The Vagabond in Literature Part 9

Many of Th.o.r.eau's admirers-including Mr. Page and Mr. Salt-defend him stoutly against the charge of unsociability, and they see in this feeling for the brute creation an ill.u.s.tration of his warm humanitarianism.

"Th.o.r.eau loves the animals," says Mr. Page, "because they are manlike and seem to yearn toward human forms." It seems to me that Th.o.r.eau's affection was a much simpler affair than this. He was drawn towards them because _he_ felt an affinity with them-an affinity more compelling in its attraction than the affinity of the average human person.

No doubt he felt, as Sh.e.l.ley did when he spoke of "birds and even insects" as his "kindred," that this affinity bespoke a wider brotherhood of feeling than men are usually ready to acknowledge. But this is not the same as loving animals _because_ they are manlike. He loved them surely because they were _living_ things, and he was drawn towards all living things, not because he detected any semblance to humankind in them. The difference between these two att.i.tudes is not easy to define clearly; but it is a real, not a nominal difference.

It is argued, however, as another instance of Th.o.r.eau's undervalued sociability, that he was very fond of children. That he was fond of children may be admitted, and some of the pleasantest stories about him relate to his rambles with children. His huckleberry parties were justly famous, if report speaks true. "His resources for entertainment," says Mr. Moncure Conway, "were inexhaustible. He would tell stories of the Indians who once dwelt thereabouts till the children almost looked to see a red man skulking with his arrow and stone, and every plant or flower on the bank or in the water, and every fish, turtle, frog, lizard about was transformed by the wand of his knowledge from the low form into which the spell of our ignorance had reduced it into a mystic beauty."

Emerson and his children frequently accompanied him on these expeditions.

"Whom shall we ask?" demanded Emerson's little daughter. "All children from six to sixty," replied her father.

"Th.o.r.eau," writes Mr. Conway in his _Reminiscences_, "was the guide, for he knew the precise locality of every variety of berry."

"Little Edward Emerson, on one occasion, carrying a basket of fine huckleberries, had a fall and spilt them all. Great was his distress, and offers of berries could not console him for the loss of those gathered by himself. But Th.o.r.eau came, put his arm round the troubled child, and explained to him that if the crop of huckleberries was to continue it was necessary that some should be scattered. Nature had provided that little boys and girls should now and then stumble and sow the berries. 'We shall,' he said, 'have a grand lot of bushes and berries on this spot, and we shall owe them to you.' Edward began to smile."

Th.o.r.eau evidently knew how to console a child, no less than how to make friends with a squirrel. But his fondness for children is no more an argument for his sociability, than his fondness for birds or squirrels.

As a rule it will be found, I think, that a predilection for children is most marked in men generally reserved and inaccessible. Lewis Carroll, for instance, to take a famous recent example, was the reverse of a sociable man. Shy, reserved, even cold in ordinary converse, he would expand immediately when in the company of children. Certainly he understood them much better than he did their elders. Like Th.o.r.eau, moreover, Lewis Carroll was a lover of animals.

Social adaptability was not a characteristic of Thackeray, his moroseness and reserve frequently alienating people; yet no one was more devoted to children, or a more delightful friend to them.

So far from being an argument in favour of its possessor's sociability, it seems to be a tolerable argument against it. It is not hard to understand why. When a.n.a.lysed this fondness for children is much the same in quality as the fondness for animals. A man is drawn towards children because there is something fresh, unsophisticated, and elemental about them. It has no reference to their moral qualities, though the aesthetic element plays a share. Th.o.r.eau knew how to comfort little Edward Emerson just as he knew how to cheer the squirrel that sought a refuge in his waistcoat. This fondness, however, must not be confused with the paternal instinct. A man may desire to have children, realize that desire, interest himself in their welfare, and yet not be really fond of them. As children they may not attract him, but he regards them as possibilities for perpetuating the family and for enhancing its prestige.

A good deal of nonsense is talked about the purity and innocence of childhood. Children are consequently brought up in a morbidly sentimental atmosphere that makes of them too quickly little prigs or little hypocrites. I do not believe, however, that any man or woman who is genuinely fond of children is moved by this artificial point of view.

