"In good sooth, my masters, this is no door.
Yet is it a little window, that looketh upon a great world."
"Phantastes from `their fount all shapes deriving,
In new habiliments can quickly dight."
FLETCHER'S Purple Island
CHAPTER 1
"A spirit . . .
. . . . . .
The undulating and silent well,
And rippling rivulet, and evening gloom,
Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,
Held commune with him; as if he and it
Were all that was."
SHELLEY'S Alastor.
I awoke one morning with the usual perplexity of mind which accompanies
the return of consciousness. As I lay and looked through the eastern
window of my room, a faint streak of peach- colour, dividing a
cloud that just rose above the low swell of the horizon, announced
the approach of the sun. As my thoughts, which a deep and apparently
dreamless sleep had dissolved, began again to assume crystalline
forms, the strange events of the foregoing night presented themselves
anew to my wondering consciousness. The day before had been my
one-and-twentieth birthday. Among other ceremonies investing me
with my legal rights, the keys of an old secretary, in which my
father had kept his private papers, had been delivered up to me.
As soon as I was left alone, I ordered lights in the chamber where
the secretary stood, the first lights that had been there for
many a year; for, since my father's death, the room had been left
undisturbed. But, as if the darkness had been too long an inmate
to be easily expelled, and had dyed with blackness the walls to
which, bat-like, it had clung, these tapers served but ill to
light up the gloomy hangings, and seemed to throw yet darker shadows
into the hollows of the deep-wrought cornice. All the further
portions of the room lay shrouded in a mystery whose deepest folds
were gathered around the dark oak cabinet which I now approached
with a strange mingling of reverence and curiosity. Perhaps, like
a geologist, I was about to turn up to the light some of the buried
strata of the human world, with its fossil remains charred by
passion and petrified by tears. Perhaps I was to learn how my
father, whose personal history was unknown to me, had woven his
web of story; how he had found the world, and how the world had
left him. Perhaps I was to find only the records of lands and
moneys, how gotten and how secured; coming down from strange men,
and through troublous times, to me, who knew little or nothing
of them all. To solve my speculations, and to dispel the awe which
was fast gathering around me as if the dead were drawing near,
I approached the secretary; and having found the key that fitted
the upper portion, I opened it with some difficulty, drew near
it a heavy high-backed chair, and sat down before a multitude
of little drawers and slides and pigeon-holes. But the door of
a little cupboard in the centre especially attracted my interest,
as if there lay the secret of this long-hidden world. Its key
I found.
One of the rusty hinges cracked and broke as I opened the door:
it revealed a number of small pigeon-holes. These, however, being
but shallow compared with the depth of those around the little
cupboard, the outer ones reaching to the back of the desk, I concluded
that there must be some accessible space behind; and found, indeed,
that they were formed in a separate framework, which admitted
of the whole being pulled out in one piece. Behind, I found a
sort of flexible portcullis of small bars of wood laid close together
horizontally. After long search, and trying many ways to move
it, I discovered at last a scarcely projecting point of steel
on one side. I pressed this repeatedly and hard with the point
of an old tool that was lying near, till at length it yielded
inwards; and the little slide, flying up suddenly, disclosed a
chamber--empty, except that in one corner lay a little heap of
withered rose-leaves, whose long- lived scent had long since departed;
and, in another, a small packet of papers, tied with a bit of
ribbon, whose colour had gone with the rose-scent. Almost fearing
to touch them, they witnessed so mutely to the law of oblivion,
I leaned back in my chair, and regarded them for a moment; when
suddenly there stood on the threshold of the little chamber, as
though she had just emerged from its depth, a tiny woman-form,
as perfect in shape as if she had been a small Greek statuette
roused to life and motion. Her dress was of a kind that could
never grow old- fashioned, because it was simply natural: a robe
plaited in a band around the neck, and confined by a belt about
the waist, descended to her feet. It was only afterwards, however,
that I took notice of her dress, although my surprise was by no
means of so overpowering a degree as such an apparition might
naturally be expected to excite. Seeing, however, as I suppose,
some astonishment in my countenance, she came forward within a
yard of me, and said, in a voice that strangely recalled a sensation
of twilight, and reedy river banks, and a low wind, even in this
deathly room:--
"Anodos, you never saw such a little creature before, did you?"
"No," said I; "and indeed I hardly believe I do now."
"Ah! that is always the way with you men; you believe nothing
the first time; and it is foolish enough to let mere repetition
convince you of what you consider in itself unbelievable. I am
not going to argue with you, however, but to grant you a wish."
Here I could not help interrupting her with the foolish speech,
of which, however, I had no cause to repent--
"How can such a very little creature as you grant or refuse anything?"
"Is that all the philosophy you have gained in one-and-twenty
years?" said she. "Form is much, but size is nothing. It is a
mere matter of relation. I suppose your six-foot lordship does
not feel altogether insignificant, though to others you do look
small beside your old Uncle Ralph, who rises above you a great
half-foot at least. But size is of so little consequence with
old me, that I may as well accommodate myself to your foolish
prejudices." So saying, she leapt from the desk upon the floor,
where she stood a tall, gracious lady, with pale face and large
blue eyes. Her dark hair flowed behind, wavy but uncurled, down
to her waist, and against it her form stood clear in its robe
of white.
"Now," said she, "you will believe me."
Overcome with the presence of a beauty which I could now perceive,
and drawn towards her by an attraction irresistible as incomprehensible,
I suppose I stretched out my arms towards her, for she drew back
a step or two, and said--
"Foolish boy, if you could touch me, I should hurt you. Besides,
I was two hundred and thirty-seven years old, last Midsummer eve;
and a man must not fall in love with his grandmother, you know."
"But you are not my grandmother," said I.
"How do you know that?" she retorted. "I dare say you know something
of your great-grandfathers a good deal further back than that;
but you know very little about your great-grandmothers on either
side. Now, to the point. Your little sister was reading a fairy-tale
to you last night."
"She was."
"When she had finished, she said, as she closed the book, `Is
there a fairy-country, brother?' You replied with a sigh, `I suppose
there is, if one could find the way into it.'"
"I did; but I meant something quite different from what you seem
to think."
"Never mind what I seem to think. You shall find the way into
Fairy Land to-morrow. Now look in my eyes."
Eagerly I did so. They filled me with an unknown longing. I remembered
somehow that my mother died when I was a baby. I looked deeper
and deeper, till they spread around me like seas, and I sank in
their waters. I forgot all the rest, till I found myself at the
window, whose gloomy curtains were withdrawn, and where I stood
gazing on a whole heaven of stars, small and sparkling in the
moonlight. Below lay a sea, still as death and hoary in the moon,
sweeping into bays and around capes and islands, away, away, I
knew not whither. Alas! it was no sea, but a low bog burnished
by the moon. "Surely there is such a sea somewhere!" said I to
myself. A low sweet voice beside me replied--
"In Fairy Land, Anodos."
I turned, but saw no one. I closed the secretary, and went to
my own room, and to bed.
All this I recalled as I lay with half-closed eyes. I was soon
to find the truth of the lady's promise, that this day I should
discover the road into Fairy Land.
CHAPTER II
"`Where is the stream?' cried he, with tears. `Seest thou its
not in blue waves above us?' He looked up, and lo! the blue stream
was flowing gently over their heads." --NOVALIS, Heinrich von
Ofterdingen.
While these strange events were passing through my mind, I suddenly,
as one awakes to the consciousness that the sea has been moaning
by him for hours, or that the storm has been howling about his
window all night, became aware of the sound of running water near
me; and, looking out of bed, I saw that a large green marble basin,
in which I was wont to wash, and which stood on a low pedestal
of the same material in a corner of my room, was overflowing like
a spring; and that a stream of clear water was running over the
carpet, all the length of the room, finding its outlet I knew
not where. And, stranger still, where this carpet, which I had
myself designed to imitate a field of grass and daisies, bordered
the course of the little stream, the grass- blades and daisies
seemed to wave in a tiny breeze that followed the water's flow;
while under the rivulet they bent and swayed with every motion
of the changeful current, as if they were about to dissolve with
it, and, forsaking their fixed form, become fluent as the waters.
My dressing-table was an old-fashioned piece of furniture of black
oak, with drawers all down the front. These were elaborately carved
in foliage, of which ivy formed the chief part. The nearer end
of this table remained just as it had been, but on the further
end a singular change had commenced. I happened to fix my eye
on a little cluster of ivy-leaves. The first of these was evidently
the work of the carver; the next looked curious; the third was
unmistakable ivy; and just beyond it a tendril of clematis had
twined itself about the gilt handle of one of the drawers. Hearing
next a slight motion above me, I looked up, and saw that the branches
and leaves designed upon the curtains of my bed were slightly
in motion. Not knowing what change might follow next, I thought
it high time to get up; and, springing from the bed, my bare feet
alighted upon a cool green sward; and although I dressed in all
haste, I found myself completing my toilet under the boughs of
a great tree, whose top waved in the golden stream of the sunrise
with many interchanging lights, and with shadows of leaf and branch
gliding over leaf and branch, as the cool morning wind swung it
to and fro, like a sinking sea-wave.
After washing as well as I could in the clear stream, I rose and
looked around me. The tree under which I seemed to have lain all
night was one of the advanced guard of a dense forest, towards
which the rivulet ran. Faint traces of a footpath, much overgrown
with grass and moss, and with here and there a pimpernel even,
were discernible along the right bank. "This," thought I, "must
surely be the path into Fairy Land, which the lady of last night
promised I should so soon find." I crossed the rivulet, and accompanied
it, keeping the footpath on its right bank, until it led me, as
I expected, into the wood. Here I left it, without any good reason:
and with a vague feeling that I ought to have followed its course,
I took a more southerly direction.
CHAPTER III
"Man doth usurp all space,
Stares thee, in rock, bush, river, in
the face.
Never thine eyes behold a tree;
'Tis no sea thou seest in the sea,
'Tis but a disguised humanity.
To avoid thy fellow, vain thy plan;
All that interests a man, is man."
HENRY SUTTON.
The trees, which were far apart where I entered, giving free passage
to the level rays of the sun, closed rapidly as I advanced, so
that ere long their crowded stems barred the sunlight out, forming
as it were a thick grating between me and the East. I seemed to
be advancing towards a second midnight. In the midst of the intervening
twilight, however, before I entered what appeared to be the darkest
portion of the forest, I saw a country maiden coming towards me
from its very depths. She did not seem to observe me, for she
was apparently intent upon a bunch of wild flowers which she carried
in her hand. I could hardly see her face; for, though she came
direct towards me, she never looked up. But when we met, instead
of passing, she turned and walked alongside of me for a few yards,
still keeping her face downwards, and busied with her flowers.
She spoke rapidly, however, all the time, in a low tone, as if
talking to herself, but evidently addressing the purport of her
words to me.
She seemed afraid of being observed by some lurking foe. "Trust
the Oak," said she; "trust the Oak, and the Elm, and the great
Beech. Take care of the Birch, for though she is honest, she is
too young not to be changeable. But shun the Ash and the Alder;
for the Ash is an ogre,--you will know him by his thick fingers;
and the Alder will smother you with her web of hair, if you let
her near you at night." All this was uttered without pause or
alteration of tone. Then she turned suddenly and left me, walking
still with the same unchanging gait. I could not conjecture what
she meant, but satisfied myself with thinking that it would be
time enough to find out her meaning when there was need to make
use of her warning, and that the occasion would reveal the admonition.
I concluded from the flowers that she carried, that the forest
could not be everywhere so dense as it appeared from where I was
now walking; and I was right in this conclusion. For soon I came
to a more open part, and by-and-by crossed a wide grassy glade,
on which were several circles of brighter green. But even here
I was struck with the utter stillness. No bird sang. No insect
hummed. Not a living creature crossed my way. Yet somehow the
whole environment seemed only asleep, and to wear even in sleep
an air of expectation. The trees seemed all to have an expression
of conscious mystery, as if they said to themselves, "we could,
an' if we would." They had all a meaning look about them. Then
I remembered that night is the fairies' day, and the moon their
sun; and I thought--Everything sleeps and dreams now: when the
night comes, it will be different. At the same time I, being a
man and a child of the day, felt some anxiety as to how I should
fare among the elves and other children of the night who wake
when mortals dream, and find their common life in those wondrous
hours that flow noiselessly over the moveless death-like forms
of men and women and children, lying strewn and parted beneath
the weight of the heavy waves of night, which flow on and beat
them down, and hold them drowned and senseless, until the ebbtide
comes, and the waves sink away, back into the ocean of the dark.
But I took courage and went on. Soon, however, I became again
anxious, though from another cause. I had eaten nothing that day,
and for an hour past had been feeling the want of food. So I grew
afraid lest I should find nothing to meet my human necessities
in this strange place; but once more I comforted myself with hope
and went on.
Before noon, I fancied I saw a thin blue smoke rising amongst
the stems of larger trees in front of me; and soon I came to an
open spot of ground in which stood a little cottage, so built
that the stems of four great trees formed its corners, while their
branches met and intertwined over its roof, heaping a great cloud
of leaves over it, up towards the heavens. I wondered at finding
a human dwelling in this neighbourhood; and yet it did not look
altogether human, though sufficiently so to encourage me to expect
to find some sort of food. Seeing no door, I went round to the
other side, and there I found one, wide open. A woman sat beside
it, preparing some vegetables for dinner. This was homely and
comforting. As I came near, she looked up, and seeing me, showed
no surprise, but bent her head again over her work, and said in
a low tone:
"Did you see my daughter?"
"I believe I did," said I. "Can you give me something to eat,
for I am very hungry?" "With pleasure," she replied, in the same
tone; "but do not say anything more, till you come into the house,
for the Ash is watching us."
Having said this, she rose and led the way into the cottage; which,
I now saw, was built of the stems of small trees set closely together,
and was furnished with rough chairs and tables, from which even
the bark had not been removed. As soon as she had shut the door
and set a chair--
"You have fairy blood in you," said she, looking hard at me.
"How do you know that?"
"You could not have got so far into this wood if it were not so;
and I am trying to find out some trace of it in your countenance.
I think I see it."
"What do you see?"
"Oh, never mind: I may be mistaken in that."
"But how then do you come to live here?"
"Because I too have fairy blood in me."
Here I, in my turn, looked hard at her, and thought I could perceive,
notwithstanding the coarseness of her features, and especially
the heaviness of her eyebrows, a something unusual--I could hardly
call it grace, and yet it was an expression that strangely contrasted
with the form of her features. I noticed too that her hands were
delicately formed, though brown with work and exposure.
"I should be ill," she continued, "if I did not live on the borders
of the fairies' country, and now and then eat of their food. And
I see by your eyes that you are not quite free of the same need;
though, from your education and the activity of your mind, you
have felt it less than I. You may be further removed too from
the fairy race."
I remembered what the lady had said about my grandmothers.
Here she placed some bread and some milk before me, with a kindly
apology for the homeliness of the fare, with which, however, I
was in no humour to quarrel. I now thought it time to try to get
some explanation of the strange words both of her daughter and
herself.
"What did you mean by speaking so about the Ash?"
She rose and looked out of the little window. My eyes followed
her; but as the window was too small to allow anything to be seen
from where I was sitting, I rose and looked over her shoulder.
I had just time to see, across the open space, on the edge of
the denser forest, a single large ash-tree, whose foliage showed
bluish, amidst the truer green of the other trees around it; when
she pushed me back with an expression of impatience and terror,
and then almost shut out the light from the window by setting
up a large old book in it.
"In general," said she, recovering her composure, "there is no
danger in the daytime, for then he is sound asleep; but there
is something unusual going on in the woods; there must be some
solemnity among the fairies to-night, for all the trees are restless,
and although they cannot come awake, they see and hear in their
sleep."
"But what danger is to be dreaded from him?"
Instead of answering the question, she went again to the window
and looked out, saying she feared the fairies would be interrupted
by foul weather, for a storm was brewing in the west.
"And the sooner it grows dark, the sooner the Ash will be awake,"
added she.
I asked her how she knew that there was any unusual excitement
in the woods. She replied--
"Besides the look of the trees, the dog there is unhappy; and
the eyes and ears of the white rabbit are redder than usual, and
he frisks about as if he expected some fun. If the cat were at
home, she would have her back up; for the young fairies pull the
sparks out of her tail with bramble thorns, and she knows when
they are coming. So do I, in another way."
At this instant, a grey cat rushed in like a demon, and disappeared
in a hole in the wall.
"There, I told you!" said the woman.
"But what of the ash-tree?" said I, returning once more to the
subject. Here, however, the young woman, whom I had met in the
morning, entered. A smile passed between the mother and daughter;
and then the latter began to help her mother in little household
duties.
"I should like to stay here till the evening," I said; "and then
go on my journey, if you will allow me."
"You are welcome to do as you please; only it might be better
to stay all night, than risk the dangers of the wood then. Where
are you going?"
"Nay, that I do not know," I replied, "but I wish to see all that
is to be seen, and therefore I should like to start just at sundown."
"You are a bold youth, if you have any idea of what you are daring;
but a rash one, if you know nothing about it; and, excuse me,
you do not seem very well informed about the country and its manners.
However, no one comes here but for some reason, either known to
himself or to those who have charge of him; so you shall do just
as you wish."
Accordingly I sat down, and feeling rather tired, and disinclined
for further talk, I asked leave to look at the old book which
still screened the window. The woman brought it to me directly,
but not before taking another look towards the forest, and then
drawing a white blind over the window. I sat down opposite to
it by the table, on which I laid the great old volume, and read.
It contained many wondrous tales of Fairy Land, and olden times,
and the Knights of King Arthur's table. I read on and on, till
the shades of the afternoon began to deepen; for in the midst
of the forest it gloomed earlier than in the open country. At
length I came to this passage--
"Here it chanced, that upon their quest, Sir Galahad and Sir Percivale
rencountered in the depths of a great forest. Now, Sir Galahad
was dight all in harness of silver, clear and shining; the which
is a delight to look upon, but full hasty to tarnish, and withouten
the labour of a ready squire, uneath to be kept fair and clean.
And yet withouten squire or page, Sir Galahad's armour shone like
the moon. And he rode a great white mare, whose bases and other
housings were black, but all besprent with fair lilys of silver
sheen. Whereas Sir Percivale bestrode a red horse, with a tawny
mane and tail; whose trappings were all to- smirched with mud
and mire; and his armour was wondrous rosty to behold, ne could
he by any art furbish it again; so that as the sun in his going
down shone twixt the bare trunks of the trees, full upon the knights
twain, the one did seem all shining with light, and the other
all to glow with ruddy fire. Now it came about in this wise. For
Sir Percivale, after his escape from the demon lady, whenas the
cross on the handle of his sword smote him to the heart, and he
rove himself through the thigh, and escaped away, he came to a
great wood; and, in nowise cured of his fault, yet bemoaning the
same, the damosel of the alder tree encountered him, right fair
to see; and with her fair words and false countenance she comforted
him and beguiled him, until he followed her where she led him
to a---"
Here a low hurried cry from my hostess caused me to look up from
the book, and I read no more.
"Look there!" she said; "look at his fingers!"
Just as I had been reading in the book, the setting sun was shining
through a cleft in the clouds piled up in the west; and a shadow
as of a large distorted hand, with thick knobs and humps on the
fingers, so that it was much wider across the fingers than across
the undivided part of the hand, passed slowly over the little
blind, and then as slowly returned in the opposite direction.
"He is almost awake, mother; and greedier than usual to-night."
"Hush, child; you need not make him more angry with us than he
is; for you do not know how soon something may happen to oblige
us to be in the forest after nightfall."
"But you are in the forest," said I; "how is it that you are safe
here?"
"He dares not come nearer than he is now," she replied; "for any
of those four oaks, at the corners of our cottage, would tear
him to pieces; they are our friends. But he stands there and makes
awful faces at us sometimes, and stretches out his long arms and
fingers, and tries to kill us with fright; for, indeed, that is
his favourite way of doing. Pray, keep out of his way to-night."
"Shall I be able to see these things?" said I.
"That I cannot tell yet, not knowing how much of the fairy nature
there is in you. But we shall soon see whether you can discern
the fairies in my little garden, and that will be some guide to
us."
"Are the trees fairies too, as well as the flowers?" I asked.
"They are of the same race," she replied; "though those you call
fairies in your country are chiefly the young children of the
flower fairies. They are very fond of having fun with the thick
people, as they call you; for, like most children, they like fun
better than anything else."
"Why do you have flowers so near you then? Do they not annoy you?"
"Oh, no, they are very amusing, with their mimicries of grown
people, and mock solemnities. Sometimes they will act a whole
play through before my eyes, with perfect composure and assurance,
for they are not afraid of me. Only, as soon as they have done,
they burst into peals of tiny laughter, as if it was such a joke
to have been serious over anything. These I speak of, however,
are the fairies of the garden. They are more staid and educated
than those of the fields and woods. Of course they have near relations
amongst the wild flowers, but they patronise them, and treat them
as country cousins, who know nothing of life, and very little
of manners. Now and then, however, they are compelled to envy
the grace and simplicity of the natural flowers."
"Do they live IN the flowers?" I said.
"I cannot tell," she replied. "There is something in it I do not
understand. Sometimes they disappear altogether, even from me,
though I know they are near. They seem to die always with the
flowers they resemble, and by whose names they are called; but
whether they return to life with the fresh flowers, or, whether
it be new flowers, new fairies, I cannot tell. They have as many
sorts of dispositions as men and women, while their moods are
yet more variable; twenty different expressions will cross their
little faces in half a minute. I often amuse myself with watching
them, but I have never been able to make personal acquaintance
with any of them. If I speak to one, he or she looks up in my
face, as if I were not worth heeding, gives a little laugh, and
runs away." Here the woman started, as if suddenly recollecting
herself, and said in a low voice to her daughter, "Make haste--go
and watch him, and see in what direction he goes."
I may as well mention here, that the conclusion I arrived at from
the observations I was afterwards able to make, was, that the
flowers die because the fairies go away; not that the fairies
disappear because the flowers die. The flowers seem a sort of
houses for them, or outer bodies, which they can put on or off
when they please. Just as you could form some idea of the nature
of a man from the kind of house he built, if he followed his own
taste, so you could, without seeing the fairies, tell what any
one of them is like, by looking at the flower till you feel that
you understand it. For just what the flower says to you, would
the face and form of the fairy say; only so much more plainly
as a face and human figure can express more than a flower. For
the house or the clothes, though like the inhabitant or the wearer,
cannot be wrought into an equal power of utterance. Yet you would
see a strange resemblance, almost oneness, between the flower
and the fairy, which you could not describe, but which described
itself to you. Whether all the flowers have fairies, I cannot
determine, any more than I can be sure whether all men and women
have souls.
The woman and I continued the conversation for a few minutes longer.
I was much interested by the information she gave me, and astonished
at the language in which she was able to convey it. It seemed
that intercourse with the fairies was no bad education in itself.
But now the daughter returned with the news, that the Ash had
just gone away in a south-westerly direction; and, as my course
seemed to lie eastward, she hoped I should be in no danger of
meeting him if I departed at once. I looked out of the little
window, and there stood the ash-tree, to my eyes the same as before;
but I believed that they knew better than I did, and prepared
to go. I pulled out my purse, but to my dismay there was nothing
in it. The woman with a smile begged me not to trouble myself,
for money was not of the slightest use there; and as I might meet
with people in my journeys whom I could not recognise to be fairies,
it was well I had no money to offer, for nothing offended them
so much.
"They would think," she added, "that you were making game of them;
and that is their peculiar privilege with regard to us." So we
went together into the little garden which sloped down towards
a lower part of the wood.
Here, to my great pleasure, all was life and bustle. There was
still light enough from the day to see a little; and the pale
half-moon, halfway to the zenith, was reviving every moment. The
whole garden was like a carnival, with tiny, gaily decorated forms,
in groups, assemblies, processions, pairs or trios, moving stately
on, running about wildly, or sauntering hither or thither. From
the cups or bells of tall flowers, as from balconies, some looked
down on the masses below, now bursting with laughter, now grave
as owls; but even in their deepest solemnity, seeming only to
be waiting for the arrival of the next laugh. Some were launched
on a little marshy stream at the bottom, in boats chosen from
the heaps of last year's leaves that lay about, curled and withered.
These soon sank with them; whereupon they swam ashore and got
others. Those who took fresh rose-leaves for their boats floated
the longest; but for these they had to fight; for the fairy of
the rose-tree complained bitterly that they were stealing her
clothes, and defended her property bravely.
"You can't wear half you've got," said some.
"Never you mind; I don't choose you to have them: they are my
property."
"All for the good of the community!" said one, and ran off with
a great hollow leaf. But the rose-fairy sprang after him (what
a beauty she was! only too like a drawing-room young lady), knocked
him heels-over-head as he ran, and recovered her great red leaf.
But in the meantime twenty had hurried off in different directions
with others just as good; and the little creature sat down and
cried, and then, in a pet, sent a perfect pink snowstorm of petals
from her tree, leaping from branch to branch, and stamping and
shaking and pulling. At last, after another good cry, she chose
the biggest she could find, and ran away laughing, to launch her
boat amongst the rest.
But my attention was first and chiefly attracted by a group of
fairies near the cottage, who were talking together around what
seemed a last dying primrose. They talked singing, and their talk
made a song, something like this:
"Sister Snowdrop died
Before we were born."
"She came like a bride
In a snowy morn."
"What's a bride?"
"What is snow?
"Never tried."
"Do not know."
"Who told you about her?"
"Little Primrose there
Cannot do without her."
"Oh, so sweetly fair!"
"Never fear,
She will come,
Primrose dear."
"Is she dumb?"
"She'll come by-and-by."
"You will never see her."
"She went home to dies,
"Till the new year."
"Snowdrop!" "'Tis no good
To invite her."
"Primrose is very rude,
"I will bite her."
"Oh, you naughty Pocket!
"Look, she drops her head."
"She deserved it, Rocket,
"And she was nearly dead."
"To your hammock--off with you!"
"And swing alone."
"No one will laugh with you."
"No, not one."
"Now let us moan."
"And cover her o'er."
"Primrose is gone."
"All but the flower."
"Here is a leaf."
"Lay her upon it."
"Follow in grief."
"Pocket has done it."
"Deeper, poor creature!
Winter may come."
"He cannot reach her--
That is a hum."
"She is buried, the beauty!"
"Now she is done."
"That was the duty."
"Now for the fun."
And with a wild laugh they sprang away, most of them towards the
cottage. During the latter part of the song-talk, they had formed
themselves into a funeral procession, two of them bearing poor
Primrose, whose death Pocket had hastened by biting her stalk,
upon one of her own great leaves. They bore her solemnly along
some distance, and then buried her under a tree. Although I say
HER I saw nothing but the withered primrose-flower on its long
stalk. Pocket, who had been expelled from the company by common
consent, went sulkily away towards her hammock, for she was the
fairy of the calceolaria, and looked rather wicked. When she reached
its stem, she stopped and looked round. I could not help speaking
to her, for I stood near her. I said, "Pocket, how could you be
so naughty?"
"I am never naughty," she said, half-crossly, half-defiantly;
"only if you come near my hammock, I will bite you, and then you
will go away."
"Why did you bite poor Primrose?"
"Because she said we should never see Snowdrop; as if we were
not good enough to look at her, and she was, the proud thing!--served
her right!"
"Oh, Pocket, Pocket," said I; but by this time the party which
had gone towards the house, rushed out again, shouting and screaming
with laughter. Half of them were on the cat's back, and half held
on by her fur and tail, or ran beside her; till, more coming to
their help, the furious cat was held fast; and they proceeded
to pick the sparks out of her with thorns and pins, which they
handled like harpoons. Indeed, there were more instruments at
work about her than there could have been sparks in her. One little
fellow who held on hard by the tip of the tail, with his feet
planted on the ground at an angle of forty- five degrees, helping
to keep her fast, administered a continuous flow of admonitions
to Pussy.
"Now, Pussy, be patient. You know quite well it is all for your
good. You cannot be comfortable with all those sparks in you;
and, indeed, I am charitably disposed to believe" (here he became
very pompous) "that they are the cause of all your bad temper;
so we must have them all out, every one; else we shall be reduced
to the painful necessity of cutting your claws, and pulling out
your eye-teeth. Quiet! Pussy, quiet!"
But with a perfect hurricane of feline curses, the poor animal
broke loose, and dashed across the garden and through the hedge,
faster than even the fairies could follow. "Never mind, never
mind, we shall find her again; and by that time she will have
laid in a fresh stock of sparks. Hooray!" And off they set, after
some new mischief.
But I will not linger to enlarge on the amusing display of these
frolicsome creatures. Their manners and habits are now so well
known to the world, having been so often described by eyewitnesses,
that it would be only indulging self-conceit, to add my account
in full to the rest. I cannot help wishing, however, that my readers
could see them for themselves. Especially do I desire that they
should see the fairy of the daisy; a little, chubby, round-eyed
child, with such innocent trust in his look! Even the most mischievous
of the fairies would not tease him, although he did not belong
to their set at all, but was quite a little country bumpkin. He
wandered about alone, and looked at everything, with his hands
in his little pockets, and a white night-cap on, the darling!
He was not so beautiful as many other wild flowers I saw afterwards,
but so dear and loving in his looks and little confident ways.
CHAPTER IV
"When bale is att hyest, boote is nyest."
Ballad of Sir Aldingar.
By this time, my hostess was quite anxious that I should be gone.
So, with warm thanks for their hospitality, I took my leave, and
went my way through the little garden towards the forest. Some
of the garden flowers had wandered into the wood, and were growing
here and there along the path, but the trees soon became too thick
and shadowy for them. I particularly noticed some tall lilies,
which grew on both sides of the way, with large dazzlingly white
flowers, set off by the universal green. It was now dark enough
for me to see that every flower was shining with a light of its
own. Indeed it was by this light that I saw them, an internal,
peculiar light, proceeding from each, and not reflected from a
common source of light as in the daytime. This light sufficed
only for the plant itself, and was not strong enough to cast any
but the faintest shadows around it, or to illuminate any of the
neighbouring objects with other than the faintest tinge of its
own individual hue. From the lilies above mentioned, from the
campanulas, from the foxgloves, and every bell-shaped flower,
curious little figures shot up their heads, peeped at me, and
drew back. They seemed to inhabit them, as snails their shells
but I was sure some of them were intruders, and belonged to the
gnomes or goblin-fairies, who inhabit the ground and earthy creeping
plants. From the cups of Arum lilies, creatures with great heads
and grotesque faces shot up like Jack- in-the-box, and made grimaces
at me; or rose slowly and slily over the edge of the cup, and
spouted water at me, slipping suddenly back, like those little
soldier-crabs that inhabit the shells of sea-snails. Passing a
row of tall thistles, I saw them crowded with little faces, which
peeped every one from behind its flower, and drew back as quickly;
and I heard them saying to each other, evidently intending me
to hear, but the speaker always hiding behind his tuft, when I
looked in his direction, "Look at him! Look at him! He has begun
a story without a beginning, and it will never have any end. He!
he! he! Look at him!"
But as I went further into the wood, these sights and sounds became
fewer, giving way to others of a different character. A little
forest of wild hyacinths was alive with exquisite creatures, who
stood nearly motionless, with drooping necks, holding each by
the stem of her flower, and swaying gently with it, whenever a
low breath of wind swung the crowded floral belfry. In like manner,
though differing of course in form and meaning, stood a group
of harebells, like little angels waiting, ready, till they were
wanted to go on some yet unknown message. In darker nooks, by
the mossy roots of the trees, or in little tufts of grass, each
dwelling in a globe of its own green light, weaving a network
of grass and its shadows, glowed the glowworms.
They were just like the glowworms of our own land, for they are
fairies everywhere; worms in the day, and glowworms at night,
when their own can appear, and they can be themselves to others
as well as themselves. But they had their enemies here. For I
saw great strong-armed beetles, hurrying about with most unwieldy
haste, awkward as elephant-calves, looking apparently for glowworms;
for the moment a beetle espied one, through what to it was a forest
of grass, or an underwood of moss, it pounced upon it, and bore
it away, in spite of its feeble resistance. Wondering what their
object could be, I watched one of the beetles, and then I discovered
a thing I could not account for. But it is no use trying to account
for things in Fairy Land; and one who travels there soon learns
to forget the very idea of doing so, and takes everything as it
comes; like a child, who, being in a chronic condition of wonder,
is surprised at nothing. What I saw was this. Everywhere, here
and there over the ground, lay little, dark-looking lumps of something
more like earth than anything else, and about the size of a chestnut.
The beetles hunted in couples for these; and having found one,
one of them stayed to watch it, while the other hurried to find
a glowworm. By signals, I presume, between them, the latter soon
found his companion again: they then took the glowworm and held
its luminous tail to the dark earthly pellet; when lo, it shot
up into the air like a sky-rocket, seldom, however, reaching the
height of the highest tree. Just like a rocket too, it burst in
the air, and fell in a shower of the most gorgeously coloured
sparks of every variety of hue; golden and red, and purple and
green, and blue and rosy fires crossed and inter-crossed each
other, beneath the shadowy heads, and between the columnar stems
of the forest trees. They never used the same glowworm twice,
I observed; but let him go, apparently uninjured by the use they
had made of him.
In other parts, the whole of the immediately surrounding foliage
was illuminated by the interwoven dances in the air of splendidly
coloured fire-flies, which sped hither and thither, turned, twisted,
crossed, and recrossed, entwining every complexity of intervolved
motion. Here and there, whole mighty trees glowed with an emitted
phosphorescent light. You could trace the very course of the great
roots in the earth by the faint light that came through; and every
twig, and every vein on every leaf was a streak of pale fire.
All this time, as I went through the wood, I was haunted with
the feeling that other shapes, more like my own size and mien,
were moving about at a little distance on all sides of me. But
as yet I could discern none of them, although the moon was high
enough to send a great many of her rays down between the trees,
and these rays were unusually bright, and sight-giving, notwithstanding
she was only a half-moon. I constantly imagined, however, that
forms were visible in all directions except that to which my gaze
was turned; and that they only became invisible, or resolved themselves
into other woodland shapes, the moment my looks were directed
towards them. However this may have been, except for this feeling
of presence, the woods seemed utterly bare of anything like human
companionship, although my glance often fell on some object which
I fancied to be a human form; for I soon found that I was quite
deceived; as, the moment I fixed my regard on it, it showed plainly
that it was a bush, or a tree, or a rock.
Soon a vague sense of discomfort possessed me. With variations
of relief, this gradually increased; as if some evil thing were
wandering about in my neighbourhood, sometimes nearer and sometimes
further off, but still approaching. The feelingcontinued and deepened,
until all my pleasure in the shows of various kinds that everywhere
betokened the presence of the merry fairies vanished by degrees,
and left me full of anxiety and fear, which I was unable to associate
with any definite object whatever. At length the thought crossed
my mind with horror: "Can it be possible that the Ash is looking
for me? or that, in his nightly wanderings, his path is gradually
verging towards mine?" I comforted myself, however, by remembering
that he had started quite in another direction; one that would
lead him, if he kept it, far apart from me; especially as, for
the last two or three hours, I had been diligently journeying
eastward. I kept on my way, therefore, striving by direct effort
of the will against the encroaching fear; and to this end occupying
my mind, as much as I could, with other thoughts. I was so far
successful that, although I was conscious, if I yielded for a
moment, I should be almost overwhelmed with horror, I was yet
able to walk right on for an hour or more. What I feared I could
not tell. Indeed, I was left in a state of the vaguest uncertainty
as regarded the nature of my enemy, and knew not the mode or object
of his attacks; for, somehow or other, none of my questions had
succeeded in drawing a definite answer from the dame in the cottage.
How then to defend myself I knew not; nor even by what sign I
might with certainty recognise the presence of my foe; for as
yet this vague though powerful fear was all the indication of
danger I had. To add to my distress, the clouds in the west had
risen nearly to the top of the skies, and they and the moon were
travelling slowly towards each other. Indeed, some of their advanced
guard had already met her, and she had begun to wade through a
filmy vapour that gradually deepened.
At length she was for a moment almost entirely obscured. When
she shone out again, with a brilliancy increased by the contrast,
I saw plainly on the path before me--from around which at this
spot the trees receded, leaving a small space of green sward--the
shadow of a large hand, with knotty joints and protuberances here
and there. Especially I remarked, even in the midst of my fear,
the bulbous points of the fingers. I looked hurriedly all around,
but could see nothing from which such a shadow should fall. Now,
however, that I had a direction, however undetermined, in which
to project my apprehension, the very sense of danger and need
of action overcame that stifling which is the worst property of
fear. I reflected in a moment, that if this were indeed a shadow,
it was useless to look for the object that cast it in any other
direction than between the shadow and the moon. I looked, and
peered, and intensified my vision, all to no purpose. I could
see nothing of that kind, not even an ash-tree in the neighbourhood.
Still the shadow remained; not steady, but moving to and fro,
and once I saw the fingers close, and grind themselves close,
like the claws of a wild animal, as if in uncontrollable longing
for some anticipated prey. There seemed but one mode left of discovering
the substance of this shadow. I went forward boldly, though with
an inward shudder which I would not heed, to the spot where the
shadow lay, threw myself on the ground, laid my head within the
form of the hand, and turned my eyes towards the moon Good heavens!
what did I see? I wonder that ever I arose, and that the very
shadow of the hand did not hold me where I lay until fear had
frozen my brain. I saw the strangest figure; vague, shadowy, almost
transparent, in the central parts, and gradually deepening in
substance towards the outside, until it ended in extremities capable
of casting such a shadow as fell from the hand, through the awful
fingers of which I now saw the moon. The hand was uplifted in
the attitude of a paw about to strike its prey. But the face,
which throbbed with fluctuating and pulsatory visibility--not
from changes in the light it reflected, but from changes in its
own conditions of reflecting power, the alterations being from
within, not from without--it was horrible. I do not know how to
describe it. It caused a new sensation. Just as one cannot translate
a horrible odour, or a ghastly pain, or a fearful sound, into
words, so I cannot describe this new form of awful hideousness.
