"If you can so far command the fragmentary life you lead as to give this
manuscript the sober, searching thought which it invites, the truth may
be brought to you. But if these twenty years have only filled you with
the pride of inventing arguments and detecting analogies, if they have
only given you the petty skill of a petty scholar, why then dally on
with a tinsel variety of superficial attainments, and give others the
blessed privilege you are not strong enough to accept."
"Take it from me," I said. "It has haunted me too long. What you may
have found, it is for your honor to promulgate."
"The finding is enough for one life," replied Vannelle. "The spiritual
manhood is indeed complete, but the shell which enclosed it totters
towards earth. My responsibility in this matter is at an end: yours will
now begin."
A tremor ran through my frame as he spoke these words. A mystery rigid
as Fate seemed to shackle me. Without seeing him go, I knew that
Vannelle had left the room. Again was I conscious of the carriage-rumble
growing fainter, fainter, fainter in the distance. A dream of passionate
excitement, a phantasmagoria of old wishes, old hopes, of the life I
might have led, flew before me. For a moment the energy of Vannelle
seemed to have transfused itself through every fibre. An unquenchable
thirst that I had never summoned struck into my brain. I seized the
manuscript, and devoured page after page. Then I felt the approaches of
a supreme despotism that might annihilate all I had been, all I hoped to
be,--that might compel me to denounce all that I had taught, to hear all
that was respectable and healthy in the world jeer at me as an impostor,
an enthusiast, a madman. It was not that I was simply invited to come
above the ordinary doctrines of the day, and stand supported and
encouraged by a few advanced minds; but I was called to place myself
where the most earnest souls--unless a second birth could be granted
them--would scoff with the ignorance and intolerance of the mass.
At last the gray light of morning shone upon me.
One of my deacons, whistling sturdily, passed along the street. A
physical emanation from his healthy vitality partially counteracted the
influence of the night. Gathering up every muscle of my feeble will, I
closed the manuscript forever. Hereditary imperfections of body and mind
confine me to a sphere of reputable usefulness. If I have sinned in the
past, I have also suffered. If, as I sometimes suspect, I have thrust
from me the grandest opportunity ever offered to man, the loss through
all eternity will be mine.
In eight days I heard of the death of Herbert Vannelle.