Arnold Haultain

“ How earnestly have all poets of Nature striven to find expression for the emotions that natural beauty evokes! And yet none has completely succeeded, and none will succeed till the hidden links are discovered between the beautiful thing, the mind that perceives it, and the Hand that fashions it. How is it that a sunset, a landscape, a green field even, or a growing fern, will sometimes in a moment of time cause to blaze up in a man a thrill, a joy, so intense that under its influence one feels dazed and dumb? A great power is, as it were, suddenly let loose ”

“ Could we see the sum total of Supreme and Infinite Consciousness at a glance, perhaps individual men and women would dissolve into a mighty unity, could see and comprehend the whole of the luminiferous ether. Well, perhaps
Love is the only known means by which the individual heart can make any expansion whatsoever beyond its own bounds. Yet, alas! Nothing seems to break down the barriers of sense. The human heart beats its ineffectual wings in vain against the walls of its fleshly tabernacle. Will nothing unite the Boy and the Girl? Will nothing bring the Man and the Woman really together? ”

“ Amongst these hops fearless, while I sit still and silent with half-closed eyes, the thrush or the grey-bird, chasing insects a few feet from my foot; while above me, on the very stump against which I lean, perches the various-coloured high-holder.—Truly, it seems as if Nature had taken me to be one with her, recognised me as part of her manifold immensity, looked upon me as a consort, a co-mate.
And am I not a part of her? It needs not to comprehend the harmonious workings of mighty natural laws to perceive the unity of all things. Each minutest spot on this earth verifies the truth. ”

“ Is the coalescence of thought and feeling outside the bounds of human possibility? What, then, impels mankind to crave it, to attempt it, to sacrifice so much for it?—There is a cosmic puzzle here with which nor philosophy nor psychology nor religion has yet attempted to grapple.
After all, pitiful as it may be, lamentable as it may be, it is true, and it must be said, that this human heart of ours goes through life hungry, very hungry and unappeased. For what it hungers, what it has missed, whereto it looks for sustenance, it itself does not know. ”

“ The still green meadows, the gently swaying boughs, the sunshine sleeping pillowed on the clouds—all tend to meditative and restful peace, and one reaps the harvest of a quiet eye. And if one yields to this beneficent mood there is much, very much, to be gained. Alone with Nature, all around the spacious earth, above the immeasurable heavens, alone in a vast expanse, one finds oneself, in Amiel's fine phrase, tête-à-tête with the Infinite. At such times the great problem of Life flares upon us like a flash of lightning, so sudden, so intense, so vivid is its irruption on the mental vision. ”

“ Even if your courtship be sincere, it must be slow. Not in forty-eight hours will you brush away the cobwebs of the workaday world and prepare for the reception of sweet Nature's influence a mind free from all uncharitableness: their skies, not their characters, they change who sail over-seas. From all blindness of heart, from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy, you must seek to be delivered, else you will walk in vain. For most men walk in a vain show, and the perpetual perambulation of the streets of Vanity Fair is a poor preparation for the Delectable Mountains.—But take heart. ”

“ So completely do women know men, that it is easy for any woman to delude any man. This is one of the reasons why
Every woman is the rival of every other woman:
This woman will be herself, her own true, simple, and virtuous self; will resort to no subterfuge, adopt no meretricious methods, scorn to rely upon tactics or strategy, be ever reserved, reluctant, shy;—yet fail.
This other woman will openly and blatantly, overtly and unconcernedly, assail the masculine heart with word and look and gesture—and win. —Ach! the purblindess of the masculine heart! how it exasperates even the woman! ”

“ That there is a Universe, is apparent; that it is one and complete, we suppose; that there are in it Jacks and Jills, is indubitable; that these Jacks and Jills crave mutual support, sympathy, love, friendship, wifehood, sistership, companionship, brotherhood, is also indubitable. If therefore the whole scheme of the Universe is not a farce, what does this craving of Love for Lover mean? And yet,
It is quite impossible to conceive of a Universe of Love, in which all the claims of Heart and Soul and Senses shall be eternally and infinitely satisfied? ”

