Ariel

“ He was a long-legged boy, with a mop of tousled black hair, clever eyes, and an ambiguous, crooked smile. Very white teeth. His tie, a brilliant orange ribbon, and his teeth wavered before Ariel’s shaky vision, and then she was turned to face Prescott Enderly.
The young celebrity was quickly effervescent. In the instant of introduction he gave everything to Ariel Clare, all the color and sparkle of his personality. He had liked the back of her green frock and the way her hair—pale hair, of no color at all by lamplight—curled in at the back of her neck, before she was turned to him. ”

“ Never had Ariel dreamed that she would become involved with a living one.
The magenta lips opened. Words fell out. “Well, hello, Ariel Clare. Were you seasick?”
The deep throaty voice with the catch in it only heightened the doll effect.
Ariel shook her head negatively, and stepping backward, crouched down on the side of the bed as Anne clumped a step or two nearer. “Congratulations,” the magenta lips husked on. “It’s almost time for the dinner gong. Where’s your bag? Oh, there!” ”

“ The thing that had impressed Ariel about these fellow passengers during the two days of the voyage was their apparent self-sufficiency,—a gay, bright assurance of their own significance, and the reasonableness, even the inevitableness, of their being what and where they were. The very children appeared to take it quite as a matter of course that they should come skimming over the Atlantic in a mammoth boat-hotel while they played their games, read their books and ate their meals,—just like that. ”

“ He read rapidly the familiar scenes describing Ariel, the light, invisible spirit, and Caliban, the hideous son of the old hag, and Prospero, with his beautiful daughter, and the dripping refugees from the sea, and became so deeply absorbed as perfectly to forget where he was, until a slight rustling behind a briery thicket near the bait aroused his attention. Whatever the animal might have been, its step was very stealthy, and evidently approaching. Laying down the book, and grasping his gun, he peeped cautiously around ”

“ Tall wax candles glimmered their light down on the piano, over the ivory keys and the glossy rosewood, and the dish with the anemones. But the anemones themselves stood up dark in the dusk, their colors lost. At the edge of the area of light shed by the crystal lamp on the bench, across the room, lay Grandam, her head elevated, among her pillows. She was wearing the silver scarf in which Ariel had been discovered by Mrs. Weyman.
A chair was drawn up conveniently near to the daybed in preparation for Miss Clare’s visit. But Ariel ignored it, or perhaps did not see it. ”

“ Of all the spirits that tend on mortal thoughts there is none to match this so delicate and gorgeous Ariel of his,—this creature that he keeps to put his girdles round the earth for him, that comes at a thought, and brings in such dainty banquets, such brave pageants in the earth or in the air; there is none other that knows so well the spells 'to make this place Paradise.' But, for all that, he is the merest tool,—the veriest drudge and slave. The magician's collar is always on his neck ”

“ Ariel has a many-sided character. Find in the play where the following questions are answered: Is he faithful? Does he do his duties well? Does Ariel love music? Does he feel grati [482] tude? Does he always favor the right? Is Ariel merry? Does he love fun? Does he play practical jokes? Does he love warmth and light, or cold and darkness? Is he sympathetic? Does he lessen the grief of any one? Does he lead any one to remorse for evil deeds? Does he assist love in the hearts of Ferdinand and Miranda? Do you think Prospero always treats him fairly? ”

“ Ariel appears in different forms. What are these forms? Is Ariel ever visible to any of the characters besides Prospero? Does Ariel ever appear visibly to Prospero? If the play were to be acted on the stage, would it be necessary at any time to have a person come upon the stage to represent him?
(d) Ariel has human characteristics. What acts like those of a human being does Ariel commit? What does Ariel say that shows him to have human traits?
(e) Ariel is a spirit. What supernatural things does Ariel do? What does Ariel say that makes him seem more than human? ”

“ But what he’s concentrating on is not the harmony in his own psyche, but to storm the harmony in hers. He isn’t fit for love—and I’m not going to pity Hugh now any more than I pity myself, please God. Neither of us is fit to be loved, or we would be.”
But then she noticed Ariel’s face, and was silenced as if by a thunder-clap, although Ariel’s face was as quiet as a stone and shut like a stone. Still, Anne was awed or frightened—she didn’t know which—into sudden silence. ”

