END OF MISS LANGLER
When I opened my eyes I found myself lying alone half under the
bedstead. The body of my friend, no longer there, must have been very
quietly taken away. It was found in the river, high up about Wargrave.
I gathered up my hat and some telegrams scattered over the floor, and
passed out, for the door of the room I found to be now open, so also was
the door below. I think that I met no one on the stairs.
I next found myself in a train, and noticed now that it was evening at
the sight of one of those sunsets that for three evenings had surprised
everyone. Some men in the train were wildly talking, and though I heard
little more of it than "Church" and "miracles," and "downfall," I can
vividly remember their vowels of wonder and agitated jabbering.
On arriving at Alresford I got into a car to go to Swandale, but
half-way to Swandale got out again, for I was now in no haste to be
there, so it came into my head to walk, and at one moment I walked, at
another I was standing still, at another I rabidly ran. In Swandale,
when I was crossing the bridge toward the cottage, I beheld an old man
named Davenport at the cottage-door whispering to two maid-servants, one
of whom darted away, and when I had come to the cottage, "quite well, I
hope, sir?" this old man mumbled to me, "fine evening, sir." "None o'
that," I said to him, "where is Miss Langler?" "This way, sir," he
answered, and ushered me into the morning-room. But I was no sooner in
than the doorway was blocked with retainers, men and women, and it
appeared to me that these people were there to impede and tease me. No
doubt my dress and appearance were in some disarray, since they seemed
to gape in alarm at me, so now, growing angry, I said to old Davenport:
"what is the meaning of this? is Miss Langler alive?" "Surely, sir," was
his answer. "Then what is the meaning of this?" said I, "where is she?"
"Miss Langler is no longer in the house, sir," he answered. "That now is
a wilful falsehood, Davenport, and you know it full well," said I. "You
say so, sir," he answered, "though I was never charged quite in that way
till now, sir." "Well, you are charged now, Davenport," said I, "and I
require to be taken instantly to Miss Langler." "The Almighty God look
down upon this house!" he now bawled out, "you cannot, Mr Arthur, you
cannot!" "But we shall see, then, whether I am a captive or not,
Davenport!" I cried, whereat the old man shouted out: "John! stop him!
he is out of his wits!" They failed, however, to hold me, for I tore
clear out of the thick of them, and pelted down the length of two long,
dark corridors, nor did any of them dare to come after me.
Through all that region of the house I now flew in a heat of search for
Miss Langler: I glanced into her chamber, and she was not there; I
looked into room after room, and did not see her; I peered into nooks,
for nothing was lit anywhere, and everything brooded in a deep dusk. But
on getting nearer to Langler's study I seemed to detect some sound.... I
went to it. Both the doors were locked on the outside, and the sound,
louder now, was going on within; so, crouching there at one of the two
doors in the hush of the dark, I hearkened a long, long while to it.
Something within seemed to me to be running about the study at a trot,
round and round, with trot, trot, trot, in a steady way; but whether it
was a living human soul I did not know, for it was strange that the
lungs of a man should last so long, and not fail, and I wondered whether
it was she--or he; when it drew nigh to the door I heard pantings
awhile, till it went on its way, and presently panted nigh once more,
and was away, round and round, in a steady way; twice or thrice, too, I
seemed to be aware of a flutter somewhere, the thin utterance of a bird;
and ever I spurred myself to venture in, to look and see for myself, but
each time that I brisked up to try it my hairs bristled, and I shied at
it.
