Charles S. Brooks

“ The magic vista is golden to the coming of the twilight, and the sunset builds a gaudy tower that out-tops the dawn. If a man permits, a child keeps house within his heart to the very end.
And therefore, as I think of those whittled daggers with their spot of blood, of that popping pistol, of the captain's horrid hook, of the black craft flying the skull and crossbones in the attic, I know, despite appearance, that I am young myself. I snap my fingers at the clock. It ticks merely for its own amusement. ”

“ When it tumbles wit is sour, but humor goes uncomplaining without its dinner. Humor laughs at another's jest and holds its sides, while wit sits wrapped in study for a lively answer. But it is a workaday world in which we live, where we get mud upon our boots and come weary to the twilight—it is a world that grieves and suffers from many wounds in these years of war: and therefore as I think of my acquaintance, it is those who are humorous in its best and truest meaning rather than those who are witty who give the more profitable companionship. ”

“ The child has this truantry when he plays at Indian, for he fashions the universe to his desires. But some men too can lift themselves, though theirs is an intellectual bootstrap, into a life that moves above these denser airs. Theirs is an intensity that goes deeper than daydreaming, although it admits distant kinship. Through what twilight and shadows do such men climb until night and star-dust are about them! Theirs is the dizzy exaltation of him who mounts above the world. Alas, in me is no such unfathomable mystery. ”

“ In the twilight they have lifted vagrant anchors and they will moor in strange havens at the dawn.
Are not these ragged clouds the garment of the night? Like the beggar maiden of an ancient tale she runs with flying raiment. She unmasks her beauty when the world's asleep. And the wind, like an eager prince upon his wooing, rides out of the stormy north.
And then! Poof! Sleep draws its dark curtain across the glittering pageant—
Presently I hear Annie, the cook, on the kitchen steps below, beating me up to breakfast. She sounds her unwelcome reveille on a tin pan with an iron spoon. ”

“ I gazed at the chimney bricks and their substance seemed to part before my eyes. I looked into a world beyond—a fabric of moonlight and hilltop and the hot fret of youth. Perhaps the boy had only been waiting for the fire upon the hearth to cool to enter this other world of his restless ambition and desire.
Reader, if by chance you have the habit of writing—let us confine ourselves now to sonnets and such airy matter as rides upon the night—doubtless, you sit sometimes at your desk bare of thoughts. The juices of your intellect are parched and dry. ”

“ Why, Betsy?
Betsy: The sea is never gentle. It never sleeps. I have stood listening at the window on breathless nights, but the ocean always slaps against the rocks. Even in a calm it moves and frets. Is it not said that the ghosts of evil men walk back and forth on the spot where their crimes are done? The ocean, perhaps, for its cruel wreckage, haunts these cliffs. It is doomed through all eternity with a lather of breaking waves to wash these rocks of blood. And the wind whistles to bury the cries of drowning men that plague the memory. ”

“ Often when I observe a workman descend from his eagle’s nest in the open steel frame of a lofty building, I look into his face for some trace of exaltation, some message from his wider horizon. You may remember how they gazed into Alcestis’ face when she returned from the House of Hades, that they might find there a token of her shadowed journey. It is lucky that I am no taller than six feet; if ten, giddiness would set in and reversion to type on all fours. An undizzied man is to me as much of a marvel as one who in his heart of hearts is not afraid of a horse. ”

“ But sometimes in their intensity—in their sureness of exclusive salvation—they fall to bickering. One band of converts elbows another. There is a mutual lifting of the nose in scorn, an amused contempt, or they come to blows and all candles are extinguished. And sometimes, with candles out, they travel onward, still telling one another of their band how the darkness flees before them.
We live in a world of storm, of hatred, of blind conceit, of shrill and intolerant opinion. The past is worshiped. The past is scorned. Some wish only to kiss the great toe of old convention. ”

“ And I had been told that water runs always beneath the bridge, that the deepest roses fade, that Time's white beard keeps growing to his knee. These phrases of wisdom I had heard and others. But what mattered them to me when my long young life lay stretched before me? Nor did the revolving stars concern me—nor the moon, spring with its gaudy brush, nor gray-clad winter. Nor did I care how the wind blew the swift seasons across the earth. Let Time's horses gallop, I cried. Speed! The bewildering peaks of youth are forward. The inn for the night lies far across the mountains. ”

