In Search of Spring

 This is the record of a journey from London to the Quantock Hills—to Nether Stowey, Kilve, Crowcombe, and West Bagborough, to the high point where the Taunton-Bridgwater road tops the hills and shows all Exmoor behind, all the Mendips before, and upon the left the sea, and Wales very far off. It was a journey on or with a bicycle. The season was Easter, a March Easter. “A North-Easter, probably?” No. Nor did much north-east go to the making of it. I will give its pedigree briefly, going back only a month—that is, to the days when I began to calculate, or guess methodically, what the weather would be like at Easter.

Perhaps it was rather more than a month before Easter that a false Spring visited London. But I will go back first a little earlier, to one of those great and notable days after the turn of the year that win the heart so, without deceiving it. The wind blew from the north-west with such peace and energy together as to call up the image of a good giant striding along with superb gestures—like those of a sower sowing. The wind blew and the sun shone over London. A myriad roofs laughed together in the light. The smoke and the flags, yellow and blue and white, waved tumultuously, straining for joy to leave the chimneys and the flagstaffs, like hounds sighting their quarry. The ranges of cloud bathing their lower slopes in the brown mist of the horizon had the majesty of great hills, the coolness and sweetness and whiteness of the foam on the crests of the crystal fountains, and they were burning with light. The clouds did honour to the city, which they encircled as with heavenly ramparts. The stone towers and spires were soft, and luminous as old porcelain. There was no substance to be seen that was not made precious by the strong wind and the light divine. All was newly built to a great idea. The flags were waving to salute the festal opening of the gates in those white walls to a people that should presently surge in and onward to take possession. Princely was to be the life that had this amphitheatre of clouds and palaces for its display.

Of human things, only music—if human it can be called—was fit to match this joyousness and this stateliness. What, I thought, if the pomp of river and roof and cloudy mountain walls of the world be made ready, as so often they had been before, only for the joy of the invisible gods? For who has not known a day when some notable festival is manifestly celebrated by a most rare nobleness in the ways of the clouds, the colours of the woods, the glitter of the waters, yet on earth all has been as it was wont to be?

So far, the life of men moving to and fro across the bridges was like the old life that I knew, though, down below, upon the sparkling waters many birds were alighting, or were already seated like wondrous blossoms upon the bulwarks of a barge painted in parrot colours—red and green. When would the entry begin?

In the streets, for the present, the roar continued; of the inhuman masses of humanity, amidst which a child’s crying for a toy was an impertinence, a terrible pretty interruption of the violent moving swoon. Between the millions and the one no agreement was visible. The wind summoned colour in a girl’s cheeks. There, one smiled with inward bliss. Another talked serenely with lovely soft mouth and wide eyes that saw only one other pair as the man next her bent his head nearer. The wind wagged the tails of blue or brown fur about the forms of luxurious tall women, and poured wine into their bodies, so that their complexions glowed under their violet hats. But in one moment the passing loveliness of spirit, or form, or gesture, sank and was drowned in the oceanic multitude. A boy had just met his father at a railway station, and was glad; he held the man’s hand, and was trotting gently, trying to get him to run—he failed: then in delight put his arm to his father’s waist and was carried along thus, half lifted from the ground, for several yards, smiling and chattering like a bird on a waving branch. The two obstructed others, who took a step to left or right in disdain or impatience. Only a child at an alley entrance saw and laughed, wishing she were his sister, and had his father. A moment, and these also were swallowed up.

I came to broader pavements. Here was less haste; and women went in and out of the crowd, not only parallel to the street, but crosswise here and there; and a man could go at any pace, not of necessity the crowd’s. Some of the most beautiful civilized women of the world moved slowly and musically in an intricate pattern, which any one could watch freely; they had a background of lustrous jewellery, metal-work and glass, gorgeous cloths and silks, and many had a foil in the stiff black and white male figures beside them. They moved without fear. Stately, costly, tender, beautiful, nevertheless, though so near, they were seen as in a magic crystal that enshrines the remote and the long dead. They walked as in dream, regardlessly smiling. They cast their proud or kind eyes hither and thither. Once in the intense light of a jeweller’s shop, spangled with pearls, diamonds, and gold, a large red hand, cold and not quite clean, appeared from within, holding in three fearful, careful fingers a brooch of gold and diamonds, which it placed among the others, and then withdrew itself slowly, tremulously, lest it should work harm to those dazzling cressets. The eyes of the women watched the brooch: the red hand need not have been so fearful; it was unseen—the soul was hid. Straight through the women, in the middle of the broad pavement, and very slowly, went an old man. He was short, and his patched overcoat fell in a parallelogram from his shoulders almost to the pavement. From underneath his little cap massive gray curls sprouted and spread over his upturned collar. Just below the fringe of his coat his bare heels glowed red. His hands rested deep in his pockets. His face was almost concealed by curls and collar: all that showed itself was the glazed cold red of his cheeks and large, straight nose, and the glitter of gray eyes that looked neither to left nor to right, but ahead and somewhat down. Not a sound did he make, save the flap of rotten leather against feet which he scarcely raised lest the shoes should fall off. Doubtless the composer of the harmonies of this day could have made use of the old man—doubtless he did; but as it was a feast day of the gods, not of men, I did not understand. Around this figure, clad in complete hue of poverty, the dance of women in violet and black, cinnamon and green, tawny and gray, scarlet and slate, and the browns and golden browns of animals’ fur, wove itself fantastically. The dance heeded him not, nor he the dance. The sun shone bright. The wind blew and waved the smoke and the flags wildly against the sky. The horses curved their stout necks, showing their teeth, trampling, massing head by head in rank and cluster, a frieze as magnificent as the procession of white clouds gilded, rolling along the horizon.