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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.07.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by David Widger, < widger@cecomet.net > + + + + + +STUDIES AND ESSAYS + +BY JOHN GALSWORTHY + + + "Je vous dirai que l'exces est toujours un mal." + -ANATOLE FRANCE + + + + + + CONCERNING LIFE + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS: + QUALITY + THE GRAND JURY + GONE + THRESHING + THAT OLD-TIME PLACE + ROMANCE--THREE GLEAMS + MEMORIES + FELICITY + + + + +QUALITY + +I knew him from the days of my extreme youth, because he made my +father's boots; inhabiting with his elder brother two little shops +let into one, in a small by-street-now no more, but then most +fashionably placed in the West End. + +That tenement had a certain quiet distinction; there was no sign upon +its face that he made for any of the Royal Family--merely his own +German name of Gessler Brothers; and in the window a few pairs of +boots. I remember that it always troubled me to account for those +unvarying boots in the window, for he made only what was ordered, +reaching nothing down, and it seemed so inconceivable that what he +made could ever have failed to fit. Had he bought them to put there? +That, too, seemed inconceivable. He would never have tolerated in +his house leather on which he had not worked himself. Besides, they +were too beautiful--the pair of pumps, so inexpressibly slim, the +patent leathers with cloth tops, making water come into one's mouth, +the tall brown riding boots with marvellous sooty glow, as if, though +new, they had been worn a hundred years. Those pairs could only have +been made by one who saw before him the Soul of Boot--so truly were +they prototypes incarnating the very spirit of all foot-gear. These +thoughts, of course, came to me later, though even when I was +promoted to him, at the age of perhaps fourteen, some inkling haunted +me of the dignity of himself and brother. For to make boots--such +boots as he made--seemed to me then, and still seems to me, +mysterious and wonderful. + +I remember well my shy remark, one day, while stretching out to him +my youthful foot: + +"Isn't it awfully hard to do, Mr. Gessler?" + +And his answer, given with a sudden smile from out of the sardonic +redness of his beard: "Id is an Ardt!" + +Himself, he was a little as if made from leather, with his yellow +crinkly face, and crinkly reddish hair and beard; and neat folds +slanting down his cheeks to the corners of his mouth, and his +guttural and one-toned voice; for leather is a sardonic substance, +and stiff and slow of purpose. And that was the character of his +face, save that his eyes, which were grey-blue, had in them the +simple gravity of one secretly possessed by the Ideal. His elder +brother was so very like him--though watery, paler in every way, with +a great industry--that sometimes in early days I was not quite sure +of him until the interview was over. Then I knew that it was he, if +the words, "I will ask my brudder," had not been spoken; and that, if +they had, it was his elder brother. + +When one grew old and wild and ran up bills, one somehow never ran +them up with Gessler Brothers. It would not have seemed becoming to +go in there and stretch out one's foot to that blue iron-spectacled +glance, owing him for more than--say--two pairs, just the comfortable +reassurance that one was still his client. + +For it was not possible to go to him very often--his boots lasted +terribly, having something beyond the temporary--some, as it were, +essence of boot stitched into them. + +One went in, not as into most shops, in the mood of: "Please serve +me, and let me go!" but restfully, as one enters a church; and, +sitting on the single wooden chair, waited--for there was never +anybody there. Soon, over the top edge of that sort of well--rather +dark, and smelling soothingly of leather--which formed the shop, +there would be seen his face, or that of his elder brother, peering +down. A guttural sound, and the tip-tap of bast slippers beating the +narrow wooden stairs, and he would stand before one without coat, a +little bent, in leather apron, with sleeves turned back, blinking--as +if awakened from some dream of boots, or like an owl surprised in +daylight and annoyed at this interruption. + +And I would say: "How do you do, Mr. Gessler? Could you make me a +pair of Russia leather boots?" + +Without a word he would leave me, retiring whence he came, or into +the other portion of the shop, and I would, continue to rest in the +wooden chair, inhaling the incense of his trade. Soon he would come +back, holding in his thin, veined hand a piece of gold-brown leather. +With eyes fixed on it, he would remark: "What a beaudiful biece!" +When I, too, had admired it, he would speak again. "When do you wand +dem?" And I would answer: "Oh! As soon as you conveniently can." +And he would say: "To-morrow fordnighd?" Or if he were his elder +brother: "I will ask my brudder!" + +Then I would murmur: "Thank you! Good-morning, Mr. Gessler." "Goot- +morning!" he would reply, still looking at the leather in his hand. +And as I moved to the door, I would hear the tip-tap of his bast +slippers restoring him, up the stairs, to his dream of boots. But if +it were some new kind of foot-gear that he had not yet made me, then +indeed he would observe ceremony--divesting me of my boot and holding +it long in his hand, looking at it with eyes at once critical and +loving, as if recalling the glow with which he had created it, and +rebuking the way in which one had disorganized this masterpiece. +Then, placing my foot on a piece of paper, he would two or three +times tickle the outer edges with a pencil and pass his nervous +fingers over my toes, feeling himself into the heart of my +requirements. + +I cannot forget that day on which I had occasion to say to him; "Mr. +Gessler, that last pair of town walking-boots creaked, you know." + +He looked at me for a time without replying, as if expecting me to +withdraw or qualify the statement, then said: + +"Id shouldn'd 'ave greaked." + +"It did, I'm afraid." + +"You goddem wed before dey found demselves?" + +"I don't think so." + +At that he lowered his eyes, as if hunting for memory of those boots, +and I felt sorry I had mentioned this grave thing. + +"Zend dem back!" he said; "I will look at dem." + +A feeling of compassion for my creaking boots surged up in me, so +well could I imagine the sorrowful long curiosity of regard which he +would bend on them. + +"Zome boods," he said slowly, "are bad from birdt. If I can do +noding wid dem, I dake dem off your bill." + +Once (once only) I went absent-mindedly into his shop in a pair of +boots bought in an emergency at some large firm's. He took my order +without showing me any leather, and I could feel his eyes penetrating +the inferior integument of my foot. At last he said: + +"Dose are nod my boods." + +The tone was not one of anger, nor of sorrow, not even of contempt, +but there was in it something quiet that froze the blood. He put his +hand down and pressed a finger on the place where the left boot, +endeavouring to be fashionable, was not quite comfortable. + +"Id 'urds you dere,", he said. "Dose big virms 'ave no self-respect. +Drash!" And then, as if something had given way within him, he spoke +long and bitterly. It was the only time I ever heard him discuss the +conditions and hardships of his trade. + +"Dey get id all," he said, "dey get id by adverdisement, nod by work. +Dey dake it away from us, who lofe our boods. Id gomes to this-- +bresently I haf no work. Every year id gets less you will see." And +looking at his lined face I saw things I had never noticed before, +bitter things and bitter struggle--and what a lot of grey hairs there +seemed suddenly in his red beard! + +As best I could, I explained the circumstances of the purchase of +those ill-omened boots. But his face and voice made so deep +impression that during the next few minutes I ordered many pairs. +Nemesis fell! They lasted more terribly than ever. And I was not +able conscientiously to go to him for nearly two years. + +When at last I went I was surprised to find that outside one of the +two little windows of his shop another name was painted, also that of +a bootmaker-making, of course, for the Royal Family. The old +familiar boots, no longer in dignified isolation, were huddled in the +single window. Inside, the now contracted well of the one little +shop was more scented and darker than ever. And it was longer than +usual, too, before a face peered down, and the tip-tap of the bast +slippers began. At last he stood before me, and, gazing through +those rusty iron spectacles, said: + +"Mr.-----, isn'd it?" + +"Ah! Mr. Gessler," I stammered, "but your boots are really too +good, you know! See, these are quite decent still!" And I stretched +out to him my foot. He looked at it. + +"Yes," he said, "beople do nod wand good hoods, id seems." + +To get away from his reproachful eyes and voice I hastily remarked: +"What have you done to your shop?" + +He answered quietly: "Id was too exbensif. Do you wand some boods?" + +I ordered three pairs, though I had only wanted two, and quickly +left. I had, I do not know quite what feeling of being part, in his +mind, of a conspiracy against him; or not perhaps so much against him +as against his idea of boot. One does not, I suppose, care to feel +like that; for it was again many months before my next visit to his +shop, paid, I remember, with the feeling: "Oh! well, I can't leave +the old boy--so here goes! Perhaps it'll be his elder brother!" + +For his elder brother, I knew, had not character enough to reproach +me, even dumbly. + +And, to my relief, in the shop there did appear to be his elder +brother, handling a piece of leather. + +"Well, Mr. Gessler," I said, "how are you?" + +He came close, and peered at me. + +"I am breddy well," he said slowly "but my elder brudder is dead." + +And I saw that it was indeed himself--but how aged and wan! And +never before had I heard him mention his brother. Much shocked; +I murmured: "Oh! I am sorry!" + +"Yes," he answered, "he was a good man, he made a good bood; but he +is dead." And he touched the top of his head, where the hair had +suddenly gone as thin as it had been on that of his poor brother, to +indicate, I suppose, the cause of death. "He could nod ged over +losing de oder shop. Do you wand any hoods?" And he held up the +leather in his hand: "Id's a beaudiful biece." + +I ordered several pairs. It was very long before they came--but they +were better than ever. One simply could not wear them out. And soon +after that I went abroad. + +It was over a year before I was again in London. And the first shop +I went to was my old friend's. I had left a man of sixty, I came +back to one of seventy-five, pinched and worn and tremulous, who +genuinely, this time, did not at first know me. + +"Oh! Mr. Gessler," I said, sick at heart; "how splendid your boots +are! See, I've been wearing this pair nearly all the time I've been +abroad; and they're not half worn out, are they?" + +He looked long at my boots--a pair of Russia leather, and his face +seemed to regain steadiness. Putting his hand on my instep, he said: + +"Do dey vid you here? I 'ad drouble wid dat bair, I remember." + +I assured him that they had fitted beautifully. + +"Do you wand any boods?" he said. "I can make dem quickly; id is a +slack dime." + +I answered: "Please, please! I want boots all round--every kind!" + +"I will make a vresh model. Your food must be bigger." And with +utter slowness, he traced round my foot, and felt my toes, only once +looking up to say: + +"Did I dell you my brudder was dead?" + +To watch him was painful, so feeble had he grown; I was glad to get +away. + +I had given those boots up, when one evening they came. Opening the +parcel, I set the four pairs out in a row. Then one by one I tried +them on. There was no doubt about it. In shape and fit, in finish +and quality of leather, they were the best he had ever made me. And +in the mouth of one of the Town walking-boots I found his bill. + +The amount was the same as usual, but it gave me quite a shock. He +had never before sent it in till quarter day. I flew down-stairs, +and wrote a cheque, and posted it at once with my own hand. + +A week later, passing the little street, I thought I would go in and +tell him how splendidly the new boots