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Souls of the Streets and Other Little Papers - Arthur Ransome · King Edward I of England: Three Essays

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  Speaker 1: Section one of the Soul of the Streets and Other
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  Speaker 1: Little Papers by Arthur Ransom. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read
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  Speaker 1: by Ben Tucker, The Souls of the Streets. When we
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  Speaker 1: pass along a street we often use, we are apt
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  Speaker 1: to forget that it has a soul at all. We
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  Speaker 1: think of it only as so many houses to hurry by,
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  Speaker 1: so many lamp posts to count before we reach the end.
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  Speaker 1: But when a road is new to us, we realize,
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  Speaker 1: half unconsciously, perhaps that we are beginning an acquaintanceship with
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  Speaker 1: another being, one with moods and feelings like our own.
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  Speaker 1: The countryman, who as a boy spends one day in
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  Speaker 1: a city street feels when he returns just that diffidence
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  Speaker 1: that we all feel when we meet for the second
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  Speaker 1: time one whom we liked when first we saw him.
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  Speaker 1: We are not quite sure how far the friendship had progressed,
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  Speaker 1: he wonders, has the street forgotten him or not? I
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  Speaker 1: remember the moment when I first let myself be convinced
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  Speaker 1: that there really was a hidden life beneath the bricks
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  Speaker 1: and mortar. I was walking at midday down the crudest
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  Speaker 1: of suburban roads. The vulgarity, the insistent sameness of its
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  Speaker 1: repeated houses was repellent. I stopped and wondered as I
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  Speaker 1: looked along it, how such an ugly thing could be?
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  Speaker 1: I believe I spoke my thought aloud. Suddenly, irresistibly, a mad,
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  Speaker 1: true idea seized me. I felt, I knew that the
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  Speaker 1: street itself groaned beneath its sordid, hideousness. The bright light
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  Speaker 1: was stripping its red brick commonplaces naked, so that for
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  Speaker 1: very shame it seemed to flock them in the eye.
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  Speaker 1: I knew that I was with a struggling soul, powerless
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  Speaker 1: to escape from its imprisonment. And since that moment the
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  Speaker 1: street has held a strange significance for me. Thoughts work
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  Speaker 1: within it. It cannot express them through the harsh medium brick,
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  Speaker 1: But the thoughts are there. At twilight, on those days
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  Speaker 1: when the moon shines whitest white from the most delicate
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  Speaker 1: of blue skies, before the sun has wholly disappeared, a
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  Speaker 1: dimness fills it, softening and smoothing its ruggedness of effort.
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  Speaker 1: A little later, when the dimness becomes dusk, and the
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  Speaker 1: lamps flickers silently on either side. It grows almost eloquent
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  Speaker 1: of the suppressed emotions of the day. I like to
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  Speaker 1: go and listen as one watches the sad moving lips
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  Speaker 1: of a dumb man. I know it also in the
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  Speaker 1: midnight blackness, when the tired home comers keep breaking on
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  Speaker 1: its silence. It seems to rest patiently, waiting, like a
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  Speaker 1: dreamer for his dreams, until his family have gone to
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  Speaker 1: bed and left him to himself in mystery. Very early
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  Speaker 1: in the morning, before the dawn, but after human interruption
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  Speaker 1: has done its worst, the soul of the street slips
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  Speaker 1: from its ugly sheath and rests in an ecstasy of quiet.
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  Speaker 1: Then is the time for him who would watch it
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  Speaker 1: and know the beautiful wonder with which the most prosaic
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  Speaker 1: gaze at the poet who sees the things they cannot touch.
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  Speaker 1: Then there is absolute silence. The very cat flits phantom
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  Speaker 1: like a cross, fearful to disturb its silent reverie. The
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  Speaker 1: watcher stands with stilled feet in the darkest darkness of
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  Speaker 1: a recess between the houses, or midway between the lamp
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  Speaker 1: post sentinels. I envy the sleepers in the doorways. Surely
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  Speaker 1: in their dreams they are able to slip with quiet
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  Speaker 1: happiness into the larger dreams of the mysterious street. Look
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  Speaker 1: reverently on their faces, See how the anxious look of
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  Speaker 1: the beast praying for food passes away. A half sad,
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  Speaker 1: always sweet smile hovers over the woman's countenance, as the
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  Speaker 1: soul of the street, compassionate, carries her up into its
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  Speaker 1: more beautiful dream land. Though silent hours may well console
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  Speaker 1: the street for the pent, struggling misery of its glaring day.
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  Speaker 1: But then when the dawn comes, the nurse brings light
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  Speaker 1: into the child's bedroom, and the child's sobs, half waking,
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  Speaker 1: half asleep for the shattering of its mysteries. Who that
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  Speaker 1: has ever seen the sorrowful regret of the poor, weary soul.
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  Speaker 1: As the sun sends cruel, piercing gleams into every cranny
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  Speaker 1: of the cave, its night's illusion awakens it to all
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  Speaker 1: its ugliness and reminds it that it must pass another day.
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  Speaker 1: And inarticulate sorrow can fail to feel with me the
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  Speaker 1: sympathy for which the street must crave. Country lanes have
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  Speaker 1: no need to fear the day, though they too must
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  Speaker 1: enjoy the silence of the night. Their mystery is more
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  Speaker 1: obvious than that of the streets of town, and it
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  Speaker 1: is less persistently ignored. In the country are many thickly
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  Speaker 1: shaded paths and byways where no maid dares to pass
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  Speaker 1: along at dark. The men laugh, but they hurry quickly through.
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  Speaker 1: All know that there is another life in the lane,
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  Speaker 1: besides that of the eerie thing half bird, half beast,
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  Speaker 1: that slip with shuddering whirr through the brittle silences. Do
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  Speaker 1: they listen for footsteps patting behind them? Do they fear
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  Speaker 1: that some dark thing will spring upon them from the hedges,
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  Speaker 1: a huge dog? So they may picture it. But the
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  Speaker 1: presence that they fear belongs to the spirit of the place. I,
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  Speaker 1: who have learnt to know and love the souls of
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  Speaker 1: path and roads, do not fear the silence of the lane.
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  Speaker 1: Its brooding spirit conjures no horrors. In my imagination, it
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  Speaker 1: lingers with me as I pass under the moss covered
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  Speaker 1: crumbling wall of the old churchyard, down the little hill
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  Speaker 1: that turn to the right, where a spring has bubbled
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  Speaker 1: for centuries from the earth, and a struggling moonbeam glints
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  Speaker 1: through the trees on the rippling waters of its tiny pool. Silently,
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  Speaker 1: it caresses me as I walk beneath the lofty hedges.
