This is a story by Lucy Clifford which reminds me of a faerie, lacking a soul but having enough cognisance to know that she’s not fitting her role.
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She wandered about in the sunshine all the day long, over the fields and in the woods, picking the flowers and listening to the birds, and singing strange songs to the river. Suddenly she sat down on a big stone and looked up at the mountain that was just a little too tall for the world, and had to hide its head in the clouds.
” I should like to climb that mountain,” she thought ; ” I want to know what there is on the other side.” And the more she thought about it the more did she long to climb. At last she jumped up and washed her feet in a little stream of clear water, and set off as fast as she could for the top of the mountain. It was a long way up, but she sang all the time, and amused herself by wondering if any had ever been lost on the great hills around her, the hills that stretched away and away as far as she could see, and if so whether there had been wives and children watching for them at home, watching, and waiting, and weeping, and listening for a footstep that would never come over the heather again, for the sound of a voice that never would speak to them more. ” If I could only feel,” she sighed, ” if I could only understand ; oh, I would give the world to know what it is like.”
She went slowly down the other side of ‘the mountain. At its foot there was a little town; it was just a very little town, with one street running down the middle of it, and a town -hall in the market-place, and a clock on the town -hall that had lost its long hand, so it pointed to the hours with its short one, and never troubled itself about the minutes. There were not many people in the town, but they all knew one another and talked about one another, and nobody ever minded his own business, but always some other body’s. She stood at one end of the street and looked at the schoolhouse and the toll- bar in the distance, and she walked to the other end and looked at the meadows, and at an old barn, and at the farm-house, which was the last dwelling-place she could see. ” It is just the same here as every- where else, I suppose,” she said to herself. “The people laugh and cry, and love and hate, and play that queer game of theirs which consists in one person gaining as much money as he can, and the rest getting as much of it away from him as they can, and the end of it is always the same; the man dies and is forgotten, and the next man goes on. I wonder what it . all means.” She sat down by the wayside and rested; she watched the people in the street, but no one noticed her. She saw two men pass by ; she heard one say to the other
“It is a fair price ; that field is not worth more;” and she said to herself “It is the old story, they are talking of money.” \
A man and woman passed, the woman saying as she did so ” I am not going to do it for less, I can tell her ; ” and again the girl said to herself ” The old story, it is money for ever, money, money, for ever ! ”
She got up and walked a little way, wondering if there were any children in the town, the children would be interesting, she thought. The old people were the world of yesterday ; and the grown people were the world of to-day ; but the child- ren would be the world of to-morrow : of to-morrow that for ever was on its way, for ever held a promise. There was life in the very word, since only dead men ceased to think of it and to plan for it.
There is some clue to life I have missed, there is something that I am longing for but cannot grasp. I am for ever feeling as if I ought to be paying myself in as a tribute to some great whole which I cannot see because of the darkness before me,” she thought.
” Who are you, girl ? ” a voice asked suddenly. She looked up and saw a farmer behind her.
” I have come from a cottage over the mountain,” the girl answered.
” What have you come for ? “
” Just to see and to think,” she answered.
” It is waste of time,” he said gruffly, and turned away. ” Will you have a cup of milk ? ” he asked suddenly, ” for maybe you are tired ; go to the house yonder, and say I sent you ; ” and he pointed to the farm-house. She was hungry and thirsty, and glad to do as she was told.
” Why do you offer me milk ? ” she asked ; ” I am a stranger.”
“Strangers feel thirsty as well as friends,” he answered. The girl went to the farm-house, and when the good wife saw her she made her sit down, and fetched some fresh milk and home-made bread, and bade her rest well before she went on her way.
” I never gave any one a cup of niilk or a welcome into my cottage in my whole life,” the girl thought. ” There is some meaning in the world I have not found yet, but it seems a little nearer as I sit and watch the farmer’s wife.” Then she rose, and, coldly thanking her, went on.
