Observatory hill at Greenwich to see the sun set over London, looking
for such a transfiguration of the grey city as should reveal its line of
warehouses lying along the horizon in a mist of splendour like the walls
of the New Jerusalem. So I had seen it before, marvellous and refined in
unearthly fire: but to-day, in a sadder mood, and hungering more deeply
for the vision, I looked out to the west in vain. For the wind had set
in from the east, and driven back upon the town a zone of iron-grey
smoke, ragged along its upper edge like a great water blown to spray,
but merging below with those gloomy and innumerable buildings. Upon this
the sun, which all day had ridden in a clear air, was slowly falling,
losing radiance with every minute, until as it approached that gloomy
spray it was luminous no more, but a dull red orb whose light, like a
flame withdrawn into the consumed heart of coals, glows for awhile
beneath a gathering film of grey. In a few minutes it descended, as if
sadly and of resolution, into the murky sea, where for a moment its red
curves seemed to refine the smoke into translucency; but at last the
dun waves gathered upon it dark and voluminous, drowning it so deeply
that the clearer sky above was instantly robbed of the wonted
after-glow. Some pale reflection there was in the upper heaven, ensuring
a time of twilight, but no glory; and smitten with a congruous sadness,
I went down to the river. But there, pacing to and fro as if upon a
quarter-deck, with the water lapping upon the wall beneath, I lived one
of the happy hours of life, redeemed from disappointment, and carried
far into a magical world.
The flood tide, which had turned for more than an hour, was now racing
down wilful for the sea, though the breeze ruffling its surface seemed
to thwart and stay its eager course. And on the surface, indeed, chafed
and broken into innumerable ripples, the wind triumphed; but as one
looked westwards towards the city, it was clear that the sullen strength
of stream and tide had the mastery. For over the broad curving reach,
lit like white unburnished silver with the reflection of the pallid sky,
there glided forward a line of barges each with every red sail set, and
as silent as if they sallied from a besieged city. One by one they hung
out their lights, the lamps swaying and casting yellow bars over the
quivering water, until in perfect silence all passed down before me.
Each in turn attaining the lower bend where the river sweeps northward,
went about and stood for the Middlesex shore; and then for a moment the
wind seemed to overcome the tide, for before the boat could win new way,
lying almost broadside across the stream, the breeze held her
motionless, like a tired bird on a windy day when it flies out from the
shelter of the wood. It was but for a moment, and then the blunt bows
glided forward towards the north bank, and another barge succeeded in
the gathering gloom.
And so it was until all were passed. The departing light drew the
colours from the red sails and the silvery brightness from the river;
all forms became outlined in black upon what uncertain light remained.
Two men put off in a boat from an anchored ship; the mingled sound of
their oars and voices came with subdued tone as if out of an infinite
distance. Then the whole reach lay bare and silent for a while, and only
the little waves lapping upon the stone steps played an accompaniment to
my dream.
The hour and the place compelled to reverie, and memory consenting to
their evocative charm, I peopled the still scene with the forms of those
who had swayed or shared the fortunes of this land; imperious Elizabeth
and gentler Mary, the slight heroic figure with one sleeve pinned empty
on the breast, and all those who, going down to their business in deep
waters or returning therefrom, have saluted with melancholy or with joy
these towers and this wooded hill. I thought of the lads playing beneath
these trees, and so inbreathing the spirit of this place that for them
there was no career but to follow the river down to ocean, and ocean
himself in his circuit of the world. I thought of the veterans returned
from that quest, old Argonauts of a later day, now clustering round the
Hospital fires and perhaps recalling amid tales of havens and high seas
the very morning when they first dropped round the bend and passed into
the new world beyond. For this Thames is such an avenue and entry into
marvellous life that earth can show no greater rival, none more rich in
dignity or in the multitude of its merchandise. And if the flood of that
merchandise shall cease, and the stream once more go lonely to the sea
or carry coracles, it cannot be again as if it had never borne great
ships, or swung the Admiral's galley on its tide.
