I was reading to-day The Irrational Knot, an early book by Mr.
Bernard Shaw, whom I whole-heartedly admire because of his courage and good-humour and energy. That book represents a type of the New Man, such as I suppose Mr. Shaw would have us all to be; the book, in spite of its radiant wit, is a melancholy one, because the novelist penetrates so clearly past the disguises of humanity, and takes delight in dragging the mean, ugly, shuddering, naked creature into the open. The New Man himself is entirely vigorous, cheerful, affectionate, sensible, and robust. He is afraid of nothing and shocked by nothing. I think it would have been better if he had been a little more shocked, not in a conventional way, but at the hideous lapses and failures of even generous and frank people. He is too hard and confident to be an apostle. He does not lead the flock like a shepherd, but helps them along, like Father-o"-Flynn, with his stick. I would have gone to Conolly, the hero of the book, to get me out of a difficulty, but I could not have confided to him what I really held sacred. Moreover the view of money, as the one essential world-force, so frankly confessed in the book, puzzled me. I do not think that money is ever more than a weapon in the hands of a man, or a convenient screening wall, and the New Man ought to have neither weapons nor walls, except his vigour and serenity of spirit. Again the New Man is too fond of saying what he thinks, and doing what he chooses; and, in the new earth, that independent instinct will surely be tempered by a sense, every bit as instinctive, of the rights of other people. But I suppose Mr. Shaw"s point is that if you cannot mend the world, you had better make it serve you, as in its folly and debility it will, if you bully it enough. I suppose that Mr. Shaw would say that the brutality of his hero is the shadow thrown on him by the vileness of the world, and that if we were all alike courageous and industrious and good-humoured, that shadow would disappear.
And this, I suppose, is after all the secret; that the world is not going to be mended from without, but is mending itself from within; and thus that the best kind of socialism is really the highest individualism, in which a man leaves legislation to follow and express, as it a.s.suredly does, the growth of emotion, and sets himself, in his own corner, to be as quiet and disinterested and kindly as he can, choosing what is honest and pure, and rejecting what is base and vile; and this is after all the socialism of Christ; only we are all in such a hurry, and think it more effective to clap a ruffian into gaol than to suffer his violence--the result of which process is to make men sympathise with the ruffian--while, if we endure his violence, we touch a spring in the hearts of ruffian and spectators alike, which is more fruitful of good than the criminal"s infuriated seclusion, and his just quarrel with the world. Of course the real way is that we should each of us abandon our own desires for private ease and convenience, in the light of the hope that those who come after will be easier and happier; whereas the Pardiggle reformer literally enjoys the presence of the refuse, because his broom has something to sweep away.
And the strangest thing of all is that we move forward, in a bewildered company, knowing that our every act and word is the resultant of ancient forces, not one of which we can change or modify in the least degree, while we live under the instinctive delusion, which survives the severest logic, that we can always and at every moment do to a certain extent what we choose to do. What the truth is that connects and underlies these two phenomena, we have not the least conception; but meanwhile each remains perfectly obvious and apparently true. To myself, the logical belief is infinitely the more hopeful and sustaining of the two; for if the movement of progress is in the hands of G.o.d, we are at all events taking our mysterious and wonderful part in a great dream that is being evolved, far more vast and amazing than we can comprehend; whereas if I felt that it was left to ourselves to choose, and that, hampered as we feel ourselves to be by innumerable chains of circ.u.mstance, we could yet indeed originate action and impede the underlying Will, I should relapse into despair before a problem full of sickening complexities and admitted failures. Meanwhile, I do what I am given to do; I perceive what I am allowed to perceive; I suffer what is appointed for me to suffer; but all with a hope that I may yet see the dawn break upon the sunlit sea, beyond the dark hills of time.
X. THE DRAMATIC SENSE
The other day I was walking along a road at Cambridge, engulfed in a torrent of cloth-capped and coated young men all flowing one way--going to see or, as it is now called, to "watch" a match. We met a little girl walking with her governess in the opposite direction. There was a baleful light of intellect in the child"s eye, and a preponderance of forehead combined with a certain lankness of hair betrayed, I fancy, an ingenuous academical origin. The girl was looking round her with an unholy sense of superiority, and as we pa.s.sed she said to her governess in a clear-cut, complacent tone, "We"re quite exceptional, aren"t we?"
To which the governess replied briskly, "Laura, don"t be ridiculous!"