“ A rooster crows somewhere far off—surely of all sounds the drowsiest. A horse in a field below lifts up its head and neighs. The leaves practice a sleepy tune. If one has the fortune to keep awake, here he may lie and think the thoughts that are born of sun and wind.
And now, although it is not yet noon, hunger rages in us. The pancakes, the syrup, the toast and the other incidents of breakfast have disappeared the way the rabbit vanishes when the magician waves his hand. The horrid Polyphemus did not so crave his food. And as yet there is no comforting sniff from the kitchen. ”

“ Every room contains a story. That chair, the stove, the very tub for washing holds its secrets. The stairs echo with the tread of a dozen lives. And in every crowd upon the street I could cast a stone and find a hero. There is a seamstress somewhere, a locksmith, a fellow with a shovel. I need but the genius to pluck out the heart of their mystery. The rumble of the subway is the friction of lives that rub together. The very roar of cities is the meshing of our human gear.
I dream of this world I might create. In romantic mood, a castle lifts its towers into the blue dome of heaven. ”

“ But when darkness thickens and the sunlight has vanished from the floor, then comes the magic hour. The garret then tears from its eyes the blind bandage of the day. Strange creatures lift their heads. And now, as you wait expectant, there comes a mysterious sound from the darkest corner. Is it a mouse that stirs? Rather, it seems a far-off sound, as though a blind man, tapping with his stick, walked on the margin of the world. The noise comes near. It gains in volume. It is close at hand. Dear lad, you have come upon the magic hour. ”

“ But behold the man whose custom is to sleep upon a porch! At what slightest hint—the night being yet young, with scarce three yawns gone round—does he shut his book and screen the fire! With what speed he bolts the door and puts out the downstairs lights, lest callers catch him in the business! How briskly does he mount the stairs with fingers already on the buttons! Then with what scattering of garments he makes him ready, as though his explosive speed had blown him all to pieces and lodged him about the room! ”

“ And a child dwells in the heart of the woman of the lending library.
We are too ready to believe that childhood passes with the years—that its fine imagination is blunted with the hard practice of the world. Too long have we been taught that the clouds of glory fade in the common day—that the lofty castles of the morning perish in the noon-day sun. ”

“ The crook of a hungry finger will bring him to a stand. Or a junkman is below upon his business. Yesterday the bells upon his cart would have sounded sour, but this morning they rattle agreeably, as though a brisker cow than common, springtime in her hoofs, were jangling to her pasture. At the sound—if you are of country training—you see yourself, somewhat misty through the years, barefoot in a grassy lane, with stick in hand, urging the gentle beast. There is a subtle persuasion in the junkman's call. In these tones did the magician, bawling for old lamps, beguile Aladdin. ”

“ There are such hooks, swivels, blocks and tackles, such confusion of ships’ devices as would be enough for the building of a sea tale. It may be fancied that here is Treasure Island itself, shuffled and laid apart in bits like a puzzle-picture. (For genius, maybe, is but a nimbleness of collocation of such hitherto unconsidered trifles.) Then you will go aloft where sails are made, with sailormen squatting about, bronzed fellows, rheumatic, all with pipes. And through all this shop is the smell of hemp and tar. ”

“ The wind, at last, like a merry piper, cries out the tune, and its brisk and sunny days come dancing from the north.
Yesterday was a holiday and I went walking in the woods. Although it is still September it grows late, and there is already a touch of October in the air. After a week of sultry weather—a tardy remnant from last month—a breeze yesterday sprang out of the northwest. Like a good housewife it swept the dusty corners of the world. It cleared our path across the heavens and raked down the hot cobwebs from the sky. Clouds had yawned in idleness. ”

“ Dear little lad, in this darkness may there be no fear! For these shadows of the twilight—which too long have been chased like common miscreants with lamp and candle—are really friendly beings and they wait to romp with you. Because thieves have walked in darkness, shall darkness be called a thief? Rather, let the dark hours take their repute from the countless gracious spirits that are abroad—the quieter fancies that flourish when the light has gone—the gentle creatures that leave their hiding when the sun has set. ”

