Escape, and Other Essays - Arthur Christopher Benson (free novel reading sites .txt) 📗

colour and the prodigious forms of my landscape visions are wholly beyond my power of thought.

Lastly, I have never had any dream of any real or vital significance, any warning or presentiment, anything which bore in the least degree upon the issues of life.

There is a beautiful passage in the "Purgatorio" of Dante about the dawn: he writes


In that hour
When near the dawn the swallow her sad song,
Haply remembering ancient grief, renews;
And when our minds, more wanderers from the flesh
And less by thought restrained, are, as 't were, full
Of holy divination in their dreams.


I suppose that it would be possible to interpret one's dreams symbolically; but in my own case my dream-experiences all seem to belong to a wholly different person from myself, a light-hearted, childish, careless creature, full of animation and inquisitiveness, buoyant and thoughtless, content to look neither forwards nor backwards, wholly without responsibility or intelligence, just borne along by the pleasure of the moment, perfectly harmless and friendly as a rule, a sort of cheerful butterfly. That is not in the least my waking temperament; but it fills me sometimes with an uneasy suspicion that it is more like myself than I know.


X


THE VISITANT

I am going to try to put into words a very singular and very elusive experience which visits me not infrequently. I cannot say when it began, but I first became aware of it about four years ago.

It takes the form of an instantaneous mental vision, not very distinct but still not to be mistaken for anything else, of two people, a husband and wife, who are living somewhere in a large newly built house. The husband is a man of, I suppose, about forty-- the wife is a trifle younger, and they are childless. The husband is an active, well-built man with light, almost golden hair, rather coarse in texture, and with a pointed beard of the same hue. He has fine, clean-cut, muscular hands, and he wears, as I see him, a rough, rather shabby suit of light, homespun cloth. The wife is of fair complexion, a beautiful woman, with brown hair, and dressed, I think, in a very simple and rather peculiar dress. They are people of high principle, wealthy, and with cultivated tastes. They care for music and books and art. The husband has no profession. They live in a wide, well-wooded landscape, I am inclined to think in Sussex, in a newly built house, as I have said, of white plaster and timber, tiled, with many gables and with two large, bow- windowed rooms, rather low, the big mullioned oriels of which, with leaded roofs, are a rather conspicuous feature of the house. The house stands on a slightly rising ground, in a park-like demesne of a few acres, well timbered, and with open paddocks of grass. The house is approached by a drive from the main road, with two big gateposts of brick, and a white gate between. To the right of the house among the trees is the louvre of a stable. There is a terrace just in front of the house, full of flowers, with a low brick wall in front of it separating it from the field. I see the house and its surroundings more clearly than I see the figures themselves.

I cannot see the interior of the house at all clearly, with the exception of one room. I do not know where the front door is, nor have I ever seen any of the upper rooms. The one exception is a big room on the right of the house as one looks at it from the main road. This room I see with great distinctness. It is large and low, papered with a white paper and with a parquetry floor, designed for a music room. There is a grand piano, but what I see most clearly are a good many books, rather inconveniently placed in low white bookcases which run round most of the room, under the windows, with three shelves in each. It seems to me to be a bad arrangement, because it would be necessary to stoop down so much for the books, but I do not think that there is much reading done in the room. There are several low armchairs draped in a highly coloured chintz with a white ground; there are pictures on the walls, but I cannot see them distinctly. I think they are water-colours. The curtains are of a very peculiar and bright blue. A low window-seat runs round the oriel, with cushions of the same blue. It is in this room only that I see the two people, always together; and I have never seen anyone else in the house. They are seen in certain definite positions, oftenest standing together looking out of the window, which must face the west, because I see the sunset out of it. As a rule, the woman's hand is passed through the man's arm.

The vision simply flashes across my mind like a picture, whatever I am doing at the time. Sometimes I see it several times in a week, sometimes not for weeks together. I should recognise the house in a moment if I saw it; I do not think I should recognise the people. I cannot see the shapes of their features or their expressions, but I can see the bloom on the wife's cheek and its pure outline.

