uplands where the keels of the cumulus clouds are grounded, there are
saline meadows, lush and warm, where ditches serpentine between
barriers of meadowsweet, briers and fat grasses. Nearer to the sea the
levels are of moist sand covered with a close matting of thyme, and
herbage as close and resilient as moss, levels that are not green, like
fields, but golden, and of a texture that reflects the light, so that
these plains seem to have their own brightness.
The sea plains finish in the sandhills. In this desert you may press a
hand into the body of earth, and feel its heat and pulse. The west wind
pours among the dunes, a warm and heavy torrent. There is no need to
make a miracle of the appearance of life on our earth. Life was at the
happy incidence of the potent elements on such a strand as this.
Aphrodite was no myth. Our mother here gave birth to her.
The sea is kept from the dunes by a high ridge of blue water-worn
pebbles, and beyond the pebbles at low water is the wet strand over
which she came wading to give the earth children in her own likeness.
The Boy and Miss Muffet beside me are no surprise. They are proper to
the place. The salt water and the sand are still on their brown limbs,
and in the Boy's serious eyes and Miss Muffet's smile there is
something outside my knowledge; but I know that in the depth of that
mystery is security and content.
There is a fear I have, though, when they trip it over the solid and
unquestionable stones, and leave the stones to fly off into the wind
down that shining entrance to the deep. For the strand has no
substance. Their feet move over a void in which far down I see another
sky than ours. They go where I doubt that I can follow. I cannot leave
my hold upon the rocks and enter the place to which their late and
aerial spirits are native. It is plain the earth is not a solid body.
As their bodies, moving over the bright vacuity, grow unsubstantial and
elfin with distance, and they approach that line where the surf
glimmers athwart the radiant void, I have a sudden fear that they may
vanish quite, and only their laughter come at me mockingly from the
near invisible air. They will have gone back to their own place.
VI. The Pit Mouth
There was Great Barr, idle, still, and quiet. Through the Birmingham
suburbs, out into the raw, bleak winter roads between the hedges, quite
beyond the big town smoking with its enterprising labours, one
approached the village of calamity with some awe and diffidence. You
felt you were intruding; that you were a mere gross interloper, coming
through curiosity, that was not excused by the compunction you felt, to
see the appearance of a place that had tragedy in nearly all its homes.
Young men streamed by on bicycles in the same direction, groups were
hurrying there on foot.
The road rose in a mound to let the railway under, and beyond the far
dip was the village, an almost amorphous group of mean red dwellings
stuck on ragged fields about the dominant colliery buildings. Three
high, slim chimneys were leisurely pouring smoke from the grotesque
black skeleton structures above the pits. The road ran by the boundary,
and was packed with people, all gazing absorbed and quiet into the
grounds of the colliery; they were stacked up the hedge banks, and the
walls and trees were loaded with boys.
A few empty motor-cars of the colliery directors stood about. A
carriage-horse champed its bit, and the still watchers turned at once
to that intrusive sound. Around us, a lucid winter landscape (for it
had been raining) ran to the distant encompassing hills which lifted
like low ramparts of cobalt and amethyst to a sky of luminous saffron
and ice-green, across which leaden clouds were moving. The country had
that hard, coldly radiant appearance which always impresses a sad man
as this world's frank expression of its alien disregard; this world not
his, on which he has happened, and must endure with his trouble for a
brief time.
As I went through the press of people to the colliery gates, the women
in shawls turned to me, first with annoyance that their watching should
be disturbed, and then with some dull interest. My assured claim to
admittance probably made them think I was the bearer of new help
outside their little knowledge; and they willingly made room for me to
pass. I felt exactly like the interfering fraud I was. What would I not
have given then to be made, for a brief hour, a nameless
miracle-worker.
In the colliery itself was the same seeming apathy. There was nothing
to show in that yard, black with soddened cinders and ash muck, where
the new red-brick engine-houses stood, that somewhere half a mile
beneath our feet were thirty men, their only exit to the outer world
barred by a subterranean fire. Nothing showed of the fire but a whitish
smoke from a ventilating shaft; and a stranger would not know what that
signified. But the women did. Wet with the rain showers, they had been
standing watching that smoke all night, and were watching it still, for
its unceasing pour to diminish. Constant and unrelenting, it streamed
steadily upward, as though it drew its volume from central fires that
would never cease.