“I will go through the town now,” she said to herself. A boy was sitting on the gate at the end of ‘ the field. He was gaily dressed : from his cap there hung a gold tassel, and on his finger he wore a ring. The girl stopped and looked at him. ” Where do you live ? ” she asked.
“I live at the great house up there,” he answered, nodding in the direction of the hill. ” You can see the flag waving from the tower.”
” You must be rich,” she said, ” for your house is very grand. How did you get all your money ?”
” My ancestors won it hundreds of years ago,” he answered proudly. ” They were great men.”
” And are you great ? ” she asked.
“I am great, for I am rich,” he answered.
“And so you have time to think,” she said eagerly. ” Tell me, do you know all things ? “
” No,” he said, ” I never trouble about them ; I am content to live and enjoy my riches.”
” I cannot understand it,” she sighed ; ” men are content to work for those they will never see, and to heap up money perchance for fools to spend. Money doesn’t make you great,” she said scornfully to the boy ; ” any booby can inherit.” She went down the street, she looked at the faces of the people; on all of them there seemed to be written some history of past days, some record of joy and sorrow, but most of sorrow. ” I am very thankful,” she thought, ” that I shall never know the things they know. I remember once overhearing some poet or dreamer say that in every heart there was a death chamber ; there is none in mine ; I have no heart to hold one.”
The townspeople were looking out at their doors, laughing and making merry when any two met; she wondered what it was all about, till suddenly she saw a bridal party go by. “I see now,” she said to herself; “these are two people going to marry, and they are rejoicing because they will be together henceforth. One will know when the other sorrows, and one will sit and watch at last by the other’s dead face. Why do they rejoice ? Oh ! I shall never understand it all.”
She turned out of the street, and went towards the fields and there sat a man by an easel, on which stood an untouched canvas. The boy looked at the girL
“What do you learn at school ? ” she asked.
” All kinds of things,” he answered. ” I am very happy while I am learning,” he added. “And after the lessons come the games.”
” What shall you do when you are a man ? ” she asked.
” I shall go on with the making of the world,” he said, and began to sing.
” Why do you want to do that ? We all die soon.”
” It was made for us, it is ours now, we have to make it for those to come. Even to think of it makes one long to begin.”
” But we shall not be here.”
” Others will;” he laughed, and went on his way still singing.
” Perhaps the artist will tell me something,” she thought, and went up to him. “Have you painted many pictures ?” she asked.
“No” he answered, “I have painted none that are worth remembering yet, but I shall some day.”
” How do you know ?” she asked curiously. ” Because I love the world so much,” he answered; “it is very beautiful,” he sighed. ” I should despair of my own self, but that love makes one so strong ; it helps one to do all things.”
” Why do you want to paint pictures ?” she asked.
” Pictures are messages of light in dark places,” he answered. “I want to tell the story of the world’s beauty to the cities, so that some of those who live, and work, and have seldom time to rest, and never time to journey, may wander in its fairest places and know them in their hearts.”
The girl’s face became eager as she listened, she felt some dim understanding, and yet why should he care for unknown people in unseen cities ? “And can you do it ; can you make pictures that will do this, and where did you get the power?”
” I worked for it ; I am working for it still, and some day I shall succeed, as all, who love their work well, must.”
“Love: what has that to do with it?”
” One must love one’s work,” he answered. ” ‘ For whatever a man loves he can create, and the work of his hands is that in which his soul delighteth.'”
” There is some use in love that makes the world prettier or better,” she said ; ” I understand that, but there is none in love the end of which is parting and sorrow.”
” The one is the outcome of the other,” he said. “As death is the consequence of life, so is sorrow the outcome of joy, the price we pay for it somehow or at sometime.”
” But if that is so,” the girl said, ” surely you should bear your sorrows in silence, and not cry out as if your happiness had been over-dear.”
” Ah,” said the painter, taking up his brush, ” that is an easy thing to say, and a sorry one to hear ;” and then he began to work, and the girl went towards the hill.
” I will go home,” she said to herself ; ” I am no wiser than when I came.”
