Part 19
There I sat but had not known, It was on the Wildè Stone[13] That I had fallen into sleep, Since there the elves their watches keep, And he who sitteth there an hour For all that week is in their power. But this secret well I knew, And now lived to find it true, That the man who passes well Into the spirit of the spell, Meets with nothing to alarm, Nor will come to any harm; Many marvels he may learn, Many wondrous things discern, If he sleep an hour alone In faith upon the Wildè Stone.
As in silence still I sat, Marvelling in amaze thereat, I soon heard a sudden sound, As of a footstep on the ground, And looking up, there in the wood, A vision fair before me stood: When all at once the forest rang, In chorus all the birdés sang, And wondrous flowers in bright array, Came shooting to the light of day,[14] And in all her beauty’s sheen Before me stood the fairy queen.
Thus she spoke: ‘O minstrel dear! Long have I longed to see thee here! For it is in our destiny That if not placed in poetry, Although we live in lordly state, With wealth and power and titles great, We’ll pass unto oblivion’s shame Unless some poet notes our name. There is more life in one small song Than in a century ‘mid the throng, With all their work, and war and strife; Song only is eternal life. ‘Mid all great deeds--too great to last-- Men seek the poems of the past, And one sweet lay, as all may see, May make an Immortality. It may full long forgotten lie, Yea sleep for many a century, Hidden away in darkling nook, Yet be revived in many a book: For though states fade and tongues may die, There is no death for poetry, Since unto it we well may say: “A thousand years are as a day,” ’Tis God’s own voice which, when it spoke, In poetry the silence broke: To inspiration doth belong, And it alone, the power of song.
Even we who are of fairy kind Are least of all unto it blind, Since all the life which we receive, Legends or lays unto us give. For all of our appointed time Is measured by the poet’s rhyme, Unless we’re sung we soon are not, And even our name would be forgot: Therefore to me, O Baldemere! Thou art indeed of men most dear. Long I have lived in hope to be But mentioned in thy minstrelsy: Even in one line be’t low or high, For then I know I ne’er can die.’
All had grown silent as she spoke, No sound the forest stillness woke: The nightingales had ceased to sing, The brook had stopped its murmuring, A sudden peace had come to pass Over the wrangling flowers and grass,[15] For well I noted all had been Listening with joy unto their queen, With some sweet hope that they might be Included in the poetry: And this I did with love recall, That fairy life is in them all.
Her voice again the silence broke, And wavering with the sunshine spoke: As it came flickering through the leaves: As broideress her pattern weaves, Singing meanwhile a melody With her design in harmony, And thus she said: ‘O come with me And thou a wondrous sight shalt see Fit for a song, my Baldemere, If thou canst read its meaning clear, For we must go.’ I naught could say, So followed as she showed the way.
Right wild and rugged was the road, Through passes strange, which long we trode: Great rocks above us darkly hung, While peaks like towers o’er them sprung, And grim and griesly was the way, Scaping so oft the light of day, We did not seem to climb a steep But rather down in earth to creep, Wherein we heard and time again The sough of winds, the rush of rain, Then wended from a passage cold Into a forest grey and old Where every tree seemed all alone, For they had changed long since to stone; Every leaf and twig was there, As if they had been carven fair, And all y-wrought in imagery As men do work in ivory, Making for brides their caskets rare: Anon we came unto a stair; Each step whereof was wondrous broad, And strangely high. It was with awe I asked its meaning, and was told, ’Twas made by giant hands of old. Yet up we went, nor did we stop, Till we had gained the mountain top, Where in the twilight golden brown Upon a bench we sate adown.
Long it was ere I could speak, For both my soul and tongue were weak With all the wonderful surprise At what was spread before my eyes; For never yet in dream or scroll Came such a picture to my soul, Nor yet in visions told of eld, Compared to what I there beheld.