There did, however, come a moment when I very gingerly turned the key
and found myself in. It was Miss Langler whom I saw; but she, for her
part, did not see, or at least heed, me at all, nor make any attempt to
escape, but continued to trot round, panting towards some bourn in a
heavy haste, made heavier by the large hat that she wore, and by the
velvet of a violet hue that voluminously clothed her, some of which she
carried over her arm that she might the handier hurry. That print of
Gainsborough's "Duchess" in her large gown over the pyx, if it had
stepped down from its frame to run and run, could hardly have more
resembled her. The mastiff Bruno was following at her heels, and on her
shoulder rode the little wren in unstable balance, this latter all
mauled now and bemuddled in its own blood, while many of its feathers
lay moulted about the floor-tiles: for when she had seen that her
brother did not come to her, she seems to have given way to a craving to
crush out the creature's life, but it had contrived to escape her hand,
she had run after to catch it, and had kept on running. But why, I
wondered, did she so press, with her eye musing inwardly upon herself,
the enamel eye of mosaics, fixed and dull? If I dared to stand in her
way to bar her, for I was far from dreaming of daring to touch her, she
meekly swerved as from some rock or block, and continued to run her
course. Rarely did she halt for sheer breathlessness, and lean her
shoulder a little, and pant, and start afresh, followed by the machine
that whined at her heels with a long lolling tongue and eyes of
abashment. I, seated in the casement, hearkened and hearkened to her
every step, and to the rushing of the cascade, and my eye-corners were
ever aware of her as she came and went in that twilight stillness, of
the flutterings, too, of the bird, and of the fading out of the sunset,
for all that heaven of hues in the west I saw die down to bloodshed and
dabbling, and wished that I, too, was dead.
It was not till two in the morning that I saw her removed, she
protesting with a meek dignity, begging to be permitted to catch.... But
of this I could hardly write more; it was with her as the hard heart of
the world would have it; and God is on His throne, thinking on His
glory....
APPENDIX
Having finished the tale of my tragedy, what I may still further have to
utter will contain naught that is new, no exclusive knowledge of my own,
but may still be of interest as a sketch of my introduction to the
so-called Church-of-the-overman.
The nine months following the death of Langler are somehow almost wholly
blotted out of my life, I remember next to nothing of them, living
somehow _in vacuo_, with curiously little of pain or pleasure or
volition, and almost my first new memories are of the visits of my
friend, Mr Martin Magee, who put himself to infinite pains with me, read
to me, insisted upon interesting me. Again and again he would recount to
me the thousand-fold drama of "the downfall" in all its ramifications
and phases. "Dead?" he would say of the Church, with his Irish energy
and a thump of the fist, "dead with a thud that has been felt by the
priesthood in China: there has been a little recrudescence of
old-fashioned Nonconformity in England, Scotland, and America, but that
isn't going to last ten years, you'll see."
"So the people imagine that the miracles were the work of churchmen?" I
asked.
"Pooh, not now," he answered; "they did at first, and it was the rage
arising out of this fancy that wiped out the Church as a political
power; but, of course, the real death of the Church is not due to rage,
but to unconcern and oblivion."
"Was it for this, then, that Aubrey Langler died?" I thought, "in order
that the Church as a political power might be wiped out?" "But was
there no moral reaction, Magee?" I asked: "Langler said that there would
be, and another friend of mine that there would not."
"Which friend was that?" asked Magee.
"I may tell you and the world some day," I answered, "if he dies before
me, but not at present."
"Well, whoever he is, he knows his modern Europe," said Magee. "I don't
remember hearing of any moral reaction."
"But, then," said I, "is the Western world left now without any
religion?"
"Never a bit," said he; "it is now just beginning to be gushingly
religious. Haven't we, first of all, our store of hereditary religion,
unconscious in us? And remember that 'the unconscious is the alone
complete.' Religion, I suppose, is whatever binds us back from living to
please our primary natural selves? Therefore religion of old said, 'live
to please those about you'; and man has roughly reached to that, of old
making society possible, now making it solid. But the evolution of 'live
to please those about you,' is it not this: 'live to please those whom
you cannot even see, the unborn'? All which you may hear Rivers say if
you will come with me forthwith to church."
"Which church?" I asked.
"Why, Rivers'--or any of the others."
"But what is it all about?" I asked.
"Haven't I told you about it again and again?" said he: "but with this
wilful numbness of yours you won't remember anything. It is a Church of
transcendent ambitions, Templeton, aspiring at no less than the planting
under heaven before long of a tribe higher than man, though its methods
of setting about it are of a naiveté bound at first to leave you alien
to their mystery of meaning; its theory is that the fowl precedes the
egg: it grapples with the parent, beginning at the base of the ladder,
its eyes fixed on the flying galaxies; but you wouldn't catch a glimpse
of all at your first visit, and, if you find anything _queerish_,
remember sacring-bells and praying-mills, and remember that the first
British person who happened to broach an umbrella in a public road cast
twelve million fools into a brabble of laughter. Anyhow, I challenge you
to go twice to the new Church without hungering to go thrice."
