Under the Trees and Elsewhere - Hamilton Wright Mabie (any book recommendations txt) 📗

cities, bring back the stateliness of Rome and the beauty of that wonderful city whose poetry and art were but the voices of her common life?

The murmuring stream at our door in Arden whispered to us by day and by night the sweet secret of the happiness in the Forest, where no man strives to outshine his neighbour or to encumber the free and joyous play of his life with those luxuries which are only another name for care. Our modest little home sheltered but did not enslave us; it held a door open for all the sweet ministries of affection, but it was barred against anxiety and care; birds sang at its flower-embowered windows, and the fragrance of the beautiful days lingered there, but no sound from the world of those that strive and struggle ever entered. We were joyous as children in a home which protected our bodies while it set our spirits at liberty; which gave us the sweetness of rest and seclusion, while it left us free to use the ample leisure of the Forest and to drink deep of its rich and healthful life. Vine-covered, overshadowed by the pine, with the olive standing in friendly neighbourhood, our home in Arden seemed at the same time part of the Forest and part of ourselves. If it had grown out of the soil, it could not have fitted into the landscape with less suggestion of artifice and construction; indeed, Nature had furnished all the materials, and when the simple structure was complete she claimed it again and made it her own with endless device of moss and vine. Without, it seemed part of the Forest; within, it seemed the visible history of our life there. Friends came and went through the unlatched door; morning broke radiant through the latticed window; the seasons enfolded it with their changing life; our own fellowship of mind and heart made it unspeakably sacred. Love and loyalty within; noble friends at the hearthstone; soft or shining heavens above; mystery of forest and music of stream without: this is home in Arden.


VIII

. . . books in the running brooks.


In the days before we went to Arden, Rosalind and I had often wondered what books we should find there, and we had anticipated with the keenest curiosity that in the mere presence or absence of certain books we should discover at last the final principle of criticism, the absolute standard of literary art. Many a time as we sat before the study fire and finished the reading of some volume that had yielded us unmixed delight, we had said to each other that we should surely find it in Arden, and read it again in an atmosphere in which the most delicate and beautiful meanings would become as clear as the exquisite tracery of frost on the study windows. That we should find all the classics there we had not the least doubt; who could imagine a community of intelligent persons without Homer and Dante and Shakespeare and Wordsworth! How the volumes would be housed we did not try to divine; but that we should find them there we did not think of doubting. Our chief thought was of the principle of selection, long sought after by lovers of books but never yet found, which we were certain would be easily discovered when we came to look along the shelves of the libraries in Arden. With what delight we anticipated the long days when we should read together again, and amid such novel surroundings, the books we loved! For, although our home contained few luxuries, it had fed the mind; there was not a great soul in literature whose name was not on the shelves of our library, and the companionships of that room made our quiet home more rich in gracious and noble influences than many a palace.

And yet we had been in the Forest several months before we even thought of books; so absorbed were we in the noble life of the place, in the inspiring society about us. There came a morning, however, when, as I looked out into the shadows of the deep woods, I recalled a wonderful line of Dante's that must have come to the poet as he passed through some silent and sombre woodland path. Suddenly I remembered that months had passed since we had opened a book; we whose most inspiring hours had once been those in which we read together from some familiar page. For an instant I felt something akin to remorse; it seemed as if I had been disloyal to friends who had never failed me in any time of need. But as I meditated on this strange forgetfulness of mine, I saw that in Arden books have no place and serve no purpose. Why should one read a translation when the original work lies open and legible before him? Why should one watch the reflections in the shadowy surface of the lake when the heavens shine above him? Why should one linger before the picturesque landscape which art has imperfectly transferred to canvas when the scene, with all its elusive play of light and shade, lies outspread before him? I became conscious that in Arden one lives habitually in the world which books are always striving to portray and interpret; that one sees with his own eyes all that the eyes of the keenest observer have ever seen; that one feels in his own soul all the greatest soul has ever felt. That which in the outer world most men know only by report, in Arden each one knows for himself. The stories of travellers cease to interest us when we are at last within the borders of the strange, far country.

