Chapter 1

AYLWIN

With Two Appendices, One Containing a Note on the Character of D'arcy; the Other a Key to the Story, Reprinted from _Notes and Queries_

by

THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON

Author of 'The Coming of Love: Rhona Boswell's Story,' etc. etc.

TO C. J. R. IN REMEMBRANCE OF SUNNY DAYS AND STARLIT NIGHTS WHEN WE RAMBLED TOGETHER ON CRUMBLING CLIFFS THAT ARE NOW AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA THIS EDITION OF A STORY WHICH HAS BEEN A LINK BETWEEN US IS INSCRIBED

CAUGHT IN THE EBBING TIDE

A REMINISCENCE OF RAXTOX CLIFFS

The mightiest Titan's stroke could not withstand An ebbing tide like this. These swirls denote How wind and tide conspire. I can but float To the open sea and strike no more for land. Farewell, brown cliffs, farewell, beloved sand Her feet have pressed--farewell, dear little boat Where Gelert,[Footnote] calmly sitting on my coat, Unconscious of my peril, gazes bland!

All dangers grip me save the deadliest, fear: Yet these air-pictures of the past that glide-- These death-mirages o'er the heaving tide-- Showing two lovers in an alcove clear, Will break my heart. I see them and I hear As there they sit at morning, side by side.

[Footnote: A famous swimming dog.]

THE VISION

_With Barton elms behind--in front the sea, Sitting in rosy light in that alcove, They hear the first lark rise o'er Raxton Grove: 'What should I do with fame, dear heart?' says he, 'You talk of fame, poetic fame, to me Whose crown is not of laurel but of love-- To me who would not give this little glove On this dear hand for Shakespeare's dower in fee.

While, rising red and kindling every billow, The sun's shield shines 'neath many a golden spear, To lean with you, against this leafy pillow, To murmur words of love in this loved ear-- To feel you bending like a bending willow, This is to be a poet--this, my dear!'_

O God, to die and leave her--die and leave The heaven so lately won!--And then, to know What misery will be hers--what lonely woe!-- To see the bright eyes weep, to see her grieve Will make me a coward as I sink, and cleave To life though Destiny has bid me go. How shall I bear the pictures that will glow Above the glowing billows as they heave?

One picture fades, and now above the spray Another shines: ah, do I know the bowers Where yon sweet woman stands--the woodland flowers, In that bright wreath of grass and new-mown hay-- That birthday wreath I wove when earthly hours Wore angel-wings,--till portents brought dismay?

Shall I turn coward here who sailed with Death Through many a tempest on mine own North Sea, And quail like him of old who bowed the knee-- Faithless--to billows of Genesereth? Did I turn coward when my very breath Froze on my lips that Alpine night when He Stood glimmering there, the Skeleton, with me, While avalanches rolled from peaks beneath?

Each billow bears me nearer to the verge Of realms where she is not--where love must wait. If Gelert, there, could hear, no need to urge That friend, so faithful, true, affectionate, To come and help me, or to share my fate. Ah! surely I see him springing through the surge. [_The dog, plunging into the tide and striking towards his master with immense strength, reaches him and swims round him._]

Oh, Gelert, strong of wind and strong of paw, Here gazing like your namesake, 'Snowdon's Hound,' When great Llewelyn's child could not be found, And all the warriors stood in speechless awe-- Mute as your namesake when his master saw The cradle tossed--the rushes red around-- With never a word, but only a whimpering sound To tell what meant the blood on lip and jaw!

In such a strait, to aid this gaze so fond, Should I, brave friend, have needed other speech Than this dear whimper? Is there not a bond Stronger than words that binds us each to each?-- But Death has caught us both. 'Tis far beyond The strength of man or dog to win the beach.

Through tangle-weed--through coils of slippery kelp Decking your shaggy forehead, those brave eyes Shine true--shine deep of love's divine surmise As hers who gave you--then a Titan whelp!-- I think you know my danger and would help!-- See how I point to yonder smack that lies At anchor--Go! His countenance replies. Hope's music rings in Gelert's eager yelp! [_The dog swims swiftly away down the tide._]

Now, life and love and death swim out with him! If he should reach the smack, the men will guess The dog has left his master in distress. She taught him in these very waves to swim-- 'The prince of pups,' she said, 'for wind and limb'-- And now those lessons come to save--to bless.

