some old memories, so that she did not miss Eva till we were both safe
together on the woodland side of the garden hedge. Once safe there, we
made haste to cover as fast as possible, and, when we had reached one of
our secret hiding places in a little hollow of fern surrounded by
birches, I set Eva down and told her to wait there and play with the
sunbeams, while I ran back down the hill for something which, it had
just occurred to me, might make us a little more fun in our truancy.
This was nothing more wonderful than a wide-mouthed glass jar, once
poignant with pickles, which surreptitiously I procured from the cook
with fear and trembling, and the purpose of which will soon appear.
Returning up the wood, I found Eva contemplating the red rose I had
thrown to her with a quite philosophical absorption.
“Daddy,” she said, “why are some roses red and some white?”
It was the ancient unanswerable question of the mystery of colour. Who
is there that has answered or can answer it? A mother might have done
better, but what could a mere father do but temporise?
“I will tell you, Eva,” I said, “when you can tell me why sister’s hair
is black and yours is golden.”
This sibylline answer, I was relieved to find, made a profound
impression upon Eva, and as we continued up the wood she was evidently
pondering it in the unfathomable deeps of her baby brain. Her
meditation, however, soon gave place to curiosity and questioning about
everything that grew or sang or moved in the wood. Every child is a
naturalist, and the great charm of naturalists is that they always
remain children, never losing their sense of wonder at the little
elusive things that run and hop and chirp in the grass, or float
flower-like upon the air. The naturalist has come nearer to the secret
of eternal youth--which is mainly eternal enthusiasm--than any poet, and
he who at fifty still pursues a rare species with unabated ardour need
never fear old age.
I can make no pretense of being a learned naturalist, and the names of
many a bird and flower I love often escape me--as one often forgets the
name of some charming acquaintance, whom none the less one is delighted
to meet again. I am content to go up the wood in entire ignorance of the
Latin and even English names of the various presences that fill it with
leafage and perfume and song; but Eva is of a different temper. She is
an exact scientist, and insists on knowing the name and the how and the
why of every leaf and flower and insect that crosses our path. She even
expects me to know what the birds are saying, as though I were the old
Virgilian Asylas, who talked the language of birds as easily as some old
scholar can read Latin; or Melapus:
With love exceeding a simple love of the things
That glide in grasses and rubble of woody wreck;
Or change their perch on a beat of quivering wings
From branch to branch, only restful to pipe and peck.
When I am a little indefinite in my explanations, she gives me a look
which makes me tremble for her continued belief in my omniscience; and
so, when for the third time she asked me what a certain bird was saying,
I felt that I must do something to retain her respect. So I
extemporised.
“This is what he is saying,” I answered: “Be quick--Be
quick--Be quick--Quick! Be quick!... Sweet!--Sweet!--Sweet!...
Sweet-i-ki!--Sweet-i-ki!--Sweet-i-ki!...
Chuck-chuck!--Twe-ey--Twe-ey--Twe-ey!”
This translation seemed entirely satisfactory to Eva, and she made me
repeat it several times, so that with her rapacious baby memory she
might get it by heart. She presently disconcerted me, however, by
asking me to tell her what that other bird on the bough there was
saying.
“It doesn’t sound the same as the other,” she said, or meant in more
babylike words. (The realism of baby talk I am obliged to leave to
greater writers.)
“It means just the same, though,” I said. “All the birds are saying the
same thing, only they say it in different languages.”
I must explain that Eva has been somewhat of a traveller, and realises
that you can ask for the same thing in English, French, or Italian.
Therefore, the explanation seemed to bring her some, though I could see
not entire, conviction.
However, I was saved further embarrassment by our arriving at our scene
of operations. Really I don’t know which of us was more quietly excited
as we stood in front of the bank where the angry little prisoner churned
his venom in the darkness. Eva, who had been given an illustrated
natural history for a present the Christmas before, was evidently
expecting a boa constrictor--that, or a beautiful serpent, such as a
luridly pictured Bible sent her by a pious aunt had taught her to
associate with the garden of Eden.
