belloc - at the sign of the lion

8/13/2019 Belloc - At the Sign of the Lion

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AT THE SIGN OF THE LIONAND OTHER ESSAYS


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Now style is something far more than thepossession of a rich vocabulary or a keenear for rhythm and melody ; it is primarilyan intellectual quality. The first requisiteof a good style is that the writer shouldhave a clear vision of his subject, and firmlygrasp the logical interrelation of its parts.It is on this basis that the admirable stylesof Macaulay, Huxley, and Mill are built.When to this is added a keen perception ofthe emotional colour of words, you get thereally great styles of Newman and Ruskin.Without putting Mr. Belloc on a level witheither of the latter, I venture to maintainthat he combines in a higher degree thanany writer of the day these two fundamentalelements of distinction in style.

BURNELL PAYNE.


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AT THE SIGN OF THE LIONAND OTHER ESSAYS FROM THEBOOKS OF HILAIRE BELLOC

PORTLAND MAINETHOMAS BIRD MOSHERMDCCCCXVI


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CONTENTSPAGE

FOREWORD . . . . vliAT THE SIGN OF THE LION . 3THE AUTUMN AND THE FALL OF

LEAVES . . . -23ON SACRAMENTAL THINGS . -31ON REST 46ON COMING TO AN END . -55


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FOREWORD

ENreprinting thesefive essays from

the works of Hilaire Belloc Ibelieve my readers willfind whatI havefound, that he is both won-

der and wild desire when you come toknow him at his best. 1 I have alreadycited Mr. Burnell Payne', and I cannotdo better than enlarge my quotation :How widely read Mr. Belloc's booksmay be I do not know, but there is no

1 The Four Men : a Farrago^ so called byits author, is a book that, speaking for my-self as well as for others who have read it,puts forth a perfect flowering in speech andsong. You enter an enchanted country,meeting its true citizens who will remainwith you in humour and in pathos and inall the wonderful things that go to make upa journey of divine adventure,

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FOREWORD

doubt that on those who do read themthey exert a very powerful influence;and the secret of this influence lies,more than anything else, in theirstyle.A more recent critic, Mr. ThomasSeccombe, who is already known by anenduring Introduction to the worksof George Gissing, has still furtherenlarged the boundaries of our knowl-edge of Belloc and his books. Iam gladto point out that this delightful studycan be found in The Living Age forApril 8, 1916; as also Mr. Payne 'sappreciation, afew months earlier. IfI did not succeed in making it clearthat Hilaire Belloc is a poet as well aswriter of unexcelledprose, I shouldfeelI had neglected a solemn obligation. Itis when the singing soul ofour author isin excelsis that we get exquisite thingsfrom the lea.st expected sources. In a

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FOREWORD

Dedicatory Ode of most excellent fool-ing wefind stanzas like these : They say that in the unchanging place,Where all we loved is always dear,We meet our morning face to faceAnd find at last our twentieth year ....

They say ( and I am glad they say )It is so ; and it may be so :

It may be just the other way,I cannot tell. But this I know :

Prom quiet homes andfirst beginning,Out to the undiscovered ends,

There 's nothing worth the wear of winning,But laughter and the love offriends.Then consider from the same poem,

as noted by Mr. Seccombe, a beau-tiful Tennysonian passage about theEvenlode:The quiet evening kept her tryst :Beneath an open sky we rode,

And passed into a wandering mistAlong the perfect Evenlode.

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FOREWORD

The tender Evenlode that makesHer meadows hush to hear the soundOf waters mingling in the brakes,And binds my heart to English ground.

A lovely river, all alone,She lingers in the hills and holds

A hundred little towns of stones,Forgotten in the western wolds.

Why do I make mention of thesepoetic perfections ? Because Ilove them ,and I want to render unto Belloc thethings that are his and have also becomemine in that I sought andfound them.Let me reiterate a final appreciation ;11 as an essayist he already occupies oneof the very first places in EnglishLiterature.

T. B. M.


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AT THE SIGN OF THE LIONAND OTHER ESSAYS


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AT THE SIGN OF THE LION

ETwas late, and the day was

already falling when I came, sit-ting my horse Monster, to a riseof land. We were at a walk, for

we had gone very far since early morn-ing, and were now off the turf uponthe hard road ; moreover, the hill,though gentle, had been prolonged.From its summit I saw before me, asI had seen it a hundred times, thewhole of the weald.

But now that landscape was trans-figured, because many influences hadmet to make it, for the moment, anenchanted land. The autumn, com-ing late, had crowded it with colours ;a slight mist drew out the distances,and along the horizon stood out,

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quite even and grey like mountains,the solemn presence of the Downs.Over all this the sky was full ofstorm.

