttered the Hanoverian hearts--all the men we meet in street +and mart are Hanoverians, of course--of our little literary club by +solemnly rising 'to give notice' that at the following meeting he would +read a paper to prove that 'the House of Hanover has no right to the +English throne.' Great was the excitement through the fortnight +intervening, extending even to the masters; and the meeting was a full +one, and no little stormy. + +Narcissus rose with the air of a condemned Strafford, and with all his +boyish armoury of eloquence and scorn fought over again the long-lost +battle, hiss and groan falling unheeded into the stream of his young +voice. But vain, vain! hard is the Hanoverian heart in boy, as in man, +and all your glowing periods were in vain--vain as, your peroration told +us, 'was the blood of gallant hearts shed on Culloden's field.' Poor N., +you had but one timorous supporter, even me, so early your _fidus +Achates_--but one against so many. Yet were you crestfallen? Galileo +with his 'E pur si muove,' Disraeli with his 'The time will come,' wore +such a mien as yours, as we turned from that well-foughten field. Yes! +and you loved to take in earnest vague Hanoverian threats of possible +arrest for your baby-treason, and, for some time, I know, you never +passed a policeman without a dignified tremor, as of one who might at +any moment find a lodging in the Tower. + +But the most serious of all N.'s 'mad' enthusiasms was that of which the +Reader has already received some hint, in the few paragraphs of his own +confessions above, that which 'had almost sent him to the Himalayas.' + +It belongs to natures like his always through life to cherish a half +belief in their old fairy tales, and a longing, however late in the day, +to prove them true at last. To many such the revelations with which +Madame Blavatsky, as with some mystic trumpet, startled the Western +world some years ago, must have come with most passionate appeal; and to +Narcissus they came like a love arisen from the dead. Long before, he +had 'supped full' of all the necromantic excitements that poet or +romancer could give. Guy Mannering had introduced him to Lilly; Lytton +and Hawthorne had sent him searching in many a musty folio for Elixir +Vitas and the Stone. Like Scythrop, in 'Nightmare Abbey,' he had for a +long period slept with horrid mysteries beneath his pillow. But suddenly +his interest had faded: these phantoms fled before a rationalistic +cock-crow, and Eugenius Philalethes and Robert Fludd went with Mejnour +and Zanoni into a twilight forgetfulness. There was no hand to show the +hidden way to the land that might be, and there were hands beckoning and +voices calling him along the highway to the land that is. So, +dream-light passing, he must, perforce, reconcile himself to daylight, +with its dusty beam and its narrow horizons. + +Judge, then, with what a leaping heart he chanced on some newspaper +gossip concerning the sibyl, for it was so that he first stumbled across +her mission. Ironical, indeed, that the so impossible 'key' to the +mystery should come by the hand of 'our own correspondent'; but so it +was, and that paragraph sold no small quantity of 'occult' literature +for the next twelve months. Mr. Sinnett, doorkeeper in the house of +Blavatsky, who, as a precaution against the vision of Bluebeards that +the word Oriental is apt to conjure up in Western minds, is always +dressed in the latest mode, and, so to say, offers his cigar-case along +with some horrid mystery--it was to his prospectus of the new gospel, +his really delightful pages, that Narcissus first applied. Then he +entered within the gloomier Egyptian portals of the _Isis_ itself, and +from thence--well, in brief, he went in for a course of Redway, and +little that figured in that gentleman's thrilling announcements was long +in reaching his hands. + +At last a day came when his eye fell upon a notice, couched in suitably +mysterious terms, to the effect that really earnest seekers after divine +truth might, after necessary probation, etc., join a brotherhood of +such--which, it was darkly hinted, could give more than it dared +promise. Up to this point Narcissus had been indecisive. He was, +remember, quite in earnest, and to actually accept this new evangel +meant to him--well, as he said, nothing less in the end than the +Himalayas. Pending his decision, however, he had gradually developed a +certain austerity, and experimented in vegetarianism; and though he was, +oddly enough, free of amorous bond that might have held him to earth, +yet he had grown to love it rather rootedly since the earlier days when +he was a 'seeker.' Moreover, though he read much of 'The Path,' no +actual Mejnour had yet been revealed to set his feet therein. But with +this paragraph all indecision soon came to an end. He felt there a clear +call, to neglect which would be to have seen the light and not to have +followed it, ever for him the most tragic error to be made in life. His +natural predisposition towards it was too great for him to do other than +trust this new revelation; and now he must gird himself for 'the +sacrifice which truth always demands.' + +But, sacrifice! of what and for what? An undefined social warmth he was +beginning to feel in the world, some meretricious ambition, and a great +friendship--to which in the long run would he not be all the truer by +the great new power he was to win? If hand might no longer spring to +hand, and friendship vie in little daily acts of brotherhood, might he +not, afar on his mountain-top, keep loving watch with clearer eyes upon +the dear life he had left behind, and be its vigilant fate? Surely! and +there was nothing worth in life that would not gain by such a devotion. +All life's good was of the spirit, and to give that a clearer shining, +even in one soul, must help the rest. For if its light, shining, as now, +through the grimy horn-lantern of the body, in narrow lanes and along +the miasmatic flats of the world, even so helped men, how much more must +it, rising above that earthly fume, in a hidden corner no longer, but +in the open heaven, a star above the city. Sacrifice! yes, it was just +such a tug as a man in the dark warmth of morning sleep feels it to +leave the pillow. The mountain-tops of morning gleam cold and bare: but +O! when, staff in hand, he is out amid the dew, the larks rising like +fountains above him, the gorse bright as a golden fleece on the +hill-side, and all the world a shining singing vision, what thought of +the lost warmth then? What warmth were not well lost for this keen +exhilarated sense in every nerve, in limb, in eye, in brain? What potion +has sleep like this crystalline air it almost takes one's breath to +drink, of such a maddening chastity is its grot-cool sparkle? What +intoxication can she give us for this larger better rapture? So did +Narcissus, an old Son of the Morning, figure to himself the struggle, +and pronounce 'the world well lost.' + +But I feel as I write how little I can give the Reader of all the +'splendid purpose in his eyes' as he made this resolve. Perhaps I am the +less able to do so as--let me confess--I also shared his dream. One +could hardly come near him without, in some measure, doing that at all +times; though with me it could only be a dream, for I was not free. I +had Scriptural example to plead 'Therefore I cannot come,' though in any +case I fear I should have held back, for I had no such creative instinct +for realisation as Narcissus, and have, I fear, dreamed many a dream I +had not the courage even to think of clothing in flesh and blood; like, +may I say, the many who are poets for all save song--poets in chrysalis, +all those who dream of what some do, and make the audience of those +great articulate ones. But there were one or two trifling doubts to set +at rest before final decision. The Reader has greatly misconceived +Narcissus if he has deemed him one of those simple souls whom any quack +can gull, and the good faith of this mysterious fraternity was a +difficult point to settle. A tentative application through the address +given, an appropriate _nom de mystère_, had introduced the ugly detail +of preliminary expenses. Divine truth has to pay its postage, its rent, +its taxes, and so on; and the 'guru' feeds not on air--although, of +course, being a 'guru,' he comes as near it as the flesh will allow: +therefore, and surely, Reader, a guinea per annum is, after all, +reasonable enough. Suspect as much as one will, but how gainsay? Also, +before the applicant could be admitted to noviciate even, his horoscope +must be cast, and--well, the poor astrologer also needed bread and--no! +not butter--five shillings for all his calculations, circles, and +significations--well, that again was only reasonable. H'm, ye-e-s, but +it was dubious; and, mad as we were, I don't think we ever got outside +that dubiety, but made up our minds, like other converts, to gulp the +primary postulate, and pay the twenty-six shillings. From the first, +however, Narcissus had never actually entrusted all his spiritual +venture in this particular craft: he saw the truth independent of them, +not they alone held her for him, though she might hold them, and they +might be that one of the many avenues for which he had waited to lead +him nearer to her heart. That was all. His belief in the new +illumination neither stood nor fell with them, though his ardour for it +culminated in the experience. One must take the most doubtful +experiment seriously if we are in earnest for results. + +So next came the sacred name of 'the Order,' which, Reader, I cannot +tell thee, as I have never known it, Narcissus being bound by horrid +oaths to whisper it to no man, and to burn at midnight the paper which +gave it to his eyes. From this time, also, we could exchange no deep +confidences of the kind at all, for the various MSS. by means of which +he was to begin his excursions into Urania, and which his 'guru' sent +from time to time--at first, it must be admitted, with a diligent +frequency--were secret too. So several months went by, and my knowledge +of his 'chela-ship' was confined to what I could notice, and such +trifling harmless gossip as 'Heard from "guru" this morning,' 'Copying +an old MS. last night,' and so on. What I could notice was truly, as +Lamb would say, 'great mastery,' for lo! Narcissus, whose eyes had never +missed a maiden since he could walk, and lay in wait to wrest his +tribute of glance and blush from every one that passed, lo! he had +changed all that, and Saint Anthony in an old master looks not more +resolutely 'the other way' than he, his very thoughts crushing his flesh +with invisible pincers. No more softly-scented missives lie upon his +desk a-mornings; and, instead of blowing out the candle to dream of +Daffodilia, he opens his eyes in the dark to defy--the Dweller on the +Threshold, if haply he should indeed already confront him. + +One thrilling piece of news in regard to the latter he was unable to +conceal. He read it out to me one flushed morning:-- + + '_I--have--seen--him--and--am--his--master_,' + +wrote the 'guru,' in answer to his neophyte's half fearful question. +Fitly underlined and sufficiently spaced, it was a statement calculated +to awe, if only by its mendacity. I wonder if that chapter of Bulwer's +would impress one now as it used to do then. It were better, perhaps, +not to try. + +The next news of these mysteries was the conclusion of them. When so +darkly esoteric a body begins to issue an extremely catchpenny 'organ,' +with advertisements of theosophic 'developers,' magic mirrors, and +mesmeric discs, and also advertises large copies of the dread symbol of +the Order, 'suitable for framing,' at five shillings plain and seven and +sixpence coloured, it is, of course, impossible to take it seriously, +except in view of a police-court process, and one is evidently in the +hands of very poor bunglers indeed. Such was the new departure in +propaganda instituted by a little magazine, mean in appearance, as the +mouthpieces of all despised 'isms' seem to be, with the first number of +which, need one say, ended Narcissus' ascent of 'The Path.' I don't +think he was deeply sad at being disillusionised. Unconsciously a +broader philosophy had slowly been undermining his position, and all was +ready for the fall. It cost no such struggle to return to the world as +it had taken to leave it, for the poet had overgrown the philosopher, +and the open mystery of the common day was already exercising an appeal +beyond that of any melodramatic 'arcana.' Of course the period left its +mark upon him, but it is most conspicuous upon his bookshelves. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +THE CHILDREN OF APOLLO + +'He is a _true_ poet,' or 'He is a _genuine_ artist,' are phrases which +irritate one day after day in modern criticism. One had thought that +'poet' and 'artist' were enough; but there must be a need, we +regretfully suppose, for these re-enforcing qualifications; and there +can be but the one, that the false in each kind do so exceedingly +abound, that none can be taken as genuine without such special +certificate. The widespread confusion with the poet of the rhetorician +and sentimentalist in verse, and again of the mere rhymer without even +rhetoric, not to refer to finer differentiation of error, is also a +fruitful source of bewilderment. The misuse of the word has parallels: +for instance, the spurious generic use of the word 'man' for 'male,' +the substitution of 'artist' for 'painter.' But here we have only to +deal with that one particular abuse. Some rules how to know a poet may +conceivably be of interest, though of no greater value. + +Of course, the one first and last test is his work, but 'how to know +poetry' is another matter, which I do not propose treating of here; my +intention rather being to dot down a few personal characteristics--not +so much his 'works' as his 'ways.' I write as they come into my head; +and to any Reader about to cry out against digression, let me add: I +write thinking of Narcissus; for know all men, friend or Philistine, if +you have yet to learn it, my Narcissus is a poet! + +First, as to the great question of 'garmenting.' The superstition that +the hat and the cloak 'does it' has gone out in mockery, but only that +the other superstition might reign in its stead--that the hat and cloak +cannot do it. Because one great poet dispensed with 'pontificals,' and +yet brought the fire from heaven, henceforward 'pontificals' are humbug, +and the wearer thereof but charlatan, despite--'the master yonder in +the isle.' Pegasus must pack in favour of a British hunter, and even the +poet at last wear the smug regimentals of mediocrity and mammon. Ye +younger choir especially have a care, for, though you sing with the +tongues of men and angels, and wear not a silk hat, it shall avail you +nothing. Neither Time, which is Mudie, nor Eternity, which is Fame, will +know you, and your verses remain till doom in an ironical _editio +princeps_, which not even the foolish bookman shall rescue from the +threepenny box. It is very unlikely that you will escape as did +Narcissus, for though, indeed, + + 'He swept a fine majestic sweep + Of toga Tennysonian, + Wore strange soft hat, that such as you + Would tremble to be known in,' + +nevertheless, he somehow won happier fates, on which, perhaps, it would +be unbecoming in so close a friend to dilate. + +The 'true' poet is, first of all, a gentleman, usually modest, never +arrogant, and only assertive when pushed. He does not by instinct take +himself seriously, as the 'poet-ape' doth, though if he meets with +recognition it becomes, of course, his duty to acknowledge his faculty, +and make good Scriptural use of it. + +He is probably least confident, however, when praised; and never, except +in rare moments, especially of eclipse, has he a strong faith in the +truth that is in him. Therefore crush him, saith the Philistine, as we +crush the vine; strike him, as one strikes the lyre. When young, he +imagines the world to be filled with one ambition; later on, he finds +that so indeed it is--but the name thereof is not Poesy. Strange! sighs +he. And if, when he is seventeen, he writes a fluent song, and his +fellow-clerk admire it, why, it is nothing; surely the ledger-man hath +such scraps in his poke, or at least can roll off better. 'True bards +believe all able to achieve what they achieve,' said Naddo. But lo! that +ambition is a word that begins with pounds and ends with pence--like +life, quoth the ledger-man, who, after all, had but card-scores, a +tailor's account, and the bill for his wife's confinement in his pocket. + +All through his life he loves his last-written most, and no honey of +Hybla is so sweet as a new rhyme. Let no maid hope to rival it with her +lips--she but interrupts: for the travail of a poet is even as that of +his wife--after the pain comes that dear joy of a new thing born into +the world, which doting sipping dream beware to break. Fifty repetitions +of the new sweetness, fifty deliberate rollings of it under the tongue, +is, I understand, the minimum duration of such, before the passion is +worked off, and the dream-child really breathing free of its +dream-parent. I have occasionally come upon Narcissus about the +twenty-fifth, I suppose, and wondered at my glum reception. 'Poetry gone +sour,' he once gave as the reason. Try it not, Reader, if, indeed, in +thy colony of beavers a poet really dwells. + +He is a born palaeontologist: that is, he can build up an epic from a +hint. And, despite modern instances, the old rule obtains for him, he +need not be learned--that is, not deeply or abundantly, only at +points--superficially, the superficial would say. Well, yes, he has an +eye for knowing what surfaces mean, the secret of the divining rod. +Take it this way. We want an expression, say, of the work of Keats, want +to be told wherein lies his individuality. You take Mr. Buxton Forman's +four volumes, and 'work at' Keats! and, after thirty nights and days, +bring your essay. On the morning of the thirtieth the poet read again +the _Grecian Urn_, and at eventide wrote a sonnet; and on the morning of +the thirty-first, essay and sonnet are side by side. But, by the +evening, your essay is in limbo--or in type, all's one--while the sonnet +is singing in our heart, persistently haunting our brain. Some day the +poet, too, writes an essay, and thus plainly shows, says the essayist, +how little he really knew of the matter--he didn't actually know of the +so-and-so--and yet it was his ignorance that gave us that illuminating +line, after all. + +I doubt if one would be on safe ground in saying: Take, now, the subject +of wine. We all know how abstemious is the poetical habit; and yet, to +read these songs, one would think 'twas Bacchus' self that wrote, or +that Clarence who lay down to die in a butt of Malmsey. Though the +inference is open to question, + + 'I often wonder if old Omar drank + One half the quantity he bragged in song.' + +Doubtless he sat longest and drank least of all the topers of Naishapur, +and the bell for Saki rang not from his corner half often enough to +please mine host. Certainly the longevity of some modern poets can only +be accounted for by some such supposition in their case. The proposition +is certainly proved inversely in the case of Narcissus, for he has not +written one vinous line, and yet--well, and yet! Furthermore, it may +interest future biographers to know that in his cups he was wont to +recite Hamlet's advice to the players, throned upon a tram-car. + +The 'true' poet makes his magic with the least possible ado; he and the +untrue are as the angler who is born to the angler who is made at the +tackle-shop. One encumbers the small of his back with nameless engines, +talks much of creels, hath a rod like a weaver's beam; he travels first +class to some distant show-lake among the hills, and he toils all day +as the fishermen of old toiled all night; while Tom, his gardener's son, +but a mile outside the town, with a willow wand and a bent pin, hath +caught the family supper. So is it with him who is proverbially born not +made. His friends say: 'O, you should go to such-and-such falls; you 'd +write poetry there, if you like. We all said so'; or, 'What are you +doing in here scribbling? Look through the window at the moonlight; +there's poetry for you. Go out into that if you want sonnets.' Of +course, he never takes his friends' advice; he has long known that they +know nothing whatever about it. He is probably quite ignorant of +metrical law, but one precept instinct taught him from the beginning, +and he finds it expressed one day in Wordsworth (with a blessed comfort +of assurance--like in this little, O, may be like, somehow, in the great +thing too!): 'Poetry is emotion remembered in tranquillity.' The +wandlike moments, he remembers, always came to him in haunts all remote +indeed from poetry: a sudden touch at his heart, and the air grows +rhythmical, and seems a-ripple with dreams; and, albeit, in whatever +room of dust or must he be, the song will find him, will throw her arms +about him, so it seems, will close his eyes with her sweet breath, that +he may open them upon the hidden stars. + +'Impromptus' are the quackery of the poetaster. One may take it for +granted, as a general rule, that anything written 'on the spot' is +worthless. A certain young poet, who could when he liked do good things, +printed some verses, which he declared in a sub-title were 'Written on +the top of Snowdon in a thunderstorm.' He asked an opinion, and one +replied: 'Written on the top of Snowdon in a thunderstorm.' The poet was +naturally angry--and yet, what need of further criticism? + +The poet, when young, although as I said, he is not likely to fall into +the foolishness of conceit which belongs to the poetaster, is yet too +apt in his zeal of dedication to talk much of his 'art,' or, at least, +think much; also to disparage life, and to pronounce much gratuitous +absolution in the name of Poetry:-- + +Did Burns drink and wench?--yet he sang! + +Did Coleridge opiate and neglect his family?--yet he sang!! + +Did Shelley--well, whatever Shelley did of callous and foolish, the list +is long--yet he sang!!! + +As years pass, however, he grows out of this stage, and, while regarding +his art in a spirit of dedication equally serious, and how much saner, +he comes to realise that, after all, art but forms one integral part, +however great, of a healthy life, and that for the greatest artist there +are still duties in life more imperative than any art can lay upon him. +It is a great hour when he rises up in his resolution first to be a man, +in faith that, if he be such, the artist in him will look after +itself--first a man, and surely all the greater artist for being that; +though if not, still a man. That is the duty that lies' next' to all of +us. Do that, and, as we are told, the other will be clearer for us. In +that hour that earlier form of absolution will reverse itself on his +lips into one of commination. Did they sing?--yet they sinned here and +here; and as a man soweth, so shall he reap, singer or sot. Lo! his +songs are stars in heaven, but his sins are snakes in hell: each shall +bless and torment him in turn. + +Pitiable, indeed, will seem to him in that hour the cowardice that dares +to cloak its sinning with some fine-spun theory, that veils the +gratification of its desires in some shrill evangel, and wrecks a +woman's life in the names of--Liberty and Song! Art wants no such +followers: her bravest work is done by brave men, and not by sneaking +opium-eaters and libidinous 'reformers.' We all have sinned, and we all +will go on sinning, but for God's sake, let us be honest about it. There +are worse things than honest sin. If, God help you, you have ruined a +girl, do penance for it through your life; pay your share; but don't, +whatever you do, hope to make up for a bad heart by a good brain. +Foolish art-patterers may suffer the recompense to pass, for likely they +have all the one and none of the other; but good men will care nothing +about you or your work, so long as bad trees refuse to bring forth good +fruit, or figs to grow on thistles. + +We have more to learn from Florentine artists than any 'craft mystery.' +If the capacity for using the blossom while missing the evil fruit, of +which Mr. Pater speaks in the case of Aurelius, were only confined to +those evil-bearing trees: alas! it is all blossom with us moderns, good +or bad alike, and purity or putrescence are all one to us, so that they +shine. I suppose few regard Giotto's circle as his greatest work: would +that more did. The lust of the eye, with Gautier as high-priest, is too +much with us. + +The poet, too, who perhaps began with the simple ambition of becoming a +'literary man,' soon finds how radically incapable of ever being merely +that he is. Alas! how soon the nimbus fades from the sacred name of +'author.' At one time he had been ready to fall down and kiss the +garment's hem, say, of--of a 'Canterbury' editor (this, of course, when +very, very young), as of a being from another sphere; and a writer in +_The Fortnightly_ had swam into his ken, trailing visible clouds of +glory. But by and by he finds himself breathing with perfect composure +in that rarefied air, and in course of time the grey conviction settles +upon him that these fabled people are in no wise different from the +booksellers and business men he had found so sordid and dull--no more +individual or delightful as a race; and he speedily comes to the old +conclusion he had been at a loss to understand a year or two ago, that, +as a rule, the people who do not write books are infinitely to be +preferred to the people who do. When he finds exceptions, they occur as +they used to do in shop and office--the charm is all independent of the +calling; for just as surely as a man need not grow mean, and hard, and +dried up, however prosperous be his iron-foundry, so sure is it that a +man will not grow generous, rich-minded, loving, and all that is golden +by merely writing of such virtues at so much a column. The inherent +insincerity, more or less, of all literary work is a fact of which he +had not thought. I am speaking of the mere 'author,' the +writer-tradesman, the amateur's superstition; not of men of genius, who, +despite cackle, cannot disappoint. If they seem to do so, it must be +that we have not come close enough to know them. But the man of genius +is rarer, perhaps, in the ranks of authorship than anywhere: you are +far more likely to find him on the exchange. They are as scarce as +Caxtons: London possesses hardly half-a-dozen examples. + +Narcissus enjoyed the delight of calling one of these his friend, 'a +certain aristocratic poet who loved all kinds of superiorities,' again +to borrow from Mr. Pater. He had once seen him afar off and worshipped, +as it is the blessedness of boys to be able to worship; but never could +he have dreamed in that day of the dear intimacy that was to come. 'If +he could but know me as I am,' he had sighed; but that was all. With the +almost childlike naturalness which is his greatest charm he confessed +this sigh long after, and won that poet's heart. Well I remember his +bursting into our London lodging late one afternoon, great-eyed and +almost in tears for joy of that first visit. He had pre-eminently the +capacity which most fine men have of falling in love with men--as one +may be sure of a subtle greatness in a woman whose eye singles out a +woman to follow on the stage at the theatre--and certainly, no other +phrase can express that state of shining, trembling exaltation, the +passion of the friendships of Narcissus. And although he was rich in +them--rich, that is, as one can be said to be rich in treasure so +rare--saving one only, they have never proved that fairy-gold which such +do often prove. Saving that one, golden fruit still hangs for every +white cluster of wonderful blossom. + +'I thought you must care for me if you could but know me aright,' +Narcissus had said. + +'Care for you! Why, you beautiful boy! you seem to have dropped from the +stars,' the poet had replied in the caressing fashion of an elder +brother. + +He had frankly fallen in love, too: for Narcissus has told me that his +great charm is a boyish naturalness of heart, that ingenuous gusto in +living which is one of the sure witnesses to genius. This is all the +more piquant because no one would suspect it, as, I suppose, few do; +probably, indeed, a consensus would declare him the last man in London +of whom that is true. No one would seem to take more seriously the _beau +monde_ of modern paganism, with its hundred gospels of _La Nuance_; no +one, assuredly, were more _blasé_ than he, with his languors of pose, +and face of so wan a flame. The Oscar Wilde of modern legend were not +more as a dweller in Nirvana. But Narcissus maintained that all this was +but a disguise which the conditions of his life compelled him to wear, +and in wearing which he enjoyed much subtle subterranean merriment; +while underneath the real man lived, fresh as morning, vigorous as a +young sycamore, wild-hearted as an eagle, ever ready to flash out the +'password primeval' to such as alone could understand. How else had he +at once taken the stranger lad to his heart with such a sunlight of +welcome? As the maid every boy must have sighed for but so rarely found, +who makes not as if his love were a weariness which she endured, and the +kisses she suffered, cold as green buds, were charities, but frankly +glows to his avowal with 'I love you, too, dear Jack,' and kisses him +from the first with mouth like a June rose--so did that _blasé_ poet +cast away his conventional Fahrenheit, and call Narcissus friend in +their first hour. Men of genius alone know that fine _abandon_ of soul. +In such is the poet confessed as unmistakably as in his verse, for the +one law of his life is that he be an elemental, and the capacity for +great simple impressions is the spring of his power. Let him beware of +losing that. + +I sometimes wonder as I come across the last frivolous gossip concerning +that poet in the paragraphs of the new journalism, or meet his name in +some distinguished bead-roll in _The Morning Post_, whether Narcissus +was not, after all, mistaken about him, and whether he could still, +season after season, go through the same stale round of reception, +private view, first night, and all the various drill of fashion and +folly, if that boy's heart were alive still. One must believe it once +throbbed in him: we have his poems for that, and a poem cannot lie; but +it is hard to think that it could still keep on its young beating +beneath such a choking pressure of convention, and in an air so 'sunken +from the healthy breath of morn.' But, on the other hand, I have almost +a superstitious reliance on Narcissus' intuition, a faculty in him which +not I alone have marked, but which I know was the main secret of his +appeal for women. They, as the natural possessors of the power, feel a +singular kinship with a man who also possesses it, a gift as rarely +found among his sex as that delicacy which largely depends on it, and +which is the other sure clue to a woman's love. She is so little used, +poor flower, to be understood, and to meet with other regard than the +gaze of satyrs. + +However, be Narcissus' intuition at fault or not in the main, still it +was very sure that the boy's heart in that man of the world did wake +from its sleep for a while at the wandlike touch of his youth; and if, +after all, as may be, Narcissus was but a new sensation in his jaded +round, at least he was a healthy one. Nor did the callous ingratitude of +forgetfulness which follows so swiftly upon mere sensation ever add +another to the sorrows of my friend: for, during the last week before he +left us, came a letter of love and cheer in that poet's wonderful +handwriting--handwriting delicious with honeyed lines, each word a +flower, each letter rounded with the firm soft curves of hawthorn in +bud, or the delicate knobs of palm against the sky. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +GEORGE MUNCASTER + +When I spoke of London's men of genius I referred, of course, to such as +are duly accredited, certificated, so to say, by public opinion; but of +those others whose shining is under the bushel of obscurity, few or +many, how can one affirm? That there are such, any man with any happy +experience of living should be able to testify; and I should say, for +fear of misunderstanding, that I do not use the word genius in any +technical sense, not only of men who can _do_ in the great triumphal +way, but also of those who can _be_ in their quiet, effective fashion, +within their own 'scanty plot of ground'; men who, if ever conscious of +it, are content with the diffusion of their influence around the narrow +limits of their daily life, content to bend their creative instincts on +the building and beautifying of home. It is no lax use of the word +genius to apply it to such, for unless you profess the modern heresy +that genius is but a multiplied talent, a coral-island growth, that +earns its right to a new name only when it has lifted its head above the +waters of oblivion, you must agree. For 'you saw at once,' said +Narcissus, in reference to that poet, 'that his writing was so +delightful because he was more so.' His writings, in fact, were but the +accidental emanations of his personality. He might have given himself +out to us in fugues, or canvases, or simply, like the George Muncaster +of whom I am thinking, in the sweet breath and happy shining of his +home. Genius is a personal quality, and if a man has it, whatever his +hand touches will bear the trace of his power, an undying odour, an +unfading radiance. When Rossetti wrote 'Beauty like hers is genius,' he +was not dealing in metaphor, and Meissonier should have abolished for +ever the superstition of large canvases. + +These desultory hints of the development of Narcissus would certainly be +more incomplete than necessity demands, if I did not try to give the +Reader some idea of the man of genius of this unobtrusive type to whom I +have just alluded. Samuel Dale used to call himself 'an artist in life,' +and there could be no truer general phrase to describe George Muncaster +than that. His whole life possesses a singular unity, such as is the +most satisfying joy of a fine work of art, considering which it never +occurs to one to think of the limitation of conditions or material. So +with his life, the shortness of man's 'term' is never felt; one could +win no completer effect with eternity than he with every day. Hurry and +false starts seem unknown in his round, and his little home is a +microcosm of the Golden Age. + +It would even seem sometimes that he has an artistic rule over his +'accidents,' for 'surprises' have a wonderful knack of falling into the +general plan of his life, as though but waited for. Our first meeting +with him was a singular instance of this. I say 'our,' for Narcissus and +I chanced to be walking a holiday together at the time. It fell on this +wise. At Tewkesbury it was we had arrived, one dull September evening, +just in time to escape a wetting from a grey drizzle then imminent; and +in no very buoyant spirits we turned into _The Swan Inn_. A more dismal +coffee-room for a dismal evening could hardly be--gloomy, vast, and +thinly furnished. We entered sulkily, seeming the only occupants of the +sepulchre. However, there was a small book on the table facing the door, +sufficiently modern in appearance to catch one's eye and arouse a faint +ripple of interest. 'A Canterbury,' we cried. 'And a Whitman, more's the +wonder,' cried Narcissus, who had snatched it up. 'Why, some one's had +the sense, too, to cut out the abominable portrait. I wonder whose it +is. The owner must evidently have some right feeling.' + +Then, before there was time for further exclamatory compliment of the +unknown, we were half-startled by the turning round of an arm-chair at +the far end of the room, and were aware of a manly voice of exquisite +quality asking, 'Do you know Whitman?' + +And moving towards the speaker, we were for the first time face to face +with the strong and gentle George Muncaster, who since stands in our +little gallery of types as Whitman's Camarado and Divine Husband made +flesh. I wish, Reader, that I could make you see his face; but at best I +have little faith in pen portraits. It is comparatively easy to write a +graphic description of _a_ face; but when it has been read, has the +reader realised _the_ face? I doubt it, and am inclined to believe that +three different readers will carry away three different impressions even +from a really brilliant portrait. Laborious realism may, at least, I +think, be admitted as hopeless. The only chance is in a Meredithian +lightning-flash, and those fly but from one or two bows. I wonder if an +image will help at all here. Think on a pebbly stream, on a brisk, +bright morning; dwell on the soft, shining lines of its flowing; and +then recall the tonic influence, the sensation of grip, which the +pebbles give it. Dip your hand into it again in fancy; realise how +chaste it is, and then again think how bright and good it is. And if you +realise these impressions as they come to me, you will have gained some +idea of George Muncaster's face--the essential spirit of it, I mean, +ever so much more important than the mere features. Such, at least, +seemed the meaning of his face even in the first moment of our +intercourse that September dusk, and so it has never ceased to come upon +us even until now. + +And what a night that was! what a talk! How soon did we find each other +out! Long before the maid knocked at the door, and hinted by the +delicate insinuation of a supposed ring that there was 'a budding +morrow' in the air. But our passionate generosity of soul was running in +too strong a tide just then to be stemmed by any such interference; it +could but be diverted, and Muncaster's bedroom served us as well wherein +to squat in one of those close, rapt circles of talk such as, I think, +after all, men who love poetry can alone know--men, anyhow, with _a_ +poetry. + +Bed, that had for some time been calling us, unheeded as Juliet's nurse, +had at last to be obeyed; but how grudgingly; and how eagerly we sprang +from it at no late hour in the morning, at the first thought of the +sweet new thing that had come into the world--like children who, half +in a doze before waking, suddenly remember last night's new wonder of a +toy, to awake in an instant, and scramble into clothes to look at it +again. Thus, like children we rose; but it was shy as lovers we met at +the breakfast-table, as lovers shy after last night's kissing. (You may +not have loved a fellow-man in this way, Reader, but we are, any one of +us, as good men as you; so keep your eyebrows down, I beseech you.) + +One most winsome trait of our new friend was soon apparent--as, having, +to our sorrow, to part at the inn door right and left, we talked of +meeting again at one or the other's home: a delicate disinclination to +irreverently 'make sure' of the new joy; a 'listening fear,' as though +of a presiding good spirit that might revoke his gift if one stretched +out towards it with too greedy hands. 'Rather let us part and say +nought. You know where a letter will find me. If our last night was a +real thing, we shall meet again, never fear.' With some such words as +those it was that he bade us good-bye. + +Of course, letters found all three of us before a fortnight had gone +by, and in but a short time we found his home. There it is that George +should be seen. Away he is full of precious light, but home is his +setting. To Narcissus, who found it in that green period when all +youngsters take vehement vows of celibacy, and talk much of 'free love,' +all ignorant, one is in charity persuaded, of what they quite mean, that +home was certainly as great and lasting a revelation as the first hour +of 'Poetry's divine first finger-touch.' It was not that his own +home-life had been unhappy, for it was the reverse, and rich indeed in +great and sweet influences; but it was rather, I think, that the ideal +of a home is not so easily to be reached from that home in which one is +a child, where one is too apt to miss the whole in consideration of +one's own part in it, as from another on which we can look from the +outside. + +Our parents, even to the end, partake too much of the nature of +mythology; it always needs an effort to imagine them beings with quite +the same needs and dreams as ourselves. We rarely get a glimpse of +their poetry, for the very reason that we ourselves are factors in it, +and are, therefore, too apt to dwell on the less happy details of the +domestic life, details which one ray of their poetry would transfigure +as the sun transfigures the motes in his beam. Thus, in that green age I +spoke of, one's sickly vision can but see the dusty, world-worn side of +domesticity, the petty daily cares of living, the machinery, so to say, +of 'house and home.' But when one stands in another home, where these +are necessarily unseen by us, stands with the young husband, the +poetry-maker, how different it all seems. One sees the creation bloom +upon it; one ceases to blaspheme, and learns to bless. Later, when at +length one understands why it is sweeter to say 'wife' than +'sweetheart,' how even one may be reconciled to calling one's Daffodilia +'little mother'--because of the children, you know; it would never do +for them to say Daffodilia--then he will understand too how those petty +details, formerly so '_banal_,' are, after all, but notes in the music, +and what poetry can flicker, like its own blue flame, around even the +joint purchase of a frying-pan. + +That Narcissus ever understood this great old poetry he owes to George +Muncaster. In the very silence of his home one hears a singing--'There +lies the happiest land.' It was one of his own quaint touches that the +first night we found his nest, after the maid had given us admission, +there should be no one to welcome us into the bright little parlour but +a wee boy of four, standing in the doorway like a robin that has hopped +on to one's window-sill. But with what a dear grace did the little chap +hold out his hand and bid us good evening, and turn his little morsel of +a bird's tongue round our names; to be backed at once by a ring of +laughter from the hidden 'prompter' thereupon revealed. O happy, happy +home! may God for ever smile upon you! There should be a special grace +for happy homes. George's set us 'collecting' such, with results +undreamed of by youthful cynic. Take courage, Reader, if haply you stand +with hesitating toe above the fatal plunge. Fear not, you can swim if +you will. Of course, you must take care that your joint poetry-maker be +such a one as George's. One must not seem to forget the loving wife who +made such dreaming as his possible. He did not; and, indeed, had you +told him of his happiness, he would but have turned to her with a smile +that said, 'All of thee, my love'; while, did one ask of this and that, +how quickly 'Yes! that was George's idea,' laughed along her lips. + +While we sat talking that first evening, there suddenly came three +cries, as of three little heads straining out of a nest, for 'Father'; +and obedient, with a laugh, he left us. This, we soon learnt, was a part +of the sweet evening ritual of home. After mother's more practical +service had been rendered the little ones, and they were cosily 'tucked +in,' then came 'father's turn,' which consisted of his sitting by their +bedside--Owen and Geoffrey on one hand, and little queen Phyllis, +maidenlike in solitary cot, on the other--and crooning to them a little +evening song. In the dark, too, I should say, for it was one of his wise +provisions that they should be saved from ever fearing that; and that, +whenever they awoke to find it round them in the middle of the night, it +should bring them no other association but 'father's voice.' + +A quaint recitative of his own, which he generally contrived to vary +each night, was the song, a loving croon of sleep and rest. The +brotherhood of rest, one might name his theme for grown-up folk; as in +the morning, we afterwards learnt, he is wont to sing them another +little song of the brotherhood of work; the aim of his whole beautiful +effort for them being to fill their hearts with a sense of the +brotherhood of all living things--flowers, butterflies, bees and birds, +the milk-boy, the policeman, the man at the crossing, the grocer's pony, +all within the circle of their little lives, as living and working in +one great _camaraderie_. Sometimes he would extemporise a little rhyme +for them, filling it out with his clear, happy voice, and that tender +pantomime that comes so naturally to a man who not merely loves +children--for who is there that does not?--but one born with the +instinct for intercourse with them. To those not so born it is as +difficult to enter into the life and prattle of birds. I have once or +twice crept outside the bedroom door when neither children nor George +thought of eavesdroppers, and the following little songs are impressions +from memory of his. You must imagine them chanted by a voice full of the +infinite tenderness of fatherhood, and even then you will but dimly +realise the music they have as he sings them. I run the risk of his +forgiving my printing them here:-- + + MORNING SONG. + + Morning comes to little eyes, + Wakens birds and butterflies, + Bids the flower uplift his head, + Calls the whole round world from bed. + Up jump Geoffrey! + Up jump Owen!! + Then up jump Phyllis!!! + And father's going! + + EVENING SONG. + + The sun is weary, for he ran + So far and fast to-day; + The birds are weary, for who sang + So many songs as they? + The bees and butterflies at last + Are tired out; for just think, too, + How many gardens through the day + Their little wings have fluttered through. + + And so, as all tired people do, + They've gone to lay their sleepy heads + Deep, deep in warm and happy beds. + The sun has shut his golden eye, + And gone to sleep beneath the sky; + The birds, and butterflies, and bees + Have all crept into flowers and trees, + And all lie quiet, still as mice, + Till morning comes, like father's voice. + So Phyllis, Owen, Geoffrey, you + Must sleep away till morning too; + Close little eyes, lie down little heads, + And sleep, sleep, sleep in happy beds. + +As the Reader has not been afflicted with a great deal of verse in these +pages, I shall also venture to copy here another little song which, as +his brains have grown older, George has been fond of singing to them at +bedtime, and with which the Reader is not likely to have enjoyed a +previous acquaintance:-- + + REST.[1] + + When the Sun and the Golden Day + Hand in hand are gone away, + At your door shall Sleep and Night + Come and knock in the fair twilight; + Let them in, twin travellers blest; + Each shall be an honoured guest, + And give you rest. + + They shall tell of the stars and moon, + And their lips shall move to a glad sweet tune, + Till upon your cool, white bed + Fall at last your nodding head; + Then in dreamland fair and blest, + Farther off than East and West, + They give you rest. + + Night and Sleep, that goodly twain, + Tho' they go, shall come again; + When your work and play are done, + And the Sun and Day are gone + Hand in hand thro' the scarlet West, + Each shall come, an honoured guest, + And bring you rest. + + Watching at your window-sill, + If upon the Eastern hill + Sun and Day come back no more, + They shall lead you from the door + To their kingdom calm and blest, + Farther off than East or West, + And give you rest. + +Arriving down to breakfast earlier than expected next morning, we +discovered George busy at some more of his loving ingenuity. He half +blushed in his shy way, but went on writing in this wise, with chalk, +upon a small blackboard: '_Thursday_--_Thor's-day_--_Jack the Giant +Killer's day_'. Then, in one corner of the board, a sun was rising with +a merry face and flaming locks, and beneath him was written, +'_Phoebus-Apollo';_ while in the other corner was a setting moon, '_Lady +Cynthia_. There were other quaint matters, too, though they have escaped +my memory; but these hints are sufficient to indicate George's morning +occupation. Thus he endeavoured to implant in the young minds he felt so +sacred a trust an ever-present impression of the full significance of +life in every one of its details. The days of the week should mean for +them what they did mean, should come with a veritable personality, such +as the sun and the moon gained for them by thus having actual names, +like friends and playfellows. This Thor's-day was an especially great +day for them; for, in the evening, when George had returned from +business, and there was yet an hour to bedtime, they would come round +him to hear one of the adventures of the great Thor--adventures which he +had already contrived, he laughingly told us, to go on spinning out of +the Edda through no less than the Thursdays of two years. Certainly his +ingenuity of economy with his materials was no little marvel, and he +confessed to often being at his wits' end. For Thursday night was not +alone starred with stories; every night there was one to tell; sometimes +an incident of his day in town, which he would dress up with the +imaginative instinct of a born teller of fairy-tales. He had a knack, +too, of spreading one story over several days which would be invaluable +to a serial writer. I remember one simple instance of his device. + +He sat in one of those great cane nursing chairs, Phyllis on one knee, +Owen on the other, and Geoffrey perched in the hollow space in the back +of the chair, leaning over his shoulder, all as solemn as a court +awaiting judgment. George begins with a preliminary glance behind at +Geoffrey: 'Happy there, my boy? That's right. Well, there was once a +beautiful garden.' + +'Yes-s-s-s,' go the three solemn young heads. + +'And it was full of the most wonderful things.' + +'Yes-s-s-s.' + +'Great trees, so green, for the birds to hide and sing in; and flowers +so fair and sweet that the bees said that, in all their flying hither +and thither, they had never yet found any so full of honey in all the +world. And the birds, too, what songs they knew; and the butterflies, +were there ever any so bright and many-coloured?' etc., etc. + +'But the most wonderful thing about the garden was that everything in it +had a wonderful story to tell.' + +'Yes-s-s s.' + +'The birds, and bees, and butterflies, even the trees and flowers, each +knew a wonderful fairy-tale.' + +'Oh-h-h-h.' + +'But of all in the garden the grasshopper knew the most. He had been a +great traveller, for he had such long legs.' + +Again a still deeper murmur of breathless interest. + +'Now, would you like to hear what the grasshopper had to tell?' + +'Oh, yes-s-s-s.' + +'Well, you shall--to-morrow night!' + +So off his knees they went, as he rose with a merry, loving laugh, and +kissed away the long sighs of disappointment, and sent them to bed, +agog for all the morrow's night should reveal. + +Need one say that the children were not the only disappointed listeners? +Besides, they have long since known all the wonderful tale, whereas one +of the poorer grown-up still wonders wistfully what that grasshopper who +was so great a traveller, and had such long legs, had to tell. + +But I had better cease. Were I sure that the Reader was seeing what I am +seeing, hearing as I, I should not fear; but how can I be sure of that? +Had I the pen which that same George will persist in keeping for his +letters, I should venture to delight the Reader with more of his story. +One underhand hope of mine, however, for these poor hints is, that they +may by their very imperfection arouse him to give the world 'the true +story' of a happy home. Narcissus repeatedly threatened that, if he did +not take pen in hand, he would some day 'make copy' of him; and now I +have done it instead. Moreover, I shall further presume on his +forbearance by concluding with a quotation from one of his letters that +came to me but a few months back:-- + +'You know how deeply exercised the little ones are on the subject of +death, and how I had answered their curiosity by the story that after +death all things turn into flowers. Well, what should startle the wife's +ears the other day but "Mother, I wish you would die." "O why, my dear?" +"Because I should so like to water you!" was the delicious explanation. +The theory has, moreover, been called to stand at the bar of experience, +for a week or two ago one of Phyllis' goldfish died. There were tears at +first, of course, but they suddenly dried up as Geoffrey, in his +reflective way, wondered "what flower it would come to." Here was a +dilemma. One had never thought of such contingencies. But, of course, it +was soon solved. "What flower would you like it to be, my boy?" I asked. +"A poppy!" he answered; and after consultation, "a poppy!" agreed the +others. So a poppy it is to be. A visit to the seedsman's procured the +necessary surreptitious poppy seed; and so now poor Sir Goldfish sleeps +with the seed of sleep in his mouth, and the children watch his grave +day by day, breathless for his resplendent resurrection. Will you write +us an epitaph?' + +Ariel forgive me! Here is what I sent: + + 'Five inches deep Sir Goldfish lies; + Here last September was he laid; + Poppies these, that were his eyes, + Of fish-bones are these blue-bells made; + His fins of gold that to and fro + Waved and waved so long ago, + Still as petals wave and wave + To and fro above his grave. + Hearken, too! for so his knell + Tolls all day each tiny bell.