Child and Country Part 7

Just then I was impelled to try harder, because he saw the difficulty.

We had missed for days the joy from the session, that we had come to expect and delight in. Yet, because he expressed it, I saw the shortness and impatience of the point of view which had been mine, until he returned it to me.

"We won't give up," I said. "It didn't happen for nothing."

When he went away I felt better; also I saw that there was a personal impatience in my case that was not worthy of one who undertook to awaken the young. I introduced The Valley-Road Girl to Addison's "Sir Roger."

There is an emptiness to me about Addison which I am not sure but partakes of a bit of prejudice, since I am primarily imbued with the principle that a writer must be a man before he is fit to be read. If I could read Addison now for the first time, I should know. The Valley-Road Girl's discussion of Addison was scholarly in the youthful sense.

The day that she brought in this paper we got somehow talking about Fichte. The old German is greatly loved and revered in this Study. He set us free a bit as we discussed him, and I gave to the newcomer a portion of one of his essays having to do with the "Excellence of the Universe." The next day I read her paper--and there was a beam in it.

I shut my eyes in grat.i.tude that I had not allowed my stupidity to get away. I thanked The Abbot inwardly, too, for saying the words that set me clearer. The contrast between Addison and Fichte in life, in their work, in the talk they inspired here, and in The Valley-Road Girl's two papers--held the substance of the whole matter--stumbled upon as usual.

We had a grand time that afternoon. I told them about Fichte losing his positions, writing to his countrymen--a wanderer, an awakened soul. And this brought us the hosts of great ones--the Burned Ones and their exaltations--George Fox and the Maid of Domremy--the everlasting spirit behind and above mortal affairs--the poor impotency of wood-fire to quench such immortality. Her eyes gleamed--and all our hearts burned.

"We do not want to do possible things," I said. "The big gun that is to deposit a missile twelve miles away does not aim at the mark, but at the skies. All things that are done--let them alone. The undone things challenge us. The spiritual plan of all the great actions and devotions which have not yet found substance--is already prepared for the workmen of to-day to bring into matter--all great poems and inventions for the good of the world. They must gleam into being through our minds. The mind of some workman is being prepared for each. Our minds are darkened as yet; the sleeping giant awaits the day. He is not loathe to awake.

Inertia is always of matter; never of spirit. He merely awaits the light. When the shutters of the mind are opened and the grey appears, he will arise and, looking forth, will discover his work.

"Nothing common awaits the youngest or the oldest. You are called to the great, _the impossible_ tasks. But the mind must be entered by the Light--the heavy curtains of the self drawn apart...."

That was the day I found the new, sweet influence in the room. It was not an accident that the boy had gone to dinner at her house. I saw that my task with The Valley-Road Girl was exactly opposite to the work with The Abbot--that he was dynamic within and required only the developed instrument for his utterances, and that she had been mentalised with obscuring educational matters and required a re-awakening of a naturally splendid and significant power; that I must seek to diffuse her real self through her expression. The time came that when she was absent, we all deeply missed her presence from the Study.

Months afterward, on a day that I did not give her a special task, she brought me the following which told the story in her own words of something she had met:

WHAT THE SCHOOLS DO FOR CHILDREN

Try to remember some of your early ideas and impressions. Can you recall the childish thoughts that came when a new thing made its first impress on your mind? If so, try to feel with me the things I am struggling to explain.

I like to look back at those times when everything to me was new; when every happening brought to me thoughts of my very own. Just now I recall the time I first noticed a tiny chick raise its head after drinking from a basin of water. To me that slow raising of the head after drinking seemed to indicate the chick's silent thanks to G.o.d. It meant that for each swallow it offered thanks. This was before I went to school.

There I learned the plain truth that the chick must raise its head to swallow. School had grasped the door-k.n.o.b of my soul.

The many children taught me the world's lesson that each man must look out for himself. If the simpler children did not keep up, that was their look-out. There was no time to stop and help the less fortunate. Push ahead! This is what I came to learn.

