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Sylvie and Bruno

L >> Lewis Carroll >> Sylvie and Bruno




"It's a dagger!" Sylvie proclaimed in a peremptory tone.
"Hold your tongues!" And the croaking ceased at once.

Shakespeare has not told us, so far as I know, that Macbeth had any
such eccentric habit as turning head-over-heels in private life: but
Bruno evidently considered it quite an essential part of the character,
and left the stage in a series of somersaults. However, he was back
again in a few moments, having tucked under his chin the end of a tuft
of wool (probably left on the thorn by a wandering sheep), which made a
magnificent beard, that reached nearly down to his feet.

"Shylock!" Sylvie proclaimed. "No, I beg your pardon!" she hastily
corrected herself, "King Lear! I hadn't noticed the crown."
(Bruno had very cleverly provided one, which fitted him exactly,
by cutting out the centre of a dandelion to make room for his head.)

King Lear folded his arms (to the imminent peril of his beard) and
said, in a mild explanatory tone, "Ay, every inch a king!" and then
paused, as if to consider how this could best be proved. And here,
with all possible deference to Bruno as a Shakespearian critic, I must
express my opinion that the poet did not mean his three great tragic
heroes to be so strangely alike in their personal habits; nor do I
believe that he would have accepted the faculty of turning
head-over-heels as any proof at all of royal descent. Yet it appeared
that King Lear, after deep meditation, could think of no other argument
by which to prove his kingship: and, as this was the last of the 'Bits'
of Shakespeare ("We never do more than three," Sylvie explained in a
whisper), Bruno gave the audience quite a long series of somersaults
before he finally retired, leaving the enraptured Frogs all crying out
"More! More!" which I suppose was their way of encoring a performance.
But Bruno wouldn't appear again, till the proper time came for telling
the Story.

[Image...The frogs' birthday-treat]

When he appeared at last in his real character, I noticed a remarkable
change in his behaviour.

He tried no more somersaults. It was clearly his opinion that, however
suitable the habit of turning head-over-heels might be to such petty
individuals as Hamlet and King Lear, it would never do for Bruno to
sacrifice his dignity to such an extent. But it was equally clear that
he did not feel entirely at his ease, standing all alone on the stage,
with no costume to disguise him: and though he began, several times,

"There were a Mouse--," he kept glancing up and down, and on all sides,
as if in search of more comfortable quarters from which to tell the
Story. Standing on one side of the stage, and partly overshadowing it,
was a tall foxglove, which seemed, as the evening breeze gently swayed
it hither and thither, to offer exactly the sort of accommodation that
the orator desired. Having once decided on his quarters, it needed
only a second or two for him to run up the stem like a tiny squirrel,
and to seat himself astride on the topmost bend, where the fairy-bells
clustered most closely, and from whence he could look down on his
audience from such a height that all shyness vanished, and he began his
Story merrily.

"Once there were a Mouse and a Crocodile and a Man and a Goat and a
Lion." I had never heard the 'dramatis personae' tumbled into a story
with such profusion and in such reckless haste; and it fairly took my
breath away. Even Sylvie gave a little gasp, and allowed three of the
Frogs, who seemed to be getting tired of the entertainment, to hop away
into the ditch, without attempting to stop them.

"And the Mouse found a Shoe, and it thought it were a Mouse-trap.
So it got right in, and it stayed in ever so long."

"Why did it stay in?" said Sylvie. Her function seemed to be much the
same as that of the Chorus in a Greek Play: she had to encourage the
orator, and draw him out, by a series of intelligent questions.

"'Cause it thought it couldn't get out again," Bruno explained.
"It were a clever mouse. It knew it couldn't get out of traps!"

But why did it go in at all?" said Sylvie.

"--and it jamp, and it jamp," Bruno proceeded, ignoring this question,
"and at last it got right out again. And it looked at the mark in the
Shoe. And the Man's name were in it. So it knew it wasn't its own Shoe."

"Had it thought it was?" said Sylvie.

"Why, didn't I tell oo it thought it were a Mouse-trap?" the indignant
orator replied. "Please, Mister Sir, will oo make Sylvie attend?"
Sylvie was silenced, and was all attention: in fact, she and I were
most of the audience now, as the Frogs kept hopping away, and there
were very few of them left.