fitted. But when I came to +where his shop had been, his name was gone. Still there, in the +window, were the slim pumps, the patent leathers with cloth tops, the +sooty riding boots. + +I went in, very much disturbed. In the two little shops--again made +into one--was a young man with an English face. + +"Mr. Gessler in?" I said. + +He gave me a strange, ingratiating look. + +"No, sir," he said, "no. But we can attend to anything with +pleasure. We've taken the shop over. You've seen our name, no +doubt, next door. We make for some very good people." + +"Yes, Yes," I said; "but Mr. Gessler?" + +"Oh!" he answered; "dead." + +"Dead! But I only received these boots from him last Wednesday +week." + +"Ah!" he said; "a shockin' go. Poor old man starved 'imself." + +"Good God!" + +"Slow starvation, the doctor called it! You see he went to work in +such a way! Would keep the shop on; wouldn't have a soul touch his +boots except himself. When he got an order, it took him such a time. +People won't wait. He lost everybody. And there he'd sit, goin' on +and on--I will say that for him not a man in London made a better +boot! But look at the competition! He never advertised! Would 'ave +the best leather, too, and do it all 'imself. Well, there it is. +What could you expect with his ideas?" + +"But starvation----!" + +"That may be a bit flowery, as the sayin' is--but I know myself he +was sittin' over his boots day and night, to the very last. You see +I used to watch him. Never gave 'imself time to eat; never had a +penny in the house. All went in rent and leather. How he lived so +long I don't know. He regular let his fire go out. He was a +character. But he made good boots." + +"Yes," I said, "he made good boots." + +And I turned and went out quickly, for I did not want that youth to +know that I could hardly see. + +1911 + + + + + + + + +THE GRAND JURY--IN TWO PANELS AND A FRAME + + +Read that piece of paper, which summoned me to sit on the Grand Jury +at the approaching Sessions, lying in a scoop of the shore close to +the great rollers of the sea--that span of eternal freedom, deprived +just there of too great liberty by the word "Atlantic." And I +remember thinking, as I read, that in each breaking wave was some +particle which had visited every shore in all the world--that in each +sparkle of hot sunlight stealing that bright water up into the sky, +was the microcosm of all change, and of all unity. + + +PANEL I + +In answer to that piece of paper, I presented myself at the proper +place in due course and with a certain trepidation. What was it that +I was about to do? For I had no experience of these things. And, +being too early, I walked a little to and fro, looking at all those +my partners in this matter of the purification of Society. +Prosecutors, witnesses, officials, policemen, detectives, undetected, +pressmen, barristers, loafers, clerks, cadgers, jurymen. And I +remember having something of the feeling that one has when one looks +into a sink without holding one's nose. There was such uneasy hurry, +so strange a disenchanted look, a sort of spiritual dirt, about all +that place, and there were--faces! And I thought: To them my face +must seem as their faces seem to me! + +Soon I was taken with my accomplices to have my name called, and to +be sworn. I do not remember much about that process, too occupied +with wondering what these companions of mine were like; but presently +we all came to a long room with a long table, where nineteen lists of +indictments and nineteen pieces of blotting paper were set alongside +nineteen pens. We did not, I recollect, speak much to one another, +but sat down, and studied those nineteen lists. We had eighty-seven +cases on which to pronounce whether the bill was true or no; and the +clerk assured us we should get through them in two days at most. +Over the top of these indictments I regarded my eighteen fellows. +There was in me a hunger of inquiry, as to what they thought about +this business; and a sort of sorrowful affection for them, as if we +were all a ship's company bound on some strange and awkward +expedition. I wondered, till I thought my wonder must be coming +through my eyes, whether they had the same curious sensation that I +was feeling, of doing something illegitimate, which I had not been +born to do, together with a sense of self-importance, a sort of +unholy interest in thus dealing with the lives of my fellow men. And +slowly, watching them, I came to the conclusion that I need not +wonder. All with the exception perhaps of two, a painter and a Jew +looked such good citizens. I became gradually sure that they were +not troubled with the lap and wash of speculation; unclogged by any +devastating sense of unity; pure of doubt, and undefiled by an uneasy +conscience. + +But now they began to bring us in the evidence. They brought it +quickly. And at first we looked at it, whatever it was, with a sort +of solemn excitement. Were we not arbiters of men's fates, purifiers +of Society, more important by far than Judge or Common Jury? For if +we did not bring in a true bill there was an end; the accused would +be discharged. + +We set to work, slowly at first, then faster and still faster, +bringing in true bills; and after every one making a mark in our +lists so that we might know where we were. We brought in true bills +for burglary, and false pretences, larceny, and fraud; we brought +them in for manslaughter, rape, and arson. When we had ten or so, +two of us would get up and bear them away down to the Court below and +lay them before the Judge. "Thank you, gentlemen!" he would say, or +words to that effect; and we would go up again, and go on bringing in +true bills. I noticed that at the evidence of each fresh bill we +looked with a little less excitement, and a little less solemnity, +making every time a shorter tick and a shorter note in the margin of +our lists. All the bills we had--fifty-seven--we brought in true. +And the morning and the afternoon made that day, till we rested and +went to our homes. + +Next day we were all back in our places at the appointed hour, and, +not greeting each other much, at once began to bring in bills. We +brought them in, not quite so fast, as though some lurking megrim, +some microbe of dissatisfaction with ourselves was at work within us. +It was as if we wanted to throw one out, as if we felt our work too +perfect. And presently it came. A case of defrauding one Sophie +Liebermann, or Laubermann, or some such foreign name, by giving her +one of those five-pound Christmas-card banknotes just then in +fashion, and receiving from her, as she alleged, three real +sovereigns change. There was a certain piquancy about the matter, +and I well remember noticing how we sat a little forward and turned +in our seats when they brought in the prosecutrix to give evidence. +Pale, self-possessed, dressed in black, and rather comely, neither +brazen nor furtive, speaking but poor English, her broad, matter-of- +fact face, with its wide-set grey eyes and thickish nose and lips, +made on me, I recollect, an impression of rather stupid honesty. I +do not think they had told us in so many words what her calling was, +nor do I remember whether she actually disclosed it, but by our +demeanour I could tell that we had all realized what was the nature +of the service rendered to the accused, in return for which he had +given her this worthless note. In her rather guttural but pleasant +voice she answered all our questions--not very far from tears, I +think, but saved by native stolidity, and perhaps a little by the +fear that purifiers of Society might not be the proper audience for +emotion. When she had left us we recalled the detective, and still, +as it were, touching the delicate matter with the tips of our +tongues, so as not, being men of the world, to seem biassed against +anything, we definitely elicited from him her profession and these +words: "If she's speaking the truth, gentlemen; but, as you know, +these women, they don't always, specially the foreign ones!" When +he, too, had gone, we looked at each other in unwonted silence. None +of us quite liked, it seemed, to be first to speak. Then our foreman +said: "There's no doubt, I think, that he gave her the note--mean +trick, of course, but we can't have him on that alone--bit too +irregular--no consideration in law, I take it." + +He smiled a little at our smiles, and then went on: "The question, +gentlemen, really seems to be, are we to take her word that she +actually gave him change?" Again, for quite half a minute; we were +silent, and then, the fattest one of us said, suddenly: "Very +dangerous--goin' on the word of these women." + +And at once, as if he had released something in our souls, we all +(save two or three) broke out. It wouldn't do! It wasn't safe! +Seeing what these women were! It was exactly as if, without word +said, we had each been swearing the other to some secret compact to +protect Society. As if we had been whispering to each other +something like this: "These women--of course, we need them, but for +all that we can't possibly recognise them as within the Law; we can't +do that without endangering the safety of every one of us. In this +matter we are trustees for all men--indeed, even for ourselves, for +who knows at what moment we might not ourselves require their +services, and it would be exceedingly awkward if their word were +considered the equal of our own!" Not one of us, certainly said +anything so crude as this; none the less did many of us feel it. +Then the foreman, looking slowly round the table, said: "Well, +gentlemen, I think we are all agreed to throw out this bill"; and +all, except the painter, the Jew, and one other, murmured: "Yes." +And, as though, in throwing out this bill we had cast some trouble +off our minds, we went on with the greater speed, bringing in true +bills. About two o'clock we finished, and trooped down to the Court +to be released. On the stairway the Jew came close, and, having +examined me a little sharply with his velvety slits of eyes, as if to +see that he was not making a mistake, said: "Ith fonny--we bring in +eighty thix bills true, and one we throw out, and the one we throw +out we know it to be true, and the dirtieth job of the whole lot. +Ith fonny!" "Yes," I answered him, "our sense of respectability does +seem excessive." But just then we reached the Court, where, in his +red robe and grey wig, with his clear-cut, handsome face, the judge +seemed to shine and radiate, like sun through gloom. "I thank you, +gentlemen," he said, in a voice courteous and a little mocking, as +though he had somewhere seen us before: "I thank you for the way in +which you have performed your duties. I have not the pleasure of +assigning to you anything for your services except the privilege of +going over a prison, where you will be able to see what sort of +existence awaits many of those to whose cases you have devoted so +much of your valuable time. You are released, gentlemen." + +Looking at each, other a little hurriedly, and not taking too much +farewell, for fear of having to meet again, we separated. + +I was, then, free--free of the injunction of that piece of paper +reposing in my pocket. Yet its influence was still upon me. I did +not hurry away, but lingered in the courts, fascinated by the notion +that the fate of each prisoner had first passed through my hands. At +last I made an effort, and went out into the corridor. There I +passed a woman whose figure seemed familiar. She was sitting with +her hands in her lap looking straight before her, pale-faced and not +uncomely, with thickish mouth and nose--the woman whose bill we had +thrown out. Why was she sitting there? Had she not then realised +that we had quashed her claim; or was she, like myself, kept here by +mere attraction of the Law? Following I know not what impulse, I +said: "Your case was dismissed, wasn't it?" She looked up at me +stolidly, and a tear, which had evidently been long gathering, +dropped at the movement. "I do nod know; I waid to see," she said in +her thick voice; "I tink there has been mistake." My face, no doubt, +betrayed something of my sentiments about her case, for the thick +tears began rolling fast down her pasty cheeks, and her pent-up +feeling suddenly flowed forth in words: "I work 'ard; Gott! how I +work hard! And there gomes dis liddle beastly man, and rob me. And +they say: 'Ah! yes; but you are