us the grace to accept and to forgive offenders. Forgetful ourselves,
help us to bear cheerfully the forgetfulness of others. Give us courage
and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare us to our friends, soften us to
our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavours. If
it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come,
that we be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath,
and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal
and loving one to another.’
If there is a more helpful bedside author than Stevenson, I should much
like to make his acquaintance. To few is it given to speak ‘the word
that cheers’ with such a fine combination of tenderness and courage.
‘It is a commonplace,’ he says, ‘that we cannot answer for ourselves
before we have been tried. But it is not so common a reflection,
and surely more consoling, that we usually find ourselves a great
deal braver and better than we thought. I believe this is every one’s
experience; but an apprehension that they may belie themselves in the
future prevents mankind from trumpeting this cheerful sentiment abroad.
I wish sincerely, for it would have saved me much trouble, there had
been some one to put me in a good heart about life when I was younger;
to tell me how dangers are most portentous on a distant sight; and how
the good in a man’s spirit will not suffer itself to be overlaid, and
rarely or never deserts him in the hour of need.’
To the troubled, relaxed mind such words come as a bracing tonic.
Too often have we passed sleepless hours for the want of a word in
season--something to put a little ‘grit’ into us for the duties of
the morrow. Where the average mortal is concerned Stevenson certainly
supplies that need. Should he by any chance fail--well, there is an
essayist of our own day, waiting to minister to the most exacting
needs. I have in mind the many beautiful and tender pages written by
one whom we associate with a certain college window. Certainly of him
it may be said that he seeks to comfort and console, and to soothe and
lull to rest.
X
OLD FRIENDS
Come, and take choice of my library,
And so beguile thy sorrow.
GOLDSMITH.
NOW let us dwell upon our every-day and every-hour books--our dear old
familiar friends. ‘On a shelf in my bookcase,’ says Alexander Smith,
‘are collected a number of volumes which look somewhat the worse for
wear. Those of them that originally possessed gilding have had it
fingered off, each of them has leaves turned down, and they open of
themselves in places wherein I have been happy, and with whose every
word I am familiar as with the furniture of the room in which I nightly
slumber; each of them has remarks relevant and irrelevant scribbled
on their margins. Those favourite volumes cannot be called peculiar
glories of literature; but out of the world of books I have singled
them, as I have singled my intimates out of the world of men.’
Ah! that makes pleasant reading. For do not the sentiments expressed
reflect our own feelings? And do they not place us in gracious and
distinguished company? In his charming way, Goldsmith whispers, ‘The
first time I read an excellent book, it is to me as if I had gained a
new friend. When I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles
the meeting with an old one.’ And to this Dillon adds, ‘Choose an
author as you would choose a friend’; whilst Langford, touching the
same theme, declares that ‘a wise man will select his book with care,
for he will not wish to class them all under the sacred name of
friends.’
And as friendship has its roots deep set in love and sympathy, and is
for ‘serene days and country rambles, and also for rough roads and hard
fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution, and, moreover, keeps company
with the sallies of the wit,’ it is easy enough to understand why such
authors as Charles Lamb, Oliver Goldsmith, William Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt,
Richard Jefferies, Thomas De Quincey, Joseph Addison, and, of later
years, Robert Louis Stevenson, have our affections.
Here they stand--Lamb, Goldsmith, Hazlitt, Hunt, Jefferies--the whole
lovable company. What shall I say concerning these friends of ours?
I am moved by deep and serious feelings. But, according to his own
telling, the gentle Elia, the first in mind, ‘had a general aversion
from being treated like a grave or respectable character, and kept a
wary eye upon the advances of age that should so entitle him. He herded
always, while it was possible, with people younger than himself. He
did not conform to the march of time, but was dragged along in the
procession. His manners lagged behind his years. He was too much of
the boy man. The _toga virilis_ never sate gracefully on his
shoulders. The impressions of infancy had burnt into him, and he
resented the impertinence of manhood.’ And therein, surely, rests the
secret of his charm. In spite of his brave confessions, how firm to
discerning hearts is the bed of the stream over which his thoughts
flow! Who can doubt the source of a stream that flows so sweetly?
