I
A BOX OF TIN SOLDIERS
No philosophy is worth its salt unless it can make a boy forget that he
has the toothache; and the philosophy which I am about to introduce has
triumphantly survived that exacting ordeal. That Jack had the toothache
everybody knew. The expression of his anguish resounded dismally through
the neighbourhood; the evidence of it was visible in his swollen and
distorted countenance. Poor Jack! All the standard cures--old-fashioned
and new-fangled--had been tried in vain; all but one. It was that one
that at last relieved the pain, and it is of that one that I now write.
It happened that Jack was within a week of his birthday. His parents,
who are busy people, might easily have overlooked that interesting
circumstance had not Jack chanced to allude to it at every opportune and
inopportune moment during the previous month or so. Indeed, to guard
against accidents, Jack had enlivened the conversation at the
breakfast-table morning by morning with really ingenious conjectures as
to the presents by which his personal friends might conceivably
accompany their congratulations. His expressions of disappointment in
certain supposititious cases, and of unbounded delight in others, was
quite affecting.
Now Jack's father is afflicted by a wholesome dread of shopping. If a
purchase must needs be made, Jack's mother has to make it. But Jack's
mother labours under one severe disability. As Jack himself often tells
her--and certainly he ought to know--she doesn't understand boys. The
difficulty is therefore surmounted on this wise. Jack's mother visits
the emporium; carefully avoids all those goods and chattels of which she
has heard her son speak with such withering disdain; selects eight or
ten of the articles that he has chanced to mention in tones of
undisguised approval; orders these to be sent on approval at an hour at
which Jack will be sure to be at school; and leaves to her husband the
responsibility of making the final decision. Now this unwieldy parcel
was still lying under the bed in the spare room on that fateful morning
when Jack became smitten with toothache. Every other nostrum having
failed, the mind of Jack's mother strangely turned to the toys beneath
the bed. A woman's mind is an odd piece of mechanism, and works in
strange ways. No doctor under the sun would dream of prescribing a box
of tin soldiers as a remedy for toothache; yet the mind of Jack's mother
fastened upon that box of tin soldiers. It was just as cheap as some of
the other remedies to which they had so desperately resorted; and it
could not possibly be less efficacious. And there would still be plenty
of toys to choose from for the birthday present. Out came the box of
soldiers, and off went Jack in greatest glee. Half an hour later his
mother found him in the back garden. He had dug a trench two inches
deep, piling up the earth in protective heaps in front of it. All along
the trench stood the little tin soldiers heroically defying the armies
of the universe. And the toothache was ancient history!
Jack managed to get his little tin soldiers into a tiny two-inch trench;
but, as a matter of serious fact, those diminutive warriors have
occupied a really great place in the story of this little world. Bagehot
somewhere draws a pathetic picture of crowds of potential authors who,
having the time, the desire, and the ability to write, are yet unable
for the life of them to think of anything to write about. Let one of
these unfortunates bend his unconsecrated energies to the writing of a
book on the influence of toys in the making of men. Only the other day
an antiquarian, digging away in the neighbourhood of the Pyramids, came
upon an old toy-chest. Here were dolls, and soldiers, and wooden
animals, and, indeed, all the playthings that make up the stock-in-trade
of a modern nursery. It is pleasant to think of those small Egyptians
in the days of the Pharaohs amusing themselves with the selfsame toys
that beguiled our own childhood. It is pleasant to think of the place of
the toy-chest in the history of the world from that remote time down to
our own.
But I must not be deflected into a discussion of the whole tremendous
subject of toys. I must stick to these little tin soldiers. And these
small metallic warriors cut a really brave figure in our history. Some
of the happiest days in Robert Louis Stevenson's happy life were the
days that he spent as a boy in his grandfather's manse at Colinton.
'That was my golden age!' he used to say. He never forgot the rickety
old phaeton that drove into Edinburgh to fetch him; the lovely scenery
on either side of the winding country road; or the excited welcome that
always awaited him when he drove up to the manse door. But most vividly
of all he remembered the box of tin soldiers; the marshalling of huge
armies on the great mahogany table; the play of strategy; the furious
combat; and the final glorious victory. The old gentleman sat back in
his spacious arm-chair, cracking his nuts and sipping his wine, whilst
his imaginative little grandson in his velvet suit controlled the
movements of armies and the fates of empires. The love of those little
tin soldiers never forsook him. Later on, at Davos, an exile from home,
fighting bravely against that terrible malady that had marked him as its
prey, it was to the little tin soldiers that he turned for comfort. 'The
tin soldiers most took his fancy,' says Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, 'and the war
game was constantly improved and elaborated, until, from a few hours, a
war took weeks to play, and the critical operations in the attic
monopolized half our thoughts. On the floor a map was roughly drawn in
chalks of different colours, with mountains, rivers, towns, bridges, and
roads in two colours. The mimic battalions marched and countermarched,
changed by measured evolutions from column formation into line, with
cavalry screens in front and massed supports behind in the most approved
military fashion of to-day. It was war in miniature, even to the making
and destruction of bridges; the entrenching of camps; good and bad
weather, with corresponding influence on the roads; siege and horse
artillery, proportionately slow, as compared with the speed of unimpeded
foot, and proportionately expensive in the upkeep; and an exacting
commissariat added the last touch of verisimilitude.' Those little tin
soldiers marched up and down the whole of Robert Louis Stevenson's life.
They were with him in boyhood at Colinton; they were with him in
maturity at Davos; and they were in at the death. For, in the familiar
house at Vailima, the house on the top of the hill, the house from
which his gentle spirit passed away, there was one room dedicated to the
little tin soldiers. The great coloured map monopolized the floor, and
the tiny regiments marched or halted at their frail commander's will.
One could multiply examples almost endlessly. We need not have followed
Robert Louis Stevenson half-way round the world. We might have visited
Ireland and seen Mr. Parnell's box of toys. Everybody knows the story of
his victory over his sister. Fanny commanded one division of tin
soldiers on the nursery floor; Charles led the opposing force. Each
general was possessed of a popgun, and swept the serried lines of the
enemy with this terrible weapon. For several days the war continued
without apparent advantage being gained by either side. But one day
everything was changed. Strange as it may seem, Fanny's soldiers fell by
the score and by the hundred, while those commanded by her brother
refused to waver even when palpably hit. This went on until Fanny's army
was utterly annihilated. But Charles confessed, an hour later, that,
before opening fire that morning, he had taken the precaution to glue
the feet of his soldiers to the nursery floor! Did somebody discover in
those war games at Colinton, Davos, and Vailima a reflection, as in a
mirror, of the adventurous spirit of Robert Louis Stevenson? Or, even
more clearly, did somebody see, in that famous fight on the nursery
floor at Avondale, a forecast of the great Irish leader's passionate
fondness for outwitting his antagonists and overwhelming his bewildered
foe?
Then let us glance at one other picture, and we shall see what we shall
see! We are in Russia now. It is at the close of the seventeenth
century. Yonder is a boy of whom the world will one day talk till its
tongue is tired. They will call him Peter the Great. See, he gathers
together all the boys of the neighbourhood and plays with them.
Plays--but at what? 'He plays soldiers, of course,' says Waliszewski,
'and, naturally, he was in command. Behold him, then, at the head of a
regiment! Out of this childish play rose that mighty creation, the
Russian army. Yes,' our Russian author goes on to exclaim, 'yes, this
double point of departure--the pseudo-naval games on the lake of
Pereislavl, and the pseudo-military games on the Preobrajenskoie
drill-ground--led to the double goal--the Conquest of the Baltic and the
Battle of Poltava!' Yes, to these, and to how much else? When Jack cures
his toothache with a box of soldiers, who knows what world-shaking
evolutions are afoot?
And now the time has come to make a serious investigation. Why is
Jack--taking Jack now as the federal head and natural representative of
Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Stewart Parnell, Peter the Great, and
all the boys who ever were, are, or will be--why is Jack so inordinately
fond of a box of soldiers? By what magic have those tiny tin campaigners
the power to exorcise the agonies of toothache? Now look; the answer is
simple, and it is twofold. The small metallic warriors appeal to the
innate love of _Conquest_ and to the innate love of _Command_. And in
that innate love of Conquest is summed up all Jack's future relationship
to his foes. And in that innate love of Command is summed up all his
future relationship to his friends. For long, long ago, in the babyhood
of the world, God spoke to man for the first time. And in that very
first sentence, God said, 'Subdue the earth and have dominion!'
