Chapter V: Part 5

In this spirit he quarrelled with all his fellow-underwriters and friends and comrades, and that in the most insolent way. For knowing well that Mr. Frog had a shrew of a wife, he wrote to him daily asking "if he had had a domestic broil of late, and how his poor head felt since it was bandaged." To Mr. Hans, who lived in a small way and loved gardening, he sent an express "begging him to mind his cabbages and leave gentlemen to their greater affairs." To Niccolini of Savoy, the little swarthy merchant, he sent indeed a more polite note, but as he said in it "that he would be very willing to give him charity and help him as he could" and as he added "for my father it was that put you up in business" (which was a monstrous lie, for Frog had done this) he did but offend. Then to Mr. William Eagle, that was a strutting, arrogant fellow, but willing to be a friend, he wrote every Monday to say that the house of Bull was lost unless Mr. Eagle would very kindly protect it and every Thursday to challenge him to mortal combat, so that Mr. Eagle (who, to tell the truth, was no great wit, but something of a dullard and moreover suffering from a gathering in the ear, a withered arm, and poor blood) gave up his friendship and business with Bull and took to making up sermons and speeches for orators.

He would have no retainers but two, whose common names were Hocus and Pocus, but as he hated the use of common names and as no one had heard of Hocus' lineage (nor did he himself know it) he called him, Hocus, "Freedom" as being a high-sounding and moral name for a footman and Pocus (whose name was of an ordinary decent kind) he called "Glory" as being a good counterweight to Freedom; both these were names in his opinion very decent and well suited for a gentleman's servants.

Now Freedom and Glory got together in the apple closet and put it to each other that, as their master was evidently mad it would be a thousand pities to take no advantage of it, and they agreed that whatever bit of jobbing Hocus Freedom should do, Pocus Glory should approve; and contrariwise about. But they kept up a sham quarrel to mask this; thus Hocus was for Chapel, Pocus for Church, and it was agreed Hocus should denounce Pocus for drinking Port.

The first fruit of their conspiracy was that Hocus recommended his brother and sister, his two aunts and nieces and four nephews, his own six children, his dog, his conventicle-minister, his laundress, his secretary, a friend of whom he had once borrowed five pounds, and a blind beggar whom he favoured, to various posts about the house and to certain pensions, and these Jack Bull (though his fortune was already dwindling) at once accepted.

Thereupon Pocus loudly reproached Hocus in the servants' hall, saying that the compact had only stood for things in reason, whereat Hocus took off his coat and offered to "Take him on," and Pocus, thinking better of it, managed for his share to place in the household such relatives as he could, namely, Cohen to whom he was in debt, Bernstein his brother-in-law and all his family of five except little Hugh that blacked the boots for the Priest, and so was already well provided for.

In this way poor Jack's fortune went to rack and ruin. The clerks in his office in the City (whom he now never saw) would telegraph to him every making-up day that there was loss that had to be met, but to these he always sent the same reply, namely, "Sell stock and scrip to the amount"; and as that phrase was costly, he made a code-word, to wit, "Prosperity," stand for it. Till one day they sent word "There is nothing left." Then he bethought him how to live on credit, but this plan was very much hampered by his habit of turning in a passion on all those who did not continually praise him. Did an honest man look in and say, "Jack, there is a goat eating your cabbages," he would fly into a rage and say, "You lie, Pro-Boer, my cabbages are sacred, and Jove would strike the goat dead that dared to eat them," or if a poor fellow should touch his hat in the street and say, "Pardon, sir, your buttons are awry," he would answer, "Off, villain! Zounds, knave! Know you not that my Divine buttons are the model of things?" and so forth, until he fell into a perfect lunacy.

But of how he came to selling tokens of little leaden soldiers at a penny in front of the Exchange, and of how at last he even fell to writing for the papers, I will not tell you; for, _imprimis_, it has not happened yet, nor do I think it will, and in the second place I am tired of writing.

ON A WINGED HORSE AND THE EXILE WHO RODE HIM

It so happened that one day I was riding my horse Monster in the Berkshire Hills right up above that White Horse which was dug they say by this man and by that man, but no one knows by whom; for I was seeing England, a delightful pastime, but a somewhat anxious one if one is riding a horse. For if one is alone one can sleep where one chooses and walk at one's ease, and eat what God sends one and spend what one has; but when one is responsible for any other being (especially a horse) there come in a thousand farradiddles, for of everything that walks on earth, man (not woman--I use the word in the restricted sense) is the freest and the most unhappy.

Well, then, I was riding my horse and exploring the Island of England, going eastward of a summer afternoon, and I had so ridden along the ridge of the hills for some miles when I came, as chance would have it, upon a very extraordinary being.

