Glass J3 ?JM_ 
 Book 0> O 
 
A PARADISE IN 
 PORTUGAL 
 
 BY 
 
 MARK SALE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 
 
 LONDON: ANDREW MELROSE 
 
 1911 
 
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 PRINTED BY 
 
 HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, I.D., 
 
 LONDON AND AYLESBURY, 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 /la/ 
 
 
THE PHILOSOPHER, 
 
 IN ALL HONOUR AND ESTEEM. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. How WE Found our " Wal- 
 
 II. 
 III. 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 DEN " . . . . . 
 
 I 
 
 Our Neighbours 
 
 11 
 
 Our Surroundings . 
 
 23 
 
 Ourselves and our Food 
 
 35 
 
 Domesticities . 
 
 . 46 
 
 One of our Sundays 
 
 53 
 
 Young Portugal 
 
 64 
 
 Summer Time 
 
 . 73 
 
 Birthday Egotisms . 
 
 . 86 
 
 The Post Office Baby . 
 
 . 101 
 
 SiCK-RooM Solace . 
 
 . 106 
 
 On the Shore 
 
 . 114 
 
 VI 1 
 
viii 
 
 conte:nts 
 
 PAQK 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Summer Incidents . 
 
 . 122 
 
 XIV. 
 
 QuiET Days 
 
 . 129 
 
 XV. 
 
 The Eternal Feminine . 
 
 . 136 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Autumn .... 
 
 . 149 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Christmas 
 
 . 158 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Farewell 
 
 . 167 
 
A SHADOWED 
 PARADISE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HOW WE FOUND OUR " WALDEN " 
 
 " For to admire and for to see, 
 For to be'old this world so wide. 
 It never done no good to me. 
 But I can't drop it if I tried." 
 
 We were always as poor as the proverbial 
 church mouse, but Kipling's immortal lines 
 fitly express the spirit in which we have directed 
 our lives. 
 
 When The Philosopher and I first became 
 comrades, he said : " There are just two sorts 
 of people in the world, you know — the people 
 who make money and the people who spend 
 what the others have made. Both health and 
 temperament cause me to belong to the latter 
 class, my dear." 
 
 1 
 
2 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 As I understood him, and as I cared very 
 much for him, I was not so shocked as perhaps 
 I ought to have been at this admission ; and 
 I then and there agreed to join him in this 
 reprehensible mode of life, rather than condemn 
 him to a desk in some stuffy London office for 
 the purpose of keeping up "an establishment " 
 and a bank balance. 
 
 The youngest of his family, born when his 
 father was dying of consumption, he had in- 
 herited a measure of " unhealth " and insomnia 
 which in a less sweet and philosophical dis- 
 position would have degenerated into chronic 
 invalidism ; but which, in his case, in spite of 
 a wrecked career, was faced with resolute pluck 
 and an unfailing effort to " make the best of 
 a bad job." Freedom, sunshine, and fresh air 
 were the necessities of life to him, but all our 
 other requirements were as modest, and our 
 happiness was easily perfected. We were con- 
 tent in each other's society ; our daily needs 
 were of the simplest ; and for occupation. The 
 Philosopher painted, while I wrote humble 
 little stories. So it came about that we 
 tramped this grand old world, viewing its 
 wonders, and sunning ourselves under its 
 brightest, bluest skies, with a yearly income 
 upon which most people would have been 
 
HOW WE FOUND OUR " WALDEN " 3 
 
 stagnating in genteel poverty in some dull 
 suburb or lifeless village of the dear, but grey, 
 homeland. 
 
 Thus we wandered happily in many lands, 
 through long, scented summer days, and brief 
 winter brightness and warmth, doing no harm 
 to our fellows, if but little good. Even positive 
 good, perhaps, if the sight of simple happiness 
 and content, pleasant comradeship and bright 
 faces, can count as any good in a world where 
 so many folks are sick and sorry, and some — 
 soured, narrow, and discontented. 
 
 Until, at last, one dark day, the frail little 
 ship of our fortunes foundered and went down. 
 It is a tale too often told : philosophers are 
 not the metal out of which successful specula- 
 tors are made. A series of investments failing 
 in their promise of certain dividends, a plausi- 
 ble business friend, a prospect of doubling, nay, 
 trebhng, our little remaining capital — any 
 reader, smiling a compassionate, superior smile, 
 can outline the sequel — and we were left face 
 to face with a grim guest whom we had never 
 entertained before. A guest who greeted our 
 morning waking, who sat down to meat with 
 us, who followed us into the streets and the 
 woods, who lurked by our fireside in the twi- 
 light, who intruded himself between us and 
 
4 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 the pages of our book, and who would scarce 
 permit us to sleep at night for his persistent 
 company. 
 
 But if philosophers make but a sorry fight 
 in the scramble for riches, they can at any 
 rate show how adversity is to be met- — with an 
 unruffled serenity, head erect, unrepining, still 
 master of one's fate, whatever comes. Other- 
 wise, of what profit have been the long, deep 
 thoughts of leisured days, the solemn lessons 
 of the stars, the realisation of those better 
 things which shall not be taken away ? So we 
 smiled undauntedly in the face of Ruin, and 
 The Philosopher, figuring on a stray scrap of 
 paper, formed a brave plan to elude his un- 
 welcome presence and to cheat him of his prey. 
 
 " We can live for a couple of years, if we 
 do as I suggest," he decided at length. 
 
 " And in that time who knows what may 
 not turn up ! " cried I, with the confidence of 
 sparrows, lilies, and other inconsequent things. 
 
 So we held a grand consultation. The 
 Philosopher's health made living in England 
 an impossibility. Sunshine was our first neces- 
 sity ; next, a place where the cost of living 
 could be reduced to the lowest figure recon- 
 cilable with bodily well-being, and where we 
 could continue to enjoy that spiritual tran- 
 
HOW WE FOUND OUR "WALDEN" 5 
 
 quillity which is more to be desired than great 
 riches. 
 
 Where should we go ? The Riviera was out 
 of the question ; both rent and service there 
 would be prohibitive. Other parts of France ? 
 Switzerland ? The winters would be impossi- 
 ble, for we could not afford the necessary fuel 
 and other comforts. Italy ? The summers 
 would be insupportably hot. The Philosopher 
 had a knowledge of Italian, Spanish, and some 
 Portuguese — all kindred languages. The coast 
 of Spain held first place in our inclinations for 
 some days, when we chanced to meet a young 
 Portuguese whose account of the seaboard of 
 his country charmed our imaginations. Once 
 off the track of the escorted tourist it was but 
 little known ; the climate excelled that of the 
 Riviera in winter, in summer its heat was 
 tempered by the cool Atlantic breezes ; the 
 people were simple and kindly, and more well- 
 disposed to English folk than were those of 
 its haughtier neighbour ; the currency was 
 low, and service was cheap. If what we re- 
 quired was a good climate and primitive living, 
 if we did not aspire to bring the conditions of 
 London life to a country some hundreds of years 
 in the rear, as so many English people did, then 
 we might surely be very happy in his country. 
 
6 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 So it chanced that we took ship and came 
 to Portugal. 
 
 A most fair land ! A land of pines and oaks 
 and eucalyptus ; of an infinite wealth of bracken, 
 golden gorse, and purple heather ; of tiny 
 fields of tall, green, ribbony maize ; of lowly 
 homesteads, nestling in the very heart of 
 nature ; of gorges, of streamlets, and crags of 
 warm red earth, where mica glitters amongst 
 the stones. Small wonder was it that the 
 classic Romans, coming upon it in all its 
 virginity, were charmed with its luxuriant 
 beauty and its soft temperateness of climate 
 compared with the greater extremes of their 
 own country, and, wandering in its pine-scented 
 forests, or resting on its green, sunlit slopes, 
 felt that here at last, on the verge of the ocean, 
 they had indeed found the Elysian Fields. 
 
 And here, after a little searching, we happed 
 upon our Portuguese " Walden," with no less 
 thing than the blue Atlantic for our lake. We 
 have rented the annex to a farm : a square- 
 built, whitewashed little house, with a corru- 
 gated, red-tiled roof, two big windows facing the 
 west and the ocean, and a little north window 
 which is our salvation in the hot weather. 
 
HOW WE FOUND OUR " WALDEN " 7 
 
 The living rooms are all upstairs ; below, lit 
 by two tiny slits of windows, is a great ce- 
 mented room, which we use as a receptacle 
 for our trunks and bicycles. The entrance to 
 our quarters is at the back of the house, in the 
 courtyard of the farm, and up a broad flight 
 of stone steps. So, to the outer world, we 
 present an inhospitable front of simply two 
 big windows on high and two wide slits be- 
 neath ; and when the huge iron-cased doors 
 of the courtyard are locked for the night, we, 
 within our thick walls, seem prepared to with- 
 stand a siege. All the quarters of the family 
 of peasants who run the farm have doors 
 opening on the interior of the courtyard ; 
 thus, when the great farm doors are closed 
 we are practically impregnable ; there is no 
 entrance to be gained by legitimate means, 
 and for others — ^there is the dog. 
 
 These precautions in a land where the people 
 are gentle, law-abiding, and honest, must date 
 from centuries ago ; probably from the classic 
 Roman period, and, later, the days of the 
 Moorish occupation. Indeed, the arrangement 
 is suggestive of the East ; for this is a country 
 where things are slow to change, and many of 
 the old customs linger on delightfully. 
 
 Our little place used to be inhabited by the 
 
8 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 padre, and, as an enthusiastic house-agent 
 would say, " its decorations are superior." 
 The centre of the ceiling of our square white 
 sola is ornamented by four most unspiritual 
 plaster cherubs, with bright red puffy cheeks 
 and blue and vermilion wings ; and the padre 
 has left a wooden hanging crucifix, which I 
 cherish but do not worship. 
 
 The spotless boards are bare of carpet, and 
 our chairs and tables are of plain white pine- 
 wood, as befits a couple of philosophers who 
 aspire to emulate the simplicity of Horace on 
 his Sabine farm, and, like him, to cultivate 
 the virtues of " plain living and high thinking." 
 The Philosopher's paintings and our books 
 overflow everywhere, and there are white vases 
 for the never-failing flowers, but of ornaments 
 in the conventional sense there are none. For 
 would not I have to dust them ? And have I 
 come to this most blessed land for that ? — to 
 waste the beautiful, long, leisured days on 
 unnecessary household work, — a Sisyphus task, 
 and unprofitable to the soul. My Philosopher 
 has taught me better things. So, with the 
 assistance of a pretty little rapariga, my clean- 
 ing and dinner preparations are done in two 
 brief morning hours, and then I am off to join 
 him on the sunny, salt-sprayed shore, or 
 
HOW WE FOUND OUR "WALDEN" 9 
 
 amongst the green, shady windings of our 
 Happy Valley. 
 
 For all this delightful little place, with no 
 rates or taxes, and with about a quarter of an 
 acre of field for a garden, we pay the yearly 
 rental of 25,000 reis ! It sounds an appalling 
 sum for paupers such as we are, until one finds 
 that it is an equivalent to about G.ve English 
 pounds. The people of this land are many of 
 them poor to an extent that is rarely known 
 at home, and it seems to make them feel richer 
 to count their money in such infinitesimal 
 coins. A beggar will pour forth a string of 
 fervent blessings should you bestow upon him 
 the sum for which he pleads — cinco reis — about 
 one farthing. One shudders to imagine the 
 vivid language and scornful regard of a beggar 
 in the Strand to whom one should dare to 
 offer such an indignity. 
 
 Poverty here is accepted with a cheerful 
 stoicism, as the natural and inevitable thing ; 
 no one is ashamed of rags or patches. A few 
 beans, floating in a thin mess of maize-meal, 
 or a chunk of heavy, unfermented maize-bread, 
 forms a sufficient meal ; and, for the rest — 
 well, does not the sun shine ? And on this 
 meagre diet the women tramp for miles in the 
 dawn to market, with their particular little 
 
10 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 bits of produce, which can only bring them 
 a few pitiful pence in return. 
 
 In the market of our nearest big town I 
 one day chanced upon an old, old ivoman — old 
 beyond all memory of youth — ^hunched up in 
 her place in the line of women squatting 
 behind their baskets of fruit and vegetables. 
 She was mouthing and mumbling to herself, 
 while her brown, claw-like hands hovered 
 anxiously over her wares — four or five tiny, 
 unripe, unwholesome-looking tomatoes, not 
 larger than button mushrooms, displayed for 
 sale upon a broken bit of basket lid. 
 
 At the railway terminus of this same big 
 town there is a platelayer whose trousers are 
 ever a joy to me. They have been patched 
 up and down, front and back, with cotton and 
 cloth of every colour and texture, until I am 
 sure that not even he himself can point to the 
 particular square which represents the original 
 garment. He is a fine, stalwart, merry fellow, 
 and his companions think no less of him for 
 his wondrous nether coverings. Do they not 
 prove his possession of an industrious, thrifty 
 helpmate ? And are they not infinitely more 
 self-respecting than holes ? Where all are so 
 poor, fine distinctions of attire would be con- 
 sidered invidious. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 OUR NEIGHBOURS 
 
 If any one opens this book in the expectation 
 of reading an account of aristocratic life in 
 Portugal, of festivities, of bull-fights, of dark- 
 eyed senhoritas and of amorous adventures in 
 this sunny land, I fear he will be grievously 
 disappointed. The Philosopher and I have 
 lived very close to the earth here, and our 
 experiences are all of those who dwell upon it 
 in humble huts and scrape pathetic little 
 patches of its surface, existing upon its simple 
 bounty. What knowledge we have of its soul 
 has been gained face to face with Nature — with 
 that patriarchal, gracious, rural Portugal which 
 has remained practically unchanged with the 
 passing of the centuries, uninfluenced by the 
 feverish modern fancies of London or Paris, 
 temperamentally unimitative and self-sufficing. 
 To us, with our ears to the ground, come 
 faint, faint vibrations, indicating a future 
 
 11 
 
12 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 change of conditions. The country is stirring 
 in its sleep ; the blatant call of Progress is 
 penetrating even its somnolent ears. But, 
 alas ! with the good time coming, with the 
 awakening of energy, with much necessary 
 reform and evolution, a loss of some at least 
 of its old-world charm is inevitable. Its people 
 will necessarily become more sophisticated, and 
 their lives will lose in simplicity what they gain 
 in prosperity. 
 
 Lighter hearted, less oppressively dignified, 
 and with a keener sense of humour than the 
 Spaniards, the Portuguese have been termed 
 " the Italians of the Peninsula." Although 
 at such close quarters with their haughty, 
 aristocratic neighbour, with a language con- 
 fusingly similar in many of its words, there is 
 really not much in common between the two 
 countries ; for the virtues of this nation are 
 of the hearty, easy-going, impulsive, and kindly 
 bourgeoisie, in comparison with the grave, self- 
 contained pride of the Spaniards. 
 
 Certainly, amongst none other of the Latin 
 races have we experienced such spontaneous 
 and disinterested kindness as in Portugal ; and 
 though one hears much of certain venalties 
 and lack of rectitude, we have found much 
 honesty amongst the people, with much good- 
 
OUR NEIGHBOURS 13 
 
 heartedness and courtesy. Possibly partly 
 owing to their being yet unspoiled by demora- 
 lising hordes of tourists, in these particulars 
 they seem to us more self-respecting, less 
 grasping and " on the make " than the Italians. 
 Of this we have experienced many instances. 
 
 On one occasion, when I was ill, The Philo- 
 sopher entered a small shop to buy a bottle 
 of cognac. 
 
 " Sin, Senhor, 1 have cognac, but it is not 
 of the best quality. Senhor X, lower down 
 the street, has better," replied the proprietor, 
 instead of effusively declaring that his cognac 
 was the very best possible, and none so good 
 to be obtained anywhere else in the town. 
 
 When we were fresh to Portugal, and still 
 seeking our " Walden," in the course of our 
 wanderings we put up for a few days at a small 
 country hotel whilst we inspected the neigh- 
 bourhood. Not finding anything to suit us 
 we were preparing to leave, when our host 
 said : "If the Senhor is thinking of going to 
 
 D , I should be delighted to give him a 
 
 letter to my brother-in-law, who lives there. 
 He may be of service to the Senhor.''^ A 
 kindly offer, which of course was gratefully 
 accepted. Upon The Philosopher presenting 
 the letter of introduction to the brother-in-law, 
 
14 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 that good man devoted a day from his business 
 to searching the country-side, showing us all 
 the tenantless houses of about the rent and 
 size we needed ; and when, under his guidance, 
 we saw and decided upon this little place, but 
 found there would be an unavoidable delay, as 
 we could not take possession whilst the neces- 
 sary painting and white-washing was in pro- 
 gress, he insisted upon our accepting the loan 
 of a furnished, unoccupied house of his own, 
 and would take no refusal, nor any payment 
 for the use of it. 
 
 As for our landlord, he began by spending 
 a large portion of the first year's modest rent 
 in making us comfortable and adding con- 
 veniences ; and he now comes periodically to 
 visit us, with his honest red face all one broad, 
 good-natured smile, and sits chatting with The 
 Philosopher, admiring his pictures and beaming 
 upon us both in the most delightful fashion. 
 If we need anything and do not know the best 
 means of procuring it, we have but to apply to 
 him, and the difficulty vanishes ; for nothing 
 appears too much trouble for him to do for us. 
 
 I wonder whether there are many landlords 
 of his type in England ? 
 
 On the sunny blue morning when we came 
 
OUR NEIGHBOURS 15 
 
 to take possession of our " Walden," we also 
 must have looked truly patriarchal and of the 
 country, trudging the long country road beside 
 the slowly-moving ox-cart which was laden 
 with our trunks and our newly bought stock 
 of simple furniture. Our hearts were light as 
 we neared the little square white building, 
 set amongst the pines and the maize ; for there 
 was to be our haven from the storms and stress 
 of life ; there we were to lead the ideal life of 
 simplicity and leisure, whilst we worked and 
 hoped and waited for those problematical 
 " better times." 
 
 The Philosopher strode soberly along, but I 
 longed to sing, and my eager feet could scarcely 
 be content to make such leisurely progress, for 
 I was all impatience to be there, to set my 
 modest kingdom in order — to begin 
 
 Suddenly wild cries came from the pine- 
 woods, excited voices nearer us echoed them. 
 But a moment before we and Miguel and his 
 ox-cart had seemed to have the world to our- 
 selves ; now, from here, there, and everywhere 
 — ^from the maize-fields, the washing-place, and 
 the mills — the peasantry came running, and 
 all taking up the cry, '' Ladrdo ! Ladrdo ! ^^ 
 Miguel at once desisted from his labour of 
 urging on his drowsy team of oxen, and 
 
16 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 leaving them and us standing stranded in 
 the road, rushed off after the others into the 
 wood. 
 
 "What can it be ? " I cried to The Philoso- 
 pher. "Is it a revolution ? " 
 
 " Well," responded he, with mock gravity, 
 " I don't quite know. However, I think that 
 ' ladrdo ' means ' thief.' Let's come and see." 
 And the oxen having apparently improved the 
 occasion by going to sleep, we also left them 
 and our belongings to their fate in the road 
 and scrambled up a little hill above the old 
 gravel quarry beside our house, whence we 
 had a view of the pine-woods behind. 
 
 Presently, out of the green shadowy depths 
 rushed a youth of fifteen or sixteen, with some 
 of the men hot upon his track. He doubled, 
 trying to hide amongst the gorse and ferns, 
 but it was too late ; they saw him, and in 
 another instant he was surrounded by a group 
 of angry captors, all gesticulating and shouting 
 to him at once. Then summary vengeance 
 was taken upon him, and he received such a 
 formidable thrashing that I was forced to 
 avert my eyes. 
 
 " Oh — I wish they wouldn't ! " I gasped ; 
 " I wish they wouldn't ! " And The Philoso- 
 pher, who is one of the most humane of men, 
 
OUR NEIGHBOURS 17 
 
 plunged off through the bushes towards the 
 scene in more energetic protest. 
 
 Some one gave vent to a hearty chuckle 
 beside me, and, turning, I beheld our landlord, 
 hands in pocket, beaming approvingly upon 
 the incident. 
 
 "The rapaz has been stealing," he said, in 
 response to my inquiring look. " A piece of 
 bacon, I understand. I don't fancy he will 
 do it again in a hurry ! The senhor is kind to 
 interfere ; but indeed it is the best way, meu 
 senhora—thi^ quick and wholesome punish- 
 ment ; better than sending him to prison to 
 sulk and get contaminated by other boys 
 worse than himself." 
 
 And when, later, I saw the gaol of our 
 nearest big town, I thought so too ! 
 
 At this same big town a certain high bridge 
 spans the river which is nicknamed by some, 
 " The Suicides' Bridge," it is so favourite a 
 means for desperate and unhappy persons to 
 seek to end their troubles. Amongst a people 
 so emotional and affectionate as the Portuguese, 
 these imitative suicides are principally the 
 result of love which has gone awry, and many 
 romantic stories are connected with them. 
 One such attempt — happily with a more 
 
 2 
 
18 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 fortunate ending than most of them — ^was 
 curious. A young lady thought she had 
 reason to beheve that her lover had jilted her, 
 and, in her grief and despair, she sought the 
 famous bridge and, climbing the parapet, 
 jumped over. Usually, I believe, it happens 
 that even should the suicide escape contact 
 with the iron framework of the bridge, the 
 breathlessly rapid fall from so great a height 
 causes unconsciousness before the water is 
 reached ; but this young lady was fortunately 
 a novice at diving, and, jumping feet foremost, 
 the wind caught and distended her voluminous 
 skirts, balloon fashion, thus breaking her 
 plunge into the water to such an extent that 
 she was rescued quite unhurt. The happy 
 sequel was that the remorseful lover convinced 
 her of his unaltered devotion, and they were 
 speedily married — ^to " live happily ever after," 
 let us hope. 
 
 In my observations of the peasantry I am 
 often amused to trace how much of the Eastern 
 conception of woman's place in the scheme 
 of the universe survives amongst them. 
 Woman is the burden carrier — a custom 
 probably dating from the days when man had 
 to go unencumbered and armed in vigilant 
 
OUR NEIGHBOURS 19 
 
 preparedness for any chance upspringing 
 foe. As it is at present, the wife — barefoot, 
 lightly clad, and bearing a huge basket or 
 bundle upon her head — trudges behind, whilst 
 the superior male strides in front, carrying 
 his beloved umbrella, and, if it is at all cold, 
 carefully shrouded in a long heavy cloak or 
 coat, with a monk's-hood attachment. When 
 we landed from the steamer a slight, pretty 
 girl, of not more than eighteen or twenty, 
 carried our big, heavy cabin trunks upon her 
 head from the dock to the hotel, whilst her 
 man-belonging trotted empty-handed beside 
 her ; and when we ventured to remonstrate, 
 he grinned proudly and assured us that she 
 liked it ! 
 