'Subdue!'--that is Conquest; 'have dominion!'--that is Command. And
since the first man heard those martial words, 'Subdue and have
dominion!' the passions of the conqueror and the commander have tingled
in the blood of the race. They have been awakened in Jack by the box of
soldiers. He feels that he is born to fight, born to struggle, born to
overcome, born to triumph, born to command. And that fighting instinct
will never really desert him. It will follow him, as it followed
Stevenson, from infancy to death. He may put it to evil uses. He may
fight the wrong people, or fight the wrong things. But that only shows
how vital a business is his training. A naval officer has to spend half
his time familiarizing himself with the appearance of all our British
battleships, in all lights and at all angles, so that he may never be
misled, amidst the confusion of battle, into opening fire upon his
comrades. As Jack looks up to us from his little two-inch trenches, his
innocent eyes seem to appeal eloquently for similar tuition.
'Teach me what those forces are that I have to _conquer_,' he seems to
say, 'then teach me what forces I have to _command_, and I will spend
all my days in the Holy War.'
And, depend upon it, if we can show Jack how to bend to his will all the
mysterious forces at his disposal, and to recognize at a glance all the
alien forces that are ranged against him, we shall see him one day among
the conquerors who, with songs of victory on their lips and with palms
in their hands, share the rapture of the world's last triumph.
II
LOVE, MUSIC, AND SALAD
It seems an odd mixture at first glance; but it isn't mine. Mr. Wilkie
Collins is responsible for the amazing hotch-potch. 'What do you say,'
he asks in _The Moonstone_, 'what do you say when our county member,
growing hot, at cheese and salad time, about the spread of democracy in
England, burst out as follows: "If we once lose our ancient safeguards,
Mr. Blake, I beg to ask you, what have we got left?" And what do you say
to Mr. Franklin answering, from the Italian point of view, "_We have got
three things left, sir--Love, Music, and Salad_"'? I confess that, when
first I came upon this curious conglomeration, I thought that Mr.
Franklin meant Love, Music, and Salad to stand for a mere
incomprehensible confusion, a meaningless jumble. I examined the
sentence a second time, however, and began to suspect that there was at
least some method in his madness. And now that I scrutinize it still
more closely, I feel ashamed of my first hasty judgement. I can see that
Love, Music, and Salad are the fundamental elements of the solar
system; and, as Mr. Franklin suggests, so long as they are left to us we
can afford to smile at any political convulsions that may chance to
overtake us.
Love, Music, and Salad are the three biggest things in life. Mr.
Franklin has not only outlined the situation with extraordinary
precision, but he has placed these three basic factors in their exact
scientific order. Love comes first. Indeed, we only come because Love
calls for us. We find it waiting with outstretched arms on arrival. It
smothers our babyhood with kisses, and hedges our infancy about with its
ceaseless ministry of doting affection. Love is the beginning of
everything; I need not labour that point. Where there is no love there
is neither music nor salad, nor anything else worth writing about.
Mr. Franklin was indisputably right in putting Love first, and
immediately adding Music. You cannot imagine Love without Music. I am
hoping that one of these days one of our philosophers will give us a
book on the language that does not need learning. There is room for a
really fine volume on that captivating theme. Henry Drummond has a most
fascinating and characteristic essay on _The Evolution of Language_; but
from my present standpoint it is sadly disappointing. From first to last
Drummond works on the assumption that human language is a thing of
imitation and acquisition. The foundation of it all, he tells us, is in
the forest. Man heard the howl of the dog, the neigh of the horse, the
bleat of the lamb, the stamp of the goat; and he deliberately copied
these sounds. He noticed, too, that each animal has sounds specially
adapted for particular occasions. One monkey, we are told, utters at
least six different sounds to express its feelings; and Darwin
discovered four or five modulations in the bark of the dog. 'There is
the bark of eagerness, as in the chase; that of anger, as well as
growling; the yelp or howl of despair, as when shut up; the baying at
night; the bark of joy, as when starting on a walk with his master; and
the very distinct one of demand or supplication, as when wishing for a
door or window to be opened.' Drummond appears to assume that primitive
man listened to these sounds and copied them, much as a child speaks of
the bow-wow, the moo-moo, the quack-quack, the tick-tick, and the
puff-puff. But in all this we leave out of our reckoning one vital
factor. The most expressive language that we ever speak is the language
that we never learned. As Darwin himself points out, there are certain
simple and vivid feelings which we express, and express with the utmost
clearness, but without any kind of reference to our higher intelligence.
'Our cries of pain, fear, surprise, anger, together with their
appropriate actions, and the murmur of a mother to her beloved child,
are more expressive than any words.'
Is not this a confession of the fact that the soul, in its greatest
moments, speaks a language, not of imitation or of acquisition, but one
that it brought with it, a language of its own? The language that we
learn varies according to nationality. The speech of a Chinaman is an
incomprehensible jargon to a Briton; the utterance of a Frenchman is a
mere riot of sound to a Hindu. The language that we learn is affected
even by dialects, so that a man in one English county finds it by no
means easy to interpret the speech of a visitor from another. It is even
affected by rank and position; the speech of the plough-boy is one
thing, the speech of the courtier is quite another. So confusing is the
language that we learn! But let a man speak in the language that needs
no learning; and all the world will understand him. The cry of a child
in pain is the same in Iceland as in India, in Hobart as in Timbuctoo!
The soft and wordless crooning of a mother as she lulls her babe to
rest; the scream of a man in mortal anguish; the sudden outburst of
uncontrollable laughter; the sigh of regret; the titter of amusement;
and the piteous cry of a broken heart,--these know neither nationality
nor rank nor station. They are the same in castle as in cottage; in
Tasmania as in Thibet; in the world's first morning as in the world's
last night. The most expressive language, the only language in which the
soul itself ever really speaks, is a language without alphabet or
grammar. It needs neither to be learned nor taught, for all men speak
it, and all men understand.
Was that, consciously or subconsciously, at the back of Mr. Franklin's
mind when he put Music next to Love? Certain it is that, in that
unwritten language which is greater than all speech, Music is the
natural expression of Love. Why is there music in the grove and the
forest? It is because love is there. The birds never sing so sweetly as
during the mating season. For awhile the male bird hovers about the
person of his desired bride, and pours out an incessant torrent of song
in the fond hope of one day winning her; and when his purpose is
achieved, he goes on singing for very joy that she is his. And
afterwards he 'gallantly perches near the little home, pouring forth his
joy and pride, sweetly singing to his mate as she sits within the nest,
patiently hatching her brood.' Both in men and women it is at the
approach of the love-making age that the voice suddenly develops, and it
is when the deepest chords in the soul are first struck that the richest
and fullest notes can be sung.
Music, then, is the natural concomitant of Love. That is why most of
our songs are love-songs. If a man is in love he can no more help
singing than a bird can help flying. You cannot love anything without
singing about it. Men love God; that is why we have hymn-books. Men love
women; that is why we have ballads. Men love their country; that is why
we have national anthems and patriotic airs.
But the stroke of genius in Mr. Franklin lay in the addition of the
Salad. If he had contented himself with Love and Music, he would have
uttered a truth, and a great truth; but it would have been a commonplace
truth. As it is, he lifts the whole thing into the realm of
brilliance--and reality. For, after all, of what earthly use are Love
and Music unless they lead to Salad? When to Love and Music Mr. Franklin
shrewdly added Salad, he put himself in line with the greatest
philosophers of all time. Bishop Butler told us years ago that if we
allow emotions which are designed to lead to action to become excited,
and no action follows, the very excitation of that emotion without its
appropriate response leaves the heart much harder than it was before.
And, more recently, our brilliant Harvard Professor, Dr. William James,
has warned us that it is a very damaging thing for the mind to receive
an _impression_ without giving that impression an adequate and
commensurate _expression_. If you go to a concert, he says, and hear a
lovely song that deeply moves you, you ought to pay some poor person's
tram fare on the way home. It is a natural as well as a psychological
law. The earth, for example, receives the impression represented by the
fall of autumn leaves, the descent of sap from the bough, and the
widespread decay of wintry desolation. But she hastens to give
expression to this impression by all the wealth and plenitude of her
glorious spring array.
The New Testament gives us a great story which exactly illustrates my
point. It is a very graceful and tender record, full of Love and Music,
but containing also something more than Love and Music. For when Dorcas
died all the widows stood weeping in the chamber of death, showing the
coats that Dorcas had made while she was yet with them. Dorcas was a
Jewess. At one time she had been taught to regard the name of Jesus as a
thing to be abhorred and accursed. But later on a wonderful experience
befell her. Could she ever forget the day on which, amidst a whirl of
spiritual bewilderment and a tempest of spiritual emotion, she had
discovered, in the very Messiah whom once she had despised, her Saviour
and her Lord? It was a day never to be forgotten, a day full of Love and
Music. How could she produce an expression adequate to that wonderful
impression? Not in words; for she was not gifted with speech. Yet an
expression must be found. It would have been a fatal thing for the
delicate soul of Dorcas if so turgid a flood of feeling had found no apt
and natural outlet. And in that crisis she thought of her needle. She
expressed her love for the Lord in the occupation most familiar to her.