In some manner which languagecannot express, and hardly music, thevision was unearthly. All the lesserheights of the plain ministered to oneeffect, a picture which was to otherpictures what the marvellous is to theexperience of common things. Thedistant mills, the edges of heath andthe pine trees, were as though theyhad not before been caught by theeyes of travellers, and would not,after the brief space of their appari-tion, be seen again. Here was acountryside whose every outline wasfamiliar ; and yet it was pervaded bya general quality of the uplifted andthe strange. And for that one hourunder the sunset the county did not


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seem to me a thing well known, butrather adored.The glow of evening, which had

seemed to put this horizon intoanother place and time than ours,warned me of darkness ; and I madeoff the road to the right for an inn Iknew of, that stands close to the upperArun and is very good. Here an oldman and his wife live easily, and haveso lived for at least thirty years, prov-ing how accessible is content. Theirchildren are in service beyond theboundaries of the county, and are thusprovided with sufficiency ; and theythemselves, the old people, enjoy asmall possession which at least doesnot diminish, for, thank God, their landis free. It is a square of pasture bor-dered by great elms upon three sidesof it, but on the fourth, towards thewater, a line of pollard willows ; and

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AT THE SIGN OF THE LIONoff a little way before the house runsArun, sliding as smooth as Mincius,and still so young that he can remem-ber the lake in the forest where herose.On such ancestral land these twopeople await without anxiety what theybelieve will be a kindly death. Noris their

pietyof that violent and tor-

tured kind which is associated withfear and with distress of earlier life ;but they remain peasants, drawingfrom the earth they have alwaysknown as much sustenance for thesoul as even their religion can affordthem, and mixing that religion sointimately with their experience of thesoil that, were they not isolated in anevil time, they would have set upsome shrine about the place to sanc-tify it.

The passion and the strain which6


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AT THE SIGN OF THE LIONmust accompany (even in the happiestand mqst secluded) the working yearsof life, have so far disappeared fromthem, that now they can no longerrecall any circumstances other thanthose which they enjoy ; so that theirpresence in a room about one, as theyset food before one or meet one atthe door, is in itself an influence ofpeace.

In such a place, and with such hoststo serve him, the wears of the worldretire for a little time, from an eveningto a morning; and a man can enjoya great refreshment. In such a placehe will eat strongly and drink largely,and sleep well and deeply, and, whenhe saddles again for his journey, hewill take the whole world new; norare those intervals without their futurevalue, for the memory of a completerepose is a sort of sacrament, and a

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viaticum for the weary lengths of theway.The stable of this place is made of

oak entirely, and, after more than a hun-dred years, the woodwork is still sound,save that the roof now falls in waveswhere the great beams have sagged alittle under the pressure of the tiles.And these tiles are of that old hand-made kind which, whenever you findthem, you will do well to buy; forthey have a slight downward curve tothem, and so they fit closer and shedthe rain better than if they were flat.Also they do not slip, and thus theyput less strain upon the timber. Thisexcellent stable has no flooring but apacked layer of chalk laid on theground ; and the wooden manger isall polished and shining, where it hasbeen rubbed by the noses of tenthousand horses since the great war.


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That polishing was helped, perhaps,by the nose of Percy's horse, andperhaps by the nose of some wheelerwho in his time had dragged the gunsback aboard, retreating through thenight after Corunna. It is in everyway a stable that a small peasantshould put up for himself, withoutseeking money from other men. It is,therefore, a stable which your gapingscientists would condemn; and thoughas yet they have not got their uglyhands upon the dwellings of beasts asthey have upon those of men, yet Ioften fear for this stable, and amalways glad when I come back andfind it there. For the men who makeour laws are the same as those thatsell us our bricks and our land andour metals ; and they make the lawsso that rebuilding shall go on : andvile rebuilding too.


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Anyhow, this stable yet stands ; andin none does the horse, Monster, takea greater delight, for he also is opento the influence of holiness. So I ledhim in, and tied him by the ancientheadstall, and I rubbed him down,and I washed his feet and coveredhim with the rough rug that lay there.And when I had done all that, I gothim oats from the neighbouring bin ;for the place knew me well, and Icould always tend to my own beastwhen I came there. And as he atehis oats, I said to him : Monster, myhorse, is there any place on earthwhere a man, even for a little time,can be as happy as the brutes? Ifthere is, it is here at the Sign ofThe Lion. And Monster answered : There is a tradition among us that,of all creatures that creep upon theearth, man is the fullest of sorrow.


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I left him then, and went towardsthe house. It was quite dark, and thewindows, with their square, large panesand true proportions, shone out andmade it home. The room withinreceived me like a friend. The openchimney at its end, round which thehouse is built, was filled with beechlogs burning ; and the candles, whichwere set in brass, mixed their yellowlight with that of the fire. The longceiling was low, as are the ceilings ofHeaven. And oak was here every-where also : in the beams and theshelves and the mighty table. Foroak was, and will be again, the chiefwood of the weald.When they put food and ale before

me, it was of the kind which has beenEnglish ever since England began,and which perhaps good fortune willpreserve over the breakdown of our


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generation, until we have Englandback again. One could see the hopsin the tankard, and one could tastethe barley, until, more and more sunkinto the plenitude of this good house,one could dare to contemplate, asthough from a distant standpoint, thecorruption and the imminent danger ofthe time through which we must leadour lives. And, as I so considered theruin of the great cities and their slime,I felt as though I were in a fortress ofvirtue and of health, which could holdout through the pressure of the war.And I thought to myself: Perhapseven before our children are men,these parts which survive from a betterorder will be accepted as models, andEngland will be built again.

This fantasy had not time, tenuousas it was, to disappear, before therecame into that room a man whose


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gesture and bearing promised him tobe an excellent companion, but inwhose eyes I also perceived some lightnot ordinary. He was of middle age,fifty or more ; his hair was crisp andgrey, his face brown, as though he hadbeen much upon the sea. He was tallin stature, and of some strength. Hesaluted me, and, when he had eaten,asked me if I also were familiar withthis inn.

Very familiar, I said ; and sinceI can enter it at any hour freely, it isnow more familiar to me even thanthe houses that were once my homes.For nowadays we, who work in theState and are not idle, must be drivenfrom one place to another ; and onlythe very rich have certitude and con-tinuity. But to them it is of no serv-ice ; for they are too idle to take rootin the soil.