He was a man like myself, but his horse, which was grazing by his side, and from time to time snorting in a proud manner, was quite unlike my own. This horse had all the strength of the horses of Normandy, all the lightness, grace, and subtlety of the horses of Barbary, all the conscious value of the horses that race for rich men, all the humour of old horses that have seen the world and will be disturbed by nothing, and all the valour of young horses who have their troubles before them, and race round in paddocks attempting to defeat the passing trains. I say all these things were in the horse, and expressed by various movements of his body, but the list of these qualities is but a hint of the way in which he bore himself; for it was quite clearly apparent as I came nearer and nearer to this strange pair that the horse before me was very different (as perhaps was the man) from the beings that inhabit this island.

While he was different in all qualities that I have mentioned--or rather in their combination--he also differed physically from most horses that we know, in this, that from his sides and clapt along them in repose was growing a pair of very fine sedate and noble wings. So habited, with such an expression and with such gestures of his limbs, he browsed upon the grass of Berkshire, which, if you except the grass of Sussex and the grass perhaps of Hampshire, is the sweetest grass in the world. I speak of the chalk-grass; as for the grass of the valleys, I would not eat it in a salad, let alone give it to a beast.

The man who was the companion rather than the master of this charming animal sat upon a lump of turf singing gently to himself and looking over the plain of Central England, the plain of the Upper Thames, which men may see from these hills. He looked at it with a mixture of curiosity, of memory, and of desire which was very interesting but also a little pathetic to watch. And as he looked at it he went on crooning his little song until he saw me, when with great courtesy he ceased and asked me in the English language whether I did not desire companionship.

I answered him that certainly I did, though not more than was commonly the case with me, for I told him that I had had companionship in several towns and inns during the past few days, and that I had had but a few hours' bout of silence and of loneliness.

"Which period," I added, "is not more than sufficient for a man of my years, though I confess that in early youth I should have found it intolerable."

When I had said this he nodded gravely, and I in my turn began to wonder of what age he might be, for his eyes and his whole manner were young, but there was a certain knowledge and gravity in his expression and in the posture of his body which in another might have betrayed middle age. He wore no hat, but a great quantity of his own hair, which was blown about by the light summer wind upon these heights. As he did not reply to me, I asked him a further question, and said:

"I see you are gazing upon the plain. Have you interests or memories in that view? I ask you without compunction so delicate a question because it is as open to you to lie as it was to me when I lied to them only yesterday morning, a little beyond Wayland's Cave, telling them that I had come to make sure of the spot where St. George conquered the Dragon, though, in truth, I had come for no such purpose, and telling them that my name was so-and-so, whereas it was nothing of the kind."

He brightened up at this, and said: "You are quite right in telling me that I am free to lie if I choose, and I would be very happy to lie to you if there were any purpose in so doing, but there is none. I gaze upon this plain with the memories that are common to all men when they gaze upon a landscape in which they have had a part in the years recently gone by. That is, the plain fills me with a sort of longing, and yet I cannot say that the plain has treated me unjustly. I have no complaint against it. God bless the plain!" After thinking a few moments, he added: "I am fond of Wantage; Wallingford has done me no harm; Oxford gave me many companions; I was not drowned at Dorchester beyond the Little Hills; and the best of men gave me a true farewell in Faringdon yonder. Moreover, Cumnor is my friend. Nevertheless, I like to indulge in a sort of sadness when I look over this plain."

I then asked him whither he would go next.

He answered: "My horse flies, and I am therefore not bound to any particular track or goal, especially in these light airs of summer when all the heaven is open to me."

As he said this I looked at his mount and noticed that when he shook his skin as horses will do in the hot weather to rid themselves of flies, he also passed a little tremor through his wings, which were large and goose-grey, and, spreading gently under that effort, seemed to give him coolness.

"You have," said I, "a remarkable horse."

At this word he brightened up as men do when something is spoken of that interests them nearly, and he answered: "Indeed, I have! and I am very glad you like him. There is no such other horse to my knowledge in England, though I have heard that some still linger in Ireland and in France, and that a few foals of the breed have been dropped of late years in Italy, but I have not seen them.

"How did you come by this horse?" said I; "if it is not trespassing upon your courtesy to ask you so delicate a question."

"Not at all; not at all," he answered. "This kind of horse runs wild upon the heaths of morning and can be caught only by Exiles: and I am one.... Moreover, if you had come three or four years later than you have I should have been able to give you an answer in rhyme, but I am sorry to say that a pestilent stricture of the imagination, or rather, of the compositive faculty so constrains me that I have not yet finished the poem I have been writing with regard to the discovery and service of this beast."

