"Urns on corner walls, pilasters, circular windows, flowerage and
loggia. What horrible taste, and quite out of keeping with the
landscape!" He rang the bell.
"How do you do, Master John!" cried the tottering old butler who had
known him since babyhood. "Very glad, indeed, we all are to see you home
again, sir!"
Neither the appellation of Master John, nor the sight of the four
paintings, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, which decorated the walls
of the passage, found favour with John, and the effusiveness of Mrs
Norton, who rushed out of the drawing-room, followed by Kitty, and
embraced her son, at once set on edge all his curious antipathies. Why
this kissing, this approachment of flesh? Of course she was his
mother.... Then this smiling girl in the background! He would have to
amuse her and talk to her; what infinite boredom it would be! He trusted
fervently that her visit would not be a long one.
Then through what seemed to him the pollution of triumph, he was led
into the library; and he noticed, notwithstanding the presiding busts of
Shakespeare and Milton, that there was but one wretched stand full of
books in the room, and that in the gloom of a far corner. His mother sat
down, and there was a resoluteness in her look and attitude that seemed
to proclaim, "Now I hold you captive;" but she said:
"I was very much alarmed, my dear John, about your not sleeping. Mr Hare
told me you said that you went two and three nights without closing your
eyes, and that you had to have recourse to sleeping draughts."
"Not at all, mother, I never took a sleeping draught but twice in my
life."
"Well, you don't sleep well, and I am sure it is those college beds.
But you will be far more comfortable here. You are in the best bedroom
in the house, the one in front of the staircase, the bridal chamber; and
I have selected the largest and softest feather-bed in the house."
"My dear mother, if there is one thing more than another I dislike, it
is a feather-bed. I should not be able to close my eyes; I beg of you to
have it taken away."
Mrs Norton's face flushed. "I cannot understand, John; it is absurd to
say that you cannot sleep on a feather-bed. Mr Hare told me you
complained of insomnia, and there is no surer way of losing your health.
It is owing to the hardness of those college mattresses, whereas in a
feather-bed--"
"There is no use in our arguing that point, mother, I say I cannot sleep
on a feather-bed...."
"But you have not tried one; I don't believe you ever slept on a
feather-bed in your life."
"Well, I am not going to begin now."
"We haven't another bed aired in the house, and it is really too late
to ask the servants to change your room."
"Well, then, I shall be obliged to sleep at the hotel in Henfield."
"You should not speak to your mother in that way; I will not have it."
"There! you see we are quarrelling already; I did wrong to come home."
"I am speaking to you for your own good, my dear John, and I think it is
very stubborn of you to refuse to sleep on a feather-bed; if you don't
like it, you can change it to-morrow."
The conversation fell, and in silence the speakers strove to master
their irritation. Then John, for politeness' sake, spoke of when he had
last seen Kitty. It was about five years ago. She had ridden her pony
over to see them.
Mrs Norton talked of some people who had left the county, of a marriage,
of an engagement, of a mooted engagement; and she jerked in a
suggestion that if John were to apply at once, he would be placed
on the list of deputy-lieutenants. Enumeration of the family
influence--Lord So-and-so, the cousin, was the Lord Lieutenant's most
intimate friend.
"You are not even a J.P., but there will be no difficulty about that;
and you have not seen any of the county people for years. We will have
the carriage out some day this week, and we'll pay a round of visits."
"We'll do nothing of the kind. I have no time for visiting; I must get
on with my book. I hope to finish my study of St Augustine before I
leave here. I have my books to unpack, and a great deal of reading to
get through. I have done no more than glance at the Anglo-Latin.
Literature died in France with Gregory of Tours at the end of the sixth
century; with St Gregory the Great, in Italy, at the commencement of the
seventh century; in Spain about the same time. And then the Anglo-Saxons
became the representatives of the universal literature. All this is
most important. I must re-read St Aldhelm and the Venerable Bede....
Now, I ask, do you expect me--me, with my head full of Aldhelm's
alliterative verses--
"'Turbo terram teretibus
Quae catervatim coelitus
Neque coelorum culmina
......
......
Grassabatur turbinibus
Crebrantur nigris nubibus
Carent nocturna nebula--'
"a letter descriptive of a great storm which he was caught in as he was
returning home one night...."