To which exhortation Laura replied with self-satisfied pertinacity, "No, but we ARE exceptional, aren"t we?"
Ah, Miss Laura, I thought to myself, you are one of those people with a dramatic sense of your own importance. It will probably make you very happy, and an absolutely insufferable person! I have little doubt that the tiny prig was saying to herself, "I dare say that all these men are wondering who is the clever-looking little girl who is walking in the opposite direction to the match, and has probably something better to do than look on at matches." It is a great question whether one ought to wish people to nourish illusions about themselves, or whether one ought to desire such illusions to be dispelled. They certainly add immensely to people"s happiness, but on the other hand, if life is an educative progress, and if the aim of human beings is or ought to be the attainment of moral perfection, then the sooner that these illusions are dispelled the better. It is one of the many questions which depend upon the great fact as to whether our ident.i.ty is prolonged after death. If ident.i.ty is not prolonged, then one would wish people to maintain every illusion which makes life happier; and there is certainly no illusion which brings people such supreme and unfailing contentment as the sense of their own significance in the world. This illusion rises superior to all failures and disappointments. It makes the smallest and simplest act seem momentous. The world for such persons is merely a theatre of gazers in which they discharge their part appropriately and successfully. I know several people who have the sense very strongly, who are conscious from morning till night, in all that they do or say, of an admiring audience; and who, even if their circle is wholly indifferent, find food for delight in the consciousness of how skilfully and satisfactorily they discharge their duties. I remember once hearing a worthy clergyman, of no particular force, begin a speech at a missionary meeting by saying that people had often asked him what was the secret of his smile; and that he had always replied that he was unaware that his smile had any special quality; but that if it indeed was so, and it would be idle to pretend that a good many people had not noticed it, it was that he imported a resolute cheerfulness into all that he did. The man, as I have said, was not in any way distinguished, but there can be no doubt that the thought of his heavenly smile was a very sustaining one, and that the sense of responsibility that the possession of such a characteristic gave him, undoubtedly made him endeavour to smile like the Cheshire Cat, when he did not feel particularly cheerful.
It is not, however, common to find people make such a frank and candid confession of their superiority. The feeling is generally kept for more or less private consumption. The underlying self-satisfaction generally manifests itself, for instance, with people who have no real illusions, say, about their personal appearance, in leading them to feel, after a chance glance at themselves in a mirror, that they really do not look so bad in certain lights. A dull preacher will repeat to himself, with a private relish, a sentence out of a very commonplace discourse of his own, and think that that was really an original thought, and that he gave it an impressive emphasis; or a student will make a very unimportant discovery, press it upon the attention of some great authority on the subject, extort a half-hearted a.s.sent, and will then go about saying, "I mentioned my discovery to Professor A----; he was quite excited about it, and urged the immediate publication of it." Or a commonplace woman will give a tea-party, and plume herself upon the eclat with which it went off. The materials are ready to hand in any life; the quality is not the same as priggishness, though it is closely akin to it; it no doubt exists in the minds of many really successful people, and if it is not flagrantly betrayed, it is often an important const.i.tuent of their success. But the happy part of it is that the dramatic sense is often freely bestowed upon the most inconspicuous and unintelligent persons, and fills their lives with a consciousness of romance and joy. It concerns itself mostly with public appearances, upon however minute a scale, and thus it is a rich source of consolation and self-congratulation. Even if it falls upon one who has no social gifts whatever, whose circle of friends tends to diminish as life goes on, whose invitations tend to decrease, it still frequently survives in a consciousness of being profoundly interesting, and consoles itself by believing that under different circ.u.mstances and in a more perceptive society the fact would have received a wider recognition.
But, after all, as with many things, much depends upon the way that illusions are cherished. When this dramatic sense is bestowed upon a heavy-handed, imperceptive, egotistical person, it becomes a terrible affliction to other people, unless indeed the onlooker possesses the humorous spectatorial curiosity; when it becomes a matter of delight to find a person behaving characteristically, striking the hour punctually, and being, as Mr. Bennet thought of Mr. Collins, fully as absurd as one had hoped. It then becomes a pleasure, and not necessarily an unkind one, because it gives the deepest satisfaction to the victim, to tickle the egotist as one might tickle a trout, to draw him on by innocent questions, to induce him to unfold and wave his flag high in the air.