ENVOY

(_The day after the rescue: Gelert and his master walking along the sand._)

'Twas in no glittering tourney's mimic strife,-- 'Twas in that bloody fight in Raxton Grove, While hungry ravens croaked from boughs above, And frightened blackbirds shrilled the warning fife-- 'Twas there, in days when Friendship still was rife. Mine ancestor who threw the challenge-glove Conquered and found his foe a soul to love, Found friendship--Life's great second crown of life.

So I this morning love our North Sea more Because he fought me well, because these waves Now weaving sunbows for us by the shore Strove with me, tossed me in those emerald caves That yawned above my head like conscious graves-- I love him as I never loved before.

PREFACE TO THIS EDITION

The heart-thought of this hook being the peculiar doctrine in Philip Aylwin's _Veiled Queen_, and the effect of it upon the fortunes of the hero and the other characters, the name 'The Renascence of Wonder' was the first that came to my mind when confronting the difficult question of finding a name for a book that is at once a love-story and an expression of a creed. But eventually I decided, and I think from the worldly point of view wisely, to give it simply the name of the hero.

The important place in the story, however, taken by this creed did not escape the most acute and painstaking of the critics. Madame Galimberti, for instance, in the elaborate study of the book which she made in the Rivista d' Italia, gave great attention to its central idea: so did M. Maurice Muret, in the _Journal des Débats_; so did M. Henri Jacottet in _La Semaine Littéraire_. Mr. Baker, again, in his recently published work on fiction, described _Aylwin_ as 'an imaginative romance of modern days, the moral idea of which is man's attitude in face of the unknown,' or, as the writer puts it, 'the renascence of wonder.' With regard to the phrase itself, in the introduction to the latest edition of Aylwin--the twenty-second edition--I made the following brief reply to certain questions that have been raised by critics both in England and on the Continent concerning it. The phrase, I said, 'The Renascence of Wonder,'

Is used to express that great revived movement of the soul of man which is generally said to have begun with the poetry of Wordsworth, Scott, Coleridge, and others, and after many varieties of expression reached its culmination in the poems and pictures of Rossetti. The phrase 'The Renascence of Wonder' merely indicates that there are two great impulses governing man, and probably not man only but the entire world of conscious life--the impulse of acceptance--the impulse to take unchallenged and for granted all the phenomena of the outer world as they are, and the impulse to confront these phenomena with eyes of inquiry and wonder.

The painter Wilderspin says to Henry Aylwin, 'The one great event of my life has been the reading of _The Veiled Queen_, your father's hook of inspired wisdom upon the modern Renascence of Wonder in the mind of man.' And further on he says that his own great picture symbolical of this renascence was suggested by Philip Aylwin's vignette. Since the original writing of Aylwin, many years ago, I have enlarged upon its central idea in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ and in the introductory essay to the third volume of Chambers's _Cyclopædia of English Literature_, and in other places. Naturally, therefore, the phrase has been a good deal discussed. Quite lately Dr. Robertson Nicoll has directed attention to the phrase, and he has taken it as a text of a remarkable discourse upon the 'Renascence of Wonder in Religion.' I am tempted to quote some of his words:--

Amongst the Logia recently discovered by the explorers of the Egypt Fund, there is one of which part was already known to have occurred in the Gospel according to the Hebrews. It runs as follows:--'Let not him that seeketh cease from his search until he find, and when he finds he shall wonder: wondering he shall reach the kingdom, and when he reaches the kingdom he shall have rest.'...We believe that Butler was one of the first to share in the Renascence of Wonder, which was the renascence of religion....Men saw once more the marvel of the universe and the romance of man's destiny. They became aware of the spiritual world, of the supernatural, of the lifelong struggle of the soul, of the power of the unseen.