 The women also work in the fields, drive the 
 oxen, and share in all the men's labours when 
 they are not engaged in washing clothes or 
 producing babies. Under these hard con- 
 ditions of life there is little or no time left 
 for domestic niceties ; and, for most, home 
 seems merely a shelter from the weather and 
 a place in which to cook and to sleep. To 
 them, cleanly surroundings and sanitation 
 seem practically unknown virtues ; and 
 broken or paneless windows, fires whose smoke 
 has no outlet but the door or cracks between 
 
20 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 the tiles of the roof, and dirty living-rooms 
 in which the fowls stalk about at will, are 
 amongst the ordinary conditions here ; besides 
 some unnamable breaches of hygiene and 
 shudderingly uncleanly habits. 
 
 jBut it must be counted to them for right- 
 eousness that they do wash their clothes, if 
 they neglect to wash themselves ; while for 
 all their sanitary shortcomings, ignorance and 
 the hard, incessant struggle for mere existence 
 are principally responsible. Here, in the 
 country, the wonderful pure air and the bene- 
 ficent action of the sun's rays neutralises the 
 evil effects, but in the big town, small-pox 
 and other zymotic diseases are always more 
 or less present, with occasional cases of plague ; 
 and the methods of coping with these evils 
 seem very inadequate to our English ideas. 
 But what with vaccination and healthier 
 modes of life, the English residents and visitors 
 rarely fall victims to these lurking pestilences. 
 
 Unlike the Spaniards, the Portuguese are 
 generally kind and humane to animals. Many 
 of the oxen are fine, sleek, well-fed beasts, 
 and the fowls, goats, and pigs seem to be re- 
 garded — and to regard themselves — as honoured 
 members of the household. On the occasion 
 
OUR NEIGHBOURS 21 
 
 of market-days at the nearest town it is a 
 comical and not infrequent sight to see a 
 peasant woman driving a huge porker along 
 the high road with a cord attached to one of 
 its hind legs, gently suggesting progress to 
 it with an occasional flip from a harmless twig, 
 and a rapaz or rapariga walking ahead, en- 
 couraging his porcine lordship with coaxing 
 cries ; both waiting from time to time whilst 
 he refreshes himself with some seductive 
 clump of grass in the hedgerow. 
 
 I have seen a woman carrying home a 
 young pig in the inevitable basket set upon 
 her head, with its brothers under each arm be- 
 sides, all squeaking vigorously in protest. And 
 a brood of chickens or ducks often form a fan- 
 tastic head adornment as they nod their heads 
 above the basket's rim on their way to market. 
 
 The strangest thing I ever saw one of the 
 peasant women carrying was a great Singer's 
 sewing machine, with its iron stand and 
 treadles. I do not know what it can have 
 weighed, but I fancy no man less than a Sandow 
 would have cared to walk far with it perched 
 upon his head ! 
 
 The women are as a rule very good-looking. 
 The younger ones — before hard work, priva- 
 tion, and exposure have turned them into 
 
22 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 lean, wrinkled hags — are of the grand, maternal 
 type ; erect, deep chested, with handsome 
 faces, well-poised heads, and a direct, fearless 
 outlook upon a world in which they bear 
 more than a proportionate share of the burdens 
 in comparison with their men. Sometimes 
 I have dared to think what a benefit it would 
 be for the physical improvement of the race 
 if some of our effete, super-civilised young men 
 could choose such women for their mates. 
 
 Altogether, the peasant women appear of 
 a finer physique than the men, who are apt 
 to be squat and undersized, and, in their 
 nondescript garments, with their heavy brows 
 and swarthy faces, remind one fearsomely 
 of some comic-opera villains. But their 
 looks belie them ; for I have generally found 
 them gentle, respectful, and of a truly wonder- 
 ful courtesy. 
 
 Indeed, with their light-heartedness, kind- 
 liness, and natural good manners, they are 
 a lovable people — if one does not seek to take 
 them too seriously, or to judge them by rigid 
 Northern standpoints of veracity and probity ; 
 remembering the differing stages of progress 
 and the subtle but very real influences of 
 climate upon character. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 OUR SURROUNDINGS 
 
 I HAVE a slip of a sleeping-chamber ; tiny, 
 white, and bare as a nun's cell ; but the view 
 from its big window makes it more to be 
 desired than the stateliest room in a city 
 palace. 
 
 When I open my eyes in the early morning 
 I lie looking out upon a scene of such rare 
 beauty that the daily return to life is ever 
 a fresh joy to me, bestowing a benison upon 
 the coming hours. 
 
 Below my window stretches the little field 
 of maize from which my garden plot has been 
 stolen. The tender, blue-green, long ribbony 
 leaves shimmer in the sunlight, stirred by a 
 first faint promise of the wind which will 
 spring up later. Beyond the grey granite 
 fence the road winds by, along which presently 
 the milk-woman trips, carrying her load of 
 tin cans in a great shallow round basket, poised 
 
 23 
 
24 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 upon her head. She is young, broad-chested, 
 upright, and alert with strength and grace. 
 She is untrammelled by stays or shoes and 
 stockings, and the whiteness of her head- 
 kerchief and ample blouse would shame the 
 snow. Her walk, from the hips alone, has 
 a perfect swing and freedom, and her load, 
 unheld, yet securely balanced, discomposes 
 her not at all. Even so might Rebekah have 
 appeared when she met Eliezer of Damascus 
 at the well of Nahor ; so might the Moorish 
 women have passed along this selfsame road, 
 centuries ago. 
 
 Then, slowly, very slowly and thoughtfully, 
 an ox-cart will creep along the road : a primi- 
 tive vehicle with removable sides of basket- 
 work, and heavy, spokeless wooden wheels, 
 springless and fixed to the axle, which con- 
 sequently revolves with them. The cart is 
 drawn by a pair of bay-coloured oxen, gentle 
 and phlegmatic creatures, with big, soft 
 brown eyes, their patient necks bending be- 
 neath a broad yoke of curiously carved wood, 
 which is sometimes quite beautiful, and a 
 much prized heirloom in the peasant families. 
 Horses are a rare sight here ; the ox-carts do 
 all the conveying ; the patient beasts creeping 
 at their slow pace for long, long, distances, 
 
OUR SURROUNDINGS 25 
 
 led by a rapaz or a rapariga, and urged on 
 and anathematised at frequent intervals by 
 their driver, who occasionally enforces his 
 words by a prod from a long stick with a nail 
 hidden at its point — the ox-goad, unknown 
 now to civilisation, except in metaphor. 
 
 The last groan of the lumbering cart-wheels 
 dies away in the distance at length, and the 
 blessed morning quiet is unbroken by aught 
 save the liquid notes of a robin perched in 
 the fig tree beneath my window. 
 
 On the farther side of the road there 
 stretches a strip of common, bright with golden 
 gorse and purple heather and bracken, and 
 dotted with a series of tiny windmills, of such 
 shape and lance-like poise of centre-pole that 
 one can comprehend the possibility of the 
 poor Knight of La Mancha's frenzied mistake 
 as one could never do from the semblance of 
 an English windmill. These are for use when 
 the stream runs dry and the water-mills stand 
 in enforced idleness. One of these mills has 
 a tiny shrine let in its side, where the women, 
 passing across the common on their way to 
 market, can rest their loads upon its stone 
 foundation, and may kneel and pray a little 
 prayer to the Christ or the Holy Mother ; 
 
20 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 perhaps that their cabbages may fetch a good 
 price, or that they may be given grace to 
 refrain from the sin of evil-speaking or crooked- 
 dealing amid the temptations of the town. 
 Some of these little erections are of wood, 
 some of cemented stone. Those of wood are 
 moved round bodily, on tiny wheels, to present 
 their sails to the particular wind which chances 
 to be blowing, while the stone ones have re- 
 volving roofs for the same purpose. Even 
 with this facility for courting Boreas — for 
 it is usually the north wind which serves 
 them — the men who have them in charge 
 have often hours to wait before the wind arises. 
 But what matters that, in this land of infinite 
 leisure ? They lounge outside the mill doors, 
 and the women who have come, bearing on 
 their heads their great bags of maize to be 
 ground, sit too, and there seems always some- 
 thing to talk about and to argue over, with eager 
 voices and excited gestures — and the day is 
 young, and the sun is warm ; there is no hurry, 
 the wind will arise in God's good time. 
 
 When it does come, all the sails revolve with 
 bustling energy, each set seeming to chant a 
 different song. There is a very old mill near 
 by which perpetually groans a weary complaint: 
 " I am so tired — I am so tired — do let me 6e ! " 
 
OUR SURROUNDINGS 27 
 
 So unwilling is it to work, so worn out with 
 its long service, that, if I could, I would buy 
 it, lock it up and lose the key of it, and let 
 it rest unharassed until its crazy timbers 
 should crumble into dust. 
 
 Within hail of this veteran there is a more 
 modem stone mill, with a bright red roof, 
 and it Jilts a gay defiance as it whirls round 
 busily — " / don't care if I work all day ! / 
 don't care if I work all day ! " And the more 
 distant ones respond — " We're working as 
 hard as you^ anyway ! We'^re working as 
 hard as you, anyway ! " while the World- 
 Weary One drones out its incessant grumble — 
 " So tired — so tired — ^let me be — Do let me 
 be ! " 
 
 Thus the windmills in their working hours. 
 In the twilight they appear as squat grey 
 ghosts, with outstretched arms ; but there is 
 a brief time in the early morning when they 
 are transformed into dream things of almost 
 unearthly beauty. When they stand all still 
 in the pure light of dawn, and slowly, slowly 
 creeping from one to the other, the first golden 
 sunbeam touches them into marvellous colours 
 of soft pink and green and purple and primrose, 
 they are idealised by its magic into things of a 
 fairer world ; and they share in the holiness 
 
28 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 and the mystery of the coming of the God of 
 Day. 
 
 Beyond this strip of common I know the 
 raib*oad runs which connects us with civilisa- 
 tion, but it is mercifully hidden in a shallow 
 cutting. All I can see from my window is a 
 wide ridge of yellow sand hillocks, and, beyond 
 — the surging white surf of the Atlantic shore, 
 with the broad expanse of blue sea, stretching 
 away to the skyline ^ no land nearer than 
 America. 
 
 Behind that sea each clear evening the sun 
 sets — a, great, beneficent, working god who has 
 given all the day generously to this favoured 
 land of his warmth and joy and light, and who 
 sinks reluctantly beneath the waves at last, in a 
 blaze of golden glory ; even after his departure 
 sending up into the serene blue his opalesque 
 rays of pink, orange, and green, tinging the 
 stray cloudlets with purest tints of rose — his 
 promise of a glad return upon the morrow. 
 
 Each day at this charmed hour The Philo- 
 sopher and I share in Nature's vespers, 
 watching silently or speaking with lowered 
 voices, for it is a holy time, when thought in- 
 voluntarily merges into prayer ; and not until 
 the last gleam has faded do we resume our 
 ordinary avocations, 
 
OUR SURROUNDINGS 29 
 
 Presently, in the " dimsy light," a soft blue 
 haze of smoke arises from the tiny cottages 
 hidden amongst the pines and the fields of 
 maize ; a pleasant, pungent scent of burning 
 wood is everywhere diffused. The house- 
 wives are home from their toil in the fields 
 and the woods, and the evening meal of milho 
 and beans is in course of preparation, while 
 the little bare-footed, half -clothed children 
 seem, like the birds, to grow more lively as 
 sleep-time approaches, and scream and chatter 
 and contest as noisily as though the day had 
 not been long enough for all their doings. 
 But quiet succeeds, when the mae gathers 
 them in, to sit on the floor or on little wooden 
 stools, hugging their brown unglazed earthen- 
 ware bowls, to fish with three-pronged pewter 
 forks or rude wooden spoons for the fugitive 
 beans or fragments of cabbage which are 
 sparsely mingled in a thin mess of maize- 
 meal. 
 
 Soon, one by one, the feeble lights disappear 
 in these simple homes ; doors and windows 
 are fast bolted, and the glory of the night is 
 left to crazy English folk, who waste oil turning 
 night into day, and lie abed when the sun has 
 risen in the sky. Then The Philosopher and 
 I are wont to steal forth and to wander off into 
 
30 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 the enchanted outside world where such a wide 
 choice of beauty is waiting for us alone. 
 
 We can cross our common by The Path of 
 The Windmills, scramble down and up the 
 railway banks, and so find ourselves upon the 
 wide silvery sands, where, seaward, our few 
 rocks lie like sleeping brown monsters amongst 
 the white surf, and, beyond, the waves are 
 shimmering in the moonlight, whilst above 
 us the great blue dome of heaven holds sus- 
 pended in its measureless height the serene 
 Queen of the Night, and countless myriads of 
 luminaries, twinkling down upon two in- 
 finitesimal Insignificants, straying upon this 
 third-rate planet. But The Philosopher and 
 I laugh up at them, and plan how we will 
 explore them all when we are free some day, 
 making a grand tour among them — after we 
 have donned the Time-annihilating Hat for 
 which Teufelsdrokh longed, and have watched 
 the solemn wonder of Creation and of Evolu- 
 tion upon this our own dear world. Ah, when 
 that day comes, what a wealth there will be 
 to enjoy and to do ; and what surprises there 
 will be fox us ! 
 
 Or, perhaps, we turn aside from the common, 
 and, making our way down a steep little path, 
 we descend into a grassy hollow amongst the 
 
OUR SURROUNDINGS 31 
 
 canes and rushes, where, sheer out of the rock, 
 a musical trickle of pure spring water supplies 
 the household needs of ourselves and the 
 neighbouring cottagers. Ever overflowing its 
 tiny sandy basin, it streams down and con- 
 tributes of its superfluity to a small rush- 
 bordered pond, where the frogs are croaking 
 their nightly chorus. Such a hubbub ! So 
 many gossips raucously discussing the affairs 
 of their little community, breaking in upon 
 each other with importunate " quarks " and 
 " spuarks," in varying depths and heights of 
 tones, from the old Grandfather Frog occa- 
 sionally venting a hoarse dignified comment, 
 to the youngest shedder of a tail, shrieking 
 of the miracle that has happened to him ; all 
 knowing their luscious, weedy pond to be the 
 centre of the universe and intruding man to 
 be but a transitory and unwarrantable dis- 
 turber of their peace. 
 
 Here, too, between low grassy banks, winds 
 the narrow stream which has run down the 
 fair length of our Happy Valley, placidly 
 making its way to merge all its separate per- 
 sonality in the bosom of its waiting lover, the 
 sea. 
 
 On either side of its banks the broad, flat 
 kneeling-stones of the washerwomen gleam 
 
32 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 white in the moonHght. Here, in one place, 
 a loose arbour of broken branches of trees has 
 been formed above them, to shade the workers 
 from the blaze of the noonday sun ; and here, 
 through all the long bright days, the laundresses 
 splash and swirl and soap and thump the roupa 
 on the stones to the accompaniment of their 
 high-pitched songs and merry laughter ; after- 
 wards spreading the snowy linen to dry upon 
 the grassy slopes behind them. These peasant 
 women appear to be endlessly washing clothes 
 whenever they are not working in the fields. 
 And, indeed, great are the virtues of clean 
 garments, be they ever so ragged, in this 
 southern land. 
 
 Or, again, we turn our backs upon the at- 
 tractions of the common and the sea, and 
 wander off into the shades of our Happy 
 Valley, by a tiny path beside our house which 
 winds immediately into the pine-woods. Here 
 all is still in the soft summer darkness. We 
 soon quit the narrow path, and silently tread- 
 ing our way amongst the moss and bracken, 
 we follow the little stream which is flowing 
 between the wooded slopes. 
 
 A scent of dying wood-fires lingers in the 
 air ; the pines emit a balmy, resinous odour ; 
 
OUR SURROUNDINGS 33 
 
 our feet crush some unseen herb, and a fresh 
 fragrance uprises in response. Sombrely the 
 tall pine trunks shoot straight upwards in 
 the dimness, and, high above, their feathery- 
 tops stand stilly out like finest black etchings 
 against the luminous sky. Moths flit about 
 irresolutely, a droning night-beetle blunders 
 against my hair, and the water below ripples 
 coolly, silver-sounding, on its leisurely way to 
 the washing-stones and the sea. 
 
 The clusters of honeysuckle and the briar- 
 roses show pallid faces from amongst the dark 
 bushes ; and presently, over and about them, 
 strange fairy lights flash elusively — ^here, there, 
 not long anywhere — cutting the summer dusk 
 with vivid gleams, then gone — to multiply 
 and dance an elfish measure around some other 
 bush or against some stalwart pine trunk. 
 The fireflies are abroad, and the glowworm's 
 nuptial lamp gleams coldly blue in comparison. 
 
 As we cross the little stone bridge which 
 spans the stream, and pass the miller's low 
 cottage, an alert cock, wakening at the sound 
 of our footsteps, crows suddenly — shrilly ; 
 and the miller's yellow dog — my chief terror — 
 thus disturbed from his sleep under the maize- 
 stalk thatch of the shed, emits a perfunctory 
 bark. Then, seeing it is but the two mad 
 
 3 
 
34 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 English people who walk abroad when all should 
 sleep, but who do not steal the fowls, he recurls 
 himself, and reproves us by his good example. 
 There springs up a tiny, soft breeze, warm, 
 but refreshing after the heat of the day, and 
 the ivy-leaves, clustering round the old tree 
 stems, begin to rustle, and whisper, and gleam 
 in the moonlight. The bell at the distant 
 church sounds the hour in deep, slow, mellow 
 tones. All this little world sleeps but ourselves, 
 and we turn homewards and slumberwards, 
 talking in hushed voices as we thread our way 
 between the solemn pines. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 OURSELVES AND OUR FOOD 
 
 We long ago formed ourselves into a Mutual 
 Admiration Society. As he will certainly 
 never read this book, I can venture to say that 
 no one could live for long beside The Philo- 
 sopher without coming to reverence his sweet 
 sound nature, his gentleness and simplicity, 
 his generous point of view in things great and 
 small, the consistent nobility of his attitude 
 to life which shames all weak and unworthy 
 thoughts in others. One of his ancestors was 
 a general in Cromwell's army, and I sometimes 
 think that grand old Puritan has bequeathed 
 many of his stern virtues to this his far-off 
 descendant. It is a thing to thank God for — 
 to have known one man who " rang true^" 
 without worldly dross or moral alloy — and I 
 am very proud of my Philosopher. 
 
 And although I cannot always find calm 
 reason for his belief in me, it is certainly 
 beautiful and encouraging to possess a com- 
 
 35 
 
36 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 rade who thinks one ever wise, witty, and 
 charming. As one of John Ohver Hobbes's 
 women says, "It is so much easier to be a 
 heroine if you know you are some one's ideal." 
 I have always been given to a measure of 
 self-analysis ; and though I have often had 
 occasion to disapprove of myself, I have at 
 least never failed to find myself interesting. 
 This may sound sadly vain, but indeed I think 
 that to endeavour to form a fairly true esti- 
 mate of one's own capacities is not vanity, 
 rather is it the highest wisdom. Certainly one 
 can have no better subject for study than one's 
 self, for between ourselves and our fellows there 
 is an elusive veil which is never wholly raised, 
 however sincere the desire for mutual frank- 
 ness may be. " Know thyself ! " said one 
 of the Wise Men of Ancient Greece, and a 
 modern philosopher says, " He who falls in love 
 with himself enters upon a lifelong romance." 
 We tend to become what we think we are ; 
 moreover, for lack of patience to apply a truer 
 standard, the world is very apt to take us at 
 our own valuation. The man, however gifted, 
 who is timid, seK-distrustful, and irresolute, 
 has but a poor chance of persuading his fellows 
 that he merits their honour and consideration ; 
 while the man who looks out upon life with 
 
OURSELVES AND OUR FOOD 37 
 
 the calm confidence of one who sees few better 
 and many worse than himself, who is staunch 
 to certain sane ideals, and who respects his 
 own limitations, succeeds where the man of 
 greater gifts but of less self-confidence will fail. 
 
 He who accepts his own personality appre- 
 ciatively, as a piece of work not designed by 
 himself nor by blind chance, but by an Om- 
 niscient Power Who sees the end as clearly 
 as the beginning, is not belittled by his self- 
 reverence, rather is his whole outlook on life 
 exalted ; his actions become noble, altruistic, 
 in a manner impossible to a man who despises 
 himself and who has but scant belief in his 
 own power to influence his fellows or to com- 
 mand the world's admiration and respect. 
 Confidence in one's self is positive, hopeful, 
 strong ; self-mistrust is negative, enervating, 
 weak ; thus the belief in one's power to do a 
 thing makes it more possible of accomplish- 
 ment, and I count that man wise who, with- 
 out unworthy vanity, unheeding the worthless 
 approbation of the fickle many, yet has his 
 nature so perfectly poised that he moves through 
 life in calm self-reliance and reasonable pride. 
 
 This is a sad digression ; but it shall stand, 
 since inasmuch as all self-revelation is interest- 
 ing, I intend in this little book to present 
 
38 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 you with myself amongst other things. Are 
 we not all engaged in probing, questioning, 
 and proving each other's personalities ? Is 
 not all Friendship just an attempt to look over 
 the dividing wall into another soul's garden, 
 and Love but a passionate desire to taste the 
 fruits which grow therein ? We are each so 
 lonely, in spite of propinquity and speech ; our 
 modern life is so built round with high barriers 
 of convention, tradition, and dread of origi- 
 nality, that a man seldom dares to show himself 
 to his fellows frankly as he is, and a bare soul 
 seems in our day a positive indecency. 
 
 But because I am so obscure that you will 
 never identify me, and because I am an Irish- 
 woman, and therefore by nature a rebel, I 
 purpose in this little journal occasionally to 
 give you myself and my thoughts — the best 
 and the worst of me. Not, if I can help it, 
 as others have done in so many biographies 
 and diaries, an idealised self, with a simper 
 and a pretty pose, reminiscent of the foot- 
 lights and a properly appreciative audience ; 
 not as the woman I ought to be, or the woman 
 I am thought to be, but just the woman I am. 
 If I should be betrayed into affectation, pray 
 waste no time over me, but toss me aside. 
 But if, here and there, I succeed in lifting the 
 
OURSELVES AND OUR FOOD 39 
 
 veil and truthfully presenting my thoughts, 
 myself, and my life, then you will be the richer 
 by the knowledge of another human soul, 
 travelling the same road as yourself, bound 
 for the same goal at last. 
 
 We have achieved what we should once have 
 thought the impossible. We live, and live 
 well, the two of us, upon less than ten shillings 
 a week. Our food is appetising, varied, rich 
 in all the constituents necessary for a perfect 
 diet, and it is supplemented by a delightful red 
 wine of the country, mellow, with an occasional 
 slight sparkle lurking in its depths — neither 
 claret nor burgundy, but first cousin to both — 
 an addition to our fare which, to true Omarites 
 such as we are, is a daily pleasure, and which 
 costs us at the rate of three-half-pence a bottle. 
 
 Of course we are not flesh-eaters ; a fact 
 which we have never had reason to regret. 
 However attractive to palate and eye the final 
 product on the table may be, any one who has 
 seen brains, sweetbread, liver, or other animal 
 parts before cooking, or who is sensitive to the 
 peculiar odour of mortality with which one is 
 assailed in the shops where the dead bodies of 
 the animals hang, will understand how beauti- 
 ful I feel it to be to have found a nourishing 
 
40 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 dietary from which such shuddering horrors 
 are banished. 
 
 Was it Thoreau who said that if each man 
 and woman had to do their own daily mur- 
 dering, instead of paying to have it done for 
 them, as now, from very shame and horror 
 they would soon cease to kill to eat ? 
 
 For ourselves, our health is better, we are 
 lighter in spirits, more clear-headed and 
 " workish " than we ever were in the days 
 when we benightedly thought that animal 
 food was a necessity for physical well-being. 
 As that same wise Thoreau wrote long ago, 
 " Whatever my own practice may be, I have 
 no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the 
 human race, in its gradual improvement, to 
 leave off eating animals, as surely as the 
 savage tribes have left off eating each other 
 when they came in contact with the more 
 civilised. ... If the day and the night are 
 such that you greet them with joy, and life 
 emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet- 
 scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, 
 more immortal — ^that is your success." 
 
