On Nothing and Kindred Subjects (17 page)

He asked me, after a little space, during which he took off the
remnant of the worm and replaced it by a large new one, whether when
I said "Peace" I did not really mean "Harmony."

At this phrase a suspicion rose in my mind; it seemed to me that I
knew the school that had bred him, and that he and I should be
acquainted. So I was appeased and told him I did not mean Harmony,
for Harmony suggested that we had to suit ourselves to the things
around us or to get suited to them. I told him what I was after was
no such German Business, but something which was Fruition and more
than Fruition—full power to create and at the same time to enjoy, a
co-existence of new delight and of memory, of growth, and yet of
foreknowledge and an increasing reverence that should be
increasingly upstanding, and high hatred as well as high love
justified; for surely this Peace is not a lessening into which we
sink, but an enlargement which we merit and into which we rise and
enter—"and this," I ended, "I am determined to obtain before I get
to Bablock Hythe."

He shook his head determinedly and said my quest was hopeless.

"Sir," said I, "are you acquainted with the Use of Sarum?"

"I have read it," he said, "but I do not remember it well." Then,
indeed, indeed I knew that he was of my own University and of my own
college, and my heart warmed to him as I continued:

"It is in Latin; but, after all, that was the custom of the time."

"Latin," he answered, "was in the Middle Ages a universal tongue."

"Do you know," said I, "that passage which begins 'Illam Pacem——'?"

At this moment the float, which I had almost forgotten but which he
in the course of our speeches had more and more remembered, began to
bob up and down violently, and, if I may so express myself, the
Philosopher in him was suddenly swamped by the Fisherman. He struck
with the zeal and accuracy of a conqueror; he did something
dexterous with his rod, flourished the line and landed a
magnificent—ah! There the whole story fails, for what on earth was
the fish?

Had it been a pike or a trout I could have told it, for I am well
acquainted with both; but this fish was to me as a human being is to
a politician: this fish was to me unknown….

In a valley of the Apennines, a little before it was day, I went
down by the side of a torrent wondering where I should find repose;
for it was now some hours since I had given up all hope of
discovering a place for proper human rest and for the passing of the
night, but at least I hoped to light upon a dry bed of sand under
some overhanging rock, or possibly of pine needles beneath closely
woven trees, where one might get sleep until the rising of the sun.

As I still trudged, half expectant and half careless, a man came up
behind me, walking quickly as do mountain men: for throughout the
world (I cannot tell why) I have noticed that the men of the
mountains walk quickly and in a sprightly manner, arching the foot,
and with a light and general gait as though the hills were waves and
as though they were in thought springing upon the crests of them.
This is true of all mountaineers. They are but few.

This man, I say, came up behind me and asked me whether I were going
towards a certain town of which he gave me the name, but as I had
not so much as heard of this town I told him I knew nothing of it. I
had no map, for there was no good map of that district, and a bad
map is worse than none. I knew the names of no towns except the
large towns on the coast. So I said to him:

"I cannot tell anything about this town, I am not making towards it.
But I desire to reach the sea coast, which I know to be many hours
away, and I had hoped to sleep overnight under some roof or at least
in some cavern, and to start with the early morning; but here I am,
at the end of the night, without repose and wondering whether I can
go on."

He answered me:

"It is four hours to the sea coast, but before you reach it you will
find a lane branching to the right, and if you will go up it (for it
climbs the hill) you will find a hermitage. Now by the time you are
there the hermit will be risen."

"Will he be at his prayers?" said I.

"He says no prayers to my knowledge," said my companion lightly;
"for he is not a hermit of that kind. Hermits are many and prayers
are few. But you will find him bustling about, and he is a very
hospitable man. Now as it so happens that the road to the sea coast
bends here round along the foot of the hills, you will, in his
company, perceive the port below you and the populace and the high
road, and yet you will be saving a good hour in distance of time,
and will have ample rest before reaching your vessel, if it is a
vessel indeed that you intend to take."

When he had said these things I thanked him and gave him a bit of
sausage and went along my way, for as he had walked faster than me
before our meeting and while I was still in the dumps, so now I
walked faster than him, having received good news.

All happened just as he had described. The dawn broke behind me over
the noble but sedate peaks of the Apennines; it first defined the
heights against the growing colours of the sun, it next produced a
general warmth and geniality in the air about me; it last displayed
the downward opening of the valley, and, very far off, a plain that
sloped towards the sea.

Invigorated by the new presence of the day I went forward more
rapidly, and came at last to a place where a sculptured panel made
out of marble, very clever and modern, and representing a mystery,
marked the division between two ways; and I took the lane to my
right as my companion of the night hours had advised me.

For perhaps a mile or a little more the lane rose continually
between rough walls intercepted by high banks of thorn, with here
and there a vineyard, and as it rose one had between the breaches of
the wall glimpses of an ever-growing sea: for, as one rose, the sea
became a broader and a broader belt, and the very distant islands,
which at first had been but little clouds along the horizon, stood
out and became parts of the landscape, and, as it were, framed all
the bay.

Then at last, when I had come to the height of the hill, to where it
turned a corner and ran level along the escarpment of the cliffs
that dominated the sea plain, I saw below me a considerable stretch
of country, between the fall of the ground and the distant shore,
and under the daylight which was now full and clear one could
perceive that all this plain was packed with an intense cultivation,
with houses, happiness and men.

Far off, a little to the northward, lay the mass of a town; and
stretching out into the Mediterranean with a gesture of command and
of desire were the new arms of the harbour.

