The Thread of Gold

This morning I was watching the behaviour of a party of fowls, who were sitting together on a dusty ledge above the road, sheltering from the wind. I do not know whether they meant to be as humorous as they were, but I can hardly think they were not amused at each other. They stood and lay very close together, with fierce glances, and quick, jerky motions of the head. Now and then one, tired of inaction, raised a deliberate claw, bowed its head, scratched with incredible rapidity, shook its tumbled feathers, and looked round with angry self-consciousness, as though to say: "I will ask any one to think me absurd at his peril." Now and then one of them kicked diligently at the soil, and then, turning round, scrutinised the place intently, and picked delicately at some minute object. One examined the neck of her neighbour with a fixed stare, and then pecked the spot sharply. One settled down on the dust, and gave a few vigorous strokes with her legs to make herself more comfortable. Occasionally they all crooned and wailed together, and at the passing of a cart all stood up defiantly, as if intending to hold their fort at all hazards. Presently a woman came out of a house-door opposite, at which the whole party ran furiously and breathlessly across the road, as if their lives depended upon arriving in time. There was not a gesture or a motion that was not admirably conceived, intensely dramatic.

Again, what is more delightfully absurd than to see a hen find a large morsel which she cannot deal with at one gulp? She has no sense of diplomacy or cunning; her friends, attracted by her motions, close in about her; she picks up the treasured provender, she runs, bewildered with anxiety, till she has distanced her pursuers; she puts the object down and takes a couple of desperate pecks; but her kin are at her heels; another flight follows, another wild attempt; for half an hour the same tactics are pursued. At last she is at bay; she makes one prodigious effort, and gets the treasure down with a convulsive swallow; you see her neck bulge with the moving object; while she looks at her baffled companions with an air of meek triumph.

Ducks, too, afford many simple joys to the contemplative mind. A slow procession of white ducks, walking delicately, with heads lifted high and timid eyes, in a long line, has the air of an ecclesiastical procession. The singers go before, the minstrels follow after. There is something liturgical, too, in the way in which, as if by a preconcerted signal, they all cry out together, standing in a group, with a burst of hoarse cheering, cut off suddenly by an intolerable silence. The arrival of ducks upon the scene, when the fowls are fed, is an impressive sight. They stamp wildly over the pasture, falling, stumbling, rising again, arrive on the scene with a desperate intentness, and eat as though they had not seen food for months.

The pleasure of these farm-yard sights is two-fold. It is partly the sense of grave, unconscious importance about the whole business, serious lives lived with such whole-hearted zeal. There is no sense of divided endeavour; the discovery of food is the one thing in the world, and the sense of repletion is also the sense of virtue. But there is something pathetic, too, about the taming to our own ends of these forest beasts, these woodland birds; they are so unconscious of the sad reasons for which we desire their company, so unsuspicious, so serene! Instead of learning by the sorrowful experience of generations what our dark purposes are, they become more and more fraternal, more and more dependent. And yet how little we really know what their thoughts are. They are so unintelligent in some regions, so subtly wise in others. We cannot share our thoughts with them; we cannot explain anything to them. We can sympathise with them in their troubles, but cannot convey our sympathy to them. There is a little bantam hen here, a great pet, who comes up to the front door with the other bantams to be fed. She has been suffering for some time from an obscure illness. She arrives with the others, full of excitement, and begins to pick at the grain thrown them; but the effort soon exhausts her; she goes sadly apart, and sits with dim eye and ruffled plumage, in silent suffering, wondering, perhaps, why she is not as brisk and joyful as ever, what is the sad thing that has befallen her. And one can do nothing, express nothing of the pathetic sorrow that fills one's mind. But, none the less, one tries to believe, to feel, that this suffering is not fortuitous, is not wasted – how could one endure the thought otherwise, if one did not hope that "the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God!"

