"Even as cloud passing subtly unseen from mountain to mountain,
Leaving the crest of Benmore to be palpable next on Benvohrlich,
Or like to hawk of the hill, which ranges and soars in its hunting,
Seen and unseen by turns."...... And these are his words in the
mountains:......
"'Surely the force that here sweeps me along in its violent impulse,
Surely my strength shall be in her, my help and protection about her,
Surely in inner-sweet gladness and vigor of joy shall sustain her;
Till, the brief winter o'erpast, her own true sap in the springtide
Rise, and the tree I have bared be verdurous e'en as aforetime:
Surely it may be, it should be, it must be. Yet, ever and ever,
'Would I were dead,' I keep saying, 'that so I could go and
uphold her.'"--pp. 26, 27.
And, meanwhile, Katie, among the others, is dancing and smiling still
on some one who is to her all that Philip had ever been.
When Hewson writes next, his experience has reached its second stage.
He is at Balloch, with the aunt and the cousin of his friend Hope:
and the lady Maria has made his beliefs begin to fail and totter, and
he feels for something to hold firmly. He seems to think, at one
moment, that the mere knowledge of the existence of such an one ought
to compensate for lives of drudgery hemmed in with want; then he
turns round on himself with, "How shall that be?" And, at length, he
appeases his questions, saying that it must and should be so, if it is.
After this, come scraps of letters, crossed and recrossed, from the
Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich. In his travelling towards home, a horse
cast a shoe, and the were directed to David Mackaye. Hewson is still
in the clachan hard by when he urges his friend to come to him: and
he comes.
"There on the blank hill-side, looking down through the loch to
the ocean;
There, with a runnel beside, and pine-trees twain before it,
There, with the road underneath, and in sight of coaches and
steamers,
Dwelling of David Mackaye and his daughters, Elspie and Bella,
Sends up a column of smoke the Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich.....
"So on the road they walk, by the shore of the salt sea-water,
Silent a youth and maid, the elders twain conversing."--pp. 36, 37.
"Ten more days, with Adam, did Philip abide at the changehouse;
Ten more nights they met, they walked with father and daughter.
Ten more nights; and, night by night, more distant away were
Philip and she; every night less heedful, by habit, the
father."--pp. 38, 39.
From this point, we must give ourselves up to quotation; and the
narrow space remaining to us is our only apology to the reader for
making any omission whatever in these extracts.
"For she confessed, as they sat in the dusk, and he saw not her
blushes,
Elspie confessed, at the sports, long ago, with her father, she
saw him,
When at the door the old man had told him the name of the Bothie;
There, after that, at the dance; yet again at the dance in Rannoch;
And she was silent, confused. Confused much rather Philip
Buried his face in his hands, his face that with blood was
bursting.
Silent, confused; yet by pity she conquered here fear, and
continued:
'Katie is good and not silly: be comforted, Sir, about her;
Katie is good and not silly; tender, but not, like many,
Carrying off, and at once, for fear of being seen, in the bosom
Locking up as in a cupboard, the pleasure that any man gives them,
Keeping it out of sight as a prize they need be ashamed of:
That is the way, I think, Sir, in England more than in Scotland.
No; she lives and takes pleasure in all, as in beautiful weather;
Sorry to lose it; but just as we would be to lose fine weather.....
There were at least five or six,--not there; no, that I don't say,
But in the country about,--you might just as well have been courting.
That was what gave me much pain; and (you won't remember that tho'),
Three days after, I met you, beside my Uncle's walking;
And I was wondering much, and hoped you wouldn't notice;
So, as I passed, I couldn't help looking. You didn't know me;
But I was glad when I heard, next day, you were gone to the teacher.'
"And, uplifting his face at last, with eyes dilated,
Large as great stars in mist, and dim with dabbled lashes.
Philip, with new tears starting,
'You think I do not remember,'
Said, 'suppose that I did not observe. Ah me! shall I tell you?
Elspie, it was your look that sent me away from Rannoch.'....
And he continued more firmly, altho' with stronger emotion.
'Elspie, why should I speak it? You cannot believe it, and should not.
Why should I say that I love, which I all but said to another?
Yet, should I dare, should I say, Oh Elspie you only I love, you,
First and sole in my life that has been, and surely that shall be;
Could, oh could, you believe it, oh Elspie, believe it, and spurn not?
Is it possible,--possible, Elspie?'