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: From a tiny privately-printed volume of deliciously +original lyrics by Mr. R.K. Leather, since republished by Mr. Fisher +Unwin, 1890, and at present published by Mr. John Lane.] + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THAT THIRTEENTH MAID + + 'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'-- + _Merchant of Venice_. + + +It occurs to me here to wonder whether there can be any reader +ungrateful enough to ask with grumbling voice, 'What of the book-bills? +The head-line has been the sole mention of them now for many pages; and +in the last chapter, where a book was referred to, the writer was +perverse enough to choose one that never belonged to Narcissus at all.' +To which I would venture to make humble rejoinder--Well, Goodman Reader, +and what did you expect? Was it accounts, with all their thrilling +details, with totals, 'less discount,' and facsimiles of the receipt +stamps? Take another look at our first chapter. I promised nothing of +the sort there, I am sure. I promised simply to attempt for you the +delineation of a personality which has had for all who came into contact +with it enduring charm, in hope that, though at second-hand, you might +have some pleasure of it also; and I proposed to do this mainly from the +hints of documents which really are more significant than any letters or +other writings could be, for the reason that they are of necessity so +unconscious. I certainly had no intention of burdening you with the +original data, any more than, should you accept the offer I made, also +in that chapter, and entrust me with your private ledger for +biographical purposes, I would think of printing it _in extenso_, and +calling it a biography; though I should feel justified, after the varied +story had been deduced and written out, in calling the product, +metaphorical wise, 'The private ledger of Johannes Browne, Esquire'--a +title which, by the way, is copyright and duly 'entered.' Such was my +attempt, and I maintain that I have so far kept my word. Because whole +shelves have been disposed of in a line, and a ninepenny 'Canterbury' +has rustled out into pages, you have no right to complain, for that is +but the fashion of life, as I have endeavoured to show. And let me say +in passing that that said copy of Mr. Rhys's Whitman, though it could +not manifestly appear in his book-bills, does at the present moment rest +upon his shelf--'a moment's monument.' + +Perhaps it would be well, before proceeding with this present 'place in +the story,' to set out with a statement of the various 'authorities' for +it; as, all this being veritable history, perhaps one should. But then, +Reader, here again I should have to catalogue quite a small library. +However, I will enumerate a few of the more significant ones. + +'Swinburne's _Tristram of Lyonesse_, 9/-, less dis., 6/9.' + +All that this great poem of 'springtide passion with its fire and +flowers' meant to Narcissus and his 'Thirteenth Maid' in the morning of +their love, those that have loved too will hardly need telling, while +those who have not could never understand, though I spake with the +tongue of the poet himself. In this particular copy, which, I need +hardly say, does not rest upon N.'s shelves, but on another in a sweet +little bedchamber, there is a tender inscription and a sonnet which +aimed at acknowledging how the hearts of those young lovers had gone out +to that poet 'with mouth of gold and morning in his eyes.' The latter I +have begged leave to copy here:-- + + 'Dear Heart, what thing may symbolise for us + A love like ours; what gift, whate'er it be, + Hold more significance 'twixt thee and me + Than paltry words a truth miraculous, + Or the poor signs that in astronomy + Tell giant splendours in their gleaming might? + Yet love would still give such, as in delight + To mock their impotence--so this for thee. + + 'This book for thee; our sweetest honeycomb + Of lovesome thought and passion-hearted rhyme, + Builded of gold, and kisses, and desire, + By that wild poet whom so many a time + Our hungering lips have blessed, until a fire + Burnt speech up, and the wordless hour had come.' + +'Meredith's _Richard Feverel_, 6/-, less dis., 4/6.' + +Narcissus was never weary of reading those two wonderful chapters where +Lucy and Richard meet, and he used to say that some day he would beg +leave from Mr. Meredith to reprint at his own charges just those two +chapters, to distribute to all true lovers in the kingdom. It would be +hard to say how often he and his maid had read them aloud together, with +amorous punctuation--caresses for commas, and kisses for full-stops. + +'Morris' _Sigurd the Volsung_, 12/-, less dis., 9/-.' + +This book they loved when their love had grown to have more of earnest +purpose in it, and its first hysteric ecstasy had passed into the more +solemn ardours of the love that goes not with spring, but loves even +unto the winter and beyond. It is marked all through in pencil by +Narcissus; but on one page, where it opens easily, there are written +initials, in a woman's hand, against this great passage:-- + + 'She said: "Thou shalt never unsay it, and thy heart is mine indeed: + Thou shalt bear thy love in thy bosom as thou helpest the earth-folk's + need: + Thou shalt wake to it dawning by dawning; thou shalt sleep and it shall + not be strange: + There is none shall thrust between us till our earthly lives shall + change. + Ah, my love shall fare as a banner in the hand of thy renown, + In the arms of thy fame accomplished shall it lie when we lay us adown. + O deathless fame of Sigurd! O glory of my lord! + O birth of the happy Brynhild to the measureless reward!" + So they sat as the day grew dimmer, and they looked on days to come, + And the fair tale speeding onward, and the glories of their home; + And they saw their crowned children and the kindred of the kings, + And deeds in the world arising and the day of better things: + All the earthly exaltation, till their pomp of life should be passed, + And soft on the bosom of God their love should be laid at the last.' + +And on the page facing this lies a pressed flower--there used to be +two--guarded by these tender rhymes:-- + + 'Whoe'er shall read this mighty song + In some forthcoming evensong, + We pray thee guard these simple flowers, + For, gentle Reader, they are "ours."' + +But ill has some 'gentle Reader' attended to the behest, for, as I said, +but one of the flowers remains. One is lost--and Narcissus has gone +away. This inscription is but one of many such scattered here and there +through his books, for he had a great facility in such minor graces, as +he had a neat hand at tying a bow. I don't think he ever sent a box of +flowers without his fertility serving him with some rose-leaf fancy to +accompany them; and on birthdays and all red-letter days he was always +to be counted upon for an appropriate rhyme. If his art served no other +purpose, his friend would be grateful to him for that alone, for many +great days would have gone without their 'white stone' but for him; +when, for instance, J.A.W. took that brave plunge of his, which has +since so abundantly justified him and more than fulfilled prophecy; or +when Samuel Dale took that bolder, namely a wife, he being a +philosopher--incidents, Reader, on which I long so to digress, and for +which, if you could only know beforehand, you would, I am sure, give me +freest hand. But beautiful stories both, I may not tell of you here; +though if the Reader and I ever spend together those hinted nights at +the 'Mermaid,' I then may. + +But to return. I said above that if I were to enumerate all the books, +so to say, 'implicated' in the love of Narcissus and his Thirteenth +Maid, I should have to catalogue quite a small library. I forgot for the +moment what literal truth I was writing, for it was indeed in quite a +large library that they first met. In 'our town' there is, Reader, an +old-world institution, which, I think, you would well like transported +to yours, a quaint subscription library 'established' ever so long ago, +full of wonderful nooks and corners, where (of course, if you are a +member) one is sure almost at any time of the day of a solitary corner +for a dream. It is a sweet provision, too, that it is managed by ladies, +whom you may, if you can, image to yourself as the Hesperides; for there +are three of them; and may not the innumerable galleries and spiral +staircases, serried with countless shelves, clustered thick with tome on +tome, figure the great tree, with its many branches and its wonderful +gold fruit--the tree of knowledge? The absence of the dragon from the +similitude is as well, don't you think? + +Books, of all things, should be tended by reverent hands; and, to my +mind, the perfunctory in things ecclesiastical is hardly more +distressing than the service of books as conducted in many great +libraries. One feels that the _librarii_ should be a sacred order, +nearly allied to the monastic, refined by varying steps of initiation, +and certainly celibates. They should give out their books as the priest +his sacrament, should wear sacred vestments, and bear about with them +the priestlike _aura_, as of divine incarnations of the great spirit of +Truth and Art in whose temples they are ministrants. The next step to +this ideal ministry is to have our books given out to us by women. +Though they may understand them not, they handle them with gentle +courtesy, and are certainly in every way to be preferred to the youthful +freckled monster with red spines upon his head, and nailed boots, 'the +work of the Cyclops,' upon his feet, whose physiognomy is contorted by +cinnamon-balls at the very moment he carries in his arms some great +Golden-lips or gentle Silver-tongue. What good sweet women there are, +too, who would bless heaven for the occupation! + +Well, as I said, we in that particular library are more fortunate, and +two of the 'subscribers,' at least, did at one time express their +appreciation of its privileges by a daily dream among its shelves. One +day--had Hercules been there overnight?--we missed one of our fair +attendants. Was it Aegle, Arethusa, or Hesperia? Narcissus probably +knew. And on the next she was still missing; nor on the third had she +returned; but lo! there was another in her stead--and on her Narcissus +bent his gaze, according to wont. A little maid, with noticeable eyes, +and the hair Rossetti loved to paint--called Hesper, 'by many,' said +Narcissus, one day long after, solemnly quoting the Vita Nuova, 'who +know not wherefore.' + +'Why! do _you_ know?' I asked. + +'Yes!' And then, for the first time, he had told me the story I have now +to tell again. He had, meanwhile, rather surprised me by little touches +of intimate observation of her which he occasionally let slip--as, for +instance, 'Have you noticed her forehead? It has a fine distinction of +form; is pure ivory, surely; and you should watch how deliciously her +hair springs out of it, like little wavy threads of "old gold" set in +the ivory by some cunning artist.' + +I had just looked at him and wondered a moment. But such attentive +regard was hardly matter for surprise in his case; and, moreover, I +always tried to avoid the subject of women with him, for it was the one +on which alone there was danger of our disagreeing. It was the only one +in which he seemed to show signs of cruelty in his disposition, though +it was, I well know, but a thoughtless cruelty; and in my heart I always +felt that he was too right-minded and noble in the other great matters +of life not to come right on that too when 'the hour had struck.' +Meanwhile, he had a way of classifying amours by the number of verses +inspired--as, 'Heigho! it's all over; but never mind, I got two sonnets +out of her'--which seemed to me an exhibition of the worst side of his +artist disposition, and which--well, Reader, jarred much on one who +already knew what a true love meant. It was, however, I could see, quite +unconscious; and I tried hard not to be intolerant towards him, because +fortune had blessed me with an earlier illumination. + +Pray, go not away with the misconception that Narcissus was ever base to +a woman. No! he left that to Circe's hogs, and the one temptation he +ever had towards it he turned into a shining salvation. No! he had +nothing worse than the sins of the young egoist to answer for, though he +afterwards came to feel those pitiful and mean enough. + +Another noticeable feature of Hesper's face was an ever-present +sadness--not as of a dull grief, but as of some shining sorrow, a +quality which gave her face much arresting interest. It seemed one +great, rich tear. One loved to dwell upon it as upon those intense +stretches of evening sky when the day yearns through half-shut eyelids +in the west. One continually wondered what story it meant, for some it +must mean. + +Watching her thus quietly, day by day, it seemed to me that as the weeks +from her first coming went by, this sadness deepened; and I could not +forbear one day questioning the elder Hesperides about her, thus +bringing upon myself a revelation I had little expected. For, said she, +'she was glad I had spoken to her, for she had long wished to ask me to +use my influence with my friend, that he might cease paying Hesper +attentions which he could not mean in earnest, but which she knew were +already causing Hesper to be fond of him. Having become friendly with +her, she had found out her secret and remonstrated with her, with the +result that she had avoided Narcissus for some time, but not without +much misery to herself, over which she was continually brooding.' + +All this was an utter surprise, and a saddening one; for I had grown to +feel much interest in the girl, and had been especially pleased by all +absence of the flighty tendencies with which too many girls in public +service tempt men to their own destruction. She had seemed to me to bear +herself with a maidenly self-respect that spoke of no little grace of +breeding. She had two very strong claims on one's regard. She was +evidently a woman, in the deep, tragic sense of that word, and a lady in +the only true sense of that. The thought of a life so rich in womanly +promise becoming but another of the idle playthings of Narcissus filled +me with something akin to rage, and I was not long in saying some strong +words to him. Not that I feared for her the coarse 'ruin' the world +alone thinks of. Is that the worst that can befall woman? What of the +spiritual deflowering, of which the bodily is but a symbol? If the first +fine bloom of the soul has gone, if the dream that is only dreamed once +has grown up in the imagination and been once given, the mere chastity +of the body is a lie, and whatever its fecundity, the soul has nought +but sterility to give to another. It is not those kisses of the +lips--kisses that one forgets as one forgets the roses we smelt last +year--which profane; they but soil the vessel of the sacrament, and it +is the sacrament itself which those consuming spirit-kisses, which burn +but through the eyes, may desecrate. It is strange that man should have +so long taken the precisely opposite attitude in this matter, caring +only for the observation of the vessel, and apparently dreaming not of +any other possible approach to the sanctities. Probably, however, his +care has not been of sanctities at all. Indeed, most have, doubtless, +little suspicion of the existence of such, and the symbol has been and +is but a selfish superstition amongst them--woman, a symbol whose +meaning is forgotten, but still the object of an ignorant veneration, +not unrelated to the preservation of game. + +Narcissus took my remonstrance a little flippantly, I thought, evidently +feeling that too much had been made out of very little; for he averred +that his 'attentions' to Hesper had been of the slightest character, +hardly more than occasional looks and whispers, which, from her cold +reception of them, he had felt were more distasteful to her than +otherwise. He had indeed, he said, ceased even these the last few days, +as her reserve always made him feel foolish, as a man fondling a fair +face in his dream wakes on a sudden to find that he is but grimacing at +the air. This reassured me, and I felt little further anxiety. However, +this security only proved how little I really understood the weak side +of my friend. I had not realised how much he really was Narcissus, and +how dear to him was a new mirror. My speaking to him was the one wrong +course possible to be taken. Instead of confirming his growing intention +of indifference, it had, as might have been foreseen, the directly +opposite effect; and from the moment of his learning that Hesper +secretly loved him, she at once became invested with a new glamour, and +grew daily more and more the forbidden fascination few can resist. + +I did not learn this for many months. Meanwhile Narcissus chose to +deceive me for the first and only time. At last he told me all; and how +different was his manner of telling it from his former gay relations of +conquest. One needed not to hear the words to see he was unveiling a +sacred thing, a holiness so white and hidden, the most reverent word +seemed a profanation; and, as he laboured for the least soiled wherein +to enfold the revelation, his soul seemed as a maid torn with the +blushing tremors of a new knowledge. Men only speak so after great and +wonderful travail, and by that token I knew Narcissus loved at last. It +had seemed unlikely ground from which love had first sprung forth, that +of a self-worship that could forgo no slightest indulgence--but thence +indeed it had come. The silent service my words had given him to know +that Hesper's heart was offering to him was not enough; he must hear it +articulate, his nostrils craved an actual incense. To gain this he must +deceive two--his friend, and her whose poor face would kindle with +hectic hope, at the false words he must say for the true words he _must_ +hear. It was pitifully mean; but whom has not his own hidden lust made +to crawl like a thief, afraid of a shadow, in his own house? Narcissus' +young lust was himself, and Moloch knew no more ruthless hunger than +burns in such. Of course, it did not present itself quite nakedly to +him; he persuaded himself there could be little harm--he meant none. + +And so, instead of avoiding Hesper, he sought her the more persistently, +and by some means so far wooed her from her reticence as to win her +consent to a walk together one autumn afternoon. How little do we know +the measure of our own proposing! That walk was to be the most fateful +his feet had ever trodden through field and wood, yet it seemed the most +accidental of gallantries. A little town-maid, with a romantic passion +for 'us'; it would be interesting to watch the child; it would be like +giving her a day's holiday, so much sunshine 'in our presence.' And so +on. But what an entirely different complexion was the whole thing +beginning to take before they had walked a mile. Behind the flippancy +one had gone to meet were surely the growing features of a solemnity. +Why, the child was a woman indeed; she could talk, she had brains, +ideas--and, Lord bless us, Theories! She had that 'excellent thing in +woman,' not only a voice, which she had, too, but character. Narcissus +began to loose his regal robes, and from being merely courteously to be +genuinely interested. Why, she was a discovery! As they walked on, her +genuine delight in the autumnal nature, the real imaginative appeal it +had for her, was another surprise. She had, evidently, a deep poetry in +her disposition, rarest of all female endowments. In a surprisingly few +minutes from the beginning of their walk he found himself taking that +'little child' with extreme seriousness, and wondering many 'whethers.' + +They walked out again, and yet again, and Narcissus' first impressions +deepened. He had his theories, too; and, surely, here was the woman! He +was not in love--at least, not with her, but with her fitness for his +theory. + +They sat by a solitary woodside, beneath a great elm tree. The hour was +full of magic, for though the sun had set, the smile of her day's joy +with him had not yet faded from the face of earth. It was the hour +vulgarised in drawing-room ballads as the 'gloaming.' They sat very near +to each other; he held her hand, toying with it; and now and again their +eyes met with the look that flutters before flight, that says, 'Dare I +give thee all? Dare I throw my eyes on thine as I would throw myself on +thee?' And then, at last, came the inevitable moment when the eyes of +each seem to cry 'O yes!' to the other, and the gates fly back; all the +hidden light springs forth, the woods swim round, and the lips meet with +a strange shock, while the eyes of the spirit close in a lapping dream +of great peace. + +If you are not ready to play the man, beware of a kiss such as the lips +of little Hesper, that never knew to kiss before, pressed upon the mouth +of Narcissus. It sent a chill shudder through him, though it was so +sweet, for he could feel her whole life surging behind it; and was the +kiss he had given her for it such a kiss as that? But he had spoken much +to her of his ideas of marriage; she knew he was sworn for ever against +that. She must know the kiss had no such meaning; for, besides, did she +not scorn the soiled 'tie' also? Were not their theories at one in that? +He would be doing her no wrong; it was her own desire. Yet his kiss did +mean more than he could have imagined it meaning a week before. She had +grown to be genuinely desirable. If love tarried, passion was +awake--that dangerous passion, too, to which the intellect has added its +intoxication, and that is, so to say, legitimised by an 'idea.' + +Her woman's intuition read the silence and answered to his thought. +'Have no fear,' she said, with the deep deliberation of passion; 'I +love you with my whole life, but I shall never burden you, Narcissus. +Love me as long as you can, I shall be content; and when the end comes, +though another woman takes you, I shall not hinder.' + +O great girl-soul! What a poltroon, indeed, was Narcissus beside you at +that moment. You ready to stake your life on the throw, he temporising +and bargaining as over the terms of a lease. Surely, if he could for one +moment have seen himself in the light of your greatness, he had been +crushed beneath the misery of his own meanness. But as yet he had no +such vision; his one thought was, 'She will do it! will she draw back?' +and the feeble warnings he was obliged to utter to keep his own terms, +by assuring his conscience of 'her free-will,' were they not +half-fearfully whispered, and with an inward haste, lest they should +give her pause? 'But the world, my dear--think!' 'It will have cruel +names for thee.' 'It will make thee outcast--think!' + +'I know all,' she had answered; 'but I love you, and two years of your +love would pay for all. There is no world for me but you. Till to-night +I have never lived at all, and when you go I shall be as dead. The world +cannot hurt such a one.' + +Ah me, it was a wild, sweet dream for both of them, one the woman's, one +the poet's, of a 'sweet impossible' taking flesh! For, do not let us +blame Narcissus overmuch. He was utterly sincere; he meant no wrong. He +but dreamed of following a creed to which his reason had long given a +hopeless assent. In a more kindly-organised community he might have +followed it, and all have been well; but the world has to be dealt with +as one finds it, and we must get sad answers to many a fair calculation +if we 'state' it wrongly in the equation. That there is one law for the +male and another for the female had not as yet vitally entered into his +considerations. He was too dizzy with the dream, or he must have seen +what an unequal bargain he was about to drive. + +At last he did awake, and saw it all; and in a burning shame went to +Hesper, and told her that it must not be. + +Her answer was unconsciously the most subtly dangerous she could have +chosen: 'If I like to give myself to you, why should you not take me? It +is of my own free-will. My eyes are open.' It was his very thought put +into words, and by her. For a moment he wavered--who could blame him? +'Am I my brother's keeper?' + +'Yes! a thousand times yes!' cried his soul; for he was awake now, and +he had come to see the dream as it was, and to shudder at himself as he +had well-nigh been, just as one shudders at the thought of a precipice +barely escaped. In that moment, too, the idea of her love in all its +divineness burst upon him. Here was a heart capable of a great tragic +love like the loves of old he read of and whimpered for in sonnets, and +what had he offered in exchange? A poor, philosophical compromise, +compounded of pessimism and desire, in which a man should have all to +gain and nothing to lose, for + + 'The light, light love he has wings to fly + At suspicion of a bond.' + +'I would I did love her,' his heart was crying as he went away. 'Could I +love her?' was his next thought. 'Do I love her?'--but that is a +question that always needs longer than one day to answer. + +Already he was as much in love with her as most men when they take unto +themselves wives. She was desirable--he had pleasure in her presence. He +had that half of love which commonly passes for all--the passion; but he +lacked the additional incentives which nerve the common man to face that +fear which seems well-nigh as universal as the fear of death, I mean the +fear of marriage--life's two fears: that is, he had no desire to +increase his worldly possessions by annexing a dowry, or ambition of +settling down and procuring a wife as part of his establishment. After +all, how full of bachelors the world would be if it were not for these +motives: for the one other motive to a true marriage, the other half of +love, however one names it, is it not a four-leaved clover indeed? +Narcissus was happily poor enough to be above those motives, even had +Hesper been anything but poor too; and if he was to marry her, it would +be because he was capable of loving her with that perfect love which, of +course, has alone right to the sacred name, that which cannot take all +and give nought, but which rather holds as watchword that _to love is +better than to be loved_. + +Who shall hope to express the mystery? Yet, is not thus much true, that, +if it must be allowed to the cynic that love rises in self, it yet has +its zenith and setting in another--in woman as in man? Two meet, and +passion, the joy of the selfish part of each, is born; shall love follow +depends on whether they have a particular grace of nature, love being +the thanksgiving of the unselfish part for the boon granted to the +other. The common nature snatches the joy and forgets the giver, but the +finer never forgets, and deems life but a poor service for a gift so +rare; and, though passion be long since passed, love keeps holy an +eternal memory. + + 'Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords + with might; + Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, pass'd in music + out of sight.' + +Since the time of fairy-tales Love has had a way of coming in the +disguise of Duty. What is the story of Beauty and the Beast but an +allegory of true love? We take this maid to be our wedded wife, for her +sake it perhaps seems at the time. She is sweet and beautiful and to be +desired; but, all the same, we had rather shake the loose leg of +bachelordom, if it might be. However it be, so we take her, or maybe it +is she takes us, with a feeling of martyrdom; but lo! when we are home +together, what wonderful new lights are these beginning to ray about +her, as though she had up till now kept a star hidden in her bosom. What +is this new morning strength and peace in our life? Why, we thought it +was but Thestylis, and lo! it is Diana after all. For the Thirteenth +Maid or the Thirteenth Man, both alike, rarely come as we had expected. +There seems no fitness in their arrival. It seems so ridiculously +accidental, as I suppose the hour of death, whenever it comes, will +seem. One had expected some high calm prelude of preparation, ending in +a festival of choice, like an Indian prince's, when the maids of the +land pass before him and he makes deliberate selection of the fateful +She. But, instead, we are hurrying among our day's business, maybe, our +last thought of her; we turn a corner, and suddenly she is before us. Or +perhaps, as it fell with Narcissus, we have tried many loves that proved +but passions; we have just buried the last, and are mournfully leaving +its grave, determined to seek no further, to abjure bright eyes, at +least for a long while, when lo! on a sudden a little maid is in our +path holding out some sweet modest flowers. The maid has a sweet mouth, +too, and, the old Adam being stronger than our infant resolution, we +smell the flowers and kiss the mouth--to find arms that somehow, we know +not why, are clinging as for life about us. Let us beware how we shake +them off, for thus it is decreed shall a man meet her to have missed +whom were to have missed all. Youth, like that faithless generation in +the Scriptures, always craveth after a sign, but rarely shall one be +given. It can only be known whether a man be worthy of Love by the way +in which he looks upon Duty. Rachel often comes in the grey cloak of +Leah. It rests with the man's heart whether he shall know her beneath +the disguise; no other divining-rod shall aid him. If it be as +Bassanio's, brave to 'give and hazard all he hath,' let him not fear to +pass the seeming gold, the seeming silver, to choose the seeming lead. +'Why, _that's_ the lady,' thou poor magnificent Morocco. Nor shall the +gold fail, for her heart is that, and for silver thou shalt have those +'silent silver lights undreamed of' of face and soul. + +These are but scattered hints of the story of Narcissus' love as he told +it me at last, in broken, struggling words, but with a light in his face +one power alone could set there. + +When he came to the end, and to all that little Hesper had proved to +him, all the strength and illumination she had brought him, he fairly +broke down and sobbed, as one may in a brother's arms. For, of course, +he had come out of the ordeal a man; and Hesper had consented to be his +wife. Often she had dreamed as he had passed her by with such heedless +air: 'If I love him so, can it be that my love shall have no power to +make him mine, somehow, some day? Can I call to him so within my soul +and he not hear? Can I wait and he not come?' And her love had been +strong, strong as a destiny; her voice had reached him, for it was the +voice of God. + +When I next saw her, what a strange brightness shone in her face, what a +new beauty was there! Ah, Love, the great transfigurer! And why, too, +was it that his friends began to be dissatisfied with their old +photographs of Narcissus, though they had been taken but six months +before? There seemed something lacking in the photograph, they said. +Yes, there was; but the face had lacked it too. What was the new +thing--'grip' was it, joy, peace? Yes, all three, but more besides, and +Narcissus had but one name for all. It was Hesper. + +Strange, too, that in spite of promises we never received a new one. +Narcissus, who used to be so punctual with such a request. Perhaps it +was because he had broken his looking-glass. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +'IN VISHNU-LAND WHAT AVATAR?' + +'If I love you for a year I shall love you for ever,' Narcissus had said +to his Thirteenth Maid. He did love her so long, and yet he has gone +away. Do you remember your _Les Misérables_, that early chapter where +Valjean robs the child of his florin so soon after that great +illuminating change of heart and mind had come to him? Well, still more +important, do you remember the clue Hugo gives us to aberration? There +is comfort and strength for so many a heart-breaking failure there. It +was the old impetus, we are told, that was as yet too strong for the new +control; the old instinct, too dark for the new light in the brain. It +takes every vessel some time to answer to its helm; with us, human +vessels, years, maybe. Have you never suddenly become sensitive of a +gracious touch in the air, and pondered it, to recognise that in some +half-unconscious act you had that moment been answering for the first +time the helm of an almost forgotten resolution? Ah me, blessed is it to +see the prow strongly sweeping up against the sky at last! + +'Send not a poet to London,' said Heine, and it was a true word. At +least, send him not till his thews are laced and his bones set. He may +miss somewhat, of course; there is no gain without a loss. He may be in +ignorance of the last _nuance_, and if he deserves fame he must gain it +unaided of the vulgar notoriety which, if he have a friend or two in the +new journalism, they will be so eager to bestow; but he will have kept +his soul intact, which, after all, is the main matter. It is sweet, +doubtless, to be one of those same mushroom-men, sweet to be placarded +as 'the new' this or that, to step for a day into the triumphal car of +newspaper renown, drawn by teams of willing paragraph-men--who, does it +never strike you? are but doing it all for hire, and earning their bread +by their bent necks. Yet for those to whom it is denied there is solid +comfort; for it is not fame, and, worse still, it is not life, 'tis but +to be 'a Bourbon in a crown of straws.' + +If one could only take poor foolish Cockneydom right away outside this +poor vainglorious city, and show them how the stars are smiling to +themselves above it, nudging each other, so to say, at the silly lights +that ape their shining--for such a little while! + +Yes, that is one danger of the poet in London, that he should come to +think himself 'somebody'; though, doubtless, in proportion as he is a +poet, the other danger will be the greater, that he should deem himself +'nobody.' Modest by nature, credulous of appearances, the noisy +pretensions of the hundred and one small celebrities, and the din of +their retainers this side and that, in comparison with his own +unattended course, what wonder if his heart sinks and he gives up the +game; how shall his little pipe, though it be of silver, hope to be +heard in this land of bassoons? To take London seriously is death both +to man and artist. Narcissus had sufficient success there to make this a +temptation, and he fell. He lost his hold of the great things of life, +he forgot the stars, he forgot his love, and what wonder that his art +sickened also. For a few months life was but a feverish clutch after +varied sensation, especially the dear tickle of applause; he caught the +facile atheistic flippancy of that poor creature, the 'modern young +man,' all-knowing and all-foolish, and he came very near losing his soul +in the nightmare. But he had too much ballast in him to go quite under, +and at last strength came, and he shook the weakness from him. Yet the +fall had been too far and too cruel for him to be happy again soon. He +had gone forth so confident in his new strength of manly love; and to +fall so, and almost without an effort! Who has not called upon the +mountains to cover him in such an hour of awakening, and who will +wonder that Narcissus dared not look upon the face of Hesper till +solitude had washed him clean, and bathed him in its healing oil? I +alone bade him good-bye. It was in this room wherein I am writing, the +study we had taken together, where still his books look down at me from +the shelves, and all the memorials of his young life remain. O _can_ it +have been but 'a phantom of false morning'? A Milton snatched up at the +last moment was the one book he took with him. + +From that night until this he has made but one sign--a little note which +Hesper has shown me, a sob and a cry to which even a love that had been +more deeply wronged could never have turned a deaf ear. Surely not +Hesper, for she has long forgiven him, knowing his weakness for what it +was. She and I sometimes sit here together in the evenings and talk of +him; and every echo in the corridor sets us listening, for he may be at +the other side of the world, or but the other side of the street--we +know so little of his fate. Where he is we know not; but if he still +lives, _what_ he is we have the assurance of faith. This time he has not +failed, we know. But why delay so long? + + +_November_ 1889--_May_ 1890. _November_ 1894. + + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Book-Bills of Narcissus +by Le Gallienne, Richard + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK-BILLS OF NARCISSUS *** + +***** This file should be named 10826-8.txt or 10826-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/8/2/10826/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Garrett Alley and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Book-Bills of Narcissus + An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne + +Author: Le Gallienne, Richard + +Release Date: January 25, 2004 [EBook #10826] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK-BILLS OF NARCISSUS *** + + + + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Garrett Alley and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h1>THE BOOK-BILLS OF NARCISSUS</h1> +<center> +AN ACCOUNT RENDERED BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE +</center> +<p> </p> +<center> +WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY ROBERT FOWLER +</center> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<center> +1895 +</center> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<hr> + + + +<a name="RULE4_1"><!-- RULE4 1 --></a> +<h2> + TABLE OF CHAPTERS +</h2> + +<pre> + I. <a href="#CH1">INTRODUCTORY</a> + II. <a href="#CH2">STILL INTRODUCTORY, BUT THIS TIME OF A GREATER THAN THE WRITER</a> + III. <a href="#CH3">IN WHICH NARCISSUS OPENS HIS 'GLADSTONE'</a> + IV. <a href="#CH4">ACCOUNTS RENDERED</a> + V. <a href="#CH5">AN IDYLL OF ALICE SUNSHINE, WHICH REALLY BELONGS TO THE LAST CHAPTER</a> + VI. <a href="#CH6">THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS</a> + VII. <a href="#CH7">THE CHILDREN OF APOLLO</a> +VIII. <a href="#CH8">GEORGE MUNCASTER</a> + IX. <a href="#CH9">THAT THIRTEENTH MAID</a> + X. <a href="#CH10">'IN VISHNU-LAND WHAT AVATAR?'</a> +</pre> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<a name="RULE4_2"><!-- RULE4 2 --></a> +<p><b>TO MILDRED</b></p> + +<pre> + Always thy book, too late acknowledged thine, + Now when thine eyes no earthly page may read; + Blinded with death, or blinded with the shine + Of love's own lore celestial. Small need, + Forsooth, for thee to read my earthly line, + That on immortal flowers of fancy feed; + What should my angel do to stoop to mine, + Flowers of decay of no immortal seed. + + Yet, love, if in thy lofty dwelling-place, + Higher than notes of any soaring bird, + Beyond the beam of any solar light, + A song of earth may scale the awful height, + And at thy heavenly window find thy face— + know my voice shall never fall unheard. +</pre> +<p> +<i>December 6th,</i> 1894. +</p> +<p> +NOTE.—<i>This third edition has been revised, and Chapter V. is entirely +new</i>. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH1"><!-- CH1 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER I +</h2> + +<p> +INTRODUCTORY—A WORD OF WISDOM, FOUND WRITTEN, LIKE THE MOST ANCIENT, ON +LEATHER +</p> +<p> +'Ah! old men's boots don't go there, sir!' said the bootmaker to me one +day, as he pointed to the toes of a pair I had just brought him for +mending. It was a significant observation, I thought; and as I went on +my way home, writing another such chronicle with every springing step, +it filled me with much reflection—largely of the nature of platitude, I +have little doubt: such reflection, Reader, as is even already, I doubt +less, rippling the surface of your mind with ever-widening circles. Yes! +you sigh with an air, it is in the unconscious autobiographies we are +every moment writing—not those we publish in two volumes and a +supplement—where the truth about us is hid. Truly it is a thought that +has 'thrilled dead bosoms,' I agree, but why be afraid of it for that, +Reader? Truth is not become a platitude only in our day. 'The Preacher' +knew it for such some considerable time ago, and yet he did not fear to +'write and set in order many proverbs.' +</p> +<p> +You have kept a diary for how many years? Thirty? dear me! But have you +kept your wine-bills? If you ever engage me to write that life, which, +of course, must some day be written—I wouldn't write it myself—don't +trouble about your diary. Lend me your private ledger. 'There the action +lies in his true nature.' +</p> +<p> +Yet I should hardly, perhaps, have evoked this particular corollary from +that man of leather's observation, if I had not chanced one evening to +come across those old book-bills of my friend Narcissus, about which I +have undertaken to write here, and been struck—well-nigh awe-struck—by +the wonderful manner in which there lay revealed in them the story of +the years over which they ran. To a stranger, I am sure, they would be +full of meaning; but to me, who lived so near him through so much of the +time, how truly pregnant does each briefest entry seem. +</p> +<p> +To Messrs. Oldbuck and Sons they, alas! often came to be but so many +accounts rendered; to you, being a philosopher, they would, as I have +said, mean more; but to me they mean all that great sunrise, the youth +of Narcissus. +</p> +<p> +Many modern poets, still young enough, are fond of telling us where +their youth lies buried. That of Narcissus—would ye know—rests among +these old accounts. Lo! I would perform an incantation. I throw these +old leaves into the <i>elixir vitae</i> of sweet memory, as Dr. Heidegger +that old rose into his wonderful crystal water. Have I power to make +Narcissus' rose to bloom again, so that you may know something of the +beauty it wore for us? I wonder. I would I had. I must try. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH2"><!-- CH2 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER II +</h2> + +<center> +STILL INTRODUCTORY, BUT THIS TIME OF A GREATER THAN THE WRITER +</center> +<p> +On the left-hand side of Tithefields, just as one turns out of Prince +Street, in a certain well-known Lancashire town, is the unobtrusive +bookshop of Mr. Samuel Dale. It must, however, be a very superficial +glance which does not discover in it something characteristic, +distinguishing it from other 'second-hand' shops of the same size and +style. +</p> +<p> +There are, alas! treatises on farriery in the window; geographies, +chemistries, and French grammars, on the trestles outside; for Samuel, +albeit so great a philosopher as indeed to have founded quite a school, +must nevertheless live. Those two cigars and that 'noggin' of whiskey, +which he purchases with such a fine solemnity as he and I go home +together for occasional symposia in his bachelor lodging—those, I say, +come not without sale of such treatises, such geographies, chemistries, +and French grammars. +</p> +<p> +But I am digressing. There is a distinguishing air, I but meant to say, +about the little shop. Looking closer, one generally finds that it comes +of a choice bit of old binding, or the quaint title-page of some tuneful +Elizabethan. It was an old Crashaw that first drew me inside; and, +though for some reason I did not buy it then, I bought it a year after, +because to it I owed the friendship of Samuel Dale. +</p> +<p> +And thus for three bright years that little shop came to be, for a daily +hour or so, a blessed palm-tree away from the burden and heat of the +noon, a holy place whither the money-changers and such as sold doves +might never come, let their clamour in the outer courts ring never so +loud. There in Samuel's talk did two weary-hearted bond-servants of +Egypt draw a breath of the Infinite into their lives of the desk; there +could they sit awhile by the eternal springs, and feel the beating of +the central heart. +</p> +<p> +So it happened one afternoon, about five years ago, that I dropped in +there according to wont. But Samuel was engaged with some one in that +dim corner at the far end of the shop, where his desk and arm-chair, +tripod of that new philosophy, stood: so I turned to a neighbouring +shelf to fill the time. At first I did not notice his visitor; but as, +in taking down this book and that, I had come nearer to the talkers, I +was struck with something familiar in the voice of the stranger. It came +upon me like an old song, and looking up—why, of course, it was +Narcissus! +</p> +<p> +The letter N does not make one of the initials on the Gladstone bag +which he had with him on that occasion, and which, filled with books, +lay open on the floor close by; nor does it appear on any of those +tobacco-pouches, cigar-cases, or handkerchiefs with which men beloved of +fair women are familiar. And Narcissus might, moreover, truthfully say +that <i>it</i> has never appeared upon any manner of stamped paper coming +under a certain notable Act. +</p> +<p> +To be less indulgent to a vice from which the Reader will, I fear, have +too frequent occasion to suffer in these pages, and for which he may +have a stronger term than digression, let me at once say that Narcissus +is but the name Love knew him by, Love and the Reader; for that name by +which he was known to the postman—and others—is no necessity here. How +and why he came to be so named will appear soon enough. +</p> +<p> +Yes! it was the same old Narcissus, and he was wielding just the same +old magic, I could see, as in our class-rooms and playgrounds five years +before. What is it in him that made all men take him so on his own +terms, made his talk hold one so, though it so often stumbled in the +dark, and fell dumb on many a verbal <i>cul-de-sac</i>? Whatever it is, +Samuel felt it, and, with that fine worshipful spirit of his—an +attitude which always reminds me of the elders listening to the boy +Jesus—was doing that homage for which no beauty or greatness ever +appeals to him in vain. What an eye for soul has Samuel! How inevitably +it pierces through all husks and excrescences to the central beauty! In +that short talk he knew Narcissus through and through; three years or +thirty years could add but little. But the talk was not ended yet; +indeed, it seemed like so many of those Tithefields talks, as if in the +'eternal fitness of things' it never could, would, or should end. It was +I at last who gave it pause, and—yes! indeed, it was he. We had, +somehow, not met for quite three years, chums as we had been at school. +He had left there for an office some time before I did, and, oddly +enough, this was our first meeting since then. A purchaser for one of +those aforesaid treatises on farriery just then coming in, dislodged us; +so, bidding Samuel good-bye—he and Narcissus already arranging for 'a +night'—we obeyed a mutual instinct, and presently found ourselves in +the snuggery of a quaint tavern, which was often to figure hereafter in +our sentimental history, though probably little in these particular +chapters of it. The things 'seen done at "The Mermaid "' may some day be +written in another place, where the Reader will know from the beginning +what to expect, and not feel that he has been induced to buy a volume +under false pretences. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH3"><!-- CH3 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER III +</h2> + +<center> +IN WHICH NARCISSUS OPENS HIS 'GLADSTONE' +</center> +<p> +Though it was so long since we had met—is not three years indeed 'so +long' in youth?—we had hardly to wait for our second glass to be again +<i>en rapport</i>. Few men grow so rapidly as Narcissus did in those young +days, but fewer still can look back on old enthusiasms and superannuated +ideals with a tenderness so delicately considerate. Most men hasten to +witness their present altitude by kicking away the old ladders on the +first opportunity; like vulgar lovers, they seek to flatter to-day at +the expense of yesterday. But Narcissus was of another fibre; he could +as soon have insulted the memory of his first love. +</p> +<p> +So, before long, we had passed together into a sweet necropolis of +dreams, whither, if the Reader care, I will soon take him by the hand. +But just now I would have him concern himself with the afternoon of +which I write, in that sad tense, the past present. Indeed, we did not +ourselves tarry long among the shades, for we were young, and youth has +little use for the preterite; its verbs are wont to have but two tenses. +We soon came up to the surface in one, with eyes turned instinctively on +the other. +</p> +<p> +Narcissus' bag seemed, somehow, a symbol; and I had caught sight of a +binding or two as it lay open in Tithefields that made me curious to see +it open again. He was only beginning to collect when we had parted at +school, if 'collect' is not too sacred a word: beginning to <i>buy</i> more +truly expresses that first glutting of the bookish hunger, which, like +the natural appetite, never passes in some beyond the primary +utilitarian stage of 'eating to live,' otherwise 'buying to read.' Three +years, however, works miracles of refinement in any hunger that is at +all capable of culture; and it was evident, when Narcissus did open his +'Gladstone,' that it had taken him by no means so long to attain that +sublimation of taste which may be expressed as 'reading to buy.' Each +volume had that air—of breeding, one might almost say—by which one can +always know a genuine <i>bouquin</i> at a glance; an alluvial richness of +bloom, coming upon one like an aromatic fragrance in so many old things, +in old lawns, in old flowers, old wines, and many another delicious +simile. One could not but feel that each had turned its golden brown, +just as an apple reddens—as, indeed, it had. +</p> +<p> +I do not propose to solemnly enumerate and laboriously describe these +good things, because I hardly think they would serve to distinguish +Narcissus, except in respect of luck, from other bookmen in the first +furor of bookish enthusiasm. They were such volumes as Mr. Pendennis ran +up accounts for at Oxford. Narcissus had many other points in common +with that gentleman. Such volumes as, morning after morning, sadden +one's breakfast-table in that Tantalus <i>menu</i>, the catalogue. Black +letter, early printed, first editions Elizabethan and Victorian, every +poor fly ambered in large paper, etc. etc.; in short, he ran through the +gamut of that craze which takes its turn in due time with marbles, +peg-tops, beetles, and foreign stamps—with probably the two exceptions +of Bewick, for whom he could never batter up an enthusiasm, and +'facetiae.' These latter needed too much camphor, he used to say. +</p> +<p> +His two most cherished possessions were a fine copy of the <i>Stultitiae +Laus</i>, printed by Froben, which had once been given by William Burton, +the historian, to his brother Robert, when the latter was a youngster of +twenty; and a first edition of one of Walton's lives, 'a presentation +copy from the author.' The former was rich with the autographs and +marginalia of both brothers, and on the latter a friend of his has +already hung a tale, which may or may not be known to the Reader. In the +reverent handling of these treasures, two questions inevitably forced +themselves upon me: where the d——l Narcissus, an apprentice, with an +allowance that would hardly keep most of us in tobacco, had found the +money for such indulgences; and how he could find in his heart to sell +them again so soon. A sorrowful interjection, as he closed his bag, +explained all:— +</p> +<p> +'Yes!' he sighed, 'they have cost me thirty pounds, and guess how much I +have been offered for them?' +</p> +<p> +I suggested ten. +</p> +<p> +'Five,' groaned my poor friend. 'I tried several to get that. "H'm," +says each one, indifferently turning the most precious in his hand, +"this would hardly be any use to me; and this I might have to keep +months before I could sell. That I could make you an offer for; what +have you thought of for it?" With a great tugging at your heart, and +well-nigh in tears, you name the absurdest minimum. You had given five; +you halve it—surely you can get that! But "O no! I can give nothing +like that figure. In that case it is no use to talk of it." In despair +you cry, "Well, what will you offer?" with a choking voice. "Fifteen +shillings would be about my figure for it," answers the fiend, +relentless as a machine—and so on.' +</p> +<p> +'I tried pawning them at first,' he continued, 'because there was hope +of getting them back some time that way; but, trudging from shop to +shop, with many prayers, "a sovereign for the lot" was all I could get. +Worse than dress-clothes!' concluded the frank creature. +</p> +<p> +For Narcissus to be in debt was nothing new: he had always been so at +school, and probably always will be. Had you reproached him with it in +those young self-conscious days of glorious absurdity, he would probably +have retorted, with a toss of his vain young head:— +</p> +<p> +'Well, and so was Shelley!' +</p> +<p> +I ventured to enquire the present difficulty that compelled him to make +sacrifice of things so dear. +</p> +<p> +'Why, to pay for them, of course,' was the answer. +</p> +<p> +And so I first became initiated into the mad method by which Narcissus +had such a library about him at twenty-one. From some unexplained +reason, largely, I have little doubt, on account of the charm of his +manners, he had the easy credit of those respectable booksellers to whom +reference has been made above. No extravagance seemed to shake their +confidence. I remember calling upon them with him one day some months +following that afternoon—for the madness, as usual, would have its +time, and no sufferings seemed to teach him prudence—and he took me up +to a certain 'fine set' that he had actually resisted, he said, for a +fortnight. Alas! I knew what that meant. Yes, he must have it; it was +just the thing to help him with a something he was writing—'not to +read, you know, but to make an atmosphere,' etc. So he used to talk; and +the odd thing was, that we always took the wildness seriously; he seemed +to make us see just what he wanted. 'I say, John,' was the next I heard, +at the other end of the shop, 'will you kindly send me round that set +of' so-and-so, 'and charge it to my account?' 