"I think YOU knew him," he went on, addressing me directly, with a
straight glance--"You met him some years back, did you not?"
I bent my head in silent assent,--and saw the eyes of my host and
hostess turned upon me in questioning scrutiny.
"In a certain circle of students and mystics he was renowned,"
continued Santoris,--"and I resolved to see what he could make of
me--what he would advise, and how I should set to work to discover what
I had resolved to find. However, at the end of a long and tedious
journey, I met with disappointment--Heliobas had removed to another
sphere of action--"
"He was dead, you mean," interposed Mr. Harland.
"Not at all," answered Santoris, calmly. "There is no death. To put it
quite simply, he had reached the top of his class in this particular
school of life and learning and, therefore, was ready and willing to
pass on into the higher grade. He, however, left a successor capable of
maintaining the theories he inculcated,--a man named Aselzion, who
elected to live in an almost inaccessible spot among mountains with a
few followers and disciples. Him I found after considerable
difficulty--and we came to understand each other so well that I stayed
with him some time studying all that he deemed needful before I started
on my own voyage of discovery. His methods of instruction were arduous
and painful--in fact, I may say I went through a veritable ordeal of
fire--"
He broke off, and for a moment seemed absorbed in recollections.
"You are speaking, I suppose, of some rule of life, some kind of
novitiate to which you had to submit yourself," said Mr. Harland--"Or
was it merely a course of study?"
"In one sense it was a sort of novitiate or probation," answered
Santoris, slowly, with the far-away, musing look still in his eyes--"In
another it was, as you put it, 'merely' a course of study. Merely! It
was a course of study in which every nerve, every muscle, every sinew
was tested to its utmost strength--and in which a combat between the
spiritual and material was fiercely fought till the one could master
the other so absolutely as to hold it in perfect subjection. Well! I
came out of the trial fairly well--strong enough at any rate to stand
alone--as I have done ever since."
"And to what did your severe ordeal lead?" asked Dr. Brayle, who by
this time appeared interested, though still wearing his incredulous,
half-sneering air--"To anything which you could not have gained just as
easily without it?"
Santoris looked straight at him. His keen eyes glowed as though some
bright fire of the soul had leaped into them.
"In the first place," he answered--"it led me to power! Power,--not
only over myself but over all things small and great that surround or
concern my being. I think you will admit that if a man takes up any
line of business, it is necessary for him to understand all its
technical methods and practical details. My business was and IS
Life!--the one thing that humanity never studies, and therefore fails
to master."
Mr. Harland looked up.
"Life is mysterious and inexplicable," he said--"We cannot tell why we
live. No one can fathom that mystery. We are Here through no conscious
desire of our own,--and again we are NOT here just as we have learned
to accommodate ourselves to the fact of being Anywhere!"
"True!" answered Santoris--"But to understand the 'why' of life we must
first of all realise that its origin Is Love. Love creates life because
it MUST; even agnostics, when pushed to the wall in argument grant that
some mysterious and mighty Force is at the back of creation,--a Force
which is both intelligent and beneficent. The trite saying 'God is
Love' is true enough, but it is quite as true to say 'Love is God.' The
commencement of universes, solar systems and worlds is the desire of
Love to express Itself. No more and no less than this. From desire
springs action,--from action life. It only remains for each living unit
to bring itself into harmonious union with this one fundamental law of
the whole cosmos,--the expression and action of Love which is based, as
naturally it must be, on a dual entity."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Dr. Brayle.
"As a physician, and I presume as a scientist, you ought scarcely to
ask," replied Santoris, with a slight smile. "For you surely know there
is no single thing in the Universe. The very microbes of disease or
health go in pairs. Light and darkness,--the up and the down,--the
right and the left,--the storm and the calm,--the male and the
female,--all things are dual; and the sorrows of humanity are for the
most part the result of ill-assorted numbers,--figures brought together
that will not count up properly--wrong halves of the puzzle that will
never fit into place. The mischief runs through all
civilization,--wrong halves of races brought together which do not and
never can assimilate,--and in an individual personal sense wrong halves
of spirit and matter are often forced together which are bound by law
to separate in time with some attendant disaster. The error is caused
by the obstinate miscomprehension of man himself as to the nature and
extent of his own powers and faculties. He forgets that he is not 'as
the beasts that perish,' but that he has the breath of God in
him,--that he holds within himself the seed of immortality which is
perpetually re-creative. He is bound by all the laws of the Universe to
give that immortal life its dual entity and attendant power, without
which he cannot attain his highest ends. It may take him thousands of
years--cycles of time,--but it has to be done. Materially speaking, he
may perhaps consider that he has secured his dual entity by a pleasing
or fortunate marriage--but if he is not spiritually mated, his marriage
is useless,--ay! worse than useless, as it only interposes fresh
obstacles between himself and his intended progress."
