I
The Silent Isle, I name it; and yet in no land in which I have ever
lived is there so little sight and sound of water as here. It oozes
from field to drain, it trickles from drain to ditch, it falls from
ditch to dyke, and then moves silently to the great seaward sluice; it
is not a living thing in the landscape, bright and vivacious, but
rather something secret and still, drawn almost reluctantly away,
rather than hurrying off on business of its own. And yet the whole
place gives me the constant sense of being an island, remote and
unapproachable; the great black plain, where every step that one takes
warns one of its quivering elasticity of soil, runs sharply up to the
base of the long, low, green hills, whose rough, dimpled pastures and
old elms contrast sharply and pleasantly with the geometrical monotony
of the immense flat. The village that I see a mile away, on a further
promontory of the old Isle, has the look of a straggling seaport town,
dipping down to wharves and quays; and the eye almost expects a fringe
of masts and shipping at the base of the steep streets. Then, too, the
encircling plain is like water in its tracklessness. There are no short
cuts nor footpaths in the fen. You may strike out for the village that
on clear days looks so close at hand, and follow a flood-bank for miles
without drawing a pace nearer to the goal. Or you may find yourself
upon the edge of one of the great lodes or levels, and see the
pale-blue stripe of water lie unbridged, like a pointed javelin of
steel, to the extreme verge of the horizon. The few roads run straight
and strict upon their reed-fringed causeways; and there is an infinite
sense of tranquil relief to the eye in the vast green levels, with
their faint parallel lines of dyke or drift, just touched into
prominence here and there by the clump of poplars surrounding a lonely
grange, or the high-shouldered roof of a great pumping-mill. And then,
to give largeness to what might else be tame, there is the vast space
of sky everywhere, the enormous perspective of rolling cloud-bank and
fleecy cumulus: the sky seems higher, deeper, more gigantic, in these
great levels than anywhere in the world. The morning comes up more
sedately; the orange-skirted twilight is more lingeringly withdrawn.
The sun burns lower, down to the very verge of the world, dropping
behind no black-stemmed wood or high-standing ridge; and how softly the
colour fades westward out of the sky, among the rose-flushed
cloud-isles and green spaces of air! And out of all this spacious
tracklessness comes a sense of endless remoteness. While the roads
converge like the rays of a wheel upon the inland town, each a stream
of hurrying life, here the world flows to you more rarely and
deliberately. Indeed, there seems no influx of life at all, nothing but
a quiet interchange of voyagers. Promotion arrives from no point of the
compass; nothing but a little tide of homely life ebbs and flows in
these elm-girt villages above the fen. Of course, the anxious and
expectant heart carries its own restlessness everywhere; but to read of
the rush and stress of life in these grassy solitudes seems like the
telling of an idle tale. And then the silence of the place! The sounds
of life have a value and a distinctness here that I have never known
elsewhere. I have lived much of my life in towns; and there, even if
one is not conscious of distinct sound, there is a blurred sense of
movement in the air, which dulls the ear. But here the sharp song of
the yellow-hammer from the hedge, or the cry of the owl from the
spinney, come pure and keen through the thin air, purged of all
uncertain murmurs. I can hear, it seems, a mile away, the rumble of the
long procession of red mud-stained field-carts, or the humming of the
threshing-gear; or the chatter of children on the farm-road beyond my
shrubberies breaks clear and jocund on the ear. I become conscious here
of how noisily and hurriedly I have lived my life; happily enough, I
will confess; but the thought of it all--the class-room, the street,
the playing-field--bright and vivacious as it all was, seems now like a
boisterous prelude of blaring brass and tingling string, which lapses
into some delicate economy of sweet melody and gliding chord. It has
its shadows, I do not doubt, this Silent Isle; but to-day at least it
is all still and translucent as its clear-moving quiet waters, free as
its vaulted sky, rich as its endless plain.
It is not that I mean to be idle here! I have my web to weave; I have
my lucid mirror. But instead of scrambling and peeping, I mean to see
it all clearly and tranquilly, without dust and noise. I have lived
laboriously and hastily for twenty years; and surely there is a time
for garnering the harvest and for reckoning up the store? I want to see
behind it all, into the meaning of it all, if I can. Surely when we are
bidden to consider the lilies of the field, and told that they neither
toil nor spin, it is not that we may turn aside from them in scorn, and
choose rather to grow rank and strong, bulging like swedes, shoulder by
shoulder, in the gross furrow. It is not as though we content ourselves
with the necessary work of the world; we multiply vain activities, we
turn the songs of poets and the words of the wise into dumb-bells to
toughen our intellectual muscles; we make our pastimes into envious
rivalries and furious emulations; and when we have poured out our
contempt upon a few quiet-minded dreamers for their lack of spirit,
scarified a few lovers of leisure for their absence of ability,
ploughed up a few pretty wastes where the field-flowers grew as they
would, bred up a few hundred gay golden birds, that we may gloat over
the thought of striking them blood-bedabbled out of the sky on a winter
afternoon, we think complacently of the Kingdom of God, and all we have
done so diligently to hasten its coming.