'Well,' she answered,
Quietly, after her fashion, still knitting; 'Well, I think of it.
Yes, I don't know, Mr. Philip; but only it feels to me strangely,--
Like to the high new bridge they used to build at, below there,
Over the burn and glen, on the road. You won't understand me.....
Sometimes I find myself dreaming at nights about arches and bridges;
Sometimes I dream of a great invisible hand coming down, and
Dropping a great key-stone in the middle.'....
"But while she was speaking,--
So it happened,--a moment she paused from her work, and, pondering,
Laid her hand on her lap. Philip took it, she did not resist.
So he retained her fingers, the knitting being stopped. But emotion
Came all over her more and more, from his hand, from her heart, and
Most from the sweet idea and image her brain was renewing.
So he retained her hand, and, his tears down-dropping on it,
Trembling a long time, kissed it at last: and she ended.
And, as she ended, up rose he, saying: 'What have I heard? Oh!
What have I done, that such words should be said to me? Oh! I see it,
See the great key-stone coming down from the heaven of heavens.'
And he fell at her feet, and buried his face in her apron.
"But, as, under the moon and stars, they went to the cottage,
Elspie sighed and said: 'Be patient, dear Mr. Philip;
Do not do anything hasty. It is all so soon, so sudden.
Do not say anything yet to any one.'
'Elspie,' he answered,
"Does not my friend go on Friday? I then shall see nothing of you:
Do not I myself go on Monday? 'But oh!' he said, 'Elspie,
Do as I bid you, my child; do not go on calling me _Mr._
Might I not just as well be calling you _Miss Elspie?_
Call me, this heavenly night, for once, for the first time, Philip.'
"'Philip,' she said, and laughed, and said she could not say it.
'Philip,' she said. He turned, and kissed the sweet lips as they
said it.
"But, on the morrow, Elspie kept out of the way of Philip;
And, at the evening seat, when he took her hand by the alders,
Drew it back, saying, almost peevishly:
"'No, Mr. Philip;
I was quite right last night: it is too soon, too sudden,
What I told you before was foolish, perhaps,--was hasty.
When I think it over, I am shocked and terrified at it.'"....
"Ere she had spoken two words, had Philip released her fingers;
As she went on, he recoiled, fell back, and shook, and shivered.
There he stood, looking pale and ghastly; when she had ended,
Answering in a hollow voice:
"'It is true; oh! quite true, Elspie.
Oh! you are always right; oh! what, what, have I been doing?
I will depart to-morrow. But oh! forget me not wholly,
Wholly, Elspie, nor hate me; no, do not hate me, my Elspie.'"
"But a revulsion passed thro' the brain and bosom of Elspie;
And she got up from her seat on the rock, putting by her knitting,
Went to him where he stood, and answered:
"'No, Mr. Philip:
No; you are good, Mr. Philip, and gentle; and I am the foolish:
No, Mr. Philip; forgive me.'
"She stepped right to him, and boldly
Took up his hand, and placed it in her's, he daring no movement;
Took up the cold hanging hand, up-forcing the heavy elbow.
'I am afraid,' she said; 'but I will;' and kissed the fingers.
And he fell on his knees, and kissed her own past counting......
"As he was kissing her fingers, and knelt on the ground before her,
Yielding, backward she sank to her seat, and, of what she was doing
Ignorant, bewildered, in sweet multitudinous vague emotion,
Stooping, knowing not what, put her lips to the curl on his forehead.
And Philip, raising himself, gently, for the first time, round her
Passing his arms, close, close, enfolded her close to his bosom.
"As they went home by the moon, 'Forgive me, Philip,' she whispered:
'I have so many things to talk of all of a sudden,
I who have never once thought a thing in my ignorant Highlands.'"
--pp. 39-44.
We may spare criticism here, for what reader will not have felt such
poetry? There is something in this of the very tenderness of
tenderness; this is true delicacy, fearless and unembarrassed. Here
it seems almost captious to object: perhaps, indeed, it is rather
personal whim than legitimate criticism which makes us take some
exception at "the curl on his forehead;" yet somehow there seems a
hint in it of the pet curate.
Elspie's doubts now return upon her with increased force; and it is
not till after many conversations with the "teacher" that she allows
her resolve to be fixed. So, at last,
"There, upon Saturday eve, in the gorgeous bright October,
Under that alders knitting, gave Elspie her troth to Philip."
And, after their talk, she feels strong again, and fit to be
his.--Then they rise.
