The Heart of Nature Part 8

From my camp in Tibet for weeks together I could be sure of witnessing every evening one of these glorious sunsets. For while the mighty monsoon clouds used to roll up on to the line of Himalayan peaks and pile themselves up there, billow upon billow, in magnificent array, dark and fearful in the general ma.s.s, but clear-edged and silver-tipped along the summits, yet beyond that line, in Tibet, the sky was nearly always clear and blue of the bluest. With nothing whatever to impede my view--no trees, nor houses, nor fences, nor obstacles of any kind--I could look out far over these open plains to distant hills; beyond them, again, to Mount Everest a hundred miles away; beyond it, again, to still more distant mountains; and, finally, behind them into the setting sun. And these far hills and snowy mountains, seen as they were across an absolutely open plain, seemed not to impede the view but only to heighten the impression of great distance. The eye would be led on from feature to feature, each receding farther into the distance till it seemed only a step from the farthest snowy mountain into the glowing sun itself.

Every evening, whenever I could, I used to walk out alone into the open plain to feast my soul on the splendid scene. In the stern glacier region round K2 had had to brace myself up and to summon up all that was toughest within me in order to cope with the terribly exacting conditions in which I found myself. In the presence of these calm but fervent sunsets there was a different feeling. I had a sense of expansion, a longing to let myself go. And I would feel myself craving to let myself go out all I could into these glowing depths of light and colour, and trying to open myself out to their beauty, that as much as possible of it should flow into me and glorify my whole being. I had the feeling that in those sunsets there was _any_ length for my soul to go out to--that there was _infinite_ room there for the soul's expansion. There was inexhaustible glory for the soul to absorb, and the soul was thirsting for it and could never have enough.

Evening after evening came to me, too--quite unconsciously, and as it were inevitably--Sh.e.l.ley's words (slightly altered):

"Be thou, spirit bright, My spirit! Be thou me, most glorious one!

Be through my lips to unawakened earth The trumpet of a prophecy."

It was not that there was any particular message that I had to give.

But there was aroused in me just this simple, insistent longing to let others know what glory there was in the world, and to be able to communicate to them something of the joy I was then feeling in beholding it. I was highly privileged in having this opportunity of witnessing a Tibetan sunset's splendours. I was yearning for others to share my enjoyment with me.

The white radiance of the glacier region instils into us a sense of purity, and without the purity of heart which that stern region exacts we cannot see the sunset's glory in all its fulness. But now in these Tibetan sunsets we have not purity alone, but warmth and richness as well. They give an impression of infinity of glory. We catch alight from their consuming glory, and our hearts flame up in correspondence with them. The fervent glow in the Heart of Nature kindles a like glow in our own hearts; and we are enraptured by the Beauty.

On our misty island we are apt to connect sunsets with coming darkness and a black end of things. And in gazing on them we are p.r.o.ne to have a sense of sadness mingled with our joy. They seem to mean for us a pa.s.sage from light to darkness, and from life to death.

But in the deserts we have no such feeling. As day imperceptibly fades away it is not black darkness that succeeds, but a light that enables us to see farther, a mellower light that enables us to see the Universe at large. From this earthly life we are transported to a higher, intenser, ampler life among the stars.

And it is in the desert that we best live among the stars. In Europe we look up into the sky between trees and houses; and among the clouds and through a murky atmosphere we see a few stars. Even when we have a clear sky we seldom get a chance of seeing the whole expanse of the heavens all the way round. And even if we get this rare chance of a clear sky and a wide horizon we do not live with the stars in the open the night through and night after night.

In the Gobi Desert I had this precious opportunity. And I had it when my whole being was tuned up to highest pitch. I was not in the limp state of one who steps out into his garden and looks up casually to the stars. I was tense with high enterprise. I was pa.s.sing through unknown country on a journey across the Chinese Empire from Peking to India. I was keen and alive in every faculty, in a state of high exhilaration, and both observant and receptive. It was a rare chance, and much I wish now I had made more of it.