I had once a worthy acquaintance whose occasional visits were to me a source of infinite pleasure--and I may add that I have no doubt that they gave him a pleasure quite as acute--because he only required the simplest fly to be dropped on the pool, when he came heavily to the top and swallowed it. I have heard him deplore the vast size of his correspondence, the endless claims made upon him for counsel. I have heard him say with a fatuous smile that there were literally hundreds of people who day by day brought their pitcher of self-pity to be filled at his pump of sympathy: that he wished he could have a little rest, but that he supposed that it was a plain duty for him to minister thus to human needs, though it took it out of him terribly. I suppose that some sort of experience must have lain behind this confession, for my friend was a decidedly moral man, and would not tell a deliberate untruth; the only difficulty was that I could not conceive where he kept his stores of sympathy, because I had never heard him speak of any subject except himself, and I suppose that his method of consolation, if he was consulted, was to relate some striking instance out of his own experience in which grace triumphed over nature.
Sometimes, again, the dramatic sense takes the form of an exaggerated self-depreciation. I was reading the other day the life of a very devoted clergyman, who said on his death-bed to one standing by him, "If anything is done in memory of me, let a plain slab be placed on my grave with my initials and the date, and the words, "the unworthy priest of this parish"--that must be all."
The man"s modesty was absolutely sincere; yet what a strange confusion of modesty and vanity after all! If the humility had been PERFECTLY unaffected, he would have felt that the man who really merited such a description deserved no memorial at all; or again, if he had had no sense of credit, he would have left the choice of a memorial to any who might wish to commemorate him. If one a.n.a.lyses the feeling underneath the words, it will be seen to consist of a desire to be remembered, a hope almost amounting to a belief that his work was worthy of commemoration, coupled with a sincere desire not to exaggerate its value. And yet silence would have attested his humility far more effectually than any calculated speech!
The dramatic sense is not a thing which necessarily increases as life goes on; some people have it from the very beginning. I have an elderly friend who is engaged on a very special sort of scientific research of a wholly unimportant kind. He is just as incapable as my sympathetic friend of talking about anything except his own interests; "You don"t mind my speaking about my work?" he says with a brilliant smile; "you see it means so much to me." And then, after explaining some highly technical detail, he will add: "Of course this seems to you very minute, but it is work that has got to be done by some one; it is only laying a little stone in the temple of science. Of course I often feel I should like to spread my wings and take a wider flight, but I do seem to have a special faculty for this kind of work, and I suppose it is my duty to stick to it." And he will pa.s.s his hand wearily over his brow, and expound another technical detail. He apologises ceaselessly for dwelling on his own work; but in no place or company have I ever heard him do otherwise; and he is certainly one of the happiest people I know.
But, on the other hand, it is a rather charming quality to find in combination with a certain balance of mind. Unless a man is interesting to himself he cannot easily be interesting to others; there is a youthful and ingenuous sense of romance and drama which can exist side by side with both modesty and sympathy, somewhat akin to the habit common to imaginative children of telling themselves long stories in which they are the heroes of the tale. But people who have this faculty are generally mildly ashamed of it; they do not believe that their fantastic adventures are likely to happen. They only think how pleasant it would be if things arranged themselves so. It all depends whether such dramatisation is looked upon in the light of an amus.e.m.e.nt, or whether it is applied in a heavy-handed manner to real life. Imaginative children, who have true sympathy and affection as well, generally end by finding the real world, as they grow up into it, such an astonishing and interesting place, that their horizon extends, and they apply to other people, to their relationships and meetings, the zest and interest that they formerly applied only to themselves. The kind of temperament that falls a helpless victim to dramatic egotism is generally the priggish and self-satisfied man, who has a fervent belief in his own influence, and the duty of exercising it on others. Most of us, one may say gratefully, are kept humble by our failures and even by our sins. If the path of the transgressor is hard, the path of the righteous man is often harder. If a man is born free from grosser temptations, vigorous, active, robust, the chances are ten to one that he falls into the snare of self-righteousness and moral complacency. He pa.s.ses judgment on others, he compares himself favourably with them. A spice of unpopularity gives him a still more fatal bias, because he thinks that he is persecuted for his goodness, when he is only disliked for his superiority. He becomes content to warn people, and if they reject his advice and get into difficulties, he is not wholly ill-pleased. Whereas the diffident person, who tremblingly a.s.sumes the responsibility for some one else"s life, is beset by miserable regrets if his penitent escapes him, and attributes it to his own mismanagement. The truth is that moral indignation is a luxury that very few people can afford to indulge in. And if it is true that a rich man can with difficulty enter the kingdom of heaven, it is also true that the dramatic man finds it still more difficult. He is impervious to criticism, because he bears it with meekness. He has so good a conscience that he cannot believe himself in the wrong. If he makes an egregious blunder, he says to himself with infinite solemnity that it is right that his self-satisfaction should be tenderly purged away, and glories in his own humility. A far wholesomer frame of mind is that of the philosopher who said, when complimented on the mellowness that advancing years had brought him, that he still reserved to himself the right of d.a.m.ning things in general. Because the truth is that the things which really discipline us are the painful, dreary, intolerable things of life, the results of one"s own meanness, stupidity, and weakness, or the black catastrophes which sometimes overwhelm us, and not the things which we piously and cheerfully accept as ministering to our consciousness of worth and virtue.
