Dedication
TO
MRS. WATERHOUSE
Lomberdale Hall, in the High Peak
There is, high among the hills, a garden with a
walk--a terraced walk. The moors lie round it, and the heights face it; and
below the village drowses; while far, far afield, the world agonizes in a
solemn tragedy of righteousness (where you, too, have your sepulchres)--a
tragedy not quite divorced from the war in heaven, nor all unworthy of the
glorious cusp of sky that roofs the riot of the hills.
The walk begins with a conservatory of flowers
and it ends in an old Gothic arch--rising, as it were, from beauty natural and
frail to beauty spiritual and eternal. And it curves and twines between rocky
plants, as if to suggest how arduous the passage from the natural to the
spiritual is. And it has, half-way, a little hermitage on it, like a wayside
chapel, of old carved and inscribed stones. And the music and the pictures!
Close by, the mowers whir upon the lawn, and the thrust flutes in the birch
hedge; beyond, in the gash of the valley, the stream purrs up through the
steep woods; still farther, the limestone rocks rise fantastic, like castles in
the air; and, over all, the lark still soars and sings in the sun (as he does
even in Flanders), and makes melody in his heart to the Lord.
That terrace was made with a purpose and a
welcome at will. And it is good to pace the Italian paving, to tread the
fragrance from the alyssum in the seams, to brood upon the horizons of the far,
long wolds, with their thread of road rising and vanishing into busy Craven,
and all the time to think greatly of God and kindly of men--faithfully of the
past, lovingly of the present, and hopefully of the future.
So in our soul let us make a cornice road for God
to come when He will, and walk upon our high places. And a little lodge and
shelter let us have on it, of sacred stones, a shrine of ancient writ and
churchly memories. Let us make an eyrie there of large vision and humane, a
retreat of rest and refitting for a dreadful world. May He show us, up there
apart, transfigured things in a noble light. May He prepare us for the sorrows
of the valley by a glorious peace, and for the action of life by a fellowship
gracious, warm, and noble (as even earthly friendships may be). So may we face
all the harsh realisms of Time in the reality, power, and kindness of the
Eternal, whose Mercy is as His Majesty for ever.
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