Sown somewhere far off in the shallow dales of Hertfordshire there lies
a village of great beauty, and I doubt not of admirable virtue, but of
eccentric and unbalanced literary taste, which asked the present writer
to come down to it on Sunday afternoon and give an address.
Now it was very difficult to get down to it at all on Sunday afternoon,
owing to the indescribable state into which our national laws and
customs have fallen in connection with the seventh day. It is not
Puritanism; it is simply anarchy. I should have some sympathy with the
Jewish Sabbath, if it were a Jewish Sabbath, and that for three reasons;
first, that religion is an intrinsically sympathetic thing; second, that
I cannot conceive any religion worth calling a religion without a fixed
and material observance; and third, that the particular observance of
sitting still and doing no work is one that suits my temperament down to
the ground.
But the absurdity of the modern English convention is that it does not
let a man sit still; it only perpetually trips him up when it has forced
him to walk about. Our Sabbatarianism does not forbid us to ask a man
in Battersea to come and talk in Hertfordshire; it only prevents his
getting there. I can understand that a deity might be worshipped with
joys, with flowers, and fireworks in the old European style. I can
understand that a deity might be worshipped with sorrows. But I cannot
imagine any deity being worshipped with inconveniences. Let the good
Moslem go to Mecca, or let him abide in his tent, according to his
feelings for religious symbols. But surely Allah cannot see anything
particularly dignified in his servant being misled by the time-table,
finding that the old Mecca express is not running, missing his
connection at Bagdad, or having to wait three hours in a small side
station outside Damascus.
So it was with me on this occasion. I found there was no telegraph
service at all to this place; I found there was only one weak thread
of train-service. Now if this had been the authority of real English
religion, I should have submitted to it at once. If I believed that
the telegraph clerk could not send the telegram because he was at that
moment rigid in an ecstasy of prayer, I should think all telegrams
unimportant in comparison. If I could believe that railway porters when
relieved from their duties rushed with passion to the nearest place of
worship, I should say that all lectures and everything else ought to
give way to such a consideration. I should not complain if the national
faith forbade me to make any appointments of labour or self-expression
on the Sabbath. But, as it is, it only tells me that I may very probably
keep the Sabbath by not keeping the appointment.
.....
But I must resume the real details of my tale. I found that there was
only one train in the whole of that Sunday by which I could even get
within several hours or several miles of the time or place. I therefore
went to the telephone, which is one of my favourite toys, and down which
I have shouted many valuable, but prematurely arrested, monologues upon
art and morals. I remember a mild shock of surprise when I discovered
that one could use the telephone on Sunday; I did not expect it to be
cut off, but I expected it to buzz more than on ordinary days, to the
advancement of our national religion. Through this instrument, in fewer
words than usual, and with a comparative economy of epigram, I ordered a
taxi-cab to take me to the railway station. I have not a word to say in
general either against telephones or taxi-cabs; they seem to me two
of the purest and most poetic of the creations of modern scientific
civilisation. Unfortunately, when the taxi-cab started, it did exactly
what modern scientific civilisation has done--it broke down. The result
of this was that when I arrived at King’s Cross my only train was gone;
there was a Sabbath calm in the station, a calm in the eyes of the
porters, and in my breast, if calm at all, if any calm, a calm despair.
There was not, however, very much calm of any sort in my breast on first
making the discovery; and it was turned to blinding horror when I learnt
that I could not even send a telegram to the organisers of the meeting.
To leave my entertainers in the lurch was sufficiently exasperating; to
leave them without any intimation was simply low. I reasoned with the
official. I said: “Do you really mean to say that if my brother were
dying and my mother in this place, I could not communicate with her?” He
was a man of literal and laborious mind; he asked me if my brother was
dying. I answered that he was in excellent and even offensive health,
but that I was inquiring upon a question of principle. What would happen
if England were invaded, or if I alone knew how to turn aside a comet or
an earthquake. He waved away these hypotheses in the most irresponsible
spirit, but he was quite certain that telegrams could not reach this
particular village. Then something exploded in me; that element of the
outrageous which is the mother of all adventures sprang up ungovernable,
and I decided that I would not be a cad merely because some of my remote
ancestors had been Calvinists. I would keep my appointment if I lost all
my money and all my wits. I went out into the quiet London street, where
my quiet London cab was still waiting for its fare in the cold misty
morning. I placed myself comfortably in the London cab and told the
London driver to drive me to the other end of Hertfordshire. And he did.
.....
I shall not forget that drive. It was doubtful whether, even in a
motor-cab, the thing was possible with any consideration for the driver,
not to speak of some slight consideration for the people in the road.
I urged the driver to eat and drink something before he started, but
he said (with I know not what pride of profession or delicate sense of
adventure) that he would rather do it when we arrived--if we ever did. I
was by no means so delicate; I bought a varied selection of pork-pies
at a little shop that was open (why was that shop open?--it is all a
mystery), and ate them as we went along. The beginning was sombre and
irritating. I was annoyed, not with people, but with things, like a
baby; with the motor for breaking down and with Sunday for being Sunday.
And the sight of the northern slums expanded and ennobled, but did
not decrease, my gloom: Whitechapel has an Oriental gaudiness in its
squalor; Battersea and Camberwell have an indescribable bustle of
democracy; but the poor parts of North London... well, perhaps I saw
them wrongly under that ashen morning and on that foolish errand.
It was one of those days which more than once this year broke the
retreat of winter; a winter day that began too late to be spring. We
were already clear of the obstructing crowds and quickening our pace
through a borderland of market gardens and isolated public-houses, when
the grey showed golden patches and a good light began to glitter on
everything. The cab went quicker and quicker. The open land whirled
wider and wider; but I did not lose my sense of being battled with
and thwarted that I had felt in the thronged slums. Rather the feeling
increased, because of the great difficulty of space and time. The faster
went the car, the fiercer and thicker I felt the fight.
The whole landscape seemed charging at me--and just missing me. The
tall, shining grass went by like showers of arrows; the very trees
seemed like lances hurled at my heart, and shaving it by a hair’s
breadth. Across some vast, smooth valley I saw a beech-tree by the
white road stand up little and defiant. It grew bigger and bigger with
blinding rapidity. It charged me like a tilting knight, seemed to hack
at my head, and pass by. Sometimes when we went round a curve of road,
the effect was yet more awful. It seemed as if some tree or windmill
swung round to smite like a boomerang. The sun by this time was a
blazing fact; and I saw that all Nature is chivalrous and militant. We
do wrong to seek peace in Nature; we should rather seek the nobler sort
of war; and see all the trees as green banners.
.....
I gave my address, arriving just when everybody was deciding to leave.
When my cab came reeling into the market-place they decided, with
evident disappointment, to remain. Over the lecture I draw a veil.
When I came back home I was called to the telephone, and a meek voice
expressed regret for the failure of the motor-cab, and even said
something about any reasonable payment. “Whom can I pay for my own
superb experience? What is the usual charge for seeing the clouds
shattered by the sun? What is the market price of a tree blue on the
sky-line and then blinding white in the sun? Mention your price for that
windmill that stood behind the hollyhocks in the garden. Let me pay you
for...” Here it was, I think, that we were cut off.