If I say that the dramatic failing is apt to be more common among the clergy than among ordinary mortals, it is because the clerical vocation is one that tempts men who have this temperament strongly developed to enter it, and afterwards provides a good deal of sustenance to the particular form of vanity that lies behind the temptation. The dramatic sense loves public appearances and trappings, processions and ceremonies. The instinctive dramatist, who is also a clergyman, tends to think of himself as moving to his place in the sanctuary in a solemn progress, with a worn spiritual aspect, robed as a son of Aaron. He likes to picture himself as standing in the pulpit pale with emotion, his eye gathering fire as he bears witness to the truth or testifies against sin. He likes to believe that his words and intonations have a thrilling quality, a fire or a delicacy, as the case may be, which scorch or penetrate the sin-burdened heart. It may be thought that this criticism is unduly severe; I do not for a moment say that the att.i.tude is universal, but it is commoner, I am sure, than one would like to believe; and neither do I say that it is inconsistent with deep earnestness and vital seriousness. I would go further, and maintain that such a dramatic consciousness is a valuable quality for men who have to sustain at all a spectacular part. It very often lends impressiveness to a man, and convinces those who hear and see him of his sincerity; while a man who thinks nothing of appearances often fails to convince his audience that he cares more for his message than for the fact that he is the mouthpiece of it. I find it very difficult to say whether it is well for people who cherish such illusions about their personal impressiveness to get rid of such illusions, when personal impressiveness is a real factor in their success. To do a thing really well it is essential to have a substantial confidence in one"s apt.i.tude for the task. And undoubtedly diffidence and humility, however sincere, are a bad outfit for a man in a public position. I am inclined to think that self-confidence, and a certain degree of self-satisfaction, are valuable a.s.sets, so long as a man believes primarily in the importance of what he has to say and do, and only secondarily in his own power of, and fitness for, saying and doing it.
There is an interesting story--I do not vouch for the truth of it--that used to be told of Cardinal Manning, who undoubtedly had a strong sense of dramatic effect. He was putting on his robes one evening in the sacristy of the Cathedral at Westminster, when a noise was heard at the door, as of one who was determined on forcing an entrance in spite of the remonstrances of the attendants. In a moment a big, strongly-built person, looking like a prosperous man of business, labouring under a vehement and pa.s.sionate emotion, came quickly in, looked about him, and advancing to Manning, poured out a series of indignant reproaches. "You have got hold of my boy," he said, "with your hypocritical and sneaking methods; you have made him a Roman Catholic; you have ruined the happiness and peace of our home; you have broken his mother"s heart, and overwhelmed us in misery." He went on in this strain at some length.
Manning, who was standing in his ca.s.sock, drew himself up in an att.i.tude of majestic dignity, and waited until the intruder"s eloquence had exhausted itself, and had ended with threatening gestures. Some of those present would have intervened, but Manning with an air of command waved them back, and then, pointing his hand at the man, he said: "Now, sir, I have allowed you to have your say, and you shall hear me in reply. You have traduced Holy Church, you have broken in upon the Sanctuary, you have uttered vile and abominable slanders against the Faith; and I tell you," he added, pausing for an instant with flashing eyes and marble visage, "I tell you that within three months you will be a Catholic yourself." He then turned sharply on his heel and went on with his preparations. The man was utterly discomfited; he made as though he would speak, but was unable to find words; he looked round, and eventually slunk out of the sacristy in silence.
One of those present ventured to ask Manning afterwards about the strange scene. "Had the Cardinal," he inquired, "any sudden premonition that the man himself would adopt the Faith in so short a time?" Manning smiled indulgently, putting his hand on the other"s shoulder, and said: "Ah, my dear friend, who shall say? You see, it was a very awkward moment, and I had to deal with the situation as I best could."