I can only try to describe something that is not it, but seems
somewhat parallel to it; or at least is suggested by it. It reminded
me of what I had heard of vampires; for the face resembled that
of a corpse more than anything else I can think of; especially
when I can conceive such a face in motion, but not suggesting
any life as the source of the motion. The features were rather
handsome than otherwise, except the mouth, which had scarcely
a curve in it. The lips were of equal thickness; but the thickness
was not at all remarkable, even although they looked slightly
swollen. They seemed fixedly open, but were not wide apart. Of
course I did not REMARK these lineaments at the time: I was too
horrified for that. I noted them afterwards, when the form returned
on my inward sight with a vividness too intense to admit of my
doubting the accuracy of the reflex. But the most awful of the
features were the eyes. These were alive, yet not with life.
They seemed lighted up with an infinite greed. A gnawing voracity,
which devoured the devourer, seemed to be the indwelling and propelling
power of the whole ghostly apparition. I lay for a few moments
simply imbruted with terror; when another cloud, obscuring the
moon, delivered me from the immediately paralysing effects of
the presence to the vision of the object of horror, while it added
the force of imagination to the power of fear within me; inasmuch
as, knowing far worse cause for apprehension than before, I remained
equally ignorant from what I had to defend myself, or how to take
any precautions: he might be upon me in the darkness any moment.
I sprang to my feet, and sped I knew not whither, only away from
the spectre. I thought no longer of the path, and often narrowly
escaped dashing myself against a tree, in my headlong flight of
fear.
Great drops of rain began to patter on the leaves. Thunder began
to mutter, then growl in the distance. I ran on. The rain fell
heavier. At length the thick leaves could hold it up no longer;
and, like a second firmament, they poured their torrents on the
earth. I was soon drenched, but that was nothing. I came to a
small swollen stream that rushed through the woods. I had a vague
hope that if I crossed this stream, I should be in safety from
my pursuer; but I soon found that my hope was as false as it was
vague. I dashed across the stream, ascended a rising ground, and
reached a more open space, where stood only great trees. Through
them I directed my way, holding eastward as nearly as I could
guess, but not at all certain that I was not moving in an opposite
direction. My mind was just reviving a little from its extreme
terror, when, suddenly, a flash of lightning, or rather a cataract
of successive flashes, behind me, seemed to throw on the ground
in front of me, but far more faintly than before, from the extent
of the source of the light, the shadow of the same horrible hand.
I sprang forward, stung to yet wilder speed; but had not run many
steps before my foot slipped, and, vainly attempting to recover
myself, I fell at the foot of one of the large trees. Half-stunned,
I yet raised myself, and almost involuntarily looked back. All
I saw was the hand within three feet of my face. But, at the same
moment, I felt two large soft arms thrown round me from behind;
and a voice like a woman's said: "Do not fear the goblin; he dares
not hurt you now." With that, the hand was suddenly withdrawn
as from a fire, and disappeared in the darkness and the rain.
Overcome with the mingling of terror and joy, I lay for some time
almost insensible. The first thing I remember is the sound of
a voice above me, full and low, and strangely reminding me of
the sound of a gentle wind amidst the leaves of a great tree.
It murmured over and over again: "I may love him, I may love him;
for he is a man, and I am only a beech-tree." I found I was seated
on the ground, leaning against a human form, and supported still
by the arms around me, which I knew to be those of a woman who
must be rather above the human size, and largely proportioned.
I turned my head, but without moving otherwise, for I feared lest
the arms should untwine themselves; and clear, somewhat mournful
eyes met mine. At least that is how they impressed me; but I could
see very little of colour or outline as we sat in the dark and
rainy shadow of the tree. The face seemed very lovely, and solemn
from its stillness; with the aspect of one who is quite content,
but waiting for something. I saw my conjecture from her arms was
correct: she was above the human scale throughout, but not greatly.
"Why do you call yourself a beech-tree?" I said.
"Because I am one," she replied, in the same low, musical, murmuring
voice.
"You are a woman," I returned.
"Do you think so? Am I very like a woman then?"
"You are a very beautiful woman. Is it possible you should not
know it?"
"I am very glad you think so. I fancy I feel like a woman sometimes.
I do so to-night--and always when the rain drips from my hair.
For there is an old prophecy in our woods that one day we shall
all be men and women like you. Do you know anything about it in
your region? Shall I be very happy when I am a woman? I fear not,
for it is always in nights like these that I feel like one. But
I long to be a woman for all that."
I had let her talk on, for her voice was like a solution of all
musical sounds. I now told her that I could hardly say whether
women were happy or not. I knew one who had not been happy; and
for my part, I had often longed for Fairy Land, as she now longed
for the world of men. But then neither of us had lived long, and
perhaps people grew happier as they grew older. Only I doubted
it.
I could not help sighing. She felt the sigh, for her arms were
still round me. She asked me how old I was.
"Twenty-one," said I.
"Why, you baby!" said she, and kissed me with the sweetest kiss
of winds and odours. There was a cool faithfulness in the kiss
that revived my heart wonderfully. I felt that I feared the dreadful
Ash no more.
"What did the horrible Ash want with me?" I said.
"I am not quite sure, but I think he wants to bury you at the
foot of his tree. But he shall not touch you, my child."
"Are all the ash-trees as dreadful as he?"
"Oh, no. They are all disagreeable selfish creatures--(what horrid
men they will make, if it be true!)--but this one has a hole in
his heart that nobody knows of but one or two; and he is always
trying to fill it up, but he cannot. That must be what he wanted
you for. I wonder if he will ever be a man. If he is, I hope they
will kill him."
"How kind of you to save me from him!"
"I will take care that he shall not come near you again. But there
are some in the wood more like me, from whom, alas! I cannot protect
you. Only if you see any of them very beautiful, try to walk round
them."
"What then?"
"I cannot tell you more. But now I must tie some of my hair about
you, and then the Ash will not touch you. Here, cut some off.
You men have strange cutting things about you."
She shook her long hair loose over me, never moving her arms.
"I cannot cut your beautiful hair. It would be a shame."
"Not cut my hair! It will have grown long enough before any is
wanted again in this wild forest. Perhaps it may never be of any
use again--not till I am a woman." And she sighed.
As gently as I could, I cut with a knife a long tress of flowing,
dark hair, she hanging her beautiful head over me. When I had
finished, she shuddered and breathed deep, as one does when an
acute pain, steadfastly endured without sign of suffering, is
at length relaxed. She then took the hair and tied it round me,
singing a strange, sweet song, which I could not understand, but
which left in me a feeling like this--
"I saw thee ne'er before;
I see thee never more;
But love, and help, and pain, beautiful one,
Have made thee mine, till all my years are done."
I cannot put more of it into words. She closed her arms about
me again, and went on singing. The rain in the leaves, and a light
wind that had arisen, kept her song company. I was wrapt in a
trance of still delight. It told me the secret of the woods, and
the flowers, and the birds. At one time I felt as if I was wandering
in childhood through sunny spring forests, over carpets of primroses,
anemones, and little white starry things--I had almost said creatures,
and finding new wonderful flowers at every turn. At another, I
lay half dreaming in the hot summer noon, with a book of old tales
beside me, beneath a great beech; or, in autumn, grew sad because
I trod on the leaves that had sheltered me, and received their
last blessing in the sweet odours of decay; or, in a winter evening,
frozen still, looked up, as I went home to a warm fireside, through
the netted boughs and twigs to the cold, snowy moon, with her
opal zone around her. At last I had fallen asleep; for I know
nothing more that passed till I found myself lying under a superb
beech-tree, in the clear light of the morning, just before sunrise.
Around me was a girdle of fresh beech-leaves. Alas! I brought
nothing with me out of Fairy Land, but memories--memories. The
great boughs of the beech hung drooping around me. At my head
rose its smooth stem, with its great sweeps of curving surface
that swelled like undeveloped limbs. The leaves and branches above
kept on the song which had sung me asleep; only now, to my mind,
it sounded like a farewell and a speedwell. I sat a long time,
unwilling to go; but my unfinished story urged me on. I must act
and wander. With the sun well risen, I rose, and put my arms as
far as they would reach around the beech-tree, and kissed it,
and said good- bye. A trembling went through the leaves; a few
of the last drops of the night's rain fell from off them at my
feet; and as I walked slowly away, I seemed to hear in a whisper
once more the words: "I may love him, I may love him; for he is
a man, and I am only a beech-tree."
CHAPTER V
"And she was smooth and full, as if one gush
Of life had washed her, or as if a sleep
Lay on her eyelid, easier to sweep
Than bee from daisy."
BEDDOIS' Pygmalion.
"Sche was as whyt as lylye yn May,
Or snow that sneweth yn wynterys day."
Romance of Sir Launfal.
I walked on, in the fresh morning air, as if new-born. The only
thing that damped my pleasure was a cloud of something between
sorrow and delight that crossed my mind with the frequently returning
thought of my last night's hostess. "But then," thought I, "if
she is sorry, I could not help it; and she has all the pleasures
she ever had. Such a day as this is surely a joy to her, as much
at least as to me. And her life will perhaps be the richer, for
holding now within it the memory of what came, but could not stay.
And if ever she is a woman, who knows but we may meet somewhere?
there is plenty of room for meeting in the universe." Comforting
myself thus, yet with a vague compunction, as if I ought not to
have left her, I went on. There was little to distinguish the
woods to-day from those of my own land; except that all the wild
things, rabbits, birds, squirrels, mice, and the numberless other
inhabitants, were very tame; that is, they did not run away from
me, but gazed at me as I passed, frequently coming nearer, as
if to examine me more closely. Whether this came from utter ignorance,
or from familiarity with the human appearance of beings who never
hurt them, I could not tell. As I stood once, looking up to the
splendid flower of a parasite, which hung from the branch of a
tree over my head, a large white rabbit cantered slowly up, put
one of its little feet on one of mine, and looked up at me with
its red eyes, just as I had been looking up at the flower above
me. I stooped and stroked it; but when I attempted to lift it,
it banged the ground with its hind feet and scampered off at a
great rate, turning, however, to look at me several times before
I lost sight of it. Now and then, too, a dim human figure would
appear and disappear, at some distance, amongst the trees, moving
like a sleep-walker. But no one ever came near me.
This day I found plenty of food in the forest--strange nuts and
fruits I had never seen before. I hesitated to eat them; but argued
that, if I could live on the air of Fairy Land, I could live on
its food also. I found my reasoning correct, and the result was
better than I had hoped; for it not only satisfied my hunger,
but operated in such a way upon my senses that I was brought into
far more complete relationship with the things around me. The
human forms appeared much more dense and defined; more tangibly
visible, if I may say so. I seemed to know better which direction
to choose when any doubt arose. I began to feel in some degree
what the birds meant in their songs, though I could not express
it in words, any more than you can some landscapes. At times,
to my surprise, I found myself listening attentively, and as if
it were no unusual thing with me, to a conversation between two
squirrels or monkeys. The subjects were not very interesting,
except as associated with the individual life and necessities
of the little creatures: where the best nuts were to be found
in the neighbourhood, and who could crack them best, or who had
most laid up for the winter, and such like; only they never said
where the store was. There was no great difference in kind between
their talk and our ordinary human conversation. Some of the creatures
I never heard speak at all, and believe they never do so, except
under the impulse of some great excitement. The mice talked; but
the hedgehogs seemed very phlegmatic; and though I met a couple
of moles above ground several times, they never said a word to
each other in my hearing. There were no wild beasts in the forest;
at least, I did not see one larger than a wild cat. There were
plenty of snakes, however, and I do not think they were all harmless;
but none ever bit me.
Soon after mid-day I arrived at a bare rocky hill, of no great
size, but very steep; and having no trees--scarcely even a bush--
upon it, entirely exposed to the heat of the sun. Over this my
way seemed to lie, and I immediately began the ascent. On reaching
the top, hot and weary, I looked around me, and saw that the forest
still stretched as far as the sight could reach on every side
of me. I observed that the trees, in the direction in which I
was about to descend, did not come so near the foot of the hill
as on the other side, and was especially regretting the unexpected
postponement of shelter, because this side of the hill seemed
more difficult to descend than the other had been to climb, when
my eye caught the appearance of a natural path, winding down through
broken rocks and along the course of a tiny stream, which I hoped
would lead me more easily to the foot. I tried it, and found the
descent not at all laborious; nevertheless, when I reached the
bottom, I was very tired and exhausted with the heat. But just
where the path seemed to end, rose a great rock, quite overgrown
with shrubs and creeping plants, some of them in full and splendid
blossom: these almost concealed an opening in the rock, into which
the path appeared to lead. I entered, thirsting for the shade
which it promised. What was my delight to find a rocky cell, all
the angles rounded away with rich moss, and every ledge and projection
crowded with lovely ferns, the variety of whose forms, and groupings,
and shades wrought in me like a poem; for such a harmony could
not exist, except they all consented to some one end! A little
well of the clearest water filled a mossy hollow in one corner.
I drank, and felt as if I knew what the elixir of life must be;
then threw myself on a mossy mound that lay like a couch along
the inner end. Here I lay in a delicious reverie for some time;
during which all lovely forms, and colours, and sounds seemed
to use my brain as a common hall, where they could come and go,
unbidden and unexcused. I had never imagined that such capacity
for simple happiness lay in me, as was now awakened by this assembly
of forms and spiritual sensations, which yet were far too vague
to admit of being translated into any shape common to my own and
another mind. I had lain for an hour, I should suppose, though
it may have been far longer, when, the harmonious tumult in my
mind having somewhat relaxed, I became aware that my eyes were
fixed on a strange, time-worn bas-relief on the rock opposite
to me. This, after some pondering, I concluded to represent Pygmalion,
as he awaited the quickening of his statue. The sculptor sat more
rigid than the figure to which his eyes were turned. That seemed
about to step from its pedestal and embrace the man, who waited
rather than expected.
"A lovely story," I said to myself. "This cave, now, with the
bushes cut away from the entrance to let the light in, might be
such a place as he would choose, withdrawn from the notice of
men, to set up his block of marble, and mould into a visible body
the thought already clothed with form in the unseen hall of the
sculptor's brain. And, indeed, if I mistake not," I said, starting
up, as a sudden ray of light arrived at that moment through a
crevice in the roof, and lighted up a small portion of the rock,
bare of vegetation, "this very rock is marble, white enough and
delicate enough for any statue, even if destined to become an
ideal woman in the arms of the sculptor."
I took my knife and removed the moss from a part of the block
on which I had been lying; when, to my surprise, I found it more
like alabaster than ordinary marble, and soft to the edge of the
knife. In fact, it was alabaster. By an inexplicable, though by
no means unusual kind of impulse, I went on removing the moss
from the surface of the stone; and soon saw that it was polished,
or at least smooth, throughout. I continued my labour; and after
clearing a space of about a couple of square feet, I observed
what caused me to prosecute the work with more interest and care
than before. For the ray of sunlight had now reached the spot
I had cleared, and under its lustre the alabaster revealed its
usual slight transparency when polished, except where my knife
had scratched the surface; and I observed that the transparency
seemed to have a definite limit, and to end upon an opaque body
like the more solid, white marble. I was careful to scratch no
more. And first, a vague anticipation gave way to a startling
sense of possibility; then, as I proceeded, one revelation after
another produced the entrancing conviction, that under the crust
of alabaster lay a dimly visible form in marble, but whether of
man or woman I could not yet tell. I worked on as rapidly as the
necessary care would permit; and when I had uncovered the whole
mass, and rising from my knees, had retreated a little way, so
that the effect of the whole might fall on me, I saw before me
with sufficient plainness--though at the same time with considerable
indistinctness, arising from the limited amount of light the place
admitted, as well as from the nature of the object itself--a block
of pure alabaster enclosing the form, apparently in marble, of
a reposing woman. She lay on one side, with her hand under her
cheek, and her face towards me; but her hair had fallen partly
over her face, so that I could not see the expression of the whole.
What I did see appeared to me perfectly lovely; more near the
face that had been born with me in my soul, than anything I had
seen before in nature or art. The actual outlines of the rest
of the form were so indistinct, that the more than semi-opacity
of the alabaster seemed insufficient to account for the fact;
and I conjectured that a light robe added its obscurity. Numberless
histories passed through my mind of change of substance from enchantment
and other causes, and of imprisonments such as this before me.
I thought of the Prince of the Enchanted City, half marble and
half a man; of Ariel; of Niobe; of the Sleeping Beauty in the
Wood; of the bleeding trees; and many other histories. Even my
adventure of the preceding evening with the lady of the beech-tree
contributed to arouse the wild hope, that by some means life might
be given to this form also, and that, breaking from her alabaster
tomb, she might glorify my eyes with her presence. "For," I argued,
"who can tell but this cave may be the home of Marble, and this,
essential Marble--that spirit of marble which, present throughout,
makes it capable of being moulded into any form? Then if she should
awake! But how to awake her? A kiss awoke the Sleeping Beauty!
a kiss cannot reach her through the incrusting alabaster." I kneeled,
however, and kissed the pale coffin; but she slept on. I bethought
me of Orpheus, and the following stones--that trees should follow
his music seemed nothing surprising now. Might not a song awake
this form, that the glory of motion might for a time displace
the loveliness of rest? Sweet sounds can go where kisses may not
enter. I sat and thought. Now, although always delighting in music,
I had never been gifted with the power of song, until I entered
the fairy forest. I had a voice, and I had a true sense of sound;
but when I tried to sing, the one would not content the other,
and so I remained silent. This morning, however, I had found myself,
ere I was aware, rejoicing in a song; but whether it was before
or after I had eaten of the fruits of the forest, I could not
satisfy myself. I concluded it was after, however; and that the
increased impulse to sing I now felt, was in part owing to having
drunk of the little well, which shone like a brilliant eye in
a corner of the cave. It saw down on the ground by the "antenatal
tomb," leaned upon it with my face towards the head of the figure
within, and sang--the words and tones coming together, and inseparably
connected, as if word and tone formed one thing; or, as if each
word could be uttered only in that tone, and was incapable of
distinction from it, except in idea, by an acute analysis. I sang
something like this: but the words are only a dull representation
of a state whose very elevation precluded the possibility of remembrance;
and in which I presume the words really employed were as far above
these, as that state transcended this wherein I recall it:
"Marble woman, vainly sleeping
In the very death of dreams!
Wilt thou--slumber from thee sweeping,
All but what with vision teems--
Hear my voice come through the golden
Mist of memory and hope;
And with shadowy smile embolden
Me with primal Death to cope?
"Thee the sculptors all pursuing,
Have embodied but their own;
Round their visions, form enduring,
Marble vestments thou hast thrown;
But thyself, in silence winding,
Thou hast kept eternally;
Thee they found not, many finding--
I have found thee: wake for me."
As I sang, I looked earnestly at the face so vaguely revealed
before me. I fancied, yet believed it to be but fancy, that through
the dim veil of the alabaster, I saw a motion of the head as if
caused by a sinking sigh. I gazed more earnestly, and concluded
that it was but fancy. Neverthless I could not help singing again--
"Rest is now filled full of beauty,
And can give thee up, I ween;
Come thou forth, for other duty
Motion pineth for her queen.
"Or, if needing years to wake thee
From thy slumbrous solitudes,
Come, sleep-walking, and betake thee
To the friendly, sleeping woods.
Sweeter dreams are in the forest,
Round thee storms would never rave;
And when need of rest is sorest,
Glide thou then into thy cave.
"Or, if still thou choosest rather
Marble, be its spell on me;
Let thy slumber round me gather,
Let another dream with thee!"
Again I paused, and gazed through the stony shroud, as if, by
very force of penetrative sight, I would clear every lineament
of the lovely face. And now I thought the hand that had lain under
the cheek, had slipped a little downward. But then I could not
be sure that I had at first observed its position accurately.
So I sang again; for the longing had grown into a passionate need
of seeing her alive--
"Or art thou Death, O woman? for since I
Have set me singing by thy side,
Life hath forsook the upper sky,
And all the outer world hath died.
"Yea, I am dead; for thou hast drawn
My life all downward unto thee.
Dead moon of love! let twilight dawn:
Awake! and let the darkness flee.
"Cold lady of the lovely stone!
Awake! or I shall perish here;
And thou be never more alone,
My form and I for ages near.
"But words are vain; reject them all--
They utter but a feeble part:
Hear thou the depths from which they call,
The voiceless longing of my heart."
There arose a slightly crashing sound. Like a sudden apparition
that comes and is gone, a white form, veiled in a light robe of
whiteness, burst upwards from the stone, stood, glided forth,
and gleamed away towards the woods. For I followed to the mouth
of the cave, as soon as the amazement and concentration of delight
permitted the nerves of motion again to act; and saw the white
form amidst the trees, as it crossed a little glade on the edge
of the forest where the sunlight fell full, seeming to gather
with intenser radiance on the one object that floated rather than
flitted through its lake of beams. I gazed after her in a kind
of despair; found, freed, lost! It seemed useless to follow, yet
follow I must. I marked the direction she took; and without once
looking round to the forsaken cave, I hastened towards the forest.
CHAPTER VI
"Ah, let a man beware, when his wishes, fulfilled, rain down
upon him, and his happiness is unbounded."
"Thy red lips, like worms,
Travel over my cheek."
MOTHERWELL.
But as I crossed the space between the foot of the hill and the
forest, a vision of another kind delayed my steps. Through an
opening to the westward flowed, like a stream, the rays of the
setting sun, and overflowed with a ruddy splendour the open space
where I was. And riding as it were down this stream towards me,
came a horseman in what appeared red armour. From frontlet to
tail, the horse likewise shone red in the sunset. I felt as if
I must have seen the knight before; but as he drew near, I could
recall no feature of his countenance. Ere he came up to me, however,
I remembered the legend of Sir Percival in the rusty armour, which
I had left unfinished in the old book in the cottage: it was of
Sir Percival that he reminded me. And no wonder; for when he came
close up to me, I saw that, from crest to heel, the whole surface
of his armour was covered with a light rust. The golden spurs
shone, but the iron greaves glowed in the sunlight. The MORNING
STAR, which hung from his wrist, glittered and glowed with its
silver and bronze. His whole appearance was terrible; but his
face did not answer to this appearance. It was sad, even to gloominess;
and something of shame seemed to cover it. Yet it was noble and
high, though thus beclouded; and the form looked lofty, although
the head drooped, and the whole frame was bowed as with an inward
grief. The horse seemed to share in his master's dejection, and
walked spiritless and slow. I noticed, too, that the white plume
on his helmet was discoloured and drooping. "He has fallen in
a joust with spears," I said to myself; "yet it becomes not a
noble knight to be conquered in spirit because his body hath fallen."
He appeared not to observe me, for he was riding past without
looking up, and started into a warlike attitude the moment the
first sound of my voice reached him. Then a flush, as of shame,
covered all of his face that the lifted beaver disclosed. He returned
my greeting with distant courtesy, and passed on. But suddenly,
he reined up, sat a moment still, and then turning his horse,
rode back to where I stood looking after him.
"I am ashamed," he said, "to appear a knight, and in such a guise;
but it behoves me to tell you to take warning from me, lest the
same evil, in his kind, overtake the singer that has befallen
the knight. Hast thou ever read the story of Sir Percival and
the"--(here he shuddered, that his armour rang)-- "Maiden of the
Alder-tree?"
"In part, I have," said I; "for yesterday, at the entrance of
this forest, I found in a cottage the volume wherein it is recorded."
"Then take heed," he rejoined; "for, see my armour--I put it off;
and as it befell to him, so has it befallen to me. I that was
proud am humble now. Yet is she terribly beautiful--beware. Never,"
he added, raising his head, "shall this armour be furbished, but
by the blows of knightly encounter, until the last speck has disappeared
from every spot where the battle-axe and sword of evil-doers,
or noble foes, might fall; when I shall again lift my head, and
say to my squire, `Do thy duty once more, and make this armour
shine.'"
Before I could inquire further, he had struck spurs into his horse
and galloped away, shrouded from my voice in the noise of his
armour. For I called after him, anxious to know more about this
fearful enchantress; but in vain--he heard me not. "Yet," I said
to myself, "I have now been often warned; surely I shall be well
on my guard; and I am fully resolved I shall not be ensnared by
any beauty, however beautiful. Doubtless, some one man may escape,
and I shall be he." So I went on into the wood, still hoping to
find, in some one of its mysterious recesses, my lost lady of
the marble. The sunny afternoon died into the loveliest twilight.
Great bats began to flit about with their own noiseless flight,
seemingly purposeless, because its objects are unseen. The monotonous
music of the owl issued from all unexpected quarters in the half-darkness
around me. The glow- worm was alight here and there, burning out
into the great universe. The night-hawk heightened all the harmony
and stillness with his oft-recurring, discordant jar. Numberless
unknown sounds came out of the unknown dusk; but all were of twilight-kind,
oppressing the heart as with a condensed atmosphere of dreamy
undefined love and longing. The odours of night arose, and bathed
me in that luxurious mournfulness peculiar to them, as if the
plants whence they floated had been watered with bygone tears.
Earth drew me towards her bosom; I felt as if I could fall down
and kiss her. I forgot I was in Fairy Land, and seemed to be walking
in a perfect night of our own old nursing earth. Great stems rose
about me, uplifting a thick multitudinous roof above me of branches,
and twigs, and leaves--the bird and insect world uplifted over
mine, with its own landscapes, its own thickets, and paths, and
glades, and dwellings; its own bird-ways and insect-delights.
Great boughs crossed my path; great roots based the tree-columns,
and mightily clasped the earth, strong to lift and strong to uphold.
It seemed an old, old forest, perfect in forest ways and pleasures.
And when, in the midst of this ecstacy, I remembered that under
some close canopy of leaves, by some giant stem, or in some mossy
cave, or beside some leafy well, sat the lady of the marble, whom
my songs had called forth into the outer world, waiting (might
it not be?) to meet and thank her deliverer in a twilight which
would veil her confusion, the whole night became one dream-realm
of joy, the central form of which was everywhere present, although
unbeheld. Then, remembering how my songs seemed to have called
her from the marble, piercing through the pearly shroud of alabaster--"Why,"
thought I, "should not my voice reach her now, through the ebon
night that inwraps her." My voice burst into song so spontaneously
that it seemed involuntarily.
"Not a sound
But, echoing in me,
Vibrates all around
With a blind delight,
Till it breaks on Thee,
Queen of Night!
Every tree,
O'ershadowing with gloom,
Seems to cover thee
Secret, dark, love-still'd,
In a holy room
Silence-filled.
"Let no moon
Creep up the heaven to-night;
I in darksome noon
Walking hopefully,
Seek my shrouded light--
Grope for thee!
"Darker grow
The borders of the dark!
Through the branches glow,
From the roof above,
Star and diamond-sparks
Light for love."
Scarcely had the last sounds floated away from the hearing of
my own ears, when I heard instead a low delicious laugh near me.
It was not the laugh of one who would not be heard, but the laugh
of one who has just received something long and patiently desired--a
laugh that ends in a low musical moan. I started, and, turning
sideways, saw a dim white figure seated beside an intertwining
thicket of smaller trees and underwood.
"It is my white lady!" I said, and flung myself on the ground
beside her; striving, through the gathering darkness, to get a
glimpse of the form which had broken its marble prison at my call.
"It is your white lady!" said the sweetest voice, in reply, sending
a thrill of speechless delight through a heart which all the love-charms
of the preceding day and evening had been tempering for this culminating
hour. Yet, if I would have confessed it, there was something either
in the sound of the voice, although it seemed sweetness itself,
or else in this yielding which awaited no gradation of gentle
approaches, that did not vibrate harmoniously with the beat of
my inward music. And likewise, when, taking her hand in mine,
I drew closer to her, looking for the beauty of her face, which,
indeed, I found too plenteously, a cold shiver ran through me;
but "it is the marble," I said to myself, and heeded it not.
She withdrew her hand from mine, and after that would scarce allow
me to touch her. It seemed strange, after the fulness of her first
greeting, that she could not trust me to come close to her. Though
her words were those of a lover, she kept herself withdrawn as
if a mile of space interposed between us.
"Why did you run away from me when you woke in the cave?" I said.
"Did I?" she returned. "That was very unkind of me; but I did
not know better."
"I wish I could see you. The night is very dark."
"So it is. Come to my grotto. There is light there."
"Have you another cave, then?"
"Come and see."
But she did not move until I rose first, and then she was on her
feet before I could offer my hand to help her. She came close
to my side, and conducted me through the wood. But once or twice,
when, involuntarily almost, I was about to put my arm around her
as we walked on through the warm gloom, she sprang away several
paces, always keeping her face full towards me, and then stood
looking at me, slightly stooping, in the attitude of one who fears
some half-seen enemy. It was too dark to discern the expression
of her face. Then she would return and walk close beside me again,
as if nothing had happened. I thought this strange; but, besides
that I had almost, as I said before, given up the attempt to account
for appearances in Fairy Land, I judged that it would be very
unfair to expect from one who had slept so long and had been so
suddenly awakened, a behaviour correspondent to what I might unreflectingly
look for. I knew not what she might have been dreaming about.
Besides, it was possible that, while her words were free, her
sense of touch might be exquisitely delicate.
At length, after walking a long way in the woods, we arrived at
another thicket, through the intertexture of which was glimmering
a pale rosy light.
"Push aside the branches," she said, "and make room for us to
enter."
I did as she told me.
"Go in," she said; "I will follow you."
I did as she desired, and found myself in a little cave, not very
unlike the marble cave. It was festooned and draperied with all
kinds of green that cling to shady rocks. In the furthest corner,
half- hidden in leaves, through which it glowed, mingling lovely
shadows between them, burned a bright rosy flame on a little earthen
lamp. The lady glided round by the wall from behind me, still
keeping her face towards me, and seated herself in the furthest
corner, with her back to the lamp, which she hid completely from
my view. I then saw indeed a form of perfect loveliness before
me. Almost it seemed as if the light of the rose-lamp shone through
her (for it could not be reflected from her); such a delicate
shade of pink seemed to shadow what in itself must be a marbly
whiteness of hue. I discovered afterwards, however, that there
was one thing in it I did not like; which was, that the white
part of the eye was tinged with the same slight roseate hue as
the rest of the form. It is strange that I cannot recall her features;
but they, as well as her somewhat girlish figure, left on me simply
and only the impression of intense loveliness. I lay down at her
feet, and gazed up into her face as I lay. She began, and told
me a strange tale, which, likewise, I cannot recollect; but which,
at every turn and every pause, somehow or other fixed my eyes
and thoughts upon her extreme beauty; seeming always to culminate
in something that had a relation, revealed or hidden, but always
operative, with her own loveliness. I lay entranced. It was a
tale which brings back a feeling as of snows and tempests; torrents
and water-sprites; lovers parted for long, and meeting at last;
with a gorgeous summer night to close up the whole. I listened
till she and I were blended with the tale; till she and I were
the whole history. And we had met at last in this same cave of
greenery, while the summer night hung round us heavy with love,
and the odours that crept through the silence from the sleeping
woods were the only signs of an outer world that invaded our solitude.
What followed I cannot clearly remember. The succeeding horror
almost obliterated it. I woke as a grey dawn stole into the cave.
The damsel had disappeared; but in the shrubbery, at the mouth
of the cave, stood a strange horrible object. It looked like an
open coffin set up on one end; only that the part for the head
and neck was defined from the shoulder-part. In fact, it was a
rough representation of the human frame, only hollow, as if made
of decaying bark torn from a tree.
It had arms, which were only slightly seamed, down from the shoulder-
blade by the elbow, as if the bark had healed again from the cut
of a knife. But the arms moved, and the hand and the fingers were
tearing asunder a long silky tress of hair. The thing turned round--it
had for a face and front those of my enchantress, but now of a
pale greenish hue in the light of the morning, and with dead lustreless
eyes. In the horror of the moment, another fear invaded me. I
put my hand to my waist, and found indeed that my girdle of beech-leaves
was gone. Hair again in her hands, she was tearing it fiercely.
Once more, as she turned, she laughed a low laugh, but now full
of scorn and derision; and then she said, as if to a companion
with whom she had been talking while I slept, "There he is; you
can take him now." I lay still, petrified with dismay and fear;
for I now saw another figure beside her, which, although vague
and indistinct, I yet recognised but too well. It was the Ash-tree.
My beauty was the Maid of the Alder! and she was giving me, spoiled
of my only availing defence, into the hands of bent his Gorgon-head,
and entered the cave. I could not stir. He drew near me. His ghoul-eyes
and his ghastly face fascinated me. He came stooping, with the
hideous hand outstretched, like a beast of prey. I had given myself
up to a death of unfathomable horror, when, suddenly, and just
as he was on the point of seizing me, the dull, heavy blow of
an axe echoed through the wood, followed by others in quick repetition.
The Ash shuddered and groaned, withdrew the outstretched hand,
retreated backwards to the mouth of the cave, then turned and
disappeared amongst the trees. The other walking Death looked
at me once, with a careless dislike on her beautifully moulded
features; then, heedless any more to conceal her hollow deformity,
turned her frightful back and likewise vanished amid the green
obscurity without. I lay and wept. The Maid of the Alder-tree
had befooled me--nearly slain me--in spite of all the warnings
I had received from those who knew my danger.
CHAPTER VII
"Fight on, my men, Sir Andrew sayes,
A little Ime hurt, but yett not slaine;
He but lye downe and bleede awhile,
And then Ile rise and fight againe."
Ballad of Sir Andrew Barton.
But I could not remain where I was any longer, though the daylight
was hateful to me, and the thought of the great, innocent, bold
sunrise unendurable. Here there was no well to cool my face, smarting
with the bitterness of my own tears. Nor would I have washed in
the well of that grotto, had it flowed clear as the rivers of
Paradise. I rose, and feebly left the sepulchral cave. I took
my way I knew not whither, but still towards the sunrise. The
birds were singing; but not for me. All the creatures spoke a
language of their own, with which I had nothing to do, and to
which I cared not to find the key any more.
I walked listlessly along. What distressed me most--more even
than my own folly--was the perplexing question, How can beauty
and ugliness dwell so near? Even with her altered complexion and
her face of dislike; disenchanted of the belief that clung around
her; known for a living, walking sepulchre, faithless, deluding,
traitorous; I felt notwithstanding all this, that she was beautiful.
Upon this I pondered with undiminished perplexity, though not
without some gain. Then I began to make surmises as to the mode
of my deliverance; and concluded that some hero, wandering in
search of adventure, had heard how the forest was infested; and,
knowing it was useless to attack the evil thing in person, had
assailed with his battle-axe the body in which he dwelt, and on
which he was dependent for his power of mischief in the wood.
"Very likely," I thought, "the repentant-knight, who warned me
of the evil which has befallen me, was busy retrieving his lost
honour, while I was sinking into the same sorrow with himself;
and, hearing of the dangerous and mysterious being, arrived at
his tree in time to save me from being dragged to its roots, and
buried like carrion, to nourish him for yet deeper insatiableness."
I found afterwards that my conjecture was correct. I wondered
how he had fared when his blows recalled the Ash himself, and
that too I learned afterwards.
I walked on the whole day, with intervals of rest, but without
food; for I could not have eaten, had any been offered me; till,
in the afternoon, I seemed to approach the outskirts of the forest,
and at length arrived at a farm-house. An unspeakable joy arose
in my heart at beholding an abode of human beings once more, and
I hastened up to the door, and knocked. A kind-looking, matronly
woman, still handsome, made her appearance; who, as soon as she
saw me, said kindly, "Ah, my poor boy, you have come from the
wood! Were you in it last night?"
I should have ill endured, the day before, to be called BOY; but
now the motherly kindness of the word went to my heart; and, like
a boy indeed, I burst into tears. She soothed me right gently;
and, leading me into a room, made me lie down on a settle, while
she went to find me some refreshment. She soon returned with food,
but I could not eat. She almost compelled me to swallow some wine,
when I revived sufficiently to be able to answer some of her questions.
I told her the whole story.
"It is just as I feared," she said; "but you are now for the night
beyond the reach of any of these dreadful creatures. It is no
wonder they could delude a child like you. But I must beg you,
when my husband comes in, not to say a word about these things;
for he thinks me even half crazy for believing anything of the
sort. But I must believe my senses, as he cannot believe beyond
his, which give him no intimations of this kind. I think he could
spend the whole of Midsummer-eve in the wood and come back with
the report that he saw nothing worse than himself. Indeed, good
man, he would hardly find anything better than himself, if he
had seven more senses given him."
"But tell me how it is that she could be so beautiful without
any heart at all--without any place even for a heart to live in."
"I cannot quite tell," she said; "but I am sure she would not
look so beautiful if she did not take means to make herself look
more beautiful than she is. And then, you know, you began by being
in love with her before you saw her beauty, mistaking her for
the lady of the marble--another kind altogether, I should think.
But the chief thing that makes her beautiful is this: that, although
she loves no man, she loves the love of any man; and when she
finds one in her power, her desire to bewitch him and gain his
love (not for the sake of his love either, but that she may be
conscious anew of her own beauty, through the admiration he manifests),
makes her very lovely--with a self- destructive beauty, though;
for it is that which is constantly wearing her away within, till,
at last, the decay will reach her face, and her whole front, when
all the lovely mask of nothing will fall to pieces, and she be
vanished for ever. So a wise man, whom she met in the wood some
years ago, and who, I think, for all his wisdom, fared no better
than you, told me, when, like you, he spent the next night here,
and recounted to me his adventures."
I thanked her very warmly for her solution, though it was but
partial; wondering much that in her, as in woman I met on my first
entering the forest, there should be such superiority to her apparent
condition. Here she left me to take some rest; though, indeed,
I was too much agitated to rest in any other way than by simply
ceasing to move.
In half an hour, I heard a heavy step approach and enter the house.
