I pressed the button at my neighbor's door;But, when I heard no sound, I turned and stoodIrresolute. If I had moved a bellI must have heard it. Should I rap, or go?But in a moment more my neighbor came.'The bell is far, and very small,' he said.'You may not catch it for the walls betweenBut rest assured, each time you push the knobWe cannot choose but hear the bell inside.'And what they told me of my neighbor's bellHas cheered me when I knocked at some hard heartAnd caught no answer. Now and thenI poured my soul out in a hot appealAnd had no sign from lip, or hand, or eye,That he I would have saved had even heard.And I have sighed and turned away; and thenMy neighbor's words came back: 'We cannot chooseBut hear inside.'And after many daysI have had an answer to a word I spokeIn ears that seemed as deaf as dead men's ears.
I pressed the button at my neighbor's door;But, when I heard no sound, I turned and stoodIrresolute. If I had moved a bellI must have heard it. Should I rap, or go?But in a moment more my neighbor came.'The bell is far, and very small,' he said.'You may not catch it for the walls betweenBut rest assured, each time you push the knobWe cannot choose but hear the bell inside.'And what they told me of my neighbor's bellHas cheered me when I knocked at some hard heartAnd caught no answer. Now and thenI poured my soul out in a hot appealAnd had no sign from lip, or hand, or eye,That he I would have saved had even heard.And I have sighed and turned away; and thenMy neighbor's words came back: 'We cannot chooseBut hear inside.'And after many daysI have had an answer to a word I spokeIn ears that seemed as deaf as dead men's ears.
I pressed the button at my neighbor's door;
But, when I heard no sound, I turned and stood
Irresolute. If I had moved a bell
I must have heard it. Should I rap, or go?
But in a moment more my neighbor came.
'The bell is far, and very small,' he said.
'You may not catch it for the walls between
But rest assured, each time you push the knob
We cannot choose but hear the bell inside.'
And what they told me of my neighbor's bell
Has cheered me when I knocked at some hard heart
And caught no answer. Now and then
I poured my soul out in a hot appeal
And had no sign from lip, or hand, or eye,
That he I would have saved had even heard.
And I have sighed and turned away; and then
My neighbor's words came back: 'We cannot choose
But hear inside.'
And after many days
I have had an answer to a word I spoke
In ears that seemed as deaf as dead men's ears.
I was twelve years at Mosgiel in New Zealand. I always felt that the men and women, and especially the old people, were attached to me; but, somehow, I was never as successful with the children as I should like to have been. I was very fond of them; I loved to meet them, play with them, talk with them; but I saw them grow up to be young men and women without being impressed in any way by any word of mine. That was the bitterest ingredient in my sorrow when, fifteen years ago, I left that little country town.
During the past three years I have traveled Australia from end to end. In a railway journey of seven thousand miles I have crossed and recrossed the entire continent. And one of the most delightfulexperiences of this great trip was to meet my old Mosgiel boys and girls at every turn. One girl came, with her husband, a hundred miles to spend five minutes with me at the railway station; others traveled with me for twenty or thirty miles just for the sake of the talk in the train. Without an exception, they were all well and happy and living useful lives. In every case they reminded me of things that I had said and done in the old days—things that, as I fancied, had made no impression at all. And when I returned to the quiet of my own home, and reviewed all these happy reunions, I felt ashamed of having suspected these young people of being irresponsive. The bell often rings withoutourhearing it.
On the other hand, it does occasionally happen that, when I press the button, the bell rings; I myself, standing on the doormat, distinctly hear it;yet it is not heard by those upon whom I have called.
'I am so sorry,' exclaimed Mrs. Wilson, as she left the church last evening. 'I took my book on Thursday afternoon and strolled down to the summer-house at the foot of the garden; I must have become absorbed in the story; I did not hear the bell; and, when I came in, I found your card under the door.'
'I say,' cried Harry Blair, 'I am awfully sorry.I must have been at home when you called. But the bell is at the front of the house, and we happened to be at the back. The children were making such a din that we never heard you.'
Precisely! There are those whose bells we ring in vain. In the days in which I made up my mind to be a minister, I fell under the influence of the Rev. James Douglas, M.A., of Brixton, a most devout and scholarly man. He often took me for a walk on Clapham Common, and said things to me that I have never forgotten.
'When you are a minister,' he said one day, as we sat under the shelter of a giant oak, 'when you are a minister, you will find, wherever you go, that there are a certain number of people whom you are not fitted to influence. It is largely a matter of personality and temperament. Don't break your heart over it. Satisfy your conscience that you have done your duty by them, and then leave it at that!'
It was wise counsel. There are a certain number of bells that, rung by us, are not heard within.
And, last and saddest of all, there isthe bell that we did not ring. We half thought of it; we heard afterwards how welcome a call would have been; but the contemplated visit was not paid.
Around the corner I have a friend,In the great city that has no end.Yet days go by and weeks rush on,And before I know it a year is gone;And I never see my old friend's face,For life is a swift and terrible race.He knows I love him just as wellAs in the days when I rang his bellAnd he rang mine. We were younger then,And now we are busy, tired men—Tired with playing a foolish game,Tired with trying to make a name.'To-morrow,' I say, 'I will call on Jim,Just to show that I'm thinking of him.'But to-morrow comes and to-morrow goes,And the distance between us grows and grows,Around the corner—yet miles away. . . .'Here's a telegram, sir.' 'Jim died to-day!'And that's what we get and deserve in the end—Around the corner a vanished friend.