It was a kind of storage of energy. Dorcas wove her love for her Lord
into every stitch, and a tender thought into every stitch, and a fervent
prayer into every stitch. And that spiritual storage escaped through
warm coats and neat garments into the hearts and homes of these widows
and poor folk along the coast, and they learned the depth and tenderness
of the divine love from the deft finger-tips of Dorcas.
Salad is the natural and fitting outcome of Love and Music. I have
already confessed that when first I came upon the triune conjunction I
thought it rather an incongruous medley, a strange hotch-potch, an
ill-assorted company. That is the worst of judging things in a hurry.
The eye does the work of the brain, and does it badly. It is a common
failing of ours. Look at the torrent of toothless jokes that have been
directed at the contrast between the romance of courtship and the
domestic realities that follow. The former, according to the traditional
estimate, consists of billing and cooing, of fervent protestations and
radiant dreams, of romantic loveliness and honeyed phrases. The latter,
according to the same traditional view, consists of struggle and
anxiety, of drudgery and menial toil, of broken nights with tiresome
children, of nerve-racking anxiety and an endless sequence of troubles.
He who looks at life in this way makes precisely the same mistake that I
myself made when I first saw Mr. Franklin's Love, Music, and Salad, and
thought it a higgledy-piggledy hotch-potch. It is nothing of the kind.
Love naturally leads to Music; and Love and Music naturally lead to
Salad. Courtship leads to the cradle and the kitchen, it is true; but
both cradle and kitchen are glorified and consecrated by the courtship
that has gone before. Our English homes, take them for all in all, are
the loveliest things in the world.
The merry homes of England!
Around their hearths by night,
What gladsome looks of household love
Meet in the ruddy light!
There woman's voice flows forth in song,
Or childhood's tale is told;
Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.
Here is a picture of Love, Music, and Salad in perfect combination. And
what a secret lies behind it! The fact is that the heathen world has
nothing at all corresponding to our English sweethearting. Men and
women are thrown into each other's arms by barter, by compact, by
conquest, and in a thousand ways. In one land a man buys his bride; in
another he fights as the brutes do for the mate of his fancy; in yet
another he takes her without seeing her, it was so ordained. Only in a
land that has felt the spell of the influence of Jesus would
sweethearting, as we know it, be possible. The pure and charming freedom
of social intercourse; the liberty to yield to the mystic magnetism that
draws the one to the other, and the other to the one; the coy approach;
the shy exchanges; the arm-in-arm walks, and the heart-to-heart talks;
the growing admiration; the deepening passion; culminating at last in
the fond formality of the engagement and the rapture of ultimate union;
in what land, unsweetened by the power of the gospel, would such a
procedure be possible? And the consequence is that our homes stand in
such striking contrast to the homes of heathen peoples. 'There are no
homes in Asia!' Mr. W. H. Seward, the American statesman, exclaimed
sadly, fifty years ago. It is scarcely true now, for Christ is gaining
on Asia every day; and the missionaries confess that the greatest
propagating power that the gospel possesses is the gracious though
silent witness of the Christian homes. Human life is robbed of all
animalism and baseness when true love enters. And there is no true love
apart from the highest love of all.
Salad may seem a prosaic thing to follow on the heels of Love and Music;
but the salad that has been prepared by fingers that one thinks it
heaven to kiss is tinged and tinctured with the flavour of romance. All
through life, Love makes life's Music. All through life, Love and Music
lead to Salad. And, all through life, Love and Music glorify the Salad
to which they lead. They transmute it by this magic into such a dish as
many a king has sighed for all his days, but sighed in vain.
III
THE FELLING OF THE TREE
I was strolling with some friends up a lovely avenue in the bush this
afternoon, when a quite unexpected experience befell us. On either side
of the narrow track the tall trees jostled each other at such close
quarters that, when we looked up, only a ribbon of sky could be seen
above our heads. The tree-tops almost arched over us. Straight before us
was a hill surmounted by a number of gigantic blue-gums, only one or two
of which were visible in the limited section of the landscape which the
foliage about us permitted us to survey. As we sauntered leisurely along
the leafy path, thinking of anything but the objects immediately
surrounding us, we were suddenly startled by a loud and ominous creaking
and straining. Looking hastily up, we saw one of the giant trees
falling, and describing in its fall an enormous arc against the clear
sky ahead of us. What a crash as the toppling monster strikes the
tree-tops among which it falls! What a thud as the huge thing hits the
ground! What a roar as it rolls over the hill, bearing down all lesser
growths before it! Our first impression was that the tree had been
reduced by natural forces; but we soon discovered that it had been
deliberately destroyed! The men were already at work upon a second
magnificent fellow; and we waited until he too was prostrate.
Nothing in the solar system suggests such a mixture of emotion as the
felling of a great tree. In a way, it is pleasant and exhilarating, or
why was Mr. Gladstone so fond of the exercise? And why were we so eager
to stay until the second tree was down? Richard Jefferies, who hated to
destroy things, and often could not bring himself to pull the trigger of
his gun, nevertheless felt the fascination of the axe. 'Much as I
admired the timber about the Chace,' he says, 'I could not help
sometimes wishing to have a chop at it. The pleasure of felling trees is
never lost. In youth, in manhood, so long as the arm can wield the axe,
the enjoyment is equally keen. As the heavy tool passes over the
shoulder, the impetus of the swinging motion lightens the weight, and
something like a thrill passes through the sinews. Why is it so pleasant
to strike? What secret instinct is it that makes the delivery of a blow
with axe or hammer so exhilarating?' What indeed! For certainly a wild
delight makes the heart beat faster, and sends the blood bounding
through the veins, as one sees the axes flash, the chips fly, the gash
grow deeper, and notices at last the first slow movement of the
glorious tree.
And yet I confess that, mixed with this pungent sense of pleasure, there
was a still deeper emotion. The thing seems so irreparable. It is easy
enough to destroy these monarchs of the bush, but who can restore them
to their former grandeur? It must have been this sense of sadness that
led Beaconsfield--Gladstone's famous protagonist--to ordain in his will
that none of his beloved trees at Hughenden should ever be cut down. How
long had these trees stood here, these two giants that had been in a few
moments reduced to humiliating horizontality? I cannot tell. They must
have been here when all these hills and valleys were peopled only by the
aboriginals. They saw the black man prowl about the bush. From the hill
here, overlooking the bay, they must have seen Captain Cook's ships cast
anchor down the stream. They watched the coming of the white men; they
saw the convict ships arrive with their dismal freight of human
wretchedness; they witnessed the swift and tragic extermination of the
native race; they beheld a nation spring into being at their feet! Did
the great trees know that, as the white men exterminated the black men,
so the white men would exterminate _them_? Did they feel that the coming
of those strange vessels up the bay sealed their own doom? Before the
new-comers could build their homes, or lay out their farms, or plant
their orchards, they must make war on the trees with fire and axe. Homes
and nations can only be built by sacrifice, and the trees are the
innocent victims.
I suppose that the sadness arises partly from the fact that the forest
is Man's oldest and most faithful friend, and one towards whom he is
inclined to turn with ever-increasing reverence and affection as the
years go by. With the advance of the years we all turn wistfully back to
the things that charmed our infancy, and the race obeys that selfsame
primal law. Almost every nation on the face of the earth traces its
history back to the forest primaeval. From the forest we sprang; and by
the forest we were originally sustained. And even when at length the
primitive race issued from those leafy recesses and devoted itself to
agriculture and to commerce, men still regarded their ancient fastnesses
as the storehouse from which they drew everything that was essential to
their progress and development. Man found the forest his warehouse, his
factory, his armoury, his all. With logs that he felled in the bush he
built his first primitive home; out of branches that he tore from the
trees he fashioned his first implements and tools; and when the
tranquillity that brooded over his pastoral simplicity was broken by
the shout of discord and the noise of tumult, it was to those selfsame
woods that he rushed for his first crude weapons of defence.
Architecture, agriculture, invention, and military ingenuity have each
of them made enormous strides since then; but it was in the bush that
each of these potent makers of our destiny was born. And did not John
Smeaton confess that he borrowed from the graceful curve of the oak as
it rises from the ground the main idea that characterized the
construction of the Eddystone lighthouse? Whenever the architect, the
farmer, the inventor, or the soldier desires to visit the scenes amidst
which his craft spent its earliest infancy, it will be to the forest
primaeval that he will turn his steps. Of medicine, too, the same may be
said; for, in those long and leisured days of sylvan quiet, men learned
the secrets of the bark and discovered the healing virtues that slept in
the swaying leaves; and straightway the forest became a pharmacy. When,
exhausted by his labour, or enervated by unaccustomed conditions, his
health failed him, Man resorted for his first drugs and tonics to his
ancient home among the trees. Indeed, he still returns to the forest to
be nursed and tended in his hour of sickness.
