I AM not given to the use of postscripts, but I indulged myself with one in the last letter I wrote to you. It reminds me of the onlybon motto which I can lay claim. When I was about six years old, my mother and I were visiting an aunt of mine, and, one evening, my mother read aloud to my aunt a letter she had just received. It was lengthy, and no doubt interesting to the two ladies, while the contents were probably beyond my comprehension. “Little pigs have long ears,” and I noticed that, at the conclusion of the letter, my mother read “P.S.,” and then some final sentences. Immediately afterwards I was ordered to bed, and, once there, my mother came to see me. My small mind was full of this new idea, and I was thirsting for information as to the meaning of these mysterious letters. Therefore, when my mother hadbid me good night and was going away, I said, “Mother, what doesP.S.mean; is it Parting Subject?” She smiled and said, “No, the letters stand forpost scriptum, but the meaning is not very different.” She afterwards helped me to wrestle with the Latin grammar, and in time I arrived at the exact translation ofpost scriptum, but my childish rendering ofP.S.would do just as well. I was made to bitterly regret having ever suggested it; for, when my proud mother told the story, my various brothers and sisters, separately and collectively, insisted that some one had told me to say it, and I am not sure that they did not, each in turn, give me a thrashing to impress upon me the vice of “trying to be sharp.” When children have brothers and sisters, their schooling begins early and lasts a long time—fortunately for themselves and the world at large.
That, however, has nothing to do with the matter I was going to write about. I suppose you sometimes look through those galleries of garments which begin and end ladies’ journals, just as I occasionally glance at the advertisements of new books, which I find at the end of a modern novel. The other day I was idly turning over the pages of such a series of advertisements (each page devotedto one book, and quotations from the newspaper reviews of it), and I could not help noticing how, in the case of every book, if not in everycritique, the author was compared with some well-known writer—Dickens, Thackeray, George Meredith, Zola, Ibsen, De Maupassant—it does not seem to matter who it is, so long as it is some one. As for Mr. Rudyard Kipling, a writer who mentions India, China, Japan, Siam, the French or Dutch Indies, or any place within two or three thousand miles of them, is certain to find himself compared with the astonishingly talented author of “Soldiers Three,” “The Drums of the Fore and Aft,” and a dozen other tales that had made Mr. Kipling famous in India years before his name had been heard in the West.
I know that whenever we visit a new place, we have a ridiculous desire to compare it with some totally different spot that is familiar to us; and I suppose we make the comparison, either because we want to show that we have been somewhere and seen something, or because we are so devoid of ideas or language to express them, that this comparison is our only means of description. Like London, only bigger; Petersburg in winter, but not so cold; bluer than the Mediterranean, and so on. It seems to imply poverty of resource; but if to helpreaders to realise the appearance of a spot in New Zealand, that place is compared with the Carse of Stirling, the information is not of much use to those who do not know their Scotland.
Is it the same with literary critics? Hardly, I fancy; because even though they write easily of Lake Toba, the Thibetan highlands, or more or less known writers, it can’t give them any real satisfaction, for their own names are but seldom disclosed.
Enlightened people who attend places of Christian worship, often wish that the occupant of the pulpit would read a sermon by some great divine, rather than stumble through an original discourse, which possibly arouses only the scorn, the resentment, or the pity of his hearers. The preacher who is conscious of his own want of eloquence, or realises that the spring of his ideas trickles in the thinnest and most uncertain of streams, may seek to improve his language, or replenish his own exhausted stock of subjects, by studying the sermons of abler men. I doubt if he is greatly to be blamed. Some illustrious writers have won renown after a diligent study of the works of dead authors, and a suggestion of the style of a famous master may be observable in the work of his admirer; just as a modern painter may, consciously or unconsciously, follow the methods,the composition, or the colour schemes of a genius who has given his name to a school of imitators. It would, however, be a little unreasonable to compare all play-writers with Shakespeare, all essayists with Macaulay. If there is nothing new under the sun, two or more men or women, contemporaries, may have the same ideas on a given subject without either being open to a charge of plagiarism. They may express the same ideas differently, or put different ideas in somewhat the same style of language: both may have drawn inspiration from a more or less original source, not generally known or quoted—in all these cases comparisons may be, and often are, simply inept. Some subjects are not yet entirely exhausted, and while it is interesting to compare the different views of recognised authorities, it is annoying to both writers and readers to find that the highest flight of criticism of a new work seems often to consist in mentioning the names of other writers on the same subject—as though it were, in a sense, their personal property, or they had some vested interest in it, by reason of discovery or continual harping on that particular theme. I suppose reviewers, except in a few instances, have no time to really read the books they criticise, and judge them on their merits; but, if they could, itwould be more satisfactory to possible readers, who, as things are, can form very little opinion of what a book contains, its relative value or worthlessness, from statements like this, which purports to be an extract from a review in a leading London paper:—
“The opening chapters have a savour of Dickens; the climax is almost Zolaesque.”
“The opening chapters have a savour of Dickens; the climax is almost Zolaesque.”
