began. “I wonder----Oh! it’s no good,” he added quickly, with a nervous
movement of his hands, “I can’t make pretty speeches! After all, it’s
simple; why should I play the coward? I can take ‘no’ for answer, if
the worst comes to the worst, and----Margaret, I know it’s asking a
great deal, but--I want you to marry me.”
She cast a swift, startled glance at him, turning in her chair, and
then dropped her eyes, asking herself bewilderedly whether this
was still some fantasy. The words which he murmured now, pleading
incoherently with her silence, confirmed the hopes which, in spite of
her scrupulous devotion, refused to be gainsaid, thrusting themselves
shamelessly into the foreground of her troubled thoughts. An inward
voice, condemned by her wavering resolution as a whisper from the lips
of treachery, suggested plausibly that after all Dorothy might have
made a mistake; she repelled it fiercely, taking a savage pleasure in
her pain, accusing herself, with vehement blame, as one who would fain
stand in the way of her daughter’s happiness. Even if she had deserved
these fruits of late harvest which seemed to dangle within her grasp,
even if her right to garner them had not been forfeited long ago by
her folly of the past, how could she endure to figure as a rival,
triumphing in her own daughter’s discomfiture? Womanly pride and a
thousand scruples barred the way.
“I love you,” she heard him say again; “I believe I have always loved
you since----But you know how it was in the old days.”
“Don’t remind me of that!” she pleaded, almost fiercely; “I was--I
can’t bear to think of what I did! You ought not to forgive me; I don’t
deserve it.”
“Forgive?” he echoed, blankly.
“Oh, you are generous--but it is impossible, impossible; it is all a
mistake; let us forget it.”
“I don’t understand! Is it that--that you don’t care for me?”
Margaret gave a despairing little sigh, dropping her hands on the sides
of her chair.
“You don’t know,” she murmured. “It isn’t right. No--oh, it must be No!”
Sir Geoffrey echoed her sigh. As he watched her silently, the instinct
of long reticence making his forbearance natural, he saw a new
expression dawn into her troubled face. Her eyes were fixed intently
on the river; that they should be fixed was not strange, but there
was a light of interest in them which induced Sir Geoffrey, half
involuntarily, to bend his gaze in the same direction. He saw that
Dorothy had now disembarked, and was standing, a solitary figure,
close to the edge of the landing-stage. Something in her pose seemed
to imply that she was talking, and just at this moment she moved to
one side, revealing the head and shoulders of Jack Wilgress, which
overtopped the river-bank in such a manner as to suggest that he was
standing in the punt, of which the bamboo pole rose like a slender
mast above his head. The group was certainly pictorial: the silhouette
of Dorothy’s pretty figure telling well against the silvery river,
and the young man’s pose, too, lending itself to an effective bit of
composition; but Sir Geoffrey felt puzzled, and even a little hurt,
by the interest that Margaret displayed at a moment which he at least
had found sufficiently strenuous. He turned, stooping to pick up his
hat; then he paused, and was about to speak, when Mrs. Vandeleur
interrupted him, mutely, with a glance, followed swiftly by the return
of her eyes to the river. Acquiescing patiently, Sir Geoffrey perceived
that a change had occurred in the grouping of the two young people.
Wilgress had drawn nearer to the girl; his figure stood higher against
the watery background, apparently he had one foot on the step of the
landing-stage. Dorothy extended a hand, which he clasped and held
longer than one would have reckoned for in the ordinary farewell. The
girl shook her head; another movement, and the punt began to glide
reluctantly from the shore; then it turned slowly, swinging round and
heading down-stream. Dorothy raised one hand to the bosom of her dress,
and before she dropped it to her side threw something maladroitly
towards her departing companion. Wilgress caught the flower--it was
evidently a flower--making a dash which involved the loss of his
punt-pole; a ripple of laughter, and Dorothy, unconscious of the four
eyes which watched her from the shadows of the walnut tree, turned
slowly, and began to climb the grassy slope.
Mrs. Vandeleur’s eyelids drooped, and her lips, which had been parted
for an instant in a pensive smile, trembled a little; she sighed,
tapping the ground lightly with her foot, then sank back in her chair
and seemed lost in contemplation of the needlework that lay upon
her lap. Sir Geoffrey began to move away, but turned suddenly, and
stooping, took one of her hands reverently in his own, clasping it as
it lay upon the arm of her chair.
