"IN THE STARLIGHT."
The night was very still. The soft breeze was not strong enough to
stir even the slender palms which rose on all sides, and whose
outlines, above the surrounding foliage, framed the starlit sky. The
palace stood on high ground, and the garden sloped on the western side
towards the sea. At the end of the terrace was a stone seat.
"Let us sit here," said Lucile.
They sat down. The dreamy music of a waltz floated down as a distant
accompaniment to their thoughts. The windows of the palace blazed with
light and suggested glitter, glare, and heat; in the garden all was
quiet and cool.
"Why do you sneer at honour?" asked Lucile, thinking of the interrupted
conversation.
"Because it has no true foundation, no ultra-human sanction. Its codes
are constantly changing with times and places. At one time it is
thought more honourable to kill the man you have wronged than to make
amends; at another it is more important to pay a bookmaker than a
butcher. Like art it changes with human caprice, and like art it comes
from opulence and luxury."
"But why do you claim a higher origin for beauty and honesty?"
"Because, wherever I have looked, I see that all things are perpetually
referred to an eternal standard of fitness, and that right triumphs
over wrong, truth over falsehood, beauty over ugliness. _Fitness_ is
the general expression! Judged by this standard art and honour have
little value."
"But are these things so?" she asked wonderingly. "Surely there are
many exceptions?"
"Nature never considers the individual; she only looks at the average
fitness of the species. Consider the statistics of mortality. How
exact they are: they give to a month the expectation of life to men;
and yet they tell a man nothing. We cannot say that a good man will
always overcome a knave; but the evolutionist will not hesitate to
affirm that the nation with the highest ideals would succeed."
"Unless," said Lucile, "some other nation with lower ideals, but
stronger arms, intervenes."
"Well, even then might is a form of fitness; I think a low form, but
still physical force contains the elements of human progress. This is
only the instance; we must enlarge our view. Nature does not consider
the individual species. All we will now assert is that organisms
imbued with moral fitness would ultimately rise above those whose
virtue is physical. How many times has civilisation, by which I mean a
state of society where moral force begins to escape from the tyranny of
physical forces, climbed the ladder of Progress and been dragged down?
Perhaps many hundred times in this world alone. But the motive power,
the upward tendency, was constant. Evolution does not say 'always,'
but 'ultimately.' Well, ultimately civilisation has climbed up beyond
the reach of barbarism. The higher ideals have reached the surface by
superior buoyancy."
"Why do you assume that this triumph is permanent? How do you know
that it will not be reversed, as all others have been?"
"Because we have got might on our side, as well as moral ascendancy."
"Perhaps the Romans in the summit of their power thought that too?"
"Very likely, but without reason. They had only their swords to fall
back upon as an ultimate appeal; and when they became effete they could
no longer wield them."
"And modern civilisation?"
"Ah, we have other weapons. When we have degenerated, as we must
eventually degenerate, when we have lost our intrinsic superiority, and
other races, according to the natural law, advance to take our place,
we shall fall back upon these weapons. Our morals will be gone, but
our Maxims will remain. The effete and trembling European will sweep
from the earth by scientific machinery the valiant savages who assail
him."
"Is that the triumph of moral superiority?"
"At first it would be, for the virtues of civilisation are of a higher
type than those of barbarism. Kindness is better than courage, and
charity more than strength. But ultimately the dominant race will
degenerate, and as there will be none to take its place, the
degeneration must continue. It is the old struggle between vitality
and decay, between energy and indolence; a struggle that always ends in
silence. After all, we could not expect human developement to be
constant. It is only a question of time before the planet becomes
unfitted to support life on its surface."
"But you said that fitness must ultimately triumph."
"Over relative unfitness, yes. But decay will involve all, victors and
vanquished. The fire of life will die out, the spirit of vitality
become extinct."
"In this world perhaps."