At school I met for the first time with distrust. At home I had always been trusted; my word never doubted. Once I was accused of copying; that was the first wound. How I would have those all-powerful teachers make the child know he is trusted.

At school there were many other lessons for me to learn. One of the chief was compet.i.tion. I learned it early. To have some of the cla.s.s-stars shine brighter than I was intolerable. To shine as bright, was sufficient compensation for any amount of labour. The teachers encouraged compet.i.tion. It lent life to labour; made the children more studious. Our motto was not to do our best, but to do as well as the best. Compet.i.tion often grew so keen among my school friends that rivalry, jealousy and dislike entered our hearts. I am afraid we sometimes rejoiced at one another's misfortunes. Yet these compet.i.tors were my school friends.

Out of school we were all fond of one another, but in school we grew further apart. My sister would compete with no one. I have often since wondered if that is why she, of all my school companions, has ever been my closest friend. The child filled with the compet.i.tive spirit from his entrance to his egress from school, enters the world a compet.i.tive man. It is hard for such a one to love his neighbour.

The one thing I consider of great benefit from school life is the taste of the world it gave me. For school is the miniature world. A man is said to benefit from a past evil.

The school did not teach me to express myself; it taught me how to echo the books I read. I did not look through my own eyes, but used the teacher's. I tried to keep from my work all trace of myself, reflecting only my instruction, knowing well that the teacher would praise his perfect reflection.

Sometimes I feel that the door of my soul has so far shut that I can but get a glimpse of the real Me within.

Unless the school can trust children, show them that they should also be interested in their less fortunate school-mates, try to do always their best at the particular work to which they are best adapted, it must go on failing. A child had much better remain at home, a simple but whole-souled creature, learning what he can from Nature and wise books.

... I had talked to them long on making the most of their misfortunes.

This also which came from The Valley-Road Girl, I thought very tender and wise:

MAY EVENING

A spirit of restlessness ruled me. Each night I retired with the hope that the morning would find it gone. It disturbed my sleep. It was not the constant discontent I had hitherto felt with the world. This was a new disquietude.

One May evening I followed our little river down to the place it flows into the Lake. Slowly the light of day faded. From my seat upon the green bank of a stream, a wonderful picture stretched before me. The small stream and the surrounding country were walled in by dense green trees. To the west the cool, dark depths parted only wide enough for the creek to disappear through a narrow portal. Through small openings in the southern wall, I caught glimpses of the summer cottages on the sandy sh.o.r.e. To the north stretched the pasture-lands with shade-trees happy to hide their nakedness with thick foliage. Here, too, a large elm displayed all its grace. To the east was a bridge and a long lane. From behind a misty outline of trees, the sun's crimson reflections suffused the western sky. Two men paddled a boat out into the light and disappeared under the bridge. Nothing disturbed the peace of the stream save the dip of the paddles, and the fish rising to the surface for food. A circle on the surface meant that an insect had lain at its centre; a fish had risen and devoured it. Circles of this kind were continually being cut by the circ.u.mferences of other circles.... A dark speck moved down the stream. A turtle was voyaging.

Now, far in the shadows, I saw a man sitting on the bank fishing. His patience and persistence were remarkable, for he had been there all the time. But the fish were at play. The occasional splash of the carp, mingling with the perpetual song of the birds and the distant roar of the waves breaking on the sh.o.r.e to the south, formed one grand over-tone.

A feeling of awe came over me. I felt my insignificance. I saw the hand of G.o.d. My relation to my surroundings was very clear. My soul bowed to the G.o.d-ness in all things natural.

The G.o.d-ness in me was calling to be released. It was useless to struggle against it, and deafen my ears to the cry. It must be given voice. I felt my soul condemning me as an ech.o.e.r and imitator of men, as one whose every thought becomes coloured with others' views. Like a sponge I was readily receptive. Let a little mental pressure be applied and I gave back the identical thoughts hardly shaded by inward feelings. This was my soul's complaint.

No tree was exactly like one of its neighbours. Each fulfilled its purpose in its particular way. Yet all proclaimed the One Source. Performing its function, it was fit to censure me and I took the cup.