"Now, sir, we have had quite enough of that, and I would advise you not
to go on with any of that nonsense here; you will be turned into
dreadful ridicule."
"That's just why I wish to avoid them ... but you have no pity for me.
Just fancy my having to listen to them! How I have suffered.... What is
the use of growing wheat when we are only getting eight pounds ten a
load?... But we must grow something, and there is nothing else but
wheat. We must procure a certain amount of straw, or we'd have no
manure, and you can't work a farm without manure. I don't believe in the
fish manure. But there is market gardening, and if we kept shops in
Brighton, we could grow our own stuff and sell it at retail price....
And then there is a great deal to be done with flowers."
"Now, sir, that will do, that will do.... How dare you speak to me so! I
will not allow it." And then relapsing into an angry silence, Mrs Norton
drew her shawl about her shoulders.
One of a thousand quarrels. The basis of each nature was common
sense--shrewd common sense--but such similarity of structure is in
itself apt to lead to much violent shocking of opinion; and to this end
an adjuvant was found in the dose of fantasy, mysticism, idealism which
was inherent in John's character. "Why is he not like other people? Why
will he waste his time with a lot of rubbishy Latin authors? Why will he
not take up his position in the county?" Mrs Norton asked herself these
questions as she fumed on the sofa.
"I wonder why she will continue to try to impose her will upon mine. I
wonder why she has not found out by this time the uselessness of her
effort. But no; she still keeps on hoping at last to wear me down. She
wants me to live the life she has marked out for me to live--to take up
my position in the county, and, above all, to marry and give an heir to
the property. I see it all; that is why she wanted me to spend Christmas
with her; that is why she has Kitty Hare here to meet me. How cunning,
how mean women are: a man would not do that. Had I known it.... I have a
mind to leave to-morrow. I wonder if the girl is in the little
conspiracy." And turning his head he looked at her.
Tall and slight, a grey dress, pale as the wet sky, fell from her waist
outward in the manner of a child's frock, and there was a lightness,
there was brightness in the clear eyes. The intense youth of her heart
was evanescent; it seemed constantly rising upwards like the breath of
a spring morning--a morning when the birds are trilling. The face
sharpened to a tiny chin, and the face was pale, although there was
bloom on the cheeks. The forehead was shadowed by a sparkling cloud of
brown hair, the nose was straight, and each little nostril was pink
tinted. The ears were like shells. There was a rigidity in her attitude.
She laughed abruptly, perhaps a little nervously, and the abrupt laugh
revealed the line of tiny white teeth. Thin arms fell straight to the
translucent hands, and there was a recollection of puritan England in
look and in gesture.
Her picturesqueness calmed John's ebullient discontent; he decided that
she knew nothing of, and was not an accomplice in, his mother's scheme:
For the sake of his guest he strove to make himself agreeable during
dinner, but it was clear that he missed the hierarchy of the college
table. The conversation fell repeatedly. Mrs Norton and Kitty spoke of
making syrup for the bees; and their discussion of the illness of poor
Dr ----, who would no longer be able to get through the work of the
parish single-handed, and would require a curate, was continued till the
ladies rose from table. Nor did matters mend in the library. John's
thoughts went back to his book; the room seemed to him intolerably
uncomfortable and ugly. He went to the billiard-room to smoke a cigar.
It was not clear to him if he would be able to spend two months in this
odious place. He might offer them to God as penance for his sins; if
every evening passed like the present, it were a modern martyrdom.
But had they removed that horrid feather-bed? He went upstairs. The
feather-bed had been removed.
The room was large and ample, and it was draped with many curtains--pale
curtains covered with walking birds and falling petals, a sort of Indian
pattern. There was a sofa at the foot of the bed, and the toilette-table
hung out its skirts in the wavering light of the fire. John tossed to
and fro staring at the birds and petals. He thought of his ascetic
college bed, of the great Christ upon the wall, of the prie-dieu with
the great rosary hanging, but in vain; he could not rid his mind of the
distasteful feminine influences which had filled the day, and which now
haunted the night.