The words quoted by Dr. Nicoll might very appropriately be used as a motto for _Aylwin_ and also for its sequel _The Coming of Love: Rhona Boswells Story_.

PREFACE TO THE TWENTY-SECOND EDITION OF 1904

Nothing in regard to Aylwin has given me so much pleasure as the way in which it has been received both by my Welsh friends and my Romany friends. I little thought, when I wrote it, that within three years of its publication the gypsy pictures in it would be discoursed upon to audiences of 4000 people by a man so well equipped to express an opinion on such a subject as the eloquent and famous 'Gypsy Smith,' and described by him as 'the most trustworthy picture of Romany life in the English language, containing in Sinfi Lovell the truest representative of the Gypsy girl.'

And as regards my Welsh readers, they have done me the honour of suggesting that an illustrated edition of the work would be prized by all lovers of 'Beautiful Wales.'

Although such an edition is, I am told, an expensive undertaking, my friend and publisher, Mr. Blackett, sees his way, he tells me, to bringing it out.

Since the first appearance of the book there have been many interesting discussions by Welsh readers, in various periodicals, upon the path taken by Sinfi Lovell and Aylwin in their ascent of Snowdon.

A very picturesque letter appeared in _Notes and Queries_ on May 3rd, 1902, signed _C. C. B._ in answer to a query by E. W., which I will give myself the pleasure of quoting because it describes the writer's ascent of Snowdon (accompanied by a son of my old friend Harry Owen, late of Pen-y-Gwryd) along a path which was almost the same as that taken by Aylwin and Sinfi Lovell, when he saw the same magnificent spectacle that was seen by them:--

The mist was then clearing (it was in July) and in a few moments was entirely gone. So marvellous a transformation scene, and so immense a prospect, I have never beheld since. For the first and only time in my life I saw from one spot almost the whole of North and Mid-Wales, a good part of Western England, and a glimpse of Scotland and Ireland. The vision faded all too quickly, but it was worth walking thirty-three or thirty-four miles, as I did that day, for even a briefer view than that.

Referring to Llyn Coblynau this interesting writer says--

Only from Glaslyn would the description in _Aylwin_ of y Wyddfa standing out against the sky 'as narrow and as steep as the sides of an acorn' be correct, but from the north and north-west sides of Glaslyn this answers with quite curious exactness to the appearance of the mountain. We must suppose the action of the story to have taken place before the revival of the copper-mining industry on Snowdon.

With regard, however, to the question here raised, I can save myself all trouble by simply quoting the admirable remarks of _Sion o Ddyli_ in the same number of _Notes and Queries:_--

None of us are very likely to succeed in placing this llyn, because the author of _Aylwin_, taking a privilege of romance often taken by Sir Walter Scott before him, probably changed the landmarks in idealising the scene and adapting it to his story. It may be, indeed, that the Welsh name given to the llyn in the book is merely a rough translation of the gipsies' name for it, the 'Knockers' being gnomes or goblins of the mine; hence 'Coblynau' equals goblins. If so, the name itself can give us no clue unless we are lucky enough to secure the last of the Welsh gipsies for a guide. In any case, the only point from which to explore Snowdon for the small llyn, or perhaps llyns (of which Llyn Coblynau is a kind of composite ideal picture), is no doubt, as E. W. has suggested, Capel Curig; and I imagine the actual scene lies about a mile south from Glaslyn, while it owes something at least of its colouring in the book to that strange lake. The 'Knockers,' it must be remembered, usually depend upon the existence of a mine near by, with old partly fallen mine-workings where the dropping of water or other subterranean noises produce the curious phenomenon which is turned to such imaginative account in the Snowdon chapters of _Aylwin_.

There is another question--a question of a very different kind--raised by several correspondents of _Notes and Queries_, upon which I should like to say a word--a question as to _The Veiled Queen_ and the use therein of the phrase 'The Renascence of Wonder'--a phrase which has been said to 'express the artistic motif of the book.' The _motif_ of the book, however, is one of emotion primarily, or it would not have been written.

