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} + .chapter { clear: both; page-break-before: always; } + body {text-align: justify; } + table {font-size: .9em; padding: 1.5em .5em 1em; page-break-inside: avoid; + clear: both; } + div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; + page-break-after: always; } + div.titlepage p {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; + line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 3em; } + .ph1 { text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; font-size: xx-large; + margin: .67em auto; page-break-before: always; } + .ph2 { text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; + page-break-before: always; } + .x-ebookmaker p.dropcap:first-letter { float: left; } + .pageno {color: #595959; font-size: small; } + </style> + </head> + + <body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78729 ***</div> + + +<div class='tnotes covernote'> + +<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p> + +<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='chapter ph1'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>MICHAEL FAIRLESS</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='chapter ph2'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div><span class='under'>BY W. SCOTT PALMER.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b c002'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><strong>FROM THE FOREST.</strong></div> + <div class='line'><strong>PILGRIM MAN.</strong></div> + <div class='line'><strong>A MODERN MYSTIC’S WAY.</strong></div> + <div class='line'><strong>WINTER AND SPRING.</strong></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div>By W. SCOTT PALMER.</div> + <div class='c003'><span class='small'><i>Uniform with this Volume.</i></span></div> + <div class='c003'><span class='small'><i>Fcap. 8vo</i>, 2s. 6d. <i>net each</i>.</span></div> + <div class='c003'>DUCKWORTH & CO.,</div> + <div><span class='sc'>3 Henrietta Street, London, W.C.</span></div> + <div class='c002'><strong>THE DIARY OF A MODERNIST.</strong></div> + <div class='c003'>By W. SCOTT PALMER.</div> + <div class='c003'><span class='small'><i>Crown 8vo</i>, 5s. <i>net</i>.</span></div> + <div class='c003'>EDWARD ARNOLD,</div> + <div><span class='sc'>41 and 43 Maddox Street, London, W.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_frontis.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p>Drawn from life, July 1901.</p> +</div> +</div> + + +<div class='titlepage'> + +<div> + <h1 class='c004'>Michael Fairless<br> <span class='xlarge'>Her Life and Writings</span></h1> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='small'>By</span></div> + <div><span class='large'>W. Scott Palmer (M. E. Dowson)</span></div> + <div><span class='small'>and</span></div> + <div><span class='large'>A. M. Haggard</span></div> + <div class='c003'>With Two Portraits</div> + <div><span class='small'>by</span></div> + <div>Elinor Dowson</div> + <div class='c003'>❦</div> + <div class='c003'>London</div> + <div><span class='large'>Duckworth & Co.</span></div> + <div>3 Henrietta Street, W.C.</div> + <div>1913</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<table class='table0'> + <tr> + <td class='c006'> </td> + <td class='c006'> </td> + <td class='c007'>PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c006' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Introduction</span></td> + <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_3'>3</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c006' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Her Life</span></td> + <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_13'>13</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c006' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Her Writings</span>—</td> + <td class='c007'> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c006'> </td> + <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Roadmender</span></td> + <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_45'>45</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c006'> </td> + <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Gathering of Brother Hilarius</span></td> + <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_111'>111</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c006'> </td> + <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Grey Brethren</span></td> + <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_120'>120</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span> + <h2 class='c005'>INTRODUCTION</h2> +</div> + +<h3 class='c008'>I</h3> + +<p class='c009'><i><span lang="fr">On ne doit jamais écrire que de ce qu’on +aime.</span></i> It is my happy fortune that I +love Michael Fairless; and although, +before I began to write of her, I thought +the demand anything but happy that +compelled me to break the silence she +desired, I have come to think even +this a part of my good fortune too. +I have come indeed to feel that, since +her wish to remain unknown must be +set aside in face of circumstances she +could never have foreseen, this may +bring new fulfilment to a desire that +lay far nearer to her heart—the desire +to give away all she had, to hoard +nothing, not even her own self.</p> + +<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>Much that Mrs. Haggard says of her +sister’s early childhood is new to me; +but all is congruous, as the bud is congruous +with the rose. The child with +her pet animals I have seen in the +woman for whom all animals, even the +very fierce, were friends, telling each +its own secret and able to receive +something of the great human secret +offered them in her. They grew, these +creatures, grew in spirit, under the +magic of her hands and in the stirring +warmth of her heart. The wild ones +knew her as they knew the little poor +man upon the Umbrian hills. Birds +would perch about her, rabbits play; +even the ‘tramp cats,’ as she calls them +in her Christmas Idyll—cats who had +taken to the woods and become worse +than wild—learnt from her the graces +of home life and laid savagery down. +‘She had a way with her,’ as they say +in Ireland. And this way stretched +<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>beyond the kingdom of the beasts and +bees and birds. When I first learnt to +know her she had a little cottage on a +high road, the great Bath road of many +tramps. It had been the lodge of an abandoned +manor house, and was, of course, +close to the gateway. There she tamed +her tramp men and made them friends. +Every man who came had a table and +chair under shelter; the plainest, simplest +food; materials for mending his clothes, +tea or cocoa to drink, her smile, her +wonderful eyes upon his, her open heart +and word. Never a thing was stolen +from her doors, her wide windows; +never a penny did she give; but many +a man begged leave to chop wood for +her, to dig in her garden—some little +thing to show what she had done for +him.</p> + +<p class='c010'>It seemed to me illuminating; it +pointed me to the one great hope for +this world, the hope of the coming of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>the kingdom of God in the power of +man’s self-sharing, fearless, love for men.</p> + +<p class='c011'>Mrs. Haggard alludes very briefly to +Michael Fairless’s ‘psychic’ gifts. Of +these I had said nothing; she herself +made nothing of them. But they were +strong, too strong to be overlooked by +anyone who knew her well. It would +lead me outside my province if I were +to attempt here an adequate discussion +of the matter. I will say only that she +was ‘telepathic’ in a high degree, had +that sympathetic insight which reveals +actual facts hidden from the physical +senses. The connexion of this with +power over animals is a problem of great +interest for which, again, there is no +place here. How far her insight—her +interior vision—reached I cannot say; +that it went beyond animals, tramps, +and her best friends I am assured by +my experience of her. There is an +<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>instance given in ‘A Modern Mystic’s +Way’ which is true to the letter. The +account given there was transcribed in +every point from notes taken at the +time and signed by her as correct.</p> + +<p class='c010'>She was one whom we who knew +her do not try to measure by ordinary +standards, the rules of everyday, in +any of the relations of life. Need +I say that there were people whom +she puzzled, bewildered? Or that +there were others who not only failed +to understand, but wholly misunderstood +her? They always do it; they +will do it still, no doubt, even when +they have read every word Mrs Haggard +and I have written here.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>W. S. P.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'><span class='sc'>Hartfield</span>, <i>January 1913</i>.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span> + <h3 class='c013'>II</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c009'>It has always been a matter of wonder +to the writer that the affection of the +public for a favourite author should stop +short of observing his wishes. Michael +Fairless most straitly charged those who +would represent her to abstain from the +publication of her identity. But demand +creates supply, and the interest in her +has become so extended that if authorised +information about her is not forthcoming, +something of an unauthorised +and incorrect nature will probably be +produced. Only one thing would have +made Michael Fairless more vexed than +the publication of the truth about +her, and that thing would have been +the publication of untruth. So many +garbled statements, inaccurate assertions +and pure fictions have appeared +about her that it is time for uncertainty +to be dispelled. Death has left absolutely +<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>authentic knowledge in the +hands of two people only—the writers +of this volume. Her eldest sister has +chronicled such of the very simple +happenings of Michael Fairless’s life as +have left some record of her character, +and save for brief mention, is confidently +leaving the treatment of her +work and its effect in the competent +and devoted hands of Mrs Dowson, her +dear friend and literary executor.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>A. M. HAGGARD.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'><span class='sc'>Chelsea</span>, <i>January 1913</i>.</p> + +<div class='chapter ph1'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>HER LIFE</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div>BY</div> + <div class='c003'>A. M. HAGGARD</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i013.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p>Drawn from a photograph.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span> + <h2 class='c005'>HER LIFE</h2> +</div> + +<p class='c011'>Margaret Fairless Barber was born +on the 7th of May 1869 at Castle Hill, +Rastrick, in the W. Riding of Yorkshire, +in the house that had been her grandfather’s, +and where her father was also +born. She was the youngest of the +three daughters of the late Fairless +Barber and Maria Musgrave, his wife, +and was christened after the great-grandmother, +whose violet eyes she +inherited, eyes that had reappeared in +one member of each generation, though +in Margaret’s case the violet gradually +turned to a most beautiful grey. It is +perhaps worth recording for the curious +in such matters, that this family of five +members had but three birthdays. The +eldest and youngest girls were born on +<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>the same day at a nine years’ interval, +and the second girl on her father’s +birthday: only the mother had a +day to herself, a fact for which the +children used to feel it appropriate +to offer affectionate sympathy as being +such a lonely condition. A grandchild—her +eldest daughter’s first child—subsequently +removed this reproach by +appearing within a few hours of the +anniversary. As Michael Fairless undoubtedly +inherited many of their +tendencies, it may not be inappropriate +to give a slight description of her +parents and the home in which she +spent her earlier years.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Her father was educated at St Peter’s +at York, where he distinguished himself +in mathematics, painting, and poetry, +writing the Prize Poem one year. He +subsequently took up his father’s profession +of the law, and acquired a large +practice. All the work which this entailed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>did not, however, prevent him +from the pursuit of his private tastes, +which were antiquarian and literary. He +collected old oak and books, and gradually +amassed a library of his favourite +subjects: archeology, topography, travels, +essays, poetry; standard novels and +the Cornhill Magazine, which in those +days contained the work of Thackeray, +George Eliot, George Meredith, Mrs +Browning, and others. He was +gentle, quiet, and studious, well-read, +an excellent Latin scholar, and a +man with a keen sense of humour, +absolutely devoted to his home and +family.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Her mother had received an unusually +liberal education for early Victorian +days, and had studied French, German, +and Italian; she was a highly cultivated +woman, with a fine taste in literature. +Tennyson, Ruskin, Eugénie de Guérin, +Schiller, Pascal’s Pensées and Jeremy +<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>Taylor recur to the memory as being +amongst others on her shelves. She +was also an exquisite needlewoman, and +an admirable housekeeper and accountant. +In her younger days Mesmerism +and Animal Magnetism were being +socially discussed, and she discovered +herself possessed of great mesmeric +power. But she never pursued the +matter as a study, and mention is only +made of it because it is probably +from her mother’s tendencies that +Michael Fairless derived the germs of +her own psychic development. Parents +and children were most deeply attached, +and husband and wife so completely +wrapped up in each other that their +devotion was almost proverbial in the +neighbourhood. The children used to +show their mother all their various little +efforts in sewing, painting, or scribbling, +and due encouragement was always +given. But they were never allowed to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>think that it was quite the best they +could do, or that anything they did was +at all wonderful. Thus the spirit of +ambition was fostered, and any idea of +precocity discouraged, for Mrs Barber +had the greatest objection to anything +in the nature of an infant phenomenon. +The household was a very quiet one, in +outward observances almost what would +now be considered puritanical; in +mental outlook extremely wide-minded, +liberal and unprejudiced. Since environment +counts for a good deal in +development, this sketch will enable the +reader to trace the source of some of +Michael Fairless’s characteristics.</p> + +<p class='c010'>The house stood in a large garden and +was a long, irregular building, on the site +of an ancient Danish fort. It was fronted +with a large and extremely solid porch, +and its rooms were spacious and mostly +lined with books. The bedroom windows +were hung from spring to autumn with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>white dimity, after the old fashion, and +this was replaced, when the brief Yorkshire +summer ended, by curtains of dark +crimson woollen which shut out the wild +inclement weather, when the days drew +in, and sent the children clustering +round the fire, and making tales, as all +children do, about the visions they saw +in its glowing depths. That large snug +nursery saw many games; with the two +elder girls housekeeping was a favourite +one, in the course of which the baby +came in very handily as a baby instead +of the doll which had hitherto served. +She was also taken out driving and sailing—the +nursery sofa serving equally +well for a steamer or a carriage.