She passed a cottage at the foot of the hill ; an old woman sat by the door knitting. Suddenly the girl stopped. ” May I come in and rest a bit, mother ?” she asked.
” Yes, my child,” the woman answered ; and she took the girl into the cottage and made her sit down by the fire, and gave her food and drink, and watched her while she rested. Suddenly the girl looked up.
“Mother,” she said, “I have been wandering through the little town looking at the people, only at the outside of their lives, and hearing just their most careless words. Tell me, what does it all mean ? Why do they go on eager for life which is often a burden, and for money which none can hold long ? “
” Where have you come from that you ask these things?”
” I came over the hill this morning from a cottage just outside the world, and so I have no share in the world. I am just a spectator. But what does it all mean the hate and the love, the joy and sorrow, the for ever seeking for happiness that must for ever turn to woe in the end ?”
” Surely we should be content to take our share of work, and sorrow, and pain ; we that take the world’s life, and light, and shelter, and sunshine, shall we bear nothing in return ?” the woman said in surprise.
” And money ? Does money bring you happiness that you seek for it, and bear so much for its sake ?”
” Seldom enough, dear, unless it finds other things to keep it company. There is nothing so overrated in all the world as money,” the woman said.
” Why do so many seek it ?”
” I cannot tell, dear lassie, for I never had it, or desired it ; but some is necessary, and all should be willing to work for their share of it, but more than this I cannot understand. Why it is so precious and so difficult to win, where so many are willing to work for it, is one of the strange things one has to think about. There are many better things than money ; it is a thousand pities so much good time is wasted in seeking it.”
“And why do people desire to work; is it for honour ? “
” The best workers think only of their work,” the woman answered, ” and whether it will be good for the world and in itself, or of what it will do for others, not of what it will do for themselves.”
” And love “
” Ah,” the woman said quickly, ” out of good love and good work has the world grown up ; from them and through them we possess all good things. To love well and to work well are the two things to desire in life, for all other things are in their gift. To the lovers and the students we owe all things.”
” But the world is not made up of these, dear mother ; there are the soldiers, and the lawgivers, and many others.”
” They have been lovers and students first.”
The girl did not ask how this might be, for she thought of the words the painter had quoted, ” For whatever a man loves he can create, and the work of his hands is that in which his soul delighteth;” and dimly she was beginning to understand. ” Why do people desire to do good work for the world which they hardly know and have scarcely seen?” she asked.
” The world is ourselves,” the woman answered ; “it is the thing we make it, and we can all help to choose what manner of thing it shall be for those who come after us. Even the least of us can help to root out sin, and to make unkindness strange, and some one life better because ours has been. Oh ! my dear,” she cried’ passionately, ” if I could but hope that you and I may think this, and know it before the day comes when our hands shall be folded, and only our work shall say that we have lived “
But the girl looked on still wondering. ” How did you come to think and know all these things ?” she asked.
” I have been alone so long,” the woman answered, “just sitting by the fire thinking. But why are you going ? stay a little longer if you will, lassie.”
” It is a long way over the hills,” the girl answered, ” and I must go home to the cottage.” As she spoke she looked back longingly at the little town, and at the smoke rising up from the houses in which the people rejoiced, and sorrowed, and worked, and lived out their simple lives. Then suddenly she looked up at the woman. “Good-bye, dear mother,” she said. “It is a strange thing, but I would give the world to put my arms round your neck and kiss you just once.”
” And why not ? ” the woman asked, gently.
“I cannot,” the girl answered; “something holds me back. I am just a spectator and have no part in the world, and cannot understand the things for which it cares so much.”
“But why is that?” ” Oh, mother, I have no heart, and I live outside the world and have no share or part in it ; its joys and sorrows alike pass me by and are never mine ;” and she started on her way.
“No heart !” the woman said sadly. “Ah, poor lassie ! then the world must indeed be a riddle of which you have for ever missed the answer.”
Games From Folktales 