There is a pleasant story of a man who was asked by an ardent
missionary for a subscription to some enterprise or other in the ends
of the earth. The man produced a shilling and a sovereign. "Here is a
shilling for the work," he said, "and here is a sovereign to get it out
there!" That seems to me an allegory of much of our Western work. So
little of it direct benefit, so much of it indirect transit! When I was
a schoolmaster, it always seemed to me that nine-tenths of what we did
was looking over work which we had given the boys to do to fill up
their time, and to keep them, as we used to say, out of mischief. The
worst of bringing up boys on that system is that they require to be
kept out of mischief all their life long; and yet the worst kind of
mischief, after all, may be to fill life with useless occupations.
There are two ways of going out into your garden. You may walk out
straight from the bow-window on to the lawn; or you may go out into the
street, take the first turn to the right, then the next to the right,
and let yourself in at the back-garden door. But there is no merit in
that! It is not a thing to be complacent about; still less does it
justify you in saying to the simple person who prefers the direct
course that the world is getting lazy and decadent and is always trying
to save itself trouble. The point is to have lived, not to have been
merely occupied. I remember once, when I was an undergraduate, staying
at a place in Scotland for a summer holiday. There were all sorts of
pleasant things to be done, and we were there to amuse ourselves. One
evening it was suggested that we should go out yachting on the
following day. I agreed to go, but being a miserable sailor, added that
I should only go if it were fine. We were to start early, and when I
was called and found it an ugly, gusty morning I went gratefully back
to bed, and spent the rest of the day fishing. There was a dreadful,
strenuous old Colonel staying in the house; he had been with the
yachting party, and they had had a very disagreeable day. That evening
in the smoking-room, when we were recounting our adventures, the old
wretch said to me: "Now I should like to give you a piece of advice.
You said you would go with us, and shirked because you were afraid of a
bit of wind. You must excuse an older man who knows something of the
world saying straight out that that sort of thing won't do. Make up
your mind and stick to it; that's a golden rule." It was in vain that I
said that I had never intended to go if it was windy, and that I should
have been ill the whole time. "Ah, that's what I call cry-baby talk,"
said the old ruffian; "I always say that if a thing is worth doing at
all, it is worth doing thoroughly." I said meekly that I should
certainly have been thoroughly sea-sick, but that I did not think it
_was_ worth while being sea-sick at all. At which he felt very much
nettled, and said that it was effeminate. I was very much humiliated,
but not in the least convinced; and I am afraid that I enjoyed the most
unchristian exultation when, two or three days after, the Colonel
insisted on walking to the deer-forest, instead of riding the pony that
was offered him; in consequence of which he not only lost half the day,
but got so dreadfully tired that he missed two stags in succession, and
came home empty-handed, full of excellent excuses, and more pragmatical
than ever.
