Beside Still Waters

But Hugh found his reflections taking a still more sceptical turn. The vicar's theory was that we were all put into the world to be of use to other people. But his idea of helping other people was not to help them to what they desired, but to what he thought it was right that they should desire. He had very little compassion, Hugh saw, for failure and error. If a parishioner was in trouble, the vicar tended to say he had no one to blame but himself for it. Hugh felt that he did not wish to be in his friend's parish. If one was able-bodied and sensible, one was put on a committee or two; if one was unfortunate or obscure, one was invaded by a district visitor. If one was a Dissenter, one would be treated with a kind of gloomy courtesy – for the vicar was great on not alienating Dissenters, but bringing them in, as he phrased it; and if a Dissenter became an Anglican, the vicar rejoiced with what he believed to be the joy of the angels over a repentant sinner, and made him a parish worker at once.

Then Hugh went further and deeper, and tried to ascertain what he really felt on the subject of usefulness. Tracing back the constitution of society to its origin, he saw that it was clear that every one owed a certain duty of work to the community. A society could not exist in idleness; and every one who was capable of work must work to support himself; and then a certain amount of work must be done by the able-bodied to support those who were either too old or too young to support themselves. But the labouring class, the producers, were forced by the constitution of things to work even more than that; because there were a certain number of persons in the community, capitalists and leisurely people, who lived in idleness on the labour of the workers.

He put aside the great majority of simple workers, the labouring classes, because there was no doubt about their position. If a man did his work honestly, and supported himself and his family, living virtuously, and endeavouring to bring up his children virtuously, that was a fine simple life. Then came the professional classes, who were necessary too, doctors, lawyers, priests, soldiers, sailors, merchants, even writers and artists; all of them had a work to do in the world.

This then seemed the law of one's being: that men were put into the world, and the one thing that was clear was that they were meant to work; did duty stop there? had a man, when his work was done, a right to amuse and employ himself as he liked, so long as he did not interfere with or annoy other people? or had he an imperative duty laid upon him to devote his energies, if any were left, to helping other people?

What in fact was the obscure purpose for which people were sent into the world? It was a pleasant place on the whole for healthy persons, but there was still a large number of individuals to whom it was by no means a pleasant place. No choice was given us, so far as we knew, as to whether we would enter the world or not, nor about the circumstances which were to surround us. Our lives indeed were strangely conditioned by an abundance of causes which lay entirely outside our control, such as heredity, temperament, environment. One supposed oneself to be free, but in reality one was intolerably hampered and bound.

The only theory that could satisfactorily account for life as we found it was, that either it was an educational progress, and that we were being prepared for some further existence, for which in some mysterious way our experience, however mean, miserable, and ungentle, must be intended to fit us; or else it was all a hopeless mystery, the work of some prodigious power who neither loved or hated, but just chose to act so. In any case it was a very slow process; the world was bound with innumerable heavy chains. There was much cruelty, stupidity, selfishness, meanness abroad; all those ugly things decreased very slowly, if indeed they decreased at all. Yet there seemed, too, to be a species of development at work. But the real mystery lay in the fact that, while our hopes and intuitions pointed to there being a great and glorious scheme in the background, our reason and experience alike tended to contradict that hope. How little one changed as the years went on! How ineradicable our faults seemed! how ineffectual our efforts! God indeed seemed to implant in us a wish to improve, and then very often seemed steadily and deliberately to thwart that wish.

And then, too, how difficult it seemed really to draw near to other people; in what a terrible isolation one's life was spent; even in the midst of a cheerful and merry company, how the secrets of one's heart hung like an invisible veil between us and our dearest and nearest. The most one could hope for was to be a pleasant and kindly influence in the lives of other people, and, when one was gone, one might live a little while in their memories. The fact that some few healthily organised people contrived to live simply and straightforwardly in the activities of the moment, without questioning or speculating on the causes of things, did not make things simpler for those on whom these questions hourly and daily pressed. The people whom one accounted best, did indeed spend their time in helping the happiness of others; but did one perhaps only tend to think them so, because they ministered to one's own contentment?

