Tracks of a Rolling Stone [10]
to capture robins, hedge-sparrows, and tits. Not far from the chateau was a large osier bed, resorted to by flocks of the common sparrow. Here I set my traps. But it being summer time, and (as I complained when twitted with want of success) French birds being too stupid to know what the traps were for, I never caught a feather. Now this osier bed was a favourite game covert for the sportsmen of the chateau; and what was my delight and astonishment when one morning I found a dead hare with its head under the fallen brick of my trap. How triumphantly I dragged it home, and showed it to Rose and Auguste, - who more than the rest had 'mocked themselves' of my traps, and then carried it in my arms, all bloody as it was (I could not make out how both its hind legs were broken) into the salon to show it to the old Marquise. Mademoiselle Henriette, who was there, gave a little scream (for effect) at sight of the blood. Everybody was pleased. But when I overheard Rose's SOTTO VOCE to the Marquise: 'Comme ils sont gentils!' I indignantly retorted that 'it wasn't kind of the hare at all: it was entirely due to my skill in setting the traps. They would catch anything that put its head into them. Just you try.'
How severe are the shocks of early disillusionment! It was not until long after the hare was skinned, roasted, served as CIVET and as PUREE that I discovered the truth. I was not at all grateful to the gentlemen of the chateau whose dupe I had been; was even wrath with my dear old 'Maman' for treating them with extra courtesy for their kindness to her PETIT CHERI.
That was a happy summer. After it was ended, and it was time for me to return to England and begin my education for the Navy I never again set eyes on Larue, or that charming nest of old ladies who had done their utmost to spoil me. Many and many a time have I been to Paris, but nothing could tempt me to visit Larue. So it is with me. Often have I questioned the truth of the NESSUN MAGGIOR DOLORE than the memory of happy times in the midst of sorry ones. The thought of happiness, it would seem, should surely make us happier, and yet - not of happiness for ever lost. And are not the deepening shades of our declining sun deepened by youth's contrast? Whatever our sweetest songs may tell us of, we are the sadder for our sweetest memories. The grass can never be as green again to eyes grown watery. The lambs that skipped when we did were long since served as mutton. And if
Die Fusse tragen mich so muthig nicht empor Die hohen Stufen die ich kindisch ubersprang,
why, I will take the fact for granted. My youth is fled, my friends are dead. The daisies and the snows whiten by turns the grave of him or her - the dearest I have loved. Shall I make a pilgrimage to that sepulchre? Drop futile tears upon it? Will they warm what is no more? I for one have not the heart for that. Happily life has something else for us to do. Happily 'tis best to do it.
CHAPTER IV
THE passage from the romantic to the realistic, from the chimerical to the actual, from the child's poetic interpretation of life to life's practical version of itself, is too gradual to be noticed while the process is going on. It is only in the retrospect we see the change. There is still, for yet another stage, the same and even greater receptivity, - delight in new experiences, in gratified curiosity, in sensuous enjoyment, in the exercise of growing faculties. But the belief in the impossible and the bliss of ignorance are seen, when looking back, to have assumed almost abruptly a cruder state of maturer dulness. Between the public schoolboy and the child there is an essential difference; and this in a boy's case is largely due, I fancy, to the diminished influence of woman, and the increased influence of men.
With me, certainly, the rough usage I was ere long to undergo materially modified my view of things in general. In 1838, when I was eleven years old, my uncle, Henry Keppel, the
How severe are the shocks of early disillusionment! It was not until long after the hare was skinned, roasted, served as CIVET and as PUREE that I discovered the truth. I was not at all grateful to the gentlemen of the chateau whose dupe I had been; was even wrath with my dear old 'Maman' for treating them with extra courtesy for their kindness to her PETIT CHERI.
That was a happy summer. After it was ended, and it was time for me to return to England and begin my education for the Navy I never again set eyes on Larue, or that charming nest of old ladies who had done their utmost to spoil me. Many and many a time have I been to Paris, but nothing could tempt me to visit Larue. So it is with me. Often have I questioned the truth of the NESSUN MAGGIOR DOLORE than the memory of happy times in the midst of sorry ones. The thought of happiness, it would seem, should surely make us happier, and yet - not of happiness for ever lost. And are not the deepening shades of our declining sun deepened by youth's contrast? Whatever our sweetest songs may tell us of, we are the sadder for our sweetest memories. The grass can never be as green again to eyes grown watery. The lambs that skipped when we did were long since served as mutton. And if
Die Fusse tragen mich so muthig nicht empor Die hohen Stufen die ich kindisch ubersprang,
why, I will take the fact for granted. My youth is fled, my friends are dead. The daisies and the snows whiten by turns the grave of him or her - the dearest I have loved. Shall I make a pilgrimage to that sepulchre? Drop futile tears upon it? Will they warm what is no more? I for one have not the heart for that. Happily life has something else for us to do. Happily 'tis best to do it.
CHAPTER IV
THE passage from the romantic to the realistic, from the chimerical to the actual, from the child's poetic interpretation of life to life's practical version of itself, is too gradual to be noticed while the process is going on. It is only in the retrospect we see the change. There is still, for yet another stage, the same and even greater receptivity, - delight in new experiences, in gratified curiosity, in sensuous enjoyment, in the exercise of growing faculties. But the belief in the impossible and the bliss of ignorance are seen, when looking back, to have assumed almost abruptly a cruder state of maturer dulness. Between the public schoolboy and the child there is an essential difference; and this in a boy's case is largely due, I fancy, to the diminished influence of woman, and the increased influence of men.
With me, certainly, the rough usage I was ere long to undergo materially modified my view of things in general. In 1838, when I was eleven years old, my uncle, Henry Keppel, the