It was eleven o'clock, and Basil Norman and I were alone. The storm had
subsided, and, through the sound of the rain, we could hear the waves
breaking against the shore.
"I do not want Siegfried to go to school yet," he was saying; "he is so
full of promise and latent genius that I dread the risk of having it
all standardized into what we call a public-school man. I am coaching
him in languages and the three R's, but more than anything else I want
him to form his own conception of the scheme of the universe, so that
when he takes his position among the world's musicians--as I am
confident he will--he'll have the echo of what he interprets in his own
breast. Music is so vast, yet musicians, as a class, are people of
little depth."
"Has the lad a chance in England with his German name?"
"Yes. England must realize that genius has no nationality."
"What was Siegfried like when you took him first?"
"He was arrogant, sullen, and in his child's brain was the knowledge
that his father had fought against us. To make him forget his unhappy
past, and partly to satisfy a caprice of my own, I--well, you would say
I blew bubbles. We invented a little city of make-believe. From the
hill at the back of the house you can look down on all these houses,
and at dusk, when the mist rises from the sea and the windows begin to
glow with light, it is quaint enough for a study by Rackham. In our
little City of Bubbles there dwelt such celebrities as Aladdin, Jack
the Giant Killer, Midshipman Easy, Peter Pan, poor Wilde's Happy
Prince, and Heaven knows how many more. They were very real to
Siegfried and me, and Lilias used to have many a laugh over the
troubles of our little family. But I had not counted on Sindbad; he was
filling Siegfried with stories of buried treasure and men forced to
walk the plank (all of them absolutely authenticated by the narrator),
and the lurking Prussian began to appear. He stole down to Ventnor and
bought books on the war ... he began to glory in the stand Germany was
making. So I was not surprised when, one day, he suggested that we
should play soldiers.
"Pest, you should have been there. Siegfried was Napoleon, and I was
Hindendorff, his chief of Staff. Sindbad was given command of a naval
brigade, and was also in charge of a large fleet lying in hiding to
cope with the Spaniard, should he emerge. In addition to these modest
duties, he had to wheel my chair. Lilias came along as a composite
representative of all the women's services. Napoleon's plans were that
we should attack the City of Bubbles, which was being defended by a
heavy force on the fringe of the hill. I omitted to mention our flying
cavalry in the person of Mr. Jones; but owing to a misunderstanding of
our objective he waged separate war on birds all afternoon, inflicting
no casualties, but covering an immense area of ground. We began the
attack about half-a-mile back; but when Napoleon ordered Sindbad's
naval brigade into action, we were unable to find him, until Mr. Jones
discovered him behind a rock, scrutinizing a passing merchantman
through the inevitable telescope. After some persuasion, we induced
Sindbad to attack, but half-way to his objective he remembered that he
had left his pipe in the kitchen, to which he repaired, leaving his
troops in the air, as we used to say in France, and taking away the
mobility which, as Chief of Staff, I needed urgently. There is no
question that Sindbad possesses imagination, but it is an unreliable
one.
"To make the story short, we won by a brilliant ruse of Napoleon's, who
got word to the enemy that the tuck-shops in Ventnor were being
evacuated, which was as effective as his famous "_Sauve qui peut_"
at Waterloo, for they fled ignominiously, and we captured the city,
after inflicting heavy casualties."
I looked at him and waited. Behind the nonsense I could see some
serious thought was lurking, but what I could not conjecture.
"The next day," he resumed, "Siegfried was tired, and asked me to tell
how Peter Pan frustrated the pirates. 'Peter is dead,' said I.
Siegfried suppressed a sob, and asked when he died. 'He was killed in
our attack,' I said. After a long pause, he mentioned the probability
of Mr. Midshipman Easy being at home. 'He is dead,' said I. Again his
question, and again my answer: 'He was killed in our attack.' He went
out; but on going to bed that night he asked if Cinderella was really
very pretty. 'Not now,' I said, 'for she is lying dead.' Does it seem
ludicrous, Pest? That night he cried himself to sleep, and it is not
easy to listen to a youngster's sobs when you know that a word from you
will do away with them. For two long dreary weeks our City of Bubbles
was a City of the Dead.... Then I suggested that we play soldiers again
and make another attack. After all, Pest, it isn't every Tommy gets a
chance of being Chief of Staff. I wish you could have seen his face. It
was as though I had struck him with a whip, and he left me without a
word. That afternoon the Wizard of Oz visited our city and brought them
all back to life. That was some months ago, and our little dream-world
is only a serio-humorous memory for Siegfried and me now. But during
that night he cried himself to sleep I think the Prussian in him died."
For several minutes we listened to the rain.
"The greatest of the Arts," said Norman, very slowly, "is life. I don't
think our writers, our painters, our men who dream in bronze realize
that. If they did, it would not be said that the English are the least
artistic people in the world; for you and I know that is not true.
Scott going to his death in the Antarctic snow was a great artist. The
sailor standing to one side when the last boat is filled, and those six
Tommies at Grieswald in Germany, holding their ground against a row of
bayonets and taking a sentence of two years' imprisonment rather than
aid the Hun in making munitions--are they not artists? Where we fail as
a race is in our authors, composers, painters, who divorce themselves
from the real spirit of England and wonder that the products of their
brains quicken no pulse and stir no imagination. Our educationists, our
leaders in every movement allied with culture, have too often striven
to choke the imaginativeness and blind the eyes of our youth to the
beauty of life, which is one of its greatest truths. One has but to
read the despairing lines written by bereaved mothers for their sons
who have fallen, to feel the sorrow of England crying for expression;
instead of which, our triumph, our courage, our artistry are mute and
inarticulate."
The rain had ceased, and the wind was moaning over the sea as if it had
been balked of its prey.
"Mark my words, Pest," he said dreamily, "as a nation we shall have no
self-expression until our artists take for their model the greatest of
all Arts--_Life_."
His eyes were fixed on the smouldering coals, and over his face there
was a mystic veil--a thing not of this world but born of the undying
spirit. It was like a mist that settles on a river in the hour between
sunset and night.
"Basil," I cried; and the sound of my own voice startled me. I do not
know what words were surging to my lips, for he turned to me and the
smile of compassion in his eyes held me silent.
Something choked in my throat.... I felt that I wanted to struggle to
my feet and stand at the salute. For the face that looked into mine was
that of a CONQUEROR.
A burning ember fell from the grate and lay on the tiled surface of the
hearth.