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IN the year of grace 1890, and in the
beautiful
autumn of that year, I was a freshman at
Oxford. I remember
how my tutor asked
me what lectures I wished to attend, and
how he
laughed when I said that I wished
to attend the lectures of Mr. Walter
Pater.
Also I remember how, one morning soon
after, I went into Rymans
to order some
foolish engraving for my room, and there
saw, peering
into a portfolio, a small, thick, rock-faced man, whose top-
hat and gloves
of
that little city of learning or laughter. The serried bristles of
his
moustachio made for him a false-military air. Was ever such
cunning
as twinkled in his narrow eyes? I think I nearly went down
when
they told me that this was Pater.
I admire the man as a stylist. Even then I was angry that he
should
treat English as a dead language, bored by that sedulous ritual
where-
with he laid out every sentence as in a shroud—hanging, like a
widower,
long over its marmoreal beauty or ever he could lay it at
length
in his book, its sepulchre. From that laden air, the so
cadaverous
murmur of that sanctuary, I would hook it at the beck of any
jade.
The writing of Pater had never, indeed, appealed to me,
regard to the couth solemnity of
his mind, to his philosophy, his rare
erudition,
when at
length I saw him that I first knew him to be fallible.
lantern. Indeed, I
regarded it mainly as a tale of adventure, quite as
fascinating as
because there were no nautical terms in it. Marryat, moreover, never
made
me wish to run away to sea, whilst certainly Pater did make me
wish for
more ‘colour’ in the curriculum, for a renascence of the Farrar
period,
when there was always ‘a sullen spirit of revolt against the
authorities’;
when lockers were always being broken into and marks
falsified and small
boys prevented from saying their prayers, insomuch
that they vowed they
would no longer buy brandy for their seniors.
In some schools, I am told,
the pretty old custom of roasting a fourth-
form boy, whole, upon Founders
Day still survives. But in my school
there was less sentiment. I ended by
acquiescing in the slow revolu-
tion of its wheel of work and play. I felt
that at Oxford, when I
should be of age to matriculate, a ‘variegated
dramatic life’ was wait-
ing for me. I was not a little too sanguine, alas!
sweet conditions I had pictured in my boyhood? Those
antique
contrasts? Did I ride, one sunset, through fens on a palfrey,
watching
the gold reflections on Magdalen Tower? Did I ride over
Magdalen
Bridge and hear the consonance of evening-bells and cries from
the
river below? Did I rein in to wonder at the raised gates of
Queens,
the twisted pillars of St. Marys, the little shops, lighted with
tapers ?
Did bull-pups snarl at me, or dons, with bent backs, acknow-
ledge my salute? Any one who knows the place as it is, must see
that such
questions are purely rhetorical. To him I need not explain
the
disappointment that beset me when, after being whirled in a cab
from the
station to a big hotel, I wandered out into the streets.
for here, among the hideous trams and the brand-new bricks
here,
glared at by the electric-lights that hung from poles, screamed at
by
boys with the
remnants
of beauty, as I discerned. There were only remnants.
its charm and its tradition. Gone were the contrasts
that made it
wonderful. That feud between undergraduates and dons—latent,
in
the old days, only at times when it behoved the two academic grades
to unite against the townspeople—was one of the absurdities of the
past.
The townspeople now looked just like undergraduates, and the
dons just like
townspeople. So splendid was the train-service between
Oxford and London
that, with hundreds of passengers daily, the one
had become little better
than a suburb of the other. What more could
extensionists demand? As for
me, I was disheartened. Bitter were
the comparisons I drew between my
coming to Oxford and the coming
of Marius to Rome. Could it be that there
was at length no beautiful
environment wherein a man might sound the
harmonies of his soul?
Had civilisation made beauty, besides adventure, so
rare? I wondered
what counsel Pater, insistent always upon contact with
comely things,
would offer to one who could nowhere find them. I had been
wonder-
ing that very day when I went into Rymans and saw him there.
clearer. I discerned that the scope of
my quest for emotion must
be narrowed. That abandonment of one's self to
life, that merging
of one's soul in bright waters, so often suggested in
Paters writing,
were a counsel impossible for to-day. The quest of emotions
must be
no less keen, certainly, but the manner of it must be changed
forthwith.
To unswitch myself from my surroundings, to guard my soul
from
contact with the unlovely things that compassed it about, therein
lay
my hope. I must approach the Benign Mother with great caution.
And
so, while most of the freshmen were doing her honour with
wine and song and
wreaths of smoke, I stood aside, pondered. In
such seclusion I passed my
first term—ah, how often did I wonder
whether I was not wasting my days,
and, wondering, abandon my
meditations upon the right ordering of the
future! Thanks be
to Athene, who threw her shadow over me in those moments
of weak
folly!
eddies, torrents, violent cross-currents of human
activity. What uproar!
Certainly I could have no part in modern life—yet,
yet for a time it was
fascinating to watch the lives of its children. To
watch the portentous
life of the Prince of Wales fascinated me above all;
indeed, it still
fascinates me. What ‘experience’ has been withheld from
His Royal
Highness? He has hunted elephants through the jungles of India,
boar
through the forests of Austria, pigs over the plains of
Massachusetts.
He has marched the Grenadiers to chapel through the white
streets of
Windsor. He has ridden through Moscow, in strange apparel, to
kiss
the catafalque of more than one Tzar. From the Castle of
Abergeldie
he has led his Princess into the frosty night, Highlanders
lighting with
torches the path to the deer-larder, where lay the wild
things that had
fallen to him on the crags. For him the Rajahs of India
have spoiled
their temples, and Blondin has crossed Niagara on the
tight-rope, and
the Giant Guard done drill beneath the chandeliers of the
Neue Schloss.