The doors of the office were thrown open, and three figures emerged.
They broke into the listlessness of that dreary place, where nothing
seemed to be going on, with a sudden real purpose, fast but unhurried,
and moved towards the shaft. Three Yorkshire rescue experts--one of
them to die later--with the Hamstead manager explaining the path they
should follow below with eager seriousness. "Figures of fun"! They had
muzzles on their mouths and noses, goggles on their eyes, fantastic
helms, and queer cylinders and bags slung about them. As they went up
the slope of wet ash, quick and full of purpose, their comical gear and
coarse dress became suddenly transfigured; and the silent crowd cheered
emotionally that little party of forlorn hope.
They entered the cage, and down they went. Still it was difficult for
me to think that we were fronting tragedy, for no danger showed. An
hour and more passed in nervous and dismal waiting. There was a signal.
Some men ran to the pit-head carrying hot bricks and blankets. The
doctors took off their coats, and arranged bottles and tinkling
apparatus on chairs stuck in the mud. The air smelt of iodoform. A
cloth was laid on the ground from the shaft to the engine-house, and
stretchers were placed handy. The women, some carrying infants, broke
rank. That quickly up-running rope was bringing the first news. The
rope stopped running and the cage appeared. Only the rescue party came
out, one carrying a moribund cat. They knew nothing; and the
white-faced women, with hardly repressed hysteria, took again their
places by the engine-house. So we passed that day, watching the place
from which came nothing but disappointment. Occasionally a child, too
young to know it was adding to its mother's grief, would wail
querulously. There came a time when I and all there knew that to go
down that shaft was to meet with death. The increasing exhaustion and
pouring sweat of the returning rescue parties showed that. Yet the
miners who were not selected to go down were angry; they violently
abused the favouritism of the officials who would not let all risk
their lives.
I have a new regard for my fellows since Great Barr. About you and me
there are men like that. There is nothing to distinguish them. They
show no signs of greatness. They have common talk. They have coarse
ways. They walk with an ugly lurch. Their eyes are not eager. They are
not polite. Their clothes are dirty. They live in cheap houses on cheap
food. They call you "sir." They are the great unwashed, the mutable
many, the common people. The common people! Greatness is as common as
that. There are not enough honours and decorations to go round. Talk of
the soldier! _Vale_ to Welsby of Normanton! He was a common miner. He
is dead. His fellows were in danger, their wives were white-faced and
their children were crying, and he buckled on his harness and went to
the assault with no more thought for self than great men have in a
great cause; and he is dead. I saw him go to his death. I wish I could
tell you of Welsby of Normanton.
I left that place where the star-shine was showing the grim skeleton of
the shaft-work overhead in the night, and where men moved about below
in the indeterminate dark like dismal gnomes. There was a woman whose
cry, when Welsby died, was like a challenge.
Next morning, in Great Barr, some blinds were down, the street was
empty. Children, who could see no reason about them why their fathers
should not return as usual, were playing foot-ball by the tiny church.
A group of women were still gazing at the grotesque ribs and legs of
the pit-head staging as though it were a monster without ruth.
_November 1907._
VII. Initiation
As to what the Boy will become, that is still with his stars; and
though once we thought he was much impressed by the dignity of the man
controlling a road roller, for it seemed it would be well to be that
slow herald in front with a little red flag, he has shown but the
faintest regard for the offices of policeman, engine-driver, and
soldier. It is clear there is but one good thing left for his choice,
and so the house is littered with drawings of ships. There has been
some advance from that early affair of black angles which, without
explanation, might have stood for anything, but was meant for a cutter.
Now, in a manner which a careless visitor could think was the hauteur
of an artist who is too sure of himself to care what you think of his
work, but is really acute shyness, he will present you at short notice
with a sketch in colours of a topsail schooner beating off a lee shore,
if your variety of beard does not rouse his suspicion. As art, such
paintings have their faults; but as delineations of that sort of ship
they have technical exactitude not common even in the studios.