Or this:—
“The knowledge of character revealed reminds us of George Eliot’s ‘Scenes of Clerical Life.’”
“The knowledge of character revealed reminds us of George Eliot’s ‘Scenes of Clerical Life.’”
You will think that one who wanders from an infantile legend about the wordpostscriptto a growl anent newspaper reviews, is indifferently qualified to criticise any one or anything. As a letter-writer I acknowledge that I am inconsequent. I do not even seek to be otherwise.
OH! Oh! Oh! What a storm! But are you not a little unreasonable?
You are not a circulating library, you say, nor a railway book-stall; you don’t want to hear tales of forest and flood which have no personal interest for you or me; and you cannot carry on a correspondence with a phrase-book, a thing that has no existence as a human being, and, when not lecturing you, or taking advantage of your good-nature to air boring platitudes, is doling out little stories to you, as though you were a child in a Sunday School.
My dear lady, I hope that you feel better after that tirade; but as you have attacked me with violence, and at all points at once, I claim the right to defend myself, and again I say you are unreasonable. We were never strangers to each other, or so it seems to me, but circumstances and a certainmental attraction drew us into friendship. In the delight of your society I realised what it would be to me if, through that friendship, I might win your affection. I even dreamed that I might compel the impossible, and attain to an earthly paradise of sweet alliance whence no mortal promises and no inspired writings could ever win me.
Whilst we dream of life’s big possibilities, its little duties drive us where they will. We were parted, and, if I do not now remind you of that time, it is because I know that there are few things a woman hates more than to be told she once, by word or deed, showed any tender feeling for a man who no longer holds the same place in her regard. You went and I stayed; you spoke and I believed; and what I did not say was only what you told me not to repeat, lest parting should seem over-hard to bear. Then I wrote and you wrote, and, at first, your letters were so fine a gift that they almost consoled me for your absence, and, in my great gratitude, I wrote some of the thoughts of my inmost heart. My fervour seemed to frighten you, and the chill of your surroundings came through your letters to me. It may have been the fault of those about you; it may have been that you were tried beyond endurance, possibly even that I, insome indirect way, was a cause of your distress. But you never said so; you never took me into your confidence and frankly told me you were in any trouble; only your letters went through those phases which I, once, cynically suggested were the common fate of those whose friendship could not survive a real separation. I was too slow to at once trim my sails to the varying breeze, nor could I call back letters which were already on their way. Therefore I fell under your displeasure, and you ordered me to write only of “the daily round, the common task.” I obeyed you, as nearly as I was able. When you asked me to tell you of what I saw, of what I was doing, I attempted to do so, and to make the telling as little personal as I could. To weary you with the trivialities of my daily life, to describe to you the wearisome people I met, thebanalitésthey uttered—that was beyond me. Therefore, to try and interest you, I gave you the best of what had interested me, and even that was only done with some sacrifice, for you know my time is not all my own. Naturally those letters were empty of personal reference. To have written of myself would have been to write of you, and that might have brought down on my head another storm of invective. I am in the position of theburnt child: I dread the fire. Even now I dare not accept your invitation. I might write, and, before the letter could reach you, receive from you another missive, telling me your present letter was written under an impulse you regret but cannot explain, and that of course it meant nothing. You would add that you delight in the discussion of abstract questions, and queer little stories are, to you, as rain to dry land. Then I can imagine the sternly traced characters of that other destroying scroll, in which you would sum up the tale of my sins, after reading such a letter as I might send in answer to your present message of discontent and provocation. So, I warn you. I shall give you time to think; in spite of your scoffing, I shall continue to write to you as I have done in these latter days; and then—and then—your blood be on your own head. If the outward cold of damp and fog, of weeks of sunless gloom and surroundings of rain-drenched rows of hideous dwellings, muddy roads, sullen skies, and leaden seas produce what you no doubt think is a virtuous frame of mind, when the state of the crops and the troubles of the farmers are the only matters with which a conscience-burdened woman can occupy her mind, I shall pander to your appetite, and write to you of famineand plague, the prospects of the poppy (the opium poppy, you understand) and I will even stretch a point to discuss the silver question and the fate of the rupee. If, on the other hand, you throw discretion to the winds; if in that atmosphere where you say you are always frozen, “outside and in,” you pine for a glimpse of sunlight; if you like to watch a conflagration when at a safe distance from the flames, or even if the contortions of the cockchafer, when impaled by the pin, excite your amusement;—then also I will help you to realise these very reasonable wishes. Yes, then I will write you a love-letter that will be but a poor substitute for the impassioned words that should stir your heart, were once my lips within reach of yours.
Even from here I see you smile; even now I hear you say, “Well, write—after all vivisection has benefited the race, and the contortions of the cockchafer will perhaps distract one’s attention for a moment from the eternal monotony of the narrow life.”
