As I led Adela, well wrapped in furs, down the steps to put her into the carriage, I felt by the wind, and saw by the sky, that a snowstorm was at hand. This set my heart beating with delight, for after all I am only what my friends call me—an old boy; and so I am still very fond of snow and wind. Of course this pleasure is often modified by the recollection that it is to most people no pleasure, and to some a source of great suffering. But then I recover myself by thinking, that I did not send for the snow, and that my enjoyment of it will neither increase their pains nor lessen my sympathies. And so I enjoy it again with all my heart. It is partly the sense of being lapt in a mysterious fluctuating depth of exquisite shapes of evanescent matter, falling like a cataract from an unknown airy gulf, where they grow into being and form out of the invisible—well-named by the prophet Job—for a prophet he was in the truest sense, all-seated in his ashes and armed with his potsherd—the womb of the snow; partly the sense of motion and the goings of the wind through the etherial mass; partly the delight that always comes from contest with nature, a contest in which no vile passions are aroused, and no weak enemy goes helpless to the ground. I presume that in a right condition of our nervous nature, instead of our being, as some would tell us, less exposed to the influences of nature, we should in fact be altogether open to them. Our nerves would be a thorough-fare for Nature in all and each of her moods and feelings, stormy or peaceful, sunshiny or sad. The true refuge from the slavery to which this would expose us, the subjection of man to circumstance, is to be found, not in the deadening of the nervous constitution, or in a struggle with the influences themselves, but in the strengthening of the moral and refining of the spiritual nature; so that, as the storms rave through the vault of heaven without breaking its strong arches with their winds, or staining its etherial blue with their rain-clouds, the soul of man should keep clear and steady and great, holding within it its own feelings and even passions, knowing that, let them moan or rave as they will, they cannot touch the nearest verge of the empyrean dome, in whose region they have their birth and being.
For me, I felt myself now, just an expectant human snow-storm; and as I sat on the box by the coachman, I rejoiced to greet the first flake, which alighted on the tip of my nose even before we had cleared our own grounds. Before we had got up street, the wind had risen, and the snow thickened, till the horses seemed inclined to turn their tails to the hill and the storm together, for the storm came down the hill in their faces. It was soon impossible to see one's hand before one's eyes; and the carriage lamps served only to reveal a chaotic fury of snow-flakes, crossing each other's path at all angles, in the eddies of the wind amongst the houses. The coachman had to keep encouraging his horses to get them to face it at all. The ground was very slippery; and so fast fell the snow, that it had actually begun to ball in the horses' feet before we reached our destination. When we were all safe in Mrs. Armstrong's drawing-room, we sat for a while listening to the wind roaring in the chimney, before any of us spoke. And then I did not join in the conversation, but pleased myself with looking at the room; for next to human faces, I delight in human abodes, which will always, more or less, according to the amount of choice vouchsafed in the occupancy, be like the creatures who dwell in them. Even the soldier-crab must have some likeness to the snail of whose house he takes possession, else he could not live in it at all.
The first thing to be done by one who would read a room is, to clear it as soon as possible of the air of the marvellous, the air of the storybook, which pervades every place at the first sight of it. But I am not now going to write a treatise upon this art, for which I have not time to invent a name; but only to give as much of a description of this room as will enable my readers to feel quite at home with us in it, during our evening there. It was a large low room, with two beams across the ceiling at unequal distances. There was only a drugget on the floor, and the window curtains were scanty. But there was a glorious fire on the hearth, and the tea-board was filled with splendid china, as old as the potteries. The chairs, I believe, had been brought from old Mr. Armstrong's lumber-room, and so they all looked as if they could tell stories themselves. At all events they were just the proper chairs to tell stories in, and I could not help regretting that we were not to have any to-night. The rest of the company had arrived before us. A warm corner in an old-fashioned sofa had been prepared for Adela, and as soon as she was settled in it, our hostess proceeded to pour out the tea with a simplicity and grace which showed that she had been just as much a lady when carrying parcels for the dressmaker, and would have been a lady if she had been a housemaid. Such a women are rare in every circle, the best of every kind being rare. It is very disappointing to the imaginative youth when, coming up to London and going into society, he finds that so few of the men and women he meets, come within the charmed circle of his ideal refinement.
I said to myself: "I am sure she could write a story if she would. I must have a try for one from her."
When tea was over, she looked at her husband, and then went to the piano, and sang the following ballad:
"'Traveller, what lies over the hill?
Traveller, tell to me:
I am only a child—from the window-sill
Over I cannot see.'
"'Child, there's a valley over there,
Pretty and woody and shy;
And a little brook that says—'take care,
Or I'll drown you by and by.'
