‘For that it was too rich to hang by the wall,
It must be ripped,’
and then pieced and dizened out afresh as a toy. And then again he started away from his own thoughts, at finding himself on the edge of that very gulf13, which, as Mellot had lately told him, Barnakill denounced as the true hell of genius, where Art is regarded as an end and not a means, and objects are interesting, not in as far as they form our spirits, but in proportion as they can be shaped into effective parts of some beautiful whole. But whether it was a temptation or none, the desire recurred14 to him again and again. He even attempted to write, but sickened at the sight of the first words. He turned to his pencil, and tried to represent with it one scene at least; and with the horrible calmness of some self-torturing ascetic15, he sat down to sketch16 a drawing of himself and Argemone on her dying day, with her head upon his bosom17 for the last time — and then tossed it angrily into the fire, partly because he felt just as he had in his attempts to write, that there was something more in all these events than he could utter by pen or pencil, than he could even understand; principally because he could not arrange the attitudes gracefully18 enough. And now, in front of the stern realities of sorrow and death, he began to see a meaning in another mysterious saying of Barnakill’s, which Mellot was continually quoting, that ‘Art was never Art till it was more than Art; that the Finite only existed as a body of the Infinite; and that the man of genius must first know the Infinite, unless he wished to become not a poet, but a maker19 of idols20.’ Still he felt in himself a capability21, nay22, an infinite longing23 to speak; though what he should utter, or how — whether as poet, social theorist, preacher, he could not yet decide. Barnakill had forbidden him painting, and though he hardly knew why, he dared not disobey him. But Argemone’s dying words lay on him as a divine command to labour. All his doubts, his social observations, his dreams of the beautiful and the blissful, his intense perception of social evils, his new-born hope — faith it could not yet be called — in a ruler and deliverer of the world, all urged him on to labour: but at what? He felt as if he were the demon24 in the legend, condemned25 to twine26 endless ropes of sand. The world, outside which he now stood for good and evil, seemed to him like some frantic27 whirling waltz; some serried28 struggling crowd, which rushed past him in aimless confusion, without allowing him time or opening to take his place among their ranks: and as for wings to rise above, and to look down upon the uproar29, where were they? His melancholy30 paralysed him more and more. He was too listless even to cater31 for his daily bread by writing his articles for the magazines. Why should he? He had nothing to say. Why should he pour out words and empty sound, and add one more futility32 to the herd33 of ‘prophets that had become wind, and had no truth in them’? Those who could write without a conscience, without an object except that of seeing their own fine words, and filling their own pockets — let them do it: for his part he would have none of it. But his purse was empty, and so was his stomach; and as for asking assistance of his uncle, it was returning like the dog to his vomit34. So one day he settled all bills with his last shilling, tied up his remaining clothes in a bundle, and stoutly35 stepped forth36 into the street to find a job — to hold a horse, if nothing better offered; when, behold37! on the threshold he met Barnakill himself.
‘Whither away?’ said that strange personage. ‘I was just going to call on you.’
‘To earn my bread by the labour of my hands. So our fathers all began.’
‘And so their sons must all end. Do you want work?’
‘Yes, if you have any.’
‘Follow me, and carry a trunk home from a shop to my lodgings38.’
He strode off, with Lancelot after him; entered a mathematical instrument maker’s shop in the neighbouring street, and pointed39 out a heavy corded case to Lancelot, who, with the assistance of the shopman, got it on his shoulders; and trudging40 forth through the streets after his employer, who walked before him silent and unregarding, felt himself for the first time in his life in the same situation as nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand of Adam’s descendants, and discovered somewhat to his satisfaction that when he could once rid his mind of its old superstition42 that every one was looking at him, it mattered very little whether the burden carried were a deal trunk or a Downing Street despatch-box.
His employer’s lodgings were in St. Paul’s Churchyard. Lancelot set the trunk down inside the door.
‘What do you charge?’
‘Sixpence.’
Barnakill looked him steadily43 in the face, gave him the sixpence, went in, and shut the door.
Lancelot wandered down the street, half amused at the simple test which had just been applied44 to him, and yet sickened with disappointment; for he had cherished a mysterious fancy that with this strange being all his hopes of future activity were bound up. Tregarva’s month was nearly over, and yet no tidings of him had come. Mellot had left London on some mysterious errand of the prophet’s, and for the first time in his life he seemed to stand utterly45 alone. He was at one pole, and the whole universe at the other. It was in vain to tell himself that his own act had placed him there; that he had friends to whom he might appeal. He would not, he dare not, accept outward help, even outward friendship, however hearty46 and sincere, at that crisis of his existence. It seemed a desecration47 of its awfulness to find comfort in anything but the highest and the deepest. And the glimpse of that which he had attained48 seemed to have passed away from him again — seemed to be something which, as it had arisen with Argemone, was lost with her also — one speck49 of the far blue sky which the rolling clouds had covered in again. As he passed under the shadow of the huge soot-blackened cathedral, and looked at its grim spiked50 railings and closed doors, it seemed to him a symbol of the spiritual world, clouded and barred from him. He stopped and looked up, and tried to think. The rays of the setting sun lighted up in clear radiance the huge cross on the summit. Was it an omen7? Lancelot thought so; but at that instant he felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked round. It was that strange man again.