"I have great sympathy with you," I answered, "I have been at the ballade of Val-ès-Dunes since the year 1897 and I have not yet completed it."

"Well, then," he said, "you will be patient with me when I tell you that I have but three verses completed." Whereupon without further invitation he sang in a loud and clear voice the following verse:

_It's ten years ago to-day you turned me out of doors
To cut my feet on flinty lands and stumble down the shores.
And I thought about the all in all ..._

"The '_all in all_,'" I said, "is weak."

He was immensely pleased with this, and, standing up, seized me by the hand. "I know you now," he said, "for a man who does indeed write verse. I have done everything I could with those three syllables, and by the grace of Heaven I shall get them right in time. Anyhow, they are the stop-gap of the moment, and with your leave I shall reserve them, for I do not wish to put words like 'tumty tum' into the middle of my verse."

I bowed to him, and he proceeded:

_And I thought about the all in all, and more than I could tell;
But I caught a horse to ride upon and rode him very well.
He had flame behind the eyes of him and wings upon his side--
And I ride; and I ride!_

"Of how many verses do you intend this metrical composition to be?" said I, with great interest.

"I have sketched out thirteen," said he firmly, "but I confess that the next ten are so embryonic in this year 1907 that I cannot sing them in public." He hesitated a moment, then added: "They have many fine single lines, but there is as yet no composition or unity about them." And as he recited the words "composition" and "unity" he waved his hand about like a man sketching a cartoon.

"Give me, then," said I, "at any rate the last two." For I had rapidly calculated how many would remain of his scheme.

He was indeed pleased to be so challenged, and continued to sing:

_And once atop of Lambourne Down, towards the hill of Clere,
I saw the host of Heaven in rank and Michael with his spear
And Turpin, out of Gascony, and Charlemagne the lord,
And Roland of the Marches with his hand upon his sword
For fear he should have need of it;--and forty more beside!
And I ride; and I ride!
For you that took the all in all..._

"That again is weak," I murmured.

"You are quite right," he said gravely, "I will rub it out." Then he went on:

_For you that took the all in all, the things you left were
three:
A loud Voice for singing, and keen Eyes to see,
And a spouting Well of Joy within that never yet was dried!
And I ride!_

He sang this last in so fierce and so exultant a manner that I was impressed more than I cared to say, but not more than I cared to show. As for him, he cared little whether I was impressed or not; he was exalted and detached from the world.

There were no stirrups upon the beast. He vaulted upon it, and said as he did so:

"You have put me into the mood, and I must get away!"

And though the words were abrupt, he _did_ speak them with such a grace that I will always remember them!

He then touched the flanks of his horse with his heels (on which there were no spurs) and at once beating the air powerfully twice or thrice with its wings it spurned the turf of Berkshire and made out southward and upward into the sunlit air, a pleasing and a glorious sight.

In a very little while they had dwindled to a point of light and were soon mixed with the sky. But I went on more lonely along the crest of the hills, very human, riding my horse Monster, a mortal horse--I had almost written a human horse. My mind was full of silence.

Some of those to whom I have related this adventure criticise it by the method of questions and of cross-examination proving that it could not have happened precisely where it did; showing that I left the vale so late in the afternoon that I could not have found this man and his mount at the hour I say I did, and making all manner of comments upon the exact way in which the feathers (which they say are those of a bird) grew out of the hide of the horse, and so forth. There are no witnesses of the matter, and I go lonely, for many people will not believe, and those who do believe believe too much.

ON A MAN AND HIS BURDEN

Once there was a Man who lived in a House at the Corner of a Wood with an excellent landscape upon every side, a village about one mile off, and a pleasant stream flowing over chalk and full of trout, for which he used to fish.

This man was perfectly happy for some little time, fishing for the trout, contemplating the shapes of clouds in the sky, and singing all the songs he could remember in turn under the high wood, till one day he found, to his annoyance, that there was strapped to his back a Burden.

However, he was by nature of a merry mood, and began thinking of all the things he had read about Burdens. He remembered an uncle of his called Jonas (ridiculous name) who had pointed out that Burdens, especially if borne in youth, strengthen the upper deltoid muscle, expand the chest, and give to the whole figure an erect and graceful poise. He remembered also reading in a book upon "Country Sports" that the bearing of heavy weights is an excellent training for all other forms of exercise, and produces a manly and resolute carriage, very useful in golf, cricket and Colonial wars. He could not forget his mother's frequent remark that a Burden nobly endured gave firmness, and at the same time elasticity, to the character, and altogether he went about his way taking it as kindly as he could; but I will not deny that it annoyed him.

