The Garden of Survival

  V

  WHAT I have told you so far concerns a growth chiefly of my inner lifethat was almost a new birth. My outer life, of event and action, wassufficiently described in those monthly letters you had from meduring the ten years, broken by three periods of long-leave at home,I spent in that sinister and afflicted land. This record, however,deals principally with the essential facts of my life, the inner; theouter events and actions are of importance only in so far as theyinterpret these, since that which a man feels and thinks alone isreal, and thought and feeling, of course, precede all action.

  I have told you of the Thrill, of its genesis and development; and Ichose an obvious and rather banal instance, first of all to makemyself quite clear, and, secondly, because the majority were of sodelicate a nature as to render their description extremely difficult.The point is that the emotion was, for me, a new one. I may honestlydescribe it as a birth.

  I must now tell you that it first stirred in me some five years afterI left England, and that during those years I had felt nothing butwhat most other men feel out here. Whether its sudden birth was dueto the violent country, or to some process of gradual preparationthat had been going forward in me secretly all that time, I cannottell. No proof, at any rate, offered itself of either. It camesuddenly. I do know, however, that from its first occurrence it hasstrengthened and developed until it has now become a dominatinginfluence of a distinctly personal kind.

  My character has been affected, perhaps improved. You have mentionedon several occasions that you noted in my letters a new tenderness, anew kindness towards my fellow-creatures, less of criticism and moreof sympathy, a new love; the "birth of my poetic sense" you alsospoke of once; and I myself have long been aware of a thousand freshimpulses towards charity and tolerance that had, hitherto, at anyrate, lain inactive in my being.

  I need not flatter myself complacently, yet a change there is, and itmay be an improvement. Whether big or small, however, I am sure ofone thing: I ascribe it entirely to this sharper and more extendedsensitiveness to Beauty, this new and exquisite receptiveness thathas established itself as a motive-power in my life. I have changedthe poet's line, using prose of course: There is beauty everywhereand therefore joy.

  And I will explain briefly, too, how it is that this copybook maxim isnow for me a practical reality. For at first, with my growingperception, I was distressed at what seemed to me the lavish waste,the reckless, spendthrift beauty, not in nature merely but in humannature, that passed unrecognized and unacknowledged. The loss seemedso extravagant. Not only that a million flowers waste their sweetnesson the desert air, but that such prodigal stores of human love andtenderness remain unemployed, their rich harvest allungathered--because, misdirected and misunderstood, they find noreceptacle into which they may discharge.

  It has now come to me, though only by & slow and almost imperceptibleadvance, that these stores of apparently unremunerative beauty, thisharvest so thickly sown about the world, unused, ungathered--prepareyourself, please, for an imaginative leap--ore used, are gathered,are employed. By Whom?

  I can only answer: By some one who is pleased; and probably by manysuch. How, why, and wherefore--I catch your crowd of questions inadvance--we need not seek exactly to discover, although the answerof no uncertain kind, I hear within the stillness of a heart that haslearned to beat to a deeper, sweeter rhythm than before.

  Those who loved beauty and lived it in their lives, follow that sameideal with increasing power and passion afterwards--and for ever.

  The shutter of black iron we call Death hides the truth with terrorand resentment; but what if that shutter were, after all,transparent?

  A glorious dream, I hear you cry. Now listen to my answer. It is, forme, a definite assurance and belief, because--I know.

  Long before you have reached this point you will, I know, have reachedalso the conclusion (with a sigh) that I am embarked upon somecommonplace experience of ghostly return, or, at least, of posthumouscommunication. Perhaps I wrong you here, but in any case I would atonce correct the inference, if it has been drawn. You remember ouradventures with the seance-mongers years ago? ... I have not changedmy view so far as their evidential value is concerned. Be sure ofthat.

  The dead, I am of opinion, do not return; for, while individuals mayclaim startling experiences that seem to them of an authentic andconvincing kind, there has been no instance that can persuade usall--in the sense that thunderstorm convinces us all. Such individualexperiences I have always likened to the auto-suggestion of those fewwho believe the advertisements of the hair-restorers--you will forgivethe unpoetic simile for the sake of its exactitude--as against theverdict of the world that a genuine discovery of such a remedy wouldleave no single doubter in Europe or America, nor even in the LondonClubs! Yet each time I read the cunning article (I have less hairthan when I ran away from Sandhurst that exciting July night and metyou in the Strand!), and look upon the picture of the man, John HenrySmith, "before and after using," I admit the birth of an unreasonablebelief that there may be something in it after all.

  Of such indubitable proof, however, there is, alas, as yet no sign.