The only conclusion for Hugh seemed to be this: that one must have a work to be faithfully and resolutely fulfilled; and that, outside of that, one must live tenderly, simply, and kindly, adding so far as one might to the happiness of others; and that one might resolutely eschew all the busy multiplication of activities, which produced such scanty results, and were indeed mainly originated in order that so-called active people might feel themselves to be righteously employed.

XXVII

Progress – Country Life – Sustained Happiness – The Twilight

One hot still summer day Hugh went far afield, and struck into a little piece of country that was new to him. He seemed to discern from the map that it must have once been a large, low island almost entirely surrounded by marshes; and this turned out to be the case. It was approached along a high causeway crossing the fen, with rich black land on either hand. No high-road led through or out of the village, nothing but grass-tracks and drift-ways. The place consisted of a small hamlet, with an old church and two or three farmhouses of some size and antiquity; it was all finely timbered with an abundance of ancient elm-trees everywhere; they stood that afternoon absolutely still and motionless, with the sun hot on their towering green heads; and Hugh remembered how, long ago, as a boy at school, he used to watch, out of the windows of a stuffy class-room, the great elms of the school close rising just thus in the warm summer air, while his thoughts wandered from the dull lesson into a region of delighted, irrecoverable reverie. To-day he sate for a long time in the little churchyard, the bees humming about the limes with a soft musical note, that rose and fell with a lazy cadence, while doves hidden somewhere in the elms lent as it were a voice to the trees. That soft note seemed to brim over from a spring of measureless content; it seemed like the calling of the spirit of summer, brooding in indolent joy and innocent satisfaction over the long sweet hours of sunshine, while the day stood still to listen. Hugh resigned himself luxuriously to the soft influences of the place, and felt that for a short space he need neither look backwards nor forwards, but simply float with the golden hour.

At last he bestirred himself, realising that he had yet far to go. It was now cool and fresh, and the shadows of the trees lay long across the grass. Hugh struck down on to the fen and walked for a long time in the solitary fields, by a dyke, passing a big ancient farm that lay very peacefully among its wide pastures.

The thought of the happy, quiet-minded people that might be living there, leading their simple lives, so little affected by the current of the world, brought much peace into Hugh's mind. It seemed to him a very beautiful thing, with something ancient and tranquil about it. It was all utterly remote from ambition and adventure, and even from intellectual efficiency; and here Hugh felt himself in a dilemma. His faith did not permit him to doubt that the civilisation and development of the world were in accordance with the purpose of God on the one hand, and yet, on the other hand, that expansion brought with it social conditions and problems that appeared to him of an essentially ugly kind, as the herding of human beings into cities, the din and dirt of factories, the millions of lives that were lived under almost servile conditions; and so much of that sad labour was directed to wrong ends, to aggrandisement, to personal luxury, to increasing the comfort of oligarchies. The simple life of the countryside seemed a better ideal, and yet the lot of the rustic day-labourer was both dull and hard. It looked sweet enough on a day of high summer, such as this, when a man need ask for nothing to better than to be taken and kept out of doors; but the thought of the farm-hand rising in a cheerless wintry dawn, putting on his foul and stiffened habiliments, setting out in a chilly drizzle to uproot a turnip-field, row by row, with no one to talk to and nothing to look forward to but an evening in a tiny cottage-kitchen, full of noisy children – no one could say that this was an ideal life, and he did not wonder that the young men flocked to the towns, where there was at all events some stir, some amusement. That was the dark side of popular education, of easy communications, of newspapers, that it made men discontented with quiet life, without supplying them with intellectual resources.

Yet with all its disadvantages and discomforts, Hugh could not help feeling that the life of the country was more wholesome and natural for the majority of men, and he wished that the education given in country districts could be directed more to awakening an interest in country things, in trees and birds and flowers, and more, too, to increasing the resources of boys and girls, so that they could find amusing occupation for the long evenings of enforced leisure. The present system of education was directed, Hugh felt, more to training a generation of clerks, than to implanting an aptitude for innocent recreation and sensible amusement. People talked a good deal about tempting men back to the land, but did they not perceive that, to do that, it was necessary to make the agricultural life more attractive? It was a mistake that ran through the whole of modern education, that the system was invented by intellectual theorists and not by practical philosophers. The only real aim ought to be to teach people how to enjoy their work, by making them efficient, and to enjoy their leisure, by arousing the imagination.