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Michael was called Baba until she was +four or five years old, when she became +Marjorie, which name she afterwards +retained. At this time she was a very +pretty child with fair hair, a rather snub +nose, a large but quite perfectly shaped +<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>mouth, and a pair of most beautiful eyes. +An enterprising and enquiring disposition +found, perhaps, its earliest manifestation +in a large and surreptitious +bite at the soap during a bath, in spite +of her old nurse’s warnings, who had +vainly tried to check an inclination for +this experiment. It was the first and +last bite, for a certain clear shrewdness +and common sense were early developed +and retained. When she was about +three years old her mother went abroad +for three months, and during her absence +the child developed croup, terrifying her +father, who was the most devoted of +parents, and went far towards spoiling +her. Indeed, beyond a mild scolding, he +never found it in his heart to inflict a +more severe punishment than shaking his +closed umbrella at her on an occasion +when—just ready to go out—he had +been recalled to deal with some extra +naughtiness; Baba howled with rage, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>but it is to be feared that the proceeding +did not act as much of a deterrent. She +always knew exactly what she wanted, +and seldom regretted her proceedings in +those very youthful days. Once, when +in charge of an aunt, she killed a fly on +the window with a dab of her little fist. +The aunt sought to improve the occasion, +“See what you have done, Baba; how +cruel! You killed that poor little fly, +and if you try and try you can never +make it alive again.” “No,” returned +Baba, “I know I can’t; I don’t want +to.”</p> + +<p class='c010'>Later, when she was seven years old, +her sisters went to school, and then +came the time she speaks of as her +lonely childhood. The neighbourhood +was singularly wanting in children of her +own age, and she was obliged to play +by herself and find her own amusements. +It was at this period too that +she fraternised with the frog, who lived +<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>in the little brook that ran through the +home-field. She was still very much of +a pet, and, though independent in character, +had no objection to be run after +and waited on. Sometimes, however, +even affectionate supervision had serious +drawbacks; on one occasion, a Sunday +evening, the maid who put her to bed +being out, that duty was undertaken +by Franklin, the cook, usually regarded +as a firm friend. On this particular +evening Baba did not at all wish to go +to bed, and was caught for the purpose +after some chasing and insistence; she +was quiet, but most dignified during the +disrobing process, and said her prayers +with much unction, adding an additional +petition, “And pray, God, forgive +Franklin for being so unkind to me!”</p> + +<p class='c010'>She learnt to read when very young, +and reading was always her favourite +occupation; she did not care much for +dolls or toys. When she was about nine +<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>her eldest sister, who had then left +school, taught her the moves of chess, +and she picked up the game very rapidly. +Her sister, it is true, was a slow mover, +and by no means a formidable opponent, +and the child very soon became able to +give her checkmate. She would sit at +the board with a book beside her, which +she read between moves, looking up +when it was her turn to play and giving +a rapid glance at the pieces. Then +swiftly and unhesitatingly the move +was made and she returned to the +book. She probably won two-thirds of +the games.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Although she was but a child she +greatly resented what she called being +made into a baby. Her eldest sister, who +often undertook to give her her lessons, +insisted one day on a dictation being +written on a slate instead of on a piece +of paper, since Marjorie was careless +with ink. Like the man in Calverley’s +<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>poem, Marjorie “argued right, she argued +left, she also argued round about her.” +The sister, who had already been through +painful experiences with Marjorie’s use +of pens and ink, stood firm, and, ruling +lines on the slate, placed it before her +reluctant pupil, who was by this time +much out of breath from the length +and variety of her conversation on the +subject of being treated as a baby. +Seizing the slate Marjorie waved it +dramatically above her head, and shouted, +“Aggie! when I was a child, I thought +as a child, I understood as a child, but +when I became a man” (here the slate +was banged down upon the table), “I +put away childish things.”</p> + +<p class='c010'>On another occasion Marjorie was +forbidden to bring two favourite playthings +to lessons. They were two small +balls of home manufacture and surprising +powers of bounce, and she called them +Winkie and Nobbs. After considerable +<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>delay W. and N. were most unwillingly +put out of sight and reach—physical +reach—and with strangely sudden +docility a dictation was begun. It concerned +Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, +and Marjorie wrote on, with the most +praiseworthy attention. When correction +time came her sister’s feelings may +be imagined, as she made the discovery +that whenever Henry VIII. was in +question, he was alluded to as King +Winkie, while the unhappy Anne had +become Queen Nobbs! The effect was +so ludicrous that the sisters laughed over +it together until they cried.</p> + +<p class='c010'>About this time Marjorie took up hero-worship +with a zest and thoroughness +which she devoted to all her pursuits, +and if anyone ventured to suggest that +even her own particular heroes had their +weak points, she would wax quite fierce +in their defence. In this way Horatius +Cocles (she had just been introduced to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>the Lays of Ancient Rome), Julius Cæsar, +and Napoleon all had their day; she +cried with anger when certain indisputable +faults were pointed out to her in +the last-mentioned personage. She had +now developed remarkable powers of +expression, and wrote quite interesting +letters. Her father being suddenly taken +ill, and it becoming necessary to keep the +house quite quiet, she was invited by +an elderly relative, who lived a few miles +away, to stay with her for a short visit. +Marjorie was not at all anxious to go, but +finally consented, one of the inducements +being that she might help with the fowls +which her cousin kept, and that there +would be beautiful new-laid eggs for +breakfast. Her letter, after a few days’ +stay, was most amusing. It was a very +old-fashioned house, and she had been +put to sleep in a four-post bedstead, +which she said reminded her of a hearse, +while the newspapers, placed upon the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>top to keep off the dust, “rustled like +the flowers at the funeral.” “As for +eggs,” she continued, “I haven’t seen +as much as the white of an egg since I +came.”</p> + +<p class='c010'>Like her sisters she had read omnivorously; +the nursery shelves, though well +furnished, did not last her long, and she +browsed in the library. She had got +through all Dickens and most of Sir +Walter Scott before she was twelve. +She read very quickly, and had the knack +of mastering the essentials of her reading +with extraordinary rapidity, so that in +a very short time she could discuss her +subject even when it chanced to be +rather more serious than fiction. Natural +history she was extremely fond of, and +with all animals she was an instant +friend. Some time later, Whiskey, the +white rat, and a tamed starling, fallen +from the nest and picked up half-fledged, +were the objects of great devotion. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>They involved a tiny tragedy too, for +to the faithful Whiskey it appeared that +overmuch affection was bestowed upon +the bird, and he, who had hitherto lived +in amity with his feathered companion, +flew at him one afternoon and fatally +injured him. His mistress never quite +forgave Whiskey, though after a temporary +estrangement, due to that unfortunate +fit of temper, the rat was readmitted +to fellowship. In her later +years there was Trilby, a stray cat, who +somehow suggested a depressed charwoman; +Phœbus, a magnificent orange +Persian, who purred under his daily +brushing if she undertook it, but growled +and swore in other hands. There was +also a poor dancing bear whose sore foot +she dressed at the street door, while his +owner looked on expecting to see her +attacked in spite of the muzzle, but +watched Bruin fawn on her instead. +You can trace her understanding of all +<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>living things whenever she writes of them. +Who can forget the anxious hen in “The +Roadmender,” or “The Follering Bürd,” +or the tortoise, making “a stately meal +of buttercups,” or the sense of myriad +life which came to her as she lay under +the great tree on her last day in the +garden?</p> + +<p class='c010'>Her father died in 1881, when she was +twelve years old; and her mother, never +a very strong woman, was completely +prostrated by her loss. At about thirteen +Marjorie went to school at Torquay with +a relative for a few months, and subsequently +spent a short time in another +school near London, whose principal was +far from appreciating her. Except for +home-teaching and wide and constant +reading this was all the education she +had.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Between 1882 and 1884 Marjorie’s +health became affected by her rapid +growth, and some spinal weakness was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>disclosed. Her rather delicate condition, +as well as her mother’s invalidism, +and the fact that one of her sisters was +already married and the other away +from home, finally decided Mrs Barber +to give up the house in Yorkshire, now +so much too large for the diminished +family, and settle somewhere experimentally +until a final residence could be +fixed on. Marjorie’s health then improved, +and she went to a small children’s +hospital on the outskirts of London +maintained by the private generosity +of two ladies. Here she began training +as a sick-nurse, a profession for which +she had much natural aptitude, and here +she went through the ordeal of being +present at her first operation. It did not +affect her as much as she had imagined +might be the case, but she did not stay +more than a few months at the hospital +as her own health was too indifferent to +permit of longer training. About this +<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>time she joined a modelling class, and +her master, when shown her work, refused +to believe that it was her first +effort, and that she had never previously +had a lesson. Between 1886 and 1891 +she spent a certain amount of time in +Torquay, where she helped to nurse a +relative in failing health, and after her +death became for a time parish nurse. +She also worked in the East End for +a short time, in the district well (or +ill) known as the Jago. In 1891 her +mother died in the small Suffolk town +where she had taken a house; it was the +Bungay so faithfully described as the +goal of the blind friar’s journey in +Brother Hilarius. Here Marjorie used +to enjoy rowing herself on the river, +and here the tradespeople still remember +her as ‘so nice to talk to.’ She was +intuitive to a high degree, and therefore +could sympathise with widely divergent +joys and griefs. Her keen sense of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>humour, too, prevented her ever being +depressed or unamused, and probably in +all her life she never felt bored.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Marjorie was twenty-two years old +when her mother died. She was very +tall, with a fair complexion, a good deal +of brown hair, very large grey eyes full +of expression—an index indeed of whatever +she was speaking or thinking about. +They could beam with serene pleasure, +grow tenderly sympathetic or dance with +mischievous fun as the spirit moved her. +Her face and appearance were most +arresting and her conversation quite +fascinating, for she was extremely witty. +Quick to see the humorous side of a +thing, she yet responded to any mood of +her companions. Her eldest sister once +heard her described by a bluff and frank +naval officer as ‘rattling good company,’ +and the words were apt.</p> + +<p class='c010'>After her mother’s death, which occurred +rather unexpectedly, Marjorie +<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>lived for a time a somewhat varied +existence partly in England and partly +in Germany, where with a friend she +stayed for a while in a quaint little place +on the Rhine. Their lodgings were in +an old tower, where they were one night +serenaded by students to Marjorie’s great +delight and amusement. She was also +for some time in Wiesbaden under treatment +for her eyesight, which was just +then giving her trouble. She was here +overtaken by a sudden and serious +attack of illness, during which she was +most devotedly nursed by the little +Sister of Charity, a “scant five feet” +high, described in “A German Christmas +Eve.”</p> + +<p class='c010'>After her recovery and return to +England she again took up philanthropic +work, and it was an errand +of this nature which first introduced +her to the household into which she +was afterwards adopted. The family’s +<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>interests were literary, scientific, and +artistic, and they were not slow to +appreciate the combination of rare and +valuable qualities which they perceived +in Marjorie. Her position at the time +was an independent but singularly +lonely one. Both her sisters were +married, one always abroad, and she +had no especial claim on any of her +other relatives. She was financially +independent; her health was already +most uncertain, and she was subject to +distressing and painful attacks of illness. +Here was a home whose doors were +open for her; a circle of friends with +hands outstretched in welcome and +invitation. When she decided to enter +the one and accept the other, many +of her own relatives disapproved, and +when, with characteristic thoroughness +of accomplishment, she dropped her +own family name and took that of her +adopted one, sundry hard things were +<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>written and spoken. To her eldest +sister, however, the “adoption” brought +nothing but relief and approval; to +feel that one so needing it would for the +future have every care and attention +that could be given in either sickness or +health; that she would live among the +most congenial surroundings and be +able to follow her artistic bent in whatever +direction it might suggest itself—these +things weighed heavier than the +superficial loss of identity which the +change of name entailed. Nor was her +content ever disturbed. As time passed +and Marjorie’s health grew feebler, redoubled +care was exercised, and every +expedient which science could supply +or affection suggest, was used in the +endeavour to ease, when, alas, it became +apparent that her deathward way could +only be smoothed but by no means +arrested.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Marjorie’s temperament was essentially +<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>creative; the need for expression +was so strong that as her health broke +down, and one pursuit after another +became impossible, she found fresh outlets. +When she could no longer go +about much she took up her modelling +again, and executed, among other things, +a really wonderful crucifix. Her power +of entering into the spirit of her work +was extraordinary; she became, as it were, +obsessed with it. On seeing the crucifix +a good judge of mediæval work asked +its owners where they got their “14th +century” work? Marjorie’s mind, at +the time she executed this, was full of +Florentine work of that period, and it +set its sign on what she wrought.