Straight from our feet like any wall, An awful precipice did fall, Ne’er had I thought of one so steep It seemed ten thousand fathoms deep, While down below a valleyed bay Spread beyond vision far away, And the wild waters of that sea Showed all that in eternity, Since earth hath been or Time began, Was ever seen by living man. Rising from darkness into light, Then fading into sheen more bright, A life which was a sparkling spring, And then anon evanishing, For there were forms of women fair, Like ivory--then lost in air, Or buried in the billow-caves, As goblins vanish into graves, Strong warriors with stretching arms Pursuing still those wondrous forms,
Or revelling as at glorious feasts: With all were mingled fearful beasts, Up-leaping, roaring, rioting, Withal full many an idle thing, As minstrels carolling their lays, And forms of long-forgotten days, And dwarfs who dwell in mossy stone, And spectres flitting all alone, And dead men floating in their shrouds, With dragons breathing fiery clouds, Blinding all round with ruddy light, And then in darkness lost to sight: There too were castles, halls, and bowers, With wondrous battlements and towers, Beyond them others rising high, And others still unto the sky, With gardens broad and forests fair, Yet ever fading into air, And fields with fountains interlaid, Where troops of merry children played, With gentle deer and snow-white lambs, And nuns a-singing even-psalms; Fading anon with all the rest, Like sun-set clouds into the West: On earth there is no thing I ween Which in that sea could not be seen, All that is common, all that’s rare, All that is humble or is fair With every known or unknown thing, Coming to life and vanishing, All blending, tending into one, As vapours fade before the sun: Chasing, embracing, or anon In deadly strife, and then agone: Therein I felt all that can be In Life to all Eternity.
Long at that wondrous sea I gazed, As one half pleased but more amazed, Till step by step upon my soul There came the feeling of the whole, And then a strange and boundless awe As I conceivéd what I saw, Until the thought which seized me there Became too terrible to bear, For what surpasses poetry, I ween is far too much for me: Life hath its limits, and this strife Is far too great for mortal life: A shudder seemed in me to rise, And, over-borne, I closed my eyes When a soft whisper in my ear Said, ‘’Tis enough, O Baldemere!’ And as the fairy to me spoke, I started at the word and woke.
I lay upon the Wildè-Stone, All in the forest and alone, Deep-thinking on the things I’d seen, And then I sang, ‘O Fairy Queen! Thou shalt in deed recorded be By Baldemere in poetry: God grant that this my humble lay, May live in truth for many a day. Would I could give it grace divine! Not for my honour, but for thine!’
* * * * *
‘_Haec fabula docet_,’ wrote the master, ‘firstly, that there is no earthly immortality like that of Song. Now it is to be noted that in their day and time men give little real heed to any save a very few of the greatest living poets, treating minor bards with a neglect which history clearly shows is most undeserved. For the _vitality_ of even fourth-class poetry is marvellous. It is recovered and reprinted centuries after it has been forgotten by all. What scholar is there who when raking over piles of fifteenth-century, theological, legal, and even historical rubbish, which will only sell for waste-paper, has not been charmed at finding in it--O happy man!--a book of ballads, or even of poetry of _any_ kind? ’Tis little thought upon, this life of song. There’s not one poet of the present day, however small his art and weak his lay, who hath not better chance to live for aye, and speak at times to some congenial soul than any other fancied famous man.
‘There is many a small being--ay, more than any dream--who will live like a fly in amber, merely because he has known, conversed with, and thereby identified himself with some poet, so small that even the fly did not know that the other had ever rhymed at all. It is little to the credit of any civilised country that it can excessively honour and envy and glorify an Upper Ten, or Twenty Thousand in Great Britain, or a Four Hundred in America, and not include in the number more than a dozen poets. If people cared more for poetry they would enlarge the number, for there are in very truth some hundreds cruelly ignored--all sneering critics to the contrary.