He has danced in every palace of every capital, played in
every club.
How often has he watched, at Newmarket, the scud-a-run of
quivering
homuncules over the vert on horses, or, from some night-boat,
the
burning of great wharves by the side of the Thames; raced through
the
blue Solent; threaded
proud to whisper secrets in his ear. Gallant?
The ladies are at his
feet.
have jested for him. He has
been ‘present always at the focus where
the greatest number of forces unite
in their purest energy,’ for it is his
presence that makes those forces
unite.
Pleasure hangs constantly upon his arm?
It is those others, overtaking
her only after arduous chase, breathless and
footsore, who quickly sicken
of her company, and fall fainting at her feet.
And for me, shod neither
with rank nor riches, what folly to join the
chase! I began to see how
small a thing it were to sacrifice those
external‘experiences,’ so dear to
the heart of Pater, by a rigid, complex
civilisation made so hard to
gain. They gave nothing but lassitude to those
who had gained them
through suffering. Even to the kings and princes, who
so easily gained
them, what did they yield besides themselves? I do not
suppose that, if
we were invited to give authenticated instances of
intelligence on the
part of our royal pets, we could fill half a column of
the
fact, their lives are so full
they have no time for thought, the highest
energy of man. Now, it was to
thought that my life should be
dedicated. Action, apart from its absorption
of time, would war other-
wise against the pleasures of intellect, which,
for me, meant mainly the
pleasures of imagination. It is only (this is a
platitude) the things one
has not done, the faces or places one has not
seen, or seen but darkly,
that have charm. It is only mystery—such mystery
as besets the eyes
of children—that makes things superb. I thought of the
voluptuaries I
had known—they seemed so sad, so ascetic almost, like poor
pilgrims,
raising their eyes never or ever gazing at the moon of
tarnished
endeavour. I thought of the round, insouciant faces of the monks
at
whose monastery I once broke bread, and how their eyes sparkled
when
they asked me of the France that lay around their walls. I thought,
know no haunt more lurid than a literary public-house. It
was,
for me, merely a problem how I could best avoid ‘sensations,’
‘pulsa-
tions,’ and ‘exquisite moments’ that were not purely
intellectual.
I was not going to attempt to run both kinds together, as
Pater
seemed to fancy a man might. I would make myself master of
some
small area of physical life, a life of quiet, monotonous simplicity,
exempt
from all outer disturbance. I would shield my body from the
world that my
mind might range over it, not hurt nor fettered. As yet,
however, I was in
my first year at Oxford. There were many reasons
that I should stay there
and take my degree, reasons that I did not
combat. Indeed, I was content to
wait for my life.
need wait no longer. I have been casting my eye over the
suburbs of
London. I have taken a most pleasant little villa in ———ham, and
here
I shall make my home. Here there is no traffic, no harvest. Those
of
the inhabitants who do anything go away each morning and do it
elsewhere. Here no vital forces unite. Nothing happens here. The
days and
the months will pass by me, bringing their sure recurrence
of quiet events.
In the spring-time I shall look out from my
window and see the laburnum
flowering in the little front garden.
In summer cool syrups will come for
me from the grocers shop.
Autumn will make the boughs of my mountain-ash
scarlet, and, later,
the asbestos in my grate will put forth its blossoms
of flame. The
infrequent cart of Buzzard or Mudie will pass my window at
all seasons.
Nor will this be all. I shall have friends. Next door, there
is a retired
military man who has offered, in a most neighbourly way, to
lend me
his copy of the
family, who perhaps will call on me, now and
again. I have seen them
sally forth, at sundown, to catch the
theatre-train; among them walked
a young lady, the charm of whose figure
was ill concealed by the neat
waterproof that overspread her evening dress.
Some day it may be . . .
but I anticipate. These things will be but the
cosy accompaniment of
my days. For I shall contemplate the world.
ash becoming mere silhouettes in the foreground of my
vision. I shall
look forth and, in my remoteness, appreciate the distant
pageant of the
world. Humanity will range itself in the columns of my
morning
paper. No pulse of life will escape me. The strife of politics,
the
intriguing of courts, the wreck of great vessels, wars, dramas,
earthquakes,
national griefs or joys; the strange sequels to divorces,
even, and the
very mysterious suicides of land-agents at Ipswich,—in all
such pheno-
mena I shall steep my exhaurient mind.
experiar
shall listen to their music
perpetually and their colours will dance
before my eyes. I shall soar from
terraces of stone upon dragons with
shining wings and make war upon
Olympus; from the peaks of hills
I shall swoop into recondite valleys and
drive the pigmies to their
caverns; wander through infinite parks wherein
the deer rest or wander
at will; whisper with prophets under the elms, or
bind children with
daisy-chains, or, with a lady, thread my way through the
acacias. I shall
swim down rivers into the sea and
outstrip all ships. Unhindered I
shall penetrate all sanctuaries and snatch
the secrets of every dim
confessional.
days be spent. I shall be ever absorbing the things great men
have
written; with such experience I will charge mind to the full. Nor
will
I try to give anything in return. Once, in the delusion that Art,
loving
the recluse, would make his life happy, I wrote a little for a
yellow
quarterly—and had that
writer of talent. But the stress of
creation soon overwhelmed me.
Only Art with a capital H gives any
consolations to her henchmen.
And I, who crave no knighthood, shall write
no more. I shall write no
more. Already I feel myself to be a trifle
outmoded. I belong to the
Beardsley period. Younger men, with months of
activity before them,
with fresher schemes and notions, with newer
enthusiasm, have pressed
forward since then.
regret. For to be
outmoded is to be a classic, if one has written well. I
have acceded to the
hierarchy of good scribes and rather like my niche.