As to the interpretation of the allegorical persons and incidents which figure mainly in the second and third parts of the book, we may remember Mr Augustine Birrell’s excellent phrases on Browning:—“Lucidity is not simplicity. A lucid poem is not necessarily an easy one. A great poet may tax our brain, but he ought not to puzzle our wits. We may often have to ask in humility, What does he mean? but not in despair, What can he mean?” This holds good of writers in prose as well as in verse: and Miss Allonby’s full meaning is scarce likely to be revealed on a first perusal.
PART I
EARTH
THE FULFILMENT
CHAPTER I
Cold, cold, unutterably cold and silent. The woods were still, the frosty air so still that not a leaf stirred. The moon shone white and glorious; scarcely one shimmering cloud marred its strength; and the stars tingled and gleamed and danced. White hung a silver robe of sparsest snow over all the land, like a net of interwoven diamonds. Away up north ran the Cumbrian Mountains, standing like giants against the blue-black sky. There rose Helvellyn with its mighty hump, like a headless criminal burdened high with woe: there the “Old Man”—he who looks o’er Coniston—his beard and head quite white and blazoned by the moon. Then stretching away from these, down to the coast and southward, the barren Peat Moss—nothing but marsh and bush and scanty tree—and bordering this on the land-side a range of hills, alternate wood or grass, terminating in Ellerside and How-barrow.
There is a glorious view from these two hilly peaks: the one a barren rock-strewn height, bare and uncompromising, the other, in its very name, breathing its loveliness. “Ellerside Breast”—sweetest and purest name—most beautiful of visions.
The rugged mountains, the lonely Mosses, grand in their desolation, the wide expanse of woodland, the gentle fields, the green park with its herd of deer and well-planned trees, the glorious sea and bay, untarnished yet by aught but lonely cottages and farms along its shores, the large Hall with its towers and stately cupolas, all make the country round a dream of loveliness. But on this December night, in its calm and purity, it has grown to grandeur. The heavy woods with their black shadows look weird, their stillness frightens. No twitter of bird or hum of insect, till suddenly the shrill tu-hoot of an owl breaks forth and is repeated.
And suddenly, as if by the magic of it, you and I are transported to that wooded Breast. We see a narrow path leading through the trees up to a simple wooden seat, a narrower, more rugged one leading down from it, a short, rocky space in front, and then a sheer declivity down through the steep wood to the borders of the park. The quiet little hamlet, never noisy, is now still with the silence of sleep. Nothing but the owl cries out the reign of night.
And now having come with me thus far—stay—and cavil not, if for a little time instead of flesh and blood I give you Spirits; Spirits who in their intensity, their grandeur, and even in their littleness, do far outvie our flesh-imprisoned selves.