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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4046-h.zip b/4046-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd2abf6 --- /dev/null +++ b/4046-h.zip diff --git a/4046-h/4046-h.htm b/4046-h/4046-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e25af42 --- /dev/null +++ b/4046-h/4046-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3386 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of The Garden of Survival, by Algernon Blackwood +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Garden of Survival, by Algernon Blackwood + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Garden of Survival + +Author: Algernon Blackwood + +Posting Date: June 12, 2009 [EBook #4046] +Release Date: May, 2003 +First Posted: October 20, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GARDEN OF SURVIVAL *** + + + + +Produced by David Moynihan. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +The Garden of Survival +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +by +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +Algernon Blackwood +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap01">CHAPTER I</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap02">CHAPTER II</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap03">CHAPTER III</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap04">CHAPTER IV</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">CHAPTER V</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">CHAPTER VI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">CHAPTER VII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">CHAPTER IX</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">CHAPTER X</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">CHAPTER XI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H3> + +<P> +IT will surprise and at the same time possibly amuse you to know that +I had the instinct to tell what follows to a Priest, and might have +done so had not the Man of the World in me whispered that from +professional Believers I should get little sympathy, and probably +less credence still. For to have my experience disbelieved, or +attributed to hallucination, would be intolerable to me. Psychical +investigators, I am told, prefer a Medium who takes no cash +recompense for his performance, a Healer who gives of his strange +powers without reward. There are, however, natural-born priests who +yet wear no uniform other than upon their face and heart, but since I +know of none I fall back upon yourself, my other half, for in writing +this adventure to you I almost feel that I am writing it to myself. +</P> + +<P> +The desire for confession is upon me: this thing must out. It is a +story, though an unfinished one. I mention this at once lest, +frightened by the thickness of the many pages, you lay them aside +against another time, and so perhaps neglect them altogether. A +story, however, will invite your interest, and when I add that it is +true, I feel that you will bring sympathy to that interest: these +together, I hope, may win your attention, and hold it, until you +shall have read the final word. +</P> + +<P> +That I should use this form in telling it will offend your literary +taste—you who have made your name both as critic and creative +writer—for you said once, I remember, that to tell a story in +epistolary form is a subterfuge, an attempt to evade the difficult +matters of construction and delineation of character. My story, +however, is so slight, so subtle, so delicately intimate too, that a +letter to some one in closest sympathy with myself seems the only +form that offers. +</P> + +<P> +It is, as I said, a confession, but a very dear confession: I burn to +tell it honestly, yet know not how. To withhold it from you would be +to admit a secretiveness that our relationship has never known—out +it must, and to you. I may, perhaps, borrow—who can limit the +sharing powers of twin brothers like ourselves?—some of the skill +your own work spills so prodigally, crumbs from your writing-table, +so to speak; and you will forgive the robbery, if successful, as you +will accept lie love behind the confession as your due. +</P> + +<P> +Now, listen, please! For this is the point: that, although my wife is +dead these dozen years and more—I have found reunion and I love. +Explanation of this must follow as best it may. So, please mark tie +point which for the sake of emphasis I venture to repeat: that I know +reunion and I love. +</P> + +<P> +With the jealous prerogative of the twin, you objected to that +marriage, though I knew that it deprived you of no jot of my +affection, owing to the fact that it was prompted by pity only, +leaving the soul in me wholly disengaged. Marion, by her steady +refusal to accept my honest friendship, by her persistent admiration +of me, as also by her loveliness, her youth, her singing, persuaded +me somehow finally that I needed her. The cry of the flesh, which +her beauty stimulated and her singing increased most strangely, +seemed raised into a burning desire that I mistook at the moment for +the true desire of the soul. Yet, actually, the soul in me remained +aloof, a spectator, and one, moreover, of a distinctly lukewarm kind. +It was very curious. On looking back, I can hardly understand it even +now; there seemed some special power, some special undiscovered tie +between us that led me on and yet deceived me. It was especially +evident in her singing, this deep power. She sang, you remember, to +her own accompaniment on the harp, and her method, though so simple +it seemed almost childish, was at the same time charged with a great +melancholy that always moved me most profoundly. The sound of her +small, plaintive voice, the sight of her slender fingers that plucked +the strings in some delicate fashion native to herself, the tiny foot +that pressed the pedal—all these, with her dark searching eyes fixed +penetratingly upon my own while she sang of love and love's +endearments, combined in a single stroke of very puissant and +seductive kind. Passions in me awoke, so deep, so ardent, so +imperious, that I conceived them as born of the need of one soul for +another. I attributed their power to genuine love. The following +reactions, when my soul held up a finger and bade me listen to her +still, small warnings, grew less positive and of ever less duration. +The frontier between physical and spiritual passion is perilously +narrow, perhaps. My judgment, at any rate, became insecure, then +floundered hopelessly. The sound of the harp-strings and of Marion's +voice could overwhelm its balance instantly. +</P> + +<P> +Mistaking, perhaps, my lukewarm-ness for restraint, she led me at last +to the altar you described as one of sacrifice. And your instinct, +more piercing than my own, proved only too correct: that which I held +for love declared itself as pity only, the soft, affectionate pity of +a weakish man in whom the flesh cried loudly, the pity of a man who +would be untrue to himself rather than pain so sweet a girl by +rejecting the one great offering life placed within her gift. She +persuaded me so cunningly that I persuaded myself, yet was not aware +I did so until afterwards. I married her because in some manner I +felt, but never could explain, that she had need of me. +</P> + +<P> +And, at the wedding, I remember two things vividly: the expression of +wondering resignation on your face, and upon hers—chiefly in the +eyes and in the odd lines about the mouth—the air of subtle triumph +that she wore: that she had captured me for her very own at last, and +yet—for there was this singular hint in her attitude and +behaviour—that she had taken me, because she had this curious deep +need of me. +</P> + +<P> +This sharply moving touch was graven into me, increasing the +tenderness of my pity, subsequently, a thousandfold. The necessity +lay in her very soul. She gave to me all she had to give, and in so +doing she tried to satisfy some hunger of her being that lay beyond +my comprehension or interpretation. For, note this—she gave herself +into my keeping, I remember, with a sigh. +</P> + +<P> +It seems as of yesterday the actual moment when, urged by my vehement +desires, I made her consent to be my wife; I remember, too, the +doubt, the shame, the hesitation that made themselves felt in me +before the climax when her beauty overpowered me, sweeping reflection +utterly away. I can hear to-day the sigh, half of satisfaction, yet +half, it seemed, of pain, with which she sank into my arms at last, +as though her victory brought intense relief, yet was not wholly +gamed in the way that she had wanted. Her physical beauty, perhaps, +was the last weapon she had wished to use for my enslavement; she +knew quite surely that the appeal to what was highest in me had not +succeeded... +</P> + +<P> +The party in our mother's house that week in July included yourself; +there is no need for me to remind you of its various members, nor of +the strong attraction Marion, then a girl of twenty-five, exercised +upon the men belonging to it. Nor have you forgotten, I feel sure, +the adroit way in which she contrived so often to find herself alone +with me, both in the house and out of it, even to the point of +sometimes placing me in a quasi-false position. That she tempted me +is, perhaps, an overstatement, though that she availed herself of +every legitimate use of feminine magic to entrap me is certainly the +truth. Opportunities of marriage, it was notorious, had been +frequently given to her, and she had as frequently declined them; she +was older than her years; to inexperience she certainly had no claim: +and from the very first it was clear to me—if conceited, I cannot +pretend that I was also blind—that flirtation was not her object and +that marriage was. Yet it was marriage with a purpose that she +desired, and that purpose had to do, I felt, with sacrifice. She +burned to give her very best, her all, and for my highest welfare. It +was in this sense, I got the impression strangely, that she had need +of me. +</P> + +<P> +The battle seemed, at first, uneven, since, as a woman, she did not +positively attract me. I was first amused at her endeavours and her +skill; but respect for her as a redoubtable antagonist soon followed. +This respect, doubtless, was the first blood she drew from me, since +it gained my attention and fixed my mind upon her presence. From that +moment she entered my consciousness as a woman; when she was near me +I became more and more aware of her, and the room, the picnic, the +game of tennis that included her were entirely different from such +occasions when she was absent, I became self-conscious. It was +impossible to ignore her as formerly had been my happy case. +</P> + +<P> +It was then I first knew how beautiful she was, and that her beauty +made a certain difference to my mood. The next step may seem a big +one, but, I believe, is very natural: her physical beauty gave me +definite pleasure. And the instant this change occurred she was aware +of it. The curious fact, however, is that, although aware of this +gain of power, she made no direct use of it at first. She did not draw +this potent weapon for my undoing; it was ever with her, but was ever +sheathed. Did she discern my weakness, perhaps, and know that the +subtle power would work upon me most effectively if left to itself? +Did she, rich in experience, deem that its too direct use might waken +a reaction in my better self? I cannot say, I do not know.... Every +feminine art was at her disposal, as every use of magic pertaining to +young and comely womanhood was easily within her reach. As you and I +might express it bluntly, she knew men thoroughly, she knew every +trick; she drew me on, then left me abruptly in the wrong, puzzled, +foolish, angry, only to forgive me later with the most enchanting +smile or word imaginable. But never once did she deliberately make +use of the merciless weapon of her physical beauty although—perhaps +because—she knew that it was the most powerful in all her armoury. +</P> + +<P> +For listen to this: when at last I took her in my arms with passion +that would not be denied, she actually resented it. She even sought +to repel me from her touch that had undone me. I repeat what I said +before: She did not wish to win me in that way. The sigh of happiness +she drew in that moment—I can swear to it—included somewhere, too, +the pain of bitter disappointment. +</P> + +<P> +The weapon, however, that she did use without hesitation was her +singing. There was nothing special either in its quality or skill; it +was a voice untrained, I believe, and certainly without ambition; her +repertoire was limited; she sang folk-songs mostly, the simple +love-songs of primitive people, of peasants and the like, yet sang +them with such truth and charm, with such power and conviction, +somehow, that I knew enchantment as I listened. This, too, she +instantly divined, and that behind my compliments lay hid a weakness +of deep origin she could play upon to her sure advantage. She did so +without mercy, until gradually I passed beneath her sway. +</P> + +<P> +I will not now relate in detail the steps of my descent, or if you +like it better, of my capture. This is a summary merely. So let me +say in brief that her singing to the harp combined with the +revelation of her physical beauty to lead me swiftly to the point +where I ardently desired her, and that in this turmoil of desire I +sought eagerly to find real love. There were times when I deceived +myself most admirably; there were times when I plainly saw the truth. +During the former I believed that my happiness lay in marrying her, +but in the latter I recognised that a girl who meant nothing to my +better self had grown of a sudden painfully yet exquisitely +desirable. But even during the ascendancy of the latter physical +mood, she had only to seat herself beside the harp and sing, for the +former state to usurp its place, I watched, I listened, and I +yielded. Her voice, aided by the soft plucking of the strings, +completed my defeat. Now, strangest of all, I must add one other +thing, and I will add it without comment. For though sure of its +truth, I would not dwell upon it. And it is this: that in her singing, +as also in her playing, in the "colour" of her voice as also in the +very attitude and gestures of her figure as she sat beside the +instrument, there lay, though marvellously hidden, something gross. +It woke a response of something in myself, hitherto unrecognized, +that was similarly gross.... +</P> + +<P> +It was in the empty billiard-room when the climax came, a calm evening +of late July, the dusk upon the lawn, and most of the house-party +already gone upstairs to dress for dinner. I had been standing beside +the open window for some considerable time, motionless, and listening +idly to the singing of a thrush or blackbird in the shrubberies—when +I heard the faint twanging of the harp-strings in the room behind me, +and turning, saw that Marion had entered and was there beside the +instrument. At the same moment she saw me, rose from the harp and +came forward. During the day she had kept me at a distance. I was +hungry for her voice and touch; her presence excited me—and yet I +was half afraid. +</P> + +<P> +"What! Already dressed!" I exclaimed, anxious to avoid a talk a deux. +"I must hurry then, or I shall be later than usual." +</P> + +<P> +I crossed the room towards the door, when she stopped me with her +eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you really mean to say you don't know the difference between an +evening frock and—and this," she answered lightly, holding out the +skirt in her fingers for me to touch. And in the voice was that hint +of a sensual caress that, I admit, bewildered both my will and +judgment. She was very close and her fragrance came on me with her +breath, like the perfume of the summer garden. I touched the material +carelessly; it was of softest smooth white serge. It seemed I touched +herself that lay beneath it. And at that touch some fire of +lightning ran through every vein. +</P> + +<P> +"How stupid of me," I said quickly, making to go past her, "but it's +white, you see, and in this dim light I——" +</P> + +<P> +"A man's idea of an evening frock is always white, I suppose, or +black." She laughed a little. "I'm not coming to dinner to-night," +she added, sitting down to the harp. "I've got a headache and thought +I might soothe it with a little music. I didn't know any one was +here. I thought I was alone." +</P> + +<P> +Thus, deftly, having touched a chord of pity in me, she began to play; +her voice followed; dinner and dressing, the house-party and my +mother's guests, were all forgotten. I remember that you looked in, +your eyes touched with a suggestive and melancholy smile, and as +quickly closed the door again. But even that little warning failed to +help me. I sat down on the sofa facing her, the world forgotten. And, +as I listened to her singing and to the sweet music of the harp, the +spell, it seemed, of some ancient beauty stole upon my spirit. The +sound of her soft voice reduced my resistance to utter impotence. An +aggressive passion took its place. The desire for contact, physical +contact, became a vehement aching that I scarcely could restrain, and +my arms were hungry for her. Shame and repugnance touched me faintly +for a moment, but at once died away again. I listened and I watched. +The sensuous beauty of her figure and her movements, swathed in that +soft and clinging serge, troubled my judgment; it seemed, as I saw +her little foot upon the pedal, that I felt with joy its pressure on +my heart and life. Something gross and abandoned stirred in me; I +welcomed her easy power and delighted in it. I feasted my eyes and +ears, the blood rose feverishly to my head. She did not look at me, +yet knew that I looked at her, and how. No longer ashamed, but with a +fiery pleasure in my heart, I spoke at last. Her song had ended. She +softly brushed the strings, her eyes turned downwards. +</P> + +<P> +"Marion," I said, agitation making my voice sound unfamiliar, "Marion, +dear, I am enthralled; your voice, your beauty——" +</P> + +<P> +I found no other words; my voice stopped dead; I stood up, trembling +in every limb. I saw her in that instant as a maid of olden time, +singing the love-songs of some far-off day beside her native +instrument, and of a voluptuous beauty there was no withstanding. The +half-light of the dusk set her in a frame of terrible enchantment. +</P> + +<P> +And as I spoke her name and rose, she also spoke my own, my Christian +name, and rose as well. I saw her move towards me. Upon her face, in +her eyes and on her lips, was a smile of joy I had never seen before, +though a smile of conquest, and of something more besides that I must +call truly by its rightful name, a smile of lust. God! those +movements beneath the clinging dress that fell in lines of beauty to +her feet! Those little feet that stepped upon my heart, upon my very +soul.... For a moment I loathed myself. The next, as she touched me +and my arms took her with rough strength against my breast, my +repugnance vanished, and I was utterly undone. I believed I loved. +That which was gross in me, leaping like fire to claim her glorious +beauty, met and merged with that similar, devouring flame in her; but +in the merging seemed cunningly transformed into the call of soul to +soul: I forgot the pity.... I kissed her, holding her to me so +fiercely that she scarcely moved. I said a thousand things. I know +not what I said. I loved. +</P> + +<P> +Then, suddenly, she seemed to free herself; she drew away; she looked +at me, standing a moment just beyond my reach, a strange smile on her +lips and in her darkened eyes a nameless expression that held both +joy and pain. For one second I felt that she repelled me, that she +resented my action and my words. Yes, for one brief second she stood +there, like an angel set in judgment over me, and the next we had +come together again, softly, gently, happily; I heard that strange, +deep sigh, already mentioned, half of satisfaction, half, it seemed, +of pain, as she sank down into my arms and found relief in quiet +sobbing on my breast. +</P> + +<P> +And pity then returned. I felt unsure of myself again. This was the love +of the body only; my soul was silent. Yet—somehow, in some strange +hidden way, lay this ambushed meaning—that she had need of me, and that +she offered her devotion and herself in sacrifice. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H3> + +<P> +THE brief marriage ran its course, depleting rather than enriching me, +and I know you realized before the hurried, dreadful end that my tie +with yourself was strengthened rather than endangered, and that I took +from you nothing that I might give it to her. That death should +intervene so swiftly, leaving her but an interval of a month between the +altar and the grave, you could foreknow as little as I or she; yet in +that brief space of time you learned that I had robbed you of nothing +that was your precious due, while she as surely realized that the +amazing love she poured so lavishly upon me woke no response—beyond a +deep and tender pity, strangely deep and singularly tender I admit, but +assuredly very different from love. +</P> + +<P> +Now this, I think, you already know and in some measure understand; but +what you cannot know—since it is a portion of her secret, of that +ambushed meaning, as I termed it, given to me when she lay dying—is the +pathetic truth that her discovery wrought no touch of disenchantment in +her. I think she knew with shame that she had caught me with her lowest +weapon, yet still hoped that the highest in her might complete and +elevate her victory. She knew, at any rate, neither dismay nor +disappointment; of reproach there was no faintest hint. She did not even +once speak of it directly, though her fine, passionate face made me +aware of the position. Of the usual human reaction, that is, there was +no slightest trace; she neither chided nor implored; she did not weep. +The exact opposite of what I might have expected took place before my +very eyes. +</P> + +<P> +For she turned and faced me, empty as I was. The soul in her, realizing +the truth, stood erect to meet the misery of lonely pain that inevitably +lay ahead—in some sense as though she welcomed it already; and, +strangest of all, she blossomed, physically as well as mentally, into a +fuller revelation of gracious loveliness than before, sweeter and more +exquisite, indeed, than anything life had yet shown to me. Moreover, +having captured me, she changed; the grossness I had discerned, that +which had led me to my own undoing, vanished completely as though it +were transmuted into desires and emotions of a loftier kind. Some +purpose, some intention, a hope immensely resolute shone out of her, and +of such spiritual loveliness, it seemed to me, that I watched it in a +kind of dumb amazement. +</P> + +<P> +I watched it—unaware at first of my own shame, emptied of any emotion +whatsoever, I think, but that of a startled worship before the grandeur +of her generosity. It seemed she listened breathlessly for the beating +of my heart, and hearing none, resolved that she would pour her own life +into it, regardless of pain, of loss, of sacrifice, that she might make +it live. She undertook her mission, that is to say, and this mission, in +some mysterious way, and according to some code of conduct undivined by +me, yet passionately honoured, was to give—regardless of herself or of +response. I caught myself sometimes thinking of a child who would +instinctively undo some earlier grievous wrong. She loved me +marvellously. +</P> + +<P> +I know not how to describe to you the lavish wealth of selfless devotion +she bathed me in during the brief torturing and unfulfilled period +before the end. It made me aware of new depths and heights in human +nature. It taught me a new beauty that even my finest dreams had left +unmentioned. Into the region that great souls inhabit a glimpse was +given me. My own dreadful weakness was laid bare. And an eternal hunger +woke in me—that I might love. +</P> + +<P> +That hunger remained unsatisfied. I prayed, I yearned, I suffered; I +could have decreed myself a deservedly cruel death; it seemed I +stretched my little nature to unendurable limits in the fierce hope that +the Gift of the Gods might be bestowed upon me, and that her divine +emotion might waken a response within my leaden soul. But all in vain. +My attitude, in spite of every prayer, of every effort, remained no more +than a searching and unavailing pity, but a pity that held no seed of a +mere positive emotion, least of all, of love. The heart in me lay +unredeemed; it knew ashamed and very tender gratitude; but it did not +beat for her. I could not love. +</P> + +<P> +I have told you bluntly, frankly, of my physical feelings towards Marion +and her beauty. It is a confession that I give into my own safe keeping. +I think, perhaps, that you, though cast in a finer mould, may not +despise them utterly, nor too contemptuously misinterpret them. The +legend that twins may share a single soul has always seemed to me +grotesque and unpoetic nonsense, a cruel and unnecessary notion too: a +man is sufficiently imperfect without suffering this further subtraction +from his potentialities. And yet it is true, in our own case, that you +have exclusive monopoly of the ethereal qualities, while to me are given +chiefly the physical attributes of the vigorous and healthy male—the +animal: my six feet three, my muscular system, my inartistic and +pedestrian temperament. Fairly clean-minded, I hope I may be, but beyond +all question I am the male animal incarnate. It was, indeed, the +thousand slaveries of the senses, individually so negligible, +collectively so overwhelming, that forced me upon my knees before her +physical loveliness. I must tell you now that this potent spell, +alternating between fiery desire and the sincerest of repugnance, +continued to operate. I complete the confession by adding briefly, that +after marriage she resented and repelled all my advances. A deep sadness +came upon her; she wept; and I desisted. It was my soul that she desired +with the fire of her mighty love, and not my body.... And again, since +it is to myself and to you alone I tell it, I would add this vital fact: +it was this "new beauty which my finest dreams have left unmentioned" +that made it somehow possible for me to desist, both against my animal +will, yet willingly. +</P> + +<P> +I have told you that, when dying, she revealed to me a portion of her +"secret." This portion of a sacred confidence lies so safe within my +everlasting pity that I may share it with you without the remorse of a +betrayal. Full understanding we need never ask; the solution, I am +convinced, is scarcely obtainable in this world. The message, however, +was incomplete because the breath that framed it into broken words +failed suddenly; the heart, so strangely given into my unworthy keeping, +stopped beating as you shall hear upon the very edge of full disclosure. +The ambushed meaning I have hinted at remained—a hint. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H3> + +<P> +THERE was, then, you will remember, but an interval of minutes between +the accident and the temporary recovery of consciousness, between +that recovery again and the moment when the head fell forward on my +knee and she was gone. That "recovery" of consciousness I feel bound +to question, as you shall shortly hear. Among such curious things I +am at sea admittedly, yet I must doubt for ever that the eyes which +peered so strangely into mine were those of Marion herself—as I had +always known her. You will, at any rate, allow the confession, and +believe it true, that I—did not recognize her quite. Consciousness +there was, indubitably, but whether it was "recovery" of +consciousness is another matter, and a problem that I must for ever +question though I cannot ever set it confidently at rest. It almost +seemed as though a larger, grander, yet somehow a less personal, soul +looked forth through the fading eyes and used the troubled breath. +</P> + +<P> +In those brief minutes, at any rate, the mind was clear as day, the +faculties not only unobscured, but marvellously enhanced. In the eyes +at first shone unveiled fire; she smiled, gazing into my own with +love and eager yearning too. There was a radiance in her face I must +call glory. Her head was in my lap upon the bed of rugs we had +improvised inside the field: the broken motor posed in a monstrous +heap ten yards away; and the doctor, summoned by a passing stranger, +was in the act of administrating the anaesthetic, so that we might +bear her without pain to the nearest hospital—when, suddenly, she +held up a warning finger, beckoning to me that I should listen +closely. +</P> + +<P> +I bent my head to catch the words. There was such authority in the +gesture, and in the eyes an expression so extraordinarily appealing, +and yet so touched with the awe of a final privacy beyond language, +that the doctor stepped backwards on the instant, the needle shaking +in his hand—while I bent down to catch the whispered words that at +once began to pass her lips. +</P> + +<P> +The wind in the poplar overhead mingled with the little sentences, as +though the breath of the clear blue sky, calmly shining, was mingled +with her own. +</P> + +<P> +But the words I heard both troubled and amazed me: +</P> + +<P> +"Help me! For I am in the dark still!" went through me like a sword. +"And I do not know how long." +</P> + +<P> +I took her face in both my hands; I kissed her. "You are with +friends," I said. "You are safe with us, with me—Marion!" And I +apparently tried to put into my smile the tenderness that clumsy +words forswore. Her next words shocked me inexpressibly: "You +laugh," she said, "but I——" she sighed—"I weep." +</P> + +<P> +I stroked her face and hair. No words came to me. +</P> + +<P> +"You call me Marion," she went on in an eager tone that surely belied +her pain and weakness, "but I do not remember that. I have forgotten +names." Then, as I kissed her, I heard her add in the clearest +whisper possible, as though no cloud lay upon her mind: "Yet Marion +will do—if by that you know me now." +</P> + +<P> +There came a pause then, but after it such singular words that I could +hardly believe I heard aright, although each syllable sank into my +brain as with pointed steel: +</P> + +<P> +"You come to me again when I lie dying. Even in the dark I hear—how +long I do not know—I hear your words." +</P> + +<P> +She gave me suddenly then a most piercing look, raising her face a +little towards my own. I saw earnest entreaty in them. "Tell me," I +murmured; "you are nearer, closer to me than ever before. Tell me +what it is?" +</P> + +<P> +"Music," she whispered, "I want music——" +</P> + +<P> +I knew not what to answer, what to say. Can you blame me that, in my +troubled, aching heart, I found but commonplaces? For I thought of +the harp, or of some stringed instrument that seemed part of her. +</P> + +<P> +"You shall have it," I said gently, "and very soon. We shall carry you +now into comfort, safety. You shall have no pain. Another moment +and——" +</P> + +<P> +"Music," she repeated, interrupting, "music as of long ago." +</P> + +<P> +It was terrible. I said such stupid things. My mind seemed frozen. +</P> + +<P> +"I would hear music," she whispered, "before I go again." +</P> + +<P> +"Marion, you shall," I stammered. "Beethoven, Schumann,—what would +please you most? You shall have all." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, play to me. But those names"—she shook her head—"I do not +know." +</P> + +<P> +I remember that my face was streaming, my hands so hot that her head +seemed more than I could hold. I shifted my knees so that she might +lie more easily a little. +</P> + +<P> +"God's music!" she cried aloud with startling abruptness; then, +lowering her voice again and smiling sadly as though something came +back to her that she would fain forget, she added slowly, with +something of mournful emphasis: +</P> + +<P> +"I was a singer ..." +</P> + +<P> +As though a flash of light had passed, some inner darkness was cleft +asunder in me. Some heaviness shifted from my brain. It seemed the +years, the centuries, turned over like a wind-blown page. And out of +some hidden inmost part of me involuntary words rose instantly: +</P> + +<P> +"You sang God's music then ..." +</P> + +<P> +The strange, unbidden sentence stirred her. Her head moved slightly; +she smiled. Gazing into my eyes intently, as though to dispel a mist +that shrouded both our minds, she went on in a whisper that yet was +startlingly distinct, though with little pauses drawn out between the +phrases: "I was a singer... in the Temple. I sang—men—into evil. +You ... I sang into ... evil." +</P> + +<P> +There was a moment's pause, as a spasm of inexplicable pain passed +through my heart like fire, and a sense of haunting things whereof no +conscious memory remained came over me. The scene about me wavered +before my eyes as if it would disappear. +</P> + +<P> +"Yet you came to me when I lay dying at the last," I caught her thin +clear whisper. "You said, 'Turn to God!'" +</P> + +<P> +The whisper died away. The darkness flowed back upon my mind and +thought. A silence followed. I heard the wind in the poplar overhead. +The doctor moved impatiently, coming a few steps nearer, then turning +away again. I heard the sounds of tinkering with metal that the +driver made ten yards behind us. I turned angrily to make a +sign—when Marion's low voice, again more like the murmur of the wind +than a living voice, rose into the still evening air: +</P> + +<P> +"I have failed. And I shall try again." +</P> + +<P> +She gazed up at me with that patient, generous love that seemed +inexhaustible, and hardly knowing what to answer, nor how to comfort +her in that afflicting moment, I bent lower—or, rather, she drew my +ear closer to her lips. I think her great desire just then was to +utter her own thought more fully before she passed. Certainly it was +no avowal or consolation from myself she sought. +</P> + +<P> +"Your forgiveness," I heard distinctly, "I need your full +forgiveness." +</P> + +<P> +It was for me a terrible and poignant moment. The emptiness of my pity +betrayed itself too mercilessly for me to bear; yet, before my +bewilderment enabled me to frame an answer, she went on hurriedly, +though with a faultless certainty: the meaning to her was clear as +day: +</P> + +<P> +"Born of love ... the only true forgiveness..." +</P> + +<P> +A film formed slowly. Her eyes began to close, her breath died off +into a sigh; she smiled, but her head sank lower with her fading +strength. And her final words went by me in that sigh: +</P> + +<P> +"Yet love in you lies unawakened still... and I must try again...." +</P> + +<P> +There was one more effort, painful with unexpressed fulfilment. A +flicker of awful yearning took her paling eyes. Life seemed to +stammer, pause, then flush as with this last deep impulse to yield a +secret she discerned for the first time fully, in the very act of +passing out. The face, with its soft loveliness, turned grey in death. +Upon the edge of a great disclosure—she was gone. +</P> + +<P> +I remember that for a space of time there was silence all about us. +The doctor still kept his back to us, the driver had ceased his +wretched hammering, I heard the wind in the poplar and the hum of +insects. A bird sang loudly on a branch above; it seemed miles away, +across an empty world.... Then, of a sudden, I became aware that the +weight of the head and shoulders had dreadfully increased. I dared not +turn my face lest I should look upon her whom I had deeply +wronged—the forsaken tenement of this woman whose matchless love now +begged with her dying breath for my forgiveness! +</P> + +<P> +A cowardly desire to lose consciousness ran through me, to forget +myself, to hide my shame with her in death; yet, even while this was +so, I sought most desperately through the depths of my anguished pity +to find some hint, if only the tiniest seed, of love—and found it +not.... The rest belonged to things unrealized.... +</P> + +<P> +I remember a hand being laid upon me. I lifted my head which had +fallen close against her cheek. The doctor stood beside me, his grave +and kindly face bent low. He spoke some gentle words. I saw him +replacing the needle in its little leathern case, unused. +</P> + +<P> +Marion was dead, her deep secret undisclosed. That which she yearned +to tell me was something which, in her brief period of devotion, she +had lived, had faithfully acted out, yet herself only dimly aware of +why it had to be. The solution of this problem of unrequited love lay +at last within her grasp; of a love that only asked to give of its +unquenched and unquenchable store, undismayed by the total absence of +response. +</P> + +<P> +She passed from the world of speech and action with this intense +desire unsatisfied, and at the very moment—as with a drowning man +who sees his past—when the solution lay ready to her hand. She saw +clearly, she understood, she burned to tell me. Upon the edge of full +disclosure, she was gone, leaving me alone with my aching pity and +with my shame of unawakened love. +</P> + +<P> +"I have failed, but I shall try again...." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H3> + +<P> +THAT, as you know, took place a dozen years ago and more, when I was +thirty-two, and time, in the interval, has wrought unexpected ends +out of the material of my life. My trade as a soldier has led me to +an administrative post in a distant land where, apparently, I have +deserved well of my King and Country, as they say in the obituaries. +At any rate, the cryptic letters following my name, bear witness to +some kind of notoriety attained. +</P> + +<P> +You were the first to welcome my success, and your congratulations +were the first I looked for, as surely as they were more satisfying +than those our mother sent. You knew me better, it seems, than she +did. For you expressed the surprise that I, too, felt, whereas mother +assured me she had "always known you would do well, my boy, and you +have only got your deserts in this tardy recognition." To her, of +course, even at forty-five, I was still her "little boy." You, +however, guessed shrewdly that Luck had played strong cards in +bringing me this distinction, and I will admit at once that it was, +indeed, due to little born in me, but, rather, to some adventitious +aid that, curiously, seemed never lacking at the opportune moment. +And this adventitious aid was new. +</P> + +<P> +This is the unvarnished truth. A mysterious power dealt the cards for +me with unfailing instinct; a fortunate combination of events placing +in my hands, precisely at the moment of their greatest value, clear +opportunities that none but a hopeless blunderer could have +disregarded. What men call Chance operated in my favour as though +with superb calculation, lifting me to this miniature pinnacle I could +never have reached by my own skill and judgment. +</P> + +<P> +So, at least, you and I, knowing my limited abilities, consent to +attribute my success to luck, to chance, to fate, or to any other +name for the destiny that has placed me on a height my talent never +could have reached alone. You, and I, too, for that matter, are as +happy over the result as our mother is; only you and I are surprised, +because we judge it, with some humour, out of greater knowledge. +More—you, like myself, are a little puzzled, I think. We ask +together, if truth were told: Whose was the unerring, guiding hand? +</P> + +<P> +Amid this uncertainty I give you now another curious item, about which +you have, of course, been uninformed. For none could have detected it +but myself: namely, that apart from these opportunities chance set +upon my path, an impulse outside myself—and an impulse that was +new—drove me to make use of them. Sometimes even against my personal +inclination, a power urged me into decided, and it so happened, +always into faultless action. Amazed at myself, I yet invariably +obeyed. +</P> + +<P> +How to describe so elusive a situation I hardly know, unless by +telling you the simple truth: I felt that somebody would be pleased. +</P> + +<P> +And, with the years, I learned to recognize this instinct that never +failed when a choice, and therefore an element of doubt, presented +itself. Invariably I was pushed towards the right direction. More +singular still, there rose in me unbidden at these various junctures, +a kind of inner attention which bade me wait and listen for the +guiding touch. I am not fanciful, I heard no voice, I was aware of +nothing personal by way of guidance or assistance; and yet the +guidance, the assistance, never failed, though often I was not +conscious that they had been present until long afterwards. I felt, +as I said above, that somebody would be pleased. +</P> + +<P> +For it was a consistent, an intelligent guidance; operating, as it +were, out of some completer survey of the facts at a given moment +than my own abilities could possibly have compassed; my mediocre +faculties seemed gathered together and perfected—with the result, in +time, that my "intuition," as others called it, came to be regarded +with a respect that in some cases amounted to half reverence. The +adjective "uncanny" was applied to me. The natives, certainly, were +aware of awe. +</P> + +<P> +I made no private use of this unearned distinction; there is nothing +in me of the charlatan that claimed mysterious power; but my +subordinates, ever in growing numbers as my promotions followed, held +me in greater respect, apparently, on that very account. The natives, +especially, as I mentioned, attributed semi-deific properties to my +poor personality. Certainly my prestige increased out of all +proportion to anything my talents deserved with any show of justice. +</P> + +<P> +I have said that, so far as I was concerned, there lay nothing +personal in this growth of divining intuition. I must now qualify +that a little. Nothing persuaded me that this guidance, so +infallible, so constant, owed its origin to what men call a being; I +certainly found no name for it; exactness, I think, might place its +truest description in some such term as energy, inner force or +inspiration; yet I must admit that, with its steady repetition, there +awoke in me an attitude towards it that eluded somewhere also an +emotion. And in this emotion, in its quality and character, hid +remotely a personal suggestion: each time it offered itself, that is, +I was aware of a sharp quiver of sensitive life within me, and of +that sensation, extraordinarily sweet and wonderful, which +constitutes a genuine thrill. +</P> + +<P> +I came to look for this "thrill," to lie in wait with anticipatory +wonder for its advent; and in a sense this pause in me, that was both +of expectancy and hope, grew slowly into what I may almost call a +habit. There was an emptiness in my heart before it came, a sense of +peace and comfort when it was accomplished. The emptiness and then +the satisfaction, as first and last conditions, never failed, and +that they took place in my heart rather than in my mind I can affirm +with equal certainty. +</P> + +<P> +The habit, thus, confirmed itself. I admitted the power. Let me be +frank—I sought it, even longing for it when there was no decision +to be made, no guidance therefore needed: I longed for it because of +the great sweetness that it left within my heart. It was when I +needed it, however, that its effect was most enduring. The method +became quite easy to me. When a moment of choice between two courses +of action presented itself, I first emptied my heart of all personal +inclination, then, pausing upon direction, I knew—or rather +felt—which course to take. My heart was filled and satisfied with an +intention that never wavered. Some energy that made the choice for me +had been poured in. I decided upon this or that line of action. The +Thrill, always of an instantaneous nature, came and went—and +somebody was pleased. +</P> + +<P> +Moreover—and this will interest you more particularly—the emotion +produced in me was, so far as positive recognition went, a new +emotion; it was, at any rate, one that had lain so feebly in me +hitherto that its announcement brought the savour of an emotion +before unrealized. I had known it but once, and that long +years before, but the man's mind in me increased and added to it. For +it seemed a development of that new perception which first dawned +upon me during my brief period of married life, and had since lain +hidden in me, potential possibly, but inactive beyond all question, +if not wholly dead. I will now name it for you, and for myself, as +best I may. It was the Thrill of Beauty. +</P> + +<P> +I became, in these moments, aware of Beauty, and to a degree, while it +lasted, approaching revelation. Chords, first faintly struck long +years before when my sense of Marion's forgiveness and generosity +stirred worship in me, but chords that since then had lain, +apparently, unresponsive, were swept into resonance again. Possibly +they had been vibrating all these intervening years, unknown to me, +unrecognized. I cannot say. I only know that here was the origin of +the strange energy that now moved me to the depths. Some new worship +of Beauty that had love in it, of which, indeed, love was the +determining quality, awoke in the profoundest part of me, and even +when the "thrill" had gone its way, left me hungry and yearning for +its repetition. Here, then, is the "personal" qualification that I +mentioned. The yearning and the hunger were related to my deepest +needs. I had been empty, but I would be filled. For a passionate +love, holding hands with a faith and confidence as passionate as +itself, poured flooding into me and made this new sense of beauty seem +a paramount necessity of my life. +</P> + +<P> +Will you be patient now, if I give you a crude instance of what I +mean? It is one among many others, but I choose it because its very +crudeness makes my meaning clear. +</P> + +<P> +In this fevered and stricken African coast, you may know, there is +luxuriance in every natural detail, an exuberance that is lavish to +excess. Yet beauty lies somewhat coyly hid—as though suffocated by +over-abundance of crowding wonder. I detect, indeed, almost a touch +of the monstrous in it all, a super-expression, as it were, that +bewilders, and occasionally even may alarm. Delicacy, subtlety, +suggestion in any form, have no part in it. During the five years of +my exile amid this tropical extravagance I can recall no single +instance of beauty "hinting" anywhere. Nature seems, rather, +audaciously abandoned; she is without restraint. She shows her all, +tells everything—she shouts, she never whispers. You will understand +me when I tell you that this wholesale lack of reticence and modesty +involves all absence in the beholder of—surprise. A sudden +ravishment of the senses is impossible. One never can experience that +sweet and troubling agitation to which a breathless amazement +properly belongs. You may be stunned; you are hardly ever "thrilled." +</P> + +<P> +Now, this new sensitiveness to Beauty I have mentioned has opened me +to that receptiveness which is aware of subtlety and owns to sharp +surprise. The thrill is of its very essence. It is unexpected. Out of +the welter of prolific detail Nature here glories in, a delicate hint +of wonder and surprise comes stealing. The change, of course, is in +myself, not otherwise. And on the particular "crude" occasion I will +briefly mention, it reached me from the most obvious and banal of +conditions—the night sky and the moon. +</P> + +<P> +Here, then, is how it happened: There had arisen a situation of grave +difficulty among the natives of my Province, and the need for taking +a strong, authoritative line was paramount. The reports of my +subordinates from various parts of the country pointed to very +vigorous action of a repressing, even of a punitive, description. It +was not, in itself, a complicated situation, and no Governor, who was +soldier too, need have hesitated for an instant. The various +Stations, indeed, anticipating the usual course of action indicated +by precedent, had automatically gone to their posts, prepared for the +"official instructions" it was known that I should send, wondering +impatiently (as I learned afterwards) at the slight delay. For delay +there was, though of a few hours only; and this delay was caused by +my uncomfortable new habit—pausing for the guidance and the +"thrill." Intuition, waiting upon the thrill of Beauty that guided it, +at first lay inactive. +</P> + +<P> +My behaviour seemed scarcely of the orthodox, official kind, soldierly +least of all. There was uneasiness, there was cursing, probably; +there were certainly remarks not complimentary. Prompt, decisive +action was the obvious and only course... while I sat quietly in the +Headquarters Bungalow, a sensitive youth again, a dreamer, a poet, +hungry for the inspiration of Beauty that the gorgeous tropical night +concealed with her excess of smothering abundance. +</P> + +<P> +This incongruity between my procedure and the time-honoured methods of +"strong" Governors must have seemed exasperating to those who waited, +respectful, but with nerves on edge, in the canvassed and tented +regions behind the Headquarters clearing. Indeed, the Foreign Office, +could it have witnessed my unpardonable hesitation, might well have +dismissed me on the spot, I think. For I sat there, dreaming in my +deck-chair on the verandah, smoking a cigarette, safe within my net +from the countless poisonous mosquitoes, and listening to the wind in +the palms that fringed the heavy jungle round the building. +</P> + +<P> +Smoking quietly, dreaming, listening, waiting, I sat there in this +mood of inner attention and expectancy, knowing that the guidance I +anticipated must surely come. +</P> + +<P> +A few clouds sprawled in their beds of silver across the sky; the +heat, the perfume, were, as always, painfully, excessive; the +moonlight bathed the huge trees and giant leaves with that habitual +extravagance which made it seem ordinary, almost cheap and +wonderless. Very silent the wooden house lay all about me, there were +no footsteps, there was no human voice. I heard only the wash of the +heavy-scented wind through the colossal foliage that hardly stirred, +and watched, as a hundred times before, the immense heated sky, +drenched in its brilliant and intolerable moonlight. All seemed a +riot of excess, an orgy. +</P> + +<P> +Then, suddenly, the shameless night drew on some exquisite veil, as +the moon, between three-quarters and the full, slid out of sight +behind a streaky cloud. A breath, it seemed, of lighter wind woke all +the perfume of the burdened forest leaves. The shouting splendour +hushed; there came a whisper and, at last—a hint. +</P> + +<P> +I watched with relief and gratitude the momentary eclipse, for in the +half-light I was aware of that sharp and tender mood which was +preparatory to the thrill. Slowly sailing into view again from behind +that gracious veil of cloud— +</P> + +<P> +"The moon put forth a little diamond peak, No bigger than an +unobserved star, Or tiny point of fairy scimitar; Bright signal that +she only stooped to tie Her silver sandals, ere deliciously She bowed +into the heavens her timid head." +</P> + +<P> +And then it came. The Thrill stole forth and touched me, passing like +a meteor through my heart, but in that lightning passage, cleaving it +open to some wisdom that seemed most near to love. For power flowed +in along the path that Beauty cleft for it, and with the beauty came +that intuitive guidance I had waited for. +</P> + +<P> +The inspiration operated like a flash. There was no reasoning; I was +aware immediately that another and a better way of dealing with the +situation was given me. +</P> + +<P> +I need not weary you with details. It seemed contrary to precedent, +advice, against experience too, yet it was the right, the only way. +It threatened, I admit, to destroy the prestige so long and +laboriously established, since it seemed a dangerous yielding to the +natives that must menace the white life everywhere and render trade in +the Colony unsafe. Yet I did not hesitate.... There was bustle at +once within that Bungalow; the orders went forth; I saw the way and +chose it—to the dismay, outspoken, of every white man whose welfare +lay in my official hands. +</P> + +<P> +And the results, I may tell you now without pride, since, as we both +admit, no credit attaches to myself—the results astonished the +entire Colony.... The Chiefs came to me, in due course, bringing +fruit and flowers and presents enough to bury all Headquarters, and +with a reverential obedience that proved the rising scotched to +death—because its subtle psychological causes had been marvellously +understood. +</P> + +<P> +Full comprehension, as I mentioned earlier in this narrative, we +cannot expect to have. Its origin, I may believe, lies hid in the +nature of that Beauty which is truth and love—in the source of our +very life, perhaps, which lies hid again with beauty very far +away.... But I may say this much at least: that it seemed, my inspired +action had co-operated with the instinctive beliefs of these +mysterious tribes—cooperated with their primitive and ancient sense +of Beauty. It had, inexplicably to myself, fulfilled their sense of +right, which my subordinates would have outraged. I had acted with, +instead of against, them. +</P> + +<P> +More I cannot tell you. You have the "crude instance," and you have +the method. The instances multiplied, the method became habit. There +grew in me this personal attitude towards an impersonal power I +hardly understood, and this attitude included an emotion—love. With +faith and love I consequently obeyed it. I loved the source of my +guidance and assistance, though I dared attach no name to it. Simple +enough the matter might have been, could I have referred its origin +to some name—to our mother or to you, to my Chief in London, to an +impersonal Foreign Office that has since honoured me with money and a +complicated address upon my envelopes, or even, by a stretch of +imagination, to that semi-abstract portion of my being some men call +a Higher Self. +</P> + +<P> +To none of these, however, could I honestly or dishonestly ascribe it. +Yet, as in the case of those congratulatory telegrams from our mother +and yourself, I was aware—and this feeling never failed with each +separate occurrence—aware that somebody, other than ourselves +individually or collectively—was pleased. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H3> + +<P> +WHAT I have told you so far concerns a growth chiefly of my inner life +that was almost a new birth. My outer life, of event and action, was +sufficiently described in those monthly letters you had from me +during the ten years, broken by three periods of long-leave at home, +I spent in that sinister and afflicted land. This record, however, +deals principally with the essential facts of my life, the inner; the +outer events and actions are of importance only in so far as they +interpret these, since that which a man feels and thinks alone is +real, and thought and feeling, of course, precede all action. +</P> + +<P> +I have told you of the Thrill, of its genesis and development; and I +chose an obvious and rather banal instance, first of all to make +myself quite clear, and, secondly, because the majority were of so +delicate a nature as to render their description extremely difficult. +The point is that the emotion was, for me, a new one. I may honestly +describe it as a birth. +</P> + +<P> +I must now tell you that it first stirred in me some five years after +I left England, and that during those years I had felt nothing but +what most other men feel out here. Whether its sudden birth was due +to the violent country, or to some process of gradual preparation +that had been going forward in me secretly all that time, I cannot +tell. No proof, at any rate, offered itself of either. It came +suddenly. I do know, however, that from its first occurrence it has +strengthened and developed until it has now become a dominating +influence of a distinctly personal kind. +</P> + +<P> +My character has been affected, perhaps improved. You have mentioned +on several occasions that you noted in my letters a new tenderness, a +new kindness towards my fellow-creatures, less of criticism and more +of sympathy, a new love; the "birth of my poetic sense" you also +spoke of once; and I myself have long been aware of a thousand fresh +impulses towards charity and tolerance that had, hitherto, at any +rate, lain inactive in my being. +</P> + +<P> +I need not flatter myself complacently, yet a change there is, and it +may be an improvement. Whether big or small, however, I am sure of +one thing: I ascribe it entirely to this sharper and more extended +sensitiveness to Beauty, this new and exquisite receptiveness that +has established itself as a motive-power in my life. I have changed +the poet's line, using prose of course: There is beauty everywhere +and therefore joy. +</P> + +<P> +And I will explain briefly, too, how it is that this copybook maxim is +now for me a practical reality. For at first, with my growing +perception, I was distressed at what seemed to me the lavish waste, +the reckless, spendthrift beauty, not in nature merely but in human +nature, that passed unrecognized and unacknowledged. The loss seemed +so extravagant. Not only that a million flowers waste their sweetness +on the desert air, but that such prodigal stores of human love and +tenderness remain unemployed, their rich harvest all +ungathered—because, misdirected and misunderstood, they find no +receptacle into which they may discharge. +</P> + +<P> +It has now come to me, though only by & slow and almost imperceptible +advance, that these stores of apparently unremunerative beauty, this +harvest so thickly sown about the world, unused, ungathered—prepare +yourself, please, for an imaginative leap—ore used, are gathered, +are employed. By Whom? +</P> + +<P> +I can only answer: By some one who is pleased; and probably by many +such. How, why, and wherefore—I catch your crowd of questions in +advance—we need not seek exactly to discover, although the answer +of no uncertain kind, I hear within the stillness of a heart that has +learned to beat to a deeper, sweeter rhythm than before. +</P> + +<P> +Those who loved beauty and lived it in their lives, follow that same +ideal with increasing power and passion afterwards—and for ever. +</P> + +<P> +The shutter of black iron we call Death hides the truth with terror +and resentment; but what if that shutter were, after all, +transparent? +</P> + +<P> +A glorious dream, I hear you cry. Now listen to my answer. It is, for +me, a definite assurance and belief, because—I know. +</P> + +<P> +Long before you have reached this point you will, I know, have reached +also the conclusion (with a sigh) that I am embarked upon some +commonplace experience of ghostly return, or, at least, of posthumous +communication. Perhaps I wrong you here, but in any case I would at +once correct the inference, if it has been drawn. You remember our +adventures with the seance-mongers years ago? ... I have not changed +my view so far as their evidential value is concerned. Be sure of +that. +</P> + +<P> +The dead, I am of opinion, do not return; for, while individuals may +claim startling experiences that seem to them of an authentic and +convincing kind, there has been no instance that can persuade us +all—in the sense that thunderstorm convinces us all. Such individual +experiences I have always likened to the auto-suggestion of those few +who believe the advertisements of the hair-restorers—you will forgive +the unpoetic simile for the sake of its exactitude—as against the +verdict of the world that a genuine discovery of such a remedy would +leave no single doubter in Europe or America, nor even in the London +Clubs! Yet each time I read the cunning article (I have less hair +than when I ran away from Sandhurst that exciting July night and met +you in the Strand!), and look upon the picture of the man, John Henry +Smith, "before and after using," I admit the birth of an unreasonable +belief that there may be something in it after all. +</P> + +<P> +Of such indubitable proof, however, there is, alas, as yet no sign. +</P> + +<P> +And so with the other matter—the dead do not "return." My story, +therefore, be comforted, has no individual instance to record. It +may, on the other hand, be held to involve a thread of what might be +called—at a stretch—posthumous communication, yet a thread so +tenuous that the question of personal direction behind it need hardly +be considered at all. For let me confess at once that, the habit of +the "thrill" once established, I was not long in asking myself point +blank this definite question: Dared I trace its origin to my own +unfruitful experience of some years before?—and, discovering no +shred of evidence, I found this positive answer: Honestly I could +not. +</P> + +<P> +That "somebody was pleased" each time Beauty offered a wisdom I +accepted, became an unanswerable conviction I could not argue about; +but that the guidance—waking a responsive emotion in myself of +love—was referable to any particular name I could not, by any +stretch of desire or imagination, bring myself to believe. +</P> + +<P> +Marion, I must emphasise, had been gone from me five years at least +before the new emotion gave the smallest hint of its new birth; and +my feeling, once the first keen shame and remorse subsided—I confess +to the dishonouring truth—was one of looking back upon a painful +problem that had found an unexpected solution. It was chiefly relief, +although a sad relief, I felt.... And with the absorbing work of the +next following years (I took up my appointment within six months of +her death) her memory, already swiftly fading, entered an oblivion +whence rarely, and at long intervals only, it emerged at all. In the +ordinary meaning of the phrase, I had forgotten her. You will see, +therefore, that there was no desire in me to revive an unhappy +memory, least of all to establish any fancied communication with one +before whose generous love I had felt myself dishonoured, if not +actually disgraced. Even the remorse and regret had long since failed +to disturb my peace of mind, causing me no anxiety, much less pain. +Sic transit was the epitaph, if any. Acute sensation I had none at +all. This, then, plainly argues against the slightest predisposition +on my part to imagine that the loving guidance so strangely given +owned a personal origin I could recognize. That it involved a +"personal emotion" is quite another matter. +</P> + +<P> +The more remarkable, therefore, is the statement truth now compels me +to confess to you—namely, that this origin is recognizable, and that +I have traced in part the name it owns to. My next sentence you +divine already; you at once suspect the name I mean. I hear you say +to yourself with a smile—"So, after all...!" +</P> + +<P> +Please, wait a moment, and listen closely now; for, in reply to your +suspicion, I can give neither full affirmation or full denial. Yet an +answer of a certain kind is ready: I have stated my firm conviction +that the dead do not return; I do not modify it one iota; but I +mentioned a moment ago another conviction that is mine because I know. +So now let me supplement these two statements with a third: the dead, +though they do not return, are active; and those who lived beauty in +their lives are—benevolently active. +</P> + +<P> +This may prepare you for a further assurance, yet one less easy to +express intelligibly. Be patient while I make the difficult attempt. +</P> + +<P> +The origin of the wisdom that now seeks to shape and guide my life +through Beauty is, indeed, not Marion, but a power that stands behind +her, and through which, with which, the energy of her being acts. It +stood behind her while she lived. It stands behind not only her, but +equally behind all those peerless, exquisite manifestations of self-less +love that give bountifully of their best without hope or expectation of +reward in kind. No human love of this description, though it find no +object to receive it, nor one single flower that "wastes" its sweetness +on the desert air, but acknowledges this inexhaustible and spendthrift +source. Its evidence lies strewn so thick, so prodigally, about our +world, that not one among us, whatever his surroundings and conditions, +but sooner or later must encounter at least one marvellous instance of +its uplifting presence. Some at once acknowledge the exquisite flash and +are aware; others remain blind and deaf, till some experience, probably +of pain, shall have prepared and sensitized their receptive quality. To +all, however, one day, comes the magical appeal. As in my own case, +there was apparently some kind of preparation before I grew conscious of +that hunger for beauty which, awakening intuition, opened the heart to +truth and so to wisdom. It then came softly, delicately, whispering like +the dawn, yet rich with a promise I could, at first, not easily fathom, +though as sure of fulfilment as that promise of day that steals upon the +world when night is passing. +</P> + +<P> +I have tried to tell you something of this mystery. I cannot add to +that. I was lifted, as it were, towards some region or some state of +being, wherein I was momentarily aware of a vaster outlook upon life, of +a deeper insight into the troubles of my fellow-creatures, where, +indeed, there burst upon me a comprehension of life's pains and +difficulties so complete that I may best describe it as that full +understanding which involves also full forgiveness, and that sympathy +which is love, God's love. +</P> + +<P> +This exaltation passed, of course, with the passing of the thrill that +made it possible; it was truly instantaneous; a point of ecstasy, +perhaps, in some category not of time at all, but of some state of +consciousness that lifted me above, outside of, self. But it was real, +as a thunderstorm is real. For, with this glimpse of beauty that I call +the "thrill," I touched, for an instant so brief that it seemed timeless +in the sense of having no duration, a pinnacle of joy, of vision, beyond +anything attainable by desire or by. intellect alone. I stood aware of +power, wisdom, love; and more, this power, wisdom, love were mine to +draw upon and use, not in some future heaven, but here and now. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H3> + +<P> +I RETURNED to England with an expectant hunger born of this love of +beauty that was now ingrained in me. I came home with the belief that +my yearning would be satisfied in a deeper measure; and more—that, +somehow, it would be justified and explained. I may put it plainly, +if only to show how difficult this confession would have been to any +one but yourself; it sounds so visionary from a mere soldier and man +of action such as I am. For my belief included a singular dream that, +in the familiar scenes I now revisited, some link, already half +established, would be strengthened, and might probably be realized, +even proved. +</P> + +<P> +In Africa, as you know, I had been set upon the clue at home in +England. Among the places and conditions where this link had been +first established in the flesh, must surely come a fuller revelation. +Beauty, the channel of my inspiration, but this time the old sweet +English beauty, so intimate, so woven through with the fresh wonder +of earliest childhood days, would reveal the cause of my first +failure to respond, and so, perhaps, the intention of those final +pathetic sentences that still haunted me with their freight of +undelivered meaning. In England, T believed, my "thrill" must bring +authentic revelation. +</P> + +<P> +I came back, that precarious entity, a successful man. I was to be +that thing we used to laugh about together in your Cambridge days, a +distinguished personality; I should belong to the breed of little +lions. Yet, during the long, tedious voyage, I realized that this +held no meaning for me; I did not feel myself a little lion, the idea +only proved that the boy in me was not yet dead. My one desire, +though inarticulate until this moment of confessing it, was to renew +the thrills, and so to gather from an intenser, sweeter beauty some +measure of greater understanding they seemed to promise. It was a +personal hope, a personal desire; and, deep at the heart of it, +Memory, passionate though elusive, flashed her strange signal of a +personal love. In this dream that mocked at time, this yearning that +forgot the intervening years, I nursed the impossible illusion that, +somehow or other, I should become aware of Marion. +</P> + +<P> +Now, I have treated you in this letter as though you were a woman who +reads a novel, for in my first pages I have let you turn to the end +and see that the climax is a happy one, lest you should faint by the +way and close my story with a yawn. You need not do that, however, +since you already know this in advance. You will bear with me, too, +when I tell you that my return to England was in the nature of a +failure that, at first, involved sharpest disappointment. I was +unaware, as a whole, of the thrills I had anticipated with such +longing. The sweet picture of English loveliness I had cherished with +sentimental passion during my long exile hardly materialized. +</P> + +<P> +That I was not a lion, but an insignificant quasi-colonial adventurer +among many others, may have sprinkled acid upon my daily diet of +sensation, but you will do me the justice to believe that this +wounded vanity was the smallest item in my disenchantment. Ten years, +especially in primitive, godforsaken Africa, is a considerable +interval; I found the relationship between myself and my beloved +home-land changed, and in an unexpected way. +</P> + +<P> +I was not missed for one thing, I had been forgotten. Except from our +mother and yourself, I had no welcome. But, apart from this immediate +circle, and apart from the deep, comfortable glow experienced at the +first sight of the "old country," I found England and the English +dull, conventional, and uninspired. There was no poignancy. The +habits and the outlook stood precisely where I had left them. The +English had not moved. They played golf as of yore, they went to the +races at the appointed time and in the appointed garb, they gave +heavy dinner-parties, they wrote letters to the Times, and ignored an +outside world beyond their island. Their estimate of themselves and +of foreigners remained unaltered, their estimate of rich or +influential neighbours was what it always had been, there were many +more motor-cars and a few more peers, it was more difficult than +formerly to get into a good club; but otherwise, God bless them, they +were worthier than ever. The "dear old country," that which "out +there" we had loved and venerated, worked and fought for, was stolid +and unshaken; the stream of advancing life that elsewhere rushed, had +left England complaisantly unmoved and unresponsive. +</P> + +<P> +You have no idea how vividly—and in what curious minor details—the +general note of England strikes a traveller returning after an +interval of years. Later, of course, the single impression is +modified and obscured by other feelings. I give it, therefore, before +it was forgotten. England had not budged. Had it been winter instead +of early spring, I might sum up for you what I mean in one short +sentence: I travelled to London in a third-class railway carriage +that had no heating apparatus. +</P> + +<P> +But to all this, and with a touch of something akin to pride in me, I +speedily adjusted myself. I had been exiled, I had come home. As our +old nurse, aged and withered, but otherwise unaltered, said to me +quietly by way of greeting: "Well, they didn't kill you, Master +Richard!" I was, therefore, alive. It was for me, the unimportant +atom, to recover my place in the parent mass. I did so. I was +English. I recovered proportion. I wore the accustomed mask; I hid +both my person and my new emotions, as was obviously expected of me. +Having reported my insignificance to the Foreign Office.... I came +down to the Manor House. +</P> + +<P> +Yet, having changed, and knowing that I had changed, I was aware of a +cleft between me and my native stock. Something un-English was alive +in me and eager to assert itself. Another essence in my blood had +quickened, a secret yearning that I dared not mention to my kind, a +new hunger in my heart that clamoured to be satisfied, yet remained, +speaking generally, un-nourished. Looking for beauty among my +surroundings and among my kith and kin, I found it not; there was no +great Thrill from England or from home. The slowness, the absence of +colour, imagination, rhythm, baffled me, while the ugliness of common +things and common usages afflicted my new sensitiveness. Not that I +am peculiarly alert to beauty, nor claim superior perception—I am no +artist, either by virtue of vision or power of expression—but that a +certain stagnant obtuseness, a kind of sordid and conservative +veneration of the ugly that the English favour, distressed and even +tortured me in a way I had never realized formerly. They were so +proud to live without perception. An artist was a curiosity, not a +leader, far less a prophet. There was no imagination. +</P> + +<P> +In little things, as I said, a change was manifest, however. Much that +tradition had made lovely with the perfume of many centuries I found +modernized until the ancient spirit had entirely fled, leaving a +shell that was artificial to the point of being false. The sanction +of olden time that used to haunt with beauty was deceived by a mockery +I found almost hideous. The ancient inns, for instance, adapted to +week-end motor traffic, were pretentious and uncomfortable, their +"menus" of inferior food written elaborately in French. The +courtliness had vanished, and the cost had come. Telephones +everywhere not only destroyed privacy, but brought dismay into +countless gentle intimacies, their nuisance hardly justified by their +usefulness. Life, it seemed, in a frantic hurry, had been cheapened, +not improved; there was no real progress, but only more unrest. +England—too solid to go fast, had made ungainly efforts; but she had +moved towards ungraciousness where she had moved at all; I found her +a cross between a museum and an American mushroom town that +advertises all the modern comforts with a violent insistence that is +meant to cloak their very absence. +</P> + +<P> +This, my first impression, toned down, of course, a little later; but +it was my first impression. The people, however, even in the +countryside, seemed proud both of mushroom and museum, and commercial +ugliness, greedy and unashamed, now distorted every old-world +village. The natives were pleased to the point of vanity. +</P> + +<P> +For myself, I could not manage this atrocious compromise, and looking +for the dear old England of our boyhood days, I found it not. The +change, of course, was not in the country only, but in myself. The +soul in me, awakened to a new standard, had turned round to face +another way. +</P> + +<P> +The Manor House was very still when I arrived from London—& late May +evening between the sunset and the dark. Mother, as you know, met me +at the station, for they had stopped the down-train by special +orders, so that I stepped out upon the deserted platform of the +countryside quite alone, a distinguished man, with my rug and +umbrella. A strange footman touched his hat, an old, stooping porter +stared hard at me, then smiled vaguely, while the guard, eyeing +respectfully the individual for whom his train had halted, waved his +red flag, and swung himself into the disappearing van with the +approved manner we once thought marvellous. I left the empty +platform, gave up my ticket to an untidy boy, and crossed the gloomy +booking-hall. The mournfulness of the whole place was depressing. I +heard a blackbird whistle in a bush against the signal-box. It seemed +to scream. +</P> + +<P> +Mother I first saw, seated in the big barouche. She was leaning back, +but sat forwards as I came. She looked into my face across the wide +interval of years now ended, and my heart gave a great boyish leap, +then sank into stillness again abruptly. She seemed to me exactly +the same as usual—only so much smaller. We embraced with a kind of +dignity: +</P> + +<P> +"So here you are, my boy, at last," I heard her say in a quiet voice, +and as though she had seen me a month or two ago, "and very, very +tired, I'll be bound." +</P> + +<P> +I took my seat beside her. I felt awkward, stiff, self-conscious; +there was disappointment somewhere. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I'm all right, mother, thanks," I answered. "But how are you?" And +the next moment, it seemed to me, I heard her asking if I was +hungry;—whereupon, absurd as it must sound, I was aware of an immense +emotion that interfered with my breathing. It broke up through some +repressive layer that had apparently concealed it, and made me +feel—well, had I been thirty-five years younger, I could have +cried—for pleasure. Mother, I think, forgot those years perhaps. To her +I was still in overalls and wanted food. We drove, then, in comparative +silence the four miles behind the big pair of greys, the only remark +that memory credits me with being an enquiry about the identity of the +coachman whose dim outline I saw looming in the darkness just above me. +The lamplight showed one shoulder, one arm, one ear, the rest concealed; +but the way he drove was, of course, unmistakeable; slowly, more +cautiously, perhaps, but with the same flourish of the whip, the same +air of untold responsibility as ever. And, will you believe it, my chief +memory of all that scene of anticipated tenderness and home-emotion is +the few words he gave in reply to my enquiry and recognition when at +length the carriage stopped and I got out: +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Brown, I'm glad to see you again. All well at home, I hope?" +followed by something of sympathy about his beloved horses. +</P> + +<P> +He looked down sideways at me from the box, touching his cockade with +the long yellow whip in his thick, gloved hand. I can hear his warm, +respectful answer now; I can see the gleam of proud pleasure in his eye: +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir, thank you, Sir Richard, and glad to see you back again, sir, +and with such success upon you." +</P> + +<P> +I moved back to help our mother out. I remember thinking how calm, how +solid, how characteristically inarticulate it all was. Did I wish it +otherwise? I think not. Only there was something in me beating its wings +impatiently like a wild bird that felt the bars close round it.... +Mother, I realized, could not have said even what the old coachman had +said to save her life, and I remember wondering what would move her into +the expression of natural joy. All that half-hour, as the hoofs echoed +along the silence of the country road, and the old familiar woods and +fields slid past, no sign of deep emotion had escaped her. She had asked +if I was hungry.... +</P> + +<P> +And then the smells! The sweet, faint garden smell in the English +twilight:—of laurels and laurestinus, of lilac, pinks, and the heavy +scent of May, wall-flowers and sweet william too—these, with the +poignant aroma of the old childhood house, were the background of +familiar loveliness against which my subsequent disillusion of the +homeland set itself in such afflicting contrast. I remember, as we +entered the dim hall, the carriage lamps fell on, the flowering +horse-chestnut by the door; the bats were flitting; a big white moth +whirred softly against the brilliant glass as though you and I were +after it again with nets and killing-bottles... and, helping mother out, +I noticed, besides her smallness, how slow and aged her movements were. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother, let me help you. That's what I've come home for," I said, +feeling for her little hand. And she replied so quietly, so calmly it +was almost frigid, "Thank you, dear boy; your arm, perhaps—a moment. +They are so stupid about the lamps in the hall, I've had to speak so +often. There, now! It is an awkward step." I felt myself a giant beside +her. She seemed so tiny now. There was something very strong in her +silence and her calm; and though a portion of me liked it, another +portion resented it and felt afraid. Her attitude was like a refusal, a +denial, a refusal to live, a denial of life almost. A tinge of +depression, not far removed from melancholy, stole over my spirit. The +change in me, I realized then, indeed, was radical. +</P> + +<P> +Now, lest this narrative should seem confused, you must understand that +my disillusions with regard to England were realized subsequently, when +I had moved about the counties, paid many solid visits, and tasted the +land and people in some detail. And the disappointment was the keener +owing to the fact that very soon after my arrival in the old Home Place, +the "thrill" came to me with a direct appeal that was disconcerting. For +coming unexpectedly, as it did, in this familiar scene where yet +previously I had never known it, it had the effect of marking the change +in me with a certainty from which there was no withdrawal possible. It +standardized this change. The new judgment was made uncompromisingly +clear; people and places must inevitably stand or fall by it. And the +first to fall—since the test lies beyond all control of affection or +respect—was our own dear, faithful mother. +</P> + +<P> +You share my reverence and devotion, so you will feel no pain that I +would dishonour a tie that is sacred to us both in the old Bible sense. +But, also, you know what a sturdy and typical soul of England she has +proved herself, and that a sense of beauty is not, alas, by any stretch +of kindliest allowance, a national characteristic. Culture and knowledge +we may fairly claim, no doubt, but the imaginative sense of beauty is o +rare among us that its possession is a peculiarity good form would +suppress. It is a pose, an affectation, it is unmanly—it is not +English. We are too strong to thrill. And that one so near and dear to +me, so honoured and so deeply loved, should prove herself to my new +standard thus typically English, while it came as sharpest pain, ought +not, I suppose, to have caused me the surprise it did. It made me aware, +however, of the importance of my new criterion, while at the same time +aware of a lack of sympathy between us that amounted to disenchantment. +It was a shock, to put it plainly. A breath of solitude, of isolation, +stole on me and, close behind it, melancholy. +</P> + +<P> +From the smallest clue imaginable the truth came into me, from a clue so +small, indeed, that you may smile to think I dared draw such big +deductions from premises so insignificant. You will probably deny me a +sense of humour even when you hear. So let me say at once, before you +judge me hastily, that the words, and the incident which drew them +forth, were admittedly inadequate to the deduction. Only, mark this, +please—I drew no deduction. Reason played no part. Cause and effect +were unrelated. It was simply that the truth flashed into me. I knew. +</P> + +<P> +What did I know? Perhaps that the gulf between us lay as wide as that +between the earth and Sirius; perhaps that we were, individually, of a +kind so separate, so different, that mutual understanding was +impossible; perhaps that while she was of To-day and proud of it, I was +of another time, another century, and proud of that. I cannot say +precisely. Her words, while they increased my sense of isolation, of +solitude, of melancholy, at the same time also made me laugh, as +assuredly they will now make you laugh. +</P> + +<P> +For, while she was behind me in the morning-room, fingering some letters +on the table, I stood six feet away beside the open window, listening to +the nightingales—the English nightingales—that sang across the quiet +garden in the dusk. The high-pitched clamour of the jungle choruses with +their monstrous turmoil, their prolific detail, came back to me in +startling contrast. This exquisite and delicious sound I now heard +belonged still to England. And it had not changed. "No hungry +generations tread thee down..." rose in some forgotten corner of my +mind, and my yearning that would be satisfied moved forth to catch the +notes. +</P> + +<P> +"Listen, mother," I said, turning towards her. +</P> + +<P> +She raised her head and smiled a little before reading the rest of the +letter that she held. +</P> + +<P> +"I only pray they won't keep you awake, dear boy," she answered gently. +"They give us very little peace, I'm afraid, just now." +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps she caught some expression in my face, for she added a trifle +more quickly: "That's the worst of the spring—our English spring—it +is so noisy!" Still smiling, she picked up her letter again, while I, +though still listening by the window, heard only the harsh scream and +rattle of the jungle voices, thousands and thousands of miles away +across the world. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VII +</H3> + +<P> +IT was some little time after my arrival, as I shall presently relate, +that the experience I call the thrill came to me in England—and, +like all its predecessors, came through Nature. It came, that is, +through the only apparatus I possessed as yet that could respond. +</P> + +<P> +The point, I think, is of special interest; I note it now, on looking +back upon the series as a whole, though at the time I did not note +it. +</P> + +<P> +For, compared with yourself at any rate, the aesthetic side of me is +somewhat raw; of pictures, sculpture, music I am untaught and +ignorant; with other Philistines, I "know what I like," but nothing +more. It is the honest but uncultured point of view. I am that +primitive thing, the mere male animal. It was my love of Nature, +therefore, that showed me beauty, since this was the only apparatus +in my temperament able to respond. Natural, simple things, as before, +were the channel through which beauty appealed to that latent store +of love and wisdom in me which, it almost seemed, were being slowly +educated. +</P> + +<P> +The talks and intimacies with our mother, then, were largely over; the +re-knitting of an interrupted relationship was fairly accomplished; +she had asked her questions, and listened to my answers. All the +dropped threads had been picked up again, so that a pattern, similar +to the one laid aside, now lay spread more or less comfortably before +us. Outwardly, things seemed much as they were when I left home so +many years ago. One might have thought the interval had been one of +months, since her attitude refused to recognize all change, and +change, and growth, was abhorrent to her type. For whereas I had +altered, she had remained unmoved. +</P> + +<P> +So unsatisfying was this state of things to me, however, that I felt +unable to confide my deepest, as now I can do easily to you—so that +during these few days of intercourse renewed, we had said, it seemed, +all that was to be said with regard to the past. My health was most +lovingly discussed, and then my immediate and remoter future. I was +aware of this point of view—that I was, of course, her own dear son, +but that I was also England's son. She was intensely patriotic in the +insular sense; my soul, I mean, belonged to the British Empire rather +than to humanity and the world at large. Doubtless, a very right and +natural way to look at things.... She expressed a real desire to "see +your photographs, my boy, of those outlandish places where they sent +you"; then, having asked certain questions about the few women +(officers' wives and so forth) who appeared in some of them, she +leaned back in her chair, and gave me her very definite hopes about +"my value to the country," my "duty to the family traditions," even +to the point, finally, of suggesting Parliament, in what she termed +with a certain touch of pride and dignity, "the true Conservative +interest." +</P> + +<P> +"Men like yourself, Richard, are sorely needed now," she added, +looking at me with a restrained admiration; "I am sure the Party +would nominate you for this Constituency that your father and your +grandfather both represented before you. At any rate, they shall not +put you on the shelf!" +</P> + +<P> +And before I went to bed—it was my second or third night, I +think—she had let me see plainly another hope that was equally dear +to her: that I should marry again. There was an ominous reference to +my "ample means," a hint of regret that, since you were unavailable, +and Eva dead, our branch of the family could not continue to improve +the eastern counties and the world. At the back of her mind, indeed, I +think there hovered definite names, for a garden party in my honour +was suggested for the following week, to which the Chairman of the +Local Conservatives would come, and where various desirable +neighbours would be only too proud to make my acquaintance and press +my colonial and distinguished fingers. +</P> + +<P> +In the interval between my arrival and the "experience" I shall +presently describe, I had meanwhile renewed my acquaintance with the +countryside. The emotions, however, I anticipated, had even cherished +and eagerly looked forward to, had not materialized. There was a +chill of disappointment over me. For the beauty I had longed for +seemed here so thickly veiled; and more than once I surprised in my +heart a certain regret that I had come home at all. I caught myself +thinking of that immense and trackless country I had left; I even +craved it sometimes, both physically and mentally, as though, for all +its luscious grossness, it held something that nourished and +stimulated, something large, free and untamed that was lacking in this +orderly land, so neatly fenced and parcelled out at home. +</P> + +<P> +The imagined richness of my return, at any rate, was unfulfilled; the +tie with our mother, though deep, was uninspiring; while that other +more subtle and intangible link I had fondly dreamed might be +strengthened, if not wholly proved, was met with a flat denial that +seemed to classify it as nonexistent. Hope, in this particular +connection, returned upon me, blank and unrewarded.... The familiar +scenes woke no hint of pain, much less of questing sweetness. The +glamour of association did not operate. No personal link was +strengthened. +</P> + +<P> +And, when I visited the garden we had known together, the shady path +beneath the larches; saw, indeed, the very chairs that she and I had +used, the framed portrait in the morning-room, the harp itself, now +set with its limp and broken strings in my own chamber—I was unaware +of any ghostly thrill; least of all could I feel that "somebody was +pleased." +</P> + +<P> +Excursion farther afield deepened the disenchantment. The gorse was +out upon the Common, that Common where we played as boys, thinking it +vast and wonderful with the promise of high adventure behind every +prickly clump. The vastness, of course, was gone, but the power of +suggestion had gone likewise. It was merely a Common that deserved +its name. For though this was but the close of May, I found it worn +into threadbare patches, with edges unravelled like those of some old +carpet in a seaside lodging-house. The lanes that fed it were already +thick with dust as in thirsty August, and instead of eglantine, +wild-roses, and the rest, a smell of petrol hung upon hedges that +were quite lustreless. On the crest of the hill, whence we once +thought the view included heaven, I stood by those beaten pines we +named The Fort, counting jagged bits of glass and scraps of faded +newspaper that marred the bright green of the sprouting bracken. +</P> + +<P> +This glorious spot, once sacred to our dreams, was like a great +backyard—the Backyard of the County—while the view we loved as the +birthplace of all possible adventure, seemed to me now without +spaciousness or distinction. The trees and hedges cramped the little +fields and broke their rhythm. No great winds ever swept them clean. +The landscape was confused: there was no adventure in it, suggestion +least of all. Everything had already happened there. +</P> + +<P> +And on my way home, resentful perhaps yet eager still, I did a +dreadful thing. Possibly I hoped still for that divine sensation +which refused to come. I visited the very field, the very poplar ... +I found the scene quite unchanged, but found it also—lifeless. The +glamour of association did not operate. I knew no poignancy, desire +lay inert. The thrill held stubbornly aloof. No link was +strengthened.... I came home slowly, thinking instead of my mother's +plans and wishes for me, and of the clear intention to incorporate me +in the stolid and conventional formulas of what appeared to me as +uninspired English dullness. My disappointment crystallized into +something like revolt. A faint hostility even rose in me as we sat +together, talking of politics, of the London news just come to hand, +of the neighbours, of the weather too. I was conscious of opposition +to her stereotyped plans, and of resentment towards the lack of +understanding in her. I would shake free and follow beauty. The +yearning, for want of sympathy, and the hunger, for lack of +sustenance, grew very strong and urgent in me. +</P> + +<P> +I longed passionately just then for beauty—and for that revelation of +it which included somewhere the personal emotion of a strangely eager +love. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VIII +</H3> + +<P> +THIS, then, was somewhat my state of mind, when, after our late tea on +the verandah, I strolled out on to the lawn to enjoy my pipe in the +quiet of the garden paths. I felt dissatisfied and disappointed, yet +knew not entirely perhaps, the reason. I wished to be alone, but was +hungry for companionship as well. Mother saw me go and watched +attentively, but said no word, merely following me a moment with her +eyes above the edge of the Times she read, as of old, during the hours +between tea and dinner. The Spectator, her worldly Bible, lay ready to +her hand when the Times should have been finished. They were, +respectively, as always, her dictionary of opinion, and her +medicine-chest. Before I had gone a dozen yards, her head disappeared +behind the printed sheet again. The roses flowed between us. +</P> + +<P> +I felt her following glance, as I felt also its withdrawal. Then I +forgot her.... A touch of melancholy stole on me, as the garden took me +in its charge. For a garden is a ghostly place, and an old-world garden, +above all, leads thought backwards among vanished memories rather than +forward among constructive hopes and joys. +</P> + +<P> +I yielded, in any case, a little to this subtle pressure from the past, +and I must have strolled among the lilac and laburnums for a longer time +than I knew, since the gardener who had been trimming the flower-beds +with a hand lawn-mower was gone, and dusk already veiled the cedars, +when I found myself leaning against the wooden gate that opened into the +less formal part beyond the larches. +</P> + +<P> +The house was not visible from where I stood. I smelt the May, the +lilac, the heavy perfume everywhere of the opening year; it rose about +me in waves, as though full-bosomed summer lay breathing her great +promises close at hand, while spring, still lingering, with bright eyes +of dew,' watched over her. Then, suddenly, behind these richer scents, I +caught a sweeter, wilder tang than anything they contained, and turning, +saw that the pines were closer than I knew. A waft of something purer, +fresher, reached my nostrils on a little noiseless wind, as, leaning +across the gate, I turned my back upon the cultivated grounds and gazed +into a region of more natural, tangled growth. +</P> + +<P> +The change was sudden. It was exquisite, sharp and unexpected, too, as +with a little touch of wonder. There was surprise in it. For the garden, +you will remember, melts here insensibly into a stretch of scattered +pines, where heather and bracken cover wide reaches of unreclaimed and +useless land. Irregular trails of whitish sand gleamed faintly before +the shadows swallowed them, and in the open patches I saw young +silver-birches that made me think of running children arrested in +mid-play. They stood outlined very tenderly against the sky; their +slender forms still quivered; their feathery hair fell earthwards as +they drew themselves together, bending their wayward little heads before +the approaching night. Behind them, framed by the darker pines into a +glowing frieze, the west still burned with the last fires of the sunset; +I could see the heather, rising and falling like a tumbled sea against +the horizon, where the dim heave of distant moorland broke the +afterglow. +</P> + +<P> +And the dusk now held this region in its magic. So strange, indeed, was +the contrast between the ebony shadows and the pools and streaks of +amberish light, that I looked about me for a moment, almost sharply. +There was a touch of the unearthly in this loveliness that bewildered +sight a little. Extraordinarily still the world was, yet there seemed +activity close upon my footsteps, an activity more than of inanimate +Nature, yet less than of human beings. With solidarity it had nothing to +do, though it sought material expression. It was very near. And I was +startled, I recognized the narrow frontier between fear and wonder. And +then I crossed it. +</P> + +<P> +For something stopped me dead. I paused and stared. My heart began to +beat more rapidly. Then, ashamed of my moment's hesitation, I was about +to move forward through the gate, when again I halted. I listened, and +caught my breath. I fancied the stillness became articulate, the shadows +stirred, the silence was about to break. +</P> + +<P> +I remember trying to think; I wanted to relieve the singular tension by +finding words, if only inner words,—when, out of the stillness, out of +the silence, out of the shadows—something happened. Some faculty of +judgment, some attitude in which I normally clothed myself, were +abruptly stripped away. I was left bare and sensitive. I could almost +have believed that my body had dropped aside, that I stood there naked, +unprotected, a form-less spirit, stirred and lifted by the passing +breeze. +</P> + +<P> +And then it came. As with a sword-thrust of blinding sweetness, I was +laid open. Yet so instant, and of such swiftness, was the stroke, that I +can only describe it by saying that, while pierced and wounded, I was +also healed again. +</P> + +<P> +Without hint or warning, Beauty swept me with a pain and happiness well +nigh intolerable. It drenched me and was gone. No lightning flash could +have equalled the swiftness of its amazing passage; something tore in +me; the emotion was enveloping but very tender; it was both terrible yet +dear. Would to God I might crystallize it for you in those few mighty +words which should waken in yourself—in every one!