^1
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE UrTON LETTERS. i8th Impression. 
 
 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW. 20TH Impression. 
 
 THE ALTAR FIRE. 4TH Impression. 
 
 THE SILENT ISLE. 4TH Impression. 
 
 RUSKIN : A STUDY IN PERSONALITY. 
 
 ALONG THE ROAD. 
 
 THE ORCHARD PAVILION. 
 
 THE GATE OF DEATH : A DIARY. 3RD Edition. 
 
 THY ROD AND THY STAFF. 3RD Impression. 
 
 WHERE NO FEAR WAS. 
 
 BESIDE STILL WATERS. 4TH Impression. 
 
 AT LARGE. 2ND Impression. 
 
 PAUL THE MINSTREL, AND OTHER STORIES. 
 
 LEAVES OF THE TREE. 2ND Edition. 
 
 THE CHILD OF THE DAWN. 
 
 HUGH : MEMOIRS OF A BROTHER. 2ND Edition. 
 
 WATERSPRINGS. (A Novel.) 3RD Impression. 
 
 London: Smith, Elder & Co., 15 Waterloo Place.
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 AND OTHER ESSAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON 
 
 ? 
 
 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDER ^ CO, 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson <V Co. 
 at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
 
 3^e 
 
 
 en 
 
 ^ 
 
 1^ 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP, 
 
 Introduction 
 I. Escape 
 11, Literature and Life 
 in. The New Poets 
 IV. Walt Whitman . 
 V. Charm 
 VL Sunset 
 
 VII. The House of Pengersick 
 VIII. Villages 
 IX. Dreams 
 X. The Visitant 
 XI. That Other One 
 XII. Schooldays 
 
 XIII. Authorship 
 
 XIV. Herb Moly and Heartsease 
 XV. Behold, This Dreamer Cometh 
 
 PAGE 
 
 vii 
 I 
 
 22 
 
 44 
 
 59 
 87 
 
 112 
 125 
 
 133 
 146 
 
 167 
 
 176 
 
 189 
 
 21S 
 
 242 
 
 268 
 
 293403
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 I WALKED to-day down by the river side. 
 The Cam is a stream much sHghted by the 
 lover of wild and romantic scenery ; and its 
 chief merit, in the eyes of our boys, is that 
 it approaches more nearly to a canal in its 
 straightness and the deliberation of its slow 
 lapse than many more famous floods — and is 
 therefore more adapted for the manoeuvres 
 of eight-oared boats ! But it is a beautiful 
 place, I am sure ; and my ghost will certainly 
 walk there, " if our loves remain," as Browning 
 says, both for the sake of old memories and 
 for the love of its own sweet peaceableness. 
 I passed out of the town, out of the straggling 
 suburbs, away from tall, puffing chimneys, and 
 under the clanking railway bridge ; and then 
 at once the scene opens, wide pasture-lands 
 
 Vll
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 on either side, and rows of old willows, the 
 gnarled trunks holding up their clustered rods. 
 There on the other side of the stream rises 
 the charming village of Fen Ditton, perched 
 on a low ridge near the water, with church 
 and vicarage and irregular street, and the 
 little red-gabled Hall looking over its barns 
 and stacks. More and more willows, and 
 then, lying back, an old grange, called Poplar 
 Hall, among high-standing trees ; and then 
 a little weir, where the falling water makes 
 a pleasant sound, and a black-timbered lock, 
 with another old house near by, a secluded 
 retreat for the bisheps of Ely in medieval 
 times. The bishop came thither by boat, 
 no doubt, and abode there for a few quiet 
 weeks, when the sun lay hot over the plain ; 
 and a little farther down is a tiny village 
 called Horningsea, with a battlemented church 
 among orchards and thatched houses, with its 
 own disused wharf — a place which gives me 
 the sense of a bygone age as much as any 
 hamlet I know. Then presently the inter- 
 minable fen stretches for miles and miles in 
 
 every direction ; you can see, from the high 
 
 viii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 green flood-banks of the river, the endless 
 lines of watercourses and far-off clumps of 
 trees leagues away, and perhaps the great 
 tower of Ely, blue on the horizon, with the 
 vast spacious sky over-arching all. If that 
 is not a beautiful place in its width, its green- 
 ness, its unbroken silence, I do not know 
 what beauty is ! Nothing that historians call 
 an event has ever happened there. It is a 
 place that has just drifted out of the old lagoon 
 life of the past, the life of reed-beds and low- 
 lying islands, of marsh-fowl and fishes, into 
 a hardly less peaceful life of cornfield and 
 pasture. No one goes there except on 
 country business, no armies ever marshalled 
 or fought there. The sun goes down in 
 flame on the far horizon ; the wild duck fly 
 over and settle in the pools, the flowers rise 
 to life year by year on the edges of slow 
 watercourses ; the calm mystery of it can be 
 seen and remembered ; but it can hardly be 
 told in words. 
 
 2 
 
 Now side by side with that I will set 
 
 another picture of a different kind. 
 
 ix
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 A week or two ago I was travelling up 
 North. The stations we passed through 
 were many of them full of troops, the trains 
 were crammed with soldiers, and very healthy 
 and happy they looked. I was struck by 
 their friendliness and kindness ; they were 
 civil and modest ; they did not behave as if 
 they were in possession of the line, as actually 
 I suppose they were, but as if they were 
 ordinary travellers, and anxious not to in- 
 commode other people. I saw soldiers doing 
 kind little offices, helping an old frail woman 
 carefully out of the train and handing out 
 her baggage, giving chocolates to children, 
 interesting themselves in their fellow-travellers. 
 At one place I saw a proud and anxious father, 
 himself an old soldier, I think, seeing off a 
 jolly young subaltern to the front, with hardly 
 suppressed tears ; the young man was full of 
 excitement and delight, but did his best to 
 cheer up the spirits of " Daddy," as he fondly 
 called him. I felt very proud of our soldiers, 
 their simplicity and kindness and real good- 
 ness. I was glad to belong to the nation 
 vvhich had bred them, and half forgot the
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 grim business on which they were bent. We 
 stopped at a junction. And here I caught 
 sight of a strange little group. There was a 
 young man, an officer, who had evidently been 
 wounded ; one of his legs was encased in a 
 surgical contrivance, and he had a bandage 
 round his head. He sat on a bench between 
 two stalwart and cheerful-looking soldiers, who 
 had their arms round him, and were each 
 holding one of his hands. I could not see the 
 officer clearly at first, as a third soldier was 
 standing close in front of him and speaking 
 encouragingly to him, while at the same time he 
 sheltered him from the crowd. But he moved 
 away, and at the same moment the young 
 officer lifted his head, displaying a drawn and 
 sunken face, a brow compressed with pain, 
 and looked wildly and in a terrified way round 
 him, with large melancholy eyes. Then he 
 began to beat his foot on the ground, and 
 struggled to extricate himself from his com- 
 panions ; and then he buried his head in 
 his chest and sank down in an attitude of 
 angry despair. It was a sight that I cannot 
 
 forget. 
 
 xi
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Just before the train went off an officer 
 got into my carriage, and as we started, said 
 to me, " That 's a sad business there — it is a 
 young officer who was taken prisoner by the 
 Germans — one of our best men ; he escaped, 
 and after enduring awful hardships he got 
 into our lines, was wounded, and sent home 
 to hospital ; but the shock and the anxiety 
 preyed on his mind, and he has become, they 
 fear, hopelessly insane — he is being sent to a 
 sanatorium, but I fear there is very little chance 
 of his recovery ; he is wounded in the head 
 as well as the foot. He is a wealthy man, 
 devoted to soldiering, and he is just engaged 
 to a charminof airl, ..." 
 
 3 
 
 Now there is a hard and bitter fact of life, 
 
 very different from the story of the fenland. 
 
 I am not going to argue about it or discuss 
 
 it, because to trace the threads of it back 
 
 into life entangles one at once helplessly in a 
 
 dreadful series of problems : namely, how it 
 
 comes to pass that a calamity, grievous and 
 
 xii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 intolerable beyond all calamities in its pain 
 and sorrow and waste, a strife abhorred and 
 dreaded by all who are concerned in it, fruitful 
 in every shade of misery and wretchedness, 
 should yet have come about so inevitably and 
 relentlessly. No one claims to have desired 
 war ; all alike plead that it is in self-defence 
 that they are fighting, and maintain that they 
 have laboured incessandy for peace. Yet 
 the great mills of fate are turning, and grind- 
 ing out death and shame and loss. Every- 
 one sickens for peace, and yet any proposal 
 of peace is drowned in cries of bitterness and 
 rage. The wisest spend their time in point- 
 ing out the blessings which the conflict brings. 
 The mother hears that the son she parted 
 with in strength and courage is mouldering in 
 an unknown grave, and chokes her tears down. 
 The fruit of years of labour is consumed, lands 
 are laid desolate, the weak and innocent are 
 wronged ; yet the great war-engine goes thun- 
 dering and smashing on, leaving hatred and 
 horror behind it ; and all the while men pray to 
 a God of mercy and loving-kindness and entreat 
 
 His blessing on the work they are doing. 
 
 xiii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Is there then, if we are confronted with such 
 problems as these, anything to do except to 
 stay prostrate, Hke Job, in darkness and 
 despair, just enduring the stroke of sorrow ? 
 Is there any excuse for bringing before the 
 world at such a time as this the delightful 
 reveries, the easy happiness, the gentle 
 schemes of serener and less troubled days ? 
 The book which follows was the work of a 
 time which seems divided from the present 
 by a dark stream of unhappiness. Is it right, 
 is it decent, to unfold an old picture of peace 
 before the eyes of those who have had to 
 look into chaos and destruction ? Would it 
 not be braver to burn the record of the former 
 things that have passed away ? Or is it well 
 to fix our gaze firmly upon the peaceful things 
 that have been and will be once more ? 
 
 4 
 
 Yes, I believe that it is right and wholesome 
 
 to do this, because the most treacherous and 
 
 cowardly thing we can do is to disbelieve in 
 
 life. Those old dreams and visions were true 
 
 xiv
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 enough, and they will be true again. They 
 represent the real life to which we must try 
 to return. We must try to build up the con- 
 ception afresh, not feebly to confess that we 
 were all astray. We cannot abolish evil by 
 confessing ourselves worsted by it ; we can 
 only overcome it by holding fast to our be- 
 lief in labour and order and peace. It is a 
 temptation which we must resist, to philoso- 
 phise too much about war. Very few minds 
 are large enough and clear enough to hold 
 all the problems in their grasp. I do not 
 believe for an instant that war has falsified 
 our vision of peace. We must cling to it 
 more than ever, we must emphasize it, we 
 must dwell in it. I regard war as I regard 
 an outbreak of pestilence ; the best way to 
 resist it is not to brood over it, but to practise 
 joy and health. The ancient plagues which 
 devastated Europe have not been overcome by 
 philosophy, but by the upspringing desire of 
 men to live cleaner and more wholesome lives. 
 That instinct is not created by any philosophy 
 or persuasion ; it just arises everywhere and 
 finds its way to the light. 
 
 XV
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 To brood over the war, to spend our time in 
 disentangling its intricate causes, seems to me 
 a task for future historians. But a lover of 
 peace, confronted by the hideousness of war, 
 does best to try, if he can, to make plain what 
 he means by peace and why he desires it. I 
 do not mean by peace an indolent life, lost in 
 gentle reveries. I mean hard daily work, and 
 mutual understanding, and lavish help, and the 
 effort to reassure and console and uplift. And 
 I mean, too, a real conflict — not a conflict 
 where we set the best and bravest of each 
 nation to spill each other's blood — but a con- 
 flict against crime and disease and selfishness 
 and greediness and cruelty. There is much 
 fio-htino- to be done ; can we not combine to 
 fight our common foes, instead of weakening 
 each other against evil? We destroy in war 
 our finest parental stock, we waste our labour, , 
 we lose our garnered store ; we give every 
 harsh passion a chance to grow ; we live in 
 the traditions of the past, and not in the hopes 
 of the future. 
 
 XVI
 
 Introduction 
 
 5 
 And yet there is one thing in the present 
 war which I do in my heart of hearts feel to be 
 worth fighting for, and that is for the hope of 
 Hberty. It is hard to say what Hberty is, 
 because the essence of it is the subjugation of 
 personal inclinations. The Germans claim that 
 they alone know the meaning of liberty, and 
 that they have arrived at it by discipline. But 
 the bitterness of this war lies in the fact that 
 the Germans are not content to set an example 
 of attractive virtue, and to leave the world to 
 choose it ; but that if the world will not choose 
 it, they will force it upon them by violence and 
 the sword. It is this which makes me feel that 
 the war may be a vast protest of the nations, 
 which have the spirit of the future in their 
 hearts, against a theory of life that represents 
 the spirit of the past. And I thus, with some 
 seeming inconsistency, believe that the war 
 may represent the hope of peace at bay. If 
 the nations can keep this clearly before them, 
 and not be tempted either into reprisals, or 
 
 into rewarding themselves by the spoils of 
 
 xvii b
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 victory, if victory comes ; if it ends in the 
 Germans being sincerely convinced that they 
 have been misled and poisoned by a concep- 
 tion of right which is both uncivilised and un- 
 christian, then I believe that all our sufferings 
 may not be too great a price to pay for the 
 future well-being of the world. That is the 
 largest and brightest hope I dare to frame ; 
 and there are many hours and days when it 
 seems all clouded and dim. 
 
 We cannot at this time disengage our 
 thoughts from the war ; we cannot, and we 
 ought not. Still less can we take refuge from 
 it in idle dreams of peace and security ; but at 
 a time when every paper and book that we see 
 is full of the war and its sufferings, there must 
 be men and women who would do well to turn 
 their hearts and minds for a little away from it. 
 If we brood over it, if we feed our minds upon 
 it, especially if we are by necessity non-com- 
 batants, it is all apt to turn to a festering horror 
 which makes us useless and miserable. What- 
 
 xvui
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 iever happens, we must try not to be simply the 
 worse for the war — morbid, hysterical, beggared 
 of faith and hope, horrified with life. That is 
 the worst of evils ; and I believe that it is 
 wholesome to put as far as we can our cramped 
 minds in easier postures, and to let our spirits 
 have a wider range. We know how a dog 
 who is perpetually chained becomes fierce and 
 furious, and thinks of nothing but imaginary 
 foes, so that the most peaceful passer-by be- 
 comes an enemy. I have felt, since the war 
 began, a certain poison in the air, a tendency 
 towards suspicion and contentiousness and 
 vague hostility. We must exorcise that evil 
 spirit if we can ; and I believe it is best laid 
 by letting our minds go back to the old peace 
 for a little, and resolving that the new peace 
 which we believe is coming shall be of a larger 
 and nobler quality ; we may thus come to ap- 
 preciate the happiness which we enjoyed but 
 had not earned ; and lay our plans for earning 
 a new kind of happiness, the essence of which 
 shall be a mutual trust, that desires to give and 
 share whatever it enjoys, instead of hoarding it 
 
 and guarding it. 
 
 xix
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 A wise and unselfish woman wrote to me the 
 other day in words which will long live in my 
 mind ; she had sent out one whom she dearly 
 loved to the front, and she was fighting her 
 fears as gallantly as she could. "Whatever 
 happens, we must not give way to dread," she 
 wrote. " It does not do to dread anything for 
 our own treasures." 
 
 That is the secret ! What we must not do, 
 in the time of war, is to indicate to everyone 
 else what their sacrifices ought to be ; we must 
 just make our own sacrifices ; and perhaps the 
 man who loves and values peace most highly 
 does not sacrifice the least. But even he may 
 try to realise that life does not contradict itself; 
 but that the parts of it, whether they be de- 
 lightful or dreadful, do work into each other in 
 
 a marvellous way. 
 
 A. C. B. 
 
 September 20, 191 5-
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 AND OTHER ESSAYS 
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 All the best stories in the world are but 
 one story in reality — the story of an escape. 
 It is the only thing which interests us all 
 and at all times — how to escape. The stories 
 of Joseph, of Odysseus, of the prodigal son, 
 of the Pilgrim s Progress y of the " Ugly 
 Duckling," of Sintram, to name only a few 
 out of a great number, they are all stories of 
 escapes. It is the same with all love-stories. 
 " The course of true love never can run 
 smooth," says the old proverb, and love- 
 stories are but tales of a man or a woman's 
 escape from the desert of lovelessness into 
 the citadel of love. Even tragedies like 
 those of CEdipti$ and Hamlet have the same
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 thought in the background. In the tale of 
 Qldipus, the old blind king in his tattered 
 robe, who had committed in ignorance such 
 nameless crimes, leaves his two daughters 
 and the attendants standing below the old 
 pear-tree and the marble tomb by the sacred 
 fountain ; he says the last faint words of love, 
 till the voice of the god comes thrilling upon 
 the air : 
 
 ** CEdipus, why delayest thou ? " 
 
 Then he walks away at once in silence, 
 leaning on the arm of Theseus, and when 
 at last the watchers dare to look, they see 
 Theseus afar off, alone, screening his eyes 
 with his hand, as if some sight too dreadful 
 for mortal eyes had passed before him ; but 
 CEdipus is gone, and not with lamentation, 
 but in hope and wonder. Even when Hamlet 
 dies, and the peal of ordnance is shot off, it 
 is to congratulate him upon his escape from 
 unbearable woe ; and that is the same in life. 
 If our eye falls on the sad stories of men 
 and women who have died by their own hand, 
 how seldom do they speak in the scrawled 
 messages they leave behind them as though
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 they were going to silence and nothingness ! 
 It is just the other way. The unhappy fathers 
 and mothers who, maddened by disaster, kill 
 their children are hoping to escape with those 
 they love best out of miseries they cannot 
 bear ; they mean to fly together, as Lot fled 
 with his daughters from the city of the plain. 
 The man who slays himself is not the man 
 who hates life ; he only hates the sorrow 
 and the shame which make unbearable that 
 life which he loves only too well. He is 
 trying to migrate to other conditions ; he 
 desires to live, but he cannot live so. It is 
 the imagination of man that makes him seek 
 death ; only the animal endures, but man 
 hurries away in the hope of finding some- 
 thing better. 
 
 It is, however, stranp-e to reflect how weak 
 man's imagination is when it comes to deal 
 with what is beyond him, how little able he 
 is to devise anything that he desires to do 
 when he has escaped from life. The unsub- 
 stantial heaven of a Buddhist, with its un- 
 thinkable Nirvana, is merely the depriving 
 life of all its attributes ; the dull sensuality 
 
 3
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 of the Mohammedan paradise, with its ugly 
 multipHcation of gross delights ; the tedious 
 outcries of the saints in light which make the 
 medieval scheme of heaven into one protracted 
 canticle — these are all deeply unattractive, and 
 have no power at all over the vigorous spirit. 
 Even the vision of Socrates, the hope of un- 
 restricted converse with great minds, is a 
 very unsatisfying thought, because it yields 
 so little material to work upon. 
 
 The fact, of course, is that it is just the 
 variety of experience which makes life interest- 
 ing, — toil and rest, pain and relief, hope and 
 satisfaction, danger and security, — and if we 
 once remove the idea of vicissitude from life, it 
 all becomes an indolent and uninspiring affair. 
 It is the process of change which is delightful, 
 the finding out what we can do and what we 
 cannot, groine from io^norance to knowledge, 
 from clumsiness to skill ; even our relations 
 with those v»^hom we love are all bound up 
 with the discoveries we make about them 
 and the degree in which we can help them 
 and affect them. What the mind instinctively 
 dislikes is stationariness ; and an existence 
 
 4
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 in which there was nothing to escape from, 
 nothing more to hope for, to learn, to desire, 
 would be frankly unendurable. 
 
 The reason why we dread death is because 
 it seems to be a suspension of all our familiar 
 activities. It would be terrible to have no- 
 thing but memory to depend upon. The only 
 use of memory is that it distracts us a little 
 from present conditions if they are dull, and 
 it is only too true that the recollection in 
 sorrow of happy things is torture of the worst 
 kind. 
 
 Once when Tennyson was suffering from a 
 dangerous illness, his friend Jowett wrote to 
 Lady Tennyson to suggest that the poet might 
 find comfort in thinking of all the good he 
 had done. But that is not the kind of comfort 
 that a sufferer desires ; we may envy a good 
 man his retrospect of activity, but we cannot 
 really suppose that to meditate complacently 
 upon what one has been enabled to do is the 
 final thought that a good man is likely to 
 indulge. He is far more likely to torment 
 himself over all that he might have done. 
 
 It is true, I think, that old and tired people 
 
 5
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 pass into a quiet serenity ; but it is the serenity 
 
 of the old dog who sleeps in the sun, wags his 
 
 tail if he is invited to bestir himself, but does 
 
 not leave his place ; and if one reaches that 
 
 condition, it is but a dumb gratitude at the 
 
 thought that nothing more is expected of the 
 
 worn-out frame and fatigued mind. But no 
 
 one, I should imagine, really hopes to step 
 
 into immortality so tired and worn out that 
 
 the highest hope that he can frame is that he 
 
 will be let alone for ever. We must not trust 
 
 the drowsiness of the outworn spirit to frame 
 
 the real hopes of humanity. If we believe ^^ 
 
 that the next experience ahead of us is like 
 
 that of the mariners, 
 
 In the afternoon they came unto a land 
 In which it seemed always afternoon, 
 
 then we acquiesce in a dreamless sort of sleep 
 as the best hope of man. 
 
 No, we must rather trust the desires of the 
 spirit at its healthiest and most vigorous, and 
 these are all knit up with the adventure of 
 escape, as I have said. There is something 
 hostile on our track : the copse that closes in 
 
 ^s
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 upon the road is thick with spears ; presences 
 that do not wish us well move darkly in the 
 wood and keep pace with us, and the only 
 explanation we can give is that we need to be 
 spurred on by fear if we are not drawn forward 
 by desire or hope. We have to keep moving, 
 and if we will not run to the goal, we must at 
 least flee, with backward glances at something 
 which threatens us. 
 
 There is an old and strange Eastern alle- 
 gory of a man wandering in the desert ; he 
 draws near to a grove of trees, when he sud- 
 denly becomes avv^are that there is a lion on 
 his track, hurrying and bounding along on the 
 scent of his steps. The man flees for safety 
 into the grove ; he sees there a roughly built 
 water-tank of stone, excavated in the ground, 
 and built up of masonry much fringed with 
 plants. He climbs swiftly down to where he 
 sees a ledge close on the water ; as he does 
 this, he sees that in the water lies a great 
 lizard, with open jaws, watching him with 
 wicked eyes. He stops short, and he can just 
 support himself among the stones by holding 
 on to the branches of a plant which grows from 
 
 7
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 a ledge above him. While he thus holds on, 
 
 with death behind him and before, he feels the 
 
 branches quivering, and sees above, out of 
 
 reach, two mice, one black and one white, f' 
 
 which are nibbling at the stems he holds and 
 
 will soon sever them. He waits despairingly, 
 
 and while he does so, he sees that there are 
 
 drops of honey on the leaves which he holds ; 
 
 he puts his lips to them, licks them off, and 
 
 finds them very sweet. 
 
 The mice stand, no doubt, for night and 
 day, and the honey is the sweetness of life, 
 which it is possible to taste and relish even 
 when death is before and behind ; and it is 
 true that the utter precariousness of life does 
 not, as a matter of fact, distract us from the 
 pleasure of it, even though the strands to 
 which we hold are slowly parting. It is all, 
 then, an adventure and an escape ; but even 
 in the worst insecurity, we may often be sur- 
 prised to find that it is somehow sweet. 
 
 It is not in the least a question of the 
 
 apparent and outward adventurousness of one's 
 
 life. Foolish people sometimes write and 
 
 think as though one could not have had ad- 
 
 8
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 ventures unless one has hung about at bar- 
 room doors and in billiard-saloons, worked 
 one's passage before the mast in a sailing- 
 ship, dug for gold among the mountains, ex- 
 plored savage lands, shot strange animals, 
 fared hardly among deep-drinking and loud- 
 swearing men. It is possible, of course, to 
 have adventures of this kind, and, indeed, I 
 had a near relative whose life was fuller of 
 vicissitudes than any life I have ever known : 
 he was a sailor, a clerk, a policeman, a soldier, 
 a clergyman, a farmer, a verger. But the 
 mere unsettledness of it suited him : he was 
 an easy comrade, brave, reckless, restless ; 
 he did not mind roughness, and the one thing 
 he could not do was to settle down to any- 
 thing regular and quiet. He did not dislike 
 life at all, even when he stood half-naked, as 
 he once told me he did, on a board slune 
 from the side of a ship, and dipped up pails 
 of water to swab it, the water freezing as he 
 flung it on the timbers. But with all this 
 variety of life he did not learn anything 
 particular from it all ; he was much the same 
 always, good - natured, talkative, childishly 
 
 9
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 absorbed, not looking backward or forward, 
 and fondest of telling stories with sailors in 
 an inn. He learned to be content in most 
 companies and to fare roughly ; but he gained 
 neither wisdom nor humour, and he was not 
 either happy or independent, though he de- 
 spised with all his heart the stay-at-home, 
 stick-in-the-mud life. 
 
 But we are not all made like this, and it is 
 only possible for a few people to live so by 
 the fact that most people prefer to stay at 
 home and do the work of the world. My 
 cousin was not a worker, and, indeed, did no 
 work except under compulsion and in order 
 to live ; but such people seem to belong to 
 an older order, and are more like children 
 playing about, and at leisure to play because 
 others work to feed and clothe them. The 
 world would be a wretched and miserable 
 place if all tried to live life on those lines. 
 
 It would be impossible to me to live so, 
 though I dare say I should be a better man 
 if I had had a little more hardship of that 
 kind ; but I have worked hard in my own 
 way, and though I have had few hairbreadth 
 
 lO
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 escapes, yet I have had sharp troubles and 
 
 slow anxieties. I have been like the man in 
 
 the story, between the lion and the lizard 
 
 for many months together ; and I have had 
 
 more to bear, by temperament and fortune, 
 
 than my roving cousin ever had to endure ; 
 
 so that because a life seems both sheltered 
 
 and prosperous, it need not therefore have 
 
 been without its adventures and escapes and 
 
 its haunting fears. 
 
 The more one examines into life and the 
 
 motives of it, the more does one perceive 
 
 that the imagination, concerning itself with 
 
 hopes of escape from any conditions which 
 
 hamper and confine us, is the dynamic force 
 
 that is transmuting the world. The child is 
 
 for ever planning what it will do when it is 
 
 older, and dreams of an irresponsible choice 
 
 of food and an unrestrained use of money ; 
 
 the girl schemes to escape from the constraints 
 
 of home by independence or marriage ; the 
 
 professional man plans to make a fortune and 
 
 retire ; the mother dreams ambitious dreams 
 
 for her children ; the politician craves for 
 
 power ; the writer hopes to gain the ear of 
 
 II
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 the world — these are only a few casual in- 
 stances of the desire that is always at work 
 within us, projecting us into a larger and 
 freer future out of the limited and restricted 
 present. That is the real current of the 
 world, and though there are sedate people 
 who are contented with life as they see it, 
 yet in most minds there is a fluttering of 
 little tremulous hopes forecasting ease and 
 freedom ; and there are also many tired and 
 dispirited people who are not content with 
 life as they have it, but acquiesce in its 
 dreariness ; yet all who have any part in the 
 world's development are full of schemes for 
 themselves and others by which the clogging 
 and detaining elements are somehow to be 
 improved away. Sensitive people want to 
 find life more harmonious and beautiful, 
 healthy people desire a more continuous sort 
 of holiday than they can attain, religious 
 people long for a secret ecstasy of peace ; 
 there is, in fact, a constant desire at work to 
 realise perfection. 
 
 And yet, despite it all, there is a vast 
 preponderance of evidence which shows us 
 
 12
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 that the attainment of our little dreams is 
 not a thing to be desired, and that satisfied 
 desire is the least contented of moods. If 
 we realise our programme, if we succeed, 
 marry the woman we love, make a fortune, 
 win leisure, gain power, a whole host of 
 further desires instantly come in sight. I 
 once congratulated a statesman on a triumph- 
 ant speech. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I do not deny that it 
 is a pleasure to have had for once the exact 
 effect that one intended to have ; but the 
 shadow of it is the fear that having once 
 reached that standard, one may not be able 
 to keep it up," 
 
 The awful penalty of success is the haunt- 
 ing dread of subsequent failure, and even 
 sadder still is the fact that in striving eagerly 
 to attain an end, we are apt to lose the sense 
 of the purpose which inspired us. This is 
 more drearily true of the pursuit of money 
 than of anything else. I could name several 
 friends of my own who started in business 
 with the perfectly definite and avowed in- 
 tention of making a competence in order 
 
 13
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 that they might live as they desired to live ; 
 that they might travel, read, write, enjoy a 
 secure leisure. But when they had done 
 exactly what they meant to do, the desires 
 were all atrophied. They could not give up 
 their work ; they felt it would be safer to 
 have a larger margin, they feared they might 
 be bored, they had made friends, and did not 
 wish to sever the connection, they must pro- 
 vide a little more for their families : the whole 
 programme had insensibly altered. Even so 
 they were still planning to escape from some- 
 thing — from some boredom or anxiety or 
 dread. 
 
 And yet it seems very difficult for any 
 person to realise what is the philosophical 
 conclusion, namely, that the work of each of 
 us matters very little to the world, but that 
 it matters very much to ourselves that we 
 should have some work to do. We seem to 
 be a very feeble-minded race in this respect, 
 that we require to be constantly bribed and 
 tempted by illusions. I have known men 
 of force and vigour both in youth and middle 
 life who had a strong sense of the value and 
 
 14
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 significance of their work ; as age came upon 
 them, the value of their work gradually dis- 
 appeared ; they were deferred to, consulted, 
 outwardly reverenced, and perhaps all the 
 more scrupulously and compassionately in 
 order that they might not guess the lament- 
 able fact that their work was done and that 
 the forces and influences were in younger 
 hands. But the men themselves never lost 
 the sense of their importance. I knew an 
 octogenarian clergyman who declared once 
 in my presence that it was ridiculous to say 
 that old men lost their faculty of dealing with 
 affairs. 
 
 "Why," he said, "it is only quite in the 
 last few years that I feel I have really 
 mastered my work. It takes me far less 
 time than it used to do ; it is just promptly 
 and methodically executed." The old man 
 obviously did not know that his impression 
 that his work consumed less time was only 
 too correct, because it was, as a matter of 
 fact, almost wholly performed by his colleagues, 
 and nothing was referred to him except 
 purely formal business. 
 
 15
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 It seems rather pitiful that we should not 
 be able to face the truth, and that we cannot 
 be content with discerning the principle of it 
 all, which is that our work is given to us to 
 do not for its intrinsic value, but because it 
 is good for us to do it. 
 
 The secret government of the world seems, 
 indeed, to be penetrated by a good-natured 
 irony ; it is as if the Power controlling us 
 saw that, like children, we must be tenderly 
 wooed into doing things which we should 
 otherwise neglect, by a sense of high im- 
 portance, as a kindly father who is doing 
 accounts keeps his children quiet by letting 
 one hold the blotting-paper and another the 
 ink, so that they believe that they are help- 
 ing when they are merely being kept from 
 hindering. 
 
 And this strange sense of escape which 
 drives us into activity and energy seems 
 given us not that we may realise our aims, 
 which turn out hollow and vapid enough when 
 they are realised, but that we may drink 
 deep of experience for the sake of its bene- 
 ficent effect upon us. The failure of almost 
 
 i6
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 all Utopias and ideal states, designed and 
 planned by writers and artists, lies in the 
 absence of all power to suggest how the happy 
 folk who have conquered all the ills and 
 difficulties of life are to employ themselves 
 reasonably and eagerly when there is nothing 
 left to improve. William Morris, indeed, in 
 his Neivs frovi Nowhere, confessed through 
 the mouth of one of his characters that there 
 would be hardly enough pleasant work, like 
 hay-making and bridge-building and carpen- 
 tering and paving, left to go round ; and the 
 picture of life which he draws, with its total 
 lack of privacy, the shops where you may 
 ask for anything that you want without having 
 to pay, the guest-houses, with their straw- 
 coloured wine in quaint carafes, the rich stews 
 served in grey earthenware dishes streaked 
 with blue, the dancing, the caressing, the 
 singular absence of all elderly women, strikes 
 on the mind with a quite peculiar sense of 
 boredom and vacuity, because Morris seems 
 to have eliminated so many sources of human 
 interest, and to have conformed every one 
 
 to a type, which is refreshing enough as a 
 
 17 B
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 contrast, but very tiresome in the mass. It 
 will not be enough to have got rid of the 
 combative and sordid and vulgar elements of 
 the world unless a very active spirit of some 
 kind has taken its place. Morris himself in- 
 tended that art should supply the missing 
 force ; but art is not a sociable thing ; it is 
 apt to be a lonely affair, and few artists have 
 either leisure or inclination to admire one 
 another's work. 
 
 Still more dreary was the dream of the 
 philosopher J. S. Mill, who was asked upon 
 one occasion what would be left for men to 
 do when they had been perfected on the 
 lines which he desired. He replied, after a 
 long and painful hesitation, that they might 
 find satisfaction in reading the poems of 
 Wordsworth. But Wordsworth's poems are 
 useful in the fact that they supply a refresh- 
 ing contrast to the normal thought of the 
 world, and nothing but the fact that many 
 took a different view of life was potent enough 
 to produce them. 
 
 So, for the present at all events, we must 
 
 be content to feel that our imagination pro- 
 
 i8
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 vides us with a motive rather than with a 
 goal ; and though it is very important that 
 we should strive with all our might to eliminate 
 the baser elements of life, yet we must be 
 brave and wise enough to confess how much 
 of our best happiness is born of the fact that 
 we have these elements to contend with. 
 
 Edward FitzGerald once said that a fault 
 of modern writing was that it tried to com- 
 press too many good things into a page, and 
 aimed too much at omitting the homelier 
 interspaces. We must not try to make our 
 lives into a perpetual feast ; at least we must 
 try to do so, but it must be by conquest rather 
 than by inglorious flight ; we must face the 
 fact that the stuff of life is both homely and 
 indeed amiss, and realise, if we can, that our 
 happiness is bound up with energetically try- 
 ing to escape from conditions which we cannot 
 avoid. When we are young and fiery-hearted, 
 we think that a tame counsel ; but, like all 
 great truths, it dawns on us slowly. Not until 
 we begin to ascend the hill do we grasp how 
 huge, how complicated, how intricate the plain, 
 with all its fields, woods, hamlets, and streams 
 
 19
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 is ; we are happy men and women if in middle 
 
 age we even faintly grasp that the actual truth 
 
 about life is vastly larger and finer than any 
 
 impatient youthful fancies about it are, though 
 
 it is good to have indulged our splendid 
 
 fancies in youth, if only for the delight of 
 
 learning how much more magnificent is the 
 
 real design. 
 
 In the Pilgrims Progress, at the very outset 
 
 of the journey, Evangelist asks Christian why 
 
 he is standing still. He replies : 
 
 " Because I know not whither to go." 
 
 Evangelist, with a certain grimness of humour, 
 
 thereupon hands him a parchment roll. One 
 
 supposes that it will be a map or a paper of 
 
 directions, but all that it has written in it is, 
 
 " Fly from the wrath to come ! " 
 
 Well, it is no longer that of which we are 
 
 afraid, a rain of fire and brimstone, storm and 
 
 tempest! The Power behind the world has 
 
 better gifts than these ; but we still have to fly, 
 
 where we can and as fast as we can ; and when 
 
 we have traversed the dim leagues, and have 
 
 seen things wonderful at every turn, and have 
 
 passed through the bitter flood, we shall find — 
 
 20 
 
 \
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 at least this is my hope — no guarded city of 
 God from which we shall go no more out, but 
 another road passing into wider fields and 
 dimmer uplands, and to things more and more 
 wonderful and strange and unknown. 
 
 21
 
 II 
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 There is a tendency, not by any means 
 among the greater Vv^riters, but among what 
 may be called the epigoni, — the satellites of 
 literature, the men who would be great if they 
 knew how, — to speak of the business of writing 
 as if it were a sacred mystery, pontifically 
 celebrated, something remote and secret, which 
 must be guarded from the vulgar and the 
 profane, and which requires an initiation to 
 comprehend. I always feel rather suspicious 
 of this attitude ; it seems to me something of 
 a pose, adopted in order to make other people 
 envious and respectful. It is the same sort of 
 precaution as the " properties " of the wizard, 
 his gown and wand, the stuffed crocodile and 
 the skeleton in the corner ; for if there is a 
 great fuss made about locking and double- 
 locking a box, it creates a presumption of 
 
 22
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 doubt as to whether there is anything particular 
 in it. In my nursery days one of my brothers 
 was fond of locking up his private treasures 
 in a box, producing it in public, unfastening it, 
 glancing into it with a smile, and then softly 
 closing it and turning the key in a way calcu- 
 lated to provoke the most intense curiosity as 
 to the contents ; but upon investigation it 
 proved to contain nothing but the wool of 
 sheep, dried beans, and cases of exploded 
 cartridges. 
 
 So, too, I have known both writers and 
 artists who made a mystery out of their craft, 
 professed a holy rapture, as if the business of 
 imagination and the art of setting things down 
 were processes that could not be explained to 
 ordinary people, but were the property of a 
 brotherhood. And thus grow up cliques and 
 coteries, of people who, by mutual admiration, 
 try to console one another for the absence of 
 the applause which the world will not concede 
 them, and to atone for the coldness of the 
 public by a warmth of intimate proximity. 
 
 This does not in the least apply to groups 
 of people who are genuinely and keenly in- 
 
 23
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 terested in art of any kind, and form a con- 
 genial circle in which they discuss frankly and 
 enthusiastically, methods of work, the books, 
 ideas, pictures, and music which interest them. 
 That is quite a different thing, a real fortress 
 of enthusiasm in the midst of Meshech and 
 Kedar. What makes it base and morbid is 
 the desire to exclude for the sake of exclusion ; 
 to indulge in solitary raptures, hoping to be 
 overheard ; to keep the tail of the eye upon 
 the public ; to attempt to mystify ; and to 
 trade upon the inquisitive instinct of human 
 beings, the natural desire, that is, to know what 
 is going on within any group that seems to 
 have exciting business of its own. 
 
 The Pre-Raphaelites, for instance, were a 
 group and not a coterie. They were engaged 
 in working and enjoying, in looking out for 
 artistic promise, in welcoming and praising 
 any performance of a kind that Rossetti re- 
 cognised as "stunning." They were sure of 
 their ground. The brotherhood, with its 
 magazine. The Germ^ and its mystic initials, 
 was all a gigantic game ; and they held to- 
 gether because they were revolutionary in 
 
 24
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 this, that they wished to slay, as one stabs 
 a tyrant, the vulgarised and sentimental art 
 of the day. They did not effect anything 
 like a revolution, of course. It was but a 
 ripple on the flowing stream, and they di- 
 verged soon enough, most of them, into 
 definite tracks of their own. The strength 
 of the movement lay in the fact that they 
 hungered and thirsted after art, clamouring 
 for beauty, so Mr. Chesterton says, as an 
 ordinary man clamours for beer. But their 
 aim was not to mystify or to enlarge their 
 own consequence, but to convert the unbe- 
 liever, and to produce fine things. 
 
