XXXI
And thus we came ourselves to a new place, though I took but little noteof all we passed, for my mind was bent inward upon itself and uponCynthia. The place was a great solid stone building, in many courts,with fine tree-shaded fields all about; a school, it seemed to me, withboys and girls going in and out, playing games together. Amroth told methat children were bestowed here who had been of naturally fine andfrank dispositions, but who had lived their life on earth under foul andcramped conditions, by which they had been fretted rather than tainted.It seemed a very happy and busy place. Amroth took me into a great roomthat seemed a sort of library or common-room. There was no one there,and I was glad to sit and rest; when suddenly the door opened, and a mancame in with outstretched hands and a smile of welcome. I looked up,and it was none but the oldest and dearest friend of my last life, whohad died before me. He had been a teacher, a man of the simplest andmost guileless life, whose whole energy and delight was given toteaching and loving the young. The surprising thing about him had alwaysbeen that he could meet one, after a long silence or a suspension ofintercourse, as simply and easily as if one had but left him the daybefore; and it was just the same here. There was no effusiveness ofgreeting--we just fell at once into the old familiar talk.
"You are just the same," I said to him, looking at the burly figure, thebig, almost clumsy, head, and the irradiating smile. His great charm hadalways been an entire unworldliness and absence of ambition.
He smiled at this and said:
"Yes, I am afraid I am too easy-going." He had never cared to talk abouthimself, and now he said, "Well, yes, I go along in my old prosy way.It is just like the old schooldays, with half the difficulties gone. Ofcourse the children are not always good, but that makes it the moreamusing; and one can see much more easily what they are thinking of anddreaming about."
I found myself telling him my adventures, which he heard with the samequiet attention and I was sure that he would never forget a singlepoint--he never forgot anything in the old days.
"Yes," he said at the end, "that's a wonderful story. You always had thetrouble of the adventures, and I had the fun of hearing them."
He asked me what I was now going to do, and I said that I had not theleast idea.
"Oh, that will be all right," he said.
It was all so comfortable and simple, so obvious indeed, that I laughedto think of the bitter and miserable reveries I had indulged in when hewas taken from me, and when the stay of my life seemed gone. The wholeincident seemed to give me back a touch of the serenity which I hadlost, and I saw how beautifully this joy of meeting had been planned forme, when I wanted it most. Presently he said that he must go off for alesson, and asked me to come with him and see the children. We went intoa big class-room, where some boys and girls were assembling. Here he wasexactly the same as ever; no sentiment, but just a kind of bluffpaternal kindness. The lesson was most informal--a good deal ofquestioning and answering; it was a biographical lecture, but devoted,I saw, in a simple way, to tracing the development of the hero'scharacter. "What made him do that?" was a constant question. The answerswere most ingenious and extraordinarily lively; but the order wasperfect. At the end he called up two or three children who had shownsome impatience or jealousy in the lesson, and said a few half-humorouswords to them, with an air of affectionate interest.
"They are jolly little creatures," he said when they had all gone out.
"Yes," I said, with a sigh, "I do indeed envy you. I wish I could be setto something of the kind."
"Oh, no, you don't," he said; "this is too simple for you! You wantsomething more artistic and more psychological. This would bore you toextinction."
We walked all round the place, saw the games going on, and werepresently joined by Amroth, who seemed to be on terms of oldacquaintanceship with my friend. I was surprised at this, and he said:
"Why, yes, Amroth had the pleasure of bringing me here too. Things aredone here in groups, you know; and Amroth knows all about our lot. It isvery well organised, much better than one perceives at first. Youremember how you and I drifted to school together, and the set of boyswe found ourselves with--my word, what young ruffians some of us were!Well, of course all that had been planned, though we did not know it."
"What!" said I; "the evil as well as the good?"
The two looked at each other and smiled.
"That is not a very real distinction," said Amroth. "Of course the poorbodies got in the way, as always; there was some fizzing and someprecipitation, as they say in chemistry. But you each of you gave andreceived just what you were meant to give and receive; though these arecomplicated matters, like the higher mathematics; and we must not talkof them to-day. If one can escape the being shocked at things and yet beuntainted by them, and, on the other hand, if one can avoid pomposityand yet learn self-respect, that is enough. But you are tired to-day,and I want you just to rest and be refreshed."
Presently Amroth asked me if I should like to stay there awhile, and Imost willingly consented.
"You want something to do," he said, "and you shall have some lightemployment."
That same day, before Amroth left me, I had a curious talk with him.
I said to him: "Let me ask you one question. I had always had a sort ofhope that when I came to the land of spirits, I should have a chance ofseeing and hearing something of some of the great souls of earth. I haddimly imagined a sort of reception, where one could wander about andlisten to the talk of the men one had admired and longed to see--Plato,let me say, and Shakespeare, Walter Scott, and Shelley--some of theimmortals. But I don't seem to have seen anything of them--only justordinary and simple people."
Amroth laughed.
"You do say the most extraordinarily ingenuous things," he said. "In thefirst place, of course, we have quite a different scale of values here.People do not take rank by their accomplishments, but by their power ofloving. Many of the great men of earth--and this is particularly thecase with writers and artists--are absolutely nothing here. They had, itis true, a fine and delicate brain, on which they played with greatskill; but half the artists of the world are great as artists, simplybecause they do not care. They perceive and they express; but they wouldnot have the heart to do it at all, if they really cared. Some of them,no doubt, were men of great hearts, and they have their place and work.But to claim to see all the highest spirits together is as absurd as ifyou called on a doctor in London at eleven o'clock and expected to meetall the great physicians at his house, intent on general conversation.Some of the great people, indeed, you have met, and they were verysimple persons on earth. The greatest person you have hitherto seen wasa butler on earth--the master of your College. And if it does not shockyour aristocratic susceptibilities too much, the President of this placekept a small shop in a country village. But one of the teachers herewas actually a marquis in the world! Does that uplift you? He teachesthe little girls how to play cricket, and he is a very good dancer.Perhaps you would like to be introduced to him?"
"Don't treat me as a child," I said, rather pettishly.
"No, no," said Amroth, "it isn't that. But you are one of thoseimpressible people; and they always find it harder to disentanglethemselves from the old ideas."
I spent a long and happy time in the school. I was given a littleteaching to do, and found it perfectly enchanting. Imagine children witheverything greedy and sensual gone, with none of the crossness orspitefulness that comes of fatigue or pressure, but with all theinteresting passions of humanity, admiration, keenness, curiosity, andeven jealousy, emulation, and anger, all alive and active in them. Theywere not angelic children at all, neither meek nor mild. But they weregenerous and affectionate, and it was easy to evoke these feelings. Theone thing absent from the whole place was any touch of sentimentality,which arises from natural affections suppressed into a giggling kind ofsecrecy. They expressed affection loudly and frankly, just as theyexpressed indignation and annoyance. All the while I kept Cynthia in myheart; she was ever b
efore me in a thousand sweet postures and withinnumerable glances. But I saw much of my sturdy and wholesome-mindedold friend; and the sore pain of parting faded away out of my heart, andleft me with nothing but the purest and deepest love, which helped me inall I did or said, and made me patient and tender-hearted. And thus theperiod sped not unhappily away, though I had my times of agony anddespair.