—the wonder and the +joy. It contained, I felt, both the worship that belongs to awe and the +tenderness of infinite love which welcomes tears. Some power that was +not of this world, yet that used the details of this world to manifest, +had visited me. +</P> + +<P> +No element of surprise lay in it even. It was too swift for anything but +joy, which of all emotions is the most instantaneous: I had been empty, +I was filled. Beauty that bathes the stars and drowns the very universe +had stolen out of this wild morsel of wasted and uncared-for English +garden, and dropped its transforming magic into—me. At the very moment, +moreover, when I had been ready to deny it altogether. I saw my +insignificance, yet, such was the splendour it had wakened in me, knew +my right as well. It could be ever thus; some attitude in myself alone +prevented.... +</P> + +<P> +And—somebody was pleased. +</P> + +<P> +This personal ingredient lay secure in the joy that assuredly remained +when the first brief intolerable ecstasy had passed. The link I desired +to recognize was proved, not merely strengthened. Beauty had cleft me +open, and a message, if you will, had been delivered. This personal hint +persisted; I was almost aware of conscious and intelligent direction. +For to you I will make the incredible confession, that I dare phrase the +experience in another fashion, equally true: In that flashing instant I +stood naked and shelterless to the gaze of some one who had looked upon +me. I was aware of sight; of eyes in which "burning memory lights love +home." These eyes, this sight had gazed at me, then turned away. For in +that blinding sweetness there was light, as with the immediate +withdrawal again there was instant darkness. I was first visible, then +concealed. I was clothed again and covered. +</P> + +<P> +And the thick darkness that followed made it appear as though night, in +one brief second, had taken the place of dusk. +</P> + +<P> +Trembling, I leaned across the wooden gate and waited while the darkness +settled closer. I can swear, moreover, that it was neither dream, nor +hope, nor any hungry fantasy in me that then recognized a further +marvel—I was no longer now alone. +</P> + +<P> +A presence faced me, standing breast-high in the bracken. The garden had +been empty; somebody now walked there with me. +</P> + +<P> +It was, as I mentioned, the still hour between the twilight and the +long, cool dark of early summer. The little breeze passed whispering +through the pines. I smelt the pungent perfume of dry heather, sand, and +bracken. The horizon, low down between the trunks, shone gold and +crimson still, but fading rapidly. I stood there for a long time +trembling; I was a part of it; I felt that I was shining, as though my +inner joy irradiated the world about me. Nothing in all my life has been +so real, so positive. I was assuredly not alone.... +</P> + +<P> +The first sharp magic, the flash that pierced and burned, had gone its +way, but Beauty still stood so perilously near, so personal, that any +moment, I felt, it must take tangible form, betray itself in visible +movement of some sort, break possibly into audible sound of actual +speech. It would not have surprised me—more, it would have been natural +almost—had I felt a touch upon my hands and lips, or caught the murmur +of spoken words against my ear. +</P> + +<P> +Yet from such direct revelation I shrank involuntarily and by instinct. +I could not have borne it then. I had the feeling that it must mar and +defile a wonder already great enough; there would have lain in it, too, +a betrayal of the commonplace, as of something which I could not +possibly hold for true. I must have distrusted my own senses even, for +the beauty that cleft me open dealt directly with the soul alone, +leaving the senses wholly disengaged. The Presence was not answerable to +any lesser recognition. +</P> + +<P> +Thus I shrank and turned away, facing the familiar garden and the "wet +bird-haunted English lawn," a spiritual tenderness in me still dreading +that I might see or hear or feel, destroying thus the reality of my +experience. Yet there was, thank God, no speech, no touch, no movement, +other than the shiver of the birches, the breath of air against my +cheek, the droop and bending of the nearer pine boughs. There was no +audible or visible expression; I saw no figure breast-high in the +bracken. Yet sound there was, a moment later. For, as I turned away, a +bird upon a larch twig overhead burst into sudden and exultant song. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IX +</H3> + +<P> +NOW, do not be alarmed lest I shall attempt to describe a list of +fanciful unrealities that borrowed life from a passing emotion +merely; the emotion was permanent, the results enduring. Please +believe the honest statement that, with the singing of that bird, the +pent-up stress in me became measurably articulate. Some bird in my +heart, long caged, rang out in answering inner song. +</P> + +<P> +It is also true, I think, that there were no words in me at the +moment, and certainly no desire for speech. Had a companion been with +me, I should probably have merely lit my pipe and smoked in silence; +if I spoke at all, I should have made some commonplace remark: "It's +late; we must be going in to dress for dinner...." As it was, +however, the emotion in me, answering the singing of the bird, became, +as I said, measurably articulate. I give you simple facts, as though +this were my monthly Report to the Foreign Office in days gone by. I +spoke no word aloud, of course. It was rather that my feelings found +utterance in the rapturous song I listened to, and that my thoughts +knew this relief of vicarious expression, though of inner and +inaudible expression. The beauty of scene and moment were adequately +recorded, and for ever in that song. They were now part of me. +</P> + +<P> +Unaware of its perfect mission the bird sang, of course because it +could not help itself; perhaps some mating thrush, perhaps a common +blackbird only; I cannot say; I only realized that no human voice, no +human music, even of the most elaborate and inspired kind, could have +made this beauty, similarly articulate. And, for a moment I knew my +former pain that I could not share this joy, this beauty, with others +of my kind, that, except for myself, the loveliness seemed lost and +wasted. There was no spectator, no other listener; the sweet spring +night was lavish for no audience; the revelation had been repeated, +would be repeated, a thousand thousand times without recognition and +without reward. +</P> + +<P> +Then, as I listened, memory, it seemed, took yearning by the hand, and +led me towards that inner utterance I have mentioned. There was no +voice, least of all that inner voice you surely have anticipated. But +there was utterance, as though my whole being combined with nature in +its birth. +</P> + +<P> +Into the mould of familiar sentences of long ago it ran, yet nearer at +last to full disclosure, because the pregnant sentences had altered: +</P> + +<P> +"I need your forgiveness born of love..." passed through me with the +singing of the bird. +</P> + +<P> +I listened with the closest inner attention I have ever known. I +paused. My heart brimmed with an expectant wonder that was happiness. +And the happiness was justified. For the familiar sentence halted +before its first sorrowful completion; the poignant close remained +unuttered—because it was no longer true. +</P> + +<P> +Out of deep love in me, new-born, that held the promise of fulfilment, +the utterance concluded: +</P> + +<P> +"... I have found a better way...." +</P> + +<P> +Before I could think or question, and almost as though a whisper of +the wind went past, there rose in me at once this answering +recognition. It seemed authentically convincing; it was glorious; it +was full of joy: +</P> + +<P> +"That beauty which was Marion lives on, and lives for me." +</P> + +<P> +It was as though a blaze of light shone through me; somewhere in my +body there were tears of welcome; for this recognition was to me +reunion. +</P> + +<P> +It must seem astonishing for me, a mere soldier and Colonial Governor, +to confess you that I stood there listening to the song for a long +interval of what I can only term, with utmost sincerity, communion. +Beauty and love both visited me; I believe that truth and wisdom +entered softly with them. As I wrote above, I saw my own +insignificance, yet, such was the splendour in me, I knew my right as +well. It could be ever thus. My attitude alone prevented. I was not +excluded, not cut off. This Beauty lay ready to my hand, always +available, for ever, now. It was not unharvested. But more—it could +be shared with others; it was become a portion of myself, and that +which is part of my being must, inevitably and automatically, be given +out. +</P> + +<P> +It was, thus, nowhere wasted or unharvested; it offered with prodigal +opportunity a vehicle for that inspiration which is love, and being +love of purest kind, is surely wisdom too. The dead, indeed, do not +return, yet they are active, and those who lived beauty in their +lives are still, through that beauty, benevolently active. +</P> + +<P> +I will give you now the change instantaneously produced in me: +</P> + +<P> +There rose in me another, deeper point of view that dispelled as by +magic the disenchantment that had chilled these first days of my +return. I stood here in this old-world garden, but I stood also in +the heart of that beauty, so carefully hidden, so craftily screened +behind the obvious, that strong and virile beauty which is England. +Within call of my voice, still studying by lamplight now the symbols +of her well-established strength, burning, moreover, with the steady +faith which does not easily break across restraint, and loving the +man as she had loved the little boy, sat one, not wondering perhaps +at my unspoken misunderstanding, yet hoping, patiently and in +silence, for its removal in due time. In the house of our boyhood, of +our earliest play and quarrels, unchanged and unchangeable, knowing +simply that I had "come home again to her," our mother waited.... +</P> + +<P> +I need not elaborate this for you, you for whom England and our mother +win almost a single, undivided love. I had misjudged, but the cause +of my misjudgment was thus suddenly removed. A subtler understanding +insight, a sympathy born of deeper love, something of greater wisdom, +in a word, awoke in me. The thrill had worked its magic as of old, +but this time in its slower English fashion, deep, and +characteristically sure. To my country (that is, to my first +experience of impersonal love) and to my mother (that is, to my +earliest acquaintance with personal love) I had been ready, in my +impatience, to credit an injustice. Unknown to me, thus, there had +been need of guidance, of assistance. Beauty, having cleared the way, +had worked upon me its amazing alchemy. +</P> + +<P> +There, in fewest possible words, is what had happened. +</P> + +<P> +I remember that for a long time, then, I waited in the hush of my +childhood's garden, listening, as it were, with every pore, and +conscious that some one who was pleased interpreted the beauty to my +soul. It seemed, as I said, a message of a personal kind. It was +regenerative, moveover, in so far that life was enlarged and lifted +upon a nobler scale; new sources of power were open to me; I saw a +better way. Irresistibly it came to me again that beauty, far from +being wasted, was purposive, that this purpose was of a redeeming +kind, and that some one who was pleased co-operated with it for my +personal benefit. No figure, thank God, was visible, no voice was +audible, but a presence there indubitably was, and, whether I +responded or otherwise, would be always there. +</P> + +<P> +And the power was such that I felt as though the desire of the planet +itself yearned through it for expression. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +X +</H3> + +<P> +I WATCHED the little bird against the paling sky, and my thoughts, +following the happy singing, went slowly backwards into the +half-forgotten past.... They led me again through the maze of +gorgeous and mysterious hopes, un-remembered now so many years, that +had marked my childhood. Few of these, if any, it seemed, had known +fulfilment.... I stole back with them, past the long exile in great +Africa, into the region of my youth and early boyhood.... +</P> + +<P> +And, as though a hand uncovered it deliberately, I recalled an +earliest dream—strangest, perhaps, of all the mysterious dreams of +that far time. It had, I thought, remained unrealized, as, certainly, +till this moment, it had lain forgotten—a boyish dream that behind +the veils of the Future some one waited for me with the patience of a +perfect love that was my due. +</P> + +<P> +The dream reached forward towards some one who must one day appear, +and whose coming would make life sweet and wonderful, fulfilling, +even explaining, the purpose of my being. This dream which I had +thought peculiarly my own, belongs, I learned later, to many, if not +to the race in general, and, with a smile at my own incurable vanity +(and probably a grimace at being neatly duped), I had laid it on one +side. At any rate, I forgot it, for nothing happened to keep it +active, much less revive it. +</P> + +<P> +Now, however, looking backwards, and listening to the singing in the +sky, I recalled what almost seemed to have been its attempt at +realization. Having recovered its earliest appearance, my thought +next leaped forward to the moment that might possibly have been its +reappearance. For memory bore me off without an effort on my part, +and set me abruptly within a room of the house I had come home to, +where Marion sat beside me, singing to the harp she loved. The scene +rose up before me as of yesterday... the emotions themselves +reconstituted. I recalled the deep, half-sad desire to be worthy of +her, to persuade myself I loved as she did, even the curious impulse +to acknowledge an emotion that came and went before it could be +wholly realized—the feeling, namely, that I ought to love her +because—no more, no less is the truth—because she needed it: and +then the blank dismay that followed my failure, as with a kind of +shameful horror before a great purpose that my emptiness left +unfulfilled. +</P> + +<P> +The very song came back that moved me more than any else she +sang—her favourite it was as well. I heard the twanging of the +strings her fingers plucked. I heard the words: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "About the little chambers of my heart<BR> + Friends have been coming—going—many a year.<BR> + The doors stand open there.<BR> + Some, lightly stepping, enter; some depart.<BR> + Freely they come and go, at will.<BR> + The walls give back their laughter; all day long<BR> + They fill the house with song.<BR> + One door alone is shut, one chamber still."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +With each repetition of the song, I remembered, how at that time my +boyhood's dream came back to me, as though its fulfilment were at +last at hand; as though, somehow, that "door" must open, that "still +chamber" welcome the sweetness and the loveliness of her who sang. +For I could not listen to the music, nor watch her fingers moving +down the strings, her slender wrist and rounded arm, her foot upon the +pedal as she held the instrument so close—without this poignant +yearning that proved ever vain, or this shame of unshed tears my +heart mysteriously acknowledged. To the end, as you know, that door +remained unopened, that chamber still. +</P> + +<P> +It was the singing of this sweet English bird, making articulate for +me the beauty I could not utter, that brought back to memory the +scene, the music, and the words.... +</P> + +<P> +I looked round me; I looked up. As I did so, the little creature, with +one last burst of passionate happiness, flew away into the darkness. +And silence followed, so deep that I could hear the murmur of my +blood... an exquisite joy ran through me, making me quiver with +expectancy from head to foot.... +</P> + +<P> +And it was then suddenly I became aware that the long-closed door at +last was open, the still chamber occupied. Some one who was pleased, +stretching a hand across the silence and the beauty, drew me within +that chamber of the heart, so that I passed behind the door that was +now a veil, and now a mist, and now a shining blaze of light... +passed into a remote and inner stillness where that direct communion +which is wordless can alone take place. +</P> + +<P> +It was, I verily believe, a stillness of the spirit. At the centre of +the tempest, of the whirlpool, of the heart's commotion, there is +peace. I stood close against that source of our life which lies hid +with beauty very far away, and yet so near that it is enclosed in +every hope, in every yearning, and in every tear. For the whisper came +to me, beyond all telling sure. +</P> + +<P> +Beauty had touched me, Wisdom come to birth; and Love, whispering +through the silence those marvellous words that sum up all spiritual +experience, proved it to me: +</P> + +<P> +"Be still—and know...." +</P> + +<P> +I found myself moving slowly across the lawn again towards the house. I +presently heard the wind mousing softly in the limes. The air was fresh +and cool. The first stars were out. I saw the laburnum drooping, as +though thick clusters of these very stars had drifted earthwards among +the branches; I saw the gleam of the lilac; across the dim tangle of the +early roses shone the familiar windows, cosy now with the glow of +lighted lamps... and I became suddenly, in a very intimate sense, +"aware" of the garden. The Presence that walked beside me moved abruptly +closer. This Presence and the garden seemed, as in some divine +mysterious way, inseparable. +</P> + +<P> +There was a stirring of the dimmest and most primitive associations +possible. Memory plunged back among ancestral, even racial, shadows. I +recalled the sweet and tender legend of the beginnings of the world, +when something divine, it was whispered, was intimate with man, and +companioning his earliest innocence, walked with him in that happier +state those childlike poets called—a garden. That childhood of the +world seemed very near. +</P> + +<P> +I found again the conditions of innocence and pristine wonder—of +simplicity. There was a garden in my heart, and some one walked with me +therein. For Life in its simplest form—of breathing leaves and growing +flowers, of trees and plants and shrubs—glowed all about me in the +darkness. The blades of grass, the blossoms hanging in the air, strong +stems and hidden roots, fulfilled themselves with patience upon every +side, brimming with beauty and stillness did not seek to advertise. And +of this simplest form of life—the vegetable kingdom—I became vividly +aware, prodigal, mysterious, yet purposive. The outer garden merged with +the inner, and the Presence walked in both of them.... +</P> + +<P> +I was led backwards, far down into my own being. I reached the earliest, +simplest functions by which I myself had come to be, the state where the +frontier lies between that which is dead and that which is alive. +Somewhere between the mineral and vegetable worlds, I knew, that +frontier lay. For the vegetable kingdom alone possesses the power of +converting the mineral or the chemical into the living organism by +absorption; and here, among the leaves and roots and flowers, that power +was sweetly, irresistibly, at work. +</P> + +<P> +It seemed I reached that frontier, and I passed it. Beauty came through +the most primitive aspect of my being. +</P> + +<P> +And so I would tell you, you alone of all the world, that the Presence +walking beside me in the scented darkness came suddenly so close that I +was aware of it in what seemed my earliest and most innocent state of +soul. +</P> + +<P> +Beside me, in that old-world garden, walked the Cause of all things. The +Beauty that in you was truth, in Marion tenderness, was harvested: and +somebody was pleased. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XI +</H3> + +<P> +ALL this I have told to you because we have known together the closest +intimacy possible to human beings—we have shared beauty. +</P> + +<P> +They said, these many days ago, that you had gone away, that you were +dead. The wind on the Downs, your favourite Downs, your favourite +southwest wind, received your dust, scattering it like pollen into +space. No sign has come to me, no other sign than this I tell you now +in my long letter. It is enough. I know. +</P> + +<P> +There were thus two loves, one unrecognized till afterwards, the other +realized at the time.... In the body there was promise. There is now +accomplishment. +</P> + +<P> +It is very strange, and yet so simple. Beauty, I suppose, opens the +heart, extends the consciousness. It is a platitude, of course. You +will laugh when I tell you that afterwards I tried to reason it all +out. I am not apparently intellectual. The books I read would fill +your empty room—on aesthetics, art, and what not. I got no result +from any of them, but rather a state of muddle that was, no doubt, +congestion. None of the theories and explanations touched the root of +the matter. I am evidently not "an artist"—that at any rate I +gathered, and yet these learned people seemed to write about +something they had never "lived." I could almost believe that the +writers of these subtle analyses have never themselves felt +beauty—the burn, the rapture, the regenerating fire. They have +known, perhaps, a reaction of the physical nerves, but never this +light within the soul that lifts the horizons of the consciousness and +makes one know that God exists, that death is not even separation, +and that eternity is now. +</P> + +<P> +Metaphysics I studied too. I fooled myself, thirty years after the +proper time for doing so, over the old problem whether beauty lies in +the object seen or in the mind that sees the object. And in the end I +came back hungrily to my simple starting-point—that beauty moved me. +It opened my heart to one of its many aspects—truth, wisdom, joy, +and love—and what else, in the name of heaven, mattered! +</P> + +<P> +I sold the books at miserable prices that made Mother question my +judgment: coloured plates, costly bindings, rare editions, and all. +Aesthetics, Art, rules and principles might go hang for all I cared +or any good they did me. It was intellect that had devised all these. +The truth was simpler far. I cared nothing for these scholarly +explanations of beauty's genesis and laws of working, because I felt +it. Hunger needs no analysis, does it? Nor does Love. Could anything +be more stultifying? Give to the first craving a lump of bread, and +to the second a tangible man or woman—and let those who have the +time analyse both cravings at their leisure. +</P> + +<P> +For the thrill I mean is never physical, and has nothing in common +with that acute sensation experienced when the acrobat is seen to +miss the rope in mid-air as he swings from bar to bar. There is no +shock in it, for shock is of the nerves, arresting life; the thrill I +speak of intensifies and sets it rising in a wave that flows. It is of +the spirit. It wounds, yet marvellously. It is unearthly. Therein, I +think, lies its essential quality; by chance, as it were, in writing +this intimate confession, I have hit upon the very word: it is +unearthly, it contains surprise. Yes, Beauty wounds marvellously, +then follows the new birth, regeneration. There is a ravishment of +the entire being into light and knowledge. +</P> + +<P> +The element of surprise is certainly characteristic. The thrill comes +unheralded—a sudden uprush of convincing joy loosed from some store +that is inexhaustible. Unlike the effect of a nervous shock which can +be lived over and reconstituted, it knows no repetition; its climax +is instantaneous, there is neither increase nor declension; it is +unrecoverable; it strikes and is gone. Breaking across the +phantasmagoria of appearances, it comes as a flash of reality, a +lightning recognition of something that cannot be travestied. It is +not in time. It is eternity. +</P> + +<P> +I suspect you know it now with me; in fact I am certain that you +do.... +</P> + +<P> +I remember how, many years ago—in that delightful period between +boyhood and manhood when we felt our wings and argued about the +universe—we discovered this unearthly quality in three different +things: the song of a bird, the eyes of a child, and a wild-flower +come upon unexpectedly in a scene of desolation. For in all three, we +agreed, shines that wonder which holds adoration, that joy which is +spontaneous and uncalculated, and that surprise which pertains to +Eternity looking out triumphantly upon ephemeral things. +</P> + +<P> +So, at least, in our youthful eagerness, we agreed; and to this day +one in particular of the three—a bird's song—always makes me think +of God. That divine, ecstatic, simple sound is to me ever both +surprising and unearthly. Each time it takes me by surprise—that +people do not hush their talk to kneel and listen.... And of the eyes +of little children—if there is any clearer revelation granted to us +of what is unearthly in the sense of divinity brought close, I do not +know it. Each time my spirit is arrested by surprise, then filled +with wondering joy as I meet that strange open look, so stainless, +accepting the universe as its rightful toy, and, as with the bird and +flower, saying Yes to life as though there could not possibly exist a +No. +</P> + +<P> +The wildflower too: you recall once—it was above Igls when the +Tyrolean snows were melting—how we found a sudden gentian on the +dead, pale grass? The sliding snows had left the coarse tufts stroked +all one way, white and ugly, thickly streaked with mud, no single +blade with any sign of life or greenness yet, when we came upon that +star of concentrated beauty, more blue than the blue sky overhead, the +whole passion of the earth in each pointed petal. A distant +avalanche, as though the hills were settling, the bustle of the +torrent, the wind in the pines and larches, only marked by contrast +the incredible stillness of the heights—then, suddenly, this star of +blue blazing among the desolation. I recall your cry and my +own—wonder, joy, as of something unearthly—that took us by +surprise. +</P> + +<P> +In these three, certainly, lay the authentic thrill I speak of; while +it lasts, the actual moment seems but a pedestal from which the eyes +of the heart look into Heaven, a pedestal from which the soul leaps +out into the surrounding garden of limitless possibilities which are +its birthright, and immediately accessible. And that, indeed, is the +essential meaning of the thrill—that Heaven is here and now. The +gates of ivory are very tiny; Beauty sounds the elfin horns that +opens them; smaller than the eye of a needle is that opening—upon +the diamond point of the thrill you flash within, and the Garden of +Eternity is yours for ever—now. +</P> + +<P> +I am writing this to you, because I know you listen with your heart, +not with your nerves; and the garden that I write about you know now +better than I do myself. I have but tasted it, you dwell therein, +unaged, unageing. And so we share the flowers; we know the light, the +fragrance and the birds we know together.... They tell me—even our +mother says it sometimes with a sigh—that you are far away, not +understanding that we have but recovered the garden of our early +childhood, you permanently, I whenever the thrill opens the happy +gates. You are as near to me as that. Our love was forged inside +those ivory gates that guard that childhood state, facing four ways, +and if I wandered outside a-while, puzzled and lonely, the thrill of +beauty has led me back again, and I, have found your love unchanged, +unaged, still growing in the garden of our earliest memories. I did +but lose my way for a time.... +</P> + +<P> +That childhood state must be amazingly close to God, I suppose, for +though no child is consciously aware of beauty, its whole being cries +Yes to the universe and life as naturally and instinctively as a +flower turns to the sun. The universe lies in its overall pocket of +alpaca, and beauty only becomes a thing apart when the growing +consciousness, hearing the world cry No, steps through the gates to +enquire and cannot find the entrance any more. Beauty then becomes a +signpost showing the way home again. Baudelaire, of course, meant God +and Heaven, instead of "genius" when he said, "Le genie n'est que +l'enfance retrouvee a volonte...." +</P> + +<P> +And so when I write to you, I find myself again within the garden of +our childhood, that English garden where our love shared all the +light and fragrance and flowers of the world together. "Time's but a +golden wind that shakes the grass," and since my thought is with you, +you are with me now... and now means always or it means nothing. +</P> + +<P> +So these relationships are real still among a thousand shadows. Your +beauty was truth, hers was unselfish love. The important thing is to +know you still live, not with regret and selfish grief, but with that +joy and sure conviction which makes the so-called separation a +temporary test, perhaps, but never a final blow. What are the few +years of separation compared to this certainty of co-operation in +eternity? We live but a few years together in the flesh, yet if those +few are lived with beauty and beautifully, the tie is unalterably +forged which fastens us lovingly together for ever. Where, how, +under what precise conditions it were idle to enquire and +unnecessary—the wrong way too. Our only knowledge (in the scientific +sense) comes to us through our earthly senses. To forecast our future +life, constructing it of necessity upon this earthly sensory +experience, is an occupation for those who have neither faith nor +imagination. All such "heavens" are but clumsy idealizations of the +present—"Happy Hunting Grounds" in various forms: whereas we know +that if we lived beauty together, we shall live it always—"afterwards," +as our poor time-ridden language phrases it. For Beauty, once known, +cannot exclude us. We cooperated with the Power that makes the universe +alive. +</P> + +<P> +And, knowing this, I do not ask for your "return," or for any +so-called evidence that you survive. In beauty you both live now with +less hampered hands, less troubled breath, and I am glad. +</P> + +<P> +Why should you come, indeed, through the gutter of my worn, familiar, +personal desires, when the open channel of beauty lies ever at the +flood for you to use? Coming in this way, you come, besides, for +many, not for me alone, since behind every thrill of beauty stand the +countless brave souls who lived it in their lives. They have entered +the mighty rhythm that floats the spiral nebulae in space, as it turns +the little aspiring Nautilus in the depths of the sea. Having once +felt this impersonal worship which is love of beauty, they are linked +to the power that drives the universe towards perfection, the power +that knocks in a million un-advertised forms at every human heart: +and that is God. +</P> + +<P> +With that beneficent power you cooperate. I ask no other test. I crave +no evidence that you selfishly remember me. In the body we did not +know so closely. To see into your physical eyes, and touch your hand, +and hear your voice—these were but intermediary methods, symbols, at +the best. For you I never saw nor touched nor heard. I felt you—in +my heart. The closest intimacy we knew was when together we shared +one moment of the same beauty; no other intimacy approaches the +reality of that; it is now strengthened to a degree unrealized +before. For me that is enough. I have that faith, that certainty, +that knowledge. Should you come to me otherwise I must disown you. +Should you stammer through another's earthly lips that you now enjoy +a mere idealized repetition of your physical limitations, I should +know my love, my memory, my hope degraded, nay, my very faith +destroyed. +</P> + +<P> +To summon you in that way makes me shudder. It would be to limit your +larger uses, your wider mission, merely to numb a selfish grief born +of a faithless misunderstanding. +</P> + +<P> +Come to me instead—or, rather, stay, since you have never left—be +with me still in the wonder of dawn and twilight, in the yearning +desire of inarticulate black night, in the wind, the sunshine, and +the rain. It is then that I am nearest to you and to your beneficent +activity, for the same elemental rhythm of Beauty includes us both. +The best and highest of you are there; I want no lesser assurance, no +broken personal revelation. Eternal beauty brings you with an +intimacy unknown, impossible, indeed, to partial disclosure. I should +abhor a halting masquerade, a stammering message less intelligible +even than our intercourse of the body. +</P> + +<P> +Come, then! Be with me, your truth and Marion's tenderness linked +together with what is noblest in myself. Be with me in the simple +loveliness of an English garden where you and I, as boys together, +first heard that voice of wonder, and knew the Presence walking with +us among the growing leaves. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +THE END +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Garden of Survival, by Algernon Blackwood + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GARDEN OF SURVIVAL *** + +***** This file should be named 4046-h.htm or 4046-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/4/4046/ + +Produced by David Moynihan. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Garden of Survival + +Author: Algernon Blackwood + +Posting Date: June 12, 2009 [EBook #4046] +Release Date: May, 2003 +First Posted: October 20, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GARDEN OF SURVIVAL *** + + + + +Produced by David Moynihan. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + + +The Garden of Survival + + +by + +Algernon Blackwood + + + + +I + +IT will surprise and at the same time possibly amuse you to know that +I had the instinct to tell what follows to a Priest, and might have +done so had not the Man of the World in me whispered that from +professional Believers I should get little sympathy, and probably +less credence still. For to have my experience disbelieved, or +attributed to hallucination, would be intolerable to me. Psychical +investigators, I am told, prefer a Medium who takes no cash +recompense for his performance, a Healer who gives of his strange +powers without reward. There are, however, natural-born priests who +yet wear no uniform other than upon their face and heart, but since I +know of none I fall back upon yourself, my other half, for in writing +this adventure to you I almost feel that I am writing it to myself. + +The desire for confession is upon me: this thing must out. It is a +story, though an unfinished one. I mention this at once lest, +frightened by the thickness of the many pages, you lay them aside +against another time, and so perhaps neglect them altogether. A +story, however, will invite your interest, and when I add that it is +true, I feel that you will bring sympathy to that interest: these +together, I hope, may win your attention, and hold it, until you +shall have read the final word. + +That I should use this form in telling it will offend your literary +taste--you who have made your name both as critic and creative +writer--for you said once, I remember, that to tell a story in +epistolary form is a subterfuge, an attempt to evade the difficult +matters of construction and delineation of character. My story, +however, is so slight, so subtle, so delicately intimate too, that a +letter to some one in closest sympathy with myself seems the only +form that offers. + +It is, as I said, a confession, but a very dear confession: I burn to +tell it honestly, yet know not how. To withhold it from you would be +to admit a secretiveness that our relationship has never known--out +it must, and to you. I may, perhaps, borrow--who can limit the +sharing powers of twin brothers like ourselves?--some of the skill +your own work spills so prodigally, crumbs from your writing-table, +so to speak; and you will forgive the robbery, if successful, as you +will accept lie love behind the confession as your due. + +Now, listen, please! For this is the point: that, although my wife is +dead these dozen years and more--I have found reunion and I love. +Explanation of this must follow as best it may. So, please mark tie +point which for the sake of emphasis I venture to repeat: that I know +reunion and I love. + +With the jealous prerogative of the twin, you objected to that +marriage, though I knew that it deprived you of no jot of my +affection, owing to the fact that it was prompted by pity only, +leaving the soul in me wholly disengaged. Marion, by her steady +refusal to accept my honest friendship, by her persistent admiration +of me, as also by her loveliness, her youth, her singing, persuaded +me somehow finally that I needed her. The cry of the flesh, which +her beauty stimulated and her singing increased most strangely, +seemed raised into a burning desire that I mistook at the moment for +the true desire of the soul. Yet, actually, the soul in me remained +aloof, a spectator, and one, moreover, of a distinctly lukewarm kind. +It was very curious. On looking back, I can hardly understand it even +now; there seemed some special power, some special undiscovered tie +between us that led me on and yet deceived me. It was especially +evident in her singing, this deep power. She sang, you remember, to +her own accompaniment on the harp, and her method, though so simple +it seemed almost childish, was at the same time charged with a great +melancholy that always moved me most profoundly. The sound of her +small, plaintive voice, the sight of her slender fingers that plucked +the strings in some delicate fashion native to herself, the tiny foot +that pressed the pedal--all these, with her dark searching eyes fixed +penetratingly upon my own while she sang of love and love's +endearments, combined in a single stroke of very puissant and +seductive kind. Passions in me awoke, so deep, so ardent, so +imperious, that I conceived them as born of the need of one soul for +another. I attributed their power to genuine love. The following +reactions, when my soul held up a finger and bade me listen to her +still, small warnings, grew less positive and of ever less duration. +The frontier between physical and spiritual passion is perilously +narrow, perhaps. My judgment, at any rate, became insecure, then +floundered hopelessly. The sound of the harp-strings and of Marion's +voice could overwhelm its balance instantly. + +Mistaking, perhaps, my lukewarm-ness for restraint, she led me at last +to the altar you described as one of sacrifice. And your instinct, +more piercing than my own, proved only too correct: that which I held +for love declared itself as pity only, the soft, affectionate pity of +a weakish man in whom the flesh cried loudly, the pity of a man who +would be untrue to himself rather than pain so sweet a girl by +rejecting the one great offering life placed within her gift. She +persuaded me so cunningly that I persuaded myself, yet was not aware +I did so until afterwards. I married her because in some manner I +felt, but never could explain, that she had need of me. + +And, at the wedding, I remember two things vividly: the expression of +wondering resignation on your face, and upon hers--chiefly in the +eyes and in the odd lines about the mouth--the air of subtle triumph +that she wore: that she had captured me for her very own at last, and +yet--for there was this singular hint in her attitude and +behaviour--that she had taken me, because she had this curious deep +need of me. + +This sharply moving touch was graven into me, increasing the +tenderness of my pity, subsequently, a thousandfold. The necessity +lay in her very soul. She gave to me all she had to give, and in so +doing she tried to satisfy some hunger of her being that lay beyond +my comprehension or interpretation. For, note this--she gave herself +into my keeping, I remember, with a sigh. + +It seems as of yesterday the actual moment when, urged by my vehement +desires, I made her consent to be my wife; I remember, too, the +doubt, the shame, the hesitation that made themselves felt in me +before the climax when her beauty overpowered me, sweeping reflection +utterly away. I can hear to-day the sigh, half of satisfaction, yet +half, it seemed, of pain, with which she sank into my arms at last, +as though her victory brought intense relief, yet was not wholly +gamed in the way that she had wanted. Her physical beauty, perhaps, +was the last weapon she had wished to use for my enslavement; she +knew quite surely that the appeal to what was highest in me had not +succeeded... + +The party in our mother's house that week in July included yourself; +there is no need for me to remind you of its various members, nor of +the strong attraction Marion, then a girl of twenty-five, exercised +upon the men belonging to it. Nor have you forgotten, I feel sure, +the adroit way in which she contrived so often to find herself alone +with me, both in the house and out of it, even to the point of +sometimes placing me in a quasi-false position. That she tempted me +is, perhaps, an overstatement, though that she availed herself of +every legitimate use of feminine magic to entrap me is certainly the +truth. Opportunities of marriage, it was notorious, had been +frequently given to her, and she had as frequently declined them; she +was older than her years; to inexperience she certainly had no claim: +and from the very first it was clear to me--if conceited, I cannot +pretend that I was also blind--that flirtation was not her object and +that marriage was. Yet it was marriage with a purpose that she +desired, and that purpose had to do, I felt, with sacrifice. She +burned to give her very best, her all, and for my highest welfare. It +was in this sense, I got the impression strangely, that she had need +of me. + +The battle seemed, at first, uneven, since, as a woman, she did not +positively attract me. I was first amused at her endeavours and her +skill; but respect for her as a redoubtable antagonist soon followed. +This respect, doubtless, was the first blood she drew from me, since +it gained my attention and fixed my mind upon her presence. From that +moment she entered my consciousness as a woman; when she was near me +I became more and more aware of her, and the room, the picnic, the +game of tennis that included her were entirely different from such +occasions when she was absent, I became self-conscious. It was +impossible to ignore her as formerly had been my happy case. + +It was then I first knew how beautiful she was, and that her beauty +made a certain difference to my mood. The next step may seem a big +one, but, I believe, is very natural: her physical beauty gave me +definite pleasure. And the instant this change occurred she was aware +of it. The curious fact, however, is that, although aware of this +gain of power, she made no direct use of it at first. She did not draw +this potent weapon for my undoing; it was ever with her, but was ever +sheathed. Did she discern my weakness, perhaps, and know that the +subtle power would work upon me most effectively if left to itself? +Did she, rich in experience, deem that its too direct use might waken +a reaction in my better self? I cannot say, I do not know.... Every +feminine art was at her disposal, as every use of magic pertaining to +young and comely womanhood was easily within her reach. As you and I +might express it bluntly, she knew men thoroughly, she knew every +trick; she drew me on, then left me abruptly in the wrong, puzzled, +foolish, angry, only to forgive me later with the most enchanting +smile or word imaginable. But never once did she deliberately make +use of the merciless weapon of her physical beauty although--perhaps +because--she knew that it was the most powerful in all her armoury. + +For listen to this: when at last I took her in my arms with passion +that would not be denied, she actually resented it. She even sought +to repel me from her touch that had undone me. I repeat what I said +before: She did not wish to win me in that way. The sigh of happiness +she drew in that moment--I can swear to it--included somewhere, too, +the pain of bitter disappointment. + +The weapon, however, that she did use without hesitation was her +singing. There was nothing special either in its quality or skill; it +was a voice untrained, I believe, and certainly without ambition; her +repertoire was limited; she sang folk-songs mostly, the simple +love-songs of primitive people, of peasants and the like, yet sang +them with such truth and charm, with such power and conviction, +somehow, that I knew enchantment as I listened. This, too, she +instantly divined, and that behind my compliments lay hid a weakness +of deep origin she could play upon to her sure advantage. She did so +without mercy, until gradually I passed beneath her sway. + +I will not now relate in detail the steps of my descent, or if you +like it better, of my capture. This is a summary merely. So let me +say in brief that her singing to the harp combined with the +revelation of her physical beauty to lead me swiftly to the point +where I ardently desired her, and that in this turmoil of desire I +sought eagerly to find real love. There were times when I deceived +myself most admirably; there were times when I plainly saw the truth. +During the former I believed that my happiness lay in marrying her, +but in the latter I recognised that a girl who meant nothing to my +better self had grown of a sudden painfully yet exquisitely +desirable. But even during the ascendancy of the latter physical +mood, she had only to seat herself beside the harp and sing, for the +former state to usurp its place, I watched, I listened, and I +yielded. Her voice, aided by the soft plucking of the strings, +completed my defeat. Now, strangest of all, I must add one other +thing, and I will add it without comment. For though sure of its +truth, I would not dwell upon it. And it is this: that in her singing, +as also in her playing, in the "colour" of her voice as also in the +very attitude and gestures of her figure as she sat beside the +instrument, there lay, though marvellously hidden, something gross. +It woke a response of something in myself, hitherto unrecognized, +that was similarly gross.... + +It was in the empty billiard-room when the climax came, a calm evening +of late July, the dusk upon the lawn, and most of the house-party +already gone upstairs to dress for dinner. I had been standing beside +the open window for some considerable time, motionless, and listening +idly to the singing of a thrush or blackbird in the shrubberies--when +I heard the faint twanging of the harp-strings in the room behind me, +and turning, saw that Marion had entered and was there beside the +instrument. At the same moment she saw me, rose from the harp and +came forward. During the day she had kept me at a distance. I was +hungry for her voice and touch; her presence excited me--and yet I +was half afraid. + +"What! Already dressed!" I exclaimed, anxious to avoid a talk a deux. +"I must hurry then, or I shall be later than usual." + +I crossed the room towards the door, when she stopped me with her +eyes. + +"Do you really mean to say you don't know the difference between an +evening frock and--and this," she answered lightly, holding out the +skirt in her fingers for me to touch. And in the voice was that hint +of a sensual caress that, I admit, bewildered both my will and +judgment. She was very close and her fragrance came on me with her +breath, like the perfume of the summer garden. I touched the material +carelessly; it was of softest smooth white serge. It seemed I touched +herself that lay beneath it. And at that touch some fire of +lightning ran through every vein. + +"How stupid of me," I said quickly, making to go past her, "but it's +white, you see, and in this dim light I----" + +"A man's idea of an evening frock is always white, I suppose, or +black." She laughed a little. "I'm not coming to dinner to-night," +she added, sitting down to the harp. "I've got a headache and thought +I might soothe it with a little music. I didn't know any one was +here. I thought I was alone." + +Thus, deftly, having touched a chord of pity in me, she began to play; +her voice followed; dinner and dressing, the house-party and my +mother's guests, were all forgotten. I remember that you looked in, +your eyes touched with a suggestive and melancholy smile, and as +quickly closed the door again. But even that little warning failed to +help me. I sat down on the sofa facing her, the world forgotten. And, +as I listened to her singing and to the sweet music of the harp, the +spell, it seemed, of some ancient beauty stole upon my spirit. The +sound of her soft voice reduced my resistance to utter impotence. An +aggressive passion took its place. The desire for contact, physical +contact, became a vehement aching that I scarcely could restrain, and +my arms were hungry for her. Shame and repugnance touched me faintly +for a moment, but at once died away again. I listened and I watched. +The sensuous beauty of her figure and her movements, swathed in that +soft and clinging serge, troubled my judgment; it seemed, as I saw +her little foot upon the pedal, that I felt with joy its pressure on +my heart and life. Something gross and abandoned stirred in me; I +welcomed her easy power and delighted in it. I feasted my eyes and +ears, the blood rose feverishly to my head. She did not look at me, +yet knew that I looked at her, and how. No longer ashamed, but with a +fiery pleasure in my heart, I spoke at last. Her song had ended. She +softly brushed the strings, her eyes turned downwards. + +"Marion," I said, agitation making my voice sound unfamiliar, "Marion, +dear, I am enthralled; your voice, your beauty----" + +I found no other words; my voice stopped dead; I stood up, trembling +in every limb. I saw her in that instant as a maid of olden time, +singing the love-songs of some far-off day beside her native +instrument, and of a voluptuous beauty there was no withstanding. The +half-light of the dusk set her in a frame of terrible enchantment. + +And as I spoke her name and rose, she also spoke my own, my Christian +name, and rose as well. I saw her move towards me. Upon her face, in +her eyes and on her lips, was a smile of joy I had never seen before, +though a smile of conquest, and of something more besides that I must +call truly by its rightful name, a smile of lust. God! those +movements beneath the clinging dress that fell in lines of beauty to +her feet! Those little feet that stepped upon my heart, upon my very +soul.... For a moment I loathed myself. The next, as she touched me +and my arms took her with rough strength against my breast, my +repugnance vanished, and I was utterly undone. I believed I loved. +That which was gross in me, leaping like fire to claim her glorious +beauty, met and merged with that similar, devouring flame in her; but +in the merging seemed cunningly transformed into the call of soul to +soul: I forgot the pity.... I kissed her, holding her to me so +fiercely that she scarcely moved. I said a thousand things. I know +not what I said. I loved. + +Then, suddenly, she seemed to free herself; she drew away; she looked +at me, standing a moment just beyond my reach, a strange smile on her +lips and in her darkened eyes a nameless expression that held both +joy and pain. For one second I felt that she repelled me, that she +resented my action and my words. Yes, for one brief second she stood +there, like an angel set in judgment over me, and the next we had +come together again, softly, gently, happily; I heard that strange, +deep sigh, already mentioned, half of satisfaction, half, it seemed, +of pain, as she sank down into my arms and found relief in quiet +sobbing on my breast. + +And pity then returned. I felt unsure of myself again. This was the love +of the body only; my soul was silent. Yet--somehow, in some strange +hidden way, lay this ambushed meaning--that she had need of me, and that +she offered her devotion and herself in sacrifice. + + + +II + +THE brief marriage ran its course, depleting rather than enriching me, +and I know you realized before the hurried, dreadful end that my tie +with yourself was strengthened rather than endangered, and that I took +from you nothing that I might give it to her. That death should +intervene so swiftly, leaving her but an interval of a month between the +altar and the grave, you could foreknow as little as I or she; yet in +that brief space of time you learned that I had robbed you of nothing +that was your precious due, while she as surely realized that the +amazing love she poured so lavishly upon me woke no response--beyond a +deep and tender pity, strangely deep and singularly tender I admit, but +assuredly very different from love. + +Now this, I think, you already know and in some measure understand; but +what you cannot know--since it is a portion of her secret, of that +ambushed meaning, as I termed it, given to me when she lay dying--is the +pathetic truth that her discovery wrought no touch of disenchantment in +her. I think she knew with shame that she had caught me with her lowest +weapon, yet still hoped that the highest in her might complete and +elevate her victory. She knew, at any rate, neither dismay nor +disappointment; of reproach there was no faintest hint. She did not even +once speak of it directly, though her fine, passionate face made me +aware of the position. Of the usual human reaction, that is, there was +no slightest trace; she neither chided nor implored; she did not weep. +The exact opposite of what I might have expected took place before my +very eyes. + +For she turned and faced me, empty as I was. The soul in her, realizing +the truth, stood erect to meet the misery of lonely pain that inevitably +lay ahead--in some sense as though she welcomed it already; and, +strangest of all, she blossomed, physically as well as mentally, into a +fuller revelation of gracious loveliness than before, sweeter and more +exquisite, indeed, than anything life had yet shown to me. Moreover, +having captured me, she changed; the grossness I had discerned, that +which had led me to my own undoing, vanished completely as though it +were transmuted into desires and emotions of a loftier kind. Some +purpose, some intention, a hope immensely resolute shone out of her, and +of such spiritual loveliness, it seemed to me, that I watched it in a +kind of dumb amazement. + +I watched it--unaware at first of my own shame, emptied of any emotion +whatsoever, I think, but that of a startled worship before the grandeur +of her generosity. It seemed she listened breathlessly for the beating +of my heart, and hearing none, resolved that she would pour her own life +into it, regardless of pain, of loss, of sacrifice, that she might make +it live. She undertook her mission, that is to say, and this mission, in +some mysterious way, and according to some code of conduct undivined by +me, yet passionately honoured, was to give--regardless of herself or of +response. I caught myself sometimes thinking of a child who would +instinctively undo some earlier grievous wrong. She loved me +marvellously. + +I know not how to describe to you the lavish wealth of selfless devotion +she bathed me in during the brief torturing and unfulfilled period +before the end. It made me aware of new depths and heights in human +nature. It taught me a new beauty that even my finest dreams had left +unmentioned. Into the region that great souls inhabit a glimpse was +given me. My own dreadful weakness was laid bare. And an eternal hunger +woke in me--that I might love. + +That hunger remained unsatisfied. I prayed, I yearned, I suffered; I +could have decreed myself a deservedly cruel death; it seemed I +stretched my little nature to unendurable limits in the fierce hope that +the Gift of the Gods might be bestowed upon me, and that her divine +emotion might waken a response within my leaden soul. But all in vain. +My attitude, in spite of every prayer, of every effort, remained no more +than a searching and unavailing pity, but a pity that held no seed of a +mere positive emotion, least of all, of love. The heart in me lay +unredeemed; it knew ashamed and very tender gratitude; but it did not +beat for her. I could not love. + +I have told you bluntly, frankly, of my physical feelings towards Marion +and her beauty. It is a confession that I give into my own safe keeping. +I think, perhaps, that you, though cast in a finer mould, may not +despise them utterly, nor too contemptuously misinterpret them. The +legend that twins may share a single soul has always seemed to me +grotesque and unpoetic nonsense, a cruel and unnecessary notion too: a +man is sufficiently imperfect without suffering this further subtraction +from his potentialities. And yet it is true, in our own case, that you +have exclusive monopoly of the ethereal qualities, while to me are given +chiefly the physical attributes of the vigorous and healthy male--the +animal: my six feet three, my muscular system, my inartistic and +pedestrian temperament. Fairly clean-minded, I hope I may be, but beyond +all question I am the male animal incarnate. It was, indeed, the +thousand slaveries of the senses, individually so negligible, +collectively so overwhelming, that forced me upon my knees before her +physical loveliness. I must tell you now that this potent spell, +alternating between fiery desire and the sincerest of repugnance, +continued to operate. I complete the confession by adding briefly, that +after marriage she resented and repelled all my advances. A deep sadness +came upon her; she wept; and I desisted. It was my soul that she desired +with the fire of her mighty love, and not my body.... And again, since +it is to myself and to you alone I tell it, I would add this vital fact: +it was this "new beauty which my finest dreams have left unmentioned" +that made it somehow possible for me to desist, both against my animal +will, yet willingly. + +I have told you that, when dying, she revealed to me a portion of her +"secret." This portion of a sacred confidence lies so safe within my +everlasting pity that I may share it with you without the remorse of a +betrayal. Full understanding we need never ask; the solution, I am +convinced, is scarcely obtainable in this world. The message, however, +was incomplete because the breath that framed it into broken words +failed suddenly; the heart, so strangely given into my unworthy keeping, +stopped beating as you shall hear upon the very edge of full disclosure. +The ambushed meaning I have hinted at remained--a hint. + + + +III + +THERE was, then, you will remember, but an interval of minutes between +the accident and the temporary recovery of consciousness, between +that recovery again and the moment when the head fell forward on my +knee and she was gone. That "recovery" of consciousness I feel bound +to question, as you shall shortly hear. Among such curious things I +am at sea admittedly, yet I must doubt for ever that the eyes which +peered so strangely into mine were those of Marion herself--as I had +always known her. You will, at any rate, allow the confession, and +believe it true, that I--did not recognize her quite. Consciousness +there was, indubitably, but whether it was "recovery" of +consciousness is another matter, and a problem that I must for ever +question though I cannot ever set it confidently at rest. It almost +seemed as though a larger, grander, yet somehow a less personal, soul +looked forth through the fading eyes and used the troubled breath. + +In those brief minutes, at any rate, the mind was clear as day, the +faculties not only unobscured, but marvellously enhanced. In the eyes +at first shone unveiled fire; she smiled, gazing into my own with +love and eager yearning too. There was a radiance in her face I must +call glory. Her head was in my lap upon the bed of rugs we had +improvised inside the field: the broken motor posed in a monstrous +heap ten yards away; and the doctor, summoned by a passing stranger, +was in the act of administrating the anaesthetic, so that we might +bear her without pain to the nearest hospital--when, suddenly, she +held up a warning finger, beckoning to me that I should listen +closely. + +I bent my head to catch the words. There was such authority in the +gesture, and in the eyes an expression so extraordinarily appealing, +and yet so touched with the awe of a final privacy beyond language, +that the doctor stepped backwards on the instant, the needle shaking +in his hand--while I bent down to catch the whispered words that at +once began to pass her lips. + +The wind in the poplar overhead mingled with the little sentences, as +though the breath of the clear blue sky, calmly shining, was mingled +with her own. + +But the words I heard both troubled and amazed me: + +"Help me! For I am in the dark still!" went through me like a sword. +"And I do not know how long." + +I took her face in both my hands; I kissed her. "You are with +friends," I said. "You are safe with us, with me--Marion!" And I +apparently tried to put into my smile the tenderness that clumsy +words forswore. Her next words shocked me inexpressibly: "You +laugh," she said, "but I----" she sighed--"I weep." + +I stroked her face and hair. No words came to me. + +"You call me Marion," she went on in an eager tone that surely belied +her pain and weakness, "but I do not remember that. I have forgotten +names." Then, as I kissed her, I heard her add in the clearest +whisper possible, as though no cloud lay upon her mind: "Yet Marion +will do--if by that you know me now." + +There came a pause then, but after it such singular words that I could +hardly believe I heard aright, although each syllable sank into my +brain as with pointed steel: + +"You come to me again when I lie dying. Even in the dark I hear--how +long I do not know--I hear your words." + +She gave me suddenly then a most piercing look, raising her face a +little towards my own. I saw earnest entreaty in them. "Tell me," I +murmured; "you are nearer, closer to me than ever before. Tell me +what it is?" + +"Music," she whispered, "I want music----" + +I knew not what to answer, what to say. Can you blame me that, in my +troubled, aching heart, I found but commonplaces? For I thought of +the harp, or of some stringed instrument that seemed part of her. + +"You shall have it," I said gently, "and very soon. We shall carry you +now into comfort, safety. You shall have no pain. Another moment +and----" + +"Music," she repeated, interrupting, "music as of long ago." + +It was terrible. I said such stupid things. My mind seemed frozen. + +"I would hear music," she whispered, "before I go again." + +"Marion, you shall," I stammered. "Beethoven, Schumann,--what would +please you most? You shall have all." + +"Yes, play to me. But those names"--she shook her head--"I do not +know." + +I remember that my face was streaming, my hands so hot that her head +seemed more than I could hold. I shifted my knees so that she might +lie more easily a little. + +"God's music!" she cried aloud with startling abruptness; then, +lowering her voice again and smiling sadly as though something came +back to her that she would fain forget, she added slowly, with +something of mournful emphasis: + +"I was a singer ..." + +As though a flash of light had passed, some inner darkness was cleft +asunder in me. Some heaviness shifted from my brain. It seemed the +years, the centuries, turned over like a wind-blown page. And out of +some hidden inmost part of me involuntary words rose instantly: + +"You sang God's music then ..." + +The strange, unbidden sentence stirred her. Her head moved slightly; +she smiled. Gazing into my eyes intently, as though to dispel a mist +that shrouded both our minds, she went on in a whisper that yet was +startlingly distinct, though with little pauses drawn out between the +phrases: "I was a singer... in the Temple. I sang--men--into evil. +You ... I sang into ... evil." + +There was a moment's pause, as a spasm of inexplicable pain passed +through my heart like fire, and a sense of haunting things whereof no +conscious memory remained came over me. The scene about me wavered +before my eyes as if it would disappear. + +"Yet you came to me when I lay dying at the last," I caught her thin +clear whisper. "You said, 'Turn to God!'" + +The whisper died away. The darkness flowed back upon my mind and +thought. A silence followed. I heard the wind in the poplar overhead. +The doctor moved impatiently, coming a few steps nearer, then turning +away again. I heard the sounds of tinkering with metal that the +driver made ten yards behind us. I turned angrily to make a +sign--when Marion's low voice, again more like the murmur of the wind +than a living voice, rose into the still evening air: + +"I have failed. And I shall try again." + +She gazed up at me with that patient, generous love that seemed +inexhaustible, and hardly knowing what to answer, nor how to comfort +her in that afflicting moment, I bent lower--or, rather, she drew my +ear closer to her lips. I think her great desire just then was to +utter her own thought more fully before she passed. Certainly it was +no avowal or consolation from myself she sought. + +"Your forgiveness," I heard distinctly, "I need your full +forgiveness." + +It was for me a terrible and poignant moment. The emptiness of my pity +betrayed itself too mercilessly for me to bear; yet, before my +bewilderment enabled me to frame an answer, she went on hurriedly, +though with a faultless certainty: the meaning to her was clear as +day: + +"Born of love ... the only true forgiveness..." + +A film formed slowly. Her eyes began to close, her breath died off +into a sigh; she smiled, but her head sank lower with her fading +strength. And her final words went by me in that sigh: + +"Yet love in you lies unawakened still... and I must try again...." + +There was one more effort, painful with unexpressed fulfilment. A +flicker of awful yearning took her paling eyes. Life seemed to +stammer, pause, then flush as with this last deep impulse to yield a +secret she discerned for the first time fully, in the very act of +passing out. The face, with its soft loveliness, turned grey in death. +Upon the edge of a great disclosure--she was gone. + +I remember that for a space of time there was silence all about us. +The doctor still kept his back to us, the driver had ceased his +wretched hammering, I heard the wind in the poplar and the hum of +insects. A bird sang loudly on a branch above; it seemed miles away, +across an empty world.... Then, of a sudden, I became aware that the +weight of the head and shoulders had dreadfully increased. I dared not +turn my face lest I should look upon her whom I had deeply +wronged--the forsaken tenement of this woman whose matchless love now +begged with her dying breath for my forgiveness! + +A cowardly desire to lose consciousness ran through me, to forget +myself, to hide my shame with her in death; yet, even while this was +so, I sought most desperately through the depths of my anguished pity +to find some hint, if only the tiniest seed, of love--and found it +not.... The rest belonged to things unrealized.... + +I remember a hand being laid upon me. I lifted my head which had +fallen close against her cheek. The doctor stood beside me, his grave +and kindly face bent low. He spoke some gentle words. I saw him +replacing the needle in its little leathern case, unused. + +Marion was dead, her deep secret undisclosed. That which she yearned +to tell me was something which, in her brief period of devotion, she +had lived, had faithfully acted out, yet herself only dimly aware of +why it had to be. The solution of this problem of unrequited love lay +at last within her grasp; of a love that only asked to give of its +unquenched and unquenchable store, undismayed by the total absence of +response. + +She passed from the world of speech and action with this intense +desire unsatisfied, and at the very moment--as with a drowning man +who sees his past--when the solution lay ready to her hand. She saw +clearly, she understood, she burned to tell me. Upon the edge of full +disclosure, she was gone, leaving me alone with my aching pity and +with my shame of unawakened love. + +"I have failed, but I shall try again...." + + + +IV + +THAT, as you know, took place a dozen years ago and more, when I was +thirty-two, and time, in the interval, has wrought unexpected ends +out of the material of my life. My trade as a soldier has led me to +an administrative post in a distant land where, apparently, I have +deserved well of my King and Country, as they say in the obituaries. +At any rate, the cryptic letters following my name, bear witness to +some kind of notoriety attained. + +You were the first to welcome my success, and your congratulations +were the first I looked for, as surely as they were more satisfying +than those our mother sent. You knew me better, it seems, than she +did. For you expressed the surprise that I, too, felt, whereas mother +assured me she had "always known you would do well, my boy, and you +have only got your deserts in this tardy recognition." To her, of +course, even at forty-five, I was still her "little boy." You, +however, guessed shrewdly that Luck had played strong cards in +bringing me this distinction, and I will admit at once that it was, +indeed, due to little born in me, but, rather, to some adventitious +aid that, curiously, seemed never lacking at the opportune moment. +And this adventitious aid was new. + +This is the unvarnished truth. A mysterious power dealt the cards for +me with unfailing instinct; a fortunate combination of events placing +in my hands, precisely at the moment of their greatest value, clear +opportunities that none but a hopeless blunderer could have +disregarded. What men call Chance operated in my favour as though +with superb calculation, lifting me to this miniature pinnacle I could +never have reached by my own skill and judgment. + +So, at least, you and I, knowing my limited abilities, consent to +attribute my success to luck, to chance, to fate, or to any other +name for the destiny that has placed me on a height my talent never +could have reached alone. You, and I, too, for that matter, are as +happy over the result as our mother is; only you and I are surprised, +because we judge it, with some humour, out of greater knowledge. +More--you, like myself, are a little puzzled, I think. We ask +together, if truth were told: Whose was the unerring, guiding hand? + +Amid this uncertainty I give you now another curious item, about which +you have, of course, been uninformed. For none could have detected it +but myself: namely, that apart from these opportunities chance set +upon my path, an impulse outside myself--and an impulse that was +new--drove me to make use of them. Sometimes even against my personal +inclination, a power urged me into decided, and it so happened, +always into faultless action. Amazed at myself, I yet invariably +obeyed. + +How to describe so elusive a situation I hardly know, unless by +telling you the simple truth: I felt that somebody would be pleased. + +And, with the years, I learned to recognize this instinct that never +failed when a choice, and therefore an element of doubt, presented +itself. Invariably I was pushed towards the right direction. More +singular still, there rose in me unbidden at these various junctures, +a kind of inner attention which bade me wait and listen for the +guiding touch. I am not fanciful, I heard no voice, I was aware of +nothing personal by way of guidance or assistance; and yet the +guidance, the assistance, never failed, though often I was not +conscious that they had been present until long afterwards. I felt, +as I said above, that somebody would be pleased. + +For it was a consistent, an intelligent guidance; operating, as it +were, out of some completer survey of the facts at a given moment +than my own abilities could possibly have compassed; my mediocre +faculties seemed gathered together and perfected--with the result, in +time, that my "intuition," as others called it, came to be regarded +with a respect that in some cases amounted to half reverence. The +adjective "uncanny" was applied to me. The natives, certainly, were +aware of awe. + +I made no private use of this unearned distinction; there is nothing +in me of the charlatan that claimed mysterious power; but my +subordinates, ever in growing numbers as my promotions followed, held +me in greater respect, apparently, on that very account. The natives, +especially, as I mentioned, attributed semi-deific properties to my +poor personality. Certainly my prestige increased out of all +proportion to anything my talents deserved with any show of justice. + +I have said that, so far as I was concerned, there lay nothing +personal in this growth of divining intuition. I must now qualify +that a little. Nothing persuaded me that this guidance, so +infallible, so constant, owed its origin to what men call a being; I +certainly found no name for it; exactness, I think, might place its +truest description in some such term as energy, inner force or +inspiration; yet I must admit that, with its steady repetition, there +awoke in me an attitude towards it that eluded somewhere also an +emotion. And in this emotion, in its quality and character, hid +remotely a personal suggestion: each time it offered itself, that is, +I was aware of a sharp quiver of sensitive life within me, and of +that sensation, extraordinarily sweet and wonderful, which +constitutes a genuine thrill. + +I came to look for this "thrill," to lie in wait with anticipatory +wonder for its advent; and in a sense this pause in me, that was both +of expectancy and hope, grew slowly into what I may almost call a +habit. There was an emptiness in my heart before it came, a sense of +peace and comfort when it was accomplished. The emptiness and then +the satisfaction, as first and last conditions, never failed, and +that they took place in my heart rather than in my mind I can affirm +with equal certainty. + +The habit, thus, confirmed itself. I admitted the power. Let me be +frank--I sought it, even longing for it when there was no decision +to be made, no guidance therefore needed: I longed for it because of +the great sweetness that it left within my heart. It was when I +needed it, however, that its effect was most enduring. The method +became quite easy to me. When a moment of choice between two courses +of action presented itself, I first emptied my heart of all personal +inclination, then, pausing upon direction, I knew--or rather +felt--which course to take. My heart was filled and satisfied with an +intention that never wavered. Some energy that made the choice for me +had been poured in. I decided upon this or that line of action. The +Thrill, always of an instantaneous nature, came and went--and +somebody was pleased. + +Moreover--and this will interest you more particularly--the emotion +produced in me was, so far as positive recognition went, a new +emotion; it was, at any rate, one that had lain so feebly in me +hitherto that its announcement brought the savour of an emotion +before unrealized. I had known it but once, and that long +years before, but the man's mind in me increased and added to it. For +it seemed a development of that new perception which first dawned +upon me during my brief period of married life, and had since lain +hidden in me, potential possibly, but inactive beyond all question, +if not wholly dead. I will now name it for you, and for myself, as +best I may. It was the Thrill of Beauty. + +I became, in these moments, aware of Beauty, and to a degree, while it +lasted, approaching revelation. Chords, first faintly struck long +years before when my sense of Marion's forgiveness and generosity +stirred worship in me, but chords that since then had lain, +apparently, unresponsive, were swept into resonance again. Possibly +they had been vibrating all these intervening years, unknown to me, +unrecognized. I cannot say. I only know that here was the origin of +the strange energy that now moved me to the depths. Some new worship +of Beauty that had love in it, of which, indeed, love was the +determining quality, awoke in the profoundest part of me, and even +when the "thrill" had gone its way, left me hungry and yearning for +its repetition. Here, then, is the "personal" qualification that I +mentioned. The yearning and the hunger were related to my deepest +needs. I had been empty, but I would be filled. For a passionate +love, holding hands with a faith and confidence as passionate as +itself, poured flooding into me and made this new sense of beauty seem +a paramount necessity of my life. + +Will you be patient now, if I give you a crude instance of what I +mean? It is one among many others, but I choose it because its very +crudeness makes my meaning clear. + +In this fevered and stricken African coast, you may know, there is +luxuriance in every natural detail, an exuberance that is lavish to +excess. Yet beauty lies somewhat coyly hid--as though suffocated by +over-abundance of crowding wonder. I detect, indeed, almost a touch +of the monstrous in it all, a super-expression, as it were, that +bewilders, and occasionally even may alarm. Delicacy, subtlety, +suggestion in any form, have no part in it. During the five years of +my exile amid this tropical extravagance I can recall no single +instance of beauty "hinting" anywhere. Nature seems, rather, +audaciously abandoned; she is without restraint. She shows her all, +tells everything--she shouts, she never whispers. You will understand +me when I tell you that this wholesale lack of reticence and modesty +involves all absence in the beholder of--surprise. A sudden +ravishment of the senses is impossible. One never can experience that +sweet and troubling agitation to which a breathless amazement +properly belongs. You may be stunned; you are hardly ever "thrilled." + +Now, this new sensitiveness to Beauty I have mentioned has opened me +to that receptiveness which is aware of subtlety and owns to sharp +surprise. The thrill is of its very essence. It is unexpected. Out of +the welter of prolific detail Nature here glories in, a delicate hint +of wonder and surprise comes stealing. The change, of course, is in +myself, not otherwise. And on the particular "crude" occasion I will +briefly mention, it reached me from the most obvious and banal of +conditions--the night sky and the moon. + +Here, then, is how it happened: There had arisen a situation of grave +difficulty among the natives of my Province, and the need for taking +a strong, authoritative line was paramount. The reports of my +subordinates from various parts of the country pointed to very +vigorous action of a repressing, even of a punitive, description. It +was not, in itself, a complicated situation, and no Governor, who was +soldier too, need have hesitated for an instant. The various +Stations, indeed, anticipating the usual course of action indicated +by precedent, had automatically gone to their posts, prepared for the +"official instructions" it was known that I should send, wondering +impatiently (as I learned afterwards) at the slight delay. For delay +there was, though of a few hours only; and this delay was caused by +my uncomfortable new habit--pausing for the guidance and the +"thrill." Intuition, waiting upon the thrill of Beauty that guided it, +at first lay inactive. + +My behaviour seemed scarcely of the orthodox, official kind, soldierly +least of all. There was uneasiness, there was cursing, probably; +there were certainly remarks not complimentary. Prompt, decisive +action was the obvious and only course... while I sat quietly in the +Headquarters Bungalow, a sensitive youth again, a dreamer, a poet, +hungry for the inspiration of Beauty that the gorgeous tropical night +concealed with her excess of smothering abundance. + +This incongruity between my procedure and the time-honoured methods of +"strong" Governors must have seemed exasperating to those who waited, +respectful, but with nerves on edge, in the canvassed and tented +regions behind the Headquarters clearing. Indeed, the Foreign Office, +could it have witnessed my unpardonable hesitation, might well have +dismissed me on the spot, I think. For I sat there, dreaming in my +deck-chair on the verandah, smoking a cigarette, safe within my net +from the countless poisonous mosquitoes, and listening to the wind in +the palms that fringed the heavy jungle round the building. + +Smoking quietly, dreaming, listening, waiting, I sat there in this +mood of inner attention and expectancy, knowing that the guidance I +anticipated must surely come. + +A few clouds sprawled in their beds of silver across the sky; the +heat, the perfume, were, as always, painfully, excessive; the +moonlight bathed the huge trees and giant leaves with that habitual +extravagance which made it seem ordinary, almost cheap and +wonderless. Very silent the wooden house lay all about me, there were +no footsteps, there was no human voice. I heard only the wash of the +heavy-scented wind through the colossal foliage that hardly stirred, +and watched, as a hundred times before, the immense heated sky, +drenched in its brilliant and intolerable moonlight. All seemed a +riot of excess, an orgy. + +Then, suddenly, the shameless night drew on some exquisite veil, as +the moon, between three-quarters and the full, slid out of sight +behind a streaky cloud. A breath, it seemed, of lighter wind woke all +the perfume of the burdened forest leaves. The shouting splendour +hushed; there came a whisper and, at last--a hint. + +I watched with relief and gratitude the momentary eclipse, for in the +half-light I was aware of that sharp and tender mood which was +preparatory to the thrill. Slowly sailing into view again from behind +that gracious veil of cloud-- + +"The moon put forth a little diamond peak, No bigger than an +unobserved star, Or tiny point of fairy scimitar; Bright signal that +she only stooped to tie Her silver sandals, ere deliciously She bowed +into the heavens her timid head." + +And then it came. The Thrill stole forth and touched me, passing like +a meteor through my heart, but in that lightning passage, cleaving it +open to some wisdom that seemed most near to love. For power flowed +in along the path that Beauty cleft for it, and with the beauty came +that intuitive guidance I had waited for. + +The inspiration operated like a flash. There was no reasoning; I was +aware immediately that another and a better way of dealing with the +situation was given me. + +I need not weary you with details. It seemed contrary to precedent, +advice, against experience too, yet it was the right, the only way. +It threatened, I admit, to destroy the prestige so long and +laboriously established, since it seemed a dangerous yielding to the +natives that must menace the white life everywhere and render trade in +the Colony unsafe. Yet I did not hesitate.... There was bustle at +once within that Bungalow; the orders went forth; I saw the way and +chose it--to the dismay, outspoken, of every white man whose welfare +lay in my official hands. + +And the results, I may tell you now without pride, since, as we both +admit, no credit attaches to myself--the results astonished the +entire Colony.... The Chiefs came to me, in due course, bringing +fruit and flowers and presents enough to bury all Headquarters, and +with a reverential obedience that proved the rising scotched to +death--because its subtle psychological causes had been marvellously +understood. + +Full comprehension, as I mentioned earlier in this narrative, we +cannot expect to have. Its origin, I may believe, lies hid in the +nature of that Beauty which is truth and love--in the source of our +very life, perhaps, which lies hid again with beauty very far +away.... But I may say this much at least: that it seemed, my inspired +action had co-operated with the instinctive beliefs of these +mysterious tribes--cooperated with their primitive and ancient sense +of Beauty. It had, inexplicably to myself, fulfilled their sense of +right, which my subordinates would have outraged. I had acted with, +instead of against, them. + +More I cannot tell you. You have the "crude instance," and you have +the method. The instances multiplied, the method became habit. There +grew in me this personal attitude towards an impersonal power I +hardly understood, and this attitude included an emotion--love. With +faith and love I consequently obeyed it. I loved the source of my +guidance and assistance, though I dared attach no name to it. Simple +enough the matter might have been, could I have referred its origin +to some name--to our mother or to you, to my Chief in London, to an +impersonal Foreign Office that has since honoured me with money and a +complicated address upon my envelopes, or even, by a stretch of +imagination, to that semi-abstract portion of my being some men call +a Higher Self. + +To none of these, however, could I honestly or dishonestly ascribe it. +Yet, as in the case of those congratulatory telegrams from our mother +and yourself, I was aware--and this feeling never failed with each +separate occurrence--aware that somebody, other than ourselves +individually or collectively--was pleased. + + + +V + +WHAT I have told you so far concerns a growth chiefly of my inner life +that was almost a new birth. My outer life, of event and action, was +sufficiently described in those monthly letters you had from me +during the ten years, broken by three periods of long-leave at home, +I spent in that sinister and afflicted land. This record, however, +deals principally with the essential facts of my life, the inner; the +outer events and actions are of importance only in so far as they +interpret these, since that which a man feels and thinks alone is +real, and thought and feeling, of course, precede all action. + +I have told you of the Thrill, of its genesis and development; and I +chose an obvious and rather banal instance, first of all to make +myself quite clear, and, secondly, because the majority were of so +delicate a nature as to render their description extremely difficult. +The point is that the emotion was, for me, a new one. I may honestly +describe it as a birth. + +I must now tell you that it first stirred in me some five years after +I left England, and that during those years I had felt nothing but +what most other men feel out here. Whether its sudden birth was due +to the violent country, or to some process of gradual preparation +that had been going forward in me secretly all that time, I cannot +tell. No proof, at any rate, offered itself of either. It came +suddenly. I do know, however, that from its first occurrence it has +strengthened and developed until it has now become a dominating +influence of a distinctly personal kind. + +My character has been affected, perhaps improved. You have mentioned +on several occasions that you noted in my letters a new tenderness, a +new kindness towards my fellow-creatures, less of criticism and more +of sympathy, a new love; the "birth of my poetic sense" you also +spoke of once; and I myself have long been aware of a thousand fresh +impulses towards charity and tolerance that had, hitherto, at any +rate, lain inactive in my being. + +I need not flatter myself complacently, yet a change there is, and it +may be an improvement. Whether big or small, however, I am sure of +one thing: I ascribe it entirely to this sharper and more extended +sensitiveness to Beauty, this new and exquisite receptiveness that +has established itself as a motive-power in my life. I have changed +the poet's line, using prose of course: There is beauty everywhere +and therefore joy. + +And I will explain briefly, too, how it is that this copybook maxim is +now for me a practical reality. For at first, with my growing +perception, I was distressed at what seemed to me the lavish waste, +the reckless, spendthrift beauty, not in nature merely but in human +nature, that passed unrecognized and unacknowledged. The loss seemed +so extravagant. Not only that a million flowers waste their sweetness +on the desert air, but that such prodigal stores of human love and +tenderness remain unemployed, their rich harvest all +ungathered--because, misdirected and misunderstood, they find no +receptacle into which they may discharge. + +It has now come to me, though only by & slow and almost imperceptible +advance, that these stores of apparently unremunerative beauty, this +harvest so thickly sown about the world, unused, ungathered--prepare +yourself, please, for an imaginative leap--ore used, are gathered, +are employed. By Whom? + +I can only answer: By some one who is pleased; and probably by many +such. How, why, and wherefore--I catch your crowd of questions in +advance--we need not seek exactly to discover, although the answer +of no uncertain kind, I hear within the stillness of a heart that has +learned to beat to a deeper, sweeter rhythm than before. + +Those who loved beauty and lived it in their lives, follow that same +ideal with increasing power and passion afterwards--and for ever. + +The shutter of black iron we call Death hides the truth with terror +and resentment; but what if that shutter were, after all, +transparent? + +A glorious dream, I hear you cry. Now listen to my answer. It is, for +me, a definite assurance and belief, because--I know. + +Long before you have reached this point you will, I know, have reached +also the conclusion (with a sigh) that I am embarked upon some +commonplace experience of ghostly return, or, at least, of posthumous +communication. Perhaps I wrong you here, but in any case I would at +once correct the inference, if it has been drawn. You remember our +adventures with the seance-mongers years ago? ... I have not changed +my view so far as their evidential value is concerned. Be sure of +that. + +The dead, I am of opinion, do not return; for, while individuals may +claim startling experiences that seem to them of an authentic and +convincing kind, there has been no instance that can persuade us +all--in the sense that thunderstorm convinces us all. Such individual +experiences I have always likened to the auto-suggestion of those few +who believe the advertisements of the hair-restorers--you will forgive +the unpoetic simile for the sake of its exactitude--as against the +verdict of the world that a genuine discovery of such a remedy would +leave no single doubter in Europe or America, nor even in the London +Clubs! Yet each time I read the cunning article (I have less hair +than when I ran away from Sandhurst that exciting July night and met +you in the Strand!), and look upon the picture of the man, John Henry +Smith, "before and after using," I admit the birth of an unreasonable +belief that there may be something in it after all. + +Of such indubitable proof, however, there is, alas, as yet no sign. + +And so with the other matter--the dead do not "return." My story, +therefore, be comforted, has no individual instance to record. It +may, on the other hand, be held to involve a thread of what might be +called--at a stretch--posthumous communication, yet a thread so +tenuous that the question of personal direction behind it need hardly +be considered at all. For let me confess at once that, the habit of +the "thrill" once established, I was not long in asking myself point +blank this definite question: Dared I trace its origin to my own +unfruitful experience of some years before?