Education by Children

Will Levington Comfort

Alittle girl of eleven was working here in the study through the long forenoon. In the midst of it, we each looked up and out through the barred window to the nearest elm, where a song-sparrow had just finished a perfect expression of the thing as he felt it. The song was more elaborate, perhaps, because the morning was lofty and glorious. Old Mother Nature smelled like a tea-rose that morning; one would know from that without the sense of direction that the wind was from the south. The song from the sunlight among the new elm leaves was so joyous that it choked us. It stood out from all the songs of the morning, because it was so near, and we had each been called by it from the pleasant mystery of our tasks.

The little girl leaned toward the window. We heard the other bird answer from the distance, and thenourssang again—and again. We sipped the ecstacy in the hushes. Like a flicker the little bird was gone—a leaning forward on the branch, and then a blur ... and presently the words in the room:

“... sang four songs and flew away.”

It was a word-portrait, and told me much that I wanted. The number, of course, was not mental, clearly a part of the inner impression. However, no explanation will help if the art of the saying is not apparent. I told the thing as it is here, to a class later in the day, and a woman said:

“Why, those six words make a Japanese poem.”

I wonder if it is oriental? Rather I think it belongs especially to our new generation, the elect of which seems to know innately that an expression of truth in itself is a master-stroke. Somehow the prison-house has not closed altogether upon the elect of the new generation. There are lines in the new poetry that could come forth, and have their being, only from theinner giant that heretofore has been asleep except in the hearts of the rarest few whose mothers mated with Gods, merely using men for a symbol and the gift of matter....

As I believe that the literary generation which has the floor in America today is the weakest and the bleakest that ever made semi-darkness of good sunlight, so I believe that the elect of the new generation contains individuals who are true heaven-borns; that they bring their own light with them and do not stand about stretched for reflection; that they refuse to allow the world-lie to shut the passages of power within them, between the zone of dreams and the more temperate zones of matter. They have refused to accept us—that is the splendid truth.

The new generation does not argue with us. They are not a race of talkers. They do not accept what they find and begin to build upon that, as all but the masters have done heretofore. They are making even their own footings and abutments. And to such clean and sure beginnings magic strength has come. The fashions and the mannerisms which we knew and thought of as the heart of things; the artfulness of speech and written word, the age of advertising which twisted its lie into the very physical structure of our brains; the countless reserves and covers to hide our want of inspiration (for light cannot pass through a twisted passage)—all these, the new age has put away. It meets life face to face—and a more subtle and formidable devil is required for its workers than that which seduced us.

The few great workmen heretofore have come up in the lie, and in midlife, the sutures closing—they were warned because they had labored like men. For their work’s sake and for their religion, which is the same to great men, they perceived that they must tear the lie out of their hearts, even if they bled to death. We call it their illumination, but it was a very deep and dark passage for them.Except that ye become as little children—that was all they knew, perhaps, but quite enough.... And the old masters invariably put their story down for us to read: Rodin, Puvis de Chavannes, Whitman, Balzac, Tolstoi—only to mention a little group of the nearer names—all have told the story. In their later years they told no other story.

In the beginning they served men, as they fancied men wanted to be served, but after they confronted the lie of it, they dared to listen to reality from their own nature. They fought the fight for that cosmic simplicity which is the natural flowering of the child mind, and which modern education patronizingly dresses down at every appearance. The masters wrenched open with all their remaining strength the doors of the prison-house, and become more and more like children unto the end.

... I do not ask a finer fate than to write about theNew AgeandChildrenandEducation by ChildrenforThe Little Review. I think ofyouas one of its throbbing centers. I can say it better than that—Ithink of you as a brown Arabian tent in which the world’s desire is just rousing from sleep. I would like to be one of the larks of the morning, whose song makes it impossible for you to doze again. I would not come too near—lest you find me old, the brandings of past upon me. Yet because of the years, I think I know what will be that “more formidable and subtle devil” waiting to make you forget your way.

He is not a stranger. He is always near when people dare to be simple. There are many who call him a God still, but they do not use their eyes. You who see so directly must never forget that bad curve of him below the shoulders. Forever, the artists lying to themselves have tried to cover that bad curve of Pan as it sweeps down into the haunches of a goat. Pan is the first devil you meet when you reach that rectitude of heart which dares to be naked and unashamed.

