Part 5

Meanwhile I lived a lonely sort of life, with two or three close intimates. I never really cared for London, but it is at the same time idle to deny its fascination. In the first place it is full from day to day of prodigious, astounding, unexpected beauties—sometimes beauty on a noble scale, in the grand style, such as when the sunset shakes its hair among ragged clouds, and the endless leagues of house-roofs and the fronts of town palaces dwindle into a far-off steely horizon-line under the huge and wild expanse of sky. Sometimes it is the smaller, but no less alluring beauty of subtle atmospherical effects; and so conventional is the human appreciation of beauty that the constant presence, in these London pictures, of straight framing lines, contributed by house-front and street-end, is an aid to the imagination. Again, there is the beauty of contrasts; the vignettes afforded by the sudden blossoming of rustic flowers and shrubs in unexpected places; the rustle of green leaves at the end of a monotonous street. And then, apart from natural beauty, there is the vast, absorbing, incredible pageant of humanity, full of pathos, of wistfulness, and of sweetness. But of this I can say but little; for it always moved me, and moves me yet, with a sort of horror. I think it was always to me a spectacular interest; I never felt _one_ with the human beings whom I watched, or even in the same boat, so to speak, with them; the contemplation of the fact that I am one of so many millions has been to me a humiliating rather than an inspiring thought; it dashes the pleasures of individuality; it arraigns the soul before a dark and inflexible bar. Passing daily through London, there is little possibility in the case of an imaginative man for hopeful expansion of the heart, little ground for anything but an acquiescent acceptance. Under these conditions it is too rudely brought home to me to be wholesome, how ineffective, undistinguished, typical, minute, uninteresting any one human being is after all: and though the sight of humanity in every form is attractive, bewildering, painfully interesting, thrilling, and astounding—though one finds unexpected beauty and goodness everywhere—yet I recognise that city life had a deadening effect on my consciousness, and hindered rather than helped the development of thought and life.

[Sidenote: THE ARTIST]

Still, in other ways this period was most valuable—it made me practical instead of fanciful; alert instead of dreamy; it made me feel what I had never known before, the necessity for grasping the _exact_ point of a matter, and not losing oneself among side issues. It helped me out of the entirely amateurish condition of mind into which I had been drifting—and, moreover, it taught me one thing which I had never realised, a lesson for which I am profoundly grateful, namely that literature and art play a very small part in the lives of the majority of people; that most men have no sort of an idea that they are serious matters, but look upon them as more or less graceful amusements; that in such regions they have no power of criticism, and no judgment; but that these are not nearly such serious defects as the defect of vision which the artist and the man of letters suffer from and encourage—the defect, I mean, of treating artistic ideals as matters of pre-eminent national, even of moral importance. They must be content to range themselves frankly with other craftsmen; they may sustain themselves by thinking that they may help, a very little, to ameliorate conditions, to elevate the tone of morality and thought, to provide sources of recreation, to strengthen the sense of beauty; but they must remember that they cannot hope to belong to the primal and elemental things of life. Not till the primal needs are satisfied does the work of the poet and artist begin—“After the banquet, the minstrel.”

The poet and the artist too often live, like the Lady of Shalott, weaving a magic web of fair and rich colour, but dealing not with life itself, and not even with life viewed _ipsis oculis_, but in the magic mirror. The Lady of Shalott is doubly secluded from the world; she does not mingle with it, she does not even see it; so the writer sometimes does not even see the life which he describes, but draws his knowledge secondhand, through books and bookish secluded talk. I do not think that I under-rate the artistic vocation; but it is only one of many, and, though different in kind, certainly not superior to the vocations of those who do the practical work of the world.

From this dangerous heresy I was saved just at the moment when it was waiting to seize upon me, and at a time when a man’s convictions are apt to settle themselves for life, by contact with the prosaic, straightforward and commonplace world.

At one time I saw a certain amount of society; my father’s old friends were very kind to me, and I was thus introduced to what is a far more interesting circle of society than the circle which would rank itself highest, and which spends an amount of serious toil in the search of amusement, with results which to an outsider appear to be unsatisfactory. The circle to which I gained admittance was the official set—men who had definite and interesting work in the world—barristers, government officials, politicians and the like, men versed in affairs, and with a hard and definite knowledge of what was really going on. Here I learnt how different is the actual movement of politics from the reflection of it which appears in the papers, which often definitely conceals the truth from the public.