“ The great fight for life, the stern joys of life—the ferocious combat, the thrilling love match, the myriad sensations and emotions evoked by man's physical environment, and his struggle for existence therein—surely these live somehow somewhere packed away in his brain to-day—just as some migratory and nidificatory memories must be packed away in the brain of a bird. It is these dormant cosmic memories that a landscape revives. On how many a plain to-day does there not flow veritable human blood remuted into sap!—Terrene Nature was man's ancestral home and no man can gaze upon it unmoved. ”

“ A profound silence pervaded them, a silence so intense, so all-embracing, it seemed to overflow the forest, to go out into space, to enwrap the world in its grasp. Not a thing stirs. To be alive in that shrine of death-like soundlessness seems desecration. It is supreme, infinite, absolute; you, the living, moving onlooker, are finite and relative, a thing of time and space. To think is to disturb the serenity of its repose, for to think is to attempt to limit it, to reduce it to the level of yourself, and no thought is large enough to compass it. ”

“ Fame may allure him, friends encourage him, fortune cause him a momentary smile, but only woman makes him; and fame, friends, fortune, all are naught if there be not at his side a sharer of his weal. A man will strive for fortune, strip himself for friends, scour the earth for fame; but were there no woman in the world to be won, not one of these things would he do. ”

“ The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live, so that the longer we can stay among these things so much the more is snatched from inevitable Time.... These are the only hours that are not wasted—these hours that absorb the soul and fill it with beauty. This is real life, and all else is illusion, or mere endurance. To be beautiful and to be calm, without mental fear, is the ideal of Nature. ”

“ Does the potency lie in the eyes and the lips, or is there some inscrutable and psychic power? At all events, who will explain how it is that
A man will sometimes forsake the most beautiful of wives and a woman will forsake the kindest of husbands to follow recklessly one who admits no comparison with the one forsaken? All we can say is that
The potency of personality exceeds the potency of beauty. For, Powerful as is physical charm, it counts not for all in the matter of love. Yet what it may be that does count, and how and why it does count, no man living shall say. ”

“ Only Nature can induce such moods—
"Dear Nature is the kindest mother still,"
says the soul-tossed, self-torturing Byron. Books, music, art, the drama, philosophy, science—at bottom there seems to be something disquieting in these. They come in such questionable shape. They are the works of man; and we never altogether trust the works of man. We never feel, even with the first of those who know, that our fellow-man, who is, after all, like unto ourselves, has answered every question, allayed every doubt, stilled every fear. ”

“ Unless a woman gives her heart, how can she give her aid? Surely,
Unless a man's armor is buckled on for the strife of life by feminine sympathy, the fight is apt to be a sorry one at best; since
A woman's true business is to back her husband: if SHE leaves him in the lurch, there is little hope for him. For of a truth
The strongest man is handicapped in the struggle for existence unless he knows and feels that his wife is at his side—not pushing him so much as leaning upon him. ”

“ What matters it the petty perturbations of the mind? What signify the paltry upheavings of the heart? Lay thy tired head on Nature's breast. Friendship may fade, ideals vanish, passion wane, the darling desire upon which thou hast staked thine all may prove to have been snatched from thee before thy very eyes.—Take heart. Always there is at hand the Infinite and the Eternal: about thee, above thee, in presence of which the petty and the paltry flee away.
I know no more comfortable medicament than the quiet companionship of Nature. The trees breathe a salutary air. The fields invite to repose. ”

“ A woman will often blandly ask why the two rivals to her hand should not be friends! Yet it is significant of much that she does her utmost to keep them apart! Indeed,
In no instance are a woman's tact and finesse so exercised as in playing off one man against another.—And yet usually she delights in the task; for
Being-made-love-to is to women what killing—whether of men or of animals—is to men. In a word,
To be sought after is to woman what war or the chase is to man. ”

“ Some immensity of Being. It is to this that in reality all Nature points. The clouds, the skies, the greenery of earth, the myriad forms of vegetation at our feet, stir as these may the soul to its depths, they are but single chords in the orchestra of Life. It is the great pæan of Being that Nature chants. By them it is that we perceive "the immense circulation of life which throbs in the ample bosom of Nature, a life which surges from an invisible source and swells the veins of this universe." ”

