In a Green Shade | Page 3

priest followed her "butt and ben," and gave her no
peace. They took horses and money and rode out together "Until they
came to a rank river, Was raging like the sea." There the priest declared
his purpose:
"Light off, light off now, May Collin, It's here that you must dee; Here
I have drown'd seven kings' daughters, The eighth now you must be."
So her torture begins. He bids her cast off "her gown that's of the
green," because it is too good to rot in the sea-stream; next her "coat
that's of the black "; next her "stays that are well-laced"; lastly her "sark
that's of the holland"--all for the same reason. Then the girl speaks:
"Turn you about now, false Mess John, To the green leaf of the tree; It
does not fit a mansworn man A naked woman to see."
The point is that he obeys her. She catches him round the body and
flings him into the tide. Women were listening to that tale.
If I am to deal with life it must be in my own way, for there's no escape
from one's character. I may be a good poet or a bad one--that's not for
me to say; but I am a poet of sorts. Now a poet does not observe like a
novelist. He does not indeed necessarily observe at all until he feels the
need of observation. Then he observes, and intensely. He does not
analyse, he does not amass his facts; he concentrates. He wrings out
quintessences; and when he has distilled his drops of pure spirit he
brews his potion. Something of the kind happens to me now, whether

verse or prose be the Muse of my devotion. A stray thought, a chance
vision, moves me; presently the flame is hissing hot. Everything then at
any time observed and stored in the memory which has relation to the
fact is fused and in a swimming flux. Anon, as the Children of Israel
said to Moses, "There came forth this calf." One cannot get any nearer,
I believe; and while I do not pretend that I have said all there is to say
about anything here, I shall maintain that I have said all that need be
said about the things which I touch upon. In an essay, as in a poem, the
half is greater than the whole, if it is the right half. If it is the wrong
half, why, then the shorter it is the better.
As most of these commentaries were written during the year which is
mercifully over, it would not have been possible, even if it had been
sought, to avoid current topics. Why should a writer shrink from being
called a journalist? He need not cease to be writer. But if he wishes to
be true to his original calling, to make his hope and election sure, he
must always be careful to seek the universal in the particular; and that
is where your idealist has such a pull, for he can see nothing else. And
if he does that he need not be afraid that the conventions of Time and
Space will be a hindrance to his book's path. He will be readable a
century hence; he will be readable in the Antipodes; and that is as near
infinity as any of us, short of Chaucer and Shakespeare, need trouble
about. In the country one reads, not skims, the daily paper; and if one's
comments are leisurely, perhaps they are all the better. At any rate one
is not tempted to see the end of the world in a strike, or a second
Bonaparte in Signor d'Annunzio. To me that poet seems rather a
comic-opera brigand. I suspect him of a green velvet jacket with a
two-inch tail. But if you regard him sub specie eternitatis, then I fear
we must see in him all Italy in epitome. That was how Italy went to
war--but you must live in the country to understand things like that, out
of range of the tumult and the shouting.
No more of Signor d'Annunzio here or elsewhere in these pages; but of
ourselves and our needs somewhat. Nobody could have lived through
last year without considering anxiously whither we are tending and
with what pretence. As the occasion moved me I have said my say
about those matters, and here the reader will have as much of it as I am
ready just now to give him. This is perhaps some sort of an apology for
what may be found hereafter of a hortatory kind. I may be charged with

wanting to do people "good." Well, if trying to make them happy is
trying to do them good, then I confess the charge. There is no doubt
whatever