PROLOGUE

'Sorcery and sanctity,' said Ambrose, 'these are the only realities.

Each is an ecstasy, a withdrawal from the common life.'

Cotgrave listened, interested. He had been brought by a friend to this

mouldering house in a northern suburb, through an old garden to the room

where Ambrose the recluse dozed and dreamed over his books.

'Yes,' he went on, 'magic is justified of her children. There are many,

I think, who eat dry crusts and drink water, with a joy infinitely

sharper than anything within the experience of the "practical" epicure.'

'You are speaking of the saints?'

'Yes, and of the sinners, too. I think you are falling into the very

general error of confining the spiritual world to the supremely good;

but the supremely wicked, necessarily, have their portion in it. The

merely carnal, sensual man can no more be a great sinner than he can be

a great saint. Most of us are just indifferent, mixed-up creatures; we

muddle through the world without realizing the meaning and the inner

sense of things, and, consequently, our wickedness and our goodness are

alike second-rate, unimportant.'

'And you think the great sinner, then, will be an ascetic, as well as

the great saint?'

'Great people of all kinds forsake the imperfect copies and go to the

perfect originals. I have no doubt but that many of the very highest

among the saints have never done a "good action" (using the words in

their ordinary sense). And, on the other hand, there have been those who

have sounded the very depths of sin, who all their lives have never done

an "ill deed."'

He went out of the room for a moment, and Cotgrave, in high delight,

turned to his friend and thanked him for the introduction.

'He's grand,' he said. 'I never saw that kind of lunatic before.'

Ambrose returned with more whisky and helped the two men in a liberal

manner. He abused the teetotal sect with ferocity, as he handed the

seltzer, and pouring out a glass of water for himself, was about to

resume his monologue, when Cotgrave broke in--

'I can't stand it, you know,' he said, 'your paradoxes are too

monstrous. A man may be a great sinner and yet never do anything sinful!

Come!'

'You're quite wrong,' said Ambrose. 'I never make paradoxes; I wish I

could. I merely said that a man may have an exquisite taste in Romanee

Conti, and yet never have even smelt four ale. That's all, and it's more

like a truism than a paradox, isn't it? Your surprise at my remark is

due to the fact that you haven't realized what sin is. Oh, yes, there is

a sort of connexion between Sin with the capital letter, and actions

which are commonly called sinful: with murder, theft, adultery, and so

forth. Much the same connexion that there is between the A, B, C and

fine literature. But I believe that the misconception--it is all but

universal--arises in great measure from our looking at the matter

through social spectacles. We think that a man who does evil to _us_ and

to his neighbours must be very evil. So he is, from a social standpoint;

but can't you realize that Evil in its essence is a lonely thing, a

passion of the solitary, individual soul? Really, the average murderer,

_qua_ murderer, is not by any means a sinner in the true sense of the

word. He is simply a wild beast that we have to get rid of to save our

own necks from his knife. I should class him rather with tigers than

with sinners.'

'It seems a little strange.'

'I think not. The murderer murders not from positive qualities, but from

negative ones; he lacks something which non-murderers possess. Evil, of

course, is wholly positive--only it is on the wrong side. You may

believe me that sin in its proper sense is very rare; it is probable

that there have been far fewer sinners than saints. Yes, your standpoint

is all very well for practical, social purposes; we are naturally

inclined to think that a person who is very disagreeable to us must be a

very great sinner! It is very disagreeable to have one's pocket picked,

and we pronounce the thief to be a very great sinner. In truth, he is

merely an undeveloped man. He cannot be a saint, of course; but he may

be, and often is, an infinitely better creature than thousands who have

never broken a single commandment. He is a great nuisance to _us_, I

admit, and we very properly lock him up if we catch him; but between his

troublesome and unsocial action and evil--Oh, the connexion is of the

weakest.'

It was getting very late. The man who had brought Cotgrave had probably

heard all this before, since he assisted with a bland and judicious

smile, but Cotgrave began to think that his 'lunatic' was turning into a

sage.

'Do you know,' he said, 'you interest me immensely? You think, then,

that we do not understand the real nature of evil?'

'No, I don't think we do. We over-estimate it and we under-estimate it.

We take the very numerous infractions of our social "bye-laws"--the very

necessary and very proper regulations which keep the human company

together--and we get frightened at the prevalence of "sin" and "evil."

But this is really nonsense. Take theft, for example. Have you any

_horror_ at the thought of Robin Hood, of the Highland caterans of the

seventeenth century, of the moss-troopers, of the company promoters of

our day?

'Then, on the other hand, we underrate evil. We attach such an enormous

importance to the "sin" of meddling with our pockets (and our wives)

that we have quite forgotten the awfulness of real sin.'

'And what is sin?' said Cotgrave.

'I think I must reply to your question by another. What would your

feelings be, seriously, if your cat or your dog began to talk to you,

and to dispute with you in human accents? You would be overwhelmed with

horror. I am sure of it. And if the roses in your garden sang a weird

song, you would go mad. And suppose the stones in the road began to

swell and grow before your eyes, and if the pebble that you noticed at

night had shot out stony blossoms in the morning?