In a few days he discovered that during sleep, when he lay down, the Burden annoyed him somewhat less than at other times, though the memory of it never completely left him. He would therefore sleep for a very considerable number of hours every day, sometimes retiring to rest as early as nine o'clock, nor rising till noon of the next day. He discovered also that rapid and loud conversation, adventure, wine, beer, the theatre, cards, travel, and so forth made him forget his Burden for the time being, and he indulged himself perhaps to excess in all these things. But when the memory of his Burden would return to him after each indulgence, whether working in his garden, or fishing for trout, or on a lonely walk, he began reluctantly to admit that, on the whole, he felt uncertainty and doubt as to whether the Burden was really good for him.

In this unpleasing attitude of mind he had the good fortune one day to meet with an excellent Divine who inhabited a neighbouring parish, and was possessed of no less a sum than £29,000. This Ecclesiastic, seeing his whilom jocund Face fretted with the Marks of Care, put a hand gently upon his shoulder and said:

"My young friend, I easily perceive that you are put out by this Burden which you bear upon your shoulders. I am indeed surprised that one so intelligent should take such a matter so ill. What! Do you not know that burdens are the common lot of humanity? I myself, though you may little suspect it, bear a burden far heavier than yours, though, true, it is invisible, and not strapped on to my shoulders by gross material thongs of leather, as is yours. The worthy Squire of our parish bears one too; and with what manliness! what ease! what abnegation! Believe me, these other Burdens of which you never hear, and which no man can perceive, are for that very reason the heaviest and the most trying. Come, play the man! Little by little you will find that the patient sustenance of this Burden will make you something greater, stronger, nobler than you were, and you will notice as you grow older that those who are most favoured by the Unseen bear the heaviest of such impediments."

With these last words recited in a solemn, and, as it were, an inspired voice, the Hierarch lifted an immense stone from the roadway, and placing it on the top of the Burden, so as considerably to add to its weight, went on his way.

The irritation of the Man was already considerable when his family called upon him--his mother, that is, his younger sister, his cousin Jane, and her husband--and after they had eaten some of his food and drunk some of his beer they all sat out in the garden with him and talked to him somewhat in this manner:

"We really cannot pity you much, for ever since you were a child whatever evil has happened to you has been your own doing, and probably this is no different from the rest.... What can have possessed you to get putting upon your back an ugly, useless, and dangerous great Burden! You have no idea how utterly out of fashion you seem, stumbling about the roads like a clodhopper, and going up and downstairs as though you were on the treadmill.... For the Lord's sake, at least have the decency to stay at home and not to disgrace the family with your miserable appearance!"

Having said so much they rose, and adding to his burden a number of leaden weights they had brought with them, went on their way and left him to his own thoughts.

You may well imagine that by this time the irritation of the Man had gone almost past bearing. He would quarrel with his best friends, and they, in revenge, would put something more on to the burden, till he felt he would break down. It haunted his dreams and filled most of his waking thoughts, and did all those things which burdens have been discovered to do since the beginning of time, until at last, though very reluctantly, he determined to be rid of it.

Upon hearing of this resolution his friends and acquaintances raised a most fearful hubbub; some talked of sending for the police, others of restraining him by force, and others again of putting him into an asylum, but he broke away from them all, and, making for the open road, went out to see if he could not rid himself of this abominable strain.

Of himself he could not, for the Burden was so cunningly strapped on that his hands could not reach it, and there was magic about it, and a spell; but he thought somewhere there must be someone who could tell him how to cast it away.

In the very first ale-house he came to he discovered what is common to such places, namely, a batch of politicians, who laughed at him very loudly for not knowing how to get rid of burdens. "It is done," they said, "by the very simple method of paying one of us to get on top and undo the straps." This the man said he would be very willing to do, whereat the politicians, having fought somewhat among themselves for the money, desisted at last in favour of the most vulgar, who climbed on to the top of the man's burden, and remained there, viewing the landscape and commenting in general terms upon the nature of public affairs, and when the man complained a little, the politician did but cuff him sharply on the side of the head to teach him better manners.

Yet a little further on he met with a Scientist, who told him in English Greek a clear and simple method of getting rid of the burden, and, since the Man did not seem to understand, he lost his temper, and said, "Come, let me do it," and climbed up by the side of the Politician. Once there the Scientist confessed that the problem was not so easy as he had imagined.

"But," said he, "now that I am here, you may as well carry me, for it will be no great additional weight, and meanwhile I will spend most of my time in trying to set you free."

And the third man he met was a Philosopher with quiet eyes; a person whose very gestures were profound. Taking by the hand the Man, now fevered and despairing, he looked at him with a mixture of comprehension and charity, and he said:

"My poor fellow, your eyes are very wild and staring and bloodshot. How little you understand the world!" Then he smiled gently, and said, "Will you never learn?"

