in the very teeth of a wind that seemed to catch his throat in an icy
grip, stopping the breath at intervals and chilling the very heart.
Coldly the grey breakers rolled under the hard lowering sky; coldly the
western light flickered on the iron slopes of far-off hills; coldly the
last beams struck on the water and made chance wavelets flash with a
terrible glitter. The night rushed down, and the snow descended
fiercely; the terrified cattle tried to find shelter from the scourge of
the storm; a hollow roar rang sullenly amid the darkness; stray
sea-birds far overhead called weirdly, and it seemed as if the spirit of
evil were abroad in the night. In darkness the man fought onward,
thinking of the unhappy wretches who sometimes lie down on the snow and
let the final numbness seize their hearts. Then came a friendly
shout--then lights--and then the glow of warmth that filled a broad room
with pleasantness. All the night long the mad gusts tore at the walls
and made them vibrate; all night the terrible music rose into shrieks
and died away in low moaning, and ever the savage boom of the waves made
a vast under-song. Then came visions of the mournful sea that we all
know so well, and the traveller thought of the honest fellows who must
spend their Christmas-time amid warring forces that make the works of
man seem puny. What a picture that is--The Toilers of the Sea in Winter!
Christmas Eve comes with no joyous jangling of bells; the sun stoops to
the sea, glaring lividly through whirls of snow, and the vessel roars
through the water; black billows rush on until their crests topple into
ruin, and then the boiling white water shines fitfully like some strange
lambent flame; the breeze sings hoarsely among the cordage; the whole
surface flood plunges on as if some immense cataract must soon appear
after the rapids are passed. Every sea that the vessel shatters sends
up a flying waterspout; and the frost acts with amazing suddenness, so
that the spars, the rigging, and the deck gather layer after layer of
ice. Supposing the vessel is employed in fishing, then the men in the
forecastle crouch round the little fire, or shiver on their soaked beds,
and perhaps growl out a few words of more or less cheerful talk. Stay
with the helmsman, and you may know what the mystery and horror of utter
gloom are really like. There is danger everywhere--a sudden wave may
burst the deck or heave the vessel down on her side; a huge dim cloud
may start shapelessly from the murk, and, before a word of warning can
be uttered, a great ship may crash into the labouring craft. In that
case hope is gone, for the boat is bedded in a mass of ice and all the
doomed seamen must take the deadly plunge to eternity. Ah, think of
this, you who rest in the glow of beautiful homes! Then the morning--the
grey desolation! No words can fairly picture the utter cheerlessness of
a wintry dawn at sea. The bravest of men feel something like depression
or are pursued by cruel apprehensions. The solid masses of ice have
gripped every block, and the ropes will not run; the gaunt masts stand
up like pallid ghosts in the grey light, and still the volleys of snow
descend at intervals. All the ships seem to be cowering away, scared and
beaten; even the staunch sea-gulls have taken refuge in fields and quiet
rivers; and only the seamen have no escape. The mournful red stretches
of the Asiatic deserts are wild enough, but there are warmth and
marvellous light, and those who well know the moaning wastes say that
their fascination sinks on the soul. The wintry sea has no
fascination--no consolation; it is hungry, inhospitable--sometimes
horrible. But even there Christ walks the waters in spirit. In an
ordinary vessel the rudest seaman is made to think of the great day,
and, even if he goes on grumbling and swearing on the morrow, he is apt
to be softened and slightly subdued for one day at least. The fishermen
on the wild North Sea are cared for, and merry scenes are to be
witnessed even when landsmen might shudder in terror. Certain gallant
craft, like strong yachts, glide about among the plunging smacks; each
of the yachts has a brave blue flag at the masthead, and the vessels are
laden with kindly tokens from thousands of gentle souls on shore. Surely
there is no irreverence in saying that the Master walks the waters to
this day?
