The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions Part 2

_FRIENDs.h.i.+P_.

The memoirs that are now poured into the book-market certainly tend to breed cynicism in the minds of susceptible persons, for it appears that to many eminent men and women of our generation friends.h.i.+p was almost an unknown sentiment. As we read one spiteful paragraph after another, we begin to wonder whether the living men around us resemble the dead purveyors of scandal. The fas.h.i.+onable mode of proceeding nowadays is to leave diaries crammed with sarcasm, give some unhappy friend orders to wait until you are settled in the grave, and then confound your friends and foes by attacks which come to the light long after your ears are deaf to praise and blame. Samuel Wilberforce went into the choicest society that Britain could show; he was the confidant of many people, and he contrived to charm all but a few cross-grained critics. His good humour seemed inexhaustible; and those who saw his cherubic face beaming sweetly on the company at banquets or a.s.semblies fancied that so delightful a man was never known before. But this suave, unctuous gentleman, who fascinated every one, from Queen to cottager, spent a pretty fair share of his life in writing vicious witticisms and scandals concerning the folk with whom he seemed to be on affectionate terms. At nights, after spending his days in working and bowing and smiling and winning the hearts of men, he went home and poured out all the venom that was in his heart. When his memoirs appeared, all the most select social circles in the country were driven into a serious flutter. No one was spared; and, as some of the statements made by Wilberforce were, to say the least, a little sweeping, a violent paper warfare began, which has hardly ceased raging even now. Happy and contented men who believed that the Bishop loved and admired them were surprised to find that he had disliked and despised them. Moreover, the naughty diarist had an ugly habit of recording men's private conversations; and thus a good many sayings which should have been kept secret became public property.

A very irreverent wag wrote--

How blest was he who'd ne'er consent With Wilberforce to walk, Nor dined with Soapy Sam, nor let The Bishop hear him talk!

and this crude epigram expressed the feelings of numbers of enraged and scandalized individuals. The wretched book gave us an ugly picture of a hollow society where kindness seemed non-existent, and where every man walked with his head in a cloud of poisonous flies. As more memoirs appeared, it was most funny to observe that, while Wilberforce was occupied in scarifying his dear friends, some of his dear friends were occupied in scarifying him. Thus we find Abraham Hayward, a polished leader of society, writing in the following way of Wilberforce, with whom ostensibly his relations were of the most affectionate description--"Wilberforce is really a low fellow. Again and again the committee of the Athenaeum Club have been obliged to reprove him for his vulgar selfishness." This is dreadful! No wonder that petty cynics snarl and rejoice; they say, "Look at your great men, and see what mean backbiters they are!" Alas!

Thomas Carlyle's memoirs are a kind of graveyard of reputations; and we can well understand the rage and horror with which many individuals protested against the fierce Scotchman's strictures. In the hearts of thousands of n.o.ble young people Carlyle's memory was cherished like that of some dear saint; and it was terrible to find that the strong prophet had been penetrated by such a virus of malice. Carlyle met all the best men and women in England; but the only ones whom he did not disparage were Tennyson, the Duke of Wellington, Mr. Froude, and Emerson. He could not talk even of Charles Darwin without calling him an imbecile; and his all-round hitting at his closest intimates is simply merciless.

The same perversity which made him talk of Keats's "maudlin weak-eyed sensibility" caused him to describe his loyal, generous, high-bred friend Lord Houghton as a "nice little robin-redbreast of a man;" while Mrs. Basil Montagu, who cheered him and spared no pains to aid him in the darkest times, is now immortalized by one masterly venomous paragraph. Carlyle was great--very great--but really the cultivation of loyal friends.h.i.+ps seems hardly to have been in his line. Men who know his works by heart, and who derived their n.o.blest inspiration from him, cannot bear to read his memoirs twice over, for it sadly appears as though the t.i.tan had defiled the very altar of friends.h.i.+p.

What shall we say of the cunning cat-like Charles Greville, who crept on tiptoe through the world, observing and recording the littleness of men? His stealthy eye missed nothing; and the men whom he flattered and used little thought that the wizened dandy who pleased them with his old-world courtesy was chronicling their weakness and baseness for all time. A n.o.bly patriotic Ministry came before the world with a flourish of trumpets, and declared that England must fight Russia in defence of public law, freedom, and other holy things. But the wicked diarist had watched the secret proceedings of his dear friends; and he informs us that those beloved intimates were all sound asleep when a single Minister decided on the movement which cost us forty thousand men and one hundred millions of treasure. That close sly being used--to worm out the secrets of men's innermost hearts; and his impa.s.sive mask never showed a sign of emotion. To ill.u.s.trate his mode of extracting the information of which he made such terrible use, I may tell one trivial anecdote which has never before been made public. When Greville was very old, he went to see a spiritualistic "medium" who was attracting fas.h.i.+onable London. The charlatan looked at the gray worn old man and thought himself safe; four other visitors attended the _seance_, but the "medium" bestowed all his attention on Greville. With much emotion he cried, "There is an aged lady behind your chair!" Greville remarked sweetly, "How interesting!" "She is very, very like you!" "Who can it be?" murmured Greville. "She lifts her hands to bless you. Her hands are now resting over your head!" shouted the medium; and the pallid emotionless man said, with a slight tremor in his voice, "Pray tell me who this mysterious visitant may be!" "It is your mother." "Oh," said Greville, "I am delighted to hear that!" "She says she is perfectly happy, and she watches you constantly." "Dear soul!" muttered the imperturbable one. "She tells me you will join her soon, and be happy with her." Then Greville said gravely, in dulcet tones, "That is extremely likely, for I am going to take tea with her at five o'clock!"