The innocence and purity of children is a middle-cla.s.s convention. None but the unreal sentimentalist really believes in it. What attracts us most in children is naturalness and simplicity. We note in them the frank predominance of the instinctive life, and they charm us in many ways just as young animals do.

Lewis Carroll's biographer speaks of "his intense admiration for the white innocence and uncontaminated spirituality of childhood."

If this be true then it shows that the Rev. C. L. Dodgson had a great deal to learn about children, who are, or should be, healthy little pagans. But though his liking for them may not have been free of the sentimental taint, there is abundant proof that other less debatable qualities in childhood appealed to him with much greater force.

"Uncontaminated spirituality," forsooth. I would as soon speak of the uncontaminated spirituality of a rabbit. I am sure rabbits are a good deal more lovable than some children.

Th.o.r.eau's love of children, then, seems to be only a fresh instance of his attraction towards simpler, more elemental forms of life. Men and women not ringed round by civilized conventions, children who have the freshness and wildness of the woods about them; such were the human beings that interested him.

Such an att.i.tude has its advantages as well as its limitations. It calls neither for the censorious blame visited upon Th.o.r.eau by some of the critics nor the indiscriminate eulogy bestowed on him by others.

The Vagabond who withdraws himself to any extent from the life of his day, who declines to conform to many of its arbitrary conventions, escapes much of the fret and tear, the heart-aching and the disillusionment that others share in. He retains a freshness, a simplicity, a joyfulness, not vouchsafed to those who stay at home and never wander beyond the prescribed limits. He exhibits an individuality which is more genuinely the legitimate expression of his temperament. It is not warped, crossed, suppressed, as many are.

And this is why the literary Vagabond is such excellent company, having wandered from the beaten track he has much to tell others of us who have stayed at home. There is a wild luxuriance about his character that is interesting and fascinating-if you are not thrown for too long in his company. The riotous growth of eccentricities and idiosyncrasies are picturesque enough, though you must expect to find thorns and briars.

On the other hand, we must beware of sentimentalizing the Vagabond, and to present him as an ideal figure-as some enthusiasts have done-seems to me a mistake. As a wholesome bitter corrective to the monotonous sweet of civilization he is admirable enough. Of his tonic influence in literature there can be no question. But it is well for the Vagabond to be in the minority. Perhaps these considerations should come at the close of the series of Vagabond studies, but they arise naturally when considering Th.o.r.eau-for Th.o.r.eau is one of the few Vagabonds whom his admirers have tried to canonize. Not content with the striking qualities which the Vagabond naturally exhibits, some of his admirers cannot rest without dragging in other qualities to which he has no claim. Why try to prove that Th.o.r.eau was really a most sociable character, that Whitman was the profoundest philosopher of his day, that Jefferies was-deep down-a conventionally religious man? Why, oh why, may we not leave them in their pleasant wildness without trying to make out that they were the best company in the world for five-o'clock teas and chapel meetings?

For-and it is well to admit it frankly-the Vagabond loses as well as gains by his deliberate withdrawal from the world. No man can live to himself without some injury to his character. The very cares and worries, the checks and clas.h.i.+ngs, consequent on meeting other individualities tend to keep down the egotistic elements in a man's nature. The necessary give and take, the sacrifice of self-interests, the little abnegations, the moral adjustment following the appreciation of other points of view; all these things are good for men and women.

Yes, and it is good even to mix with very conventional people-I do not say live with them-however distasteful it may be, for the excessive caution, the prudential, opportunistic qualities they exhibit, serve a useful purpose in the scheme of things. The ideal thing, no doubt, is to mix with as many types, as many varieties of the human species, as possible. Browning owes his great power as a poet to his tireless interest in all sorts and conditions of men and women.

It is idle to pretend then that Th.o.r.eau lost nothing by his experiments, and by the life he fas.h.i.+oned for himself. Nature gives us plenty of choice; we are invited to help ourselves, but everything must be paid for. There are drawbacks as well as compensations; and the most a man can do is to strike a balance.

And in Th.o.r.eau's case the balance was a generous one.

Better than his moralizing, better than his varied culture, was his intimacy with Nature. Moralists are plentiful, scholars abound, but men in close, vital sympathy with the Earth, a sympathy that comprehends because it loves, and loves because it comprehends, are rare. Let us make the most of them.