‘So far well,’ said he. ‘You are making a better day’s work than you fancy, and earning more wages. For instance, here is a packet for you.’
Lancelot seized it, trembling, and tore it open. It was directed in Honoria’s handwriting.
‘Whence had you this?’ said he.
‘Through Mellot, through whom I can return your answer, if one be needed.’
The letter was significant of Honoria’s character. It busied itself entirely51 about facts, and showed the depth of her sorrow by making no allusion52 to it. ‘Argemone, as Lancelot was probably aware, had bequeathed to him the whole of her own fortune at Mrs. Lavington’s death, and had directed that various precious things of hers should be delivered over to him immediately. Her mother, however, kept her chamber53 under lock and key, and refused to allow an article to be removed from its accustomed place. It was natural in the first burst of her sorrow, and Lancelot would pardon.’ All his drawings and letters had been, by Argemone’s desire, placed with her in her coffin54. Honoria had been only able to obey her in sending a favourite ring of hers, and with it the last stanzas55 which she had composed before her death:—
‘Twin stars, aloft in ether clear,
Around each other roll away,
Within one common atmosphere
Of their own mutual56 light and day.
‘And myriad57 happy eyes are bent58
Upon their changeless love alway;
As, strengthened by their one intent,
They pour the flood of life and day,
‘So we, through this world’s waning59 night,
Shall, hand in hand, pursue our way;
Shed round us order, love, and light,
And shine unto the perfect day.’
The precious relic60, with all its shattered hopes, came at the right moment to soften61 his hard-worn heart. The sight, the touch of it, shot like an electric spark through the black stifling62 thunder-cloud of his soul, and dissolved it in refreshing63 showers of tears.
Barnakill led him gently within the area of the railings, where he might conceal64 his emotion, and it was but a few seconds before Lancelot had recovered his self-possession and followed him up the steps through the wicket door.
They entered. The afternoon service was proceeding65. The organ droned sadly in its iron cage to a few musical amateurs. Some nursery maids and foreign sailors stared about within the spiked felon’s dock which shut off the body of the cathedral, and tried in vain to hear what was going on inside the choir66. As a wise author — a Protestant, too — has lately said, ‘the scanty67 service rattled68 in the vast building, like a dried kernel69 too small for its shell.’ The place breathed imbecility, and unreality, and sleepy life-indeath, while the whole nineteenth century went roaring on its way outside. And as Lancelot thought, though only as a dilettante70, of old St. Paul’s, the morning star and focal beacon71 of England through centuries and dynasties, from old Augustine and Mellitus, up to those Paul’s Cross sermons whose thunders shook thrones, and to noble Wren’s masterpiece of art, he asked, ‘Whither all this? Coleridge’s dictum, that a cathedral is a petrified72 religion, may be taken to bear more meanings than one. When will life return to this cathedral system?’
‘When was it ever a living system?’ answered the other. ‘When was it ever anything but a transitionary makeshift since the dissolution of the monasteries73?’
‘Why, then, not away with it at once?’
‘You English have not done with it yet. At all events, it is keeping your cathedrals rain-proof for you, till you can put them to some better use than now.’
‘And in the meantime?’
‘In the meantime there is life enough in them; life that will wake the dead some day. Do you hear what those choristers are chanting now?’
‘Not I,’ said Lancelot; ‘nor any one round us, I should think.’
‘That is our own fault, after all; for we were not good churchmen enough to come in time for vespers.’
‘Are you a churchman then?’
‘Yes, thank God. There may be other churches than those of Europe or Syria, and right Catholic ones, too. But, shall I tell you what they are singing? “He hath put down the mighty74 from their seat, and hath exalted75 the humble76 and meek77. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath sent empty away.” Is there no life, think you, in those words, spoken here every afternoon in the name of God?’
‘By hirelings, who neither care nor understand —’
‘Hush. Be not hasty with imputations of evil, within walls dedicated79 to and preserved by the All-good. Even should the speakers forget the meaning of their own words, to my sense, perhaps, that may just now leave the words more entirely God’s. At all events, confess that whatever accidental husks may have clustered round it, here is a germ of Eternal Truth. No, I dare not despair of you English, as long as I hear your priesthood forced by Providence80, even in spite of themselves, thus to speak God’s words about an age in which the condition of the poor, and the rights and duties of man, are becoming the rallying-point for all thought and all organisation81.’
‘But does it not make the case more hopeless that such words have been spoken for centuries, and no man regards them?’