--and, discovering no +shred of evidence, I found this positive answer: Honestly I could +not. + +That "somebody was pleased" each time Beauty offered a wisdom I +accepted, became an unanswerable conviction I could not argue about; +but that the guidance--waking a responsive emotion in myself of +love--was referable to any particular name I could not, by any +stretch of desire or imagination, bring myself to believe. + +Marion, I must emphasise, had been gone from me five years at least +before the new emotion gave the smallest hint of its new birth; and +my feeling, once the first keen shame and remorse subsided--I confess +to the dishonouring truth--was one of looking back upon a painful +problem that had found an unexpected solution. It was chiefly relief, +although a sad relief, I felt.... And with the absorbing work of the +next following years (I took up my appointment within six months of +her death) her memory, already swiftly fading, entered an oblivion +whence rarely, and at long intervals only, it emerged at all. In the +ordinary meaning of the phrase, I had forgotten her. You will see, +therefore, that there was no desire in me to revive an unhappy +memory, least of all to establish any fancied communication with one +before whose generous love I had felt myself dishonoured, if not +actually disgraced. Even the remorse and regret had long since failed +to disturb my peace of mind, causing me no anxiety, much less pain. +Sic transit was the epitaph, if any. Acute sensation I had none at +all. This, then, plainly argues against the slightest predisposition +on my part to imagine that the loving guidance so strangely given +owned a personal origin I could recognize. That it involved a +"personal emotion" is quite another matter. + +The more remarkable, therefore, is the statement truth now compels me +to confess to you--namely, that this origin is recognizable, and that +I have traced in part the name it owns to. My next sentence you +divine already; you at once suspect the name I mean. I hear you say +to yourself with a smile--"So, after all...!" + +Please, wait a moment, and listen closely now; for, in reply to your +suspicion, I can give neither full affirmation or full denial. Yet an +answer of a certain kind is ready: I have stated my firm conviction +that the dead do not return; I do not modify it one iota; but I +mentioned a moment ago another conviction that is mine because I know. +So now let me supplement these two statements with a third: the dead, +though they do not return, are active; and those who lived beauty in +their lives are--benevolently active. + +This may prepare you for a further assurance, yet one less easy to +express intelligibly. Be patient while I make the difficult attempt. + +The origin of the wisdom that now seeks to shape and guide my life +through Beauty is, indeed, not Marion, but a power that stands behind +her, and through which, with which, the energy of her being acts. It +stood behind her while she lived. It stands behind not only her, but +equally behind all those peerless, exquisite manifestations of self-less +love that give bountifully of their best without hope or expectation of +reward in kind. No human love of this description, though it find no +object to receive it, nor one single flower that "wastes" its sweetness +on the desert air, but acknowledges this inexhaustible and spendthrift +source. Its evidence lies strewn so thick, so prodigally, about our +world, that not one among us, whatever his surroundings and conditions, +but sooner or later must encounter at least one marvellous instance of +its uplifting presence. Some at once acknowledge the exquisite flash and +are aware; others remain blind and deaf, till some experience, probably +of pain, shall have prepared and sensitized their receptive quality. To +all, however, one day, comes the magical appeal. As in my own case, +there was apparently some kind of preparation before I grew conscious of +that hunger for beauty which, awakening intuition, opened the heart to +truth and so to wisdom. It then came softly, delicately, whispering like +the dawn, yet rich with a promise I could, at first, not easily fathom, +though as sure of fulfilment as that promise of day that steals upon the +world when night is passing. + +I have tried to tell you something of this mystery. I cannot add to +that. I was lifted, as it were, towards some region or some state of +being, wherein I was momentarily aware of a vaster outlook upon life, of +a deeper insight into the troubles of my fellow-creatures, where, +indeed, there burst upon me a comprehension of life's pains and +difficulties so complete that I may best describe it as that full +understanding which involves also full forgiveness, and that sympathy +which is love, God's love. + +This exaltation passed, of course, with the passing of the thrill that +made it possible; it was truly instantaneous; a point of ecstasy, +perhaps, in some category not of time at all, but of some state of +consciousness that lifted me above, outside of, self. But it was real, +as a thunderstorm is real. For, with this glimpse of beauty that I call +the "thrill," I touched, for an instant so brief that it seemed timeless +in the sense of having no duration, a pinnacle of joy, of vision, beyond +anything attainable by desire or by. intellect alone. I stood aware of +power, wisdom, love; and more, this power, wisdom, love were mine to +draw upon and use, not in some future heaven, but here and now. + + + +VI + +I RETURNED to England with an expectant hunger born of this love of +beauty that was now ingrained in me. I came home with the belief that +my yearning would be satisfied in a deeper measure; and more--that, +somehow, it would be justified and explained. I may put it plainly, +if only to show how difficult this confession would have been to any +one but yourself; it sounds so visionary from a mere soldier and man +of action such as I am. For my belief included a singular dream that, +in the familiar scenes I now revisited, some link, already half +established, would be strengthened, and might probably be realized, +even proved. + +In Africa, as you know, I had been set upon the clue at home in +England. Among the places and conditions where this link had been +first established in the flesh, must surely come a fuller revelation. +Beauty, the channel of my inspiration, but this time the old sweet +English beauty, so intimate, so woven through with the fresh wonder +of earliest childhood days, would reveal the cause of my first +failure to respond, and so, perhaps, the intention of those final +pathetic sentences that still haunted me with their freight of +undelivered meaning. In England, T believed, my "thrill" must bring +authentic revelation. + +I came back, that precarious entity, a successful man. I was to be +that thing we used to laugh about together in your Cambridge days, a +distinguished personality; I should belong to the breed of little +lions. Yet, during the long, tedious voyage, I realized that this +held no meaning for me; I did not feel myself a little lion, the idea +only proved that the boy in me was not yet dead. My one desire, +though inarticulate until this moment of confessing it, was to renew +the thrills, and so to gather from an intenser, sweeter beauty some +measure of greater understanding they seemed to promise. It was a +personal hope, a personal desire; and, deep at the heart of it, +Memory, passionate though elusive, flashed her strange signal of a +personal love. In this dream that mocked at time, this yearning that +forgot the intervening years, I nursed the impossible illusion that, +somehow or other, I should become aware of Marion. + +Now, I have treated you in this letter as though you were a woman who +reads a novel, for in my first pages I have let you turn to the end +and see that the climax is a happy one, lest you should faint by the +way and close my story with a yawn. You need not do that, however, +since you already know this in advance. You will bear with me, too, +when I tell you that my return to England was in the nature of a +failure that, at first, involved sharpest disappointment. I was +unaware, as a whole, of the thrills I had anticipated with such +longing. The sweet picture of English loveliness I had cherished with +sentimental passion during my long exile hardly materialized. + +That I was not a lion, but an insignificant quasi-colonial adventurer +among many others, may have sprinkled acid upon my daily diet of +sensation, but you will do me the justice to believe that this +wounded vanity was the smallest item in my disenchantment. Ten years, +especially in primitive, godforsaken Africa, is a considerable +interval; I found the relationship between myself and my beloved +home-land changed, and in an unexpected way. + +I was not missed for one thing, I had been forgotten. Except from our +mother and yourself, I had no welcome. But, apart from this immediate +circle, and apart from the deep, comfortable glow experienced at the +first sight of the "old country," I found England and the English +dull, conventional, and uninspired. There was no poignancy. The +habits and the outlook stood precisely where I had left them. The +English had not moved. They played golf as of yore, they went to the +races at the appointed time and in the appointed garb, they gave +heavy dinner-parties, they wrote letters to the Times, and ignored an +outside world beyond their island. Their estimate of themselves and +of foreigners remained unaltered, their estimate of rich or +influential neighbours was what it always had been, there were many +more motor-cars and a few more peers, it was more difficult than +formerly to get into a good club; but otherwise, God bless them, they +were worthier than ever. The "dear old country," that which "out +there" we had loved and venerated, worked and fought for, was stolid +and unshaken; the stream of advancing life that elsewhere rushed, had +left England complaisantly unmoved and unresponsive. + +You have no idea how vividly--and in what curious minor details--the +general note of England strikes a traveller returning after an +interval of years. Later, of course, the single impression is +modified and obscured by other feelings. I give it, therefore, before +it was forgotten. England had not budged. Had it been winter instead +of early spring, I might sum up for you what I mean in one short +sentence: I travelled to London in a third-class railway carriage +that had no heating apparatus. + +But to all this, and with a touch of something akin to pride in me, I +speedily adjusted myself. I had been exiled, I had come home. As our +old nurse, aged and withered, but otherwise unaltered, said to me +quietly by way of greeting: "Well, they didn't kill you, Master +Richard!" I was, therefore, alive. It was for me, the unimportant +atom, to recover my place in the parent mass. I did so. I was +English. I recovered proportion. I wore the accustomed mask; I hid +both my person and my new emotions, as was obviously expected of me. +Having reported my insignificance to the Foreign Office.... I came +down to the Manor House. + +Yet, having changed, and knowing that I had changed, I was aware of a +cleft between me and my native stock. Something un-English was alive +in me and eager to assert itself. Another essence in my blood had +quickened, a secret yearning that I dared not mention to my kind, a +new hunger in my heart that clamoured to be satisfied, yet remained, +speaking generally, un-nourished. Looking for beauty among my +surroundings and among my kith and kin, I found it not; there was no +great Thrill from England or from home. The slowness, the absence of +colour, imagination, rhythm, baffled me, while the ugliness of common +things and common usages afflicted my new sensitiveness. Not that I +am peculiarly alert to beauty, nor claim superior perception--I am no +artist, either by virtue of vision or power of expression--but that a +certain stagnant obtuseness, a kind of sordid and conservative +veneration of the ugly that the English favour, distressed and even +tortured me in a way I had never realized formerly. They were so +proud to live without perception. An artist was a curiosity, not a +leader, far less a prophet. There was no imagination. + +In little things, as I said, a change was manifest, however. Much that +tradition had made lovely with the perfume of many centuries I found +modernized until the ancient spirit had entirely fled, leaving a +shell that was artificial to the point of being false. The sanction +of olden time that used to haunt with beauty was deceived by a mockery +I found almost hideous. The ancient inns, for instance, adapted to +week-end motor traffic, were pretentious and uncomfortable, their +"menus" of inferior food written elaborately in French. The +courtliness had vanished, and the cost had come. Telephones +everywhere not only destroyed privacy, but brought dismay into +countless gentle intimacies, their nuisance hardly justified by their +usefulness. Life, it seemed, in a frantic hurry, had been cheapened, +not improved; there was no real progress, but only more unrest. +England--too solid to go fast, had made ungainly efforts; but she had +moved towards ungraciousness where she had moved at all; I found her +a cross between a museum and an American mushroom town that +advertises all the modern comforts with a violent insistence that is +meant to cloak their very absence. + +This, my first impression, toned down, of course, a little later; but +it was my first impression. The people, however, even in the +countryside, seemed proud both of mushroom and museum, and commercial +ugliness, greedy and unashamed, now distorted every old-world +village. The natives were pleased to the point of vanity. + +For myself, I could not manage this atrocious compromise, and looking +for the dear old England of our boyhood days, I found it not. The +change, of course, was not in the country only, but in myself. The +soul in me, awakened to a new standard, had turned round to face +another way. + +The Manor House was very still when I arrived from London--& late May +evening between the sunset and the dark. Mother, as you know, met me +at the station, for they had stopped the down-train by special +orders, so that I stepped out upon the deserted platform of the +countryside quite alone, a distinguished man, with my rug and +umbrella. A strange footman touched his hat, an old, stooping porter +stared hard at me, then smiled vaguely, while the guard, eyeing +respectfully the individual for whom his train had halted, waved his +red flag, and swung himself into the disappearing van with the +approved manner we once thought marvellous. I left the empty +platform, gave up my ticket to an untidy boy, and crossed the gloomy +booking-hall. The mournfulness of the whole place was depressing. I +heard a blackbird whistle in a bush against the signal-box. It seemed +to scream. + +Mother I first saw, seated in the big barouche. She was leaning back, +but sat forwards as I came. She looked into my face across the wide +interval of years now ended, and my heart gave a great boyish leap, +then sank into stillness again abruptly. She seemed to me exactly +the same as usual--only so much smaller. We embraced with a kind of +dignity: + +"So here you are, my boy, at last," I heard her say in a quiet voice, +and as though she had seen me a month or two ago, "and very, very +tired, I'll be bound." + +I took my seat beside her. I felt awkward, stiff, self-conscious; +there was disappointment somewhere. + +"Oh, I'm all right, mother, thanks," I answered. "But how are you?" And +the next moment, it seemed to me, I heard her asking if I was +hungry;--whereupon, absurd as it must sound, I was aware of an immense +emotion that interfered with my breathing. It broke up through some +repressive layer that had apparently concealed it, and made me +feel--well, had I been thirty-five years younger, I could have +cried--for pleasure. Mother, I think, forgot those years perhaps. To her +I was still in overalls and wanted food. We drove, then, in comparative +silence the four miles behind the big pair of greys, the only remark +that memory credits me with being an enquiry about the identity of the +coachman whose dim outline I saw looming in the darkness just above me. +The lamplight showed one shoulder, one arm, one ear, the rest concealed; +but the way he drove was, of course, unmistakeable; slowly, more +cautiously, perhaps, but with the same flourish of the whip, the same +air of untold responsibility as ever. And, will you believe it, my chief +memory of all that scene of anticipated tenderness and home-emotion is +the few words he gave in reply to my enquiry and recognition when at +length the carriage stopped and I got out: + +"Well, Brown, I'm glad to see you again. All well at home, I hope?" +followed by something of sympathy about his beloved horses. + +He looked down sideways at me from the box, touching his cockade with +the long yellow whip in his thick, gloved hand. I can hear his warm, +respectful answer now; I can see the gleam of proud pleasure in his eye: + +"Yes, sir, thank you, Sir Richard, and glad to see you back again, sir, +and with such success upon you." + +I moved back to help our mother out. I remember thinking how calm, how +solid, how characteristically inarticulate it all was. Did I wish it +otherwise? I think not. Only there was something in me beating its wings +impatiently like a wild bird that felt the bars close round it.... +Mother, I realized, could not have said even what the old coachman had +said to save her life, and I remember wondering what would move her into +the expression of natural joy. All that half-hour, as the hoofs echoed +along the silence of the country road, and the old familiar woods and +fields slid past, no sign of deep emotion had escaped her. She had asked +if I was hungry.... + +And then the smells! The sweet, faint garden smell in the English +twilight:--of laurels and laurestinus, of lilac, pinks, and the heavy +scent of May, wall-flowers and sweet william too--these, with the +poignant aroma of the old childhood house, were the background of +familiar loveliness against which my subsequent disillusion of the +homeland set itself in such afflicting contrast. I remember, as we +entered the dim hall, the carriage lamps fell on, the flowering +horse-chestnut by the door; the bats were flitting; a big white moth +whirred softly against the brilliant glass as though you and I were +after it again with nets and killing-bottles... and, helping mother out, +I noticed, besides her smallness, how slow and aged her movements were. + +"Mother, let me help you. That's what I've come home for," I said, +feeling for her little hand. And she replied so quietly, so calmly it +was almost frigid, "Thank you, dear boy; your arm, perhaps--a moment. +They are so stupid about the lamps in the hall, I've had to speak so +often. There, now! It is an awkward step." I felt myself a giant beside +her. She seemed so tiny now. There was something very strong in her +silence and her calm; and though a portion of me liked it, another +portion resented it and felt afraid. Her attitude was like a refusal, a +denial, a refusal to live, a denial of life almost. A tinge of +depression, not far removed from melancholy, stole over my spirit. The +change in me, I realized then, indeed, was radical. + +Now, lest this narrative should seem confused, you must understand that +my disillusions with regard to England were realized subsequently, when +I had moved about the counties, paid many solid visits, and tasted the +land and people in some detail. And the disappointment was the keener +owing to the fact that very soon after my arrival in the old Home Place, +the "thrill" came to me with a direct appeal that was disconcerting. For +coming unexpectedly, as it did, in this familiar scene where yet +previously I had never known it, it had the effect of marking the change +in me with a certainty from which there was no withdrawal possible. It +standardized this change. The new judgment was made uncompromisingly +clear; people and places must inevitably stand or fall by it. And the +first to fall--since the test lies beyond all control of affection or +respect--was our own dear, faithful mother. + +You share my reverence and devotion, so you will feel no pain that I +would dishonour a tie that is sacred to us both in the old Bible sense. +But, also, you know what a sturdy and typical soul of England she has +proved herself, and that a sense of beauty is not, alas, by any stretch +of kindliest allowance, a national characteristic. Culture and knowledge +we may fairly claim, no doubt, but the imaginative sense of beauty is o +rare among us that its possession is a peculiarity good form would +suppress. It is a pose, an affectation, it is unmanly--it is not +English. We are too strong to thrill. And that one so near and dear to +me, so honoured and so deeply loved, should prove herself to my new +standard thus typically English, while it came as sharpest pain, ought +not, I suppose, to have caused me the surprise it did. It made me aware, +however, of the importance of my new criterion, while at the same time +aware of a lack of sympathy between us that amounted to disenchantment. +It was a shock, to put it plainly. A breath of solitude, of isolation, +stole on me and, close behind it, melancholy. + +From the smallest clue imaginable the truth came into me, from a clue so +small, indeed, that you may smile to think I dared draw such big +deductions from premises so insignificant. You will probably deny me a +sense of humour even when you hear. So let me say at once, before you +judge me hastily, that the words, and the incident which drew them +forth, were admittedly inadequate to the deduction. Only, mark this, +please--I drew no deduction. Reason played no part. Cause and effect +were unrelated. It was simply that the truth flashed into me. I knew. + +What did I know? Perhaps that the gulf between us lay as wide as that +between the earth and Sirius; perhaps that we were, individually, of a +kind so separate, so different, that mutual understanding was +impossible; perhaps that while she was of To-day and proud of it, I was +of another time, another century, and proud of that. I cannot say +precisely. Her words, while they increased my sense of isolation, of +solitude, of melancholy, at the same time also made me laugh, as +assuredly they will now make you laugh. + +For, while she was behind me in the morning-room, fingering some letters +on the table, I stood six feet away beside the open window, listening to +the nightingales--the English nightingales--that sang across the quiet +garden in the dusk. The high-pitched clamour of the jungle choruses with +their monstrous turmoil, their prolific detail, came back to me in +startling contrast. This exquisite and delicious sound I now heard +belonged still to England. And it had not changed. "No hungry +generations tread thee down..." rose in some forgotten corner of my +mind, and my yearning that would be satisfied moved forth to catch the +notes. + +"Listen, mother," I said, turning towards her. + +She raised her head and smiled a little before reading the rest of the +letter that she held. + +"I only pray they won't keep you awake, dear boy," she answered gently. +"They give us very little peace, I'm afraid, just now." + +Perhaps she caught some expression in my face, for she added a trifle +more quickly: "That's the worst of the spring--our English spring--it +is so noisy!" Still smiling, she picked up her letter again, while I, +though still listening by the window, heard only the harsh scream and +rattle of the jungle voices, thousands and thousands of miles away +across the world. + + + +VII + +IT was some little time after my arrival, as I shall presently relate, +that the experience I call the thrill came to me in England--and, +like all its predecessors, came through Nature. It came, that is, +through the only apparatus I possessed as yet that could respond. + +The point, I think, is of special interest; I note it now, on looking +back upon the series as a whole, though at the time I did not note +it. + +For, compared with yourself at any rate, the aesthetic side of me is +somewhat raw; of pictures, sculpture, music I am untaught and +ignorant; with other Philistines, I "know what I like," but nothing +more. It is the honest but uncultured point of view. I am that +primitive thing, the mere male animal. It was my love of Nature, +therefore, that showed me beauty, since this was the only apparatus +in my temperament able to respond. Natural, simple things, as before, +were the channel through which beauty appealed to that latent store +of love and wisdom in me which, it almost seemed, were being slowly +educated. + +The talks and intimacies with our mother, then, were largely over; the +re-knitting of an interrupted relationship was fairly accomplished; +she had asked her questions, and listened to my answers. All the +dropped threads had been picked up again, so that a pattern, similar +to the one laid aside, now lay spread more or less comfortably before +us. Outwardly, things seemed much as they were when I left home so +many years ago. One might have thought the interval had been one of +months, since her attitude refused to recognize all change, and +change, and growth, was abhorrent to her type. For whereas I had +altered, she had remained unmoved. + +So unsatisfying was this state of things to me, however, that I felt +unable to confide my deepest, as now I can do easily to you--so that +during these few days of intercourse renewed, we had said, it seemed, +all that was to be said with regard to the past. My health was most +lovingly discussed, and then my immediate and remoter future. I was +aware of this point of view--that I was, of course, her own dear son, +but that I was also England's son. She was intensely patriotic in the +insular sense; my soul, I mean, belonged to the British Empire rather +than to humanity and the world at large. Doubtless, a very right and +natural way to look at things.... She expressed a real desire to "see +your photographs, my boy, of those outlandish places where they sent +you"; then, having asked certain questions about the few women +(officers' wives and so forth) who appeared in some of them, she +leaned back in her chair, and gave me her very definite hopes about +"my value to the country," my "duty to the family traditions," even +to the point, finally, of suggesting Parliament, in what she termed +with a certain touch of pride and dignity, "the true Conservative +interest." + +"Men like yourself, Richard, are sorely needed now," she added, +looking at me with a restrained admiration; "I am sure the Party +would nominate you for this Constituency that your father and your +grandfather both represented before you. At any rate, they shall not +put you on the shelf!" + +And before I went to bed--it was my second or third night, I +think--she had let me see plainly another hope that was equally dear +to her: that I should marry again. There was an ominous reference to +my "ample means," a hint of regret that, since you were unavailable, +and Eva dead, our branch of the family could not continue to improve +the eastern counties and the world. At the back of her mind, indeed, I +think there hovered definite names, for a garden party in my honour +was suggested for the following week, to which the Chairman of the +Local Conservatives would come, and where various desirable +neighbours would be only too proud to make my acquaintance and press +my colonial and distinguished fingers. + +In the interval between my arrival and the "experience" I shall +presently describe, I had meanwhile renewed my acquaintance with the +countryside. The emotions, however, I anticipated, had even cherished +and eagerly looked forward to, had not materialized. There was a +chill of disappointment over me. For the beauty I had longed for +seemed here so thickly veiled; and more than once I surprised in my +heart a certain regret that I had come home at all. I caught myself +thinking of that immense and trackless country I had left; I even +craved it sometimes, both physically and mentally, as though, for all +its luscious grossness, it held something that nourished and +stimulated, something large, free and untamed that was lacking in this +orderly land, so neatly fenced and parcelled out at home. + +The imagined richness of my return, at any rate, was unfulfilled; the +tie with our mother, though deep, was uninspiring; while that other +more subtle and intangible link I had fondly dreamed might be +strengthened, if not wholly proved, was met with a flat denial that +seemed to classify it as nonexistent. Hope, in this particular +connection, returned upon me, blank and unrewarded.... The familiar +scenes woke no hint of pain, much less of questing sweetness. The +glamour of association did not operate. No personal link was +strengthened. + +And, when I visited the garden we had known together, the shady path +beneath the larches; saw, indeed, the very chairs that she and I had +used, the framed portrait in the morning-room, the harp itself, now +set with its limp and broken strings in my own chamber--I was unaware +of any ghostly thrill; least of all could I feel that "somebody was +pleased." + +Excursion farther afield deepened the disenchantment. The gorse was +out upon the Common, that Common where we played as boys, thinking it +vast and wonderful with the promise of high adventure behind every +prickly clump. The vastness, of course, was gone, but the power of +suggestion had gone likewise. It was merely a Common that deserved +its name. For though this was but the close of May, I found it worn +into threadbare patches, with edges unravelled like those of some old +carpet in a seaside lodging-house. The lanes that fed it were already +thick with dust as in thirsty August, and instead of eglantine, +wild-roses, and the rest, a smell of petrol hung upon hedges that +were quite lustreless. On the crest of the hill, whence we once +thought the view included heaven, I stood by those beaten pines we +named The Fort, counting jagged bits of glass and scraps of faded +newspaper that marred the bright green of the sprouting bracken. + +This glorious spot, once sacred to our dreams, was like a great +backyard--the Backyard of the County--while the view we loved as the +birthplace of all possible adventure, seemed to me now without +spaciousness or distinction. The trees and hedges cramped the little +fields and broke their rhythm. No great winds ever swept them clean. +The landscape was confused: there was no adventure in it, suggestion +least of all. Everything had already happened there. + +And on my way home, resentful perhaps yet eager still, I did a +dreadful thing. Possibly I hoped still for that divine sensation +which refused to come. I visited the very field, the very poplar ... +I found the scene quite unchanged, but found it also--lifeless. The +glamour of association did not operate. I knew no poignancy, desire +lay inert. The thrill held stubbornly aloof. No link was +strengthened.... I came home slowly, thinking instead of my mother's +plans and wishes for me, and of the clear intention to incorporate me +in the stolid and conventional formulas of what appeared to me as +uninspired English dullness. My disappointment crystallized into +something like revolt. A faint hostility even rose in me as we sat +together, talking of politics, of the London news just come to hand, +of the neighbours, of the weather too. I was conscious of opposition +to her stereotyped plans, and of resentment towards the lack of +understanding in her. I would shake free and follow beauty. The +yearning, for want of sympathy, and the hunger, for lack of +sustenance, grew very strong and urgent in me. + +I longed passionately just then for beauty--and for that revelation of +it which included somewhere the personal emotion of a strangely eager +love. + + + +VIII + +THIS, then, was somewhat my state of mind, when, after our late tea on +the verandah, I strolled out on to the lawn to enjoy my pipe in the +quiet of the garden paths. I felt dissatisfied and disappointed, yet +knew not entirely perhaps, the reason. I wished to be alone, but was +hungry for companionship as well. Mother saw me go and watched +attentively, but said no word, merely following me a moment with her +eyes above the edge of the Times she read, as of old, during the hours +between tea and dinner. The Spectator, her worldly Bible, lay ready to +her hand when the Times should have been finished. They were, +respectively, as always, her dictionary of opinion, and her +medicine-chest. Before I had gone a dozen yards, her head disappeared +behind the printed sheet again. The roses flowed between us. + +I felt her following glance, as I felt also its withdrawal. Then I +forgot her.... A touch of melancholy stole on me, as the garden took me +in its charge. For a garden is a ghostly place, and an old-world garden, +above all, leads thought backwards among vanished memories rather than +forward among constructive hopes and joys. + +I yielded, in any case, a little to this subtle pressure from the past, +and I must have strolled among the lilac and laburnums for a longer time +than I knew, since the gardener who had been trimming the flower-beds +with a hand lawn-mower was gone, and dusk already veiled the cedars, +when I found myself leaning against the wooden gate that opened into the +less formal part beyond the larches. + +The house was not visible from where I stood. I smelt the May, the +lilac, the heavy perfume everywhere of the opening year; it rose about +me in waves, as though full-bosomed summer lay breathing her great +promises close at hand, while spring, still lingering, with bright eyes +of dew,' watched over her. Then, suddenly, behind these richer scents, I +caught a sweeter, wilder tang than anything they contained, and turning, +saw that the pines were closer than I knew. A waft of something purer, +fresher, reached my nostrils on a little noiseless wind, as, leaning +across the gate, I turned my back upon the cultivated grounds and gazed +into a region of more natural, tangled growth. + +The change was sudden. It was exquisite, sharp and unexpected, too, as +with a little touch of wonder. There was surprise in it. For the garden, +you will remember, melts here insensibly into a stretch of scattered +pines, where heather and bracken cover wide reaches of unreclaimed and +useless land. Irregular trails of whitish sand gleamed faintly before +the shadows swallowed them, and in the open patches I saw young +silver-birches that made me think of running children arrested in +mid-play. They stood outlined very tenderly against the sky; their +slender forms still quivered; their feathery hair fell earthwards as +they drew themselves together, bending their wayward little heads before +the approaching night. Behind them, framed by the darker pines into a +glowing frieze, the west still burned with the last fires of the sunset; +I could see the heather, rising and falling like a tumbled sea against +the horizon, where the dim heave of distant moorland broke the +afterglow. + +And the dusk now held this region in its magic. So strange, indeed, was +the contrast between the ebony shadows and the pools and streaks of +amberish light, that I looked about me for a moment, almost sharply. +There was a touch of the unearthly in this loveliness that bewildered +sight a little. Extraordinarily still the world was, yet there seemed +activity close upon my footsteps, an activity more than of inanimate +Nature, yet less than of human beings. With solidarity it had nothing to +do, though it sought material expression. It was very near. And I was +startled, I recognized the narrow frontier between fear and wonder. And +then I crossed it. + +For something stopped me dead. I paused and stared. My heart began to +beat more rapidly. Then, ashamed of my moment's hesitation, I was about +to move forward through the gate, when again I halted. I listened, and +caught my breath. I fancied the stillness became articulate, the shadows +stirred, the silence was about to break. + +I remember trying to think; I wanted to relieve the singular tension by +finding words, if only inner words,--when, out of the stillness, out of +the silence, out of the shadows--something happened. Some faculty of +judgment, some attitude in which I normally clothed myself, were +abruptly stripped away. I was left bare and sensitive. I could almost +have believed that my body had dropped aside, that I stood there naked, +unprotected, a form-less spirit, stirred and lifted by the passing +breeze. + +And then it came. As with a sword-thrust of blinding sweetness, I was +laid open. Yet so instant, and of such swiftness, was the stroke, that I +can only describe it by saying that, while pierced and wounded, I was +also healed again. + +Without hint or warning, Beauty swept me with a pain and happiness well +nigh intolerable. It drenched me and was gone. No lightning flash could +have equalled the swiftness of its amazing passage; something tore in +me; the emotion was enveloping but very tender; it was both terrible yet +dear. Would to God I might crystallize it for you in those few mighty +words which should waken in yourself--in every one!--the wonder and the +joy. It contained, I felt, both the worship that belongs to awe and the +tenderness of infinite love which welcomes tears. Some power that was +not of this world, yet that used the details of this world to manifest, +had visited me. + +No element of surprise lay in it even. It was too swift for anything but +joy, which of all emotions is the most instantaneous: I had been empty, +I was filled. Beauty that bathes the stars and drowns the very universe +had stolen out of this wild morsel of wasted and uncared-for English +garden, and dropped its transforming magic into--me. At the very moment, +moreover, when I had been ready to deny it altogether. I saw my +insignificance, yet, such was the splendour it had wakened in me, knew +my right as well. It could be ever thus; some attitude in myself alone +prevented.... + +And--somebody was pleased. + +This personal ingredient lay secure in the joy that assuredly remained +when the first brief intolerable ecstasy had passed. The link I desired +to recognize was proved, not merely strengthened. Beauty had cleft me +open, and a message, if you will, had been delivered. This personal hint +persisted; I was almost aware of conscious and intelligent direction. +For to you I will make the incredible confession, that I dare phrase the +experience in another fashion, equally true: In that flashing instant I +stood naked and shelterless to the gaze of some one who had looked upon +me. I was aware of sight; of eyes in which "burning memory lights love +home." These eyes, this sight had gazed at me, then turned away. For in +that blinding sweetness there was light, as with the immediate +withdrawal again there was instant darkness. I was first visible, then +concealed. I was clothed again and covered. + +And the thick darkness that followed made it appear as though night, in +one brief second, had taken the place of dusk. + +Trembling, I leaned across the wooden gate and waited while the darkness +settled closer. I can swear, moreover, that it was neither dream, nor +hope, nor any hungry fantasy in me that then recognized a further +marvel--I was no longer now alone. + +A presence faced me, standing breast-high in the bracken. The garden had +been empty; somebody now walked there with me. + +It was, as I mentioned, the still hour between the twilight and the +long, cool dark of early summer. The little breeze passed whispering +through the pines. I smelt the pungent perfume of dry heather, sand, and +bracken. The horizon, low down between the trunks, shone gold and +crimson still, but fading rapidly. I stood there for a long time +trembling; I was a part of it; I felt that I was shining, as though my +inner joy irradiated the world about me. Nothing in all my life has been +so real, so positive. I was assuredly not alone.... + +The first sharp magic, the flash that pierced and burned, had gone its +way, but Beauty still stood so perilously near, so personal, that any +moment, I felt, it must take tangible form, betray itself in visible +movement of some sort, break possibly into audible sound of actual +speech. It would not have surprised me--more, it would have been natural +almost--had I felt a touch upon my hands and lips, or caught the murmur +of spoken words against my ear. + +Yet from such direct revelation I shrank involuntarily and by instinct. +I could not have borne it then. I had the feeling that it must mar and +defile a wonder already great enough; there would have lain in it, too, +a betrayal of the commonplace, as of something which I could not +possibly hold for true. I must have distrusted my own senses even, for +the beauty that cleft me open dealt directly with the soul alone, +leaving the senses wholly disengaged. The Presence was not answerable to +any lesser recognition. + +Thus I shrank and turned away, facing the familiar garden and the "wet +bird-haunted English lawn," a spiritual tenderness in me still dreading +that I might see or hear or feel, destroying thus the reality of my +experience. Yet there was, thank God, no speech, no touch, no movement, +other than the shiver of the birches, the breath of air against my +cheek, the droop and bending of the nearer pine boughs. There was no +audible or visible expression; I saw no figure breast-high in the +bracken. Yet sound there was, a moment later. For, as I turned away, a +bird upon a larch twig overhead burst into sudden and exultant song. + + + +IX + +NOW, do not be alarmed lest I shall attempt to describe a list of +fanciful unrealities that borrowed life from a passing emotion +merely; the emotion was permanent, the results enduring. Please +believe the honest statement that, with the singing of that bird, the +pent-up stress in me became measurably articulate. Some bird in my +heart, long caged, rang out in answering inner song. + +It is also true, I think, that there were no words in me at the +moment, and certainly no desire for speech. Had a companion been with +me, I should probably have merely lit my pipe and smoked in silence; +if I spoke at all, I should have made some commonplace remark: "It's +late; we must be going in to dress for dinner...." As it was, +however, the emotion in me, answering the singing of the bird, became, +as I said, measurably articulate. I give you simple facts, as though +this were my monthly Report to the Foreign Office in days gone by. I +spoke no word aloud, of course. It was rather that my feelings found +utterance in the rapturous song I listened to, and that my thoughts +knew this relief of vicarious expression, though of inner and +inaudible expression. The beauty of scene and moment were adequately +recorded, and for ever in that song. They were now part of me. + +Unaware of its perfect mission the bird sang, of course because it +could not help itself; perhaps some mating thrush, perhaps a common +blackbird only; I cannot say; I only realized that no human voice, no +human music, even of the most elaborate and inspired kind, could have +made this beauty, similarly articulate. And, for a moment I knew my +former pain that I could not share this joy, this beauty, with others +of my kind, that, except for myself, the loveliness seemed lost and +wasted. There was no spectator, no other listener; the sweet spring +night was lavish for no audience; the revelation had been repeated, +would be repeated, a thousand thousand times without recognition and +without reward. + +Then, as I listened, memory, it seemed, took yearning by the hand, and +led me towards that inner utterance I have mentioned. There was no +voice, least of all that inner voice you surely have anticipated. But +there was utterance, as though my whole being combined with nature in +its birth. + +Into the mould of familiar sentences of long ago it ran, yet nearer at +last to full disclosure, because the pregnant sentences had altered: + +"I need your forgiveness born of love..." passed through me with the +singing of the bird. + +I listened with the closest inner attention I have ever known. I +paused. My heart brimmed with an expectant wonder that was happiness. +And the happiness was justified. For the familiar sentence halted +before its first sorrowful completion; the poignant close remained +unuttered--because it was no longer true. + +Out of deep love in me, new-born, that held the promise of fulfilment, +the utterance concluded: + +"... I have found a better way...." + +Before I could think or question, and almost as though a whisper of +the wind went past, there rose in me at once this answering +recognition. It seemed authentically convincing; it was glorious; it +was full of joy: + +"That beauty which was Marion lives on, and lives for me." + +It was as though a blaze of light shone through me; somewhere in my +body there were tears of welcome; for this recognition was to me +reunion. + +It must seem astonishing for me, a mere soldier and Colonial Governor, +to confess you that I stood there listening to the song for a long +interval of what I can only term, with utmost sincerity, communion. +Beauty and love both visited me; I believe that truth and wisdom +entered softly with them. As I wrote above, I saw my own +insignificance, yet, such was the splendour in me, I knew my right as +well. It could be ever thus. My attitude alone prevented. I was not +excluded, not cut off. This Beauty lay ready to my hand, always +available, for ever, now. It was not unharvested. But more--it could +be shared with others; it was become a portion of myself, and that +which is part of my being must, inevitably and automatically, be given +out. + +It was, thus, nowhere wasted or unharvested; it offered with prodigal +opportunity a vehicle for that inspiration which is love, and being +love of purest kind, is surely wisdom too. The dead, indeed, do not +return, yet they are active, and those who lived beauty in their +lives are still, through that beauty, benevolently active. + +I will give you now the change instantaneously produced in me: + +There rose in me another, deeper point of view that dispelled as by +magic the disenchantment that had chilled these first days of my +return. I stood here in this old-world garden, but I stood also in +the heart of that beauty, so carefully hidden, so craftily screened +behind the obvious, that strong and virile beauty which is England. +Within call of my voice, still studying by lamplight now the symbols +of her well-established strength, burning, moreover, with the steady +faith which does not easily break across restraint, and loving the +man as she had loved the little boy, sat one, not wondering perhaps +at my unspoken misunderstanding, yet hoping, patiently and in +silence, for its removal in due time. In the house of our boyhood, of +our earliest play and quarrels, unchanged and unchangeable, knowing +simply that I had "come home again to her," our mother waited.... + +I need not elaborate this for you, you for whom England and our mother +win almost a single, undivided love. I had misjudged, but the cause +of my misjudgment was thus suddenly removed. A subtler understanding +insight, a sympathy born of deeper love, something of greater wisdom, +in a word, awoke in me. The thrill had worked its magic as of old, +but this time in its slower English fashion, deep, and +characteristically sure. To my country (that is, to my first +experience of impersonal love) and to my mother (that is, to my +earliest acquaintance with personal love) I had been ready, in my +impatience, to credit an injustice. Unknown to me, thus, there had +been need of guidance, of assistance. Beauty, having cleared the way, +had worked upon me its amazing alchemy. + +There, in fewest possible words, is what had happened. + +I remember that for a long time, then, I waited in the hush of my +childhood's garden, listening, as it were, with every pore, and +conscious that some one who was pleased interpreted the beauty to my +soul. It seemed, as I said, a message of a personal kind. It was +regenerative, moveover, in so far that life was enlarged and lifted +upon a nobler scale; new sources of power were open to me; I saw a +better way. Irresistibly it came to me again that beauty, far from +being wasted, was purposive, that this purpose was of a redeeming +kind, and that some one who was pleased co-operated with it for my +personal benefit. No figure, thank God, was visible, no voice was +audible, but a presence there indubitably was, and, whether I +responded or otherwise, would be always there. + +And the power was such that I felt as though the desire of the planet +itself yearned through it for expression. + + + +X + +I WATCHED the little bird against the paling sky, and my thoughts, +following the happy singing, went slowly backwards into the +half-forgotten past.... They led me again through the maze of +gorgeous and mysterious hopes, un-remembered now so many years, that +had marked my childhood. Few of these, if any, it seemed, had known +fulfilment.... I stole back with them, past the long exile in great +Africa, into the region of my youth and early boyhood.... + +And, as though a hand uncovered it deliberately, I recalled an +earliest dream--strangest, perhaps, of all the mysterious dreams of +that far time. It had, I thought, remained unrealized, as, certainly, +till this moment, it had lain forgotten--a boyish dream that behind +the veils of the Future some one waited for me with the patience of a +perfect love that was my due. + +The dream reached forward towards some one who must one day appear, +and whose coming would make life sweet and wonderful, fulfilling, +even explaining, the purpose of my being. This dream which I had +thought peculiarly my own, belongs, I learned later, to many, if not +to the race in general, and, with a smile at my own incurable vanity +(and probably a grimace at being neatly duped), I had laid it on one +side. At any rate, I forgot it, for nothing happened to keep it +active, much less revive it. + +Now, however, looking backwards, and listening to the singing in the +sky, I recalled what almost seemed to have been its attempt at +realization. Having recovered its earliest appearance, my thought +next leaped forward to the moment that might possibly have been its +reappearance. For memory bore me off without an effort on my part, +and set me abruptly within a room of the house I had come home to, +where Marion sat beside me, singing to the harp she loved. The scene +rose up before me as of yesterday... the emotions themselves +reconstituted. I recalled the deep, half-sad desire to be worthy of +her, to persuade myself I loved as she did, even the curious impulse +to acknowledge an emotion that came and went before it could be +wholly realized--the feeling, namely, that I ought to love her +because--no more, no less is the truth--because she needed it: and +then the blank dismay that followed my failure, as with a kind of +shameful horror before a great purpose that my emptiness left +unfulfilled. + +The very song came back that moved me more than any else she +sang--her favourite it was as well. I heard the twanging of the +strings her fingers plucked. I heard the words: + + "About the little chambers of my heart + Friends have been coming--going--many a year. + The doors stand open there. + Some, lightly stepping, enter; some depart. + Freely they come