"Marriage can hardly be called a useless institution," said Dr. Brayle,
with an uplifting of his sinister brows; "It helps to populate the
world."
"It does," answered Santoris, calmly--"But if the pairs that are joined
in marriage have no spiritual bond between them and nothing beyond the
attraction of the mere body--they people the world with more or less
incapable, unthinking and foolish creatures like themselves. And
supposing these to be born in tens of millions, like ants or flies,
they will not carry on the real purpose of man's existence to anything
more than that stoppage and recoil which is called Death, but which in
reality is only a turning back of the wheels of time when the right
road has been lost and it becomes imperative to begin the journey all
over again."
We sat silent; no one had any comment to offer.
"We are arriving at that same old turning-point once more," he
continued--"The Western civilisation of two thousand years, assisted
(and sometimes impeded) by the teachings of Christianity, is nearing
its end. Out of the vast wreckage of nations, now imminent, only a few
individuals can be saved,--and the storm is so close at hand that one
can almost hear the mutterings of the thunder! But why should I or you
or anyone else think about it? We have our own concerns to attend
to--and we attend to these so well that we forget all the most vital
necessities that should make them of any importance! However--in this
day--nothing matters! Shall I go on with my own story, or have you
heard enough?"
"Not half enough!" said Catherine Harland, quite suddenly--she had
scarcely spoken before, but she now leaned forward, looking eagerly
interested--"You speak of power over yourself,--do you possess the same
power over others?"
"Not unless they come into my own circle of action," he answered. "It
would not be worth my while to exert any influence on persons who are,
and ever must be, indifferent to me. I can, of course, defend myself
against enemies--and that without lifting a hand."
Everyone, save myself, looked at him inquisitively,--but he did not
explain his meaning. He went on very quietly with his own personal
narrative.
"As I have told you," he said--"I came out of my studies with Aselzion
successfully enough to feel justified in going on with my work alone. I
took up my residence in Egypt in my father's old home--a pretty place
enough with wide pleasure grounds planted thickly with palm trees and
richly filled with flowers,--and here I undertook the mastery and
comprehension of the most difficult subject ever propounded for
learning--the most evasive, complex, yet exact piece of mathematics
ever set out for solving--Myself! Myself was my puzzle! How to unite
myself with Nature so thoroughly as to insinuate myself into her
secrets,--possess all she could offer me,--and yet detach myself from
Self so completely as to be ready to sacrifice all I had gained at a
moment's notice should that moment come."
"You are paradoxical," said Mr. Harland, irritably. "What's the use of
gaining anything if it is to be lost at a moment's bidding?"
"It is the only way to hold and keep whatever there is to win,"
answered Santoris, calmly--"And the paradox is no greater than that of
'He that loveth his life shall lose it.' The only 'moment' of supreme
self-surrender is Love--when that comes everything else must go. Love
alone can compass life, perfect it, complete it and carry it on to
eternal happiness. But please bear in mind that I am speaking of real
Love,--not mere physical attraction. The two things are as different as
light from darkness."
"Is your curious conception or ideal of love the reason, why you have
never married?" asked Brayle, abruptly.
"Precisely!" replied Santoris. "It is most unquestionably and
emphatically the reason why I have never married."
There was a pause. I saw Catherine glancing at him with a strange
furtiveness in which there was something of fear.
"You have never met your ideal, I suppose?" she asked, with a faint
smile.
"Oh yes, I've met her!" he answered--"Ages ago! On many occasions I
have met her;--sometimes she has estranged herself from me,--sometimes
she has been torn from me by others--and still more often I have,
through my own folly and obstinacy, separated myself from her--but our
mutual mistakes do no more than delay the inevitable union at
last."--Here he spoke slowly and with marked meaning--"For it IS an
inevitable union!--as inevitable as that of two electrons which, after
spinning in space for certain periods of time, rush together at last
and remain so indissolubly united that nothing can ever separate them."