</p> + +<p class='c010'>When she became too ill to go on +with her modelling, she began to write; +when writing could not be done in a +sitting position, she propped the paper +on her chest and wrote lying down; +by and by the right hand could no +<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>longer be used, so she wrote with +her left, a beautiful legible script. +When increased physical weakness made +writing in every way impossible, she +dictated.</p> + +<p class='c011'>She lived in those days in an old +Georgian house on Chelsea Embankment, +a house from which she could +hear the gulls scream over the Thames, +recalling “Daddy Whiddon” and “The +Follerin’ Bürd,” and where, under her +window, grew the grimy tree in which +the sparrow brethren chattered and +squabbled. Round her room one of her +adopted sisters had designed the frieze of +flowers which was “Like the Rose tree in +Alice in Wonderland.” For many, many +weeks she lay, suffering acutely, yet +always writing, piecing together that +exquisite literary mosaic called “The +Roadmender.” By and by when the +summer came and the heat, when London +<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>noises wearied ear and brain alike, she +sighed for the green peace of the country. +Her condition was then such that no +one could tell how long she might still +be spared. Every precaution against +fatigue or shaking could not really +eliminate either from the journey, which +was an awful strain on an enfeebled +frame. But once among the Sussex +fields, with the downs in sight, her contentment +grew daily in spite of terrible +pain and exhaustion. She had the clear +sunshine, the clean air, the swallows +that twittered from their nests above +her windows, and her cup of satisfaction +was full. The watchers knew their task +would be but a brief one, yet none could +know when the end might come. She +was extremely happy with those she +loved around her; her dear animal +friends were there too, for Phœbus, the +big cat, and Jacob, most faithful of +little bull-dogs (he was of the French +<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>breed), had migrated to the country also. +Marjorie was almost unable to take any +nourishment of any kind by now, yet +her courage and cheerfulness never failed, +and she showed the keenest interest in +any subject discussed. The proofs of +“Brother Hilarius” were coming in daily +for correction, and she weighed every +word as it was read to her; she would +insert a comma here, begin a fresh paragraph +there, and secure the cadence of +every sentence. She would sometimes +add or take away even a syllable in some +phrase which struck her sensitive ear as +not properly balanced or harmonious. At +this time she was failing very rapidly, +and it seemed doubtful if she would +finish the proofs. But her interest was +unabated though she was in the last +stages of intense weakness, and it seemed +as if she could not leave her work until +it was done. She lived to complete the +task; and a few days later, after many +<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>hours of unconsciousness, she passed +through that white gate whence her +words have echoed back with such +gracious insistence. Her suffering had +been awful, her courage wellnigh incredible, +but none could regret the +peace she had won, and it was not +without reason that her eldest sister, +roaming the garden for flowers in the +twilight of early dawn, chose out of all +blossoms the heartsease that fashioned +the first cross laid on her breast. She +died on the 24th of August 1901, in her +thirty-third year.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Looking back over the time which +has elapsed since she cried her farewell, +it is comparatively easy to give some +idea of her marvellous development +during her last six years of life, the years, +that is to say, when experiment had +taught relative importance, and experience +had brought certainty. During +her time of comparative health, when +<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>able to work and travel, to make acquaintances +and friends—and how many +and faithful they were—to strive after +the betterment of poverty and sickness, +during that time Marjorie had accumulated +a magnificent series of what may +be called mental photographs. All her +days she had been a keen and humorous +observer, with an extraordinary and +retentive memory, and when ill-health +narrowed the circle of physical activity +her mentality asserted itself more +strongly. She turned, as it were, to +the portfolio of her memory and looked +over its pictures, seeing them now more +truly because she was their spectator, +and no longer swayed or diverted by +the momentary action which had made +them hers. She dipped the brush of +imagination into the colours of reality, +and lo, they became living as they +limned forth those scenes which her life +and its happenings had gathered; for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>Michael Fairless’s art, in whatever direction, +owed its rare loveliness to its +absolute truth, and it is the width of +appeal in the truth as she set it forth +which has won her so many readers. +Her subjects were never out of the way +or far-fetched, yet her unerring instinct +set the seal of speciality on whatever +subject she touched. Page after page +of her writing reveals fresh beauty in +the simplest things; the busy little +German nun, the child trotting with its +cats to seek counsel, the London sparrows, +old Gawdine, “Luvly Miss” and her +owner, a pathetic little bundle in cotton +wool, dying of her burns, and cheered +at the last by the resurrection of her +treasure; the old man on his way to +the workhouse, the woman haymaking +and nursing her love-child in the field-corner, +the parson who stayed to talk +with the roadmender and bestowed rare +tobacco—they are a veritable portrait-gallery. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>Think, too, of that scene at the +inn when Brother Hilarius guides the +blind friar, and Piping Hugh of Mildenhall +whistles like a bird on his oaten +straw. The pictures are produced without +effort; Michael Fairless saw with +the inner vision, and to her expression +was easy. Hers was a delicate and a +subtle gift, perfect of its kind, a gift +that has drawn many after her along the +road she mended, ay, the gift that for +many has changed a darksome portal +into a white gate, framed in clustering +boughs, and set in the gracious sunlight +of summer.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c005'>HER WRITINGS</h2> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div>BY</div> + <div class='c003'>W. SCOTT PALMER</div> + <div class='c003'>(M. E. DOWSON)</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span> + <h3 class='c013'>THE ROADMENDER</h3> +</div> + +<h4 class='c008'>I</h4> + +<p class='c009'>Michael Fairless was an artist, with +the artist’s longing for creative expression. +But while she was able to move +about among her fellows her imaginative +force, together with such strength of +body as she had and her fine intellectual +endowment, was spent on their +behalf. She gave herself without stint +and, it appeared, without regret for much +that must consequently stand aside. +Men and their miseries, their poverty, +pleasures, joys and pain, seemed to take +the place for her of the artist’s material +in language or clay or colour. The +<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>material she chose was life, life in all +its crudity or evasiveness, its stubborn +resistance, forbidding weakness, its failures +and faults; and with the far-reaching +promise upon which only faith as +strong as hers can keep a constant hold. +In each man she saw, through disfigurement +and disguise, his proper reflexion +of the divine image, as a sculptor sees +in the block of marble the one beauty +that he is to set free.</p> + +<p class='c010'>There were times when I thought this +passion of hers would always be enough. +I thought the fountain of charity in her +heart would never allow her artistic +longings to be carried into any field but +that of life. When the claims of human +needs and suffering for the moment +slackened, I saw that there was always +the attraction of a perennial love and +carefulness for every creature of the +earth, even the very lowest. From the +blade of grass and the clod on which it +<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>grew, to every beast and bird, all things +entered her soul to become her own, to +become centres of the active, self-devoted +interest that one gives only to one’s own. +I might well think that she would live +and die without any disturbing recognition +of another longing unfulfilled. Moreover, +her enjoyment of the creative +work of others was never tainted by +self-pity, or by that base alloy of envy +which kills delight in many of us, whose +gifts and executive powers are far inferior +to hers. It seemed reasonable to +think that her love of beauty would +be satisfied with what her indomitable +eagerness and energy enabled her to +absorb from literature, painting and +sculpture, from music and, above all, +from the symbolism of religion in its +poetry of psalm and stately hymn, and +in those lovely myths with which the +childlike heart of man has clothed his +intuitions of divine things. But I was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>wrong. The impulse to create, though +often overborne, was very masterful.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Out of that impulse sprang the crucifix +now in St John Baptist’s church in +London (Pimlico Road). In this she +shewed a promise of what might have +been had she been trained and practised +in a plastic art. But I am sure, nevertheless, +that nothing short of inability +to go out into the highways of life, to +seek and find, or at the least to be sought +and found by, troubled men and women, +would have turned her finally to any +engrossing work other than that which +she could do for them.</p> + +<p class='c011'>Twenty months before she died the +opportunity came—as mortal sickness. +To most of us it would hardly have +been an opportunity. Among our writers +only a few unconquerable spirits, of +whom Robert Louis Stevenson perhaps +is chief, have been able to overcome +<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>flesh and its hindrances by the governance +of the soul, when the weight of +Death’s heavy hand has been laid upon +them. For men of this rank, life, when +it meets new difficulty in a body nearing +to the grave, rises against that difficulty +in a fresh uplifting of power. The men +themselves are carried beyond the atmosphere +of oppression caused by the +disabilities of mortal sickness; and +we watch them working miracles, as +though these were trifles light as air. +Of that rare company was Michael +Fairless. But she knew when and how +she was beaten; for there is another +thing to be noted of that company—an +illuminated common sense. They work +miracles, it is true; but they are not +often found trying impossibilities. Their +faith is potent, but it is neither superstitious +nor absurd. Behind what looks +to many of us a reckless venture and +a foolish hope it seems that there is, in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>reality, something which takes the place +of a prudent man’s prudent calculation. +It seems that where other men must +calculate they <i>see</i>—yet without knowing +that they see. They know what they +can and what they cannot do; but it is +as though by a concealed interior vision, +not by mere guess, that they make discoveries. +Their decisions are, for the +most part, not to be justified by the +maxims and habits of ordinary usage in +life, yet are very often crowned with +good success and are richly productive +as ordinary ways are not. They have, +as I said, their common sense.</p> + +<p class='c010'>So, when Michael Fairless met defeat, +she laid down her arms, the wonted +weapons of her charity, but took up +others. And with these she made a +way, not only to hearts beyond any +range of hers before, but also for her +artist-soul, frustrate in the years gone +by. We who looked on thought that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>but for the help she could give to +friends able to come to her bedside, +most likely she would do nothing more. +Again we were wrong.</p> + +<p class='c011'>We took her away from London to the +Down country that she loved, hoping +for some recovery—against hope and +against her own conviction. There, in +her ‘cool light room on the garden +level’ with windows opening to the +ground, day after day she looked ‘across +the bright grass—<i>il verde smalto</i>—’ +and beyond ‘the promise of coming +lilies,’ to the Gate of her symbolic +fancy:—‘I know now,’ she says in +“The Roadmender,” ‘that whenever and +wherever I die my soul will pass out +through this white gate.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>There, beside the gate, the roadmender +was born. I suppose he was fully grown +in the spirit of her meditation before she +spoke of him. Certainly it was her own +<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>soul, mind, heart, and life’s experience +that he embodied. He was conceived +of her, bone of her bone, spirit of her +spirit. Who knows him knows her; +in following his life and death we follow +hers. His realized ideal is hers that +was unrealized. But indeed in him +she touched realization. ‘I am a roadmender,’ +she said to me, ‘there, by the +white gate.’ As in all true artists, life +passed from her into her creation, virtue +went forth from her, and she with +virtue: she <i>was</i> that roadmender.</p> + +<p class='c010'>I think she would have been content +with giving him life thus, within her +own artistic cognizance, but for another +thing. She wanted to earn money, little +or much; had a hundred uses for it; +saw that perhaps some would come into +her hands this way. So she demanded +of me pencil and paper, and wrote +down (with her left hand, the right being +disabled; and without being lifted up +<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>in bed) the first chapter of ‘The Roadmender.’ +She wrote easily, it appeared, +and as well and clearly, almost as quickly, +as before this last disabling sickness. She +hardly ever paused for thought or word, +and made small correction. To the +best of my present memory the second +chapter was written next day and with +the same swift facility.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Neither of these, nor any that followed, +was thought of by her (or for that matter +by me) as a chapter; each was no more +than a sketch, a little paper telling of +the roadmender she was. Not until +much later, in fact just before the end, +did it occur to either of us that she had +been writing a book.</p> + +<p class='c010'>We sent those sketches, the first and +second, to Mr Lathbury, the editor of +<i>The Pilot</i>, who accepted them with +encouraging, and to her surprising, readiness. +They were published; and from +that time to this their readers, in a fast +<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>increasing number, have asked for news, +facts, about the writer. Unquestionably +The Roadmender’s appeal, whatever it +was, went home there and then and has +never ceased to find response. But +this is not the place in which that +appeal should be discussed; it shall be +dealt with later. Here I only allude to +it in passing, as a significant piece of +the short history of an all too short +literary life.</p> + +<p class='c011'>For anyone who knew the previous +life of the author, the fitness of her +roadmender to present herself and her +ideals was obvious. ‘After all,’ he says +for her in that opening chapter, ‘what +do we ask of life, here or indeed hereafter, +but leave to serve, to live, to +commune with our fellow-men and +with ourselves; and from the lap of +earth to look up into the face of God?’ +That aspiration to service and communion +<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>had been in her no affair of mere +aspiration; it had been a burning force, +not a quietistic scheme. Yet always her +heart and soul rested gladly in ‘the +lap of earth’; and she turned her face +towards the face of God as she discerned +that vision everywhere, in earth and +earth’s little ones, and in the face of +man. But a new peacefulness came +with the laying down of arms, and she +could picture herself quietly at work on +the common road, serving ‘the footsteps +of her fellows’; indeed joining with +contentment ‘the company of weary old +men who sit on the sunny side of the +workhouse wall and wait for the tender +mercies of God.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Death it is that in truth she waits +for in the pages of ‘The Roadmender.’ +You will find death everywhere, a friend, +a ‘strong angel’ and, as here, ‘the +tender mercies of God.’ The road, too, +although the common road of service +<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>and of the common labour of man, is the +one that leads into the great silence; +the mysteries of God and man cast +shadows in the sunshine of its ‘white +highway.’ This is the background, or +the chorus if you will, even of the first +part of the book, where she is giving a +picture of the man and herself, and +furnishing his experience from her own +experience in past days. There is the +snake, bringing in Melampus and the +revealing of secrets by the fatal kiss; +there is the old widow, waiting, as she +herself was waiting, for death and a +‘“kind” burial’ in ‘the little churchyard +which has been a cornfield, and +may some day be one again.’ The sea +brings memories of ‘its secret dead in +the caverns of Peace,’ and of ‘the still +and silent Sea of Glass’ and ‘the Voice +as the voice of many waters.’ But +withal there is love, the constant love +of earth’s fair face, and its living adornment; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>the love for which she thanks +God as ‘the Brotherhood of the +Poor’; even the bitter-sweet love +of death itself:—‘Very pleasant art +thou, O Brother Death, thy love +is wonderful, passing the love of +women.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘“Surely all men should be roadmenders,”’ +the parson says. ‘O wise +parson, so to read the lesson of the +road!’ That is her heart-felt comment.</p> + +<p class='c011'>The first part of the book ended with +the ending of autumn, when we brought +her back to London—to our house, +91 Cheyne Walk. She was borne to the +station on a mattress laid in the bottom +of a covered cart, the tilt thrown open +at the back. As the cart went on, she +watched through this opening, the receding +lane—‘lay as in a blissful dream,’ +she says. ‘The looped-back tarpaulin +framed the long vista of my road with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>the downs beyond; and I lay in the +cool dark, caressed by the fresh breeze +in its thoroughfare, soothed by the +strong monotonous tramp of the great +grey team and the music of the jangling +harness.’ ‘It is like Life,’ she goes on, +‘this travelling backwards—that which +has been, alone visible—like Life, +which is, after all, retrospective with a +steady moving on into the Unknown, +Unseen, until Faith is lost in Sight +and experience is no longer the touchstone +of humanity.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>I believe she thought, then, that she +would never come back to her road, +to the green fields she loved so well, +the garden that was ‘an epitome of +peace,’ the sycamore-tree that made a +microcosmic world for her as she lay +beneath it, caressed by the sunlight +scattered through its leaves. She +thought, I believe, that Brother Death +would meet her among the close-set +<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>houses of the town, while she lay isolated +in the great city. So she said farewell, +not only with the roadmender to roadmending, +but to the country of her +love. Yet she says it with a characteristic +qualifying:—‘It is scarcely a +farewell, for my road is ubiquitous, +eternal; there are green ways in Paradise +and golden streets in the beautiful +City of God. Nevertheless, my heart +is heavy; for, viewed by the light of +the waning year, roadmending seems a +great and wonderful work which I have +poorly conceived of and meanly performed: +yet I have learnt to understand +dimly the truth of three great +paradoxes—the blessing of a curse, the +voice of silence, the companionship +of solitude—and so take my leave of +this stretch of road, and of you who +have fared along the white highway +through the medium of a printed +page.</p> + +<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>‘Farewell! It is a roadmender’s +word; I cry you Godspeed to the next +milestone—and beyond.’ In her mind, +I am sure, these words were the last she +was to write.</p> + +<h4 class='c008'>II</h4> + +<p class='c009'>The roadmender, however, had become +part of herself, and as her life +went on so he in her went on. But +we cease to watch the moving picture +of a fictitious experience at the roadside +where men and the sacrificial beasts—the +procession of a common life—went +by. We are embarked upon the swiftly +flowing river of her own life, as it +passes to the sea. Henceforth the author +speaks of herself almost undisguised; +she is still the roadmender, but he +lives, moves towards his death, rejoices, +suffers, contemplates, reflects, as she does, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>in the actual process of her being. What +happens happens here and now—this is +a day-book we are reading, very faithful, +very candid, and only the more pathetic +to us when we know it as it really is.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘The next milestone’ marked for her +the entrance to the valley of the shadow +of death. She knew that still the days +might but slowly drag out their tale, +and she be long, yet, in passing through; +she was assured now, and not only by +her own conviction, that never would +she pass from beneath that shadow until +the gate of earth closed behind her, and +she found herself in some such ‘brave +new world’ as she had seen before in +dream or vision, where the inner world +of spirit, of the joy and light and hope +in which her spirit dwelt while she was +here, would show itself more plainly, +less confused.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘Out of the Shadow’ the new set of +papers came, and thus they were headed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>when she wrote the first. ‘I am no longer +a roadmender,’ she says; ‘the stretch +of white highway which leads to the +end of the world will know me no more; +the fields and hedgerows, grass and +leaf stiff with the crisp rime of winter’s +breath, lie beyond my horizon; the +ewes in the folding, their mysterious eyes +quick with the consciousness of coming +motherhood, answer another’s voice +and hand; while I lie here, not in the +lonely companionship of my expectations, +but where the shadow is bright +with kindly faces and gentle hands, +until one kinder and gentler still carries +me down the stairway into the larger +room.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>There, in an old house fronting the +Thames, she watched from her bed no +longer the green grass, the meadows and +the white gate with the roadmender’s +road, but the highway of water, ‘the +silent river of my heart’ she calls +<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>it, ‘with its tale of wonder and +years.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Her love of roads and of running water +is significant for the understanding of +her character and mind. She is of those +for whom life is movement, and time is +real.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Nothing for her stands still, is fixed—static, +as we say now; the whole +creation moves with the movement and +communicated freedom of the purposes +of God, and with the outpouring of the +divine spirit in the spirits of men. Even +in the flux of earth she sees the flowing +of the great rivers of the heavenly love; +and all earth’s roads and streams are +but ways of that eternal journey of man, +of which his temporal journeys are at +once the cloak and sacrament.</p> + +<p class='c010'>As she looks upon the landscape of the +world it grows transparent for her, and +paradise, with its lucent life and many-coloured +waters, shines through. The +<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>life of the spirit is more real to her than +any life beside, more real, more powerful, +constraining. When she writes of little +things you see that for her there are no +little things; each touches the eternal +and has its endless depth of meaning +there. And because there is this endless +meaning, this unfathomed background, +this movement of all within the +movement that is carrying all, roads +have magic in her eyes—or rather are +symbols of a more than magical truth. +She watches the multitude travelling +there along the ages in the pilgrimage +of life that every man must share. No +event, no spectacle in earth or heaven +stands alone; she has the mystic’s +sense of wholeness and continuity, as of +the dark impenetrable wonders underlying +everything that can be seen even +by the mystic’s eye. Therefore, that +which is seen signifies, carries with it, +all the rest; every road ‘leads to the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>end of the world,’ every river has ‘its +tale of wonder and years’ and flows +into the sea where its waters shall be +transformed.</p> + +<p class='c011'>She tells us that to meet death in the +town was not what she had desired. +‘I, a shy lover of the fields and woods, +longed always, should a painless passing +be vouchsafed me, to make my bed +on the fragrant pine needles in the +aloneness of a great forest; to lie once +again as I had lain many a time, +bathed in the bitter sweetness of the +sun-blessed pines, lapped in the manifold +silence; my ear attuned to the +wind of Heaven with its call from the +Cities of Peace. In sterner mood, when +Love’s hand held a scourge, I craved +rather the stress of the moorland with +its bleaker mind imperative of sacrifice. +To rest again under the lee of Rippon +Tor, swept by the strong peat-smelling +<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>breeze; to stare untired at the long +cloud-shadowed reaches, and watch the +mist-wraiths huddle and shrink round +the stones of blood; until my sacrifice +too was accomplished, and my soul had +fled. A wild waste moor; a vast void +sky; and naught between heaven and +earth but man, his sin-glazed eyes +seeking afar the distant light of his +own heart.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>But these moods had passed, and +although the scourge Love held now in +his hand was heavy and the sacrifice long +of its accomplishment, she was, as she +says, content to lie patiently in the great +capital, with its stir of life and death, of +toil and strife and pleasure, which she +had thought ‘an ill place for a sick man +to wait in’; and there find ‘the fulfilment +by antithesis of all desire.’ ‘“It is +not good that the man should be alone,” +said the Lord God.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Day and night she follows the great +<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>barges on the waterway, as she followed +in her mind the coming and going on the +road near her white gate. ‘Throughout +the long watches of the night I follow +them; and in the early morning they +slide by, their eyes pale in the twilight; +while the stars flicker and fade, and the +gas lamps die down into a dull yellow +blotch against the glory and glow of a +new day.’ ‘It is like Life,’ she would +have said again had you asked her; but +she tells you nothing of her weariness in +those night-watches nor of her pain.</p> + +<p class='c011'>On the wooden cross that marks her +grave there are these words: ‘Lo, how +I loved thee!’ They are taken from +her last gift to me, Mother Julian’s +‘Revelations of Divine Love.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>In the groaning and travailing of +creation she bore her part, but never +alone; always God was there bearing +his part and the part of every one. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>Across the whole world there lay for her +the light of the glory of divine sacrifice. +Not for her was any picture of a serene +and far-away God without ‘parts or +passions,’ looking on at the world’s +pain; it was the glory of her God to +share all pain. There was nothing, no +weariness of hers or any man’s, no +suffering, even of the beasts, that was +not his. And faith in God gave her also +faith in suffering, in the value of a sacrifice +to be accomplished, of a travail that +should bring forth fruit to all eternity, +of groaning that was the utterance of +slaves working towards their manumission +and the freedom of divine sons. +‘Lo, how I loved thee!’ All men shall +hear this when their own sacrifice is +indeed accomplished, and their ‘sin-glazed +eyes’ open to see who it is that +has sacrificed himself in them. This was +her strength.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Why, then, should she tell us of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>suffering she bore, as she went through +the valley of the shadow comforted in +the strength of the divine Companion +of her way, the Love that so loved her +and all the world?</p> + +<p class='c011'>It is fitting that she writes here the +story of Gawdine, the organ-grinder whom +it was once her ‘privilege to know’; it +is fitting that I repeat it now.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘He was a hard swearer, a hard drinker, +a hard liver, and he fortified himself +body and soul against the world: he +even drank alone, which is an evil +sign.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘One day to Gawdine sober came a +little dirty child, who clung to his +empty trouser leg—he had lost a limb +years before—with a persistent unintelligible +request. He shook the little +chap off with a blow and a curse; and +the child was trotting dismally away, +when it suddenly turned, ran back, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>and held up a dirty face for a +kiss.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘Two days later Gawdine fell under a +passing dray which inflicted terrible +internal injuries on him. They patched +him up in hospital, and he went back +to his organ-grinding, taking with him +two friends—a pain which fell suddenly +upon him to rack and rend with an +anguish of crucifixion, and the memory +of a child’s upturned face. Outwardly +he was the same save that he changed +the tunes of his organ, out of long-hoarded +savings, for the jigs and reels +which children hold dear, and stood +patiently playing them in child-crowded +alleys, where pennies are not as plentiful +as elsewhere.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘He continued to drink; it did not +come within his new code to stop, since +he could “carry his liquor well”; +but he rarely, if ever, swore. He told +me this tale through the throes of his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>anguish as he lay crouched on a mattress +on the floor; and as the grip of the pain +took him he tore and bit at his hands +until they were maimed and bleeding, to +keep the ready curses off his lips.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘He told the story, but he gave no +reason, offered no explanation: he has +been dead now many a year, and thus +would I write his epitaph:—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘He saw the face of a little child, and looked on God.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c011'>Love the supreme Sculptor at work on +Gawdine, as on herself in her weariness +and pain, at work too on the welter of +all this world, calling forth from the +rudest marble the divine Beauty that +love is—this she sees. Love, too, +looking from the face of a child and +searching out his own image, his own +response, from behind the battered mask +that hides it from every other eye. And +pain, the friend of sinners, the opportunity +<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>of love human and divine, love +no less divine in that it has entered into +man—this, too.