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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40894 ***
+
+_NEITHER DORKING NOR THE ABBEY_
+
+_BY
+
+J. M. BARRIE_
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_CHICAGO
+BROWNE'S BOOKSTORE
+1912_
+
+
+
+
+_NOTE_
+
+_In England recently there died a great man--the greatest of his day.
+Immediately there arose much vain contention as to whether or no his
+dust should be given resting place among that of his peers in
+Westminster Abbey. Finally came the decision that Westminster was not to
+be so honored; and the urn containing all of him that had outlived the
+fire was placed in the sunny graveyard of Dorking village. Looking down
+toward it from the long level summit of Box Hill--his hill,--with the
+sunlight glinting from its marbles and along the silver Mole that winds
+threadlike beside it, the little cemetery seems almost a living cheerful
+thing in the dark green of the surrounding landscape. Surely here, if
+anywhere, was appropriate resting-place for this great lover of life and
+joy._
+
+_The tribute to Meredith contained in the following pages, perhaps the
+most fitting and beautiful of any inspired by his death, was originally
+published in the London "Westminster Gazette" for May 26, 1909._
+
+
+
+
+_NEITHER DORKING NOR THE ABBEY_
+
+
+All morning there had been a little gathering of people outside the
+gate. The funeral coach came, and a very small thing was placed in it
+and covered with flowers. One plant of the wallflower in the garden
+would have covered it. The coach took the road to Dorking, followed by a
+few others, and in a moment or two all seemed silent and deserted, the
+cottage, the garden, and Box Hill.
+
+The cottage was not deserted, as they knew who now trooped into the
+round in front of it, their eyes on the closed door. They were the
+mighty company, his children,--Lucy and Clara and Rhoda and Diana and
+Rose and old Mel and Roy Richmond and Adrian and Sir Willoughby and a
+hundred others, and they stood in line against the box-wood, waiting for
+him to come out. Each of his women carried a flower, and the hands of
+all his men were ready for the salute.
+
+In the room on the right, in an armchair which had been his home for
+years--to many the throne of letters in this country--sat an old man,
+like one forgotten in an empty house. When the last sound of the
+coaches had passed away he moved in his chair. He wore grey clothes and
+a red tie, and his face was rarely beautiful, but the hair was white and
+the limbs were feeble, and the wonderful eyes dimmed, and he was hard of
+hearing. He moved in his chair, for something was happening to him, and
+it was this, old age was falling from him. This is what is meant by
+death to such as he, and the company waiting knew. His eyes became again
+those of the eagle, and his hair was brown, and the lustiness of youth
+was in his frame, but still he wore the red tie. He rose, and not a
+moment did he remain within the house, for "golden lie the meadows,
+golden run the streams," and "the fields and the waters shout to him
+golden shouts." He flung open the door, as they knew he would do who
+were awaiting him, and he stood there looking at them, a general
+reviewing his troops. They wore the pretty clothing in which he had
+loved to drape them; they were not sad like the mourners who had gone,
+but happy as the forget-me-nots and pansies at their feet and the lilac
+overhead, for they knew that this was his coronation day. Only one was
+airily in mourning, as knowing better than the others what fitted the
+occasion, the Countess de Saldar. He recognized her sense of the fitness
+of things with a bow. The men saluted, the women gave their flowers to
+Dahlia to give to him, so that she should have his last word, and he
+took their offerings and passed on. They did not go with him, they went
+their ways to carry his glory through the world.
+
+Without knowing why, for his work was done, he turned to the left,
+passing his famous cherry-blossom, and climbed between apple-trees to a
+little house of two rooms, whence most of that noble company had sprung.
+He went there only because he had gone so often, and this time the door
+was locked; he did not know why nor care. He came swinging down the
+path, singing lustily, and calling to his dogs, his dogs of the present
+and the past; and they yelped with joy, for they knew they were once
+again to breast the hill with him.
+
+He strode up the hill whirling his staff, for which he had no longer any
+other use. His hearing was again so acute that from far away on the
+Dorking road he could hear the rumbling of a coach. There came to him
+somehow a knowledge (it was the last he ever knew of little things) that
+people had been at variance as to whether a casket of dust should be
+laid away in one hole or in another, and he flung back his head with the
+old glorious action, and laughed a laugh "broad as a thousand beeves at
+pasture."
+
+Box Hill was no longer deserted. When a great man dies--and this was one
+of the greatest since Shakespeare--the immortals await him at the top of
+the nearest hill. He looked up and saw his peers. They were all young,
+like himself. He waved the staff in greeting. One, a mere stripling,
+"slight unspeakably," detached himself from the others, crying
+gloriously as he recognized his master, "Here's the fellow I have been
+telling you about!" and ran down the hill to be the first to take his
+hand. In the meantime an empty coach was rolling on to Dorking.
+
+
+
+
+     _G. M._
+
+     _1828-1909._
+
+
+     _Forty years back, when much had place
+     That since has perished out of mind,
+     I heard that voice and saw that face._
+
+     _He spoke as one afoot will wind
+     A morning horn ere men awake;
+     His note was trenchant, turning kind._
+
+     _He was of those whose wit can shake
+     And riddle to the very core
+     The counterfeits that Time will break...._
+
+     _Of late, when we two met once more,
+     The luminous countenance and rare
+     Shone just as forty years before._
+
+     _So that, when now all tongues declare
+     His shape unseen by his green hill,
+     I scarce believe he sits not there._
+
+     _No matter. Further and further still
+     Through the world's vaporous vitiate air
+     His words wing on--as live words will._
+
+     THOMAS HARDY.
+
+     _May, 1909._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Neither Dorking Nor The Abbey, by J. M. Barrie
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40894 ***