Vox Meditantis

15th October 1898

What a curious aerie I have found! This tower, though rather crumbling about the battlements, affords the most capital prospect over the valley, and I feel quite like one of Mrs Ewing’s tower-dwellers, suspended betwixt earth and firmament. The wind comes whipping up from the west with such vigour that I half-fancy it carries voices – or perhaps I have been too long in my own company, and begin to hear phantom companions in the very air.

I dreamt last night most vividly. In my dream, I stood upon this same parapet, yet the valley below had transformed into a great sea of faces, all turned upward, and each countenance bore the aspect of someone I have known – dear Margaret from my schoolroom days, the Cornish fishwife who once shared her bread with me, even the sharp-tongued landlady in Bruges who, for all her scolding, mended my travelling coat without request. They called to me in a chorus, though I could not distinguish the words, and I woke with such a queer ache beneath my ribs, as though my heart had grown too large for its dwelling.

The newspapers left by the previous tenant speak of generals facing one another across African rivers, of Frenchmen and Englishmen in dispute over territories I shall never see. How peculiar that men should quarrel over boundaries when the true borders that vex us are those between soul and soul! Captain Marchand and Major Kitchener might draw their lines upon maps at Fashoda, but can either man truly know his brother’s heart?

Which brings me to ponder: what constitutes a good neighbour? Is it proximity alone – the accident of dwelling side by side? I think not. A good neighbour, surely, is one who perceives the unspoken need, who observes not merely with the eye but with that faculty of sympathy which transcends walls and distances. Mrs Wesley, in our village, could tell when Mother was ailing before ever she knocked upon our door. She possessed that rare gift of attention – not the idle curiosity of a gossip, but the active watchfulness of true fellow-feeling.

Yet I have been neighbour to no one these six months, wandering as I do from lodging to lodging, and still I am not friendless. Is it possible to carry one’s neighbours within? I begin to suspect that companionship is less a matter of geography than of the heart’s orientation – that one might be profoundly lonely in a crowded drawing-room, yet feel the warm press of fellowship whilst quite alone, if one’s thoughts turn lovingly toward those absent.

The swallows have all departed now, taking their society southward, and I confess I envy them their travelling companions. Tomorrow I shall descend from this tower and seek out the village below – surely someone requires a letter written, or a piece of mending, or simply a fresh ear for old stories. For if I have learnt anything in my wanderings, it is this: we are all of us neighbours to one another, whether we acknowledge it or no, and the hermit in his tower is as much bound to humanity as the merchant in his counting-house.

The evening star has appeared, bright as a promise above the elm trees. I shall take it as a sign – of what, I cannot say, but signs and visions seem rather thick upon the ground these days, and I am not so modern as to dismiss them entirely. Perhaps I shall dream again tonight, and my phantom friends shall speak more clearly.

Until tomorrow’s adventures…

Late Victorian era, marked by imperial rivalries like the Fashoda Crisis (1898), the recent Spanish-American War’s conclusion (1898), and the ongoing Dreyfus Affair in France, frames the diary’s concerns with borders, honour, and conscience. In September-November 1898, French and British forces confronted one another at Fashoda on the Upper Nile before France withdrew, paving the way for the 1904 Entente Cordiale and consolidating British control in Sudan. The Spanish-American War ended with Spain ceding Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, reshaping Atlantic–Pacific power. The Dreyfus Affair continued to convulse French politics, culminating in Dreyfus’s exoneration in 1906 and deep debates about justice and national identity.

Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved. | 🌐 Translate