Around the corner I have a friend,In the great city that has no end.Yet days go by and weeks rush on,And before I know it a year is gone;And I never see my old friend's face,For life is a swift and terrible race.He knows I love him just as wellAs in the days when I rang his bellAnd he rang mine. We were younger then,And now we are busy, tired men—Tired with playing a foolish game,Tired with trying to make a name.'To-morrow,' I say, 'I will call on Jim,Just to show that I'm thinking of him.'But to-morrow comes and to-morrow goes,And the distance between us grows and grows,Around the corner—yet miles away. . . .'Here's a telegram, sir.' 'Jim died to-day!'And that's what we get and deserve in the end—Around the corner a vanished friend.
Around the corner I have a friend,
In the great city that has no end.
Yet days go by and weeks rush on,
And before I know it a year is gone;
And I never see my old friend's face,
For life is a swift and terrible race.
He knows I love him just as well
As in the days when I rang his bell
And he rang mine. We were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired men—
Tired with playing a foolish game,
Tired with trying to make a name.
'To-morrow,' I say, 'I will call on Jim,
Just to show that I'm thinking of him.'
But to-morrow comes and to-morrow goes,
And the distance between us grows and grows,
Around the corner—yet miles away. . . .
'Here's a telegram, sir.' 'Jim died to-day!'
And that's what we get and deserve in the end—
Around the corner a vanished friend.
I really intended to have pressed the button at Jim's door; but the good intentions did not ring the bell; and I am left to nurse my lifelong remorse.
I really intended to have answered the door when a Visitor Divine stood gently knocking there; but the good intention did not let Him in; He turned sadly and wearily away; and I am left to my shame and my everlasting regret.
The green chair was never occupied. It stood—according to Irving Bacheller—in the home of Michael Hacket; and Michael Hacket is the most lovable schoolmaster in American literature. Michael Hacket possessed a violin and a microscope. The romps that he led with the one, and the researches that he conducted with the other, represented the two sides of his character; for he was the jolliest soul in all that countryside, and the wisest. But, in addition to the violin and the microscope, Michael Hacket possessed a green chair; and the green chair was even more valuable, as a revelation of the schoolmaster's character, than either the microscope or the violin. Barton Baynes, the hero of the story, went as a boarder to Mr. Hacket's school; and the green chair deeply impressed him. When the family assembled at table, the green chair, always empty, was always there. Before he took his own seat, Mr. Hacket put his hand on the back of the green chair and exclaimed:
'A merry heart to you, Michael Henry!'
It was a rollicking meal, that first meal at which Barton was present; the schoolmaster was full ofquips and jests; and his clever sallies kept everybody bubbling with laughter. Then, when all had finished, he rose and took the green chair from the table, exclaiming:
'Michael Henry, God bless you!'
'I wondered at the meaning of this,' says Barton, 'but I dared not ask.' Shortly afterwards, however, he summed up courage to do so. Mr. Hacket had gone out.
'I've been all day in the study,' the schoolmaster had said; 'I must take a walk or I shall get an exalted abdomen. One is badly beaten in the race of life when his abdomen gets ahead of his toes. Children, keep Barton happy till I come back, and mind you, don't forget the good fellow in the green chair!'
He had not been long gone when the children differed as to the game that they should play. A dispute was threatening.
'Don't forget Michael Henry!' said Mrs. Hacket, reprovingly.
'WhoisMichael Henry?' asked Barton.
'Sure,' replied Mrs. Hacket, 'he's the child that has never been born. He was to be the biggest and noblest of them all—kind and helpful and cheery-hearted and beloved of God above all the others. We try to live up to him.'
'He seemed to me,' said Barton, 'a very strange and wonderful creature—this invisible occupant of the green chair. Michael Henry was the spirit oftheir home, an ideal of which the empty chair was a constant reminder.'
When a conversation threatened to become too heated, it was always Michael Henry whose ears must not be offended by harsh and angry tones; it was Michael Henry who had begged that a culprit might be forgiven just this once: it was Michael Henry who was always suggesting little acts of courtesy and kindness.
'I like to think of Michael Henry,' the schoolmaster would say. 'His food is good thoughts and his wine is laughter. I had a long talk with Michael Henry last night when you were all abed. His face was a chunk of merriment. Oh, what a limb he is! I wish I could tell you all the good things he said!'
But he couldn't; and we all know why.
There was no Michael Henry! And yet Michael Henry—the occupant of the green chair—pervaded like a perfume and ruled like a prince the gentle schoolmaster's delightful home!
We are very largely ruled by empty chairs. In support of this contention let me call two or three witnesses. The first is Clarence Shadbrook.
Clarence was well on in life when I first met him. He struck me as being reserved, taciturn, unsociable. It took me several years, I grieve to say, to understand him. It was on the occasion of his wife's death that I first caught glimpses ofunsuspected depths of tenderness and sentiment within him. Hannah Shadbrook was one of our most excellent women. She had a kind thought for everybody. She was the heart and soul of our ladies' organizations. In every good cause her hand was promptly outstretched to help. She was especially tactful in her dealings with the young people: to many of the girls she was a second mother. She was tall and spare, with a slight stoop at the shoulders; her eyes were soft and gray; and her face was illumined by a look of wonderful intelligence and sweetness. She was the sort of woman to whom one could tell anything.