 There is something in the Anglo-Saxon 
 temperament which is on the whole unfavour- 
 able to movements and groups ; the great 
 figures of the Victorian time in art and litera- 
 ture have been solitary men, anarchical as 
 regards tradition, strongly individualistic, 
 working on their own lines without much re- 
 gard for schools or conventions. The Anglo- 
 Saxon is deferential, but not imitative ; he 
 has a fancy for doing things in his own way. 
 Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Byron — were 
 
 25
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 there ever four contemporary poets so little 
 affected by one another's work ? Think of 
 the phrase in which Scott summed up his 
 artistic creed, saying that he had succeeded, in 
 so far as he had succeeded, by a " hurried frank- 
 ness of composition," which was meant to 
 please young and eager people. It is true 
 that Wordsworth had a solemn majesty about 
 his work, practised a sort of priestly function, 
 never averse to entertaininof ardent visitors 
 by conducting them about his grounds, and 
 showing them where certain poems had been 
 engendered. But Wordsworth, as Fitz-Gerald 
 truly said, was proud, not vain — proud like 
 the high-hung cloud or the solitary peak. 
 He felt his responsibility, and desired to be 
 felt rather than to be applauded. 
 
 If one takes the later giants, Tennyson had 
 a sense of magnificence, a childlike self-absorp- 
 tion. He said once in the same breath that 
 the desire of the public to know the details of 
 the artist's life was the most degrading and 
 debasing curiosity, — it was ripping people up 
 like pigs, — and added with a sigh that he 
 
 thought that there was a congestion in the 
 
 26
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 world about his own fame ; he had received 
 no complimentary letters for several days. 
 
 Browning, on the other hand, kept his 
 raptures and his processes severely to himself. 
 He never seems to have given the smallest 
 hint as to how he conceived a poem or worked 
 it out. He was as reticent about his occupa- 
 tion as a well-bred stockbroker, and did his 
 best in society to give the impression of a 
 perfectly decorous and conventional gentle- 
 man, telling strings of not very interesting 
 anecdotes, and making a great point of being 
 ordinary. Indeed, I believe that Browning 
 was haunted by the eighteenth-century idea 
 that there was something not quite respectable 
 about professional literature, and that, like 
 Gray, he wished to be considered a private 
 gentleman who wrote for his amusement. 
 When in later years he took a holiday, he 
 went not for secret contemplation, but to 
 recover from social fati^rue. Brownini/ is 
 really one of the most mysterious figures in 
 literature in this respect, bec.iuse his inner 
 life of poetry was so entirely ap;irt from his 
 
 outer life of dinner-parties and afternoon 
 
 27
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 calls. Inside the sacred enclosure, the winds 
 of heaven blow, the thunder rolls ; he pro- 
 claims the supreme worth of human passion, 
 he dives into the disgraceful secrets of the 
 soul : and then he comes out of his study a 
 courteous and very proper gentleman, looking 
 like a retired diplomatist, and talking like an 
 intellisfent commercial traveller — a man whose 
 one wish appeared to be as good-humouredly 
 like everyone else as he conveniently could. 
 
 What, again, is one to make of Dickens, 
 with his love of private theatricals, his florid 
 waistcoats and watch-chains, his sentimental 
 radicalism, his kindly, convivial, gregarious 
 life ? He, again, did his work in a rapture 
 of solitary creation, and seemed to have no 
 taste for discussing his ideas or methods. 
 Then, too, Dickens's later desertion of his 
 work in favour of public readings and money- 
 making is curious to note. He was like 
 Shakespeare in this, that the passion of his 
 later life seemed to be to realise an ideal of 
 bourgeois prosperity. Dickens seems to have 
 regarded his art partly as a means of social 
 
 reform, and partly as a method of making 
 
 28
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 money. The latter aim is to a great extent 
 accounted for by the miserable and humili- 
 ating circumstances of his early life, which 
 bit very deep into him. Yet his art was 
 hardly an end in itself, but something through 
 which he made his way to other aims. 
 
 Carlyle, again, was a writer who put ideas 
 first, despised his craft except as a means of 
 prophesying, hated literary men and coteries, 
 preferred aristocratic society, while at the 
 same time he loved to say how unutterably 
 tiresome he found it. Who will ever under- 
 stand why Carlyle trudged many miles to 
 attend parties and receptions at Bath House, 
 where the Ashburtons lived, or what stimulus 
 he discerned in it ? I have a belief that Car- 
 lyle felt a quite unconscious pride in the fact 
 that he, the son of a small Scotch farmer, had 
 his assured and respected place among a 
 semi-feudal circle, just as I have very little 
 doubt that his migration to Craigenputtock 
 was ultimately suggested to him by the plea- 
 sure and dignity of being an undoubted laird, 
 and living among his own, or at least his 
 
 wife's, lands. In saying this, I do not wish 
 
 29
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 to belittle Carlyle, or to accuse him of what 
 may be called snobbishness. He had no 
 wish to worm himself by slavish deference 
 into the society of the great, but he liked to 
 be able to walk in and say his say there, 
 fearing no man ; it was like a huge mirror 
 that reflected his own independence. Yet no 
 one ever said harder or fiercer things of his 
 own fellow-craftsmen. His description of 
 Charles Lamb as "a pitiful rickety, gasping, 
 staggering, stammering tom-fool " is not an 
 amiable one ! Or take his account of Words- 
 worth — how instead of a hand-shake, the poet 
 intrusted him with "a handful of numb un- 
 responsive fingers," and how his speech " for 
 prolixity, thinness, endless dilution" excelled 
 all the other speech that Carlyle had ever 
 heard from mortals. He admitted that Words- 
 worth was " a genuine man, but intrinsically 
 and extrinsically a small one, let them sing 
 or say what they will." In fact, Carlyle de- 
 spised his trade : one of the most vivid and 
 voluble of writers, he derided the desire of 
 self-expression ; one of the most continu- 
 ous and brilliant of talkers, he praised and 
 
 30
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 upheld the virtue of silence. He spoke and 
 wrote of himself as a would-be man of action 
 condemned to twaddle ; and Ruskin expressed 
 very trenchantly what will always be the 
 puzzle of Carlyle's life — that, as Ruskin said, 
 he groaned and gasped and lamented over the 
 intolerable burden of his work, and that yet, 
 when you came to read it, you found it all 
 alive, full of salient and vivid details, not so 
 much patiently collected, as obviously and 
 patently enjoyed. Again there is the mystery 
 of his lectures. They seem to have been 
 fiery, eloquent, impressive harangues ; and 
 yet Carlyle describes himself stumbling to 
 the platform, sleepless, agitated, and drugged, 
 inclined to say that the best thing his audience 
 could do for him would be to cover him up 
 with an inverted tub ; while as he left the 
 platform among signs of visible emotion and 
 torrents of applause, he thought, he said, that 
 the idea of being paid for such stuff made 
 him feel like a man who had been robbingr 
 hen-roosts. 
 
 There is an interesting story of how Tenny- 
 son once stayed with Bradley, when Bradley 
 
 31
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 was headmaster of Marlborough, and said 
 grimly one evening that he envied Bradley, 
 with all his heart, his life of hard, fruitful, 
 necessary work, and owned that he sometimes 
 felt about his own poetry, what, after all, did 
 all this elaborate versifying amount to, and 
 who was in any way the better or happier 
 for it ? 
 
 The truth is that the man of letters forgets 
 that this is exactly the same thought as that 
 which haunts the busy man after, let us say, 
 a day of looking over examination-papers or 
 attending committees. The busy man, if he 
 reflects at all, is only too apt to say to him- 
 self, " Here have I been slaving away like a 
 stone-breaker, reading endless scripts, discuss- 
 ing an infinity of petty details, and what on 
 earth is the use of it all?" Yet Sir Alfred 
 Lyall once said that if a man had once taken 
 a hand in big public affairs, he thought of 
 literature much as a man who had crossed 
 the Atlantic in a sailing-yacht might think 
 of sculling a boat upon the Thames. One 
 of the things that moved Dr. Johnson to a 
 
 tempest of wrath was when on the death of 
 
 32
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 Lord Lichfield, the Lord Chancellor, Boswell 
 said to him that if he had taken to the law 
 as a profession, he might have been Lord 
 Chancellor, and with the same title. Johnson 
 was extremely angry, and said that it was 
 unfriendly to remind a man of such things 
 when it was too late. 
 
 One may conclude from such incidents and 
 confessions that even some of the most emi- 
 nent men of letters have been haunted by 
 the sense that in following literature they 
 have not chosen the best part, and that 
 success in public life is a more useful thing 
 as well as more glorious. 
 
 But one has to ask oneself what exactly 
 an imaginative man means by success, and 
 what it is that attracts him in the idea of it. 
 Putting aside the more obvious and material 
 advantages, — wealth, position, influence, repu- 
 tation, — a man of far-reaching mind and large 
 ideas may well be haunted by a feeling that 
 if he had entered public life, he might by 
 example, precept, influence, legislation, have 
 done something to turn his ideas and schemes 
 into accomplished facts, have effected some 
 
 00 ^
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 moral or social reform, have set a mark on 
 history. It must be remembered that a great 
 writer's fame is often a posthumous growth, 
 and we must be very careful not to attribute 
 to a famous author a consciousness in his 
 lifetime of his subsequent, or even of his 
 contemporary, influence. It is undoubtedly 
 true that Ruskin and Carlyle affected the 
 thought of their time to an extraordinary de- 
 gree. Ruskin summed up in his teaching an 
 artistic ideal of the pursuit and influence of 
 beauty, while Carlyle inculcated a more com- 
 bative theory of active righteousness and the 
 hatred of cant. But Ruskin's later years 
 were spent in the shadow of a profound sense 
 of failure. He thought that the public en- 
 joyed his pretty phrases and derided his 
 ideas ; while Carlyle felt that he had fulmin- 
 ated in vain, and that the world was settling 
 down more comfortably than ever into the 
 pursuit of bourgeois prosperity and dishonest 
 respectability. 
 
 And yet if, on the other hand, one com- 
 pares the subsequent fame of men of action 
 with the fame of men of letters, the contrast 
 
 34 
 
 i
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 is indeed bewildering. Who attaches the 
 smallest idea to the personality of the Lord 
 Lichfield whom Dr. Johnson envied ? Who 
 that adores the memory of Wordsworth knows 
 anything about Lord Goderich, a contem- 
 porary prime minister? The world reads 
 and re-reads the memoirs of dead poets, goes 
 on pilgrimage to the tiny cottages where they 
 lived in poverty, cherishes the smallest re- 
 cords and souvenirs of them. The names of 
 statesmen and generals become dim except 
 to professed historians, while the memories of 
 great romancers and lyrists, and even of lesser 
 writers still, go on being revived and re- 
 decorated. What would Keats have thought, 
 as he lay dying in his high, hot, noisy room 
 at Rome, if he had known that a century later 
 every smallest detail of his life, his most care- 
 less letters, would be scanned by eager eyes, 
 when few save historians would be able to 
 name a single member of the cabinet in 
 power at the time of his death ? 
 
 There is a charming story told by Lord 
 Morley, of how he once met Rossetti in the 
 street at Chelsea when a general parliamen- 
 
 35
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 tary election was going on, and it transpired, 
 after a few remarks, that Rossetti was not 
 even aware that this was the case. When 
 he was informed, he said with some hesitation 
 that he supposed that one side or other would 
 get in, and that, after all, it did not very much 
 matter. Lord Morley, telling the anecdote, 
 said that he himself had forgotten which side 
 did get in, from which he concluded that it 
 had not very m.uch mattered. 
 
 The truth is that national life has to go 
 on, and that very elaborate arrangements are 
 made by statesmen and politicians for its 
 administration. But it is in reality very un- 
 important. The wisest statesman in the world 
 cannot affect it very much ; he can only take 
 advantage of the trend of public opinion. 
 If he outruns it, he is instantly stranded ; and 
 perhaps the most he can do is to foresee how 
 people will be thinking some six weeks ahead. 
 But meanwhile the writer is speaking from 
 the soul and to the soul ; he is suggesting, 
 inspiring, stimulating; he is presenting thoughts 
 in so beautiful a form that they become de- 
 sirable and adorable ; and what the average 
 
 36
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 man believes to-day is what the idealist has 
 believed half a century before. He must 
 take his chance of fame ; and his best hope 
 is to eschew rhetoric, which implies the con- 
 sciousness of opponents and auditors, and just 
 present his dreams and visions as serenely 
 and beautifully as he can. The statesman 
 has to argue, to strive, to compromise, to 
 convert if he can, to coerce if he cannot. It 
 is a dusty encounter, and he must sacrifice 
 grace and perhaps truth in the onset. He 
 may gain his point, achieve the practicable 
 and the second best ; but he is an opportunist 
 and a schemer, and he cannot make life into 
 what he wills, but only into what he can 
 manage. Of course the writer in a way risks 
 more ; he may reject the homely, useful task, 
 and yet not have the strength to fit wings to 
 his visions ; he may live fruitlessly and die 
 unpraised, with the thought that he has lost 
 two birds in the hand for one which is not 
 even in the bush. He may turn out a mere 
 Don Quixote, helmeted with a barber's basin 
 and tilting against windmills ; but he could 
 not choose otherwise, and he has paid a 
 
 Jie2403
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 heavier price for his failure than many a man 
 has paid for his success. 
 
 It is probably a wholly false antithesis to 
 speak of life as a contrast to literature ; one 
 might as well draw a distinction between 
 eating and drinking. What is meant as a 
 rule is that if a man devotes himself to im- 
 aginative creation, to the perception and ex- 
 pression of beauty, he must be prepared to 
 withdraw from other activities. But the im- 
 agination is a function of life, after all, and 
 precisely the same holds good of stockbroking. 
 The real fact is that we Anglo-Saxons, by 
 instinct and inheritance, think of the acquisi- 
 tion of property as the most obvious function 
 of life. As long as a man is occupied in ac- 
 quiring property, we ask no further questions ; 
 we take for granted that he is virtuously 
 employed, as long as he breaks no social 
 rules : while if he succeeds in getting into 
 his hands an unusual share of the divisible 
 goods of the world, we think highly of him. 
 Indeed, our ideals have altered very little 
 since barbarous times, and we still are under 
 
 the impression that resourcefulness is the 
 
 38
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 mark of the hero. I imagine that leisure as 
 an occupation is much more distrusted and 
 disapproved of in America than in England ; 
 but even in England, where the power to be 
 idle is admired and envied, a man who lives 
 as heroic a life as can be attained by playing 
 golf and shooting pheasants is more trusted 
 and respected than a rich man who paints or 
 composes music for his amusement. Field 
 sports are intelligible enough ; the pursuit of 
 art requires some explanation, and incurs a 
 suspicion of effeminacy or eccentricity. Only 
 when authorship becomes a source of profit 
 is it thoroughly respectable. 
 
 I had a friend who died not very long ago. 
 He had in his younger days done a little 
 administrative work ; but he was wealthy, and 
 at a comparatively early age he abandoned 
 himself to leisure. He travelled, he read, he 
 went much into society, he enjoyed the com- 
 pany of his friends. When he died he was 
 spoken of as an amateur, and praised as a 
 cricketer of some merit. Even his closest 
 friends seemed to find it necessary to explain 
 and make excuses ; he was shy, he stammered, 
 
 39
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 he was not suited to parliamentary life ; but 
 I can think of few people who did so much 
 for his friends or who so radiated the simplest 
 sort of happiness. To be welcomed by him, 
 to be with him, put a little glow on life, 
 because you felt instinctively that he was 
 actively enjoying every hour of your company. 
 I thought, I remember, at his death, how 
 hopeless it was to assess a man's virtue and 
 usefulness in the terms of his career. If he 
 had entered Parliament, registered a silent 
 vote, spent his time in social functions, letter- 
 writing, lobby-gossip, he would have been 
 acclaimed as a man of weight and influence ; 
 but as it was, though he had stood by friends 
 in trouble, had helped lame dogs over stiles, 
 had been the centre of good-will and mutual 
 understanding to a dozen groups and circles, 
 it seemed impossible to recognise that he had 
 done anything in his generation. It is not 
 to be claimed that his was a life of persistent 
 benevolence or devoted energy ; but I thought 
 of a dozen men who had lived selfishly and 
 comfortably, making money and amassing 
 
 fortunes, without a touch of real kindness or 
 
 40
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 fine tenderness about them, who would yet 
 be held to have done well and to have de- 
 served respect, when compared with this 
 peace-maker ! 
 
 And then I perceived how intolerably false 
 many of our cherished ideals are ; that apart 
 from lives of pure selfishness and annexation, 
 many a professed philanthropist or active 
 statesman is merely following a sterile sort 
 of ambition ; that it is rare on the whole for 
 so-called public men to live for the sake of 
 the public ; while the simple, kindly, uncal- 
 culating, friendly attitude to life is a real 
 source of grace and beauty, and leaves behind 
 it a fragrant memory enshrined in a hundred 
 hearts. 
 
 So, too, when it comes to what we call 
 literature. No one supposes that we can do 
 without it, and in its essence it is but an 
 extension of happy, fine, vivid talk. It is but 
 the delighted perception of life, the ecstasy of 
 taking a hand in the great mystery, the joy 
 of love and companionship, the worship of 
 beauty and desire and energy and memory 
 taking shape in the most effective form that 
 
 41
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 man can devise. There is no real merit in 
 the accumulation of property ; only the people 
 who do the necessary work of the world, and 
 the people who increase the joy of the world 
 are worth a moment's thought, and yet both 
 alike are little regarded. 
 
 Of course where the weakness of the artistic 
 life really lies is that it is often not taken up 
 out of mere communicativeness and happy 
 excitement, as a child tells a breathless tale, 
 but as a device for attracting the notice and 
 earning the applause of the world ; and then 
 it is on a par with all other self-regarding 
 activities. But if it is taken up with a desire 
 to give rather than to receive, as an irrepressible 
 sharing of delight, it becomes not a solemn 
 and dignified affair, but just one of the most 
 beautiful and uncalculating impulses in the 
 world. 
 
 Then there falls another shadow across the 
 
 path ; the unhappiest natures I know are the 
 
 natures of keen emotion and swift perception 
 
 who yet have not the gift of expressing what 
 
 they feel in any artistic medium. It is these, 
 
 alas ! who cumber the streets and porticoes of 
 
 42
 
 LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 literature. They are attracted away from 
 homely toil by the perilous sweetness of art, 
 and when they attempt to express their rap- 
 tures, they have no faculty or knack of hand. 
 And these men and women fall with zealous 
 dreariness or acrid contemptuousness, and radi- 
 ate discomfort and uneasiness about them. 
 
 " A book," said Dr. Johnson, " should show 
 one either how to enjoy life or how to endure 
 it" — was ever the function of literature ex- 
 pressed more pungently or justly ? Any man 
 who enjoys or endures has a right to speak, 
 if he can. If he can help others to enjoy or 
 to endure, then he need never be in any 
 doubt as to his part in life ; while if he 
 cannot ecstatically enjoy, he can at least good- 
 humouredly endure. 
 
 43
 
 Ill 
 
 THE NEW POETS 
 
 There's a dark window in a gable which 
 looks out over my narrow slip of garden, 
 where the almond-trees grow, and to-day the 
 dark window, with its black casement lines, 
 had become suddenly a Japanese panel. The 
 almond was in bloom, with its delicious, pink, 
 geometrical flowers, not a flower which wins 
 one's love, somehow ; it is not homely or 
 sweet enough for that. But it is unapproach- 
 ably pure and beautiful, with a touch of fana- 
 ticism about it — the fanaticism which comes 
 of stainless strength, as though one woke in 
 the dawn and found an angel in one's room : 
 he would not quite understand one's troubles ! 
 
 But when I looked lower down, there was 
 a sweeter message still, for the mezereon was 
 awake, with its tiny porcelain crimson flowers 
 and its minute leaves of bright green, budding 
 
 44
 
 THE NEW POETS 
 
 as I think Aaron's rod must have budded, 
 the very crust of the sprig bursting into little 
 flames of green and red. 
 
 I thought at the sight of all this that some 
 good fortune was about to befall me ; and so 
 it did. When I came back there came a friend 
 to see me whom I seldom see and much 
 enjoy seeing. He is young, but he plays a 
 fine part in the world, and he carries about 
 with him two very fine qualities ; one is a 
 great and generous curiosity about what our 
 writers are doing. He is the first man from 
 whom I hear of new and beautiful work ; and 
 he praises it royally, he murmurs phrases, he 
 even declaims it in his high, thin voice, which 
 wavers like a dry flame. And what makes 
 all this so refreshing is that his other great 
 quality is an intensely critical spirit, which 
 stares closely and intently at work, as through 
 a crystalline lens. 
 
 After we had talked a little, I said to him : 
 
 " Come, praise me some new writers, you 
 
 herald of the dawn ! You always do that 
 
 when you come to see me, and you must do 
 
 it now." He smiled secretly, and drew out 
 
 45
 
 THE NEW POETS 
 
 a slim volume from his pocket and read me 
 some verses ; I will not be drawn into saying 
 the name of the poet. 
 
 " How do you find that? " he said. 
 
 "Oh," I said, "it is very good; but is it 
 the finest gold ? " 
 
 **Yes," he said, "it is that." And he then 
 read me some more. 
 
 " Now," I said, " I will be frank with you. 
 That seems to me very musical and accom- 
 plished ; but it has what is to me the one 
 unpardonable fault in poetry : it is literary. 
 He has heard and read, that poet, so much 
 sweet and solemn verse, that his mind murmurs 
 like a harp hung among the trees that are 
 therein ; the winds blow into music. But I 
 don't want that ; I want a fount of song, a 
 spring of living water." He looked a little 
 vexed at that, and read me a few more pages. 
 And then he went on to praise the work of 
 two or three other writers, and added that 
 he believed there was going to be a great 
 outburst of poetry after a long frost. 
 
 " Well," I said, '* I am sure I hope so. 
 And if there is one thing in the world that 
 
 46
 
 THE NEW POETS 
 
 I desire, it is that I may be able to recognise 
 
 and love the new voices." 
 
 And then I told him a story of which I 
 
 often think. When I was a young man, very 
 
 much pre-occupied with Tennyson and Omar 
 
 Khayyam and Swinburne, I went to stay 
 
 with an elderly business man, a friend of 
 
 my family. He was a great stout, rubicund 
 
 man, very good-natured, and he had a voice 
 
 like the cry of an expiring mouse, shrill and 
 
 thin. We were sitting after dinner in his 
 
 big dining-room, several of us, looking out 
 
 into a wide, dusty garden, when the talk 
 
 turned on books, and I suppose I praised 
 
 Swinburne, for he asked me to say some, and 
 
 I quoted the poem which says 
 
 And even the weariest river 
 Winds somewhere safe to sea. 
 
 He heard me attentively enough, and said it 
 was pretty good ; but then he said that it was 
 nothing to Byron, and in his squeaky voice 
 he quoted a quantity of Byron, whose poetry, 
 I am sorry to say, I regarded as I might 
 regard withered flowers or worse. His eyes 
 brimmed with tears, and they fell on to his 
 
 47
 
 THE NEW POETS 
 
 shirt-front ; and then he said decisively that 
 
 there had been no poetry since Byron — none 
 
 at all. Tennyson was mere word music, 
 
 Browning was unintelligible, and so forth. 
 
 And I remember how, with the insolence of 
 
 youth, I thought how dreadful it was that 
 
 the old man should have lost all sympathy 
 
 and judgment ; because poetry then seemed 
 
 to me a really important matter, full of tones 
 
 and values. I did not understand then, as I 
 
 understand now, that it is all a question of 
 
 signals and symbols, and that poetry is but, 
 
 as the psalm says, what happens when one 
 
 day telleth another and one night certifieth 
 
 another. I know now that there can be no 
 
 deceit about poetry, and that no poet can 
 
 make you feel more than he feels himself, 
 
 though he cannot always make another feel 
 
 as much ; and that the worth of his art exists 
 
 only just in so far as he can say what he 
 
 feels ; and then I thought of my old friend's 
 
 mind as I might think of a scarecrow among 
 
 lonely fields, a thing absurd, ragged, and left 
 
 alone, while real men went about their busi- 
 
 nes. I did not say it, but I thought it in 
 
 48
 
 THE NEW POETS 
 
 my folly. So I told my young friend that 
 story ; and I said : 
 
 " I know that it does not really matter 
 what one loves and is moved by as long as 
 one loves something and is moved by its 
 beauty. But, still, I do not want that to 
 happen to me ; I do not want to be like a 
 pebble on the beach, when the water draws 
 past it to the land. I want to feel and under- 
 stand the new signals. In the nursery," I 
 said, " we used to anger our governess when 
 she read us a piece of poetry, by saying to 
 her, ' Who made it up ? ' ' You should say, 
 ** Who wrote it ? " ' she would say. But I feel 
 now inclined to ask, ' Who made it up ? ' and 
 I feel, too, like the sign-painter on his rounds, 
 who saw a new sign hung up at an inn, and 
 said in disgust, ' That looks as if some one 
 had been doing it himself.' Your poet seems 
 to me only a very gifted and accomplished 
 amateur." 
 
 "Well," he said rather petulantly, "it may 
 be so, of course ; but I don't think that you 
 can hope to advance, if you begin by being 
 determined to disapprove." 
 
 49 D
 
 THE NEW POETS 
 
 " No, not that," I said. " But one knows 
 of many cases of inferior poets, who were 
 taken up and trumpeted abroad by well- 
 meaning: admirers, whom one sees now to 
 have had no significance, but to be so many 
 blind alleys in the street of art ; they led no- 
 where ; one had just to retrace one's steps, 
 if one explored them. Indeed," I said, " I 
 had rather miss a great poet than be misled 
 by a little one." 
 
 " Ah, no," he said, " I don't feel that. I 
 had rather be thrilled and carried away, even 
 if I discovered afterwards that it was not 
 really great." 
 
 "If you will freely admit that this may 
 not be great," I said, " I am on your side. 
 I do not mind your saying, ' This touches 
 me with interest and delight ; but it is not 
 to be reckoned among the lords of the garden.' 
 What I object to is your saying, ' This is 
 great and eternal' I feel that I should be 
 able to respond to the great poet, if he flashed 
 out among us ; but he must be great, and 
 especially in a time when there really is a 
 quantity of very beautiful verse. I suspect 
 
 50
 
 THE NEW POETS 
 
 that perhaps this time is one that will furnish 
 a very beautiful anthology. There are many 
 people alive who have written perhaps half 
 a dozen exquisite lyrics, when the spring and 
 the soaring thought and the vision and the 
 beautiful word all suddenly conspired together. 
 But there is no great, wide, large, tender 
 heart at work. No, I won't even say that ; 
 but is there any great spirit who has all that 
 and a supreme word-power as well ? I believe 
 that there is more poetry, more love of beauty, 
 more emotion in the world than ever ; and a 
 great many men and women are living their 
 poetry who just can't write it or sing it." 
 
 " A perverse generation seeking after a 
 sign," he said rather grimly, " and there is no 
 sign forthcoming except the old sign, that 
 has been there for centuries ! I don't care," 
 he added, '* about the siorn of the thinof. It 
 is the quality that I want ; and these new 
 poets of whom I have been speaking have 
 got the quality. That is all I ask for." 
 
 " No," I said, " I want a great deal more 
 than that ! Browning gave us the sense of 
 the human heart, bewildered by all" the new 
 
 51
 
 THE NEW POETS 
 
 knowledge, and yet passionately desiring. 
 Tennyson " 
 
 " Poor old Tennyson ! " he said. 
 
 "That is very ungracious," I said. "You 
 are as perverse as I was about Byron when 
 the old banker quoted him with tears. I was 
 going to say, and I will say it, that Tennyson, 
 with all his faults, was a great lord of music ; 
 and he put into words the fine, homely domes- 
 tic emotion of the race — the poetry of labour, 
 order, and peace. It was new and rich and 
 splendid, and because it seems to you old- 
 fashioned, you call it mere respectability ; but 
 it was the marching music of the world, 
 because he showed men that faith was en- 
 larged and not overturned by science. These 
 two were great, because they saw far and 
 wide ; they knew by instinct just what the 
 ordinary man was thinking, who yet wished 
 his life to be set to music. These little men 
 of yours don't see that. They have their 
 moments of ecstasy, as we all have, in the 
 blossoming orchard full of the songs of birds. 
 And that will always and for ever give us the 
 lyric, if the skill is there. But I want some- 
 
 52
 
 THE NEW POETS 
 
 thing more than that; I, you, thousands of 
 
 people, are feeling something that makes the 
 
 brain thrill and the heart leap. The mischief 
 
 is that we don't know what it is, and I want 
 
 a great poet to come and tell us." 
 
 "Ah," he said, "I am afraid you want 
 
 something ethical, something that satisfies the 
 
 man in Tennyson who 
 
 Walked between his wife and child 
 And now and then he gravely smiled. 
 
 But we have done with all that. What we 
 want is people who can express the fine, rare, 
 unusual thoughts of highly organised creatures, 
 and you Vv^ant a poet to sing of bread and 
 butter ! " 
 
 " Why, yes," I said, " I think I agree with 
 Fitz-Gerald that tea and bread and butter 
 are the only foods worth anything — the only 
 things one cannot do without. And it is 
 just the things that one cannot do without 
 that I want the new great poet to sing of. 
 I agree with William Morris that art is the 
 one thing we all want, the expression of 
 man's joy in his work. And the more that 
 art retires into fine nuances and intellectual 
 
 53
 
 THE NEW POETS 
 
 subtleties, the more that it becomes some- 
 thing esoteric and mysterious, the less I care 
 about it. When Tennyson said to the farmer's 
 wife, * What's the news ? ' she replied, ' Mr. 
 Tennyson, there's only one piece of news 
 worth telling, and that is that Christ died for 
 all men.' Tennyson said very grandly and 
 simply, ' Ah, that's old news and good news 
 and 7iew news ! ' And that is exactly what 
 I want the poets to tell us. It is a common 
 inheritance, not a refined monopoly, that I 
 claim." 
 
 He laughed at this, and said : 
 
 " I think that's rather a mid-Victorian view ; 
 I will confute you out of the Tennyson legend. 
 When Tennyson called Swinburne's verse 
 ' poisonous honey, brought from France,' 
 Swinburne retorted by speaking of the laure- 
 ate's domestic treacle. You can't have both. 
 If you like treacle, you must not clamour for 
 honey." 
 
 "Yes, I prefer honey," I said, "but you 
 seem to me to be in search of what I called 
 literary poetry. That is what I am afraid of. 
 I don't want the work of a mind fed on words, 
 
 54
 
 THE NEW POETS 
 
 and valuing ideas the more that they are 
 uncommon. I hate what is called ' strong ' 
 poetry ; that seems to me to be generally the 
 coarsest kind of romanticism — melodrama in 
 fact. I want to have in poetry what we are 
 getting in fiction — the best sort of realism. 
 Realism is now abjuring the heroic theory ; 
 it has thrown over the old conventions, the 
 felicitous coincidences, life arranged on ideal 
 lines ; and it has gone straight to life itself, 
 strong, full-blooded, eager life, full of mis- 
 takes and blunders and failures and sharp 
 disasters . and fears. Life goes shambling 
 along like a big dog, but it has got its nose 
 on the scent of something. It is a much 
 more mysterious and prodigious affair than 
 life rearranged upon romantic lines. It means 
 something very vast indeed, though it splashes 
 through mud and scrambles through hedges. 
 You may laugh at what you call ethics, but 
 that is only a name for one of many kinds of 
 collisions. It is the fact that we are always 
 colliding with something, always coming un- 
 pleasant croppers, that is the exciting thing. 
 I want the poet to tell me what the obscure 
 
 55
 
 THE NEW POETS 
 
 winged thing it is that we are following ; and 
 if he can't explain it to me, I want to be 
 made to feel that it is worth while following. 
 I don't say that all life is poetical material. 
 I don't think that it is ; but there is a thing 
 called beauty which seems to me the most 
 maddeningly perfect thing in the world. I 
 see it everywhere, in the dawn, in the far-off 
 landscape, with all its rolling lines of wood 
 and field, in the faces and gestures of people, 
 in their words and deeds. That is a clue, 
 a golden thread, a line of scent, and I shall 
 be more than content if I am encouraged to 
 follow that." 
 
 "Ah," he said, "now I partly agree with 
 you. It is precisely that which the new men 
 are after ; they take the pure gold of life and 
 just coin it into word and phrase, and it is 
 that which I discern in them." 
 
 " Yes," I said, " but I want something a 
 great deal bigger than that. I want to see 
 it everywhere and in everything. I don't 
 want to have to wall in a little space and 
 make it silent and beautiful, and forget what 
 is happening outside. I waiit a poet to tell 
 
 56
 
 THE NEW POETS 
 
 me what it is that leaps in the eyes and 
 beckons in the smiles of people whom I meet 
 — people whom often enough I could not 
 live with, — the more's the pity, — but whom I 
 want to be friends with, all the same. I want 
 the common joys and hopes and visions to be 
 put into music. And when I find a man, 
 like Walt Whitman, who does show me the 
 beauty and wonder and the strong affections 
 and joys of simple hearts, so that I feel sure 
 that we are all desiring the same thing, though 
 we cannot tell each other what it is, then I 
 feel I am in the presence of a poet indeed." 
 
 My young friend shut up the little book 
 which he had been holding in his hand. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "that would be a great 
 thing ; but one can't get at things in that way 
 now. We must all specialise ; and if you 
 want to follow the new aims and ideals of art, 
 you must put aside a great deal of what is 
 called our common humanity, and you must 
 be content to follow a very narrow path among 
 the stars. I do not mind speaking quite 
 frankly. I do not think you understand what 
 art is. It is essentially a mystery, and the 
 
 57
 
 THE NEW POETS 
 
 artist is a sort of hermit in the world. It is 
 not a case of 'joys in widest commonalty- 
 spread,' as Daddy Wordsworth said. That 
 is quite a different affair ; but art has got to 
 withdraw itself, to be content to be misunder- 
 stood ; and I think that you have just as 
 much parted company with it as your old 
 friend the banker." 
 
 "Well," I said, "we shall see. Anyhow, 
 I will give your new poets a careful reading, 
 and I shall be glad if I can really admire 
 them, because, indeed, I don't want to be 
 stranded on a lee shore." 
 
 And so my friend departed ; and I began 
 to wonder whether the art of which he spoke 
 was not, after all, as real a thing as the 
 beauty of my almond-flower and my meze- 
 reons ! If so, I should like to be able to 
 include it and understand it, though I do not 
 want to think that it is the end. 
 
 58
 
 IV 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 I 
 
 There come days and hours in die lives of 
 the busiest, most active, most eager of us, 
 when we suddenly realise with a shock or 
 a shudder, it may be, or perhaps with a sense 
 of solemn mystery, that has something vast, 
 inspiring, hopeful about it, the solidity and 
 the isolation of our own identity. Much of 
 our civilised life is an attempt, not deliberate 
 but instinctive, to escape from this. We 
 organise ourselves into nations and parties, 
 into sects and societies, into families and 
 companies, that we may try to persuade our- 
 selves that we are not alone ; and we get 
 nearest to persuading ourselves that we are 
 at one, when we enter into the secrets of 
 love or friendship, and feel that we know as 
 we are known. But even that vision fades, 
 
 59
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 and we become aware, at sad moments, that 
 the comradeship is over ; the soul that came 
 so close to us, smiled in our eyes, was clasped 
 to our heart, has left us, has passed into 
 the darkness, or if it still lives and breathes, 
 has drawn away into the crowd. And then 
 one sees that no fusion is possible, that half 
 the secrets of the heart must remain unguessed 
 and untold. That even if one had the words 
 to do it, one could not express the sense of 
 our personality, much of which escapes even 
 our own conscious and critical thought. One 
 has, let us say, a serious quarrel with a close 
 friend, and one hears him explaining and pro- 
 testing, and yet he does not know what has 
 happened, cannot understand, cannot even 
 perceive where the offence lay ; and at such 
 a moment it may dawn on us that we too 
 do not know what we have done ; we have 
 exhibited some ugly part of ourselves, of 
 which we are not conscious ; we have stricken 
 and wounded another heart, and we cannot 
 see how it was done. We did not intend to 
 do it, we cry. Or again we realise that we 
 
 regard some one with a causeless aversion, 
 
 60
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 and cannot give any reason for it ; or we see 
 that we ourselves have the same freezing 
 and disconcerting effect upon another ; and 
 so after hundreds of such experiences, we 
 become aware at last that no real, free, en- 
 tire communication is possible; that however 
 eagerly we tell our thoughts and display 
 our temperaments, there must always remain 
 something which is wrapped in darkness, the 
 incommunicable essence of ourself that can 
 blend with no other soul. 
 
 But aorain it is true that all human souls 
 who have an instinct for expression — writers, 
 painters, musicians — have always been trying 
 to do this one thing, to make signals, to com- 
 municate, to reveal themselves, to " unpack 
 the heart in words"; and what has often 
 hindered the process and nullified their efforts 
 has been an uneasy dignity and vanity, that 
 must try to make out a better case than the 
 facts justify. For a variety of motives, and 
 indeed for the best of motives, men and 
 women suppress, exalt, refine the presentment 
 of themselves, because they desire to be 
 
 loved, and think that they must therefore be 
 
 6i
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 careful to be admired, just as the lover adorns 
 himself and puts his best foot forward, and 
 hides all that may disconcert interest or sym- 
 pathy. So that it happens in life that often 
 when we most desire to be real, we are most 
 unreal. 
 
 What differentiates Walt Whitman from all 
 other writers that I know, is that he tried to 
 reveal himself, and on the whole contrived 
 to do so with less reserve than any other 
 human being. 
 
 " I know perfectly well my own egotism," 
 he wrote ; " I know my omnivorous lines, and 
 must not write any less." He was not dis- 
 concerted by any failure of art, or any pro- 
 priety, or any apparent discrepancy. 
 
 Do I contradict myself? 
 
 Very well then, I contradict myself. 
 
 I am large, I contain multitudes. 
 
 He had no artistic conscience, as we say. 
 
 " Easily written, loose-finger'd chords — I 
 feel the thrum of your climax and close." 
 
 In the curious and interesting essay called 
 
 " A Backward Glance over Travel's Roads," 
 
 which he wrote late in life, surveying his 
 
 62
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 work, he admits that he has not gained ac- 
 ceptance, that his book is a failure, and has 
 incurred marked anger and contempt ; and he 
 good-humouredly quotes a sentence from a 
 friend's letter, written in 1884, " I find a 
 solid line of enemies to you everywhere." 
 And yet, he says, for all that, and in spite of 
 everything, he has had " his say entirely his 
 own way, and put it unerringly on record." 
 It is simply "a faithful, and doubtless self- 
 willed record," he says. 
 