He had led on the poor swindler in his usual fas.h.i.+on; and he never hinted at the fact that his mother was nearly a century old. His friends were "pumped" in the same subtle manner; and the immortally notorious memoirs are strewn with a.s.sa.s.sinated characters.

As we study the phenomena indicated by these memoirs, we begin to wonder whether friends.h.i.+p is or is not extinct. Men are gregarious, and flocks of them meet together at all hours of the day and night. They exchange conventional words of greeting, they wear happy smiles, they are apparently cordial and charming' one with another; and yet a rigidly accurate observer may look mournfully for signs of real friends.h.i.+p. How can it exist? The men and women who pa.s.s through the whirl of a London season cannot help regarding their fellow-creatures rather as lay figures than as human beings. They go to crowded b.a.l.l.s and seething "receptions," not to hold any wise human converse, but only to be able to say that they were in such and such a room on a certain night. The glittering crowds fleet by like shadows, and no man has much chance of knowing his neighbour's heart.

How fast the flitting figures come-- The mild, the fierce, the stony face; Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some Where secret tears have left their trace!

Ah, it is only the faces that the tired pleasure-seeker sees and knows; the real comrade, the human soul, is hidden away behind the mask!

Genuine heroic friends.h.i.+p cannot flourish in an artificial society; and that perhaps accounts for the fact that the curled darlings of our modern community spend much of their leisure in reading papers devoted to tattle and scandal. It seems as though the search after pleasure poisoned the very sources of n.o.bleness in the nature of men. In our monstrous city a man may live without a quarrel for forty years; he may be popular, he may be received with genial greetings wherever he goes--and yet he has no friend. He lingers through his little day; and, when he pa.s.ses away, the change is less heeded than would be the removal of a chair from a club smoking-room. When I see the callous indifference with which illness, misfortune, and death are regarded by the dainty cla.s.ses, I can scarcely wonder when irate philosophers denounce polite society as a pestilent and demoralizing nuisance. Among the people airily and impudently called "the lower orders" n.o.ble friends.h.i.+ps are by no means uncommon. "I can't bear that look on your face, Bill. I'm coming to save you or go with you!" said a rough sailor as he sprang into a raging sea to help his s.h.i.+pmate. "I'm coming, old fellow!"

shouted the mate of a merchant-vessel; and he dived overboard among the mountainous seas that were rolling south of Cape Horn one January. For an hour this hero fought with the blinding water, and he saved his comrade at last. Strange to say, the lounging impa.s.sive dandies who regard the universe with a yawn, and who sneer at the very notion of friends.h.i.+p, develop the kindly and manly virtues when they are removed from the enervating atmosphere of Society and forced to lead a hard life. A man to whom emotion, pa.s.sion, self-sacrifice, are things to be mentioned with a curl of the lip, departs on a campaign, and amid squalor, peril, and grim horrors he becomes totally unselfish. Men who have watched our splendid military officers in the field are apt to think that a society which converts such generous souls into self-seeking fribbles must be merely poisonous. The more we study the subject the more clearly we can see that where luxury flourishes friends.h.i.+p withers. In the vast suffering Russian nation friends.h.i.+ps are at this very moment cherished to the heroic pitch. A mighty people are awakening, as it were, from sleep; the wicked and corrupt still sit in high places, but among the weltering ma.s.ses of the populace purity and n.o.bleness are spreading, and such friends.h.i.+ps are fostered as never have been shadowed forth in story or song. Sophie Peroffsky mounts the scaffold with four other doomed mortals; she never thinks of her own approaching agony--she only longs to comfort her friends and she kisses them and greets them with cheering words until the last dread moment arrives. Poor little Marie Soubotine--sweetest of perverted children, n.o.blest of rebels--refuses to purchase her own safety by uttering a word to betray her sworn friend. For three years she lingers on in an underground dungeon, and then she is sent on the wild road to Siberia; she dies amid gloom and deep suffering, but no torture can unseal her lips; she gladly gives her life to save another's. Antonoff endures the torture, but no agony can make him prove false to his friends. When his captors give him a respite from the thumbscrews and the red-hot wires that are thrust under his nails, he forgets his own torment, and scratches on his plate his cipher signals to his comrades. Those men and women in that awful country are lawless and dangerous, but they are heroic, and they are true friends one to another.