Hugh's musings led him on to wonder how it was possible to cultivate a sense of happiness in people; that was the darkest problem of all. Children had the secret of it; they could amuse themselves under the most unpropitious circumstances, and invent games of most surpassing interest out of the most grotesque materials. Then came the age when the sexual relations brought in a fierce and intenser joy; but the romance of courtship and the early days of marriage once over, it seemed that most people settled down on very dull lines, and made such comfort as they could get the only object of their existence. What was it that thus tended to empty life of joy? Was it the presence of anxiety, the failure of vitality, the dull conditions of monotonous labour undertaken for others' gain and not for oneself? Looking back at his own life, Hugh could not discern that his routine work had ever deprived him of zest and interest. It was rather indeed the other way. The suspension of other interests that his life had involved, had sent him back with renewed delight to the occupations and interests of leisure; he had been, he thought, perhaps unusually fortunate in receiving his liberty from mechanical work at a time when his interests were active and his zest undimmed. But how was one to guard the quality of joy, how could it be stimulated and increased, if it began in the course of nature to flag? It was clear that life could not have for every one, nor at all times for any one, that quality of eager and active delight, that uplifting of the heart and mind alike, which sometimes surprised one, when one felt an intensity of gladness and gratitude at being simply oneself, and at standing just at that point in life, surrounded and enriched by exactly the very things one most loved and desired – the feeling that must have darted into Sinbad's mind when he saw that the very sand of the valley in which he lay consisted of precious gems. Probably most people had some moments, oftenest perhaps in youth, of this full-flushed, conscious happiness. And then again most people had considerable tracts of quiet contentment, times when their work prospered and their recreations amused. But how was one to meet the hours when one was neither happy nor contented; when the mind flapped wearily like a loosened sail in a calm, when there was no savour in the banquet, when one went heavily? It was of no use then to summon joy to one's assistance, to call spirits from the vast deep, if they did not obey one's call. There ought, Hugh thought, to be a reserve of sober piety and hopefulness on which one could draw in those dark days. There were no doubt many equable and phlegmatic people who, as the old poet said,

"Perfacile angustis tolerabant finibus aevom,"(In narrow bounds an easy life endured).

But for those whose perceptions were keen, who lived upon joy, from the very constitution of their nature, how were such natures – and he knew that he was of the number – to avoid sinking into the mire of the Slough of Despond, how were they to rejoice in the valley of humiliation? What was to be their well in the vale of misery? How were the pools to be filled with water?

The answer seemed to be that it could only be achieved by work, by effort, by prayer. If one had definite work in hand, it carried one over these languid intervals. How often had the idea of setting to work in these listless moods seemed intolerable; yet how soon one forgot oneself in the exercise of congenial labour! Here came in the worth of effort, that one could force oneself to the task, commit oneself to the punctual discharge of an unwelcome duty. And if even that failed, then one could cast oneself into an inner region, in the spirit of the Psalmist, when he said, "Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it." One could fling one's prayer into the dark void, as the sailors from a sinking ship shoot a rocket with a rope attached to the land, and then, as they haul it in, feel with joy the rope strain tight, and know that it has found a hold.