He is an evil being, to me, who would belittle, crush, or condemn almost any poetry whatever. For even in the very mediocre, where there has been inspiration and love, there is a gleam as of something divine, which I must needs reverence. Truly, indeed, the muse may have been only a very small fairy, elf, or goblin, or even a witch, but it has a spark of the supernatural or occult; treat it tenderly therefore, as something born with mystic powers!
And there is also a lesson in the Bookseller himself, which, rightly read and widely understood, would do good in the world. There are thousands of people who would fain travel into foreign lands and see strange people, when there are all around them in life men far more marvellous than Turks or Indians, or beings well-nigh as queer as goblins. They go about silently like shadows in a kind of twilight of society, living in a fourth dimension, enjoying senses all unknown to us, hearing sounds which never reach our ears, lit by a light which never cheered our eyes. Such are the collectors and readers, like this old man, who steep their very hearts of hearts in the feelings of the past, and give to every thought that chiaroscuro of the romance of age which is the final beauty of art. It is one of the sarcasms of truth that such a Dryasdust, who has become among fools the very type and symbol of common-place dulness, is in reality all the time in a fairyland too fine for the Philistine with his great horny eyes to even perceive; for he in a blackletter book feels with exquisite sympathy all that romance which was in all life in an earlier age, feels it directly and _in itself_, while another only gets a coarse burlesque or imitation of it from novels, plays, and Lord-Mayor-Shows of poems.
There are very few in this world who feel or even understand in reality this spirit in which the Bookseller has his being, more’s the pity!--for it brings a great deal of happiness to the possessor. Hand in hand with it, like a twin, goes the fairy of Collecting. This spirit too is far misunderstood. He who, having got together more money than he can spend, ridicules the collector of postage-stamps or buttons is like the lunatic in Hogarth’s picture, laughing at his like. They are all, one or the other, inspired by what the gambler-scholar Pascasius Justus called the _insatiabilis habendi libido, similis ventriculi magnæ voracitatis_, the unsatiable desire of possession, which is like a gnawing, ceaseless hunger, the which, as he adds, may do no harm if it be properly supplied with good food. The delight of the collector is in renewing certain pleasant feelings which he experienced before, which some think is nine-tenths of the pleasure of love, or of intoxication, or anything else; and that in very truth man is _man_ because he has more memory and passion than any other animal, and more ganglion. Nay, there have been rakes and Don Juans who found their chief pleasure, not in pleasure, but in accumulating conquests, that is, by collecting, by adding to the list which some pitiful Leporello bears.
Now, as Collecting is a human-animal instinct (as is shown by the raven, magpie, and other creatures), and love and religion and art were nothing more in their beginnings, it may be that as we improve, it too may be developed to a holy thing or a great institution; for in it lies the secret of history and of folk-lore and of preservation of relics; which will be clear to ye all when ye read my great work on the science of collecting in all its branches.
[12]
‘Vor dem Walde was sîn ganc, Dâ diu naktegale sanc.’
_Walther von der Vogelweide._
[13]
‘Der arme Grêgôrius, Nü beleip er alsus; Uf dem Wilden Steine, Aller gnāden eine.’
_Hartmann von der Aue._ 1320. _Gregorius._
[14]
‘Bluomen springent, Vogellên singent, Wünneclîchen schal.’
_Leutold von Seven._ A.D. 1230.
[15]
‘Alsô stritents ûf dem Anger Bluomen un de Klë.’
_Leutold von Seven._ (_Maienwunder._)
FLAXIUS IN THE FUTURE
‘What I was is passèd by, What I am away doth fly, What I shall be none do see, Yet in that my beauties be.’--_Old Epitaph._
I KNOW not to what land or region strange the immortal Magian betook himself, after this century had reached its end and tumbled over Time’s great precipice. All that I know is this, that it was in some realm within the realm of shadowed sense, where he forgot the stars, the moon, and sun; where he forgot the blue above the trees; where he forgot the dells where water runs; where he forgot the chilly autumn breeze; where he forgot there had been newspapers or stocks or pigeon-shoots at Hurlingham, or wondrous things at the Aquarium, or Piccadilly or the Savile Club--yea, all of earth and what there is of life--most useful, beautiful, æsthetical--all this had vanished like the lightest dream.