To the best of my knowledge I have never seen either the people or the house in real life; and yet I have strongly the sense that it is a real house and that the people are real. it does not seem to me like a mere imagination, because it comes too distinctly and too accurately for that. Nor does it seem to me to be a mere combination of things which I have seen. The curious part of it is that some parts of the vision are absolutely clear--thus I can see the very texture of the smooth plaster of the house, and the oak beams inset; and I can also see the fabric of the man's clothes and the colour of his hair; but, however much I interrogate my memory or my fancy about other details, they are all involved in a sort of mist which I cannot pierce. It is this which convinces me of the reality of the house, and makes me believe that it is not imagination; because, if it were, I think I should have enlarged my vision of the whole; but this I cannot do. There is a door, for instance, in the music-room, which is sometimes open, but even so I cannot see anything outside in the hall or passage to which it leads. Moreover, though I can recollect the visions with absolute distinctness, I cannot evoke them. I may be reading or writing, and I suddenly see in my mind the house across the meadows; or I am in the music-room, and the two figures are standing together in the window.

So strongly do I feel the actuality of it all, that if this book should fall into the hands of the people to whom the vision refers, I will ask them to communicate with me. I have no idea what their past has been, but I know their characters well. The fact that they have no children is a sorrow to them, but has served to centre their affections strongly on each other. The husband is a very tranquil and unaffected man. There is no sort of pose about his life. He just lives as he likes best. He is unambitious, and he has no sense of a duty owed to others. But this is not coupled with any sense of contempt or aloofness--he is invariably kind and gentle. He is an intellectual man, highly trained and clear-minded. The wife has less knowledge of the technique of artistic things, but a very fine, natural, critical taste. She cares, however, less for the things themselves than because her husband cares for them; but I do not think that she knows this. They have always enjoyed good health, and I cannot discern that they have had troubles of any kind. And I have the strongest sense of a perfectly natural high- mindedness about both, a healthy instinct for what is right and fine. They are absolutely without meanness; and they are entirely free from any sort of morbidity or dreariness. They have travelled a good deal, but they now seldom leave home; they designed and built their own house. One curious thing is that I have never heard music in the house, nor have I ever seen them reading, and yet I feel that they are much occupied with music and books.

What is the possible explanation of this curious vision? I have sometimes wondered if they have been brought into some unconscious rapport with me through one of my books. It seems to me just possible that when I have seen them standing together there may be some phrase in one of my books which has struck them and which they are accustomed to remember; and I think it may be some phrase about the sunset, because it is at sunset that I generally see them. But this does not explain my vision of the house, because I have never seen either of them outside of the house, and I have several times seen the music-room with no one in it; how does the vision of the house, which is so strangely distinct, come to me?

They inspire me with a great feeling of respect and friendship; the vision is very beautiful, and is always attended by a great sense of pleasure. I feel that it does me good in some obscure way to be brought into touch with them. Yet I can never retain my hold on the scene for more than an instant; it is just there and then it is gone.

It is a very strange thing to be conscious of two quite distinct personalities, and yet without any power of winding myself any further into their thoughts. There seems to be no vital contact. I am admitted, as it were, at certain times to a sight of the place, but I am sure that there is no sort of volition on their part about it; I do not feel that their thoughts are ever bent actually upon me, as I exist, but perhaps upon something connected with me.

I must add that, though I am a great dreamer at night and have always at all times a strong power of mental visualisations, I am not accustomed to be controlled by it, but rather to control it; and I have never at any time had any sort of similar vision, of a thing apart from memory or fancy.

I do believe very firmly in the telepathic faculty. I think that our thoughts are much affected both consciously and unconsciously by the thoughts of others. I believe thought takes place in a spiritual medium and that there is much interlacing and transference of thought. I have never tried any definite experiments in it, but I have had frequent evidence of my thoughts being affected by the thoughts of my friends. It seems to me that this may be a case of some open channel of communication, as if two wires had become in some way entangled. The whole method of thought is so obscure that it is hard to say under what conditions this takes place. But I allow myself the happiness of believing that the place and the people of whom I have been