Ethel Churchill/Chapter 55
CHAPTER XX.
The fountain's low singing is heard on the wind,
Like a melody bringing sweet fancies to mind;
Away in the distance is heard the far sound
From the streets of the city that compass it round,
Like the echo of mountains, or ocean's deep call:
Yet that fountain's low singing is heard over all.
The turf and the terrace slope down to the tide
Of the Thames, that sweeps onward a world at its side;
And dark the horizon with mast and with sail
Of the thousand tall ships that have weather'd the gale;
While beyond the arched bridge the old abbey appears,
Where England has garnered—the glories of years.
There are lights in the casement—how weary the ray
That asks from the night-time the toils of the day!
I fancy I see the brow bent o'er the page,
Whose youth wears the paleness and wrinkles of age;
What struggles, what hopes, what despair may have been,
Where sweep those dark branches of shadowy green!
The last gleams of a summer sunset were reddening amid the topmast boughs of the Inner Temple garden, while the shadow fell, dark as the night it heralded, on the turf below. Though in the heart of a vast city, it was impossible to imagine a more perfect picture of repose than was here presented. Not a creature was to be seen; the birds rested on the boughs, undisturbed by a fluttering wing, or a snatch of song. There were red and white roses growing around: but the rival flowers were unstirred by even a breath of wind; they were still as the ashes of the once stirring spirits that gathered them as badges for their fatal warfare. Strange that the flower so peculiarly the lover's own, around which hung the daintiest conceits of poesy, on which the eye lingers, to dream of the cheek it holds loveliest on earth—strange that the rose should have been sign for the fiercest struggle ever urged by party-strife.—a strife that laid desolate the fair fields of England for so many years. And yet, how much chivalric association has Shakespeare flung around their bloom! But for him, the wars of the "rival houses" would be but obscure chronicles of inglorious wars—fighting for fighting sake: no liberty to be defended or obtained, and no foreign enemy driven triumphantly from the frontier: but for him, "the aspiring blood of Lancaster" would long since have sunk in the ground. But Shakespeare has called life out of the past; a thousand passions of humanity hang around those white and red flowers. He has given the lasting archive to the high-born house that boasted,—
"Our aiery buildeth in the cedar's top,
And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun."
It is he who has given the life of memory to "the princely Edward," the subtle Richard, the brave-spirited Margaret, and the sad philosophy of the meek Henry, which comes home to many weary of a bleak and troubled world; and never do we feel how completely Shakespeare was our national poet, till we tread his own locale.
I confess I have a great disdain for the west end of the town. It belongs to the small, the petty, and the present. From Hyde Park Corner to Charing Cross, all is utterly uninteresting: then history begins. We have the feudal state in the gloomy and Gothic grandeur of Northumberland House; we pass along the Strand, where Jack Cade pursued his brief triumph—the prototype of every popular insurrection unbased on any great principle—sudden, cruel, and useless! We have the last fine speech of Lord Scales in our ears,—
"Ah, countrymen! if, when you make your prayers,
God should be so obdurate as yourselves,
How would it fare with your departed souls?"
and the green solitude of the Temple garden is the very place to muse upon his words. We leave the crowded street behind: we linger for a moment beside the little fountain, the sweetest that
Ever sang the sunny hours away,
Or murmured to the moonlit hours of love.
It is, I believe, our only fountain, and all the associations of a fountain are poetical. It carries us to the East, and the stately halls of the caliphs rise on the mind's eye; and we think over the thousand and one stories which made our childhood so happy, and stored up a world of unconscious poetry for our future years: or else it conjures up the graceful old Italian histories of moonlight festivals, when the red wine was cooled, and the lute echoed by the soft sound of falling waters. We leave the world of reality behind us for that of romance. That little fountain keeps, with its music, the entrance, as if to lull all more busy cares before we enter that quiet garden. Once entered in, how much lies around to subdue the troubled present with the mighty past! The river is below, with its banks haunted by memory.
The whole history of England—and it is a glorious one—is called up at a glance. Westminster Abbey—the altar of the warrior, and the grave of the poet—sheds its own sanctity on the atmosphere; and yet to look beneath the still shadow of those stately trees, in the spiritual presence of the departed, life is as troubled and as anxious as elsewhere; the cares of to-day predominate, let the scenes around be what they may.