XIII

The Artist

I have been reading with much emotion the life of a great artist. It is a tender, devoted record; and there is an atmosphere of delicate beauty about the style. It is as though his wife, who wrote the book, had gained through the years of companionship, a pale, pure reflection of her husband's simple and impassioned style, just as the moon's clear, cold light is drawn from the hot fountains of the sun. And yet, there is an individuality about the style, and the reflection is rather of the same nature as the patient likeness of expression which is to be seen in the faces of an aged pair, who have travelled in love and unity down the vale of years together.

In this artist's own writing, which has a pure and almost childlike naïveté of phrasing, there is a glow, not of rhetoric or language, but of emotion, an almost lover-like attitude towards his friends, which is yet saved from sentimentality by an obvious sincerity of feeling. In this he seems to me to be different from the majority of artistic natures and temperaments. It is impossible not to feel, as a rule, when one is brought into contact with an artistic temperament, that the basis of it is a kind of hardness, a fanaticism of spirit. There is, of course, in the artistic temperament, an abundance of sensitiveness which is often mistaken for feeling. But it is not generally an unselfish devotion, which desires to give, to lavish, to make sacrifices for the sake of the beloved. It is, after all, impossible to serve two masters; and in the highly developed artist, the central passion is the devotion to art, and sins against art are the cardinal and unpardonable sins. The artist has an eager thirst for beautiful impressions, and his deepest concern is how to translate these impressions into the medium in which he works. Many an artist has desired and craved for love. But even love in the artist is not the end; love only ministers to the sacred fire of art, and is treated by him as a costly and precious fuel, which he is bound to use to feed the central flame. If one examines the records of great artistic careers, this will, I think, be found to be a true principle; and it is, after all, inevitable that it should be so, in the case of a nature which has the absorbing desire for self-expression. Perhaps, it is not always consciously recognised by the artist, but the fact is there; he tends to regard the deepest and highest experiences of life as ministering to the fulness of his nature. I remember hearing a great master of musical art discussing the music of a young man of extraordinary promise; he said: "Yes, it is very beautiful, very pure; he is perfect in technique and expression, as far as it goes; but it is incomplete and undeveloped. What he wants is to fall in love."

A man who is not bound by the noble thraldom of art, who is full of vitality and emotion, but yet without the imperative desire for self-expression, regards life in a different mood. He may be fully as eager to absorb beautiful impressions, he may love the face of the earth, the glories of hill and plain, the sweet dreams of art, the lingering cadences of music; but he takes them as a child takes food, with a direct and eager appetite, without any impulse to dip them in his own personality, or to find an expression for them. The point for him is not how they strike him and affect him, but that they are there. Such a man will perhaps find his deepest experience in the mysteries of human relationship; and he will so desire the happiness of those he loves, that he will lose himself in efforts to remove obstacles, to lighten burdens, to give rather than to receive joy. And this, I think, is probably the reason why so few women, even those possessed of the most sensitive perception and apprehension, achieve the highest triumphs of art; because they cannot so subordinate life to art, because they have a passionate desire for the happiness of others, and find their deepest satisfaction in helping to further it. Who does not know instances of women of high possibilities, who have quietly sacrificed the pursuit of their own accomplishments to the tendance of some brilliant self-absorbed artist? With such love is often mingled a tender compassionateness, as of a mother for a high-spirited and eager child, who throws herself with perfect sympathy into his aims and tastes, while all the time there sits a gentle knowledge in the background of her heart, of the essential unimportance of the things that the child desires so eagerly, and which she yet desires so whole-heartedly for him. Women who have made such a sacrifice do it with no feeling that they are resigning the best for the second best, but because they have a knowledge of mysteries that are even higher than the mysteries of art; and they have their reward, not in the contemplation of the sacrifice that they have made, but in having desired and attained something that is more beautiful still than any dream that the artist cherishes and follows.

Yet the fact remains that it is useless to preach to the artist the mystery that there is a higher region than the region of art. A man must aim at the best 'that he can conceive; and it is not possible to give men higher motives, by removing the lower motives that they can comprehend. Such an attempt is like building without foundations; and those who have relations with artists should do all they can to encourage them to aim at what they feel to be the highest.