My party in crossing the Gobi Desert consisted only of a Chinese guide, a Chinese servant, and a Mongol camel-man. As I had no European companion I was driven in upon myself. I had to explore a route never before traversed by Europeans, and the distance to be covered across the open steppes of Mongolia and over the Gobi Desert to the first town in Turkestan was twelve hundred miles.

Beyond that was the whole length of Turkestan and the six-hundred-mile breadth of the Himalaya to be crossed before I should reach India. So I had a big task before me, and was stirring with the sense of high adventure and vast distances to overcome.

To enable my eight camels to feed by daylight, I used to start at five o'clock in the afternoon and march till one or two in the morning.

Sometimes in order to reach water we had to march all through the night and well into the following day. Frequently there were terrific sandstorms, but there were seldom any clouds. So the atmosphere was clear. In the distance were sometimes hills. But for the most part all round the desert was absolutely open. I could see for what seemed an indefinite distance in any direction. The conditions were ideal for observing the stars.

Seated on my camel, or trudging along apart from my little caravan, I would watch the sun set in always varying splendour. No two sunsets were anything like the same. Each through the ascendancy of some one shade of colour, or through an unusual combination of colour, had a special beauty of its own. I would watch each ripening to the climax and then shade away into the beauty of the night. And when the day was over the night would reveal that higher, wider life which daylight only served to hide.

The sunset glow would fade away. Star after star would spring into sight till the whole vault of heaven was glistening with diamond points of light. Above me and all round me stars were shining out of the deep sapphire sky with a brilliance only surpa.s.sed by the stars in the high Himalayan solitudes I have already described. And a great stillness would be over all--a silence even completer than the silence among the mountains, for there it was often broken by creaking of the ice, whereas here in the desert it was so profound that, when at the end of many weeks I arrived at a patch of gra.s.s and trees, the twittering of the birds and the whirr of insects sounded like the roar of a London street.

In this unbroken stillness and with the eye free to rove all round with nothing in any direction to stay its vision, and being as I was many weeks' distance from any settled human habitation, I often had the feeling of being more connected with the starry firmament than with this Earth. In a curious way the bodily and the material seemed to exist no longer, and I would be in spirit among the stars. They served to guide us over the desert and I gradually became familiar with them. And I used to feel as much a part of the Stellar World as of this Earth. I lost all sense of being confined to Earth and took my place in the Universe at large. My home was the whole great Cosmos before me. The Cosmos, and not the Earth, was the whole to which I belonged.

And in that unbroken quiet and amid this bright company of heaven my spirit seemed to become intenser and more daring. Right high up in the zenith, to infinite height, it would soar unfettered. And right round to any distance in any direction it would pierce its way. The height and distance of the highest and farthest stars I knew had been measured. I knew that the resulting number of miles is something so immense as to be altogether beyond human conception. I knew also that the number of stars, besides those few thousands which I saw, had to be numbered in hundreds of millions. All this was astonishing, and the knowledge of it filled me with wonder at the immensity of the Starry Universe. But it was not the mere magnitude of this world that impressed me. What stirred me was the Presence, subtly felt, of some mighty all-pervading Influence which ordered the courses of the heavenly hosts and permeated every particle.

We cannot watch the sun go down day after day, and after it has set see the stars appear, rise to the meridian and disappear below the opposite horizon in regular procession, without being impressed by the order which prevails. We feel that the whole is kept together in punctual fashion, and is not mere chaos and chance. The presence of some Power upholding, sustaining, and directing the whole is deeply impressed upon us. And in this Presence so steadfast, so calm, so constant, we feel soothed and steadied. The frets and pains of ordinary life are stilled. Deep peace and satisfaction fill our souls.

Sandstorms so terrific that we cannot stand before them or see a thing a foot or two distant come whirling across the desert, and all for the time seems turmoil and confusion and nothing is visible. But behind all we know the stars still pursue their mighty way. At the back of everything we realise there is a Power constant and dependable in whom we can absolutely put our trust.

This is the impression--the impression of steadfastness, constancy, and reliability--which a nightly contemplation of the stars makes upon us. At the foundation of things is something dependable, something in which we can repose our faith. And so the sense of calm and confidence we feel.

