come a certain eagerness of mood. When all three qualities are
present, the result is good work, however rapidly it may be produced.
If one of the three is lacking, the work sticks, hangs, and grates; and
thus what I feel that the word-artist ought to do is to aim at working
on these lines, but to be very strict and severe about the ultimate
selection of his work. If, for instance, in a big task, a section has
been dully and impotently written, let him put the manuscript aside,
and think no more of it for a while; let him not spend labour in
attempting to mend bad work; then, on some later occasion, let him
again get his conception clear, and write the whole section again; if
he loves writing for itself he will not care how often this process is
repeated.
I am speaking here very frankly; and I will own that for myself, when
the day has rolled past and when the sacred hour comes, I sit down to
write with an appetite, a keen rapture, such as a hungry man may feel
when he sits down to a savoury meal. There is a real physical emotion
that accompanies the process; and it is a deep and lively distress that
I feel when I am living under conditions that do not allow me to
exercise my craft, at being compelled to waste the appropriate hours in
other occupations.
It may be fairly urged that with this intense impulse to write, I ought
to have contrived to make myself into a better writer; and it might be
thought that there is something either grotesque or pathetic in so much
emotional enjoyment issuing in so slender a performance. But the
essence of the happiness is that the joy resides in the doing of the
work and not in the giving it to the world; and though I do not pretend
not to be fully alive to the delight of having my work praised and
appreciated, that is altogether a secondary pleasure which in no way
competes with the luxury of expression.
I am not ungrateful for this delight; it may, I know, be withdrawn from
me; but meanwhile the world seems to be full to the brim of expressive
and significant things. There is a beautiful old story of a saint who
saw in a vision a shining figure approaching him, holding in his hand a
dark and cloudy globe. He held it out, and the saint looking
attentively upon it, saw that it appeared to represent the earth in
miniature; there were the continents and seas, with clouds sweeping
over them; and, for all that it was so minute, he could see cities and
plains, and little figures moving to and fro. The angel laid his
finger on a part of the globe, and detached from it a small cluster of
islands, drawing them out of the sea; and the saint saw that they were
peopled by a folk, whom he knew, in some way that he could not wholly
understand, to be dreary and uncomforted. He heard a voice saying,
"_He taketh up the isles as a very small thing_"; and it darted into
his mind that his work lay with the people of those sad islands; that
he was to go thither, and speak to them a message of hope.
It is a beautiful story; and it has always seemed to me that the work
of the artist is like that. He is to detach from the great peopled
globe what little portion seems to appeal to him most; and he must then
say what he can to encourage and sustain men, whatever thoughts of joy
and hope come most home to him in his long and eager pilgrimage.
XIX
Hamlet
We were talking yesterday about the stage, a subject in which I am
ashamed to confess I take but a feeble interest, though I fully
recognise the appeal of the drama to certain minds, and its
possibilities. One of the party, who had all his life been a great
frequenter of theatres, turned to me and said: "After all, there is one
play which seems to be always popular, and to affect all audiences, the
poor, the middle-class, the cultivated, alike--_Hamlet_." "Yes," I
said, "and I wonder why that is?" "Well," he said, "it is this, I
think: that beneath all its subtleties, all its intellectual force, it
has an emotional appeal to every one who has lived in the world; every
one sees himself more or less in Hamlet; every one has been in a
situation in which he felt that circumstances were too strong for him;
and then, too," he added, "there is always a deep and romantic interest
about the case of a man who has every possible external advantage,
youth, health, wealth, rank, love, ardour, and zest, who is yet utterly
miserable, and moves to a dark end under a shadow of doom."
I thought, and think this a profound and delicate criticism. There is,
of course, a great deal more in _Hamlet_; there is its high poetry, its
mournful dwelling upon deep mysteries, its supernatural terrors, its
worldly wisdom, its penetrating insight; but these are all accessories
to the central thought; the conception is absolutely firm throughout.