“Margaret,” he said, “forgive me; but must it be good-bye, after all
these years, or is there a chance for me?”
Mrs. Vandeleur’s reply was inaudible; but her hand, though it fluttered
for a moment, was not withdrawn.
Twilight
By Olive Custance
Mother of the dews, dark eyelashed Twilight!
Low-lidded Twilight o’er the valley’s brim.
MEREDITH.
SPIRIT of Twilight, through your folded wings
I catch a glimpse of your averted face,
And rapturous on a sudden, my soul sings
“Is not this common earth a holy place?”
Spirit of Twilight, you are like a song
That sleeps, and waits a singer, like a hymn
That God finds lovely and keeps near Him long,
Till it is choired by aureoled cherubim.
Spirit of Twilight, in the golden gloom
Of dreamland dim I sought you, and I found
A woman sitting in a silent room
Full of white flowers that moved and made no sound.
These white flowers were the thoughts you bring to all,
And the room’s name is Mystery where you sit,
Woman whom we call Twilight, when night’s pall
You lift across our Earth to cover it.
Three Pictures
By Walter Sickert
I. Collins’s Music Hall, Islington
II. The Lion Comique
III. Charley’s Aunt
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Tobacco Clouds
By Lionel Johnson
CLOUD upon cloud: and, if I were to think that an image of life can lie
in wreathing, blue tobacco smoke, pleasant were the life so fancied.
Its fair changes in air, its gentle motions, its quiet dying out and
away at last, should symbolise something more than perfect idleness.
Cloud upon cloud: and I will think, as I have said: it is amusing to
think so.
It is that death, out and away upon the air, which charms me: charms
more than the manner of the blown red rose, full of dew at morning,
upon the grass at sunset. The clouds’ end, their death in air, fills
me with a very beauty of desire; it has no violence in it, and it is
almost invisible. Think of it! While the cloud lived, it was seemly
and various; and with a graceful change it passed away: the image of a
reasonable life is there, hanging among tobacco clouds. An image and
a test: an image, because elaborated by fancy: a true and appealing
image, and so, to my present way of life, a test.
That way is, to walk about the old city, with “a spirit in my feet,” as
Shelley and Catullus have it, of joyous aims and energies; and to speed
home to my solitary room over the steep High Street; in an arm-chair,
to read Milton and Lucretius, with others. There is nothing unworthy
in all this: there is open air, an ancient city, a lonely chamber,
perfect poets. Those should make up a passing life well: for death!
I can watch tobacco clouds, exploring the secret of their beautiful
conclusion. And, indeed, I think that already this life has something
of their manner, those wheeling clouds! It has their light touch upon
the world, and certainly their harmlessness. Early morning, when the
dew sparkles red; honey, and coffee, and eggs for a breakfast; the
quick, eager walk between the limes, through the Close of fine grass,
to the river fields; then the blithe return to my poets; all that,
together, comes to resemble the pleasant spheres of tobacco cloud; I
mean, the circling hours, in their passage, and in their change, have
something of a dreamy order and progression. Such little incidents!
Now, grey air and whistling leaves: now, a marketing crowd of country
folk round the Cross: and presently, clear candles; with Milton, in
rich Baskervile type, or Lucretius, in the exquisite print of early
Italy.
Such little incidents, in a world of battles and of plagues: of violent
death by sea and land! Yet this quiet life, too, has difficulties and
needs: its changes must be gone through with a ready pleasure and a
mind unhesitating. For, trivial though they be in aspect and amount,
yet the consecration of them, to be an holy discipline of experience,
is so much the greater an attempt: it is an art. Each thing, be it
man, or book, or place, should have its rights, when it encounters
me: each has its proper quality, its peculiar spirit, not to be
misinterpreted by me in carelessness, nor overlooked with impatience.
That is clear: but neither must I vaunt my just view of common life.
