gentle, and firm.
And when the burning moment breaks,
And all things else are out of mind,
And only Joy of Battle takes
Him by the throat and makes him blind,
Through joy and blindness he shall know,
Not caring much to know, that still
Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so
That it be not the Destined Will.
The thundering line of battle stands,
And in the air Death moans and sings;
But Day shall clasp him with strong hands,
And Night shall fold him in
soft wings.
In the silence that followed he could hear the flap of the flames and the slight clicking of beads; then the low voice of Father Aloysius began to pray in Latin. Captain Kingsman and his wife bowed their heads, followed by Phillip. He felt himself to be small and simple, and blessed.
“And now,” said the priest, as he drew up his chair, “tell me about your Redpoll herd, Dolly, and if the cows are doing their duty. I am looking forward to that bowl of cream, and that blackberry and apple pudding that Marty in the kitchen, bless her, knows so well how to make.”
What a marvellous poem, Phillip was thinking, again and again. And yet——
*
It was a marvellous dinner, he thought, looking round the table lit by tapers burning in Elizabethan holders of hand-wrought silver. Now he knew why he had felt that something was wrong with the Kingsmans, and the explanation was as sad as it was simple: he had taken for granted that all homes, or the people in them, were like his own. These people were kind, and because they were kind they were polite to one another. And they did not show their feelings or their spiritual bruises because they were not bruised. Even the death of their only son had not broken as it were their skins. Father Aloysius before they had gone into dinner had whispered to him that their son, their only child, had been shot down during the battle of Loos by the German airman Boelcke flying a Fokker; so, said the priest, “Let us not speak harshly of the mistakes or deficiencies of others. We are all pitiful in our errors, our lives are composed of joy and of Virgil’s lacrimae rerum, ‘the tears of things’.”
The dinner had begun with oxtail soup, and with it the butler had three-quarter filled a small glass with dark red sweet wine, which somehow just suited the soup. On the decanter was a silverlabel, Madeira. Asked by Father Aloysius (dare he call him ‘Lulu’, wondered Phillip, and thought it better to keep his distance) what it was, Kingsman replied, “Bual Solera, 1826”. After the soup came pink fish, which he thought was salmon; but Kingsman said it was sea-trout, which had been in the ice-house since last September. With this fish was a cold pale wine which made Phillip think of a sea-cave, by still water; they were allowed two three-quarter glasses only of this wine, which Kingsman said came from a Jesuit monastery on the banks of the Rhine, the Forster Jesuitengarten. By the time his plate was taken away Phillip was no longer metaphorically sitting on his hands; he was soaring happily in this new world of grace and friendship. With the pheasant came two more three-quarter glasses of claret, Château Haut-Brion bottled, said Kingsman, before the Franco-Prussian war, in 1862.
Now he knew why people talked about food and wine, which when matched, and balanced, had a wonderful effect on one, of life at its best, without any feeling of being tight.
By the time the blackberry and apple pudding came in, with cream in a bowl dull yellow which he realised was gold, he floated in timeless happiness. What wonderful people he had met, owing to the war! Then, thinking of his own home—of the constriction of spirit there, of his mother’s anxiety and fear of upsetting the feelings of his father, of his sister Mavis who was not like other girls, but critical and never satisfied, and ashamed of him as she was of Father—he sighed, thinking that he had no right to be so happy. If only the others at home could know that such
And when the burning moment breaks,
And all things else are out of mind,
And only Joy of Battle takes
Him by the throat and makes him blind,
Through joy and blindness he shall know,
Not caring much to know, that still
Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so
That it be not the Destined Will.
The thundering line of battle stands,
And in the air Death moans and sings;
But Day shall clasp him with strong hands,
And Night shall fold him in
soft wings.
In the silence that followed he could hear the flap of the flames and the slight clicking of beads; then the low voice of Father Aloysius began to pray in Latin. Captain Kingsman and his wife bowed their heads, followed by Phillip. He felt himself to be small and simple, and blessed.
“And now,” said the priest, as he drew up his chair, “tell me about your Redpoll herd, Dolly, and if the cows are doing their duty. I am looking forward to that bowl of cream, and that blackberry and apple pudding that Marty in the kitchen, bless her, knows so well how to make.”
What a marvellous poem, Phillip was thinking, again and again. And yet——
*
It was a marvellous dinner, he thought, looking round the table lit by tapers burning in Elizabethan holders of hand-wrought silver. Now he knew why he had felt that something was wrong with the Kingsmans, and the explanation was as sad as it was simple: he had taken for granted that all homes, or the people in them, were like his own. These people were kind, and because they were kind they were polite to one another. And they did not show their feelings or their spiritual bruises because they were not bruised. Even the death of their only son had not broken as it were their skins. Father Aloysius before they had gone into dinner had whispered to him that their son, their only child, had been shot down during the battle of Loos by the German airman Boelcke flying a Fokker; so, said the priest, “Let us not speak harshly of the mistakes or deficiencies of others. We are all pitiful in our errors, our lives are composed of joy and of Virgil’s lacrimae rerum, ‘the tears of things’.”
The dinner had begun with oxtail soup, and with it the butler had three-quarter filled a small glass with dark red sweet wine, which somehow just suited the soup. On the decanter was a silverlabel, Madeira. Asked by Father Aloysius (dare he call him ‘Lulu’, wondered Phillip, and thought it better to keep his distance) what it was, Kingsman replied, “Bual Solera, 1826”. After the soup came pink fish, which he thought was salmon; but Kingsman said it was sea-trout, which had been in the ice-house since last September. With this fish was a cold pale wine which made Phillip think of a sea-cave, by still water; they were allowed two three-quarter glasses only of this wine, which Kingsman said came from a Jesuit monastery on the banks of the Rhine, the Forster Jesuitengarten. By the time his plate was taken away Phillip was no longer metaphorically sitting on his hands; he was soaring happily in this new world of grace and friendship. With the pheasant came two more three-quarter glasses of claret, Château Haut-Brion bottled, said Kingsman, before the Franco-Prussian war, in 1862.
Now he knew why people talked about food and wine, which when matched, and balanced, had a wonderful effect on one, of life at its best, without any feeling of being tight.
By the time the blackberry and apple pudding came in, with cream in a bowl dull yellow which he realised was gold, he floated in timeless happiness. What wonderful people he had met, owing to the war! Then, thinking of his own home—of the constriction of spirit there, of his mother’s anxiety and fear of upsetting the feelings of his father, of his sister Mavis who was not like other girls, but critical and never satisfied, and ashamed of him as she was of Father—he sighed, thinking that he had no right to be so happy. If only the others at home could know that such
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