And what of Oliver Goldsmith--poor ‘Goldy,’ as he was called by his
circle of intimates on earth? He, too, was very human, and, indeed, had
many weaknesses. And they tell us--they who write of such matters with
authority--that his days of poverty and wretchedness were largely, if
not entirely, the outcome of his follies. Even in the sphere in which
he shines--a clear, bright, inextinguishable star--it is said that he
had many short-comings. ‘He had neither the gift of knowledge nor the
power of research. As an essayist and poet, he has neither extended
views nor originality; as a critic, upon the few occasions upon which
he embarks on criticism his sympathies are of the most restricted
kind.’ And yet for the warmth and gentleness of his heart and the
purity of his style we love him. ‘His playful and delicate style
transformed everything he touched into something radiant with warmth
and fragrant with a perfume all its own.’
And how fared it with Hazlitt--the keen critic, the impassioned
writer--‘unbending and severe, insurgent in his political views’? Are
we not told that he was really more of an artist and sentimentalist
than a politician? ‘As for his life, it was aesthetic, Bohemian,
and irregular in the extreme. The restraints of domestic life were
intolerable; he wanted to be alone to write; rough accommodation and
coarse fare appeased him best; _tinkerdom_ was the ordinary state
of his interior environment; save for two pictures (which served as
a link with past aspiration and were treasured accordingly), he had
no property; a fugitive amour seemed to furnish the emotional side of
him with the stimulant it most required; he was a night rambler and a
reveller in Rousseau, over whose _Héloise_ and _Confessions_
he expended literally pints of tears.’ Such was the temperament of
the writer, artist, and sentimentalist who gave us those incomparable
essays ‘On Going a Journey,’ ‘On the Ignorance of the Learned,’ and ‘On
Familiar Style.’
And what of those other old friends, Hunt, Jefferies, De Quincey,
Robert Louis Stevenson? But our inquiries have gone far enough. What
boots it to repeat that our friends were human in life, just as surely
as they are human in their books, but with a humanity that allures,
charms, captivates? They do not preach to us, these old friends of
ours, or make open claims to virtue; and yet we are never so conscious
of goodness as when they are near. Their lightest raillery scorns a
mean act. In their company meanness flees as from a pestilence.... Our
_friends_!
Wisely is it said that the ‘best way to represent to life the manifold
use of friendship is to cast and see how many things there are which
a wise man cannot do himself; and then it will appear that it was a
sparing speech of the ancients to say, “that a friend is more than
himself”: for that a friend is far more than himself.’
And so I thank heaven for my friends, for the wise, the lovely, and the
noble-minded who stand side by side, ever willing, ever ready, upon my
humble shelf.
XI
THROUGH ROSE-COLOURED SPECTACLES
NOW let another occupy the printed page. I have promised to give
the experiences of other book-lovers, to show how books influence
their thoughts and ways; and I am anxious to introduce a short, slim
gentleman of sixty odd summers, with a smiling face and an air of
wellbeing, a retiring, peaceful book-lover, whom you would never
suspect of playing any part in a mystery.
Nevertheless, my friend must plead guilty to practising the ‘art of
make-believe’ to such a degree that one could never be certain how much
was real concerning him and his affairs and how much was imaginary.
Indeed, the only sure and unchanging thing about him was his spectacles
and the manner in which he viewed life through them--his _point of
view_.
‘My spectacles,’ he told me, over and over again, ‘are rose-coloured.
You understand, _rose-coloured_. They and myself are inseparable.
Without them I am as bad as stone-blind, and dare not take a step in
any direction.’
Then he would smile in a manner that led one to suspect that he was
merely drawing upon his imagination. But I learnt that my friend’s life
had been lived under such peculiar difficulties, and that he had passed
through so much sorrow and affliction, that without his rose-coloured
spectacles he was, in _one_ sense, stone-blind.
It pleased him to imagine that the lenses in his treasured spectacles,
which were gold-rimmed and old-fashioned in shape, had been cut from
rose-coloured pebbles, with the power of giving a rosy hue to life, and
bringing all things into correct perspective.