"So the Mouse gave the Man his Shoe.

And the Man were welly glad, cause he hadn't got but one Shoe, and he
were hopping to get the other."

Here I ventured on a question. "Do you mean 'hopping,' or 'hoping'?"

"Bofe," said Bruno. "And the Man took the Goat out of the Sack."
("We haven't heard of the sack before," I said. "Nor you won't hear of
it again," said Bruno). "And he said to the Goat, 'Oo will walk about
here till I comes back.' And he went and he tumbled into a deep hole.
And the Goat walked round and round. And it walked under the Tree.
And it wug its tail. And it looked up in the Tree. And it sang a sad
little Song. Oo never heard such a sad little Song!"

"Can you sing it, Bruno?" I asked.

"Iss, I can," Bruno readily replied. "And I sa'n't. It would make
Sylvie cry--"

"It wouldn't!', Sylvie interrupted in great indignation.
"And I don't believe the Goat sang it at all!"

"It did, though!" said Bruno. "It singed it right froo.
I sawed it singing with its long beard--"

"It couldn't sing with its beard," I said, hoping to puzzle the little
fellow: "a beard isn't a voice."

"Well then, oo couldn't walk with Sylvie!" Bruno cried triumphantly.
"Sylvie isn't a foot!"

I thought I had better follow Sylvie's example, and be silent for a
while. Bruno was too sharp for us.

"And when it had singed all the Song, it ran away--for to get along to
look for the Man, oo know. And the Crocodile got along after it--for to
bite it, oo know. And the Mouse got along after the Crocodile."

"Wasn't the Crocodile running?" Sylvie enquired. She appealed to me.
"Crocodiles do run, don't they?"

I suggested "crawling" as the proper word.

"He wasn't running," said Bruno, "and he wasn't crawling.
He went struggling along like a portmanteau. And he held his chin ever
so high in the air--"

"What did he do that for?" said Sylvie.

"'cause he hadn't got a toofache!" said Bruno. "Ca'n't oo make out
nuffin wizout I 'splain it? Why, if he'd had a toofache, a course he'd
have held his head down--like this--and he'd have put a lot of warm
blankets round it!"

"If he'd had any blankets," Sylvie argued.

"Course he had blankets!" retorted her brother. "Doos oo think
Crocodiles goes walks wizout blankets? And he frowned with his
eyebrows. And the Goat was welly flightened at his eyebrows!"

"I'd never be afraid of eyebrows?" exclaimed Sylvie.

"I should think oo would, though, if they'd got a Crocodile fastened to
them, like these had! And so the Man jamp, and he jamp, and at last he
got right out of the hole."

Sylvie gave another little gasp: this rapid dodging about among the
characters of the Story had taken away her breath.

"And he runned away for to look for the Goat, oo know. And he heard
the Lion grunting---"

"Lions don't grunt," said Sylvie.

"This one did," said Bruno. "And its mouth were like a large cupboard.
And it had plenty of room in its mouth. And the Lion runned after the
Man for to eat him, oo know. And the Mouse runned after the Lion."

"But the Mouse was running after the Crocodile," I said: "he couldn't
run after both!"

Bruno sighed over the density of his audience, but explained very
patiently. "He did runned after bofe: 'cause they went the same way!
And first he caught the Crocodile, and then he didn't catch the Lion.
And when he'd caught the Crocodile, what doos oo think he did--'cause
he'd got pincers in his pocket?"

"I ca'n't guess," said Sylvie.

[Image...'He wrenched out that crocodile's toof!']

"Nobody couldn't guess it!" Bruno cried in high glee.
"Why, he wrenched out that Crocodile's toof!"

"Which tooth?" I ventured to ask.

But Bruno was not to be puzzled. "The toof he were going to bite the
Goat with, a course!"

"He couldn't be sure about that," I argued,

"unless he wrenched out all its teeth."

Bruno laughed merrily, and half sang, as he swung himself backwards and
forwards, "He did--wrenched--out--all its teef!"