 And that success has long been ours. Of 
 course at first we blundered along, experi- 
 menting, and failing often. We started, as 
 many dO; with such a fear of not eating a 
 
OURSELVES AND OUR FOOD 41 
 
 sufficient amount of the equivalent-to-meat 
 constituent — ^protein — that we got violent in- 
 digestion from the vast numbers of beans we 
 thought it necessary to consume ; from which 
 we reacted to an excess of starchy food ; but 
 by degrees we have grown wiser, and after 
 careful calculations, and even, at first, weighing 
 the different amounts, we have now so ap- 
 portioned everything that our diet is both 
 " pleasurable and profitable " — to body and 
 purse. 
 
 I append a list of our weekly expenditure 
 on food, showing how the ten shillings is ap- 
 proximated. 
 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Milk 
 
 ..2 6 
 
 Bread 
 
 
 .. 1 2 
 
 Wine 
 
 
 10^ 
 
 Eggs 
 
 
 ..2 4 
 
 Oatmeal 
 
 
 . 1 
 
 Beans and fish 
 
 
 . 6 
 
 Apples and figs 
 
 
 . 3i 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 
 . 1 
 
 Onions for soup 
 
 
 . 1 
 
 Macaroni, rice, flour . 
 
 
 . 3 
 
 Sugar 
 
 
 . 3 
 
 Nuts for butter 
 
 
 . 3 
 
 Olive oil for cooking . 
 
 
 . 3 
 
 Salt and pepper 
 
 
 . 0| 
 9 10^ 
 
42 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 We are lavish with milk and eggs, both from 
 inclination and because they are rich in the 
 " f at " which we should otherwise lack. That 
 necessity is also provided by the oatmeal, 
 which we take with our morning and evening 
 meal. We have to pay dearly for it, as oat- 
 meal is not usual in this country, and the weekly 
 shilling shown represents but one packet of 
 prepared oats, procured from stores which 
 specialise in English articles. 
 
 We take a certain amount of beans each day 
 in some form or other, supplanted occasionally 
 by fish, which we can buy here for a low price — 
 fifty sardines or a great plate of tiny mackerel 
 for three-halfpence, or a large fresh haddock 
 for fourpence. Our baker brings us four small 
 loaves daily. I have grown in our field some 
 of the tall cabbages which are universal here, 
 for green vegetables ; bay leaves for flavouring, 
 mint, and healthful dandelion for salad the 
 hedges supply. We can get good figs for 
 stewing at twopence per pound, eight large 
 apples for a penny, and a long straw strand 
 of onions, lasting for months, for fourpence. 
 
 I must confess to one daily luxury which 
 does not figure in my list, since a certain be- 
 nevolent fairy sends me a supply each birth- 
 day — tea, which is a prohibitive price here in 
 
OURSELVES AND OUR FOOD 43 
 
 Portugal (about 85. per pound), the duty on 
 it being very heavy. In winter I make a 
 dehcious substitute for cocoa with flour 
 which has been well browned in the oven, 
 boiled in milk, and a few drops of vanilla 
 added. 
 
 We have a choice of many kind of beans. 
 There is a certain brown bean which makes 
 a peculiarly meaty and delicious soup, which 
 would deceive any flesh devotee by its appe- 
 tising odour when cooking and good flavour 
 when served. Then there is a good mixture 
 of white, yellow, and red beans ; the big white 
 haricots, which, stewed in milk, with a slight 
 thickening of barley or rice, and a pinch of 
 finely chopped parsley added at the last mo- 
 ment, make a delicate and delicious soup, or 
 fried in olive oil, after stewing, are very tasty. 
 Then there are the grao de hico, a kind of peas, 
 with useful properties which, as garbanzos 
 in Spain, are as invariably served as our pota- 
 toes are at home. There are also quaint little 
 peas called " little monks," which they 
 amusingly resemble ; and other varieties of 
 the legume family. 
 
 The secret of success in all bean cookery is 
 to soak the beans in salted water for twenty- 
 four hours before cooking, and then to let 
 
44 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 them boil gently for seven or eight hours more. 
 They cannot be hurried. And in all vegetarian 
 cookery a great essential to success is to vary 
 your flavours ; not to be content to serve the 
 proper foods in the proper quantities, but to 
 make them as different and as appetising as 
 possible. Good curries can be made with 
 beans, or with cold fish. 
 
 Pythagoras would not eat beans because 
 they had souls, he averred. We do not share 
 his scruples, making them the foundation of 
 our daily meals ; and if we thus unwittingly 
 speed souls upon their upward way, we expect 
 them rather to be grateful to us for their 
 accelerated passage ! 
 
 Stewed figs are wholesome and good, and 
 do not require sweetening, which is a point in 
 their favour, as sugar is very dear here — six- 
 pence a pound. Indeed, everything which is 
 imported is raised to a much higher price than 
 at home, by reason of the heavy duties. The 
 only wise course for poor folk is to live as 
 entirely as may be upon the products of the 
 country, which are all good and cheap, as the 
 people who buy them are so poor. Such adapt- 
 ability is essential, if one would be a successful 
 world-citizen ; and in whatever country The 
 Philosopher and I have chanced to be, we 
 
OURSELVES AND OUR FOOD 45 
 
 have eaten as far as possible as the people 
 themselves did ; knowing that the habitual 
 fare is usually the result of the selection and 
 economical consideration of generations. 
 
 Butter is to be got in the town, at a high 
 price, and I have once or twice seen an un- 
 wholesome-looking bit of pale substance under 
 a glass in the village stores ; but though milk 
 is good and plentiful, the country folk do not 
 seem to cultivate the art of butter-making. 
 So I make a good substitute with nuts to 
 spread upon our bread, pulverising them in 
 my mincing-machine with a special nut-butter 
 disc. Walnut butter is especially delectable, 
 besides being a most valuable form of proteid, 
 and rich in oil. Pea-nut butter is also good, 
 and one soon grows accustomed to the peculiar 
 " twang " of these humble little nuts, es- 
 pecially if a judicious pinch of salt is intro- 
 duced into the butter-making. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 DOMESTICITIES 
 
 My kitchen is but a cupboard in size, though 
 quite sufficiently large for our simple cuisine. 
 One side of it is occupied by a most indis- 
 pensable piece of furniture — high, broad, and 
 made of white wood — a kind of combination 
 larder, dresser, sink, and store-cupboard, in 
 appearance not unlike the cwpwrdd tri-darn 
 which one sees in old Welsh houses. At the 
 top, the larder, an open cupboard, is shielded 
 from flies by a curtain of white net. Below, 
 my modest stock of crockery is displayed ; 
 below that again, there is a rack for draining 
 the plates, then a broad sink with an outlet 
 pipe, and beneath that, to the floor, a deep 
 store-cupboard with two doors. 
 
 Our pots and crocks would be an unending 
 source of joy to a Pre-Raphaelite. From our 
 basins and soup plates the Virgin herself might 
 have eaten, so quaint and crude are they in 
 
 46 
 
DOMESTICITIES 47 
 
 form and colouring. There are two great 
 terra-cotta jugs for drawing water from the 
 spring — ^precisely the same in form as the one 
 to be seen in pictures which the woman of 
 Samaria carried on her head when she met 
 the Stranger's gaze at the well, little guessing 
 that her Master looked upon her — and which 
 are balanced on our women's heads in the 
 same Eastern fashion. There are odd little 
 unglazed terra-cotta crocks for heating morsels 
 of food, similar in quaint shape and rude finish 
 to the ones taken from ancient sepulchres, 
 and costing absurdly little. 
 
 For my cooking utensils — ^from England I 
 brought a cast-aluminium stewpan and frying- 
 pan, a fish-basket, a potato-masher, and a 
 mincing-machine : these, with some of the 
 cheap tin pots of the peasantry, form all my 
 stock. 
 
 Then there is a broom, a pail, and a scrubbing 
 brush, and that, with the exception of our tin 
 travelling bath, is aU. No kitchen stove, and 
 no place for one ; not a chimney nor a fire- 
 place in the house. Imagine the despair of an 
 English cook, deprived of her kitchen range, 
 and commanded to prepare a dinner ! But 
 also picture the economy possible to a menage 
 in whose lower regions there lurks no huge 
 
48 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 monster with gaping jaws, insatiably consuming 
 coal, coal, coal, from earliest morning until 
 late at night. 
 
 My cooking is almost entirely done upon a 
 fogareiro — a tiny iron stove for burning char- 
 coal, resembling in shape and size a shallow 
 pudding basin, with side handles and a grating 
 in the bottom, fixed on a little stand. This 
 is placed on the floor, in a corner of one of 
 the deep granite window recesses, and here it 
 glows steadily, unostentatiously, through the 
 long hours, doing its good work upon the beans, 
 the porridge, and the contents of other pots 
 and pans which are balanced upon it in hair- 
 breadth fashion. Sometimes I have as many 
 as five cooking utensils clustering over this 
 tiny fire ; and in our unregenerate days I have 
 cooked a dinner upon it comprising boiled 
 fowl, bread sauce, potatoes, greens, custard, 
 and stewed apples ! 
 
 For emergencies there is a little eighteen- 
 penny oil stove, but petroleum is so dear here 
 that I do not use it more than can be helped ; 
 whilst my tiny fogareiro burns from ten o'clock 
 in the morning until seven o'clock at night, 
 and the charcoal costs us one shilling per week. 
 
 Our modest stock of household silver was 
 stolen from the trunk in which it was packed, 
 
DOMESTICITIES 49 
 
 somewhere en route — a loss which would have 
 distressed me more than it did had not The 
 Philosopher explained most reasonably that it 
 was so much the less to take care of and to 
 worry over, and as we fortunately had a few 
 forks, spoons, and four precious knives in our 
 luncheon basket, it has probably been " all for 
 the best," as good people are fond of assuring 
 one that other people's misfortunes always 
 are. 
 
 When The Philosopher and I first kept 
 house, I used to fume and grieve terribly over 
 breakages and other domestic fatalities, to his 
 great amusement, until he took my education 
 in hand, and taught me to emulate the calm 
 of the lady in Byron's poem, who was — 
 
 " Mistress of herself, though china fall." 
 
 " For, oh, most foolish Pearl," he would say, 
 " of what benefit is it to lose two good things 
 by the accident — the article itself, and your 
 own serenity ? " 
 
 We have a rapariga who comes for two 
 hours each morning to do our simple house 
 work. She answers to the name of Michelina, 
 and somehow it seems to befit her pretty, 
 roguish self. She is a dainty little person, with 
 
 4 
 
50 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 sparkling dark eyes and brown curls which 
 have a way of escaping from the restraining 
 folds of her head-kerchief, and she goes about 
 her work with an earnestness and method 
 which is not the least of her charms for me. 
 
 Naturally, we and our foreign ways both 
 interest her greatly, and she will pause, broom 
 or pail in hand, to watch the progress of The 
 Philosopher's painting, or to gaze at the wonder 
 of my typewriter at work, until recalled to 
 duty by a gently suggestive " Que quere ? " 
 from one of us. 
 
 Then, when all the washing-up is done, the 
 fogareiro lighted, and the little house put in 
 order for the day, I give her a bundle of soiled 
 linen and a chunk of soap, and her little bare 
 feet patter off, with her short full skirt co- 
 quettishly swinging, and her bright head- 
 kerchief fluttering in the wind, down to the 
 brook-side, where she joins the merry, chat- 
 tering group of washerwomen, returning an 
 hour later to spread out to dry upon the grass 
 the spotless clean clothes, whose snowy white- 
 ness would arouse the envy of any English 
 housewife. And this without any " washing- 
 day " horrors. No sloppy scullery, no steamy 
 copper (with another hungry fire to be fed), 
 no soda, nor blue, nor washing-powder : just 
 
DOMESTICITIES 51 
 
 the soft water of the running stream, a little 
 soap, and the beneficent sunshine. 
 
 What a popular event washing-day would 
 be with our maids at home in England if it 
 could only mean a morning in the open air 
 and the sunshine, at the stream's side, with 
 the high road winding by above to give occa- 
 sional distraction, and the gay companionship 
 of half a dozen fellow-washers to lighten the 
 labour ! No longer would the ominous phrase, 
 " no washing," figure in all domestic adver- 
 tisements : rather the grievance would be if 
 there were none. 
 
 But then, alas ! to make that possible, in 
 addition to the simple custom this wonderful 
 climate would need to be imported. 
 
 Michelina, for all her daily services, counts 
 herself well paid with a monthly wage of eight 
 tostoes — about three shillings and fourpence — 
 and a proud and delighted little maid is she 
 when pay-day comes round. Never do the 
 saucepans shine so brightly, nor the boards 
 gleam so spotlessly, as on that day ; and, 
 when possible, her satisfaction is also shown 
 by the presentation of a big bunch of flowers 
 from the garden of her mother's cottage. 
 Once there chanced to be a bottle of wine 
 lying mysteriously broken on the floor of the 
 
52 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 store-room after the rapariga had been sweeping 
 there, but the next morning brought such a 
 beautiful bouquet that, in the face of its re- 
 morseful loveliness, I had not the heart to 
 press awkward inquiries. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 ONE OF OUR SUNDAYS 
 
 October, 
 
 To-day is Sunday, a calm, fresh autumn 
 morning. The Philosopher and I have early 
 betaken ourselves up our Happy Valley to a 
 favourite spot on the hill-side among the pines, 
 where, between the stems, we can glimpse 
 the shimmering blue of the distant sea, and the 
 quiet is only occasionally disturbed by the 
 hoarse cries of the magpies as they flit, far 
 above our heads, in the tall tree-tops, or the 
 self-absorbed drone of some belated humble-bee, 
 searching for the honey that is over in the 
 heather amongst the bracken. Here we re- 
 cline in fragrant nests of pine needles and fern. 
 Clean garments seem to me to be somehow 
 part of the Sunday " thought of God " ; as 
 we should attire ourselves in our best for a 
 visit to an honoured friend, so it is pleasant to 
 wear pure, fresh raiment on the day which 
 we have specially devoted to communion with 
 
 53 
 
54 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 that nwst dear Friend. So I have donned a 
 clean white frock and my best silver waist- 
 belt ; and as fresh clothes and a decent tie 
 were cunningly placed at my dear Philosopher's 
 bedside, and his ordinary ones abstracted, even 
 he is looking almost English in respectability. 
 
 On the way I found a few late blackberries 
 and a spray of most sweet honeysuckle. 
 Amongst the bracken the spiders overnight 
 had woven great wide webs, only this morning 
 to find them useless for sporting purposes, 
 each weighed down in every mesh with heavy 
 dewdrops, covering the gorse and heather with 
 a cloth of silver, rarely beautiful in the sun- 
 light. 
 
 There is a delicious crispness in the air, 
 which is far removed from chill, but is ex- 
 hilirating, making motion a pleasure, causing 
 a subtle feeling of cleanliness, purity, and 
 health. So had it intoxicated us, that we 
 marched here along the narrow, sunny tracks 
 amongst the brambles up the brook-side, 
 chanting some of the grand old hymns which, 
 perchance, our loved ones in England were 
 singing at the same moment at their morning 
 service. 
 
 Now, The Philosopher lies absorbed in his 
 well-worn Montaigne, and I have been 
 
ONE OF OUR SUNDAYS 55 
 
 lazily, blissfully gazing up at the perfectness 
 of the intense blue of the sky as seen between 
 the olive green of the pine branches, singing 
 softly, and half unconsciously, to my own 
 happy self, that most wistful prayer to " The 
 Pillar of Cloud "— 
 
 " Lead, kindly Light, . . . lead Thou me on ! " 
 
 Ah, there was a time when my poor little 
 Protestant soul used to shiver with appre- 
 hension when I voiced that appeal. Black 
 doubt would shadow the sunlight of my con- 
 fidence in God's care. How could I hope that 
 my feeble, inarticulate cries for guidance in 
 life's crises would avail when Newman could 
 send up this appeal from the depths of his 
 tortured heart, at the cross-roads of his life, 
 and that for all response his great soul was 
 permitted to stumble into the quagmires of 
 superstition, dogma, and intellectual bondage ! 
 
 Now, from a little farther up the mountain 
 side, I can see that his prayer was answered — 
 given his nature — in the wisest way possible : 
 for even as some are content to feel the vibra- 
 tions from The Heart of the World stirring in 
 their own, casting off all shackles of Time and 
 Sense and Formula as they project their free 
 souls into the Spiritual — " The Real " — in that 
 
56 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 communion which alone is true worship, so 
 other natures must have symbols and stately 
 ritual to typify their union with the Spiritual ; 
 and if it helps them ? — ^Well ! If the dervish 
 in his giddy waltz can so " feel God " better, 
 then for heaven's sake let him dance ; if the 
 woman, glibly mumbling off pages of an un- 
 known tongue in the course of a ceremonial 
 appealing to the senses; if to have the ear, 
 the eye, the nose stimulated, aids her to draw 
 any nearer to the Unseen — ^then for her such 
 things are a positive good. Some are helped 
 by the materialisation of the instinct of wor- 
 ship, others are stifled by it. Creeds and 
 dogmas, what are they all but the uplifting of 
 the soul of man to The Good from Whom it 
 has come, according to the rites which seem 
 to help it the most ? Whether they follow the 
 teaching of one great Guide or the other, 
 Buddha, Mahomet, or The Christ — climbing 
 upward by whichever narrow way seems 
 indicated after their Guide's precepts have 
 been twisted, maimed, and misconstrued in 
 the passing of the centuries — matters very little, 
 just a little less or more of happiness and 
 light. Eastern gospel or Western gospel, they 
 are each paths, made misleading often by 
 translation and tradition, but still paths, tend- 
 
ONE OF OUR SUNDAYS 57 
 
 ing upwards, by their divers routes, to one Final 
 Goal. It is the impulse to climb that matters. 
 I think that what one has most to dread 
 nowadays is the atrophy of the soul ; that 
 terrible deadness which steals over it when it 
 has breathed too long and too deeply in the 
 miasmas of the Valley of Things Material ; 
 when the body seems all-sufficing, and the 
 baubles of time and sense — the fleeting things 
 we can see and touch and handle — become to 
 us the Real, and the things of the spirit seem 
 the things outside Life, instead of its very 
 essence. Then, indeed, those who are brave of 
 us would cry — 
 
 *' Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take. 
 And stab my spirit broad awake ; 
 Or, Lord, if too obdurate I, 
 Choose Thou, before that spirit die, 
 A piercing pain, a killing sin. 
 And to my dead heart run them in ! " 
 
 Blessed be any route — ^pain, pleasure, loss, 
 humiliation, in daily life ; ceremonial, dogma, 
 genuflexions, vestments, in worship — any 
 path by which the soul of man can be helped 
 in its progress upward from The Valley of The 
 Senses to The Hill of God. 
 
 But for us. The Philosopher and I, we are 
 pure pagans in our methods. No smaller 
 
58 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 church will suffice for us than the dome of 
 God's own blue sky ; we need no choir but the 
 happy birds, no preacher other than the solemn, 
 holy whispers of the tall pines rustling in the 
 wind above our heads, no prayers more formu- 
 lated than the silent turning of our souls to 
 The Heart of the World, Who knows us through 
 and through, and understands, and cares ; and 
 Who surely draws near to us, across the ferns 
 and moss, through the shadowy, sunflecked 
 glades, between the dark pine stems, of this our 
 Paradise, and with His presence blesses us, 
 His simple, worshipful children. 
 
 Diderot appealed to the Frenchmen of his 
 day to " set their God at liberty." Ah, " What 
 children are we, erecting churches and chapels 
 to exclude infinite space, which is the most 
 appropriate symbol, did we but reflect, of 
 Infinity ! " But, " Some people have to go to 
 church. They would forget God existed alto- 
 gether if they didn't." 
 
 Well, if it helps ! But as for us, we would 
 aspire to be as Spinoza was described — " a 
 God-intoxicated man " ; eating, breathing, 
 sleeping, sorrowing, or rejoicing — ^living ever 
 conscious of the all-permeating essence of The 
 Creator, of the Divine in nature ; knowing 
 
ONE OP OUR SUNDAYS 59 
 
 ourselves to be connected by inseverable 
 tendons with The Heart of the World, as simply, 
 as naturally, as confidingly as our lowlier 
 brethren, the dear birds and beasts. That 
 seems better than all the systems which we term 
 " religions " : to " feel God " the whole time. 
 Then, to act unworthily, ignobly, becomes 
 an offence against the nature which we draw 
 from Him, and less and less possible. That 
 is what the old Puritans meant, I think, 
 by their " growth in grace " ; and that is what 
 we mean by " feeling God," 
 
 To so many people He seems to be just an 
 idol, shut up in a box on all secular occasions, 
 but taken out and dusted and prayed to on 
 Sundays and marriage and burial days. An 
 idol whose worship is accounted to be " so 
 respectable ! " but not to be talked about nor 
 thought about, nor to have any bearing upon 
 the daily events of life. Indeed, an awkward 
 topic of conversation, the introduction of 
 which is considered " bad form," as being 
 calculated to make conversation languish, and 
 to put people into a dreary, stilted, and un- 
 natural mood. 
 
 Now, I wonder whether any one has dared 
 to think, as I love to do, that, as we are the 
 creations of God, and as all the best and most 
 
60 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 endearing qualities of our natures proceed 
 from God (for if not from Him, then whence 
 come they ?) and as they can be but faint, 
 faint reflections of Himself — since the part 
 must be less than the whole — He must neces- 
 sarily Himself possess them all in far greater 
 intensity. Therefore, besides having the 
 graver noble qualities of truth, justice, honour, 
 magnanimity and compassion. He must also 
 be gay, witty, frank, kindly, generous, bright- 
 thoughted, and must have a keen sense of 
 humour. No truly charming qualities of your 
 most finished modern product, a " gentleman," 
 but God must have them to an unrealisable 
 extent. Your most delightful friend, whom 
 you love to be with and to share every thought, 
 grave and gay, who amuses, stimulates, and 
 ennobles you, who by his very existence makes 
 the world a better place for you, can give 
 you but a mere faint, pale, far-off reflection of 
 the delightful nature of The Great Heart of 
 The World, Whom Marcus Aurelius termed 
 The All, Whom we call God ; while unamiable 
 and unworthy characters are merely farther 
 off from Him, have more lessons to learn, and 
 a farther way to journey upwards before they 
 too begin to reflect stray gleams of His own 
 beautiful nature to our consciousness. 
 
ONE OF OUR SUNDAYS 61 
 
 I once lay in one of the wards of a big hos- 
 pital when a clergyman came to pay his weekly 
 ministration to the sick and suffering occupants. 
 He was obviously most earnestly well-inten- 
 tioned, for nothing but a real sense of duty 
 would have taken him from bed to bed, dis- 
 tributing little tracts, saying a few perfunctory 
 words to each recipient, and appearing mildly 
 obtuse to the sullen rejoinders of some, the 
 silence of others, and the pointed rudeness 
 of a few. Then, from the centre of the ward, 
 he recited a few formal collects and delivered 
 a short sermon, in dry, conventional tones, 
 on — the coming Pan- Anglican Conference ! 
 After which he sighed, and went his way to 
 another ward. 
 
