"No."
"I think one does not learn this until after one has wanted to die. One must live above the body and not in it—in order to make it serve indefinitely—quite the same as you would climb above a street to watch a parade go by."
I put that thought away for contemplation, knowing that it belonged to a certain mystery of Dreve's regeneration.
"You know," he added, "one has to get very tired to want to die. Those young people down on the shore—they want to live. They are not tired. They want to cross all the rivers. They mean to miss nothing down here. They can't see through it all. It challenges them. But the time comes when everything on earth seems to betray. Then you have to turn to the Unseen for the big gamble. The world is learning it rapidly to-day. Look——"
We had reached his hill-cabin.
He turned from the sea to the valley. Night was falling. There was a big moss-rose plant that smelled like a harvest apple, and filled all the slope with sweet dry fragrance. There was a constancy about it, and the great sun-shot hill was blessed with the light and creativeness of the long day. It was like the song of finished labour from a peasant's heart.... One forgot the world, the war, forgot that the holy heart of humanity was in intolerable travail.... The valley that Dreve now pointed to was like an English pastorale. It had the look of age and long sweet establishment in the dusk. My friend was quick to catch the thought in my mind.
"... It is like England," he said. "There was a development of detail in English country-life as nowhere else. I think of cherries and cattle, of strawberries with clotted cream, of sheep-dogs and sheep-tended downs and lawns, of authoritative cookery, natural service and Elizabethan inns.... Everything was regular and comfortable. One forgot to-morrow and yesterday in England before the war. I heard a dog-trainer, speaking of a pup, say, 'He's a fine indiwidual, but his breeding isn't exactly reglar.' ... With a rush it came to me that nothing in the world is regular now. England isn't a soothing pastorale any more—everything changed, demoralised—but only for the present."
The dusk was stealing down from the far ridges. Our eyes were lost in the California valley which seemed to be growing deeper in the thickness of night. Almost as Dreve spoke, I expected to hear vesper bells from some Kentish village. His low voice finished the picture:
"Country roads and sheep upon the lawns, vine-finished stone-work, doves in the towers and under the eaves, evening bells and honest goods.... I think of the ships going forth from England, boys from the inland countries answering the call of the sea and finding their fore-and-afters and men-of-war in Plymouth or Bristol.... You know it is the things that make the romance of a country that endure? All these will come again. All the good and perfect things of the spirit of old England will come again.... Our hearts burn within to think of the yearning in the world for a peaceful valley like this.... Think, if I could take your hand now and watch the sun go down upon a peaceful world ... hear the cattle coming home and sheep in the perfumed mist of evening ... doves under the eaves and the sleepy voices of children.... I think Europe would fall to screaming and tears, and then lose its madness for strife—if the big picture of our valley at evening were placed before the battle-lines as we see it now."
Dreve stared a moment longer. I fancied I saw a bone-white line under the tan, running from chin to jaw.