In fact, he has found an old manual of seamanship, and the
illustrations get more attention than some people give to Biblical
subjects. During vacant afternoons there is an uncanny calm in the
house, a silence which makes people think they have forgotten something
important; but it is only that the Boy is absent with the argonauts. He
is in tow of Argo, as it were, one of its heroes, surging astern in a
large easy-chair, viewing golden landfalls that are still under their
early spell in seas that ships have never sailed. There are no such
voyages in later life, none with quite that glamour, for we have tried
and know. Lucky Boy, sailing the greatest voyage of his life!
Occasionally, when a real ship is home again, and some one calls to see
if we still live there, the Boy is allowed to go to bed late, and there
he sits and fills his mind.
"And what," said this deponent one evening, "about taking His Nibs with
me?" (There was some sea to be crossed.) Most certainly not! Well--!
still--! Would he be all right? But as he got to hear about this it was
hardly so certainly not as it seemed. There are times when he can
concentrate on a subject with awful pertinacity, though the occasions
are infrequent. This was one, however. He went. I knew he would
go--when he heard about it.
A day came when we were at the railway station, and he was to cross the
sea for the first time. He was quite collected. His quiet eye
enumerated the baggage in one careless side-glance which detected there
was a strap undone and that a walking-stick was missing. In all that
crowded tumult converging on the stroke of the hour his seemed to be
the only apart and impassive face, and I began to think he was
indifferent; he merely looked at the cover of one magazine, and then
turned to the window and observed the world leaping past with the
detachment of a small immortal who was watching man's fleeting affairs.
Nothing to do with him.
Once he caught my intent eye--for I thought he was a trifle pale--and
then he passed a radiant wink, and one of his dangling legs began to
swing as though that were the sole limb to be joyful. An hour later,
his face still to the glass, he was shaking with internal mirth. I
asked him to let me share it with him. "Did you see that old man at the
station when the train was starting?" he whispered. "He couldn't find
the carriage where his things were--he was running up and down without
a hat. Perhaps he was left behind." What do man's misfortune's matter
to the gods who live for ever?
* * * * *
Through sections of the quayside sheds he caught sight of near funnels,
businesslike with smoke, and a row of ports. It was then I had to tell
him there was plenty of time. "Two funnels," I heard him say in
surprise, and there is no doubt at that moment some of the importance
of the occasion was reflected on myself. That extra funnel told him, I
hope, I was doing this business in no meagre spirit. None of your
single-funnel ships for our affairs. At the quay end of the gangway he
stopped me, interrupting the whole concourse to do so. "Where's that
other bag?" he demanded severely. I was annoyed--like the people who
were following us--but I had to admire him all the same. At his age no
doubt it may be demanded that a ship be put about for a bag left
behind. When this childish egoism is maintained well into life, large
fortunes may be made. It is, perhaps, the only way. As soon as a man
can relate his personal affairs to those of the world, and understands
how unimportant he really is, from that moment he becomes a failure.
Some men never do it, and thus succeed. Therefore I allowed the Boy to
lead me aboard, and so secured a good berth at once, to the envy of
those who were unaided by a child. Already I was informed that, after
due inspection, the steamer had plenty of boats, "so it won't matter if
we sink." In five minutes we had discovered the companions to
everywhere on that ship, and were, I believe, the only passengers who
could find our way about her before she left port.
But a glance seaward, and a word with an officer, gave me a thought or
two, and I broke off the Boy's interesting conversation with a fatherly
French quartermaster to take him where he could at least begin with
some food. "What a lark if there's a storm," laughed His Nibs, removing
a sandwich to say so. The fiddles were on the tables. We were off.
* * * * *
The ship gave a lurch, a ham leaped to the floor, some plates crashed,
and then the row of ports alongside us were darkened by the run of a
wave. The Boy made an exclamation partly stifled, and looked at me
quickly. I did not look at him, but went on with the food. He stopped
eating, and remained with his gaze fixed on the ports, gripping his
chair whenever they went dark. He said nothing about it, but he must
have been thinking pretty hard. "I suppose this is a strong ship, isn't
it?" he questioned once.
