| PERHAPS
our keenest impulses, our joys and hopes and depressions,
spring from tides of influence beyond our control. And
we are not altogether to be held responsible for moods.
More impalpable than the shadows of flying clouds, our
moods sweep over us, changing the complexion of day,
moving us to elation or sadness. The folly and utter
inconsequence of moods would seem to prove this.
Whatever the origin of our moods,
certainly some of them may clearly be thought to spring
from primitive ancestral, almost cosmic, trends of inheritance,
and the habits of old generations on the earth. So that
many [Page 169] causes we do not take
note of are concerned in making our happiness.
With
the vernal change of the year comes our immemorial migratory
mood, noted long ago so beautifully by Chaucer in the
opening of the Tales, with its description of April,
when the pilgrim spirit is abroad. Long before that
delightful cavalcade set out for Canterbury, folk had
become wanderers and incipient vagabonds in spring;
and the old poet’s picture is as fresh and true
for this day as it was half a thousand years ago. And
perhaps we know the zest of spring even more keenly
than our fathers, as we need its refreshment the more.
To really know the rapture of April, however, one must
have lived a winter in the frozen north, where cold
shuts down like an iron lid in November and is never
once unlocked until mid-April. Then, indeed, the warm
spring days return to these austere hyperborean regions
with a radiance unknown to other zones, and their May-time
is like relief to a beleaguered city. Fancy for [Page
170] yourself the joy of feeling firm brown
earth underfoot after treading the yielding snow for
six months together! If you have ever walked half a
block through a sandy blizzard and then come suddenly
upon the good pavement, you will have some notion of
the mere bodily relief.
But
if there is so much pleasurable relief in the mere passing
of cold, what pure pleasure of spirit do we not share
in the migratory season. Every unfolding leaf is an
infection of joy; every wild bird-note has its answering
reverberation in ourselves. Perhaps from our small brothers
of the air we have inherited a touch of their genius
for wandering, and from our dumb kindred of the forest,
something of the power of perceptible growth. We, too,
unfold in spring, put forth new capacities, and have
stirrings for change of scene, for adventures. We feel
dimly that we are truly inheritors of the kingdom of
freedom, not mere serfs of convention and town.
This
vague, subhuman, primitive longing [Page 171]
has its effect, no doubt, in our social customs,
our homes and holiday resorts. And if we are growing
more strenuous, we are growing more simple and natural
as well. “The season” in town grows shorter
and shorter, the habit of a country holiday more universal.
It is no longer considered smart to flock in huge, hideous
hotels; the seclusion of some sleepy farmhouse in a
nest of hills is the approved thing, as it is really
the better.
The
need we all have of just this migratory movement every
year! If you note it, you will perceive the uncomfortable
irritability of your friends in spring. They say they
are all out of sorts. But all they need is a little
natural existence, a cessation from artificial conditions.
I read the other day what seemed to me a very clever
bit of realism, a story called “Kate Wetherell.”
She was one of those slaves of the kitchen said to be
common in New England; she became so discouraged that
one night she attempted suicide by drowning. But a providential
rope saved her [Page 172] life, and
the daring midnight venture resulted only in a thorough
wetting. Kate went home walking on air, to her tiresome,
dull husband and her round of pots. From that day she
was a changed woman, with an unquenchable seed of elation
within her.
Poor,
driven human soul, how often you fancy that you want
to pass from this bitter round of trial and toil, when
in reality all you need is a bath and a sleep! Take
off those silly, cramping garments, that idiotic silk
stock that deforms your neck, those Chinese shoes that
deform your feet; get into some sensible flannels, and
be away to the hills or the sea! If you would only follow
your instinct occasionally, instead of making yourself
the uncomfortable cipher of fashion and custom! There
is only one way in the world to be distinguished: Follow
your instinct! Be yourself, and you’ll be somebody.
Be one more blind follower of the blind, and you will
have the oblivion you deserve. Instincts were made to
be heeded, not to be thwarted. Personality [Page
173] was made to be cherished, not to be annihilated.
And it is right to want to move from the narrow and
constricting to the broad and ennobling. You cannot
go to the country too soon this summer, nor stay too
long.
Let
us give ample play to the migratory mood, believing
it an inheritance from vaster times and a hint of unmeasured
journeys yet to come. Let us become well accustomed
to it, attaching ourselves not too firmly to one place,
nor to one tenet, nor to one custom, however good. [Page
174]
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