"And then?" queried Dr. Brayle, with an ironical air.
"Then? Why, everything is possible then! Beauty, perfection, wisdom,
progress, creativeness, and a world--even worlds--of splendid thought
and splendid ideals, bound to lead to still more splendid realisation!
It is not difficult to imagine two brains, two minds moving so
absolutely in unison that like a grand chord of music they strike
harmony through hitherto dumb life-episodes--but think of two immortal
souls full of a love as deathless as themselves, conjoined in highest
effort and superb attainment!--the love of angel for angel, of god for
god! You think this ideal
imaginative,--transcendental--impossible!--yet I swear to you it is the
most REAL possibility in this fleeting mirage of a world!"
His voice thrilled with a warmth of feeling and conviction, and as I
heard him speak I trembled inwardly with a sudden remorse--a quick
sense of inferiority and shame. Why could I not let myself go? Why did
I not give the fluttering spirit within me room to expand its wings?
Something opposing,--something inimical to my peace and happiness held
me back--and presently I began to wonder whether I should attribute it
to the influence of those with whom I was temporarily associated. I was
almost confirmed in this impression when Mr. Harland's voice, harsh and
caustic as it could be when he was irritated or worsted in an argument,
broke the momentary silence.
"You are more impossible now than you ever were at Oxford, Santoris!"
he said--"You out-transcend all transcendentalism! You know, or you
ought to know by this time, that there is no such thing as an immortal
soul--and if you believe otherwise you have brought yourself
voluntarily into that state of blind credulity. All science teaches us
that we are the mere spawn of the planet on which we live,--we are here
to make the best of it for ourselves and for others who come after
us--and there's an end. What is called Love is the mere physical
attraction between the two sexes--no more,--and it soon palls. All that
we gain we quickly cease to care for--it is the way of humanity."
"What a poor creation humanity is, then!" said Santoris, with a
smile--"How astonishing that it should exist at all for no higher aims
than those of the ant or the mouse! My dear Harland, if your beliefs
were really sound we should be bound in common duty and charity to stop
the population of the world altogether--for the whole business is
useless. Useless and even cruel, for it is nothing but a crime to allow
people to be born for no other end than extinction! However, keep your
creeds! I thank Heaven they are not mine!"
Mr. Harland gave a slight movement of impatience. I could see that he
was disturbed in his mind.
"Let's talk of something I can follow," he said--"the personal and
material side of things. Your perennial condition of health, for
example. Your apparent youth--"
"Oh, is it only 'apparent'?" laughed Santoris, gaily--"Well, to those
who never knew me in my boyhood's days and are therefore never hurling
me back to their 'thirty years or more ago' of friendship, etc., my
youth seems very actual! You see their non-ability to count up the time
I have spent on earth obliges them to accept me at my own valuation!
There's really nothing to explain in the matter. Everyone can keep
young if he understands himself and Nature. If I were to tell you the
literal truth of the process, you would not believe me,--and even if
you did you would not have the patience to carry it out! But what does
it matter after all? If we only live for the express purpose of dying,
the sooner we get the business over and done with the better--youth
itself has no charms under such circumstances. All the purposes of
life, however lofty and nobly planned, are bound to end in
nothingness,--and it is hardly worth while taking the trouble to
breathe the murderous air!"
He spoke with a kind of passion--his eyes were luminous--his face
transfigured with an almost superhuman glow, and we all looked at him
in something of amazement.
Mr. Harland fidgeted uneasily in his chair.
"You go too far!" he said--"Life is agreeable as long as it lasts--"
"Have you found it so?" Santoris interrupted him. "Has it not, even in
your pursuit and attainment of wealth, brought you more pain than
pleasure? Number up all the possibilities of life, from the existence
of the labourer in his hut to that of the king on his throne, they are
none of them worth striving for or keeping if death is the ultimate
end. Ambition is merest folly,--wealth a temporary possession of
perishable goods which must pass to others,--fame a brief noise of
one's name in mouths that will soon be dumb,--and love, sex-attraction
only. What a treacherous and criminal act, then, is this Creation of
Universes!--what mad folly!--what sheer, blind, reasonless wickedness!"
There was a silence. His eyes flashed from one to the other of us.
"Can you deny it?" he demanded. "Can you find any sane, logical reason
for the continuance of life which is to end in utter extinction, or for
the creation of worlds doomed to eternal destruction?"
