Part 5 (1/2)

On first discovering it I took a spray to show to ely disappointed that she admired it merely because it was a pretty flower, seen for the first time I had actually hoped to hear froht so much of it: now it appeared as if it was no more to her than any other pretty flower and even less than sorant little lily called Virgin's Tears, the scented pure white and the rose-coloured verbenas, and several others Strange that she who alone seemed always to knoas in s, especially flowers, should have failed to see what I had found in it!

Years later, when she had left us and when I had grown al in another place, I found that we had as neighbour a Belgian gentleman as a botanist I could not find a speciave hie, tough, permanent roots, also that it exuded a thick milky juice when the ste, cylindrical, sharply-pointed pod full of bright silvery down, and I gave hi it in his books: the species had been knoards of thirty years, and the discoverer, who happened to be an Englishman, had sent seed and roots to the Botanical Societies abroad he corresponded with; the species had been na in some of the Botanical Gardens of Europe

All this infor about the man in his books So I went to lishman of that name in the country Yes, he said, he had known hientle- of a recluse in his private house, where he lived alone and spent all his week-ends and holidays roa about the plains with his vasculu dead--oh, quite twenty or twenty-five years

I was sorry that he was dead, and was haunted with a desire to find out his resting-place so as to plant the flower that bore his narave He, surely, when he discovered it,which I had experienced when I first beheld it and could never describe And perhaps the presence of those deep ever-living roots near his bones, and of the flower in the sunshi+ne above hi him a beautifulunawakening sleep

No doubt in cases of this kind, when a first ih life, the feeling changes soination has worked on it and has had its effect; nevertheless the endurance of the ie and emotion serves to shoerful the mind was moved in the first instance

I have related this case because there were interesting circumstances connected with it; but there were other flohich produced a siinal eladly travel ain at any one of the, however, was evoked more powerfully by trees than by even theto time and place and the appearance of the tree or trees, and always affected un to experience it consciously, I would go out of my way to meet it, and I used to steal out of the house alone when the moon was at its full to stand, silent andat the dusky green foliage silvered by the bearow until a sensation of delight would change to fear, and the fear increase until it was no longer to be borne, and I would hastily escape to recover the sense of reality and safety indoors, where there was light and coain and go to the spot where the effect was strongest, which was usually aave the nae on hts had a peculiar hoary aspect that made this tree seem more intensely alive than others, more conscious of my presence and watchful of s to others, not even tothat she was always in perfect syard to my love of nature The reason of my silence was, I think, ine it would be correct to describe the sensation experienced on thosea person would have if visited by a supernatural being, if he was perfectly convinced that it was there in his presence, albeit silent and unseen, intently regarding hiht in his mind He would be thrilled to the marrow, but not terrified if he knew that it would take no visible shape nor speak to him out of the silence

This faculty or instinct of the dawning ious in character; undoubtedly it is the root of all nature-worshi+p, frohest pantheistic developious teaching I received from my mother Whatever she toldI believed i else she told me, and as I believed that two and two make four and that the world is round in spite of its flat appearance; also that it is travelling through space and revolving round the sun instead of standing still, with the sun going round it as one would iine But apart from the fact that the powers above would save reat consolation, these teachings did not touchnearer, more intimate, in nature, not only in moonlit trees or in a flower or serpent, but, in certain exquisite morass” and in all things, animate and inanimate

It is not my wish to create the impression that I am a peculiar person in this matter; on the contrary, it is my belief that the animistic instinct, if a mental faculty can be so called, exists and persists insteadily at it and taking it for what it is, also in exhibiting it to the reader naked and without a fig-leaf expressed, to use a Baconian phrase When the religious Cowper confesses in the opening lines of his address to the famous Yardley oak, that the sense of awe and reverence it inspired in him would have made him bow himself down and worshi+p it but for the happy fact that his e of the truth, he is but saying whatthe emotion for what it is--the sense of the supernatural in nature And if they have grown up, as was the case with Cowper, with the ie of an i who is ever jealously watching the, they rigorously repress the instinctive feeling as a teht born of their own inherent sinfulness Nevertheless it is not uncommon to meet with instances of persons who appear able to reconcile their faith in revealed religion with their aniive an instance One of the most treasured memories of an old lady friend of mine, recently deceased, was of her visits, soreat country-house where she uished people of that time, and of her host, as then old, the head of an ancient and distinguished fareatest pleasure was to sit out of doors of an evening in sight of the grand old trees in his park, and before going in he would walk round to visit the his hand on the bark he would whisper a goodnight He was convinced, he confided to his young guest, who often accoent souls and knew and encouraged his devotion

