"Yes; but don't you see! That's just it! You're not meant to forget. It isn't forgetting that's happiness. It's remembering. I can see you don't understand what I mean. I didn't mean remembering things that have happened a long while ago, but being conscious—that's the word I want—being conscious of things while they're going on. Like that lark up there being conscious that it's singing like that; being conscious that it's the first of May, that the sun's shining, that the sky is blue, that the sea is—is like that—" she pointed to it glittering there below us. "That—oh, that God's in his Heaven—that's being happy. Trying to forget everything is only pleasure. And that's all they do in London. My splendid times were when I forgot, not when I remembered. When I remembered, I was conscious of things—conscious that people were poor and starving, that I was only just one in a crowd, all crushing to see something that would make us forget there was drunkenness and filthiness and crime everywhere. Every newspaper placard in the street reminded me of it. The only times when I could get away from it were at a theatre or a jolly good dance or something like that; then, I forgot—then those times were splendid. But I wasn't happy. I lie back here now on this heather and I look up at that lark—miles and miles up in the heavens and I don't want to forget a note of it—I don't want to forget that life is going on all around me. I should hate to forget it, because here it's all wonderful. If any one here committed murder it would be whispered among the villagers in awed voices. No one would dare go shouting it down the main street. His own mother wouldn't recognize him afterwards if he did. Men get drunk, I know; they beat their wives, they starve them, they starve themselves and their children—life isn't any different, but things like that take their proper place. If a lark were to soar up into the heavens out of the heart of London, there would be just one man to see it, the man who writes to The Times; but all the other thousands would never know of it. There's no light in London, there's no air, there's no sound; it's only darkness and smell and noise. No wonder you want to forget when you live there, and I've had splendid times—forgetting. But I wouldn't change it for this—this waking in the morning and feeling another day to be conscious of everything, another day to see the sky and the clouds, another day to feel the wind from the sea on your face. I remember so well the feeling of waking in London, the counting up what things could be done to make the time wear out until it came to the priceless hours of sleep and utter oblivion. Is oblivion right? What I want to say is forgetfulness, but I've said it so often."
She stopped, breathless almost, with her cheeks flushed, her eyes alight. I never heard her talk like that before. I shall probably never hear her talk like it again. Women are unexpected creatures; far more unexpected are they than incomprehensible. It had never been in the training of her to express herself; wherefore, in her own quaint ways, she had thought these things out in silence to herself, sometimes speaking them aloud in the mornings as she dressed, at night when she was going to bed. Cruikshank tells me she is one of those who talks incessantly to herself when alone. Sometimes he has thought she has been in conversation with some one, but on going to her room has found her alone, doing her hair, holding an animated argument with her reflection in the mirror.
But it was not so much the sudden expression of her thoughts and her philosophy that arrested my interest. It was the philosophy itself. Something echoed in me that it was true; that she had found for me the secret of my discontentment. I wanted to pursue it then, at once; for philosophy is an elusive thing. Often your fingers may clutch just the hem of its garment and still it escapes your grasp.
"Then here," said I, "do you never forget? Are you always remembering—always being conscious?"
She nodded her head emphatically.
"Always."
"How about winter? The lark doesn't soar in winter. There are no flowers—all the birds are frightened and hungry. You never see the sea or feel the sun like this in winter. Don't you want to forget then? Wouldn't you be glad of a theatre or a restaurant—a street with crowds of people, a gay glittering of lights or the noise of life? Isn't the whole world too still in winter? Don't you want to forget then that you're just one little solitary two-legged creature in a wild desert of a world—don't you want to huddle up close to all the others whose company makes this life seem less lonely?"
She gazed at me for a long, long while in silence.
"That's just what you feel—isn't it?" she said at length. "That's why you live in London on your fifteen hundred a year. You like the country well enough in the summer—I can see you do. You love it even more than you think. But in the winter, you believe you'd be miserable. You've grown into the habit of your theatres and your restaurants which really you hate. Look what you said about the cormorant. You can't do without your crowds of people, and you tell yourself that human nature is the most interesting and most lovable thing in the world. But do you think that you ever see so much of human nature in a crowd as you do in one single individual? Do you think if we saw a whole flight of larks—flight or whatever they call it—do you think we should appreciate them like we do that little fellow up there?"
"This doesn't dispose of winter," said I.