‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
* * * * *
But thy eternal summer shall not fade.’
Nevertheless, it was in two poems by Rossetti, two poems of
unsurpassable beauty, _The Stream’s Secret_ and _Love’s Nocturn_, that
he found, or thought he found, what he himself actually felt; their
suggestion of a kind of impassioned mysticism appealing to him, being
indeed but an echo of that curious vein of mysticism which from the
first had entered into and made more wonderful his own love. These
poems, altering the gender of the personal pronouns, and thinking of
Harold while he said them, he repeated over and over to himself, until
in the end they became in his mind so bound up with his friend that he
could not have imagined them in any other connection, that he could not
have heard them without seeing Harold’s face.
The spring passed quickly; summer was already here; and as Graham,
fallen now completely into the ways of his new life, watched one day
after another glide swiftly from him, sometimes he longed to stretch
out his hand to stay this or that particular hour and keep it with him
for ever.
On an afternoon in the beginning of July he had flung himself down in
the shade, and was lying on his back among the long, sweet-smelling
grass. He had been fielding out for more than an hour under a deep,
cloudless sky, and he was a little tired and hot. His straw hat lay on
the ground beside him, and he gazed up at the sky through the leafy
branches of a tree that stretched above him like a gigantic parasol.
The delicious summer heat, the stillness, made him feel rather drowsy;
and he let his thoughts wander hither and thither on the wings of every
idle fancy. Already the shouts from the cricketers reached him only as
a far-off murmur, blended dreamily in his mind with the humming of a
great black and yellow striped bee, which flitted noisily from cup to
cup of a group of purple fox-gloves growing close at hand.
Days like this were very beautiful, he thought, and this old volcanic
earth with its bright delicate covering, like a carpet, of grass and
trees and flowers. And life!――yes; and life itself was beautiful! For
the same life that was moving joyously within his young warm blood,
was moving in the sap of tree and grass. What was it all? Whence did
it spring? Every day a miracle was wrought when some delicate leaf,
or the spiral of a new-born fern, unfolded itself in the soft air, or
pushed up through the dark clinging soil. And this was life! And he was
alive! He found an exquisite happiness in the thought that he himself
was thus a part of nature, so close to nature in her simpler forms. It
was as if――always alive to the charm of such things――he understood now
for the first time the full meaning of the old Greek ‘tree-worship,’
realised, as it were, its origin, in his own emotions. That faculty
for noting the listening soul, the spirit that is in leaf or plant,
seemed to be a part of his very human nature, seemed as some ancient
bond of relationship that bound him then, and would bind him for ever,
to stiller and less perfect forms of life――to a whole world of pastoral
divinities――the great god Pan himself; the Hamadryads, who inhabit
the forest trees; and Oreads, and Naiads, and Hyades――the deities of
water-springs, and streams, and showers of summer rain.
As he thought of it a wave of joy seemed to raise him up suddenly
on its strong, full flood; a deep happiness that had come to him
often before in his solitude, and which, for the time at any rate,
was sufficient. To live! to live! to live! it seemed to cry――that
was enough; there was nothing else in the world. Ah, surely he must
be happy so long as the sun shone and all nature sang with that
great rhythmic chaunt of sensuous life! He closed his eyes that the
exquisitely fresh and living smell of the earth, his mother, the cool
sweet green smell of the swaying grass, might creep into his very
being. How delicious it was just to lie there in the lush green grass,
among the clear, floating shadows――to lie and think his thoughts as
they drifted into his mind from the outer sunshine.
When he chose to look in their direction, he could see his schoolfellows
eager still over their game of cricket; but he was content to watch
them, content to look on, lazily, dreamily, through his half-closed
eyelids, following every now and then the swift curving passage of the
ball through the air, when it rose above the fielders’ heads.
And in everything, though in a somewhat misty fashion, he seemed to
feel the personality, the influence, of Harold Brocklehurst. Was
it not all――his extraordinarily vivid sense of life――bound up in
some subtle way with the beauty of their friendship? Had not their
friendship helped him to realise the mystery and loveliness of nature;
helped him to make things out; helped to unseal his eyes? It was the
force of a temperament that found expression very easily, which he
felt to be working now upon his own simpler nature, his spirit, his
mind,――altering everything around him, awakening a new beauty in
familiar things, suggesting a wider, deeper, more mystical beauty
where before he had only been conscious of a material impression.
It carried with it, too, a hundred hints, memories, of a strangely
familiar paganism, of a fresher, younger world; a hundred touches of
poetry:――the sun, the climbing plant: Apollo, Dionysus:――strong,
beautiful, swift. This boy!――what had he to do with them? Why should
he suggest them? And then, in the background, a haunting sense of
something darker, more fateful――tragic even!――again the legend of
Dionysus; but more pitiable, quite human, vaguely pathetic and
bewildering.
By and by he opened a copy of the _Phaedrus_, which he had worked
through with his father, and began to read.
They had studied together most of the shorter dialogues, and the
whole of the _Republic_, but the _Phaedrus_ Graham cared for most.
In its pages he had taken his first peep at philosophy――philosophy,
as conceived by him, so near to, so replete with, poetry;――‘Really,
Phaedrus, you make a most charming guide.’ Nay, it _was_ poetry! deep,
impassioned poetry! for with Plato, even the trees and streams, all the
lovely things of the visible world, were made to play their parts. It
was as if they possessed active and living souls. They had at least,
the boy felt, a wonderful share in the development of one’s _own_ soul:
they seemed to breathe about it an atmosphere of light and purity and
happiness. In Plato’s philosophy――so far as he understood it――there was
little he could not accept. On one very hot, still day, for instance,
a passing breath of wind on his face had suddenly awakened in him the
recollection of a prior existence――faintly, vaguely, perhaps, but still
quite clearly enough to stamp a definite impression on his mind.