"You seem sincere," I said, "but you only wish to win me out of doors, I
suppose. Where did Rivers get money from? He didn't use to be rich."
"But the whole hubbubboo is more or less early-Christian-communistic,"
answered Magee: "people pay, because it is costly, and earns its pay.
Socialism just needed a religious nerve, didn't it? and here you have
it. The base-wall of all is equality--'if one's neck-muscles alone are
brawny,' Rivers always has it, 'he will call no man your lordship.' The
idea is to preach and drill the nation into one army, the train-band of
the times to come, for Rivers is the arch-foe of heterogeneity, he would
have all men as twin as two perfect peas. But the Church is built on
pity as well as on aspiration; equality is swallowed up in fraternity;
charity is her riches, love is her festival. Run chiefly by women, she
is an enthusiasm of the poor for the poor, and for the poorest of the
poor, the child to be born; and to the poor a Gospel is again preached.
You will find them all inflamed with the finest faith in the future,
full of self-culture, ideality, good fellowship, and good food. The
soul, too, is fed with a true emotion and communion of saints, as
distinct from a fictitious: worship takes place."
"You seem quite enamoured," I said. "But worship of what?"
"Of God," said he.
"But which God?" said I, "the old God?"
"No," said he, "the new God."
"Ah, the new God," said I, "He is a most vague person: like Langler, I
almost prefer the old God."
"But is it a question of _preference_?" asked Magee: "prefer as you
please, you can't have the old God: He is as dead as His Church. But His
death is, of course, phoenix-death, and the new God is only vague
because the age is new, and men's brains only just enough evolved to see
Him darkly; soon, I dare say. He will take the darlingest bright
ship-shape. The old God too at first was pitched too high for men's
eyes, hence lapses into idolatry and golden-calfishness, for idolatry is
ever a soul-sloth, an idle backsliding to some lower, more facile ideal
of one's forefathers; and for us now sluggishly to worship the old God
would be equally idolatrous; we must stretch up now to the new, so
making the stretch facile for our children: all which are not my own
ungiven words, but Rivers'; let's go now to him."
"But is this the right day and hour?" I asked.
"There's a service every day at noon," he answered, "we should be just
in time."
Well, I let myself be led. As I was getting ready Magee called to me:
"by the way, you must put on a belt; one doesn't go in braces and
corsets." So I put on a belt, and we went.
It was a sultry day in May, like summer almost, and most strange, I
remember, was the look and mood of everything to me that day as we drove
to Kensington. Arrived there, under the porch of the church I was struck
by a prodigious fresco of Jesus, which was rather a revelation to me,
for then first I seemed to see Jesus, a brown peasant in a turban--not
going about blessing little children with long hair and nothing on his
head in a blazing climate, according to the too churchy fancy of the
painters, in defiance of St Paul's "It is a shame for a man to have long
hair." Here, anyway, as it struck me, was the Man, the dusky Lily, and
though much too garishly painted, it powerfully engaged our gaze.
However, the crowd pressed; we went in.
But never yet had I bowed the head under half so vast a house of man!
most vast, though cheap and unhandsome. Magee and I were so fortunate as
to be led far forward toward the stage, and there we sat, each in a pew
four feet long--only one person sitting in each pew--while hosts of nuns
haunted the aisles and seven galleries, nutmegging the air with incense
swung from censers; and I noticed that the roofs were in some way
detached, and the air as pure and fresh as in the open.
A young man, parting the curtain, stood and howled out with all his
heart a number out of a hymn-book; upon which the host of people started
up, and shouted it--Tennyson's "Brook"--"for men may come and men may
go, but I go on for ever." But that burden of sound was almost too
over-ponderous for the bethundered eardrum! trumpets pealed, organs
braved, while the earthquake and brotherhood of it brushed in
ague-chills down my back, and was still humming about my head
half-a-minute after it was hushed.