‘You have to blame for that the people, rather than the priest. As they are, so will he be, in every age and country. He is but the index which the changes of their spiritual state move up and down the scale: and as they will become in England in the next half century, so will he become also.’
‘And can these dry bones live?’ asked Lancelot, scornfully.
‘Who are you to ask? What were you three months ago? for I know well your story. But do you remember what the prophet saw in the Valley of Vision? How first that those same dry bones shook and clashed together, as if uneasy because they were disorganised; and how they then found flesh and stood upright: and yet there was no life in them, till at last the Spirit came down and entered into them? Surely there is shaking enough among the bones now! It is happening to the body of your England as it did to Adam’s after he was made. It lay on earth, the rabbis say, forty days before the breath of life was put into it, and the devil came and kicked it; and it sounded hollow, as England is doing now; but that did not prevent the breath of life coming in good time, nor will it in England’s case.’
Lancelot looked at him with a puzzled face.
‘You must not speak in such deep parables84 to so young a learner.’
‘Is my parable83 so hard, then? Look around you and see what is the characteristic of your country and of your generation at this moment. What a yearning85, what an expectation, amid infinite falsehoods and confusions, of some nobler, more chivalrous86, more godlike state! Your very costermonger trolls out his belief that “there’s a good time coming,” and the hearts of gamins, as well as millenarians, answer, “True!” Is not that a clashing among the dry bones? And as for flesh, what new materials are springing up among you every month, spiritual and physical, for a state such as “eye hath not seen nor ear heard?”— railroads, electric telegraphs, associate-lodging-houses, club-houses, sanitary87 reforms, experimental schools, chemical agriculture, a matchless school of inductive science, an equally matchless school of naturalist88 painters — and all this in the very workshop of the world! Look, again, at the healthy craving89 after religious art and ceremonial — the strong desire to preserve that which has stood the test of time; and on the other hand, at the manful resolution of your middle classes to stand or fall by the Bible alone — to admit no innovations in worship which are empty of instinctive90 meaning. Look at the enormous amount of practical benevolence91 which now struggles in vain against evil, only because it is as yet private, desultory92, divided. How dare you, young man, despair of your own nation, while its nobles can produce a Carlisle, an Ellesmere, an Ashley, a Robert Grosvenor — while its middle classes can beget93 a Faraday, a Stephenson, a Brooke, an Elizabeth Fry? See, I say, what a chaos94 of noble materials is here — all confused, it is true — polarised, jarring, and chaotic95 — here bigotry96, there self-will, superstition, sheer Atheism97 often, but only waiting for the one inspiring Spirit to organise82, and unite, and consecrate98 this chaos into the noblest polity the world ever saw realised! What a destiny may be that of your land, if you have but the faith to see your own honour! Were I not of my own country, I would be an Englishman this day.’
‘And what is your country?’ asked Lancelot. ‘It should be a noble one which breeds such men as you.’
The stranger smiled.
‘Will you go thither99 with me?’
‘Why not? I long for travel, and truly I am sick of my own country. When the Spirit of which you speak,’ he went on, bitterly, ‘shall descend41, I may return; till then England is no place for the penniless.’
‘How know you that the Spirit is not even now poured out? Must your English Pharisees and Sadducees, too, have signs and wonders ere they believe? Will man never know that “the kingdom of God comes not by observation”? that now, as ever, His promise stands true — “Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world”? How many inspired hearts even now may be cherishing in secret the idea which shall reform the age, and fulfil at once the longings100 of every sect101 and rank?’
‘Name it to me, then!’
‘Who can name it? Who can even see it, but those who are like Him from whom it comes? Them a long and stern discipline awaits. Would you be of them, you must, like the Highest who ever trod this earth, go fasting into the wilderness102, and, among the wild beasts, stand alone face to face with the powers of Nature.’
‘I will go where you shall bid me. I will turn shepherd among the Scottish mountains — live as an anchorite in the solitudes103 of Dartmoor. But to what purpose? I have listened long to Nature’s voice, but even the whispers of a spiritual presence which haunted my childhood have died away, and I hear nothing in her but the grinding of the iron wheels of mechanical necessity.’
‘Which is the will of God. Henceforth you shall study, not Nature, but Him. Yet as for place — I do not like your English primitive104 formations, where earth, worn out with struggling, has fallen wearily asleep. No, you shall rather come to Asia, the oldest and yet the youngest continent — to our volcanic105 mountain ranges, where her bosom still heaves with the creative energy of youth, around the primeval cradle of the most ancient race of men. Then, when you have learnt the wondrous106 harmony between man and his dwelling-place, I will lead you to a land where you shall see the highest spiritual cultivation107 in triumphant108 contact with the fiercest energies of matter; where men have learnt to tame and use alike the volcano and the human heart, where the body and the spirit, the beautiful and the useful, the human and the divine, are no longer separate, and men have embodied109 to themselves on earth an image of the “city not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”’
‘Where is this land?’ said Lancelot eagerly.