"In every world. All the universe is cooling--dying, that is,--and as
it cools, life for a spell becomes possible on the surface of its
spheres, and plays strange antics. And then the end comes; the
universe dies and is sepulchred in the cold darkness of ultimate
negation."
"To what purpose then are all our efforts?"
"God knows," said Savrola cynically; "but I can imagine that the drama
would not be an uninteresting one to watch."
"And yet you believe in an ultra-human foundation, an eternal ideal for
such things as beauty and virtue."
"I believe that the superiority of fitness over relative unfitness is
one of the great laws of matter. I include all kinds of
fitness,--moral, physical, mathematical."
"Mathematical!"
"Certainly; words only exist by conforming to correct mathematical
principles. That is one of the great proofs we have that mathematics
have been discovered, not invented. The planets observe a regular
progression in their distances from the sun. Evolution suggests that
those that did not observe such principles were destroyed by collisions
and amalgamated with others. It is a universal survival of the
fittest." She was silent. He continued: "Now let us say that in the
beginning there existed two factors, matter animated by the will to
live, and the eternal ideal; the great author and the great critic. It
is to the interplay and counter-action of these two that all
developement, that all forms of life are due. The more the expression
of the will to live approximates to the eternal standard of fitness,
the better it succeeds."
"I would add a third," she said; "a great Being to instil into all
forms of life the desire to attain to the ideal; to teach them in what
ways they may succeed."
"It is pleasant," he replied, "to think that such a Being exists to
approve our victories, to cheer our struggles, and to light our way;
but it is not scientifically or logically necessary to assume one after
the two factors I have spoken of are once at work."
"Surely the knowledge that such an ultra-human ideal existed must have
been given from without."
"No; that instinct which we call conscience was derived as all other
knowledge from experience."
"How could it be?"
"I think of it in this way. When the human race was emerging from the
darkness of its origin and half animal, half human creatures trod the
earth, there was no idea of justice, honesty, or virtue, only the
motive power which we may call the 'will to live.' Then perhaps it was
a minor peculiarity of some of these early ancestors of man to combine
in twos and threes for their mutual protection. The first alliance was
made; the combinations prospered where the isolated individuals failed.
The faculty of combination appeared to be an element of fitness. By
natural selection only the combinations survived. Thus man became a
social animal. Gradually the little societies became larger ones.
From families to tribes, and from tribes to nations the species
advanced, always finding that the better they combined, the better they
succeeded. Now on what did this system of alliance depend? It
depended on the members keeping faith with each other, on the practice
of honesty, justice, and the rest of the virtues. Only those beings in
whom such faculties were present were able to combine, and thus only
the relatively honest men were preserved. The process repeated itself
countless times during untold ages. At every step the race advanced,
and at every step the realisation of the cause increased. Honesty and
justice are bound up in our compositions and form an inseparable part
of our natures. It is only with difficulty that we repress such
awkward inclinations."
"You do not then believe in God?"
"I never said that," said Savrola. "I am only discussing the question
of our existence from one standpoint, that of reason. There are many
who think that reason and faith, science and religion, must be
everlastingly separated, and that if one be admitted the other must be
denied. Perhaps it is because we see so short a span, that we think
that their lines are parallel and never touch each other. I always
cherish the hope that somewhere in the perspective of the future there
may be a vanishing point where all lines of human aspiration will
ultimately meet."
"And you believe all this that you have said?"
"No," he answered, "there is no faith in disbelief, whatever the poets
have said. Before we can solve the problems of existence we must
establish the fact that we exist at all. It is a strange riddle, is it
not?"
"We shall learn the answer when we die."
"If I thought that," said Savrola, "I should kill myself to-night out
of irresistible curiosity."
He paused, and looked up at the stars, which shone so brightly
overhead. She followed his gaze. "You like the stars?" she asked.
"I love them," he replied; "they are very beautiful."
"Perhaps your fate is written there."
"I have always admired the audacity of man in thinking that a Supreme
Power should placard the skies with the details of his squalid future,
and that his marriage, his misfortunes, and his crimes should be
written in letters of suns on the background of limitless space. We
are consequential atoms."
