but now the quiet days of september are come. september, which is the twilight of the year—rather, i would call it the first hint of twilight, when the flush and glow are sobering down, and a cast of thoughtfulness is deepening day by day upon the months. “autumn has o’erbrimmed the clammy cells” of the bees; the fields, where the long rows of many sheaves stand, gradually grow bare; the intensely dark summer green of the elms and of the hedgerows out of which they rise, is interrupted here and there by a tenderer tinge; the spruce firs in the copses begin to appear more dark, distinct, and particular; the larches begin to show faint hearts, and to look more delicate beside their sombre brothers. there is rather the augury, the prescience, than the perceived presence of a change. i have fancied sometimes that the trees have224 plotted together and banded themselves by an agreement not to give in, this time, but to defy the utmost power of stripping, desolating winter. and it is curious, with this idea, to watch them. throughout september, they at least keep up appearances well, and from one to another the watchword is whispered,—

“keep a good heart, o trees, and hold the winter stern at bay!”

and for a time they moult no feather, drop no leaf; or, if one circles down here and there, it is huddled by in a corner, and they flatter themselves that none has noticed. but you watch with pitying love, knowing what the end must be. and you perceive how great the effort, the strain, becomes, to keep up appearances. here and there, at last, despite of their utmost endeavour, the hidden fire bursts out; and finally, with a wild autumnal wail, some weaker tree, in despair, gives up the unnatural and too excessive strain, and casts down a great profusion of yellow sickly foliage. there is a murmur among the stouter trees; but, in good truth, they are not sorry for the excuse, while, muttering that all is rendered useless now, like avowed bankrupts, they give up the effort to sustain appearances, and, as it were, with a sigh of relief and rest, resign them to the fate they vainly strove against and could not long avert. so the elm flames out into bars and patches, very yellow in the dark; and the chesnut is all tinged and burnt with brown; and the mulberry has slipped off all her leaves in a single night; and the ash and the sycamore blacken;225 and the white poplar leaves change to pale gold; and the pear to bronze; and the wild cherry to scarlet; and the maple to orange; and the bramble at their feet to bright crimson.

not so yet, in the twilight of the year. it is the month of tranquillity, of peaceful hush. if there be a hint of decay, it is but what has been called “calm decay”; it is but evening with the landscape, the evening of the year. you might forget, as you looked at the resting stationary aspect226 of things, that the further change, the night of winter, was indeed drawing near. there seems no prophecy of those wild tossing october arms, with the stream of leaves hurrying away in the wind; no presage of the dull november days, when, from the scanty foliage of the trees, great drops plash down upon the decaying leaves beneath, and the whole wood looms out of the fog. far less, in the full-bosomed, sober, rather air- than mist-mellowed woodlands, do you detect any foretelling of the time when all will stand, a bare thicket of gaunt boughs and naked twigs, dully shadowed in the ice, or made darker and more dreary by the great white fields of snow.

of all this there is no hint given yet, nor need we yet awake to the knowledge that we have indeed bid the summer farewell till next year. the evenings are still warm, warm with that cool warmth which is so delicious: it will be some time yet before we can see our breath as we talk: we can stay out well until eight or later, and hear through the open window the clatter of arranging tea-cups, and watch the lamp, still faint in the twilight, warm the room with a dim orange glow.

therefore i shall sit here awhile on this garden seat, and muse in and upon the twilight. the scene and place are favourable for quiet thought. the lawn is smooth and shaven; at my feet lie beds of profuse geranium, verbena, calceolaria, petunia, in their rich autumn prime, before any hint of frost has visited them. the air is quite heavy with the scent of the massed heliotrope. the colours, if sobered, are not yet lost in the fading light; the scarlets and purples are hushing227 and blending; the cherry colour, yellow, and white, have grown more distinct, and stand out more apparent upon the grass. overhead, the sky is deepening to that dusk steel blue which soon discloses the very faint yet eye-catching glimmer of one white star. across the quiet dome, and between the still, outstretched, motionless branches, the silent bats flit to and fro; there is a rustle of chafers in the lime. one sweet melancholy monotonous sound gives a background to the silence, an undertone that enhances, not in the least disturbs, the quiet. for the great charm of this garden, which lies on the slope of a hill, is, that near the foot of that hill swells and fails the ever-moving sea. and looking from my garden seat through the near rose-bushes and above the taller growth lower down the slope, i see the broad silver shield, rising, as it seems to me on my hill-seat, up the circle of its horizon. an hour ago i was admiring the brilliancy and intensity of its colour, green shoaling into blue, and sparkling in the sun; now the faint light of the broad moon shares the sway of the decaying sunlight; and i see above and through the branches a space of pale bright grey. the jewel blue of afternoon has died out from it, but the more neutral tint accords better, i feel, with the sober hour and hushed sounds of twilight. how complete is the harmony and the balance of colour in all god’s pictures!