‘Poor human nature must have its name for everything. You have heard of the country of Prester John, that mysterious Christian110 empire, rarely visited by European eye?’
‘There are legends of two such,’ said Lancelot, ‘an Ethiopian and an Asiatic one; and the Ethiopian, if we are to believe Colonel Harris’s Journey to Shoa, is a sufficiently111 miserable112 failure.’
‘True; the day of the Chamitic race is past; you will not say the same of our Caucasian empire. To our race the present belongs — to England, France, Germany, America — to us. Will you see what we have done, and, perhaps, bring home, after long wanderings, a message for your country which may help to unravel113 the tangled114 web of this strange time?’
‘I will,’ said Lancelot, ‘now, this moment. And yet, no. There is one with whom I have promised to share all future weal and woe115. Without him I can take no step.’
‘Tregarva?’
‘Yes — he. What made you guess that I spoke78 of him?’
‘Mellot told me of him, and of you, too, six weeks ago. He is now gone to fetch him from Manchester. I cannot trust him here in England yet. The country made him sad; London has made him mad; Manchester may make him bad. It is too fearful a trial even for his faith. I must take him with us.’
‘What interest in him — not to say what authority over him — have you?’
‘The same which I have over you. You will come with me; so will he. It is my business, as my name signifies, to save the children alive whom European society leaves carelessly and ignorantly to die. And as for my power, I come,’ said he, with a smile, ‘from a country which sends no one on its errands without first thoroughly116 satisfying itself as to his power of fulfilling them.’
‘If he goes, I go with you.’
‘And he will go. And yet, think what you do. It is a fearful journey. They who travel it, even as they came naked out of their mother’s womb — even as they return thither, and carry nothing with them of all which they have gotten in this life, so must those who travel to my land.’
‘What? Tregarva? Is he, too, to give up all? I had thought that I saw in him a precious possession, one for which I would barter117 all my scholarship, my talents — ay — my life itself.’
‘A possession worth your life? What then?’
‘Faith in an unseen God.’
‘Ask him whether he would call that a possession — his own in any sense?’
‘He would call it a revelation to him.’
‘That is, a taking of the veil from something which was behind the veil already.’
‘Yes.’
‘And which may therefore just as really be behind the veil in other cases without its presence being suspected.’
‘Certainly.’
‘In what sense, now, is that a possession? Do you possess the sun because you see it? Did Herschel create Uranus118 by discovering it; or even increase, by an atom, its attraction on one particle of his own body?”
‘Whither is all this tending?’
‘Hither. Tregarva does not possess his Father and his Lord; he is possessed119 by them.’
‘But he would say — and I should believe him — that he has seen and known them, not with his bodily eyes, but with his soul, heart, imagination — call it what you will. All I know is, that between him and me there is a great gulf fixed120.’
‘What! seen and known them utterly? comprehended them? Are they not infinite, incomprehensible? Can the less comprehend the greater?’
‘He knows, at least, enough of them to make him what I am not.’
‘That is, he knows something of them. And may not you know something of them also? — enough to make you what he is not?’
Lancelot shook his head in silence.
‘Suppose that you had met and spoken with your father, and loved him when you saw him, and yet were not aware of the relation in which you stood to him, still you would know him?’
‘Not the most important thing of all — that he was my father.’
‘Is that the most important thing? Is it not more important that he should know that you were his son? That he should support, guide, educate you, even though unseen? Do you not know that some one has been doing that?’
‘That I have been supported, guided, educated, I know full well; but by whom I know not. And I know, too, that I have been punished. And therefore — therefore I cannot free the thought of a Him — of a Person — only of a Destiny, of Laws and Powers, which have no faces wherewith to frown awful wrath121 upon me! If it be a Person who has been leading me, I must go mad, or know that He has forgiven!’
‘I conceive that it is He, and not punishment which you fear?’
Lancelot was silent a moment. . . . ‘Yes. He, and not hell at all, is what I fear. He can inflict122 no punishment on me worse than the inner hell which I have felt already, many and many a time.’
‘Bona verba! That is an awful thing to say: but better this extreme than the other. . . . And you would — what?’
‘Be pardoned.’
‘If He loves you, He has pardoned you already.’
‘How do I know that He loves me?’
‘How does Tregarva?’
‘He is a righteous man, and I—’
‘Am a sinner. He would, and rightly, call himself the same.’
‘But he knows that God loves him — that he is God’s child.’
‘So, then, God did not love him till he caused God to love him, by knowing that He loved him? He was not God’s child till he made himself one, by believing that he was one when as yet he was not? I appeal to common sense and logic123 . . . It was revealed to Tregarva that God had been loving him while he was yet a bad man. If He loved him, in spite of his sin, why should He not have loved you?’
‘If He had loved me, would He have left me in ignorance of Himself? For if He be, to know Him is the highest good.’