Of course, a man has to decide for himself. If he does not desire
leisure, if he finds it wearisome and mischievous, he had better not
cultivate it; if his conscience tells him that he must go on with a
particular work, he had better simply obey the command. But it is very
easy to educate a false conscience in these matters by mere habit; and
if you play tricks with your mind or your conscience habitually, it has
an ugly habit of ending by playing tricks upon you, like the Old Man of
the Sea. The false conscience is satisfied and the real conscience
drugged, if a person with a sense of duty to others fills up his time
with unnecessary letters and useless interviews; worse still if he goes
about proclaiming with complacent pride that his work gives him no time
to read or think. If he has any responsibility in the matter, if it is
his business to help or direct others, he ought to be sure that he has
something to give them beyond platitudes which he has not tested. In
the story of Mary and Martha, which is a very mysterious one, it is
quite clear that Martha was rebuked, not for being hospitable, but for
being fussy; but it is not at all clear what Mary was praised
for--certainly not for being useful. She was not praised for visiting
the sick, or for attending committees, but apparently for doing
nothing--for sitting still, for listening to talk, and for being
interested. Presumably both were sympathetic, and Martha showed it by
practical kindness, and attention to the knives and the plates. But
what was the one thing needful? What was the good part, which Mary had
chosen, and which would not be taken from her? The truth is that there
is very little said about active work in the Gospel. It is, indeed,
rather made fun of, if one may use such an expression. There is a great
deal about simple kindness and neighbourliness, but nothing about
making money, or social organisation. In a poor village community the
problem was no doubt an easier one; but in our more complicated
civilisation it is not so easy to see how to act. Suppose that I am
seized with a sudden impulse of benevolence, what am I to do? In the
old storybooks one took a portion of one's dinner to a sick person, or
went to read aloud to some one. But it is not so easy to find the right
people. If I set off here on a round with a slop-basin containing apple
fritters, my intrusion would be generally and rightly resented; and as
for being read aloud to or visited when I am ill, there is nothing I
should personally dislike more than a succession of visitors bent on
benevolence. I might put up with it if I felt that it sprung from a
genuine affection, but if I felt it was done from a sense of duty, it
would be an intolerable addition to my troubles. Many people in grief
and trouble only desire not to be interfered with, and to be left
alone, and when they want sympathy they know how and where to ask for
it. Personally I do not want sympathy at all if I am in trouble,
because it only makes me suffer more; the real comfort under such
circumstances is when people behave quite naturally, as if there were
no troubles in the world; then one has to try to behave decently, and
that is one's best chance of forgetting oneself.
The only thing, it seems to me, that one may do, is to love people, if
one can. It is the mood from which sympathy and help spring that
matters, not the spoken word or the material aid. In the worst troubles
one cannot help people at all. The knowledge that others love you does
not fill the aching gap made by the death of child or lover or friend.
And now too, in these democratic days, when compassion and help are
more or less organised, when the sense of the community that children
should be taught issues in Education Bills, and the feeling that sick
people must be tended is expressed by hospitals--when the world has
thus been specialised, tangible benevolence is a much more complex
affair. It seems clear that it is not really a benevolent thing to give
money to anyone who happens to ask for it; and it is equally clear, it
seems to me, that not much is done by lecturing people vaguely about
their sins and negligences; one must have a very clear sense of one's
own victories over evil, and the tactics one has employed, to do that;
and if one is conscious, as I am, of not having made a very successful
show of resistance to personal faults and failings, the pastoral
attitude is not an easy one to adopt. But if one loves people, the
problem is not so difficult--or rather it solves itself. One can
compare notes, and discuss qualities, and try to see what one admires
and thinks beautiful; and the only way, after all, to make other people
good, if that is the end in view, is to be good oneself in such a way
that other people want to be good too.
The thing which really differentiates people from each other, and which
sets a few fine souls ahead of the crowd, is a certain clearness of
vision. Most of us take things for granted from the beginning, accept
the opinions and conventions of the world, and muddle along, taking
things as they come, our only aim being to collect in our own corner as
many of the good things of life as we can gather round us. Indeed, it
must be confessed that among the commonest motives for showing kindness
are the credit that results, and the sense of power and influence that
ensues. But that is no good at all to the giver. For the fact is that
behind life, as we see it, there lies a very strange and deep mystery,
something stronger and larger than we can any of us at all grasp. There
are a thousand roads to the city of God, and no two roads are the same,
though they all lead to the same place. If we take up the rôle of being
useful, the danger is that we become planted, like a kind of
professional guide-post, giving incomplete directions to others,
instead of finding the way for ourselves. The mistake lies in thinking
that things are unknowable when they are only unknown. Many mists have
melted already before the eyes of the pilgrims, and the tracks grow
plainer on the hillside; and thus the clearer vision of which I speak
is the thing to be desired by all. We must try to see things as they
are, not obscured by prejudice or privilege or sentiment or
selfishness; and sin does not cloud the vision so much as stupidity and
conceit. I have a dream, then, of what I desire and aspire to, though
it is hard to put it into words. I want to learn to distinguish between
what is important and unimportant, between what is beautiful and ugly,
between what is true and false. The pomps and glories of the world are
unimportant, I believe, and all the temptations which arise from
wanting to do things, as it is called, on a large scale. Money, the
love of which as representing liberty is a sore temptation to such as
myself, is unimportant. Conventional orthodoxies, whether they be of
manners, or of ways of life, or of thought, or of religion, or of
education, are unimportant. What then remains? Courage, and patience,
and simplicity, and kindness, and beauty, and, last of all, ideas
remain; and these are the things to lay hold of and to live with.
