sulky. But I never feel quite certain at this time of the year that
there may not be penny steamers plying between Silver Street Bridge and
Chesterton, or a Lockhart’s tea and cocoa palace erected in King’s.
And I should hardly like to see it. Of course I did not find absolute
solitude even here. The other day an apple fell on my head while I was
like a child picking up pebbles on the shores of the ocean of life. I
saw that there was no help for it; so I just followed precedent and
discovered a natural law--that I never get anything I want. I am quite
contented, consequently, that I did not find any solitude at first, and
am pleasantly surprised that a large picnic party, who came and sniffed
all round me suspiciously, as if they wondered why I was not muzzled,
have finally decided to defile some other part of the river scenery
with their happy laughter and packets of lukewarm comestibles.
I like a crowd immensely. Ditton Corner is good for the soul. So is the
Strand at noon or midnight. But every one who really likes a crowd,
really likes solitude.
It is pleasant enough to lie here in the hot sun, to have a pipe that
does its work properly, and to wonder what the time is, but not to be
enough distressed about it to take the trouble to consult one’s watch.
I am finishing the “Entertainments” of Kapnides now, and I am not quite
clear about the last story but one in his book. I give it, in case you
have not read it.
* * * * *
It was a most beautiful cloud. Two highly respectable Athenians looked
at it for a long time, and they understood beauty in Athens.
“Now, if any one were to paint that,” said the first, “every one would
say that it was not natural.” He felt there was depth in the remark.
“I am not so sure of that,” said the second, intending to be thought
judicious but not disagreeable.
If the cloud had been painted, its chiefest beauty would have been
omitted. For in the centre of the cloud sat the unborn soul of a
girl-child. To all mortals it had no visible appearance. But the stars,
as they crept slowly up for a night’s work, saw with smiling eyes a
graceful figure seated in the vapour, leaning a little backward, white
against the crimson pillows of mist, with slender hands clasped behind
a shapely head, and long dark hair and closed eyes. For it lived,
but did not think, after the manner of unborn souls, which have ways
distinctly of their own.
And as the sun poised over the cool, lighted sea that sang to welcome
it, a noise of little tinkling silver bells was heard all down the sky;
and there was some hurry and confusion amid Powers which were usually
calm with the unjust, irritating, excessive calmness of a natural law.
When it was all over, no one exactly knew whose fault it was. But the
Manager was summoned before the great Zeus, and reprimanded severely.
“It’s carelessness,” said Zeus, “and that’s what I can’t stand. You
ought to have been ready, and there are no two ways about it. You sit
there in the office, wondering how long it will be before you can
sneak out to your beastly lunch, and you forget that you’re paid to be
managing my business for me all that time.”
Whether it was the Manager’s fault or not, the fact remained. Down in
the world, in the beautiful country just outside Athens, a boy-child
had been born, and he had been born with the soul of a girl-child
inside him.
“Such a piece of bungling!” grumbled Zeus, and went off to play at
making orphans.
To play this game you have to be a god, and possess thunderbolts; every
time you kill a father or mother you score one; if you miss, it counts
nothing; if you kill anything else by mistake, you lose one.
Before the boy was grown Zeus had forgotten all about it. Perhaps this
was as well for the boy, for Zeus had intended only to give him five
years’ life; and perhaps it was not as well.
At the age of twelve he was tall and straight. But his face was too
delicate, and his eyes were the eyes that had slumbered a dreamless
slumber under the closed lids of the unborn soul of a girl. And
about his ways there was some sweet shyness and tenderness, or
softness--names do not matter--although in courage and spirit and
endurance he had no equal among his comrades. And with all his comrades
he was gentle, and they loved him; but he, having no care for them nor
for the parents who bore him, and angry with himself because he could
feel no such care, went long, wandering walks alone, and heard strange
stories told him by flowers and birds and winds.
And the years passed, and there was no change until the boy was
sixteen, and then no one knew why he was so unhappy and quiet; he
himself hardly knew. But now his wanderings would take him away for
days at a time. A spirit of longing possessed him, for which he had
no name, and the fulfilment of it was as a dim, dancing light before
him, baffling and dazzling him, and leaving him no peace. And of this
neither winds, nor birds, nor flowers told him anything. And the
longing drove him to climb where no others had dared to climb, or to
swim far out into the cool waters of the bay, that he might come back
tired and sleep through the warm fragrant night in the long grass. And
ever in sleep there came one dream and told him all; and ever when he
awoke, the dream was gone from his memory. So he never knew, but always
knew that he had known.