Hugh felt that such experience as this, experience, that is, in the vital force of prayer, might be called a subjective experience, and could not be put to a scientific test. But for all that, there was nothing which of late years had so grown upon him as the consciousness of the effectiveness of a certain kind of prayer. This was not a mechanical repetition of verbal forms, but a strong and secret uplifting of the heart to the Father of all. There were moments when one seemed baffled and powerless, when one's own strength seemed utterly unequal to the burden; prayer on such occasions did not necessarily bring a perfect serenity and joy, though there were times when it brought even that; but it brought sufficient strength; it made the difficult, the dreaded thing possible. Hugh had proved this a hundred times over, and the marvel to him was that he did not use it more; but the listless mind sometimes could not brace itself to the effort; and then it seemed to Hugh that he was as one who lay thirsting, with water in reach of his nerveless hand. Still there were few things of which he was so absolutely certain as he was of the abounding strength of prayer; it seemed to reveal a dim form moving behind the veil of things, which in the moment of entreaty seemed to suspend its progress, to stop, to draw near, to smile. Why the gifts from that wise hand were often such difficult things, stones for bread, serpents for fish, Hugh could not divine. But he tended less and less to ask for precise things, but to pray in the spirit of the old Dorian prayer that what was good might be given him, even if he did not perceive it to be good, and that what was evil might be withheld, even if he desired it.

While he thus mused, walking swiftly, the day darkened about him, drawing the colour out of field and tree. The tides of the sky thickened, and set to a deep enamelled green, and a star came out above the tree-tops. Now and then he passed through currents of cool air that streamed out of the low wooded valleys, rich with the fragrance of copse and dingle. An owl fluted sweetly in a little holt, and was answered by another far up the hill. He heard in the breeze, now loud, now low, the far-off motions of the wheels of some cart rumbling blithely homewards. All else was still. At last he came out on the top of the wolds; the road stretched before him, a pale ribbon among dusky fields; and the lights of the distant village pierced through the darker gloom of sheltering trees. Hugh seemed that night to walk with his unknown friend close beside him, answering his hopes, stilling his vague discontents, with a pure and tender faithfulness that left him nothing to desire, but that the sweet nearness might not fail him. At such a moment, dear and wonderful as the world was, he felt that it held nothing so beautiful or so dear as that sweet companionship, and that if he had been bidden, in that instant, strong and content as he was, to enter the stream of death, a firm hand and a smiling face would have lifted him, as the stream grew shallower about him, safe and satisfied, up on the further side.

XXVIII

Democracy – Individualism – Corporateness – Materialism

Among the most interesting of the new friends that Hugh made at Cambridge was a young Don who was understood to hold advanced socialistic views. What was more important from Hugh's point of view was that he was a singularly frank, accessible, and lively person, full of ideas and enthusiasms. Hugh was at one time a good deal in his company, and used to feel that the charm of conversation with him was, not that they discussed things, or argued, or had common interests, but that it was like setting a sluice open between two pools; their two minds, like moving waters, seemed to draw near, to intermingle, to linger in a subtle contact. His friend, Sheldon by name, was a great reader of books; but he read, Hugh thought, in the same way that he himself read, not that he might master subjects, annex and explore mental provinces, and classify the movement of thought, but rather that he might lean out into a misty haunted prospect, where mysterious groves concealed the windings of uncertain paths, and the turrets of guarded strongholds peered over the woodland. Hugh indeed guessed dimly that his friend had a whole range of interests of which he knew nothing, and this was confirmed by a conversation they had when they had walked one day together into the deep country. They took a road that seemed upon the map to lead to a secluded village, and then to lose itself among the fields, and soon came to the hamlet, a cluster of old-fashioned houses that stood very prettily on a low scarped gravel hill that pushed out into the fen. They betook themselves to the churchyard, where they found a little ancient conduit that gushed out at the foot of the hill. This they learned had once been a well much visited by pilgrims for its supposed healing qualities. It ran out of an arched recess into a shallow pool, fringed with sedge, and filled with white-flowered cresses and forget-me-not. Below their feet lay a great stretch of rich water-meadows, the wooded hills opposite looming dimly through the haze. Here they sat for a while, listening to the pleasant trickle of the spring, and the conversation turned on the life of villages, the lack of amusement, the dulness of field-labour, the steady drift of the young men to the towns. Hugh regretted this and said that he wished the country clergy would try to counteract the tendency; he spoke of village clubs and natural-history classes. Sheldon laughed quietly at his remarks, and said, "My dear Neville, it is quite refreshing to hear you talk. It is not for nothing that you bear the name of Neville; you are a mediaeval aristocrat at heart. These opinions of yours are as interesting as fossils in a bed of old blue clay. Such things are to be found, I believe, imbedded in the works of Ruskin and other patrons of the democracy. Why, you are like a man who sits in a comfortable first-class carriage in a great express, complacently thinking that the money he has paid for his ticket is the motive force of the train; you are trying to put out a conflagration with a bottle of eau-de-Cologne. The battle is lost, and the world is transforming itself, while you talk so airily. You and other leisurely people are tolerated, just as a cottager lets the houseleek grow on his tiles; but you are not part of the building, and if there is a suspicion that you are making the roof damp, you will have to be swept away. The democracy that you want to form is making itself, and sooner or later you will have to join in the procession."

