there is a contemptible habit of mind (contemptible in intellect, not in morals) which would withdraw from the mass of life the fecundity of perception.
the things that we see are, according to the interpretation of the mystics, every one of them symbols and masks of things unseen. the mystics have never proved their theory true. but it is undoubtedly true that the perception of things when it is sane is manifold; it is true that as we grow older the perception of things is increasingly manifold, and that one perception breeds one hundred others, so that we advance through life as through a pageant enjoying in greater and greater degree day by day (if we open ourselves to them) the glorious works of god.
there is a detestable habit of mind, which[pg 225] either does not understand, or sneers at, or despises, or even wholly misses—when it is persisted in—this faculty for enjoyment, which even our gross senses endow us with. this evil habit of the mind will have us neglect first colour for form, then form for mere number. it would have us reject those intimations of high and half-remembered things which a new aspect of a tree or house or of a landscape arouses in us. it would compel us to forget, or to let grow stale, the pleasure with which the scent of woods blest us in early youth. perpetually this evil habit of the mind would flatten the diversity of our lives, suck out the sap of experience, kill humour and exhaust the living spring. it whispers to us the falsehood that years in their advance leave us in some way less alive, it adds to the burden upon our shoulders, not a true weight of sad knowledge as life, however well lived, must properly do, but a useless drag of despair. it would make us numb. in the field of letters it would persuade us that all things may be read and known and that nothing[pg 226] is worth the reading or the knowing, and that the loveliest rhythms or the most subtle connotations of words are but tricks to be despised. in the field of experience it would convince us that nothing bears a fruit and that human life is no more than anarchy or at best an unexplained fragment. even in that highest of fields, the field of service, it would persuade us that there is nothing to serve. and if we are convinced of that, then every faculty in us turns inward and becomes useless: may be called abortive and fails its end.
these thoughts arose in me as i watched to-day from the platform of my mill the advance of a great storm cloud; for in the majestic progress which lifted itself into the sky and marched against the north from the channel i perceived that which the evil, modern, drying habit of thought would neglect and would attempt to make material, and also that which i very well knew was in its awfulness allied to the life of the soul.
for very many days the intense heat had[pg 227] parched the weald. the leaves dropped upon the ash and the oak, the grass was brown, our wells had failed. the little river of the clay was no more than several stagnant pools. we thought the fruits would wither; and our houses, not built for such droughts and such an ardent sun, were like ovens long after the cool of the evening had come.
at the end of some days one bank of cloud and then another had passed far off east or far to the west, over the distant forest ridge or over egdean side, missing us. we had printed stuff from london telling us how it had rained in london—as though rain falling in london ever fell upon earth or nourished fruits and men!
we thought that we were not to be allowed any little rain out of heaven. but to-day the great storm came up, marching in a dark breastplate and in skirts of rain, with thunders about it; and it was personal. it came right up out of the sea. it walked through the gate which the river adur has pierced, leaving upon[pg 228] either side the high chalk hills; the crest of its helmet carried a great plume of white and menacing cloud.
no man seeing this creature as it moved solemn and panoplied could have mistaken the memory or the knowledge that stirred within him at the sight. this was that great master, that great friend, that great enemy, that great idol (for it has been all of these things), which, since we have tilled the earth, we have watched, we have welcomed, we have combated, we have unfortunately worshipped. this was that god of the storm which has made such tremendous music in the poets.
the parish church, which had seemed under the hard blue sky of the early morning a low brown thing, with its square tower of the templars and of the second crusade, stood up now white, menacing, and visionary against the ink of the cloud. the many trees of the rich man's park beyond were taller, especially the elms. they stood absolutely and stubbornly still, no leaves upon them moving at all.[pg 229] the downs an hour away first fell dull, low, and leaden. these were but half seen, and at last faded altogether into the gloom. the many beasts round about were struck with silence. the fowls nestled together, and the only sign that animate nature gave of an approaching stroke was the whinny of a horse in a stable where the door was left wide open to the stifling air, and the mad circling and swooping of a bird distracted by the change in the light.
for the sun was now blotted out, and the enormous thing was upon us like a foe. first i saw from the high platform of my mill a sort of driving mist or whirl, which at first i thought to be an arrow-shoot of rain; but looking again i saw it to be no more than the dust of many parched fields and lanes, driving before the edge of the thunder. there was a wind preceding all this like a herald. in a moment the oppressive air grew cool. it grew cool by a leap. it was like the descent into a cellar; it was like the opening of a mine door[pg 230] to a draft. the vigour of the mind, dulled by so many days of heat and nights without refreshment, leaped up to greet this change, which, though it came under a solemn and uncomforting aspect, gave breath and expansion. one might for some five minutes have imagined as the dust clouds advanced and the furious shaking of the trees and hedges a mile away began to be heard as well as seen, that the call of coolness for work had come. then that wall of wind hit the two great oaks of my neighbour next to my own frontier trees. the fan of the mill groaned, turning a little; it turned furiously, and the strength of the storm was upon us. it lightened, single and double and fourfold. the blinding fire sprang from arch to arch of an incredible architecture, higher than anything you might dream of, larger than the mountains of other lands. the thunder ran through all this, not very loud but continuous, and a sweep of darkness followed like a train after the movement of the cloud. white wreaths blown out in jets as though by some[pg 231] caprice in wilful shapes showed here and there, and here and there, against such a blackness, grey cloudlets drifted very rapidly, hurrying distracted left and right without a purpose. all the while the rain fell.
the village and the landscape and the weald, the rape, the valley, all my county you would have said, was swallowed up, occupied, and overwhelmed. it was more majestic than an army; it was a victory more absolute than any achievement of arms, and while it flashed and poured and proclaimed itself with its continual noise, it was itself, as it were, the thing in which we lived, and the mere earth was but a scene upon which the great storm trod for the purpose of its pageant.
when the storm had passed over northward to other places beyond, and when at evening the stars came out very numerous and clear in a sky which the thunder had not cooled, and when the doubtful summer haze was visible again very low upon the distant horizon, over the english sea, the memory of all this was like[pg 232] the memory of a complete achievement. no one who had seen the storm could doubt purpose or meaning in the vastness of things, nor the creative word of almighty god.