How far we proud islanders must have forsaken for a time the road to n.o.bleness when we are able to exalt the saying "A full purse is the only true friend" into a representative English proverb! We do not rage and foam as Timon did--that would be ill-bred and ludicrous; we simply smile and utter delicate mockeries. In the plays that best please our golden youth nothing is so certain to win applause and laughter as a sentence about the treachery or greed of friends. Do those grinning, superlatively insolent cynics really represent the mighty Mother of Nations? Ah, no! If even the worst of them were thrust away into some region where life was hard for him, he would show something like n.o.bility and manliness; it is the mephitic airs of ease and luxury that breed selfishness and scorn in his soul. At any rate, those effeminate people are not typical specimens of our steadfast friendly race. When the folk in the colliery village hear that deadly thud and feel the shudder of the earth which tell of disaster, Jack the hewer rushes to the pit's mouth and joins the search-party. He knows that the gas may grip him by the throat, and that the heavy current of dissolution may creep through his veins; but his mate is down there in the workings, and he must needs save him or die in the attempt. Greater love hath no man than this. Ah, yes--the poor collier is indeed ready to lay down his life for his friend! The fiery soldier, William Beresford, sees a comrade in peril; a horde of infuriated savages are rus.h.i.+ng up, and there is only one pony to carry the two Englishmen. Beresford calls, "Jump up behind me!" but the friend answers, "No; save yourself! I can die, and I won't risk your life." Then the undignified but decidedly gallant Beresford observes, "If you don't come, I'll punch your head!"

The pony canters heavily off; one stumble would mean death, but the dauntless fighting man brings in his friend safely, though only by the skin of his teeth. It is absolutely necessary for the saving of our moral health that we should turn away from the dreary flippancy of an effete society to such scenes as those. If we regarded only the pampered cla.s.ses, then we might well think that true human fellows.h.i.+p had perished, and a starless darkness--worse almost than Atheism--would fall on the soul. But we are not all corrupt, and the strong brave heart of our people still beats true. Young men cherish manly affection for friends, and are not ashamed to show it; sweet girls form friends.h.i.+ps that hold until the maidens become matrons and till the s.h.i.+ning locks have turned to silver white. Wherever men are ma.s.sed together the struggle for existence grows keen, and selfishness and cynicism thrust up their rank growths. "Pleasure" blunts the moral sense and converts the natural man into a noxious being; but happily our people are sound at the core, and it will be long ere cynicism and corruption are universal. The great healthy middle-cla.s.s is made up of folk who would regard a writer of spiteful memoirs as a mere bravo; they have not perhaps the sweetness and light which Mr. Arnold wished to bestow on them, but at any rate they have a certain rough generosity, and they have also a share of that self-forgetfulness which alone forms the basis of friends.h.i.+p. Having that, they can do without Carlyle's learning and Wilberforce's polish, and they can certainly do without the sour malice of the historian and the prelate.

_July, 1887._

_DISASTERS AT SEA_.

During last year the register of slaughter on the ocean was worse than any ever before seen since the _Royal Charter_ took her crew to destruction; and it seems as though matters were growing worse and worse. One dismal old story is being repeated week in, week out. In thick weather or clear weather--it does not seem to matter which--two vessels approach each other, and the presiding officers on board of each are quite satisfied and calm; then, on a sudden, one vessel s.h.i.+fts her course, there are a few hurried and maddened e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, and then comes a crash. After that, the ugly tale may be continued in the same terms over and over again; the boats cannot be cleared away, the vessels drift apart, and both founder, or one is left crippled. I shall have something to say about the actual effects of a collision presently, but I may first go on to name some other kinds of disaster. A heavy sea is rolling, and occasionally breaking, and a vessel is lumbering along from crest to hollow of the rus.h.i.+ng seas; a big wall of water looms over her for a second, and then comes cras.h.i.+ng down; the deck gives way--there are no water-tight compartments--and the s.h.i.+p becomes suddenly as unmanageable as a mere cask in a seaway. Again, a plate is wrenched, and some villainously-made rivets jump out of their places like b.u.t.tons from an over-tight bodice; in ten minutes the vessel is wallowing, ready for her last plunge; and very likely the crew have not even the forlorn chance of taking to the boats. Once more--on a clear night in the tropics an emigrant s.h.i.+p is stealing softly through the water; the merry crowd on deck has broken up, the women, poor creatures, are all locked up in their quarters, and only a few men remain to lounge and gossip.

