Pages from a Journal with Other Papers

by William Hale White

MARCH

It is a bright day in March, with a gentle south-west wind. Sitting still in the copse and facing the sun it strikes warm. It has already mounted many degrees on its way to its summer height, and is regaining its power. The clouds are soft, rounded, and spring-like, and the white of the blackthorn is discernible here and there amidst the underwood. The brooks are running full from winter rains but are not overflowing. All over the wood which fills up the valley lies a thin, purplish mist, harmonising with the purple bloom on the stems and branches. The buds are ready to burst, there is a sense of movement, of waking after sleep; the tremendous upward rush of life is almost felt. But how silent the process is! There is no hurry for achievement, although so much has to be done—such infinite intricacy to be unfolded and made perfect. The little stream winding down the bottom turns and doubles on itself; a dead leaf falls into it, is arrested by a twig, and lies there content.

JUNE

It is a quiet, warm day in June. The wind is westerly, but there is only just enough of it to waft now and then a sound from the far-off town, or the dull, subdued thunder of cannon-firing from ships or forts distant some forty miles or more. Massive, white-bordered clouds, grey underneath, sail overhead; there was heavy rain last night, and they are lifting and breaking a little. Softly and slowly they go, and one of them, darker than the rest, has descended in a mist of rain, blotting out the ships. The surface of the water is paved curiously in green and violet, and where the light lies on it scintillates like millions of stars. The grass is not yet cut, and the showers have brought it up knee-deep. Its gentle whisper is plainly heard, the most delicate of all the voices in the world, and the meadow bends into billows, grey, silvery, and green, when a breeze of sufficient strength sweeps across it. The larks are so multitudinous that no distinct song can be caught, and amidst the confused melody comes the note of the thrush and the blackbird. A constant under-running accompaniment is just audible in the hum of innumerable insects and the sharp buzz of flies darting past the ear. Only those who live in the open air and watch the fields and sea from hour to hour and day to day know what they are and what they mean. The chance visitor, or he who looks now and then, never understands them. While I have lain here, the clouds have risen, have become more aërial, and more suffused with light; the horizon has become better defined, and the yellow shingle beach is visible to its extremest point clasping the bay in its arms. The bay itself is the tenderest blue-green, and on the rolling plain which borders it lies intense sunlight chequered with moving shadows which wander eastwards. The wind has shifted a trifle, and comes straight up the Channel from the illimitable ocean.

AUGUST

A few days ago it was very hot. Afterwards we had a thunderstorm, followed by rain from the south-west. The wind has veered a point northerly, and the barometer is rising. This morning at half-past five the valley below was filled with white mist. Above it the tops of the trees on the highest points emerged sharply distinct. It was motionless, but gradually melted before the ascending sun, recalling Plutarch’s “scenes in the beautiful temple of the world which the gods order at their own festivals, when we are initiated into their own mysteries.” Here was a divine mystery, with initiation for those who cared for it. No priests were waiting, no ritual was necessary, the service was simple—solitary adoration and perfect silence.

As the day advances, masses of huge, heavy clouds appear. They are well defined at the edges, and their intricate folds and depths are brilliantly illuminated. The infinitude of the sky is not so impressive when it is quite clear as when it contains and supports great clouds, and large blue spaces are seen between them. On the hillsides the fields here and there are yellow and the corn is in sheaves. The birds are mostly dumb, the glory of the furze and broom has passed, but the heather is in flower. The trees are dark, and even sombre, and, where they are in masses, look as if they were in solemn consultation. A fore-feeling of the end of summer steals upon me. Why cannot I banish this anticipation? Why cannot I rest and take delight in what is before me? If some beneficent god would but teach me how to take no thought for the morrow, I would sacrifice to him all I possess.

THE END OF OCTOBER

It is the first south-westerly gale of the autumn. Its violence is increasing every minute, although the rain has ceased for awhile. For weeks sky and sea have been beautiful, but they have been tame. Now for some unknown reason there is a complete change, and all the strength of nature is awake. It is refreshing to be once more brought face to face with her tremendous power, and to be reminded of the mystery of its going and coming. It is soothing to feel so directly that man, notwithstanding his science and pretentions, his subjugation of steam and electricity, is as nothing compared with his Creator. The air has a freshness and odour about it to which we have long been strangers. It has been dry, and loaded with fine dust, but now it is deliciously wet and clean. The wind during the summer has changed lightly through all the points of the compass, but it has never brought any scent save that of the land, nothing from a distance. Now it is charged with messages from the ocean.

The sky is not uniformly overcast, but is covered with long horizontal folds of cloud, very dark below and a little lighter where they turn up one into the other. They are incessantly modified by the storm, and fragments are torn away from them which sweep overhead. The sea, looked at from the height, shows white edges almost to the horizon, and although the waves at a distance cannot be distinguished, the tossing of a solitary vessel labouring to get round the point for shelter shows how vast they are. The prevailing colour of the water is greyish-green, passing into deep-blue, and perpetually shifting in tint. A quarter of a mile away the breakers begin, and spread themselves in a white sheet to the land.