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  Speaker 1: I walk quietly, as one walks in the presence of
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  Speaker 1: a loved one hurt, For I know it would speak,
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  Speaker 1: but cannot They cannot speak. There is the tragedy of
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  Speaker 1: the highways and byways of man. Do not say again
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  Speaker 1: that they are without souls. Our neglect is cruel but
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  Speaker 1: of man, Oh, what cruelty to mock their dumbness, to
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  Speaker 1: their listening silence. What memories would be lost if the
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  Speaker 1: ancient streets had no souls fit for dreaming. They have,
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  Speaker 1: and the lonely passerby knows that they dream their stories
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  Speaker 1: to themselves, thrilling with their horror, throbbing softly with their tenderness.
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  Speaker 1: The tramping myriads on the Roman roads have left a
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  Speaker 1: legacy of tales behind them, Thousands of whisperings of elves
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  Speaker 1: and pigmies cling about the woodland paths. The memories of
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  Speaker 1: unsung songs, sparkling like fountains from the white mists, haunt
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  Speaker 1: the mountain tracks. The serious, sweet talk of children ages
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  Speaker 1: past must still delight the footways and the meadows, the
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  Speaker 1: rumbling of a thousand years still rolls in the deserted
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  Speaker 1: streets of dying cities. Does anybody tell me that the
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  Speaker 1: dances on the village green have left untouched the soul
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  Speaker 1: of the light hearted road that picks its way across it.
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  Speaker 1: Surely not. The old peddlers passing on their way, the
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  Speaker 1: bodies swinging from the gibbet, the sauntering lovers, all have
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  Speaker 1: added something to the memories of the path. When that
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  Speaker 1: horseman passes, as still he does in his clothes these
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  Speaker 1: two centuries out of fashion, on his horse with silent hoofs,
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  Speaker 1: the pilgrim's road still shutters at the empty scabbard swinging
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  Speaker 1: at his side, jolting without a sound. But why should
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  Speaker 1: I say this? Men who think and women who feel
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  Speaker 1: know in themselves that there is more in streets than stones.
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  Speaker 1: The thoughtless and the heartless are of no account. Does
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  Speaker 1: the poet mind if they pass him by? Does the
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  Speaker 1: lark grieve if his song reaches only those whose ears
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  Speaker 1: are fit to hear it? Does the street care that
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  Speaker 1: the beauty of its silent soul can touch only those
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  Speaker 1: who will, for love of it go softly, silently in
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  Speaker 1: the Solemn Reverence of the Night, end of Section one,
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  Speaker 1: The Souls of the Streets, Section two of the Souls
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  Speaker 1: of the Streets, and other little papers by Arthur Ransom.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
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  Speaker 1: Ben Tucker. A Tuscan melody. Seven hundred years ago, when
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  Speaker 1: the art of Italy was glowing from a new fire
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  Speaker 1: and strong with a new youth, a poet of whom
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  Speaker 1: little is known, parted from his lady in a Tuscan
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  Speaker 1: orange grove. The fading blue of the sky above them,
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  Speaker 1: in the green and bright color of the orange trees
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  Speaker 1: dim in the sudden twilight, made a sweet toned background
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  Speaker 1: to her small, delicately shaped Italian head, and greatly pleased
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  Speaker 1: the poet. Those were caressing words that he whispered as
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  Speaker 1: they waited in the dusk. They parted, She to threat
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  Speaker 1: her way down to the village, he upwards to the
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  Speaker 1: little house above the orange trees. Her round lips pouted
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  Speaker 1: as she slipped away. He does not love me, No,
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  Speaker 1: he does not love me. Their petulant little curves seemed
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  Speaker 1: to whisper to each other. Yet when his hand was
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  Speaker 1: on his door latch, he stood for many minutes, looking
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  Speaker 1: down to where her white dress flickered through the trees,
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  Speaker 1: looking at him. Then one would have said he loved her.
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  Speaker 1: But suddenly a sweeter smile moved his face, a brighter
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  Speaker 1: light lit his eyes. He looked like one before whom
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  Speaker 1: the beauty of the earth has dawned in a glowing
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  Speaker 1: cloud on a pale sky. He disappeared into the house
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  Speaker 1: and was soon striding up and down a brown wood
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  Speaker 1: room bare with scanty furniture. Words were singing in his ears,
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  Speaker 1: his heart throbbed to a strangely beautiful measure. Now and
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  Speaker 1: again he took a long pin from a small table
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  Speaker 1: in a corner of the room and wrote words upon
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  Speaker 1: a piece of parchment. Then he would cross the mountain
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  Speaker 1: and write the words again. His face shone like the
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  Speaker 1: lantern of pale glass that hung in the corner over
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  Speaker 1: the table. Looking upon him, then one would have said
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  Speaker 1: that all the love of all his life was held
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  Speaker 1: in the faint thing that he was snatching from the
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  Speaker 1: air and setting out in trembling, loving strokes upon his
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  Speaker 1: scrap of vellum. All night he worked, building up a
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  Speaker 1: song from live words and fitting them with all the
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  Speaker 1: art that was in him. To a fine old Tuscan melody,
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  Speaker 1: as the orange trees broke into brilliance under the morning sun.
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  Speaker 1: His song was finished, and he rested for a moment,
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  Speaker 1: humming it happily over to himself. Then, drunk with the
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  Speaker 1: joy of having made a new thing, he ran down
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  Speaker 1: the hill to bring Valeria, his lady, who had the
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  Speaker 1: sweetest voice in all the valley, that she might be
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  Speaker 1: the first to sing the song that he had made. Then,
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  Speaker 1: indeed was he in love, whether with the sparkling song,
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  Speaker 1: each word of which seemed like a little mesh in
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  Speaker 1: the net of music that held his soul a panting,
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  Speaker 1: trembling cap, or with the thought of the dainty lady
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  Speaker 1: Valeria singing it over in the house above the orange trees.
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  Speaker 1: It were impossible to say. He found Valeria and brought her,
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  Speaker 1: all untidy and fresh as the dew on the grass,
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  Speaker 1: at tumbling pace, up through the trees that climbed, hand
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  Speaker 1: in hand. His hand held her so tight that the
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  Speaker 1: blood that beat in him seemed to her to belong
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  Speaker 1: to her own veins. Also, surely he loves me, she thought.
