THE TESTAMENT O F BEAUTY - 1929 - CONTENTS I INTRODUCTION . p. I I1
SELFHOOD . 37 111 BREED . 81 IV ETI-IICK . . I31 T H E T E S T A M
E N T O F B E A U T Y BOOK I - - Introduction -- M ORTAL Prudence,
handmaid of divine Providence, hath inscrutable reckoning with Fate
and Fortune We sail a changeful sea through halcyon days and storm,
and when the ship laboureth, our stedfast purpose trembles like as
the compass in a binnacle. Our stability is but balance, and
conduct lies in masterful administration of the unforeseen. Twas
late in my long journey, when I had clomb to where the path was
narrowing and the company few, a glow of childlike wonder enthrald
me, as if my sense 10 had come to a new birth purified, my mind
enrapt re-awakening to a fresh initiation of life with like
surprise of joy as any man may know who rambling wide hath turnd,
resting on some hill-top to view the plain he has left, and seeth
it now out-spredd mappd at his feet, a landscape so by beauty
estranged he scarce wil ken familiar haunts, nor his own home,
maybe, where far it lieth, small as a faded thought. Or as I well
remember one highday in June bright on the seaward South-downs,
where I had come afar 20 on a wild garden planted years agone, and
fenced thickly within live-beechen walls the season it was of
prodigal gay blossom, and mans skill had made a fair-orderd
husbandry of thatt nativ pleasaunce But had ther been no more than
earths wild loveliness, the blue sky and soft air and the unmown
flowersprent lawns, I would hav lain me down and longd, as then I
did, to lie there ever indolently undisturbd, and watch the common
flowers that starrd the fine grass of the wold, waving in gay
display their gold-headsto the sun, 30 each telling of its own
inconscient happiness, each type a faultless essence of Gods will,
such gems as magic master-minds in painting or music threw aside
once for mans regard or disregard 2 things supreme in C emselves,
eternal, unnumberd in the unexplored necessities of Life and Love.
To such a mood I had come, by what charm I know not, where on thatt
upland path I was pacing alone and yet was nothing new to me, only
all was vivid and significant that had been dormant or dead as if
in a museum the fossils on their shelves should come to life
suddenly, or a winter rose-bed burst into crowded holiday of scent
and bloom. I felt the domination of Natures secret urge, and happy
escape therein as when in boyhood once from the rattling workshops
of a great factory conducted into the engine-room I stood in face
of the quiet driving power, that fast in nether cave seated, set
all the floors a-quiver, a thousand looms throbbing and jennies
dancing and I felt at heart a kinship with it and sympathy, as
children wil with amicable monsters for in truth the mind is
indissociable from what it contemplates, as thirst and generous
wine are to a man that drinketh nor kenneth whether his pleasur is
more in his desire or in the savor of the rich grape that allays
it. Mans Reason is in such deep insolvency to sense, that tho she
guide his highest flight heavnward, and teach him dignity morals
manners and human comfort, she can delicatly and dangerously
bedizen 60 the rioting joys that fringe the sad pathways of Hell...
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