Comely maidens, with an intimate knowledge of their own best points,
met him sometimes in his wanderings. And for them he cared nothing at
all, and wondered why one or two of their number looked shyly at him as
he passed them. They said nothing, for maidens are secretive animals;
but one with shapely arms took to herself a new bracelet; and one
with pretty pearly teeth got up a new sigh which just parted the lips
without being ungraceful, and sounded extremely interesting. However,
they might have painted themselves blue, and have had no effect
whatever on the sorrowful youth. But they were not thus minded; and,
seeing that this sad youth neither loved nor hated them, they looked
out for those who understood love and hatred, and were married.
The boy’s father thought it necessary to consult a physician about this
strange melancholy. Besides, the youth was growing paler every day,
and was listless, and cared for nothing but to lie asleep, or almost
asleep, with the feathery grass rustling in a gentle whisper over him.
So the physician came, and asked several impertinent questions. Then he
delivered himself upon this wise:
“It is well known that much exercise and weariness consume the spirits
and substance, refrigerate the body; and such humours which nature
would have otherwise concocted and expelled, it stirs up and makes them
rage; which, being so enraged, diversely affect and trouble the body
and mind.”
“Those are comforting words,” said the boy’s father, who couldn’t
understand them.
“Keep it vague,” murmured the boy softly.
“It is to the immoderate use of gymnastics,” said the physician, “that
I ascribe your son’s melancholy. Wherefore, let him drink of a syrup
of black hellebore, confected with the boiled seeds of anise, endive,
mallow, fermitory, diacatholicon, hierologodium----”
“Half-time----change ends,” said the boy under his breath.
“Cassia and sweet almonds,” continued the physician. “And in the
meantime he may drink of a broth of an exenterated chicken.”
He had heard the youth’s last remark. “And,” he added severely, “let
him beware of intempestive laughter.”
So the physician went away.
“What did he say?” asked the mother of the youth.
“Well,” said the father, “he said that the boy had been growing too
fast, at least he implied that, and he prescribed hierolo----French for
chicken broth, you know.”
But while the doctor’s prescription was being prepared, the boy went
off to the cliffs; and he stretched himself at full length on the
thyme, and went to sleep, and dreamed the old sweet dream, and the sun
drew near to its setting, and in his pleasant sleep the boy died.
Never had there been a happier and more desirable death.
And under the burning sun a cloud was stretched like a cloth of gold.
And the two highly respectable Athenians came out to look at it. “If I
were to paint that exactly as it is,” said the first, “every one would
say that my picture was intensely unnatural.”
“Great Zeus!” ejaculated the second, for the first had made the remark
nearly every night for rather more than sixteen years, and still
thought there was a certain insight about it.
In the golden heart of the cloud were together the soul of a youth and
the soul of a young girl, two souls that had done their work and were
resting. He sat in careless happiness looking down at her: for she
was stretched at his feet, making a daisy-chain with the souls of the
daisies that were to bloom next year. And ever she would look up from
her work into his eyes; and the eyes of the two were strangely alike,
and soft and bright.
Into the cloud came the Manager. He was in a terrible hurry; for there
had been great doings in Sicily, and an army had been cut to pieces,
and consequently there was a press of business.
“I’ve called to take your numbers,” he said.
They both gave the same number.
He seemed a little startled, then recovered himself, and jotted it
down in his note-book. “I remember now,” he said, half apologetically.
“It was not entirely my fault. I had slipped out to get a glass of
beer, and I told the boy to send for me if anything happened. But he
thought he could manage it himself, and he blundered, and I was blamed.
So you both were born in the same body. I hope you were not crowded.
Zeus had intended you to be born in different bodies, and fall in love
with one another down below. But you can do it up here, you know. It’s
not the same thing, but some people think it’s better: it’s much more
spiritual. You will have this cloud all to yourselves for as long as
you like. At any rate it was not so hard on you as it was on the girl’s
body, which had to be born without any soul at all--but I am told that
she made money out of it. Well, I must be off; good evening.”
So the Manager departed, and they were alone, and they floated away
into the night when the night came. And the sea sang beneath them, and
the wind was warm and perfumed with flowers.
“I love you for ever and ever,” he said.