“ Only this I see: that each little heart creates its own little universe: the bee's, the that of its hive and the fields; man's, that of his earth and the stars. What may be above or beyond the stars, man no more knows than the bee knows what is beyond the fields. The heart—be it man's or a bee's—is the centre of its self-made sphere. Some day, perhaps, man's sphere will extend as far beyond the stars as today it extends beyond the fields. ”

“ Nature is at once the tomb and the womb of life. What was once soil and rain and sunshine becomes grass—then hay—then beef or mutton or milk—and, in time, the very bone and muscle, the very laughter and tears of the child that plays in those fields. And when bone and muscle lay down that subtle thing called Life, give up the spirit and lie inert, they enter once again into the tomb and womb of Nature, and the mighty cycle begins afresh. ”

“ No woman can be coerced into love,—though she may be coerced into marriage. And
Man, the clumsy wielder of one blunt weapon, often enough stands agape at his own powerlessness before the invulnerable woman of his desire. Indeed,
The battle between the coquettish maid and determined man is like the battle between the Retiarius and the Mirmillio. The coquetry ensnares the man as with a net against which his sword is useless.
* * *
A woman's emotions are as practical as a man's reason.
A man's emotions are never practical. This is why,
In the emotional matter of love, men and women so often lash. ”

“ The wintry woods, the white unfurrowed fields, stimulate no sense. The soul of man seems bared to the soul of Nature, and human thought and the universal mind seem contiguous and conterminous.—Silence affects the mind as darkness affects the senses: both in their impressiveness quicken the faculties to the utmost; and yet, as no sense can perceive the impalpability of darkness, so no thought can pierce the impenetrability of silence.—One must visit a wintry clime to experience emotions such as these. ”

“ A difficult and a delicate path it is that a girl has to tread through life—and often enough a dangerous. Yet with extraordinary deftness she treads it. She must win her a mate, yet has to pretend that the mate wins her. She makes believe to be captured, yet has herself to be intent on the chase. To be wooed and wedded is the law of her being, yet not for one moment dares she to exhibit too great an alacrity to obey that law; for she knows instinctively that an easy victory prognosticates a fickle victor. ”

“ Autumn in England is equally lovely. In the new world—at least in the northern regions—there is a chill in the fall of the year. The cold north-western winds, cradled amidst palæocrystic ice, and blowing over tundra and prairie, are untempered by Gulf Stream or ocean. Untempered, too, by cloud and moisture, they cut keen, and reveal the leafless landscape in all its bareness. And it may be that they bring with them the thought that for many months to come that landscape will be bare indeed—unless covered with a shroud of snow. ”

“ She who captures a man by a single charm, be it even beauty, holds him by a weak chain.
Think not it was merely beauty that made Helen or Cleopatra historic.
Beauty is much, and grace is much; but there is a charm more subtle and potent than these.
* * *
Beauty without modesty is a rose without perfume: the petals may delight, but they lack an ineffable savor. Like a flower, too,
Though the tangible petals are numbered and comptable, the subtle perfume eludes the sense and is inexhaustible. For
Modesty is the exhalation of the soul: at once it enhances, as it refines, the potency of beauty. ”

“ There are, I know, who affect to believe that Golf consists of country walks, diversified and embellished by pauses made for the purpose of impelling little round balls into little round holes; that mind and eye are occupied chiefly with the beauties of Nature, and that the impulsion of the insignificant sphere into the insignificant void is, as it were, but a sop to Cerberus, or a cock sacrificed to the Æsculapius of this sporting age. "How greatly," said to me once a fair and innocent stranger to my links—"how greatly this beautiful landscape must enhance the pleasure of your game!" ”

“ That is a significant fact, and probably, could we fathom all the profundities and unravel all the entanglements of the relations between the sexes, as deep and as intricate as significant, that no woman thinks a man can pay her a higher compliment than to wish to make her his own. For though
Woman thinks man her ultimate aim and desire, Nature knows that man is but the stepping-stone to the child. In the end woman agrees with Nature. We may go farther, and say
Women are nearer the eternal laws than are men. Men govern themselves by the laws they themselves make. Women are lawless. ”