Thomas Traherne

“ Yet Traherne is no quietist: a fervent, passionate lover, rather, of simple and holy things. He sees with the eyes of a child: the whole world shines for him 'apparell'd in celestial light,' and that light, he is well aware, shines out on it, through the eyes which observe it, from the divine soul of man. The verses which I quoted above strike a note to which he recurs again and again. Listen to the exquisite prose in which he recounts the 'pure and virgin apprehension' of his childhood:—
"The corn was orient and immortal wheat which never should be reaped nor was ever sown. ”

“ A man has a right to be cheerful as long as he can. And men of Traherne’s breed hold it a duty—a duty not to be shirked. If to borrow trouble is folly, to lend or impose it is crime.
“I suppose there’s no chance of flying back?” Mrs. Crespin asked more anxiously than she knew.
“Not the slightest, I’m afraid,” Traherne admitted. “I fancy the old bus is done for.”
“Oh, Dr. Traherne, what a shame! And you’d only had it a few weeks!” Her concern for the wrecked aeroplane was entirely sincere, but something bigger than that throbbed at her side and shook her voice just a little. ”

“ But notwithstanding his exuberant and overflowing joy in creation, Traherne is conscious that the world has {332} its "dreggy parts," that it has been "muddied" by man's misuse of it, and that the havoc of sin is apparent. The light which shined in infancy becomes eclipsed as the customs and manners of life close down over it and cover it. Men's mouths are full of talk of fleeting, vulgar, and worthless things, and they speak no syllable of those celestial and stable treasures which form the only wealth of life. The emphasis in education is on the wrong things. ”

“ Traherne did, and he scanned Antony Crespin with a gentleness that was both masculine and splendid—and, because of his passion of heart, soul and body for the other’s wife, was heroic and fine. Lucilla Crespin would have been amazed could she have known how the scales of Traherne’s judgment weighed her and Antony against each other; and, being a woman, her resentment would have been more than her surprise. ”

“ Crespin moaned.
“Lie perfectly still. That will help. I won’t be long.”
“You’re not going to leave me!”
“Must,” Traherne told him, pulling the chick a little closer. “Sorry, but must. I’ve something to see to that won’t keep. I’ll be back as soon as I can. And I’ll tell Abdul what to do for you, and to see that you’re not disturbed.”
“Traherne, you must not leave me.” There’s never a time so miserable that the sound and sight of a friend—the right friend—cannot ease it.
“Look here,” Traherne said with his hand on the other’s arm, “I must. ”

“ It is human nature to hold as a god every possible friend in dire need. Any port in such storm!
“We must go very cautiously, Major,” Traherne reminded him, with a note of deference in his voice. “We must on no account let the Raja suspect that we know anything about wireless telegraphy, else he’d take care we should never get near the installation.”
“Right you are, Traherne,” was the cheerful reply. “I’ll lie very low.”
Suddenly noticing it, and remembering, Mrs. Crespin flung the costly Eastern shawl from her. “And how,” she demanded, “are we to behave to this horrible man?” ”

“ Draggled and broken, the clover-head still gives a perfume, shows a color the unsmirched flower in the ice and snow forever lacks. And, if Traherne never forgot—what every physician knows—that “to step aside is human,” he not only pitied Crespin for all in the older man that was faulty and weak, he also liked and respected him for what was strong and good. ”

“ Traherne believed that some, not much, but some, of the fault was Lucilla Crespin’s. And that he did, proves him as fine in manhood as he was in physicianship; for, before he had known her a month Traherne knew that he loved Antony Crespin’s wife. He had never loved a woman before—or even thought that he had. He believed he never could care for another. ”

“ Crespin insisted.
“You mean pretend to take part in his ghastly comedy of hospitality and politeness?” his wife protested.
“If you can,” Traherne urged quickly, “it would be wisest. We must play the game indeed, and not lose a trick we can possibly help. His delight in showing off his European polish is all in our favor. But for that he might separate us and lock us up. We must avoid that at all costs.” ”