[Sidenote: DIVERSIONS]

My amusements at this period were of the mildest character; I spent Sundays in the summer months at Golden End; Sundays in the winter as a rule at my lodgings; and devoted the afternoons on which I was free, to long aimless rambles in London, or even farther afield. I have an absurd pleasure in observing the details of domestic architecture; and there is a variety of entertainment to be derived, for a person with this low and feeble taste, from the exploration of London, which would probably be inconceivable to persons of a more conscientious artistic standard.

[Sidenote: A RUDE SHOCK]

At this period I had few intimates; and sociable as I had been at school and college, I was now thrown far more on my own resources; I sometimes think it was a wise and kindly preparation for what was coming; and I certainly learnt the pleasures to be derived from reading and lonely contemplation and solitary reflection, pleasures which have stood me in good stead in later days. I used indeed to think that the enforced spending of so many hours of the day with other human beings gave a peculiar zest to these solitary hours. Whether this was wholesome or natural I know not, but I certainly enjoyed it, and lived for several years a life of interior speculation which was neither sluggish nor morbid. I learnt my business thoroughly, and in all probability I should have settled down quietly and comfortably to the life of a bachelor official, rotating from chambers to office and from office to club, had it not been that just at the moment when I was beginning to crystallise into sluggish, comfortable habits, I was flung by a rude shock into a very different kind of atmosphere.

14

[Sidenote: THE DOCTOR]

I must now relate, however briefly, the event which once for all determined the conditions of my present life. For the last six months of my professional work I had been feeling indefinitely though not decidedly unwell. I found myself disinclined to exertion, bodily or mental, easily elated, easily depressed, at times strangely somnolent, at others irritably wakeful; at last some troublesome symptoms warned me that I had better put myself in the hands of a doctor. I went to a local practitioner whose account disquieted me; he advised me to apply to an eminent specialist, which I accordingly did.

[Sidenote: THE VERDICT]

I am not likely to forget the incidents of that day. I went up to London, and made my way to the specialist’s house. After a dreary period of waiting, in a dark room looking out on a blank wall, the table abundantly furnished with periodicals whose creased and battered aspect betokened the nervous handling to which they had been subjected, I was at last summoned to the presence of the great man himself. He presented an appearance of imperturbable good-nature; his rosy cheeks, his little snub nose, his neatly groomed appearance, his gold-rimmed spectacles, wore an air of commonplace prosperity that was at once reassuring. He asked me a number of questions, made a thorough examination, writing down certain details in a huge volume, and finally threw himself back in his chair with a deliberate air that somewhat disconcerted me. At last my sentence came. I was undoubtedly suffering from the premonitory symptoms of a serious, indeed dangerous complaint, and I must at once submit myself to the condition of an invalid life. He drew out a table diet, and told me to live a healthy, quiet life under the most restful conditions attainable. He asked me about my circumstances, and I told him with as much calmness as I could muster. He replied that I was very fortunate, that I must at once give up professional work and be content to _vegetate_. “Mind,” he said, “I don’t want you to be _bored_—that will be as bad for you as to be overworked. But you must avoid all kinds of worry and fatigue—all extremes. I should not advise you to travel at present, if you _like_ a country life—in fact I should say, live the life that attracts you, apart from any professional exertions; don’t do anything you don’t like. Now, Mr. ——,” he continued, “I have told you the worst—the very worst. I can’t say whether your constitution will triumph over this complaint: to be candid, I do not think it will; but there is no question of any immediate risk whatever. Indeed, if you were dependent on your own exertions for a livelihood, I could promise you some years of work—though that would render it almost impossible for you ever to recover. As it is, you may consider that you have a chance of entire recovery, and if you can follow my directions, and no unforeseen complications intervene, I think you may look forward to a fairly long life; but mind that any work you do must be of the nature of amusement. Once and for all, _strain_ of any sort is out of the question, and if you indulge in any excessive or exciting exertions, you will inevitably shorten your life. There, I have told you a disagreeable truth—make the best of it—remember that I see many people every week who have to bear far more distressing communications. You had better come to see me every three months, unless you have any marked symptoms, such as”—(there followed medical details with which I need not trouble the reader)—“in that case come to me at once; but I tell you plainly that I do not anticipate them. You seem to have what I call the patient temperament—to have a vocation, if I may say so,” (here he smiled benevolently) “for the invalid life.” He rose as he spoke, shook hands kindly, and opened the door.