That was an instance of supreme presence of mind and great dramatic force; but one is not sure whether it was a wholly apostolical method of handling the position.
But to transfer the question from the ecclesiastical region into the region of common life, it is undoubtedly true that if a man or a woman has a strong sense of moral issues, a deep feeling of responsibility and sympathy, an anxious desire to help things forward, then a dramatic sense of the value of manner, speech, gesture, and demeanour is a highly effective instrument. It is often said that people who wield a great personal influence have the gift of making the individual with whom they are dealing feel that his case is the most interesting and important with which they have ever come in contact, and of inspiring and maintaining a special kind of relationship between themselves and their pet.i.tioner. That is no doubt a very encouraging thing for the applicant to feel, even though he is sensible enough to realise that his case is only one among many with which his adviser is dealing, and probably not the most significant. Upon such a quality as this the success of statesmen, lawyers, physicians largely depends. But where the dramatic sense is combined with egotism, selfishness, and indifference to the claims of others, it is a terrible inheritance. It ministers, as I have said before, to its possessor"s self-satisfaction; but on the other hand it is a failing which goes so deep and which permeates so intimately the whole moral nature, that its cure is almost impossible without the gift of what the Scripture calls "a new heart." Such self-complacency is a fearful shield against criticism, and particularly so because it gives as a rule so few opportunities for any outside person, however intimate, to expose the obliquity of such a temperament. The dramatic egotist is careful as a rule not to let his egotism appear, but to profess to be, and even to believe that he is, guided by the highest motives in all his actions and words. A candid remonstrance is met by a calm tolerance, and by the reply that the critic does not understand the situation, and is trying to hinder rather than to help the development of beneficent designs.
I used to know a man of this type, who was insatiably greedy of influence and recognition. It is true that he was ready to help other people with money or advice. He was wealthy, and of a good position; and he would take a great deal of trouble to obtain appointments for friends who appealed to him, or to unravel a difficult situation; though the object of his diligence was not to help his applicants, but to obtain credit and power for himself. He did not desire that they should be helped, but that they should depend upon him for help. Nothing could undeceive him as to his own motive, because he gave his time and his money freely; yet the result was that most of the people whom he helped tended to resent it in the end, because he demanded services in return, and was jealous of any other interference. Chateaubriand says that it is not true grat.i.tude to wish to repay favours promptly and still less is it true benevolence to wish to retain a hold over those whom one has benefited.
Sometimes indeed the two strains are almost inextricably intertwined, real and vital sympathy with others, combined with an overwhelming sense of personal significance; and then the problem is an inconceivably complicated one. For I suppose it must be frankly confessed that the basis of the dramatic sense is not a very wholesome one; it is, of course, a strong form of individualism. But while it is true that we suffer from taking ourselves too seriously, it is also possible to suffer from not taking ourselves seriously enough. If effectiveness is the end of life, there is no question that a strong sense of what we like to call responsibility, which is generally nothing more than a sense of one"s own importance, decorously framed and glazed, is an immense factor in success. I myself cherish the heresy that effectiveness is very far from being the end of life, and that the only effectiveness that is worth anything is unintentional effectiveness. I believe that a man or woman who is humble and sincere, who loves and is loved, is higher on the steps of heaven than the adroitest lobbyist; but it may be that the world"s criterion of what it admires and respects is the right one; and indeed it is hard to see how so strong an instinct is implanted in the human race, the instinct to value strength and success above everything, unless it is put there by our Maker. At the same time one cherishes the hope that there is a better criterion somewhere, in the Divine Mind, in the fruitful future; the criterion that it is not what a man actually effects that matters, but what he makes of the resources that are given him to work with.
The effectiveness of the dramatic sense is beyond question. One can see a supreme instance of it in the case of the Christian Science movement, in which a woman of strong personality, by lighting upon an idea latent in a large number of minds, an idea moreover of real and practical vitality, and by putting it in a form which has all the definiteness required by brains of a hazy and emotional order, has contrived to effect an immense amount of good, besides ama.s.sing a colossal fortune, and a.s.suming almost Divine pretensions, without being widely discredited. The human race is, speaking generally, so anxious for any leading that it can get, that if a man or woman can persuade themselves that they have a mission to humanity, and maintain a pontifical air, they will generally be able to attract a band of devoted adherents, whose faith, rising superior to both intelligence and common-sense, will endorse almost any claim that the prophet or prophetess likes to advance.