But, on the other hand, it is a duty for the artist to keep his heart open, if he can, to the higher influences. He must remember, that though the eye can see certain colours, and hear certain vibrations of sound, yet there is an infinite scale of colour, and an infinite gradation of sound, both above and below what the eye and the ear can apprehend, and that mortal apprehension can only appropriate to itself but a tiny fragment of the huge gamut. He ought to believe that if he is faithful to the best that he can apprehend, a door may be opened to him which may lead him into regions which are at present closed to him. To accept the artistic conscience, the artistic aim, as the highest ideal of which the spirit is capable, is to be a Pharisee in art, to be self-sufficient, arrogant, limited. It is a kind of spiritual pride, a wilful deafness to more remote voices; and it is thus of all sins, the one which the artist, who lives the life of perception, whose mind must, above all things, be open and transparent, should be loth to commit. He should rather keep his inner eye – for the artist is like the great creatures that, in the prophet's vision, stood nearest to the presence, who were full of eyes, without and within – open to the unwonted apparition which may, suddenly, like a meteor of the night, sail across the silent heaven. It may be that, in some moment of fuller perception, he may even have to divorce the sweeter and more subtle mistress in exchange for one who comes in a homelier guise, and take the beggar girl for his queen. But the abnegation will be no sacrifice; rather a richer and livelier hope.

XIV

Young Love

We had a charming idyll here to-day. A young husband and wife came to stay with us in all the first flush of married happiness. One realised all day long that other people merely made a pleasant background for their love, and that for each there was but one real figure on the scene. This was borne witness to by a whole armoury of gentle looks, swift glances, silent gestures. They were both full to the brim of a delicate laughter, of over-brimming wonder, of tranquil desire. And we all took part in their gracious happiness. In the evening they sang and played to us, the wife being an accomplished pianist, the husband a fine singer. But though the glory of their art fell in rainbow showers on the audience, it was for each other that they sang and played. We sat in the dim light of a little panelled room, the lamps making a circle of light about the happy pair; seldom have I felt the revelation of personality more. The wife played to us a handful of beautiful things; but I noticed that she could not interpret the sadder and darker strains, into which the shadow and malady of a suffering spirit had passed; but into little tripping minuets full of laughter and light, and into melodies that spoke of a pure passion of sweetness and human delight, her soul passed, till the room felt as though flooded with the warmth of the sun. And he, too, sang with all his might some joyful and brave utterances, with the lusty pride of manhood; and in a gentler love-song too, that seemed to linger in a dream of delight by crystal streams, the sweet passion of the heart rose clear and true. But when he too essayed a song of sorrow and reluctant sadness, there was no spirit in it; it seemed to him, I suppose, so unlike life, and the joy of life, – so fantastic and unreal an outpouring of the heart.

We sat long in the panelled room, till it seemed all alive with soft dreams and radiant shapes, that floated in a golden air. All that was dark and difficult seemed cast out and exercised. But it was all so sincere and contented a peace that the darker and more sombre shadows had no jealous awakening; for the two were living to each other, not in a selfish seclusion, but as though they gave of their joy in handfuls to the whole world. The raptures of lovers sometimes take them back so far into a kind of unashamed childishness that the spectacle rouses the contempt and even the indignation of world-worn and cynical people. But here it never deviated from dignity and seemliness; it only seemed new and true, and the best gift of God. These two spirits seemed, with hands intertwined, to have ascended gladly into the mountain, and to have seen a transfiguration of life: which left them not in a blissful eminence of isolation, but rather, as it were, beckoning others upwards, and saying that the road was indeed easy and plain. And so the sweet hour passed, and left a fragrance behind it; whatever might befall, they had tasted of the holy wine of joy; they had blessed the cup, and bidden us too to set our lips to it.