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AT THE SIGN OF THE LION Yet I was of their blood, he said ;

and there is in this county a homewhich should be mine. But nothingto-day is capable of endurance. I havenot seen my home (though it is but tenmiles from here) since I left it in mythirtieth year ; and I too would rathercome to this inn, which I know as youknow it, than to any house in Eng-land ; because I am certain of entry,and because I know what I shallfind, and because what I find is what

any man of this county should find, ifthe soul of it is not to disappear.You, then, I answered (we were

now seated side by side before the firewith but one flickering candle behindus, and on the floor between us a portjust younger than the host), you, then,come here for much the same reasonas do I ?

And what is that ? said he.


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Why, said I, to enjoy the illu-sion that Change can somewhere bearrested, and that, in some shape, apart at least of the things we loveremains. For, since I was a boy andalmost since I can remember, every-thing in this house has been the same ;and here I escape from the threats ofthe society we know.When I had said this, he was graveand silent for a little while ; and thenhe answered :

It is impossible, I think, aftermany years to recover any such illu-sion. Just as a young man can nolonger think himself (as children do)the actor in any drama of his ownchoosing, so a man growing old (asam I) can no longer expect of anysociety and least of all of his own

the gladness that comes from anillusion of permanence.

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thus to be attained, the end of whichyou speak. And that thirst, whichsurely is divine, is to be quenched inno stream that we can find by journey-ing, not even in the little rivers thatrun here under the combes of home.MYSELF : Well, then, what is the

End?HE : I have sometimes seen it

clearly, that when the disappointedquest was over, all this journeyingwould turn out to be but the beginningof a much greater adventure, and thatI should set out towards another placewhere every sense should be fulfilled,and where the fear of mutation shouldbe set at rest.

MYSELF : No one denies that sucha picture in the mind haunts men theirwhole lives through, though, after theyhave once experienced loss and incom-pletion, and especially when they have

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caught sight a long way off of theBarrier which ends all our experience,they recognise that picture for a cheat ;and surely nothing can save it ? Thatwhich reasons in us may be absoluteand undying ; for it is outside Time.It escapes the gropings of the learned,and it has nothing to do with materialthings. But as for all those functionswhich we but half fulfil in life, surelyelsewhere they cannot be fulfilled atall ? Colour is for the eyes and musicis for the ears ; and all that we loveso much comes in by channels that donot remain.HE : Yet the Desire can only be

for things that we have known ; andthe Desire, as you have said, is a proofof the thing desired, and, but for thesethings which we know, the words ' joy 'and 'contentment' and 'fulfilment'would have no meaning.


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MYSELF : Why yes ; but, thoughdesires are the strongest evidence oftruth, yet there is also desire for illu-sions, as there is a waking demand forthings attainable, and a demand indreams for things fantastic and unreal.Every analogy increasingly persuadesus, and so does the whole scheme ofthings as we learn it, that, with ourpassing, there shall also pass speechand comfortable fires and fields andthe voices of our children, and that,when they pass, we lose them for ever.HE: Yet these things would not

be, but for the mind which receivesthem; and how can we make surewhat channels are necessary for themind ? and may not the mind stretchon ? And you, since you reject myguess at what may be reserved for us,tell me, what is the End which weshall attain ?


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MYSELF : Salvafide, I cannot tell.Then he continued and said : Ihave too long considered these mattersfor any opposition between one experi-ence and another to affect my spirit,and I know that a long and carefulinquiry into any matter must lead thesame man to opposing conclusions;but, for my part, I shall confidentlyexpect throughout that old age, whichis not far from me, that, when it ceases,I shall find beyond it things similar tothose which I have known. For all Ihere enjoy is of one nature ; and if thelife of a man be bereft of them at last,then it is falsehood or metaphor to usethe word eternal.'

You think, then, said I, thatsome immortal part in us is concernednot only with our knowledge, but withour every feeling, and that our finalsatisfaction will include a sensual


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pleasure : fragrance, and landscape,and a visible home that shall bedearer even than these dear hills ?

Something of the sort, he said,and

slightly shruggedhis shoulders.

They were broad, as he sat beside mestaring at the fire. They conveyed intheir attitude that effect of mingledStrength and weariness which is com-mon to all who have travelled far andwith great purpose, perpetually seek-ing some worthy thing which theycould never find.The fire had fallen. Flames no

longer leapt from the beech logs ; buton their under side, where a glow stilllingered, embers fell.


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THE AUTUMN AND THE FALLOF LEAVES

IT is not true that the close of a lifewhich ends in a natural fashionlife which is permitted to put on thepomp of death and to go out in glory

inclines the mind to repose. It isnot true of a day ending nor the pass-ing of the year, nor of the fall of leaves.Whatever permanent, uneasy questionis native to men, comes forward mostinsistent and most loud at such times.There is a house in my own county

which is built of stone, whose gardensare fitted to the autumn. It has levelalleys standing high and banked withstone. Their ornaments were carvedunder the influence of that restraintwhich marked the Stuarts. Theystand above old ponds, and are strewnat this moment with the leaves of elms.


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AUTUMN : THE FALL OF LEAVES

These walks are like the Mailles of theFlemish cities, the walls of the Frenchtowns or the terraces of the Loire.They are enjoyed to-day by whoeverhas seen all our time go racing by;they are the proper resting-places ofthe aged, and their spirit is felt espe-cially in the fall of leaves.