A jolly voice, whose slight huskiness appeared to proceed from
overmuch laughter, called out "Betsy, the pigs' trough is quite
empty, and that is a pity. Let them swill, lass! They're of no
use but to get fat. Ha! ha! ha! Gluttony is not forbidden in their
commandments. Ha! ha! ha!" The very voice, kind and jovial, seemed
to disrobe the room of the strange look which all new places wear--to
disenchant it out of the realm of the ideal into that of the actual.
It began to look as if I had known every corner of it for twenty
years; and when, soon after, the dame came and fetched me to partake
of their early supper, the grasp of his great hand, and the harvest-moon
of his benevolent face, which was needed to light up the rotundity
of the globe beneath it, produced such a reaction in me, that,
for a moment, I could hardly believe that there was a Fairy Land;
and that all I had passed through since I left home, had not been
the wandering dream of a diseased imagination, operating on a
too mobile frame, not merely causing me indeed to travel, but
peopling for me with vague phantoms the regions through which
my actual steps had led me. But the next moment my eye fell upon
a little girl who was sitting in the chimney-corner, with a little
book open on her knee, from which she had apparently just looked
up to fix great inquiring eyes upon me. I believed in Fairy Land
again. She went on with her reading, as soon as she saw that I
observed her looking at me. I went near, and peeping over her
shoulder, saw that she was reading "The History of Graciosa and
Percinet."
"Very improving book, sir," remarked the old farmer, with a good-
humoured laugh. "We are in the very hottest corner of Fairy Land
here. Ha! ha! Stormy night, last night, sir."
"Was it, indeed?" I rejoined. "It was not so with me. A lovelier
night I never saw." "Indeed! Where were you last night?"
"I spent it in the forest. I had lost my way."
"Ah! then, perhaps, you will be able to convince my good woman,
that there is nothing very remarkable about the forest; for, to
tell the truth, it bears but a bad name in these parts. I dare
say you saw nothing worse than yourself there?"
"I hope I did," was my inward reply; but, for an audible one,
I contented myself with saying, "Why, I certainly did see some
appearances I could hardly account for; but that is nothing to
be wondered at in an unknown wild forest, and with the uncertain
light of the moon alone to go by."
"Very true! you speak like a sensible man, sir. We have but few
sensible folks round about us. Now, you would hardly credit it,
but my wife believes every fairy-tale that ever was written. I
cannot account for it. She is a most sensible woman in everything
else."
"But should not that make you treat her belief with something
of respect, though you cannot share in it yourself?"
"Yes, that is all very well in theory; but when you come to live
every day in the midst of absurdity, it is far less easy to behave
respectfully to it. Why, my wife actually believes the story of
the `White Cat.' You know it, I dare say."
"I read all these tales when a child, and know that one especially
well."
"But, father," interposed the little girl in the chimney-corner,
"you know quite well that mother is descended from that very princess
who was changed by the wicked fairy into a white cat. Mother has
told me so a many times, and you ought to believe everything she
says."
"I can easily believe that," rejoined the farmer, with another
fit of laughter; "for, the other night, a mouse came gnawing and
scratching beneath the floor, and would not let us go to sleep.
Your mother sprang out of bed, and going as near it as she could,
mewed so infernally like a great cat, that the noise ceased instantly.
I believe the poor mouse died of the fright, for we have never
heard it again. Ha! ha! ha!"
The son, an ill-looking youth, who had entered during the conversation,
joined in his father's laugh; but his laugh was very different
from the old man's: it was polluted with a sneer. I watched him,
and saw that, as soon as it was over, he looked scared, as if
he dreaded some evil consequences to follow his presumption. The
woman stood near, waiting till we should seat ourselves at the
table, and listening to it all with an amused air, which had something
in it of the look with which one listens to the sententious remarks
of a pompous child. We sat down to supper, and I ate heartily.
My bygone distresses began already to look far off.
"In what direction are you going?" asked the old man.
"Eastward," I replied; nor could I have given a more definite
answer. "Does the forest extend much further in that direction?"
"Oh! for miles and miles; I do not know how far. For although
I have lived on the borders of it all my life, I have been too
busy to make journeys of discovery into it. Nor do I see what
I could discover. It is only trees and trees, till one is sick
of them. By the way, if you follow the eastward track from here,
you will pass close to what the children say is the very house
of the ogre that Hop-o'-my-Thumb visited, and ate his little daughters
with the crowns of gold."
"Oh, father! ate his little daughters! No; he only changed their
gold crowns for nightcaps; and the great long-toothed ogre killed
them in mistake; but I do not think even he ate them, for you
know they were his own little ogresses."
"Well, well, child; you know all about it a great deal better
than I do. However, the house has, of course, in such a foolish
neighbourhood as this, a bad enough name; and I must confess there
is a woman living in it, with teeth long enough, and white enough
too, for the lineal descendant of the greatest ogre that ever
was made. I think you had better not go near her."
In such talk as this the night wore on. When supper was finished,
which lasted some time, my hostess conducted me to my chamber.
"If you had not had enough of it already," she said, "I would
have put you in another room, which looks towards the forest;
and where you would most likely have seen something more of its
inhabitants. For they frequently pass the window, and even enter
the room sometimes. Strange creatures spend whole nights in it,
at certain seasons of the year. I am used to it, and do not mind
it. No more does my little girl, who sleeps in it always. But
this room looks southward towards the open country, and they never
show themselves here; at least I never saw any."
I was somewhat sorry not to gather any experience that I might
have, of the inhabitants of Fairy Land; but the effect of the
farmer's company, and of my own later adventures, was such, that
I chose rather an undisturbed night in my more human quarters;
which, with their clean white curtains and white linen, were very
inviting to my weariness.
In the morning I awoke refreshed, after a profound and dreamless
sleep. The sun was high, when I looked out of the window, shining
over a wide, undulating, cultivated country. Various garden-vegetables
were growing beneath my window. Everything was radiant with clear
sunlight. The dew-drops were sparkling their busiest; the cows
in a near-by field were eating as if they had not been at it all
day yesterday; the maids were singing at their work as they passed
to and fro between the out-houses: I did not believe in Fairy
Land. I went down, and found the family already at breakfast.
But before I entered the room where they sat, the little girl
came to me, and looked up in my face, as though she wanted to
say something to me. I stooped towards her; she put her arms round
my neck, and her mouth to my ear, and whispered--
"A white lady has been flitting about the house all night."
"No whispering behind doors!" cried the farmer; and we entered
together. "Well, how have you slept? No bogies, eh?"
"Not one, thank you; I slept uncommonly well."
"I am glad to hear it. Come and breakfast."
After breakfast, the farmer and his son went out; and I was left
alone with the mother and daughter.
"When I looked out of the window this morning," I said, "I felt
almost certain that Fairy Land was all a delusion of my brain;
but whenever I come near you or your little daughter, I feel differently.
Yet I could persuade myself, after my last adventures, to go back,
and have nothing more to do with such strange beings."
"How will you go back?" said the woman.
"Nay, that I do not know."
"Because I have heard, that, for those who enter Fairy Land, there
is no way of going back. They must go on, and go through it. How,
I do not in the least know."
"That is quite the impression on my own mind. Something compels
me to go on, as if my only path was onward, but I feel less inclined
this morning to continue my adventures."
"Will you come and see my little child's room? She sleeps in the
one I told you of, looking towards the forest."
"Willingly," I said.
So we went together, the little girl running before to open the
door for us. It was a large room, full of old-fashioned furniture,
that seemed to have once belonged to some great house.
The window was built with a low arch, and filled with lozenge-shaped
panes. The wall was very thick, and built of solid stone. I could
see that part of the house had been erected against the remains
of some old castle or abbey, or other great building; the fallen
stones of which had probably served to complete it. But as soon
as I looked out of the window, a gush of wonderment and longing
flowed over my soul like the tide of a great sea. Fairy Land lay
before me, and drew me towards it with an irresistible attraction.
The trees bathed their great heads in the waves of the morning,
while their roots were planted deep in gloom; save where on the
borders the sunshine broke against their stems, or swept in long
streams through their avenues, washing with brighter hue all the
leaves over which it flowed; revealing the rich brown of the decayed
leaves and fallen pine-cones, and the delicate greens of the long
grasses and tiny forests of moss that covered the channel over
which it passed in motionless rivers of light. I turned hurriedly
to bid my hostess farewell without further delay. She smiled at
my haste, but with an anxious look.
"You had better not go near the house of the ogre, I think. My
son will show you into another path, which will join the first
beyond it."
Not wishing to be headstrong or too confident any more, I agreed;
and having taken leave of my kind entertainers, went into the
wood, accompanied by the youth. He scarcely spoke as we went along;
but he led me through the trees till we struck upon a path. He
told me to follow it, and, with a muttered "good morning" left
me.
CHAPTER VIII
"I am a part of the part, which at first was the whole."
GOETHE.--Mephistopheles in Faust.
My spirits rose as I went deeper; into the forest; but I could
not regain my former elasticity of mind. I found cheerfulness
to be like life itself--not to be created by any argument. Afterwards
I learned, that the best way to manage some kinds of pain fill
thoughts, is to dare them to do their worst; to let them lie and
gnaw at your heart till they are tired; and you find you still
have a residue of life they cannot kill. So, better and worse,
I went on, till I came to a little clearing in the forest. In
the middle of this clearing stood a long, low hut, built with
one end against a single tall cypress, which rose like a spire
to the building. A vague misgiving crossed my mind when I saw
it; but I must needs go closer, and look through a little half-open
door, near the opposite end from the cypress. Window I saw none.
On peeping in, and looking towards the further end, I saw a lamp
burning, with a dim, reddish flame, and the head of a woman, bent
downwards, as if reading by its light. I could see nothing more
for a few moments. At length, as my eyes got used to the dimness
of the place, I saw that the part of the rude building near me
was used for household purposes; for several rough utensils lay
here and there, and a bed stood in the corner.
An irresistible attraction caused me to enter. The woman never
raised her face, the upper part of which alone I could see distinctly;
but, as soon as I stepped within the threshold, she began to read
aloud, in a low and not altogether unpleasing voice, from an ancient
little volume which she held open with one hand on the table upon
which stood the lamp. What she read was something like this:
"So, then, as darkness had no beginning, neither will it ever
have an end. So, then, is it eternal. The negation of aught else,
is its affirmation. Where the light cannot come, there abideth
the darkness. The light doth but hollow a mine out of the infinite
extension of the darkness. And ever upon the steps of the light
treadeth the darkness; yea, springeth in fountains and wells amidst
it, from the secret channels of its mighty sea. Truly, man is
but a passing flame, moving unquietly amid the surrounding rest
of night; without which he yet could not be, and whereof he is
in part compounded."
As I drew nearer, and she read on, she moved a little to turn
a leaf of the dark old volume, and I saw that her face was sallow
and slightly forbidding. Her forehead was high, and her black
eyes repressedly quiet. But she took no notice of me. This end
of the cottage, if cottage it could be called, was destitute of
furniture, except the table with the lamp, and the chair on which
the woman sat. In one corner was a door, apparently of a cupboard
in the wall, but which might lead to a room beyond. Still the
irresistible desire which had made me enter the building urged
me: I must open that door, and see what was beyond it. I approached,
and laid my hand on the rude latch. Then the woman spoke, but
without lifting her head or looking at me: "You had better not
open that door." This was uttered quite quietly; and she went
on with her reading, partly in silence, partly aloud; but both
modes seemed equally intended for herself alone. The prohibition,
however, only increased my desire to see; and as she took no further
notice, I gently opened the door to its full width, and looked
in. At first, I saw nothing worthy of attention. It seemed a common
closet, with shelves on each hand, on which stood various little
necessaries for the humble uses of a cottage. In one corner stood
one or two brooms, in another a hatchet and other common tools;
showing that it was in use every hour of the day for household
purposes. But, as I looked, I saw that there were no shelves at
the back, and that an empty space went in further; its termination
appearing to be a faintly glimmering wall or curtain, somewhat
less, however, than the width and height of the doorway where
I stood. But, as I continued looking, for a few seconds, towards
this faintly luminous limit, my eyes came into true relation with
their object. All at once, with such a shiver as when one is suddenly
conscious of the presence of another in a room where he has, for
hours, considered himself alone, I saw that the seemingly luminous
extremity was a sky, as of night, beheld through the long perspective
of a narrow, dark passage, through what, or built of what, I could
not tell. As I gazed, I clearly discerned two or three stars glimmering
faintly in the distant blue. But, suddenly, and as if it had been
running fast from a far distance for this very point, and had
turned the corner without abating its swiftness, a dark figure
sped into and along the passage from the blue opening at the remote
end. I started back and shuddered, but kept looking, for I could
not help it. On and on it came, with a speedy approach but delayed
arrival; till, at last, through the many gradations of approach,
it seemed to come within the sphere of myself, rushed up to me,
and passed me into the cottage. All I could tell of its appearance
was, that it seemed to be a dark human figure. Its motion was
entirely noiseless, and might be called a gliding, were it not
that it appeared that of a runner, but with ghostly feet. I had
moved back yet a little to let him pass me, and looked round after
him instantly. I could not see him.
"Where is he?" I said, in some alarm, to the woman, who still
sat reading.
"There, on the floor, behind you," she said, pointing with her
arm half-outstretched, but not lifting her eyes. I turned and
looked, but saw nothing. Then with a feeling that there was yet
something behind me, I looked round over my shoulder; and there,
on the ground, lay a black shadow, the size of a man. It was so
dark, that I could see it in the dim light of the lamp, which
shone full upon it, apparently without thinning at all the intensity
of its hue.
"I told you," said the woman, "you had better not look into that
closet."
"What is it?" I said, with a growing sense of horror.
"It is only your shadow that has found you," she replied. Everybody's
shadow is ranging up and down looking for him. I believe you call
it by a different name in your world: yours has found you, as
every person's is almost certain to do who looks into that closet,
especially after meeting one in the forest, whom I dare say you
have met."
Here, for the first time, she lifted her head, and looked full
at me: her mouth was full of long, white, shining teeth; and I
knew that I was in the house of the ogre. I could not speak, but
turned and left the house, with the shadow at my heels. "A nice
sort of valet to have," I said to myself bitterly, as I stepped
into the sunshine, and, looking over my shoulder, saw that it
lay yet blacker in the full blaze of the sunlight. Indeed, only
when I stood between it and the sun, was the blackness at all
diminished. I was so bewildered-- stunned--both by the event itself
and its suddenness, that I could not at all realise to myself
what it would be to have such a constant and strange attendance;
but with a dim conviction that my present dislike would soon grow
to loathing, I took my dreary way through the wood.
CHAPTER IX
"O lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live:
Ours is her wedding garments ours her shrorwd!
. . . . .
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth,
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud,
Enveloping the Earth--
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!"
COLERIDGE.
From this time, until I arrived at the palace of Fairy Land, I
can attempt no consecutive account of my wanderings and adventures.
Everything, henceforward, existed for me in its relation to my
attendant. What influence he exercised upon everything into contact
with which I was brought, may be understood from a few detached
instances. To begin with this very day on which he first joined
me: after I had walked heartlessly along for two or three hours,
I was very weary, and lay down to rest in a most delightful part
of the forest, carpeted with wild flowers. I lay for half an hour
in a dull repose, and then got up to pursue my way. The flowers
on the spot where I had lain were crushed to the earth: but I
saw that they would soon lift their heads and rejoice again in
the sun and air. Not so those on which my shadow had lain. The
very outline of it could be traced in the withered lifeless grass,
and the scorched and shrivelled flowers which stood there, dead,
and hopeless of any resurrection. I shuddered, and hastened away
with sad forebodings.
In a few days, I had reason to dread an extension of its baleful
influences from the fact, that it was no longer confined to one
position in regard to myself. Hitherto, when seized with an irresistible
desire to look on my evil demon (which longing would unaccountably
seize me at any moment, returning at longer or shorter intervals,
sometimes every minute), I had to turn my head backwards, and
look over my shoulder; in which position, as long as I could retain
it, I was fascinated. But one day, having come out on a clear
grassy hill, which commanded a glorious prospect, though of what
I cannot now tell, my shadow moved round, and came in front of
me. And, presently, a new manifestation increased my distress.
For it began to coruscate, and shoot out on all sides a radiation
of dim shadow. These rays of gloom issued from the central shadow
as from a black sun, lengthening and shortening with continual
change. But wherever a ray struck, that part of earth, or sea,
or sky, became void, and desert, and sad to my heart. On this,
the first development of its new power, one ray shot out beyond
the rest, seeming to lengthen infinitely, until it smote the great
sun on the face, which withered and darkened beneath the blow.
I turned away and went on. The shadow retreated to its former
position; and when I looked again, it had drawn in all its spears
of darkness, and followed like a dog at my heels.
Once, as I passed by a cottage, there came out a lovely fairy
child, with two wondrous toys, one in each hand. The one was the
tube through which the fairy-gifted poet looks when he beholds
the same thing everywhere; the other that through which he looks
when he combines into new forms of loveliness those images of
beauty which his own choice has gathered from all regions wherein
he has travelled. Round the child's head was an aureole of emanating
rays. As I looked at him in wonder and delight, round crept from
behind me the something dark, and the child stood in my shadow.
Straightway he was a commonplace boy, with a rough broad-brimmed
straw hat, through which brim the sun shone from behind. The toys
he carried were a multiplying-glass and a kaleidoscope. I sighed
and departed.
One evening, as a great silent flood of western gold flowed through
an avenue in the woods, down the stream, just as when I saw him
first, came the sad knight, riding on his chestnut steed.
But his armour did not shine half so red as when I saw him first.
Many a blow of mighty sword and axe, turned aside by the strength
of his mail, and glancing adown the surface, had swept from its
path the fretted rust, and the glorious steel had answered the
kindly blow with the thanks of returning light. These streaks
and spots made his armour look like the floor of a forest in the
sunlight. His forehead was higher than before, for the contracting
wrinkles were nearly gone; and the sadness that remained on his
face was the sadness of a dewy summer twilight, not that of a
frosty autumn morn. He, too, had met the Alder-maiden as I, but
he had plunged into the torrent of mighty deeds, and the stain
was nearly washed away. No shadow followed him. He had not entered
the dark house; he had not had time to open the closet door. "Will
he ever look in?" I said to myself. "MUST his shadow find him
some day?" But I could not answer my own questions.
We travelled together for two days, and I began to love him. It
was plain that he suspected my story in some degree; and I saw
him once or twice looking curiously and anxiously at my attendant
gloom, which all this time had remained very obsequiously behind
me; but I offered no explanation, and he asked none. Shame at
my neglect of his warning, and a horror which shrunk from even
alluding to its cause, kept me silent; till, on the evening of
the second day, some noble words from my companion roused all
my heart; and I was at the point of falling on his neck, and telling
him the whole story; seeking, if not for helpful advice, for of
that I was hopeless, yet for the comfort of sympathy--when round
slid the shadow and inwrapt my friend; and I could not trust him.
The glory of his brow vanished; the light of his eye grew cold;
and I held my peace. The next morning we parted.
But the most dreadful thing of all was, that I now began to feel
something like satisfaction in the presence of the shadow. I began
to be rather vain of my attendant, saying to myself, "In a land
like this, with so many illusions everywhere, I need his aid to
disenchant the things around me. He does away with all appearances,
and shows me things in their true colour and form. And I am not
one to be fooled with the vanities of the common crowd. I will
not see beauty where there is none. I will dare to behold things
as they are. And if I live in a waste instead of a paradise, I
will live knowing where I live." But of this a certain exercise
of his power which soon followed quite cured me, turning my feelings
towards him once more into loathing and distrust. It was thus:
One bright noon, a little maiden joined me, coming through the
wood in a direction at right angles to my path. She came along
singing and dancing, happy as a child, though she seemed almost
a woman. In her hands--now in one, now in another--she carried
a small globe, bright and clear as the purest crystal. This seemed
at once her plaything and her greatest treasure. At one moment,
you would have thought her utterly careless of it, and at another,
overwhelmed with anxiety for its safety. But I believe she was
taking care of it all the time, perhaps not least when least occupied
about it. She stopped by me with a smile, and bade me good day
with the sweetest voice. I felt a wonderful liking to the child--for
she produced on me more the impression of a child, though my understanding
told me differently. We talked a little, and then walked on together
in the direction I had been pursuing. I asked her about the globe
she carried, but getting no definite answer, I held out my hand
to take it. She drew back, and said, but smiling almost invitingly
the while, "You must not touch it;"--then, after a moment's pause--"Or
if you do, it must be very gently." I touched it with a finger.
A slight vibratory motion arose in it, accompanied, or perhaps
manifested, by a faint sweet sound. I touched it again, and the
sound increased. I touched it the third time: a tiny torrent of
harmony rolled out of the little globe. She would not let me touch
it any more.
We travelled on together all that day. She left me when twilight
came on; but next day, at noon, she met me as before, and again
we travelled till evening. The third day she came once more at
noon, and we walked on together. Now, though we had talked about
a great many things connected with Fairy Land, and the life she
had led hitherto, I had never been able to learn anything about
the globe. This day, however, as we went on, the shadow glided
round and inwrapt the maiden. It could not change her. But my
desire to know about the globe, which in his gloom began to waver
as with an inward light, and to shoot out flashes of many-coloured
flame, grew irresistible. I put out both my hands and laid hold
of it. It began to sound as before. The sound rapidly increased,
till it grew a low tempest of harmony, and the globe trembled,
and quivered, and throbbed between my hands. I had not the heart
to pull it away from the maiden, though I held it in spite of
her attempts to take it from me; yes, I shame to say, in spite
of her prayers, and, at last, her tears. The music went on growing
in, intensity and complication of tones, and the globe vibrated
and heaved; till at last it burst in our hands, and a black vapour
broke upwards from out of it; then turned, as if blown sideways,
and enveloped the maiden, hiding even the shadow in its blackness.
She held fast the fragments, which I abandoned, and fled from
me into the forest in the direction whence she had come, wailing
like a child, and crying, "You have broken my globe; my globe
is broken--my globe is broken!" I followed her, in the hope of
comforting her; but had not pursued her far, before a sudden cold
gust of wind bowed the tree-tops above us, and swept through their
stems around us; a great cloud overspread the day, and a fierce
tempest came on, in which I lost sight of her. It lies heavy on
my heart to this hour. At night, ere I fall asleep, often, whatever
I may be thinking about, I suddenly hear her voice, crying out,
"You have broken my globe; my globe is broken; ah, my globe!"
Here I will mention one more strange thing; but whether this peculiarity
was owing to my shadow at all, I am not able to assure myself.
I came to a village, the inhabitants of which could not at first
sight be distinguished from the dwellers in our land. They rather
avoided than sought my company, though they were very pleasant
when I addressed them. But at last I observed, that whenever I
came within a certain distance of any one of them, which distance,
however, varied with different individuals, the whole appearance
of the person began to change; and this change increased in degree
as I approached. When I receded to the former distance, the former
appearance was restored. The nature of the change was grotesque,
following no fixed rule. The nearest resemblance to it that I
know, is the distortion produced in your countenance when you
look at it as reflected in a concave or convex surface--say, either
side of a bright spoon. Of this phenomenon I first became aware
in rather a ludicrous way. My host's daughter was a very pleasant
pretty girl, who made herself more agreeable to me than most of
those about me. For some days my companion-shadow had been less
obtrusive than usual; and such was the reaction of spirits occasioned
by the simple mitigation of torment, that, although I had cause
enough besides to be gloomy, I felt light and comparatively happy.
My impression is, that she was quite aware of the law of appearances
that existed between the people of the place and myself, and had
resolved to amuse herself at my expense; for one evening, after
some jesting and raillery, she, somehow or other, provoked me
to attempt to kiss her. But she was well defended from any assault
of the kind. Her countenance became, of a sudden, absurdly hideous;
the pretty mouth was elongated and otherwise amplified sufficiently
to have allowed of six simultaneous kisses. I started back in
bewildered dismay; she burst into the merriest fit of laughter,
and ran from the room. I soon found that the same undefinable
law of change operated between me and all the other villagers;
and that, to feel I was in pleasant company, it was absolutely
necessary for me to discover and observe the right focal distance
between myself and each one with whom I had to do. This done,
all went pleasantly enough. Whether, when I happened to neglect
this precaution, I presented to them an equally ridiculous appearance,
I did not ascertain; but I presume that the alteration was common
to the approximating parties. I was likewise unable to determine
whether I was a necessary party to the production of this strange
transformation, or whether it took place as well, under the given
circumstances, between the inhabitants themselves.
CHAPTER X
"From Eden's bowers the full-fed rivers flow,
To guide the outcasts to the land of woe:
Our Earth one little toiling streamlet yields.
To guide the wanderers to the happy fields."
After leaving this village, where I had rested for nearly a week,
I travelled through a desert region of dry sand and glittering
rocks, peopled principally by goblin-fairies. When I first entered
their domains, and, indeed, whenever I fell in with another tribe
of them, they began mocking me with offered handfuls of gold and
jewels, making hideous grimaces at me, and performing the most
antic homage, as if they thought I expected reverence, and meant
to humour me like a maniac. But ever, as soon as one cast his
eyes on the shadow behind me, he made a wry face, partly of pity,
partly of contempt, and looked ashamed, as if he had been caught
doing something inhuman; then, throwing down his handful of gold,
and ceasing all his grimaces, he stood aside to let me pass in
peace, and made signs to his companions to do the like. I had
no inclination to observe them much, for the shadow was in my
heart as well as at my heels. I walked listlessly and almost hopelessly
along, till I arrived one day at a small spring; which, bursting
cool from the heart of a sun-heated rock, flowed somewhat southwards
from the direction I had been taking. I drank of this spring,
and found myself wonderfully refreshed. A kind of love to the
cheerful little stream arose in my heart. It was born in a desert;
but it seemed to say to itself, "I will flow, and sing, and lave
my banks, till I make my desert a paradise." I thought I could
not do better than follow it, and see what it made of it. So down
with the stream I went, over rocky lands, burning with sunbeams.
But the rivulet flowed not far, before a few blades of grass appeared
on its banks, and then, here and there, a stunted bush. Sometimes
it disappeared altogether under ground; and after I had wandered
some distance, as near as I could guess, in the direction it seemed
to take, I would suddenly hear it again, singing, sometimes far
away to my right or left, amongst new rocks, over which it made
new cataracts of watery melodies. The verdure on its banks increased
as it flowed; other streams joined it; and at last, after many
days' travel, I found myself, one gorgeous summer evening, resting
by the side of a broad river, with a glorious horse-chestnut tree
towering above me, and dropping its blossoms, milk-white and rosy-red,
all about me. As I sat, a gush of joy sprang forth in my heart,
and over flowed at my eyes.
Through my tears, the whole landscape glimmered in such bewildering
loveliness, that I felt as if I were entering Fairy Land for the
first time, and some loving hand were waiting to cool my head,
and a loving word to warm my heart. Roses, wild roses, everywhere!
So plentiful were they, they not only perfumed the air, they seemed
to dye it a faint rose-hue. The colour floated abroad with the
scent, and clomb, and spread, until the whole west blushed and
glowed with the gathered incense of roses. And my heart fainted
with longing in my bosom.
Could I but see the Spirit of the Earth, as I saw once the in
dwelling woman of the beech-tree, and my beauty of the pale marble,
I should be content. Content!--Oh, how gladly would I die of the
light of her eyes! Yea, I would cease to be, if that would bring
me one word of love from the one mouth. The twilight sank around,
and infolded me with sleep. I slept as I had not slept for months.
I did not awake till late in the morning; when, refreshed in body
and mind, I rose as from the death that wipes out the sadness
of life, and then dies itself in the new morrow. Again I followed
the stream; now climbing a steep rocky bank that hemmed it in;
now wading through long grasses and wild flowers in its path;
now through meadows; and anon through woods that crowded down
to the very lip of the water.
At length, in a nook of the river, gloomy with the weight of overhanging
foliage, and still and deep as a soul in which the torrent eddies
of pain have hollowed a great gulf, and then, subsiding in violence,
have left it full of a motionless, fathomless sorrow--I saw a
little boat lying. So still was the water here, that the boat
needed no fastening. It lay as if some one had just stepped ashore,
and would in a moment return. But as there were no signs of presence,
and no track through the thick bushes; and, moreover, as I was
in Fairy Land where one does very much as he pleases, I forced
my way to the brink, stepped into the boat, pushed it, with the
help of the tree-branches, out into the stream, lay down in the
bottom, and let my boat and me float whither the stream would
carry us. I seemed to lose myself in the great flow of sky above
me unbroken in its infinitude, except when now and then, coming
nearer the shore at a bend in the river, a tree would sweep its
mighty head silently above mine, and glide away back into the
past, never more to fling its shadow over me. I fell asleep in
this cradle, in which mother Nature was rocking her weary child;
and while I slept, the sun slept not, but went round his arched
way. When I awoke, he slept in the waters, and I went on my silent
path beneath a round silvery moon. And a pale moon looked up from
the floor of the great blue cave that lay in the abysmal silence
beneath.
Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the reality?--not
so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier? Fair as
is the gliding sloop on the shining sea, the wavering, trembling,
unresting sail below is fairer still. Yea, the reflecting ocean
itself, reflected in the mirror, has a wondrousness about its
waters that somewhat vanishes when I turn towards itself. All
mirrors are magic mirrors. The commonest room is a room in a poem
when I turn to the glass. (And this reminds me, while I write,
of a strange story which I read in the fairy palace, and of which
I will try to make a feeble memorial in its place.) In whatever
way it may be accounted for, of one thing we may be sure, that
this feeling is no cheat; for there is no cheating in nature and
the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth
involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning.
Even the memories of past pain are beautiful; and past delights,
though beheld only through clefts in the grey clouds of sorrow,
are lovely as Fairy Land. But how have I wandered into the deeper
fairyland of the soul, while as yet I only float towards the fairy
palace of Fairy Land! The moon, which is the lovelier memory or
reflex of the down-gone sun, the joyous day seen in the faint
mirror of the brooding night, had rapt me away.
I sat up in the boat. Gigantic forest trees were about me; through
which, like a silver snake, twisted and twined the great river.
The little waves, when I moved in the boat, heaved and fell with
a plash as of molten silver, breaking the image of the moon into
a thousand morsels, fusing again into one, as the ripples of laughter
die into the still face of joy. The sleeping woods, in undefined
massiveness; the water that flowed in its sleep; and, above all,
the enchantress moon, which had cast them all, with her pale eye,
into the charmed slumber, sank into my soul, and I felt as if
I had died in a dream, and should never more awake.
From this I was partly aroused by a glimmering of white, that,
through the trees on the left, vaguely crossed my vision, as I
gazed upwards. But the trees again hid the object; and at the
moment, some strange melodious bird took up its song, and sang,
not an ordinary bird-song, with constant repetitions of the same
melody, but what sounded like a continuous strain, in which one
thought was expressed, deepening in intensity as evolved in progress.
It sounded like a welcome already overshadowed with the coming
farewell. As in all sweetest music, a tinge of sadness was in
every note. Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life
we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold the deepest
truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy. Cometh white-robed
Sorrow, stooping and wan, and flingeth wide the doors she may
not enter. Almost we linger with Sorrow for very love.
As the song concluded the stream bore my little boat with a gentle
sweep round a bend of the river; and lo! on a broad lawn, which
rose from the water's edge with a long green slope to a clear
elevation from which the trees receded on all sides, stood a stately
palace glimmering ghostly in the moonshine: it seemed to be built
throughout of the whitest marble. There was no reflection of moonlight
from windows--there seemed to be none; so there was no cold glitter;
only, as I said, a ghostly shimmer. Numberless shadows tempered
the shine, from column and balcony and tower. For everywhere galleries
ran along the face of the buildings; wings were extended in many
directions; and numberless openings, through which the moonbeams
vanished into the interior, and which served both for doors and
windows, had their separate balconies in front, communicating
with a common gallery that rose on its own pillars. Of course,
I did not discover all this from the river, and in the moonlight.
But, though I was there for many days, I did not succeed in mastering
the inner topography of the building, so extensive and complicated
was it.
Here I wished to land, but the boat had no oars on board. However,
I found that a plank, serving for a seat, was unfastened, and
with that I brought the boat to the bank and scrambled on shore.
Deep soft turf sank beneath my feet, as I went up the ascent towards
the palace.
When I reached it, I saw that it stood on a great platform of
marble, with an ascent, by broad stairs of the same, all round
it. Arrived on the platform, I found there was an extensive outlook
over the forest, which, however, was rather veiled than revealed
by the moonlight.
Entering by a wide gateway, but without gates, into an inner court,
surrounded on all sides by great marble pillars supporting galleries
above, I saw a large fountain of porphyry in the middle, throwing
up a lofty column of water, which fell, with a noise as of the
fusion of all sweet sounds, into a basin beneath; overflowing
which, it ran into a single channel towards the interior of the
building. Although the moon was by this time so low in the west,
that not a ray of her light fell into the court, over the height
of the surrounding buildings; yet was the court lighted by a second
reflex from the sun of other lands. For the top of the column
of water, just as it spread to fall, caught the moonbeams, and
like a great pale lamp, hung high in the night air, threw a dim
memory of light (as it were) over the court below. This court
was paved in diamonds of white and red marble. According to my
custom since I entered Fairy Land, of taking for a guide whatever
I first found moving in any direction, I followed the stream from
the basin of the fountain. It led me to a great open door, beneath
the ascending steps of which it ran through a low arch and disappeared.
Entering here, I found myself in a great hall, surrounded with
white pillars, and paved with black and white. This I could see
by the moonlight, which, from the other side, streamed through
open windows into the hall.
Its height I could not distinctly see. As soon as I entered, I
had the feeling so common to me in the woods, that there were
others there besides myself, though I could see no one, and heard
no sound to indicate a presence. Since my visit to the Church
of Darkness, my power of seeing the fairies of the higher orders
had gradually diminished, until it had almost ceased. But I could
frequently believe in their presence while unable to see them.
Still, although I had company, and doubtless of a safe kind, it
seemed rather dreary to spend the night in an empty marble hall,
however beautiful, especially as the moon was near the going down,
and it would soon be dark. So I began at the place where I entered,
and walked round the hall, looking for some door or passage that
might lead me to a more hospitable chamber. As I walked, I was
deliciously haunted with the feeling that behind some one of the
seemingly innumerable pillars, one who loved me was waiting for
me. Then I thought she was following me from pillar to pillar
as I went along; but no arms came out of the faint moonlight,
and no sigh assured me of her presence.
At length I came to an open corridor, into which I turned; notwithstanding
that, in doing so, I left the light behind. Along this I walked
with outstretched hands, groping my way, till, arriving at another
corridor, which seemed to strike off at right angles to that in
which I was, I saw at the end a faintly glimmering light, too
pale even for moonshine, resembling rather a stray phosphorescence.
However, where everything was white, a little light went a great
way. So I walked on to the end, and a long corridor it was. When
I came up to the light, I found that it proceeded from what looked
like silver letters upon a door of ebony; and, to my surprise
even in the home of wonder itself, the letters formed the words,
THE CHAMBER OF SIR ANODOS. Although I had as yet no right to the
honours of a knight, I ventured to conclude that the chamber was
indeed intended for me; and, opening the door without hesitation,
I entered. Any doubt as to whether I was right in so doing, was
soon dispelled. What to my dark eyes seemed a blaze of light,
burst upon me. A fire of large pieces of some sweet-scented wood,
supported by dogs of silver, was burning on the hearth, and a
bright lamp stood on a table, in the midst of a plentiful meal,
apparently awaiting my arrival. But what surprised me more than
all, was, that the room was in every respect a copy of my own
room, the room whence the little stream from my basin had led
me into Fairy Land. There was the very carpet of grass and moss
and daisies, which I had myself designed; the curtains of pale
blue silk, that fell like a cataract over the windows; the old-
fashioned bed, with the chintz furniture, on which I had slept
from boyhood. "Now I shall sleep," I said to myself. "My shadow
dares not come here."
I sat down to the table, and began to help myself to the good
things before me with confidence. And now I found, as in many
instances before, how true the fairy tales are; for I was waited
on, all the time of my meal, by invisible hands. I had scarcely
to do more than look towards anything I wanted, when it was brought
me, just as if it had come to me of itself. My glass was kept
filled with the wine I had chosen, until I looked towards another
bottle or decanter; when a fresh glass was substituted, and the
other wine supplied. When I had eaten and drank more heartily
and joyfully than ever since I entered Fairy Land, the whole was
removed by several attendants, of whom some were male and some
female, as I thought I could distinguish from the way the dishes
were lifted from the table, and the motion with which they were
carried out of the room. As soon as they were all taken away,
I heard a sound as of the shutting of a door, and knew that I
was left alone. I sat long by the fire, meditating, and wondering
how it would all end; and when at length, wearied with thinking,
I betook myself to my own bed, it was half with a hope that, when
I awoke in the morning, I should awake not only in my own room,
but in my own castle also; and that I should walk, out upon my
own native soil, and find that Fairy Land was, after all, only
a vision of the night. The sound of the falling waters of the
fountain floated me into oblivion.
CHAPTER XI
"A wilderness of building, sinking far
And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth,
Far sinking into splendour--without end:
Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold,
With alabaster domes, and silver spires,
And blazing terrace upon terrace, high
Uplifted."
WORDSWORTH.
But when, after a sleep, which, although dreamless, yet left behind
it a sense of past blessedness, I awoke in the full morning, I
found, indeed, that the room was still my own; but that it looked
abroad upon an unknown landscape of forest and hill and dale on
the one side--and on the other, upon the marble court, with the
great fountain, the crest of which now flashed glorious in the
sun, and cast on the pavement beneath a shower of faint shadows
from the waters that fell from it into the marble basin below.