The hunted soul of Hamlet, after a pleasant and easy drifting upon the
stream of happy events, finds a sombre curtain suddenly twitched aside,
and is confronted with a tragedy so dark, a choice so desperate, that
the reeling brain staggers, and can hardly keep its hold upon the
events and habits of life. Day by day the shadow flits beside him;
morning after morning he uncloses his sad eyes upon a world, which he
had found so sweet, and which he now sees to be so terrible; the
insistent horror breeds a whole troop of spectres, so that all the
quiet experiences of life, friendship, love, nature, art, become big
with uneasy speculations and surmises; from the rampart-platform by the
sea until the peal of ordnance is shot off, as the poor bodies are
carried out, every moment brings with it some shocking or brooding
experience. Hamlet is not strong enough to close his eyes to these
things; if for a moment he attempts this, some tragic thought plucks at
his shoulder, and bids the awakened sleeper look out into the
struggling light. Neither is he strong enough to face the situation
with resolution and courage. He turns and doubles before the pursuing
Fury; he hopes against hope that a door of escape may be opened. He
poisons the air with gloom and suspicion; he feeds with wilful sadness
upon the most melancholy images of death and despair. And though the
great creator of this mournful labyrinth, this atrocious dilemma, can
involve the sad spirit with an art that thrills all the most delicate
fibres of the human spirit, he cannot stammer out even the most
faltering solution, the smallest word of comfort or hope. He leaves
the problem, where he took it up, in the mighty hands of God.
And thus the play stands as the supreme memorial of the tortured
spirit. The sad soul of the prince seems like an orange-banded bee,
buzzing against the glass of some closed chamber-window, wondering
heavily what is the clear yet palpable medium that keeps it, in spite
of all its efforts, from re-entering the sunny paradise of tree and
flower, that lies so close at hand, and that is yet unattainable; until
one wonders why the supreme Lord of the place cannot put forth a
finger, and release the ineffectual spirit from its fruitless pain. As
the play gathers and thickens to its crisis, one experiences--and this
is surely a test of the highest art--the poignant desire to explain, to
reason, to comfort, to relieve; even if one cannot help, one longs at
least to utter the yearning of the heart, the intense sympathy that one
feels for the multitude of sorrows that oppress this laden spirit; to
assuage if only for a moment, by an answering glance of love, the fire
that burns in those stricken eyes. And one must bear away from the
story not only the intellectual satisfaction, the emotional excitement,
but a deep desire to help, as far as a man can, the woes of spirits
who, all the world over, are in the grip of these dreary agonies.
And that, after all, is the secret of the art that deals with the
presentment of sorrow; with the art that deals with pure beauty the end
is plain enough; we may stay our hearts upon it, plunge with gratitude
into the pure stream, and recognise it for a sweet and wholesome gift
of God; but the art that makes sorrow beautiful, what are we to do with
that? We may learn to bear, we may learn to hope that there is, in the
mind of God, if we could but read it, a region where both beauty and
sadness are one; and meanwhile it may teach us to let our heart go out,
in love and pity, to all who are bound upon their pilgrimage in
heaviness, and passing uncomforted through the dark valley.
XX
A Sealed Spirit
A few weeks ago I was staying with a friend of mine, a clergyman in the
country. He told me one evening a very sad story about one of his
parishioners. This was a man who had been a clerk in a London Bank,
whose eyesight had failed, and who had at last become totally blind.
He was, at the time when this calamity fell upon him, about forty years
of age. The Directors of the Bank gave him a small pension, and he had
a very small income of his own; he was married, with one son, who was
shortly after taken into the Bank as a clerk. The man and his wife
came into the parish, and took a tiny cottage, where they lived very
simply and frugally. But within a year or two his hearing had also
failed, and he had since become totally deaf. It is almost appalling
to reflect upon the condition of helplessness to which this double
calamity can reduce a man. To be cut off from the sights and sounds of
the world, with these two avenues of perception closed, so as to be
able to take cognisance of external things only through scent and
touch! It would seem to be well-nigh unendurable! He had learnt to
read raised type with his fingers, and had been presented by some
friends with two or three books of this kind. His speech was, as is
always the case, affected, but still intelligible. Only the simplest
facts could be communicated to him, by means of a set of cards, with
words in raised type, out of which a few sentences could be arranged.
