"MUCH RICHES IN A LITTLE ROOM"
"Go and argue with the flies of summer that there is a power divine yet
greater than the sun in the heavens, but never dare hope to convince the
people of the South that there is any other God than Gold."--KINGLAKE.
No "saint-seducing gold" has been permitted to ruffle this placidity.
Gold! Our ears were tickled by the tale that good folks had actually
thrilled when we slunk away to our Island. Rumour wagged her tongue,
abusing God's great gift of speech, until scared Truth fled. She
said--how cheap is notoriety!--that secret knowledge of hidden wealth
which good luck had revealed during our holiday camp had induced us to
surreptitiously secure the land, that in our own good time we might
selfishly gloat over untold gold! Some came frankly to prospect our hills
and gullies, others shamefacedly, when our backs were turned; for had it
not been foretold that gold was certain to be found on the Island, and
were not the invincible truths of geology verified by our covert ways?
Had not one of the natives told of a lump so weighty that no man might
lift it and on which hungry generation after hungry generation had
pounded nuts? Had not another used a nugget as a plummet for his
fishing-line? It mattered not that the sordidly battered lump proved to
be an ingot of crude copper--probably portion of the ballast from some
ancient wrecks--and that Truth was sulking down some very remote well
when the fable of the golden sinker was invented. Ordinary men--men of
the type whom Kinglake designated "Poor Mr. Reasonable Man"--men with
common sense, in fact, the very commonest of sense--were not to be
beguiled by the plain statement that apparently sane individuals wilfully
ventured into solitude for the mere privilege of living. Gold must be the
real attraction--all else fictitious, said they. "They have" [Rumour is
speaking] "the option of an unwitnessed reef, sensationally, romantically
rich, or know of a piratically and solemnly secreted hoard." Indeed, we
did think to enjoy our option, but over something more precious than
gold.
But one visitor was so confidentially certain about the gold that he
boldly made a proposition to share it. A fair exchange it was to be. He
would, then and there, lead to a shaft 60 feet deep, and deep in the
jungle, too, at a spot so artfully concealed that no mortal man could
ever unguided hope to find it, where was to be revealed a reef--a rich
reef blasted by the mere refractoriness of the ore, a disadvantage which
would vanish like smoke before a man of means. To this sure and certain
source of fortune he would provide safe and speedy conduct if on our part
we would with like frankness confide in him our secret.
Our lack of secret, was it not boldly writ on our faces? But it was fair
to assume an air of mystery. "Our secret," said we, "is more desirable
than gold, yea, than much fine gold. Yours, at the best, is but dross!"
The very worst that could happen would be the discovery on this spot of
anything more precious than an orchid. Gold, which would transform the
Isle into a desert, is therefore selfishly concealed, and the reason for
the concealment remains an incomprehensible enigma. Was it not the
pinnacle of folly to retire to an Island where gold was not to be gotten
either by the grace of God or by barter or strife with man? So bold a
foolishness was incredible. Yet we get more out of the life of incredible
folly than the wise who think of gold and little else but gold.
The singular perfection of our undertaking--"the rarity to run mad
without a cause, without the least constraint or necessity," the exercise
of that "refined and exquisite passion"--stamped me a disciple of Don
Quixote, and such I remain.
Some ancient said that the more folly a man puts into life the more he
lives--a precept in which I steadfastly believe, provided the folly is of
the wholesome kind and on a sufficient and calculated scale.
For several years prior to our descent no blacks had been resident on the
Island. After the blotting out of the great multitude, the visits of its
descendants had been irregular and brief. Therefore--and the assurance is
almost superfluous--most of the evidences of the characteristics of the
race had, in the course of nature, been obliterated. A few frescoes
adorning remote rock shelters, a few pearl shell fish-hooks, stone axes
and, hammers, a rude mortar or two (merely granite rocks in which shallow
depressions had been worn by the pounding of nuts), shells on the sites
of camps, scars of stone axes on a few trees--these were the only relics
of the departed race.
Has a decade of occupation by wilful white folks wrought any permanent
change in the stamp of Nature? None, save the exotic plants, that time,
fire, and "white ants" might not consume. My kitchen midden is less
conspicuous than those of the blacks, and, decently interred, glass and
china shards the only lasting evidence thereof, for the few fragments of
iron speedily corrode to nothingness in this damp and saline air.
Unwittingly the blacks handed down specimens of their handicraft--the
pearl shell fish-hooks, a thousand times more durable in this climate
than hooks of steel. Geologists tell us that shells with iridescent
colours are found in clays of such ancient date that if stated in
centuries an indefinite number of millions would have to be assigned to
them. It is not strange, then, that some of my pearl shell hooks are as
lustrous and sharp to-day as when the careless maker mislaid them in the
sand for me to find half a century later. We leave no records on the land
itself which would betray us after the lapse of half a dozen years. Is it
not humiliating to find that the white man as the black records his most
durable domestic history in rubbish, easily expungible by clean-fingered
time?
Is humanity ever free from worries? What it has not it invents. Remote
though we are from the disturbance of other folk's troublous cries, the
ocean does not afford complete exemption from the sight of the shocking
insecurity of the street.