Agreeably to all authentic accounts of the treatment of travellers
in Fairy Land, I found by my bedside a complete suit of fresh
clothing, just such as I was in the habit of wearing; for, though
varied sufficiently from the one removed, it was yet in complete
accordance with my tastes. I dressed myself in this, and went
out. The whole palace shone like silver in the sun. The marble
was partly dull and partly polished; and every pinnacle, dome,
and turret ended in a ball, or cone, or cusp of silver. It was
like frost-work, and too dazzling, in the sun, for earthly eyes
like mine.
I will not attempt to describe the environs, save by saying, that
all the pleasures to be found in the most varied and artistic
arrangement of wood and river, lawn and wild forest, garden and
shrubbery, rocky hill and luxurious vale; in living creatures
wild and tame, in gorgeous birds, scattered fountains, little
streams, and reedy lakes-- all were here. Some parts of the palace
itself I shall have occasion to describe more minutely.
For this whole morning I never thought of my demon shadow; and
not till the weariness which supervened on delight brought it
again to my memory, did I look round to see if it was behind me:
it was scarcely discernible. But its presence, however faintly
revealed, sent a pang to my heart, for the pain of which, not
all the beauties around me could compensate. It was followed,
however, by the comforting reflection that, peradventure, I might
here find the magic word of power to banish the demon and set
me free, so that I should no longer be a man beside myself. The
Queen of Fairy Land, thought I, must dwell here: surely she will
put forth her power to deliver me, and send me singing through
the further gates of her country back to my own land. "Shadow
of me!" I said; "which art not me, but which representest thyself
to me as me; here I may find a shadow of light which will devour
thee, the shadow of darkness! Here I may find a blessing which
will fall on thee as a curse, and damn thee to the blackness whence
thou hast emerged unbidden." I said this, stretched at length
on the slope of the lawn above the river; and as the hope arose
within me, the sun came forth from a light fleecy cloud that swept
across his face; and hill and dale, and the great river winding
on through the still mysterious forest, flashed back his rays
as with a silent shout of joy; all nature lived and glowed; the
very earth grew warm beneath me; a magnificent dragon-fly went
past me like an arrow from a bow, and a whole concert of birds
burst into choral song.
The heat of the sun soon became too intense even for passive support.
I therefore rose, and sought the shelter of one of the arcades.
Wandering along from one to another of these, wherever my heedless
steps led me, and wondering everywhere at the simple magnificence
of the building, I arrived at another hall, the roof of which
was of a pale blue, spangled with constellations of silver stars,
and supported by porphyry pillars of a paler red than ordinary.--In
this house (I may remark in passing), silver seemed everywhere
preferred to gold; and such was the purity of the air, that it
showed nowhere signs of tarnishing.--The whole of the floor of
this hall, except a narrow path behind the pillars, paved with
black, was hollowed into a huge basin, many feet deep, and filled
with the purest, most liquid and radiant water. The sides of the
basin were white marble, and the bottom was paved with all kinds
of refulgent stones, of every shape and hue.
In their arrangement, you would have supposed, at first sight,
that there was no design, for they seemed to lie as if cast there
from careless and playful hands; but it was a most harmonious
confusion; and as I looked at the play of their colours, especially
when the waters were in motion, I came at last to feel as if not
one little pebble could be displaced, without injuring the effect
of the whole. Beneath this floor of the water, lay the reflection
of the blue inverted roof, fretted with its silver stars, like
a second deeper sea, clasping and upholding the first. The fairy
bath was probably fed from the fountain in the court. Led by an
irresistible desire, I undressed, and plunged into the water.
It clothed me as with a new sense and its object both in one.
The waters lay so close to me, they seemed to enter and revive
my heart. I rose to the surface, shook the water from my hair,
and swam as in a rainbow, amid the coruscations of the gems below
seen through the agitation caused by my motion. Then, with open
eyes, I dived, and swam beneath the surface. And here was a new
wonder. For the basin, thus beheld, appeared to extend on all
sides like a sea, with here and there groups as of ocean rocks,
hollowed by ceaseless billows into wondrous caves and grotesque
pinnacles. Around the caves grew sea-weeds of all hues, and the
corals glowed between; while far off, I saw the glimmer of what
seemed to be creatures of human form at home in the waters. I
thought I had been enchanted; and that when I rose to the surface,
I should find myself miles from land, swimming alone upon a heaving
sea; but when my eyes emerged from the waters, I saw above me
the blue spangled vault, and the red pillars around. I dived again,
and found myself once more in the heart of a great sea. I then
arose, and swam to the edge, where I got out easily, for the water
reached the very brim, and, as I drew near washed in tiny waves
over the black marble border. I dressed, and went out, deeply
refreshed.
And now I began to discern faint, gracious forms, here and there
throughout the building. Some walked together in earnest conversation.
Others strayed alone. Some stood in groups, as if looking at and
talking about a picture or a statue. None of them heeded me. Nor
were they plainly visible to my eyes. Sometimes a group, or single
individual, would fade entirely out of the realm of my vision
as I gazed. When evening came, and the moon arose, clear as a
round of a horizon-sea when the sun hangs over it in the west,
I began to see them all more plainly; especially when they came
between me and the moon; and yet more especially, when I myself
was in the shade. But, even then, I sometimes saw only the passing
wave of a white robe; or a lovely arm or neck gleamed by in the
moonshine; or white feet went walking alone over the moony sward.
Nor, I grieve to say, did I ever come much nearer to these glorious
beings, or ever look upon the Queen of the Fairies herself. My
destiny ordered otherwise.
In this palace of marble and silver, and fountains and moonshine,
I spent many days; waited upon constantly in my room with everything
desirable, and bathing daily in the fairy bath. All this time
I was little troubled with my demon shadow I had a vague feeling
that he was somewhere about the palace; but it seemed as if the
hope that I should in this place be finally freed from his hated
presence, had sufficed to banish him for a time. How and where
I found him, I shall soon have to relate.
The third day after my arrival, I found the library of the palace;
and here, all the time I remained, I spent most of the middle
of the day. For it was, not to mention far greater attractions,
a luxurious retreat from the noontide sun. During the mornings
and afternoons, I wandered about the lovely neighbourhood, or
lay, lost in delicious day-dreams, beneath some mighty tree on
the open lawn. My evenings were by-and-by spent in a part of the
palace, the account of which, and of my adventures in connection
with it, I must yet postpone for a little.
The library was a mighty hall, lighted from the roof, which was
formed of something like glass, vaulted over in a single piece,
and stained throughout with a great mysterious picture in gorgeous
colouring.
The walls were lined from floor to roof with books and books:
most of them in ancient bindings, but some in strange new fashions
which I had never seen, and which, were I to make the attempt,
I could ill describe. All around the walls, in front of the books,
ran galleries in rows, communicating by stairs. These galleries
were built of all kinds of coloured stones; all sorts of marble
and granite, with porphyry, jasper, lapis lazuli, agate, and various
others, were ranged in wonderful melody of successive colours.
Although the material, then, of which these galleries and stairs
were built, rendered necessary a certain degree of massiveness
in the construction, yet such was the size of the place, that
they seemed to run along the walls like cords.
Over some parts of the library, descended curtains of silk of
various dyes, none of which I ever saw lifted while I was there;
and I felt somehow that it would be presumptuous in me to venture
to look within them. But the use of the other books seemed free;
and day after day I came to the library, threw myself on one of
the many sumptuous eastern carpets, which lay here and there on
the floor, and read, and read, until weary; if that can be designated
as weariness, which was rather the faintness of rapturous delight;
or until, sometimes, the failing of the light invited me to go
abroad, in the hope that a cool gentle breeze might have arisen
to bathe, with an airy invigorating bath, the limbs which the
glow of the burning spirit within had withered no less than the
glow of the blazing sun without.
One peculiarity of these books, or at least most of those I looked
into, I must make a somewhat vain attempt to describe.
If, for instance, it was a book of metaphysics I opened, I had
scarcely read two pages before I seemed to myself to be pondering
over discovered truth, and constructing the intellectual machine
whereby to communicate the discovery to my fellow men. With some
books, however, of this nature, it seemed rather as if the process
was removed yet a great way further back; and I was trying to
find the root of a manifestation, the spiritual truth whence a
material vision sprang; or to combine two propositions, both apparently
true, either at once or in different remembered moods, and to
find the point in which their invisibly converging lines would
unite in one, revealing a truth higher than either and differing
from both; though so far from being opposed to either, that it
was that whence each derived its life and power. Or if the book
was one of travels, I found myself the traveller. New lands, fresh
experiences, novel customs, rose around me. I walked, I discovered,
I fought, I suffered, I rejoiced in my success. Was it a history?
I was the chief actor therein. I suffered my own blame; I was
glad in my own praise. With a fiction it was the same. Mine was
the whole story. For I took the place of the character who was
most like myself, and his story was mine; until, grown weary with
the life of years condensed in an hour, or arrived at my deathbed,
or the end of the volume, I would awake, with a sudden bewilderment,
to the consciousness of my present life, recognising the walls
and roof around me, and finding I joyed or sorrowed only in a
book. If the book was a poem, the words disappeared, or took the
subordinate position of an accompaniment to the succession of
forms and images that rose and vanished with a soundless rhythm,
and a hidden rime.
In one, with a mystical title, which I cannot recall, I read of
a world that is not like ours. The wondrous account, in such a
feeble, fragmentary way as is possible to me, I would willingly
impart. Whether or not it was all a poem, I cannot tell; but,
from the impulse I felt, when I first contemplated writing it,
to break into rime, to which impulse I shall give way if it comes
upon me again, I think it must have been, partly at least, in
verse.
CHAPTER XII
"Chained is the Spring. The night-wind bold
Blows over the hard earth;
Time is not more confused and cold,
Nor keeps more wintry mirth.
"Yet blow, and roll the world about;
Blow, Time--blow, winter's Wind!
Through chinks of Time, heaven peepeth out,
And Spring the frost behind."
G. E. M.
They who believe in the influences of the stars over the fates
of men, are, in feeling at least, nearer the truth than they who
regard the heavenly bodies as related to them merely by a common
obedience to an external law. All that man sees has to do with
man. Worlds cannot be without an intermundane relationship. The
community of the centre of all creation suggests an interradiating
connection and dependence of the parts. Else a grander idea is
conceivable than that which is already imbodied. The blank, which
is only a forgotten life, lying behind the consciousness, and
the misty splendour, which is an undeveloped life, lying before
it, may be full of mysterious revelations of other connexions
with the worlds around us, than those of science and poetry. No
shining belt or gleaming moon, no red and green glory in a self-encircling
twin-star, but has a relation with the hidden things of a man's
soul, and, it may be, with the secret history of his body as well.
They are portions of the living house wherein he abides.
Through the realms of the monarch Sun
Creeps a world, whose course had begun,
On a weary path with a weary pace,
Before the Earth sprang forth on her race:
But many a time the Earth had sped
Around the path she still must tread,
Ere the elder planet, on leaden wing,
Once circled the court of the planet's king.
There, in that lonely and distant star,
The seasons are not as our seasons are;
But many a year hath Autumn to dress
The trees in their matron loveliness;
As long hath old Winter in triumph to go
O'er beauties dead in his vaults below;
And many a year the Spring doth wear
Combing the icicles from her hair;
And Summer, dear Summer, hath years of June,
With large white clouds, and cool showers at noon:
And a beauty that grows to a weight like grief,
Till a burst of tears is the heart's relief.
Children, born when Winter is king,
May never rejoice in the hoping Spring;
Though their own heart-buds are bursting with joy,
And the child hath grown to the girl or boy;
But may die with cold and icy hours
Watching them ever in place of flowers.
And some who awake from their primal sleep,
When the sighs of Summer through forests creep,
Live, and love, and are loved again;
Seek for pleasure, and find its pain;
Sink to their last, their forsaken sleeping,
With the same sweet odours around them creeping.
Now the children, there, are not born as the children are born
in worlds nearer to the sun. For they arrive no one knows how.
A maiden, walking alone, hears a cry: for even there a cry is
the first utterance; and searching about, she findeth, under an
overhanging rock, or within a clump of bushes, or, it may be,
betwixt gray stones on the side of a hill, or in any other sheltered
and unexpected spot, a little child. This she taketh tenderly,
and beareth home with joy, calling out, "Mother, mother"--if so
be that her mother lives--"I have got a baby--I have found a child!"
All the household gathers round to see;--"WHERE IS IT? WHAT IS
IT LIKE? WHERE DID YOU FIND IT?" and such-like questions, abounding.
And thereupon she relates the whole story of the discovery; for
by the circumstances, such as season of the year, time of the
day, condition of the air, and such like, and, especially, the
peculiar and never-repeated aspect of the heavens and earth at
the time, and the nature of the place of shelter wherein it is
found, is determined, or at least indicated, the nature of the
child thus discovered. Therefore, at certain seasons, and in certain
states of the weather, according, in part, to their own fancy,
the young women go out to look for children. They generally avoid
seeking them, though they cannot help sometimes finding them,
in places and with circumstances uncongenial to their peculiar
likings. But no sooner is a child found, than its claim for protection
and nurture obliterates all feeling of choice in the matter. Chiefly,
however, in the season of summer, which lasts so long, coming
as it does after such long intervals; and mostly in the warm evenings,
about the middle of twilight; and principally in the woods and
along the river banks, do the maidens go looking for children
just as children look for flowers. And ever as the child grows,
yea, more and more as he advances in years, will his face indicate
to those who understand the spirit of Nature, and her utterances
in the face of the world, the nature of the place of his birth,
and the other circumstances thereof; whether a clear morning sun
guided his mother to the nook whence issued the boy's low cry;
or at eve the lonely maiden (for the same woman never finds a
second, at least while the first lives) discovers the girl by
the glimmer of her white skin, lying in a nest like that of the
lark, amid long encircling grasses, and the upward-gazing eyes
of the lowly daisies; whether the storm bowed the forest trees
around, or the still frost fixed in silence the else flowing and
babbling stream.
After they grow up, the men and women are but little together.
There is this peculiar difference between them, which likewise
distinguishes the women from those of the earth. The men alone
have arms; the women have only wings. Resplendent wings are they,
wherein they can shroud themselves from head to foot in a panoply
of glistering glory. By these wings alone, it may frequently be
judged in what seasons, and under what aspects, they were born.
From those that came in winter, go great white wings, white as
snow; the edge of every feather shining like the sheen of silver,
so that they flash and glitter like frost in the sun. But underneath,
they are tinged with a faint pink or rose- colour. Those born
in spring have wings of a brilliant green, green as grass; and
towards the edges the feathers are enamelled like the surface
of the grass-blades. These again are white within. Those that
are born in summer have wings of a deep rose-colour, lined with
pale gold. And those born in autumn have purple wings, with a
rich brown on the inside. But these colours are modified and altered
in all varieties, corresponding to the mood of the day and hour,
as well as the season of the year; and sometimes I found the various
colours so intermingled, that I could not determine even the season,
though doubtless the hieroglyphic could be deciphered by more
experienced eyes. One splendour, in particular, I remember--wings
of deep carmine, with an inner down of warm gray, around a form
of brilliant whiteness.
She had been found as the sun went down through a low sea- fog,
casting crimson along a broad sea-path into a little cave on the
shore, where a bathing maiden saw her lying.
But though I speak of sun and fog, and sea and shore, the world
there is in some respects very different from the earth whereon
men live. For instance, the waters reflect no forms. To the unaccustomed
eye they appear, if undisturbed, like the surface of a dark metal,
only that the latter would reflect indistinctly, whereas they
reflect not at all, except light which falls immediately upon
them. This has a great effect in causing the landscapes to differ
from those on the earth. On the stillest evening, no tall ship
on the sea sends a long wavering reflection almost to the feet
of him on shore; the face of no maiden brightens at its own beauty
in a still forest-well. The sun and moon alone make a glitter
on the surface. The sea is like a sea of death, ready to ingulf
and never to reveal: a visible shadow of oblivion. Yet the women
sport in its waters like gorgeous sea-birds. The men more rarely
enter them. But, on the contrary, the sky reflects everything
beneath it, as if it were built of water like ours. Of course,
from its concavity there is some distortion of the reflected objects;
yet wondrous combinations of form are often to be seen in the
overhanging depth. And then it is not shaped so much like a round
dome as the sky of the earth, but, more of an egg-shape, rises
to a great towering height in the middle, appearing far more lofty
than the other. When the stars come out at night, it shows a mighty
cupola, "fretted with golden fires," wherein there is room for
all tempests to rush and rave.
One evening in early summer, I stood with a group of men and women
on a steep rock that overhung the sea. They were all questioning
me about my world and the ways thereof. In making reply to one
of their questions, I was compelled to say that children are not
born in the Earth as with them. Upon this I was assailed with
a whole battery of inquiries, which at first I tried to avoid;
but, at last, I was compelled, in the vaguest manner I could invent,
to make some approach to the subject in question. Immediately
a dim notion of what I meant, seemed to dawn in the minds of most
of the women. Some of them folded their great wings all around
them, as they generally do when in the least offended, and stood
erect and motionless. One spread out her rosy pinions, and flashed
from the promontory into the gulf at its foot. A great light shone
in the eyes of one maiden, who turned and walked slowly away,
with her purple and white wings half dispread behind her. She
was found, the next morning, dead beneath a withered tree on a
bare hill-side, some miles inland. They buried her where she lay,
as is their custom; for, before they die, they instinctively search
for a spot like the place of their birth, and having found one
that satisfies them, they lie down, fold their wings around them,
if they be women, or cross their arms over their breasts, if they
are men, just as if they were going to sleep; and so sleep indeed.
The sign or cause of coming death is an indescribable longing
for something, they know not what, which seizes them, and drives
them into solitude, consuming them within, till the body fails.
When a youth and a maiden look too deep into each other's eyes,
this longing seizes and possesses them; but instead of drawing
nearer to each other, they wander away, each alone, into solitary
places, and die of their desire. But it seems to me, that thereafter
they are born babes upon our earth: where, if, when grown, they
find each other, it goes well with them; if not, it will seem
to go ill. But of this I know nothing. When I told them that the
women on the Earth had not wings like them, but arms, they stared,
and said how bold and masculine they must look; not knowing that
their wings, glorious as they are, are but undeveloped arms.
But see the power of this book, that, while recounting what I
can recall of its contents, I write as if myself had visited the
far-off planet, learned its ways and appearances, and conversed
with its men and women. And so, while writing, it seemed to me
that I had.
The book goes on with the story of a maiden, who, born at the
close of autumn, and living in a long, to her endless winter,
set out at last to find the regions of spring; for, as in our
earth, the seasons are divided over the globe. It begins something
like this:
She watched them dying for many a day,
Dropping from off the old trees away,
One by one; or else in a shower
Crowding over the withered flower
For as if they had done some grievous wrong,
The sun, that had nursed them and loved them so long,
Grew weary of loving, and, turning back,
Hastened away on his southern track;
And helplessly hung each shrivelled leaf,
Faded away with an idle grief.
And the gusts of wind, sad Autumn's sighs,
Mournfully swept through their families;
Casting away with a helpless moan
All that he yet might call his own,
As the child, when his bird is gone for ever,
Flingeth the cage on the wandering river.
And the giant trees, as bare as Death,
Slowly bowed to the great Wind's breath;
And groaned with trying to keep from groaning
Amidst the young trees bending and moaning.
And the ancient planet's mighty sea
Was heaving and falling most restlessly,
And the tops of the waves were broken and white,
Tossing about to ease their might;
And the river was striving to reach the main,
And the ripple was hurrying back again.
Nature lived in sadness now;
Sadness lived on the maiden's brow,
As she watched, with a fixed, half-conscious eye,
One lonely leaf that trembled on high,
Till it dropped at last from the desolate bough--
Sorrow, oh, sorrow! 'tis winter now.
And her tears gushed forth, though it was but a leaf,
For little will loose the swollen fountain of grief:
When up to the lip the water goes,
It needs but a drop, and it overflows.
Oh! many and many a dreary year
Must pass away ere the buds appear:
Many a night of darksome sorrow
Yield to the light of a joyless morrow,
Ere birds again, on the clothed trees,
Shall fill the branches with melodies.
She will dream of meadows with wakeful streams;
Of wavy grass in the sunny beams;
Of hidden wells that soundless spring,
Hoarding their joy as a holy thing;
Of founts that tell it all day long
To the listening woods, with exultant song;
She will dream of evenings that die into nights,
Where each sense is filled with its own delights,
And the soul is still as the vaulted sky,
Lulled with an inner harmony;
And the flowers give out to the dewy night,
Changed into perfume, the gathered light;
And the darkness sinks upon all their host,
Till the sun sail up on the eastern coast--
She will wake and see the branches bare,
Weaving a net in the frozen air.
The story goes on to tell how, at last, weary with wintriness,
she travelled towards the southern regions of her globe, to meet
the spring on its slow way northwards; and how, after many sad
adventures, many disappointed hopes, and many tears, bitter and
fruitless, she found at last, one stormy afternoon, in a leafless
forest, a single snowdrop growing betwixt the borders of the winter
and spring. She lay down beside it and died. I almost believe
that a child, pale and peaceful as a snowdrop, was born in the
Earth within a fixed season from that stormy afternoon.
CHAPTER XIII
"I saw a ship sailing upon the sea
Deeply laden as ship could be;
But not so deep as in love I am
For I care not whether I sink or swim."
Old Ballad.
"But Love is such a Mystery
I cannot find it out:
For when I think I'm best resols'd,
I then am in most doubt."
SIR JOHN SUCKLING.
One story I will try to reproduce. But, alas! it is like trying
to reconstruct a forest out of broken branches and withered leaves.
In the fairy book, everything was just as it should be, though
whether in words or something else, I cannot tell. It glowed and
flashed the thoughts upon the soul, with such a power that the
medium disappeared from the consciousness, and it was occupied
only with the things themselves. My representation of it must
resemble a translation from a rich and powerful language, capable
of embodying the thoughts of a splendidly developed people, into
the meagre and half-articulate speech of a savage tribe. Of course,
while I read it, I was Cosmo, and his history was mine. Yet, all
the time, I seemed to have a kind of double consciousness, and
the story a double meaning. Sometimes it seemed only to represent
a simple story of ordinary life, perhaps almost of universal life;
wherein two souls, loving each other and longing to come nearer,
do, after all, but behold each other as in a glass darkly.
As through the hard rock go the branching silver veins; as into
the solid land run the creeks and gulfs from the unresting sea;
as the lights and influences of the upper worlds sink silently
through the earth's atmosphere; so doth Faerie invade the world
of men, and sometimes startle the common eye with an association
as of cause and effect, when between the two no connecting links
can be traced.
Cosmo von Wehrstahl was a student at the University of Prague.
Though of a noble family, he was poor, and prided himself upon
the independence that poverty gives; for what will not a man pride
himself upon, when he cannot get rid of it? A favourite with his
fellow students, he yet had no companions; and none of them had
ever crossed the threshold of his lodging in the top of one of
the highest houses in the old town. Indeed, the secret of much
of that complaisance which recommended him to his fellows, was
the thought of his unknown retreat, whither in the evening he
could betake himself and indulge undisturbed in his own studies
and reveries. These studies, besides those subjects necessary
to his course at the University, embraced some less commonly known
and approved; for in a secret drawer lay the works of Albertus
Magnus and Cornelius Agrippa, along with others less read and
more abstruse. As yet, however, he had followed these researches
only from curiosity, and had turned them to no practical purpose.
His lodging consisted of one large low-ceiled room, singularly
bare of furniture; for besides a couple of wooden chairs, a couch
which served for dreaming on both by day and night, and a great
press of black oak, there was very little in the room that could
be called furniture.
But curious instruments were heaped in the corners; and in one
stood a skeleton, half-leaning against the wall, half-supported
by a string about its neck. One of its hands, all of fingers,
rested on the heavy pommel of a great sword that stood beside
it.
Various weapons were scattered about over the floor. The walls
were utterly bare of adornment; for the few strange things, such
as a large dried bat with wings dispread, the skin of a porcupine,
and a stuffed sea-mouse, could hardly be reckoned as such. But
although his fancy delighted in vagaries like these, he indulged
his imagination with far different fare. His mind had never yet
been filled with an absorbing passion; but it lay like a still
twilight open to any wind, whether the low breath that wafts but
odours, or the storm that bows the great trees till they strain
and creak. He saw everything as through a rose-coloured glass.
When he looked from his window on the street below, not a maiden
passed but she moved as in a story, and drew his thoughts after
her till she disappeared in the vista. When he walked in the streets,
he always felt as if reading a tale, into which he sought to weave
every face of interest that went by; and every sweet voice swept
his soul as with the wing of a passing angel. He was in fact a
poet without words; the more absorbed and endangered, that the
springing-waters were dammed back into his soul, where, finding
no utterance, they grew, and swelled, and undermined. He used
to lie on his hard couch, and read a tale or a poem, till the
book dropped from his hand; but he dreamed on, he knew not whether
awake or asleep, until the opposite roof grew upon his sense,
and turned golden in the sunrise. Then he arose too; and the impulses
of vigorous youth kept him ever active, either in study or in
sport, until again the close of the day left him free; and the
world of night, which had lain drowned in the cataract of the
day, rose up in his soul, with all its stars, and dim-seen phantom
shapes. But this could hardly last long. Some one form must sooner
or later step within the charmed circle, enter the house of life,
and compel the bewildered magician to kneel and worship.
One afternoon, towards dusk, he was wandering dreamily in one
of the principal streets, when a fellow student roused him by
a slap on the shoulder, and asked him to accompany him into a
little back alley to look at some old armour which he had taken
a fancy to possess. Cosmo was considered an authority in every
matter pertaining to arms, ancient or modern. In the use of weapons,
none of the students could come near him; and his practical acquaintance
with some had principally contributed to establish his authority
in reference to all. He accompanied him willingly.
They entered a narrow alley, and thence a dirty little court,
where a low arched door admitted them into a heterogeneous assemblage
of everything musty, and dusty, and old, that could well be imagined.
His verdict on the armour was satisfactory, and his companion
at once concluded the purchase. As they were leaving the place,
Cosmo's eye was attracted by an old mirror of an elliptical shape,
which leaned against the wall, covered with dust. Around it was
some curious carving, which he could see but very indistinctly
by the glimmering light which the owner of the shop carried in
his hand. It was this carving that attracted his attention; at
least so it appeared to him. He left the place, however, with
his friend, taking no further notice of it. They walked together
to the main street, where they parted and took opposite directions.
No sooner was Cosmo left alone, than the thought of the curious
old mirror returned to him. A strong desire to see it more plainly
arose within him, and he directed his steps once more towards
the shop.The owner opened the door when he knocked, as if he had
expected him.He was a little, old, withered man, with a hooked
nose, and burning eyes constantly in a slow restless motion, and
looking here and there as if after something that eluded them.
Pretending to examine several other articles, Cosmo at last approached
the mirror, and requested to have it taken down.
"Take it down yourself, master; I cannot reach it," said the old
man.
Cosmo took it down carefully, when he saw that the carving was
indeed delicate and costly, being both of admirable design and
execution; containing withal many devices which seemed to embody
some meaning to which he had no clue. This, naturally, in one
of his tastes and temperament, increased the interest he felt
in the old mirror; so much, indeed, that he now longed to possess
it, in order to study its frame at his leisure. He pretended,
however, to want it only for use; and saying he feared the plate
could be of little service, as it was rather old, he brushed away
a little of the dust from its face, expecting to see a dull reflection
within. His surprise was great when he found the reflection brilliant,
revealing a glass not only uninjured by age, but wondrously clear
and perfect (should the whole correspond to this part) even for
one newly from the hands of the maker. He asked carelessly what
the owner wanted for the thing. The old man replied by mentioning
a sum of money far beyond the reach of poor Cosmo, who proceeded
to replace the mirror where it had stood before.
"You think the price too high?" said the old man.
"I do not know that it is too much for you to ask," replied Cosmo;
"but it is far too much for me to give."
The old man held up his light towards Cosmo's face. "I like your
look," said he.
Cosmo could not return the compliment. In fact, now he looked
closely at him for the first time, he felt a kind of repugnance
to him, mingled with a strange feeling of doubt whether a man
or a woman stood before him.
"What is your name?" he continued.
"Cosmo von Wehrstahl."
"Ah, ah! I thought as much. I see your father in you. I knew your
father very well, young sir. I dare say in some odd corners of
my house, you might find some old things with his crest and cipher
upon them still. Well, I like you: you shall have the mirror at
the fourth part of what I asked for it; but upon one condition."
"What is that?" said Cosmo; for, although the price was still
a great deal for him to give, he could just manage it; and the
desire to possess the mirror had increased to an altogether unaccountable
degree, since it had seemed beyond his reach.
"That if you should ever want to get rid of it again, you will
let me have the first offer."
"Certainly," replied Cosmo, with a smile; adding, "a moderate
condition indeed."
"On your honour?" insisted the seller.
"On my honour," said the buyer; and the bargain was concluded.
"I will carry it home for you," said the old man, as Cosmo took
it in his hands.
"No, no; I will carry it myself," said he; for he had a peculiar
dislike to revealing his residence to any one, and more especially
to this person, to whom he felt every moment a greater antipathy.
"Just as you please," said the old creature, and muttered to himself
as he held his light at the door to show him out of the court:
"Sold for the sixth time! I wonder what will be the upshot of
it this time. I should think my lady had enough of it by now!"
Cosmo carried his prize carefully home. But all the way he had
an uncomfortable feeling that he was watched and dogged. Repeatedly
he looked about, but saw nothing to justify his suspicions. Indeed,
the streets were too crowded and too ill lighted to expose very
readily a careful spy, if such there should be at his heels. He
reached his lodging in safety, and leaned his purchase against
the wall, rather relieved, strong as he was, to be rid of its
weight; then, lighting his pipe, threw himself on the couch, and
was soon lapt in the folds of one of his haunting dreams.
He returned home earlier than usual the next day, and fixed the
mirror to the wall, over the hearth, at one end of his long room.
He then carefully wiped away the dust from its face, and, clear
as the water of a sunny spring, the mirror shone out from beneath
the envious covering. But his interest was chiefly occupied with
the curious carving of the frame. This he cleaned as well as he
could with a brush; and then he proceeded to a minute examination
of its various parts, in the hope of discovering some index to
the intention of the carver. In this, however, he was unsuccessful;
and, at length, pausing with some weariness and disappointment,
he gazed vacantly for a few moments into the depth of the reflected
room. But ere long he said, half aloud: "What a strange thing
a mirror is! and what a wondrous affinity exists between it and
a man's imagination! For this room of mine, as I behold it in
the glass, is the same, and yet not the same. It is not the mere
representation of the room I live in, but it looks just as if
I were reading about it in a story I like. All its commonness
has disappeared. The mirror has lifted it out of the region of
fact into the realm of art; and the very representing of it to
me has clothed with interest that which was otherwise hard and
bare; just as one sees with delight upon the stage the representation
of a character from which one would escape in life as from something
unendurably wearisome. But is it not rather that art rescues nature
from the weary and sated regards of our senses, and the degrading
injustice of our anxious everyday life, and, appealing to the
imagination, which dwells apart, reveals Nature in some degree
as she really is, and as she represents herself to the eye of
the child, whose every-day life, fearless and unambitious, meets
the true import of the wonder-teeming world around him, and rejoices
therein without questioning? That skeleton, now--I almost fear
it, standing there so still, with eyes only for the unseen, like
a watch-tower looking across all the waste of this busy world
into the quiet regions of rest beyond. And yet I know every bone
and every joint in it as well as my own fist. And that old battle-axe
looks as if any moment it might be caught up by a mailed hand,
and, borne forth by the mighty arm, go crashing through casque,
and skull, and brain, invading the Unknown with yet another bewildered
ghost. I should like to live in THAT room if I could only get
into it."
Scarcely had the half-moulded words floated from him, as he stood
gazing into the mirror, when, striking him as with a flash of
amazement that fixed him in his posture, noiseless and unannounced,
glided suddenly through the door into the reflected room, with
stately motion, yet reluctant and faltering step, the graceful
form of a woman, clothed all in white. Her back only was visible
as she walked slowly up to the couch in the further end of the
room, on which she laid herself wearily, turning towards him a
face of unutterable loveliness, in which suffering, and dislike,
and a sense of compulsion, strangely mingled with the beauty.
He stood without the power of motion for some moments, with his
eyes irrecoverably fixed upon her; and even after he was conscious
of the ability to move, he could not summon up courage to turn
and look on her, face to face, in the veritable chamber in which
he stood. At length, with a sudden effort, in which the exercise
of the will was so pure, that it seemed involuntary, he turned
his face to the couch. It was vacant. In bewilderment, mingled
with terror, he turned again to the mirror: there, on the reflected
couch, lay the exquisite lady-form. She lay with closed eyes,
whence two large tears were just welling from beneath the veiling
lids; still as death, save for the convulsive motion of her bosom.
Cosmo himself could not have described what he felt. His emotions
were of a kind that destroyed consciousness, and could never be
clearly recalled. He could not help standing yet by the mirror,
and keeping his eyes fixed on the lady, though he was painfully
aware of his rudeness, and feared every moment that she would
open hers, and meet his fixed regard. But he was, ere long, a
little relieved; for, after a while, her eyelids slowly rose,
and her eyes remained uncovered, but unemployed for a time; and
when, at length, they began to wander about the room, as if languidly
seeking to make some acquaintance with her environment, they were
never directed towards him: it seemed nothing but what was in
the mirror could affect her vision; and, therefore, if she saw
him at all, it could only be his back, which, of necessity, was
turned towards her in the glass. The two figures in the mirror
could not meet face to face, except he turned and looked at her,
present in his room; and, as she was not there, he concluded that
if he were to turn towards the part in his room corresponding
to that in which she lay, his reflection would either be invisible
to her altogether, or at least it must appear to her to gaze vacantly
towards her, and no meeting of the eyes would produce the impression
of spiritual proximity. By-and-by her eyes fell upon the skeleton,
and he saw her shudder and close them. She did not open them again,
but signs of repugnance continued evident on her countenance.
Cosmo would have removed the obnoxious thing at once, but he feared
to discompose her yet more by the assertion of his presence which
the act would involve. So he stood and watched her. The eyelids
yet shrouded the eyes, as a costly case the jewels within; the
troubled expression gradually faded from the countenance, leaving
only a faint sorrow behind; the features settled into an unchanging
expression of rest; and by these signs, and the slow regular motion
of her breathing, Cosmo knew that she slept. He could now gaze
on her without embarrassment. He saw that her figure, dressed
in the simplest robe of white, was worthy of her face; and so
harmonious, that either the delicately moulded foot, or any finger
of the equally delicate hand, was an index to the whole. As she
lay, her whole form manifested the relaxation of perfect repose.
He gazed till he was weary, and at last seated himself near the
new-found shrine, and mechanically took up a book, like one who
watches by a sick-bed. But his eyes gathered no thoughts from
the page before him. His intellect had been stunned by the bold
contradiction, to its face, of all its experience, and now lay
passive, without assertion, or speculation, or even conscious
astonishment; while his imagination sent one wild dream of blessedness
after another coursing through his soul. How long he sat he knew
not; but at length he roused himself, rose, and, trembling in
every portion of his frame, looked again into the mirror. She
was gone. The mirror reflected faithfully what his room presented,
and nothing more. It stood there like a golden setting whence
the central jewel has been stolen away--like a night- sky without
the glory of its stars. She had carried with her all the strangeness
of the reflected room. It had sunk to the level of the one without.
But when the first pangs of his disappointment had passed, Cosmo
began to comfort himself with the hope that she might return,
perhaps the next evening, at the same hour. Resolving that if
she did, she should not at least be scared by the hateful skeleton,
he removed that and several other articles of questionable appearance
into a recess by the side of the hearth, whence they could not
possibly cast any reflection into the mirror; and having made
his poor room as tidy as he could, sought the solace of the open
sky and of a night wind that had begun to blow, for he could not
rest where he was. When he returned, somewhat composed, he could
hardly prevail with himself to lie down on his bed; for he could
not help feeling as if she had lain upon it; and for him to lie
there now would be something like sacrilege. However, weariness
prevailed; and laying himself on the couch, dressed as he was,
he slept till day.
With a beating heart, beating till he could hardly breathe, he
stood in dumb hope before the mirror, on the following evening.
Again the reflected room shone as through a purple vapour in the
gathering twilight. Everything seemed waiting like himself for
a coming splendour to glorify its poor earthliness with the presence
of a heavenly joy. And just as the room vibrated with the strokes
of the neighbouring church bell, announcing the hour of six, in
glided the pale beauty, and again laid herself on the couch. Poor
Cosmo nearly lost his senses with delight. She was there once
more! Her eyes sought the corner where the skeleton had stood,
and a faint gleam of satisfaction crossed her face, apparently
at seeing it empty. She looked suffering still, but there was
less of discomfort expressed in her countenance than there had
been the night before. She took more notice of the things about
her, and seemed to gaze with some curiosity on the strange apparatus
standing here and there in her room. At length, however, drowsiness
seemed to overtake her, and again she fell asleep. Resolved not
to lose sight of her this time, Cosmo watched the sleeping form.
Her slumber was so deep and absorbing that a fascinating repose
seemed to pass contagiously from her to him as he gazed upon her;
and he started as if from a dream, when the lady moved, and, without
opening her eyes, rose, and passed from the room with the gait
of a somnambulist.
Cosmo was now in a state of extravagant delight. Most men have
a secret treasure somewhere. The miser has his golden hoard; the
virtuoso his pet ring; the student his rare book; the poet his
favourite haunt; the lover his secret drawer; but Cosmo had a
mirror with a lovely lady in it. And now that he knew by the skeleton,
that she was affected by the things around her, he had a new object
in life: he would turn the bare chamber in the mirror into a room
such as no lady need disdain to call her own. This he could effect
only by furnishing and adorning his. And Cosmo was poor. Yet he
possessed accomplishments that could be turned to account; although,
hitherto, he had preferred living on his slender allowance, to
increasing his means by what his pride considered unworthy of
his rank. He was the best swordsman in the University; and now
he offered to give lessons in fencing and similar exercises, to
such as chose to pay him well for the trouble. His proposal was
heard with surprise by the students; but it was eagerly accepted
by many; and soon his instructions were not confined to the richer
students, but were anxiously sought by many of the young nobility
of Prague and its neighbourhood. So that very soon he had a good
deal of money at his command. The first thing he did was to remove
his apparatus and oddities into a closet in the room. Then he
placed his bed and a few other necessaries on each side of the
hearth, and parted them from the rest of the room by two screens
of Indian fabric. Then he put an elegant couch for the lady to
lie upon, in the corner where his bed had formerly stood; and,
by degrees, every day adding some article of luxury, converted
it, at length, into a rich boudoir.