‘Had he left Tregarva in ignorance of Himself?’
‘No. . . . Certainly, Tregarva spoke of his conversion124 as of a turning to one of whom he had known all along, and disregarded.’
‘Then do you turn like him, to Him whom you have known all along, and disregarded.’
‘I?’
‘Yes — you! If half I have heard and seen of you be true, He has been telling you more, and not less, of Himself than He does to most men. You, for aught I know, may know more of Him than Tregarva does. The gulf between you and him is this: he has obeyed what he knew — and you have not.’ . . .
Lancelot paused a moment, then —
‘No! — do not cheat me! You said once that you were a churchman.’
‘So I am. A Catholic of the Catholics. What then?’
‘Who is He to whom you ask me to turn? You talk to me of Him as my Father; but you talk of Him to men of your own creed125 as The Father. You have mysterious dogmas of a Three in One. I know them . . . I have admired them. In all their forms — in the Vedas, in the Neo–Platonists, in Jacob Boehmen, in your Catholic creeds126, in Coleridge, and the Germans from whom he borrowed, I have looked at them, and found in them beautiful phantasms of philosophy, . . . all but scientific necessities; . . . but —’
‘But what?’
‘I do not want cold abstract necessities of logic: I want living practical facts. If those mysterious dogmas speak of real and necessary properties of His being, they must be necessarily interwoven in practice with His revelation of Himself?’
‘Most true. But how would you have Him unveil Himself?’
‘By unveiling Himself.’
‘What? To your simple intuition? That was Semele’s ambition. . . . You recollect127 the end of that myth. You recollect, too, as you have read the Neo–Platonists, the result of their similar attempt.’
‘Idolatry and magic.’
‘True; and yet, such is the ambition of man, you who were just now envying Tregarva, are already longing to climb even higher than Saint Theresa.’
‘I do not often indulge in such an ambition. But I have read in your Schoolmen tales of a Beatific128 Vision; how that the highest good for man was to see God.’
‘And did you believe that?’
‘One cannot believe the impossible — only regret its impossibility.’
‘Impossibility? You can only see the Uncreate in the Create — the Infinite in the Finite — the absolute good in that which is like the good. Does Tregarva pretend to more? He sees God in His own thoughts and consciousnesses, and in the events of the world around him, imaged in the mirror of his own mind. Is your mirror, then, so much narrower than his?’
‘I have none. I see but myself, and the world, and far above them, a dim awful Unity129, which is but a notion.’
‘Fool! — and slow of heart to believe! Where else would you see Him but in yourself and in the world? They are all things cognisable to you. Where else, but everywhere, would you see Him whom no man hath seen, or can see?’
‘When He shows Himself to me in them, then I may see Him. But now — ‘
‘You have seen Him; and because you do not know the name of what you see — or rather will not acknowledge it — you fancy that it is not there.’
‘How in His name? What have I seen?’
‘Ask yourself. Have you not seen, in your fancy, at least, an ideal of man, for which you spurned130 (for Mellot has told me all) the merely negative angelic — the merely receptive and indulgent feminine-ideals of humanity, and longed to be a man, like that ideal and perfect man?’
‘I have.’
‘And what was your misery all along? Was it not that you felt you ought to be a person with a one inner unity, a one practical will, purpose, and business given to you — not invented by yourself — in the great order and harmony of the universe — and that you were not one? — That your self-willed fancies, and self-pleasing passions, had torn you in pieces, and left you inconsistent, dismembered, helpless, purposeless? That, in short, you were below your ideal, just in proportion as you were not a person?’
‘God knows you speak truth!’
‘Then must not that ideal of humanity be a person himself? — Else how can he be the ideal man? Where is your logic? An impersonal131 ideal of a personal species! . . . And what is the most special peculiarity132 of man? Is it not that he alone of creation is a son, with a Father to love and to obey? Then must not the ideal man be a son also? And last, but not least, is it not the very property of man that he is a spirit invested with flesh and blood? Then must not the ideal man have, once at least, taken on himself flesh and blood also? Else, how could he fulfil his own idea?’
‘Yes . . . Yes . . . That thought, too, has glanced through my mind at moments, like a lightning-flash; till I have envied the old Greeks their faith in a human Zeus, son of Kronos — a human Phoibos, son of Zeus. But I could not rest in them. They are noble. But are they — are any — perfect ideals? The one thing I did, and do, and will believe, is the one which they do not fulfil — that man is meant to be the conqueror134 of the earth, matter, nature, decay, death itself, and to conquer them, as Bacon says, by obeying them.’