Meditation, at twilight, by the window looking toward the bare downs,
is very different from that anxious examination of motives, dear to
sedulous souls. My meditation is only still life: the clouds of smoke
go up, grey and blue; the earlier stars come out, above the sunset
and the melancholy downs; and deep, mournful bells ring slowly among
the valley trees. Then, if my day have been successful, what peace
follows, and how profound a charm! The little things of the day, sudden
glances of light upon grey stone, pleasant snatches of organ music
from the church, quaint rustic sights in some near village: they come
back upon me, gentle touches of happiness, airs of repose. And when
the mysteries come about me, the fearfulness of life, and the shadow
of night; then, have I not still the blue, grey clouds, _occultis de
rebus quo referam_? So I escape the tribulations of doubt, those gloomy
tribulations: and I live in the strength of dreams, which never doubt.
Is it all a delusion? But that is a foolish wonder: nothing is a
delusion, except the extremes of pleasure and of pain. Take what
you will of the world; its crowds, or its calms: there is nothing
altogether wrong to every one. Lucretius, upon his watch-tower, deny it
as he may, found some exultation and delight in the lamentable prospect
below: it filled him with a magnificent darkness of soul, a princely
compassion at heart. And Milton, in his evil days, felt himself to be
tragic and austere: he knew it, not as a proud boast, but as a proud
fact. No! life is never wrong, altogether, to every one: you and I, he
and she, priest and penitent, master and slave: one with another, we
compose a very glory of existence before the unseen Powers. Therefore,
I believe in my measured way of life; its careful felicities, fashioned
out of little things: to you, the change of Ministries, and the
accomplishment of conquests, bring their wealth of rich emotion: to
me, who am apart from the louder concerns of life, the flowering of
the limes, and the warm autumn rains, bring their pensive beauty and a
store of memories.
Is it I, am indolent? Is it you, are clamorous? Why should it be
either? Let us say, I am the lover of quiet things, and you are
enamoured of mighty events. Each, without undue absorption in his
taste, relishes the savour of a different experience.
But I think, I am no egoist: no melancholy spectator of things,
cultivating his intellect with old poetry, nourishing his senses upon
rural nature. There are times, when the swarms of men press hard
upon a solitary; he hears the noise of the streets, the heavy vans
of merchandise, the cry of the railway whistle: and in a moment, his
thoughts travel away, to London, to Liverpool; to great docks and to
great ships; and away, till he is watching the dissimilar bustle of
Eastern harbours, and hearing the discordant sounds of Chinese workmen.
The blue smoke curls and glides away, with blue pagodas, and snowy
almond bloom, and cherry flowers, circling and gleaming in it, like
a narcotic vision. O magic of tobacco! Dreams are there, and superb
images, and a somnolent paradise. Sometimes, the swarms of humanity
press wearily and hardly; with a cruel insistence, crushing out my
right to happiness. I think, rather I brood, upon the fingers that
deftly rolled the cigarette, upon the people in tobacco plantations,
upon all the various commerce involved in its history: how do they all
fare, those many workers? Strolling up and down, devouring my books
through their lettered backs; remembering the workers with leather,
paper, ink, who toiled at them, they frighten me from the peace.
What a full world it is! What endless activities there are! And, oh,
Nicomachean Ethics! how much conscious pleasure is in them all! Things,
mere tangible things, have a terrible power of education: of calling
out from the mind innumerable thoughts and sympathies. Like childish
catechisms and categories--_Whence have we sago?_--plain substances
introduce me to swarms of men, before unrealised. And they all lived
and died, and cared for their children, or not, and led reasonable
lives, or not: and, without any alternative, had casual thoughts and
constant passions. Did each one of them ever stop in his work, and
think that the world revolved about him alone; and all was his, and for
him? Most men may have thought so, and shivered a little afterwards;
and worked on steadily. Or did each one of them ever think that he
was always beset with companions, hordes of men and women, necessary
and inevitable? Then, he must have struggled a little in his mind, as
a man fights for air, and worked on steadily. It does not do: this
interrogation of mysteries, which are also facts. Nor am I called upon,
from without or from within, to write an Essay upon the Problem of
Economic Distribution. _Præsentia temnis!_ Nature says to me: it is the
stir of the world, and the great play of forces, that I am wailing,
to no end. Let the great life continue, and the sun shine upon bright
palaces; and geraniums, red geraniums, glow at the windows of dingy
courts; death and sorrow come upon both, and upon me. And on all sides
there is infinite tenderness; the invincible good-will, which says kind
and cheerful things to every one sometimes, by a friend’s mouth; the
humane pieties of the world, which make glad the _Civitas Dei_, and
make endurable the _Regnum Hominis_. I need not make myself miserable.