Every night, about the same time, the lady entered. The first
time she saw the new couch, she started with a half-smile; then
her face grew very sad, the tears came to her eyes, and she laid
herself upon the couch, and pressed her face into the silken cushions,
as if to hide from everything. She took notice of each addition
and each change as the work proceeded; and a look of acknowledgment,
as if she knew that some one was ministering to her, and was grateful
for it, mingled with the constant look of suffering. At length,
after she had lain down as usual one evening, her eyes fell upon
some paintings with which Cosmo had just finished adorning the
walls. She rose, and to his great delight, walked across the room,
and proceeded to examine them carefully, testifying much pleasure
in her looks as she did so. But again the sorrowful, tearful expression
returned, and again she buried her face in the pillows of her
couch. Gradually, however, her countenance had grown more composed;
much of the suffering manifest on her first appearance had vanished,
and a kind of quiet, hopeful expression had taken its place; which,
however, frequently gave way to an anxious, troubled look, mingled
with something of sympathetic pity.
Meantime, how fared Cosmo? As might be expected in one of his
temperament, his interest had blossomed into love, and his love--shall
I call it RIPENED, or--WITHERED into passion. But, alas! he loved
a shadow. He could not come near her, could not speak to her,
could not hear a sound from those sweet lips, to which his longing
eyes would cling like bees to their honey-founts. Ever and anon
he sang to himself:
"I shall die for love of the maiden;"
and ever he looked again, and died not, though his heart seemed
ready to break with intensity of life and longing. And the more
he did for her, the more he loved her; and he hoped that, although
she never appeared to see him, yet she was pleased to think that
one unknown would give his life to her. He tried to comfort himself
over his separation from her, by thinking that perhaps some day
she would see him and make signs to him, and that would satisfy
him; "for," thought he, "is not this all that a loving soul can
do to enter into communion with another? Nay, how many who love
never come nearer than to behold each other as in a mirror; seem
to know and yet never know the inward life; never enter the other
soul; and part at last, with but the vaguest notion of the universe
on the borders of which they have been hovering for years? If
I could but speak to her, and knew that she heard me, I should
be satisfied." Once he contemplated painting a picture on the
wall, which should, of necessity, convey to the lady a thought
of himself; but, though he had some skill with the pencil, he
found his hand tremble so much when he began the attempt, that
he was forced to give it up. . . . . .
"Who lives, he dies; who dies, he is alive."
One evening, as he stood gazing on his treasure, he thought he
saw a faint expression of self-consciousness on her countenance,
as if she surmised that passionate eyes were fixed upon her. This
grew; till at last the red blood rose over her neck, and cheek,
and brow. Cosmo's longing to approach her became almost delirious.
This night she was dressed in an evening costume, resplendent
with diamonds. This could add nothing to her beauty, but it presented
it in a new aspect; enabled her loveliness to make a new manifestation
of itself in a new embodiment. For essential beauty is infinite;
and, as the soul of Nature needs an endless succession of varied
forms to embody her loveliness, countless faces of beauty springing
forth, not any two the same, at any one of her heart-throbs; so
the individual form needs an infinite change of its environments,
to enable it to uncover all the phases of its loveliness. Diamonds
glittered from amidst her hair, half hidden in its luxuriance,
like stars through dark rain-clouds; and the bracelets on her
white arms flashed all the colours of a rainbow of lightnings,
as she lifted her snowy hands to cover her burning face. But her
beauty shone down all its adornment. "If I might have but one
of her feet to kiss," thought Cosmo, "I should be content." Alas!
he deceived himself, for passion is never content. Nor did he
know that there are TWO ways out of her enchanted house. But,
suddenly, as if the pang had been driven into his heart from without,
revealing itself first in pain, and afterwards in definite form,
the thought darted into his mind, "She has a lover somewhere.
Remembered words of his bring the colour on her face now. I am
nowhere to her. She lives in another world all day, and all night,
after she leaves me. Why does she come and make me love her, till
I, a strong man, am too faint to look upon her more?" He looked
again, and her face was pale as a lily. A sorrowful compassion
seemed to rebuke the glitter of the restless jewels, and the slow
tears rose in her eyes. She left her room sooner this evening
than was her wont. Cosmo remained alone, with a feeling as if
his bosom had been suddenly left empty and hollow, and the weight
of the whole world was crushing in its walls. The next evening,
for the first time since she began to come, she came not.
And now Cosmo was in wretched plight. Since the thought of a rival
had occurred to him, he could not rest for a moment. More than
ever he longed to see the lady face to face. He persuaded himself
that if he but knew the worst he would be satisfied; for then
he could abandon Prague, and find that relief in constant motion,
which is the hope of all active minds when invaded by distress.
Meantime he waited with unspeakable anxiety for the next night,
hoping she would return: but she did not appear. And now he fell
really ill. Rallied by his fellow students on his wretched looks,
he ceased to attend the lectures. His engagements were neglected.
He cared for nothing, The sky, with the great sun in it, was to
him a heartless, burning desert. The men and women in the streets
were mere puppets, without motives in themselves, or interest
to him. He saw them all as on the ever- changing field of a camera
obscura. She--she alone and altogether--was his universe, his
well of life, his incarnate good. For six evenings she came not.
Let his absorbing passion, and the slow fever that was consuming
his brain, be his excuse for the resolution which he had taken
and begun to execute, before that time had expired.
Reasoning with himself, that it must be by some enchantment connected
with the mirror, that the form of the lady was to be seen in it,
he determined to attempt to turn to account what he had hitherto
studied principally from curiosity. "For," said he to himself,
"if a spell can force her presence in that glass (and she came
unwillingly at first), may not a stronger spell, such as I know,
especially with the aid of her half-presence in the mirror, if
ever she appears again, compel her living form to come to me here?
If I do her wrong, let love be my excuse. I want only to know
my doom from her own lips." He never doubted, all the time, that
she was a real earthly woman; or, rather, that there was a woman,
who, somehow or other, threw this reflection of her form into
the magic mirror.
He opened his secret drawer, took out his books of magic, lighted
his lamp, and read and made notes from midnight till three in
the morning, for three successive nights. Then he replaced his
books; and the next night went out in quest of the materials necessary
for the conjuration. These were not easy to find; for, in love-charms
and all incantations of this nature, ingredients are employed
scarcely fit to be mentioned, and for the thought even of which,
in connexion with her, he could only excuse himself on the score
of his bitter need. At length he succeeded in procuring all he
required; and on the seventh evening from that on which she had
last appeared, he found himself prepared for the exercise of unlawful
and tyrannical power.
He cleared the centre of the room; stooped and drew a circle of
red on the floor, around the spot where he stood; wrote in the
four quarters mystical signs, and numbers which were all powers
of seven or nine; examined the whole ring carefully, to see that
no smallest break had occurred in the circumference; and then
rose from his bending posture. As he rose, the church clock struck
seven; and, just as she had appeared the first time, reluctant,
slow, and stately, glided in the lady. Cosmo trembled; and when,
turning, she revealed a countenance worn and wan, as with sickness
or inward trouble, he grew faint, and felt as if he dared not
proceed. But as he gazed on the face and form, which now possessed
his whole soul, to the exclusion of all other joys and griefs,
the longing to speak to her, to know that she heard him, to hear
from her one word in return, became so unendurable, that he suddenly
and hastily resumed his preparations. Stepping carefully from
the circle, he put a small brazier into its centre. He then set
fire to its contents of charcoal, and while it burned up, opened
his window and seated himself, waiting, beside it.
It was a sultry evening. The air was full of thunder. A sense
of luxurious depression filled the brain. The sky seemed to have
grown heavy, and to compress the air beneath it. A kind of purplish
tinge pervaded the atmosphere, and through the open window came
the scents of the distant fields, which all the vapours of the
city could not quench. Soon the charcoal glowed. Cosmo sprinkled
upon it the incense and other substances which he had compounded,
and, stepping within the circle, turned his face from the brazier
and towards the mirror. Then, fixing his eyes upon the face of
the lady, he began with a trembling voice to repeat a powerful
incantation. He had not gone far, before the lady grew pale; and
then, like a returning wave, the blood washed all its banks with
its crimson tide, and she hid her face in her hands. Then he passed
to a conjuration stronger yet.
The lady rose and walked uneasily to and fro in her room. Another
spell; and she seemed seeking with her eyes for some object on
which they wished to rest. At length it seemed as if she suddenly
espied him; for her eyes fixed themselves full and wide upon his,
and she drew gradually, and somewhat unwillingly, close to her
side of the mirror, just as if his eyes had fascinated her. Cosmo
had never seen her so near before. Now at least, eyes met eyes;
but he could not quite understand the expression of hers. They
were full of tender entreaty, but there was something more that
he could not interpret. Though his heart seemed to labour in his
throat, he would allow no delight or agitation to turn him from
his task. Looking still in her face, he passed on to the mightiest
charm he knew. Suddenly the lady turned and walked out of the
door of her reflected chamber. A moment after she entered his
room with veritable presence; and, forgetting all his precautions,
he sprang from the charmed circle, and knelt before her. There
she stood, the living lady of his passionate visions, alone beside
him, in a thundery twilight, and the glow of a magic fire.
"Why," said the lady, with a trembling voice, "didst thou bring
a poor maiden through the rainy streets alone?"
"Because I am dying for love of thee; but I only brought thee
from the mirror there."
"Ah, the mirror!" and she looked up at it, and shuddered. "Alas!
I am but a slave, while that mirror exists. But do not think it
was the power of thy spells that drew me; it was thy longing desire
to see me, that beat at the door of my heart, till I was forced
to yield."
"Canst thou love me then?" said Cosmo, in a voice calm as death,
but almost inarticulate with emotion.
"I do not know," she replied sadly; "that I cannot tell, so long
as I am bewildered with enchantments. It were indeed a joy too
great, to lay my head on thy bosom and weep to death; for I think
thou lovest me, though I do not know;--but----"
Cosmo rose from his knees.
"I love thee as--nay, I know not what--for since I have loved
thee, there is nothing else."
He seized her hand: she withdrew it.
"No, better not; I am in thy power, and therefore I may not."
She burst into tears, and kneeling before him in her turn, said--
"Cosmo, if thou lovest me, set me free, even from thyself; break
the mirror."
"And shall I see thyself instead?"
"That I cannot tell, I will not deceive thee; we may never meet
again."
A fierce struggle arose in Cosmo's bosom. Now she was in his power.
She did not dislike him at least; and he could see her when he
would. To break the mirror would be to destroy his very life to
banish out of his universe the only glory it possessed. The whole
world would be but a prison, if he annihilated the one window
that looked into the paradise of love. Not yet pure in love, he
hesitated.
With a wail of sorrow the lady rose to her feet. "Ah! he loves
me not; he loves me not even as I love him; and alas! I care more
for his love than even for the freedom I ask."
"I will not wait to be willing," cried Cosmo; and sprang to the
corner where the great sword stood.
Meantime it had grown very dark; only the embers cast a red glow
through the room. He seized the sword by the steel scabbard, and
stood before the mirror; but as he heaved a great blow at it with
the heavy pommel, the blade slipped half-way out of the scabbard,
and the pommel struck the wall above the mirror. At that moment,
a terrible clap of thunder seemed to burst in the very room beside
them; and ere Cosmo could repeat the blow, he fell senseless on
the hearth. When he came to himself, he found that the lady and
the mirror had both disappeared. He was seized with a brain fever,
which kept him to his couch for weeks.
When he recovered his reason, he began to think what could have
become of the mirror. For the lady, he hoped she had found her
way back as she came; but as the mirror involved her fate with
its own, he was more immediately anxious about that. He could
not think she had carried it away. It was much too heavy, even
if it had not been too firmly fixed in the wall, for her to remove
it. Then again, he remembered the thunder; which made him believe
that it was not the lightning, but some other blow that had struck
him down. He concluded that, either by supernatural agency, he
having exposed himself to the vengeance of the demons in leaving
the circle of safety, or in some other mode, the mirror had probably
found its way back to its former owner; and, horrible to think
of, might have been by this time once more disposed of, delivering
up the lady into the power of another man; who, if he used his
power no worse than he himself had done, might yet give Cosmo
abundant cause to curse the selfish indecision which prevented
him from shattering the mirror at once. Indeed, to think that
she whom he loved, and who had prayed to him for freedom, should
be still at the mercy, in some degree, of the possessor of the
mirror, and was at least exposed to his constant observation,
was in itself enough to madden a chary lover.
Anxiety to be well retarded his recovery; but at length he was
able to creep abroad. He first made his way to the old broker's,
pretending to be in search of something else. A laughing sneer
on the creature's face convinced him that he knew all about it;
but he could not see it amongst his furniture, or get any information
out of him as to what had become of it. He expressed the utmost
surprise at hearing it had been stolen, a surprise which Cosmo
saw at once to be counterfeited; while, at the same time, he fancied
that the old wretch was not at all anxious to have it mistaken
for genuine. Full of distress, which he concealed as well as he
could, he made many searches, but with no avail. Of course he
could ask no questions; but he kept his ears awake for any remotest
hint that might set him in a direction of search. He never went
out without a short heavy hammer of steel about him, that he might
shatter the mirror the moment he was made happy by the sight of
his lost treasure, if ever that blessed moment should arrive.
Whether he should see the lady again, was now a thought altogether
secondary, and postponed to the achievement of her freedom. He
wandered here and there, like an anxious ghost, pale and haggard;
gnawed ever at the heart, by the thought of what she might be
suffering--all from his fault.
One night, he mingled with a crowd that filled the rooms of one
of the most distinguished mansions in the city; for he accepted
every invitation, that he might lose no chance, however poor,
of obtaining some information that might expedite his discovery.
Here he wandered about, listening to every stray word that he
could catch, in the hope of a revelation. As he approached some
ladies who were talking quietly in a corner, one said to another:
"Have you heard of the strange illness of the Princess von Hohenweiss?"
"Yes; she has been ill for more than a year now. It is very sad
for so fine a creature to have such a terrible malady. She was
better for some weeks lately, but within the last few days the
same attacks have returned, apparently accompanied with more suffering
than ever. It is altogether an inexplicable story."
"Is there a story connected with her illness?"
"I have only heard imperfect reports of it; but it is said that
she gave offence some eighteen months ago to an old woman who
had held an office of trust in the family, and who, after some
incoherent threats, disappeared. This peculiar affection followed
soon after. But the strangest part of the story is its association
with the loss of an antique mirror, which stood in her dressing-room,
and of which she constantly made use."
Here the speaker's voice sank to a whisper; and Cosmo, although
his very soul sat listening in his ears, could hear no more. He
trembled too much to dare to address the ladies, even if it had
been advisable to expose himself to their curiosity. The name
of the Princess was well known to him, but he had never seen her;
except indeed it was she, which now he hardly doubted, who had
knelt before him on that dreadful night. Fearful of attracting
attention, for, from the weak state of his health, he could not
recover an appearance of calmness, he made his way to the open
air, and reached his lodgings; glad in this, that he at least
knew where she lived, although he never dreamed of approaching
her openly, even if he should be happy enough to free her from
her hateful bondage. He hoped, too, that as he had unexpectedly
learned so much, the other and far more important part might be
revealed to him ere long. . . . . .
"Have you seen Steinwald lately?"
"No, I have not seen him for some time. He is almost a match for
me at the rapier, and I suppose he thinks he needs no more lessons."
"I wonder what has become of him. I want to see him very much.
Let me see; the last time I saw him he was coming out of that
old broker's den, to which, if you remember, you accompanied me
once, to look at some armour. That is fully three weeks ago."
This hint was enough for Cosmo. Von Steinwald was a man of influence
in the court, well known for his reckless habits and fierce passions.
The very possibility that the mirror should be in his possession
was hell itself to Cosmo. But violent or hasty measures of any
sort were most unlikely to succeed. All that he wanted was an
opportunity of breaking the fatal glass; and to obtain this he
must bide his time. He revolved many plans in his mind, but without
being able to fix upon any.
At length, one evening, as he was passing the house of Von Steinwald,
he saw the windows more than usually brilliant. He watched for
a while, and seeing that company began to arrive, hastened home,
and dressed as richly as he could, in the hope of mingling with
the guests unquestioned: in effecting which, there could be no
difficulty for a man of his carriage. . . . . .
In a lofty, silent chamber, in another part of the city, lay a
form more like marble than a living woman. The loveliness of death
seemed frozen upon her face, for her lips were rigid, and her
eyelids closed. Her long white hands were crossed over her breast,
and no breathing disturbed their repose. Beside the dead, men
speak in whispers, as if the deepest rest of all could be broken
by the sound of a living voice. Just so, though the soul was evidently
beyond the reach of all intimations from the senses, the two ladies,
who sat beside her, spoke in the gentlest tones of subdued sorrow.
"She has lain so for an hour."
"This cannot last long, I fear."
"How much thinner she has grown within the last few weeks! If
she would only speak, and explain what she suffers, it would be
better for her. I think she has visions in her trances, but nothing
can induce her to refer to them when she is awake."
"Does she ever speak in these trances?"
"I have never heard her; but they say she walks sometimes, and
once put the whole household in a terrible fright by disappearing
for a whole hour, and returning drenched with rain, and almost
dead with exhaustion and fright. But even then she would give
no account of what had happened."
A scarce audible murmur from the yet motionless lips of the lady
here startled her attendants. After several ineffectual attempts
at articulation, the word "COSMO!" burst from her. Then she lay
still as before; but only for a moment. With a wild cry, she sprang
from the couch erect on the floor, flung her arms above her head,
with clasped and straining hands, and, her wide eyes flashing
with light, called aloud, with a voice exultant as that of a spirit
bursting from a sepulchre, "I am free! I am free! I thank thee!"
Then she flung herself on the couch, and sobbed; then rose, and
paced wildly up and down the room, with gestures of mingled delight
and anxiety. Then turning to her motionless attendants--"Quick,
Lisa, my cloak and hood!" Then lower--"I must go to him. Make
haste, Lisa! You may come with me, if you will."
In another moment they were in the street, hurrying along towards
one of the bridges over the Moldau. The moon was near the zenith,
and the streets were almost empty. The Princess soon outstripped
her attendant, and was half-way over the bridge, before the other
reached it.
"Are you free, lady? The mirror is broken: are you free?"
The words were spoken close beside her, as she hurried on. She
turned; and there, leaning on the parapet in a recess of the bridge,
stood Cosmo, in a splendid dress, but with a white and quivering
face.
"Cosmo!--I am free--and thy servant for ever. I was coming to
you now."
"And I to you, for Death made me bold; but I could get no further.
Have I atoned at all? Do I love you a little--truly?"
"Ah, I know now that you love me, my Cosmo; but what do you say
about death?"
He did not reply. His hand was pressed against his side. She looked
more closely: the blood was welling from between the fingers.
She flung her arms around him with a faint bitter wail.
When Lisa came up, she found her mistress kneeling above a wan
dead face, which smiled on in the spectral moonbeams.
And now I will say no more about these wondrous volumes; though
I could tell many a tale out of them, and could, perhaps, vaguely
represent some entrancing thoughts of a deeper kind which I found
within them. From many a sultry noon till twilight, did I sit
in that grand hall, buried and risen again in these old books.
And I trust I have carried away in my soul some of the exhalations
of their undying leaves. In after hours of deserved or needful
sorrow, portions of what I read there have often come to me again,
with an unexpected comforting; which was not fruitless, even though
the comfort might seem in itself groundless and vain.
CHAPTER XIV
"Your gallery
Ha we pass'd through, not without much content
In many singularities; but we saw not
That which my daughter came to look upon,
The state of her mother."
Winter's Tale.
It seemed to me strange, that all this time I had heard no music
in the fairy palace. I was convinced there must be music in it,
but that my sense was as yet too gross to receive the influence
of those mysterious motions that beget sound. Sometimes I felt
sure, from the way the few figures of which I got such transitory
glimpses passed me, or glided into vacancy before me, that they
were moving to the law of music; and, in fact, several times I
fancied for a moment that I heard a few wondrous tones coming
I knew not whence. But they did not last long enough to convince
me that I had heard them with the bodily sense. Such as they were,
however, they took strange liberties with me, causing me to burst
suddenly into tears, of which there was no presence to make me
ashamed, or casting me into a kind of trance of speechless delight,
which, passing as suddenly, left me faint and longing for more.
Now, on an evening, before I had been a week in the palace, I
was wandering through one lighted arcade and corridor after another.
At length I arrived, through a door that closed behind me, in
another vast hall of the palace. It was filled with a subdued
crimson light; by which I saw that slender pillars of black, built
close to walls of white marble, rose to a great height, and then,
dividing into innumerable divergent arches, supported a roof,
like the walls, of white marble, upon which the arches intersected
intricately, forming a fretting of black upon the white, like
the network of a skeleton-leaf. The floor was black.
Between several pairs of the pillars upon every side, the place
of the wall behind was occupied by a crimson curtain of thick
silk, hanging in heavy and rich folds. Behind each of these curtains
burned a powerful light, and these were the sources of the glow
that filled the hall. A peculiar delicious odour pervaded the
place. As soon as I entered, the old inspiration seemed to return
to me, for I felt a strong impulse to sing; or rather, it seemed
as if some one else was singing a song in my soul, which wanted
to come forth at my lips, imbodied in my breath. But I kept silence;
and feeling somewhat overcome by the red light and the perfume,
as well as by the emotion within me, and seeing at one end of
the hall a great crimson chair, more like a throne than a chair,
beside a table of white marble, I went to it, and, throwing myself
in it, gave myself up to a succession of images of bewildering
beauty, which passed before my inward eye, in a long and occasionally
crowded train. Here I sat for hours, I suppose; till, returning
somewhat to myself, I saw that the red light had paled away, and
felt a cool gentle breath gliding over my forehead. I rose and
left the hall with unsteady steps, finding my way with some difficulty
to my own chamber, and faintly remembering, as I went, that only
in the marble cave, before I found the sleeping statue, had I
ever had a similar experience.
After this, I repaired every morning to the same hall; where I
sometimes sat in the chair and dreamed deliciously, and sometimes
walked up and down over the black floor. Sometimes I acted within
myself a whole drama, during one of these perambulations; sometimes
walked deliberately through the whole epic of a tale; sometimes
ventured to sing a song, though with a shrinking fear of I knew
not what. I was astonished at the beauty of my own voice as it
rang through the place, or rather crept undulating, like a serpent
of sound, along the walls and roof of this superb music-hall.
Entrancing verses arose within me as of their own accord, chanting
themselves to their own melodies, and requiring no addition of
music to satisfy the inward sense. But, ever in the pauses of
these, when the singing mood was upon me, I seemed to hear something
like the distant sound of multitudes of dancers, and felt as if
it was the unheard music, moving their rhythmic motion, that within
me blossomed in verse and song. I felt, too, that could I but
see the dance, I should, from the harmony of complicated movements,
not of the dancers in relation to each other merely, but of each
dancer individually in the manifested plastic power that moved
the consenting harmonious form, understand the whole of the music
on the billows of which they floated and swung.
At length, one night, suddenly, when this feeling of dancing came
upon me, I bethought me of lifting one of the crimson curtains,
and looking if, perchance, behind it there might not be hid some
other mystery, which might at least remove a step further the
bewilderment of the present one. Nor was I altogether disappointed.
I walked to one of the magnificent draperies, lifted a corner,
and peeped in. There, burned a great, crimson, globe-shaped light,
high in the cubical centre of another hall, which might be larger
or less than that in which I stood, for its dimensions were not
easily perceived, seeing that floor and roof and walls were entirely
of black marble.
The roof was supported by the same arrangement of pillars radiating
in arches, as that of the first hall; only, here, the pillars
and arches were of dark red. But what absorbed my delighted gaze,
was an innumerable assembly of white marble statues, of every
form, and in multitudinous posture, filling the hall throughout.
These stood, in the ruddy glow of the great lamp, upon pedestals
of jet black. Around the lamp shone in golden letters, plainly
legible from where I stood, the two words--
TOUCH NOT!
There was in all this, however, no solution to the sound of dancing;
and now I was aware that the influence on my mind had ceased.
I did not go in that evening, for I was weary and faint, but I
hoarded up the expectation of entering, as of a great coming joy.
Next night I walked, as on the preceding, through the hall. My
mind was filled with pictures and songs, and therewith so much
absorbed, that I did not for some time think of looking within
the curtain I had last night lifted. When the thought of doing
so occurred to me first, I happened to be within a few yards of
it. I became conscious, at the same moment, that the sound of
dancing had been for some time in my ears. I approached the curtain
quickly, and, lifting it, entered the black hall. Everything was
still as death. I should have concluded that the sound must have
proceeded from some other more distant quarter, which conclusion
its faintness would, in ordinary circumstances, have necessitated
from the first; but there was a something about the statues that
caused me still to remain in doubt. As I said, each stood perfectly
still upon its black pedestal: but there was about every one a
certain air, not of motion, but as if it had just ceased from
movement; as if the rest were not altogether of the marbly stillness
of thousands of years. It was as if the peculiar atmosphere of
each had yet a kind of invisible tremulousness; as if its agitated
wavelets had not yet subsided into a perfect calm. I had the suspicion
that they had anticipated my appearance, and had sprung, each,
from the living joy of the dance, to the death-silence and blackness
of its isolated pedestal, just before I entered. I walked across
the central hall to the curtain opposite the one I had lifted,
and, entering there, found all the appearances similar; only that
the statues were different, and differently grouped. Neither did
they produce on my mind that impression--of motion just expired,
which I had experienced from the others. I found that behind every
one of the crimson curtains was a similar hall, similarly lighted,
and similarly occupied.
The next night, I did not allow my thoughts to be absorbed as
before with inward images, but crept stealthily along to the furthest
curtain in the hall, from behind which, likewise, I had formerly
seemed to hear the sound of dancing. I drew aside its edge as
suddenly as I could, and, looking in, saw that the utmost stillness
pervaded the vast place. I walked in, and passed through it to
the other end.
There I found that it communicated with a circular corridor, divided
from it only by two rows of red columns. This corridor, which
was black, with red niches holding statues, ran entirely about
the statue- halls, forming a communication between the further
ends of them all; further, that is, as regards the central hall
of white whence they all diverged like radii, finding their circumference
in the corridor.
Round this corridor I now went, entering all the halls, of which
there were twelve, and finding them all similarly constructed,
but filled with quite various statues, of what seemed both ancient
and modern sculpture. After I had simply walked through them,
I found myself sufficiently tired to long for rest, and went to
my own room.
In the night I dreamed that, walking close by one of the curtains,
I was suddenly seized with the desire to enter, and darted in.
This time I was too quick for them. All the statues were in motion,
statues no longer, but men and women--all shapes of beauty that
ever sprang from the brain of the sculptor, mingled in the convolutions
of a complicated dance. Passing through them to the further end,
I almost started from my sleep on beholding, not taking part in
the dance with the others, nor seemingly endued with life like
them, but standing in marble coldness and rigidity upon a black
pedestal in the extreme left corner--my lady of the cave; the
marble beauty who sprang from her tomb or her cradle at the call
of my songs. While I gazed in speechless astonishment and admiration,
a dark shadow, descending from above like the curtain of a stage,
gradually hid her entirely from my view. I felt with a shudder
that this shadow was perchance my missing demon, whom I had not
seen for days. I awoke with a stifled cry.
Of course, the next evening I began my journey through the halls
(for I knew not to which my dream had carried me), in the hope
of proving the dream to be a true one, by discovering my marble
beauty upon her black pedestal. At length, on reaching the tenth
hall, I thought I recognised some of the forms I had seen dancing
in my dream; and to my bewilderment, when I arrived at the extreme
corner on the left, there stood, the only one I had yet seen,
a vacant pedestal. It was exactly in the position occupied, in
my dream, by the pedestal on which the white lady stood. Hope
beat violently in my heart.
"Now," said I to myself, "if yet another part of the dream would
but come true, and I should succeed in surprising these forms
in their nightly dance; it might be the rest would follow, and
I should see on the pedestal my marble queen. Then surely if my
songs sufficed to give her life before, when she lay in the bonds
of alabaster, much more would they be sufficient then to give
her volition and motion, when she alone of assembled crowds of
marble forms, would be standing rigid and cold."
But the difficulty was, to surprise the dancers. I had found that
a premeditated attempt at surprise, though executed with the utmost
care and rapidity, was of no avail. And, in my dream, it was effected
by a sudden thought suddenly executed. I saw, therefore, that
there was no plan of operation offering any probability of success,
but this: to allow my mind to be occupied with other thoughts,
as I wandered around the great centre-hall; and so wait till the
impulse to enter one of the others should happen to arise in me
just at the moment when I was close to one of the crimson curtains.
For I hoped that if I entered any one of the twelve halls at the
right moment, that would as it were give me the right of entrance
to all the others, seeing they all had communication behind. I
would not diminish the hope of the right chance, by supposing
it necessary that a desire to enter should awake within me, precisely
when I was close to the curtains of the tenth hall.
At first the impulses to see recurred so continually, in spite
of the crowded imagery that kept passing through my mind, that
they formed too nearly a continuous chain, for the hope that any
one of them would succeed as a surprise. But as I persisted in
banishing them, they recurred less and less often; and after two
or three, at considerable intervals, had come when the spot where
I happened to be was unsuitable, the hope strengthened, that soon
one might arise just at the right moment; namely, when, in walking
round the hall, I should be close to one of the curtains.
At length the right moment and the impulse coincided. I darted
into the ninth hall. It was full of the most exquisite moving
forms. The whole space wavered and swam with the involutions of
an intricate dance. It seemed to break suddenly as I entered,
and all made one or two bounds towards their pedestals; but, apparently
on finding that they were thoroughly overtaken, they returned
to their employment (for it seemed with them earnest enough to
be called such) without further heeding me. Somewhat impeded by
the floating crowd, I made what haste I could towards the bottom
of the hall; whence, entering the corridor, I turned towards the
tenth. I soon arrived at the corner I wanted to reach, for the
corridor was comparatively empty; but, although the dancers here,
after a little confusion, altogether disregarded my presence,
I was dismayed at beholding, even yet, a vacant pedestal. But
I had a conviction that she was near me. And as I looked at the
pedestal, I thought I saw upon it, vaguely revealed as if through
overlapping folds of drapery, the indistinct outlines of white
feet. Yet there was no sign of drapery or concealing shadow whatever.
But I remembered the descending shadow in my dream. And I hoped
still in the power of my songs; thinking that what could dispel
alabaster, might likewise be capable of dispelling what concealed
my beauty now, even if it were the demon whose darkness had overshadowed
all my life.
CHAPTER XV
"Alexander. 'When will you finish Campaspe?'
Apelles. 'Never finish: for always in absolute
beauty there is somewhat above art.'"
LYLY'S Campaspe.
And now, what song should I sing to unveil my Isis, if indeed
she was present unseen? I hurried away to the white hall of Phantasy,
heedless of the innumerable forms of beauty that crowded my way:
these might cross my eyes, but the unseen filled my brain. I wandered
long, up and down the silent space: no songs came. My soul was
not still enough for songs. Only in the silence and darkness of
the soul's night, do those stars of the inward firmament sink
to its lower surface from the singing realms beyond, and shine
upon the conscious spirit. Here all effort was unavailing. If
they came not, they could not be found.
Next night, it was just the same. I walked through the red glimmer
of the silent hall; but lonely as there I walked, as lonely trod
my soul up and down the halls of the brain. At last I entered
one of the statue-halls. The dance had just commenced, and I was
delighted to find that I was free of their assembly. I walked
on till I came to the sacred corner. There I found the pedestal
just as I had left it, with the faint glimmer as of white feet
still resting on the dead black. As soon as I saw it, I seemed
to feel a presence which longed to become visible; and, as it
were, called to me to gift it with self- manifestation, that it
might shine on me. The power of song came to me. But the moment
my voice, though I sang low and soft, stirred the air of the hall,
the dancers started; the quick interweaving crowd shook, lost
its form, divided; each figure sprang to its pedestal, and stood,
a self-evolving life no more, but a rigid, life-like, marble shape,
with the whole form composed into the expression of a single state
or act. Silence rolled like a spiritual thunder through the grand
space. My song had ceased, scared at its own influences. But I
saw in the hand of one of the statues close by me, a harp whose
chords yet quivered. I remembered that as she bounded past me,
her harp had brushed against my arm; so the spell of the marble
had not infolded it. I sprang to her, and with a gesture of entreaty,
laid my hand on the harp. The marble hand, probably from its contact
with the uncharmed harp, had strength enough to relax its hold,
and yield the harp to me. No other motion indicated life. Instinctively
I struck the chords and sang. And not to break upon the record
of my song, I mention here, that as I sang the first four lines,
the loveliest feet became clear upon the black pedestal; and ever
as I sang, it was as if a veil were being lifted up from before
the form, but an invisible veil, so that the statue appeared to
grow before me, not so much by evolution, as by infinitesimal
degrees of added height. And, while I sang, I did not feel that
I stood by a statue, as indeed it appeared to be, but that a real
woman-soul was revealing itself by successive stages of imbodiment,
and consequent manifestatlon and expression.
Feet of beauty, firmly planting
Arches white on rosy heel!
Whence the life-spring, throbbing, panting,
Pulses upward to reveal!
Fairest things know least despising;
Foot and earth meet tenderly:
'Tis the woman, resting, rising
Upward to sublimity,
Rise the limbs, sedately sloping,
Strong and gentle, full and free;
Soft and slow, like certain hoping,
Drawing nigh the broad firm knee.
Up to speech! As up to roses
Pants the life from leaf to flower,
So each blending change discloses,
Nearer still, expression's power.
Lo! fair sweeps, white surges, twining
Up and outward fearlessly!
Temple columns, close combining,
Lift a holy mystery.
Heart of mine! what strange surprises
Mount aloft on such a stair!
Some great vision upward rises,
Curving, bending, floating fair.
Bands and sweeps, and hill and hollow
Lead my fascinated eye;
Some apocalypse will follow,
Some new world of deity.
Zoned unseen, and outward swelling,
With new thoughts and wonders rife,
Queenly majesty foretelling,
See the expanding house of life!
Sudden heaving, unforbidden
Sighs eternal, still the same--
Mounts of snow have summits hidden
In the mists of uttered flame.
But the spirit, dawning nearly
Finds no speech for earnest pain;
Finds a soundless sighing merely--
Builds its stairs, and mounts again.
Heart, the queen, with secret hoping,
Sendeth out her waiting pair;
Hands, blind hands, half blindly groping,
Half inclasping visions rare;
And the great arms, heartways bending;
Might of Beauty, drawing home
There returning, and re-blending,
Where from roots of love they roam.
Build thy slopes of radiance beamy
Spirit, fair with womanhood!
Tower thy precipice, white-gleamy,
Climb unto the hour of good.
Dumb space will be rent asunder,
Now the shining column stands
Ready to be crowned with wonder
By the builder's joyous hands.
All the lines abroad are spreading,
Like a fountain's falling race.
Lo, the chin, first feature, treading,
Airy foot to rest the face!
Speech is nigh; oh, see the blushing,
Sweet approach of lip and breath!
Round the mouth dim silence, hushing,
Waits to die ecstatic death.
Span across in treble curving,
Bow of promise, upper lip!
Set them free, with gracious swerving;
Let the wing-words float and dip.
DUMB ART THOU? O Love immortal,
More than words thy speech must be;
Childless yet the tender portal
Of the home of melody.
Now the nostrils open fearless,
Proud in calm unconsciousness,
Sure it must be something peerless
That the great Pan would express!
Deepens, crowds some meaning tender,
In the pure, dear lady-face.
Lo, a blinding burst of splendour!--
'Tis the free soul's issuing grace.
Two calm lakes of molten glory
Circling round unfathomed deeps!
Lightning-flashes, transitory,
Cross the gulfs where darkness sleeps.
This the gate, at last, of gladness,
To the outward striving me:
In a rain of light and sadness,
Out its loves and longings flee!
With a presence I am smitten
Dumb, with a foreknown surprise;
Presence greater yet than written
Even in the glorious eyes.
Through the gulfs, with inward gazes,
I may look till I am lost;
Wandering deep in spirit-mazes,
In a sea without a coast.
Windows open to the glorious!
Time and space, oh, far beyond!
Woman, ah! thou art victorious,
And I perish, overfond.
Springs aloft the yet Unspoken
In the forehead's endless grace,
Full of silences unbroken;
Infinite, unfeatured face.
Domes above, the mount of wonder;
Height and hollow wrapt in night;
Hiding in its caverns under
Woman-nations in their might.
Passing forms, the highest Human
Faints away to the Divine
Features none, of man or woman,
Can unveil the holiest shine.
Sideways, grooved porches only
Visible to passing eye,
Stand the silent, doorless, lonely
Entrance-gates of melody.
But all sounds fly in as boldly,
Groan and song, and kiss and cry
At their galleries, lifted coldly,
Darkly, 'twixt the earth and sky.
Beauty, thou art spent, thou knowest
So, in faint, half-glad despair,
From the summit thou o'erflowest
In a fall of torrent hair;
Hiding what thou hast created
In a half-transparent shroud:
Thus, with glory soft-abated,
Shines the moon through vapoury cloud.
CHAPTER XVI
"Ev'n the Styx, which ninefold her infoldeth
Hems not Ceres' daughter in its flow;
But she grasps the apple--ever holdeth
Her, sad Orcus, down below."
