A Commonplace Book of Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies Part 15

"I wandered lonely as a cloud,"

may appear to some unintelligible or overcharged, but to me it was a vivid truth, a simple fact; and if Wordsworth had been then in my hands I think I must have loved him. It was this intense sense of beauty which gave the first zest to poetry: I love it, not because it told me what I did not know, but because it helped me to words in which to clothe my own knowledge and perceptions, and reflected back the pictures unconsciously h.o.a.rded up in my mind. This was what made Thomson's "Seasons" a favourite book when I first began to read for my own amus.e.m.e.nt, and before I could understand one half of it; St. Pierre's "Indian Cottage" ("La Chaumiere Indienne") was also charming, either because it reflected my dreams, or gave me new stuff for them in pictures of an external world quite different from that I inhabited,-palm-trees, elephants, tigers, dark-turbaned men with flowing draperies; and the "Arabian Nights" completed my Oriental intoxication, which lasted for a long time.

I have said little of the impressions left by books, and of my first religious notions. A friend of mine had once the wise idea of collecting together a variety of evidence as to the impressions left by certain books on childish or immature minds: If carried out, it would have been one of the most valuable additions to educational experience ever made.

For myself I did not much care about the books put into my hands, nor imbibe much information from them. I had a great taste, I am sorry to say, for forbidden books; yet it was not the forbidden books that did the mischief, except in their being read furtively. I remember impressions of vice and cruelty from some parts of the Old Testament and Goldsmith's "History of England," which I shudder to recall. Shakspeare was on the forbidden shelf. I had read him all through between seven and ten years old. He never did me any moral mischief. He never soiled my mind with any disordered image. What was exceptionable and coa.r.s.e in language I pa.s.sed by without attaching any meaning whatever to it. How it might have been if I had read Shakspeare first when I was fifteen or sixteen, I do not know; perhaps the occasional coa.r.s.enesses and obscurities might have shocked the delicacy or puzzled the intelligence of that sensitive and inquiring age. But at nine or ten I had no comprehension of what was unseemly; what might be obscure in words to wordy commentators, was to me lighted up by the idea I found or interpreted for myself-right or wrong.

No; I repeat, Shakspeare-bless him!-never did me any moral mischief.

Though the Witches in Macbeth troubled me,-though the Ghost in Hamlet terrified me (the picture that is,-for the spirit in Shakspeare was solemn and pathetic, not hideous),-though poor little Arthur cost me an ocean of tears,-yet much that was obscure, and all that was painful and revolting was merged on the whole in the vivid presence of a new, beautiful, vigorous, living world. The plays which I now think the most wonderful produced comparatively little effect on my fancy: Romeo and Juliet, Oth.e.l.lo, Macbeth, struck me then less than the historical plays, and far less than the Midsummer Night's Dream and Cymbeline. It may be thought, perhaps, that Falstaff is not a character to strike a child, or to be understood by a child:-no; surely not. To me Falstaff was not witty and wicked-only irresistibly fat and funny; and I remember lying on the ground rolling with laughter over some of the scenes in Henry the Fourth,-the mock play, and the seven men in buckram. But The Tempest and Cymbeline were the plays I liked best and knew best.

Altogether I should say that in my early years books were known to me, not as such, not for their general contents, but for some especial image or picture I had picked out of them and a.s.similated to my own mind and mixed up with my own life. For example out of Homer's Odyssey (lent to me by the parish clerk) I had the picture of Nasicaa and her maidens going down in their chariots to wash their linen: so that when the first time I went to the Pitti Palace, and could hardly see the pictures through blinding tears, I saw _that_ picture of Rubens, which all remember who have been at Florence, and it flashed delight and refreshment through those remembered childish a.s.sociations. The Syrens and Polypheme left also vivid pictures on my fancy. The Iliad, on the contrary, wearied me, except the parting of Hector and Andromache, in which the child, scared by its father's dazzling helm and nodding crest, remains a vivid image in my mind from that time.

The same parish clerk-a curious fellow in his way-lent me also some religious tracts and stories, by Hannah More. It is most certain that more moral mischief was done to me by some of these than by all Shakspeare's plays together. These so-called pious tracts first introduced me to a knowledge of the vices of vulgar life, and the excitements of a vulgar religion,-the fear of being hanged and the fear of h.e.l.l became co-existent in my mind; and the teaching resolved itself into this,-that it was not by being naughty, but by being found out, that I was to incur the risk of both. My fairy world was better!