The great stars hang like lamps from the solemn dome of the sky, and the ripples are painted with exquisite serpentine streaks; the wind hums softly from the courses of the sails, and some of the men like to let the cool breeze blow over them. Everything seems so delightfully placid and clear that the thought of danger vanishes; no one would imagine that even a sea-bird could come up un.o.bserved over that starlit expanse of water. But the ocean is treacherous in light and shade. The loungers tell their little stories and laugh merrily; the officer of the watch carelessly stumps forward from abreast of the wheel, looks knowingly aloft, twirls round like a teetotum, and stumps back again; and the sweet night pa.s.ses in splendour, until all save one or two home-sick lingerers are happy. It never occurs to any of these pa.s.sengers to glance forward and see whether a streak of green fire seems to strike out from the starboard--the right-hand side of the vessel--or whether a shaft of red shoots from the other side. As a matter of fact, the vessel is going on like a dark cloud over the flying furrows of the sea; but there is very little of the cloud about her great hull, for she would knock a house down if she hit it when travelling at her present rate.

The captain is a thrifty man, and the owners are thrifty persons; they consider the cost of oil; and thus, as it is a nice clear night, the side-lights are not lit, and the judgment of the tramping look-out man on the forecastle-head is trusted. Parenthetically I may say that, without being in any way disposed to harbour exaggerated sentiment, I feel almost inclined to advocate death for any sailor who runs in mid-ocean without carrying his proper lights out. I once saw a big iron barque go grinding right from the bulge of the bow to the stern of an ocean steamer--and that wretched barque had no lights. Half a yard's difference, and both vessels would have sunk. Three hundred and fifty people were sleeping peacefully on board the steamer, and the majority of them must have gone down, while those who were saved would have had a hard time in the boats. Strange to say, that very same steamer was crossed by another vessel which carried no lights: but this time the result was bad, for the steamer went clean through the other s.h.i.+p and sank her instantly.

To return to the emigrant vessel. The officer continues his tramp like one of the caged animals of a menagerie; the spare man of the watch leans against the rail and hums--

We'll go no more by the light of the moon; The song is done, and we've lost the tune, So I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid-- A-roving, A-roving, &c.

--the pipes glow in the clear air, and the flying water bubbles and moans. Oh, yes, all is well--beautifully well--and we need no lights whatever! Then the look-out man whistles "Hist!"--which is quite an unusual mode of signalling; the officer ceases his monotonous tramp and runs forward. "Luff a little!" "He's still bearing up. Why doesn't he keep away?" "Luff a little more! Stand by your lee-braces. Oh, he'll go clear!" So the low clear talk goes, till at last with a savage yell of rage a voice comes from the other vessel--"Where you coming to?" "Hard down with it!" "He's into us!" "Clear away your boats!" Then there is a sound like "smack." Then comes a long scraunch, and a thunderous rattle of blocks; a sail goes with a report like a gun; the vessels b.u.mp a few times, and then one draws away, leaving the other with bows staved in. A wild clamour surges up from below, but there is no time to heed that; the men toil like t.i.tans, and the hideous music of prayers and curses disturbs the night. Then the vessel that was. .h.i.t amids.h.i.+ps rolls a little, and there is a gurgle like that of an enormous, weir: a mast goes with a sharp report; a man's figure appears on the taffrail and bounds far into the sea--it is an experienced hand who wants to escape the down-draught; the hull shudders, grows steady, and then with one lurch the s.h.i.+p swashes down and the bellowing vortex throws up huge spirts of boiling spray. A few stray swimmers are picked up, but the rest of the company will be seen nevermore. Fancy those women in that darkened steerage! Think of it, and then say what should be done to an owner who stints his officers in the matter of lamp-oil; or to a captain who does not use what the owner provides! The huddled victims wake from confused slumbers; some scream--some become insane on the instant; the children add their shrill clamour to the mad rout; and the water roars in. Then the darkness grows thick, and the agonized crowd tear and throttle each other in fierce terror; and then approaches the slowly-coming end. Oh, how often--how wearily often--have such scenes been enacted on the face of this fair world! And all to save a little lamp-oil!

Yet again--a great vessel plunges away to sea bearing a precious freight of some one thousand souls. Perhaps the owners reckon the cargo in the hold as being worth more than the human burden; but of course opinions differ. The wild rush from one border of the ocean to the other goes on for a few days and nights, and the tremendous structure of steel cleaves the hugest waves as though they were but clouds. Down below the luxurious pa.s.sengers live in their fine hotel, and the luckier ones are quite happy and ineffably comfortable. If a sunny day breaks, then the pallid battalions in the steerage come up to the air, and the s.h.i.+p's deck is like a long animated street. A thousand souls, we said? True!

Now let some quiet observant man of the sailorly sort go round at night and count the boats. Twelve, and the gig aft makes thirteen! Allowing a tremendously large average, this set of boats might actually carry six hundred persons; but the six hundred would need to sit very carefully even in smooth water, and a rush might capsize any one boat.

The vast floating hotel spins on at twenty miles an hour--a speed that might possibly shame some of the railways that run from London suburbs--and the officers want to save every yard. No care is omitted; three men are on the bridge at night, there is a starboard look-out, a port look-out, and the quartermaster patrols amids.h.i.+ps and sees that the masthead light is all right The officer and the look-out men pa.s.s the word every half-hour, and nothing escapes notice. If some unlucky steerage pa.s.senger happens to strike a light forward, he stands a very good chance of being put in irons; and, if there is a patient in the deck-house, the windows must be darkened with thick cloths. Each officer, on hazy nights, improvises a sort of hood for himself; and he peers forward as if life depended on his eyesight--as indeed it does.