‘Hold it fast; — but follow it out, and say boldly, the ideal of humanity must be one who has conquered nature — one who rules the universe — one who has vanquished135 death itself; and conquered them, as Bacon says, not by violating, but by submitting to them. Have you never heard of one who is said to have done this? How do you know that in this ideal which you have seen, you have not seen the Son — the perfect Man, who died and rose again, and sits for ever Healer, and Lord, and Ruler of the universe? . . . Stay — do not answer me. Have you not, besides, had dreams of an all-Father — from whom, in some mysterious way, all things and beings must derive136 their source, and that Son — if my theory be true — among the rest, and above all the rest?’
‘Who has not? But what more dim or distant — more drearily137, hopelessly notional, than that thought?’
‘Only the thought that there is none. But the dreariness138 was only in your own inconsistency. If He be the Father of all, He must be the Father of persons — He Himself therefore a Person. He must be the Father of all in whom dwell personal qualities, power, wisdom, creative energy, love, justice, pity. Can He be their Father, unless all these very qualities are infinitely139 His? Does He now look so terrible to you?’
‘I have had this dream, too; but I turned away from it in dread140.’
‘Doubtless you did. Some day you will know why. Does that former dream of a human Son relieve this dream of none of its awfulness? May not the type be beloved for the sake of its Antitype, even if the very name of All–Father is no guarantee for His paternal141 pity! . . . But you have had this dream. How know you, that in it you were not allowed a glimpse, however dim and distant, of Him whom the Catholics call the Father?’
‘It may be; but —’
‘Stay again. Had you never the sense of a Spirit in you — a will, an energy, an inspiration, deeper than the region of consciousness and reflection, which, like the wind, blew where it listed, and you heard the sound of it ringing through your whole consciousness, and yet knew not whence it came, or whither it went, or why it drove you on to dare and suffer, to love and hate; to be a fighter, a sportsman, an artist —’
‘And a drunkard!’ added Lancelot, sadly.
‘And a drunkard. But did it never seem to you that this strange wayward spirit, if anything, was the very root and core of your own personality? And had you never a craving for the help of some higher, mightier142 spirit, to guide and strengthen yours; to regulate and civilise its savage143 and spasmodic self-will; to teach you your rightful place in the great order of the universe around; to fill you with a continuous purpose and with a continuous will to do it? Have you never had a dream of an Inspirer? — a spirit of all spirits?’
Lancelot turned away with a shudder144.
‘Talk of anything but that! Little you know — and yet you seem to know everything — the agony of craving with which I have longed for guidance; the rage and disgust which possessed me when I tried one pretended teacher after another, and found in myself depths which their spirits could not, or rather would not, touch. I have been irreverent to the false, from very longing to worship the true; I have been a rebel to sham145 leaders, for very desire to be loyal to a real one; I have envied my poor cousin his Jesuits; I have envied my own pointers their slavery to my whip and whistle; I have fled, as a last resource, to brandy and opium146, for the inspiration which neither man nor demon would bestow147. . . . Then I found . . . you know my story. . . . And when I looked to her to guide and inspire me, behold! I found myself, by the very laws of humanity, compelled to guide and inspire her; — blind, to lead the blind! — Thank God, for her sake, that she was taken from me!’
‘Did you ever mistake these substitutes, even the noblest of them, for the reality? Did not your very dissatisfaction with them show you that the true inspirer ought to be, if he were to satisfy your cravings, a person, truly — else how could he inspire and teach you, a person yourself! — but an utterly infinite, omniscient148, eternal person? How know you that in that dream He was not unveiling Himself to you — He, The Spirit, who is the Lord and Giver of Life; The Spirit, who teaches men their duty and relation to those above, around, beneath them; the Spirit of order, obedience149, loyalty150, brotherhood151, mercy, condescension152?’
‘But I never could distinguish these dreams from each other; the moment that I essayed to separate them, I seemed to break up the thought of an absolute one ground of all things, without which the universe would have seemed a piecemeal153 chaos; and they receded154 to infinite distance, and became transparent155, barren, notional shadows of my own brain, even as your words are now.’
‘How know you that you were meant to distinguish them? How know you that that very impossibility was not the testimony156 of fact and experience to that old Catholic dogma, for the sake of which you just now shrank from my teaching? I say that this is so. How do you know that it is not?’
‘But how do I know that it is? I want proof.’
‘And you are the man who was, five minutes ago, crying out for practical facts, and disdaining157 cold abstract necessities of logic! Can you prove that your body exists?’
‘No.’
‘Can you prove that your spirit exists?’
‘No.’
‘And yet know that they both exist. And how?’
‘Solvitur ambulando.’
‘Exactly. When you try to prove either of them without the other, you fail. You arrive, if at anything, at some barren polar notion. By action alone you prove the mesothetic fact which underlies158 and unites them.’
‘Quorsum haec?’
