_O day, pass gently that art here again,
Turn memory’s spear, and may thy vespers close
Upon a twilight odorous of the rose,
Drooping her petals in the falling rain._
_There is no virtue in remembered pain,
The past is sleeping. Watching its repose
I shudder, lest those weary lids unclose,
And I be folded in its coils again._
One evening the children were gathered in the drawing-room, and Miss
Ross sat among them working at her tambour frame. She wore a slender
gold thimble set with corals, and in a slanting, almost obliterated
handwriting, the posie, “_Use me, nor lose me_,” was writ around its
base. This thimble had been her mother’s, and when her work was done
for the evening, she would shut it away in a narrow case that held
her scissors, and needlecase, and bodkin; and this case was lined
with velvet that had faded to the colour of silver weed when the
wind reverses it.
“We should feel indebted to Mrs. Inchbald,” she was saying, “for
telling us so spirited a tale. I found my share of entertainment in
watching your faces the while. Bimbo, I take it, will do well in life
to set himself a fine example, for his sympathies are sufficiently
fluid to shape themselves according to their groove. Let him see that
they flow in a fine mould. While Mrs. Inchbald spoke of Ratface, his
chin receded, his eyes narrowed, and I momentarily expected his ears
to change their position on his head. Later, when she sketched for us
the brave Thurot, his very shoulders broadened, his eye lightened,
and his jaw set square. None of you, I noticed, found it in your
heart to compliment her on the picture of Miss Augusta Noble’s
cousin, the spoilt child.”
“I wish I’d asked her, though,” said Christopher, “what they did to
smugglers when they were caught.”
“I can tell you,” said Miss Ross. “They were forced for five years
into the service, as either soldiers or sailors; but as they nearly
always deserted, this was changed, and smugglers were sent to prison
instead. As for the smuggling vessels, when these were taken, they
were sawn through in three places.”
Bimbo groaned aloud.
“Nothing nice happens nowadays,” he said. “No smuggling, no
highwaymen, no pirates; _nothing_. People go about in top hats.”
“There are burglars still,” said Clare.
“I was much afraid of robbers when I was a child,” said Miss Ross.
“When the nurses withdrew, and I was left alone to go to sleep, I
became immediately so convinced of the presence of a robber close to
me, that I invented a way of softening his heart. I took to saying
my prayers aloud. ‘O bless my mother and father,’ I would say, ‘and
teach me to live dutifully towards them in word and deed; bless my
brothers and sisters, my playmates and friends;’ and then, slightly
raising my voice, I would say, ‘and O, bless the thief now in the
room.’ I used to think he could not possibly harm me if he heard
himself prayed for, and I did not stop here. I would explain to God
that I felt he only stole because he hadn’t thought much about it,
and that if God blessed him and made him happy, he would give it up.
And so my thoughts being distracted by inventing excuses for the
robber, my fear would gradually decline, and I would fall asleep.
[Illustration: _Raeburn_ MISS ROSS]
“But I have never found among grown people,” she continued, “a just
appreciation of this torture children may undergo in their fear of
being alone in the dark. It is better in your days, my dears, I have
noticed this. You may have night lights, and your doors are left
wide; but in my generation these qualms were all brushed aside.”
“Do go on telling us about when you were little,” said Clare.
“There’s hardly any story I like better than when grown-up people
will do that.”
“I was not an amusing child,” answered Miss Ross, “and nothing very
much happened to me. But I suppose children are the same in all ages,
as to what they like and what they think about, and in the manner to
them in which life appears. Have you ever looked back at the house
you live in from a distance, and caught yourself saying, ‘I must just
run back, and find the house without me.’ The instant recognition of
its being an impossibility is less real than the impulse itself.
“I used to think, too, if I only could see when my eyes were shut
everything would appear different. So I would lie pretending to be
asleep, and then suddenly jerk my eyes open, thinking I should catch
everything strangely changed. But there invariably was the cupboard
and the dressing-table, and all the familiar objects just as they had
been. I endowed them with a sense of mockery at my efforts, and of
being immeasurably subtler than I. So I would lie quite still, and
stealthily lift a lid. But no, they were always the same. This did
not convince me they did not move. On the contrary, I would say to
myself with a sense of vexed despair, ‘I shall never, never know what
things look like when I’m not seeing them.’”
Clare said, “Mummie believes, you know, that if you think about a
thing a great deal--something, I mean, that isn’t really alive, as we
are--that you endow it with a sort of image of life, and that strange
things can happen in this way. Gems that have been thought magical,
and idols that have been worshipped for centuries, have their being.
That is why she would never like to have a Buddha in her house; she
would think it would feel neglected. It would suffer and be cold, and
its suffering would stream from it, and affect others. Besides, the
wrongfulness it would be, to treat something that a great many people
think sacred, merely as an ornament, or a curiosity.”
“I had a brooch once,” said Miss Ross, “that had a life of its own.