The same remark had just occurred to her--not strikingly original,
perhaps, but both were satisfied with it.
IX.
ON ASSOCIATIONS: TOGETHER WITH A LAST ANECDOTE FROM THE
“ENTERTAINMENTS” OF KAPNIDES.
I think _Zeitgeist_ has grown lazy; I had meant to take it a long way
to-day, but it simply stopped at the first shady spot it could find,
and stretched itself there. One has to smoke a little brown tobacco
to keep off the midges, but otherwise I do not mind much. I would not
make use of my superior strength to force a tired boat to do more than
it wanted to do. Besides, _Zeitgeist_ has earned some consideration.
It has behaved excellently; in fact, it has almost been morbid in
the politeness with which it has avoided running into other boats
lately. Somebody, I see, has put a bottle of cider into the canoe. How
thoughtless of him! There are a corkscrew and a drinking-horn as well.
Perhaps it’s all for the best.
The taste of cider should be full of associations. It should recall
orchards in Devonshire; and rustic inns with porches, and honeysuckle,
and earwigs; and the simple village maiden who got to be rather fond of
the stranger artist, and cried a little in her simple village way when
he went back again to civilisation. I am starving for dreamy poetry and
pleasant memories this morning; I wish this cider had such beautiful
associations for me. But it has not. To me cider is cider, and it is
nothing more. I have never been in a Devonshire orchard; and I am not
an artist; I have never drawn anything.
Except corks. By the way, I may as well put that bottle of cider in the
shallow water here. It will cool it. Then, afterwards, I may be able to
forgive the person who put it into my canoe.
I am not sure that people do not set too much store by associations.
There is an old tune that most people have forgotten, I dare say;
perhaps it is not very good music; in fact, I would take an affidavit
that it is the nastiest, tuniest tune I ever heard, and yet it has
associations for me. It recalls to me my landlady’s daughter; it was
the tune she loved most and played most frequently; she was rather an
ugly girl, too. But I do not value the tune any more on that account; I
believe it makes me hate it more bitterly.
I should think that cider must be almost cool by now, but I will give
it another minute or two.
I suppose it is for the sake of associations that people have their
dead pets stuffed, or have portions of them made into tobacco-pouches
or paper-knives. I never had any pet myself except one solitary, evil
dog; he was an original dog, and was perfectly good-tempered with
everybody except his master. I am thankful to say that I possess
absolutely nothing which reminds me of him. The smell of tar has
curious associations for me. It reminds me of a day when I drove
frantically in the direction of Liverpool Street, with the intention of
catching the 10.30. I had offered my cabby vast sums to get me there in
time, and he certainly did his best. I did not stop to take a ticket,
but dashed across the platform, and entered the train just as it was
moving out. I sank back on the cushions with a sigh of relief. One gets
so much pleasure out of _just_ doing a thing. Then I found out that the
train which I had entered was not the 10.30, was not going to the same
place, and was not thinking of stopping anywhere for some considerable
time. Perhaps you wonder why the smell of tar should remind me of this.
So do I. I have not the least notion why it is.
One must not expect to see the reason for the connection always. Why
are the girls with the biggest feet always devoted to quite inferior
works of fiction? Why are clean-shaven men always cynical?
Then of course there are the tender, romantic associations. A good deal
might be said about them. In the meantime I can’t think where I’ve put
that corkscrew. Ah! here it is, sitting under one of the cushions and
laughing at me. Now for the cider, with a golden glow in it like the
curls of the love-god himself.
And flat--miserably flat.
* * * * *
As I said, _Zeitgeist_ does not care to move about much. So I have
amused myself with reading the last anecdote in the “Entertainments” of
Kapnides. Here it is:--
A general feeling of content prevailed in the house of Zeus & Co. “We
shall declare,” said Zeus, “such a dividend as never was.”
“We shall,” said Co.
Zeus & Co. occupied the two thrones at the back of the large hall.
During the last spring-cleaning, Zeus had ordered his own throne to
be regilded. Nothing had been done to the other throne, which was
occupied by Co. But Co. was quite humble. As a general rule he merely
echoed the sentiments of Zeus. If he felt the difference between the
two thrones, he had never mentioned it. Perhaps it might be as well
to notice that all the shares were in the hands of Zeus & Co. They
were the directors, and also the shareholders. By this arrangement
much unpleasantness was avoided.