 Poor blind, well-meaning, futile man ! In 
 that hospital ward the dark wings of the Angel 
 of Death were almost audible to those who had 
 ears to hear. He had indeed come at mid- 
 night the previous night, and had hushed the 
 long, long moans of one of us ; he might return 
 at any moment — ^his sombre shadow was 
 hovering over more than one. Some, in terror 
 and sick dread of the unknown, were waiting 
 to face the surgeon's knife, others were stifling 
 moans as the quivering flesh smarted and 
 throbbed in the first painful processes of 
 
62 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 healing. Most of us were in pain, and all of us 
 were nervous, overstrung, scared by our un- 
 accustomed surroundings and by vague dread- 
 ful possibilities. Our bodies — those healthy, 
 careless bodies which had been wont to talk 
 and laugh and walk without thought of them- 
 selves — seemed now to be seized fast in the 
 grip of a stern Power who might at any mo- 
 ment rack them with unendurable agony, or 
 wrest them from us altogether. Too many 
 of us were the bread-winners, and to this per- 
 sonal and physical distress was added the 
 gnawing anxiety as to the welfare of those 
 dependent upon us. Though we were so in- 
 articulate, we badly wanted help. We wanted 
 Some One to lean our aching hearts upon ; 
 Some One who understood ; Some One with 
 human compassion — Who cared ! Ah, if he 
 had only presented to us some such a kindly, 
 powerful, pitiful, human God-Friend as the 
 one I have been deducing, what blessed comfort 
 and security might have crept into many a 
 poor, frightened heart ! 
 
 But so far removed is this from being the 
 proper " religious " conception of a grey, 
 somewhat stupid, and actively revengeful God, 
 or the " gigantic clergyman in a white tie," 
 who is presented to us for our enlightenment in 
 
ONE OF OUR SUNDAYS 63 
 
 so many of our churches, that I know I must 
 indefinably shock you. 
 
 Well ! Even as I write these words, borne 
 on the warm breeze across the pine-clad hills, 
 come the deep, slow, sonorous notes of a church 
 bell, announcing the hour of noon. Its 
 measured, heavy strokes seem pregnant with 
 memories of the dead centuries, and the by- 
 gone generations of men who have lived their 
 brief span in this same sunlight, and loved 
 and suffered, and struggled a little upwards, 
 and passed on. And the pines softly wave 
 their green branches and whisper to each other 
 that it all matters so little — so little ! 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 YOUNG PORTUGAL 
 
 " Portugal's wrongs are great, great ! — I tell 
 you, senhora, that France before the Revolution 
 was in the state that we in Portugal are to-day. 
 And the end must be the same." 
 
 I glanced lazily up at the young man from 
 the comfort of my deck-chair. A calm full 
 moon was shining overhead, a soft warm breeze 
 just stirred my hair, and we were ploughing 
 our way through the Bay of Biscay at a good 
 fifteen knots an hour. There was a ripple of 
 water at the steamer's side, and beyond, where 
 the waves swelled up, curved, and subsided 
 again, a thousand tiny phosphorescences 
 gleamed and disappeared and gleamed again. 
 The moment was so peaceful, so suited for 
 quiet nocturnal musings, that it seemed sadly 
 out of harmony to be strenuous. 
 
 But my companion had no such compunction. 
 He leaned against the deck-house beside my 
 
 64 
 
YOUNG PORTUGAL 65 
 
 chair, and seemed actually to vibrate with 
 intensity of feeling. His arms were folded 
 across his chest, and his big dark eyes glared 
 up defiantly at the moon, as though in that 
 placid luminary he descried the enemies of his 
 suffering country. 
 
 My lips twitched ; he was a mere boy, and 
 he was looking so tragi-comically defiant. 
 Then memory recalled the terrible happenings 
 that had been wrought in Portugal by the pas- 
 sionate sentiment which this boy was voicing, 
 and I grew grave. He was the age of his young 
 king, and he represented the mental attitude 
 of thousands of young fellows in his country 
 to-day — that country to which The Philosopher 
 and I were returning, where we had found our 
 " Walden " and had made our home. In- 
 terest overcame my indolence ; I sat up in my 
 chair and said : 
 
 " Do tell me more about it all — the trouble 
 in your country, I mean. As an English- 
 woman I only know that we were very fond 
 of your King Carlos " 
 
 *' Yes ! " he fiercely interrupted. " You 
 English liked him, of course, because he was 
 a great sportsman and what you call a good 
 fellow. That is all you know or cared about. 
 But we in Portugal, we suffered ! Ah, Jesus ! 
 
 5 
 
66 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 Perhaps he did not mean it ; he did not under- 
 stand, and he listened to bad counsellors. 
 Though our unfortunate country is so poor, 
 we were drained of money — ^unconstitutionally 
 and recklessly. The press was muzzled ; our 
 mouths were silenced ; no man was a free 
 citizen. And then, when at last we gained 
 his ear and implored him to redress the wrongs 
 inflicted upon us by his hated minister, what 
 happened ? Why, he referred our grievances 
 to the very tyrant against whose injustice we 
 were petitioning ! Can you wonder, senhora, 
 that we were driven to frenzy by it all ? " 
 
 " You surely do not seek to justify the ter- 
 rible, brutal tragedy of last year ? " I cried 
 hotly. 
 
 " No — ah, no ! " he hastily responded. 
 " That was the bitterest blow to all honourable 
 Republicans. Our hearts were wrung with 
 horror ! And we all realised how it prejudiced 
 our cause in the eyes of civilisation. I do not 
 — I cannot — ^justify that : I only explain it. 
 Where there are great evils, senhora, there 
 you must expect desperate remedies. On 
 that black day — ^when it happened — there, 
 in the bay, were anchored the ships which were 
 to carry away our brothers to exile and dis- 
 honour. And for what ? For daring to speak 
 
YOUNG PORTUGAL 67 
 
 their minds ! For daring to stand up for their 
 poor and voiceless compatriots — ^for resenting 
 their wrongs ! The king was on his way to 
 sign their doom. And there seemed no hope 
 of better things. None ! None ! " 
 
 " But at any rate that is all over now," I 
 ventured soothingly. " Your young King 
 Manoel is doing all he can " 
 
 " Yes," he responded, half reluctantly ; 
 "he is certainly different. He wishes to do 
 what is right, I do believe. He is repaying 
 what he can of the money unjustly taken, and 
 he says that he desires the country's good; 
 but—" 
 
 " Well, what would you have more ? " I 
 asked. " He cannot perform miracles ; but it 
 does seem to me that you have the prospect 
 of a new and happier era for your country 
 now." 
 
 " Ah ! It is the priesthood ! " Young Por- 
 tugal cried, with infinite distaste. " The 
 priesthood ! they are the curse of the country. 
 No progress is possible where their dominance is 
 absolute. It is to their interest to keep the 
 people ignorant, or their power would be 
 threatened. And if they have our king in their 
 atrophying clutch, what hope have we ? The 
 cursed Jesuit influence will gradually destroy 
 
68 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 his liberal tendencies. And his mother's 
 influence, — he is already too religious " 
 
 " And for that, whom have you but your- 
 selves to thank ! " I cried. " On that terrible 
 day of regicide and murder, when — ^in his own 
 capital, surrounded by his own people — ^your 
 king was done to death by that traitor's 
 cowardly shot, you drove the poor boy and 
 his mother into the only refuge that seemed 
 left to them — ^the arms of their Church, the 
 consolations of religion. I am no Church- 
 woman, senhor, I feel the need of no man- 
 made rites between my soul and my God ; 
 but even I can realise that if your young king 
 had not been able to cling to the support of 
 his faith, he could not have lived beyond that 
 awful hour." 
 
 The youth at my side glared gloomily across 
 the water and was silent, while " eight bells " 
 chimed clearly out from the fo 'castle of the 
 steamer, and was repeated in the stern. My 
 indifference was deeply stirred now ; words 
 came surging up, and out of my ignorance I 
 spoke. 
 
 " If I dare say so, senhor, it appears to me 
 that you and your compatriots are now in the 
 baffled position of a woman who has been de- 
 prived of a long-standing grievance. You 
 
YOUNG PORTUGAL 69 
 
 had wrongs ; you resented them. But the 
 chief of them are gone now, and your great 
 reason for revolt and defiance is over. For the 
 Past — surely it was all expiated on that bloody 
 day ! Merciful Time should be permitted — 
 in humanity, in honour — ^to consign it all to 
 the waters of oblivion. The Future is Portu- 
 gal's. You have a young, disinterested, al- 
 truistic monarch, eager to understand and to 
 aid his people's needs. As to any undue in- 
 fluence of the priesthood — I would not fear, if 
 I were you ! King Manoel has too clear a 
 brain ; the unescapable influences of Life will 
 teach him ; he will marry ; he will mature. 
 The whole world is casting off the dominance of 
 superstition. Even in Italy, its headquarters, 
 the people are wrenching off the shackles — ^are 
 freeing themselves. Its hour is sounding ; and 
 its death-knell is education. Agitate for thaty 
 senhor ! Petition for that ! Make sacrifices 
 for that ! Educate ! Educate ! Educate ! 
 and you can afford to defy that ancient bogey 
 —Church." 
 
 " Progress is so slow," returned my com- 
 panion, in hopeless tones, " and my country 
 is so poor " 
 
 " But if you had your way, if you esta- 
 blished a republic to-morrow, your president 
 
70 A SHADOWED PAKADISE 
 
 could not fill an empty treasury," I retorted. 
 " The country is principally poor on account 
 of the want of knowledge amongst the people. 
 Why, you are a couple of hundred years be- 
 hind the times in all matters of agriculture 
 and forestry. With such a climate as yours 
 you could cultivate heaps of things which are 
 practically unknown to your country-people at 
 present — and find a ready market for them, 
 too. What you lack is initiative ; and new 
 ventures can only follow in the wake of new 
 knowledge." 
 
 " Our bureaucracy is rotten — rotten to the 
 core ! " continued Young Portugal, shifting 
 his ground. " Every man for himself — to line 
 his own pockets. Most men to be bought, if 
 the price is but high enough." 
 
 " Then let it be the work of the young liberal 
 party to reform that," I cried. " Shed light 
 upon the dishonest practices, and fight as in- 
 exorably as you please to put down peculation 
 and bribery — ^you will find plenty to do — ^but 
 do not imagine that disloyalty to your king 
 would bring that evil to an end. The history 
 of the world, both in the past and in the pre- 
 sent, tends to prove that republics are cursed 
 with greater and wider-reaching corruption, 
 with more virulent a plague of dishonest 
 
YOUNG PORTUGAL 71 
 
 officials, than the average monarchy. I have 
 travelled much, and I assure you, senhor, that 
 if you seek to find the lowest and most bare- 
 faced forms of jobbery, of mercenary self- 
 interest, subterfuge and falsehood, and the 
 most widespread and unblushing systems of 
 bribery, I commend you to a republic." 
 
 Young Portugal shrugged his shoulders 
 expressively ; and I continued : 
 
 " Yours is a grand country, senhor ; a 
 splendid country, with the best climate in 
 Europe, I think. It only wants judiciously 
 exploiting to begin a fresh age of productive- 
 ness and prosperity. Now, if a mere woman 
 may advise, I would say to all you young men : 
 Rally round your king, loyally and enthu- 
 siastically ; strengthen his hands by your 
 belief in him ; and work — ^work for all you 
 are worth — not for a doubtfully beneficial 
 revolution, but for grants for education, for 
 the appointment of teachers of agriculture all 
 over the country ; for the improvement of 
 your present fruits and grains, for the importa- 
 tion of fresh varieties. Educate the people 
 in a little practical knowledge ; encourage ex- 
 periments — don't be afraid of new things and 
 new ways. Educate the people and purge 
 your officialdom ! It may not make so good 
 
72 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 a party cry, it may not stir your blood in the 
 same way, but it would be the truer patriotism, 
 believe me. Work, work for what you now 
 pray you may be granted — 
 
 ' A liberal constitution ! ' " 
 
 Is the monarchical ideal fading from the 
 world's mind ? Have we indeed progressed so far 
 from the tradition of chivalry and the " divinity 
 which doth hedge a king," that those gracious 
 attributes of leisure, culture, refinement, and 
 disinterestedness, with which that tradition 
 at its highest was associated, are no longer 
 valued in the scheme of the nation's welfare ? 
 Have we reached so dead a level of utilitarian- 
 ism that we desire but a General Manager of 
 each country's affairs, and are conscious no 
 longer of the subtle ethical needs of the nation's 
 soul — ^the advantages of a fixed high standard 
 of social living, and the concentrating of all 
 that is hopeful, noble, and inspiring around 
 the person of one hereditary Head ? If, in- 
 deed, it is so, then the world is growing greyer. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SUMMER TIME 
 
 How short the actual winter is in these southern 
 lands ! I trust I am not ungrateful for Nature's 
 favours, but these springs seem almost to 
 resemble a too-facile woman : her self -revela- 
 tion is so sudden, so complete that, while 
 welcoming her favours, one misses those deli- 
 cate, shy, half -reluctant intimations of coming 
 surrender which are so subtly conveyed in a 
 northern spring, and for which actual beauty 
 seems scarcely necessary. Indeed I have 
 experienced the keenest stirring of spring in 
 my blood in some London street : in a warmer 
 gleam of sunlight upon a muddy pavement, in 
 a glimpse of a clump of bursting lilac buds in 
 some quiet square, or a breath of south-west 
 wind at night after rain. 
 
 But here — ^while in the more sheltered corners 
 of our valley the oak and willow leaves still 
 linger, beautiful in their russet splendour, and 
 
 73 
 
74 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 the bright purple spikes of the bell-heather 
 are still to be found here and there amongst 
 the brown bracken, and we seem scarcely to 
 have said farewell to the glory of the autumn, 
 lo ! in every hedge the buds are bursting 
 into fresh green sprays ; white heath, sweet 
 violets, " lords and ladies," daisies, dandelions, 
 and cow-parsley are springing up everywhere, 
 and the fields are carpeted with bright little 
 wild marigolds. The sun seems to gain in 
 power each day, and the birds, with infinite 
 chattering, are preparing for their vernal 
 festival. 
 
 Then numberless flowers spring into being ; 
 the fresh fern fronds uncurl, new tender green 
 clothes the trees ; a week of gentle, warm rain, 
 and, behold, the summer is here ! 
 
 Autumn is mellow, maturely lovely, with 
 long, clear, still days of blue and gold ; the 
 winter is no worse than an English autumn, 
 with bluer skies and brighter sunshine than 
 a northern September, broken by times of tem- 
 pestuous rain ; but of all the recurring seasons 
 here, I think I love the early summer the best. 
 In its young, fresh, generous beauty, with sap 
 and grass still undried and unscorched by the 
 fiercer sun of midsummer, it is full of an un- 
 speakable poetry and tenderness. Our woods 
 
SUMMER TIME 76 
 
 become enchanted places. Overhead, mingling 
 with the stately pines, fresh green branches 
 wave gently in the soft warm breeze ; a thou- 
 sand subtle fragrances of sweet and natural 
 things perfume the translucent air ; beneath, 
 one's feet tread upon a carpet of moss, new 
 grass, and humble little flowers and ferns flecked 
 with the sunlight ; in the hedges, a tangle of 
 honeysuckle, wild roses, and blackberry 
 blossom ; above, blue, blue sky, seen between 
 the dreamily waving branches of the nut trees 
 and the oaks ; while myriads of tiny winged 
 insects flash out a brief, joyous existence in 
 the sunbeams, and the clear-throated robins, 
 chaffinches, thrushes, and blackbirds — more 
 eloquent than man — ^warble their hymn of 
 praise in the bushes. 
 
 At such a season how can one work ! How 
 can one do aught but lie, blissfully entranced, 
 at the foot of some tall pine or evergreen oak ; 
 contented merely to he, in such weather, in such 
 a Paradise ! Are not these moments Life in 
 its most perfect sense ? And is not this very 
 absorption into Nature's beauteous heart part 
 of the growth of the soul ? 
 
 Thus, this morning, I lay among the young 
 fern fronds and tall grasses in the shade of 
 the low branches of an old cork-oak, with 
 
76 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 Horace's Odes for company, lazily conscious 
 of all the beauty around me — of the dance of 
 the gnats, the dreamy fluttering of the new 
 leaves, the scent of the freshly cut grass in an 
 adjacent meadow, and the high-pitched voices 
 of the washerwomen at the stream below, 
 singing some interminable plaintive folk-song. 
 Presently, Horace slipped unheeded from my 
 fingers, and gradually, very gradually, the 
 tranquillity, the warmth, and a pleasant sense 
 of well-being lulled me off into a delicious 
 sleep. 
 
 " The senhora — is she dead ? " 
 
 These words, uttered in hesitating, won- 
 dering tones, unlocked my eyes and brought 
 me up on my elbow in a sudden scare. At a 
 respectful distance, amongst all the sun-flecked 
 greenery, stood a peasant, leaning upon his 
 scythe and viewing me in obvious perplexity. 
 One of those working-bees — a woman — flying 
 prone, with closed eyes, under a tree in the 
 morning ! He had probably never before 
 seen so strange a sight. She certainly must 
 be either very ill or dead. 
 
 I frowned up at him, puzzled and half- 
 awake ; then, sitting up and snatching at my 
 bat, 
 
SUMMER TIME 77 
 
 " No, no, thank you ! — Thank you very 
 much ! " I stammered out. It was all my 
 Portuguese was equal to in my confusion ; 
 but it was sufficient to convince him that I 
 was only one of those queer English folk, and 
 that I was not in need of his aid ; and he dis- 
 creetly went his way through the wood. 
 
 But the spell was broken. A teasing con- 
 science-microbe stirred, and a " proper sense 
 of duty " responded. I rose and, tucking my 
 Horace under my arm, started forthwith home- 
 wards to prepare my neglected Philosopher's 
 lunch. 
 
 However, I was tempted to linger on my 
 way, for, beneath the pines, an old, ragged 
 wisp of a woman was stooping about, collecting 
 the big brown cones into a sack, and, following 
 her upward gaze, I saw a small girl scaling one 
 of the tall bare trunks with monkey-like 
 agility. There was no foothold ; there were 
 no branches to aid her progress, for all the lower 
 branches of the pines are invariably lopped for 
 fuel. She was hugging the trunk round with 
 both her arms and legs, and jerking herself 
 upwards, higher and higher, by a curious 
 agile movement of her thin little body. She 
 appeared quite at home and self-possessed at 
 her simian task ; and when, while I held my 
 
78 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 breath in terror for her safety, she reached a 
 branch — some sixty or seventy feet in the air — 
 she shook and beat it to bring down the cones 
 to fill her grandmother's waiting sack, then 
 climbed still higher to another branch. And 
 for these same pine-cones, which make fragrant 
 resinous fuel for our little stove in winter, we 
 pay the old woman forty reis — twopence a 
 hundred ! 
 
 When the heat of July and August comes, 
 we close the thick wooden shutters of our sunny 
 windows, and leave wide open the shady cool 
 window facing north, which is at this season 
 a most precious possession. We really suffer 
 but little discomfort from the hot weather 
 here, whatever the folks inland and in the 
 big town may do ; for, however oppressive 
 the day may threaten to be, about ten o'clock 
 each morning a deliciously cool north-west wind 
 uprises, coming to us over endless stretches 
 of the blue Atlantic, freshening us and making 
 existence quite tolerable in our carefully shaded 
 rooms. 
 
 We " study to be quiet " during the hottest 
 part of the day ; and the clear, tender, early 
 morning hours and dewy, fragrant evenings 
 are compensation enough. Moreover, we have 
 
SUMMER TIME 79 
 
 certainly found that a non-meat diet tends to 
 keep the blood cool and pure ; rendering one 
 able to endure the heat with a far less amount 
 of discomfort and ill-effect than carnivorous 
 people seem to experience. 
 
 How novel and beautiful it would be to be 
 rich ! Really rich, with sufficient money not 
 merely to live out the remainder of our span 
 of life on this earth in simple comfort and 
 dignity, but to possess that pleasant margin 
 which gives one the power to be generous to 
 others, to express in material form those warm 
 impulses to aid and to give joy which are so 
 checked and stifled by the lack of means to 
 consummate the natural desire. 
 
 Ascetics may say what they please — it is 
 a had thing to be poor ; and the virtues that 
 one is supposed to acquire through the cold 
 pinch of poverty would be at least equally 
 developed in the same temperament by a 
 moderate share of the sunshine of prosperity. 
 Selfish and unamiable rich people would be 
 selfish and unamiable poor ones ; a tender 
 heart would not be rendered hard by the power 
 and practice of benevolence. 
 
 The limitations of poverty ! How much 
 one misses through the hampering inability 
 
80 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 to give proof of one's kindly feelings ! How 
 many friendships can never reach fruition, 
 and how subtly misunderstanding and estrange- 
 ment can creep in — because one chances to 
 be poor ! 
 
 It may be due to my Irish blood that to me 
 it has ever been the keenest delight to give. 
 It certainly can never be accounted to me for 
 a virtue, for the impulse is so absolute and 
 inherent that to act differently — ^to count the 
 cost and prefer to keep things for myself — is 
 honestly the effort, not the first desire. One 
 of my earliest theological difficulties arose 
 from this very trait. 
 
 " But which pleases God the better," I de- 
 manded of my then earthly Providence, one 
 night at hair-plaiting time, " if we do good to 
 others because we enjoy doing it, or because 
 He tells us to ? " 
 
 I don't remember what the answer was, but 
 I know that it was unsatisfying, and that I 
 cried quiet, miserable tears during the re- 
 mainder of the hair tweaking ; for I was 
 yearning with all the earnestness of which my 
 child soul was capable to please a " jealous 
 God," and I felt that I could not render Him 
 the necessary sacrifice of painful self-abnega- 
 tion, because it was only after all a natural 
 
SUMMER TIME 81 
 
 pleasure to me to give and to be spent for 
 others. 
 
 Even here and now, I am happy in having 
 a protege. 
 
 When we first came here I used to be daily 
 distressed, in passing the outbuildings where 
 our peasants herd, by the sound of a plaintive 
 monotonous wail, " Ehu, Jesu ! Jesu, Ehu ! " 
 repeated over and over again, beginning as 
 soon as I came into view, and continuing until 
 I was long out of sight. I used to glance in 
 as I passed the dark open door, from which 
 the cries proceeded, but the sunlight was so 
 vivid without, and it was such a black, window- 
 less hole, that I could discern nothing within ; 
 and I began to find the moans slightly irritating, 
 from the fact that they appeared to be uttered 
 solely to impress me ; for I found that when I 
 was not supposed to be within ear-range, there 
 was silence, or sometimes a quite cheerful voice, 
 and even an occasional cracked laugh issued 
 from that dark interior. 
 
 But then, I realised that, after all, it was very 
 natural. The poor inmate, whoever she was, 
 had no other way of attracting my attention ; 
 and in the living death which she must be en- 
 during in that cheerless den, a chance of outside 
 help or interest was to be sought by any means. 
 
 6 
 
82 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 I consulted The Philosopher, who made in- 
 quiries for me, and found that it was Miguel's 
 old mother, paralysed and bed-ridden, who 
 occupied the room. 
 
 " You had better not go in," he advised. 
 " It will only upset you. And you can do 
 nothing." 
 
 That was what worried me : I could do 
 nothing. If only I had some little delicacies 
 to take her, or a warm blanket for her poor 
 withered limbs, I would so gladly have run. 
 the risk of being " upset." But to go empty- 
 handed ! Yet those cries must have some 
 response. What could I do ? I puzzled over 
 it for days, and then bethought me of our one 
 luxury — our tea. 
 
