diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/sptpl10.txt | 2355 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/sptpl10.zip | bin | 0 -> 51101 bytes |
2 files changed, 2355 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/sptpl10.txt b/old/sptpl10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4258c36 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sptpl10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2355 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Etext of The Spirit of Place by Alice Meynell +#6 in our series by Alice Meynell + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +The Spirit of Place and Other Essays + +by Alice Meynell + +May, 1998 [Etext #1309] + + +Project Gutenberg's Etext of The Spirit of Place by Alice Meynell +*******This file should be named sptpl10.txt or sptpl10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, sptpl11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, sptpl10a.txt + + +This etext was prepared from the 1899 John Lane edition by +David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, +all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a +copyright notice is included. Therefore, we do NOT keep these books +in compliance with any particular paper edition, usually otherwise. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, for time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text +files per month, or 384 more Etexts in 1998 for a total of 1500+ +If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the +total should reach over 150 billion Etexts given away. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only 10% of the present number of computer users. 2001 +should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it +will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001. + + +We need your donations more than ever! + + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie- +Mellon University). + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails try our Executive Director: +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +We would prefer to send you this information by email +(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail). + +****** +If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please +FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives: +[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type] + +ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd etext/etext90 through /etext96 +or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information] +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET INDEX?00.GUT +for a list of books +and +GET NEW GUT for general information +and +MGET GUT* for newsletters. + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +The Spirit of Place and Other Essays + + + + +Contents: + +The Spirit of Place +Mrs. Dingley +Solitude +The Lady of the Lyrics +July +Wells +The Foot +Have Patience, Little Saint +The Ladies of the Idyll +A Derivation +A Counterchange +Rain +Letters of Marceline Valmore +The Hours of Sleep +The Horizon +Habits and Consciousness +Shadows + + + +THE SPIRIT OF PLACE + + + +With mimicry, with praises, with echoes, or with answers, the poets +have all but outsung the bells. The inarticulate bell has found too +much interpretation, too many rhymes professing to close with her +inaccessible utterance, and to agree with her remote tongue. The +bell, like the bird, is a musician pestered with literature. + +To the bell, moreover, men do actual violence. You cannot shake +together a nightingale's notes, or strike or drive them into haste, +nor can you make a lark toll for you with intervals to suit your +turn, whereas wedding-bells are compelled to seem gay by mere +movement and hustling. I have known some grim bells, with not a +single joyous note in the whole peal, so forced to hurry for a human +festival, with their harshness made light of, as though the Bishop +of Hereford had again been forced to dance in his boots by a merry +highwayman. + +The clock is an inexorable but less arbitrary player than the +bellringer, and the chimes await their appointed time to fly--wild +prisoners--by twos or threes, or in greater companies. Fugitives-- +one or twelve taking wing--they are sudden, they are brief, they are +gone; they are delivered from the close hands of this actual +present. Not in vain is the sudden upper door opened against the +sky; they are away, hours of the past. + +Of all unfamiliar bells, those which seem to hold the memory most +surely after but one hearing are bells of an unseen cathedral of +France when one has arrived by night; they are no more to be +forgotten than the bells in "Parsifal." They mingle with the sound +of feet in unknown streets, they are the voices of an unknown tower; +they are loud in their own language. The spirit of place, which is +to be seen in the shapes of the fields and the manner of the crops, +to be felt in a prevalent wind, breathed in the breath of the earth, +overheard in a far street-cry or in the tinkle of some black-smith, +calls out and peals in the cathedral bells. It speaks its local +tongue remotely, steadfastly, largely, clamorously, loudly, and +greatly by these voices; you hear the sound in its dignity, and you +know how familiar, how childlike, how lifelong it is in the ears of +the people. The bells are strange, and you know how homely they +must be. Their utterances are, as it were, the classics of a +dialect. + +Spirit of place! It is for this we travel, to surprise its +subtlety; and where it is a strong and dominant angel, that place, +seen once, abides entire in the memory with all its own accidents, +its habits, its breath, its name. It is recalled all a lifetime, +having been perceived a week, and is not scattered but abides, one +living body of remembrance. The untravelled spirit of place--not to +be pursued, for it never flies, but always to be discovered, never +absent, without variation--lurks in the by-ways and rules over the +towers, indestructible, an indescribable unity. It awaits us always +in its ancient and eager freshness. It is sweet and nimble within +its immemorial boundaries, but it never crosses them. Long white +roads outside have mere suggestions of it and prophecies; they give +promise not of its coming, for it abides, but of a new and singular +and unforeseen goal for our present pilgrimage, and of an intimacy +to be made. Was ever journey too hard or too long that had to pay +such a visit? And if by good fortune it is a child who is the +pilgrim, the spirit of place gives him a peculiar welcome, for +antiquity and the conceiver of antiquity (who is only a child) know +one another; nor is there a more delicate perceiver of locality than +a child. He is well used to words and voices that he does not +understand, and this is a condition of his simplicity; and when +those unknown words are bells, loud in the night, they are to him as +homely and as old as lullabies. + +If, especially in England, we make rough and reluctant bells go in +gay measures, when we whip them to run down the scale to ring in a +wedding--bells that would step to quite another and a less agile +march with a better grace--there are belfries that hold far sweeter +companies. If there is no music within Italian churches, there is a +most curious local immemorial music in many a campanile on the +heights. Their way is for the ringers to play a tune on the +festivals, and the tunes are not hymn tunes or popular melodies, but +proper bell-tunes, made for bells. Doubtless they were made in +times better versed than ours in the sub-divisions of the arts, and +better able to understand the strength that lies ready in the mere +little submission to the means of a little art, and to the limits-- +nay, the very embarrassments--of those means. If it were but +possible to give here a real bell-tune--which cannot be, for those +melodies are rather long--the reader would understand how some +village musician of the past used his narrow means as a composer for +the bells, with what freshness, completeness, significance, fancy, +and what effect of liberty. + +These hamlet-bells are the sweetest, as to their own voices, in the +world. Then I speak of their antiquity I use the word relatively. +The belfries are no older than the sixteenth or seventeenth century, +the time when Italy seems to have been generally rebuilt. But, +needless to say, this is antiquity for music, especially in Italy. +At that time they must have had foundries for bells of tender +voices, and pure, warm, light, and golden throats, precisely tuned. +The hounds of Theseus had not a more just scale, tuned in a peal, +than a North Italian belfry holds in leash. But it does not send +them out in a mere scale, it touches them in the order of the game +of a charming melody. Of all cheerful sounds made by man this is by +far the most light-hearted. You do not hear it from the great +churches. Giotto's coloured tower in Florence, that carries the +bells for Santa Maria del Fiore and Brunelleschi's silent dome, does +not ring more than four contralto notes, tuned with sweetness, +depth, and dignity, and swinging one musical phrase which softly +fills the country. + +The village belfry it is that grows so fantastic and has such nimble +bells. Obviously it stands alone with its own village, and can +therefore hear its own tune from beginning to end. There are no +other bells in earshot. Other such dovecote-doors are suddenly set +open to the cloud, on a festa morning, to let fly those soft-voiced +flocks, but the nearest is behind one of many mountains, and our +local tune is uninterrupted. Doubtless this is why the little, +secluded, sequestered art of composing melodies for bells--charming +division of an art, having its own ends and means, and keeping its +own wings for unfolding by law--dwells in these solitary places. No +tunes in a town would get this hearing, or would be made clear to +the end of their frolic amid such a wide and lofty silence. + +Nor does every inner village of Italy hold a bell-tune of its own; +the custom is Ligurian. Nowhere so much as in Genoa does the +nervous tourist complain of church bells in the morning, and in fact +he is made to hear an honest rout of them betimes. But the nervous +tourist has not, perhaps, the sense of place, and the genius of +place does not signal to him to go and find it among innumerable +hills, where one by one, one by one, the belfries stand and play +their tunes. Variable are those lonely melodies, having a differing +gaiety for the festivals; and a pitiful air is played for the burial +of a villager. + +As for the poets, there is but one among so many of their bells that +seems to toll with a spiritual music so loud as to be unforgotten +when the mind goes up a little higher than the earth, to listen in +thought to earth's untethered sounds. This is Milton's curfew, that +sways across one of the greatest of all the seashores of poetry-- +"the wide-watered." + + + +MRS. DINGLEY + + + +We cannot do her honour by her Christian name. {1} All we have to +call her by more tenderly is the mere D, the D that ties her to +Stella, with whom she made the two-in-one whom Swift loved "better a +thousand times than life, as hope saved." MD, without full stops, +Swift writes it eight times in a line for the pleasure of writing +it. "MD sometimes means Stella alone," says one of many editors. +"The letters were written nominally to Stella and Mrs. Dingley," +says another, "but it does not require to be said that it was really +for Stella's sake alone that they were penned." Not so. "MD" never +stands for Stella alone. And the editor does not yet live who shall +persuade one honest reader, against the word of Swift, that Swift +loved Stella only, with an ordinary love, and not, by a most +delicate exception, Stella and Dingley, so joined that they make the +"she" and "her" of every letter. And this shall be a paper of +reparation to Mrs. Dingley. + +No one else in literary history has been so defrauded of her +honours. In love "to divide is not to take away," as Shelley says; +and Dingley's half of the tender things said to MD is equal to any +whole, and takes nothing from the whole of Stella's half. But the +sentimentalist has fought against Mrs. Dingley from the outset. He +has disliked her, shirked her, misconceived her, and effaced her. +Sly sentimentalist--he finds her irksome. Through one of his most +modern representatives he has but lately called her a "chaperon." A +chaperon! + +MD was not a sentimentalist. Stella was not so, though she has been +pressed into that character; D certainly was not, and has in this +respect been spared by the chronicler; and MD together were "saucy +charming MD," "saucy little, pretty, dear rogues," "little monkeys +mine," "little mischievous girls," "nautinautinautidear girls," +"brats," "huzzies both," "impudence and saucy-face," "saucy noses," +"my dearest lives and delights," "dear little young women," "good +dallars, not crying dallars" (which means "girls"), "ten thousand +times dearest MD," and so forth in a hundred repetitions. They are, +every now and then, "poor MD," but obviously not because of their +own complaining. Swift called them so because they were mortal; and +he, like all great souls, lived and loved, conscious every day of +the price, which is death. + +The two were joined by love, not without solemnity, though man, with +his summary and wholesale ready-made sentiment, has thus obstinately +put them asunder. No wholesale sentiment can do otherwise than +foolishly play havoc with such a relation. To Swift it was the most +secluded thing in the world. "I am weary of friends, and +friendships are all monsters, except MD's;" "I ought to read these +letters I write after I have done. But I hope it does not puzzle +little Dingley to read, for I think I mend: but methinks," he adds, +"when I write plain, I do not know how, but we are not alone, all +the world can see us. A bad scrawl is so snug; it looks like PMD." +Again: "I do not like women so much as I did. MD, you must know, +are not women." "God Almighty preserve you both and make us happy +together." "I say Amen with all my heart and vitals, that we may +never be asunder ten days together while poor Presto lives." +"Farewell, dearest beloved MD, and love poor, poor Presto, who has +not had one happy day since he left you, as hope saved." + +With them--with her--he hid himself in the world, at Court, at the +bar of St. James's coffee-house, whither he went on the Irish