The Garden God E-Book

Forrest Reid

• Herausgeber: Publisher s11838
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

The Garden God: A Tale of Two Boys written by Forrest Reid who was an Irish novelist, literary critic and translator. This book was published in 1905. And now republish in ebook format. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book.

Leseprobe

The Garden God

A Tale of Two Boys

By

Forrest Reid

Table of Contents

IIIIIIIVVVIVIIVIIIIXXXIXIIXIII

I

My dear Allingham,’ he wrote, ‘it is very charming of you to think of venturing into this remote corner of the world for no other reason than to renew our friendship, and I must beg of you to let as little time as possible elapse between your promise and its fulfilment. Not only do I consider your idea a delightful one, but also I venture to find it really courageous, since to look me up again, after so many years, must be to take something remarkably like a leap in the dark. Well! at all events I hope—perhaps I should say fear—that you may not discover in me any extraordinary change. Indeed, from this moment I throw myself entirely upon your mercy, plead guilty to all the charges you bring against me in your letter. It is perfectly true that in living here the life of a hermit—a hermit, I hastento add, with a taste for the philosophy of Epicurus and Anatole France—I have not in the least fulfilled my duties as a good citizen. Doubtless I am not a good citizen. Doubtless, as you so kindly hint, I ought to have married; but I suppose even you will admit that it is now too late—too late for me to think of following your excellent example. I cannot, alas! even pretend that I want to follow it, want to forsake my wilderness. Ah, my dear fellow, I am incorrigible, and you need not expect to find in the middle-aged Graham Iddesleigh an any more satisfactory person than him you found so unsatisfactory at Oxford. Do you remember all that I used to be in the old days?—unreasonable, impractical, quite a worthless fellow! Do you ever remember the old days at all? But of course you must, or you would not have desired to renew them. For myself, you know, it is the one great privilege, the one great occupation of my life—I mean remembering. You will scarce be pleased to learn this, I suppose;—that is, unless you are, with increasing years, grown more tolerant of idleness—a weakness which I confess I donot exactly gather from your letter. But you must forgive me for this and countless other faults. Yes—I remember! Sometimes I remember too much!—remember, in other words, what never really was; what, alas! only might have been. You see, the dividing line is so apt to shift a little, grow dimmer, as the years pass.... And after all, it is only a kind of feline habit that was born in me, and that keeps me, like a cat, quiet in the sun, or before my fire, dreaming, wandering in the endless woods of Persephone. Over those woods a gentle twilight broods, and the soft shady paths wind about, meet and cross one another, and lose themselves again in cool leafy distances. ‘Nevertheless, there have been times—moments of dreadful egotism let me call them—when I have told myself, as you so flatteringly tell me, that had I been born the son of a poor man I might have done something in the world, though exactly what, I am as careful as you yourself are to leave undefined. No! I’m afraid all my gifts may be reduced to this single capacity for sitting in the sun—a capacity that is not of immense value to other people, whatever pleasure it may give to myself. I have an idea, however, that had I lived in the days of Plato, he would have employed me to sweep the walks of the Academe, or mow the grass, or do something of that kind. Possibly, even to make myself useful by illustrating the doctrine of reminiscence, like the boy in the Meno; or I might have taken care of the books.

‘This last, certainly; for I have a sneaking fondness for the very cobwebs that gather in the corners of a library. Last night I spent two or three delicious hours in looking over my own volumes, taking down one after another from the shelf, and slowly turning their leaves. Many of them, most of them in fact—for my tastes have not greatly changed—I had loved in my boyhood, and these were, I confess, the ones I lingered over longest. And, in a sense, turning their pages again in the light of this darker-risen day was like holding up a lamp to the past; and the soft, gentle dust of the dead years fell all about me, floated in the air I breathed, delicate, sweet, and sad.

‘O wondrous seed of poetry! Happy the child into whose tender soul you have dropped at his birth! May he keep until his death the innocence and the heart of a boy, and may the burden of years and the cares of the world fall lightly upon him!...’

He laid down his pen and turned toward the window, while a smile, a little sad, but singularly sweet and gentle, passed across his face.

After all!... Well, he supposed the years had fallen lightly upon him. If he took the trouble to look in the glass he must see that his hair was turning grey, that his shoulders were a little stooped, that there were lines about his mouth and eyes.... And his life?—that too, perhaps, had taken a greyish tinge.... Monotonous?... ah yes, monotonous in truth: but even now he had only to close his eyes to bring up the light—the light....

The view of the years that opened up behind him was in fact tranquil and pleasant enough; uneventful; like a broad, shady garden, an old-world, sleepy garden full of flowers still sweet and fresh. He had done little. As Allingham had pointed out (with something of the air of a man who has made a wonderful discovery), the years of his life had simply floated away from him—floated away just as in autumn dead leaves float down a river.

But there had been many things that had given him pleasure. On the whole he had been happy—happy after his fashion: and he had known, had felt, the most beautiful thing of all, ‘the ecstasy and sorrow of love....’

--------------------------

He looked out into the quiet evening. The garden lay before him, stretching from the window in the pale half-light. A fine misty rain had begun to fall and was slowly shutting out the world. Presently his gaze wandered back again to the room wherein he sat. It rested on dark oak carvings; on the sheen and sombreness of fine bindings; on a chipped and broken statue of a boy, in yellowish marble; and, lastly, on a modern portrait hanging above the great fireplace.

This was the only picture in the room, and the fading light had drawn most of the colour out of it, but his memory held up a lamp—a lamp of soft flame—by which he beheld the full length figure of a boy—a boy of fifteen, sixteen, slight, dark-complexioned, with delicately oval face, and long silky hair falling in a single great wave over his forehead. The features were very finely moulded; the mouth especially being quite perfect. A somewhat exotic looking youngster, extraordinarily aristocratic one imagined, even a little disdainful,—yes, that too, perhaps, despite the wonderful charm of expression.

Harold, youngest son of Aubrey Stewart Brocklehurst, Esquire. He remembered the name as he had seen it in a catalogue of the Royal Academy—how long ago? He remembered the strange conversation he had had later on with his father, when he must have laid bare his soul a little; he remembered the morning when, on coming downstairs, he had found the picture there, awaiting him.

Twenty—thirty years ago!—it seemed like yesterday. Surely his father had been very good to him! The picture, from what he had since heard of the character of Mr. Brocklehurst, had not been bought for nothing.... And Harold!...