“ The little man was vigorously shrugging his sincerity and his sorrow. For an instant more Ariel saw Hugh hesitate. Then his eyes narrowed ever so slightly and he too shrugged—a whimsical submission.
He came toward Ariel. “Better keep it on,” he suggested. “We’ll carry the tweed one. Excuse me a minute, please, while I go to the office and establish my credit over their telephone.” He placed a chair for her with as much manner as if she were indeed the princess the coat made her out to be, and went down the shop where there was a glass-encased office booth. ”

“ It is a world where any mysterious thing may happen—a world of five thousand years ago—the air so light, so sweetly searching and vibrating, that Ariel would seem of the picture, and gleaming hosts of mailed men, or vast colonies of green-clad archers moving to virgin woods might belong. Something frightens the timid spirit of a springbok, and his flight through the grass is like a phrase of music on a wilful adventure ”

“ Wood smoke mingled with the smell of the violets which bloomed perpetually in the glass bowl by the daybed. This mixture of smells had lifelong association for Hugh. It meant understanding and an atmosphere of exquisite harmony between two human beings. Grandam was draped in a red shawl—the red of wild poppies in June fields—and lying in the long chair under the western windows. Ariel was kneeling on the floor by her side, and they were reading from a book resting on the arm of the chair, “The Oxford Book of English Verse.” ”

“ Ariel fulfils his office, and is not of one kind with those he serves. Is there a memory of Harlequin in that delicate figure? Something of the subservient immortality, of the light indignity, proper to Pantaleone, Brighella, Arlecchino, Colombina, and the Clown, hovers away from the stage when Ariel is released from the trouble of human things. ”

“ But Ariel brought him safe ashore; and all the rest of the crew, although they were washed overboard, were landed unhurt in different parts of the island, and the good ship herself, which they all thought had been wrecked, lay at anchor in the harbor whither Ariel had brought her. Such wonders could Prospero and his spirits perform.
While yet the tempest was raging, Prospero showed his daughter the brave ship laboring in the trough of the sea, and told her that it was filled with living human beings like themselves. ”

“ Something living and vital. And how glad he was that he had hit on that particular coat for her! It went with the fairy-tale hat, the fairy-tale eyes. He took joy in his gift.
After the train had rushed out of the landscape, Ariel stood on the platform for a moment longer, the only visible sentient thing in the whole morning world,—a morning world that cried, “Come, Come, Come. Dive, swim, run through me, come into my heart! I love you as your beach at home loves you, as the sea loves you. Come quickly. Every step since you left Wild Acres’ door you have been getting nearer. ”

“ It is now claimed by the most advanced and best psychologists, that a forceful, living thought does become a real embodiment which may be perceived by the finer senses. Ariel was what the mind of his master made him, sometimes a sprite, sometimes a sea-nymph, again a harpy, anything and everything the master directed. ”

“ The old man took up his fiddle, and laid his cheek lovingly against it. A moment he stood still, as if holding silent commune with the spirit of music, the tricksy Ariel imprisoned in the old wooden case; then he began to play "Rosin the Beau." As he played, he kept his eyes fixed on the bend of the road some rods ahead, as if expecting every moment to see some one appear from the direction of the village. ”

“ Prospero; and Ariel told his master he was certain their penitence was sincere, and that he, though a spirit, could not but pity them.
“Then bring them hither, Ariel,” said Prospero: “if you, who are but a spirit, feel for their distress, shall not I, who am a human being like themselves, have compassion on them? Bring them quickly, my dainty Ariel.”
Ariel soon returned with the king, Antonio, and old Gonzalo in their train, who had followed him wondering at the wild music he played in the air to draw them on to his master’s presence. ”

“ Bathed in cloud, seeing their path dimly, they walked hand in hand, loaded with gifts of the chase, and of the vine, and pure water, and sweet-scented wood. Ariel found a new beauty in the thick vapor which shut out the heavens, and so stilled the song of the trees that, listening, he believed he could hear the very mist singing, as it moved onward upon its errand of fruitfulness and health; but Tubal saw power, and felt his strength grow within him, and, invigorated, stood erect, and trod more proudly the earth which he claimed as his own. ”

