THE “BOOK OF UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD”
It is fitting that a few words should be said about the writer of the
“Book of Universal Brotherhood.”
Sylvanus Stone, having graduated very highly at the London University,
had been appointed at an early age lecturer to more than one Public
Institution. He had soon received the professorial robes due to a man of
his profound learning in the natural sciences, and from that time
till he was seventy his life had flowed on in one continual round of
lectures, addresses, disquisitions, and arguments on the subjects in
which he was a specialist. At the age of seventy, long after his wife's
death and the marriages of his three children, he had for some time been
living by himself, when a very serious illness--the result of liberties
taken with an iron constitution by a single mind--prostrated him.
During the long convalescence following this illness the power of
contemplation, which the Professor had up to then given to natural
science, began to fix itself on life at large. But the mind which had
made of natural science an idea, a passion, was not content with vague
reflections on life. Slowly, subtly, with irresistible centrifugal
force--with a force which perhaps it would not have acquired but for
that illness--the idea, the passion of Universal Brotherhood had sucked
into itself all his errant wonderings on the riddle of existence. The
single mind of this old man, divorced by illness from his previous
existence, pensioned and permanently shelved, began to worship a new
star, that with every week and month and year grew brighter, till all
other stars had lost their glimmer and died out.
At the age of seventy-four he had begun his book. Under the spell of his
subject and of advancing age, his extreme inattention to passing matters
became rapidly accentuated. His figure had become almost too publicly
conspicuous before Bianca, finding him one day seated on the roof of
his lonely little top-story flat, the better to contemplate his darling
Universe, had inveigled him home with her, and installed him in a room
in her own house. After the first day or two he had not noticed any
change to speak of.
His habits in his new home were soon formed, and once formed, they
varied not at all; for he admitted into his life nothing which took him
from the writing of his book.
On the afternoon following Hilary's dismissal of the little model,
being disappointed of his amanuensis, Mr. Stone had waited for an
hour, reading his pages over and over to himself. He had then done his
exercises. At the usual time for tea he had sat down, and, with his cup
and brown bread-and-butter alternately at his lips, had looked long and
fixedly at the place where the girl was wont to sit. Having finished,
he left the room and went about the house. He found no one but Miranda,
who, seated in the passage leading to the studio, was trying to keep
one eye on the absence of her master and the other on the absence of
her mistress. She joined Mr. Stone, maintaining a respect-compelling
interval behind him when he went before, and before him when he went
behind. When they had finished hunting, Mr. Stone went down to the
garden gate. Here Bianca found him presently motionless, without a hat,
in the full sun, craning his white head in the direction from which he
knew the little model habitually came. The mistress of the house was
herself returning from her annual visit to the Royal Academy, where she
still went, as dogs, from some perverted sense, will go and sniff round
other dogs to whom they have long taken a dislike. A loose-hanging
veil depended from her mushroom-shaped and coloured hat. Her eyes were
brightened by her visit. Mr. Stone soon seemed to take in who she was,
and stood regarding her a minute without speaking. His attitude towards
his daughters was rather like that of an old drake towards two
swans whom he has inadvertently begotten--there was inquiry in it,
disapproval, admiration, and faint surprise.
“Why has she not come?” he said.
Bianca winced behind her veil. “Have you asked Hilary?”
“I cannot find him,” answered Mr. Stone. Something about his patient
stooping figure and white head, on which the sunlight was falling, made
Bianca slip her hand through his arm.
“Come in, Dad. I'll do your copying.”
Mr. Stone looked at her intently, and shook his head.
“It would be against my principles; I cannot take an unpaid service.
But if you would come, my dear, I should like to read to you. It is
stimulating.”
At that request Bianca's eyes grew dim. Pressing Mr. Stone's shaggy arm
against her breast, she moved with him towards the house.
“I think I may have written something that will interest you,” Mr. Stone
said, as they went along.
“I am sure you have,” Bianca murmured.
“It is universal,” said Mr. Stone; “it concerns birth. Sit at the table.