IN order that I may keep on perfectly safe ground, and successfully resist the temptation to depart from my resolve, I will tell you a story of my visit to Burmah, where, wandering aimlessly, I found an old friend in a distinguished Indian civilian, who invited me to accompany him on a tour of inspection. I gladly accepted his invitation, and we had been travelling for some time, driving, riding, walking, and, finally, after rafting over a magnificent series of rapids, had been some days paddling down the river in house-boats, when we reached a remote inland station called Phatmah. I caught my first view of the place as our boat swung round a bend in the great river, disclosing a reach of brown water, enclosed between high, jungle-covered banks, and shut in, at the end, by a green hill, crowned by a plank bungalow with a mat roof.
The boat was soon alongside the rough landing-stage,where a young civilian, introduced as Basset, was waiting to receive his chief. We climbed the steep hill, and Basset conducted us to the house devoted to our shelter for the couple of days we were to spend at Phatmah.
In my two days’ stay there, I had ample opportunities of seeing the place, and realising its few attractions and its many drawbacks. There was a tiny native village on the bank of one of the two streams that here united in one great river, and flowed in stately, ever-widening progress for over two hundred miles before it reached the sea: two hundred miles of virgin forest, save for the native villages and clearings that lined the banks at uncertain intervals. A few jungle tracks leading to distant mines were the only apology for roads; the river was the real highway, and the sole means of transport were native boats. Comfortable enough, these boats, for men used to jungle travel; flat and wide, with a palm-leaf roof, the fore-part occupied by the crew, the after-part by passengers. There was a deck of boards or split bamboos, and you could only move about it by crawling on your hands and knees. Entrance and exit were accomplished by the same means. A door, at the back of the enclosed after-deck, led on to a bambooframe over the rudder; the steersman sat on the palm-leaf awning, and the only privacy was obtained by hanging a screen between crew and passengers. There was room for two mattresses on the after-deck, and there the passengers sat or lay through the blazing heat of the tropical day and the star-lit stillness of the Burmese night.
At this station there dwelt, besides Basset, an officer of police, another concerned with public works, and an apothecary in charge of a hospital. That was all. Their quarters were dotted about on the high land behind Basset’s bungalow. For the rest, the eye was met by jungle—near and far—endless jungle, and the river-reach. Silent and placid the waters, moving along in brown eddies, when, as now, the river was in flood; clear and shallow, disclosing groups of rocks dotted about the bed, in what was called the dry season.
At the time of our visit it was spring, and the jungle, especially in certain parts of the mountainous country, was a truly marvellous sight. The forest had put on its wedding garment, and the new leaves of many, even of most of the trees, were dazzling in the brilliance of their colouring. The prevailing hues were red and yellow; but then there were shades of red and of yellow that one never seemedto have dreamed of, such quantity, such intensity that the eyes almost ached with gazing at the glory of it all.
One is struck, especially in the East, by the wonder of flowering trees, or the striking creepers that cling to the tops of forest giants; but imagine these same trees in all their height, their wealth of foliage, and beauty of form, one mass of colour! There were trees of delicate lemon, of brilliant cadmium, of deepest orange; trees of such crimson that every leaf looked as though it were dripping with fresh blood; trees of copper and pale pink, of terra-cotta and scarlet—all these in one pure colour, or intermingled with every shade of green from palest apple, through varying tones of emerald, to the shining dark leaves that seemed all but black. Dotted about, here and there, stood trees of some shade of brown, or graceful forms clothed in darker or paler heliotrope. The virgin Eastern forest is a sight to see, but the glory of the jungle in the first freshness of spring leafage is a revelation.
That jungle was one of the attractions of Phatmah;—not monopolised by Phatmah, only shared, and not to so large an extent as by a thousand other places nearer the great hills.
Then there was the river reach, where all daylong the shadows crept gradually closer under one bank as they were projected from the other; while now and then a native boat passed up or down the river, and, for a few minutes, broke the melancholy of that changeless stretch of water. The sunsets made the last, and perhaps the greatest attraction of Phatmah. Then, in the after-glow, great beams of light would rise, fan-like, from east and west, almost meeting in the zenith, and leave, between their rays, sharply-defined, heavenly roads of deepest blue; while the soft white clouds, riding through the sky, took shades of gold and rose and pearly-grey, until the stars shone out and set all the cicadas shrilling a chorus to waken every other denizen of the jungle.
Sunsets cannot be commanded; they are intermittent, and, though they are comforting—in a way—they do not always come when they are most wanted. In Phatmah it would rain in torrents on the evening that you had set your heart upon seeing a gorgeous sunset, and, when it did not rain, it was hotter than in almost any other spot in Burmah, and that is saying a great deal. Moreover, it was as dull probably as any place on earth, except to the three white men who lived there and had their work to do, or whose business took them, weekly, or atleast monthly, into some other more or less desolate part of the district.
I noted these things in that first day I was at Phatmah, while my friend and Basset were talking about roads to be made and buildings constructed, natives to be encouraged or sat upon, dacoits harried, and all the things that make the life of the exiled English officer in the outermost parts of the Empire. I also observed Basset. I knew he had a wife, a girl whom he had just married, when at home on leave in England, and who was now in that house, across the grass, a hundred yards away. I had not seen Basset’s wife, but I had heard of her from some who had met her, before she left the last confines of civilisation and started for what must in future be her home. What I had heard made it seem unlikely that Mrs. Basset would reconcile herself to jungle life, and, when I understood Phatmah, I thought it would be very surprising if such a miracle could be wrought for the sake of Basset.
