That was laying out a little hanging garden on the narrow ledge of two or three poor hours; and, behold! the garden has continued to be sweet and bright in the wide safe places of memory.
In saying all these things, I am aware that many wise men, or men reputed wise, are against me; and that pretty hard words have been applied in the literature of all countries and ages to persons who are of my way of thinking, as, for instance, _gross, thoughtless, without soul_, and _Epicurean Swine_. And some of the people I like most to read about, the heroes of Tolstoi, Andre, Levine, Pierre, and, of course, Tolstoi himself, are for ever repeating that they can not live, let alone enjoy life, unless some one tell them why they should live at all.
The demand, at first sight, does not seem unreasonable, and it is hard lines that just those who will ask about such matters should be the very ones for ever denied an answer. But so it is. The secret of _why we should live_ can be whispered only by a divinity; and, like the divinity who spoke to the Prophet, its small, still voice is heard only in ourselves. What it says there is neither couched in a logical form nor articulated in very definite language; and, I am bound to admit, is in no way of the nature of _pure reason_. Indeed, it is for the most part ejaculatory, and such that the veriest infant and simpleton, and I fear even animals (which is a dreadful admission), can follow its meaning. For to that unceasing question _Why_? the tiny voice within us answers with imperturbable irrelevance, "I want," "I do," "I think," and occasionally "I love." Very cra.s.s little statements, and not at all satisfactory to persons like Levine, Andre, and Tolstoi, who, for the most part, know them only second-hand; but wonderfully satisfying, thank goodness, to the great majority which hears them for ever humming and beating with the sound of its own lungs and heart. And one might even suspect that they are merely a personal paraphrase of the words which the spheres are singing and the heavens are telling.
So, if we have no ampler places to cultivate with reverence and love, let us betake ourselves to the hanging gardens on our roof. The suns will cake the insufficient earth and parch the delicate roots; the storms will batter and tear the frail creepers. No doubt. But at this present moment all is fair and fragrant. And when the storms have done their wicked worst, and the sun and the frosts--nay, when that roof on which we perch is pulled to pieces, tiles and bricks, and the whole block goes--may there not be, for those caring enough, the chance of growing another garden, there or elsewhere?
Be this as it may, one thing is certain, that no solid plot of earth between its walls or hedges allows us such intricate and unexpected bird"s-eye views of streets and squares, of the bustling or resting city; none gives us such a vault of heaven, pure and sunny, or creeping with clouds, or serenely starlit, as do these hanging gardens of our life.
THE END
HORTUS VITAE; OR, THE HANGING GARDENS:
MORALIZING ESSAYS.
BY VERNON LEE.
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