mail- +day, and was "in pain except he saw MD's little handwriting." He +hid with them in the long labours of these exquisite letters every +night and morning. If no letter came, he comforted himself with +thinking that "he had it yet to be happy with." And the world has +agreed to hide under its own manifold and lachrymose blunders the +grace and singularity--the distinction--of this sweet romance. +"Little, sequestered pleasure-house"--it seemed as though "the many +could not miss it," but not even the few have found it. + +It is part of the scheme of the sympathetic historian that Stella +should be the victim of hope deferred, watching for letters from +Swift. But day and night Presto complains of the scantiness of MD's +little letters; he waits upon "her" will: "I shall make a sort of +journal, and when it is full I will send it whether MD writes or +not; and so that will be pretty." "Naughty girls that will not +write to a body!" "I wish you were whipped for forgetting to send. +Go, be far enough, negligent baggages." "You, Mistress Stella, +shall write your share, and then comes Dingley altogether, and then +Stella a little crumb at the end; and then conclude with something +handsome and genteel, as `your most humble cumdumble.'" But Scott +and Macaulay and Thackeray are all exceedingly sorry for Stella. + +Swift is most charming when he is feigning to complain of his task: +"Here is such a stir and bustle with this little MD of ours; I must +be writing every night; O Lord, O Lord!" "I must go write idle +things, and twittle twattle." "These saucy jades take up so much of +my time with writing to them in the morning." Is it not a stealthy +wrong done upon Mrs. Dingley that she should be stripped of all +these ornaments to her name and memory? When Swift tells a woman in +a letter that there he is "writing in bed, like a tiger," she should +go gay in the eyes of all generations. + +They will not let Stella go gay, because of sentiment; and they will +not let Mrs. Dingley go gay, because of sentiment for Stella. Marry +come up! Why did not the historians assign all the tender passages +(taken very seriously) to Stella, and let Dingley have the jokes, +then? That would have been no ill share for Dingley. But no, +forsooth, Dingley is allowed nothing. + +There are passages, nevertheless, which can hardly be taken from +her. For now and then Swift parts his dear MD. When he does so he +invariably drops those initials and writes "Stella" or "Ppt" for the +one, and "D" or "Dingley" for the other. There is no exception to +this anywhere. He is anxious about Stella's "little eyes," and +about her health generally; whereas Dingley is strong. Poor Ppt, he +thinks, will not catch the "new fever," because she is not well; +"but why should D escape it, pray?" And Mrs. Dingley is rebuked for +her tale of a journey from Dublin to Wexford. "I doubt, Madam +Dingley, you are apt to lie in your travels, though not so bad as +Stella; she tells thumpers." Stella is often reproved for her +spelling, and Mrs. Dingley writes much the better hand. But she is +a puzzle-headed woman, like another. "What do you mean by my fourth +letter, Madam Dinglibus? Does not Stella say you had my fifth, +goody Blunder?" "Now, Mistress Dingley, are you not an impudent +slut to except a letter next packet? Unreasonable baggage! No, +little Dingley, I am always in bed by twelve, and I take great care +of myself." "You are a pretending slut, indeed, with your `fourth' +and `fifth' in the margin, and your `journal' and everything. O +Lord, never saw the like, we shall never have done." "I never saw +such a letter, so saucy, so journalish, so everything." Swift is +insistently grateful for their inquiries for his health. He pauses +seriously to thank them in the midst of his prattle. Both women-- +MD--are rallied on their politics: "I have a fancy that Ppt is a +Tory, I fancy she looks like one, and D a sort of trimmer." + +But it is for Dingley separately that Swift endured a wild bird in +his lodgings. His man Patrick had got one to take over to her in +Ireland. "He keeps it in a closet, where it makes a terrible +litter; but I say nothing; I am as tame as a clout." + +Forgotten Dingley, happy in this, has not had to endure the +ignominy, in a hundred essays, to be retrospectively offered to +Swift as an unclaimed wife; so far so good. But two hundred years +is long for her to have gone stripped of so radiant a glory as is +hers by right. "Better, thanks to MD's prayers," wrote the immortal +man who loved her, in a private fragment of a journal, never meant +for Dingley's eyes, nor for Ppt's, nor for any human eyes; and the +rogue Stella has for two centuries stolen all the credit of those +prayers, and all the thanks of that pious benediction. + + + +SOLITUDE + + + +The wild man is alone at will, and so is the man for whom +civilization has been kind. But there are the multitudes to whom +civilization has given little but its reaction, its rebound, its +chips, its refuse, its shavings, sawdust and waste, its failures; to +them solitude is a right foregone or a luxury unattained; a right +foregone, we may name it, in the case of the nearly savage, and a +luxury unattained in the case of the nearly refined. These has the +movement of the world thronged together into some blind by-way. + +Their share in the enormous solitude which is the common, unbounded, +and virtually illimitable possession of all mankind has lapsed, +unclaimed. They do not know it is theirs. Of many of their +kingdoms they are ignorant, but of this most ignorant. They have +not guessed that they own for every man a space inviolate, a place +of unhidden liberty and of no obscure enfranchisement. They do not +claim even the solitude of closed corners, the narrow privacy of the +lock and key; nor could they command so much. For the solitude that +has a sky and a horizon they know not how to wish. + +It lies in a perpetual distance. England has leagues thereof, +landscapes, verge beyond verge, a thousand thousand places in the +woods, and on uplifted hills. Or rather, solitudes are not to be +measured by miles; they are to be numbered by days. They are +freshly and freely the dominion of every man for the day of his +possession. There is loneliness for innumerable solitaries. As +many days as there are in all the ages, so many solitudes are there +for men. This is the open house of the earth; no one is refused. +Nor is the space shortened or the silence marred because, one by +one, men in multitudes have been alone there before. Solitude is +separate experience. Nay, solitudes are not to be numbered by days, +but by men themselves. Every man of the living and every man of the +dead might have had his "privacy of light." + +It needs no park. It is to be found in the merest working country; +and a thicket may be as secret as a forest. It is not so difficult +to get for a time out of sight and earshot. Even if your solitude +be enclosed, it is still an open solitude, so there be "no cloister +for the eyes," and a space of far country or a cloud in the sky be +privy to your hiding-place. But the best solitude does not hide at +all. + +This the people who have drifted together into the streets live +whole lives and never know. Do they suffer from their deprivation +of even the solitude of the hiding-place? There are many who never +have a whole hour alone. They live in reluctant or indifferent +companionship, as people may in a boarding-house, by paradoxical +choice, familiar with one another and not intimate. They live under +careless observation and subject to a vagabond curiosity. Theirs is +the involuntary and perhaps the unconscious loss which is futile and +barren. + +One knows the men, and the many women, who have sacrificed all their +solitude to the perpetual society of the school, the cloister, or +the hospital ward. They walk without secrecy, candid, simple, +visible, without moods, unchangeable, in a constant communication +and practice of action and speech. Theirs assuredly is no barren or +futile loss, and they have a conviction, and they bestow the +conviction, of solitude deferred. + +Who has painted solitude so that the solitary seemed to stand alone +and inaccessible? There is the loneliness of the shepherdess in +many a drawing of J.F. Millet. The little figure is away, aloof. +The girl stands so when the painter is gone. She waits so on the +sun for the closing of the hours of pasture. Millet has her as she +looks, out of sight. + +Now, although solitude is a prepared, secured, defended, elaborate +possession of the rich, they too deny themselves the natural +solitude of a woman with a child. A newly-born child is so nursed +and talked about, handled and jolted and carried about by aliens, +and there is so much importunate service going forward, that a woman +is hardly alone long enough to become aware, in recollection, how +her own blood moves separately, beside her, with another rhythm and +different pulses. All is commonplace until the doors are closed +upon the two. This unique intimacy is a profound retreat, an +absolute seclusion. It is more than single solitude; it is a +redoubled isolation more remote than mountains, safer than valleys, +deeper than forests, and further than mid-sea. + +That solitude partaken--the only partaken solitude in the world--is +the Point of Honour of ethics. Treachery to that obligation and a +betrayal of that confidence might well be held to be the least +pardonable of all crimes. There is no innocent sleep so innocent as +sleep shared between a woman and a child, the little breath hurrying +beside the longer, as a child's foot runs. But the favourite crime +of the sentimentalist is that of a woman against her child. Her +power, her intimacy, her opportunity, that should be her accusers, +are held to excuse her. She gains the most slovenly of indulgences +and the grossest compassion, on the vulgar grounds that her crime +was easy. + +Lawless and vain art of a certain kind is apt to claim to-day, by +the way, some such fondling as a heroine of the dock receives from +common opinion. The vain artist had all the opportunities of the +situation. He was master of his own purpose, such as it was; it was +his secret, and the public was not privy to his artistic conscience. +He does violence to the obligations of which he is aware, and which +the world does not know very explicitly. Nothing is easier. Or he +is lawless in a more literal sense, but only hopes the world will +believe that he has a whole code of his own making. It would, +nevertheless, be less unworthy to break obvious rules obviously in +the obvious face of the public, and to abide the common rebuke. + +It has just been said that a park is by no means necessary for the +preparation of a country solitude. Indeed, to make those far and +wide and long approaches and avenues to peace seems to be a denial +of the accessibility of what should be so simple. A step, a pace or +so aside, is enough to lead thither. + +A park insists too much, and, besides, does not insist very +sincerely. In order to fulfil the apparent professions and to keep +the published promise of a park, the owner thereof should be a lover +of long seclusion or of a very life of loneliness. He should have +gained the state of solitariness which is a condition of life quite +unlike any other. The traveller who may have gone astray in +countries where an almost life-long solitude is possible knows how +invincibly apart are the lonely figures he has seen in desert places +there. Their loneliness is broken by his passage, it is true, but +hardly so to them. They look at him, but they are not aware that he +looks at them. Nay, they look at him as though they were invisible. +Their un-self-consciousness is absolute; it is in the wild degree. +They are solitaries, body and soul; even when they are curious, and +turn to watch the passer-by, they are essentially alone. Now, no +one ever found that attitude in a squire's figure, or that look in +any country gentleman's eyes. The squire is not a life-long +solitary. He never bore himself as though he were invisible. He +never had the impersonal ways of a herdsman in the remoter +Apennines, with a blind, blank hut in the rocks for his dwelling. +Millet would not even have taken him as a model for a solitary in +the briefer and milder sylvan solitudes of France. And yet nothing +but a life-long, habitual, and wild solitariness would be quite +proportionate to a park of any magnitude. + +If there is a look of human eyes that tells of perpetual loneliness, +so there is also the familiar look that is the sign of perpetual +crowds. It is the London expression, and, in its way, the Paris +expression. It is the quickly caught, though not interested, look, +the dull but ready glance of those who do not know of their +forfeited place apart; who have neither the open secret nor the +close; no reserve, no need of refuge, no flight nor impulse of +flight; no moods but what they may brave out in the street, no hope +of news from solitary counsels. + + + +THE LADY OF THE LYRICS + + + +She is eclipsed, or gone, or in hiding. But the sixteenth century +took her for granted as the object of song; she was a class, a +state, a sex. It was scarcely necessary to waste the lyrist's time- +-time that went so gaily to metre as not to brook delays--in making +her out too clearly. She had no more of what later times call +individuality than has the rose, her rival, her foil when she was +kinder, her superior when she was cruel, her ever fresh and ever +conventional paragon. She needed not to be devised or divined; she +was ready. A merry heart goes all the day; the lyrist's never grew +weary. Honest men never grow tired of bread or of any other daily +things whereof the sweetness is in their own simplicity. + +The lady of the lyrics was not loved in mortal earnest, and her +punishment now and then for her ingratitude was to be told that she +was loved in jest. She did not love; her fancy was fickle; she was +not moved by long service, which, by the way, was evidently to be +taken for granted precisely like the whole long past of a dream. +She had not a good temper. When the poet groans it seems that she +has laughed at him; when he flouts her, we may understand that she +has chidden her lyrist in no temperate terms. In doing this she has +sinned not so much against him as against Love. With that she is +perpetually reproved. The lyrist complains to Love, pities Love for +her scorning, and threatens to go away with Love, who is on his +side. The