 That then was Walt Whitman's programme, 
 surely in its very scope and range worthy of 
 some amazement and respect ! Because it is 
 not done insolently or with any braggadocio, 
 in spite of what he calls " the barbaric yawp." 
 I do not think that anything is more notable 
 than the good-humour and the equanimity of 
 it all. He is not interested in himself in a 
 morbid or self-conscious way ; he has not 
 the sliehtest wish to make himself out to be 
 fine or magnificent or superior — it is quite 
 the other way. He is merely going to try 
 to break down the barriers between soul and 
 soul, to let the river of self ripple and welter 
 
 63
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 and wash among the grasses at the feet of 
 man. He does not wish you to admire it, 
 though he hopes you may love it ; there are 
 to be no excuses or pretences ; he does not 
 wish to be seen at certain angles or in sub- 
 dued lights. He casts himself down in his 
 nakedness, and lets who will observe him ; 
 and all this not because he is either hero or 
 saint ; his proudest tide is to be an average 
 man, one of the crowd, with passions, weak- 
 nesses, uglinesses, even deformities. He is 
 there, he is just so, and you may take it or 
 leave it ; but he is not ashamed or sensitive, 
 nor in any way abashed ; he smiles his frank, 
 good-natured smile ; and suddenly one per- 
 ceives the greatness of it! He is neither 
 fanatic nor buffoon ; he is not performing like 
 the boxer or wrestler, nor is he sitting mourn- 
 fully and patiently for the sake of the pence, 
 like the fat man at the fair ; he is merely 
 trying to say what he thinks and feels, and 
 if he has any aim at all, it is to tempt others 
 into unabashed sincerity. He cries to man, 
 " If you would only recognise yourself as you 
 
 are, without pretences or excuses, the dignity 
 
 64
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 which your subterfuges are meant to secure 
 would be yours without question." It is not 
 a question of good, bad, or indifferent. Every- 
 one has a right to be where he is, and there 
 is a reason for him and a justification too. 
 That is the gospel of Walt Whitman ; it may 
 be a bad gospel, or an ugly one, or an inde- 
 corous one ; but no one can pretend that it 
 is not a biof one. 
 
 One immense and fruitful discovery Walt 
 Whitman made, and yet one can hardly call 
 it a discovery ; it is more perhaps an inspired 
 doctrine, unsupported by argument, wholly 
 unphilosophical, proclaimed with a childlike 
 loudness and confidence, but yet probably 
 true : the doctrine, that is, of the indissoluble 
 union between body and soul. Indissoluble, 
 one calls it, and yet nothing is more patent 
 than the fact that it is a union which is in- 
 variably and inevitably dissolved in death ; 
 while on the other hand, one sees in certain 
 physical catastrophes, such as paralysis, brain- 
 concussion, senile decay, insanity, the soul 
 
 65 E
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 apparently reduced to the condition of a 
 sleeping partner, or so far deranged as to be 
 unable to express anything but some one 
 dominant emotion ; or, more bewildering still, 
 one sees the moral sense seemingly suspended 
 by a physical disorder. And yet for all that, 
 the doctrine may be essentially and substan- 
 tially true ; the vitality of the soul may be 
 bound up with its power of expressing itself 
 in material terms. It may be that the soul- 
 stuff, which we call life, has an existence apart 
 from its material manifestation, and that 
 individuality, as we see it, may be a mere 
 phenomenon of the passage of a force, like 
 the visibility of electricity under certain con- 
 ditions ; indeed it seems more probable that 
 matter is a function of thought rather than 
 thought a function of matter. It is likely 
 enough that animals have no conscious sense 
 of any division of aims, any antagonism be- 
 tween physical and mental desires ; but as the 
 human race develops, the imagination, the 
 sense of the opposition between the reason 
 and the appetite, begins to emerge. Man 
 
 becomes aware that his will and his wish 
 
 66
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 may not coincide ; and thus develops the 
 medieval theory of asceticism, the belief that 
 the body is essentially vile, and suggests base 
 desires to the mind, which the mind has the 
 power of controlling. That conception fitted 
 closely to the feudal theory of government, 
 in which the interests of the ruler and the 
 subject did not necessarily coincide ; the ruler 
 governed with his own interests in view, and 
 coerced his subjects if he could ; but the new 
 theory of government does not separate the 
 ruler from the state. The government of a 
 state with democratic institutions is the will 
 of the people taking shape, and the pheno- 
 mena of rule are but those of the popular will 
 expressing itself, the object being that each 
 individual should have his due preponderance ; 
 the ultimate end being as much individual 
 liberty as is consistent with harmonious co- 
 operation. 
 
 That is a rough analogy of the doctrine of 
 Walt Whitman ; namely, that the individual, 
 soul and body, is a polity ; and that the true 
 life is to be found in a harmonious co-operation 
 
 of body and soul. The reason is not at liberty 
 
 67
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 to deride or to neglect the bodily desires, even 
 the meanest and basest of them, because every 
 desire, whether of soul or body, is the ex- 
 pression of something that exists in the ani- 
 mating principle. Take, for example, the 
 case of physical passion. That, in its ultimate 
 analysis, is the instinct for propagating life, 
 the transmission and continuance of vitality. 
 The reason must not ignore or deplore it, but 
 direct it into the proper channels ; it may in- 
 dicate the dangers that it incurs ; but merely 
 to thwart it, to regard it with shame and 
 horror, is to establish an internecine warfare. 
 The true function is rather to ennoble the 
 physical desire by the just concurrence of 
 the soul. But the essence of the situation is 
 co-operation and not coercion ; and each must 
 be ready to compromise. If the physical 
 nature will not compromise with the reason, 
 the disasters of unbridled passion follow ; if 
 the reason will not co-operate with the physical 
 desire, the result is a sterile intellectualism, a 
 life of starved and timid experience. It was 
 here, of course, that Walt Whitman's view 
 
 gave offence ; he thought of civilisation as a 
 
 68
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 conventional system, cultivating a false shame 
 and an ignoble reserve about bodily processes. 
 But the vital truth of his doctrine lies in the 
 fact that many of our saddest, because most 
 remediable, disasters are caused by a timid 
 reticence about the strongest force that ani- 
 mates the world, the force of reproduction. 
 Whitman felt, and truly felt, that reason and 
 sentiment have outrun discretion. It may be 
 asked, indeed, how this terror of all out- 
 spokenness has developed in the human race, 
 so that parents cannot bear to speak to their 
 children about an experience which they will 
 be certain to make aquaintance with in some 
 far more violent and base form. Does this 
 shrinking delicacy, this sacred reserve, mean 
 nothing, it may be asked ? Well, it may be 
 said, if this sensitiveness is so valuable that 
 it must not be required to anticipate tenderly 
 and faithfully what will be communicated in 
 a grosser form, then silence is justified, and 
 not otherwise. But transfer this reticence about 
 a matter of awful concern to some other 
 region of morals, what should we think of the 
 
 parent who so feared to lessen the affection 
 
 69
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 of a child by rebuking it for a lie or a theft 
 as to let it otq out into the world iornorant 
 that either was reprobated ? Whitman's argu- 
 ment would rather be that a parent should 
 say to a child, " There is a force within 
 you which will to a large extent determine 
 the happiness of your life ; it must be guarded 
 and controlled. You will probably not be 
 able to ignore or disregard it, and you must 
 bring it into harmonious co-operation with 
 mind and reason and duty. There is nothing 
 that is shameful about its being there ; indeed, 
 it is the dominant force in the world. The 
 shameful thing is to use it shamelessly." Yet 
 the attitude of parents too often is to treat 
 the subject, not as if it were sacred, but as 
 if it were unmentionable ; so that the very 
 fact of the child's own origin would seem to 
 be an essentially shameful thing. 
 
 The Greeks, it is true, had an instinct for 
 the thought of the vital interdependence of 
 body and soul ; but they thought too much 
 of the glowing manifestation of the health 
 and beauty of youth, and viewed the decay 
 
 and deformity of the human frame too much 
 
 70
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 as a disgrace and an abasement. But here 
 again comes in the largeness of Whitman's 
 presentment, that whatever disasters befall 
 the body, whether through drudgery or battle, 
 disease or sin, they are all parts of a rich 
 and large experience, not necessarily interrupt- 
 ing the co-operation of mind and matter. 
 This is the strongest proof of Whitman's 
 faith in the essential brotherhood of man, 
 that such horrors and wretchednesses do not 
 seem to him to interrupt the design, or to 
 destroy the possibility of a human sympathy 
 which is instinctive rather than a matter of 
 devout effort. Whitman is here on the side 
 of the very greatest and finest human spirits, 
 in that he is shocked and appalled by nothing. 
 He does not call it the best of worlds, but it 
 is the only world that he knows ; and the 
 glowing interest, the passionate emotion, the 
 vital rush and current of it, prove beyond all 
 doubt that we are in touch with something 
 very splendid and magnificent indeed, and 
 that no misdeed or disaster forfeits our share 
 in the inheritance. He is utterly at variance 
 with the hideous Calvinistic theory, that God 
 
 71
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 sent some of His creatures into the world 
 for their pain and ruin. Whatever happens 
 to your body or your soul, says Whitman, it 
 is worth your while to live and to have lived. 
 He adopts no facile system of compensations 
 and offsets. He rather protests with all his 
 might that, however broken your body or 
 fatuous your mind, it is a good thing for you 
 to have taken a hand in the affair ; and that 
 the essence of the whole situation has not been 
 your success, your dignity, your comfortable 
 obliteration of half your faculties, or on the 
 other hand your failure, your vileness, or your 
 despair, but that just at the time and place 
 at which the phenomenon called yourself took 
 place, that intricate creature, with its bodily 
 needs and desires, its joys of the senses, its 
 outlook on the strange world, took shape and 
 made you exactly what you are, and nothing 
 else. As he says in one of his finest apo- 
 logues : 
 
 " Through birth, life, death, burial, the means 
 are provided, nothing is scanted. 
 
 " Through angers, losses, ambition, igno- 
 rance, ennui, what you are picks its way." 
 
 72
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 3 
 
 Then too Walt Whitman claims to be the 
 poet, not of the past or even only of the 
 present, but the singer of the future. He says 
 in The Backward Glance^ which I have already 
 quoted, and which must be carefully read by 
 anyone who wishes to understand his work 
 — at least in so far as he understood it him- 
 self, — *' Isolated advantages in any rank or 
 grace or fortune — the direct or indirect 
 threads of all the poetry of the past — are in 
 my opinion distasteful to the republican 
 genius. . . . Established poems, I know, have 
 the very great advantage of chanting the 
 already performed, so full of glories, reminis- 
 cences dear to the minds of men." And he 
 says too that, " The educated world seems to 
 have been growing more and more ennuied 
 for ages, leaving to our time the inheritance 
 of it all." And he further says : " The ranges 
 of heroism and loftiness with which Greek 
 and feudal poets endow'd their godlike or 
 lordly born characters, I was to endow the 
 democratic averacres of America. I was to 
 
 n
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 show that we, here and to-day, are eligible 
 to the grandest and the best — more eligible 
 now than any times of old were." 
 
 This is a lofty claim, boldly advanced and 
 maintained ; and here I am on uncertain 
 ground, because I do not suppose that I can 
 realise what the democratic spirit of America 
 really is. Granted, however, that it is a free 
 and a noble spirit, I feel a doubt as to whether 
 it is possible for any nation, at any time in 
 the world's history, really to take a new start. 
 The American nation is not a new nation ; it 
 is in a sense a very old nation. It has had 
 a perfectly new and magnificent field for its 
 energies, and it has made a sweep of the old 
 conventions ; but it cannot get rid of its in- 
 heritance of temperament ; and I think that, 
 so far as I can judge, it is too anxious to 
 emphasize its sense of revolt, its consciousness 
 of newness of life. Whitman himself would 
 not be so anxious to declare the ennui of the 
 old, if he did not feel himself in a way 
 trammelled by it. The moment that a case 
 is stated with any vehemence, that moment 
 it is certain that the speaker has antagonists 
 
 74
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 in his eye. There is a story of Professor 
 Blackie at Edinburgh making a tirade" against 
 the stuffiness of the old English universities to 
 Jowett, the incisive Master of Balliol. At the 
 end, he said generously, " I hope you people 
 at Oxford do not think that we are your 
 enemies up here?" "No," said Jowett drily; 
 " to tell the truth, we don't think about you at 
 all ! " The man who is really making a new 
 beginning, serenely confident in his strength, 
 does not, as Professor Blackie did, concern 
 himself with his predecessors at all. Perhaps, 
 indeed, the democratic spirit of America may 
 be quietly glorying in its strength, and may 
 be merely waiting till it suits it to speak. But 
 I do not think it can be said to have found full 
 expression. It seems to me — I may well be 
 wrong — that in matters of culture, the American 
 is far more seriously bent on knowing what has 
 been done in the past even than the English- 
 man. The Englishman takes the past for 
 granted ; he is probably more deeply and in- 
 stinctively penetrated with its traditions than 
 he knows ; but ever since the Romantic move- 
 ment began in England, about a century ago, 
 
 75
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 the general tendency is anarchical and anti- 
 classical. Writers like Wordsworth, Browning, 
 Carlyle, Ruskin, had very little deference about 
 them. They did not even trouble to assert 
 their independence ; they said what they 
 thought, and as they thought it. But the 
 spirit of American literature does not on the 
 whole appear to me to be a democratic spirit. 
 It has not, except in the case of Walt Whitman 
 himself, shown any strong tendency to invent 
 new forms or to ventilate new ideas. It has 
 not broken out into crude, fresh, immature 
 experiments. It has rather worked as the 
 Romans did, who anxiously adopted and 
 imitated Greek models, admiring the form 
 but not comprehending the spirit. A revolt 
 in literary art, such as the Romantic movement 
 in England, has no time to concern itself with 
 the old forms and traditions. Writers like 
 Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Walter 
 Scott, had far too much to say for themselves 
 to care how the old classical schools had 
 worked. They used the past as a quarry, not 
 as a model. But the famous American writers 
 
 have not originated new forms, or invented 
 
 76
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 a different use of language ; they have widened 
 and freshened traditions, they have not thrown 
 them overboard. Neither, if I interpret facts 
 rightly, have the Americans developed a new 
 kind of aristocracy. Whitman's talk of de- 
 mocratic averages is beside the point. The 
 process of levelling up and levelling down 
 only produces low standards. What the 
 world needs, whether in England or America, 
 is a new sort of aristocracy — simple, disin- 
 terested, bold, sympathetic, enthusiastic men, 
 of clear vision and free thought. And what 
 the democracy needs is not an envious dis- 
 like of all prominence and greatness, but an 
 eye for all greatness, and an admiration for 
 all courage and largeness of soul. England 
 suspects, perhaps erroneously, that America 
 has founded an aristocracy of wealth and in- 
 fluence and physical prowess, rather than an 
 aristocracy of simplicity and fearlessness. One 
 believes that the competitive, the prize- 
 winning spirit, is even more dominant in 
 America than in England. No one doubts 
 the fierce energy and the aplomb of America; 
 but can it be said that ideas, the existence 
 
 n
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 of which is the ultimate test of national vigour, 
 are really more prevalent in America than 
 in England? It all depends, of course, upon 
 whether one values the Greek or the Roman 
 ideal more highly, the interest, that is, of 
 life, or the desire to rule and prosper. If 
 the aim of civilisation is orderliness, then the 
 Roman aim is the better ; but if the aim is 
 spiritual animation, then the Greeks are the 
 winners. Yet in the last century, England 
 has been more fruitful in ideas than America, 
 although America is incomparably more in- 
 terested in education than England is. 
 
 But it is hard to balance these things. 
 What remains is the fact that Walt Whitman 
 has drawn a fine democratic ideal. His de- 
 mocrat is essentially a worker, with every sort 
 of vigorous impulse, living life in an ecstasy 
 of health and comradeship, careless of money 
 and influence and position, content to live a 
 simple life, finding beauty, and hope, and 
 love, and labour, enough, in the spirit of the 
 great dictum of William Morris, that the re- 
 ward of labour is life — not success or power or 
 wealth, but the sense of living fully and freely. 
 
 7^
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 I do not claim that this spirit exists in 
 England yet; but does it exist in America? 
 What, in fact, constitutes the inspiration of 
 the average American ; what does he expect 
 to find in life, and to make of life ? Whitman 
 has no doubt at all. But in what other Ameri- 
 can writer does this ideal find expression ? 
 
 4 
 
 It remains to say a few words about the 
 artistic methods of Walt Whitman. He him- 
 self claims no artistic standard whatever. He 
 says that he wishes to create an atmosphere ; 
 and that his one aim has been suggestiveness. 
 " I round and finish little, if anything ; and 
 could not consistently with my scheme. The 
 reader will always have his or her part to do, 
 just as much as I have had mine." 
 
 He says that his purpose has been "not 
 to carry out in the approved style some choice 
 plot of fortune or misfortune, or fancy, or fine 
 thoughts, or incidents or courtesies — all of 
 which has been done overwhelmingly and 
 well, probably never to be excelled . . . but 
 
 79
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 to conform with and build on the concrete 
 reaHties and theories of the universe furnished 
 by science, and henceforth the only irrefrag- 
 able basis for anything, verse included — to 
 root both influences in the emotional and im- 
 aginative action of the modern time, and 
 dominate all that precedes or opposes them." 
 He adds, " No one will get at my verses who 
 insists upon viewing them as a literary per- 
 formance, or attempt at such performance, 
 or as aiming mainly toward art or sestheti- 
 cism. 
 
 It is, of course, quite true that no writer 
 is bound by traditions of art, and there is no 
 one who need consider how the thing has 
 been done before, or follow a prescribed code. 
 But for all that, art is not a thing of rules 
 made and enforced by critics. All that critics 
 can do is to determine what the laws of art 
 are ; because art has laws underlying it which 
 are as certain as the laws of gravity, even if 
 they are not known. The more permanent 
 art is, the more it conforms to these laws ; 
 because the fact is that there is a vital impulse 
 
 in the human mind towards the expression of 
 
 80
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 beauty, and a vital discrimination too as to 
 the form and method of that expression. Ar- 
 chitecture, for instance, and music, are alike 
 based upon instinctive preferences in human 
 beings, the one for geometrical form, the 
 other for the combination of vibrations. 
 It is a law of music, for instance, that the 
 human being prefers an octave in absolute 
 unison, and not an octave of which one note 
 is a semitone flat. That is not a rule in- 
 vented by critics ; it is a law of human per- 
 ception and preference. Similarly there is 
 undoubtedly a law which determines human 
 preferences in poetry, though a far more 
 complicated law, and not yet analysed. The 
 new poet is not a man who breaks the law, 
 but who discovers a real extension of it. 
 
 The question then, roughly, is this : Whit- 
 man chose to express himself in a species of 
 poetry, based roughly upon Hebrew poetry, 
 such as we have in the Psalms and Prophets. 
 If this is a true expansion of the aesthetic law 
 of poetry, then it is a success ; if it is not a 
 true expansion, but only a wilful variation, 
 
 not consonant with the law, it is a failure. 
 
 8i F
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 Now there are many effects in Whitman 
 which are, I believe, inconsistent with the 
 poetical law. Not to multiply instances, his 
 grotesque word-inventions — " Me imperturbe!" 
 "No dainty dolce affettuoso I," "the drape 
 of the day " — his use of Greek and Latin and 
 French terms, not correctly used and not 
 even rightly spelt, his endless iterations, lists, 
 catalogues, categories, things not clearly visual- 
 ised or even remotely perceived, but swept 
 relentlessly in, like the debris of some store- 
 room, all these are ugly mannerisms which 
 simply blur and encumber the pages. The 
 question is not whether they offend a critical 
 and cultured mind, but whether they produce 
 an inspiring effect upon any kind of mind. 
 
 Then too his form constantly collapses, as 
 though he had no fixed scheme in his mind. 
 There are many poems which begin with an 
 ample sweep, and suddenly crumble to pieces, 
 as though he were merely tired of them. 
 
 Then again there seem to me to be some 
 
 simply coarse, obscene, unpleasant passages, 
 
 not of relentless realism but of dull inquisitive- 
 
 ness. They do not attract or impress ; they 
 
 82
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 do not provide a contrast or an emphasis. 
 They simply lie, like piles of filth, in rooms 
 designed for human habitation. If it is argued 
 that art may use any materials, I can only 
 fall back upon my belief that such passages 
 are as instinctively repulsive to the artistic 
 sense as strong-smelling cheeses stacked in a 
 library ! There is no moral or ethical law 
 against such a practice ; but the aesthetic 
 conscience of humanity instinctively condemns 
 it. When I examine the literature which has 
 inspired and attracted the minds of humanity, 
 whether trained or untrained, I find that they 
 avoid this hideous intrusion of nastiness ; and 
 I am inclined to infer that writers who intro- 
 duce such episodes, and readers who like 
 them, have some other impulse in view, which 
 is neither the sense of beauty nor the percep- 
 tion of art. But if Whitman, or anyone else, 
 can convert the world to call this art, and to 
 enjoy it as art, then he will prove that he 
 understands the law of preference better than 
 I do. 
 
 But when all this has been said and con- 
 ceded, there yet remain countless passages 
 
 ^3
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 of true and vital beauty, exquisite phrases, 
 haunting pictures, glimpses of perfect loveli- 
 ness. His poems of comradeship and the 
 open air, his pictures of family life, have 
 often a magical thrill of passion, leaving one 
 rapturous and unsatisfied, believing in the 
 secrets behind the world, and hoping for a 
 touch of like experience. 
 
 If I may take one poem as typical of the 
 best that is in Whitman — and what a splendid 
 best! — it shall be "Out of the Cradle End- 
 lessly Rocking," from the book called Sea- 
 drift. I declare that I can never read this 
 poem without profound emotion ; it is here 
 that he fully justifies his claim to atmosphere 
 and suggestiveness ; the nesting birds, the 
 sea's edge, with its " liquid rims and wet 
 sands " — what a magical phrase ! — the angry 
 moan of the breakers under the yellow, droop- 
 ing moon, the boy with his feet in the water, 
 and the wind in his hair — this is all beyond 
 criticism. 
 
 Demon or bird ! (said the boy's soul) 
 Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it mostly 
 to me? 
 
 84
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 P'or I, that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping, now I 
 
 have heard you 
 Now in a moment I know what I am for, — I awake. 
 And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, 
 
 louder and more sorrowful than yours, 
 A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, 
 
 never to die. 
 
 And then he cries to the waves to tell him 
 what they have been whispering all the time. 
 
 Whereto answering, the sea. 
 
 Delaying not, hurrying not, 
 Whisper'd me through the night and very plainly before 
 
 day-break, 
 Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death. 
 
 This theme, it will be remembered, is 
 worked out more fully in the Lincoln poem, 
 " When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," 
 with the " Song of Death," too long, alas, 
 to quote here — it would be delightful even to 
 inscribe the words — which seems to me for 
 splendour of language, sweetness of rhythm, 
 and stateliness of cadence — to say nothing of 
 the magnificence of the thought — to be in- 
 contestably among the very greatest poems of 
 the world. 
 
 If Whitman could always have written so! 
 
 85
 
 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 Then he need hardly have said that the 
 strongest and sweetest songs remained to be 
 sung ; but this, and many other gems of 
 poetry, He in radiant fragments among the 
 turbid and weltering rush of his strange 
 verse ; and thus one sees that if there is 
 indeed a law of art, it lies close to the instinct 
 of suppression and omission. One may think 
 anything ; one may say most things ; but if 
 one means to sway the human heart by that 
 one particular gift of words, ordered and 
 melodiously intertwined, one must heed what 
 experience tells the aspirant — that no fervour 
 of thought, or exuberance of utterance, can 
 make up for the harmony of the firmly touched 
 lyre, and the music of the unuttered word. 
 
 86
 
 V 
 
 CHARM 
 
 There is a little village here near Cambridge 
 the homely, summer-sounding name of which 
 is Haslingfield. It is a straggling hamlet of 
 white-walled, straw-thatched cottages, among 
 orchards and old elms, full of closes of meadow- 
 grass, and farmsteads with ricks and big- 
 timbered barns. It has a solid, upstanding 
 Tudor church, with rather a grand tower, and 
 four solid corner turrets ; and it has, too, its 
 little bit of history in the manor-house, of 
 which only one high-shouldered wing remains, 
 with tall brick chimneys. It stands up above 
 some mellow old walls, a big dove-cote, and 
 a row of ancient fish-ponds. Here Queen 
 Elizabeth once spent a night upon the wing. 
 Close behind the village, a low wold, bare 
 and calm, with a belt or two of trees, runs 
 
 steeply up. 
 
 87
 
 CHARM 
 
 The simplest and quietest place imaginable, 
 with a simple and remote life, hardly aware 
 of itself, flowing tranquilly through it ; yet 
 this little village, by some felicity of grouping 
 and gathering, has the rare and incomparable 
 gift of charm. I cannot analyse it, I cannot 
 explain it, yet at all times and in all lights, 
 whether its orchards are full of bloom and 
 scent, and the cuckoo flutes from the holt 
 down the soft breeze, or in the bare and 
 leafless winter, when the pale sunset glows 
 beyond the wold among the rifted cloud- 
 banks, it has the wonderful appeal of beauty, 
 a quality which cannot be schemed for or 
 designed, but which a very little mishandling 
 can sweep away. The whole place has grown 
 up out of common use, trees planted for 
 shelter, orchards set for fruit, houses built for 
 convenience. Only in the church and the 
 manor is there any care for seemliness and 
 stateliness. There are a dozen villages round 
 about it which have sprung from the same 
 needs, the same history ; and yet these have 
 missed the unconsidered charm of Haslingfield, 
 
 which man did not devise, nor does nature 
 
 88
 
 CHARM 
 
 inevitably bring, but which is instantly re- 
 cognisable and strangely affecting. 
 
 Such charm seems to arise partly out of a 
 subtle orderliness and a simple appropriate- 
 ness, and partly from a blending of delicate 
 and pathetic elements in a certain unascer- 
 tained proportion. It seems to touch un- 
 known memories into life, and to give a hint 
 of the working of some half-whimsical, half- 
 tenderly concerned spirit, brooding over its 
 work, adding a touch of form here and a dash 
 of colour there, and pleased to see, when all 
 is done, that it is good. 
 
 If one looks closely at life, one sees the 
 
 same quality in humanity, in men and women, 
 
 in books and pictures, and yet one cannot 
 
 tell what goes to the making of it. It seems 
 
 to be a thing which no energy or design can 
 
 capture, but which alights here and there, 
 
 blowing like the wind at will. It is not force 
 
 or originality or inventiveness ; very often it 
 
 is strangely lacking in any masterful quality 
 
 at all ; but it has always just the same wistful 
 
 appeal, which makes one desire to understand 
 
 it, to take possession of it, to serve it, to win 
 
 89
 
 CHARM 
 
 its favour. It is as when the child in Francis 
 Thompson's poem seems to say, " I hire you 
 for nothing." That is exactly it : there is 
 nothing offered or bestowed, but one is at 
 once magically bound to serve it for love 
 and delight. There is nothing that one can 
 expect to get from it, and yet it goes very 
 far down into the soul ; it is behind the 
 maddening desire which certain faces, hands, 
 voices, smiles excite — the desire to possess, 
 to claim, to know even that no one else can 
 possess or claim them, which lies at the root 
 of half the jealous tragedies of life. 
 
 Some personalities have charm in a marvel- 
 lous degree, and if, as one looks into the old 
 records of life, one discovers figures that 
 seem to have laid an inexplicable hold on 
 their circles, and to have passed through life 
 in a tempest of applause and admiration, one 
 may be sure that charm has been the secret. 
 
 Take the case of Arthur Hallam, the in- 
 spirer of " In Memoriam." I remember hear- 
 ing Mr. Gladstone say, with kindled eye and 
 emphatic gesture, that Arthur Hallam was 
 
 the most perfect being physically, morally, 
 
 90
 
 CHARM 
 
 and intellectually that he had ever seen or 
 hoped to see. He said, I remember, with a 
 smile : " The story of Milnes Gaskell's friend- 
 ship with Hallam was curious. You must 
 know that people fell in love very easily in 
 
 those days ; there was a Miss E of whom 
 
 Hallam was enamoured, and Milnes Gaskell 
 abandoned his own addresses to her in favour 
 of Hallam, in order to gain his friendship." 
 
 Yet the portrait of Hallam which hangs in 
 the provost's house at Eton represents a rosy, 
 solid, rather heavy-featured young man, with 
 a flushed face, — Mr. Gladstone said that this 
 was caused by overwork, — who looks more like 
 a young country bumpkin on the opera-bouffe 
 stage than an intellectual archangel. 
 
 Odder still, the letters, poems, and remains 
 of Hallam throw no light on the hypnotic 
 effect he produced ; they are turgid, elabo- 
 rate, and wholly uninteresting ; nor does he 
 seem to have been entirely amiable. Lord 
 Dudley told Francis Hare that he had dined 
 with Henry Hallam, the historian, who was 
 Arthur Hallam's father, in the company of 
 the son, in Italy, adding, " It did my heart 
 
 91
 
 CHARM 
 
 'good to sit by and hear how the son snubbed 
 the father, remembering how often the father 
 had unmercifully snubbed me." 
 
 There is a hint of beauty in the dark 
 eyes and the down - dropped curve of the 
 mobile lip in the portrait, and one need not 
 quote " In Memoriam " to prove how utterly 
 the charm of Hallam subjugated the Tennyson 
 circle. Wit, swiftness of insight, beauty, 
 lovableness — all seem to have been there ; 
 and it remains that Arthur Hallam was 
 worshipped and adored by his contemporaries 
 with a fierce jealousy of devotion. Nothing 
 but the presence of an overmastering charm 
 can explain this conspiracy of praise ; and 
 perhaps there is no better proof of it than 
 that his friends could detect genius in letters 
 and poems which seem alike destitute of pro- 
 mise and performance. 
 
 There is another figure of earlier date who 
 seems to have had the same magnetic gift 
 in an even more pre-eminent degree. There 
 is a portrait by Lawrence of Lord Melbourne 
 that certainly gives a hint, and more than a 
 
 hint, of the extraordinary charm which en- 
 
 92
 
 CHARM 
 
 veloped him ; the thick, wavy hair, the fine 
 nose, the full, but firmly moulded, lips, are 
 attractive enough. But the large, dark eyes 
 under strongly marked eyebrows, which are 
 at once pathetic, passionate, ironical, and 
 mournful, evoke a singular emotion. Every 
 gift that men hold to be advantageous was 
 showered upon Melbourne. He was well 
 born, wealthy, able ; he was full of humour, 
 quick to grasp a subject, an omnivorous 
 reader and student, a famous sportsman. He 
 won the devotion of both men and women. 
 His marriage with the lovely and brilliant 
 Lady Caroline Ponsonby, whose heart was 
 broken and mind shattered by her hopeless 
 passion for Byron, showed how he could win 
 hearts. There is no figure of all that period 
 of whom one would rather possess a personal 
 memoir. Yet despite all his fame and political 
 prestige, he was an unhappy, dissatisfied man, 
 who tasted every experience and joy of life, 
 and found that there was nothing in it. 
 
 The dicta of his that are preserved vibrate 
 between cynicism, shrewdness, wisdom, and 
 tenderness. " Stop a bit," he said, as the 
 
 93
 
 CHARM 
 
 cabinet went downstairs after a dinner to 
 discuss the corn laws. " Is it to lower the 
 price of bread or isn't it? It doesn't much 
 matter which, but we must all say the same 
 thing." Yet, after all, it is the letters and 
 diaries of Queen Victoria that reveal the 
 true secret of Melbourne's charm. His re- 
 lation to his girl-sovereign is one of the most 
 beautiful things in latter-day history. Mel- 
 bourne loved her half paternally, half chival- 
 rously, while it is evident that the Queen's 
 affection for her gallant and attractive premier 
 was of a quality which escaped her own per- 
 ception. He humoured her, advised her, 
 watched over her ; in return, she idolised him, 
 noted down his smallest sayings, permitted 
 him to behave and talk just as he would. 
 She lovingly records his little ways and 
 fancies — how he fell asleep after dinner, how 
 he always took two apples, and hid one in his 
 lap while he ate the other. 
 
 " I asked him if he meant to eat it. He 
 thought not, and said, ' But I like to have the 
 power of doing so.' I observed, hadn't he 
 just as well the power of doing so when the 
 
 94
 
 CHARM 
 
 apples were in the dish on the table? He 
 laughed and said, ' Not the y}^// power.'" 
 
 Melbourne was full of prejudices and whims 
 and hatreds, but his charity was boundless, 
 and he always had a good word for an 
 enemy. He excused the career of Henry 
 VHI to the Queen by saying, "You see, 
 those women bothered him so." And when 
 he was superseded by Peel, he combated the 
 Queen's dislike of her new premier, and did 
 his best to put Peel in a favourable light. 
 When Peel made his first appearance at 
 Windsor, shy and awkward, and holding him- 
 self like a dancing-master, it was Melbourne 
 who broke the awkward pause by going up 
 to Peel, and saying in an undertone, " For 
 God's sake, go and talk to the Queen ! " 
 When I was privileged to work through all 
 Melbourne's letters to the Queen, so carefully 
 preserved and magnificently bound, I was 
 greatly touched by the sweetness and tender- 
 ness of them, the gentle ironical flavour, the 
 delicate freedom, and the little presents and 
 remembrances they exchanged up to the 
 
 end. 
 
 95
 
 CHARM 
 
 Melbourne can hardly be called a very 
 great man, — he had not the purpose or tena- 
 city for that, and he thought both too con- 
 temptuously and too indulgently of human 
 nature, — but I know of no historical figure 
 who is more wholly transfused and penetrated 
 by the aroma of charm. Everything that he 
 did and said had some distinction and unusual- 
 ness : perceptive observation, ripe wisdom, 
 and, with it all, the petulant attractiveness of 
 the spoiled and engaging child. And yet 
 even so, one is baffled, because it is not the 
 profundity or the gravity of what he said that 
 impresses ; it is rather the delicate and fan- 
 tastic turn he gave to a thought or a phrase 
 that makes his simplest deductions from life, 
 his most sensible bits of counsel, appear to 
 have something fresh and interesting about 
 them, though prudent men have said much 
 the same before, and said it heavily and 
 solemnly. 
 
 Not that charm need be whimsical and 
 
 freakish, though it is perhaps most beautiful 
 
 when there is something of the child about it, 
 
 something naive and unconventional. There 
 
 96
 
 CHARM 
 
 are men, of whom I think that Cardinal 
 Newman was pre-eminently one, who seem to 
 have had the appeal of a pathetic sort of 
 beauty and even helplessness. Newman seems 
 to have always been surprised to find himself 
 so interesting to others, and perhaps rather 
 over-shadowed by the responsibility of it. He 
 was romantically affectionate, and the tears came 
 very easily at the call of emotion. Such in- 
 cidents as that when Newman said good-bye 
 to his bare room at Littlemore, and kissed 
 the door-posts and the bed in a passion of 
 grief, show what his intensity of feeling 
 might be. 
 
 It is not as a rule the calm and controlled 
 people who have this attractiveness for others ; 
 it is rather those who unite with an enchant- 
 ing kind of playfulness an instinct to confide 
 in and to depend upon protective affection. 
 Very probably there is some deep-seated sexual 
 impulse involved, however remotely and un- 
 consciously, in this species of charm. It is 
 the appeal of the child that exults in happi- 
 ness, claims it as a right, uses it with a pretty 
 petulance, — like the feigned enmity of the 
 
 97 G
 
 CHARM 
 
 kitten and the puppy, — and when it is clouded 
 over, requires tearfully that it shall be restored. 
 That may seem an undignified comparison 
 for a prince of the church. But Newman was 
 artist first, and theologian a long way after- 
 ward ; he needed comfort and approval and 
 even applause ; and he evoked, together with 
 love and admiration, the compassion and 
 protective chivalry of his friends. His writ- 
 ings have little logical or intellectual force ; 
 their strength is in their ineffable and fra- 
 grant charm, their ordered grace, their infinite 
 pathos. 
 
 The Greek word for this subtle kind of 
 beauty is x"V'^» ^^^ the Greeks are worth 
 hearing on the subject, because they, of all 
 the nations that ever lived, were penetrated 
 by it, valued it, looked out for it, worshipped 
 it. The word itself has suffered, as all large 
 words are apt to suffer, when they are trans- 
 ferred to another language, because the big, 
 ultimate words of every tongue connote a 
 number of ideas which cannot be exactly ren- 
 dered by a single word in another language. 
 Let us be mildly philological for a moment, 
 
 98
 
 CHARM 
 
 and realise that the word x^-P^^ ^" Greek is the 
 substantive of which the verb is xaipw, to re- 
 joice. We translate the word X"V'^ ^Y ^^^^ 
 English word " grace," which means, apart 
 from its theological sense, a rich endowment 
 of charm and beauty, a thing which is essen- 
 tially a gift, and which cannot be captured 
 by taking thought. When we say that a 
 thing is done with a perfect grace, we mean 
 that it seems entirely delightful, appropriate, 
 seemly, and beautiful. It pleases every sense; 
 it is done just as it should be done, easily, 
 courteously, gendy, pleasantly, with a confi- 
 dence which is yet modest, and with a rightness 
 that has nothing rigid or unamiable about 
 it. To see a thing so done, whatever it may 
 be, leaves us with an envious desire that we 
 might do the thing in the same way. It 
 seems easy and effortless, and the one thing 
 worth doing ; and this is where the moral 
 appeal of beauty lies, in the contagious sort 
 of example that it sets. But when we 
 clumsily translate the word by "grace," we 
 lose the root idea of the word, which has 
 a certain joyfulness about it. A thing done 
 
 99
 
 CHARM 
 
 with x"V'^ ^s done as a pleasure, naturally, 
 eagerly, out of the heart's abundance ; and 
 that is the appeal of things so done to the 
 ordinary mind, that they seem to well up out 
 of a beautiful and happy nature, as the clear 
 spring rises from the sandy floor of the pool. 
 The act is done, or the word spoken, out of 
 a tranquil fund of joy, not as a matter of 
 duty, or in reluctant obedience to a principle, 
 but because the thing, whatever it is, is the 
 joyful and beautiful thing to do. 
 
 And so the word became the fundamental 
 idea of the Christian life : the grace of God 
 was the power that floods the whole of the 
 earlier teaching of the gospel, before the con- 
 flict with the ungracious and suspicious world 
 began — the serene, uncalculating life, lived 
 simply and purely, not from any grim principle 
 of asceticism, but because it was beautiful to 
 live so. It stood for the joy of life, as opposed 
 to its cares and anxieties and ambitions ; it 
 was beautiful to share happiness, to give things 
 away, to live in love, to find joy in the fresh 
 mintage of the earth, the flowers, the creatures, 
 the children, before they were clouded and 
 
 lOO
 
 CHARM 
 
 stained by the strife and greed and enmity 
 of the world. The exquisite quality of the 
 first soft touches of the gospel story comes 
 from the fact that it all rose out of a heart 
 of joy, an overflowing certainty of the true 
 values of life, a determination to fight the 
 uglier side of life by opposing to it a simplicity 
 and a sweetness that claimed nothing, and ex- 
 acted nothing but a right to the purest sort 
 of happiness — the happiness of a loving circle 
 of friends, where the sacrifice of personal de- 
 sires is the easiest and most natural thing 
 in the world, because such sacrifice is both 
 the best reward and the highest delight 
 of love. It was here that the strength of 
 primitive Christianity lay, that it seemed the 
 possession of a joyful secret that turned all 
 common things, and even sorrow and suffering, 
 to gold. If a man could rejoice in tribulation, 
 he was on his way to be invulnerable. 
 