I will begin, as usual, where I left off yesterday.”
Bianca took the little model's seat, resting her chin on her hand, as
motionless as any of the statues she had just been viewing. It almost
seemed as if Mr. Stone were feeling nervous. He twice arranged his
papers; cleared his throat; then, lifting a sheet suddenly, took three
steps, turned his back on her, and began to read.
“'In that slow, incessant change of form to form, called Life, men, made
spasmodic by perpetual action, had seized on a certain moment, no more
intrinsically notable than any other moment, and had called it Birth.
This habit of honouring one single instant of the universal process to
the disadvantage of all the other instants had done more, perhaps, than
anything to obfuscate the crystal clearness of the fundamental flux.
As well might such as watch the process of the green, unfolding earth,
emerging from the brumous arms of winter, isolate a single day and call
it Spring. In the tides of rhythm by which the change of form to form
was governed'”--Mr. Stone's voice, which had till then been but a
thin, husky murmur, gradually grew louder and louder, as though he were
addressing a great concourse--“'the golden universal haze in which men
should have flown like bright wing-beats round the sun gave place to the
parasitic halo which every man derived from the glorifying of his own
nativity. To this primary mistake could be traced his intensely personal
philosophy. Slowly but surely there had dried up in his heart the wish
to be his brother.'”
He stopped reading suddenly.
“I see him coming in,” he said.
The next minute the door opened, and Hilary entered.
“She has not come,” said Mr. Stone; and Bianca murmured:
“We miss her!”
“Her eyes,” said Mr. Stone, “have a peculiar look; they help me to see
into the future. I have noticed the same look in the eyes of female
dogs.”
With a little laugh, Bianca murmured again:
“That is good!”
“There is one virtue in dogs,” said Hilary, “which human beings
lack--they are incapable of mockery.”
But Bianca's lips, parted, indrawn, seemed saying: 'You ask too much! I
no longer attract you. Am I to sympathise in the attraction this common
little girl has for you?'
Mr. Stone's gaze was fixed intently on the wall.
“The dog,” he said, “has lost much of its primordial character.”
And, moving to his desk, he took up his quill pen.
Hilary and Bianca made no sound, nor did they look at one another;
and in this silence, so much more full of meaning than any talk, the
scratching of the quill went on. Mr. Stone put it down at last, and,
seeing two persons in the room, read:
“'Looking back at those days when the doctrine of evolution had reached
its pinnacle, one sees how the human mind, by its habit of continual
crystallisations, had destroyed all the meaning of the process. Witness,
for example, that sterile phenomenon, the pagoda of 'caste'! Like this
Chinese building, so was Society then formed. Men were living there in
layers, as divided from each other, class from class---'” He took up the
quill, and again began to write.
“You understand, I suppose,” said Hilary in a low voice, “that she has
been told not to come?”
Bianca moved her shoulders.
With a most unwonted look of anger, he added:
“Is it within the scope of your generosity to credit me with the desire
to meet your wishes?”
Bianca's answer was a laugh so strangely hard, so cruelly bitter, that
Hilary involuntarily turned, as though to retrieve the sound before it
reached the old man's ears.
Mr. Stone had laid down his pen. “I shall write no more to-day,” he
said; “I have lost my feeling--I am not myself.” He spoke in a voice
unlike his own.
Very tired and worn his old figure looked; as some lean horse, whose sun
has set, stands with drooped head, the hollows in his neck showing under
his straggling mane. And suddenly, evidently quite oblivious that he had
any audience, he spoke:
“O Great Universe, I am an old man of a faint spirit, with no singleness
of purpose. Help me to write on--help me to write a book such as the
world has never seen!”
A dead silence followed that strange prayer; then Bianca, with tears
rolling down her face, got up and rushed out of the room.
Mr. Stone came to himself. His mute, white face had suddenly grown
scared and pink. He looked at Hilary.
“I fear that I forgot myself. Have I said anything peculiar?”
Not feeling certain of his voice, Hilary shook his head, and he, too,
moved towards the door.