"Why did the Crocodile wait to have them wrenched out?" said Sylvie.

"It had to wait," said Bruno.

I ventured on another question. "But what became of the Man who said
'You may wait here till I come back'?"

"He didn't say 'Oo may,'" Bruno explained. "He said, 'Oo will.'
Just like Sylvie says to me 'Oo will do oor lessons till twelve o'clock.'
Oh, I wiss," he added with a little sigh, "I wiss Sylvie would say 'Oo
may do oor lessons'!"

This was a dangerous subject for discussion, Sylvie seemed to think.
She returned to the Story. "But what became of the Man?"

"Well, the Lion springed at him. But it came so slow, it were three
weeks in the air--"

"Did the Man wait for it all that time?" I said.

"Course he didn't!" Bruno replied, gliding head-first down the stem of
the fox-glove, for the Story was evidently close to its end.
"He sold his house, and he packed up his things, while the Lion were
coming. And he went and he lived in another town. So the Lion ate
the wrong man."

This was evidently the Moral: so Sylvie made her final proclamation to
the Frogs. "The Story's finished! And whatever is to be learned from
it," she added, aside to me, "I'm sure I don't know!"

I did not feel quite clear about it myself, so made no suggestion: but
the Frogs seemed quite content, Moral or no Moral, and merely raised a
husky chorus of "Off! Off!" as they hopped away.


CHAPTER 25.

LOOKING EASTWARD.

"It's just a week," I said, three days later, to Arthur, "since we
heard of Lady Muriel's engagement. I think I ought to call,
at any rate, and offer my congratulations. Won't you come with me?"

A pained expression passed over his face.

"When must you leave us?" he asked.

"By the first train on Monday."

"Well--yes, I will come with you. It would seem strange and unfriendly
if I didn't. But this is only Friday. Give me till Sunday afternoon.
I shall be stronger then."

Shading his eyes with one hand, as if half-ashamed of the tears that
were coursing down his cheeks, he held the other out to me.
It trembled as I clasped it.

I tried to frame some words of sympathy; but they seemed poor and cold,
and I left them unspoken. "Good night!" was all I said.

"Good night, dear friend!" he replied. There was a manly vigour in his
tone that convinced me he was wrestling with, and triumphing over,
the great sorrow that had so nearly wrecked his life--and that, on the
stepping-stone of his dead self, he would surely rise to higher things!

There was no chance, I was glad to think, as we set out on Sunday
afternoon, of meeting Eric at the Hall, as he had returned to town the
day after his engagement was announced. His presence might have
disturbed the calm--the almost unnatural calm--with which Arthur met
the woman who had won his heart, and murmured the few graceful words of
sympathy that the occasion demanded.

Lady Muriel was perfectly radiant with happiness: sadness could not
live in the light of such a smile: and even Arthur brightened under it,
and, when she remarked "You see I'm watering my flowers, though it is
the Sabbath-Day," his voice had almost its old ring of cheerfulness as
he replied "Even on the Sabbath-Day works of mercy are allowed.
But this isn't the Sabbath-Day. The Sabbath-day has ceased to exist."

"I know it's not Saturday," Lady Muriel replied; "but isn't Sunday
often called 'the Christian Sabbath'?"

"It is so called, I think, in recognition of the spirit of the Jewish
institution, that one day in seven should be a day of rest.
But I hold that Christians are freed from the literal observance of
the Fourth Commandment."

"Then where is our authority for Sunday observance?"

"We have, first, the fact that the seventh day was 'sanctified',
when God rested from the work of Creation. That is binding on us as
Theists. Secondly, we have the fact that 'the Lord's Day' is a
Christian institution. That is binding on us as Christians."

"And your practical rules would be--?"

"First, as Theists, to keep it holy in some special way, and to make
it, so far as is reasonably possible, a day of rest. Secondly, as
Christians, to attend public worship."

"And what of amusements?"

"I would say of them, as of all kinds of work, whatever is innocent on
a week-day, is innocent on Sunday, provided it does not interfere with
the duties of the day."

"Then you would allow children to play on Sunday?"

"Certainly I should. Why make the day irksome to their restless natures?"