To see such things filled me with a complete content. I know not
whether it be the effect of long vigil, or whether it be the effect
of contrast between the darkness and the light, but certainly to
come out of a lonely night spent on the mountains, down with the
sunlight into the civilisation of the plain, is, for any man that
cares to undergo the suffering and the consolation, as good as any
experience that life affords. Hardly had I so conceived the view
before me when I became aware, upon my right, of a sort of cavern,
or rather a little and carefully minded shrine, from which a
greeting proceeded.

I turned round and saw there a man of no great age and yet of a
venerable appearance. He was perhaps fifty-five years old, or
possibly a little less, but he had let his grey-white hair grow
longish and his beard was very ample and fine. It was he that had
addressed me. He sat dressed in a long gown in a modern and rather
luxurious chair at a low long table of chestnut wood, on which he
had placed a few books, which I saw were in several languages and
two of them not only in English, but having upon them the mark of an
English circulating library which did business in the great town at
our feet. There was also upon the table a breakfast ready of white
bread and honey, a large brown coffee-pot, two white cups, and some
goat's milk in a bowl of silver. This meal he asked me to share.

"It is my custom," he said, "when I see a traveller coming up my
mountain road to get out a cup and a plate for him, or, if it is
midday, a glass. At evening, however, no one ever comes."

"Why not?" said I.

"Because," he answered, "this lane goes but a few yards further
round the edge of the cliff, and there it ends in a precipice; the
little platform where we are is all but the end of the way. Indeed,
I chose it upon that account, seeing, when I first came here, that
from its height and isolation it was well fitted for my retreat."

I asked him how long ago that was, and he said nearly twenty years.
For all that time, he added, he had lived there, going down into the
plain but once or twice in a season and having for his rare
companions those who brought him food and the peasants on such days
as they toiled up to work at their plots towards the summit; also,
from time to time, a chance traveller like myself. But these, he
said, made but poor companions, for they were usually such as had
missed their way at the turning and arrived at that high place of
his out of breath and angry. I assured him that this was not my
case, for a man had told me in the night how to find his hermitage
and I had come of set purpose to see him. At this he smiled.

We were now seated together at table eating and talking so, when I
asked him whether he had a reputation for sanctity and whether the
people brought him food. He answered with a little hesitation that
he had a reputation, he thought, for necromancy rather than anything
else, and that upon this account it was not always easy to persuade
a messenger to bring him the books in French and English which he
ordered from below, though these were innocent enough, being, as a
rule, novels written by women or academicians, records of travel,
the classics of the Eighteenth Century, or the biographies of aged
statesmen. As for food, the people of the place did indeed bring it
to him, but not, as in an idyll, for courtesy; contrariwise, they
demanded heavy payment, and his chief difficulty was with bread;
for stale bread was intolerable to him. In the matter of religion he
would not say that he had none, but rather that he had several
religions; only at this season of the year, when everything was
fresh, pleasant and entertaining, he did not make use of any of
them, but laid them all aside. As this last saying of his had no
meaning for me I turned to another matter and said to him:

"In any solitude contemplation is the chief business of the soul.
How, then, do you, who say you practise no rites, fill up your
loneliness here?"

In answer to this question he became more animated, spoke with a
sort of laugh in his voice, and seemed as though he were young again
and as though my question had aroused a whole lifetime of good
memories.

"My contemplation," he said, not without large gestures, "is this
wide and prosperous plain below: the great city with its harbour and
ceaseless traffic of ships, the roads, the houses building, the
fields yielding every year to husbandry, the perpetual activities of
men. I watch my kind and I glory in them, too far off to be
disturbed by the friction of individuals, yet near enough to have a
daily companionship in the spectacle of so much life. The mornings,
when they are all at labour, I am inspired by their energy; in the
noons and afternoons I feel a part of their patient and vigorous
endurance; and when the sun broadens near the rim of the sea at
evening, and all work ceases, I am filled with their repose. The
lights along the harbour front in the twilight and on into the
darkness remind me of them when I can no longer see their crowds and
movements, and so does the music which they love to play in their
recreation after the fatigues of the day, and the distant songs
which they sing far into the night.

"I was about thirty years of age, and had seen (in a career of
diplomacy) many places and men; I had a fortune quite insufficient
for a life among my equals. My youth had been, therefore, anxious,
humiliated, and worn when, upon a feverish and unhappy holiday taken
from the capital of this State, I came by accident to the cave and
platform which you see. It was one of those days in which the air
exhales revelation, and I clearly saw that happiness inhabited the
mountain corner. I determined to remain for ever in so rare a
companionship, and from that day she has never abandoned me. For a
little while I kept a touch with the world by purchasing those
newspapers in which I was reported shot by brigands or devoured by
wild beasts, but the amusement soon wearied me, and now I have
forgotten the very names of my companions."

We were silent then until I said: "But some day you will die here
all alone."

"And why not?" he answered calmly. "It will be a nuisance for those
who find me, but I shall be indifferent altogether."

"That is blasphemy," says I.

"So says the priest of St. Anthony," he immediately replied—but
whether as a reproach, an argument, or a mere commentary I could not
discover.

In a little while he advised me to go down to the plain before the
heat should incommode my journey. I left him, therefore, reading a
book of Jane Austen's, and I have never seen him since.

Of the many strange men I have met in my travels he was one of the
most strange and not the least fortunate. Every word I have written
about him is true.

Ten years ago, I think, or perhaps a little less or perhaps a little
more, I came in the Euston Road—that thoroughfare of Empire—upon a
young man a little younger than myself whom I knew, though I did not
know him very well. It was drizzling and the second-hand booksellers
(who are rare in this thoroughfare) were beginning to put out the
waterproof covers over their wares. This disturbed my acquaintance,
because he was engaged upon buying a cheap book that should really
satisfy him.