But he and his wife had invented a code of touch, by means of which she
was able to a certain extent, though of course very inadequately, to
communicate with him. I asked how he employed himself, and I was told
that he wrote a good deal,--curious, rhapsodical compositions, dwelling
much on his own thoughts and fancies. "He sits," said the Vicar, "for
hours together on a bench in his garden, and walks about, guided by his
wife. His sense of both smell and touch have become extraordinarily
acute; and, afflicted as he is, I am sure he is not at all an unhappy
man." He produced some of the writings of which he had spoken. They
were written in a big, clear hand. I read them with intense interest.
Some of them were recollections of his childish days, set in a somewhat
antique and biblical phraseology. Some of them were curious reveries,
dwelling much upon the perception of natural things through scent. He
complained, I remember, that life was so much less interesting in
winter because scents were so much less sweet and less complex than in
summer. But the whole of the writings showed a serene exaltation of
mind. There was not a touch of repining or resignation about them. He
spoke much of the aesthetic pleasure that he received from an increased
power of disentangling the component elements of a scent, such as came
from his garden on a warm summer day. Some of the writings that were
shown me were religious in character, in which the man spoke of a
constant sense of the nearness of God's presence, and of a strange joy
that filled his heart.
On the following day the Vicar suggested that we should go to see him;
we turned out of a lane, and found a little cottage with a thatched
roof, standing in a small orchard, bright with flowers. On a bench we
saw the man sitting, entirely unconscious of our presence. He was a
tall, strongly-built fellow with a beard, bronzed and healthy in
appearance. His eyes were wide open, and, but for a curious fixity of
gaze, I should not have suspected that he was blind. His hands were
folded on his knee, and he was smiling; once or twice I saw his lips
move as if he was talking to himself. "We won't go up to him," said
the Vicar, "as it might startle him; we will find his wife." So we
went up to the cottage door, and knocked. It was opened to us by a
small elderly woman, with a grave, simple look, and a very pleasant
smile. The little place was wonderfully clean and neat. The Vicar
introduced me, saying that I had been much interested in her husband's
writings, and had come to call on him. She smiled briskly, and said
that he would be much pleased. We walked down the path; when we were
within a few feet of him, he became aware of our presence, and turned
his head with a quiet, expectant air. His wife went up to him, took
his hand, and seemed to beat on it softly with her fingers; he smiled,
and presently raised his hat, as if to greet us, and then took up a
little writing-pad which lay beside him, and began to write. A little
conversation followed, his wife reading out what he had written, and
then interpreting our remarks to him. What struck me most was the
absence of egotism in what he wrote. He asked the Vicar one or two
questions, and desired to know who I was. I went and sate down beside
him; he wrote in his book that it was a pleasure to him to meet a
stranger. Might he take the liberty of seeing him in his own way? "He
means," said the wife, smiling, "might he put his hand on your
face--some people do not like it," she added apologetically, "and he
will quite understand if you do not." I said that I was delighted; and
the blind man thereupon laid his hand upon my sleeve, and with an
incredible deftness and lightness of touch, so that I hardly felt it,
passed his finger-tips over my coat and waistcoat, lingered for a
moment over my watch-chain, then over my tie and collar, and then very
gently over my face and hair; it did not last half a minute, and there
was something curiously magnetic in the touch of the slim firm fingers.