"I have a letter somewhere," said Lady Muriel, "from an old friend,
describing the way in which Sunday was kept in her younger days.
I will fetch it for you."

"I had a similar description, viva voce, years ago," Arthur said when
she had left us, "from a little girl. It was really touching to hear
the melancholy tone in which she said 'On Sunday I mustn't play with my
doll! On Sunday I mustn't run on the sands! On Sunday I mustn't dig
in the garden!' Poor child! She had indeed abundant cause for hating
Sunday!"

"Here is the letter," said Lady Muriel, returning.
"Let me read you a piece of it."

"When, as a child, I first opened my eyes on a Sunday-morning,
a feeling of dismal anticipation, which began at least on the Friday,
culminated. I knew what was before me, and my wish, if not my word,
was 'Would God it were evening!' It was no day of rest, but a day of
texts, of catechisms (Watts'), of tracts about converted swearers,
godly charwomen, and edifying deaths of sinners saved.

"Up with the lark, hymns and portions of Scripture had to be learned by
heart till 8 o'clock, when there were family-prayers, then breakfast,
which I was never able to enjoy, partly from the fast already undergone,
and partly from the outlook I dreaded.

"At 9 came Sunday-School; and it made me indignant to be put into the
class with the village-children, as well as alarmed lest, by some
mistake of mine, I should be put below them.

"The Church-Service was a veritable Wilderness of Zin. I wandered in
it, pitching the tabernacle of my thoughts on the lining of the square
family-pew, the fidgets of my small brothers, and the horror of knowing
that, on the Monday, I should have to write out, from memory, jottings
of the rambling disconnected extempore sermon, which might have had any
text but its own, and to stand or fall by the result.

"This was followed by a, cold dinner at 1 (servants to have no work),
Sunday-School again from 2 to 4, and Evening-Service at 6.
The intervals were perhaps the greatest trial of all, from the efforts I
had to make, to be less than usually sinful, by reading books and
sermons as barren as the Dead Sea. There was but one rosy spot, in the
distance, all that day: and that was 'bed-time,' which never could come
too early!"

"Such teaching was well meant, no doubt," said Arthur; "but it must
have driven many of its victims into deserting the Church-Services
altogether."

"I'm afraid I was a deserter this morning," she gravely said. "I had
to write to Eric. Would you--would you mind my telling you something
he said about prayer? It had never struck me in that light before."

"In what light?" said Arthur.

"Why, that all Nature goes by fixed, regular laws--Science has proved
that. So that asking God to do anything (except of course praying for
spiritual blessings) is to expect a miracle: and we've no right to do
that. I've not put it as well as he did: but that was the outcome of
it, and it has confused me. Please tell me what you can say in answer
to it."

"I don't propose to discuss Captain Lindon's difficulties," Arthur
gravely replied; "specially as he is not present. But, if it is your
difficulty," (his voice unconsciously took a tenderer tone)
"then I will speak."

"It is my difficulty," she said anxiously.

"Then I will begin by asking 'Why did you except spiritual blessings?'
Is not your mind a part of Nature?"

"Yes, but Free-Will comes in there--I can choose this or that; and God
can influence my choice."

"Then you are not a Fatalist?"

"Oh, no!" she earnestly exclaimed.

"Thank God!" Arthur said to himself, but in so low a whisper that only
I heard it. "You grant then that I can, by an act of free choice,
move this cup," suiting the action to the word, "this way or that way?"

"Yes, I grant it."

"Well, let us see how far the result is produced by fixed laws.
The cup moves because certain mechanical forces are impressed on it by
my hand. My hand moves because certain forces--electric, magnetic,
or whatever 'nerve-force' may prove to be--are impressed on it by my
brain. This nerve-force, stored in the brain, would probably be
traceable, if Science were complete, to chemical forces supplied to the
brain by the blood, and ultimately derived from the food I eat and the
air I breathe."

"But would not that be Fatalism? Where would Free-Will come in?"

"In choice of nerves," replied Arthur. "The nerve-force in the brain
may flow just as naturally down one nerve as down another.
We need something more than a fixed Law of Nature to settle which nerve
shall carry it. That 'something' is Free-Will."