There is nothing surprising to me in this; it is told here only because the one who cherished this feeling and belief was an orthodox Christian, a profoundly religious person; also because ious, loved the memory of this old friend of her early lifefor trees, which she too cherished, believing, as she often told s have souls What has surpriseda a few of the inhabitants in soes in out-of-the-world districts in England Not such survivals as the apple tree folk-songs and cereless, but so for the o to the end of the earth to seek ae tribes

The animism which persists in the adult in these scientific tiht that it is scarcely recognizable in what is so for nature”: it has beco and ood deal of our poetic literature, particularly from the time of the first appearance of Lyrical Ballads, which put an end to the eighteenth-century poetic convention and made the poet free to express what he really felt But the feeling, whether expressed or not, was always there Before the classic period we find in Traherne a poetry which was distinctly anirafted on it Wordsworth's pantheism is a subtilized ani is like that of the child or savage when he is convinced that the flower enjoys the air it breathes

I one beyond my last, since I am not a student of literature, nor catholic in my literary tastes, and on such subjects can only say just what I feel And this is, that the survival of the sense of mystery, or of the supernatural, in nature, is to redient of a salad which ”animates the whole”; that the absence of that ehteenth century poetic literature al o still had in Mr Courthope one follower a Windsor Forest as his only monument and sole and sufficient title to immortality

CHAPTER XVIII

THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER

Mr Trigg recalled--His successor--Father O'Keefe--His --My brother is assisted in his studies by the priest-- Happy fishi+ng afternoons--The priest leaves us--How he had been working out his own salvation--We run wild once more--My brother's plan for a journal to be called _The Tin Box_--Our imperious editor's exactions--My little brother revolts--The Tin Box smashed up--The loss it was to g was given so far back in this history that the reader will have little recollection of it Mr Trigg was in a small way a sort of Jekyll and Hyde, all pleasantness in one of his states and all black looks and truculence in the other; so that out of doors and at table we children would say to ourselves in astonishment, ”Is this our school?” But, as I have related, he had been forbidden to inflict corporal punishot rid of because in one of his demoniacal moods he thrashed us brutally with his horsewhip When this occurred we, to our regret, were not per barbarians: so was still imposed upon us by our mother, who took, or rather tried to take, this additional burden on herself Accordingly, we had to meet with our lesson-books and spend three or four hours everywith her, or in the schoolroo called away, and when present a portion of the time was spent in a little talk which was not concerned with our lessons For we e moral atood were scarcely distinguishable, and all this made her more anxious about our spiritual than our mental needs

My two elder brothers did not attend, as they had long discovered that their only safe plan was to be their own schoole very well to keep the four smaller ones to their tasks She sympathized too much with our impatience at confinement when sun and wind and the cries of wild birds called insistently to us to come out and be alive and enjoy ourselves in our oay

At this stage a successor to Mr Trigg, a real schoolmaster, was unexpectedly found for us in the person of Father O'Keefe, an Irish priest without a cure and with nothing to do Some friends of my father, on one of his periodical visits to Buenos Ayres, s about the world had drifted hither and was anxious to find so for so to turn up As he ithout lad of the position of schoolmaster in the house for a time, that it would exactly suit him