And without another word he climbed up on the top of the burden and seated himself by the side of the other two.

After this the man went mad.

The last time I saw him he was wandering down the road with his burden very much increased. He was bearing not only these original three, but some Kings and Tax-gatherers and Schoolmasters, several Fortune-tellers, and an Old Admiral. He was blind, and they were goading him. But as he passed me he smiled and gibbered a little, and told me it was in the nature of things, and went on downward stumbling.

_This Parable I think, as I re-read it, demands a KEY, lest it prove a stumbling-block to the muddle-headed and a perplexity to the foolish. Here then is the KEY:_--

_The_ MAN _is a_ MAN. _His_ BURDEN _is that Burden which men often feel themselves to be bearing as they advance from youth to manhood. The_ RELATIVES _(his mother, his sister, his cousins, etc.) are a Man's_ RELATIVES _and the little weights they add to the_ BURDEN _are the little additional weights a Man's_ RELATIVES _commonly add to his burden. The_ PARSON _represents a_ PARSON, _and the_ POLITICIAN, _the_ PHILOSOPHER, _the_ SCIENTIST, _the_ KINGS, _the_ TAX-GATHERERS _and the_ OLD ADMIRAL, _stand severally for an_ OLD ADMIRAL, TAX-GATHERERS, POLITICIANS, PHILOSOPHERS, SCIENTISTS _and_ KINGS.

_The_ POLITICIANS _who fight for the_ MONEY _represent_ POLITICIANS, _and the_ MONEY _they struggle for is the_ MONEY _for which Politicians do ceaselessly jostle and barge one another. The_ MOST VULGAR _in whose favour the others desist, represents the_ MOST VULGAR _who, among Politicians, invariably obtains the largest share of whatever public money is going._

_The_ MADNESS _of the Man at the end, stands for the_ MADNESS _which does as a fact often fall upon Men late in life if their Burdens are sufficiently increased._

_I trust that with this Key the Parable will be clear to all._

ON A FISHERMAN AND THE QUEST OF PEACE

In that part of the Thames where the river begins to feel its life before it knows its name the counties play with it upon either side. It is not yet a boundary. The parishes upon the northern bank are sometimes as truly Wiltshire as those to the south. The men upon the farms that look at each other over the water are close neighbours; they use the same words and the way they build their houses is the same. Between them runs the beginning of the Thames.

From the surface of the water the whole prospect is sky, bounded by reeds; but sitting up in one's canoe one sees between the reeds distant hills to the southward, or, on the north, trees in groups, and now and then the roofs of a village; more often the lonely group of a steading with a church close by.

Floating down this stream quite silently, but rather swiftly upon a summer's day, I saw on the bank to my right a very pleasant man. He was perhaps a hundred yards or two hundred ahead of me when I first caught sight of him, and perceived that he was a clergyman of the Church of England. He was fishing.

He was dressed in black, even his hat was black (though it was of straw), but his collar was of such a kind as his ancestors had worn, turned down and surrounded by a soft white tie. His face was clear and ruddy, his eyes honest, his hair already grey, and he was gazing intently upon the float; for I will not conceal it that he was fishing in that ancient manner with a float shaped like a sea-buoy and stuck through with a quill. So fish the yeomen to this day in Northern France and in Holland. Upon such immutable customs does an ancient State repose, which, if they are disturbed, there is danger of its dissolution.

As I so looked at him and rapidly approached him I took care not to disturb the water with my paddle, but to let the boat glide far from his side, until in the pleasure of watching him, I got fast upon the further reeds. There she held and I, knowing that the effort of getting her off would seriously stir the water, lay still. Nor did I speak to him, though he pleased me so much, because a friend of mine in Lambourne had once told me that of all things in Nature what a fish most fears is the voice of a man.

He, however, first spoke to me in a sort of easy tone that could frighten no fish. He said "Hullo!"

I answered him in a very subdued voice, for I have no art where fishes are concerned, "Hullo!"

Then he asked me, after a good long time, whether his watch was right, and as he asked me he pulled out his, which was a large, thick, golden watch, and looked at it with anxiety and dread. He asked me this, I think, because I must have had the look of a tired man fresh from the towns, and with the London time upon him, and yet I had been for weeks in no town larger than Cricklade: moreover, I had no watch. Since, none the less, it is one's duty to uplift, sustain, and comfort all one's fellows I told him that his watch was but half a minute fast, and he put it back with a greater content than he had taken it out; and, indeed, anyone who blames me for what I did in so assuring him of the time should remember that I had other means than a watch for judging it. The sunlight was already full of old kindness, the midges were active, the shadow of the reeds on the river was of a particular colour, the haze of a particular warmth; no one who had passed many days and nights together sleeping out and living out under this rare summer could mistake the hour.