and go, at will. + The walls give back their laughter; all day long + They fill the house with song. + One door alone is shut, one chamber still." + +With each repetition of the song, I remembered, how at that time my +boyhood's dream came back to me, as though its fulfilment were at +last at hand; as though, somehow, that "door" must open, that "still +chamber" welcome the sweetness and the loveliness of her who sang. +For I could not listen to the music, nor watch her fingers moving +down the strings, her slender wrist and rounded arm, her foot upon the +pedal as she held the instrument so close--without this poignant +yearning that proved ever vain, or this shame of unshed tears my +heart mysteriously acknowledged. To the end, as you know, that door +remained unopened, that chamber still. + +It was the singing of this sweet English bird, making articulate for +me the beauty I could not utter, that brought back to memory the +scene, the music, and the words.... + +I looked round me; I looked up. As I did so, the little creature, with +one last burst of passionate happiness, flew away into the darkness. +And silence followed, so deep that I could hear the murmur of my +blood... an exquisite joy ran through me, making me quiver with +expectancy from head to foot.... + +And it was then suddenly I became aware that the long-closed door at +last was open, the still chamber occupied. Some one who was pleased, +stretching a hand across the silence and the beauty, drew me within +that chamber of the heart, so that I passed behind the door that was +now a veil, and now a mist, and now a shining blaze of light... +passed into a remote and inner stillness where that direct communion +which is wordless can alone take place. + +It was, I verily believe, a stillness of the spirit. At the centre of +the tempest, of the whirlpool, of the heart's commotion, there is +peace. I stood close against that source of our life which lies hid +with beauty very far away, and yet so near that it is enclosed in +every hope, in every yearning, and in every tear. For the whisper came +to me, beyond all telling sure. + +Beauty had touched me, Wisdom come to birth; and Love, whispering +through the silence those marvellous words that sum up all spiritual +experience, proved it to me: + +"Be still--and know...." + +I found myself moving slowly across the lawn again towards the house. I +presently heard the wind mousing softly in the limes. The air was fresh +and cool. The first stars were out. I saw the laburnum drooping, as +though thick clusters of these very stars had drifted earthwards among +the branches; I saw the gleam of the lilac; across the dim tangle of the +early roses shone the familiar windows, cosy now with the glow of +lighted lamps... and I became suddenly, in a very intimate sense, +"aware" of the garden. The Presence that walked beside me moved abruptly +closer. This Presence and the garden seemed, as in some divine +mysterious way, inseparable. + +There was a stirring of the dimmest and most primitive associations +possible. Memory plunged back among ancestral, even racial, shadows. I +recalled the sweet and tender legend of the beginnings of the world, +when something divine, it was whispered, was intimate with man, and +companioning his earliest innocence, walked with him in that happier +state those childlike poets called--a garden. That childhood of the +world seemed very near. + +I found again the conditions of innocence and pristine wonder--of +simplicity. There was a garden in my heart, and some one walked with me +therein. For Life in its simplest form--of breathing leaves and growing +flowers, of trees and plants and shrubs--glowed all about me in the +darkness. The blades of grass, the blossoms hanging in the air, strong +stems and hidden roots, fulfilled themselves with patience upon every +side, brimming with beauty and stillness did not seek to advertise. And +of this simplest form of life--the vegetable kingdom--I became vividly +aware, prodigal, mysterious, yet purposive. The outer garden merged with +the inner, and the Presence walked in both of them.... + +I was led backwards, far down into my own being. I reached the earliest, +simplest functions by which I myself had come to be, the state where the +frontier lies between that which is dead and that which is alive. +Somewhere between the mineral and vegetable worlds, I knew, that +frontier lay. For the vegetable kingdom alone possesses the power of +converting the mineral or the chemical into the living organism by +absorption; and here, among the leaves and roots and flowers, that power +was sweetly, irresistibly, at work. + +It seemed I reached that frontier, and I passed it. Beauty came through +the most primitive aspect of my being. + +And so I would tell you, you alone of all the world, that the Presence +walking beside me in the scented darkness came suddenly so close that I +was aware of it in what seemed my earliest and most innocent state of +soul. + +Beside me, in that old-world garden, walked the Cause of all things. The +Beauty that in you was truth, in Marion tenderness, was harvested: and +somebody was pleased. + + + +XI + +ALL this I have told to you because we have known together the closest +intimacy possible to human beings--we have shared beauty. + +They said, these many days ago, that you had gone away, that you were +dead. The wind on the Downs, your favourite Downs, your favourite +southwest wind, received your dust, scattering it like pollen into +space. No sign has come to me, no other sign than this I tell you now +in my long letter. It is enough. I know. + +There were thus two loves, one unrecognized till afterwards, the other +realized at the time.... In the body there was promise. There is now +accomplishment. + +It is very strange, and yet so simple. Beauty, I suppose, opens the +heart, extends the consciousness. It is a platitude, of course. You +will laugh when I tell you that afterwards I tried to reason it all +out. I am not apparently intellectual. The books I read would fill +your empty room--on aesthetics, art, and what not. I got no result +from any of them, but rather a state of muddle that was, no doubt, +congestion. None of the theories and explanations touched the root of +the matter. I am evidently not "an artist"--that at any rate I +gathered, and yet these learned people seemed to write about +something they had never "lived." I could almost believe that the +writers of these subtle analyses have never themselves felt +beauty--the burn, the rapture, the regenerating fire. They have +known, perhaps, a reaction of the physical nerves, but never this +light within the soul that lifts the horizons of the consciousness and +makes one know that God exists, that death is not even separation, +and that eternity is now. + +Metaphysics I studied too. I fooled myself, thirty years after the +proper time for doing so, over the old problem whether beauty lies in +the object seen or in the mind that sees the object. And in the end I +came back hungrily to my simple starting-point--that beauty moved me. +It opened my heart to one of its many aspects--truth, wisdom, joy, +and love--and what else, in the name of heaven, mattered! + +I sold the books at miserable prices that made Mother question my +judgment: coloured plates, costly bindings, rare editions, and all. +Aesthetics, Art, rules and principles might go hang for all I cared +or any good they did me. It was intellect that had devised all these. +The truth was simpler far. I cared nothing for these scholarly +explanations of beauty's genesis and laws of working, because I felt +it. Hunger needs no analysis, does it? Nor does Love. Could anything +be more stultifying? Give to the first craving a lump of bread, and +to the second a tangible man or woman--and let those who have the +time analyse both cravings at their leisure. + +For the thrill I mean is never physical, and has nothing in common +with that acute sensation experienced when the acrobat is seen to +miss the rope in mid-air as he swings from bar to bar. There is no +shock in it, for shock is of the nerves, arresting life; the thrill I +speak of intensifies and sets it rising in a wave that flows. It is of +the spirit. It wounds, yet marvellously. It is unearthly. Therein, I +think, lies its essential quality; by chance, as it were, in writing +this intimate confession, I have hit upon the very word: it is +unearthly, it contains surprise. Yes, Beauty wounds marvellously, +then follows the new birth, regeneration. There is a ravishment of +the entire being into light and knowledge. + +The element of surprise is certainly characteristic. The thrill comes +unheralded--a sudden uprush of convincing joy loosed from some store +that is inexhaustible. Unlike the effect of a nervous shock which can +be lived over and reconstituted, it knows no repetition; its climax +is instantaneous, there is neither increase nor declension; it is +unrecoverable; it strikes and is gone. Breaking across the +phantasmagoria of appearances, it comes as a flash of reality, a +lightning recognition of something that cannot be travestied. It is +not in time. It is eternity. + +I suspect you know it now with me; in fact I am certain that you +do.... + +I remember how, many years ago--in that delightful period between +boyhood and manhood when we felt our wings and argued about the +universe--we discovered this unearthly quality in three different +things: the song of a bird, the eyes of a child, and a wild-flower +come upon unexpectedly in a scene of desolation. For in all three, we +agreed, shines that wonder which holds adoration, that joy which is +spontaneous and uncalculated, and that surprise which pertains to +Eternity looking out triumphantly upon ephemeral things. + +So, at least, in our youthful eagerness, we agreed; and to this day +one in particular of the three--a bird's song--always makes me think +of God. That divine, ecstatic, simple sound is to me ever both +surprising and unearthly. Each time it takes me by surprise--that +people do not hush their talk to kneel and listen.... And of the eyes +of little children--if there is any clearer revelation granted to us +of what is unearthly in the sense of divinity brought close, I do not +know it. Each time my spirit is arrested by surprise, then filled +with wondering joy as I meet that strange open look, so stainless, +accepting the universe as its rightful toy, and, as with the bird and +flower, saying Yes to life as though there could not possibly exist a +No. + +The wildflower too: you recall once--it was above Igls when the +Tyrolean snows were melting--how we found a sudden gentian on the +dead, pale grass? The sliding snows had left the coarse tufts stroked +all one way, white and ugly, thickly streaked with mud, no single +blade with any sign of life or greenness yet, when we came upon that +star of concentrated beauty, more blue than the blue sky overhead, the +whole passion of the earth in each pointed petal. A distant +avalanche, as though the hills were settling, the bustle of the +torrent, the wind in the pines and larches, only marked by contrast +the incredible stillness of the heights--then, suddenly, this star of +blue blazing among the desolation. I recall your cry and my +own--wonder, joy, as of something unearthly--that took us by +surprise. + +In these three, certainly, lay the authentic thrill I speak of; while +it lasts, the actual moment seems but a pedestal from which the eyes +of the heart look into Heaven, a pedestal from which the soul leaps +out into the surrounding garden of limitless possibilities which are +its birthright, and immediately accessible. And that, indeed, is the +essential meaning of the thrill--that Heaven is here and now. The +gates of ivory are very tiny; Beauty sounds the elfin horns that +opens them; smaller than the eye of a needle is that opening--upon +the diamond point of the thrill you flash within, and the Garden of +Eternity is yours for ever--now. + +I am writing this to you, because I know you listen with your heart, +not with your nerves; and the garden that I write about you know now +better than I do myself. I have but tasted it, you dwell therein, +unaged, unageing. And so we share the flowers; we know the light, the +fragrance and the birds we know together.... They tell me--even our +mother says it sometimes with a sigh--that you are far away, not +understanding that we have but recovered the garden of our early +childhood, you permanently, I whenever the thrill opens the happy +gates. You are as near to me as that. Our love was forged inside +those ivory gates that guard that childhood state, facing four ways, +and if I wandered outside a-while, puzzled and lonely, the thrill of +beauty has led me back again, and I, have found your love unchanged, +unaged, still growing in the garden of our earliest memories. I did +but lose my way for a time.... + +That childhood state must be amazingly close to God, I suppose, for +though no child is consciously aware of beauty, its whole being cries +Yes to the universe and life as naturally and instinctively as a +flower turns to the sun. The universe lies in its overall pocket of +alpaca, and beauty only becomes a thing apart when the growing +consciousness, hearing the world cry No, steps through the gates to +enquire and cannot find the entrance any more. Beauty then becomes a +signpost showing the way home again. Baudelaire, of course, meant God +and Heaven, instead of "genius" when he said, "Le genie n'est que +l'enfance retrouvee a volonte...." + +And so when I write to you, I find myself again within the garden of +our childhood, that English garden where our love shared all the +light and fragrance and flowers of the world together. "Time's but a +golden wind that shakes the grass," and since my thought is with you, +you are with me now... and now means always or it means nothing. + +So these relationships are real still among a thousand shadows. Your +beauty was truth, hers was unselfish love. The important thing is to +know you still live, not with regret and selfish grief, but with that +joy and sure conviction which makes the so-called separation a +temporary test, perhaps, but never a final blow. What are the few +years of separation compared to this certainty of co-operation in +eternity? We live but a few years together in the flesh, yet if those +few are lived with beauty and beautifully, the tie is unalterably +forged which fastens us lovingly together for ever. Where, how, +under what precise conditions it were idle to enquire and +unnecessary--the wrong way too. Our only knowledge (in the scientific +sense) comes to us through our earthly senses. To forecast our future +life, constructing it of necessity upon this earthly sensory +experience, is an occupation for those who have neither faith nor +imagination. All such "heavens" are but clumsy idealizations of the +present--"Happy Hunting Grounds" in various forms: whereas we know +that if we lived beauty together, we shall live it always--"afterwards," +as our poor time-ridden language phrases it. For Beauty, once known, +cannot exclude us. We cooperated with the Power that makes the universe +alive. + +And, knowing this, I do not ask for your "return," or for any +so-called evidence that you survive. In beauty you both live now with +less hampered hands, less troubled breath, and I am glad. + +Why should you come, indeed, through the gutter of my worn, familiar, +personal desires, when the open channel of beauty lies ever at the +flood for you to use? Coming in this way, you come, besides, for +many, not for me alone, since behind every thrill of beauty stand the +countless brave souls who lived it in their lives. They have entered +the mighty rhythm that floats the spiral nebulae in space, as it turns +the little aspiring Nautilus in the depths of the sea. Having once +felt this impersonal worship which is love of beauty, they are linked +to the power that drives the universe towards perfection, the power +that knocks in a million un-advertised forms at every human heart: +and that is God. + +With that beneficent power you cooperate. I ask no other test. I crave +no evidence that you selfishly remember me. In the body we did not +know so closely. To see into your physical eyes, and touch your hand, +and hear your voice--these were but intermediary methods, symbols, at +the best. For you I never saw nor touched nor heard. I felt you--in +my heart. The closest intimacy we knew was when together we shared +one moment of the same beauty; no other intimacy approaches the +reality of that; it is now strengthened to a degree unrealized +before. For me that is enough. I have that faith, that certainty, +that knowledge. Should you come to me otherwise I must disown you. +Should you stammer through another's earthly lips that you now enjoy +a mere idealized repetition of your physical limitations, I should +know my love, my memory, my hope degraded, nay, my very faith +destroyed. + +To summon you in that way makes me shudder. It would be to limit your +larger uses, your wider mission, merely to numb a selfish grief born +of a faithless misunderstanding. + +Come to me instead--or, rather, stay, since you have never left--be +with me still in the wonder of dawn and twilight, in the yearning +desire of inarticulate black night, in the wind, the sunshine, and +the rain. It is then that I am nearest to you and to your beneficent +activity, for the same elemental rhythm of Beauty includes us both. +The best and highest of you are there; I want no lesser assurance, no +broken personal revelation. Eternal beauty brings you with an +intimacy unknown, impossible, indeed, to partial disclosure. I should +abhor a halting masquerade, a stammering message less intelligible +even than our intercourse of the body. + +Come, then! Be with me, your truth and Marion's tenderness linked +together with what is noblest in myself. Be with me in the simple +loveliness of an English garden where you and I, as boys together, +first heard that voice of wonder, and knew the Presence walking with +us among the growing leaves. + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Garden of Survival, by Algernon Blackwood + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GARDEN OF SURVIVAL *** + +***** This file should be named 4046.txt or 4046.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/4/4046/ + +Produced by David Moynihan. 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There are, however, natural-born priests who +yet wear no uniform other than upon their face and heart, but since I +know of none I fall back upon yourself, my other half, for in writing +this adventure to you I almost feel that I am writing it to myself. + +The desire for confession is upon me: this thing must out. It is a +story, though an unfinished one. I mention this at once lest, +frightened by the thickness of the many pages, you lay them aside +against another time, and so perhaps neglect them altogether. A +story, however, will invite your interest, and when I add that it is +true, I feel that you will bring sympathy to that interest: these +together, I hope, may win your attention, and hold it, until you +shall have read the final word. + +That I should use this form in telling it will offend your literary +taste--you who have made your name both as critic and creative +writer--for you said once, I remember, that to tell a story in +epistolary form is a subterfuge, an attempt to evade the difficult +matters of construction and delineation of character. My story, +however, is so slight, so subtle, so delicately intimate too, that a +letter to some one in closest sympathy with myself seems the only +form that offers. + +It is, as I said, a confession, but a very dear confession: I burn to +tell it honestly, yet know not how. To withhold it from you would be +to admit a secretiveness that our relationship has never known--out +it must, and to you. I may, perhaps, borrow--who can limit the +sharing powers of twin brothers like ourselves?--some of the skill +your own work spills so prodigally, crumbs from your writing-table, +so to speak; and you will forgive the robbery, if successful, as you +will accept lie love behind the confession as your due. + +Now, listen, please! For this is the point: that, although my wife is +dead these dozen years and more--I have found reunion and I love. +Explanation of this must follow as best it may. So, please mark tie +point which for the sake of emphasis I venture to repeat: that I know +reunion and I love. + +With the jealous prerogative of the twin, you objected to that +marriage, though I knew that it deprived you of no jot of my +affection, owing to the fact that it was prompted by pity only, +leaving the soul in me wholly disengaged. Marion, by her steady +refusal to accept my honest friendship, by her persistent admiration +of me, as also by her loveliness, her youth, her singing, persuaded +me somehow finally that I needed her. The cry of the flesh, which +her beauty stimulated and her singing increased most strangely, +seemed raised into a burning desire that I mistook at the moment for +the true desire of the soul. Yet, actually, the soul in me remained +aloof, a spectator, and one, moreover, of a distinctly lukewarm kind. +It was very curious. On looking back, I can hardly understand it even +now; there seemed some special power, some special undiscovered tie +between us that led me on and yet deceived me. It was especially +evident in her singing, this deep power. She sang, you remember, to +her own accompaniment on the harp, and her method, though so simple +it seemed almost childish, was at the same time charged with a great +melancholy that always moved me most profoundly. The sound of her +small, plaintive voice, the sight of her slender fingers that plucked +the strings in some delicate fashion native to herself, the tiny foot +that pressed the pedal--all these, with her dark searching eyes fixed +penetratingly upon my own while she sang of love and love's +endearments, combined in a single stroke of very puissant and +seductive kind. Passions in me awoke, so deep, so ardent, so +imperious, that I conceived them as born of the need of one soul for +another. I attributed their power to genuine love. The following +reactions, when my soul held up a finger and bade me listen to her +still, small warnings, grew less positive and of ever less duration. +The frontier between physical and spiritual passion is perilously +narrow, perhaps. My judgment, at any rate, became insecure, then +floundered hopelessly. The sound of the harp-strings and of Marion's +voice could overwhelm its balance instantly. + +Mistaking, perhaps, my lukewarm-ness for restraint, she led me at last +to the altar you described as one of sacrifice. And your instinct, +more piercing than my own, proved only too correct: that which I held +for love declared itself as pity only, the soft, affectionate pity of +a weakish man in whom the flesh cried loudly, the pity of a man who +would be untrue to himself rather than pain so sweet a girl by +rejecting the one great offering life placed within her gift. She +persuaded me so cunningly that I persuaded myself, yet was not aware +I did so until afterwards. I married her because in some manner I +felt, but never could explain, that she had need of me. + +And, at the wedding, I remember two things vividly: the expression of +wondering resignation on your face, and upon hers--chiefly in the +eyes and in the odd lines about the mouth--the air of subtle triumph +that she wore: that she had captured me for her very own at last, and +yet--for there was this singular hint in her attitude and +behaviour--that she had taken me, because she had this curious deep +need of me. + +This sharply moving touch was graven into me, increasing the +tenderness of my pity, subsequently, a thousandfold. The necessity +lay in her very soul. She gave to me all she had to give, and in so +doing she tried to satisfy some hunger of her being that lay beyond +my comprehension or interpretation. For, note this--she gave herself +into my keeping, I remember, with a sigh. + +It seems as of yesterday the actual moment when, urged by my vehement +desires, I made her consent to be my wife; I remember, too, the +doubt, the shame, the hesitation that made themselves felt in me +before the climax when her beauty overpowered me, sweeping reflection +utterly away. I can hear to-day the sigh, half of satisfaction, yet +half, it seemed, of pain, with which she sank into my arms at last, +as though her victory brought intense relief, yet was not wholly +gamed in the way that she had wanted. Her physical beauty, perhaps, +was the last weapon she had wished to use for my enslavement; she +knew quite surely that the appeal to what was highest in me had not +succeeded. . . + +The party in our mother's house that week in July included yourself; +there is no need for me to remind you of its various members, nor of +the strong attraction Marion, then a girl of twenty-five, exercised +upon the men belonging to it. Nor have you forgotten, I feel sure, +the adroit way in which she contrived so often to find herself alone +with me, both in the house and out of it, even to the point of +sometimes placing me in a quasi-false position. That she tempted me +is, perhaps, an overstatement, though that she availed herself of +every legitimate use of feminine magic to entrap me is certainly the +truth. Opportunities of marriage, it was notorious, had been +frequently given to her, and she had as frequently declined them; she +was older than her years; to inexperience she certainly had no claim: +and from the very first it was clear to me--if conceited, I cannot +pretend that I was also blind--that flirtation was not her object and +that marriage was. Yet it was marriage with a purpose that she +desired, and that purpose had to do, I felt, with sacrifice. She +burned to give her very best, her all, and for my highest welfare. It +was in this sense, I got the impression strangely, that she had need +of me. + +The battle seemed, at first, uneven, since, as a woman, she did not +positively attract me. I was first amused at her endeavours and her +skill; but respect for her as a redoubtable antagonist soon followed. +This respect, doubtless, was the first blood she drew from me, since +it gained my attention and fixed my mind upon her presence. From that +moment she entered my consciousness as a woman; when she was near me +I became more and more aware of her, and the room, the picnic, the +game of tennis that included her were entirely different from such +occasions when she was absent, I became self-conscious. It was +impossible to ignore her as formerly had been my happy case. + +It was then I first knew how beautiful she was, and that her beauty +made a certain difference to my mood. The next step may seem a big +one, but, I believe, is very natural: her physical beauty gave me +definite pleasure. And the instant this change occurred she was aware +of it. The curious fact, however, is that, although aware of this +gain of power, she made no direct use of it at first. She did not draw +this potent weapon for my undoing; it was ever with her, but was ever +sheathed. Did she discern my weakness, perhaps, and know that the +subtle power would work upon me most effectively if left to itself? +Did she, rich in experience, deem that its too direct use might waken +a reaction in my better self? I cannot say, I do not know. . . . Every +feminine art was at her disposal, as every use of magic pertaining to +young and comely womanhood was easily within her reach. As you and I +might express it bluntly, she knew men thoroughly, she knew every +trick; she drew me on, then left me abruptly in the wrong, puzzled, +foolish, angry, only to forgive me later with the most enchanting +smile or word imaginable. But never once did she deliberately make +use of the merciless weapon of her physical beauty although--perhaps +because--she knew that it was the most powerful in all her armoury. + +For listen to this: when at last I took her in my arms with passion +that would not be denied, she actually resented it. She even sought +to repel me from her touch that had undone me. I repeat what I said +before: She did not wish to win me in that way. The sigh of happiness +she drew in that moment--I can swear to it--included somewhere, too, +the pain of bitter disappointment. + +The weapon, however, that she did use without hesitation was her +singing. There was nothing special either in its quality or skill; it +was a voice untrained, I believe, and certainly without ambition; her +repertoire was limited; she sang folk-songs mostly, the simple +love-songs of primitive people, of peasants and the like, yet sang +them with such truth and charm, with such power and conviction, +somehow, that I knew enchantment as I listened. This, too, she +instantly divined, and that behind my compliments lay hid a weakness +of deep origin she could play upon to her sure advantage. She did so +without mercy, until gradually I passed beneath her sway. + +I will not now relate in detail the steps of my descent, or if you +like it better, of my capture. This is a summary merely. So let me +say in brief that her singing to the harp combined with the +revelation of her physical beauty to lead me swiftly to the point +where I ardently desired her, and that in this turmoil of desire I +sought eagerly to find real love. There were times when I deceived +myself most admirably; there were times when I plainly saw the truth. +During the former I believed that my happiness lay in marrying her, +but in the latter I recognised that a girl who meant nothing to my +better self had grown of a sudden painfully yet exquisitely +desirable. But even during the ascendancy of the latter physical +mood, she had only to seat herself beside the harp and sing, for the +former state to usurp its place, I watched, I listened, and I +yielded. Her voice, aided by the soft plucking of the strings, +completed my defeat. Now, strangest of all, I must add one other +tiling, and I will add it without comment. For though sure of its +truth, I would not dwell upon it. And it is this: that in her singing, +as also in her playing, in the "colour" of her voice as also in the +very attitude and gestures of her figure as she sat beside the +instrument, there lay, though marvellously hidden, something gross. +It woke a response of something in myself, hitherto unrecognized, +that was similarly gross. . . . + +It was in the empty billiard-room when the climax came, a calm evening +of late July, the dusk upon the lawn, and most of the house-party +already gone upstairs to dress for dinner. I had been standing beside +the open window for some considerable time, motionless, and listening +idly to the singing of a thrush or blackbird in the shrubberies--when +I heard the faint twanging of the harp-strings in the room behind me, +and turning, saw that Marion had entered and was there beside the +instrument. At the same moment she saw me, rose from the harp and +came forward. During the day she had kept me at a distance. I was +hungry for her voice and touch; her presence excited me--and yet I +was half afraid. + +"What! Already dressed!" I exclaimed, anxious to avoid a talk a deux. +"I must hurry then, or I shall be later than usual." + +I crossed the room towards the door, when she stopped me with her +eyes. + +"Do you really mean to say you don't know the difference between an +evening frock and--and this," she answered lightly, holding out the +skirt in her fingers for me to touch. And in the voice was that hint +of a sensual caress that, I admit, bewildered both my will and +judgment. She was very close and her fragrance came on me with her +breath, like the perfume of the summer garden. I touched the material +carelessly; it was of softest smooth white serge. It seemed I touched +herself that lay beneath it. And at that touch some fire of +lightning ran through every vein. + +"How stupid of me," I said quickly, making to go past her, "but it's +white, you see, and in this dim light I----" + +"A man's idea of an evening frock is always white, I suppose, or +black." She laughed a little. "I'm not coming to dinner to-night," +she added, sitting down to the harp. "I've got a headache and thought +I might soothe it with a little music. I didn't know any one was +here. I thought I was alone." + +Thus, deftly, having touched a chord of pity in me, she began to play; +her voice followed; dinner and dressing, the house-party and my +mother's guests, were all forgotten. I remember that you looked in, +your eyes touched with a suggestive and melancholy smile, and as +quickly closed the door again. But even that little warning failed to +help me. I sat down on the sofa facing her, the world forgotten. And, +as I listened to her singing and to the sweet music of the harp, the +spell, it seemed, of some ancient beauty stole upon my spirit. The +sound of her soft voice reduced my resistance to utter impotence. An +aggressive passion took its place. The desire for contact, physical +contact, became a vehement aching that I scarcely could restrain, and +my arms were hungry for her. Shame and repugnance touched me faintly +for a moment, but at once died away again. I listened and I watched. +The sensuous beauty of her figure and her movements, swathed in that +soft and clinging serge, troubled my judgment; it seemed, as I saw +her little foot upon the pedal, that I felt with joy its pressure on +my heart and life. Something gross and abandoned stirred in me; I +welcomed her easy power and delighted in it. I feasted my eyes and +ears, the blood rose feverishly to my head. She did not look at me, +yet knew that I looked at her, and how. No longer ashamed, but with a +fiery pleasure in my heart, I spoke at last. Her song had ended. She +softly brushed the strings, her eyes turned downwards. + +"Marion," I said, agitation making my voice sound unfamiliar, "Marion, +dear, I am enthralled; your voice, your beauty----" + +I found no other words; my voice stopped dead; I stood up, trembling +in every limb. I saw her in that instant as a maid of olden time, +singing the love-songs of some far-off day beside her native +instrument, and of a voluptuous beauty there was no withstanding. The +half-light of the dusk set her in a frame of terrible enchantment. + +And as I spoke her name and rose, she also spoke my own, my Christian +name, and rose as well. I saw her move towards me. Upon her face, in +her eyes and on her lips, was a smile of joy I had never seen before, +though a smile of conquest, and of something more besides that I must +call truly by its rightful name, a smile of lust. God! those +movements beneath the clinging dress that fell in lines of beauty to +her feet! Those little feet that stepped upon my heart, upon my very +soul. . . . For a moment I loathed myself. The next, as she touched me +and my arms took her with rough strength against my breast, my +repugnance vanished, and I was utterly undone. I believed I loved. +That which was gross in me, leaping like fire to claim her glorious +beauty, met and merged with that similar, devouring flame in her; but +in the merging seemed cunningly transformed into the call of soul to +soul: I forgot the pity. . . . I kissed her, holding her to me so +fiercely that she scarcely moved. I said a thousand things. I know +not what I said. I loved. + +Then, suddenly, she seemed to free herself; she drew away; she looked +at me, standing a moment just beyond my reach, a strange smile on her +lips and in her darkened eyes a nameless expression that held both +joy and pain. For one second I felt that she repelled me, that she +resented my action and my words. Yes, for one brief second she stood +there, like an angel set in judgment over me, and the next we had +come together again, softly, gently, happily; I heard that strange, +deep sigh, already mentioned, half of satisfaction, half, it seemed, +of pain, as she sank down into my arms and found relief in quiet +sobbing on my breast. + +And pity then returned. I felt unsure of myself again. This was the love +of the body only; my soul was silent. Yet--somehow, in some strange +hidden way, lay this ambushed meaning--that she had need of me, and that +she offered her devotion and herself in sacrifice. + + + +II + +THE brief marriage ran its course, depleting rather than enriching me, +and I know you realized before the hurried, dreadful end that my tie +with yourself was strengthened rather than endangered, and that I took +from you nothing that I might give it to her. That death should +intervene so swiftly, leaving her but an interval of a month between the +altar and the grave, you could foreknow as little as I or she; yet in +that brief space of time you learned that I had robbed you of nothing +that was your precious due, while she as surely realized that the +amazing love she poured so lavishly upon me woke no response--beyond a +deep and tender pity, strangely deep and singularly tender I admit, but +assuredly very different from love. + +Now this, I think, you already know and in some measure understand; but +what you cannot know--since it is a portion of her secret, of that +ambushed meaning, as I termed it, given to me when she lay dying--is the +pathetic truth that her discovery wrought no touch of disenchantment in +her. I think she knew with shame that she had caught me with her lowest +weapon, yet still hoped that the highest in her might complete and +elevate her victory. She knew, at any rate, neither dismay nor +disappointment; of reproach there was no faintest hint. She did not even +once speak of it directly, though her fine, passionate face made me +aware of the position. Of the usual human reaction, that is, there was +no slightest trace; she neither chided nor implored; she did not weep. +The exact opposite of what I might have expected took place before my +very eyes. + +For she turned and faced me, empty as I was. The soul in her, realizing +the truth, stood erect to meet the misery of lonely pain that inevitably +lay ahead--in some sense as though she welcomed it already; and, +strangest of all, she blossomed, physically as well as mentally, into a +fuller revelation of gracious loveliness than before, sweeter and more +exquisite, indeed, than anything life had yet shown to me. Moreover, +having captured me, she changed; the grossness I had discerned, that +which had led me to my own undoing, vanished completely as though it +were transmuted into desires and emotions of a loftier kind. Some +purpose, some intention, a hope immensely resolute shone out of her, and +of such spiritual loveliness, it seemed to me, that I watched it in a +kind of dumb amazement. + +I watched it--unaware at first of my own shame, emptied of any emotion +whatsoever, I think, but that of a startled worship before the grandeur +of her generosity. It seemed she listened breathlessly for the beating +of my heart, and hearing none, resolved that she would pour her own life +into it, regardless of pain, of loss, of sacrifice, that she might make +it live. She undertook her mission, that is to say, and this mission, in +some mysterious way, and according to some code of conduct undivined by +me, yet passionately honoured, was to give--regardless of herself or of +response. I caught myself sometimes thinking of a child who would +instinctively undo some earlier grievous wrong. She loved me +marvellously. + +I know not how to describe to you the lavish wealth of selfless devotion +she bathed me in during the brief torturing and unfulfilled period +before the end. It made me aware of new depths and heights in human +nature. It taught me a new beauty that even my finest dreams had left +unmentioned. Into the region that great souls inhabit a glimpse was +given me. My own dreadful weakness was laid bare. And an eternal hunger +woke in me--that I might love. + +That hunger remained unsatisfied. I prayed, I yearned, I suffered; I +could have decreed myself a deservedly cruel death; it seemed I +stretched my little nature to unendurable limits in the fierce hope that +the Gift of the Gods might be bestowed upon me, and that her divine +emotion might waken a response within my leaden soul. But all in vain. +My attitude, in spite of every prayer, of every effort, remained no more +than a searching and unavailing pity, but a pity that held no seed of a +mere positive emotion, least of all, of love. The heart in me lay +unredeemed; it knew ashamed and very tender gratitude; but it did not +beat for her. I could not love. + +I have told you bluntly, frankly, of my physical feelings towards Marion +and her beauty. It is a confession that I give into my own safe keeping. +I think, perhaps, that you, though cast in a finer mould, may not +despise them utterly, nor too contemptuously misinterpret them. The +legend that twins may share a single soul has always seemed to me +grotesque and unpoetic nonsense, a cruel and unnecessary notion too: a +man is sufficiently imperfect without suffering this further subtraction +from his potentialities. And yet it is true, in our own case, that you +have exclusive monopoly of the ethereal qualities, while to me are given +chiefly the physical attributes of the vigorous and healthy male--the +animal: my six feet three, my muscular system, my inartistic and +pedestrian temperament. Fairly clean-minded, I hope I may be, but beyond +all question I am the male animal incarnate. It was, indeed, the +thousand slaveries of the senses, individually so negligible, +collectively so overwhelming, that forced me upon my knees before her +physical loveliness. I must tell you now that this potent spell, +alternating between fiery desire and the sincerest of repugnance, +continued to operate. I complete the confession by adding briefly, that +after marriage she resented and repelled all my advances. A deep sadness +came upon her; she wept; and I desisted. It was my soul that she desired +with the fire of her mighty love, and not my body. . . . And again, since +it is to myself and to you alone I tell it, I would add this vital fact: +it was this "new beauty which my finest dreams have left unmentioned" +that made it somehow possible for me to desist, both against my animal +will, yet willingly. + +I have told you that, when dying, she revealed to me a portion of her +"secret." This portion of a sacred confidence lies so safe within my +everlasting pity that I may share it with you without the remorse of a +betrayal. Full understanding we need never ask; the solution, I am +convinced, is scarcely obtainable in this world. The message, however, +was incomplete because the breath that framed it into broken words +failed suddenly; the heart, so strangely given into my unworthy keeping, +stopped beating as you shall hear upon the very edge of full disclosure. +The ambushed meaning I have hinted at remained--a hint. + + + +III + +THERE was, then, you will remember, but an interval of minutes between +the accident and the temporary recovery of consciousness, between +that recovery again and the moment when the head fell forward on my +knee and she was gone. That "recovery" of consciousness I feel bound +to question, as you shall shortly hear. Among such curious things I +am at sea admittedly, yet I must doubt for ever that the eyes which +peered so strangely into mine were those of Marion herself--as I had +always known her. You will, at any rate, allow the confession, and +believe it true, that I--did not recognize her quite. Consciousness +there was, indubitably, but whether it was "recovery" of +consciousness is another matter, and a problem that I must for ever +question though I cannot ever set it confidently at rest. It almost +seemed as though a larger, grander, yet somehow a less personal, soul +looked forth through the fading eyes and used the troubled breath. + +In those brief minutes, at any rate, the mind was clear as day, the +faculties not only unobscured, but marvellously enhanced. In the eyes +at first shone unveiled fire; she smiled, gazing into my own with +love and eager yearning too. There was a radiance in her face I must +call glory. Her head was in my lap upon the bed of rugs we had +improvised inside the field: the broken motor posed in a monstrous +heap ten yards away; and the doctor, summoned by a passing stranger, +was in the act of administrating the anaesthetic, so that we might +bear her without pain to the nearest hospital--when, suddenly, she +held up a warning finger, beckoning to me that I should listen +closely. + +I bent my head to catch the words. There was such authority in the +gesture, and in the eyes an expression so extraordinarily appealing, +and yet so touched with the awe of a final privacy beyond language, +that the doctor stepped backwards on the instant, the needle shaking +in his hand--while I bent down to catch the whispered words that at +once began to pass her lips. + +The wind in the poplar overhead mingled with the little sentences, as +though the breath of the clear blue sky, calmly shining, was mingled +with her own. + +But the words I heard both troubled and amazed me: + +"Help me! For I am in the dark still!" went through me like a sword. +"And I do not know how long." + +I took her face in both my hands; I kissed her. "You are with +friends," I said. "You are safe with us, with me--Marion!" And I +apparently tried to put into my smile the tenderness that clumsy +words forswore. Her next words shocked me inexpressibly: "You +laugh," she said, "but I----" she sighed--"I weep." + +I stroked her face and hair. No words came to me. + +"You call me Marion," she went on in an eager tone that surely belied +her pain and weakness, "but I do not remember that. I have forgotten +names." Then, as I kissed her, I heard her add in the clearest +whisper possible, as though no cloud lay upon her mind: "Yet Marion +will do--if by that you know me now" + +There came a pause then, but after it such singular words that I could +hardly believe I heard aright, although each syllable sank into my +brain as with pointed steel: + +"You come to me again when I lie dying. Even in the dark I hear--how +long I do not know--I hear your words." + +She gave me suddenly then a most piercing look, raising her face a +little towards my own. I saw earnest entreaty in them. "Tell me," I +murmured; "you are nearer, closer to me than ever before. Tell me +what it is?" + +"Music," she whispered, "I want music----" + +I knew not what to answer, what to say. Can you blame me that, in my +troubled, aching heart, I found but commonplaces? For I thought of +the harp, or of some stringed instrument that seemed part of her. + +"You shall have it," I said gently, "and very soon. We shall carry you +now into comfort, safety. You shall have no pain. Another moment +and----" + +"Music," she repeated, interrupting, "music as of long ago." + +It was terrible. I said such stupid things. My mind seemed frozen. + +"I would hear music," she whispered, "before I go again." + +"Marion, you shall," I stammered. "Beethoven, Schumann,--what would +please you most? You shall have all." + +"Yes, play to me. But those names"--she shook her head--"I do not +know." + +I remember that my face was streaming, my hands so hot that her head +seemed more than I could hold. I shifted my knees so that she might +lie more easily a little. + +"God's music!" she cried aloud with startling abruptness; then, +lowering her voice again and smiling sadly as though something came +back to her that she would fain forget, she added slowly, with +something of mournful emphasis: + +"I was a singer . . ." + +As though a flash of light had passed, some inner darkness was cleft +asunder in me. Some heaviness shifted from my brain. It seemed the +years, the centuries, turned over like a wind-blown page. And out of +some hidden inmost part of me involuntary words rose instantly: + +"You sang God's music then . . ." + +The strange, unbidden sentence stirred her. Her head moved slightly; +she smiled. Gazing into my eyes intently, as though to dispel a mist +that shrouded both our minds, she went on in a whisper that yet was +startlingly distinct, though with little pauses drawn out between the +phrases: "I was a singer. . . in the Temple. I sang--men--into evil. +You . . . I sang into . . . evil." + +There was a moment's pause, as a spasm of inexplicable pain passed +through my heart like fire, and a sense of haunting things whereof no +conscious memory remained came over me. The scene about me wavered +before my eyes as if it would disappear. + +"Yet you came to me when I lay dying at the last," I caught her thin +clear whisper. "You said, 'Turn to God!'" + +The whisper died away. The darkness