THE HEAVENS
The remote glacier region gives us a sense of purity, and gives us,
too, a vision of colour in its finest delicacy. But for depth, extent,
and brilliancy of colour we must look to sunsets--and sunsets in
those high desert regions where the outlook is widest and the
atmosphere clearest.
In deserts everywhere marvellous sunsets may be seen, for the
comparative absence of moisture in the atmosphere and the presence
of invisible particles of dust gives these sunsets an especial
brilliancy. In the middle of the day a desert in its uniform brownness
is dreary and monotonous to a degree. But at dawn and sunset when
the sun's rays slant across the scene the desert glows with colour of
every shade and hue and in ever-changing combination. In the Gobi
Desert of Central Asia, in the Egyptian Desert, in the Arabian Desert,
in Arizona, I have seen sunsets that thrill one with delight. But
nowhere have I seen more glorious sunsets than in the highlands of
Tibet. And what makes them there so remarkable is that the plains
themselves are 15,000 feet above sea-level, so that the atmosphere is
exceptionally clear. Great distances are therefore combined with
unusual clearness. The country is open enough and the air clear
enough for us to see far distances. And extent is a prime essential in
the glory of a sunset.
It is difficult to make those who have never been outside Europe
understand what sunsets can be. In England, as Turner has shown,
there are sunsets to be seen containing in abundance many such
elements of beauty as varied and varying and great extent of colour.
But the atmosphere here is so thick that the colours appear as if
thrown on to a solid background. So the sunsets look opaque. On the
continent of Europe the atmosphere is clearer and the opaqueness
less pronounced. The colouring is in consequence more vivid.
But--except in high Alpine regions--the clearness does not approach the
clearness of Tibet. And neither in England nor on the Continent do
we get the great _distances_ of desert sunsets. And great distances
increase immeasurably that feeling of _infinity_ which is the chief
glory in a sunset.
The clearness of the atmosphere is important in this respect also,
that it produces the effect upon the colours of the sunset that they
seem more like the colours we see in precious stones than the
colours a painter throws on a canvas. There is no milkiness or
murkiness in them. The sky is so clear that we see a colour as we see
the red in a ruby. We see deep into the colour. The colour comes
right _out_ of the sky and has not the appearance of being merely
plastered on the surface.
And the variety of the colours and the rapidity with which they
change and merge and mingle into one another is another wonder of
these desert sunsets. It would be wholly impossible to paint a picture
of them which would adequately express the impression they give,
for the main impression is derived from light, and the colours are
therefore far more glowing than they could ever be reproduced on
canvas. Nor can the changing effects be reproduced on a stationary
medium. The nearest approach to the glory of a Tibet sunset which I
have seen is a picture in pastel by Simon de Bussy a sunset in the
Alps. But all pictures--even Turner's;--can only draw attention to the
glory and show us what to look for. They cannot reproduce the
impression in full. The medium through which the artist has to
work--the paints and the canvas--are inadequate for his needs.
If we try to describe the impression in words we are no better off.
We can, indeed, compare the sunset colours with the colours of
flowers and precious stones. But here also we miss the light which is
the very foundation of the sunset beauties. And we have neither the
changefulness nor the vast extent of the sunset colouring.
To get the least idea of the variety of colours mixing, merging, and
intermingling with one another we must go to the opal, though even
there there is not the intensity of colour, and of course not the
change nor extent. From an orange--especially a blood orange--we
get a notion of the combined reds and yellows of the sunsets, though
the reds may range deeper than orange into the reds of the ruby or
the cardinal flower, and lighter into the pinks of the rose or the
carnation; and the yellows range from the gold of the eseholtzia to
the delicate hue of the primrose. And for the translucency of their
yellower effects we must bring in the amber. Often there is a green
which can only be matched by jade or emerald. And sometimes
there is an effect with which only the amethyst can be compared.
Then there are mauves and purples for which the precious stones
have no parallel, and of which heliotrope, the harebell, and the violet
give us the best idea. And the blues range from the deep blue of the
sapphire and the gentian to the light blue of the turquoise and the
forget-me-not.
In these stones and flowers we get something near the actual colour,
but the depth, the clearness, the luminosity, and the vast extent are
all wanting, and these are all essential features of the sunset's glories.
So we must imagine all these colours glowing with light and never
still--perpetually changing from one to the other and shading off
from one into the other, one colour emerging, rising to the dominant
position, and then disappearing to give place to another, and
effecting these changes imperceptibly yet rapidly also, for if we take
our eyes away for even a few minutes we find that the aspect has
altogether altered.