SCHILLER, Das Ideal und das Leben.
Ever as I sang, the veil was uplifted; ever as I sang, the signs
of life grew; till, when the eyes dawned upon me, it was with
that sunrise of splendour which my feeble song attempted to re-imbody.
The wonder is, that I was not altogether overcome, but was able
to complete my song as the unseen veil continued to rise. This
ability came solely from the state of mental elevation in which
I found myself. Only because uplifted in song, was I able to endure
the blaze of the dawn. But I cannot tell whether she looked more
of statue or more of woman; she seemed removed into that region
of phantasy where all is intensely vivid, but nothing clearly
defined. At last, as I sang of her descending hair, the glow of
soul faded away, like a dying sunset. A lamp within had been extinguished,
and the house of life shone blank in a winter morn. She was a
statue once more--but visible, and that was much gained. Yet the
revulsion from hope and fruition was such, that, unable to restrain
myself, I sprang to her, and, in defiance of the law of the place,
flung my arms around her, as if I would tear her from the grasp
of a visible Death, and lifted her from the pedestal down to my
heart. But no sooner had her feet ceased to be in contact with
the black pedestal, than she shuddered and trembled all over;
then, writhing from my arms, before I could tighten their hold,
she sprang into the corridor, with the reproachful cry, "You should
not have touched me!" darted behind one of the exterior pillars
of the circle, and disappeared. I followed almost as fast; but
ere I could reach the pillar, the sound of a closing door, the
saddest of all sounds sometimes, fell on my ear; and, arriving
at the spot where she had vanished, I saw, lighted by a pale yellow
lamp which hung above it, a heavy, rough door, altogether unlike
any others I had seen in the palace; for they were all of ebony,
or ivory, or covered with silver-plates, or of some odorous wood,
and very ornate; whereas this seemed of old oak, with heavy nails
and iron studs. Notwithstanding the precipitation of my pursuit,
I could not help reading, in silver letters beneath the lamp:
"NO ONE ENTERS HERE WITHOUT THE LEAVE OF THE QUEEN." But what
was the Queen to me, when I followed my white lady? I dashed the
door to the wall and sprang through. Lo! I stood on a waste windy
hill. Great stones like tombstones stood all about me. No door,
no palace was to be seen. A white figure gleamed past me, wringing
her hands, and crying, "Ah! you should have sung to me; you should
have sung to me!" and disappeared behind one of the stones. I
followed. A cold gust of wind met me from behind the stone; and
when I looked, I saw nothing but a great hole in the earth, into
which I could find no way of entering. Had she fallen in? I could
not tell. I must wait for the daylight. I sat down and wept, for
there was no help.
CHAPTER XVII
"First, I thought, almost despairing,
This must crush my spirit now;
Yet I bore it, and am bearing--
Only do not ask me how."
HEINE.
When the daylight came, it brought the possibility of action,
but with it little of consolation. With the first visible increase
of light, I gazed into the chasm, but could not, for more than
an hour, see sufficiently well to discover its nature. At last
I saw it was almost a perpendicular opening, like a roughly excavated
well, only very large. I could perceive no bottom; and it was
not till the sun actually rose, that I discovered a sort of natural
staircase, in many parts little more than suggested, which led
round and round the gulf, descending spirally into its abyss.
I saw at once that this was my path; and without a moment's hesitation,
glad to quit the sunlight, which stared at me most heartlessly,
I commenced my tortuous descent. It was very difficult. In some
parts I had to cling to the rocks like a bat. In one place, I
dropped from the track down upon the next returning spire of the
stair; which being broad in this particular portion, and standing
out from the wall at right angles, received me upon my feet safe,
though somewhat stupefied by the shock. After descending a great
way, I found the stair ended at a narrow opening which entered
the rock horizontally. Into this I crept, and, having entered,
had just room to turn round. I put my head out into the shaft
by which I had come down, and surveyed the course of my descent.
Looking up, I saw the stars; although the sun must by this time
have been high in the heavens. Looking below, I saw that the sides
of the shaft went sheer down, smooth as glass; and far beneath
me, I saw the reflection of the same stars I had seen in the heavens
when I looked up. I turned again, and crept inwards some distance,
when the passage widened, and I was at length able to stand and
walk upright. Wider and loftier grew the way; new paths branched
off on every side; great open halls appeared; till at last I found
myself wandering on through an underground country, in which the
sky was of rock, and instead of trees and flowers, there were
only fantastic rocks and stones. And ever as I went, darker grew
my thoughts, till at last I had no hope whatever of finding the
white lady: I no longer called her to myself MY white lady. Whenever
a choice was necessary, I always chose the path which seemed to
lead downwards.
At length I began to find that these regions were inhabited. From
behind a rock a peal of harsh grating laughter, full of evil humour,
rang through my ears, and, looking round, I saw a queer, goblin
creature, with a great head and ridiculous features, just such
as those described, in German histories and travels, as Kobolds.
"What do you want with me?" I said. He pointed at me with a long
forefinger, very thick at the root, and sharpened to a point,
and answered, "He! he! he! what do YOU want here?" Then, changing
his tone, he continued, with mock humility--"Honoured sir, vouchsafe
to withdraw from thy slaves the lustre of thy august presence,
for thy slaves cannot support its brightness." A second appeared,
and struck in: "You are so big, you keep the sun from us. We can't
see for you, and we're so cold." Thereupon arose, on all sides,
the most terrific uproar of laughter, from voices like those of
children in volume, but scrannel and harsh as those of decrepit
age, though, unfortunately, without its weakness. The whole pandemonium
of fairy devils, of all varieties of fantastic ugliness, both
in form and feature, and of all sizes from one to four feet, seemed
to have suddenly assembled about me. At length, after a great
babble of talk among themselves, in a language unknown to me,
and after seemingly endless gesticulation, consultation, elbow-nudging,
and unmitigated peals of laughter, they formed into a circle about
one of their number, who scrambled upon a stone, and, much to
my surprise, and somewhat to my dismay, began to sing, in a voice
corresponding in its nature to his talking one, from beginning
to end, the song with which I had brought the light into the eyes
of the white lady. He sang the same air too; and, all the time,
maintained a face of mock entreaty and worship; accompanying the
song with the travestied gestures of one playing on the lute.
The whole assembly kept silence, except at the close of every
verse, when they roared, and danced, and shouted with laughter,
and flung themselves on the ground, in real or pretended convulsions
of delight. When he had finished, the singer threw himself from
the top of the stone, turning heels over head several times in
his descent; and when he did alight, it was on the top of his
head, on which he hopped about, making the most grotesque gesticulations
with his legs in the air. Inexpressible laughter followed, which
broke up in a shower of tiny stones from innumerable hands. They
could not materially injure me, although they cut me on the head
and face. I attempted to run away, but they all rushed upon me,
and, laying hold of every part that afforded a grasp, held me
tight. Crowding about me like bees, they shouted an insect-swarm
of exasperating speeches up into my face, among which the most
frequently recurring were--"You shan't have her; you shan't have
her; he! he! he! She's for a better man; how he'll kiss her! how
he'll kiss her!"
The galvanic torrent of this battery of malevolence stung to life
within me a spark of nobleness, and I said aloud, "Well, if he
is a better man, let him have her."
They instantly let go their hold of me, and fell back a step or
two, with a whole broadside of grunts and humphs, as of unexpected
and disappointed approbation. I made a step or two forward, and
a lane was instantly opened for me through the midst of the grinning
little antics, who bowed most politely to me on every side as
I passed. After I had gone a few yards, I looked back, and saw
them all standing quite still, looking after me, like a great
school of boys; till suddenly one turned round, and with a loud
whoop, rushed into the midst of the others. In an instant, the
whole was one writhing and tumbling heap of contortion, reminding
me of the live pyramids of intertwined snakes of which travellers
make report. As soon as one was worked out of the mass, he bounded
off a few paces, and then, with a somersault and a run, threw
himself gyrating into the air, and descended with all his weight
on the summit of the heaving and struggling chaos of fantastic
figures. I left them still busy at this fierce and apparently
aimless amusement. And as I went, I sang--
If a nobler waits for thee,
I will weep aside;
It is well that thou should'st be,
Of the nobler, bride.
For if love builds up the home,
Where the heart is free,
Homeless yet the heart must roam,
That has not found thee.
One must suffer: I, for her
Yield in her my part
Take her, thou art worthier--
Still I be still, my heart!
Gift ungotten! largess high
Of a frustrate will!
But to yield it lovingly
Is a something still.
Then a little song arose of itself in my soul; and I felt for
the moment, while it sank sadly within me, as if I was once more
walking up and down the white hall of Phantasy in the Fairy Palace.
But this lasted no longer than the song; as will be seen.
Do not vex thy violet
Perfume to afford:
Else no odour thou wilt get
From its little hoard.
In thy lady's gracious eyes
Look not thou too long;
Else from them the glory flies,
And thou dost her wrong.
Come not thou too near the maid,
Clasp her not too wild;
Else the splendour is allayed,
And thy heart beguiled.
A crash of laughter, more discordant and deriding than any I had
yet heard, invaded my ears. Looking on in the direction of the
sound, I saw a little elderly woman, much taller, however, than
the goblins I had just left, seated upon a stone by the side of
the path. She rose, as I drew near, and came forward to meet me.
She was very plain and commonplace in appearance, without being
hideously ugly. Looking up in my face with a stupid sneer, she
said: "Isn't it a pity you haven't a pretty girl to walk all alone
with you through this sweet country? How different everything
would look? wouldn't it?
Strange that one can never have what one would like best! How
the roses would bloom and all that, even in this infernal hole!
wouldn't they, Anodos? Her eyes would light up the old cave, wouldn't
they?"
"That depends on who the pretty girl should be," replied I.
"Not so very much matter that," she answered; "look here."
I had turned to go away as I gave my reply, but now I stopped
and looked at her. As a rough unsightly bud might suddenly blossom
into the most lovely flower; or rather, as a sunbeam bursts through
a shapeless cloud, and transfigures the earth; so burst a face
of resplendent beauty, as it were THROUGH the unsightly visage
of the woman, destroying it with light as it dawned through it.
A summer sky rose above me, gray with heat; across a shining slumberous
landscape, looked from afar the peaks of snow-capped mountains;
and down from a great rock beside me fell a sheet of water mad
with its own delight.
"Stay with me," she said, lifting up her exquisite face, and looking
full in mine.
I drew back. Again the infernal laugh grated upon my ears; again
the rocks closed in around me, and the ugly woman looked at me
with wicked, mocking hazel eyes.
"You shall have your reward," said she. "You shall see your white
lady again."
"That lies not with you," I replied, and turned and left her.
She followed me with shriek upon shriek of laughter, as I went
on my way.
I may mention here, that although there was always light enough
to see my path and a few yards on every side of me, I never could
find out the source of this sad sepulchral illumination.
CHAPTER XVIII
"In the wind's uproar, the sea's raging grim,
And the sighs that are born in him."
HEINE.
"From dreams of bliss shall men awake
One day, but not to weep:
The dreams remain; they only break
The mirror of the sleep."
JEAN PAUL, Hesperus.
How I got through this dreary part of my travels, I do not know.
I do not think I was upheld by the hope that any moment the light
might break in upon me; for I scarcely thought about that. I went
on with a dull endurance, varied by moments of uncontrollable
sadness; for more and more the conviction grew upon me that I
should never see the white lady again. It may seem strange that
one with whom I had held so little communion should have so engrossed
my thoughts; but benefits conferred awaken love in some minds,
as surely as benefits received in others. Besides being delighted
and proud that my songs had called the beautiful creature to life,
the same fact caused me to feel a tenderness unspeakable for her,
accompanied with a kind of feeling of property in her; for so
the goblin Selfishness would reward the angel Love. When to all
this is added, an overpowering sense of her beauty, and an unquestioning
conviction that this was a true index to inward loveliness, it
may be understood how it came to pass that my imagination filled
my whole soul with the play of its own multitudinous colours and
harmonies around the form which yet stood, a gracious marble radiance,
in the midst of ITS white hall of phantasy. The time passed by
unheeded; for my thoughts were busy. Perhaps this was also in
part the cause of my needing no food, and never thinking how I
should find any, during this subterraneous part of my travels.
How long they endured I could not tell, for I had no means of
measuring time; and when I looked back, there was such a discrepancy
between the decisions of my imagination and my judgment, as to
the length of time that had passed, that I was bewildered, and
gave up all attempts to arrive at any conclusion on the point.
A gray mist continually gathered behind me. When I looked back
towards the past, this mist was the medium through which my eyes
had to strain for a vision of what had gone by; and the form of
the white lady had receded into an unknown region. At length the
country of rock began to close again around me, gradually and
slowly narrowing, till I found myself walking in a gallery of
rock once more, both sides of which I could touch with my outstretched
hands. It narrowed yet, until I was forced to move carefully,
in order to avoid striking against the projecting pieces of rock.
The roof sank lower and lower, until I was compelled, first to
stoop, and then to creep on my hands and knees. It recalled terrible
dreams of childhood; but I was not much afraid, because I felt
sure that this was my path, and my only hope of leaving Fairy
Land, of which I was now almost weary.
At length, on getting past an abrupt turn in the passage, through
which I had to force myself, I saw, a few yards ahead of me, the
long- forgotten daylight shining through a small opening, to which
the path, if path it could now be called, led me. With great difficulty
I accomplished these last few yards, and came forth to the day.
I stood on the shore of a wintry sea, with a wintry sun just a
few feet above its horizon-edge. It was bare, and waste, and gray.
Hundreds of hopeless waves rushed constantly shorewards, falling
exhausted upon a beach of great loose stones, that seemed to stretch
miles and miles in both directions. There was nothing for the
eye but mingling shades of gray; nothing for the ear but the rush
of the coming, the roar of the breaking, and the moan of the retreating
wave. No rock lifted up a sheltering severity above the dreariness
around; even that from which I had myself emerged rose scarcely
a foot above the opening by which I had reached the dismal day,
more dismal even than the tomb I had left. A cold, death-like
wind swept across the shore, seeming to issue from a pale mouth
of cloud upon the horizon. Sign of life was nowhere visible. I
wandered over the stones, up and down the beach, a human imbodiment
of the nature around me. The wind increased; its keen waves flowed
through my soul; the foam rushed higher up the stones; a few dead
stars began to gleam in the east; the sound of the waves grew
louder and yet more despairing. A dark curtain of cloud was lifted
up, and a pale blue rent shone between its foot and the edge of
the sea, out from which rushed an icy storm of frozen wind, that
tore the waters into spray as it passed, and flung the billows
in raving heaps upon the desolate shore. I could bear it no longer.
"I will not be tortured to death," I cried; "I will meet it half-way.
The life within me is yet enough to bear me up to the face of
Death, and then I die unconquered."
Before it had grown so dark, I had observed, though without any
particular interest, that on one part of the shore a low platform
of rock seemed to run out far into the midst of the breaking waters.
Towards this I now went, scrambling over smooth stones, to which
scarce even a particle of sea-weed clung; and having found it,
I got on it, and followed its direction, as near as I could guess,
out into the tumbling chaos. I could hardly keep my feet against
the wind and sea. The waves repeatedly all but swept me off my
path; but I kept on my way, till I reached the end of the low
promontory, which, in the fall of the waves, rose a good many
feet above the surface, and, in their rise, was covered with their
waters. I stood one moment and gazed into the heaving abyss beneath
me; then plunged headlong into the mounting wave below. A blessing,
like the kiss of a mother, seemed to alight on my soul; a calm,
deeper than that which accompanies a hope deferred, bathed my
spirit. I sank far into the waters, and sought not to return.
I felt as if once more the great arms of the beech-tree were around
me, soothing me after the miseries I had passed through, and telling
me, like a little sick child, that I should be better to-morrow.
The waters of themselves lifted me, as with loving arms, to the
surface. I breathed again, but did not unclose my eyes. I would
not look on the wintry sea, and the pitiless gray sky. Thus I
floated, till something gently touched me. It was a little boat
floating beside me. How it came there I could not tell; but it
rose and sank on the waters, and kept touching me in its fall,
as if with a human will to let me know that help was by me. It
was a little gay-coloured boat, seemingly covered with glistering
scales like those of a fish, all of brilliant rainbow hues. I
scrambled into it, and lay down in the bottom, with a sense of
exquisite repose.
Then I drew over me a rich, heavy, purple cloth that was beside
me; and, lying still, knew, by the sound of the waters, that my
little bark was fleeting rapidly onwards. Finding, however, none
of that stormy motion which the sea had manifested when I beheld
it from the shore, I opened my eyes; and, looking first up, saw
above me the deep violet sky of a warm southern night; and then,
lifting my head, saw that I was sailing fast upon a summer sea,
in the last border of a southern twilight. The aureole of the
sun yet shot the extreme faint tips of its longest rays above
the horizon- waves, and withdrew them not. It was a perpetual
twilight. The stars, great and earnest, like children's eyes,
bent down lovingly towards the waters; and the reflected stars
within seemed to float up, as if longing to meet their embraces.
But when I looked down, a new wonder met my view. For, vaguely
revealed beneath the wave, I floated above my whole Past. The
fields of my childhood flitted by; the halls of my youthful labours;
the streets of great cities where I had dwelt; and the assemblies
of men and women wherein I had wearied myself seeking for rest.
But so indistinct were the visions, that sometimes I thought I
was sailing on a shallow sea, and that strange rocks and forests
of sea-plants beguiled my eye, sufficiently to be transformed,
by the magic of the phantasy, into well-known objects and regions.
Yet, at times, a beloved form seemed to lie close beneath me in
sleep; and the eyelids would tremble as if about to forsake the
conscious eye; and the arms would heave upwards, as if in dreams
they sought for a satisfying presence. But these motions might
come only from the heaving of the waters between those forms and
me. Soon I fell asleep, overcome with fatigue and delight. In
dreams of unspeakable joy--of restored friendships; of revived
embraces; of love which said it had never died; of faces that
had vanished long ago, yet said with smiling lips that they knew
nothing of the grave; of pardons implored, and granted with such
bursting floods of love, that I was almost glad I had sinned--thus
I passed through this wondrous twilight. I awoke with the feeling
that I had been kissed and loved to my heart's content; and found
that my boat was floating motionless by the grassy shore of a
little island.
CHAPTER XIX
"In still rest, in changeless simplicity, I bear, uninterrupted,
the consciousness of the whole of Humanity within me."
SCHLEIERMACHERS, Monologen.
". . . such a sweetness, such a grace,
In all thy speech appear,
That what to th'eye a beauteous face,
That thy tongue is to the ear."
COWLEY.
The water was deep to the very edge; and I sprang from the little
boat upon a soft grassy turf. The island seemed rich with a profusion
of all grasses and low flowers. All delicate lowly things were
most plentiful; but no trees rose skywards, not even a bush overtopped
the tall grasses, except in one place near the cottage I am about
to describe, where a few plants of the gum-cistus, which drops
every night all the blossoms that the day brings forth, formed
a kind of natural arbour. The whole island lay open to the sky
and sea. It rose nowhere more than a few feet above the level
of the waters, which flowed deep all around its border. Here there
seemed to be neither tide nor storm. A sense of persistent calm
and fulness arose in the mind at the sight of the slow, pulse-like
rise and fall of the deep, clear, unrippled waters against the
bank of the island, for shore it could hardly be called, being
so much more like the edge of a full, solemn river. As I walked
over the grass towards the cottage, which stood at a little distance
from the bank, all the flowers of childhood looked at me with
perfect child-eyes out of the grass. My heart, softened by the
dreams through which it had passed, overflowed in a sad, tender
love towards them. They looked to me like children impregnably
fortified in a helpless confidence. The sun stood half- way down
the western sky, shining very soft and golden; and there grew
a second world of shadows amidst the world of grasses and wild
flowers.
The cottage was square, with low walls, and a high pyramidal roof
thatched with long reeds, of which the withered blossoms hung
over all the eaves. It is noticeable that most of the buildings
I saw in Fairy Land were cottages. There was no path to a door,
nor, indeed, was there any track worn by footsteps in the island.
The cottage rose right out of the smooth turf. It had no windows
that I could see; but there was a door in the centre of the side
facing me, up to which I went. I knocked, and the sweetest voice
I had ever heard said, "Come in." I entered. A bright fire was
burning on a hearth in the centre of the earthern floor, and the
smoke found its way out at an opening in the centre of the pyramidal
roof. Over the fire hung a little pot, and over the pot bent a
woman-face, the most wonderful, I thought, that I had ever beheld.
For it was older than any countenance I had ever looked upon.
There was not a spot in which a wrinkle could lie, where a wrinkle
lay not. And the skin was ancient and brown, like old parchment.
The woman's form was tall and spare: and when she stood up to
welcome me, I saw that she was straight as an arrow. Could that
voice of sweetness have issued from those lips of age? Mild as
they were, could they be the portals whence flowed such melody?
But the moment I saw her eyes, I no longer wondered at her voice:
they were absolutely young--those of a woman of five-and- twenty,
large, and of a clear gray. Wrinkles had beset them all about;
the eyelids themselves were old, and heavy, and worn; but the
eyes were very incarnations of soft light. She held out her hand
to me, and the voice of sweetness again greeted me, with the single
word, "Welcome." She set an old wooden chair for me, near the
fire, and went on with her cooking. A wondrous sense of refuge
and repose came upon me. I felt like a boy who has got home from
school, miles across the hills, through a heavy storm of wind
and snow. Almost, as I gazed on her, I sprang from my seat to
kiss those old lips. And when, having finished her cooking, she
brought some of the dish she had prepared, and set it on a little
table by me, covered with a snow- white cloth, I could not help
laying my head on her bosom, and bursting into happy tears. She
put her arms round me, saying, "Poor child; poor child!"
As I continued to weep, she gently disengaged herself, and, taking
a spoon, put some of the food (I did not know what it was) to
my lips, entreating me most endearingly to swallow it. To please
her, I made an effort, and succeeded. She went on feeding me like
a baby, with one arm round me, till I looked up in her face and
smiled: then she gave me the spoon and told me to eat, for it
would do me good. I obeyed her, and found myself wonderfully refreshed.
Then she drew near the fire an old-fashioned couch that was in
the cottage, and making me lie down upon it, sat at my feet, and
began to sing. Amazing store of old ballads rippled from her lips,
over the pebbles of ancient tunes; and the voice that sang was
sweet as the voice of a tuneful maiden that singeth ever from
very fulness of song. The songs were almost all sad, but with
a sound of comfort. One I can faintly recall. It was something
like this:
Sir Aglovaile through the churchyard rode;
SING, ALL ALONE I LIE:
Little recked he where'er he yode,
ALL ALONE, UP IN THE SKY.
Swerved his courser, and plunged with fear
ALL ALONE I LIE:
His cry might have wakened the dead men near,
ALL ALONE, UP IN THE SKY.
The very dead that lay at his feet,
Lapt in the mouldy winding-sheet.
But he curbed him and spurred him, until he stood
Still in his place, like a horse of wood,
With nostrils uplift, and eyes wide and wan;
But the sweat in streams from his fetlocks ran.
A ghost grew out of the shadowy air,
And sat in the midst of her moony hair.
In her gleamy hair she sat and wept;
In the dreamful moon they lay and slept;
The shadows above, and the bodies below,
Lay and slept in the moonbeams slow.
And she sang, like the moan of an autumn wind
Over the stubble left behind:
Alas, how easily things go wrong
! A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,
And there follows a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again.
Alas, how hardly things go right!
'Tis hard to watch on a summer night,
For the sigh will come and the kiss will stay,
And the summer night is a winter day.
"Oh, lovely ghosts my heart is woes
To see thee weeping and wailing so.
Oh, lovely ghost," said the fearless knight,
"Can the sword of a warrior set it right?
Or prayer of bedesman, praying mild,
As a cup of water a feverish child,
Sooth thee at last, in dreamless mood
To sleep the sleep a dead lady should?
Thine eyes they fill me with longing sore,
As if I had known thee for evermore.
Oh, lovely ghost, I could leave the day
To sit with thee in the moon away
If thou wouldst trust me, and lay thy head
To rest on a bosom that is not dead."
The lady sprang up with a strange ghost-cry,
And she flung her white ghost-arms on high:
And she laughed a laugh that was not gay,
And it lengthened out till it died away;
And the dead beneath turned and moaned,
And the yew-trees above they shuddered and groaned.
"Will he love me twice with a love that is vain?
Will he kill the poor ghost yet again?
I thought thou wert good; but I said, and wept:
`Can I have dreamed who have not slept?'
And I knew, alas! or ever I would,
Whether I dreamed, or thou wert good.
When my baby died, my brain grew wild.
I awoke, and found I was with my child."
"If thou art the ghost of my Adelaide,
How is it? Thou wert but a village maid,
And thou seemest an angel lady white,
Though thin, and wan, and past delight."
The lady smiled a flickering smile,
And she pressed her temples hard the while.
"Thou seest that Death for a woman can
Do more than knighthood for a man."
"But show me the child thou callest mine,
Is she out to-night in the ghost's sunshine?"
"In St. Peter's Church she is playing on,
At hide-and-seek, with Apostle John.
When the moonbeams right through the window go,
Where the twelve are standing in glorious show,
She says the rest of them do not stir,
But one comes down to play with her.
Then I can go where I list, and weep,
For good St. John my child will keep."
"Thy beauty filleth the very air,
Never saw I a woman so fair."
"Come, if thou darest, and sit by my side;
But do not touch me, or woe will betide.
Alas, I am weak: I might well know
This gladness betokens some further woe.
Yet come. It will come. I will bear it. I can.
For thou lovest me yet--though but as a man."
The knight dismounted in earnest speed;
Away through the tombstones thundered the steed,
And fell by the outer wall, and died.
But the knight he kneeled by the lady's side;
Kneeled beside her in wondrous bliss,
Rapt in an everlasting kiss:
Though never his lips come the lady nigh,
And his eyes alone on her beauty lie.
All the night long, till the cock crew loud,
He kneeled by the lady, lapt in her shroud.
And what they said, I may not say:
Dead night was sweeter than living day.
How she made him so blissful glad
Who made her and found her so ghostly sad,
I may not tell; but it needs no touch
To make them blessed who love so much.
"Come every night, my ghost, to me;
And one night I will come to thee.
'Tis good to have a ghostly wife:
She will not tremble at clang of strife;
She will only hearken, amid the din,
Behind the door, if he cometh in."
And this is how Sir Aglovaile
Often walked in the moonlight pale.
And oft when the crescent but thinned the gloom,
Full orbed moonlight filled his room;
And through beneath his chamber door,
Fell a ghostly gleam on the outer floor;
And they that passed, in fear averred
That murmured words they often heard.
'Twas then that the eastern crescent shone
Through the chancel window, and good St. John
Played with the ghost-child all the night,
And the mother was free till the morning light,
And sped through the dawning night, to stay
With Aglovaile till the break of day.
And their love was a rapture, lone and high,
And dumb as the moon in the topmost sky.
One night Sir Aglovaile, weary, slept
And dreamed a dream wherein he wept.
A warrior he was, not often wept he,
But this night he wept full bitterly.
He woke--beside him the ghost-girl shone
Out of the dark: 'twas the eve of St. John.
He had dreamed a dream of a still, dark wood,
Where the maiden of old beside him stood;
But a mist came down, and caught her away,
And he sought her in vain through the pathless day,
Till he wept with the grief that can do no more,
And thought he had dreamt the dream before.
From bursting heart the weeping flowed on;
And lo! beside him the ghost-girl shone;
Shone like the light on a harbour's breast,
Over the sea of his dream's unrest;
Shone like the wondrous, nameless boon,
That the heart seeks ever, night or noon:
Warnings forgotten, when needed most,
He clasped to his bosom the radiant ghost.
She wailed aloud, and faded, and sank.
With upturn'd white face, cold and blank,
In his arms lay the corpse of the maiden pale,
And she came no more to Sir Aglovaile.
Only a voice, when winds were wild,
Sobbed and wailed like a chidden child.
Alas, how easily things go wrong!
A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,
And there follows a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again.
This was one of the simplest of her songs, which, perhaps, is
the cause of my being able to remember it better than most of
the others. While she sung, I was in Elysium, with the sense of
a rich soul upholding, embracing, and overhanging mine, full of
all plenty and bounty. I felt as if she could give me everything
I wanted; as if I should never wish to leave her, but would be
content to be sung to and fed by her, day after day, as years
rolled by. At last I fell asleep while she sang.
When I awoke, I knew not whether it was night or day. The fire
had sunk to a few red embers, which just gave light enough to
show me the woman standing a few feet from me, with her back towards
me, facing the door by which I had entered. She was weeping, but
very gently and plentifully. The tears seemed to come freely from
her heart. Thus she stood for a few minutes; then, slowly turning
at right angles to her former position, she faced another of the
four sides of the cottage. I now observed, for the first time,
that here was a door likewise; and that, indeed, there was one
in the centre of every side of the cottage.
When she looked towards the second door, her tears ceased to flow,
but sighs took their place. She often closed her eyes as she stood;
and every time she closed her eyes, a gentle sigh seemed to be
born in her heart, and to escape at her lips. But when her eyes
were open, her sighs were deep and very sad, and shook her whole
frame. Then she turned towards the third door, and a cry as of
fear or suppressed pain broke from her; but she seemed to hearten
herself against the dismay, and to front it steadily; for, although
I often heard a slight cry, and sometimes a moan, yet she never
moved or bent her head, and I felt sure that her eyes never closed.
Then she turned to the fourth door, and I saw her shudder, and
then stand still as a statue; till at last she turned towards
me and approached the fire. I saw that her face was white as death.
But she gave one look upwards, and smiled the sweetest, most child-innocent
smile; then heaped fresh wood on the fire, and, sitting down by
the blaze, drew her wheel near her, and began to spin. While she
spun, she murmured a low strange song, to which the hum of the
wheel made a kind of infinite symphony. At length she paused in
her spinning and singing, and glanced towards me, like a mother
who looks whether or not her child gives signs of waking. She
smiled when she saw that my eyes were open. I asked her whether
it was day yet. She answered, "It is always day here, so long
as I keep my fire burning."
I felt wonderfully refreshed; and a great desire to see more of
the island awoke within me. I rose, and saying that I wished to
look about me, went towards the door by which I had entered.
"Stay a moment," said my hostess, with some trepidation in her
voice. "Listen to me. You will not see what you expect when you
go out of that door. Only remember this: whenever you wish to
come back to me, enter wherever you see this mark."
She held up her left hand between me and the fire. Upon the palm,
which appeared almost transparent, I saw, in dark red, a mark
like this --> which I took care to fix in my mind.
She then kissed me, and bade me good-bye with a solemnity that
awed me; and bewildered me too, seeing I was only going out for
a little ramble in an island, which I did not believe larger than
could easily be compassed in a few hours' walk at most. As I went
she resumed her spinning.
I opened the door, and stepped out. The moment my foot touched
the smooth sward, I seemed to issue from the door of an old barn
on my father's estate, where, in the hot afternoons, I used to
go and lie amongst the straw, and read. It seemed to me now that
I had been asleep there. At a little distance in the field, I
saw two of my brothers at play. The moment they caught sight of
me, they called out to me to come and join them, which I did;
and we played together as we had done years ago, till the red
sun went down in the west, and the gray fog began to rise from
the river. Then we went home together with a strange happiness.
As we went, we heard the continually renewed larum of a landrail
in the long grass. One of my brothers and I separated to a little
distance, and each commenced running towards the part whence the
sound appeared to come, in the hope of approaching the spot where
the bird was, and so getting at least a sight of it, if we should
not be able to capture the little creature. My father's voice
recalled us from trampling down the rich long grass, soon to be
cut down and laid aside for the winter. I had quite forgotten
all about Fairy Land, and the wonderful old woman, and the curious
red mark.
My favourite brother and I shared the same bed. Some childish
dispute arose between us; and our last words, ere we fell asleep,
were not of kindness, notwithstanding the pleasures of the day.
When I woke in the morning, I missed him. He had risen early,
and had gone to bathe in the river. In another hour, he was brought
home drowned. Alas! alas! if we had only gone to sleep as usual,
the one with his arm about the other! Amidst the horror of the
moment, a strange conviction flashed across my mind, that I had
gone through the very same once before.
I rushed out of the house, I knew not why, sobbing and crying
bitterly. I ran through the fields in aimless distress, till,
passing the old barn, I caught sight of a red mark on the door.
The merest trifles sometimes rivet the attention in the deepest
misery; the intellect has so little to do with grief. I went up
to look at this mark, which I did not remember ever to have seen
before. As I looked at it, I thought I would go in and lie down
amongst the straw, for I was very weary with running about and
weeping. I opened the door; and there in the cottage sat the old
woman as I had left her, at her spinning-wheel.
"I did not expect you quite so soon," she said, as I shut the
door behind me. I went up to the couch, and threw myself on it
with that fatigue wherewith one awakes from a feverish dream of
hopeless grief.
The old woman sang:
The great sun, benighted,
May faint from the sky;
But love, once uplighted,
Will never more die.
Form, with its brightness,
From eyes will depart:
It walketh, in whiteness,
The halls of the heart.
Ere she had ceased singing, my courage had returned. I started
from the couch, and, without taking leave of the old woman, opened
the door of Sighs, and sprang into what should appear.
I stood in a lordly hall, where, by a blazing fire on the hearth,
sat a lady, waiting, I knew, for some one long desired. A mirror
was near me, but I saw that my form had no place within its depths,
so I feared not that I should be seen. The lady wonderfully resembled
my marble lady, but was altogether of the daughters of men, and
I could not tell whether or not it was she.
It was not for me she waited. The tramp of a great horse rang
through the court without. It ceased, and the clang of armour
told that his rider alighted, and the sound of his ringing heels
approached the hall. The door opened; but the lady waited, for
she would meet her lord alone. He strode in: she flew like a home-bound
dove into his arms, and nestled on the hard steel. It was the
knight of the soiled armour. But now the armour shone like polished
glass; and strange to tell, though the mirror reflected not my
form, I saw a dim shadow of myself in the shining steel.
"O my beloved, thou art come, and I am blessed."
Her soft fingers speedily overcame the hard clasp of his helmet;
one by one she undid the buckles of his armour; and she toiled
under the weight of the mail, as she WOULD carry it aside. Then
she unclasped his greaves, and unbuckled his spurs; and once more
she sprang into his arms, and laid her head where she could now
feel the beating of his heart. Then she disengaged herself from
his embrace, and, moving back a step or two, gazed at him. He
stood there a mighty form, crowned with a noble head, where all
sadness had disappeared, or had been absorbed in solemn purpose.
Yet I suppose that he looked more thoughtful than the lady had
expected to see him, for she did not renew her caresses, although
his face glowed with love, and the few words he spoke were as
mighty deeds for strength; but she led him towards the hearth,
and seated him in an ancient chair, and set wine before him, and
sat at his feet.
"I am sad," he said, "when I think of the youth whom I met twice
in the forests of Fairy Land; and who, you say, twice, with his
songs, roused you from the death-sleep of an evil enchantment.
There was something noble in him, but it was a nobleness of thought,
and not of deed. He may yet perish of vile fear."
"Ah!" returned the lady, "you saved him once, and for that I thank
you; for may I not say that I somewhat loved him? But tell me
how you fared, when you struck your battle-axe into the ash-tree,
and he came and found you; for so much of the story you had told
me, when the beggar-child came and took you away."
"As soon as I saw him," rejoined the knight, "I knew that earthly
arms availed not against such as he; and that my soul must meet
him in its naked strength. So I unclasped my helm, and flung it
on the ground; and, holding my good axe yet in my hand, gazed
at him with steady eyes. On he came, a horror indeed, but I did
not flinch. Endurance must conquer, where force could not reach.
He came nearer and nearer, till the ghastly face was close to
mine. A shudder as of death ran through me; but I think I did
not move, for he seemed to quail, and retreated. As soon as he
gave back, I struck one more sturdy blow on the stem of his tree,
that the forest rang; and then looked at him again. He writhed
and grinned with rage and apparent pain, and again approached
me, but retreated sooner than before. I heeded him no more, but
hewed with a will at the tree, till the trunk creaked, and the
head bowed, and with a crash it fell to the earth. Then I looked
up from my labour, and lo! the spectre had vanished, and I saw
him no more; nor ever in my wanderings have I heard of him again."
"Well struck! well withstood! my hero," said the lady.
"But," said the knight, somewhat troubled, "dost thou love the
youth still?"
"Ah!" she replied, "how can I help it? He woke me from worse than
death; he loved me. I had never been for thee, if he had not sought
me first. But I love him not as I love thee. He was but the moon
of my night; thou art the sun of my clay, O beloved."
"Thou art right," returned the noble man. "It were hard, indeed,
not to have some love in return for such a gift as he hath given
thee. I, too, owe him more than words can speak."
Humbled before them, with an aching and desolate heart, I yet
could not restrain my words:
"Let me, then, be the moon of thy night still, O woman! And when
thy day is beclouded, as the fairest days will be, let some song
of mine comfort thee, as an old, withered, half-forgotten thing,
that belongs to an ancient mournful hour of uncompleted birth,
which yet was beautiful in its time."
They sat silent, and I almost thought they were listening. The
colour of the lady's eyes grew deeper and deeper; the slow tears
grew, and filled them, and overflowed. They rose, and passed,
hand in hand, close to where I stood; and each looked towards
me in passing. Then they disappeared through a door which closed
behind them; but, ere it closed, I saw that the room into which
it opened was a rich chamber, hung with gorgeous arras. I stood
with an ocean of sighs frozen in my bosom. I could remain no longer.