Father O'Keefe, who now appeared on the scene, was very unlike Mr Trigg; he was a very big ar head and face, all of a dull, reddish colour, usually covered with a three or four days' growth of grizzly hair Although his large face was unorilla-like countenance so common in the Irish peasant- priest--the priest one sees every day in the streets of Dublin He was, perhaps, of a better class, as his features were all good A heavyand so fluent a talker out of school as his predecessor, nor, as ere delighted to discover, so exacting and tyrannical in school On the contrary, in and out of school he was always the saentle sort of huet all about school hours, roa conversations with the workmen, and eventually, when he found that he was somewhat too casual to please his employer, he enjoined us to ”look hi hi was not very effective He could not be severe nor even passably strict, and never punished us in any way When lessons were not learned he would sy we had done our best and lad of any excuse to let us off for half-a-day We found out that he was exceedingly fond of fishi+ng--that with a rod and line in his hand he would spend hours of perfect happiness, even without a bite to cheer him, and on any fine day that called us to the plain ould tell hi, and ask him to let us off for the afternoon At dinner time he would broach the subject and say the children had been very hard at their studies all theminds too much, that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and so on and so forth, and that he considered it would be best for the back to ained his point, and dinner over ould rush out to catch and saddle our horses, and one for Father O'Keefe

The younger of our two elder brothers, the sportshter, and our leader and rinations, had taken to the study of mathematics with tremendous enthusiasm, the same teaged hi, and so on; and on Father O'Keefe's engagement he was anxious to know if the new master would be any use to him The priest had sent a hted to assist the young gentleman with his mathematics, and to help hied thatwith theVery soon it began to appear that the studies were not progressing s, placid countenance,his rooe that the O'Keefe was a perfect fraud, that he knew as aucho on horseback or a wild Indian Then, beginning to see it in a huhter at the priest's pretentions to know anything, and would say he was only fit to teach babies just out of the cradle to say their ABC He only wished the priest had also pretended to some acquaintance with the loves on, as it would have been a great pleasure to bruise that big hu face black and blue

The ether, but whenever an afternoon outing was arranged my brother would throw aside his books to join us and take the lead The ride to the river, he would say, would give us the opportunity for a little cavalry training and lance- throwing exercise In the cane-brake he would cut long, straight canes for lances, which at the fishi+ng-ground would be cut down to a proper length for rods Then, , ould set off, O'Keefe ahead, absorbed as usual in his own thoughts, while we at a distance of a hundred yards or so would for eneive the order to charge, whereupon ould dash forith a shout, and when about forty yards from him ould all hurl our lances so as to make them fall just at the feet of his horse In this ould charge hi to our destination, but never once would he turn his head or have any inkling of our carryings-on in the rear, even when his horse lashed out viciously with his hind legs at the lances when they fell too near his feet

We enjoyed the advantage of the O'Keefe regime for about a year, then one day, in his usual casual oing, he said that he had to go so, andhiood deal of information about him reached us incidentally, fro his time with us, and for so out his own salvation in a quiet way in accordance with a rather elaborate plan which he had devised Before he became our teacher he had lived in soer- on at the Bishop's palace, waiting for a benefice or for so in vain, he had quietly withdrawn hiot into coy been troubled with certain scruples, that his conscience demanded a little more liberty than his church would allow its followers, and this had caused him to cast a wistful eye on that other church whose folloere, alas! accorded a little ood for their souls But he didn't know, and in any case he would like to correspond on these important matters with one on the other side This letter met with a wars with other clerics-Anglican or Episcopalian, I forget which But there were also Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Methodist ministers, all with churches of their own in the town, and he may have flirted a little with all of the which he a the way forBut the authorities of the church had not got rid of him; they heard not infrequently fro He had come, he told them, a Roman Catholic priest to a Roer in a strange land He had waited patiently for months, and had been put off with idle pro priest that arrived from Spain and Italy was received with open arms and a place provided for him Then, when his patience and privatethose ere not of the Faith, yet had received him with open arms He had been humiliated and pained at the disinterested hospitality and Christian charity shown to him by those outside the pale, after the treatment he had received from his fellow-priests

Probably he said more than this: for it is a fact that he had been warmly invited to preach in one or two of the Protestant churches in the town He did not go so far as to accept that offer: he ise in his generation, and eventually got his reward