There is yet another subject upon which I feel tempted to say a few words. D'Arcy in referring to Aylwin's conduct in regard to the cross says:--

You were simply doing what Hamlet would have done in such circumstances--what Macbeth would have done, and what he would have done who spoke to the human heart through their voices. All men, I believe, have Macbeth's instinct for making 'assurance doubly sure,' and I cannot imagine the man who, entangled as you were in a net of conflicting evidence--the evidence of the spiritual and the evidence of the natural world--would not, if the question were that of averting a curse from acting on a beloved mistress, have done as you did. That paralysis of Hamlet's will which followed when the evidence of two worlds hung in equipoise before him, no one can possibly understand better than I.

Several critics have asked me to explain these words. Of course, however, the question is much too big and much too important to discuss here. I will merely say that Shakespeare having decided in the case of 'Macbeth' to adopt the machinery he found in Holinslied, and in the case of 'Hamlet' the machinery he found in the old 'Hamlet,' seems to have set himself the task of realising the situation of a man oscillating between the evidence of two worlds, the physical and the spiritual--a man in each case unusually sagacious, and in each case endowed with the instinct for 'making assurance doubly sure'--the instinct which seems, from many passages in his dramas, to have been a special characteristic of the poet's own, such for instance as the words in _Pericles_:

For truth can never be confirm'd enough, Though doubts did ever sleep.

Why is it that, in this story, Hamlet, the moody moraliser upon charnel-houses and mouldy bones, is identified with the jolly companion of the Mermaid, the wine-bibbing joker of the Falcon, and the Apollo saloon? It is because Hamlet is the most elaborately-painted character in literature. It is because the springs of his actions are so profoundly touched, the workings of his soul so thoroughly laid bare, that we seem to know him more completely than we know our most intimate friends. It is because the sea which washes between personality and personality is here, for once, rolled away, and we and this Hamlet touch, soul to soul. That is why we ask whether such a character can be the mere evolvement of the artistic mind at work. That is why we exclaim: 'The man who painted Hamlet must have been painting himself.' The perfection of the dramatist's work betrays him. For, really and truly, no man can paint another, but only himself, and what we call 'character painting' is, at the best, but a poor mixing of painter and painted, a 'third something' between these two; just as what we call colour and sound are born of the play of undulation upon organism.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SNOWDON EDITION OF 1901

Though written many years ago this story was, for certain personal reasons easy to guess, withheld from publication--withheld, as _The Times_ pointed out, because 'with the _Dichtung_ was mingled a good deal of _Wahrheit_,' But why did I still delay in publishing it after these reasons for withholding it had passed away? This is a question that has often been put to me both in print and in conversation. And yet I should have imagined that the explanation was not far to seek. It was simply diffidence; in other words it was that infirmity which, though generally supposed to belong to youth, comes to a writer, if it comes at all, with years. Undoubtedly there was a time in my life when I should have leapt with considerable rashness into the brilliant ranks of our contemporary novelists. But this was before I had reached what I will call the diffident period in the life of a writer. And then, again, I had often been told by George Borrow, and also by my friend Francis Groome, the great living authority on Romany matters, that there was in England no interest in Gypsies. Altogether then, had it not been for the unexpected success of _The Coming of Love_, a story of Gypsy life, it is doubtful whether I should not have delayed the publication of _Aylwin_ until the great warder of the gates of day we call Death should close his portal behind me and shut me off from these dreams. However, I am very glad now that I did publish it; for it has brought around me a number of new friends--brought them at a time when new friends were what I yearned for--a time when, looking back through this vision of my life, I seem to be looking down an Appian way--a street of tombs--the tombs of those I loved. No wonder, then, that I was deeply touched by the kindness with which the Public and the Press received the story.

One critic did me the honour of remarking upon what he called the 'absolute newness of the plot and incidents of _Aylwin_.' He seems to have forgotten, however, that one incident--the most daring incident in the book--that of the rifling of a grave for treasure --is not new: it will at once remind folk-lorists of certain practices charged against our old Norse invaders. And students of Celtic and Gaelic literature are familiar with the same idea. Quite, lately, indeed, Mr. Alfred Nutt, in his analysis of the Gaelic _Agallamh na Senorach_, or 'Colloquy of the Elders,' has made some interesting remarks upon the subject.