She was near me, and I could not see her; near me in the arms
of one loved better than I, and I would not see her, and I would
not be by her. But how to escape from the nearness of the best
beloved? I had not this time forgotten the mark; for the fact
that I could not enter the sphere of these living beings kept
me aware that, for me, I moved in a vision, while they moved in
life. I looked all about for the mark, but could see it nowhere;
for I avoided looking just where it was. There the dull red cipher
glowed, on the very door of their secret chamber. Struck with
agony, I dashed it open, and fell at the feet of the ancient woman,
who still spun on, the whole dissolved ocean of my sighs bursting
from me in a storm of tearless sobs. Whether I fainted or slept,
I do not know; but, as I returned to consciousness, before I seemed
to have power to move, I heard the woman singing, and could distinguish
the words:
O light of dead and of dying days!
O Love! in thy glory go,
In a rosy mist and a moony maze,
O'er the pathless peaks of snow.
But what is left for the cold gray soul,
That moans like a wounded dove?
One wine is left in the broken bowl!--
'Tis-- TO LOVE, AND LOVE AND LOVE.
Now I could weep. When she saw me weeping, she sang:
Better to sit at the waters' birth,
Than a sea of waves to win;
To live in the love that floweth forth,
Than the love that cometh in.
Be thy heart a well of love, my child,
Flowing, and free, and sure;
For a cistern of love, though undefiled,
Keeps not the spirit pure.
I rose from the earth, loving the white lady as I had never loved
her before.
Then I walked up to the door of Dismay, and opened it, and went
out. And lo! I came forth upon a crowded street, where men and
women went to and fro in multitudes. I knew it well; and, turning
to one hand, walked sadly along the pavement. Suddenly I saw approaching
me, a little way off, a form well known to me (WELL-KNOWN!--alas,
how weak the word!) in the years when I thought my boyhood was
left behind, and shortly before I entered the realm of Fairy Land.
Wrong and Sorrow had gone together, hand-in-hand as it is well
they do.
Unchangeably dear was that face. It lay in my heart as a child
lies in its own white bed; but I could not meet her.
"Anything but that," I said, and, turning aside, sprang up the
steps to a door, on which I fancied I saw the mystic sign. I entered--not
the mysterious cottage, but her home. I rushed wildly on, and
stood by the door of her room.
"She is out," I said, "I will see the old room once more."
I opened the door gently, and stood in a great solemn church.
A deep- toned bell, whose sounds throbbed and echoed and swam
through the empty building, struck the hour of midnight. The moon
shone through the windows of the clerestory, and enough of the
ghostly radiance was diffused through the church to let me see,
walking with a stately, yet somewhat trailing and stumbling step,
down the opposite aisle, for I stood in one of the transepts,
a figure dressed in a white robe, whether for the night, or for
that longer night which lies too deep for the day, I could not
tell. Was it she? and was this her chamber? I crossed the church,
and followed. The figure stopped, seemed to ascend as it were
a high bed, and lay down. I reached the place where it lay, glimmering
white. The bed was a tomb. The light was too ghostly to see clearly,
but I passed my hand over the face and the hands and the feet,
which were all bare. They were cold--they were marble, but I knew
them. It grew dark. I turned to retrace my steps, but found, ere
long, that I had wandered into what seemed a little chapel. I
groped about, seeking the door. Everything I touched belonged
to the dead. My hands fell on the cold effigy of a knight who
lay with his legs crossed and his sword broken beside him. He
lay in his noble rest, and I lived on in ignoble strife. I felt
for the left hand and a certain finger; I found there the ring
I knew: he was one of my own ancestors. I was in the chapel over
the burial-vault of my race. I called aloud: "If any of the dead
are moving here, let them take pity upon me, for I, alas! am still
alive; and let some dead woman comfort me, for I am a stranger
in the land of the dead, and see no light." A warm kiss alighted
on my lips through the dark. And I said, "The dead kiss well;
I will not be afraid." And a great hand was reached out of the
dark, and grasped mine for a moment, mightily and tenderly. I
said to myself: "The veil between, though very dark, is very thin."
Groping my way further, I stumbled over the heavy stone that covered
the entrance of the vault: and, in stumbling, descried upon the
stone the mark, glowing in red fire. I caught the great ring.
All my effort could not have moved the huge slab; but it opened
the door of the cottage, and I threw myself once more, pale and
speechless, on the couch beside the ancient dame. She sang once
more:
Thou dreamest: on a rock thou art,
High o'er the broken wave;
Thou fallest with a fearful start
But not into thy grave;
For, waking in the morning's light,
Thou smilest at the vanished night
So wilt thou sink, all pale and dumb,
Into the fainting gloom;
But ere the coming terrors come,
Thou wak'st--where is the tomb?
Thou wak'st--the dead ones smile above,
With hovering arms of sleepless love.
She paused; then sang again:
We weep for gladness, weep for grief;
The tears they are the same;
We sigh for longing, and relief;
The sighs have but one name,
And mingled in the dying strife,
Are moans that are not sad
The pangs of death are throbs of life,
Its sighs are sometimes glad.
The face is very strange and white:
It is Earth's only spot
That feebly flickers back the light
The living seeth not.
I fell asleep, and slept a dreamless sleep, for I know not how
long. When I awoke, I found that my hostess had moved from where
she had been sitting, and now sat between me and the fourth door.
I guessed that her design was to prevent my entering there. I
sprang from the couch, and darted past her to the door. I opened
it at once and went out. All I remember is a cry of distress from
the woman: "Don't go there, my child! Don't go there!" But I was
gone.
I knew nothing more; or, if I did, I had forgot it all when I
awoke to consciousness, lying on the floor of the cottage, with
my head in the lap of the woman, who was weeping over me, and
stroking my hair with both hands, talking to me as a mother might
talk to a sick and sleeping, or a dead child. As soon as I looked
up and saw her, she smiled through her tears; smiled with withered
face and young eyes, till her countenance was irradiated with
the light of the smile. Then she bathed my head and face and hands
in an icy cold, colourless liquid, which smelt a little of damp
earth. Immediately I was able to sit up. She rose and put some
food before me. When I had eaten, she said: "Listen to me, my
child. You must leave me directly!"
"Leave you!" I said. "I am so happy with you. I never was so happy
in my life."
"But you must go," she rejoined sadly. "Listen! What do you hear?"
"I hear the sound as of a great throbbing of water."
"Ah! you do hear it? Well, I had to go through that door--the
door of the Timeless" (and she shuddered as she pointed to the
fourth door)-- "to find you; for if I had not gone, you would
never have entered again; and because I went, the waters around
my cottage will rise and rise, and flow and come, till they build
a great firmament of waters over my dwelling. But as long as I
keep my fire burning, they cannot enter. I have fuel enough for
years; and after one year they will sink away again, and be just
as they were before you came. I have not been buried for a hundred
years now." And she smiled and wept.
"Alas! alas!" I cried. "I have brought this evil on the best and
kindest of friends, who has filled my heart with great gifts."
"Do not think of that," she rejoined. "I can bear it very well.
You will come back to me some day, I know. But I beg you, for
my sake, my dear child, to do one thing. In whatever sorrow you
may be, however inconsolable and irremediable it may appear, believe
me that the old woman in the cottage, with the young eyes" (and
she smiled), "knows something, though she must not always tell
it, that would quite satisfy you about it, even in the worst moments
of your distress.
Now you must go."
"But how can I go, if the waters are all about, and if the doors
all lead into other regions and other worlds?"
"This is not an island," she replied; "but is joined to the land
by a narrow neck; and for the door, I will lead you myself through
the right one."
She took my hand, and led me through the third door; whereupon
I found myself standing in the deep grassy turf on which I had
landed from the little boat, but upon the opposite side of the
cottage. She pointed out the direction I must take, to find the
isthmus and escape the rising waters.
Then putting her arms around me, she held me to her bosom; and
as I kissed her, I felt as if I were leaving my mother for the
first time, and could not help weeping bitterly. At length she
gently pushed me away, and with the words, "Go, my son, and do
something worth doing," turned back, and, entering the cottage,
closed the door behind her. I felt very desolate as I went.
CHAPTER XX
"Thou hadst no fame; that which thou didst like good
Was but thy appetite that swayed thy blood
For that time to the best; for as a blast
That through a house comes, usually doth cast
Things out of order, yet by chance may come
And blow some one thing to his proper room,
So did thy appetite, and not thy zeal,
Sway thee by chance to do some one thing well."
FLETCHER'S Faithful Shepherdess.
"The noble hart that harbours vertuous thought
And is with childe of glorious great intent,
Can never rest, until it forth have brought
Th' eternall brood of glorie excellent."
SPENSER, The Faerie Queene.
I had not gone very far before I felt that the turf beneath my
feet was soaked with the rising waters. But I reached the isthmus
in safety. It was rocky, and so much higher than the level of
the peninsula, that I had plenty of time to cross. I saw on each
side of me the water rising rapidly, altogether without wind,
or violent motion, or broken waves, but as if a slow strong fire
were glowing beneath it. Ascending a steep acclivity, I found
myself at last in an open, rocky country. After travelling for
some hours, as nearly in a straight line as I could, I arrived
at a lonely tower, built on the top of a little hill, which overlooked
the whole neighbouring country. As I approached, I heard the clang
of an anvil; and so rapid were the blows, that I despaired of
making myself heard till a pause in the work should ensue. It
was some minutes before a cessation took place; but when it did,
I knocked loudly, and had not long to wait; for, a moment after,
the door was partly opened by a noble-looking youth, half-undressed,
glowing with heat, and begrimed with the blackness of the forge.
In one hand he held a sword, so lately from the furnace that it
yet shone with a dull fire. As soon as he saw me, he threw the
door wide open, and standing aside, invited me very cordially
to enter. I did so; when he shut and bolted the door most carefully,
and then led the way inwards. He brought me into a rude hall,
which seemed to occupy almost the whole of the ground floor of
the little tower, and which I saw was now being used as a workshop.
A huge fire roared on the hearth, beside which was an anvil. By
the anvil stood, in similar undress, and in a waiting attitude,
hammer in hand, a second youth, tall as the former, but far more
slightly built. Reversing the usual course of perception in such
meetings, I thought them, at first sight, very unlike; and at
the second glance, knew that they were brothers. The former, and
apparently the elder, was muscular and dark, with curling hair,
and large hazel eyes, which sometimes grew wondrously soft. The
second was slender and fair, yet with a countenance like an eagle,
and an eye which, though pale blue, shone with an almost fierce
expression. He stood erect, as if looking from a lofty mountain
crag, over a vast plain outstretched below. As soon as we entered
the hall, the elder turned to me, and I saw that a glow of satisfaction
shone on both their faces. To my surprise and great pleasure,
he addressed me thus:
"Brother, will you sit by the fire and rest, till we finish this
part of our work?"
I signified my assent; and, resolved to await any disclosure they
might be inclined to make, seated myself in silence near the hearth.
The elder brother then laid the sword in the fire, covered it
well over, and when it had attained a sufficient degree of heat,
drew it out and laid it on the anvil, moving it carefully about,
while the younger, with a succession of quick smart blows, appeared
either to be welding it, or hammering one part of it to a consenting
shape with the rest. Having finished, they laid it carefully in
the fire; and, when it was very hot indeed, plunged it into a
vessel full of some liquid, whence a blue flame sprang upwards,
as the glowing steel entered.
There they left it; and drawing two stools to the fire, sat down,
one on each side of me.
"We are very glad to see you, brother. We have been expecting
you for some days," said the dark-haired youth.
"I am proud to be called your brother," I rejoined; "and you will
not think I refuse the name, if I desire to know why you honour
me with it?"
"Ah! then he does not know about it," said the younger. "We thought
you had known of the bond betwixt us, and the work we have to
do together. You must tell him, brother, from the first."
So the elder began:
"Our father is king of this country. Before we were born, three
giant brothers had appeared in the land. No one knew exactly when,
and no one had the least idea whence they came. They took possession
of a ruined castle that had stood unchanged and unoccupied within
the memory of any of the country people. The vaults of this castle
had remained uninjured by time, and these, I presume, they made
use of at first. They were rarely seen, and never offered the
least injury to any one; so that they were regarded in the neighbourhood
as at least perfectly harmless, if not rather benevolent beings.
But it began to be observed, that the old castle had assumed somehow
or other, no one knew when or how, a somewhat different look from
what it used to have. Not only were several breaches in the lower
part of the walls built up, but actually some of the battlements
which yet stood, had been repaired, apparently to prevent them
from falling into worse decay, while the more important parts
were being restored. Of course, every one supposed the giants
must have a hand in the work, but no one ever saw them engaged
in it. The peasants became yet more uneasy, after one, who had
concealed himself, and watched all night, in the neighbourhood
of the castle, reported that he had seen, in full moonlight, the
three huge giants working with might and main, all night long,
restoring to their former position some massive stones, formerly
steps of a grand turnpike stair, a great portion of which had
long since fallen, along with part of the wall of the round tower
in which it had been built. This wall they were completing, foot
by foot, along with the stair. But the people said they had no
just pretext for interfering: although the real reason for letting
the giants alone was, that everybody was far too much afraid of
them to interrupt them.
"At length, with the help of a neighbouring quarry, the whole
of the external wall of the castle was finished. And now the country
folks were in greater fear than before. But for several years
the giants remained very peaceful. The reason of this was afterwards
supposed to be the fact, that they were distantly related to several
good people in the country; for, as long as these lived, they
remained quiet; but as soon as they were all dead the real nature
of the giants broke out. Having completed the outside of their
castle, they proceeded, by spoiling the country houses around
them, to make a quiet luxurious provision for their comfort within.
Affairs reached such a pass, that the news of their robberies
came to my father's ears; but he, alas! was so crippled in his
resources, by a war he was carrying on with a neighbouring prince,
that he could only spare a very few men, to attempt the capture
of their stronghold. Upon these the giants issued in the night,
and slew every man of them. And now, grown bolder by success and
impunity, they no longer confined their depredations to property,
but began to seize the persons of their distinguished neighbours,
knights and ladies, and hold them in durance, the misery of which
was heightened by all manner of indignity, until they were redeemed
by their friends, at an exorbitant ransom. Many knights have adventured
their overthrow, but to their own instead; for they have all been
slain, or captured, or forced to make a hasty retreat. To crown
their enormities, if any man now attempts their destruction, they,
immediately upon his defeat, put one or more of their captives
to a shameful death, on a turret in sight of all passers-by; so
that they have been much less molested of late; and we, although
we have burned, for years, to attack these demons and destroy
them, dared not, for the sake of their captives, risk the adventure,
before we should have reached at least our earliest manhood. Now,
however, we are preparing for the attempt; and the grounds of
this preparation are these. Having only the resolution, and not
the experience necessary for the undertaking, we went and consulted
a lonely woman of wisdom, who lives not very far from here, in
the direction of the quarter from which you have come. She received
us most kindly, and gave us what seems to us the best of advice.
She first inquired what experience we had had in arms. We told
her we had been well exercised from our boyhood, and for some
years had kept ourselves in constant practice, with a view to
this necessity.
"`But you have not actually fought for life and death?' said she.
"We were forced to confess we had not.
"`So much the better in some respects,' she replied. `Now listen
to me. Go first and work with an armourer, for as long time as
you find needful to obtain a knowledge of his craft; which will
not be long, seeing your hearts will be all in the work. Then
go to some lonely tower, you two alone. Receive no visits from
man or woman. There forge for yourselves every piece of armour
that you wish to wear, or to use, in your coming encounter. And
keep up your exercises.
As, however, two of you can be no match for the three giants,
I will find you, if I can, a third brother, who will take on himself
the third share of the fight, and the preparation. Indeed, I have
already seen one who will, I think, be the very man for your fellowship,
but it will be some time before he comes to me. He is wandering
now without an aim. I will show him to you in a glass, and, when
he comes, you will know him at once. If he will share your endeavours,
you must teach him all you know, and he will repay you well, in
present song, and in future deeds.'
"She opened the door of a curious old cabinet that stood in the
room. On the inside of this door was an oval convex mirror. Looking
in it for some time, we at length saw reflected the place where
we stood, and the old dame seated in her chair. Our forms were
not reflected. But at the feet of the dame lay a young man, yourself,
weeping.
"`Surely this youth will not serve our ends,' said I, `for he
weeps.'
"The old woman smiled. `Past tears are present strength,' said
she.
"`Oh!' said my brother, `I saw you weep once over an eagle you
shot.'
"`That was because it was so like you, brother,' I replied; `but
indeed, this youth may have better cause for tears than that--I
was wrong.'
"`Wait a while,' said the woman; `if I mistake not, he will make
you weep till your tears are dry for ever. Tears are the only
cure for weeping. And you may have need of the cure, before you
go forth to fight the giants. You must wait for him, in your tower,
till he comes.'
"Now if you will join us, we will soon teach you to make your
armour; and we will fight together, and work together, and love
each other as never three loved before. And you will sing to us,
will you not?"
"That I will, when I can," I answered; "but it is only at times
that the power of song comes upon me. For that I must wait; but
I have a feeling that if I work well, song will not be far off
to enliven the labour."
This was all the compact made: the brothers required nothing more,
and I did not think of giving anything more. I rose, and threw
off my upper garments.
"I know the uses of the sword," I said. "I am ashamed of my white
hands beside yours so nobly soiled and hard; but that shame will
soon be wiped away."
"No, no; we will not work to-day. Rest is as needful as toil.
Bring the wine, brother; it is your turn to serve to-day."
The younger brother soon covered a table with rough viands, but
good wine; and we ate and drank heartily, beside our work. Before
the meal was over, I had learned all their story. Each had something
in his heart which made the conviction, that he would victoriously
perish in the coming conflict, a real sorrow to him. Otherwise
they thought they would have lived enough. The causes of their
trouble were respectively these:
While they wrought with an armourer, in a city famed for workmanship
in steel and silver, the elder had fallen in love with a lady
as far beneath him in real rank, as she was above the station
he had as apprentice to an armourer. Nor did he seek to further
his suit by discovering himself; but there was simply so much
manhood about him, that no one ever thought of rank when in his
company. This is what his brother said about it. The lady could
not help loving him in return. He told her when he left her, that
he had a perilous adventure before him, and that when it was achieved,
she would either see him return to claim her, or hear that he
had died with honour. The younger brother's grief arose from the
fact, that, if they were both slain, his old father, the king,
would be childless. His love for his father was so exceeding,
that to one unable to sympathise with it, it would have appeared
extravagant. Both loved him equally at heart; but the love of
the younger had been more developed, because his thoughts and
anxieties had not been otherwise occupied. When at home, he had
been his constant companion; and, of late, had ministered to the
infirmities of his growing age. The youth was never weary of listening
to the tales of his sire's youthful adventures; and had not yet
in the smallest degree lost the conviction, that his father was
the greatest man in the world. The grandest triumph possible to
his conception was, to return to his father, laden with the spoils
of one of the hated giants. But they both were in some dread,
lest the thought of the loneliness of these two might occur to
them, in the moment when decision was most necessary, and disturb,
in some degree, the self-possession requisite for the success
of their attempt. For, as I have said, they were yet untried in
actual conflict. "Now," thought I, "I see to what the powers of
my gift must minister." For my own part, I did not dread death,
for I had nothing to care to live for; but I dreaded the encounter
because of the responsibility connected with it. I resolved however
to work hard, and thus grow cool, and quick, and forceful.
The time passed away in work and song, in talk and ramble, in
friendly fight and brotherly aid. I would not forge for myself
armour of heavy mail like theirs, for I was not so powerful as
they, and depended more for any success I might secure, upon nimbleness
of motion, certainty of eye, and ready response of hand. Therefore
I began to make for myself a shirt of steel plates and rings;
which work, while more troublesome, was better suited to me than
the heavier labour. Much assistance did the brothers give me,
even after, by their instructions, I was able to make some progress
alone. Their work was in a moment abandoned, to render any required
aid to mine. As the old woman had promised, I tried to repay them
with song; and many were the tears they both shed over my ballads
and dirges. The songs they liked best to hear were two which I
made for them. They were not half so good as many others I knew,
especially some I had learned from the wise woman in the cottage;
but what comes nearest to our needs we like the best.
I The king sat on his throne
Glowing in gold and red;
The crown in his right hand shone,
And the gray hairs crowned his head.
His only son walks in,
And in walls of steel he stands:
Make me, O father, strong to win,
With the blessing of holy hands."
He knelt before his sire,
Who blessed him with feeble smile
His eyes shone out with a kingly fire,
But his old lips quivered the while.
"Go to the fight, my son,
Bring back the giant's head;
And the crown with which my brows have done,
Shall glitter on thine instead."
"My father, I seek no crowns,
But unspoken praise from thee;
For thy people's good, and thy renown,
I will die to set them free."
The king sat down and waited there,
And rose not, night nor day;
Till a sound of shouting filled the air,
And cries of a sore dismay.
Then like a king he sat once more,
With the crown upon his head;
And up to the throne the people bore
A mighty giant dead.
And up to the throne the people bore
A pale and lifeless boy.
The king rose up like a prophet of yore,
In a lofty, deathlike joy.
He put the crown on the chilly brow:
"Thou should'st have reigned with me
But Death is the king of both, and now
I go to obey with thee.
"Surely some good in me there lay,
To beget the noble one."
The old man smiled like a winter day,
And fell beside his son.
II "O lady, thy lover is dead," they cried;
"He is dead, but hath slain the foe;
He hath left his name to be magnified
In a song of wonder and woe."
"Alas! I am well repaid," said she,
"With a pain that stings like joy:
For I feared, from his tenderness to me,
That he was but a feeble boy.
"Now I shall hold my head on high,
The queen among my kind;
If ye hear a sound, 'tis only a sigh
For a glory left behind."
The first three times I sang these songs they both wept passionately.
But after the third time, they wept no more. Their eyes shone,
and their faces grew pale, but they never wept at any of my songs
again.
CHAPTER XXI
"I put my life in my hands."--The Book of Judges.
At length, with much toil and equal delight, our armour was finished.
We armed each other, and tested the strength of the defence, with
many blows of loving force. I was inferior in strength to both
my brothers, but a little more agile than either; and upon this
agility, joined to precision in hitting with the point of my weapon,
I grounded my hopes of success in the ensuing combat. I likewise
laboured to develop yet more the keenness of sight with which
I was naturally gifted; and, from the remarks of my companions,
I soon learned that my endeavours were not in vain.
The morning arrived on which we had determined to make the attempt,
and succeed or perish--perhaps both. We had resolved to fight
on foot; knowing that the mishap of many of the knights who had
made the attempt, had resulted from the fright of their horses
at the appearance of the giants; and believing with Sir Gawain,
that, though mare's sons might be false to us, the earth would
never prove a traitor. But most of our preparations were, in their
immediate aim at least, frustrated.
We rose, that fatal morning, by daybreak. We had rested from all
labour the day before, and now were fresh as the lark. We bathed
in cold spring water, and dressed ourselves in clean garments,
with a sense of preparation, as for a solemn festivity. When we
had broken our fast, I took an old lyre, which I had found in
the tower and had myself repaired, and sung for the last time
the two ballads of which I have said so much already. I followed
them with this, for a closing song:
Oh, well for him who breaks his dream
With the blow that ends the strife
And, waking, knows the peace that flows
Around the pain of life!
We are dead, my brothers! Our bodies clasp,
As an armour, our souls about;
This hand is the battle-axe I grasp,
And this my hammer stout.
Fear not, my brothers, for we are dead;
No noise can break our rest;
The calm of the grave is about the head,
And the heart heaves not the breast.
And our life we throw to our people back,
To live with, a further store;
We leave it them, that there be no lack
In the land where we live no more.
Oh, well for him who breaks his dream
With the blow that ends the strife
And, waking, knows the peace that flows
Around the noise of life!
As the last few tones of the instrument were following, like a
dirge, the death of the song, we all sprang to our feet. For,
through one of the little windows of the tower, towards which
I had looked as I sang, I saw, suddenly rising over the edge of
the slope on which our tower stood, three enormous heads. The
brothers knew at once, by my looks, what caused my sudden movement.
We were utterly unarmed, and there was no time to arm.
But we seemed to adopt the same resolution simultaneously; for
each caught up his favourite weapon, and, leaving his defence
behind, sprang to the door. I snatched up a long rapier, abruptly,
but very finely pointed, in my sword-hand, and in the other a
sabre; the elder brother seized his heavy battle-axe; and the
younger, a great, two-handed sword, which he wielded in one hand
like a feather. We had just time to get clear of the tower, embrace
and say good-bye, and part to some little distance, that we might
not encumber each other's motions, ere the triple giant-brotherhood
drew near to attack us. They were about twice our height, and
armed to the teeth. Through the visors of their helmets their
monstrous eyes shone with a horrible ferocity. I was in the middle
position, and the middle giant approached me. My eyes were busy
with his armour, and I was not a moment in settling my mode of
attack. I saw that his body- armour was somewhat clumsily made,
and that the overlappings in the lower part had more play than
necessary; and I hoped that, in a fortunate moment, some joint
would open a little, in a visible and accessible part. I stood
till he came near enough to aim a blow at me with the mace, which
has been, in all ages, the favourite weapon of giants, when, of
course, I leaped aside, and let the blow fall upon the spot where
I had been standing. I expected this would strain the joints of
his armour yet more. Full of fury, he made at me again; but I
kept him busy, constantly eluding his blows, and hoping thus to
fatigue him. He did not seem to fear any assault from me, and
I attempted none as yet; but while I watched his motions in order
to avoid his blows, I, at the same time, kept equal watch upon
those joints of his armour, through some one of which I hoped
to reach his life. At length, as if somewhat fatigued, he paused
a moment, and drew himself slightly up; I bounded forward, foot
and hand, ran my rapier right through to the armour of his back,
let go the hilt, and passing under his right arm, turned as he
fell, and flew at him with my sabre. At one happy blow I divided
the band of his helmet, which fell off, and allowed me, with a
second cut across the eyes, to blind him quite; after which I
clove his head, and turned, uninjured, to see how my brothers
had fared. Both the giants were down, but so were my brothers.
I flew first to the one and then to the other couple. Both pairs
of combatants were dead, and yet locked together, as in the death-struggle.
The elder had buried his battle-axe in the body of his foe, and
had fallen beneath him as he fell. The giant had strangled him
in his own death-agonies. The younger had nearly hewn off the
left leg of his enemy; and, grappled with in the act, had, while
they rolled together on the earth, found for his dagger a passage
betwixt the gorget and cuirass of the giant, and stabbed him mortally
in the throat. The blood from the giant's throat was yet pouring
over the hand of his foe, which still grasped the hilt of the
dagger sheathed in the wound. They lay silent. I, the least worthy,
remained the sole survivor in the lists.
As I stood exhausted amidst the dead, after the first worthy deed
of my life, I suddenly looked behind me, and there lay the Shadow,
black in the sunshine. I went into the lonely tower, and there
lay the useless armour of the noble youths--supine as they.
Ah, how sad it looked! It was a glorious death, but it was death.
My songs could not comfort me now. I was almost ashamed that I
was alive, when they, the true-hearted, were no more. And yet
I breathed freer to think that I had gone through the trial, and
had not failed. And perhaps I may be forgiven, if some feelings
of pride arose in my bosom, when I looked down on the mighty form
that lay dead by my hand.
"After all, however," I said to myself, and my heart sank, "it
was only skill. Your giant was but a blunderer."
I left the bodies of friends and foes, peaceful enough when the
death- fight was over, and, hastening to the country below, roused
the peasants. They came with shouting and gladness, bringing waggons
to carry the bodies. I resolved to take the princes home to their
father, each as he lay, in the arms of his country's foe. But
first I searched the giants, and found the keys of their castle,
to which I repaired, followed by a great company of the people.
It was a place of wonderful strength. I released the prisoners,
knights and ladies, all in a sad condition, from the cruelties
and neglects of the giants. It humbled me to see them crowding
round me with thanks, when in truth the glorious brothers, lying
dead by their lonely tower, were those to whom the thanks belonged.
I had but aided in carrying out the thought born in their brain,
and uttered in visible form before ever I laid hold thereupon.
Yet I did count myself happy to have been chosen for their brother
in this great dead.
After a few hours spent in refreshing and clothing the prisoners,
we all commenced our journey towards the capital. This was slow
at first; but, as the strength and spirits of the prisoners returned,
it became more rapid; and in three days we reached the palace
of the king. As we entered the city gates, with the huge bulks
lying each on a waggon drawn by horses, and two of them inextricably
intertwined with the dead bodies of their princes, the people
raised a shout and then a cry, and followed in multitudes the
solemn procession.
I will not attempt to describe the behaviour of the grand old
king. Joy and pride in his sons overcame his sorrow at their loss.
On me he heaped every kindness that heart could devise or hand
execute. He used to sit and question me, night after night, about
everything that was in any way connected with them and their preparations.
Our mode of life, and relation to each other, during the time
we spent together, was a constant theme. He entered into the minutest
details of the construction of the armour, even to a peculiar
mode of riveting some of the plates, with unwearying interest.
This armour I had intended to beg of the king, as my sole memorials
of the contest; but, when I saw the delight he took in contemplating
it, and the consolation it appeared to afford him in his sorrow,
I could not ask for it; but, at his request, left my own, weapons
and all, to be joined with theirs in a trophy, erected in the
grand square of the palace. The king, with gorgeous ceremony,
dubbed me knight with his own old hand, in which trembled the
sword of his youth.
During the short time I remained, my company was, naturally, much
courted by the young nobles. I was in a constant round of gaiety
and diversion, notwithstanding that the court was in mourning.
For the country was so rejoiced at the death of the giants, and
so many of their lost friends had been restored to the nobility
and men of wealth, that the gladness surpassed the grief. "Ye
have indeed left your lives to your people, my great brothers!"
I said.
But I was ever and ever haunted by the old shadow, which I had
not seen all the time that I was at work in the tower. Even in
the society of the ladies of the court, who seemed to think it
only their duty to make my stay there as pleasant to me as possible,
I could not help being conscious of its presence, although it
might not be annoying me at the time. At length, somewhat weary
of uninterrupted pleasure, and nowise strengthened thereby, either
in body or mind, I put on a splendid suit of armour of steel inlaid
with silver, which the old king had given me, and, mounting the
horse on which it had been brought to me, took my leave of the
palace, to visit the distant city in which the lady dwelt, whom
the elder prince had loved. I anticipated a sore task, in conveying
to her the news of his glorious fate: but this trial was spared
me, in a manner as strange as anything that had happened to me
in Fairy Land.
CHAPTER XXII
"No one has my form but the I."
Schoppe, in JEAN PAUL'S Titan.
"Joy's a subtil elf.
I think man's happiest when he forgets himself."
CYRIL TOURNEUR, The Revenger's Tragedy.
On the third day of my journey, I was riding gently along a road,
apparently little frequented, to judge from the grass that grew
upon it. I was approaching a forest. Everywhere in Fairy Land
forests are the places where one may most certainly expect adventures.
As I drew near, a youth, unarmed, gentle, and beautiful, who had
just cut a branch from a yew growing on the skirts of the wood,
evidently to make himself a bow, met me, and thus accosted me:
"Sir knight, be careful as thou ridest through this forest; for
it is said to be strangely enchanted, in a sort which even those
who have been witnesses of its enchantment can hardly describe."
I thanked him for his advice, which I promised to follow, and
rode on. But the moment I entered the wood, it seemed to me that,
if enchantment there was, it must be of a good kind; for the Shadow,
which had been more than usually dark and distressing, since I
had set out on this journey, suddenly disappeared. I felt a wonderful
elevation of spirits, and began to reflect on my past life, and
especially on my combat with the giants, with such satisfaction,
that I had actually to remind myself, that I had only killed one
of them; and that, but for the brothers, I should never have had
the idea of attacking them, not to mention the smallest power
of standing to it. Still I rejoiced, and counted myself amongst
the glorious knights of old; having even the unspeakable presumption--my
shame and self- condemnation at the memory of it are such, that
I write it as the only and sorest penance I can perform--to think
of myself (will the world believe it?) as side by side with Sir
Galahad! Scarcely had the thought been born in my mind, when,
approaching me from the left, through the trees, I espied a resplendent
knight, of mighty size, whose armour seemed to shine of itself,
without the sun. When he drew near, I was astonished to see that
this armour was like my own; nay, I could trace, line for line,
the correspondence of the inlaid silver to the device on my own.
His horse, too, was like mine in colour, form, and motion; save
that, like his rider, he was greater and fiercer than his counterpart.
The knight rode with beaver up. As he halted right opposite to
me in the narrow path, barring my way, I saw the reflection of
my countenance in the centre plate of shining steel on his breastplate.
Above it rose the same face--his face--only, as I have said, larger
and fiercer. I was bewildered. I could not help feeling some admiration
of him, but it was mingled with a dim conviction that he was evil,
and that I ought to fight with him.
"Let me pass," I said.
"When I will," he replied.
Something within me said: "Spear in rest, and ride at him! else
thou art for ever a slave."
I tried, but my arm trembled so much, that I could not couch my
lance. To tell the truth, I, who had overcome the giant, shook
like a coward before this knight. He gave a scornful laugh, that
echoed through the wood, turned his horse, and said, without looking
round, "Follow me."
I obeyed, abashed and stupefied. How long he led, and how long
I followed, I cannot tell. "I never knew misery before," I said
to myself. "Would that I had at least struck him, and had had
my death- blow in return! Why, then, do I not call to him to wheel
and defend himself? Alas! I know not why, but I cannot. One look
from him would cow me like a beaten hound." I followed, and was
silent.
At length we came to a dreary square tower, in the middle of a
dense forest. It looked as if scarce a tree had been cut down
to make room for it. Across the very door, diagonally, grew the
stem of a tree, so large that there was just room to squeeze past
it in order to enter. One miserable square hole in the roof was
the only visible suggestion of a window. Turret or battlement,
or projecting masonry of any kind, it had none. Clear and smooth
and massy, it rose from its base, and ended with a line straight
and unbroken. The roof, carried to a centre from each of the four
walls, rose slightly to the point where the rafters met. Round
the base lay several little heaps of either bits of broken branches,
withered and peeled, or half- whitened bones; I could not distinguish
which. As I approached, the ground sounded hollow beneath my horse's
hoofs. The knight took a great key from his pocket, and reaching
past the stem of the tree, with some difficulty opened the door.
"Dismount," he commanded. I obeyed. He turned my horse's head
away from the tower, gave him a terrible blow with the flat side
of his sword, and sent him madly tearing through the forest.
"Now," said he, "enter, and take your companion with you."
I looked round: knight and horse had vanished, and behind me lay
the horrible shadow. I entered, for I could not help myself; and
the shadow followed me. I had a terrible conviction that the knight
and he were one. The door closed behind me.
Now I was indeed in pitiful plight. There was literally nothing
in the tower but my shadow and me. The walls rose right up to
the roof; in which, as I had seen from without, there was one
little square opening. This I now knew to be the only window the
tower possessed. I sat down on the floor, in listless wretchedness.
I think I must have fallen asleep, and have slept for hours; for
I suddenly became aware of existence, in observing that the moon
was shining through the hole in the roof. As she rose higher and
higher, her light crept down the wall over me, till at last it
shone right upon my head. Instantaneously the walls of the tower
seemed to vanish away like a mist. I sat beneath a beech, on the
edge of a forest, and the open country lay, in the moonlight,
for miles and miles around me, spotted with glimmering houses
and spires and towers. I thought with myself, "Oh, joy! it was
only a dream; the horrible narrow waste is gone, and I wake beneath
a beech-tree, perhaps one that loves me, and I can go where I
will." I rose, as I thought, and walked about, and did what I
would, but ever kept near the tree; for always, and, of course,
since my meeting with the woman of the beech-tree far more than
ever, I loved that tree. So the night wore on. I waited for the
sun to rise, before I could venture to renew my journey. But as
soon as the first faint light of the dawn appeared, instead of
shining upon me from the eye of the morning, it stole like a fainting
ghost through the little square hole above my head; and the walls
came out as the light grew, and the glorious night was swallowed
up of the hateful day. The long dreary day passed. My shadow lay
black on the floor. I felt no hunger, no need of food. The night
came. The moon shone. I watched her light slowly descending the
wall, as I might have watched, adown the sky, the long, swift
approach of a helping angel. Her rays touched me, and I was free.
Thus night after night passed away. I should have died but for
this. Every night the conviction returned, that I was free. Every
morning I sat wretchedly disconsolate. At length, when the course
of the moon no longer permitted her beams to touch me, the night
was dreary as the day.
When I slept, I was somewhat consoled by my dreams; but all the
time I dreamed, I knew that I was only dreaming. But one night,
at length, the moon, a mere shred of pallor, scattered a few thin
ghostly rays upon me; and I think I fell asleep and dreamed. I
sat in an autumn night before the vintage, on a hill overlooking
my own castle. My heart sprang with joy. Oh, to be a child again,
innocent, fearless, without shame or desire! I walked down to
the castle. All were in consternation at my absence. My sisters
were weeping for my loss. They sprang up and clung to me, with
incoherent cries, as I entered. My old friends came flocking round
me. A gray light shone on the roof of the hall. It was the light
of the dawn shining through the square window of my tower. More
earnestly than ever, I longed for freedom after this dream; more
drearily than ever, crept on the next wretched day. I measured
by the sunbeams, caught through the little window in the trap
of my tower, how it went by, waiting only for the dreams of the
night.
About noon, I started as if something foreign to all my senses
and all my experience, had suddenly invaded me; yet it was only
the voice of a woman singing. My whole frame quivered with joy,
surprise, and the sensation of the unforeseen. Like a living soul,
like an incarnation of Nature, the song entered my prison-house.