Somehow, I had always imagined that, at home, she was unappreciated. I cannot recall anything that I ever heard or saw that can have given me so false and unfortunate an impression. But there it was! And it was, therefore, with a shock of surprise that, at the time of her death, I found the strong and silent man so utterly broken and disconsolate.
'Ah,' he sobbed, when, in a few halting words, I referred to the affection in which his wife was held at the church, 'I dare say. But it was at home that she was at her best. Nobody will ever know what she was to me and to the children who have married and gone.'
But it was not until two years later that he opened his heart more thoroughly. I heard on a certain Sunday evening that he was ill; and nextday I made my way to the cottage. He was in bed. I stepped across to the window and laid my hand upon a chair, intending to transfer it to the bedside.
'Excuse me,' he said, 'but don't take that one. Would you mind having the chair over by the wardrobe instead?'
If the request struck me as strange, the thought only lingered for a moment. I replaced the chair that I was holding; took the one indicated; and dismissed the matter from my mind.
'I dare say you are wondering why I asked you not to take the chair by the window,' he said presently, after we had discussed the weather, the news, and his prospects of a speedy recovery. 'There's a story about that chair that I've never told to anybody, except to her'—glancing at a portrait—'but if you'd like to hear it, I don't mind telling you.'
'Well,' he went on, assured of my interest, 'I took a fancy to that chair nearly fifty years ago. I was learning wood-carving; I thought that it would suit my purpose: and I bought it. It was the first piece of furniture that I ever possessed. I remember laughing to myself as I carried it to my little room. It stood beside the bed there for a year or two. Then I met Hannah. At first I felt a little bit afraid of her. She seemed far too good for me. But then, I thought to myself, she is far too good for anybody. And so our courtship began, and one night I came home tremendously excited. We wereengaged! I lay awake for hours that night, sometimes painting wonderful pictures of the happy days to be, and sometimes lecturing myself as to the kind of man I must become in order to be worthy of the treasure about to be confided to my care. And I comforted myself with the reminder that I should have her always beside me to restrain the worst and encourage the best that was in me. And, thinking such thoughts, I at length fell asleep. But, sleeping, I went on dreaming. I thought that, coming home tired from the shop, I entered my little room at the top of the stairs (the room in which I was actually sleeping) and was surprised to find it occupied. A man was sitting in the chair beside the bed—the chair over there by the window. But I could not be angry, for he looked up and welcomed me with a smile that disarmed my suspicions and made me feel that all was well. I felt instantly and powerfully drawn to him. He seemed to magnetize me. His face realized my ideal of manly strength, tempered by an indefinable charm and courtesy. Then, as I gazed, it occurred to me that there was, about his countenance and bearing, something strangely familiar. What could it mean? Whom could it be? And then the truth flashed upon me. It wasmyself! Yes, it was myself as I should be in the years to come under Hannah's gentle and gracious influence! It was myself transfigured! I awoke and found myself staring fixedly at the empty chair beside the bed—the chair that you were aboutto remove from the window there. I made up my mind that day that the chair should never be used. It is dedicated to the ideal self of whom I caught a glimpse in my boyish dream. And, even now, the shadowy visitor of that memorable night seems to be still sitting there; and I never approach the chair without mentally comparing myself with its silent occupant.'
Who would have supposed that, beneath the rugged exterior of Clarence Shadbrook, there dwelt so rich a vein of poetry and romance? I almost apologized to him for my earlier judgment. It only shows that, like the first Australian explorers, we may tread the gold beneath our feet without suspecting its existence.
My second witness is Harold Glendinning. Harold was the minister at Port Eyre, a little seaside town close to the harbor's mouth. He had frequently asked me to exchange pulpits with him, and at last he had coaxed me to consent.
'Come early on Saturday,' he wrote, 'so that we may have an hour or two together here before I have to leave.'
Like Clarence Shadbrook, Harold was a widower. But, unlike Clarence, he was still young. His wife had faded and died after three short years of married life. His mother kept house for him at the manse.
I reached Port Eyre early on the Saturday. We went for a walk round the rocky coast before dinner; and in the afternoon Harold made preparations for departure.
'But, dear me,' he exclaimed, 'I haven't shown you your room. Come with me!' And he led me out into the hall and up the stairs.
The room was obviously his own. Photographs of his young wife were everywhere. Her presence pervaded it. The window commanded a noble view of the bay, and we stood for a minute or two admiring the prospect. We then turned towards the door.
'Treat the place as though it belonged to you,' he said. 'Make yourself perfectly at home. You're welcome to everything except—' He half-closed the door again.
'You'll understand, I know,' he went on, 'but don't use the armchair over there in the corner.' I glanced in the direction indicated by his gaze. A comfortable chair stood beside a small occasional table on which a lovely bowl of roses had been placed.
'It'sherchair,' he explained. 'It used to stand by the fireplace in the dining-room. She sat there every evening, reading or sewing, with her feet resting on her campstool.' I noticed now that a folded campstool stood near the chair. 'Somehow,' he continued, 'the chair seemed to become a part of her. And after—afterwards—I couldn't bear toleave it there for anybody to occupy who happened to call; so I brought it up here. And, somehow, with the chair there, she doesn't seem so very far away. I'll show you something else,' he said; and, diving into a drawer near his hand, he produced an old magazine.