a bad woman, we don' trust you--you +speak lie.' But I speak druth, I am nod a bad woman--I gome from +Hamburg." "Yes, yes," I murmured; "yes, yes." "I do not know this +country well, sir. I speak bad English. Is that why they do not +drust my word?" She was silent for a moment, searching my face, then +broke out again: "It is all 'ard work in my profession, I make very +liddle, I cannot afford to be rob. Without the men I cannod make my +living, I must drust them--and they rob me like this, it is too +'ard." And the slow tears rolled faster and faster from her eyes on +to her hands and her black lap. Then quietly, and looking for a +moment singularly like a big, unhappy child, she asked: "Will you +blease dell me, sir, why they will not give me the law of that dirty +little man?" + +I knew--and too well; but I could not tell her. + +"You see," I said, "it's just a case of your word against his." "Oh! +no; but," she said eagerly, "he give me the note--I would not have +taken it if I 'ad not thought it good, would I? That is sure, isn't +it? But five pounds it is not my price. It must that I give 'im +change! Those gentlemen that heard my case, they are men of +business, they must know that it is not my price. If I could tell +the judge--I think he is a man of business too he would know that +too, for sure. I am not so young. I am not so veree beautiful as +all that; he must see, mustn't he, sir?" + +At my wits' end how to answer that most strange question, I stammered +out: "But, you know, your profession is outside the law." + +At that a slow anger dyed her face. She looked down; then, suddenly +lifting one of her dirty, ungloved hands, she laid it on her breast +with the gesture of one baring to me the truth in her heart. "I am +not a bad woman," she said: "Dat beastly little man, he do the same +as me--I am free-woman, I am not a slave bound to do the same to- +morrow night, no more than he. Such like him make me what I am; he +have all the pleasure, I have all the work. He give me noding--he +rob my poor money, and he make me seem to strangers a bad woman. Oh, +dear! I am not happy!" + +The impulse I had been having to press on her the money, died within +me; I felt suddenly it would be another insult. From the movement of +her fingers about her heart I could not but see that this grief of +hers was not about the money. It was the inarticulate outburst of a +bitter sense of deep injustice; of all the dumb wondering at her own +fate that went about with her behind that broad stolid face and +bosom. This loss of the money was but a symbol of the furtive, +hopeless insecurity she lived with day and night, now forced into the +light, for herself and all the world to see. She felt it suddenly a +bitter, unfair thing. This beastly little man did not share her +insecurity. None of us shared it--none of us, who had brought her +down to this. And, quite unable to explain to her how natural and +proper it all was, I only murmured: "I am sorry, awfully sorry," and +fled away. + + + +PANEL II + +It was just a week later when, having for passport my Grand Jury +summons, I presented myself at that prison where we had the privilege +of seeing the existence to which we had assisted so many of the +eighty-six. + +"I'm afraid," I said to the guardian of the gate, "that I am rather +late in availing myself--the others, no doubt----?" + +"Not at all, sir," he said, smiling. "You're the first, and if +you'll excuse me, I think you'll be the last. Will you wait in here +while I send for the chief warder to take you over?" + +He showed me then to what he called the Warder's Library--an iron- +barred room, more bare and brown than any I had seen since I left +school. While I stood there waiting and staring out into the prison +court-yard, there came, rolling and rumbling in, a Black Maria. It +drew up with a clatter, and I saw through the barred door the single +prisoner--a young girl of perhaps eighteen--dressed in rusty black. +She was resting her forehead against a bar and looking out, her +quick, narrow dark eyes taking in her new surroundings with a sort of +sharp, restless indifference; and her pale, thin-upped, oval face +quite expressionless. Behind those bars she seemed to me for all the +world like a little animal of the cat tribe being brought in to her +Zoo. Me she did not see, but if she had I felt she would not shrink- +-only give me the same sharp, indifferent look she was giving all +else. The policeman on the step behind had disappeared at once, and +the driver now got down from his perch and, coming round, began to +gossip with her. I saw her slink her eyes and smile at him, and he +smiled back; a large man; not unkindly. Then he returned to his +horses, and she stayed as before, with her forehead against the bars, +just staring out. Watching her like that, unseen, I seemed to be +able to see right through that tight-lipped, lynx-eyed mask. I +seemed to know that little creature through and through, as one knows +anything that one surprises off its guard, sunk in its most private +moods. I seemed to see her little restless, furtive, utterly unmoral +soul, so stripped of all defence, as if she had taken it from her +heart and handed it out to me. I saw that she was one of those whose +hands slip as indifferently into others' pockets as into their own; +incapable of fidelity, and incapable of trusting; quick as cats, and +as devoid of application; ready to scratch, ready to purr, ready to +scratch again; quick to change, and secretly as unchangeable as a +little pebble. And I thought: "Here we are, taking her to the Zoo +(by no means for the first time, if demeanour be any guide), and we +shall put her in a cage, and make her sew, and give her good books +which she will not read; and she will sew, and walk up and down, +until we let her out; then she will return to her old haunts, and at +once go prowling and do exactly the same again, what ever it was, +until we catch her and lock her up once more. And in this way we +shall goon purifying Society until she dies. And I thought: If +indeed she had been created cat in body as well as in soul, we should +not have treated her thus, but should have said: 'Go on, little cat, +you scratch us sometimes, you steal often, you are as sensual as the +night. All this we cannot help. It is your nature. So were you +made--we know you cannot change--you amuse us! Go on, little cat!' +Would it not then be better, and less savoury of humbug if we said +the same to her whose cat-soul has chanced into this human shape? +For assuredly she will but pilfer, and scratch a little, and be +mildly vicious, in her little life, and do no desperate harm, having +but poor capacity for evil behind that petty, thin-upped mask. What +is the good of all this padlock business for such as she; are we not +making mountains out of her mole hills? Where is our sense of +proportion, and our sense of humour? Why try to alter the make and +shape of Nature with our petty chisels? Or, if we must take care of +her, to save ourselves, in the name of Heaven let us do it in a +better way than this! And suddenly I remembered that I was a Grand +Juryman, a purifier of Society, who had brought her bill in true; +and, that I might not think these thoughts unworthy of a good +citizen, I turned my eyes away from her and took up my list of +indictments. Yes, there she was, at least so I decided: Number 42, +"Pilson, Jenny: Larceny, pocket-picking. " And I turned my memory +back to the evidence about her case, but I could not remember a +single word. In the margin I had noted: "Incorrigible from a child +up; bad surroundings. And a mad impulse came over me to go back to +my window and call through the bars to her: "Jenny Pilson! Jenny +Pilson! It was I who bred you and surrounded you with evil! It was +I who caught you for being what I made you! I brought your bill in +true! I judged you, and I caged you! Jenny Pilson! Jenny Pilson!" +But just as I reached the window, the door of my waiting-room was +fortunately opened, and a voice said: "Now, sir; at your service!"... + +I sat again in that scoop of the shore by the long rolling seas, +burying in the sand the piece of paper which had summoned me away to +my Grand Jury; and the same thoughts came to me with the breaking of +the waves that had come to me before: How, in every wave was a +particle that had known the shore of every land; and in each sparkle +of the hot sunlight stealing up that bright water into the sky, the +microcosm of all change and of all unity! + +1912. + + + + + + + + +GONE + +Not possible to conceive of rarer beauty than that which clung about +the summer day three years ago when first we had the news of the poor +Herds. Loveliness was a net of golden filaments in which the world +was caught. It was gravity itself, so tranquil; and it was a sort of +intoxicating laughter. From the top field that we crossed to go down +to their cottage, all the far sweep of those outstretched wings of +beauty could be seen. Very wonderful was the poise of the sacred +bird, that moved nowhere but in our hearts. The lime-tree scent was +just stealing out into air for some days already bereft of the scent +of hay; and the sun was falling to his evening home behind our pines +and beeches. It was no more than radiant warm. And, as we went, we +wondered why we had not been told before that Mrs. Herd was so very +ill. It was foolish to wonder--these people do not speak of +suffering till it is late. To speak, when it means what this meant +loss of wife and mother--was to flatter reality too much. To be +healthy, or--die! That is their creed. To go on till they drop-- +then very soon pass away! What room for states between--on their +poor wage, in their poor cottages? + +We crossed the mill-stream in the hollow--to their white, thatched +dwelling; silent, already awed, almost resentful of this so-varying +Scheme of Things. At the gateway Herd himself was standing, just in +from his work. For work in the country does not wait on illness-- +even death claims from its onlookers but a few hours, birth none at +all, and it is as well; for what must be must, and in work alone man +rests from grief. Sorrow and anxiety had made strange alteration +already in Herd's face. Through every crevice of the rough, stolid +mask the spirit was peeping, a sort of quivering suppliant, that +seemed to ask all the time: "Is it true?" A regular cottager's +figure, this of Herd's--a labourer of these parts--strong, slow, but +active, with just a touch of the untamed somewhere, about the swing +and carriage of him, about the strong jaw, and wide thick-lipped +mouth; just that something independent, which, in great variety, +clings to the natives of these still remote, half-pagan valleys by +the moor. + +We all moved silently to the lee of the outer wall, so that our +voices might not carry up to the sick woman lying there under the +eaves, almost within hand reach. "Yes, sir." "No, sir." "Yes, +ma'am." This, and the constant, unforgettable supplication of his +eyes, was all that came from him; yet he seemed loath to let us go, +as though he thought we had some mysterious power to help him--the +magic, perhaps, of money, to those who have none. Grateful at our +promise of another doctor, a specialist, he yet seemed with his eyes +to say that he knew that such were only embroideries of Fate. And +when we had wrung his hand and gone, we heard him coming after us: +His wife had said she would like to see us, please. Would we come +up? + +An old woman and Mrs. Herd's sister were in the sitting-room; they +showed us to the crazy, narrow stairway. Though we lived distant but +four hundred yards of a crow's flight, we had never seen Mrs. Herd +before, for that is the way of things in this land of minding one's +own business--a slight, dark, girlish-looking woman, almost quite +refined away, and with those eyes of the dying, where the spirit is +coming through, as it only does when it knows that all is over except +just the passing. She lay in a double bed, with clean white sheets. +A white-washed room, so low that the ceiling almost touched our +heads, some flowers in a bowl, the small lattice window open. Though +it was hot in there, it was better far than the rooms of most +families in towns, living on a wage of twice as much; for here was no +sign of defeat in decency or cleanliness. In her face, as in poor +Herd's, was that same strange mingling of resigned despair and almost +eager