Such Is Life (56 page)

My own incompetence to identify by name a tune which I spiritually recognise is, perhaps, the most disgraceful manifestation of my neglected musical education—at all events, it is the one which causes me most uneasiness. Experience has warned me never to ask a player for the
Marseillaise
, or
Croppies Lie Down
, or what not; for he is pretty sure to say, ‘Why, that's just what I've been giving you,' or words to similar effect. Alf at last grew tired of my non-committal remarks and replies, and, with a tact which
impressed me more afterward than at the time, named each tune before and after playing it. For instance, the yearning tenderness of an exquisitely rendered air would seem to bring back some lost consciousness of an earlier and happier existence, suffusing my whole being with a pensive sadness not to be exchanged for any joy. I would feel the notes familiar, but whether of five years or five million years before, or whether in the body or out of the body, I couldn't tell. Alf, on concluding, would simply murmur, “
Home, Sweet Home
,” and all would be explained. Then, perhaps, he would say, “
The Last Rose of Summer
”; and I would be able to follow him intelligently right through.

But he didn't confine himself to the comfortable vulgarity of popular airs. He played selections from Handel, Mozart, Wagner, and I don't know whom; while the time passed unnoticed by both of us. At length he laid the violin across his knees, and, after a pause, his voice rose in one of the sweetest songs ever woven from words. And such a voice!—rich, soft, transcendent, yet suggesting ungauged resources of enchantment unconsciously held in reserve. I sat entranced as verse after verse flowed slowly on, every syllable clear and distinct as in speech; the subtle tyranny of vocal harmony admitting no intruding thought beyond a regretful sense that the song must end.

But sorrow's sel' wears past, Jean,

And joy's a-comin' fast, Jean,

The joy that's aye to last,

I' the land o' the leal.

A' our freens are gane, Jean,

We've lang been left alane, Jean.

We'll a' meet again

I' the land o' the leal.

“How happy Jean Armour must have been to be with poor Burns, while this cold world seemed to slip away from his feet, and leave him to rest with his forgiving Saviour,” murmured the boundary man, laying his violin on the table, whilst he gazed absently into the expiring fire. “That song was composed by Burns, on his death-bed. Isn't it beautiful?”

“It is one of the most beautiful songs in the language,” I replied; “but Burns is not the author. The song was composed by a woman—Baroness Nairne. It is not for men to write in that strain. As for Jean Armour—well, she had a good deal to forgive, too.”

“Ah! do you think a woman loves less because she has much to forgive?” returned Alf sadly, and then added, with sudden interest,
“But what difference do you notice between the poetry of men and women? What is the mark of women's work?”

“Sincerity,” I replied. “Notwithstanding Mrs. Hemans, and others, you will find that, as a rule, men's poetry is superior to women's, not only in vigour, but in grace. This is not strange, for grace is, after all, a display of force, an aspect of strength. But in the quality of sincerity, woman is a good first. Take an illustration, while I think of it: Compare the verses of my ancestor, Collins,
On the Grave of Thompson
, with Eliza Cook's verses,
On the Grave of Hood
”—

“But Collins was never married,” interposed Alf.

“True,” I replied pleasantly. “But our family is aristocratic, and a baton-sinister only sets us off. However, in the two poems I was speaking of, the subject matter is similar; the pieces are about the same length; and the writers have adopted the same iambic octo-syllable, with alternate rhymes. Now, my ancestor's poem is not excelled in grace by anything within the range of our literature; but there's nothing else in it whatever. Eliza Cook's versification is, in a measure, forced and imperfect, her language occasionally homely and rugged, but the strong beating of a sincere, sympathetic heart is audible in every line.”

“But your ancestor is the most artificial writer of an artificial school, and Eliza Cook is the most spontaneous writer of a spontaneous school,” replied Alf, with the contradictive impulse which amusingly accompanied his teachableness. “Of course,” he added deprecatingly, “I wouldn't presume to criticise such a poet as Collins; but you said, yourself”—

“Oh, that's all right,” said I generously. “However, though your argument blunts the force of my illustration, it doesn't weaken my contention. You'll find the distinction I've pointed-out hold good in a greater or less degree throughout literature; you'll find examples by the thousand, and of course, exceptions by the dozen. But sing again, Alf, please. Every minute you're silent, is a minute wasted. Sing anything you like—only sing.”

