dying, robed in a solemn pomp. The fields were shrouded in mist, but
the cloud-rims in the west were touched with intense edges of gold;
Hugh thought of the little churchyard that lay beyond those trees,
where, under the raw mould heaped up so mutely, under the old wall,
beside the yew-tree, in the shadow of the chancel-gable, lay the
perishing vesture of the spirit of his friend, banished from light and
warmth to his last cold house. How lonely, how desolate it seemed; and
the mourners too, sitting in the dreary rooms, with the agony of the
gap upon them, the empty chair, the silent voice, the folded papers,
the closed books! How could God atone for all that, even though He
made all things new? it was not what was new, but what was old, for
which one craved; that long perspective of summer mornings, of pacings
to and fro, of happy work, of firelit evenings, of talk, of laughter,
the groups breaking up and reforming--how little one had guessed and
valued the joy, the content, the blessing of them at the time! In the
midst of them, one was reaching forwards, restlessly and vainly, to the
future that was to be richer yet. Then the future became the happy
present, and still one had leaned forward. How idle it all was! even
while he waited and gazed, the light of evening was gone, the clouds
were lustreless and wan, the sunset, that band of golden light, was
flying softly, a girdle of beauty round the world; but the twilight and
the night had their beauty too, their peace, their refreshment, their
calm.
XLI
Following the Light--Sincerity
It must not be thought that because this little book attempts to trace
the more secret and solitary thoughts of Hugh, as his soul took shape
under the silent influences of pensive reflection, that the current of
his life was all passed in lonely speculation. He had a definite place
in the world, and mixed with his fellow-men, with no avoidance of the
little cares of daily life. He only tended, as solitude became more
dear to him, and as the thoughts that he loved best rose more swiftly
and vividly about him, to frame his life, as far as he could, upon
simple and unambitious lines.
In this he acted according to the dictates of a kind of intuition. It
was useless, he felt, to analyse motives; it was impossible to discover
how much was disinterestedness, how much unworldliness, how much the
pursuit of truth, how much the avoidance of anxious responsibility, how
much pure indolence. He was quite ready to believe that a certain
amount of the latter came in, though Hugh was not indolent in the
ordinary sense of the word. He was incapable of pure idling; but he
was also incapable of carrying out prolonged and patient labour, unless
he was keenly interested in an object; and the fact that he found the
renunciation of ambitions so easy and simple a thing, was a sufficient
proof to him that his interest in mundane things was not very vital.
But Hugh above all things desired to have no illusions about himself;
and he was saved from personal vanity, not so much by humility of
nature, as from a deep sense of the utter dependence of all created
things on their Creator. He did not look upon his own powers, his own
good qualities, as redounding in any way to his credit, but as the gift
of God. He never fell into the error of imagining himself to have
achieved anything by his own ability or originality, but only as the
outcome of a desire implanted in him by God, Who had also furnished him
with the requisite perseverance to carry them out. He could not lay
his finger on any single quality, and say that he had of his own effort
improved it. And, in studying the lives and temperaments of others, he
did not think of their achievements as things which they had
accomplished; but rather as a sign of the fuller greatness of glory
which had been revealed to them. Life thus became to him a following
of light; he desired to know his own limitations, not because of the
interest of them, but as indicating to him more clearly what he might
undertake. It was a curious proof to him of the appropriateness of
each man's conditions and environment to his own particular nature,
when he reflected that no one whom he had ever known, however unhappy,
however faulty, would ever willingly have exchanged identities with any
one else. People desired to be rid of definite afflictions, definite
faults; they desired and envied particular qualities, particular
advantages that others possessed, but he could not imagine that any one
in the world would exchange any one else's identity for his own; one
would like perhaps to be in another's place, and this was generally
accompanied by a feeling that one would be able to make a much better
thing of another's sources of happiness and enjoyment, than the person
whose prosperity or ability one envied seemed to make. But he could
hardly conceive of any extremity of despair so great as to make a human
being willing to accept the lot of another in its entirety. Even one's
own faults and limitations were dear to one; the whole
thing--character, circumstances, relations with others, position--made
up to each person the most interesting problem in the world; and this
immense consciousness of separateness, even of essential superiority,
was perhaps the strongest argument that Hugh knew in favour of the
preservation of a personal identity after death.