No one spoke.
"You have no answer ready," he said--and smiled--"Naturally! For an
answer is impossible! And here you have the key to what you consider my
mystery--the mystery of keeping young instead of growing old--the
secret of living instead of dying! It is simply the conscious PRACTICAL
realisation that there is no Death, but only Change. That is the first
part of the process. Change, or transmutation and transformation of the
atoms and elements of which we are composed, is going on for ever
without a second's cessation,--it began when we were born and before we
were born--and the art of LIVING YOUNG consists simply in using one's
soul and will-power to guide this process of change towards the ends we
desire, instead of leaving it to blind chance and to the association
with inimical influences, which interfere with our best actions. For
example--I--a man in sound health and condition--realise that with
every moment SOME change is working in me towards SOME end. It rests
entirely with myself as to whether the change shall be towards
continuance of health or towards admission of disease--towards
continuance of youth or towards the encouragement of age,--towards life
as it presents itself to me now, or towards some other phase of life as
I perceive it in the future. I can advance or retard myself as I
please--the proper management of Myself being my business. If I should
suffer pain or illness I am very sure it will be chiefly through my own
fault--if I invite decay and decrepitude, it will be because I allow
these forces to encroach upon my well-being--in fact, briefly--I AM
what I WILL to be!--and all the laws that brought me into existence
support me in this attitude of mind, body and spirit!"
"If we could all become what we WOULD be," said Dr. Brayle, "we should
attain the millennium!"
"Are you sure of that?" queried Santoris. "Would it not rather depend
on the particular choice each one of us might make? You, for example,
might wish to be something that would hardly tend to your
happiness,--and your wish being obtained you might become what (if you
had only realised it) you would give worlds not to be! Some men desire
to be thieves--even murderers--and become so--but the end of their
desires is not perhaps what they imagined!"
"Can you read people's thoughts?" asked Catherine, suddenly.
Santoris looked amused. He replied by a counter question.
"Would you be sorry if I could?"
She flushed a little. I smiled, knowing what was in her mind.
"It would be a most unpleasant accomplishment--that of reading the
thoughts of others," said Mr. Harland; "I would rather not cultivate
it." "But Mr. Santoris almost implies that he possesses it," said Dr.
Brayle, with a touch of irritation in his manner; "And, after all,
'thought-reading' is a kind of society amusement nowadays. There is
nothing very difficult in it."
"Nothing, indeed!" agreed Santoris, lightly; "And being as easy as it
is, why do you not show us at once that antique piece of jewellery you
have in your pocket! You brought it with you this evening to show to me
and ask my opinion of its value, did you not?"
Brayle's eyes opened in utter amazement. If ever a man was taken
completely by surprise, he was.
"How did you know?" he began, stammeringly, while Mr. Harland, equally
astonished, stared at him through his round spectacles as though
challenging some defiance.
Santoris laughed.
"Thought-reading is only a society amusement, as you have just
observed," he said--"And I have been amusing myself with it for the
last few minutes. Come!--let us see your treasure!"
Dr. Brayle was thoroughly embarrassed,--but he tried to cover his
confusion by an awkward laugh.
"Well, you have made a very clever hit!" he said--"Quite a random shot,
of course--which by mere coincidence went to its mark! It's quite true
I have brought with me a curious piece of jewel-work which I always
carry about wherever I go--and something moved me to-night to ask your
opinion of its value, as well as to place its period. It is old
Italian; but even experts are not agreed as to its exact date."
He put his hand in his breast pocket and drew out a small silk bag from
which he took with great care a collar of jewels, designed in a kind of
chain-work which made it perfectly flexible. He laid it out on the
table,--and I bit my lip hard to suppress an involuntary exclamation.
For I had seen the thing before--and for the immediate moment could not
realise where, till a sudden flash of light through the cells of my
brain reminded me of that scene of love and death in the vision of the
artist's studio when the name 'Cosmo de Medicis' had been whispered
like an evil omen. The murderer in that dream-picture had worn a collar
of jewels precisely similar to the one I now saw; but I could only keep
silence and listen with every nerve strained to utmost attention while
Santoris took the ornament in his hand and looked at it with an intent
earnestness in which there was almost a touch of compassion.
"A beautiful piece of workmanship," he said, at last, slowly, while Mr.