 So that afternoon I took down a big cup of 
 hot, well-sugared tea — real " English " tea — 
 and so made acquaintance with the poor, 
 yellow, wizened creature, lying huddled under 
 a cotton covering, on a sort of broad wooden 
 shelf, in a dim, dirty room, made cold and un- 
 wholesome by the damp, and of which the 
 sole furniture was a rickety old deal table 
 propped beside her. She was paralysed all 
 down one side and quite helpless, and my first 
 efforts to raise her to take the tea were not 
 very successful, but deftness came with 
 
SUMMER TIME 83 
 
 practice ; and though my slender knowledge of 
 the language and her toothless speech make any- 
 converse between us difficult, we understood 
 each other from the first, through a language 
 which is of all countries and all time — her 
 helplessness and my pity for her. 
 
 Now, every afternoon, when I pour out our 
 tea, I take a cup to " the old senhora," and 
 each time she greets my entrance with the 
 same remark : ''A senhora nao se esquece ! " — 
 the senhora never forgets. And she stretches 
 out her one poor skinny arm to seize my hand 
 and draw it to her lips. Then she tells me 
 the day's woes, in words the meaning of which 
 I can only guess, of her daughter-in-law's 
 neglect, of the lamentable thinness of the cab- 
 bage soup they bring her, of the throes of 
 rheumatism which rack her old bones, and I 
 reply, " Yes, yes ; pobre, pohre ! " — poor, poor 
 one — and give her some sympathetic little pats, 
 and bid her farewell until next day. 
 
 Whether she really enjoys the strange foreign 
 beverage I bring her, or whether her gratitude 
 is only another instance of the charming 
 manners of this people, I do not know ; at 
 any rate, she likes the thin slices of white bread 
 which accompany it, and which, dipped in the 
 tea, slip easily between her toothless gums. 
 
84 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 But lonely and neglected though she may 
 be through three hundred and sixty-four 
 long days of the year, the old senhora has 
 her one day of consequence and honour, 
 when the priest comes to hear her confession, 
 and to administer The Host to her in her 
 dark room. 
 
 One bright spring morning I was awakened 
 by the approaching sound of many voices 
 joining in some solemn choral or chant. Nearer 
 and nearer the voices came, until they paused 
 beneath my window, and peering very cau- 
 tiously out, I beheld the priest entering the 
 farm, clad in his vestments, and bearing the 
 Holy Office, followed by candle-bearers and 
 a small crowd of peasant girls and boys carry- 
 ing flowers and sprays of fennel. 
 
 Later, I found the courtyard strewn with 
 trampled roses and the feathery branches of 
 the bitter herb ; and the old senhora 's door 
 was closed throughout the day, that nothing 
 might disturb her pious meditations. 
 
 Whether she was cheered or not by the great 
 ceremony I could not discover, but she was 
 certainly filled with a gratified sense of im- 
 portance ; and that afternoon she tried to 
 tell me a great deal regarding purgatory, but 
 unfortunately I could not understand much, 
 
SUMMER TIME 85 
 
 and the little I did I could not agree with ; 
 deeming, indeed, that the poor soul was en- 
 during her share of that state here and now, 
 and that the light and joy of heaven itself 
 might well come next — for her, at least. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 BIRTHDAY EGOTISMS 
 
 July 18. 
 
 I AM reminiscent to-night, and with right and 
 proper cause, since it is my birthday. What 
 mortal is there who, however prosaic he may 
 pride himself he has become in the course of 
 long, soul-destroying years, does not experience 
 a faint, secret sentiment, a certain wistful 
 glance backwards, on that anniversary ? I 
 frankly own that the recurring day is like no 
 other to me ; I revel in its mingled memories 
 of sweet and bitter things ; I range from child- 
 hood's days down through years of happiness 
 and effort and storm and stress to the peaceful 
 present ; and, looking ahead, I speculate which 
 day of all the year will prove itself to be that 
 other pre-determined anniversary which is 
 now drawing nearer and more near. 
 
 Whenever I pass through a certain portion 
 of south-west London — a region lying between 
 the King's Road, Chelsea, and Hyde Park — 
 
 86 
 
BIRTHDAY EGOTISMS 87 
 
 Time exists not for me : I tread amongst the 
 unreal, and a strange metamorphosis takes 
 place. The huge blocks of luxurious flats and 
 the streets of stately mansions fade unsub- 
 stantially away, and I see again the small, 
 unpretentious houses, with the open spaces 
 between of fields and market-gardens, which 
 gave a half-rural appearance to that pleasant 
 suburb a generation ago. The air seems 
 clearer, fresher ; lilacs, laburnums, and roses 
 flourish in the old-fashioned gardens ; and a 
 slow horse-'bus, with a carpet of clean, rustling 
 straw and a door, starts from the " Queen's 
 Elm," and rumbles along the Fulham Road, 
 to take us " into town." Where now great 
 houses form some misnamed " Gardens," a 
 long, low factory extends, fronted by a wide 
 stretch of waste land, in which are high sand- 
 hillocks, huge logs of wood, and boulders of 
 stone, and a disused well half hidden amongst 
 the long rank grass. A wild place, which 
 was the delight of our child hearts ; where 
 many an adventure culled from the pages of 
 Fenimore Cooper and Marryat was played 
 out, in summer sun and winter snow, on dark 
 nights lightened by evil-smelling toy bull's-eye 
 lanterns, or on bright June mornings before 
 the sluggard world was astir. 
 
88 A SHADOWED PAKADISE 
 
 On one such morning our mother was 
 aroused by an insistent knocking, and hastily 
 putting her head out of the window she met 
 the upward gaze of the night policeman, not 
 yet off duty. 
 
 " Beg pardon for disturbing you, mum ; 
 but do you know where your children are ? '* 
 
 " Good gracious, man ! " cried our mother, 
 " why, in their beds, of course ! " 
 
 " Well, you go and see, mum, that's all / 
 say," stolidly responded the scandalised guar- 
 dian of law and order. 
 
 Our mother rushed upstairs in alarm, to find 
 a row of small white beds — empty ; and, hastily 
 arousing the nurse, she began a frightened 
 search. No trace of us in the house ; no sign 
 of us in either garden ; but, round a corner, 
 hung on a spreading lilac bush, four little white 
 nightgowns fluttered in the summer breeze, 
 and four happy small pink savages on the war- 
 path in search of scalps were tearing about in 
 the high grass of the adjoining field, flourishing 
 long spears of lilac shoots and whooping 
 joyously. 
 
 I wonder whether any people in the big 
 houses which have arisen above that wild 
 hunting-ground are ever half so careless and 
 happy as were those little savages of long ago. 
 
BIRTHDAY EGOTISMS 89 
 
 It was there that, one winter, being bored 
 by the society of dull elders indoors, we started 
 to build ourselves a house where only bright- 
 ness and make-believe should have residence. 
 We dug painfully in the frost-bound earth to 
 make sure foundations for the doorway ; but, 
 alas ! our heavy wooden door-jambs would 
 weakly decline from the perpendicular, in 
 spite of all our stamping and hammering of 
 the soil around them ; so we waived the pre- 
 sent necessity of building walls, and hurried 
 off to spend our combined stock of pocket- 
 money upon paper and paints to adorn them 
 with — when raised ! 
 
 I have memories of long days spent in the 
 old Museum, amongst the pictures, where, 
 at the age of ten, I aspired to copy Cassandra 
 Prophesying the Fall of Troy — a large canvas 
 with at least a hundred figures ; of blissful 
 fireside hours, when I learnt to worship Shake- 
 speare and love Dickens, and to roam with 
 Cooper and Marryat and Scott through hair- 
 breadth adventures in enchanted lands ; of 
 dreamy summer hours, swinging with some 
 book of poems in the boughs of a gigantic 
 laburnum tree, with above and around me a 
 bower of sunshine formed of the drooping 
 
90 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 golden blossoms, and the blue sky glimpsed 
 between. 
 
 Such was my education — to run wild, with 
 pictures and books and a garden. There are 
 many worse systems, if the growth of a child's 
 soul in its natural individuality is desired ; 
 but if not, then the method should be shunned, 
 and the child sent to one of those framing in- 
 stitutions, where the mould is identical for all, 
 where any individuality is discouraged, and 
 perfectly correct specimens are turned out, 
 finished into a colourless perfection, and fitted 
 in every way to contribute their quantum to 
 the dullness and monotony of ordinary middle- 
 class existence. 
 
 As for me, I think I have my manner of edu- 
 cation to thank that there are two tyrants of 
 to-day from whom I have ever prayed to be 
 delivered — Cant and Convention. The first 
 draws a veil of mystery over Things as They 
 Really Are, confusing their outlines, making 
 the Essential of no account, and glorifying the 
 Superficial ; exalting words over spirit. The 
 second binds us hand and foot, that we may 
 not tear aside the lying folds in our search for 
 Truth. And few of us dare to protest ; be- 
 cause to be original, to act otherwise than one's 
 fellow-mortals, and to do what has not received 
 
BIRTHDAY EGOTISMS 91 
 
 the sacred cachet of Custom, is to commit a 
 social crime. 
 
 I am a whole twelve years old. I am alone 
 in the garden in the soft summer darkness. 
 Over the roofs of the farther houses a dull glare 
 in the sky shows in what direction the great 
 city lies. I am still in a world of make-believe. 
 In my white birthday frock with its blue sash 
 I am Valentine in Monte Crista ; on the other 
 side of the thick lilac-hedge waits Morel, my 
 most worshipful lover ; I know that if I were 
 to thrust my hand through one of the gaps of 
 greenery it would be seized and imprisoned 
 in his own. My heart flutters unevenly 
 with the exquisite consciousness of his pre- 
 sence ; the warm wind cannot cool my flushed 
 cheeks. 
 
 Suddenly, across the roofs, the hush is 
 broken by a solemn, slow voice of intensest 
 melancholy. Big Ben, from his lofty watch- 
 tower, strikes the hour, and in his deep, ma- 
 jestic notes is voiced all the poetry, aye, and 
 the misery, the sin, and the madness of the 
 city's inmost heart. My make-believe falls 
 from me, and I stand lonely, a shivering child 
 in the darkness. Around me, borne on the 
 vibrations of the bell, hover mighty unknown 
 
92 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 forces which are bringing to me the strange 
 coming mysteries of Life, of Birth, and Death. 
 The Spirit of My Future rustles his wings, and 
 I cross my hands on my childish bosom and 
 strain my eyes in an endeavour to peer into 
 the Unseen. 
 
 But it is not wholly with fearful apprehen- 
 sion that I quiver ; for some secret pulse throbs 
 with a prescience of future high adventure, 
 and the soldier-blood of my father's people 
 is stirred within me in a resolve to face and 
 to conquer Fate. The darkness becomes holy, 
 each quick-drawn breath a prayer ; and when 
 the last whispering echo of the final " boom " 
 has died away, I turn my gaze to the stars 
 and brave my Destiny, bring it what it may. 
 
 Unchildlike, you say ? Ah, how few " grown- 
 ups " realise the " long, long thoughts " of a 
 child, and the vague memories and foreshadow- 
 ings which cluster round that little soul as it 
 stands hesitating upon the threshold of its new 
 existence ! 
 
 From these mists of childish recollections 
 there stands out clearly one small, gracious 
 figure, the guardian angel of my later girlhood. 
 A little old lady, dressed always in black silk, 
 with smooth pink cheeks, brown side-curls un- 
 
BIRTHDAY EGOTISMS 93 
 
 touched with grey framed in a black lace cap, 
 and with the clear, gentle voice and the sprightly 
 walk of a young woman. The years had not 
 petrified her ; she possessed a fund of quiet fun, 
 and a love of all things beautiful and seemly. 
 She rarely talked Religion, but to be with her 
 was to dwell in an atmosphere of goodness and 
 right thinking. Her heart was tender to all 
 living things, and her life was spent in doing 
 unobtrusive kindnesses. Her judgments were 
 unprejudiced and generous, but there was in 
 her just a morally bracing touch of austerity 
 akin to the first tinge of frost in the air 
 on some perfect autumn morning. Unselfish, 
 unruffled, gentle, altruistic, if she had brought 
 on any faults to old age my keenly critical 
 child-eyes never discovered them. 
 
 It was her lot to spend her whole life in a 
 little, sleepy provincial town. When others ad- 
 ventured abroad it had always been her part to 
 remain at home to preserve that gracious order 
 which seemed to follow from her mere presence 
 in the house. So sleepy a town was it, and so 
 stodgy grew the brains of its inhabitants from 
 lack of outside interests, that it was no unusual 
 thing for people to become, " Not mad, my 
 dear, but — just a little queer, you know." 
 One good lady grew so bored by her life of 
 
94 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 monotonous comfort and the unrelieved society 
 of her meek little husband that she one day 
 took to her bed, and firmly and resolutely de- 
 clined to get up again. And although in perfect 
 health, there she remained for many years 
 until One whose summons would not be denied 
 shifted her to a resting-place in the church- 
 yard. 
 
 But no such mental atrophy overtook my 
 dear one. Though, in her narrow sphere, in- 
 tellectual stimulus was difficult to find, she 
 found it — ^in Egyptology ! Every book that 
 she could procure on the subject was perused 
 with eager delight. Egypt's wondrous past — 
 the history, the hieroglyphics, the excavations, 
 the discoveries — ^were all of absorbing interest 
 to her ; she realised and visualised it all, and 
 had no mean knowledge of the vast subject, 
 though I doubt whether she had ever seen so 
 much as a worthy picture of the country — cer- 
 tainly never any of the treasure-trove of col- 
 lectors or of the museums. 
 
 And secretly, too, she wrote : hymns and 
 sweet, calmly reasoning little religious essays 
 on dainty sheets of lady's note-paper. No one 
 ever saw them during her lifetime, but I 
 treasure them now, when the note-paper is 
 yellow with time and the ink is fading away. 
 
BIRTHDAY EGOTISMS 95 
 
 To me they are sacred reflections of a pure 
 and perfect personality, of a life as delicately 
 fragrant and as unobtrusive as the faint scent 
 of lavender and rose-leaves which lingers still 
 about the pages. 
 
 Life's landmarks ! The things that count — 
 the episodes that mould the soul, that make 
 us different. How strange and erratic they 
 are, and how little are they the obvious, to-be- 
 expected influences of our daily existence ! 
 
 Looking back, I believe the thing which has 
 had the most far-reaching results in my life 
 was the sight of an unknown woman's face. 
 I glimpsed it one dull winter's day in the 
 crowded Strand. My omnibus drew up against 
 the curb, and the woman, passing by, paused 
 on the muddy pavement and turned her face 
 towards me. Such a face ! A yellow, fixed 
 mask of absolute despair : apathetic, dead, 
 save for the suffering concentrated in the 
 sunken, lustreless eyes. Her shoulders were 
 relaxed listlessly forward, and her clothes 
 hung upon her with that indescribably forlorn 
 air which garments take when they are uncon- 
 sidered and uncared for. Though I was un- 
 known to her, I recognised her as one of 
 a pioneer band of thinkers and reformers of 
 
96 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 the day, and from afar I had admired and 
 watched her noble public life. 
 
 She turned now and looked at me, and 
 strangely, but surely — surely — from the depths 
 of those colourless eyes there leapt a sudden 
 appealing flash : the voiceless cry for help 
 of some creature tortured beyond endurance. 
 It momentarily stirred the calm of that terrible 
 mask as she inclined towards me. 
 
 But I, shy, incredulous, hesitated. I was 
 obscure and unknown ; had I been but her 
 intellectual equal, with what gracious warmth 
 I would instantly have responded to that 
 silent appeal. So — I hesitated — and the instant 
 passed. My 'bus moved on, and she turned 
 to pursue her way. 
 
 I saw her once, twice, thrice afterwards, that 
 winter ; but never again did the mask lift. 
 Then, one day, London was startled by the 
 tragedy of her self -sought death, and I ex- 
 perienced the bitterest remorse I have ever 
 known. That one moment of appeal — if I had 
 but responded ; if I had but put out my hand, 
 and said, " You are suffering. I'm sorry ; I 
 care. Oh, share it with me ! " who knows 
 but that just the love and sympathy of a sister- 
 woman might have broken up the ice of despair 
 and saved her life. For she was so solitary in 
 
BIRTHDAY EGOTISMS 97 
 
 her trouble — I learnt long afterwards that she 
 wrote entreating a friend in the country to 
 come to her, but some cause made that im- 
 possible, and she went down to death alone. 
 It all happened years ago, but it made an 
 ineffaceable impression upon me, and never 
 have I forgiven myself for that moment of 
 unworthy irresolution, when I missed my 
 chance to help another human soul. Since 
 then I hope I have not so erred, at whatever 
 cost to myself. That neglected opportunity 
 has avenged itself many times over ; it has 
 borne its part in the shaping of my life. 
 
 Once, years ago, it was my lot to make a 
 great renunciation. The details would be of 
 no interest to the world ; it is sufficient that 
 to me there seemed no other course possible. 
 All that had previously made up the sum of 
 my existence had to be relinquished, if I was 
 still to walk with my forehead to the sky. I 
 was forced to choose — I chose ; and if that 
 bitter crux were again before me, my choice 
 would have to be the same. But it is no light 
 thing for a woman to put herself wrong with 
 her world — to go out into the wilderness — 
 however pure her motives, however inevitable 
 her action may be. The familiar trappings 
 
 7 
 
98 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 of Life are rudely torn away, and things and 
 people assume unwonted aspects. It occa- 
 sions a crucial sifting of the gold from the dross, 
 the superficial from the real, in herself and in 
 others ; and there follow some strange sur- 
 prises. For myself, I found that my most 
 merciless critics — those whose censure was 
 severest and whose charity was of the scantiest 
 — were those who could not bring themselves 
 to forgive past benefits, and those who by 
 right of their own lives were the least fitted 
 to sit in the judgment seat ; whilst the good 
 people understood with scarcely any need for 
 explanation and none for justification. 
 
 Especially did I find this the case with strong, 
 noble women. One, as kind as she was dis- 
 cerning, kissed me tenderly and said, " My 
 dear, you were placed in a most cruel position, 
 but — ^you did the right thing ! And the only 
 shame that can ever touch you will be if you 
 should ever come to be ashamed of having 
 done it." Through all the dark days that 
 followed, when the flesh, being weak, cried 
 out for aU that was not and could never be 
 again, those brave words were at once my 
 benediction and a source of strength. And 
 Shame and I never met ; but Charity and 
 Faith and Tenderness gathered round me, and 
 
BIRTHDAY EGOTISMS 99 
 
 bore me in their arms over the sharp stones 
 of that steep path of Renunciation into the 
 quiet by-ways of Peace. 
 
 And that Peace remains, even now, when 
 Life seems leading down into the dark Valley 
 of the Shadow. The premonition of tragedy 
 which was voiced by the great bell on that 
 long-ago birthday indeed fulfilled itself : pain, 
 loss, followed high endeavour ; when I willed 
 good, evil was present with me ; and the 
 wounds which pierced the deepest were dealt 
 by hands I had blessed. But — I have found 
 the " precious jewel " of adversity, and in 
 the desert one can hear God's voice as one 
 cannot in the crowd ; and when life is shorn 
 of the superficial the real becomes very clear. 
 
 A clock strikes the midnight hour as I lean 
 from my window out into the still beauty of 
 the night. Pure, pale moonlight floods all 
 the fair scene ; a faint, subtle fragrance of 
 pine-needles, of bay, and of myrtle hovers in 
 the warm air. The waves are stealing softly 
 to and fro upon the shore, and the croak of 
 the frog colony down at the spring is just 
 audible in the distance ; while from close at 
 hand, in the old gravel quarry beside the 
 house, the silence is sharply cut by a silvery, 
 metallic, " Clink ! Clink ! " — clear and sweet 
 
100 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 as some tiny bell or glass hammer — insistently 
 repeated. The " fairy blacksmiths " are at 
 work, and the night is the richer for their 
 notes. 
 
 I cross my hands upon my bosom, and 
 looking up into the depths of the violet sky, 
 where the myriads of stars hang suspended 
 in the ether, once again I brave my Destiny. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE POST OFFICE BABY 
 
 I HAVE always found that one of the results 
 of life abroad is an abnormal and insatiable 
 desire for letters from England, and for all 
 home news, even of the most frivolous descrip- 
 tion. 
 
 Never, when in London at the heart of 
 things, did I know or care half so much about 
 the affairs of my nation and of the world at 
 large as here and now, when, as far as any of 
 the home doings affect me personally, I might 
 be in another dimension. The Philosopher, as 
 befits him, rather scorns my newspaper wor- 
 ship, preferring that I should dwell ever upon 
 the hill-tops with the serene giants of old, 
 than that I should be so feverishly interested 
 in Lloyd George's fight for his Budget, or should 
 pore over the review of the last new play or 
 novel, or care whether the King is at Balmoral 
 or Marienbad. But alas for The Philosopher's 
 ideals ! I am a modern to my finger-tips, and 
 
 101 
 
102 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 I cannot help being keenly alive to the affairs 
 of the moment, although, as he truly says, 
 all these things are mere ripples on the surface 
 of the waters of Time — Vanitas, Vanitatum ! 
 
 So it is chiefly for my pleasure that we have 
 The Times Weekly Edition and T.P.'s Weekly 
 sent to us through a London newsagent, and 
 many times have we gravely reasoned that it 
 is an unjustifiable extravagance, and debated 
 whether we ought not to do without one 
 or both ; but I have always pleaded for the 
 retention of this link between us and the dear 
 old homeland ; and since even philosophers 
 cannot be expected always to be consistent 
 — how much less philosophers' wives ! 
 
 The Philosopher is a much more genuine 
 Citizen of the World than I, who share puss's 
 attachment to old associations ; but then, I 
 am a mere woman, and must be permitted the 
 weaknesses of my sex. He, indeed, will thrust 
 his letters into his pockets unopened, and will 
 only remember to read them when he haps upon 
 
 their crumpled remainders. Whilst I ! 
 
 In a house where we stayed in Venice once, 
 there was a maid who, rather than I should 
 be so disappointed, would bring me the letters 
 addressed to the other English visitors, and 
 could never be made to understand that it 
 
THE POST OFFICE BABY 103 
 
 was not quite the same thing, and did not 
 console me as she intended. 
 
 Here, even in Paradise, I am always hungry 
 for home letters and home newspapers, and 
 were it not for very shame each day would 
 see me mounting the stairs which lead to our 
 village post office. For we have to seek our 
 letters here ; no postman's " rat-tat " sounding 
 at regular intervals upon our doors marks the 
 progress of our day. There is a legend of a 
 postman who delivers letters — charging two- 
 pence each — during the summer " bathing 
 season," when native visitors pervade our tiny 
 village ; but if he exists, he has never dis- 
 turbed our quiet nor assailed our purse : we 
 are probably outside his radius. 
 