About Religion:-I was taught religion as children used to be taught it in my younger days, and are taught it still in some cases, I believe-through the medium of creeds and catechisms. I read the Bible too early, and too indiscriminately, and too irreverently. Even the New Testament was too early placed in my hands; too early made a lesson book, as the custom then was. The _letter_ of the Scriptures-the words-were familiarised to me by sermonising and dogmatising, long before I could enter into the _spirit_. Meantime, happily, another religion was growing up in my heart, which, strangely enough, seemed to me quite apart from that which was taught,-which, indeed, I never in any way regarded as the same which I was taught when I stood up wearily on a Sunday to repeat the collect and say the catechism. It was quite another thing. Not only the taught religion and the sentiment of faith and adoration were never combined, but it never for years entered into my head to combine them; the first remained extraneous, the latter had gradually taken root in my life, even from the moment my mother joined my little hands in prayer. The histories out of the Bible (the Parables especially) were, however, enchanting to me, though my interpretation of them was in some instances the very reverse of correct or orthodox. To my infant conception our Lord was a being who had come down from heaven to make people good, and to tell them beautiful stories. And though no pains were spared to _indoctrinate_ me, and all my pastors and masters took it for granted that my ideas were quite satisfactory, nothing could be more confused and heterodox.

It is a common observation that girls of lively talents are apt to grow pert and satirical. I fell into this danger when about ten years old.

Sallies at the expense of certain people, ill-looking, or ill-dressed, or ridiculous, or foolish, had been laughed at and applauded in company, until, without being naturally malignant, I ran some risk of becoming so from sheer vanity.

The fables which appeal to our higher moral sympathies may sometimes do as much for us as the truths of science. So thought our Saviour when he taught the mult.i.tude in parables.

A good clergyman who lived near us, a famous Persian scholar, took it into his head to teach me Persian (I was then about seven years old), and I set to work with infinite delight and earnestness. All I learned was soon forgotten; but a few years afterwards, happening to stumble on a volume of Sir William Jones's works-his Persian grammar-it revived my Orientalism, and I began to study it eagerly. Among the exercises given was a Persian fable or poem-one of those traditions of our Lord which are preserved in the East. The beautiful apologue of "St. Peter and the Cherries," which Goethe has versified or imitated, is a well known example. This fable I allude to was something similar, but I have not met with the original these forty years, and must give it here from memory.

"Jesus," says the story, "arrived one evening at the gates of a certain city, and he sent his disciples forward to prepare supper, while he himself, intent on doing good, walked through the streets into the market place.

"And he saw at the corner of the market some people gathered together looking at an object on the ground; and he drew near to see what it might be. It was a dead dog, with a halter round his neck, by which he appeared to have been dragged through the dirt; and a viler, a more abject, a more unclean thing, never met the eyes of man.

"And those who stood by looked on with abhorrence.

"'Faugh!' said one, stopping his nose; 'it pollutes the air.' 'How long,' said another, 'shall this foul beast offend our sight?' 'Look at his torn hide,' said a third; 'one could not even cut a shoe out of it.'

'And his ears,' said a fourth, 'all draggled and bleeding!' 'No doubt,'

said a fifth, 'he hath been hanged for thieving!'

"And Jesus heard them, and looking down compa.s.sionately on the dead creature, he said, 'Pearls are not equal to the whiteness of his teeth!'

"Then the people turned towards him with amazement, and said among themselves, 'Who is this? this must be Jesus of Nazareth, for only HE could find something to pity and approve even in a dead dog;' and being ashamed, they bowed their heads before him, and went each on his way."

I can recall, at this hour, the vivid, yet softening and pathetic impression left on my fancy by this old Eastern story. It struck me as exquisitely humorous, as well as exquisitely beautiful. It gave me a pain in my conscience, for it seemed thenceforward so easy and so vulgar to say satirical things, and so much n.o.bler to be benign and merciful, and I took the lesson so home, that I was in great danger of falling into the opposite extreme,-of seeking the beautiful even in the midst of the corrupt and the repulsive. Pity, a large element in my composition, might have easily degenerated into weakness, threatening to subvert hatred of evil in trying to find excuses for it; and whether my mind has ever completely righted itself, I am not sure.