'John,' the son of old +Oldbuck, and for a short time a sort of friend of Narcissus, would +answer, 'Certainly,' with a voice of the most cheerful trust; and yet, +when we had gone, it was indeed no less a sum than £10, 10s. which he +added to the left-hand side of Mr. N.'s account. +</p> +<p> +Do not mistake this for a certain vulgar quality, with a vulgar little +name of five letters. No one could have less of that than Narcissus. He +was often, on the contrary, quite painfully diffident. No, it was not +'cheek,' Reader; it was a kind of irrational innocence. I don't think it +ever occurred to him, till the bills came in at the half-years, what +'charge it to my account' really meant. Perhaps it was because, poor +lad, he had so small a practical acquaintance with it, that he knew so +little the value of money. But how he suffered when those accounts did +come in! Of course, there was nothing to be done but to apply to some +long-suffering friend; denials of lunch and threadbare coats but nibbled +at the amount—especially as a fast to-day often found revulsion in a +festival to-morrow. To save was not in Narcissus. +</p> +<p> +I promised to digress, Reader, and I have kept my word. Now to return to +that afternoon again. It so chanced that on that day in the year I +happened to have in my pocket—what you might meet me every day in five +years without finding there—a ten-pound note. It was for this I felt +after we had been musing awhile—Narcissus, probably, on everything +else in the world except his debts—and it was with this I awoke him +from his reverie. He looked at his hand, and then at me, in +bewilderment. Poor fellow, how he wanted to keep it, yet how he tried to +look as if he couldn't think of doing so. He couldn't help his joy +shining through. +</p> +<p> +'But I want you to take it,' I said; 'believe me, I have no immediate +need of it, and you can pay me at your leisure.' Ten pounds towards the +keep of a poet once in a lifetime is, after all, but little interest on +the gold he brings us. At last I 'prevailed,' shall I say? but on no +account without the solemnity of an IOU and a fixed date for repayment, +on which matter poor N. was always extremely emphatic. Alas! Mr. George +Meredith has already told us how this passionate anxiety to be bound by +the heaven above, the earth, and the waters under the earth, is the most +fatal symptom by which to know the confirmed in this kind. Captain +Costigan had it, it may be remembered; and the same solicitude, the same +tearful gratitude, I know, accompanied every such transaction of my +poor Narcissus. +</p> +<p> +Whether it was as apparent on the due date, or whether of that ten +pounds I have ever looked upon the like again, is surely no affair of +the Reader's; but, lest he should do my friend an injustice, I had +better say—I haven't. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH4"><!-- CH4 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER IV +</h2> + +<center> +ACCOUNTS RENDERED +</center> +<p> +Nothing strikes one more in looking back, either on our own lives or on +those of others, than how little we assimilate from the greatest +experiences; in nothing is Nature's apparent wastefulness of means more +ironically impressive. A great love comes and sets one's whole being +singing like a harp, fills high heaven with rainbows, and makes our +dingy alleys for awhile bright as the streets of the New Jerusalem; and +yet, if five years after we seek for what its incandescence has left us, +we find, maybe, a newly helpful epithet, maybe a fancy, at most a +sonnet. Nothing strikes one more, unless, perhaps, the obverse, when we +see some trifling pebble-cast ripple into eternity, some fateful second +prolific as the fly aphis. And so I find it all again exampled in these +old accounts. The books that mean most for Narcissus to-day could be +carried in the hand without a strap, and could probably be bought for a +sovereign. The rest have survived as a quaint cadence in his style, have +left clinging about his thought a delicate incense of mysticism, or are +bound up in the retrospective tenderness of boyish loves long since gone +to dream. +</p> +<p> +Another observation in the same line of reflection also must often +strike one:—for what very different qualities than those for which we +were first passionate do we come afterwards to value our old +enthusiasms. In the day of their bloom it was the thing itself, the +craze, the study, for its own sake; now it is the discipline, or any +broad human culture, in which they may have been influential. The boy +chases the butterfly, and thinks not of the wood and the blue heaven; +but those only does the man remember, for the mark of their beauty upon +him, so unconsciously impressed, for the health of their power and +sweetness still living in his blood—for these does that chase seem +alone of worth, when the dusty entomological relic thereof is in limbo. +And so that long and costly shelf, groaning beneath the weight of Grose +and Dugdale, and many a mighty slab of topographical prose; those +pilgrimages to remote parish churches, with all their attendant ardours +of careful 'rubbings'; those notebooks, filled with patient data; those +long letters to brother antiquaries—of sixteen; even that famous +Exshire Tour itself, which was to have rivalled Pennant's own—what +remains to show where this old passion stood, with all the clustering +foliage of a dream; what but that quaint cadence I spoke of, and an +anecdote or two which seemed but of little import then, with such +breathless business afoot as an old font or a Roman road? +</p> +<p> +One particular Roman road, I know, is but remembered now, because, in +the rich twilight of an old June evening, it led up the gorsy stretches +of Lancashire 'Heights' to a solemn plateau, wide and solitary as +Salisbury Plain, from the dark border of which, a warm human note +against the lonely infinite of heath and sky, beamed the little +whitewashed 'Traveller's Rest,' its yellow light, growing stronger as +the dusk deepened, meeting the eye with a sense of companionship +becoming a vague need just then. +</p> +<p> +The seeming spiritual significance of such forlorn wastes of no-man's +land had, I know, a specially strong appeal for Narcissus, and, in some +moods, the challenge which they seem to call from some 'dark tower' of +spiritual adventure would have led him wandering there till star-light; +but a day of rambling alone, in a strange country, among unknown faces, +brings a social hunger by evening, and a craving for some one to speak +to and a voice in return becomes almost a fear. A bright +kitchen-parlour, warm with the health of six workmen, grouped round a +game of dominoes, and one huge quart pot of ale, used among them as +woman in the early world, was a grateful inglenook, indeed, wherein to +close the day. Of course, friend N. joined them, and took his pull and +paid his round, like a Walt Whitman. I like to think of his slight +figure amongst them; his delicate, almost girl-like, profile against +theirs; his dreamy eyes and pale brow, surmounted by one of those dark +clusters of hair in which the fingers of women love to creep—an +incongruity, though of surfaces only, which certain who knew him but 'by +sight,' as the phrase is, might be at a loss to understand. That was one +of the surprises of his constitution. Nature had given him the dainty +and dreamy form of the artist, to which habit had added a bookish touch, +ending in a <i>tout ensemble</i> of gentleness and distinction with little +apparent affinity to a scene like that in the 'Traveller's Rest.' But +there are many whom a suspicion of the dilettante in such an exterior +belies, and Narcissus was one of them. He had very strongly developed +that instinct of manner to which sympathy is a daily courtesy, and he +thus readily, when it suited him, could take the complexion of his +company, and his capacity of 'bend' was well-nigh genius. Of course, all +this is but to say that he was a gentleman; yet is not that in itself a +fine kind of originality? Besides, he had a genuine appetite for the +things of earth, such as many another delicate thing—a damask +rose-bush, for example—must be convicted of too; and often, when some +one has asked him 'what he could have in common with so-and-so,' I have +heard him answer: 'Tobacco and beer.' Samuel Dale once described him as +Shelley with a chin; and perhaps the chin accounted for the absence of +any of those sentimental scruples with regard to beefsteaks and certain +varieties of jokes, for which the saint-like deserter of Harriet +Westbrook was distinguished. +</p> +<p> +A supremely quaint instance of this gift of accommodation befell during +that same holiday, which should not pass unrecorded, but which I offer +to the Reader with an emphatic <i>Honi soit qui mal y pense</i>. Despairing +of reaching a certain large manufacturing town on foot in time to put up +there, one evening, he was doing the last mile or two by rail, and, as +the train slackened speed he turned to his companions in the carriage to +enquire if they could tell him of a good hotel. He had but carelessly +noticed them before: an old man, a slight young woman of perhaps thirty, +and a girl about fifteen; working people, evidently, but marked by that +air of cleanly poverty which in some seems but a touch of ascetic +refinement. The young woman at once mentioned <i>The Bull</i>, and thereupon +a little embarrassed consultation in undertone seemed to pass between +her and the old man, resulting in a timid question as to whether +Narcissus would mind putting up with them, as they were poor folk, and +could well do with any little he cared to offer for his accommodation. +There was something of a sad winningness in the woman which had +predisposed him to the group, and without hesitation he at once +accepted, and soon was walking with them to their home, through streets +echoing with Lancashire 'clogs.' On the way he learnt the circumstances +of his companions. The young woman was a widow, and the girl her +daughter. Both worked through the day at one of the great cotton mills, +while the old man, father and grandfather, stayed at home and 'fended' +for them. Thus they managed to live in a comfort which, though +straitened, did not deny them such an occasional holiday as to-day had +been, or the old man the comfort of tobacco. The home was very small, +but clean and sweet; and it was not long before they were all sat down +together over a tea of wholesome bread and butter and eggs, in the +preparation of which it seemed odd to see the old man taking his share. +That over, he and Narcissus sat to smoke and talk of the neighbouring +countryside; N. on the look-out for folk-lore, and especially for any +signs in his companion of a lingering loyalty of belief in the +traditions thereabout, a loyalty which had something in it of a sacred +duty to him in those days. Those were the days when he still turned to +the east a-Sundays, and went out in the early morning, with Herrick +under his arm, to gather May-dew, with a great uplifting of the spirit, +in what indeed was a very real act of worship. +</p> +<p> +But to my story! As bedtime approached Narcissus could not but be aware +of a growing uneasiness in the manner of the young woman. At last it was +explained. With blushing effort she stammered out the question: Would he +object to share his bed with—the old man? 'Of course not,' answered N. +at once, as though he had all the time intended doing that very thing, +and indeed, thought it the most delightful arrangement in the world. +</p> +<p> +So up to bed go the oddly consorted pair. But the delicious climax was +yet to come. On entering the room, Narcissus found that there were two +beds there! Why should we leave that other bed empty?—he had almost +asked; but a laughing wonder shot through him, and he stopped in time. +</p> +<p> +The old man was soon among the blankets, but Narcissus dallied over +undressing, looking at this and that country quaintness on the wall; and +then, while he was in a state of half man and half trousers, the voice +of the woman called from the foot of the stairs: Were they in bed yet? +'Surely, it cannot be! it is too irresistibly simple,' was his thought; +but he had immediately answered, 'In a moment,' as if such a question +was quite a matter of course. +</p> +<p> +In that space he had blown the candle out, and was by the old man's +side: and then, in the darkness, he heard the two women ascending the +stairs. Just outside his door, which he had left ajar, they seemed to +turn off into a small adjoining room, from whence came immediately the +soft delicious sounds of female disrobing. They were but factory women, +yet Narcissus thought of Saint Agnes and Madeline, we may be sure. And +then, at last—indeed, there was to be no mistake about it—the door was +softly pushed open, and two dim forms whispered across to the adjoining +bed, and, after a little preliminary rustle, settled down to a rather +fluttered breathing. +</p> +<p> +No one had spoken: not even a Goodnight; but Narcissus could hardly +refrain from ringing out a great mirthful cry, while his heart beat +strangely, and the darkness seemed to ripple, like sunlight in a cup, +with suppressed laughter. The thought of the little innocent deception +as to their sleeping-room, which poverty had caused them to practise, +probably held the breath of the women, while the shyness of sex was a +common bond of silence—at least, on the part of the three younger. It +was long before Narcissus was able to fall asleep, for he kept picturing +the elder woman with burning cheek and open eyes in a kind of 'listening +fear' beneath the coverlet; and the oddity of the thing was so original, +so like some <i>conte</i> of a <i>Decameron</i> or <i>Heptameron</i>, with the +wickedness left out. But at last wonder gave place to weariness, and +sleep began to make a still odder magic of the situation. The difficulty +of meeting at breakfast next morning, which had at once suggested itself +to N.'s mind, proved a vain fear; for, when he arose, that other bed was +as smooth as though it had lain untouched through the night, and the +daughters of labour had been gone two hours. But it was not quite +without sign that they had gone, for Narcissus had a dreamlike +impression of opening his eyes in the early light to find a sweet +woman's face leaning over him; and I am sure he wanted to believe that +it had bent down still further, till it had kissed his lips—' for his +mother's sake,' she had said in her heart, as she slipped away and was +seen no more. +</p> +<p> +'If this were fiction, instead of a veracious study from life,' to make +use of a phrase which one rarely finds out of a novel, it would be +unfitting to let such an incident as that just related fall to the +ground, except as the seed of future development; but, this being as I +have stated, there is nothing more to say of that winning <i>ouvrière</i>. +Narcissus saw her no more. +</p> +<p> +But surely, of all men, he could best afford that one such pleasant +chance should put forth no other blossom save that half-dreamed +kiss;—and how can one ever foresee but that our so cherishable spray of +bloom may in time add but another branch to that orchard of Dead Sea +fruit which grows inevitably about all men's dwellings? +</p> +<p> +I do not suppose that Narcissus was really as exceptional in the number +and character of his numerous boyish loves as we always regarded him as +being. It is no uncommon matter, of course and alas! for a youth between +the ages of seventeen and nineteen to play the juggler at keeping three, +or even half-a-dozen, female correspondents going at once, each of whom +sleeps nightly with copious documentary evidence of her sole and +incontrovertible possession of the sacred heart. Nor has Narcissus been +the only lover, I suspect, who, in the season of the waning of the moon, +has sent such excuses for scrappy epistolary make-shifts as 'the +strident din of an office, an air so cruelly unsympathetic, as frost to +buds, to the blossoming of all those words of love that press for +birth,' when, as a matter of fact, he has been unblushingly eating the +lotus, in the laziest chair at home, in the quietest night of summer. +Such insincerity is a common besetting sin of the young male; +invariably, I almost think, if he has the artistic temperament. Yet I do +not think it presents itself to his mind in its nudity, but comes +clothed with that sophistry in which youth, the most thoroughgoing of +<i>philosophes</i>, is so ingenious. Consideration for the beloved object, it +is called—yes! beloved indeed, though, such is the paradox in the order +of things, but one of the several vestals of the sacred fire. One cannot +help occasional disinclination on a lazy evening, confound it! but it +makes one twinge to think of paining her with such a confession; and a +story of that sort—well, it's a lie, of course; but it's one without +any harm, any seed of potential ill, in it. So the letter goes, maybe to +take its place as the 150th of the sacred writings, and make poor +Daffodilia, who has loved to count the growing score, happy with the +completion of the half-century. +</p> +<p> +But the disinclination goes not, though the poor passion has, of +course, its occasional leapings in the socket, and the pain has to come +at last, for all that dainty consideration, which, moreover, has been +all the time feeding larger capacities for suffering. For, of course, no +man thinks of marrying his twelfth love, though in the thirteenth there +is usually danger; and he who has jilted, so to say, an earl's daughter +as his sixth, may come to see +</p> +<pre> + 'The God of Love, ah! benedicite, + How mighty and how great a lord is he' +</pre> +<p> +in the thirteenth Miss Simpkins. +</p> +<p> +But this is to write as an outsider: for that thirteenth, by a mystical +process which has given to each of its series in its day the same primal +quality, is, of course, not only the last, but the first. And, indeed, +with little casuistry, that thirteenth may be truly held to be the +first, for it is a fact determined not so much by the chosen maid as by +him who chooses, though he himself is persuaded quite otherwise. To him +his amorous career has been hitherto an unsuccessful pursuit, because +each followed fair in turn, when at length he has caught her flying +skirts, and looked into her face, has proved not that 'ideal'— +</p> +<pre> + 'That not impossible she + That shall command my heart and me'— +</pre> +<p> +but another, to be shaken free again in disappointment. In truth, +however, the lack has been in himself all this time. He had yet to learn +what loving indeed meant: and he loves the thirteenth, not because she +is pre-eminent beyond the rest, but because she has come to him at the +moment when that 'lore of loving' has been revealed. Had any of those +earlier maidens fallen on the happy conjunction, they would, doubtless, +have proved no less loveworthy, and seemed no less that 'ideal' which +they have since become, one may be sure, for some other illuminated +soul. +</p> +<p> +Of course, some find that love early—the baby-love, whom one never +marries, and then the faithful service. Probably it happens so with the +majority of men; for it is, I think, especially to the artist nature +that it comes thus late. Living so vividly within the circle of its own +experience, by its very constitution so necessarily egoistic, the +latter, more particularly in its early years, is always a Narcissus, +caring for nought or none except in so much as they reflect back its own +beauty or its own dreams. The face such a youth looks for, as he turns +the coy captured head to meet his glance, is, quite unconsciously, his +own, and the 'ideal' he seeks is but the perfect mirror. Yet it is not +that mirror he marries after all: for when at last he has come to know +what that word—one so distasteful, so 'soiled' to his ear 'with all +ignoble' domesticity—what that word 'wife' really expresses, he has +learnt, too, to discredit those cynical guides of his youth who love so +well to write Ego as the last word of human nature. +</p> +<p> +But the particular Narcissus of whom I write was a long way off that +thirteenth maid in the days of his antiquarian rambles and his +Pagan-Catholic ardours, and the above digression is at least out of +date. +</p> +<p> +A copy of Keats which I have by me as I write is a memorial of one of +the pretty loves typical of that period. It is marked all through in +black lead—not so gracefully as one would have expected from the 'taper +fingers' which held the pencil, but rather, it would appear, more with +regard to emphasis than grace. Narcissus had lent it to the queen of the +hour with special instructions to that end, so that when it came to him +again he might ravish his soul with the hugging assurance given by the +thick lead to certain ecstatic lines of <i>Endymion,</i> such as— +</p> +<pre> + 'My soul doth melt + For the unhappy youth;' + 'He surely cannot now + Thirst for another love;' +</pre> +<p> +and luxuriate in a genial sense of godship where the tremulous pencil +had left the record of a sigh against— +</p> +<pre> + 'Each tender maiden whom he once thought fair.' +</pre> +<p> +But it was a magnanimous godship; and, after a moment's leaning back +with closed eyes, to draw in all the sweet incense, how nobly would he +act, in imaginative vignette, the King Cophetua to this poor suppliant +of love; with what a generous waiving of his power—and with what a +grace!—did he see himself raising her from her knees, and seating her +at his right hand. Yet those pencil-marks, alas! mark but a secondary +interest in that volume. A little sketch on the fly-leaf, 'by another +hand,' witness the prettier memory. A sacred valley, guarded by smooth, +green hills; in the midst a little lake, fed at one end by a singing +stream, swallowed at the other by the roaring darkness of a mill; green +rushes prosperous in the shallows, and along the other bank an old +hedgerow; a little island in the midst, circled by silver lilies; and in +the distance, rising from out a cloud of tangled green, above the little +river, an old church tower. Below, though not 'in the picture,' a quaint +country house, surrounded by a garden of fair fruit-trees and wonderful +bowers, through which ran the stream, free once again, and singing for +joy of the light. In the great lone house a solitary old man, cherished +and ruled by—'The Miller's Daughter.' Was scene ever more in need of a +fairy prince? Narcissus sighed, as he broke upon it one rosy evening, +to think what little meaning all its beauty had, suffering that lack; +but as he had come thither with the purpose, at once firm and vague, of +giving it a memory, he could afford to sigh till morning's light +brought, maybe, the opportunity of that transfiguring action. He was to +spend an Easter fortnight there, as the guest of some farmer-relatives +with whom he had stayed years before, in a period to which, being +nineteen, he already alluded as his 'boyhood.' +</p> +<p> +And it is not quite accurate to say that it had no memory for him, for +he brought with him one of that very miller's daughter, though, indeed, +it was of the shadowiest silver. It had chanced at that early time that +an influx of visitors to the farm had exceeded the sleeping room, and he +and another little fellow had been provided with a bed in the miller's +house. He had never quite forgotten that bedroom—its huge old-fashioned +four-poster, slumbrous with great dark hangings, such as Queen Elizabeth +seems always to have slept in; its walls dim with tapestry, and its +screen of antique bead-work. But it was round the toilet table that +memory grew brightest, for thereon was a crystal phial of a most +marvellous perfume, and two great mother-of-pearl shells, shedding a +mystical radiance—the most commonplace Rimmel's, without doubt, and the +shells 'dreadful,' one may be sure. But to him, as he took a reverent +breath of that phial, it seemed the very sweetbriar fragrance of her +gown that caught his sense; and, surely, he never in all the world found +scent like that again. Thus, long after, she would come to him in +day-dreams, wafted on its strange sweetness, and clothed about with that +mystical lustre of pearl. +</p> +<p> +There were five years between him and that memory as he stepped into +that enchanted land for the second time. The sweet figure of young +womanhood to which he had turned his boyish soul in hopeless worship, +when it should have been busied rather with birds' nests and +rabbit-snares, had, it is true, come to him in dimmer outline each +Spring, but with magic the deeper for that. As the form faded from the +silver halo, and passed more and more into mythology, it seemed, indeed, +as if she had never lived for him at all, save in dreams, or on another +star. Still, his memory held by those great shells, and he had come at +last to the fabled country on the perilous quest—who of us dare venture +such a one to-day?—of a 'lost saint.' Enquiry of his friends that +evening, cautious as of one on some half-suspected diplomacy, told him +that one with the name of his remembrance did live at the +mill-house—with an old father, too. But how all the beauty of the +singing morning became a scentless flower when, on making the earliest +possible call, he was met at the door with that hollow word, 'Away'—a +word that seemed to echo through long rooms of infinite emptiness and +turn the daylight shabby—till the addendum, 'for the day,' set the +birds singing again, and called the sunshine back. +</p> +<p> +A few nights after he was sitting at her side, by a half-opened window, +with his arm about her waist, and her head thrillingly near his. With +his pretty gift of recitation he was pouring into her ear that sugared +passage in <i>Endymion</i>, appropriately beginning, 'O known unknown,' +previously 'got up' for the purpose; but alas! not too perfectly to +prevent a break-down, though, fortunately, at a point that admitted a +ready turn to the dilemma:— +</p> +<pre> + 'Still + Let me entwine thee surer, surer ...' +</pre> +<p> +Here exigency compelled N. to make surety doubly, yea, trebly, sure; but +memory still forsaking him, the rascal, having put deeper and deeper +significance into his voice with each repetition, dropped it altogether +as he drew her close to him, and seemed to fail from the very excess of +love. An hour after, he was bounding into the moonlight in an +intoxication of triumph. She was won. The beckoning wonder had come down +to him. And yet it was real moonlight—was not that his own grace in +silhouette, making a mirror even of the hard road?—real grass over +which he had softly stept from her window, real trees, all real, +except—yes! was it real love? +</p> +<p> +In the lives of all passionate lovers of women there are two +broadly-marked periods, and in some a third: slavery, lordship, and +service. The first is the briefest, and the third, perhaps, seldom +comes; the second is the most familiar. +</p> +<p> +Awakening, like our forefather, from the deep sleep of childish things, +the boy finds a being by his side of a strange hushing fairness, as +though in the night he had opened his eyes and found an angel by his +bed. Speech he has not at all, and his glance dare not rise beyond her +bosom; till, the presence seeming gracious, he dares at length stretch +out his hand and touch her gown; whereon an inexplicable new joy +trembles through him, as though he stood naked in a May meadow through +the golden rain of a summer shower. Should her fingers touch his arm by +chance, it is as though they swept a harp, and a music of piercing +sweetness runs with a sudden cry along his blood. But by and by he comes +to learn that he has made a comical mistake about this wonder. With his +head bent low in worship, he had not seen the wistfulness of her gaze on +him; and one day, lo! it is she who presses close to him with the timid +appeal of a fawn. Indeed, she has all this time been to him as some +beautiful woodland creature might have seemed, breaking for the first +time upon the sight of primitive man. Fear, wonder inexpressible, +worship, till a sudden laughing thought of comprehension, then a lordly +protectiveness, and, after that—the hunt! At once the masculine +self-respect returns, and the wonder, though no less sweet in itself, +becomes but another form of tribute. +</p> +<p> +With Narcissus this evolution had taken place early: it was very long +ago—he felt old even then to think of it—since Hesperus had sung like +a nightingale above his first kiss, and his memory counted many trophies +of lordship. But, surely, this last was of all the starriest; perhaps, +indeed, so wonderful was it, it might prove the very love which would +bring back again the dream that had seemed lost for ever with the +passing of that mythical first maid so long ago, a love in which worship +should be all once more, and godship none at all. But is not such a +question all too certainly its own answer? Nay, Narcissus, if indeed you +find that wonder-maid again, you will not question so; you will forget +to watch that graceful shadow in the moonlight; you will but ask to sit +by her silent, as of old, to follow her to the end of the world. Ah me! +</p> +<pre> + 'How many queens have ruled and passed + Since first we met; + How thick and fast + The letters used to come at first, + How thin at last; + Then ceased, and winter for a space! + Until another hand + Brought spring into the land, + And went the seasons' pace.' +</pre> +<p> +That Miller's Daughter, although 'so dear, so dear,' why, of course, she +was not that maid: but again the silver halo has grown about her; again +Narcissus asks himself, 'Did she live, or did I dream?'; again she comes +to him at whiles, wafted on that strange incense, and clothed about in +that mystical lustre of pearl. +</p> +<p> +Doubtless, she lives in that fabled country still: but Narcissus has +grown sadly wise since then, and he goes on pilgrimage no more. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH5"><!-- CH5 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER V +</h2> + +<center> +AN IDYLL OF ALICE SUNSHINE, WHICH REALLY BELONGS TO THE LAST CHAPTER +</center> +<p> +If the Reader has heard enough of the amourettes of the young gentleman +upon whose memoirs I am engaged, let him skip this chapter and pass to +the graver chapters beyond. My one aim is the Reader's pleasure, and I +carry my solicitude so far that if he finds his happiness to lie outside +these pages altogether, has no choice among these various chapters, but +prefers none to any, I am quite content. Such a spirit of +self-abnegation, the Reader must admit, is true love. +</p> +<p> +Perhaps it was an early unconscious birth-impulse of the true love some +day to be born in his heart, that caused Narcissus to make a confession +to his Miller's Daughter, on one of their pretty decorative evenings, +when they sat together at the fireside, while the scent of the climbing +roses, and the light of the climbing moon, came in at the window. +</p> +<p> +The immediate effect of the confession was—no wonder—to draw tears. +And how beautiful she looked in tears! Who would dive for pearls when +the pearl-fisheries of a woman's eyes are his to rifle? +</p> +<p> +Beautiful, beautiful tears, flow on—no dull, leaden rain, no mere +monotonous deluge, but a living, singing fountain, crowned with such +rainbows as hang roses and stars in the fine mist of samite waterfalls, +irradiated by gleaming shafts of lovely anger and scorn. +</p> +<p> +Like Northern Lights on autumn evenings, the maiden's eyes pierced +Narcissus through and through with many-coloured spears. There was +thunder, too; the earth shook—just a little: but soon Narcissus saw the +white dove of peace flying to him through the glancing showers. For all +her sorrow, his was the peace of confession. His little lie had been +acknowledged, his treason self-betrayed. +</p> +<p> +And it was this. +</p> +<p> +I have hinted that Narcissus, like the Catholic Church, worshipped many +saints. At this time, one of them, by a thrilling coincidence, chanced +to have her shrine at a boarding-school, some fifteen miles or so from +the mill-pond on whose banks the Miller's Daughter had drawn into her +lovely face so much of the beauty of the world. Alice Sunshine, shall we +call her, was perhaps more of a cherub than a saint; a rosy, laughing, +plump little arrangement of sunshiny pink and white flesh, with blue +eyes and golden hair. Alice was not overburdened with intellectuality, +and, like others of her sex, her heart was nothing like so soft as her +bosom. Narcissus had first been in love with her sister; but he and the +sister—a budding woman of the world—had soon agreed that they were not +born for each other, and Narcissus had made the transfer of his tragic +passion with inexpensive informality. As the late Anthony Trollope would +finish one novel to-night, and begin another to-morrow morning, so would +Narcissus be off with the old love this Sunday, and visibly on with the +new the next. +</p> +<p> +Dear little plump, vegetable-marrow Alice! Will Narcissus ever forget +that Sunday night when the church, having at last released its weary +worshippers, he stole, not as aforetime to the soft side of Emily, but +to the still softer side of the little bewildered Alice. For, though +Alice had worshipped him all the time, and certainly during the whole of +the service, she had never dared to hope that he would pass her dashing, +dark-eyed sister to love <i>her</i>—little, blonde, phlegmatic, blue-eyed +Alice. +</p> +<p> +But Apollo was bent on the capture of his Daphne. Truth to say, it was +but the work of a moment. The golden arrow was in her heart, the wound +kissed whole again, and the new heaven and the new earth all arranged +for, in hardly longer time than it takes to tell. +</p> +<p> +In youth the mystery of woman is still so fresh and new, that to make a +fuss about a particular woman seems like looking a gift-horse of the +gods in the mouth. The light on the face of womanhood in general is so +bewilderingly beautiful that the young man literally cannot tell one +woman from another. They are all equally wonderful. Masculine +observation leads one to suppose that woman's first vision of man +similarly precludes discrimination. +</p> +<p> +Ah me! it is easy to laugh to-day, but it was heart—bleeding tragedy +when those powers that oughtn't to be decreed Alice's exile to a +boarding-school in some central Africa of the midland counties. +</p> +<p> +The hemorrhage of those two young hearts! But, for a time, each +plastered the other's wounds with letters—dear letters—letters every +post. For the postal authorities made no objection to Narcissus +corresponding with two or more maidens at once. And it is only fair to +Alice to say, that she knew as little of the Miller's Daughter as the +Miller's Daughter knew of her. +</p> +<p> +So, when Narcissus was reciting <i>Endymion</i> to his Miller's Maid, it was +not without a minor chord plaining through the major harmonies of the +present happiness; the sense that Alice was but fifteen miles away—so +near she could almost hear him if he called—only fifteen miles away, +and it was a long three months since they had met. +</p> +<p> +It now becomes necessary to admit a prosaic fact hitherto concealed +from the Reader. Narcissus rode a bicycle. It was, I must confess, a +rather 'modern' thing to do. But surely the flashing airy wheel is the +most poetical mode of locomotion yet invented, and one looks more like a +fairy prince than ever in knickerbockers. Whenever Narcissus turned his +gleaming spokes along some mapped, but none the less mysterious, +county—road, he thought of Lohengrin in his barge drawn by white swans +to his mystic tryst; he thought of the seven-leagued boots, the flying +carpet, the wishing-cap, and the wooden Pegasus,—so called because it +mounted into the clouds on the turning of a peg. As he passed along by +mead and glade, his wheel sang to him, and he sang to his wheel. It was +a daisied, daisied world. +</p> +<p> +There were buttercups and violets in it too as he sped along in the +early morning of an unforgotten Easter Sunday, drawn, so he had +shamelessly told his Miller's Daughter, by antiquarian passion to visit +the famous old parish church near which Alice was at school. +Antiquarian passion! Well, certainly it is an antiquarian passion now. +</p> +<p> +But then—how his heart beat! how his eyes shone as with burning kohl! +That there was anything to be ashamed of in this stolen ride never even +occurred to him. And perhaps there was little wrong in it, after all. +Perhaps, when the secrets of all hearts are revealed, it will come out +that the Miller's Daughter took the opportunity to meet Narcissus' +understudy,—who can tell? +</p> +<p> +But the wonderful fresh morning-scented air was a delicious fact beyond +dispute. That was sincere. Ah, there used to be real mornings then!—not +merely interrupted nights. +</p> +<p> +And it was the Easter-morning of romance. There was a sweet passionate +Sabbath-feeling everywhere. Sabbath-bells, and Sabbath-birds, and +Sabbath-flowers. There was even a feeling of restful Sabbath-cheer about +the old inn, where, at last, entering with much awe the village where +Alice nightly slept—clothed in white samite, mystic, +wonderful,—Narcissus provided for the demands of romance by a hearty +country breakfast. A manna of blessing seemed to lie thick upon every +thing. The very ham and eggs seemed as if they had been blessed by the +Pope. +</p> +<p> +It was yet an hour to church-time, an hour usually one of spiteful +alacrity; but this morning, it seemed, in defiance of the clock, cruelly +unpunctual. After breakfast, Narcissus strolled about the town, and +inquired the way to Miss Curlpaper's school. It stood outside the little +town. It was pointed out to him in the distance, across billowy clouds +of pear and apple-blossom, making the hollow in which the town nestled +seem a vast pot-pourri jar, overflowing with newly gathered rose-leaves. +</p> +<p> +Had the Miller's Daughter been able to watch his movements, she would +have remarked that his antiquarian ardour drew him not to the church, +but to a sombre many-windowed house upon the hill. +</p> +<p> +Narcissus reconnoitred the prison-like edifice from behind a hedge, then +summoned courage to walk past with slow nonchalance. All was as dead and +dull as though Alice was not there. Yet somewhere within those +prison-walls her young beauty was dressing itself to meet the spring. +Perhaps, in delicious linen, soft and white, she was dashing cool water +about her rosebud face, or, flushed with exhilaration, was pinning up +the golden fleeces of her hair. Perhaps she was eating wonderful bacon +and eggs! Could she be thinking of him? She little knew how near he was +to her. He had not written of his coming. Letters at Miss Curlpaper's +had to pass an inspection much more rigorous than the Customs, but still +smuggling was not unknown. For success, however, carefully laid plans +and regular dates were necessary, and Narcissus' visit had fallen +between the dates. +</p> +<p> +No! there was no sign of her. She was as invisible as the moon at +mid-day. And there were the church-bells beginning to call her: 'Alice, +Alice, put on your things!' +</p> +<pre> + 'Alice, Alice, put on your things! + The birds are calling, the church bell rings; + The sun is shining, and I am here, + Waiting—and waiting—for you, my dear. + + Alice, Alice, doff your gown of night, + Draw on your bodice as lilies white, + Draw on your petticoats, clasp your stays,— + Oh! Alice, Alice, those milky ways! + + Alice, Alice, how long you are! + The hour is late and the church is far; + Slowly, more slowly, the church bell rings— + Alice, Alice, put on your things!' +</pre> +<p> +Really it was not in Narcissus' plans to wait at the school till Alice +appeared. The Misses Curlpaper were terrible unknown quantities to him. +For a girl to have a boy hanging about the premises was a capital crime, +he knew. Boys are to girls' schools what Anarchists are to public +buildings. They come under the Explosives Acts. It was not, indeed, +within the range of his hope that he might be able to speak to Alice. A +look, a long, immortal, all-expressive look, was all he had travelled +fifteen miles to give and win. For that he would have travelled fifteen +hundred. +</p> +<p> +His idea was to sit right in front of the nave, where Alice could not +miss seeing him—where others could see him too in his pretty +close-fitting suit of Lincoln green. So down through the lanes he went, +among the pear and apple orchards, from out whose blossom the clanging +tower of the old church jutted sheer, like some Bass Rock amid rosy +clustering billows. Their love had been closely associated from its +beginning with the sacred things of the church, so regular had been +their attendance, not only on Sundays, but at week-night services. To +Alice and Narcissus there were two Sabbaths in the week, Sunday and +Wednesday. I suppose they were far from being the only young people +interested in their particular form of church-work. Leander met Hero, it +will be remembered, on the way to church, and the Reader may recall +Marlowe's beautiful description of her dress upon that fatal morning: +</p> +<pre> + 'The outside of her garments were of lawn, + The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn; + Her wide sleeves green, and bordered with a grove, + Where Venus in her naked glory strove + To please the careless and disdainful eyes + Of proud Adonis, that before her lies; + Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain, + Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain....' +</pre> +<p> +Alice wore pretty dresses too, if less elaborate; and, despite its +change of name, was not the church where she and Narcissus met, as the +church wherein Hero and Leander first looked upon each other, the Temple +of Love? Certainly the country church to which Narcissus +self-consciously passed through groups of Sunday-clothed villagers, was +decked as for no Christian festival this Sabbath morning. The garlands +that twined about the old Norman columns, the clumps of primroses and +violets that sprung at their feet, as at the roots of gigantic beeches, +the branches of palm and black-thorn that transformed the chancel to a +bower: probably for more than knew it, these symbols of the joy and +beauty of earth had simpler, more instinctive, meanings than those of +any arbitrary creed. For others in the church besides Narcissus, no +doubt, they spoke of young love, the bloom and the fragrance thereof, of +mating birds and pairing men and maids, of the eternal principle of +loveliness, which, in spite of winter and of wrong, brings flowers and +faces to bless and beautify this church of the world. +</p> +<p> +As Narcissus sat in his front row, his eyes drawn up in a prayer to the +painted glories of the great east window, his whole soul lifted up on +the wings of colour, scent, and sound—the whole sacred house had but +one meaning: just his love for Alice. Nothing in the world was too holy +to image that. The windows, the music, the flowers, all were metaphors +of her: and, as the organ swirled his soul along in the rapids of its +passionate, prayerful sound, it seemed to him that Alice and he already +stood at the gate of Heaven! +</p> +<p> +Presently, across his mingled sensations came a measured tramp as of +boy-soldiers marching in line. You have heard it! You have <i>listened</i> +for it!! It was the dear, unmistakable sound of a girls' school on the +march. Quickly it came nearer, it was in the porch—it was in the +church! Narcissus gave a swift glance round. He dare not give a real +searching look yet. His heart beat too fast, his cheek burned too red. +But he saw it was a detachment of girls—it certainly was Alice's +school. +</p> +<p> +Then came the white-robed choristers, and the white-haired priests: <i>If +we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not +in us; but, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive +us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness</i>. +</p> +<center> +DEARLY BELOVED BRETHREN.... +</center> +<p> +His heart swelled with a sobbing exaltation of worship such as he had +not known for years. You could hardly have believed that a little +apple-dumpling of a pink and white girl was the real inspirer of that +look in his young face that made old ladies, even more than young ones, +gaze at him, and remark afterwards on the strange boy with the lovely +spiritual expression. +</p> +<p> +But, all the time, Narcissus felt that Alice's great eyes were on him, +glowing with glad surprise. The service proceeded, but yet he forbore to +seek her. He took a delight in husbanding his coming joy. He would not +crudely snatch it. It would be all the sweeter for waiting. And the fire +in Alice's eyes would all the time be growing softer and softer. He +nearly looked as he thought of that. And surely that was her dear voice +calling to him in the secret language of the psalm. He sang back to her +with a wild rapture. Thus the morning stars sang together, he thought. +</p> +<p> +And when the prayers laid lovely hands across the eyes of the +worshippers, still he sought not Alice, but prayed for her as perhaps +only a boy can: O Lord God, be good to Alice—already she is one of thy +angels. May her life be filled with light and joy! And if in the time to +come I am worthy of being ever by her side, may we live our lives +together, high and pure and holy as always in thy sight! Lord, thou +knowest how pure is my love; how I worship her as I worship the holy +angels themselves. But whatsoever is imperfect perfect by the +inspiration of thy Holy Spirit.... +</p> +<p> +So prayed the soul of the boy for the soul of the girl, and his eyes +filled with tears as he prayed; the cup of the wonder and holiness of +the world ran over. +</p> +<p> +Already, it seemed, that Alice and he lay clasped together in the arms +of God. +</p> +<p> +So Narcissus prayed and sang his love in terms of an alien creed. He +sang of the love of Christ, he thought but of the love of Alice; and +still he refrained from plucking that wonderful passion-flower of her +glance. +</p> +<p> +At length he had waited the whole service through; and, with the last +hallowed vibrations of the benediction, he turned his eyes, brimful of +love-light, greedily, eagerly, fearful lest one single ray should be +wasted on intermediate and irrelevant worshippers. +</p> +<p> +Wonderful eyes of love!—but alas! where is their Alice? Wildly they +glance along the rosy ranks of chubby girlhood, but where is their +Alice? +</p> +<p> +And then the ranks form in line, and once more the sound, the ecstatic +sound it had seemed but a short time before, of girls marching—but +no!—no!—there is no Alice. +</p> +<p> +In sick despair Narcissus stalked that Amazonian battalion, crouching +behind hedges, dropping into by-lanes, lurking in coppices,—he held his +breath as they passed two and two within a yard of him. Two followed +two, but still no Alice! +</p> +<p> +Narcissus lay in wait, dinnerless, all that afternoon; he walked about +that dreary house like a patrol, till at last he was observed of the +inmates, and knots of girls gathered at the windows—alas! only to +giggle at his forlorn and desperate appearance. +</p> +<p> +Still there was no Alice ... and then it began to rain, and he became +aware how hungry he was. So he returned to his inn with a sad heart. +</p> +<p> +And all the time poor little Alice lay in bed with a sore throat, +oblivious of those passionate boyish eyes that, you would have thought, +must have pierced the very walls of her seclusion. +</p> +<p> +And, after all, it was not her voice Narcissus had heard in the church. +It was but the still sweeter voice of his own heart. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH6"><!