From my camp in Tibet for weeks together I could be sure of
witnessing every evening one of these glorious sunsets. For while
the mighty monsoon clouds used to roll up on to the line of
Himalayan peaks and pile themselves up there, billow upon billow,
in magnificent array, dark and fearful in the general mass, but
clear-edged and silver-tipped along the summits, yet beyond that line, in
Tibet, the sky was nearly always clear and blue of the bluest. With
nothing whatever to impede my view--no trees, nor houses, nor
fences, nor obstacles of any kind--I could look out far over these
open plains to distant hills; beyond them, again, to Mount Everest a
hundred miles away; beyond it, again, to still more distant
mountains; and, finally, behind them into the setting sun. And these
far hills and snowy mountains, seen as they were across an
absolutely open plain, seemed not to impede the view but only to
heighten the impression of great distance. The eye would be led on
from feature to feature, each receding farther into the distance till it
seemed only a step from the farthest snowy mountain into the
glowing sun itself.
Every evening, whenever I could, I used to walk out alone into the
open plain to feast my soul on the splendid scene. In the stern
glacier region round K2 had had to brace myself up and to summon
up all that was toughest within me in order to cope with the terribly
exacting conditions in which I found myself. In the presence of
these calm but fervent sunsets there was a different feeling. I had a
sense of expansion, a longing to let myself go. And I would feel
myself craving to let myself go out all I could into these glowing
depths of light and colour, and trying to open myself out to their
beauty, that as much as possible of it should flow into me and
glorify my whole being. I had the feeling that in those sunsets there
was _any_ length for my soul to go out to--that there was _infinite_
room there for the soul's expansion. There was inexhaustible glory
for the soul to absorb, and the soul was thirsting for it and could
never have enough.
Evening after evening came to me, too--quite unconsciously, and as
it were inevitably--Shelley's words (slightly altered):
"Be thou, spirit bright,
My spirit! Be thou me, most glorious one!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy."
It was not that there was any particular message that I had to give.
But there was aroused in me just this simple, insistent longing to let
others know what glory there was in the world, and to be able to
communicate to them something of the joy I was then feeling in
beholding it. I was highly privileged in having this opportunity of
witnessing a Tibetan sunset's splendours. I was yearning for others
to share my enjoyment with me.
The white radiance of the glacier region instils into us a sense of
purity, and without the purity of heart which that stern region exacts
we cannot see the sunset's glory in all its fulness. But now in these
Tibetan sunsets we have not purity alone, but warmth and richness
as well. They give an impression of infinity of glory. We catch
alight from their consuming glory, and our hearts flame up in
correspondence with them. The fervent glow in the Heart of Nature
kindles a like glow in our own hearts; and we are enraptured by the
Beauty.
On our misty island we are apt to connect sunsets with coming
darkness and a black end of things. And in gazing on them we are
prone to have a sense of sadness mingled with our joy. They seem to
mean for us a passage from light to darkness, and from life to death.
But in the deserts we have no such feeling. As day imperceptibly
fades away it is not black darkness that succeeds, but a light that
enables us to see farther, a mellower light that enables us to see the
Universe at large. From this earthly life we are transported to a
higher, intenser, ampler life among the stars.
And it is in the desert that we best live among the stars. In Europe
we look up into the sky between trees and houses; and among the
clouds and through a murky atmosphere we see a few stars. Even
when we have a clear sky we seldom get a chance of seeing the
whole expanse of the heavens all the way round. And even if we get
this rare chance of a clear sky and a wide horizon we do not live
with the stars in the open the night through and night after night.
In the Gobi Desert I had this precious opportunity. And I had it
when my whole being was tuned up to highest pitch. I was not in the
limp state of one who steps out into his garden and looks up casually
to the stars. I was tense with high enterprise. I was passing through
unknown country on a journey across the Chinese Empire from
Peking to India. I was keen and alive in every faculty, in a state of
high exhilaration, and both observant and receptive. It was a rare
chance, and much I wish now I had made more of it.
My party in crossing the Gobi Desert consisted only of a Chinese
guide, a Chinese servant, and a Mongol camel-man. As I had no
European companion I was driven in upon myself. I had to explore a
route never before traversed by Europeans, and the distance to be
covered across the open steppes of Mongolia and over the Gobi
Desert to the first town in Turkestan was twelve hundred miles.
Beyond that was the whole length of Turkestan and the six-hundred-mile
breadth of the Himalaya to be crossed before I should reach
India. So I had a big task before me, and was stirring with the sense
of high adventure and vast distances to overcome.
To enable my eight camels to feed by daylight, I used to start at five
o'clock in the afternoon and march till one or two in the morning.
Sometimes in order to reach water we had to march all through the
night and well into the following day. Frequently there were terrific
sandstorms, but there were seldom any clouds. So the atmosphere
was clear. In the distance were sometimes hills. But for the most
part all round the desert was absolutely open. I could see for what
seemed an indefinite distance in any direction. The conditions were
ideal for observing the stars.
Seated on my camel, or trudging along apart from my little caravan,
I would watch the sun set in always varying splendour. No two
sunsets were anything like the same. Each through the ascendancy
of some one shade of colour, or through an unusual combination of
colour, had a special beauty of its own. I would watch each ripening
to the climax and then shade away into the beauty of the night. And
when the day was over the night would reveal that higher, wider life
which daylight only served to hide.