The next twenty minutes were taken up with the Blessed Sacrament,
partaken of in early-Christian manner, only that there was no table. It
was served by a hive of nuns, who bore baskets of sandwiches, fruit,
cakes, etc., and water dashed with wine. The sandwiches were rather
palpable for my palate! but, as with early-Christians, those who were
not hungry no longer partook of the Lord's body, though all drank of his
blood, those who were not thirsty drinking from liqueur-glasses and the
thirsty from tumblers. Meantime, a man at the edge of the stage was
howling: "though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee...."
And again he howled with passion: "he was oppressed, yet he humbled
himself, and opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the
slaughter, and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb: yea! he
opened not his mouth...."
When this was over the curtains rushed away, the stage was opened, and
for some twenty minutes I was the witness of a set of shows. There was
no dialogue, and never should I have supposed that means so guileless
would persuade to so high a sense of art: each heart, I think, was
touched. The shows were little pictures of man in his various doings and
modes of being, and we had all to become human, and brothers of one
another; in one case it was a dog that caused the music, and we had all
to become brothers of the dog and of one another. First, there sprang
upon the stage a Japanese athlete, naked but for a loin-cloth, who did
nothing but parade himself as our pattern, with a few wanton movements
about the waist to give assurance of his grace and perfected joy. Then
followed a boy and girl who kissed on the sly behind a horrid aunt. Then
a Jewish rag-picker, who did nothing but pick up rags, but still moved
the springs of one's breast with love of him. Then a woman in a loose
garment who lay down on a couch, and we marked the pangs that wrung her;
she ran off slimmer than she came on! laughing! with an infant in her
arms, while the people pursued her with the acclaims proper to victors.
Then a child was stolen, but its mother was joyfully guided to it by a
dog. Then came a ship-boy, a musician who forgot his own name, a grey
astronomer, and three or four more.
While our hearts were still fond at these shows an acolyth who took his
stand at the front and left of the stage vociferated the shout:
"_Blessed are the poor in spirit!_" and at once there appeared on the
stage a shoeblack, and also a young man rather shabbily dressed, with a
bag in his hand; the young man begged the shoeblack to shine his boots,
for he had stepped into bog: but he made the request with such polite
shynesses and diffidences that the shoeblack at once put him down as a
nobody, and cut some faces at him. When, however, the boots were shined
the shabbily-dressed young man handed the shoeblack a handful of
shillings for his pains. The shoeblack, seeing now that here must be a
millionaire, gaped so open-mouthed at his riches, that only after some
time did he observe that the young man had gone and forgotten his bag
behind. The shoeblack then opened the bag, and drew out what was crowded
within--an old lady's portrait, a lock of hair, a violin, an etching,
and a copy of Ronsard: and the instant he drew out the Ronsard the
acolyth who before had shouted out "blessed are the poor in spirit" rang
now to the high dome his shout of triumph: "for theirs is the kingdom of
the soul!"
The acolyth next shouted out: "_Blessed are the pure in heart!_" and at
once there appeared an Egyptian man and woman--Joseph and Potiphar's
wife; Joseph had bone tablets in his hand, adding up figures; Potiphar's
wife tickled his neck and drew him: Joseph smiled, pinched her cheek,
puzzling ever over his figures. Still the woman would have him, she
coaxed, she intrigued: Joseph patted her shoulder, shook her ear,
without ever budging or looking up out of his tablets. At last the woman
drew him over to left-centre, Joseph going unconsciously with her; but
at the door itself he woke up, laughed, escaped, as who should say "not
for Joseph," leaving his garment in her hands, and instantly was
puzzling over his figures again. But now all at once Joseph began to
wave out gestures of glad new discovery! The man had detected some
mistake in his arithmetic! and the instant he detected his mistake, the
acolyth gave out the high shout of triumph: "for they shall see God!"
Then again the acolyth shouted out: "_Blessed are the merciful!_" and at
once there came on a man in brown who cowed a hound, and another man in
bright who was kind to it. Years passed: and Brown and Bright were both
chased in a lane by a madman with a hatchet; but Brown's morose habit of
mind had been the seed in him of biliousness and other ills; he hopped
on crutches, could not escape; but Bright escaped: and the instant he
escaped the acolyth shouted out in triumph: "for they shall obtain
mercy!"