It had many other things to do beside being my brooch, that was quite
certain. I first found out it was a person by its evidently hearing
what I said. It was a gold brooch, fashioned like an instep, or a
curved willow leaf, and the pin worked on a principle evolved ages
ago by some primitive race. ‘Never,’ said I one morning, in a moment
of impatience--‘never will I again use such a clumsy pin as this. It
tears lace, and once inserted in any material it is almost impossible
to dislodge.’ I was pricked to the bone.
“This brooch would go away for days to attend to its own business;
and when I’d given up looking for it, there I would find it on my
pincushion, looking me in the eye. Even my maid, a most unimaginative
woman, appeared to be conscious of its ways.
“‘I see your brooch has come back, Miss,’ she would say. Finally it
chose a worthier home.
“I was travelling with my parents in Italy, driving through Tuscany
in our private coach. We stayed for some weeks in Florence, and
during that time I used to attend Mass in one of the great churches
there. I became acquainted with the old priest who officiated.
One day as I was leaving the church, he said to me, ‘Signora, have
you seen the gift that has been made? The blue robe that has been
presented to the Madonna?’
“I re-entered the church with him, and he led me to the Lady Chapel,
and my eyes rested on the carved figure representing the Virgin Mary.
To celebrate the Easter festival, some one had presented new robes.
I looked from the kindly face of the old priest, filled as it was
with fond devotion, to the pensive face of the carved figure with the
outstretched hands.
“And there, where the folds of the blue mantle were gathered full
upon the breast, I saw my brooch.
“I stepped forward. ‘Ah, you notice that,’ said the Father. ‘Yes, for
three weeks now we await the owner to appear. We have had notices
written, and placards put about, but no one has claimed it. And so,
till the festival is over, I have placed it where you see it. It is a
gold brooch, therefore worthy to clasp the new robe.’
“I kept silence. I would not have cared to take it from where it now
was.
“I turned to go. A ray from one of the lighted candles glinted on the
surface of the gold. Clearly, thought I, a signal of recognition. I
knew its ways.
“I let the old priest move a few paces in front of me, and quickly
stepping back I touched it twice with my hand in token of farewell.
I was filled with fear lest the priest should turn and see me, for
however crazy one may be in these matters, one doesn’t like others to
think one so.”
“No,” said Clare. “I know that. If somebody comes in when I’ve been
talking to myself, or saying lines out loud when I’m alone, I always
quickly turn it into a cough of some description. It never sounds in
the least like one, though.”
“Have you always named things that belong to you?” asked Miss Ross.
“Nothing can really live to you unless it has got a name.”
“Yes,” said the children, “Mummie has names for things. She used to
think when she was little that her feet were boys, and that they were
called Owen and Barber. And she had an umbrella called Harvey, for
years.”
“It’s right to have fancies about things,” said Miss Ross. “I will
tell you one that I read once long ago.
“The writer said, ‘When I have risen to walk abroad in the fresh new
air of summer, in the hour of dawn when mankind is still at rest,
the face of Nature has taken to me a new aspect, the unity of all
things in creation appears revealed. It has seemed to me that I have
surprised a great secret.
“‘I have seen Nature at such times depicted in the vast form of some
great goddess, a woman of Titanic form. The races of mankind are her
children, and according to the features of the land they live in, so
are they placed upon her mother form. Those who live upon the plains
dwell on the great palms of her hands; those whose dwellings are
placed among the embosoming hills have her breast for their shelter.
The lakes are her eyes and the great forests her hair, the rivers are
her veins and the rain her tears, and she sighs in the sound of the
Sea.
“‘The rainbows are her thoughts, and the mists rising from the quiet
meadows are her meditations and her prayers. Her laughter is in the
sound of brooks, and she breathes in the warmth that exhales from the
earth, after it is dusk in Summer. The lightning is her anger, and in
the thunder she finds utterance, and the darkness of the night is her
great mantle over the land.’” Miss Ross ceased speaking, and there
was silence for a time. Then Christopher said:
“And what are the earthquakes?”
“Perhaps when she yawns,” said Bim. Children often save people
trouble by giving themselves a reply.
Miss Ross had a large white book on her lap, she was turning the
pages.
“I like this book of your Mother’s,” she said; “these phrases are
from the writings of an old herbalist, and he speaks of the lime-leaf
that ‘in Autumn becomes wan, and spotted as the doe.’
“‘The wyche-elme whose gold is let loose on the wind after night
frostes, and cold dawnes.
“‘The delicate jargonell that keeps the sweets of France in old,
warm, English gardens.’
“And further on he writes of ‘the sloe whose excellent purple blood
makes so fine a comfort.’
“He speaks of the ‘green smockt filberte,’ and finally talks in this
pleasant manner of the nature of mushrooms.
“‘Many do fear the goodly musherooms as poysonous damp weeds.