'Well, these examples may give you some notion of what sin really is.'

'Look here,' said the third man, hitherto placid, 'you two seem pretty

well wound up. But I'm going home. I've missed my tram, and I shall have

to walk.'

Ambrose and Cotgrave seemed to settle down more profoundly when the

other had gone out into the early misty morning and the pale light of

the lamps.

'You astonish me,' said Cotgrave. 'I had never thought of that. If that

is really so, one must turn everything upside down. Then the essence of

sin really is----'

'In the taking of heaven by storm, it seems to me,' said Ambrose. 'It

appears to me that it is simply an attempt to penetrate into another and

higher sphere in a forbidden manner. You can understand why it is so

rare. There are few, indeed, who wish to penetrate into other spheres,

higher or lower, in ways allowed or forbidden. Men, in the mass, are

amply content with life as they find it. Therefore there are few saints,

and sinners (in the proper sense) are fewer still, and men of genius,

who partake sometimes of each character, are rare also. Yes; on the

whole, it is, perhaps, harder to be a great sinner than a great saint.'

'There is something profoundly unnatural about sin? Is that what you

mean?'

'Exactly. Holiness requires as great, or almost as great, an effort; but

holiness works on lines that _were_ natural once; it is an effort to

recover the ecstasy that was before the Fall. But sin is an effort to

gain the ecstasy and the knowledge that pertain alone to angels, and in

making this effort man becomes a demon. I told you that the mere

murderer is not _therefore_ a sinner; that is true, but the sinner is

sometimes a murderer. Gilles de Raiz is an instance. So you see that

while the good and the evil are unnatural to man as he now is--to man

the social, civilized being--evil is unnatural in a much deeper sense

than good. The saint endeavours to recover a gift which he has lost; the

sinner tries to obtain something which was never his. In brief, he

repeats the Fall.'

'But are you a Catholic?' said Cotgrave.

'Yes; I am a member of the persecuted Anglican Church.'

'Then, how about those texts which seem to reckon as sin that which you

would set down as a mere trivial dereliction?'

'Yes; but in one place the word "sorcerers" comes in the same sentence,

doesn't it? That seems to me to give the key-note. Consider: can you

imagine for a moment that a false statement which saves an innocent

man's life is a sin? No; very good, then, it is not the mere liar who is

excluded by those words; it is, above all, the "sorcerers" who use the

material life, who use the failings incidental to material life as

instruments to obtain their infinitely wicked ends. And let me tell you

this: our higher senses are so blunted, we are so drenched with

materialism, that we should probably fail to recognize real wickedness

if we encountered it.'

'But shouldn't we experience a certain horror--a terror such as you

hinted we would experience if a rose tree sang--in the mere presence of

an evil man?'

'We should if we were natural: children and women feel this horror you

speak of, even animals experience it. But with most of us convention and

civilization and education have blinded and deafened and obscured the

natural reason. No, sometimes we may recognize evil by its hatred of the

good--one doesn't need much penetration to guess at the influence which

dictated, quite unconsciously, the "Blackwood" review of Keats--but this

is purely incidental; and, as a rule, I suspect that the Hierarchs of

Tophet pass quite unnoticed, or, perhaps, in certain cases, as good but

mistaken men.'

'But you used the word "unconscious" just now, of Keats' reviewers. Is

wickedness ever unconscious?'

'Always. It must be so. It is like holiness and genius in this as in

other points; it is a certain rapture or ecstasy of the soul; a

transcendent effort to surpass the ordinary bounds. So, surpassing

these, it surpasses also the understanding, the faculty that takes note

of that which comes before it. No, a man may be infinitely and horribly

wicked and never suspect it. But I tell you, evil in this, its certain

and true sense, is rare, and I think it is growing rarer.'

'I am trying to get hold of it all,' said Cotgrave. 'From what you say,

I gather that the true evil differs generically from that which we call

evil?'

'Quite so. There is, no doubt, an analogy between the two; a resemblance

such as enables us to use, quite legitimately, such terms as the "foot

of the mountain" and the "leg of the table." And, sometimes, of course,

the two speak, as it were, in the same language. The rough miner, or

"puddler," the untrained, undeveloped "tiger-man," heated by a quart or

two above his usual measure, comes home and kicks his irritating and

injudicious wife to death. He is a murderer. And Gilles de Raiz was a

murderer. But you see the gulf that separates the two? The "word," if I

may so speak, is accidentally the same in each case, but the "meaning"

is utterly different. It is flagrant "Hobson Jobson" to confuse the two,

or rather, it is as if one supposed that Juggernaut and the Argonauts

had something to do etymologically with one another. And no doubt the

same weak likeness, or analogy, runs between all the "social" sins and

the real spiritual sins, and in some cases, perhaps, the lesser may be

"schoolmasters" to lead one on to the greater--from the shadow to the

reality. If you are anything of a Theologian, you will see the

importance of all this.'