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  Speaker 1: Ever as they ran, he kept telling her the words
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  Speaker 1: of this song, lilting over the melody she was to sing.
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  Speaker 1: They reached the house and he took a long draft
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  Speaker 1: of wine, holding it up for her to see the
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  Speaker 1: sunlight sparkling in its crimson depths. She refused when he
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  Speaker 1: offered it, but he made her sip a little, that
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  Speaker 1: her song might rise. The sweeter she sang, and the
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  Speaker 1: poet turned his head aside, gazing dumbly out over the valley,
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  Speaker 1: and a mist was in his eyes. The beauty of Valeria,
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  Speaker 1: bringing that other beauty from the heart of his own
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  Speaker 1: song was like the bright lightning that stuns everything to
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  Speaker 1: silent thought. As she neared the end of the song,
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  Speaker 1: he turned again towards her, and when she stopped, with
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  Speaker 1: a little sob in her voice, he caught her in
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  Speaker 1: his arms. She sang it for him again and again.
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  Speaker 1: He knew as she sang that he loved her. Shortly
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  Speaker 1: they were married. This is the end of the story
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  Speaker 1: of Valeria and her poet, But the tale of the
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  Speaker 1: song is not finished yet, nor ever will be. While
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  Speaker 1: men loved to hear their women singing for the little
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  Speaker 1: wild thing that was born to the poet, and that
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  Speaker 1: mad happy night in the house above the orange grove
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  Speaker 1: has been sung through all the world, so long and
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  Speaker 1: so often that the name of the poet has been forgotten.
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  Speaker 1: The peasants in the valley call it Valeria's song, for
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  Speaker 1: when she came down into the village it was ever
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  Speaker 1: on her lips. They loved the music and the words,
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  Speaker 1: and passed them on from mouth to mouth long after
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  Speaker 1: the poet and Valeria lay together under the grass, with
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  Speaker 1: the orange trees blossoming above their grave. The poem was
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  Speaker 1: sung nightly in the hot Italian summers, when the peasants
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  Speaker 1: sat together after sunset, watching the reds and greens of
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  Speaker 1: the sky darkened to purple and deep blue. Patriarch heard
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  Speaker 1: it sung in his Tuscan childhood, and he wrote other
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  Speaker 1: words to fit the music. But the old words clung
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  Speaker 1: on and may still be heard in the valley where
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  Speaker 1: they were written. The song might always have remained here
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  Speaker 1: as one of the old songs of the place, and
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  Speaker 1: never been known elsewhere, if it had not been for
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  Speaker 1: a fortunate accident. One year, when the valley was not
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  Speaker 1: so prosperous as to the promise employment for all its
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  Speaker 1: young men, a youth, one of a numerous family, determined
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  Speaker 1: to leave his home in hack A golden fortune from
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  Speaker 1: the wealth of Pisa. This youth was clever in the
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  Speaker 1: making of little statues, and his voice was clear and fresh.
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  Speaker 1: He came to Pisa, and as he had not money
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  Speaker 1: to rent a booth, he placed his figures on a
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  Speaker 1: tray and carried them through the streets, friendless among the quick,
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  Speaker 1: contemptuous dwellers in the city. He was puzzled and not
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  Speaker 1: a little dismayed by the finely dressed youths who swaggered
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  Speaker 1: past him, and the quaint dresses of the sailing folk
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  Speaker 1: who came from all parts of the world. He was
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  Speaker 1: very lonely to lift his soul, which felt bruised and
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  Speaker 1: beaten by the buzz around him. He sang as he walked,
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  Speaker 1: the old song of the valley he had left away
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  Speaker 1: in the Tuscan hills. As he sang, he forgot the
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  Speaker 1: passing people and all the hum of the chattering trading city.
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  Speaker 1: He thought of the big tree in the middle of
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  Speaker 1: his village, in whose boughs he had sat and teasingly
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  Speaker 1: flung leaves and twigs at a dark haired girl who
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  Speaker 1: stood gazing up at him. Perhaps he thought a little
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  Speaker 1: of her also, However that may be, he did not
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  Speaker 1: notice a tall peason who stopped to listen to him,
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  Speaker 1: so that he started quickly. When the man laid a
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  Speaker 1: hand on the curling black hair that covered his bare head,
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  Speaker 1: youth said he, you must sing that song before my master.
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  Speaker 1: Whence came it? Who was its author? The lad was
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  Speaker 1: accustomed to speak freely and undismayed by the dignity of
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  Speaker 1: his listener, who was a man. Finally dressed, he told
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  Speaker 1: what little he knew of the origin of the poem.
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  Speaker 1: He was taken to a great house, richly furnished, and
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  Speaker 1: sang the song before one of the greatest nobles of
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  Speaker 1: the city. He listened to the song, and it brought
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  Speaker 1: a wistful look of a man rather than of a
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  Speaker 1: statesman to his care laden eyes. He had the song
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  Speaker 1: sung over again and often afterwards, and it was spread
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  Speaker 1: through all Pisa. From Pisa, it was carried to all
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  Speaker 1: the cities of Italy by travelers or the accidents of war.
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  Speaker 1: The Venetians knew it. It became a common street song
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  Speaker 1: in Rome and Naples, and often on cool nights in Florence,
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  Speaker 1: use and maidens drifting in silent boat between the banks
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  Speaker 1: of the Arno heard music in the houses that they
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  Speaker 1: passed in This song, with its ancient Tuscan melody, floated
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  Speaker 1: to them over the water, in the beam of light
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  Speaker 1: from one of the open windows. From Venice, it found
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  Speaker 1: its way northward into the rugged life of Germany. The
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  Speaker 1: old stra long life still throbbed in the pulses of
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  Speaker 1: the north. When an engraver and wood came over the
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  Speaker 1: hills to the city on the sea, his manners were
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  Speaker 1: rough of the north, but his face was free and open,
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  Speaker 1: and he soon became a favorite among the artists of Venice.
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  Speaker 1: One in particular grew very close with him, and the
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  Speaker 1: two worked in the same room. Now, this artist was
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  Speaker 1: painting a picture for a rich man, and a noble
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  Speaker 1: Venetian lady who loved him was sitting as a model.