Her eyes sparkled." "I see what you mean!" she exclaimed.
"Human Free-Will is an exception to the system of fixed Law.
Eric said something like that. And then I think he pointed out that
God can only influence Nature by influencing Human Wills.
So that we might reasonably pray 'give us this day our daily bread,'
because many of the causes that produce bread are under Man's control.
But to pray for rain, or fine weather, would be as unreasonable as--"
she checked herself, as if fearful of saying something irreverent.

In a hushed, low tone, that trembled with emotion, and with the
solemnity of one in the presence of death, Arthur slowly replied
"Shalt he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? Shall we
'the swarm that in the noontide beam were born,' feeling in ourselves
the power to direct, this way or that, the forces of Nature--of Nature,
of which we form so trivial a part--shall we, in our boundless arrogance,
in our pitiful conceit, deny that power to the Ancient of Days?
Saying, to our Creator, 'Thus far and no further. Thou madest, but
thou canst not rule!'?"

Lady Muriel had covered her face in her hands, and did not look up.
She only murmured "Thanks, thanks!" again and again.

We rose to go. Arthur said, with evident effort, "One word more.
If you would know the power of Prayer--in anything and everything that
Man can need try it. Ask, and it shall be given you. I--have tried it.
I know that God answers prayer!"

Our walk home was a silent one, till we had nearly reached the
lodgings: then Arthur murmured--and it was almost an echo of my own
thoughts--"What knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy
husband?"

The subject was not touched on again. We sat on, talking, while hour
after hour, of this our last night together, glided away unnoticed.
He had much to tell me about India, and the new life he was going to,
and the work he hoped to do. And his great generous soul seemed so
filled with noble ambition as to have no space left for any vain regret
or selfish repining.

"Come, it is nearly morning! Arthur said at last, rising and leading
the way upstairs.

"The sun will be rising in a few minutes: and, though I have basely
defrauded you of your last chance of a night's rest here,
I'm sure you'll forgive me: for I really couldn't bring myself to say
'Good night' sooner. And God knows whether you'll ever see me again,
or hear of me!"

"Hear of you I am certain I shall!" I warmly responded, and quoted the
concluding lines of that strange poem 'Waring' :--

"Oh, never star
Was lost here, but it rose afar
Look East, where whole new thousands are!
In Vishnu-land what Avatar?"

"Aye, look Eastward!" Arthur eagerly replied, pausing at the stair-case
window, which commanded a fine view of the sea and the eastward
horizon. "The West is the fitting tomb for all the sorrow and the
sighing, all the errors and the follies of the Past: for all its
withered Hopes and all its buried Loves! From the East comes new
strength, new ambition, new Hope, new Life, new Love! Look Eastward!
Aye, look Eastward!"

His last words were still ringing in my ears as I entered my room, and
undrew the window-curtains, just in time to see the sun burst in glory
from his ocean-prison, and clothe the world in the light of a new day.

"So may it be for him, and me, and all of us!" I mused. "All that is
evil, and dead, and hopeless, fading with the Night that is past!
All that is good, and living, and hopeful, rising with the dawn of Day!

"Fading, with the Night, the chilly mists, and the noxious vapours,
and the heavy shadows, and the wailing gusts, and the owl's melancholy
hootings: rising, with the Day, the darting shafts of light,
and the wholesome morning breeze, and the warmth of a dawning life,
and the mad music of the lark! Look Eastward!

"Fading, with the Night, the clouds of ignorance, and the deadly blight
of sin, and the silent tears of sorrow: and ever rising, higher,
higher, with the Day, the radiant dawn of knowledge, and the sweet
breath of purity, and the throb of a world's ecstasy! Look Eastward!

[Image...'Look eastward!']

"Fading, with the Night, the memory of a dead love, and the withered
leaves of a blighted hope, and the sickly repinings and moody regrets
thatnumb the best energies of the soul: and rising, broadening, rolling
upward like a living flood, the manly resolve, and the dauntless will,
and the heavenward gaze of faith--the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen!

"Look Eastward! Aye, look Eastward!"

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