“I wanted to have a talk,” remonstrated Alf. “You were speaking of the difference between men and women in their literary work. I believe you're right, though it never struck me before. Now there's another question that might be worth comparing notes upon. Your remark just brought it into my mind. Here it is”—he hesitated a moment, then went on, with a certain constraint in his voice; the constraint we are apt to feel when forced to plump out the word ‘love,' in its narrower sense—“When women love, they
don't know why they love; they just love because they do—so they say, and we're bound to believe them. But when we love women, why do we love them? Being more logical, we ought to know. Do we love a woman for her beauty?—or for her virtues?—or for her accomplishments?—or for what? I fancy, if we understood ourselves, we should be able to say we loved her for some particular quality; and the others are—as you might say—Oh,
you
know! What quality is it, then, that we love a woman for? There's a problem for you!”

“I can solve it with mathematical certainty, Alf—that is to say, in such a manner as to convey the impossibility of the solution being otherwise than according to my finding. When I'm allowed to work-out these things in my own circuitous way—which is seldom the case—there are few questions in moral or psychological philosophy which the commission of my years and art can to no issue of true honour bring. But you have to sing six songs first. I'll leave the choice of them to yourself.”

“Very well,” replied Alf readily. “I'll sing the songs as they come to my mind. Remember your promise, now.”

Then, rich, soft, and sweet, rose that exquisite voice in easy volume, flooding with new and vivid meaning old familiar verses. Here was my opportunity. I was interested in this boundary man, and resolved to know his history. Rejecting Alf Jones as an assumed name, Nomenology would be at fault here; yet knowing already, by a kind of incommunicable intuition, that he was a Sydney-sider, and had been in some way connected with the drapery-business, I expected to have my knowledge so supplemented by the character of his songs, that—counting reasonably on a little further information, to be gathered before my departure—I should be able to work-out his biography at least as correctly as biographies are generally worked-out.

For the esoteric side of his history, I counted much on his spontaneous choice of songs. Man is but a lyre (in both senses of the phonetically-taken word, unfortunately) ; and some salient experience, some fire-graven thought, some clinging hope, is the plectrum which strikes the passive chords. An old truism will bear expansion here, till it embraces the rule that, whatever else a man may sing, he always sings himself. But you must know how to interpret.

I have said that melancholy was the key-note of Alf's playing. Fused with this, and deeply coloured by it, the tendency of his songs was toward love, and love alone—chaste, supersensuous, but purely human and exclusive love. No suggestion of national inspiration;
no broad human sympathies; no echo of the oppressed ones' cry; no stern challenge of wrong; only a hopeless, undying love, and an unspeakable self-pity. He wasn't even a lyre; he was a pipe for Fortune's finger to sound what stop she pleased; and, judging from the tone of his playing, and the selection of his songs, it had pleased that irresponsible goddess to attune the chords of his being to a love, pure as heaven, sad as earth, and hopeless as the other place.

Who is she? thought I.

Silence again sank on the faint yellow lamplight of the hut, as the last syllables of the sixth song died mournfully away—
She is far from the Land where Her Young Hero Sleeps
. Then the boundary rider lit his pipe, and slightly moved his seat, placing himself in an easy listening attitude, with his elbow on the table, and his hand across his face.

“Alf,” said I impressively; “you'll certainly find yourself shot into outer darkness, if you don't alter your hand. You're recklessly transgressing the lesson set forth in the parable of the Talents. Don't you know it's wrong to bury yourself here, eating your own life away with melancholia, seeing that you're gifted as you are? Maestros, and high-class critics, and other unwholesomely cultured people, might possibly sit on you, or damn you with faint praise; but you could afford to take chance of that, for beyond all doubt, the million would idolise you. I'm not looking at the business aspect of the thing; I'm thinking of the humanising influence you would exercise, and the happiness you would confer, and, altogether, of the unmixed good that would lie to your credit, if you made the intended use of your Lord's money. And here you are, burying it in the earth.”

“O, I wouldn't be here, I suppose, only for the disfigurement of my face,” he replied, swallowing a sob.