</p> + +<p class='c010'>The whole philosophy to which +Michael Fairless had attained is written +in the true tale of Gawdine; a living, +vibrant philosophy it was, entering into +herself, her action, her judgements +whether of reflective thought or of +intuitive discovery.</p> + +<p class='c010'>It is not her way to see in an ill-driven +dray the miraculous handiwork of God +or a punishment for sin. “All things,” +she would have told us, as she tells us +here, “work together for good” in those +who do not resist good when it comes. +The dray and the face of the child are +for her instruments and channels of God; +yet neither is constrained, compelled—each +is free according to its measure, +each follows the law of its own being. +So both are sacraments of the universal +sacrament in which our lives are set +<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>and, according to their different measure, +become mediators of the divine. The +opportunity for both God and man is to +be found everywhere by those who are +willing to receive a gift; in pain or +pleasure, riches or poverty, good hap or +disaster. You have not to go in search +of it; but neither must you turn away, +or deny it even when it comes as the +bitterest drop in the cup that you must +drink. ‘Two friends—an anguish of +crucifixion, and the memory of a child’s +upturned face.’</p> + +<p class='c011'>One thing more this story brings out—a +conviction which establishes for her, +once for all, that without the law there +is no sin. A new law is born in Gawdine +telling him, through the wound he gives +to a little child, that he must ‘keep the +ready curses off his lips.’ But he could +“carry his liquor well,” he was still +guiltless of offence in that, still waiting +<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>for a new law concerning that. And +his judges must wait too.</p> + +<p class='c010'>This is of her abiding sense of movement +in every man’s life—a movement +that gathers as it goes, and in which the +man changes, not as a dead thing, a +tool, or toy, is changed, but by a free +and living creation, in which nothing is +made actual and real that does not spring +from the creative heart of his own character. +You do not make a character +as you build a house, laying one stone +upon another; nor do you alter it as +you might alter a house, pulling out +these stones, and putting others in. It +grows by inherent power, assimilating, +rejecting, amplifying or transmuting, as +though that which comes to it were food, +which indeed it is—food from heaven or +from hell. And every particle of this +food that is truly incorporated in the +man’s life goes to change character +through and through, may be trusted +<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>to do it. Therefore, behind laws outworn +and habits that should be outgrown, +the charity that believes all +things and hopes all things discovers +the man as he really is, with promise of +the man that he will be. Therefore, too, +it is a charity that works for men in the +light of knowledge of the men, and works +wonders—as did Michael Fairless by its +means. She says of the thirteenth century +bishop about whom she writes a +little later, that ‘he has known darkness +and light and the minds of many men; +most surely, too, he has known that God +fulfils Himself in strange ways.’ We +may say the same of her, for she never +forgot the ‘strange ways’ of God with +men.</p> + +<p class='c011'>Winter drew towards its end, and she +still lived to enjoy once more winter’s +promise of the spring and the memories +alive in her of springs gone by. ‘On +<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>Sunday,’ she writes, ‘my little tree’ +[the tree outside her window-panes] +‘was limned in white and the sparrows +were craving shelter at my window +from the blizzard. Now the mild thin +air brings a breath of spring in its wake +and the daffodils in the garden wait +the kisses of the sun. Hand-in-hand +with memory I slip away down the +years, and remember a day when I +awoke at earliest dawn, for across my +sleep I had heard the lusty golden-throated +trumpeters heralding the +spring.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Verily I believe she had heard those +golden-throated trumpeters, for the +blood of the plants ran in her veins, as +did the blood of beasts and birds, and +of all the common life. She was of the +community of earth and nothing could +ever set her apart. ‘The earth called,’ +she says, ‘the fields called, the river +called—that pied piper to whose +<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>music a man cannot stop his ears. It +was with me as with the Canterbury +pilgrims:—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘“So priketh hem nature in hir corages;</div> + <div class='line'>Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages.”’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c010'>In memory she sped on, ‘light of heart +and foot with the new wine of the year,’ +until she heard ‘the voice of the stream,’ +as with her body’s ears, and as with +her body’s eyes saw spring’s pageant; +‘green pennons waving, dainty maids +curtseying, and a host of joyous yellow +trumpeters proclaiming “Victory” to +an awakened earth.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Then—so like her—she notes the +solitary flower, one growing apart close +to the old tree’s side. ‘I sat down by +my lonely little sister, blue sky overhead, +green grass at my feet, decked, +like the pastures of the Blessèd, in +glorious sheen; a sea of triumphant +golden heads tossing blithely back as +<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>the wind swept down to play with them +at his pleasure.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘It was all mine,’ she says, from one +of her deepest convictions, ‘to have and +to hold without severing a single slender +stem or harbouring a thought of +covetousness; mine, as the whole +earth was mine, to appropriate to myself +without the burden and bane of +worldly possession.’</p> + +<hr class='c015'> + +<p class='c010'>‘The river of God is full of water. +The streets of the City are pure gold. +Verily, here also having nothing we +possess all things.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Thus she comes back to her sick-room +in the dreadful yet beautiful city of +earth, possessing ‘all things.’</p> + +<p class='c011'>The gulls from the river sought the +open sea; ‘the swoop and circle of +silver wings in the sunlight’ was for +her to be no more; and with her heart +<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>she followed them ‘to the free airs of +their inheritance, to the shadow of sun-swept +cliffs and the curling crest of the +wind-beaten waves.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>The little lime-tree before her window +spoke to her of the green country—was +‘gemmed with buds, shy, immature, but +full of promise.’ With the glory of +that promise her desire went forth, but +upborne by another promise—that of +the greater spring for which her spirit +waited looked and longed from the +valley of the shadow. Of that she +writes in the last chapter of this part, +as the coming of a new life and a new +light.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘The dawn breaks, but it does not +surprise us, for we have watched from +the valley and seen the pale twilight. +Through the wondrous Sabbath of +faithful souls, the long day of rosemary +and rue, the light brightens in the +East; and we pass on towards it with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>quiet feet and opening eyes, bearing +with us all of the redeemed earth that +we have made our own, until we are +fulfilled in the sunrise of the great +Easter Day, and the peoples come from +north and south and east and west to +the City which lieth foursquare—the +Beatific Vision of God.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Then her heart sings with one of the +old hymns that she delighted in:—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><i><span lang="la">Vere Ierusalem est illa civitas</span></i></div> + <div class='line'><i><span lang="la">Cuius pax iugis et summa ucunditas;</span></i></div> + <div class='line'><i><span lang="la">Ubi non prœvenit rem desiderium,</span></i></div> + <div class='line'><i><span lang="la">Nec desiderio minus est prœmium.</span></i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c010'>Great indeed is the reward that could +match with the desire of her soul, with +its need and its capacity; yet having +nothing she possessed all things even +here, and I do not doubt that she does +so still.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span> + <h4 class='c008'>III</h4> +</div> + +<p class='c009'>Spring came, and in May she bade her +last farewell to London. With infinite +difficulty, and at the cost of an unforeseen +agony of pain, we took her once +more into the country, where she could +see the white gate again from her garden +room, and sometimes, on good days—more +rarely than we hoped—be carried +out to lie ‘on a green carpet, powdered +yellow and white with the sun’s own +flowers; overhead a great sycamore +where the bees toil and sing; and sighing +shimmering poplars golden grey +against the blue.’ There, at the White +Gate, she wrote the last chapters of +‘The Roadmender,’ beginning, if I +remember well, in June.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘A great joy has come to me’; she +says, in the first of those papers, ‘one +of those unexpected gifts which life +<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>loves to bestow after we have learnt +to loose our grip of her. I am back in +my own place very near my road—the +white gate lies within my distant +vision; near the lean grey Downs +which keep watch and ward between +the country and the sea; very near, +nay, in the lap of Mother Earth.’... +‘The day of Persephone has dawned for +me, and I, set free like Demeter’s child, +gladden my eyes with this foretaste of +coming radiance, and rest my tired +sense with the scent and sound of home. +Away down the meadow I hear the +early scythe song, and the warm air is +fragrant with the fallen grass. It has +its own message for me as I lie here, +I who have obtained yet one more +mercy, and the burden of it is life, +not death.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Then the roadmender must be himself +again and go a-haymaking in another +reminiscence, one that tells her a secret +<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>of the ‘rain upon the mown grass’ and +the ‘failure’ of the fallen swathes. +“<i>My ways are not your ways, saith the +Lord.</i>” ‘I remember how I went home +along the damp sweet-scented lanes +through the grey mist of the rain, +thinking of the mown field and Elizabeth +Banks [a sinner blessed through her +very sin], and many, many more; and +that night, when the sky had cleared +and the nightingale sang, I looked out +at the moon riding at anchor, a silver +boat in a still blue sea ablaze with the +headlights of the stars, and the saying +of the herdsman of Tekoa came to me—as +it has come oftentimes since:—</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘“Seek Him that maketh the seven +stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow +of death into the morning, and maketh +the day dark with night; that calleth +for the waters of the sea and poureth +them out upon the face of earth; the +Lord is His name.”’</p> + +<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>She was within a very little of the end, +we thought, even then while it was still +possible to carry her into the garden +and lay her in the shelter of her tree, +where, the last time but one that she +was out, she wrote the second paper of +this part. She thought so herself, as +her meditation shews. ‘I feel not so +much desire for the beauty to come,’ +she says, ‘as a great longing to open my +eyes a little wider during the time which +remains to me in this beautiful world +of God’s making, where each moment +tells its own tale of active, progressive +life in which there is no undoing. +Nature knows naught of the web of +Penelope, that acme of anxious pathetic +waiting, but goes steadily on in ever +widening circle towards the fulfilment +of the mystery of God.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘There are, I take it, two master keys +to the secrets of the universe, viewed +<i>sub specie æternitatis</i>, the Incarnation +<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>of God, and the Personality of Man; +with these it is true for us as for the +pantheistic little man of contemptible +speech, that “all things are ours,” +yea, even unto the third heaven.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘I have lost my voracious appetite +for books;’ she goes on, ‘their language +is less plain than scent and song and +the wind in the trees; and for me the +clue to the next world lies in the +wisdom of earth rather than in the +learning of men. “<i>Libera me ab +fuscina Hophni</i>,” prayed the good +Bishop, fearful of religious greed. I +know too much, not too little; it is +realisation that I lack, wherefore I +desire these last days to confirm in +myself the sustaining goodness of God, +the love which is our continuing city, +the New Jerusalem whose length, +breadth, and height are all one.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>The cares of this world, such as they +were for her, and the most part of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>them were other people’s, had slipped +away:—‘It is a time,’ she says, ‘of exceeding +peace. There is a place waiting +for me under the firs in the quiet +churchyard; thanks to my poverty I +have no worldly anxieties or personal +dispositions; and I am rich in friends, +many of them unknown to me, who +lavishly supply my needs and make it +ideal to live on the charity of one’s +fellow-men. I am most gladly in debt +to all the world: and to Earth, my +mother’—she writes, as though having +suddenly turned her eyes to the loveliness +around—‘for her great beauty.’ +Then, with a backward reflexion on the +long history of the human spirit in its +groping after the divine, she exclaims:—‘There +is more truth in the believing +cry, “Come from thy white cliffs, O +Pan!” than in the religion that +measures a man’s life by the letter of +the Ten Commandments, and erects +<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>itself as judge and ruler over him, +instead of throwing open the gate of +the garden where God walks with man +from morning until morning.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>The end of that paper is a breath of +her heart’s longing for rest:—‘As I +write the sun is setting; in the pale +radiance of the sky above his glory +there dawns the evening star; and +earth, like a tired child, turns her face +to the bosom of the night.’</p> + +<p class='c011'>Once more she wrote from beneath the +tree on one of the last days of June:—‘The +poplar has lost its metallic shimmer, +the chestnut its tall white candles; and +the sound of the wind in the fully-leaved +branches is like the sighing of +the sea.’ Summer was coming to fullness; +yet she lingered still. The eyes +of her soul sought day by day a land +whose boundaries begin where those of +this world end:—‘Looking across at the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>white gate I wonder concerning the +quiet pastures and still waters that lie +beyond, even as Brother Ambrose +wondered long years ago in the +monastery by the forest.’ She asked +for the manuscript of her little book, +‘Hilarius,’ not thinking that it would +ever see light in print; and copied what +she had written there of the vision of +Brother Ambrose, monk and painter. In +‘a still night of many stars’ he saw, ‘from +a great and high mountain,’ a radiant +path in the heavens, and between the +stars, as they ‘gathered themselves +together on either side until they stood +as walls of light,’ he beheld ‘the Holy +City with roof and pinnacle aflame, +and walls aglow with such colours as +no earthly limner dreams of, and much +gold;’ until to his great grief, ‘a little +grey cloud came out of the north and +hid the city from his sight.