-- CH6 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER VI +</h2> + +<center> +THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS +</center> +<p> +I hope it will be allowed to me that I treat the Reader with all +respectful courtesy, and that I am well bred enough to assume him +familiar with all manner of exquisite experience, though in my heart I +may be no less convinced that he has probably gone through life with +nothing worth calling experience whatsoever. It is our jaunty modern +fashion, and I follow it so far as I am able. I take for granted, for +instance, that every man has at one time or another—in his salad days, +you know, before he was embarked in his particular provision +business—had foolish yearnings towards poesy. I respect the mythical +dreams of his 'young days'; I assume that he has been really in love; +but, pray press me not too curiously as to whether I believe it all, as +to whether I really imagine that his youth knew other dreams than those +of the foolish young 'masherdom' one meets in the train every morning, +or that he has married a wife for other than purely 'masculine' reasons. +</p> +<p> +These matters I do not mind leaving in the form of a postulate—let them +be granted: but that every man has at one time or another had the craze +for saving the world I will not assume. Narcissus took it very early, +and though he has been silent concerning his mission for some time, and +when last we heard of it had considerably modified his propaganda, he +still cherishes it somewhere in secret, I have little doubt; and one may +not be surprised, one of these days, to find it again bursting out 'into +sudden flame.' +</p> +<p> +His spiritual experience has probably been the deepest and keenest of +his life. I do not propose to trace his evolution from Anabaptism to +Agnosticism. The steps of such development are comparatively familiar; +they have been traced by greater pens than mine. The 'means' may vary, +but the process is uniform. +</p> +<p> +Whether a man deserts the ancestral Brahminism that has so long been +'good enough for his parents,' and listens to the voice of the Buddhist +missionary, or joins Lucian in the seat of the scornful, shrugging at +augur and philosopher alike; whether it is Voltaire, or Tom Paine, or +Thomas Carlyle, or Walt Whitman, or a Socialist tract, that is the +emancipator, the emancipation is all one. +</p> +<p> +The seed that is to rend the rock comes in all manner of odd, and often +unremembered, ways; but somehow, it is there; rains and dews unnoticed +feed it; and surely, one day the rock is rent, the light is pouring in, +and we are free! It is often a matter of anguish that, strive as we may, +it is impossible to remember what helping hand it was that sowed for us. +Our fickle memory seems to convict us of ingratitude, and yet we know +how far that sin is from us; and how, if those sowers could but be +revealed to us, we would fall upon their necks, or at their feet. +</p> +<p> +I talked of this one day with Narcissus, and some time after he sent me +a few notes headed 'Spiritual Pastors,' in which he had striven to +follow the beautiful example set by Marcus Aurelius, in the anxiously +loving acknowledgment with which he opens his meditations. I know he +regarded it as miserably inefficient; but as it does actually indicate +some of the more individual side of his experience, and is, moreover, +characteristic in its style, I shall copy a few passages from it here:— +</p> +<p> +'To some person or persons unknown exceeding gratitude for the +suggestion, in some dim talk, antenatal it would almost seem, that Roman +Catholics might, after all, be "saved." Blessed fecundating suggestion, +that was the earliest loophole! +</p> +<p> +'To my father I owe a mind that, once set on a clue, must follow it, if +need be, to the nethermost darkness, though he has chosen to restrict +the operation of his own within certain limits; and to my mother a +natural leaning to the transcendental side of an alternative, which has +saved me so many a time when reason had thrown me into the abyss. But +one's greatest debt to a good mother must be simply—herself. +</p> +<p> +'To the Rev. Father Ignatius for his earnest preaching, which might +almost have made me a monk, had not Thomas Carlyle and his <i>Heroes</i>, +especially the lecture on Mahomet, given me to understand the true +significance of a Messiah. +</p> +<p> +'To Bulwer for his <i>Zanoni</i>, which first gave me a hint of the possible +natural "supernatural," and thus for ever saved me from dogmatising in +negatives against the transcendental. +</p> +<p> +'To Sir Edwin Arnold for his <i>Light of Asia,</i> also to Mr. Sinnett for +his <i>Esoteric Buddhism,</i> books which, coming to me about the same time, +together with some others like them, first gave some occupation to an +"unchartered freedom," gained in many forgotten steps, in the form of a +faith which transfigured my life for many months into the most beautiful +enthusiasm a man could know,—and which had almost sent me to the +Himalayas! +</p> +<p> +'That it did not quite achieve that, though much of the light it gave me +still remains, I owe to R.M., who, with no dialectic, but with one bald +question, and the reading of one poem, robbed me of my fairy palace of +Oriental speculation in the twinkling of an eye. Why it went I have +never really quite known; but surely, it was gone, and the wind and the +bare star-light were alone in its place. +</p> +<p> +'Dear Mac., I have not seen you for ever so long, and surely you have +forgotten how that night, long ago, you asked with such a strange, +almost childlike, simplicity: "<i>Is</i> there a soul?" But I have not +forgotten, nor how I made no answer at all, but only staggered, and how, +with your strange, dreamy voice, you chanted for comfort:— +</p> +<pre> + '"This hot, hard flame with which our bodies burn + Will make some meadow blaze with daffodil; + Ay! and those argent breasts of thine will turn + To water-lilies; the brown fields men till + Will be more fruitful for our love to-night: + Nothing is lost in Nature; all things live in Death's despite. + +</pre> +<pre> + + '"So when men bury us beneath the yew + Thy crimson-stained mouth a rose will be, + And thy soft eyes lush blue-bells dimmed with dew; + And when the white narcissus wantonly + Kisses the wind, its playmate, some faint joy + Will thrill our dust, and we will be again fond maid and boy. + + '"... How my heart leaps up + To think of that grand living after death + In beast and bird and flower, when this cup, + Being filled too full of spirit, bursts for breath, + And with the pale leaves of some autumn day, + The soul, earth's earliest conqueror, becomes earth's last great prey. + + '"O think of it! We shall inform ourselves + Into all sensuous life; the goat-foot faun, + The centaur, or the merry, bright-eyed elves + That leave they: dancing rings to spite the dawn + Upon the meadows, shall not be more near + Than you and I to Nature's mysteries, for we shall hear + + '"The thrush's heart beat, and the daisies grow, + And the wan snowdrop sighing for the sun + On sunless days in winter; we shall know + By whom the silver gossamer is spun, + Who paints the diapered fritillaries, + On what wide wings from shivering pine to pine the eagle flies. + +</pre> +<pre> + + '"We shall be notes in that great symphony + Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres, + And all the live world's throbbing heart shall be + One with our heart; the stealthy, creeping years + Have lost their terrors now; we shall not die— + The universe itself shall be our Immortality!" +</pre> +<p> +Have you forgotten how you chanted these, and told me they were Oscar +Wilde's. You had set my feet firmly on earth for the first time, there +was great darkness with me for many weeks, but, as it lifted, the earth +seemed greener than ever of old, the sunshine a goodlier thing, and +verily a blessedness indeed to draw the breath of life. I had learnt +"the value and significance of flesh"; I no longer scorned a carnal +diet, and once again I turned my eyes on the damsels in the street. +</p> +<p> +'But an influence soon came to me that kept me from going all the way +with you, and taught me to say, "I know not," where you would say, "It +is not." Blessings on thee who didst throw a rainbow, that may mean a +promise, across the void, that awoke the old instinct of faith within +me, and has left me "an Agnostic with a faith," quite content with "the +brown earth," if that be all, but with the added significance a mystery +gives to living;—thou who first didst teach me Love's lore aright, to +thee do I owe this thing. +</p> +<p> +'To J.A.W. I owe the first great knowledge of that other love between +man and man, which Whitman has since taught us to call "the dear love of +comrades"; and to him I owe that I never burned those early rhymes, or +broke my little reed—an unequivocal service to me, whatever the +public, should it be consulted, may think. +</p> +<p> +'To a dear sister I owe that still more exquisite and subtle comradeship +which can only exist between man and woman, but from which the more +disturbing elements of sex must be absent. And here, let me also thank +God that I was brought up in quite a garden of good sisters. +</p> +<p> +'To Messrs. C. and W., Solicitors and Notaries, I owe, albeit I will say +no thanks to them, the opportunity of that hardly learned good which +dwells for those who can wrest it in a hateful taskwork, that faculty of +"detachment" which Marcus Aurelius learnt so long ago, by means of which +the soul may withdraw, into an inaccessible garden, and sing while the +head bends above a ledger; or, in other words, the faculty of dreaming +with one side of the brain, while calculating with the other. Mrs. +Browning's great <i>Aurora Leigh</i> helped me more to the attainment of that +than any book I know. +</p> +<p> +'In their office, too, among many other great things, I learnt that a +man may be a good fellow and hate poetry—possibility undreamed of by +sentimental youth; also that Messrs. Bass and Cope are not unworthy of +their great reputation; and I had various nonsense knocked out of me, +though they never succeeded in persuading me in that little matter of +the "ambrosial curls." +</p> +<p> +'Through Samuel Dale I first came to understand how "whatever is" <i>can</i> +be "best," and also won a faith in God which I rather caught by +infection than gained by any process of his reasoning. Of all else I owe +to Samuel, how write? He knows. +</p> +<p> +'To a certain friend, mentioned last because he is not least, I owe: the +sum of ten pounds, and a loving companionship, up hill and down dale, +for which again I have no words and no—sovereigns.' +</p> +<p> +When I first read through these, I was somewhat surprised at the +omission of all reference to books which I know marked most striking +periods in Narcissus' spiritual life: <i>Sartor Resartus</i>, Thoreau's +<i>Walden</i>, for example, Mr. Pater's <i>Marius the Epicurean</i>, and +Browning's <i>Dramatis Personae</i>. As I reflected, however, I came to the +conclusion that such omission was but justice to his own individuality, +for none of these books had created an <i>initiative</i> in Narcissus' +thought, but rather come, as, after all, I suppose they come to most of +us, as great confirming expressions of states of mind at which he had +already arrived, though, as it were, but by moonlight. In them was the +sunrise bringing all into clear sight and sure knowledge. +</p> +<p> +It would seem, indeed, that the growth of the soul in the higher spirits +of our race is analogous to the growth of a child in the womb, in this +respect: that in each case the whole gamut of earlier types is run +through, before the ultimate form is attained in which it is decreed +that the particular vital energy shall culminate. And, as in the +physical world the various 'halts,' so to say, of the progress are +illustrated by the co-existence and continual succession of those +earlier types; so in the world of mind, at every point of spiritual +evolution, a man may meet with an historical individuality who is a +concrete embodiment of the particular state to which he has just +attained. This, of course, was what Goethe meant when he referred to +mysticism as being a frame of mind which one could experience all round +and then leave behind. To quote Whitman, in another connection:— +</p> +<pre> + 'We but level that lift + To pass and continue beyond.' +</pre> +<p> +But an individuality must 'crystallise out' somewhere, and its final +value will not so much depend on the number of states it has passed +through, as how it has lived each on the way, with what depth of +conviction and force of sincerity. For a modern young man to thus +experience all round, and pass, and continue beyond where such great +ones as St. Bernard, Pascal, and Swedenborg, have anchored their starry +souls to shine thence upon men for all time, is no uncommon thing. It is +more the rule than the exception: but one would hardly say that in going +further they have gone higher, or ended greater. The footpath of pioneer +individualism must inevitably become the highway of the race. Every +American is not a Columbus. +</p> +<p> +There are two ways in which we may live our spiritual progress: as +critics, or poets. Most men live theirs in that critical attitude which +refuses to commit itself, which tastes all, but enjoys none; but the +greatest in that earnest, final, rooted, creative, fashion which is the +way of the poets. The one is as a man who spends his days passing from +place to place in search of a dwelling to his mind, but dies at last in +an inn, having known nought of the settled peace of a home; but the +other, howsoever often he has to change his quarters, for howsoever +short a time he may remain in any one of his resting-places, makes of +each a home, with roots that shoot in a night to the foundations of the +world, and blossomed branches that mingle with the stars. +</p> +<p> +Criticism is a good thing, but poetry is a better. Indeed, criticism +properly <i>is</i> not; it is but a process to an end. We could really do +without it much better than we imagine: for, after all, the question is +not so much <i>how</i> we live, but <i>do</i> we live? Who would not a hundred +times rather be a fruitful Parsee than a barren <i>philosophe</i>? Yes, all +lies, of course, in original greatness of soul; and there is really no +state of mind which is not like Hamlet's pipe—if we but know the 'touch +of it,' 'it will discourse most eloquent music.' +</p> +<p> +Now, it was that great sincerity in Narcissus that has always made us +take him so seriously. And here I would remark in parenthesis, that +trivial surface insincerities, such as we have had glimpses of in his +dealings, do not affect such a great organic sincerity as I am speaking +of. They are excrescences, which the great central health will sooner or +later clear away. It was because he never held an opinion to which he +was not, when called upon, practically faithful; never dreamed a dream +without at once setting about its translation into daylight; never +professed a creed for a week without some essay after the realisation of +its new ideal; it was because he had the power and the courage to glow +mightily, and to some purpose; because his life had a fiery centre, +which his eyes were not afraid of revealing—that I speak of his great +sincerity, a great capacity for intense life. Shallow patterers of +divine creeds were, therefore, most abhorrent to him. 'You must excuse +me, sir,' I remember his once saying to such a one, 'but what are you +doing with cigarette and salutaris? If I held such a belief as yours, I +would stand sandalled, with a rope round my waist, before to-morrow.' +</p> +<p> +One quaint instance of this earnest attitude in all things occurs to me +out of his schooldays. He was a Divine Right man, a fiery Jacobite, in +those days; and, probably not without some absurd unconfessed dream in +his heart that it might somehow help the dead old cause, he one +afternoon fluttered the Hanoverian hearts—all the men we meet in street +and mart are Hanoverians, of course—of our little literary club by +solemnly rising 'to give notice' that at the following meeting he would +read a paper to prove that 'the House of Hanover has no right to the +English throne.' Great was the excitement through the fortnight +intervening, extending even to the masters; and the meeting was a full +one, and no little stormy. +</p> +<p> +Narcissus rose with the air of a condemned Strafford, and with all his +boyish armoury of eloquence and scorn fought over again the long-lost +battle, hiss and groan falling unheeded into the stream of his young +voice. But vain, vain! hard is the Hanoverian heart in boy, as in man, +and all your glowing periods were in vain—vain as, your peroration told +us, 'was the blood of gallant hearts shed on Culloden's field.' Poor N., +you had but one timorous supporter, even me, so early your <i>fidus +Achates</i>—but one against so many. Yet were you crestfallen? Galileo +with his 'E pur si muove,' Disraeli with his 'The time will come,' wore +such a mien as yours, as we turned from that well-foughten field. Yes! +and you loved to take in earnest vague Hanoverian threats of possible +arrest for your baby-treason, and, for some time, I know, you never +passed a policeman without a dignified tremor, as of one who might at +any moment find a lodging in the Tower. +</p> +<p> +But the most serious of all N.'s 'mad' enthusiasms was that of which the +Reader has already received some hint, in the few paragraphs of his own +confessions above, that which 'had almost sent him to the Himalayas.' +</p> +<p> +It belongs to natures like his always through life to cherish a half +belief in their old fairy tales, and a longing, however late in the day, +to prove them true at last. To many such the revelations with which +Madame Blavatsky, as with some mystic trumpet, startled the Western +world some years ago, must have come with most passionate appeal; and to +Narcissus they came like a love arisen from the dead. Long before, he +had 'supped full' of all the necromantic excitements that poet or +romancer could give. Guy Mannering had introduced him to Lilly; Lytton +and Hawthorne had sent him searching in many a musty folio for Elixir +Vitas and the Stone. Like Scythrop, in 'Nightmare Abbey,' he had for a +long period slept with horrid mysteries beneath his pillow. But suddenly +his interest had faded: these phantoms fled before a rationalistic +cock-crow, and Eugenius Philalethes and Robert Fludd went with Mejnour +and Zanoni into a twilight forgetfulness. There was no hand to show the +hidden way to the land that might be, and there were hands beckoning and +voices calling him along the highway to the land that is. So, +dream-light passing, he must, perforce, reconcile himself to daylight, +with its dusty beam and its narrow horizons. +</p> +<p> +Judge, then, with what a leaping heart he chanced on some newspaper +gossip concerning the sibyl, for it was so that he first stumbled across +her mission. Ironical, indeed, that the so impossible 'key' to the +mystery should come by the hand of 'our own correspondent'; but so it +was, and that paragraph sold no small quantity of 'occult' literature +for the next twelve months. Mr. Sinnett, doorkeeper in the house of +Blavatsky, who, as a precaution against the vision of Bluebeards that +the word Oriental is apt to conjure up in Western minds, is always +dressed in the latest mode, and, so to say, offers his cigar-case along +with some horrid mystery—it was to his prospectus of the new gospel, +his really delightful pages, that Narcissus first applied. Then he +entered within the gloomier Egyptian portals of the <i>Isis</i> itself, and +from thence—well, in brief, he went in for a course of Redway, and +little that figured in that gentleman's thrilling announcements was long +in reaching his hands. +</p> +<p> +At last a day came when his eye fell upon a notice, couched in suitably +mysterious terms, to the effect that really earnest seekers after divine +truth might, after necessary probation, etc., join a brotherhood of +such—which, it was darkly hinted, could give more than it dared +promise. Up to this point Narcissus had been indecisive. He was, +remember, quite in earnest, and to actually accept this new evangel +meant to him—well, as he said, nothing less in the end than the +Himalayas. Pending his decision, however, he had gradually developed a +certain austerity, and experimented in vegetarianism; and though he was, +oddly enough, free of amorous bond that might have held him to earth, +yet he had grown to love it rather rootedly since the earlier days when +he was a 'seeker.' Moreover, though he read much of 'The Path,' no +actual Mejnour had yet been revealed to set his feet therein. But with +this paragraph all indecision soon came to an end. He felt there a clear +call, to neglect which would be to have seen the light and not to have +followed it, ever for him the most tragic error to be made in life. His +natural predisposition towards it was too great for him to do other than +trust this new revelation; and now he must gird himself for 'the +sacrifice which truth always demands.' +</p> +<p> +But, sacrifice! of what and for what? An undefined social warmth he was +beginning to feel in the world, some meretricious ambition, and a great +friendship—to which in the long run would he not be all the truer by +the great new power he was to win? If hand might no longer spring to +hand, and friendship vie in little daily acts of brotherhood, might he +not, afar on his mountain-top, keep loving watch with clearer eyes upon +the dear life he had left behind, and be its vigilant fate? Surely! and +there was nothing worth in life that would not gain by such a devotion. +All life's good was of the spirit, and to give that a clearer shining, +even in one soul, must help the rest. For if its light, shining, as now, +through the grimy horn-lantern of the body, in narrow lanes and along +the miasmatic flats of the world, even so helped men, how much more must +it, rising above that earthly fume, in a hidden corner no longer, but +in the open heaven, a star above the city. Sacrifice! yes, it was just +such a tug as a man in the dark warmth of morning sleep feels it to +leave the pillow. The mountain-tops of morning gleam cold and bare: but +O! when, staff in hand, he is out amid the dew, the larks rising like +fountains above him, the gorse bright as a golden fleece on the +hill-side, and all the world a shining singing vision, what thought of +the lost warmth then? What warmth were not well lost for this keen +exhilarated sense in every nerve, in limb, in eye, in brain? What potion +has sleep like this crystalline air it almost takes one's breath to +drink, of such a maddening chastity is its grot-cool sparkle? What +intoxication can she give us for this larger better rapture? So did +Narcissus, an old Son of the Morning, figure to himself the struggle, +and pronounce 'the world well lost.' +</p> +<p> +But I feel as I write how little I can give the Reader of all the +'splendid purpose in his eyes' as he made this resolve. Perhaps I am the +less able to do so as—let me confess—I also shared his dream. One +could hardly come near him without, in some measure, doing that at all +times; though with me it could only be a dream, for I was not free. I +had Scriptural example to plead 'Therefore I cannot come,' though in any +case I fear I should have held back, for I had no such creative instinct +for realisation as Narcissus, and have, I fear, dreamed many a dream I +had not the courage even to think of clothing in flesh and blood; like, +may I say, the many who are poets for all save song—poets in chrysalis, +all those who dream of what some do, and make the audience of those +great articulate ones. But there were one or two trifling doubts to set +at rest before final decision. The Reader has greatly misconceived +Narcissus if he has deemed him one of those simple souls whom any quack +can gull, and the good faith of this mysterious fraternity was a +difficult point to settle. A tentative application through the address +given, an appropriate <i>nom de mystère</i>, had introduced the ugly detail +of preliminary expenses. Divine truth has to pay its postage, its rent, +its taxes, and so on; and the 'guru' feeds not on air—although, of +course, being a 'guru,' he comes as near it as the flesh will allow: +therefore, and surely, Reader, a guinea per annum is, after all, +reasonable enough. Suspect as much as one will, but how gainsay? Also, +before the applicant could be admitted to noviciate even, his horoscope +must be cast, and—well, the poor astrologer also needed bread and—no! +not butter—five shillings for all his calculations, circles, and +significations—well, that again was only reasonable. H'm, ye-e-s, but +it was dubious; and, mad as we were, I don't think we ever got outside +that dubiety, but made up our minds, like other converts, to gulp the +primary postulate, and pay the twenty-six shillings. From the first, +however, Narcissus had never actually entrusted all his spiritual +venture in this particular craft: he saw the truth independent of them, +not they alone held her for him, though she might hold them, and they +might be that one of the many avenues for which he had waited to lead +him nearer to her heart. That was all. His belief in the new +illumination neither stood nor fell with them, though his ardour for it +culminated in the experience. One must take the most doubtful +experiment seriously if we are in earnest for results. +</p> +<p> +So next came the sacred name of 'the Order,' which, Reader, I cannot +tell thee, as I have never known it, Narcissus being bound by horrid +oaths to whisper it to no man, and to burn at midnight the paper which +gave it to his eyes. From this time, also, we could exchange no deep +confidences of the kind at all, for the various MSS. by means of which +he was to begin his excursions into Urania, and which his 'guru' sent +from time to time—at first, it must be admitted, with a diligent +frequency—were secret too. So several months went by, and my knowledge +of his 'chela-ship' was confined to what I could notice, and such +trifling harmless gossip as 'Heard from "guru" this morning,' 'Copying +an old MS. last night,' and so on. What I could notice was truly, as +Lamb would say, 'great mastery,' for lo! Narcissus, whose eyes had never +missed a maiden since he could walk, and lay in wait to wrest his +tribute of glance and blush from every one that passed, lo! he had +changed all that, and Saint Anthony in an old master looks not more +resolutely 'the other way' than he, his very thoughts crushing his flesh +with invisible pincers. No more softly-scented missives lie upon his +desk a-mornings; and, instead of blowing out the candle to dream of +Daffodilia, he opens his eyes in the dark to defy—the Dweller on the +Threshold, if haply he should indeed already confront him. +</p> +<p> +One thrilling piece of news in regard to the latter he was unable to +conceal. He read it out to me one flushed morning:— +</p> +<pre> + '<i>I—have—seen—him—and—am—his—master</i>,' +</pre> +<p> +wrote the 'guru,' in answer to his neophyte's half fearful question. +Fitly underlined and sufficiently spaced, it was a statement calculated +to awe, if only by its mendacity. I wonder if that chapter of Bulwer's +would impress one now as it used to do then. It were better, perhaps, +not to try. +</p> +<p> +The next news of these mysteries was the conclusion of them. When so +darkly esoteric a body begins to issue an extremely catchpenny 'organ,' +with advertisements of theosophic 'developers,' magic mirrors, and +mesmeric discs, and also advertises large copies of the dread symbol of +the Order, 'suitable for framing,' at five shillings plain and seven and +sixpence coloured, it is, of course, impossible to take it seriously, +except in view of a police-court process, and one is evidently in the +hands of very poor bunglers indeed. Such was the new departure in +propaganda instituted by a little magazine, mean in appearance, as the +mouthpieces of all despised 'isms' seem to be, with the first number of +which, need one say, ended Narcissus' ascent of 'The Path.' I don't +think he was deeply sad at being disillusionised. Unconsciously a +broader philosophy had slowly been undermining his position, and all was +ready for the fall. It cost no such struggle to return to the world as +it had taken to leave it, for the poet had overgrown the philosopher, +and the open mystery of the common day was already exercising an appeal +beyond that of any melodramatic 'arcana.' Of course the period left its +mark upon him, but it is most conspicuous upon his bookshelves. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH7"><!-- CH7 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER VII +</h2> + +<center> +THE CHILDREN OF APOLLO +</center> +<p> +'He is a <i>true</i> poet,' or 'He is a <i>genuine</i> artist,' are phrases which +irritate one day after day in modern criticism. One had thought that +'poet' and 'artist' were enough; but there must be a need, we +regretfully suppose, for these re-enforcing qualifications; and there +can be but the one, that the false in each kind do so exceedingly +abound, that none can be taken as genuine without such special +certificate. The widespread confusion with the poet of the rhetorician +and sentimentalist in verse, and again of the mere rhymer without even +rhetoric, not to refer to finer differentiation of error, is also a +fruitful source of bewilderment. The misuse of the word has parallels: +for instance, the spurious generic use of the word 'man' for 'male,' +the substitution of 'artist' for 'painter.' But here we have only to +deal with that one particular abuse. Some rules how to know a poet may +conceivably be of interest, though of no greater value. +</p> +<p> +Of course, the one first and last test is his work, but 'how to know +poetry' is another matter, which I do not propose treating of here; my +intention rather being to dot down a few personal characteristics—not +so much his 'works' as his 'ways.' I write as they come into my head; +and to any Reader about to cry out against digression, let me add: I +write thinking of Narcissus; for know all men, friend or Philistine, if +you have yet to learn it, my Narcissus is a poet! +</p> +<p> +First, as to the great question of 'garmenting.' The superstition that +the hat and the cloak 'does it' has gone out in mockery, but only that +the other superstition might reign in its stead—that the hat and cloak +cannot do it. Because one great poet dispensed with 'pontificals,' and +yet brought the fire from heaven, henceforward 'pontificals' are humbug, +and the wearer thereof but charlatan, despite—'the master yonder in +the isle.' Pegasus must pack in favour of a British hunter, and even the +poet at last wear the smug regimentals of mediocrity and mammon. Ye +younger choir especially have a care, for, though you sing with the +tongues of men and angels, and wear not a silk hat, it shall avail you +nothing. Neither Time, which is Mudie, nor Eternity, which is Fame, will +know you, and your verses remain till doom in an ironical <i>editio +princeps</i>, which not even the foolish bookman shall rescue from the +threepenny box. It is very unlikely that you will escape as did +Narcissus, for though, indeed, +</p> +<pre> + 'He swept a fine majestic sweep + Of toga Tennysonian, + Wore strange soft hat, that such as you + Would tremble to be known in,' +</pre> +<p> +nevertheless, he somehow won happier fates, on which, perhaps, it would +be unbecoming in so close a friend to dilate. +</p> +<p> +The 'true' poet is, first of all, a gentleman, usually modest, never +arrogant, and only assertive when pushed. He does not by instinct take +himself seriously, as the 'poet-ape' doth, though if he meets with +recognition it becomes, of course, his duty to acknowledge his faculty, +and make good Scriptural use of it. +</p> +<p> +He is probably least confident, however, when praised; and never, except +in rare moments, especially of eclipse, has he a strong faith in the +truth that is in him. Therefore crush him, saith the Philistine, as we +crush the vine; strike him, as one strikes the lyre. When young, he +imagines the world to be filled with one ambition; later on, he finds +that so indeed it is—but the name thereof is not Poesy. Strange! sighs +he. And if, when he is seventeen, he writes a fluent song, and his +fellow-clerk admire it, why, it is nothing; surely the ledger-man hath +such scraps in his poke, or at least can roll off better. 'True bards +believe all able to achieve what they achieve,' said Naddo. But lo! that +ambition is a word that begins with pounds and ends with pence—like +life, quoth the ledger-man, who, after all, had but card-scores, a +tailor's account, and the bill for his wife's confinement in his pocket. +</p> +<p> +All through his life he loves his last-written most, and no honey of +Hybla is so sweet as a new rhyme. Let no maid hope to rival it with her +lips—she but interrupts: for the travail of a poet is even as that of +his wife—after the pain comes that dear joy of a new thing born into +the world, which doting sipping dream beware to break. Fifty repetitions +of the new sweetness, fifty deliberate rollings of it under the tongue, +is, I understand, the minimum duration of such, before the passion is +worked off, and the dream-child really breathing free of its +dream-parent. I have occasionally come upon Narcissus about the +twenty-fifth, I suppose, and wondered at my glum reception. 'Poetry gone +sour,' he once gave as the reason. Try it not, Reader, if, indeed, in +thy colony of beavers a poet really dwells. +</p> +<p> +He is a born palaeontologist: that is, he can build up an epic from a +hint. And, despite modern instances, the old rule obtains for him, he +need not be learned—that is, not deeply or abundantly, only at +points—superficially, the superficial would say. Well, yes, he has an +eye for knowing what surfaces mean, the secret of the divining rod. +Take it this way. We want an expression, say, of the work of Keats, want +to be told wherein lies his individuality. You take Mr. Buxton Forman's +four volumes, and 'work at' Keats! and, after thirty nights and days, +bring your essay. On the morning of the thirtieth the poet read again +the <i>Grecian Urn</i>, and at eventide wrote a sonnet; and on the morning of +the thirty-first, essay and sonnet are side by side. But, by the +evening, your essay is in limbo—or in type, all's one—while the sonnet +is singing in our heart, persistently haunting our brain. Some day the +poet, too, writes an essay, and thus plainly shows, says the essayist, +how little he really knew of the matter—he didn't actually know of the +so-and-so—and yet it was his ignorance that gave us that illuminating +line, after all. +</p> +<p> +I doubt if one would be on safe ground in saying: Take, now, the subject +of wine. We all know how abstemious is the poetical habit; and yet, to +read these songs, one would think 'twas Bacchus' self that wrote, or +that Clarence who lay down to die in a butt of Malmsey. Though the +inference is open to question, +</p> +<pre> + 'I often wonder if old Omar drank + One half the quantity he bragged in song.' +</pre> +<p> +Doubtless he sat longest and drank least of all the topers of Naishapur, +and the bell for Saki rang not from his corner half often enough to +please mine host. Certainly the longevity of some modern poets can only +be accounted for by some such supposition in their case. The proposition +is certainly proved inversely in the case of Narcissus, for he has not +written one vinous line, and yet—well, and yet! Furthermore, it may +interest future biographers to know that in his cups he was wont to +recite Hamlet's advice to the players, throned upon a tram-car. +</p> +<p> +The 'true' poet makes his magic with the least possible ado; he and the +untrue are as the angler who is born to the angler who is made at the +tackle-shop. One encumbers the small of his back with nameless engines, +talks much of creels, hath a rod like a weaver's beam; he travels first +class to some distant show-lake among the hills, and he toils all day +as the fishermen of old toiled all night; while Tom, his gardener's son, +but a mile outside the town, with a willow wand and a bent pin, hath +caught the family supper. So is it with him who is proverbially born not +made. His friends say: 'O, you should go to such-and-such falls; you 'd +write poetry there, if you like. We all said so'; or, 'What are you +doing in here scribbling? Look through the window at the moonlight; +there's poetry for you. Go out into that if you want sonnets.' Of +course, he never takes his friends' advice; he has long known that they +know nothing whatever about it. He is probably quite ignorant of +metrical law, but one precept instinct taught him from the beginning, +and he finds it expressed one day in Wordsworth (with a blessed comfort +of assurance—like in this little, O, may be like, somehow, in the great +thing too!): 'Poetry is emotion remembered in tranquillity.' The +wandlike moments, he remembers, always came to him in haunts all remote +indeed from poetry: a sudden touch at his heart, and the air grows +rhythmical, and seems a-ripple with dreams; and, albeit, in whatever +room of dust or must he be, the song will find him, will throw her arms +about him, so it seems, will close his eyes with her sweet breath, that +he may open them upon the hidden stars. +</p> +<p> +'Impromptus' are the quackery of the poetaster. One may take it for +granted, as a general rule, that anything written 'on the spot' is +worthless. A certain young poet, who could when he liked do good things, +printed some verses, which he declared in a sub-title were 'Written on +the top of Snowdon in a thunderstorm.' He asked an opinion, and one +replied: 'Written on the top of Snowdon in a thunderstorm.' The poet was +naturally angry—and yet, what need of further criticism? +</p> +<p> +The poet, when young, although as I said, he is not likely to fall into +the foolishness of conceit which belongs to the poetaster, is yet too +apt in his zeal of dedication to talk much of his 'art,' or, at least, +think much; also to disparage life, and to pronounce much gratuitous +absolution in the name of Poetry:— +</p> +<p> +Did Burns drink and wench?—yet he sang! +</p> +<p> +Did Coleridge opiate and neglect his family?—yet he sang!! +</p> +<p> +Did Shelley—well, whatever Shelley did of callous and foolish, the list +is long—yet he sang!!! +</p> +<p> +As years pass, however, he grows out of this stage, and, while regarding +his art in a spirit of dedication equally serious, and how much saner, +he comes to realise that, after all, art but forms one integral part, +however great, of a healthy life, and that for the greatest artist there +are still duties in life more imperative than any art can lay upon him. +It is a great hour when he rises up in his resolution first to be a man, +in faith that, if he be such, the artist in him will look after +itself—- first a man, and surely all the greater artist for being that; +though if not, still a man. That is the duty that lies' next' to all of +us. Do that, and, as we are told, the other will be clearer for us. In +that hour that earlier form of absolution will reverse itself on his +lips into one of commination. Did they sing?—yet they sinned here and +here; and as a man soweth, so shall he reap, singer or sot. Lo! his +songs are stars in heaven, but his sins are snakes in hell: each shall +bless and torment him in turn. +</p> +<p> +Pitiable, indeed, will seem to him in that hour the cowardice that dares +to cloak its sinning with some fine-spun theory, that veils the +gratification of its desires in some shrill evangel, and wrecks a +woman's life in the names of—Liberty and Song! Art wants no such +followers: her bravest work is done by brave men, and not by sneaking +opium-eaters and libidinous 'reformers.' We all have sinned, and we all +will go on sinning, but for God's sake, let us be honest about it. There +are worse things than honest sin. If, God help you, you have ruined a +girl, do penance for it through your life; pay your share; but don't, +whatever you do, hope to make up for a bad heart by a good brain. +Foolish art-patterers may suffer the recompense to pass, for likely they +have all the one and none of the other; but good men will care nothing +about you or your work, so long as bad trees refuse to bring forth good +fruit, or figs to grow on thistles. +</p> +<p> +We have more to learn from Florentine artists than any 'craft mystery.' +If the capacity for using the blossom while missing the evil fruit, of +which Mr. Pater speaks in the case of Aurelius, were only confined to +those evil-bearing trees: alas! it is all blossom with us moderns, good +or bad alike, and purity or putrescence are all one to us, so that they +shine. I suppose few regard Giotto's circle as his greatest work: would +that more did. The lust of the eye, with Gautier as high-priest, is too +much with us. +</p> +<p> +The poet, too, who perhaps began with the simple ambition of becoming a +'literary man,' soon finds how radically incapable of ever being merely +that he is. Alas! how soon the nimbus fades from the sacred name of +'author.' At one time he had been ready to fall down and kiss the +garment's hem, say, of—of a 'Canterbury' editor (this, of course, when +very, very young), as of a being from another sphere; and a writer in +<i>The Fortnightly</i> had swam into his ken, trailing visible clouds of +glory. But by and by he finds himself breathing with perfect composure +in that rarefied air, and in course of time the grey conviction settles +upon him that these fabled people are in no wise different from the +booksellers and business men he had found so sordid and dull—no more +individual or delightful as a race; and he speedily comes to the old +conclusion he had been at a loss to understand a year or two ago, that, +as a rule, the people who do not write books are infinitely to be +preferred to the people who do. When he finds exceptions, they occur as +they used to do in shop and office—the charm is all independent of the +calling; for just as surely as a man need not grow mean, and hard, and +dried up, however prosperous be his iron-foundry, so sure is it that a +man will not grow generous, rich-minded, loving, and all that is golden +by merely writing of such virtues at so much a column. The inherent +insincerity, more or less, of all literary work is a fact of which he +had not thought. I am speaking of the mere 'author,' the +writer-tradesman, the amateur's superstition; not of men of genius, who, +despite cackle, cannot disappoint. If they seem to do so, it must be +that we have not come close enough to know them. But the man of genius +is rarer, perhaps, in the ranks of authorship than anywhere: you are +far more likely to find him on the exchange. They are as scarce as +Caxtons: London possesses hardly half-a-dozen examples. +</p> +<p> +Narcissus enjoyed the delight of calling one of these his friend, 'a +certain aristocratic poet who loved all kinds of superiorities,' again +to borrow from Mr. Pater. He had once seen him afar off and worshipped, +as it is the blessedness of boys to be able to worship; but never could +he have dreamed in that day of the dear intimacy that was to come. 'If +he could but know me as I am,' he had sighed; but that was all. With the +almost childlike naturalness which is his greatest charm he confessed +this sigh long after, and won that poet's heart. Well I remember his +bursting into our London lodging late one afternoon, great-eyed and +almost in tears for joy of that first visit. He had pre-eminently the +capacity which most fine men have of falling in love with men—as one +may be sure of a subtle greatness in a woman whose eye singles out a +woman to follow on the stage at the theatre—and certainly, no other +phrase can express that state of shining, trembling exaltation, the +passion of the friendships of Narcissus. And although he was rich in +them—rich, that is, as one can be said to be rich in treasure so +rare—saving one only, they have never proved that fairy-gold which such +do often prove. Saving that one, golden fruit still hangs for every +white cluster of wonderful blossom. +</p> +<p> +'I thought you must care for me if you could but know me aright,' +Narcissus had said. +</p> +<p> +'Care for you! Why, you beautiful boy! you seem to have dropped from the +stars,' the poet had replied in the caressing fashion of an elder +brother. +</p> +<p> +He had frankly fallen in love, too: for Narcissus has told me that his +great charm is a boyish naturalness of heart, that ingenuous gusto in +living which is one of the sure witnesses to genius. This is all the +more piquant because no one would suspect it, as, I suppose, few do; +probably, indeed, a consensus would declare him the last man in London +of whom that is true. No one would seem to take more seriously the <i>beau +monde</i> of modern paganism, with its hundred gospels of <i>La Nuance</i>; no +one, assuredly, were more <i>blasé</i> than he, with his languors of pose, +and face of so wan a flame. The Oscar Wilde of modern legend were not +more as a dweller in Nirvana. But Narcissus maintained that all this was +but a disguise which the conditions of his life compelled him to wear, +and in wearing which he enjoyed much subtle subterranean merriment; +while underneath the real man lived, fresh as morning, vigorous as a +young sycamore, wild-hearted as an eagle, ever ready to flash out the +'password primeval' to such as alone could understand. How else had he +at once taken the stranger lad to his heart with such a sunlight of +welcome? As the maid every boy must have sighed for but so rarely found, +who makes not as if his love were a weariness which she endured, and the +kisses she suffered, cold as green buds, were charities, but frankly +glows to his avowal with 'I love you, too, dear Jack,' and kisses him +from the first with mouth like a June rose—so did that <i>blasé</i> poet +cast away his conventional Fahrenheit, and call Narcissus friend in +their first hour. Men of genius alone know that fine <i>abandon</i> of soul. +In such is the poet confessed as unmistakably as in his verse, for the +one law of his life is that he be an elemental, and the capacity for +great simple impressions is the spring of his power. Let him beware of +losing that. +</p> +<p> +I sometimes wonder as I come across the last frivolous gossip concerning +that poet in the paragraphs of the new journalism, or meet his name in +some distinguished bead-roll in <i>The Morning Post</i>, whether Narcissus +was not, after all, mistaken about him, and whether he could still, +season after season, go through the same stale round of reception, +private view, first night, and all the various drill of fashion and +folly, if that boy's heart were alive still. One must believe it once +throbbed in him: we have his poems for that, and a poem cannot lie; but +it is hard to think that it could still keep on its young beating +beneath such a choking pressure of convention, and in an air so 'sunken +from the healthy breath of morn.' But, on the other hand, I have almost +a superstitious reliance on Narcissus' intuition, a faculty in him which +not I alone have marked, but which I know was the main secret of his +appeal for women. They, as the natural possessors of the power, feel a +singular kinship with a man who also possesses it, a gift as rarely +found among his sex as that delicacy which largely depends on it, and +which is the other sure clue to a woman's love. She is so little used, +poor flower, to be understood, and to meet with other regard than the +gaze of satyrs. +</p> +<p> +However, be Narcissus' intuition at fault or not in the main, still it +was very sure that the boy's heart in that man of the world did wake +from its sleep for a while at the wandlike touch of his youth; and if, +after all, as may be, Narcissus was but a new sensation in his jaded +round, at least he was a healthy one. Nor did the callous ingratitude of +forgetfulness which follows so swiftly upon mere sensation ever add +another to the sorrows of my friend: for, during the last week before he +left us, came a letter of love and cheer in that poet's wonderful +handwriting—handwriting delicious with honeyed lines, each word a +flower, each letter rounded with the firm soft curves of hawthorn in +bud, or the delicate knobs of palm against the sky. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH8"><!-- CH8 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER VIII +</h2> + +<center> +GEORGE MUNCASTER +</center> +<p> +When I spoke of London's men of genius I referred, of course, to such as +are duly accredited, certificated, so to say, by public opinion; but of +those others whose shining is under the bushel of obscurity, few or +many, how can one affirm? That there are such, any man with any happy +experience of living should be able to testify; and I should say, for +fear of misunderstanding, that I do not use the word genius in any +technical sense, not only of men who can <i>do</i> in the great triumphal +way, but also of those who can <i>be</i> in their quiet, effective fashion, +within their own 'scanty plot of ground'; men who, if ever conscious of +it, are content with the diffusion of their influence around the narrow +limits of their daily life, content to bend their creative instincts on +the building and beautifying of home. It is no lax use of the word +genius to apply it to such, for unless you profess the modern heresy +that genius is but a multiplied talent, a coral-island growth, that +earns its right to a new name only when it has lifted its head above the +waters of oblivion, you must agree. For 'you saw at once,' said +Narcissus, in reference to that poet, 'that his writing was so +delightful because he was more so.' His writings, in fact, were but the +accidental emanations of his personality. He might have given himself +out to us in fugues, or canvases, or simply, like the George Muncaster +of whom I am thinking, in the sweet breath and happy shining of his +home. Genius is a personal quality, and if a man has it, whatever his +hand touches will bear the trace of his power, an undying odour, an +unfading radiance. When Rossetti wrote 'Beauty like hers is genius,' he +was not dealing in metaphor, and Meissonier should have abolished for +ever the superstition of large canvases. +</p> +<p> +These desultory hints of the development of Narcissus would certainly be +more incomplete than necessity demands, if I did not try to give the +Reader some idea of the man of genius of this unobtrusive type to whom I +have just alluded. Samuel Dale used to call himself 'an artist in life,' +and there could be no truer general phrase to describe George Muncaster +than that. His whole life possesses a singular unity, such as is the +most satisfying joy of a fine work of art, considering which it never +occurs to one to think of the limitation of conditions or material. So +with his life, the shortness of man's 'term' is never felt; one could +win no completer effect with eternity than he with every day. Hurry and +false starts seem unknown in his round, and his little home is a +microcosm of the Golden Age. +</p> +<p> +It would even seem sometimes that he has an artistic rule over his +'accidents,' for 'surprises' have a wonderful knack of falling into the +general plan of his life, as though but waited for. Our first meeting +with him was a singular instance of this. I say 'our,' for Narcissus and +I chanced to be walking a holiday together at the time. It fell on this +wise. At Tewkesbury it was we had arrived, one dull September evening, +just in time to escape a wetting from a grey drizzle then imminent; and +in no very buoyant spirits we turned into <i>The Swan Inn</i>. A more dismal +coffee-room for a dismal evening could hardly be—gloomy, vast, and +thinly furnished. We entered sulkily, seeming the only occupants of the +sepulchre. However, there was a small book on the table facing the door, +sufficiently modern in appearance to catch one's eye and arouse a faint +ripple of interest. 'A Canterbury,' we cried. 'And a Whitman, more's the +wonder,' cried Narcissus, who had snatched it up. 'Why, some one's had +the sense, too, to cut out the abominable portrait. I wonder whose it +is. The owner must evidently have some right feeling.' +</p> +<p> +Then, before there was time for further exclamatory compliment of the +unknown, we were half-startled by the turning round of an arm-chair at +the far end of the room, and were aware of a manly voice of exquisite +quality asking, 'Do you know Whitman?' +</p> +<p> +And moving towards the speaker, we were for the first time face to face +with the strong and gentle George Muncaster, who since stands in our +little gallery of types as Whitman's Camarado and Divine Husband made +flesh. I wish, Reader, that I could make you see his face; but at best I +have little faith in pen portraits. It is comparatively easy to write a +graphic description of <i>a</i> face; but when it has been read, has the +reader realised <i>the</i> face? I doubt it, and am inclined to believe that +three different readers will carry away three different impressions even +from a really brilliant portrait. Laborious realism may, at least, I +think, be admitted as hopeless. The only chance is in a Meredithian +lightning-flash, and those fly but from one or two bows. I wonder if an +image will help at all here. Think on a pebbly stream, on a brisk, +bright morning; dwell on the soft, shining lines of its flowing; and +then recall the tonic influence, the sensation of grip, which the +pebbles give it. Dip your hand into it again in fancy; realise how +chaste it is, and then again think how bright and good it is. And if you +realise these impressions as they come to me, you will have gained some +idea of George Muncaster's face—the essential spirit of it, I mean, +ever so much more important than the mere features. Such, at least, +seemed the meaning of his face even in the first moment of our +intercourse that September dusk, and so it has never ceased to come upon +us even until now. +</p> +<p> +And what a night that was! what a talk! How soon did we find each other +out! Long before the maid knocked at the door, and hinted by the +delicate insinuation of a supposed ring that there was 'a budding +morrow' in the air. But our passionate generosity of soul was running in +too strong a tide just then to be stemmed by any such interference; it +could but be diverted, and Muncaster's bedroom served us as well wherein +to squat in one of those close, rapt circles of talk such as, I think, +after all, men who love poetry can alone know—men, anyhow, with <i>a</i> +poetry. +</p> +<p> +Bed, that had for some time been calling us, unheeded as Juliet's nurse, +had at last to be obeyed; but how grudgingly; and how eagerly we sprang +from it at no late hour in the morning, at the first thought of the +sweet new thing that had come into the world—like children who, half +in a doze before waking, suddenly remember last night's new wonder of a +toy, to awake in an instant, and scramble into clothes to look at it +again. Thus, like children we rose; but it was shy as lovers we met at +the breakfast-table, as lovers shy after last night's kissing. (You may +not have loved a fellow-man in this way, Reader, but we are, any one of +us, as good men as you; so keep your eyebrows down, I beseech you.) +</p> +<p> +One most winsome trait of our new friend was soon apparent—as, having, +to our sorrow, to part at the inn door right and left, we talked of +meeting again at one or the other's home: a delicate disinclination to +irreverently 'make sure' of the new joy; a 'listening fear,' as though +of a presiding good spirit that might revoke his gift if one stretched +out towards it with too greedy hands. 'Rather let us part and say +nought. You know where a letter will find me. If our last night was a +real thing, we shall meet again, never fear.' With some such words as +those it was that he bade us good-bye. +</p> +<p> +Of course, letters found all three of us before a fortnight had gone +by, and in but a short time we found his home. There it is that George +should be seen. Away he is full of precious light, but home is his +setting. To Narcissus, who found it in that green period when all +youngsters take vehement vows of celibacy, and talk much of 'free love,' +all ignorant, one is in charity persuaded, of what they quite mean, that +home was certainly as great and lasting a revelation as the first hour +of 'Poetry's divine first finger-touch.' It was not that his own +home-life had been unhappy, for it was the reverse, and rich indeed in +great and sweet influences; but it was rather, I think, that the ideal +of a home is not so easily to be reached from that home in which one is +a child, where one is too apt to miss the whole in consideration of +one's own part in it, as from another on which we can look from the +outside. +</p> +<p> +Our parents, even to the end, partake too much of the nature of +mythology; it always needs an effort to imagine them beings with quite +the same needs and dreams as ourselves. We rarely get a glimpse of +their poetry, for the very reason that we ourselves are factors in it, +and are, therefore, too apt to dwell on the less happy details of the +domestic life, details which one ray of their poetry would transfigure +as the sun transfigures the motes in his beam. Thus, in that green age I +spoke of, one's sickly vision can but see the dusty, world-worn side of +domesticity, the petty daily cares of living, the machinery, so to say, +of 'house and home.' But when one stands in another home, where these +are necessarily unseen by us, stands with the young husband, the +poetry-maker, how different it all seems. One sees the creation bloom +upon it; one ceases to blaspheme, and learns to bless. Later, when at +length one understands why it is sweeter to say 'wife' than +'sweetheart,' how even one may be reconciled to calling one's Daffodilia +'little mother'—because of the children, you know; it would never do +for them to say Daffodilia—then he will understand too how those petty +details, formerly so '<i>banal</i>,' are, after all, but notes in the music, +and what poetry can flicker, like its own blue flame, around even the +joint purchase of a frying-pan. +</p> +<p> +That Narcissus ever understood this great old poetry he owes to George +Muncaster. In the very silence of his home one hears a singing—'There +lies the happiest land.' It was one of his own quaint touches that the +first night we found his nest, after the maid had given us admission, +there should be no one to welcome us into the bright little parlour but +a wee boy of four, standing in the doorway like a robin that has hopped +on to one's window-sill. But with what a dear grace did the little chap +hold out his hand and bid us good evening, and turn his little morsel of +a bird's tongue round our names; to be backed at once by a ring of +laughter from the hidden 'prompter' thereupon revealed. O happy, happy +home! may God for ever smile upon you! There should be a special grace +for happy homes. George's set us 'collecting' such, with results +undreamed of by youthful cynic. Take courage, Reader, if haply you stand +with hesitating toe above the fatal plunge. Fear not, you can swim if +you will. Of course, you must take care that your joint poetry-maker be +such a one as George's. One must not seem to forget the loving wife who +made such dreaming as his possible. He did not; and, indeed, had you +told him of his happiness, he would but have turned to her with a smile +that said, 'All of thee, my love'; while, did one ask of this and that, +how quickly 'Yes! that was George's idea,' laughed along her lips. +</p> +<p> +While we sat talking that first evening, there suddenly came three +cries, as of three little heads straining out of a nest, for 'Father'; +and obedient, with a laugh, he left us. This, we soon learnt, was a part +of the sweet evening ritual of home. After mother's more practical +service had been rendered the little ones, and they were cosily 'tucked +in,' then came 'father's turn,' which consisted of his sitting by their +bedside—Owen and Geoffrey on one hand, and little queen Phyllis, +maidenlike in solitary cot, on the other—and crooning to them a little +evening song. In the dark, too, I should say, for it was one of his wise +provisions that they should be saved from ever fearing that; and that, +whenever they awoke to find it round them in the middle of the night, it +should bring them no other association but 'father's voice.' +</p> +<p> +A quaint recitative of his own, which he generally contrived to vary +each night, was the song, a loving croon of sleep and rest. The +brotherhood of rest, one might name his theme for grown-up folk; as in +the morning, we afterwards learnt, he is wont to sing them another +little song of the brotherhood of work; the aim of his whole beautiful +effort for them being to fill their hearts with a sense of the +brotherhood of all living things—flowers, butterflies, bees and birds, +the milk-boy, the policeman, the man at the crossing, the grocer's pony, +all within the circle of their little lives, as living and working in +one great <i>camaraderie</i>. Sometimes he would extemporise a little rhyme +for them, filling it out with his clear, happy voice, and that tender +pantomime that comes so naturally to a man who not merely loves +children—for who is there that does not?