And even so one cannot help puzzling and grieving and wondering over
all the dreadful waste of time and energy, all the stupidities and
misunderstandings, all the unnecessary business and tiresome pleasure,
all the spitefulness and malignity, all the sham rules and artificial
regulations, all the hard judgments and dismal fears and ugly cruelties
of the world, beginning so early and ending so late. An hour ago I met
two tiny children, a boy and girl, in the road. The girl was the older
and stronger. The little boy, singing to himself, had gathered some
leaves from the hedge, and was enjoying his posy harmlessly enough.
What must his sister do? She wanted some fun; so she took the posy
away, dodged her brother when he tried to catch her, and finally threw
it over a paling, and went off rejoicing in her strength, while the
little boy sate down and cried. Why should they not have played
together in peace? On my table lie letters from two old friends of mine
who have had a quarrel over a small piece of business, involving a few
pounds. One complains that the other claims the money unjustly; the
other resents being accused of meanness; the result, a rupture of
familiar relations. One cannot, it seems, prevent sorrows and pains and
tragedies; but what is the ironical power which gives us such rich
materials for happiness, and then infects us with the devilish power of
misusing them, and worrying over them, and hating each other, and
despising ourselves? And then the little lives cut relentlessly short,
how does that fit in? And even when the life is prolonged, one becomes
a puckered, winking, doddering old thing, stiff and brittle,
disgraceful and humiliated, and, what is worse than anything, feeling
so young and sensible inside the crazy machine. If we knew that it was
all going to help us somewhere, sometime, no matter how far off, to be
strong and cheerful and brave and kind, how easy to bear it all!
But in spite of everything, how one enjoys it all; how interesting and
absorbing it all is! Wherever one turns, there are delicious things to
see, from the aconite with its yellow head and its green collar in the
bare shrubbery, to the streak of sunshine on the plain with the great
rays thrust downwards from the hidden sun, making the world an
enchanted place. And all the curious, fantastic, charming people that
one meets, from the boy sitting on the cart-shaft, with all sorts of
old love-histories hinted in his clear skin and large eye, to the
wizened labourer in his quaint-cut, frowzy clothes, bill-hook in hand,
a symbol of the patient work of the world. So helpless a crowd, so
patient in trouble, so bewildered as to the meaning of it all; and
zigzagged all across it, in nations, in families, in individuals, the
jagged lines of evil, so devastating, so horrible, so irremediable; and
even worse than evil--which has at least something lurid and fiery
about it--the dark, slimy streaks of meanness and jealousy, of boredom
and ugliness, which seem to have no use at all but to make things move
heavily and obscurely, when they might run swift and bright.
So here in my isle of silence, between fen and fen, under the spacious
sky, I want to try an experiment--to live simply and honestly, without
indolence or haste, neither wasting time nor devouring it, not refusing
due burdens but not inventing useless ones, not secluding myself in a
secret cell of solitude, but not multiplying dull and futile relations.
One thing I may say honestly and sincerely, that I do indeed desire to
fulfil the Will and purpose of God for me, if I can but discern it; for
that there is a great will at work behind it all, I cannot for a moment
doubt; nor can I doubt that I do it, with many foolish fears and
delays, and shall do it to the end. Why it is that, voyaging thus to
the haven beneath the hill, I meet such adverse breezes, such
headstrong currents, such wrack of wind and thwarting wave, I know not;
nor what that other land will be like, if indeed I sail beyond the
sunset; but that a home awaits me and all mankind I believe, of which
this quiet house, so pleasantly ordered, among its old trees and dewy
pastures, is but a faint sweet symbol. It may be that I shall find the
vision I desire; or it may be that I shall but fall bleeding among the
thorns of life; who can tell?
As I write, I see the pale spring sunset fade between the tree-stems;
the garden glimmers in the dusk; the lights peep out in the hamlet; the
birds wing their way home across the calm sky-spaces. Even now, in this
moment of ease and security, might be breathed the message I desire, as
the earth spins and whirls across the infinite tracts of heaven, from
the great tender mind of God. But if not, I am content. For this one
thing I hold as certain, and I dare not doubt it--that there is a Truth
behind all confusions and errors; a goal beyond all pilgrimages. I
shall find it, I shall reach it, in some day of sudden glory, of hope
fulfilled and sorrow ended; and no step of the way thither will be
wasted, whether trodden in despair and weariness or in elation and
delight; till we have learned not to fear, not to judge, not to
mistrust, not to despise; till in a moment our eyes will be opened, and
we shall know that we have found peace.