"Now I see him," he wrote; "please thank him." "It will please him,"
said the Vicar, "if we ask him to describe you." In a moment, after a
few touches of his wife's hand, he smiled, and wrote down a really
remarkably accurate picture of my appearance. We then asked him a few
questions about himself. "Very well and very happy," he wrote, "full
of the love of God;" and then added, "You will perhaps think that I get
tired of doing nothing, but the time is too short for all I want to
do." "It is quite true," said his wife, smiling as she read it. "He
is as pleased as a child with everything, and every one is so good to
him." Presently she asked him to read aloud to us; and in a voice of
great distinctness, he read a few verses of the Book of Job from a big
volume. The voice was high and resonant, but varied strangely in
pitch. He asked at the end whether we had heard every word, and being
told that we had, smiled very sweetly and frankly, like a boy who has
performed a task well. The Vicar suggested that he should come for a
turn with us, at which he visibly brightened, and said he would like to
walk through the village. He took our arms, walking between us; and
with a delicate courtesy, knowing that we could not communicate with
him, talked himself, very quietly and simply, almost all the way,
partly of what he was convinced we were passing,--guessing, I imagine,
mainly by a sense of smell, and interpreting it all with astonishing
accuracy, though I confess I was often unable even to detect the scents
which guided him. We walked thus for half an hour, listening to his
quiet talk. Two or three people came up to us. Each time the Vicar
checked him, and he held out his hand to be shaken; in each case he
recognised the person by the mere touch of the hand. "Mrs Purvis,
isn't it? Well, you see me in very good company this morning, don't
you? It is so kind of the Vicar and his friend to take me out, and it
is pleasant to meet friends in the village." He seemed to know all
about the affairs of the place, and made enquiries after various people.
It was a very strange experience to walk thus with a fellow-creature
suffering from these sad limitations, and yet to be conscious of being
in the presence of so perfectly contented and cheerful a spirit.
Before we parted, he wrote on his pad that he was working hard. "I am
trying to write a little book; of course I know that I can never see
it, but I should like to tell people that it is possible to live a life
like mine, and to be full of happiness; that God sends me abundance of
joy, so that I can say with truth that I am happier now than ever I was
in the old days. Such peace and joy, with so many to love me; so
little that I can do for others, except to speak of the marvellous
goodness of God, and of the beautiful thoughts he gives me." "Yes, he
has written some chapters," said the faithful wife; "but he does not
want any one to see them till they are done."
I shall never forget the sight of the two as we went away: he stood,
smiling and waving his hand, under an apple-tree in full bloom, with
the sun shining on the flowers. It gave me the sense of a pure and
simple content such as I have rarely experienced. The beauty and
strength of the picture have dwelt with me ever since, showing me that
a soul can be thus shut up in what would seem to be so dark a prison,
with the windows, through which most of us look upon the world, closed
and shuttered; and yet not only not losing the joy of life, but seeming
to taste it in fullest measure. If one could but accept thus one's own
limitations, viewing them not as sources of pleasure closed, but as
opening the door more wide to what remains; the very simplicity and
rarity of the perceptions that are left, gaining in depth and quality
from their isolation. But beyond all this lies that well-spring of
inner joy, which seems to be withheld from so many of us. Is it indeed
withheld? Is it conferred upon this poor soul simply as a tender
compensation? Can we not by quiet passivity, rather than by resolute
effort, learn the secret of it? I believe myself that the source is
there in many hearts, but that we visit it too rarely, and forget it in
the multitude of little cares and businesses, which seem so important,
so absorbing. It is like a hidden treasure, which we go so far abroad
to seek, and for which we endure much weariness of wandering; while all
the while it is buried in our own garden-ground; we have paced to and
fro above it many times, never dreaming that the bright thing lay
beneath our feet, and within reach of our forgetful hand.
XXI
Leisure
It was a bright day in early spring; large, fleecy clouds floated in a
blue sky; the wind was cool, but the sun lay hot in sheltered places.
I was spending a few days with an old friend, at a little house he
calls his Hermitage, in a Western valley; we had walked out, had passed
the bridge, and had stood awhile to see the clear stream flowing, a
vein of reflected sapphire, among the green water-meadows; we had
climbed up among the beech-woods, through copses full of primroses, to
a large heathery hill, where a clump of old pines stood inside an
ancient earth-work. The forest lay at our feet, and the doves cooed
lazily among the tree-tops; beyond lay the plain, with a long range of
smooth downs behind, where the river broadened to the sea-pool, which
narrowed again to the little harbour; and, across the clustered
house-roofs and the lonely church tower of the port, we could see a
glint of the sea.