But there comes a bright evening, and the monster liner's journey is all but over; three hours more of steaming and she will be safe. A little schooner comes skimming up on the port side--and the schooner is to the liner as a chip is to a tree-trunk. The schooner holds on her course, for she is not bound to give way at all; but the officer on the bridge of the steamer thinks, "I shall lose a quarter of an hour if I edge away to starboard and let him fall astern of us. I shall keep right on and shave his bows." The liner is going at nineteen knots, the schooner is romping along at eight--yet the liner cannot clear the little vessel.

There comes a fresh gust of wind; the sailing vessel lies over to it, and just touches the floating hotel amids.h.i.+ps--but the touch is enough to open a breach big enough for a coach and four to go through. The steamer's head is laid for the land and every ounce of steam is put on, but she settles and settles more and more. And now what about the thirteen boats for a thousand people? There is a wild scuffling, wild outcry. Women bite their lips and-try, with divine patience, to crush down all appearance of fear, and to keep their limbs from trembling; some unruly fellows are kept in check only by terror of the revolver; and the officers remember that their fair name and their hope of earthly redemption are at stake. In one case of this sort it took three mortal hours to ferry the pa.s.sengers and crew over smooth water to the rescuing vessel; and those rescued folk may think themselves the most fortunate of all created souls, for, if the liner had been hit with an impetus of a few more tons, very few on board of her would have lived to tell the tale. Unless pa.s.sengers, at the risk of being snubbed and threatened, criticise the boat accommodation of great steamers, there will be such a disaster one day as will make the world shudder.

The pitiful thing is to know how easily all this might be prevented.

Until one has been on board a small vessel which has every spar, bolt, iron, and plank sound, one can have no idea how perfectly safe a perfectly-built s.h.i.+p is in any sort of weather. A schooner of one hundred and fifty tons was caught in a hurricane which was so powerful that the men had to hang on where they could, even before the flattened foaming sea rose from its level rush and began to come on board. All round were vessels in distress; the scare caused many of the seamen to forget their lights, and the s.h.i.+ps lumbered on, first to collision, and then to that cras.h.i.+ng plunge which takes all hands down. The little schooner was actually obliged to offer a.s.sistance to a big mail-steamer--and yet she might have been rather easily carried by that same steamer. But the little vessel's lights were watched with sedulous care; the blasts might tear at her scanty canvas, but there was not a rag or a rope that would give way; and, although the awful rush of the gale carried her within eight miles of a rocky lee-sh.o.r.e, her captain had sufficient confidence in the goodness of his gear to begin sailing his s.h.i.+p instead of keeping her hove to. One rope faulty, one light wrong, one hand out of his place at the critical time, and the bones of a pleasant s.h.i.+p's company would have been strewn on a bleak sh.o.r.e: but everything was right, and the tiny craft drew away like a seagull when she was made to sail. Of course the sea ran clean over her, but she forged quietly on until she was thirty miles clear of those foaming breakers that roared on the cliffs. During that night more good seamen were drowned than one would like to number; s.h.i.+ps worth a king's ransom were utterly lost. And why? Simply because they had not the perfect gear which saved the little schooner. Even had the little craft been sent over until she refused to rise again to the sea, the boats were ready, and everybody on board had a good chance. Care first of all is needed, and then fear may be banished. The smart agent reads his report glibly to the directors of a steamboat company--and yet I have seen such smart agents superintending the departure of vessels whereof the appearance was enough to make a good judge quake for the safety of crew and cargo.

What do I advise? Well, in the first place, I must remind sh.o.r.egoing folk that a sound well-found vessel will live through anything. Let pa.s.sengers beware of lines which pay a large dividend and show nothing on their balance-sheets to allow for depreciation. In the next place, if any pa.s.senger on a long voyage should see that the proper lights are not shown, he ought to wake up his fellow pa.s.sengers at any hour of the night, and go with his friends to threaten the captain. Never mind bl.u.s.ter or oaths--merely say, "If your lights are not shown, you may regard your certificate as gone." If that does not bring the gentleman to his senses, nothing will. Again, take care in any case that no raw foreign seamen are allowed to go on the look-out in any vessel, for a misunderstood shout at a critical moment may bring sudden doom on hundreds of unsuspecting fellow-creatures. Above all, see that the water-casks in every boat are kept full. In this way the sea tragedies may be a little lessened in their hateful number.

_March, 1889._

_A RHAPSODY OF SUMMER_.