sweetest verse is tuned to love when the loved one proves +worthy. + +There is no record of success for this policy. She goes on dancing +or scolding, as the case may be, and the lyrist goes on boasting of +his constancy, or suddenly renounces it for a day. The situation +has variants, but no surprise or ending. The lover's convention is +explicit enough, but it might puzzle a reader to account for the +lady's. Pride in her beauty, at any rate, is hers--pride so great +that she cannot bring herself to perceive the shortness of her day. +She is so unobservant as to need to be told that life is brief, and +youth briefer than life; that the rose fades, and so forth. + +Now we need not assume that the lady of the lyrics ever lived. But +taking her as the perfectly unanimous conception of the lyrists, how +is it she did not discover these things unaided? Why does the lover +invariably imagine her with a mind intensely irritable under his own +praise and poetry? Obviously we cannot have her explanation of any +of these matters. Why do the poets so much lament the absence of +truth in one whose truth would be of little moment? And why was the +convention so pleasant, among all others, as to occupy a whole age-- +nay, two great ages--of literature? + +Music seems to be principally answerable. For the lyrics of the +lady are "words for music" by a great majority. There is hardly a +single poem in the Elizabethan Song-books, properly so named, that +has what would in our day be called a tone of sentiment. Music had +not then the tone herself; she was ingenious, and so must the words +be. She had the air of epigram, and an accurately definite limit. +So, too, the lady of the lyrics, who might be called the lady of the +stanzas, so strictly does she go by measure. When she is +quarrelsome, it is but fuguishness; when she dances, she does it by +a canon. She could not but be perverse, merrily sung to such grave +notes. + +So fixed was the law of this perversity that none in the song-books +is allowed to be kind enough for a "melody," except one lady only. +She may thus derogate, for the exceedingly Elizabethan reason that +she is "brown." She is brown and kind, and a "sad flower," but the +song made for her would have been too insipid, apparently, without +an antithesis. The fair one is warned that her disdain makes her +even less lovely than the brown. + +Fair as a lily, hard to please, easily angry, ungrateful for +innumerable verses, uncertain with the regularity of the madrigal, +and inconstant with the punctuality of a stanza, she has gone with +the arts of that day; and neither verse nor music will ever make +such another lady. She refused to observe the transiency of roses; +she never really intended--much as she was urged--to be a +shepherdess; she was never persuaded to mitigate her dress. In +return, the world has let her disappear. She scorned the poets +until they turned upon her in the epigram of many a final couplet; +and of these the last has been long written. Her "No" was set to +counterpoint in the part-song, and she frightened Love out of her +sight in a ballet. Those occupations are gone, and the lovely +Elizabethan has slipped away. She was something less than mortal. + +But she who was more than mortal was mortal too. This was no lady +of the unanimous lyrists, but a rare visitant unknown to these +exquisite little talents. She was not set for singing, but poetry +spoke of her; sometimes when she was sleeping, and then Fletcher +said - + + +None can rock Heaven to sleep but her. + + +Or when she was singing, and Carew rhymed - + + +Ask me no more whither doth haste +The nightingale when May is past; +For in your sweet dividing throat +She winters, and keeps warm her note. + + +Sometimes when the lady was dead, and Carew, again, wrote on her +monument - + + +And here the precious dust is laid, +Whose purely-tempered clay was made +So fine that it the guest betrayed. + + +But there was besides another Lady of the lyrics; one who will never +pass from the world, but has passed from song. In the sixteenth +century and in the seventeenth century this lady was Death. Her +inspiration never failed; not a poet but found it as fresh as the +inspiration of life. Fancy was not quenched by the inevitable +thought in those days, as it is in ours, and the phrase lost no +dignity by the integrity of use. + +To every man it happens that at one time of his life--for a space of +years or for a space of months--he is convinced of death with an +incomparable reality. It might seem as though literature, living +the life of a man, underwent that conviction in those ages. Death +was as often on the tongues of men in older ages, and oftener in +their hands, but in the sixteenth century it was at their hearts. +The discovery of death did not shake the poets from their composure. +On the contrary, the verse is never measured with more majestic +effect than when it moves in honour of this Lady of the lyrics. Sir +Walter Raleigh is but a jerky writer when he is rhyming other +things, however bitter or however solemn; but his lines on death, +which are also lines on immortality, are infinitely noble. These +are, needless to say, meditations upon death by law and violence; +and so are the ingenious rhymes of Chidiock Tichborne, written after +his last prose in his farewell letter to his wife--"Now, Sweet- +cheek, what is left to bestow on thee, a small recompense for thy +deservings"--and singularly beautiful prose is this. So also are +Southwell's words. But these are exceptional deaths, and more +dramatic than was needed to awake the poetry of the meditative age. + +It was death as the end of the visible world and of the idle +business of life--not death as a passage nor death as a fear or a +darkness--that was the Lady of the lyrists. Nor was their song of +the act of dying. With this a much later and much more trivial +literature busied itself. Those two centuries felt with a shock +that death would bring an end, and that its equalities would make +vain the differences of wit and wealth which they took apparently +more seriously than to us seems probable. They never wearied of the +wonder. The poetry of our day has an entirely different emotion for +death as parting. It was not parting that the lyrists sang of; it +was the mere simplicity of death. None of our contemporaries will +take such a subject; they have no more than the ordinary conviction +of the matter. For the great treatment of obvious things there must +evidently be an extraordinary conviction. + +But whether the chief Lady of the lyrics be this, or whether she be +the implacable Elizabethan feigned by the love-songs, she has +equally passed from before the eyes of poets. + + + +JULY + + + +One has the leisure of July for perceiving all the differences of +the green of leaves. It is no longer a difference in degrees of +maturity, for all the trees have darkened to their final tone, and +stand in their differences of character and not of mere date. +Almost all the green is grave, not sad and not dull. It has a +darkened and a daily colour, in majestic but not obvious harmony +with dark grey skies, and might look, to inconstant eyes, as prosaic +after spring as eleven o'clock looks after the dawn. + +Gravity is the word--not solemnity as towards evening, nor menace as +at night. The daylight trees of July are signs of common beauty, +common freshness, and a mystery familiar and abiding as night and +day. In childhood we all have a more exalted sense of dawn and +summer sunrise than we ever fully retain or quite recover; and also +a far higher sensibility for April and April evenings--a heartache +for them, which in riper years is gradually and irretrievably +consoled. + +But, on the other hand, childhood has so quickly learned to find +daily things tedious, and familiar things importunate, that it has +no great delight in the mere middle of the day, and feels weariness +of the summer that has ceased to change visibly. The poetry of mere +day and of late summer becomes perceptible to mature eyes that have +long ceased to be sated, have taken leave of weariness, and cannot +now find anything in nature too familiar; eyes which have, indeed, +lost sight of the further awe of midsummer daybreak, and no longer +see so much of the past in April twilight as they saw when they had +no past; but which look freshly at the dailiness of green summer, of +early afternoon, of every sky of any form that comes to pass, and of +the darkened elms. + +Not unbeloved is this serious tree, the elm, with its leaf sitting +close, unthrilled. Its stature gives it a dark gold head when it +looks alone to a late sun. But if one could go by all the woods, +across all the old forests that are now meadowlands set with trees, +and could walk a county gathering trees of a single kind in the +mind, as one walks a garden collecting flowers of a single kind in +the hand, would not the harvest be a harvest of poplars? A +veritable passion for poplars is a most intelligible passion. The +eyes do gather them, far and near, on a whole day's journey. Not +one is unperceived, even though great timber should be passed, and +hill-sides dense and deep with trees. The fancy makes a poplar day +of it. Immediately the country looks alive with signals; for the +poplars everywhere reply to the glance. The woods may be all +various, but the poplars are separate. + +All their many kinds (and aspens, their kin, must be counted with +them) shake themselves perpetually free of the motionless forest. +It is easy to gather them. Glances sent into the far distance pay +them a flash of recognition of their gentle flashes; and as you +journey you are suddenly aware of them close by. Light and the +breezes are as quick as the eyes of a poplar-lover to find the +willing tree that dances to be seen. + +No lurking for them, no reluctance. One could never make for +oneself an oak day so well. The oaks would wait to be found, and +many would be missed from the gathering. But the poplars are alert +enough for a traveller by express; they have an alarum aloft, and do +not sleep. From within some little grove of other trees a single +poplar makes a slight sign; or a long row of poplars suddenly sweep +the wind. They are salient everywhere, and full of replies. They +are as fresh as streams. + +It is difficult to realize a drought where there are many poplars. +And yet their green is not rich; the coolest have a colour much +mingled with a cloud-grey. It does but need fresh and simple eyes +to recognize their unfaded life. When the other trees grow dark and +keep still, the poplar and the aspen do not darken--or hardly--and +the deepest summer will not find a day in which they do not keep +awake. No waters are so vigilant, even where a lake is bare to the +wind. + +When Keats said of his Dian that she fastened up her hair "with +fingers cool as aspen leaves," he knew the coolest thing in the +world. It is a coolness of colour, as well as of a leaf which the +breeze takes on both sides--the greenish and the greyish. The +poplar green has no glows, no gold; it is an austere colour, as +little rich as the colour of willows, and less silvery than theirs. +The sun can hardly gild it; but he can shine between. Poplars and +aspens let the sun through with the wind. You may have the sky +sprinkled through them in high midsummer, when all the woods are +close. + +Sending your fancy poplar-gathering, then, you ensnare wild trees, +beating with life. No fisher's net ever took such glancing fishes, +nor did the net of a constellation's shape ever enclose more +vibrating Pleiades. + + + +WELLS + + + +The world at present is inclined to make sorry mysteries or +unattractive secrets of the methods and supplies of the fresh and +perennial means of life. A very dull secret is made of water, for +example, and the plumber sets his seal upon the floods whereby we +live. They are covered, they are carried, they are hushed, from the +spring to the tap; and when their voices are released at last in the +London scullery, why, it can hardly be said that the song is +eloquent of the natural source of waters, whether earthly or +heavenly. There is not one of the circumstances of this capture of +streams--the company, the water-rate, and the rest--that is not a +sign of the ill-luck of modern devices in regard to style. For +style implies a candour and simplicity of means, an action, a +gesture, as it were, in the doing of small things; it is the +ignorance of secret ways; whereas the finish of modern life and its +neatness seem to be secured by a system of little shufflings and +surprises. + +Dress, among other things, is furnished throughout with such +fittings; they form its very construction. Style does not exist in +modern arrayings, for all their prettiness and precision, and for +all the successes--which are not to be denied--of their outer part; +the happy little swagger that simulates style is but another sign of +its absence, being prepared by mere dodges and dexterities beneath, +and the triumph and success of the present art of raiment--"fit" +itself--is but the result of a masked and lurking labour and device. + +The masters of fine manners, moreover, seem to be always aware of +the beauty that comes of pausing slightly upon the smaller and +slighter actions, such as meaner men are apt to hurry out of the +way. In a word, the workman, with his finish and accomplishment, is +the dexterous provider of contemporary things; and the ready, well- +appointed, and decorated life of all towns is now altogether in his +hands; whereas the artist craftsman of other times made a +manifestation of his means. The first hides the streams, under +stress and pressure, in paltry pipes which we all must make haste to +call upon the earth to cover, and the second lifted up the arches of +the aqueduct. + +The search of easy ways to live is not always or everywhere the way +to ugliness, but in some countries, at some dates, it is the sure +way. In all countries, and at all dates, extreme finish compassed +by hidden means must needs, from the beginning, prepare the +abolition of dignity. This is easy to understand, but it is less +easy to explain the ill-fortune that presses upon the expert +workman, in search of easy ways to live, all the ill-favoured +materials, makes them cheap for him, makes them serviceable and +effectual, urges him to use them, seal them, and inter them, turning +the trim and dull completeness out to the view of the daily world. +It is an added mischance. Nor, on the other hand, is it easy to +explain the beautiful good luck attending the simpler devices which +are, after all, only less expert ways of labour. In those happy +conditions, neither from the material, suggesting to the workman, +nor from the workman looking askance at his unhandsome material, +comes a first proposal to pour in cement and make fast the +underworld, out of sight. But fate spares not that suggestion to +the able and the unlucky at their task of making neat work of the +means, the distribution, the traffick of life. + +The springs, then, the profound wells, the streams, are of all the +means of our lives those which we should wish to see open to the +sun, with their waters on their progress and their way to us; but, +no, they are lapped in lead. + +King Pandion and his friends lie not under heavier seals. + +Yet we have been delighted, elsewhere, by open floods. The hiding- +place that nature and the simpler crafts allot to the waters of +wells are, at their deepest, in communication with the open sky. No +other mine is so visited; for the noonday sun himself is visible +there; and it is fine to think of the waters of this planet, shallow +and profound, all charged with shining suns, a multitude of waters +multiplying suns, and carrying that remote fire, as it were, within +their unalterable freshness. Not a pool without this visitant, or +without passages of stars. As for the wells of the Equator, you may +think of them in their last recesses as the daily bathing-places of +light; a luminous fancy is able so to scatter fitful figures of the +sun, and to plunge them in thousands within those deeps. + +Round images lie in the dark waters, but in the bright waters the +sun is shattered out of its circle, scattered into waves, broken +across stones, and rippled over sand; and in the shallow rivers that +fall through chestnut woods the image is mingled with the mobile +figures of leaves. To all these waters the agile air has perpetual +access. Not so can great towns be watered, it will be said with +reason; and this is precisely the ill-luck of great towns. + +Nevertheless, there are towns, not, in a sense, so great, that have +the grace of visible wells; such as Venice, where every campo has +its circle of carved stone, its clashing of dark copper on the +pavement, its soft kiss of the copper vessel with the surface of the +water below, and the cheerful work of the cable. + +Or the Romans knew how to cause the parted floods to measure their +plain with the strong, steady, and level flight of arches from the +watersheds in the hills to the and city; and having the waters +captive, they knew how to compel them to take part, by fountains, in +this Roman triumph. They had the wit to boast thus of their +brilliant prisoner. + +None more splendid came bound to Rome, or graced captivity with a +more invincible liberty of the heart. And the captivity and the +leap of the heart of the waters have outlived their captors. They +have remained in Rome, and have remained alone. Over them the +victory was longer than empire, and their thousands of loud voices +have never ceased to confess the conquest of the cold floods, +separated long ago, drawn one by one, alive, to the head and front +of the world. + +Of such a transit is made no secret. It was the most manifest fact +of Rome. You could not look to the city from the mountains or to +the distance from the city without seeing the approach of those +perpetual waters--waters bound upon daily tasks and minute services. +This, then, was the style of a master, who does not lapse from +"incidental greatness," has no mean precision, out of sight, to +prepare the finish of his phrases, and does not think the means and +the approaches are to be plotted and concealed. Without anxiety, +without haste, and without misgiving are all great things to be +done, and neither interruption in the doing nor ruin after they are +done finds anything in them to betray. There was never any disgrace +of means, and when the world sees the work broken through there is +no disgrace of discovery. The labour of Michelangelo's chisel, +little more than begun, a Roman structure long exposed in disarray-- +upon these the light of day looks full, and the Roman and the +Florentine have their unrefuted praise. + + + +THE FOOT + + + +Time was when no good news made a journey, and no friend came near, +but a welcome was uttered, or at least thought, for the travelling +feet of the wayfarer or the herald. The feet, the feet were +beautiful on the mountains; their toil was the price of all +communication, and their reward the first service and refreshment. +They were blessed and bathed; they suffered, but they were friends +with the earth; dews in grass at morning, shallow rivers at noon, +gave them coolness. They must have grown hard upon their mountain +paths, yet never so hard but they needed and had the first pity and +the readiest succour. It was never easy for the feet of man to +travel this earth, shod or unshod, and his feet are delicate, like +his colour. + +If they suffered hardship once, they suffer privation now. Yet the +feet should have more of the acquaintance of earth, and know more of +flowers, freshness, cool brooks, wild thyme, and salt sand than does +anything else about us. It is their calling; and the hands might be +glad to be stroked for a day by grass and struck by buttercups, as +the feet are of those who go barefoot; and the nostrils might be +flattered to be, like them, so long near moss. The face has only +now and then, for a resting-while, their privilege. + +If our feet are now so severed from the natural ground, they have +inevitably lost life and strength by the separation. It is only the +entirely unshod that have lively feet. Watch a peasant who never +wears shoes, except for a few unkind hours once a week, and you may +see the play of his talk in his mobile feet; they become as dramatic +as his hands. Fresh as the air, brown with the light, and healthy +from the field, not used to darkness, not grown in prison, the foot +of the contadino is not abashed. It is the foot of high life that +is prim, and never lifts a heel against its dull conditions, for it +has forgotten liberty. It is more active now than it lately was-- +certainly the foot of woman is more active; but whether on the pedal +or in the stirrup, or clad for a walk, or armed for a game, or +decked for the waltz, it is in bonds. It is, at any rate, +inarticulate. + +It has no longer a distinct and divided life, or none that is +visible and sensible. Whereas the whole living body has naturally +such infinite distinctness that the sense of touch differs, as it +were, with every nerve, and the fingers are so separate that it was +believed of them of old that each one had its angel, yet the modern +foot is, as much as possible, deprived of all that delicate +distinction: undone, unspecialized, sent back to lower forms of +indiscriminate life. It is as though a landscape with separate +sweetness in every tree should be rudely painted with the blank-- +blank, not simple--generalities of a vulgar hand. Or as though one +should take the pleasures of a day of happiness in a wholesale +fashion, not "turning the hours to moments," which joy can do to the +full as perfectly as pain. + +The foot, with its articulations, is suppressed, and its language +confused. When Lovelace likens the hand of Amarantha to a violin, +and her glove to the case, he has at any rate a glove to deal with, +not a boot. Yet Amarantha's foot is as lovely as her hand. It, +too, has a "tender inward"; no wayfaring would ever make it look +anything but delicate; its arch seems too slight to carry her +through a night of dances; it does, in fact, but balance her. It is +fit to cling to the ground, but rather for springing than for rest. + +And, doubtless, for man, woman, and child the tender, irregular, +sensitive, living foot, which does not even stand with all its +little surface on the ground, and which makes no base to satisfy an +architectural eye, is, as it were, the unexpected thing. It is a +part of vital design and has a history; and man does not go erect +but at a price of weariness and pain. How weak it is may be seen +from a footprint: for nothing makes a more helpless and +unsymmetrical sign than does a naked foot. + +Tender, too, is the silence of human feet. You have but to pass a +season amongst the barefooted to find that man, who, shod, makes so +much ado, is naturally as silent as snow. Woman, who not only makes +her armed heel heard, but also goes rustling like a shower, is +naturally silent as snow. The vintager is not heard among the +vines, nor the harvester on his threshing-floor of stone. There is +a kind of simple stealth in their coming and going, and they show +sudden smiles and dark eyes in and out of the rows of harvest when +you thought yourself alone. The lack of noise in their movement +sets free the sound of their voices, and their laughter floats. + +But we shall not praise the "simple, sweet" and "earth-confiding +feet" enough without thanks for the rule of verse and for the time +of song. If Poetry was first divided by the march, and next varied +by the dance, then to the rule of the foot are to be ascribed the +thought, the instruction, and the dream that could not speak by +prose. Out of that little physical law, then, grew a spiritual law +which is one of the greatest things we know; and from the test of +the foot came the ultimate test of the thinker: "Is it accepted of +Song?" + +The monastery, in like manner, holds its sons to little trivial +rules of time and exactitude, not to be broken, laws that are made +secure against the restlessness of the heart fretting for +insignificant liberties--trivial laws to restrain from a trivial +freedom. And within the gate of these laws which seem so small, +lies the world of mystic virtue. They enclose, they imply, they +lock, they answer for it. Lesser virtues may flower in daily +liberty and may flourish in prose; but infinite virtues and +greatness are compelled to the measure of poetry, and obey the +constraint of an hourly convent bell. It is no wonder that every +poet worthy the name has had a passion for metre, for the very +verse. To him the difficult fetter is the condition of an interior +range immeasurable. + + + +HAVE PATIENCE, LITTLE SAINT + + + +Some considerable time must have gone by since any kind of courtesy +ceased, in England, to be held necessary in the course of +communication with a beggar. Feeling may be humane, and the +interior act most gentle; there may be a tacit apology, and a +profound misgiving unexpressed; a reluctance not only to refuse but +to be arbiter; a dislike of the office; a regret, whether for the +unequal distribution of social luck or for a purse left at home, +equally sincere; howbeit custom exacts no word or sign, nothing +whatever of intercourse. If a dog or a cat accosts you, or a calf +in a field comes close to you with a candid infant face and +breathing nostrils of investigation, or if any kind of animal comes +to you on some obscure impulse of friendly approach, you acknowledge +it. But the beggar to whom you give nothing expects no answer to a +question, no recognition of his presence, not so much as the turn of +your eyelid in his direction, and never a word to excuse you. + +Nor does this blank behaviour seem savage to those who are used to +nothing else. Yet it is somewhat more inhuman to refuse an answer +to the beggar's remark than to leave a shop without "Good morning." +When complaint is made of the modern social manner--that it has no +merit but what is negative, and that it is apt even to abstain from +courtesy with more lack of grace than the abstinence absolutely +requires--the habit of manner towards beggars is probably not so +much as thought of. To the simply human eye, however, the prevalent +manner towards beggars is a striking thing; it is significant of so +much. + +Obviously it is not easy to reply to begging except by the +intelligible act of giving. We have not the ingenuous simplicity +that marks the caste answering more or less to that of Vere de Vere, +in Italy, for example. An elderly Italian lady on her slow way from +her own ancient ancestral palazzo to the village, and accustomed to +meet, empty-handed, a certain number of beggars, answers them by a +retort which would be, literally translated, "Excuse me, dear; I, +too, am a poor devil," and the last word she naturally puts into the +feminine. + +Moreover, the sentence is spoken in all the familiarity of the local +dialect--a dialect that puts any two people at once upon equal terms +as nothing else can do it. Would it were possible to present the +phrase to English readers in all its own helpless good-humour. The +excellent woman who uses it is practising no eccentricity thereby, +and raises no smile. It is only in another climate, and amid other +manners, that one cannot recall it without a smile. To a mind +having a lively sense of contrast it is not a little pleasant to +imagine an elderly lady of corresponding station in England replying +so to importunities for alms; albeit we have nothing answering to +the good fellowship of a broad patois used currently by rich and +poor, and yet slightly grotesque in the case of all speakers--a +dialect in which, for example, no sermon is ever preached, and in +which no book is ever printed, except for fun; a dialect "familiar, +but by no means vulgar." Besides, even if our Englishwoman could by +any possibility bring herself to say to a mendicant, "Excuse me, +dear; I, too, am a poor devil," she would still not have the +opportunity of putting the last word punctually into the feminine, +which does so complete the character of the sentence. + +The phrase at the head of this paper is the far more graceful phrase +of excuse customary in the courteous manners of Portugal. And +everywhere in the South, where an almost well-dressed old woman, who +suddenly begins to beg from you when you least expected it, calls +you "my daughter," you can hardly reply without kindness. Where the +tourist is thoroughly well known, doubtless the company of beggars +are used to savage manners in the rich; but about the byways and +remoter places there must still be some dismay at the anger, the +silence, the indignation, and the inexpensive haughtiness wherewith +the opportunity of alms-giving is received by travellers. + +In nothing do we show how far the West is from the East so +emphatically as we show it by our lofty ways towards those who so +manifestly put themselves at our feet. It