‘Hither. I am not going to demonstrate the indemonstrable — to give you intellectual notions which, after all, will be but reflexes of my own peculiar133 brain, and so add the green of my spectacles to the orange of yours, and make night hideous159 by fresh monsters. I may help you to think yourself into a theoretical Tritheism, or a theoretical Sabellianism; I cannot make you think yourself into practical and living Catholicism. As you of anthropology160, so I say of theology — Solvitur ambulando. Don’t believe Catholic doctrine161 unless you like; faith is free. But see if you can reclaim162 either society or yourself without it; see if He will let you reclaim them. Take Catholic doctrine for granted; act on it; and see if you will not reclaim them!’
‘Take for granted? Am I to come, after all, to implicit163 faith?’
‘Implicit fiddlesticks! Did you ever read the Novum Organum? Mellot told me that you were a geologist164.’
‘Well?’
‘You took for granted what you read in geological books, and went to the mine and the quarry165 afterwards, to verify it in practice; and according as you found fact correspond to theory, you retained or rejected. Was that implicit faith, or common sense, common humility166, and sound induction167?’
‘Sound induction, at least.’
‘Then go now, and do likewise. Believe that the learned, wise, and good, for 1800 years, may possibly have found out somewhat, or have been taught somewhat, on this matter, and test their theory by practice. If a theory on such a point is worth anything at all, it is omnipotent168 and all-explaining. If it will not work, of course there is no use keeping it a moment. Perhaps it will work. I say it will.’
‘But I shall not work it; I still dread my own spectacles. I dare not trust myself alone to verify a theory of Murchison’s or Lyell’s. How dare I trust myself in this?’
‘Then do not trust yourself alone: come and see what others are doing. Come, and become a member of a body which is verifying, by united action, those universal and eternal truths, which are too great for the grasp of any one time-ridden individual. Not that we claim the gift of infallibility, any more than I do that of perfect utterance169 of the little which we do know.’
‘Then what do you promise me in asking me to go with you?’
‘Practical proof that these my words are true — practical proof that they can make a nation all that England might be and is not — the sight of what a people might become who, knowing thus far, do what they know. We believe no more than you, but we believe it. Come and see! — and yet you will not see; facts, and the reasons of them, will be as impalpable to you there as here, unless you can again obey your Novum Organum.’
‘How then?’
‘By renouncing170 all your idols — the idols of the race and of the market, of the study and of the theatre. Every national prejudice, every vulgar superstition, every remnant of pedantic171 system, every sentimental172 like or dislike, must be left behind you, for the induction of the world problem. You must empty yourself before God will fill you.’
‘Of what can I strip myself more? I know nothing; I can do nothing; I hope nothing; I fear nothing; I am nothing.’
‘And you would gain something. But for what purpose? — for on that depends your whole success. To be famous, great, glorious, powerful, beneficent?’
‘As I live, the height of my ambition, small though it be, is only to find my place, though it were but as a sweeper of chimneys. If I dare wish — if I dare choose, it would be only this — to regenerate173 one little parish in the whole world . . . To do that, and die, for aught I care, without ever being recognised as the author of my own deeds . . . to hear them, if need be, imputed174 to another, and myself accursed as a fool, if I can but atone175 for the sins of . . .
He paused; but his teacher understood him.
‘It is enough,’ he said. ‘Come with me; Tregarva waits for us near. Again I warn you; you will hear nothing new; you shall only see what you, and all around you, have known and not done, known and done. We have no peculiar doctrines176 or systems; the old creeds are enough for us. But we have obeyed the teaching which we received in each and every age, and allowed ourselves to be built up, generation by generation — as the rest of Christendom might have done — into a living temple, on the foundation which is laid already, and other than which no man can lay.’
‘And what is that?’
‘Jesus Christ —The Man.’
He took Lancelot by the hand. A peaceful warmth diffused177 itself over his limbs; the droning of the organ sounded fainter and more faint; the marble monuments grew dim and distant; and, half unconsciously, he followed like a child through the cathedral door.