As we were about to emerge into the open, the wet, deserted deck fell
away, and a grey wave which looked as aged as death, its white hair
streaming in the wind, suddenly reared over the ship's side, as though
looking for us, and then fled phantom-like, with dire cries. The Boy
shrank back for a moment, horrified, but then moved on. I think I heard
him sigh. It was no summer sea. The dark bales of rain were speeding up
from the south-west, low over waters which looked just what the sea
really is.
I am glad he saw it like that. He hung on in a shelter with a
needlessly tight grip, and there was something of consternation in his
eye. But I enjoyed the cry of surprise he gave once when we were
getting used to it. A schooner passed us, quite close, a midget which
fairly danced over the running hills, lifting her bows and soaring
upwards, light as a bird, and settling in the hollows amid a white
cloud. "Isn't she brave!" said the Boy.
_December 1910._
VIII. The Art of Writing
Whether I placed the writing-pad on my knees in a great chair, or on
the table, or on the floor, nothing happened to it. I can only say that
that morning the paper was full of vile hairs, which the pen kept
getting into its mouth--enough to ruin the goodwill of any pen. Yet all
the circumstances of the room seemed luckily placed for work to flow
with ease; but there was some mysterious and inimical obstruction. The
fire was bright and lively, the familiar objects about the table
appeared to be in their right place. Again I examined the gods of the
table to be sure one had not by mischance broken the magic circle and
interrupted the current of favour for me. They were rightly
orientated--that comic pebble paper-weight Miss Muffet found on the
beach of a distant holiday, the chrysanthemums which were fresh from
that very autumn morning, stuck in the blue vase which must have got
its colour in the Gulf Stream; and the rusty machete blade from Peru,
and the earthenware monkey squatting meekly in his shadowy niche,
holding the time in his hands. The time was going on, too.
I tried all the tricks I knew for getting under way, but the pen
continued to do nothing but draw idle faces and pick up hairs, which it
held firmly in its teeth. Then the second telegram was brought to me.
"What about Balkan article?" it asked, and finished with a studied
insult, after the manner of the editor-kind, whose assurance that the
function of the universe is only fulfilled when they have published the
fact makes them behave as would Jove with a thick-headed immortal.
"These Balkan atrocities will never cease," I said, dropping the
telegram into the fire.
Had I possessed but one of those intelligent manuals which instruct the
innocent in the art, not only of writing, but of writing so well that a
very disappointed and world-weary editor rejoices when he sees the
manuscript, puts his thumbs up and calls for wine, I would have
consulted it. (I should be glad to hear if there is such a book, with a
potent remedy for just common dulness--the usual opaque, gummous, slow,
thick, or fat head.) As for me, I have nothing but a cheap dictionary,
and that I could not find. I raised my voice, calling down the hollow,
dusty, and unfurnished spaces of my mind, summoning my servants, my
carefully chosen but lazy and wilful staff of words, to my immediate
aid. But there was no answer; only the cobwebs moved there, though I
thought I heard a faint buzzing, which might have been a blow-fly. No
doubt my staff--small blame to them--were dreaming somewhere in the
sun, dispersed over several seas and continents.
Well, a suburb of a big town, and such jobs as I find for them to do,
are grey enough for them in winter. I have no doubt some were nooning
it in Algiers, and others were prospecting the South Seas, flattering
themselves, with gross vanity, how well they could serve me there, if
only I would give them a chance with those coloured and lonely islands;
and others were in the cabins of ships far from any land, gossiping
about old times; and these last idle words, it is my experience, are
the most stubborn of the lot, usually ignoring all my efforts to get
them home again and to business. I could call and rage as I chose, or
entreat them, showing them the urgency of my need. But only a useless
and indefinite article came along, as he usually does, hours and hours
before the arrival of a lusty word which could throw about the
suggestions quicker than they may be picked up and examined.