XV

A Strange Gathering

I was walking one summer day in the pleasant hilly country near my home. There is a road which I often traverse, partly because it is a very lonely one, partly because it leads out on a high brow or shoulder of the uplands, and commands a wide view of the plain. Moreover, the road is so deeply sunken between steep banks, overgrown with hazels, that one is hardly aware how much one climbs, and the wide clear view at the top always breaks upon the eye with a certain shock of agreeable surprise. A little before the top of the hill a road turns off, leading into a long disused quarry, surrounded by miniature cliffs, full of grassy mounds and broken ground, overgrown with thickets and floored with rough turf. It is a very enchanting place in spring, and indeed at all times of the year; many flowers grow there, and the birds sing securely among the bushes. I have always imagined that the Red Deeps, in The Mill on the Floss, was just such a place, and the scenes described as taking place there have always enacted themselves for me in the quarry. I have always had a fancy too that if there are any fairies hereabouts, which I very much doubt, for I fear that the new villas which begin to be sprinkled about the countryside have scared them all away, they would be found here. I visited the place one moonlight night, and I am sure that the whole dingle was full of a bright alert life which mocked my clumsy eyes and ears. If I could have stolen upon the place unawares, I felt that I might have seen strange businesses go forward, and tiny revels held.

That afternoon, as I drew near, I was displeased to see that my little retreat was being profaned by company. Some brakes were drawn up in the road, and I heard loud voices raised in untuneful mirth. As I came nearer I was much bewildered to divine who the visitors were. They seemed on the point of departing; two of the brakes were full, and into another some men were clambering. As I came close to them I was still more puzzled. The majority of the party were dressed all alike, in rough brown clothes, with soft black felt hats; but in each of the brakes that were tenanted sat a man as well, with a braided cap, in a sort of uniform. Most of the other men were old or elderly; some had white beards or whiskers, almost all were grizzled. They were talking, too, in an odd, inconsequent, chirping kind of way, not listening to each other; and moreover they were strangely adorned. Some had their hats stuck full of flowers, others were wreathed with leaves. A few had chains of daisies round their necks. They seemed as merry and as obedient as children. Inside the gate, in the centre of the quarry, was a still stranger scene. Here was a ring of elderly and aged men, their hats wreathed with garlands, hand-in-hand, executing a slow and solemn dance in a circle. One, who seemed the moving spirit, a small wiry man with a fresh-coloured face and a long chin-beard, was leaping high in the air, singing some rustic song, and dragging his less active companions round and round. The others all entered into the spirit of the dance. One very old and feeble man, with a smile on his face, was executing little clumsy hops, deeply intent on the performance. A few others stood round admiring the sport; a little apart was a tall grave man, talking loudly to himself, with flowers stuck all over him, who was spinning round and round in an ecstasy of delight. Becoming giddy, he took a few rapid steps to the left, but fell to the ground, where he lay laughing softly, and moving his hands in the air. Presently one of the officials said a word to the leader of the dance; the ring broke up, and the performers scattered, gathering up little bundles of leaves and flowers that lay all about in some confusion, and then trooping out to the brakes. The quarry was deserted. Several of the group waved their hands to me, uttering unintelligible words, and holding out flowers.

I was so much surprised at the odd scene that I asked one of the officials what it all meant. He said politely that it was a picnic party from the Pauper Lunatic Asylum at H – . The mystery was explained. I said: "They seem to be enjoying themselves." "Yes, indeed, sir," he said, "they are like children; they look forward to this all the year; there is no greater punishment than to deprive a man of his outing." He entered the last brake as he said these words, and the carriages moved off, a shrill and aged cheer rising from thin and piping voices on the air.

