Day and Night Stories

d that I was going up into the mountains. He looked at me questioningly a moment. "Your first trip?" he asked with interest. I said it was. A conversation followed; it was continue

ves. What struck me about him was his vehement, almost passionate, love of natural beauty-in seas and woods a

years before, and become naturalised. His talk was exceedingly "American," slangy, and almost Western. He said he had roughed it in the West for a year or two first. But what he chiefly talked about was mountai

he was interested in me and my journey. "Up there," he said, "yo

of things

dying ain't either of them of much account. That if you know Beauty, I mean, and Bea

experience in his own life that had opened his eyes to the truth of what he said. "Beaut

ad written it down, too, he said. And he gave me the written account, with the remark that I was

certain ceremonials. All this kind of thing is Dutch to me, a form of poetry or superstition, for I am interested chiefly in the buying and selling of exchange, with an office in New York City, just off Wall Street, and only come to Europe now occasionally for a holiday. I like to see the dear old musty cities, and go to the Opera, and take a motor run through Shakespeare's country

ll American finance was speculative and therefore dangerous. "Arthur is getting on," he said in his last letter, "and will some day take the director's place you would be in now had you cared to stay. But he's a plodder, rather." That meant, I knew, that Arthur was a fool. Business, at any rate, was not suited to his temperament. Five years ago, when I came home with a month's holiday to be used in work

I couldn't get much out of the boy, except that he "liked the chemical business fairly," and meant to please his father by "knowing it thoroughly" so as to qualify later for his directorship. But I have never forgotten the evening when I caught him in the hall,

right enough. He did. But there

own in me, somewhere below the money-making instinct, a poet, but a dumb

e was "a poet who wrote no poetry, yet lived it passionately in the spirit of old-world, classical Beauty," and I know he was a wonderful fellow in his way and made the dons and schoolmasters all sit up. We're proud of him all right. After twenty-five years of successful "exchange" in New York City, I confess I am unable to appreciate all that, feeling more in touch with the commercial and financial spirit of the age, progress, development and th

arning a bit of French to help him in the business, I made a point of dropping in upon him just to see how he was shaping generally and what new kinks his mind had taken on. There was so

tourist development of the village. The boys learnt French in the mornings, possibly, but for the rest of the day were free to

my own business-exchange between different countries with a profit-I did not deem it necessary to exchange letters and opinions with my brother-with no chance of profit anywhe

al thousand feet to the snow. The snow at least was visible, peeping out far overhead just where the dark line of forest stopped; but in reality, I suppose, that was an effect of foreshortening, and whole valleys and pastures intervened between the trees and the snow-fields. The sunset, long since out of the valley, still shone on those white ridges, where the peaks stuck up like the teeth of a gigantic saw. I guess it mea

eased if he cared to step down to take luncheon with me at my hotel next d

hen I thought it a grand thing to own the earth and paint the old town red. I seemed to walk on air, and there was a smell about those trees that made me suddenly-well, that took my mind clean out of its accustomed rut. It was just too lovely and wonderful for me to describe it. I had got well into the forest and lost my way a bit. The smell of an old-world garden wasn't in it. It smelt to me as if some one had just that minute turned out the earth all fresh and new. There was moss and tannin, a h

eeling of some one watching me. I kept quite still. Some one was moving near me.

, somehow, that wasn't the kind of feeling that came to me at all, for, though I had a pocket Browning at my hip, the notion of getting at it did not even occur to me. The sensation was new-a kind of lifting, exciting sensation that made my heart swell out with exhilaration.

o let out a flying shout as a man with liquor in him does. Instead of this, however, I just kept dead still. The wood was black as ink all round me, too black to see the tree-trunks separately, except far below where the village lights came up twinkling between them, and the only way I kept the path was by

dea was nonsense, I have no doubt; but for the moment it half explained the thing to me. I realised it was all natural enough, at any rate-and so moved on. It took a longish time to reach the edge of the wood, and a footpath led me-oh, it was quite a walk, I tell you-into the villag

that I actually bit my tongue. There was grandfather in front of my chair! I looked into his eyes. I saw him as clear and solid as the porter standing behind his desk across the lounge, and it gave me a touch of cold all down the back that