We sat awhile in silence; then "Come," I said, "I am going to be
impertinent! I am in a mood to ask questions, and to have full
answers."
"And I," said my host placidly, "am always in the mood to answer
questions."
I would call my friend a poet, because he is sealed of the tribe, if
ever man was; yet he has never written verses to my knowledge. He is a
big, burly, quiet man, gentle and meditative of aspect; shy before
company, voluble in private. Half-humorous, half melancholy. He has
been a man of affairs, prosperous, too, and shrewd. But nothing in his
life was ever so poetical as the way in which, to the surprise and even
consternation of all his friends, he announced one day, when he was
turned of forty, that he had had enough of work, and that he would do
no more. Well, he had no one to say him nay; he has but few relations,
none in any way dependent on him; he has a modest competence; and,
being fond of all leisurely things--books, music, the open air, the
country, flowers, and the like--he has no need to fear that his time
will be unoccupied.
He looked lazily at me, biting a straw. "Come," said I again, "here is
the time for a catechism. I have reason to think you are over forty?"
"Yes," said he, "the more's the pity!"
"And you have given up regular work," I said, "for over a year; and how
do you like that?"
"Like it?" he said. "Well, so much that I can never work again; and
what is stranger still is that I never knew what it was to be really
busy till I gave up work. Before, I was often bored; now, the day is
never long enough for all I have to do."
"But that is a dreadful confession," I said; "and how do you justify
yourself for this miserable indifference to all that is held to be of
importance?"
"Listen!" he said, smiling and holding up his hand. There floated up
out of the wood the soft crooning of a dove, like the over-brimming of
a tide of content. "There's the answer," he added. "How does that
dove justify his existence? and yet he has not much on his mind."
"I have no answer ready," I said, "though there is one, I am sure, if
you will only give me time; but let that come later: more questions
first, and then I will deliver judgment. Now, attend to this
seriously," I said. "How do you justify it that you are alone in the
world, not mated, not a good husband and father? The dove has not got
that on his conscience."
"Ah!" said my friend, "I have often asked myself that. But for many
years I had not the time to fall in love; if I had been an idle man it
would have been different, and now that I am free--well, I regard it
as, on the whole, a wise dispensation. I have no domestic virtues; I
am a pretty commonplace person, and I think there is no reason why I
should perpetuate my own feeble qualities, bind my dull qualities up
closer with the life of the world. Besides, I have a theory that the
world is made now very much as it was in the Middle Ages. There was
but one choice then--a soldier or a monk. Now, I have no combative
blood in me; I hate a row; I am a monk to the marrow of my bones, and
the monks are the failures from the point of view of race. No monk
should breed monks; there are enough of his kind in the hive already."
"You a monk?" said I, laughing. "Why, you are nothing of the kind; you
are just the sort of man for an adoring wife and a handful of big
children. I must have a better answer."
"Well, then," said he, rather seriously, "I will give you a better
answer. There are some people whose affections are made to run, strong
and straight, in a narrow channel. The world holds but one woman for a
man of that type, and it is his business to find her; but there are
others, and I am one, who dribble away their love in a hundred
channels--in art, in nature, among friends. To speak frankly, I have
had a hundred such passions. I made friends as a boy, quickly and
romantically, with all kinds of people--some old, some young. Then I
have loved books, and music, and, above all, the earth and the things
of the earth. To the wholesome, normal man these things are but an
agreeable background, and the real business of life lies with wife and
child and work. But to me the real things have been the beautiful
things--sunrise and sunset, streams and woods, old houses, talk,
poetry, pictures, ideas. And I always liked my work, too."
"And you did it well?" I said.
"Oh, yes, well enough," he replied. "I have a clear head, and I am
conscientious; and then there was some fun to be got out of it at
times. But it was never a part of myself for all that. And the reason
why I gave it up was not because I was tired of it, but because I was
getting to depend too much upon it. I should very soon have been
unable to do without it."
"But what is your programme?" I said, rather urgently. "Don't you want
to be of some use in the world? To make other people better and
happier, for instance."