'I only found this afterwards,' he explained. 'At least I only noticed the marked passage. I saw it in her lap several times during the last week or two, and, in an off-hand way, I picked it up and glanced through it. But it was only after—afterwards—that I noticed that faint pencil-mark beside this poem.' He handed me the magazine, and, surely enough, I detected a mark, so faint as to be scarcely visible, beside some lines by L. C. Jack.
When day is done and in the golden westMy soul from yours sinks slowly out of sight,And you alone enjoy the warmth and lightThat once had seemed of all God's gifts the best;When roses bloom and I not there to name,When thrushes sing and I not there to hear,When rippling laughter breaks upon your earAnd friends come flocking as of old they came;I pray, dear heart, for sweet Remembrance sakeYou pluck the rose and hear the songful thrush.With laughter meet once more the merry jestAnd great familiar faces still awake,For I, asleep in the eternal Hush,Would have you ever at your golden best.
When day is done and in the golden westMy soul from yours sinks slowly out of sight,And you alone enjoy the warmth and lightThat once had seemed of all God's gifts the best;When roses bloom and I not there to name,When thrushes sing and I not there to hear,When rippling laughter breaks upon your earAnd friends come flocking as of old they came;I pray, dear heart, for sweet Remembrance sakeYou pluck the rose and hear the songful thrush.With laughter meet once more the merry jestAnd great familiar faces still awake,For I, asleep in the eternal Hush,Would have you ever at your golden best.
When day is done and in the golden west
My soul from yours sinks slowly out of sight,
And you alone enjoy the warmth and light
That once had seemed of all God's gifts the best;
When roses bloom and I not there to name,
When thrushes sing and I not there to hear,
When rippling laughter breaks upon your ear
And friends come flocking as of old they came;
I pray, dear heart, for sweet Remembrance sake
You pluck the rose and hear the songful thrush.
With laughter meet once more the merry jest
And great familiar faces still awake,
For I, asleep in the eternal Hush,
Would have you ever at your golden best.
'You may think it strange,' he concluded, as we turned to leave the room, 'but I often fancy that thechair in the corner makes it a little more easy for me to live in the spirit of those lines.'
I had intended calling several other witnesses; but I must be content with one. Alec Fraser was a little old Scotsman, who lived about seven miles out from Mosgiel. I heard one day that he was very ill, and I drove over to see him. His daughter answered the door, showed me in, and placed a chair for me beside the bed. I noticed, on the other side of the bed, another chair. It stood directly facing the pillow, as if its occupant had been in earnest conversation with the patient.
'Ah, Alec,' I exclaimed, on greeting him, 'so I'm not your first visitor!'
He looked up surprised, and, in explanation, I glanced at the tell-tale position of the chair.
'Oh,' he said, with a smile, 'I'll tell ye aboot the chair by-and-by; but how are the wife and the weans and the kirk?'
I found that he was far too ill, however, to be wearied by general conversation. I read to him the Shepherd's Psalm; I led him to the Throne of Grace; and then I rose to go.
'Aboot the chair,' he said, as I took his hand, 'it's like this. Years ago I found I couldna pray. I fell asleep on my knees, and, even if I kept awake, my thochts were aye flittin'. One day, when I was sair worried aboot it, I spoke to Mr. ClairMackenzie, the meenister at Broad Point. We hadna a meenister o' oor ain at Mosgiel then. He was a guid auld man, was Mr. Mackenzie. And he telt me not to fash ma heed aboot kneeling down. "Jest sit ye down," he said, "and pit a chair agen ye for the Lord, and talk to Him just as though He sat beside ye!" An' I've been doin' it ever since. So now ye know what the chair's doin', standing the way it is!'
I pressed his hand and left him. A week later his daughter drove up to the manse. I knew everything, or almost everything, as soon as I saw her face.
'Father died in the night,' she sobbed. 'I had no idea that death was so near, and I had just gone to lie down for an hour or two. He seemed to be sleeping so comfortably. And, when I went back, he was gone! He didn't seem to have moved since I saw him last, except thathis hand was out on the chair. Do you understand?'
I understood.
Mosgiel was in the throes of an anniversary. As part of the programme, John Broadbanks and I were exchanging pulpits. In order to be on the spot when Sunday arrived, I was driven over to Silverstream on the Saturday evening. When I awoke on Sunday morning, and looking out of the Manse window, found the whole plain buried deep in snow, I was glad that I had taken this precaution. At breakfast we speculated on the chances of my having a congregation. Later on, however, the buggies began to arrive, and by eleven o'clock most of the homesteads were represented. But what about Sunday school in the afternoon? I told the teachers to feel under no obligation to come. 'I shall be here,' I said, 'and if any of the children put in an appearance, I shall be pleased to look after them.' When the afternoon came, there were three scholars present—Jack Linacre, who had ridden over on his pony from a farm about two miles away; Alec Crosby, a High School boy, who lived in a large house just across the fields; and little Myrtle Broadbanks—Goldilocks, as we called her—who hadaccompanied me from the Manse. I decided to return with my three companions to the Manse and to hold our Sunday school by the fireside.
'Well,' I said, as soon as we were all cosily seated, 'I was reading this morning in the Bible about a living dog and a dead lion. Which would you rather be?' There was a pause. Jack was the first to speak.
'Oh, I'd rather be the living dog,' he blurted out; 'it's better to be alive than dead any day!'