And in the desert we have no feeling that the stars pursue their course in cold indifference to us--that the Power which sustains them works its soulless way unregardful of the frettings of us little men. Not thus are we who watch the desert stars impressed. Quite otherwise. For nowhere do we feel the Influence nearer, more intimate or more beneficent. We seem in the very midst of the great Presence. We are immersed in it. It is pervading us on every side.

We do not expect it to alter the whole course of Nature for our private good. But we feel confident that the course of Nature is for _good_--that Nature is a beneficent and no callous Power, and has good at heart. _Because_ the foundations are so sure and good we can each pursue our way in confidence. This is the impression we get.

And the Power which guides the stars upon their heavenly way, and which, in guiding them, guides us across the desert, does not reside, we feel, in lonely grandeur in the empty places of the heavens, but in the stars themselves--in their very const.i.tution--in each individually and in all in their togetherness. It burns in each star and shines forth from it, and yet holds the whole together as we see it every night in that circling vault around us. The Activity does not appear to us to emanate from some Invisible Being dwelling wholly apart and isolated from the stars and this Earth, and sending forth invisible spiritual rays, as the Sun stands apart from the Earth but sends out rays of sunlight to it. It seems rather to dwell in the very heart and centre of each star, and the stars seem _spiritual_ rather than material beings. So this Power, as we experience it in the desert, does not impress us as being awful and remote, gloomy and inexorable, enforcing unbending law and exacting terrible penalties.

Our impression of it is that, though it preserves order with unfailing regularity, it is yet near and kindly, radiating with light and warmth.

We not only feel it to be something steadfast, something on which we can rely and in which we may have confidence; we also feel warmed and kindled by it.

So what we get from a nightly contemplation of the stars is a sense of happy companionship with Nature. The Heart of Nature as here revealed is both dependable and kindly. Nature is our friend. And in her certain friendship the balm of peace falls softly on us. Our hearts blend tenderly with the Heart of Nature; and in their union we see Beauty of the gentlest and most rea.s.suring kind.

CHAPTER IX

HOME BEAUTY

The Artist in his quest for Natural Beauty will have pursued it in the remotest and wildest parts of the Earth, where he can see Nature in her primeval and most elemental simplicity. He will have seen her in many and most varied aspects--the grandest, the wildest, and the most luxuriant. And from these numerous and so different manifestations of Nature he will have been enabled more fully to understand her meaning and comprehend her soul. Moreover, this contemplation of Nature will have evoked from within himself much that he had never suspected he possessed, and thereby his own soul also he will have learned to understand. And from this completer comprehension of his own soul and hers will have emerged a fuller community of heart between him and Nature. He will have come to worship her with a still more ardent devotion, and through the intensity of his love discovered richer and richer Beauty in her.

But even yet he has not seen Natural Beauty where it can be found in its highest perfection. Only when there can be the most intimate possible relationship between him and the natural object he is contemplating can Beauty at its finest be seen. And this closest correspondence of all between him and Nature will only be when he is in the natural surroundings with which he has been familiar from childhood, and which have affected him in his most impressionable years.

The Artist will have seen Nature as she manifests herself in the teeming life of a tropical forest and the most varied races of men; in the highest mountains and the widest deserts; in the glory of sunsets and the calm of stars. But it is in none of these that he will see deepest into the true Heart of Nature and understand her best. It is amid scenery which he has loved since boyhood, in the hearts of his own countrymen in their own country, that he will see deepest into Nature. And deepest of all will he see when from among his countrywomen he has united himself to the one of his own deliberate choice, and in this union realised in its fulness, strength, and intensity that Creative Love which springs from Nature's very heart, and is the ultimate fount and source of all Natural Beauty.

We like to go out over all the Earth and see the wonders of it. And we learn to love the great mountains and rich forests and unfenced steppes and veldts and prairies. And we get to love also the various peoples among whom we have to work and travel. But in his heart of hearts each man likes to get back to the scenes of his childhood.