Very well. There was nothing for it but to fill another pipe, and dwell
with some dismay upon such things as, for instance, the way one's light
grows smoky with age. Is there a manual which will help a man to keep
his light shining brightly--supposing he has a light to keep? But if he
has but the cheapest of transient glims, good and bright enough for its
narrow purpose, is it any wonder it burns foul, seeing what business
usually it gets to illuminate in these exciting and hurried times. What
work! I think it would make rebels of the most quiet, unadventurous,
and simple-featured troop of words that ever a man gathered about him
for the plain domestic duties to employ them regularly, for example, in
sweeping up into neat columns such litter as the House of Commons
makes. It would numb the original heart of the bonniest set of words
that rightly used would have made some people happy--sterilize them,
make them anaemic and pasty-faced, so that they would disturb the peace
of mind of all compassionate men who looked upon them. That my own
staff of words refused my summons....
But what was it I said I wanted them for just now? I gazed round the
walls upon the portraits of the great writers of the past, hoping for
inspiration. Useless! Upon Emerson's face there was a faint smile of
most infuriating benevolence. Lamb--but I am getting tired of his
smirk, which might be of irony or kindness. He would look savage enough
today, hearing his constantly returning Dissertation on Roast Pig thump
the door-mat four times a week; for that, he can be assured, is the way
editors would treat it now, and without even preliminary consultations
with lady typist-secretaries. Of the whole gallery of the great I felt
there was not one worth his wall room. They are pious frauds. This
inspiration business is played out. I have never had the worth of the
frames out of those portraits.... Ah, the Balkans. That was it. And of
all the flat, interminable Arctic wastes of bleak wickedness and frozen
error that ever a shivering writer had to traverse....
My head was in my hands, and I was trying to get daylight and direction
into the affair with my eyes shut, when I felt a slight touch on my
arm. "I'm sorry we're in your way. Are you praying? Look who's here."
I looked. It was Miss Muffet who spoke. She shook the gold out of her
eyes and regarded me steadily. Well she knew she had no right there,
for all her look of confident and tender solicitude. The Boy, who is a
little older (and already knows enough to place the responsibility for
intrusion on his sister with her innocent eyes and imperturbable calm
and golden hair), stood a little in the background, pretending to be
engrossed with a magnet, as though he were unaware that he was really
present. Curls hopped about on one leg frankly, knowing that the others
would be blamed for any naughtiness of hers. Her radiant impudence
never needs any apology. What a plague of inconsequential violators of
any necessary peace! When would my lucky words come now?
The Boy probably saw a red light somewhere. "Haven't you finished uncle
we thought you had has a topsail schooner got two or three masts I saw
a fine little engine up in the town today and an aeroplane it was only
seventeen shillings do you think that is too much?"
"I am learning the sailors' hornpipe at school," said Miss Muffet,
slowly and calmly; "you watch my feet. Do I dance it nicely?"
I watched her feet. Now it is but fair to say that when Miss Muffet
dances across a room there is no international crisis in all this world
which would distract any man's frank admiration. When Miss Muffet steps
it on a sunny day, her hair being what it is, and her little feet in
her strap shoes being such as they are, then your mood dances in
accord, and your thoughts swing in light and rhythmic harmony. I got
up. And Curls, who is one of those who must mount stairs laboriously,
secure to the rails--she has black eyes only the bright light of which
is seen through her mane--she reached up for my hand, for she cannot
imitate her sister's hornpipe without holding on.
Miss Muffet reached a corner of the room, and swung round, light as a
fairy, her hands on her hips, and said, "What do you think of that?"
Some of my lucky words instantly returned. I suppose it was more to
their mind. But I had nothing to give them to do. They could just stand
around and look on now, for when Curls seriously imitates her sister,
and then laughs heartily at her own absurd failure, because her feet
are irresponsible, that is the time when you have nothing to do, and
would not do anything if it had to be done....
What time it was the next interruption came--it was another telegram--I
don't know. Time had been obliterated. But then it began to flow again;
though not with a viscid and heavy measure. And when I took up my light
and ready pen, there, standing at eager attention, was all my staff,
waiting the call. What had happened to bring them all back? If the
writers of literary manuals will explain that secret to me, I should
acquire true wealth.
IX. A First Impression