'Oh, I don't know!' exclaimed Alec. Alec was a thoughtful boy who had already carried off two or three scholarships. He had been weighing the matter carefully while Jack was giving us the benefit of his first impressions. 'I don't know. A dead lion has been a living lion, while the living dog will be a dead dog some day. I think I'd rather be the dead lion.'
'Well, Goldilocks,' I said, turning to the little maiden at my side, 'and what doyouthink about it?'
'Oh,' she said, 'I think I'd like a little of both. I'd like to bea lionlike the one andalivelike the other!'
This all happened many years ago. Jack Linacre now owns the farm from which he then rode over; Alec Crosby is a doctor with a large practice in Sydney; and I heard of Goldilocks' wedding only a few weeks ago. I expect they have forgotten all about the snowy afternoon that we spent by thefireside at Silverstream; but I smile still as I recall the answers that they gave to the question that I set them.
There is something to be said for Jack's way of looking at things. Our love of life is our master-passion. It animates us at every point. It is because we are in love with life that we see so much beauty in the dawning of a new day and find so wealthy a romance in the unfolding of the Spring. We feel that, among the myriad mysteries of the universe, there is no mystery so elusive and so sublime as this one. A living moth is a more wonderful affair than a dead moon. Indeed, we only recognize the strength of the hold that life has upon us when there is some question of its extinction. Let a man stand on the seashore, and, unable to help, watch an exhausted swimmer struggle for his life in the seething waters; let him look up and follow the movements of a steeplejack as he climbs a dizzy spire; let him visit a circus and see an artist hazard his life in the course of some sensational performance; and, for the moment, he will find his heart in his mouth. The blood will forsake his face; he will be filled with trepidation and palpitation; he can scarcely breathe! And why? The people in peril are nothing to him. For him, life would go on in just the same way whether they live or die. Yet their danger fills him with uncontrollableexcitement! Or look, if you will, in quite another direction.
I was in a tramcar yesterday afternoon. In the corner opposite was a lad—probably an errand-boy—curled up with a book. His sparkling eyes were glued to the pages; his face was flushed with excitement; he was completely lost to his immediate surroundings. I rose to leave the car. The movement evidently aroused him. He glanced out of the window, and then, with a start, shut the book and sprang up to follow me.
'Have you passed your proper corner?' I asked when, side by side, we reached the pavement.
'Yes, sir,' he said, 'I was reading the book and never noticed.'
'Exciting, was it?' I inquired, reaching out my hand for the volume. On the cover was a picture of a Red Indian galloping across the prairie, with a white girl thrown across the front of his saddle.
'My word, it was!' he replied. 'It's about a fellow who was flying for his life from the Indians and took refuge in a cave. And, when he got back into the dark part of the cave, he felt something warm and then heard the growl of a bear. My! I thought he was dead that time!'
And what did it matter? It was nothing to this errand-boy whether this hero of his—a mere frolic of an author's fancy—lived or died. And yet the life or death of that hero was of such moment to him that, for the time being, his mindlost its hold upon realities in order that it might concentrate itself upon a fight among shadows! It is our intense, our persistent, our unquenchable love of life that explains the fascination of all tales of romance and adventure. 'With man as with the animals,' says Dr. James Martineau, 'death is the evil from which he himself most shrinks, and which he most deplores for those he loves; it is the utmost that he can inflict upon his enemy and the maximum which the penal justice of society can award to its criminals. It is the fear of death which gives their vivid interest to all hairbreadth escapes, in the shipwreck or amid the glaciers or in the fight; and it is man's fear of death that supplies the chief tragic element in all his art.' When we find ourselves following with breathless interest the movements of the traveller, the hunter or the explorer, we fancy that our emotion arises from a solicitude for the man himself. As a matter of fact, it arises from nothing of the kind. It arises from our love oflife-for-its-own-sake.
In hisLavengro, George Borrow describes an open-air service which he attended on a large open moor. The preacher—a tall, thin man in a plain coat and with a calm, serious face—was urging his hearers not to love life overmuch and to prepare themselves for death. 'The service over,' Borrow says, 'I wandered along the heath till I came to a place where, beside a thick furze, sat a man, his eyes fixed intently on the red ball of the settingsun.' It looked like his old comrade, Jasper Petulengro, the gipsy.
'Is that you, Jasper?'
'Indeed, brother!'
'And what,' enquired the newcomer, sitting by the gipsy's side, 'what is your opinion of death, Jasper?'
'Life is sweet, brother!'
'Do you think so?'
'Think so! There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?'
I need say no more in order to show that there is a good deal to be said for Jack Linacre's way of looking at things.
How beautiful it is to be alive!To wake each morn as if the Maker's graceDid us afresh from nothingness deriveThat we might sing 'How happy is our case!How beautiful it is to be alive!'
How beautiful it is to be alive!To wake each morn as if the Maker's graceDid us afresh from nothingness deriveThat we might sing 'How happy is our case!How beautiful it is to be alive!'
How beautiful it is to be alive!
To wake each morn as if the Maker's grace
Did us afresh from nothingness derive
That we might sing 'How happy is our case!
How beautiful it is to be alive!'
From Jack's point of view there can be no doubt that one living dog is worth all the dead lions that ever were or will be!