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  Speaker 1: She was fond of singing, and among all the songs
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  Speaker 1: she knew, this Tuscan song was her favorite. Once, as
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  Speaker 1: they were preparing their painting tools, she sang it to
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  Speaker 1: beguile the time. The tune and its words seized the
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  Speaker 1: German artist and held him fast. Though in the words
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  Speaker 1: there was nothing sorrowful, yet it moved him as it
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  Speaker 1: had moved the man who wrote it, and his sight
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  Speaker 1: was dimmed with tears. He begged her for the words,
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  Speaker 1: and found a strange joy in the swaying rhythms of
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  Speaker 1: the Latin that she taught him, half laughing at his eagerness. Then,
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  Speaker 1: when he returned to the north, he chanted the song
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  Speaker 1: at one of the merry feasts, where soldiers and artists,
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  Speaker 1: priests and poets sat together heartily at a single board.
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  Speaker 1: He sang it hesitatingly, as one exhibits a new sword
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  Speaker 1: which looks handsome but has given no proof of its strength.
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  Speaker 1: Under his broad eyebrows, he looked round for the applause
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  Speaker 1: he expected and won. The others asked him for the
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  Speaker 1: words twice he repeated them. Then, with crash of flagons
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  Speaker 1: on the table, the whole company of men, in lusty chorus,
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  Speaker 1: chanted the ancient song until the rafters creaked. Already the
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  Speaker 1: song had filled all Italy and been carried across the
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: seas to the east and across the hills to the north. When,
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  Speaker 1: hundreds of years after that first singing in the Orange
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  Speaker 1: grove among the Tuscan Hills, traveling singers carried it west
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  Speaker 1: to the Dutch fishermen, who chanted it as they brought
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  Speaker 1: their boats to beach, to the roistering taverns of old France,
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  Speaker 1: and in many varying versions, to Norway and the unknown
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  Speaker 1: lands beyond. About this time, when all the world was singing,
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  Speaker 1: when lovers sang beneath the windows of their loves, and
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  Speaker 1: peace and war alike filled men with song, the melody
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  Speaker 1: came curiously to England. A pious English pilgrim, with a
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  Speaker 1: little of the devil still in him that he wished
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  Speaker 1: to cast out by his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, was tramping
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  Speaker 1: across Europe, singing as he went psalm tunes in all
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  Speaker 1: manner of godly chance. One day in southern Germany, as
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  Speaker 1: he passed under the windows of an old brown inn,
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  Speaker 1: a voice started into the air directly above him. His
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: pious meditation was so strong upon him that he was
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: decidedly startled, but all thoughts of angels or devils were
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: flung from his mind. When looking up he saw a
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: red cheeked German maiden leaning from a window sill, singing
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: heartfully this same old Tuscan song. Pilgrim, though he was,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: he tucked up his skirts, dropped his staff in scrip,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and in two bars of the song was up to
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the wooden stairs, and laughingly pursuing that German maiden round
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: and round a table. He caught her at last, of course,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: and she sang the song to him very sweetly, sitting
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: before him on the table, swinging her wooden shoes. He
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: vowed that he would sing it himself, and it is
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: recorded that he entered the holy city with the wild
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: thrill of the Tuscan melody upon his pious lips. When
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: he returned to England, his song spread far among the learned,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: and soon descended to the unlearned, who sang it quite
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: as lustily. As years passed it became most popular, and
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: the chubby little boys who sat crossing it on imitation
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: dolphins sang it to Queen Elizabeth at that famous revel
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: in the grounds of Kenilworth Castle. She was pleased with
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: its melody, and had a copy writ on vellum in
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: inks of red and green with much fine gold, and
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: caused her pages to sing it to her when she
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: rested in a balcony of windsor, weary and tired from
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: her day of careful scheming. For the next two hundred years,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: the song was sung through all Egypt by the students
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: of the universities, by soldiers on the march, by marry
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: making priests, the light haired girls of Germany and the
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: dark haired ladies of Spain sang it always with the
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: same subtle enjoyment, bringing gaiety to Si and tears to others.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: But of all the stories of its singing that we know,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: there is none I like so well as this of
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: eighteenth century France. A dainty demoiselle, given the words by
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: a stiff old singing master, read them and found them
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: sweet to her careful little tongue. She stood by the
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: gray headed man at the instrument, and her slender throat
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: swelled up and down with the wavelets of the song.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: She sang it as it should be sung, with the
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: fresh passion and clear voice of a young girl, and
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: the old master bent his locks over her little hands
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: and kissed them for her singing. Then she blushed prettily
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: and would sing no more till coaxed by the pleading,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: courteous old gentleman, she burst out laughingly with one of
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: the lilting songs of the France that has long been
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: dead except in the souls of her poets. Lastly, to
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: prove that all this is true, was not the old
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: song sung to me to night, when dusk caressed the
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: apples and my orchard. Two girls looked like spirits in
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: their pale dresses against the darkness of the trees, saying
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: to me, leaning on a bough whose faint pink blossoms
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: still showed dim in the twilight. Only an hour ago,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: when I passed into my cottage, the stars sang high
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: in the heavens above me, and the echoes of those
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: two sweet girlish voices were clinging round my heart. Besides these,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: the song and the melody, which is older than the song,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: have had many other adventures. They have been woven into operas,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: and sung in brilliant theaters and cold, glimmering streets and
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: crowded cities, and on the wide expanses of the East.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Some day I mean to build the stories of the
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: singings into a little book. End of Section two a
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Tuscan Melody, Section three of the Souls of the Streets,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: and other little papers by Arthur Ransom. This LibriVox recording
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker, The
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Hidden Lands. Not many days ago, I heard from a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: summer minded man an interesting description of a cheap coffee
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: house that seems to ordinary people dirty, tawdry, and ugly.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: It has a multitude of cheap looking glasses and spidery
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: iron pillars. Yet it showed differently to him. He talked
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: of lofty halls and austerely decorated ceilings, supported by black
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: columns molded for the strength that is also beauty. In
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: these halls, he said, move maidens whose dark hair masses
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: on fine white necks, Girls of subtle grace, of delicate line,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Maidens whom Beardsley would have loved. The carry food on
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: silver savers, and the soft tints of the meats are
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: harmonized with the RESTful colors of the walls. There are
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: rooms with myriad mirrors, where one fair face may echo
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: a thousand times through the dimmest caves of beauty. Tall
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: glasses filled with opalescent wines stand on ebon tables. Those
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: who feed there feed not as men who eat, but
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: as devotees who offer. The place is dim with the
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: reverence most beautiful. Why do you laugh at him? Does
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: he talk folly? Does he describe what is not? I
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: think you are mistaken, though for the moment only for
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: the man had used his imagination and made an ugly
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: place as beautiful as he wished. We can all do this.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Poets and painters do it habitually, and that is why
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: they so often make things beautiful for us that we
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: have once thought coarse and impossible. In poetry are art.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Consider the imagination that fairy Godmother, whom many of us neglect,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: shows us things that the dull finger cannot touch, that