In a little while I asked him whether he had caught any fish. He said he had not actually caught any, but that he would have caught several but for accidents, which he explained to me in technical language. Then he asked me in his turn where I was going to that evening. I said I had no object before me, that I would sleep when I felt sleepy, and wake when I felt wakeful, and that I would so drift down Thames till I came to anything unpleasant, when it was my design to leave my canoe at once, to tie it up to a post, and to go off to another place, "for," I told him, "I am here to think about Peace, and to see if She can be found." When I said this his face became moody, and, as though such portentous thoughts required action to balance them, he strained his line, lifted his float smartly from the water (so that I saw the hook flying through the air with a quarter of a worm upon it), and brought it down far up the stream. Then he let it go slowly down again as the water carried it, and instead of watching it with his steady and experienced eyes he looked up at me and asked me if, as yet, I had come upon any clue to Peace, that I expected to find Her between Cricklade and Bablock Hythe. I answered that I did not exactly expect to find Her, that I had come out to think about Her, and to find out whether She could be found. I told him that often and often as I wandered over the earth I had clearly seen Her, as once in Auvergne by Pont-Gibaud, once in Terneuzen, several times in Hazlemere, Hampstead, Clapham, and other suburbs, and more often than I could tell in the Weald: "but seeing Her," said I, "is one thing and holding Her is another. I hardly propose to follow all Her ways, but I do propose to consider Her nature until I know so much as to be able to discover Her at last whenever I have need, for I am convinced by this time that nothing else is worth the effort of a man ... and I think I shall achieve my object somewhere between here and Bablock Hythe."

He told me without interest that there was nothing attractive in the pursuit or in its realisation.

I answered with equal promptitude that the whole of attraction was summed up in it: that to nothing else did we move by nature, and to nothing else were we drawn but to Peace. I said that a completion and a fulfilment were vaguely demanded by a man even in very early youth, that in manhood the desire for them became a passion and in early middle age so overmastering and natural a necessity that all who turned aside from it and attempted to forget it were justly despised by their fellows and were some of them money-makers, some of them sybarites, but all of them perverted men, whose hard eyes, weak mouths, and fear of every trial sufficiently proved the curse that was upon them. I told him as heatedly as one can speak lying back in a canoe to a man beyond a little river that he, being older than I, should know that everything in a full man tended towards some place where expression is permanent and secure; and then I told him that since I had only seen such a place far off as it were, but never lived in, I had set forth to see if I might think out the way to it, "and I hope," I said, "to finish the problem not so far down as Bablock Hythe, but nearer by, towards New Bridge or even higher, by Kelmscott."

He asked me, after a little space, during which he took off the remnant of the worm and replaced it by a large new one, whether when I said "Peace" I did not really mean "Harmony."

At this phrase a suspicion rose in my mind; it seemed to me that I knew the school that had bred him, and that he and I should be acquainted. So I was appeased and told him I did not mean Harmony, for Harmony suggested that we had to suit ourselves to the things around us or to get suited to them. I told him what I was after was no such German Business, but something which was Fruition and more than Fruition--full power to create and at the same time to enjoy, a co-existence of new delight and of memory, of growth, and yet of foreknowledge and an increasing reverence that should be increasingly upstanding, and high hatred as well as high love justified; for surely this Peace is not a lessening into which we sink, but an enlargement which we merit and into which we rise and enter--"and this," I ended, "I am determined to obtain before I get to Bablock Hythe."

He shook his head determinedly and said my quest was hopeless.

"Sir," said I, "are you acquainted with the Use of Sarum?"

"I have read it," he said, "but I do not remember it well." Then, indeed, indeed I knew that he was of my own University and of my own college, and my heart warmed to him as I continued:

"It is in Latin; but, after all, that was the custom of the time."

"Latin," he answered, "was in the Middle Ages a universal tongue."

"Do you know," said I, "that passage which begins 'Illam Pacem----'?"

At this moment the float, which I had almost forgotten but which he in the course of our speeches had more and more remembered, began to bob up and down violently, and, if I may so express myself, the Philosopher in him was suddenly swamped by the Fisherman. He struck with the zeal and accuracy of a conqueror; he did something dexterous with his rod, flourished the line and landed a magnificent--ah! There the whole story fails, for what on earth was the fish?

Had it been a pike or a trout I could have told it, for I am well acquainted with both; but this fish was to me as a human being is to a politician: this fish was to me unknown....

