THE KAMPANER THAL
Events are thickening around me these winter days; and much oftener than
in past years am I compelled to lay aside my pet authors, when my lamp
is lighted, and my fire is sparkling merrily, whilst the earth is waking
up from its winter's sleep, and stretching out its hands in the feeble
lengthening of the evenings towards the approaching spring. This evening
I had an unexpected visitor,--no less a person than Reginald Ormsby, the
betrothed of Bittra. He came in modestly and apologetically, with all
that gentlemanly deference that is so characteristic of the British
officer. He made a nice little speech, explaining his reasons for
visiting me so late, and mildly deprecating the anger of such a
potentate as the parish priest of Kilronan. I had pulled the bell in the
mean time, and Hannah had brought in the "materials"; and in reply to
his pretty eloquence, I merely pushed the decanter towards him, and
said:--
"Go ahead!"
He filled his wine-glass with a firm hand, until the blessed liquor made
an arc of a circle on the summit; then tilted it over into the tumbler,
without spilling a drop, then filled the tumbler to the top with hot
water, and I said in my own mind, "He'll do."
"Of course," I said, after this little ceremony had been proceeded with,
"you smoke?"
"I shouldn't venture to think of smoking in your pretty parlor, sir,"
said he. "You know cigar smoke hangs around the curtains for days,
and--"
"Never mind the curtains," I replied. "I don't keep Havanas here, though
I suppose we must soon, as that appears to be a constituent in the new
education to which we old fossils are being subjected. But if you have a
cigar-case about you, light up, like a good fellow. You have to say
something of importance, I think, and they say a cigar promotes easy and
consecutive thought."
"Very many thanks, sir," he said. "Then, with your permission, I will."
He smoked quietly for a few seconds, and it was a good cigar, I can tell
you. The fragrance filled the whole house. Then I broke the ice:--
"Now, my curate has had several conferences with you about religion, and
he told me he was going to try the _Kampaner Thal_."
"Oh, yes! so he did, indeed. He has been very kind."
I should say here that my theological friend and neighbor had written
me: "I have hunted up all my cyclopædias, and can find no trace whatever
of that thing about which you were inquiring. From the word _Kampaner_,
I suspect it has something to do with bells. Perhaps your curate wants a
chime for your cathedral at Kilronan. When you get them, select C sharp,
or B flat, and put it around his neck, that we may know where to find
him. Yours truly--"
"Now," I said to Mr. Ormsby, "I do not know whether that _Kampaner Thal_
is bird, beast, fish, or insect; whether it is a powerful drug or a new
system of hypnotism."
"Oh, 't is none of these dreadful things," he said, laughing; "'t is
only a little book. Here it is! I always carry it about with me. It is
really very beautiful."
I handled the little duodecimo with suspicion; then gave it back.
"It has done you a lot of good, I suppose?" I said, I am afraid, with a
certain amount of contempt.
"I can't say it has," he replied sadly; then lapsed into moody
reflection.
Now, gloom is the one thing I cannot tolerate; so to rouse him from his
reverie, and possibly from a slight, venial prompting of curiosity, I
asked him to read some passages for me.
"My old sight cannot bear much of a strain," I said, "and the print is
mighty small. Now, like a good fellow, pick out some good things, and
read them slowly, for perhaps I may require to punctuate them."
So he read in a calm even monotone, without inflection, but with many
pauses, whilst I watched every syllable and measured it.
"I have a strong objection to a _voyage pittoresque_ through the
planets; we bear in our own breasts a heaven full of
constellations. There is in our hearts an inward, spiritual world,
that breaks like a sun upon the clouds of the outward world. I mean
that inward universe of goodness, beauty, and truth,--three worlds
that are neither part, nor shoot, nor copy of the outward. We are
less astonished at the incomprehensible existence of these
transcendental heavens because they are always there, and we
foolishly imagine that we create, when we merely perceive them.
After _what model_, with what _plastic power_, and _from what_,
could we create these same spiritual worlds? The atheist should ask
himself how he received the giant idea of God, that he has neither
opposed nor embodied. An idea that has not grown up by comparing
different degrees of greatness, as it is the opposite of every
measure and degree. In fact, the atheist speaks as others of
_prototype_ and _original_."
