II

SCARLET AND GOLD

THERE broke upon me this morning an apocalyptic vision-a vision of scarlet and gold!

The scarlet was just a pillar-box, resplendent in all the bravery of a new coat of paint and varnish.

The gold was a canary, trembling with the wild excitement of his escape from his accustomed cage!

The scarlet was crowned by the gold! The canary, that is to say, was perched upon the pillar-box. In Mountains in the Mist I have told the story of the 'Canary at the Pole.' I must supplement it to-day by placing on record the story of the 'Canary on the Pillar-box.'

Sitting on the front of a cable-car, I was on my way into the city. It was a, delightful morning, and everything about me was at its best. All at once, I was startled by a splash of gold, almost within reach of my hand. It was a bird, flying low, and evidently unused to flying at all. It almost struck the front of the tram-car; and, on reaching the pillar-box on the edge of the pavement, seemed glad to alight upon it.

'Poor little beggar!' exclaimed the driver of the ear compassionately. 'There'll be very little left of him by nightfall!'

'Very little left of him by nightfall!' All that was left of him by nightfall was a little heap of ruffled gold, lifeless and cold, lying under the elm. Or, perhaps, less even than that was left of him. For, now that I come to think of it, I distinctly remember seeing a big black cat, with a wicked look in his eye, sunning himself on a wall near by.

Nightfall! But what a day it was that closed with that sad and tragic nightfall! Think of it!

Dawn! He sings in his cage at the window; sings, not of the cage, but in it. He sings the song that exiles ever sing: the song of home! He sings of the glowing sunshine of those tropic isles to which his happy tribe belongs; he sings of waving palm trees and terraced vineyards; he sings of a soft luxurious clime to which stern winter never comes. And, singing, he forgets the cage and the window and the bustling street outside. He is sing-ing the song of liberty, the song of independence, the song of home!

Day! The morning brings the chance of freedom. His young mistress feeds him, gives him sugar and seed and water, and-leaves the door insecurely fastened! He flies lightly against it, and it swings upon its hinges! He perches on the wire at the open doorway and faces the issues-the cage behind; the great, great world beyond! He is a prisoner; a pampered prisoner, it is true; but a prisoner none the less. Shall he go back to a life of ease and luxury-and prison bars? Or shall he go out to a life of struggle and hardship-and liberty? He makes the decision that any really gallant spirit would have made. And, two minutes later, the empty cage hangs in the window to tell the young mistress the silent story of her sad bereavement. The canary is out in the wide, wide world. He has his liberty; but his liberty soon becomes a burden to him. He grows dazed and confused. He tries to fly across the street; but to his unpractised wings, it is a long, long way. In his desperation he thinks to settle on the moving tram, but, as it draws near, it seems like a huge monster cruelly pursuing him. By a frantic effort he struggles to the pillar-box. And the rest of his sad story is already known to us.

Now this is tragic enough, but it represents a greater tragedy still. At least, it represents two; perhaps even three. In his Little Journey to the Home of Thomas Huxley, Elbert Hubbard says that 'two tragedies confront man on his journey through life-one when he wants a thing and cannot get it; the other when he gets a thing and discovers that he does not want it.' Huxley wanted a surgeon's diploma-till he got it! And, when he got it, he suddenly realized that a surgeon's life had no attraction for him. Now both of these tragedies are symbolized by my vision of scarlet and gold.

Here is the canary in his cage at the window, longing for freedom-the tragedy of wanting a thing and not getting it!

Here is the canary in possession of his freedom, yet failing to enjoy it-the tragedy of having a thing and finding you do not want it!

And, hard upon the heels of these two tragedies, comes the third and culminating tragedy-the dead canary under the elm at sunset!

I wish-no harm in wishing, however ridiculous the wish-I wish that, as our little canary paused, undecided, for just a moment at the doorway of his cage, I could have had a little talk with him. I wish I could have pointed out to him the fact that one of the most impressive lessons that history has taught to men is the fact that every blessing is a curse to the man who is unready for it. Wealth is a good thing; yet many a man, unprepared for its enjoyment and administration, and, totally ignorant of its responsibilities and obligations, has been destroyed by sudden affluence. Power is a good thing; but power in the hands of a man-or a mob-unfitted for power leads to inevitable tyranny and disaster. All the most sacred and most delicate relationships of life are good things-the relationship between man and maid; the relationship between husband and wife; the relationship between parent and child; and so on-yet, from the abuse of these relationships on the part of those who have shown themselves unprepared for them the most revolting infelicities of life arise.