appeal, so terrible to disappoint. Yet, trying not to +disappoint it, one felt guilty of treachery: What was the good, the +kindness, in making this poor bird flutter still with hope against +the bars, when fast prison had so surely closed in round her? But +what else could we do? We could not give her those glib assurances +that naive souls make so easily to others concerning their after +state. + +Secretly, I think, we knew that her philosophy of calm reality, that +queer and unbidden growing tranquillity which precedes death, was +nearer to our own belief, than would be any gilt-edged orthodoxy; but +nevertheless (such is the strength of what is expected), we felt it +dreadful that we could not console her with the ordinary +presumptions. + +"You mustn't give up hope," we kept on saying: "The new doctor will +do a lot for you; he's a specialist--a very clever man." + +And she kept on answering: "Yes, sir." "Yes, ma'am." But still her +eyes went on asking, as if there were something else she wanted. And +then to one of us came an inspiration: + +"You mustn't let your husband worry about expense. That will be all +right." + +She smiled then, as if the chief cloud on her soul had been the +thought of the arrears her illness and death would leave weighing on +him with whom she had shared this bed ten years and more. And with +that smile warming the memory of those spirit-haunted eyes, we crept +down-stairs again, and out into the fields. + +It was more beautiful than ever, just touched already with evening +mystery--it was better than ever to be alive. And the immortal +wonder that has haunted man since first he became man, and haunts, +I think, even the animals--the unanswerable question,-- why joy and +beauty must ever be walking hand in hand with ugliness and pain +haunted us across those fields of life and loveliness. It was all +right, no doubt, even reasonable, since without dark there is no +light. It was part of that unending sum whose answer is not given; +the merest little swing of the great pendulum! And yet----! +To accept this violent contrast without a sigh of revolt, without a +question! No sirs, it was not so jolly as all that! That she should +be dying there at thirty, of a creeping malady which she might have +checked, perhaps, if she had not had too many things to do for the +children and husband, to do anything for herself--if she had not been +forced to hold the creed: Be healthy, or die! This was no doubt +perfectly explicable and in accordance with the Supreme Equation; yet +we, enjoying life, and health, and ease of money, felt horror and +revolt on, this evening of such beauty. Nor at the moment did we +derive great comfort from the thought that life slips in and out of +sheath, like sun-sparks on water, and that of all the cloud of summer +midges dancing in the last gleam, not one would be alive to-morrow. + +It was three evenings later that we heard uncertain footfalls on the +flagstones of the verandah, then a sort of brushing sound against the +wood of the long, open window. Drawing aside the curtain, one of us +looked out. Herd was standing there in the bright moonlight, +bareheaded, with roughened hair. He came in, and seeming not to know +quite where he went, took stand by the hearth, and putting up his +dark hand, gripped the mantelshelf. Then, as if recollecting +himself, he said: "Gude evenin', sir; beg pardon, M'm." No more for +a full minute; but his hand, taking some little china thing, turned +it over and over without ceasing, and down his broken face tears ran. +Then, very suddenly, he said: "She's gone. "And his hand turned over +and over that little china thing, and the tears went on rolling down. +Then, stumbling, and swaying like a man in drink, he made his way out +again into the moonlight. We watched him across the lawn and path, +and through the gate, till his footfalls died out there in the field, +and his figure was lost in the black shadow of the holly hedge. + +And the night was so beautiful, so utterly, glamourously beautiful, +with its star-flowers, and its silence, and its trees clothed in +moonlight. All was tranquil as a dream of sleep. But it was long +before our hearts, wandering with poor Herd, would let us remember +that she had slipped away into so beautiful a dream. + +The dead do not suffer from their rest in beauty. But the living---! + +1911. + + + + + + + + +THRESHING + +When the drone of the thresher breaks through the autumn sighing of +trees and wind, or through that stillness of the first frost, I get +restless and more restless, till, throwing down my pen, I have gone +out to see. For there is nothing like the sight of threshing for +making one feel good--not in the sense of comfort, but at heart. +There, under the pines and the already leafless elms and beech-trees, +close to the great stacks, is the big, busy creature, with its small +black puffing engine astern; and there, all around it, is that +conglomeration of unsentimental labour which invests all the crises +of farm work with such fascination. The crew of the farm is only +five all told, but to-day they are fifteen, and none strangers, save +the owners of the travelling thresher. + +They are working without respite and with little speech, not at all +as if they had been brought together for the benefit of some one +else's corn, but as though they, one and all, had a private grudge +against Time and a personal pleasure in finishing this job, which, +while it lasts, is bringing them extra pay and most excellent free +feeding. Just as after a dilatory voyage a crew will brace +themselves for the run in, recording with sudden energy their +consciousness of triumph over the elements, so on a farm the harvests +of hay and corn, sheep-shearing, and threshing will bring out in all +a common sentiment, a kind of sporting energy, a defiant spurt, as it +were, to score off Nature; for it is only a philosopher here and +there among them, I think, who sees that Nature is eager to be scored +off in this fashion, being anxious that some one should eat her +kindly fruits. + +With ceremonial as grave as that which is at work within the thresher +itself, the tasks have been divided. At the root of all things, +pitchforking from the stack, stands--the farmer, moustached, and +always upright was he not in the Yeomanry?--dignified in a hard black +hat, no waistcoat, and his working coat so ragged that it would never +cling to him but for pure affection. Between him and the body of the +machine are five more pitch forks, directing the pale flood of raw +material. There, amongst them, is poor Herd, still so sad from his +summer loss, plodding doggedly away. To watch him even now makes one +feel how terrible is that dumb grief which has never learned to moan. +And there is George Yeoford, almost too sober; and Murdon plying his +pitchfork with a supernatural regularity that cannot quite dim his +queer brigand's face of dark, soft gloom shot with sudden humours, +his soft, dark corduroys and battered hat. Occasionally he stops, +and taking off that hat, wipes his corrugated brow under black hair, +and seems to brood over his own regularity. + +Down here, too, where I stand, each separate function of the thresher +has its appointed slave. Here Cedric rakes the chaff pouring from +the side down into the chaff-shed. Carting the straw that streams +from the thresher bows, are Michelmore and Neck--the little man who +cannot read, but can milk and whistle the hearts out of his cows till +they follow him like dogs. At the thresher's stern is Morris, the +driver, selected because of that utter reliability which radiates +from his broad, handsome face. His part is to attend the sacking of +the three kinds of grain for ever sieving out. He murmurs: "Busy +work, sir!" and opens a little door to show me how "the machinery +does it all," holding a sack between his knees and some string in his +white teeth. Then away goes the sack--four bushels, one hundred and +sixty pounds of "genuines, seconds, or seed"--wheeled by Cedric on a +little trolley thing, to where George-the-Gaul or Jim-the-Early-Saxon +is waiting to bear it on his back up the stone steps into the corn- +chamber. + +It has been raining in the night; the ground is a churn of straw and +mud, and the trees still drip; but now there is sunlight, a sweet +air, and clear sky, wine-coloured through the red, naked, beechtwigs +tipped with white untimely buds. Nothing can be more lovely than +this late autumn day, so still, save for the droning of the thresher +and the constant tinny chuckle of the grey, thin-headed Guinea-fowl, +driven by this business away from their usual haunts. + +And soon the, feeling that I knew would come begins creeping over me, +the sense of an extraordinary sanity in this never-ceasing harmonious +labour pursued in the autumn air faintly perfumed with wood-smoke, +with the scent of chaff, and whiffs from that black puffing-Billy; +the sense that there is nothing between this clean toil--not too hard +but hard enough--and the clean consumption of its clean results; the +sense that nobody except myself is in the least conscious of how sane +it all is. The brains of these sane ones are all too busy with the +real affairs of life, the disposition of their wages, anticipation of +dinner, some girl, some junketing, some wager, the last rifle match, +and, more than all, with that pleasant rhythmic nothingness, +companion of the busy swing and play of muscles, which of all states +is secretly most akin to the deep unconsciousness of life itself. +Thus to work in the free air for the good of all and the hurt of +none, without worry or the breath of acrimony--surely no phase of +human life so nears the life of the truly civilised community--the +life of a hive of bees. Not one of these working so sanely--unless +it be Morris, who will spend his Sunday afternoon on some high rock +just watching sunlight and shadow drifting on the moors--not one, I +think, is distraught by perception of his own sanity, by knowledge of +how near he is to Harmony, not even by appreciation of the still +radiance of this day, or its innumerable fine shades of colour. It +is all work, and no moody consciousness--all work, and will end in +sleep. + +I leave them soon, and make my way up the stone steps to the "corn +chamber," where tranquillity is crowned. In the whitewashed room the +corn lies in drifts and ridges, three to four feet deep, all silvery- +dun, like some remote sand desert, lifeless beneath the moon. Here +it lies, and into it, staggering under the sacks, George-the-Gaul and +Jim-the-Early Saxon tramp up to their knees, spill the sacks over +their heads, and out again; and above where their feet have plunged +the patient surface closes again, smooth. And as I stand there in +the doorway, looking at that silvery corn drift, I think of the whole +process, from seed sown to the last sieving into this tranquil +resting-place. I think of the slow, dogged ploughman, with the crows +above him on the wind; of the swing of the sower's arm, dark up +against grey sky on the steep field. I think of the seed snug- +burrowing for safety, and its mysterious ferment under the warm +Spring rain, of the soft green shoots tapering up so shyly toward the +first sun, and hardening in air to thin wiry stalk. I think of the +unnumerable tiny beasts that have jangled in that pale forest; of the +winged blue jewels of butterfly risen from it to hover on the wild- +rustling blades; of that continual music played there by the wind; of +the chicory and poppy flowers that have been its lights-o' love, as +it grew tawny and full of life, before the appointed date when it +should return to its captivity. I think of that slow-travelling hum +and swish which laid it low, of the gathering to stack, and the long +waiting under the rustle and drip of the sheltering trees, until +yesterday the hoot of the thresher blew, and there began the falling +into this dun silvery peace. Here it will lie with the pale sun +narrowly filtering in on it, and by night the pale moon, till slowly, +week by week, it is stolen away, and its ridges and drifts sink and +sink, and the beasts have eaten it all.... + +When the dusk is falling, I go out to them again. They have nearly +finished now; the chaff in the chaff-shed is mounting hillock-high; +only the little barley stack remains unthreshed. Mrs. George-the- +Gaul is standing with a jug to give drink to the tired ones. Some +stars are already