Hugh laughed serenely at his companion's vehemence. "Oh," he said, "I am a mild sort of socialist myself; that is, I see that it is coming, I believe in equality, and I don't question the rights of the democracy. But I don't pretend to like it, though I bow to it; the democracy seems to me to threaten nearly all the things that are to me most beautiful – the woodland chase, the old house among its gardens, the village church among its elms, the sedge-fringed pool, the wild moorland – and all the pleasant varieties, too, of the human spirit, its fantastic perversities, its fastidious reveries, its lonely dreams. All these must go, of course; they are luxuries to which no individual has any right; we must be drilled and organised; we must do our share of the work, and take our culture in a municipal gallery, or through cheap editions of the classics. No doubt we shall get the 'joys in widest commonalty spread' of which Wordsworth speaks; and the only thing that I pray is that I may not be there to see it."

"You are a fine specimen of the individualist," said Sheldon, "and I have no desire to convert you – indeed we speak different languages, and I doubt if you could understand me; there is to be no such levelling as you suppose, rather the other way indeed; we shall not be able to do without individualism, only it will be pleasantly organised. The delightful thing to me is to observe that you are willing to let us have a little of your culture at your own price, but we shall not want it; we shall have our own culture, and it will be a much bigger and finer thing than the puling reveries of hedonists; it will be like the sea, not like the scattered moorland pools."

"Do you mean," said Hugh, "when you talk so magniloquently of the culture of the future, that it will be different from the culture of the present and of the past?"

"No, no," said Sheldon, "not different at all, only wider and more free. Do you not see that at present it is an elegant monopoly, belonging to a few select persons, who have been refined and civilised up to a certain point? The difficulty is that we can't reach that point all at once – why, it has taken you thirty or forty centuries to reach it! – and at present we can't get further than the municipal art-gallery, and lectures on the ethical outlook of Browning. But that is not what we are aiming at, and you are not to suppose that yours is a different ideal of beauty and sensibility from ours. What I object to is that you and your friends are so select and so condescending. You seem to have no idea of the movement of humanity, the transformation of the race, the corporate rise of emotion."

"No," said Hugh, "I have no idea what you are speaking of, and I confess it sounds to me very dull. I have never been able to generalise. I find it easy enough to make friends with homely and simple people, but I think I have no idea of the larger scheme. I can only see the little bit of the pattern that I can hold in my hand. Every human being that I come to know appears to me strangely and appallingly distinct and un-typical; of course one finds that many of them adopt a common stock of conventional ideas, but when you get beneath that surface, the character seems to me solitary and aloof. When people use words like 'democracy' and 'humanity,' I feel that they are merely painting themselves large, magnifying and dignifying their own idiosyncrasies. It does not uplift and exalt me to feel that I am one of a class. It depresses and discourages me. I hug and cherish my own differences, my own identity. I don't want to suppress my own idiosyncrasies at all; and what is more, I do not think that the race makes progress that way. All the people who have really set their mark upon the world have been individualists. Not to travel far for instances, look at the teaching of our Saviour; there is not a hint of patriotism, of the rights of society, of common effort, of the corporateness of which you speak. He spoke to the individual. He showed that if the individual could be simple, generous, kindly, forgiving, the whole of society would rise into a region where organisation would be no longer needed. These results cannot be brought about by legislation; the spirit must leap from heart to heart, as the flower seeds itself in the pasture."