Educators are not always aware, I think, how acute are the perceptions, and how permanent the memories, of children. I remember experiments tried upon my temper and feelings, and how I was made aware of this, by their being repeated, and, in some instances, spoken of, before me.

Music, to which I was early and peculiarly sensitive, was sometimes made the medium of these experiments. Discordant sounds were not only hateful, but made me turn white and cold, and sent the blood backward to my heart; and certain tunes had a curious effect, I cannot now account for: for though, when heard for the first time, they had little effect, they became intolerable by repet.i.tion; they turned up some hidden emotion within me too strong to be borne. It could not have been from a.s.sociation, which I believe to be a princ.i.p.al element in the _emotion_ excited by music. I was too young for that. What a.s.sociations could such a baby have had with pleasure or with pain? Or could it be possible that a.s.sociations with some former state of existence awoke up to sound? That our life "hath elsewhere its beginning, and cometh from afar," is a belief or at least an instinct, in some minds, which music, and only music, seems to thrill into consciousness. At this time, when I was about five or six years old, Mrs. Arkwright-she was then f.a.n.n.y Kemble-used to come to our house, and used to entrance me with her singing. I had a sort of adoration for her, such as an ecstatic votary might have for a Saint Cecilia. I trembled with pleasure when I only heard her step. But her voice!-it has charmed hundreds since; whom has it ever moved to a more genuine pa.s.sion of delight than the little child that crept silent and tremulous to her side? And she was fond of me,-fond of singing to me, and, it must be confessed, fond also of playing these experiments on me. The music of "Paul and Virginia" was then in vogue, and there was one air-a very simple air-in that opera, which, after the first few bars, always made me stop my ears and rush out of the room. I became at last aware that this was sometimes done by particular desire to please my parents, or amuse and interest others by the display of such vehement emotion. My infant conscience became perplexed between the reality of the feeling and the exhibition of it.

People are not always aware of the injury done to children by repeating before them things they say, or describing things they do: words and actions, spontaneous and unconscious, become thenceforth artificial and conscious. I can speak of the injury done to myself, between five and eight years old. There was some danger of my becoming a precocious actress,-danger of permanent mischief such as I have seen done to other children,-but I was saved by the recoil of resistance and resentment excited in my mind.

This is enough. All that has been told here refers to a period between five and ten years old.

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THE INDIAN HUNTER AND THE FIRE.

(FROM THE GERMAN.)

Once upon a time the lightning from heaven fell upon a tree standing in the old primeval forest and kindled it, so that it flamed on high. And it happened that a young hunter, who had lost his path in that wilderness, beheld the gleam of the flames from a distance, and, forcing his way through the thicket, he flung himself down in rapture before the blazing tree.

"O divine light and warmth!" he exclaimed, stretching forth his arms.

"O blessed! O heaven-descended Fire! let me thank thee! let me adore thee! Giver of a new existence, quickening thro' every pulse, how lost, how cold, how dark have I dwelt without thee! Restorer of my life!

remain ever near me, and, through thy benign and celestial influence, send love and joy to illuminate my soul!"

And the Fire answered and said to him, "It is true that my birth is from heaven, but I am now, through mingling with earthly elements, subdued to earthly influences; therefore, beware how you choose me for thy friend, without having first studied my twofold nature. O youth! take heed lest what appear to thee now a blessing, may be turned, at some future time, to fiery pain and death." And the youth replied, "No! O no! thou blessed Fire, this could never be. Am I then so senseless, so inconstant, so thankless? O believe it not! Let me stay near thee; let me be thy priest, to watch and tend thee truly. Ofttimes in my wild wintry life, when the chill darkness encompa.s.sed me, and the ice-blast lifted my hair, have I dreamed of the soft summer breath,-of the sunshine that should light up the world within me and the world around me. But still that time came not. It seemed ever far, far off; and I had perished utterly before the light and the warmth had reached me, had it not been for thee!"