“ He has gone forth on a holiday to take the country air, to thrust himself into the freer wind, to poke with his stick for such signs of Spring as may be hiding in the winter's leaves. Having been grinding in an office he flings himself on the great round world. He has come out to smell the earth. Or maybe he seeks a hilltop for a view of the fields that lie below patched in many colors, as though nature had been sewing at her garments and had mended the cloth from her bag of scraps. ”

“ It was an old neighbor who dropped in after dinner, as it were, for a bit of gossip and an apple. But even the itinerant knife-grinder—whose whirling wheel I can hear this minute below me in the street—even the knife-grinder has a route. He knows at what season we grow dull. What necessity, then, of ours beckons to the moon? Perhaps it comes with a silver brush to paint the earth when it grows shabby with the traffic of the day. Perhaps it shows itself to stir a lover who halts coldly in his suit. The pink god, they say, shoots a dangerous arrow when the moon is full. ”

“ It is hard to realize that other two-legged creatures like myself are habitually awake at this hour. In a wakeful night I may have heard the whistles and the clank of far-off wheels, and I may have known dimly that work goes on; yet for the most part I have fancied that the world, like a river steamboat in a fog, is tied at night to its shore: or if it must go plunging on through space to keep a schedule, that here and there a light merely is set upon a tower to warn the planets. ”

“ A drinking bar is nearest to the street where its polished brasses catch the eye. It holds a gilded mirror to such red-faced nature as consorts within. Yet you pass the bar and come upon a range of tables at the rear.
Now, if you yield to the habits of the place you order a rump of meat. Gravy lies about it like a moat around a castle, and if there is in you the zest for encounter, you attack it above these murky waters. "This castle hath a pleasant seat," you cry, and charge upon it with pike advanced. ”

“ And there are battleships and swift destroyers and guns and armoured tanks. The nursery becomes a dangerous ocean, with submarines beneath the stairs: or it is the plain of Flanders and the great war echoes across the hearth. Château-Thierry is a pattern in the rug and the andirons are the towers of threatened Paris.
But on this Christmas night, as I stand before the toy-shop in the whirling storm, the wind brings me the laughter of far-off children. Time draws back its sober curtain. The snow of thirty winters is piled in my darkened memory, but I hear shrill voices across the night. ”

“ If denied the longer outing, I hope that at least it is your custom to go forth upon a holiday to look upon the larger earth. Where the road most winds and dips and the distance is of the finer purple, let that direction be your choice! Seek out the region of the hills! Outposts and valleys here, with smoke of suppers rising. Trains are so small that a child might draw them with a string. Far-off hills are tumbled and in confusion, as if a giant were roused and had flung his rumpled cloak upon the plain.
Or if a road and a stream seem close companions, tag along with them! ”

“ If the market is up, they can hardly be conscious even that they are crossing a river. Nor do I entirely blame them. If one kept shop on a breezy tip of the Delectable Mountains with all the regions of the world laid out below, he could not be expected to climb up for the hundredth time with a first exhilaration, or to swing his alpenstock as though he were on a rare holiday. If one had business across the Styx too often—although the scenery on its banks is reputed to be unusual—he might in time sit below and take to yawning. ”

“ At high noon I do not hear the lotus song. I do not topple, full of dreams, off the platform of a street-car. The sleepy poppy is not always at my nose.
Nor do I yawn at dinner behind a napkin, or doze in the firelight when there are guests about. My manners keep me from this boorishness. In an extremity, if they sit too late, I stir the fire, or I put my head out of doors for the wind to waken me. I show a sudden anxiety whether the garage is locked. I pretend that the lawn-mower is left outside, or that the awnings are loose and flapping. ”

“ And the winds pounce upon the smoke as it issues from the chimney-pots and wring it by the neck as they bear it off.
And sometimes it seems that these roofs represent youth, and its purpose, its ambition and adventure. For, from of old, have not poets lived in garrets? And are not all poets young even if their beards are white? Round and round the poet climbs, up these bare creaking flights to the very top. There is a stove to be lighted—unless the woodbox fails—a sloping ceiling and a window huddled to the floor. The poet's fingers may be numb. ”