In precisely the same way, freedom is a most excellent thing. The men who have lived and died for freedom are the heroes of the ages. Yet, if experience has demonstrated one thing more clearly than another, it is that freedom is only a good thing when the man-or the bird-is ready for freedom. When the American slaves were suddenly set free, their emancipation threatened to become an unspeakable fiasco, an irretrievable disaster. They were free, but they were not ready for freedom. Happily, men like Booker Washington, himself a slave, saw the danger and devoted their lives to the task of averting it. In his Up From Slavery, Booker Washington describes the crisis. He recalls the historic edict. 'There was no sleep that night,' he says; 'all was excitement and expectancy. Early in the morning we were all sent for. The proclamation was read: we were told that we were free and could go when and where we pleased. My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. There was great rejoicing, followed by wild scenes of ecstasy.' What is this but our little canary escaping from its cage at last? But let us read on: 'The wild rejoicing did not last long,' Booker Washington says. 'By the time the colored people returned to their cabins, there was a marked change in their feelings. The great responsibility of being free seemed to take possession of them. It was very much like suddenly turning a youth of ten or twelve years out into the world to provide for himself. Within a few hours the wild rejoicing ceased and a feeling of deep gloom seemed to pervade the slave quarters. Now that they were in actual possession of freedom, they found freedom a much more serious business than they had ever for one moment expected.' What is this but our little canary, bewildered by the traffic of the busy street, wishing himself back in his cage at the window? Had it not been for the magnificent work of Mr. Booker Washington, and the schools and colleges which he established for the training of the colored people, the emancipation of the slaves might have taken its place as the greatest catastrophe of American history. Mr. Booker Washington devoted all his energies to the task of saving his people from the fate of my little canary.

Or take the French Revolution. After ages of tyranny, the people were free at last! The tocsin had sounded, and they had risen in their might. But the hideous orgies and frightful excesses of the Revolution stand for all time as a gruesome and ghastly monument to the fact that it is easier to make a nation free than to make it fit for freedom. The unfitness of the French people for their newfound freedom cost France her best blood and her best brains; and she has never recovered from the stupendous impoverishment that she then sustained.

I wish I could have warned my little canary that life plays strange pranks with us. It takes constant watching. It maliciously ordains, for instance, that each style of life shall create and foster an appetite for a different style; yet, at the same time, it deliberately unfits us for the career with which it tantalizes us. The man who spends a sedentary life in classroom or office or study feels an increasing desire for a life of activity and adventure. He thinks that it would be glorious to burst the bands of habit and go big-game hunting in Africa, or exploring in South America, or searching for the secrets embedded in the ice and snow of polar realms. Yet whilst his tranquil life creates and inflames this lust of excitement, it simultaneously unfits him for the very enterprises of which he dreams so wistfully. Every day his sinews get softer: every day his blood gets slower: every day renders him less capable of such tough tasks. In contrast with this, the adventurer dreams fondly of a life of restfulness and seclusion. Every evening, beside his camp fire, he promises himself that, one great day, he will say good-bye to prairies and forests and jungles, and will seek a home beside some village green. But every day fastens more firmly upon him the love of danger and the passion of the unexplored. He dreams more and more fondly of the rural cottage with the lattice windows: yet his restless and roving spirit becomes every day less and less capable of entering into its felicity.

Charles Darwin has told us of the pang with which this strange law was brought home to him. He had always promised himself that, when the tension of life relaxed a little, he would abandon himself to the pleasures of art, music, and literature. 'Up to the age of thirty,' he says, 'poetry of many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, gave me great pleasure. Even as a boy I took intense delight in Shakespeare. Pictures, too, gave me considerable, and music very great delight.' During the years of his active career he had, perforce, to neglect these enjoyments, but he often said that, as soon as circumstances permitted, he would, with the greatest eagerness, return to them. The time came when circumstances did permit; but, alas, his taste had withered with the years! 'To my unspeakable sorrow,' he sadly says, 'I cannot endure to read a line of poetry. I have tried lately to enjoy Shakespeare, but I found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have even lost my taste for pictures and music. I retain some fondness for beautiful scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did. My mind seems to have become a mere machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts.' Such is the tyranny of the cage! The cage makes the fields and the woods appear unutterably enticing, yet, all the time, it is robbing the poor bird of the very capacities that would make liberty delightful!