And so they tripped on through the Beatitudes, teaching the people
biology in parables. Here was a whole new art: the old prejudice of
"Christianity" in respect to the stage had ranged to the other pole, and
Church had changed into stage. How fruitful within the last few years
has been the evolution of these germs we know. At that time no use was
made of the bioscope. The shows were changed each day.
All at once, when this was over, one was aware of the presence of
Ambrose Rivers, whereat my eyes ran through the hall to its seventh
heaven, and saw it all like leafage of the aspen-forest, while Rivers
advanced from the stage-back bent beneath the storm of cheers. And
poised just over the orchestra-pews, with a pure voice that pealed
through the vast, he vociferated: "Let us reverence That Which made us!"
Thereupon he fell to his knees, with his arms stretched up straight and
parallel; all the people did the same, while the orchestra rendered
Vogel's "Eternal Tool"; and Rivers, gazing straight upward, shouted:
"Father! hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Give us our bread
to-day. And forgive us our debt as we forgive everyone who is in our
debt. Amen."[1]
[Footnote 1: The whole of "The Lord's Prayer" as uttered by Jesus; the
rest added by commonplace rude people.]
This said, after a minute his arms shot horizontal, his neck bowed, and,
still kneeling, he shouted to us: "Let us reverence one another in our
human ancestors!"
And while the choir gave "Mild son of man, thy front sublime," all our
arms shot horizontal, each worshipper straining to touch the finger-tips
of his neighbour to left and right, for the shoulder-joint is capable of
no little stretching, with practice.
This done, Rivers rose to his feet with the shout: "Let us reverence the
ape, without bending the knee or the neck!"
And thereupon, while the orchestra rendered Brewers' "Ye humble wombs
with homage fraught," he put his finger-tips to the ground. Through the
building everyone put his or her finger-tips to the ground.
When this was over Rivers shouted: "Let us reverence the half-apes!"
Whereupon, without bending the knees or the neck, he put the first
finger-joint to the ground; and while the choir gave Thibaut's "Crooked
shapes, the alphabet of life," everyone did the same--or tried to. As it
were a wind of breaths began to whiff through the building.
Rivers next shouted: "Let us reverence the dog!"
And with this he put his fists to the ground. We all tried our best to
do the same, while the choir gave Sauer-Motti's "Dark Backward and Abysm
of Time."
Rivers next shouted: "Let those of us who can reverence all That Which
is below the dog!" And with this, without bending the knees or the
neck, while the orchestra gave the overture to "The Creation," he put
his palms on the ground.
But it was no easy matter to reverence all That Which is below the dog!
I can now do it with nonchalance, but it tried me then. It was not a
mere question of putting the palms on the ground, but of keeping them
there during three straining minutes, with the eyes of ladies
criticising your performance! However, I rose from the effort a
straighter man: it is this touching what is beneath without bending the
knees which makes soldiers, and also saints. Meantime, I was charmed
with the movements of the hosts of nuns and other ladies, who, it was
clear, vied with one another in ease and achievement: I thought that
some of them must certainly have a selection of lovers.
When this was over Rivers called to us: "Let us sum up and reverence
all!" whereat everyone held up a bamboo rod behind the back with the
stretched arms, and, sitting tight, swung the shoulders smartly, this
way and that alternately, thus hardening the muscles of the back. And so
it was during twenty minutes: when we reviewed the Past we stood
fronting the stage, but with our necks strained back, looking at the
opposite wall; when we aspired to the Future we struck our chests with
our knees, an exaggerated going-upstairs; when we were meek we dropped
our body upon our heels with force enough to bounce us up again, an
exaggerated curtsey, thus oiling the hinges of the knee-joints; when we
were merciful we bent far sideward to left and right, trying to touch
the ground; when we were pure in heart we bent backward at the waist to
touch the ground behind, and so on.