It is good for an Englishman to stand here and listen to the brown
waters lapping on the old walls and caulked timbers; to hear, as an
under murmur, voices of Lechlade and Bablockhythe, for all intervening
leagues of wood and meadow not altogether lost: before this persistence
and continuity of youth to feel high thoughts stir within him and
solemnize the nativity of new resolve. You cannot feel beneath your feet
these old stones trodden by the great generations of your own blood and
kindred, and not be moved to walk uprightly, to be approved by their
shades as one not unworthy of such descent. For whether such worn
stones be in the aisle of some great minster, or here, paving this
narrow way for hurrying feet, the inspiration is as strong and the
thankfulness not other. For this is a place of meridian, the navel of
our land and empire; the wind searching its alleys has no usual voice,
but as it were a deep and oceanic sound, according with old ballads and
stories of the sea.
I lingered leaning upon the rail until the tide had fallen from the
wall, tracing along the narrow pebbled foreshore a clear marginal line
of irregular contour, now sinuous, now straight, but palely luminous
like a silver tone on some enamel of old Italy, a line drawn by a master
draughtsman, in its inevitable and sure perfection wholly satisfying the
eye. With the dark bank it vanished towards the great city, now marked
in the upper sky by a hovering brightness of light escaped beyond the
smoky rampart to tell the effort of innumerable lamps beneath, all
pouring their blurred and vain effulgence to the disdainful stars.
Moreover, the city will give the shy man all the consolations of art,
philosophy and literature of which his education or experience may have
made him worthy. He can see great pictures or read great books at little
cost, and find in them the truest of friends in need. It is so obvious
that a solitary of any culture will find relief with such companions,
that here I take for granted his resort to their aid, and will only
mention two resources from which the real recluse often draws less
advantage than he might, I mean orchestral music and the drama. Any man
of feeling who hears a great symphony ceases to be self-centred with the
first movement; he goes out of himself, and rides upon waves of sound,
exalted by this majesty of collective effort. No other music thrills his
whole being like this, which sweeps him with all around into the very
course of changing fates. In the confluence of dim hopes and passions
which rise above the harmonies like smoke-wreaths riding the red flame,
the soul glows interfluous with other souls and is elated with the
inspiration of their presence. He bears arms exulting who never had
comrades till now; his will is absorbed in confederate joy and human
force unanimous. In this abandonment of the whole being, the diffident
know their fellows near, and in the ecstasy of shared emotion learn the
full measure of their humanity. Philosophers in all ages have known and
taught the power of music in compelling ten thousand to the love of one,
and so ennobling an infinite multitude in the glow of a common emotion.
Sound was the first instinctive language, one for man and winds and
waters; and music, which is the development of this primeval converse,
leaving to grammars the expression of cold and abstract thought, has
gathered about her in her mountain caverns the echoes of all sighs sad
or passionate, of all inarticulate cries born of aspiration or desire,
and there blended them into eternal harmonies which at her word flow
forth and join the hearts of men.
Indeed, that swift responsiveness of feeling which music thus awakes is
a gift beyond gems of Golconda; not youth's swift effusion cheaply given
and soon forgotten, but the vibration of a heart stirred in sympathy
with some profound note of life, as the dyed pane stirs and quivers
when the organ gives forth its deepest tones. Sentiment is a draught of
old wine passing into the veins and enriching the blood, until in the
generous glow all the privations and the stints of loneliness are
forgotten. Pure emotion is like righteous anger, which may be lawfully
indulged if the sun go not down upon it; and as he who shrinks from all
fire of wrath lives but a vaporous life, so he who will never be moved
is proud of a poor crustacean strength, like the limpet, winning
darkness in exchange for dull stability. As for me, in the propitious
hour when the heart longs for expansion, I give it honourable licence,
and quicken its unfolding by spells of magical words. At such times I
invoke the aid of passionate souls, not shrinking even from the vain,
provided that they loved greatly and give great expression to their
humanity. Such is that wild lover of George Sand whose _Souvenir_, for
all its rhetoric, charms like an incantation. The ancients quenched the
ashes of the pyre with red wine, as if the blood of the god-given vine
could hearten the spirit that yet hovered near. Over my ashes let no
wine be poured, but read me such verses high and valiant, that if my
soul yet lingers undelivered from the earth's attraction it may be
regenerated and set free into a braver life.