With almost as much caution as though Eva’s imaginations were likely to
be realised, and some winged dragon snorting flame was ready to leap out
upon us, I removed the stone and peered into the tiny dungeon, Eva
standing at my side, her blue eyes serious with expectancy. Yes, my
prisoner was still there! Apparently he had not moved since I had shut
him in, and his small wicked eyes gleamed at me with concentrated hate
out of the darkness. He showed no disposition to escape, so there was no
difficulty in my using my glass pickle jar, as I had proposed to myself
when I stole with it from the kitchen.
Placing its broad mouth in the entrance to the little cave, I banked it
securely round with earth; Eva, meanwhile, an admiring, mystified
spectator. Thus the adder had no choice but to stay where he was or to
remove into the glass jar, the hospitality of which, however, he showed
no disposition to accept. He still sat on, mystic, unmoving, making no
sign. Eva and I watched him a long while in silence, and then at length,
his immobility growing monotonous, I cut a stout twig from a
neighbouring bush, and, pushing it through the soft earth at the side of
the jar, poked him gently with it. Even then he would not stir, but his
black tongue went in and out of his tiny jaws like black lightning.
There was something quite pathetic in his miniature fury at this
indignity being put upon him.
“My! but he is cross! Isn’t he, Daddy?” exclaimed Eva, peering with me
at the angry little creature. Presently he moved farther into the
darkness, away from the tormenting twig, but, as it could still reach
him there, his patience at last became exhausted, and suddenly he had
uncoiled himself and was gliding, with all the grace of his evil beauty,
into the glass jar.
Eva gave a little scream of delight and clapped her hands. “O isn’t he
pretty?” she cried. “Let me take hold of him.” Snakes were evidently
among the multitude of things of which Eva knows no fear. However, as
Eva is not Saint Paul--though in my heart I had a feeling that her
courageous innocence would have protected her--I had to deny her that
indulgence; one of the few I ever denied her, for I know of few with
which she is not strong enough to be intrusted--though that, I suppose,
is a father’s point of view.
As we went down the wood with our captive securely shut in his glass
cage, I explained to Eva why it was just as well not to hold snakes in
your hand, and when we reached my log hut I illustrated my explanation
by the old familiar method. Cutting a forked stick from a tree hard by,
I set the jar down on the grass, and when the adder, believing that
freedom had come at last, began to glide through the loophole I had made
for him, I pinned him down to the earth at the back of his wicked head.
In vain he lashed his body like a silver whip with rage; and while I
thus held him I took my penknife and forced open his cruel mouth, so
that Eva could see his evil forked tongue. Then we let him go back into
his bottle, and dropped green leaves down to him, so that he might feel
comfortable, and looked about for beetles and such small insects as we
thought might appeal to his appetite and console him for his captivity.
But these attentions he received with sullen indifference. Whether it
was that he was too angry to eat, or that we had made a mistake in his
diet, our limited knowledge of natural history did not enable us to
decide.
Nor were we left much more time to consider; for, suddenly as we knelt
together side by side on the grass, our eyes intent on our captive, and
the alarmed scrambling of the various small insects tumbling over each
other to get out of his way, we heard a voice behind us.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?” the voice said.
Eva and I looked at each other. It was her mother’s voice. We were
caught! In our hearts we were not in the least ashamed; but we bent our
heads in mock penitence, pretending that we were afraid to look up.
“Really I don’t know which is the biggest baby,” the voice continued,
with direct personal application to myself.
Then Eva and I took courage and looked up into the bluebell eyes above
us, and all three of us broke into laughter.
“It’s all very well to laugh,” said Eva’s mother, with a sudden
affectation of severity, mindful of the necessity of impressing Eva,
“but this is a very demoralising little girl. Haven’t I told you, Eva,
that you were not to disturb father at his work?”
Eva was a brick and didn’t give me away. She kept a set little face of
respectful rebellion, imperturbable, unapologetic. She wasn’t going to
betray me.
“Really it was not her fault,” I said shamefacedly; “it was all mine.
Punish me, if you must; but not her.” And then we laughed again.
“What are you going to do with this poor beast here?” asked Eva’s
mother, pointing to the glass jar. “Let him go, I suppose,” I said.