All this was, of course, highly exhilarating, both in itself, and
because done in fellowship with a host of people all making the same
gestures at the same moment; but it did not yet edify, did not move me
religiously; and, because it did not, I thought to my self: "it is not a
fitting function for _a Church_." Within a few weeks, however, I was to
find how very far at fault I was in this, for the gestures only failed
to edify me at first for the reason that in my consciousness there was
no correlation between each gesture and its husband idea: _habit_ was
essential for that. Thus to nations that do not kneel to pray, nor raise
the hand to say "hist!" these gestures are destitute of pertinence:
there is no correlation. But when habit had once set up in my mind a
wedlock between gesture and idea, then the gestures became as touching
to the soul as they were teaching of a wonder of buoyancy and joy to the
body.
When the exercises were over Rivers spoke to the people. By birth or
learning he had the lungs of a bull, and to the giddiness of the seventh
gallery, I believe, his bellows must have blown. On the whole, he
impressed me as a real prophet or outspeaker, speaking his truth like
the wayfaring of a force of nature, without humour, ire, respect, or
prospect. I can't recall much that he said, but he called the people to
joy, telling them that a bad tree could not bring forth good fruit,
neither could unhappy men beget happy generations. Joy of heart was
their obligation, for they were the ancestors of God, the future hung on
their joys. "Behold!" he howled, "I bring you word! your life is worth
living if you live it a little well." Of course, no one yet half knew
how to live it well; but, thanks to the pryers and the tryers, one knew
a little. Already a howling gaiety might be theirs. One rather good
thing was to live a moment at a time, ruminating the moment's relish
deliciously, as when that morning on opening his eyes he had said to
himself: "Alive! and still young! not a twinge nor a grief throughout!
refugee of a thousand hungry hells! this, then, is my turn in the
turning of Eternity: for the men of Misgab and of Bagdad are dead, but I
am alaugh for a little while." Then he had run round Hyde Park, and
half-way round could not help howling all hey and conversant with wind
and the Holy Ghost, to the disgusting of everyone. If there was one
thing in this marsh of Divinity more divine than all the rest, it was
wind, and ever in March and big November God was with men; but only
those dreamed how divine who ran far into it, and breathed it deeply,
and drowned in it, and browsed bedrowsedly upon all the sound and sounds
of it. Then he had returned home, and had eaten a ton. If they wished to
have boisterously high and holy joy of their breakfast, they must work
for it, should run at least a mile or two. Joy, then, gushing health,
and they knew what went all in fusion with gushing health--chastity,
fortnights of titanic continence. Who was the happiest and best of men?
He happened to know, and would tell them: not essentially the saint, the
philosopher, the plutocrat, but essentially the acrobat--the man with
his fibres mobile, his breast like pent Pentecost. The saint, the
philosopher, the artist, were happy also, but only because they were
acrobats in their fashion. This was just the news of Christianity, that
along the path of self-torture lay in ambush a marvel of awaking, a
scarlet dawn: to evolve they must twist themselves. And let them know
that the soul was a trick of the body. The result of a beauish body was
a religious saltarello. Were they covetous to stride out into the
infinite?--let them scout in the finite on every side. _Mens sancta in
corpore sancto._ No more, then, of the old necks, teeth, effete souls.
With respect to teeth, there was a misconception abroad which he wished
to correct: they all knew that in a few ages man was fated to become a
toothless gumption: well, but there were two paths to that gate, not
only through decay, but, secondly, through the decrease of the teeth in
size, till at last they disappeared. Let them choose the latter by chary
mating. Devotion to evolution was for the future their only possible
piety; so their own bodies must be their care all day long, till their
every movement of muscle or brain was a pattern of grace. Perfection! it
had to be: why not now? greyhounds were perfect. The men of late
generations had really been rather grotesque, crowds of them strutting
their personalities about in some rag or gaud of spiritual skill, yet
glaring with the lues of a low evolution. One of the most highly-famed
poets of the nineteenth century had had--what did they think?--a paunch.