"You think we are of no importance?"
"Life is very cheap. Nature has no exaggerated idea of its value. I
realise my own insignificance, but I am a philosophic microbe, and it
rather adds to my amusement than otherwise. Insignificant or not, I
like living, it is good to think of the future."
"Ah," said Lucile impetuously, "whither are you hurrying us in the
future,--to revolution?"
"Perhaps," said Savrola calmly.
"You are prepared to plunge the country in a civil war?"
"Well, I hope it will not come to that extreme. Probably there will be
some street-fighting and some people will be killed, but----"
"But why should you drive them like this?"
"I discharge a duty to the human species in breaking down a military
despotism. I do not like to see a Government supported only by
bayonets; it is an anachronism."
"The Government is just and firm; it maintains law and order. Why
should you assail it merely because it does not harmonise with your
theories?"
"My theories!" said Savrola. "Is that the name you give to the lines
of soldiers with loaded rifles that guard this palace, or to the
Lancers I saw spearing the people in the square a week ago?"
His voice had grown strangely vehement and his manner thrilled her.
"You will ruin us," she said weakly.
"No," he replied with his grand air, "you can never be ruined. Your
brilliancy and beauty will always make you the luckiest of women, and
your husband the luckiest of men."
His great soul was above the suspicion of presumption. She looked up
at him, smiled quickly, and impulsively held out her hand. "We are on
opposite sides, but we will fight under the rules of war. I hope we
shall remain friends even though----"
"We are officially enemies," said Savrola, completing the sentence, and
taking her hand in his he bowed and kissed it. After that they were
both very silent, and walking along the terrace re-entered the palace.
Most of the guests had already gone, and Savrola did not ascend the
stairs, but passing through the swing-doors took his departure. Lucile
walked up to the ball-room in which a few youthful and indefatigable
couples were still circling. Molara met her. "My dear," he said,
"where have you been all this time?"
"In the garden," she replied.
"With Savrola?"
"Yes."
The President repressed a feeling of satisfaction. "Did he tell you
anything?" he asked.
"Nothing," she answered, remembering for the first time the object with
which she had sought the interview; "I must see him again."
"You will continue to try and find out his political intentions?"
inquired Molara anxiously.
"I shall see him again," she replied.
"I trust to your wit," said the President; "you can do it, if anyone
can, my dearest."
The last dance came to an end and the last guest departed. Very weary
and thoughtful Lucile retired to her room. Her conversation with
Savrola filled her mind; his earnestness, his enthusiasm, his hopes,
his beliefs, or, rather, his disbeliefs, all passed again in review
before her. What a great man he was! Was it wonderful the people
followed him? She would like to hear him speak to-morrow.
Her maid came in to assist her to undress. She had looked from an
upper balcony and had seen Savrola. "Was that," she asked her mistress
curiously, "the great Agitator?" Her brother was going to hear him
make his speech to-morrow.
"Is he going to make a speech to-morrow?" asked Lucile.
"So my brother says," said the maid; "he says that he is going to give
them such a dressing down they will never forget it." The maid paid
great attention to her brother's words. There was much sympathy
between them; in fact she only called him her brother because it
sounded better.
Lucile took up the evening paper which lay on the bed. There on the
first page was the announcement, the great meeting would take place at
the City-Hall at eight the next evening. She dismissed the maid and
walked to the window. The silent city lay before her; to-morrow the
man she had talked with would convulse that city with excitement. She
would go and hear him; women went to these meetings; why should she not
go, closely veiled? After all it would enable her to learn something
of his character and she could thus better assist her husband. With
this reflection, which was extremely comforting, she went to bed.
The President was going up-stairs, when Miguel met him. "More
business?" he asked wearily.
"No," said the Secretary; "things are going on very well."
Molara looked at him with quick annoyance; but Miguel's face remained
impassive, so he simply replied, "I am glad of that," and passed on.