To breathe a second spring.
That second spring would be boyhood with manhood’s knowledge—an impossible existence, a Golden Age that never was. It was because of the grim troop of passions and diseases waiting ‘in the vale below,’ that Gray envied the boyhood that had not yet advanced to meet the strife and miseries of the world. We call that Golden Age ‘the happiest time,’ merely by contrast; we forget its small capacity for happiness, its shallow understanding of the worth of those good things that we envy; and we apostrophise it in poetry and prose, because we are condemning the after-time as unhappy, without remembering our increased capacity for happiness.
But if it be impossible to carry back to a new start in life the experience life has given us, while we are thinking with a sad fascination of that Golden Age, and feeling the ‘momentary bliss’ of recollection, we shall not find it impossible to reverse our aspirations, and to combine with later life some part, and perhaps the best part, of our young life’s treasures. We yearn for those two things together—the happiness of the beginning, and the light upon it from the experience of the end. We cannot go back; but why should we not gather again and bring forward with us all that can be brought from the Golden Age? Then, to some extent, our aspirations will be satisfied.
Out of that Golden Age all the best things can be picked up and carried along with us still. Surely this is some comfort to us wayfarers who must ‘move on!’ We cannot have life over again; but it can be made to lengthen in worth by intensity of purpose, and of working, of loving. These, and not time, are the true measure of life. We envy freedom from responsibility; the child has his tasks as we have ours; his lesson may be as hard as our duty, and harder; he is happily resigned to tasks in obedience to the will of others; our buckling down to duty will bring us our playtime too. Freshness comes next. Wordsworth, after mourning that the glory and the dream were gone, acknowledged that he could receive from the meanest flower thoughts too deep for tears; so we strongly suspect that the glory and the dream were remaining, and that he saw till the last the earth ‘apparelled in celestial light.’ The love of the open-air world of beauty is a great key to lifelong freshness of soul. Another key to freshness is the custom of being easily pleased. The smallest gift pleases a child; in later life, we look more at the love of the giver than at the gift; but why should not the manifold growth of small kindnesses refresh us? And how shall we get habitual joy? It is a precious treasure; the home is rich where there is one member of the household brimful of sunshine. A merry word at home is magic for brightening life; and it is some encouragement to know that of all social virtues, the habit of joyousness is the one that grows fastest by patient effort. It fosters another childlike treasure—the sense of delight in a home atmosphere of love. Let us not fear to express our tenderness in word and deed for those who share life’s burdens with us, and the glow of the Golden Age will be round the hearth again. As for simplicity, it is already the lifelong dower of many of the most gifted minds; it is almost a characteristic of the intellectual men of noblest life. Why should we use long words when short ones are kinder; why go roundabout ways when we only need openly do our best? Wonderful as it may seem, simplicity is the most imitable part of childhood. The absence of self-consciousness is the grand key to it. If we cease thinking about the effect produced upon others, who are supposed to have concentrated their attention upon our puny selves, we shall escape much heart-burning, and gradually begin to brighten our path with something of childhood’s brightness. As for faith and trust, if they look higher than the roof of home, why should they not be as the child’s huge trust? We should have fewer careworn looks, and the habit of joy would be easier.
There is another quality that must crown this development of the childlike character—it is sympathy—that wide and warm sympathy which knows no growing old, and which is the fruition of our childhood’s eager freshness. Best of all, in picking up those old treasures that we carelessly dropped by the way when the Golden Age was ending, we may yet be, all unconsciously, very near the paradise-garden where once we walked, not knowing our good-fortune, and but half able to enjoy it.
IN ALL SHADES.
CHAPTER VIII.
For a few minutes, they stood looking blankly at one another in mute astonishment, turning over and comparing the two telegrams together with undecided minds; then at last Nora broke the silence. ‘I tell you what it is,’ she said, with an air of profound wisdom; ‘they must have got an epidemic of yellow fever over in Trinidad—they’re always having it, you know, and nobody minds it, unless of course they die of it, and even then I daresay they don’t think much about it. But papa and Mr Hawthorn must be afraid that if we come out now, fresh from England, we may all of us get it.’
Edward looked once more at the telegrams very dubiously. ‘I don’t think that’ll do, Miss Dupuy,’ he said, after re-reading them with a legal scrutiny. ‘You see, your father says: “On no account go on board the Severn.” Evidently, it’s this particular ship he has an objection to; and perhaps my father’s objection may be exactly the same. It’s very singular—very mysterious!’
‘Do you think,’ Marian suggested, ‘there can be anything wrong with the vessel or the machinery? You know, they do say, Edward, that some ship-owners send ships to sea that aren’t at all safe or seaworthy. I read such a dreadful article about it a little while ago in one of the papers. Perhaps they think the Severn may go to the bottom.’