John Richard Vernon

“ The dewdrops twinkle about me in the drenched grass, groups of brown toadstools cluster here and there, and wax-white fungi straggle away in a broken line; there is a scarlet gleam of hips in the rose-bushes under the shrubbery, and of mountain-ash higher above them. It is Winter, but nature has not forgotten to stick some sprays of Christmas about her bare pillars, and to twist them in devices about her arches, that run up around me into this groined roof above.
The first thing that we all should muse about, under the bare boughs, would be, I suppose, the leaves that once clad them. ”

“ Grass is always beautiful,—thus I am led to think as, leaning on one arm, I inspect the material of my couch. Beautiful after the winter lethargy, and when it grows lush and green, vividly green, and taller and taller under the showers, at the roots of the pines that step forward here and there from the shrubberies into the lawn. Beautiful again, when the scythe and mowing-machine have destroyed this beauty, and substituted that of the smooth, well-kept velvet sward. Beautiful, growing in the meadows, and deepening for hay; a sweet close under-growth of white or dull pink clover ”

“ The glow will pass, the sunlight die, the flowers will fade, the bird-songs sink into silence. And, if you have not profited by that gleam of heaven which opened upon your soul, you are certain to have lost by it, especially when such a warmth, such a light, broke, by God’s grace, through the dull sky of a cold and worldly life. If any message from God have warmed your bare heart into leaf and bloom, beware how you let the golden opportunity remain unemployed. Beware lest the east winds return, and nip and scatter the frail petals ere the germ of some good fruit be formed. ”

“ Money, love, fame, power; it is, while we stand on the mountain, the tinkle of a sheep-bell far below us in the valley; it is the pigmy form, it is the muffled cry of those things which seemed to us large and of full growth, when we met them down far below in the bustle and busy intercourse of life. I think of Martha, with the ordering of a meal the great matter in her eyes; Mary, indeed at the Saviour’s feet, but thus seated, placed, in good truth, upon a mountain, from whose wide range of view all merely of this world seemed petty, worthless, mean. Oh, for a mountain view of life! ”

“ It is beautiful when it rains far away in the distance, the bright sun shining on the mound on which you stand, and only a few guerilla drops heralding the approach of the shower towards you. It is beautiful among leafless trees, in early Spring or late Autumn, under an avenue, or in a copse, when every long bough and black branch is glittering, strung with trembling diamonds; when, the force of the wind and rain being kept from you by the trees and underwood, the gentle sadness and quiet melancholy of the scene can be gathered into your heart. ”

“ It is not Dream-land any longer—not a scene of faint rose-flushed or dazzling white blossom, but of hushed, sober colour, and of somewhat of monotony and sameness. The fair Bride fruit-trees are clad in dark garments now, and busy with their families of little unripe things, that have to be educated into ripeness and usefulness. The oaks are no more clad in “glad light green” or very red leaves, and the elms have toned down even the little brightening up of Summer growth at the end of their branches, all into that quiet, dust-dulled, dark hue. ”

“ Work, steady work, dry, monotonous work, aye, this is the lesson of Life’s Summer; this succeeds its dream-time, this precedes its rest. Yes, in truth, the Spring anticipation and eager energy have gone. The Autumn repose has not yet come. The year is gravely, and steadily, and prosaically at work now; its ardour and ecstasies calmed, its wild impossible hopes toned down, its grace of blossom vanished. All vegetation is busy, maturing seed and fruit, sober grain and useful hay. ”

“ Happy Spring, that does but long to shed and cast away her myriad white blossoms; and to rush on towards the full-grown Summer:—unknowing in the least, of the sober, misty, tear-strung, if fruitful, Autumn boughs! A happy New Year, little ones! Far be it from me to strip Spring boughs in order to imitate the Autumn which they cannot know! God keep you, my children; God teach you, and God bless you!
* * * * *
A little farther on. Anticipation is glowing warmly in the heart of the young man and the young woman. The time of childhood is left behind. ”

“ Oh yes, the lark’s song is that of the young heart—young enough to stop short at the attainment of simple gladness. There is not yet upon it the sweet hush even of love and sentiment, the upward soaring has no alternate dip and rise; the quick beat of the wings no pause; the bright flash of song no dyings-down into shade. Wonder at life goes hand in hand with joy in it; all is new and all is delicious; all is hope, and nothing is disappointing; the whole widening prospect is one of beauty and glad surprise. The year is in its early Spring, and has never so much as heard of Autumn yet ”