And let the lonely man be an assiduous frequenter of the playhouse, for
the drama will also open the world's heart to him, and that by a plainer
and less elusive speech. Seated in the theatre among his kind, he knows
a deeper pleasure than other men; for while to these the changing scene
brings remembrance or anticipation of familiar things, to him it reveals
whole vistas of life which, except in dreams, his feet may never tread.
When the curtain is rung down, and he goes out into the street, for a
while at least his existence is transformed. All those front doors
aligned in their innumerable sequence, which in daylight or darkness he
passes when he wanders alone, are now no longer barred against him; they
open at the touch of his fancy, and he sees within the light of
homeliness, where father, mother, and child weave round warm firesides
their close conspiracies of affection. At last he knows what is passing
behind those bars; like an old family friend he takes his place by the
fire and receives as of right the confidences which in his real lonely
life never find their way to his ears. He helps the lovers to build
their cloudy castles, he reasons away the parents' care, he goes
up-stairs with a shaded candle to look in upon the children sleeping.
Good women unlock the jewel-caskets which are their souls; happy maidens
are sisterly with him; strong men grapple him to their hearts and call
him friend. He that was vagabond has now innumerable homes, and of the
faces that fleet by him out of doors there are always some which seem to
give him greeting.
These secret and unavowed alliances transfigure the unlovely streets,
and light in the cavernous blank houses many a glowing and familiar
hearth. As he goes on, careless of distance or direction, he is now
inwardly busy with fresh and delightful dreams. He plights his troth and
earth is Eden; he imagines brilliant hours for the dream-children who
go by his side, holding each of his hands. And if the visions change,
and sorrow or sin pass in over a familiar threshold, what generous
abnegation, what pity, what righteous wrath does he not know, until the
plastic power of fancy moulds out of this poor recluse a man like other
men. Amid these visionary sympathies time goes quickly by, and returning
to his voiceless dwelling he has stored up such wealth of dreams that he
can even endure the supreme test when the lonely man finds himself
sitting in the wan light with no one near him to whom he is dear. Of the
strength and peacefulness which bring him safely through that hour of
desolation he owes much to the players, who have shot the drab texture
of life with an infinity of bright and tender hues, so that he can bear
to turn it in his hands and look upon it with a wistful pleasure. I say,
then, let the shy man frequent the playhouse, and there facet and
burnish his dulled mind until it reflects, if it may not touch, the
many-sided world.
For the discipline of sympathy, for the quickened sense of comradeship
in work, for the very presence of that unloveliness which compels
sympathy, I dwell more months in the town than in the country-side. But
remembering what Nature did to save me, and owing her an endless debt of
filial duty, I return to her in the summer days, and to make up for the
long months of separation cling nearer to her than most of her truant
sons. For communion with Nature, the ideal joy of country life, is not
attained by the sportsman or the mere player of games, who think of
their bodies chiefly, and use as a means to rude physical vigour the end
ordained for the fine contentience of body, mind, and spirit. Again I
will pass by the obvious and familiar resources of outdoor life, and
speak only of such as men are unaccountably prone to neglect.
There is a way of learning nature which in this wet land is mostly
followed by tramps and vagrants; the way of sleeping beneath the stars.
So far is this joy from the thoughts of most men, that even George
Borrow felt a strange uneasiness when for the first time the darkness
descended upon him in the open country. I think we carry with us all our
lives that fear of night with which nursery tales inspired our
childhood; it reinforces the later more reasoned fear of boisterous
weather, or of the men who walk in darkness because their works are
evil. We shrink from night as a chill privation of daylight, as a gloom
which we must traverse, but not inhabit; the distrust becomes with years
instinctive and universal, and the nearest approach to friendly relation
with night attained by most of us is a timid liking for the twilight
hours. Yet as the sun rises alike upon the just and upon the unjust even
so does he descend, and we put a slight upon Providence if we abandon to
rogues and rakes that wonderful kingdom of the darkness of which by
natural prerogative we are enfranchised. By never using our proper
freedom, we give them prescriptive licence of usurpation, so that the
hours in which the heavens are nearest to us are become the peculiar
inheritance of thieves.