Our schoolone, ere once more back in the old e did just e liked Our parents probably thought that our life would be on the plains, with sheep and cattle-breeding for only vocations, and that should any one of us, like my mathematical-minded brother, take some line of his own, he would find out the way of it for hiuide I had no inclination to do anything with books myself: books were lessons, therefore repellent, and that any one should read a book for pleasure was inconceivable The only atteh, from my masterful brother who despised our babyish intellects--especially rand scheme to put before us He had heard or read of a fa just like us in some wild isolated land where there were no schools or teachers and no newspapers, who a a journal of their ohich was issued once a week There was a blue pitcher on a shelf in the house, and into this pitcher every boy dropped his contribution, and one of theh thee sheet, and this was their weekly journal called The Blue Pitcher, and it was read and enjoyed by the whole house He proposed that we should do the sae portion of it; it would occupy two or four sheets of quarto paper, all in his beautiful handwriting, which resembled copper-plate, and it would be issued for all of us to read every Saturday We all agreed joyfully, and as the title had taken our fancy we started hunting for a blue pitcher all over the house, but couldn't find such a thing, and finally had to put up with a tin box with a wooden lid and a lock and key The contributions were to be dropped in through a slit in the lid which the carpenter made for us, and my brother took possession of the key The title of the paper was to be _The Tin Box,_ and ere instructed to write about the happenings of the week and anything in fact which had interested us, and not to be such little asses as to try to deal with subjects we knew nothing about I was to say so about birds: there was never a ent by in which I didn't tell thee bird I had seen for the first tie bird and make it just as wonderful as I liked

We set about our task at once with great enthusiashts into writing All ell for a few days Then our editor called us together to hear an important communication he wished to make First he showed us, but would not allow us to read or handle, a fair copy of the paper, or of the portion he had done, just to enable us to appreciate the care he was taking over it He then went on to say that he could not give so much time to the task and pay for stationery as ithout a small weekly contribution from us This would only be about three-halfpence or twopence from our pocket-reed at once except ed about seven at that time Then, he was told, he would not be allowed to contribute to the paper Very well, he wouldn't contribute to it, he said In vain we all tried to coax him out of his stubborn resolve: he would not part with a copper of histo do with The Tin Box Then the Editor's wrath broke out, and he said he had already written his editorial, but would now, as a concluding article, write a second one in order to show up the person who had tried to wreck the paper, in his true colours He would exhibit him as the meanest, most contemptible insect that ever crawled on the surface of the earth

In the middle of this furious tirade”Keep your miserable tears till the paper is out,” shouted the other, ”as you will have good reason to shed the, every one will then point the finger of scorn at you and wonder how he could ever have thought well of such a pitiful little wretch”

This was more than the little fellow could stand, and he suddenly fled frory editor laughed too, proud of the effect his words had produced

Our little brother did not join us at play that afternoon: he was in hiding so watch on the ed already in writing that dreadful article which wouldfor the rest of his life

In due ti his horse, galloped off; and the little watcher ca into the room where the Tin Box was kept, carried it off to the carpenter's shop There with chisel and ha out all the papers, set to work to tear thements, which were carried out and scattered all over the place

When the big brother cahty rage, and went off in search of the avaricious little rebel who had dared to destroy his work But the little rebel was not to be caught; at the righttempest to his parents and claimed their protection Then the wholeboy was told that he was not to thrash his little brother, that he hiant language he had used, which the poor little fellow had taken quite seriously If he actually believed The Tin Box article was going to have that disastrous effect on hi it?

That was the end of _The Tin Box_; not a word about starting it afresh was said, and from that day my elder brother never reat pity that the scheme had miscarried I believe, from later experience, that even if it had lasted but a feeeks it would have givenmy observations, and that is a habit without which the keenest observation and the most faithful meh the destruction of the Tin Box, I believe I lost a great part of the result of six years of life ild nature, since it was not until six years after my little brother's rebellious act that I discovered the necessity ofI witnessed

CHAPTER XIX

BROTHERS