'I am sorry to say,' remarked Cotgrave, 'that I have devoted very little

of my time to theology. Indeed, I have often wondered on what grounds

theologians have claimed the title of Science of Sciences for their

favourite study; since the "theological" books I have looked into have

always seemed to me to be concerned with feeble and obvious pieties, or

with the kings of Israel and Judah. I do not care to hear about those

kings.'

Ambrose grinned.

'We must try to avoid theological discussion,' he said. 'I perceive that

you would be a bitter disputant. But perhaps the "dates of the kings"

have as much to do with theology as the hobnails of the murderous

puddler with evil.'

'Then, to return to our main subject, you think that sin is an esoteric,

occult thing?'

'Yes. It is the infernal miracle as holiness is the supernal. Now and

then it is raised to such a pitch that we entirely fail to suspect its

existence; it is like the note of the great pedal pipes of the organ,

which is so deep that we cannot hear it. In other cases it may lead to

the lunatic asylum, or to still stranger issues. But you must never

confuse it with mere social misdoing. Remember how the Apostle, speaking

of the "other side," distinguishes between "charitable" actions and

charity. And as one may give all one's goods to the poor, and yet lack

charity; so, remember, one may avoid every crime and yet be a sinner.'

'Your psychology is very strange to me,' said Cotgrave, 'but I confess I

like it, and I suppose that one might fairly deduce from your premisses

the conclusion that the real sinner might very possibly strike the

observer as a harmless personage enough?'

'Certainly; because the true evil has nothing to do with social life or

social laws, or if it has, only incidentally and accidentally. It is a

lonely passion of the soul--or a passion of the lonely soul--whichever

you like. If, by chance, we understand it, and grasp its full

significance, then, indeed, it will fill us with horror and with awe.

But this emotion is widely distinguished from the fear and the disgust

with which we regard the ordinary criminal, since this latter is largely

or entirely founded on the regard which we have for our own skins or

purses. We hate a murderer, because we know that we should hate to be

murdered, or to have any one that we like murdered. So, on the "other

side," we venerate the saints, but we don't "like" them as we like our

friends. Can you persuade yourself that you would have "enjoyed" St.

Paul's company? Do you think that you and I would have "got on" with Sir

Galahad?

'So with the sinners, as with the saints. If you met a very evil man,

and recognized his evil; he would, no doubt, fill you with horror and

awe; but there is no reason why you should "dislike" him. On the

contrary, it is quite possible that if you could succeed in putting the

sin out of your mind you might find the sinner capital company, and in a

little while you might have to reason yourself back into horror. Still,

how awful it is. If the roses and the lilies suddenly sang on this

coming morning; if the furniture began to move in procession, as in De

Maupassant's tale!'

'I am glad you have come back to that comparison,' said Cotgrave,

'because I wanted to ask you what it is that corresponds in humanity to

these imaginary feats of inanimate things. In a word--what is sin? You

have given me, I know, an abstract definition, but I should like a

concrete example.'

'I told you it was very rare,' said Ambrose, who appeared willing to

avoid the giving of a direct answer. 'The materialism of the age, which

has done a good deal to suppress sanctity, has done perhaps more to

suppress evil. We find the earth so very comfortable that we have no

inclination either for ascents or descents. It would seem as if the

scholar who decided to "specialize" in Tophet, would be reduced to

purely antiquarian researches. No palaeontologist could show you a _live_

pterodactyl.'

'And yet you, I think, have "specialized," and I believe that your

researches have descended to our modern times.'

'You are really interested, I see. Well, I confess, that I have dabbled

a little, and if you like I can show you something that bears on the

very curious subject we have been discussing.'

Ambrose took a candle and went away to a far, dim corner of the room.

Cotgrave saw him open a venerable bureau that stood there, and from some

secret recess he drew out a parcel, and came back to the window where

they had been sitting.

Ambrose undid a wrapping of paper, and produced a green pocket-book.

'You will take care of it?' he said. 'Don't leave it lying about. It is

one of the choicer pieces in my collection, and I should be very sorry

if it were lost.'

He fondled the faded binding.

'I knew the girl who wrote this,' he said. 'When you read it, you will

see how it illustrates the talk we have had to-night. There is a sequel,

too, but I won't talk of that.'

'There was an odd article in one of the reviews some months ago,' he

began again, with the air of a man who changes the subject. 'It was

written by a doctor--Dr. Coryn, I think, was the name. He says that a

lady, watching her little girl playing at the drawing-room window,

suddenly saw the heavy sash give way and fall on the child's fingers.

The lady fainted, I think, but at any rate the doctor was summoned, and

when he had dressed the child's wounded and maimed fingers he was

summoned to the mother. She was groaning with pain, and it was found

that three fingers of her hand, corresponding with those that had been

injured on the child's hand, were swollen and inflamed, and later, in

the doctor's language, purulent sloughing set in.'

Ambrose still handled delicately the green volume.

'Well, here it is,' he said at last, parting with difficulty, it seemed,

from his treasure.

'You will bring it back as soon as you have read it,' he said, as they

went out into the hall, into the old garden, faint with the odour of

white lilies.

There was a broad red band in the east as Cotgrave turned to go, and

from the high ground where he stood he saw that awful spectacle of

London in a dream.