We Britons must of course express some of our emotions by eating and
drinking freely. No political party can pretend to adjust the affairs of
the Empire until the best-advertised members have met together at a
dinner-table; no prominent man can be regarded as having achieved the
highest work in politics, or art, or literature, or histrionics, until
he has been delicately fed in company with a large number of brother
mortals; and no anniversary can possibly be celebrated without an
immense consumption of eatables and drinkables. The rough men of the
North Sea have the national instinct, and their mode of recognizing the
festive season is quite up to the national standard. The North Sea
fisherman would not nowadays approve of the punch-bowls and ancient ale
which Dickens loved so much to praise, for he is given to the most
severe forms of abstinence; but it is a noble sight when he proceeds to
show what he can do in the way of Christmas dining. If he is one of the
sharers in a parcel from on shore, he is fortunate, for he may possibly
partake of a pudding which might be thrown over the masthead without
remaining whole after its fall on deck; but it matters little if he has
no daintily-prepared provender. Jack Fisherman seats himself on a box or
on the floor of the cabin; he produces his clasp-knife and prepares for
action. When his huge tin dish is piled with a miscellaneous assortment
of edibles, it presents a spectacle which might make all Bath and
Matlock and Royat and Homburg shudder; but the seaman, despising the
miserable luxuries of fork and spoon, attacks the amazing conglomeration
with enthusiasm. His Christmas pudding may resemble any geological
formation that you like to name, and it may be unaccountably allied with
a perplexing maze of cabbage and potatoes--nothing matters. Christmas
must be kept up, and the vast lurches of the vessel from sea to sea do
not at all disturb the fine equanimity of the fellows who are bent on
solemnly testifying, by gastronomic evidence, to the loyalty with which
Christmas is celebrated among orthodox Englishmen. The poor lads toil
hard, live hard, and they certainly feed hard; but, with all due
respect, it must be said also that they mostly pray hard; and, if any
one of the cynical division had been among the seamen during that awful
time five years ago, he would have seen that among the sea-toilers at
least the "glad" season is glad in something more than name--for the
gladness is serious. Sights of the same kind may be seen on great ships
that are careering over the myriad waterways that net the surface of the
globe; the smart man-of-war, the great liner, the slow deep-laden
barque toiling wearily round the Horn, are all manned by crews that keep
up the aged tradition more or less merrily; and woe betide the cook that
fails in his duty! That lost man's fate may be left to the eye of
imagination. Under the Southern Cross the fair summer weather glows; but
the good Colonists have their little rejoicings without the orthodox
adjuncts of snow and frozen fingers and iron roads. Far up in the bush
the men remember to make some kind of rude attempt at improvising
Christmas rites, and memories of the old country are present with many a
good fellow who is facing his first hard luck. But the climate makes no
difference; and, apart from all religious considerations, there is no
social event that so draws together the sympathies of the whole English
race all over the world.
At Nainee Tal, or any other of our stations in our wondrous Indian
possession, the day is kept. Alas, how dreary it is for the hearts that
are craving for home! The moon rises through the majestic arch of the
sky and makes the tamarisk-trees gorgeous; the warm air flows gently;
the dancers float round to the wild waltz-rhythm; and the imitation of
home is kept up with zeal by the stout general, the grave and scholarly
judge, the fresh subaltern, and by all the bright ladies who are in
exile. But even these think of the quiet churches in sweet English
places; they think of the purple hedges, the sharp scent of frost-bitten
fields, the glossy black ice, and the hissing ring of the skates. I know
that, religiously as Christmas is kept up even on the frontier in India,
the toughest of the men long for home, and pray for the time when the
blessed regions of Brighton and Torquay and Cheltenham may receive the
worn pensioner. One poet says something of the Anglo-Indian's longing
for home at Christmas-time; he speaks with melancholy of the folly of
those who sell their brains for rupees and go into exile, and he appears
to be ready, for his own part, to give up his share in the glory of our
Empire if only he can see the friendly fields in chill December. I
sympathize with him. Away with the mendicants, rich and poor--away with
the gushing parasites who use a kindly instinct and a sacred name in
order to make mean profit--away with the sordid hucksters who play with
the era of man's hope as though the very name of the blessed time were a
catchword to be used like the abominable party-cries of politicians! But
when I come to men and women who understand the real significance of the
day--when I come to charitable souls who are reminded of One who was all
Charity, and who gave an impulse to the world which two thousand years
have only strengthened--when I come among these, I say, "Give us as much
Yule-tide talk as ever you please, do your deeds of kindness, take your
fill of innocent merriment, and deliver us from the pestilence of quacks
and mendicants!" It is when I think of the ghastly horror of our own
great central cities that I feel at once the praiseworthiness and the
hopelessness of all attempts to succour effectually the immense mass of
those who need charity. Hopeless, helpless lives are lived by human
creatures who are not much above the brutes. Alas, how much may be
learned from a journey through the Midlands! We may talk of merry frosty
days and starlit nights and unsullied snow and Christmas cheer; but the
potter and the iron-worker know as much about cheeriness as they do
about stainless snow. Then there is London to be remembered. A cheery
time there will be for the poor creatures who hang about the dock-gates
and fight for the chance of earning the price of a meal! In that blank
world of hunger and cold and enforced idleness there is nothing that the
gayest optimist could describe as joyful, and some of us will have to
face the sight of it during the winter that is now at hand. What can be
done? Hope seems to have deserted many of our bravest; we hear the dark
note of despair all round, and it is only the sight of the workers--the
kindly workers--that enables us to bear up against deadly depression and
dark pessimism.
