_ NOW, do not be alarmed lest I shall attempt to describe a list of
fanciful unrealities that borrowed life from a passing emotion
merely; the emotion was permanent, the results enduring. Please
believe the honest statement that, with the singing of that bird, the
pent-up stress in me became measurably articulate. Some bird in my
heart, long caged, rang out in answering inner song.
It is also true, I think, that there were no words in me at the
moment, and certainly no desire for speech. Had a companion been with
me, I should probably have merely lit my pipe and smoked in silence;
if I spoke at all, I should have made some commonplace remark: "It's
late; we must be going in to dress for dinner. . . ." As it was,
however, the emotion in me, answering the singing of the bird, became,
as I said, measurably articulate. I give you simple facts, as though
this were my monthly Report to the Foreign Office in days gone by. I
spoke no word aloud, of course. It was rather that my feelings found
utterance in the rapturous song I listened to, and that my thoughts
knew this relief of vicarious expression, though of inner and
inaudible expression. The beauty of scene and moment were adequately
recorded, and for ever in that song. They were now part of me.
Unaware of its perfect mission the bird sang, of course because it
could not help itself; perhaps some mating thrush, perhaps a common
blackbird only; I cannot say; I only realized that no human voice, no
human music, even of the most elaborate and inspired kind, could have
made this beauty, similarly articulate. And, for a moment I knew my
former pain that I could not share this joy, this beauty, with others
of my kind, that, except for myself, the loveliness seemed lost and
wasted. There was no spectator, no other listener; the sweet spring
night was lavish for no audience; the revelation had been repeated,
would be repeated, a thousand thousand times without recognition and
without reward.
Then, as I listened, memory, it seemed, took yearning by the hand, and
led me towards that inner utterance I have mentioned. There was no
voice, least of all that inner voice you surely have anticipated. But
there was utterance, as though my whole being combined with nature in
its birth.
Into the mould of familiar sentences of long ago it ran, yet nearer at
last to full disclosure, because the pregnant sentences had altered:
"I need your forgiveness born of love. . ." passed through me with the
singing of the bird.
I listened with the closest inner attention I have ever known. I
paused. My heart brimmed with an expectant wonder that was happiness.
And the happiness was justified. For the familiar sentence halted
before its first sorrowful completion; the poignant close remained
unuttered--because it was no longer true.
Out of deep love in me, new-born, that held the promise of fulfilment,
the utterance concluded:
". . . I have found a better way. . . ."
Before I could think or question, and almost as though a whisper of
the wind went past, there rose in me at once this answering
recognition. It seemed authentically convincing; it was glorious; it
was full of joy:
"That beauty which was Marion lives on, and lives for me."
It was as though a blaze of light shone through me; somewhere in my
body there were tears of welcome; for this recognition was to me
reunion.
It must seem astonishing for me, a mere soldier and Colonial Governor,
to confess you that I stood there listening to the song for a long
interval of what I can only term, with utmost sincerity, communion.
Beauty and love both visited me; I believe that truth and wisdom
entered softly with them. As I wrote above, I saw my own
insignificance, yet, such was the splendour in me, I knew my right as
well. It could be ever thus. My attitude alone prevented. I was not
excluded, not cut off. This Beauty lay ready to my hand, always
available, for ever, now. It was not unharvested. But more--it could
be shared with others; it was become a portion of myself, and that
which is part of my being must, inevitably and automatically, be given
out.
It was, thus, nowhere wasted or unharvested; it offered with prodigal
opportunity a vehicle for that inspiration which is love, and being
love of purest kind, is surely wisdom too. The dead, indeed, do not
return, yet they are active, and those who lived beauty in their
lives are still, through that beauty, benevolently active.
I will give you now the change instantaneously produced in me:
There rose in me another, deeper point of view that dispelled as by
magic the disenchantment that had chilled these first days of my
return. I stood here in this old-world garden, but I stood also in
the heart of that beauty, so carefully hidden, so craftily screened
behind the obvious, that strong and virile beauty which is England.
Within call of my voice, still studying by lamplight now the symbols
of her well-established strength, burning, moreover, with the steady
faith which does not easily break across restraint, and loving the
man as she had loved the little boy, sat one, not wondering perhaps
at my unspoken misunderstanding, yet hoping, patiently and in
silence, for its removal in due time. In the house of our boyhood, of
our earliest play and quarrels, unchanged and unchangeable, knowing
simply that I had "come home again to her," our mother waited. . . .
I need not elaborate this for you, you for whom England and our mother
win almost a single, undivided love. I had misjudged, but the cause
of my misjudgment was thus suddenly removed. A subtler understanding
insight, a sympathy born of deeper love, something of greater wisdom,
in a word, awoke in me. The thrill had worked its magic as of old,
but this time in its slower English fashion, deep, and
characteristically sure. To my country (that is, to my first
experience of impersonal love) and to my mother (that is, to my
earliest acquaintance with personal love) I had been ready, in my
impatience, to credit an injustice. Unknown to me, thus, there had
been need of guidance, of assistance. Beauty, having cleared the way,
had worked upon me its amazing alchemy.
There, in fewest possible words, is what had happened.
I remember that for a long time, then, I waited in the hush of my
childhood's garden, listening, as it were, with every pore, and
conscious that some one who was pleased interpreted the beauty to my
soul. It seemed, as I said, a message of a personal kind. It was
regenerative, moveover, in so far that life was enlarged and lifted
upon a nobler scale; new sources of power were open to me; I saw a
better way. Irresistibly it came to me again that beauty, far from
being wasted, was purposive, that this purpose was of a redeeming
kind, and that some one who was pleased co-operated with it for my
personal benefit. No figure, thank God, was visible, no voice was
audible, but a presence there indubitably was, and, whether I
responded or otherwise, would be always there.
And the power was such that I felt as though the desire of the planet
itself yearned through it for expression. _