There came into my life a time of strenuous effort, and I drank all the joys of labour to the lees. When the rich dark midnights of summer drooped over the earth, I could hardly bear to think of the hours of oblivion which must pa.s.s ere I felt the delight of work once more. And the world seemed very beautiful; and, when I looked up to the solemn sky, so sweetly sown with stars, I could see stirring words like "Fame"

and "Gladness" and "Triumph" written dimly across the vault; so that my heart was full of rejoicing, and all the world promised fair. In those immortal midnights the sea spoke wonderful things to me, and the long rollers glittering under the high moon bore health and bright promise as they hastened to the sh.o.r.e. And, when the s.h.i.+ps stole--oh, so silently!--out of the shadows and moved over the diamond track of the moon's light, I sent my heart out to the lonely seamen and prayed that they might be joyous like me. Then the ringing of the song of mult.i.tudinous birds sounded in the hours of dawn, and the tawny-throated king of songsters made my pulses tremble with his wild ecstasy; and the blackbird poured forth mellow defiance, and the thrush shrilled in his lovely fas.h.i.+on concerning the joy of existence.

Pa.s.s, dreams! The long beams are drawn from the bosom of dawn. The gray of the quiet sea quickens into rose, and soon the glittering serpentine streaks of colour quiver into a blaze; the brown sands glow, and the little waves run inward, showing milky curves under the gay light; the sh.o.r.egoing boats come home, and their sails--those coa.r.s.e tanned sails--are like flowers that wake with the daisies and the peonies to feast on the sun. Happy holiday-makers who are wise enough to watch the fishers come in! The booted thickly-clad fellows plunge into the shallow water; and then the bare-footed women come down, and the harvest of the night is carried up the cliffs before the most of the holiday-folk have fairly awakened. The proud day broadens to its height, and the sands are blackened by the growing crowd; for the beach near a fas.h.i.+onable watering-place is like a section cut from a turbulent city street, save that the folk on the sands think of aught but business. I have never been able to sympathize with those who can perceive only vulgarity in a seaside crowd. It is well to care for deserted sh.o.r.es and dark moaning forests in the far North; but the average British holiday-maker is a sociable creature; he likes to feel the sense of companions.h.i.+p, and his spirits rise in proportion to the density of the crowd amid which he disports himself. To me, the life, the concentrated enjoyment, the ways of the children who are set free from the trammels of town life, are all like so much poetry. I learned early to rejoice in silent sympathy with the rejoicing of G.o.d's creatures. Only to watch the languid pose of some steady toiler from the City is enough to give discontented people a goodly lesson. The man has been ground in the mill for a year; his modest life has left him no time for enjoyment, and his ideas of all pleasure are crude. Watch him as he remains pa.s.sively in an ecstasy of rest. The cries of children, the confused jargon of the crowd, fall but faintly on his nerves; he likes the sensation of being in company; he has a dim notion of the beauty of the vast sky with its s.h.i.+ning snowy-bosomed clouds, and he lets the light breeze blow over him. I like to look on that good citizen and contrast the dull round of his wayfarings on many streets with the ease and satisfaction of his att.i.tude on the sands. Then the night comes. The dancers are busy, the commonplace music is made refined by distance, and the murmur of the sea gathers power over all other sounds, until the noon of night arrives and the last merry voices are heard no more. Poor harmless revellers, so condemned by men whose round of life is a search for pleasure! Many of you do not understand or care for quiet refinements of dress and demeanour; you lack restraint; but I have felt much gladness while demurely watching your abandonment. I could draw rest for my soul from the magnetic night long after you were aweary and asleep; but much of my pleasure came as a reflection from yours.

As my memories of sweetness--yes, and of purifying sadness--gather more thickly, I am minded to wonder that so much has been vouchsafed me rather than to mourn over shadowy might-have-beens. The summer day by the deep lovely lake--the lake within sound of the sea! All round the steep walls that shut in the dark glossy water there hung rank festoons and bosses of brilliant green, and the clear reflections of the weeds and flowers hung so far down in the mysterious deeps that the height of the rocky wall seemed stupendous. Far over in one tremendously deep pool the lazy great fish wallowed and lunged; they would not show their speckled sides very much until the evening; but they kept sleepily moving all day, and sometimes a mighty back would show like a log for an instant. In the morning the modest ground-larks cheeped softly among the rough gra.s.ses on the low hills, while the proud heaven-scaler--the lordly kinsman of the ground-lark--filled the sky with his lovely clamour. Sometimes a water-rail would come out from the sedges and walk on the surface of the lake as a tiny ostrich might on the s.h.i.+fting sand; pretty creatures of all sorts seemed to find their homes near the deep wonderful water, and the whole morning might be pa.s.sed in silently watching the birds and beasts that came around. The gay sun made streams of silver fire shoot from the polished brackens and sorrel, the purple geraniums gleamed like scattered jewels, and the birds seemed to be joyful in presence of that manifold beauty--joyful as the quiet human being who watched them all. And the little fishes in the shallows would have their fun as well. They darted hither and thither; the spiny creatures which the schoolboy loves built their queer nests among the waterweeds; and sometimes a silly adventurer--alarmed by the majestic approach of a large fish--would rush on to the loamy bank at the shallow end of the lake and wriggle piteously in hopeless failure. The afternoons were divinely restful by the varied sh.o.r.es of the limpid lake. Sometimes as the sun sloped there might come hollow blasts of wind that had careered for a brief s.p.a.ce over the woods; but the brooding heat, the mastering silence, the feeling that multifarious quiescent living things were ready to start into action, all took the senses with somnolence. That drowsy joy, that soothing silence which seemed only intensified by the murmur of bees and the faint gurgle of water, were like medicine to the soul; and it seemed that the conception of Nirvana became easily understood as the delicious open-air reverie grew more and more involved and vague. Then the last look of the sun, the creeping shadows that made the sea gray and turned the little lake to an inky hue, and then the slow fall of the quiet-coloured evening, and, last, the fall of the mystic night!