Harland, Catherine, and Swinton the secretary all drew up closer to him
at the table and leaned eagerly forward--"And I should say"--here he
raised his eyes and looked full at the dark, brooding, sinister face of
Brayle--"I should say that it belonged to the Medici period. It must
have been part of the dress of a nobleman of that time--the design
seems to me to be Florentine. Perhaps if these jewels could speak they
might tell a strange story!--they are unhappy stones!"
"Unhappy!" exclaimed Catherine--"You mean unlucky?"
"No!--there is no such thing as luck," answered Santoris, quietly,
turning the collar over and over in his hands--"Not for either jewels
or men! But there IS unhappiness,--and unhappiness simply means life
being put to wrong uses. I call these gems 'unhappy' because they have
been wrongfully used. A precious stone is a living thing--it absorbs
influences as the earth absorbs light, and these jewels have absorbed
some sense of evil that renders them less beautiful than they might be.
These diamonds and rubies, these emeralds and sapphires, have not the
full lustre of their own true nature,--they are in the condition of
pining flowers. It will take centuries before they resume their natural
brilliancy. There is some tragedy hidden among them."
Dr. Brayle looked amused.
"Well, I can give you no history of them," he said--"A friend of mine
bought the collar from an old Jew curiosity dealer in a back street of
Florence and sent it to me to wear with a Florentine dress at a fancy
dress ball. Curiously enough I chose to represent one of the Medicis,
some artist having told me my features resembled their type of
countenance. That's the chronicle, so far as I am concerned. I rather
liked it on account of its antiquity. I could have sold it many times
over, but I have no desire to part with it."
"Naturally!"--and Santoris passed on the collar to everyone to
examine--"You feel a sense of proprietorship in it."
Catherine Harland had the trinket in her hand, and a curious vague look
of terror came over her face as she presently passed it back to its
owner. But she made no remark and it was Mr. Harland who resumed the
conversation.
"That's an odd idea of yours about unhappy jewels," he said--"Perhaps
the misfortune attending the possessors of the famous blue Hope diamond
could be traced to some early tragedy connected with it."
"Unquestionably!" replied Santoris. "Now look at this!"--and he drew
from his watch pocket a small fine gold chain to which was attached a
moonstone of singular size and beauty, set in a circle of
diamonds--"Here is a sort of talismanic jewel--it has never known any
disastrous influences, nor has it been disturbed by malevolent
surroundings. It is a perfectly happy, unsullied gem! As you see, the
lustre is perfect--as clear as that of a summer moon in heaven. Yet it
is a very old jewel and has seen more than a thousand years of life."
We all examined the beautiful ornament, and as I held it in my hand a
moment it seemed to emit tiny sparks of luminance like a flash of
moonlight on rippling waves.
"Women should take care that their jewels are made happy," he
continued, looking at me with a slight smile, "That is, if they want
them to shine. Nothing that lives is at its best unless it is in a
condition of happiness--a condition which after all is quite easy to
attain."
"Easy! I should have thought nothing was so difficult!" said Mr.
Harland.
"Nothing certainly is so difficult in the ordinary way of life men
choose to live," answered Santoris--"For the most part they run after
the shadow and forsake the light. Even in work and the creative action
of thought each ordinary man imagines that his especial work being
all-important, it is necessary for him to sacrifice everything to it.
And he does,--if he is filled with worldly ambition and selfish
concentration; and he produces something--anything--which frequently
proves to be ephemeral as gossamer dust. It is only when work is the
outcome of a great love and keen sympathy for others that it lasts and
keeps its influence. Now we have talked enough about all these
theories, which are not interesting to anyone who is not prepared to
accept them--shall we go up on deck?"
We all rose at once, Santoris holding out a box of cigars to the men to
help themselves. Catherine and I preceded them up the saloon stairs to
the deck, which was now like a sheet of silver in the light shed by one
of the loveliest moons of the year. The water around was sparkling with
phosphorescence and the dark mountains looked higher and more imposing
than ever, rising as they seemed to do sheer up from the white
splendour of the sea. I leaned over the deck rail, gazing down into the
deep liquid mirror of stars below, and my heart was heavy and full of a
sense of bitterness and tears. Catherine had dropped languidly into a
chair and was leaning back in it with a strange, far-away expression on
her tired face. Suddenly she spoke with an almost mournful gentleness.
"Do you like his theories?"