In one of his most striking Nature poems Mr. George Meredith exclaims:-

"Enter these enchanted woods, You who dare.

Nothing harms beneath the leaves More than waves a swimmer cleaves.

Toss your heart up with the lark, Foot at peace with mouse and worm, Fair you fare, Only at a dread of dark Quaver, and they quit their form: Thousand eyeb.a.l.l.s under hoods Have you by the hair.

Enter these enchanted woods, You who dare."

So to understand Nature you must trust her, otherwise she will remain at heart fearsome and cryptic.

"You must love the light so well That no darkness will seem fell; Love it so you could accost Fellowly a livid ghost."

Mr. Meredith requires us to approach Nature with an unswerving faith in her goodness.

No easy thing a.s.suredly; and to some minds this att.i.tude will express a facile optimism. Approve it or reject it, however, as we may, 'tis a philosophy that can claim many and diverse adherents, for it is no dusty formula of academic thought, but a message of the suns.h.i.+ne and the winds.

Talk of suffering and death to the Vagabond, and he will reply as did Petulengro, "Life is sweet, brother." Not that he ignores other matters, but it is sufficient for him that "life is sweet." And after all he speaks as to what he has known.

V ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

"Choice word and measured phrase above the reach Of ordinary man."

WORDSWORTH (_Revolution and Independence_).

"Variety's the very spice of life That gives it all its flavour."

COWPER.

. . . "In his face, There s.h.i.+nes a brilliant and romantic grace, A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace Of pa.s.sion and impudence and energy.

Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck, Most vain, most generous, sternly critical, Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist: A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck, Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all, And something of the Shorter Catechist.

W. E. HENLEY.

I

Romance! At times it pa.s.ses athwart our vision, yet no sooner seen than gone; at times it sounds in our ears, only to tremble into silence ere we realize it; at times it touches our lips, and is felt in the blood, but our outstretched arms gather naught but the vacant air. The scent of a flower, the splendour of a sunrise, the glimmer of a star, and it wakens into being. Sometimes when standing in familiar places, speaking on matters of every day, suddenly, unexpectedly, it manifests its presence.

A turn of the head, a look in the eye, an inflection of the voice, and this strange, indefinable thing stirs within us. Or, it may be, we are alone, traversing some dusty highway of thought, when in a flash some long-forgotten memory starts at our very feet, and we realize that Romance is alive.

I would fain deem Romance a twin-a brother and sister. The one fair and radiant with the sunlight, strong and clean-fibred, warm of blood and joyous of spirit; a creature of laughter and delight. I would fancy him regarding the world with clear, s.h.i.+ning eyes, faintly parted lips, a buoyant expectancy in every line of his tense figure. Ready for anything and everything; the world opening up before him like a white, alluring road; tasting curiously every adventure, as a man plucks fruit by the wayside, knowing no horizon to his outlook, no end to his journey, no limit to his enterprise.

As such I see one of the twins. And the other? Dark and wonderful; the fragrance of poesy about her hair, the magic of mystery in her unfathomable eyes. Sweet is her voice and her countenance is comely. A creature of moonlight and stars.h.i.+ne. She follows in the wake of her brother; but his ways are not her ways. Away, out of sound of his mellow laughter, she is the spirit that haunts lonely places. There is no price by which you may win her, no entreaty to which she will respond. Compel her you cannot, woo her you may not. Yet, uninvited, unbidden, she will steal into the garret, gaunt in its lonesome ugliness, and bend over the wasted form of some poor literary hack, until his dreams reflect the beauty of her presence.

And yet, when one's fancy has run riot in order to recall Romance, how much remains that cannot be put [Picture: Robert Louis Stevenson] into words. One thing, however, is certain. Romance must be large and generous enough to comprehend the full-blooded geniality of a Scott, the impalpable mystery of a Coleridge or Sh.e.l.ley, to extend a hand to the sun-tanned William Morris, and the lover of twilight, Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Borrow was a Romantic, so is Stevenson. Scott was a Romantic, likewise Edgar Allan Poe. If Romance be not a twin, then it must change its form and visage wondrously to appeal to temperaments so divergent. But if Romance be a twin (the conceit will serve our purpose) then one may realize how Scott and Borrow followed in the brother's wake; Stevenson and Poe being drawn rather towards the sister.