"Ho! Ho!" he howled, "think of the pure grotesqueness of it! a poet with
a pouch! no wonder he was obscure! it is like a poet with spectacles on
his nose! or a poet with bo-peep in his teeth, whom no pious miss would
kiss!" No, that wouldn't do. The chimpanzee vaunted a paunch, and we
were devoutly getting done with paunches now, thank God. From men of
this age God did not so much need glorious books, of which He was
choke-full, but was greedy for glorious children, darting eyes, laughing
caverns. The men of the past had learned from St Paul that "bodily
exercise profiteth little"; for us it was the main means of grace and
the sole hope of glory, of grace for the Roman, of glory for the race.
By it they would attain to harmony with God. It had been said by men of
old: "God is Love." "How could they possibly know it?" he shouted: "how
profound an insight! for this that to us is old science and certainty
to them was only surmise. But what, then, does God love? Not apes, not
men, His taste being a bit touchy: God, we know, did once love, or press
toward, apes when only dogs and half-apes were; and He did once love men
when only ape-people were; but the moment men appeared He left off
loving them, and was for loving their children: always it is evolution
that He loves, change, the future, with urge and urge and urge." So in
loving the future they would be all in harmony with Him, loving what He
loved. That future was full of shapes and plays. Happily, they could
shape themselves to pledge and usher it in: for that was the right of
man--to change himself; that was the definition of man--"a self-changing
midget"; and an age was in the eye of the Highest when, by the
heightening of this right of self-change, earthly lives would writhe in
a trice into any shape of wyvern, or moose, or shivering seraph, or
moon-eyed octopus, or quadruped with its belly to the sky and its back
to the earth. Meantime, by pitifuler pantings, they, if they were fat,
could make themselves fit; if they were short, they should, by taking
thought, add one quarter-cubit to their stature; if they were bow-legged
like the orang, self-bearding would get themselves knock-kneed like the
cock; if they were starting and rapturous like the gorilla, they could
get themselves impregnably calm like the overman; in an age or two they
could change or redress their quite unnecessary length of arm, of spine,
their over-plump shortness of leg, their base remoteness of sex-organ
from brain, their too shameful "_ears_," sham thumbs. They must tackle
themselves humbly and in detail. Christianity had been far too heady and
star-drunken, had made a leap three feet high to pluck Venus from the
sky. We of this age must be more grave and grown-up, more self-conscious
and disabused, must use a ladder, come back to the classic. The
romantic would return some day in some new dress, for classic and
romantic were alternate moods of the mind, neither could ever die. But
for us of this age it was the classic, the austere, bare comeliness of
reason. If our life and worship was barer and harder than that of the
past, it was also far higher. But let them not view our worship as yet
worthy to be so called. The idol of the worship of the time to come
would be the nightly sky. Man, so far, though with a much larger
subconsciousness, looked forth at the stars with a consciousness little
larger than that of gorillas, even with some fatigue; was still a
villager of the earth, not yet a civilian of the universe; a few of the
most elfin ears, they were told did, it was true, by an effort, and
dullishly, catch some actual tollings of the chiming and dulcimers; but
he believed that brains larger than ours, when they came, would pass
pretty nearly all of life in brooding upon the runes of that writing.
Let them wait, meekly grooming themselves to greet that "come to the
marriage" which they would hear, and soon, lo, the scales would fall
from man's eyes, his tongue should be loosed and enchanted, and the
earth should arise at last as the mourning-dove to hie to her room in
the chancel of the heavens.
When Rivers had finished speaking we sang another hymn; again the
trumpets pealed, organs braved, while the road-march and high
brotherhood of it brushed in shiverings over one's back, and troubled
the vast building to its base:
"Time like an ever-rolling stream
Bears all his sons away,
They fly forgotten. :::"
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH
* * * * *
IMPORTANT NEW NOVELS
=LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW.= VICTORIA CROSS.
=THE HUSBAND HUNTER.= OLIVIA ROY.
=THE KING'S WIFE.= HÉLÈNE VACARESCO.
=BLINDMAN'S MARRIAGE.= FLORENCE WARDEN.
=SINEWS OF WAR.= EDEN PHILLPOTTS and ARNOLD BENNETT.
=THE WIRE TAPPERS.= ARTHUR STRINGER.
T. WERNER LAURIE, CLIFFORD'S INN, LONDON