“ Crespin scowled and smoked on moodily, but made no reply. Some men, and not bad sorts at that, who knew him as Traherne did, might have felt inclined to throttle him as he sat there, surly, quarrelsome and ungrateful—a positive menace to them all in their grave predicament, the man who had ruined the life of the woman Traherne loved—as far as one human being can wreck the life of another—who had spoiled her joy, sullied her mind, and made of her radiant young wifehood a sour memory that ached and reeked ”

“ In his lifetime Traherne published nothing beyond a contribution, entitled Roman Forgeries, to Anglican controversy, and a Christian Ethics, which was in the press at the time of his death. It was left to Mr Bertram Dobell in the present century to make public the ardent and mystical poems, which had been preserved in manuscript for more than two centuries, and were on the eve of perishing. ”

“ Your Englishman always is incredulous of what he does not understand.
“I hope so—else we shall run short of champagne,” the Raja said with a laugh.
Traherne, blowing smoke-rings skilfully, knew that Rukh lied. A “show” run on such lines as this was would not get within but a few days’ supply of champagne. Dr. Traherne had understood nothing of what the keys had clicked out, but he was sure that it was something very different from what the Raja had translated—if it had been anything at all, or had gone anywhere. Dr. Traherne understood Rukh better than Rukh understood Crespin. ”

“ All of Traherne's poetry is the record of these experiences and reasonings. He was an orthodox Anglican, but we hear comparatively little in his poetry of sin and of the death of Christ. Sorrow and the macerating sense of sin are swallowed up in the ecstasy of a soul made one with God by mutual need and love, and tasting already the joys of Paradise. ”

“ Traherne interposed.
“Tell that to the marines!” the Colonel growled.
“He is, sir,” the other insisted.
“Taken a rotten way of showing it,” Agnew grunted.
“Very rotten,” Dr. Traherne agreed sadly.
“A sweeter woman never breathed. As nice a woman, and as good a woman too, as God ever made!”
“She is all that,” Basil Traherne said softly.
“I wish you’d seen her when she first came to us.”
“I can imagine her.”
“We lost our heads and our hearts to her. There wasn’t a man in the regiment that didn’t love her, and rejoice in her—and, by Jove! there wasn’t a woman that disliked her. Not one! ”

“ Such audacious ecstasies transcend the limits of average humanity, which is more at home with the fearful joys of Herbert and Vaughan, or the more sensuous and remote ecstasies of Crashaw, but they are not in Traherne less profoundly religious. As an artist Traherne is not studious of phrase, or conceit, or cadence. He has absolutely none of the merely rhetorical metaphysics of Cowley, from whose Pindarics he may have derived the structure of his more elaborate strains. His poetry is metaphysical because the thought is so ”

“ Traherne,” the Raja remarked. “I regret it, and so will you. My colleagues here insist that, as you have laid impious hands on the chief of their sacred caste, your death alone will not appease the fury of the Goddess. They insist upon subjecting you to a process of expiation—a ritual of great antiquity—but—” He broke off significantly.
“You mean torture?” Traherne spoke calmly.
“Well—yes,” Rukh admitted regretfully.
Lucilla Crespin came towards them with a cry. ”

“ The cut glass was thick, and it did not break.
“Some day,” Dr. Traherne said wistfully, “we may look back upon it as on a bad dream.”
Crespin shook his head moodily. “He does you well, curse him,” he cried. “They served me a most dainty chota hazri this morning, and with it a glass of rare old fine champagne.”
“Yes,” Traherne commented, “the Orientals know how to refine cruelty to the nth degree, when they choose. Where does that door lead?” he asked, pointing.
“To a billiard-room. Billiards!” Crespin laughed—and at the laugh’s quality the physician looked at him anxiously. ”

“ I know what pattern most men are cut, Traherne; wouldn’t be much of a C.O. if I didn’t, and you do too, or you’re not much of a doctor. But, damn it all, I’d like to have the hanging of every man that plays that low-down trick on a good wife. And when a scoundrel that does, lets her find him out, in my opinion, that second villainy is worse than the other, by God.”
“And in mine,” the physician said.
“At Sumnee there never had been any hint of that sort of thing in Crespin. Couldn’t be. Not a white woman in Sumnee, you know, except those in his own regiment—till the Dorsets came. ”