“ Not a hair of his head is injured, and his princely garments, though drenched in the sea-waves, look fresher than before.”
“That’s my delicate Ariel,” said Prospero. “Bring him hither: my daughter must see this prince. Where is the king, and my brother?”
“I left them,” answered Ariel, “searching for Ferdinand, whom they have little hopes of finding, thinking they saw him perish. Of the ship’s crew not one is missing; though each one thinks himself the only one saved: and the ship, though invisible to them, is safe in the harbor.” ”

“ The enthusiasm aroused by the exceptional quality and deep compass of her voice, her intelligence, and her excellent enunciation, was proof against her plain features and clumsy figure. But when she appeared as Ariel, the ‘Morning Post’ remarked that Ariel ‘was a full head and shoulders taller and some few inches wider in the girth than Prospero,’ played by Hull. ”

“ Joan was waiting on the lowest stair under the portico, when they drove it around to the door, and Ariel had not yet broken away from Michael Schwankovsky’s farewells on the top step. The big voice was booming, “And next winter we’ll make a dancer of you! Divine! Better than Isadora ever was!”
Ariel laughed. “No, Michael. No, no. I shall never be a dancer. I may dance for you, if you will play again. Because you are not grown up and don’t embarrass me. I don’t mind you any more than I mind Persis and Nicky. You’ll dance with me. But you can’t ever make me into a dancer. Dear Michael!” ”

“ But this hat was different. He realized that, when he caught it from the corner of his eye, passing the shop window. It sang Ariel. And he had got it for a “song.” But not the feather that was tacked to the brim, ruffling jewel notes in the wind. That had dropped from a song, not been bought at all. He had picked it up on the beach almost at their door as he came back one afternoon, not many weeks ago, from what was to prove his last swim. No bird from which this feather could have dropped had ever been seen on the island, so far as any ornithologist knew. ”

“ Another mark-worthy feature of Ariel is, that his power does not stop with the physical forces of Nature, but reaches also to the hearts and consciences of men; so that by his music he can kindle or assuage the deepest griefs of the one, and strike the keenest pangs of remorse into the other. This comes out in the different effects of his art upon Ferdinand and the guilty King, as related by the men themselves ”

“ She makes the best of it, and she tells us she is going to play Nerissa in the Bacon Company, as if she had got engaged for a parlourmaid in a good house, and discusses Ariel as if Ariel were a tweeny or up-and-down girl between the sky and the earth, and Puck a smart clever Buttons. She speaks of her nice legs as a workman might of his bag of tools. She can sing and dance, when she isn’t asked to act. She has cut all her hair short to make it easier for wigs. ”

“ It is not only that your Ariel is untrained, but that the special Ariel which you may chance to own is no better than a rustic hobgoblin or a pease-blossom, or mustard seed at the best. You cannot get the pace of the racehorse from a farmyard colt, train him as you will. How often is one prompted to fling one's self down in despair, and, weeping between the branches, to declare that it is not that the thoughts will wander, it is not that the mind is treacherous! ”

“ All this, to be sure, is making the work rather an allegory than a drama, and therein of course misrepresents its quality. For the connecting links in this strange intercourse of man and Nature are "beings individually determined," and affect us as persons, not as propositions.
Ariel and Caliban are equally preternatural, though in opposite directions. Ariel's very being is spun out of melody and fragrance; at least, if a feeling soul and an intelligent will are the warp, these are the woof of his exquisite texture. ”

“ Joan was suddenly impressed by the somberness of Ariel’s tone, and her intent gaze,—almost disconcerted by it. “Gregory Clare?” she asked tentatively.
“The artist.”
Prescott Enderly laughed aloud, a nervous, meaningless laugh. And simultaneous with the young novelist’s laugh, Mrs. Nevin did remember—something, almost everything in fact. “Oh, yes, Mrs. Weyman’s letter mentioned that your father was an artist. Do you paint too, Ariel?” ”