, but you are-Uncl

ther jump of my ne

t down." And I shook his hand and pushed a chair up for him. I was never so surprised in my life. The

he wouldn't smoke. "All right," I said, "let's talk then. I

me up and down. He hesitated. He wa

was you-just now-in the wood-wasn't it?" It

l as I could remember, "if that's what you mean. But why? You weren't there, were you?" It

his chair with

, "if it was you. Did you see," he a

ncied I twigged his meaning. But I was not the sort of uncle to come pryin

and my laugh. He didn

iscovered that we were talking differe

what do you mean? I'm all right, you know, and you needn't be

a whole lot of things, perhaps, but I felt chiefly that he liked me and would tell

ered slowly, "whether y

idn't see a thing, but, by

ng over his fair, handsome face. His eyes seemed all lit up. H

whispered. "Though I hardly re

n earth was

a bit. "It was just tha

e wouldn't say another word. He asked after my family and business, my health, what kind of crossing I'

ool and distant as you please, and when I got pressing sometimes he simply pretended he didn't understand. I could no more get him back again to the subject of the wood than a customer could have gotten me to tell him about the prospects of exchange being cheap or

trying he let down a litt

some time, Uncle

"if I can see you, and y

of time. After three in the afternoon I'm free till

't take lunch, perhaps you can come just afterwa

," he replied, and

in training, a thoroughbred, every inch of him. At the same time there was a touch of something a little too refined and delicate for a man, I thought. That was the poetic, scholarly vein in him, I guess-grandf

n-thirty." I told him I'd like to go through that wood. "All right," he said, "come along. I'll show you." He gave me one quick gl

asked, "because you saw me there?" H

wild mountain side. I had very little breath on the steep zigzags, but Arthur talked easily-and talked mighty well, too: the light and shade, the colouring, and the effect of all this wilderness of lonely beauty on the mind. He kept all this suppressed at home in business. It was safety valves. I twigged that. It was the artist in him talking. He seeme

ce, and midnig

urs are but th

he climbs

t a queer change bega

forgotten all my class

his big eyes glowing, and not a

ou know it, or you'd never have felt things in this wood last

asped. "Ho

l country that has atmosphere. This valley is alive-especially this end of

don't know a thing-at least it's all dead in me and forgotten-about poet

rned like a

. There's a bit of him in you as well as in

e Swiss forest where he claimed-he used that setting for his writing-he had found the exiled gods, their ghosts, their beauty, their eternal

d blue forget-me-nots turned pale. That warm valley wind had a touch of snow in it. And, ashamed and frightened of my baby moo

dled. I got cold feet right there. It mastered me. In him, behind him, near him-blest if I know wh

ly. No mere boy should come these muzzy tricks on me, scholar or

, but-there's something queer up here I don't quite get at. I'm only a busines

strangely that I

he place. You and I belong to it. We've both got him in us. You're just as proud of him as I am, only in a different way." And t

perior way and talking down at my poor business mind-well, it just came over me that

t as much as you do. Only, I guess, you're more accustomed to it than I am. Come on now," I added w

more into my veins. I had forgotten how sweet the winds and woods and flowers could be. Something melted in me. For it was Spring, and the whole world was singing like a dream. B

n I realised that the valley lay at our feet in haze and that we had been climbing at least a couple of hours. "Why, last night I got home in twenty minutes at the outside," I said. He shook his head, smiling. "It seemed like that," he replied, "but

ollowe

made it seem so short-you were singing to yourself and happy

d, but for some reason or

no human foot went up or down it; the hay was never cut; no cattle grazed along the splendid pastures; no chalet had even been built within a mile of the wood we slowly made for. "They're superstitious," he told me. "It was just the same a hundred years ago when he discovered it-there was a little natural cave on the edge of

Greece-Mount Ida and a thousand songs! Something in me-it was like the click of a shutter-announced that the "chang

ugh a great finger had rubbed them softly into the earth. Absolute loneliness fell upon me like a clap. From the world of human beings we seemed quite sh

iff, and the crowd of trunks lost in the blue dimness underneath. I shaded my eyes with one hand, trying to peer into the s

rance to another w

ing me. "We will go in. You

ellous blue radiance everywhere. Nothing stirred. But through the stillness there rose power, power that has no name, power that hides at the foundations somewhere-foundations that are changeless, invisible, ever

Erebus," Arthur was chanting. "Hermes himself, the P

hide

tree-stem, thinking of escape. No words came to me at the moment, for I didn't know what to say; but, on turning to find the bright green slopes just left behind, I saw onl

ant eyes and his great shock of hair, looking more like a column of light than a human being. "It's all quite right and natural," he repeated; "we have passed the gateway, and Hecate, who presides over gateways, will let us out again. Do not make disco

between the trunks. There was movement everywhere, though I never could see what moved. A delicious, scented air stirred through the lower branches. Running water sang not very far away. Figures I did not actually see; yet there were limbs and flowing draperies and flying hair from time to time, ever just beyond the pools of sunlight.?... Surprise went from me too. I was on air. The atmosphere of dream came round me, but a dream of something just hovering outside the world

took it from him with a delight I could not understand. "Keep it," he murmured;

ek that lasted two terms at most, when Malahide's great books formed part of the curriculum. Over against this, then, the drag and smother of solid worldly business, the sordid weight of modern ugliness, the bitterness of an ambitious, over-striving life. And abruptly-beyond both pictures-a shining, marvellous Bea