 Our postmistress is a dark-eyed little lady, 
 with pretty manners, and when first I invaded 
 her room, proffering my wistful demand for 
 cartas, she was, as Dickens was so fond of 
 saying, " in that condition which all ladies 
 who truly love their lords desire to be," and 
 she would sit with folded arms, sunning herself 
 on a chair outside her door, complaisantly 
 smiling upon her little world. Then, one day, 
 when I called, and, finding no one within, 
 ventured to rap on the counter, and after a 
 reasonable interval to rap again, I was con- 
 
104 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 fronted by a frenzied and reproachful little 
 husband. Letters ? Who could be thinking 
 of letters at such a time ! These incon- 
 siderate English ! No, no ; there were no 
 letters ! I properly abased myself, and went 
 away, feeling a brute. But all went well ; 
 and when my craving for home news drove 
 me there again, a proud and happy little mother 
 was nursing a most precious morsel of humanity 
 at the telegraph table, while its other parent 
 bustled about, showing his satisfaction and 
 increased sense of importance in every fiercely 
 bristling hair of his black moustache, and the 
 very cock of his tie. Since then the post 
 office has been run by Her Majesty, The Post 
 office Baby. If we chance to call during that 
 important person's siesta, and ask for our 
 correios in our usual tones, we are checked by 
 reproachfully lowered voices ; rattles and toys 
 look quite at home upon the official counter : 
 the young lady partakes of nourishment at 
 nature's fount before us all, and falls asleep 
 lulled by the ticking of the telegraph trans- 
 mitter. One hot morning I was even per- 
 mitted to tip-toe into the sacred precincts and 
 secure my precious budget from its pigeon- 
 hole myself. Juanita was just dropping off 
 to sleep after her bath and breakfast ; the 
 
THE POST OFFICE BABY 105 
 
 little postmistress could not be expected to 
 move. No one would dream of calling without 
 inquiring after the welfare of the little lady, if 
 she chances to be absent, or interviewing her 
 and courting her smiles when she is present. 
 She has inherited her mother's pretty dark 
 eyes, and is really a dear little soul. 
 
 On one of our brief absences from home, when 
 The Philosopher, brutally oblivious of the 
 baby's existence, had merely written to re- 
 quest that our correspondence might be for- 
 warded, we received the following sweet reply : 
 
 " Most Excellent Senhor, — 
 
 " You can please rest quite happy and 
 careless that all your correspondence shall be 
 sent where you wish it to be. How is your 
 most excellent senhora ? My daughter and 
 both of us are very well. Always at your 
 disposition remains 
 
 " Your very attentive and devoted 
 
 " X." 
 
 The italics are my own. But what a re- 
 freshing amount of simple, kindly human nature 
 there is in these dear people ! And what would 
 dry, animated officialdom at St. Martin's le 
 Grand think of a post office run on these homely 
 lines ? 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 SICK-ROOM SOLACE 
 
 I SUPPOSE everyone has some specially favourite 
 book : some silent friend that to him is con- 
 genial as many more brilliant or profound ac- 
 quaintances are not, and that grows only dearer 
 to him with age. I have known men who have 
 carried everywhere with them a well-worn 
 pocket Horace, or Marcus Aurelius ; there is 
 a certain thumb-nail fragment of Shakespeare 
 which lives always in The Philosopher's waist- 
 coat pocket ; and when I was a schoolgirl I 
 remember a senior who invariably prowled 
 about in recreation-time with a fat, dingy old 
 dictionary under her arm, the perusal of which 
 she preferred to the most exciting novel of Mrs. 
 Henry Wood or Ouida. A certain literary 
 journal has recently been asking its readers to 
 state what work they would severally choose 
 if they were fated to be stranded upon a desert 
 island with only one book to lighten their 
 
 106 
 
SICK-ROOM SOLACE 107 
 
 solitude. The replies were in some cases sur- 
 prising, but no doubt perfectly honest. 
 
 I have lately been stranded upon my desert 
 island. I have been ill, and doomed to spend 
 long days of painful weariness in bed at a small 
 hotel here ; and, as in the mythical case, I 
 have had but one book to bear me company 
 — Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy. 
 What a book of strange power it is, and what 
 an unfortunate title ! A title bound to raise 
 instinctive prejudice and an instant feeling of 
 distaste in the minds of so many who could 
 best appreciate its mystic contents. It is a 
 title unreasonably suggestive of the dogmatism 
 of the half -educated and illogical, of super- 
 ficial and flashy remedies for vital ills, of the 
 deeply rooted antagonism of class, and the 
 strife of opposing parties. And thus, as beauty 
 may be hidden behind a repellent mask, so 
 the worth and scope of this noble book will go 
 unrecognised by many on account of its name. 
 
 Had I had the baptism of it, I think I would 
 have called it The Book of Life. Any lesser 
 definition of it is too small ; it is a grand, un- 
 trammelled Poem of Life — ^the Life which ex- 
 tends from the Before we entered upon this 
 little phase of existence, on into the Beyond 
 to which we are all wending ; a recognition of 
 
108 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 our repeated births and experiences upon our 
 way upward, nearer and ever nearer to The 
 Great Heart of the Universe. 
 
 Truly it contains the grandest ideal of de- 
 mocracy in its demand for the discarding of 
 all shams, all smooth hypocrisies, in its in- 
 sistence on the Brotherhood of Humanity, and 
 of the sacred duty of the strong to succour the 
 weak — the true noblesse oblige. It expresses 
 the divine compassion of those who have fought 
 and gained the mastery, for those who are still 
 in the arena, combating the animal and the 
 gross ; the recognition of the future angel in 
 the lowliest creature, and the all-pervadingness 
 of God ; so, underneath all discords of this 
 world, the keynote — Joy. It shows the pos- 
 sible detachment of the Ego from the things of 
 time and sense, the realisation of the episodical 
 nature of our sojourn here, and the wisdom of, 
 a bright looking forward and upward. 
 
 But apart from his noble message to his age, 
 what a wonderful word-painter Carpenter is. 
 The thousand exquisite thumb-nail pictures — 
 each perfectly delicious, with not an unneces- 
 sary phrase ! With him I have been able to 
 forsake my hot, dull sick-room, leaving behind 
 me the white-washed walls and bare-boarded 
 floor, the monotonous outlook of a square 
 
SICK-ROOM SOLACE 109 
 
 white chimney and a corner of red-tiled roof, 
 glaring in the sun, with its background of in- 
 tense blue sky, and, forgetting the myriads of 
 teasing flies, the pain, the weariness and un- 
 freshness of everything, I have flown with him 
 to perfect moments such as these — 
 
 " The sower goes out to sow, alone in the 
 morning, the early October morning so beauti- 
 ful and calm. 
 
 " The flanks of the clods are creeping with 
 thin vapour, and the little copse alongside the 
 field is full of white trailing veils of it ; 
 
 " While now, like a flood the rising yellow sun- 
 light pours in, among the brambles and under 
 the square oak-boughs, and splashes through in 
 great streaks of light over the ploughed land." 
 
 I am in the dear homeland again, as I lie 
 dreaming over the picture : I smell the up- 
 turned red earth, I see those films of vapour 
 moving and vanishing in the sun's first rays. 
 Ah, the blessed refreshment of it ! Again — 
 
 " The thrush sings meditative high in the 
 bare oak-boughs — while the still April morning 
 just drops with faint rain, and the honey- 
 suckle climbs snakelike with green wings 
 among the underwood ; 
 
 " The voice of the ploughman sounds across 
 
no A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 the valley, and the cackle of the farmyard 
 mingles with the rumble of a distant train on 
 its way to the great city." 
 
 And then — 
 
 " The sun withdraws his rays ; the many 
 shadows are merged into one ; 
 
 "The sweet odour of the white campion comes 
 floating, and of the wild roses in neighbouring 
 hedgerows, and of the distant bean-fields ; 
 
 " Twilight comes, and dusk comes, and the 
 height of the sky lifts and lifts ; 
 
 " The last of the long daylight fades " 
 
 I will be even cooler. I will be carried 
 where — 
 
 " The winter woods stretched all around so 
 still ! 
 
 " Every bough laden with snow — the faint 
 purple waters rushing on in the hollows, with 
 steam in the soft still air ! 
 
 " Far aloft the arrowy larch reached into 
 the sky, the high air trembled with the sound 
 of the loosened brooks." 
 
 I lie motionless now ; no longer have I the 
 distressful necessity to twist and turn and 
 fidget : peace has come to me, and the heat 
 and the flies are forgotten. Imagination stirs 
 
SICK-ROOM SOLACE 111 
 
 with pleasant interest ; my winged book shall 
 take me farther afield. I flutter its pages. 
 
 " I am a long-eyed Japanese. In the shadow 
 of the sacred thicket I lie — where the great 
 seated image of Buddha (hollow within for a 
 shrine) breaks above me against the blue sky. 
 The sharp shadows lie under his sleepy lids 
 and soft mouth smiling inwardly. I see on 
 his forehead the sacred spot, and from between 
 his feet the emblematic lotus springing." 
 
 Then— 
 
 " The broad Italian landscape spreads below 
 me — the lands of the upper Po and Bormida ; 
 I see the wave-like congregated hills terraced 
 with vines to their very tops, the pink or yellow 
 painted homesteads dotted here and there, 
 the arched stone barns, and villages clustered 
 on the hill-tops with belfries high against the 
 sky. . ." 
 
 Ah, Italia benedetta ! Shall I never tread 
 thy sacred soil again ? Shall we never again 
 wander, happy tramps, where — 
 
 " The Campanile and red roof of the village 
 church show out seaward against the sky-line ; 
 and the cypresses stand sentinel in the cemetery 
 on the hill above ; 
 
 " The borage-flowers beneath the lemon 
 
112 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 branches catch the hues of sea and sky ; runnels 
 of water sparkle through the grass by the path- 
 side ; the scent of orange-bloom is in the air ; 
 
 " Far back into the valleys stretch the grey 
 shade and gloom of the olive-yards ; and the 
 narrow, tumbled alleys of the mountain- 
 villages are like huge rock-burrows of human 
 beings ; . . ." 
 
 " The zigzag path, the lonely chalet, the 
 patches of cultivation almost inaccessible, 
 the chestnut woods, and again the pinewoods, 
 and beyond again, where no trees are, the 
 solitary pasturages ; 
 
 " (The hidden upper valleys, bare of all but 
 rocks and grass — they, too, with their churches 
 and villages ;) 
 
 " And beyond the pasturages, aye beyond 
 the bare rocks, through the great girdle of the 
 clouds — high in air — 
 
 " The inacessible world of ice, scarce trodden 
 of men." 
 
 A sob rises in my dry throat. The awaken- 
 ing memories of Italy are too bitter-sweet. 
 We have been so happy there : we have loved 
 her too well. I should not have strayed back 
 to her now, when I am seeking peace and not 
 to feel ! 
 
SICK-ROOM SOLAOE 113 
 
 But my book falls open at another page, 
 and I glance at it through my tears. 
 
 " Let your mind be quiet, realising the beauty 
 of the world, and the immense, the boundless 
 treasures that it holds in store. 
 
 " All you have within you, all that your 
 heart desires, all that your Nature so specially 
 fits you for — ^that or the counterpart of it waits 
 embedded in the great Whole, for you. It 
 will surely come to you. 
 
 " Yet equally surely not one moment before 
 its appointed time will it come. All your 
 crying and fever and reaching out of hands 
 will make no difference." 
 
 Somewhere in the little street below a caged 
 bird is singing : a blithe sweet twitter of free- 
 dom and happiness. With the cruel custom 
 of these southern lands its captors have pro- 
 bably blinded it, that its song may be more 
 constant. But not of darkness nor of cap- 
 tivity nor loneliness is that song : the brave 
 tiny throat pulses and trills out wild woodland 
 memories of love and lightness and joy. 
 Higher and higher its notes rise 
 
 My eyes close ; the book falls from my 
 hands. I will be — I am — content. 
 
 8 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 ON THE SHORE 
 
 I AM out of my prison at last, under the broad, 
 blue, summer sky, faint but happy in the sun- 
 light. All the long delicious morning I have 
 lain amongst the great rocks — rugged monsters 
 bare of seaweed, huge russet-brown boulders, 
 interspersed with inlets and lakes and pools, 
 where the tide creeps up, and in, and out, and 
 stretches of sand where the foam from the 
 spraying waves floats madly along in froth- 
 bubbles borne on the wind. Before me, over 
 the farthermost rocks, the ocean is having 
 wild sport, dashing up at their jagged tops, 
 splashing and breaking over the dark crests 
 in fine, broken clouds of snow-white spray, 
 falling in frothy cascades down their sides, 
 withdrawing for a brief instant, only to form 
 a higher curve of wave to rush back again to 
 the attack in wilder, merrier force. 
 
 Even when there is no wind, the far-heaving 
 
 lU 
 
ON THE SHORE 115 
 
 Atlantic swell — offspring of the distant storm 
 — flings itself untiringly against these barriers 
 of sand and rock in breakers such as are seldom 
 seen on English shores ; but to-day the breeze 
 is fresh and strong, and the farthest blue is 
 tipped here and there with " white horses," 
 then, in the nearer distance, where the rocks 
 are not, roll the broken lines of noble waves, 
 transparently perfect in curve beneath their 
 foaming fringe, exhilarating to behold from 
 their ceaseless energy, their glorious strength 
 and freshness. 
 
 The wind, though high, is balmy, healing, 
 friendly ; the great, beneficent sun irradiates 
 all the fair scene, and, lying here like some mere 
 flotsam on the shore of Life, health steals back 
 into my veins and I am filled with a feeling 
 of quiet joy. It is so good, only to be alive 
 to share in this festa of Nature's ; and what- 
 ever day of the week this chances to be, it is 
 serene and blessed Sabbath in my heart. 
 
 I idly wonder what, exactly, John the Be- 
 loved meant, when, in painting his grand word- 
 picture of his Jewish Heaven, he wrote, " and 
 there shall be no more sea." If ever there was 
 a place where one might expect to hap upon 
 the souls of the blessed, it would be here — 
 gliding serenely about the brown old rocks, 
 
116 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 holding sweet converse in the silent coves, 
 or floating in blissful lightness on the snowy 
 wave-crests ; here on the marge of the ocean, 
 the element so free, so fresh from God's hand, 
 so unspoilt and unspoilable by man's defiling 
 touch. 
 
 Perhaps, exiled and lonely, he was thinking 
 of it only from the point of view of — 
 
 "The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea ! " 
 
 And then, indeed, I can understand his 
 meaning. For poor souls, whose hearts ache 
 through a long lifetime for dear ones parted 
 from them by the awful spaces of ocean, who 
 strain longing eyes across the waste, extending 
 empty, hungry arms, to them what strange 
 sweetness, what unutterable comfort there 
 must lie in that mystical assurance — 
 
 " There shall be no more sea ! " 
 
 I am able to walk again, and for some 
 bright hours to-day The Philosopher and I 
 have been a pair of happy, careless chil- 
 dren, scrambling about amongst the great 
 rocks, sliding down chasms, leaping perilous 
 waterways, peering into deep, wave- worn 
 pools amongst the huge boulders, where tiny 
 fishes shyly dart in and out, and sober crabs 
 
ON THE SHORE 117 
 
 lurk, and beautiful anemones of blue and 
 crimson and brown fringe the sides ; and then, 
 weary and blissful, we settled down at length 
 in a sun-dried cleft of a great dark rock, and 
 The Philosopher started to work, whilst I, as 
 a pampered convalescent, rested in idleness, 
 feasting my eyes upon all the fresh beauty 
 of spraying wave and calm blue sky, and 
 mused, and mused 
 
 Until, suddenly, my mood changed, and the 
 sunlight seemed blotted out. 
 
 How strange it is to know so surely that 
 we have just so many more days of this beauti- 
 ful life : that slowly, slowly but inexorably, 
 the time is stealing nearer when we shall have 
 eaten our last bean, spent our last reis, and the 
 hour will have struck for us to go out of this 
 world. We are happy in the sunshine still, 
 but the shadow creeps silently, remorselessly 
 on, nearer, ever nearer 
 
 For a moment my arrested heart antici- 
 pated its chill, its horror, and I quailed and 
 shrank. Life is so sweet ! If it were but 
 possible to wait for the natural summons to 
 depart hence ! I have never been of those 
 who shrink from Death, who dread the secret 
 it has to disclose ; rather have I felt a bright 
 anticipation of the Future beyond it, and the 
 
118 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 probable wider faculties. Judging it to be as 
 natural a thing as birth, and so utterly a thing 
 in which we are the helpless puppets in stronger 
 hands, I have felt that we are surely safe, and 
 that we can be content to be passive, waiting 
 meekly for the hour which has been fixed for 
 the Turning of the Key in the Lock, the slow 
 swinging open of the Door, the gleam of the 
 Light Beyond welcoming us encouragingly 
 as we falter on the threshold. But that is a 
 different matter to oneself battering upon 
 the closed portal, violating that dread Lock, 
 rushing in unbidden, prematurely ! 
 
 What a strange, unequal world it is ! That 
 there should be those who have so much more 
 of the metal with which one buys comfort here 
 than they can possibly enjoy, and others, who 
 need such a little measure, are forced to die 
 for the lack of it. 
 
 I remember reading of two people, a year 
 or two ago — she was an artist and he a writer — 
 and when, like ourselves, they were worsted 
 in the struggle they threw to the hungry 
 waiting world two last sops — she a little book 
 upon her art, he, his bitterly gained advice 
 to literary beginnners. But the callous world 
 wanted none of their pathetic efforts ; it cried, 
 " Amuse, amuse, or — cease to trouble me ! " 
 
ON THE SHOKE 119 
 
 So the Inevitable came for them, and they went 
 out. The Philosopher and I are in like case 
 to theirs. What wares have we to offer that 
 the world would care to buy ? Unfitted by 
 temperament, by health, by custom, to barter 
 and wrangle and fight in its market-place, 
 there is no possibility left for people such as 
 we when money is gone. One must confront 
 
 the truth. And yet 
 
 I looked up into that dearer face beside me, 
 and The Philosopher, glancing down in re- 
 sponse, asked me quickly whether I was cold. 
 No, not cold, I responded, but bored — just 
 bored by my thoughts. If he would read 
 aloud to me, a little of his grave, wise book, 
 I should be all right — all right ! 
 
 Evening. I am myself again now ; the 
 coward mood has passed. "It is not well to 
 think of death, unless we temper the thought 
 with that of heroes who despised it." I have 
 remembered Socrates, going to his death with 
 such unruffled calm : his sonorous, unflinching 
 last words to friends and enemies alike, " The 
 hour of departure has arrived, and we go our 
 ways — I to die, and you to live ; but which of 
 us has the better part, is known to God alone." 
 
 Ah, that better part may after all be ours : 
 
120 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 to pass out in silence now, rather than to 
 linger on, losing courage, dignity, indepen- 
 dence — ^perhaps even coming to accept a 
 grudging charity. I will flinch no more ; I 
 will be staunch, brave, and careless. 
 
 Years ago, at a little chalet-hotel on a Swiss 
 mountain-side, a strange woman shared our 
 table one night. She was an Austrian, gaunt, 
 middle-aged, unlovely ; alone on a walking 
 tour through the Alps. Before the meal was 
 over she had confided her story to us. She 
 was doomed to blindness ; the specialists had 
 given her just so many months before the dark- 
 ness would close in upon her irrevocably ; and 
 she was spending those last brief months of 
 vision in seeing all that she could of the beauties 
 of the world, so that, when the dread time at 
 length came, her blankness might be relieved 
 by the glories which memory would summon 
 to her aid. Pictures had become but a blur 
 to her, stately buildings were now confused 
 and indistinct, music neither charmed nor 
 soothed ; she could no longer read, and her 
 nerves were strung at too high a tension to 
 endure a voice reading to her ; but the green 
 solitudes of those Alpine valleys had power 
 to bring peace to her soul, the distant snowy 
 peaks were somehow comforting and clear 
 
ON THE SHORE 121 
 
 to her strained vision. When I inquired for 
 her on the morrow, it was to learn that she 
 had passed upon her solitary way at sunrise ; 
 but she left me the richer for her example of 
 quiet heroism. God send her solace now, 
 when the end must long have come to her ! 
 
 I have thought of a hero too. A little red- 
 headed fellow, who, with the superciliousness 
 of girlhood, I judged to be neither interesting 
 nor extraordinary. But he had his moment. 
 It came one day in the Australian bush when 
 his companion's gun accidentally exploded 
 and he was shot. He looked up smilingly 
 into the face of his friend, who knelt beside 
 him, frantic with grief and self-reproach. 
 " Sorry, old chap," he whispered. " Like 
 my damned awkwardness — ^getting in the 
 way ! " — and died. 
 
 Now, how dare I flinch or repine ? 
 
CHAPTER Xin 
 
 SUMMER INCIDENTS 
 
 A QUEER and incongruous incident is hap- 
 pening just now. The most ancient mode 
 of locomotion and the most modern in- 
 dustrial impulse have united ; a great quiet 
 reigns in the ruas of our big town, and the 
 roads leading to it are strangely peaceful 
 and deserted — the ox-carts have gone out 
 on strike ! 
 
 Women carry piecemeal upon their heads 
 the loads which the carts usually convey ; 
 crude little hand-trucks have suddenly sprung 
 into being ; everything is disorganised, for — 
 the ox-carts are on strike. 
 
 It appears that their primitive wheels do 
 great damage to the roads, as, when the cart 
 requires to turn, it necessitates a heavy drag 
 round of the whole concern by main force — 
 each wheel being rigidly attached to the axle — 
 and the town authorities have issued a mandate 
 
 122 
 
SUMMER INCIDENTS 123 
 
 that, for the future, all carts entering the town 
 must have their wheels moving independently of 
 each other, on penalty of a fine. But many of 
 the ox-cart owners are very poor, and the cost 
 of making the required alteration would mean 
 much to them ; hence this protest. Also, 
 apart from any consideration of cost, there 
 is the essential underlying spirit of the country : 
 The old ways have always done well enough, 
 why should they be forced to change ? Their 
 fathers did not have independent wheels to 
 their carts, why should they be expected to 
 do so ? It is but another proof of unjusti- 
 fiable tyranny ! I have little doubt that the 
 poor government gets the credit for the hateful 
 innovation. 
 
 Later. After much excitement and infinite 
 talk the strike has ended as so many efforts 
 at reform end here ; it has proved but a damp 
 firework, which has fizzled out ignominiously. 
 The old rigid wheels grind along the roads 
 again ; it was inconvenient to everybody to 
 be without the service of the ox-carts, so no 
 more is said about the new regulation ; and 
 when one questions an ox driver, he just 
 shrugs his shoulders in good-humoured irre- 
 sponsibility, and drawls, '' Eu nao se!"" — I 
 
124 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 don't know ! and nobody troubles any more 
 about it. 
 
 These southern races are blissfully exempt 
 from the baleful influence of the Work-microbe ; 
 and the manner in which we more strenuous 
 northern races fret and worry and bustle about 
 our business concerns would seem most strange 
 and unreasonable to them. It is, after all, 
 just a matter of climate. Where Nature is 
 so kindly, the sun and the earth so beneficent, 
 one's wants are fewer, life is simplified, and 
 nerves and brain are more content to rest 
 and be contemplative. 
 
 In the Canaries I had a stout criada who, 
 when I made a request, would smile ex- 
 asperatingly, and, folding her fat arms above 
 her ample stomach, would placidly reply 
 " Manana ! " — " Manana " there, " Amanha " 
 here, to-morrow ! — ^that is the true southern 
 spirit. Plenty of time to-morrow : why trouble 
 to-day ? But one of the English shipping 
 firms endeavours to counteract this un-English 
 point of view amongst their employees, and 
 over the big white face of the office clock 
 is the stern admonition — do it now ! 
 