Poor little birds, moving uneasily in the darkness, threw down tiny fragments from the rocks, and each fragment fell with a sound like the clink of a delicate silver bell; softly the sea moaned, softly the night-wind blew, and softly--so softly!--came whispering the spirits of the dead. Joyous faces could be seen by that lake long, long ago. In summer, when the lower rim was all blazing with red and yellow flowers, young lovers came to whisper and gaze. They are dead and gone. In winter, when the tarn was covered with jetty glossy ice, there were jovial scenes whereof the jollity was shared by a happy few. Round and round on the glossy surface the skaters flew and pa.s.sed like gliding ghosts under the gloom of the rocks; the hiss of the iron sounded musically, and the steep wall flung back sharp echoes of harmless laughter. Each volume of sound was magically magnified, and the gay company carried on their pleasant outing far into the chili winter night. They are all gone! One was there oftenest in spring and summer, and the last sun-rays often made her golden hair s.h.i.+ne in splendour as she stood gazing wistfully over the solemn lake. She saw wonders there that coa.r.s.er spirits could not know; and all her gentle musings pa.s.sed into poetry--poetry that was seldom spoken. Those who loved her never cared to break her sacred stillness as she pondered by the side of the beloved tarn; her language was not known to common folk, for she held high converse with the great of old time; and, when she chanced to speak with me, I understood but dimly, though I had all the sense of beauty and mystery. A s.h.i.+pwrecked sailor said she looked as if she belonged to G.o.d. Her Master claimed her early. Dear, your yellow hair will s.h.i.+ne no more in the sun that you loved; you have long given over your day-dreams--and you are now dreamless. Or perhaps you dwell amid the silent glory of one last long dream of those you loved. The gorse on the moor moans by your grave, the brackens grow green and tall and wither into dead gold year by year, the lake gleams gloomily in fitful flashes amid its borders of splendour; and you rest softly while the sea calls your lullaby nightly. Far off, far off, my soul, by quiet seas where the lamps of the Southern Cross hang in the magnificence of the purple sky, there is one who remembers the lake, and the gla.s.sy ice, and the blaze of pompous summer, and the s.h.i.+ning of that yellow hair. Peace--oh, peace! The sorrow has pa.s.sed into quiet pensive regret that is nigh akin to gladness.

How many other ineffable days and nights have I known? All who can feel the thrilling of sea-winds, all who can have even one day amid gra.s.s and fair trees, grasp the time of delight, enjoy all beauties, do not pa.s.s in coa.r.s.eness one single minute; and then, when the Guide comes to point your road through the strange gates, you may be like me--you may repine at nothing, for you will have much good to remember and scanty evil. It is good for me now to think of the thundering rush of the yacht as, with the great mainsail drawing heavily, she roared through the field of foam made by her own splendid speed, while the inky waves on the dim horizon moaned and the dark summer midnight brooded warmly over the dark sea. It is good to think of the strange days when the vessel was buried in wreaths of dark cloud, and the rush of the wind only drove the haze screaming among the shrouds. The vast dim mountains might not be pleasant to the eye of either seaman or landsman; but, when they poured their thundering deluge on a strong safe deck, we did not mind them.

Happy hearts were there even in stormy warring afternoons; and men watched quite placidly as the long grim hills came gliding on. Then in the evenings there were chance hours when the dim forecastle was a pleasant place in bad weather. The bow of the vessel swayed wildly; the pitching seemed as if it might end in one immense supreme dive to the gulf, and the mad storming of the wind forced us to utter our simple talk in loudest tones. Gruff kindly phrases, without much wit or point, were good enough for us; perhaps even the appalling dignitary--yes, even the mate--would crawl in; and we listened to lengthy disjointed stories.