After breakfast next morning Mrs Norton stopped John as he was going
upstairs to unpack his books. "Now," she said, "you must go out for a
walk with Kitty Hare, and I hope you will make yourself agreeable. I
want you to see the new greenhouse I have put up; she'll show it to you.
And I told the bailiff to meet you in the yard. I thought you might like
to see him."
"I wish, mother, you would not interfere in my business; had I wanted to
see Burnes I should have sent for him."
"If you don't want to see him, he wants to see you. There are some
cottages on the farm that must be put into repair at once. As for
interfering in your business, I don't know how you can talk like that;
were it not for me the whole place would be falling to pieces."
"Quite true; I know you save me a great deal of expense; but really ..."
"Really what? You won't go out to walk with Kitty Hare?"
"I did not say I wouldn't, but I must say that I am very busy just now.
I had thought of doing a little reading, for I have an appointment with
my solicitor in the afternoon."
"That man charges you £200 a-year for collecting the rents; now, if you
were to do it yourself, you would save the money, and it would give you
something to do."
"Something to do! I have too much to do as it is.... But if I am going
out with Kitty.... Where is she?"
"I saw her go into the library a moment ago."
And as it was preferable to go for a walk with Kitty than to continue
the interview with his mother, John seized his hat and called Kitty,
Kitty, Kitty! Presently she appeared, and they walked towards the
garden, talking. She told him she had been at Thornby Place the whole
time the greenhouse was being built, and when they opened the door they
were greeted by Sammy. He sprang instantly on her shoulder.
"This is my cat," she said. "I've fed him since he was a little kitten;
isn't he sweet?"
The girl was beautiful on the brilliant flower background; she stroked
the great caressing creature, and when she put him down he mewed
reproachfully. Further on her two tame rooks cawed joyously, and
alighted on her shoulder.
"I wonder they don't fly away, and join the others in the trees."
"One did go away, and he came back nearly dead with hunger. But he is
all right now, aren't you, dear?" And the bird cawed, and rubbed its
black head against its mistress' cheek. "Poor little things, they fell
out of the nest before they could fly, and I brought them up. But you
don't care for pets, do you, John?"
"I don't like birds!"
"Don't like birds! Why, that seems as strange as if you said that you
didn't like flowers."
"Mrs Norton told me, sir, that you would like to speak to me about them
cottages on the Erringham Farm," said the bailiff.
"Yes, yes, I must go over and see them to-morrow morning at ten o'clock.
I intend to go thoroughly into everything. How are they getting on with
the cottages that were burnt down?"
"Rather slow, sir, the weather is so bad."
"But talking of fire, Burnes, I find that I can insure at a much cheaper
rate at Lloyds' than at most of the offices. I find that I shall make a
saving of £20 a-year."
"That's worth thinking about, sir."
While the young squire talked to his bailiff Kitty fed her rooks. They
cawed, and flew to her hand for the scraps of meat. The coachman came
to speak about oats and straw. They went to the stables. Kitty adored
horses, it amused John to see her pat them, and her vivacity and
light-heartedness rather pleased him than otherwise.
Nevertheless, during the whole of the following week the ladies held
little communication with John. He lived apart from them. In the
mornings he went out with his bailiffs to inspect farms and consult
about possible improvement and necessary repairs. He had appointments
with his solicitor. There were accounts to be gone through. He never
paid a bill without verifying every item. It was difficult to say what
should be done with a farm for which a tenant could not be found even
at a reduced rent. At four o'clock he came into tea, his head full of
calculations of such a complex character that even his mother could not
follow the different statements to his satisfaction. When she disagreed
with him, he took up the "Epistles of St Columban of Bangor," the
"Epistola ad Sethum," or the celebrated poem, "Epistola ad Fedolium,"
written when the saint was seventy-two, and continued his reading,
making copious notes in a pocket-book. To do so he drew his chair close
to the library fire, and when Kitty came quickly into the room with a
flutter of skirts and a sound of laughter, he awoke from contemplation,
and her singing as she ascended the stairs jarred the dreams of cloister
and choir which mounted from the pages to his brain in clear and
intoxicating rhapsody.
On the third of November Mrs Norton announced that the meet of the
hounds had been fixed for the fifteenth, and that there would be a hunt
breakfast.
"Oh, my dear mother! you don't mean that they are coming here to lunch!"