I confess that on the night when first I set out to do without a bedroom
I too felt all the force of the traditional mistrust. I heard human
whispers in the wind, and saw the shadows of walls and trees as forms of
men lurking to spring out against me. The movements of roosting birds
startled me as I passed; the sudden silences startled me more. And when
I had spread my gear on the ground and settled down to rest, the sense
of exposure on every side made sleep impossible; time after time I
seemed to hear footsteps stealthily approaching; and there was a
strangeness pervading everything which to my nervous fancy was simply
provocative of apparitions. This lasted many nights; and whether I
established myself on the edge of a copse, or in the open grass, or in a
hammock beneath two trees, I continued a prey to the same uneasy
wakefulness. But then, as if satisfied of good faith by such
perseverance, the night began to wear a friendly aspect, the shadows
gave up their ghosts, and the breezes became the expected messengers of
slumber.
When the lonely sleeper-out has grown familiar with the moonlight and
the darkness, he is admitted into the number of earth's favoured sons;
for lying like a child upon her bosom, he hears her heart beating in the
silence, and wakes to see her smiling in her beauty like a queen
apparelled. To no man slumber comes more gently than to him; and his
uprising is as that of a child exulting in the cloudless day. Health and
innocence return to him, and his one sorrow is that he has lived into
maturity without continually partaking of these sane and natural
delights. Remorse is his that for all these years he has feared the dews
and shrunk from the bland night airs; and remembering the needless
imprisonment of a hundred chambers, he mourns over the irrecoverable
hours which would have rooted his life more deeply in tranquillity and
strength. But the June sun is up, and the birds are singing: he strides
with light step over the grass, watching the rabbits play in the glades,
and in unison with a host of fellow-creatures singing a welcome to the
dawn. When it is time for him to think of home and he comes once more
beneath a doorway, he has a mind refreshed by the quietude of dim space,
and a heart replenished with innocence and good-will. He who so sleeps
hates no man, and will go upon the dullest way free from petulance or
despair. The scent of the rich earth is in his nostrils, and the
clearness of morning air has passed into his eyes.
I have made my lair in many places since I first kept house with Nature.
I have couched in heather by the pines of hills far above the Sussex
Weald; I have lain in dry furrows or on the margin of a copse, or in the
parks of the children of fortune, for whose welfare, in gratitude for
their unconscious hospitality, I shall ever pray. But of all wild
resting-places I have known, the openest are the most delightful. To see
the whole sweep of the stars; to lie on the shorn ground free of all
that overshadows or encompasses or confines; to breathe in the great
gulf of air; to stretch unhindered limbs--this is an initiation into a
new life, a pleasant memory in the long glooms of winter. Let nothing
come between you and the stars, that they may look well upon your face,
and haply repenting of some ancient unkindliness, draw you at this
rebirth a new horoscope of blessing and fair fortune. And if slumber
tarries when you lie in an open spot, you may consciously ride the great
globe through space, and like the shepherd watching by his flock in the
clear night while star rises after star, grow aware of the great earth
rolling to the east beneath you.
In these still hours of night or early dawn there steals upon the
charmed mind an Orphic sense of worship and inexplicable joy. For here
on bare uplands and wooded hills, where the starlight rains down through
the silence, or the day, welling up over the rim of the downs, glides
fresh from the lips of ocean, a calm river of light, here is the place
of Dionysus, of him born from fire and dew, Zagreus the soul of clean
souls and wild lives, his heart a-quiver with vague sadness drawn from
all the worlds, Eleutherios, loosener of heart and lip, the regenerator,
the absolver, the eternally misunderstood, whose true followers are
priests of impassioned pure life, whose wine is not juice of grapes but
the clear air ambient upon the hills. Here when sleep is shamed away by
expectant awe, the whole being grows one with all-environing life;
personality glides into the stream of cosmic existence, lost and found a
thousand times in the trance and ecstasy of dim divine feelings beyond
the power of words inexpressible. It is miracle; it is religion; it is a
feast of purification above pomps or mysteries, a cleansing ritual
without victims and undefiled. In such hours, and in such hours alone,
man and things are joined in a supreme utterance of life high and
humble, transient and immortal, by which the fellowship of all
existences within the universe is made real and significant to the
initiate mind. For in the day fences are about us, roofs and towers
impend above our heads, we are cribbed in streets and markets, the din
of rhetoric or sordid bargaining fills our ears. Or if we withdraw into
some still chamber, yet the walls built by hired hands offend, and the
doorposts of sapless timber; no high influence can penetrate to us save
through the close court of memory, and compared with the breezy starlit
meadows, how poor an avenue to the soul is that!
