(_Eastlake resumes some weeks later. He has put into Bar Harbor on a
yachting trip. He sits writing late at night by the light of the
binnacle lamp_.)
Sweet lady, a few hours ago we slipped in here past the dark shore of
your village, in almost dead calm, just parting the heavy waters with
our prow. It was the golden set of the summer afternoon: a thrush or
two were already whistling clear vespers in he woods; all else was
fruitfully calm.
And then, in the stillness of the ebb, we floated together, you and I,
round that little lighthouse into the sheltering gloom of the woods.
Then we drifted beyond it all, in serene solution of this world's fret!
To-morrows you may keep for another.
This night was richly mine. You brought your simple self, undisturbed
by the people who expect of you, without your little airs of
experience. I brought incense, words, devotion, and love. And I
treasure now a few pure tones, some simple motions of your arm with the
dripping paddle, a few pure feelings written on your face. That is all,
but it is much. We got beyond necessity and the impertinent commonplace
of Chicago. We had ourselves, and that was enough.
And to-night, as I lie here under the cool, complete heavens, with only
a twinkling cottage light here and there in the bay to remind me of
unrest, I see life afresh in the old, simple, eternal lines. These are
_our_ days of full consciousness.
Do you remember that clearing in the woods where the long weeds and
grass were spotted with white stones--burial-place it was--their bright
faces turned ever to the sunshine and the stars? They spoke of other
lives than yours and mine. Forgotten little units in our disdainful
world, we pass them scornfully by. Other lives, and perhaps better, do
you think? For them the struggle never came which holds us in a fist of
brass, and thrashes us up and down the pavement of life. Perhaps--can
you not, at one great leap, fancy it?--two sincere souls could escape
from this brass master, and live, unmindful of strife, for a little
grave on a hillside in the end? They must be strong souls to renounce
that cherished hope of triumph, to be content with the simple, antique
things, just living and loving--the eternal and brave things; for,
after all, what you and I burn for so restlessly is a makeshift
ambition. We wish to go far, "to make the best of ourselves." Why not,
once for all, rely upon God to make? Why not live and rejoice?
And the little graves are not bad: to lie long years within sound of
this great-hearted ocean, with the peaceful, upturned stones bearing
this full legend, "This one loved and lived...." Forgive me for making
you sad. Perhaps you merely laugh at the intoxication your clear air
has brought about. Well, dearest lady, the ships are striking their
eight bells for midnight, the gayest cottages are going out, light by
light, and somewhere in the still harbor I can hear a fisherman
laboriously sweeping his boat away to the ocean. Away!--that is the
word for us: I, in this boat southward, and ever away, searching in
grim fashion for an accounting with Fate; you, in your intrepid
loveliness, to other lives. And if I return some weeks hence, when I
have satisfied the importunate business claims, what then? Shall we
slip the cables and drift quietly out "to the land east of the sun and
west of the moon"?