"For the last twenty years all our side of the county has been in the
habit of coming here to lunch, but of course you can shut your doors to
all your friends and acquaintances. No doubt they will think you have
come down here on purpose to insult them."
"Insult them! why should I insult them? I haven't seen them since I was
a boy. I remember that the hunt breakfast used to go on all day long.
Every woman in the county used to come, and they used to stay to tea,
and you used to insist on a great number remaining to supper."
"Well, you can put a stop to all that now that you have consented to
come to Thornby Place, only I hope you don't expect me to remain here to
see my friends insulted."
"But just think of the expense! and in these bad times. You know I
cannot find a tenant for the Woreington farm. I am afraid I shall have
to provide the capital and farm it myself. Now, in the face of such
losses, don't you think that we should retrench?"
"Retrench! A few fowls and rounds of beef! You don't think of retrenching
when you present Stanton College with a stained glass window that costs
five hundred pounds."
"Of course, if you like it, mother..."
"I like nothing but what you like, but I really think that for you to
put down the hunt breakfast the first time you honour us with a visit,
would look very much as if you intended to insult the whole county."
"It will be a day of misery for me!" replied John, laughing; "but I
daresay I shall live through it."
"I think you will like it very much," said Kitty. "There will be a lot
of pretty girls here: the Misses Green are coming from Worthing; the
eldest is such a pretty girl, you are sure to admire her. And the hounds
and horses look so beautiful."
Mrs Norton and Kitty spoke daily of invitations, and later on of cooking
and the various things that were wanted. John continued to go through
his accounts in the morning, and to read monkish Latin in the evening;
but he was secretly nervous, and he dreaded the approaching day.
He was called an hour earlier--eight o'clock; he drank a cup of cold tea
and ate a piece of dry toast in a back room. The dining-room was full
of servants, who laid out a long table rich with comestibles and
glittering with glass. Mrs Norton and Kitty were upstairs dressing.
He wandered into the drawing-room and viewed the dead, cumbrous
furniture; the two cabinets bright with brass and veneer. He stood at
the window staring. It was raining. The yellow of the falling leaves was
hidden in the grey mist. It ceased to rain. "This weather will keep many
away; so much the better; there will be too many as it is. I wonder who
this can be." A melancholy brougham passed up the drive. There were
three old maids, all looking sweetly alike; one was a cripple who walked
with crutches, and her smile was the best and the gayest imaginable
smile.
"How little material welfare has to do with our happiness," thought
John. "There is one whose path is the narrowest, and she is happier and
better than I." And then the three sweet old maids talked with their
cousin of the weather; and they all wondered--a sweet feminine
wonderment--if he would see a girl that day whom he would marry.
Presently the house was full of people. The passage was full of girls; a
few men sat at breakfast at the end of the long table. Some red coats
passed across the green glare of the park, and the hounds trotted about
a single horseman. Voices. "Oh! how sweet they look! oh, the dear dogs!"
The huntsman stopped in front of the house, the hounds sniffed here
and there, the whips trotted their horses and drove them back. "Get
together, get together; get back there; Woodland, Beauty, come up here."
The hounds rolled on the grass, and leaned their fore-paws on the
railings, willing to be caressed.
"How sweet they are, look at their soft eyes," cried an old lady whose
deity was a pug, and whose back garden reeked of the tropics. "Look how
good and kind they are; they would not hurt anything; it is only wicked
men who teach them to be ..." The old lady hesitated before the word
"bad," and murmured something about killing.
There was a lady with melting eyes, many children, and a long sealskin,
and she availed herself of the excuse of seeing the hounds to rejoin a
young man in whom she was interested. There was an old sportsman of
seventy winters, as hale and as hearty as an oak, standing on the
door-step, and he made John promise to come over and see him. The girls
strolled about in groups. As usual young men were lacking. Looking at
his watch, the huntsman pressed the sides of his horse, and rode to draw
the covers at the end of the park. The ladies followed to see the start,
although the mud was inches deep under foot. "Hu in, hu in," cried the
huntsman. The whips trotted round cracking their long whips. Not a sound
was heard. Suddenly there was a whimper, "Hark to Woodland," cried the
huntsman. The hounds rallied to the point, but nothing came of it.