But the danger for the prophet himself is great. Arrogance, complacency, self-confidence, all the Pharisaical vices flourish briskly in such a soil. He loses all sense of proportion, all sense of dependence. Instead of being a humble learner in a mysterious world, he expects to find everything made after the pattern revealed to him in the Mount. The good that he does may be permanent and fruitful; but in some dark valley of humiliation and despair he will have to learn that G.o.d tolerates us and uses us; He does not need us, "He delighteth not in any man"s legs," as the Psalmist said with homely vigour. To save others and be oneself a castaway is the terrible fate of which St. Paul saw so clearly the possibility; and thus any one who is conscious of the dramatic sense, or even dimly suspects that it is there, ought to pray very humbly to be delivered from it, as he would from any other darling bosom-sin. He ought to eschew diplomacy and practise frankness, he ought to welcome failure and to rejoice when he makes humiliating mistakes. He ought to be grateful even for palpable faults and weaknesses and sins and physical disabilities. For if we have the hope that G.o.d is educating us, is moulding a fair statue out of the frail and sordid clay, such a faith forbids us to reject any experience, however disagreeable, however painful, however self-revealing it may be, as of no import; and thus we can grow into a truer sense of proportion, till at last we may come
"to learn that Man Is small, and not forget that Man is great."
XI. KELMSCOTT AND WILLIAM MORRIS
I had been at Fairford that still, fresh, April morning, and had enjoyed the sunny little piazza, with its pretty characteristic varieties of pleasant stone-built houses, solid Georgian fronts interspersed with mullioned gables. But the church! That is a marvellous place; its ma.s.sive lantern-tower, with solid, softly-moulded outlines--for the sandy oolite admits little fineness of detail--all weathered to a beautiful orange-grey tint, has a mild dignity of its own. Inside it is a treasure of mediaevalism. The screens, the woodwork, the monuments, all rich, dignified, and s.p.a.cious. And the gla.s.s! Next to King"s College Chapel, I suppose, it is the n.o.blest series of windows in England, and the colour of it is incomparable. Azure and crimson, green and orange, yet all with a firm economy of effect, the robes of the saints set and imbedded in a fine intricacy of white tabernacle-work. As to the design, I hardly knew whether to smile or weep. The splendid, ugly faces of the saints, depicted, whether designedly or artlessly I cannot guess, as men of simple pa.s.sions and homely experience, moved me greatly, so unlike the mild, polite, porcelain visages of even the best modern gla.s.s. But the windows are as thick with demons as a hive with bees; and oh! the irresponsible levity displayed in these merry, grotesque, long-nosed creatures, some flame-coloured and long-tailed, some green and scaly, some plated like the armadillo, all going about their merciless work with infinite gusto and glee! Here one picked at the white breast of a languid, tortured woman who lay bathed in flame; one with a glowing hook thrust a lamentable big-paunched wretch down into a bath of molten liquor; one with pleased intentness turned the handle of a churn, from the top of which protruded the head of a fair-haired boy, all distorted with pain and terror. What could have been in the mind of the designer of these hateful scenes? It is impossible to acquit him of a strong sense of the humorous. Did he believe that such things were actually in progress in some infernal cavern, seven times heated? I fear it may have been so. And what of the effect upon the minds of the village folk who saw them day by day? It would have depressed, one would think, an imaginative girl or boy into madness, to dream of such things as being countenanced by G.o.d for the heathen and the unbaptized, as well as for the cruel and sinful. If the vile work had been represented as being done by cloudy, sombre, relentless creatures, it would have been more tolerable. But these fantastic imps, as lively as grigs and full to the brim of wicked laughter, are certainly enjoying themselves with an extremity of delight of which no trace is to be seen in the mournful and heavily lined faces of the faithful. Autres temps, autres moeurs!
Perhaps the simple, coa.r.s.e mental palates of the village folk were none the worse for this realistic treatment of sin. One wonders what the saintly and refined Keble, who spent many years of his life as his father"s curate here, thought of it all. Probably his submissive and deferential mind accepted it as in some ecclesiastical sense symbolical of the merciless hatred of G.o.d for the desperate corruption of humanity.