At this season a sky which is of sodelicate and faint a blue as to containsomething of gentle mockery, and cer-tainly more of tenderness, presides atthe fall of leaves. There is no air, nobreath at all. The leaves are so lightthat they sidle on their going down-ward, hesitating in that which is notvoid to them, and touching at last soimperceptibly the earth with whichthey are to mingle, that the gesture ismuch gentler than a salutation, andeven more discreet than a discreetcaress.

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AUTUMN: THE FALL OF LEAVES

They make a little sound, less thanthe least of sounds. No bird at nightin the marshes rustles so slightly ; noman, though men are the subtlest ofliving beings, puts so evanescent astress upon their sacred whispers ortheir prayers. The leaves are hardlyheard, but they are heard just somuch that men also, who are destinedat the end to grow glorious and to die,look up and hear them falling.

With what a pageantry of everysort is not that troubling symbol sur-rounded The scent of life is neverfuller in the woods than now, for theground is yielding up its memories.The spring when it comes will notrestore this fullness, nor these deepand ample recollections of the earth.For the earth seems now to remember


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AUTUMN: THE FALL OF LEAVESthe drive of the ploughshare and itsharrying ; the seed, and the full burst-ing of it, the swelling and the comple-tion of the harvest. Up to the edgeof the woods throughout the weald theearth has borne fruit ; the barns arefull, and the wheat is standing stackedin the fields, and there are orchardsall around. It is upon such a moodof parentage and of fruition that thedead leaves fall.The colour is not a mere splendour :

it is intricate. The same unboundedpower, never at fault and never incalculation, which comprehends allthe landscape, and which has madethe woods, has worked in each oneseparate leaf as well ; they are incon-ceivably varied. Take up one leafand see. How many kinds of bound-ary are there here between the stainwhich ends in a sharp edge against

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AUTUMN: THE FALL OF LEAVES

the gold, and the sweep in which thepurple and red mingle more evenlythan they do in shot-silk or in flames ?Nor are the boundaries to be measuredonly by degrees of definition. Theyhave also their characters of line.Here in this leaf are boundaries inter-mittent, boundaries rugged, bound-aries curved, and boundaries broken.Nor do shape and definition ever beginto exhaust the list. For there are soft-ness and hardness too : the agreementand disagreement with the scheme ofveins; the grotesque and the simplein line ; the sharp and the broad, thesmooth, and raised in boundaries. Soin this one matter of boundaries mightyou discover for ever new things;there is no end to them. Their qual-ities are infinite. And beside bound-aries you have hues and tints, shadesalso, varying thicknesses of stuff, and


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AUTUMN: THE FALL OF LEAVESendless choice of surface ; that listalso is infinite, and the divisions ofeach item in it are infinite ; nor is itof any use to analyse the thing, foreverywhere the depth and the mean-ing of so much creation are beyondour powers. And all this is true ofbut one dead leaf ; and yet every deadleaf will differ from its fellow.That which has dejighted to excelin boundlessness within the bounds ofthis one leaf, has also transformed thewhole forest. There is no number tothe particular colour of the one leaf.The forest is like a thing so changefulof its nature that change clings to itas a quality, apparent even during theglance of a moment. This forestmakes a picture which is designed,but not seizable. It is a scheme, buta scheme you cannot set down. It isof those things which can best be

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AUTUMN: THE FALL OF LEAVESretained by mere copying with a pen-cil or a brush. It is of those thingswhich a man cannot fully receive, andwhich he cannot fully re-express toother men.

It is no wonder, then, that at thispeculiar time, this week (or moment)of the year, the desires which if theydo not prove at least demand per-haps remember our destiny, comestrongest. They are proper to the timeof autumn, and all men feel them.The air is at once new and old ; themorning (if one rises early enough towelcome its leisurely advance) con-tains something in it of profoundreminiscence. The evenings hardlyyet suggest (as they soon will) friendsand security, and the fires of home.The thoughts awakened in us by theirbands of light fading along the downsare thoughts which go with loneliness

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AUTUMN: THE FALL OF LEAVESand prepare me for the isolation ofthe soul.

It is on this account that traditionhas set, at the entering of autumn, fora watch at the gate of the season, theArchangel; and at its close the dayand the night of All-Hallows on whichthe dead return.


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ON SACRAMENTAL THINGS

ITis good for a man's soul to sitdown in the silence by himself and

to think of those things which happenby some accident to be in communionwith the whole world. If he has notthe faculty

of remembering thesethings in their order and of callingthem up one after another in his mind,then let him write them down as theycome to him upon a piece of paper.They will comfort him ; they will provea sort of solace against the expecta-tion of the end. To consider suchthings is a sacramental occupation.And yet the more I think of them theless I can quite understand in whatelements their power consists.A woman smiling at a little child,

not knowing that others see her, and31


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holding out her hands towards it, andin one of her hands flowers ; an oldman, lean and active, with an eagerface, walking at dusk upon a warmand windy evening westward towardsa clear sunset below dark and flyingclouds ; a group of soldiers, seen sud-denly in manoeuvres, each man intentupon his business, all working at thewonderful trade, taking their placeswith exactitude and order and yet withelasticity ; a deep, strong tide runningback to the sea, going noiselessly andflat and black and smooth, and heavywith purpose under an old wall ; thesea smell of a Channel seaport town ;a ship coming up at one out of thewhole sea when one is in a little boatand is waiting for her, coming up atone with her great sails merry andevery one doing its work, with the lifeof the wind in her, and a balance,

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rhythm, and give in all that she doeswhich marries her to the sea whetherit be a fore and aft rig and one seesonly great lines of the white, or a squarerig and one sees what is commonlyand well called a leaning tower of can-vas, or that primal rig, the triangularsail, that cuts through the airs of the

world and clove a way for the firstadventures, whatever its rig, a ship soapproaching an awaiting boat fromwhich we watch her is one of thethings I mean.