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: the scarcely more delicate eye cannot see. Because eye and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: finger cannot detect them, it does not follow that these
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: things are not. The sights of the imagination are no
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: less real to him who sees them than the blunter
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: and harder hitting visions that appear in the more ordinary way. Indeed,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: it is sometimes hard to distinguish between them. Who has
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: not felt himself a traveler in a big strain land
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: full of white palaces and stately people, When on some night,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: when the lamps send violet colors through the mist, he
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: has passed on an omnibus the statues and the gates
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: of the park. It is impossible to say where the
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: reality loses itself in the imagination. Surely, you, now that
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: you see what I mean, are ready to agree with me.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: You've seen things so yourself, but have not whispered of
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: them to others, lest they should think you mad. The
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: lamps of a handsome cab have blinked at you with
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the green eyes of a goblin. You have seen an
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: embodied dream floating like a dim barge in the mist
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: of the river. Perhaps a brownie with flickering legs has
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: flashed round the corner of a street in front of you,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Or it may have been something less exciting, the more
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: beautiful in an autumn orchard. You have felt the subtle
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: presence of a shape between the leaves. In the backwater
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: of a flowing river, where the stream sets silently back
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: against the bending rushes. You have been startled by a
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: lovely face that left you with a sudden knowledge of
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: your loss. Something I feel sure has let you feel
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: that the Godmother's chariot was as real as Cinderella's green pumpkin.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Then also all of us who dream know that the
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: dream lands are quite real as the places of the day.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: How beautiful are those dream lands where, night after night
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the soul notes the familiar landmarks, meets the familiar spirits.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: One garden I remember with particular distinctness from the lands
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: I have visited asleep. It is a prim, gentle garden,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: full of trained flowers and Quaker goodness. A wandering white
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: path turns again and again under low apple trees and cherries,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: where slim damsels bend lest the branches brush their hair.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: The path disappears in a little shrubbery where I have
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: taken refuge from a shower of silver rain. Inside it
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: is another garden, older than the first, And here is
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: always a fair slight girl in a long pink dress,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: who stands by a tall bending place that I think
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: must be a hollyhock. A pale butterfly seems to flicker
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: round her hair, but I think it is really still.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Like all else in this garden, I have known no rain,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: nor have I ever been able to observe anything. For
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: all the glances that I cast around are gathered up
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: by the beauty of the girl, and she stirs not.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: But is some day I shall be able to speak
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: with her, And though I have never heard it, in
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: that moment I shall know her name. Troubled not with mine,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: but remember your own sweet visions. Happiest of men are
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: those who see with their own eyes and all may
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: do so, if they will be content to make themselves
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: as children and look at everything as if they saw
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: it for the first time, and it heard nothing of
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: it from any one else. Those who do this walk
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: about London with the rest of us, but for them
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: it is a different city. They go into the country
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: as into a fairy land, but they do not neglect
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: the fairy lands at home. They see in this town
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: of ours, not a succession of busy streets, passages and
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: a huge building, but a thousand hidden lands, full of
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: the beauty of joy or of sorrow. They feel, but
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: for a moment, that the ugliness is near, and instantly
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: turn to one of the many mystic countries it contains.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: In the heat and thunder of a foundry, they see
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: the battling fires of hell and listen to the rolling
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: of the treadmill. They lean from the silent balcony of
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: the embankment and see dim mystery hanging over slowly moving time.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Those dim dreams I spoke of loomed darkly and suggestively
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: out of the mist. Far away. The bridges, like threads
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: of fairy lights, are strung from side to side as
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: they fly through the storm. On the top of an
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: electric car. The beating wind and rain become the spray
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: in the breath of a ghostly sea. There is a
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: wild seashore, and the grinding whirr of the cars, the ceaseless,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: tireless breaking of waves over the beach. Surely you know
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: that shore where white storm women with blown hair rests
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: ston rocks, clasping their knees, facing the wind, and listening
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: as if in ecstasy to the delirious music of the sea.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Surely you also know these lands, perhaps not this, but
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: others that I know not of, And others again that
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I know, two which are too beautiful for us to
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: tell of. For you and I, as well as that
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: strange simple man, have wandered in the hidden lands, whose
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: gates are closed forever to those machines we recognize and fear,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: whose power is in walking and talking and in the
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: transaction of business. End of Section three The Hidden Lands,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Section four of The Souls of the Streets and Other
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Little Papers by Arthur Ransom. This LibriVox recording is in
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker, a man who
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: knew himself. There are some people who find it easier
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: to understand other people's minds than their own. We all
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: know those sharp tongued, uncomfortable ladies who seem to hold
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: a character between their neatly gloved fingers, picking it daintily
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: to pieces and scattering its remnants to the wind. How
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: we hate them, and how fascinating is their conversation. We
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: can listen for hours, untired, watching the deft dissection of
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: a mind that has seemed to us impregnable at every point,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: and the tricks of talk. All the little ridiculous affectations
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: of the unfortunate subject are exaggerated before us, so that
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: all who listen gain a pleasant feeling of superiority. But
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: at the end we pass away sadly we have seen
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: things too close to enjoy them. Our idols have been
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: stripped of gold and ornament and left bare stones before us.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: We feel like poets before a scientist. But if we
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: ask the dissector to dive into her own character and
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: tell us the truth about it, also she skillfully parries
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: us with an airy nothing that floats far away, carrying
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: our thoughts with it. Yet her face is left puzzled
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: and half dismayed. She finds self analysis impossible. There are
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: others with the courage, not only to pull their friends
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: to pieces, but to search and probe among their own
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: heart strings. If their reason is self assertive and strong,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: they may become critics, men like Saint Beuve or Hippolyte Taine.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: But if their strength lies in their emotion, and they
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: can live easier in their imagination than in reality, their
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: self analysis leads often to most woeful results. If they
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: are original writers, they lose their originality by seeing its
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: source and growing ashamed of it. I know a really
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: brilliant man, with an intellect polished at all points, sensitive
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: as a mirror to the gentlest breath. He has produced
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: just a very little imaginative work, But that little of
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: the highest worth the strength of his character has already
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: been spent. Though he is still young, in the study
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: of other people's minds, he has no future before him. Merlin,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: for so I must call him, since I cannot give