Now whether he had dipped a while in Dîs, to talk with Pluto, whom he much admired, or sailed to some celestial violet star, to exercise strange senses here unknown, expanding in the fourth di-men-si-on, this is certain, that it was about the time when the Twentieth century had attained its majority of two thousand, Flaxius found himself again on earth, suddenly dropped from some supernal height or upward shot from the great world below.
... Seated on a very comfortable bench under the lee of the Great Wall of China in a remote corner of Manchuria, he was not there a minute ere he realised that remarkable, not to say radical, changes had swept over the face of the whole world since his evanishment.
For he observed, firstly, that the Great Wall, which he had last seen in a most dilapidated, eroded, crumbled, and top-worn state of oxidation and moss-grown rustiness, was now, so far as he could behold--and it wound like a serpent up and down rolling hills, and over tremendous rocks for half a century of miles, till it vanished in an invisible, grey thread--completely restored as if by contract, all its ancient towers being likewise correctly renewed, as if by some Chinese Gilbert Scott. At its base, at the rate of about one to the acre, were bungalows of graceful construction, but all without chimneys,[16] rising from tufted groves and gardened plains, in whose architecture the old Chinese style seemed curiously mingled with other influences. A very striking feature indeed was that of many colossal towers, about a mile one from the other; every one, as Flaxius estimated, being about one thousand feet in height.
Hearing a rustling sound hard by, he, looking up, perceived a man alighting from what he at once understood was a flying-machine. It had come unseen and noiselessly as an owl, whence, as Flaxius divined, it had proceeded with incredible speed. The new-comer, who seemed to be about thirty years of age, was a man of attractive countenance, manly, and evidently intelligent, altogether the right sort of man for the right sort to meet. He was clad in a graceful, but extremely practical garb of some material new even to the Sage. As for nationality, he was certainly European, and probably English, but his first greeting to the Immortal was in a singular jargon, which appeared to be based upon the Pidgin, once dear to Flaxius in bygone years.
‘_Come sta_, my flin? What one-piecey man you be? My no savvy you--_no hè te jamas visto_--never look-see you before one-time, allo my life-o!’
‘I understand you,’ replied Flaxius; ‘but I also speak English.’
‘Oh, of course,’ replied the stranger with a genial smile, ‘only a fellow gets so into the habit of pidgining; it comes from flying about----’
‘Naturally,’ observed Flaxius.
The stranger darted at him a quick glance, and then looked about anxiously, as if fearful that some one had overheard them, observing in a hurried, low tone:
‘I say, don’t do that again. Joking’s against the law, you know.’
‘I did not know it,’ replied Flaxius. ‘But why are you so much astonished at not knowing me?’
‘Because,’ replied the stranger, ‘I cannot recall ever meeting anybody in all my life whom I had not seen before. You know how it is nowadays, when everybody goes flying about, and all the world is acquainted. And as you are evidently a superior sort of person, I am indeed _utterly_ amazed at not knowing you, because I would have sworn that from China to Peru there was not one gentleman with whom I was not, I may say, intimate.’
‘But you must count your acquaintances by _millions_,’ replied Flaxius.
‘Certainly,’ answered the stranger gravely. ‘I know nine hundred and eighty-four million, seven hundred and fifty-eight thousand, four hundred and twenty-eight men and women by face and name. Since the new system of accretive memorising has come in, and the whole world has got mixed up, and keeps mixing, everybody knows everybody.’
‘And does everybody now know everything?’ inquired Flaxius, as nearly astonished as he had ever been during the whole course of his long and well-spent life.