"'But we must go, Mr. Philip.'
"'I shall not go at all,' said
He, 'If you call me _Mr._ Thank Heaven! that's well over!'
"'No, but it's not,' she said; 'it is not over, nor will be.
Was it not, then,' she asked, 'the name I called you first by?
No, Mr. Philip, no. You have kissed me enough for two nights.
No.--Come, Philip, come, or I'll go myself without you.'
"'You never call me Philip,' he answered, 'until I kiss you.'"
--pp. 47, 48.
David Mackaye gives his consent; but first Hewson must return to
College, and study for a year.
His views have not been stationary. To his old scorn for the idle of
the earth had succeeded the surprise that overtook him at Balloch:
and he would now hold to his creed, yet not as rejecting his
experience. Some, he says, were made for use; others for ornament;
but let these be so _made_, of a truth, and not such as find
themselves merely thrust into exemption from labor. Let each know his
place, and take it, "For it is beautiful only to do the thing we are
meant for." And of his friend urging Providence he can only, while
answering that doubtless he must be in the right, ask where the limit
comes between circumstance and Providence, and can but wish for a
great cause, and the trumpet that should call him to God's battle,
whereas he sees
"Only infinite jumble and mess and dislocation,
Backed by a solemn appeal, 'For God's sake, do not stir there.'"
And the year is now out.
"Philip returned to his books, but returned to his Highlands after....
There in the bright October, the gorgeous bright October,
When the brackens are changed, and heather blooms are faded,
And, amid russet of heather and fern, green trees are bonnie,
There, when shearing had ended, and barley-stooks were garnered,
David gave Philip to wife his daughter, his darling Elspie;
Elspie, the quiet, the brave, was wedded to Philip, the poet.....
So won Philip his bride. They are married, and gone to New Zealand.
Five hundred pounds in pocket, with books and two or three pictures,
Tool-box, plough, and the rest, they rounded the sphere to New Zealand.
There he hewed and dug; subdued the earth and his spirit."
--pp. 52-55.
Among the prominent attributes of this poem is its completeness. The
elaboration, not only of character and of mental discipline, but of
incident also, is unbroken. The absences of all mention of Elspie in
the opening scene and again at the dance at Rannoch may at first seem
to be a failure in this respect; but second thoughts will show it to
be far otherwise: for, in the former case, her presence would not
have had any significance for Hewson, and, in the latter, would have
been overlooked by him save so far as might warrant a future vague
recollection, pre-occupied as his eyes and thoughts were by another.
There is one condition still under which we have as yet had little
opportunity of displaying this quality; but it will be found to be as
fully carried out in the descriptions of nature. In the first of our
extracts the worlds are few, but stand for many.
"Meäly glen, the heart of Lochiel's fair forest,
Where Scotch firs are darkest and amplest, and intermingle
Grandly with rowan and ash;--in Mar you have no ashes;
There the pine is alone or relieved by birch and alder."--p. 22.
In the next mere sound and the names go far towards the entire
effect; but not so far as to induce any negligence in essential
details:
"As, at return of tide, the total weight of ocean,
Drawn by moon and sun from Labrador and Greenland,
Sets in amain in the open space betwixt Mull and Scarfa,
Heaving, swelling, spreading, the might of the mighty Atlantic;
There into cranny and slit of the rocky cavernous bottom
Settles down; and with dimples huge the smooth sea-surface
Eddies, coils, and whirls, and dangerous Corryvreckan."--p. 52.
Two more passages, and they must suffice as examples. Here the
isolation is perfect; but it is the isolation, not of the place and
the actors only; it is, as it were, almost our own in an equal
degree;
"Ourselves too seeming
Not as spectators, accepted into it, immingled, as truly
Part of it as are the kine of the field lying there by the birches."
"There, across the great rocky wharves a wooden bridge goes,
Carrying a path to the forest; below,--three hundred yards, say,--
Lower in level some twenty-five feet, thro' flats of shingle,
Stepping-stones and a cart-track cross in the open valley.
But, in the interval here, the boiling pent-up water
Frees itself by a final descent, attaining a bason
Ten feet wide and eighteen long, with whiteness and fury
Occupied partly, but mostly pellucid, pure, a mirror;
Beautiful there for the color derived from green rocks under;
Beautiful most of all where beads of foam uprising
Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the stillness.
Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendent birch-boughs,
Here it lies, unthought of above at the bridge and pathway,
Still more concealed from below by wood and rocky projection.