Books are, at the best, faint and imperfect transcriptions of Nature and life; when one comes to see Nature as she is with his own eyes, and to enter into the secrets of life, all transcriptions become inadequate. He who has heard the mysterious and haunting monotone of the sea will never rest content with the noblest harmony in which the composer seeks to blend those deep, elusive tones; he who has sat hour by hour under the spell of the deep woods will feel that spell shorn of its magical power in the noblest verse that ever sought to contain and express it; he who has once looked with clear, unflinching gaze into the depths of human life will find only vague shadows of the mighty realities in the greatest drama and fiction. The eternal struggle of art is to utter these unutterable things; the immortal thirst of the soul will lead it again and again to these ancient fountains, whence it will bring back its handful of water in vessels curiously carven by the hands of imagination. But no cup of man's making will ever hold all that fountain has to give, and to those who are really athirst these golden and beautifully wrought vessels are insufficient; they must drink of the living stream.

In Arden we found these ancient and perennial fountains; and we drank deep and long. There was that in the mystery of the woods which made all poetry seem pale and unreal to us; there was that in life, as we saw it in the noble souls about us, which made all records and transcriptions in books seem cold and superficial. What need had we of verse when the things which the greatest poets had seen with vision no clearer than ours lay clear and unspeakably beautiful before us? What had fiction or history for us, upon whom the thrilling spell of the deepest human living was laid! Rosalind and I were hourly meeting those whose thoughts had fed the world for generations, and whose names were on all lips, but they never spoke of the books they had written, the pictures they had painted, the music they had composed. And, strange to say, it was not because of these splendid works that we were drawn to them; it was the quality of their natures, the deep, compelling charm of their minds, which filled us with joy in their companionship. In Arden it is a small matter that Shakespeare has written "Hamlet," or Wordsworth the "Ode on Immortality;" not that which they have accomplished but that which they are in themselves gives these names a lustre in Arden such as shines from no crown of fame in the outer world. Rosalind and I had dreamed that we might meet some of those whose words had been the food of immortal hope to us, but we almost dreaded that nearer acquaintance which might dispel the illusion of superiority. How delighted were we to discover that not only are great souls, really understood, greater than all their works, but that the works were forgotten and nothing was remembered but the soul! Not as those who are fed by the bounty of the king, but as kings ourselves, were we received into this noble company. Were we not born to the same inheritance? Were not Nature and life ours as truly as they were Shakespeare's and Wordsworth's? As we sat at rest under the great arms of the trees, or roamed at will through the woodland paths, the one thought that was common to us all was, not how nobly these scenes had been pictured and spoken, but how far above all language of art they were, and how shallow runs the stream of speech when these mysterious treasures of feeling and insight are launched upon it!


IX

. . . every day
Men of great worth resorted to this forest.


The friendship of Nature is matched in Arden with human friendships, as sincere, as void of disguise and flattery, as stimulating and satisfying. There are times when every sensitive person is wounded by misunderstanding of motives, by lack of sympathy, by indifference and coldness; such hours came not infrequently to Rosalind and myself in the old days before we set out for the Forest. We found unfailing consolation and strength in our common faith and purpose, but the frigidity of the atmosphere made us conscious at times of the effort one puts forth to simply sustain the life of his ideals, the charm and sweetness of those secret hopes which feed the soul. What must it be to live among those who are quick to recognise nobility of motive, to conspire with aspiration, to believe in the best and highest in each other? It was to taste such a life as this, to feel the consoling power of mutual faith and the inspiration of a common devotion to the ideals that were dearest to us, that our thoughts turned so often and with such longing to Arden. In such moments we opened with delight certain books which were full of the joy and beauty of the Forest life; books which brought back the dreams that were fading out and touched us afresh with the unsearchable charm and beauty of the Ideal. Surely there could no better fortune befall us than to be able to call these great ministering spirits our friends.

But, strong as was our longing, we were not without misgivings when we first found ourselves in Arden. In this commerce of ideas and hopes, what had we to give in exchange? How could we claim that equality with those we longed to know which is the only basis of friendship? We were unconsciously carrying into the Forest the limitations of our old life,