There is yet another consideration to which my little canary should have given due weight before embarking on his tragic enterprise. If, before spreading his wings, he had consulted me, I should have pointed out to him that he is only a unit, an individual, a solitary; and, as such, he is bound to go to the wall. There are only two kinds of creatures in the world-the wolves and the sheep. There are, that is to say, the fierce things and the gentle things. At first blush it would seem as if the gentle things must swiftly be exterminated. Tennyson says in In Memoriam that Nature is 'red in tooth and claw.' And, again, in Maud, he says:

For Nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal; The mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the shrike, And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey!

With Tennyson, the lamb is always in the fangs of the wolf; the meek-eyed antelope is slain by the pitiless panther; the dove is done to death by the hawk. But if this is the truth, and the whole truth, how is it that in the age-long struggle for existence the gentler creatures are getting all the best of it? The contest between the gazelle and the hyena seems a most unequal one; yet the fact is that, whilst the gazelle is constantly multiplying, zoolo-gists are seriously concerned about the future of the hyena. 'The sparrow is spear'd by the shrike,' says Tennyson; yet, in spite of that uncomfortable circumstance, the sparrow is doing marvellously well, whilst shrikes are very seldom seen.

Prince Kropotkin once wrote a most fascinating book to show that, on all the steppes and plains and prairies of the world, the harmless creatures are multiplying amazingly, whilst the beasts of prey are dying out. And why? Simply because the gentler things understand the secret of co-operation. The sparrow, seeing the feast, flies off and spreads the news among its fellows. Lapwings, gathering together and attacking in massed formation, can drive off an eagle. Similarly, wagtails will overwhelm a sparrow-hawk, and swallows a falcon. Wild horses and zebras, threatened by a beast of prey, rush together and, standing with their faces to the foe, are impregnable. Prince Kropotkin has pages and pages of such illustrations. The gentle creatures of the wild are more than holding their own, and they are doing it by means of their community instinct, their genius for cooperation. But what allies has our little canary in the world into which he soars ? He goes out a unit-friend-less, mateless, helpless-and, therefore, he goes out to die.

That is the worst of seclusion whether in a cage or in a cloister. The sheltered soul gets out of touch with life. The shelter may be very attractive, just as a cage may be made very beautiful. But the peril is none the less grave on that account. 'Mid pleasures and palaces there's no place like home; yet, even home threatens our boys and girls with destruction if it protects without preparing them The monastic system is at least logical. It recognizes that the sheltered souls in the cloisters are unfitted by their very seclusion for the fierce combat of the busy world; and it takes good care that they are never exposed to it. They pass from their cloisters to their graves. But with these dear homes of ours it is quite otherwise. These laughing little madcaps of ours will not long remain under the kindly and beneficent restraints of home. The time soon comes for them to go out into the rough and tumble of life. They will have to mix with all sorts and conditions of men-good, 'bad, and indifferent. They will come into touch with life on its sinister and seamy side; they will see things and hear things that their parents would gladly have given their lives to spare them. Yet no reasonable person would wish it otherwise. The finest strains of character are only evolved under such conditions. The sensible parent will shed no tears about it; he will sternly resolve that home, for his children, sha not only be a shelter but a training-ground. He will reflect on the pathos of the dead canary under the elm-tree, and will register a vow that none of the young people in his home shall, through any fault of his, become the victims of an even more desolating tragedy.

The canary-having its liberty, yet unable to enjoy it-has, therefore, some vitally important things to say. Many a man, for example, looks forward to enjoying, in his later years, a freedom that, in his busier days, has been impossible to him. If he pays heed to the canary, he will be at some pains to fit himself for the freedom that he so pleasurably anticipates. It would be a thousand pities if, in his case, as in the case of the canary, freedom proved only a disappointment after all. 'If,' said Darwin ruefully, 'if I had to live my life over again, I would make it a rule to read a little poetry and hear a little music every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use.' A man should, during his strenuous years, keep his soul in tune with the things that he hopes to enjoy when the strain is relaxed.

And, as I pursue this line of thought, the canary on the pillar-box suddenly assumes a still more serious tone. He reminds me that, one day, I shall find my cage door open and shall plume my wings for flight. One day I shall leave the window and fly out into the infinite. It would be the tragedy of tragedies if, when that day comes, my great adventure fills me with nothing but bewilderment and alarm. Within the narrow limits of my present life I must seek so to develop all my faculties and powers that, when the door opens, I may enter into my freedom with confidence and greet the unknown with a song.

Boreham, F. W. Wisps of Wildfire. The Abingdon Press, 1924. pp. 22-33.