Apparently the old bitch was at fault. The huntsman muttered something
inaudible. But some few hundred yards further on, in an outlying clump
where no one would expect to find, a fox broke clean away.
The country is as flat as a smooth sea. Chanctonbury Ring stands up like
a mighty cliff on a northern shore; its crown of trees is grim. The
abrupt ascents of Toddington Mount bear away to the left, and tide-like
the fields flow up into the great gulf between.
"He's making for the furze, but he'll never reach them; he got no start,
and the ground is heavy."
Then the watchers saw the horsemen making their way up the chalky roads
cut in the precipitous side of the downs. Rain began to fall, umbrellas
were put up, and all hurried home to lunch.
"Now John, try and make yourself agreeable, go over and talk to some of
the young ladies. Why do you dress yourself in that way? Have you no
other coat? You look like a young priest. Look at that young man over
there! how nicely dressed he is! I wish you would let your moustache
grow; it would improve you immensely." With these and similar remarks
whispered to him, Mrs Norton continued to exasperate her son until the
servants announced that lunch was ready. "Take in Mrs So-and-so," she
said to John, who would fain have escaped from the melting glances of
the lady in the long sealskin. He offered her his arm with an air of
resignation, and set to work valiantly to carve a huge turkey.
As soon as the servants had cleared away after one set another came, and
although the meet was a small one, John took six ladies in to lunch.
About half-past three the men adjourned to the billiard-room to smoke.
The girls, mighty in numbers, followed, and, with their arms round each
other's waists, and interlacing fingers, they grouped themselves about
the room. Two huntsmen returned dripping wet, and much to his annoyance,
John had to furnish them with a change of clothes. There was tea in the
drawing-room about five o'clock, and soon after the visitors began to
take their leave.
The wind blew very coldly, the roosting rooks rose out of the branches,
and the carriages rolled into the night; but still a remnant of visitors
stood on the steps talking to John. His cold was worse; he felt very
ill, and now a long sharp pain had grown through his left side, and
momentarily it became more and more difficult to exchange polite words
and smiles. The footmen stood waiting by the open door, the horses
champed their bits, the green of the park was dark, and a group of
kissing girls moved about the loggia, wheels grated on the gravel ...
all were gone! The butler shut the door, and John went to the library
fire.
There his mother found him. She saw that something was seriously the
matter. He was helped up to bed, and the doctor was sent for. A bad
attack of pleurisy. John was rolled up in an enormous mustard
plaster--mustard and cayenne pepper; it bit into the flesh. He roared
with pain; he was slightly delirious; he cursed those around him, using
blasphemous language.
For more than a week he suffered. He lay bent over, unable to
straighten himself, as if a nerve had been wound up too tightly in the
left side. He was fed on gruel and beef-tea, the room was kept very
warm; it was not until the twelfth day that he was taken out of bed.
"You have had a narrow escape," the doctor said to John, who, well
wrapped up, lay back, looking very weak and pale, before a blazing fire.
"It was very lucky I was sent for. Twenty-four hours later I would not
have answered for your life."
"I was delirious, was I not?"
"Yes, slightly; you cursed and swore fearfully at us when we rolled you
up in the mustard plaster.... Well, it was very hot, and must have burnt
you."
"Yes, it was; it has scarcely left a bit of skin on me. But did I use
very bad language? I suppose I could not help it.... I was delirious,
was I not?"
"Yes, slightly."
"Yes; but I remember, and if I remember right, I used very bad
language; and people when they are really delirious do not know what
they say. Is not that so, doctor?"
"If they are really delirious they do not remember, but you were only
slightly delirious ... you were maddened by the pain occasioned by the
pungency of the plaster."
"Yes; but do you think I knew what I was saying?"
"You must have known what you were saying, because you remember what you
said."
"But could I be held accountable for what I said?"
"Accountable.... Well, I hardly know what you mean. You were certainly
not in the full possession of your senses. Your mother (Mrs Norton) was
very much shocked, but I told her that you were not accountable for what
you said."
"Then I could not be held accountable, I did not know what I was
saying."
"I don't think you did exactly; people in a passion don't know what
they say!"