I would that the taste of my timepermitted a lengthy list of such things :they are pleasant to remember Theydo so nourish the mind A glanceof sudden comprehension mixed withmercy and humour from the face of alover or a friend ; the noise of wheelswhen the guns are going by ; theclatter-clank-clank of the pieces and

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ON SACRAMENTAL THINGSthe shouted halt at the head of thecolumn ; the noise of many horses, themetallic but united and harmoniousclamour of all those ironed hoofs,rapidly occupying the highway ; chiefand most persistent memory, a greathill when the morning strikes it andone sees it up before one round theturning of a rock after the long passesand despairs of the night.When a man has journeyed and

journeyed through those hours inwhich there is no colour or shape, allalong the little hours that were madefor sleep and when, therefore, thewaking soul is bewildered or despairs,the morning is always a resurrection

but especially when it reveals aheight in the sky.

This last picture I would particu-larly cherish, so great a consolation isit, and so permanent a grace does it

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lend later to the burdened mind of aman.

For when a man looks back uponhis many journeys so many riverscrossed, and more than one of themforded in peril; so many swingingmountain roads, so many difficultsteeps and such long wastes of plains

of all the pictures that impressthemselves by the art or kindness ofwhatever god presides over the suc-cess of journeys, no picture moreremains than that picture of a greathill when the day first strikes it afterthe long burden of the night.

Whatever reasons a man may havefor occupying the darkness with histravel and his weariness, those reasonsmust be out of the ordinary and mustgo with some bad strain upon themind. Perhaps one undertook themarch from an evil necessity under

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ON SACRAMENTAL THINGSthe coercion of other men, or perhapsin terror, hoping that the darknessmight hide one, or perhaps for cool,dreading the unnatural heat of noonin a desert land ; perhaps haste, whichis in itself so wearying a thing, com-pelled one, or perhaps anxiety. Orperhaps, most dreadful of all, one hur-ried through the night afoot becauseone feared what otherwise the nightwould bring, a night empty of sleepand a night whose dreams were wak-ing dreams and evil.

But whatever prompts the adven-ture or the necessity, when the longburden has been borne, and when theturn of the hours has come ; when thestars have grown paler ; when colourcreeps back greyly and uncertainly tothe earth, first into the greens of thehigh pastures, then here and thereupon a rock or a pool with reeds,

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while all the air, still cold, is full ofthe scent of morning ; while onenotices the imperceptible disappear-ance of the severities of Heaven untilat last only the morning star hangssplendid; when in the end of thatmiracle the landscape is fully revealed,and one finds into what country onehas come ; then a great hill beforeone, losing the forests upwards intorock and steep meadow upon its sides,and towering at last into the peaksand crests of the inaccessible places,gives a soul to the new land. . a:..The sun, in a single moment and withthe immediate summons of a trumpet-call, strikes the spear-head of the highplaces, and at once the valley, thoughstill in shadow, is transfigured, andwith the daylight all manner of thingshave come back to the world.Hope is the word which gathers the

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origins of those things together, andhope is the seed of what they mean,but that new light and its new qualityis more than hope. Livelihood iscome back with the sunrise, and thefixed certitude of the soul ; numberand measure and comprehension havereturned, and a just appreciation ofall reality is the gift of the new day.Glory (which, if men would only knowit, lies behind all true certitude) illu-mines and enlivens the seen world,and the living light makes of the truethings now revealed something morethan truth absolute ; they appear astruth acting and creative.

This first shaft of the sun is to thathill and valley what a word is to athought. It is to that hill and valleywhat verse is to the common storytold ; it is to that hill and valley whatmusic is to verse. And there lies

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behind it, one is very sure, an infiniteprogress of such exaltations, so thatone begins to understand, as the purelight shines and grows and as thelimit of shadow descends the vastshoulder of the steep, what has beenmeant by those great phrases whichstill lead on, still comfort, and stillmake darkly wise, the uncomfortedwondering of mankind. Such is thefamous phrase : Eye has not seennor ear heard, nor can it enter into theheart of man what things God has pre-pared for those that serve Him.

So much, then, is conveyed by ahill-top at sunrise when it comes uponthe traveller or the soldier after thelong march of a night, the bendingof the shoulders, and the emptiness ofthe dark.Many other things put one into com-

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ON SACRAMENTAL THINGSWho does not remember coming

over a lifting road to a place wherethe ridge is topped, and where, uponthe further side, a broad landscape,novel or endeared by memory (foreither is a good thing), bursts uponthe seized imagination as a wave fromthe open sea, swelling up an inlandcreek, breaks and bursts upon therocks of the shore ? There is a placewhere a man passes from the mainvalley of the Rhone over into thevalley

of the I sere, and where theGre'sivandan so suddenly comes uponhim. Two gates of limestone rock,high as the first shoulders of themountains, lead into the valley whichthey guard ; it is a province of itself,a level floor of thirty miles, nourishedby one river, and walled in up to theclouds on either side.