"'And what comes next?' 'A little town;
And a towering hill again;
More hills and valleys, up and down,
And a river now and then.'
"'And what comes next?' 'A lonely moor,
Without a beaten way;
And grey clouds sailing slow, before
A wind that will not stay.'
"'And then?' 'Dark rocks and yellow sand,
And a moaning sea beside.'
'And then?' 'More sea, more sea more land,
And rivers deep and wide.'
"'And then?' 'Oh! rock and mountain and vale,
Rivers and fields and men;
Over and over—a weary tale—
And round to your home again.'
"'Is that the end? It is weary at best.'
'No, child; it is not the end.
On summer eves, away in the west,
You will see a stair ascend;
"'Built of all colours of lovely stones—
A stair up into the sky;
Where no one is weary, and no one moans,
Or wants to be laid by.'
"'I will go.' 'But the steps are very steep:
If you would climb up there,
You must lie at its foot, as still as sleep,
And be a step of the stair,
"'For others to put their feet on you,
To reach the stones high-piled;
Till Jesus comes and takes you too,
And leads you up, my child!'"
"That is one of your parables, I am sure, Ralph," said the doctor, who was sitting, quite at his ease, on a footstool, with his back against the wall, by the side of the fire opposite to Adela, casting every now and then a glance across the fiery gulf, just as he had done in church when I first saw him. And Percy was there to watch them, though, from some high words I overheard, I had judged that it was with difficulty his mother had prevailed on him to come. I could not help thinking myself, that two pairs of eyes met and parted rather oftener than any other two pairs in the room; but I could find nothing to object.
"Now, Miss Cathcart, it is your turn to sing."
"Would you mind singing another of Heine's songs?" said the doctor, as he offered his hand to lead her to the piano.
"No," she answered. "I will not sing one of that sort. It was not liked last time. Perhaps what I do sing won't be much better though.
"The waters are rising and flowing
Over the weedy stone—
Over and over it going:
It is never gone.
"So joy on joy may go sweeping
Over the head of pain—
Over and over it leaping:
It will rise again."
"Very lovely, but not much better than what I asked for. In revenge, I will give you one of Heine's that my brother translated. It always reminds me, with a great difference, of one in In Memoriam, beginning: Dark house."
So spake Harry, and sang:
"The shapes of the days forgotten
Out of their graves arise,
And show me what once my life was,
In the presence of thine eyes.
"All day through the streets I wandered,
As in dreams men go and come;
The people in wonder looked at me,
I was so mournful dumb.
"It was better though, at night-fall,
When, through the empty town,
I and my shadow together
Went silent up and down.
"With echoing, echoing footstep,
Over the bridge I walk;
The moon breaks out of the waters,
And looks as if she would talk.
"I stood still before thy dwelling,
Like a tree that prays for rain;
I stood gazing up at thy window—
My heart was in such pain.
"And thou lookedst through thy curtains—
I saw thy shining hand;
And thou sawest me, in the moonlight,
Still as a statue stand."
"Excuse me," said Mrs. Cathcart, with a smile, "but I don't think such sentimental songs good for anybody. They can't be healthy—I believe that is the word they use now-a-days."
"I don't say they are," returned the doctor; "but many a pain is relieved by finding its expression. I wish he had never written worse."
"That is not why I like them," said the curate. "They seem to me to hold the same place in literature that our dreams do in life. If so much of our life is actually spent in dreaming, there must be some place in our literature for what corresponds to dreaming. Even in this region, we cannot step beyond the boundaries of our nature. I delight in reading Lord Bacon now; but one of Jean Paul's dreams will often give me more delight than one of Bacon's best paragraphs. It depends upon the mood. Some dreams like these, in poetry or in sleep, arouse individual states of consciousness altogether different from any of our waking moods, and not to be recalled by any mere effort of the will. All our being, for the moment, has a new and strange colouring. We have another kind of life. I think myself, our life would be much poorer without our dreams; a thousand rainbow tints and combinations would be gone; music and poetry would lose many an indescribable exquisiteness and tenderness. You see I like to take our dreams seriously, as I would even our fun. For I believe that those new mysterious feelings that come to us in sleep, if they be only from dreams of a richer grass and a softer wind than we have known awake, are indications of wells of feeling and delight which have not yet broken out of their hiding-places in our souls, and are only to be suspected from these rings of fairy green that spring up in the high places of our sleep."
"I say, Ralph," interrupted Harry, "just repeat that strangest of Heine's ballads, that—"
"Oh, no, no; not that one. Mrs. Cathcart would not like it at all."