You are shut in, left alone with yourself and perfection of water,
Hid on all sides, left alone with yourself and the goddess of bathing."--
"So they bathed, they read, they roamed in glen and forest;
Far amid blackest pines to the waterfall they shadow,
Far up the long long glen to the loch, and the loch beyond it
Deep under huge red cliffs, a secret."
In many of the images of this poem, as also in the volume
"Ambarvalia," the joint production of Clough and Thomas Burbidge,
there is a peculiar moderness, a reference distinctly to the means
and habits of society in these days, a recognition of every-day fact,
and a willingness to believe it as capable of poetry as that which,
but for having once been fact, would not now be tradition. There is a
certain special character in passages like the following, the
familiarity of the matter blending with the remoteness of the form of
metre, such as should not be overlooked in attempting to estimate the
author's mind and views of art:
"Still, as before (and as now), balls, dances, and evening parties,....
Seemed like a sort of unnatural up-in-the-air balloon work,....
As mere gratuitous trifling in presence of business and duty
As does the turning aside of the tourist to look at a landscape
Seem in the steamer or coach to the merchant in haste for the city."
--p. 12.
"I was as one that sleeps on the railway; one who, dreaming,
Hears thro' his dream the name of his home shouted out,--hears
and hears not,
Faint, and louder again, and less loud, dying in distance,--
Dimly conscious, with something of inward debate and choice, and
Sense of [present] claim and reality present; relapses,
Nevertheless, and continues the dream and fancy, while forward,
Swiftly, remorseless, the car presses on, he knows not whither."
--p.38.
Indeed, the general adaptation of the style to the immediate matter,
the alternation of the poetic and the familiar, with a certain
mixture even of classical phrase and allusion, is highly appropriate,
and may almost be termed constant, except in occasional instances
where more poetry, and especially more conception and working out of
images, is introduced than squares with a strict observance of
nature. Thus the lines quoted where Elspie applies to herself the
incident of "the high new bridge" and "the great key-stone in the
middle" are succeeded by others (omitted in our extract) where the
idea is followed into its details; and there is another passage in
which, through no less than seventeen lines, she compares herself to
an inland stream disturbed and hurried on by the mingling with it of
the sea's tide. Thus also one of the most elaborate descriptions in
the poem,--an episode in itself of the extremest beauty and finish,
but, as we think, clearly misplaced,--is a picture of the dawn over a
great city, introduced into a letter of Philip's, and that, too,
simply as an image of his own mental condition. There are but few
poets for whom it would be superfluous to reflect whether pieces of
such-like mere poetry might not more properly form part of the
descriptive groundwork, and be altogether banished from discourse and
conversation, where the greater amount of their intrinsic care and
excellence becomes, by its position, a proportionally increasing load
of disregard for truthfulness.
For a specimen of a peculiarly noble spirit which pervades the whole
work, we would refer the reader to the character of Arthur Audley,
unnecessary to the story, but most important to the sentiment; for a
comprehensive instance of minute feeling for individuality, to the
narrative of Lindsay and the corrections of Arthur on returning from
their tour.
"He to the great _might have been_ upsoaring, sublime and ideal;
He to the merest _it was_ restricting, diminishing, dwarfing;"
For pleasant ingenuity, involving, too, a point of character, to the
final letter of Hobbes to Philip, wherein, in a manner made up of
playful subtlety and real poetical feeling, he proves how "this
Rachel and Leah is marriage."
"The Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich" will not, it is to be feared, be
extensively read; its length combined with the metre in which it is
written, or indeed a first hasty glance at the contents, does not
allure the majority even of poetical readers; but it will not be left
or forgotten by such as fairly enter upon it. This is a poem
essentially thought and studied, if not while in the act of writing,
at least as the result of a condition of mind; and the author owes it
to the appreciations of all into whose hands it shall come, and who
are willing to judge for themselves, to call it, should a second
edition appear, by its true name;--not a trifle, but a work.
That public attention should have been so little engaged by this poem
is a fact in one respect somewhat remarkable, as contrasting with the
notice which the "Ambarvalia" has received. Nevertheless,
independently of the greater importance of "the Bothie" in length and
development, it must, we think, be admitted to be written on sounder
and more matured principles of taste,--the style being sufficiently
characterized and distinctive without special prominence, whereas not
a few of the poems in the other volume are examples rather of style
than of thought, and might be held in recollection on account of the
former quality alone.