But this doth in no ways abate the exceeding excellence of God’s
Providence, that out of the grass and dew where nothing was, and
where only the little worm turned in his sporte, come, as at the
shaking of bells, these delicate meates.’
“The older you grow, children,” Miss Ross said, looking up from the
book, “the more pleasure you will find in comfortable words. In
well-adjusted phrase, and in lines that have beauty in their sound
as in their imagery. I have found nourishment for the soul in the
positive satisfaction to be derived from words.
‘With how slow steps, O Moon, thou climb’st the skies,
How silently, and with how wan a face,’
and--
‘A world of leafage, murmurous and a-twinkle
The green, delicious, plentitude of June.’
And these lines seem to me full of music.
‘O, Philomela fair, O, take some gladness,
That here is juster cause for plaintful sadness.
Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth.
Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth.”
“These are only a few of the many fragments I have in my memory.”
“But poetry is nearly always so sad,” said Bimbo. “I like things with
jokes in them.”
“I know you do,” said Miss Ross, and her face was lovely when she
smiled. “I know exactly what you feel like. When you get up in the
morning you feel the whole day is not long enough for all you mean
to do in it, the whole world is your playground. And when you glow
after the cold bath there is nothing you don’t feel ready for, from
wittling a stick, to building an empire. And you’re downstairs and
out early, and ‘away to the meadows, the meadows again,’ with your
rod and your line, and your bait at your belt, and your family see no
more of you till dinner-time.”
The children gave a deep breath, for this made them think of
water-meadows and minnow-fishing, marsh-marigolds in golden clumps,
and deep, clear runlets.
“This is the fun of being young,” said Miss Ross, “prize it.”
“And what is the fun of being old?” asked Bimbo.
“Many people have asked that before you, but all those who see the
right aspects of youth may be trusted, I think, to grow old properly.
Good taste is the highest degree of sensibility. And nowhere so
clearly as in growing old, is good taste more subtly evidenced.
“The great thing is to feel. Let every bit of you be alive, even
though you may suffer. The only sin is indifference.”
“Is it people’s fault when they are indifferent, or can’t they help
it?” asked Clare.
“Oh, there are folk who will close their eyes and sit in the very
market-place of the universe, with their fingers in their ears.”
“Then a bullock runs into them, I suppose,” said Bim; “and they pick
themselves up from the dust, saying, ‘What have I done to deserve
it?’”
“Yes,” added Clare, “or they will say, ‘See, we were promised music
to dance to, and where are the sweet strains?’”
All the older children would have shrunk from an allusion to the
great grief of which the beautiful face before them bore so deep an
impress, but one of the younger ones said:
“I’m so surprised that you, who are so sad to look at, should have
such nice laughing eyes all the same when you speak, and seem so
ready to be amused.”
Miss Ross did not answer immediately, her lips framed some words.
Only Clare who was nearest to her heard them, for she was speaking to
herself:
“And even yet I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in memory’s rapturous pain,
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?”
But aloud, she said to the little child who had spoken: “Sorrow
and gladness are close together, the more you have it in your
nature to suffer, the more thoroughly you can enjoy. And these two
things, suffering and gladness, mean a full comprehension of life.
The psalmist says, ‘_Grant me understanding, and I shall live_’ and
understanding means the spirit that makes us accept our joys, our
duties, and our sorrows; deliberately adjusting ourselves to them,
giving them their place.
“It is a good prayer, ‘Help me better to bear my sorrows, and to more
fully understand my joys.’ For only when we understand our joys do we
find contentment.”
“There’s a poem Mummie read to us once,” said Bimbo, “in which a man
tells how he had everything in life to make him happy. He had riches,
he had houses, he had talents, he had friends, and lots of fun of
every description, but he hadn’t contentment, and wanting that, he
wanted all. And so he set out to seek her, and he travelled far and
wide, till at last he went home, because he was tired. And there,
when he got home, he found her by his own doorstep, sitting spinning!”
“Yes,” said Miss Ross; “I like that story. We have got to find her.
And those who have grudges against Fate, and grievances, are the
people who expect her to find them.
“I assure you, my dear children, I’ve more sympathy with murderers
than with grumblers; they at least have some compelling motive, are
strongly exercised by hatred or revenge. (I rather like people who
can hate, very few people can do it.) But grumblers--I place them in
the same class as those who talk about being resigned. Let there be
fortitude; indeed if we are to face life at all, we must have it. But
resignation, I despise.”
Miss Ross rose from her chair, and a piece of paper fell on the
ground beside her. Clare picked it up to return it, but she had
already passed down the room. And as Clare’s glance fell on the paper
she saw that it was poetry written there.
“No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere.
I see Heaven’s glories shine,
And Faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men’s hearts, unutterably vain,
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main.
To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity.
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of immortality.
There is no room for Death,
No atom that his might could render void.
Thou, Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.”