"Stop there," I cried; "why that is the ontological argument of St.
Anselm, adopted afterwards by a soldier philosopher like yourself,
called Descartes. There's nothing new under the sun. It is wonderful how
modern artists can refurbish our old Masters and make wonderful pictures
from them!"
"Quite so," he replied, "in lieu of yourselves. There, now, I am always
too precipitate; pardon me, sir, if I am too bold; but you Catholics
have a wonderful talent for burying your treasures in napkins. Have you
any treatise on the immortality of the soul in English, and in such a
style as this?"
"I am afraid," I replied, as I looked askance at the volume, "that just
now I cannot mention one. But go on, if it does not tire you. Time is
the cheapest thing we have in Ireland."
He continued:--
"'The inward world, that is indeed more splendid and admirable than
the outward, needs another heaven than the one above us, and a
higher world than that the sun warms; therefore, we say justly, not
a second _earth_, or globe, but a second world beyond this
universe.'
"Gione interrupted me: 'And every virtuous and wise man is a proof
of another world.'
"'And,' continued Nadine quickly, 'every one who undeservedly
suffers.'
"'Yes,' I answered; 'that is what draws our thread of life through
a long eternity. The threefold echo of virtue, truth, and beauty,
created by the music of the spheres, calls us from this hollow
earth to the neighborhood of the music. Why and wherefore were
these desires given us? Merely that, like a swallowed diamond, they
should slowly cut through our earthly covering. Wherefore were we
placed upon this ball of earth, creatures with light wings, if
instead of soaring with our wings of ether, we are to fall back
into the earth-clods of our birth?... Is an angel to be imprisoned
in the body to be its dumb servant, its stove-warmer and butler,
its _cuisinier_ and porter at the door of the stomach? Shall the
ethereal flame merely serve to fill the circular stove with life's
warmth, obediently burn and warm, then become cold and
extinguished?'"
"Very good, indeed," I interrupted. "He knows how to put things in a
virile way.'
"'The discrepancy between our wishes and our relations, between the
_soul_ and the _earth_, remains a _riddle_ if we continue; and if
we cease to live, a _blasphemy_. Strangers, born upon mountains, we
consume in lowly places, with unhealthy _heimweh_ (home-sickness).
We belong to higher regions, and an eternal longing grows in our
hearts at music, which is the _Kuhreigen_ of our native Alps....'
"'From hence what follows?' asked the chaplain (a Kantian).
"'Not that we are unhappy, but that we are immortal; and this world
_within_ us demands and manifests a _second_ without us.... I
cannot tell how painful, how monstrous and horrible the thought of
an annihilating death, of an eternal grave, now appeared to me. Men
often bear their errors, as their truths, about in words, and not
in feeling; but let the believer in annihilation place before him,
instead of a life of sixty years, one of sixty minutes; then let
him look on the face of a beloved being, or upon a noble or wise
man, as upon an aimless hour-long appearance; as a thin shadow that
melts into light and leaves no trace; can he bear the thought? No!
the supposition of imperishableness is always with him; else there
would hang always before his soul, as before Mahomet's in the
fairest sky, a dark cloud; and, as Cain upon the earth, an eternal
fear would pursue him. Yes, if all the woods upon this earth were
groves of pleasure; if all the valleys were Kampaner valleys; if
all the islands were blessed, and all the fields Elysian; if all
eyes were cheerful and all the hearts joyful,--yes, then--no! even
then, had God, through this very blessedness, made to our spirits
the _promise_, the _oath_ of eternal duration! But, now, O God!
when so many houses are houses of mourning, so many fields
battlefields, so many cheeks pale, when we pass before so many eyes
red with weeping or closed in death: Oh! can the grave, that haven
of salvation, be the last swallowing, unyielding whirlpool? No, the
trampled worm dares raise itself towards its Creator, and say,
"Thou durst not create me only to suffer!"'"