‘Correct perspective and the right point of view,’ he remarked on
a certain day, ‘are everything in life. My spectacles give me the
correct vision. They bring men and affairs into proper focus, and,
what is more, they give them a rose tint. Robert Louis Stevenson
wore spectacles something like mine, but his were far and away more
powerful. They enabled him to see farther and more clearly. They were
of a deeper and purer tint.’
He drew from his pocket a small cloth-bound edition of passages from
Stevenson’s works. The little volume did not measure more than, say,
three by five inches, and was considerably soiled and worn; but he
handled it as though it were worth its weight in precious stones.
It was clear, before he opened the volume, that he knew the greater
part of the contents by heart; for he commenced to quote as he ran his
fingers round the edge of the cover:
‘“When you have read, you carry away with you a memory of the man
himself; it is as though you had touched a loyal hand, looked into
brave eyes, and made a noble friend; there is another bond on you
thenceforward, binding you to life and to the love of virtue.”’
He accompanied the quotation with a pleasing smile, as who should say,
‘How true that is and how nobly expressed!’ Then he turned the leaves
hastily as though looking for a favourite passage; but he abandoned the
search a moment later, and glanced up.
‘I fancy I can give you the passage correctly. I should like you
to hear it. It will throw light upon what I have said about my
rose-coloured spectacles.’
He looked up, as he spoke, at the trees overhanging the lane through
which we walked.
‘“Nor does the scenery any more affect the thoughts than the thoughts
affect the scenery. We see places through our humours as through
differently-coloured glasses.”’
He paused a moment, then repeated the last line slowly and with
emphasis: ‘_We see places through our humours as through
differently-coloured glasses._’
‘“We are ourselves,”’ he continued, ‘“a term in the quotation, a note
of the chord, and make discord and harmony almost at will. There is
no fear for the result, if we but surrender ourselves sufficiently
to the country that surrounds and follows us, so that we are ever
thinking suitable thoughts or telling ourselves some suitable sort of
story as we go. We become thus, in some sense, a centre of beauty; we
are provocative of beauty, such as a gentle and sincere character is
provocative of sincerity and gentleness in others....”’
Then he told me ‘some suitable sort of story’ about a certain man who
built a castle upon dry land, a castle of stone, firm as a rock, and
filled it with his heart’s desire. But no sooner had the man taken up
his abode therein than the tide of circumstances turned. Misfortune
followed misfortune; sorrow followed sorrow; first, the loss of
earthly possessions, then the loss of loved ones. All brightness and
hope were taken out of the man’s life, and for many years he dwelt in
darkness.
At this point my friend turned away, and slowly, thoughtfully, polished
his spectacles. One could not help thinking that he was relating in a
parable the story of his own past. This suspicion was strengthened, if
not actually confirmed, when he readjusted his spectacles and continued:
‘Then this same man built a castle in the air partly out of the
creations of his own mind, partly out of the creations of others,
a castle of thought, a building without visible support. He found,
however, that this castle in the air, built on lines he had been taught
to smile at in his youth, was more enduring than his castle of stone.
Moat and drawbridge were impassable, the gates impregnable. Changed
circumstances could not affect it; misfortune and sorrow could not
shake it; even death left it unmoved.’
‘You see,’ he continued, ‘what I am driving at? Listen to this from
my little volume: “No man can find out the world, says Solomon, from
beginning to end, because the world is in his own heart.” And this:
“An inspiration is a joy for ever, a possession as solid as a landed
estate, a fortune we can never exhaust, and which gives us year by
year a revenue of pleasurable activity. To have many of these is to be
spiritually rich.”’
The next moment he drew from his pocket a worn leather case and showed
me a portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson. He had it wrapped in two
layers of paper, both yellow with age and stained from much handling.
But the likeness was well preserved, as clear, perhaps, as on the day
it was taken.
‘I number this likeness,’ he said, ‘amongst my treasures. They go
everywhere with me--this portrait of Stevenson and this little volume
of extracts from his works.’ He fingered the cover affectionately. ‘The
case,’ he continued, ‘is worn with much handling, but the rose-coloured
lenses have not lost their power. Listen to this: “It is in virtue of
his own desires and curiosities that any man continues to exist with
even patience, that he is charmed by the look of things and people,
and that he awakens every morning with a renewed appetite for work and
pleasure.” And this: “Noble disappointment, noble self-denial, are not
to be admired, not even to be pardoned, if they bring bitterness. It is
one thing to enter the kingdom of heaven maim; another to maim yourself
and stay outside.”’