But at this moment an old gentleman in a very shiny coat rose from
the desk at the farther end of the hall, and stepped towards the
thrones. He looked at Zeus, coughed a little nervously, and began:
“Mr. Zeus, and also Mr. Co., you will excuse me, but I’ve a little
matter to bring before you, in my position as Chief Agent in the
Punishment Department.”
“By all means,” said Zeus kindly. “There’s nothing wrong, I hope.
It’s a good department.”
“A very good and profitable department,” echoed Co.
“Well, Mr. Zeus, you will probably remember that you assigned to me a
young subordinate, a mere boy, called Eros.”
“I remember,” said Zeus. “He was not to draw any regular salary.”
“Precisely so,” replied the Agent. “He just took his small commission
on every broken heart. Well, up to the present I’ve had no complaint
to make of him. He did his work well and cheerfully. The Suicide
Section used to send me in most favourable reports of him. I had even
intended to recommend him for promotion.”
“But without increase of salary, I hope,” said Zeus. “The
shareholders would never stand that, you know.”
“They simply wouldn’t tolerate it for a minute,” echoed Co. It was
not supposed to be generally known that Zeus & Co. were the only
shareholders.
“No, sir,” answered the Agent. “I should have left the question of
salary to you. I hope I know my place, sir. But, if you will believe
it, that boy actually wants to resign the post he holds already. He
got mixed up in that Psyche business a good deal, you know. I never
knew the rights of the case exactly; but I do know that he’s not been
the same boy since, and takes no pleasure in his work at all.”
“Well, show him in,” said Zeus irritably, “and I’ll have a word or
two to say to him.”
“I wonder,” suggested Co., “if the Agent can have been fool enough to
let the boy know that he was a punishment and not a blessing?”
At this moment the Agent, who had retired, reappeared with Eros.
He was a handsome boy, but it was evident that he was very angry.
His eyes flashed, and tears stood in them. He made no obeisance to
Zeus, but with a rapid movement unslung his bow and quiver from his
shoulders, and snapt bow and arrows, one after another, across his
knee, flinging them down on the floor of the hall.
“I’ve had enough of that,” he said shortly, setting his lips tight.
“Are you aware,” said Co. solemnly, “that what you have just broken
is the property of the shareholders?”
“And are you aware,” thundered Zeus, “what the dickens you’re talking
about? Explain yourself.”
The boy burst into tears. “I _won’t_ do it any more,” he sobbed. “I
_won’t_. I’m not a blessing; I’m a curse. And I’m not going to be
your servant, because you hate everybody.”
“No,” said Co. quietly; “we love them.”
“Then what does your first rule mean?” asked the boy fiercely.
“The first rule,” replied Co., “is that twenty years shall not be
enough to make a life, and ten minutes shall be more than enough to
spoil it. We made that rule to stop people spoiling their lives.”
Zeus rubbed his hands softly together, and smiled, and said nothing.
“I did not mind once,” the boy went on, “when I made women weep and
men rave. I do now. It’s always the same thing. They long, and long,
and cannot obtain; and then the weaker sort kill themselves, and the
stronger sort grow cruel. Or, if they obtain, misery in one form or
another follows. I resign my post.”
“Just pass me that thunderbolt,” said Zeus, in an unpleasant voice.
“Oh, you can kill me,” the boy exclaimed, contemptuously, “I care
nothing for that. I wish I had never lived.”
“But you mistake,” said Co., suavely, “you mistake; Mr. Zeus had no
intention of killing you. You have a right to resign your post if you
like. He was going to kill a young girl named Psyche.”
“What for?” gasped Eros.
“Oh, for sport.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then Eros spoke in a hard, unnatural
voice. “I will go back to my work, Zeus, and do it better than ever,
if you will not kill Psyche.”
“Very well,” said Zeus kindly. “I don’t want to be disagreeable; as
long as I kill somebody, it doesn’t matter. Now, trot along to your
work, my boy, and I won’t kill Psyche.”
So the boy went back to his work, and did it better than ever.
“That was a good idea of yours, Co.,” said Zeus, after a moment’s
pause.
“Very much may be done by kindness,” replied Co. “Don’t you think
this throne of mine looks a little shabby beside yours?”
“I’ll give the order to have it regilded,” said Zeus affably.
But, if things go on like this, it will be “Co. & Zeus” soon.
It’s getting late; time for me to take _Zeitgeist_ home again.