Alec Crosby, however, is not so sure. 'A dead lion,' he points out, 'has been a living lion, while the living dog will be a dead dog some day.' There is something in that. He means, if I rightly catchthe drift of his philosophy, that you can pay too much for the privilege of being alive. Everything else has its price, and most of us buy our goods on too high a market. One man pays too much for popularity; he sells his conscience for it. Another pays too much for fame; it costs him his health. A third buys his money too dearly; in gaining the whole world he loses his own soul. And in the same way, a man may pay too much even for life itself. The dog, as Alec Crosby probably knew, is usually employed in Oriental literature as an emblem of the contemptible; the dog in our modern sense—Rover, Carlo and the rest—is unknown. The lion, on the other hand, is invariably the symbol of the courageous. Alec thinks that, all things considered, it is better to be a dead hero than a living coward. Alec reminds me of Artemus Ward. On the day of a general election, Artemus entered a polling-booth and began to look about him in evident perplexity. The returning officer approached and offered to help him.
'For whom do you desire to vote?' he asked.
'I want to vote for Henry Clay!' replied Artemus Ward.
'For Henry Clay!' exclaimed the astounded officer, 'why, Henry Clay has been dead for years!'
'Yes, I know,' replied Artemus Ward, 'but I'd rather vote for Henry Clay dead than for either of these men living!'
Alec Crosby could easily call a great host ofwitnesses to support his view of the matter. Let me summon two—one from martyrology and one from fiction.
My first witness shall be Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. For his fidelity to the truth, Cranmer was sentenced to die at the stake. But every day during his imprisonment he was offered life and liberty if only he would sign the deed of recantation. Every morning the document was spread out before him and the pen placed in his hand. Day after day, he resisted the terrible temptation. But, as Jasper says, life is very sweet; the craving to live was too strong; Cranmer yielded. But, as soon as the horror of a cruel death had been removed, he felt that he had bought the boon of life at too high a price. The death with which he had been threatened was the death of a lion; the life that he was living was the life of a dog! He held himself in contempt and abhorrence. He cowered before the faces of his fellow men! Life on such terms was intolerable. He made a recantation of the recantation. As a token of his remorse, he burned to a cinder the hand with which he signed the cowardly document. And then, at peace with his conscience, he embraced a fiery death with a joyful heart. He felt that it was a thousand times better to be a dead lion than a living dog.
My witness from fiction is introduced to me by Maxwell Gray. InThe Silence of Dean Maitland, he shows that life may be bought at too high aprice. Cyril Maitland had committed a murder; yet all the circumstances pointed to the guilt of his innocent friend, Henry Everard. Maitland felt every day that it was his duty to confess; but the lure of life was too strong for him; and, besides, he was a minister, and his confession would bring shame upon his sacred office! And so the years went by. While Everard languished in jail, having been sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment, Maitland advanced in popularity and won swift preferment. He became a dean. But his life was a torture to him. He felt that death—even the death that he had dreaded—would have been infinitely preferable. And, after suffering agonies such as Everard in prison never knew, he at last made a clean breast of his guilt and laid down the life for which he had paid too much. Thomas Cranmer and Dean Maitland would both take sides with Alec Crosby.
But it was Goldilocks that, on that snowy afternoon at Silverstream, hit the nail on the head.
'I think I'd like a little of both,' she said. 'I'd like to bea lionlike the one andalivelike the other!'
Precisely! With her feminine facility for putting her finger on the very heart of things, Goldilocks has brushed away all irrelevancies and got to bedrock. For, after all, the question of life and death does not really concern us. A dog, living or dead, canbe nothing other than a dog; a lion, living or dead, can be nothing other than a lion. The dead lion, as Alec Crosby says, was a living lion once; the living dog will be a dead dog some day. Goldilocks helps us to clear the issue. The real alternative is not between life and death; for life and death come in turn to dog and lion alike. The real question is between the canine and the leonine. Shall I live contemptibly or shall I live courageously?
'And I looked,' says the last of the Biblical writers, 'and behold, a lion—the Lion of the tribe of Juda!'
Like a lion He lived! With the courage of a lion He died! And in leonine splendor He moves through all the world above. Goldilocks had evidently made up her mind, in life and in death, to model her character and experience upon His!
New brooms, they say, sweep clean. The statement is scarcely worth challenging. It is ridiculous upon the face of it. How can new brooms sweep clean? New brooms do not sweep at all. If they sweep, they are not new brooms: they have been used; the dealer will not receive them back into stock; they are obviously second-hand. But I need not stress that point. My antagonism to the ancient saw rests on other grounds.
New brooms, they say, sweep clean. It is invariably a cynic who says it. He seizes the proverb as he would seize a bludgeon; and, with it, he makes a murderous attack on the first young enthusiast he happens to meet. It is a barbarous weapon, and can be wielded by an expert with deadly effects. It is a thousand times worse than a shillalah, a tomahawk, a baton, or a club; with either of these a man can break your head; but with the saying about the new broom he can break your heart. I well remember the public meeting at which I was formally welcomed to Mosgiel. Among the speakers was an old minister of the severely conservative type, with whom I subsequently grew very intimate.But at that stage, as he himself told me afterwards, he deeply resented my coming. He regarded it as an intrusion. He said, in the course of his speech, that he confidently expected to hear, during the next few months, the most glowing accounts of the work at the Mosgiel Church. That, he cruelly observed, was the usual thing. A young minister's first year among his people is, he remarked, a year ofadmiration; the second is a year oftoleration; and the third, a year ofabomination. New brooms, he said, sweep clean. The jest, I dare say, rolled from the memories of the people like water from a duck's back. I doubt if they gave it a second thought. They probably remarked to one another as they drove back to their farms that the old gentleman was in a droll humor. But, to me, his words were like the thrust of a sword; he stabbed me to the quick. There was never a day during those first three years at Mosgiel, but the wound ached and smarted. Long afterwards, I reminded the old gentleman of his jest; and he most solemnly assured me that he had not the slightest recollection of ever having uttered it. Which only proves that our thoughtless thrusts are often just as painful as our malicious ones. I have long since forgiven my old friend. Indeed, I do not know that I have much to forgive. For, after all, his stinging jibe only made me resolve to prove its falsity. For more than a thousand mornings I rose from my bed vowing that at the end of three years, and at the endof thirty, the broom should be sweeping as cleanly as ever. The old minister has been in his grave for many years now; and I have nothing but benedictions to heap upon his honored name.