and i love these twilight studies, that are much like the paintings, so robert browning tells us, of andrea del sarto, the faultless painter. pictures in which—

“a common greyness silvers everything, all in a twilight.”

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this is essentially a twilight poem i always think; silver-grey; a quiet calmed heart that has settled down into a deep still sadness and disappointment. he longs for those higher aspirations which can here be but imperfectly expressed, knowing that it is not well unless we hold an ideal far above our fulfilment here; and that, if we have attained all we sought in our pursuit of the beautiful and the good, we have not intended nobly enough:—

“there’s the bell clinking from the chapel-top; that length of convent wall across the way holds the trees safer, huddled more inside; the last monk leaves the garden; days decrease and autumn grows, autumn in everything. eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape as if i saw alike my work and self, and all that i was born to be and do, a twilight piece.”

is not the tone of thought here expressed one natural to us all at certain times, when for us life’s vivid lights and deep shadows have all toned into a uniform half tint? we all have such twilight hours: times when the sun has sunk, and our heart has gone down with it, and a grey depression settles gradually upon the soul. times when we feel that our life is little, and low, and mean: when we yearn for a sympathy that earth has not to give; when we turn away disheartened and disgusted from our life and from ourselves, and turn the faces of what seemed our most faultless works to the wall, and care not if we never saw them again. times when we go about to cause our heart to despair of all the labour which we took under the sun.229 times when the failures of others seem better than our successes; times when we lament over the lowness of our aim, the meanness of our intention, the winglessness of our soul; and yet times when our very discontent with all that we are and have accomplished, our very disgust at our grovelling minds, prove our affinity with higher things than any of these that we have grasped here. those anguished yearnings to be nobler prove that we are something nobler than we hold ourselves to be. the depression of the twilight marks our kindred with the golden glory of the sun. thus may we cheer our hearts, that in their dull hours are wont to judge our aims by our attainments, and from the inadequacy of the performance, to conclude the lowness of the intention. the workman’s dissatisfaction with his own life’s work is the clear proof that his inmost self is nobler, not only than his attainments, but often even than his endeavours.

i awake from my abstraction, however, and look around. the twilight has deepened, the flowers are losing their colour, the surrounding objects their distinctness. one peculiar property, sometimes a charm, sometimes a dread, of this light neither clear nor dark, begins to be developed. i mean the uncertainty, the indefiniteness, the illusions of twilight. and how many analogies occur to my mind as i sit here musing on the twilight, and comparing with it the indistinctness and the ?nigma in which we are living here.

and first i think of god’s ancient people: how many of god’s promises to them were misconceived because of the twilight in which they were seen. and we might, thinking230 shallowly, wonder that the light of prophecy was such twilight, so dim, and the objects seen in it so undefined and uncertain. for instance, how obscure and almost confusing seems to us the light given to the jews as to the spiritual nature of the messiah’s kingdom. through the twilight of prophecy we may very well fancy that a grand earthly kingdom of power and conquest loomed upon the hope and imagination of the people of israel. because of the hardness of their hearts, indeed, and the lowness of their spiritual standard, spiritual revelations had to be clothed for them in a body of flesh. the people that could worship the golden calf under the very cloud that rested upon sinai, would have ill-received, we may be sure, a clear revelation of the manner of the messiah’s kingdom. a kingdom not of this world, with no outward show of pomp and glory; a king despised and rejected of men, and nailed upon the accursed tree: how would those carnal hearts have received such a programme? nay, how did this people, even in the messiah’s time, receive it? behold the shouting crowds, one preceding, one following the king of the jews! behold the waving palms, the strewn cloaks! hear the “hosannas” ring out as the concourse arrives in sight of the royal city; and the enthusiastic burst, “blessed is the king of israel that cometh in the name of the lord!” what visions, we perceive, were seething and working in their minds—visions of restored freedom, and rule, and power, and the sway of israel restored, as in those old glorious days, from the river even unto the sea. grand, and splendid, and indistinct, that231 promised kingdom towered before them in the twilight; they threw loose reins on their imagination, and let it carry them whither it would.