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: his real name. Pleases acquaintances enormously at their first meeting,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: but repels them at the second. His friends, who know
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: him better, enjoy him more. They find him so delightful
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: and his intellect so stimulating, that it is worth their
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: while to steel themselves against the cruelly biting criticisms that
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: he cannot save himself from making. For in talking he
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: sees at once exactly what his listener is hoping that
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: he will say. He says it, but adds a little
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: something that shows that he knew why it was wanted.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: He is like the uncle who gives a child a
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: penny and adds, don't spend it on sweets. His sentences
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: are like wasps, beautiful in their first flash of color,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: but with an unpleasant sting in their tails. Superficial people
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: cannot bear him. He sees through them and cannot resist
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: the insidious pleasure of giving them his little chocolates filled
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: inside with soap. I never met anyone able, in ordinary
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: conversation to give such penetrating criticisms of living literature or art.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: The keenness of his intellect has been sharpened on himself.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: When we meet, as we do once a weaker oftener, Merlin,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: a poet, one or two painters, and one or two nondescripts,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: and a little tavern not known, two over many. He
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: sits quietly in the corner by the fireplace. Then, when
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: the talk grows excited and urgent, round the table over
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: the merits of an author, or an artist, a friend
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: or an enemy. A small sentence leaves him, which shows
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: at once the insignificance of the man discussed and the
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: incompetence of those who are discussing him. He pierces in
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: half an hour to the heart of a book and
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: sees what the author had aimed at, how far he
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: had failed, and why. He looks at a painting, and
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: in his first words shows where the artist has been
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: overwhelmed by his medium and begun to paint with paint
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: instead of with emotion. With these powers, it is little
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: wonder that he is a superb critic, a reviewer in
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: whom a common man may safely trust. But what of
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: his original work, that, in his youth gave promise of
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: great things? He does gradually less and less, And seeing
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: as he does so clearly the petty motives that urge
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: others to their work, he begins to scorn his own.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: He asks himself if he has a right to write
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: at all? Has he a message or a mission? Of
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: course he has not. The mission of an artist is
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: to build works of art. But Merlin, with his wizard eyes,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: sees through all the excuses of himself and others, and
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: at last reaches such a condition that he cannot write
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: even if he wished. He thinks that since others produced
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: beautiful things, it is enough for him to contemplate them.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: He sees so clearly the pettiness of others that he
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: cannot believe in the greatness of himself. He has so
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: accustomed himself to the dissection of other people that he
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: cannot do the smallest thing without getting outside himself, considering
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: the matter in deciding that it was not worth doing.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: He is not the introspection of Sir Thomas Brown, who
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: could watch the workings of his own mind and yet
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: think it worth while to write them down. It is
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: the introspection of the suicide, who finds all things useless,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: and so, being forced to do something, does the most
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: useless of them all. Truly, it is dangerous for all
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: but self conceited persons to pry too deep into the mind.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: There are some who can see their own frivolity and
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: yet work on unabashed. Of such are the best of essayists.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: They can look at themselves in a mirror and go
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: away without humility. Not so Merlin, He might have been
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: a great imaginative writer. Small things produce emotion in him.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: He can visualize and intensify all he feels. His prose
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: is a pleasure to read, and his verse is cut
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: as cleanly as if with a chisel. But the self
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: distrust that has been forced upon him by his power
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: of seeing too deep, has taken him from the writing
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: of his own conceptions to the weighing of the fantasies
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: of others, which, keen critic as he is, he invariably
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: finds wanting. End of section four A man who I
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: knew himself. Section five of the Souls of the Streets
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: and Other little Papers by Arthur Ransom, the this LibriVox recordings,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: and the public domain read by Bin Tucker. Two tramps
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: the road rang with the tramp of my heavy boots.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: With each step on the hard ground, with each breath
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: of the fresh, clean air, I felt more thoroughly live.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: I shouted incoherently and laughed at astonished laborers and fields
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: bordering the roads. Presently I talked a little hill, whence
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: I could see the gray road disappear in the trees
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: beneath me, and rise again through the pasture and plowed
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: land on the other side of the valley. Two figures
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: moved up out of the trees, a man and a woman.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: I plunged down the hill to overtake them. The greenish
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: gray pillars of the tall trees around me rose like
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: lichened monuments. I would have stayed to sink into the
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: contemplation that they suggested, but I longed for talk, and
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: guessed that before me were companions tramps like myself. I
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: came out into the light, leaving the trees behind. I
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: strode on and soon had the travelers again in sight.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: The two figures were close together, and puffs of smoke
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: came first from one side and then from the other.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: What was the explanation? As I reached them, I understood
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: they had but one clay pipe between them and were
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: enjoying alternate whiffs. My own clay was in my hand empty.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: With high courtesy, they offered me tobacco from a round
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: tin box. It was good tobacco. They also approved of
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: my taste. Seeming glad of a companion, they talked slowly
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: and well, discussing the superior merits of clays compared with
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: the briers of the luxurious, the unpleasantness of Stratford on
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: avon the advantages of a ruined bridge not far beyond
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: it as a resting place for the night. The wonderfully
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: muscular chucker out attached to a little imscote inn, and
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: to my great joy, told me about themselves. The man
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: seemed about fifty, the woman probably forty. Both had tramped
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: continuously for almost as long as they could remember. They
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: had been married nearly twenty years before, so they told
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: me with pride and half laughable sidelong glances. They were
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: great on the advantages of combination and tramping, and advised
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: me to take up with a mate if I was
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: seriously adopting the profession. They regretted that although they had
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: a daughter, she had recently left them to marry a
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: young barman. But she's known the road too long to
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: leave it altogether. She'll be tramping it again in the spring,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: the old man added consolingly. I noticed that though they
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: seemed to have lost all sense of the beauty of
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: things around them, the man kept reminding the woman of
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: things that had happened at this or that point of
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: the road. He thoroughly enjoyed himself, for his powers of
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: recollection were fresh in his store of memories unending. Every
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: style held a tale for him. So had the old
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: couple trudged through life, always ready to smile at the
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: joe of their existence. So they were ready to trudge
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: on to the last, tramping, always tramping, until they might
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: reach the end they would prefer and die as they
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: had lived on tramp. We slept under the old bridge.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: When I awoke, I found that the man was bathing
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: in the pool below. Old though he was, he was