"Ah! yes, but we are answerable for sins committed in the heat of
passion: we should restrain our passion; we were wrong in the first
instance in giving way to passion.... But I was ill, it was not exactly
passion. And I was very near death; I had a narrow escape, doctor?"
"Yes, I think I can call it a narrow escape."
The voices ceased,--five o'clock,--the curtains were rosy with lamp
light, and conscience awoke in the langours of convalescent hours. "I
stood on the verge of death!" The whisper died away. John was still very
weak, and he had not strength to think with much insistance, but now and
then remembrance surprised him suddenly like pain; it came unexpectedly,
he knew not whence nor how, but he could not choose but listen. Each
interval of thought grew longer; the scabs of forgetfulness were picked
away, the red sore was exposed bleeding and bare. Was he responsible
for those words? He could remember them all now; each like a burning
arrow lacerated his bosom, and he pulled them to and fro. Remembrance
in the watches of the night, dawn fills the dark spaces of a window,
meditations grow more and more lucid. He could now distinguish the
instantaneous sensation of wrong that had flashed on his excited mind in
the moment of his sinning.... Then he could think no more, and in the
twilight of contrition he dreamed vaguely of God's great goodness, of
penance, of ideal atonements. Christ hung on the cross, and far away the
darkness was seared with flames and demons.
And as strength returned, remembrance of his blasphemies grew stronger
and fiercer, and often as he lay on his pillow, his thoughts passing in
long procession, his soul would leap into intense suffering. "I stood on
the verge of death with blasphemies on my tongue. I might have been
called to confront my Maker with horrible blasphemies in my heart and on
my tongue; but He in His Divine goodness spared me: He gave me time to
repent. Am I answerable, O my God, for those dreadful words that I
uttered against Thee, because I suffered a little pain, against Thee Who
once died on the cross to save me! O God, Lord, in Thine infinite mercy
look down on me, on me! Vouchsafe me Thy mercy, O my God, for I was
weak! My sin is loathsome; I prostrate myself before Thee, I cry aloud
for mercy!"
Then seeing Christ amid His white million of youths, beautiful singing
saints, gold curls and gold aureoles, lifted throats, and form of harp
and dulcimer, he fell prone in great bitterness on the misery of earthly
life. His happinesses and ambitions appeared to him less than the
scattering of a little sand on the sea-shore. Joy is passion, passion
is suffering; we cannot desire what we possess, therefore desire is
rebellion prolonged indefinitely against the realities of existence;
when we attain the object of our desire, we must perforce neglect it in
favour of something still unknown, and so we progress from illusion to
illusion. The winds of folly and desolation howl about us; the sorrows
of happiness are the worst to bear, and the wise soon learn that there
is nothing to dream of but the end of desire.... God is the one ideal,
the Church the one shelter from the misery and meanness of life. Peace
is inherent in lofty arches, rapture in painted panes.... See the mitres
and crosiers, the blood-stained heavenly breasts, the loin-linen hanging
over orbs of light.... Listen! ah! the voices of chanting boys, and out
of the cloud of incense come Latin terminations, and the organ still is
swelling.
In such religious aestheticisms the soul of John Norton had long
slumbered, but now it awoke in remorse and pain, and, repulsing its
habitual exaltations even as if they were sins, he turned to the primal
idea of the vileness of this life, and its sole utility in enabling man
to gain heaven. Beauty, what was it but temptation? He winced before a
conclusion so repugnant to him, but the terrors of the verge on which
he had so lately stood were still upon him in all their force, and he
crushed his natural feelings....
The manifestation of modern pessimism in John Norton has been described,
and how its influence was checked by constitutional mysticity has
also been shown. Schopenhauer, when he overstepped the line ruled by
the Church, was instantly rejected. From him John Norton's faith
had suffered nothing; the severest and most violent shocks had come
from another side--a side which none would guess, so complex and
contradictory are the involutions of the human brain. Hellenism, Greek
culture and ideal; academic groves; young disciples, Plato and Socrates,
the august nakedness of the Gods were equal, or almost equal, in his
mind with the lacerated bodies of meagre saints; and his heart wavered
between the temple of simple lines and the cathedral of a thousand
arches. Once there had been a sharp struggle, but Christ, not Apollo,
had been the victor, and the great cross in the bedroom of Stanton
College overshadowed the beautiful slim body in which Divinity seemed to
circulate like blood; and this photograph was all that now remained of
much youthful anguish and much temptation.
