Escape and Other Essays | Page 6

good man is likely to indulge. He is far more likely to torment
himself over all that he might have done.
It is true, I think, that old and tired people pass into a quiet serenity; but
it is the serenity of the old dog who sleeps in the sun, wags his tail if he
is invited to bestir himself, but does not leave his place; and if one
reaches that condition, it is but a dumb gratitude at the thought that
nothing more is expected of the worn-out frame and fatigued mind. But
no one, I should imagine, really hopes to step into immortality so tired
and worn out that the highest hope that he can frame is that he will be
let alone for ever. We must not trust the drowsiness of the outworn
spirit to frame the real hopes of humanity. If we believe that the next
experience ahead of us is like that of the mariners,
In the afternoon they came unto a land In which it seemed always
afternoon,
then we acquiesce in a dreamless sort of sleep as the best hope of man.
No, we must rather trust the desires of the spirit at its healthiest and
most vigorous, and these are all knit up with the adventure of escape, as
I have said. There is something hostile on our track: the copse that
closes in upon the road is thick with spears; presences that do not wish

us well move darkly in the wood and keep pace with us, and the only
explanation we can give is that we need to be spurred on by fear if we
are not drawn forward by desire or hope. We have to keep moving, and
if we will not run to the goal, we must at least flee, with backward
glances at something which threatens us.
There is an old and strange Eastern allegory of a man wandering in the
desert; he draws near to a grove of trees, when he suddenly becomes
aware that there is a lion on his track, hurrying and bounding along on
the scent of his steps. The man flees for safety into the grove; he sees
there a roughly built water-tank of stone, excavated in the ground, and
built up of masonry much fringed with plants. He climbs swiftly down
to where he sees a ledge close on the water; as he does this, he sees that
in the water lies a great lizard, with open jaws, watching him with
wicked eyes. He stops short, and he can just support himself among the
stones by holding on to the branches of a plant which grows from a
ledge above him. While he thus holds on, with death behind him and
before, he feels the branches quivering, and sees above, out of reach,
two mice, one black and one white, which are nibbling at the stems he
holds and will soon sever them. He waits despairingly, and while he
does so, he sees that there are drops of honey on the leaves which he
holds; he puts his lips to them, licks them off, and finds them very
sweet.
The mice stand, no doubt, for night and day, and the honey is the
sweetness of life, which it is possible to taste and relish even when
death is before and behind; and it is true that the utter precariousness of
life does not, as a matter of fact, distract us from the pleasure of it, even
though the strands to which we hold are slowly parting. It is all, then,
an adventure and an escape; but even in the worst insecurity, we may
often be surprised to find that it is somehow sweet.
It is not in the least a question of the apparent and outward
adventurousness of one's life. Foolish people sometimes write and think
as though one could not have had adventures unless one has hung about
at bar-room doors and in billiard-saloons, worked one's passage before
the mast in a sailing-ship, dug for gold among the mountains, explored

savage lands, shot strange animals, fared hardly among deep-drinking
and loud-swearing men. It is possible, of course, to have adventures of
this kind, and, indeed, I had a near relative whose life was fuller of
vicissitudes than any life I have ever known: he was a sailor, a clerk, a
policeman, a soldier, a clergyman, a farmer, a verger. But the mere
unsettledness of it suited him: he was an easy comrade, brave, reckless,
restless; he did not mind roughness, and the one thing he could not do
was to settle down to anything regular and quiet. He did not dislike life
at all, even when he stood half-naked, as he once told me he did, on a
board slung from the