And all the while the tremendous howl of the storm went on, and the merry lads who went out on duty had to rush wildly so as to reach the alley when a very heavy sea came over. The sense of strength was supreme; the crash of the gale was nothing; and we rather hugged ourselves on the notion that the fierce screaming meant us no harm. The curls of smoke flitted softly amid the blurred yellow beams from the lamp, and our chat went on while the monstrous billows grew blacker and blacker and the spray shone like corpse-candles on the mystic and mighty hills. And then the hours of the terrible darkness! To leave the swept deck while every vein tingled with the ecstasy of the gale! The dull warmth below was exquisite; the sly creatures which crept from their, dens and let the lamplight s.h.i.+ne on their weird eyes--even the gamesome rats--had something merrily diabolic about them. Their thuds on the floor, their sordid swarming, their inexplicable daring--all gave a kind of minor current of _diablerie_ to the rush and hurry of the stormy night; for they seemed to speak--and the creatures which on sh.o.r.e are odious appeared to be quite in place in the soaring groaning vessel. Ah, my brave forecastle lads, my merry tan-faced favourites, I shall no more see your quaint squalor, I shall no more see your battle with wind and savage waves and elemental turmoil! Some of you have pa.s.sed to the shadows before me; some of you have only the ooze for your graves; and the others cannot ever hear my greeting again on the sweet mornings when the waves are all gay with lily-hued blossoms of foam.

Pale beyond porch and portal, Crowned with dark flowers she stands, Who gathers all things mortal With cold immortal hands.

Gathers! And Proserpina will strew the flowers of foam that I may never see more--and then she will gather me.

All was good in the time of delight--all is good now that only a memory clings lovingly to the heart. Take my counsel. Rejoice in your day, and the night shall carry no dread for you.

_June, 1889._

_LOST DAYS._

I fully recognize the fact which the Frenchman flippantly stated--that no human beings really believe that death is inevitable until the last clasp of the stone-cold king numbs their pulses. Perhaps this insensibility is a merciful gift; at any rate, it is a fact. If belief came home with violence to our minds, we should suffer from a sort of vertigo; but the merciful dullness which the Frenchman perceived and mocked in his epigram saves us all the miseries of apprehension. This is very curiously seen among soldiers when they know that they must soon go into action. The soldiers chat together on the night before the attack; they know that some of them must go down; they actually go so far as to exchange messages thus--"If anything happens to me, you know, Bill, I want you to take that to the old people. You give me a note or anything else you have; and, if we get out of the s.h.i.+ndy, we can hand the things back again." After confidences of this sort, the men chat on; and I never yet knew or heard of one who did not speak of his own safe return as a matter of course. When a brigade charges, there may be a little anxiety at first; but the whistle of the first bullet ends all misgivings, and the fellows grow quite merry, though it may be that half of them are certain to be down on the ground before the day is over. A man who is struck may know well that he will pa.s.s away: but he will rise up feebly to cheer on his comrades--nay, he will ask questions, as the charging troops pa.s.s him, as to the fate of Bill or Joe, or the probable action of the Heavies, or similar trifles.

In the fight of life we all behave much as the soldiers do in the crash and hurry of battle. If we reason the matter out with a semblance of logic, we all know that we must move toward the shadows; but, even after we are mortally stricken by disease or age, we persist in acting and thinking as if there were no end. In youth we go almost further; we are too apt to live as though we were immortal, and as though there were absolutely nothing to result from human action or human inaction. To the young man and the young woman the future is not a blind lane with a grave at the end; it is a s.p.a.cious plain reaching away towards a far-off horizon; and that horizon recedes and recedes as they move forward, leaving magnificent expanses to be crossed in joyous freedom. A pretty delusion! The youth harks onward, singing merrily and rejoicing in sympathy with the mystic song of the birds; there is so much s.p.a.ce around him--the very breath of life is a joy--and he is content to taste in glorious idleness the ecstasy of living. The evening closes in, and then the horizon seems to be narrowing; like the walls of the deadly chamber in the home of the Inquisition, the skies shrink inward--and the youth has misgivings. The next day finds his plain shrunken a little in expanse, and his horizon has not so superb a sweep. Nevertheless he goes gaily on, and once more he raises his voice joyously, and tries to think that the plain and the horizon can contract no more. Thus in foolish hopefulness he pa.s.ses his days until the glorious plain of his dreams has been traversed, and, lo, under his very feet is the great gulf fixed, and far below the tide--the tide of Eternity--laps sullenly against the walls of the deadly chasm. If the youth knew that the gulf and the rolling river were so near--if he not only knew, but could absolutely picture his doom--would he be so merry? Ah, no!

I repeat that, if men could be so disciplined as to believe in their souls that death must come, then there would be no lost days. Is there one of us who can say that he never lost a day amid this too brief, too joyous, too entrancing term of existence? Not one. The aged Roman--who, by-the-way, was somewhat of a prig--used to go about moaning, "I have lost a day," if he thought he had not performed some good action or learned something in the twenty-four hours. Most of us have no such qualms; we waste the time freely; and we never know that it is wasted until with a dull shock we comprehend that all must be left and that the squandered hours can never be retrieved. The men who are strongest and greatest and best suffer the acutest remorse for the lost days; they know their own powers, and that very knowledge makes them suffer all the more bitterly when they reckon up what they might have done and compare it with the sum of their actual achievement.