Basset was a most excellent fellow, a good officer, good to look at, lithe and well-made, a man who had found favour with his seniors and was likely to do well. He was young, but that was a fault for which he was not responsible, and one that everyday was curing. And yet, when I saw Phatmah, I thought Basset had been unwise, and when I saw his wife, as I did the next day, I felt certain of it.
I had been told she was very young in years and child-like at that, nervous to the last degree, selfish, unreasonable, full of fancies, and rather pretty—but the one or two ladies who were my informants differed as to this last important particular.
What I saw for myself, when I went to call upon “the only lady in Phatmah,” was this: a glory of fair waving hair framing a young, but not very youthful face; a pallid complexion, and features where nothing specially appealed for admiration; a voice that was not more than pleasant, and a figure that, while verypetite, seemed well enough shapen, as far as could be seen under the garment of silk and lace that must have been the first of its kind to visit Phatmah. The house did not strike me as showing more than the evidences of a young man’s anxiety to make it what he would call “fit for a lady”; but then the resources of Phatmah were strictly limited, the Bassets had only just, so to speak, arrived, and things entrusted to the tender mercies of river transport were often months upon the way. On the whole there was nothing aboutMrs. Basset to excite either sympathy or interest, if you had met her in any civilised place; but as the only white woman in Phatmah, come here to gain her first real experiences of life, scared by frogs and lizards, and terrified by the many insects that fly straight at you and stick on your hair, your face, your clothes, one could not help feeling that the experiment, if not a cruel one to her, was at least thoughtless, and, if persisted in, might end in disaster.
My friend and I exerted ourselves that afternoon and evening (for the Bassets dined with us) to put as good a complexion as we could on Burmah in general and Phatmah in particular; and though, to the ordinary spectator, we might have appeared to succeed fairly well, I carried away with me vague suspicions, born of my own observation and the conversation I had had with the lady as we sat and looked over that jungle-shrouded river-reach, while the path to the stars grew an ever-deepening blue, and she told me somewhat of herself and her life. There was no doubt that she not onlylookeddissatisfied, but felt it, and said it, and took credit for her candour. Then she complained that Phatmah offered no opportunities for “getting into mischief,” but that was probablymerely another way of saying that she was utterly bored; and, in truth, when she asked if I could conceive a greater dulness, the trite reply that she had her husband stuck in my throat, and I admitted that it was immeasurably dull, but talked cheerfully of what it would be when communication with the outside world was easier, and then fell to asking her if she read, or played, or sang, or sketched, as Phatmah seemed to be the very place for study, or the practice of accomplishments. She pleaded that she was too lately from school to hanker after study, but became almost enthusiastic on the subject of music.
Then ourtête-à-têtewas interrupted, and in the evening the only thing that struck me was that, for a girl so lately from school, our guest drank rather more in quantity and variety than was usual, and whenever in the after-days my thoughts went back to Phatmah, I remembered this with an uncomfortable feeling of the awful loneliness of that reach of brown river, the boundless forest, and the girl, left for days to her own devices, and the possibility of “getting into mischief” by drowning a craving, not for excitement so much as for the companionship of her kind.
A hundred miles below Phatmah the river woundthrough the plains in long reaches, six or seven miles in length; the country was more open, and the banks were occasionally fringed with palms and orchards surrounding the huts of a native hamlet. The moon was waxing to the full, and, sitting at the stern of my boat, looking back up the long stretch of water bathed in mellow light, till the wide band of silver narrowed to a point that vanished in grey mist, I could not help thinking that, even here, the sense of loneliness, of monotony, and banishment, was less acute than in Phatmah’s forest-bound clearing.
Years passed, and I was again in Burmah, this time with an object. I had forgotten all about the Bassets: one does not remember people who live in the East, only the places that are striking, and the things seen or heard of that may become profitable in one way or another. I thought of my friend, because he might be able to help me, but he was away in another part of the province and I had to journey alone. Officials are useful on their own ground, and even when they are not personal friends, they are, in the East at any rate, ready enough to be hospitable. The advantage of “entertaining angels unawares” is, however, all on their side, andguests so soon recognise this fact, that they feel under no obligation to their hosts, and seldom wish to remember them if they meet them in Europe. This is specially the case with English notabilities, who seem to think that they have a prescriptive right, not only to waste a man’s time, but also to use his house, stables, and servants, as at an hotel where the visitor exercises every privilege except that of making payment. Unfortunately for me, I had to go beyond the region of even occasional civilians, those isolated exiles whose houses the stranger occupies, whether the master is present or absent, and for some days I had to put up with the Dâk Bungalow and the chicken of happy despatch.