flowed back upon my mind and +thought. A silence followed. I heard the wind in the poplar overhead. +The doctor moved impatiently, coming a few steps nearer, then turning +away again. I heard the sounds of tinkering with metal that the +driver made ten yards behind us. I turned angrily to make a +sign--when Marion's low voice, again more like the murmur of the wind +than a living voice, rose into the still evening air: + +"I have failed. And I shall try again." + +She gazed up at me with that patient, generous love that seemed +inexhaustible, and hardly knowing what to answer, nor how to comfort +her in that afflicting moment, I bent lower--or, rather, she drew my +ear closer to her lips. I think her great desire just then was to +utter her own thought more fully before she passed. Certainly it was +no avowal or consolation from myself she sought. + +"Your forgiveness," I heard distinctly, "I need your full +forgiveness." + +It was for me a terrible and poignant moment. The emptiness of my pity +betrayed itself too mercilessly for me to bear; yet, before my +bewilderment enabled me to frame an answer, she went on hurriedly, +though with a faultless certainty: the meaning to her was clear as +day: + +"Born of love . . . the only true forgiveness. . ." + +A film formed slowly. Her eyes began to close, her breath died off +into a sigh; she smiled, but her head sank lower with her fading +strength. And her final words went by me in that sigh: + +"Yet love in you lies unawakened still. . . and I must try again. . . ." + +There was one more effort, painful with unexpressed fulfilment. A +flicker of awful yearning took her paling eyes. Life seemed to +stammer, pause, then flush as with this last deep impulse to yield a +secret she discerned for the first time fully, in the very act of +passing out. The face, with its soft loveliness, turned grey in death. +Upon the edge of a great disclosure--she was gone. + +I remember that for a space of time there was silence all about us. +The doctor still kept his back to us, the driver had ceased his +wretched hammering, I heard the wind in the poplar and the hum of +insects. A bird sang loudly on a branch above; it seemed miles away, +across an empty world. . . . Then, of a sudden, I became aware that the +weight of the head and shoulders had dreadfully increased. I dared not +turn my face lest I should look upon her whom I had deeply +wronged--the forsaken tenement of this woman whose matchless love now +begged with her dying breath for my forgiveness! + +A cowardly desire to lose consciousness ran through me, to forget +myself, to hide my shame with her in death; yet, even while this was +so, I sought most desperately through the depths of my anguished pity +to find some hint, if only the tiniest seed, of love--and found it +not. . . . The rest belonged to things unrealized. . . . + +I remember a hand being laid upon me. I lifted my head which had +fallen close against her cheek. The doctor stood beside me, his grave +and kindly face bent low. He spoke some gentle words. I saw him +replacing the needle in its little leathern case, unused. + +Marion was dead, her deep secret undisclosed. That which she yearned +to tell me was something which, in her brief period of devotion, she +had lived, had faithfully acted out, yet herself only dimly aware of +why it had to be. The solution of this problem of unrequited love lay +at last within her grasp; of a love that only asked to give of its +unquenched and unquenchable store, undismayed by the total absence of +response. + +She passed from the world of speech and action with this intense +desire unsatisfied, and at the very moment--as with a drowning man +who sees his past--when the solution lay ready to her hand. She saw +clearly, she understood, she burned to tell me. Upon the edge of full +disclosure, she was gone, leaving me alone with my aching pity and +with my shame of unawakened love. + +"I have failed, but I shall try again. . . ." + + + +IV + +THAT, as you know, took place a dozen years ago and more, when I was +thirty-two, and time, in the interval, has wrought unexpected ends +out of the material of my life. My trade as a soldier has led me to +an administrative post in a distant land where, apparently, I have +deserved well of my King and Country, as they say in the obituaries. +At any rate, the cryptic letters following my name, bear witness to +some kind of notoriety attained. + +You were the first to welcome my success, and your congratulations +were the first I looked for, as surely as they were more satisfying +than those our mother sent. You knew me better, it seems, than she +did. For you expressed the surprise that I, too, felt, whereas mother +assured me she had "always known you would do well, my boy, and you +have only got your deserts in this tardy recognition." To her, of +course, even at forty-five, I was still her "little boy." You, +however, guessed shrewdly that Luck had played strong cards in +bringing me this distinction, and I will admit at once that it was, +indeed, due to little born in me, but, rather, to some adventitious +aid that, curiously, seemed never lacking at the opportune moment. +And this adventitious aid was new. + +This is the unvarnished truth. A mysterious power dealt the cards for +me with unfailing instinct; a fortunate combination of events placing +in my hands, precisely at the moment of their greatest value, clear +opportunities that none but a hopeless blunderer could have +disregarded. What men call Chance operated in my favour as though +with superb calculation, lifting me to this miniature pinnacle I could +never have reached by my own skill and judgment. + +So, at least, you and I, knowing my limited abilities, consent to +attribute my success to luck, to chance, to fate, or to any other +name for the destiny that has placed me on a height my talent never +could have reached alone. You, and I, too, for that matter, are as +happy over the result as our mother is; only you and I are surprised, +because we judge it, with some humour, out of greater knowledge. +More--you, like myself, are a little puzzled, I think. We ask +together, if truth were told: Whose was the unerring, guiding hand? + +Amid this uncertainty I give you now another curious item, about which +you have, of course, been uninformed. For none could have detected it +but myself: namely, that apart from these opportunities chance set +upon my path, an impulse outside myself--and an impulse that was +new--drove me to make use of them. Sometimes even against my personal +inclination, a power urged me into decided, and it so happened, +always into faultless action. Amazed at myself, I yet invariably +obeyed. + +How to describe so elusive a situation I hardly know, unless by +telling you the simple truth: I felt that somebody would be pleased. + +And, with the years, I learned to recognize this instinct that never +failed when a choice, and therefore an element of doubt, presented +itself. Invariably I was pushed towards the right direction. More +singular still, there rose in me unbidden at these various junctures, +a kind of inner attention which bade me wait and listen for the +guiding touch. I am not fanciful, I heard no voice, I was aware of +nothing personal by way of guidance or assistance; and yet the +guidance, the assistance, never failed, though often I was not +conscious that they had been present until long afterwards. I felt, +as I said above, that somebody would be pleased. + +For it was a consistent, an intelligent guidance; operating, as it +were, out of some completer survey of the facts at a given moment +than my own abilities could possibly have compassed; my mediocre +faculties seemed gathered together and perfected--with the result, in +time, that my "intuition," as others called it, came to be regarded +with a respect that in some cases amounted to half reverence. The +adjective "uncanny" was applied to me. The natives, certainly, were +aware of awe. + +I made no private use of this unearned distinction; there is nothing +in me of the charlatan that claimed mysterious power; but my +subordinates, ever in growing numbers as my promotions followed, held +me in greater respect, apparently, on that very account. The natives, +especially, as I mentioned, attributed semi-deific properties to my +poor personality. Certainly my prestige increased out of all +proportion to anything my talents deserved with any show of justice. + +I have said that, so far as I was concerned, there lay nothing +personal in this growth of divining intuition. I must now qualify +that a little. Nothing persuaded me that this guidance, so +infallible, so constant, owed its origin to what men call a being; I +certainly found no name for it; exactness, I think, might place its +truest description in some such term as energy, inner force or +inspiration; yet I must admit that, with its steady repetition, there +awoke in me an attitude towards it that eluded somewhere also an +emotion. And in this emotion, in its quality and character, hid +remotely a personal suggestion: each time it offered itself, that is, +I was aware of a sharp quiver of sensitive life within me, and of +that sensation, extraordinarily sweet and wonderful, which +constitutes a genuine thrill. + +I came to look for this "thrill," to lie in wait with anticipatory +wonder for its advent; and in a sense this pause in me, that was both +of expectancy and hope, grew slowly into what I may almost call a +habit. There was an emptiness in my heart before it came, a sense of +peace and comfort when it was accomplished. The emptiness and then +the satisfaction, as first and last conditions, never failed, and +that they took place in my heart rather than in my mind I can affirm +with equal certainty. + +The habit, thus, confirmed itself. I admitted the power. Let me be +frank--I sought it, even longing for it when there was no decision +to be made, no guidance therefore needed: I longed for it because of +the great sweetness that it left within my heart. It was when I +needed it, however, that its effect was most enduring. The method +became quite easy to me. When a moment of choice between two courses +of action presented itself, I first emptied my heart of all personal +inclination, then, pausing upon direction, I knew--or rather +felt--which course to take. My heart was filled and satisfied with an +intention that never wavered. Some energy that made the choice for me +had been poured in. I decided upon this or that line of action. The +Thrill, always of an instantaneous nature, came and went--and +somebody was pleased. + +Moreover--and this will interest you more particularly--the emotion +produced in me was, so far as positive recognition went, a new +emotion; it was, at any rate, one that had lain so feebly in me +hitherto that its announcement brought the savour of an emotion +before unrealized. I had known it but once, and that long +years before, but the man's mind in me increased and added to it. For +it seemed a development of that new perception which first dawned +upon me during my brief period of married life, and had since lain +hidden in me, potential possibly, but inactive beyond all question, +if not wholly dead. I will now name it for you, and for myself, as +best I may. It was the Thrill of Beauty. + +I became, in these moments, aware of Beauty, and to a degree, while it +lasted, approaching revelation. Chords, first faintly struck long +years before when my sense of Marion's forgiveness and generosity +stirred worship in me, but chords that since then had lain, +apparently, unresponsive, were swept into resonance again. Possibly +they had been vibrating all these intervening years, unknown to me, +unrecognized. I cannot say. I only know that here was the origin of +the strange energy that now moved me to the depths. Some new worship +of Beauty that had love in it, of which, indeed, love was the +determining quality, awoke in the profoundest part of me, and even +when the "thrill" had gone its way, left me hungry and yearning for +its repetition. Here, then, is the "personal" qualification that I +mentioned. The yearning and the hunger were related to my deepest +needs. I had been empty, but I would be filled. For a passionate +love, holding hands with a faith and confidence as passionate as +itself, poured flooding into me and made this new sense of beauty seem +a paramount necessity of my life. + +Will you be patient now, if I give you a crude instance of what I +mean? It is one among many others, but I choose it because its very +crudeness makes my meaning clear. + +In this fevered and stricken African coast, you may know, there is +luxuriance in every natural detail, an exuberance that is lavish to +excess. Yet beauty lies somewhat coyly hid--as though suffocated by +over-abundance of crowding wonder. I detect, indeed, almost a touch +of the monstrous in it all, a super-expression, as it were, that +bewilders, and occasionally even may alarm. Delicacy, subtlety, +suggestion in any form, have no part in it. During the five years of +my exile amid this tropical extravagance I can recall no single +instance of beauty "hinting" anywhere. Nature seems, rather, +audaciously abandoned; she is without restraint. She shows her all, +tells everything--she shouts, she never whispers. You will understand +me when I tell you that this wholesale lack of reticence and modesty +involves all absence in the beholder of--surprise. A sudden +ravishment of the senses is impossible. One never can experience that +sweet and troubling agitation to which a breathless amazement +properly belongs. You may be stunned; you are hardly ever "thrilled." + +Now, this new sensitiveness to Beauty I have mentioned has opened me +to that receptiveness which is aware of subtlety and owns to sharp +surprise. The thrill is of its very essence. It is unexpected. Out of +the welter of prolific detail Nature here glories in, a delicate hint +of wonder and surprise comes stealing. The change, of course, is in +myself, not otherwise. And on the particular "crude" occasion I will +briefly mention, it reached me from the most obvious and banal of +conditions--the night sky and the moon. + +Here, then, is how it happened: There had arisen a situation of grave +difficulty among the natives of my Province, and the need for taking +a strong, authoritative line was paramount. The reports of my +subordinates from various parts of the country pointed to very +vigorous action of a repressing, even of a punitive, description. It +was not, in itself, a complicated situation, and no Governor, who was +soldier too, need have hesitated for an instant. The various +Stations, indeed, anticipating the usual course of action indicated +by precedent, had automatically gone to their posts, prepared for the +"official instructions" it was known that I should send, wondering +impatiently (as I learned afterwards) at the slight delay. For delay +there was, though of a few hours only; and this delay was caused by +my uncomfortable new habit--pausing for the guidance and the +"thrill." Intuition, waiting upon the thrill of Beauty that guided it, +at first lay inactive. + +My behaviour seemed scarcely of the orthodox, official kind, soldierly +least of all. There was uneasiness, there was cursing, probably; +there were certainly remarks not complimentary. Prompt, decisive +action was the obvious and only course. . . while I sat quietly in the +Headquarters Bungalow, a sensitive youth again, a dreamer, a poet, +hungry for the inspiration of Beauty that the gorgeous tropical night +concealed with her excess of smothering abundance. + +This incongruity between my procedure and the time-honoured methods of +"strong" Governors must have seemed exasperating to those who waited, +respectful, but with nerves on edge, in the canvassed and tented +regions behind the Headquarters clearing. Indeed, the Foreign Office, +could it have witnessed my unpardonable hesitation, might well have +dismissed me on the spot, I think. For I sat there, dreaming in my +deck-chair on the verandah, smoking a cigarette, safe within my net +from the countless poisonous mosquitoes, and listening to the wind in +the palms that fringed the heavy jungle round the building. + +Smoking quietly, dreaming, listening, waiting, I sat there in this +mood of inner attention and expectancy, knowing that the guidance I +anticipated must surely come. + +A few clouds sprawled in their beds of silver across the sky; the +heat, the perfume, were, as always, painfully, excessive; the +moonlight bathed the huge trees and giant leaves with that habitual +extravagance which made it seem ordinary, almost cheap and +wonderless. Very silent the wooden house lay all about me, there were +no footsteps, there was no human voice. I heard only the wash of the +heavy-scented wind through the colossal foliage that hardly stirred, +and watched, as a hundred times before, the immense heated sky, +drenched in its brilliant and intolerable moonlight. All seemed a +riot of excess, an orgy. + +Then, suddenly, the shameless night drew on some exquisite veil, as +the moon, between three-quarters and the full, slid out of sight +behind a streaky cloud. A breath, it seemed, of lighter wind woke all +the perfume of the burdened forest leaves. The shouting splendour +hushed; there came a whisper and, at last--a hint. + +I watched with relief and gratitude the momentary eclipse, for in the +half-light I was aware of that sharp and tender mood which was +preparatory to the thrill. Slowly sailing into view again from behind +that gracious veil of cloud-- + +"The moon put forth a little diamond peak, No bigger than an +unobserved star, Or tiny point of fairy scimitar; Bright signal that +she only stooped to tie Her silver sandals, ere deliciously She bowed +into the heavens her timid head." + +And then it came. The Thrill stole forth and touched me, passing like +a meteor through my heart, but in that lightning passage, cleaving it +open to some wisdom that seemed most near to love. For power flowed +in along the path that Beauty cleft for it, and with the beauty came +that intuitive guidance I had waited for. + +The inspiration operated like a flash. There was no reasoning; I was +aware immediately that another and a better way of dealing with the +situation was given me. + +I need not weary you with details. It seemed contrary to precedent, +advice, against experience too, yet it was the right, the only way. +It threatened, I admit, to destroy the prestige so long and +laboriously established, since it seemed a dangerous yielding to the +natives that must menace the white life everywhere and render trade in +the Colony unsafe. Yet I did not hesitate. . . . There was bustle at +once within that Bungalow; the orders went forth; I saw the way and +chose it--to the dismay, outspoken, of every white man whose welfare +lay in my official hands. + +And the results, I may tell you now without pride, since, as we both +admit, no credit attaches to myself--the results astonished the +entire Colony. . . . The Chiefs came to me, in due course, bringing +fruit and flowers and presents enough to bury all Headquarters, and +with a reverential obedience that proved the rising scotched to +death--because its subtle psychological causes had been marvellously +understood. + +Full comprehension, as I mentioned earlier in this narrative, we +cannot expect to have. Its origin, I may believe, lies hid in the +nature of that Beauty which is truth and love--in the source of our +very life, perhaps, which lies hid again with beauty very far +away. . . . But I may say this much at least: that it seemed, my inspired +action had co-operated with the instinctive beliefs of these +mysterious tribes--cooperated with their primitive and ancient sense +of Beauty. It had, inexplicably to myself, fulfilled their sense of +right, which my subordinates would have outraged. I had acted with, +instead of against, them. + +More I cannot tell you. You have the "crude instance," and you have +the method. The instances multiplied, the method became habit. There +grew in me this personal attitude towards an impersonal power I +hardly understood, and this attitude included an emotion--love. With +faith and love I consequently obeyed it. I loved the source of my +guidance and assistance, though I dared attach no name to it. Simple +enough the matter might have been, could I have referred its origin +to some name--to our mother or to you, to my Chief in London, to an +impersonal Foreign Office that has since honoured me with money and a +complicated address upon my envelopes, or even, by a stretch of +imagination, to that semi-abstract portion of my being some men call +a Higher Self. + +To none of these, however, could I honestly or dishonestly ascribe it. +Yet, as in the case of those congratulatory telegrams from our mother +and yourself, I was aware--and this feeling never failed with each +separate occurrence--aware that somebody, other than ourselves +individually or collectively--was pleased. + + + +V + +WHAT I have told you so far concerns a growth chiefly of my inner life +that was almost a new birth. My outer life, of event and action, was +sufficiently described in those monthly letters you had from me +during the ten years, broken by three periods of long-leave at home, +I spent in that sinister and afflicted land. This record, however, +deals principally with the essential facts of my life, the inner; the +outer events and actions are of importance only in so far as they +interpret these, since that which a man feels and thinks alone is +real, and thought and feeling, of course, precede all action. + +I have told you of the Thrill, of its genesis and development; and I +chose an obvious and rather banal instance, first of all to make +myself quite clear, and, secondly, because the majority were of so +delicate a nature as to render their description extremely difficult. +The point is that the emotion was, for me, a new one. I may honestly +describe it as a birth. + +I must now tell you that it first stirred in me some five years after +I left England, and that during those years I had felt nothing but +what most other men feel out here. Whether its sudden birth was due +to the violent country, or to some process of gradual preparation +that had been going forward in me secretly all that time, I cannot +tell. No proof, at any rate, offered itself of either. It came +suddenly. I do know, however, that from its first occurrence it has +strengthened and developed until it has now become a dominating +influence of a distinctly personal kind. + +My character has been affected, perhaps improved. You have mentioned +on several occasions that you noted in my letters a new tenderness, a +new kindness towards my fellow-creatures, less of criticism and more +of sympathy, a new love; the "birth of my poetic sense" you also +spoke of once; and I myself have long been aware of a thousand fresh +impulses towards charity and tolerance that had, hitherto, at any +rate, lain inactive in my being. + +I need not flatter myself complacently, yet a change there is, and it +may be an improvement. Whether big or small, however, I am sure of +one tiling: I ascribe it entirely to this sharper and more extended +sensitiveness to Beauty, this new and exquisite receptiveness that +has established itself as a motive-power in my life. I have changed +the poet's line, using prose of course: There is beauty everywhere +and therefore joy. + +And I will explain briefly, too, how it is that this copybook maxim is +now for me a practical reality. For at first, with my growing +perception, I was distressed at what seemed to me the lavish waste, +the reckless, spendthrift beauty, not in nature merely but in human +nature, that passed unrecognized and unacknowledged. The loss seemed +so extravagant. Not only that a million flowers waste their sweetness +on the desert air, but that such prodigal stores of human love and +tenderness remain unemployed, their rich harvest all +ungathered--because, misdirected and misunderstood, they find no +receptacle into which they may discharge. + +It has now come to me, though only by & slow and almost imperceptible +advance, that these stores of apparently unremunerative beauty, this +harvest so thickly sown about the world, unused, ungathered--prepare +yourself, please, for an imaginative leap--ore used, are gathered, +are employed. By Whom? + +I can only answer: By some one who is pleased; and probably by many +such. How, why, and wherefore--I catch your crowd of questions in +advance--we need not seek exactly to discover, although the answer +of no uncertain kind, I hear within the stillness of a heart that has +learned to beat to a deeper, sweeter rhythm than before. + +Those who loved beauty and lived it in their lives, follow that same +ideal with increasing power and passion afterwards--and for ever. + +The shutter of black iron we call Death hides the truth with terror +and resentment; but what if that shutter were, after all, +transparent? + +A glorious dream, I hear you cry. Now listen to my answer. It is, for +me, a definite assurance and belief, because--I know. + +Long before you have reached this point you will, I know, have reached +also the conclusion (with a sigh) that I am embarked upon some +commonplace experience of ghostly return, or, at least, of posthumous +communication. Perhaps I wrong you here, but in any case I would at +once correct the inference, if it has been drawn. You remember our +adventures with the seance-mongers years ago? . . . I have not changed +my view so far as their evidential value is concerned. Be sure of +that. + +The dead, I am of opinion, do not return; for, while individuals may +claim startling experiences that seem to them of an authentic and +convincing kind, there has been no instance that can persuade us +all--in the sense that thunderstorm convinces us all. Such individual +experiences I have always likened to the auto-suggestion of those few +who believe the advertisements of the hair-restorers--you will forgive +the unpoetic simile for the sake of its exactitude--as against the +verdict of the world that a genuine discovery of such a remedy would +leave no single doubter in Europe or America, nor even in the London +Clubs! Yet each time I read the cunning article (I have less hair +than when I ran away from Sandhurst that exciting July night and met +you in the Strand!), and look upon the picture of the man, John Henry +Smith, "before and after using," I admit the birth of an unreasonable +belief that there may be something in it after all. + +Of such indubitable proof, however, there is, alas, as yet no sign. + +And so with the other matter--the dead do not "return." My story, +therefore, be comforted, has no individual instance to record. It +may, on the other hand, be held to involve a thread of what might be +called--at a stretch --posthumous communication, yet a thread so +tenuous that the question of personal direction behind it need hardly +be considered at all. For let me confess at once that, the habit of +the "thrill" once established, I was not long in asking myself point +blank this definite question: Dared I trace its origin to my own +unfruitful experience of some years before?--and, discovering no +shred of evidence, I found this positive answer: Honestly I could +not. + +That "somebody was pleased" each time Beauty offered a wisdom I +accepted, became an unanswerable conviction I could not argue about; +but that the guidance--waking a responsive emotion in myself of +love--was referable to any particular name I could not, by any +stretch of desire or imagination, bring myself to believe. + +Marion, I must emphasise, had been gone from me five years at least +before the new emotion gave the smallest hint of its new birth; and +my feeling, once the first keen shame and remorse subsided--I confess +to the dishonouring truth--was one of looking back upon a painful +problem that had found an unexpected solution. It was chiefly relief, +although a sad relief, I felt. . . . And with the absorbing work of the +next following years (I took up my appointment within six months of +her death) her memory, already swiftly fading, entered an oblivion +whence rarely, and at long intervals only, it emerged at all. In the +ordinary meaning of the phrase, I had forgotten her. You will see, +therefore, that there was no desire in me to revive an unhappy +memory, least of all to establish any fancied communication with one +before whose generous love I had felt myself dishonoured, if not +actually disgraced. Even the remorse and regret had long since failed +to disturb my peace of mind, causing me no anxiety, much less pain. +Sic transit was the epitaph, if any. Acute sensation I had none at +all. This, then, plainly argues against the slightest predisposition +on my part to imagine that the loving guidance so strangely given +owned a personal origin I could recognize. That it involved a +"personal emotion" is quite another matter. + +The more remarkable, therefore, is the statement truth now compels me +to confess to you--namely, that this origin is recognizable, and that +I have traced in part the name it owns to. My next sentence you +divine already; you at once suspect the name I mean. I hear you say +to yourself with a smile--"So, after all. . . !" + +Please, wait a moment, and listen closely now; for, in reply to your +suspicion, I can give neither full affirmation or full denial. Yet an +answer of a certain kind is ready: I have stated my firm conviction +that the dead do not return; I do not modify it one iota; but I +mentioned a moment ago another conviction that is mine because I know. +So now let me supplement these two statements with a third: the dead, +though they do not return, are active; and those who lived beauty in +their lives are--benevolently active. + +This may prepare you for a further assurance, yet one less easy to +express intelligibly. Be patient while I make the difficult attempt. + +The origin of the wisdom that now seeks to shape and guide my life +through Beauty is, indeed, not Marion, but a power that stands behind +her, and through which, with which, the energy of her being acts. It +stood behind her while she lived. It stands behind not only her, but +equally behind all those peerless, exquisite manifestations of self-less +love that give bountifully of their best without hope or expectation of +reward in kind. No human love of this description, though it find no +object to receive it, nor one single flower that "wastes" its sweetness +on the desert air, but acknowledges this inexhaustible and spendthrift +source. Its evidence lies strewn so thick, so prodigally, about our +world, that not one among us, whatever his surroundings and conditions, +but sooner or later must encounter at least one marvellous instance of +its uplifting presence. Some at once acknowledge the exquisite flash and +are aware; others remain blind and deaf, till some experience, probably +of pain, shall have prepared and sensitized their receptive quality. To +all, however, one day, comes the magical appeal. As in my own case, +there was apparently some kind of preparation before I grew conscious of +that hunger for beauty which, awakening intuition, opened the heart to +truth and so to wisdom. It then came softly, delicately, whispering like +the dawn, yet rich with a promise I could, at first, not easily fathom, +though as sure of fulfilment as that promise of day that steals upon the +world when night is passing. + +I have tried to tell you something of this mystery. I cannot add to +that. I was lifted, as it were, towards some region or some state of +being, wherein I was momentarily aware of a vaster outlook upon life, of +a deeper insight into the troubles of my fellow-creatures, where, +indeed, there burst upon me a comprehension of life's pains and +difficulties so complete that I may best describe it as that full +understanding which involves also full forgiveness, and that sympathy +which is love, God's love. + +This exaltation passed, of course, with the passing of the thrill that +made it possible; it was truly instantaneous; a point of ecstasy, +perhaps, in some category not of time at all, but of some state of +consciousness that lifted me above, outside of, self. But it was real, +as a thunderstorm is real. For, with this glimpse of beauty that I call +the "thrill," I touched, for an instant so brief that it seemed timeless +in the sense of having no duration, a pinnacle of joy, of vision, beyond +anything attainable by desire or by. intellect alone. I stood aware of +power, wisdom, love; and more, this power, wisdom, love were mine to +draw upon and use, not in some future heaven, but here and now. + + + +VI + +I RETURNED to England with an expectant hunger born of this love of +beauty that was now ingrained in me. I came home with the belief that +my yearning would be satisfied in a deeper measure; and more--that, +somehow, it would be justified and explained. I may put it plainly, +if only to show how difficult this confession would have been to any +one but yourself; it sounds so visionary from a mere soldier and man +of action such as I am. For my belief included a singular dream that, +in the familiar scenes I now revisited, some link, already half +established, would be strengthened, and might probably be realized, +even proved. + +In Africa, as you know, I had been set upon the clue at home in +England. Among the places and conditions where this link had been +first established in the flesh, must surely come a fuller revelation. +Beauty, the channel of my inspiration, but this time the old sweet +English beauty, so intimate, so woven through with the fresh wonder +of earliest childhood days, would reveal the cause of my first +failure to respond, and so, perhaps, the intention of those final +pathetic sentences that still haunted me with their freight of +undelivered meaning. In England, T believed, my "thrill" must bring +authentic revelation. + +I came back, that precarious entity, a successful man. I was to be +that thing we used to laugh about together in your Cambridge days, a +distinguished personality; I should belong to the breed of little +lions. Yet, during the long, tedious voyage, I realized that this +held no meaning for me; I did not feel myself a little lion, the idea +only proved that the boy in me was not yet dead. My one desire, +though inarticulate until this moment of confessing it, was to renew +the thrills, and so to gather from an intenser, sweeter beauty some +measure of greater understanding they seemed to promise. It was a +personal hope, a personal desire; and, deep at the heart of it, +Memory, passionate though elusive, flashed her strange signal of a +personal love. In this dream that mocked at time, this yearning that +forgot the intervening years, I nursed the impossible illusion that, +somehow or other, I should become aware of Marion. + +Now, I have treated you in this letter as though you were a woman who +reads a novel, for in my first pages I have let you turn to the end +and see that the climax is a happy one, lest you should faint by the +way and close my story with a yawn. You need not do that, however, +since you already know this in advance. You will bear with me, too, +when I tell you that my return to England was in the nature of a +failure that, at first, involved sharpest disappointment. I was +unaware, as a whole, of the thrills I had anticipated with such +longing. The sweet picture of English loveliness I had cherished with +sentimental passion during my long exile hardly materialized. + +That I was not a lion, but an insignificant quasi-colonial adventurer +among many others, may have sprinkled acid upon my daily diet of +sensation, but you will do me the justice to believe that this +wounded vanity was the smallest item in my disenchantment. Ten years, +especially in primitive, godforsaken Africa, is a considerable +interval; I found the relationship between myself and my beloved +home-land changed, and in an unexpected way. + +I was not missed for one thing, I had been forgotten. Except from our +mother and yourself, I had no welcome. But, apart from this immediate +circle, and apart from the deep, comfortable glow experienced at the +first sight of the "old country," I found England and the English +dull, conventional, and uninspired. There was no poignancy. The +habits and the outlook stood precisely where I had left them. The +English had not moved. They played golf as of yore, they went to the +races at the appointed time and in the appointed garb, they gave +heavy dinner-parties, they wrote letters to the Times, and ignored an +outside world beyond their island. Their estimate of themselves and +of foreigners remained unaltered, their estimate of rich or +influential neighbours was what it always had been, there were many +more motor-cars and a few more peers, it was more difficult than +formerly to get into a good club; but otherwise, God bless them, they +were worthier than ever. The "dear old country," that which "out +there" we had loved and venerated, worked and fought for, was stolid +and unshaken; the stream of advancing life that elsewhere rushed, had +left England complaisantly unmoved and unresponsive. + +You have no idea how vividly--and in what curious minor details--the +general note of England strikes a traveller returning after an +interval of years. Later, of course, the single impression is +modified and obscured by other feelings. I give it, therefore, before +it was forgotten. England had not budged. Had it been winter instead +of early spring, I might sum up for you what I mean in one short +sentence: I travelled to London in a third-class railway carriage +that had no heating apparatus. + +But to all this, and with a touch of something akin to pride in me, I +speedily adjusted myself. I had been exiled, I had come home. As our +old nurse, aged and withered, but otherwise unaltered, said to me +quietly by way of greeting: "Well, they didn't kill you, Master +Richard!" I was, therefore, alive. It was for me, the unimportant +atom, to recover my place in the parent mass. I did so. I was +English. I recovered proportion. I wore the accustomed mask; I hid +both my person and my new emotions, as was obviously expected of me. +Having reported my insignificance to the Foreign Office. . . . I came +down to the Manor House. + +Yet, having changed, and knowing that I had changed, I was aware of a +cleft between me and my native stock. Something un-English was alive +in me and eager to assert itself. Another essence in my blood had +quickened, a secret yearning that I dared not mention to my kind, a +new hunger in my heart that clamoured to be satisfied, yet remained, +speaking generally, un-nourished. Looking for beauty among my +surroundings and among my kith and kin, I found it not; there was no +great Thrill from England or from home. The slowness, the absence of +colour, imagination, rhythm, baffled me, while the ugliness of common +things and common usages afflicted my new sensitiveness. Not that I +am peculiarly alert to beauty, nor claim superior perception--I am no +artist, either by virtue of vision or power of expression--but that a +certain stagnant obtuseness, a kind of sordid and conservative +veneration of the ugly that the English favour, distressed and even +tortured me in a way I had never realized formerly. They were so +proud to live without perception. An artist was a curiosity, not a +leader, far less a prophet. There was no imagination. + +In little things, as I said, a change was manifest, however. Much that +tradition had made lovely with the perfume of many centuries I found +modernized until the ancient spirit had entirely fled, leaving a +shell that was artificial to the point of being false. The sanction +of olden time that used to haunt with beauty was deceived by a mockery +I found almost hideous. The ancient inns, for instance, adapted to +week-end motor traffic, were pretentious and uncomfortable, their +"menus" of inferior food written elaborately in French. The +courtliness had vanished, and the cost had come. Telephones +everywhere not only destroyed privacy, but brought dismay into +countless gentle intimacies, their nuisance hardly justified by their +usefulness. Life, it seemed, in a frantic hurry, had been cheapened, +not improved; there was no real progress, but only more unrest. +England--too solid to go fast, had made ungainly efforts; but she had +moved towards ungraciousness where she had moved at all; I found her +a cross between a museum and an American mushroom town that +advertises all the modern comforts with a violent insistence that is +meant to cloak their very absence. + +This, my first impression, toned down, of course, a little later; but +it was my first impression. The people, however, even in the +countryside, seemed proud both of mushroom and museum, and commercial +ugliness, greedy and unashamed, now distorted every old-world +village. The natives were pleased to the point of vanity. + +For myself, I could not manage this atrocious compromise, and looking +for the dear old England of our boyhood days, I found it not. The +change, of course, was not in the country only, but in myself. The +soul in me, awakened to a new standard, had turned round to face +another way. + +The Manor House was very still when I arrived from London--& late May +evening between the sunset and the dark. Mother, as you know, met me +at the station, for they had stopped the down-train by special +orders, so that I stepped out upon the deserted platform of the +countryside quite alone, a distinguished man, with my rug and +umbrella. A strange footman touched his hat, an old, stooping porter +stared hard at me, then smiled vaguely, while the guard, eyeing +respectfully the individual for whom his train had halted, waved his +red flag, and swung himself into the disappearing van with the +approved manner we once thought marvellous. I left the empty +platform, gave up my ticket to an untidy boy, and crossed the gloomy +booking-hall. The mournfulness of the whole place was depressing. I +heard a blackbird whistle in a bush against the signal-box. It seemed +to scream. + +Mother I first saw, seated in the big barouche. She was leaning back, +but sat forwards as I came. She looked into my face across the wide +interval of years now ended, and my heart gave a great boyish leap, +then sank into stillness again abruptly. She seemed to me exactly +the same as usual--only so much smaller. We embraced with a kind of +dignity: + +"So here you are, my boy, at last," I heard her say in a quiet voice, +and as though she had seen me a month or two ago, "and very, very +tired, I'll be bound." + +I took my seat beside her. I felt awkward, stiff, self-conscious; +there was disappointment somewhere. + +"Oh, I'm all right, mother, thanks," I answered. "But how are you?" And +the next moment, it seemed to me, I heard her asking if I was hungry;-- +whereupon, absurd as it must sound, I was aware of an immense emotion +that interfered with my breathing. It broke up through some repressive +layer that had apparently concealed it, and made me feel--well, had I +been thirty-five years younger, I could have cried--for pleasure. +Mother, I think, forgot those years perhaps. To her I was still in +overalls and wanted food. We drove, then, in comparative silence the +four miles behind the big pair of greys, the only remark that memory +credits me with being an enquiry about the identity of the coachman +whose dim outline I saw looming in the darkness just above me. The +lamplight showed one shoulder, one arm, one ear, the rest concealed; but +the way he drove was, of course, unmistakeable; slowly, more cautiously, +perhaps, but with the same flourish of the whip, the same air of untold +responsibility as ever. And, will you believe it, my chief memory of all +that scene of anticipated tenderness and home-emotion is the few words +he gave in reply to my enquiry and recognition when at length the +carriage stopped and I got out: + +"Well, Brown, I'm glad to see you again. All well at home, I hope?" +followed by something of sympathy about his beloved horses. + +He looked down sideways at me from the box, touching his cockade with +the long yellow whip in his thick, gloved hand. I can hear his warm, +respectful answer now; I can see the gleam of proud pleasure in his eye: + +"Yes, sir, thank you, Sir Richard, and glad to see you back again, sir, +and with such success upon you." + +I moved back to help our mother out. I remember thinking how calm, how +solid, how characteristically inarticulate it all was. Did I wish it +otherwise? I think not. Only there was something in me beating its wings +impatiently like a wild bird that felt the bars close round it. . . . +Mother, I realized, could not have said even what the old coachman had +said to save her life, and I remember wondering what would move her into +the expression of natural joy. All that half-hour, as the hoofs echoed +along the silence of the country road, and the old familiar woods and +fields slid past, no sign of deep emotion had escaped her. She had asked +if I was hungry. . . . + +And then the smells! The sweet, faint garden smell in the English +twilight:--of laurels and laurestinus, of lilac, pinks, and the heavy +scent of May, wall-flowers and sweet william too--these, with the +poignant aroma of the old childhood house, were the background of +familiar loveliness against which my subsequent disillusion of the +homeland set itself in such afflicting contrast. I remember, as we +entered the dim hall, the carriage lamps fell on, the flowering +horse-chestnut by the door; the bats were flitting; a big white moth +whirred softly against the brilliant glass as though you and I were +after it again with nets and killing-bottles. . . and, helping mother out, +I noticed, besides her smallness, how slow and aged her movements were. + +"Mother, let me help you. That's what I've come home for," I said, +feeling for her little hand. And she replied so quietly, so calmly it +was almost frigid, "Thank you, dear boy; your arm, perhaps--a moment. +They are so stupid about the lamps in the hall, I've had to speak so +often. There, now! It is an awkward step." I felt myself a giant beside +her. She seemed so tiny now. There was something very strong in her +silence and her calm; and though a portion of me liked it, another +portion resented it and felt afraid. Her attitude was like a refusal, a +denial, a refusal to live, a denial of life almost. A tinge of +depression, not far removed from melancholy, stole over my spirit. The +change in me, I realized then, indeed, was radical. + +Now, lest this narrative should seem confused, you must understand that +my disillusions with regard to England were realized subsequently, when +I had moved about the counties, paid many solid visits, and tasted the +land and people in some detail. And the disappointment was the keener +owing to the fact that very soon after my arrival in the old Home Place, +the "thrill" came to me with a direct appeal that was disconcerting. For +coming unexpectedly, as it did, in this familiar scene where yet +previously I had never known it, it had the effect of marking the change +in me with a certainty from which there was no withdrawal possible. It +standardized this change. The new judgment was made uncompromisingly +clear; people and places must inevitably stand or fall by it. And the +first to fall--since the test lies beyond all control of affection or +respect--was our own dear, faithful mother. + +You share my reverence and devotion, so you will feel no pain that I +would dishonour a tie that is sacred to us both in the old Bible sense. +But, also, you know what a sturdy and typical soul of England she has +proved herself, and that a sense of beauty is not, alas, by any stretch +of kindliest allowance, a national characteristic. Culture and knowledge +we may fairly claim, no doubt, but the imaginative sense of beauty is o +rare among us that its possession is a peculiarity good form would +suppress. It is a pose, an affectation, it is unmanly--it is not +English. We are too strong to thrill. And that one so near and dear to +me, so honoured and so deeply loved, should prove herself to my new +standard thus typically English, while it came as sharpest pain, ought +not, I suppose, to have caused me the surprise it did. It made me aware, +however, of the importance of my new criterion, while at the same time +aware of a lack of sympathy between us that amounted to disenchantment. +It was a shock, to put it plainly. A breath of solitude, of isolation, +stole on me and, close behind it, melancholy. + +From the smallest clue