“ And now above his dusty road the sun climbs the exultant noon. It whips its flaming chariot to the west. On the rim of twilight, like a traveler who departs, it throws a golden offering to the world.
But there are pilgrims in these later days, also,—strangers to our own fair city, script in wallet and staff in hand,—who come to place their heavy tribute on our shrine. And to them I offer these few suggestions.
The double stars of importance—as in Baedeker—mark our restaurants and theatres. Dear pilgrim, put money in thy purse! Persuade your guild to advance you to a penny! ”

“ A merely witty player might have drawn as many laughs, but there would not have been the catching at the heart.
As for books and the wit or humor of their pages, it appears that wit fades, whereas humor lasts. Humor uses permanent nutgalls. But is there anything more melancholy than the wit of another generation? In the first place, this wit is intertwined with forgotten circumstance. It hangs on a fashion—on the style of a coat. It arose from a forgotten bit of gossip. In the play of words the sources of the pun are lost. It is like a local jest in a narrow coterie, barren to an outsider. ”

“ Shall a candle wink at flaming Jupiter as an equal? By what persuasion is one's own tiny wick, shielded in the fingers from misadventure, the greatest light?
Who is there who has read more than a single chapter in the book of life? Most of us have faltered through scarcely a dozen paragraphs, yet we scribble our sure opinion in the margin. We hear a trifling pebble fall in a muddy pool, and we think that we have listened to the pounding of the sea. We hold up our little candle and we consider that its light dispels the general night. ”

“ Already he journeys to those peaks and lofty towers that fringe the world of youth—a dizzy range that casts a magic border on his first wide thoughts, to be overleaped if he seek to tread the stars.
And yet it seems a sleepy afternoon. Flowers nod upon a shelf in the idle breeze from the open casement. On the warm sill a drowsy sunlight falls, as if the great round orb of day, having labored to the top of noon, now dawdled idly on the farther slope. A cat dozes with lazy comfort on the window-seat. ”

“ If he snuffle at the nose, he must snuffle cheerfully and with hope. Wit, with its unexpected turns, is to be desired; but a pleasant and even humor is a better comrade on a dusty road. It endures blisters and an empty stomach. A pack rests more lightly on its weary shoulders. If he sing, he should know a round of tunes and not wear a single melody to tatters. The merriest lilt grows dull and lame when it travels all the day. But although I wish my companion to be of a cheerful temper, he need not pipe or dance until the mists have left the hills. ”

“ I peer into shop windows, not so much for the wares displayed as for glimpses of the men and women engaged in their disposal. I watch laborers trudging home with the tired clink of their implements and pails. I gaze into cellarways where tailor and cobbler sit bent upon their work—needle and peg, their world—and through fouled windows into workrooms, to learn which livelihoods yield the truest happiness. ”

“ It smokes a contented pipe to the tune of every rivulet. It rests a peaceful stomach on the rail of every bridge, and it observes the floating leaves, like golden caravels upon the stream. It interprets a trivial event. It is both serious and absurd. It sits on a fence to moralize on the life of cows and flings in Plato on the soul. It plays catch and toss with life and death and the world beyond. And it sees significance in common things. A farmer's cart is a tumbril of the Revolution. ”

“ Apple blossoms fall upon the water like the snow of a more kindly winter. A gay leaf puts out upon the channel like a painted galleon for far adventure. A twig sails off freighted with my drowsy thoughts. A branch of a willow dips in the stream and writes an endless trail of words in the running water. In these evil days when the whole fair world is trenched and bruised with war, what wisdom does it send to the valleys where men reside—what love and peace and gentleness—what promise of better days to come—that it makes this eternal stream its messenger! ”

“ It was the twilight of a winter's day. A rack of sullen clouds lay across the sky as if they met for mischief, and the water was black with wind. In the threatening obscurity the whole island seemed a mightier House of Usher, intricate of many buildings, cleft by Broadway in its middle, and ready to fall prostrate into the dark waters of the tarn. But until the gathering tempest rises and an evil moon peers through the crevice, as in the story, we must judge the city to be safe.
Northward are nests of streets, thick with children. ”