And for him, of all writers, this old Greek had the most delightfully
personal charm. As he read him, indeed, it seemed as if the peculiar
beauty of his nature were exhaled gently from the printed pages――gently
and very delicately――like, say, the faint perfume of a spray of
sweet-briar he had dried a few days ago between them, and which now
as he came suddenly upon it and held it to his lips, breathed still
the ghostly shadow of its former fragrance. Surely no other books
were so fair and sweet, so wise and true. In the charmed circle of
their range, the coarser qualities of things were forgotten, the
light was cleansed, the whole realm of the soul lay clear. He knew no
other writings that flowed in with so gracious a charm upon one’s
spirit, filling it with a love for all that is beautiful and good,
watering its ‘wing-feathers’: no others that exercised so humanising
an influence upon one’s character. For it was, in truth, before all
else, a philosophy of life, of the highest life one may hope to lead
here upon earth, or later on in heaven. A philosophy of love, too,
necessarily!――and of beauty. Of all earthly things beauty approximated
most nearly to its eternal idea: and love!――well, all desire for good
and happiness, nay, even the working of philosophy itself――all that was
only the gracious power of love. On these the path was builded, the
Platonic ladder reaching from earth to heaven; for one climbed, after
all, to those pure, colourless regions, to that radiant world of ideas,
by Phaedo’s golden hair.
Well! such a doctrine met most of the needs of his own spirit, and
awakened in him, naturally, a very friendly feeling for its author; the
kind of affection we have for any one who has thought just the same
thought, felt just the same joy or sorrow, that we are thinking and
feeling now. As a young boy will linger long beside some deep pool
of sea-water he finds among the rocks, peering down into its minute
caverns and among its seaweeds for unknown curiosities and treasures,
so Graham lingered over these pages, trying to learn all things from
them, a rule of life for himself, a rule whereby he might, as far as
was possible, enter into and judge the lives of others, might discover
what to cling to, what to throw away. Over the dark still well of Life
he leaned, and through that deep cool water, ruffled gently by the
soft warm breath of youth, the face of Love himself arose, his hair
streaming back like a flame, his sad grey eyes full of an infinite pity.
And he began to dream of an immortal love which, though unable to
realise itself perfectly in this world, yet might be strong enough to
draw two souls together, after death, in some far heaven. Far! But
in truth it seemed quite near just now:――was here, a soft radiance,
in his own spirit, in the warm air that blew about his face, in
the sunlight, in the trees, in the voices of his playmates. Only
afterwards――afterwards there would be that untroubled and perfect
communion which hovered now before him as an unattainable ideal, a
light behind the clouds, a flame on the horizon; ‘for then, and not
till then, the soul will be parted from the body and exist in herself
alone.’
Plato’s theories blew just like a cool wind upon the dust gathered in
one’s mind. They entered one’s mind easily and at once, sinking down
into the very depths of one’s spirit, to be a light there for ever, to
sing there for ever, as the morning stars sang together.
And they were so bound up with ordinary existence, with the affairs of
every day! They stretched out from their idealism a friendly hand to
which he could cling when struggling along the rough muddy roads of
the world. But above all, he was charmed with the theory of natural
suggestion, the influence beautiful things have upon one in childhood
and boyhood in the building-up and equipment of one’s character. The
grouping of clouds about a sunset, the noise of running water――these,
and other things like these, were working always, working delicately,
upon one’s mind and temper, shading them, as it were, to fairer colours
and softer outlines. For material beauty is at least one rung,
though it be the lowest, in the Platonic ladder. Higher fair souls;
fair virtues higher still; and highest of all the pure idea of Beauty
itself, invisible to the eye of sense, but lying bright and clear
before the vision of the mind, a glorious sight, to be viewed by those
alone who have cleansed their souls of earthly passions:――‘Blessed are
the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’
When he had finished the little introduction he closed the book and
laid it upon the grass beside him. Nothing he had ever read, he
thought, called up more vividly the impression, the very sound and
smell of life out of doors. In each word was an exquisite suggestion
of nature, of the open air, of the trees and green grass, and the cool
shallow stream up which Socrates and Phaedrus had walked. The spirits
that had haunted the bank under the plane-tree seemed now to haunt the
pages of the dialogue. And indeed, as though magically changed, the
elm above him had suddenly become a plane-tree. Nay! he could hear,
actually hear, the trickle of the stream――could hear the chirping
of the grasshoppers. And Phaedrus and Socrates!――yes, Phaedrus and
Socrates were talking still: if he listened very intently he could make
out the tones of their voices, even their words――if he closed his eyes
he could see them.
‘Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give
me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward
man be at one. May I reckon the wise to be the wealthy, and
may I have such a quantity of gold as a temperate man and he
only can bear and carry.――Phaedrus, need we anything more? The
prayer I think is enough for me....’
* * * * *
The sounds about him drew farther and farther away as though fading
back into dreamland. A clear light, pale green, like a reflection from
some deep pool, was in the sky. The whole world was changed, and he
seemed to be wandering in a country of gentle streams and meadows,
while the green grass was gay with yellow daffodils.
* * * * *
The sunlight slanted lower, falling on the upper windows of the school.
Was his dream less real than that soft light, he wondered? Did not
both come from somewhere in the clouds? It explained so much; it pushed
back, as it were, the horizon. Plato had believed in it. Could it be,
then, that there were certain persons――like Plato, like himself――who
were actually nearer to the unseen than others were? Surely things came
to him, with the scent of flowers, with the sighing of wind, with the
splash of the sea! There was a spirit which breathed upon him from the
rustling trees and from the grass under his feet.