 It is not a very happy business to trace the 
 decay of a great and noble idea ; but one can 
 catch a glimpse of the perversion of "grace " 
 in the hands of our Puritan ancestors, when 
 it became a combative thing, which instead 
 
 lOI
 
 CHARM 
 
 of winning the enemies of the Lord by its 
 patient sweetness, put an edge on the sword 
 of holiness, and enabled the staunch Christian 
 to hew the Amalekites hip and thigh ; so that 
 the word, which had stood for a perfectly 
 peaceful and attractive charm, became the 
 symbol of righteous persecution, and flowered 
 in cries of anguish and spilled blood. 
 
 We shall take a long time before we can 
 crawl out of the shadow of that dark inherit- 
 ance ; but there are signs in the world of 
 an awakening brotherliness ; and perhaps we 
 may some day come back to the old truth, so 
 long mishandled, that the essence of all re- 
 ligion is a spirit of beauty and of joy, bent on 
 giving rather than receiving ; and so at last 
 we may reach the perception that the fruitful 
 strength of morality lies not in its terror, its 
 prohibitions, its coercions, but in its good-will, 
 its tolerance, its dislike of rebuke and censure, 
 its rapturous acceptance of all generous and 
 chivalrous and noble ways of living. 
 
 And thus, then, I mean by charm not a 
 mere superficial gracefulness which can be 
 learned, as good manners are learned, through 
 
 I02
 
 CHARM 
 
 a certain code of behaviour, but a thing which 
 is the flower and outward sign of a beautiful 
 attitude to Hfe ; an eagerness to welcome 
 everything which is fine and fresh and un- 
 stained ; that turns away the glance from 
 things unlovely and violent and greedy not 
 in a disapproving or a self-righteous spirit, 
 because it is respectable to be shocked, but 
 in a sense of shame and disgrace that such 
 cruel and covetous and unclean things should 
 be. If one takes a figure like that of St. 
 Francis of Assisi, who for all the super- 
 stition and fanaticism with which the record 
 is intermingled, showed a real reflection and 
 restoration of the old Christian joy of life, we 
 shall see that he had firm hold of the secret. 
 St. Francis's love of nature, of animals, of 
 flowers, of children, his way of breaking into 
 song about the pleasant things of earth, his 
 praise of " our sister the Water, because she 
 is very serviceable to us and humble and 
 clean," show the outrush of an overpowering 
 joy. He had the courage to do what very 
 few men and women ever dare to do, and 
 
 that is to make a clean sweep of property 
 
 103
 
 CHARM 
 
 and its complications ; but even so, the old 
 legend distorts some of this into a priggish 
 desire to set a good example, to warn and 
 rebuke and improve the occasion. But St. 
 Francis's asceticism is the only kind of asceti- 
 cism that has any charm, the self-denial, 
 namely, that springs from a sense of enjoy- 
 ment, and is practised from a feeling of its 
 beauty, and not as a matter of timid and 
 anxious calculation. It is true that St. 
 Francis was haunted by the medieval night- 
 mare of the essential vileness of the body, 
 and spurred it too hard. But apart from 
 this, one recognises in him a poet, and a 
 man of ineffable charm, who found the com- 
 pany of sinners at least as attractive as 
 the company of saints, for the simple reason 
 that the sinner is often enough well meaning 
 and humble, and is spared at least the ugli- 
 ness of respectable self-righteousness, which 
 is of all things most destructive of the sense 
 of proportion, and most divorced from natural 
 joy. St. Francis took human nature as he 
 found it, and recognised that failure has a 
 
 beauty which is denied to success, for the 
 
 104
 
 CHARM 
 
 simple reason that conscious failure makes a 
 man both grateful and affectionate, while suc- 
 cess too often makes him cold and hard. 
 
 And there is thus a wonderful fragrance 
 about all that St. Francis did and said, though 
 he must have been sorely tried by his stupid 
 and pompous followers, who constantly mis- 
 understood and misrepresented him, and 
 dragged into the light what was meant to be 
 the inner secret of his soul. There are few 
 figures in the roll of saints so profoundly 
 beautiful and touching as that of St. Francis, 
 because he had in a pre-eminent degree that 
 childlike freshness and trustfulness which is 
 the secret of all charm. 
 
 Charm is of course not the same thing as 
 beauty, but only a subdivision of it. There 
 are many things in nature and in art, from 
 the Matterhorn to "Samson Agonistes," that 
 have no charm, but that appeal to a different 
 range of emotions, the sublime, the majestic, 
 the awe-inspiring, things in the presence of 
 which we are hardly at ease ; but charm is 
 essentially a comfortable quality, something 
 that one gathers to one's heart, and if there 
 
 105
 
 CHARM 
 
 is a mystery about it, as there is about all 
 beautiful things, it is not a mystery of which 
 one would be afraid to know the secret. Charm 
 is the quality which makes one desire to linger 
 upon one's pilgrimage, that cries to the soul 
 to halt, to rest, to be content. It is intimate, 
 reassuring, and appealing ; and the shadow of 
 it is the gentle pathos, which is in itself half 
 a luxury of sadness, in the thought that sweet 
 things must have an end. As Herrick wrote 
 to the daffodils : 
 
 Stay, stay 
 Until the hasting day 
 
 Has run 
 
 But to the evensong : 
 And, having prayed together, we 
 
 Will go with you along. 
 
 We have short time to stay, as you, 
 
 We have as short a spring ; 
 As quick a growth to meet decay 
 
 As you, or anything." 
 
 In such a mood as that there is no sense 
 
 of terror or despair at the quick-coming onset 
 
 of death ; no more dread of what may be 
 
 than there is when the hamlet, with its little 
 
 roofs and tall trees, is folded in the arms of 
 
 1 06
 
 CHARM 
 
 the night, as the sunset dies behind the hill. 
 Beauty may be a terrible thing, as in the 
 sheeted cataract, with all its boiling eddies, 
 or in the falling of the lightning from the 
 womb of the cloud. There is desolation be- 
 hind that, gigantic movement, ruthless force ; 
 but charm comes like a signal of security and 
 good-will, and even its inevitable end is lit 
 with something of mercy and quietness. The 
 danger of charm is that it is the mother of 
 sentiment ; and the danger of sentiment is 
 not that it is untrue, but that it takes from us 
 the sense of proportion ; we begin to be unable 
 to do without our little scenes and sunsets ; 
 and the eye gets so used to dwelling upon 
 the flower-strewn pleasaunce, with its screen- 
 ing trees, that it cannot bear to face the far 
 horizon, with its menace of darkness and 
 storm. 
 
 Yet we are very grateful to those who can 
 teach us to turn our eyes to the charm which 
 surrounds us, and a life which is lived without 
 such perception is apt to be a rough and 
 hurrying thing, even though it may also be 
 
 both high and austere. Like most of life, 
 
 107
 
 CHARM 
 
 the true success lies in not choosing one force 
 and neglecting another, but in an expectant 
 kind of compromise. The great affairs and 
 facts of life flash upon us, whether we will or 
 no ; and even the man whose mind is bent 
 upon the greatest hopes and aims may find 
 strength and consolation in the lesser and 
 simpler delights. Mighty spirits like, let us 
 say, Carlyle and Ruskin, were not hampered 
 or distracted from their further quest by the 
 microscopic eye, the infinite zest for detail, 
 which characterised both. No one ever spoke 
 so finely as Carlyle of the salient features of 
 moorland and hill, and the silence so deep 
 that it was possible to hear the far-off sheep 
 cropping the grass ; no one ever noted so 
 instantaneously the vivid gesture or the pictur- 
 esque turn of speech, or dwelt more intently 
 upon the pathetic sculpture of experience seen 
 in the old humble workaday faces of country- 
 folk. No one ever delighted more ecstatic- 
 ally than Ruskin in the colour of the amber 
 cataract, with its soft, translucent rims, its 
 flying spray, or in the dim splendours of some 
 
 half-faded fresco, or in the intricate facade 
 
 1 08
 
 CHARM 
 
 of the crumbling, crag-like church front. But 
 they did not stay there ; indeed, Carlyle, in 
 his passionate career among verities and 
 forces, hardly took enough account of the 
 beauty so patiently entwined with mortal 
 things ; while Ruskin's sharpest agonies were 
 endured when he found, to his dismay, that 
 men and women could not be induced by any 
 appeal or invective to heed the message of 
 beauty. 
 
 It is true that, however we linger, however 
 passionately we love the small, sweet, encirc- 
 ling joys and delights of life, the tragic ex- 
 perience comes to us, whether we will or no. 
 None escapes. And thus our care must be 
 not to turn our eyes away from what in sterner 
 moments we are apt to think mere shows and 
 vanities, but to use them serenely and tem- 
 perately. St. Augustine, in a magnificent 
 apologue upon the glories and subtleties of 
 light, can only end by the prayer that his heart 
 may not thereby be seduced from heavenly 
 things ; but that is the false kind of asceticism, 
 and it is nothing more than a fear of life, if 
 
 our only concern with it is to shun and abhor 
 
 109
 
 CHARM 
 
 the joy it would fain give us. But we may 
 be sure that life has a meaning for us in its 
 charm and loveliness ; not the whole mean- 
 ing, but still an immense significance. To 
 make life into a continuous flight, a sad ex- 
 pectancy, a perpetual awe, is wilfully to select 
 one range of experiences and to neglect its 
 kindness and its good-will. We may grow 
 weak in our sentiment if we make a tragedy 
 out of life, if we cannot bear to have our 
 comfortable arrangements disordered, our 
 little circle of pleasures broken through. The 
 triumph is to be ready for the change, and 
 to know that if the perfect summer day comes 
 to an end, the power that shaped it so, and 
 made the heart swift to love it, has yet larger 
 surprises and glories in store. If we do that, 
 then the charm of life takes its place in our 
 spirits as the evidence of something joyful, 
 wistful, pleasant, bound up with the essence 
 of things ; if it disappears, like the gold or 
 azure thread of the tapestry, it is only to 
 emerge in the pattern farther on ; and the 
 victory is not to attach ourselves to the par- 
 ticular touches of beauty and fineness which 
 
 no
 
 CHARM 
 
 we see in the familiar scene and the well- 
 loved circle, but to recognise beauty as a spirit, 
 a quality which is for ever making itself felt, 
 for ever beckoning and whispering to us, and 
 which will not fail us even if for a time the 
 urgent wind drives us far into the night and 
 the storm, among the crash of the breakers, 
 and the scream of loud winds over the sea. 
 
 Ill
 
 VI 
 
 SUNSET 
 
 The liquid kindling of the twilight, the 
 western glow of clear-burning fires, bringing 
 no weariness of heat but the exquisite cool- 
 ness of darkling airs, is of all the ceremonial 
 of the day the most solemn and sacred moment. 
 The dawn has its own splendours, but it 
 brightens out of secret mists and folded clouds 
 into the common light of day, when the 
 burden must be resumed and the common 
 business of the world renewed again. But 
 the sunset wanes from glory and majesty into 
 the stillness of the star-hung night, when tired 
 eyes may close in sleep, and rehearse the 
 mystery of death ; and so the dying down of 
 light, with the suspension of daily activities, 
 is of the nature of a benediction. Dawn brings 
 the consecration of beauty to a new episode 
 of life, bidding the soul to remember through- 
 
 112
 
 SUNSET 
 
 out the toil and eagerness of the day that 
 the bemnninof was made in the innocent onrush 
 of dewy light ; but when the evening comes, 
 the deeds and words of the daylight are irre- 
 vocable facts, and the mood is not one of 
 forward-looking hope and adventure, but of 
 unalterable memory, and of things dealt with 
 so and not otherwise, which nothing can hence- 
 forward change or modify. If in the morning 
 we feel that we have power over life, in the 
 eveningf we know that, whether we have done 
 ill or well, life's power over ourselves has been 
 asserted, and that thus and thus the record 
 must stand. 
 
 And so the mood of evening is the larger 
 and the wiser mood, because we must think 
 less of ourselves and more of God. In the 
 dawn it seems to us that we have our part to 
 play, and that nothing, not even God, can 
 prevent us from exercising our will upon the 
 life about us ; but in the evening we begin 
 to wonder how much, after all, we have the 
 strength to effect ; we see that even our 
 desires and impulses have their roots far back 
 
 in a past which no restlessness of design or 
 
 113 H
 
 SUNSET 
 
 energy can touch ; till we end by thankfulness 
 that we have been allowed to feel and to 
 experience the current of life at all. I sat the 
 other day by the bedside of an old and gracious 
 lady, the widow of a great artist, whose works 
 with all their shapely form and dusky flashes 
 of rich colour hung on the walls of her room. 
 She had lived for many years in the forefront 
 of a great fellowship of art and endeavour ; 
 she had seen and known intimately all the 
 greatest figures in the art and literature of the 
 last generation ; and she was awaiting with 
 perfect serenity and dignity the close. She 
 said to me with a deep emotion, "Ah, the 
 only thing that I desire is that I may con- 
 tinue to feel — that brings suffering in abund- 
 ance with it, but while we suffer we are at 
 least alive. Once or twice in my life I have 
 felt the numbness of anguish, when a blow 
 had fallen, and I could not even suffer. That 
 is the only thing which I dread — not death, 
 nor silence, but only the obliteration of feeling 
 and love." That was a wonderful saying, full 
 of life and energy. She did not wish to recall 
 
 the old days, nor hanker after them with an 
 
 114
 
 SUNSET 
 
 unsatisfied pain ; and I saw that an immortal 
 spirit dwelt in that frail body, like a bird in 
 an outworn cage. 
 
 However much one may enjoy the onrush 
 and vividness of life — and I for one find that, 
 though vitality runs now in more definite and 
 habitual channels, though one has done with 
 making vague impulsive experiments, though 
 one wastes less time in undertaking doubtful 
 enterprises, yet there is a great gain in the 
 concentration of energy, and in the certain 
 knowledge of what one's definite work really is. 
 Far from finding the spring and motion of 
 life diminished, I feel that the current of it 
 runs with a sharper and clearer intensity, 
 because I have learned my limitations, and 
 expend no energy in useless enterprises. I 
 have learned what the achievements are which 
 come joyfully bearing their sheaves with them, 
 and what are the trivial and fruitless aims. 
 When I was younger I desired to be known 
 and recognised and deferred to. I wanted to 
 push my way discreetly into many companies, 
 to produce an impression, to create a sense 
 of admiration. Now as the sunset draws 
 
 115
 
 SUNSET 
 
 nearer, and the enriched light, withdrawn from 
 the farther horizon, begins to pulsate more 
 intensely in the quarter whence it must soon 
 altogether fade, I begin to see that vague and 
 widely ranging effects have a thinness and 
 shallowness about them. It is a poor thing 
 just to see oneself transiently reflected in a 
 hundred little mirrors. There is no touch 
 of reality about that. Little greetings, casual 
 flashes of courteous talk, petty compliments 
 — these are things that fade as soon as they 
 are born. The only thing worth doing is a 
 little bit of faithful and solid work, something 
 given away which costs one real pain, a few 
 ideas and thoughts worked patiently out, a few 
 hearts really enlivened and inspirited. And 
 then, too, comes the consciousness that much 
 of one's cherished labour is of no use at all 
 except to oneself; that work is not a mag- 
 nificent gift presented to others, but a whole- 
 some privilege conceded to oneself, that the 
 love which brought with it but a momentary 
 flash of self-regarding pleasure is not love at 
 all, and that only love which means suffering 
 
 — not delicate regrets and luxurious reveries, 
 
 ii6
 
 SUNSET 
 
 but hard and hopeless pain — is v.'orth the name 
 
 of love at all. Those are some of the lights 
 
 of sunset, the enfolding gleams that are on 
 
 their way to death, and which yet testify that 
 
 the light which wanes and lapses here, drawn 
 
 reluctantly away from dark valley and sombre 
 
 woodland, is yet striding ahead over dewy 
 
 uplands and breaking seas, past the upheaving 
 
 shoulder of the world. 
 
 But best of all the gifts of sunset to the 
 
 spirit is the knowledge that behind all the 
 
 whirling web of daylight, beyond all the 
 
 noise and laughter and appetite and drudgery 
 
 of life, lies the spirit of beauty that cannot be 
 
 always revealed or traced in the louder and 
 
 more urgent pageantry of the day. The 
 
 sunset has the power of weaving a subtle and 
 
 remote mystery over a scene that by day has 
 
 nothing to show but a homely and obvious 
 
 animation. I was travelling the other day 
 
 and passed, just as the day began to decline, 
 
 through the outskirts of a bustling, seaport 
 
 town. It had all the interest and curiosity 
 
 of life. Crowded warehouses, swinging up 
 
 straw-packed crates into projecting pent- 
 
 117
 
 SUNSET 
 
 houses; steamers with red-stained funnels, open- 
 mouthed tubes, gangways, staircase heads, dang- 
 ling boats, were moored by bustling wharves. 
 One could not divine the use of half the 
 strangely shaped objects with which the scene 
 was furnished, or what the business could be 
 of all the swarming and hurrying figures. Deep 
 sea-horns blew and whistles shrilled, orders 
 were given, hands waved. It was life at its 
 fullest and busiest, but it was life demanding 
 and enforcing its claim and concealing its 
 further purposes. It was just a glimpse of 
 something full of urgent haste, but pleasanter 
 to watch than to mix with ; then we passed 
 through a wilderness of little houses, street 
 after street, yard after yard. Presently we 
 were rushing away from it all past a lonely 
 sea-creek that ran far up into the low-lying 
 land. That had a more silent life of its own ; 
 old dusky hulks lay at anchor in the channel ; 
 the tide ebbed away from mudflats and oozy 
 inlets, the skeletons of worn-out boats stood 
 up out of the weltering clay. Gradually, as 
 the sun went down among orange stains and 
 
 twisted cloud-wreaths, the creek narrowed and 
 
 ii8
 
 SUNSET 
 
 beyond lay a mysterious promontory with 
 shadowy woods and low bare pasture-lands, 
 with here and there a tower standing up or 
 a solitary sea-mark, or a hamlet of clustered 
 houses by the water's edge, while the water 
 between grew paler and stiller, reflecting the 
 wan green of the sky. It is not easy to de- 
 scribe the effect of this scene, thus magically 
 transfigured, upon the mind ; but it is a very 
 real and distinct emotion, though its charm 
 depends upon the fact that it shifts the reality 
 of the world to a further point, away from 
 the definite shapes and colours, the tangible 
 and visible relations of things, which become 
 for an instant like a translucent curtain through 
 which one catches a glimpse of a larger and 
 more beautiful reality. The specific hopes, 
 fears, schemes, designs, purposes of life, sud- 
 denly become an interlude and not an end. 
 They do not become phantasmal and unreal, 
 but they are known for a brief moment as 
 only temporary conditions, which by their 
 hardness and sharpness obscure a further and 
 larger life, existing before they existed, and 
 
 extending itself beyond their momentary im- 
 
 119
 
 SUNSET 
 
 pact and influence. All that one is engaged 
 in busily saying and doing and enacting is 
 seen in that instant to be only as a ripple on 
 a deep pool. It does not make the activities 
 of life either futile or avoidable ; it only gives 
 the mystical sense, that however urgent and 
 important they may seem, there is some- 
 thing further, larger, greater, beyond them, 
 of which they are a real part, but only a 
 part. 
 
 Moreover, in my own experience, the 
 further secret, whatever it is, is by no means 
 wholly joyful and not at all light-hearted. 
 It seems to me at such times that it is rather 
 solemn, profound, serious, difficult, and sad. 
 But it is not a heavy or depressing sadness — 
 indeed, the thought is at once hopeful and 
 above everything beautiful. It has nothing 
 that is called sentimental about it. It is not 
 full of rest and content and peace ; it is rather 
 strong and stern, though it is gentle too ; but 
 it is the kind of gentle strength which faces 
 labour and hardness, not troubled by them, 
 and indeed knowing that only thus can the 
 
 secret be attained. There is no hint of easy, 
 
 120
 
 SUNSET 
 
 childlike happiness about the mood ; there is 
 a happiness in it, but it is an old and a wise 
 happiness that has learned how to wait and 
 is fully prepared for endurance. There is 
 no fretfulness in it, no chafing over dreams 
 unrealised, no impatience or disappointment. 
 But it does not speak of an untroubled bliss — 
 rather of a deep, sad and loving patience, 
 v/hich expects no fulfilment, no easy satis- 
 faction of desire. 
 
 It always seems to me that the quality 
 which most differentiates men is the power 
 of recognising the Unknown. Some natures 
 acquiesce buoyantly or wretchedly in present 
 conditions, and cannot in any circumstances 
 look beyond them ; some again have a deep 
 distaste for present conditions whatever they 
 are ; and again there are some who throw 
 themselves eagerly and freely into present 
 conditions, use experience, taste life, enjoy, 
 grieve, dislike, but yet preserve a conscious- 
 ness of something above and beyond. The 
 idealist is one who has a need in his soul to 
 worship, to admire, to love. The mistake 
 made too often by religious idealists is to 
 
 121
 
 SUNSET 
 
 believe that this sense of worship can only 
 be satisfied by religious and, even more 
 narrowly, by ecclesiastical observance. For 
 there are many idealists to whom religion 
 with its scientific creeds and definite dogmas 
 seems only a dreary sort of metaphysic, an 
 attempt to define what is beyond definition. 
 But there are some idealists who find the 
 sense of worship and the consciousness of an 
 immortal power in the high passions and 
 affections of life. To these the human form, 
 the spirit that looks out from human eyes, 
 are the symbols of their mystery. Others 
 find it in art and music, others again in the 
 endless loveliness of nature, her seas and 
 streams, her hills and woods. Others again 
 find it in visions of helping and raising man- 
 kind out of base conditions, or in scientific 
 investiofation of the miraculous constitution of 
 nature. It has a hundred forms and energies ; 
 but the one feature of it is the sense of some 
 vast and mysterious Power, which holds the 
 world in its grasp — a Power which can be 
 dimly apprehended and even communicated 
 with. Prayer is one manifestation of this 
 
 122
 
 SUNSET 
 
 sense, though prayer is but a formulation 
 of one's desires for oneself and for the 
 world. 
 
 But the essential and vital part of the 
 mystery is not what the soul asks of it, but 
 the signals which it makes to the soul. And 
 here I am but recording my own experience 
 when I say that the lights and gleams of 
 sunset, its golden inlets and cloud-ripples, the 
 dusky veil it weaves about the world, is for 
 my own spirit the solemnity which effects 
 for me what I believe that the mass effects 
 for a devoted Catholic — the unfolding in hints 
 and symbols of the mysteries of God. An 
 unbeliever may look on at a mass and see 
 nothing but the vesture and the rite, a drama 
 of woven paces and waving hands, when a 
 believer may become aware of the very pre- 
 sence of the divine. And the sunset has 
 for me that same unveiling of the beauty 
 of God ; it illumines and transfigures life ; 
 it shows me visibly and sacredly that beauty 
 pure and stainless runs from end to end of 
 the universe, and calls upon me to adore it, 
 
 to prostrate myself before its divine essence. 
 
 123
 
 SUNSET 
 
 The fact that another may see it carelessly 
 and indifferently makes no difference. It only 
 means that not thus does he perceive God. 
 But, for myself, I know no experience more 
 wholly and deeply religious than when I pass 
 in solitude among deep stream-fed valleys, 
 or over the wide fenland, or through the 
 familiar hamlet, and see the dying day flame 
 and smoulder far down in the west amono- 
 cloudy pavilions or in tranquil spaces of clear 
 sky. Then the well-known land whose homely, 
 day-long energies I know seems to gather 
 itself together into a far and silent adoration, 
 to commit itself trustfully and quietly to God, 
 to receive His endless benediction, and in 
 that moment to become itself eternal in a 
 soft harmony of voiceless praise and passionate 
 desire. 
 
 124
 
 VII 
 
 THE HOUSE OF PENGERSICK 
 
 There are days — perhaps it is well that they 
 are not more common — when by some singular 
 harmony of body and spirit, every little sound 
 and sight strike on the senses with a peculiar 
 sharpness and distinctness of quality, have a 
 keen and racy savour, and come as delight- 
 fully home to the mind as cool well-water to 
 thirsty lips. Everything seems in place, in 
 some well-designed combination or symphony 
 of the senses ; and more than that — the 
 sound, the sight, whatever it be, sets free a 
 whole train of far-reaching and mysterious 
 thoughts, that seem to flash the secret of life 
 on the spirit — or rather hint it in a tender, 
 smiling way, as a mother nods a delighted 
 acquiescence to the eager questions of a child 
 face to face with some happy surprise. That 
 day of January was just such a day to me, 
 
 125
 
 THE HOUSE OF PENGERSICK 
 
 as we drove along the dreary road from 
 Marazion to Helston, by ruined mine-towers 
 with their heaps of scoriae, looking out to the 
 sea on the one hand, and on the other to the 
 low, monotonous slopes of tilth and pasture, 
 rising and falling like broad-backed waves, 
 with here and there a wild and broken wood 
 of firs, like the forest of Broceliande, or a 
 holt of wind-brushed, fawn-coloured ash-trees, 
 half empurpled by the coming of spring, in 
 some rushy dingle by the stream side. 
 
 It was a cool grey day, with a haze over the 
 sea, the gusty sky of yesterday having hardened 
 into delicate flakes of pearly cloud, like the 
 sand on some wave-beaten beach. It was 
 all infinitely soft and refreshing to the eye, 
 that outspread pastoral landscape, seen in a 
 low dusk, like the dusk of a winter dawn. 
 
 It was then that in a little hollow to our 
 
 rio-ht we saw the old House of Peng-ersick — 
 
 what a grim, lean, hungry sort of name ! We 
 
 made our way down along a little road, the 
 
 big worn flints standing up out of the gravel, 
 
 by brakes of bramble, turf-walls where the 
 
 ferns grew thick, by bits of wild upland 
 
 126 
 
 '
 
 THE HOUSE OF PENGERSICK 
 
 covered with gorse and rusty bracken, and down 
 at last to the tiny hamlet — four or five low 
 white houses, in little gardens where the escal- 
 lonia grew thick and glossy, the purple vero- 
 nica bloomed richly, and the green fleshy 
 mesembryanthemum tumbled and dripped over 
 the fences. The tower itself rose straight out 
 of a farmyard, where calves stared through 
 the gate, pigs and hens routed and picked in 
 the mire. I have seldom seen so beautiful a 
 bit of building : it was a great square battle- 
 mented tower, with a turret, the mullioned 
 windows stopped up with sea-worn boulders. 
 The whole built of very peculiar stone, of a 
 dark grey tinge, weathered on the seaward 
 side to a most delicate silvery grey, with ivy 
 sprawling over it in places, like water shot out 
 from a pail over a stone floor. There were just 
 a few traces of other buildings in the sheds and 
 walls, and bits of carved stonework piled up in 
 a rockery. No doubt the little farm itself 
 and the cottages were all built out of the 
 ruins. 
 
 From the tower itself — it has a few bare 
 
 rooms filled with farm lumber — one can see 
 
 127
 
 THE HOUSE OF PENGERSICK 
 
 down the valley to the long grey line of the 
 Prah sands, and the low dusky cliffs of Hove 
 point, where the waves were breaking white. 
 
 I suppose it needed to be a strong place. 
 The Algiers and Sallee pirates used to make 
 descents upon this coast till a comparatively 
 recent date. As late as 1636 they kidnapped 
 seven boats and forty-two fishermen off" the 
 Manacles, none of whom were ever heard of 
 again. Eighty fishermen from Looe were 
 captured in one day, and there is a complaint 
 extant from the justices of Cornwall to the 
 lord lieutenant that in one year Cornwall had 
 lost above a thousand mariners thus ! 
 
 But there was also another side to the 
 
 picture ; the natives all along this coast were 
 
 dreadful wreckers and plunderers themselves, 
 
 and made little account of burning a ship 
 
 and knocking the survivors on the head. The 
 
 very parish, Germoe, in which Pengersick 
 
 stands, had as bad a name as any in Cornwall : 
 
 God keep us from rocks and shelving sands, 
 
 And save us from Breage and Germoe men's hands, 
 
 runs the old rhyme. And there is an evil old 
 
 story of how a treasure ship, the SL Andrew 
 
 128
 
 THE HOUSE OE PENGERSICK 
 
 of Portugal, went ashore at Gunwalloe in 
 January 1526. There were thousands of 
 cakes of copper and silver on board, plate, 
 pearls, jewels, chains, brooches, arras, satins, 
 velvets, sets of armour for the King of Portu- 
 gal, and a huge chest of coined gold. 
 
 The wretched crew got most of the treasure 
 to land and stacked it on the cliffs, when 
 John Milliton of Pengersick, with a St. 
 Aubyn and a Godolphin, came down with 
 sixty armed men, and took all the treasure 
 away. Complaints were made, and the three 
 gentlemen protested that they had but ridden 
 down to save the crew, had found them 
 destitute, and had even given them money. 
 But I daresay the big guest-chamber of 
 Pengersick was hung with Portuguese arras 
 for many a long year afterwards. 
 
 The Millitons died out, and their land 
 passed by purchase or marriage to the de- 
 scendants of another of the three pious squires, 
 Godolphin of Godolphin — and belongs to-day 
 to his descendant, the Duke of Leeds. 
 
 One would have thought that men could 
 
 not have borne to live so, in such deadly 
 
 129 I
 
 THE HOUSE OF PENGERSICK 
 
 insecurity. But probably they troubled their 
 heads little about the pirates, kept the women 
 and children at home, and set a retainer on 
 the cliff in open weather, to scan the ofifing 
 for the light-rigged barques, while poorer folk 
 took their chance. We live among a different 
 set of risks now, and think little of them, as 
 the days pass. 
 
 The life of the tower was simple and hardy 
 enough — some fishing and hunting, some set- 
 ting of springes on the moor for woodcock 
 and rabbits, much farmwork, solid eating 
 and drinking, and an occasional carouse — a 
 rude, plentiful, healthy life, perhaps not as 
 far removed from our own as we like to 
 believe. 
 
 But the old tower spoke to me to-day of 
 
 different things, of the buried life of the past, 
 
 of the strange drift of human souls through 
 
 the world for their little span of life, love, 
 
 and sorrow, and all so pathetically ignorant 
 
 of what goes before and follows after, why 
 
 it so comes about, and what is the final aim 
 
 of the will we blindly serve. Here was a 
 
 house of men, I said to myself, with the 
 
 130
 
 THE HOUSE OF PENGERSICK 
 
 same hopes and fears and fancies as myself, 
 and yet none of them, could I recall them, 
 could give me any reason for the life we thus 
 hurriedly live, so much of it entirely joyful 
 and delightful, so much of it distasteful and 
 afflicting. On a sunny day of summer, with 
 the sea a sapphire blue, set with great purple 
 patches, the scent of the gorse in the air, the 
 sound of the clear stream in one's ears, 
 what could be sweeter than to live ? and 
 even on dark days, when the wind volleys 
 up from the sea, and the rain dashes on the 
 windows, and the gulls veer and sail over- 
 head, the great guest-room with its fire of 
 wreckage, the women working, the children 
 playing about, must have been a pleasant 
 place enough. But even to the strongest and 
 boldest of the old squires the end came, as 
 the waggon with the coffin jolted along the 
 stony lane, and the bell of Germoe came 
 faintly over the hill. 
 
 But I could not think of that to-day, with 
 a secret joy in my heart ; 1 thought rather 
 of the splendid mystery of life, that seems 
 to screen from us something more gracious 
 
 131
 
 THE HOUSE OF PENGERSICK 
 
 still — the steep velvet sky full of star-dust, 
 the flush of spring in sunlit orchards, the 
 soft, thunderous echoes of great ocean billows, 
 the orange glow of sunset behind dark woods : 
 all that background of life ; and then the con- 
 verse of friend with friend, the intercepted 
 glance of wondering eyes, the whispered 
 message of the heart. All this, and a crowd 
 of other sweet images and fancies came upon 
 me in a rush to-day, like scents from a twi- 
 light garden, as 1 watched the old silvery 
 tower stand up blufF and square, with the 
 dark moorland behind it, and the little houses 
 clustering about its feet. 
 
 132
 
 VIII 
 
 VILLAGES 
 
 I WONDER if any human being has ever ex- 
 pended as much sincere and unrequited love 
 upon the Httle pastoral villages about Cam- 
 brido^e as I have. No one ever seems to 
 me to take the smallest interest in them or 
 to know them apart or to remember where 
 they are. It is true that it takes a very 
 faithful lover to distinguish instantly and 
 impeccably between Histon, Hinxton, Haux- 
 ton, Harston, and Harlton ; but to me they 
 have all of them a perfectly distinct quality, 
 and make a series of charming little pastoral 
 pictures in the mind. Who shall justly and 
 perfectly assess the beautiful claims of Great 
 and Litde Eversden ? I doubt if any inhabi- 
 tant of Cambridge but myself and one friend 
 of mine, a good man and true, could do it. 
 Yet it is as pleasant to have a connoisseur- 
 
 133
 
 VILLAGES 
 
 ship in villages as to have a connoisseurship 
 in wines or cigars, though it is not so re- 
 garded. 
 
 What is the charm of them ? That I can- 
 not say. It is a mystery, like the charm of 
 all sweet things ; and further, what is the 
 meaning of love for an inanimate thing, with 
 no individuality, no personality, no power of 
 returning love ? The charm of love is that 
 one discerns some spirit making signals back. 
 " I like you to be here, I trust you, I am 
 glad to be with you, I wish to give you 
 something, to increase your joy, as mine is 
 increased." That, or something like that, is 
 what one reads in the eyes and faces and 
 gestures of those whom one dares to love. 
 One would otherwise be sadly and mournfully 
 alone if one could not come across the traces 
 of something, some one whose heart leaps 
 up and whose pulse quickens at the proximity 
 of comrade and friend and lover. But even 
 so there is always the thought of the parting 
 ahead, when, after the sharing of joy, each 
 has to go on his way alone. 
 
 Then, one may love animals ; but that is 
 
 134
 
 VILLAGES 
 
 a very strange love, for the man and the 
 animal cannot understand each other. The 
 dog may be a true and faithful comrade, and 
 there really is nothing in the world more 
 wonderful than the trustful love of a dog 
 for a man. One may love a horse, I suppose, 
 though the horse is a foolish creature at best ; 
 one may have a sober friendship with a cat, 
 though a cat does little more than tolerate 
 one ; and a bird can be a merry little play- 
 fellow : but the terror of wild animals for 
 men has something rather dreadful about it, 
 because it stands for many centuries of cruel 
 wrong-doing. 
 
 And one may love, too, with a wistful sort 
 of love the works of men, pictures, music, 
 statues ; but that, I think, is because one 
 discerns a human figure at the end of a vista 
 — a figure hurrying away through the ages, 
 but whom one feels one could have loved 
 had time and place only allowed. 
 
 But when it comes to loving trees and 
 flowers, streams and hills, buildings and fields, 
 what is it that happens? I have a perfectly 
 distinct feeling about these little villages here- 
 
 135
 
 VILLAGES 
 
 abouts. Some are to me like courteous 
 strangers, some like dull and indifferent people, 
 some like pleasant, genial folk whom I am 
 mildly pleased to see ; but with some I have 
 a real and devoted friendship. I like visiting 
 them, and if I cannot visit them, I think of 
 them ; when 1 am far away the thought of 
 them comes across me, and I am glad to 
 think of them waiting there for me, nestling 
 under their hill, the smoke going up above 
 the apple-orchards. 
 
 One or two of them are particularly beloved 
 because I visited them first thirty years ago, 
 when I was an undergraduate, and the thought 
 of the old days and the old friendships springs 
 up again like a sweet and far-off fragrance 
 when I enter them. Yet I do not know any 
 of the people who live in these villages, 
 though by dint of going there often there are 
 a few people by whom I am recognised and 
 saluted. 
 
 But let me take one village in particular, 
 
 and I will not name it, because one ought 
 
 not to publish the names of those whom one 
 
 loves. What does it consist of? It straggles 
 
 136
 
 VILLAGES 
 
 along a rough and ill-laid lane, under a little 
 wold, once a sheep-walk, now long ploughed 
 up. The soil of the wold is pale, so that in 
 the new-ploughed fields there rest soft, cream- 
 like shadows when the evening sun falls aslant. 
 There are two or three substantial farm- 
 houses of red brick, comfortable old places, 
 with sheds and ricks and cattle-byres and 
 barns close about them. And I think it is 
 strange that the scent of a cattle-byre, with 
 its rich manure and its oozing pools, is not 
 ungrateful to the human sense. It ought to 
 be, but it is not. It gives one, by long in- 
 heritance, no doubt, a homelike feeling. 
 
 Then there are many plastered, white-walled, 
 irregular cottages, very quaint and pretty, 
 perhaps a couple of centuries old, very ill 
 built, no doubt, but enchanting to look at ; 
 there is a new schoolhouse, very ugly at 
 present, with its smart red brick and its stone 
 facings — ugly because it does not seem to 
 have grown up out of the place, but to have 
 been brought there by rail ; and there are a 
 few new yellow-brick cottages, probably much 
 pleasanter to live in than the old ones, but 
 
 137
 
 VILLAGES 
 
 with no sort of interest or charm. The whole 
 is surrounded by httle fields, orchards, closes, 
 paddocks, and a good many great elms stand 
 up above the house - roofs. There is one 
 quaint old farm, with a moat and a dove-cote 
 and a fine, old mellow brick wall surrounded 
 by little pollarded elms, very quiet and 
 characteristic ; and then there is a big, 
 ancient church, by whom built one cannot 
 divine, because there is no squire in the 
 village, and the farmers and labourers could 
 no more build such a church now than they 
 could build a stellar observatory. It would 
 cost nowadays not less than ten thousand 
 pounds, and there is no record of who gave 
 the money or who the architect was. It has 
 a fine tower and a couple of solid bells ; it 
 has a few bits of good brass-work, a chandelier 
 and some candlesticks, and it has a fine 
 eighteenth-century tomb in a corner, with a 
 huge slab of black basalt on the top, and a 
 heraldic shield and a very obsequious in- 
 scription, which might apply to anyone, and 
 yet could be true of nobody. Why the 
 particular old gentleman should want to sleep 
 
 138
 
 VILLAGES 
 
 there, or who was willing to spend so much 
 on his lying in state, no one knows, and I 
 fear that no one cares except myself. 
 
 There are a few little bits of old glass in 
 the church, in the traceries of the windows, 
 just enough to show that some one liked 
 making pretty things, and that some one else 
 cared enough to pay for them. And then 
 there is a solid rectory by the church, in- 
 habited for centuries by fellows of a certain 
 Cambridge college. I do not expect that 
 they lived there very much. Probably they 
 rode over on Sundays, read two services, and 
 had a cold luncheon in between ; perhaps they 
 visited a sick parishioner, and even came over 
 on a week-day for a marriage or a funeral ; 
 and I daresay that in the summer, when the 
 college was deserted, they came and lived 
 there for a few weeks, rather bored, and longing 
 for the warm combination room and the college 
 port and the gossip and stir of the place. 
 
 That is really all, I think. And what is 
 there to love in all that ? 
 