“ I will only say that there is less beauty in this than in most other aspects of nature, and much excuse for the connecting the foggy bare time of year with chill and dreary thoughts. Then, growth of flower and fruit seems suspended, save for a scarlet splash on the hedge here and there; and dead-fingered fungi crowd in bunches above the graves of the flowers, and at the roots of the trees.
The fields are bare, with no coming crops; only swart and self-satisfied pigs roam in herds over them: the grass has stopped growing; there is neither blossom nor fruit, nor leaves upon the trees ”

“ Those anguished yearnings to be nobler prove that we are something nobler than we hold ourselves to be. The depression of the twilight marks our kindred with the golden glory of the sun. Thus may we cheer our hearts, that in their dull hours are wont to judge our aims by our attainments, and from the inadequacy of the performance, to conclude the lowness of the intention. The workman’s dissatisfaction with his own life’s work is the clear proof that his inmost self is nobler, not only than his attainments, but often even than his endeavours. ”

“ What is this strange sadness that seems to you to lurk under the exquisite calm and beautiful stillness of the Autumn morning?
Do you hardly know? I will tell you. That quiet is the quiet of Death coming on; that calm waiting and expectancy is the herald of its approach, the beauty is the hectic flush of the consumptive cheek. Death is sad for Life to contemplate;170 and we are so much akin to all this decay, that this quiet tells us of it almost more than the heavy bell that now and then stirs the air of the Summer morning. ”

“ I have mused in the twilight, until the darkness has fallen, and the heaven is eloquent with its sign-speech of stars. Sitting in a speck of one of those myriad worlds that, flying along with inconceivable velocity, yet appear to me intensely still in the dark, I catch a glimpse of the immensity of the plans and designs of God. Star whirls by star, system fits into system, all in an astounding complex order; none clashing, each kept in its due place and its right proportion by the Infinite Mind. And I gather a hint of a reply to many questions that perplex us, many problems that weary us here ”

“ And the life, if not the lips, of many proclaims—Let the world have my Spring, Summer, Autumn; and after that no doubt a good crop of holiness and heavenly-mindedness will yet be found in the thin last sere days of Life’s year. Let the world have the best of the year; we will spare its fragments and leavings for God. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,275 and Spring goes, and Summer passes, and Autumn dwindles, and the foolish heart begins to discover that it is too late then. For its life is chilled, its sap gone down, its fertility exhausted. ”

“ Yes, once upon a time we stood there: and the Spring air was rife with half-shaped songs and indistinct delicious whispers; and we knew that the hedges and copses were full of all sweet promise-buds; and there were songs in the distance, and an interminable thronging of inexhaustible flowers; and life seemed too sweet, when the first blossom that was our own was grasped in our hand, and the stir of life growing conscious and intelligent first made the heart glow and kindle, as we paused musing upon the Threshold, and looked out upon the sweet, strange opening year of Life. ”

“ May has come; that time of year has passed the sweet April time,
“When all the wood stands in a
mist of green,
And nothing perfect.”
The sparsely-gemmed hedges have thickened now, so that you cannot see the gardens through their bare ribs; and little bunches of tight-clenched buds give abundant promise of the sweet-breathed, shell-petaled hawthorn flowers. The coy ash-trees have begun to fringe over with their feather foliage; the ruddy bushy growth that seemed comically like whiskers, at the base of the elms and the lindens, has changed into a surprise of glorified green ”

“ He has a deep inner enjoyment of the rain, as rain, and his sense of its beauty drinks it in as thirstily as does the drinking earth. It refreshes and cools his heart and brain; he longs to go forth into the fields, to feel its steady stream, to scent its fragrance; to stand under some heavy-foliaged chestnut-tree, and hear the rushing music on the crowded leaves. Let the drought have continued two months; let the glass have been, at last, steadily falling for a day or two; let, at last, a delicious mellow gloom have overspread the hot glaring heavens ”

“ September, which is the Twilight of the year—rather, I would call it the first hint of twilight, when the flush and glow are sobering down, and a cast of thoughtfulness is deepening day by day upon the months. “Autumn has o’erbrimmed the clammy cells” of the bees; the fields, where the long rows of many sheaves stand, gradually grow bare; the intensely dark summer green of the elms and of the hedgerows out of which they rise, is interrupted here and there by a tenderer tinge; the spruce firs in the copses begin to appear more dark, distinct, and particular ”