Those who have read Gene Stratton Porter's _Harvester_ know what wonders
lurk in the woods. The Harvester lived away in the forest, and from
bark and gum and sap and leaf he collected the tonics and anodynes and
stimulants that he sold to the chemists in the great cities. And after
awhile every tree that he felled seemed to him such a wealthy store of
healing virtue that, when he began to think of his dream-girl and his
future home, he could scarcely bring himself to build his cabin out of
logs that were so overflowing with medicinal properties. He was in love,
and all the tumultuous emotions awakened by that great experience were
surging through his veins; and yet it seemed to him an act of sacrilege
to cut chairs and tables out of such sacred things as trees! He
apologetically explained the delicacy of the situation to each oak and
ash before lifting his axe against it.
'You know how I hate to kill you!' he said to the first one he felled.
'But it must be legitimate, you know, for a man to take enough trees to
build a home. And no other house is possible for a creature of the woods
but a cabin, is it? The birds use the material they find here; and
surely I have a right to do the same. Nothing else would serve, at least
for me. I was born and reared here, and I've always loved you!'
But for all that, he felt, as the fragrant chips flew in all directions,
just as a man might feel who killed a pet lamb for the table; and the
Harvester could scarcely reconcile himself to his iconoclastic work. In
Medicine Woods he had learned the awful sanctity of the forest, the
forest that was the home and nurse and mother of us all, and it seemed
to him a dreadful thing to slay a tree. Frazer tells us in his _Golden
Bough_ that the Ojibwa Indians very rarely cut down green or living
trees; they fancy that it puts the poor things to such pain. And some of
their medicine men aver that, with their mysterious powers of hearing,
they have heard the wailing and the screaming of the trees beneath the
axe. Mr. Adams, too, in his _Israel's Ideal_, has reminded us that, in
Eastern Africa, the destruction of the cocoanut-tree is regarded as a
form of matricide, since that tree gives men life and nourishment as a
mother does her child. The early Greek philosophers, Aristotle and
Plutarch, watching the rustling of the leaves and the swaying of the
graceful branches, came to the conclusion that trees are sentient things
possessed of living souls. And, in his _Tales for Children_, Tolstoy
makes as pathetic a scene out of the death of a great tree as many a
novelist makes out of the death of a gallant hero.
Now it must have been out of this strange feeling--this dim
consciousness of a sacredness that haunted the leafy solitudes--that Man
came to regard the forest with superstitious gratitude and veneration.
The bush represented to him the source of all his supplies, the
reservoir that met all his demands, the means of all healing, and the
very fountain of life. And so he plunged into the depths of the forest
and erected his temples there; in its shady groves he reared his solemn
altars; in its leafy glades he built his shrines; and the imagery of the
forest wove itself into the vocabulary of his devotion. The
representation of a sacred tree occurs repeatedly, carved upon the stony
ruins of Egyptian, Assyrian, and Phoenician temples, and Herodotus more
than once remarks upon the frequency of tree-worship among the ancient
peoples. Pliny, too, marvelled at the reverence which the Druids felt
for the oak, and, in a scarcely less degree, for the holly, the ash, and
the birch. And what stirring passages those are in which George Borrow
describes the weird rites and dark symbolism of the gipsies as they
worshipped at dead of night in the fearsome recesses of the pine forests
of Spain!
It is really not surprising that this haunting sense of sanctity in the
woods should lead Man to worship there. Even Emerson felt that--
The Gods talk in the breath of the woods,
They talk in the shaken pine.
And the Harvester himself found the forest to be instinct with moral and
spiritual potencies. 'You not only discover miracles and marvels in the
woods,' he said, 'but you get the greatest lessons taught in all the
world ground into you early and alone--courage, caution, and patience.'
Here, then, we have the trees as teachers and preachers, and many a man
has learned the deepest lessons of his life at the feet of these shrewd
and silent philosophers. What about Brother Lawrence, whose _Practice of
the Presence of God_ has become one of the Church's classics? 'The first
time I saw Brother Lawrence,' writes his friend, 'was upon August 3,
1666. He told me that God had done him a singular favour in his
conversion at the age of eighteen. It happened in this way. One winter
morning, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that
within a little time the leaves would be renewed, and that after that
the flowers and fruit would appear, he received a high view of the
providence and power of God, which has never since been effaced from his
soul.' What God could do for the leafless tree, he thought, He could
also do for him.
Milton tells us that the forest, which has played so large a part in the
development of this world, will flourish also in the next.
In heaven the trees
Of life ambrosial fruitage bear, and vines
Yield nectar.
And, having all this in mind, is it not pleasant to notice that the very
last chapter of the Bible tells of the tree that waves by the side of
the river of life? There is something sacramental about trees. George
Gissing says that Odysseus cutting down the olive in order to build for
himself a home is a picture of man performing a supreme act of piety.
'Through all the ages,' he says, 'that picture must retain its profound
significance.' The trees of Medicine Woods yielded up their life to the
Harvester's axe, that he and his dream-girl might dwell in security and
bliss. And, on a green hill far away without a city wall, another tree
was cut down years ago, that it might represent to all men everywhere
the means of grace and the hope of glory. And even more than all the
other trees, the leaves of _that_ tree are for the healing of the
nations.
IV
SPOIL!
We were sitting round the fire last night when a boy came rushing up the
street shouting, 'The latest war news.' I went to the door, bought a
paper, and settled down again to read it. All at once the word 'siege'
caught my eye, and, after glancing over the cablegram to which it
referred, I lay back in the chair and allowed my mind to roam among the
romantic recollections that the great word had suggested. I thought of
the Siege of Lucknow in the East, of the Siege of Mexico in the West,
and of the Siege of Londonderry midway between. Who that has once read
the thrilling narratives of these famous exploits can resist the
temptation occasionally to set his fancy free to revisit the scenes of
those tremendous struggles? My reverie was rudely interrupted.
'Run along, Wroxie, dear, it's past bedtime!' a maternal voice from the
opposite chair suddenly expostulated.
'But, mother, I _must_ do my Scripture-lesson, and I've _nearly_
finished!'
'What have you to do, Wroxie?' I inquired, appointing myself arbitrator
on the instant.
'I have to learn these eight verses of the hundred and nineteenth
Psalm!'
'Well, read them aloud to us, and then run off to bed!' I commanded.
She read. I am afraid I had no ears for any of the later verses. For
among the very first words that she read were these: '_I rejoice at Thy
Word as one that findeth great spoil_.' I had read those familiar words
hundreds of times, but it was like passing a closed door. But to-night
my memories of the great historic sieges supplied me with the key. 'As
one that findeth great _spoil_' ... 'findeth great _spoil_' ... 'great
_spoil_.' That one word '_spoil_' supplied me with the magic key. I
applied it; the door flew open; and I saw _that_ in the text which I had
never seen before. The lesson came to an end; the girlish tones
subsided; the reader kissed me good-night, and scampered off to bed, her
mother leaving the room in her company; and I was left once more to my
own imaginings.
But my fancy flew in quite a fresh direction. The text had done for my
imprisoned mind what Noah did for the imprisoned dove. It had opened a
window of escape, and I was at liberty to go where I had never been
before. '_Spoil_!'--at the sound of that magic word the doors of truth
swung open as the great door of the robbers' dungeon in _The Forty
Thieves_ yielded to the sound of 'Open, Sesame!' A landscape may be
mirrored in a dewdrop; and here, in this arresting phrase, I suddenly
discovered all the picturesque colour and stirring movement of a great
siege. I saw the bastions and the drawbridges; the fortified walls and
the frowning ramparts; the lofty parapets and the stately towers. I
watched the fierce assault of the besiegers and the tumultuous sally of
the garrison. I heard the clash and din of strife. I marked the long,
grim struggle against impending starvation. And then, at last, I saw the
white flag flown. The proud city has fallen; the garrison has
surrendered; the gates are thrown open to the investing forces; and the
conqueror rides triumphantly in to seize his splendid prize! His
followers fall eagerly upon their booty, and grasp with greedy hands at
every glint of treasure that presents itself to their rapacious eyes.
Spoil; _spoil_; SPOIL! 'I rejoice at Thy Word as _one that findeth great
spoil_!'
