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The Upton Letters, a non-fiction book by Arthur C. Benson |
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Sibthorpe Vicarage, Wells, Dec. 31, 1904 (and Jan. 1, 1905) |
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_ DEAR HERBERT,--It is nearly midnight, and I am sitting alone in my room, by the deathbed of the Old Year, expecting every moment to hear the bells break out proclaiming the birth of the New. It is a clear, still night, and I can see, beyond the lawn and over the shrubs of the Vicarage garden, by the light of a low moon, entangled in cloud, the high elms, the church tower, with a light in the belfry, like a solemn, cheerful eye, and the roofs of the little village, all in a patient, musing slumber. Everything is unutterably fresh, tranquil, and serene. By day it is a commonplace scene enough, with a sense of little work-a-day cares and businesses about it all; but now, at night, it is all dim and rich and romantic, full of a calm mystery, hushed and secret, dreaming contented dreams. I have had an almost solitary day, except for meals. I like being here in a way; there is no strain about it. That is the best of blood-relationship; there is no need to entertain or to be entertained. My brother-in-law, Charles, is an excellent fellow, full to the brim of small plans and designs for his parish; my sister is a very simple and unworldly person, entirely devoted to her husband and children. My nephews and nieces, four in number, three girls and a boy, do not, I regret to say, interest me very deeply; they are amiable, healthy children, with a confined horizon, rather stolid; they never seem to quarrel or to have any particular preferences. The boy, who is the youngest, is to come to my house at Upton when he is old enough; but at present I am simply a good-natured uncle to the children, whose arrival and whose gifts make a pleasant little excitement. Our talk is purely local, and I make it my business to be interested. It is all certainly very restful. Sometimes--as a rule, in fact--when I stay in other people's houses, I have a sense of effort; I feel dimly that a certain brightness is expected of me; as I dress in the morning I wonder what we shall talk about, and what on earth I shall do between breakfast and lunch. But here I have a fire in my bedroom all day, and for the first time, I am permitted to smoke there. I read and write all the morning; I walk, generally alone, in the afternoon. I write before dinner. The result is that I am perfectly content. I sleep like a top; and I find myself full of ideas. The comfort of the whole thing is that no one is afraid that I am not amused, and I myself do not have the uneasy sense that I am bound, so to speak, to pay for my entertainment by being brisk, lively, or sympathetic. The immediate consequence is, that I get as near to all three qualities as I ever get. We simply live our own lives quietly, in company. My presence gives a little fillip to the proceedings; and I myself get all the benefit of change of scene, together with simple unexhausting companionship. Hark! it is midnight! The soft murmur of bells rises on the clear air, toppling over in a sweet cascade of sound, bringing hope and peace to the heart. In the attic above I hear the children moving softly about, and catch the echo of young voices. They are supposed to be asleep, but I gather that they have been under a vow to keep awake in turn, the watcher to rouse the others just before midnight. The bells peal on, coming in faint gusts of sound, now loud, now low. I suppose if I were more simple-minded I should have been thinking over my faults and failures, desiring to do better, making good resolutions. But I don't do that. I do desire, with all my heart, to do better. I know how faltering, how near the ground my flight is. But these formal, occasional repentances are useless things; resolutions do little but reveal one's weakness more patently. What I try to do is simply to uplift my heart with all its hopes and weaknesses to God, to try to put my hand in His, to pray that I may use the chances He gives me, and interpret the sorrows He may send me. He knows me utterly and entirely, my faults and my strength. I cannot fly from Him though I take the wings of the morning. I only pray that I may not harden my heart; that I may be sought and found; that I may have the courage I need. All that I have of good He has given me; and as for the evil, He knows best why I am tempted, why I fall, though I would not. There is no strength like the abasement of weakness; no power like a childlike confidence. One thing only I shall do before I sleep--give a thought to all I love and hold dear, my kin, my friends, and most of all, my boys: I shall remember each, and, while I commend them to the keeping of God, I shall pray that they may not suffer through any neglect or carelessness of my own. It is not, after all, a question of the quantity of what we do, but of the quality of it. God knows and I know of