15

[Sidenote: NEW PERCEPTIONS]

I will confess that at first this communication was a great shock to me; I was for a time bewildered and plunged into a deep dejection. To say farewell to the bustle and activity of life—to be laid aside on a shelf, like a cracked vase, turning as far as possible my ornamental front to the world, spoilt for homely service. To be relegated to the failures; to be regarded and spoken of as an invalid—to live the shadowed life, a creature of rules and hours, fretting over drugs and beef tea—a degrading, a humiliating rôle. I admit that the first weeks of my enforced retirement were bitter indeed. The perpetual fret of small restrictions had at first the effect of making me feel physically and mentally incapable. Only very gradually did the sad cloud lift. The first thing that came to my help was a totally unexpected feeling. When I had got used to the altered conditions of life, when I found that the regulated existence had become to a large extent mechanical, when I had learnt to decide instinctively what I could attempt and what I must leave alone, I found my perceptions curiously heightened and intensified by the shadowy background which enveloped me. Sounds and sights thrilled me in an unaccustomed way—the very thought, hardly defined, but existing like a quiet subconsciousness, that my tenure of life was certainly frail, and might be brief, seemed to bring out into sharp relief the simple and unnoticed sensations of ordinary life. The pure gush of morning air through the opened casement, the delicious coolness of water on the languid body, the liquid song of birds, the sprouting of green buds upon the hedge, the sharp and aromatic scent of rosy larch tassels, the monotonous babble of the stream beneath its high water plants, the pearly laminæ of the morning cloudland, the glowing wrack of sunset with the liquid bays of intenser green—all these stirred my spirit with an added value of beauty, an enjoyment at once passionate and tranquil, as though they held some whispered secret for the soul.

The same quickening effect passed, I noticed, over intellectual perceptions. Pictures in which there was some latent quality, some hidden brooding, some mystery lying beneath and beyond superficial effect, gave up their secrets to my eye. Music came home to me with an intensity of pathos and passion which I had before never even suspected, and even here the same subtle power of appreciation seemed to have been granted me. It seemed that I was no longer taken in by technical art or mechanical perfection. The hard rippling cascades which had formerly attracted me, where a musician was merely working out, if I may use the word, some subject with a mathematical precision, seemed to me hollow and vain; all that was pompous and violent followed suit, and what I now seemed to be able to discern was all that endeavoured, however faultily, to express some ardour of the spirit, some indefinable delicacy of feeling.

Something of the same power seemed to be mine in dealing with literature. All hard brilliance, all exaggerated display, all literary agility and diplomacy that might have once deceived me, appeared to ring cracked and thin; _mere_ style, style that concealed rather than expressed thought, fell as it were in glassy tingling showers on my initiated spirit; while, on the other hand, all that was truthfully felt, sincerely conceived or intensely desired, drew me as with a magical compulsion. It was then that I first perceived what the sympathy, the perception born of suffering might be, when that suffering was not so intrusive, so severe, as to throw the sick spirit back upon itself—then that I learnt what detachment, what spectatorial power might be conferred by a catastrophe not violent, but sure, by a presage of distant doom. I felt like a man who has long stumbled among intricate lanes, his view obscured by the deep-cut earth-walls of his prison, and by the sordid lower slopes with their paltry details, when the road leads out upon the open moor, and when at last he climbs freely and exultingly upon the broad grassy shoulders of the hill. The true perspective—the map of life opened out before me; I learnt that all art is only valuable when it is the sedulous flowering of the sweet and gracious spirit, and that beyond all power of human expression lies a province where the deepest thoughts, the highest mysteries of the spirit sleep—only guessed at, wrestled with, hankered after by the most skilled master of all the arts of mortal subtlety.

Perhaps the very thing that made these fleeting impressions so perilously sweet, was the sense of their evanescence.

But oh, the very reason why I love them, is because they die.

[Sidenote: THE SHADOW]

In this exalted mood, with this sense of heightened perception all about me, I began for awhile to luxuriate. I imagined that I had learnt a permanent lesson, gained a higher level of philosophy, escaped from the grip of material things. Alas! it was but transitory. I had not triumphed. What I did gain, what did stay with me, was a more deliberate intention of enjoying simple things, a greater expectation of beauty in homely life. This remained, but in a diminished degree. I suppose that the mood was one of intense nervous tension, for by degrees it was shadowed and blotted, until I fell into a profound depression. At best what could I hope for?—a shadowed life, an inglorious gloom? The dull waste years stretched before me—days, weeks, months of wearisome little duties; dreary tending of the lamp of life; and what a life! life without service, joy, brightness, or usefulness. I was to be stranded like a hulk on an oozy shore, only thankful for every month that the sodden timbers still held together. I saw that something larger and deeper was required; I saw that religion and philosophy must unite to form some definite theory of life, to build a foundation on which I could securely rest.