_December, 1888._
_THE FADING YEAR_.
Even in this distressed England of ours there are still districts where
the simple reapers regard the harvest labour as a frolic; the dulness of
their still lives is relieved by a burst of genuine but coarse
merriment, and their abandoned glee is not unpleasant to look upon. Then
come the harvest suppers--noble spectacles. The steady champ of resolute
jaws sounds in a rhythm which is almost majestic; the fearsome
destruction wrought on solid joints would rouse the helpless envy of the
dyspeptics of Pall Mall, and the playful consumption of ale--no small
beer, but golden Rodney--might draw forth an ode from a teetotal
Chancellor of the Exchequer. August winds up in a blaze of gladness for
the reaper. On ordinary evenings he sits stolidly in the dingy parlour
and consumes mysterious malt liquor to an accompaniment of grumbling and
solemn puffing of acrid tobacco, but the harvest supper is a wildly
luxurious affair which lasts until eleven o'clock. Are there not songs
too? The village tenor explains--with a powerful accent--that he only
desires Providence to let him like a soldier fall. Of course he breaks
down, but there is no adverse criticism. Friendly hearers say, "Do yowe
try back, Willum, and catch that up at start agin;" and Willum does try
back in the most excruciating manner. Then the elders compare the
artist with singers of bygone days, and a grunting chorus of stories
goes on. Then comes the inevitable poaching song. Probably the singer
has been in prison a dozen times over, but he is regarded as a moral and
law-abiding character by his peers; and even his wife, who suffered
during his occasional periods of seclusion, smiles as he drones out the
jolting chorus. When the sportsman reaches the climax and tells how--
We slung her on our shoulders,
And went across the down;
We took her to a neighbour's house,
And sold her for a crown.
We sold her for a crown, my boys,
But I 'on't tell ye wheer,
For 'tis my delight of a shiny night
In the season of the year
--then the gentlemen who have sold many a hare in their time exchange
rapturous winks, and even a head-keeper might be softened by the
prevailing enthusiasm. Hodge is a hunter by nature, and you can no more
restrain him from poaching than you can restrain a fox. The most popular
man in the whole company is the much-incarcerated poacher, and no
disguise whatever is made of the fact. A theft of a twopenny cabbage
from a neighbour would set a mark against a man for life; a mean action
performed when the hob-nailed company gather in the tap-room would be
remembered for years; but a sportsman who blackens his face and creeps
out at night to net the squire's birds is considered to be a hero, and
an honest man to boot. He mentions his convictions gaily, criticises the
officials of each gaol that he has visited in the capacity of prisoner,
and rouses roars of sympathetic laughter as he tells of his sufferings
on the tread-mill. No man or woman thinks of the facts that the squire's
pheasants cost about a guinea apiece to rear, that a hare is worth about
three-and-sixpence, that a brace of partridges brings two shillings even
from the cunning receiver who buys the poachers' plunder. No; they
joyously think of the fact that the keepers are diddled, and that
satisfies them.
Alas, the glad and sad times alike must die, and the dull prose of
October follows hard on the wild jollity of the harvest supper, while
Winter peers with haggard gaze over Autumn's shoulder! The hoarse winds
blow now, and the tender flush of decay has begun to touch the leaves
with delicate tints. In the morning the gossamer floats in the
glittering air and winds ropes of pearls among the stubble; the level
rays shoot over a splendid land, and the cold light is thrillingly
sweet. But the evenings are chill, and the hollow winds moan, crying,
"Summer is dead, and we are the vanguard of Winter. Soon the wild army
will be upon you. Steal the sunshine while you may."