I was listening with closed eyes to the reading, the quiet rhythm of the
sentences, and the calm, deep music of his voice, sounding ineffably
soothing, when a quaver, then a break in his voice, just as he repeated
the last words, made me look toward him. The calm, strong man was
weeping silently; and just then he broke into a paroxysm of sobs that
shook his strong frame as by a palsy. Dear Lord! what hidden grief there
is in the world! Who would ever dream that the calm exterior of this
reasoning, cultivated atheist concealed such hidden fires? It was no
time to talk; I let the poor fellow alone. After a few moments he dried
his eyes, and said:--
"I am quite ashamed of this snivelling, Father. I shouldn't have
attempted to read this. It always upsets me."
"Never mind, my poor boy," I said. "It is good for men sometimes to
weep." I thought in my own mind, My little child will be in safe hands.
"Now, put it aside," I said gently, "and let us talk."
"One sentence more, Father, just to get over this weakness."
"'Ah, Carlson (Carlson stands for myself), upon what a beautiful
world do you throw your immeasurable gravestone, that no time can
lift. Your difficulties, which are founded on the _necessary_
uncertainties of men, if solved, would only have the effect to
destroy our _faith_; which is the solution of a thousand other
difficulties; without which our existence is without aim, our pains
without solution, and the Godlike Trinity within our breasts three
avenging angels. From the formless earthworm up to the beaming
human countenance; from the chaos of the first day up to the
present age of the world; from the first faint motion of the heart
to its full, bold throbbing in the breast of manhood, the invisible
hand of God leads, protects, and nourishes the inward being; the
_nursling of the outward_ educates and polishes and makes it
beautiful--and wherefore? That when it stands as a demigod in the
midst of the ruins of the temple of the body, the blow of death may
prostrate it forever, that nothing shall remain from the
corpse-veiled, the mourning and mantled immeasurable universe, but
the eternally sowing, never harvesting, solitary spirit of the
world! One eternity looking despairingly at the other; and in the
whole spiritual universe no end, no aim! And all these
contradictions and riddles, whereby not merely the harmony, but the
very _strings_ of creation are tangled, must we take, merely on
account of the difficulties, that, indeed, our annihilation cannot
solve? Beloved Carlson! into this harmony of the spheres, that is
not _over_, but ever _around_ us, will you bring your shrieking
discord? See how gently and touchingly the day departs, and how
holily the night comes! Oh, can you not believe that even thus our
spirits shall arise from the dust, as you once saw the full moon
arise over the crater of Vesuvius?'
"Gione took his hand and said:--
"'Amongst us all, will you alone be tormented with this despairing
faith?'
"Two hot drops fell from his blinded eyes; he looked at the
mountains, and said:--
"'I can bear no annihilation but my own. My _heart_ is of your
opinion; my _head_ will slowly follow.'"
"And that, sir," said Ormsby, closing the book and putting it into his
side pocket, "is just where I am. My heart is with you; if only my head
would follow. Put Bittra for Gione, and you will understand my emotion."
"Even that won't do," I said; "the head might follow, and you might be
as far from us as ever."
"I don't understand," he said in a bewildered way. "Surely all that's
wanting now is a conviction of the truth of your teaching?"
"There's your grave mistake," I replied; "conviction is not faith. There
are thousands of your countrymen filled with conviction of the truths of
Catholicity; but they are as far outside the Church as a Confucian or a
Buddhist. Faith is not a matter to be acquired by reading or knowledge.
It is a gift, like the natural talent of a great painter or musician--a
sixth sense, and the pure gratuity of the All-Wise and the All-Good."
This appeared to him to be a revelation which he could not comprehend;
it seemed to be such an inevitable logical sequence--conviction and
profession.
"I am attracted by everything," he said, "in your Church. The whole
thing appears to be such a well-connected scheme, so unlike the religion
in which I was born and educated, where you had to be forever searching
after a missing link. And then your Church seems to be founded on
love--love of a supernal kind, of course, and almost unintelligible; but
it is the golden chain in the string of pearls. You will have noticed
how rapidly sometimes the mind makes comparisons. Well, often, at our
station over there, I have thought, as I searched the sea, that we
Protestants look at God through the large end of a telescope and throw
Him afar off, and make Him very small and insignificant; whilst you look
at Him through the narrower end, and magnify Him and bring Him near. Our
God--that is, the God in whom I was taught to believe--is the God of
Sinai, and our Christ is the historic Christ; but that won't do for a
humanity that is ever querulous for God, and you have found the secret."