lk and talk and mood, our quite recent everyday and ordinary view, our normal relationship with

worth

tence, with its meagre, unremunerative ambitions. Ah, it was this new Beauty calling me, this shining dream that lay beyond the two pictures I have mentioned.?... I d

ard him singing. "Wait till you hear the call of Artemis and the footsteps of her flying nymphs. Wait till Orion thunders overhead and S

into an eddy of the wind it made. The big trees hid it. It was an owl. The same moment I heard a rush of liquid song come pouring through the fore

red with movement, as though that great bird's quiet wings had waked the sea of ancient shadows. There were voices too-ringing, laughing voices, as though his words woke echoes that had been listening for it. For I heard sweet singing in the distanc

the commonplace. I got that satisfaction; but I got something more as well. For the trunk was round and smooth and comely. It was no dead thing I struck. Somehow it brushed me into in

ling of exchange between the banks of two civilised countries, one o

made it firmly. It sou

", followed close and sweet upon my words.

in. "We've had a private wire. Cut i

me meat." It was barbaric, savage, centuries ago. Again there came another voice that caught up m

s. She brings those dreams that every dew-drop ho

earning French in a Swiss mountain village! I felt-well, what did I feel? In the name

ring when it pours upon a landscape. Eternally young and glorious-young, I mean, in the sense of a field of flowers in the Spring looks young; and glorious in the sense the sky looks glorious at dawn or sunset. Something big shone through him like a storm, something that would go on for ever just as the Earth goes on, always renewing

ke running wind and water, "and I found eternal life. I live now for ever in

inkers have been trying to say since the world began. I caught on to a fact so fine and simple that it knocked me silly to think I'd never realised it before. I had read it, yes; but now I knew it. The Earth, the whole bustling universe, was nothing after all but a visible production of eternal, living Powers-spiritual

mething simpler even than the words that children use. Under one arm I carried a whole forest breathing in the wind, and beneath the other a hundred meadows full of singing streams with golden marigolds and blue forget-me-nots along their banks. Upon my back and shoulders lay the clouded hills with dew and moonlight in their brimmed, capacious hollows. Thick in my hair hung the unaging powers that

ring upon me like a bu

you-air, and fire

my own voice interrupted, deep pow

n and the forest, then returned to them again. I reeled. I clutched at something in me that was slipping beyond control, slipping down a bank towards a deep, dark river flowing at my feet

sang the voice beside me, "

Then something caught, as though a cog held fast and

I could shout. There was frantic terror in me. I felt a

rmal voice: "Keep close t

the pines just murmured in a wind that scarcely stirred, and through an opening on our right I saw the deep valley clasped about the twinkling village lights. Towering in s

whispered, "and we are very nea

the resin from the tree

down at me; "then, setting it on fire, rose from the ashes wi

f self stealing over me again. And his a

led it a bird, but, o

for he had named the company that took lar

as a marvellous expression in his eyes. I understood why poets talked of stars and flowers in a human face. But behind the face crept back another look as well. There grew a

ries of that ancient world were after me. I ran for my very life. How I escaped from that thick wood without banging my body to bits against the trees I can't explain. I ran from something I desired and yet feared. I leaped along in a succession of flying bounds. Each tree I passed turned of its own accord and flung after me until the entire forest followed. But I got out. I reached the open. Upon the sloping field in the full, clear light of the moon I colla

ur saying: "You'll catch your death of cold if you lie on that s

nswered. And then he said: "Yes, but i

-consciousness; I just let it rip for all there was, and if there had been ten thousand people there in front of me, I could have made them feel it too. That was the kind of feeling-power and confidence and a sort of raging happiness. I think

ead of letting go, the shrinking before the plunge-what a fellow feels when he's falling in love, and hesit

y and subliminal uprush and conversion-no new line of goods, all that. But somehow these stunts of the psychologists and philosophers didn't cut any ice with me just then, b

flew like spreading robes, and the forests everywhere, far and near, hung watching us and booming like a thousand organs. There were uncaged winds about; you could hear them whistling among the precipices. But the grea

ed from me. We slowed up a bit. The lights and the houses and the sight of the hotel where people

ok Arthur's hand and shook it and said good-night and went up to bed and slept like a tw

plain." I was afraid he might explain "away." I just left a note-he never replied to it-and went off by a morning train. Can you understand that? B

iness, and I-well, I'm doing better than ever in the buying an

of Wall Street into Lower Broadway; it's the rustle of the sea-wind among the Battery trees; the wash of the waves when the Ferry's starting for Staten Island, and the glint of the sun far down the Bay, or dropping a bit of pearl into the old East River. And sometimes it's the strip of cloud in the west above the Jers