Part 4 (2/2)
”Rough, hilly roads, that stain the spokes with mire; Thick folds of ebon night on loch and law; The moan of breezes wailing through the shaw Like the weird plaints of an aeolian lyre: And intermittently through the clouds, the fire Of lightning streaks the night with glitter and awe, And lapses swiftly in the dismal maw Of darkness, 'mid the din of thunder dire.
But to relieve the sad night's sullenness, And clear the heavens for the timid moon, The straight-descending rain riots like hail For a fierce hour, in prodigal excess; Anon the clouds unm.u.f.fle, and the pale, Thin crescent of Diana gilds night's noon.”
The place of meeting at Ardeonaig was on the sh.o.r.es of Loch Tay, and the main road from Killin is high up and does not go near the water at this point. After alighting from the machine, I had to descend to the loch-side by a steep, miry, and circuitous road through a wood. As the ”thin crescent of Diana,” alluded to above, was not adequate to light my footsteps here, I struck some futile vestas, which the dripping leaves at once extinguished. Two elders, swinging lanterns and calling me by name, by and by divided the night in my vicinity. Their appearance was welcome, for the torrential rain had made the track one continuous slippery quagmire. The hospitality of the Ardeonaig minister speedily banished all recollection of the ”sad night's sullenness.”[10]
A more trying, because a longer, drive is that from Kilmun to Strachur, by way of Loch Eck. In the leafy month of June, nothing could be finer; but in a winter blizzard, one's appreciation of the glory of nature is somewhat less than rapturous. I mention the Strachur meeting because it was graced by the presence of a large contingent of local volunteers in civilian attire. The War Office ought to know that the inclement weather prevented these warriors appearing in their uniform.
[10] It is not often possible, in the _islands_, to get anything but a trap or open coach. In Lochranza, on a day of dreary, disheartening rain, I found on enquiry that there was no covered vehicle to be had except the _hea.r.s.e_.
A LECTURE IN ISLAY.
The westerly leg of Islay contains one or two places that have public libraries sent from Paisley: Portnahaven and Port Charlotte on the sea, and Gruinart inland and more to the north. It is a weird experience to drive along the sh.o.r.e road from Bridgend on a night of pitiless rain, and see the heavy mists broken every now and then by the far-reaching flash of the Portnahaven lighthouse. Equally weird is it to lecture in a school with no lamps (as happened at Port Charlotte). At eight o'clock I could see the faces of the audience well enough, but by and by the room became quite dark, and I seemed to be addressing an audience of silent and attentive ghosts. After I had finished, a Phantom arose in the far corner of the room and proposed a vote of thanks; and thereafter a Voice somewhere p.r.o.nounced the benediction. Then there was a movement of feet, and the shadowy spectres trooped out into the night. The foolish virgins had no oil in their lamps; in Port Charlotte, there was neither oil _nor_ lamps.[11]
[11] Islay is yearly becoming better known. It is an undulating island, covered with rich meadow-land, the home of horses, sheep, and cattle. There should not be a hungry man within its circ.u.mference. Under the old lairds--the Campbells--there were 14,000 inhabitants, now there are 6000.
SOME SPEECHES.
MENTAL AND MATERIAL WEALTH.
I never heard the difference between mental and material wealth more forcibly expressed than by an old Perths.h.i.+re shoemaker. ”Supposing,”
said he, ”that I had fifty pounds in my pocket at the present moment.
What a wild supposition, but good enough for an ill.u.s.tration! What inference would you draw from me having that sum of money? This, namely, that no other person in the universe has the same fifty pounds. The same pair of boots cannot be worn by two persons at the same time. The same guinea cannot be twice spent by the same man. It is different with spiritual things, and with works of art. Scores of people can simultaneously enjoy a great painting or a fine piece of music: _my_ enjoyment does not interfere with _yours_, indeed, it is more than likely that my enjoyment will be greatly increased from knowing that other people are enjoying it as I am. Then again, you can't eat the same loaf of bread twice: but you can return a hundred times to the same song, poem, or picture, and like them better the hundredth time than the first. A pathetic old tune does not lose anything in being sung by generation after generation. It is always as good as new. Like the widow's cruise of oil, it can be used without being consumed. These facts show that works of art--good books, good poems, good music--are, in a certain sense, immortal and divine. A hundred years ago, our ancestors sang 'Bonnie Doon'; we, to-day, sing it with undiminished fervour; a hundred years after this, the song will be fresh. Aye, and a humorous American writer thinks some of us will hanker for it in heaven:
'Perhaps in that refulgent sphere That knows not sun or moon, An earth-born saint would long to hear One verse of Bonnie Doon.'”
REAL GREATNESS.