netted in the branches of the pines; the Guinea- +fowl are silent. But still the harmonious thresher hums and showers +from three sides the straw, the chaff, the corn; and the men fork, +and rake, and cart, and carry, sleep growing in their muscles, +silence on their tongues, and the tranquillity of the long day nearly +ended in their souls. They will go on till it is quite dark. + +1911. + + + + + + + + +THAT OLD-TIME PLACE + +"Yes, suh--here we are at that old-time place! "And our dark driver +drew up his little victoria gently. + +Through the open doorway, into a dim, cavernous, ruined house of New +Orleans we passed. The mildew and dirt, the dark denuded dankness of +that old hostel, rotting down with damp and time! + +And our guide, the tall, thin, grey-haired dame, who came forward +with such native ease and moved before us, touching this fungused +wall, that rusting stairway, and telling, as it were, no one in her +soft, slow speech, things that any one could see--what a strange and +fitting figure! + +Before the smell of the deserted, oozing rooms, before that old +creature leading us on and on, negligent of all our questions, and +talking to the air, as though we were not, we felt such discomfort +that we soon made to go out again into such freshness as there was on +that day of dismal heat. Then realising, it seemed, that she was +losing us, our old guide turned; for the first time looking in our +faces, she smiled, and said in her sweet, weak voice, like the sound +from the strings of a spinet long unplayed on: "Don' you wahnd to see +the dome-room: an' all the other rooms right here, of this old-time +place?" + +Again those words! We had not the hearts to disappoint her. And as +we followed on and on, along the mouldering corridors and rooms where +the black peeling papers hung like stalactites, the dominance of our +senses gradually dropped from us, and with our souls we saw its soul +--the soul of this old-time place; this mustering house of the old +South, bereft of all but ghosts and the grey pigeons niched in the +rotting gallery round a narrow courtyard open to the sky. + +"This is the dome-room, suh and lady; right over the slave-market it +is. Here they did the business of the State--sure; old-time heroes +up therein the roof--Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Davis, Lee- +there they are! All gone--now! Yes, suh!" + +A fine--yea, even a splendid room, of great height, and carved +grandeur, with hand-wrought bronze sconces and a band of metal +bordering, all blackened with oblivion. And the faces of those old +heroes encircling that domed ceiling were blackened too, and scarred +with damp, beyond recognition. Here, beneath their gaze, men had +banqueted and danced and ruled. The pride and might and vivid +strength of things still fluttered their uneasy flags of spirit, +moved disherited wings! Those old-time feasts and grave discussions +--we seemed to see them printed on the thick air, imprisoned in this +great chamber built above their dark foundations. The pride and the +might and the vivid strength of things--gone, all gone! + +We became conscious again of that soft, weak voice. + +"Not hearing very well, suh, I have it all printed, lady--beautifully +told here--yes, indeed!" + +She was putting cards into our hands; then, impassive, maintaining +ever her impersonal chant, the guardian of past glory led us on. + +"Now we shall see the slave-market--downstairs, underneath! It's wet +for the lady the water comes in now yes, suh!" + +On the crumbling black and white marble floorings the water indeed +was trickling into pools. And down in the halls there came to us +wandering--strangest thing that ever strayed through deserted +grandeur--a brown, broken horse, lean, with a sore flank and a head +of tremendous age. It stopped and gazed at us, as though we might be +going to give it things to eat, then passed on, stumbling over the +ruined marbles. For a moment we had thought him ghost--one of the +many. But he was not, since his hoofs sounded. The scrambling +clatter of them had died out into silence before we came to that +dark, crypt-like chamber whose marble columns were ringed in iron, +veritable pillars of foundation. And then we saw that our old +guide's hands were full of newspapers. She struck a match; they +caught fire and blazed. Holding high that torch, she said: "See! Up +there's his name, above where he stood. The auctioneer. Oh yes, +indeed! Here's where they sold them!" + +Below that name, decaying on the wall, we had the slow, uncanny +feeling of some one standing there in the gleam and flicker from that +paper torch. For a moment the whole shadowy room seemed full of +forms and faces. Then the torch lied out, and our old guide, +pointing through an archway with the blackened stump of it, said: + +"'Twas here they kept them indeed, yes!" + +We saw before us a sort of vault, stone-built, and low, and long. +The light there was too dim for us to make out anything but walls and +heaps of rusting scrap-iron cast away there and mouldering own. But +trying to pierce that darkness we became conscious, as it seemed, of +innumerable eyes gazing, not at us, but through the archway where we +stood; innumerable white eyeballs gleaming out of blackness. From +behind us came a little laugh. It floated past through the archway, +toward those eyes. Who was that? Who laughed in there? The old +South itself--that incredible, fine, lost soul! That "old-time" +thing of old ideals, blindfolded by its own history! That queer +proud blend of simple chivalry and tyranny, of piety and the +abhorrent thing! Who was it laughed there in the old slave-market-- +laughed at these white eyeballs glaring from out of the blackness of +their dark cattle-pen? What poor departed soul in this House of +Melancholy? But there was no ghost when we turned to look--only our +old guide with her sweet smile. + +"Yes, suh. Here they all came--'twas the finest hotel--before the +war-time; old Southern families--buyin' an' sellin' their property. +Yes, ma'am, very interesting! This way! And here were the bells to +all the rooms. Broken, you see--all broken!" + +And rather quickly we passed away, out of that "old-time place"; +where something had laughed, and the drip, drip, drip of water down +the walls was as the sound of a spirit grieving. + +1912. + + + + + + + + +ROMANCE--THREE GLEAMS + + +On that New Year's morning when I drew up the blind it was still +nearly dark, but for the faintest pink flush glancing out there on +the horizon of black water. The far shore of the river's mouth was +just soft dusk; and the dim trees below me were in perfect stillness. +There was no lap of water. And then--I saw her, drifting in on the +tide-the little ship, passaging below me, a happy ghost. Like no +thing of this world she came, ending her flight, with sail-wings +closing and her glowing lantern eyes. There was I know not what of +stealthy joy about her thus creeping in to the unexpecting land. And +I wished she would never pass, but go on gliding by down there for +ever with her dark ropes, and her bright lanterns, and her mysterious +felicity, so that I might have for ever in my heart the blessed +feeling she brought me, coming like this out of that great mystery +the sea. If only she need not change to solidity, but ever be this +visitor from the unknown, this sacred bird, telling with her half- +seen, trailing-down plume--sails the story of uncharted wonder. If +only I might go on trembling, as I was, with the rapture of all I did +not know and could not see, yet felt pressing against me and touching +my face with its lips! To think of her at anchor in cold light was +like flinging-to a door in the face of happiness. And just then she +struck her bell; the faint silvery far-down sound fled away before +her, and to every side, out into the utter hush, to discover echo. +But nothing answered, as if fearing to break the spell of her coming, +to brush with reality the dark sea dew from her sail-wings. But +within me, in response, there began the song of all unknown things; +the song so tenuous, so ecstatic, that seems to sweep and quiver +across such thin golden strings, and like an eager dream dies too +soon. The song of the secret-knowing wind that has peered through so +great forests and over such wild sea; blown on so many faces, and in +the jungles of the grass the song of all that the wind has seen and +felt. The song of lives that I should never live; of the loves that +I should never love singlng to me as though I should! And suddenly I +felt that I could not bear my little ship of dreams to grow hard and +grey, her bright lanterns drowned in the cold light, her dark ropes +spidery and taut, her sea-wan sails all furled, and she no more en +chanted; and turning away I let fall the curtain. + + +II + +Then what happens to the moon? She, who, shy and veiled, slips out +before dusk to take the air of heaven, wandering timidly among the +columned clouds, and fugitive from the staring of the sun; she, who, +when dusk has come, rules the sentient night with such chaste and icy +spell--whither and how does she retreat? + +I came on her one morning--I surprised her. She was stealing into a +dark wintry wood, and five little stars were chasing her. She was +orange-hooded, a light-o'-love dismissed--unashamed and unfatigued, +having taken--all. And she was looking back with her almond eyes, +across her dark-ivory shoulder, at Night where he still lay drowned +in the sleep she had brought him. What a strange, slow, mocking +look! So might Aphrodite herself have looked back at some weary +lover, remembering the fire of his first embrace. Insatiate, smiling +creature, slipping down to the rim of the world to her bath in the +sweet waters of dawn, whence emerging, pure as a water lily, she +would float in the cool sky till evening came again! And just then +she saw me looking, and hid behind a holm-oak tree; but I could still +see the gleam of one shoulder and her long narrow eyes pursuing me. +I went up to the tree and parted its dark boughs to take her; but she +had slipped behind another. I called to her to stand, if only for +one moment. But she smiled and went slip ping on, and I ran +thrusting through the wet bushes, leaping the fallen trunks. The +scent of rotting leaves disturbed by my feet leaped out into the +darkness, and birds, surprised, fluttered away. And still I ran--she +slipping ever further into the grove, and ever looking back at me. +And I thought: But I will catch you yet, you nymph of perdition! The +wood will soon be passed, you will have no cover then! And from her +eyes, and the scanty gleam of her flying limbs, I never looked away, +not even when I stumbled or ran against tree trunks in my blind +haste. And at every clearing I flew more furiously, thinking to +seize all of her with my gaze before she could cross the glade; but +ever she found some little low tree, some bush of birch ungrown, or +the far top branches of the next grove to screen her flying body and +preserve allurement. And all the time she was dipping, dipping to +the rim of the world. And then I tripped; but, as I rose, I saw that +she had lingered for me; her long sliding eyes were full, it seemed +to me, of pity, as if she would have liked for me to have enjoyed the +sight of her. I stood still, breathless, thinking that at last she +would consent; but flinging back, up into the air, one dark-ivory +arm, she sighed and vanished. And the breath of her sigh stirred all +the birch-tree twigs just coloured with the dawn. Long I stood in +that thicket gazing at the spot where she had leapt from me over the +edge of the world-my heart quivering. + + +III + +We embarked on the estuary steamer that winter morning just as +daylight came full. The sun was on the wing scattering little white +clouds, as an eagle might scatter doves. They scurried up before him +with their broken feathers tipped and tinged with gold. In the air +was a touch of frost, and a smoky mist-drift clung here and there +above the reeds, blurring the shores of the lagoon so that we seemed +to be steaming across boundless water, till some clump of trees would +fling its top out of the fog, then fall back into whiteness. + +And then, in that thick vapour, rounding I suppose some curve, we +came suddenly into we knew not what--all white and moving it was, as +if the mist were crazed; murmuring, too, with a sort of restless +beating. We seemed to