ON A HERMIT WHOM I KNEW

In a valley of the Apennines, a little before it was day, I went down by the side of a torrent wondering where I should find repose; for it was now some hours since I had given up all hope of discovering a place for proper human rest and for the passing of the night, but at least I hoped to light upon a dry bed of sand under some overhanging rock, or possibly of pine needles beneath closely woven trees, where one might get sleep until the rising of the sun.

As I still trudged, half expectant and half careless, a man came up behind me, walking quickly as do mountain men: for throughout the world (I cannot tell why) I have noticed that the men of the mountains walk quickly and in a sprightly manner, arching the foot, and with a light and general gait as though the hills were waves and as though they were in thought springing upon the crests of them. This is true of all mountaineers. They are but few.

This man, I say, came up behind me and asked me whether I were going towards a certain town of which he gave me the name, but as I had not so much as heard of this town I told him I knew nothing of it. I had no map, for there was no good map of that district, and a bad map is worse than none. I knew the names of no towns except the large towns on the coast. So I said to him:

"I cannot tell anything about this town, I am not making towards it. But I desire to reach the sea coast, which I know to be many hours away, and I had hoped to sleep overnight under some roof or at least in some cavern, and to start with the early morning; but here I am, at the end of the night, without repose and wondering whether I can go on."

He answered me:

"It is four hours to the sea coast, but before you reach it you will find a lane branching to the right, and if you will go up it (for it climbs the hill) you will find a hermitage. Now by the time you are there the hermit will be risen."

"Will he be at his prayers?" said I.

"He says no prayers to my knowledge," said my companion lightly; "for he is not a hermit of that kind. Hermits are many and prayers are few. But you will find him bustling about, and he is a very hospitable man. Now as it so happens that the road to the sea coast bends here round along the foot of the hills, you will, in his company, perceive the port below you and the populace and the high road, and yet you will be saving a good hour in distance of time, and will have ample rest before reaching your vessel, if it is a vessel indeed that you intend to take."

When he had said these things I thanked him and gave him a bit of sausage and went along my way, for as he had walked faster than me before our meeting and while I was still in the dumps, so now I walked faster than him, having received good news.

All happened just as he had described. The dawn broke behind me over the noble but sedate peaks of the Apennines; it first defined the heights against the growing colours of the sun, it next produced a general warmth and geniality in the air about me; it last displayed the downward opening of the valley, and, very far off, a plain that sloped towards the sea.

Invigorated by the new presence of the day I went forward more rapidly, and came at last to a place where a sculptured panel made out of marble, very clever and modern, and representing a mystery, marked the division between two ways; and I took the lane to my right as my companion of the night hours had advised me.

For perhaps a mile or a little more the lane rose continually between rough walls intercepted by high banks of thorn, with here and there a vineyard, and as it rose one had between the breaches of the wall glimpses of an ever-growing sea: for, as one rose, the sea became a broader and a broader belt, and the very distant islands, which at first had been but little clouds along the horizon, stood out and became parts of the landscape, and, as it were, framed all the bay.

Then at last, when I had come to the height of the hill, to where it turned a corner and ran level along the escarpment of the cliffs that dominated the sea plain, I saw below me a considerable stretch of country, between the fall of the ground and the distant shore, and under the daylight which was now full and clear one could perceive that all this plain was packed with an intense cultivation, with houses, happiness and men.

Far off, a little to the northward, lay the mass of a town; and stretching out into the Mediterranean with a gesture of command and of desire were the new arms of the harbour.

To see such things filled me with a complete content. I know not whether it be the effect of long vigil, or whether it be the effect of contrast between the darkness and the light, but certainly to come out of a lonely night spent on the mountains, down with the sunlight into the civilisation of the plain, is, for any man that cares to undergo the suffering and the consolation, as good as any experience that life affords. Hardly had I so conceived the view before me when I became aware, upon my right, of a sort of cavern, or rather a little and carefully minded shrine, from which a greeting proceeded.

I turned round and saw there a man of no great age and yet of a venerable appearance. He was perhaps fifty-five years old, or possibly a little less, but he had let his grey-white hair grow longish and his beard was very ample and fine. It was he that had addressed me. He sat dressed in a long gown in a modern and rather luxurious chair at a low long table of chestnut wood, on which he had placed a few books, which I saw were in several languages and two of them not only in English, but having upon them the mark of an English circulating library which did business in the great town at our feet. There was also upon the table a breakfast ready of white bread and honey, a large brown coffee-pot, two white cups, and some goat's milk in a bowl of silver. This meal he asked me to share.

"It is my custom," he said, "when I see a traveller coming up my mountain road to get out a cup and a plate for him, or, if it is midday, a glass. At evening, however, no one ever comes."