He glanced up and handed me the volume. ‘Make your own selection,’ he
suggested; ‘read something that condemns me.’
I acted on the suggestion, or, rather, the _first_ part of it; for
my selection, contrary to his request, was in the form of commendation:
‘“His was, indeed, a good influence in life while he was still among
us; he had a fresh laugh; it did you good to see him; and, however
sad he may have been at heart, he always bore a bold and cheerful
countenance, and took fortune’s worst as it were the showers of
spring.”’
I was not aware how entirely this fitted my friend’s case until some
months had passed. Our friendship was only in its infancy at that time,
little more than an acquaintance. We had no formal introduction. He
had asked the time of day, then gone on to talk of his rose-coloured
spectacles. We had much to say concerning his spectacles in the days
that followed--always in a light and pleasant vein. To be tedious
or heavy was, to his mind, a grievous fault, particularly in books.
In life and in letters he would always look for, and never fail to
find, the brightest side, the happiest passages. And he would apply
the one to the other--a passage from Stevenson, or some other author,
to an incident in his own or some other life--in a manner that was
wonderfully illuminating and helpful.
In brief, his was ‘the life that loves, that gives, that loses itself,
that overflows; the warm, hearty, social, helpful life.’ From a
sorrowful chapter in his history he would weave a story for the help
of others, always from a rose-coloured standpoint; from a calamity
he would make a fairy tale, showing that, in spite of adversity, the
_House Beautiful_ was still upon its hill-top.
I remarked, in introducing him, that he was guilty of playing a part
in a mystery. You will have seen through the mystery by now; at least,
as regards his rose-coloured spectacles. But there is more to be said
concerning his life and his love of books.
XII
WITH NATURE
ANOTHER meeting with my friend of the rose-coloured spectacles was
beneath a blue sky and in a ‘glow of sunlight.’ This was some while
after a visit to the little room that formed his home, where I had seen
certain photographs which had aroused my interest and curiosity.
‘Come,’ he wrote, ‘and saunter with me for an hour or two in the best
stretch of country within easy reach of London, which, to us, shall be
the best between the two Poles. Take rail to Hampstead and meet me near
the flagstaff, overlooking the heath valley, at any hour you care to
name. But, mark you, I only promise to _saunter_. I have no legs
for hard walking, and even if I had, would prefer an easy pace. You
remember Thoreau’s words in praise of sauntering: “I have met with but
one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of
Walking; that is, of taking walks--who had a genius, so to speak, for
_sauntering_; which word is beautifully derived ‘from idle people
who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity,
under pretence of going _a la Sainte Terra_, to the Holy Land,
till the children exclaimed, ‘There goes a _Sainte-Terrer_,’ a
Saunterer--a Holy Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their
walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they
who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some,
however, would derive the word from _sans terre_, without land
or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean having no
particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret
of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may
be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense,
is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while
sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the
first, which indeed is the most probable derivation. For every walk is
a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth
and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.”’
‘That is so very pleasingly and bravely expressed,’ the letter
continued, ‘that I am hoping it will convert you to “the gentle pace.”
But have no fear that my spirit will prove as slow as my legs. I am
still in possession of my rose-coloured spectacles, and can take full
share in joy derived from pleasing thoughts and impressions.’
This, too, was bravely expressed; for when I met my friend at the spot
named, I was pained to find him considerably thinner and paler than at
our last meeting. But his greeting was as cordial as on any previous
occasion, and I was glad to find that his voice had lost none of its
familiar ring of enjoyment.
‘What think you of this passage?’ he cried after an exchange of
greetings. ‘It is from a comparatively modern book--from a novel, to be
precise, by Henry Harland. I fancy it should put us in the right mood
for our saunter. There is an open estate across the heath into which we
may go and find much of the splendour mentioned.’