is certainly not pleasant +to see them there; but silence or a storm of impersonal protest--a +protest that appeals vaguely less to the beggars than to some not +impossible police--does not seem the most appropriate manner of +rebuking them. We have, it may be, a scruple on the point of human +dignity, compromised by the entreaty and the thanks of the +mendicant; but we have a strange way of vindicating that dignity +when we refuse to man, woman, or child the recognition of a simply +human word. Nay, our offence is much the greater of the two. It is +not merely a rough and contemptuous intercourse, it is the refusal +of intercourse--the last outrage. How do we propose to redress +those conditions of life that annoy us when a brother whines, if we +deny the presence, the voice, and the being of this brother, and if, +because fortune has refused him money, we refuse him existence? + +We take the matter too seriously, or not seriously enough, to hold +it in the indifference of the wise. "Have patience, little saint," +is a phrase that might teach us the cheerful way to endure our own +unintelligible fortunes in the midst, say, of the population of a +hill-village among the most barren of the Maritime Alps, where huts +of stone stand among the stones of an unclothed earth, and there is +no sign of daily bread. The people, albeit unused to travellers, +yet know by instinct what to do, and beg without the delay of a +moment as soon as they see your unwonted figure. Let it be taken +for granted that you give all you can; some form of refusal becomes +necessary at last, and the gentlest--it is worth while to remember-- +is the most effectual. An indignant tourist, one who to the portent +of a puggaree which, perhaps, he wears on a grey day, adds that of +ungovernable rage, is so wild a visitor that no attempt at all is +made to understand him; and the beggars beg dismayed but unalarmed, +uninterruptedly, without a pause or a conjecture. They beg by rote, +thinking of something else, as occasion arises, and all indifferent +to the violence of the rich. + +It is the merry beggar who has so lamentably disappeared. If a +beggar is still merry anywhere, he hides away what it would so cheer +and comfort us to see; he practises not merely the conventional +seeming, which is hardly intended to convince, but a more subtle and +dramatic kind of semblance, of no good influence upon the morals of +the road. He no longer trusts the world with a sight of his gaiety. +He is not a wholehearted mendicant, and no longer keeps that liberty +of unstable balance whereby an unattached creature can go in a new +direction with a new wind. The merry beggar was the only adventurer +free to yield to the lighter touches of chance, the touches that a +habit of resistance has made imperceptible to the seated and stable +social world. + +The visible flitting figure of the unfettered madman sprinkled our +literature with mad songs, and even one or two poets of to-day have, +by tradition, written them; but that wild source of inspiration has +been stopped; it has been built over, lapped and locked, imprisoned, +led underground. The light melancholy and the wind-blown joys of +the song of the distraught, which the poets were once ingenious to +capture, have ceased to sound one note of liberty in the world's +ears. But it seems that the grosser and saner freedom of the happy +beggar is still the subject of a Spanish song. + +That song is gay, not defiant it is not an outlaw's or a robber's, +it is not a song of violence or fear. It is the random trolling +note of a man who owes his liberty to no disorder, failure, or ill- +fortune, but takes it by choice from the voluntary world, enjoys it +at the hand of unreluctant charity; who twits the world with its own +choice of bonds, but has not broken his own by force. It seems, +therefore, the song of an indomitable liberty of movement, light +enough for the puffs of a zephyr chance. + + + +THE LADIES OF THE IDYLL + + + +Little Primrose dames of the English classic, the wife and daughters +of the Vicar of Wakefield have no claim whatever to this name of +lady. It is given to them in this page because Goldsmith himself +gave it to them in the yet undepreciated state of the word, and for +the better reason that he obviously intended them to be the equals +of the men to whom he marries them, those men being, with all their +faults, gentlemen. Goldsmith, in a word, meant them to be ladies, +of country breeding, but certainly fit for membership of that large +class of various fortune within which the name makes a sufficient +equality. + +He, their author, thought them sufficient. Having amused himself +ingeniously throughout the story with their nameless vulgarities, he +finally hurries them into so much sentiment as may excuse the +convention of heroes in love. He plays with their coarseness like a +perfectly pleased and clever showman, and then piously and happily +shuts up his couples--the gentle Dr. Primrose with his abominable +Deborah; the excellent Mr. Burchell with the paltry Sophia; Olivia-- +but no, Olivia is not so certainly happy ever after; she has a +captured husband ready for her in a state of ignominy, but she has +also a forgotten farmer somewhere in the background--the unhappy man +whom, with her father's permission, this sorry heroine had promised +to marry in order that his wooing might pluck forward the lagging +suit of the squire. + +Olivia, then, plays her common trick upon the harmless Williams, her +father conniving, with a provision that he urges with some +demonstration of virtue: she shall consent to make the farmer happy +if the proposal of the squire be not after all forthcoming. But it +is so evident her author knew no better, that this matter may pass. +It involves a point of honour, of which no one--neither the maker of +the book nor anyone he made--is aware. What is better worth +considering is the fact that Goldsmith was completely aware of the +unredeemed vulgarity of the ladies of the Idyll, and cheerfully took +it for granted as the thing to be expected from the mother-in-law of +a country gentleman and the daughters of a scholar. The education +of women had sunk into a degradation never reached before, inasmuch +as it was degraded in relation to that of men. It would matter +little indeed that Mrs. Primrose "could read any English book +without much spelling" if her husband and son were as definitely +limited to journeyman's field-labour as she was to the pickling and +the gooseberry wine. Any of those industries is a better and more +liberal business than unselect reading, for instance, or than +unselect writing. Therefore let me not be misunderstood to complain +too indiscriminately of that century or of an unlettered state. +What is really unhandsome is the new, slovenly, and corrupt +inequality whereinto the century had fallen. + +That the mother of daughters and sons should be fatuous, a village +worldling, suspicious, ambitious, ill-bred, ignorant, gross, +insolent, foul-mouthed, pushing, importunate, and a fool, seems +natural, almost innocently natural, in Goldsmith's story; the +squalid Mrs. Primrose is all this. He is still able, through his +Vicar, in the most charmingly humorous passage in the book, to +praise her for her "prudence, economy, and obedience." Her other, +more disgusting, characteristics give her husband an occasion for +rebuking her as "Woman!" This is done, for example, when, despite +her obedience, she refuses to receive that unlucky schemer, her own +daughter, returned in ruins, without insulting her by the sallies of +a kitchen sarcasm. + +She plots with her daughters the most disastrous fortune hunt. She +has given them a teaching so effectual that the Vicar has no fear +lest the paltry Sophia should lose her heart to the good, the +sensible Burchell, who had saved her life; for he has no fortune. +Mrs. Primrose begins grotesquely, with her tedious histories of the +dishes at dinner, and she ends upon the last page, anxious, amid the +general happiness, in regard to securing the head of the table. +Upon these feminine humours the author sheds his Vicar's indulgent +smile. What a smile for a self-respecting husband to be pricked to +smile! A householder would wince, one would think, at having +opportunity to bestow its tolerance upon his cook. + +Between these two housewifely appearances, Mrs. Primrose potters +through the book; plots--always squalidly; talks the worst kinds of +folly; takes the lead, with a loud laugh, in insulting a former +friend; crushes her repentant daughter with reproaches that show +envy rather than indignation, and kisses that daughter with +congratulation upon hearing that she had, unconsciously and +unintentionally, contracted a valid marriage (with a rogue); spoils +and makes common and unclean everything she touches; has but two +really gentle and tender moments all through the story; and sets, +once for all, the example in literature of the woman we find +thenceforth, in Thackeray, in Douglas Jerrold, in Dickens, and un +peu partout. + +Hardly less unspiritual, in spite of their conventional romance of +youth and beauty, are the daughters of the squalid one. The author, +in making them simple, has not abstained from making them cunning. +Their vanities are well enough, but these women are not only vain, +they are so envious as to refuse admiration to a sister-in-law--one +who is their rival in no way except in so much as she is a +contemporary beauty. "Miss Arabella Wilmot," says the pious father +and vicar, "was allowed by all (except my two daughters) to be +completely pretty." + +They have been left by their father in such brutal ignorance as to +be instantly deceived into laughing at bad manners in error for +humour. They have no pretty or sensitive instincts. "The jests of +the rich," says the Vicar, referring to his own young daughters as +audience, "are ever successful." Olivia, when the squire played off +a dullish joke, "mistook it for humour. She thought him, therefore, +a very fine gentleman." The powders and patches for the country +church, the ride thither on Blackberry, in so strange a procession, +the face-wash, the dreams and omens, are all good gentle comedy; we +are completely convinced of the tedium of Mrs. Primrose's dreams, +which she told every morning. But there are other points of comedy +that ought not to precede an author's appeal to the kind of +sentiment about to be touched by the tragic scenes of The Vicar of +Wakefield. + +In odd sidling ways Goldsmith bethinks himself to give his principal +heroine a shadow of the virtues he has not bestowed upon her. When +the unhappy Williams, above-mentioned, has been used in vain by +Olivia, and the squire has not declared himself, and she is on the +point of keeping her word to Williams by marrying him, the Vicar +creates a situation out of it all that takes the reader roundly by +surprise: "I frequently applauded her resolution in preferring +happiness to ostentation." The good Goldsmith! Here is Olivia +perfectly frank with her father as to her exceedingly sincere +preference for ostentation, and as to her stratagem to try to obtain +it at the expense of honour and of neighbour Williams; her mind is +as well known to her father as her father's mind is known to Oliver +Goldsmith, and as Oliver Goldsmith's, Dr. Primrose's, and Olivia's +minds are known to the reader. And in spite of all, your Goldsmith +and your Vicar turn you this phrase to your very face. You hardly +know which way to look; it is so disconcerting. + +Seeing that Olivia (with her chance-recovered virtue) and Sophia may +both be expected to grow into the kind of matronhood represented by +their mother, it needs all the conditions of fiction to surround the +close of their love-affairs with the least semblance of dignity. +Nor, in fact, can it be said that the final winning of Sophia is an +incident that errs by too much dignity. The scene is that in which +Burchell, revealed as Sir William Thornhill, feigns to offer her in +marriage to the good-natured rogue, Jenkinson, fellow prisoner with +her father, in order that, on her indignant and distressed refusal, +he may surprise her agreeably by crying, "What? Not have him? If +that be the case, I think I must have you myself." Even for an +avowedly eccentric master of whims, this is playing with forbidden +ironies. True, he catches her to his breast with ardour, and calls +her "sensible." "Such sense and such heavenly beauty," finally +exclaims the happy man. Let us make him a present of the heavenly +beauty. It is the only thing not disproved, not dispraised, not +disgraced, by a candid study of the Ladies of the Idyll. + + + +A DERIVATION + + + +By what obscure cause, through what ill-directed industry, and under +the constraint of what disabling hands, had the language of English +poetry grown, for an age, so rigid that a natural writer at the end +of the eighteenth century had much ado to tell a simple story in +sufficient verse? All the vital exercise of the seventeenth century +had left the language buoyant; it was as elastic as deep and mobile +waters; then followed the grip of that incapacitating later style. +Much later, English has been so used as to become flaccid--it has +been stretched, as it were, beyond its power of rebound, or +certainly beyond its power of rebound in common use (for when a +master writes he always uses a tongue that has suffered nothing). +It is in our own day that English has been so over-strained. In +Crabbe's day it had been effectually curbed, hindered, and hampered, +and it cannot be said of Crabbe that he was a master who takes +natural possession of a language that has suffered nothing. He was +evidently a man of talent who had to take his part with the times, +subject to history. To call him a poet was a mere convention. +There seems to be not a single moment of poetry in his work, and +assuredly if he had known the earlier signification of the word he +would have been the last man to claim the incongruous title of poet. +But it is impossible to state the question as it would have +presented itself to Crabbe or to any other writer of his quality +entering into the same inheritance of English. + +It is true that Crabbe read and quoted Milton; so did all his +contemporaries; and to us now it seems that poetry cannot have been +forgotten by any age possessing Lycidas. Yet that age can scarcely +be said to have in any true sense possessed Lycidas. There are +other things, besides poetry, in Milton's poems. We do not entirely +know, perhaps, but we can conjecture how a reader in Crabbe's late +eighteenth century, looking in Milton for authority for all that he +unluckily and vainly admired, would well find it. He would find the +approval of Young's "Night Thoughts" did he search for it, as we who +do not search for it may not readily understand. A step or so +downwards, from a few passages in "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise +Regained," an inevitable drop in the derivation, a depression such +as is human, and everything, from Dryden to "The Vanity of Human +Wishes," follows, without violence and perhaps without wilful +misappreciation. The poet Milton fathered, legitimately enough, an +unpoetic posterity. Milton, therefore, who might have kept an age, +and many a succeeding age, on the heights of poetry by lines like +these - + + +Who sing and singing in their glory move - + + +by this, and by many and many another so divine--Milton justified +also the cold excesses of his posterity by the example of more than +one group of blank verse lines in his greatest poem. Manifestly the +sanction is a matter of choice, and depends upon the age: the age +of Crabbe found in Milton such ancestry as it was fit for. + +Crabbe, then, was not a poet of poetry. But he came into possession +of a metrical form charged by secondary poets with a contented +second-class dignity that bears constant reference, in the way of +respect rather than of imitation, to the state and nobility of Pope +at his best--the couplet. The weak yet rigid "poetry" that fell to +his lot owed all the decorum it possessed to the mechanical defences +and props--the exclusions especially--of this manner of +versification. The grievous thing was that, being moved to write +simply of simple things, he had no more supple English for his +purpose. His effort to disengage the phrase--long committed to +convention and to an exposed artifice--did but prove how surely the +ancient vitality was gone. + +His preface to "The Borough, a Poem," should be duly read before the +"poem" itself, for the prose has a propriety all its own. +Everything is conceived with the most perfect moderation, and then +presented in a form of reasoning that leaves you no possible ground +of remonstrance. In proposing his subject Crabbe seems to make an +unanswerable apology with a composure that is almost sweet. For +instance, at some length and with some nobility he anticipates a +probable conjecture that his work was done "without due examination +and revisal," and he meets the conjectured criticism thus: "Now, +readers are, I believe, disposed to treat with more than common +severity those writers who have been led into presumption by the +approbation bestowed upon their diffidence, and into idleness and +unconcern by the praises given to their attention." It would not be +possible to say a smaller thing with greater dignity and gentleness. +It is worth while to quote this prose of a "poet" who lived between +the centuries, if only in order to suggest the chastening thought, +"It is a pity that no one, however little he may have to say, says +it now in this form!" The little, so long as it is reasonable, is +so well suited in this antithesis and logic. Is there no hope that +journalism will ever take again these graces of unanswerable +argument? No: they would no longer wear the peculiar aspect of +adult innocence that was Crabbe's. + + + +A COUNTERCHANGE + + + +"Il s'est trompe de defunte." The writer of this phrase had his +sense of that portly manner of French, and his burlesque is fine; +but--the paradox must be risked--because he was French he was not +able to possess all its grotesque mediocrity to the full; that is +reserved for the English reader. The words are in the mouth of a +widower who, approaching his wife's tomb, perceives there another +"monsieur." "Monsieur," again; the French reader is deprived of the +value of this word, too, in its place; it says little or nothing to +him, whereas the Englishman, who has no word of the precise +bourgeois significance that it sometimes bears, but who must use one +of two English words of different allusion--man or I gentleman-- +knows the exact value of its commonplace. The serious Parisian, +then, sees "un autre monsieur;" as it proves anon, there had been a +divorce in the history of the lady, but the later widower is not yet +aware of this, and explains to himself the presence of "un monsieur" +in his own place by that weighty phrase, "Il s'est trompe de +defunte." + +The strange effect of a thing so charged with allusion and with +national character is to cause an English reader to pity the mocking +author who was debarred by his own language from possessing the +whole of his own comedy. It is, in fact, by contrast with his +English that an Englishman does possess it. Your official, your +professional Parisian has a vocabulary of enormous, unrivalled +mediocrity. When the novelist perceives this he does not perceive +it all, because some of the words are the only words in use. Take +an author at his serious moments, when he is not at all occupied +with the comedy of phrases, and he now and then touches a word that +has its burlesque by mere contrast with English. "L'Histoire d'un +Crime," of Victor Hugo, has so many of these touches as to be, by a +kind of reflex action, a very school of English. The whole incident +of the omnibus in that grave work has unconscious international +comedy. The Deputies seated in the interior of the omnibus had +been, it will be remembered, shut out of their Chamber by the +perpetrator of the Coup d'Etat, but each had his official scarf. +Scarf--pish!--"l'echarpe!" "Ceindre l'echarpe"--there is no real +English equivalent. Civic responsibility never was otherwise +adequately expressed. An indignant deputy passed his scarf through +the window of the omnibus, as an appeal to the public, "et l'agita." +It is a pity that the French reader, having no simpler word, is not +in a position to understand the slight burlesque. Nay, the mere +word "public," spoken with this peculiar French good faith, has for +us I know not what untransferable gravity. + +There is, in short, a general international counterchange. It is +altogether in accordance with our actual state of civilization, with +its extremely "specialized" manner of industry, that one people +should make a phrase, and another should have and enjoy it. And, in +fact, there are certain French authors to whom should be secured the +use of the literary German whereof Germans, and German women in +particular, ought with all severity to be deprived. For Germans +often tell you of words in their own tongue that are untranslatable; +and accordingly they should not be translated, but given over in +their own conditions, unaltered, into safer hands. There would be a +clearing of the outlines of German ideas, a better order in the +phrase; the possessors of an alien word, with the thought it +secures, would find also their advantage. + +So with French humour. It is expressly and signally for English +ears. It is so even in the commonest farce. The unfortunate +householder, for example, who is persuaded to keep walking in the +conservatory "pour retablir la circulation," and the other who +describes himself "sous-chef de bureau dans l'enregistrement," and +he who proposes to "faire hommage" of a doubtful turbot to the +neighbouring "employe de l'octroi"--these and all their like speak +commonplaces so usual as to lose in their own country the perfection +of their dulness. We only, who have the alternative of plainer and +fresher words, understand it. It is not the least of the advantages +of our own dual English that we become sensible of the mockery of +certain phrases that in France have lost half their ridicule, +uncontrasted. + +Take again the common rhetoric that has fixed itself in conversation +in all Latin languages--rhetoric that has ceased to have allusions, +either majestic or comic. To the ear somewhat unused to French this +proffers a frequent comedy that the well-accustomed ear, even of an +Englishman, no longer detects. A guard on a French railway, who +advised two travellers to take a certain train for fear they should +be obliged to "vegeter" for a whole hour in the waiting-room of such +or such a station seemed to the less practised tourist to be a fresh +kind of unexpected humourist. + +One of the phrases always used in the business of charities and +subscriptions in France has more than the intentional comedy of the +farce-writer; one of the most absurd of his personages, wearying his +visitors in the country with a perpetual game of bowls, says to +them: "Nous jouons cinquante centimes--les benefices seront verses +integralement e la souscription qui est ouverte e la commune pour la +construction de notre maison d'ecole." + +"Fletrir," again. Nothing could be more rhetorical than this +perfectly common word of controversy. The comic dramatist is well +aware of the spent violence of this phrase, with which every serious +Frenchman will reply to opponents, especially in public matters. +But not even the comic dramatist is aware of the last state of +refuse commonplace that a word of this kind represents. Refuse +rhetoric, by the way, rather than Emerson's "fossil poetry," would +seem to be the right name for human language as some of the +processes of the several recent centuries have left it. + +The French comedy, then, is fairly stuffed with thin-S for an +Englishman. They are not all, it is true, so finely comic as "Il +s'est trompe de defunte." In the report of that dull, incomparable +sentence there is enough humour, and subtle enough, for both the +maker and the reader; for the author who perceives the comedy as +well as custom will permit, and for the reader who takes it with the +freshness of a stranger. But if not so keen as this, the current +word of French comedy is of the same quality of language. When of +the fourteen couples to be married by the mayor, for instance, the +deaf clerk has shuffled two, a looker-on pronounces: "Il s'est +empetre dans les futurs." But for a reader who has a full sense of +the several languages that exist in English at the service of the +several ways of human life, there is, from the mere terminology of +official France, high or low--daily France--a gratuitous and +uncovenanted smile to be had. With this the wit of the report of +French literature has not little to do. Nor is it in itself, +perhaps, reasonably comic, but the slightest irony of circumstance +makes it so. A very little of the mockery of conditions brings out +all the latent absurdity of the "sixieme et septieme arron- +dissements," in the twinkling of an eye. So is it with the mere +"domicile;" with the aid of but a little of the burlesque of life, +the suit at law to "reintegrer le domicile conjugal" becomes as +grotesque as a phrase can make it. Even "e domicile" merely--the +word of every shopman--is, in the unconscious mouths of the +speakers, always awaiting the lightest touch of farce, if only an +Englishman hears it; so is the advice of the police that you shall +"circuler" in the street; so is the request, posted up, that you +shall not, in the churches. + +So are the serious and ordinary phrases, "maison nuptiale," "maison +mortuaire," and the still more serious "repos dominical," "oraison +dominicale." There is no majesty in such words. The unsuspicious +gravity with which they are spoken broadcast is not to be wondered +at, the language offering no relief of contrast; and what is much to +the credit of the comic sensibility of literature is the fact that, +through this general unconsciousness, the ridicule of a thousand +authors of comedy perceives the fun, and singles out the familiar +thing, and compels that most elaborate dulness to amuse us. US, +above all, by virtue of the custom of counter-change here set forth. + +Who shall say whether, by operation of the same exchange, the +English poets that so persist in France may not reveal something +within the English language--one would be somewhat loth to think so- +-reserved to the French reader peculiarly? Byron to the multitude, +Edgar Poe to the select? Then would some of the mysteries of French +reading of English be explained otherwise than by the plainer +explanation that has hitherto satisfied our haughty curiosity. The +taste for rhetoric seemed to account for Byron, and the desire of +the rhetorician to claim a taste for poetry seemed to account for +Poe. But, after all, PATATRAS! Who can say? + + + +RAIN + + + +Not excepting the falling stars--for they are far less sudden--there +is nothing in nature that so outstrips our unready eyes as the +familiar rain. The rods that thinly stripe our landscape, long +shafts from the clouds, if we had but agility to make the arrowy +downward journey with them by the glancing of our eyes, would be +infinitely separate, units, an innumerable flight of single things, +and the simple movement of intricate points. + +The long stroke of the raindrop, which is the drop and its path at +once, being our impression of a shower, shows us how certainly our +impression is the effect of the lagging, and not of the haste, of +our senses. What we are apt to call our quick impression is rather +our sensibly tardy, unprepared, surprised, outrun, lightly +bewildered sense of things that flash and fall, wink, and are +overpast and renewed, while the gentle eyes of man hesitate and +mingle the beginning with the close. These inexpert eyes, +delicately baffled, detain for an instant the image that puzzles +them, and so dally with the bright progress of a meteor, and part +slowly from the slender course of the already fallen raindrop, whose +moments are not theirs. There seems to be such a difference of +instants as invests all swift movement with mystery in man's eyes, +and causes the past, a moment old, to be written, vanishing, upon +the skies. + +The visible world is etched and engraved with the signs and records +of our halting apprehension; and the pause between the distant +woodman's stroke with the axe and its sound upon our ears is +repeated in the impressions of our clinging sight. The round wheel +dazzles it, and the stroke of the bird's wing shakes it off like a +captivity evaded. Everywhere the natural haste is impatient of +these timid senses; and their perception, outrun by the shower, +shaken by the light, denied by the shadow, eluded by the distance, +makes the lingering picture that is all our art. One of the most +constant causes of all the mystery and beauty of that art is surely +not that we see by flashes, but that nature flashes on our +meditative eyes. There is no need for the impressionist to make +haste, nor would haste avail him, for mobile nature doubles upon +him, and plays with his delays the exquisite game of visibility. + +Momently visible in a shower, invisible within the earth, the +ministration of water is so manifest in the coming rain-cloud that +the husbandman is allowed to see the rain of his own land, yet +unclaimed in the arms of the rainy wind. It is an eager lien that +he binds the shower withal, and the grasp of his anxiety is on the +coming cloud. His sense of property takes aim and reckons distance +and speed, and even as he shoots a little ahead of the equally +uncertain ground-game, he knows approximately how to hit the cloud +of his possession. So much is the rain bound to the earth that, +unable to compel it, man has yet found a way, by lying in wait, to +put his price upon it. The exhaustible cloud "outweeps its rain," +and only the inexhaustible sun seems to repeat and to enforce his +cumulative fires upon every span of ground, innumerable. The rain +is wasted upon the sea, but only by a fantasy can the sun's waste be +made a reproach to the ocean, the desert, or the sealed-up street. +Rossetti's "vain virtues" are the virtues of the rain, falling +unfruitfully. + +Baby of the cloud, rain is carried long enough within that troubled +breast to make all the multitude of days unlike each other. Rain, +as the end of the cloud, divides light and withholds it; in its +flight warning away the sun, and in its final fall dismissing +shadow. It is a threat and a reconciliation; it removes mountains +compared with which the Alps are hillocks, and makes a childlike +peace between opposed heights and battlements of heaven. + + + +THE LETTERS OF MARCELINE VALMORE + + + +"Prends garde e moi, ma fille, et couvre moi bien!" Marceline +Desbordes-Valmore, writing from France to her daughter Ondine, who +was delicate and chilly in London in 1841, has the same solicitous, +journeying fancy as was expressed by two other women, both also +Frenchwomen, and both articulate in tenderness. Eugenie de Guerin, +that queen of sisters, had preceded her with her own complaint, "I +have a pain in my brother's side"; and in another age Mme. de +Sevigne had suffered, in the course of long posts and through +infrequent letters--a protraction of conjectured pain--within the +frame of her absent daughter. She phrased her plight in much the +same words, confessing the uncancelled union with her child that had +effaced for her the boundaries of her personal life. + +Is not what we call a life--the personal life--a separation from the +universal life, a seclusion, a division, a cleft, a wound? For +these women, such a severance was in part healed, made whole, closed +up, and cured. Life was restored between two at a time of human- +kind. Did these three women guess that their sufferings of sympathy +with their children were indeed the signs of a new and universal +health--the prophecy of human unity? + +The sign might have been a more manifest and a happier prophecy had +this union of tenderness taken the gay occasion as often as the sad. +Except at times, in the single case of Mme. de Sevigne, all three-- +far more sensitive than the rest of the world--were yet not +sensitive enough to feel equally the less sharp communication of +joy. They claimed, owned, and felt sensibly the pangs and not the +pleasures of the absent. Or if not only the pangs, at least they +were apprehensive chiefly in that sense which human anxiety and +foreboding have lent to the word; they were apprehensive of what +they feared. "Are you warm?" writes Marceline Valmore to her child. +"You have so little to wear--are you really warm? Oh, take care of +me--cover me well." Elsewhere she says, "You are an insolent child +to think of work. Nurse your health, and mine. Let us live like +fools"; whereby she meant that she should work with her own fervent +brain for both, and take the while her rest in Ondine. If this +living and unshortened love was sad, it must be owned that so, too, +was the story. Eugenie and Maurice de Guerin were both to die soon, +and Marceline was to lose this daughter and another. + +But set free from the condition and occasion of pain and sorrow, +this life without boundaries which mothers have undergone seems to +suggest and to portend what the progressive charity of generations +may be--and is, in fact, though the continuity does not always +appear--in the course of the world. If a love and life without +boundaries go down from a mother into her child, and from that child +into her children again, then incalculable, intricate, universal, +and eternal are the unions that seem--and only seem--so to transcend +the usual experience. The love of such a mother passes unchanged +out of her own sight. It drops down ages, but why should it alter? +What in her daughter should she make so much her own as that +daughter's love for her daughter in turn? There are no lapses. + +Marceline Valmore, married to an actor who seems to have "created +the classic genre" in vain, found the sons and daughters of other +women in want. Some of her rich friends, she avers, seem to think +that the sadness of her poems is a habit--a matter of metre and +rhyme, or, at most, that it is "temperament." But others take up +the cause of those whose woes, as she says, turned her long hair +white too soon. Sainte-Beuve gave her his time and influence, +succoured twenty political offenders at her instance, and gave +perpetually to her poor. "He never has any socks," said his mother; +"he gives them all away, like Beranger." "He gives them with a +different accent," added the literary Marceline. + +Even when the stroller's life took her to towns she did not hate, +but loved--her own Douai, where the names of the streets made her +heart leap, and where her statue stands, and Bordeaux, which was, in +her eyes, "rosy with the reflected colour of its animating wine"-- +she was taken away from the country of her verse. The field and the +village had been dear to her, and her poems no longer trail and +droop, but take wing, when they come among winds, birds, bells, and +waves. They fly with the whole volley of a summer morning. She +loved the sun and her liberty, and the liberty of others. It was +apparently a horror of prisons that chiefly inspired her public +efforts after certain riots at Lyons had been reduced to peace. The +dead were free, but for the prisoners she worked, wrote, and +petitioned. She looked at the sentinels at the gates of the Lyons +gaols with such eyes as might have provoked a shot, she thinks. + +During her lifetime she very modestly took correction from her +contemporaries, for her study had hardly been enough for the whole +art of French verse. But Sainte-Beuve, Baudelaire, and Verlaine +have praised her as one of the poets of France. The later critics-- +from Verlaine onwards--will hold that she needs no pardon for +certain slight irregularities in the grouping of masculine and +feminine rhymes, for upon this liberty they themselves have largely +improved. The old rules in their completeness seemed too much like +a prison to her. She was set about with importunate conditions--a +caesura, a rhyme, narrow lodgings in strange towns, bankruptcies, +salaries astray--and she took only a little gentle liberty. + + + +THE HOURS OF SLEEP + + + +There are hours claimed by Sleep, but refused to him. None the less +are they his by some state within the mind, which answers +rhythmically and punctually to that claim. Awake and at work, +without drowsiness, without languor, and without gloom, the night +mind of man is yet not his day mind; he has night-powers of feeling +which are at their highest in dreams, but are night's as well as +sleep's. The powers of the mind in dreams, which are inexplicable, +are not altogether baffled because the mind is awake; it is the hour +of their return as it is the hour of a tide's, and they do return. + +In sleep they have their free way. Night then has nothing to hamper +her influence, and she draws the emotion, the senses, and the nerves +of the sleeper. She urges him upon those extremities of anger and +love, contempt and terror to which not only can no event of the real +day persuade him, but for which, awake, he has perhaps not even the +capacity. This increase of capacity, which is the dream's, is +punctual to the night, even though sleep and the dream be kept at +arm's length. + +The child, not asleep, but passing through the hours of sleep and +their dominions, knows that the mood of night will have its hour; he +puts off his troubled heart, and will answer it another time, in the +other state, by day. "I shall be able to bear this when I am grown +up" is not oftener in a young child's mind than "I shall endure to +think of it in the day-time." By this he confesses the double habit +and double experience, not to be interchanged, and communicating +together only by memory and hope. + +Perhaps it will be found that to work all by day or all by night is +to miss something of the powers of a complex mind. One might +imagine the rhythmic experience of a poet, subject, like a child, to +the time, and tempering the extremities of either state by messages +of remembrance and expectancy. + +Never to have had a brilliant dream, and never to have had any +delirium, would be to live too much in the day; and hardly less +would be the loss of him who had not exercised his waking thought +under the influence of the hours claimed by dreams. And as to +choosing between day and night, or guessing whether the state of day +or dark is the truer and the more natural, he would be rash who +should make too sure. + +In order to live the life of night, a watcher must not wake too +much. That is, he should not alter so greatly the character of +night as to lose the solitude, the visible darkness, or the +quietude. The hours of sleep are too much altered when they are +filled by lights and crowds; and Nature is cheated so, and evaded, +and her rhythm broken, as when the larks caged in populous streets +make ineffectual springs and sing daybreak songs when the London gas +is lighted. Nature is easily deceived; and the muse, like the lark, +may be set all astray as to the hour. You may spend the peculiar +hours of sleep amid so much noise and among so many people that you +shall not be aware of them; you may thus merely force and prolong +the day. But to do so is not to live well both lives; it is not to +yield to the daily and nightly rise and fall and to be cradled in +the swing of change. + +There surely never was a poet but was now and then rocked in such a +cradle of alternate hours. "It cannot be," says Herbert, "that I am +he on whom Thy tempests fell all night." + +It is in the hours of sleep that the mind, by some divine paradox, +has the extremest sense of light. Almost the most shining lines in +English poetry--lines that cast sunrise shadows--are those of Blake, +written confessedly from the side of night, the side of sorrow and +dreams, and those dreams the dreams of little chimney-sweepers; all +is as dark as he can make it with the "bags of soot"; but the boy's +dream of the green plain and the river is too bright for day. So, +indeed, is another brightness of Blake's, which is also, in his +poem, a child's dream, and was certainly conceived by him in the +hours of sleep, in which he woke to write the Songs of Innocence:- + + +O what land is the land of dreams? +What are its mountains, and what are its streams? +O father, I saw my mother there, +Among the lilies by waters fair. +Among the lambs clothed in white, +She walk'd with her Thomas in sweet delight. + + +To none but the hours claimed and inspired by sleep, held awake by +sufferance of sleep, belongs such a vision. + +Corot also took the brilliant opportunity of the hours of sleep. In +some landscapes of his early manner he has the very light of dreams, +and it was surely because he went abroad at the time when sleep and +dreams claimed his eyes that he was able to see so spiritual an +illumination. Summer is precious for a painter, chiefly because in +summer so many of the hours of sleep are also hours of light. He +carries the mood of man's night out into the sunshine--Corot did so- +-and lives the life of night, in all its genius, in the presence of +a risen sun. In the only time when the heart can dream of light, in +the night of visions, with the rhythmic power of night at its dark +noon in his mind, his eyes see the soaring of the actual sun. + +He himself has not yet passed at that hour into the life of day. To +that life belongs many another kind of work, and a sense of other +kinds of beauty; but the summer daybreak was seen by Corot with the +extreme perception of the life of night. Here, at last, is the +explanation of all the memories of dreams recalled by these +visionary paintings, done in earlier years than were those, better +known, that are the Corots of all the world. Every man who knows +what it is to dream of landscape meets with one of these works of +Corot's first manner with a cry, not of welcome only, but of +recognition. Here is morning perceived by the spirit of the hours +of sleep. + + + +THE HORIZON + + + +To mount a hill is to lift with you something lighter and brighter +than yourself or than any meaner burden. You lift the world, you +raise the horizon; you give a signal for the distance to stand up. +It is like the scene in the Vatican when a Cardinal, with his +dramatic Italian hands, bids the kneeling groups to arise. He does +more than bid them. He lifts them, he gathers them up, far and +near, with the upward gesture of both arms; he takes them to their +feet with the compulsion of his expressive force. Or it is as when +a conductor takes his players to successive heights of music. You +summon the sea, you bring the mountains, the distances unfold +unlooked-for wings and take an even flight. You are but a man +lifting his weight upon the upward road, but as you climb the circle +of the world goes up to face you. + +Not here or there, but with a definite continuity, the unseen +unfolds. This distant hill outsoars that less distant, but all are +on the wing, and the plain raises its verge. All things follow and +wait upon your eyes. You lift these up, not by the raising of your +eyelids, but by the pilgrimage of your body. "Lift thine eyes to +the mountains." It is then that other mountains lift themselves to +your human eyes. + +It is the law whereby