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The Pursuit Of Fire
by
The strange boy lay back and laughed. “Musicians think that they are the only ones that can hear the finer sounds. If one of us common fellows cocks his ear, they think that only the coarser thumps get inside. And artists think that they alone know the glory of color. I was thinking of that, this afternoon. And yet I have walked under the blue sky. I have seen twilights that these men of paint would botch on canvas. But both musicians and artists have a vision that is greater than their product. The soul of a man can hardly be recorded in black and white keys. Nor can a little pigment which you rub upon your thumb be the measure of an artist. So I suppose that is the way also with poets. It is not to be expected that they can express themselves fully in words that they have borrowed from the kitchen. When their genius flames up, it is only the lesser sparks that fall upon their writing pads. It consoles me that a man should be greater than his achievement. I who have done so little would otherwise be so forlorn.”
“It’s odd,” I said, when he had fallen into silence, “that I used to feel exactly as you do. It stirs an old recollection. If I am not mistaken, I once wrote a paper on the subject.”
The boy smiled dreamily. “But if small persons like myself,” he began, “can have such frenzies, how must it be with those greater persons who have amazed the world? I have wondered in what kind of exaltation Shakespeare wrote his storm in ‘Lear.’ There must have been a first conception greater even than his accomplishment. Did he look from his windows at a winter tempest and see miserable old men and women running hard for shelter? Did a flash of lightning bare his soul to the misery, the betrayal and the madness of the world? His supreme moment was not when he flung the completed manuscript aside, or when he heard the actors mouth his lines, but in the flash and throb of creation–in the moment when he knew that he had the power in him to write ‘Lear.’ What we read is the cold forging, wonderful and enduring, but not to be compared to the producing furnace.”
The boy had spoken so fast that he was out of breath.
“Hold a bit!” I cried. “What you have said sounds familiar. Where could I have heard it before?”
There was something almost like a sneer on the boy’s face. “What a memory you have! And perhaps you recall this brown suit, too. It’s ugly enough to be remembered. Now please let me finish what came to me this afternoon on the hill! Prometheus,” he continued, “scaled the heavens and brought back fire to mortals. And he, as the story goes, clutched at a lightning bolt and caught but a spark. And even that, glorious. Mankind properly accredits him with a marvellous achievement. It is for this reason that I comfort myself although I have not yet written a single line of verse.”
“My dear fellow,” I said, “please tell me where I have read something like what you have spoken?”
The boy’s answer was irrelevant. “You first tell me what you did with a brown checked suit you once owned.”
“I never owned but one brown suit,” I replied, “and that was when I was still in college. I think that I gave it away before it was worn out.”
The boy once more clapped his hands. “Oh, I knew it, I knew it. I’ll give mine tomorrow to the man who takes our ashes. Now, won’t you please play the piano for me?”
“Assuredly. Choose your tune!”
He fumbled a bit in the rack and passing some rather good music, he held up a torn and yellow sheet. “This is what I want,” he said.
I had not played it for many years. After a false start or so–for it was villainously set in four sharps for which I have an aversion–I got through it. On a second trial I did better.