Part 3 (1/2)

S. What, canst thou not hear? Even then when the iron men came: and then our Anna bade me run away, or the soldiers would carry me off: and by that she meant the iron men: so I ran off and so I came hither.

H. And whither wilt thou now?

S. Truly I know not: I will stay here with thee.

H. Nay, to keep thee here is not to the purpose, either for me or thee.

Eat now; and presently I will bring thee where people are.

S. Oho! tell me now what manner of things be ”people.”

H. People be mankind like me and thee: thy dad, thy mammy, and your Ann be mankind, and when there be many together then are they called people: and now go thou and eat.

So was our discourse, in which the hermit often gazed on me with deepest sighs: I know not whether 'twas so because he had great compa.s.sion on my simplicity and ignorance, or from that cause, which I learned not until some years later.

_Chap. ix._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WAS CHANGED FROM A WILD BEAST INTO A CHRISTIAN

So I began to eat and ceased to prattle; all which lasted no longer than till I had appeased mine hunger: for then the good hermit bade me begone. Then must I seek out the most flattering words which my rough country upbringing afforded me, and all to this end, to move the hermit that he should keep me with him. Now though of a certainty it must have vexed him greatly to endure my troublesome presence, yet did he resolve to suffer me to be with him; and that more to instruct me in the Christian religion, than because he would have my service in his approaching old age: yet was this his greatest anxiety, lest my tender youth should not endure for long such a hard way of living as was his.

A s.p.a.ce of some three weeks was my year of probation: in which three weeks St. Gertrude[3] was at war with the gardeners: so was it my lot to be inducted into the profession of these last: and therein I carried myself so well that the good hermit took an especial pleasure in me, and that not so much for my work's sake (whereunto I was before well trained) but because he saw that I myself was as ready greedily to hearken to his instructions as the waxen, soft, and yet smooth tablet of my mind shewed itself ready to receive such. For such reasons he was the more zealous to bring me to the knowledge of all good things. So he began his instruction from the fall of Lucifer: thence came he to the Garden of Eden, and when we were thrust out thence with our first parents, he pa.s.sed through the law of Moses and taught me, by the means of the ten commandments and their explications--of which commandments he would say that they were a true measure to know the will of G.o.d, and thereby to lead a life holy and well pleasing to G.o.d--to discern virtue from vice, to do the good and to avoid the evil. At the end of all he came to the Gospel and told me of Christ's Birth, Sufferings, Death, and Resurrection: and then concluded all with the Judgment Day, and so set Heaven and h.e.l.l before my eyes: and this all with befitting circ.u.mstance, yet not with superfluity of words, but as it seemed to him I could best comprehend and understand. So when he had ended one matter he began another, and therewithal contrived with all patience so to shape himself to answer my questions, and so to deal with me, that better he could not have shed the light of truth into my heart. Yet were his life and his speech for me an everlasting preaching: and this my mind, all wooden and dull as it was, yet by G.o.d's grace left not fruitless. So that in three weeks did I not only understand all that a Christian should know, but was possessed with such love for this teaching that I could not sleep at night for thinking thereon.

I have since pondered much upon this matter and have found that Aristotle, in his second book ”Of the Soul,” did put it well, whereas he compared the soul of a man to a blank unwritten tablet, whereon one could write what he would, and concluded that all such was decreed by the Creator of the world, in order that such blank tablets might by industrious impression and exercise be marked, and so be brought to completeness and perfection. And so saith also his commentator Averroes (upon that pa.s.sage where the Philosopher saith that the Intellect is but a possibility which can be brought into activity by naught else than by Scientia or Knowledge: which is to say that man's understanding is capable of all things, yet can be brought to such knowledge only by constant exercise), and giveth this plain decision: namely, that this knowledge or exercise is the perfecting of souls which have no power at all in them selves. And this doth Cicero confirm in his second book of the ”Tusculan Disputations,” when he compares the soul of a man without instruction, knowledge, and exercise, to a field which, albeit fruitful by nature, yet if no man till it or sow it will bring forth no fruit.