The cult of the new broom is a most pernicious one. No heresy has done more harm. The woman who really believes that new brooms sweep clean will endeavor to keep the broom new as long as she possibly can. And that is not what brooms are for. Brooms are to use; and, as soon as you begin to use them, they cease to benewbrooms. The point is a vital one. About three hundred years ago, one of the choicest spirits in English history was passing away. George Macdonald says of him that one of the keenest delights of the life to come will be the joy of seeing the face of George Herbert 'with whom to talk humbly will be in bliss a higher bliss.' As George Herbert lay dying, he drew from beneath his pillow the roll of manuscripts that contained the poems that are now so famous. 'Deliver this,' he said, 'to my dear brother, Nicholas Ferrar, and tell him that he will find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that passed between God and my soul before I could subject my will to the will of Jesus my Master.' The verses were published, and have come to be esteemed as one of the priceless possessions of the Church universal. And among them, strangely enough, I find a striking reference to this matter of new brooms. 'What wretchedness,' George Herbert asks,
'What wretchedness can give him any roomWhose house is foul while he adores the broom?'
'What wretchedness can give him any roomWhose house is foul while he adores the broom?'
'What wretchedness can give him any room
Whose house is foul while he adores the broom?'
And here is George Herbert telling us on his death-bed that this reflects some deep spiritual conflict between God and his own soul! What can he mean? He means, of course, that it is possible to be so much in love with your new dress that you are afraid to wear it. You may be so enamored of your new spade that you shrink from soiling it. You may—to return to the poet's imagery—so adore your new broom that you allow all your floors to become dusty and foul.
And herein lies one of life's cardinal sins. In his lecture onThe Valley of Diamonds, John Ruskin discusses the nature of covetousness. What is covetousness? Wherein does it differ from the legitimate desire for wealth? Up to a certain point the desire for riches is admirable. It develops intellectual alertness in the individual, and, in the aggregate, builds up our national prosperity. If nobody wished to be rich, the resources of the country would never be exploited. Why should men trouble to clear the bush or sink mines or erect factories or cultivate farms? Apart from the lure of wealth we should be a people of sluggish wit and savage habits. Viewed in this light, the desire for wealth is not only pardonable; it is admirable. At what point does it curdle into covetousness and threaten our undoing? Ruskin draws the linesharply. The desire for wealth is good, he argues, as long as we havesome usefor the riches that we acquire; it deteriorates into mere covetousness as soon as we crave to possess it for the sheer sake of possessing it and apart from anyuseto which we propose to put it. 'Fix your desire on anything useless,' he says, 'and all the pride and folly of your heart will mix with that desire; and you will become at last wholly inhuman, a mere, ugly lump of stomach and suckers, like a cuttlefish.' John Ruskin's vigorous prose throws a flood of light on George Herbert's cryptic poetry. So far as I have it in my heart to use my new broom for the cleansing of my home and the comfort of my fellows, my new broom may be a means of grace to me and them; but, so far as I view the new broom merely as a possession, and irrespective of the service in which it should be worn out, my pride in it is bad as bad can be.
John Ruskin reminds me of Le Sage. 'Before reading the story of my life,' he makes Gil Blas to say, 'listen to a tale I am about to tell thee!' And then he tells of the two tired and thirsty students who, travelling together from Pennafiel to Salamanca, sat down by a roadside spring. Near the spring they noticed a flat stone, and on the stone they soon detected some letters. The inscription was almost effaced, partly by the teeth of time and partly by the feet of the flocks that came to water at the fountain. But, after washing it well, theywere able to make out the words 'Here is interred the soul of the Licentiate Peter Garcias.' The first of the students roared with laughter and treated the affair as purely a joke. 'Here lies asoul!'—what an idea! A soul under a stone! The second, however, took it more seriously and began to dig. He at length came upon a leather purse containing a hundred ducats, and a card, on which was written in Latin the following sentence: 'Thou who hast had wit enough to discover the meaning of the inscription, inherit my money, and make a better use of it than I have!'
'Thesoulof the Licentiate Peter Garcias!'
'Makea better useof it than I have!'
Poor Peter Garcias felt that his shining ducats had been a curse and not a blessing, because he had loved them for their own sake instead of for the sake of the use to which they could be put. 'Makea better useof them than I have!' he implored. Peter Garcias would have understood exactly what George Herbert meant by the worship of the new broom.