—but one born with the +instinct for intercourse with them. To those not so born it is as +difficult to enter into the life and prattle of birds. I have once or +twice crept outside the bedroom door when neither children nor George +thought of eavesdroppers, and the following little songs are impressions +from memory of his. You must imagine them chanted by a voice full of the +infinite tenderness of fatherhood, and even then you will but dimly +realise the music they have as he sings them. I run the risk of his +forgiving my printing them here:— +</p> +<pre> + MORNING SONG. + + Morning comes to little eyes, + Wakens birds and butterflies, + Bids the flower uplift his head, + Calls the whole round world from bed. + Up jump Geoffrey! + Up jump Owen!! + Then up jump Phyllis!!! + And father's going! + + EVENING SONG. + + The sun is weary, for he ran + So far and fast to-day; + The birds are weary, for who sang + So many songs as they? + The bees and butterflies at last + Are tired out; for just think, too, + How many gardens through the day + Their little wings have fluttered through. + + And so, as all tired people do, + They've gone to lay their sleepy heads + Deep, deep in warm and happy beds. + The sun has shut his golden eye, + And gone to sleep beneath the sky; + The birds, and butterflies, and bees + Have all crept into flowers and trees, + And all lie quiet, still as mice, + Till morning comes, like father's voice. + So Phyllis, Owen, Geoffrey, you + Must sleep away till morning too; + Close little eyes, lie down little heads, + And sleep, sleep, sleep in happy beds. +</pre> +<p> +As the Reader has not been afflicted with a great deal of verse in these +pages, I shall also venture to copy here another little song which, as +his brains have grown older, George has been fond of singing to them at +bedtime, and with which the Reader is not likely to have enjoyed a +previous acquaintance:— +</p> +<pre> + REST.[<a href="#note-1">1</a>] + + When the Sun and the Golden Day + Hand in hand are gone away, + At your door shall Sleep and Night + Come and knock in the fair twilight; + Let them in, twin travellers blest; + Each shall be an honoured guest, + And give you rest. + + They shall tell of the stars and moon, + And their lips shall move to a glad sweet tune, + Till upon your cool, white bed + Fall at last your nodding head; + Then in dreamland fair and blest, + Farther off than East and West, + They give you rest. + + Night and Sleep, that goodly twain, + Tho' they go, shall come again; + When your work and play are done, + And the Sun and Day are gone + Hand in hand thro' the scarlet West, + Each shall come, an honoured guest, + And bring you rest. + + Watching at your window-sill, + If upon the Eastern hill + Sun and Day come back no more, + They shall lead you from the door + To their kingdom calm and blest, + Farther off than East or West, + And give you rest. +</pre> +<p> +Arriving down to breakfast earlier than expected next morning, we +discovered George busy at some more of his loving ingenuity. He half +blushed in his shy way, but went on writing in this wise, with chalk, +upon a small blackboard: '<i>Thursday</i>—<i>Thor's-day</i>—<i>Jack the Giant +Killer's day</i>'. Then, in one corner of the board, a sun was rising with +a merry face and flaming locks, and beneath him was written, +'<i>Phoebus-Apollo';</i> while in the other corner was a setting moon, '<i>Lady +Cynthia</i>. There were other quaint matters, too, though they have escaped +my memory; but these hints are sufficient to indicate George's morning +occupation. Thus he endeavoured to implant in the young minds he felt so +sacred a trust an ever-present impression of the full significance of +life in every one of its details. The days of the week should mean for +them what they did mean, should come with a veritable personality, such +as the sun and the moon gained for them by thus having actual names, +like friends and playfellows. This Thor's-day was an especially great +day for them; for, in the evening, when George had returned from +business, and there was yet an hour to bedtime, they would come round +him to hear one of the adventures of the great Thor—adventures which he +had already contrived, he laughingly told us, to go on spinning out of +the Edda through no less than the Thursdays of two years. Certainly his +ingenuity of economy with his materials was no little marvel, and he +confessed to often being at his wits' end. For Thursday night was not +alone starred with stories; every night there was one to tell; sometimes +an incident of his day in town, which he would dress up with the +imaginative instinct of a born teller of fairy-tales. He had a knack, +too, of spreading one story over several days which would be invaluable +to a serial writer. I remember one simple instance of his device. +</p> +<p> +He sat in one of those great cane nursing chairs, Phyllis on one knee, +Owen on the other, and Geoffrey perched in the hollow space in the back +of the chair, leaning over his shoulder, all as solemn as a court +awaiting judgment. George begins with a preliminary glance behind at +Geoffrey: 'Happy there, my boy? That's right. Well, there was once a +beautiful garden.' +</p> +<p> +'Yes-s-s-s,' go the three solemn young heads. +</p> +<p> +'And it was full of the most wonderful things.' +</p> +<p> +'Yes-s-s-s.' +</p> +<p> +'Great trees, so green, for the birds to hide and sing in; and flowers +so fair and sweet that the bees said that, in all their flying hither +and thither, they had never yet found any so full of honey in all the +world. And the birds, too, what songs they knew; and the butterflies, +were there ever any so bright and many-coloured?' etc., etc. +</p> +<p> +'But the most wonderful thing about the garden was that everything in it +had a wonderful story to tell.' +</p> +<p> +'Yes-s-s s.' +</p> +<p> +'The birds, and bees, and butterflies, even the trees and flowers, each +knew a wonderful fairy-tale.' +</p> +<p> +'Oh-h-h-h.' +</p> +<p> +'But of all in the garden the grasshopper knew the most. He had been a +great traveller, for he had such long legs.' +</p> +<p> +Again a still deeper murmur of breathless interest. +</p> +<p> +'Now, would you like to hear what the grasshopper had to tell?' +</p> +<p> +'Oh, yes-s-s-s.' +</p> +<p> +'Well, you shall—to-morrow night!' +</p> +<p> +So off his knees they went, as he rose with a merry, loving laugh, and +kissed away the long sighs of disappointment, and sent them to bed, +agog for all the morrow's night should reveal. +</p> +<p> +Need one say that the children were not the only disappointed listeners? +Besides, they have long since known all the wonderful tale, whereas one +of the poorer grown-up still wonders wistfully what that grasshopper who +was so great a traveller, and had such long legs, had to tell. +</p> +<p> +But I had better cease. Were I sure that the Reader was seeing what I am +seeing, hearing as I, I should not fear; but how can I be sure of that? +Had I the pen which that same George will persist in keeping for his +letters, I should venture to delight the Reader with more of his story. +One underhand hope of mine, however, for these poor hints is, that they +may by their very imperfection arouse him to give the world 'the true +story' of a happy home. Narcissus repeatedly threatened that, if he did +not take pen in hand, he would some day 'make copy' of him; and now I +have done it instead. Moreover, I shall further presume on his +forbearance by concluding with a quotation from one of his letters that +came to me but a few months back:— +</p> +<p> +'You know how deeply exercised the little ones are on the subject of +death, and how I had answered their curiosity by the story that after +death all things turn into flowers. Well, what should startle the wife's +ears the other day but "Mother, I wish you would die." "O why, my dear?" +"Because I should so like to water you!" was the delicious explanation. +The theory has, moreover, been called to stand at the bar of experience, +for a week or two ago one of Phyllis' goldfish died. There were tears at +first, of course, but they suddenly dried up as Geoffrey, in his +reflective way, wondered "what flower it would come to." Here was a +dilemma. One had never thought of such contingencies. But, of course, it +was soon solved. "What flower would you like it to be, my boy?" I asked. +"A poppy!" he answered; and after consultation, "a poppy!" agreed the +others. So a poppy it is to be. A visit to the seedsman's procured the +necessary surreptitious poppy seed; and so now poor Sir Goldfish sleeps +with the seed of sleep in his mouth, and the children watch his grave +day by day, breathless for his resplendent resurrection. Will you write +us an epitaph?' +</p> +<p> +Ariel forgive me! Here is what I sent: +</p> +<pre> + 'Five inches deep Sir Goldfish lies; + Here last September was he laid; + Poppies these, that were his eyes, + Of fish-bones are these blue-bells made; + His fins of gold that to and fro + Waved and waved so long ago, + Still as petals wave and wave + To and fro above his grave. + Hearken, too! for so his knell + Tolls all day each tiny bell.' +</pre> +<center> +FOOTNOTES: +</center> +<p> +<a name="note-1"><!-- Note Anchor 1 --></a>[Footnote 1: From a tiny privately-printed volume of deliciously +original lyrics by Mr. R.K. Leather, since republished by Mr. Fisher +Unwin, 1890, and at present published by Mr. John Lane.] +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH9"><!-- CH9 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER IX +</h2> + +<center> +THAT THIRTEENTH MAID +</center> +<pre> + 'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'— + <i>Merchant of Venice</i>. +</pre> +<p> +It occurs to me here to wonder whether there can be any reader +ungrateful enough to ask with grumbling voice, 'What of the book-bills? +The head-line has been the sole mention of them now for many pages; and +in the last chapter, where a book was referred to, the writer was +perverse enough to choose one that never belonged to Narcissus at all.' +To which I would venture to make humble rejoinder—Well, Goodman Reader, +and what did you expect? Was it accounts, with all their thrilling +details, with totals, 'less discount,' and facsimiles of the receipt +stamps? Take another look at our first chapter. I promised nothing of +the sort there, I am sure. I promised simply to attempt for you the +delineation of a personality which has had for all who came into contact +with it enduring charm, in hope that, though at second-hand, you might +have some pleasure of it also; and I proposed to do this mainly from the +hints of documents which really are more significant than any letters or +other writings could be, for the reason that they are of necessity so +unconscious. I certainly had no intention of burdening you with the +original data, any more than, should you accept the offer I made, also +in that chapter, and entrust me with your private ledger for +biographical purposes, I would think of printing it <i>in extenso</i>, and +calling it a biography; though I should feel justified, after the varied +story had been deduced and written out, in calling the product, +metaphorical wise, 'The private ledger of Johannes Browne, Esquire'—a +title which, by the way, is copyright and duly 'entered.' Such was my +attempt, and I maintain that I have so far kept my word. Because whole +shelves have been disposed of in a line, and a ninepenny 'Canterbury' +has rustled out into pages, you have no right to complain, for that is +but the fashion of life, as I have endeavoured to show. And let me say +in passing that that said copy of Mr. Rhys's Whitman, though it could +not manifestly appear in his book-bills, does at the present moment rest +upon his shelf—'a moment's monument.' +</p> +<p> +Perhaps it would be well, before proceeding with this present 'place in +the story,' to set out with a statement of the various 'authorities' for +it; as, all this being veritable history, perhaps one should. But then, +Reader, here again I should have to catalogue quite a small library. +However, I will enumerate a few of the more significant ones. +</p> +<p> +'Swinburne's <i>Tristram of Lyonesse</i>, 9/-, less dis., 6/9.' +</p> +<p> +All that this great poem of 'springtide passion with its fire and +flowers' meant to Narcissus and his 'Thirteenth Maid' in the morning of +their love, those that have loved too will hardly need telling, while +those who have not could never understand, though I spake with the +tongue of the poet himself. In this particular copy, which, I need +hardly say, does not rest upon N.'s shelves, but on another in a sweet +little bedchamber, there is a tender inscription and a sonnet which +aimed at acknowledging how the hearts of those young lovers had gone out +to that poet 'with mouth of gold and morning in his eyes.' The latter I +have begged leave to copy here:— +</p> +<pre> + 'Dear Heart, what thing may symbolise for us + A love like ours; what gift, whate'er it be, + Hold more significance 'twixt thee and me + Than paltry words a truth miraculous, + Or the poor signs that in astronomy + Tell giant splendours in their gleaming might? + Yet love would still give such, as in delight + To mock their impotence—so this for thee. + + 'This book for thee; our sweetest honeycomb + Of lovesome thought and passion-hearted rhyme, + Builded of gold, and kisses, and desire, + By that wild poet whom so many a time + Our hungering lips have blessed, until a fire + Burnt speech up, and the wordless hour had come.' +</pre> +<p> +'Meredith's <i>Richard Feverel</i>, 6/-, less dis., 4/6.' +</p> +<p> +Narcissus was never weary of reading those two wonderful chapters where +Lucy and Richard meet, and he used to say that some day he would beg +leave from Mr. Meredith to reprint at his own charges just those two +chapters, to distribute to all true lovers in the kingdom. It would be +hard to say how often he and his maid had read them aloud together, with +amorous punctuation—caresses for commas, and kisses for full-stops. +</p> +<p> +'Morris' <i>Sigurd the Volsung</i>, 12/-, less dis., 9/-.' +</p> +<p> +This book they loved when their love had grown to have more of earnest +purpose in it, and its first hysteric ecstasy had passed into the more +solemn ardours of the love that goes not with spring, but loves even +unto the winter and beyond. It is marked all through in pencil by +Narcissus; but on one page, where it opens easily, there are written +initials, in a woman's hand, against this great passage:— +</p> +<pre> + 'She said: "Thou shalt never unsay it, and thy heart is mine indeed: + Thou shalt bear thy love in thy bosom as thou helpest the earth-folk's need: + Thou shalt wake to it dawning by dawning; thou shalt sleep and it shall not be strange: + There is none shall thrust between us till our earthly lives shall change. + Ah, my love shall fare as a banner in the hand of thy renown, + In the arms of thy fame accomplished shall it lie when we lay us adown. + O deathless fame of Sigurd! O glory of my lord! + O birth of the happy Brynhild to the measureless reward!" + So they sat as the day grew dimmer, and they looked on days to come, + And the fair tale speeding onward, and the glories of their home; + And they saw their crowned children and the kindred of the kings, + And deeds in the world arising and the day of better things: + All the earthly exaltation, till their pomp of life should be passed, + And soft on the bosom of God their love should be laid at the last.' +</pre> +<p> +And on the page facing this lies a pressed flower—there used to be +two—guarded by these tender rhymes:— +</p> +<pre> + 'Whoe'er shall read this mighty song + In some forthcoming evensong, + We pray thee guard these simple flowers, + For, gentle Reader, they are "ours."' +</pre> +<p> +But ill has some 'gentle Reader' attended to the behest, for, as I said, +but one of the flowers remains. One is lost—and Narcissus has gone +away. This inscription is but one of many such scattered here and there +through his books, for he had a great facility in such minor graces, as +he had a neat hand at tying a bow. I don't think he ever sent a box of +flowers without his fertility serving him with some rose-leaf fancy to +accompany them; and on birthdays and all red-letter days he was always +to be counted upon for an appropriate rhyme. If his art served no other +purpose, his friend would be grateful to him for that alone, for many +great days would have gone without their 'white stone' but for him; +when, for instance, J.A.W. took that brave plunge of his, which has +since so abundantly justified him and more than fulfilled prophecy; or +when Samuel Dale took that bolder, namely a wife, he being a +philosopher—incidents, Reader, on which I long so to digress, and for +which, if you could only know beforehand, you would, I am sure, give me +freest hand. But beautiful stories both, I may not tell of you here; +though if the Reader and I ever spend together those hinted nights at +the 'Mermaid,' I then may. +</p> +<p> +But to return. I said above that if I were to enumerate all the books, +so to say, 'implicated' in the love of Narcissus and his Thirteenth +Maid, I should have to catalogue quite a small library. I forgot for the +moment what literal truth I was writing, for it was indeed in quite a +large library that they first met. In 'our town' there is, Reader, an +old-world institution, which, I think, you would well like transported +to yours, a quaint subscription library 'established' ever so long ago, +full of wonderful nooks and corners, where (of course, if you are a +member) one is sure almost at any time of the day of a solitary corner +for a dream. It is a sweet provision, too, that it is managed by ladies, +whom you may, if you can, image to yourself as the Hesperides; for there +are three of them; and may not the innumerable galleries and spiral +staircases, serried with countless shelves, clustered thick with tome on +tome, figure the great tree, with its many branches and its wonderful +gold fruit—the tree of knowledge? The absence of the dragon from the +similitude is as well, don't you think? +</p> +<p> +Books, of all things, should be tended by reverent hands; and, to my +mind, the perfunctory in things ecclesiastical is hardly more +distressing than the service of books as conducted in many great +libraries. One feels that the <i>librarii</i> should be a sacred order, +nearly allied to the monastic, refined by varying steps of initiation, +and certainly celibates. They should give out their books as the priest +his sacrament, should wear sacred vestments, and bear about with them +the priestlike <i>aura</i>, as of divine incarnations of the great spirit of +Truth and Art in whose temples they are ministrants. The next step to +this ideal ministry is to have our books given out to us by women. +Though they may understand them not, they handle them with gentle +courtesy, and are certainly in every way to be preferred to the youthful +freckled monster with red spines upon his head, and nailed boots, 'the +work of the Cyclops,' upon his feet, whose physiognomy is contorted by +cinnamon-balls at the very moment he carries in his arms some great +Golden-lips or gentle Silver-tongue. What good sweet women there are, +too, who would bless heaven for the occupation! +</p> +<p> +Well, as I said, we in that particular library are more fortunate, and +two of the 'subscribers,' at least, did at one time express their +appreciation of its privileges by a daily dream among its shelves. One +day—had Hercules been there overnight?—we missed one of our fair +attendants. Was it Aegle, Arethusa, or Hesperia? Narcissus probably +knew. And on the next she was still missing; nor on the third had she +returned; but lo! there was another in her stead—and on her Narcissus +bent his gaze, according to wont. A little maid, with noticeable eyes, +and the hair Rossetti loved to paint—called Hesper, 'by many,' said +Narcissus, one day long after, solemnly quoting the Vita Nuova, 'who +know not wherefore.' +</p> +<p> +'Why! do <i>you</i> know?' I asked. +</p> +<p> +'Yes!' And then, for the first time, he had told me the story I have now +to tell again. He had, meanwhile, rather surprised me by little touches +of intimate observation of her which he occasionally let slip—as, for +instance, 'Have you noticed her forehead? It has a fine distinction of +form; is pure ivory, surely; and you should watch how deliciously her +hair springs out of it, like little wavy threads of "old gold" set in +the ivory by some cunning artist.' +</p> +<p> +I had just looked at him and wondered a moment. But such attentive +regard was hardly matter for surprise in his case; and, moreover, I +always tried to avoid the subject of women with him, for it was the one +on which alone there was danger of our disagreeing. It was the only one +in which he seemed to show signs of cruelty in his disposition, though +it was, I well know, but a thoughtless cruelty; and in my heart I always +felt that he was too right-minded and noble in the other great matters +of life not to come right on that too when 'the hour had struck.' +Meanwhile, he had a way of classifying amours by the number of verses +inspired—as, 'Heigho! it's all over; but never mind, I got two sonnets +out of her'—which seemed to me an exhibition of the worst side of his +artist disposition, and which—well, Reader, jarred much on one who +already knew what a true love meant. It was, however, I could see, quite +unconscious; and I tried hard not to be intolerant towards him, because +fortune had blessed me with an earlier illumination. +</p> +<p> +Pray, go not away with the misconception that Narcissus was ever base to +a woman. No! he left that to Circe's hogs, and the one temptation he +ever had towards it he turned into a shining salvation. No! he had +nothing worse than the sins of the young egoist to answer for, though he +afterwards came to feel those pitiful and mean enough. +</p> +<p> +Another noticeable feature of Hesper's face was an ever-present +sadness—not as of a dull grief, but as of some shining sorrow, a +quality which gave her face much arresting interest. It seemed one +great, rich tear. One loved to dwell upon it as upon those intense +stretches of evening sky when the day yearns through half-shut eyelids +in the west. One continually wondered what story it meant, for some it +must mean. +</p> +<p> +Watching her thus quietly, day by day, it seemed to me that as the weeks +from her first coming went by, this sadness deepened; and I could not +forbear one day questioning the elder Hesperides about her, thus +bringing upon myself a revelation I had little expected. For, said she, +'she was glad I had spoken to her, for she had long wished to ask me to +use my influence with my friend, that he might cease paying Hesper +attentions which he could not mean in earnest, but which she knew were +already causing Hesper to be fond of him. Having become friendly with +her, she had found out her secret and remonstrated with her, with the +result that she had avoided Narcissus for some time, but not without +much misery to herself, over which she was continually brooding.' +</p> +<p> +All this was an utter surprise, and a saddening one; for I had grown to +feel much interest in the girl, and had been especially pleased by all +absence of the flighty tendencies with which too many girls in public +service tempt men to their own destruction. She had seemed to me to bear +herself with a maidenly self-respect that spoke of no little grace of +breeding. She had two very strong claims on one's regard. She was +evidently a woman, in the deep, tragic sense of that word, and a lady in +the only true sense of that. The thought of a life so rich in womanly +promise becoming but another of the idle playthings of Narcissus filled +me with something akin to rage, and I was not long in saying some strong +words to him. Not that I feared for her the coarse 'ruin' the world +alone thinks of. Is that the worst that can befall woman? What of the +spiritual deflowering, of which the bodily is but a symbol? If the first +fine bloom of the soul has gone, if the dream that is only dreamed once +has grown up in the imagination and been once given, the mere chastity +of the body is a lie, and whatever its fecundity, the soul has nought +but sterility to give to another. It is not those kisses of the +lips—kisses that one forgets as one forgets the roses we smelt last +year—which profane; they but soil the vessel of the sacrament, and it +is the sacrament itself which those consuming spirit-kisses, which burn +but through the eyes, may desecrate. It is strange that man should have +so long taken the precisely opposite attitude in this matter, caring +only for the observation of the vessel, and apparently dreaming not of +any other possible approach to the sanctities. Probably, however, his +care has not been of sanctities at all. Indeed, most have, doubtless, +little suspicion of the existence of such, and the symbol has been and +is but a selfish superstition amongst them—woman, a symbol whose +meaning is forgotten, but still the object of an ignorant veneration, +not unrelated to the preservation of game. +</p> +<p> +Narcissus took my remonstrance a little flippantly, I thought, evidently +feeling that too much had been made out of very little; for he averred +that his 'attentions' to Hesper had been of the slightest character, +hardly more than occasional looks and whispers, which, from her cold +reception of them, he had felt were more distasteful to her than +otherwise. He had indeed, he said, ceased even these the last few days, +as her reserve always made him feel foolish, as a man fondling a fair +face in his dream wakes on a sudden to find that he is but grimacing at +the air. This reassured me, and I felt little further anxiety. However, +this security only proved how little I really understood the weak side +of my friend. I had not realised how much he really was Narcissus, and +how dear to him was a new mirror. My speaking to him was the one wrong +course possible to be taken. Instead of confirming his growing intention +of indifference, it had, as might have been foreseen, the directly +opposite effect; and from the moment of his learning that Hesper +secretly loved him, she at once became invested with a new glamour, and +grew daily more and more the forbidden fascination few can resist. +</p> +<p> +I did not learn this for many months. Meanwhile Narcissus chose to +deceive me for the first and only time. At last he told me all; and how +different was his manner of telling it from his former gay relations of +conquest. One needed not to hear the words to see he was unveiling a +sacred thing, a holiness so white and hidden, the most reverent word +seemed a profanation; and, as he laboured for the least soiled wherein +to enfold the revelation, his soul seemed as a maid torn with the +blushing tremors of a new knowledge. Men only speak so after great and +wonderful travail, and by that token I knew Narcissus loved at last. It +had seemed unlikely ground from which love had first sprung forth, that +of a self-worship that could forgo no slightest indulgence—but thence +indeed it had come. The silent service my words had given him to know +that Hesper's heart was offering to him was not enough; he must hear it +articulate, his nostrils craved an actual incense. To gain this he must +deceive two—his friend, and her whose poor face would kindle with +hectic hope, at the false words he must say for the true words he <i>must</i> +hear. It was pitifully mean; but whom has not his own hidden lust made +to crawl like a thief, afraid of a shadow, in his own house? Narcissus' +young lust was himself, and Moloch knew no more ruthless hunger than +burns in such. Of course, it did not present itself quite nakedly to +him; he persuaded himself there could be little harm—he meant none. +</p> +<p> +And so, instead of avoiding Hesper, he sought her the more persistently, +and by some means so far wooed her from her reticence as to win her +consent to a walk together one autumn afternoon. How little do we know +the measure of our own proposing! That walk was to be the most fateful +his feet had ever trodden through field and wood, yet it seemed the most +accidental of gallantries. A little town-maid, with a romantic passion +for 'us'; it would be interesting to watch the child; it would be like +giving her a day's holiday, so much sunshine 'in our presence.' And so +on. But what an entirely different complexion was the whole thing +beginning to take before they had walked a mile. Behind the flippancy +one had gone to meet were surely the growing features of a solemnity. +Why, the child was a woman indeed; she could talk, she had brains, +ideas—and, Lord bless us, Theories! She had that 'excellent thing in +woman,' not only a voice, which she had, too, but character. Narcissus +began to loose his regal robes, and from being merely courteously to be +genuinely interested. Why, she was a discovery! As they walked on, her +genuine delight in the autumnal nature, the real imaginative appeal it +had for her, was another surprise. She had, evidently, a deep poetry in +her disposition, rarest of all female endowments. In a surprisingly few +minutes from the beginning of their walk he found himself taking that +'little child' with extreme seriousness, and wondering many 'whethers.' +</p> +<p> +They walked out again, and yet again, and Narcissus' first impressions +deepened. He had his theories, too; and, surely, here was the woman! He +was not in love—at least, not with her, but with her fitness for his +theory. +</p> +<p> +They sat by a solitary woodside, beneath a great elm tree. The hour was +full of magic, for though the sun had set, the smile of her day's joy +with him had not yet faded from the face of earth. It was the hour +vulgarised in drawing-room ballads as the 'gloaming.' They sat very near +to each other; he held her hand, toying with it; and now and again their +eyes met with the look that flutters before flight, that says, 'Dare I +give thee all? Dare I throw my eyes on thine as I would throw myself on +thee?' And then, at last, came the inevitable moment when the eyes of +each seem to cry 'O yes!' to the other, and the gates fly back; all the +hidden light springs forth, the woods swim round, and the lips meet with +a strange shock, while the eyes of the spirit close in a lapping dream +of great peace. +</p> +<p> +If you are not ready to play the man, beware of a kiss such as the lips +of little Hesper, that never knew to kiss before, pressed upon the mouth +of Narcissus. It sent a chill shudder through him, though it was so +sweet, for he could feel her whole life surging behind it; and was the +kiss he had given her for it such a kiss as that? But he had spoken much +to her of his ideas of marriage; she knew he was sworn for ever against +that. She must know the kiss had no such meaning; for, besides, did she +not scorn the soiled 'tie' also? Were not their theories at one in that? +He would be doing her no wrong; it was her own desire. Yet his kiss did +mean more than he could have imagined it meaning a week before. She had +grown to be genuinely desirable. If love tarried, passion was +awake—that dangerous passion, too, to which the intellect has added its +intoxication, and that is, so to say, legitimised by an 'idea.' +</p> +<p> +Her woman's intuition read the silence and answered to his thought. +'Have no fear,' she said, with the deep deliberation of passion; 'I +love you with my whole life, but I shall never burden you, Narcissus. +Love me as long as you can, I shall be content; and when the end comes, +though another woman takes you, I shall not hinder.' +</p> +<p> +O great girl-soul! What a poltroon, indeed, was Narcissus beside you at +that moment. You ready to stake your life on the throw, he temporising +and bargaining as over the terms of a lease. Surely, if he could for one +moment have seen himself in the light of your greatness, he had been +crushed beneath the misery of his own meanness. But as yet he had no +such vision; his one thought was, 'She will do it! will she draw back?' +and the feeble warnings he was obliged to utter to keep his own terms, +by assuring his conscience of 'her free-will,' were they not +half-fearfully whispered, and with an inward haste, lest they should +give her pause? 'But the world, my dear—think!' 'It will have cruel +names for thee.' 'It will make thee outcast—think!' +</p> +<p> +'I know all,' she had answered; 'but I love you, and two years of your +love would pay for all. There is no world for me but you. Till to-night +I have never lived at all, and when you go I shall be as dead. The world +cannot hurt such a one.' +</p> +<p> +Ah me, it was a wild, sweet dream for both of them, one the woman's, one +the poet's, of a 'sweet impossible' taking flesh! For, do not let us +blame Narcissus overmuch. He was utterly sincere; he meant no wrong. He +but dreamed of following a creed to which his reason had long given a +hopeless assent. In a more kindly-organised community he might have +followed it, and all have been well; but the world has to be dealt with +as one finds it, and we must get sad answers to many a fair calculation +if we 'state' it wrongly in the equation. That there is one law for the +male and another for the female had not as yet vitally entered into his +considerations. He was too dizzy with the dream, or he must have seen +what an unequal bargain he was about to drive. +</p> +<p> +At last he did awake, and saw it all; and in a burning shame went to +Hesper, and told her that it must not be. +</p> +<p> +Her answer was unconsciously the most subtly dangerous she could have +chosen: 'If I like to give myself to you, why should you not take me? It +is of my own free-will. My eyes are open.' It was his very thought put +into words, and by her. For a moment he wavered—who could blame him? +'Am I my brother's keeper?' +</p> +<p> +'Yes! a thousand times yes!' cried his soul; for he was awake now, and +he had come to see the dream as it was, and to shudder at himself as he +had well-nigh been, just as one shudders at the thought of a precipice +barely escaped. In that moment, too, the idea of her love in all its +divineness burst upon him. Here was a heart capable of a great tragic +love like the loves of old he read of and whimpered for in sonnets, and +what had he offered in exchange? A poor, philosophical compromise, +compounded of pessimism and desire, in which a man should have all to +gain and nothing to lose, for +</p> +<pre> + 'The light, light love he has wings to fly + At suspicion of a bond.' +</pre> +<p> +'I would I did love her,' his heart was crying as he went away. 'Could I +love her?' was his next thought. 'Do I love her?'—but that is a +question that always needs longer than one day to answer. +</p> +<p> +Already he was as much in love with her as most men when they take unto +themselves wives. She was desirable—he had pleasure in her presence. He +had that half of love which commonly passes for all—the passion; but he +lacked the additional incentives which nerve the common man to face that +fear which seems well-nigh as universal as the fear of death, I mean the +fear of marriage—life's two fears: that is, he had no desire to +increase his worldly possessions by annexing a dowry, or ambition of +settling down and procuring a wife as part of his establishment. After +all, how full of bachelors the world would be if it were not for these +motives: for the one other motive to a true marriage, the other half of +love, however one names it, is it not a four-leaved clover indeed? +Narcissus was happily poor enough to be above those motives, even had +Hesper been anything but poor too; and if he was to marry her, it would +be because he was capable of loving her with that perfect love which, of +course, has alone right to the sacred name, that which cannot take all +and give nought, but which rather holds as watchword that <i>to love is +better than to be loved</i>. +</p> +<p> +Who shall hope to express the mystery? Yet, is not thus much true, that, +if it must be allowed to the cynic that love rises in self, it yet has +its zenith and setting in another—in woman as in man? Two meet, and +passion, the joy of the selfish part of each, is born; shall love follow +depends on whether they have a particular grace of nature, love being +the thanksgiving of the unselfish part for the boon granted to the +other. The common nature snatches the joy and forgets the giver, but the +finer never forgets, and deems life but a poor service for a gift so +rare; and, though passion be long since passed, love keeps holy an +eternal memory. +</p> +<pre> + 'Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords + with might; + Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, pass'd in music + out of sight.' +</pre> +<p> +Since the time of fairy-tales Love has had a way of coming in the +disguise of Duty. What is the story of Beauty and the Beast but an +allegory of true love? We take this maid to be our wedded wife, for her +sake it perhaps seems at the time. She is sweet and beautiful and to be +desired; but, all the same, we had rather shake the loose leg of +bachelordom, if it might be. However it be, so we take her, or maybe it +is she takes us, with a feeling of martyrdom; but lo! when we are home +together, what wonderful new lights are these beginning to ray about +her, as though she had up till now kept a star hidden in her bosom. What +is this new morning strength and peace in our life? Why, we thought it +was but Thestylis, and lo! it is Diana after all. For the Thirteenth +Maid or the Thirteenth Man, both alike, rarely come as we had expected. +There seems no fitness in their arrival. It seems so ridiculously +accidental, as I suppose the hour of death, whenever it comes, will +seem. One had expected some high calm prelude of preparation, ending in +a festival of choice, like an Indian prince's, when the maids of the +land pass before him and he makes deliberate selection of the fateful +She. But, instead, we are hurrying among our day's business, maybe, our +last thought of her; we turn a corner, and suddenly she is before us. Or +perhaps, as it fell with Narcissus, we have tried many loves that proved +but passions; we have just buried the last, and are mournfully leaving +its grave, determined to seek no further, to abjure bright eyes, at +least for a long while, when lo! on a sudden a little maid is in our +path holding out some sweet modest flowers. The maid has a sweet mouth, +too, and, the old Adam being stronger than our infant resolution, we +smell the flowers and kiss the mouth—to find arms that somehow, we know +not why, are clinging as for life about us. Let us beware how we shake +them off, for thus it is decreed shall a man meet her to have missed +whom were to have missed all. Youth, like that faithless generation in +the Scriptures, always craveth after a sign, but rarely shall one be +given. It can only be known whether a man be worthy of Love by the way +in which he looks upon Duty. Rachel often comes in the grey cloak of +Leah. It rests with the man's heart whether he shall know her beneath +the disguise; no other divining-rod shall aid him. If it be as +Bassanio's, brave to 'give and hazard all he hath,' let him not fear to +pass the seeming gold, the seeming silver, to choose the seeming lead. +'Why, <i>that's</i> the lady,' thou poor magnificent Morocco. Nor shall the +gold fail, for her heart is that, and for silver thou shalt have those +'silent silver lights undreamed of' of face and soul. +</p> +<p> +These are but scattered hints of the story of Narcissus' love as he told +it me at last, in broken, struggling words, but with a light in his face +one power alone could set there. +</p> +<p> +When he came to the end, and to all that little Hesper had proved to +him, all the strength and illumination she had brought him, he fairly +broke down and sobbed, as one may in a brother's arms. For, of course, +he had come out of the ordeal a man; and Hesper had consented to be his +wife. Often she had dreamed as he had passed her by with such heedless +air: 'If I love him so, can it be that my love shall have no power to +make him mine, somehow, some day? Can I call to him so within my soul +and he not hear? Can I wait and he not come?' And her love had been +strong, strong as a destiny; her voice had reached him, for it was the +voice of God. +</p> +<p> +When I next saw her, what a strange brightness shone in her face, what a +new beauty was there! Ah, Love, the great transfigurer! And why, too, +was it that his friends began to be dissatisfied with their old +photographs of Narcissus, though they had been taken but six months +before? There seemed something lacking in the photograph, they said. +Yes, there was; but the face had lacked it too. What was the new +thing—'grip' was it, joy, peace? Yes, all three, but more besides, and +Narcissus had but one name for all. It was Hesper. +</p> +<p> +Strange, too, that in spite of promises we never received a new one. +Narcissus, who used to be so punctual with such a request. Perhaps it +was because he had broken his looking-glass. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="CH10"><!-- CH10 --></a> +<h2> + CHAPTER X +</h2> + +<center> +'IN VISHNU-LAND WHAT AVATAR?' +</center> +<p> +'If I love you for a year I shall love you for ever,' Narcissus had said +to his Thirteenth Maid. He did love her so long, and yet he has gone +away. Do you remember your <i>Les Misérables</i>, that early chapter where +Valjean robs the child of his florin so soon after that great +illuminating change of heart and mind had come to him? Well, still more +important, do you remember the clue Hugo gives us to aberration? There +is comfort and strength for so many a heart-breaking failure there. It +was the old impetus, we are told, that was as yet too strong for the new +control; the old instinct, too dark for the new light in the brain. It +takes every vessel some time to answer to its helm; with us, human +vessels, years, maybe. Have you never suddenly become sensitive of a +gracious touch in the air, and pondered it, to recognise that in some +half-unconscious act you had that moment been answering for the first +time the helm of an almost forgotten resolution? Ah me, blessed is it to +see the prow strongly sweeping up against the sky at last! +</p> +<p> +'Send not a poet to London,' said Heine, and it was a true word. At +least, send him not till his thews are laced and his bones set. He may +miss somewhat, of course; there is no gain without a loss. He may be in +ignorance of the last <i>nuance</i>, and if he deserves fame he must gain it +unaided of the vulgar notoriety which, if he have a friend or two in the +new journalism, they will be so eager to bestow; but he will have kept +his soul intact, which, after all, is the main matter. It is sweet, +doubtless, to be one of those same mushroom-men, sweet to be placarded +as 'the new' this or that, to step for a day into the triumphal car of +newspaper renown, drawn by teams of willing paragraph-men—who, does it +never strike you? are but doing it all for hire, and earning their bread +by their bent necks. Yet for those to whom it is denied there is solid +comfort; for it is not fame, and, worse still, it is not life, 'tis but +to be 'a Bourbon in a crown of straws.' +</p> +<p> +If one could only take poor foolish Cockneydom right away outside this +poor vainglorious city, and show them how the stars are smiling to +themselves above it, nudging each other, so to say, at the silly lights +that ape their shining—for such a little while! +</p> +<p> +Yes, that is one danger of the poet in London, that he should come to +think himself 'somebody'; though, doubtless, in proportion as he is a +poet, the other danger will be the greater, that he should deem himself +'nobody.' Modest by nature, credulous of appearances, the noisy +pretensions of the hundred and one small celebrities, and the din of +their retainers this side and that, in comparison with his own +unattended course, what wonder if his heart sinks and he gives up the +game; how shall his little pipe, though it be of silver, hope to be +heard in this land of bassoons? To take London seriously is death both +to man and artist. Narcissus had sufficient success there to make this a +temptation, and he fell. He lost his hold of the great things of life, +he forgot the stars, he forgot his love, and what wonder that his art +sickened also. For a few months life was but a feverish clutch after +varied sensation, especially the dear tickle of applause; he caught the +facile atheistic flippancy of that poor creature, the 'modern young +man,' all-knowing and all-foolish, and he came very near losing his soul +in the nightmare. But he had too much ballast in him to go quite under, +and at last strength came, and he shook the weakness from him. Yet the +fall had been too far and too cruel for him to be happy again soon. He +had gone forth so confident in his new strength of manly love; and to +fall so, and almost without an effort! Who has not called upon the +mountains to cover him in such an hour of awakening, and who will +wonder that Narcissus dared not look upon the face of Hesper till +solitude had washed him clean, and bathed him in its healing oil? I +alone bade him good-bye. It was in this room wherein I am writing, the +study we had taken together, where still his books look down at me from +the shelves, and all the memorials of his young life remain. O <i>can</i> it +have been but 'a phantom of false morning'? A Milton snatched up at the +last moment was the one book he took with him. +</p> +<p> +From that night until this he has made but one sign—a little note which +Hesper has shown me, a sob and a cry to which even a love that had been +more deeply wronged could never have turned a deaf ear. Surely not +Hesper, for she has long forgiven him, knowing his weakness for what it +was. She and I sometimes sit here together in the evenings and talk of +him; and every echo in the corridor sets us listening, for he may be at +the other side of the world, or but the other side of the street—we +know so little of his fate. Where he is we know not; but if he still +lives, <i>what</i> he is we have the assurance of faith. This time he has not +failed, we know. But why delay so long? +</p> +<p> +<i>November</i> 1889—<i>May</i> 1890. <i>November</i> 1894. +</p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<center> +THE END +</center> +<p> </p> +<hr> +<p> +Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty at the Edinburgh +University Press +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Book-Bills of Narcissus +by Le Gallienne, Richard + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK-BILLS OF NARCISSUS *** + +***** This file should be named 10826-h.htm or 10826-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/8/2/10826/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Garrett Alley and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/old/10826.txt b/old/10826.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5e2ad1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10826.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3421 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Book-Bills of Narcissus, by Le Gallienne, Richard + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Book-Bills of Narcissus + An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne + +Author: Le Gallienne, Richard + +Release Date: January 25, 2004 [EBook #10826] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK-BILLS OF NARCISSUS *** + + + + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Garrett Alley and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +THE BOOK-BILLS OF NARCISSUS + +AN ACCOUNT RENDERED BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + +WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY ROBERT FOWLER + +1895 + + + + +TABLE OF CHAPTERS + + I. INTRODUCTORY + II. STILL INTRODUCTORY, BUT THIS TIME + OF A GREATER THAN THE WRITER + III. IN WHICH NARCISSUS OPENS HIS 'GLADSTONE' + IV. ACCOUNTS RENDERED + V. AN IDYLL OF ALICE SUNSHINE, WHICH + REALLY BELONGS TO THE LAST CHAPTER + VI. THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS + VII. THE CHILDREN OF APOLLO +VIII. GEORGE MUNCASTER + IX. THAT THIRTEENTH MAID + X. 'IN VISHNU-LAND WHAT AVATAR?' + + + + +TO MILDRED + + Always thy book, too late acknowledged thine, + Now when thine eyes no earthly page may read; + Blinded with death, or blinded with the shine + Of love's own lore celestial. Small need, + Forsooth, for thee to read my earthly line, + That on immortal flowers of fancy feed; + What should my angel do to stoop to mine, + Flowers of decay of no immortal seed. + + Yet, love, if in thy lofty dwelling-place, + Higher than notes of any soaring bird, + Beyond the beam of any solar light, + A song of earth may scale the awful height, + And at thy heavenly window find thy face-- + know my voice shall never fall unheard. + +_December 6th,_ 1894. + +NOTE.--_This third edition has been revised, and Chapter V. is entirely +new_. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +INTRODUCTORY--A WORD OF WISDOM, FOUND WRITTEN, LIKE THE MOST ANCIENT, ON +LEATHER + +'Ah! old men's boots don't go there, sir!' said the bootmaker to me one +day, as he pointed to the toes of a pair I had just brought him for +mending. It was a significant observation, I thought; and as I went on +my way home, writing another such chronicle with every springing step, +it filled me with much reflection--largely of the nature of platitude, I +have little doubt: such reflection, Reader, as is even already, I doubt +less, rippling the surface of your mind with ever-widening circles. Yes! +you sigh with an air, it is in the unconscious autobiographies we are +every moment writing--not those we publish in two volumes and a +supplement--where the truth about us is hid. Truly it is a thought that +has 'thrilled dead bosoms,' I agree, but why be afraid of it for that, +Reader? Truth is not become a platitude only in our day. 'The Preacher' +knew it for such some considerable time ago, and yet he did not fear to +'write and set in order many proverbs.' + +You have kept a diary for how many years? Thirty? dear me! But have you +kept your wine-bills? If you ever engage me to write that life, which, +of course, must some day be written--I wouldn't write it myself--don't +trouble about your diary. Lend me your private ledger. 'There the action +lies in his true nature.' + +Yet I should hardly, perhaps, have evoked this particular corollary from +that man of leather's observation, if I had not chanced one evening to +come across those old book-bills of my friend Narcissus, about which I +have undertaken to write here, and been struck--well-nigh awe-struck--by +the wonderful manner in which there lay revealed in them the story of +the years over which they ran. To a stranger, I am sure, they would be +full of meaning; but to me, who lived so near him through so much of the +time, how truly pregnant does each briefest entry seem. + +To Messrs. Oldbuck and Sons they, alas! often came to be but so many +accounts rendered; to you, being a philosopher, they would, as I have +said, mean more; but to me they mean all that great sunrise, the youth +of Narcissus. + +Many modern poets, still young enough, are fond of telling us where +their youth lies buried. That of Narcissus--would ye know--rests among +these old accounts. Lo! I would perform an incantation. I throw these +old leaves into the _elixir vitae_ of sweet memory, as Dr. Heidegger +that old rose into his wonderful crystal water. Have I power to make +Narcissus' rose to bloom again, so that you may know something of the +beauty it wore for us? I wonder. I would I had. I must try. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +STILL INTRODUCTORY, BUT THIS TIME OF A GREATER THAN THE WRITER + +On the left-hand side of Tithefields, just as one turns out of Prince +Street, in a certain well-known Lancashire town, is the unobtrusive +bookshop of Mr. Samuel Dale. It must, however, be a very superficial +glance which does not discover in it something characteristic, +distinguishing it from other 'second-hand' shops of the same size and +style. + +There are, alas! treatises on farriery in the window; geographies, +chemistries, and French grammars, on the trestles outside; for Samuel, +albeit so great a philosopher as indeed to have founded quite a school, +must nevertheless live. Those two cigars and that 'noggin' of whiskey, +which he purchases with such a fine solemnity as he and I go home +together for occasional symposia in his bachelor lodging--those, I say, +come not without sale of such treatises, such geographies, chemistries, +and French grammars. + +But I am digressing. There is a distinguishing air, I but meant to say, +about the little shop. Looking closer, one generally finds that it comes +of a choice bit of old binding, or the quaint title-page of some tuneful +Elizabethan. It was an old Crashaw that first drew me inside; and, +though for some reason I did not buy it then, I bought it a year after, +because to it I owed the friendship of Samuel Dale. + +And thus for three bright years that little shop came to be, for a daily +hour or so, a blessed palm-tree away from the burden and heat of the +noon, a holy place whither the money-changers and such as sold doves +might never come, let their clamour in the outer courts ring never so +loud. There in Samuel's talk did two weary-hearted bond-servants of +Egypt draw a breath of the Infinite into their lives of the desk; there +could they sit awhile by the eternal springs, and feel the beating of +the central heart. + +So it happened one afternoon, about five years ago, that I dropped in +there according to wont. But Samuel was engaged with some one in that +dim corner at the far end of the shop, where his desk and arm-chair, +tripod of that new philosophy, stood: so I turned to a neighbouring +shelf to fill the time. At first I did not notice his visitor; but as, +in taking down this book and that, I had come nearer to the talkers, I +was struck with something familiar in the voice of the stranger. It came +upon me like an old song, and looking up--why, of course, it was +Narcissus! + +The letter N does not make one of the initials on the Gladstone bag +which he had with him on that occasion, and which, filled with books, +lay open on the floor close by; nor does it appear on any of those +tobacco-pouches, cigar-cases, or handkerchiefs with which men beloved of +fair women are familiar. And Narcissus might, moreover, truthfully say +that _it_ has never appeared upon any manner of stamped paper coming +under a certain notable Act. + +To be less indulgent to a vice from which the Reader will, I fear, have +too frequent occasion to suffer in these pages, and for which he may +have a stronger term than digression, let me at once say that Narcissus +is but the name Love knew him by, Love and the Reader; for that name by +which he was known to the postman--and others--is no necessity here. How +and why he came to be so named will appear soon enough. + +Yes! it was the same old Narcissus, and he was wielding just the same +old magic, I could see, as in our class-rooms and playgrounds five years +before. What is it in him that made all men take him so on his own +terms, made his talk hold one so, though it so often stumbled in the +dark, and fell dumb on many a verbal _cul-de-sac_? Whatever it is, +Samuel felt it, and, with that fine worshipful spirit of his--an +attitude which always reminds me of the elders listening to the boy +Jesus--was doing that homage for which no beauty or greatness ever +appeals to him in vain. What an eye for soul has Samuel! How inevitably +it pierces through all husks and excrescences to the central beauty! In +that short talk he knew Narcissus through and through; three years or +thirty years could add but little. But the talk was not ended yet; +indeed, it seemed like so many of those Tithefields talks, as if in the +'eternal fitness of things' it never could, would, or should end. It was +I at last who gave it pause, and--yes! indeed, it was he. We had, +somehow, not met for quite three years, chums as we had been at school. +He had left there for an office some time before I did, and, oddly +enough, this was our first meeting since then. A purchaser for one of +those aforesaid treatises on farriery just then coming in, dislodged us; +so, bidding Samuel good-bye--he and Narcissus already arranging for 'a +night'--we obeyed a mutual instinct, and presently found ourselves in +the snuggery of a quaint tavern, which was often to figure hereafter in +our sentimental history, though probably little in these particular +chapters of it. The things 'seen done at "The Mermaid "' may some day be +written in another place, where the Reader will know from the beginning +what to expect, and not feel that he has been induced to buy a volume +under false pretences. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +IN WHICH NARCISSUS OPENS HIS 'GLADSTONE' + +Though it was so long since we had met--is not three years indeed 'so +long' in youth?--we had hardly to wait for our second glass to be again +_en rapport_. Few men grow so rapidly as Narcissus did in those young +days, but fewer still can look back on old enthusiasms and superannuated +ideals with a tenderness so delicately considerate. Most men hasten to +witness their present altitude by kicking away the old ladders on the +first opportunity; like vulgar lovers, they seek to flatter to-day at +the expense of yesterday. But Narcissus was of another fibre; he could +as soon have insulted the memory of his first love. + +So, before long, we had passed together into a sweet necropolis of +dreams, whither, if the Reader care, I will soon take him by the hand. +But just now I would have him concern himself with the afternoon of +which I write, in that sad tense, the past present. Indeed, we did not +ourselves tarry long among the shades, for we were young, and youth has +little use for the preterite; its verbs are wont to have but two tenses. +We soon came up to the surface in one, with eyes turned instinctively on +the other. + +Narcissus' bag seemed, somehow, a symbol; and I had caught sight of a +binding or two as it lay open in Tithefields that made me curious to see +it open again. He was only beginning to collect when we had parted at +school, if 'collect' is not too sacred a word: beginning to _buy_ more +truly expresses that first glutting of the bookish hunger, which, like +the natural appetite, never passes in some beyond the primary +utilitarian stage of 'eating to live,' otherwise 'buying to read.' Three +years, however, works miracles of refinement in any hunger that is at +all capable of culture; and it was evident, when Narcissus did open his +'Gladstone,' that it had taken him by no means so long to attain that +sublimation of taste which may be expressed as 'reading to buy.' Each +volume had that air--of breeding, one might almost say--by which one can +always know a genuine _bouquin_ at a glance; an alluvial richness of +bloom, coming upon one like an aromatic fragrance in so many old things, +in old lawns, in old flowers, old wines, and many another delicious +simile. One could not but feel that each had turned its golden brown, +just as an apple reddens--as, indeed, it had. + +I do not propose to solemnly enumerate and laboriously describe these +good things, because I hardly think they would serve to distinguish +Narcissus, except in respect of luck, from other bookmen in the first +furor of bookish enthusiasm. They were such volumes as Mr. Pendennis ran +up accounts for at Oxford. Narcissus had many other points in common +with that gentleman. Such volumes as, morning after morning, sadden +one's breakfast-table in that Tantalus _menu_, the catalogue. Black +letter, early printed, first editions Elizabethan and Victorian, every +poor fly ambered in large paper, etc. etc.; in short, he ran through the +gamut of that craze which takes its turn in due time with marbles, +peg-tops, beetles, and foreign stamps--with probably the two exceptions +of Bewick, for whom he could never batter up an enthusiasm, and +'facetiae.' These latter needed too much camphor, he used to say. + +His two most cherished possessions were a fine copy of the _Stultitiae +Laus_, printed by Froben, which had once been given by William Burton, +the historian, to his brother Robert, when the latter was a youngster of +twenty; and a first edition of one of Walton's lives, 'a presentation +copy from the author.' The former was rich with the autographs and +marginalia of both brothers, and on the latter a friend of his has +already hung a tale, which may or may not be known to the Reader. In the +reverent handling of these treasures, two questions inevitably forced +themselves upon me: where the d----l Narcissus, an apprentice, with an +allowance that would hardly keep most of us in tobacco, had found the +money for such indulgences; and how he could find in his heart to sell +them again so soon. A sorrowful interjection, as he closed his bag, +explained all:-- + +'Yes!' he sighed, 'they have cost me thirty pounds, and guess how much I +have been offered for them?' + +I suggested ten. + +'Five,' groaned my poor friend. 'I tried several to get that. "H'm," +says each one, indifferently turning the most precious in his hand, +"this would hardly be any use to me; and this I might have to keep +months before I could sell. That I could make you an offer for; what +have you thought of for it?" With a great tugging at your heart, and +well-nigh in tears, you name the absurdest minimum. You had given five; +you halve it--surely you can get that! But "O no! I can give nothing +like that figure. In that case it is no use to talk of it." In despair +you cry, "Well, what will you offer?" with a choking voice. "Fifteen +shillings would be about my figure for it," answers the fiend, +relentless as a machine--and so on.' + +'I tried pawning them at first,' he continued, 'because there was hope +of getting them back some time that way; but, trudging from shop to +shop, with many prayers, "a sovereign for the lot" was all I could get. +Worse than dress-clothes!' concluded the frank creature. + +For Narcissus to be in debt was nothing new: he had always been so at +school, and probably always will be. Had you reproached him with it in +those young self-conscious days of glorious absurdity, he would probably +have retorted, with a toss of his vain young head:-- + +'Well, and so was Shelley!' + +I ventured to enquire the present difficulty that compelled him to make +sacrifice of things so dear. + +'Why, to pay for them, of course,' was the answer. + +And so I first became initiated into the mad method by which Narcissus +had such a library about him at twenty-one. From some unexplained +reason, largely, I have little doubt, on account of the charm of his +manners, he had the easy credit of those respectable booksellers to whom +reference has been made above. No extravagance seemed to shake their +confidence. I remember calling upon them with him one day some months +following that afternoon--for the madness, as usual, would have its +time, and no sufferings seemed to teach him prudence--and he took me up +to a certain 'fine set' that he had actually resisted, he said, for a +fortnight. Alas! I knew what that meant. Yes, he must have it; it was +just the thing to help him with a something he was writing--'not to +read, you know, but to make an atmosphere,' etc. So he used to talk; and +the odd thing was, that we always took the wildness seriously; he seemed +to make us see just what he wanted. 'I say, John,' was the next I heard, +at the other end of the shop, 'will you kindly send me round that set +of' so-and-so, 'and charge it to my account?' 'John,' the son of old +Oldbuck, and for a short time a sort of friend of Narcissus, would +answer, 'Certainly,' with a voice of the most cheerful trust; and yet, +when we had gone, it was indeed no less a sum than L10, 10s. which he +added to the left-hand side of Mr. N.'s account. + +Do not mistake this for a certain vulgar quality, with a vulgar little +name of five letters. No one could have less of that than Narcissus. He +was often, on the contrary, quite painfully diffident. No, it was not +'cheek,' Reader; it was a kind of irrational innocence. I don't think it +ever occurred to him, till the bills came in at the half-years, what +'charge it to my account' really meant. Perhaps it was because, poor +lad, he had so small a practical acquaintance with it, that he knew so +little the value of money. But how he suffered when those accounts did +come in! Of course, there was nothing to be done but to apply to some +long-suffering friend; denials of lunch and threadbare coats but nibbled +at the amount--especially as a fast to-day often found revulsion in a +festival to-morrow. To save was not in Narcissus. + +I promised to digress, Reader, and I have kept my word. Now to return to +that afternoon again. It so chanced that on that day in the year I +happened to have in my pocket--what you might meet me every day in five +years without finding there--a ten-pound note. It was for this I felt +after we had been musing awhile--Narcissus, probably, on everything +else in the world except his debts--and it was with this I awoke him +from his reverie. He looked at his hand, and then at me, in +bewilderment. Poor fellow, how he wanted to keep it, yet how he tried to +look as if he couldn't think of doing so. He couldn't help his joy +shining through. + +'But I want you to take it,' I said; 'believe me, I have no immediate +need of it, and you can pay me at your leisure.' Ten pounds towards the +keep of a poet once in a lifetime is, after all, but little interest on +the gold he brings us. At last I 'prevailed,' shall I say? but on no +account without the solemnity of an IOU and a fixed date for repayment, +on which matter poor N. was always extremely emphatic. Alas! Mr. George +Meredith has already told us how this passionate anxiety to be bound by +the heaven above, the earth, and the waters under the earth, is the most +fatal symptom by which to know the confirmed in this kind. Captain +Costigan had it, it may be remembered; and the same solicitude, the same +tearful gratitude, I know, accompanied every such transaction of my +poor Narcissus. + +Whether it was as apparent on the due date, or whether of that ten +pounds I have ever looked upon the like again, is surely no affair of +the Reader's; but, lest he should do my friend an injustice, I had +better say--I haven't. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +ACCOUNTS RENDERED + +Nothing strikes one more in looking back, either on our own lives or on +those of others, than how little we assimilate from the greatest +experiences; in nothing is Nature's apparent wastefulness of means more +ironically impressive. A great love comes and sets one's whole being +singing like a harp, fills high heaven with rainbows, and makes our +dingy alleys for awhile bright as the streets of the New Jerusalem; and +yet, if five years after we seek for what its incandescence has left us, +we find, maybe, a newly helpful epithet, maybe a fancy, at most a +sonnet. Nothing strikes one more, unless, perhaps, the obverse, when we +see some trifling pebble-cast ripple into eternity, some fateful second +prolific as the fly aphis. And so I find it all again exampled in these +old accounts. The books that mean most for Narcissus to-day could be +carried in the hand without a strap, and could probably be bought for a +sovereign. The rest have survived as a quaint cadence in his style, have +left clinging about his thought a delicate incense of mysticism, or are +bound up in the retrospective tenderness of boyish loves long since gone +to dream. + +Another observation in the same line of reflection also must often +strike one:--for what very different qualities than those for which we +were first passionate do we come afterwards to value our old +enthusiasms. In the day of their bloom it was the thing itself, the +craze, the study, for its own sake; now it is the discipline, or any +broad human culture, in which they may have been influential. The boy +chases the butterfly, and thinks not of the wood and the blue heaven; +but those only does the man remember, for the mark of their beauty upon +him, so unconsciously impressed, for the health of their power and +sweetness still living in his blood--for these does that chase seem +alone of worth, when the dusty entomological relic thereof is in limbo. +And so that long and costly shelf, groaning beneath the weight of Grose +and Dugdale, and many a mighty slab of topographical prose; those +pilgrimages to remote parish churches, with all their attendant ardours +of careful 'rubbings'; those notebooks, filled with patient data; those +long letters to brother antiquaries--of sixteen; even that famous +Exshire Tour itself, which was to have rivalled Pennant's own--what +remains to show where this old passion stood, with all the clustering +foliage of a dream; what but that quaint cadence I spoke of, and an +anecdote or two which seemed but of little import then, with such +breathless business afoot as an old font or a Roman road? + +One particular Roman road, I know, is but remembered now, because, in +the rich twilight of an old June evening, it led up the gorsy stretches +of Lancashire 'Heights' to a solemn plateau, wide and solitary as +Salisbury Plain, from the dark border of which, a warm human note +against the lonely infinite of heath and sky, beamed the little +whitewashed 'Traveller's Rest,' its yellow light, growing stronger as +the dusk deepened, meeting the eye with a sense of companionship +becoming a vague need just then. + +The seeming spiritual significance of such forlorn wastes of no-man's +land had, I know, a specially strong appeal for Narcissus, and, in some +moods, the challenge which they seem to call from some 'dark tower' of +spiritual adventure would have led him wandering there till star-light; +but a day of rambling alone, in a strange country, among unknown faces, +brings a social hunger by evening, and a craving for some one to speak +to and a voice in return becomes almost a fear. A bright +kitchen-parlour, warm with the health of six workmen, grouped round a +game of dominoes, and one huge quart pot of ale, used among them as +woman in the early world, was a grateful inglenook, indeed, wherein to +close the day. Of course, friend N. joined them, and took his pull and +paid his round, like a Walt Whitman. I like to think of his slight +figure amongst them; his delicate, almost girl-like, profile against +theirs; his dreamy eyes and pale brow, surmounted by one of those dark +clusters of hair in which the fingers of women love to creep--an +incongruity, though of surfaces only, which certain who knew him but 'by +sight,' as the phrase is, might be at a loss to understand. That was one +of the surprises of his constitution. Nature had given him the dainty +and dreamy form of the artist, to which habit had added a bookish touch, +ending in a _tout ensemble_ of gentleness and distinction with little +apparent affinity to a scene like that in the 'Traveller's Rest.' But +there are many whom a suspicion of the dilettante in such an exterior +belies, and Narcissus was one of them. He had very strongly developed +that instinct of manner to which sympathy is a daily courtesy, and he +thus readily, when it suited him, could take the complexion of his +company, and his capacity of 'bend' was well-nigh genius. Of course, all +this is but to say that he was a gentleman; yet is not that in itself a +fine kind of originality? Besides, he had a genuine appetite for the +things of earth, such as many another delicate thing--a damask +rose-bush, for example--must be convicted of too; and often, when some +one has asked him 'what he could have in common with so-and-so,' I have +heard him answer: 'Tobacco and beer.' Samuel Dale once described him as +Shelley with a chin; and perhaps the chin accounted for the absence of +any of those sentimental scruples with regard to beefsteaks and certain +varieties of jokes, for which the saint-like deserter of Harriet +Westbrook was distinguished. + +A supremely quaint instance of this gift of accommodation befell during +that same holiday, which should not pass unrecorded, but which I offer +to the Reader with an emphatic _Honi soit qui mal y pense_. Despairing +of reaching a certain large manufacturing town on foot in time to put up +there, one evening, he was doing the last mile or two by rail, and, as +the train slackened speed he turned to his companions in the carriage to +enquire if they could tell him of a good hotel. He had but carelessly +noticed them before: an old man, a slight young woman of perhaps thirty, +and a girl about fifteen; working people, evidently, but marked by that +air of cleanly poverty which in some seems but a touch of ascetic +refinement. The young woman at once mentioned _The Bull_, and thereupon +a little embarrassed consultation in undertone seemed to pass between +her and the old man, resulting in a timid question as to whether +Narcissus would mind putting up with them, as they were poor folk, and +could well do with any little he cared to offer for his accommodation. +There was something of a sad winningness in the woman which had +predisposed him to the group, and without hesitation he at once +accepted, and soon was walking with them to their home, through streets +echoing with Lancashire 'clogs.' On the way he learnt the circumstances +of his companions. The young woman was a widow, and the girl her +daughter. Both worked through the day at one of the great cotton mills, +while the old man, father and grandfather, stayed at home and 'fended' +for them. Thus they managed to live in a comfort which, though +straitened, did not deny them such an occasional holiday as to-day had +been, or the old man the comfort of tobacco. The home was very small, +but clean and sweet; and it was not long before they were all sat down +together over a tea of wholesome bread and butter and eggs, in the +preparation of which it seemed odd to see the old man taking his share. +That over, he and Narcissus sat to smoke and talk of the neighbouring +countryside; N. on the look-out for folk-lore, and especially for any +signs in his companion of a lingering loyalty of belief in the +traditions thereabout, a loyalty which had something in it of a sacred +duty to him in those days. Those were the days when he still turned to +the east a-Sundays, and went out in the early morning, with Herrick +under his arm, to gather May-dew, with a great uplifting of the spirit, +in what indeed was a very real act of worship. + +But to my story! As bedtime approached Narcissus could not but be aware +of a growing uneasiness in the manner of the young woman. At last it was +explained. With blushing effort she stammered out the question: Would he +object to share his bed with--the old man? 'Of course not,' answered N. +at once, as though he had all the time intended doing that very thing, +and indeed, thought it the most delightful arrangement in the world. + +So up to bed go the oddly consorted pair. But the delicious climax was +yet to come. On entering the room, Narcissus found that there were two +beds there! Why should we leave that other bed empty?--he had almost +asked; but a laughing wonder shot through him, and he stopped in time. + +The old man was soon among the blankets, but Narcissus dallied over +undressing, looking at this and that country quaintness on the wall; and +then, while he was in a state of half man and half trousers, the voice +of the woman called from the foot of the stairs: Were they in bed yet? +'Surely, it cannot be! it is too irresistibly simple,' was his thought; +but he had immediately answered, 'In a moment,' as if such a question +was quite a matter of course. + +In that space he had blown the candle out, and was by the old man's +side: and then, in the darkness, he heard the two women ascending the +stairs. Just outside his door, which he had left ajar, they seemed to +turn off into a small adjoining room, from whence came immediately the +soft delicious sounds of female disrobing. They were but factory women, +yet Narcissus thought of Saint Agnes and Madeline, we may be sure. And +then, at last--indeed, there was to be no mistake about it--the door was +softly pushed open, and two dim forms whispered across to the adjoining +bed, and, after a little preliminary rustle, settled down to a rather +fluttered breathing. + +No one had spoken: not even a Goodnight; but Narcissus could hardly +refrain from ringing out a great mirthful cry, while his heart beat +strangely, and the darkness seemed to ripple, like sunlight in a cup, +with suppressed laughter. The thought of the little innocent deception +as to their sleeping-room, which poverty had caused them to practise, +probably held the breath of the women, while the shyness of sex was a +common bond of silence--at least, on the part of the three younger. It +was long before Narcissus was able to fall asleep, for he kept picturing +the elder woman with burning cheek and open eyes in a kind of 'listening +fear' beneath the coverlet; and the oddity of the thing was so original, +so like some _conte_ of a _Decameron_ or _Heptameron_, with the +wickedness left out. But at last wonder gave place to weariness, and +sleep began to make a still odder magic of the situation. The difficulty +of meeting at breakfast next morning, which had at once suggested itself +to N.'s mind, proved a vain fear; for, when he arose, that other bed was +as smooth as though it had lain untouched through the night, and the +daughters of labour had been gone two hours. But it was not quite +without sign that they had gone, for Narcissus had a dreamlike +impression of opening his eyes in the early light to find a sweet +woman's face leaning over him; and I am sure he wanted to believe that +it had bent down still further, till it had kissed his lips--' for his +mother's sake,' she had said in her heart, as she slipped away and was +seen no more. + +'If this were fiction, instead of a veracious study from life,' to make +use of a phrase which one rarely finds out of a novel, it would be +unfitting to let such an incident as that just related fall to the +ground, except as the seed of future development; but, this being as I +have stated, there is nothing more to say of that winning _ouvriere_. +Narcissus saw her no more. + +But surely, of all men, he could best afford that one such pleasant +chance should put forth no other blossom save that half-dreamed +kiss;--and how can one ever foresee but that our so cherishable spray of +bloom may in time add but another branch to that orchard of Dead Sea +fruit which grows inevitably about all men's dwellings? + +I do not suppose that Narcissus was really as exceptional in the number +and character of his numerous boyish loves as we always regarded him as +being. It is no uncommon matter, of course and alas! for a youth between +the ages of seventeen and nineteen to play the juggler at keeping three, +or even half-a-dozen, female correspondents going at once, each of whom +sleeps nightly with copious documentary evidence of her sole and +incontrovertible possession of the sacred heart. Nor has Narcissus been +the only lover, I suspect, who, in the season of the waning of the moon, +has sent such excuses for scrappy epistolary make-shifts as 'the +strident din of an office, an air so cruelly unsympathetic, as frost to +buds, to the blossoming of all those words of love that press for +birth,' when, as a matter of fact, he has been unblushingly eating the +lotus, in the laziest chair at home, in the quietest night of summer. +Such insincerity is a common besetting sin of the young male; +invariably, I almost think, if he has the artistic temperament. Yet I do +not think it presents itself to his mind in its nudity, but comes +clothed with that sophistry in which youth, the most thoroughgoing of +_philosophes_, is so ingenious. Consideration for the beloved object, it +is called--yes! beloved indeed, though, such is the paradox in the order +of things, but one of the several vestals of the sacred fire. One cannot +help occasional disinclination on a lazy evening, confound it! but it +makes one twinge to think of paining her with such a confession; and a +story of that sort--well, it's a lie, of course; but it's one without +any harm, any seed of potential ill, in it. So the letter goes, maybe to +take its place as the 150th of the sacred writings, and make poor +Daffodilia, who has loved to count the growing score, happy with the +completion of the half-century. + +But the disinclination goes not, though the poor passion has, of +course, its occasional leapings in the socket, and the pain has to come +at last, for all that dainty consideration, which, moreover, has been +all the time feeding larger capacities for suffering. For, of course, no +man thinks of marrying his twelfth love, though in the thirteenth there +is usually danger; and he who has jilted, so to say, an earl's daughter +as his sixth, may come to see + + 'The God of Love, ah! benedicite, + How mighty and how great a lord is he' + +in the thirteenth Miss Simpkins. + +But this is to write as an outsider: for that thirteenth, by a mystical +process which has given to each of its series in its day the same primal +quality, is, of course, not only the last, but the first. And, indeed, +with little casuistry, that thirteenth may be truly held to be the +first, for it is a fact determined not so much by the chosen maid as by +him who chooses, though he himself is persuaded quite otherwise. To him +his amorous career has been hitherto an unsuccessful pursuit, because +each followed fair in turn, when at length he has caught her flying +skirts, and looked into her face, has proved not that 'ideal'-- + + 'That not impossible she + That shall command my heart and me'-- + +but another, to be shaken free again in disappointment. In truth, +however, the lack has been in himself all this time. He had yet to learn +what loving indeed meant: and he loves the thirteenth, not because she +is pre-eminent beyond the rest, but because she has come to him at the +moment when that 'lore of loving' has been revealed. Had any of those +earlier maidens fallen on the happy conjunction, they would, doubtless, +have proved no less loveworthy, and seemed no less that 'ideal' which +they have since become, one may be sure, for some other illuminated +soul. + +Of course, some find that love early--the baby-love, whom one never +marries, and then the faithful service. Probably it happens so with the +majority of men; for it is, I think, especially to the artist nature +that it comes thus late. Living so vividly within the circle of its own +experience, by its very constitution so necessarily egoistic, the +latter, more particularly in its early years, is always a Narcissus, +caring for nought or none except in so much as they reflect back its own +beauty or its own dreams. The face such a youth looks for, as he turns +the coy captured head to meet his glance, is, quite unconsciously, his +own, and the 'ideal' he seeks is but the perfect mirror. Yet it is not +that mirror he marries after all: for when at last he has come to know +what that word--one so distasteful, so 'soiled' to his ear 'with all +ignoble' domesticity--what that word 'wife' really expresses, he has +learnt, too, to discredit those cynical guides of his youth who love so +well to write Ego as the last word of human nature. + +But the particular Narcissus of whom I write was a long way off that +thirteenth maid in the days of his antiquarian rambles and his +Pagan-Catholic ardours, and the above digression is at least out of +date. + +A copy of Keats which I have by me as I write is a memorial of one of +the pretty loves typical of that period. It is marked all through in +black lead--not so gracefully as one would have expected from the 'taper +fingers' which held the pencil, but rather, it would appear, more with +regard to emphasis than grace. Narcissus had lent it to the queen of the +hour with special instructions to that end, so that when it came to him +again he might ravish his soul with the hugging assurance given by the +thick lead to certain ecstatic lines of _Endymion,_ such as-- + + 'My soul doth melt + For the unhappy youth;' + 'He surely cannot now + Thirst for another love;' + +and luxuriate in a genial sense of godship where the tremulous pencil +had left the record of a sigh against-- + + 'Each tender maiden whom he once thought fair.' + +But it was a magnanimous godship; and, after a moment's leaning back +with closed eyes, to draw in all the sweet incense, how nobly would he +act, in imaginative vignette, the King Cophetua to this poor suppliant +of love; with what a generous waiving of his power--and with what a +grace!--did he see himself raising her from her knees, and seating her +at his right hand. Yet those pencil-marks, alas! mark but a secondary +interest in that volume. A little sketch on the fly-leaf, 'by another +hand,' witness the prettier memory. A sacred valley, guarded by smooth, +green hills; in the midst a little lake, fed at one end by a singing +stream, swallowed at the other by the roaring darkness of a mill; green +rushes prosperous in the shallows, and along the other bank an old +hedgerow; a little island in the midst, circled by silver lilies; and in +the distance, rising from out a cloud of tangled green, above the little +river, an old church tower. Below, though not 'in the picture,' a quaint +country house, surrounded by a garden of fair fruit-trees and wonderful +bowers, through which ran the stream, free once again, and singing for +joy of the light. In the great lone house a solitary old man, cherished +and ruled by--'The Miller's Daughter.' Was scene ever more in need of a +fairy prince? Narcissus sighed, as he broke upon it one rosy evening, +to think what little meaning all its beauty had, suffering that lack; +but as he had come thither with the purpose, at once firm and vague, of +giving it a memory, he could afford to sigh till morning's light +brought, maybe, the opportunity of that transfiguring action. He was to +spend an Easter fortnight there, as the guest of some farmer-relatives +with whom he had stayed years before, in a period to which, being +nineteen, he already alluded as his 'boyhood.' + +And it is not quite accurate to say that it had no memory for him, for +he brought with him one of that very miller's daughter, though, indeed, +it was of the shadowiest silver. It had chanced at that early time that +an influx of visitors to the farm had exceeded the sleeping room, and he +and another little fellow had been provided with a bed in the miller's +house. He had never quite forgotten that bedroom--its huge old-fashioned +four-poster, slumbrous with great dark hangings, such as Queen Elizabeth +seems always to have slept in; its walls dim with tapestry, and its +screen of antique bead-work. But it was round the toilet table that +memory grew brightest, for thereon was a crystal phial of a most +marvellous perfume, and two great mother-of-pearl shells, shedding a +mystical radiance--the most commonplace Rimmel's, without doubt, and the +shells 'dreadful,' one may be sure. But to him, as he took a reverent +breath of that phial, it seemed the very sweetbriar fragrance of her +gown that caught his sense; and, surely, he never in all the world found +scent like that again. Thus, long after, she would come to him in +day-dreams, wafted on its strange sweetness, and clothed about with that +mystical lustre of pearl. + +There were five years between him and that memory as he stepped into +that enchanted land for the second time. The sweet figure of young +womanhood to which he had turned his boyish soul in hopeless worship, +when it should have been busied rather with birds' nests and +rabbit-snares, had, it is true, come to him in dimmer outline each +Spring, but with magic the deeper for that. As the form faded from the +silver halo, and passed more and more into mythology, it seemed, indeed, +as if she had never lived for him at all, save in dreams, or on another +star. Still, his memory held by those great shells, and he had come at +last to the fabled country on the perilous quest--who of us dare venture +such a one to-day?--of a 'lost saint.' Enquiry of his friends that +evening, cautious as of one on some half-suspected diplomacy, told him +that one with the name of his remembrance did live at the +mill-house--with an old father, too. But how all the beauty of the +singing morning became a scentless flower when, on making the earliest +possible call, he was met at the door with that hollow word, 'Away'--a +word that seemed to echo through long rooms of infinite emptiness and +turn the daylight shabby--till the addendum, 'for the day,' set the +birds singing again, and called the sunshine back. + +A few nights after he was sitting at her side, by a half-opened window, +with his arm about her waist, and her head thrillingly near his. With +his pretty gift of recitation he was pouring into her ear that sugared +passage in _Endymion_, appropriately beginning, 'O known unknown,' +previously 'got up' for the purpose; but alas! not too perfectly to +prevent a break-down, though, fortunately, at a point that admitted a +ready turn to the dilemma:-- + + 'Still + Let me entwine thee surer, surer ...' + +Here exigency compelled N. to make surety doubly, yea, trebly, sure; but +memory still forsaking him, the rascal, having put deeper and deeper +significance into his voice with each repetition, dropped it altogether +as he drew her close to him, and seemed to fail from the very excess of +love. An hour after, he was bounding into the moonlight in an +intoxication of triumph. She was won. The beckoning wonder had come down +to him. And yet it was real moonlight--was not that his own grace in +silhouette, making a mirror even of the hard road?--real grass over +which he had softly stept from her window, real trees, all real, +except--yes! was it real love? + +In the lives of all passionate lovers of women there are two +broadly-marked periods, and in some a third: slavery, lordship, and +service. The first is the briefest, and the third, perhaps, seldom +comes; the second is the most familiar. + +Awakening, like our forefather, from the deep sleep of childish things, +the boy finds a being by his side of a strange hushing fairness, as +though in the night he had opened his eyes and found an angel by his +bed. Speech he has not at all, and his glance dare not rise beyond her +bosom; till, the presence seeming gracious, he dares at length stretch +out his hand and touch her gown; whereon an inexplicable new joy +trembles through him, as though he stood naked in a May meadow through +the golden rain of a summer shower. Should her fingers touch his arm by +chance, it is as though they swept a harp, and a music of piercing +sweetness runs with a sudden cry along his blood. But by and by he comes +to learn that he has made a comical mistake about this wonder. With his +head bent low in worship, he had not seen the wistfulness of her gaze on +him; and one day, lo! it is she who presses close to him with the timid +appeal of a fawn. Indeed, she has all this time been to him as some +beautiful woodland creature might have seemed, breaking for the first +time upon the sight of primitive man. Fear, wonder inexpressible, +worship, till a sudden laughing thought of comprehension, then a lordly +protectiveness, and, after that--the hunt! At once the masculine +self-respect returns, and the wonder, though no less sweet in itself, +becomes but another form of tribute. + +With Narcissus this evolution had taken place early: it was very long +ago--he felt old even then to think of it--since Hesperus had sung like +a nightingale above his first kiss, and his memory counted many trophies +of lordship. But, surely, this last was of all the starriest; perhaps, +indeed, so wonderful was it, it might prove the very love which would +bring back again the dream that had seemed lost for ever with the +passing of that mythical first maid so long ago, a love in which worship +should be all once more, and godship none at all. But is not such a +question all too certainly its own answer? Nay, Narcissus, if indeed you +find that wonder-maid again, you will not question so; you will forget +to watch that graceful shadow in the moonlight; you will but ask to sit +by her silent, as of old, to follow her to the end of the world. Ah me! + + 'How many queens have ruled and passed + Since first we met; + How thick and fast + The letters used to come at first, + How thin at last; + Then ceased, and winter for a space! + Until another hand + Brought spring into the land, + And went the seasons' pace.' + +That Miller's Daughter, although 'so dear, so dear,' why, of course, she +was not that maid: but again the silver halo has grown about her; again +Narcissus asks himself, 'Did she live, or did I dream?'; again she comes +to him at whiles, wafted on that strange incense, and clothed about in +that mystical lustre of pearl. + +Doubtless, she lives in that fabled country still: but Narcissus has +grown sadly wise since then, and he goes on pilgrimage no more. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +AN IDYLL OF ALICE SUNSHINE, WHICH REALLY BELONGS TO THE LAST CHAPTER + +If the Reader has heard enough of the amourettes of the young gentleman +upon whose memoirs I am engaged, let him skip this chapter and pass to +the graver chapters beyond. My one aim is the Reader's pleasure, and I +carry my solicitude so far that if he finds his happiness to lie outside +these pages altogether, has no choice among these various chapters, but +prefers none to any, I am quite content. Such a spirit of +self-abnegation, the Reader must admit, is true love. + +Perhaps it was an early unconscious birth-impulse of the true love some +day to be born in his heart, that caused Narcissus to make a confession +to his Miller's Daughter, on one of their pretty decorative evenings, +when they sat together at the fireside, while the scent of the climbing +roses, and the light of the climbing moon, came in at the window. + +The immediate effect of the confession was--no wonder--to draw tears. +And how beautiful she looked in tears! Who would dive for pearls when +the pearl-fisheries of a woman's eyes are his to rifle? + +Beautiful, beautiful tears, flow on--no dull, leaden rain, no mere +monotonous deluge, but a living, singing fountain, crowned with such +rainbows as hang roses and stars in the fine mist of samite waterfalls, +irradiated by gleaming shafts of lovely anger and scorn. + +Like Northern Lights on autumn evenings, the maiden's eyes pierced +Narcissus through and through with many-coloured spears. There was +thunder, too; the earth shook--just a little: but soon Narcissus saw the +white dove of peace flying to him through the glancing showers. For all +her sorrow, his was the peace of confession. His little lie had been +acknowledged, his treason self-betrayed. + +And it was this. + +I have hinted that Narcissus, like the Catholic Church, worshipped many +saints. At this time, one of them, by a thrilling coincidence, chanced +to have her shrine at a boarding-school, some fifteen miles or so from +the mill-pond on whose banks the Miller's Daughter had drawn into her +lovely face so much of the beauty of the world. Alice Sunshine, shall we +call her, was perhaps more of a cherub than a saint; a rosy, laughing, +plump little arrangement of sunshiny pink and white flesh, with blue +eyes and golden hair. Alice was not overburdened with intellectuality, +and, like others of her sex, her heart was nothing like so soft as her +bosom. Narcissus had first been in love with her sister; but he and the +sister--a budding woman of the world--had soon agreed that they were not +born for each other, and Narcissus had made the transfer of his tragic +passion with inexpensive informality. As the late Anthony Trollope would +finish one novel to-night, and begin another to-morrow morning, so would +Narcissus be off with the old love this Sunday, and visibly on with the +new the next. + +Dear little plump, vegetable-marrow Alice! Will Narcissus ever forget +that Sunday night when the church, having at last released its weary +worshippers, he stole, not as aforetime to the soft side of Emily, but +to the still softer side of the little bewildered Alice. For, though +Alice had worshipped him all the time, and certainly during the whole of +the service, she had never dared to hope that he would pass her dashing, +dark-eyed sister to love _her_--little, blonde, phlegmatic, blue-eyed +Alice. + +But Apollo was bent on the capture of his Daphne. Truth to say, it was +but the work of a moment. The golden arrow was in her heart, the wound +kissed whole again, and the new heaven and the new earth all arranged +for, in hardly longer time than it takes to tell. + +In youth the mystery of woman is still so fresh and new, that to make a +fuss about a particular woman seems like looking a gift-horse of the +gods in the mouth. The light on the face of womanhood in general is so +bewilderingly beautiful that the young man literally cannot tell one +woman from another. They are all equally wonderful. Masculine +observation leads one to suppose that woman's first vision of man +similarly precludes discrimination. + +Ah me! it is easy to laugh to-day, but it was heart--bleeding tragedy +when those powers that oughtn't to be decreed Alice's exile to a +boarding-school in some central Africa of the midland counties. + +The hemorrhage of those two young hearts! But, for a time, each +plastered the other's wounds with letters--dear letters--letters every +post. For the postal authorities made no objection to Narcissus +corresponding with two or more maidens at once. And it is only fair to +Alice to say, that she knew as little of the Miller's Daughter as the +Miller's Daughter knew of her. + +So, when Narcissus was reciting _Endymion_ to his Miller's Maid, it was +not without a minor chord plaining through the major harmonies of the +present happiness; the sense that Alice was but fifteen miles away--so +near she could almost hear him if he called--only fifteen miles away, +and it was a long three months since they had met. + +It now becomes necessary to admit a prosaic fact hitherto concealed +from the Reader. Narcissus rode a bicycle. It was, I must confess, a +rather 'modern' thing to do. But surely the flashing airy wheel is the +most poetical mode of locomotion yet invented, and one looks more like a +fairy prince than ever in knickerbockers. Whenever Narcissus turned his +gleaming spokes along some mapped, but none the less mysterious, +county--road, he thought of Lohengrin in his barge drawn by white swans +to his mystic tryst; he thought of the seven-leagued boots, the flying +carpet, the wishing-cap, and the wooden Pegasus,--so called because it +mounted into the clouds on the turning of a peg. As he passed along by +mead and glade, his wheel sang to him, and he sang to his wheel. It was +a daisied, daisied world. + +There were buttercups and violets in it too as he sped along in the +early morning of an unforgotten Easter Sunday, drawn, so he had +shamelessly told his Miller's Daughter, by antiquarian passion to visit +the famous old parish church near which Alice was at school. +Antiquarian passion! Well, certainly it is an antiquarian passion now. + +But then--how his heart beat! how his eyes shone as with burning kohl! +That there was anything to be ashamed of in this stolen ride never even +occurred to him. And perhaps there was little wrong in it, after all. +Perhaps, when the secrets of all hearts are revealed, it will come out +that the Miller's Daughter took the opportunity to meet Narcissus' +understudy,--who can tell? + +But the wonderful fresh morning-scented air was a delicious fact beyond +dispute. That was sincere. Ah, there used to be real mornings then!--not +merely interrupted nights. + +And it was the Easter-morning of romance. There was a sweet passionate +Sabbath-feeling everywhere. Sabbath-bells, and Sabbath-birds, and +Sabbath-flowers. There was even a feeling of restful Sabbath-cheer about +the old inn, where, at last, entering with much awe the village where +Alice nightly slept--clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, +--Narcissus provided for the demands of romance by a hearty +country breakfast. A manna of blessing seemed to lie thick upon every +thing. The very ham and eggs seemed as if they had been blessed by the +Pope. + +It was yet an hour to church-time, an hour usually one of spiteful +alacrity; but this morning, it seemed, in defiance of the clock, cruelly +unpunctual. After breakfast, Narcissus strolled about the town, and +inquired the way to Miss Curlpaper's school. It stood outside the little +town. It was pointed out to him in the distance, across billowy clouds +of pear and apple-blossom, making the hollow in which the town nestled +seem a vast pot-pourri jar, overflowing with newly gathered rose-leaves. + +Had the Miller's Daughter been able to watch his movements, she would +have remarked that his antiquarian ardour drew him not to the church, +but to a sombre many-windowed house upon the hill. + +Narcissus reconnoitred the prison-like edifice from behind a hedge, then +summoned courage to walk past with slow nonchalance. All was as dead and +dull as though Alice was not there. Yet somewhere within those +prison-walls her young beauty was dressing itself to meet the spring. +Perhaps, in delicious linen, soft and white, she was dashing cool water +about her rosebud face, or, flushed with exhilaration, was pinning up +the golden fleeces of her hair. Perhaps she was eating wonderful bacon +and eggs! Could she be thinking of him? She little knew how near he was +to her. He had not written of his coming. Letters at Miss Curlpaper's +had to pass an inspection much more rigorous than the Customs, but still +smuggling was not unknown. For success, however, carefully laid plans +and regular dates were necessary, and Narcissus' visit had fallen +between the dates. + +No! there was no sign of her. She was as invisible as the moon at +mid-day. And there were the church-bells beginning to call her: 'Alice, +Alice, put on your things!' + + 'Alice, Alice, put on your things! + The birds are calling, the church bell rings; + The sun is shining, and I am here, + Waiting--and waiting--for you, my dear. + + Alice, Alice, doff your gown of night, + Draw on your bodice as lilies white, + Draw on your petticoats, clasp your stays,-- + Oh! Alice, Alice, those milky ways! + + Alice, Alice, how long you are! + The hour is late and the church is far; + Slowly, more slowly, the church bell rings-- + Alice, Alice, put on your things!' + +Really it was not in Narcissus' plans to wait at the school till Alice +appeared. The Misses Curlpaper were terrible unknown quantities to him. +For a girl to have a boy hanging about the premises was a capital crime, +he knew. Boys are to girls' schools what Anarchists are to public +buildings. They come under the Explosives Acts. It was not, indeed, +within the range of his hope that he might be able to speak to Alice. A +look, a long, immortal, all-expressive look, was all he had travelled +fifteen miles to give and win. For that he would have travelled fifteen +hundred. + +His idea was to sit right in front of the nave, where Alice could not +miss seeing him--where others could see him too in his pretty +close-fitting suit of Lincoln green. So down through the lanes he went, +among the pear and apple orchards, from out whose blossom the clanging +tower of the old church jutted sheer, like some Bass Rock amid rosy +clustering billows. Their love had been closely associated from its +beginning with the sacred things of the church, so regular had been +their attendance, not only on Sundays, but at week-night services. To +Alice and Narcissus there were two Sabbaths in the week, Sunday and +Wednesday. I suppose they were far from being the only young people +interested in their particular form of church-work. Leander met Hero, it +will be remembered, on the way to church, and the Reader may recall +Marlowe's beautiful description of her dress upon that fatal morning: + + 'The outside of her garments were of lawn, + The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn; + Her wide sleeves green, and bordered with a grove, + Where Venus in her naked glory strove + To please the careless and disdainful eyes + Of proud Adonis, that before her lies; + Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain, + Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain....' + +Alice wore pretty dresses too, if less elaborate; and, despite its +change of name, was not the church where she and Narcissus met, as the +church wherein Hero and Leander first looked upon each other, the Temple +of Love? Certainly the country church to which Narcissus +self-consciously passed through groups of Sunday-clothed villagers, was +decked as for no Christian festival this Sabbath morning. The garlands +that twined about the old Norman columns, the clumps of primroses and +violets that sprung at their feet, as at the roots of gigantic beeches, +the branches of palm and black-thorn that transformed the chancel to a +bower: probably for more than knew it, these symbols of the joy and +beauty of earth had simpler, more instinctive, meanings than those of +any arbitrary creed. For others in the church besides Narcissus, no +doubt, they spoke of young love, the bloom and the fragrance thereof, of +mating birds and pairing men and maids, of the eternal principle of +loveliness, which, in spite of winter and of wrong, brings flowers and +faces to bless and beautify this church of the world. + +As Narcissus sat in his front row, his eyes drawn up in a prayer to the +painted glories of the great east window, his whole soul lifted up on +the wings of colour, scent, and sound--the whole sacred house had but +one meaning: just his love for Alice. Nothing in the world was too holy +to image that. The windows, the music, the flowers, all were metaphors +of her: and, as the organ swirled his soul along in the rapids of its +passionate, prayerful sound, it seemed to him that Alice and he already +stood at the gate of Heaven! + +Presently, across his mingled sensations came a measured tramp as of +boy-soldiers marching in line. You have heard it! You have _listened_ +for it!! It was the dear, unmistakable sound of a girls' school on the +march. Quickly it came nearer, it was in the porch--it was in the +church! Narcissus gave a swift glance round. He dare not give a real +searching look yet. His heart beat too fast, his cheek burned too red. +But he saw it was a detachment of girls--it certainly was Alice's +school. + +Then came the white-robed choristers, and the white-haired priests: _If +we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not +in us; but, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive +us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness_. + +DEARLY BELOVED BRETHREN.... + +His heart swelled with a sobbing exaltation of worship such as he had +not known for years. You could hardly have believed that a little +apple-dumpling of a pink and white girl was the real inspirer of that +look in his young face that made old ladies, even more than young ones, +gaze at him, and remark afterwards on the strange boy with the lovely +spiritual expression. + +But, all the time, Narcissus felt that Alice's great eyes were on him, +glowing with glad surprise. The service proceeded, but yet he forbore to +seek her. He took a delight in husbanding his coming joy. He would not +crudely snatch it. It would be all the sweeter for waiting. And the fire +in Alice's eyes would all the time be growing softer and softer. He +nearly looked as he thought of that. And surely that was her dear voice +calling to him in the secret language of the psalm. He sang back to her +with a wild rapture. Thus the morning stars sang together, he thought. + +And when the prayers laid lovely hands across the eyes of the +worshippers, still he sought not Alice, but prayed for her as perhaps +only a boy can: O Lord God, be good to Alice--already she is one of thy +angels. May her life be filled with light and joy! And if in the time to +come I am worthy of being ever by her side, may we live our lives +together, high and pure and holy as always in thy sight! Lord, thou +knowest how pure is my love; how I worship her as I worship the holy +angels themselves. But whatsoever is imperfect perfect by the +inspiration of thy Holy Spirit.... + +So prayed the soul of the boy for the soul of the girl, and his eyes +filled with tears as he prayed; the cup of the wonder and holiness of +the world ran over. + +Already, it seemed, that Alice and he lay clasped together in the arms +of God. + +So Narcissus prayed and sang his love in terms of an alien creed. He +sang of the love of Christ, he thought but of the love of Alice; and +still he refrained from plucking that wonderful passion-flower of her +glance. + +At length he had waited the whole service through; and, with the last +hallowed vibrations of the benediction, he turned his eyes, brimful of +love-light, greedily, eagerly, fearful lest one single ray should be +wasted on intermediate and irrelevant worshippers. + +Wonderful eyes of love!