A Tramps Sketches | Page 2

of confused influences of all kinds striving to find some
habitation in the temple of my being.
What had been my delight in the country, my receptivity and
hospitality of consciousness, became in the town my misery and my
despair.
For imagine! Within my own calm mirror a beautiful world had seen
itself rebuilded. Mountains and valleys lay within me, robed in sunny
and cloudy days or marching in the majesty of storm. I had inbreathed
their mystery and outbreathed it again as my own. I had gazed at the
wide foaming seas till they had gazed into me, and all their waves
waved their proud crests within me. Beauteous plains had tempted,
mysterious dark forests lured me, and I had loved them and given them
habitation in my being. My soul had been wedded to the great strong
sun and it had slumbered under the watchful stars.
The silence of vast lonely places was preserved in my breast. Or against
the background of that silence resounded in my being the roar of the
billows of the ocean. Great winds roared about my mountains, or the
whispering snow hurried over them as over tents. In my valleys I heard
the sound of rivulets; in my forests the birds. Choirs of birds sang
within my breast. I had been a playfellow with God. God had played
with me as with a child.
Bound by so intimate a tie, how terrible to have been betrayed to a
town!
For now, fain would the evil city reflect itself in my calm soul, its
commerce take up a place within the temple of my being. I had left
God's handiwork and come to the man-made town. I had left the
inexplicable and come to the realm of the explained. In the holy temple
were arcades of shops; through its precincts hurried the trams; the
pictures of trade were displayed; men were building hoardings in my

soul and posting notices of idol-worship, and hurrying throngs were
reading books of the rites of idolatry. Instead of the mighty anthem of
the ocean I heard the roar of traffic. Where had been mysterious forests
now stood dark chimneys, and the songs of birds were exchanged for
the shrill whistle of trains.
And my being began to express itself to itself in terms of commerce.
"Oh God," I cried in my sorrow, "who did play with me among the
mountains, refurnish my soul! Purge Thy Temple as Thou didst in
Jerusalem of old time, when Thou didst overset the tables of the
money-changers."
Then the spirit drove me into the wilderness to my mountains and
valleys, by the side of the great sea and by the haunted forests. Once
more the vast dome of heaven became the roof of my house, and within
the house was rebuilded that which my soul called beautiful. There I
refound my God, and my being re-expressed itself to itself in terms of
eternal Mysteries. I vowed I should never again belong to the town.
As upon a spring day the face of heaven is hid and a storm descends,
winds ruffle the bosom of a pure lake, the flowers droop, wet, the birds
cease singing, and rain rushes over all, and then anon the face of
heaven clears, the sun shines forth, the flowers look up in tears, the
birds sing again, and the pure lake reflects once more the pure depth of
the sky, so now my glad soul, which had lost its sun, found it again and
remembered its birds and its flowers.

II
NIGHTS OUT ON A PERFECT VAGABONDAGE
I
I have been a whole season in the wilds, tramping or idling on the
Black Sea shore, living for whole days together on wild fruit, sleeping
for the most part under the stars, bathing every morning and evening in
the clear warm sea. It is difficult to tell the riches of the life I have had,
the significance of the experience. I have felt pulse in my veins wild
blood which my instincts had forgotten in the town. I have felt myself
come back to Nature.
During the first month after my departure from the town I slept but
thrice under man's roof. I slept all alone, on the hillside, in the
maize-fields, in the forest, in old deserted houses, in caves, ruins, like a

wild animal gone far afield in search of prey. I never knew in advance
where I should make my night couch; for I was Nature's guest and my
hostess kept her little secrets. Each night a new secret was opened, and
in the secret lay some pleasant mystery. Some of the mysteries I
guessed--there are many guesses in these pages--some I only tried to
guess, and others I could only wonder over. All manner of