Hugh then found himself in this position; he was no longer young, but
he seemed to himself to have retained the best part of youth, its
openness to new impressions, its zest, its sense of the momentousness
of occasions, its hopefulness; he found himself with duties which he
felt himself capable of discharging; with a trained literary instinct
and a real power of expression; even it he had not hitherto produced
any memorable work, he felt that he was equipped for the task, if only
some great and congenial theme presented itself to his mind. He found
himself with a small circle of friends, with a competence sufficient
for his simple needs; day by day there opened upon his mind ideas,
thoughts, and prospects of ever-increasing mystery and beauty; as to
his character and temperament, he found himself desiring to empty
himself of all extraneous elements, all conventional traditions, all
adopted ideas; his idea of life indeed was that it was an educative
process, and that the further that the soul could advance upon the path
of self-knowledge and sincerity, the more that it could cast away all
the things that were not of its essence, the better prepared one was to
be filled with the divine wisdom. The deeper that he plunged into the
consideration of the mysterious conditions and laws which surrounded
him, the greater the mystery became; but instead of becoming more
hopeless, it seemed to him that the dawn appeared to brighten every
moment, as one came closer to the appreciation of one's own ignorance,
weakness, and humility. Instead of drawing nearer to despair, he drew
every day nearer to a tender simplicity, a larger if more distant hope,
an intenser desire to be at one with the vast Will that had set him
where he was, and that denied him as yet a knowledge of the secret. As
he ascended with slow steps into the dark mountain of life, the
kingdoms of the world became more remote, the noise of their shouting
more faint. He thought, with no compassion, but with a wondering
tenderness, of the busy throng beneath; but he saw that, one by one,
spirits smitten with the divine hope, slipped from that noisy world,
and like himself, began to climb the solitary hills. What lay on the
other side? That he could not even guess; but he had a belief in the
richness, the largeness of the mind of God; and he saw as in a vision
the day breaking on a purer and sweeter world, full of great surprises,
mighty thoughts, pure joys; he knew not whether it was near or far, but
something in his heart told him that it was assuredly there!
XLII
Aconite--The Dropping Veil
How swiftly the summer melted into the autumn! the old lime-trees in
the college court were soon all gold--how bravely that gold seemed to
enrich the heart, on the still, clear, fresh mornings of St. Luke's
summer! that wise physician of souls has indeed had set aside for him
the most inspiriting, the most healing days of the year, days of tonic
coolness, of invigorating colour, of bracing sun; and then the winter
closes in, when light is short, and the sun is low and cold; when the
eye is grateful for the rich brown of naked fields, leafless woods, and
misty distances. Yet there is a solemn charm about the darkening day,
when the sun sets over the wide plain rolled in smoky vapours, and
gilded banks of cloud; and then there is the long firelit evening to
follow, when books give up their secrets and talk is easiest.
The summer, for all its enervating heat, its piercing light, was the
time, so Hugh thought, for reflection. In winter the mind is often
sunk in a sort of comfortable drowsiness, and hybernates within its
secure cell. Hugh found the activities of work very absorbing in those
darker days: his thoughts took on a more placid, more contented tinge.
Early in the year he walked alone along the Backs at Cambridge. He
passed the great romantic gateposts of St. John's, with the elms of the
high garden towering over them, his mind occupied with a hundred small
designs. It was with a shock of inexpressible surprise, as he passed
by the clear stream that runs over its sandy shallows, and feeds the
garden moats, to see that in the Wilderness the ground was bright with
the round heads of the yellow aconite, the first flower to hear the
message of spring. The appearance of that brave and hardy flower in
that particular place had a peculiar and moving association for Hugh.
More than twenty years before, in his undergraduate days, in a time of
deep perplexity of mind, he had walked that way on a bright Sunday
morning, his young heart burdened with sorrowful preoccupation. How
hard those youthful griefs had been to bear! they were so unfamiliar,
they seemed so irreparably overwhelming; one had not learned to look
over them or through them; they darkened the present, they hung like a
black cloud over the future. How fantastic, how exaggerated those woes
had been, and yet how unbearably real! He had stood, he remembered, to
watch the mild sunlight strike in soft shafts among the trees. The
hardy blossoms, cold and scentless, but so unmistakably alive, had
given him a deep message of hope, a thrill of expectation. He had gone
back, he remembered, and in a glow of impassioned emotion had written a
little poem on the theme, in a locked notebook, to which he confided
his inmost thoughts. He could recall some of the poor stanzas still,
so worthless in expression, yet with so fiery a heart.
