THE SECOND TALK ON THE HILLS
"But to think," said Antony presently, in answer to Beatrice's soothing
hand, "to think that I might have lived with a child--and I chose
instead to live with words. In all the mysterious ways of man, is there
anything quite so mysterious as that? Poor dream-led fool, poor lover of
coloured shadows!
"And yet, how proud I was of the madness! How I loved to say that words
were more beautiful than the things for which they stood, and that the
names of the world's beautiful women, Sappho, Fiametta, Guinivere, were
more beautiful than Sappho, Fiametta, Guinivere themselves; that the
names of the stars were lovelier than any star--who has ever found the
Pleiades so beautiful as their name, or any king so great as the sound
of Orion?--and what, anywhere in the Universe, is lovely enough to bear
Arcturus for its name?--Ah! you know how I used to talk--poor fool, poor
lover of coloured shadows!"
"Yes, dear," said Beatrice soothingly, "but that is passed now, and you
must not dwell too persistently in the sorrow of it, or in your grief
for little Wonder. That too is to dwell with shadows, and to dwell with
shadows either of grief or joy is dangerous for the soul."
"I know. But fear not, Beatrice. Perhaps there was the danger of my
passing from one cloudland to another--for I never knew how I loved our
Wonder till now, and I longed, if only by imagination, to follow her
where she has gone, and share with her the life together we have lost
here--"
"But that can never be," said Beatrice; "you must accept it, Antony. We
shall only meet her again by doing that. The sooner we can say from our
hearts 'She is lost here,' the nearer is she to being found in another
world. Yes, Antony dear, even Wonder's little shadow must be left
behind, if we are to mount together the hills of life."
"My wonderful Beatrice! Yes, the hills of life. No more its woods, but
its hills, bathed in a vast and open sunshine. Look around us--how nobly
simple is every line and shape! Far below the horizon nature is
elaborate, full of fancies,--mazy watercourses, delicate dingles,
fantastically gloomy ravines, misshapen woods, gibbering with diablerie;
but here how simple, how great, how good she is! There is not a shape
subtler than a common bowl, and the colours are alphabetical--and yet,
by what taking of thought could she have achieved an effect so grand,
at once so beautiful and so holy?"
"Yes, one might call it the good beauty," said Beatrice.
"Yes," continued Antony, perhaps somewhat ominously interested in the
subject, "that is a great mystery--the seeming moral meaning of the
forms of things. Some shapes, however beautiful, suggest evil; others,
however ugly, suggest good. As we look at a snake, or a spider, we know
that evil is shaped like that; and not only animate things but
inanimate. Some aspects of nature are essentially evil. There are
landscapes that injure the soul to look at, there are sunsets that are
unholy, there are trees breathing spiritual pestilence as surely as some
men breathe it--"
"Do you remember," continued Antony with a smile, which died as he
realised he was committed to an allusion best forgotten, "that old
twisted tree that stood on the moor near our wood? I often wonder what
mysterious sin he had committed--"
"Yes," laughed Beatrice, "he looked a terribly depraved old tree, I must
admit--but don't you think that when we have arrived at the discussion
of the mysterious sins of trees it is time to start home?"
"Yes, indeed," said Antony gaily, "let us change the subject to the
vices of flowers."
From which conversation it will be seen that Antony's mind was still
revolving with unconscious attraction around the mystery of Art. Was it
some far-travelled sea-wind bringing faint strains from that sunken
harp, strains too subtle for the ear, and even unrecognised by the mind?