but when the truth which they had so misconceived and misinterpreted stood close to them, and they perceived its entire difference from their excited dreams, mark the change—the revulsion. the king is crowned; his kingdom is proclaimed as being not of this world: the crowd are shouting still; but the cry is now, “crucify him! crucify him!” nay further yet. the discovery of the real proportions and character of that fabric which had appeared so majestic and superb through the twilight: this discovery had proved too much even for their faith who had formed the chosen court of the king messiah. “we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed israel”; but, lo! the shepherd is smitten, and the sheep are scattered.

now, as it has been pointed out before this, an illusion of the twilight was converted by the impatience and the carnal hearts of the jews, into a delusion. it was true that a mighty king was coming, that he should set up a kingdom great and glorious, one which should crumble widest kingdoms into the dust. it was true that the enemies of god’s people should fall before this kingdom which should have no end; true that this king was he which should redeem israel. all this which was prophesied was no delusion: all was true: all came to pass.

but now let us search out the fault of the jews, who were deluded by revelation, and blinded by partial light. they were told that these great things would be: they were232 bidden to prepare to receive them. forthwith they decided in their own minds how and in what way god would bring them about; they gave form and shape to those indistinct half-seen masses after the pattern and desire of their own vain hearts; they decided that god would give them the exact reality of their own carnal dreams; they prepared their heart therefore to receive its own interpretation, and shut it close against any other. and so when the course of time brought them close to that which their fancy in the twilight had thus disguised, they could not recognise it, they refused to believe it: they passed on beyond it, still searching after the unreal fabric of their own imagination; and even now, while the twilight seems deepening to darkness about them, they go on and on across the blank desert, seeking those gigantic hopes which have already, could they but believe it, been much more than fulfilled.

“oh, say, in all the bleak expanse, is there a spot to win your glance, so bright, so dark as this? a hopeless faith, a homeless race, yet seeking the most holy place, and owning the true bliss!”

that this was not god’s doing, but the result of their own impatience, and of the earthliness of their own hearts, we have abundant proof. in that light, neither clear nor dark, there were those who were content to wait until god himself should reveal the manner of those great things that he had foreshadowed; many died thus implicitly waiting; some, with elizabeth, and simeon, and holy anna, departed in peace,233 their eyes having just seen his salvation. they had by diligent use of the light they had, attained to a more spiritual understanding of prophecy; and so to them was fulfilled that saying, “unto you that have shall more be given.”

but have we not passed out of the twilight even now that christ’s fuller revelation has come? no: for, i take it, still, while we live here, do we walk in the dusk; it is with us waiting still for the grand indistinct objects of prophecy to assume a definite outline as we draw near to them; it is the passing on in a twilight march, contemplating the attained reality of one dim foreshadowing, and straightway looking up to see before us the gigantic distant form of another, awful in its dimness and uncertainty.