--but alas! where is their Alice? Wildly they +glance along the rosy ranks of chubby girlhood, but where is their +Alice? + +And then the ranks form in line, and once more the sound, the ecstatic +sound it had seemed but a short time before, of girls marching--but +no!--no!--there is no Alice. + +In sick despair Narcissus stalked that Amazonian battalion, crouching +behind hedges, dropping into by-lanes, lurking in coppices,--he held his +breath as they passed two and two within a yard of him. Two followed +two, but still no Alice! + +Narcissus lay in wait, dinnerless, all that afternoon; he walked about +that dreary house like a patrol, till at last he was observed of the +inmates, and knots of girls gathered at the windows--alas! only to +giggle at his forlorn and desperate appearance. + +Still there was no Alice ... and then it began to rain, and he became +aware how hungry he was. So he returned to his inn with a sad heart. + +And all the time poor little Alice lay in bed with a sore throat, +oblivious of those passionate boyish eyes that, you would have thought, +must have pierced the very walls of her seclusion. + +And, after all, it was not her voice Narcissus had heard in the church. +It was but the still sweeter voice of his own heart. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS + +I hope it will be allowed to me that I treat the Reader with all +respectful courtesy, and that I am well bred enough to assume him +familiar with all manner of exquisite experience, though in my heart I +may be no less convinced that he has probably gone through life with +nothing worth calling experience whatsoever. It is our jaunty modern +fashion, and I follow it so far as I am able. I take for granted, for +instance, that every man has at one time or another--in his salad days, +you know, before he was embarked in his particular provision +business--had foolish yearnings towards poesy. I respect the mythical +dreams of his 'young days'; I assume that he has been really in love; +but, pray press me not too curiously as to whether I believe it all, as +to whether I really imagine that his youth knew other dreams than those +of the foolish young 'masherdom' one meets in the train every morning, +or that he has married a wife for other than purely 'masculine' reasons. + +These matters I do not mind leaving in the form of a postulate--let them +be granted: but that every man has at one time or another had the craze +for saving the world I will not assume. Narcissus took it very early, +and though he has been silent concerning his mission for some time, and +when last we heard of it had considerably modified his propaganda, he +still cherishes it somewhere in secret, I have little doubt; and one may +not be surprised, one of these days, to find it again bursting out 'into +sudden flame.' + +His spiritual experience has probably been the deepest and keenest of +his life. I do not propose to trace his evolution from Anabaptism to +Agnosticism. The steps of such development are comparatively familiar; +they have been traced by greater pens than mine. The 'means' may vary, +but the process is uniform. + +Whether a man deserts the ancestral Brahminism that has so long been +'good enough for his parents,' and listens to the voice of the Buddhist +missionary, or joins Lucian in the seat of the scornful, shrugging at +augur and philosopher alike; whether it is Voltaire, or Tom Paine, or +Thomas Carlyle, or Walt Whitman, or a Socialist tract, that is the +emancipator, the emancipation is all one. + +The seed that is to rend the rock comes in all manner of odd, and often +unremembered, ways; but somehow, it is there; rains and dews unnoticed +feed it; and surely, one day the rock is rent, the light is pouring in, +and we are free! It is often a matter of anguish that, strive as we may, +it is impossible to remember what helping hand it was that sowed for us. +Our fickle memory seems to convict us of ingratitude, and yet we know +how far that sin is from us; and how, if those sowers could but be +revealed to us, we would fall upon their necks, or at their feet. + +I talked of this one day with Narcissus, and some time after he sent me +a few notes headed 'Spiritual Pastors,' in which he had striven to +follow the beautiful example set by Marcus Aurelius, in the anxiously +loving acknowledgment with which he opens his meditations. I know he +regarded it as miserably inefficient; but as it does actually indicate +some of the more individual side of his experience, and is, moreover, +characteristic in its style, I shall copy a few passages from it here:-- + +'To some person or persons unknown exceeding gratitude for the +suggestion, in some dim talk, antenatal it would almost seem, that Roman +Catholics might, after all, be "saved." Blessed fecundating suggestion, +that was the earliest loophole! + +'To my father I owe a mind that, once set on a clue, must follow it, if +need be, to the nethermost darkness, though he has chosen to restrict +the operation of his own within certain limits; and to my mother a +natural leaning to the transcendental side of an alternative, which has +saved me so many a time when reason had thrown me into the abyss. But +one's greatest debt to a good mother must be simply--herself. + +'To the Rev. Father Ignatius for his earnest preaching, which might +almost have made me a monk, had not Thomas Carlyle and his _Heroes_, +especially the lecture on Mahomet, given me to understand the true +significance of a Messiah. + +'To Bulwer for his _Zanoni_, which first gave me a hint of the possible +natural "supernatural," and thus for ever saved me from dogmatising in +negatives against the transcendental. + +'To Sir Edwin Arnold for his _Light of Asia,_ also to Mr. Sinnett for +his _Esoteric Buddhism,_ books which, coming to me about the same time, +together with some others like them, first gave some occupation to an +"unchartered freedom," gained in many forgotten steps, in the form of a +faith which transfigured my life for many months into the most beautiful +enthusiasm a man could know,--and which had almost sent me to the +Himalayas! + +'That it did not quite achieve that, though much of the light it gave me +still remains, I owe to R.M., who, with no dialectic, but with one bald +question, and the reading of one poem, robbed me of my fairy palace of +Oriental speculation in the twinkling of an eye. Why it went I have +never really quite known; but surely, it was gone, and the wind and the +bare star-light were alone in its place. + +'Dear Mac., I have not seen you for ever so long, and surely you have +forgotten how that night, long ago, you asked with such a strange, +almost childlike, simplicity: "_Is_ there a soul?" But I have not +forgotten, nor how I made no answer at all, but only staggered, and how, +with your strange, dreamy voice, you chanted for comfort:-- + + '"This hot, hard flame with which our bodies burn + Will make some meadow blaze with daffodil; + Ay! and those argent breasts of thine will turn + To water-lilies; the brown fields men till + Will be more fruitful for our love to-night: + Nothing is lost in Nature; all things live in Death's despite. + + * * * * * + + '"So when men bury us beneath the yew + Thy crimson-stained mouth a rose will be, + And thy soft eyes lush blue-bells dimmed with dew; + And when the white narcissus wantonly + Kisses the wind, its playmate, some faint joy + Will thrill our dust, and we will be again fond maid and boy. + + '"... How my heart leaps up + To think of that grand living after death + In beast and bird and flower, when this cup, + Being filled too full of spirit, bursts for breath, + And with the pale leaves of some autumn day, + The soul, earth's earliest conqueror, becomes earth's last great prey. + + '"O think of it! We shall inform ourselves + Into all sensuous life; the goat-foot faun, + The centaur, or the merry, bright-eyed elves + That leave they: dancing rings to spite the dawn + Upon the meadows, shall not be more near + Than you and I to Nature's mysteries, for we shall hear + + '"The thrush's heart beat, and the daisies grow, + And the wan snowdrop sighing for the sun + On sunless days in winter; we shall know + By whom the silver gossamer is spun, + Who paints the diapered fritillaries, + On what wide wings from shivering pine to pine the eagle flies. + + * * * * * + + '"We shall be notes in that great symphony + Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres, + And all the live world's throbbing heart shall be + One with our heart; the stealthy, creeping years + Have lost their terrors now; we shall not die-- + The universe itself shall be our Immortality!" + +Have you forgotten how you chanted these, and told me they were Oscar +Wilde's. You had set my feet firmly on earth for the first time, there +was great darkness with me for many weeks, but, as it lifted, the earth +seemed greener than ever of old, the sunshine a goodlier thing, and +verily a blessedness indeed to draw the breath of life. I had learnt +"the value and significance of flesh"; I no longer scorned a carnal +diet, and once again I turned my eyes on the damsels in the street. + +'But an influence soon came to me that kept me from going all the way +with you, and taught me to say, "I know not," where you would say, "It +is not." Blessings on thee who didst throw a rainbow, that may mean a +promise, across the void, that awoke the old instinct of faith within +me, and has left me "an Agnostic with a faith," quite content with "the +brown earth," if that be all, but with the added significance a mystery +gives to living;--thou who first didst teach me Love's lore aright, to +thee do I owe this thing. + +'To J.A.W. I owe the first great knowledge of that other love between +man and man, which Whitman has since taught us to call "the dear love of +comrades"; and to him I owe that I never burned those early rhymes, or +broke my little reed--an unequivocal service to me, whatever the +public, should it be consulted, may think. + +'To a dear sister I owe that still more exquisite and subtle comradeship +which can only exist between man and woman, but from which the more +disturbing elements of sex must be absent. And here, let me also thank +God that I was brought up in quite a garden of good sisters. + +'To Messrs. C. and W., Solicitors and Notaries, I owe, albeit I will say +no thanks to them, the opportunity of that hardly learned good which +dwells for those who can wrest it in a hateful taskwork, that faculty of +"detachment" which Marcus Aurelius learnt so long ago, by means of which +the soul may withdraw, into an inaccessible garden, and sing while the +head bends above a ledger; or, in other words, the faculty of dreaming +with one side of the brain, while calculating with the other. Mrs. +Browning's great _Aurora Leigh_ helped me more to the attainment of that +than any book I know. + +'In their office, too, among many other great things, I learnt that a +man may be a good fellow and hate poetry--possibility undreamed of by +sentimental youth; also that Messrs. Bass and Cope are not unworthy of +their great reputation; and I had various nonsense knocked out of me, +though they never succeeded in persuading me in that little matter of +the "ambrosial curls." + +'Through Samuel Dale I first came to understand how "whatever is" _can_ +be "best," and also won a faith in God which I rather caught by +infection than gained by any process of his reasoning. Of all else I owe +to Samuel, how write? He knows. + +'To a certain friend, mentioned last because he is not least, I owe: the +sum of ten pounds, and a loving companionship, up hill and down dale, +for which again I have no words and no--sovereigns.' + +When I first read through these, I was somewhat surprised at the +omission of all reference to books which I know marked most striking +periods in Narcissus' spiritual life: _Sartor Resartus_, Thoreau's +_Walden_, for example, Mr. Pater's _Marius the Epicurean_, and +Browning's _Dramatis Personae_. As I reflected, however, I came to the +conclusion that such omission was but justice to his own individuality, +for none of these books had created an _initiative_ in Narcissus' +thought, but rather come, as, after all, I suppose they come to most of +us, as great confirming expressions of states of mind at which he had +already arrived, though, as it were, but by moonlight. In them was the +sunrise bringing all into clear sight and sure knowledge. + +It would seem, indeed, that the growth of the soul in the higher spirits +of our race is analogous to the growth of a child in the womb, in this +respect: that in each case the whole gamut of earlier types is run +through, before the ultimate form is attained in which it is decreed +that the particular vital energy shall culminate. And, as in the +physical world the various 'halts,' so to say, of the progress are +illustrated by the co-existence and continual succession of those +earlier types; so in the world of mind, at every point of spiritual +evolution, a man may meet with an historical individuality who is a +concrete embodiment of the particular state to which he has just +attained. This, of course, was what Goethe meant when he referred to +mysticism as being a frame of mind which one could experience all round +and then leave behind. To quote Whitman, in another connection:-- + + 'We but level that lift + To pass and continue beyond.' + +But an individuality must 'crystallise out' somewhere, and its final +value will not so much depend on the number of states it has passed +through, as how it has lived each on the way, with what depth of +conviction and force of sincerity. For a modern young man to thus +experience all round, and pass, and continue beyond where such great +ones as St. Bernard, Pascal, and Swedenborg, have anchored their starry +souls to shine thence upon men for all time, is no uncommon thing. It is +more the rule than the exception: but one would hardly say that in going +further they have gone higher, or ended greater. The footpath of pioneer +individualism must inevitably become the highway of the race. Every +American is not a Columbus. + +There are two ways in which we may live our spiritual progress: as +critics, or poets. Most men live theirs in that critical attitude which +refuses to commit itself, which tastes all, but enjoys none; but the +greatest in that earnest, final, rooted, creative, fashion which is the +way of the poets. The one is as a man who spends his days passing from +place to place in search of a dwelling to his mind, but dies at last in +an inn, having known nought of the settled peace of a home; but the +other, howsoever often he has to change his quarters, for howsoever +short a time he may remain in any one of his resting-places, makes of +each a home, with roots that shoot in a night to the foundations of the +world, and blossomed branches that mingle with the stars. + +Criticism is a good thing, but poetry is a better. Indeed, criticism +properly _is_ not; it is but a process to an end. We could really do +without it much better than we imagine: for, after all, the question is +not so much _how_ we live, but _do_ we live? Who would not a hundred +times rather be a fruitful Parsee than a barren _philosophe_? Yes, all +lies, of course, in original greatness of soul; and there is really no +state of mind which is not like Hamlet's pipe--if we but know the 'touch +of it,' 'it will discourse most eloquent music.' + +Now, it was that great sincerity in Narcissus that has always made us +take him so seriously. And here I would remark in parenthesis, that +trivial surface insincerities, such as we have had glimpses of in his +dealings, do not affect such a great organic sincerity as I am speaking +of. They are excrescences, which the great central health will sooner or +later clear away. It was because he never held an opinion to which he +was not, when called upon, practically faithful; never dreamed a dream +without at once setting about its translation into daylight; never +professed a creed for a week without some essay after the realisation of +its new ideal; it was because he had the power and the courage to glow +mightily, and to some purpose; because his life had a fiery centre, +which his eyes were not afraid of revealing--that I speak of his great +sincerity, a great capacity for intense life. Shallow patterers of +divine creeds were, therefore, most abhorrent to him. 'You must excuse +me, sir,' I remember his once saying to such a one, 'but what are you +doing with cigarette and salutaris? If I held such a belief as yours, I +would stand sandalled, with a rope round my waist, before to-morrow.' + +One quaint instance of this earnest attitude in all things occurs to me +out of his schooldays. He was a Divine Right man, a fiery Jacobite, in +those days; and, probably not without some absurd unconfessed dream in +his heart that it might somehow help the dead old cause, he one +afternoon fluttered the Hanoverian hearts--all the men we meet in street +and mart are Hanoverians, of course--of our little literary club by +solemnly rising 'to give notice' that at the following meeting he would +read a paper to prove that 'the House of Hanover has no right to the +English throne.' Great was the excitement through the fortnight +intervening, extending even to the masters; and the meeting was a full +one, and no little stormy. + +Narcissus rose with the air of a condemned Strafford, and with all his +boyish armoury of eloquence and scorn fought over again the long-lost +battle, hiss and groan falling unheeded into the stream of his young +voice. But vain, vain! hard is the Hanoverian heart in boy, as in man, +and all your glowing periods were in vain--vain as, your peroration told +us, 'was the blood of gallant hearts shed on Culloden's field.' Poor N., +you had but one timorous supporter, even me, so early your _fidus +Achates_--but one against so many. Yet were you crestfallen? Galileo +with his 'E pur si muove,' Disraeli with his 'The time will come,' wore +such a mien as yours, as we turned from that well-foughten field. Yes! +and you loved to take in earnest vague Hanoverian threats of possible +arrest for your baby-treason, and, for some time, I know, you never +passed a policeman without a dignified tremor, as of one who might at +any moment find a lodging in the Tower. + +But the most serious of all N.'s 'mad' enthusiasms was that of which the +Reader has already received some hint, in the few paragraphs of his own +confessions above, that which 'had almost sent him to the Himalayas.' + +It belongs to natures like his always through life to cherish a half +belief in their old fairy tales, and a longing, however late in the day, +to prove them true at last. To many such the revelations with which +Madame Blavatsky, as with some mystic trumpet, startled the Western +world some years ago, must have come with most passionate appeal; and to +Narcissus they came like a love arisen from the dead. Long before, he +had 'supped full' of all the necromantic excitements that poet or +romancer could give. Guy Mannering had introduced him to Lilly; Lytton +and Hawthorne had sent him searching in many a musty folio for Elixir +Vitas and the Stone. Like Scythrop, in 'Nightmare Abbey,' he had for a +long period slept with horrid mysteries beneath his pillow. But suddenly +his interest had faded: these phantoms fled before a rationalistic +cock-crow, and Eugenius Philalethes and Robert Fludd went with Mejnour +and Zanoni into a twilight forgetfulness. There was no hand to show the +hidden way to the land that might be, and there were hands beckoning and +voices calling him along the highway to the land that is. So, +dream-light passing, he must, perforce, reconcile himself to daylight, +with its dusty beam and its narrow horizons. + +Judge, then, with what a leaping heart he chanced on some newspaper +gossip concerning the sibyl, for it was so that he first stumbled across +her mission. Ironical, indeed, that the so impossible 'key' to the +mystery should come by the hand of 'our own correspondent'; but so it +was, and that paragraph sold no small quantity of 'occult' literature +for the next twelve months. Mr. Sinnett, doorkeeper in the house of +Blavatsky, who, as a precaution against the vision of Bluebeards that +the word Oriental is apt to conjure up in Western minds, is always +dressed in the latest mode, and, so to say, offers his cigar-case along +with some horrid mystery--it was to his prospectus of the new gospel, +his really delightful pages, that Narcissus first applied. Then he +entered within the gloomier Egyptian portals of the _Isis_ itself, and +from thence--well, in brief, he went in for a course of Redway, and +little that figured in that gentleman's thrilling announcements was long +in reaching his hands. + +At last a day came when his eye fell upon a notice, couched in suitably +mysterious terms, to the effect that really earnest seekers after divine +truth might, after necessary probation, etc., join a brotherhood of +such--which, it was darkly hinted, could give more than it dared +promise. Up to this point Narcissus had been indecisive. He was, +remember, quite in earnest, and to actually accept this new evangel +meant to him--well, as he said, nothing less in the end than the +Himalayas. Pending his decision, however, he had gradually developed a +certain austerity, and experimented in vegetarianism; and though he was, +oddly enough, free of amorous bond that might have held him to earth, +yet he had grown to love it rather rootedly since the earlier days when +he was a 'seeker.' Moreover, though he read much of 'The Path,' no +actual Mejnour had yet been revealed to set his feet therein. But with +this paragraph all indecision soon came to an end. He felt there a clear +call, to neglect which would be to have seen the light and not to have +followed it, ever for him the most tragic error to be made in life. His +natural predisposition towards it was too great for him to do other than +trust this new revelation; and now he must gird himself for 'the +sacrifice which truth always demands.' + +But, sacrifice! of what and for what? An undefined social warmth he was +beginning to feel in the world, some meretricious ambition, and a great +friendship--to which in the long run would he not be all the truer by +the great new power he was to win? If hand might no longer spring to +hand, and friendship vie in little daily acts of brotherhood, might he +not, afar on his mountain-top, keep loving watch with clearer eyes upon +the dear life he had left behind, and be its vigilant fate? Surely! and +there was nothing worth in life that would not gain by such a devotion. +All life's good was of the spirit, and to give that a clearer shining, +even in one soul, must help the rest. For if its light, shining, as now, +through the grimy horn-lantern of the body, in narrow lanes and along +the miasmatic flats of the world, even so helped men, how much more must +it, rising above that earthly fume, in a hidden corner no longer, but +in the open heaven, a star above the city. Sacrifice! yes, it was just +such a tug as a man in the dark warmth of morning sleep feels it to +leave the pillow. The mountain-tops of morning gleam cold and bare: but +O! when, staff in hand, he is out amid the dew, the larks rising like +fountains above him, the gorse bright as a golden fleece on the +hill-side, and all the world a shining singing vision, what thought of +the lost warmth then? What warmth were not well lost for this keen +exhilarated sense in every nerve, in limb, in eye, in brain? What potion +has sleep like this crystalline air it almost takes one's breath to +drink, of such a maddening chastity is its grot-cool sparkle? What +intoxication can she give us for this larger better rapture? So did +Narcissus, an old Son of the Morning, figure to himself the struggle, +and pronounce 'the world well lost.' + +But I feel as I write how little I can give the Reader of all the +'splendid purpose in his eyes' as he made this resolve. Perhaps I am the +less able to do so as--let me confess--I also shared his dream. One +could hardly come near him without, in some measure, doing that at all +times; though with me it could only be a dream, for I was not free. I +had Scriptural example to plead 'Therefore I cannot come,' though in any +case I fear I should have held back, for I had no such creative instinct +for realisation as Narcissus, and have, I fear, dreamed many a dream I +had not the courage even to think of clothing in flesh and blood; like, +may I say, the many who are poets for all save song--poets in chrysalis, +all those who dream of what some do, and make the audience of those +great articulate ones. But there were one or two trifling doubts to set +at rest before final decision. The Reader has greatly misconceived +Narcissus if he has deemed him one of those simple souls whom any quack +can gull, and the good faith of this mysterious fraternity was a +difficult point to settle. A tentative application through the address +given, an appropriate _nom de mystere_, had introduced the ugly detail +of preliminary expenses. Divine truth has to pay its postage, its rent, +its taxes, and so on; and the 'guru' feeds not on air--although, of +course, being a 'guru,' he comes as near it as the flesh will allow: +therefore, and surely, Reader, a guinea per annum is, after all, +reasonable enough. Suspect as much as one will, but how gainsay? Also, +before the applicant could be admitted to noviciate even, his horoscope +must be cast, and--well, the poor astrologer also needed bread and--no! +not butter--five shillings for all his calculations, circles, and +significations--well, that again was only reasonable. H'm, ye-e-s, but +it was dubious; and, mad as we were, I don't think we ever got outside +that dubiety, but made up our minds, like other converts, to gulp the +primary postulate, and pay the twenty-six shillings. From the first, +however, Narcissus had never actually entrusted all his spiritual +venture in this particular craft: he saw the truth independent of them, +not they alone held her for him, though she might hold them, and they +might be that one of the many avenues for which he had waited to lead +him nearer to her heart. That was all. His belief in the new +illumination neither stood nor fell with them, though his ardour for it +culminated in the experience. One must take the most doubtful +experiment seriously if we are in earnest for results. + +So next came the sacred name of 'the Order,' which, Reader, I cannot +tell thee, as I have never known it, Narcissus being bound by horrid +oaths to whisper it to no man, and to burn at midnight the paper which +gave it to his eyes. From this time, also, we could exchange no deep +confidences of the kind at all, for the various MSS. by means of which +he was to begin his excursions into Urania, and which his 'guru' sent +from time to time--at first, it must be admitted, with a diligent +frequency--were secret too. So several months went by, and my knowledge +of his 'chela-ship' was confined to what I could notice, and such +trifling harmless gossip as 'Heard from "guru" this morning,' 'Copying +an old MS. last night,' and so on. What I could notice was truly, as +Lamb would say, 'great mastery,' for lo! Narcissus, whose eyes had never +missed a maiden since he could walk, and lay in wait to wrest his +tribute of glance and blush from every one that passed, lo! he had +changed all that, and Saint Anthony in an old master looks not more +resolutely 'the other way' than he, his very thoughts crushing his flesh +with invisible pincers. No more softly-scented missives lie upon his +desk a-mornings; and, instead of blowing out the candle to dream of +Daffodilia, he opens his eyes in the dark to defy--the Dweller on the +Threshold, if haply he should indeed already confront him. + +One thrilling piece of news in regard to the latter he was unable to +conceal. He read it out to me one flushed morning:-- + + '_I--have--seen--him--and--am--his--master_,' + +wrote the 'guru,' in answer to his neophyte's half fearful question. +Fitly underlined and sufficiently spaced, it was a statement calculated +to awe, if only by its mendacity. I wonder if that chapter of Bulwer's +would impress one now as it used to do then. It were better, perhaps, +not to try. + +The next news of these mysteries was the conclusion of them. When so +darkly esoteric a body begins to issue an extremely catchpenny 'organ,' +with advertisements of theosophic 'developers,' magic mirrors, and +mesmeric discs, and also advertises large copies of the dread symbol of +the Order, 'suitable for framing,' at five shillings plain and seven and +sixpence coloured, it is, of course, impossible to take it seriously, +except in view of a police-court process, and one is evidently in the +hands of very poor bunglers indeed. Such was the new departure in +propaganda instituted by a little magazine, mean in appearance, as the +mouthpieces of all despised 'isms' seem to be, with the first number of +which, need one say, ended Narcissus' ascent of 'The Path.' I don't +think he was deeply sad at being disillusionised. Unconsciously a +broader philosophy had slowly been undermining his position, and all was +ready for the fall. It cost no such struggle to return to the world as +it had taken to leave it, for the poet had overgrown the philosopher, +and the open mystery of the common day was already exercising an appeal +beyond that of any melodramatic 'arcana.' Of course the period left its +mark upon him, but it is most conspicuous upon his bookshelves. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +THE CHILDREN OF APOLLO + +'He is a _true_ poet,' or 'He is a _genuine_ artist,' are phrases which +irritate one day after day in modern criticism. One had thought that +'poet' and 'artist' were enough; but there must be a need, we +regretfully suppose, for these re-enforcing qualifications; and there +can be but the one, that the false in each kind do so exceedingly +abound, that none can be taken as genuine without such special +certificate. The widespread confusion with the poet of the rhetorician +and sentimentalist in verse, and again of the mere rhymer without even +rhetoric, not to refer to finer differentiation of error, is also a +fruitful source of bewilderment. The misuse of the word has parallels: +for instance, the spurious generic use of the word 'man' for 'male,' +the substitution of 'artist' for 'painter.' But here we have only to +deal with that one particular abuse. Some rules how to know a poet may +conceivably be of interest, though of no greater value. + +Of course, the one first and last test is his work, but 'how to know +poetry' is another matter, which I do not propose treating of here; my +intention rather being to dot down a few personal characteristics--not +so much his 'works' as his 'ways.' I write as they come into my head; +and to any Reader about to cry out against digression, let me add: I +write thinking of Narcissus; for know all men, friend or Philistine, if +you have yet to learn it, my Narcissus is a poet! + +First, as to the great question of 'garmenting.' The superstition that +the hat and the cloak 'does it' has gone out in mockery, but only that +the other superstition might reign in its stead--that the hat and cloak +cannot do it. Because one great poet dispensed with 'pontificals,' and +yet brought the fire from heaven, henceforward 'pontificals' are humbug, +and the wearer thereof but charlatan, despite--'the master yonder in +the isle.' Pegasus must pack in favour of a British hunter, and even the +poet at last wear the smug regimentals of mediocrity and mammon. Ye +younger choir especially have a care, for, though you sing with the +tongues of men and angels, and wear not a silk hat, it shall avail you +nothing. Neither Time, which is Mudie, nor Eternity, which is Fame, will +know you, and your verses remain till doom in an ironical _editio +princeps_, which not even the foolish bookman shall rescue from the +threepenny box. It is very unlikely that you will escape as did +Narcissus, for though, indeed, + + 'He swept a fine majestic sweep + Of toga Tennysonian, + Wore strange soft hat, that such as you + Would tremble to be known in,' + +nevertheless, he somehow won happier fates, on which, perhaps, it would +be unbecoming in so close a friend to dilate. + +The 'true' poet is, first of all, a gentleman, usually modest, never +arrogant, and only assertive when pushed. He does not by instinct take +himself seriously, as the 'poet-ape' doth, though if he meets with +recognition it becomes, of course, his duty to acknowledge his faculty, +and make good Scriptural use of it. + +He is probably least confident, however, when praised; and never, except +in rare moments, especially of eclipse, has he a strong faith in the +truth that is in him. Therefore crush him, saith the Philistine, as we +crush the vine; strike him, as one strikes the lyre. When young, he +imagines the world to be filled with one ambition; later on, he finds +that so indeed it is--but the name thereof is not Poesy. Strange! sighs +he. And if, when he is seventeen, he writes a fluent song, and his +fellow-clerk admire it, why, it is nothing; surely the ledger-man hath +such scraps in his poke, or at least can roll off better. 'True bards +believe all able to achieve what they achieve,' said Naddo. But lo! that +ambition is a word that begins with pounds and ends with pence--like +life, quoth the ledger-man, who, after all, had but card-scores, a +tailor's account, and the bill for his wife's confinement in his pocket. + +All through his life he loves his last-written most, and no honey of +Hybla is so sweet as a new rhyme. Let no maid hope to rival it with her +lips--she but interrupts: for the travail of a poet is even as that of +his wife--after the pain comes that dear joy of a new thing born into +the world, which doting sipping dream beware to break. Fifty repetitions +of the new sweetness, fifty deliberate rollings of it under the tongue, +is, I understand, the minimum duration of such, before the passion is +worked off, and the dream-child really breathing free of its +dream-parent. I have occasionally come upon Narcissus about the +twenty-fifth, I suppose, and wondered at my glum reception. 'Poetry gone +sour,' he once gave as the reason. Try it not, Reader, if, indeed, in +thy colony of beavers a poet really dwells. + +He is a born palaeontologist: that is, he can build up an epic from a +hint. And, despite modern instances, the old rule obtains for him, he +need not be learned--that is, not deeply or abundantly, only at +points--superficially, the superficial would say. Well, yes, he has an +eye for knowing what surfaces mean, the secret of the divining rod. +Take it this way. We want an expression, say, of the work of Keats, want +to be told wherein lies his individuality. You take Mr. Buxton Forman's +four volumes, and 'work at' Keats! and, after thirty nights and days, +bring your essay. On the morning of the thirtieth the poet read again +the _Grecian Urn_, and at eventide wrote a sonnet; and on the morning of +the thirty-first, essay and sonnet are side by side. But, by the +evening, your essay is in limbo--or in type, all's one--while the sonnet +is singing in our heart, persistently haunting our brain. Some day the +poet, too, writes an essay, and thus plainly shows, says the essayist, +how little he really knew of the matter--he didn't actually know of the +so-and-so--and yet it was his ignorance that gave us that illuminating +line, after all. + +I doubt if one would be on safe ground in saying: Take, now, the subject +of wine. We all know how abstemious is the poetical habit; and yet, to +read these songs, one would think 'twas Bacchus' self that wrote, or +that Clarence who lay down to die in a butt of Malmsey. Though the +inference is open to question, + + 'I often wonder if old Omar drank + One half the quantity he bragged in song.' + +Doubtless he sat longest and drank least of all the topers of Naishapur, +and the bell for Saki rang not from his corner half often enough to +please mine host. Certainly the longevity of some modern poets can only +be accounted for by some such supposition in their case. The proposition +is certainly proved inversely in the case of Narcissus, for he has not +written one vinous line, and yet--well, and yet! Furthermore, it may +interest future biographers to know that in his cups he was wont to +recite Hamlet's advice to the players, throned upon a tram-car. + +The 'true' poet makes his magic with the least possible ado; he and the +untrue are as the angler who is born to the angler who is made at the +tackle-shop. One encumbers the small of his back with nameless engines, +talks much of creels, hath a rod like a weaver's beam; he travels first +class to some distant show-lake among the hills, and he toils all day +as the fishermen of old toiled all night; while Tom, his gardener's son, +but a mile outside the town, with a willow wand and a bent pin, hath +caught the family supper. So is it with him who is proverbially born not +made. His friends say: 'O, you should go to such-and-such falls; you 'd +write poetry there, if you like. We all said so'; or, 'What are you +doing in here scribbling? Look through the window at the moonlight; +there's poetry for you. Go out into that if you want sonnets.' Of +course, he never takes his friends' advice; he has long known that they +know nothing whatever about it. He is probably quite ignorant of +metrical law, but one precept instinct taught him from the beginning, +and he finds it expressed one day in Wordsworth (with a blessed comfort +of assurance--like in this little, O, may be like, somehow, in the great +thing too!): 'Poetry is emotion remembered in tranquillity.' The +wandlike moments, he remembers, always came to him in haunts all remote +indeed from poetry: a sudden touch at his heart, and the air grows +rhythmical, and seems a-ripple with dreams; and, albeit, in whatever +room of dust or must he be, the song will find him, will throw her arms +about him, so it seems, will close his eyes with her sweet breath, that +he may open them upon the hidden stars. + +'Impromptus' are the quackery of the poetaster. One may take it for +granted, as a general rule, that anything written 'on the spot' is +worthless. A certain young poet, who could when he liked do good things, +printed some verses, which he declared in a sub-title were 'Written on +the top of Snowdon in a thunderstorm.' He asked an opinion, and one +replied: 'Written on the top of Snowdon in a thunderstorm.' The poet was +naturally angry--and yet, what need of further criticism? + +The poet, when young, although as I said, he is not likely to fall into +the foolishness of conceit which belongs to the poetaster, is yet too +apt in his zeal of dedication to talk much of his 'art,' or, at least, +think much; also to disparage life, and to pronounce much gratuitous +absolution in the name of Poetry:-- + +Did Burns drink and wench?--yet he sang! + +Did Coleridge opiate and neglect his family?--yet he sang!! + +Did Shelley--well, whatever Shelley did of callous and foolish, the list +is long--yet he sang!!! + +As years pass, however, he grows out of this stage, and, while regarding +his art in a spirit of dedication equally serious, and how much saner, +he comes to realise that, after all, art but forms one integral part, +however great, of a healthy life, and that for the greatest artist there +are still duties in life more imperative than any art can lay upon him. +It is a great hour when he rises up in his resolution first to be a man, +in faith that, if he be such, the artist in him will look after +itself--first a man, and surely all the greater artist for being that; +though if not, still a man. That is the duty that lies' next' to all of +us. Do that, and, as we are told, the other will be clearer for us. In +that hour that earlier form of absolution will reverse itself on his +lips into one of commination. Did they sing?--yet they sinned here and +here; and as a man soweth, so shall he reap, singer or sot. Lo! his +songs are stars in heaven, but his sins are snakes in hell: each shall +bless and torment him in turn. + +Pitiable, indeed, will seem to him in that hour the cowardice that dares +to cloak its sinning with some fine-spun theory, that veils the +gratification of its desires in some shrill evangel, and wrecks a +woman's life in the names of--Liberty and Song! Art wants no such +followers: her bravest work is done by brave men, and not by sneaking +opium-eaters and libidinous 'reformers.' We all have sinned, and we all +will go on sinning, but for God's sake, let us be honest about it. There +are worse things than honest sin. If, God help you, you have ruined a +girl, do penance for it through your life; pay your share; but don't, +whatever you do, hope to make up for a bad heart by a good brain. +Foolish art-patterers may suffer the recompense to pass, for likely they +have all the one and none of the other; but good men will care nothing +about you or your work, so long as bad trees refuse to bring forth good +fruit, or figs to grow on thistles. + +We have more to learn from Florentine artists than any 'craft mystery.' +If the capacity for using the blossom while missing the evil fruit, of +which Mr. Pater speaks in the case of Aurelius, were only confined to +those evil-bearing trees: alas! it is all blossom with us moderns, good +or bad alike, and purity or putrescence are all one to us, so that they +shine. I suppose few regard Giotto's circle as his greatest work: would +that more did. The lust of the eye, with Gautier as high-priest, is too +much with us. + +The poet, too, who perhaps began with the simple ambition of becoming a +'literary man,' soon finds how radically incapable of ever being merely +that he is. Alas! how soon the nimbus fades from the sacred name of +'author.' At one time he had been ready to fall down and kiss the +garment's hem, say, of--of a 'Canterbury' editor (this, of course, when +very, very young), as of a being from another sphere; and a writer in +_The Fortnightly_ had swam into his ken, trailing visible clouds of +glory. But by and by he finds himself breathing with perfect composure +in that rarefied air, and in course of time the grey conviction settles +upon him that these fabled people are in no wise different from the +booksellers and business men he had found so sordid and dull--no more +individual or delightful as a race; and he speedily comes to the old +conclusion he had been at a loss to understand a year or two ago, that, +as a rule, the people who do not write books are infinitely to be +preferred to the people who do. When he finds exceptions, they occur as +they used to do in shop and office--the charm is all independent of the +calling; for just as surely as a man need not grow mean, and hard, and +dried up, however prosperous be his iron-foundry, so sure is it that a +man will not grow generous, rich-minded, loving, and all that is golden +by merely writing of such virtues at so much a column. The inherent +insincerity, more or less, of all literary work is a fact of which he +had not thought. I am speaking of the mere 'author,' the +writer-tradesman, the amateur's superstition; not of men of genius, who, +despite cackle, cannot disappoint. If they seem to do so, it must be +that we have not come close enough to know them. But the man of genius +is rarer, perhaps, in the ranks of authorship than anywhere: you are +far more likely to find him on the exchange. They are as scarce as +Caxtons: London possesses hardly half-a-dozen examples. + +Narcissus enjoyed the delight of calling one of these his friend, 'a +certain aristocratic poet who loved all kinds of superiorities,' again +to borrow from Mr. Pater. He had once seen him afar off and worshipped, +as it is the blessedness of boys to be able to worship; but never could +he have dreamed in that day of the dear intimacy that was to come. 'If +he could but know me as I am,' he had sighed; but that was all. With the +almost childlike naturalness which is his greatest charm he confessed +this sigh long after, and won that poet's heart. Well I remember his +bursting into our London lodging late one afternoon, great-eyed and +almost in tears for joy of that first visit. He had pre-eminently the +capacity which most fine men have of falling in love with men--as one +may be sure of a subtle greatness in a woman whose eye singles out a +woman to follow on the stage at the theatre--and certainly, no other +phrase can express that state of shining, trembling exaltation, the +passion of the friendships of Narcissus. And although he was rich in +them--rich, that is, as one can be said to be rich in treasure so +rare--saving one only, they have never proved that fairy-gold which such +do often prove. Saving that one, golden fruit still hangs for every +white cluster of wonderful blossom. + +'I thought you must care for me if you could but know me aright,' +Narcissus had said. + +'Care for you! Why, you beautiful boy! you seem to have dropped from the +stars,' the poet had replied in the caressing fashion of an elder +brother. + +He had frankly fallen in love, too: for Narcissus has told me that his +great charm is a boyish naturalness of heart, that ingenuous gusto in +living which is one of the sure witnesses to genius. This is all the +more piquant because no one would suspect it, as, I suppose, few do; +probably, indeed, a consensus would declare him the last man in London +of whom that is true. No one would seem to take more seriously the _beau +monde_ of modern paganism, with its hundred gospels of _La Nuance_; no +one, assuredly, were more _blase_ than he, with his languors of pose, +and face of so wan a flame. The Oscar Wilde of modern legend were not +more as a dweller in Nirvana. But Narcissus maintained that all this was +but a disguise which the conditions of his life compelled him to wear, +and in wearing which he enjoyed much subtle subterranean merriment; +while underneath the real man lived, fresh as morning, vigorous as a +young sycamore, wild-hearted as an eagle, ever ready to flash out the +'password primeval' to such as alone could understand. How else had he +at once taken the stranger lad to his heart with such a sunlight of +welcome? As the maid every boy must have sighed for but so rarely found, +who makes not as if his love were a weariness which she endured, and the +kisses she suffered, cold as green buds, were charities, but frankly +glows to his avowal with 'I love you, too, dear Jack,' and kisses him +from the first with mouth like a June rose--so did that _blase_ poet +cast away his conventional Fahrenheit, and call Narcissus friend in +their first hour. Men of genius alone know that fine _abandon_ of soul. +In such is the poet confessed as unmistakably as in his verse, for the +one law of his life is that he be an elemental, and the capacity for +great simple impressions is the spring of his power. Let him beware of +losing that. + +I sometimes wonder as I come across the last frivolous gossip concerning +that poet in the paragraphs of the new journalism, or meet his name in +some distinguished bead-roll in _The Morning Post_, whether Narcissus +was not, after all, mistaken about him, and whether he could still, +season after season, go through the same stale round of reception, +private view, first night, and all the various drill of fashion and +folly, if that boy's heart were alive still. One must believe it once +throbbed in him: we have his poems for that, and a poem cannot lie; but +it is hard to think that it could still keep on its young beating +beneath such a choking pressure of convention, and in an air so 'sunken +from the healthy breath of morn.' But, on the other hand, I have almost +a superstitious reliance on Narcissus' intuition, a faculty in him which +not I alone have marked, but which I know was the main secret of his +appeal for women. They, as the natural possessors of the power, feel a +singular kinship with a man who also possesses it, a gift as rarely +found among his sex as that delicacy which largely depends on it, and +which is the other sure clue to a woman's love. She is so little used, +poor flower, to be understood, and to meet with other regard than the +gaze of satyrs. + +However, be Narcissus' intuition at fault or not in the main, still it +was very sure that the boy's heart in that man of the world did wake +from its sleep for a while at the wandlike touch of his youth; and if, +after all, as may be, Narcissus was but a new sensation in his jaded +round, at least he was a healthy one. Nor did the callous ingratitude of +forgetfulness which follows so swiftly upon mere sensation ever add +another to the sorrows of my friend: for, during the last week before he +left us, came a letter of love and cheer in that poet's wonderful +handwriting--handwriting delicious with honeyed lines, each word a +flower, each letter rounded with the firm soft curves of hawthorn in +bud, or the delicate knobs of palm against the sky. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +GEORGE MUNCASTER + +When I spoke of London's men of genius I referred, of course, to such as +are duly accredited, certificated, so to say, by public opinion; but of +those others whose shining is under the bushel of obscurity, few or +many, how can one affirm? That there are such, any man with any happy +experience of living should be able to testify; and I should say, for +fear of misunderstanding, that I do not use the word genius in any +technical sense, not only of men who can _do_ in the great triumphal +way, but also of those who can _be_ in their quiet, effective fashion, +within their own 'scanty plot of ground'; men who, if ever conscious of +it, are content with the diffusion of their influence around the narrow +limits of their daily life, content to bend their creative instincts on +the building and beautifying of home. It is no lax use of the word +genius to apply it to such, for unless you profess the modern heresy +that genius is but a multiplied talent, a coral-island growth, that +earns its right to a new name only when it has lifted its head above the +waters of oblivion, you must agree. For 'you saw at once,' said +Narcissus, in reference to that poet, 'that his writing was so +delightful because he was more so.' His writings, in fact, were but the +accidental emanations of his personality. He might have given himself +out to us in fugues, or canvases, or simply, like the George Muncaster +of whom I am thinking, in the sweet breath and happy shining of his +home. Genius is a personal quality, and if a man has it, whatever his +hand touches will bear the trace of his power, an undying odour, an +unfading radiance. When Rossetti wrote 'Beauty like hers is genius,' he +was not dealing in metaphor, and Meissonier should have abolished for +ever the superstition of large canvases. + +These desultory hints of the development of Narcissus would certainly be +more incomplete than necessity demands, if I did not try to give the +Reader some idea of the man of genius of this unobtrusive type to whom I +have just alluded. Samuel Dale used to call himself 'an artist in life,' +and there could be no truer general phrase to describe George Muncaster +than that. His whole life possesses a singular unity, such as is the +most satisfying joy of a fine work of art, considering which it never +occurs to one to think of the limitation of conditions or material. So +with his life, the shortness of man's 'term' is never felt; one could +win no completer effect with eternity than he with every day. Hurry and +false starts seem unknown in his round, and his little home is a +microcosm of the Golden Age. + +It would even seem sometimes that he has an artistic rule over his +'accidents,' for 'surprises' have a wonderful knack of falling into the +general plan of his life, as though but waited for. Our first meeting +with him was a singular instance of this. I say 'our,' for Narcissus and +I chanced to be walking a holiday together at the time. It fell on this +wise. At Tewkesbury it was we had arrived, one dull September evening, +just in time to escape a wetting from a grey drizzle then imminent; and +in no very buoyant spirits we turned into _The Swan Inn_. A more dismal +coffee-room for a dismal evening could hardly be--gloomy, vast, and +thinly furnished. We entered sulkily, seeming the only occupants of the +sepulchre. However, there was a small book on the table facing the door, +sufficiently modern in appearance to catch one's eye and arouse a faint +ripple of interest. 'A Canterbury,' we cried. 'And a Whitman, more's the +wonder,' cried Narcissus, who had snatched it up. 