16

The service of others, in some form or another, must sustain me. Philosophy pointed out that to narrow my circle every year, to turn the microscope of thought closer and closer upon my frail self, would be to sink month by month deeper into egotism and self-pity. Religion gave a more generous impulse still.

[Sidenote: BEGINNINGS]

What is our duty with respect to philanthropy? It is obviously absurd to think that every one is bound to tie themselves hand and foot to some thoroughly uncongenial task. Fitness and vocation must come in. Clergy, doctors, teachers are perhaps the most obvious professional philanthropists; for either of the two latter professions I was incapacitated. Some hovering thought of attempting to take orders, and to become a kind of amateur, unprofessional curate, visited me; but my religious views made that difficult, and the position of a man who preaches what he does not wholly believe is inconsistent with self-respect. Christianity as taught by the sects seemed to me to have drifted hopelessly away from the detached simplicity inculcated by Christ; to have become a mere part of the social system, fearfully invaded and overlaid by centuries of unintelligent tradition. To work, for instance, even with Mr. Woodward, at his orders, on his system, would have been an impossibility both for him and for myself. I had, besides, a strong feeling that work, to be of use, must be done, not in a spirit of complacent self-satisfaction, but at least with some energy of enjoyment, some conviction. It seemed moreover clear that, for a time at all events, my place and position in the world was settled: I must live a quiet home life, and endeavour, at all events, to restore some measure of effective health. How could I serve my neighbours best? They were mostly quiet country people—a few squires and clergy, a few farmers, and many farm labourers. Should I accept a country life as my sphere, or was I bound to try and find some other outlet for whatever effectiveness I possessed? I came deliberately to the conclusion that I was not only not bound to go elsewhere, but that it was the most sensible, wisest, and Christian solution to stay where I was and make some experiments.

[Sidenote: MY SCHEMES]

The next practical difficulty was _how_ I could help. English people have a strong sense of independence. They would neither understand nor value a fussy, dragooning philanthropist, who bustled about among them, finding fault with their domestic arrangements, lecturing, dictating. I determined that I would try to give them the help they wanted; not the help I thought they ought to want. That I would go among them with no idea of _improving_, but of doing, if possible, neighbourly and unobtrusive kindnesses, and that under no circumstances would I diminish their sense of independence by weak generosity.

About this time, my mother at luncheon happened to mention that the widow of a small farmer, who was living in a cottage not fifty yards from our gate, was in trouble about her eldest boy, who was disobedient, idle, and unsatisfactory. He had been employed by more than one neighbour in garden work, but had lost two places by laziness and impertinence. Here was a _point d’appui_. In the afternoon I strolled across; nervous and shy, I confess, to a ridiculous degree. I knew the woman by sight, and little more. I felt thoroughly unfitted for my rôle, and feared that patronage would be resented. However, I went and found Mrs. Dewhurst at home. I was received with real geniality and something of delicate sympathy—the news of my illness had got about. I determined I would ask no leading questions, but bit by bit her anxieties were revealed: the boy was a trouble to her. “What did he want?” She didn’t know; but he was discontented and naughty, had got into bad company. I asked if it would be any good my seeing the boy, and found that it would evidently be a relief. I asked her to send the boy to me that evening, and went away with a real and friendly handshake, and an invitation to come again. In the evening Master Dewhurst turned up—a shy, uninteresting, rather insolent boy, strong and well-built, and with a world of energy in his black eyes. I asked him what he wanted to do, and after a little talk it all came out: he was sick of the place; he did not want garden work. “What would he do? What _did_ he like?” I found that he wanted to see something of the world. Would he go to sea? The boy brightened up at once, and then said he didn’t want to leave his mother. Our interview closed, and this necessitated my paying a further call on the mother, who was most sensible, and evidently felt that what the boy wanted was a thorough change.

To make a long story short, it cost me a few letters and a very little money, defined as a loan; the boy went off to a training ship, and after a few weeks found that he had the very life he wanted; indeed, he is now a promising young sailor, who never fails to write to me at intervals, and who comes to see me whenever he comes home. The mother is a firm friend. Now that I am at my ease with her, I am astonished at the shrewdness and sense of her talk.

It would be tedious to recount, as I could, fifty similar adventures; my enterprises include a village band, a cricket club, a co-operative store; but the personal work, such as it is, has broadened every year: I am an informal adviser to thirty or forty families, and the correspondence entailed, to say nothing of my visits, gives me much pleasant occupation. The circle now insensibly widens; I do not pretend that there are not times of weariness, and even disagreeable experiences connected with it. I am a poor hand in a sick-room, I confess it with shame; my mother, who is not particularly interested in her neighbours, is ten times as effective.

[Sidenote: THE REWARD]