I
Now the most notable point about this metaphor is that the city only
yields up its treasure after long resistance. The besieger does not find
the city waiting with open gates to welcome him. It slams those gates
in his face; bars, bolts, and barricades them; and settles down to keep
him at bay as long as possible. The stubbornness of its brave resistance
lends an added sweetness to the final triumph of its conqueror; but,
whilst it lasts, that resistance is very baffling and vexatious. All the
best things in life follow the same strange law. See how the soil
resists the farmer! It stiffens itself against his approach, so that
only in the sweat of his brow can he plough and harrow it. It garrisons
itself with swarms of insect pests, so that his attempts to subjugate it
shall be rendered as ineffective and unfruitful as possible. It extends
eager hospitality to every noxious seed that falls upon its surface. It
encourages all the farmer's enemies, and fights against all his allies.
Labour makes the harvest sweeter, it is true; but whilst it is in
progress it is none the less exhausting. It is only by breaking down the
obstinate resistance of the unwilling soil that the farmer achieves the
golden triumph of harvest-time. The miner passes through the same trying
experience. The earth has nothing to gain by holding her gold and her
diamonds, her copper and her coal, in such a tight clutch. Yet she makes
the work of the miner a desperate and dangerous business. He takes his
life in his hand as he descends the shaft. The peril and the toil add a
greater value to the booty, I confess; but the work of the dark mine is
none the less trying on that account. He who would grasp the treasures
that lie buried in the bowels of the earth must first break down the
most determined and dogged resistance. And the treasures of the mind
also follow this curious law. There is no royal road to learning.
Knowledge resists the intruder. It presents an exterior that is
altogether revolting, and only the brave persist in the attack. The
text-books of the schools are rarely set to music; they do not tingle
with romance. They look as dry as dust, and they are often even more
arid than they look. I remember that, in my college days, the student
who sat next to me on the old familiar benches suddenly died. He was
brilliant; I was not. And when I heard that he had gone, the first
thought that occurred to me was a peculiar one. Had all his knowledge
perished with him? I asked myself. I thought of the problems that he had
mastered, but with which I was still grappling. Could he not have
bequeathed to me the fruits of his patient and hard-won victories? No;
it could not be. The city must be patiently besieged and gallantly
stormed before it will surrender. The coveted diploma may be all the
sweeter afterwards as a result of so long and persistent a struggle; but
that fact does not at the time relieve the tedium or lessen the
intolerable drudgery. Knowledge seems so good and so desirable a thing;
yet it resists the aspiring student with such pitiless and
unsympathetic pertinacity.
Even love behaves in the same way. The lady keeps her lover at arm's
length. She would rather die than not be his, but she must guard her
modesty at all hazards. She must not make herself too cheap. She assumes
a frigidity that is in hopeless conflict with the warmth of her real
sentiments. Her apparent indifference and repeated rebuffs nearly drive
her poor wooer to distraction. Her kisses are all the sweeter later on
when she is delightfully and avowedly his own; but whilst the siege of
her affections lasts the torment almost wrecks his reason. It is really
no hypocrisy on her part. It is the recognition of a true instinct. All
the best things resist us, and their resistance has to be overcome. And
the psalmist declares that even the divine Word treated him in the
selfsame way. It did not entice, allure, fascinate; that is usually the
policy of evil things. No; it repelled, resisted, dared him! And it was
not until he had conquered that hostility that he entered into his
triumph. It was in the carcase of the fierce lion he had previously
destroyed that Samson found the honey that was so sweet to his taste. We
generally find our spoil in the cities that slammed their great gates in
our faces.
II
But the city capitulates for all that. It may hold out stubbornly, and
for long, but it always yields at the last. It was so ordained. The soil
was meant to resist the farmer; but it was also meant to yield to the
farmer at length, and to furnish him with his proud and delightful
prize. The minerals are hidden so cleverly, and buried so deeply, not
that they may successfully elude the vigilance and skill of the heroic
miner, but in order that he may justly prize the precious metals when
they fall at last into his hands. The student's tedious struggle after
knowledge is made so painful a process, not to deter or defeat him, but
so that, side by side with the acquisition of learning, he may develop
those faculties of brain and intellect which can alone qualify him to
wield with wisdom the erudition that he is now so laboriously amassing.
The lady treats her poor lover with such seeming disdain, not by any
means to dishearten him, but that she may make quite sure that his
ardour is no mere passing whim, but a deep and enduring attachment. In
each case capitulation is agreed upon if only the besieger is
sufficiently gallant and persistent. The best things, and even the
holiest things, 'hold us off that they may draw us on'--to use
Tennyson's expressive phrase.
To cite a single example, what a wonder-story is that of the
Syro-Phoenician woman! The Master conceals Himself from her; treats her
anguish with apparent indifference; preserves a frigid silence in face
of her passionate entreaty; and offers exasperating rebuffs in reply to
her desperate arguments! But did He design to destroy her faith? Let us
see! Like a gallant besieger, she sat down before the city with
indomitable courage and patience. Beaten back at one gate, she instantly
stormed another. Resisted at one redoubt, she mustered all her forces in
the effort to reduce a second. And at last 'Jesus answered and said unto
her, O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt!'
The capitulation was a predetermined policy; but the courage and
pertinacity of the besieger must be tested to the utmost before the
gates can be finally thrown open.
III
And then the victors fly upon the spoil! The repelling Word yields, and
is found to contain wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. 'I rejoice at
Thy Word as one that findeth great spoil.' _Spoil_! We have all felt the
thrill of those tremendous pages in which Gibbon describes the sack of
Rome by the all-victorious Goths. We seem to have witnessed with our
own eyes the glittering wealth of the queenly city poured at the feet of
the rapacious conqueror. Or, in Prescott's stately stories, we have
watched the fabulous hoards of Montezuma, and the heaped-up gold of
Atahuallpa, piled at the feet of Cortes and Pizarro. Or if, forsaking
the shining spoils of the Goths in Europe and the gleaming argosies
which the Spaniards brought from the West, we turn to a later date and
an Eastern clime, we instinctively recall the glowing periods of
Macaulay in his story of the conquests of Clive. After his amazing
victory at Plassey, 'the treasury of Bengal was thrown open to him.
There were piled up, after the usage of Indian princes, immense masses
of coin. Clive walked between heaps of gold and silver, crowned with
rubies and diamonds, and was at liberty to help himself. He accepted
between two and three hundred thousand pounds.' He was afterwards
accused of greed. He replied by describing the countless wealth by which
he was that day surrounded. Vaults piled with gold and with jewels were
at his mercy. 'To this day,' he exclaimed, 'I stand astonished at my own
moderation!'
Here, then, is the magic key that opens to us the secret in the
psalmist's mind. 'I rejoice at Thy Word as one that findeth great
spoil.' The besiegers pour into the city. Every house is ransacked. In
the most unlikely places the citizens have concealed their treasures,
and in the most unlikely places, therefore, the invaders come upon their
spoils. Out from queer old drawers and cupboards, out of strange old
cracks and crannies, the precious hoard is torn. As the besiegers rush
from house to house you hear the shout and the laughter with which
another and yet another find is greeted. So was it with his conquest of
the Word, the psalmist tells us. At first it resisted and repelled him.
But afterwards its gates were opened to his challenge. He entered the
city and began his search for spoil. And, lo, from out of every promise
and precept, out of every innocent-looking clause or insignificant
phrase, the treasures of truth came pouring, until he found himself
possessed at length of a wealth compared with which the pomp of princes
is the badge of beggary.
V
A PHILOSOPHY OF FANCY-WORK
'"What course of lectures are you attending now, ma'am?" said Martin
Chuzzlewit's friend, turning again to Mrs. Jefferson Brick.
'"The Philosophy of the _Soul_, on Wednesdays," replied Mrs. Brick.
'"And on Mondays?"
'"The Philosophy of _Crime_."
'"On Fridays?"
'"The Philosophy of _Vegetables_."
'"You have forgotten Thursdays; the Philosophy of _Government_, my
dear," observed a third lady.
'"No," said Mrs. Brick, "that's Tuesdays."
'"So it is!" cried the lady. "The Philosophy of _Matter_ on Thursdays,
of course."
'"You see, Mr. Chuzzlewit, our ladies are fully employed," observed his
friend.'
They were indeed; but for the life of me I cannot understand why, amidst
so many philosophies, the Philosophy of _Fancy-work_ was so cruelly
ignored. I should have thought it quite as suitable and profitable a
study for Mrs. Jefferson Brick and her lady friends as some of the
subjects to which they paid their attention.
'Whatever are you making now, dear?' asked a devoted husband of his
spouse the other evening.
'Why, an antimacassar, George, to be sure; can't you see?'
'And what on earth is the good of an antimacassar, I should like to
know?'
'Stupid man!'