Thus the youth poured forth his soul, and the Fire answered him in murmured tones, while her beams with a softer radiance played over his cheek and brow: "Be it so then. Yet do thou watch me constantly and minister to me carefully; neglect me not, leave me not to myself, lest the light and warmth in which thou so delightest fail thee suddenly, and there be no redress; and O watch thyself also! beware lest thou too ardently stir up my impatient fiery being! beware lest thou heap too much fuel upon me; once more beware, lest, instead of life, and love, and joy, I bring thee only death and burning pain!" And the youth pa.s.sionately vowed to keep her behest: and in the beginning all went well. How often, for hours together, would he lie gazing entranced toward the radiant beneficent Fire, basking in her warmth, and throwing now a leafy spray, now a fragment of dry wood, anon a handful of odorous gums, as incense, upon the flame, which gracefully curling and waving upwards, quivering and sparkling, seemed to whisper in return divine oracles; or he fancied he beheld, while gazing into the glowing depths, marvellous shapes, fairy visions dancing and glancing along. Then he would sing to her songs full of love, and she, responding to the song she had herself inspired, sometimes replied, in softest whispers, so loving and so low, that even the jealous listening woods could not overhear; at other times she would shoot up suddenly in rapturous splendour, like a pillar of light, and revealed to him all the wonders and the beauties which lay around him, hitherto veiled from his sight.

But at length, as he became accustomed to the glory and the warmth, and nothing more was left for the fire to bestow, or her light to reveal, then he began to weary and to dream again of the morning, and to long for the sun-beams; and it was to him as if the fire stood between him and the sun's light, and he reproached her therefore, and he became moody and ungrateful; and the fire was no longer the same, but unquiet and changeful, sometimes flickering unsteadily, sometimes throwing out a lurid glare. And when the youth, forgetful of his ministry, left the flame unfed and unsustained, so that ofttimes she drooped and waned, and crept in dying gleams along the damp ground, his heart would fail him with a sudden remorse, and he would cast on the fuel with such a rough and lavish hand that the indignant fire hissed thereat, and burst forth in a smoky sullen gleam,-then died away again. Then the youth, half sorrowful, half impatient, would remember how bright, how glowing, how dazzling was the flame in those former happy days, when it played over his chilled and wearied limbs, and shed its warmth upon his brow, and he desired eagerly to recall that once inspiring glow. And he stirred up the embers violently till they burned him, and then he grew angry, and then again he wearied of all the watching and the care which the subtle, celestial, tameless element required at his hand: and at length, one day in a sullen mood, he s.n.a.t.c.hed up a pitcher of water from the fountain and poured it hastily on the yet living flame.--

For one moment it arose blazing towards heaven, shed a last gleam upon the pale brow of the youth, and then sank down in darkness extinguished for ever!

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PAULINA.

FROM AN UNFINISHED TALE, 1823.

And think'st thou that the fond o'erflowing love I bear thee in my heart could ever be Repaid by careless smiles that round thee rove, And beam on others as they beam on me?

Oh, could I speak to thee! could I but tell The nameless thoughts that in my bosom swell, And struggle for expression! or set free From the o'er mastering spirit's proud control The pain that throbs in silence at my soul, Perhaps-yet no-I will not sue, nor bend, To win a heartless pity-Let it end!

I have been near thee still at morn, at eve; Have mark'd thee in thy joy, have seen thee grieve; Have seen thee gay with triumph, sick with fears, Radiant in beauty, desolate in tears: And communed with thy heart, till I made mine The echo and the mirror unto thine.

And I have sat and looked into thine eyes As men on earth look to the starry skies, That seek to read in Heaven their human destinies!

Too quickly I read mine,-I knew it well,- I judg'd not of thy heart by all it gave, But all that it withheld; and I could tell The very sea-mark where affection's wave Would cease to flow, or flow to ebb again, And knew my lavish love was pour'd in vain, As fruitless streams o'er sandy deserts melt, Unrecompensed, unvalued, and unfelt!

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LINES.-1840.

Take me, my mother Earth, to thy cold breast, And fold me there in everlasting rest, The long day is o'er!

I'm weary, I would sleep- But deep, deep, Never to waken more!

I have had joy and sorrow; I have proved What life could give; have lov'd, have been belov'd; I am sick, and heart sore, And weary,-let me sleep!