As we sauntered forward, he read the passage for my benefit in
his rich, musical voice: ‘“Beyond the shade, the sunshine broke
into a mosaic of merry colours, on larkspur and iris, pansies and
pink geraniums, jessamine, sweet-peas, tulips shameless in their
extravagance of green and crimson, red and white carnations, red,
white, and yellow roses. The sunshine broke into colour, it laughed, it
danced, it almost rioted, among the flowers; but in the prim alleys,
and on the formal hedges of box, and the quaintly clipped yews, and
the old purple brick walls, where fruit-trees were trellised, it lay
fast, fast asleep. Without the walls, in the cool greenery of the park,
there was a perpetual drip-drip of bird-notes. This was the web upon
which a chosen handful of more accomplished birds were embroidering and
cross-embroidering their bold, clear arabesques of song.”’
You will notice that this pleasing passage is in lighter vein than
the style of writing that usually won my friend’s admiration. I think
the reason lay in his desire to show that a man might suffer from
indifferent health and still enjoy a bright and lively spirit. I
wish you could have heard him give voice to the following passage,
as we made our way over the heath, through a wealth of fresh green
undergrowth. He looked up, as he recited the words, at the blue sky,
and spoke half playfully, half seriously:
‘“The sky is an inverted bowl of blue Sèvres--that priceless
bleu-royal. The air is full of gold like _eau-de-vie de Dantzic_;
if we only had a liquefying apparatus, we could recapture the first
fine careless nectar of the gods, the poor dead gods of Greece. The
earth is as aromatic as an orange stuck with cloves; I can’t begin
to tell you all the wondrous woody, mossy, racy things it smells of.
And the birds, the robins and the throstles, the blackbirds and the
blackcaps, the linnets and the little Jenny wrens, knowing the value
of silence, are hoarding it like misers; but, like prodigals, they’re
squandering sound. The ear of mortal never heard such a delirious,
delicious, such a crystalline, argentine, ivory-smooth, velvety-soft,
such a ravishing, such an enravished tumult of sweet voices. Showers,
cascades of pearls and rubies, emeralds, diamonds, sapphires.”’
He laughed aloud, after the last word had left his lips, out of pure
lightness of heart, then went on to speak of the value of pure air
as a health restorer: ‘Pure air and an unsophisticated spirit in the
presence of Nature--these are the best medical appliances.’ Bright
colour showed in his cheeks as he continued to speak in playful vein of
the doctor and his pharmacopoeia. To his mind, Mother Nature was the
best of doctors. Had not Stevenson and many others written in praise of
the soothing influence of conditions such as we enjoyed that day, the
happy impressions, the sense of peace and wellbeing?
Then the conversation drifted into other channels, and we fell to
talking of the time spent together in my friend’s little room--of his
books, his pictures, his china, and of the photographs he had shown
me. And here our talk took on a serious complexion; but we were still
conscious of the flood of sunlight, the happy surroundings. Therefore,
our tone, though serious, had nothing of melancholy. I learnt that
the photographs that had aroused my curiosity had been taken at an
establishment in old Hampstead, now demolished. In those days my friend
had lived in a large, well-appointed house overlooking the heath. His
means had been ample, his position seemingly secure. But misfortune
had come, business reverses, the failure of a company in which large
interests were vested, the betrayal of a friend in whom confidence had
been placed. Then followed the sickness and death of his wife and child.
I looked at my friend and marvelled at his courage in the face of
such misfortunes. At our first meeting he had said that without his
rose-coloured spectacles, his bright point of view, all seemed dark.
The meaning of his words was now touchingly clear. How could he have
continued to live had he not been blessed with an indomitable spirit?
I wish I could give a faithful idea of the inspiring manner in which
he interwove his story with bright and consoling touches; but so much
depended upon his manner, the inflexions of his voice, the expression
in his eyes, that I cannot hope to convey an adequate impression.
I can only say that no spark of hope or consolation escaped his
gratitude; that his bright and cheerful spirit was as ‘pervasive as
sweet lavender, unavoidable as the sunset before the westward-bound
traveller.’ The blue sky above, the foliage around, the rich growth
beneath our feet--all had their message. Nature was our ‘good host’ for
the day, and he ‘looked through Nature up to Nature’s God.’