Stupid man, indeed! But there it is! And for the crass stupidity of
their husbands, Mrs. Jefferson Brick and her philosophical friends have
only themselves to blame. If they had included the Philosophy of
Fancy-work in their syllabus of lectures, they might have acquired such
a grasp of a great and vital subject that they would have been able to
convince their husbands that there is nothing in the house quite so
useful as an antimacassar. The pots and the pans, the chairs and the
tables, are nowhere in comparison. The antimacassar is the one
indispensable article in the establishment. Let no man attempt to deride
or belittle it.
As it is, however, Mrs. Jefferson Brick and her friends have never
really studied the Philosophy of Fancy-work, and have never therefore
been in a position to enlighten the darkened minds of their benighted
husbands. As an inevitable consequence, those husbands continue to
regard the busy needles as an amiable frailty pertaining to the sex of
their better halves. In writing thus, I am thinking of the
better-tempered husbands. Husbands of the other variety regard
fancy-work as an unmitigated nuisance. Mark Rutherford has familiarized
us with a husband who so regarded his wife's delicate traceries and
ornamentations. I refer, of course, to _Catherine Furze_. We all
remember Mrs. Furze's parlour at Eastthorpe. 'There was a sofa in the
room, but it was horse-hair with high ends both alike, not comfortable,
which were covered with curious complications called antimacassars, that
slipped off directly they were touched, so that anybody who leaned upon
them was engaged continually in warfare with them, picking them up from
the floor or spreading them out again. There was also an easy chair, but
it was not easy, for it matched the sofa in horse-hair, and was so
ingeniously contrived that, directly a person placed himself in it, it
gently shot him forwards. Furthermore, it had special antimacassars,
which were a work of art, and Mrs. Furze had warned Mr. Furze off them.
"He would ruin them," she said, "if he put his head upon them." So a
Windsor chair with a high back was always carried by Mr. Furze into the
parlour after dinner, together with a common kitchen chair, and on these
he took his Sunday nap.' The reader is made to feel that, on these
interesting occasions, Mr. Furze wished his wife and her antimacassars
at the bottom of the deep blue sea; and one rather admires his
self-restraint in not explicitly saying so. Mr. Furze is the natural
representative of all those husbands who see no rhyme or reason in
fancy-work. If only Mrs. Jefferson Brick had included that phase of
philosophy on her programme, and had passed on the illumination to some
member of the sterner sex! But let us indulge in no futile regrets.
That there is a Philosophy of Fancy-work goes without saying. To begin
with, think of the relief to the overstrung nerves and the over-wrought
emotions, at the close of a trying day, in being able to sit down in a
cosy chair, and, when the eyes are too tired for reading, to finger away
at the needles, and get on with the antimacassar. Our grandmothers went
in for antimacassars instead of neurasthenia. 'It is astonishing,'
exclaimed the 'Lady of the Decoration,' 'how much bad temper one can
knit into a garment!' An earlier generation of wonderfully wise women
made that discovery, and worked all their discontents, and all their
evil tempers, and all their quivering nervousness into antimacassars. On
the whole it is cheaper than working them into drugs and doctors' bills,
and drugs and doctors' bills are certainly no more ornamental.
In his essay on _Tedium_, Claudius Clear deals with that particular form
of tedium that arises from leaden hours. And he thinks that in this
respect women have an immense advantage over men. Men have to wait for
things, and they find the experience intolerable. But a woman turns to
her fancy-work, and is amused at her husband's uncontrollable
impatience. The antimacassar, he believes, gives just enough occupation
to the fingers to make absolute tedium impossible. The war has led to a
remarkable revival of knitting and of fancy-work. My present theme was
suggested to me on Saturday. I took my wife for a little excursion; she
took her knitting, and we saw ladies working everywhere. Two were busy
in the tram; we came upon one sitting in a secluded spot in the bush,
her deft needles chasing each other merrily. And on the river steamer
eleven ladies out of fifteen had their fancy-work with them. I could not
help thinking that, in not a few of these cases, the workers must derive
as much comfort from the occupation as the wearers will eventually
derive from the garments. Many a woman has woven all her worries into
her fancy-work, and has felt the greatest relief in consequence. One
such worker has borne witness to the consolation afforded her by her
needles.
Silent is the house. I sit
In the firelight and knit.
At my ball of soft grey wool
Two grey kittens gently pull--
Pulling back my thoughts as well,
From that distant, red-rimmed hell,
And hot tears the stitches blur
As I knit a comforter.
'Comforter' they call it--yes,
Such it is for my distress,
For it gives my restless hands
Blessed work. God understands
How we women yearn to be
Doing something ceaselessly.
Anything but just to wait
Idly for a clicking gate!
We must, however, be perfectly honest; and to deal honestly with our
subject we must not ignore the classical example, even though that
example may not prove particularly attractive. The classical example is,
of course, Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge was the wife of Jacques
Defarge, who kept the famous wine-shop in _A Tale of Two Cities_. When
first we are introduced to the wine-shopkeeper and his wife, three
customers are entering the shop. They pull off their hats to Madame
Defarge. 'She acknowledged their homage by bending her head, and giving
them a quick look. Then she glanced in a casual manner round the
wine-shop, took up her knitting with great apparent calmness and repose
of spirit, and became absorbed in it.' Everybody who is familiar with
the story knows that here we have the stroke of the artist. Madame
Defarge, be it noted, took up her knitting with apparent calmness and
repose of spirit, and became absorbed in it. As a matter of fact, Madame
Defarge was absorbed, not in the knitting, but in the conversation; and
all that she heard with her ears was knitted into the garment in her
hands. The knitting was a tell-tale register.
'"Are you sure," asked one of the wine-shopkeeper's accomplices one day,
"are you sure that no embarrassment can arise from our manner of keeping
the register? Without doubt it is safe, for no one beyond ourselves can
decipher it; but shall _we_ always be able to decipher it--or, I ought
to say, _will she_?"
'"Man," returned Defarge, drawing himself up, "if Madame, my wife,
undertook to keep the register in her memory alone, she would not lose a
word of it--not a syllable of it. Knitted, in her own stitches, and her
own symbols, it will always be as plain to her as the sun. Confide in
Madame Defarge. It would be easier for the weakest poltroon that lives
to erase himself from existence than to erase one letter of his name or
crimes from the knitted register of Madame Defarge."'
Oh those tell-tale needles! Up and down, to and fro, in and out they
flashed and darted, Madame seeming all the time so preoccupied and
inattentive! Yet into those innocent stitches there went the guilty
secrets; and when the secrets were revealed the lives and deaths of men
hung in the balance! Here, then, is a philosophy of fancy-work that will
carry us a very long way. The stitches are always a matter of life and
of death, however innocent or trivial they may seem. Whether I do a row
of stitches, or drive a row of nails, or write a row of words, I am a
little older when I fasten the last stitch, or drive the last nail, or
write the last word, than I was when I began. And what does that mean?
It means that I have deliberately taken a fragment of my life and have
woven it into my work. That is the terrific sanctity of the commonest
toil. It is instinct with life. 'Greater love hath no man than this,
that a man lay down his life for his friend,' and whenever I drive a
nail, or write a syllable, or weave a stitch for another, I have laid
down just so much of my life for his sake.
But when we begin to exploit the possibilities of a Philosophy of
Fancy-work, we shall find our feet wandering into some very green
pastures and beside some very still waters. Fancy-work will lead us to
think about friendship, than which few themes are more attractive. For
the loveliest idyll of friendship is told in the phraseology of
fancy-work. 'And it came to pass that the soul of Jonathan was _knit_ to
the soul of David.' Knitting, knitting, knitting; up and down, to and
fro, in and out, see the needles flash and dart! Every moment that I
spend with my friend is a weaving of his life into mine, and of my life
into his; and pity me, men and angels, if I entangle the strands of my
life with a fabric that mars the pattern of my own! And pity me still
more if the inferior texture of my life impairs the perfection and
beauty of my friend's! Into the sacred domain of our sweetest
friendships, therefore, has this unpromising matter of fancy-work
conveyed us. But it must take us higher still. For 'there is a Friend
that sticketh closer than a brother,' and the web of my life will look
strangely incomplete at the last unless the fabric of my soul be found
knit and interwoven with the fair and radiant colours of His.
VI
A PAIR OF BOOTS
There seems to be very little in a pair of boots--except, perhaps, a
pair of feet--until a great crisis arises; and in a great crisis all
things assume new values. When the war broke out, and empires found
themselves face to face with destiny, the nations asked themselves
anxiously how they were off for boots. When millions of men began to
march, boots seemed to be the only thing that mattered. The manhood of
the world rose in its wrath, reached for its boots, buckled on its
sword, and set out for the front. And at the front, if Mr. Kipling is to
be believed, it is all a matter of boots.
Don't--don't--don't--don't--look at what's in front of you;
Boots--boots--boots--boots--moving up and down again;
Men--men--men--men--men go mad with watching 'em.