As far as I remember, the only objection made by the critics to _Aylwin_ was that I had imported into a story written for popular acceptance too many speculations and breedings upon the gravest of all subjects--the subject of love at struggle with death. My answer to this is that although it did win a great popular acceptance I never expected it to do so. I knew the book to be an expression of idiosyncrasy, and no man knows how much or how little his idiosyncrasy is in harmony with the temper of his time, until his book has been given to the world. It was the story of _Aylwin_ that was born of the speculations upon Love and Death; it was not the speculations that were pressed into the story; without these speculations there could have been no story to tell. Indeed the chief fault which myself should find with _Aylwin_, if my business were to criticise it, would be that it gives not too little but too much prominence to the strong incidents of the story--a story written as a comment on love's warfare with death--written to show that confronted as a man is every moment by signs of the fragility and brevity of human life, the great marvel connected with him is not that his thoughts dwell frequently upon the unknown country beyond Orion where the beloved dead are loving us still, but that he can find time and patience to think upon anything else--a story written further to show how terribly despair becomes intensified when a man has lost--or thinks he has lost--a woman whose love was the only light of his world--when his soul is torn from his body, as it were, and whisked off on the wings of the 'viewless winds' right away beyond the farthest star, till the universe hangs beneath his feet a trembling point of twinkling light, and at last even this dies away and his soul cries out for help in that utter darkness and loneliness.

It was to depict this phase of human emotion that both _Aylwin_ and its sequel, _The Coming of Love_, were written. They were missives from the lonely watch-tower of the writer's soul, sent out into the strange and busy battle of the world--sent out to find, if possible, another soul or two to whom the watcher was, without knowing it, akin.

And now as to my two Gypsy heroines, the Sinfi Lovell of _Aylwin_ and the Rhona Boswell of _The Coming of Love_. Although Borrow belonged to a different generation from mine, I enjoyed his intimate friendship in his later years--during the time when he lived in Hereford Square; and since his death I have written a good deal about him--both in prose and in verse--in the Athenæum, in the Encyclopædia Britannica, and in other places. When, some seven or eight years ago, I brought out an edition of _Lavengro_ (in Messrs. Ward, Lock & Co.'s Minerva Library), I prefaced that delightful book by a few desultory remarks upon Sorrow's Gypsy characters. On that occasion I gave a slight sketch of the most remarkable 'Romany Chi' that had ever been met with in the part of East Anglia known to Borrow and myself--Sinfi Lovell. I described her playing on the crwth. I discussed her exploits as a boxer, and I contrasted her in many ways with the glorious Anglo-Saxon road-girl Isopel Berners. Since the publication of _Aylwin_ and _The Coming of Love_ I have received very many letters from English and American readers inquiring whether 'the Gypsy girl described in the introduction to _Lavenyro_ is the same as the Sinfi Lovell of _Aylwin_,' and also whether 'the Rhona Boswell that figures in the prose story is the same as the Rhona of _The Coming of Love_?' The evidence of the reality of Rhona so impressed itself upon the reader that on the appearance of Rhona's first letter in the _Athenæum_, where the poem was printed in fragments, I got among other letters one from the sweet poet and adorable woman Jean Ingelow, who was then very ill,--near her death indeed,--urging me to tell her whether Rhona's love-letter was not a versification of a real letter from a real Gypsy to her lover. As it was obviously impossible for me to answer the queries individually, I take this opportunity of saying that the Sinfi of _Aylwin_ and the Sinfi described in my introduction to _Lavengro_ are one and the same character--except that the story of the child Sinfi's weeping for the 'poor dead Gorgios' in the churchyard, given in the Introduction, is really told by the Gypsies, not of Sinfi, but of Rhona Boswell. Sinfi is the character alluded to in the now famous sonnet describing 'the walking lord of Gypsy lore,' Borrow, by his most intimate friend Dr. Gordon Hake.