The plainsman likes to get back again from the mountains to his level plains where the scene is closer and more intimate. The mountaineer likes to retire again from the plains into the mountains.

The dweller on the veldt likes to get out of the forest on to the great open s.p.a.ces once more. The inhabitant of the forest likes to get back there again from the plains. And the Englishman, though he loves the Alps and the Himalaya, is touched by nothing so deeply as by a Devonshire lane with its banks of primroses and violets. And he may have the greatest affection for peoples of other races among whom he may have had to work, yet it is his own countrymen that he will always really love.

So the Artist comes back to home surroundings and his own people.

And he will return with his sense of beauty quickened and refined by this wide and varied experience of Nature. His sensibility to the beauties of Nature will now be of rarest delicacy, and his capacity for fine discrimination and his feeling for distinction and excellence sure and keen.

He will have been toned and tuned up to the highest pitch in his wrestling with Nature, and will have been purged and purified in the white region of the highest mountains. And in this high-strung state he will now see that creation and manifestation of Nature which of all natural objects will best declare her meaning, bring him into closer touch with her very Heart, and stir in him the deepest emotions. Between him and this object there will be possible the closest community of soul. Here then he will see Natural Beauty at its very finest.

The natural object in which he will see this consummation of Beauty will be the woman who will be to him a kindred spirit, and whom he will first admire and then love.

It was through the love of man and woman for each other in the far-off ages when love first came into the hearts of men that Natural Beauty also first dawned upon them. It is through that love that Natural Beauty has been continually growing in fulness and splendour. And it will be through that same love of man and woman for each other that the Artist will see Natural Beauty reach its highest perfection. For in this love man first learned to enter into the soul of another, to recognise samenesses between himself and another, and to live in communion with another. And so in time he came to recognise samenesses between what was in his heart and what was in the Heart of Nature, to enter into communion with Nature, and through the wedding of himself with Nature see the Beauty in her. He was able in some slight degree to be towards Nature what we see the midge buzzing round a man must be if that midge is to see the beauty of man. Just as the midge, if it is to see the beauty in man, must be able to recognise samenesses between its life and the life of man, so man to see Beauty in Nature had to recognise ident.i.ty of life between him and Nature as he was first inspired to see it through the love of man and woman for each other.

And now the Artist with his wide experience of Nature and united with his own countrywoman in his own country will recognise a still closer ident.i.ty between himself and Nature, and so see an even fuller Beauty in her.

a.s.suming the man and woman, both by their upbringing and by outward circ.u.mstances, to have been able to develop the best capacities within them and to be meeting now under conditions most favourable for their union, we shall see how perfect is the Beauty which may be revealed. The man will be in the prime of his manhood, and the woman in the prime of her womanhood. The man manly and radiating manhood, the woman womanly and radiating womanhood: their manhood and womanhood welling up within them, each eager to answer the call of the other.

Hers will be no light and shallow beauty insipid as milk and water, but will be sweet as the violet, delicate as the primrose, pure as the lily, yet with all the sweetness, delicacy and purity, radiant as the sunrise. And they will be no pale and puny lovers, soft and mild as doves, and content to lead a dull and trivial life. They will be high of spirit, graceful, swift, and supple as the greyhound; and as keenly intent on living a full and varied life with every moment of it worth while as ever the greyhound is in pursuing its object. They will be capable of intense and pa.s.sionate emotion, yet with all their eager impulsiveness they will have wills strong to keep themselves in hand, and to maintain their direction true through all the mazy intricacies of life and love.

In the bringing together of such a pair Natural Beauty will play a vitally important part. Of all objects that Nature has produced--of all the offspring of the Earth--such a man and woman are the most beautiful. And we may a.s.sume that as they are drawn to each other they will put forth the very best of themselves and give out the utmost beauty that is in them. Moreover, they will be more beautiful to each other than they are to anybody else. Unconsciously they will reveal to each other what they _can_ reveal to none other but themselves. Insensibly the windows of their souls will be opened to each other. The lovelight in their eyes--the lovelight which can _only_ be shown to each other--will discover to them hidden depths of beauty they had never gathered they possessed.