The thought of the long intervening years came back to Hugh with a
sense of wonder and gratitude. He had half expected then, he
remembered, that some great experience would perhaps come to him, and
lift him out of his shadowed thoughts, his vague regrets. That great
experience had not befallen him, but how far more wisely and tenderly
he had been dealt with instead! Experience had been lavished upon him;
he had gained interest, he had practised activity, and he had found
patience and hope by the way. He knew no more than he knew then of the
great and dim design that lay behind the world, and now he hardly
desired to know. He had been led, he had been guided, with a perfect
tenderness, a deliberate love. The only lost hours, after all, had
been the hours which he had given to anxiety and doubt, to ambition and
desire. When the moment had come, which he had heavily anticipated,
there had never been any question as to how he should act; and yet he
had not been a mere puppet moved by forces outside his control. He
could not harmonise the sense of guidance with the sense of freedom,
and yet both had undoubtedly been there. He had been dealt with both
frankly and tenderly; not saved from fruitful mistakes, not forbidden
to wander; and yet his mistakes had never been permitted to be
irreparable, his wanderings had taught him to desire the road rather
than to dread the desert.
A great sense of tranquillity and peace settled down upon his spirit.
He cast himself in an utter dependence upon the mighty will of the
Father; and in that calm of thought his little cares, and they were
many, faded like wreaths of steam cast abroad upon the air. To be
sincere and loving and quiet, that was the ineffable secret; not to
scheme for fame, or influence, or even for usefulness; to receive as in
a channel the strength and sweetness of God.
A bird hidden in a dark yew-tree began softly to flute, in that still
afternoon, a little song that seemed like a prayer for bright days and
leafy trees and embowered greenness; a prayer that should be certainly
answered, and the fulfilment of which should be dearer for the delay.
Hugh knew in that moment that the life he had lived and would live was,
in its bareness and bleakness, its veiling cloud, its chilly airs, but
the preface to some vast and glorious springtime of the spirit, when
hill and valley should break together into sunlit bloom, when the trees
should be clothed with leaf, when birds should sing clear for joy, and
the soul should be utterly satisfied. The old poet had said that the
saddest thing was to remember happy days in hours of sorrow; but to
remember the dreary days in a season of calm content, what joy could be
compared to that? His heart was slowly filled, as a cup with wine,
with an unutterable hope; but he desired no longer that some great
thing should come to him, which should exalt him above his fellows and
make him envied and admired. Rather should the humblest and the lowest
place suffice, some corner of life which he should deck, and tend, and
keep bright and sweet; a few hands to grasp, a few hearts to encourage;
and even so to do that with no set purpose, but by merely letting the
gentle joy of the soul overflow, like a spring of brimming waters, fed
from high hills of faith.
And so, like a figure that passes down a corridor and enters at an open
door, Hugh passes from our sight. He mingles with his fellows, he goes
to and fro, he speaks and he is silent, he smiles and weeps; he may not
be distinguished from other men, and there lies his best happiness,
because he is waiting upon God. His life may be long or short; he may
mix with the crowd or sit solitary. If he differs at all from others,
it is in this, that he desires no costly thread of gold, no bright-hued
skein that he may weave his texture of life. Upon that tapestry will
be depicted no knight in shining armour; no nymphs with floating
vestures, no paradise of flowers; rather dim hills and cloud-hung
valleys, and the darkness of haunted groves; with one figure of shadowy
hue in sober raiment, walking earnestly as one that has a note of the
way; he would desire nothing but what may uphold him; he would fear
nothing but what may stain him; he would shun the company of none who
need him; he would clasp the hand of any gentle-hearted pilgrim. So
would he walk in quietness to the dim valley and the dark stream,
believing that the Father has a place and a work and a joy for the
smallest thing that His hands have made.
THE END
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