  And so with the other matter--the dead do not "return." My story,therefore, be comforted, has no individual instance to record. Itmay, on the other hand, be held to involve a thread of what might becalled--at a stretch--posthumous communication, yet a thread sotenuous that the question of personal direction behind it need hardlybe considered at all. For let me confess at once that, the habit ofthe "thrill" once established, I was not long in asking myself pointblank this definite question: Dared I trace its origin to my ownunfruitful experience of some years before?--and, discovering noshred of evidence, I found this positive answer: Honestly I couldnot.

  That "somebody was pleased" each time Beauty offered a wisdom Iaccepted, became an unanswerable conviction I could not argue about;but that the guidance--waking a responsive emotion in myself oflove--was referable to any particular name I could not, by anystretch of desire or imagination, bring myself to believe.

  Marion, I must emphasise, had been gone from me five years at leastbefore the new emotion gave the smallest hint of its new birth; andmy feeling, once the first keen shame and remorse subsided--I confessto the dishonouring truth--was one of looking back upon a painfulproblem that had found an unexpected solution. It was chiefly relief,although a sad relief, I felt.... And with the absorbing work of thenext following years (I took up my appointment within six months ofher death) her memory, already swiftly fading, entered an oblivionwhence rarely, and at long intervals only, it emerged at all. In theordinary meaning of the phrase, I had forgotten her. You will see,therefore, that there was no desire in me to revive an unhappymemory, least of all to establish any fancied communication with onebefore whose generous love I had felt myself dishonoured, if notactually disgraced. Even the remorse and regret had long since failedto disturb my peace of mind, causing me no anxiety, much less pain.Sic transit was the epitaph, if any. Acute sensation I had none atall. This, then, plainly argues against the slightest predispositionon my part to imagine that the loving guidance so strangely givenowned a personal origin I could recognize. That it involved a"personal emotion" is quite another matter.

  The more remarkable, therefore, is the statement truth now compels meto confess to you--namely, that this origin is recognizable, and thatI have traced in part the name it owns to. My next sentence youdivine already; you at once suspect the name I mean. I hear you sayto yourself with a smile--"So, after all...!"

  Please, wait a moment, and listen closely now; for, in reply to yoursuspicion, I can give neither full affirmation or full denial. Yet ananswer of a certain kind is ready: I have stated my firm convictionthat the dead do not return; I do not modify it one iota; but Imentioned a moment ago another conviction that is mine because I know.So now let me supplement these two statements with a third: the dead,though they do not return, are active; and those who lived beauty intheir lives are--benevolently active.

  Th
is may prepare you for a further assurance, yet one less easy toexpress intelligibly. Be patient while I make the difficult attempt.

  The origin of the wisdom that now seeks to shape and guide my lifethrough Beauty is, indeed, not Marion, but a power that stands behindher, and through which, with which, the energy of her being acts. Itstood behind her while she lived. It stands behind not only her, butequally behind all those peerless, exquisite manifestations of self-lesslove that give bountifully of their best without hope or expectation ofreward in kind. No human love of this description, though it find noobject to receive it, nor one single flower that "wastes" its sweetnesson the desert air, but acknowledges this inexhaustible and spendthriftsource. Its evidence lies strewn so thick, so prodigally, about ourworld, that not one among us, whatever his surroundings and conditions,but sooner or later must encounter at least one marvellous instance ofits uplifting presence. Some at once acknowledge the exquisite flash andare aware; others remain blind and deaf, till some experience, probablyof pain, shall have prepared and sensitized their receptive quality. Toall, however, one day, comes the magical appeal. As in my own case,there was apparently some kind of preparation before I grew conscious ofthat hunger for beauty which, awakening intuition, opened the heart totruth and so to wisdom. It then came softly, delicately, whispering likethe dawn, yet rich with a promise I could, at first, not easily fathom,though as sure of fulfilment as that promise of day that steals upon theworld when night is passing.

  I have tried to tell you something of this mystery. I cannot add tothat. I was lifted, as it were, towards some region or some state ofbeing, wherein I was momentarily aware of a vaster outlook upon life, ofa deeper insight into the troubles of my fellow-creatures, where,indeed, there burst upon me a comprehension of life's pains anddifficulties so complete that I may best describe it as that fullunderstanding which involves also full forgiveness, and that sympathywhich is love, God's love.

  This exaltation passed, of course, with the passing of the thrill thatmade it possible; it was truly instantaneous; a point of ecstasy,perhaps, in some category not of time at all, but of some state ofconsciousness that lifted me above, outside of, self. But it was real,as a thunderstorm is real. For, with this glimpse of beauty that I callthe "thrill," I touched, for an instant so brief that it seemed timelessin the sense of having no duration, a pinnacle of joy, of vision, beyondanything attainable by desire or by. intellect alone. I stood aware ofpower, wisdom, love; and more, this power, wisdom, love were mine todraw upon and use, not in some future heaven, but here and now.