I saw Eva’s eyes light up for a moment. There was just one last bit of
fun left before she must return to the humdrum of the nursery.
So then we took the lid from the jar, and presently the adder, sniffing
the air, stole cautiously out on the grass, and then at length,
realising that he was really at liberty, flashed his way from our sight
into the underbrush, with the joy of all natural things at being free
once more--a bird released from his cage, or a happy fish thrown back
into the stream. The beetles and the various other bugs seemed no less
to appreciate their freedom.
Alas! it was poor Eva’s turn to go back into captivity. Mine too, for my
desk gloomed there inside. We gave each other a parting look, as her
mother took her off down the wood. So two exiles condemned to Siberia
might exchange glances of sympathy. But all the same we had had a good
time, and we both knew that, in spite of all law and authority, we
intended to have many more up there in the woodland, Eva and I.
THE DREAM DOCUMENTS
The dream has come to an end, and I have just received a letter asking
for a return of the dream documents. In other words, Miranda has written
asking me to send back her letters. She is going to be married soon.
Incidentally, so am I.
Our dream came to an end quite a while ago. But it was a very long and
beautiful dream--dreams seldom last so long--and I did hope that Miranda
would allow me to keep its beautiful records. But no! I have to send all
that brilliant writing back again; all the fancy and wit and tenderness
which make such a living history of a fairy tale.
Perhaps Miranda wants to read the fairy tale over again, and is not
satisfied with my poor records of it. That may be the reason why she
wants those letters back. It can hardly be any common reason, such as
actuates common lovers when they make a like demand. She knows how I
reverence the memory of our dream, and I think she is almost as proud to
have dreamed it as I am.
We are not bitter or jealous toward each other, but, on the contrary,
each of us is glad that the other is so happy with--some one else. Such
sorrow as remains to us is the abstract, wistful sorrow which natures,
such as ours--and O Miranda, how alike we were!--feel at the passing of
any beautiful thing. The pathos of “_The grass withereth, the flower
fadeth_”....
Ah! Miranda, how can we confidently complete that solemn sentence, when
so seemingly everlasting a thing as our love has passed away? If that is
gone, can there really be anything in the universe that endureth
forever!
I suppose that it is the humiliated sense of this transitoriness of what
had seemed an immortal feeling that makes men and women who have loved
and lost each other, as Miranda and I, return those letters, which have
thus come to seem the ludicrously earnest records of an illusion.
The two people feel that they have been tricked into these solemn
utterances of the heart, as if Life had been playing a game with them,
which they, unsuspecting, had taken seriously. They feel a little silly,
as one does when some jocular friend, as we say, takes us in with some
mock-serious story. We sit, attentive and eager, while he talks, and
believe every word, and then suddenly the stealing smile upon his face
tells us that we have been fooled. So we sit and listen to Love telling
his old tale, as if he had never told it before, with such lit young
eyes and such irresistible persuasion; and then, suddenly--there comes
the smile stealing over his face, and we look at each other and know
that we have been fooled.
This is not my view of the matter, but I conceive that it is the view of
those who, like Miranda, wish to obliterate the records of an old dream.
For my part, the fact of a feeling passing away is nothing against the
reality of that feeling. All feelings must sooner or later pass away:
The sunrise blooms and withers on the hill
Like any hill-flower, and the noblest troth
Dies here to dust....
That the rose must shed its petals and turn to a lonely autumn berry is
surely nothing against the reality of the rose. It was real enough in
June.
Yes, it is because I feel so deeply the reality of this dream that has
passed away that I wish Miranda would let me keep her beautiful record
of it. If it had been real no other way, it would be real in her words,
for beautiful words make all things real, and are, perhaps, the longest
lived of all realities. So long as Miranda’s letters survive, our dream
is not dead. It has only ascended into the finer life of words. But once
her letters are gone, the dream is dead indeed; for, even though my poor
letters should survive--well! I never could write a love-letter. The
writing of love-letters is a woman’s art, and Miranda, in these
precious pages which she demands of me, has proven herself a great
artist.