“That's nothing,” I interjected, deeply pained by his allusion. and inwardly soliciting forgiveness without repentance whilst I spoke. “Did the British think less of Nelson—Did Lady Hamilton think less of him, if it comes to that—for the loss of his arm and his eye? Why, even the conceited German students value scars on the face more than academic honours. Believe me, Alf, while a man merely conducts himself as a man, his scars needn't cost him a thought; but if he's an artist, as you are, what might otherwise be a disfigurement becomes the highest claim to respect and sympathy. It's pure effeminacy to brood over such things, for that's just where we have the advantage of women. ‘A woman's first
duty,' says the proverb, ‘is to be beautiful.' If Lady Hamilton had been minus an eye and an arm, she would scarcely have attained her unfortunate celebrity.”

The boundary man laid down his pipe, rested his forehead on his arm upon the table, and for a minute or two sobbed like a child. It was dreadful to see him. He was worse than Ida, in an argument with Mrs. Beaudesart; he was as bad as an Australian judge, passing mitigated sentence on some well-connected criminal.

Presently he rose, and walked unsteadily to the other end of the hut; his dog, with a low, pathetic whine, following him. Perceiving that he was off again, I turned up the flame of the lamp, with a view to neutralising the effect of the moonlight.

“Are you not well, Alf?”

No answer. He was lying on his back on the bed, one arm across his face, and the other hanging down; whilst his dog, crouched at the bedside, was silently licking the brown fingers. Then my eye happened to fall on the American clock over the fire-place. Not that time, surely! But my watch had beaten the clock by ten minutes.

“I say, Alf; I don't know how to apologise for keeping you up till this time. It's half-past eleven.”

Still no answer. I brought in my possum-rug, and began to spread it on the floor. Alf had risen, and rolled his blankets back off the bed. He now took out the mattress of dried grass, and laid it on the floor, then re-arranged his blankets.

“But I certainly won't rob you of your tick,” said I. “One characteristic of childhood I still retain is the ability to sleep anywhere, like a dog.”

“You must take it, if you sleep in this hut,” he replied curtly. “Take that too.” He handed me his feather pillow.

“Do you shut your door at nights?” I asked. “Because, if you do, I'll chain Pup to the fence. He likes to go in and out at his own pleasure; and, if he found himself shut-out, he might get lost.”

“It can stay open to-night,” replied Alf.

“Right,” said I; and I began to disrobe, as I always do when circumstances permit. Sleeping with your clothes on is slovenly; sleeping with your spurs on is, in addition, ruinously destructive to even the strongest bed-clothes.

“By-the-way, Alf,” I remarked, as I pulled off my socks; “I was forgetting your problem. The solution is clear enough to me, but the inquiry opens out no end of side-issues, each of which must be followed out to its re-intersection with the main line of argument
if we wish to leave our conclusion unassailable at any point. The question, then, is: Do we love a woman for her beauty, for her virtues, or for her accomplishments? Now let us make sure of our terminology.” I paused, but Alf maintained silence.

“In the first place,” I continued, kicking off the garment which it is unlawful even to name, “we must inquire what the personal beauty of woman is, and wherein it consists. It consists in approximation to a given, ideal; and this ideal is not absolute; it is elastic in respect of races and civilisations, though each type may be regarded as more or less rigid within its own domain. Passing over such racial ideals as the Hottentot Venus, and waiving comparison between the Riverine ideal of fifty years ago and that of to-day, we have the typical Eve of Flanders as one ideal, and the typical Eve of Italy as another.” Again I paused, but Alf remained silent.

“Moreover,” I continued, settling myself down into the comfortable mattress—“if no specimen of classic art had survived the dark ages, I question whether we would implicitly accept as our present ideal the chiselled profile, in which physiognomists fail to find any special indications of moral or intellectual excellence. But when we based our modern civilisation on the relics of classic Greece—directly, or through Rome—we naturally accepted the ideal of beauty then and there current. Attila or Abderrahman might have deflected the European standard of beauty into a widely different ideal, but it was not to be. And we're too prone to accept our classic ideal as being identified with civilisation and refinement. We should remember that the flat features of the Coptic ideal looked out on high attainments in art and science when our Hellenic archetypes, in spite of their chiselled profiles, were drifting across from the Hindo-Koosh, in the blanket-and-tomahawk stage of civilisation. Also, the slant-eyed ideal of China has a decent record. Further still, the German is facially coarser, and mentally higher, than the Circassian.” Again I paused.