'Why, some one's had +the sense, too, to cut out the abominable portrait. I wonder whose it +is. The owner must evidently have some right feeling.' + +Then, before there was time for further exclamatory compliment of the +unknown, we were half-startled by the turning round of an arm-chair at +the far end of the room, and were aware of a manly voice of exquisite +quality asking, 'Do you know Whitman?' + +And moving towards the speaker, we were for the first time face to face +with the strong and gentle George Muncaster, who since stands in our +little gallery of types as Whitman's Camarado and Divine Husband made +flesh. I wish, Reader, that I could make you see his face; but at best I +have little faith in pen portraits. It is comparatively easy to write a +graphic description of _a_ face; but when it has been read, has the +reader realised _the_ face? I doubt it, and am inclined to believe that +three different readers will carry away three different impressions even +from a really brilliant portrait. Laborious realism may, at least, I +think, be admitted as hopeless. The only chance is in a Meredithian +lightning-flash, and those fly but from one or two bows. I wonder if an +image will help at all here. Think on a pebbly stream, on a brisk, +bright morning; dwell on the soft, shining lines of its flowing; and +then recall the tonic influence, the sensation of grip, which the +pebbles give it. Dip your hand into it again in fancy; realise how +chaste it is, and then again think how bright and good it is. And if you +realise these impressions as they come to me, you will have gained some +idea of George Muncaster's face--the essential spirit of it, I mean, +ever so much more important than the mere features. Such, at least, +seemed the meaning of his face even in the first moment of our +intercourse that September dusk, and so it has never ceased to come upon +us even until now. + +And what a night that was! what a talk! How soon did we find each other +out! Long before the maid knocked at the door, and hinted by the +delicate insinuation of a supposed ring that there was 'a budding +morrow' in the air. But our passionate generosity of soul was running in +too strong a tide just then to be stemmed by any such interference; it +could but be diverted, and Muncaster's bedroom served us as well wherein +to squat in one of those close, rapt circles of talk such as, I think, +after all, men who love poetry can alone know--men, anyhow, with _a_ +poetry. + +Bed, that had for some time been calling us, unheeded as Juliet's nurse, +had at last to be obeyed; but how grudgingly; and how eagerly we sprang +from it at no late hour in the morning, at the first thought of the +sweet new thing that had come into the world--like children who, half +in a doze before waking, suddenly remember last night's new wonder of a +toy, to awake in an instant, and scramble into clothes to look at it +again. Thus, like children we rose; but it was shy as lovers we met at +the breakfast-table, as lovers shy after last night's kissing. (You may +not have loved a fellow-man in this way, Reader, but we are, any one of +us, as good men as you; so keep your eyebrows down, I beseech you.) + +One most winsome trait of our new friend was soon apparent--as, having, +to our sorrow, to part at the inn door right and left, we talked of +meeting again at one or the other's home: a delicate disinclination to +irreverently 'make sure' of the new joy; a 'listening fear,' as though +of a presiding good spirit that might revoke his gift if one stretched +out towards it with too greedy hands. 'Rather let us part and say +nought. You know where a letter will find me. If our last night was a +real thing, we shall meet again, never fear.' With some such words as +those it was that he bade us good-bye. + +Of course, letters found all three of us before a fortnight had gone +by, and in but a short time we found his home. There it is that George +should be seen. Away he is full of precious light, but home is his +setting. To Narcissus, who found it in that green period when all +youngsters take vehement vows of celibacy, and talk much of 'free love,' +all ignorant, one is in charity persuaded, of what they quite mean, that +home was certainly as great and lasting a revelation as the first hour +of 'Poetry's divine first finger-touch.' It was not that his own +home-life had been unhappy, for it was the reverse, and rich indeed in +great and sweet influences; but it was rather, I think, that the ideal +of a home is not so easily to be reached from that home in which one is +a child, where one is too apt to miss the whole in consideration of +one's own part in it, as from another on which we can look from the +outside. + +Our parents, even to the end, partake too much of the nature of +mythology; it always needs an effort to imagine them beings with quite +the same needs and dreams as ourselves. We rarely get a glimpse of +their poetry, for the very reason that we ourselves are factors in it, +and are, therefore, too apt to dwell on the less happy details of the +domestic life, details which one ray of their poetry would transfigure +as the sun transfigures the motes in his beam. Thus, in that green age I +spoke of, one's sickly vision can but see the dusty, world-worn side of +domesticity, the petty daily cares of living, the machinery, so to say, +of 'house and home.' But when one stands in another home, where these +are necessarily unseen by us, stands with the young husband, the +poetry-maker, how different it all seems. One sees the creation bloom +upon it; one ceases to blaspheme, and learns to bless. Later, when at +length one understands why it is sweeter to say 'wife' than +'sweetheart,' how even one may be reconciled to calling one's Daffodilia +'little mother'--because of the children, you know; it would never do +for them to say Daffodilia--then he will understand too how those petty +details, formerly so '_banal_,' are, after all, but notes in the music, +and what poetry can flicker, like its own blue flame, around even the +joint purchase of a frying-pan. + +That Narcissus ever understood this great old poetry he owes to George +Muncaster. In the very silence of his home one hears a singing--'There +lies the happiest land.' It was one of his own quaint touches that the +first night we found his nest, after the maid had given us admission, +there should be no one to welcome us into the bright little parlour but +a wee boy of four, standing in the doorway like a robin that has hopped +on to one's window-sill. But with what a dear grace did the little chap +hold out his hand and bid us good evening, and turn his little morsel of +a bird's tongue round our names; to be backed at once by a ring of +laughter from the hidden 'prompter' thereupon revealed. O happy, happy +home! may God for ever smile upon you! There should be a special grace +for happy homes. George's set us 'collecting' such, with results +undreamed of by youthful cynic. Take courage, Reader, if haply you stand +with hesitating toe above the fatal plunge. Fear not, you can swim if +you will. Of course, you must take care that your joint poetry-maker be +such a one as George's. One must not seem to forget the loving wife who +made such dreaming as his possible. He did not; and, indeed, had you +told him of his happiness, he would but have turned to her with a smile +that said, 'All of thee, my love'; while, did one ask of this and that, +how quickly 'Yes! that was George's idea,' laughed along her lips. + +While we sat talking that first evening, there suddenly came three +cries, as of three little heads straining out of a nest, for 'Father'; +and obedient, with a laugh, he left us. This, we soon learnt, was a part +of the sweet evening ritual of home. After mother's more practical +service had been rendered the little ones, and they were cosily 'tucked +in,' then came 'father's turn,' which consisted of his sitting by their +bedside--Owen and Geoffrey on one hand, and little queen Phyllis, +maidenlike in solitary cot, on the other--and crooning to them a little +evening song. In the dark, too, I should say, for it was one of his wise +provisions that they should be saved from ever fearing that; and that, +whenever they awoke to find it round them in the middle of the night, it +should bring them no other association but 'father's voice.' + +A quaint recitative of his own, which he generally contrived to vary +each night, was the song, a loving croon of sleep and rest. The +brotherhood of rest, one might name his theme for grown-up folk; as in +the morning, we afterwards learnt, he is wont to sing them another +little song of the brotherhood of work; the aim of his whole beautiful +effort for them being to fill their hearts with a sense of the +brotherhood of all living things--flowers, butterflies, bees and birds, +the milk-boy, the policeman, the man at the crossing, the grocer's pony, +all within the circle of their little lives, as living and working in +one great _camaraderie_. Sometimes he would extemporise a little rhyme +for them, filling it out with his clear, happy voice, and that tender +pantomime that comes so naturally to a man who not merely loves +children--for who is there that does not?--but one born with the +instinct for intercourse with them. To those not so born it is as +difficult to enter into the life and prattle of birds. I have once or +twice crept outside the bedroom door when neither children nor George +thought of eavesdroppers, and the following little songs are impressions +from memory of his. You must imagine them chanted by a voice full of the +infinite tenderness of fatherhood, and even then you will but dimly +realise the music they have as he sings them. I run the risk of his +forgiving my printing them here:-- + + MORNING SONG. + + Morning comes to little eyes, + Wakens birds and butterflies, + Bids the flower uplift his head, + Calls the whole round world from bed. + Up jump Geoffrey! + Up jump Owen!! + Then up jump Phyllis!!! + And father's going! + + EVENING SONG. + + The sun is weary, for he ran + So far and fast to-day; + The birds are weary, for who sang + So many songs as they? + The bees and butterflies at last + Are tired out; for just think, too, + How many gardens through the day + Their little wings have fluttered through. + + And so, as all tired people do, + They've gone to lay their sleepy heads + Deep, deep in warm and happy beds. + The sun has shut his golden eye, + And gone to sleep beneath the sky; + The birds, and butterflies, and bees + Have all crept into flowers and trees, + And all lie quiet, still as mice, + Till morning comes, like father's voice. + So Phyllis, Owen, Geoffrey, you + Must sleep away till morning too; + Close little eyes, lie down little heads, + And sleep, sleep, sleep in happy beds. + +As the Reader has not been afflicted with a great deal of verse in these +pages, I shall also venture to copy here another little song which, as +his brains have grown older, George has been fond of singing to them at +bedtime, and with which the Reader is not likely to have enjoyed a +previous acquaintance:-- + + REST.[1] + + When the Sun and the Golden Day + Hand in hand are gone away, + At your door shall Sleep and Night + Come and knock in the fair twilight; + Let them in, twin travellers blest; + Each shall be an honoured guest, + And give you rest. + + They shall tell of the stars and moon, + And their lips shall move to a glad sweet tune, + Till upon your cool, white bed + Fall at last your nodding head; + Then in dreamland fair and blest, + Farther off than East and West, + They give you rest. + + Night and Sleep, that goodly twain, + Tho' they go, shall come again; + When your work and play are done, + And the Sun and Day are gone + Hand in hand thro' the scarlet West, + Each shall come, an honoured guest, + And bring you rest. + + Watching at your window-sill, + If upon the Eastern hill + Sun and Day come back no more, + They shall lead you from the door + To their kingdom calm and blest, + Farther off than East or West, + And give you rest. + +Arriving down to breakfast earlier than expected next morning, we +discovered George busy at some more of his loving ingenuity. He half +blushed in his shy way, but went on writing in this wise, with chalk, +upon a small blackboard: '_Thursday_--_Thor's-day_--_Jack the Giant +Killer's day_'. Then, in one corner of the board, a sun was rising with +a merry face and flaming locks, and beneath him was written, +'_Phoebus-Apollo';_ while in the other corner was a setting moon, '_Lady +Cynthia_. There were other quaint matters, too, though they have escaped +my memory; but these hints are sufficient to indicate George's morning +occupation. Thus he endeavoured to implant in the young minds he felt so +sacred a trust an ever-present impression of the full significance of +life in every one of its details. The days of the week should mean for +them what they did mean, should come with a veritable personality, such +as the sun and the moon gained for them by thus having actual names, +like friends and playfellows. This Thor's-day was an especially great +day for them; for, in the evening, when George had returned from +business, and there was yet an hour to bedtime, they would come round +him to hear one of the adventures of the great Thor--adventures which he +had already contrived, he laughingly told us, to go on spinning out of +the Edda through no less than the Thursdays of two years. Certainly his +ingenuity of economy with his materials was no little marvel, and he +confessed to often being at his wits' end. For Thursday night was not +alone starred with stories; every night there was one to tell; sometimes +an incident of his day in town, which he would dress up with the +imaginative instinct of a born teller of fairy-tales. He had a knack, +too, of spreading one story over several days which would be invaluable +to a serial writer. I remember one simple instance of his device. + +He sat in one of those great cane nursing chairs, Phyllis on one knee, +Owen on the other, and Geoffrey perched in the hollow space in the back +of the chair, leaning over his shoulder, all as solemn as a court +awaiting judgment. George begins with a preliminary glance behind at +Geoffrey: 'Happy there, my boy? That's right. Well, there was once a +beautiful garden.' + +'Yes-s-s-s,' go the three solemn young heads. + +'And it was full of the most wonderful things.' + +'Yes-s-s-s.' + +'Great trees, so green, for the birds to hide and sing in; and flowers +so fair and sweet that the bees said that, in all their flying hither +and thither, they had never yet found any so full of honey in all the +world. And the birds, too, what songs they knew; and the butterflies, +were there ever any so bright and many-coloured?' etc., etc. + +'But the most wonderful thing about the garden was that everything in it +had a wonderful story to tell.' + +'Yes-s-s s.' + +'The birds, and bees, and butterflies, even the trees and flowers, each +knew a wonderful fairy-tale.' + +'Oh-h-h-h.' + +'But of all in the garden the grasshopper knew the most. He had been a +great traveller, for he had such long legs.' + +Again a still deeper murmur of breathless interest. + +'Now, would you like to hear what the grasshopper had to tell?' + +'Oh, yes-s-s-s.' + +'Well, you shall--to-morrow night!' + +So off his knees they went, as he rose with a merry, loving laugh, and +kissed away the long sighs of disappointment, and sent them to bed, +agog for all the morrow's night should reveal. + +Need one say that the children were not the only disappointed listeners? +Besides, they have long since known all the wonderful tale, whereas one +of the poorer grown-up still wonders wistfully what that grasshopper who +was so great a traveller, and had such long legs, had to tell. + +But I had better cease. Were I sure that the Reader was seeing what I am +seeing, hearing as I, I should not fear; but how can I be sure of that? +Had I the pen which that same George will persist in keeping for his +letters, I should venture to delight the Reader with more of his story. +One underhand hope of mine, however, for these poor hints is, that they +may by their very imperfection arouse him to give the world 'the true +story' of a happy home. Narcissus repeatedly threatened that, if he did +not take pen in hand, he would some day 'make copy' of him; and now I +have done it instead. Moreover, I shall further presume on his +forbearance by concluding with a quotation from one of his letters that +came to me but a few months back:-- + +'You know how deeply exercised the little ones are on the subject of +death, and how I had answered their curiosity by the story that after +death all things turn into flowers. Well, what should startle the wife's +ears the other day but "Mother, I wish you would die." "O why, my dear?" +"Because I should so like to water you!" was the delicious explanation. +The theory has, moreover, been called to stand at the bar of experience, +for a week or two ago one of Phyllis' goldfish died. There were tears at +first, of course, but they suddenly dried up as Geoffrey, in his +reflective way, wondered "what flower it would come to." Here was a +dilemma. One had never thought of such contingencies. But, of course, it +was soon solved. "What flower would you like it to be, my boy?" I asked. +"A poppy!" he answered; and after consultation, "a poppy!" agreed the +others. So a poppy it is to be. A visit to the seedsman's procured the +necessary surreptitious poppy seed; and so now poor Sir Goldfish sleeps +with the seed of sleep in his mouth, and the children watch his grave +day by day, breathless for his resplendent resurrection. Will you write +us an epitaph?' + +Ariel forgive me! Here is what I sent: + + 'Five inches deep Sir Goldfish lies; + Here last September was he laid; + Poppies these, that were his eyes, + Of fish-bones are these blue-bells made; + His fins of gold that to and fro + Waved and waved so long ago, + Still as petals wave and wave + To and fro above his grave. + Hearken, too! for so his knell + Tolls all day each tiny bell.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: From a tiny privately-printed volume of deliciously +original lyrics by Mr. R.K. Leather, since republished by Mr. Fisher +Unwin, 1890, and at present published by Mr. John Lane.] + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THAT THIRTEENTH MAID + + 'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'-- + _Merchant of Venice_. + + +It occurs to me here to wonder whether there can be any reader +ungrateful enough to ask with grumbling voice, 'What of the book-bills? +The head-line has been the sole mention of them now for many pages; and +in the last chapter, where a book was referred to, the writer was +perverse enough to choose one that never belonged to Narcissus at all.' +To which I would venture to make humble rejoinder--Well, Goodman Reader, +and what did you expect? Was it accounts, with all their thrilling +details, with totals, 'less discount,' and facsimiles of the receipt +stamps? Take another look at our first chapter. I promised nothing of +the sort there, I am sure. I promised simply to attempt for you the +delineation of a personality which has had for all who came into contact +with it enduring charm, in hope that, though at second-hand, you might +have some pleasure of it also; and I proposed to do this mainly from the +hints of documents which really are more significant than any letters or +other writings could be, for the reason that they are of necessity so +unconscious. I certainly had no intention of burdening you with the +original data, any more than, should you accept the offer I made, also +in that chapter, and entrust me with your private ledger for +biographical purposes, I would think of printing it _in extenso_, and +calling it a biography; though I should feel justified, after the varied +story had been deduced and written out, in calling the product, +metaphorical wise, 'The private ledger of Johannes Browne, Esquire'--a +title which, by the way, is copyright and duly 'entered.' Such was my +attempt, and I maintain that I have so far kept my word. Because whole +shelves have been disposed of in a line, and a ninepenny 'Canterbury' +has rustled out into pages, you have no right to complain, for that is +but the fashion of life, as I have endeavoured to show. And let me say +in passing that that said copy of Mr. Rhys's Whitman, though it could +not manifestly appear in his book-bills, does at the present moment rest +upon his shelf--'a moment's monument.' + +Perhaps it would be well, before proceeding with this present 'place in +the story,' to set out with a statement of the various 'authorities' for +it; as, all this being veritable history, perhaps one should. But then, +Reader, here again I should have to catalogue quite a small library. +However, I will enumerate a few of the more significant ones. + +'Swinburne's _Tristram of Lyonesse_, 9/-, less dis., 6/9.' + +All that this great poem of 'springtide passion with its fire and +flowers' meant to Narcissus and his 'Thirteenth Maid' in the morning of +their love, those that have loved too will hardly need telling, while +those who have not could never understand, though I spake with the +tongue of the poet himself. In this particular copy, which, I need +hardly say, does not rest upon N.'s shelves, but on another in a sweet +little bedchamber, there is a tender inscription and a sonnet which +aimed at acknowledging how the hearts of those young lovers had gone out +to that poet 'with mouth of gold and morning in his eyes.' The latter I +have begged leave to copy here:-- + + 'Dear Heart, what thing may symbolise for us + A love like ours; what gift, whate'er it be, + Hold more significance 'twixt thee and me + Than paltry words a truth miraculous, + Or the poor signs that in astronomy + Tell giant splendours in their gleaming might? + Yet love would still give such, as in delight + To mock their impotence--so this for thee. + + 'This book for thee; our sweetest honeycomb + Of lovesome thought and passion-hearted rhyme, + Builded of gold, and kisses, and desire, + By that wild poet whom so many a time + Our hungering lips have blessed, until a fire + Burnt speech up, and the wordless hour had come.' + +'Meredith's _Richard Feverel_, 6/-, less dis., 4/6.' + +Narcissus was never weary of reading those two wonderful chapters where +Lucy and Richard meet, and he used to say that some day he would beg +leave from Mr. Meredith to reprint at his own charges just those two +chapters, to distribute to all true lovers in the kingdom. It would be +hard to say how often he and his maid had read them aloud together, with +amorous punctuation--caresses for commas, and kisses for full-stops. + +'Morris' _Sigurd the Volsung_, 12/-, less dis., 9/-.' + +This book they loved when their love had grown to have more of earnest +purpose in it, and its first hysteric ecstasy had passed into the more +solemn ardours of the love that goes not with spring, but loves even +unto the winter and beyond. It is marked all through in pencil by +Narcissus; but on one page, where it opens easily, there are written +initials, in a woman's hand, against this great passage:-- + + 'She said: "Thou shalt never unsay it, and thy heart is mine indeed: + Thou shalt bear thy love in thy bosom as thou helpest the earth-folk's + need: + Thou shalt wake to it dawning by dawning; thou shalt sleep and it shall + not be strange: + There is none shall thrust between us till our earthly lives shall + change. + Ah, my love shall fare as a banner in the hand of thy renown, + In the arms of thy fame accomplished shall it lie when we lay us adown. + O deathless fame of Sigurd! O glory of my lord! + O birth of the happy Brynhild to the measureless reward!" + So they sat as the day grew dimmer, and they looked on days to come, + And the fair tale speeding onward, and the glories of their home; + And they saw their crowned children and the kindred of the kings, + And deeds in the world arising and the day of better things: + All the earthly exaltation, till their pomp of life should be passed, + And soft on the bosom of God their love should be laid at the last.' + +And on the page facing this lies a pressed flower--there used to be +two--guarded by these tender rhymes:-- + + 'Whoe'er shall read this mighty song + In some forthcoming evensong, + We pray thee guard these simple flowers, + For, gentle Reader, they are "ours."' + +But ill has some 'gentle Reader' attended to the behest, for, as I said, +but one of the flowers remains. One is lost--and Narcissus has gone +away. This inscription is but one of many such scattered here and there +through his books, for he had a great facility in such minor graces, as +he had a neat hand at tying a bow. I don't think he ever sent a box of +flowers without his fertility serving him with some rose-leaf fancy to +accompany them; and on birthdays and all red-letter days he was always +to be counted upon for an appropriate rhyme. If his art served no other +purpose, his friend would be grateful to him for that alone, for many +great days would have gone without their 'white stone' but for him; +when, for instance, J.A.W. took that brave plunge of his, which has +since so abundantly justified him and more than fulfilled prophecy; or +when Samuel Dale took that bolder, namely a wife, he being a +philosopher--incidents, Reader, on which I long so to digress, and for +which, if you could only know beforehand, you would, I am sure, give me +freest hand. But beautiful stories both, I may not tell of you here; +though if the Reader and I ever spend together those hinted nights at +the 'Mermaid,' I then may. + +But to return. I said above that if I were to enumerate all the books, +so to say, 'implicated' in the love of Narcissus and his Thirteenth +Maid, I should have to catalogue quite a small library. I forgot for the +moment what literal truth I was writing, for it was indeed in quite a +large library that they first met. In 'our town' there is, Reader, an +old-world institution, which, I think, you would well like transported +to yours, a quaint subscription library 'established' ever so long ago, +full of wonderful nooks and corners, where (of course, if you are a +member) one is sure almost at any time of the day of a solitary corner +for a dream. It is a sweet provision, too, that it is managed by ladies, +whom you may, if you can, image to yourself as the Hesperides; for there +are three of them; and may not the innumerable galleries and spiral +staircases, serried with countless shelves, clustered thick with tome on +tome, figure the great tree, with its many branches and its wonderful +gold fruit--the tree of knowledge? The absence of the dragon from the +similitude is as well, don't you think? + +Books, of all things, should be tended by reverent hands; and, to my +mind, the perfunctory in things ecclesiastical is hardly more +distressing than the service of books as conducted in many great +libraries. One feels that the _librarii_ should be a sacred order, +nearly allied to the monastic, refined by varying steps of initiation, +and certainly celibates. They should give out their books as the priest +his sacrament, should wear sacred vestments, and bear about with them +the priestlike _aura_, as of divine incarnations of the great spirit of +Truth and Art in whose temples they are ministrants. The next step to +this ideal ministry is to have our books given out to us by women. +Though they may understand them not, they handle them with gentle +courtesy, and are certainly in every way to be preferred to the youthful +freckled monster with red spines upon his head, and nailed boots, 'the +work of the Cyclops,' upon his feet, whose physiognomy is contorted by +cinnamon-balls at the very moment he carries in his arms some great +Golden-lips or gentle Silver-tongue. What good sweet women there are, +too, who would bless heaven for the occupation! + +Well, as I said, we in that particular library are more fortunate, and +two of the 'subscribers,' at least, did at one time express their +appreciation of its privileges by a daily dream among its shelves. One +day--had Hercules been there overnight?--we missed one of our fair +attendants. Was it Aegle, Arethusa, or Hesperia? Narcissus probably +knew. And on the next she was still missing; nor on the third had she +returned; but lo! there was another in her stead--and on her Narcissus +bent his gaze, according to wont. A little maid, with noticeable eyes, +and the hair Rossetti loved to paint--called Hesper, 'by many,' said +Narcissus, one day long after, solemnly quoting the Vita Nuova, 'who +know not wherefore.' + +'Why! do _you_ know?' I asked. + +'Yes!' And then, for the first time, he had told me the story I have now +to tell again. He had, meanwhile, rather surprised me by little touches +of intimate observation of her which he occasionally let slip--as, for +instance, 'Have you noticed her forehead? It has a fine distinction of +form; is pure ivory, surely; and you should watch how deliciously her +hair springs out of it, like little wavy threads of "old gold" set in +the ivory by some cunning artist.' + +I had just looked at him and wondered a moment. But such attentive +regard was hardly matter for surprise in his case; and, moreover, I +always tried to avoid the subject of women with him, for it was the one +on which alone there was danger of our disagreeing. It was the only one +in which he seemed to show signs of cruelty in his disposition, though +it was, I well know, but a thoughtless cruelty; and in my heart I always +felt that he was too right-minded and noble in the other great matters +of life not to come right on that too when 'the hour had struck.' +Meanwhile, he had a way of classifying amours by the number of verses +inspired--as, 'Heigho! it's all over; but never mind, I got two sonnets +out of her'--which seemed to me an exhibition of the worst side of his +artist disposition, and which--well, Reader, jarred much on one who +already knew what a true love meant. It was, however, I could see, quite +unconscious; and I tried hard not to be intolerant towards him, because +fortune had blessed me with an earlier illumination. + +Pray, go not away with the misconception that Narcissus was ever base to +a woman. No! he left that to Circe's hogs, and the one temptation he +ever had towards it he turned into a shining salvation. No! he had +nothing worse than the sins of the young egoist to answer for, though he +afterwards came to feel those pitiful and mean enough. + +Another noticeable feature of Hesper's face was an ever-present +sadness--not as of a dull grief, but as of some shining sorrow, a +quality which gave her face much arresting interest. It seemed one +great, rich tear. One loved to dwell upon it as upon those intense +stretches of evening sky when the day yearns through half-shut eyelids +in the west. One continually wondered what story it meant, for some it +must mean. + +Watching her thus quietly, day by day, it seemed to me that as the weeks +from her first coming went by, this sadness deepened; and I could not +forbear one day questioning the elder Hesperides about her, thus +bringing upon myself a revelation I had little expected. For, said she, +'she was glad I had spoken to her, for she had long wished to ask me to +use my influence with my friend, that he might cease paying Hesper +attentions which he could not mean in earnest, but which she knew were +already causing Hesper to be fond of him. Having become friendly with +her, she had found out her secret and remonstrated with her, with the +result that she had avoided Narcissus for some time, but not without +much misery to herself, over which she was continually brooding.' + +All this was an utter surprise, and a saddening one; for I had grown to +feel much interest in the girl, and had been especially pleased by all +absence of the flighty tendencies with which too many girls in public +service tempt men to their own destruction. She had seemed to me to bear +herself with a maidenly self-respect that spoke of no little grace of +breeding. She had two very strong claims on one's regard. She was +evidently a woman, in the deep, tragic sense of that word, and a lady in +the only true sense of that. The thought of a life so rich in womanly +promise becoming but another of the idle playthings of Narcissus filled +me with something akin to rage, and I was not long in saying some strong +words to him. Not that I feared for her the coarse 'ruin' the world +alone thinks of. Is that the worst that can befall woman? What of the +spiritual deflowering, of which the bodily is but a symbol? If the first +fine bloom of the soul has gone, if the dream that is only dreamed once +has grown up in the imagination and been once given, the mere chastity +of the body is a lie, and whatever its fecundity, the soul has nought +but sterility to give to another. It is not those kisses of the +lips--kisses that one forgets as one forgets the roses we smelt last +year--which profane; they but soil the vessel of the sacrament, and it +is the sacrament itself which those consuming spirit-kisses, which burn +but through the eyes, may desecrate. It is strange that man should have +so long taken the precisely opposite attitude in this matter, caring +only for the observation of the vessel, and apparently dreaming not of +any other possible approach to the sanctities. Probably, however, his +care has not been of sanctities at all. Indeed, most have, doubtless, +little suspicion of the existence of such, and the symbol has been and +is but a selfish superstition amongst them--woman, a symbol whose +meaning is forgotten, but still the object of an ignorant veneration, +not unrelated to the preservation of game. + +Narcissus took my remonstrance a little flippantly, I thought, evidently +feeling that too much had been made out of very little; for he averred +that his 'attentions' to Hesper had been of the slightest character, +hardly more than occasional looks and whispers, which, from her cold +reception of them, he had felt were more distasteful to her than +otherwise. He had indeed, he said, ceased even these the last few days, +as her reserve always made him feel foolish, as a man fondling a fair +face in his dream wakes on a sudden to find that he is but grimacing at +the air. This reassured me, and I felt little further anxiety. However, +this security only proved how little I really understood the weak side +of my friend. I had not realised how much he really was Narcissus, and +how dear to him was a new mirror. My speaking to him was the one wrong +course possible to be taken. Instead of confirming his growing intention +of indifference, it had, as might have been foreseen, the directly +opposite effect; and from the moment of his learning that Hesper +secretly loved him, she at once became invested with a new glamour, and +grew daily more and more the forbidden fascination few can resist. + +I did not learn this for many months. Meanwhile Narcissus chose to +deceive me for the first and only time. At last he told me all; and how +different was his manner of telling it from his former gay relations of +conquest. One needed not to hear the words to see he was unveiling a +sacred thing, a holiness so white and hidden, the most reverent word +seemed a profanation; and, as he laboured for the least soiled wherein +to enfold the revelation, his soul seemed as a maid torn with the +blushing tremors of a new knowledge. Men only speak so after great and +wonderful travail, and by that token I knew Narcissus loved at last. It +had seemed unlikely ground from which love had first sprung forth, that +of a self-worship that could forgo no slightest indulgence--but thence +indeed it had come. The silent service my words had given him to know +that Hesper's heart was offering to him was not enough; he must hear it +articulate, his nostrils craved an actual incense. To gain this he must +deceive two--his friend, and her whose poor face would kindle with +hectic hope, at the false words he must say for the true words he _must_ +hear. It was pitifully mean; but whom has not his own hidden lust made +to crawl like a thief, afraid of a shadow, in his own house? Narcissus' +young lust was himself, and Moloch knew no more ruthless hunger than +burns in such. Of course, it did not present itself quite nakedly to +him; he persuaded himself there could be little harm--he meant none. + +And so, instead of avoiding Hesper, he sought her the more persistently, +and by some means so far wooed her from her reticence as to win her +consent to a walk together one autumn afternoon. How little do we know +the measure of our own proposing! That walk was to be the most fateful +his feet had ever trodden through field and wood, yet it seemed the most +accidental of gallantries. A little town-maid, with a romantic passion +for 'us'; it would be interesting to watch the child; it would be like +giving her a day's holiday, so much sunshine 'in our presence.' And so +on. But what an entirely different complexion was the whole thing +beginning to take before they had walked a mile. Behind the flippancy +one had gone to meet were surely the growing features of a solemnity. +Why, the child was a woman indeed; she could talk, she had brains, +ideas--and, Lord bless us, Theories! She had that 'excellent thing in +woman,' not only a voice, which she had, too, but character. Narcissus +began to loose his regal robes, and from being merely courteously to be +genuinely interested. Why, she was a discovery! As they walked on, her +genuine delight in the autumnal nature, the real imaginative appeal it +had for her, was another surprise. She had, evidently, a deep poetry in +her disposition, rarest of all female endowments. In a surprisingly few +minutes from the beginning of their walk he found himself taking that +'little child' with extreme seriousness, and wondering many 'whethers.' + +They walked out again, and yet again, and Narcissus' first impressions +deepened. He had his theories, too; and, surely, here was the woman! He +was not in love--at least, not with her, but with her fitness for his +theory. + +They sat by a solitary woodside, beneath a great elm tree. The hour was +full of magic, for though the sun had set, the smile of her day's joy +with him had not yet faded from the face of earth. It was the hour +vulgarised in drawing-room ballads as the 'gloaming.' They sat very near +to each other; he held her hand, toying with it; and now and again their +eyes met with the look that flutters before flight, that says, 'Dare I +give thee all? Dare I throw my eyes on thine as I would throw myself on +thee?' And then, at last, came the inevitable moment when the eyes of +each seem to cry 'O yes!' to the other, and the gates fly back; all the +hidden light springs forth, the woods swim round, and the lips meet with +a strange shock, while the eyes of the spirit close in a lapping dream +of great peace. + +If you are not ready to play the man, beware of a kiss such as the lips +of little Hesper, that never knew to kiss before, pressed upon the mouth +of Narcissus. It sent a chill shudder through him, though it was so +sweet, for he could feel her whole life surging behind it; and was the +kiss he had given her for it such a kiss as that? But he had spoken much +to her of his ideas of marriage; she knew he was sworn for ever against +that. She must know the kiss had no such meaning; for, besides, did she +not scorn the soiled 'tie' also? Were not their theories at one in that? +He would be doing her no wrong; it was her own desire. Yet his kiss did +mean more than he could have imagined it meaning a week before. She had +grown to be genuinely desirable. If love tarried, passion was +awake--that dangerous passion, too, to which the intellect has added its +intoxication, and that is, so to say, legitimised by an 'idea.' + +Her woman's intuition read the silence and answered to his thought. +'Have no fear,' she said, with the deep deliberation of passion; 'I +love you with my whole life, but I shall never burden you, Narcissus. +Love me as long as you can, I shall be content; and when the end comes, +though another woman takes you, I shall not hinder.' + +O great girl-soul! What a poltroon, indeed, was Narcissus beside you at +that moment. You ready to stake your life on the throw, he temporising +and bargaining as over the terms of a lease. Surely, if he could for one +moment have seen himself in the light of your greatness, he had been +crushed beneath the misery of his own meanness. But as yet he had no +such vision; his one thought was, 'She will do it! will she draw back?' +and the feeble warnings he was obliged to utter to keep his own terms, +by assuring his conscience of 'her free-will,' were they not +half-fearfully whispered, and with an inward haste, lest they should +give her pause? 'But the world, my dear--think!' 'It will have cruel +names for thee.' 'It will make thee outcast--think!' + +'I know all,' she had answered; 'but I love you, and two years of your +love would pay for all. There is no world for me but you. Till to-night +I have never lived at all, and when you go I shall be as dead. The world +cannot hurt such a one.' + +Ah me, it was a wild, sweet dream for both of them, one the woman's, one +the poet's, of a 'sweet impossible' taking flesh! For, do not let us +blame Narcissus overmuch. He was utterly sincere; he meant no wrong. He +but dreamed of following a creed to which his reason had long given a +hopeless assent. In a more kindly-organised community he might have +followed it, and all have been well; but the world has to be dealt with +as one finds it, and we must get sad answers to many a fair calculation +if we 'state' it wrongly in the equation. That there is one law for the +male and another for the female had not as yet vitally entered into his +considerations. He was too dizzy with the dream, or he must have seen +what an unequal bargain he was about to drive. + +At last he did awake, and saw it all; and in a burning shame went to +Hesper, and told her that it must not be. + +Her answer was unconsciously the most subtly dangerous she could have +chosen: 'If I like to give myself to you, why should you not take me? It +is of my own free-will. My eyes are open.' It was his very thought put +into words, and by her. For a moment he wavered--who could blame him? +'Am I my brother's keeper?' + +'Yes! a thousand times yes!' cried his soul; for he was awake now, and +he had come to see the dream as it was, and to shudder at himself as he +had well-nigh been, just as one shudders at the thought of a precipice +barely escaped. In that moment, too, the idea of her love in all its +divineness burst upon him. Here was a heart capable of a great tragic +love like the loves of old he read of and whimpered for in sonnets, and +what had he offered in exchange? A poor, philosophical compromise, +compounded of pessimism and desire, in which a man should have all to +gain and nothing to lose, for + + 'The light, light love he has wings to fly + At suspicion of a bond.' + +'I would I did love her,' his heart was crying as he went away. 'Could I +love her?' was his next thought. 'Do I love her?'--but that is a +question that always needs longer than one day to answer. + +Already he was as much in love with her as most men when they take unto +themselves wives. She was desirable--he had pleasure in her presence. He +had that half of love which commonly passes for all--the passion; but he +lacked the additional incentives which nerve the common man to face that +fear which seems well-nigh as universal as the fear of death, I mean the +fear of marriage--life's two fears: that is, he had no desire to +increase his worldly possessions by annexing a dowry, or ambition of +settling down and procuring a wife as part of his establishment. After +all, how full of bachelors the world would be if it were not for these +motives: for the one other motive to a true marriage, the other half of +love, however one names it, is it not a four-leaved clover indeed? +Narcissus was happily poor enough to be above those motives, even had +Hesper been anything but poor too; and if he was to marry her, it would +be because he was capable of loving her with that perfect love which, of +course, has alone right to the sacred name, that which cannot take all +and give nought, but which rather holds as watchword that _to love is +better than to be loved_. + +Who shall hope to express the mystery? Yet, is not thus much true, that, +if it must be allowed to the cynic that love rises in self, it yet has +its zenith and setting in another--in woman as in man? Two meet, and +passion, the joy of the selfish part of each, is born; shall love follow +depends on whether they have a particular grace of nature, love being +the thanksgiving of the unselfish part for the boon granted to the +other. The common nature snatches the joy and forgets the giver, but the +finer never forgets, and deems life but a poor service for a gift so +rare; and, though passion be long since passed, love keeps holy an +eternal memory. + + 'Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords + with might; + Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, pass'd in music + out of sight.' + +Since the time of fairy-tales Love has had a way of coming in the +disguise of Duty. What is the story of Beauty and the Beast but an +allegory of true love? We take this maid to be our wedded wife, for her +sake it perhaps seems at the time. She is sweet and beautiful and to be +desired; but, all the same, we had rather shake the loose leg of +bachelordom, if it might be. However it be, so we take her, or maybe it +is she takes us, with a feeling of martyrdom; but lo! when we are home +together, what wonderful new lights are these beginning to ray about +her, as though she had up till now kept a star hidden in her bosom. What +is this new morning strength and peace in our life? Why, we thought it +was but Thestylis, and lo! it is Diana after all. For the Thirteenth +Maid or the Thirteenth Man, both alike, rarely come as we had expected. +There seems no fitness in their arrival. It seems so ridiculously +accidental, as I suppose the hour of death, whenever it comes, will +seem. One had expected some high calm prelude of preparation, ending in +a festival of choice, like an Indian prince's, when the maids of the +land pass before him and he makes deliberate selection of the fateful +She. But, instead, we are hurrying among our day's business, maybe, our +last thought of her; we turn a corner, and suddenly she is before us. Or +perhaps, as it fell with Narcissus, we have tried many loves that proved +but passions; we have just buried the last, and are mournfully leaving +its grave, determined to seek no further, to abjure bright eyes, at +least for a long while, when lo! on a sudden a little maid is in our +path holding out some sweet modest flowers. The maid has a sweet mouth, +too, and, the old Adam being stronger than our infant resolution, we +smell the flowers and kiss the mouth--to find arms that somehow, we know +not why, are clinging as for life about us. Let us beware how we shake +them off, for thus it is decreed shall a man meet her to have missed +whom were to have missed all. Youth, like that faithless generation in +the Scriptures, always craveth after a sign, but rarely shall one be +given. It can only be known whether a man be worthy of Love by the way +in which he looks upon Duty. Rachel often comes in the grey cloak of +Leah. It rests with the man's heart whether he shall know her beneath +the disguise; no other divining-rod shall aid him. If it be as +Bassanio's, brave to 'give and hazard all he hath,' let him not fear to +pass the seeming gold, the seeming silver, to choose the seeming lead. +'Why, _that's_ the lady,' thou poor magnificent Morocco. Nor shall the +gold fail, for her heart is that, and for silver thou shalt have those +'silent silver lights undreamed of' of face and soul. + +These are but scattered hints of the story of Narcissus' love as he told +it me at last, in broken, struggling words, but with a light in his face +one power alone could set there. + +When he came to the end, and to all that little Hesper had proved to +him, all the strength and illumination she had brought him, he fairly +broke down and sobbed, as one may in a brother's arms. For, of course, +he had come out of the ordeal a man; and Hesper had consented to be his +wife. Often she had dreamed as he had passed her by with such heedless +air: 'If I love him so, can it be that my love shall have no power to +make him mine, somehow, some day? Can I call to him so within my soul +and he not hear? Can I wait and he not come?' And her love had been +strong, strong as a destiny; her voice had reached him, for it was the +voice of God. + +When I next saw her, what a strange brightness shone in her face, what a +new beauty was there! Ah, Love, the great transfigurer! And why, too, +was it that his friends began to be dissatisfied with their old +photographs of Narcissus, though they had been taken but six months +before? There seemed something lacking in the photograph, they said. +Yes, there was; but the face had lacked it too. What was the new +thing--'grip' was it, joy, peace? Yes, all three, but more besides, and +Narcissus had but one name for all. It was Hesper. + +Strange, too, that in spite of promises we never received a new one. +Narcissus, who used to be so punctual with such a request. Perhaps it +was because he had broken his looking-glass. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +'IN VISHNU-LAND WHAT AVATAR?' + +'If I love you for a year I shall love you for ever,' Narcissus had said +to his Thirteenth Maid. He did love her so long, and yet he has gone +away. Do you remember your _Les Miserables_, that early chapter where +Valjean robs the child of his florin so soon after that great +illuminating change of heart and mind had come to him? Well, still more +important, do you remember the clue Hugo gives us to aberration? There +is comfort and strength for so many a heart-breaking failure there. It +was the old impetus, we are told, that was as yet too strong for the new +control; the old instinct, too dark for the new light in the brain. It +takes every vessel some time to answer to its helm; with us, human +vessels, years, maybe. Have you never suddenly become sensitive of a +gracious touch in the air, and pondered it, to recognise that in some +half-unconscious act you had that moment been answering for the first +time the helm of an almost forgotten resolution? Ah me, blessed is it to +see the prow strongly sweeping up against the sky at last! + +'Send not a poet to London,' said Heine, and it was a true word. At +least, send him not till his thews are laced and his bones set. He may +miss somewhat, of course; there is no gain without a loss. He may be in +ignorance of the last _nuance_, and if he deserves fame he must gain it +unaided of the vulgar notoriety which, if he have a friend or two in the +new journalism, they will be so eager to bestow; but he will have kept +his soul intact, which, after all, is the main matter. It is sweet, +doubtless, to be one of those same mushroom-men, sweet to be placarded +as 'the new' this or that, to step for a day into the triumphal car of +newspaper renown, drawn by teams of willing paragraph-men--who, does it +never strike you? are but doing it all for hire, and earning their bread +by their bent necks. Yet for those to whom it is denied there is solid +comfort; for it is not fame, and, worse still, it is not life, 'tis but +to be 'a Bourbon in a crown of straws.' + +If one could only take poor foolish Cockneydom right away outside this +poor vainglorious city, and show them how the stars are smiling to +themselves above it, nudging each other, so to say, at the silly lights +that ape their shining--for such a little while! + +Yes, that is one danger of the poet in London, that he should come to +think himself 'somebody'; though, doubtless, in proportion as he is a +poet, the other danger will be the greater, that he should deem himself +'nobody.' Modest by nature, credulous of appearances, the noisy +pretensions of the hundred and one small celebrities, and the din of +their retainers this side and that, in comparison with his own +unattended course, what wonder if his heart sinks and he gives up the +game; how shall his little pipe, though it be of silver, hope to be +heard in this land of bassoons? To take London seriously is death both +to man and artist. Narcissus had sufficient success there to make this a +temptation, and he fell. He lost his hold of the great things of life, +he forgot the stars, he forgot his love, and what wonder that his art +sickened also. For a few months life was but a feverish clutch after +varied sensation, especially the dear tickle of applause; he caught the +facile atheistic flippancy of that poor creature, the 'modern young +man,' all-knowing and all-foolish, and he came very near losing his soul +in the nightmare. But he had too much ballast in him to go quite under, +and at last strength came, and he shook the weakness from him. Yet the +fall had been too far and too cruel for him to be happy again soon. He +had gone forth so confident in his new strength of manly love; and to +fall so, and almost without an effort! Who has not called upon the +mountains to cover him in such an hour of awakening, and who will +wonder that Narcissus dared not look upon the face of Hesper till +solitude had washed him clean, and bathed him in its healing oil? I +alone bade him good-bye. It was in this room wherein I am writing, the +study we had taken together, where still his books look down at me from +the shelves, and all the memorials of his young life remain. O _can_ it +have been but 'a phantom of false morning'? A Milton snatched up at the +last moment was the one book he took with him. + +From that night until this he has made but one sign--a little note which +Hesper has shown me, a sob and a cry to which even a love that had been +more deeply wronged could never have turned a deaf ear. Surely not +Hesper, for she has long forgiven him, knowing his weakness for what it +was. She and I sometimes sit here together in the evenings and talk of +him; and every echo in the corridor sets us listening, for he may be at +the other side of the world, or but the other side of the street--we +know so little of his fate. Where he is we know not; but if he still +lives, _what_ he is we have the assurance of faith. This time he has not +failed, we know. But why delay so long? + + +_November_ 1889--_May_ 1890. _November_ 1894. + + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Book-Bills of Narcissus +by Le Gallienne, Richard + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK-BILLS OF NARCISSUS *** + +***** This file should be named 10826.txt or 10826.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/8/2/10826/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Garrett Alley and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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