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>The end of that vision is an expression +<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>on her part of the perennial, universal +sorrow of the artist of every kind. +‘Brother Ambrose fell sick because of +the exceeding great longing he had to +limn the Holy City, and was very sad; +but the Prior bade him thank God, +and remember the infirmity of the +flesh, which, like the little grey cloud, +veiled Jerusalem to his sight.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Just as she was writing these words +the monastery bell of St Hugh rang out, +and another, yet harmonious, note +sounded in the many-stringed instrument +of her soul:—</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘They still have time for visions +behind those guarding walls,’ she says, +‘but for most of us it is not so. We let +slip the ideal for what we call the real, +and the golden dreams vanish while we +clutch at phantoms: we speed along +life’s pathway, counting to the full the +sixty minutes of every hour, yet the +race is not to the swift nor the battle +<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>to the strong.... And yet, looking +back to the working days, I know how +much goodness and loving kindness +there is under the froth and foam. If +we do not know ourselves we most certainly +do not know our brethren: that +revelation awaits us, it may be, first in +Heaven. To have faith is to create; +to have hope is to call down blessing, +to have love is to work miracles.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Then, back to the mystic’s and the +artist’s wide-eyed longing:—‘Above all +let us see visions, visions of colour and +light, of green fields and broad rivers, +of palaces laid with fair colours, and +gardens where a place is found for +rosemary and rue.’</p> + +<p class='c011'>The dominant note in Michael Fairless’s +religion was mystical, as any man may +see; and she had the large freedom of +judgement, the understanding of and +patience with sin, imperfection, failure, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>that are given only by the insight of the +heart.</p> + +<p class='c010'>It is true, no doubt, that in every +religious man an acute realization of one +of the three great elements in religion—the +mystical, the intellectual, and the +institutional—naturally carries with it +some degree of subordination of the rest. +The mystic is apt to undervalue reflective +thought; for his soul opens to +him avenues of vision, which are but +poorly represented by the attempts of +theologians to formulate the poetic utterances +of the prophets and the symbolic +pictures of saints. He is apt, also, to +think too little of the outward sign, +however effectual it may be, simply +because, in an intimate awareness of his +soul, the spiritual grace sweeps it aside. +He may forget, in his wordless communion +with God, the need there is for +utterance—for the language of rite or +word or ceremonial gesture—if men of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>different intellectual and spiritual ranks +or stages in development are to bear +each his proper part in a common +religious life, and to make clear, even to +themselves, the depth and height and +breadth of their emptiness without God. +Even those among us not justly to be +called mystics, in an eminent or distinguishing +sense, rarely attain anything +near an equal balance between what +they apprehend by intellect—by reasoning—and +what the institution gives them, +as it were, ready made; very many so +hold the scales as to let the religion of +the heart—of experience of the real, +which is all men’s mysticism—be outweighed +by one or other of those two, +perhaps by each. In Michael Fairless +heart knowledge and worship, the spirit’s +admiration and pursuit, ruled all the rest. +But from the character of this pursuit +and worship in her, from its intensity +and inclusiveness, sprang her high appreciation +<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>and glad sharing of the rest. +The love of the brethren, of all brethren, +of all that lives, was as the breath of +her own soul’s life. She knew, by her +hold upon the inner truth for spirit +of a material world, the significance for +spiritual growth awaiting every man in +the least of little things. These material +things, small or great, were hers, of her +flesh and of her spirit; she could no +more give them up, set them aside from +her religion, than she could give up God +or man. Therefore she sought, as the +temple of her worship, a place where +there should be room for all; not only +for angels and archangels, saints and +prophets, but for the sinful and the +foolish among men, and for the common +things of earth close by and the far-away +revealing of the stars. In her Church—by +implication at least and promise—all +the worlds of life and death, of the spirit +and the flesh, should be embraced and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>held together. Pan on his white cliffs—‘we +can never be too Pagan,’ she says, +‘if we are truly Christian’—the ancient +Mysteries, Jewish sacrifice, the ancient +world-wide myths—those ‘eternal truths +held fast in the Church’s net’—for all +these and more there must be hands +held out in a temple of the God whose +witness was everywhere and in all, +whose Spirit fills not only the whole +round world but the spaces of the +spheres.</p> + +<p class='c010'>By implication and promise, in principle +you may say if not in practice, she +found what she sought in the English +Church; although like the rest of us she +had to carry promise forward, by hope +and faith, to a fulfilment she could not +look for now. But she found sacraments +now, bringing to her more than +promise. These, in her institutional life, +she must have—she for whom all life +was sacramental—and especially the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>greatest, ‘the most social sacrament,’ +she called it. There in the Church they +were for every one of us, as she demanded +them; with a meaning plain to be read +by men obliged to run; calling aloud +upon the ignorant and the blind; showing +beacon-lights for those who wandered +from the way. There earth and heaven +met and the sinner and the saint; there +the life of man was taken up into the life +and manhood and love of God. The +universe was focussed there; and there +she worshipped in peace, as one at home.</p> + +<p class='c010'>You see how by disinterestedness she +escaped the fate of mystics who lack +that sovran antiseptic against self-corruption. +You see, too, how it was that +she never ceased to value—some might +say to over-value—the institutional +element in religion. But she was far +from thinking that she had discovered, +or ever would discover, a Church as it +ought to be. She knew too well what +<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>the very promise of catholicity entails +of past and present and long-lasting +imperfection. She could not help but +know and see that an <i>ecclesia</i>, a gathering +in which all nations and generations +should be embraced, and which needed +from every man the gifts of the divine +spirit that were his, must be marred for +want of them. Here was a noble but +ill-shapen body composed of ill-shapen +members whose number reached back +into the dim ages of the life of man, +and would stretch into the yet dimmer +ages of his life to come—a slowly organizing +body, shaping itself and being +shapen always anew, suffering, wounded, +bearing the marks of scars and of disease +that had eaten into its flesh. How +could it be anything but as and what it +was, even though its Head were the +eternal Christ himself, the Humanity of +God sharing that scarred and injured +flesh? She knew something of what all +<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>this implies of beauty and truth to come +slowly, very slowly; she saw something +of what sin and folly, ignorance and +weakness bring to every work and all +the assemblies of mankind. Seeing +clearly and confessing that in the +greatest religious experiment ever tried +upon this earth these things must be +reckoned with, must qualify judgement, +set a pause upon both complacency and +too ready condemnation, she was content, +nay happy, to remain where promise +opens out an endless way. Can any one +of us do more or better?</p> + +<p class='c010'>So much for her attitude towards the +institution of the Christian Church. +With regard to the intellectual element +in religion—especially the schematic and +scientific interpretation which we call +theology—she was wholly without fear. +She had neither leisure nor taste nor +scholarship for historical or documentary +criticism, but when the results of criticism +<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>came her way she was, as always, +eager to learn. Serious work of this +kind, she was sure, could do the cause +of religion nothing but good. Theological +interpretation must, of course, +emphatically and above all things make +sense when face to face with the saints +and prophets; an interpretation that +did not must go. But it must also make +sense in face of better knowledge, whether +of history, of science, or of philosophy. +Her mind was as hospitable as her heart; +and with a delicate and rational discrimination, +a power of sifting and rejection, +that over and over again served +her well in her adventurous career of +thought. You wrote in marble, not in +sand, when you corrected her mistakes; +or rather you wrote as though with some +fluent leaven that ran through all the +living stuff of her. You found its traces +everywhere long after, and learnt to +wonder why such vital receptivity was so +<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>rare. She sought truth and ensued it. +Moreover, her sense of the height and +depth of mystery in man’s life and experience +precluded for her the easy +satisfaction of those superficial dogmatists +who ‘need no repentance.’ ‘The +universe,’ she writes, ‘is full of miracle +and mystery: the darkness and +silence are set for a sign we dare not +despise.’ She was among those for +whom that sign is sacramental, conveying +that which it declares, bearing with +it the ineffable promise embraced for +men within the darknesses and silences +of God. These, for the mystic, are no +barrier, but rather the ocean where his +love finds the immense waters of the love +of God. ‘A sign,’ she says, ‘that we +dare not despise’—one that tells us to +set our hand before our lips, lest we +blaspheme God with our little self-made +rules for him. The one rule to which +she clung was the rule of Love and Faith +<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>and Hope, the all-sufficing rule of men +who feel the stir of the mighty winds of +that spirit which blows where it listeth +and cannot be stilled.</p> + +<p class='c011'>Summer was going fast when the last +scene of her long act of death opened. +In the early days of August she grew +much worse; after the third she was +unable to take any food—only a few +drops of water now and then. On the +twelfth she told me she must try to keep +a promise she had made to Mr Lathbury +that she would write something more for +him if she could. By this time she was +almost blind, and speech was very difficult +and painful to her. In spite of this +she succeeded in dictating to me, after +nine days of starvation and months of +wasting, the last chapter of ‘The Roadmender.’ +It was a deed of heroism.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Her mind travelled from the sound of +rain after drought, outside her window, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>and the roused and eager business of +the little birds she loved, back to the +panorama of past years. She revived +her childhood—‘the scent of the first +cowslip field under the warm side of +the hedge’ where she sang to herself +‘for pure joy of their colour and +fragrance’; bluebells ‘like the backwash +of a southern sea’; Watcombe +Down—‘a stretch of golden gorse and +new-turned blood-red field, the green +of the headland, and beyond, the +sapphire sea.’ Fragrance, music, above +all colour—these surged from out her +distant memories. And as the roll unfolded +and later years revived, it was +still the same. Germany, ‘the warm-scented +breath of the pines,’ ‘the tiny +shifting lamps’ of glow-worms ‘pale +yellow, purely white, green as the +underside of a northern wave,’ and +in Switzerland a solitary blue gentian—her +first—‘what need of another, for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>finding one I had gazed into the +mystery of all.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Then the past slipped away, giving +place to ‘the uneventful road’ on which +she was travelling now. ‘Each day +questions me as it passes; each day +makes answer for me “not yet.”’</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘Do I travel alone,’ she asks, with a +glance at the passage in the Odyssey, +‘or am I one of a great company?’ +The voices of Penelope’s suitors send her +to the chorus of the voices of earth, +the language of worship that ‘lies very +nigh’ to man:—‘What better note can +our frail tongues lisp than the voice of +wind and sea, river and stream,’ those +grateful servants giving all and asking +nothing, the soft whisper of snow and +rain eager to replenish, or the thunder +proclaiming a majesty too great for +utterance? ‘Here, too, stands the +angel with the censer gathering up the +fragrance of teeming earth and forest-tree, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>of flower and fruit, and sweetly +pungent herb distilled by sun and +rain for joyful use. Here, too, come +acolytes lighting the dark with tapers—sun, +moon, and stars—gifts of the Lord +that His sanctuary may stand ever +served.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>She comes back to the earth, this +child of earth, bearing sheaves of the +harvest of heaven. For her there was +no gulf set between these two—was not +the Incarnation of God one of her +‘master-keys’? Heaven and earth were +joined in one for her by the life and +love that men might share, in which all +things are made one. When, at the very +last, earth fills her memory and mind +with its scent and colours and sound, it +is an earth transmuted and transparent. +And beyond earth and even heaven is +greater marvel still, that which she never +forgot—the mystery of the darkness and +silence of God, ‘the silence greater than +<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>speech, darkness greater than light.’ +So, this memory dominating all, she says +her last farewell.</p> + +<p class='c011'>We think, or may well think, of +Rabindra Nath Tagore:—</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘I have got my leave. Bid me farewell, +my brothers. I bow to you all +and take my departure.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘Here I give back the keys of my +door—and I give up all claims to my +house. I only ask for last kind words +from you.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘We were neighbours for long, but I +received more than I could give. Now +the day has dawned and the lamp that +lit my dark corner is out. A summons +has come and I am ready for my +journey.’