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: a beautiful swimmer. I joined him in the water. After
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: breakfast we parted. He liked the place, he said, would
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: I not wait? I could not, and passed on down
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: the gray road, with the dust hanging on its edges
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: and rising in little clouds about my feet. We hoped
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: that we should meet again. But as I looked back,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: I saw the old man turning once more towards the pool,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: and the woman tending the little fire she had kindled.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: I was but an incident of the way, like a
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: toad on the road, or a queer bird by the roadside.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: End of section five, Two Tramps, Section six of the
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Souls of the Streets and other little papers by our
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: or ransom. This LibriVox recordings in the public domain, read
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: by Bin Tucker Spring we left our bicycles and pretended
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: that we had walked. The turf was dry and encouraging.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: We nestled to it, blinked the dust from our eyes,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: and gazed out over the moor. White puffs of dust
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: rose from the road beneath us. Motors and bicycles harshly
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: reminded us of civilization. But when we looked out over
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: the inexpressible wideness, to where the far hills lay deep
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: blue against the sky, When we glanced behind us at
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the leafless filigree of trees on soft gray clouds, and
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: above us at the melting eyes of heaven, we were
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: alone with the earth, young and jubilant as ourselves. Once before,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: walking from quiet Willoughby to Dunchurch in Warwickshire, I felt
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: something of this same sensation. I felt almost in tune
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: with the music of the world. Then I was alone,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: and I remembered looking back from the top of the
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Dunchurch Hill, over the heads of the tree trees through
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: which I had passed, and wondering whether such a moment
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: can come more than once in a man's life. I
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: had my answer. Now. Then there had been something incomplete,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Some one note had been missing from the cord. I
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: knew now what it was. She was an English girl.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: She knew no literary or artistic sensitiveness to lead her
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: to speak the poor platitudes of spring. She lay there, smiling,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: content to be happy, without knowing the secret of her happiness.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: She was simply herself, a lovely manifestation of the beautiful
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: childhood of the world. And her clear laugh was the
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: laughter of all life and the wakening joyousness of spring.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: I thought of the quaint words of a Japanese poet
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: friend far away over the seas. Spring, naughty, sweet Spring,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: a proud coquette, born to laugh but not to live. Spring,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: flying spring, a beautiful runway leaves me in tears, but
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: my soul follows after till I can her next March
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Spring Spring. March had come, and we had caught her.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: We two upon the high downs. I told her of
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: the Japanese song. She laughed lightly. Isn't it splendid? She said,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: And those three words, as she said them, held all
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: the sequel to the poem. I lay there looking at her.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: The laughter of spring danced in her eyes and smiled
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: on her as she lay in a pose of perfect content.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Was she not spring herself. Was it not just her
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: own unconsciousness of herself and her significance that let her
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: say so much by doing so little? I try as
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: I will, cannot express one hundredth part of what she
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: said once for all, in her eloquent silence, unconscious poetry
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: is the sweetest. After all, I shall never feel again
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: as I felt that day, looking up from the crisp
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: grass into the face of spring, laughing silently in the
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: joy of her existence. She laughed, and the sunshine laughed
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: with her. She and the sun unshine were one. It
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: was natural that they should laugh together. I should like
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: some little thing to incarnate the feeling of that afternoon,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: a sprig of the spring gorse, or a few florets
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: of the dry moss that we idly rolled between our fingers.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: I should like it to help me to remember those
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: moments when I may, God let not that time come
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: be too old to feel the spring. Things were very silent.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: The whistle of a far off train sounded as if
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: from another world, a world without a spring. It was
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: as if a sudden cloud had crossed the sun. But
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: she laughed, and in her laugh, even that world, that
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: world of jars and Edges was brought into the glorious
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: ceremonial on that more must be an eternal spring. It
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: seemed as if it had laughed with her laugh from
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: the beginning of time. Something absolutely irresistible shamed me. The
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: pipe in my mouth, its faint blue smoke hanging above me,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: seemed a sacrilege. I lay it on the ground and
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: waited bareheaded. I knew now what it was that so
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: exhilarated us. We were partakers of the oldest and loveliest
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: of all sacraments, the sacrament of spring. The lights cooled
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: in the sky. As we flew down the hill together
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: under the pines, she laughed once more, a little low
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: laugh in the dusk. What is it, I asked, though
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: I knew what the answer would be. Oh nothing, It's
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: just this, And that was answer enough. End of section
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: six Spring, Section seven of The Souls of the Streets
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: and Other Little Papers by Arthur Ransom. This LibriVox recordings
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: in the public domain read by beIN Tucker, The Secret
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: of the Wild Rose. When the sun shone upon an
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: earth on which men were very few, When moons swam
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: through the sky, shedding violet light over a silence so
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: absolute that there were none to listen to it, When
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: flowers and trees were conscious of themselves alone, and of
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: none to whom they need bow, of none to whose
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: vanity they need to be sacrificed. When silent things full
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: of beauty were first stirring in the earth, as Earth's
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: mysteries were building, before there were any to seek to
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: understand them. Then in the season of the year that
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: we now called June, the first wild rose bud was born. Green,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: the fresh, soft green of spring was everywhere. When where
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: the rough bushes of the more lost themselves in the thicker,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: wilder growths of the wood, a little thing came slowly
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: into knowledge of itself. It was made of pink petals
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: shading into white. Then vainanes ran through the delicate coloring
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: that seemed to be continually moving, and the petals were
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: folded together over its heart, and green leaves lapped it round.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: It began to feel itself alive and wonder at its existence.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: As if to try its powers, it folded and unfolded
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: its petals, and just then, in the early morning, a
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: strange thing happened. A wood girl lithe and beautiful crept
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: out through the undergrowth and looking up saw the rosebud.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: She stopped and looked wonderingly at it, though she had
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: never taken much notice of flowers before. In that moment,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: the wild rose knew the reason of itself, the subtle
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: mystery that is hidden in its guarding petals. Since then
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: many have gazed like the wood girl and wondered at
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: the mystery. But the secret is still hidden, and still
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: the wild rose laughs to itself as it rests among
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: its jagged leaves. I have often pondered with a quiet
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: pleasure over this secret that makes the rose more lovable
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: than other flowers. I am reminded of that simple lady
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: of old times who had a hidden charm that made
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: all who saw her love her. She threw away the
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: charm and died lonely and uncared for. But I do
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: not think the rose will ever yield its secret, though
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: once I remember, I thought I had found one who
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: could discover it. Wild roses lay in a shallow dish
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: on a table. Beside them a bowl blossomed with dog violets,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: little pansies who smile up openly in one's face without