The whole thing did not strike me as grotesque, but as infinitely pathetic and even beautiful. Here were these old pitiful creatures, so deeply afflicted, condemned most of them to a lifelong seclusion, who were recalling and living over again their childish sports and delights. What dim memories of old spring days, before their sad disabilities had settled upon them, were working in those aged and feeble brains! What pleased me best was the obvious and light-hearted happiness of the whole party, a compensation for days of starved monotony. No party of school-children on a holiday could have been more thoughtlessly, more intently gay. Here was a desolate company, one would have thought, of life's failures, facing one of the saddest and least hopeful prospects that the world can afford; yet on this day at least they were full to the brim of irresponsible and complete happiness and delight, tasting an enjoyment, it seemed, more vivid than often falls to my own lot. In the presence of such happiness it seemed so useless, so unnecessary to ask why so heavy a burden was bound on their backs, because here at all events was a scene of the purest and most innocent rapture. I went on my way full of wonder and even of hope. I could not fathom the deep mystery of the failure, the suffering, the weakness that runs across the world like an ugly crack across the face of a fair building. But then how tenderly and wisely does the great Artificer lend consolation and healing, repairing and filling so far as he may, the sad fracture; he seems to know better than we can divine the things that belong to our peace; so that as I looked across the purple rolling plain, with all its wooded ridges, its rich pastures, the smoke going up from a hundred hamlets, a confidence, a quiet trust seemed to rise in my mind, filling me with a strange yearning to know what were the thoughts of the vast Mind that makes us and sustains us, mingled with a faith in some large and far-off issue that shall receive and enfold our little fretful spirits, as the sea receives the troubled leaping streams, to move in slow unison with the wide and secret tides.

XVI

The Cripple

I went to-day to see an old friend whom I had not met for ten years. Some time ago he had a bad fall which for a time crippled him, but from which it was hoped he would recover; but he must have received some obscure and deep-seated injury, because after improving for a time, he began to go backwards, and has now to a great extent lost the use of his limbs. He was formerly a very active man, both intellectually and physically. He had a prosperous business in the country town on the outskirts of which he lives. He was one of those tall spare men, black-haired and black-eyed, capable of bearing great fatigue, full to the brim of vitality. He was a great reader, fond of music and art; married to a no less cultivated and active wife, but childless. There never was a man who had a keener enjoyment of existence in all its aspects. It used to be a marvel to me to see at how many points a man could touch life, and the almost child-like zest which he threw into everything which he did.

On arriving at the house, a pleasant old-fashioned place with a big shady garden, I was shown into a large book-lined study, and there presently crept and tottered into the room, leaning on two sticks, a figure which I can only say in no respect recalled to me the recollection of my friend. He was bent and wasted, his hair was white; and there was that sunken look about the temples, that tracery of lines about the eyes that tells of constant suffering. But the voice was unaltered, full, resonant, and distinct as ever. He sat down and was silent for a moment. I think that the motion even from one room into another caused him great pain. Then he began to talk; first he told me of the accident, and his journeys in search of health. "But the comfort is," he added, "that the doctors have now decided that they can do no more for me, and I need leave home no more." He told me that he still went to his business every day – and I found that it was prospering greatly – and that though he could not drive, he could get out in a wheeled chair; he said nothing of his sufferings, and presently began to talk of books and politics. Gradually I realised that I was in the company of a thoroughly cheerful man. It was not the cheerfulness that comes of effort, of a determined attempt to be interested in old pursuits, but the abundant and overflowing cheerfulness of a man who has still a firm grasp on life. He argued, he discussed with the same eager liveliness; and his laugh had the careless and good-humoured ring of a man whose mind was entirely content.

His wife soon entered; and we sat for a long time talking. I was keenly moved by the relations between them; she displayed none of that minute attention to his needs, none of that watchful anxiety which I have often thought, tenderly lavished as it is upon invalids, must bring home to them a painful sense of their dependence and helplessness; and he too showed no trace of that fretful exigence which is too often the characteristic of those who cannot assist themselves, and which almost invariably arises in the case of eager and active temperaments thus afflicted, those whose minds range quickly from subject to subject, and who feel their disabilities at every turn. At one moment he wanted his glasses to read something from a book that lay beside him. He asked his wife with a gentle courtesy to find them. They were discovered in his own breast-pocket, into which he could not even put his feeble hand, and he apologised for his stupidity with an affectionate humility which made me feel inclined to tears, especially when I saw the pleasure which the performance of this trifling service obviously caused her. It was just the same, I afterwards noticed, with a young attendant who waited on him at luncheon, an occasion which revealed to me the full extent of his helplessness.