What is the source of that tender solemn melancholy that comes on us all
as we feel the glad year dying? It is melancholy that is not painful,
and we can nurse it without tempting one stab of real suffering. Each
season brings its moods--Spring is hopeful; Summer luxurious; Autumn
contented; and then comes that strange time when our thoughts run on
solemn things. Can it be that we associate the long decline of the year
with the dark closing of life? Surely not--for a boy or girl feels the
same pensive, dreary mood, and no one who remembers childhood can fail
to think of the wild inarticulate thoughts that passed through the
immature brain. Nay, our souls are from God; they are bestowed by the
Supreme, and they were from the beginning, and cannot be destroyed. From
Plato downwards, no thoughtful man has missed this strange suggestion
which seems to present itself unprompted to every mind. Cicero argued it
out with consummate dialectic skill; our scientific men come to the same
conclusion after years on years of labour spent in investigating
phenomena of life and laws of force; and Wordsworth formulated Plato's
reasoning in an immortal passage which seems to combine scientific
accuracy with exquisite poetic beauty--
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us--our life's star--
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, Who is our home.
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows;
He sees it in his joy.
The youth who daily farther from the east
Must travel still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the man perceives it die away
And fade into the light of coming day.
Had Wordsworth never written another line, that passage would have
placed him among the greatest. He follows the glorious burst with these
awful lines--
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realized;
High instincts before which our mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised.
That is like some golden-tongued utterance of the gods; and thousands of
Englishmen, sceptics and believers, have held their breath, abashed, as
its full meaning struck home.
Yes; this mysterious thought that haunts our being as we gaze on the
saddened fields is not aroused by the immediate impression which the
sight gives us; it is too complex, too profound, too mature and
significant. It was framed before birth, and it proceeds direct from the
Father of all souls, with whom we dwelt before we came to this low
earth, and with whom we shall dwell again. If any one ventures to deny
the origin of our marvellous knowledge, our sweet, strange impressions,
it seems to us that he must risk bordering on impiety.
So far then I have wandered from the commonplace sweetness of the shorn
fields, and I almost forgot to speak about the birds. Watch the swallows
as they gather together and talk with their low pretty twitter. Their
parliament has begun; and surely no one who watches their proceedings
can venture to scoff at the transcendental argument which I have just
now stated. Those swift, pretty darlings will soon be flying through
the pitchy gloom of the night, and they will dart over three or four
thousand miles with unerring aim till they reach the far-off spot where
they cheated our winter last year. Some will nest amid the tombs of
Egyptian kings, some will find out rosy haunts in Persia, some will soon
be wheeling and twittering happily over the sullen breast of the rolling
Niger. Who--ah, who guides that flight? Think of it. Man must find his
way by the stars and the sun. Day by day he must use elaborate
instruments to find out where his vessel is placed; and even his
instruments do not always save him from miles of error. But the little
bird plunges through the high gulfs of air and flies like an arrow to
the selfsame spot where it lived before it last went off on the wild
quest over shadowy continents and booming seas. "Hereditary instinct,"
says the scientific man. Exactly so; and, if the swallow unerringly
traverses the line crossed by its ancestors, even though the old land
has long been whelmed in steep-down gulfs of the sea, does not that show
us something? Does it, or does it not, make my saying about the soul
seem reasonable?
I have followed the swallows, but the fieldfares and the buntings must
also go soon. They will make their way South also, though some may go in
leisurely fashion to catch the glorious burst of spring in Siberia. I
have been grievously puzzled and partly delighted by Mr. Seebohm's
account of the birds' pilgrimage, and it has given me hours of thought.
We dwell amid mystery, and, as the leaves redden year by year, here
recurs one of the chiefest mysteries that ever perplexed the soul of
man. Indeed, we are shadowed around with mystery and there is not one
red leaf whirled by the wind among those moaning woods which does not
represent a miracle.
We cannot fly from these shores, but our joys come each in its day. For
pure gladness and keen colour nothing can equal one of these glorious
October mornings, when the reddened fronds of the brackens are silvered
with rime, and the sun strikes flashes of delight from them. Then come
those soft November days when the winds moan softly amid the Aeolian
harps of the purple hedgerows, and the pale drizzle falls ever and
again. Even then we may pick our pleasures discreetly, if we dwell in
the country, while, as for the town, are there not pleasant fires and
merry evenings? Then comes the important thought of the poor. Ah, it is
woful! "'Pleasant fires and merry evenings,' say you?"--so I can fancy
some pinched sufferer saying, "What sort of merry evenings shall we
have, when the fogs crawl murderously, or the sleet lashes the sodden
roads?" Alas and alas! Those of us who dwell amid pleasant sights and
sounds are apt in moments of piercing joy to forget the poor who rarely
know joy at all. But we must not be careless. By all means let those who
can do so snatch their enjoyment from the colour, the movement, the
picturesque sadness of the fading year; but let them think with pity of
the time that is coming, and prepare to do a little toward lifting that
ghastly burden of suffering that weighs on so many of our fellows.