"I cannot help," said Walter Maynard, as he gazed, listlessly, from one of the upper windows, "reading my fate in one of those little boats now rocking on the tide, only fastened by a rope, scarcely visible to the passer by. So am I tossed on the ebbing tide of life—now in sunshine, now in shade—seemingly free, yet, in reality, fettered by the strong, though slight chain of circumstance. For a small sum, any passenger may enter that boat and direct its course; and here again is similitude. I am at the beck of others. I may scarcely think my own thoughts, they must run in whatever channel public taste may choose; and that puts me in mind how I promised Curl his pamphlet this very night. How weary I am of exhausting the resources of language in dressing up the vague common places of party, or giving plausibility to sophisms I feel to be untrue! but it must be done:" and, muttering to himself, "For inspiration round his head,
The goddess Want her pinions spread,"
he drew his table towards him, and began to write.
The scene of his labours, and his own appearance, were much changed since his first lodging in London. Still, there was an air of careless discomfort in his room; nothing was in its place; books, foils, papers, and clothes, were scattered together, and a female mask lay beside his inkstand. He was fashionably dressed; but looked, as was really the case, as if he had not been in bed the previous night. His face was worn, and one red flush burnt on each cheek; though even that could scarcely animate the sunk and heavy eye. After a few minutes passed, first in writing, then in erasing what he had written, "It is of no use," said he, flinging down the pen, "I am not worth a single phrase; alas! I want motive—the mere necessity of exertion is not enough. Would that I could dream as I once dreamed! that I could still think fame the glorious reality I once held a whole life's labour would cheaply purchase! But what does it matter, whether there be a name or no on the tombstone that weighs down our cold ashes? Ah! I promised Marston his verses to-morrow: I sell my opinions, I may as well do the same with my sentiments;"and again he drew the paper towards him.
At first, he wrote mechanically, and flung aside one sheet of paper, and then another; it was no longer the eager and impassioned writer, who, in his early composition, forgot want, cold, and misery: no, the real had eaten, like rust, into his soul. Last night's excess had left him weary and feverish; yet of all shapes that temptation can assume, surely that of social success is the most fascinating.
The imaginative temperament is full of vivid creations, of fanciful imagery, and sudden thoughts, all of which are impelled by their nature to communication; and to find that this communication interests or amuses, is a powerful stimulus. The vanity is at once encouraged and gratified; while the present small triumph is too readily taken as earnest for a greater one. The vanity I speak of, is vanity of the highest and best kind; it belongs to the class of our most ethereal emotions; it asks "golden opinions from all ranks of men," because it is keenly susceptible, and has an even feminine craving for sympathy; it asks not so much praise as appreciation; it is generous and self-devoted: still it is vanity.
There is also in mental exertion an absolute necessity for re-action: how often do the thoughts, long confined to one subject, crave, as it were, to spring out of themselves, or to run off in any opposite direction! To this may be ascribed the difference that often exists between the writings and the conversations of genius. In the first is embodied the moral truth of their being, worked out by strong belief and deep feeling; the other contains all that is sceptical and careless,—it is the glitter of the waters when not at rest. The thousand paradoxes that spring up, are thrown off both for amusement and for relief; and recklessly flung aside by the utterer, who never means them to be taken as the creed of his real sentiments, or of his more earnest thoughts.
Walter Maynard was melancholy, impassioned, and sensitive; his heart preyed upon itself when alone: but, in society, he was lively, witty, and easily carried away by the impetus of discourse. Last night, the ready answer, the quick ridicule, the quaint imagery, which clothed his ideas as some fantastic garment, had made him the life of that gay meeting; but to-day he was paying the penalty of over-excitement. Fatigued and depressed, he saw nothing but difficulties and labour before him. He took up the papers beside him, and more than one unpaid bill was mingled with them. Instead of forcing upon him the necessity of exertion, they discouraged him from attempting it: of late, he had led a very gay life.
Norbourne Courtenaye had introduced him to several young men about town, who, rich and idle, were only too glad to fall in with so amusing a companion. Midnight after midnight passed away in their society; for Walter was flattered and excited. But deep in his inmost soul he felt that this was not the fate he had purposed to achieve amid the green valleys of his youth. His early dreams haunted him like reproaches; and every morning he rose with the full purpose of pursuing some more settled plan: but he lacked motive, he had no one dependent on his industry; and every day he grew to careless and less for hopes, that he now overharshly held to be illusions.
To see much of mankind sickens the philosopher and the poet; only in solitude can he continue to work for their benefit, or to crave for their sympathy. An expression that Pope had used while talking to Walter, had produced a far deeper impression than its utterer suspected, or, perhaps, intended. "If," said Pope, "I were to begin life over again, knowing what I know now, I would not write a single verse."
Maynard could not help thinking "Of what avail is toil, if such be the result? Have I, then, devoted life to a shadow? is its pursuit weary, and its possession worthless? Yet this is what our greatest poet says of poetry."