the eye and the horizon answer one another +that makes the way up a hill so full of universal movement. All the +landscape is on pilgrimage. The town gathers itself closer, and its +inner harbours literally come to light; the headlands repeat +themselves; little cups within the treeless hills open and show +their farms. In the sea are many regions. A breeze is at play for +a mile or two, and the surface is turned. There are roads and +curves in the blue and in the white. Not a step of your journey up +the height that has not its replies in the steady motion of land and +sea. Things rise together like a flock of many-feathered birds. + +But it is the horizon, more than all else, you have come in search +of. That is your chief companion on your way. It is to uplift the +horizon to the equality of your sight that you go high. You give it +a distance worthy of the skies. There is no distance, except the +distance in the sky, to be seen from the level earth; but from the +height is to be seen the distance of this world. The line is sent +back into the remoteness of light, the verge is removed beyond +verge, into a distance that is enormous and minute. + +So delicate and so slender is the distant horizon that nothing less +near than Queen Mab and her chariot can equal its fineness. Here on +the edges of the eyelids, or there on the edges of the world--we +know no other place for things so exquisitely made, so thin, so +small and tender. The touches of her passing, as close as dreams, +or the utmost vanishing of the forest or the ocean in the white +light between the earth and the air; nothing else is quite so +intimate and fine. The extremities of a mountain view have just +such tiny touches as the closeness of closed eyes shuts in. + +On the horizon is the sweetest light. Elsewhere colour mars the +simplicity of light; but there colour is effaced, not as men efface +it, by a blur or darkness, but by mere light. The bluest sky +disappears on that shining edge; there is not substance enough for +colour. The rim of the hill, of the woodland, of the meadow-land, +of the sea--let it only be far enough--has the same absorption of +colour; and even the dark things drawn upon the bright edges of the +sky are lucid, the light is among them, and they are mingled with +it. The horizon has its own way of making bright the pencilled +figures of forests, which are black but luminous. + +On the horizon, moreover, closes the long perspective of the sky. +There you perceive that an ordinary sky of clouds--not a thunder +sky--is not a wall but the underside of a floor. You see the clouds +that repeat each other grow smaller by distance; and you find a new +unity in the sky and earth that gather alike the great lines of +their designs to the same distant close. There is no longer an +alien sky, tossed up in unintelligible heights above a world that is +subject to intelligible perspective. + +Of all the things that London has foregone, the most to be regretted +is the horizon. Not the bark of the trees in its right colour; not +the spirit of the growing grass, which has in some way escaped from +the parks; not the smell of the earth unmingled with the odour of +soot; but rather the mere horizon. No doubt the sun makes a +beautiful thing of the London smoke at times, and in some places of +the sky; but not there, not where the soft sharp distance ought to +shine. To be dull there is to put all relations and comparisons in +the wrong, and to make the sky lawless. + +A horizon dark with storm is another thing. The weather darkens the +line and defines it, or mingles it with the raining cloud; or softly +dims it, or blackens it against a gleam of narrow sunshine in the +sky. The stormy horizon will take wing, and the sunny. Go high +enough, and you can raise the light from beyond the shower, and the +shadow from behind the ray. Only the shapeless and lifeless smoke +disobeys and defeats the summer of the eyes. + +Up at the top of the seaward hill your first thought is one of some +compassion for sailors, inasmuch as they see but little of their +sea. A child on a mere Channel cliff looks upon spaces and sizes +that they cannot see in the Pacific, on the ocean side of the world. +Never in the solitude of the blue water, never between the Cape of +Good Hope and Cape Horn, never between the Islands and the West, has +the seaman seen anything but a little circle of sea. The Ancient +Mariner, when he was alone, did but drift through a thousand narrow +solitudes. The sailor has nothing but his mast, indeed. And but +for his mast he would be isolated in as small a world as that of a +traveller through the plains. + +Round the plains the horizon lies with folded wings. It keeps them +so perpetually for man, and opens them only for the bird, replying +to flight with flight. + +A close circlet of waves is the sailor's famous offing. His offing +hardly deserves the name of horizon. To hear him you might think +something of his offing, but you do not so when you sit down in the +centre of it. + +As the upspringing of all things at your going up the heights, so +steady, so swift, is the subsidence at your descent. The further +sea lies away, hill folds down behind hill. The whole upstanding +world, with its looks serene and alert, its distant replies, its +signals of many miles, its signs and communications of light, +gathers down and pauses. This flock of birds which is the mobile +landscape wheels and goes to earth. The Cardinal weighs down the +audience with his downward hands. Farewell to the most delicate +horizon. + + + +HABITS AND CONSCIOUSNESS + + + +Education might do somewhat to control the personal habits for which +ungenerous observant men are inclined to dislike one another. It +has done little. As to literature, this has had the most curiously +diverse influence upon the human sensitiveness to habit. Tolstoi's +perception of habits is keener than a child's, and he takes them +uneasily, as a child does not. He holds them to be the occasion, if +not the cause, of hatred. Anna Karenina, as she drank her coffee, +knew that her sometime lover was dreading to hear her swallow it, +and was hating the crooking of her little finger as she held her +cup. It is impossible to live in a world of habits with such an +apprehension of habits as this. + +It is no wonder that Tolstoi denies to other men unconsciousness, +and even preoccupation. With him perception never lapses, and he +will not describe a murderer as rapt away by passion from the +details of the room and the observation of himself; nor will he +represent a theologian as failing--even while he thinks out and +decides the question of his faith--to note the things that arrest +his present and unclouded eyes. No habits would dare to live under +those glances. They must die of dismay. + +Tolstoi sees everything that is within sight. That he sees this +multitude of things with invincible simplicity is what proves him an +artist; nevertheless, for such perception as his there is no peace. +For when it is not the trivialities of other men's habits but the +actualities of his own mind that he follows without rest, for him +there is no possible peace but sleep. To him, more than to all +others, it has been said, "Watch!" There is no relapse, there is no +respite but sleep or death. + +To such a mind every night must come with an overwhelming change, a +release too great for gratitude. What a falling to sleep! What a +manumission, what an absolution! Consciousness and conscience set +free from the exacted instant replies of the unrelapsing day. And +at the awakening all is ready yet once more, and apprehension begins +again: a perpetual presence of mind. + +Dr. Johnson was "absent." No man of "absent" mind is without some +hourly deliverance. It is on the present mind that presses the +burden of the present world. + + + +SHADOWS + + + +Another good reason that we ought to leave blank, unvexed, and +unencumbered with paper patterns the ceiling and walls of a simple +house is that the plain surface may be visited by the unique designs +of shadows. The opportunity is so fine a thing that it ought +oftener to be offered to the light and to yonder handful of long +sedges and rushes in a vase. Their slender grey design of shadows +upon white walls is better than a tedious, trivial, or anxious +device from the shop. + +The shadow has all intricacies of perspective simply translated into +line and intersecting curve, and pictorially presented to the eyes, +not to the mind. The shadow knows nothing except its flat designs. +It is single; it draws a decoration that was never seen before, and +will never be seen again, and that, untouched, varies with the +journey of the sun, shifts the interrelation of a score of delicate +lines at the mere passing of time, though all the room be +motionless. Why will design insist upon its importunate +immortality? Wiser is the drama, and wiser the dance, that do not +pause upon an attitude. But these walk with passion or pleasure, +while the shadow walks with the earth. It alters as the hours +wheel. + +Moreover, while the habit of your sunward thoughts is still flowing +southward, after the winter and the spring, it surprises you in the +sudden gleam of a north-westering sun. It decks a new wall; it is +shed by a late sunset through a window unvisited for a year past; it +betrays the flitting of the sun into unwonted skies--a sun that +takes the midsummer world in the rear, and shows his head at a +sally-porte, and is about to alight on an unused horizon. So does +the grey drawing, with which you have allowed the sun and your pot +of rushes to adorn your room, play the stealthy game of the year. + +You need not stint yourself of shadows, for an occasion. It needs +but four candles to make a hanging Oriental bell play the most +buoyant jugglery overhead. Two lamps make of one palm-branch a +symmetrical countercharge of shadows, and here two palm-branches +close with one another in shadow, their arches flowing together, and +their paler greys darkening. It is hard to believe that there are +many to prefer a "repeating pattern." + +It must be granted to them that a grey day robs of their decoration +the walls that should be sprinkled with shadows. Let, then, a +plaque or a picture be kept for hanging on shadowless clays. To +dress a room once for all, and to give it no more heed, is to +neglect the units of the days. + +Shadows within doors are yet only messages from that world of +shadows which is the landscape of sunshine. Facing a May sun you +see little except an infinite number of shadows. Atoms of shadow-- +be the day bright enough--compose the very air through which you see +the light. The trees show you a shadow for every leaf, and the +poplars are sprinkled upon the shining sky with little shadows that +look translucent. The liveliness of every shadow is that some light +is reflected into it; shade and shine have been entangled as though +by some wild wind through their million molecules. + +The coolness and the dark of night are interlocked with the +unclouded sun. Turn sunward from the north, and shadows come to +life, and are themselves the life, the action, and the transparence +of their day. + +To eyes tired and retired all day within lowered blinds, the light +looks still and changeless. So many squares of sunshine abide for +so many hours, and when the sun has circled away they pass and are +extinguished. Him who lies alone there the outer world touches less +by this long sunshine than by the haste and passage of a shadow. +Although there may be no tree to stand between his window and the +south, and although no noonday wind may blow a branch of roses +across the blind, shadows and their life will be carried across by a +brilliant bird. + +To the sick man a cloud-shadow is nothing but an eclipse; he cannot +see its shape, its color, its approach, or its flight. It does but +darken his window as it darkens the day, and is gone again; he does +not see it pluck and snatch the sun. But the flying bird shows him +wings. What flash of light could be more bright for him than such a +flash of darkness? + +It is the pulse of life, where all change had seemed to be charmed. +If he had seen the bird itself he would have seen less--the bird's +shadow was a message from the sun. + +There are two separated flights for the fancy to follow, the flight +of the bird in the air, and the flight of its shadow on earth. This +goes across the window blind, across the wood, where it is astray +for a while in the shades; it dips into the valley, growing vaguer +and larger, runs, quicker than the wind, uphill, smaller and darker +on the soft and dry grass, and rushes to meet its bird when the bird +swoops to a branch and clings. + +In the great bird country of the north-eastern littoral of England, +about Holy Island and the basaltic rocks, the shadows of the high +birds are the movement and the pulse of the solitude. Where there +are no woods to make a shade, the sun suffers the brilliant eclipse +of flocks of pearl-white sea birds, or of the solitary creature +driving on the wind. Theirs is always a surprise of flight. The +clouds go one way, but the birds go all ways: in from the sea or +out, across the sands, inland to high northern fields, where the +crops are late by a month. They fly so high that though they have +the shadow of the sun under their wings, they have the light of the +earth there also. The waves and the coast shine up to them, and +they fly between lights. + +Black flocks and white they gather their delicate shadows up, "swift +as dreams," at the end of their flight into the clefts, platforms, +and ledges of harbourless rocks dominating the North Sea. They +subside by degrees, with lessening and shortening volleys of wings +and cries until there comes the general shadow of night wherewith +the little shadows close, complete. + +The evening is the shadow of another flight. All the birds have +traced wild and innumerable paths across the mid-May earth; their +shadows have fled all day faster than her streams, and have +overtaken all the movement of her wingless creatures. But now it is +the flight of the very earth that carries her clasped shadow from +the sun. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} I found it afterwards: it was Rebecca. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of The Spirit of Place by Alice Meynell + diff --git a/old/sptpl10.zip b/old/sptpl10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b53e30 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sptpl10.zip |