A fact to note is that his sense of reality had always remained in a
rudimentary state; it was, as it were, diffused over the world and
mankind. For instance, his belief in the misery and degradation of
earthly life, and the natural bestiality of man, was incurable; but of
this or that individual he had no opinion; he was to John Norton a blank
sheet of paper, to which he could not affix even a title. His childhood
had been one of bitter tumult and passionate sorrow; the different and
dissident ideals growing up in his heart and striving for the mastery,
had torn and tortured him, and he had long lain as upon a mental rack.
Ignorance of the material laws of existence had extended even into his
sixteenth year, and when, bit by bit, the veil fell, and he understood,
he was filled with loathing of life and mad desire to wash himself
free of its stain; and it was this very hatred of natural flesh that
precipitated a perilous worship of the deified flesh of the God. But
mysticity saved him from plain paganism, and the art of the Gothic
cathedral grew dear to him. It was nearer akin to him, and he assuaged
his wounded soul in the ecstacies of incense and the great charms of
Gregorian chant.
But fear now for the first time took possession of him, and he
realised--if not in all its truth, at least in part--that his love of
God had only taken the form of a gratification of the senses, a
sensuality higher but as intense as those which he so much reproved.
Fear smouldered in his very entrails, and doubt fumed and went out like
steam--long lines and falling shadows and slowly dispersing clouds. His
life had been but a sin, an abomination, and the fairest places darkened
as the examination of conscience proceeded. His thought whirled in
dreadful night, soul-torturing contradictions came suddenly under his
eyes, like images in a night-mare; and in horror and despair, as a woman
rising from a bed of small-pox drops the mirror after the first glance,
and shrinks from destroying the fair remembrance of her face by pursuing
the traces of the disease through every feature, he hid his face in his
hands and called for forgiveness--for escape from the endless record of
his conscience. With staring eyes and contracted brows he saw the flames
which await him who blasphemes. To the verge of those flames he had
drifted. If God in His infinite mercy had not withheld him?... He
pictured himself lost in fires and furies. Then looking up he saw the
face of Christ, grown pitiless in final time--Christ standing immutable
amid His white million of youths....
And the worthlessness and the abjectness of earthly life struck him with
awful and all-convincing power, and this vision of the worthlessness of
existence was clearer than any previous vision. He paused. There was but
one conclusion ... it looked down upon him like a star--he would become a
priest. All darkness, all madness, all fear faded, and with sure and
certain breath he breathed happiness; the sense of consecration nestled
in its heart, and its light shone upon his face.
There was nothing in the past, but there is the sweetness of meditation
in the present, and in the future there is God. Like a fountain flowing
amid a summer of leaves and song, the sweet hours came with quiet and
melodious murmur. In the great arm-chair of his ancestors he sits thin
and tall. Thin and tall. The great flames decorate the darkness, and the
twilight sheds upon the rose curtains, walking birds and falling petals.
But his thoughts are dreaming through long aisle and solemn arch, clouds
of incense and painted panes.... The palms rise in great curls like the
sky; and amid the opulence of gold vestments, the whiteness of the
choir, the Latin terminations and the long abstinences, the holy oil
comes like a kiss that never dies ... and in full glory of symbol and
chant, the very savour of God descends upon him ... and then he awakes,
surprised to find such dreams out of sleep.
His resolve did not alter; he longed for health because it would bring
the realisation of his desire, and time appeared to him cruelly long.
Nor could he think of the pain he inflicted on his mother, so centred
was he in this thought; he was blind to her sorrowing face, he was deaf
to her entreaty; he could neither feel nor see beyond the immediate
object he had in mind, and he spoke to her in despair of the length of
months that separated him from consecration; he speculated on the
possibility of expediting that happy day by a dispensation from the
Pope. The moment he could obtain permission from the doctor he ordered
his trunks to be packed, and when he bid Mrs Norton and Kitty Hare
good-bye, he exacted a promise from the former to be present at Stanton
College on Palm Sunday. He wished her to be present when he embraced
Holy Orders.