Full night at last; the dead of night, as dull folk have it; ignorant
persons, who know nothing of nocturnal beauty, of night’s lively magic.
It was a good thought, to come out of my lonely room, to look at the
cloisters by moonlight, and to wander round the Close, under the black
shadows of the buttresses, while the moon is white upon their strange
pinnacles. There is no noise, but only a silence, which seems very old;
old, as the grey monuments and the weathered arches. The wreathing,
blue tobacco clouds look thin and pale, like breath upon a dark frosty
night; they drift about these old precincts, with a kind of uncertainty
and discomfort; one would think, they wanted a rich Mediterranean
night, heavy odours of roses, and very fiery stars. Instead, they break
upon mouldering traceries, and doleful cherubs of the last century;
upon sunken headstones, and black oak doors with ironwork over them.
Perhaps the cigarette is southern and Latin, southern and Oriental,
after all; and I am a dreamer, out of place in this northern grey
antiquity. If it be so, I can taste the subtle pleasures of contrast:
and, dwelling upon the singular features of this old town, I can make
myself a place in it, as its conscious critic and adopted alien. There
is a curious apprehension of enjoyment, a genuine touch of luxury, in
this nocturnal visit to these old northern things! I consider, with
satisfaction, how the Stuart king, who spurned tobacco contumeliously,
put a devoted faith in witches, those northern daughters of the devil;
northern, and very different from the dames of Thessaly; from the
crones of Propertius, and of Horace, and of Apuleius the Golden. Who
knows, but I may hear strange voices in the near aisle before cockcrow?
By night, night in the north, happen cold and dismal things; and then,
what a night is this! Chilly stars, and wild, grey clouds, flying over
a misty moon.
At last, here comes a great and solemn sound; the commanding bells of
the cathedral tower, in their iron, midnight toll. Through the sombre
strokes, and striking into their long echoes, pierce the thin cries
of bats, that wheel in air, like lost creatures who hate themselves;
the uncanny flitter-mice! They trace superb, invisibles circles on the
night; crying out faintly and plaintively, with no sort of delight in
their voices: things of keen teeth, furry bodies, and skeleton wings
covered scantily in leather. The big moths, too: they blunder against
my face, and dash red trails of fire off my cigarette; so busily they
spin about the darkness. _Sadducismus triumphatus!_ Yes, truly: here
are little, white spirits awake and at some faery work; white, as
heather upon the Cornish cliffs is white, and all innocent, rare things
in heaven and earth. There is nothing dreadful, it seems, about this
night, and this place; no glorious fury of evil spirits, doing foul and
ugly things; only the quiet town asleep under a wild sky, and gentle
creatures of the night moving about ancient places. And the wind rises,
with a sound of the sea, murmuring over the earth and sighing away to
the sea: the trembling sea, beyond the downs, which steals into the
land by great creeks and glimmering channels; with swaying, taper masts
along them, and lantern lights upon black barges. Certainly, this is no
Lucretian night: not that tremendous
_Nox, et noctis signa severa
Noctivagæque faces cæli, flammæque volantes._
Rather, it reminds me of the Miltonic night, which is peopled
alluringly with
“faery elves,
Whose midnight revels by a forest side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon
Sits arbitress:”
a Miltonic night, and a Shakespearean dawn; for the white morning has
just peered along the horizon, white morning, with dusky flames behind
it; and the spirits, the visions, vanish away, “following darkness,
like a dream.”
The streets are very still, with that silence of sleeping cities,
which seems ready to start into confused cries; as though the Smiter
of the Firstborn were travelling through the households. There is the
Catholic chapel, in its Georgian, quaint humility; recalling an age of
beautiful, despised simplicity; the age of French emigrant old priests
and vicars-apostolic, who stood for the Supreme Pontiff, in grey wigs.
The sweet limes are swaying against its singular, umbered windows,
with their holy saints and prophets in last-century design; ruffled,
querulous persons looking very bluff and blown. I wonder, how it would
be inside; I suppose, night has a little weakened that lingering smell
of daily incense, which seems so immemorial and so sad. Wonderful grace
of the mighty Roman Church! This low square place, where the sanctuary
is poor and open, without any mystical touch of retirement and of
loftiness, has yet the unfailing charm, the venerable mystery, which
attend the footsteps of the Church; the same air of command, the same
look of pleading, fill this homely, comfortable shrine, which simple
country gentlemen set up for the ministrations of harassed priests, in
an age of no enthusiasm. I like to think that this quiet chapel, in the
obedience of Rome, in communion with that supreme apostolate, is always
open to me upon this winding little by-street; it fills me with perfect
memories, and it seems to bless me.