be passing through a ghost--the ghost of all +the life that had sprung from this water and its, shores; we seemed +to have left reality, to be travelling through live wonder. + +And the fantastic thought sprang into my mind: I have died. This is +the voyage of my soul in the wild. I am in the final wilderness of +spirits--lost in the ghost robe that wraps the earth. There seemed +in all this white murmuration to be millions of tiny hands stretching +out to me, millions of whispering voices, of wistful eyes. I had no +fear, but a curious baked eagerness, the strangest feeling of having +lost myself and become part of this around me; exactly as if my own +hands and voice and eyes had left me and were groping, and +whispering, and gazing out there in the eeriness. I was no longer a +man on an estuary steamer, but part of sentient ghostliness. Nor did +I feel unhappy; it seemed as though I had never been anything but +this Bedouin spirit wandering. + +We passed through again into the stillness of plain mist, and all +those eerie sensations went, leaving nothing but curiosity to know +what this was that we had traversed. Then suddenly the sun came +flaring out, and we saw behind us thousands and thousands of white +gulls dipping, wheeling, brushing the water with their wings, +bewitched with sun and mist. That was all. And yet that white- +winged legion through whom we had ploughed our way were not, could +never be, to me just gulls--there was more than mere sun-glamour +gilding their misty plumes; there was the wizardry of my past wonder, +the enchantment of romance. + +1912. + + + + + + + + +MEMORIES + +We set out to meet him at Waterloo Station on a dull day of February +--I, who had owned his impetuous mother, knowing a little what to +expect, while to my companion he would be all original. We stood +there waiting (for the Salisbury train was late), and wondering with +a warm, half-fearful eagerness what sort of new thread Life was going +to twine into our skein. I think our chief dread was that he might +have light eyes--those yellow Chinese eyes of the common, parti- +coloured spaniel. And each new minute of the train's tardiness +increased our anxious compassion: His first journey; his first +separation from his mother; this black two-months' baby! Then the +train ran in, and we hastened to look for him. "Have you a dog for +us?" + +"A dog! Not in this van. Ask the rearguard." + +"Have you a dog for us?" + +"That's right. From Salisbury. Here's your wild beast, Sir!" + +>From behind a wooden crate we saw a long black muzzled nose poking +round at us, and heard a faint hoarse whimpering. + +I remember my first thought: + +"Isn't his nose too long?" + +But to my companion's heart it went at once, because it was swollen +from crying and being pressed against things that he could not see +through. We took him out--soft, wobbly, tearful; set him down on his +four, as yet not quite simultaneous legs, and regarded him. Or, +rather, my companion did, having her head on one side, and a +quavering smile; and I regarded her, knowing that I should thereby +get a truer impression of him. + +He wandered a little round our legs, neither wagging his tail nor +licking at our hands; then he looked up, and my companion said: "He's +an angel!" + +I was not so certain. He seemed hammer-headed, with no eyes at all, +and little connection between his head, his body, and his legs. His +ears were very long, as long as his poor nose; and gleaming down in +the blackness of him I could see the same white star that disgraced +his mother's chest. + +Picking him up, we carried him to a four-wheeled cab, and took his +muzzle off. His little dark-brown eyes were resolutely fixed on +distance, and by his refusal to even smell the biscuits we had. +brought to make him happy, we knew that the human being had not yet +come into a life that had contained so far only a mother, a wood- +shed, and four other soft, wobbly, black, hammer-headed angels, +smelling of themselves, and warmth, and wood shavings. It was +pleasant to feel that to us he would surrender an untouched love, +that is, if he would surrender anything. Suppose he did not take to +us! + +And just then something must have stirred in him, for he turned up +his swollen nose and stared at my companion, and a little later +rubbed the dry pinkness of his tongue against my thumb. In that +look, and that unconscious restless lick; he was trying hard to leave +unhappiness behind, trying hard to feel that these new creatures with +stroking paws and queer scents, were his mother; yet all the time he +knew, I am sure, that they were something bigger, more permanently, +desperately, his. The first sense of being owned, perhaps (who +knows) of owning, had stirred in him. He would never again be quite +the same unconscious creature. + +A little way from the end of our journey we got out and dismissed the +cab. He could not too soon know the scents and pavements of this +London where the chief of his life must pass. I can see now his +first bumble down that wide, back-water of a street, how continually +and suddenly he sat down to make sure of his own legs, how +continually he lost our heels. He showed us then in full perfection +what was afterwards to be an inconvenient--if endearing-- +characteristic: At any call or whistle he would look in precisely the +opposite direction. How many times all through his life have I not +seen him, at my whistle, start violently and turn his tail to me, +then, with nose thrown searchingly from side to side, begin to canter +toward the horizon. + +In that first walk, we met, fortunately, but one vehicle, a brewer's +dray; he chose that moment to attend to the more serious affairs of +life, sitting quietly before the horses' feet and requiring to be +moved by hand. From the beginning he had his dignity, and was +extremely difficult to lift, owing to the length of his middle +distance. + +What strange feelings must have stirred in his little white soul when +he first smelled carpet! But it was all so strange to him that day-- +I doubt if he felt more than I did when I first travelled to my +private school, reading "Tales of a Grandfather," and plied with +tracts and sherry by my 'father's man of business. + +That night, indeed, for several nights, he slept with me, keeping me +too warm down my back, and waking me now and then with quaint sleepy +whimperings. Indeed, all through his life he flew a good deal in his +sleep, fighting dogs and seeing ghosts, running after rabbits and +thrown sticks; and to the last one never quite knew whether or no to +rouse him when his four black feet began to jerk and quiver. His +dreams were like our dreams, both good and bad; happy sometimes, +sometimes tragic to weeping point. + +He ceased to sleep with me the day we discovered that he was a +perfect little colony, whose settlers were of an active species which +I have never seen again. After that he had many beds, for +circumstance ordained that his life should be nomadic, and it is to +this I trace that philosophic indifference to place or property, +which marked him out from most of his own kind. He learned early +that for a black dog with long silky ears, a feathered tail, and head +of great dignity, there was no home whatsoever, away from those +creatures with special scents, who took liberties with his name, and +alone of all created things were privileged to smack him with a +slipper. He would sleep anywhere, so long as it was in their room, +or so close outside it as to make no matter, for it was with him a +principle that what he did not smell did not exist. I would I could +hear again those long rubber-lipped snufflings of recognition +underneath the door, with which each morning he would regale and +reassure a spirit that grew with age more and more nervous and +delicate about this matter of propinquity! For he was a dog of fixed +ideas, things stamped on his mind were indelible; as, for example, +his duty toward cats, for whom he had really a perverse affection, +which had led to that first disastrous moment of his life, when he +was brought up, poor bewildered puppy, from a brief excursion to the +kitchen, with one eye closed and his cheek torn! He bore to his +grave that jagged scratch across the eye. It was in dread of a +repetition of this tragedy that he was instructed at the word "Cats" +to rush forward with a special "tow-row-rowing," which he never used +toward any other form of creature. To the end he cherished a hope +that he would reach the cat; but never did; and if he had, we knew he +would only have stood and wagged his tail; but I well remember once, +when he returned, important, from some such sally, how dreadfully my +companion startled a cat-loving friend by murmuring in her most +honeyed voice: "Well, my darling, have you been killing pussies in +the garden?" + +His eye and nose were impeccable in their sense of form; indeed, he +was very English in that matter: People must be just so; things smell +properly; and affairs go on in the one right way. He could tolerate +neither creatures in ragged clothes, nor children on their hands and +knees, nor postmen, because, with their bags, they swelled-up on one +side, and carried lanterns on their stomachs. He would never let the +harmless creatures pass without religious barks. Naturally a +believer in authority and routine, and distrusting spiritual +adventure, he yet had curious fads that seemed to have nested in him, +quite outside of all principle. He would, for instance, follow +neither carriages nor horses, and if we tried to make him, at once +left for home, where he would sit with nose raised to Heaven, +emitting through it a most lugubrious, shrill noise. Then again, one +must not place a stick, a slipper, a glove, or anything with which he +could play, upon one's head--since such an action reduced him at once +to frenzy. For so conservative a dog, his environment was sadly +anarchistic. He never complained in words of our shifting habits, +but curled his head round over his left paw and pressed his chin very +hard against the ground whenever he smelled packing. What necessity, +he seemed continually to be saying, what real necessity is there for +change of any kind whatever? Here we were all together, and one day +was like another, so that I knew where I was--and now you only know +what will happen next; and I--I can't tell you whether I shall be +with you when it happens! What strange, grieving minutes a dog +passes at such times in the underground of his subconsciousness, +refusing realisation, yet all the time only too well divining. Some +careless word, some unmuted compassion in voice, the stealthy +wrapping of a pair of boots, the unaccustomed shutting of a door that +ought to be open, the removal from a down-stair room of an object +always there--one tiny thing, and he knows for certain that he is not +going too. He fights against the knowledge just as we do against +what we cannot bear; he gives up hope, but not effort, protesting in +the only way he knows of, and now and then heaving a great sigh. +Those sighs of a dog! They go to the heart so much more deeply than +the sighs of our own kind, because they are utterly unintended, +regardless of effect, emerging from one who, heaving them, knows not +that they have escaped him! + +The words: "Yes--going too!" spoken in a certain tone, would call up +in his eyes a still-questioning half-happiness, and from his tail a +quiet flutter, but did not quite serve to put to rest either his +doubt or his feeling that it was all unnecessary--until the cab +arrived. Then he would pour himself out of door or window, and be +found in the bottom of the vehicle, looking severely away from an +admiring cabman. Once settled on our feet he travelled with +philosophy, but no digestion. + +I think no dog was ever more indifferent to an outside world of human +creatures; yet few dogs have made more conquests--especially among +strange women, through whom, however, he had a habit of looking--very +discouraging. He had, natheless, one or two particular friends, such +as him to whom this book is dedicated, and a few persons whom he knew +he had seen before, but, broadly speaking, there were in his world of +men, only his mistress, and--the almighty. + +Each August, till he was six, he was sent for health, and the +assuagement of his hereditary instincts, up to a Scotch shooting, +where he carried many birds in a very tender manner. Once he was +compelled by Fate to remain there nearly a year; and we went up +ourselves to fetch him home. Down the long avenue toward the +keeper's cottage we walked: It was high autumn; there had been frost +already, for the ground was fine with red and yellow leaves; and +presently we saw himself coming; professionally questing among those +leaves, and preceding his dear keeper with the businesslike self- +containment of a sportsman; not too fat, glossy as a raven's wing, +swinging his ears and sporran like a little Highlander. We +approached him silently. Suddenly his nose went up from its imagined +trail, and he came rushing at our legs. From him, as a garment drops +from a man, dropped all his strange soberness; he became in a single +instant one fluttering eagerness. He leaped from life to life in one +bound, without hesitation, without regret. Not one sigh, not one +look back, not the faintest token of gratitude or regret at leaving +those good people who had tended him for a whole year, buttered oat- +cake for him, allowed him to choose each night exactly where he would +sleep. No, he just marched out beside us, as close as ever he could +get, drawing us on in spirit, and not even attending to the scents, +until the lodge gates were passed. + +It was strictly in accordance with the perversity of things, and +something in the nature of calamity that he had not been ours one +year, when there came over me a dreadful but overmastering aversion +from killing those birds and creatures of which he was so fond as +soon as they were dead. And so I never knew him as a sportsman; for +during that first year he was only an unbroken puppy, tied to my +waist for fear of accidents, and carefully pulling me off every shot. +They tell me he developed a lovely nose and perfect mouth, large +enough to hold gingerly the biggest hare. I well believe it, +remembering the qualities of his mother, whose character, however, in +stability he far surpassed. But, as he grew every year more devoted +to dead grouse and birds and rabbits, I liked them more and more +alive; it was the only real breach between us, and we kept it out of +sight. Ah! well; it is consoling to reflect that I should infallibly +have ruined his sporting qualities, lacking that peculiar habit of +meaning what one says, so necessary to keep dogs virtuous. But +surely to have had him with me, quivering and alert, with his solemn, +eager face, would have given a new joy to those crisp mornings when +the hope of wings coming to the gun makes poignant in the sports man +as nothing else will, an almost sensual love of Nature, a fierce +delight in the soft glow of leaves, in the white birch stems and +tracery of sparse twigs against blue sky, in the scents of sap and +grass and gum and heather flowers; stivers the hair of him with +keenness for interpreting each sound, and fills the very fern or moss +he kneels on, the very trunk he leans against, with strange +vibration. + +Slowly Fate prepares for each of us the religion that lies coiled in +our most secret nerves; with such we cannot trifle, we do not even +try! But how shall a man grudge any one sensations he has so keenly +felt? Let such as have never known those curious delights, uphold +the hand of horror--for me there can be no such luxury. If I could, +I would still perhaps be knowing them; but when once the joy of life +in those winged and furry things has knocked at the very portals of +one's spirit, the thought that by pressing a little iron twig one +will rive that joy out of their vitals, is too hard to bear. Call it +aestheticism, squeamishness, namby-pamby sentimentalism, what you +will it is stronger than oneself! + +Yes, after one had once watched with an eye that did not merely see, +the thirsty gaping of a slowly dying bird, or a rabbit dragging a +broken leg to a hole where he would lie for hours thinking of the +fern to which he should never more come forth--after that, there was +always the following little matter of arithmetic: Given, that all +those who had been shooting were "good-fair" shots--which, Heaven +knew, they never were--they yet missed one at least in four, and did +not miss it very much; so that if seventy-five things were slain, +there were also twenty-five that had been fired at, and, of those +twenty-five, twelve and a half had "gotten it" somewhere in their +bodies, and would "likely" die at their great leisure. + +This was the sum that brought about the only cleavage in our lives; +and so, as he grew older, and trying to part from each other we no +longer could, he ceased going to Scotland. But after that I often +felt, and especially when we heard guns, how the best and most secret +instincts of him were being stifled. But what was to be done? In +that which was left of a clay pigeon he would take not the faintest +interest--the scent of it was paltry. Yet always, even in his most +cosseted and idle days, he managed to preserve the grave +preoccupation of one professionally concerned with retrieving things +that smell; and consoled himself with pastimes such as cricket, which +he played in a manner highly specialised, following the ball up the +moment it left the bowler's hand, and sometimes retrieving it before +it reached the batsman. When remonstrated with, he would consider a +little, hanging out a pink tongue and looking rather too eagerly at +the ball, then canter slowly out to a sort of forward short leg. Why +he always chose that particular position it is difficult to say; +possibly he could lurk there better than anywhere else, the batsman's +eye not being on him, and the bowler's not too much. As a fieldsman +he was perfect, but for an occasional belief that he was not merely +short leg, but slip, point, midoff, and wicket-keep; and perhaps a +tendency to make the ball a little "jubey." But he worked +tremendously, watching every movement; for he knew the game +thoroughly, and seldom delayed it more than three minutes when he +secured the ball. And if that ball were really lost, then indeed he +took over the proceedings with an intensity and quiet vigour that +destroyed many shrubs, and the solemn satisfaction which comes from +being in the very centre of the stage. + +But his most passionate delight was swimming in anything except the +sea, for which, with its unpleasant noise and habit of tasting salt, +he had little affection. I see him now, cleaving the Serpentine, +with his air of "the world well lost," striving to reach my stick +before it had touched water. Being only a large spaniel, too small +for mere heroism, he saved no lives in the water but his own--and +that, on one occasion, before our very eyes, from a dark trout +stream, which was trying to wash him down into a black hole among the +boulders. + +The call of the wild-Spring running--whatever it is--that besets men +and dogs, seldom attained full mastery over him; but one could often +see it struggling against his devotion to the scent of us, and, +watching that dumb contest, I have time and again wondered how far +this civilisation of ours was justifiably imposed on him; how far the +love for us that we had so carefully implanted could ever replace in +him the satisfaction of his primitive wild yearnings: He was like a +man, naturally polygamous, married to one loved woman. + +It was surely not for nothing that Rover is dog's most common name, +and would be ours, but for our too tenacious fear of losing +something, to admit, even to ourselves, that we are hankering. There +was a man who said: Strange that two such queerly opposite qualities +as courage and hypocrisy are the leading characteristics of the +Anglo-Saxon! But is not hypocrisy just a product of tenacity, which +is again the lower part of courage? Is not hypocrisy but an active +sense of property in one's good name, the clutching close of +respectability at any price, the feeling that one must not part, even +at the cost of truth, with what he has sweated so to gain? And so we +Anglo-Saxons will not answer to the name of Rover, and treat our dogs +so that they, too, hardly know their natures. + +The history of his one wandering, for which no respectable reason can +be assigned, will never, of course, be known. It was in London, of +an October evening, when we were told he had slipped out and was not +anywhere. Then began those four distressful hours of searching for +that black needle n that blacker bundle of hay. Hours of real dismay +and suffering for it is suffering, indeed, to feel a loved thing +swallowed up in that hopeless haze of London streets. Stolen or run +over? Which was worst? The neighbouring police stations visited, +the Dog's Home notified, an order of five hundred "Lost Dog" bills +placed in the printer's hands, the streets patrolled! And then, in a +lull snatched for food, and still endeavouring to preserve some +aspect of assurance, we heard the bark which meant: "Here is a door I +cannot open!" We hurried forth, and there he was on the top +doorstep--busy, unashamed, giving no explanations, asking for his +supper; and very shortly after him came his five hundred "Lost Dog" +bills. Long I sat looking at him that night after my companion had +gone up, thinking of the evening, some years before, when there +followed as that shadow of a spaniel who had been lost for eleven +days. And my heart turned over within me. But he! He was asleep, +for he knew not remorse. + +Ah! and there was that other time, when it was reported to me, +returning home at night, that he had gone out to find me; and I went +forth again, disturbed, and whistling his special call to the empty +fields. Suddenly out of the darkness I heard a rushing, and he came +furiously dashing against my heels from he alone knew where he had +been lurking and saying to himself: I will not go in till he comes! +I could not scold, there was something too lyrical in the return of +that live, lonely, rushing piece of blackness through the blacker +night. After all, the vagary was but a variation in his practice +when one was away at bed-time, of passionately scratching up his bed +in protest, till it resembled nothing; for, in spite of his long and +solemn face and the silkiness of his ears, there was much in him yet +of the cave bear--he dug graves on the smallest provocations, in +which he never buried anything. He was not a "clever" dog; and +guiltless of all tricks. Nor was he ever "shown." We did not even +dream of subjecting him to this indignity. Was our dog a clown, a +hobby, a fad, a fashion, a feather in our caps that we should subject +him to periodic pennings in stuffy halls, that we should harry his +faithful soul with such tomfoolery? He never even heard us talk +about his lineage, deplore the length of his nose, or call him +"clever-looking." We should have been ashamed to let him smell about +us the tar-brush of a sense of property, to let him think we looked +on him as an asset to earn us pelf or glory. We wished that there +should be between us the spirit that was between the sheep dog and +that farmer, who, when asked his dog's age, touched the old +creature's head, and answered thus: "Teresa" (his daughter) "was born +in November, and this one in August." That sheep dog had seen +eighteen years when the great white day came for him, and his spirit +passed away up, to cling with the wood-smoke round the dark rafters +of the kitchen where he had lain so vast a time beside his master's +boots. No, no! If a man does not soon pass beyond the thought "By +what shall this dog profit me?" into the large state of simple +gladness to be with dog, he shall never know the very essence of that +companion ship which depends not on the points of dog, but on some +strange and subtle mingling of mute spirits. For it is by muteness +that a dog becomes for one so utterly beyond value; with him one is +at peace, where words play no torturing tricks. When he just sits, +loving, and knows that he is being loved, those are the moments that +I think are precious to a dog; when, with his adoring soul coming +through his eyes, he feels that you are really thinking of him. But +he is touchingly tolerant of one's other occupations. The subject of +these memories always knew when one was too absorbed in work to be so +close to him as he thought proper; yet he never tried to hinder or +distract, or asked for attention. It dinged his mood, of course, so +that the red under his eyes and the folds of his crumply cheeks-- +which seemed to speak of a touch of bloodhound introduced