is not this what the great teacher would have us learn when he declares that the spirit of a little child is the right and necessary spirit for those who would receive the kingdom of god? in these mighty mysteries we are to be content to be children now, not yet men: it is to be twilight here; noon hereafter. how it saddens me, then, sitting in the twilight and waiting for the wonderful panorama of morning; how it saddens me to hear the loud talk nowadays of our attained manhood—of our possessed noon. nowadays, forsooth, we are so full grown, have such clear light, that we are to handle doubts familiarly, and to decide at once concerning that which god has but half revealed; and to reject what we cannot understand, and to deny that which we cannot define. man’s reason—methought that, at present, it had to work in the sphere of the twilight; but this idea is by some rejected with scorn, and they would fain persuade us that it is already placed234 in the full blaze of day. the “province of reason,” we hear great talk of this; and yet now let me ask what really is the true province of reason? is it, can it be, to determine and decide, to fathom and understand concerning the deep and mysterious ways of god, and his counsel secret to us and past finding out? one would think so, to see men casting overboard this and that revealed truth because they cannot understand it in the twilight, or because it will not piece in with that creation of their own fancy, which they would substitute for our revealed god. yet to me it seems that we have not the material, the data, for such an exercise of reason; we have not revelation enough for this; the light is too dim.

no, as we sit here in the twilight it seems to me that the province of reason is not to be straining its eyes to map out the huge mysteries which still lie in the dim distance; and to declare that those masses are shapeless, whose shape it cannot trace. is it not rather to consider and to decide concerning those things which are placed within its scope? to satisfy itself as to our guide, as to the reliability of the proofs of his being really what he claims to be; to search whether these things be so, and then implicitly to follow that guide through uncertainty into certainty, out of the twilight into the clear day? this is not to fetter reason, to cramp thought. it is merely to confine it to its legitimate sphere. it is to acknowledge ourselves now in the dusk, but expecting the full morning; to own ourselves children now, but children who will one day be men.

are we not little children here; our very reason doubtless in its twilight; probably as unable—even were they explained235 to us—to take in god’s counsels, as a child just capable of an addition-sum would be unable to master and understand the science of astronomy? would anyone who considered wisely of these things, even wish that this present state should be our manhood? oh, low view to take of man’s magnificent destiny! what? this all? to-day’s blunders food for to-morrow’s corrections; schemes of science changing every year; nothing certain, nothing known? are we to grow no bigger in knowledge, are we to grow no bigger in capacity, than this? is such dim twilight really our full day? ah, dreary prospect then, mournful lot! but away with so mean a view of man’s future; with such a cramping of man’s reason!

little children are we, must we be, with regard to the stupendous plans and counsels of god, so long as we have no more than our present amount of revelation. we may advance in the world’s knowledge, but we must be content to sit down in the twilight before god’s ways and counsels, still as listeners, still as learners, reverent, teachable, humble; little children still. how can it be otherwise? we hear of the boasted advance of education and knowledge; we hear of reason more cultivated, and thought more free to soar. all very well; but does this, can this touch the subject of which i speak? in acquiring any further knowledge of god’s hidden things, have we advanced at all? is there in our possession any more material on which to set reason to work, than since the last apostle wrote the last epistle? have we advanced? can we advance? must we not still be children, must we not still make the most of twilight, until, having grown to manhood, the full light bursts upon us in another236 world, and we see no more in an ?nigma darkly, but face to face; know no more in part only, but even as we are known?

oh, brother, doubting brother—if any such should hear this my talking out loud with myself—who waverest where thou shouldest stand firm, and art ready to let that slip, which thou shouldest keep in thy heart’s heart—wilt thou not take these words of the wisest and best of all, of a teacher most mighty in intellect, most vast in knowledge; yea, who spake as never did man: wilt thou not say them to thy tossing soul, until there fall on it a great calm? a little child, a little child; that is the model for us here. noon, one day; but now, twilight: men, hereafter; but here, children: called upon here not to explain and to fathom, but to listen and to believe. first, of course, let reason determine whether our teacher be trustworthy; but, this decided, cannot we be content to be taught by him? toil on in the half-light, and the full light shall break on thee! do the works, and thou shalt know of the doctrine, whether it be of god. yea, but you say, this is none other than a leap in the dark. before i feel the divinity of the doctrine, why should i do the works? what is my warrant, that i should do, before i know? this, o man, satisfy thyself as to thy guide. examine whether he be what he pretends to be. and then commit thyself to his guidance. implicitly, entirely, like a child that likes to put his hand into his father’s, because of the uncertain light.