And the exuberant sun of noon distracts, and the multitude of his beams
is troublous, for what does sight avail if the things of the heart's
desire are lost in immeasurable perplexities of light? For in the high
day the quivering bright air is more opaque than the dim spaces of
night, so tranquil and severe, or the glowing kingdoms of the morning.
At the springing of the day the eyes open upon awakening flowers, giving
filial heed to the marvellous earth which waits in patience for a human
greeting. I like the passage in which Chaucer tells how in May-time his
couch was spread in an arbour upon the margin of the grass, that he
might wake to see the daisies unfold their petals. Sleeping thus, he
also must have known those intervals of slumber when a sense of some
impending wonder grows too strong for sleep, and all nature seems
calling to high vision. Often I have been thus awakened, not by noise
or movement, but as it were by some strange prescience of beauty
constraining me to rise and look. Once I was drawn some distance round
the corner of a copse, and there, low in the sable-blue of the sky, in a
rivalry of intense but dazzling light, the crescent moon hung splendid
over against a great constellation which glittered like a carcanet of
diamonds. They seemed to speak together as if in some scene or passage
of celestial drama, nor did I know which was the diviner speech, the
moon's unwavering effulgence or that leaping coruscation of the stars.
Nothing stirred on the right hand or the left, but earth and air were
hushed, as if before that colloquy all sound and motion were
miraculously holden. Tall trees brown with densest shadows were massed
upon one side, obscuring half the heaven, and lending by their
contrasted gloom that sense of wizardry in natural things which enchants
the clear summer nights when the air is still.
This is but one among many visions of which the remembrance makes life
worshipful; and it is pity that at the hour of their coming well-nigh
all whom they should delight lie chambered within brick walls, lost in
sleep or in the mazes of unprofitable thoughts. For these things in
their rare appearances are more precious than an hour's slumber, were it
dreamless as a child's, or all the watches of luxurious unrest. If
another summer is given me I hope to take the road when July has come
with balmy nights, and wander days at a stretch with all I need upon my
shoulders. Then I shall know the real joy of vagrancy, caring little
where night finds me, and quickening my steps for nothing and for no
man. I shall linger in every glade or on every hill-top which calls to
me to stay; I shall tell all the hedgerow flowers, and lean over the
gates to watch the foals playing. The brooks shall be my washing-basins,
and I shall quench hunger and thirst in the tiled kitchens of lonely
farmsteads. If I hear the shriek of a train I shall smile when I think
of its cooped and harried passengers, and plunge devious into some
pathless wood, in whose depths the only sounds are the tap of the
woodpecker's bill or the measured axe-strokes of the woodman. I shall
fling myself down to rest under what tree I will, and pulling from my
pocket the book of my choice, I shall summon a wise and cheerful
companion to my side as easily as ever oriental magician called a jinn
to do him service. I shall once more be commensal with wild creatures,
and wonder that solitude was ever a pain; I shall be healthily
disdainful of the valetudinarian who lives to spoil either his body or
his soul.
These are the wanderings which henceforward will chiefly suffice to my
need. For since I roamed my fill in other continents the gadfly may no
longer sting me out of my tranquil haunts. In their youth lonely people
suffer more than others from that restlessness which fills the mind with
sudden distaste for the present scene, and a fierce longing to be
somewhere far away. Others are preserved from it by the love of home;
but we, in our poverty of attachment, listen more readily to the
depreciating voice.