Studies and Essays: The Inn of Tranquility, and OthersGalsworthy, John
General
Studies and Essays: The Inn of Tranquility, and Others
Galsworthy, John
Autobiographical fiction; Essays; Short stories
There was a bee weighing down a blossom of thyme close by, and underneath
the stalk a very ugly little centipede. The wild bee, with his little
dark body and his busy bear's legs, was lovely to me, and the creepy
centipede gave me shudderings; but it was a pleasant thing to feel so
sure that he, no less than the bee, was a little mood expressing himself
out in harmony with Designs tiny thread on the miraculous quilt. And I
looked at him with a sudden zest and curiosity; it seemed to me that in
the mystery of his queer little creepings I was enjoying the Supreme
Mystery; and I thought: "If I knew all about that wriggling beast, then,
indeed, I might despise him; but, truly, if I knew all about him I should
know all about everything--Mystery would be gone, and I could not bear to
live!"
So I stirred him with my finger and he went away.
"But how"--I thought "about such as do not feel it ridiculous to despise;
how about those whose temperaments and religions show them all things so
plainly that they know they are right and others wrong? They must be in a
bad way!" And for some seconds I felt sorry for them, and was
discouraged. But then I thought: "Not at all--obviously not! For if
they do not find it ridiculous to feel contempt, they are perfectly right
to feel contempt, it being natural to them; and you have no business to
be sorry for them, for that is, after all, only your euphemism for
contempt. They are all right, being the expressions of contemptuous
moods, having religions and so forth, suitable to these moods; and the
religion of your mood would be Greek to them, and probably a matter for
contempt. But this only makes it the more interesting. For though to
you, for instance, it may seem impossible to worship Mystery with one
lobe of the brain, and with the other to explain it, the thought that
this may not seem impossible to others should not discourage you; it is
but another little piece of that Mystery which makes life so wonderful
and sweet."
The sun, fallen now almost to the level of the cliff, was slanting upward
on to the burnt-red pine boughs, which had taken to themselves a quaint
resemblance to the great brown limbs of the wild men Titian drew in his
pagan pictures, and down below us the sea-nymphs, still swimming to
shore, seemed eager to embrace them in the enchanted groves. All was
fused in that golden glow of the sun going down-sea and land gathered
into one transcendent mood of light and colour, as if Mystery desired to
bless us by showing how perfect was that worshipful adjustment, whose
secret we could never know. And I said to myself: "None of those
thoughts of yours are new, and in a vague way even you have thought them
before; but all the same, they have given you some little feeling of
tranquillity."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account