do, then, the works, on this warrant. believe me, the doing them will make thy faith rock-firm. is there not, i would ask the sceptic—is there not something in a simple child-like faith, leading to a holy angelic life, that brings237 the protest of a great reality against all your doubts and waverings? watching such a quiet unearthly life, you feel, through all your shadows and questionings, that here, at least, is something real. while you have been making religion a series of puzzles, he has been making it a series of deeds. you studied revelation in order to find out its difficulties; he studied it in order to learn its precepts, to learn how to live. and, depend upon it, he has thus gained a far deeper insight even into those unfathomable mysteries by his study than you can ever do by yours. do: then thou shalt know much more even of the doctrine.

oh, my brother, be content; ’tis only waiting! receive the kingdom of god as a little child. “hath not god made foolish the wisdom of this world?” if we enter the lists with him as equals, he will mock us, and let us be puzzled, and bring to nothing the understanding of even the prudent and intellectual. thus did our lord with the cavilling pharisees, perplexing them with the question how messiah could be david’s son, and yet his lord. but if we sit at his feet as learners, he will teach us much that the humble alone may know. granted that in this dim light some of his ways puzzle us, and seem inexplicable. granted that his own words are true, “what i do thou knowest not now.” but there is no need to understand his counsels, for the attaining salvation. and let us take it on trust, as well we may, that what may seem god’s harshness, is kinder than man’s kindness; that what may seem god’s foolishness, is wiser than man’s wisdom; that what seems god’s weakness, is stronger than man’s strength.

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i have mused in the twilight, near the boundless, restless, ever-tumbling sea, and under the vast canopy of heaven; i have mused in the twilight, until the darkness has fallen, and the heaven is eloquent with its sign-speech of stars. sitting in a speck of one of those myriad worlds that, flying along with inconceivable velocity, yet appear to me intensely still in the dark, i catch a glimpse of the immensity of the plans and designs of god. star whirls by star, system fits into system, all in an astounding complex order; none clashing, each kept in its due place and its right proportion by the infinite mind. and i gather a hint of a reply to many questions that perplex us, many problems that weary us here; questions that are often best answered by the confession that here we cannot answer them; questions worst239 answered by an inadequate attempt resulting in an inadequate explanation; questions that we may perhaps quiet with such thoughts as these:—who knows into what other schemes and systems this life of our globe and of ourselves may be fitted; who knows, seated in this isolated planet, in this narrow twilight of time, how the vast day of eternity before, and the vast day of eternity behind, may make at once evident things that here were deepest, seemingly shapeless, mysteries to our mind? the moon rolls round the earth, and the earth round the sun, and this again, with all its planets, round some greater centre; and so on, perhaps, who shall guess how far? for space, as well as time, is infinite, boundless, with the eternal god. and thus, too, i divine, with that vastness and complexity of scheme which we shall not begin to understand until we gain the standing-point of eternity; thus too, i seem entitled to prophesy, with the infinite designs of god, and with the interwoven system of his counsels. how can we, how should we, understand the different bearings, the linked relations, of his eternal plans? a fly perched on one nut in the enormous machinery of some manufactory, and deciding upon the plan and purpose and working of the whole, from the twistings of the point on which he stood; nay, this is not even a poor analogy with the position of man standing on this speck of time, and complacently deciding concerning the tremendous counsels of him who inhabiteth eternity.

heaven is revealed to us as night deepens. thus, as the twilight of the good man’s life dusks towards night, stars, unperceived before, stars of certainty, of knowledge, of hope, of trust, steal out one by one into his sky, until the heaven240 is one glitter above him. earth dies out, and becomes indistinct; its colours are toned down, its scenery becomes less absorbing and obtrusive; it begins to take its proper place in that eternal glittering dust of worlds. and so amid that speaking silence he falls asleep. i suppose that then, in paradise, a clear morning breaks, which afterwards, in heaven, becomes the full light of noon.

but the twilight has gone: night has come down upon the sea: the earnest silence of those infinitely multiplied stars becomes oppressive: i am getting chilly also, and want my tea. therefore i go indoors, close the shutters, and rest my strained thoughts with the sight of the cheery lamp-lit room; and, asking and obtaining of my wife some half-dozen of my favourite “songs without words,” call back my musings from those exhausting mysteries of our twilight state, and lull them with the gentler and more peaceful mystery of music.