 Well, it is a little space of earth in which 
 life has been going on for I daresay a thousand 
 
 139
 
 VILLAGES 
 
 years. The whole place has grown slowly 
 up out of the love and care and work of man. 
 Perhaps there were nothing but little huts 
 and hovels at first, with a tiny rubble church ; 
 then the houses grew a little bigger and 
 better. Perhaps it was emptied again by 
 the Black Death, which took a long toll of 
 victims hereabouts. Shepherds, ploughmen, 
 hedgers, ditchers, farmers, an ale-house-keeper, 
 a shopkeeper or two, and a priest — that has 
 been the village for a thousand years. Patient, 
 stupid, toilsome, unimaginative, kindly little 
 lives, I daresay. Not much interested in 
 one another, ill educated, gossipy, brutish, 
 superstitious, but surprised perhaps into sudden 
 passions of love, and still more surprised 
 perhaps by the joys of fatherhood and mother- 
 hood ; with children of all ages growing up, 
 pretty and engaging and dirty and amusing 
 and naughty, fading one by one into dull and 
 sober age, and into decrepitude, and the 
 churchyard at the end of all ! 
 
 Well, I think all that pathetic and mysteri- 
 ous, and beautiful with the beauty that reality 
 
 has. I want to know who all the folks were, 
 
 140
 
 VILLAGES 
 
 what they looked like, what they cared about 
 or thought about, how they made terms with 
 pain and death, what they hoped, expected, 
 feared, and what has become of them. Every- 
 one as urgently and vehemently and interest- 
 edly alive as I myself, and yet none of them 
 with the slightest idea of how they got there or 
 whither they were going — the great, helpless, 
 good-natured, passive army of men and women, 
 pouring like a stream through the world, and 
 borne away on the wings of the wind. They 
 were glad to be alive, no doubt, when the sun 
 fell on the apple-orchard, and the scent of the 
 fruit was in the air, and the bees hummed 
 round the blossoms, when people smile at each 
 other and say kind and meaningless things ; 
 they were afraid, no doubt, as they lay in pain 
 in the stuffy attics, with the night wind blus- 
 tering round the chimney-stack, and hoped to 
 be well again. Then there were occasions and 
 treats, the Sunday dinner, the wedding, the 
 ride in the farm-cart to Cambridge, the visit 
 of the married sister from her home close by. 
 I do not suppose they knew or cared what was 
 
 happening in the world. War and politics 
 
 141
 
 VILLAGES 
 
 made little difference to them. They knew 
 about the weather, they cared perhaps about 
 their work, they liked the Sunday holiday — all 
 very dim and simple, thoughts not expressed, 
 feelings not uttered, experience summed up in 
 little bits of phrases. Yet I like to think that 
 they were pleased with the look of the place 
 without knowing why. I don't deceive myself 
 about all this, or make it out as idyllic. I 
 don't exactly wish to have lived thus, and I 
 expect it was coarse, greedy, dull, ugly, a great 
 deal of it ; but though I can think fine thoughts 
 about it, and put my thoughts into musical 
 words, I do not honestly believe that my life, 
 my hopes, my feelings differ very much from 
 the experience of these old people. 
 
 Of course I have books and pictures and 
 intellectual fancies and ideas ; but that is only 
 an elaborate game that I play, the things I 
 notice and recognise : but I expect the old 
 hearts and minds were at work, too, noticing and 
 observing and recording ; and all my flourish 
 of talk and thought is only a superficial affair. 
 
 And what consecrates and lights up the 
 
 little place for me, touches it with golden 
 
 142
 
 VILLAGES 
 
 hues, makes it moving, touching, beautiful, is 
 the thought of all that strange, unconscious 
 life, the love and hate, the fear and the con- 
 tent, the joy and sorrow, that has surged to 
 and fro among the thatched roofs and apple- 
 orchards so many centuries before I came into 
 being, and will continue when I am trodden 
 into the dust. 
 
 When I came here first thirty years ago, 
 exploring with a friend long dead the country- 
 side, it was, I am sure, the same thought that 
 made the place beautiful. I could not then 
 put it into words ; I have learned to do that 
 since, and word-painting is a very pleasant 
 pastime. It was a hot, bright summer day — I 
 recall the scent of the clover in the air — and 
 there came on me that curious uplifting of 
 the heart, that wonder as to what all the 
 warmth and scent, the green-piled tree, the 
 grazing cows, the children trotting to and fro, 
 could possibly mean, or why it was all so utterly 
 delightful. It was not a religious feeling, but 
 there was a sense of a great, good-natured, 
 beauty-loving mind behind it all — a mind very 
 like our own, and yet even then with a shadow 
 
 143
 
 VILLAGES 
 
 striking across it — the shadow of pain and grief 
 and hollow farewells. 
 
 I was not a very contented boy in those 
 days, in some bewilderment of both mind and 
 heart, having had my first experience that life 
 could be hard and intricate. The world was 
 sweeter to me, though not so interesting as it 
 now is ; but I had just the same deep desire as 
 I have now, though it has not been satisfied, 
 to find something strong and secure and per- 
 manent, some heart to trust utterly and entirely, 
 something that could understand and comfort 
 and explain and reassure, a power which one 
 could clasp hands with, as a child lays its deli- 
 cate finger in a strong, enfolding palm, and 
 never be in any doubt again. It is one's 
 weakness which is so tiring, so disappointing ; 
 and yet I do not want a careless, indifferent, 
 brutal, healthy strength at all. It is the 
 strength of love and peace that I want, not 
 to be afraid, not to be troubled. It is all 
 somewhere, I do not doubt : 
 
 Yet, oh, the place could I but find ! 
 
 I have been through my village this very 
 
 day. The sun was just beginning to slope 
 
 144
 
 VILLAGES 
 
 to the west ; the sun poured out his rays of 
 gold from underneath the shadow of a great, 
 dark, up-piled cloud — the long rays which my 
 nurse used to tell me were sucking up water, 
 but which I believed to be the eye of God. 
 The trees were bare, but the elm-buds were 
 red, and the willow-rods were crimson with 
 spring ; the little stream bubbled clearly off 
 the hill ; and the cottage gardens were full of 
 up-thrusting blades ; while the mezereons were 
 all aflame with bloom. Life moving, pausing, 
 rushing past ! I wonder. When I pass the 
 gate, if I see the dawn of that other morning, 
 I cannot help feeling that I shall want to see 
 my little village again, to loiter down the lane 
 among the white-gabled houses. Shall I be 
 much wiser then than I am now ? Shall I 
 have seen or heard something which will set 
 my anxious mind at rest ? Who can tell me ? 
 And yet the old, gnarled apple-boughs, with 
 the blue sky behind them, and the new-spring- 
 ing grass all seem to hold the secret, which I 
 want as much to interpret and make my own 
 as when I wandered through the hamlet under 
 the wold more than thirty years ago. 
 
 145 K
 
 IX 
 
 DREAMS 
 
 There is a movement nowadays among the 
 philosophers who study the laws of thought, 
 to lay a strong emphasis upon the phenomena 
 of dreams ; what part of us is it that enacts 
 with such strange zest and vividness, and yet 
 with so mysterious a disregard of ordinary 
 motives and conventions, the pageant of 
 dreams ? Like many other things which be- 
 fall us in daily life, dreams are so familiar a 
 fact, that we often forget to wonder at the 
 marvellousness of it all. The two points about 
 dreams which seem to me entirely inexplic- 
 able are : firstly, that they are so much occu- 
 pied with visual impressions, and secondly, 
 that though they are all self-invented and 
 self-produced, they yet contrive to strike upon 
 the mind with a marvellous freshness of emo- 
 tion and surprise. Let us take these two 
 
 points a little more in detail. 
 
 146
 
 DREAMS 
 
 When one awakes from a vivid dream one 
 generally has the impression of a scene of 
 some kind, which has been mainly received 
 through the medium of the eye. I suppose 
 that this varies with different people, but my 
 own dreams are rather sharply divided into 
 certain classes. I am oftenest a silent spec- 
 tator of landscapes of ineffable beauty, such 
 as a great river, as blue as sapphire, rolling 
 majestically down between vast sandstone 
 cliffs, or among wooded hills, piled thick with 
 trees rich in blossom ; or I see stately build- 
 ings crowded together among woodlands, with 
 long carved fronts of stone and airy towers. 
 These dreams are peculiarly uplifting and 
 stimulating, and I wake from them with an 
 extraordinary sense of beauty and wonder ; 
 or else I see from some window or balcony 
 a great ceremony of some quite unintelligible 
 kind proceeding, a procession with richly 
 dressed persons walking or riding, or a re- 
 ligious pomp taking place in a dim pillared 
 interior. All such dreams pass by in absolute 
 silence. I have no idea where I am, nor what 
 is happening, nor am I curious to know. No 
 
 147
 
 DREAMS 
 
 voice is upraised, and there is no one at hand 
 to converse with. 
 
 Then agfain there are dreams of which the 
 substance is animated and vivid conversation. 
 I have long and confidential talks with people 
 like the Pope or the Tsar of Russia. They 
 ask my advice, they quote my books, and I 
 am surprised to find them so familiar and 
 accessible. Or I am in a strange house with 
 an unknown party of guests, and person after 
 person comes up to tell me all kinds of inter- 
 esting facts and details. Or else, as often 
 happens to me, I meet people long since 
 dead ; I dream constantly, for instance, about 
 my father. I see him by chance at a railway 
 station, we congratulate ourselves upon the 
 happy accident of meeting ; he takes my arm, 
 he talks smilingly and indulgently ; and the 
 only way in which the knowledge that he is 
 dead affects the dream is that I feel bewildered 
 at havine seen so little of him of late, and even 
 ask him where he has been for so long that 
 we have not met oftener. 
 
 Very occasionally I hear music in a dream. 
 
 I well remember hearing four musicians with 
 
 148
 
 DREAMS 
 
 little instruments like silver flutes play a 
 quartet of infinite sweetness ; but most of my 
 adventures take place either among fine land- 
 scapes or in familiar conversation. 
 
 At one time, as a child, I had an often 
 repeated dream. We were then living in an 
 old house at Lincoln, called the Chancery, 
 It was a large rambling place, with some in- 
 teresting medieval features, such as a stone 
 winding staircase, a wooden Tudor screen, 
 built into a wall, and formerly belonging to 
 the chapel of the house. There were, more- 
 over, certain quite unaccountable spaces, where 
 the external measurements of passages did not 
 correspond with the measurement of rooms 
 within. This fact excited our childish ima- 
 gination, and probably was the origin of the 
 dream. 
 
 It always began in the same way. I would 
 appear to be descending a staircase which led 
 up into a lobby, and would find that a certain 
 step rattled as I trod upon it. Upon exa- 
 mination the step proved to be hinged, and 
 on opening it, the head of a staircase appeared, 
 
 leading downwards. Though, as I say, the 
 
 149
 
 DREAMS 
 
 dream was often repeated, it was always with 
 the same shock of surprise that I made the 
 discovery. I used to squeeze in through the 
 opening, close the step behind me, and go 
 down the stairs ; the place was dimly lighted 
 with some artificial light, the source of which 
 I could never discover. At the bottom a large 
 vaulted room was visible, of great extent, 
 fitted with iron-barred stalls as in a stable. 
 These stalls were tenanted by animals ; there 
 were dogs, tigers, and lions. They were all 
 very tame, and delighted to see me. I used 
 to go into the stalls one by one, feed and 
 play with the animals, and enjoy myself very 
 much. There was never any custodian to be 
 seen, and it never occurred to me to wonder 
 how the animals had got there, nor to whom 
 they belonged. After spending a long time 
 with my menagerie, I used to return ; and the 
 only thing that seemed of importance to me 
 was that I should not be seen leaving the 
 place. I used to raise the step cautiously and 
 listen, so as to be sure that there was no one 
 about ; generally in the dream some one came 
 down the stairs over my head; and I then waited, 
 
 150
 
 DREAMS 
 
 crouched below, with a sense of deliehtful 
 adventure, until the person had passed by, 
 when I cautiously extricated myself. This 
 dream became quite familiar to me, so that 
 I used to hope in my mind, on going to bed, 
 that I might be about to see the animals ; 
 but I was often disappointed, and dreamed of 
 other things. This dream visited me at irre- 
 gular intervals for I should say about two or 
 three years, and then I had it no more ; but 
 the singular fact about it was that it always 
 came with the same sense of wonder and 
 delight, and while actually dreaming it, I never 
 realised that I had seen it before. 
 
 The only other tendency to a recurring 
 dream that I have ever noticed was in the 
 course of the long illness of which I have 
 written elsewhere ; my dreams were invari- 
 ably pleasant and agreeable at that time ; but 
 I constantly had the experience in the course 
 of them of seeing something of a profound 
 blackness. Sometimes it was a man in a 
 cloak, sometimes an open door with an in- 
 tensely black space within, sometimes a bird, 
 like a raven or a crow ; oftenest of all it took 
 
 151
 
 DREAMS 
 
 the shape of a small black cubical box, which 
 lay on a table, without any apparent lid or 
 means of opening it. This I used to take 
 up in my hands, and find it very heavy ; but 
 the predominance of some intensely black 
 object, which I have never experienced before 
 or since, was too marked to be a mere coin- 
 cidence ; and I have little doubt that it was 
 some obscure symptom of my condition, and 
 had some definite physical cause. Indeed, at 
 the same time, I was occasionally aware of 
 the presence of something black in waking 
 hours, not a thing definitely seen, but existing 
 dimly in a visual cell. After I recovered, 
 this left me, and I have never seen it since. 
 
 These are the more coherent kind of dreams ; 
 but there is another kind of a vaguely anxious 
 character, which consist of endless attempts 
 to catch trains, or to fulfil social engage- 
 ments, and are full of hurry and dismay. 
 Or one dreams that one has been condemned 
 to death for some unknown offence, and the 
 time draws near ; some little while ago I 
 spent the night under these circumstances 
 interviewing different members of the Govern- 
 
 152
 
 DREAMS 
 
 ment in a vain attempt to discover the 
 reasons for my condemnation ; they could 
 none of them give me a specific account 
 of the affair, and could only politely deplore 
 that it was necessary to make an example. 
 " Depend upon it," said Mr. Lloyd-George 
 to me, ''substantial justice will be done!" 
 " But that is no consolation to me," I said. 
 "No," he replied kindly, "it would hardly 
 amount to that ! " 
 
 But out of all this there emerges the fact 
 that after a vivid dream, one's memory is 
 full of pictures of things seen quite as dis- 
 tinctly, indeed often more distinctly, than in 
 real life. I have a clearer recollection of 
 certain dream-landscapes than I have of many 
 scenes actually beheld with the eye ; and this 
 sets me wondering how the effect is brought 
 about, and how the memory is enabled to 
 store what appears to be a visual impression, 
 by some reflex action of the nerves of sight. 
 
 Then there is the second point, that of the 
 lively emotions stirred by dreams. It would 
 really appear that there must be two distinct 
 personalities at work, without any connection 
 
 153
 
 DREAMS 
 
 between them, one unconsciously inventing and 
 the other consciously observing. I dreamed 
 not long ago that I was walking beside the 
 lake at Riseholme, the former palace of the 
 bishops of Lincoln, where I often went as 
 a child. I saw that the level of the lake 
 had sunk, and that there was a great bank 
 of shingle between the water and the shore, 
 on which I proceeded to pace. I was attracted 
 by something sticking out of the bank, and 
 on going up to it, I saw that it was the base 
 of a curious metal cup. I pulled it out and 
 saw that I had found a great golden chalice, 
 much dimmed with age and weather. Then 
 I saw that farther in the bank there were a 
 number of cups, patens, candlesticks, flagons, 
 of great antiquity and beauty. I then re- 
 collected that I had heard as a child (this 
 was wholly imaginary, of course) that there 
 had once been a great robbery of cathedral 
 plate at Lincoln, and that one of the bishops 
 had been vaguely suspected of being con- 
 cerned in it ; and I saw at once that I 
 had stumbled on the hoard, stowed there 
 no doubt by guilty episcopal hands — I even 
 
 154
 
 DREAMS 
 
 recollected the name of the bishop con- 
 cerned. 
 
 Now as a matter of fact one part of my 
 mind must have been ahead inventino- this 
 story, while the other part of the mind was 
 apprehending- it with astonishment and excite- 
 ment. Yet the observant part of the mind 
 was utterly unaware of the fact that I was 
 myself originating it all. And the only natu- 
 ral inference would seem to be that there is 
 a real duality of mind at work. 
 
 For when one is composing a story, in 
 ordinary waking moments, one has the sense 
 that one is inventing and controlling the in- 
 cidents. In dreams this sense of proprietor- 
 ship is utterly lost ; one seems to have no 
 power over the inventive part of the mind ; 
 one can only helplessly follow its lead, and 
 be amazed at its creations. And yet, some- 
 times, in a dream of tragic intensity, as one 
 begins to awake, a third person seems to 
 intervene, and says reassuringly that it is only 
 a dream. This intervention seems to discon- 
 cert the inventor, who then promptly retires, 
 while it brings sudden relief to the timid and 
 
 155
 
 DREAMS 
 
 frightened observer. It would seem then 
 that the rational self reasserts itself, and that 
 the two personalities, one of which has been 
 creating and the other observing, come in 
 like dogs to heel. 
 
 Another very curious part of dreams is that 
 they concern themselves so very little with 
 the current thoughts of life. My dreams are 
 mostly composed, as I have said, of land- 
 scapes, ceremonies, conversations, sensational 
 adventures, muddling engagements. When I 
 was a schoolmaster, I seldom dreamed of school ; 
 now that I am no longer a schoolmaster, I do 
 sometimes dream of school, of trying to keep 
 order in immense classrooms, or hurrying 
 about in search of my form. When I had my 
 long and dreary illness, lasting for two years, 
 I invariably had happy dreams. Now that 
 I am well again, I often have dreams of cause- 
 less and poignant melancholy. It is the rarest 
 thing in the world for me to be able to connect 
 my dreams with anything which has recently 
 happened ; I cannot say that marvellous land- 
 scapes, ceremonies, conversations with exalted 
 
 personages, sensational incidents, play any 
 
 156
 
 DREAMS 
 
 considerable part in my life ; and yet these 
 are the constituent elements in my dreams. 
 The scientific students of psychology say that 
 the principal stuff of dreams seems to be fur- 
 nished by the early experience of life ; and 
 when they are dealing with mental ailments, 
 they say that delusions and obsessions are 
 often explained by the study of the dreams 
 of diseased brains, which point as a rule either 
 to some unfulfilled desire, or to some severe 
 nervous shock sustained in childhood. But 
 I cannot discern any predominant cause of my 
 own elaborate visions ; the only physical cause 
 which seems to me to be very active in pro- 
 ducing dreams is if I am either too hot or too 
 cold in bed. A sudden change of temperature 
 in the night is the one thing which seems to me 
 quite certain to produce a great crop of dreams. 
 Another very curious fact about my dreams 
 is that I am wholly deserted by any moral 
 sense. I have stolen interesting objects, I 
 have even killed people in dreams, without 
 adequate cause ; but I am then entirely devoid 
 of remorse, and only anxious to escape detection. 
 I have never felt anything of the nature of 
 
 157
 
 DREAMS 
 
 shame or regret In a dream. I find myself 
 anxious indeed, but fertile in expedients for 
 escaping unscathed. On the other hand, cer- 
 tain emotions are very active in dreams. I 
 sometimes appear to go with a brother or sister 
 through the rooms or gardens of a house, 
 which on awaking proves to be wholly imagi- 
 nary, and recall with my companion all sorts 
 of pathetic and delightful incidents of child- 
 hood which seem to have taken place there. 
 
 Again, though much of my life is given to 
 writing, I hardly ever find myself composing 
 anything in a dream. Once I wrote a poem 
 in my sleep, a curious Elizabethan lyric, which 
 may be found in the Oxford Book of Verse, 
 called " The Phoenix." It is not the sort of 
 thing that I have ever written before or since. 
 It came to me on the night before my birth- 
 day, in 1 89 1, I think, when I was staying 
 with a friend at the Dun Bull Hotel, by Hawes 
 Water in Westmorland. I scribbled the lyric 
 down on awaking. I afterwards added a verse, 
 thinking the poem incomplete. I published it 
 in a book of poems, and showed the proof to 
 a friend, who said to me, pointing to the added 
 
 158
 
 DREz\MS 
 
 stanza : " Ah, you must omit that stanza — it 
 is quite out of keeping with the rest of the 
 poem ! " 
 
 But this is a quite unique experience, except 
 that I once dreamed I was present at a con- 
 firmation service, at which a very singular 
 hymn was sung, which I recollected on 
 waking, and which is far too grotesque to 
 write down, being addressed, as it was, to the 
 bishop who was to perform the rite. At the 
 time, however, it seemed to me both moving 
 and appropriate. 
 
 It is often said that dreams only take place 
 either when one is just going to sleep or 
 beginning to awake. But that is not my ex- 
 perience. I have occasionally been awakened 
 suddenly by some loud sound, and on those 
 occasions I have come out of dreams of an 
 intensity and vividness that I have never 
 known equalled. Neither is it true in my 
 experience that dreamful sleep is unrefrcshing. 
 I should say it was rather the other way. 
 Profound and heavy sleep is generally to me 
 a sign that I am not very well ; but a sleep 
 full of happy and interesting dreams is gener- 
 
 159
 
 DREAMS 
 
 ally succeeded by a feeling of freshness and 
 gaiety, as if one had been both rested and 
 well entertained. 
 
 These are only a few scattered personal ex- 
 periences, and I have no philosophy of dreams 
 to suggest. It is in my case an inherited 
 power. My father was the most vivid and 
 persistent dreamer I have ever met, and his 
 dreams had a quality of unexpectedness and 
 interest of which I have never known the like. 
 The dream of his, which I have told in his 
 biography, of the finding of the grave of the 
 horse of Titus Oates, seems to me one of the 
 most extraordinary pieces of invention I have 
 ever heard, because of the conversation which 
 took place before he realised what the slab 
 actually was. 
 
 He dreamed that he was standing in West- 
 minster Abbey with Dean Stanley, looking at 
 a small cracked slab of slate with letters on it. 
 ** We've found it," said Stanley. "Yes," said 
 my father, " and how do you account for it ? " 
 •' Why," said Stanley, " 1 suppose it is in- 
 tended to commemorate the fact that the 
 
 animal innocence was not affected by the 
 
 1 60
 
 DREAMS 
 
 villainies of the master." •' Of course ! " said my 
 father, who was still quite unaware what the 
 inscription referred to. He then saw on the 
 slab the letters ITI CAPITANI, and knew 
 that the stone was one that had marked the 
 grave of Titus Oates' horse, and that the whole 
 inscription must have been EOUUS TITI 
 CAPITANI,— "The horse of Titus the Cap- 
 tain " — the "Captain" referring to the fact 
 that my father then recollected that Titus 
 Oates had been a Train-band Captain. 
 
 My only really remarkable dream contain- 
 ing a presentiment or rather a clairvoyance 
 of a singular kind, hardly explicable as a 
 mere coincidence, has occurred to me since 
 I began this paper. 
 
 On the night of December 8, 19 14, I dreamed 
 that I was walking along a country road, be- 
 tween hedges. To the left was a little country 
 house, in a park. I was proposing to call 
 there, to see, I thought, an old friend of mine, 
 Miss Adie Browne, who has been dead for 
 some years, though in my dream I thought 
 of her as alive, 
 
 I came up with four people, walking along 
 
 161 L
 
 DREAMS 
 
 the road in the same direction as myself. 
 There was an elderly man, a younger man, 
 red-haired, walking very lightly, in knicker- 
 bockers, and two boys whom I took to be 
 the sons of the younger man. I recognised 
 the elder man as a friend, though I cannot 
 now remember who he appeared to be. He 
 nodded and smiled to me, and I joined the 
 party. Just as I did so, the younger man 
 said, " I am going to call on a lady, an elderly 
 cousin of mine, who lives here!" He said 
 this to his companions, not to me, and I be- 
 came aware that he was speaking of Miss 
 Adie Browne. The older man said to me, 
 " You have not been introduced," and then, 
 presenting the younger man, he said, " This 
 is Lord Radstock!" We shook hands and 
 I said, " Do you know, I am very much sur- 
 prised ; I understood Lord Radstock to be 
 a much older man ! " 
 
 I do not remember any more of the dream ; 
 but it had been very vivid, and when I was 
 called, I went over it in my mind. A few 
 minutes later, the Times of December 9 was 
 
 brought to my bedroom, and opening it, I saw 
 
 162
 
 DREAMS 
 
 the sudden death of Lord Radstock announced. 
 I had not known that he was ill, and indeed 
 had never thought of him for years ; but the 
 strange thing is this, that he was a cousin 
 of Miss Adie Browne's, and she used to tell 
 me interesting stories about him. I do not 
 suppose that since her death I have ever 
 heard his name mentioned, and I had never 
 met him. So that, as a matter of fact, when 
 I dreamed my dream, the old Lord Radstock 
 was dead, and his son, who is a man of fifty- 
 four, was the new Lord Radstock. The man 
 I saw in my dream was not, I should say, 
 more than about forty-five ; but I remember 
 little of him, except that he had red hair. 
 
 I do not take in an evening paper, but I 
 do not think there was any announcement of 
 Lord Radstock's illness, on the previous day ; 
 in fact his death seems to have been quite 
 sudden and unexpected. Apart from coinci- 
 dence, the rational explanation might be that 
 my mind was in some sort of telepathic com- 
 munication with that of my old and dear friend 
 Miss Adie Browne, who is indeed often in my 
 
 mind, and one would also have to presuppose 
 
 163
 
 DREAMS 
 
 that her spirit was likewise aware of her cousin 
 Lord Radstock's death. 1 do not advance 
 this as the only explanation, but it seems 
 to me a not impossible one of a mysterious 
 affair. 
 
 My conclusion, such as it is, would be that 
 the rational and moral faculties are in suspense 
 in dreams, and that it is a wholly primitive 
 part of one's essence that is at work. The 
 creative power seems to be very strong, and to 
 have a vigorous faculty of combining and ex- 
 aggerating the materials of memory ; but it 
 deals mainly with rather childish emotions, 
 with shapes and colours, with impressive and 
 distinguished people, with things marvellous 
 and sensational, with troublesome and per- 
 plexed adventures. It does not go far in 
 search of motives ; in the train-catching dreams, 
 for instance, I never know exactly where I am 
 going, or what is the object of my journey ; 
 in the ceremonial dreams, I seldom have any 
 notion of what is being celebrated. 
 
 But what I cannot in the least understand 
 
 is the complete withdrawal of consciousness 
 
 from the inventive part of the mind, especi- 
 
 164
 
 DREAMS 
 
 ally when the observant part is so eagerly 
 and alertly aware of all that is happening. 
 Moreover, I can never understand the curious 
 way in which dream-experiences, so vivid at 
 the time, melt away upon awakening. If one 
 rehearses a dream in memory the moment 
 one awakes, it becomes a very distinct affair. 
 If one does not do this, it fades swifdy, and 
 though one has a vague sense of rich adven- 
 tures, half an hour later there seems to be 
 no power whatever of recovering- them. 
 
 Strangest of all, the inventive power in 
 dreams seems to have a range and an inten- 
 sity which does not exist when one is awake. 
 I have not the slightest power, in waking life, 
 of conceiving and visualising the astonishing 
 landscapes which I see in dreams. I can recall 
 actual scenes with great distinctness, but the 
 glowing colour and the prodigious forms of my 
 landscape visions are wholly beyond my power 
 of thought. 
 
 Lastly, I have never had any dream of any 
 real or vital significance, any warning or pre- 
 sentiment, anything which bore in the least 
 degree upon the issues of life. 
 
 165
 
 DREAMS 
 
 There is a beautiful passage in the " Pur- 
 gatorio " of Dante about the dawn : he writes 
 
 In that hour 
 When near the dawn the swallow her sad song, 
 Haply remembering ancient grief, renews ; 
 And when our minds, more wanderers from the flesh 
 And less by thought restrained, are, as 't were, full 
 Of holy divination in their dreams. 
 
 I suppose that it would be possible to in- 
 terpret one's dreams symbolically ; but in my 
 own case my dream-experiences all seem to 
 belong to a wholly different person from my- 
 self, a light-hearted, childish, careless creature, 
 full of animation and inquisitiveness, buoyant 
 and thoughtless, content to look neither for- 
 wards nor backwards, wholly without responsi- 
 bility or intelligence, just borne along by the 
 pleasure of the moment, perfectly harmless 
 and friendly as a rule, a sort of cheerful 
 butterfly. That is not in the least my waking 
 temperament ; but it fills me sometimes with 
 an uneasy suspicion that it is more like myself 
 than I know. 
 
 1 66
 
 X 
 
 THE VISITANT 
 
 I AM going to try to put into words a very singu- 
 lar and very elusive experience which visits me 
 not infrequently. I cannot say when it began, 
 but I first became aware of it about four years ago. 
 It takes the form of an instantaneous mental 
 vision, not very distinct but still not to be 
 mistaken for anything else, of two people, 
 a husband and wife, who are living somewhere 
 in a large newly built house. The husband is 
 a man of, I suppose, about forty — the wife is 
 a trifle younger, and they are childless. The 
 husband is an active, well-built man with light, 
 almost golden hair, rather coarse in texture, 
 and with a pointed beard of the same hue. 
 He has fine, clean-cut, muscular hands, and 
 he wears, as I see him, a rough, rather shabby 
 suit of light, homespun cloth. The wife is of 
 fair complexion, a beautiful woman, with brown 
 
 hair, and dressed, I think, in a very simple 
 
 167
 
 THE VISITANT 
 
 and rather peculiar dress. They are people 
 
 of high principle, wealthy, and with cultivated 
 
 tastes. They care for music and books and 
 
 art. The husband has no profession. They 
 
 live in a wide, well-wooded landscape, I am 
 
 inclined to think in Sussex, in a newly built 
 
 house, as I have said, of white plaster and 
 
 timber, tiled, with many gables and with two 
 
 large, bow-windowed rooms, rather low, the big 
 
 mullioned oriels of which, with leaded roofs, are 
 
 a rather conspicuous feature of the house. The 
 
 house stands on a slighdy rising ground, in a 
 
 park-like demesne of a few acres, well timbered, 
 
 and with open paddocks of grass. The house 
 
 is approached by a drive from the main road, 
 
 with two big gateposts of brick, and a white gate 
 
 between. To the right of the house among the 
 
 trees is the louvre of a stable. There is a terrace 
 
 just in front of the house, full of flowers, with a 
 
 low brick wall in front of it separating it from 
 
 the field. I see the house and its surroundings 
 
 more clearly than I see the figures themselves. 
 
 I cannot see the interior of the house at all 
 
 clearly, with the exception of one room. I 
 
 do not know where the front door is, nor have 
 
 i68
 
 THE VISITANT 
 
 I ever seen any of the upper rooms. The one 
 exception is a big room on the right of the 
 house as one looks at it from the main road. 
 This room I see with great distinctness. It 
 is large and low, papered with a white paper 
 and with a parquetry floor, designed for a 
 music room. There is a grand piano, but 
 what I see most clearly are a good many 
 books, rather inconveniently placed in low 
 white bookcases which run round most of the 
 room, under the windows, with three shelves 
 in each. It seems to me to be a bad arrange- 
 ment, because it would be necessary to stoop 
 down so much for the books, but I do not 
 think that there is much reading done in the 
 room. There are several low armchairs draped 
 in a highly coloured chintz with a white ground ; 
 there are pictures on the walls, but I cannot see 
 them distinctly. I think they are water-colours. 
 The curtains are of a very peculiar and bright 
 blue. A low window-seat runs round the oriel, 
 with cushions of the same blue. It is in this 
 room only that I see the two people, always 
 together ; and I have never seen anyone else 
 
 in the house. They are seen in certain definite 
 
 169
 
 THE VISITANT 
 
 positions, oftenest standing together looking out 
 of the window, which must face the west, be- 
 cause I see the sunset out of it. As a rule, the 
 woman's hand is passed through the man's arm. 
 
 The vision simply flashes across my mind 
 like a picture, whatever I am doing at the 
 time. Sometimes I see it several times in a 
 week, sometimes not for weeks together. I 
 should recoenise the house in a moment if I 
 saw it ; I do not think I should recognise the 
 people. I cannot see the shapes of their feat- 
 ures or their expressions, but I can see the 
 bloom on the wife's cheek and its pure outline. 
 
 To the best of my knowledge I have never 
 seen either the people or the house in real life ; 
 and yet I have strongly the sense that it is a 
 real house and that the people are real. It 
 does not seem to me like a mere imagination, 
 because it comes too distinctly and too accu- 
 rately for that. Nor does it seem to me to be a 
 mere combination of things which I have seen. 
 The curious part of it is that some parts of the 
 vision are absolutely clear- — thus I can see the 
 very texture of the smooth plaster of the house, 
 
 and the oak beams inset ; and I can also see 
 
 170
 
 THE VISITANT 
 
 the fabric of the man's clothes and the colour 
 of his hair ; but, however much I interrogate 
 my memory or my fancy about other details, 
 they are all involved in a sort of mist which 
 I cannot pierce. It is this which convinces 
 me of the reality of the house, and makes 
 me believe that it is not imagination ; because, 
 if it were, I think I should have enlarged my 
 vision of the whole ; but this I cannot do. 
 There is a door, for instance, in the music- 
 room, which is sometimes open, but even so 
 I cannot see a.nything outside in the hall or 
 passage to which it leads. Moreover, though 
 I can recollect the visions with absolute dis- 
 tinctness, I cannot evoke them. I may be 
 reading or writing, and I suddenly see in my 
 mind the house across the meadows ; or I am 
 in the music-room, and the two figures are 
 standing together in the window. 
 
 So strongly do I feel the actuality of it all, 
 that if this book should fall into the hands of 
 the people to whom the vision refers, I will ask 
 them to communicate with me. I have no 
 idea what their past has been, but I know their 
 
 characters well. The fact that they have no 
 
 171
 
 THE VISITANT 
 
 children is a sorrow to them, but has served 
 to centre their affections strongly on each 
 other. The husband is a very tranquil and 
 unaffected man. There is no sort of pose 
 about his life. He just lives as he likes best. 
 He is unambitious, and he has no sense of 
 a duty owed to others. But this is not coupled 
 with any sense of contempt or aloofness — he 
 is invariably kind and gentle. He is an in- 
 tellectual man, highly trained and clear-minded. 
 The wife has less knowledge of the technique 
 of artistic things, but a very fine, natural, 
 critical taste. She cares, however, less for the 
 things themselves than because her husband 
 cares for them ; but I do not think that she 
 knows this. They have always enjoyed good 
 health, and I cannot discern that they have 
 had troubles of any kind. And I have the 
 strongest sense of a perfectly natural high- 
 mindedness about both, a healthy instinct for 
 what is right and fine. They are absolutely 
 without meanness ; and they are entirely free 
 from any sort of morbidity or dreariness. 
 They have travelled a good deal, but they now 
 
 seldom leave home ; they designed and built 
 
 172
 
 THE VISITANT 
 
 their own house. One curious thing is that 
 I have never heard music in the house, nor have 
 I ever seen them reading, and yet I feel that 
 they are much occupied with music and books. 
 
 What is the possible explanation of this 
 curious vision ? I have sometimes wondered 
 if they have been brought into some un- 
 conscious rapport with me through one of my 
 books. It seems to me just possible that when 
 I have seen them standing together there may 
 be some phrase in one of my books which has 
 struck them and which they are accustomed 
 to remember ; and 1 think it may be some 
 phrase about the sunset, because it is at sunset 
 that I generally see them. But this does not 
 explain my vision of the house, because I 
 have never seen either of them outside of the 
 house, and I have several times seen the 
 music-room with no one in it ; how does the 
 vision of the house, which is so strangely 
 distinct, come to me? 
 
 They inspire me with a great feeling of 
 respect and friendship; the vision is very 
 beautiful, and is always attended by a great 
 sense of pleasure. I feel that it does me 
 
 ^7Z
 
 THE VISITANT 
 
 good in some obscure way to be brought into 
 touch with them. Yet I can never retain my 
 hold on the scene for more than an instant ; 
 it is just there and then it is gone. 
 
 It is a very strange thing to be conscious of 
 two quite distinct personaHties, and yet without 
 any power of winding myself any further into 
 their thoughts. There seems to be no vital 
 contact. I am admitted, as it were, at certain 
 times to a sight of the place, but I am sure 
 that there is no sort of volition on their part 
 about it ; I do not feel that their thoughts are 
 ever bent actually upon me, as I exist, but 
 perhaps upon something connected with me. 
 
 I must add that, though I am a great 
 dreamer at night and have always at all times 
 a strong power of mental visualisations, I am 
 not accustomed to be controlled by it, but 
 rather to control it ; and I have never at any 
 time had any sort of similar vision, of a thing 
 apart from memory or fancy. 
 
 I do believe very firmly in the telepathic 
 
 faculty. I think that our thoughts are much 
 
 affected both consciously and unconsciously by 
 
 the thoughts of others. I believe thought takes 
 
 174
 
 THE VISITANT 
 
 place in a spiritual medium and that there is 
 much interlacing and transference of thought. 
 I have never tried any definite experiments in 
 it, but I have had frequent evidence of my 
 thoughts being affected by the thoughts of my 
 friends. It seems to me that this may be a case 
 of some open channel of communication, as if 
 two wires had become in some way entangled. 
 The whole method of thought is so obscure 
 that it is hard to say under what conditions 
 this takes place. But I allow myself the 
 happiness of believing that the place and the 
 people of whom I have been so often aware 
 are real and tangible existences, and that im- 
 pressions of things unseen and unrecognised 
 by me have passed into my brain, so that some 
 secret fellowship has been established. It 
 would be a great joy to me if this could be 
 definitely established ; and I am not without 
 hopes that this piece of writing may by some 
 happy chance be the bearer of definite tidings 
 to two people whom unseen I love, and whose 
 thought may have been bent aimlessly perhaps 
 and indistinctly upon mine, but never without 
 some touch of kinship and goodwill. 
 
 ^75
 
 XI 
 
 THAT OTHER ONE 
 
 I AM going to try, in these few pages, to 
 draw water out of a deep well — the well of 
 which William Morris wrote as the " Well 
 at the World's End." I shall try to describe 
 a very strange and secret experience, which 
 visits me rarely and at unequal intervals ; 
 sometimes for weeks together not at all, 
 sometimes several times in a day. When it 
 happens it is not strange at all, nor wonder- 
 ful ; the only wonder about it is that it does 
 not happen more often, because it seems at 
 the moment to be the one true thing in a 
 world of vain shadows ; everything else falls 
 away, becomes accidental and remote, like 
 the lights, let me say, of some unknown town, 
 which one sees as one travels by night and 
 as one twitches aside the curtain from the 
 
 window of a railway-carriage, in a sudden 
 
 176
 
 THAT OTHER ONE 
 
 interval between two profound slumbers. The 
 train has relaxed its speed ; one looks out ; 
 the red and green signal lamps hang high in 
 the air ; and one glides past a sleeping town, 
 the lamps burning quietly in deserted streets ; 
 there are house-fronts below, in a lonof thor- 
 oughfare suddenly visible from end to end ; 
 above, there are indeterminate shadows, the 
 glimmering faces of high towers ; it is all 
 ghost-like and mysterious ; one only knows 
 that men live and work there ; and then the 
 tides of slumber flow in upon the brain, and 
 one dives thirstily to the depths of sleep. 
 