It gave me little pleasure to connect the personality of Keble with the place, patient, sweet-natured, mystical, serviceable as he was. It seems hard to breathe in the austere air of a mind like Keble"s, where the wind of the spirit blows chill down the narrow path, fenced in by the high, uncompromising walls of ecclesiastical tradition on the one hand, and stern Puritanism on the other. An artificial type, one is tempted to say!--and yet one ought never, I suppose, so to describe any flower that has blossomed fragrantly upon the human stock; any system that seems to extend a natural and instinctive appeal to certain definite cla.s.ses of human temperament.
I sped pleasantly enough along the low, rich pastures, thick with hedgerow elms, to Lechlade, another pretty town with an infinite variety of habitations. Here again is a fine ancient church with a comely spire, "a pretty pyramis of stone," as the old Itinerary says, overlooking a charming gabled house, among walled and terraced gardens, with stone b.a.l.l.s on the corner-posts and a quaint pavilion, the river running below; and so on to a bridge over the yet slender Thames, where the river water spouted clear and fragrant into a wide pool; and across the flat meadows, bright with kingcups, the spire of Lechlade towered over the cl.u.s.tered house-roofs to the west.
Then further still by a lonely ill-laid road. And thus, with a mind pleasantly attuned to beauty and a quickening pulse, I drew near to Kelmscott. The great alluvial flat, broadening on either hand, with low wooded heights, "not ill-designed," as Morris said, to the south. Then came a winding cross-track, and presently I drew near to a straggling village, every house of which had some charm and quality of style, with here and there a high gabled dovecot, and its wooden cupola, standing up among solid barns and stacks. Here was a tiny and inconspicuous church, with a small stone belfry; and then the road pushed on, to die away among the fields. But there, at the very end of the village, stood the house of which we were in search; and it was with a touch of awe, with a quickening heart, that I drew near to a place of such sweet and gracious memories, a place so dear to more than one of the heroes of art.
One comes to the goal of an artistic pilgrimage with a certain sacred terror; either the place is disappointing, or it is utterly unlike what one antic.i.p.ates. I knew Kelmscott so well from Rossetti"s letters, from Morris"s own splendid and loving description, from pictures, from the tales of other pilgrims, that I felt I could not be disappointed; and I was not. It was not only just like what I had pictured it to be, but it had a delicate and natural grace of its own as well. The house was larger and more beautiful, the garden smaller and not less beautiful, than I had imagined. I had not thought it was so shy, so rustic a place.
It is very difficult to get any clear view of the Manor. By the road are cottages, and a big building, half storehouse, half wheelwright"s shop, to serve the homely needs of the farm. Through the open door one could see a bench with tools; and planks, staves, spokes, waggon-tilts, f.a.ggots, were all stacked in a pleasant confusion. Then came a walled kitchen-garden, with some big shrubs, bay and laurustinus, rising plumply within; beyond which the grey house, spread thin with plaster, held up its gables and chimneys over a stone-tiled roof. To the left, big barns and byres--a farm-man leading in a young bull with a pole at the nose-ring; beyond that, open fields, with a d.y.k.e and a flood-wall of earth, grown over with nettles, withered sedges in the watercourse, and elms in which the rooks were clamorously building. We met with the ready, simple Berkshire courtesy; we were referred to a gardener who was in charge. To speak with him, we walked round to the other side of the house, to an open s.p.a.ce of gra.s.s, where the fowls picked merrily, and the old farm-lumber, broken coops, disused ploughs, lay comfortably about. "How I love tidiness!" wrote Morris once. Yet I did not feel that he would have done other than love all this natural and simple litter of the busy farmstead.
Here the venerable house appeared more stately still. Through an open door in a wall we caught a sight of the old standards of an orchard, and borders with the spikes of spring-flowers pushing through the mould. The gardener was digging in the gravelly soil. He received us with a grave and kindly air; but when we asked if we could look into the house, he said, with a st.u.r.dy faithfulness, that his orders were that no one should see it, and continued his digging without heeding us further.
Somewhat abashed we retraced our steps; we got one glimpse of the fine indented front, with its shapely wings and projections. I should like to have seen the great parlour, and the tapestry-room with the story of Samson that bothered Rossetti so over his work. I should like to have seen the big oak bed, with its hangings embroidered with one of Morris"s sweetest lyrics:
"The wind"s on the wold, And the night is a-cold."
I should like to have seen the tapestry-chamber, and the room where Morris, who so frankly relished the healthy savour of meat and drink, ate his joyful meals, and the peac.o.c.k yew-tree that he found in his days of failing strength too hard a task to clip. I should like to have seen all this, I say; and yet I am not sure that tables and chairs, upholsteries and pictures, would not have come in between me and the sacred spirit of the place.