imaginable the truth came into me, from a clue so +small, indeed, that you may smile to think I dared draw such big +deductions from premises so insignificant. You will probably deny me a +sense of humour even when you hear. So let me say at once, before you +judge me hastily, that the words, and the incident which drew them +forth, were admittedly inadequate to the deduction. Only, mark this, +please--I drew no deduction. Reason played no part. Cause and effect +were unrelated. It was simply that the truth flashed into me. I knew. + +What did I know? Perhaps that the gulf between us lay as wide as that +between the earth and Sirius; perhaps that we were, individually, of a +kind so separate, so different, that mutual understanding was +impossible; perhaps that while she was of To-day and proud of it, I was +of another time, another century, and proud of that. I cannot say +precisely. Her words, while they increased my sense of isolation, of +solitude, of melancholy, at the same time also made me laugh, as +assuredly they will now make you laugh. + +For, while she was behind me in the morning-room, fingering some letters +on the table, I stood six feet away beside the open window, listening to +the nightingales--the English nightingales--that sang across the quiet +garden in the dusk. The high-pitched clamour of the jungle choruses with +their monstrous turmoil, their prolific detail, came back to me in +startling contrast. This exquisite and delicious sound I now heard +belonged still to England. And it had not changed. "No hungry +generations tread thee down. . ." rose in some forgotten corner of my +mind, and my yearning that would be satisfied moved forth to catch the +notes. + +"Listen, mother," I said, turning towards her. + +She raised her head and smiled a little before reading the rest of the +letter that she held. + +"I only pray they won't keep you awake, dear boy," she answered gently. +"They give us very little peace, I'm afraid, just now." + +Perhaps she caught some expression in my face, for she added a trifle +more quickly: "That's the worst of the spring--our English spring--it +is so noisy!" Still smiling, she picked up her letter again, while I, +though still listening by the window, heard only the harsh scream and +rattle of the jungle voices, thousands and thousands of miles away +across the world. + + + +VII + +IT was some little time after my arrival, as I shall presently relate, +that the experience I call the thrill came to me in England--and, +like all its predecessors, came through Nature. It came, that is, +through the only apparatus I possessed as yet that could respond. + +The point, I think, is of special interest; I note it now, on looking +back upon the series as a whole, though at the time I did not note +it. + +For, compared with yourself at any rate, the aesthetic side of me is +somewhat raw; of pictures, sculpture, music I am untaught and +ignorant; with other Philistines, I "know what I like," but nothing +more. It is the honest but uncultured point of view. I am that +primitive thing, the mere male animal. It was my love of Nature, +therefore, that showed me beauty, since this was the only apparatus +in my temperament able to respond. Natural, simple things, as before, +were the channel through which beauty appealed to that latent store +of love and wisdom in me which, it almost seemed, were being slowly +educated. + +The talks and intimacies with our mother, then, were largely over; the +re-knitting of an interrupted relationship was fairly accomplished; +she had asked her questions, and listened to my answers. All the +dropped threads had been picked up again, so that a pattern, similar +to the one laid aside, now lay spread more or less comfortably before +us. Outwardly, things seemed much as they were when I left home so +many years ago. One might have thought the interval had been one of +months, since her attitude refused to recognize all change, and +change, qud growth, was abhorrent to her type. For whereas I had +altered, she had remained unmoved. + +So unsatisfying was this state of things to me, however, that I felt +unable to confide my deepest, as now I can do easily to you--so that +during these few days of intercourse renewed, we had said, it seemed, +all that was to be said with regard to the past. My health was most +lovingly discussed, and then my immediate and remoter future. I was +aware of this point of view--that I was, of course, her own dear son, +but that I was also England's son. She was intensely patriotic in the +insular sense; my soul, I mean, belonged to the British Empire rather +than to humanity and the world at large. Doubtless, a very right and +natural way to look at things. . . . She expressed a real desire to "see +your photographs, my boy, of those outlandish places where they sent +you"; then, having asked certain questions about the few women +(officers' wives and so forth) who appeared in some of them, she +leaned back in her chair, and gave me her very definite hopes about +"my value to the country," my "duty to the family traditions," even +to the point, finally, of suggesting Parliament, in what she termed +with a certain touch of pride and dignity, "the true Conservative +interest." + +"Men like yourself, Richard, are sorely needed now," she added, +looking at me with a restrained admiration; "I am sure the Party +would nominate you for this Constituency that your father and your +grandfather both represented before you. At any rate, they shall not +put you on the shelf!" + +And before I went to bed--it was my second or third night, I +think--she had let me see plainly another hope that was equally dear +to her: that I should marry again. There was an ominous reference to +my "ample means," a hint of regret that, since you were unavailable, +and Eva dead, our branch of the family could not continue to improve +the eastern counties and the world. At the back of her mind, indeed, I +think there hovered definite names, for a garden party in my honour +was suggested for the following week, to which the Chairman of the +Local Conservatives would come, and where various desirable +neighbours would be only too proud to make my acquaintance and press +my colonial and distinguished fingers. + +In the interval between my arrival and the "experience" I shall +presently describe, I had meanwhile renewed my acquaintance with the +countryside. The emotions, however, I anticipated, had even cherished +and eagerly looked forward to, had not materialized. There was a +chill of disappointment over me. For the beauty I had longed for +seemed here so thickly veiled; and more than once I surprised in my +heart a certain regret that I had come home at all. I caught myself +thinking of that immense and trackless country I had left; I even +craved it sometimes, both physically and mentally, as though, for all +its luscious grossness, it held something that nourished and +stimulated, something large, free and untamed that was lacking in this +orderly land, so neatly fenced and parcelled out at home. + +The imagined richness of my return, at any rate, was unfulfilled; the +tie with our mother, though deep, was uninspiring; while that other +more subtle and intangible link I had fondly dreamed might be +strengthened, if not wholly proved, was met with a flat denial that +seemed to classify it as nonexistent. Hope, in this particular +connection, returned upon me, blank and unrewarded. . . . The familiar +scenes woke no hint of pain, much less of questing sweetness. The +glamour of association did not operate. No personal link was +strengthened. + +And, when I visited the garden we had known together, the shady path +beneath the larches; saw, indeed, the very chairs that she and I had +used, the framed portrait in the morning-room, the harp itself, now +set with its limp and broken strings in my own chamber--I was unaware +of any ghostly thrill; least of all could I feel that "somebody was +pleased." + +Excursion farther afield deepened the disenchantment. The gorse was +out upon the Common, that Common where we played as boys, thinking it +vast and wonderful with the promise of high adventure behind every +prickly clump. The vastness, of course, was gone, but the power of +suggestion had gone likewise. It was merely a Common that deserved +its name. For though this was but the close of May, I found it worn +into threadbare patches, with edges unravelled like those of some old +carpet in a seaside lodging-house. The lanes that fed it were already +thick with dust as in thirsty August, and instead of eglantine, +wild-roses, and the rest, a smell of petrol hung upon hedges that +were quite lustreless. On the crest of the hill, whence we once +thought the view included heaven, I stood by those beaten pines we +named The Fort, counting jagged bits of glass and scraps of faded +newspaper that marred the bright green of the sprouting bracken. + +This glorious spot, once sacred to our dreams, was like a great +backyard--the Backyard of the County--while the view we loved as the +birthplace of all possible adventure, seemed to me now without +spaciousness or distinction. The trees and hedges cramped the little +fields and broke their rhythm. No great winds ever swept them clean. +The landscape was confused: there was no adventure in it, suggestion +least of all. Everything had already happened there. + +And on my way home, resentful perhaps yet eager still, I did a +dreadful thing. Possibly I hoped still for that divine sensation +which refused to come. I visited the very field, the very poplar . . . +I found the scene quite unchanged, but found it also--lifeless. The +glamour of association did not operate. I knew no poignancy, desire +lay inert. The thrill held stubbornly aloof. No link was +strengthened. . . . I came home slowly, thinking instead of my mother's +plans and wishes for me, and of the clear intention to incorporate me +in the stolid and conventional formulas of what appeared to me as +uninspired English dullness. My disappointment crystallized into +something like revolt. A faint hostility even rose in me as we sat +together, talking of politics, of the London news just come to hand, +of the neighbours, of the weather too. I was conscious of opposition +to her stereotyped plans, and of resentment towards the lack of +understanding in her. I would shake free and follow beauty. The +yearning, for want of sympathy, and the hunger, for lack of +sustenance, grew very strong and urgent in me. + +I longed passionately just then for beauty--and for that revelation of +it which included somewhere the personal emotion of a strangely eager +love. + + + +VIII + +THIS, then, was somewhat my state of mind, when, after our late tea on +the verandah, I strolled out on to the lawn to enjoy my pipe in the +quiet of the garden paths. I felt dissatisfied and disappointed, yet +knew not entirely perhaps, the reason. I wished to be alone, but was +hungry for companionship as well. Mother saw me go and watched +attentively, but said no word, merely following me a moment with her +eyes above the edge of the Times she read, as of old, during the hours +between tea and dinner. The Spectator, her worldly Bible, lay ready to +her hand when the Times should have been finished. They were, +respectively, as always, her dictionary of opinion, and her +medicine-chest. Before I had gone a dozen yards, her head disappeared +behind the printed sheet again. The roses flowed between us. + +I felt her following glance, as I felt also its withdrawal. Then I +forgot her. . . . A touch of melancholy stole on me, as the garden took me +in its charge. For a garden is a ghostly place, and an old-world garden, +above all, leads thought backwards among vanished memories rather than +forward among constructive hopes and joys. + +I yielded, in any case, a little to this subtle pressure from the past, +and I must have strolled among the lilac and laburnums for a longer time +than I knew, since the gardener who had been trimming the flower-beds +with a hand lawn-mower was gone, and dusk already veiled the cedars, +when I found myself leaning against the wooden gate that opened into the +less formal part beyond the larches. + +The house was not visible from where I stood. I smelt the May, the +lilac, the heavy perfume everywhere of the opening year; it rose about +me in waves, as though full-bosomed summer lay breathing her great +promises close at hand, while spring, still lingering, with bright eyes +of dew,' watched over her. Then, suddenly, behind these richer scents, I +caught a sweeter, wilder tang than anything they contained, and turning, +saw that the pines were closer than I knew. A waft of something purer, +fresher, reached my nostrils on a little noiseless wind, as, leaning +across the gate, I turned my back upon the cultivated grounds and gazed +into a region of more natural, tangled growth. + +The change was sudden. It was exquisite, sharp and unexpected, too, as +with a little touch of wonder. There was surprise in it. For the garden, +you will remember, melts here insensibly into a stretch of scattered +pines, where heather and bracken cover wide reaches of unreclaimed and +useless land. Irregular trails of whitish sand gleamed faintly before +the shadows swallowed them, and in the open patches I saw young +silver-birches that made me think of running children arrested in +mid-play. They stood outlined very tenderly against the sky; their +slender forms still quivered; their feathery hair fell earthwards as +they drew themselves together, bending their wayward little heads before +the approaching night. Behind them, framed by the darker pines into a +glowing frieze, the west still burned with the last fires of the sunset; +I could see the heather, rising and falling like a tumbled sea against +the horizon, where the dim heave of distant moorland broke the +afterglow. + +And the dusk now held this region in its magic. So strange, indeed, was +the contrast between the ebony shadows and the pools and streaks of +amberish light, that I looked about me for a moment, almost sharply. +There was a touch of the unearthly in this loveliness that bewildered +sight a little. Extraordinarily still the world was, yet there seemed +activity close upon my footsteps, an activity more than of inanimate +Nature, yet less than of human beings. With solidarity it had nothing to +do, though it sought material expression. It was very near. And I was +startled, I recognized the narrow frontier between fear and wonder. And +then I crossed it. + +For something stopped me dead. I paused and stared. My heart began to +beat more rapidly. Then, ashamed of my moment's hesitation, I was about +to move forward through the gate, when again I halted. I listened, and +caught my breath. I fancied the stillness became articulate, the shadows +stirred, the silence was about to break. + +I remember trying to think; I wanted to relieve the singular tension by +finding words, if only inner words,--when, out of the stillness, out of +the silence, out of the shadows--something happened. Some faculty of +judgment, some attitude in which I normally clothed myself, were +abruptly stripped away. I was left bare and sensitive. I could almost +have believed that my body had dropped aside, that I stood there naked, +unprotected, a form-less spirit, stirred and lifted by the passing +breeze. + +And then it came. As with a sword-thrust of blinding sweetness, I was +laid open. Yet so instant, and of such swiftness, was the stroke, that I +can only describe it by saying that, while pierced and wounded, I was +also healed again. + +Without hint or warning, Beauty swept me with a pain and happiness well +nigh intolerable. It drenched me and was gone. No lightning flash could +have equalled the swiftness of its amazing passage; something tore in +me; the emotion was enveloping but very tender; it was both terrible yet +dear. Would to God I might crystallize it for you in those few mighty +words which should waken in yourself--in every one!--the wonder and the +joy. It contained, I felt, both the worship that belongs to awe and the +tenderness of infinite love which welcomes tears. Some power that was +not of this world, yet that used the details of this world to manifest, +had visited me. + +No element of surprise lay in it even. It was too swift for anything but +joy, which of all emotions is the most instantaneous: I had been empty, +I was filled. Beauty that bathes the stars and drowns the very universe +had stolen out of this wild morsel of wasted and uncared-for English +garden, and dropped its transforming magic into--me. At the very moment, +moreover, when I had been ready to deny it altogether. I saw my +insignificance, yet, such was the splendour it had wakened in me, knew +my right as well. It could be ever thus; some attitude in myself alone +prevented. . . . + +And--somebody was pleased. + +This personal ingredient lay secure in the joy that assuredly remained +when the first brief intolerable ecstasy had passed. The link I desired +to recognize was proved, not merely strengthened. Beauty had cleft me +open, and a message, if you will, had been delivered. This personal hint +persisted; I was almost aware of conscious and intelligent direction. +For to you I will make the incredible confession, that I dare phrase the +experience in another fashion, equally true: In that flashing instant I +stood naked and shelterless to the gaze of some one who had looked upon +me. I was aware of sight; of eyes in which "burning memory lights love +home." These eyes, this sight had gazed at me, then turned away. For in +that blinding sweetness there was light, as with the immediate +withdrawal again there was instant darkness. I was first visible, then +concealed. I was clothed again and covered. + +And the thick darkness that followed made it appear as though night, in +one brief second, had taken the place of dusk. + +Trembling, I leaned across the wooden gate and waited while the darkness +settled closer. I can swear, moreover, that it was neither dream, nor +hope, nor any hungry fantasy in me that then recognized a further +marvel--I was no longer now alone. + +A presence faced me, standing breast-high in the bracken. The garden had +been empty; somebody now walked there with me. + +It was, as I mentioned, the still hour between the twilight and the +long, cool dark of early summer. The little breeze passed whispering +through the pines. I smelt the pungent perfume of dry heather, sand, and +bracken. The horizon, low down between the trunks, shone gold and +crimson still, but fading rapidly. I stood there for a long time +trembling; I was a part of it; I felt that I was shining, as though my +inner joy irradiated the world about me. Nothing in all my life has been +so real, so positive. I was assuredly not alone. . . . + +The first sharp magic, the flash that pierced and burned, had gone its +way, but Beauty still stood so perilously near, so personal, that any +moment, I felt, it must take tangible form, betray itself in visible +movement of some sort, break possibly into audible sound of actual +speech. It would not have surprised me--more, it would have been natural +almost--had I felt a touch upon my hands and lips, or caught the murmur +of spoken words against my ear. + +Yet from such direct revelation I shrank involuntarily and by instinct. +I could not have borne it then. I had the feeling that it must mar and +defile a wonder already great enough; there would have lain in it, too, +a betrayal of the commonplace, as of something which I could not +possibly hold for true. I must have distrusted my own senses even, for +the beauty that cleft me open dealt directly with the soul alone, +leaving the senses wholly disengaged. The Presence was not answerable to +any lesser recognition. + +Thus I shrank and turned away, facing the familiar garden and the "wet +bird-haunted English lawn," a spiritual tenderness in me still dreading +that I might see or hear or feel, destroying thus the reality of my +experience. Yet there was, thank God, no speech, no touch, no movement, +other than the shiver of the birches, the breath of air against my +cheek, the droop and bending of the nearer pine boughs. There was no +audible or visible expression; I saw no figure breast-high in the +bracken. Yet sound there was, a moment later. For, as I turned away, a +bird upon a larch twig overhead burst into sudden and exultant song. + + + +IX + +NOW, do not be alarmed lest I shall attempt to describe a list of +fanciful unrealities that borrowed life from a passing emotion +merely; the emotion was permanent, the results enduring. Please +believe the honest statement that, with the singing of that bird, the +pent-up stress in me became measurably articulate. Some bird in my +heart, long caged, rang out in answering inner song. + +It is also true, I think, that there were no words in me at the +moment, and certainly no desire for speech. Had a companion been with +me, I should probably have merely lit my pipe and smoked in silence; +if I spoke at all, I should have made some commonplace remark: "It's +late; we must be going in to dress for dinner. . . ." As it was, +however, the emotion in me, answering the singing of the bird, became, +as I said, measurably articulate. I give you simple facts, as though +this were my monthly Report to the Foreign Office in days gone by. I +spoke no word aloud, of course. It was rather that my feelings found +utterance in the rapturous song I listened to, and that my thoughts +knew this relief of vicarious expression, though of inner and +inaudible expression. The beauty of scene and moment were adequately +recorded, and for ever in that song. They were now part of me. + +Unaware of its perfect mission the bird sang, of course because it +could not help itself; perhaps some mating thrush, perhaps a common +blackbird only; I cannot say; I only realized that no human voice, no +human music, even of the most elaborate and inspired kind, could have +made this beauty, similarly articulate. And, for a moment I knew my +former pain that I could not share this joy, this beauty, with others +of my kind, that, except for myself, the loveliness seemed lost and +wasted. There was no spectator, no other listener; the sweet spring +night was lavish for no audience; the revelation had been repeated, +would be repeated, a thousand thousand times without recognition and +without reward. + +Then, as I listened, memory, it seemed, took yearning by the hand, and +led me towards that inner utterance I have mentioned. There was no +voice, least of all that inner voice you surely have anticipated. But +there was utterance, as though my whole being combined with nature in +its birth. + +Into the mould of familiar sentences of long ago it ran, yet nearer at +last to full disclosure, because the pregnant sentences had altered: + +"I need your forgiveness born of love. . ." passed through me with the +singing of the bird. + +I listened with the closest inner attention I have ever known. I +paused. My heart brimmed with an expectant wonder that was happiness. +And the happiness was justified. For the familiar sentence halted +before its first sorrowful completion; the poignant close remained +unuttered--because it was no longer true. + +Out of deep love in me, new-born, that held the promise of fulfilment, +the utterance concluded: + +". . . I have found a better way. . . ." + +Before I could think or question, and almost as though a whisper of +the wind went past, there rose in me at once this answering +recognition. It seemed authentically convincing; it was glorious; it +was full of joy: + +"That beauty which was Marion lives on, and lives for me." + +It was as though a blaze of light shone through me; somewhere in my +body there were tears of welcome; for this recognition was to me +reunion. + +It must seem astonishing for me, a mere soldier and Colonial Governor, +to confess you that I stood there listening to the song for a long +interval of what I can only term, with utmost sincerity, communion. +Beauty and love both visited me; I believe that truth and wisdom +entered softly with them. As I wrote above, I saw my own +insignificance, yet, such was the splendour in me, I knew my right as +well. It could be ever thus. My attitude alone prevented. I was not +excluded, not cut off. This Beauty lay ready to my hand, always +available, for ever, now. It was not unharvested. But more--it could +be shared with others; it was become a portion of myself, and that +which is part of my being must, inevitably and automatically, be given +out. + +It was, thus, nowhere wasted or unharvested; it offered with prodigal +opportunity a vehicle for that inspiration which is love, and being +love of purest kind, is surely wisdom too. The dead, indeed, do not +return, yet they are active, and those who lived beauty in their +lives are still, through that beauty, benevolently active. + +I will give you now the change instantaneously produced in me: + +There rose in me another, deeper point of view that dispelled as by +magic the disenchantment that had chilled these first days of my +return. I stood here in this old-world garden, but I stood also in +the heart of that beauty, so carefully hidden, so craftily screened +behind the obvious, that strong and virile beauty which is England. +Within call of my voice, still studying by lamplight now the symbols +of her well-established strength, burning, moreover, with the steady +faith which does not easily break across restraint, and loving the +man as she had loved the little boy, sat one, not wondering perhaps +at my unspoken misunderstanding, yet hoping, patiently and in +silence, for its removal in due time. In the house of our boyhood, of +our earliest play and quarrels, unchanged and unchangeable, knowing +simply that I had "come home again to her," our mother waited. . . . + +I need not elaborate this for you, you for whom England and our mother +win almost a single, undivided love. I had misjudged, but the cause +of my misjudgment was thus suddenly removed. A subtler understanding +insight, a sympathy born of deeper love, something of greater wisdom, +in a word, awoke in me. The thrill had worked its magic as of old, +but this time in its slower English fashion, deep, and +characteristically sure. To my country (that is, to my first +experience of impersonal love) and to my mother (that is, to my +earliest acquaintance with personal love) I had been ready, in my +impatience, to credit an injustice. Unknown to me, thus, there had +been need of guidance, of assistance. Beauty, having cleared the way, +had worked upon me its amazing alchemy. + +There, in fewest possible words, is what had happened. + +I remember that for a long time, then, I waited in the hush of my +childhood's garden, listening, as it were, with every pore, and +conscious that some one who was pleased interpreted the beauty to my +soul. It seemed, as I said, a message of a personal kind. It was +regenerative, moveover, in so far that life was enlarged and lifted +upon a nobler scale; new sources of power were open to me; I saw a +better way. Irresistibly it came to me again that beauty, far from +being wasted, was purposive, that this purpose was of a redeeming +kind, and that some one who was pleased co-operated with it for my +personal benefit. No figure, thank God, was visible, no voice was +audible, but a presence there indubitably was, and, whether I +responded or otherwise, would be always there. + +And the power was such that I felt as though the desire of the planet +itself yearned through it for expression. + + + +X + +I WATCHED the little bird against the paling sky, and my thoughts, +following the happy singing, went slowly backwards into the +half-forgotten past. . . . They led me again through the maze of +gorgeous and mysterious hopes, un-remembered now so many years, that +had marked my childhood. Few of these, if any, it seemed, had known +fulfilment. . . . I stole back with them, past the long exile in great +Africa, into the region of my youth and early boyhood. . . . + +And, as though a hand uncovered it deliberately, I recalled an +earliest dream--strangest, perhaps, of all the mysterious dreams of +that far time. It had, I thought, remained unrealized, as, certainly, +till this moment, it had lain forgotten--a boyish dream that behind +the veils of the Future some one waited for me with the patience of a +perfect love that was my due. + +The dream reached forward towards some one who must one day appear, +and whose coming would make life sweet and wonderful, fulfilling, +even explaining, the purpose of my being. This dream which I had +thought peculiarly my own, belongs, I learned later, to many, if not +to the race in general, and, with a smile at my own incurable vanity +(and probably a grimace at being neatly duped), I had laid it on one +side. At any rate, I forgot it, for nothing happened to keep it +active, much less revive it. + +Now, however, looking backwards, and listening to the singing in the +sky, I recalled what almost seemed to have been its attempt at +realization. Having recovered its earliest appearance, my thought +next leaped forward to the moment that might possibly have been its +reappearance. For memory bore me off without an effort on my part, +and set me abruptly within a room of the house I had come home to, +where Marion sat beside me, singing to the harp she loved. The scene +rose up before me as of yesterday. . . the emotions themselves +reconstituted. I recalled the deep, half-sad desire to be worthy of +her, to persuade myself I loved as she did, even the curious impulse +to acknowledge an emotion that came and went before it could be +wholly realized--the feeling, namely, that I ought to love her +because--no more, no less is the truth--because she needed it: and +then the blank dismay that followed my failure, as with a kind of +shameful horror before a great purpose that my emptiness left +unfulfilled. + +The very song came back that moved me more than any else she +sang--her favourite it was as well. I heard the twanging of the +strings her fingers plucked. I heard the words: + + "About the little chambers of my heart + Friends have been coming--going--many a year. + The doors stand open there. + Some, lightly stepping, enter; some depart. + Freely they come and go, at will. + The walls give back their laughter; all day long + They fill the house with song. + One door alone is shut, one chamber still." + +With each repetition of the song, I remembered, how at that time my +boyhood's dream came back to me, as though its fulfilment were at +last at hand; as though, somehow, that "door" must open, that "still +chamber" welcome the sweetness and the loveliness of her who sang. +For I could not listen to the music, nor watch her fingers moving +down the strings, her slender wrist and rounded arm, her foot upon the +pedal as she held the instrument so close--without this poignant +yearning that proved ever vain, or this shame of unshed tears my +heart mysteriously acknowledged. To the end, as you know, that door +remained unopened, that chamber still. + +It was the singing of this sweet English bird, making articulate for +me the beauty I could not utter, that brought back to memory the +scene, the music, and the words. . . . + +I looked round me; I looked up. As I did so, the little creature, with +one last burst of passionate happiness, flew away into the darkness. +And silence followed, so deep that I could hear the murmur of my +blood. . . an exquisite joy ran through me, making me quiver with +expectancy from head to foot. . . . + +And it was then suddenly I became aware that the long-closed door at +last was open, the still chamber occupied. Some one who was pleased, +stretching a hand across the silence and the beauty, drew me within +that chamber of the heart, so that I passed behind the door that was +now a veil, and now a mist, and now a shining blaze of light. . . +passed into a remote and inner stillness where that direct communion +which is wordless can alone take place. + +It was, I verily believe, a stillness of the spirit. At the centre of +the tempest, of the whirlpool, of the heart's commotion, there is +peace. I stood close against that source of our life which lies hid +with beauty very far away, and yet so near that it is enclosed in +every hope, in every yearning, and in every tear. For the whisper came +to me, beyond all telling sure. + +Beauty had touched me, Wisdom come to birth; and Love, whispering +through the silence those marvellous words that sum up all spiritual +experience, proved it to me: + +"Be still--and know. . . ." + +I found myself moving slowly across the lawn again towards the house. I +presently heard the wind mousing softly in the limes. The air was fresh +and cool. The first stars were out. I saw the laburnum drooping, as +though thick clusters of these very stars had drifted earthwards among +the branches; I saw the gleam of the lilac; across the dim tangle of the +early roses shone the familiar windows, cosy now with the glow of +lighted lamps. . . and I became suddenly, in a very intimate sense, +"aware" of the garden. The Presence that walked beside me moved abruptly +closer. This Presence and the garden seemed, as in some divine +mysterious way, inseparable. + +There was a stirring of the dimmest and most primitive associations +possible. Memory plunged back among ancestral, even racial, shadows. I +recalled the sweet and tender legend of the beginnings of the world, +when something divine, it was whispered, was intimate with man, and +companioning his earliest innocence, walked with him in that happier +state those childlike poets called--a garden. That childhood of the +world seemed very near. + +I found again the conditions of innocence and pristine wonder--of +simplicity. There was a garden in my heart, and some one walked with me +therein. For Life in its simplest form--of breathing leaves and growing +flowers, of trees and plants and shrubs--glowed all about me in the +darkness. The blades of grass, the blossoms hanging in the air, strong +stems and hidden roots, fulfilled themselves with patience upon every +side, brimming with beauty and stillness did not seek to advertise. And +of this simplest form of life--the vegetable kingdom--I became vividly +aware, prodigal, mysterious, yet purposive. The outer garden merged with +the inner, and the Presence walked in both of them. . . . + +I was led backwards, far down into my own being. I reached the earliest, +simplest functions by which I myself had come to be, the state where the +frontier lies between that which is dead and that which is alive. +Somewhere between the mineral and vegetable worlds, I knew, that +frontier lay. For the vegetable kingdom alone possesses the power of +converting the mineral or the chemical into the living organism by +absorption; and here, among the leaves and roots and flowers, that power +was sweetly, irresistibly, at work. + +It seemed I reached that frontier, and I passed it. Beauty came through +the most primitive aspect of my being. + +And so I would tell you, you alone of all the world, that the Presence +walking beside me in the scented darkness came suddenly so close that I +was aware of it in what seemed my earliest and most innocent state of +soul. + +Beside me, in that old-world garden, walked the Cause of all things. The +Beauty that in you was truth, in Marion tenderness, was harvested: and +somebody was pleased. + + + +XI + +ALL this I have told to you because we have known together the closest +intimacy possible to human beings--we have shared beauty. + +They said, these many days ago, that you had gone away, that you were +dead. The wind on the Downs, your favourite Downs, your favourite +southwest wind, received your dust, scattering it like pollen into +space. No sign has come to me, no other sign than this I tell you now +in my long letter. It is enough. I know. + +There were thus two loves, one unrecognized till afterwards, the other +realized at the time. . . . In the body there was promise. There is now +accomplishment. + +It is very strange, and yet so simple. Beauty, I suppose, opens the +heart, extends the consciousness. It is a platitude, of course. You +will laugh when I tell you that afterwards I tried to reason it all +out. I am not apparently intellectual. The books I read would fill +your empty room--on aesthetics, art, and what not. I got no result +from any of them, but rather a state of muddle that was, no doubt, +congestion. None of the theories and explanations touched the root of +the matter. I am evidently not "an artist"--that at any rate I +gathered, and yet these learned people seemed to write about +something they had never "lived." I could almost believe that the +writers of these subtle analyses have never themselves felt +beauty--the burn, the rapture, the regenerating fire. They have +known, perhaps, a reaction of the physical nerves, but never this +light within the soul that lifts the horizons of the consciousness and +makes one know that God exists, that death is not even separation, +and that eternity is now. + +Metaphysics I studied too. I fooled myself, thirty years after the +proper time for doing so, over the old problem whether beauty lies in +the object seen or in the mind that sees the object. And in the end I +came back hungrily to my simple starting-point--that beauty moved me. +It opened my heart to one of its many aspects--truth, wisdom, joy, +and love--and what else, in the name of heaven, mattered! + +I sold the books at miserable prices that made Mother question my +judgment: coloured plates, costly bindings, rare editions, and all. +Aesthetics, Art, rules and principles might go hang for all I cared +or any good they did me. It was intellect that had devised all these. +The truth was simpler far. I cared nothing for these scholarly +explanations of beauty's genesis and laws of working, because I felt +it. Hunger needs no analysis, does it? Nor does Love. Could anything +be more stultifying? Give to the first craving a lump of bread, and +to the second a tangible man or woman--and let those who have the +time analyse both cravings at their leisure. + +For the thrill I mean is never physical, and has nothing in common +with that acute sensation experienced when the acrobat is seen to +miss the rope in mid-air as he swings from bar to bar. There is no +shock in it, for shock is of the nerves, arresting life; the thrill I +speak of intensifies and sets it rising in a wave that flows. It is of +the spirit. It wounds, yet marvellously. It is unearthly. Therein, I +think, lies its essential quality; by chance, as it were, in writing +this intimate confession, I have hit upon the very word: it is +unearthly, it contains surprise. Yes, Beauty wounds marvellously, +then follows the new birth, regeneration. There is a ravishment of +the entire being into light and knowledge. + +The element of surprise is certainly characteristic. The thrill comes +unheralded--a sudden uprush of convincing joy loosed from some store +that is inexhaustible. Unlike the effect of a nervous shock which can +be lived over and reconstituted, it knows no repetition; its climax +is instantaneous, there is neither increase nor declension; it is +unrecoverable; it strikes and is gone. Breaking across the +phantasmagoria of appearances, it comes as a flash of reality, a +lightning recognition of something that cannot be travestied. It is +not in time. It is eternity. + +I suspect you know it now with me; in fact I am certain that you +do. . . . + +I remember how, many years ago--in that delightful period between +boyhood and manhood when we felt our wings and argued about the +universe--we discovered this unearthly quality in three different +things: the song of a bird, the eyes of a child, and a wild-flower +come upon unexpectedly in a scene of desolation. For in all three, we +agreed, shines that wonder which holds adoration, that joy which is +spontaneous and uncalculated, and that surprise which pertains to +Eternity looking out triumphantly upon ephemeral things. + +So, at least, in our youthful eagerness, we agreed; and to this day +one in particular of the three--a bird's song --always makes me think +of God. That divine, ecstatic, simple sound is to me ever both +surprising and unearthly. Each time it takes me by surprise--that +people do not hush their talk to kneel and listen. . . . And of the eyes +of little children--if there is any clearer revelation granted to us +of what is unearthly in the sense of divinity brought close, I do not +know it. Each time my spirit is arrested by surprise, then filled +with wondering joy as I meet that strange open look, so stainless, +accepting the universe as its rightful toy, and, as with the bird and +flower, saying Yes to life as though there could not possibly exist a +No. + +The wildflower too: you recall once--it was above Igls when the +Tyrolean snows were melting--how we found a sudden gentian on the +dead, pale grass? The sliding snows had left the coarse tufts stroked +all one way, white and ugly, thickly streaked with mud, no single +blade with any sign of life or greenness yet, when we came upon that +star of concentrated beauty, more blue than the blue sky overhead, the +whole passion of the earth in each pointed petal. A distant +avalanche, as though the hills were settling, the bustle of the +torrent, the wind in the pines and larches, only marked by contrast +the incredible stillness of the heights--then, suddenly, this star of +blue blazing among the desolation. I recall your cry and my +own--wonder, joy, as of something unearthly--that took us by +surprise. + +In these three, certainly, lay the authentic thrill I speak of; while +it lasts, the actual moment seems but a pedestal from which the eyes +of the heart look into Heaven, a pedestal from which the soul leaps +out into the surrounding garden of limitless possibilities which are +its birthright, and immediately accessible. And that, indeed, is the +essential meaning of the thrill--that Heaven is here and now. The +gates of ivory are very tiny; Beauty sounds the elfin horns that +opens them; smaller than the eye of a needle is that opening--upon +the diamond point of the thrill you flash within, and the Garden of +Eternity is yours for ever--now. + +I am writing this to you, because I know you listen with your heart, +not with your nerves; and the garden that I write about you know now +better than I do myself. I have but tasted it, you dwell therein, +unaged, unageing. And so we share the flowers; we know the light, the +fragrance and the birds we know together. . . . They tell me--even our +mother says it sometimes with a sigh--that you are far away, not +understanding that we have but recovered the garden of our early +childhood, you permanently, I whenever the thrill opens the happy +gates. You are as near to me as that. Our love was forged inside +those ivory gates that guard that childhood state, facing four ways, +and if I wandered outside a-while, puzzled and lonely, the thrill of +beauty has led me back again, and I, have found your love unchanged, +unaged, still growing in the garden of our earliest memories. I did +but lose my way for a time. . . . + +That childhood state must be amazingly close to God, I suppose, for +though no child is consciously aware of beauty, its whole being cries +Yes to the universe and life as naturally and instinctively as a +flower turns to the sun. The universe lies in its overall pocket of +alpaca, and beauty only becomes a thing apart when the growing +consciousness, hearing the world cry No, steps through the gates to +enquire and cannot find the entrance any more. Beauty then becomes a +signpost showing the way home again. Baudelaire, of course, meant God +and Heaven, instead of "genius" when he said, "Le genie n'est que +l'enfance retrouvee a volonte. . . ." + +And so when I write to you, I find myself again within the garden of +our childhood, that English garden where our love shared all the +light and fragrance and flowers of the world together. "Time's but a +golden wind that shakes the grass," and since my thought is with you, +you are with me now. . . and now means always or it means nothing. + +So these relationships are real still among a thousand shadows. Your +beauty was truth, hers was unselfish love. The important thing is to +know you still live, not with regret and selfish grief, but with that +joy and sure conviction which makes the so-called separation a +temporary test, perhaps, but never a final blow. What are the few +years of separation compared to this certainty of co-operation in +eternity? We live but a few years together in the flesh, yet if those +few are lived with beauty and beautifully, the tie is unalterably +forged which fastens us lovingly together for ever. Where, how, +under what precise conditions it were idle to enquire and +unnecessary--the wrong way too. Our only knowledge (in the scientific +sense) comes to us through our earthly senses. To forecast our future +life, constructing it of necessity upon this earthly sensory +experience, is an occupation for those who have neither faith nor +imagination. All such "heavens" are but clumsy idealizations of the +present--"Happy Hunting Grounds" in various forms: whereas we know +that if we lived beauty together, we shall live it always +--"afterwards," as our poor time-ridden language phrases it. For +Beauty, once known, cannot exclude us. We cooperated with the Power +that makes the universe alive. + +And, knowing this, I do not ask for your "return," or for any +so-called evidence that you survive. In beauty you both live now with +less hampered hands, less troubled breath, and I am glad. + +Why should you come, indeed, through the gutter of my worn, familiar, +personal desires, when the open channel of beauty lies ever at the +flood for you to use? Coming in this way, you come, besides, for +many, not for me alone, since behind every thrill of beauty stand the +countless brave souls who lived it in their lives. They have entered +the mighty rhythm that floats the spiral nebulae in space, as it turns +the little aspiring Nautilus in the depths of the sea. Having once +felt this impersonal worship which is love of beauty, they are linked +to the power that drives the universe towards perfection, the power +that knocks in a million un-advertised forms at every human heart: +and that is God. + +With that beneficent power you cooperate. I ask no other test. I crave +no evidence that you selfishly remember me. In the body we did not +know so closely. To see into your physical eyes, and touch your hand, +and hear your voice--these were but intermediary methods, symbols, at +the best. For you I never saw nor touched nor heard. I felt you--in +my heart. The closest intimacy we knew was when together we shared +one moment of the same beauty; no other intimacy approaches the +reality of that; it is now strengthened to a degree unrealized +before. For me that is enough. I have that faith, that certainty, +that knowledge. Should you come to me otherwise I must disown you. +Should you stammer through another's earthly lips that you now enjoy +a mere idealized repetition of your physical limitations, I should +know my love, my memory, my hope degraded, nay, my very faith +destroyed. + +To summon you in that way makes me shudder. It would be to limit your +larger uses, your wider mission, merely to numb a selfish grief born +of a faithless misunderstanding. + +Come to me instead--or, rather, stay, since you have never left--be +with me still in the wonder of dawn and twilight, in the yearning +desire of inarticulate black night, in the wind, the sunshine, and +the rain. It is then that I am nearest to you and to your beneficent +activity, for the same elemental rhythm of Beauty includes us both. +The best and highest of you are there; I want no lesser assurance, no +broken personal revelation. Eternal beauty brings you with an +intimacy unknown, impossible, indeed, to partial disclosure. I should +abhor a halting masquerade, a stammering message less intelligible +even than our intercourse of the body. + +Come, then! Be with me, your truth and Marion's tenderness linked +together with what is noblest in myself. Be with me in the simple +loveliness of an English garden where you and I, as boys together, +first heard that voice of wonder, and knew the Presence walking with +us among the growing leaves. + +THE END + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext The Garden of Survival, by Algernon Blackwood + diff --git a/old/grdns10.zip b/old/grdns10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..85a2a95 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/grdns10.zip |