</p> + +<h4 class='c008'>IV</h4> + +<p class='c009'>The after-history of ‘The Roadmender’ +is worthy of note. Messrs +Duckworth published it on February +<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>28th, 1902, in the now familiar green +covers. Six times in that year it was +reprinted; ever since, impression has +followed impression until now, when, in +the last month of 1912, its thirty-first +appears. It had no adventitious aids +when it was sent out into the crowded, +jostling world of books, where so many +good things are lost, crushed by mere +numbers. No ‘log-rolling,’ no powerful +trumpeter of its merits, made a way for +it. Why, then, did it make one for +itself that has widened and gone farther +through eleven years, and seems as +though it would grow wider and go +farther still for many a year to come? +Journalists have learnt to call this little +book a ‘classic’; they use it to condemn +or praise a new man’s style; it has +become for critics a standard in its class. +But the more or less professional literary +judgement is of small importance and +easy to account for. The question that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>is of real value for us who read this book, +without even the desire, much less the +skill, to frame a literary judgement on it, +is why it is our own book, why, as I +heard the traveller of a great publisher +say, ‘it is everybody’s book.’ You may +see workmen reading it in omnibuses and +trams, hear of queens commanding it, +find it ready for you in all the shops for +selling books that are new, waste your +time if you look for copies in those +dusty treasure-houses where they sell +them only second-hand. ‘Everybody’ +buys it; nobody throws it away. There +is a hard-headed prince of commerce, I +am told—there may be many another, +for anything I know—who keeps a pile +of those little green volumes of mingled +poetry and religion, that he may give +one to any friend who has unaccountably +passed it by. In the States it is served +out to millionaires on Japanese vellum +or fine hand-made paper, with heaven +<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>knows what outside glory. Certain reviewers, +at first—before they had learnt +caution or, may be, taken pains—said +that ‘this kind of thing’ had been done +before. Many of them have told us +that it has been all too abundantly done +since. Yet the history of ‘The Roadmender’ +is unique among histories of +what people mean by ‘this kind of thing.’ +We have to account for that uncontested +fact.</p> + +<p class='c010'>For my part I allow myself to think +that the reviewer’s diagnosis is wrong. +‘The Roadmender’ is not that kind of +thing; it stands by itself, it is a thing +of personal and individual life. That is +one reason why it calls forth so living a +welcome when we handle it, it seems to +<i>breathe</i> in our hands. We learn to love +it as something that accepts us and +responds to us; understands us and finds +out our needs in a way of its own.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Here we touch the bottom of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>problem, I believe. Nothing, in fact, +is heartily welcomed anywhere unless +either a real or an artificial need exists +for it and, either openly or secretly, +demands it.</p> + +<p class='c010'>I think we may say at once that ‘The +Roadmender’ does not meet artificial +needs, such as those created by idleness +of body or, especially, of soul, or by the +faults and follies of a civilization that +has hardly yet begun to grow up. For +myself—and I believe I represent a +large consensus—I say unhesitatingly +that it meets real needs rooted deeply +in every one of us, so deeply that very +many of us live and die without discovering +that they are there. It is +addressed, in its profound simplicity, to +what is common to man, what is discovered +in all men who are truly men, by +those who have learnt to read secrets +of the heart.</p> + +<p class='c010'>We do not know ourselves; we have +<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>no suspicion, very many of us, that we +are not only in need of beauty, let us +say, but are craving for it, starved for +want of it, going hungry and empty +while we try to satisfy ourselves with +a thousand worthless mockeries of the +real. It is the same with goodness: we +are satiated but not satisfied with +its substitutes, with imitations and +travesties, or rank blasphemies and +denials; our appetite is tricked and we +are deceived. Even when we have the +good will not the bad, goodness, above +all holiness (especially the Christian sort), +has no charm, we think; it is a mawkish +affair, or a fearful and greedy hypocrisy, +as Nietzsche tells us. But when we meet +it—meet the real thing, noble as well as +sweet—then we discover a new region +of ourselves and find it empty. We too +are able, nay, despite our baser selves, +willing and desiring, to worship reality, +to follow after goodness, beauty, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>truth—the modes and manners of the +almighty Love that searches out our +secrets. Yet, until some magic touch +releases us from the enchantment of our +slavery to lower things and from a far +too low esteem of our own spiritual +capacity, we do not know it.</p> + +<p class='c010'>So, when the magic touch comes we +are a little stirred; weakly perhaps, but +yet with true response, we thrill in answer +to it. We may go to sleep again, but +nothing can ever be as though we had +not felt that touch; we may be the +worse for it, as they are who shut their +eyes to light, or we may be the better +through all the lives and worlds to come. +‘The Roadmender’ has given and will +give this touch—rousing the real self of +men and women everywhere; or coming +to them with the outstretched and +friendly hand of one who can speak as +like to like and by heart to heart.</p> + +<p class='c010'>This, I think, is why it lives.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span> + <h3 class='c004'>THE GATHERING OF BROTHER HILARIUS</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c011'>‘Hilarius’ (as we have always called +the book) was written first as a shorter +story, a mere sketch, and later filled in +and amplified. It was meant to be a +parable, a lesson delicately conveyed to +a young painter of high artistic promise +and sincere religious feeling, but prone +to rigid judgements and the use of an +inflexible and all too simple moral +standard—in fact, Hilarius himself.</p> + +<p class='c010'>So, in her story, Michael Fairless +sends this young man—boy indeed he +was, even in years—forth from an +arranged and sheltered life in the +cloister, and from a benumbing established +scheme of thought and things, to +the rude world, the many-coloured, confused, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>everchanging world of men and +women and children, of transforming +values, of sin that is not sinful and condemnation +that does not condemn—a +real world where God is and works, +joins in the strife of men, treads with +them the dust of the highway, is known +by them who seek him not, and in +fashions very strange to those righteous +who need neither repentance nor redeeming +love.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Tracts (this tale was avowedly written +as a tract) do not always pierce their +mark; but the arrow of a tract is not +often so sharply pointed or feathered +with such grace. I incline to think that +this one has found the joints of many a +man’s armour besides his at which it +was aimed.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Assuming, for the moment, the attitude +of the critic, I am bound to admit—the +writer herself would be the first to admit—that +she is an author of one book, as +<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>we say; the book of her life and death, +written in a fine disinterestedness and +from the fullness and with the candour +of her heart. But that is the one book +which for any author would either crown +his work or cast everything else into +the shade. Moreover, this author wrote +under disabilities that for most people +would have made writing out of any +question; and these disabilities chiefly +affected work done ‘for a purpose’—not +welling, as it were, from her creative +soul. In a sense, Hilarius is made, not +born like the roadmender; and you will +think the book skilfully or unskilfully +made according to the standard of your +taste. But if you choose you may enjoy +it well and find in it beautiful things—the +singular grace of style its author seemed +to possess as a natural gift; her real +mind; her vision too; and something of +the wit and gaiety in which we who +knew her found continual delight, and for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>which there was no place when she wrote +at the White Gate and from the Valley +of the Shadow.</p> + +<p class='c010'>You will find, too, reminders, echoes, +of ‘The Roadmender.’ When she +speaks of ‘this peace of prayerful +service, where the clang of the blacksmith’s +hammer smote the sound of the +Office bell,’ you have the roadmender +spirit:—‘After all, what do we ask of +life, here or indeed hereafter, but leave +to serve, to live, to commune with our +fellow-men and with ourselves; and +from the lap of earth to look up into +the face of God?’</p> + +<p class='c010'>There is the same rejoicing in ‘fair +colours,’ in music and the fragrant +incense of the earth; the happy knowledge +of little children and their transparency +to God; the eye that sees the +great sacrament of life. And here, as +in ‘The Roadmender,’ the divine +sacrament includes, as life includes, our +<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>misshapen world and the sinful men and +women in it.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Hilarius is blind; his eyes shall be +opened to the meaning of love and of +the craving needs of men, his good will +roused to new accomplishment, both +head and heart stirred to a widening +range. “Blind eyes!” are the parting +words of the dancer in the forest, who +sows in him the seed of promise, yet is +‘a sight for gods, but not for monks; +above all, not for untutored novices’ +like him:—‘“Blind eyes, the very forest +could teach thee these things an thou +would’st learn. Farewell, good novice, +back to thy Saints and thy nursery; +for me the wide wide world; hunger +and love—love—love!”’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Hunger and love will tutor Hilarius, +tell him secrets of the world, of himself, +of those other strange selves, and of +God whom he knows too easily under a +false name. ‘“Hast thou ever loved?”’ +<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>asks the ‘flower incarnate’ when he +found her dancing in the wind of the +woods. Then, answering his shocked +surprise:—‘“Why, boy, the world is +full of love, and not all for the Saints +and the Brethren, and it is good—good—good! +’Tis the devil and the +monks who call it evil. Hast thou +never seen the birds mate in the springtime, +nor heard the nightingale sing?”’ +‘“Did’st thou ever hunger, master?”’ +the dancer’s brother asks, rebuked by +Hilarius out of the Ten Commandments +for stealing ‘the Convent’s hens.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Hunger and love in body and soul, +coming to man from earth his mother +and from the earthly creatures who are +all his kin; the nature he shares with +them as the ground of his sin and also +of his holiness—these Hilarius shall +learn. He shall learn that without +knowledge and interior acceptance of a +law of the spirit there is neither holiness +<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>nor sin. This is to learn of the charity +and justice of God; to learn to see that +only the writing scored by a man on the +roll of his self-created character makes +or mars him. Nature waits in every +man, from the first fathers of us all to +the last of our sons, for the conversion +of spirit. It is as the earth, this unconverted +nature of ours; it is turned +neither one way nor the other, is neither +virtuous nor vile, until we make it so. +But without the ground of nature there +would be no standing for the spirit, no +place from which it could either soar or +sink. Hilarius must learn of nature and +of spirit too. He must learn of the slow +learning of the law and of man’s slow +growth into even a possibility of sin. +But above all he must learn of the infinite +humility of the love of God as he stoops +to find a way into the human heart.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Meanwhile ‘he plucked aside his +skirts and walked in judgement,’ +<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>calling, blind-eyed, on the judgement of +God to ratify his poor decisions. ‘“’Tis +an evil, evil world,” quoth young +Hilarius.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>The judgement of God he finds easily +enough, as when we are blind we do. +‘London, that light-minded city, was a +heap of graves’ filled by the great +reaper of the wrath of God with the +plague-smitten corpses of the judged. +Wherefore Hilarius, ‘having seen much +evil and the justice of the Almighty,’ +turns his back on it and will learn to be +a great painter, and then return to his +monastery in peace. He had watched +the falling of a Tower of Siloam that had +crushed the evil-doers and confirmed the +faith of the righteous. And then the +true judgement of God, which is new +light in the soul of him who is judged, +smote him on the way he had chosen; +and he learnt to steal that he might have +food for the child of a woman taken in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>adultery. ‘“See,” said the dancer, +“thou hast learnt to hunger and to +love.”’</p> + +<p class='c011'>Myself, I would have had the story +stop there; where, as my memory +serves, it stopped in the original version, +the painter’s tract. But it would never +have been published if it had; and that, +of course, its author soon discovered. +Mr John Murray kindly hastened on the +preparation of proofs, and they came just +in time for her to read some herself and +have others read to her when she could no +longer see. The book appeared shortly +after her death, some months earlier +than ‘The Roadmender,’ in book form. +Mr Murray has recently added to his +many kindnesses by allowing it to be +produced by Messrs Duckworth uniform +with the rest of her work. He has also +produced it himself in a new and cheaper +edition.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span> + <h3 class='c004'>THE GREY BRETHREN</h3> +</div> + +<p class='c011'>For the collection of the stories, poems +and sketches published under this title +I alone am responsible. There is no +need to repeat what I said in the preface +about their previous publication in this +or that magazine or weekly paper. I +had rather, and I think more fitly, +discuss some few of them in relation to +aspects of the author’s character that +they point to or reveal.</p> + +<p class='c010'>In ‘A Song of Low Degree’ she speaks +from the heart of her philosophy, as of +her religion:—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘Lord, I am small, and yet so great.</div> + <div class='line'>The whole world stands to my estate</div> + <div class='line'>And in Thine Image I create.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c010'>It is the same note that we hear as the +roadmender chants the glories of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>daffodil-field, and here too it rouses +deeper harmonies.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘All, all are mine; and yet so small</div> + <div class='line'>Am I, that lo, I needs must call,</div> + <div class='line'>Great King, upon the Babe in Thee.’</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'> · · · · ·</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c010'>‘We who are made Kings after His +likeness,’ she wrote in ‘The Roadmender,’ +‘possess all things, not after +this world’s fashion but in proportion +to our poverty.’ Only as we are kings, +she saw—masters, not slaves, to the +things that we own—do we in fact own, +instead of being owned by, either the +outer gifts of the world, or the nature +and passions in ourselves. So she tells +us; and it is the burden of every inclusive +mystic’s song.</p> + +<p class='c010'>All these mystics are of one family and +speak the same language. They are +great and small, eloquent or halting in +their speech—everywhere they have one +mind and one tongue, whether they +<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>stammer, or utter music of the spheres. +You may take, for example, one of the +very great, Rabindra Nath Tagore; +and, turning over the slender volume of +his songs, you will find the fulfilment of +the voice of the soul of Michael Fairless. +Take this, the first in his ‘Gitanjali.