A curate was once complaining to me about certain hardships that he
suffered at the hands of his vicar. “And, above all,” he said, “I am
never allowed to preach an evening sermon. I get no chances. The vicar
always preaches the evening sermons.” There was a good deal of justice
in the complaint; we are all naturally more righteous in the evening.
When the light dies behind the stained windows, and the music speaks,
and through the open doors you can smell the syringa-bushes, then--for
some reason that I know not--it is more easy to think oneself a sinner
and to wish one were not. Preaching would naturally be more effective
at such a time.
It is evening now, and I have been thinking about the different things
that I am going to eat shortly. I do not know what is wrong with me
that I should be so low. But external circumstances that suggest one
line of thought are always liable to suggest the exact opposite. It has
been proved by statistics that two-thirds of the best English jokes
are invented, but not necessarily spoken, at funerals. Perhaps this
accounts for the depression one always has to conceal when one hears of
the joy or success of a dear friend.
_Zeitgeist_ will have a long rest now--until my return. I could wish
for some reasons that I had a more complete control over that boat;
that, when I started out with it, I could be more definitely sure where
it was going; that, in short, its nature was less petulant. However,
there is a charm in uncertainty. I forgive it everything.
THE NINE MUSES MINUS ONE.
I.
CLIO’S STORY: CHARLES MARIUS.
On a beautiful summer night of last long vacation a cloud sailed slowly
out of the west. The sun was going down; the honest worker had fallen
asleep over his books, and in his dream was standing before a booking
office in the Bay of Tarentum and asking for a second aorist return to
Clapham; the jubilant whist player, holding the situation in his hand,
had exhausted the trumps, and was bringing in the rest of a long suit;
the mere conversationalist had worked in that epigram again, and the
mere athlete, who did not believe in that fancy kind of talk, had gone
away to drink a little good beer; the fiery bedmaker had just gone
round to the kitchens, to tell the men precisely what she thought about
them: in fact, everything--except the cloud--was much as usual. But the
cloud was extraordinary.
It was granted to me to see that cloud close at hand, to stand in its
midst, to hear what was spoken there, while I remained unseen and
unheard. I do not wish to speak of myself much, because it seems to me
vain and immodest; but I must say that I believe the real reason why I
was permitted to behold the Muses, and to hear the stories which they
told to one another to while away the summer night, is that my nature
is singularly pure, and good, and spiritual, and free from grossness,
and beautiful. So, I feel sure, is your nature, my dear reader,
although in a less degree.
In the front of the cloud hung a rosy curtain of some delicate tissue,
and behind this curtain was the rose-lit room in which the Muses were
grouped. Clio was standing erect. She wore a long and ample robe; her
figure was stately; her look was the look of a handsome, learned woman,
who is on the brink of her thirtieth year. In one hand was an open roll
of paper, on which gilt letters were blazoned. She was looking down
upon the towers, and steeples, and house-tops of Cambridge, and on
the slow river winding like a reluctant silver corkscrew through the
beautiful meadows of Grantchester.
Behind her, seven of her sisters, picturesquely grouped, reclined on a
low divan at the farther end of the room. They all were beautiful in
different ways. Their robes, snow-white and pearly-grey, golden and
crimson and deep-sea blue, made a poem of colour.
And on the mosaic floor, kneeling on one knee, bending over a little
tripod that supported a brazier, was one who wore no robe, but the long
night of her beautiful hair. Mockery was on her lips, but dreams were
in her eyes. She seemed a young girl of seventeen. She was Erato, who
sings to us of love. The picture of her in the classical dictionaries
is absurdly wrong. Beside her on the floor lay her lyre and a curious
golden casket. From the brazier a thin, wandering line of fragrant
smoke came up, and hovered in the room.
There was a moment’s silence. Then Clio turned round to her sisters.
“We will stay here,” she said, “for a little while. This is Granta; and
here are gathered young men who are truly gymnasts and yet follow the
Muses. For they do all of them seek after culture, and love naught but
the reading of many learned books, and the hearing of the wisdom of
their teachers; and they all strive to lead the higher life.”
Terpsichore gave a curious little cough. I have no certain idea what
it meant; but it seemed to imply in some way that she had been there
before. The grave and stately Clio never noticed it.
“Yes, we will stay, and tell to one another improving stories,” she
went on. “Cupid! Cupid!” she called.