Or, again, in the champagne country,


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moving between great blocks of woodin the Forest of Rheims and alwaysgoing upward as the ride leads him, aman comes to a point whence he sud-denly sees all that vast plain of theinvasions stretching out to where, veryfar off against the horizon, two daysaway, twin summits mark the wholesite

sharplywith a limit as a frame

marks a picture or a punctuation aphrase.There is another place more dear to

me, but which I doubt whether anyother but a native of that place canknow. After passing through theplough lands of an empty plateau, atraveller breaks through a little fringeof chestnut hedge and perceives atonce before him the wealthiest and themost historical of European things,the chief of the great capitals ofChristendom and the arena in which


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is now debated (and has been for howlong ) the Faith, the chief problem ofthis world.

Apart from landscape other thingsbelong to this contemplation : Notesof music, and, stronger even thanrepeated and simple notes of music,a subtle scent and its association, afamiliar printed page. Perhaps thetest of these sacramental things istheir power to revive the past.

There is a story translated into thenoblest of English writing by Dasent.It is to be found in his Tales fromthe Norse. It is called the Story ofthe Master Maid.A man had found in his youth a

woman on the Norwegian hills : thiswoman was faery, and there was aspell upon her. But he won her outof it in various ways, and they crossedthe sea

together,and he would bring


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ON SACRAMENTAL THINGSher to his father's house, but his fatherwas a King. As they went over-seatogether alone, he said and swore toher that he would never forget howthey had met and loved each otherwithout warning, but by an act of God,upon the Dovrefjeld. Come near hisfather's house, the ordinary influencesof the ordinary day touched him ; hebade her enter a hut and wait a momentuntil he had warned his father of sostrange a marriage; she, however,gazing into his eyes, and knowinghow the divine may be transformedinto the earthly, quite as surely as theearthly into the divine, makes himpromise that he will not eat humanfood. He sits at his father's table,still steeped in her and in the seas.He forgets his vow and eats humanfood, and at once he forgets.Then follows much for which I have

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not space, but the woman in the hutby her magic causes herself to be atlast sent for to the father's palace.The young man sees her, and is onlyslightly troubled as by a memorywhich he cannot grasp. They talktogether as strangers ; but lookingout of the window by accident theKing's son sees a bird and its mate ;he points them out to the woman, andshe says suddenly : So was it withyou and me high up upon the Dovre-fjeld. Then he remembers all.Now that story is a symbol, and tells

the truth. We see some one thing inthis world, and suddenly it becomesparticular and sacramental ; a womanand a child, a man at evening, a troopof soldiers ; we hear notes of music,we smell the smell that went with apassed time, or we discover after thelong night a shaft of light upon the

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topsof the hills at morning : there isa resurrection, and we are refreshed

and renewed.But why all these things are so

neither I nor any other man can tell.


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ON REST

THERE was a priest once whopreached a sermon to the textof Abba, Father. On that text onemight preach anything, but the matterthat he chose was Rest. He wasnot yet in middle age, and those whoheard him were not yet even young.They could not understand at all themoment of his ardent speech, and eventhe older men, seeing him to be butin the central part of life, wonderedthat he should speak so. His eyeswere illuminated by the vision ofsomething distant ; his heart was notill at ease, but, as it were, fixedlyexpectant, and he preached from hislittle pulpit in that little chapel of theDowns, with rising and deeper powersof the voice, so that he shook the air ;

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ON REST

yet all this energy was but the praiseor the demand for the surcease ofenergy, and all this sound was but thedemand for silence.

It is a thing, I say, incomprehensi-ble to the young, but gradually com-prehended as the years go droning by,that in all things (and in proportionto the intensity of the life of each)there comes this appetite for dissolu-tion and for repose : I do not meanthat repose beyond which furthereffort is demanded, but somethingfinal and supreme.

This priest, a year or so after hehad appealed with his sermon beforethat little country audience in the

emptiness of the Downs, died. Hehad that which he desired, Rest.But what is it? What is the natureof this thing ?

Note you how great soldiers, when47


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ON RESTtheir long campaigns are done, areindifferent to further wars, and looklargely upon the nature of fightingmen, their objects, their failures, theirvictories, their rallying, their momen-tary cheers. Not that they grow indif-ferent to that great trade which is thechief business of a State, the defenceor the extension of the common weal ;but that after so much expense of allthe senses our God gave them, a sortof charity and justice fills their minds.I have often remarked how men whohad most lost and won, even in arms,would turn the leisured part of theirlives to the study of the details ofstruggle, and seemed equally contentto be describing the noble fortunes ofan army, whether it were upon the crestof advancing victory, or in the agonyof a surrender. This was because thethe writers had found Rest. And

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throughout the history of Lettersof Civilisation, and of contemporaryfriends, one may say that in propor-tion to the largeness of their action isthis largeness and security of visionat the end.