Each tone folded its wings, and laid itself, like a caressing
bird, upon my heart. It bathed me like a sea; inwrapt me like
an odorous vapour; entered my soul like a long draught of clear
spring-water; shone upon me like essential sunlight; soothed me
like a mother's voice and hand. Yet, as the clearest forest-well
tastes sometimes of the bitterness of decayed leaves, so to my
weary, prisoned heart, its cheerfulness had a sting of cold, and
its tenderness unmanned me with the faintness of long-departed
joys. I wept half-bitterly, half-luxuriously; but not long. I
dashed away the tears, ashamed of a weakness which I thought I
had abandoned. Ere I knew, I had walked to the door, and seated
myself with my ears against it, in order to catch every syllable
of the revelation from the unseen outer world. And now I heard
each word distinctly. The singer seemed to be standing or sitting
near the tower, for the sounds indicated no change of place. The
song was something like this:
The sun, like a golden knot on high,
Gathers the glories of the sky,
And binds them into a shining tent,
Roofing the world with the firmament.
And through the pavilion the rich winds blow,
And through the pavilion the waters go.
And the birds for joy, and the trees for prayer,
Bowing their heads in the sunny air,
And for thoughts, the gently talking springs,
That come from the centre with secret things--
All make a music, gentle and strong,
Bound by the heart into one sweet song.
And amidst them all, the mother Earth
Sits with the children of her birth;
She tendeth them all, as a mother hen
Her little ones round her, twelve or ten:
Oft she sitteth, with hands on knee,
Idle with love for her family.
Go forth to her from the dark and the dust,
And weep beside her, if weep thou must;
If she may not hold thee to her breast,
Like a weary infant, that cries for rest
At least she will press thee to her knee,
And tell a low, sweet tale to thee,
Till the hue to thy cheeky and the light to thine eye,
Strength to thy limbs, and courage high
To thy fainting heart, return amain,
And away to work thou goest again.
From the narrow desert, O man of pride,
Come into the house, so high and wide.
Hardly knowing what I did, I opened the door. Why had I not done
so before? I do not know.
At first I could see no one; but when I had forced myself past
the tree which grew across the entrance, I saw, seated on the
ground, and leaning against the tree, with her back to my prison,
a beautiful woman. Her countenance seemed known to me, and yet
unknown. She looked at me and smiled, when I made my appearance.
"Ah! were you the prisoner there? I am very glad I have wiled
you out."
"Do you know me then?" "Do you not know me? But you hurt me, and
that, I suppose, makes it easy for a man to forget. You broke
my globe. Yet I thank you. Perhaps I owe you many thanks for breaking
it. I took the pieces, all black, and wet with crying over them,
to the Fairy Queen. There was no music and no light in them now.
But she took them from me, and laid them aside; and made me go
to sleep in a great hall of white, with black pillars, and many
red curtains. When I woke in the morning, I went to her, hoping
to have my globe again, whole and sound; but she sent me away
without it, and I have not seen it since. Nor do I care for it
now. I have something so much better. I do not need the globe
to play to me; for I can sing. I could not sing at all before.
Now I go about everywhere through Fairy Land, singing till my
heart is like to break, just like my globe, for very joy at my
own songs. And wherever I go, my songs do good, and deliver people.
And now I have delivered you, and I am so happy."
She ceased, and the tears came into her eyes.
All this time, I had been gazing at her; and now fully recognised
the face of the child, glorified in the countenance of the woman.
I was ashamed and humbled before her; but a great weight was lifted
from my thoughts. I knelt before her, and thanked her, and begged
her to forgive me.
"Rise, rise," she said; "I have nothing to forgive; I thank you.
But now I must be gone, for I do not know how many may be waiting
for me, here and there, through the dark forests; and they cannot
come out till I come."
She rose, and with a smile and a farewell, turned and left me.
I dared not ask her to stay; in fact, I could hardly speak to
her. Between her and me, there was a great gulf. She was uplifted,
by sorrow and well-doing, into a region I could hardly hope ever
to enter. I watched her departure, as one watches a sunset. She
went like a radiance through the dark wood, which was henceforth
bright to me, from simply knowing that such a creature was in
it.
She was bearing the sun to the unsunned spots. The light and the
music of her broken globe were now in her heart and her brain.
As she went, she sang; and I caught these few words of her song;
and the tones seemed to linger and wind about the trees after
she had disappeared:
Thou goest thine, and I go mine--
Many ways we wend;
Many days, and many ways,
Ending in one end.
Many a wrong, and its curing song;
Many a road, and many an inn;
Room to roam, but only one home
For all the world to win.
And so she vanished. With a sad heart, soothed by humility, and
the knowledge of her peace and gladness, I bethought me what now
I should do. First, I must leave the tower far behind me, lest,
in some evil moment, I might be once more caged within its horrible
walls. But it was ill walking in my heavy armour; and besides
I had now no right to the golden spurs and the resplendent mail,
fitly dulled with long neglect. I might do for a squire; but I
honoured knighthood too highly, to call myself any longer one
of the noble brotherhood. I stripped off all my armour, piled
it under the tree, just where the lady had been seated, and took
my unknown way, eastward through the woods. Of all my weapons,
I carried only a short axe in my hand.
Then first I knew the delight of being lowly; of saying to myself,
"I am what I am, nothing more." "I have failed," I said, "I have
lost myself--would it had been my shadow." I looked round: the
shadow was nowhere to be seen. Ere long, I learned that it was
not myself, but only my shadow, that I had lost. I learned that
it is better, a thousand-fold, for a proud man to fall and be
humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence.
I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that
he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his
manhood. In nothing was my ideal lowered, or dimmed, or grown
less precious; I only saw it too plainly, to set myself for a
moment beside it. Indeed, my ideal soon became my life; whereas,
formerly, my life had consisted in a vain attempt to behold, if
not my ideal in myself, at least myself in my ideal. Now, however,
I took, at first, what perhaps was a mistaken pleasure, in despising
and degrading myself. Another self seemed to arise, like a white
spirit from a dead man, from the dumb and trampled self of the
past. Doubtless, this self must again die and be buried, and again,
from its tomb, spring a winged child; but of this my history as
yet bears not the record.
Self will come to life even in the slaying of self; but there
is ever something deeper and stronger than it, which will emerge
at last from the unknown abysses of the soul: will it be as a
solemn gloom, burning with eyes? or a clear morning after the
rain? or a smiling child, that finds itself nowhere, and everywhere?
CHAPTER XXIII
"High erected thought, seated in a heart of courtesy."
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.
"A sweet attractive kinde of grace,
A full assurance given by lookes,
Continuall comfort in a face,
The lineaments of Gospel bookes."
MATTHEW ROYDON, on Sir Philip Sidney.
I had not gone far, for I had but just lost sight of the hated
tower, when a voice of another sort, sounding near or far, as
the trees permitted or intercepted its passage, reached me. It
was a full, deep, manly voice, but withal clear and melodious.
Now it burst on the ear with a sudden swell, and anon, dying away
as suddenly, seemed to come to me across a great space. Nevertheless,
it drew nearer; till, at last, I could distinguish the words of
the song, and get transient glimpses of the singer, between the
columns of the trees. He came nearer, dawning upon me like a growing
thought. He was a knight, armed from head to heel, mounted upon
a strange-looking beast, whose form I could not understand. The
words which I heard him sing were like these:
Heart be stout,
And eye be true;
Good blade out!
And ill shall rue.
Courage, horse!
Thou lackst no skill;
Well thy force
Hath matched my will.
For the foe
With fiery breath,
At a blow,
It still in death.
Gently, horse!
Tread fearlessly;
'Tis his corse
That burdens thee.
The sun's eye
Is fierce at noon;
Thou and I
Will rest full soon.
And new strength
New work will meet;
Till, at length,
Long rest is sweet.
And now horse and rider had arrived near enough for me to see,
fastened by the long neck to the hinder part of the saddle, and
trailing its hideous length on the ground behind, the body of
a great dragon. It was no wonder that, with such a drag at his
heels, the horse could make but slow progress, notwithstanding
his evident dismay. The horrid, serpent-like head, with its black
tongue, forked with red, hanging out of its jaws, dangled against
the horse's side. Its neck was covered with long blue hair, its
sides with scales of green and gold. Its back was of corrugated
skin, of a purple hue. Its belly was similar in nature, but its
colour was leaden, dashed with blotches of livid blue. Its skinny,
bat-like wings and its tail were of a dull gray. It was strange
to see how so many gorgeous colours, so many curving lines, and
such beautiful things as wings and hair and scales, combined to
form the horrible creature, intense in ugliness.
The knight was passing me with a salutation; but, as I walked
towards him, he reined up, and I stood by his stirrup. When I
came near him, I saw to my surprise and pleasure likewise, although
a sudden pain, like a birth of fire, sprang up in my heart, that
it was the knight of the soiled armour, whom I knew before, and
whom I had seen in the vision, with the lady of the marble. But
I could have thrown my arms around him, because she loved him.
This discovery only strengthened the resolution I had formed,
before I recognised him, of offering myself to the knight, to
wait upon him as a squire, for he seemed to be unattended. I made
my request in as few words as possible. He hesitated for a moment,
and looked at me thoughtfully. I saw that he suspected who I was,
but that he continued uncertain of his suspicion. No doubt he
was soon convinced of its truth; but all the time I was with him,
not a word crossed his lips with reference to what he evidently
concluded I wished to leave unnoticed, if not to keep concealed.
"Squire and knight should be friends,"said he: "can you take me
by the hand?" And he held out the great gauntleted right hand.
I grasped it willingly and strongly. Not a word more was said.
The knight gave the sign to his horse, which again began his slow
march, and I walked beside and a little behind.
We had not gone very far before we arrived at a little cottage;
from which, as we drew near, a woman rushed out with the cry:
"My child! my child! have you found my child?"
"I have found her," replied the knight, "but she is sorely hurt.
I was forced to leave her with the hermit, as I returned. You
will find her there, and I think she will get better. You see
I have brought you a present. This wretch will not hurt you again."
And he undid the creature's neck, and flung the frightful burden
down by the cottage door.
The woman was now almost out of sight in the wood; but the husband
stood at the door, with speechless thanks in his face.
"You must bury the monster," said the knight. "If I had arrived
a moment later, I should have been too late. But now you need
not fear, for such a creature as this very rarely appears, in
the same part, twice during a lifetime."
"Will you not dismount and rest you, Sir Knight?" said the peasant,
who had, by this time, recovered himself a little.
"That I will, thankfully," said he; and, dismounting, he gave
the reins to me, and told me to unbridle the horse, and lead him
into the shade. "You need not tie him up," he added; "he will
not run away."
When I returned, after obeying his orders, and entered the cottage,
I saw the knight seated, without his helmet, and talking most
familiarly with the simple host. I stood at the open door for
a moment, and, gazing at him, inwardly justified the white lady
in preferring him to me. A nobler countenance I never saw. Loving-kindness
beamed from every line of his face. It seemed as if he would repay
himself for the late arduous combat, by indulging in all the gentleness
of a womanly heart. But when the talk ceased for a moment, he
seemed to fall into a reverie. Then the exquisite curves of the
upper lip vanished. The lip was lengthened and compressed at the
same moment. You could have told that, within the lips, the teeth
were firmly closed. The whole face grew stern and determined,
all but fierce; only the eyes burned on like a holy sacrifice,
uplift on a granite rock.
The woman entered, with her mangled child in her arms. She was
pale as her little burden. She gazed, with a wild love and despairing
tenderness, on the still, all but dead face, white and clear from
loss of blood and terror.
The knight rose. The light that had been confined to his eyes,
now shone from his whole countenance. He took the little thing
in his arms, and, with the mother's help, undressed her, and looked
to her wounds. The tears flowed down his face as he did so. With
tender hands he bound them up, kissed the pale cheek, and gave
her back to her mother. When he went home, all his tale would
be of the grief and joy of the parents; while to me, who had looked
on, the gracious countenance of the armed man, beaming from the
panoply of steel, over the seemingly dead child, while the powerful
hands turned it and shifted it, and bound it, if possible even
more gently than the mother's, formed the centre of the story.
After we had partaken of the best they could give us, the knight
took his leave, with a few parting instructions to the mother
as to how she should treat the child.
I brought the knight his steed, held the stirrup while he mounted,
and then followed him through the wood. The horse, delighted to
be free of his hideous load, bounded beneath the weight of man
and armour, and could hardly be restrained from galloping on.
But the knight made him time his powers to mine, and so we went
on for an hour or two. Then the knight dismounted, and compelled
me to get into the saddle, saying: "Knight and squire must share
the labour."
Holding by the stirrup, he walked along by my side, heavily clad
as he was, with apparent ease. As we went, he led a conversation,
in which I took what humble part my sense of my condition would
permit me.
"Somehow or other," said he, "notwithstanding the beauty of this
country of Faerie, in which we are, there is much that is wrong
in it. If there are great splendours, there are corresponding
horrors; heights and depths; beautiful women and awful fiends;
noble men and weaklings. All a man has to do, is to better what
he can. And if he will settle it with himself, that even renown
and success are in themselves of no great value, and be content
to be defeated, if so be that the fault is not his; and so go
to his work with a cool brain and a strong will, he will get it
done; and fare none the worse in the end, that he was not burdened
with provision and precaution."
"But he will not always come off well," I ventured to say.
"Perhaps not," rejoined the knight, "in the individual act; but
the result of his lifetime will content him."
"So it will fare with you, doubtless," thought I; "but for me---"
Venturing to resume the conversation after a pause, I said, hesitatingly:
"May I ask for what the little beggar-girl wanted your aid, when
she came to your castle to find you?"
He looked at me for a moment in silence, and then said--
"I cannot help wondering how you know of that; but there is something
about you quite strange enough to entitle you to the privilege
of the country; namely, to go unquestioned. I, however, being
only a man, such as you see me, am ready to tell you anything
you like to ask me, as far as I can. The little beggar-girl came
into the hall where I was sitting, and told me a very curious
story, which I can only recollect very vaguely, it was so peculiar.
What I can recall is, that she was sent to gather wings. As soon
as she had gathered a pair of wings for herself, she was to fly
away, she said, to the country she came from; but where that was,
she could give no information.
She said she had to beg her wings from the butterflies and moths;
and wherever she begged, no one refused her. But she needed a
great many of the wings of butterflies and moths to make a pair
for her; and so she had to wander about day after day, looking
for butterflies, and night after night, looking for moths; and
then she begged for their wings. But the day before, she had come
into a part of the forest, she said, where there were multitudes
of splendid butterflies flitting about, with wings which were
just fit to make the eyes in the shoulders of hers; and she knew
she could have as many of them as she liked for the asking; but
as soon as she began to beg, there came a great creature right
up to her, and threw her down, and walked over her. When she got
up, she saw the wood was full of these beings stalking about,
and seeming to have nothing to do with each other. As soon as
ever she began to beg, one of them walked over her; till at last
in dismay, and in growing horror of the senseless creatures, she
had run away to look for somebody to help her. I asked her what
they were like. She said, like great men, made of wood, without
knee- or elbow-joints, and without any noses or mouths or eyes
in their faces. I laughed at the little maiden, thinking she was
making child's game of me; but, although she burst out laughing
too, she persisted in asserting the truth of her story.
"`Only come, knight, come and see; I will lead you.'
"So I armed myself, to be ready for anything that might happen,
and followed the child; for, though I could make nothing of her
story, I could see she was a little human being in need of some
help or other. As she walked before me, I looked attentively at
her. Whether or not it was from being so often knocked down and
walked over, I could not tell, but her clothes were very much
torn, and in several places her white skin was peeping through.
I thought she was hump-backed; but on looking more closely, I
saw, through the tatters of her frock--do not laugh at me--a bunch
on each shoulder, of the most gorgeous colours. Looking yet more
closely, I saw that they were of the shape of folded wings, and
were made of all kinds of butterfly-wings and moth-wings, crowded
together like the feathers on the individual butterfly pinion;
but, like them, most beautifully arranged, and producing a perfect
harmony of colour and shade. I could now more easily believe the
rest of her story; especially as I saw, every now and then, a
certain heaving motion in the wings, as if they longed to be uplifted
and outspread. But beneath her scanty garments complete wings
could not be concealed, and indeed, from her own story, they were
yet unfinished.
"After walking for two or three hours (how the little girl found
her way, I could not imagine), we came to a part of the forest,
the very air of which was quivering with the motions of multitudes
of resplendent butterflies; as gorgeous in colour, as if the eyes
of peacocks' feathers had taken to flight, but of infinite variety
of hue and form, only that the appearance of some kind of eye
on each wing predominated. `There they are, there they are!' cried
the child, in a tone of victory mingled with terror. Except for
this tone, I should have thought she referred to the butterflies,
for I could see nothing else. But at that moment an enormous butterfly,
whose wings had great eyes of blue surrounded by confused cloudy
heaps of more dingy colouring, just like a break in the clouds
on a stormy day towards evening, settled near us. The child instantly
began murmuring: `Butterfly, butterfly, give me your wings'; when,
the moment after, she fell to the ground, and began crying as
if hurt. I drew my sword and heaved a great blow in the direction
in which the child had fallen. It struck something, and instantly
the most grotesque imitation of a man became visible. You see
this Fairy Land is full of oddities and all sorts of incredibly
ridiculous things, which a man is compelled to meet and treat
as real existences, although all the time he feels foolish for
doing so. This being, if being it could be called, was like a
block of wood roughly hewn into the mere outlines of a man; and
hardly so, for it had but head, body, legs, and arms-- the head
without a face, and the limbs utterly formless. I had hewn off
one of its legs, but the two portions moved on as best they could,
quite independent of each other; so that I had done no good. I
ran after it, and clove it in twain from the head downwards; but
it could not be convinced that its vocation was not to walk over
people; for, as soon as the little girl began her begging again,
all three parts came bustling up; and if I had not interposed
my weight between her and them, she would have been trampled again
under them. I saw that something else must be done. If the wood
was full of the creatures, it would be an endless work to chop
them so small that they could do no injury; and then, besides,
the parts would be so numerous, that the butterflies would be
in danger from the drift of flying chips. I served this one so,
however; and then told the girl to beg again, and point out the
direction in which one was coming. I was glad to find, however,
that I could now see him myself, and wondered how they could have
been invisible before. I would not allow him to walk over the
child; but while I kept him off, and she began begging again,
another appeared; and it was all I could do, from the weight of
my armour, to protect her from the stupid, persevering efforts
of the two. But suddenly the right plan occurred to me. I tripped
one of them up, and, taking him by the legs, set him up on his
head, with his heels against a tree. I was delighted to find he
could not move.
Meantime the poor child was walked over by the other, but it was
for the last time. Whenever one appeared, I followed the same
plan-- tripped him up and set him on his head; and so the little
beggar was able to gather her wings without any trouble, which
occupation she continued for several hours in my company."
"What became of her?" I asked.
"I took her home with me to my castle, and she told me all her
story; but it seemed to me, all the time, as if I were hearing
a child talk in its sleep. I could not arrange her story in my
mind at all, although it seemed to leave hers in some certain
order of its own. My wife---"
Here the knight checked himself, and said no more. Neither did
I urge the conversation farther.
Thus we journeyed for several days, resting at night in such shelter
as we could get; and when no better was to be had, lying in the
forest under some tree, on a couch of old leaves.
I loved the knight more and more. I believe never squire served
his master with more care and joyfulness than I. I tended his
horse; I cleaned his armour; my skill in the craft enabled me
to repair it when necessary; I watched his needs; and was well
repaid for all by the love itself which I bore him.
"This," I said to myself, "is a true man. I will serve him, and
give him all worship, seeing in him the imbodiment of what I would
fain become. If I cannot be noble myself, I will yet be servant
to his nobleness." He, in return, soon showed me such signs of
friendship and respect, as made my heart glad; and I felt that,
after all, mine would be no lost life, if I might wait on him
to the world's end, although no smile but his should greet me,
and no one but him should say, "Well done! he was a good servant!"
at last. But I burned to do something more for him than the ordinary
routine of a squire's duty permitted.
One afternoon, we began to observe an appearance of roads in the
wood. Branches had been cut down, and openings made, where footsteps
had worn no path below. These indications increased as we passed
on, till, at length, we came into a long, narrow avenue, formed
by felling the trees in its line, as the remaining roots evidenced.
At some little distance, on both hands, we observed signs of similar
avenues, which appeared to converge with ours, towards one spot.
Along these we indistinctly saw several forms moving, which seemed,
with ourselves, to approach the common centre. Our path brought
us, at last, up to a wall of yew-trees, growing close together,
and intertwining their branches so, that nothing could be seen
beyond it. An opening was cut in it like a door, and all the wall
was trimmed smooth and perpendicular. The knight dismounted, and
waited till I had provided for his horse's comfort; upon which
we entered the place together.
It was a great space, bare of trees, and enclosed by four walls
of yew, similar to that through which we had entered. These trees
grew to a very great height, and did not divide from each other
till close to the top, where their summits formed a row of conical
battlements all around the walls. The space contained was a parallelogram
of great length. Along each of the two longer sides of the interior,
were ranged three ranks of men, in white robes, standing silent
and solemn, each with a sword by his side, although the rest of
his costume and bearing was more priestly than soldierly. For
some distance inwards, the space between these opposite rows was
filled with a company of men and women and children, in holiday
attire. The looks of all were directed inwards, towards the further
end. Far beyond the crowd, in a long avenue, seeming to narrow
in the distance, went the long rows of the white-robed men. On
what the attention of the multitude was fixed, we could not tell,
for the sun had set before we arrived, and it was growing dark
within. It grew darker and darker. The multitude waited in silence.
The stars began to shine down into the enclosure, and they grew
brighter and larger every moment. A wind arose, and swayed the
pinnacles of the tree-tops; and made a strange sound, half like
music, half like moaning, through the close branches and leaves
of the tree-walls. A young girl who stood beside me, clothed in
the same dress as the priests, bowed her head, and grew pale with
awe.
The knight whispered to me, "How solemn it is! Surely they wait
to hear the voice of a prophet. There is something good near!"
But I, though somewhat shaken by the feeling expressed by my master,
yet had an unaccountable conviction that here was something bad.
So I resolved to be keenly on the watch for what should follow.
Suddenly a great star, like a sun, appeared high in the air over
the temple, illuminating it throughout; and a great song arose
from the men in white, which went rolling round and round the
building, now receding to the end, and now approaching, down the
other side, the place where we stood. For some of the singers
were regularly ceasing, and the next to them as regularly taking
up the song, so that it crept onwards with gradations produced
by changes which could not themselves be detected, for only a
few of those who were singing ceased at the same moment. The song
paused; and I saw a company of six of the white-robed men walk
up the centre of the human avenue, surrounding a youth gorgeously
attired beneath his robe of white, and wearing a chaplet of flowers
on his head. I followed them closely, with my keenest observation;
and, by accompanying their slow progress with my eyes, I was able
to perceive more clearly what took place when they arrived at
the other end. I knew that my sight was so much more keen than
that of most people, that I had good reason to suppose I should
see more than the rest could, at such a distance. At the farther
end a throne stood upon a platform, high above the heads of the
surrounding priests. To this platform I saw the company begin
to ascend, apparently by an inclined plane or gentle slope. The
throne itself was elevated again, on a kind of square pedestal,
to the top of which led a flight of steps. On the throne sat a
majestic- looking figure, whose posture seemed to indicate a mixture
of pride and benignity, as he looked down on the multitude below.
The company ascended to the foot of the throne, where they all
kneeled for some minutes; then they rose and passed round to the
side of the pedestal upon which the throne stood. Here they crowded
close behind the youth, putting him in the foremost place, and
one of them opened a door in the pedestal, for the youth to enter.
I was sure I saw him shrink back, and those crowding behind pushed
him in. Then, again, arose a burst of song from the multitude
in white, which lasted some time. When it ceased, a new company
of seven commenced its march up the centre. As they advanced,
I looked up at my master: his noble countenance was full of reverence
and awe. Incapable of evil himself, he could scarcely suspect
it in another, much less in a multitude such as this, and surrounded
with such appearances of solemnity. I was certain it was the really
grand accompaniments that overcame him; that the stars overhead,
the dark towering tops of the yew-trees, and the wind that, like
an unseen spirit, sighed through their branches, bowed his spirit
to the belief, that in all these ceremonies lay some great mystical
meaning which, his humility told him, his ignorance prevented
him from understanding.
More convinced than before, that there was evil here, I could
not endure that my master should be deceived; that one like him,
so pure and noble, should respect what, if my suspicions were
true, was worse than the ordinary deceptions of priestcraft. I
could not tell how far he might be led to countenance, and otherwise
support their doings, before he should find cause to repent bitterly
of his error. I watched the new procession yet more keenly, if
possible, than the former. This time, the central figure was a
girl; and, at the close, I observed, yet more indubitably, the
shrinking back, and the crowding push. What happened to the victims,
I never learned; but I had learned enough, and I could bear it
no longer. I stooped, and whispered to the young girl who stood
by me, to lend me her white garment. I wanted it, that I might
not be entirely out of keeping with the solemnity, but might have
at least this help to passing unquestioned. She looked up, half-amused
and half-bewildered, as if doubting whether I was in earnest or
not. But in her perplexity, she permitted me to unfasten it, and
slip it down from her shoulders.
I easily got possession of it; and, sinking down on my knees in
the crowd, I rose apparently in the habit of one of the worshippers.
Giving my battle-axe to the girl, to hold in pledge for the return
of her stole, for I wished to test the matter unarmed, and, if
it was a man that sat upon the throne, to attack him with hands
bare, as I supposed his must be, I made my way through the crowd
to the front, while the singing yet continued, desirous of reaching
the platform while it was unoccupied by any of the priests. I
was permitted to walk up the long avenue of white robes unmolested,
though I saw questioning looks in many of the faces as I passed.
I presume my coolness aided my passage; for I felt quite indifferent
as to my own fate; not feeling, after the late events of my history,
that I was at all worth taking care of; and enjoying, perhaps,
something of an evil satisfaction, in the revenge I was thus taking
upon the self which had fooled me so long. When I arrived on the
platform, the song had just ceased, and I felt as if all were
looking towards me. But instead of kneeling at its foot, I walked
right up the stairs to the throne, laid hold of a great wooden
image that seemed to sit upon it, and tried to hurl it from its
seat. In this I failed at first, for I found it firmly fixed.
But in dread lest, the first shock of amazement passing away,
the guards would rush upon me before I had effected my purpose,
I strained with all my might; and, with a noise as of the cracking,
and breaking, and tearing of rotten wood, something gave way,
and I hurled the image down the steps. Its displacement revealed
a great hole in the throne, like the hollow of a decayed tree,
going down apparently a great way. But I had no time to examine
it, for, as I looked into it, up out of it rushed a great brute,
like a wolf, but twice the size, and tumbled me headlong with
itself, down the steps of the throne. As we fell, however, I caught
it by the throat, and the moment we reached the platform, a struggle
commenced, in which I soon got uppermost, with my hand upon its
throat, and knee upon its heart. But now arose a wild cry of wrath
and revenge and rescue. A universal hiss of steel, as every sword
was swept from its scabbard, seemed to tear the very air in shreds.
I heard the rush of hundreds towards the platform on which I knelt.
I only tightened my grasp of the brute's throat. His eyes were
already starting from his head, and his tongue was hanging out.
My anxious hope was, that, even after they had killed me, they
would be unable to undo my gripe of his throat, before the monster
was past breathing. I therefore threw all my will, and force,
and purpose, into the grasping hand. I remember no blow. A faintness
came over me, and my consciousness departed.
CHAPTER XXIV
"We are ne'er like angels till our passions die."
DEKKER.
"This wretched INN, where we scarce stay to bait,
We call our DWELLING-PLACE:
We call one STEP A RACE:
But angels in their full enlightened state,
Angels, who LIVE, and know what 'tis to BE,
Who all the nonsense of our language see,
Who speak THINGS, and our WORDS,their ill-drawn
PICTURES, scorn,
When we, by a foolish figure, say,
BEHOLD AN OLD MAN DEAD! then they
Speak properly, and cry, BEHOLD A MAN-CHILD BORN!"
COWLEY.
I was dead, and right content. I lay in my coffin, with my hands
folded in peace. The knight, and the lady I loved, wept over me.
Her tears fell on my face.
"Ah!" said the knight, "I rushed amongst them like a madman. I
hewed them down like brushwood. Their swords battered on me like
hail, but hurt me not. I cut a lane through to my friend. He was
dead. But he had throttled the monster, and I had to cut the handful
out of its throat, before I could disengage and carry off his
body. They dared not molest me as I brought him back."
"He has died well," said the lady.
My spirit rejoiced. They left me to my repose. I felt as if a
cool hand had been laid upon my heart, and had stilled it. My
soul was like a summer evening, after a heavy fall of rain, when
the drops are yet glistening on the trees in the last rays of
the down-going sun, and the wind of the twilight has begun to
blow. The hot fever of life had gone by, and I breathed the clear
mountain-air of the land of Death. I had never dreamed of such
blessedness. It was not that I had in any way ceased to be what
I had been. The very fact that anything can die, implies the existence
of something that cannot die; which must either take to itself
another form, as when the seed that is sown dies, and arises again;
or, in conscious existence, may, perhaps, continue to lead a purely
spiritual life. If my passions were dead, the souls of the passions,
those essential mysteries of the spirit which had imbodied themselves
in the passions, and had given to them all their glory and wonderment,
yet lived, yet glowed, with a pure, undying fire. They rose above
their vanishing earthly garments, and disclosed themselves angels
of light. But oh, how beautiful beyond the old form! I lay thus
for a time, and lived as it were an unradiating existence; my
soul a motionless lake, that received all things and gave nothing
back; satisfied in still contemplation, and spiritual consciousness.
Ere long, they bore me to my grave. Never tired child lay down
in his white bed, and heard the sound of his playthings being
laid aside for the night, with a more luxurious satisfaction of
repose than I knew, when I felt the coffin settle on the firm
earth, and heard the sound of the falling mould upon its lid.
It has not the same hollow rattle within the coffin, that it sends
up to the edge of the grave. They buried me in no graveyard. They
loved me too much for that, I thank them; but they laid me in
the grounds of their own castle, amid many trees; where, as it
was spring-time, were growing primroses, and blue-bells, and all
the families of the woods
Now that I lay in her bosom, the whole earth, and each of her
many births, was as a body to me, at my will. I seemed to feel
the great heart of the mother beating into mine, and feeding me
with her own life, her own essential being and nature. I heard
the footsteps of my friends above, and they sent a thrill through
my heart. I knew that the helpers had gone, and that the knight
and the lady remained, and spoke low, gentle, tearful words of
him who lay beneath the yet wounded sod. I rose into a single
large primrose that grew by the edge of the grave, and from the
window of its humble, trusting face, looked full in the countenance
of the lady. I felt that I could manifest myself in the primrose;
that it said a part of what I wanted to say; just as in the old
time, I had used to betake myself to a song for the same end.
The flower caught her eye. She stooped and plucked it, saying,
"Oh, you beautiful creature!" and, lightly kissing it, put it
in her bosom. It was the first kiss she had ever given me. But
the flower soon began to wither, and I forsook it.
It was evening. The sun was below the horizon; but his rosy beams
yet illuminated a feathery cloud, that floated high above the
world. I arose, I reached the cloud; and, throwing myself upon
it, floated with it in sight of the sinking sun. He sank, and
the cloud grew gray; but the grayness touched not my heart. It
carried its rose-hue within; for now I could love without needing
to be loved again. The moon came gliding up with all the past
in her wan face. She changed my couch into a ghostly pallor, and
threw all the earth below as to the bottom of a pale sea of dreams.
But she could not make me sad. I knew now, that it is by loving,
and not by being loved, that one can come nearest the soul of
another; yea, that, where two love, it is the loving of each other,
and not the being loved by each other, that originates and perfects
and assures their blessedness. I knew that love gives to him that
loveth, power over any soul beloved, even if that soul know him
not, bringing him inwardly close to that spirit; a power that
cannot be but for good; for in proportion as selfishness intrudes,
the love ceases, and the power which springs therefrom dies. Yet
all love will, one day, meet with its return. All true love will,
one day, behold its own image in the eyes of the beloved, and
be humbly glad. This is possible in the realms of lofty Death.
"Ah! my friends," thought I, "how I will tend you, and wait upon
you, and haunt you with my love."
My floating chariot bore me over a great city. Its faint dull
sound steamed up into the air--a sound--how composed?" How many
hopeless cries," thought I, "and how many mad shouts go to make
up the tumult, here so faint where I float in eternal peace, knowing
that they will one day be stilled in the surrounding calm, and
that despair dies into infinite hope, and the seeming impossible
there, is the law here!
But, O pale-faced women, and gloomy-browed men, and forgotten
children, how I will wait on you, and minister to you, and, putting
my arms about you in the dark, think hope into your hearts, when
you fancy no one is near! Soon as my senses have all come back,
and have grown accustomed to this new blessed life, I will be
among you with the love that healeth."
With this, a pang and a terrible shudder went through me; a writhing
as of death convulsed me; and I became once again conscious of
a more limited, even a bodily and earthly life.
CHAPTER XXV
"Our life is no dream; but it ought to become one,
and perhaps will."--NOVALIS.
"And on the ground, which is my modres gate,
I knocke with my staf; erlich and late,
And say to hire, Leve mother, let me in."
CHAUCER, The Pardoneres Tale.
Sinking from such a state of ideal bliss, into the world of shadows
which again closed around and infolded me, my first dread was,
not unnaturally, that my own shadow had found me again, and that
my torture had commenced anew. It was a sad revulsion of feeling.
This, indeed, seemed to correspond to what we think death is,
before we die. Yet I felt within me a power of calm endurance
to which I had hitherto been a stranger. For, in truth, that I
should be able if only to think such things as I had been thinking,
was an unspeakable delight. An hour of such peace made the turmoil
of a lifetime worth striving through.
I found myself lying in the open air, in the early morning, before
sunrise. Over me rose the summer heaven, expectant of the sun.
The clouds already saw him, coming from afar; and soon every dewdrop
would rejoice in his individual presence within it.
I lay motionless for a few minutes; and then slowly rose and looked
about me. I was on the summit of a little hill; a valley lay beneath,
and a range of mountains closed up the view upon that side. But,
to my horror, across the valley, and up the height of the opposing
mountains, stretched, from my very feet, a hugely expanding shade.
There it lay, long and large, dark and mighty. I turned away with
a sick despair; when lo! I beheld the sun just lifting his head
above the eastern hill, and the shadow that fell from me, lay
only where his beams fell not. I danced for joy. It was only the
natural shadow, that goes with every man who walks in the sun.
As he arose, higher and higher, the shadow-head sank down the
side of the opposite hill, and crept in across the valley towards
my feet.
Now that I was so joyously delivered from this fear, I saw and
recognised the country around me. In the valley below, lay my
own castle, and the haunts of my childhood were all about me hastened
home. My sisters received me with unspeakable joy; but I suppose
they observed some change in me, for a kind of respect, with a
slight touch of awe in it, mingled with their joy, and made me
ashamed. They had been in great distress about me. On the morning
of my disappearance, they had found the floor of my room flooded;
and, all that day, a wondrous and nearly impervious mist had hung
about the castle and grounds. I had been gone, they told me, twenty-
one days. To me it seemed twenty-one years. Nor could I yet feel
quite secure in my new experiences. When, at night, I lay down
once more in my own bed, I did not feel at all sure that when
I awoke, I should not find myself in some mysterious region of
Fairy Land. My dreams were incessant and perturbed; but when I
did awake, I saw clearly that I was in my own home.
My mind soon grew calm; and I began the duties of my new position,
somewhat instructed, I hoped, by the adventures that had befallen
me in Fairy Land. Could I translate the experience of my travels
there, into common life? This was the question. Or must I live
it all over again, and learn it all over again, in the other forms
that belong to the world of men, whose experience yet runs parallel
to that of Fairy Land? These questions I cannot answer yet. But
I fear.
Even yet, I find myself looking round sometimes with anxiety,
to see whether my shadow falls right away from the sun or no.
I have never yet discovered any inclination to either side. And
if I am not unfrequently sad, I yet cast no more of a shade on
the earth, than most men who have lived in it as long as I. I
have a strange feeling sometimes, that I am a ghost, sent into
the world to minister to my fellow men, or, rather, to repair
the wrongs I have already done.
May the world be brighter for me, at least in those portions of
it, where my darkness falls not.
Thus I, who set out to find my Ideal, came back rejoicing that
I had lost my Shadow.
When the thought of the blessedness I experienced, after my death
in Fairy Land, is too high for me to lay hold upon it and hope
in it, I often think of the wise woman in the cottage, and of
her solemn assurance that she knew something too good to be told.
When I am oppressed by any sorrow or real perplexity, I often
feel as if I had only left her cottage for a time, and would soon
return out of the vision, into it again. Sometimes, on such occasions,
I find myself, unconsciously almost, looking about for the mystic
mark of red, with the vague hope of entering her door, and being
comforted by her wise tenderness. I then console myself by saying:
"I have come through the door of Dismay; and the way back from
the world into which that has led me, is through my tomb. Upon
that the red sign lies, and I shall find it one day, and be glad."
I will end my story with the relation of an incident which befell
me a few days ago. I had been with my reapers, and, when they
ceased their work at noon, I had lain down under the shadow of
a great, ancient beech-tree, that stood on the edge of the field.
As I lay, with my eyes closed, I began to listen to the sound
of the leaves overhead. At first, they made sweet inarticulate
music alone; but, by-and-by, the sound seemed to begin to take
shape, and to be gradually moulding itself into words; till, at
last, I seemed able to distinguish these, half-dissolved in a
little ocean of circumfluent tones: "A great good is coming--is
coming--is coming to thee, Anodos"; and so over and over again.
I fancied that the sound reminded me of the voice of the ancient
woman, in the cottage that was four-square. I opened my eyes,
and, for a moment, almost believed that I saw her face, with its
many wrinkles and its young eyes, looking at me from between two
hoary branches of the beech overhead. But when I looked more keenly,
I saw only twigs and leaves, and the infinite sky, in tiny spots,
gazing through between. Yet I know that good is coming to me--that
good is always coming; though few have at all times the simplicity
and the courage to believe it. What we call evil, is the only
and best shape, which, for the person and his condition at the
time, could be assumed by the best good. And so, FAREWELL.