The Roadmender...

...written by Michael Fairless, and colour illustrations by E. W. Waite. Originally published February 1902, but my edition is a "New Edition, Reset" published in 1911 with the beautiful colour landscape paintings by E. W. Waite. I will explain if you read on...

I had 2 hours sleep last night and got up at 2 am in the end. I had intentions of going back to sleep when dawn broke (I can often sleep then for some reason). But after the run of miserable grey rainy days, this was a dawn of gentle misted promise.

I decided to go out instead.

I was looking for a new second hand bookshop near me. About 20 miles outwards I found one.

I found quite a few books I liked, and also there was the old book mentioned above. Normally I pay no more than £1:49 for a second hand book whether newish or an antique. But this book was £4.99, a lot for me. The more I looked through it the more I wanted it...so I threw caution to the wind and bought it (along with a few £1.49 purchases).

On my return home at 3 pm this afternoon, after feeding the cats first, I made two mugs of tea and heated up the remains of the stew from yesterday. Then I settled down on the day bed in the gentle warmth of that still misted sun shining through my window and opened the book "The Roadmender".

It has a faded green cloth binding which could be linen. The picture and words on the cover are in gilt relief (the kind when I was a small child I used a soft pencil and paper and made a rubbing of it).

The paper inside is quite thick, yellowed with age, and the print is raised to the finger touch. It is a very tactile book with musty scents of pipe smoke. The coloured illustrations which are of landscapes have been stuck in the book with glue only on the top edge, and each illustration had a leaf of tissue paper over it.

It is a gentle book of a Roadmender who breaks stones to mend "his road". It is a meditative book and can be read on many levels. It is peaceful and calms the soul. There are so many gentle descriptions which take me back to my younger childhood where I spent a lot of time being still, watching, and observing (I was profoundly deaf and couldn't speak then, but I watched). This book takes me back to the stillness of that time for me.

I read the first part, taking it for granted that with the name Michael Fairless as the author that it was a man writing this book. (My Grandfather had a gentle way and taught me the lore of the countryside by showing me, and we had a stony road leading to the farm.)

But then, in the 2nd part "Out of the Shadow", where the author says, "I am no longer a roadmender...", I began to wonder so I googled Michael Fairless. It turned out Michael Fairless was a woman, Margaret Fairless Barber (1869-1901). And she had been poorly a lot of her life. In this part of the book, it seemed like she was talking from the personal experience of being an ill person.

Don't for one moment think this is a sad depressive book, it is not. I found it very uplifting and hopeful. She sees joy. In writing of the "little" things, she is very much in the here and now, and is a very mystical person.

By the time I got to the third part "The White Gate", it seemed very much like she was preparing to meet her maker, and that time was moving swiftly. By now, she is incorporating The Roadmender more with the river (her life) moving swiftly towards the sea (her maker).

In the last paragraph she writes..."It lies here ready to our hand, this life of adoration which we needs must live hand in had with earth, for has she not borne the curse with us? But beyond the white gate and the trail of woodbine falls the silence greater than speech, darkness greater than light, a pause of 'a little while'; and then the touch of that healing garment as we pass to the King in His beauty, in a land from which there is no return.
At the gateway then I cry you farewell."

I think she died a few days later after writing these words.

This is a book of incredible imagination and wisdom, particularly in the first part "The Roadmender", and this part is full of (unintentional ?) meditations. This is my favourite part of this book.

Her sister kept her secret for a long time, about a dozen years or more.

I got a surprise when I googled the book.
https://www.rookebooks.com/product?prod_id=24668
This site tells me they are asking £79:99 for exactly the same year of publication, exactly the same cover, and exactly the same illustrations. I only paid £4:99 for it. But I will not be selling it. This is a special book to me.

If you want to read the book, here is a transcription of it.
http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Roadmender.html
But it is not the same as holding the original in your hands and looking at the colour landscape illustrations.

So, all this reading left me with a dilemma. What to paint today?

It is getting late in the evening, so I just decide to play with colours and my paint/wallpaper scraper. This was the result. And then I realised on the far right of the picture, just above half way, is what looks like a gate. And in my mind's eye, the same distance again from the 'gate' was from the right edge of the paper was a man 'the roadmender' (he looks small, a bit more in the distance) pounding stones. And then same distance again to the left (at the same level) is a 'woman' (Margaret Fairless Barber?) with a black shawl on, observing the scene she had written...

You might not even see what I see!!!

So this is my painting today for my personal challenge of a pic every day in 2017.

UPDATE: the next morning, Tuesday, my dreams last night were all on this book...my mind was 'reading' short sections/paragraphs of the book (from the first third of the book, the section entitled The Roadmender), and then my dreams showed me in video from those scenes, and then a mist and I stepped into the scenes and wandered round and experienced them myself...I had beautiful dreams all night, and I feel rested and refreshed this morning. I think this will be a book I will keep by my bedside table and just read a short paragraph before I sleep.