And this beauty will be something more than mere prettiness or handsomeness of face. The man will see the beauty of the woman --and she his--not only in the face and features, but in the presence, bearing, and carriage, in the gestures, movements, and behaviour.

Behind the outward aspect he will see the inward spirit, the real self, the true nature, the radiant personality. And the beauty that he sees will fill him with a pa.s.sionate yearning, both to give and to possess.

He will want both to give the utmost and best of himself, and also to possess what so satisfies all the cravings of the soul. And whether it be to give or to possess that he most wants he will be unable to distinguish. But, in the craving to give and possess, the highest stimulus will be afforded him to exert every faculty to its limit. The effort will give zest, and with zest will come added powers of vision, so that he will be able to see both her and his inmost and utmost capabilities. And though the force of outward circ.u.mstances may prevent both her and him from ever completely fulfilling those latent possibilities, what they see of themselves and of each other in those divine moments may nevertheless be a perfectly true vision of their real and fundamental nature. Love is not so blind as is supposed.

Love is capable of seeing clearer and deeper than any other faculty.

What the Artist now sees with the eyes of Love will be the ground upon which he will have to form his judgment in the most critical decision of his life. For the moment will now have come when he will have to decide whether of all others he will give himself to her, and whether he can presume to ask of her that she will give herself to him--and each to the other for all the rest of their lives. It is a momentous decision to have to make. With his highly developed power of vision he will have divined her true nature. But he will have now to exercise his judgment on it--whether it will satisfy the needs of his whole being and whether his whole being is sufficient to satisfy her needs. Each has to be sure that his peculiar nature satisfies--and satisfies fully--his or her own peculiar needs, and that his peculiar nature satisfies the other's needs. A wrong decision here is fatal. The responsibility is fearful. All will depend upon his keenness of vision, his capacity for discrimination, and his soundness of judgment. The decision may be arrived at swiftly and consciously, or it may be come to unconsciously, gradually, and imperceptibly. But shorter or longer the time, consciously or unconsciously the method, it will have in the end to be made in a perfectly definite fashion--yes or no--and from that decision there can be no going back. And on that clear decision will hang the future welfare not only of the one who makes it, but of both. Each, therefore, has to decide for the welfare of both.

This is the real Day of Judgment. And each is his own judge. Now all his and her past life and inborn nature is being put to the test in a fierce ordeal--and the fiery ordeal of love is more searching even than the ordeal of war. Every smallest blot and blemish, every slightest impurity is shown up in startling clearness. Every flaw at once betrays itself. What will not bear a strain immediately breaks down. There is not an imperfection which is not glaringly displayed.

The other may not see it, but he himself will--and upon him is the responsibility.

No wonder that both the one and the other hesitate to commit themselves finally and irrevocably! Can he with all his blots and blemishes, his failings and weaknesses, offer to give himself to the other? Is he worthy to receive all that he would expect to receive in return? Is he justified in asking that the whole being and the most sacred thing in life should be given over utterly to him? It seems astounding that any man should ever have the impudence to answer such questions in the affirmative. Doubtless he would not have had such effrontery but for two considerations.

In the first place he knows that, imperfect as he may be--downright sinful as he may often have been--he is not bad at bottom. At heart, he knows for certain he has capacities for improvement which would come at once into being if only they had the opportunity for development. And he knows that the other could make those opportunities--could provide the stimulus which would awaken in him and bring to fruit many a hidden capability of good. Every faculty in him he now feels being quickened to an activity never known before. Blemishes he feels being purged away in the cleansing fires of pure love. He feels that with the other he will be, as he has never been before, his whole and his true self. And this is the first consideration which gives him confidence.

The second is that he feels himself now to a very special degree in direct and intimate touch with the central Heart of Nature.

Something from what he feels by instinct is the Divine Source of Life and Love comes springing up within him, penetrating him through and through, supporting and upholding him and urging him forward. He feels that he directly springs from that Source, and that it will ever sustain him as long as he is true to his own real self, and works for those high ends towards which he feels himself impelled.