So I turned to the church. Plain and homely as its exterior is, inside it is touched with the true mediaeval spirit, like the "old febel chapel" of the Mort d"Arthur. Its bare walls, its half-obliterated frescoes, its st.u.r.dy pillars, gave it an ancient, simple air. But I did not, to my grief, see the grave of Morris, though I saw in fancy the coffin brought from Lechlade in the bright farm-waggon, on that day of pitiless rain. For there was going on in the churchyard the only thing I saw that day that seemed to me to strike a false note; a silly posing of village girls, self-conscious and overdressed, before the camera of a photographer--a playing at aesthetics, bringing into the village life a touch of unwholesome vanity and the vulgar affectation of the world.
That is the ugly shadow of fame; it makes conventional people curious about the details of a great man"s life and surroundings, without initiating them into any sympathy with his ideals and motives. The price that the real worshippers pay for their inspiration is the slavering idolatry of the unintelligent; and I withdrew in a mournful wonder from the place, wishing I could set an invisible fence round the scene, a fence which none should pa.s.s but the few who had the secret and the key in their hearts.
And here, for the pleasure of copying the sweet words, let me transcribe a few sentences from Morris"s own description of the house itself:
"A house that I love with a reasonable love, I think; for though my words may give you no idea of any special charm about it, yet I a.s.sure you that the charm is there; so much has the old house grown up out of the soil and the lives of those that lived on it: some thin thread of tradition, a half-anxious sense of the delight of meadow and acre and wood and river; a certain amount (not too much, let us hope) of common-sense, a liking for making materials serve one"s turn, and perhaps at bottom some little grain of sentiment--this, I think, was what went to the making of the old house."
And again:
"My feet moved along the road they knew. The raised way led us into a little field, bounded by a backwater of the river on one side; on the right hand we could see a cl.u.s.ter of small houses and barns, and before us a grey stone barn and a wall partly overgrown with ivy, over which a few grey gables showed. The village road ended in the shallow of the backwater. We crossed the road, and my hand raised the latch of a door in the wall, and we stood presently on a stone path which led up to the old house. The garden between the wall and the house was redolent of the June flowers, and the roses were rolling over one another with that delicious superabundance of small well-tended gardens which at first sight takes away all thought save that of beauty. The blackbirds were singing their loudest, the doves were cooing on the roof-ridge, the rooks in the high elm trees beyond were garrulous among the young leaves, and the swifts wheeled whirring about the gables. And the house itself was a fit guardian for all the beauty of this heart of summer.
"O me! O me! How I love the earth, and the seasons, and weather, and all things that deal with it, and all that grows out of it--as this has done! The earth and the growth of it and the life of it! If I could but say or show how I love it!"
The pure lyrical beauty of these pa.s.sages makes one out of conceit with one"s own clumsy sentences. But still, I will say how all that afternoon, among the quiet fields, with the white clouds rolling up over the lip of the wolds, I was haunted with the thought of that burly figure; the great head with its curly hair and beard; the eyes that seemed so guarded and un.o.bservant, and that yet saw and noted every smallest detail; the big clumsy hands, apt for such delicacy of work; to see him in his rough blue suit, his easy rolling gait, wandering about, stooping to look at the flowers in the beds, or glancing up at the sky, or sauntering off to fish in the stream, or writing swiftly in the parlour, or working at his loom; so bluff, so kindly, so blunt in address, so unaffected, loving all that he saw, the tide of full-blooded and restless life running so vigorously in his veins; or, further back, Rossetti, with his wide eyes, half bright, half languorous, pale, haunted with impossible dreams, pacing, rapt in feverish thought, through the lonely fields. The ghosts of heroes! And whether it was that my own memories and affections and visions stirred my brain, or that some tide of the spirit still sets from the undiscovered sh.o.r.es to the scenes of life and love, I know not, but the place seemed thronged with unseen presences and viewless mysteries of hope. Doubtless, loving as we do the precise forms of earthly beauty, the wide green pastures, the tender grace of age on gable and wall, the springing of sweet flowers, the clear gush of the stream, we are really in love with some deeper and holier thing; yet even about the symbols themselves there lingers a consecrating power; and that influence was present with me to-day, as I went homewards in the westering light, with the shadows of house and tree lengthening across the gra.s.s in the still afternoon.