But here is a benediction of light! the quick sun, reddening half the
heavens, and rising gloriously. In the valley, clusters of elm rock and
swing with the breeze, quivering for joy: far away, the bare uplands
roll against the sunrise, calm and pastoral; _otia dia_ of the morning.
Surely the hours have gone well, and according to my preference; one
dying into another, as the tobacco clouds die. My meditations, too,
have been peaceful enough; and, though solitary, I have had fine
companions. What would the moral philosophers, those puzzled sages,
think of me? An harmless hedonist? An amateur in morals, who means
well, though meaning very little? Nay! let the moralist by profession
give, to whom he will, _sa musique, sa flamme_: to any practical
person, who is a wise shareholder and zealous vestryman. For myself,
my limited and dreamy self, I eschew these upright businesses; upright
memories and meditations please me more, and to live with as little
action as may be. Action: why do they talk of action? Match me, for
pure activity, one evening of my dreams, when life and death fill my
mind with their messengers, and the days of old come back to me. And
now, homewards, for a little sleep; that profound and rich slumber
at early dawn which is my choice delight. A sleep, bathed in musical
impressions, and filled with fresh dreams, all impossible and happy;
four hours, and five, and six perhaps: then the cathedral matin bell
will chime in with my fancies, and I shall wake harmoniously. I shall
feel infinitely cheerful, after the spirit of the _Compleat Angler_;
I shall remember that I was once at Ware, and at Amwell, those placid
haunts of Walton. A conviction of beauty, and contentment in life will
lay hold on me, more than commonly; it is probable that I shall read
_The Spectator_, and Addison, rather than Steele, at breakfast. And I
know which paper it will be: it will be about _Will Wimble_ coming up
to the house, with two or three hazel twigs in his hand, fresh cut in
_Sir Roger’s_ woods. Or, if I prove faithful to my great Lucretius:
the man, not the book, for I read him in the Giuntine: I will read
that marvellous _It ver et Venus_; that dancing masque of beauty. For
_L’Allegro_, I do not read that; it is read aloud to me by the morning,
with exquisite, bright cadences. After my honey from the flowers of a
very rustic farm, and my coffee, from some wonderful Eastern place;
and my eggs, marked by the careful housewife as she took them from her
henhouse, covered with stonecrop over its old tiles; after all these
delicates, now comes the first cigarette, pungent and exhilarating. As
the grey blue clouds go up, the ruddy sunlight glows through them,
straight as an arrow through the gold. Away they wander, out of the
window, flung back upon the air, against the roses, and disappear in
the buoyant morning.
My thoughts go with them, into the morning, into all the mornings over
the world. They travel through the lands, and across the seas, and are
everywhere at home, enjoying the presence of life. And past things,
old histories, are turned to pleasant recollections: a _pot-pourri_,
justly seasoned, and subtly scented; the evil humours and the monstrous
tyrannies pass away, and leave only the happiness and the peace.
Call me, my dear friend, what reproachful name you please; but, by
your leave, the world is better for my cheerfulness. True, should the
terrible issues come upon me, demanding high courage, and finding
but good temper, then give me your prayers, for I have my misdoubts.
Till then, let me cultivate my place in life, nurturing its comelier
flowers; taking the little things of time with a grateful relish and a
mind at rest. So hours and years pass into hours and years, gently, and
surely, and orderly; as these clouds, grey and blue clouds, of tobacco
smoke, pass up to the air, and away upon the wind; incense of a goodly
savour, cheering the thoughts of my heart, before passing away, to
disappear at last.
Reiselust
By Annie Macdonell
NAY, Love, but stay thy blame;
For if men have their claim,
The day’s but theirs--
Poor gift, the day of heat and cares!
Thou hast the night, the calm cool night,
When the soul’s garden blooms in sight,
With roses tinted by the moon’s soft smile,
On that far fringed horizon isle.
The night, the long sweet night is thine,
Then I awake, and find thee, soul of mine.