 Before I say more about it, I will just relate 
 my last taste of the mood. I was walking 
 alone in the autumn landscape ; bare fields 
 about me ; the trees of a village to my right 
 touched sharply with gold and russet red ; 
 some white-gabled cottages clustered together, 
 and there was a tower among the trees ; it 
 was near sunset, and the sun seemed draeeinp- 
 behind him to the west long wisps of purple 
 and rusty clouds touched with fire ; below me 
 to the left a stream passing slowly among 
 rushes and willow-beds, all beautiful and silent 
 
 177 M
 
 THAT OTHER ONE 
 
 and remote. I had an anxious matter In my 
 mind, a thing that required, so it seemed to 
 me, careful deliberation to steer a right course 
 among many motives and contingencies. I 
 had orone out alone to think it over. I 
 weighed this against that, and it seemed to 
 me that I was headed off by some obstacle 
 whichever way I turned. Whatever I desired 
 to do appeared to be disadvantageous and 
 even hurtful. " Yes," I said to myself, " this 
 is one of those cases where whatever I do, 
 I shall wish I had done differently ! I see no 
 way out." It was then that a deeper voice 
 still seemed to speak in me, the voice of 
 something strong and quiet and even in- 
 dolent, which seemed half-amused, half-vexed, 
 by my perturbation. It said, " When you 
 have done reasoning, and pondering, I will 
 decide." Then I thought that a sort of 
 vague, half-spoken, half-dumb dialogue fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 "What are you?" I said. "What right 
 have you to interfere ? " 
 
 The other voice did not trouble to answer ; 
 
 it only seemed to laugh a lazy laugh. 
 
 178
 
 THAT OTHER ONE 
 
 " I am trying to think this all out," I said, 
 half-ashamed, half-vexed. "You may help me 
 if you will ; I am perplexed — I see no way 
 out of it!" 
 
 " Oh, you may think as much as you like," 
 said the other voice. *' I am in no hurry, 
 I can wait." 
 
 "But I am in a hurry," I said, "and I 
 cannot wait. This has got to be settled 
 somehow, and without delay." 
 
 " I shall decide when the time comes," 
 said the voice to me. 
 
 "Yes, but you do not understand," I said, 
 feeling partly irritated and partly helpless. 
 " There is this and that, there is so-and-so to 
 be considered, there is the effect on these 
 other persons to be weighed ; there is my 
 own position too — I must think of my health 
 — there are a dozen thino-s to be taken into 
 
 o 
 
 account." 
 
 ** I know," said the voice ; " I do not mind 
 
 your balancing all these things if you wish. 
 
 I shall take no heed of that ! I repeat that, 
 
 when you have finished thinking it out, I 
 
 shall decide." 
 
 179
 
 THAT OTHER ONE 
 
 "Then you know what you mean to do?" 
 said I, a little angered. 
 
 •• No, I do not know just yet," said the 
 voice; "but I shall know when the time 
 comes ; there will be no doubt at all." 
 
 " Then I suppose 1 shall have to do what 
 you decide ? " I said, angry but impressed. 
 
 "Yes, you will do what I decide," said 
 the voice; "you know that perfectly well." 
 
 " Then what is the use of my taking all 
 this trouble?" I said. 
 
 " Oh, you may just as well look into it," 
 said the voice; "that is your part! You are 
 only my servant, after all. You have got to 
 work the figures and the details out, and then 
 I shall settle. Of course you must do your 
 part — it is not all wasted. What is wasted 
 is your fretting and fussing!" 
 
 " I am anxious," I said. " I cannot help 
 being anxious ! " 
 
 " That is a pity ! " said the voice. " It hurts 
 you and it hurts me too, in a way. You dis- 
 turb me, you know ; but I cannot interfere 
 with you ; I must wait." 
 
 " But are you sure you will do right ? " I said. 
 
 1 80
 
 THAT OTHER ONE 
 
 " I shall do what must be done," said the 
 voice. " If you mean, shall I regret my choice, 
 that is possible ; at least you may regret it. 
 But it will not have been a mistake." 
 
 I was puzzled at this, and for a time the 
 voice was silent, so that I had leisure to look 
 about me. I had walked some way while 
 the dialogue went on, and I was now by the 
 stream, which ran full and cold into a pool 
 beside the bridge, a pool like a clouded jewel. 
 How beautiful it was! . . . The old thoughts 
 began again, the old perplexities. "If he 
 says that',' I said to myself, thinking of an 
 opponent of my plan, "then I must be pre- 
 pared with an answer — it is a weak point 
 in my case ; perhaps it would be better to 
 write ; one says what one thinks ; not what 
 one means to say. . . ." 
 
 " Still at work ? " said the voice. " You are 
 having a very uncomfortable time over there. 
 I am sorry for that ! Yet I cannot think why 
 you do not understand ! " 
 
 " What are you ? " I said impatiently. 
 
 There was no answer to that. 
 
 " You seem very strong and patient ! " I 
 
 i8i
 
 THAT OTHER ONE 
 
 said at last. " I think I rather Hke you, and 
 I am sure that I trust you ; but you irritate 
 me, and you will not explain. Cannot you 
 help me a little? You seem to me to be 
 out of sight — the other side of a wall. Can- 
 not you break it down or look over ? " 
 
 '' You would not like that," said the voice ; 
 •'it would be inconvenient, even painful; it 
 would upset your plans very much. Tell me 
 — you like life, do you not ? " 
 
 "Yes," I said, "I like life— at least I am 
 very much interested in it. I do not feel sure 
 if I like it ; I think you know that better than 
 I do. Tell me, do I like it?" 
 
 "Yes," said the voice ; "at least I do. You 
 have guessed right for once ; it matters more 
 what I like than what you like. You see, I 
 believe in God, for one thing." 
 
 " So do I," I said eagerly. " I have reached 
 that point! I am sure He is there. It is 
 largely a question of argument, and I have 
 really no doubt, no doubt at all. There are 
 difficulties of course — difficulties about per- 
 sonality and intention ; and then there is the 
 
 origin of evil — I have thought much about 
 
 182
 
 THAT OTHER ONE 
 
 that, and I have arrived at a solution ; it is this. 
 I can explain it best by an analogy. . . ." 
 
 There came a laugh from the other side 
 of the wall, not a scornful laugh or an idle 
 laugh, but a laugh kind and compassionate, 
 like a father with a child on his knee ; and the 
 voice said, "I have seen Him — I see Him! 
 He is here all about us, and He is yonder. 
 He is not coming to meet us, as you think. 
 . . . Dear me, how young you must be. . . , 
 I had forgotten." 
 
 This struck me dumb for an instant ; then 
 I said, "You frighten me! Who are you, 
 what are you, . . . wke^^e are you ? " 
 
 And then the voice said, in a tone of the 
 deepest and svreetest love, as if surprised and 
 a litde pained, " My child ! " 
 
 And then I heard it no more ; and I went 
 back to my cares and anxieties. But it was 
 as the voice had said, and when the time came 
 to decide, I had no doubt at all what to do. 
 
 Now I have told all this in the nearest and 
 simplest words that I can find. I have had 
 to use similitudes of voices and laughter and 
 partition-walls, because one can only use the 
 
 183
 
 THAT OTHER ONE 
 
 language which one knows. But it is all quite 
 true and real, more real than a hundred talks 
 which one holds with men and women whose 
 face and dress one sees in rooms and streets, 
 and with whom one bandies words about 
 things for which one does not care. There 
 was indeed some one present with me, whom I 
 knew perfectly well though I could not discern 
 him, whom I had known all my life, who had 
 gone about with me and shared all my ex- 
 periences, in so far as he chose. But before 
 I go on to speak further, I will tell one more 
 experience, which came at a time when I was 
 very unhappy, longing to escape from life, 
 looking forward mournfully to death. 
 
 It had been under similar circumstances — a 
 dreadful argument proceeding in my mind as 
 to what I could do to get back to happiness 
 again, whom to consult, where to go, whether 
 to give up my work, whether to add to it, 
 what diet to use, how to get sleep which would 
 not visit me. 
 
 "Can't you help me?" I said over and 
 
 over again to the other person. At last the 
 
 answer came, very faint and far away. 
 
 184
 
 THAT OTHER ONE 
 
 "I am sick," said the voice, "and I 
 cannot come forth!" 
 
 That frightened me exceedingly, because 
 I felt alone and weak. So I said, " Is it my 
 fault ? Is it anything that I have done ? " 
 
 "I have had a blow," said the other voice. 
 " You dealt it me — but it is not your fault — 
 you did not know." 
 
 "What can I do ? " I said. 
 
 "Ah, nothing," said the voice. "You must 
 not disturb me ! I am trying to recover, 
 and I shall recover. Go on with your play, 
 if you can, and do not heed me." 
 
 "My play!" I said scornfully. "Do you 
 not know I am miserable?" 
 
 The voice gave a sigh. "You hurt me," 
 it said. " I am weak and faint ; but you can 
 help me ; be as brave as you can. Try not 
 to think or grieve. I shall be able to help 
 you again soon, but not now. . . . Ah, leave 
 me to myself," it added. "I must sleep, a 
 long sleep ; it is your turn to help ! " 
 
 And then I heard no more ; till a day 
 long after, when the voice came to me on 
 a bright morning by the sea, with the clear 
 
 185
 
 THAT OTHER ONE 
 
 waves breaking and hissing on the shingle ; 
 the voice came bhthe and strong, " I am well 
 again ; you have done your part, dear one ! 
 Give me your burden, and I will carry it ; it 
 is your time of joy ! " 
 
 And then for a lonor time after that I did 
 not hear the voice, and I was full of delight, 
 hour by hour, grudging even the time I must 
 spend in sleep, because it kept me from the 
 life I loved. 
 
 These then are some of the talks v/e have 
 
 held together, that Other One and I. But 
 
 I must .say this, that he will not always come 
 
 for beine called. I sometimes call to him 
 
 and o-et no answer ; sometimes he cries out 
 
 beside me suddenly in the air. He seems 
 
 to have a life of his own, quite distinct from 
 
 mine. Sometimes when I am fretted and 
 
 vexed, he is quietly joyful and elate, and 
 
 then my troubles die away, like the footsteps 
 
 of the wind upon water ; and sometimes when 
 
 I would be happy and contented, he is heavy 
 
 and displeased, and takes no heed of me ; 
 
 and then I too fall into sorrow and gloom. 
 
 He is much the stronger, and it matters far 
 
 1 86
 
 THAT OTHER ONE 
 
 more to me what lie feels than what I feel. 
 I do not know how he is occupied — very little, 
 I think, and what is strangest of all, he changes 
 somewhat ; very slowly and imperceptibly ; 
 but he has changed more than I have in the 
 course of my life. I do not change at all, 
 I think. I can say better what I think, I 
 am more accomplished and skilful ; but the 
 thought and motive is unaltered from what 
 it was when I was a child. But he is different 
 in some ways. I have only gone on per- 
 ceiving and remembering, and sometimes 
 forgetting. But he does not forget ; and 
 here I feel that I have helped him a little, 
 as a servant can help his master to remember 
 the little things he has to do. 
 
 I think that many people must have similar 
 experiences to this. Tennyson had, when he 
 wrote " The Two Voices," and I have seen 
 hints of the same thinof in a dozen books. 
 The strange thing is that it does not help 
 one more to be strong and brave, because 
 I know this, if I know anything, that when 
 the anxious and careful part of me lies down 
 at last to rest, I shall slip past the wall which 
 
 187
 
 THAT OTHER ONE 
 
 now divides us, and be clasped close in the 
 arms of that Other One ; nay, it will be more 
 than that ! I shall be merged with him, as 
 the quivering water-drop is merged with the 
 fountain ; that will be a blessed peace ; and 
 I shall know, I think, without any questioning 
 or wondering, many things that are obscure 
 to me now, under these low-hung skies, which 
 after all I love so well. . . . 
 
 188
 
 XII 
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 It certainly seems, looking back to the early 
 years, that I have altered very little — hardly 
 at all, in fact ! The little thing, whatever it 
 is, that sits at the heart of the machine, the 
 speck of soul-stuff that is really me, is very 
 much the same creature, neither old nor young ; 
 confident, imperturbable, with a strange in- 
 souciance of its own, knowing what it has to 
 do. I have done many things, gathered 
 many impressions, ransacked experience, en- 
 joyed, suffered ; but whatever I have argued, 
 expressed, tried to believe, aimed at, hoped, 
 feared, has hardly affected that central core 
 of life at all. And I feel as though that 
 strange, dumb, cheerful self — it is always 
 cheerful, I think — had played the part all 
 
 along of a silent and not very critical spec- 
 
 189
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 tator of all I have tried to be. The mind, 
 the reason, the emotion, have each of them 
 expanded, acquired knowledge, learned skill, 
 but that innermost cell has lain there, sleep- 
 less, perceptive, dreaming head on hand, 
 watching, seldom making a sign of either 
 approval or disapproval. 
 
 In childhood it was more dominant than it 
 is now, perhaps. It went its way more 
 securely, because, in my case at least, the 
 mind was, in those far-off days, strangely in- 
 active. The whole nature was bent upon 
 observation. Ruskin is the only writer who 
 has described what was precisely my own 
 experience, when he says that as a child he 
 lived almost entirely in the region of sight. 
 It was the only part of me, the eye, that was 
 then furiously and untiringly awake. Taste, 
 smell, touch, had each of them at moments 
 a sharp consciousness ; but it was the shape, 
 the form, the appearance of things, that in- 
 terested me, took up most of my time and 
 energy, occupied me unceasingly. Even now 
 my memory ranges, with lively precision, over 
 
 the home, the garden, the heathery moorland, 
 
 190
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 the firwoods, the neighbouring houses of the 
 scene where I hved. I can see the winding 
 walks, the larch shrubberies, the flower- 
 borders, the very grain of the brickwork ; 
 while in the house itself, the wall papers, the 
 furniture, the patterns of carpets and chintzes, 
 are all absolutely clear to the memory. 
 
 Thus I lived, from day to day and from 
 year to year, in the moment as it passed ; 
 but I remember no touch of speculation or 
 curiosity as to how or why things existed as 
 they did. The house, the arrangements, the 
 servants, the meal-times, the occupations were 
 all simply accepted as they were, just the 
 will of my parents taking shape. I never 
 thought of interrogating or altering anything. 
 Life came to me just so. I remember no 
 sharp emotions, no dominant affections. My 
 parents seemed to me kind and powerful ; 
 but it did not occur to me that, if I had 
 died, they would feel any particular grief. I 
 was just a part of their arrangements ; and 
 my idea of life was simply to manage so that 
 I should be as little interfered with as pos- 
 sible, and go my way, annexing such litde 
 
 191
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 property as I could, and learning the appear- 
 ance of the things that were too large to be 
 annexed. 
 
 Then my elder brother went off to school. 
 I do not remember being sorry, or missing 
 his company ; in fact, I rather welcomed the 
 additional independence it gave me. I was 
 glad in a mild way when he came back for 
 the holidays ; but I do not recollect the 
 faintest curiosity about what he did at school, 
 or what it was all like. He told us some 
 stories about boys and masters ; but it was 
 all quite remote, like a fairy-tale ; and then 
 the time gradually drew near when I too was 
 to go to school ; but I remember neither 
 interest or curiosity or excitement or anxiety. 
 I think I rather enjoyed a few extra pre- 
 sents, and the packing of my school-box with 
 a consciousness of proprietorship. And then 
 the day came, and I drifted off like thistle- 
 down into the big world. 
 
 My father and mother took us down to 
 
 school. It was a fine place at Mortlake, 
 
 192
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 called Temple Grove, near Richmond Park. 
 Mortlake was hardly more than an old- 
 fashioned village then, in the country, not 
 joined to London as it is now by streets and 
 rows of villas. It was a place of big sub- 
 urban mansions, with high walls everywhere, 
 cedars looking over, towering chestnuts, big 
 classical gate-posts. Temple Grove, so called 
 from the statesman, the patron of Swift, was 
 a large, solid, handsome house with fine 
 rooms, and large grounds well timbered. 
 Schoolrooms and dormitories had been tacked 
 on to the house, but all built in a solid, 
 spacious way. It was dignified, but bare and 
 austere. We arrived, and went in to see the 
 headmaster, Mr. Waterfield, a tall, hand- 
 some, extremely alarming man, with curled 
 hair and beard and flashing eyes. He was 
 a fine gentleman, a brilliant talker, and an 
 excellent teacher, though unnecessarily severe. 
 I had been used to see my father, who was 
 then himself headmaster of Wellington Col- 
 lege, treated with obvious deference ; but 
 Waterfield, who was an old family friend, 
 
 met him with a dignified sort of equality. 
 
 193 N
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 My parents went in to luncheon with the 
 family. My brother and I crawled off to the 
 school dinner ; he of course had many friends, 
 and I was plunged, shy and bewildered, into 
 the middle of them. There were over a hun- 
 dred boys there. Some of them seemed 
 to me alarmingly old and strong ; but my 
 brother's friends were kind to me, and I re- 
 member thinking at first that it was going to 
 be a very pleasant sort of place. Then in the 
 early afternoon my parents went off; we went 
 to the station with them, and I said good-bye 
 without any particular emotion. It seemed 
 to me a nice easy kind of life. But as my 
 brother and I walked away, between the high- 
 walled gardens, back to the school, the first 
 shadow fell. He was strangely silent and 
 dull, I thought ; and then he turned to me, 
 and in an accent of tragedy which I had 
 never heard him use before, he said, " Thir- 
 teen weeks at this beastly place ! " 
 
 I took a high place for my age, and after due 
 examination in the big schoolroom, where four 
 masters were teaching at estrades, with little 
 
 rows of lockered desks much hacked and 
 
 194
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 carved, arranged symmetrically round each, 
 the big fireplace guarded with high iron bars, 
 I was led across the room, and committed to 
 the care of a little, pompous, stout man, with 
 big side-whiskers, a reddish nose, and an air 
 half irritable, half good-natured, in a short 
 gown, who was holding forth to a class. It 
 was all complete : I had my place and my 
 duty before me ; and then gradually day by 
 day the life shaped itself. I had a little cubicle 
 in a high dormitory. There was the big, 
 rather frowsy dining-room, where we took our 
 meals ; a large comfortable library where we 
 could sit and read ; outside there were two or 
 three cricket fields, a gravelled yard for drill, a 
 gymnasium ; and beyond that stretched what 
 were called "the grounds," which seemed to 
 me then and still seem a really beautiful 
 place. It had all been elaborately laid out; 
 there was a big lawn, low-lying, where there 
 had once been a lake, shrubberies and wind- 
 ing walks, a ruinous building, with a classical 
 portico, on the top of a wooded mound, a 
 kitchen garden and paddocks for cows beyond; 
 and on each side the walls and palings of other 
 
 195
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 big mansions, all rather grand and mysterious. 
 And there within that little space my life was 
 to be spent. 
 
 The only sight we ever had of the outer 
 world was that we went on Sundays to an 
 extraordinarily ugly and tasteless modern 
 church, where the services were hideously 
 performed ; and occasionally we were allowed 
 to go over to Richmond with a shilling or two 
 of pocket-money to shop ; and sometimes there 
 were walks, a dozen boys with a good-natured 
 master rambling about Richmond Park, with 
 its forest clumps and its wandering herds of 
 deer, all very dim and beautiful to me. 
 
 Very soon I settled in my own mind that 
 it was a detestable place. Yet I was never 
 bullied or molested in any way. The tone of 
 the place was incredibly good ; not one word 
 or hint of moral evil did I ever hear there 
 during the whole two years I spent there, so 
 that I left the school as innocent as I had 
 entered it. 
 
 But it was a place of terrors and solitude. 
 
 There were rules which one did not know, and 
 
 might unawares break. I did not, I believe 
 
 196
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 make a sinofle real friend there. I liked a few 
 of the boys, but was wholly bent on guarding 
 my inner life from everyone. The work was 
 always easy to me, the masters were good- 
 natured and efficient. But I lived entirely in 
 dreams of the holidays — home had become a 
 distant heavenly place ; and I recollect waking 
 early in the summer mornings, hearing the 
 scream of peacocks in a neighbouring pleas- 
 aunce, and thinking with a sickening disgust 
 of the strict, ordered routine of the place, 
 no one to care about, dull work to be done, 
 nothing to enjoy or to be interested in. There 
 were games, but they were not much organised, 
 and I seldom played them. I wandered about 
 in free times in the grounds, and the only times 
 of deliofht that I recollect were when one buried 
 oneself in a book in the library, and dived into 
 
 imagmations. 
 
 The place was well managed ; we were 
 
 wholesomely fed ; but there had grown up a 
 
 strange kind of taboo about many of the 
 
 things we were supposed to eat. I had a 
 
 healthy appetite, but the tradition was that 
 
 all the food was unutterably bad, adulterated, 
 
 197
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 hocussed. The theory was that one must just 
 
 eat enough to sustain Hfe. There was, for 
 
 instance, an excellent tapioca pudding served 
 
 on certain days ; but no one was allowed to 
 
 eat it. The law was that it had to be shovelled 
 
 into envelopes and afterwards cast away in the 
 
 playground. I do not know if the masters saw 
 
 this — it was never adverted upon — and I did it 
 
 ruefully enough. The consequence was that 
 
 one lived hungrily in the midst of plenty, and 
 
 food became the one prepossession of life. 
 
 I was a delicate boy in those days, and 
 
 used often to be sent off to the sanatorium 
 
 with bad throats and other ailments. It 
 
 was a little, old-fashioned house in Mortlake, 
 
 and the matron of it had been an old servant 
 
 of our own. She was the only person there 
 
 whom I regarded with real affection, and to 
 
 go to the sanatorium was like heaven. One 
 
 had a comfortable room, and dear Louisa 
 
 used to embrace and kiss me stealthily, provide 
 
 little treats for me, take me out walks. I 
 
 have spent many hours happily in the little 
 
 walled garden there, with its big box trees, or 
 
 gazing from a window into the street, watch- 
 
 198
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 ing the grocer over the way set out his shop- 
 window. 
 
 Of incidents, tragic or comic, I remember 
 but few. I saw a stupid boy vigorously caned 
 with a sickening extremity of horror. I re- 
 collect a "school licking" being given to an 
 ill-conditioned boy for a nasty piece of bully- 
 ing. The boys ranged themselves down the 
 big schoolroom, and the culprit had to run 
 the gauntlet. I can see his ugly, tear-stained 
 face coming slowly along among a shower of 
 blows. I joined in with a will, I remember, 
 though I hardly knew what he had done. I 
 remember a few afternoons spent at the houses 
 of friendly masters ; but otherwise it was all 
 a drab starved sort of level, a life lived by a 
 rule, with no friendships, no adventures ; I 
 marked off the days before the holidays on 
 a little calendar, simply bent on hiding what 
 I was or thought or felt from everyone, 
 with a fortitude that was not in the least 
 stoical. What I was afraid of I hardly know ; 
 my aim was to be absolutely inoffensive and 
 ordinary, to do what everyone else did, to 
 
 avoid any sort o( notice. I was a strange 
 
 199
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 mixture of indifference and sensitiveness. I 
 did not in the least care how I was regarded, 
 I had no ambitions of any kind, did not want 
 to be Hked, or to succeed, or to make an 
 impression ; while I was very sensitive to the 
 slightest comment or ridicule. It seems strange 
 to me now that I should have hated the life 
 with such an intensity of repugnance, for no 
 harm or ill-usage ever befell me ; but if that 
 was life, well, I did not like it ! I trusted no 
 one ; I neither wanted nor gave confidences. 
 The term was just a dreary interlude in home 
 life, to be lived through with such indifference 
 as one could muster. 
 
 I spent two years there ; and remember my 
 final departure with my brother. I never 
 wanted to see or hear of anyone there again — 
 masters, servants, or boys. It was a case of 
 good-bye for ever, and thank God ! And I re- 
 member with what savage glee and delicious 
 
 anticipation I saw the last of the high-walled 
 
 • 
 
 house, with its roofs and wings, its great gate- 
 posts and splendid cedars. I could laugh at its 
 dim terrors on regaining my freedom ; but I 
 
 had not the least spark of gratitude or loyalty ; 
 
 200
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 such kindnesses as I received I had taken 
 dumbly, never thinking that they arose out of 
 any affection or interest, but treating them as 
 the unaccountable choice of my elders ; — we 
 stopped for an instant at the little sanatorium 
 — that had been a happy place at least — and I 
 was tearfully hugged to Louisa's ample bosom, 
 Louisa alone being a little sorry that I should 
 be so glad to get away. 
 
 I do not think that the life there, sensible, 
 healthy, and well-ordered as it was, did me 
 much good. I was a happy enough boy in 
 home life, but had little animal spirits, and 
 none of the boisterous, rough-and-tumble ebul- 
 lience of boyhood. I was shy and sensitive ; 
 but I doubt if it was well that interest, enjoy- 
 ment, emotion, should all have been so utterly 
 starved as they were. It made me suspicious 
 of life, and incurious about it ; I did not like 
 its loud sounds, its combative merriment, its 
 coarse flavours ; the real life, that of observa- 
 tion, imagination, dreams, fancies, had been 
 hunted into a corner ; and the sense that one 
 might incur ridicule, enmity, severity, dislike, 
 harshness, had filled the air with uneasy ter- 
 
 20I
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 rors. I came away selfish, able — I had won 
 a scholarship at Eton with entire ease — inno- 
 cent, childish, bewildered, wholly unambitious. 
 The world seemed to me a big, noisy, stupid 
 place, in which there was no place for me. 
 The little inner sense of which I have spoken 
 was hardly awake ; it had had its first sight 
 of humanity, and it disliked it ; it was still 
 solitary and silent, finding its own way, and 
 quite unaware that it need have any relation 
 with other human beings. 
 
 Then came Eton. Into which big place 
 I drifted a^ain in a state of mild bewilder- 
 ment. But big as Eton is — it was close on 
 a thousand boys, when I went there — at no 
 time was I in the least degree conscious of 
 its size as an uncomfortable element. The 
 truth is that Eton runs itself on lines far 
 more like a university than a school : each 
 house is like a college, with its own traditions 
 and its own authority. There is very little 
 intercourse between the younger boys at dif« 
 
 202
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 ferent houses, and there is an instinctive dis- 
 approval among the boys themselves of external 
 relations. The younger boys of a house play 
 together, to a large extent work together, and 
 live a common life. It is tacitly understood 
 that a boy throws in his lot with his own 
 house, and if he makes many friends outside 
 he is generally unpopular, on the ground that 
 he is thought to find his natural companions 
 not good enough for him. Neither have boys 
 of different ages much to do with each other ; 
 each house is divided by parallel lines of cleav- 
 age, so that it is not a weltering mass of 
 boyhood, but a collection of very clearly de- 
 fined groups and circles. 
 
 Moreover, in my own time there was no 
 building at Eton which could hold the whole 
 school, so that on no occasion did I ever 
 see the school assembled. There were two 
 chapels, the schoolrooms were considerably 
 scattered ; even on the occasions when the 
 headmaster made a speech to the school, he 
 did not even invite the lower boys to attend, 
 while there was no compulsion on the upper 
 
 boys to be present, so that it was not neces- 
 
 203
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 sary to go, unless one thought it likely to 
 be amusing. 
 
 I was myself on the foundation, one of the 
 seventy King's Scholars, as we were called ; we 
 lived in the old buildings ; we dined together 
 in the college hall, a stately Gothic place, over 
 four centuries old, with a timbered roof, open 
 fireplaces, and portraits of notable Etonians. 
 We wore cloth gowns in public, and surplices 
 in the chapel. It was all very grand and 
 dignified, but we were in those days badly 
 fed, and very little looked after. There were 
 many ancient and curious customs, which one 
 picked up naturally, and never thought them 
 either old or curious. For instance, when I 
 first went there, the small boys, three at a 
 time, waited on the sixth form at their dinner, 
 being called servitors, handing plates, pouring 
 out beer, or holding back the long sleeves of 
 the big boys' gowns, as they carved for them- 
 selves at the end of the table. This was 
 abolished shortly after my arrival as being 
 deeradine. But it never occurred to us that 
 it was anything but amusing ; we had the 
 
 fun of watching the great men at their meal, 
 
 204
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 and hearing them gossip. I remember well 
 being kindly but firmly told by the present 
 Dean of Westminster, then in sixth form, 
 that I must make my appearance for the 
 future with cleaner hands and better brushed 
 hair! 
 
 We were kindly and paternally treated by 
 the older boys ; I was assigned as a fag to 
 Reginald Smith, now my publisher. I had 
 to fill and empty his bath for him, make his 
 tea and toast, call him in the morning, and 
 run errands. In return for which I was 
 allowed to do my work peacefully in his room, 
 in the evenings, when the fags' quarters were 
 noisy, and if I had difficulties about my work, 
 he was always ready to help me. So normal 
 a thing was it, that I remember saying indig- 
 nantly to my tutor, when he marked a false 
 quantity in one of my verses, " Why, sir, my 
 fagmaster did that!" He laughed, and said, 
 " Take my compliments to your fagmaster, 
 and tell him that the first syllable oi senator 
 is short ! " 
 
 We lived as lower boys in a big room 
 
 with cubicles, which abutted on the passage 
 
 205
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 where the sixth form rooms were. It was a 
 noisy place, with its great open fireplace and 
 huge oak table. If the noise was excessive, the 
 sixth form intervened ; and I remember being 
 very gently caned, in the company of the pre- 
 sent Dean of St. Paul's, for making a small 
 bonfire of old blotting-paper, which filled the 
 place with smoke. 
 
 The liberty, after the private school, was 
 astonishing. We had to appear in school at 
 certain hours, not very numerous ; and some 
 extra work was done with the private tutor ; 
 but there was no supervision, and we were 
 supposed to prepare our work and do our 
 exercises, when and as we could. There were 
 a few compulsory games, but otherwise we 
 were allowed to do exactly as we liked. The 
 side streets of Windsor were out of bounds, 
 but we were allowed to go up the High Street ; 
 we had free access to the castle and park 
 and all the surrounding country. On half 
 holidays — three a week — our names were called 
 over ; but it left one with a three-hour space 
 in the afternoon, when we could go exactly 
 
 where we would. The saints' days and cer- 
 
 206
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 tain anniversaries were whole holidays, and we 
 were free from morning to night. Then there 
 was a delightful room, the old school library, 
 now destroyed, where we could go and read ; 
 and many an hour did I spend there looking 
 vaguely into endless books. I well remember 
 seeing the present Lord Curzon and one of 
 the Wallops standing by the fireplace there, 
 and discussing some political question, and 
 how amazed I was at the profundity of their 
 knowledge and the dignity of their language. 
 
 But in many ways it was a very isolated 
 life ; for a long time I hardly knev/ any boys 
 except just the dozen or so who entered the 
 place with me. I knew no boys at other 
 houses, except a few in my school division, 
 and never did more than exchange a few 
 words with them. One never thought of 
 speaking to a casual boy, unless one knew 
 him ; and there are many men whom I have 
 since known well who were in the school 
 with me, and with whom I never exchanoed 
 a syllable. 
 
 Though there was a master in college, who 
 
 read evening prayers, gave leaves and allow- 
 
 207
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 ances, and was consulted on matters of busi- 
 ness, he had practically nothing to do with 
 the discipline. That was all in the hands 
 of the sixth form, who kept order, put up 
 notices, and were allowed not only to cane 
 but to set lines. No one ever thought of 
 appealing to the master against them, and their 
 powers were never abused. But there was 
 very little overt discipline anywhere. The 
 masters could not inflict corporal punishment. 
 They could set punishments, and for mis- 
 behaviour, or continued idleness, they could 
 send a boy to the headmaster to be flogged. 
 But the discipline of the place was instinc- 
 tive, and public opinion was infinitely strong. 
 One found out by the light of nature what 
 one might do and what one might not, and 
 the dread of being in any vv^ay unusual or 
 eccentric was very potent. There were two 
 or three very ill-governed houses, where things 
 went very wrong indeed behind the scenes ; 
 but as far as public order went, it was per- 
 fect. The boys managed their own games 
 and their own affairs ; a strong sense of sub- 
 ordination penetrated the whole place, and 
 
 208
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 the old Eton aphorism, that a boy learned 
 to know his place and to keep it, held good 
 without any sense of coercion or constraint. 
 
 I do not think that the educational system 
 was a good one. In my days there was 
 little tauoht besides classics and mathematics 
 and divinity. There was a little French and 
 science and history ; but the core of the whole 
 thinof was undiluted classics. We did a aood 
 deal of composition, Greek and Latin, and 
 the Latin verses were exercises out of which 
 I got much real enjoyment, and some of the 
 pride of authorship. But it was possible to 
 be very idle, and to get much contraband 
 help in work from other boys. Most of the 
 school work consisted of repetition, and of 
 classical books, dully and leisurely construed. 
 I do not think I ever attempted to attend 
 to the work in school ; and there were few 
 stimulating teachers. I needed strict and care- 
 ful teaching, and got some from my private 
 tutor ; but otherwise there was no individual 
 attention. The net result was that a few 
 able boys turned out very good scholars, 
 
 saturated with classics ; but a large number 
 
 209 o
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 of boys were really not educated at all. The 
 forms were too large for real supervision ; 
 and as long as one produced adequate exer- 
 cises, and sat quiet in one's corner, one was 
 left genially alone. It was not fashionable 
 to "sap," as it was called ; and though a few 
 ambitious boys worked hard, we most of us 
 lived in a happy-go-lucky way, just doing 
 enough to pass muster. I took not the faintest 
 interest in my work for a long time ; but I 
 read a great many English books, wrote 
 poetry in secret, picked up a vague acquaint- 
 ance, of a very inaccurate kind, with Latin 
 and Greek, but possessed no exact knowledge 
 of any sort. 
 
 Gradually, as I rose in the school, a faint 
 idea of social values shaped itself. Let me 
 say frankly that we were wholly democratic. 
 There were many wealthy boys, many with 
 titles ; but not the faintest interest was taken 
 in either. I was surprised to find later on in 
 my career at school, that boys whose names 
 I had known by hearsay were peers, though 
 at first I had no idea what the peerage was. 
 Whatever we were free from, we were at all 
 
 2IO
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 events free from snobbishness. Athletics were 
 what constituted our aristocracy, pure and 
 simple. Boys in the eleven and the eight 
 were the heroes of the place, and the school 
 club called Pop, to which mainly athletes were 
 elected, enjoyed an absolute supremacy, and 
 indeed ran the out-of-doors discipline of the 
 school. In fact, on occasions like big matches, 
 the boys were kept back behind the lines, 
 by members of Pop parading with canes, and 
 slashing at the crowd if they came past the 
 boundaries. All the social standing of boys 
 was settled entirely by athletics. A boy might 
 be clever, agreeable, manly, a good game-shot, 
 or a rider to hounds in the holidays, but if he 
 was no good at the prescribed games, he was 
 nobody at all at Eton. It was wholesome in 
 a sense ; but a bad boy who was a good 
 athlete might and did wield a very evil 
 influence. Such boys were above criticism. 
 The moral tone was not low so much as 
 strangely indifferent. A boy's private life was 
 his own affair, and public opinion exercised 
 no particular moral sway. Yet vague and 
 guileless as I myself was, I gratefully record 
 
 21 I
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 that I never came in the way of any evil 
 influence whatever at Eton, in any respect 
 whatever. Talk was rather loose, and one 
 believed evil of other boys easily enough. 
 To express open disapproval would have been 
 held to be priggish ; and though undoubtedly 
 the tone of certain houses and certain groups 
 was far from good, there yet ran through 
 the place a mature sense of a boy's right 
 to be independent, and undesirable ways of life 
 were more a matter of choice than of coer- 
 cion. It was, in fact, far more a mirror of 
 the larger world than any other school I have 
 ever heard of; and I know of no school story 
 which gives any impression of a life so curi- 
 ously free as it all was. There was none of 
 that electrical circulation of the news of events 
 and incident that is held to be characteristic 
 of school life. One used to hear long after, 
 or not at all, of things which had happened. 
 There were rumours, there was gossip ; but 
 I cannot imagine any place where a boy of 
 solitary or retiring character might be so en- 
 tirely unaware of anything that was going on. 
 It was a highly individualistic place ; and if 
 
 212
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 one conformed to superficial traditions, it was 
 possible to lead, as I certainly did, a very quiet 
 and secluded sort of life, reading, rambling 
 about, talking endlessly and eagerly to a few 
 chosen friends, quite unconscious that any- 
 thing was being done for one, socially or 
 educationally, entirely unmolested, as long as 
 one was good-natured and easy-going. 
 
 It was therefore a good school for a boy 
 with any toughness of mind or originality ; 
 but it tended in the case of normal and un- 
 reflective boys to develop a conventional type ; 
 good-mannered, sensible, with plenty of savoir 
 /aire, but with a wrong set of values. It 
 made boys over-estimate athletics, despise in- 
 tellectual things, worship social success. It 
 gave them the wrong sort of tolerance, by 
 which I mean the tolerance that excuses moral 
 lapses, but that also thinks contemptuously of 
 ideas and mental originality. The idols of the 
 place were good-humoured, modest, orderly 
 athletes. The masters made friends with 
 them, because a good mutual understanding 
 conduced to discipline, and they were, more- 
 over, pleasant and cheerful companions. But 
 
 213
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 boys of character and force, unless they were 
 also athletic, were apt to be overlooked. The 
 theory of government was not to interfere, 
 and there was an absence of enthusiasm and 
 inspiration. The headmaster was Dr. Hornby, 
 afterwards provost, a courteous, handsome, 
 dignified gentleman, a fine preacher, and one 
 of the most charming public speakers I have 
 ever heard. We respected and admired him, 
 but he knew little of his masters, and never 
 made his personal influence, which might have 
 been great, felt among the boys. He was a 
 man of matchless modesty and refinement ; 
 he never fulminated or lectured ; I never 
 heard an irritable word fall from his lips ; 
 but on the other hand he never appealed to 
 us, or asked our help, or spoke eagerly or 
 indignantly about any event or tendency. 
 He hated evil, but closed his eyes to it, and 
 preferred to think that it was not there. 
 There were masters who in their own houses 
 and forms displayed more vivid qualities ; but 
 the whole tone of the place was against any- 
 thing emotional or passionate or uplifting ; 
 
 the ideal that soaked into the mind was one 
 
 214
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 of temperate, orderly, well-mannered athleti- 
 cism. 
 
 At the end of my time I rose to moderate 
 distinction. I began to read the classics 
 privately, I reached sixth form, and even was 
 elected into Pop. But I was always unad- 
 venturous, and in a way timid. I nurtured a 
 private life of my own on books and talk, 
 and felt that the centre of life had insensibly 
 shifted from home to school. But in and 
 through it all, I never gained any deep patriot- 
 ism, any unselfish ambition, any visions which 
 could have inspired me to play a noble part 
 in the world. I am sure that was as much 
 the result of my own temperament as of the 
 spirit of the place ; but the spirit of the place 
 was potent, and taught me to acquiesce in 
 an ideal of decorum, of subordination, of 
 regular, courteous, unenthusiastic life. 
 