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1
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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2
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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mote
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| n.微粒；斑点 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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frivolity
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| n.轻松的乐事，兴高采烈；轻浮的举止 | |
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omen
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| n.征兆，预兆；vt.预示 | |
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8
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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11
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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autobiography
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| n.自传 | |
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13
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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14
recurred
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| 再发生，复发( recur的过去式和过去分词 )； 治愈 | |
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15
ascetic
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| adj.禁欲的；严肃的 | |
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16
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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17
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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18
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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19
maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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20
idols
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| 偶像( idol的名词复数 )； 受崇拜的人或物； 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物； 神像 | |
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21
capability
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| n.能力；才能；(pl)可发展的能力或特性等 | |
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22
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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23
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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24
demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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25
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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26
twine
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| v.搓，织，编饰；（使）缠绕 | |
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27
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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28
serried
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| adj.拥挤的；密集的 | |
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29
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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30
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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31
cater
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| vi.(for/to)满足，迎合；(for)提供饮食及服务 | |
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32
futility
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| n.无用 | |
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33
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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34
vomit
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| v.呕吐，作呕；n.呕吐物，吐出物 | |
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35
stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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36
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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37
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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38
lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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39
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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40
trudging
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的现在分词形式） | |
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41
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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42
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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43
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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44
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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45
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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46
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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47
desecration
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| n. 亵渎神圣, 污辱 | |
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48
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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49
speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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50
spiked
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| adj.有穗的；成锥形的；有尖顶的 | |
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51
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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52
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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53
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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54
coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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55
stanzas
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| 节，段( stanza的名词复数 ) | |
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56
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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57
myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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58
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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59
waning
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| adj.（月亮）渐亏的，逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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60
relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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61
soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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62
stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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63
refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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64
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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65
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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66
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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67
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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68
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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69
kernel
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| n.(果实的)核，仁；(问题)的中心，核心 | |
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70
dilettante
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| n.半瓶醋，业余爱好者 | |
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71
beacon
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| n.烽火，（警告用的）闪火灯，灯塔 | |
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72
petrified
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| adj.惊呆的；目瞪口呆的v.使吓呆，使惊呆；变僵硬；使石化(petrify的过去式和过去分词) | |
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73
monasteries
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| 修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
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74
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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75
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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76
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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77
meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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78
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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79
dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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80
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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81
organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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82
organise
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| vt.组织，安排，筹办 | |
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83
parable
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| n.寓言，比喻 | |
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84
parables
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| n.（圣经中的）寓言故事( parable的名词复数 ) | |
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85
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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86
chivalrous
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| adj.武士精神的；对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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87
sanitary
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| adj.卫生方面的，卫生的，清洁的，卫生的 | |
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88
naturalist
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| n.博物学家(尤指直接观察动植物者) | |
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89
craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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90
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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91
benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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92
desultory
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| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
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93
beget
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| v.引起；产生 | |
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94
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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95
chaotic
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| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
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96
bigotry
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| n.偏见，偏执，持偏见的行为[态度]等 | |
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97
atheism
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| n.无神论，不信神 | |
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98
consecrate
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| v.使圣化，奉…为神圣；尊崇；奉献 | |
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99
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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100
longings
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| 渴望，盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
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101
sect
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| n.派别，宗教，学派，派系 | |
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102
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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103
solitudes
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| n.独居( solitude的名词复数 )；孤独；荒僻的地方；人迹罕至的地方 | |
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104
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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105
volcanic
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| adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的 | |
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106
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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107
cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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108
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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109
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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110
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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111
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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112
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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113
unravel
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| v.弄清楚（秘密）；拆开，解开，松开 | |
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114
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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115
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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116
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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117
barter
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| n.物物交换，以货易货，实物交易 | |
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118
Uranus
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| n.天王星 | |
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119
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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120
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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121
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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122
inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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123
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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124
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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125
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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126
creeds
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| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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127
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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128
beatific
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| adj.快乐的，有福的 | |
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129
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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130
spurned
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| v.一脚踢开，拒绝接受( spurn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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131
impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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132
peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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133
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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134
conqueror
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| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
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135
vanquished
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| v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 )；战胜；克服；抑制 | |
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136
derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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137
drearily
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| 沉寂地，厌倦地，可怕地 | |
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138
dreariness
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| 沉寂，可怕，凄凉 | |
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139
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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140
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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141
paternal
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| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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142
mightier
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| adj. 强有力的，强大的，巨大的 adv. 很，极其 | |
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143
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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144
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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145
sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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146
opium
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| n.鸦片；adj.鸦片的 | |
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147
bestow
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| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
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148
omniscient
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| adj.无所不知的；博识的 | |
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149
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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150
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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151
brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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152
condescension
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| n.自以为高人一等，贬低(别人) | |
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153
piecemeal
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| adj.零碎的；n.片，块；adv.逐渐地；v.弄成碎块 | |
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154
receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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155
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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156
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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157
disdaining
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| 鄙视( disdain的现在分词 )； 不屑于做，不愿意做 | |
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158
underlies
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| v.位于或存在于（某物）之下( underlie的第三人称单数 )；构成…的基础（或起因），引起 | |
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159
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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160
anthropology
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| n.人类学 | |
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161
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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162
reclaim
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| v.要求归还，收回；开垦 | |
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163
implicit
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| a.暗示的，含蓄的，不明晰的，绝对的 | |
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164
geologist
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| n.地质学家 | |
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165
quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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166
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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167
induction
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| n.感应，感应现象 | |
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168
omnipotent
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| adj.全能的，万能的 | |
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169
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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170
renouncing
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| v.声明放弃( renounce的现在分词 )；宣布放弃；宣布与…决裂；宣布摒弃 | |
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171
pedantic
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| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
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172
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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173
regenerate
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| vt.使恢复，使新生；vi.恢复，再生；adj.恢复的 | |
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174
imputed
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| v.把（错误等）归咎于( impute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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175
atone
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| v.赎罪，补偿 | |
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176
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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177
diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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