‘Well, among all the whiter people of age, I think it may be fairly asserted that every grown-up person knows all that man has ever known. Of course, only the most advanced scientists and deducers are really well acquainted with the knowledge of the future. But who, in the name of the Prima Materia, are you, who put such incomprehensibly odd questions?’
‘I have been,’ replied Flaxius, ‘out of the world for a century, and am utterly ignorant of all that has taken place during that time.’
The stranger did not seem to doubt the assertion, nor to be much astonished, as he merely remarked:
‘I have heard there were a few of the very far advanced who could do that, and you look like one of them. And I suppose, of course, they keep it a secret. So if you wish it, I will say nothing to anybody. Now to know what has been doing since you left, is a long story. Do you know where to lodge to-night?’
‘No,’ replied Flaxius, ‘unless it be _à la belle étoile_.’
‘We can sleep in any of these bungalows,’ replied the stranger. ‘I have _coupons_ entitling us to rooms and food, and medical attendance, and social attentions, anywhere in the world.’
‘I have plenty of gold money,’ observed Flaxius.
‘_Money!_’ exclaimed the stranger, as if astonished. ‘Well, certainly, money can be exchanged for coupons, and coins are rising rapidly in value for collections and museums. But coupons, issued in all cities, pass current all the world over at par. But let us get to our quarters and I will tell you the rest!’
He invited Flaxius to enter the machine, in which there was room for two, and a trunk, with some comfortable wrappings. Then as he turned a handle they shot off, upward and onward like the wind. As they flew, they overtook two other _aerevolantes_ like their own, when Flaxius’s friend, exclaiming, ‘Good fellows, good luck!’ ignited several small coloured squibs or minute rockets--it had by this time grown dark--which were responded to by a single red spark from each.
‘I invited them to meet an interesting stranger whom I have just discovered,’ remarked the stranger with a laugh. ‘My name is Oakford,’ he added, ‘and it is Pidgined into Oakforto. _Yours?_--Flaxius. That will become Flasio or Flaso. Ah! here we are!’
He stopped at a large and somewhat singular, though pretty house, before which sat in a garden at tables several well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, of a somewhat Eurasian appearance. An elderly woman examined the coupons which Oakford presented.
‘Take double,’ he remarked. ‘I want extra food. This is a distinguished man of science.’
Hearing this, the landlady and all the rest present rose and bowed low to Flaxius. But with all their politeness it was evident that they were utterly amazed, which Oakford explained by saying:
‘They have all travelled so much that they never saw a stranger before in all their lives.’
‘Now, for a paradox I call that a good one,’ reflected Flaxius. ‘That at least remains in the world.’
‘May I mention the fact that you have been absent from the world for a century?’ inquired Oakford of the Sage. ‘These are all gentlemen and ladies--that is, well-educated and of strict principles.’
‘Certainly,’ replied Flaxius.
‘This, my dear friends,’ then resumed Oakford, ‘is a scientist and philosopher of the very highest rank, since he has been absent from the world for more than a century. As you are all aware, only one among many millions ever achieves such extraordinary power, and from it you can draw your own conclusions.’
The party, which had been augmented by the arrival of two additional gentlemen with ladies, all gazed at Flaxius with an expression of such sympathetic intelligence as he had rarely met among mortals in the earlier time, and then, approaching him very reverently, bowed and worshipped, each addressing him a short prayer, after which the sage, perceiving that a benediction was hoped for, gave it with impressive feeling, to their very great satisfaction.
‘You must understand,’ explained Oakford, ‘that the religion which now prevails is, that the Creative Force manifests itself in the ascending series of ideals, and most perfectly in Man; therefore we worship him in one another, but chiefly in the advanced scientist, since it is to the power in him that we are chiefly indebted for inventions, and all that does us any good.’
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Flaxius, ‘you have somewhat changed religion as it was a century ago. Then, men chiefly worshipped, firstly, themselves, and, secondly, Politicians, who, instead of doing any good to anybody, made all the devil’s own mischief they could in every way, and were all the more admired for it.’