One memorable day, casually glancing at the mainland, I saw on the beach
something moving at astonishing speed. Whereupon the telescope was
brought to bear, and to my dismay revealed, actually and without fiction,
a practical spring cart, drawn by a real horse at a trot, which horse was
driven (as far as the telescope was credible) by a man! Over four years
have elapsed since I saw any wheeled vehicle other than my own
barrow--the speed of which is sedate (for I am a sedate and determined
man, and refuse to be flurried by my own barrow). Nervousness and
excitement began to play. Thank the propitious stars, two miles and more
of mighty ocean separated me from the furious car. Otherwise, who may
say? I might in my confusion have been unable to avoid disaster. This
place is becoming thrilling. Let me move farther from the rush and
bewilderment of traffic. Let me flee to some more secluded scene, where
my sight, unsoiled hitherto by motor-car, may for ever preserve most
excellent virginity. I have since made inquiries, and have been assured
that the nerve-shocking juggernaut of the opposite beach is
palsied--liable, indeed, to dissolution at any moment. When the collapse
occurs I propose to venture across to inspect the remains and renew
youthful memories of the species of conveyance to which it belonged.
How do we spend our day? How fill up the blank spaces? Goats are to be
milked', fowls to be fed, dough to be kneaded, breakfast to be prepared,
firewood to be cut, house to be looked after. Most of the substantial
improvements have long since been finished, but there is no place but has
to be kept in repair. One day, a week practically, is bestowed on the
steamer. All odd moments and every evening are devoted to books.
During the cool season, when day tides range low, hours are passed on the
coral reef, as often as conscience permits, in contemplation of the life
of that crowded area. Seldom do we leave the Island, and rarely does any
but a casual visitor break in on our privacy. Satisfied of the
unpotentiality of wealth, here we materialise those dreams of happiness
which are the enchantment of youth, the resolve of maturity, the solace
of old age. Let other questants abandon hope, for I have found the
philosopher's stone.
My concerns are far too engrossing to permit my mind to wander on the
trivial, unreal, incomprehensible affairs of the Commonwealth, for the
command of which practical politicians continuously grapple, though, I am
one of those who mourn for democracy, since democracy has chosen to
indulge in such hazardous experiments. The Government of a country which
gives equal voice in the election of its representatives to university
professor and unrepentant Magdalene is not altogether in a wholesome way,
even though over a dozen Houses of Parliament clamour to manufacture its
laws.
It is enough for me to possess the Isle of Desire--the evergreen isle
that "sluttish time" has never besmeared with ruin--where one may wander
whithersoever the mood of the moment wills, or loll in the shade of
scented trees, or thread the sunless mazes of the jungle--that region of
shadow where all the leaves are dumb--listening for faint, ineffective
sounds, or bask on the sand--on clean, unviolated, mica-bespangled
sand--dreamily gazing over a sea of flashing reflections where fitful
zephyrs, soft as the shadows of clouds, alone make blueness visible.
The individual whose wants are few--who is content, who has no treasure
to guard, whose rights there is none to dispute; who is his own
magistrate, postman, architect, carpenter, painter, boat-builder, boatman,
tinker, goatherd, gardener, woodcutter, water-carrier, and general
labourer; who has been compelled to chip the superfine edges of his
sentiments with the repugnant craft of the butcher; who, heedless of rule
and method, adjusts the balance between wholesome toil and whole-hearted
ease; who has a foolish love for the study of Nature; who has a sense of
fellowship with animate and inanimate things; who endeavours to learn the
character and the purpose of varied forms of life; whose jurisdiction
extends over fifteen sacrosanct isles; who is never happier than when
reading--need never bewail the absence of human schemes and sounds or
fret under the galling burden of idleness. Here is no bell to affright;
nor are we subject to the bidding or liable to the assault of any passer
by. Smooth-flowing time knows not mud or any foulness, while its
impassive surface, burnished by August sunshine, reflects fair scenes and
silent doings.
The freedom from care, the vague sense of selfish property in the whole
scheme of Nature, the delicious discovery of the virtues of solitude, the
loveliness of this most gay and youthful earth, and the tones of the
pleasant-voiced and often surly sea fill me with joy and embellish
hope--vague and unsubstantial--for is not this Isle the "place where one
may have many thoughts and not decide anything"?
For all my occupations, I am often driven to "dialogue with my shadow"
for lack of less subservient auditor, and though, as the years pass, I
find that I become more loose of soul and in broad daylight indulge the
liberty of muttering my affairs and addressing animals and plants and of
confiding secrets to the chaste moon--poets and dramatists term such
incontinence of speech soliloquy and employ it for the utterance of
edifying inspiration--it is because it is impossible to be ever quite
alone. Not so very long ago in Merrie England if a person muttered to
himself it was enough on which to establish a charge of wizardry; but it
is also said that real witches and wizards, though subject to the most
ticklish tests, never perspired--a default which hastened conviction.
Therein is my hope of salvation. If it be my fate some day to be found
"With age grown double,
Picking dry sticks and mumbling to myself."
I shall claim a profuse prerogative, and continue to saunter down into
the gloom at the foot of the hill of life unblinking in the sun.