The Rev. Chairman of this meeting emphasised the shoemaker's remarks in the following admirable words: ”I often wonder what is really the greatest thing ever done by a citizen of this country of ours, by a man of English speech. If we agree with our worthy shoemaker and his way of thinking, we shall not look at the big acc.u.mulation of guineas as an indication of greatness. Certain commercial men (who ought to know better) seem to think G.o.d has sent us into this lovely world for the sole purpose of piling up as much money as possible, and then, by death, leaving it to others to spend. _That_ can hardly be considered our reasonable service. Life is not so low-pitched as that. The best work of man does not admit of being put into an equation with cash. The greatest feat, to my mind, an Englishman ever performed was the writing of _Paradise Lost_. How much did John Milton get in money for his incomparable epic during his lifetime? _Five Pounds_: and if he had got five million pounds, the recompense would have been absolutely inadequate. History, however, has indemnified Milton for the neglect and poverty he endured. He has shot up into stature while those of his contemporaries who bulked largest in the eyes of the world have dwindled and shrunk into insignificance in comparison with him. The witty, dissolute king, Charles II., is now seen to be a wretched pigmy: Milton, who died in blindness and political disgrace, is the real king of that era, overtopping all the rulers, cabals, and intriguers. So, too, in Scotland, Burns is the giant of _his_ period. During Burns's life, the Earl of Dundas was to all intents and purposes king of the country. He could say to whomsoever he pleased, '_Friend, come up higher; be you a Sheriff, or Lord-Lieutenant, or Justice of the Peace_.' Dundas is pretty well forgotten by this time: probably he will by and by be remembered solely by Burns's description of him: _That slee, auld-farrant chiel Dundas._ Kings and men of temporary renown do well to keep on good terms with the men of letters.”
It is always a great treat to hear a working-man who has the power of utterance deliver a speech in a straightforward and unrhetorical way.
There is _always_ a pith and vigour about such deliverances quite unattainable in a formal harangue. The magnates of the little Fife villages are specially notorious for their gift of the gab: when Bailie M'Scales or Provost Cleaver gets up to speak, no one has any inclination to fall asleep.
A HIGHLAND LAIRD ON LITERATURE.
Max O'Rell has told us that his chairmen sometimes took advantage of their position to push their claims for the Town Council. I have not had the time at my disposal curtailed by any such munic.i.p.al oratory, though, occasionally, my remarks on literature have seemed to the chairmen to stand in need of supplementing. One gentleman, in proposing a vote of thanks, pulled a copy of Bacon out of his pocket and read the whole of the famous essay on _Studies_. Another managed to bring in a lengthy dissertation on radium! The following speech, delivered by a Highland laird of a poetical turn, is noteworthy: ”I am very fond of poetry,” he said, ”and yet I turn with a very languid interest to the writings of modern poets like Watson and Davidson. The verses of these gifted singers are for others, not for me. The truth is, I don't want any more lyrics and such like sugar pellets. My brain is already stocked with a plenteous supply on which I browse in weal and woe, which I almost think I personally composed, and to which I have attached a great many emotions and extraneous incidents known to n.o.body but myself. My old poetic favourites have been lying in various corners of my brain for forty or fifty years; I know every turn, rhyme and rhythm of them; and as they have served my need and alleviated my sorrow so long, I do not intend to give them many fellow-lodgers more. I do not know at what particular time literary nausea sets in, but Solomon had it when he said that of the making of books there was no end. No doubt his father David had primed him well in boyhood in the Psalms, and Solomon, feeling (like many others since) that the paternal psaltery met all his need of literary stimulus, would turn wearily from the heaps of presentation copies of new verse sent by the rising poets of Judaea for their sovereign's inspection. When a new book came out, Charles Lamb re-read an old one,--an excellent practice and one which has the additional recommendation of economy. It is not an unpleasant thing to find yourself falling back on old favourites and losing interest in the current hour. I knew a happy old gentleman whose reading was confined to Walter Scott. Every evening the lamp was lighted in the trim snuggery, and the appropriate _Waverley_ taken down from the shelf. For such a man to begin a new novel would have been as irksome as travelling in a foreign land.”
I am bound to say that I have great sympathy with the sentiments I have quoted from the speech of this kilted critic. If it were possible to retain the elasticity and adjustableness of the mind till the end of life, new authors would perhaps fix our attention as much as the old.
But only a limited number of articulate-speaking men, such as the omnivorous Professor Saintsbury of Edinburgh, preserve their appet.i.te tireless and intact. The Professor, like a literary Livingstone, can grapple with the most arid and dusty libraries, and is the envy of all scholars; but, alas! the majority of us have to take something less than the whole of knowledge for our province.
It must not be supposed that all the remarks made at these meetings were like those I have quoted. An airy irrelevancy was quite as common as the serious note.
VARIETIES OF CHAIRMEN.
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