_The Kindly Darkness_
Buried between two layers of soil the little pine-kernel woke from
its inactivity. Underground was warm and moist; and therefore the
seed swelled up with comfort, and relaxed itself with pleasure. The
damp crept through it, right through it, with a gentle persistence in
marked contrast with the brutal attack of the flood which had swept
it away but had not broken down its stubborn defence. The heat of
the subsoil made the seed ferment, and summoned it to live; but the
mysterious centre of life in it found a fellow-feeling in the equally
mysterious darkness which wrapped it about, full of the unaccountable
impalpable emanations of all life upon earth.
For this dark we have an unreasonable fear, and it is curious to
inquire into the causes of the horror of blackness which fixes itself
in our hearts at the moment of their first pulsations. The black is
soothing, whence therefore our agony at thought of it? Why do our
heads swim when we look at a graveyard and reckon the darkness of the
tomb; and the nothingness, in its grip, of things which have been but
will be no more? Half-stifled we read a name inscribed on the marble
slab, and imagine the unknown dead man as he lived--what he did, whom
he loved, how he suffered--and we conjure up in our minds the poor
blank wraith, now for ever departed from the light of day.
We can go further, and from the one build up the army of those who
have lived, of those alive, of those who will live after us: and
these unknown shadows press about our familiar faces, flutter and
crowd in and out of the stage-properties of our own existence--like
dead leaves in the autumn winds. Particular shapes haunt us with
disquieting persistency. We find ourselves in streets, or at shows,
or in public parks in the midst of a mob of people whom we do not
know, but who live beside us; and we hear them speaking, and can
picture to ourselves what they care about. They are of all ages, old
and young, men, women, children, black-eyed, blue-eyed, grey-eyed,
with fair or dark hair or hair withered white, full-lipped, or with
lips shrivelled by passing time; but all of them are living, are
there, glad or sorry, before our eyes. An idea takes possession of
us and strengthens in us till we tremble with it. We think--"All
these individuals about us, whom we could touch as they move, and
whom we know to have feelings and hopes and preoccupations, all these
beings are destined to disappear one day, whatever they do, wherever
they may be, no matter how strong, how well-founded, how firm. In a
hundred years they will just have existed, will be nowhere
discoverable. What will have become of them?" And again we see the
cold, forbidding cemeteries, with the ranked and serried silent tombs
all shut fast among their flowers. We shiver at the thought that
there, under the cover-stones, beneath the turf, below thick layers
of soil, are only blanched bones scattered through that dark which
makes us tremble with the notion that it is in some strange fashion
our enemy.
Such is the common mistake of reason when imagination has taken
charge of a mind; and in combating it we must first distinguish
between its cause and its effects. These shadows which we fear only
have power upon us after we have irrevocably ceased to exist. It is
not the darkness which destroys us; on the contrary, it is profoundly
creative, doing its work, with that odd prudishness of creation, by
choice out of sight.
It was in such a blank darkness underground that the sequoia seed
germinated and burst open under the life-impulse. The cotyledons,
rich in vivifying substances, gave a beginning of nourishment to the
seedling until it was able itself to select the elements which would
assist its growth. The darkness cradled the budding plant, and would
continue to prove its definite base after it had grown up to
strength. In all these functions there was no destructiveness,
nothing to excuse our fear of it. The shades stand attentive about
the seeds of plants, as they surround the young of birds in the
hatching egg, as they contain the foetus in its mother's womb. In
the dark is the beginning of nearly all creative processes: even the
diamond forms itself so, in the very bowels of the earth, remote from
us--there, in a solid blackness, it takes to itself that faceted
shape which later will reflect the light from its every point. These
unfortunate shadows for which we harbour so unjust a fear!--and so
illogical a fear, for when our cells are worn out by the strain and
stridency of life and day it is to darkness that we turn for the
renewal of our vital force; and when our hearts and spirits demand
either calm in which to rest after the blows of misfortune, or
mending after the shock of disillusion, again it is to the shadows
that we have recourse, and among them that we find hope--which is
either the salve of fresh illusions or the satisfaction of reviewing
our obtained petitions.
In this shadow-land our pine-microcosm accumulated the strength which
enabled it to make an essay at living. First it absorbed the starchy
liquid which the cotyledons had prepared for it; then it began itself
to hunt in plant fashion for its own necessary sustenance. Through
all its pores the tiny rootlet sucked up the particular juices and
essences it needed. It grew, and divided itself into branches that
it might tap more sub-soil with these many extensions. It is warm
down there underground, and the soil was wet, for it was spring-time
outside. The earth was pulsating mightily with the sense of new
movement, was transmitting its excitement to the air. The light of
day and the darkness of the pit communicate with one another by
exchanging invisible and indescribable rays. The decaying bodies of
men, animals, and vegetable growths affect and influence their
corresponding numbers at the moment of conception and during
growth--reaching them as freely through the pellucid air as through
the solid layers of the soil. Life and death everywhere run into one
another: every beginning is an end, and everything ends only to begin
again. Innumerable unknown forces come down from heaven to earth,
and as many shoot up from earth into the blue sky, all crossing one
another, tangled together. Some are destructive, some productive.
We cannot classify or estimate these millions of indiscoverable
elements. Most of them never enter our orbit; for we must remind
ourselves that there are an infinity of creations, of every sort and
kind and lot and fate in our universe, ranging from suns to
microscopic cells, each subject to tens of thousands of varying
conditions, and tending towards an incalculable number of predestined
ends--and it is vain for our curious but purblind spirits to try to
estimate separately or to distinguish these appalling problems, for
our limitations in kind forbid us ever to know the infinity of
evolutions in earth and heaven, in the depths of the seas, in the
depths of the earth. It is impossible that we should ever learn what
are the hidden powers which sway our courses, what are the unknown
and unsearchable emanations which breathe around us, or over us, and
give us in hardly perceptible fashion a sense of confused joy, a
vague sadness, or some heedless inexplicable fear.