Now, note another thing : that, whenwe speak of an end, by that very wordwe mean two things. For first wemean the cessation of Form, and per-haps of Idea ; but also we mean agoal, or object, to which the Form andthe Idea perpetually tended, withoutwhich they would have had neithermeaning nor existence, and in whichthey were at last fulfilled. Aristotlecould give no summing up but this toall his philosophy, that there was anature, not only of all, but of each,and that the end determined whatthat nature might be ; which is alsowhat we Christians mean when we say

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ON RESTthat God made the world ; and greatRabelais, when his great books wereending, could but conclude that allthings tended to their end. Tennysonalso, before he died, having writtenfor so many years a poetry which onemust be excused in believing consid-erable, felt, as how many have felt it,the thrumming of the ebb tide whenthe sea calls back the feudal allegianceof the rivers. I know it upon Arunbar. The Flood, when the sea heavesup and pours itself into the inlandchannels, bears itself creatively, andis like the manhood of a man firsttentative, then gathering itself foraction, then sweeping suddenly at thecharge. It carries with it the windfrom the open horizon, it determinessuddenly, it spurs, and sweeps, and isvictorious ; the current races ; the har-bour is immediately full,

so


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But the ebb tide is of another kind.With a long, slow power, whose motiveis at once downward steadily towardsits authority and its obedience anddesire, it pushes as with shoulders,home ; and for many hours the streamgoes darkly, swiftly, and steadily. Itis intent, direct, and level. It is athing for evenings, and it is under anevening when there is little wind, thatyou may best observe the symbolthus presented by material things.For everything in nature has in itsomething sacramental, teaching thesoul of man ; and nothing more pos-sesses that high quality than themotion of a river when it meets thesea. The water at last hangs dully,the work is done ; and those who havepermitted the lesson to instruct theirminds are aware of consummation.Men living in cities have often

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ON RESTwondered how it was that the men inthe open who knew horses and theearth or ships and the salt water riskso much and for what reward ? Itis an error in the very question theyask, rather than in the logical puzzlethey approach, which falsifies theirwonder. There is no reward. To diein battle, to break one's neck at ahedge, to sink or to be swamped arenot rewards. But action demands anend ; there is a fruit to things ; andeverything we do (here at least, andwithin the bonds of time) may notexceed the little limits of a naturewhich it neither made nor acquired foritself, but was granted.Some

saythat old men fear death.

It is the theme of the debased and thevulgar. It is not true. Those whohave imperfectly served are readyenough ; those who have served more

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perfectly are glad as though therestood before them a natural transitionand a condition of their being.

So it says in a book all goodendings are but shining transitions.And, again, there is a sonnet whichsays:We will not whisper : we have found the placeOf silence and the ancient halls of sleep,And that which breathes alone throughout the deep

The end and the beginning ; and the faceBetween the level brows of whose blind eyesLie plenary contentment, full surceaseOf violence, and the ultimate great peace

Wherein we lose our human lullabies.

Look up and tell the immeasurable heightBetween the vault of the world and your dear head ;

That 's Death, my little sister, and the NightThat was our Mother beckons us to bed :

Where large oblivion in her house is laidFor us tired children now our games are played.

Indeed, one might quote the poets(who are the teachers of mankind)indefinitely in this regard. They areall agreed. What did Sleep and Death

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ON RESTto the body of Sarpedon ? They tookit home. And every one who dies inall the Epics is better for the dying.Some complain of it afterwards I willadmit ; but they are hard to please.Roland took it as the end of battle ;and there was a Scandinavian fellowcaught on the north-east coast, I think,who in dying thanked God for all thejoy he had had in his life as you mayhave heard before. And St. Anthonyof Assisi (not of Padua) said, Wel-come, little sister Death as was hisway. And one who stands right upabove most men who write or speaksaid it was the only port after thetide-streams and bar-handling of thisjourney.So it is ; let us be off to the hills.The silence and the immensity thatinhabit them are the simulacra of suchthings.

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ON COMING TO AN END

OF all the simple actions in theworld Of all the simple actionsin the world One would think it could be done

with less effort than the heaving of asigh. . . . Well then, one wouldbe wrong.

There is no case of Coming to anEnd but has about it something ofan effort and a jerk, as though Natureabhorred it, and though it be true thatsome achieve a quiet and a perfectend to one thing or another (as, forinstance, to Life), yet this achievementis not arrived at save through theutmost toil, and consequent uponthe most persevering and exquisiteart.Now you can say that this may be

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ON COMING TO AN END

true of sentient things but not ofthings inanimate. It is true evenof things inanimate.

Look down some straight railwayline for a vanishing point to the per-spective : you will never find it. Ortry to mark the moment when a smalltarget becomes invisible. There is nogradation ; a moment it was there, andyou missed it possibly because theAuthorities were not going in for jour-nalism that day, and had not chosena dead calm with the light full on thecanvas. A moment it was there andthen, as you steamed on, it was gone.The same is true of a lark in the air.You see it and then you do not see it,you only hear its song. And the sameis true of that song : you hear it andthen suddenly you do not hear it.It is true of a human voice, whichis familiar in your ear, living and

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ON COMING TO AN END

inhabiting the rooms of your house.There comes a day when it ceasesaltogether and how positive, howdefinite and hard is that Coming toan End.

It does not leave an echo behind it,but a sharp edge of emptiness, andvery often as one sits beside the firethe memory of that voice suddenlyreturning gives to the silence aboutone a personal force, as it were, ofobsession and of control. So muchhappens when even one of all ourmillion voices Comes to an End.

