HE changed with the seasons, and, like the seasons, was welcome in every
mood. In spring he was forlorn and passionate in turn; now fiercely
eloquent, now tuneful with those little cheerful songs that seem in terms
of human emotion to be the saddest of all. In summer he dreamed in
sensuous and unambitious idleness, gladly conscious of the sunshine and
warm winds and flower-smells, and using only languorous and gentle words.
In autumn, with the dead leaves of the world about his feet, he became
strangely hopeful and generous of glad promises of adventure and
conquest. It seemed as though he found it easier to triumph when Nature
had abdicated her jealous throne. But it was in the winter-time when he
came into his own kingdom, and mastered his environment and his passions
to make the most joyful songs. Then he would lie at full length on the
hearthrug, and we children, sitting in a rapt circle, fantastically lit
by the fire, would listen to his stories, and know that they were the
authentic wisdom.
It was in vain that the grown-ups warned us against the fascinations of
his society, telling us that dreamers came to no good end in a practical
world. As well might the townsfolk of Hamelin, in Brunswick, have
ordered their children to turn a deaf ear to the tune of the Pied Piper.
We had studied life from a practical point of view between our games, and
found it unsatisfying; this man brought us something infinitely more
desirable. He would come stepping with delicate feet, fearful of
trampling on our own tender dreams, and he would tell us the enchanted
stories that we had not heard since we were born. He told us the meaning
of the stars and the significance of the sun and moon; and, listening to
him, we remembered that we had known it all once before in another place.
Sometimes even we would remind him of some trivial incident that he had
forgotten, and then he would look at us oddly and murmur sadly that he
was getting very old. When the stories were over, and all the room was
still ringing with beautiful echoes, he would stand erect and ask us
fiercely whether we saw any straws in his hair. We would climb up him to
look (for he was very tall), and when we told him that we could not find
any he would say: “The day you see them there will be no more stories.”
We knew what the stories were worth to us, so we were always afraid of
looking at his head for fear that we should see the straws and all our
gladdest hours should be finished.
His voice was all the music extant, and it was only by recalling it that
our young ears could find that there was beauty in fine singing and
melodiousness in the chaunt of birds. Yet when his words were eloquent
we forgot the voice and the speaker, content to sacrifice our critical
individualities to his inspiration till we were no more than dim and
silent figures in the background of his tale. It was only in winter-time
that he achieved this supreme illusion; perhaps the firelight helped him,
and the chill shadows of the world. In the summer his stories had the
witchery of dreams; their realism startled us, and yet we knew that they
were not real. After listening to them through a hot afternoon we would
stretch back into consciousness, as though we had been asleep; his drowsy
fancies lulled our personalities, but did not conquer them. The winter
magic was of a rarer kind. Then even his silences became significant,
for he brought us to so close an intimacy with his mind that his very
thoughts seemed like words.
It is idle to expect a child to believe that every grown-up person was a
child once upon a time, for it is not credible that they could have
forgotten so much. But this man was a child both in feeling and in
understanding. He knew the incidents that perplexed us in those nursery
legends that have become classics, and sometimes it was his pleasure to
tell them to us again, having regard to our wakeful sympathies. He was
the friend of all the poor, lost creatures of romance—the giants whose
humiliating lot it was to be defeated by any stripling lad, the dragons
whose flaming strength was a derision when opposed to virtue in armour.
He shared our pity for Antæus and Caliban and Goliath of Gath, and even
treated sorcerers and wicked kings with reasonable humanity. Somehow,
though we felt that it was wicked, we could not help being sorry for
people when they were punished very severely. The very ease with which
giants could be outwitted suggested that the great simple fellows might
prove amiable enough if they were kindly treated, while it was always
possible that dragons might turn out to be bewitched princes, if only the
beautiful princesses would kiss them instead of sending heroes to kill
them unfairly, without giving them an opportunity of explaining their
motives. Our story-teller understood our scruples and sympathised with
them, and in his versions every one had a chance, whether they were
heroes or no. Even the best children are sometimes cruel, but they are
never half so pitiless as the writers of fairy-stories.
But better than any fairy-stories were the stories that he told us of our
own lives, which under his touch became the wonderful adventures which
they really were. He showed us that it was marvellous to get out of bed
in the morning, and marvellous to get into bed at night. He made us
realise the imaginative value of common things, and the fun that could be
derived even from the performance of duties, by aid of a little
make-believe. The grown-up folk would probably have derided his system,
but he made us tolerate our lessons, and endure the pangs of toothache
with some degree of fortitude. He had a short way with the ugly bogies
with which thoughtless nurses and chance echoes from the horrors columns
of newspapers had peopled the shadows of our life. We were no longer
afraid of the dark when he had told us how friendly it could be to the
distressed. Hitherto we had vainly sought to find the colours and sounds
of romance in life, and, failing, had been tempted to sum up the whole
business as tedious. After he had shown us how to do it, it was easy to
see that life itself was a story as romantic as we cared to make it. Our
daily official walks became gallant expeditions, and we approached
arithmetic with a flaming sword.
Can any childhood ever have known a greater wizard than this? And yet
since that state does not endure for ever, it must surely have happened
to us to seek for straws in his towering head once too often, had not
death taken our kindly enchanter from our company, and thus spared us the
bitter discovery that the one man who reconciled us to life was
considered rather more than eccentric by an obtuse world. It is true
that we noticed that the grown-up people were apt to treat him sometimes
as if he were one of us, but we felt that he merited this distinction,
and did not find it strange. Nor did we wonder that he should tell
stories aloud to himself lacking a wider audience, for we knew that if we
had the power we should tell such stories to ourselves all day long. We
did not only fail to realise that he was mad; we knew that he was the
only reasonable creature of adult years who ever came near us. He
understood us and paid us the supreme compliment of allowing us to
understand him. The world called him fantastic for actions that
convinced us that he was wise, and, thanks to a fate that seemed at the
time insensately cruel, the spell was never broken.