The sunset glow would fade away. Star after star would spring into
sight till the whole vault of heaven was glistening with diamond
points of light. Above me and all round me stars were shining out of
the deep sapphire sky with a brilliance only surpassed by the stars in
the high Himalayan solitudes I have already described. And a great
stillness would be over all--a silence even completer than the silence
among the mountains, for there it was often broken by creaking of
the ice, whereas here in the desert it was so profound that, when at
the end of many weeks I arrived at a patch of grass and trees, the
twittering of the birds and the whirr of insects sounded like the roar
of a London street.
In this unbroken stillness and with the eye free to rove all round with
nothing in any direction to stay its vision, and being as I was many
weeks' distance from any settled human habitation, I often had the
feeling of being more connected with the starry firmament than with
this Earth. In a curious way the bodily and the material seemed to
exist no longer, and I would be in spirit among the stars. They
served to guide us over the desert and I gradually became familiar
with them. And I used to feel as much a part of the Stellar World as
of this Earth. I lost all sense of being confined to Earth and took my
place in the Universe at large. My home was the whole great
Cosmos before me. The Cosmos, and not the Earth, was the whole
to which I belonged.
And in that unbroken quiet and amid this bright company of heaven
my spirit seemed to become intenser and more daring. Right high up
in the zenith, to infinite height, it would soar unfettered. And right
round to any distance in any direction it would pierce its way. The
height and distance of the highest and farthest stars I knew had been
measured. I knew that the resulting number of miles is something so
immense as to be altogether beyond human conception. I knew also
that the number of stars, besides those few thousands which I saw,
had to be numbered in hundreds of millions. All this was astonishing,
and the knowledge of it filled me with wonder at the immensity of
the Starry Universe. But it was not the mere magnitude of this world
that impressed me. What stirred me was the Presence, subtly felt, of
some mighty all-pervading Influence which ordered the courses of
the heavenly hosts and permeated every particle.
We cannot watch the sun go down day after day, and after it has set
see the stars appear, rise to the meridian and disappear below the
opposite horizon in regular procession, without being impressed by
the order which prevails. We feel that the whole is kept together in
punctual fashion, and is not mere chaos and chance. The presence of
some Power upholding, sustaining, and directing the whole is deeply
impressed upon us. And in this Presence so steadfast, so calm, so
constant, we feel soothed and steadied. The frets and pains of
ordinary life are stilled. Deep peace and satisfaction fill our souls.
Sandstorms so terrific that we cannot stand before them or see a
thing a foot or two distant come whirling across the desert, and all
for the time seems turmoil and confusion and nothing is visible. But
behind all we know the stars still pursue their mighty way. At the
back of everything we realise there is a Power constant and
dependable in whom we can absolutely put our trust.
This is the impression--the impression of steadfastness, constancy,
and reliability--which a nightly contemplation of the stars makes
upon us. At the foundation of things is something dependable,
something in which we can repose our faith. And so the sense of
calm and confidence we feel.
And in the desert we have no feeling that the stars pursue their
course in cold indifference to us--that the Power which sustains
them works its soulless way unregardful of the frettings of us little
men. Not thus are we who watch the desert stars impressed. Quite
otherwise. For nowhere do we feel the Influence nearer, more
intimate or more beneficent. We seem in the very midst of the great
Presence. We are immersed in it. It is pervading us on every side.
We do not expect it to alter the whole course of Nature for our
private good. But we feel confident that the course of Nature is for
_good_--that Nature is a beneficent and no callous Power, and has
good at heart. _Because_ the foundations are so sure and good we
can each pursue our way in confidence. This is the impression we
get.
And the Power which guides the stars upon their heavenly way, and
which, in guiding them, guides us across the desert, does not reside,
we feel, in lonely grandeur in the empty places of the heavens, but in
the stars themselves--in their very constitution--in each individually
and in all in their togetherness. It burns in each star and shines forth
from it, and yet holds the whole together as we see it every night in
that circling vault around us. The Activity does not appear to us to
emanate from some Invisible Being dwelling wholly apart and
isolated from the stars and this Earth, and sending forth invisible
spiritual rays, as the Sun stands apart from the Earth but sends out
rays of sunlight to it. It seems rather to dwell in the very heart and
centre of each star, and the stars seem _spiritual_ rather than
material beings. So this Power, as we experience it in the desert,
does not impress us as being awful and remote, gloomy and
inexorable, enforcing unbending law and exacting terrible penalties.
Our impression of it is that, though it preserves order with unfailing
regularity, it is yet near and kindly, radiating with light and warmth.
We not only feel it to be something steadfast, something on which
we can rely and in which we may have confidence; we also feel
warmed and kindled by it.
So what we get from a nightly contemplation of the stars is a sense
of happy companionship with Nature. The Heart of Nature as here
revealed is both dependable and kindly. Nature is our friend. And in
her certain friendship the balm of peace falls softly on us. Our hearts
blend tenderly with the Heart of Nature; and in their union we see
Beauty of the gentlest and most reassuring kind.