Autumn XXIV. Waking too early

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: Autumn XXIII. A reckoning

Waking at early dawn used to be one of the things I most dreaded. The night which made me capable of resuming labour had brought no such calm as should follow upon repose; I woke to a vision of the darkest miseries and lay through the hours of daybreak -- too often -- in very anguish. But that is past. Sometimes, ere yet I know myself, the mind struggles as with an evil spirit on the confines of sleep; then the light at my window, the pictures on my walls, restore me to happy consciousness, happier for the miserable dream. Now, when I lie thinking, my worst trouble is wonder at the common life of man. I see it as a thing so incredible that it oppresses the mind like a haunting illusion. Is it the truth that men are fretting, raving, killing each other, for matters so trivial that I, even I, so far from saint or philosopher, must needs fall into amazement when I consider them? I could imagine a man who, by living alone and at peace, came to regard the everyday world as not really existent, but a creation of his own fancy in unsound moments. What lunatic ever dreamt of things less consonant with the calm reason than those which are thought and done every minute in every community of men called sane? But I put aside this reflection as soon as may be; it perturbs me fruitlessly. Then I listen to the sounds about my cottage, always soft, soothing, such as lead the mind to gentle thoughts. Sometimes I can hear nothing; not the rustle of a leaf, not the buzz of a fly, and then I think that utter silence is best of all.

Ryecroft really has a point here about the “common life of man” seeming like a lunatic dream when viewed from a place of calm reflection. The things people grow incensed about are so puzzling: What other people do with their genitals; the subtle differences between the invisible beings they believe in; the degree of skin pigmentation... surely someone is making all this up. It’s like reading about the Byzantine Blues and Greens -- are people really killing each other over this? Even if you understand that the Blues and Greens had become about much more than just chariot racing by Justinian’s time, it remains hard to interpret this phenomenon as anything but another instance of Shiva and Kali in a dance of destruction. Which brings us back to Edmund Burke again, people seem to be rather eager to join the dance of destruction with so little provocation, even though the negative consequences are, or should be, pretty obvious.

... For the last few days I have seen the swallows gathering, now they were ranged upon my roof, perhaps in the last council before their setting forth upon the great journey... I know that these birds show to us a life far more reasonable, and infinitely more beautiful, than that of the masses of mankind. They talk with each other, and in their talk is neither malice nor folly. Could one but interpret the converse in which  they make their plans for the long and perilous flight -- and then compare it with that of numberless respectable persons who even now are projecting their winter in the South!

I think Mr. Gissing is understating the “Nature, red in tooth and claw” character of even the gentle south England night. If he were a hen in a poorly defended coup, he would regard the night with rather more apprehension.

I’m particularly fond of swallows, there is no bird I would rather watch in flight, but I am also reminded, reading this, that the life of tiny sparrows and wrens is disturbingly similar to the territorial street gangs in the Mission district here. If you are wearing the colors of one gang, you will be attacked if you walk between 24th and 16th streets because you will trespass on the other gang’s territory. (The gang colors, by the way, are red and blue. If they were blue and green this would have just been too perfect.)

Similarly, you will often see, if you pay attention, a cloud of tiny birds attacking another tiny bird who, ignorant of the neighborhood songs, flew into the wrong territory. These little beasts may look charming but they are in fact fierce to each other, just as we often are.

Next: Autumn XXV. Autumn to winter.