“ To Autumn or to Spring.
“Sweet is the infant’s waking smile,
And sweet the old man’s rest;
But middle age by no fond wile,
No soothing calm is blest.”
Sweet Summer days! I am far from meaning to depreciate you, or to deny to you the need of much beauty and calm delight; but it is true, nevertheless, and must be conceded, that the poet’s complaint has some ground of reason. We miss something in Summer days: it must ever be so in this world. Attainment must ever disappoint: reality is another thing from the image of our dreams. ”

“ Of all this there is no hint given yet, nor need we yet awake to the knowledge that we have indeed bid the Summer farewell till next year. The evenings are still warm, warm with that cool warmth which is so delicious: it will be some time yet before we can see our breath as we talk: we can stay out well until eight or later, and hear through the open window the clatter of arranging tea-cups, and watch the lamp, still faint in the twilight, warm the room with a dim orange glow. ”

“ How we fret and fume about fields and hedges—merest trifles, when counties and hills—nay, continents and seas—nay, worlds or systems, and space, might lie under the ken of our perception and contemplation, which, indeed, has no bounds, forward, through eternal time, and infinite space! How, in the littleness of things, are we apt to swamp the largeness which they might present to our thought! How life’s pettinesses overmaster the mighty tremendous prospect that God has set before us, looming indeed through a veil of mist, far below our feet! ”

“ I think the contemplation a little way off, of any sorrow or bereavement, bears out what I have said concerning the anticipation of Winter being really the worst and most cheerless time—a time when only the chill, and the death, and the dreariness is in our thoughts, and we do not suspect the strange beauties that will accompany it, nor the warm glow that is hidden in its heart. We only see the trouble coming, and we know not, until the time of need is even with us, of the consolation, and the support, and the spiritual loveliness that are coming too ”

“ In art, compare the mere admiration without knowledge, with the intelligent appreciation. Turned loose without knowledge into a picture-gallery, how many things you admire, almost everything; and how fresh and uncritical is your admiration! But gain knowledge of art, gain experience; and you straightway lose in quantity what you yet gain in quality. You admire fewer pictures, but your admiration of the few is a different thing from that old admiration of the many. It is a higher thing, more intelligent, more subtle, more refined. It is an appreciation now, not merely an ignorant admiration. ”

“ And so with the gladness of manhood. It is a deeper, graver, more fastidious, yet a more reasonable and higher feeling than the gladness of the child. The sparkle, and bubble, and glitter, and singing have gone; but in their stead is a strength, an earnestness, an undercurrent not easily stayed or stemmed or turned aside. The gladness which is intelligent is better than the gladness which is instinctive.
56 And the sadness of experience (for we cannot live long in this world without discovering that life is exquisitely sad) —the sadness which comes with experience—is this also a gain? ”

“ So that the blackbird’s song is that of mature faith, which has met and vanquished anxious questionings, and which, if that of a controversialist at all, is only that of one on whom old age is stealing, and whom experience has made gentle and patient; and yearning for souls has made passionate; and love of Christ has made tenderly and invincibly loving. And so when it thrills out clear and full from his hidden quiet retreat in the evening time, even those that think that there is cause for old grudges against the minstrel are arrested reverently to listen to his deep, thoughtful, loving song. ”

“ We may, perhaps, think—but this is a pleasing thought,—how different all would be with the year, were all this otherwise, and had the Spring, and Summer, and Autumn been squandered in merely making wreaths of dying flowers, that perished at the chill breath of the fogs and frosts.
Thus, then, our sober thought concludes. But still, to our fancy the year seems desolate, forlorn, and sad; the fog is a chill and heavy depression; the rain sobs out its heart in tears ”

“ Keeping the Child’s heart through the Woman’s life; feeling sorrow lightly, and with an April heart; disarming anger or harshness by its simple gleeful innocence; frail yet safe as a feather upon the whirls and eddies of life. Laugh on, light and cheery heart, amid the jay’s harsh dissonance, and the blackbird’s thought, and the thrush’s strength, and the dove’s sadness! Amid Life’s gravities and stern realities there is a grateful place for the gleams of a glad-hearted song like thine! ”

“ And the year has done with its extravagantly profuse promises, its eager pressing on to some ideal and impossible beauty not yet attained, never to be attained, though it would not believe this, in those old inexperienced days, when it cast away blossom and freshness of leaf as things that did but impede it, in the impatience of its hurry after that Perfection which is a dream on earth, though it be true in Heaven. ”