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘Thou hast made me endless, such is +thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou +emptiest again and again, and fillest +it ever with fresh life.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘This little flute of a reed thou hast +carried over hills and dales, and hast +breathed through it melodies eternally +new.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘At the immortal touch of thy hands +my little heart loses its limits in joy +and gives birth to utterance ineffable.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘Thy infinite gifts come to me only on +these very small hands of mine. Ages +pass, and still thou pourest, and still +there is room to fill.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Of one family are these, elder and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>younger, little or great; of one family +and—marvellous to record—of the same +family as every one of us. Do we not +know it when their word finds its echo +in us or an answering thrill, however +faint and quickly dying away?</p> + +<p class='c010'>Even when they sing of earth and its +joys, we, who ruin those joys at their +source and are blind to the real earth, +making for it a cloak of thick darkness +of our stupidity and sins, find that our +blood stirs in answer.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘The same stream of life that runs +through my veins night and day runs +through the world and dances in +rhythmic measures.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘It is the same life that shoots in joy +through the dust of the earth in numberless +blades of grass and breaks into +tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘It is the same life that is rocked in +the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, +in ebb and in flow.</p> + +<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>‘I feel my limbs are made glorious by +the touch of this world of life. And +my pride is from the life-throb of ages +dancing in my blood this moment.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>East or West, the voices join in one, +and we are able to listen—that is the +wonder of us and the ground of our hope.</p> + +<p class='c011'>There are charming pieces in ‘The +Grey Brethren,’ notably ‘A German +Christmas Eve,’ and ‘A Christmas +Idyll,’ with the sermon that is Michael +Fairless telling (through the mouth of +the Forest Recluse) news of the Kingdom +of God and Man. ‘My brothers and +sisters,’ she says to us, ‘to-night we +keep the Birth of the Holy Babe, and +to-night you and I stand at the gate +of the Kingdom of Heaven, the gate +which is undone only at the cry of a +little child. “Except ye be converted +and become as little children, ye shall +not enter.”</p> + +<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>‘The Kingdom is a great one, nay, a +limitless one; and many enter in calling +it by another name. It includes your +own hearts and this wonderful forest, +all the wise and beautiful works that +men have ever thought of or done, and +your daily toil; it includes your +nearest and dearest, the outcast, the +prisoner, and the stranger; it holds +your cottage home and the jewelled +City, the New Jerusalem itself. People +are apt to think the Kingdom of +Heaven is like church on Sunday, a +place to enter once a week in one’s best: +whereas it holds every flower, and has +room for the ox and the ass, and the +least of all creatures, as well as for our +prayer and worship and praise.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘“Except ye become as little children.” +How are we to be born again, simple +children with wondering eyes?</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘We must learn to lie in helpless +dependence, to open our mouth wide +<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>that it may be filled, to speak with +halting tongue the language we think +we know; we must learn, above all, +our own ignorance, and keep alight +and cherish the flame of innocency in +our hearts.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘It is a tired world, my brethren, and +we are most of us tired men and women +who live on it, for we seek ever after +some new thing. Let us pass out +through the gate into the Kingdom of +Heaven and not be tired any more, +because there we shall find the new +thing that we seek. Heaven is on +earth, the Kingdom is here and now; +the gate stands wide to-night, for it is +the birthnight of the Eternal Child. +We are none of us too poor, or stupid, +or lowly; it was the simple shepherds +who saw Him first. We are none of us +too great, or learned, or rich; it was +the three wise kings who came next +and offered gifts. We are none of us +<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>too young; it was little children who +first laid down their lives for Him; or +too old, for Simeon saw and recognised +Him. There is only one thing against +most of us—we are too proud.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘My brethren, “let us now go even +unto Bethlehem, and see this thing +which is come to pass, which the Lord +hath made known to us.”’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Here is the authentic message of the +mystic and of religion. It is the proclamation +of sovran Love; from which +nothing is shut out, by which nothing +can ever be forgotten or ignored. ‘There +is only one thing against most of us—we +are too proud.’ But for that,—say +Michael Fairless and the whole mystical +chorus,—but for that, we too should be +proclaiming the beauty of the Lord and +of his kingdom within us and without.</p> + +<p class='c011'>Of Michael Fairless, as she is in the +last of the four stories told to children, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>the last thing in the book, I wrote thus +in the original preface:—</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘Some of the many readers who have +found her there will understand me +when I say that the story of her life +and death, and of her life too (as I +believe) after death, is written down +in the little tale of “The Tinkle-Tinkle,” +first told to her best beloved +in the wild garden at Kew, among blue +hyacinths and shining grasses of the +spring that spoke to her of Paradise.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>I have told the story of her life and +death at greater length now and with comments +and comparisons. But I still think +that it is all in ‘The Tinkle-Tinkle,’ +and far better told than I can tell it. +There will be some who will not agree +with me; but they have never known +her as I do. They do not see her looking +upon herself and every one in the world, +and saying, ‘I cannot tell you what he +was like, because no man knows, not +<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>even the Tinkle-Tinkle himself.’ For +anyone who had not watched her +infinite variety, her swift transitions, +her adaptability, the surprises of her, +there would be little enough sense in +being told that her very self is there +when she says:—‘Sometimes he lived +on the ground, sometimes in a tree, +sometimes in the water, sometimes in +a cave; and I can’t tell you what he +lived on, for no man knows, not even +the Tinkle-Tinkle himself.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>We find her, as well as her interpretation +of life, from the beginning of this +little tale to the end. And here in this +refrain of ignorance, ‘no man knows, not +even the Tinkle-Tinkle himself,’ we find +an expression of her always reverent +agnosticism, the agnosticism of the +mystic—of him who sees too deeply to +be able to persuade himself that he sees +all.</p> + +<p class='c010'>It is she, too, who hears ‘a piteous +<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>weeping’ from the least and lowest of +the lost creatures of the earth, and would +lead each one of them to its own home— +but I cannot tell you how he went, for +no man knows, not even the ‘Tinkle-Tinkle.’ +No man really knows the secret +of the irresistible power of love; no man +knows, even when it is at work in him +and is working by him.</p> + +<p class='c010'>Yet man, as the Tinkle-Tinkle knows, +must be ever a seeker; therefore ‘it +was a great grief to the Tinkle-Tinkle +not to know what he was, or how he +lived, or where he was going,’—the +grief of the metaphysician, with his ever-repeated +questions, whence and what? +why? whither?—the grief, too, of every +honest thinker who does not answer himself +with lies. Yet here is the lofty and +special privilege of these two, as Michael +Fairless was aware; and they must hide +both their privilege and their grief:— +‘It often made him depressed, but he +<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>always concealed it from the dormice, +appearing a most cheerful and contented +creature.’ This is of the tenderness +that guards bruised reeds and +the smoking flax. But of the privilege +and indeed of the grief there comes to +the like of Tinkle-Tinkle an opening of +wonders. ‘Now it happened on a +certain evening that the Tinkle-Tinkle +was travelling over the sea, when +suddenly in the depths he caught sight +of a most beautiful creature. It was +all sorts of colours—white, rosy pink, +and deep crimson, and pale blue fading +into white and gold. It had no face +but a bright light; and it had quantities +of beautiful iridescent wings, like the +rainbow; and the most lovely voice +you ever heard, like the sighing of the +waves in the hollow of the sea.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>(‘Thy sunbeam,’ says the great Indian +poet and seer, ‘comes upon this earth +of mine with arms outstretched, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>stands at my door the livelong day to +carry back to thy feet clouds made of +my tears and sighs and songs.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘With fond delight thou wrappest +about thy starry breast that mantle of +misty cloud, turning it into numberless +shapes and folds and colouring it with +hues everchanging.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘It is so light and so fleeting, tender +and tearful and dark, that is why thou +lovest it, O thou spotless and serene. +And that is why it may cover thy +awful white light with its pathetic +shadows.’)</p> + +<p class='c011'>‘And the beautiful Creature cried out +to him, and its voice made Tinkle-Tinkle +remember a dream he had once +had of sunshine, and forest trees, and +the song of birds; and the Creature +said, “Ah, Tinkle-Tinkle! you are +lonely and perplexed and sad, and you +do not know whence you came nor +<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>why you are here; but the dormice +know and the green bird knows, and +I know, and we are glad for your +being. Go on, Tinkle-Tinkle, and do +not sorrow, for some day you shall +come back to me, and I will wrap +you in my wings and take you +where you belong, and then you will +understand.”’</p> + +<p class='c010'>Love knows and love shall reveal, and +the beginning of the tale of love makes its +hearer ‘glad with a strange new gladness’; +so that when he returns to ‘his +cave’ he is ‘not alone, for the spirit of +hope’ goes with him.</p> + +<p class='c011'>Not only the metaphysician hidden in +other men as in Michael Fairless speaks +in this child’s tale, but the artist too. +‘The Tinkle-Tinkle had one gift—he +could sing—how, no man knew, not +even the Tinkle-Tinkle himself; and +this is how he discovered his gift.</p> + +<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>‘One day in a secluded spot in the +forest he found a dying stag, and the +Tinkle-Tinkle was moved with great +compassion and yet could do nothing.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘The great stag’s head drooped lower +and lower till even the sun melted in a +mist of pity, and the trees sighed, and +the breezes hushed their voices. Then +suddenly the Tinkle-Tinkle crept close +and began to sing, why or how he knew +not. As he sang, the birds and the +stream were silenced and the breezes +ceased, and the great stag’s breathing +grew less and less laboured, and his +eyes brightened, and presently he rose +slowly to his feet and paced away to +join the rest of the herd, and the +Tinkle-Tinkle went with him.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘When the stag’s companions heard +the story, they wept for all that had +befallen their leader, but rejoiced also +and blessed the Tinkle-Tinkle; and he +sang once more for them, and the star-spirits +<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>leaned out of their bright little +windows to listen, and the night was +glad.’</p> + +<p class='c010'>A dumb poet, a frustrate artist, the +singer of this child’s song was when she +sang it. She could not know that her +swan-song would travel through all the +world of her own people and bring her +blessing; but she knew the artist’s +longing and had felt, too, not a little +of the strength of the power of beauty +in his hands.</p> + +<p class='c011'>The end of the story comes as the +Tinkle-Tinkle began ‘to feel very old +and worn and weary,’ and the spirit of +hope, that went back with him to the +world’s cave when he had seen in a +vision the light of its day, stirred +within his heart. ‘Then he remembered +the promise of the beautiful Creature, +and went slowly over the sea hoping +the time had come for it to be fulfilled, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>and it had. The beautiful Creature +stretched out its lovely rose and purple +wings and wrapped the Tinkle-Tinkle +in their warm soft greatness, and bore +him down and down through the depths +till they came to the Great Gate. At +the beautiful Creature’s voice it swung +slowly back, and they passed down the +Blue Pathway, which is all ice, cut and +carved into lovely pinnacles and spires, +very blue with the blue of the summer +sky and the southern seas. The Tinkle-Tinkle +could just see it from between +the beautiful Creature’s wings, stretching +away in the blue distance, and at +the end one star.</p> + +<p class='c010'>‘Presently—and though the time had +been one thousand years it had not +seemed long to the Tinkle-Tinkle—they +came out into a beautiful place +that was nothing but light, and the +beautiful Creature set the Tinkle-Tinkle +down. He looked around him and saw +<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>many other Tinkle-Tinkles, and he +knew them for what they were and +loved their beauty; and the Creature +gently swept one of its purple pinions +across him, and the Tinkle-Tinkle took +form. He had many, many little soft, +strong hands and many little white +feet, and long sweeping wings and a +face which shone with something of +the light of the beautiful Creature; and +the Tinkle-Tinkle saw and understood +and sang for joy.’</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><i><span lang="la">Vere Ierusalem est illa civitas</span></i></div> + <div class='line'><i><span lang="la">Cuius pax iugis et summa iucunditas;</span></i></div> + <div class='line'><i><span lang="la">Ubi non prœvenit rem desiderium,</span></i></div> + <div class='line'><i><span lang="la">Nec desiderio minus est prœmium.</span></i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + + + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div><span class='small'>PRINTED BY</span></div> + <div><span class='small'>TURNBULL AND SPEARS,</span></div> + <div><span class='small'>EDINBURGH</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/back_cover.jpg' alt='Back cover' class='ig001'> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c003'> +</div> +<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'> + +<div class='chapter ph2'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + + <ul class='ul_1 c002'> + <li>Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + + </li> + </ul> + +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78729 ***</div> +</body> +<!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57i (with regex) on 2026-05-01 17:17:12 GMT --> +</html> |