The Blue Flower [25]
understand, that is
all."
So we turned to go down the hill, and as we turned,
Dorothy met us, coming out of the shadows.
"What are you men doing here?" she asked. "I heard your
voices from below. What were you talking about?"
"We were talking," said Keene, "my dear Dorothy, we were
talking--about walking--yes, that was it--about walking, and
about views. The conversation was quite warm, almost a
debate. Now, you know all the view-points in this region.
Which do you call the best, the most satisfying, the finest
prospect? But I know what you will say: the view from the
little knoll in front of Hilltop. For there, when you are tired
of looking far away, you can turn around and see the old school,
and the linden-trees, and the garden."
"Yes," she answered gravely, "that is really the view that
I love best. I would give up all the others rather than lose
that."
III
There was a softness in the November air that brought back
memories of summer, and a few belated daisies were blooming in
the old clearing, as Keene and I passed by the ruins of the
farm-house again, early on Sunday morning. He had been
talking ever since we started, pouring out his praise of
knowledge, wide, clear, universal knowledge, as the best of
life's joys, the greatest of life's achievements. The
practical life was a blind, dull routine. Most men were
toiling at tasks which they did not like, by rules which they
did not understand. They never looked beyond the edge of
their work. The philosophical life was a spider's web--filmy
threads of theory spun out of the inner consciousness--it touched
the world only at certain chosen points of attachment. There was
nothing firm, nothing substantial in it. You could look through
it like a veil and see the real world lying beyond. But the
theorist could see only the web which he had spun. Knowing did
not come by speculating, theorising. Knowing came by seeing.
Vision was the only real knowledge. To see the world, the whole
world, as it is, to look behind the scenes, to read human life
like a book, that was the glorious thing--most satisfying,
divine.
Thus he had talked as we climbed the hill. Now, as we
came by the place where we had first met, a new eagerness
sounded in his voice.
"Ever since that day I have inclined to tell you something
more about myself. I felt sure you would understand. I am
planning to write a book--a book of knowledge, in the true
sense--a great book about human life. Not a history, not a
theory, but a real view of life, its hidden motives, its
secret relations. How different they are from what men dream
and imagine and play that they are! How much darker, how much
smaller, and therefore how much more interesting and wonderful.
No one has yet written--perhaps because no one has yet
conceived--such a book as I have in mind. I might call it a
'Bionopsis.'"
"But surely," said I, "you have chosen a strange place to
write it--the Hilltop School--this quiet and secluded region!
The stream of humanity is very slow and slender here--it
trickles. You must get out into the busy world. You must be
in the full current and feel its force. You must take part in
the active life of mankind in order really to know it."
"A mistake!" he cried. "Action is the thing that blinds
men. You remember Matthew Arnold's line:
In action's dizzying eddy whurled.
To know the world you must stand apart from it and above it;
you must look down on it."
"Well, then," said I, "you will have to find some secret
spring of inspiration, some point of vantage from which you
can get your outlook and your insight."
He stopped short and looked me full in the face.
"And that," cried he, "is precisely what I have found!"
Then he turned and pushed along the narrow trail so
swiftly that I had hard work to follow him. After a few
minutes we came to a little stream, flowing through a grove of
hemlocks. Keene seated himself on the fallen log that served
for a bridge and beckoned me to a place beside him.
all."
So we turned to go down the hill, and as we turned,
Dorothy met us, coming out of the shadows.
"What are you men doing here?" she asked. "I heard your
voices from below. What were you talking about?"
"We were talking," said Keene, "my dear Dorothy, we were
talking--about walking--yes, that was it--about walking, and
about views. The conversation was quite warm, almost a
debate. Now, you know all the view-points in this region.
Which do you call the best, the most satisfying, the finest
prospect? But I know what you will say: the view from the
little knoll in front of Hilltop. For there, when you are tired
of looking far away, you can turn around and see the old school,
and the linden-trees, and the garden."
"Yes," she answered gravely, "that is really the view that
I love best. I would give up all the others rather than lose
that."
III
There was a softness in the November air that brought back
memories of summer, and a few belated daisies were blooming in
the old clearing, as Keene and I passed by the ruins of the
farm-house again, early on Sunday morning. He had been
talking ever since we started, pouring out his praise of
knowledge, wide, clear, universal knowledge, as the best of
life's joys, the greatest of life's achievements. The
practical life was a blind, dull routine. Most men were
toiling at tasks which they did not like, by rules which they
did not understand. They never looked beyond the edge of
their work. The philosophical life was a spider's web--filmy
threads of theory spun out of the inner consciousness--it touched
the world only at certain chosen points of attachment. There was
nothing firm, nothing substantial in it. You could look through
it like a veil and see the real world lying beyond. But the
theorist could see only the web which he had spun. Knowing did
not come by speculating, theorising. Knowing came by seeing.
Vision was the only real knowledge. To see the world, the whole
world, as it is, to look behind the scenes, to read human life
like a book, that was the glorious thing--most satisfying,
divine.
Thus he had talked as we climbed the hill. Now, as we
came by the place where we had first met, a new eagerness
sounded in his voice.
"Ever since that day I have inclined to tell you something
more about myself. I felt sure you would understand. I am
planning to write a book--a book of knowledge, in the true
sense--a great book about human life. Not a history, not a
theory, but a real view of life, its hidden motives, its
secret relations. How different they are from what men dream
and imagine and play that they are! How much darker, how much
smaller, and therefore how much more interesting and wonderful.
No one has yet written--perhaps because no one has yet
conceived--such a book as I have in mind. I might call it a
'Bionopsis.'"
"But surely," said I, "you have chosen a strange place to
write it--the Hilltop School--this quiet and secluded region!
The stream of humanity is very slow and slender here--it
trickles. You must get out into the busy world. You must be
in the full current and feel its force. You must take part in
the active life of mankind in order really to know it."
"A mistake!" he cried. "Action is the thing that blinds
men. You remember Matthew Arnold's line:
In action's dizzying eddy whurled.
To know the world you must stand apart from it and above it;
you must look down on it."
"Well, then," said I, "you will have to find some secret
spring of inspiration, some point of vantage from which you
can get your outlook and your insight."
He stopped short and looked me full in the face.
"And that," cried he, "is precisely what I have found!"
Then he turned and pushed along the narrow trail so
swiftly that I had hard work to follow him. After a few
minutes we came to a little stream, flowing through a grove of
hemlocks. Keene seated himself on the fallen log that served
for a bridge and beckoned me to a place beside him.