 Leaving the school was a melancholy busi- 
 ness ; one's roots were entwined very deep 
 with the soil, the buildings, the memories, 
 the happiness of the place — for happy above 
 all things it was — in the last few weeks there 
 were many strange emotional outbursts from 
 
 215
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 boys who had seemed conventional enough ; 
 and there was a dreary sense that life v/as at 
 an end, and would have little of future bright- 
 ness or excitement to provide. I packed, 
 I made my farewells, I distributed presents; 
 and as I drove away, the carriage, ascending 
 the bridge by the beloved playing-fields, with 
 its lawns and elms, the gliding river and 
 the castle towering up behind, showed me 
 in a glance the old red-brick walls, the turrets, 
 the high chapel, with its pinnacles and great 
 buttresses, where seven good years had been 
 spent. I burst, I remember, into unashamed 
 tears ; but no sense of regret for failure, or 
 idleness, or vacuous ease, or absence of all 
 fine intention, came over me, though I had 
 been guilty of all these things. I wish that 
 I had felt remorse! But I was only grateful 
 and fond and sad at leaving so untroubled 
 and delightful a piece of life behind me. The 
 world ahead did not seem to me to hold out 
 anything which I burned to do or to achieve ; 
 it was but the closing of a door, the end of 
 a chapter, the sudden silencing of a music, 
 
 sweet to hear, which could not come again. 
 
 216
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 That was all five-and-thirty years ago ! 
 Since that time — I have seen it unmistakably, 
 both as a schoolmaster and as a don — a 
 different spirit has grown up, a sense of 
 corporate and social duty, a larger idea of 
 national service, not loudly advertised but 
 deeply rooted, and far removed from the un- 
 disciplined individualism of my boyhood. It 
 has been a secret growth, not an educational 
 programme. The Boer War, I think, re- 
 vealed its presence, and the war we are now 
 waging has testified to its mature strength. 
 It has come partly by organisation, and still 
 more throuQrh the workings of a more oener- 
 
 o» o o 
 
 ous and self-sacrificing ideal. In any case 
 it is a great and noble harvest ; and I rejoice 
 with all my heart that it has thus ripened 
 and borne fruit, in courage and disinterested- 
 ness, and high-hearted public spirit. 
 
 217
 
 XIII 
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 The essay which stands next in this volume, 
 " Herb Moly and Heartsease," was the subject 
 of a curious and interesting experiment. It 
 seemed to me, when I first thought of it, to be 
 a suggestive subject, a substantial idea. One 
 ought not to write a commentary on one's own 
 work, but the underlying theme is this : I have 
 been haunted all my life, at intervals, some- 
 times very insistently, by the sense of a quest ; 
 and I have often seemed to myself to be 
 searching for something which I have some- 
 how lost ; to be engaged in trying to rediscover 
 some emotion or thought which I had once 
 certainly possessed and as certainly have for- 
 ofotten or mislaid. At times I felt on the track 
 of it, as if it had passed that way not long 
 
 before ; at times I have felt as if I were close 
 
 218
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 upon it, and as if it were only hidden from me 
 
 by the thinnest of veils. I have reason to 
 
 know that other people have the same feeling ; 
 
 and, indeed, it is that which constitutes the 
 
 singular and moving charm of Newman's 
 
 poem, "Lead, kindly Light," where all is 
 
 summed up in those exquisite lines, often so 
 
 strangely misinterpreted and misunderstood, 
 
 which end the poem : 
 
 " And with the morn those angel faces smile, 
 Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile." 
 
 I wish that he had not written " those angel 
 
 faces," because it seems to limit the quest 
 
 to ecclesiastical lines, as, indeed, I expect 
 
 Newman did limit it. But we must not be 
 
 so blind as to be unable to see behind the 
 
 texture of prepossessions that decorate, as with 
 
 a tapestry, the chambers of a man's inner 
 
 thought ; and I have no doubt whatever that 
 
 Newman meant the same thing that I mean, 
 
 though he used different symbols. Again, we 
 
 fuid the same idea in Wordsworth's " Ode on 
 
 the Intimations of Immortality," the thought 
 
 that life is not circumscribed by birth and 
 
 death, but that one's experience is a much 
 
 219
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 larger and older thing than the experience 
 which mere memory records. It is that which 
 one has lost ; and one of the greatest mysteries 
 of art lies in the fact that a picture, or a sudden 
 music, or a page in a book, will sometimes 
 startle one into the consciousness of having 
 heard, seen, known, felt the emotion before, 
 elsewhere, beyond the visible horizon. 
 
 Well, I tried to put that idea into words in 
 "Herb Moly and Heartease " ; and because 
 it was a deep and dim idea, and also partly 
 because it fascinated me greatly, I spent far 
 more time and trouble on the little piece than 
 I generally spend. 
 
 Then it occurred to me, in a whimsical 
 
 moment, that I would try an experiment. I 
 
 would send out the thing as a ballon d'essai, 
 
 to see if anyone would read it for itself, or 
 
 would detect me underneath the disguise. 
 
 ThrouQ-h the kind offices of a friend, I had 
 
 it published secretly and anonymously. I 
 
 chose the most beautiful type and paper I 
 
 could find ; it cost me far more than the sale 
 
 of the whole edition could possibly recoup. 
 
 I had it sent to papers for review, and I even 
 
 220
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 had some copies sent to literary friends of my 
 own. 
 
 The result was a quite enchanting humilia- 
 tion. One paper reviewed it kindly, in a little 
 paragraph, and said it was useful ; another said 
 that the writer used the word "one " much too 
 frequently ; while only one of my friends even 
 acknowledged it. It is pleasant to begin at 
 the bottom again, and find that no one will 
 listen, even to a very careful bit of writing by 
 one who has at all events had a good deal of 
 practice, and who did his very best ! 
 
 This set me thinking over my literary ad- 
 ventures, and I think they may be interesting 
 to other authors or would-be authors ; and 
 then I wish to go a little further, and try to 
 say, if I can, what I believe the writing of 
 books really to be, why one writes, and what 
 one is aiming at. I have a very clear idea 
 about it all, and it can do no harm to state it. 
 
 I was brought up much among books and 
 talk about books. Indeed, I have always be- 
 
 2 2 1
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 lieved that my father, though he had great 
 practical gifts of organisation and administra- 
 tion, which came out in his work as a school- 
 master and a bishop, was very much of an 
 artist at heart, and would have liked to be a 
 poet. Indeed, the practice of authorship has 
 run in my family to a quite extraordinary de- 
 gree. In four generations, I believe that some 
 twenty of my blood-relations have written and 
 published books, from my cousin Adelaide 
 Anne Procter to my uncle Henry Sidgwick. 
 When we were children we produced little 
 magazines of prose and poetry, and read them 
 in the family circle. I wrote poetry as a boy at 
 Eton, and at Cambridge as an undergraduate ; 
 and at the end of my time at Cambridge I pro- 
 duced a novel, which I sent to Macmillan s 
 Magazine, of which Lord Morley was then 
 editor, who sent it back to me with a kind 
 letter to say that it was sauce without meat, 
 and that I should not be proud of the book 
 in later life if it were published. 
 
 Then as an undergraduate I began an odd 
 little book called Mejnoirs of Arthir Hamilton, 
 a morbid affair, which was published anony- 
 
 222
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 moLisly, and, though severely handled by 
 reviewers, had a certain measure of success. 
 But then I became a busy schoolmaster, and 
 all I did was to write laboured little essays, 
 which appeared in various mag-azines, and were 
 afterwards collected. Then I took up poetry, 
 and worked very hard at it indeed for some 
 years, producing five volumes, which very few 
 people ever read. It was a great delight, 
 writing poetry, and I have masses of unpub- 
 lished poems. But I do not grudge the time 
 spent on it, because I think it taught me the 
 use of words. Then came two volumes of 
 stories, mostly told or read to the boys in my 
 house, with a medieval sort of flavour — The 
 Hill of Tro2ible and The Isles of Sunset . 
 
 I also put together a little book on Temiyson, 
 which has, I believe, the merit of containing 
 all the most interesting anecdotes about him, 
 and I also wrote the Rossetti in the Men of 
 Letters Series, a painstaking book, rather 
 rhetorical ; though the truth about Rossetti 
 cannot be told, even if it could be known. 
 
 All this work was done in the middle of 
 
 hard professional work, with a boarding-house 
 
 223
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 and many pupils. I will dare to say that I 
 was an active and diligent schoolmaster, and 
 writing was only a recreation. 1 could only 
 get a few hours a week at it, and it never 
 interfered with my main work. 
 
 My father died in 1896, and I wrote his 
 life in two big volumes, a very solid piece 
 of work ; but it was after that, I think, that 
 my real writing began. I believe it was in 
 1899 that I slowly composed The House of 
 Quiet, but I could not satisfy myself about 
 the ending, and it was laid aside. 
 
 Then I was offered the task of editing Queen 
 Victoria's letters. I resigned my mastership 
 with a mixture of sorrow and relief. The work 
 was interesting and absorbing, but I did not 
 like our system of education, nor did I believe 
 in it. But I put my beliefs into a little 
 book called The Schoolviaster, which made its 
 way. 
 
 I left my work as a teacher in 1903, when 
 I was forty-one. The House of Quiet ap- 
 peared in that year anonymously, and began 
 to sell. I lived on at Eton with an old friend ; 
 
 went daily up to Windsor Castle, and toiled 
 
 224
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 through volumes of papers. But I found that 
 it was not possible to work more than a few 
 hours a day at the task of selection, because 
 one's judgment got fatigued and blurred. 
 
 The sudden cessation of heavy professional 
 work make itself felt in an extreme zest and 
 lightness of spirit. It was a very happy and 
 delightful time. I was living among friends 
 who were all very hard at work, and the very 
 contrast of my freedom with their servitude 
 was enlivening. I was able, too, to think over 
 my schoolmastering experience ; and the re- 
 sult was The Upton Letters, an inconsequent 
 but I think lively book, also published anony- 
 mously and rather disregarded by reviewers. 
 But the book was talked about and read ; and 
 for the next year or two I worked with inde- 
 fatigable zest at writing. I brought out mono- 
 graphs on Edivard FitzGerald and Walter 
 Pater ; I wrote The Thread of Gold, which 
 also succeeded ; and in the next year I settled 
 at Cambridge, and wrote From a College 
 Window as a serial in the Cornhill, and 
 The Gate of Death, both anonymously ; and 
 
 in the following year Beside Still Waters 
 
 225 p
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 and The Altai^ Fire. All this time the Queen's 
 
 letters were going quietly on in the background. 
 
 I have written half-a-dozen books since 
 
 then. But that is how I began my work ; 
 
 and the one point which is worth noticing 
 
 is that the four books which have sold most 
 
 widely, The House of Quiet^ The Upton 
 
 Letters, The Thread of Gold, and the College 
 
 Window, were all of them issued anonymously, 
 
 and the authorship was for a considerable time 
 
 undetected. So that it is fair to conclude that 
 
 the public is on the look-out for books which 
 
 interest it, and will find out what it wants ; 
 
 because none of those books owed anything 
 
 whatever to my parentage or my position or 
 
 my friends — or indeed to the reviewers either ; 
 
 and it proves the truth of what a publisher 
 
 said to me the other day, that neither reviews 
 
 nor advertisements will really do much for 
 
 a book ; but that if readers begin to talk 
 
 about a book and to recommend it, it is apt 
 
 to go ahead. And, further, I conclude from 
 
 the fact that none of my subsequent books 
 
 have been as popular as these, though I have 
 
 no cause to complain, that a new voice and 
 
 226
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 new Ideas are what prove attractive — and 
 perhaps not so much new ideas as famiHar 
 ideas which have not been clearly expressed 
 and put into words. There was a little mys- 
 tery about the writer then, and there is no 
 mystery now ; everyone knows exactly what to 
 expect ; and the new generation wants a fresh 
 voice and a different way of putting things. 
 
 3 
 
 As to the motive force, whatever it may be, 
 that lies behind writing, we may disengage 
 from it all subsidiary motives, such as the 
 desire for money, philanthropy, professional 
 occupation ; but the main force is, I think, 
 threefold. The motive of art pure and simple, 
 the desire for communication with one's fellows, 
 and the motive of ambition, which may almost 
 be called the desire for applause. 
 
 The ultimate instinct of art is the expression 
 of the sense of beauty. A scene, or a char- 
 acter, or an idea, or an emotion, strikes the 
 mind as being salient, beautiful, strange, won- 
 derful, and the mind desires to record it, to 
 
 depict it, to isolate it, to emphasize it. The 
 
 227
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 process becomes gradually, as the life of the 
 world continues, more and more complex. It 
 seemed enough at first just to record ; but 
 then there follows the desire to contrast, to 
 heighten effects, to construct elaborate back- 
 grounds ; then the process grows still more 
 refined, and it becomes essential to lay out 
 materials in due proportion, and to clear away 
 all that is otiose or confusing, so that the 
 central idea, whatever it is, shall stand out 
 in absolute clarity and distinctness. Gradually 
 a great deal of art becomes traditional and 
 conventional ; certain forms stereotype them- 
 selves, and it becomes more and more diffi- 
 cult to invent a new form of any kind. When 
 art is very much bound by tradition, it becomes 
 what is called classical, and makes its appeal 
 to a cultured circle ; and then there is a revo- 
 lutionary outburst of what is called a romantic 
 type, which means on the one hand a weariness 
 of the old traditions and longing for freedom, 
 and on the other hand a corresponding desire, 
 on the part of an extended and less cultured 
 circle, for art of a more elastic kind. Litera- 
 ture has this cyclic ebb and flow ; but what is 
 
 228
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 romantic in one age tends to become classical 
 in the next, as the new departure becomes in 
 its turn traditional. These variations are no 
 doubt the result of definite, psychological laws, 
 at present little understood. The renaissance 
 of a nation, when from some unascertained 
 cause there is a fresh outburst of interest in 
 ideas, is quite unaccounted for by logical or 
 mathematical laws of development. The French 
 Revolution and the corresponding romantic re- 
 vival in England are instances of this. A writer 
 like Rousseau does not germinate interest in 
 social and emotional ideas, but merely puts 
 into attractive form a number of ideas vaguely 
 floating in numberless minds. A writer like 
 Scott indicates a sudden repulsion in many 
 minds against a classical tradition grown sterile, 
 and a widespread desire to extract romantic 
 emotions from a forgotten medieval life. Of 
 course a romantic writer like Scott read into 
 the Middle Ages a number of emotions which 
 were not historically there ; and the romantic 
 writer, generally speaking, tends to treat of 
 life in its more sublime and glowing moments, 
 
 and to amass brilliant experience and absorb- 
 
 229
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 ing emotion in an unscientific way. Just now 
 we are beginning' to revolt against this over- 
 emotionalised treatment of life, and realism is 
 a deliberate attempt to present life as it is — 
 not to improve upon it or to select it, but to 
 give an impression of its complexity as well 
 as of its bleakness. The romanticist typifies 
 and stereotypes character, the realist recognises 
 the inconsistency and the changeableness of 
 personality. The romanticist presents qualities 
 and moods personified, the realist depicts the 
 flux and variableness of mood, and the effects 
 exerted by characters upon each other. But the 
 motive is ultimately the same, only the roman- 
 ticist is interested in the passion and inspiration 
 of life, the realist more in the facts and actual 
 stuff of life. But in both cases the motive is the 
 same : to depict and to record a personal impres- 
 sion of what seems wonderful and strange. 
 
 The second motive in art is the desire to 
 share and communicate experience. Every 
 one must know how intolerable to a perceptive 
 person loneliness is apt to be, and how instinc- 
 tive is the need of some companion with whom 
 
 to participate in the beauty or impressiveness 
 
 230
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 or absurdity of a scene. The enjoyment of 
 experience is diminished or even obliterated 
 if one has to taste it in solitude. Of course 
 there are people so constituted as to be able 
 to enjoy, let us say, a good dinner, or a con- 
 cert of music, or a play, in solitude ; but if 
 such a person has the instinct of expression, 
 he enjoys it all half-consciously as an amassing 
 of material for artistic use ; and it is almost 
 inconceivable that an artist should exist who 
 would be prepared to continue writing books 
 or painting pictures or making statues, quite 
 content to put them aside when completed, 
 with no desire to submit them to the judgment 
 of the world. My own experience is that the 
 thought of sharing one's enjoyment with other 
 people is not a very conscious feeling while 
 one is actually engaged in writing. At the 
 moment the thought of expression is para- 
 mount, and the delight lies simply in depict- 
 ing and recording. Yet the impulse to hand 
 it all on is subconsciously there, to such an 
 extent that if I knew that what I wrote could 
 never pass under another human eye, I have 
 
 little doubt that I should very soon desist 
 
 231
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 from writing altogether. The social and 
 gregarious instinct is really very dominant in 
 all art ; and all writers who have a public at 
 all must become aware of this fact, by the 
 number of manuscripts which are submitted to 
 them by would-be authors, who ask for advice 
 and criticism and introductions to publishers. 
 It would be quite easy for me, if I complied 
 fully with all such requests, to spend the 
 greater part of my time in the labour of com- 
 menting on these manuscripts. It is indeed 
 the nearest that many amateurs can get to 
 publication. As Ruskin, I think, once said, 
 it is a curious irony of authorship that if a 
 writer once makes a success the world does its 
 best, by inundating him with every sort of re- 
 quest, to prevent his ever repeating it. I sup- 
 pose that painters and sculptors do not suffer so 
 much in this way, because it is not easy to 
 send about canvases or statues by parcels post. 
 But nothing is easier than to slip a manuscript 
 into an envelope and to require an opinion 
 from an author. I will confess that I very 
 seldom refuse these requests. At the moment 
 
 at which I write I have three printed novels 
 
 232
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 and a printed book of travel, a poem, and two 
 volumes of essays in manuscript upon my 
 table, and I shall make shift to say something 
 in reply, though except for the satisfaction of 
 the authors in question, I believe that my 
 pains will be wholly thrown away, for the 
 simple reason that it is a very lengthy business 
 to teach any one how to write, and also partly 
 because what these authors desire is not criti- 
 cism but sympathy and admiration. 
 
 The third motive which underlies the 
 practice of art is undoubtedly the sense of 
 performance and the desire for applause. It 
 is easy from a pose of dignity and high- 
 mindedness to undervalue and overlook this. 
 But it may safely be said that when a man 
 challenges the attention of the public, he does 
 not do it that he may give pleasure, but that 
 he may receive praise. As Elihu the Buzite 
 said with such exquisite frankness in the book 
 of Job, " I will speak, that I may be re- 
 freshed ! " The amateurs who send their work 
 for inspection cannot as a rule bear to face 
 this fact. They constantly say that they wish 
 to do good, or to communicate enjoyment and
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 pleasure. To be honest, I do not much be- 
 lieve that the motive of the artist is altruistic. 
 He writes for his own enjoyment, perhaps, but 
 he publishes that his skill and power of pre- 
 sentment may be recognised and applauded. 
 In FitzGerald's Letters there is a delight- 
 ful story of a parrot who had one accomplish- 
 ment — that of ruffling up his feathers and 
 rolling his eyes so that he looked like an owl. 
 When the other domestic pets were doing 
 their tricks, the owner of the parrot, to prevent 
 its' feelings being hurt, used carefully to request 
 it " to do its little owl." And the truth is that 
 we most of us want to do our little owl. 
 Stevenson said candidly that applause was the 
 breath of life to an artist. Many, indeed, find 
 the money they make by their work delightful 
 as a symbol of applause in the sense of 
 Shelley's fine dictum, " Fame is love dis- 
 guised." It is not a wholly mean motive, 
 because many of us are beset by an idea that 
 the shortest way to be loved is to be admired. 
 It is a great misapprehension, because admira- 
 tion breeds jealousy quite as often as it breeds 
 affection — indeed oftener ! But from the child 
 
 234
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 that plays its little piece, or the itinerant musi- 
 cian that blows a flat cornet in the street, to the 
 great dramatist or musician, the same desire to 
 produce a favourable impression holds good. 
 
 I once dined alone with a celebrated critic, 
 who indicated, as we sat smoking in his study, 
 a great pile of typewritten sheets upon his 
 table. " That is the next novel of So-and-so," 
 he said, mentioning a well-known novelist ; 
 "he asks me for a candid criticism; but un- 
 fortunately the only language he now under- 
 stands is the language of adulation ! " * 
 
 That is a true if melancholy fact, plainly 
 stated ; that to many an artist to be said to 
 have done well is almost more important than 
 to know that the thing has been well done. 
 It is not a wholesome frame of mind, perhaps ; 
 but it cannot be overlooked or gainsaid. 
 
 Even the greatest of authors are susceptible 
 to it. Robert Browning, who, except for an 
 occasional outburst of fury against his critics, 
 was far more tolerant of and patient under 
 misunderstanding than most poets, said in a 
 moment of elated frankness, when he received 
 an ovation from the students of a university, 
 
 235
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 that he had been waiting for that all his life ; 
 Tennyson managed to combine a hatred of 
 publicity with a thirst for fame. Wordsworth, 
 as Carlyle pungently said, used to pay an 
 annual visit to London in later life "to collect 
 his little bits of tribute." And even though 
 Keats could say that his own criticism of his 
 own works had given him far more pain than 
 the opinions of any outside critics, yet the 
 possibility of recognition and applause must 
 inevitably continue to be one of the chief 
 rafsons deh'-e of art. 
 
 But the main motive of writing lies in the 
 creative instinct, pure and simple ; and the 
 success of all literary art must depend upon 
 the personality of the writer, his vitality and 
 perception, his combination of exuberance 
 and control. The reason why there are com- 
 paratively so few great writers is that author- 
 ship, to be wholly successful, needs so rich 
 an outfit of gifts, creative thought, emotion, 
 style, clearness, charm, emphasis, vocabulary, 
 perseverance. Many writers have some of 
 these gifts ; and the essential difference of 
 
 amateur writing from professional writing is 
 
 236
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 that the amateur has, as a rule, little power 
 of rejection and selection, or of producing a 
 due proportion and an even surface ; amateur 
 poetry is characterised by good lines strung 
 together by weak and patchy rigmaroles — 
 like a block of unworked ore, in which the 
 precious particles glitter confusedly ; while the 
 artistic poem is a piece of chased jewel-work. 
 It is true that great poets have often written 
 hurriedly and swiftly ; but probably there is 
 an intense selectiveness at work in the back- 
 ground all the time, produced by instincfive 
 taste as well as by careful practice. 
 
 Amateur prose, again, has an unevenness 
 of texture and arrangement, good ideas and 
 salient thoughts floundering in a vapid and 
 inferior substance ; it is often not appreciated 
 by amateurs how much depends on crafts- 
 manship. I have known brilliant and accom- 
 plished conversationalists who have been 
 persuaded, perhaps in mature life, to attempt 
 a more definite piece of writing ; when it is 
 pathetic to see suggestive and even brilliant 
 thought hopelessly befogged by unemphatic 
 and disorderly statement. Still more diffi- 
 
 237
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 cult is it to make people of fine emotions 
 and swift perceptions understand that such 
 qualities are only the basis of authorship, and 
 that the vital necessity for self-expression is 
 to have a knowledge, acquired or instinctive, 
 of the extremely symbolical and even tra- 
 ditional methods and processes of representa- 
 tion. Vivid life is not the same thing as 
 vivid art ; art is a sort of recondite and narrow 
 symbolism, by which the word, the phrase, 
 the salient touch, represents, suggests, hints 
 the larger vision. It is in the reducing of 
 broad effects to minute effects that the mastery 
 of art lies. 
 
 Good work has often been done for the 
 sake of money ; I could name some effective 
 living writers who never willingly put pen to 
 paper, and would be quite content to express 
 themselves in familiar talk, or even to live 
 in vivid reflection, if they were not compelled 
 to earn their living. Ambition will do some- 
 thing to mould an artist ; the philanthropic 
 motive may put some wind into his sails, but 
 by itself it has little artistic value. Speaking 
 
 for myself, in so far as it is possible to dis- 
 
 238
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 entangle complex motives, the originating im- 
 pulse has never been with me pecuniary, or 
 ambitious, or philanthropic, or even communi- 
 cative. It has been simply and solely the 
 intense pleasure of putting as emphatically 
 and beautifully and appropriately as possible 
 into words, an idea of a definite kind. The 
 creative impulse is not like any other that I 
 know ; some thought, scene, picture, darts 
 spontaneously into the mind. The intelligence 
 instantly sets to work arranging, subdividing, 
 foreseeing, extending, amplifying. Much is 
 done by some unconscious cerebration ; for I 
 have often planned the development of a 
 thought in a few minutes, and then dropped 
 .it ; yet an hour or two later the whole thing 
 seems ready to be written. 
 
 Moreover, the actual start is a pleasure so 
 keen and delightful as to have an almost 
 physical and sensuous joy about it. The 
 very act of writing has become so mechanical 
 that there is nothing in the least fatiguing 
 about it, though I have heard some writers 
 say otherwise ; while the process is actually 
 going on, one loses all count of time and 
 
 239
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 place ; the clock on the mantelpiece seems 
 to leap miraculously forward ; while the mind 
 knows exactly when to desist, so that the 
 leaving off is like the turning of a tap, the 
 stream being instantaneously cut off. I do not 
 recollect having ever forced myself to write, 
 except under the stress of illness, nor do I 
 ever recollect its being anything but the 
 purest pleasure from beginning to end. 
 
 In saying this I know that I am confessing 
 myself to be a frank improvisatore ; and where 
 such art fails, as mine often fails, is in a lack 
 of the power of concentration and revision, 
 which is the last and greatest necessity of 
 high art. But I owe to it the happiest and 
 brightest experiences of life, to which no 
 other pleasure is even dimly comparable. 
 Easy writing, it is said, makes hard reading ; 
 but is it true that hard writing ever makes 
 easy reading ? 
 
 The end of the matter would seem to be 
 that if the creative impulse is very strong in 
 a man, it will probably find its way out. If 
 ordinary routine-work destroys it, it is pro- 
 bably not very robust ; yet authorship is not 
 
 240
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 to be recommended as a profession, because 
 the prizes are few, the way hard, the dis- 
 appointments poignant and numerous ; and 
 though there are perhaps few greater bene- 
 factors to the human race than beautiful and 
 noble writers, yet there are many natures 
 both noble and beautiful who would like to 
 approach life that way, but who, from lack of 
 the complete artistic equipment, from technical 
 deficiencies, from failure in craftsmanship, 
 must find some other way of enriching the 
 blood of the world. 
 
 241
 
 XIV 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 When Odysseus was walking swiftly, with 
 
 rage in his heart, through the island of Circe, 
 
 to find out what had befallen his companions, 
 
 he would have assuredly gone to his doom 
 
 in the great stone house of the witch, the 
 
 smoke of which went up among the thickets, 
 
 if Hermes had not met him. 
 
 The God came in the likeness of a beautiful 
 
 youth with the first down of manhood upon 
 
 his lips. He chid the much-enduring one 
 
 for his rash haste, and gave him what we 
 
 should call not very good advice ; but he also 
 
 gave him something which was worth more 
 
 than any good advice, a charm which should 
 
 prevail against the spells of the Nymph, which 
 
 he might carry in his bosom and be unscathed. 
 
 It was an ugly enough herb, a prickly 
 
 242
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 plant which sprawled low in the shadow of 
 the trees. Its root was black, and it had 
 a milk-white flower ; the Gods called it Moly, 
 and no mortal strength could avail to pull it 
 from the soil ; but as Odysseus says, telling 
 the story, " There is nothing which the Gods 
 cannot do " ; and it came up easily enough 
 at the touch of the beardless youth. We know 
 how the spell worked, how Odysseus rescued 
 his companions, and how Circe told him the 
 way to the regions of the dead ; but even 
 so he did not wholly escape from her evil 
 enchantment ! 
 
 No one knows what the herb Moly really 
 was ; some say it was the mandrake, that 
 plant of darkness, which was thought to bear 
 a dreadful resemblance, in its pale swollen 
 stalk and outstretched arms, to a tortured 
 human form, and to utter moans as it was 
 dragged from the soil ; but later on it was 
 used as the name for a kind of oarlic, em- 
 ployed as a flavouring for highly-spiced salads. 
 
 243
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 The Greeks were not, it seems, very scientific 
 botanists, so far as nomenclature went, and 
 applied any name that was handy to any plant 
 that struck their fancy. They believed, no 
 doubt, that things had secret and intimate 
 names of their own, which were known perhaps 
 to the Gods, but that men must just call 
 them what they could. 
 
 It would be best perhaps to leave the old 
 allegory to speak for itself, because poetical 
 thoughts are often mishandled, and suffer base 
 transformation at the hands of interpreters ; 
 but for all that, it is a pretty trade to expound 
 things seen in dreams and visions, or obscurely 
 detected out of the corner of the eye in magi- 
 cal places ; while the best of really poetical 
 things is that they have a hundred mystical 
 interpretations, none of which is perhaps 
 the right one ; because the poet sees things 
 in a flash, and describes his visions, without 
 knowing what they mean, or indeed if they 
 have any meaning at all. 
 
 A place like a university, where one alights 
 for an adventure, in the course of a long 
 voyage, is in many ways like the island of 
 
 244
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 Circe. There is the orreat stone mansion 
 with its shining doors and guarded cloisters. 
 It is a place of many enchantments and 
 various delights. There are mysterious people 
 going to and fro, whose business it is hard to 
 discern : there are plenty of bowls and dishes, 
 and water pleasantly warmed for the bath. 
 Circe herself had a private life of her own, and 
 much curious information : she was not for 
 ever turning people into pigs ; and indeed 
 why she did it at all is not easy to discover ! 
 It amused her, and she felt more secure, 
 perhaps, when her visitors were safely housed, 
 grunting and splashing about together. One 
 must not press an allegory too closely, but 
 in any place where human beings consort, 
 there is always some turning of men into 
 pigs, even if they afterwards resume their 
 shape again, and shed tears of relief at the 
 change. 
 
 My purpose here is to speculate a little 
 upon what the herb Moly can be, how it can 
 be found and used. Hermes, the messenger 
 
 245
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 of the Gods, is always ready to pull it up 
 for anyone who really requires it. And just 
 because "the isle," as Shakespeare says, "is 
 full of noises — sounds and sweet airs," it is 
 a matter of concern to know which of them 
 "give delight and hurt not," and which of 
 them lead only to manger and sty. My dis- 
 course is not planned in a spirit of heavy 
 rectitude, or from any desire to shower good 
 advice about, as from a pepper-pot. Indeed, 
 I believe that there are many things in the 
 correct conventional code which are very 
 futile and grotesque ; some which are directly 
 hurtful ; and further, that there are many 
 things quite outside the code which are both 
 fine and beautiful ; because the danger of all 
 civilised societies is that the members of it 
 take the prevailing code for granted ; do not 
 trouble to think what it means, accept it as 
 the way of life, and walk contentedly enough, 
 like the beetle in the bone, which, as we 
 know, can neither turn nor miss its way. 
 
 To fall feebly into the conventions of a 
 place takes away all the joyful spirit of ad- 
 venture ; but the little island set in the ocean, 
 
 246
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 with its loud sea-beaches, its upstanding pro- 
 montories, its wooded glades, its open spaces, 
 and above all the great house standing among 
 its lawns, is a place of adventure above every- 
 thing, with unknown forces at work, untamed 
 emotions, swift currents of thought, many- 
 choices, strange delights ; and then there is 
 the shadowy sea beyond, with all its crested 
 billows rolling in, and other islands looming 
 out beyond the breakers, at which the ship 
 may touch, before it finds its way to the 
 regions of death and silence. 
 
 I myself had my own time of adventure, 
 took ship again, and voyaged far ; and now 
 that I have come back again to the little 
 island with all its thickets, I wish to retrace 
 in thought, if I can, some of the adventures 
 which befell me, and what they brought me, 
 and to speak too of adventures which I missed, 
 either out of diffidence or folly. I am not 
 at all sure whether Hermes, whom I certainly 
 encountered, ever gave me a plant of Moly, 
 or, if I did indeed receive it, what use I made 
 of it. But I knew others who certainly had 
 
 the herb at their hearts, and as certainly others 
 
 247
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 who had not ; and I will try and tell what 
 he thinks it is, and how it may be found. It 
 is deeply planted, no doubt ; its root is as 
 black as death, and its flower as pure as the 
 light ; while the leaves are prickly and 
 clinging ; it is not a plant for trim gardens, 
 nor to be grown in rows in the furrow ; it 
 is hard to come by, and harder still to extract ; 
 but having once attained It, the man who 
 bears it knows that there are certain things 
 he cannot do again, and certain spells which 
 henceforth have no power over him ; and 
 though it does not deliver him from all dangers, 
 he will not at all events be penned with the 
 regretful swine, that had lost all human attri- 
 butes except the power of shedding tears. 
 
 Now I shall drop all allegories for the pre- 
 sent, because it is confusing both to writers and 
 readers to be always speaking of two things in 
 terms of each other. And I will say first that 
 when I was at college myself as a young man, 
 
 I seemed to myself to be for ever looking for 
 
 248
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 something which I could not find. It was not 
 always so ; there were plenty of contented 
 hours, when one played a game, or sat over 
 the fire afterwards with tea and tobacco, talk- 
 ing about it, or talking about other people — I 
 do not often remember talking about anything 
 else, except on set occasions — or later in the 
 evening some one played a piano not very 
 well, or we sang songs, not very tunefully ; or 
 one sat down to work, and got interested, if 
 not in the work itself, at least in doing it well 
 and completely. I am not going to pretend, 
 as elderly men often do with infinite absurdity, 
 that I did no work, and scored off dons and 
 proctors, and broke every rule, and defied God 
 and man, and spent money which I had not 
 got, and lived a generally rake-hell life. There 
 are very few of my friends who did these 
 things, and they have mostly fallen in the race 
 long ago, leaving a poor and rueful memory 
 behind. Nor do I see why it is so glorious to 
 pretend to have done such things, especially 
 if one has not done them ! I was a sober 
 citizen enough, with plenty of faults and fail- 
 ings ; and this is not a tract to convert the 
 
 249
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 wicked, who indeed are providing plenty of 
 materials to effect their own conversion in 
 ways very various and all very uncomfortable ! 
 I should like it rather to be read by well-mean- 
 ing people, who share perhaps the same experi- 
 ence as myself — the experience, as I have said, 
 of searching for something which I could not 
 find. Sometimes in those days, I will make 
 bold to confess, I read a book, or heard an 
 address or sermon, or talked to some interest- 
 ing and attractive person, and felt suddenly 
 that I was on the track of it ; was it something 
 I wanted, or was it something I had lost ? I 
 could not tell 1 But I knew that if I could find 
 it, I should never be in any doubt again how to 
 act or what to choose. It was not a set of 
 rules I wanted — there were rules enough and 
 to spare, some of them made for us, and many 
 which we made for ourselves. We mapped 
 out every part of life which was left unmapped 
 by the dons, and we knew exactly what was 
 correct and what was not ; and oh, how dull 
 much of it was ! 
 
 But I wanted a motive of some sort, an aim; 
 
 I wanted to know what I was out for, as we 
 
 250
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 now say. I did not see what the point of much 
 of my work was, or know what my profession 
 was to be ; I did not see why I did, for social 
 reasons, so many things which did not interest 
 me, or why I pretended to think them interest- 
 ing. I would sit, one of half-a-dozen men, the 
 air dim with smoke, telling stories about other 
 
 people. A had had a row with B , he 
 
 would not go properly into training ; he had 
 lunched before a match off a tumbler of sherry 
 and a cigar ; he was too good to be turned out 
 of the team — it was amusing enough, but it 
 certainly was not what I was looking for. 
 
 Then one made friends; it dawned upon one 
 
 suddenly what a charming person C was, 
 
 so original and amusing, so observant ; it be- 
 came a thrilling thing to meet him in the court; 
 one asked him to tea, one talked and told him 
 everything. A week later, one seemed to have 
 got to the end of it ; the path came to a stop ; 
 there was not much in it after all, and presently 
 he was rather an ass ; he looked gloomily at 
 one when one met him, but one was off on 
 another chase ; this idealising of people was 
 rather a mistake ; the pleasure was in the ex- 
 
 251
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 ploration, and there was very little to explore-; 
 it was better to have a comfortable set of 
 friends with no nonsense ; and yet that was 
 dull too. That was certainly not the thing 
 one was in search of. 
 
 What was it, then ? One saw it like a cloud- 
 shadow racing over the hill, like a bird upon 
 the wing. The perfect friend could not help 
 one, for his perfections waned and faded. Yet 
 there was certainly something there, singing 
 like a bird in the wood ; only when one reached 
 the tree the bird was gone, and another song 
 was in the air. It seemed, then, at first sight as 
 if one was in search of an emotion of some kind, 
 and not only a solitary emotion, like that which 
 touched the spirit at the sudden falling of the 
 ripe rose-petals from their stem, or at the sight 
 of the far-off plain, with all its woods and waters 
 framed between the outrunning hills, or at the 
 sound of organ-music stealing out of the soaring 
 climbing woodwork with all its golden pipes, 
 on setting foot in the dim and fragrant church; 
 they were all sweet enough, but the mind 
 turned to some kindred soul at hand with 
 
 whom it could all be shared ; and the recogni- 
 
 252
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 fion of some other presence, visibly beckoning 
 through gesture and form and smiHng wide- 
 opened eyes, that seemed the best that could be 
 attained, that nearness and rapture of welcome; 
 and then the moment passed, and that too 
 ebbed away. 
 
 It was something more than that ! because 
 in bleak solitary pondering moments, there 
 stood up, like a massive buttressed crag, a 
 duty, not born of whispered secrets or of rela- 
 tions, however delicate and awestruck, with 
 other hearts, but a stern uncompromising thing, 
 that seemed a relation with something quite 
 apart from man, a Power swift and vehement 
 and often terrible, to whom one owed an un- 
 mistakable fealty in thought and act. Right- 
 eousness ! That old-fashioned thing on which 
 the Jews, one was taught, set much store, 
 which one had misconceived as something born 
 of piety and ceremony, and which now revealed 
 itself as a force uncompromisingly there, which 
 it was impossible to overlook or to disobey ; 
 if one did disobey it, something hurt and 
 wounded cried out faintly in the soul ; and so 
 it dawned upon one that this was a force, not 
 
 253
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 only not developed out of piety and worshiff, 
 but of which all piety and worship were but 
 the frail vesture, which half veiled and half 
 hampered the massive stride and stroke. 
 
 It did not attract or woo ; it rather demanded 
 and frightened ; but it became clear enough 
 that any inner peace was impossible without 
 it ; and little by little one learned to recognise 
 that there was no trace of it in many conven- 
 tional customs and precepts ; those could be 
 slighted and disregarded ; but there were still 
 things which the spirit did truly recognise as 
 vices and sins, abominable and defiling, with 
 which no trafficking was possible. 
 
 This, then, was clear ; that if one was to find 
 the peace one desired — it was that, it was an 
 untroubled peace, a journey taken with a sense 
 of aim and liberty that one hoped to make — 
 then these were two certain elements ; a con- 
 currence with a few great and irresistible 
 prohibitions and positive laws of conduct, 
 though these were far fewer than one had 
 supposed ; and next to that, a sense of 
 brotherhood and fellowship with those who 
 seemed to be making their way harmoniously 
 
 254
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 and finely towards the same goal as oneself. 
 To understand and love these spirits, to be 
 understood and loved by them, that was a 
 vital necessity. 
 