“ Basil Traherne in spite of his natural gravity and his thirty-five years. The boy persists longest in the biggest men.
He urged the Crespins to let him fly them to Pahari, where they proposed to spend their not long leave with Iris and Ronald in the cool of the hills. Mrs. Crespin was eager to fall in with Traherne’s suggestion, and Major Crespin, a little to their surprise, agreed to it placidly; for the last two years scarcely had improved things between Crespin and Traherne, and had distinctly made them worse between husband and wife. ”

“ This question tormented Treherne all that sleepless night. He suspected three persons, for only these had approached the fire after the note was hidden. He had kept his eye on it, he thought, till the stir of breaking up. In that moment it must have been removed by the major, Frank Annon, or my lady; Sir Jasper was out of the question, for he never touched an ornament in the drawing room since he had awkwardly demolished a whole étagère of costly trifles, to his mother’s and sister’s great grief. ”

“ Traherne loved Lucilla Crespin with the one man-love of his life; but he did not overrate her, and still less did he credit her with attributes and abilities that nature had denied her. For Major Crespin Traherne had little love left perhaps—but he had some, and far more than a meaner soul could have understood—and he had big, yearning pity. No matter how tender such men are to all womanhood, the wreck of manhood always must seem to such men as Traherne a deeper tragedy than any feminine suffering. ”

“ How typically Oriental, Traherne thought, incredible mixture of child and cool man of the world.
“By the Lord, sir,” Crespin answered heartily, “they must move like cats—for you can’t have planted them there before we arrived.”
“No,” the Raja reminded him with a laugh; “you had given me no notice of your coming.”
“Perhaps the Goddess did,” Lucilla said slyly.
Dr. Traherne felt a little anxious at that, but the Raja took her words in the best of good part. “Not she, Madam,” he assured her, letting his brown-black eyes smile into hers for a moment. “She keeps her own counsel. ”

“ Traherne, but he included Mrs. Crespin by a deferential gesture, and his tone was for her.
“Then,” Traherne said quickly and earnestly, “you will leave us alone for the time that remains to us?”
“Why, by all means,” Rukh returned as quickly. “And oh, by the way, you need have no fear of the—ceremony—being protracted. It will be brief and—I trust—painless. The High Church Party are not incapable of cruelty; but I have resolutely set my face against it.”
He paused a moment, irresolute, debating with himself. Then he quietly stepped close to Lucilla Crespin. ”

“ Traherne cautioned him quickly, not looking at Major Crespin, but at the man out on the loggia. “He’s watching.”
Dr. Traherne was right; Watkins was watching stealthily, and too was straining his utmost to listen.
“You remember,” Mrs. Crespin almost whispered, “he deserted, Antony, and was suspected of having murdered a woman in the bazaar.”
“I believe it’s the very man,” Crespin muttered eagerly.
“It’s certainly very like him,” his wife insisted.
“And he swears he’s never been in India!” Crespin said with a nasty laugh.
“Under the circumstances,” Dr. Traherne said dryly, “he naturally would. ”

“ Crespin bent over her shoulder, and pulled the ink nearer her hand.
“What about this?” Traherne suggested, after a moment: “‘Major Crespin, wife, Traherne, imprisoned Rukh, Raja’s palace; lives in danger,’” he dictated slowly, while Mrs. Crespin, writing it down feverishly, waited impatiently after each word for the next.
“We want something more definite,” Crespin objected, when Traherne had finished.
Traherne considered. “Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “you’re right. We do.”
“How would this do?” Mrs. Crespin asked, picking up her pen again: “‘Death threatened to-morrow evening. ”

“ Dr. Traherne dismissed it with that. “But the question now is: What’ll you take to get us out of this?”
Watkins sniggered offensively. Men have been killed for less. “Get you out of this!” he laughed truculently. “If you was to offer me millions, ’ow could I do that?”
Traherne told him. “By going into that room and sending this message through to the Amil-Serai aerodrome,” he snapped. And Major Crespin crossed the room, and held out the message.
Watkins took it gingerly, read it through with slow ferret eyes, but an expressionless face, and laid it down deliberately on the writing-table. ”