how poor a stuff our dreams and deeds are woven; but if it is the best we can give, if we desire with all our hearts what is noble and pure and beautiful and true--or even desire to desire it--He will accept the will and purify the deed. And in such a mood as this--and God forgive us for not more often dwelling in such thoughts--I can hope and feel that the most tragic failure, the darkest sorrow, the deepest shame are viewed by God, and will some day be viewed by ourselves, in a light which will make all things new; and that just as we look back on our childish griefs with a smiling wonder, so we shall some day look back on our mature and dreary sufferings with a tender and wistful air, marvelling that we could be so short-sighted, so faithless, so blind. And yet the thought of what the new year may hold for us cannot be other than solemn. Like men on the eve of a great voyage, we know not what may be in store, what shifting of scene, what loss, what grief, what shadow of death. And then, again, the same grave peace flows in upon the mind, as the bells ring out their sweet refrain, "It is He that hath made us." Can we not rest in that? What I hope more and more to do is to withdraw myself from material aims and desires; not to aim at success, or dignity of office, or parade of place. I wish to help, to serve, not to command or rule. I long to write a beautiful book, to put into words something of the sense of peace, of beauty and mystery, which visits me from time to time. Every one has, I think, something of the heavenly treasure in their hearts, something that makes them glad, that makes them smile when they are alone; I want to share that with others, not to keep it to myself. I drift, alas, upon an unknown sea; but sometimes I see, across the blue rollers, the cliffs and shores of an unknown land, perfectly and impossibly beautiful. Sometimes the current bears me away from it; sometimes it is veiled in cloud-drift and weeping rain. But there are days when the sun shines bright upon the leaping waves, and the wind fills the sail and bears me thither. It is of that beautiful land that I would speak, its pure outlines, its crag-hollows, its rolling downs. Tendimus ad Latium, we steer to the land of hope. And meanwhile I desire but to work in a corner; to make the few lives that touch my own a little happier and braver; to give of my best, to withhold what is base and poor. There is abundance of evil, of weakness, of ugliness, of dreariness in my own heart; I only pray that I may keep it there, not let it escape, not let it flow into other lives. The great danger of all natures like my own, which have a touch of what is, I suppose, the artistic temperament, is a certain hardness, a self-centred egotism, a want of lovingness and sympathy. One sees things so clearly, one hankers so after the power of translating and expressing emotion and beauty, that the danger is of losing proportion, of subordinating everything to the personal value of experience. From this danger, which is only too plain to me, I humbly desire to escape; it is all the more dangerous when one has the power, as I am aware I have, of entering swiftly and easily into intimate personal relations with people; one is so apt, in the pleasure of observing, of classifying, of scrutinising varieties of temperament, to use that power only to please and amuse oneself. What one ought to aim at is not the establishment of personal influence, not the perverted sense of power which the consciousness of a hold over other lives gives one, but to share such good things as one possesses, to assist rather than to sway. Well, it is all in the hands of God; again and again one returns to that, as the bird after its flight in remote fields returns to the familiar tree, the branching fastness. One should learn, I am sure, to live for the day and in the day; not to lose oneself in anxieties and schemes and aims; not to be overshadowed by distant terrors and far-off hopes, but to say, "To-day is given me for my own; let me use it, let me live in it." One's immediate duty is happily, as a rule, clear enough. "Do the next thing," says the old shrewd motto. The bells cease in the tower, leaving a satisfied stillness. The fire winks and rustles in the grate; a faint wind shivers and rustles down the garden paths, sighing for the dawn. I grow weary. Herbert, I must say "Good-night." God keep and guard you, my old and true friend. I have rejoiced week by week to hear of your recovered health, your activity, your renewed zest in life. When shall I welcome you back? I feel somehow that in these months of separation we have grown much nearer and closer together. We have been able to speak in our letters in a way that we have seldom been able to speak eye to eye. There is a pure gain. My heart goes out to you and yours; and at this moment I feel as if the dividing seas are nothing, and that we are close together in the great and loving heart of God.--Your ever affectionate, T. B. _ |
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