It is necessary, it is august and it isreasonable that the great story of ourlives also should be accomplished andshould reach a term : and yet there issomething in that hidden duality ofours which makes the prospect of sonatural a conclusion terrible, and it isthe better judgment of mankind and

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ON COMING TO AN END

the mature conclusion of civilisationsin their age that there is not only aconclusion here but something of anadventure also. It may be so.Those who solace mankind and are

the principal benefactors of it, I meanthe poets and the musicians, haveattempted always to ease the prospectof Coming to an End, whether it werethe Coming to an End of the things welove or of that daily habit and con-versation which is our life and is theatmosphere wherein we loved them.Indeed this is a clear test wherebyyou may distinguish the great artistsfrom the mean hucksters and char-latans, that the first approach andreveal what is dreadful with calmand, as it were, with a purpose to useit for good while the vulgar catch-penny fellows must liven up their baddishes as with a cheap sauce of the

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ON COMING TO AN END

horrible, caring nothing, so that theirshrieks sell, whether we are the betterfor them or no.The great poets, I say, bring us

easilyor grandly to the gate : as inthat Ode to a Nightingale where it is

thought good (in an immortal phrase)to pass painlessly at midnight, or, inthe glorious line which Ronsard uses,like a salute with the sword, hailing la profitable mort.The noblest or the most perfect of

English elegies leaves, as a sort ofsavour after the reading of it, noterror at all nor even too much regret,but the landscape of England at eve-ning, when the smoke of the cottagesmixes with autumn vapours among theelms ; and even that gloomy modernOde to the West Wind, unfinished andtouched with despair, though it willspeak of

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ON COMING TO AN END.... that outer place forlorn

Which, like an infinite grey sea, surroundsWith everlasting calm the land of human sounds ;

yet also returns to the sacramentalearth of one's childhood where it says :

For now the Night completed tells her taleOf rest and dissolution : gathering roundHer mist in such persuasion that the groundOf Home consents to falter and grow pale.And the stars are put out and the trees fail.Nor anything remains but that which drones

Enormous through the dark. . . .

And again, in another place, where itprays that one may at the last be fedwith beauty

.... as the flowers are fedThat fill their falling-time with generous breath :Let me attain a natural end of death,And on the mighty breast, as on a bed,Lay decently at last a drowsy head,

Content to lapse in somnolence and fadeIn dreaming once again the dream of all things made.

The most careful philosophy, themost heavenly music, the best choice

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ON COMING TO AN END

of poetic or prosaic phrase preparemen properly for man's perpetual lossof this and of that, and introduce usproudly to the similar and greaterbusiness of departure from them all,from whatever of them all remains atthe close.To be introduced, to be prepared,

to be armoured, all these are excel-lent things, but there is a question noforesight can answer nor any compre-hension resolve. It is right to gatherupon that question the varied affec-tions or perceptions of varying men.

I knew a man once in the Tourde-noise, a gloomy man, but very rich,who cared little for the things heknew. This man took no pleasure inhis fruitful orchards and his carefullyploughed fields and his harvests. Hetook pleasure in pine trees ; he was aman of groves and of the dark. For

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ON COMING TO AN ENDhim that things should come to an endwas but part of an universal rhythm ;a part pleasing to the general har-mony, and making in the music of theworld about him a solemn and, oh, aconclusive chord. This man wouldstudy the sky at night and take fromit a larger and a larger draught of infin-itude, finding in this exercise not amere satisfaction, but an object andgoal for the mind; when he had sowandered for a while under the nighthe seemed, for the moment, to havereached the object of his being.And I knew another man in the

Weald who worked with his hands,and was always kind, and knew histrade well ; he smiled when he talkedof scythes, and he could thatch. Hecould fish also, and he knew aboutgrafting, and about the seasons ofplants, and birds, and the way of seed.

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ON COMING TO AN END

He had a face full of weather, hefatigued his body, he watched hisland. He would not talk much ofmysteries, he would rather hum songs.He loved new friends and old. Hehad lived with one wife for fifty years,and he had five children, who were apoliceman, a schoolmistress, a son athome, and two who were sailors.This man said that what a man didand the life in which he did it was likethe farmwork upon a summer's day.He said one works a little and rests,and works a little again, and onedrinks, and there is a perpetual talkwith those about one. Then (he wouldsay) the shadows lengthen at evening,the wind falls, the birds get backhome. And as for ourselves, we aresleepy before it is dark.Then also I knew a third man who

lived in a town and was clerical and63


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ON COMING TO AN END

did no work, for he had money of hisown. This man said that all we doand the time in which we do it israther a night than a day. He saidthat when we came to an end wevanished, we and our works, but thatwe vanished into a broadening light.Which of these three knew best the

nature of man and of his works, andwhich knew best of what nature wasthe end ?

Why so glum, my Lad, or my Lass(as the case may be), why so heavy atheart ? Did you not know that youalso must Come to an End ?Why, that woman of Etaples who

sold such Southern wine for the dis-sipation of the Picardian Mist, hertime is over and gone and the winehas been drunk long ago and the

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singers in her house have departed,and the wind of the sea moans in andfills their hall. The Lords who diedin Roncesvalles have been dead thesethousand years and more, and the loudsong about them grew very faint anddwindled and is silent now : there isnothing at all remains.

It is certain that the hills decay andthat rivers as the dusty years proceedrun feebly and lose themselves at lastin desert sands ; and in its aeons thevery firmament grows old. But evilalso is perishable and bad men meettheir judge. Be comforted.Now of all endings, of all Comings

to an End none is so hesitating as theending of a book which the Publisherwill have so long and the writer soshort: and the Public (God Blessthe Public) will have whatever it isgiven.

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ON COMING TO AN END

Books, however much their linger-ing, books also must Come to an End.It is abhorrent to their nature as to thelife of man. They must be sharplycut off. Let it be done at once andfixed as by a spell and the power of aWord ; the word FINIS.


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NINE HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES OFTHIS BOOK PRINTED ON VAN GELDERHAND-MADE PAPER AND THE TYPEDISTRIBUTED IN THE MONTH OF

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belloc - at the sign of the lion

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