Whole races of artists have lied about Pan because they listened to the haunting music of his pipes. It calls sweetly, but does not satisfy. How many Pan has called—and left them sitting among the rocks with mindless eyes and hands that fiddle with emptiness!... Pan is so sad and level-eyed. He does not explain. He does not promise—too wise for that. He lures and enchants. He makes you pity him with a pity that is red as the lusts of flesh.

You know that red in the breast! It is the red that drives away the dream of peace, yet the pity of him deludes you. You look again and again, and the curve of his back does not break the dream, as before. You think that because you pity him, you cannot fall; and all the pull of the ground tells you that yourvery thought of fallingis a breath from the old shames—your dead, but as yet unburied heritage, from generations that learned the lie to itself.

You touch the hair of the goat, and say it is Nature. But Pan is not Nature—a hybrid, half of man’s making, rather. Your eyes fall to the cloven hoof, but return to the level steady eye, smiling with such soft sadness that your heart quickens for him, and you listen, as he says: “All Gods have animal bodies and cloven hoofs, but I alone have dared to reveal mine.” ... “How brave you are!” Your heart answers, and the throb of him bewilders you with passion.... You who are so high must fall far, when you let go.

... And many of you will want to fall. Pan has come to you because youdare.... You have murdered the old shames, you have torn down the ancient and mouldering churches. You do not require the blood, the thorn, the spikes, but I wonder if even you of a glorious generation, do not still require the Cross?... It is because you see so surely and are level-eyed that Pan is back in the world for you; and it is very strange but true that you must first meet Pan and pass him by, before you can enter into the woodlands with that valid God of Nature, whose back is a challenge to aspiration, and whose feet are of the purity of the saints.

Beautiful slave,I kiss your lips abloom—Do you not hear the surging voicesBeyond the tombWherein you guard the candles of the dead?Do you not hear the winds that crownThe towers with cloudsDancing up and down,Fluttering your shrouds?Do you not hear the music of the dawn,The strong exultant voices swelling,Welling like the sweep of eager birdsBeyond your somber dwellingWhere each somber wall enclosing flingsBack in your earThe moaning passion of dead things?Beautiful slave,I kiss your parted lips abloom.O the splendor of the voids beyondThe stifling tombWherein you keep your vigil by the dead.You are too weary-spiritedTo look at dawn, too tired-eyed to look upon the sun,Too weak to stand against the winds.What then? Farewell? No, let me—I will find the face of GodWith you among the worms.Anon.

Beautiful slave,I kiss your lips abloom—Do you not hear the surging voicesBeyond the tombWherein you guard the candles of the dead?

Beautiful slave,

I kiss your lips abloom—

Do you not hear the surging voices

Beyond the tomb

Wherein you guard the candles of the dead?

Do you not hear the winds that crownThe towers with cloudsDancing up and down,Fluttering your shrouds?Do you not hear the music of the dawn,The strong exultant voices swelling,Welling like the sweep of eager birdsBeyond your somber dwellingWhere each somber wall enclosing flingsBack in your earThe moaning passion of dead things?

Do you not hear the winds that crown

The towers with clouds

Dancing up and down,

Fluttering your shrouds?

Do you not hear the music of the dawn,

The strong exultant voices swelling,

Welling like the sweep of eager birds

Beyond your somber dwelling

Where each somber wall enclosing flings

Back in your ear

The moaning passion of dead things?

Beautiful slave,I kiss your parted lips abloom.O the splendor of the voids beyondThe stifling tombWherein you keep your vigil by the dead.You are too weary-spiritedTo look at dawn, too tired-eyed to look upon the sun,Too weak to stand against the winds.What then? Farewell? No, let me—I will find the face of GodWith you among the worms.

Beautiful slave,

I kiss your parted lips abloom.

O the splendor of the voids beyond

The stifling tomb

Wherein you keep your vigil by the dead.

You are too weary-spirited

To look at dawn, too tired-eyed to look upon the sun,

Too weak to stand against the winds.

What then? Farewell? No, let me—

I will find the face of God

With you among the worms.

Anon.

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