As I think of this, of the art I mean, with which she has embodied our
dream, I wonder if I have any right to return her letters; whether, in
fact, it is not my duty, in defiance of misapprehension, to retain and
guard them in the interests of art, and, even, humanity. For, you see,
there is but one fate for Miranda’s letters the moment they leave my
hands to return to hers--the crematorium. She will probably burn them
with charming fanciful rites, after her whimsical, picturesque nature;
load the bier on which they are consumed with cassia and myrrh and all
the chief spices--but, however sweet-smelling the savour with which they
return to the elemental spaces from which they drew down their radiant
energy, there will, none the less, remain of them upon the earth, but a
little fluttering pile of perfumed ashes--the ashes of a dream.
Now, have I the right to allow such destruction of a beautiful thing,
such a holocaust of heavenly words? My mind misgives me no little as to
this. Meanwhile, I shall temporise with Miranda, make some plausible
excuse for delay, if only that I may read through the fairy tale once
more from beginning to end, before, if needs must, I send it back to
her.
* * * * *
Another problem: I am wondering, as I turn over page after page of our
brilliantly written past, whether Miranda will expect me to return also
the many flowers that every now and again fall out from between the
fragrant sheets. Even supposing that she can remember every letter she
has written to me, and is capable of detecting me should I filch a
single one, she can hardly remember the flowers of eight summers! Yes,
eight summers. I said that our dream was a very long and beautiful one;
and, indeed, it is hard to understand why, when a dream has lasted so
long, it should not last forever. But such is the way of dreams, and
surely Miranda and I were fortunate in that ours lasted so long.
Here is a flower I certainly shall keep, whatever happens. This
arrowhead, with its keen, beautiful leaf beside it. Do you remember the
day we gathered this, Miranda? How I climbed down from the little
bridge, and picked my way over the stones of the brook that went singing
out of the sun into the cool darkness? It grew right in the shadow of
the rough stone arch, and when I came out with it in my hand, there were
you standing on a stepping-stone just behind me; and some treacherous
gold pin had loosened the wheatsheaf of your hair, and, as we stood
together on those quaking stones in the middle of the little stream, we
looked into each other’s eyes. And just then a catbird began singing in
a meadow nearby. Do you remember? And may I keep this arrowhead,
Miranda?
And this flower, too--this strange, waxen flower that made us a little
afraid because we said it looked beautiful as death, not knowing then
how near we had come to its name. We found it growing in the depths of
the woods, a haunted, lonely thing, and we plucked it as one might pluck
mandragora, almost expecting weird cries and lamentations rising from
the ground. The innocent children call it “Indian’s-pipe.” Some call it
“corpse-flower.” What shall we call it, Miranda?
And here again is a flower no one shall rob me of. A simple, childish
flower indeed. Only a spray of Crimson Rambler. At least you will let me
keep that, Miranda. You will not deprive me of that.
I have just found something else pressed between the pages of a letter:
another kind of flower--a butterfly. A great, yellow butterfly with
tails to his wings. I caught it for fun, not meaning to hurt it; and
then suddenly an impulse came over me, and I crushed it between the
pages of a book we were reading, as though one should capture a sunbeam
of some summer-day on which we were very happy. When I opened the book
again--Do you remember the book?--the flower wings were quiet as any
other petals, and we both looked at each other with a feeling of fear,
of omen. We who hated cruelty and abhorred death had killed a little,
beautiful, innocent creature; and we felt afraid, and said little as we
went homeward; but our eyes said:
“Suppose it were love we killed to-day, that ‘Psyche,’ that frail
butterfly thing--_Animula, Vagula, blandela_!”
I wonder again, as the little wings fall from the folded sheet. At all
events, that was our last day together in the fields. Since then the
arrowhead has flowered in the brook--but not for us. That was our last
summer-day.
Our last summer-day! I let your letters fall from my hands, Miranda, as
I say over to myself, “Our last summer-day”--for it is again summer, “a
summer-day in June.” How strange it seems, after all: summer again, and
no Miranda. I could almost say with the sad Irish poet:
“Has summer come without the rose,
And left the bird behind?”
