Books and Habits, from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn. Lafcadio Hearn

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СКАЧАТЬ thus refers to that kind of girlish modesty which never commits a fault even by the measure of a grain—beautiful shyness incapable of being anything but beautiful. Nevertheless the comparison must be confessed one which should be felt rather than explained.

      The second of the three promised quotations shall be from Robert Browning. There is one feeling, not often touched upon by poets, yet peculiar to lovers, that is here treated—the desire when you are very happy or when you are looking at anything attractive to share the pleasure of the moment with the beloved. But it seldom happens that the wish and the conditions really meet. Referring to this longing Browning made a short lyric that is now a classic; it is among the most dainty things of the century.

      Never the time and the place

      And the loved one all together!

      This path—how soft to pace!

      This May—what magic weather!

      Where is the loved one’s face?

      In a dream that loved one’s face meets mine,

      But the house is narrow, the place is bleak

      Where, outside, rain and wind combine

      

      With a furtive ear, if I try to speak,

      With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,

      With a malice that marks each word, each sign!

      Never can we have things the way we wish in this world—a beautiful day, a beautiful place, and the presence of the beloved all at the same time. Something is always missing; if the place be beautiful, the weather perhaps is bad. Or if the weather and the place both happen to be perfect, the woman is absent. So the poet finding himself in some very beautiful place, and remembering this, remembers also the last time that he met the woman beloved. It was a small dark house and chilly; outside there was rain and storm; and the sounds of the wind and of the rain were as the sounds of people secretly listening, or sounds of people trying to look in secretly through the windows. Evidently it was necessary that the meeting should be secret, and it was not altogether as happy as could have been wished.

      The third example is a very beautiful poem; we must content ourselves with an extract from it. It is the memory of a betrothal day, and the poet is Frederick Tennyson. I suppose you know that there were three Tennysons, and although Alfred happened to be the greatest, all of them were good poets.

      It is a golden morning of the spring,

      My cheek is pale, and hers is warm with bloom,

      

      And we are left in that old carven room,

      And she begins to sing;

      The open casement quivers in the breeze,

      And one large musk-rose leans its dewy grace

      Into the chamber, like a happy face,

      And round it swim the bees;

      I know not what I said—what she replied

      Lives, like eternal sunshine, in my heart;

      And then I murmured, Oh! we never part,

      My love, my life, my bride!

      And silence o’er us, after that great bliss,

      Fell like a welcome shadow—and I heard

      The far woods sighing, and a summer bird

      Singing amid the trees;

      The sweet bird’s happy song, that streamed around,

      The murmur of the woods, the azure skies,

      Were graven on my heart, though ears and eyes

      Marked neither sight nor sound.

      She sleeps in peace beneath the chancel stone,

      But ah! so clearly is the vision seen,

      The dead seem raised, or Death has never been,

      Were I not here alone.

      This is great art in its power of picturing a memory of the heart. Let us notice some of the beauties. The lover is pale because he is afraid, anxious; he is going to ask a question and he does not know how she may answer him. All this was long ago, years and years ago, but the strong emotions of that morning leave their every detail painted in remembrance, with strange vividness After all those years the man still recollects the appearance of the room, the sunshine entering and the crimson rose looking into the room from the garden, with bees humming round it. Then after the question had been asked and happily answered, neither could speak for joy; and because of the silence all the sounds of nature outside became almost painfully distinct. Now he remembers how he heard in that room the sound of the wind in far-away trees, the singing of a bird—he also remembers all the colours and the lights of the day. But it was very, very long ago, and she is dead. Still, the memory is so clear and bright in his heart that it is as if time had stood still, or as if she had come back from the grave. Only one thing assures him that it is but a memory—he is alone.

      Returning now to the subject of love’s illusion in itself, let me remind you that the illusion does not always pass away—not at all. It passes away in every case of happy union, when it has become no longer necessary to the great purposes of nature. But in case of disappointment, loss, failure to win the maiden desired, it often happens that the ideal image never fades away, but persistently haunts the mind through life, and is capable thus of making even the most successful life unhappy. Sometimes the result of such disappointment may be to change all a man’s ideas about the world, about life, about religion; and everything remains darkened for him. Many a young person disappointed in love begins to lose religious feeling from that moment, for it seems to him, simply because he happens to be unfortunate, that the universe is all wrong. On the other hand the successful lover thinks that the universe is all right; he utters his thanks to the gods, and feels his faith in religion and human nature greater than before. I do not at this moment remember any striking English poem illustrating this fact; but there is a pretty little poem in French by Victor Hugo showing well the relation between successful love and religious feeling in simple minds. Here is an English translation of it. The subject is simply a walk at night, the girl-bride leaning upon the arm of her husband; and his memory of the evening is thus expressed:

      The trembling arm I pressed

      Fondly; our thoughts confessed

      Love’s conquest tender;

      God filled the vast sweet night,

      Love filled our hearts; the light

      Of stars made splendour.

      Even as we walked and dreamed,

      ’Twixt heaven and earth, it seemed

      Our souls were speaking;

      The СКАЧАТЬ