An' there's no discharge in the war.
Try--try--try--try--to think o' something different--
Oh--my--God--keep--me from going lunatic!
Boots--boots--boots--boots--moving up and down again
An' there's no discharge in the war.
We--can--stick--out--'unger, thirst, an' weariness,
But--not--not--not--not the chronic sight of 'em--
Boots--boots--boots--boots--moving up and down again!
An' there's no discharge in the war.
'Tain't--so--bad--by--day because o' company,
But--night--brings--long--strings o' forty thousand million
Boots--boots--boots--boots--moving up and down again!
An' there's no discharge in the war.
A soldier sees enough pairs of boots in a ten-mile march to last him
half a lifetime.
Yet, after all, are not these the most amiable things beneath the stars,
the things that we treat with derision and contempt in days of calm, but
for which we grope with feverish anxiety when the storm breaks upon us?
They go on, year after year, bearing the obloquy of our toothless little
jests; they go on, year after year, serving us none the less faithfully
because we deem them almost too mundane for mention; and then, when they
suddenly turn out to be a matter of life and death to us, they serve us
still, with never a word of reproach for our past ingratitude. If the
world has a spark of chivalry left in it, it will offer a most abject
apology to its boots.
It would do a man a world of good, before putting on his boots, to have
a good look at them. Let him set them in the middle of the hearthrug,
the shining toes turned carefully towards him, and then let him lean
forward in his arm-chair, elbows on knees and head on hands, and let him
fasten on those boots of his a contrite and respectful gaze. And looking
at his boots thus attentively and carefully he will see what he has
never seen before. He will see that a pair of boots is one of the master
achievements of civilization. A pair of boots is one of the wonders of
the world, a most cunning and ingenious contrivance. Dan Crawford, in
_Thinking Black_, tells us that nothing about Livingstone's equipment
impressed the African mind so profoundly as the boots he wore. 'Even to
this remote day,' Mr. Crawford says, 'all around Lake Mweru they sing a
"Livingstone" song to commemorate that great "path-borer," the good
Doctor being such a federal head of his race that he is known far and
near as Ingeresa, or "The Englishman." And this is his memorial song:
Ingeresa, who slept on the waves,
Welcome him, for he hath no toes!
Welcome him, for he hath no toes!
That is to say, revelling in paradox as the negro does, he seized on the
facetious fact that this wandering Livingstone, albeit he travelled so
far, had no toes--that is to say, had _boots_, if you please!' Later on,
Mr. Crawford remarks again that the barefooted native never ceases to
wonder at the white man's boots. To him they are a marvel and a portent,
for, instead of thinking of the boot as merely covering the foot that
wears it, his idea is that those few inches of shoe carpet the whole
forest with leather. He puts on his boots, and, by doing so, he spreads
a gigantic runner of linoleum across the whole continent of Africa. Here
is a philosophical way of looking at a pair of boots! It has made my own
boots look differently ever since I read it. Why, these boots on the
hearthrug, looking so reproachfully up at me, are millions of times
bigger than they seem! They look to my poor distorted vision like a few
inches of leather; but as a matter of fact they represent hundreds of
miles of leathern matting. They make a runner paving the path from my
quiet study to the front doors of all my people's homes; they render
comfortable and attractive all the highways and byways along which duty
calls me. Looked at through a pair of African eyes, these British boots
assume marvellous proportions. They are touched by magic and are
wondrously transformed. From being contemptible, they now appear
positively continental. I am surprised that the subject has never
appealed to me before.
Now this African way of looking at a pair of boots promises us a key to
a phrase in the New Testament that has always seemed to me like a locked
casket. John Bunyan tells us that when the sisters of the Palace
Beautiful led Christian to the armoury he saw such a bewildering
abundance of boots as surely no other man ever beheld before or since!
They were shoes that would never wear out; and there were enough of
them, he says, to harness out as many men for the service of their Lord
as there be stars in the heaven for multitude. Bunyan's prodigious stock
of shoes is, of course, an allusion to Paul's exhortation to the
Ephesian Christians concerning the armour with which he would have them
to be clad. 'Take unto you the whole armour of God ... and your feet
shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.'
Whenever we get into difficulties concerning this heavenly panoply, we
turn to good old William Gurnall. Master Gurnall beat out these six
verses of Paul's into a ponderous work of fourteen hundred pages, bound
in two massive volumes. One hundred and fifty of these pages deal with
the footgear recommended by the apostle; and Master Gurnall gives us,
among other treasures, 'six directions for the helping on of this
spiritual shoe.' But we must not be betrayed into a digression on the
matter of shoe-horns and kindred contrivances. Shoemaker, stick to thy
last! Let us keep to this matter of boots. Can good Master Gurnall, with
all his hundred and fifty closely printed pages on the subject, help us
to understand what Paul and Bunyan meant? What is it to have your feet
shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace? What are the shoes
that never wear out? Now the striking thing is that Master Gurnall looks
at the matter very much as the Africans do. He turns upon himself a
perfect fusillade of questions. What is meant by the gospel? What is
meant by peace? Why is peace attributed to the gospel? What do the feet
here mentioned import? What grace is intended by that 'preparation of
the gospel of peace' which is here compared to a shoe and fitted to
these feet? And so on. And in answering his own questions, and
especially this last one, good Master Gurnall comes to the conclusion
that the spiritual shoe which he would fain help us to put on is 'a
gracious, heavenly, and excellent spirit.' And his hundred and fifty
crowded pages on the matter of footwear give us clearly to understand
that the man who puts on this beautiful spirit will be able to walk
without weariness the stoniest roads, and to climb without exhaustion
the steepest hills. He shall tread upon the lion and adder; the young
lion and the dragon shall he trample under feet. In slimy bogs and on
slippery paths his foot shall never slide; and in the day when he
wrestles with principalities and powers, and with the rulers of the
darkness of this world, his foothold shall be firm and secure. 'Thy
shoes shall be iron and brass, and as thy days so shall thy strength
be.' Master Gurnall's teaching is therefore perfectly plain. He looks at
this divine footwear much as the Africans looked at Livingstone's boots.
The man whose feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace
has carpeted for himself all the rough roads that lie before him. The
man who knows how to wear this 'gracious, heavenly, and excellent
spirit' has done for himself what Sir Walter Raleigh did for Queen
Elizabeth. He has already protected his feet against all the miry places
of the path ahead of him. If good Master Gurnall's 'six directions for
the helping on of this spiritual shoe' will really assist us to be thus
securely shod, then his hundred and fifty pages will yet prove more
precious than gold-leaf.
Bunyan speaks of the amazing exhibition of footgear that Christian
beheld in the armoury as '_shoes that will not wear out_.' I wish I
could be quite sure that Christian was not mistaken. John Bunyan has so
often been my teacher and counsellor on all the highest and weightiest
matters that it is painful to have to doubt him at any point. The boots
may have looked as though they would never wear out; but, as all mothers
know, that is a way that boots have. In the shoemaker's hands they
always look as though they would stand the wear and tear of ages; but
put them on a boy's feet and see what they will look like in a month's
time! I am really afraid that Christian was deceived in this particular.
Paul says nothing about the everlasting wear of which the shoes are
capable; and the sisters of the Palace Beautiful seem to have said
nothing about it. I fancy Christian jumped too hastily to this
conclusion, misled by the excellent appearance and sturdy make of the
boots before him. My experience is that the shoes do wear out. The most
'gracious, heavenly, and excellent spirit' must be kept in repair. I
know of no virtue, however attractive, and of no grace, however
beautiful, that will not wear thin unless it is constantly attended to.
My good friend, Master Gurnall, for all his hundred and fifty pages does
not touch upon this point; but I venture to advise my readers that they
will be wise to accept Christian's so confident declaration with a
certain amount of caution. The statement that 'these shoes will not wear
out' savours rather too much of the spirit of advertisement; and we have
learned from painful experience that the language of an advertisement is
not always to be interpreted literally.
One other thing these boots of mine seem to say to me as they look
mutely up at me from the centre of the hearthrug. Have they no history,
these shoes of mine? Whence came they? And at this point we suddenly
invade the realm of tragedy. The voice of Abel's blood cried to God from
the ground; and the voice of blood calls to me from my very boots. Was
it a seal cruelly done to death upon a northern icefloe, or a kangaroo
shot down in the very flush of life as it bounded through the Australian
bush, or a kid looking up at its slaughterer with terrified, pitiful
eyes? What was it that gave up the life so dear to it that I might be
softly and comfortably shod? And so every step that I take is a step
that has been made possible to me by the shedding of innocent blood. All
the highways and byways that I tread have been sanctified by sacrifice.