For you, Miranda, seemed very summer herself. The sun-goddess you
seemed, the blonde young mother of the green boughs and the knee-deep
grass. When you looked upon the meadows they filled like the sky at
evening with blue flowers, and when you spoke, the woods rang with a
thousand birds. The very fish leaped up out of the talking stream to
catch a glimpse of your shining hair. Wherever you passed life sprang
up, abundant, blossoming, filled with the laughter of immortal summer.
Ah! to what enchanted youth, this “summer-day in June,” in what
Broceliande of green boughs, or nymph-haunted secrecy of rocky pools,
are you teaching the lesson of summer?
“A summer-day in June!” As I say those words over to myself, do you
wonder, Miranda, that I should sorrow to part with the beautiful history
of eight summers?
I suppose that I must send that history back, whatever my feelings as an
art custodian may be. Miranda loves someone else and feels it only
right to him. And I love someone else, and should, I suppose, feel it
only right to her. Actually I have neither feeling. On the contrary, I
hold that new love should be grateful to the old love for the lesson in
loving which it has taught.
One might adapt the old song and say:
“I could not love thee so, dear love,
Had I not loved before.”
So, I confidently believe that Miranda could not have loved her new love
so adequately had she not loved me inadequately before. And, on the
other hand, I am well aware that I could never have loved my true love
as I do, had it not been for my eight years apprenticeship to Miranda.
Love is a mysterious spiritual training, and we are apt to learn its
lessons too late to apply them. Surely it is not too late for Miranda. I
can only hope that it is not too late for me.
* * * * *
Having finally decided, both against my heart and my artistic judgment,
that Miranda’s request for her letters must be acceded to, I am not yet
out of the wood. One more problem, and that not the least, remains to be
solved. By what method of transportation shall I transmit so precious
and so distinguished a consignment?
I am well aware that there are men alive to-day, who, in all the simple
Philistinism of their natures, would commit Miranda’s letters to the
care of a stoutly-stringed, brown paper parcel, under the insured
promise of a responsible express company. We all have our ways of doing
things. That would, of course, be an absolutely secure way. Miranda
would surely get her letters back that way, or claim the insurance. No
doubt this method of transportation would be as satisfactory to Miranda
as any other, for the letters we write mean so little to us--when they
come back.
However, I cannot reconcile myself to returning Miranda’s letters in any
such commonplace way. I simply couldn’t return Miranda’s letters in a
brown paper parcel.
How then shall I return them?
I have thought of three ways.
Remember that these letters are to me more precious, more important,
than the secret messages of kings. They must be delivered with
appropriate ceremony.
Three ways have I thought of:
First, I thought that I would place them in an urn of bronze wreathed
round with laurel, and that six white horses should bring them to
Miranda’s door.
Then I wondered if this way would not be the best: That a thousand
carrier pigeons should fly to Miranda’s window in the dawn, each with a
letter in his beak.
But the way I should like best, and I think that it might appeal to
Miranda, too, would be for me to deliver them myself at the address of a
certain oak tree in a certain unforgotten woodland, “East of the Sun and
West of the Moon.” I have already found for them a beautiful coffin, a
little carved chest in which a long-dead queen of Arabia kept the sweet
smelling essences and unguents of her beauty. The box is fragrant yet
with memories of her rose-petal face. In this box I will place
Miranda’s letters, and there will still be room enough left for mine.
Then, if Miranda will consent, I will meet her in that woodland at the
rising of the moon, and, if she will bring with her my letters, we will
place them in the same box with hers, and then I will dig a grave
beneath the oak tree, and in it we will place the box together and cover
it over with the fragrant summer mould, and leaves, and blossoms, and
tears; and we will go our way, she through one green gate of the wood
and I through another.
And great Nature, who gave us our dream, will thus take it back into her
bosom; and Miranda’s lovely thoughts will blossom again in anemone and
violet, and out of that grave of beautiful words, as spring follows
spring, two young oak trees will grow, inextricably entwined in root and
branch, and there the birds will sing more sweetly than in any other
part of the wood, and there the silence will be like the silence of a
temple, and to those who sit and listen there will come soothing
messages of the spirit out of the stillness.