"Why not?" said I.

"Because," he answered, "this lane goes but a few yards further round the edge of the cliff, and there it ends in a precipice; the little platform where we are is all but the end of the way. Indeed, I chose it upon that account, seeing, when I first came here, that from its height and isolation it was well fitted for my retreat."

I asked him how long ago that was, and he said nearly twenty years. For all that time, he added, he had lived there, going down into the plain but once or twice in a season and having for his rare companions those who brought him food and the peasants on such days as they toiled up to work at their plots towards the summit; also, from time to time, a chance traveller like myself. But these, he said, made but poor companions, for they were usually such as had missed their way at the turning and arrived at that high place of his out of breath and angry. I assured him that this was not my case, for a man had told me in the night how to find his hermitage and I had come of set purpose to see him. At this he smiled.

We were now seated together at table eating and talking so, when I asked him whether he had a reputation for sanctity and whether the people brought him food. He answered with a little hesitation that he had a reputation, he thought, for necromancy rather than anything else, and that upon this account it was not always easy to persuade a messenger to bring him the books in French and English which he ordered from below, though these were innocent enough, being, as a rule, novels written by women or academicians, records of travel, the classics of the Eighteenth Century, or the biographies of aged statesmen. As for food, the people of the place did indeed bring it to him, but not, as in an idyll, for courtesy; contrariwise, they demanded heavy payment, and his chief difficulty was with bread; for stale bread was intolerable to him. In the matter of religion he would not say that he had none, but rather that he had several religions; only at this season of the year, when everything was fresh, pleasant and entertaining, he did not make use of any of them, but laid them all aside. As this last saying of his had no meaning for me I turned to another matter and said to him:

"In any solitude contemplation is the chief business of the soul. How, then, do you, who say you practise no rites, fill up your loneliness here?"

In answer to this question he became more animated, spoke with a sort of laugh in his voice, and seemed as though he were young again and as though my question had aroused a whole lifetime of good memories.

"My contemplation," he said, not without large gestures, "is this wide and prosperous plain below: the great city with its harbour and ceaseless traffic of ships, the roads, the houses building, the fields yielding every year to husbandry, the perpetual activities of men. I watch my kind and I glory in them, too far off to be disturbed by the friction of individuals, yet near enough to have a daily companionship in the spectacle of so much life. The mornings, when they are all at labour, I am inspired by their energy; in the noons and afternoons I feel a part of their patient and vigorous endurance; and when the sun broadens near the rim of the sea at evening, and all work ceases, I am filled with their repose. The lights along the harbour front in the twilight and on into the darkness remind me of them when I can no longer see their crowds and movements, and so does the music which they love to play in their recreation after the fatigues of the day, and the distant songs which they sing far into the night.

"I was about thirty years of age, and had seen (in a career of diplomacy) many places and men; I had a fortune quite insufficient for a life among my equals. My youth had been, therefore, anxious, humiliated, and worn when, upon a feverish and unhappy holiday taken from the capital of this State, I came by accident to the cave and platform which you see. It was one of those days in which the air exhales revelation, and I clearly saw that happiness inhabited the mountain corner. I determined to remain for ever in so rare a companionship, and from that day she has never abandoned me. For a little while I kept a touch with the world by purchasing those newspapers in which I was reported shot by brigands or devoured by wild beasts, but the amusement soon wearied me, and now I have forgotten the very names of my companions."

We were silent then until I said: "But some day you will die here all alone."

"And why not?" he answered calmly. "It will be a nuisance for those who find me, but I shall be indifferent altogether."

"That is blasphemy," says I.

"So says the priest of St. Anthony," he immediately replied--but whether as a reproach, an argument, or a mere commentary I could not discover.

In a little while he advised me to go down to the plain before the heat should incommode my journey. I left him, therefore, reading a book of Jane Austen's, and I have never seen him since.

Of the many strange men I have met in my travels he was one of the most strange and not the least fortunate. Every word I have written about him is true.

OF AN UNKNOWN COUNTRY

Ten years ago, I think, or perhaps a little less or perhaps a little more, I came in the Euston Road--that thoroughfare of Empire--upon a young man a little younger than myself whom I knew, though I did not know him very well. It was drizzling and the second-hand booksellers (who are rare in this thoroughfare) were beginning to put out the waterproof covers over their wares. This disturbed my acquaintance, because he was engaged upon buying a cheap book that should really satisfy him.

Now this was difficult, for he had no hobby, and the book which should satisfy him must be one that should describe or summon up, or, it is better to say, hint at--or, the theologians would say, reveal, or the Platonists would say _recall_--the Unknown Country, which he thought was his very home.