But I need not have gone abroad for my illustration. It is a far cry from George Herbert to George Eliot; yet George Eliot has furnished us with the most telling exposition of George Herbert's recondite remark. For George Eliot has given usSilas Marner. Indeed, she has given us two Silas Marners. We have Silas Marner the miser, gloating greedily over the guineas that he afterwards lost;and, later on, we have Silas Marner, strong, unselfish, tender-hearted, rejoicing in the wealth that he has now regained. Let us glance, first at the one and then at the other.
We peep at him as he appears in the second chapter. 'So, year after year, Silas Marner had lived in this solitude, his guineas rising in the iron pot, and his life narrowing and hardening itself more and more into a mere pulsation of desire and satisfaction that had no relation to any other being. His life had reduced itself to the functions of weaving and hoarding,without any contemplation of an end towards which the functions tended. Marner's face shrank; his eyes that used to look trusting and dreamy now looked as if they had been made to see only one kind of thing for which they hunted everywhere; and he was so withered and yellow that, although he was not yet forty, the children always called him "Old Master Marner."'
This was Silas Marner the miser! Then followed the loss of the money; the hoarded guineas were all stolen, and Silas was like a man demented! Then little Eppie stole into his home and heart. When he saw her for the first time, curled up on the hearth, the flickering firelight playing on her riot of golden hair, he thought his long-lost guineas had come back in this new form, and he lovedheras he had once lovedthem. He would take her on his knee and tell her wonderful stories, and,in the long summer evenings, would stroll out into the meadows, thick with buttercups, and would make garlands for her hair and teach her to distinguish the songs of the birds. And so the years go by till Eppie is a bonny girl of eighteen—always in trouble about her golden hair, for no other girl of her acquaintance has hair like it, and, smooth it as she may, it will not be hidden under her pretty brown bonnet. And then comes the great discovery. The pond in the Stone Pit runs dry, and in its slimy bed are found the skeleton of the thief and—the long-lost guineas! That evening Silas and Eppie sat together in the cottage. George Eliot describes the transfiguration which his love for Eppie had effected in the countenance of Silas. 'She drew her chair towards his knees, and leaned forward, holding both his hands, while she looked up at him.' On the table near them, lit by a candle, lay the recovered gold—the old long-loved gold, ranged in orderly heaps, as Silas used to range it in the days when it was his only joy. He had been telling her how he used to count it every night, and how his soul was utterly desolate till she was sent to him.
'Eh, my precious child,' he cried, 'if you hadn't been sent to save me, I should ha' gone to the grave in my misery. The money was taken away from me in time; and you see it's been kept—kept till it was wanted for you. It's wonderful—our life is wonderful!'
It is indeed! But the wonderful thing for usat this moment is the contrast between these two Silas Marners. They are both rich. But the first is rich and wretched; the second is rich and happy. And the secret! The secret is that, in his first possession of the guineas, he loved them for their own sake, irrespective of any use to which they could be put; in his subsequent possession of the self-same guineas he loved them for the sake of the happiness that they could purchase for Eppie.
ThefirstSilas Marner knew the wretchedness that George Herbert describes—the wretchedness of the man 'whose house is foul while he adores his broom'; thesecondSilas Marner was willing that the broom should be worn out in sweeping all the obstacles and difficulties out of Eppie's path.
In telling her story, George Eliot remarks incidentally that wiser men than Silas Marner often repeat his mistake. The only difference is that, while Silas Marner amassedmoneywithout considering the uses to which it could be put, these wiser misers accumulateknowledgein the same aimless way. They abandon themselves to some erudite research, some ingenious project or some well-knit theory; and it brings them little joy because it stands related to no actual need. It is a new broom and will remain a new broom; it will never brush away any of the world's sorrows or sweep together any of its long-lost treasures. Knowledge, like money, is a noble thing. But, as with money, so with knowledge, it derives its nobleness from theends which it is designed to compass. Every nation has a right to rejoice in its universities. The university is the glory of civilization. But, unless we keep both eyes wide open, the university may come to resemble the hole in the cottage floor in which Silas Marner hoarded his gold. Let the student of engineering remember that he is accumulating knowledge, not that he may possess more of it than his rivals and competitors, but that he may do more than they towards surmounting the obstacles that block the path of human progress. Let the medical student remember that he is amassing knowledge, not that he may flourish the academic distinctions he has won, but that he may lessen the sum of human anguish and save human life. And let the theological student reflect that he is winning for himself a scholarly renown, not that he may rejoice in his attainments and distinctions for their own sake, but that, by means of them, he may the more effectively and skillfully lead all kinds and conditions of men into the kingdom and service of his Lord.
And so I come back to my starting-point. The broom that sweeps clean is not a new broom. After commencing this chapter I happened to pick up a report of the British and Foreign Bible Society. On one of its pages I find a story told by the society's colporteur at Port Said. He boarded an incoming steamer, and, on the lower deck, found a German sailor sweeping out a cabin. The man was greatlydepressed. In the course of conversation, each claimed to be a greater sinner than the other.
'What!' exclaimed the sailor, 'why, you are the first man to tell me that he is a greater sinner than I am!'
He took a Gospel from the colporteur's hands and began to read.
'Ah,' he sighed, 'that I were a little child again and could read it with a clean heart!'
The remark was overheard by some of his shipmates.
'Is thatyou, Jansen?' they asked; 'what wonder has happened to you?'
'No wonder at all,' the man replied. 'I want to sweep out my heart, and I am buying a broom!'
The broom that he bought is by no means a new one, but it sweeps wonderfully clean for all that!