a long way +back into his breeding--drew deeper and more manifest. If he could +have spoken at such times, he would have said: "I have been a long +time alone, and I cannot always be asleep; but you know best, and I +must not criticise." + +He did not at all mind one's being absorbed in other humans; he +seemed to enjoy the sounds of conversation lifting round him, and to +know when they were sensible. He could not, for instance, stand +actors or actresses giving readings of their parts, perceiving at +once that the same had no connection with the minds and real feelings +of the speakers; and, having wandered a little to show his +disapproval, he would go to the door and stare at it till it opened +and let him out. Once or twice, it is true, when an actor of large +voice was declaiming an emotional passage, he so far relented as to +go up to him and pant in his face. Music, too, made him restless, +inclined to sigh, and to ask questions. Sometimes, at its first +sound, he would cross to the window and remain there looking for Her. +At others, he would simply go and lie on the loud pedal, and we never +could tell whether it was from sentiment, or because he thought that +in this way he heard less. At one special Nocturne of Chopin's he +always whimpered. He was, indeed, of rather Polish temperament--very +gay when he was gay, dark and brooding when he was not. + +On the whole, perhaps his life was uneventful for so far-travelling a +dog, though it held its moments of eccentricity, as when he leaped +through the window of a four-wheeler into Kensington, or sat on a +Dartmoor adder. But that was fortunately of a Sunday afternoon--when +adder and all were torpid, so nothing happened, till a friend, who +was following, lifted him off the creature with his large boot. + +If only one could have known more of his private life--more of his +relations with his own kind! I fancy he was always rather a dark dog +to them, having so many thoughts about us that he could not share +with any one, and being naturally fastidious, except with ladies, for +whom he had a chivalrous and catholic taste, so that they often +turned and snapped at him. He had, however, but one lasting love +affair, for a liver-coloured lass of our village, not quite of his +own caste, but a wholesome if somewhat elderly girl, with loving and +sphinx-like eyes. Their children, alas, were not for this world, and +soon departed. + +Nor was he a fighting dog; but once attacked, he lacked a sense of +values, being unable to distinguish between dogs that he could beat +and dogs with whom he had "no earthly." It was, in fact, as well to +interfere at once, especially in the matter of retrievers, for he +never forgot having in his youth been attacked by a retriever from +behind. No, he never forgot, and never forgave, an enemy. Only a +month before that day of which I cannot speak, being very old and +ill, he engaged an Irish terrier on whose impudence he had long had +his eye, and routed him. And how a battle cheered his spirit! He +was certainly no Christian; but, allowing for essential dog, he was +very much a gentleman. And I do think that most of us who live on +this earth these days would rather leave it with that label on us +than the other. For to be a Christian, as Tolstoy understood the +word--and no one else in our time has had logic and love of truth +enough to give it coherent meaning--is (to be quite sincere) not +suited to men of Western blood. Whereas--to be a gentleman! It is a +far cry, but perhaps it can be done. In him, at all events, there +was no pettiness, no meanness, and no cruelty, and though he fell +below his ideal at times, this never altered the true look of his +eyes, nor the simple loyalty in his soul. + +But what a crowd of memories come back, bringing with them the +perfume of fallen days! What delights and glamour, what long hours +of effort, discouragements, and secret fears did he not watch over-- +our black familiar; and with the sight and scent and touch of him, +deepen or assuage! How many thousand walks did we not go together, +so that we still turn to see if he is following at his padding gait, +attentive to the invisible trails. Not the least hard thing to bear +when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away +with them so many years of our own lives. Yet, if they find warmth +therein, who would grudge them those years that they have so guarded? +Nothing else of us can they take to lie upon with outstretched paws +and chin pressed to the ground; and, whatever they take, be sure they +have deserved. + +Do they know, as we do, that their time must come? Yes, they know, +at rare moments. No other way can I interpret those pauses of his +latter life, when, propped on his forefeet, he would sit for long +minutes quite motionless--his head drooped, utterly withdrawn; then +turn those eyes of his and look at me. That look said more plainly +than all words could: "Yes, I know that I must go!" If we have +spirits that persist--they have. If we know after our departure, who +we were they do. No one, I think, who really longs for truth, can +ever glibly say which it will be for dog and man persistence or +extinction of our consciousness. There is but one thing certain--the +childishness of fretting over that eternal question. Whichever it +be, it must be right, the only possible thing. He felt that too, I +know; but then, like his master, he was what is called a pessimist. + +My companion tells me that, since he left us, he has once come back. +It was Old Year's Night, and she was sad, when he came to her in +visible shape of his black body, passing round the dining-table from +the window-end, to his proper place beneath the table, at her feet. +She saw him quite clearly; she heard the padding tap-tap of his paws +and very toe-nails; she felt his warmth brushing hard against the +front of her skirt. She thought then that he would settle down upon +her feet, but something disturbed him, and he stood pausing, pressed +against her, then moved out toward where I generally sit, but was not +sitting that night. + +She saw him stand there, as if considering; then at some sound or +laugh, she became self-conscious, and slowly, very slowly, he was no +longer there. Had he some message, some counsel to give, something +he would say, that last night of the last year of all those he had +watched over us? Will he come back again? + +No stone stands over where he lies. It is on our hearts that his +life is engraved. + +1912. + + + + + + + +FELICITY + +When God is so good to the fields, of what use are words--those poor +husks of sentiment! There is no painting Felicity on the wing! No +way of bringing on to the canvas the flying glory of things! A +single buttercup of the twenty million in one field is worth all +these dry symbols--that can never body forth the very spirit of that +froth of May breaking over the hedges, the choir of birds and bees, +the lost-travelling down of the wind flowers, the white-throated +swallows in their Odysseys. Just here there are no skylarks, but +what joy of song and leaf; of lanes lighted with bright trees, the +few oaks still golden brown, and the ashes still spiritual! Only the +blackbirds and thrushes can sing-up this day, and cuckoos over the +hill. The year has flown so fast that the apple-trees have dropped +nearly all their bloom, and in "long meadow" the "daggers" are out +early, beside the narrow bright streams. Orpheus sits there on a +stone, when nobody is by, and pipes to the ponies; and Pan can often +be seen dancing with his nymphs in the raised beech-grove where it is +always twilight, if you lie still enough against the far bank. + +Who can believe in growing old, so long as we are wrapped in this +cloak of colour and wings and song; so long as this unimaginable +vision is here for us to gaze at--the soft-faced sheep about us, and +the wool-bags drying out along the fence, and great numbers of tiny +ducks, so trustful that the crows have taken several. + +Blue is the colour of youth, and all the blue flowers have a "fey" +look. Everything seems young too young to work. There is but one +thing busy, a starling, fetching grubs for its little family, above +my head--it must take that flight at least two hundred times a day. +The children should be very fat. + +When the sky is so happy, and the flowers so luminous, it does not +seem possible that the bright angels of this day shall pass into dark +night, that slowly these wings shall close, and the cuckoo praise +himself to sleep, mad midges dance-in the evening; the grass shiver +with dew, wind die, and no bird sing . . . . + +Yet so it is. Day has gone--the song and glamour and swoop of wings. +Slowly, has passed the daily miracle. It is night. But Felicity has +not withdrawn; she has but changed her robe for silence, velvet, and +the pearl fan of the moon. Everything is sleeping, save only a +single star, and the pansies. Why they should be more wakeful than +the other flowers, I do not know. The expressions of their faces, if +one bends down into the dusk, are sweeter and more cunning than ever. +They have some compact, no doubt, in hand. + +What a number of voices have given up the ghost to this night of but +one voice--the murmur of the stream out there in darkness! + +With what religion all has been done! Not one buttercup open; the +yew-trees already with shadows flung down! No moths are abroad yet; +it is too early in the year for nightjars; and the owls are quiet. +But who shall say that in this silence, in this hovering wan light, +in this air bereft of wings, and of all scent save freshness, there +is less of the ineffable, less of that before which words are dumb? + +It is strange how this tranquillity of night, that seems so final, is +inhabited, if one keeps still enough. A lamb is bleating out there +on the dim moor; a bird somewhere, a little one, about three fields +away, makes the sweetest kind of chirruping; some cows are still +cropping. There is a scent, too, underneath the freshness-sweet- +brier, I think, and our Dutch honeysuckle; nothing else could so +delicately twine itself with air. And even in this darkness the +roses have colour, more beautiful perhaps than ever. If colour be, +as they say, but the effect of light on various fibre, one may think +of it as a tune, the song of thanksgiving that each form puts forth, +to sun and moon and stars and fire. These moon-coloured roses are +singing a most quiet song. I see all of a sudden that there are many +more stars beside that one so red and watchful. The flown kite is +there with its seven pale worlds; it has adventured very high and far +to-night-with a company of others remoter still. . . . + +This serenity of night! What could seem less likely ever more to +move, and change again to day? Surely now the world has found its +long sleep; and the pearly glimmer from the moon will last, and the +precious silence never again yield to clamour; the grape-bloom of +this mystery never more pale out into gold . . . . + +And yet it is not so. The nightly miracle has passed. It is dawn. +Faint light has come. I am waiting for the first sound. The sky as +yet is like nothing but grey paper, with the shadows of wild geese +passing. The trees are phantoms. And then it comes--that first call +of a bird, startled at discovering day! Just one call--and now, +here, there, on all the trees, the sudden answers swelling, of that +most sweet and careless choir. Was irresponsibility ever so divine +as this, of birds waking? Then--saffron into the sky, and once more +silence! What is it birds do after the first Chorale? Think of +their sins and business? Or just sleep again? The trees are fast +dropping unreality, and the cuckoos begin calling. Colour is burning +up in the flowers already; the dew smells of them. + +The miracle is ended, for the starling has begun its job; and the sun +is fretting those dark, busy wings with gold. Full day has come +again. But the face of it is a little strange, it is not like +yesterday. Queer-to think, no day is like to a day that's past and +no night like a night that's coming! Why, then, fear death, which is +but night? Why care, if next day have different face and spirit? +The sun has lighted buttercup-field now, the wind touches the lime- +tree. Something passes over me away up there. + +It is Felicity on her wings! + +1912. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext Studies and Essays: Quality and Others + |