 On a certain day last week, when I was busy 
 
SUMMER INCIDENTS 125 
 
 in a little wooden shed in the garden, though 
 apparently alone, I was aware of a gradually 
 increasing consciousness that some one was 
 watching me. I turned, looking down, and 
 there, sitting up on its haunches, with one arm 
 extended to steady itself against the jamb of 
 the doorway, was the wisest and most intelli- 
 gent-looking of toad-persons, observing me 
 intently. He seemed quite unconcerned at 
 my interest in him ; rather assuring me by 
 his gaze that it was reciprocal. So I sat him 
 on the palm of my hand and took him indoors 
 to interview The Philosopher. He was such a 
 self-possessed and unusual toad, and we were 
 so charmed with his air of calm, unprejudiced 
 wisdom — the placid outlook of a sage so in- 
 terested in observing Life that he feared 
 nothing — that we concluded it would be de- 
 lightful if he would share our domicile, and 
 live henceforth secure from danger of dogs 
 and children. So we made him a dark cave 
 of crumpled brown paper in a corner, and 
 introduced milk and bread-crumbs for his 
 delectation. 
 
 But the next morning, after greeting him by 
 the affectionate name of the " Old 'un" and 
 leaving him serenely observing his surroundings 
 from the mouth of his cave. The Philosopher 
 
^ 126 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 was called away to interview a peasant woman. 
 The big door was standing open while a long 
 and animated discussion took place upon some 
 trivial point — as to whether eight days should 
 be counted as a week, or some equally en- 
 tangled problem — and when he returned the 
 wise toad-person was nowhere to be seen. We 
 hunted everywhere, but discovered no trace 
 of him, and we had at last reluctantly to con- 
 clude that he had preferred to decline our 
 hospitality and had slipped off through the 
 open door and down the steps. But, as the 
 story-books say, there was a sequel. 
 
 We have been troubled by the visits of mice 
 lately, and though we do not begrudge the 
 little creatures a small levy upon our supplies, 
 they had become really outrageous in their 
 depredations, bringing up from the farmyard 
 each night fresh relays of " their sisters and 
 their cousins and their aunts " to share in their 
 orgies. So at length, with firm resolution, 
 The Philosopher went off to the town and 
 brought home a trap of the guillotine variety, 
 with a strong spring to bring down instant 
 retribution upon the neck of any brazen robber 
 venturing over its threshold. When night 
 came he baited it and set it down in a dark 
 corner of the kitchen. 
 
SUMMER INCIDENTS 127 
 
 " Now we shall soon see ! " he announced 
 grimly, as we sat down to supper. 
 
 " Sss-nap ! " sharply went the trap before 
 we had finished our beans. 
 
 " There ! " cried The Philosopher, in tri- 
 umph. " You see — already 1 " 
 
 And he went off to inspect. 
 
 " It's an uncommonly large mouse," he 
 cried doubtfully, peering into the corner in 
 the semi-darkness. 
 
 Then, gingerly lifting the trap, he brought 
 it into the range of the lamp-light, and there, 
 suspended by one leg, was the poor batra- 
 chian ! 
 
 He had evidently lived for the intervening 
 days hidden under the big dresser, venturing 
 out each night in search of stray crumbs, and 
 so the fate of the robbers had overtaken him. 
 We wondered what they thought of him, and 
 he of them, when they chanced to meet in 
 their maraudings in the quiet hours of the 
 night. 
 
 Eager to make atonement for the insult we 
 had so unwittingly offered him, we carried 
 him down to the frog-pond in the moonlight, 
 and there bade him a reluctant farewell, 
 leaving him to be nursed back by Dame Nature 
 to the enjoyment of his freedom with his own 
 
128 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 people, in a corner amongst the reeds, where 
 he could avenge himself for his enforced vege- 
 tarian diet of crumbs by succulent meals of 
 young frogs. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 QUIET DAYS 
 
 The days glide by in such pleasant monotony, 
 with so little to mark their course, that the 
 recurring Sundays take us by surprise, and 
 the sound of the exordium and prayers of the 
 weekly beggar beneath our windows in the 
 dawn often alone, proves to us that another 
 week is ended, another one has begun. Our 
 only other Time-marks are a few days of better 
 health, and of feverish work, for The Philosopher, 
 followed by a fresh relapse into languor and 
 insomnia, when I steal about our little house 
 on tiptoe, grieving for unprocurable comforts 
 for him ; short lashing rain-storms between 
 long days of sunshine, clear air, and blue sky ; 
 serene moons, and soft, dark nights of stars ; 
 and the time steals by with as fatal a facility 
 as these grains of white sand slip from between 
 my fingers — ^it will almost as soon be ended. 
 When I awake now in the grey dawn of the 
 
 129 9 
 
130 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 morning, my gradual return to consciousness 
 is suddenly postulated by a sharp, overpowering 
 sense of dread. My heart is momentarily 
 arrested, then bounds forward with the hurried 
 beats of a sickening and nameless fear. Reason 
 has not yet assumed control, and I suffer hor- 
 ribly. The most frequent torment of this 
 " dawn-mare " is the sensation that we are 
 falling, falling down some precipice ; we seek 
 to clutch at its smooth sides, we grasp some 
 treacherous weed or yielding clump of grass — 
 in vain ! Voicelessly, helplessly, we are sinking 
 down into the void, and there is none to out- 
 stretch a saving hand. 
 
 This waking dream never reaches the in- 
 evitable catastrophe, there is no finality — only, 
 ever and always, this paralysing, deadly grip 
 of fear : the despairing horror of the falling, 
 never the passive quiet of The End. 
 
 If I could but attain to The Philosopher's 
 sweet serenity, both for himself and for me ! 
 If I did not love this present Life so dearly, 
 if my blood did not pulse in such intensity of 
 sympathy with all human doings — with Love, 
 knowledge, mirth, and beauty, with pain and 
 sorrow and even sin — it might not be so hard 
 to go ! 
 
QUIET DAYS 131 
 
 This morning I had a beautiful new experi- 
 ence : I assisted at a birth. The sunshine 
 to-day is the richer for a tiny lovely creature 
 over whose nativity I was privileged to pre- 
 side. A week or two ago I chanced to find 
 a queer little cocoon, and brought it indoors 
 with me. It was an uninteresting little object, 
 of a dull grey, undistinguished in form, and, 
 when I touched it, its more pointed end gave 
 a feeble wriggle of protest. I carelessly put 
 it up on the ledge of a picture frame and forgot 
 all about it. But this morning, before the 
 sun had risen, when I was busy at my table, 
 something fell from above almost into my 
 hands, and there was the little grey cocoon, 
 but animated now with strange internal con- 
 vulsions. The blunt end of it was slightly 
 open ; the length of it was very gradually 
 cracking open from the force of the efforts 
 within. Presently a head, consisting mostly 
 of two great startled eyes, appeared, then a 
 couple of quivering antennae sprang forward 
 into their position from the restraint of the 
 shell ; two slender front legs were next drawn 
 from their prison, and clutched on to my hand 
 for assistance in their weak struggles for free- 
 dom. I ventured to hold the tapering tail-end 
 of the shell, and, assisted thus, the cracks 
 
132 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 gradually went on until a queer, unhappy 
 little creature had freed itself entirely from 
 body and wing cases, and sat on my palm 
 looking strangely forlorn in a great new world. 
 Its wings were all crumpled up at its sides, 
 useless and confused ; it seemed numbed with 
 the keen morning air, and quite unready to 
 take up life on its own account. I placed it 
 under a glass upon a window-sill where the 
 sun would soon come, and went about my 
 concerns. In an hour or two, when I remem- 
 bered it, what a transformation the warmth 
 and light had brought about ! The crumpled, 
 useless wings were widely outspread — bright 
 golden-yellow in the sunshine — or folded up- 
 wards together like two hands at prayer ; the 
 creature was all animation, impatient to start 
 upon its new life of enjoyment. I lifted the 
 glass. For an instant it paused irresolutely, 
 doubtful, perhaps, of its untried powers ; then 
 the beautiful golden wings quivered and opened, 
 and fearlessly, rapturously, gaining strength 
 and control with each movement, it fluttered 
 off into the sunlight of the new day. What- 
 ever memories it retained of its former earth- 
 bound state must have been of the vaguest 
 description. It seemed akin to the death- 
 birth of a soul into heaven. 
 
QUIET DAYS 133 
 
 I have been reading once more the tragedy 
 of the Carlyles. What a pitiful picture it is 
 to contemplate ! That intellectual giant, after 
 all his strenuous, heroic years of splendid work 
 for his kind — grand work accomplished in spite 
 of narrow circumstances, ill-health, and a 
 hampering personality — spending his last years 
 in pathetic repentance for his supposed neglect 
 of his life's companion. And what a want of 
 judgment and humanity, all the petty, un- 
 necessary revelations prove. I can imagine 
 Jane Carlyle's burning eyes turned upon the 
 revealer in bitter scorn. " And thank you for 
 nothing, James Froude ! " she would have 
 cried, could she have known how her Philo- 
 sopher's old age would have been embittered, 
 and his fame after death darkened, for the 
 sake of "doing justice to her memory." 
 Whistler's wonderful portrait tells the whole 
 sad story — the sorrow, the seK-reproach and 
 humiliation — more truly than any words can 
 do, and there the matter should have been 
 decently buried. 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle was no meek saint. She 
 grumbled, she suffered, indeed ; but I doubt 
 whether, had the choice been given her, she 
 would have been content with any lesser lot 
 for the sake of greater happiness or ease. She 
 
134 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 stood between her Philosopher and the world ; 
 she recognised his genius, and it was her high 
 privilege to " give him his chance." She 
 heroically consented to go to Craigenputtock 
 that he might have the leisure he needed to don 
 his armour for the fight, and to test its metal ; 
 and though her restless spirit may have chafed 
 at the loneHness and narrowness of her Hfe 
 there, I think she must have felt that Sartor 
 Resartus was worth it all. True women do 
 not marry to tread henceforth a path of roses, 
 but to share with a chosen comrade in all the 
 struggles of Life. To dare, to sufiPer — to 
 endure pain, loneHness, neglect even, if so 
 they may help that other one. This is a 
 nobler fate than mere happiness. As the 
 Sage himself said, " There is in man a 
 HIGHER than Love of Happiness : he can do 
 without Happiness, and instead thereof find 
 Blessedness ! " 
 
 This " Blessedness " satisfies a woman's 
 nature as the selfish seeking for her own pleasure 
 never can ; and it is this spirit of joyful self- 
 sacrifice which places marriage without the 
 pale of ordinary criticism. In all true wife- 
 hood there is an element of the Mother-love ; 
 tolerant, tender, protecting ; at times, perhaps, 
 even a spice of amusement ; but always, and 
 
QUIET DAYS 135 
 
 in everything, a loving comprehension. And — 
 Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner. 
 
 Some wise man once said, " There are but 
 two people who can tell the whole truth of a 
 man and a woman's relationship — and they 
 won't." Personally, I beHeve the two dear 
 creatures quite understood each other, and that 
 there was honey beneath the vinegar for them 
 both. Peace to their troubled memories ! 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE ETERNAL FEMININE 
 
 We are experiencing a season of wet, unpleasing 
 weather. All day our sea lies still, grey and 
 sullen, just showing a fringe of white teeth 
 near the shore ; and from the south-west the 
 great billowy clouds roll up, dark with their 
 burden of rain, which ever and anon descends 
 in a heavy downpour, keeping us prisoners 
 in our little fortress behind the streaming 
 window-panes. Along the sodden road an 
 occasional disconsolate peasant passes, en- 
 veloped in his queer mackintosh composed 
 of layers of long dried grasses, appearing Hke 
 a small perambulating haystack ; or a woman 
 patters along barefooted, with her skirts tucked 
 high, and her thick woollen shawl drawn closely 
 over her head ; otherwise all are sheltered in 
 their cottages, for these southern races hate rain. 
 The Philosopher, whistUng happily, is ab- 
 sorbed in reproducing a copy of his beloved 
 
 m 
 
THE ETERNAL FEMININE 137 
 
 Turner's " T^meraire," and, wrestling with the 
 intricacies of that gorgeous sunset, he is ob- 
 livious of leaden skies and lashing rain. There 
 is much to be said for colours in such weather 
 as this. 
 
 I, less fortunate, a devotee of the bald printed 
 page, have been poring over first some novels 
 of the French school, and later, some of the 
 plaints of the women of our day, and I am 
 fittingly depressed by both. The fleshly school 
 invariably arouses in me a perverse spirit of 
 antagonism. The " field of vision " is so out of 
 focus ; it gives to one side of life such a dis- 
 proportionate importance. Love is good, 
 passion is good, but so is a very great deal else 
 in life, and when books such as these, written 
 by women in most cases, claim to be serious 
 psychological studies of Woman, I would sug- 
 gest that there is a flaw in their titles ; that 
 it is not Woman with the capital W who is 
 here dissected for our doubtful edification, but 
 a woman ; or say, five, ten, twenty women — 
 neurotic, super-sexed, self-absorbed women. 
 Like poor Melisande, they " are not happy," 
 and in these books they are presented in the 
 nude, proclaiming their wants, their vague 
 desires, their discontent to all mankind. 
 
 It is all so chaotic, premature, unbalanced. 
 
138 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 What do they wish ? What do they lack ? 
 That woman's position is in a transitionary 
 state no thoughtful person can deny. Pro- 
 gress and education are affecting her con- 
 dition, as so much else. She has had her 
 day as a goddess, she has had her day as a 
 serf ; and now the last shackles are falhng 
 from her limbs ; she is stirring, rising, but 
 with spasmodic, unmodulated movements. 
 She does not yet know in what Hes her strength, 
 in what her weakness ; and nothing but the 
 beneficent action of Time will draw her to 
 the gradual true reaHsation of herself. 
 
 In the early days of CathoUcism woman's 
 sensuous nature had its vent in the forms 
 and mysteries of voluptuous worship. The 
 sexual instinct was sublimated. The Mother 
 with her Child was upon the altar, " and 
 every woman became holy in her womanhood, 
 and wrong and harshness towards any child 
 a sacrilege." When the Puritan revolt came, 
 man placed his wife, daughter, sister in the 
 Mary's empty niche, and thenceforth saintly 
 purity and sexlessness was exacted from 
 every woman. But woman found a difficulty 
 in breathing this rarefied air ; she revolted in 
 secret, whence came the excitement of witch- 
 craft, real or imaginary, its whispers of bestial 
 
THE ETERNAL FEMININE 139 
 
 devilment and hysterical horror. Woman fell 
 from her pedestal into the mud of the market- 
 place ; her divinity was gone for ever. Then 
 came a dreary level, when man drank hard, 
 and had not " rounded Cape Turk " ; and a 
 " good " woman was accounted by him as 
 one without individuahty, humdrum, tedious ; 
 a colourless companion for his bed and board, 
 to be his sick-nurse and his housekeeper, but 
 no sharer of his thoughts or pleasures. An 
 Ameha, ever melting into the facile tears of 
 sensibility ; a patient Griselda perhaps, but a 
 very trying one ! We have many graphic 
 portraits of her ; her " genteel " delicacy of 
 health, her nerves, her swoons, her apathetic 
 submission, not necessarily to a beloved mate, 
 but to a man whom she chanced to call hus- 
 band ; ever prating cold Duty as her sole 
 incentive, taking all the festival of marital joy 
 listlessly, even complainingly, in an aggra- 
 vatingly martyr spirit. Such women as these 
 were indeed calculated to transform the " cakes 
 and ale " of marriage into "cold baked funeral 
 meats " ; and it is good to know that their 
 day is over. 
 
 But of what consists the ideal mate ? I 
 think that from a man's point of view she is 
 no new production ; we have all bowed before 
 
140 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 her shrine in history, poem, and song. She 
 is the woman — the primeval woman — who 
 loves deeply, devotedly, warmly, self-effacingly ; 
 whose passion flows straight from her large 
 heart, with more than a spice of Motherhood 
 in its protecting tenderness ; one who would 
 do and dare and suffer all things for the 
 beloved man. Not necessarily a clever woman, 
 except in the things that pertain to the heart, 
 but a woman whose love warms without 
 scorching, and whose mere presence brings 
 comfort and peace, upon whose bosom heroes 
 may rest. Of such was Hero, and Juliet, and 
 little Lucy Feverel. 
 
 Even this ideal, however, is changing with 
 the times, and the true woman of the future 
 will be one who is capable of as much warmth, 
 as boundless devotion as her primeval sister, 
 but one who will have clear eyes of criticism ; 
 who must love downwards, from the brain 
 to the heart ; a woman who will demand that 
 her reason shall assent to her emotions ; dis- 
 tinctly not the type carelessly to fling her 
 cap over the windmills, and count the world 
 well lost for Love ; but her love, once won, 
 will be capable of making Hfe heaven for the 
 beloved man. 
 
 Strangely, some most modern|women have 
 
THE ETERNAL FEMININE 141 
 
 assured me that, deeper than the desire for man's 
 love is their yearning towards Motherhood. 
 
 In an old number of the long-defunct 
 Savoy there occurs a pathetic little story of a 
 girl. Just an insignificant little attendant 
 in an A. B. C. off Cheapside, who dully accepted 
 the fact of her own unloveliness, and lived on, 
 a lonely atom in the great city. Men were 
 not attracted to her ; men did not attract 
 her. Yet at the bottom of her very ordinary 
 girlish heart there was ever an inarticulate 
 want, a yearning, a sense of unsatisfied hunger. 
 At length there came a time when there 
 sprang up a whimsical and quite unsenti- 
 mental friendship between the girl and a man, 
 a customer ; and in the new experience she came 
 to realise the need of her poor, empty heart. 
 
 " I think," she said softly, "if I had a 
 baby, my very own, I should want nothing — 
 nothing in this world more than that." 
 
 The idea is beautiful, in this pure sense, 
 but — is it true ? Is there not rather a wide- 
 spread revolt against maternity amongst an 
 ever-increasing section of women ? Few have 
 the genius for Motherhood ; fewer still would 
 desire the condition except as the outcome 
 of deep marital love, which renders the off- 
 spring precious. 
 
142 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 Others make a strong plea for early marriage. 
 They assert that a girl from fifteen to twenty 
 is in her prime for marriage. It may be so, 
 if the sex-faculty is the chief end of love and 
 marriage, as too many books of the day 
 imply. In less complex days it may have 
 been true ; one ventures to doubt whether 
 it is so now, I think, in a modern marriage, 
 it is more essential for lasting happiness that 
 the man and woman should be thoroughly 
 good comrades, " chums," with thoughts and 
 points of view in common, than that they 
 should be unreasoningly consumed by a 
 grand passion, any more than the faculty of 
 eating, drinking, or sleeping should absorb us. 
 Life is now too interesting, too full of many 
 things, and satiety gives the natural He to 
 this pernicious doctrine ; and it is this in- 
 tense, morbid accentuation of sex and the 
 sex-faculty which gives an unpleasant savour 
 to so many modern books. 
 
 And surely there is something illogical, un- 
 sound, out of proportion in the theory. Passion, 
 unless sanctified by being the last test and 
 highest inspiration of individual Love, is 
 but an emotion which we share with the 
 brute creation ; and its satisfaction without 
 the spiritual transmutation of Love, either 
 
THE ETERNAL FEMININE 143 
 
 in marriage or out of it, is a prostitution of 
 man or woman. It is not an instinct to be 
 brooded over, accentuated by morbid imagina- 
 tion, screamed out to the world. 
 
 When in God's order, and, thank Heaven 
 I can still beHeve, in Woman's order, it follows 
 in the wake of a great and holy love, as natur- 
 ally as the sunlight follows the dawn, it leads 
 on to maternity and joy, and there is nothing 
 to be said to the gaping world. Even when 
 it is the outcome of an unhappy love, in 
 man or woman doomed ever to be mateless, 
 if one could probe the depths of the lonely 
 heart, I think it would not be unsatisfied 
 passion which would be found to cause the 
 bitterest pangs. 
 
 I once knew a woman, — she is long since 
 dead. Peace to her soul ! — to whom Love 
 came suddenly, silently. It was a love never 
 destined to fruition, and she bore it hidden 
 deep within her heart through all her years. 
 Yet, though no one held the key to the secret, 
 that hidden love dominated her whole future 
 existence, and perfected her character, so that 
 all men saw the change in her. The hard grew 
 easy, since the beloved one lived ; her life 
 was a difficult one, but her courage never 
 failed ; she could smile at all that Fate could 
 
144 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 do to her, since, somewhere, he breathed God's 
 air ; she held all things with a Hght hand ; 
 it was easy to be unselfish, to seek the good 
 of others, and nothing unworthy could be 
 spoken or done, since it would withdraw her 
 soul farther from his in God's sight. She 
 was of a nervous temperament, but one 
 thought of that hidden love had power to 
 brace her to a perfect self-control. 
 
 The Religion of the Beloved ! It was strange 
 to watch. Yet, stranger still, this woman 
 was uncommonly clear-eyed ; she held no 
 illusions regarding him, but she looked beyond 
 the imperfect man to the soul as God had 
 made it, and — she loved him. To have 
 suggested that there was aught of passion in 
 that love would have seemed like desecrating 
 a shrine. Even if Destiny had been kinder 
 he might never have roused that side of her 
 nature ; it slumbered deeply, it had never 
 been awakened. Yet — indeed she loved him. 
 Well — she died, with her secret undiscovered ; 
 and now he too has passed on, and they are 
 both forgotten. After all, at best we but 
 grasp a comrade's hand in the darkness ; 
 perhaps, beyond, in the light of heaven, those 
 two souls may look into each other's eyes 
 and understand. I believe that the highest 
 
THE ETERNAL FEMININE 145 
 
 love is above and beyond all mere sex. David 
 had dim knowledge of this truth when he 
 mourned for the one who had loved him with 
 " a love passing the love of women." And, 
 " In heaven they neither marry nor are given 
 in marriage, but are as the angels of God." 
 
 And those whose lot it is to be celibate 
 have this consolation, that marriage is but 
 a small matter after all. The individual, 
 distinct life of the soul is the great thing to 
 be striven for ; that it may grow — ^broad, 
 free, and worthy of its high destiny. If, 
 perchance, it may be our lot to join hands 
 with a congenial comrade, so much the better ; 
 but Life is not marriage, nor child-bearing, 
 nor brief ecstasy of sexual union, but the 
 growth of the soul. For we take not hus- 
 band nor wife nor child out with us when we 
 go hence, but pass out into The Unknown ; 
 solitary, alone, even as we came hither. 
 
 For distressful Woman — ^her salvation must 
 come from within. No one can help her, 
 no outward " rights " really aid. It is char- 
 acter, character alone that can raise her to 
 the noble heights for which she is now half- 
 blindly groping. Educate, elevate, make calm, 
 strong, wise ; and the rest will follow, as the 
 light the day. 
 
 10 
 
146 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 As Joubert wrote, " Make Truth lovely, 
 and do not try to arm her — mankind will 
 then be far less inclined to contend with her." 
 
 Perhaps, one day. Woman may come to 
 realise, with a great surprise, the fact which 
 has lain hidden all the time, that her de- 
 liverance is thus. Let her only make herself 
 wise, tender, strong, well-poised in all things 
 pertaining both to heart and brain ; neither 
 borne along by wild gusts of hysteria, nor 
 confusing the shadow with the substance ; 
 deeply realising that in the attainment of 
 her highest hopes, " in quietness and con- 
 fidence " shall lie her " strength." Not by 
 clamour, nor by spasmodic, iU-directed force, 
 nor by antagonising Man ; but by quiet, 
 resistless proof of her fitness for the greater 
 by her perfect fulfilment of the less. The 
 waiting time may be long ; but even as 
 leaven silently, surely, leavens the whole, so 
 Man's judgment will be won, his sense of 
 justice aroused, and what he would not 
 render to coercion he will freely yield up 
 to worth, and will seat Woman to reign 
 beside him on the throne of the World — ^no 
 longer a goddess, a slave, or a puppet, but 
 an acknowledged equal, a counterpart, and 
 a completion. 
 
