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Page 2
The sojourner in the green shade will find himself, as I have found
myself, more interested in people (but not those people) than in
books. We have too many books, as I discovered when I left London for
good. I sold six tons, and again another six, when, after two years in
West Sussex, I came home. Now I have collected about me the things I
can't do without, the things of which I read at least portions every
year, as well as a few which it is good to have handy in case of
accidents. Book-collecting is a foppery, a pastime of youth, when
spending money is as necessary as taking exercise, and you are better
for an object in each case. But I find that I now read with motives
other than those of old. I am now more interested in the author than
in his book. That must mean that I am more interested in life than
in art. I am reading at this moment Professor Child's edition of the
Ballads, and though I am occasionally moved to tears by the beauty
and tragic insight of things like _The Wife of Usher's Well_;
_Clerk Saunders_, or _Lord Thomas and Fair Annie_, I am sure that
considerations altogether unliterary move me more--such, for instance,
as curiosity to know who composed, and for whom they composed, these
lovely tales. I don't suppose that we shall ever know the name, or
anything of the personality of any one poet of them. Those poets were
as anonymous as our church-builders, and if they were content to be so
we should be content to have it so. But one would be happy to know of
what kind they were, and perhaps even happier (certainly I should) to
realise their auditors. Did they write for men or women? That is one
of my consuming quests. The staves of the _Iliad_ were for men: that
seems certain. Those of the _Odyssey_ not so certainly. But take this
from _May Collin_, and consider it.
You know the story, how "She fell in love with a false priest, and
rued it ever mair"? The priest followed her "butt and ben," and gave
her no peace. They took horses and money and rode out together "Until
they came to a rank river, Was raging like the sea." There the priest
declared his purpose:
"Light off, light off now, May Collin,
It's here that you must dee;
Here I have drown'd seven kings' daughters,
The eighth now you must be."
So her torture begins. He bids her cast off "her gown that's of the
green," because it is too good to rot in the sea-stream; next her
"coat that's of the black "; next her "stays that are well-laced";
lastly her "sark that's of the holland"--all for the same reason. Then
the girl speaks:
"Turn you about now, false Mess John,
To the green leaf of the tree;
It does not fit a mansworn man
A naked woman to see."
The point is that he obeys her. She catches him round the body and
flings him into the tide. _Women were listening to that tale_.
If I am to deal with life it must be in my own way, for there's no
escape from one's character. I may be a good poet or a bad one--that's
not for me to say; but I am a poet of sorts. Now a poet does not
observe like a novelist. He does not indeed necessarily observe at
all until he feels the need of observation. Then he observes, and
intensely. He does not analyse, he does not amass his facts; he
concentrates. He wrings out quintessences; and when he has distilled
his drops of pure spirit he brews his potion. Something of the kind
happens to me now, whether verse or prose be the Muse of my devotion.
A stray thought, a chance vision, moves me; presently the flame is
hissing hot. Everything then at any time observed and stored in the
memory which has relation to the fact is fused and in a swimming flux.
Anon, as the Children of Israel said to Moses, "There came forth
this calf." One cannot get any nearer, I believe; and while I do not
pretend that I have said all there is to say about anything here, I
shall maintain that I have said all that need be said about the things
which I touch upon. In an essay, as in a poem, the half is greater
than the whole, if it is the right half. If it is the wrong half, why,
then the shorter it is the better.
As most of these commentaries were written during the year which is
mercifully over, it would not have been possible, even if it had been
sought, to avoid current topics. Why should a writer shrink from being
called a journalist? He need not cease to be writer. But if he wishes
to be true to his original calling, to make his hope and election
sure, he must always be careful to seek the universal in the
particular; and that is where your idealist has such a pull, for he
can see nothing else. And if he does that he need not be afraid that
the conventions of Time and Space will be a hindrance to his book's
path. He will be readable a century hence; he will be readable in the
Antipodes; and that is as near infinity as any of us, short of Chaucer
and Shakespeare, need trouble about. In the country one reads, not
skims, the daily paper; and if one's comments are leisurely, perhaps
they are all the better. At any rate one is not tempted to see the end
of the world in a strike, or a second Bonaparte in Signor d'Annunzio.
To me that poet seems rather a comic-opera brigand. I suspect him of
a green velvet jacket with a two-inch tail. But if you regard him
_sub specie eternitatis_, then I fear we must see in him all Italy
in epitome. That was how Italy went to war--but you must live in the
country to understand things like that, out of range of the tumult and
the shouting.
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