Gazing around on the flying shadows driven by the swift wind, and
listening to the quivering sough amid the shaken trees, I have been led
far and near into realms of strange speculation. So it is ever in this
fearful and wonderful life; there is not the merest trifle that can
happen which will not lead an eager mind away toward the infinite. Never
has this mystic ordinance touched my soul so poignantly as during the
hours when I watched for a little the dying of the year, and branched
swiftly into zigzag reflections that touched the mind with fear and joy
in turn. Adieu, fair fields! Adieu, wild trees! Where will next year's
autumn find us? Hush! Does not the very gold and red of the leaves hint
to us that the sweet sad time will return again and find us maybe riper?
_October, 1886._
_BEHIND THE VEIL_.
"Men of all castes, if they fulfil their assigned duties, enjoy in
heaven the highest imperishable bliss. Afterwards, when a man who has
fulfilled his duties returns to this world, he obtains, by virtue of a
remainder of merit, birth in a distinguished family, beauty of form,
beauty of complexion, strength, aptitude for learning, wisdom, wealth,
and the gift of fulfilling the laws of his caste or order. Therefore in
both worlds he dwells in happiness, rolling like a wheel from one world
to the other." Thus the Brahmans have settled the problem of the life
that follows the life on earth. Those strange and subtle men seem to
have reasoned themselves into a belief in dreams, and they speak with
cool confidence, as though they were describing scenes as vivid and
material as are the crowds in a bazaar. There is no hesitation for them;
they describe the features of the future existence with the dry
minuteness of a broker's catalogue. The Wheel of Life rolls, and far
above the weary cycle of souls Buddha rests in an attitude of
benediction; he alone has achieved Nirvana--he alone is aloof from gods
and men. The yearning for immortality has in the case of the Brahman
passed into certainty, and he describes his heavens and his hells as
though the All-wise had placed no dim veil between this world and the
world beyond. Most arithmetically minute are all the Brahman's
pictures, and he never stops to hint at a doubt. His hells are
twenty-two in number, each applying a new variety of physical and moral
pain. We men of the West smile at the grotesque dogmatism of the
Orientals; and yet we have no right to smile. In our way we are as keen
about the great question as the Brahmans are, and for us the problem of
problems may be stated in few words--"Is there a future life?" All our
philosophy, all our laws, all our hopes and fears are concerned with
that paralyzing question, and we differ from the Hindoo only in that we
affect an extravagant uncertainty, while he sincerely professes an
absolute certainty. The cultured Western man pretends to dismiss the
problem with a shrug; he labels himself as an agnostic or by some other
vague definition, and he is fond of proclaiming his idea that he knows
and can know nothing. That is a pretence. When the philosopher says that
he does not know and does not care what his future may be, he speaks
insincerely; he means that he cannot prove by experiment the fact of a
future life--or, as Mr. Ruskin puts it, "he declares that he never found
God in a bottle"--but deep down in his soul there is a knowledge that
influences his lightest action. The man of science, the "advanced
thinker," or whatever he likes to call himself, proves to us by his
ceaseless protestations of doubt and unbelief that he is incessantly
pondering the one subject which he would fain have us fancy he ignores.
At heart he is in full sympathy with the Brahman, with the rude Indian,
with the impassioned English Methodist, with all who cannot shake off
the mystic belief in a life that shall go on behind the veil. When the
pagan emperor spoke to his own parting soul, he asked the piercing
question that our sceptic must needs put, whether he like it or no--
Soul of me, floating and flitting and fond,
Thou and this body were life-mates together!
Wilt thou be gone now--and whither?
Pallid and naked and cold,
Not to laugh or be glad as of old!
Theology of any description is far out of my path, but I have the wish
and the right to talk gravely about the subject that dwarfs all others.
A logician who tries to scoff away any faith I count as almost criminal.
Mockery is the fume of little hearts, and the worst and craziest of
mockers is the one who grins in presence of a mystery that strikes wise
and deep-hearted men with a solemn fear which has in it nothing ignoble.
I would as lief play circus pranks by a mother's deathbed as try to find
flippant arguments to disturb a sincere faith.