It was the very hottest time of the morning when I arrived at such a bungalow in a small mining village. I had been riding since dawn, and was glad enough to turn into that weedy compound and get off my pony. Whew! the heat of it! The two or three sinewy hens, which by-and-by would be slaughtered to make the traveller’s holiday, were sitting half-buried and wallowing in the dust, with their wings spread out and their mouths open, gasping for breath. It was a day when solids liquefy, when inanimate objects develop an extraordinary faculty for sticking to each other, andwhen water no longer feels wet. There was not a sign of any human being anywhere, and I went round to the back premises to try and find the caretaker. After a diligent search I discovered him, fast asleep of course, and, while he went to prepare a room, I unsaddled the pony and put it in the stable. Then I went into the house and told the servant to get me some food while I had a bath. The process of catching the hen and cooking her was a long one, and I was sleeping in a chair when the man came to tell me the feast was ready. I had an idea that I was not alone in the house, and, when I questioned the caretaker, he said that there was a lady who had arrived the night before and had not appeared that morning. Our means of conversation was limited to a few words, and I could not make out who the lady was, or even whether he knew her; but it seemed to me a curious thing that a white woman should be there, and I supposed she came from one of the big ruby mines; but even then it was strange that she should be alone. I made further inquiries about the neighbourhood, and learned that I was not more than a day’s journey from Phatmah. I knew it was somewhere about, but had not thought it so near; it was not on the line of my objective, and I was notinterested in its exact position. Then some of my bearers arrived with luggage, and I deliberately settled myself for a siesta.
It was late afternoon when I awoke, and I determined to push on to another small place, which I could just reach before darkness made further progress impossible. Even a short stage by night would be preferable to the frightful heat and the oppressive atmosphere of this lonely house, in its neglected and overgrown garden, where one lean chicken now scratched alone. Just then the caretaker came to me and asked my advice about the other guest. He had seen and heard nothing of her for the whole day, and was afraid there must be something amiss. That, I felt, was extremely likely, especially when he told me he had knocked at the door of her room and received no answer. I did not at all like the mission, but there was nothing for it but to go and see what was the matter. A few steps took us to the door of the lady’s room, and I knocked, first gently, then loudly, but no sound broke the ominous silence. Then I turned the handle, only to find that the door was locked. As I could not force it open without making a great clatter, I went outside to try the windows. There were two of these some height from the ground, andit was difficult to get at them. The first was fast, and from my insecure footing I could not force it; but with the second I was more fortunate, and as a half-shutter sprang open, and a stream of light poured into the dark room, I saw the form of a girl, or woman, lying on the bed, in an attitude that somehow did not suggest sleep. I shouted at her, but she never moved, and then I climbed into the room. I noticed instantly that there was hardly anything lying about the ill-furnished room, but, on a small table near the bed, was an almost empty brandy bottle and a glass. The woman was dressed in a blouse and skirt, the only things she had taken off being apparently her hat and shoes. She had her back towards me, and the sunlight centred on a mass of fair hair and gave it a deeper tinge. Before I put my hand on her cold fingers I felt certain she was dead, and as I gently turned her head and recognised in the now grey features the face of the only white woman in Phatmah, I don’t think I was very much surprised, though I was terribly shocked. Held tightly in her other hand was a small empty bottle that had once held chloral, and the faint sickly smell of it hung in the heavy stifling atmosphere of that bare and comfortless room. Poor lonely child, she had managed to “get into mischief” after all.
YOU have sent me the answer which I expected. Now tell me how to write a love-letter that shall speak no word of love—a letter as full of the passion, the boundless adoration, and the faith of love, as the Chaurapanchâsika, those fifty distichs of Chauras that proclaimed his forbidden worship of the lovely daughter of King Sundava. The Brahman’s lament won the king’s heart and saved the poet’s life; and I would learn of you how to win a heart, and perhaps save more than one life from shipwreck. After all, our civilisation may, in its comparative refinement, be more cruel than the unfettered caprice of an Eastern king nineteen centuries ago. Tell me, tell me, you who know, how can pen and ink be made to speak with the force and persuasion of spoken words, when half the world divides the writer from the reader of poor halting sentences that must, ofnecessity, leave unsaid all that the heart yearns to utter?
When eye can look into eye, when the stretched-out hand meets a responsive touch,—timid and uncertain, or confident with the knowledge of passionate love passionately returned,—the words that are spoken may be feeble, but the influence of a loved presence will carry conviction, and one voice awaken in one heart the music of the spheres. Then the dullest day is bright, the lovers’ feet tread on air, day is a joy and night a gladness, or at least a dream of delight. Then life is divided between anticipation and reality. No wonder the hours fly on wings; no wonder the thoughts suggested by brief absences are forgotten in the wonder and delight of briefer meetings, till the dread moment of separation comes, and aching hearts too late realise the appalling suddenness of the actual parting and the ceaseless regret for opportunities lost. You understand that my thoughts are not of the devout lover who is going through a short apprenticeship before signing a bond of perpetual servitude or partnership, as the case may be. That is a phase which, if it occasionally deserves sympathy, seldom receives it; indeed, it hardly awakens interest, except in those who wish to seethe preliminaries concluded, that their interest in the principals may either cease, and give themselves more freedom, or begin, and bring them some profit. I appeal to you to tell me how to keep alive the divine flame when oceans and continents divide two loving hearts; how to tell of longing and bitter regret, of faith and love and worship, when such words may not be written; how to make personal influence felt across five seas and through many weary months; how to kill doubt and keep strong and faithful a priceless love, against which the stars in their courses may seem ready to fight; how, above all, to help one who needs help, and warm sympathy, and wise advice, so that, if it be possible, she may escape some of life’s misery and win some of life’s joy.
