THE MINSTREL (slyly).—“Does the critic
who says to me, ’Sing of beefsteak, because
the appetite for food is a real want of daily life,
and don’t sing of art and glory and love, because
in daily life a man may do without such ideas,’—tell
a lie?”
KENELM.—“Thank you for that rebuke.
I submit to it. No doubt I did tell a lie,—that
is, if I were quite in earnest in my recommendation,
and if not in earnest, why—”
THE MINSTREL.—“You belied yourself.”
KENELM.—“Very likely. I set
out on my travels to escape from shams, and begin
to discover that I am a sham par excellence.
But I suddenly come across you, as a boy dulled by
his syntax and his vulgar fractions suddenly comes
across a pleasant poem or a picture-book, and feels
his wits brighten up. I owe you much: you
have done me a world of good.”
“I cannot guess how.”
“Possibly not, but you have shown me how the
realism of Nature herself takes colour and life and
soul when seen on the ideal or poetic side of it.
It is not exactly the words that you say or sing that
do me the good, but they awaken within me new trains
of thought, which I seek to follow out. The
best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes,
and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.
Therefore, O singer! whatever be the worth in critical
eyes of your songs, I am glad to remember that you
would like to go through the world always singing.”
“Pardon me: you forget that I added, ’if
life were always young, and the seasons were always
summer.’”
“I do not forget. But if youth and summer
fade for you, you leave youth and summer behind you
as you pass along,—behind in hearts which
mere realism would make always old, and counting their
slothful beats under the gray of a sky without sun
or stars; wherefore I pray you to consider how magnificent
a mission the singer’s is,—to harmonize
your life with your song, and toss your flowers, as
your child does, heavenward, with heavenward eyes.
Think only of this when you talk with my sorrowing
friend, and you will do him good, as you have done
me, without being able to guess how a seeker after
the Beautiful, such as you, carries us along with
him on his way; so that we, too, look out for beauty,
and see it in the wild-flowers to which we had been
blind before.”
Here Tom entered the little sanded parlour where this
dialogue had been held, and the three men sallied
forth, taking the shortest cut from the town into
the fields and woodlands.
WHETHER or not his spirits were raised by Kenelm’s
praise and exhortations, the minstrel that day talked
with a charm that spellbound Tom, and Kenelm was satisfied
with brief remarks on his side tending to draw out
the principal performer.
The talk was drawn from outward things, from natural
objects,—objects that interest children,
and men who, like Tom Bowles, have been accustomed
to view surroundings more with the heart’s eye
than the mind’s eye. This rover about
the country knew much of the habits of birds and beasts
and insects, and told anecdotes of them with a mixture
of humour and pathos, which fascinated Tom’s
attention, made him laugh heartily, and sometimes
brought tears into his big blue eyes.