“ Perhaps we were too old to believe in Santa Claus, but even so, on this magic night might not a skeptic be at fault—might there not be a chance that the discarded world had returned to us? Once a year, surely, reason might nod and drowse. Perhaps if we put our noses on the cold glass and peered hard into the glittering darkness, we might see the old fellow himself, muffled to his chin in furs, going on his yearly errands. ”

“ Grope your way into a basement—wherever one of our fantastic signs hangs out—or climb broken stairs into a dusty garret—over a contractor's storage of old lumber and bath-tubs—over the litter of the roofs—and you will find artistic folk with flowing ties, spreading their elbows at bare tables with unkept, dripping candles.
Here is youth that is blown hither from distant villages—youth that was misunderstood at home—youth that looks from its poor valley to the heights and follows a flame across the darkness—youth whose eyes are a window on the stars. ”

“ And it is certain that to be off upon a journey with a rucksack strapped upon you at an hour when the butcher boy takes down his shutters is a high pleasure. Off you go through the village with swinging arms. Off you go across the country. A farmer is up before you and you hear his reaper across the field, and the neighing of his horses at the turn. Where the hill falls sharp against the sky, there he stands outlined, to wipe the sweat. And as your nature is, swift or sluggish thoughts go through your brain—plots and vagrant fancies, which later your pencil will not catch. ”

“ Smoke looks out from chimneys, but finds no wind for comrade. For a penny it would stay at home and doze upon the hearth, to await a playmate from the north. The birds are still. Only the insects sing. A threshing-machine, far off, sinks to as drowsy a melody as theirs, like a company of grasshoppers, but with longer beard and deeper voice. The streams that frolicked to nimble tunes in May now crawl from pool to pool. The very shadows linger under cover. They crouch close beneath shed and tree, and scarcely stir a finger until the fiery sun has turned its back. ”

“ To learn even the quarter of a breeze—unless there is a trail of smoke to guide me—I must hold up a wet finger. In my ignorance clouds sail across the heavens on a whim. Like white sheep they wander here and there for forage, and my suspicion of bad weather comes only when the tempest has whipped them to a gallop. Even a band around the moon—which I am told is primary instruction on the coming of a storm—stirs me chiefly by its deeper mystery, as if astrology, come in from the distant stars, lifts here a warning finger. ”

“ Let Wyoming go and hang itself in its muddy riding-boots and khaki shirt! Let its tall horses leap upward and click their heels upon the moon! I am for England.
It is my preference to land at Plymouth, and our anchor—if the captain is compliant—will be dropped at night, in order that the Devon hills, as the thrifty stars are dimmed, may appear first through the mists of dawn. If my memory serves, there is a country church with stone-embattled tower on the summit above the town, and in the early twilight all the roads that climb the hills lead away to promised kingdoms. ”

“ Dear lad, there is a sunny world beyond the garden gate, cities and rolling hills and far-off rivers with white sails going up and down. There are wide oceans, and ships with tossing lights, and islands set with palm trees. And there are stars above your roof for you to wonder at. But also, nearer home, there are gentle shadows on the stairs, a dim cellar for the friendly creatures of your fancy, and for your exalted mood there is a garret with dark corners. ”

“ Here is mirth that shakes its sides when its neighbors sleep. Here is a hungry student whose ambition builds him rosy castles. Here is a light at a fevered pillow where hope burns dim.
On some fairy night I would wish to wander in the woods, when there are dancing shadows and a moon. Here Oberon holds state. Here Titania sleeps. I would cross a silver upland. I would stand on a barren hill-top, like the skipper of the world in its whirling voyage. ”

“ Does no one now climb the attic steps? Has time worn down the awful Caucasus? No longer is there children's laughter on the stairs. The echo of their feet sleeps at last in the common day.
Nor must furniture, of necessity, be discarded. We dived from the footboard of our bed into a surf of pillows. We climbed its headboard like a mast, and looked for pirates on the sea. A sewing-table with legs folded flat was a sled upon the stairs. Must I do more than hint that two bed-slats make a pair of stilts, and that one may tilt like King Arthur with the wash-poles? ”