Journeying through this weary old world, who has not met the poor struggling mortal, man or woman, old or young, for whom the weal or woe of life hangs in the balance, to turn one way or the other, when the slightest weight is cast into either scale? Who has not been asked for sympathy or advice, or simply to lend an ear to the voice of a hopeless complaint? Some feel the iron in their souls far more keenly than others. While the strong fight, the weak succumb, and the shallow do notgreatly mind, after they have gone through a short torture of what seems to them profound emotion. But in their case sympathy is rather wasted, for, however violent their grief, their tears are soon dried, and it must have been written for them that “joy cometh with the morning.”
You know what it is when the heart seems to struggle for more freedom, because it is choking with a love it may not, or will not, express; when, in the absence of one face, all other companionship is irksome, all conversation stale and unprofitable; when daylight wearies and night is cruelly welcome, because the struggle to play a part, and pretend an interest one does not feel, is over, and one stretches out one’s arms to the darkness, and whispers, “Come to me,” to ears that cannot hear. What strange unnatural creatures we are, for we stifle the voices of our souls, and seem to delight in torturing ourselves for the sake of some idea born of a tradition, the value of which we dare not even submit to the test of argument. If in response to your heart’s cry there came the one whose presence you desire, you would instantly torture yourself rather than confess your message. Whatever it cost you, you would not only pretend that the sudden appearance of the greatly belovedwas the last thing you wished for, but you might even send him away with the impression that he had deeply offended you. And yet—Ah well! this artificial fortress we take such pains to build, and to keep in repair, is not proof against every assault. There are crises of life—an imminent danger, the presence or appearance of death, a sudden and irresistible wave of passionate feeling, or a separation that has no promise of reunion—before these the carefully constructed rampart of convention and outward seeming goes down like a house of cards.
“When a beloved hand is laid in ours,When, jaded by the rush and glareOf the interminable hours,Our eyes within another’s eyes see clear;When one world-deafened earIs by the tones of a loved voice caressed,A bolt is shot back somewhere in the heart,And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again;The eye sinks inward and the heart lies plain,And what we mean we say,And what we would we know.”
“When a beloved hand is laid in ours,When, jaded by the rush and glareOf the interminable hours,Our eyes within another’s eyes see clear;When one world-deafened earIs by the tones of a loved voice caressed,A bolt is shot back somewhere in the heart,And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again;The eye sinks inward and the heart lies plain,And what we mean we say,And what we would we know.”
“When a beloved hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded by the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,
Our eyes within another’s eyes see clear;
When one world-deafened ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed,
A bolt is shot back somewhere in the heart,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again;
The eye sinks inward and the heart lies plain,
And what we mean we say,
And what we would we know.”
There was a day which, to me, will ever be my day of days—halcyon hours of joy and gladness, coloured by a setting of wondrous beauty, and burdened by the fateful shadow of an inevitable parting that would, in all human probability, be the point where two lives, which had grown strangelyand sweetly close, must divide, without any hope of re-uniting. You remember how in that early dawn we drove through the dewy grass, covered with the fairies’ dainty white gossamer kerchiefs, lace cobwebs spread out to dry in the morning sun; and, as we left the town and made for the distant mountains, the dark red road wound up and down hills, through orchards and grass-land and forest, till we gained a little village, where the road forked, and a clear, rain-swollen stream slipped swiftly past the picturesque brown cottages. Whilst the horses were being changed, we strolled a little way down the road, and watched a group of laughing urchins, playing in that lilied stream like water-babies. How they screamed with delight as their small glistening bodies emerged from the shining water to struggle up a crazy ladder that led from the back of a hut down into the winding stream; and how the sun shone! lighting the snow-white plumage of a brood of solemn-looking ducks, sailing majestically round the sedge-girt edges of a tiny pool beneath the bridge. In that pool was mirrored a patch of clear blue sky, and across it fell the shadows cast by a great forest tree. That was “a day in spring, a day with thee and pleasure!” Then, as we drove on, there were heavenly glimpsesof sapphire hills, seen down long vistas through the forest. For the last few miles, the road followed the bank of a deep and rapid river, whose clear waters reflected the graceful overhanging trees, while the banks were buried in a thick maze of ferns and grasses, and great shining patches of buttercups and marigolds.