The very boots on the hearthrug are whispering something about
redemption. And most certainly this is true of the shoes of which the
apostle wrote, the shoes that the pilgrims saw at the Palace Beautiful,
the shoes that trudge their weary way through Master Gurnall's hundred
and fifty packed pages. These shoes could never have been placed at our
disposal apart from the shedding of most sacred blood. My feet may be
shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; but, if so, it is only
because the sacrifice unspeakable has already been made.
VII
CHRISTMAS BELLS
It is an infinite comfort to us ordinary pulpiteers to know that even an
Archbishop may sometimes have a bad time! And, on the occasion of which
I write, the poor prelate must have had a very bad time indeed.
For--tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of
Askelon!--none of his hearers knew what he had been talking about! They
could make neither head nor tail of it! 'I have not been able to find
one man yet who could discover what it was about,' wrote one of his
auditors to a friend. It is certainly most humiliating when our
congregations go home and pen such letters for posterity to chuckle
over. And yet the ability of the preacher at this particular service,
and the intelligence of his hearers, are alike beyond question. For the
preacher was the famous Richard Chenevix Trench, D.D., Professor of
Theology at King's College, Dean of Westminster, and afterwards
Archbishop of Dublin. The sermon was preached in the classical
atmosphere of Cambridge University, principally to students and
undergraduates. The theme was the Incarnation--'_The Word was made
flesh_.' And the young fellow who wrote the plaintive epistle from
which I have quoted was Alfred Ainger, afterwards a distinguished
litterateur and Master of the Temple. He could make nothing of it. 'The
sermon, I am sorry to say, was universally disappointing. I have not
been able to find one man yet who could discover what it was about. It
is needless to say _I_ could not. He chose, too, one of the grandest and
deepest texts in the New Testament. He talked a great deal about St.
Augustine, but any more I cannot tell you.'
Now Christmas will again come knocking at our doors, and many of us will
find ourselves preaching on this selfsame theme. And we have a wholesome
horror of sending our hearers home in the same fearful perplexity. 'What
on earth was the minister talking about?' All the cards and the carols,
the fun and the frolic, the pastimes and the picnics will be turned into
dust and ashes, into gall and wormwood, into vanity and vexation of
spirit to the poor preacher who suspects that his Christmas congregation
returned home in such a mood. His Christmas dinner will almost choke
him. There will be no merry Christmas for _him_!
But let no minister be terrified or intimidated by the Archbishop's
unhappy experience. His 'bad time' may help us to enjoy a good one. We
must take his text, and wrestle with it bravely. It is the ideal
Christmas greeting. There is certainly depth and mystery; but there is
humanness and tenderness as well.
'_The Word_ was made flesh.' Words are wonderful things, to say nothing
of '_the_ Word'--whatever _that_ may prove to be. This selfsame
Archbishop Trench, whose sermon at Cambridge proved such a universal
disappointment, has written a marvellous book _On the Study of Words_.
Here are seven masterly chapters to show that words are fossil poetry,
and petrified history, and embalmed romance, and that all the ages have
left the record of their tears and their laughter, of their virtues and
their vices, of their passion and their pain, in the _words_ that they
have coined. 'When I feel inclined to read poetry,' says Oliver Wendell
Holmes, 'I take down _my dictionary_! The poetry of words is quite as
beautiful as that of sentences. The author may arrange the gems
effectively, but their shape and lustre have been given by the attrition
of age. Bring me the finest simile from the whole range of imaginative
writing, and I will show you a single word which conveys a more
profound, a more accurate, and a more elegant analogy.' Words, then, are
jewel-cases, treasure-chests, strong-rooms; they are repositories in
which the archives of the ages are preserved.
'The Word _was made flesh_.' We never grasp the Word until it is. Let me
illustrate my meaning. Here is a bonny little fellow of six, with sunny
face and a glorious shock of golden hair. His father hands him his first
spelling-book, with the alphabet on the front page, and little
two-letter monosyllables following. But what can he make of even such
small words? He will never learn the A.B.C. in that way. But give him a
_teacher_. Make the word flesh, and he will soon have it all off by
heart!
Five years pass away. The lad is in the full swing of his school-days
now. But to-night, as he pores over his books, the once sunny face is
clouded, and the wavy hair covers an aching head.
'Time for bed, sonny!' says mother at length.
'But, mother, I haven't done my home lessons, _and I can't_.'
'What is it all about, my boy?' she asks, as she draws her chair nearer
to his, and, putting her arm round his shoulder, reads the tiresome
problem.
And then they talk it over together. And, somehow, under the magic of
her interest, it seems fairly simple after all. In her sympathetic
voice, and fond glance, and tender touch, the word becomes flesh, and he
grasps its meaning.
Five more years pass away. He is sixteen, and a perfect book-worm.
Looking up from the story he is reading, he exclaims impatiently:
'I can't think why they want to work these silly _love-stories_ into all
these books. A fellow can't pick up a decent book but there's a
love-story running through it. It's horrid!' He has come upon the
greatest word in the language; but it has no meaning for him!
But five years later he understands! He has been captivated by a pure
and radiant face, by a charming and graceful form, by lovely eyes that
answer to his own. That great word _love_ has been made flesh to him,
and it simply gleams with meaning. And so, all through the years, as
life goes on, he finds the great key-words expounded to him through
infinite processes of incarnation. 'Ideas,' says George Eliot, 'are
often poor ghosts; our sun-filled eyes cannot discern them; they pass
athwart us in their vapour and cannot make themselves felt. But
sometimes _they are made flesh_; they breathe upon us with warm breath,
they touch us with soft responsive hand, they look at us with sad
sincere eyes, and speak to us in appealing tones; they are clothed in a
living human soul, with all its conflicts, its faith, and its love. Then
their presence is a power, then they shake us like a passion, and we are
drawn after them with gentle compulsion, as flame is drawn to flame.'
And if this be so with other words, how could the greatest, grandest,
holiest word of all have been expressed except in the very selfsame way?
'_The_ Word was made flesh.' There was no other way of saying GOD
intelligibly. I should never, never, never have understood mere abstract
definitions of so august a term. And so--'In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was GOD, and the Word was _made flesh_.' I can grasp that
great word now. Bethlehem and Olivet, Galilee and Calvary, have made it
wonderfully plain. The word GOD would have frightened me if it had never
been expressed in the terms of 'a Face like my face'--as Browning puts
it--and a heart that beats in sympathy with my own. And so Tennyson
says:
And so the Word had breath, and wrought
With human hands the creed of creeds
In loveliness of perfect deeds,
More strong than all poetic thought;
Which he may read that binds the sheaf,
Or builds the house, or digs the grave,
And those wild eyes that watch the wave
In roarings round the coral reef.
And thus the most awful, the most terrible, and the most
incomprehensible word that human lips could frame has become the most
winsome and charming in the whole vocabulary. GOD is JESUS, and JESUS is
GOD! 'The Word was made flesh.'
The same principle dominates all religious experience and enterprise.
Generally speaking, you cannot make a man a Christian by giving him a
Bible or posting him a tract. The New Testament lays it down quite
clearly that the Christian _man_ must accompany the Christian _message_.
The Word must be presented in its proper human setting. Our missionaries
all over the planet tell of the resistless influence exerted by gracious
Christian homes, and by holy Christian lives, in winning idolators from
superstition. I was reading only this morning a touching instance of a
young Japanese who trudged hundreds of miles to inquire after the secret
of 'the beautiful life'--as he called it--which he had seen exemplified
in some Christian missionaries. The Word, _made flesh_, is thus
pronounced with an accent and an eloquence which are simply
irresistible.
'I said, and I repeat,' says Mr. Edwin Hodder, in his biography of Sir
George Burns, the founder of the Cunard Steamship Company, 'I said, and
I repeat, that if the Bible were blotted out of existence, if there were
no prayer-book, no catechism, and no creed, if there were no visible
Church at all, I could not fail to believe in the doctrines of
Christianity while the living epistle of Sir George Burns' life remained
in my memory.' That was Whittier's argument:
The dear Lord's best interpreters
Are humble human souls;
The gospel of a life like his
Is more than books or scrolls.
From scheme and creed the light goes out,
The saintly fact survives;
The blessed Master none can doubt,
Revealed in holy lives.
We have reached a very practical aspect now of the message that the
Christmas bells will soon be ringing. The thoughts of men are only
intelligibly communicable by means of words; and the words of men only
become pregnant with passion and with power when they are _made flesh_.
And, in the same way, the thoughts of God to men are only eloquent when
they are so expressed. Revelation became sublimely rhetorical at
Bethlehem, and we can only perpetuate its eloquence through the agency
of lives transfigured.
Transcriber's Notes
Inconsistent hyphenation left as printed: heart-breaking/heartbreaking,
over-wrought/overwrought.