... The sun had set. Darkness was wrapping the basin of the little stream; heavy dew was falling. Mother Nature was weeping tears of sympathy for one so short-sighted and drawn to failure.

10

COMPa.s.sION

I was struck early in the progress of the cla.s.s of three with the difference between the little girl, now turned eleven, and the other two of fourteen and seventeen, in the one particular of daring to be herself. She has never been patronised; and in the last year or more has been actively encouraged to express the lovely and the elusive. Also, as stated, she has no particular talent for writing. She is the one who wants to be a mother. Not in the least precocious, her charm is quite equal for little girls or her elders. Her favourite companions until recently were those of her own age.

On the contrary, the other two were called to the work here because they want to write, and although this very tendency should keep open the pa.s.sages between the zone of dreams and the more temperate zones of matter, the fashions and mannerisms of the hour, artfulness of speech and reading, the countless little reserves and covers for neglected thinking, the endless misunderstandings of life and the realities of existence--had already begun to clog the ways which, to every old artist, are the very pa.s.sages of power.

"... Except that ye become as little children----" that is the beginning of significant workmanship, as it is the essential of faith in religion. The great workmen have all put away the illusions of the world, or most of them, and all have told the same story--look to Rodin, Puvis de Chavannes, Balzac, Tolstoi, only to mention a little group of the nearer names. In their mid-years they served men, as they fancied men wanted to be served; and then they met the lie of this exterior purpose, confronted the lie with the realities of their own nature, and fought the fight for the cosmic simplicity which is so often the unconscious flowering of the child-mind. All of them wrenched open, as they could, the doors of the prison-house, and became more and more like little children at the end.

The quality I mean is difficult to express in straight terms. One must have the settings to see and delight in them. But it is also the quality of the modern verse. The new generation has it as no other generation, because the old shames and conventions are losing their weight in our hearts.... I was promising an untold something for a future lesson to the little girl yesterday, just as she was getting to work. The antic.i.p.ation disturbed the present moment, and she said:

"Don't have secrets. When there are secrets, I always want to peek----"

Yesterday, a little later, we both looked up from work at the notes of a song-sparrow in the nearest elm. The song was more elaborate for the perfect morning. It was so joyous that it choked me--in the sunlight and elm-leaves. It stood out from all the songs of the morning because it was so near--every note so finished and perfect, and we were each in the pleasantness of our tasks. The little girl leaned over to the window. I was already watching. We heard the answer from the distance. The song was repeated, and again. In the hushes, we sipped the ecstasy from the Old Mother--that the sparrow knew and expressed. Like a flicker, he was gone--a leaning forward on the branch and then a blur,... presently this sentence in the room:

"... _sang four songs and flew away._"

It was a word-portrait. It told me so much that I wanted; the number of course was not mental, but an obvious part of the inner impression.

However, no after explanations will help--if the art of the thing is not apparent. I told it later in the day to another cla.s.s, and a woman said--"Why, those six words make a j.a.panese poem."

And yesterday again, as we walked over to dinner, she said: "I see a Chinese city. It is dim and low and smoky. It is night and the lights are at half-mast."

She had been making a picture of her own of China. It throws the child in on herself to imagine thus. She has never been to China, and her reading on the subject was not recent. I always say to them: "It is all within. If you can listen deeply enough and see far enough, you can get it all. When a man wishes to write about a country, he is hindered as much as helped if he knows much about it. He feels called upon to express that which he has seen--which is so small compared to the big colour and atmosphere."

I had been to China but would have required a page to make such a picture.

A little while before she had been to Holland in fancy. She had told a story of a child there and "the little house in which she lived looked as if it had been made of old paving-blocks ripped up from the street."

Often she falls back upon the actual physical environment _to get started_, as this recent introduction: "To-day I am sitting on the end of a breakwater, listening to the peaceful noise the Lake makes as it slaps up against the heavy old rocks. The sun is pouring down hot rays upon my arms, bare feet and legs, turning them from winter's faded white----"

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