Were you sorry when the drive was over, and our sweet converse perforce ended? I wonder would you have enjoyed it better had that exquisite spot, in the depths of the forest, been ours alone for that one day? One day is so little in a lifetime, and yet what was ours was good! Do you remember how, in that far-off place, we met on the road one whom you recognised, but whose face and manner gave no clue to the romantic story of his life, a story that would have brought him great renown in the days when valour was accounted of the highest worth? You have not forgotten that, nor yet the return drive, when, as we crested the last hill, and began the steep and tortuous descent into the plain, the lurid rays of the setting sun threw crimson stains across dark pools of lotus-bearing water, half-hidden by overhanging grasses and the dank leaves of white-blossomed lilies. Beneath us lay a wide stretch of swamp-land, thevery picture of abandonment, desolation, and solitude; heaps of up-turned earth, green with rank vegetation, and pools of dead water, whose dark shadows reflected the lambent fires of the western horizon. A broken line of black trees stood clear against the rapidly-darkening sky, but, as we reached the foot of the hill, heaven and earth were wrapped in the shadows of night. And then my day was done. Doubt was buried, and the “big word” bound our hearts in the joy of that priceless sympathy which carries human aspirations beyond the storm and stress of human life to a knowledge of the Divine. We said little; when hearts are at one, few words are needed, for either knows the other’s thoughts. But you were slow to unbend, making a brave fight against fate, and keeping true to your creed, though seven days would bring the end. To me, the light of that one brilliant day had been intensified by the rapidly approaching shadow of the inevitable parting. I wonder—now that the bitterness of separation has come, now that I vaguely ask myself what has happened to Time since I lost you—whether, if we could have that day again, you would again be so merciless in your determination to hold love in leash, and give no sign of either the passion or the pain that wastearing your heart. I think it was a hard fight, for, though you concealed your thoughts, you could not hide the physical effects of the struggle. Did you know how your weariness distressed me, and what I would have given to have the right to try to comfort you?
I have a confused memory of those other days. Brief meetings and partings; insane desires to make any excuse to write to you, or hear from you, though I had but just left your presence; a hopeless and helpless feeling that I had a thousand things to say to you, and yet that I never could say one of them, because the time was so short that every idea was swallowed up in the ever-present dread of your departure, and the ceaseless repetition of your cry, “I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it.” From out that vague background shine two stars, two brilliant memories to light the darkness of the weary months until I see your face again—a blissful memory and a sign. All the rest seems swallowed up in the bitterness of that parting, which comes back like some horrible nightmare.
Only black water under a heavy overcast sky; only the knowledge that the end had come; that what should be said must be said then, with theinstant realisation that the pain of the moment, the feeling of impotent rebellion against fate, destroyed all power of reflection, and the impulse to recklessness was only choked back by the cold words of a publicly spoken farewell. Then rapid motion, and in one minute the envious darkness had taken everything but the horrible sense of loss and inconsolable regret. Whatever my suffering, it was worse for you; I at least was alone, alone with a voice which ever murmured in my ears that despairing cry, “I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it.”
When two who have been brought together, so close together that they have said the “big word” without faltering, are suddenly swept asunder by the receding wave of adverse circumstances, there must ever arise in their hearts that evil question, “How is it now? Is it the same? Or have time, and distance, and a thousand other enemies, so filled the space between us that the memory of either is growing dim, and the influence of the other waning, waning till the absence of all binding tie begins to feel like a very bond. Will the vision simply fade gradually out of sight?” For us there is no promise, no tie, no protestations of fealty; only knowledge, and that forced upon us ratherthan sought. You give or you don’t give, that is all; if you also take away, you are within your right. There may be reasons and reasons, I understand them all; and I have only one desire, that whatever prevails may secure you happiness. What you can give seems to me so unlike what others ever have to give, so infinitely beyond price, that, where I might gain, it is not right that I should speak. Therefore I cannot urge, I dare not even plead, a cause that has less to recommend it than the forlornest hope.
IF that is irrevocable—why, then, no more. You can only decide, and while I would not have you consider me, I do ask you to think of yourself. I have no title to be considered, not the remotest; if I had, it might be different. Possibly, even, I had better not write now, and yet I must, though you say “Don’t.” It cannot matter for this once, and after—well, there may be no after. We are curiously inconsistent and very hard to understand; even when we think we know each other well, we speak to conceal our thoughts; and, when we write (and it is often easier to write what we mean than to say it) I wonder whether it occurs to us how marvellously contradictory we can be, and what difficult riddles we can frame, in two or three pages of a letter that comes straight from the heart and cries to be understood. Verily we are the slaves of circumstance; but whilst we acceptthat position, whilst we make sacrifices that can be absolutely heroic, and dumbly suffer the crucifixion of a lifetime, we want one other heart to know and understand. There are few things harder to bear than to stifle every strongest inclination, every dearest hope, to shut the gate of life, to lock it and throw away the key, with a determination to accept existence and make the best of it. God knows how bitter is that renunciation, but, if it be for another, and that other misunderstands, then the cruelty of it all seems almost beyond endurance.
