UPTON,
June 25, 1904.
DEAR HERBERT,--This is not a letter; it is a sketch, an aquarelle out
of my portfolio.
Yesterday was a hot, heavy, restless day, with thunder brewing in the
dark heart of huge inky clouds; a day when one craves for light, and
brisk airs, and cold bare hill-tops; when one desires to get away from
one's kind, away from close rooms and irritable persons. So I went off
on my patient and uncomplaining bicycle, along a country road; and then
crossing a wide common, like the field, I thought, in the Pilgrim's
Progress across which Evangelist pointed an improving finger, I turned
down to the left to the waterside In the still air, that seemed to
listen, the blue wooded hills across the river had a dim, rich beauty.
How mysterious are the fields and heights from which one is separated
by a stream, the fields in which one knows every tree and sloping lawn
by sight, and where one sets foot so rarely! The road came to an end in
a little grassy space among high-branching elms. On my left was a farm,
with barns and byres, overhung by stately walnut trees; on the right a
grange among its great trees, a low tiled house, with white casements,
in a pleasant garden, full of trellised roses, a big dovecote, with a
clattering flight of wheeling pigeons circling round and round. Hard
by, close to the river, stands a little ancient church, with a timbered
spire, the trees growing thickly about it, dreaming forgotten dreams.
Here all was still and silent; the very children moved languidly about,
not knowing what ailed them. Far off across the wide-watered plain came
a low muttering of thunder, and a few big drops pattered in the great
elms.
This secluded river hamlet has an old history; the church, which is
served from a distant parish, stands in a narrow strip of land which
runs down across the fields to the river, and dates from the time when
the river was a real trade-highway, and when neighbouring parishes,
which had no frontages on the stream, found it convenient to have a
wharf to send their produce, timber or bricks, away by water. But the
wharf has long since perished, though a few black stakes show where it
stood; and the village, having no landing-place and no inn, has dropped
out of the river life, and minds its own quiet business.
A few paces from the church the river runs silently and strongly to the
great weir below. To-day it was swollen with rain and turbid, and
plucked steadily at the withies. To-day the stream, which is generally
full of life, was almost deserted. But it came into my head what an
allegory it made. Here through the unvisited meadows, with their huge
elms, runs this thin line of glittering vivid life; you hear, hidden in
dark leaves, the plash of oars, the grunt of rowlocks, and the chatter
of holiday folk, to whom the river-banks are but a picture through
which they pass, and who know nothing of the quiet fields that surround
them. That, I thought, following a train of reflection, is like life
itself, moving in its bright, familiar channel, so unaware of the broad
tracts of mystery that hem it in. May there not be presences, unseen,
who look down wondering--as I look to-day through my screen of leafy
boughs--on the busy-peopled stream that runs so merrily between its
scarped banks of clay? I know not; yet it seems as though it might be
so.
Beneath the weir, with its fragrant, weedy scent, where the green river
plunges and whitens through the sluices, lies a deep pool, haunted by
generations of schoolboys, who wander, flannelled and straw-hatted, up
through the warm meadows to bathe. In such sweet memories I have my
part, when one went riverwards with some chosen friend, speaking with
the cheerful frankness of boyhood of all our small concerns, and all we
meant to do; and then the cool grass under the naked feet, the
delicious recoil of the fresh, tingling stream, and the quiet stroll
back into the ordered life so full of simple happiness.
"Ah! happy fields, ah! pleasing shade,
Ah! fields beloved in vain!"
sang the sad poet of Eton--but not in vain, I think, for these old
beautiful memories are not sad; the good days are over and gone, and
they cannot be renewed; but they are like a sweet spring of youth,
whose waters fail not, in which a tired soul may bathe and be clean
again. They may bring back
"The times when I remember to have been
Joyful, and free from blame."
To be pensive, not sentimental, is the joy of later life. The thought
of the sweet things that have had an end, of life lived out and
irrevocable, is not a despairing thought, unless it is indulged with an
unavailing regret. It is rather to me a sign that, whatever we may be
or become, we are surrounded with the same quiet beauty and peace, if
we will but stretch out our hands and open our hearts to it. To grow
old patiently and bravely, even joyfully--that is the secret; and it is
as idle to repine for the lost joys as it would have been in the former
days to repine because we were not bigger and stronger and more
ambitious. Life, if it does not become sweeter, becomes more
interesting; fresh ties are formed, fresh paths open out; and there
should come, too, a simple serenity of living, a certainty that,
whatever befall, we are in wise and tender hands.
So I reasoned with myself beside the little holy church, not far from
the moving stream.
But the time warned me to be going. The thunder had drawn off to the
west; a faint breeze stirred and whispered in the elms. The day
declined. But I had had my moment, and my heart was full; for it is
such moments as these that are the pure gold of life, when the scene
and the mood move together to some sweet goal in perfect unison.
Sometimes the scene is there without the mood, or the mood comes and
finds no fitting pasturage; but to-day, both were mine; and the
thought, echoing like a strain of rich sad music, passed beyond the
elms, beyond the blue hills, back to its mysterious home. . . .
There, that is the end of my sketch; a little worked up, but
substantially true. Tell me if you like the kind of thing; if you do,
it is rather a pleasure to write thus occasionally. But it may seem to
you to be affected, and, in that case, I won't send you any more of
such reveries.
You seem very happy and prosperous; but then you like heat, and enjoy
it like a lizard. My love to all of you.--Ever yours,