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: a thought behind. A lady sat in a chair by
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: the side of the table. She leant her head back
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: among red cushions, and the tips of her fingers met
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: around her knees. She was watching the flowers. I watched
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: both them and her innocent little things. She said at
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: last of the violets, and I felt she knew all
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: that was in them. But I waited in vain for
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: her verdict on the roses. They baffled her as they
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: baffle us, all with their delicate beauty, clear as young girls,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: and as full of mystery. What is this secret of
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: the rosebud that shines like a lamp through the shading
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: pink of its petals? What is the secret that it
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: hugs to itself all its tiny life? High in the
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: hedge row at the end of June, when the summer
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: rains have left the edges of the leaves to glisten
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: in the sun, the little wild rose that is yet
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: to open waves before all who pass. The old man
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: looks and remembers the rose that he picked these fifty
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: years ago, for the bent woman who still walks beside him,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: her mittened hand still resting on his strong, tired arm.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: Children look up to it and laugh, not knowing why
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: it pleases them. The fine lady in her carriage, tired
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: and unhappy with her artificial luxuries, smiles cheerfully once more
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: as she sees the rosebud, laughing to itself in the
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: top of the hedge, as if there never was a
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: secret in the world so wholly delicious as its own.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: What is this secret? There have been a few poets
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: and children who have found a solution for themselves, but
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: their ideas have all been different. I know a little
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: girl who thought that the petals made a tiny casket,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: and that the faint light that shines through them came
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: from some sort of spirit of prettiness inside. She said
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: that if you were very unhappy, you had only to
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: find the right rosebud when it would open and let
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: the soul of prettiness into the air like a little
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: puff of smoke, And that if you were crying, this
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: would make the colored sunshine that is so pretty seen
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: through even the saddest tears. One day, she was unhappy,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: without knowing why. She was sorrowful, with one of those
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: dim world sorrows that sometimes lift one of us and
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: make a poet of him. She ran out alone to
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: the wild rose lane and came to her favorite tree.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: She knelt down in front of it and prayed to
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: it to comfort her. For a long time, nothing happened.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Then she stood up and saw a little rosebud half
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: hidden in the leaves, And as she watched, she saw
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: its petals fall slowly back, and she thinks she saw
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: the little faint smoke come out of it, but she
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: is not sure anyhow, when it was quite open, she
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: found that she was not feeling unhappy any more. Perhaps
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: she knew the secret. She was certainly more likely to
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: know it than any elderly person with an appalling knowledge
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: of botany, who can explain every bit of a rosebud
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: to you and never get near its meaning at all.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Then there was that Italian prisoner who was shut in
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: a small room of hard white stone, with no books
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: and no pictures. He had a slit for a window,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: but it was placed so high on his wall that
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: he could only see the sky. He was miserable, for
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: he was a poet in loved books and colors, and
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: especially flowers. One day in the early summer, looking up
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: at the little patch of bright sky that he could
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: see through the window, he noticed a twig that grew
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: steadily in a week a rosebud, and a few leaves
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: had spread across the slit. He did not like looking
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: at it in the daytime, for then it was hard
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: and black against the brilliant sky. But in the evening,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: when the sky paled and the light outside grew firter,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: he could see the color of the bud and the
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: dim green of the leaves. He grew to love the bud,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: and watched eagerly for its opening. He too longed to
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: guess its secret. As it opened, its petals showed dark red,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: And it so happened from the way the bud was placed,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: that it shaped like a crimson heart, and the fancy
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: seized him that it was the heart of the dainty
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Italian lady, for whose sake he was in prison. This
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: idea quickened, and he seemed to himself to have forgotten
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: the lady and to be living for the rose alone.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Then came the end. One evening, when the sky was red,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: he heard voices outside, and he heard his lady's voice
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: whispering lightly to another. So he is in there where
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: the rose climbs across the window. The other laughed and said,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: shall we cut the flower that he may know we
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: have not forgotten him. She answered, yes, for I love
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: him not at all, and you altogether. And the prisoner
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: inside cried out in a terrible voice. But he saw
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: the rose drop away from the window, leaving nothing but
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: the sky, and the sky seemed to swim in blood.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: And a few hours afterwards, when jailers came to bring
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: him food, they found him mad, repeating monotonously. They have
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: broken the secret of the rose. I cannot believe that
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: he ever knew it. It is so ethereal a thing
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: that tragedy would surely blur its edges. Yet roses have
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: been the flowers of cort. They have carried poisons men
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: going to fight, have warned them on their breasts. They
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: have held notes, passing like daggers between evil men and women.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: They have kept the secrets of others, but they have
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: always kept their own. And I fancy that the roses
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: of Quartz were hot garden roses, bursting and over full
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: with crimson petals, and not the little roses that cling
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: by dusty road and wooded path. It is the secret
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: that sleeps in the little wild heart of the free
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: rose that I have always longed to know. Why is
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: it that we love it? Above all other flowers. Why
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: is it that it is with us the symbol of
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: love and youth? The young man carries a pink rose
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: and a white when he goes to tryst in the twilight.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: The girl wears wild roses and her tumbled hair. The
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: tired eyes of a worker in town are rested by
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: the roses hanging over the edge of the jam pot
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: on the window sill. Would not another flower do? There
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: is not one with its RESTful sense of mystery. We
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: cannot guess the secret, but it is good to creep
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: nearer it in wondering at its powers. If ever it
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: were possible at all, I should have caught the roses
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: mystery from two dead flowers I have little brown hands
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: laid them a year ago on a poetry book that
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: we had read together. I let them lie for days,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: and though they faded, their beauty seemed as if it
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: could not die. Then they slept two bundles of pink
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: petals turning brown, between two pages of the song book.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: They are always there when I turn to my favorite songs.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: Always their mysterious scent rises from the pages. Yet though
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: I love them and the hands that plucked them, and
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: the book wherein they lie. Their secret is still their own,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: insoluble and tangible, a tantalus that is so sweet. I
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: would not have it broken for the world. For the
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: joy of the rose is in its mystery, and if
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: we discovered it, it would die, just as the old
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: mysteries of the world fade before our prying eyes. End
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: of section seven, The Secret of the Rose. End of
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: the Souls of the Streets and other little papers by
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: Arthur Ransom,