And all this did I prove by my own single example: for that I so soon understood all that the pious hermit shewed to me arose from this cause: that he found the smooth tablet of my soul quite empty and without any imaginings before entered thereupon, which might well have hindered the impress of others thereafter. Yet in spite of all, that pure simplicity (in comparison with other men's ways) hath ever clung to me: and therefore did the hermit (for neither he nor I knew my right name) ever call me Simplicissimus. Withal I learned to pray, and when the good hermit had resolved himself to satisfy my earnest desire to abide with him, we built for me a hut like to his own, of wood, twigs and earth, shaped well nigh as the musqueteer shapes his tent in camp or, to speak more exactly, as the peasant in some places shapes his turnip-hod, so low, in truth, that I could hardly sit upright therein; my bed was of dried leaves and gra.s.s, and just so large as the hut itself, so that I know not whether to call such a dwelling-place or hole, a covered bedstead or a hut.

_Chap. x._: IN WHAT MANNER HE LEARNED TO READ AND WRITE IN THE WILD WOODS

Now when first I saw the hermit read the Bible, I could not conceive with whom he should speak so secretly and, as I thought, so earnestly; for well I saw the moving of his lips, yet no man that spake with him: and though I knew naught of reading or writing, nevertheless I marked by his eyes that he had to do with somewhat in the said book. So I marked where he kept it, and when he had laid it aside I crept thither and opened it, and at the first a.s.say lit upon the first chapter of Job and the picture that stood at the head thereof, which was a fine woodcut and fairly painted: so I began to ask strange questions of the figures, and when they gave me no answer waxed impatient, and even as the hermit came up behind me, ”Ye little clowns,” said I, ”have ye no mouths any longer? Could ye not even now prate away long enough with my father (for so must I call my hermit)? I see well enough that ye are driving away the gaffer's sheep and burning of his house: wait awhile and I will quench your fire for ye,” and with that rose up to fetch water, for there seemed to me present need of it. Then said the hermit, who I knew not was behind me: ”Whither away, Simplicissimus?” ”O father,” says I, ”here be more soldiers that will drive off sheep: they do take them from that poor man with whom thou didst talk: and here is his house a-burning, and if I quench it not 'twill be consumed”: and with that I pointed with my finger to what I saw. ”But stay,” quoth the hermit, ”for these figures be not alive;” to which I, with rustic courtesy, answered him: ”What, beest thou blind? Do thou keep watch lest that they drive the sheep away while I do seek for water.” ”Nay,”

quoth he again, ”but they be not alive; they be made only to call up before our eyes things that happened long ago.” ”How;” said I, ”thou didst even now talk with them: how then can they be not alive?” At that the hermit must, against his will and contrary to his habit, laugh: and ”Dear child,” says he, ”these figures cannot talk: but what they do and what they are, that can I see from these black lines, and that do men call reading. And when I thus do read, thou conceivest that I speak with the figures: but 'tis not so.”

Yet I answered him: ”If I be a man as thou art, so must I likewise be able to see in these black lines what thou canst see: how then may I understand thy words? Dear father, teach me in truth how to understand this matter.”

So said he: ”'Tis well, my son, and I will teach thee so that thou mayest speak with these figures as well as I: only 'twill need time, in which I must have patience and thou industry.”

With that he wrote me down an alphabet on birchbark, formed like print, and when I knew the letters, I learned to spell, and thereafter to read, and at last to write better than could the hermit himself; for I imitated print in everything.

_Chap. xi._: DISCOURSETH OF FOODS, HOUSEHOLD STUFF, AND OTHER NECESSARY CONCERNS, WHICH FOLK MUST HAVE IN THIS EARTHLY LIFE

In that wood did I abide for about two years, until the hermit died, and after his death somewhat longer than a half-year. And therefore it seemeth me good to tell to the curious reader, who often desireth to know even the smallest matters, of our doings, our ways and works, and how we spent our life.