If I may write no more to you, you may never understand. If I saw you, later, under other circumstances, I could not speak; so there can be no explanation for me. I do not plead, I may not. Not once, but often you have heard my profession of faith—a gift is good, because it is given freely. The greatest good, the most priceless gift, is love. It is valuable because it is free. You cannot buy it or compel it; even when given, you cannot lock it up, or chain it down, and say, “It is mine for ever.” It comes, and it is the joy of life; it goes, and it is pity, misery, despair. It is as useless to rave against the loss, as to shake one’s fist at Zeus and his thunderbolts. If I ever had, thenI was thrice-blessed. If I have no longer, the fault is probably mine, and I have still the knowledge of what was. Not God Himself can deprive me of that. I would have liked that you should know all I yearn to say, but because you are not here to tell me, “Say it, say it all,” therefore I must keep silence. Perhaps I do not read aright all you mean; but some at least I know, and that is what you would have me understand without any shadow of doubt. That I realise, down to the very lowest depths of the suffering which is dumb for sheer pain; and I can say nothing, absolutely nothing, because I have no right; nay, more, you tell me to be silent. Surely you know, you know, what I would say? You remember how one evening we rode out by the rocks, and we talked of a story of faith and high resolve, and you said you did not think I was capable of a like devotion. That was a fairy tale; but what I said then, I repeat, with greater confidence, now; with hope, yes, I could stand and wait—with none, perhaps not.
That is all of me. What your letters have been you know, or at least you can guess, for I have answered them, and in those answers you could read all I might not say. “There must be an end,and it is not because of the trouble, but it is because of the pleasure.” You could not tell me that and think, because you bid me, I would not answer? Nor does one forget—fortunately—though if to forget be fortunate, I suppose to remember must be unfortunate, only it does not seem so to me. “Silence is a great barrier”—yes, death is silence, and the greatest barrier of all, and the silence of the living is, in a way, harder to bear, for it seems so needlessly unkind. Silence, determined, unbroken silence, will, I think, kill all feeling. I will not accept that as your last word, not yet; but if, when you receive this, you make that the beginning of silence, then I shall know, and I will not break it. Only I beg of you not to do so hard a thing as this, for I will gladly accept any less cruel sentence if you will not make yourself as dead to me. I have not done anything that need drive you to issue such an edict. Will not some less hopeless judgment, something short of eternal silence, serve until I bring on myself this ghastly doom? You are thinking that it was I who said, “All or nothing,” I who said friendship was too hard a road to tread. That was before—before I had tried; before I knew all I know now. You hid your heart far out of sight, and I never dared to guess—I do not now.But you went, and I, remembering how you went, catch at straws; for, as the Eastern says, I am drowning in the deepest sea. Do not think that is extravagant; it is because I have learned to count the unattainable at its true value that I also realise the immensity of the loss. We stood on either side of a wall, and because the wall was near to me I looked over it and almost forgot its existence. You, standing farther off, saw always the wall, and it shut me out. Then I, thinking it could be nothing to you, tried to get across the intervening space, and so fell, hurting myself, as those who fall must do. It was not a caprice, not an impulse that took me, it was the victory of the uncontrollable. So, doubting me, and to do right for both, you said, “I will build a wall too, stronger and higher, and then we can sometimes look over and talk to each other, and everything will be well.” But it is not well. Only you have vowed yourself to the work, and, if it seems hard, you say that all things are hard, and this must be good because it costs so much. To suffer is bad enough; to give suffering where you would strain every nerve to give only joy is so hard that, to help the other, seems worth any conceivable pain to oneself. What can it matter how it affects me, if I can do somelittle good for you; something that may save you a little pain, win you a little joy? Believe me, I have no wish but this. Whatever my selfishness would suggest is not really me, for “Thy law is my delight”; nay more, it is my delight to try to anticipate your wish. I have no fear except that you should misunderstand me, that I should misunderstand you. I am my own to offer, yours to accept—equally if, by effacement, I can save you the smallest regret, help you for a few yards over the stony path of life by keeping silence, you will neither see nor hear from me again. I would you did not doubt, perhaps you do not now; at least you cannot distrust, and in this I shall not fail. I shall not say farewell. I will never say that; but through the silence, if so it must be, sometimes, on a day in spring, perhaps, will come the echo of a past that you can recall with nothing more than regret. And that is what I do not quite understand. You say, “In all the years to come I shall not regret.” Not regret what has been, what might have been, or what will be then? Therein lies all the difference, and therein lies the riddle, there and in those words, “I am sometimes—” How am I to supply the rest? It might be any one of so many things.Could it ever be that you are sometimes driven to wonder whether everything I could offer is worth anything you would give? “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it; if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would be utterly contemned.” If that be true, and it has high authority, then in that one sentence is contained the conclusion of the whole matter. It tells you all that you can wish to know for yourself and myself and even for others. I have done; an accident drew from me an acknowledgment of my own hurt when it seemed unlikely that the fact should interest you. Now I am so unfortunate that, hurt myself, I have made you suffer as well. I have nothing to offer to help you, for all I had is yours already. And so the end: if so you deem it best. “Si j’étais Dieu,” I would use what power I had to spare you a moment’s pain and give you such happiness that you should forget the meaning of the word “suffering.” How utterly powerless we are, how impotent to save those we love, when no offer of the best we have, no devotion, no self-effacement, will secure the happiness of one other being, whose every pulse throbs in unison with ours, yet between whom and us there is fixed the great gulf of our own conventions. Is the end of allhuman hopes, all human sorrows, described in these two lines?—