 But this must be added ; that the sense of 
 duty of which I speak, which rose sturdily and 
 fiercely above the shifting forms of life, like a 
 peak above the forest, did not appear at once 
 either desirable or even beautiful. It blocked 
 the view and the way ; it forbade one to stray 
 or loiter ; but the obedience one reluctantly 
 gave to it came simply from a realisation of 
 its strength and of its presence. It stood for 
 an order of some kind, which interfered at 
 many points with one's hopes and desires, but 
 with which one was compelled to make terms, 
 because it could and did strike, pitilessly and 
 even vindictively, if one neglected and trans- 
 gressed its monitions ; and thus the quest 
 became an attempt to find what stood behind 
 it, and to discover if there was any Personality 
 behind it, with which one could link oneself, 
 so as to be conscious of its intentions or its 
 goodwill. Was it a Power that could love and 
 be loved .'* Or was it only mechanical and 
 
 255
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 soulless, a condition of life, which one might 
 dread and even abhor, but which could not be 
 trifled with ? 
 
 Because that seemed the secret of all the 
 happiness of life — the meeting, with a sense of 
 intimate security, something warm and breath- 
 ing, that had need of me as I of it, that could 
 smile and clasp, foster and pity, admire and 
 adore, and in the embrace of which one could 
 feel one's hope and joy grow and stir by 
 contact and trust. That was what one found 
 in the hearts about one's path ; and the wonder 
 was, did some similar chance of embracing, 
 clasping, trusting, and loving that vaster Power 
 await one in the dim spaces beyond the fields 
 and homes of earth ? 
 
 I guessed that it was so, but saw, as in a 
 faint vision, that many harsh events, sorry 
 mischances, blows and wounds and miseries, 
 hated and dreaded and endured, lay between 
 me and that larger Heart. But I perceived 
 at last, with terror and mistrust, that the adven- 
 ture did indeed lie there ; that I should often 
 be disdained and repulsed, un tended and un- 
 heeded, bitterly disillusioned, shaken out of 
 
 256
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 ease and complacency, but assuredly folded to 
 that greater Heart at last. 
 
 And then there followed a different phase. 
 Up to the very end of the university period, 
 the same uneasiness continued ; then quite 
 suddenly the door opened, one slipped into 
 the world, one found one's place. There were 
 instantaneously real things to be done, real 
 money to earn, men and women to live with 
 and work with, to conciliate or to resist. A 
 mist rolled away from my eyes. What a fan- 
 tastic life it had been hitherto, how sheltered, 
 how remote from actuality ! I seemed to have 
 been building up a rococo stucco habitation 
 out of whims and fancies, adding a room here 
 and a row of pinnacles there, all utterly bizarre 
 and grotesque. Vague dreams of poetry and 
 art, nothing penetrated or grasped, a phrase 
 here, a fancy there ; one's ideal of culture 
 seemed like Ophelia in Hamlet, a distracted 
 nymph stuck all over with flowers and 
 
 anxious to explain the sentimental value of 
 
 257 R
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 each ; the friendships themselves — they had 
 nothing stable about them either ; they were 
 not based upon any common aim, any real 
 mutual concern ; they were nothing more than 
 the enshrining of a fugitive charm, the tracking 
 of some bright-eyed fawn or wild-haired dryad 
 to its secret haunt, only to find the bird flown 
 and the nest warm. But now there was little 
 time for fancies ; there was a real burden to 
 carry, a genuine task to perform ; day after 
 day slipped past, like the furrows in a field 
 seen from some speeding car ; the contented 
 mind, pleasantly wearied at the end of the 
 busy day, heaved a light-hearted sigh of relief, 
 and turned to some recreation with zest and 
 delight. It was not that the quest had been 
 successful ; it seemed rather that there was 
 no quest at all, and that it was the joy of 
 daily work that had been the missing factor 
 . . . the weeks melted into months, the months 
 became years. 
 
 Meanwhile the earth and air, as well as 
 the comrades and companions of the pilgri- 
 mage, were touched with a different light of 
 
 beauty. The beauty was there, and in even 
 
 258
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 fuller measure. The sun in the hot summer 
 days poured down upon the fragrant garden, 
 with all its bright flower-beds, its rose-laden 
 alleys, its terraced walks, its green-shaded 
 avenues ; the autumn mists lay blue and faint 
 across the far pastures, and the hill climbed 
 smoothly to its green summit ; or the spring 
 came back after the winter silence with all 
 its languor of unfolding life, while bush and 
 covert wove their screens of dense-tapestried 
 foliage, to conceal what mysteries of love and 
 delight ! the faces or gestures of those about 
 one took on a new significance, a richer 
 beauty, a larger interest, because one began 
 to guess how experience moulded them, by 
 what aims and hopes they were graven and 
 refined, by what failures they were obliterated 
 and coarsened. But the difference was this, 
 that one was not now for ever trying to make 
 these charms one's own, to establish private 
 understandings or mutual relations. It was 
 enough now to observe them as one could, 
 to interpret them, to enjoy them, and to pass 
 by. The acquisitive sense was gone, and 
 one neither claimed nor grasped ; one admired 
 
 259
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 and wondered and went forwards. And this 
 again seemed a wholesome balance of thought, 
 for, as the desire to take diminished, the 
 power of interpreting and enjoying grew. 
 
 But very gradually a slow shadow began 
 to fall, like the shadow of a great hill that 
 reaches far out over the plain. I passed 
 one day an old churchyard deep in the 
 country, and saw the leaning headstones and 
 the grassy barrows of the dead. A shudder 
 passed through me, a far-off chill, at the 
 thought that it must come to this after all ; 
 that however rich and intricate and delightful 
 life was — and it was all three — the time would 
 come, perhaps with pain and languid suffer- 
 ing, when one must let all the beautiful 
 threads out of one's hands, and compose 
 oneself, with such fortitude as one could 
 muster, for the long sleep. And then one 
 called Reason to one's aid,^ and bade her ex- 
 pound the mystery, and say that just as no 
 smallest particle of matter could be disin- 
 tegrated utterly, or subtracted from the sum 
 of things, so, and with infinitely greater cer- 
 tainty, could no pulse or desire or motion of 
 
 260
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 the spirit be brought to nought. True, ''the 
 soul lived like a bird in a cage, hopping from 
 perch to perch, slumbering at times, moping 
 dolefully, or uttering its song ; but it was 
 even more essentially imperishable than the 
 body that obeyed and enfolded and at last 
 failed it. So said Reason ; and yet that 
 brought no hope, so dear and familiar had life 
 become, — the well-known house, the accus- 
 tomed walks, the daily work, the forms of 
 friend and comrade. It was just those things 
 that one wanted ; and reason could only say 
 that one must indeed leave them and begone, 
 and she could not look forwards nor forecast 
 anything ; she could but bid one note the 
 crag-faces and the monstrous ledges of the 
 abyss into which the spirit was for ever falling, 
 falling. . . . 
 
 Alas! it was there all the time, the sleep- 
 less desire to know and to be assured ; I had 
 found nothing, learned nothing ; it was all 
 still to seek. I had but just drugged the 
 hunger into repose, beguiled it, hidden it 
 away under habits and work and activities. 
 
 It was something firmer than work, some- 
 
 261
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 thing even more beautiful than beauty, more 
 satisfying than love that I wanted ; and most 
 certainly it was not repose. I had grown to 
 loathe the thought of that, and to shrink 
 back in horror from the dumb slumber of sense 
 and thought. It was energy, life, activity, 
 motion, that I desired ; to see and touch and 
 taste all things, not only things sweet and 
 delightful, but every passionate impulse, 
 every fiery sorrow that thrilled and shook the 
 spirit, every design that claimed the loyalty of 
 mankind. I grudged, it seemed, even the 
 slumber that divided day from day ; I wanted 
 to be up and doing, struggling, working, lov- 
 ing, hating, resisting, protesting. And even 
 strife and combat seemed a waste of precious 
 time ; there was so much to do, to establish, 
 to set right, to cleanse, to invigorate, great 
 designs to be planned and executed, great 
 glories to unfold. Yet sooner or later I was 
 condemned to drop the tools from my willing 
 hand, to stand and survey the unfinished work, 
 and to grieve that I might no longer take 
 my share. 
 
 262
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 6 
 
 It was even thus that the vision came to 
 me, in a dream of the night. I had been 
 reading the story of the isle of Circe, and 
 the thunderous curve of the roUing verse had 
 come marching into the mind as the breakers 
 march into the bay. I dropped the book at 
 last, and slept. 
 
 Yes, I was in the wood itself; I could see 
 little save undergrowth and great tree-trunks ; 
 here and there a glimpse of sky among 
 the towering foliage. The thicket was less 
 dense to the left, I thought, and in a moment 
 I came out upon an open space, and saw a 
 young man in the garb of a shepherd, a looped 
 blue tunic, with a hat tossed back upon the 
 shoulders and held there by a cord. He had 
 leaned a metal stave against a tree, the top 
 of it adorned by a device of crossed wings. 
 He was stooping down and disengaging some- 
 thing from the earth, so that when I drew near, 
 he had taken it up and was gazing curiously at 
 
 it. It was the herb itself! I saw the prickly 
 
 263
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 flat leaves, the black root, and the little stars 
 of milk-white bloom, tie looked up at me with 
 a smile as though he had expected me, which 
 showed his small white teeth and the shapely 
 curl of his lips ; while his dark hair fell in a 
 cluster over his brow. 
 
 "There!" he said, "take it! It is what 
 you are in need of I " 
 
 " Yes," I said, " I want peace, sure enough!" 
 He looked at me for a moment, and then let 
 the herb drop upon the ground. 
 
 "Ah no! " he said lightly, "it will not bring 
 you that ; it does not give peace, the herb of 
 patience ! " 
 
 " Well, I will take it," I said, stooping down ; 
 but he planted his foot upon it. " See," he 
 said, "it has already rooted itself!" And then 
 I saw that the black root had pierced the 
 ground, and that the fibres were insinuating 
 themselves into the soil. I clutched at it, but 
 it was firm. 
 
 "You do not want it, after all," he said. 
 
 " You want heartsease, I suppose ? That 
 
 is a different flower — it grows upon men's 
 
 graves." 
 
 264
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 "No," I cried out petulantly, like a child. 
 " I do not want heartsease ! That is for those 
 who are tired, and I am not tired ! " 
 
 He smiled at me and stooped again, 
 raised the plant and gave it to me. It had 
 a fresh sharp fragrance of the woodland and 
 blowing winds, but the thorns pricked my 
 hands. . . . 
 
 The dream was gone, and I awoke ; lying 
 there, trying to recover the thing which I had 
 seen, I heard the first faint piping of the birds 
 begin in the ivy round my windows, as they 
 woke drowsily and contentedly to life and 
 work. The truth flashed upon me, in one of 
 those sudden lightning-blazes that seem to 
 obliterate even thought. 
 
 "Yes," I cried to myself, " that is the secret ! 
 It is that life does not end ; it goes on. To 
 find what I am in search of, to understand, to 
 interpret, to see clearly, to sum it up, that 
 would be an end, a soft closing of the book, 
 the shutting of the door — and that is just what 
 I do not want. I want to live, and endure, 
 and suffer, and experience, and love, and not 
 
 to understand. It is life continuous, unfolding, 
 
 265
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 expanding, developing, with new delights, new 
 
 sorrows, new pains, new losses, that I need : 
 
 and whether we know that we need it, or 
 
 think we need something else, it is all the 
 
 same ; for we cannot escape from life, however 
 
 reluctant or sick or crushed or despairing we 
 
 may be. It waits for us until we have done 
 
 groaning and bleeding, and we must rise up 
 
 again and live. Even if we die, even if we 
 
 seek death for ourselves, it is useless. The 
 
 eye may close, the tide of unconsciousness 
 
 may flow in, the huddled limbs may tumble 
 
 prone ; a moment, and then life begins again ; 
 
 we have but flown like the bird from one tree 
 
 to another. There is no end and no release ; 
 
 it is our destiny to live ; the darkness is all 
 
 about us, but we are the light, enlacing it with 
 
 struggling beams, piercing it with fiery spears. 
 
 The darkness cannot quench it, and wherever 
 
 the light goes, there it is light. The herb Moly 
 
 is but the patience to endure, whether we like 
 
 it or no. It delivers us, not from ourselves, 
 
 not from our pains or our delights, but only 
 
 from our fears. They are the only unreal 
 
 thines, because we are of the indomitable 
 
 266
 
 HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE 
 
 essence of light and movement, and we cannot 
 be overcome nor extinguished — we can but 
 suffer, we cannot die ; we leap across the 
 nether night ; we pass resistless on our way 
 from star to star." 
 
 267
 
 XV 
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 I SAW in one of the daily illustrated papers 
 the other day a little picture — a snapshot from 
 the front — which filled me with a curious 
 emotion. It was taken in some village be- 
 hind the German lines. A handsome, upright 
 boy of about seventeen, holding an accordion 
 under his arm — a wandering Russian minstrel, 
 says the comment — has been brought before 
 a fat, elderly, Landsturm officer to be interro- 
 gated. The officer towers up, in a spiked 
 helmet, holding his sword-hilt in one hand 
 and field-glasses in the other, looking down 
 at the boy truculently and fiercely. Another 
 officer stands by smiling. The boy himself 
 is gazing up, nervous and frightened, staring 
 at his formidable captor, a peasant beside him, 
 also looking agitated. There is nothing to 
 
 indicate what happened, but I hope they let 
 
 268
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 the boy go ! The officer seemed to me to 
 typify the tyranny of human aggressiveness, 
 at its stupidest and ugliest. The boy, grace- 
 ful, appealing, harmless, appeared, I thought, 
 to stand for the spirit of beauty, which 
 wanders about the world, lost in its own 
 dreams, and liable to be called sharply to 
 account when it strays within the reach of 
 human aggressiveness occupied in the con- 
 genial task of making havoc of the world's 
 peaceful labours. 
 
 The Landsturm officer in the picture had 
 so obviously the best of it ; he was thoroughly 
 enjoying his own formidableness ; while the 
 boy had the look of an innocent, bright-eyed 
 creature caught in a trap, and wondering 
 miserably what harm it could have done. 
 
 Something of the same kind is always going 
 on all the world over ; the collision of the 
 barbarous and disciplined forces of life with 
 the beauty-loving, detached instinct of man. 
 The latter cannot give a reason for its exist- 
 ence, and yet I am by no means sure that it 
 is not going to triumph in the end. 
 
 There is every reason to believe that within 
 
 269
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 the last twenty years the sowing of educa- 
 tion broadcast has had an effect upon the 
 human outlook, rather than perhaps upon 
 the human character, which has not been 
 adequately estimated. The crop is growing 
 up all about us, and we hardly yet know 
 what it is. I am going to speak of one out 
 of the many results of this upon one particular 
 section of the community, because I have 
 become personally aware of it in certain very 
 definite ways. It is easy to generalise about 
 tendencies, but I am here speaking from 
 actual evidence of an unmistakable kind. 
 
 The section of the community of which I 
 speak is that which can be roughly described 
 as the middle class — homes, that is, which 
 are removed from the urgent, daily pressure 
 of wage-earning ; homes where there is a cer- 
 tain security of outlook, of varying wealth, 
 with professional occupation in the back- 
 ground ; homes in which there is some leisure ; 
 and some possibility of stimulating, by read- 
 ing, by talk, by societies, an interest in ideas. 
 It is not a tough, intellectual interest, but it 
 
 ends in a very definite desire to idealise life 
 
 270
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 a little, to harmonise it, to give colour to it, 
 to speculate about it, to lift it out of the 
 region of immediate, practical needs, to try 
 experiments, to live on definite lines, with a 
 definite aim in sight — that aim being to en- 
 large, to adorn, to enrich life. 
 
 I am perfectly sure that this instinct is 
 greatly on the increase ; but the significant 
 thing about it is this, that whereas formerly 
 religion supplied to a great extent the poetry 
 and inspiration of life for such households, 
 there is now a desire for something as well 
 of a more definitely artistic kind ; to put it 
 simply, I believe that more people are in 
 search of beauty, in the largest sense. This 
 instinct does not run counter to religion at 
 all, but it is an impulse not only towards a 
 rather grim and rigid conception of righteous- 
 ness, but towards a wider appreciation of the 
 quality of life, its interest, its grace, its fine- 
 ness, and its fulness. 
 
 I am always sorry when I hear people talk- 
 ing about art as if it were a rather easy and 
 not very useful profession, when, as a matter 
 
 of fact, art is one of the sharp, swordlike 
 
 271
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 things, like religion and patriotism, which 
 run through life, and divide it, and separate 
 people, and make men and women misunder- 
 stand each other. Art means a temperament, 
 and a method, and a point-of-view, and a 
 way of living. There are accomplished people 
 who believe in art and talk about it and even 
 practise it, who do not understand what it is ; 
 while there are people who know nothing 
 about what is technically called art, who are 
 yet wholly and entirely artistic in all that 
 they do or think. Those who have not got 
 the instinct of art are wholly incapable of 
 understanding what those who have got the 
 instinct are about ; while those who possess 
 it recognise very quickly others who possess 
 it, and are quite incapable of explaining what 
 it is to those who do not understand it. 
 
 I am going to make an attempt in this 
 essay to explain what I believe it to be, not 
 because I hope to make it plain to those who 
 do not comprehend it. They will only think 
 this all a fanciful sort of nonsense : and I 
 would say in passing that whenever in this 
 
 world one comes across people who talk what 
 
 272
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 appears to be fantastic nonsense, and who yet 
 obviously understand each other and sympa- 
 thise with each other, one may take for granted 
 that one is in the presence of one of the 
 hidden mysteries, and that if one does not 
 understand, it is because one does not see 
 or hear something which is perfectly plain 
 to those who describe it. It is impossible to 
 do a more stupid thing than to fulminate 
 against secrets which one does not know, and 
 say that ** it stands to reason " that they cannot 
 be true. The belief that one has all the ex- 
 perience worth having is an almost certain sign 
 that one ranks low in the scale of humanity! 
 
 But what I do hope is that I may make the 
 matter a little plainer to people who do partly 
 understand it, and would like to understand it 
 better ; because art is a very big thing, and if 
 it is even dimly understood, it can add much 
 significance and happiness to life. Everyone 
 must recognise the happiness which radiates 
 from the people who have a definite point-of- 
 view and a definite aim. They do not always 
 make other people happy, but there is never 
 
 any doubt about their own happiness ; and when 
 
 273 s
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 one meets them and parts company with them, 
 it is impossible to think of them as lapsing 
 into any dreariness or depression ; they are 
 obviously going back to comfortable schemes 
 and businesses of their own ; and we know 
 that whenever we meet them, we shall have 
 just that half-envious feeling that they know 
 their own mind, never want to be interested 
 or amused, but are always occupied in some- 
 thine that continues to interest them, even if 
 they are ill or unfortunate. 
 
 To be happy, we all need a certain tenacity 
 and continuity of aim and view ; and I would 
 like to persuade people who are only half- 
 aware of it, that they have a power which 
 they could use if they would, and which they 
 would be happier for using. For the best of 
 the art of which I speak is that it does not 
 need rare experiences of expensive materials 
 to apply it, but can be applied to common- 
 place and quiet ways of life just as easily as 
 to exciting and exceptional circumstances. 
 
 Let me say then that art, as a method and 
 
 a point-of-view, has not necessarily anything 
 
 whatever to do with poetry or painting or 
 
 274
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 music. These are all manifestations of it in 
 certain regions ; but what it consists in, to put 
 it as simply as I can, is in the perception and 
 comparison of quality. If that sounds a heavy 
 sort of formula, it is because all formulas sound 
 dull. But the faculty of which I am speaking 
 is that which observes closely all that happens 
 or exists within range — the sky, the earth, the 
 trees, the fields, the streets, the houses, the 
 people ; and then it goes further and observes 
 not only what people look like, but how they 
 move and speak and think ; and then we come 
 down to smaller things still, to animals and 
 flowers, to the colour and shape of things of 
 common use, furniture and tools, everything 
 which is used in ordinary life. 
 
 Now every one of these things has a certain 
 quality — of suitability or unsuitability, of pro- 
 portion or disproportion. Let me take a few 
 quite random instances. Look at a spade, for 
 instance. The sensible man proceeds to call 
 it a spade, and thinks he has done all that 
 is necessary ; the wise man considers what 
 length of experience and practice has gone to 
 make it perfectly adapted for its purpose, its 
 
 275
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 length and size, the ledge for the foot to rest 
 on, the hole for the fingers to pass through 
 as they clasp it ; all the tools and utensils of 
 men are human documents of far-reaching 
 interest. Or take the strange shapes and 
 colours of flowers, the snapdragon with its 
 blunt lips, the nasturtium with its round 
 flat leaves and flaming horns — they are end- 
 less in variety, but all expressing something 
 not only quite definite, but remotely inherited. 
 Or take houses — how perfectly simple and 
 graceful an old homestead can be, how fright- 
 fully pretentious and vulgar the speculative 
 builder's work often is, how full of beauty both 
 of form and colour almost all the houses in 
 certain parts of the country are, as in the 
 Cotswolds, where the soft stone has tempted 
 builders to try experiments, and to touch up 
 a plain front with a little delicate and well- 
 placed ornament. Or take the aspect of men, 
 women, and children ; how attractive some 
 cannot help being, whatever they do, how 
 helplessly unattractive and uninteresting others 
 can be, and yet how, even so, a fine and 
 
 sweet nature can make beautiful the plainest 
 
 276
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 and ungainliest of faces. And then in a 
 further region still there are the thoughts 
 and habits and prejudices of people, all wholly 
 distinct, some beautiful and desirable, and 
 others unpleasant and even intolerable. 
 
 I could multiply instances indefinitely ; but 
 my point is that art in the largest sense is 
 or can be concerned with observing and com- 
 paring all these separate qualities, wherever 
 they appear. Of course every one's observa- 
 tion does not extend to everything. There 
 are some people who are wholly unobservant, 
 let us say, of scenery or houses, who are yet 
 very shrewd judges of character. 
 
 It is not only the beauty of things that 
 one may observe ; they may be dreary, hideous, 
 even horrible. The interest of quality does 
 not by any means depend upon its beauty. 
 The point is whether it is strongly and mark- 
 edly itself. What could be more crammed 
 with quality than an enormous old pig, with its 
 bristles, its elephantine ears, its furtive little 
 eyes, its twitching snout } What a look it has 
 of a fallen creature, puzzled by its own unclean- 
 
 liness and yet un.ible to devise any way out ! 
 
 277
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 All this is only to show that life wherever it 
 is lived affords a rich harvest for eye and mind. 
 And if one dives but a very little way beneath 
 the surface, one is instantly in the presence of 
 the darkest and deepest of mysteries. Who 
 set this all going, and why ? Whose idea is 
 it all ? What is it all driving at ? What is 
 the meaning of our being set down here, in 
 our own particular shape, feeling entirely dis- 
 tinct from it all, with very little idea what our 
 place in it is or what we intended to do ? and 
 above all that strange sense that we cannot 
 be compelled to do anything unless we choose 
 — a sense which remains with us, even though 
 day after day and all day long we are doing 
 things that we would not choose to do, if we 
 could help it. 
 
 The whole thing indeed is so strange as to 
 be almost frightening, the moment that we 
 dare to think at all : and yet we feel on the 
 whole at our ease in it, and in our place ; and 
 the one thing that does terrify us is the 
 prospect of leaving it. 
 
 What I mean, then, by art in its largest 
 
 sense is the faculty we have of observing and 
 
 278
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 comparincr and wondering ; and the people 
 who make the most of life are the people who 
 give their imagination wings ; and then, too, 
 comes in the further feeling, which leads us 
 to try and shape our own life and conduct on 
 the lines of what we admire and think beauti- 
 ful ; the dull word duty means that, that we 
 choose what is not necessarily pleasant because 
 for some mysterious reason we feel happier 
 so ; because, however much we may pretend 
 to think otherwise, we are all of us at every 
 moment intent upon happiness, which is a 
 very different thing from pleasure, and some- 
 times quite contrary to it. 
 
 And so we come at last to the art of living, 
 which is really a very delicate balancing and 
 comparing of reasons, an attempt, however 
 blind and feeble, to get at happiness ; and the 
 moment that this attempt ceases and becomes 
 merely a dull desire to be as comfortable as we 
 can, that moment the spirit begins to go down 
 hill, and the value of life is over ; unless perhaps 
 we learn that we cannot afford to go down hill, 
 and that every backward step will have to be 
 
 painfully retraced, somewhere or other. 
 
 279
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 What, then, I would try to persuade anyone 
 who is listening to me is that we must use 
 our wills somehow to try experiments, to ob- 
 serve, to distinguish, to follow what we think 
 fine and beautiful. It may be said that this 
 is only a sort of religion, and indeed it is 
 exactly that at which I am aiming. It is a 
 religion, which is within the reach of many 
 people who cannot be touched by what is 
 technically called religion. Religion is a word 
 that has unhappily become specialised. It 
 stands for beliefs, doctrines, ceremonies, prac- 
 tices. But these may not, and indeed do not, 
 suit many of us. The worst of definite 
 religions is that they are too definite. They 
 try to enforce upon us a belief in things which 
 we find incredible, or perhaps think to be 
 simply unknowable ; or they make out certain 
 practices to be important, which we do not 
 think important. We must never do violence 
 to our minds and souls by professing to be- 
 lieve what we do not believe, or to think 
 things certain which we honestly believe to 
 be uncertain ; but at the same time we must 
 
 remember that there is always something of 
 
 280
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 beauty inside every religion, because religion 
 involves a deliberate choice of better motives 
 and better actions, and an attempt to exclude 
 the baser and viler elements of life. 
 
 Of course the objection to all this — and it is 
 a serious one — is that people may say, " Of 
 course I see the truth of all that, and the 
 advantage of being actively and vividly in- 
 terested in life ; you might as well preach 
 the advantage of being happy ; but my own 
 interest is fitful and occasional ; sometimes for 
 days together I have no sense of the interest 
 or quality of anything. I have no time, I 
 have no one to enjoy these things with. How 
 am I to become what I see it would be wise 
 to be .-^ " It is as when the woman of Samaria 
 said, " Thou hast nothing to draw with, and 
 the well is deep!" It is true that civilisation 
 does seem more and more to create men and 
 women with these instincts, and to set them 
 in circumstances where it is hard to gratify 
 them. And then such people are apt to say, 
 " Is it after all worth while to aim at so im- 
 possible a standard? Is it not better just to 
 
 put it all aside, and make oneself as comfort- 
 
 281
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 able as one can ? " And that is the practical 
 answer which a good many people do make 
 to the question ; and when such people get 
 older, they are the most discouraging of all 
 advisers, because they ridicule the whole thing 
 as nonsense, which young men and young 
 women had better get out of their heads 
 as soon as they can ; as Jowett wrote of 
 his pupil Swinburne, that he was a clever 
 fellow, and would do well enough as soon as 
 he had got rid of all this poetry and nonsense. 
 I feel no doubt that these ideas, this kind of 
 interest in life, in the wonder and strangeness 
 of it, can be pursued by many who do not 
 pursue it. It is like the white deer, which in 
 the old stories the huntsman was for ever pur- 
 suing- in the forest ; he did not ever catch it, 
 but the pursuit of it brought him many high 
 adventures. 
 
 Of course it is far easier if one has a friend 
 who shares the same tastes ; but if one has 
 not, there are always books, in which the 
 best minds can be found thinking and talking 
 at their finest and liveliest. But here again 
 
 a good many people are betrayed by reading 
 
 282
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 books as one may collect stamps, just triumph- 
 ing in the number and variety of the repertory. 
 I believe very little in setting the foot on 
 books, as sailors take possession of an un- 
 known isle. One must make experiments, 
 just to see what are the kind of books which 
 nurture and sustain one ; and then I believe 
 in arriving at a circle of books, which one 
 really knows through and through, and reads 
 at all time and all moods, till they get soaked 
 and enriched with all sorts of moods and asso- 
 ciations. I have a dozen such, which I read 
 and mark and scribble in, write when and 
 where I read them, and who were my com- 
 panions. Of course the same books do not 
 always last through one's course. You grow 
 out of books as you grow out of clothes ; and 
 I sometimes look at old favourites, and fmd 
 myself lost in wonder as to how I can ever 
 have cared for them like that ! They seem 
 now like little antechambers and corridors, 
 through which I have passed to something 
 far more noble and gracious. But all the 
 time we must be trying to weave the books 
 really into life, not let them stand like orna- 
 
 ^S3
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 ments on a shelf. It is poetry that enkindles 
 the mind most to dwell in the thoughts of 
 which I have been speaking. But it must 
 not be read straight on ; it must rather be 
 tasted, brooded over, repeated, learned by 
 heart. Let me take a personal instance. As 
 a boy I had no opinion of Wordsworth, ex- 
 cept that I admired one or two of the great 
 poems like the " Ode on the Intimations of 
 Immortality" and the "Ode to Duty," which 
 no one who sets out to love poetry at all 
 can afford to ignore. Then, as I grew older, 
 I began to see that quotations from Words- 
 worth had a sort of grandeur in their very 
 substance, which was unlike any other gran- 
 deur. And then I took the whole of the 
 poems away for a vacation, and worked at 
 them ; and then I found how again and 
 again Wordsworth touches a thought to life, 
 which is like the little objects you pick up 
 on the seashore, the evidence of another life 
 close at hand, indubitably there, and yet un- 
 known, which is being lived under the waste 
 of waters. When Wordsworth says such 
 
 things as 
 
 284
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 And many love me, but by none 
 Am I enough beloved, 
 
 or when he says, 
 
 Some silent laws our hearts may make 
 Which they shall long obey — 
 
 then he seems to uncover the very secrets 
 of the world, and to speak as when in the 
 prophet's vision the seven thunders uttered 
 their voices. Only to-day I was working with 
 a pupil ; in his essay he had quoted Words- 
 worth, and we looked up the place. While 
 I was speaking, my eye fell upon " The Poet's 
 Epitaph," and I saw, 
 
 Come hither in thy hour of strength. 
 Come, weak as is a breaking wave ! 
 
 Those two lines of unutterable magic ; he 
 could not understand why I stopped and 
 faltered, nor could I have explained it to 
 him. But it was as Coleridge says. 
 
 Weave a circle round him thrice. 
 And close your eyes in holy dread. 
 For he on honey-dew hath fed. 
 
 And drunk the milk of paradise. 
 
 It is just a mystery of beauty that has been 
 seen, not to be explained or understood. 
 
 285
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 Of course there are people, there will be 
 people, who will read what I have just written 
 in an agony of rationality, and say that it is all 
 rubbish. But I am describing an experience 
 of ecstasy which is not very common perhaps ; 
 but just as real an experience as eating or 
 drinking. I have had the experience before. 
 I shall have it again ; I recognise it at once, 
 and it is quite distinct from other experiences. 
 One cannot sit down to it as regularly as 
 one sits down to a meal, of course. It is 
 not a thing to be proud of, because I have 
 had it as far back as I can remember. Nor 
 am I at all sure what the effect of it is. 
 It does not transfigure life except for the 
 moment ; and if I were in a dull frame of 
 mind, it might not visit me at all, though it 
 is very apt to come if I am in a sad or 
 anxious frame of mind. 
 
 Then how do I interpret it ? Very simply 
 
 indeed ; that there is a region which I will call 
 
 the region of beauty, to which the view of 
 
 life that I have called art does sometimes 
 
 undoubtedly admit one ; though as I have 
 
 also said the view of which I speak is con- 
 
 286
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 cerned with many perceptions which are not 
 beautiful, and even sometimes quite the op- 
 posite. 
 
 If I were frankly asked whether it is worth 
 while trying to think or imagine or thrust 
 oneself into this particular kind of rapture, 
 I should say, "Certainly not!" It is very 
 doubtful if it could be genuinely attained 
 unless it has been already experienced ; and 
 I do not believe in the wholesomeness of 
 self-suggested emotions. 
 
 But I do believe most firmly that it is 
 worth while for anyone who is interested 
 in such effects at all to try experiments, by 
 looking at things critically, hearing things, 
 observing, listening to other people, reading 
 books, trying in fact to practise observation 
 and judgment. 
 
 I was visiting some printing works the other 
 
 day. The great cylinders were revolving, the 
 
 wheels buzzing, the levers clicking, A boy 
 
 perched on a platform by the huge machine 
 
 lightly disengaged a sheet of paper ; it was 
 
 drawn in, and a moment after a thing like 
 
 a gridiron flew up, made a sort of bow, and 
 
 287
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 deposited a printed sheet in a box, the sides 
 of which kept moving, so as to pat the papers 
 into one solid pad. 
 
 I came away with the master-printer, and 
 asked him idly whether the boy knew what 
 book he was printing. He laughed. " No," 
 he said, "and the less he is interested the 
 better— his business is just to feed the machine, 
 and it becomes entirely mechanical." I felt a 
 kind of shame at the thought of a human being 
 becoming so entirely and completely a machine ; 
 but the boy looked cheerful, well, and intelli- 
 gent, and as if he had a very decisive little 
 life of his own quite apart from the whizzing 
 engine, for ever bowing over and putting a new 
 sheet in the box. 
 
 But it is just that dull and mechanical hand- 
 ling of life which I believe we ought to avoid. 
 It is harder to avoid it for some people than 
 for others, and it is more difficult to escape 
 from under certain conditions. But all art 
 and all artistic perception is just a sign of the 
 irresponsible and irrepressible joy of life, and 
 an attempt, as I said at first, to perceive and 
 
 distinguish and compare the quality of things. 
 
 288
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 What I am here maintaininof is that art is 
 not necessarily the production of something 
 artistic ; that is the same impulse only when 
 it rises in the heart of an inventive, accom- 
 plished, deft-fingered, eager-minded craftsman. 
 If a man or a woman has a special gift of 
 words, or a mastery of form and colour, or 
 musical phrases, the passion for beauty is bound 
 to show itself in the making of beautiful things 
 — and such lives are among the happiest that a 
 man can live, though there is always the shadow 
 of realising the beauty that is out of reach, 
 that cannot be captured or expressed. And 
 if it could be captured and expressed, the quest 
 would vanish ! 
 
 But there are innumerable hearts and minds 
 which have the perception of quality, though 
 not the power of expressing it ; and these are 
 the people whom I wish to persuade of the 
 fact that they hold in their hands a thread, 
 which, like the clue in the old story, can 
 conduct a searcher safely through the dark 
 recesses of the great labyrinth. He tied it, 
 
 the dauntless youth in the tale, to the ancient 
 
 289 T
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 thorn-tree that grew by the cavern's mouth ; 
 and then he stepped boldly in, and let it 
 unwind within his hand. 
 
 For many people, indeed for all people who 
 have any part in the future of the world, the 
 clue of life must be found in beauty of some 
 kind or another ; not necessarily in the out- 
 ward beauties of colours, sounds, and words, 
 but in the beauty of conduct, in the kind, 
 sweet-tempered, pure, unselfish life. Those 
 who choose such qualities do so simply because 
 they seem more beautiful than the spiteful, 
 angry, greedy, selfish life. There is a horror 
 of ugliness about that ; and thus beauty of 
 every kind is of the nature of a signal to us 
 from some mighty power behind and in the 
 world. Evil, ugly, hateful, base things are 
 strong indeed ; but no peace, no happiness, 
 lies in that direction. It is just that power of 
 distinguishing, of choosing, of worshipping the 
 beautiful quality which has done for the world 
 all that has ever been done to improve it ; and 
 to follow it is to take the side of the power, 
 
 whatever it may be, that is trying to help and 
 
 290
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 guide the world out of confusion and darkness 
 and strife into liglit and peace. It may be 
 gratefully admitted, of course, that religion is 
 one of the foremost influences in this s^reat 
 movement ; but it also needs to be said that 
 religion, by connecting itself so definitely as it 
 does with ecclesiastical life, and ceremony, and 
 theological doctrine, has become a specialised 
 thing, and does not meet all the desires of the 
 heart. It is not everyone who fmds full satis- 
 faction for all the visions of the mind and soul 
 in a church organisation. Some people, and 
 those neither wicked nor heartless nor unsym- 
 pathetic, find a real dreariness in systematised 
 religion, with its conventional beliefs, its narrow 
 instruction, its catechisings, missionary meetings, 
 gatherings, devotions, services. It may be all 
 true enough in a sense, but it often leaves the 
 sense of beauty and interest and emotion and 
 poetry unfed ; it does not represent the fulness 
 of life. The people who are dissatisfied with it 
 all are often dumbly ashcUiicd of their dissatis- 
 faction, but yet it does not feed the heart; the 
 
 kind of heaven that they are taught awaits them 
 
 291
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 is not a place that they recognise as beautiful 
 or desirable. They do not want to do wrong, 
 or to rebel against morality at all, but they 
 have impulses which do not seem to be 
 recognised by technical religion, adventure, 
 friendship, passion, beauty, the strange and 
 wonderful emotions of life. The work of 
 great poets and artists and musicians, the 
 lovely scenes of earth, these seem to have no 
 place inside systematic religion, to be things 
 rather timorously permitted, excused, and apo- 
 logised for. Men need something richer, freer, 
 and larger. They do not want to shirk their 
 duty or to follow evil ; but many things seem 
 to be insisted upon by religion as important 
 which seem unimportant, many beliefs spoken 
 of as true which seem at best uncertain. It is 
 not that such people are disloyal to God and 
 to virtue, but they feel stifled and confined in 
 an atmosphere which dares not attribute to 
 God many of the finest and sweetest things 
 in the world. 
 
 Such a feeling is not so much a rebellion 
 
 against old ideas, as a new wine which is too 
 
 292
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 strono- for the old bottles ; it is a desire to 
 extend the range of ideals, to find more things 
 divine. 
 
 I do not believe that this instinct is going to 
 be crushed or overcome ; 1 believe it will grow 
 and spread, and play an immense part in the 
 civilisation of the future. I hope indeed that 
 religion will open its arms to meet it, because 
 the spirit of which I speak is in the truest 
 sense religious ; since it is concerned with 
 purifying and enriching life, and in living life, 
 not on base or mean lines, but with constant 
 reference to the messaoe of a Power which is 
 for ever remindincr us that life is full of fire and 
 music, great, free, and wonderful. That is the 
 meanine of it all, an increased sense of the 
 largeness and richness of life, which refuses to 
 be bound inside a gloomy, sad, suspicious out- 
 look. It is all an attempt to trust God more 
 rather than less, and to recognise the worth of 
 life in wider and wider circles. 
 
 " Behold, this dreamer cometh," said Joseph's 
 envious brethren, when they saw him afar off ; 
 " we shall see what will become of his dreams ! " 
 
 293
 
 BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH 
 
 They conspired to slay him ; they sold him into 
 slavery. Yet the day was to come when they 
 stood trembling before him, and when he freely 
 forgave them and royally entertained them. 
 We can never afford to despise or deride 
 dreams, because they are what men live by ; 
 they come true ; they bring a great deliverance 
 with them. 
 
 294
 
 NOTE 
 
 I desire to record my obligations to the Editor 
 
 of the Centnry Magazine and to the Editor of 
 
 the Cornhill Magazine for their permission to 
 
 include in this volume certain essays which fust 
 
 appeared in their pages. 
 
 A. C. P.
 
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