Will Levington Comfort

HEJIRA

We found we were a bit tied in the Middle West, caught somewhat whether we liked it or not, in the meshes of possession. Steve and I had liked it much out on the Southern California strand.... When one reads in the earlier book,[12] the stress that we put on building that big stone house on Lake Erie; this felicitous hejira may disconcert.

The fact is, we wearied of possession. We found ourselves yearning for that beauty which is unconfined. We were athirst for new things, a different break of seasons and taxes.... The world was so full of people who could build and buy and own and insure, that we decided we should be doing the things that the others could not. We were glad to have built the house for the other fellow. We had to do it. We learned how to run it well, in and out—but it was a stone house. When a man builds a stone house with walls eighteen inches thick, he must leave a hole to get out; also he must be sure that he isn't building on his own chest.... In true Hive spirit, we renounced at the highest moment of possession.

The crowd cannot be seen by one who stands in the crowd. On the same basis a man cannot see the relation of his house to the road or garden from the inside of the house. The world must be regarded from outside to be seen as a whole. The New Race is determined to see it so. This outside is none other than the mystical viewpoint of all world artists and builders.

One does not know what friends are, until one discovers that the secret of friendship is not in getting but in giving. No one knows what love is until he reverses all the laws that the many follow now. I do not mean lawlessness. I mean the higher law that is found at last by the quester after goodness, beauty and truth. We have to finish with the world as it is before we set out in quest of a better country.... We found that we had to become active servants of a finer ideal than householding at its highest. We determined to do more than to dream this ideal; we set about to make a better country. At worst, we work for our children.

It came to us many times before we moved that we were forever done with things as they are; that we had come to the end of show and property-measure and hoarding; to the end of the love of self which destroys the vision for friendship; to the end of domesticity which holds one's neighbour as prey or rival; to the end of civic identification, or relation with any federated commonwealth, which fancies its existence threatened by the prosperity of other political bodies. No heat about it.

We came to the edge of the Lake in vanloads; we went away with bags.... I turned from the eastern distance on the bluff, on one of the last days, and looked at the vined study and the big stone house, the elms so strong and green about it. I remembered the early picture of all this. It began from Stevenson's Treasure of Franchard, many years ago,—how old Dr. Duprez went out in the morning and tried grapes and plums with the dew on them, sniffing the perfumes of his own yard, dwelling in his own orchards.

I remember one day before building that the man came to us about the young trees. He had pictures of them in books—blooms and fruits of such colours that nature would never be guilty of—all the fruits I heard of as a boy—white grapes that never grow in this country, purple ones that grow whether you care or not....

The trees were coming on now, many with ripening fruit. The grove of elms was a matter of collateral, as the bank would say. The break-water had caught up thousands of yards of sand. It worked—the old struggle of wasting banks forgotten until a greater storm. The honeysuckles that were planned to climb the bars of the study windows, had to be trimmed now for any light at all. The wistaria trailed admirably and imposed upon the front the sense of years.

... We had planned to have all the fruits; some of the finest were now in flower. We came with many clothes, underwear and outerwear, wool and dark things. We left with a few light effects in our hands—to find a place where white garments might be worn in peace. We came with a great idea of food—game and fishes, meats, poultry, many cans and vegetables and desserts. We went away with a taste for graham bread and butter—a spread of honey, a glass of milk. We came with a fear of disease for the children, fear of colds, fear of losing something, or having something taken away, doubtless having the fear of death and accident. We went away with a clear idea of what death is and the advantage of it, children and adults alike.

Young children rode the horse that had a reputation for being wild-spirited and very much a man's mount. We had seen the deep places of the Lake fill with sunshine. We came with parasols and awnings and protections against the sun. Most of us would like to have worn nothing but a breech-clout had the town permitted; and the only time we had found the world hard to bear, was the long grey Spring days of rain.

Sunlight—it is closer to God and happiness and manhood and every delight than words can suggest. The more you know of it, the more you need; the more you love it, the more its mysterious excellence unfolds. I know what sunstroke is, and what the sickness from heat is. It's a vile state of the body, or vile clothing that stifles the body. When one is well and has learned to come back to the Father of Lights—there is no fear in his heart. I used to wear a helmet and dark glasses, but no more—eyes stronger than ever. I look for the sun in the morning and stare up from the sand into his face at high noon. There is nothing the matter with sunlight. The sadness and the sickness is with those who bring their quilts and cloaks to hide it from their flesh....

It's all in synthesis. The end of bulk possession is pain.... We started in with many flowers. We ended with roses. It's all in the tea-rose.... By careful selection of thoughts over a little period, we can come into the joy of flowers in other people's gardens. There are brave men who allow you to walk in their orchards; and there are many who work hard to raise fruits for a price. There is much joy, if you really look at it, in building a house for another fellow.

We start with the brute materials—beginning with the clay itself. Our cultivations become more intensive through the years. All life is so. We take the extract of a thing at last—a shelf of books where formerly we wanted a roomful—somebody's else little rented bungalow, where formerly we wanted an estate. We realise, at last, that there is an essence to be obtained from the extract, an oil from the essence—a spirit at last from the oil. The whole story is in that—synthesis. Slowly, at last, we begin to set ourselves free. We descend into matter; learn its lessons and laws, rise like a plant through the darkness to the light, integrating force to meet and cope with the new and lighter element. I held up seven little books in one hand—weighing no more than a new novel.

"It's all in these," I said to the Chapel. "One could put these in his bag and have it all."

... And then at last, I went down alone and empty-handed to the shore, meditated on God with sun and sand and flowing airs.... All matter is scaffolding which falls away. A man thinks he builds a house for himself, but no sooner has he put on the last tile than death or the open road calls. He chooses his climate and grows out of it. He thinks he must possess, that he must hoard against a rainy day, and he gathers the stuff of death about him. If he cannot rise, death covers him for the time. Dr. Duprez didn't speak of the care of his orchard, or his garden. It was all story to me. Dear R.L.S. He didn't dream of the work of the hand necessary to keep up an orchard, and have a connoisseur's joy for a few summer days of the year. He didn't tell of the parasites, the sprinklings, the arsenates and pumps, nor of the little winged migrators that sit on the hills, waiting for the potatoes to come up. The call comes to possess nothing. It had better be answered.