THE ETERNAL FEMININE 147 
 
 Dear, dear ! How rainy weather makes 
 one prose ! 
 
 The rainy spell is over, and all nature 
 is rejoicing in the sunshine once more. 
 We have taken our chairs and our work 
 into the disused gravel quarry beside our 
 house, and there, delightfully shielded from 
 the north and the east, we sit sunning 
 ourselves amongst a thick growth of gorse 
 and brambles and baby pines. The warm 
 air is alive with tiny midges, the strands of 
 fine spider's web glint in rainbow tints from 
 bush to bush, and a big, contented humble- 
 bee — a " yellow-breeched philosopher " — is 
 bumming his deep Te Deum around us, 
 while a stray working bee, coaxed out from 
 his winter rest by the brightness and warmth, 
 is hovering about the golden gorse blossoms, 
 in search of a sip of nectar. Away from the 
 sun, through the clump of pines behind the 
 quarry, the sky is an intensely deep, soft 
 blue — a true southern tint — and although it 
 is late autumn, I require no jacket, and lounge 
 luxuriously in my deck-chair, with my panama 
 tilted over my eyes. 
 
 In front of us, beyond the common, stretches 
 the blue, scintillating sea, dotted here and 
 
148 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 there with tiny fishing smacks, whose big, 
 picturesque sails of burnt umber, and Vandyke 
 brown, and dull red, add a pleasant note of 
 colour to the scene. There will be espadilhas 
 for our supper to-night ! 
 
 It is all too blissful for me to be strenuous. 
 My book falls into my lap, and I am content 
 only to enjoy. Whimsically, to deepen my 
 content, I picture the London streets to-day : 
 the heavy, leaden-grey atmosphere, through 
 which no ray of sun can pierce, the muddy, 
 unlovely thoroughfares, the blue-nosed, shiver- 
 ing, hurrying crowds, the straining of the 
 laden horses along the greasy roads, the 
 rattle and ill-odour of the huge omnibuses ; 
 the noise, the feverish unrest, the sordidness 
 and futility of so much of the ejffort ! Now, 
 had I but the cap of Fortunatus, I would 
 wish that all those in the unhappy multitude 
 who would appreciate beauteous nature, and 
 warmth, and rest, might forthwith be trans- 
 ported to this Elysium, to taste with us the 
 blessedness of the simple life, and for once 
 to realise " the things that matter." 
 
 The Philosopher, to whom I have voiced 
 this altruistic wish, looks vaguely doubtful. 
 
 " Well — a few at a time," I concede. 
 " A chosen few ! " 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 AUTUMN 
 
 When I awoke this morning and looked 
 out as usual, the tide was low, the sea 
 calm and swarming with the boats of the 
 fisher-folk, all engaged in some mysterious 
 occupation. In an hour or two they had 
 disappeared, and presently the ox-carts came 
 creeping along the road, laden with millions 
 of tiny crabs with which to manure the maize- 
 fields. The poor little crustaceans are scattered 
 over the ground, and then ploughed alive into 
 the soil, waving feebly protesting claws. 
 The odour of the fields for weeks afterwards, 
 especially under the strong rays of the mid- 
 day sun, reminds one of a double concentration 
 of bad cod-liver oil, and their neighbourhood is 
 to be shunned by those of sensitive nostrils ; 
 but they seem to make excellent manure, 
 and their use is general here. 
 
 There is a beneficent sense of autumn in 
 
 149 
 
150 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 the air, the skies are a clear blue, the sun 
 shines mellowly, and a gentle freshness in 
 the breeze makes all activity a delight. 
 
 These simple folk are now engaged in 
 reaping the harvest of their long, laborious 
 days. The maize is all cut or being cut ; the 
 great sheaths containing the grain are severed 
 from their tall stems, and girls and children 
 squat before the cottages and in the courtyards 
 deftly shelling the heads of maize from these 
 coverings ; after which the grains are flayed 
 out of their cones with primitive wooden 
 flails — long sticks with revolving beaters — 
 and spread to dry in the sun upon the open 
 stone floors which are attached to each home- 
 stead. When the sun has wrought this last 
 good work upon them, they are stored in 
 huge white wooden chests, and the family 
 food for the coming year is assured. There 
 it lies, secure to hand ; naught to do in the 
 winter days when meal runs short, but for the 
 mae to take a small sack of the grain upon 
 her head and away to the miller's to get it 
 ground. Then, once a week or so, there is 
 a great baking of maize-bread ; heavy, un- 
 fermented, but apparently wholesome and 
 satisfying ; and the milho also forms the 
 foundation of their bean and cabbage soup. 
 
AUTUMN 151 
 
 Unfortunately for our purse The Philosopher 
 and I cannot learn to enjoy maize in any form ; 
 but it is a valuable food, richer in fat than 
 wheaten flour, and for that reason we occa- 
 sionally conscientiously include it in our soups. 
 
 The uses of this wonderful cereal are not 
 ended with the gathering of the grain. All 
 the dried grassy leaf parts are trimmed from 
 the long cane-like stems and collected into 
 neat little stacks in the fields, to supply the 
 winter fodder for the oxen. Dry, unnourishing 
 fare it appears to my ignorant eyes, but the 
 great patient beasts chew it up appreciatively 
 each morning and evening, and their good 
 condition and capacity for long labour prove 
 its hidden virtue. 
 
 Thus man and beast are fed from the little 
 patches of maize-fields, and the tiny crabs 
 go down now into the alien element to make 
 next year's crop rich and succulent. 
 
 And for those so poor as not to possess or 
 to rent even the smallest strip of land on 
 which to grow this national food, the form 
 which rural charity takes is usually a mugful 
 of the grain, emptied into the beggar's patch- 
 work bag ; and, going thus from door to 
 door on Sundays and festas, these unfortunates 
 can collect quite a considerable quantity. 
 
152 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 Sown between the maize-stalks for shade 
 and support, are the beans which form the 
 only other staple food of these simple children 
 of the soil. These also are picked when ripe 
 and dried for winter use. Thus, with the pines 
 all around to supply wood for fuel, with the 
 pine-needles and pine-cones for kindling, with 
 the gorse and bracken to serve for litter, 
 with often a pig, or goat and fowls, and the 
 maize and the beans grown together on their 
 little patches of land, for food for themselves 
 and the cattle, with the grapes from their 
 cottage pergolas serving to make a thin, 
 sour wine, and often paying their rent in 
 kind, these country folk scarcely seem to 
 know the need of money or shops. I am no 
 political economist, but I do sometimes wonder, 
 watching their free, simple, hardy lives, 
 whether this is not the happier lot, and high 
 wages and town existence a mistake. 
 
 An advantage of our " Walden " is that it 
 does not matter what clothes one wears. 
 Here, in the country, where one rarely sees 
 any shoes or stockings other than one's own, 
 where rags are treasured even when they are 
 most weather-stained, mossy and threadbare, or 
 in strips, causing their ser^neljr unselfconscious 
 
AUTUMN 153 
 
 wearer to resemble nothing so much as a lively 
 scarecrow, even one's oldest garments are 
 regarded by the people as strange and luxurious 
 possessions. But it was reserved for a certain 
 ancient scarlet wool tam-o'-shanter which 
 I love and cling to, to confer the height of 
 distinction upon me. 
 
 To-day, after a sedentary morning's work 
 at our several tasks, we were swinging along, 
 up our Happy Valley, laughing and singing 
 snatches of songs, as our childish custom 
 is when we are in the woods, when we 
 were recalled to more suitable behaviour by 
 the peculiar regard of a small boy whom we 
 chanced to meet. His jaw fell, he stood trans- 
 fixed, staring at me with a wide-eyed, awe- 
 stricken gaze. Especially did he seem to be 
 overpowered by the sight of my head covering. 
 
 " Well, rapas;," inquired The Philosopher 
 encouragingly, " what's the matter ? " 
 
 The boy, with his eyes still fixed on me, 
 drew a step nearer to him for protection, 
 hesitated, and at length, in an awed whisper, 
 faltered out : " Is — is the senhora The 
 Queen ? " 
 
 That Portuguese word " rapaz " always 
 appears to me a delightful term for " boy." 
 
154 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 " Bapaz " — " rapacious " — how it hits off the 
 exactly suitable definition of the normal 
 young peasant animal ! And the other day 
 I happed upon a perfectly delicious word for 
 our term " quack," — " matasanos,^^ which, 
 being literally interpreted, means " kill-the- 
 healthy ! " A nation using such words must 
 really have a sense of quiet, dry humour ! 
 
 All day yesterday Miguel was busy gathering 
 the ripe clusters of grapes, which, with their 
 dark purple bloom, depending from amongst 
 the broad green leaves, have for weeks past 
 made our farmyard a veritable place of beauty 
 — overhead, if not below ! 
 
 Our vines are old and uncared for ; their 
 thick twisted stems climb the walls, here 
 and there, of the out-buildings which surround 
 the yard, and above, upon flat supports of 
 wood and wire, they spread their branches 
 across and interlace their tendrils, forming a 
 complete shade from the glare of the sun, 
 while permitting a soft green light and a 
 sufficiency of air to percolate below. 
 
 Yesterday these branches were despoiled 
 of their generous yield of fruit, and in the 
 evening we were privileged to witness the 
 ancient process of " treading the wine-press." 
 
AUTUMN 155 
 
 Miguel, with his trousers rolled up to his 
 thighs, stood bare-footed in a huge wooden 
 tub, wherein the great bunches of purple 
 grapes were heaped. Then he began a mono- 
 tonous, high-stepping tread, gradually crushing 
 all the fruit beneath his feet. The juice, 
 thus pressed out, began to fill the tub, and 
 the stalks and skins to become things of minor 
 importance, doomed later to be strained 
 away. For an hour or more he continued 
 his treadmill performance. It did not look 
 an inviting process, nor did the turgid, greenish 
 fluid which resulted tempt our thirst. But 
 to-day he came to our door, bearing a Gar- 
 gantuan mug of sparkling, transparent light 
 crimson juice, which, with the addition of a 
 little sugar, tasted really good. This is the 
 fermenting stage : later on it will not appear 
 so attractive to our English palates ; and 
 when it is ready for bottling, it will be darker, 
 and very acid — the " vinho verde " or " green 
 wine " of the peasantry, which, I believe, 
 is quite wholesome ; though we decidedly 
 prefer the " vinho maduro^'' or " ripe wine." 
 
 Whether it is that the humble berries 
 ripen at a season when the national fruit, 
 the grape, is so plentiful that even children 
 
156 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 and beggars can feast their full, or whether 
 there is some traditional prejudice against 
 them amongst these country folk, I have not 
 discovered, but, though the high hedges of 
 our lanes are now crowded with a wealth of 
 the biggest and most luscious blackberries, 
 no one seems to appreciate Nature's bounty 
 but myself. 
 
 To me they are just a glorious treat, and 
 The Philosopher finds me now but an un- 
 satisfactory comrade upon his walks ; for 
 no sooner has the dear man got into a steady 
 swing, and is deep in some illuminating dis- 
 quisition, than he finds that I have dropped 
 behind. Eve-like, unable to resist the tempta- 
 tion of some specially laden bramble of ripe 
 berries, mutely imploring me to pick them 
 ere they drop ignominiously to earth. Hand- 
 kerchiefs and my panama are filled, while 
 the walk grows more and more spasmodic, 
 and no one less sweet-tempered than The 
 Philosopher would endure the constant in- 
 terruptions. 
 
 But he, like all good people, has his reward, 
 when, at our luncheon, our custard or rice- 
 shape is smothered by a crimson mass of 
 fragrant, steaming fruit — making a feast 
 worthy of the gods ! 
 
AUTUMN 157 
 
 If only sugar here were not such a pro- 
 hibitive price, what a wealth of preserves I 
 would make for the winter when fruit is 
 scarce, and a varied diet more difficult to 
 achieve ! 
 
 As it is, I revel in the present abundance, 
 with as little care for the future as the wrathful 
 blackbirds in the bushes whose repast I disturb, 
 or as the big green lizards who lie as inanimate 
 as the branch they cling to, until my eye 
 lights upon them, when there is just one sharp, 
 lightning movement, and — ^they are not. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 CHRISTMAS 
 
 It is the anniversary of the birth of The Christ. 
 When I woke this morning the world outside 
 my open window was bathed in bright sun- 
 shine ; yesterday's wind had hilled ; the little 
 waves curled whisperingly, lazily up the shore ; 
 a beneficent calm brooded over all things, and 
 I lay motionless, entering into the great peace 
 of Nature. 
 
 Presently, borne over the pine-covered val- 
 leys and hills behind the house, came the deep, 
 sonorous tones of the church bell. Too solemn 
 and ancient a bell to do aught but toll forth 
 its message in stately, measured tones, its 
 Gregorian note harmonised with the calm 
 radiance of the morning as no merry chimes 
 could have done. Its deep, musical vibrations 
 penetrated and mingled with the holy quiet, 
 the ineffable beauty of the virgin day, without 
 disturbing the all-pervading serenity. It bore 
 
 158 
 
CHRISTMAS 159 
 
 into one's heart the realisation that this day- 
 was as no other day of the year ; that this 
 was the sacred festival of the anniversary of 
 the birth of The Christ, and one's pulses were 
 not stirred by it, but rather quietened into 
 holy awe. 
 
 For, indeed, the bell proclaimed a great 
 mystery, a momentous, world-concerning fact — 
 a fact which has been miscomprehended and 
 mangled and mixed with falsehood, super- 
 stition, and banality as no other fact has been 
 since the world began. Words which were 
 spiritual, mystical, holy, have been degraded 
 into the mud of the grossest material misinter- 
 pretation. Behind their presumed authority 
 the vilest passions of mankind — jealousy, 
 hatred, murder, lust, ambition — all have 
 screened themselves in the past, while in the 
 present the pure, selfless, gentle figure of The 
 Christ is obscured by multiple thicknesses of 
 foolish, man-woven webs of doctrine, of ritual, 
 of sect, of conventionality and expediency. 
 
 Where does there live a single follower of 
 Christianity as Christ preached it ? Where 
 can one find a single Christian — that is, a man 
 who wholly directs his life by the clear, simple 
 rules given by The Christ for the daily conduct 
 of His followers ? Who dares affirm that he 
 
160 A SHADOWED PARADISE ' 
 
 is one ? Modern society could not continue to 
 exist if those who fill Christian churches, who 
 so glibly mouth the Belief and sip the Wine 
 and eat the Bread of Remembrance set them- 
 selves honestly and wholly to act according to 
 ten of the clearest precepts given by their 
 Master for the ordering of their lives. 
 
 As things are, we daintily pick over those 
 precepts. Some that are convenient we elect 
 to follow and to consider as essentials ; others, 
 equally emphatic and vital when they issued 
 from the lips of the Great Teacher, we agree 
 to ignore, or to so pervert and mingle with 
 petty considerations of expediency and self- 
 interest, that they are stultified or wholly 
 annulled. 
 
 Take, for example, one of the chief est aims 
 of our age — the pursuit of wealth. The Great 
 Teacher distinctly affirmed, over and over 
 again, in words which could not be mistaken, 
 that riches were to be avoided, that wealth 
 was a sin. We read of no crime for which 
 Dives was sent to the Place of Condemnation, 
 but that he was a rich man and indifferent to 
 the needs of the poor. " Lay not up for 
 yourselves treasures on earth." That com- 
 mand, literally taken (and where do we find 
 authority for taking it otherwise ?) at once 
 
V CHRISTMAS 161 
 
 condemns our whole modern system of banking 
 and investment. So greatly did The Christ 
 consider that wealth stood in the way of a 
 man's entry into " the kingdom of heaven " 
 that He said it would require a miracle for 
 him to do so, but, " with God all things are 
 possible." The inference, that therefore there 
 might be hope — even for your modern mil- 
 lionaire. 
 
 The sight of the words I have quoted brings 
 back to my memory a quaint, unconscious 
 illustration of my point. 
 
 One grey afternoon in England, when the 
 rain fell in monotonous streams outside and 
 the near distances were hidden by mist which 
 there was no wind to disperse. The Philosopher 
 and I were amusing ourselves, up in an old 
 attic, by turning out an ancient chest of 
 family papers which had been stored up there 
 out of the way and long forgotten. 
 
 Queer old documents were there, yellow with 
 age and damp : leases of property generations 
 ago run out and annulled ; deeds of partner- 
 ships which had long since been dissolved by 
 death ; old legal letters and agreements 
 regarding controversies which Time has made 
 of no account ; a few family letters, written 
 in prim early Victorian phraseology, sand- 
 
 11 
 
162 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 wiched between worm-eaten ledgers and 
 parchments ; and then I happed upon an old 
 pocket-book, half diary, half religious calendar, 
 with an apt text heading the daily record of 
 the year. I examined its fly-leaf ; it had 
 belonged to The Philosopher's guardian, a 
 martinet of the bad old school, who had made 
 my poor man's orphaned boyhood a weariness 
 to him, and who had successfully combined 
 the strictest religious pretensions with a very 
 keen eye to the business of this world. A 
 glimpse of human nature has ever greater 
 interest to me than the most beautiful ab- 
 stractions. I turned the leaves and read out 
 stray jottings for the edification of the kneeling 
 Philosopher as he groped farther in the chest. 
 
 " ' Sell all that thou hast and give to the 
 poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.' 
 . . . Lent John Cartwright £150 at seven per 
 cent." 
 
 " ' Set your affections on things above.' . . . 
 To-day sent Polly and Grand Turk out to grass. 
 Rode Thunderer to Epsom. Rain." 
 
 ** * Give to him that asketh of thee and from 
 iiim that would borrow of thee turn thou not 
 away.' . . . Went to Pinch & Skinner's to- 
 day, and arranged to foreclose the mortgage on 
 Mary Virtue's property. Very cold weather.'* 
 
CHRISTMAS . 163 
 
 " ' Love ye your enemies and do good and 
 lend, hoping for nothing again.' , , . Renewed 
 loan to J. C. for three months from this date 
 at ten per cent." 
 
 And so on — ^page after page of the most 
 amusing or most tragical inconsistency, accord- 
 ing to one's point of view. Indubitably the 
 correct, white-haired, respected citizen who 
 pencilled the notes was conscious of no 
 incongruity nor of any subject for humour. 
 
 • • « • • 
 
 And what a misleading jargon of idolatry 
 and superstition has grown up around the 
 beautiful, simple personality of The Master ! 
 
 The Great Heart of the World, the im- 
 perfectly comprehended Source of All Good, 
 selected One of His elder children, One Who, 
 nearer to Himself, individualised a greater 
 share of His perfection, and sent Him to us 
 cruder, more distant children to teach and to 
 help us, to explain His and our Father's nature 
 and will. His one selfless aim was to reveal 
 that gracious mutual Father to our mistaken 
 souls. The one prayer He taught us was a 
 confident childlike petition to that Father. 
 
 What a number of futile, mistaken pre- 
 sumptions He had to persuade us to unlearn ! 
 Centuries of misconception, of foolish, childish 
 
164 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 fearfulness of a terrible bogey whom we had 
 set up to scare ourselves. That jealous, 
 revengeful God Who must perforce be appeased 
 by brutal sacrifice, Who had all power, yet 
 Who let His creatures stumble and fall in 
 their blindness and then mouthed grimly over 
 their destruction was of a nature and a morality 
 which we should not tolerate in a fellow-man. 
 Reflection must either bring despair or revolt. 
 
 From all this horror of misapprehension 
 The Christ drew us gently back to the con- 
 ditions of perfect childhood, and revealed to 
 us The Source of Being. Whom we name God, 
 as a tender, beneficent Father, near to us all 
 in perfect understanding of our frailty, de- 
 siring nothing from us but love and obedience 
 to Himself and kindness and consideration to 
 our brethren. He taught us not to fight, 
 not to be greedy, to be thoughtful for others' 
 comfort in preference to our own, to hasten to 
 the assistance of any brother who stumbled 
 and hurt himself, to yield to our fellows the 
 best things, not rudely to clutch them for 
 ourselves, and to be ever meek and gentle, 
 unselfish and helpful. 
 
 Simple, simple rules of conduct, such as any 
 elder brother might well quote as a wise 
 parent's commands to a number of younger 
 
CHRISTMAS 165 
 
 children going to play together in their Father's 
 garden. And, as individuals and as nations, 
 how have we obeyed ? Let the intervening 
 centuries, with their dark record of hatred, 
 bloodship, lust, and greed, make answer. 
 
 Thus our conduct ; and how grotesque in 
 foolishness have been our methods of com- 
 munication with that Father " in Whom we 
 live and move and have our being." Because 
 the temporary veil of flesh hid Him we doubted 
 whether He was within earshot of the voice of 
 our soul ; so we began to entreat that dear 
 Elder Brother to speak to Him for us. Soon, 
 growing more timorous, and forgetting our 
 Brother's kindly, simple nature, many of us 
 besought His earthly mother to convey our 
 wishes to Him ; and, later, drifting still farther 
 from the fearless straightforwardness of the 
 child, we selected those among us whom we 
 considered our best models of good behaviour, 
 and requested them to beseech The Virgin to 
 intercede with The Son to entreat The Father ! 
 Then, forsooth, we came to fear that, even 
 with all this mediation. Our Father might not 
 care to hear His children speaking out their 
 hearts to Him in their own spontaneous, 
 natural way ; so set little phrases of supplica- 
 tion were composed, to be reiterated over and 
 
166 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 over again until they became a meaningless 
 patter, requiring no thought nor effort of the 
 soul, with long invocations which gradually 
 Jiynoptised away all sense of personal converse 
 with a real, vital, present, listening Father. 
 
 So, farther and farther have we strayed 
 from the grand simplicity of the Christ-message 
 until surely we need a fresh Christ to come to 
 turn us, volte-face, back into the old plain 
 paths, to the attitude of little children again 
 at the feet of a loving, understanding Father. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 FAREWELL ! 
 
 The year has ended and the days are growing- 
 few now. Time's thread is wearing very thin, 
 as I turn to this last unwritten sheet. I must 
 not wait to write more, but must fasten 
 the loose papers together, and have done* 
 with it. 
 
 My fingers move lingeringly about the 
 little pile, reluctant to finish my task. What 
 a queer little book it makes ! An inconsequent 
 medley of thought and observation, of memories 
 and simple happenings. Yet inasmuch as it 
 is made up of true pages torn from the Book 
 of Life, it may perhaps have interest for 
 some. I wonder whether it will ! 
 
 At any rate it has been a solace to me to 
 write it, and from behind my veil of anonymity,, 
 here, during these last days in my " Walden,'* 
 to take the world into my confidence and to 
 tell it what I pleased. Whatever happens, I 
 
 167 
 
168 A SHADOWED PARADISE 
 
 shall have said my say. But the end has come 
 now. 
 
 Go thou then, little book, that has been my 
 recreation and pleasure throughout these last 
 sweet, sad months. Even as Noah sent out 
 the dove from the Ark, so I send you forth 
 across the wide waters into the great Un- 
 known, to see, perchance, if there is any olive- 
 leaf of hope with which you may return to 
 me. Go, and may all beneficent influences 
 speed thy quest ! 
 
 JPrinted by Bazell, Watson <Sc Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 
 
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