The Child of the Dawn Read online

  IV

  Once I said:

  "Which kind of people do you find it hardest to help along?"

  "The young people," said Amroth, with a smile.

  "Youth!" I said. "Why, down below, we think of youth as being sogenerous and ardent and imitative! We speak of youth as the time tolearn, and form fine habits; if a man is wilful and selfish inafter-life, we say that it was because he was too much indulged inchildhood--and we attach great importance to the impressions of youth."

  "That is quite right," said Amroth, "because the impressions of youthare swift and keen; but of course, here, age is not a question of yearsor failing powers. The old, here, are the wise and gracious and patientand gentle; the youth of the spirit is stupidity and unimaginativeness.On the one hand are the stolid and placid, and on the other are thebrutal and cruel and selfish and unrestrained."

  "You confuse me greatly," I said; "surely you do not mean that spirituallife and progress are a matter of intellectual energy?"

  "No, not at all," said he; "the so-called intellectual people are oftenthe most stupid and youngest of all. The intellect counts for nothing:that is only a kind of dexterity, a pretty game. The imagination is whatmatters."

  "Worse and worse!" I said. "Does salvation belong to poets andnovelists?"

  "No, no," said Amroth, "that is a game too! The imagination I speak ofis the power of entering into other people's minds and hearts, ofputting yourself in their place--of loving them, in fact. The more youknow of people, the better chance there is of loving them; and you canonly find your way into their minds by imaginative sympathy. I willtell you a story which will show you what I mean. There was once afamous writer on earth, of whose wisdom people spoke with bated breath.Men went to see him with fear and reverence, and came away, saying, 'Howwonderful!' And this man, in his age, was waited upon by a little maid,an ugly, tired, tiny creature. People used to say that they wondered hehad not a better servant. But she knew all that he liked and wanted,where his books and papers were, what was good for him to do. She didnot understand a word of what he said, but she knew both when he hadtalked too much, and when he had not talked enough, so that his mind waspent up in itself, and he became cross and fractious. Now, in reality,the little maid was one of the oldest and most beautiful of spirits. Shehad lived many lives, each apparently humbler than the last. She nevergrumbled about her work, or wanted to amuse herself. She loved the sillyflies that darted about her kitchen, or brushed their black heads onthe ceiling; she loved the ivy tendrils that tapped on her window in thebreeze. She did not go to church, she had no time for that; or if shehad gone, she would not have understood what was said, though she wouldhave loved all the people there, and noticed how they looked and sang.But the wise man himself was one of the youngest and stupidest ofspirits, so young and stupid that he had to have a very old and wisespirit to look after him. He was eaten up with ideas and vanity, so thathe had no time to look at any one or think of anybody, unless theypraised him. He has a very long pilgrimage before him, though he wrotepretty songs enough, and his mortal body, or one of them, lies in thePoets' Corner of the Abbey, and people come and put wreaths there withtears in their eyes."

  "It is very bewildering," I said, "but I see a little more than I did.It is all a matter of feeling, then? But it seems hard on people thatthey should be so dull and stupid about it all,--that the truth shouldlie so close to their hand and yet be so carefully concealed."

  "Oh, they grow out of dulness!" he said, with a movement of his hand;"that is what experience does for us--it is always going on; we getwidened and deepened. Why," he added, "I have seen a great man, as theycalled him, clever and alert, who held a high position in the State. Hewas laid aside by a long and painful illness, so that all his work wasput away. He was brave about it, too, I remember; but he used to thinkto himself how sad and wasteful it was, that when he was most energeticand capable he should be put on the shelf--all the fine work he mighthave done interrupted; all the great speeches he would have madeunuttered. But as a matter of fact, he was then for the first timegrowing fast, because he had to look into the minds and hearts of allsorrowful and disappointed people, and to learn that what we do mattersso little, and that what we are matters so much. When he did at lastget back to the world, people said, 'What a sad pity to see so fine acareer spoilt!' But out of all the years of all his lives, those yearshad been his very best and richest, when he sat half the day feeble inthe sun, and could not even look at the papers which lay beside him, orwhen he woke in the grey mornings, with the thought of another miserableday of idleness and pain before him."

  I said, "Then is it a bad thing to be busy in the world, because ittakes off your mind from the things which matter?"

  "No," said Amroth, "not a bad thing at all: because two things are goingon. Partly the framework of society and life is being made, so that menare not ground down into that sordid struggle, when little experience ispossible because of the drudgery which clouds all the mind. Though eventhat has its opportunities! And all depends, for the individual, uponhow he is doing his work. If he has other people in mind all the time,and does his work for them, and not to be praised for it, then all iswell. But if he is thinking of his credit and his position, then he doesnot grow at all; that is pomposity--a very youthful thing indeed; butthe worst case of all is if a man sees that the world must be helped andmade, and that one can win credit thus, and so engages in work of thatkind, and deals in all the jargon of it, about using influence andliving for others, when he is really thinking of himself all the time,and trying to keep the eyes of the world upon him. But it is all growthreally, though sometimes, as on the beach when the tide is coming in,the waves seem to draw backward from the land, and poise themselves in acrest of troubled water."

  "But is a great position in the world," I said, "whether inherited orattained, a dangerous thing?"

  "Nothing is _dangerous_, child," he said. "You must put all that out ofyour mind. But men in high posts and stations are often not progressingevenly, only in great jogs and starts. They learn very often, with asudden surprise, which is not always painful, and sometimes is verybeautiful and sweet, that all the ceremony and pomp, the great house,the bows and the smiles, mean nothing at all--absolutely nothing, exceptthe chance, the opportunity of not being taken in by them. That is theuse of all pleasures and all satisfactions--the frame of mind which madethe old king say, 'Is not this great Babylon, which I havebuilded?'--they are nothing but the work of another class in the greatschool of life. A great many people are put to school withself-satisfaction, that they may know the fine joy of humiliation, thedelight of learning that it is not effectiveness and applause thatmatters, but love and peacefulness. And the great thing is that weshould feel that we are growing, not in hardness or indifference, nornecessarily even in courage or patience, but in our power to feel andour power to suffer. As love multiplies, suffering must multiply too.The very Heart of God is full of infinite, joyful, hopeful suffering;the whole thing is so vast, so slow, so quiet, that the end of sufferingis yet far off. But when we suffer, we climb fast; the spirit grows oldand wise in faith and love; and suffering is the one thing we cannotdispense with, because it is the condition of our fullest and purestlife."