"Yes, please do," said Adela.
"Pray don't think of me, gentlemen," said the aunt.
"No, I won't," said the curate.
"Then I will," said the doctor, with a glance at Adela, which seemed to say—"If you want it, you shall have it, whether they like it or not."
He repeated, with just a touch of the recitative in his tone, the following verses:
"Night lay upon mine eyelids;
Upon my mouth lay lead;
With withered heart and sinews,
I lay among the dead.
"How long I lay and slumbered,
I knew not in the gloom.
I wakened up, and listened
To a knocking at my tomb.
"'Wilt thou not rise, my Henry?
Immortal day draws on;
The dead are all arisen;
The endless joy begun.'
"'My love, I cannot raise me;
Nor could I find the door;
My eyes with bitter weeping
Are blind for evermore.'
"'But from thine eyes, dear Henry,
I'll kiss away the night;
Thou shall behold the angels,
And Heaven's own blessed light.'
"'My love, I cannot raise me;
The blood is flowing still,
Where thou, heart-deep, didst stab me,
With a dagger-speech, to kill.'
"'Oh! I will lay my hand, Henry,
So soft upon thy heart;
And that will stop the bleeding—
Stop all the bitter smart.'
"'My love, I cannot raise me;
My head is bleeding too.
When thou wast stolen from me,
I shot it through and through.'
"'With my thick hair, my Henry,
I will stop the fountain red;
Press back again the blood-stream,
And heal thy wounded head.'
"She begged so soft, so dearly,
I could no more say no;
Writhing, I strove to raise me,
And to the maiden go.
"Then the wounds again burst open;
And afresh the torrents break
From head and heart—life's torrents—
And lo! I am awake."
"There now, that is enough!" said the curate. "That is not nice—is it, Mrs. Cathcart?"
Mrs. Cathcart smiled, and said:
"I should hardly have thought your time well-spent in translating it, Mr. Armstrong."
"It took me a few idle minutes only," said the curate. "But my foolish brother, who has a child's fancy for horrid things, took a fancy to that; and so he won't let my sins be forgotten. But I will take away the taste of it with another of Heine's, seeing we have fallen upon him. I should never have dreamed of introducing him here. It was Miss Cathcart's first song that opened the vein, I believe."
"I am the guilty person," said Adela; "and I fear I am not sorry for my sins—the consequences have been too pleasant. Do go on, Mr. Armstrong."
He repeated:
"Peace.
"High in the heavens the sun was glowing;
Around him the white clouds, like waves, were flowing;
The sea was very still and grey.
Dreamily thinking as I lay,
Close by the gliding vessel's wheel,
A sleepless slumber did o'er me steal;
And I saw the Christ, the healer of woe,
In white and waving garments go;
Walking in giant form went he
Over the land and sea.
High in the heaven he towered his head,
And his hands in blessing forth he spread
Over the land and sea.
And for a heart, O wonder meet!
In his breast the sun did throb and beat;
In his breast, for a heart to the only One,
Shone the red, the flaming sun.
The flaming red sunheart of the Lord
Forth its gracious life-beams poured;
Its fair and love-benignant light
Softly shone, with warming might,
Over the land and sea.
"Sounds of solemn bells that go
Through the still air to and fro,
Draw, like swans, in a rosy band,
The gliding ship to the grassy land,
Where a mighty city, towered and high,
Breaks and jags the line of the sky.
"Oh, wonder of peach, how still was the town!
The hollow tumult had all gone down
Of the bustling and babbling trades.
Men and women, and youths and maids,
White clothes wearing,
Palm branches bearing,
Walked through the clean and echoing streets;
And when one with another meets,
They look at each other with eyes that tell
That they understand each other well;
And, trembling with love and sweet restraint,
Each kisses the other upon the brow,
And looks above, like a hoping saint,
To the holy, healing sunheart's glow;
Which atoning all, its red blood streams
Downward in still outwelling beams;
Till, threefold blessed, they call aloud,
The single hearts of a happy crowd.
Praised be Jesus Christ!"
"You will like that better," concluded the curate, again addressing Mrs. Cathcart.
"Fanciful," she answered. "I don't like fancies about sacred things."
"I fear, however," replied he, "that most of our serious thoughts about sacred things are little better than fancies."
"Sing that other of his about the flowers, and I promise you never to mention his name in this company again," said Harry.
"Very well, I will, on that condition," answered Ralph.
"In the sunny summer morning
Into the garden I come;
The flowers are whispering and speaking,
But I, I wander dumb.
"The flowers are whispering and speaking,
And they gaze at my visage wan:
............