Beside Still Waters

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Benson Arthur Christopher. Beside Still Waters

I. The Family – The Scene – The Church – Childhood – Books

II. The Schoolmaster – School Life – Companions

III. The Public School – Friendships – The Opening Heart – The Mould – The Last Morning

IV. Undergraduate Days – Strain – Recovery – A First Book

V. Practical Life – The Official World – Drudgery – Resignation – Retirement

VI. His Father's Friendship – His Sister's Death – The Silent River

VII. Liberty – Cambridge – Literary Work – Egotism

VIII. Foundations of Faith – Duality – Christianity – The Will of God

IX. Art – The End of Art

X. Retrospect – Renewal of Youth – The New Energy

XI. Platonism – The Pure Gospel – The Pauline Gospel – The Harmony

XII. Sacrifice – The Church – Certainty

XIII. Waiting for Light

XIV. Dreariness – Romance – The Choice of Work – Dulness – A Creed

XV. The Pilgrim's Progress – The Pilgrimage – Development – The Eternal Will

XVI. Humanity – Individuality – The Average

XVII. Spring – Wonder

XVIII. His Father's Death – Illness – A New Home – The New Light

XIX. Women – The Feminine View – Society – Frank Relations – Coldness – Sensitiveness

XX. Limitations – Sympathy – A Quiet Choice – The Mind of God – Intuition

XXI. A Far-off Day – A Compact – Fragrant Memories

XXII. Death – The Real and the Ideal – A Thunder Shower – Storm and Shadow

XXIII. The Club – Homewards – The Garden of God

XXIV. The Romance of Life – The Renewal of Youth – Youth

XXV. A Narrow Path – A Letter – Asceticism – The Narrow Soul

XXVI. Activity – Work – Isolation

XXVII. Progress – Country Life – Sustained Happiness – The Twilight

XXVIII. Democracy – Individualism – Corporateness – Materialism

XXIX. Bees – A Patient Learner

XXX. Flowers – The Garden

XXXI. A Man of Science – Prophets – A Tranquil Faith – Trustfulness

XXXII. Classical Education – Mental Discipline – Mental Fertilisation – Poetry – The August Soul – The Secret of a Star – The Voice of the Soul – Choice Studies – Alere Flammam

XXXIII. Music – Church Music – Musicians – The Organ – False Asceticism

XXXIV. Pictorial Art – Hand and Soul – Turner – Raphael – Secrets of Art

XXXV. Artistic Susceptibility – An Apologia – Temperament – Criticism of Life – The Tangle

XXXVI. The Mill – The Stream's Pilgrimage

XXXVII. A Garden Scene – The Wine of the Soul

XXXVIII. The Lakes – On the Fell – Peace

XXXIX. A Friend – The Gate of Life

XL. A Funeral Pomp – The Daily Manna – The Lapsing Moment

XLI. Following the Light – Sincerity

XLII. Aconite – The Dropping Veil

Отрывок из книги

The time came for Hugh to go to school. He drifted, it seemed to him afterwards, with a singular indifference and apathy of mind, into the new life, though the parting from home was one of dumb misery; not that he cared deeply, as a softer-hearted child might have cared, at being parted from his father, his mother, his sisters. People, even those nearest to the boy, were still only a part of the background of life, a little nearer perhaps, but hardly dearer, hardly more important than trees and flowers, except that a greater part of his life was spent with them. But the last afternoon in the familiar scene – it was a hot, bright September day – tried the boy's fortitude to the uttermost. He felt as though the trees and walks would almost miss his greeting and presence – and what was the saddest part of all to him was that he could not be sure of this. Was the world that he loved indifferent to him? Did it perhaps not heed him, not even perceive him? He had always fancied that these trees and flowers had a species of sight, that they watched him, the trees shyly out of their green foliage, the flowers with their bright unshrinking gaze. The tallest trees seemed to look down on him from a height, regarding him with a dignified and quiet interest; his personal affection for them had led him indeed to be careful not to ill-use them; he had always disliked the gathering of flowers, the tearing off of boughs or leaves from shrubs. They seemed to suffer injury patiently, but none the less did he think that they were hurt. He liked to touch the full-blown heads of the roses, when they yielded their petals at a touch into his hand, because it seemed that they gave themselves willingly. And then too, when the big china bowl that stood in the hall was full of them, and they were mixed with spices, the embalming process seemed to give them a longer and a fuller life.

But now he was leaving all this; day after day the garden would bloom, until the autumn came, and the trees showered down their golden leaves on walk and lawn. He had seen it year after year, and now he would see it no more. Would they miss him as he would miss them? And so the last afternoon was to him a wistful valediction; he went softly about, to and fro, with a strange sadness at his heart, the first shadow of the leave-takings of the world.

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Hugh, in after life, could hardly recall the faces of any of his companions; the only way at the time in which he differentiated them to himself was that some looked kinder than others – that was the only thing that mattered. Thus the years dragged themselves along, the school-time hated with an intensity of dislike, the holidays eagerly welcomed as a return to old pursuits. The boy used to lie awake in the big dormitory in the early summer mornings, thinking with vague terror and disquiet of the ordered day of labour that lay before him. There were peacocks kept in the grounds, whose shrill feminine screams of despairing reproach were always inseparably connected with the dreariness of the place. His last morning at the school he woke early, full of joyful excitement, and heard the familiar cries with a thankful sense that he would never hear them again. He said no good-byes, made no farewell visits. He waved his hand, as he drove away, in merry derision at the grim high windows that looked down on the road, the only thought in his mind being the feeling of unconquerable relief that the place would see him no more.

He used to wonder, in after days, whether this could have been avoided; whether it was a wholesome discipline for a child of his age and his perhaps peculiar temperament to have been brought up under these conditions. After all, it is the case of the average boy that has to be considered, and for the average boy, insouciant, healthy-minded, boisterous, there is probably little doubt that the barrack-life of school has its value. Probably too for Hugh himself, though it did not in any way develop his intellect or his temperament, it had a real value. It taught him a certain self-reliance; it showed him that what was disagreeable was not necessarily intolerable. What Hugh needed to make him effective was a certain touch of the world, a certain hardness, which his home life did not tend to develop. And thus this bleak and uncheered episode of life gave him a superficial ordinariness, and taught him the need of conventional compliance with the ways of the mysterious, uninteresting world.

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