I was quite astonished at the solemn, thoughtful manner in which this
young fellow spoke, and his words were so full of feeling and
self-sympathy for his great privation. He was silent for a long time,
smoking freely, whilst I was pondering many things, mostly in humility
for our slow appreciation of the great gift of divine faith. At last, he
said:--
"I do not quite follow you, sir, in your remark about a sixth sense; for
this is not a question of sense, but of the soul."
We were now getting into deep water, and when an old gentleman hasn't
opened a book of philosophy for nearly thirty years, he may be well
excused for a certain timidity in approaching these deep questions. But,
"keep to the metaphorical" has always been a great rule of mine, which
never failed me.
"Let me explain," I said. "Have you ever been to an ophthalmic hospital
or a blind asylum?"
"Yes," he replied, "principally abroad."
"Well," I continued, "you might have noticed various forms of the dread
disease of blindness. Some are cases of cataract; in some the entire
ball is removed; some have partial sight behind the ugly film. But the
most pathetic case to my mind is that of the young boy or girl who comes
toward you, looking steadily at you with large, luminous eyes, the iris
perfectly clear, the pupil normally distended, and even the white of the
eye tinged with that delicate blue that denotes perfect health in the
organ; but in one moment the truth flashes upon you--that poor patient
is stone-blind. Now, where's the disease?"
"The optic nerve is destroyed," he answered promptly.
"Precisely. And now, if you were to pour in through the dark canal of
the pupil the strongest sunlight, or even the flash of your electric
searchlight, would it make any difference, do you think?"
"None," he said, "so far as sight was concerned; but it might possibly
paralyze the brain."
"Precisely. And if you, my dear young friend, were pouring, till the
crack of doom, every kind of human light--philosophical, dogmatic,
controversial--upon the retina of the soul without the optic nerve of
faith, you will be blind, and go blind to your grave."
Somehow this appeared to be a relief, though it looked like
discouragement.
"It is something to know," he said, "that the fault is not altogether my
own. But," after a pause, "this demands a miracle."
"Quite so. A pure light from God. And that is the reason that my
excellent curate is storming the citadels of heaven for you by that
terrible artillery--the prayers of little children. And if you want to
capture this grace of God by one tremendous _coup_, search out the most
stricken and afflicted of my flock (Bittra has a pretty good catalogue
of them), and get him or her to pray for you, and very soon the sense
of faith will awaken within you, and you will wonder that you were ever
blind."
"Ten thousand thanks," he said, rising; "I had no anticipations of so
pleasant and instructive an evening."
"You were told to expect to meet a funny old fellow," I said, "with as
many quips, and cranks, and jests, as old Jack Falstaff?"
"Well," he said, pulling his mustache nervously, "I should not like to
put it so brusquely."
"Of course not. But there lies a big mistake, my dear boy. Democritus
was as much a philosopher as Heraclitus, and he lived fifty years
longer. There is a good deal of philosophy behind a laugh, and we put
our gargoyles on the outside of our churches."
"Indeed, I must say, from a long experience," he replied, "and a
grateful experience, that your men are the most cheerful class I have
met,--if I except our own sailors,--although the comparison sounds
grotesque. And," he said hesitatingly, "that just reminds me; if I may
take the freedom of showing my gratitude in a small way, permit me to
say to you as pastor, what I have already hinted to himself, that your
most excellent curate will involve himself in a great deal of trouble
and possible expense if he perseveres in that matter of the
fishing-boat. Indeed, I have been working the matter for him, because
his heart is set on it; but I have misgivings. I'm not sure that I am
quite right in mentioning the matter to you, sir; but I am really
anxious, and I speak from long experience."
He lighted another cigar at the door, and I returned to think somewhat
anxiously whether I had done credit to Catholic philosophy. But my
thoughts would revert to these last words of Ormsby's. What if Father
Letheby should get into a bad mess, and everything so promising? How
little these young men reflect what a trouble they are to their old
pastors!