PLEADINGS.
"Brother Senior Warden, your place in the lodge?" said Mr. Brand,
looking at the small dinner-table.
"You forget," his companion said. "I am only in the nursery as yet--an
Illuminatus Minor, as it were. However, I don't think I can do better
than sit where Waters has put me; I can have a glimpse of the lights on
the river. But what an extraordinary place for you to come to for
rooms!"
They had driven down through the glare of the great city to this silent
and dark little thoroughfare, dismissed the carriage at the foot,
climbed up an old-fashioned oak staircase, and found themselves at last
received by an elderly person, who looked a good deal more like a
bronzed old veteran than an ordinary English butler.
"Halloo, Waters!" said Lord Evelyn. "How are you? I don't think I have
seen you since you threatened to murder the landlord at Cairo."
"No, my lord," said Mr. Waters, who seemed vastly pleased by this
reminiscence, and who instantly disappeared to summon dinner for the two
young men.
"Extraordinary?" said Brand, when they had got seated at table. "Oh no;
my constant craving is for air, space, light and quiet. Here I have all
these. Beneath are the Embankment gardens; beyond that, you see, the
river--those lights are the steamers at anchor. As for quiet, the lower
floors are occupied by a charitable society; so I fancied there would
not be much traffic on the stairs."
The jibe passed unheeded; Lord Evelyn had long ago become familiar with
his friend's way of speaking about men and things.
"And so, Evelyn, you have become a pupil of the revolutionaries," George
Brand continued, when Waters had put some things before them and
retired--"a student of the fine art of stabbing people unawares? What an
astute fellow that Lind must be--I will swear it never occurred to one
of the lot before--to get an English milord into their ranks! A stroke
of genius! It could only have been projected by a great mind. And then
look at the effect throughout Europe if an English milord were to be
found with a parcel of Orsini bombs in his possession! every ragamuffin
from Naples to St. Petersburg would rejoice; the army of cutthroats
would march with a new swagger."
His companion said nothing; but there was a vexed and impatient look on
his face.
"And our little daughter--is she pretty? Does she coax the young men to
play with daggers?--the innocent little thing! And when you start with
your dynamite to break open a jail, she blows you a kiss?--the charming
little fairy! What is it she has embroidered on the ribbons round her
neck?--'_Mort aux rois_?' '_Sic semper tyrannis_?' No; I saw a much
prettier one somewhere the other day: '_Ne si pasce di fresche ruggiade,
ma di sangue di membra di re_.' Isn't it charming? It sounds quite
idyllic, even in English: '_Not for you the nourishment of freshening
dews, but the blood of the limbs of kings_!' The pretty little
stabber--is she fierce?"
"Brand, you are too bad!" said the other, throwing down his knife and
fork, and getting up from the table. "You believe in neither man, woman,
God, nor devil!"
"Would you mind handing over that claret jug?"
"Why," he said, turning passionately toward him, "it is men like you,
who have neither faith, nor hope, nor regret, who are wandering
aimlessly in a nightmare of apathy and indolence and indifference, who
ought to be the first to welcome the new light breaking in the sky. What
is life worth to you? You have nothing to hope for--nothing to look
forward to--nothing you can kill the aimless with. Why should you desire
to-morrow? To-morrow will bring you nothing different from yesterday;
you will do as you did yesterday and the day before yesterday. It is the
life of a horse or an ox--not the life of a human being, with the
sympathies and needs and aspirations of a man. What is the object of
living at all?"
"I really don't know," said the other, simply.
But this pale hump-backed lad, with the fine nostrils, the sensitive
mouth, the large forehead, and the beautiful eyes, was terribly in
earnest. He forgot about his place at table. He kept walking up and
down, occasionally addressing his friend directly, at other times
glancing out at the dark river and the golden lines of the lamps.
And he was an eloquent speaker, too. Debarred from most forms of
physical exercise, he had been brought up in a world of ideas.
When he went to Oxford, it was with some vague notion of subsequently
entering the Church; but at Oxford he became speedily convinced that
there was no Church left for him to enter. Then he fell back on
æstheticism--worshipped Carpaccio, adored Chopin, and turned his rooms
at Merton into a museum of old tapestry, Roman brass-work, and
Venetian glass. Then he dabbled a little in Comtism; but very soon he
threw aside that gigantic make-believe at believing. Nevertheless,
whatever was his whim of the moment, it was for him no whim at all,
but a burning reality. And in this enthusiasm of his there was no room
left for shyness. In fact, these two companions had been accustomed to
talk frankly; they had long ago abandoned that self-consciousness
which ordinarily restricts the conversation of young Englishmen to
monosyllables. Brand was a good listener and his friend an eager,
impetuous, enthusiastic speaker. The one could even recite verses to
the other: what greater proof of confidence?
And on this occasion all this prayer of his was earnest and pathetic
enough. He begged this old chum of his to throw aside his insular
prejudices and judge for himself. What object had he in living at all,
if life were merely a routine of food and sleep? In this selfish
isolation, his living was only a process of going to the grave--only
that each day would become more tedious and burdensome as he grew older.
Why should he not examine, and inquire, and believe--if that was
possible? The world was perishing for want of a new faith: the new faith
was here.
At this phrase George Brand quickly raised his head. He was accustomed
to these enthusiasms of his friend; but he had not yet seen him in the
character of on apostle.
"You know it as well as I, Brand; the last great wave of religion has
spent itself; and I suppose Matthew Arnold would have us wait for the
mysterious East, the mother of religions, to send us another. Do you
remember 'Obermann?'--
"'In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;
He drove abroad, in furious guise,
Along the Appian Way;
"'He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,
And crowned his head with flowers--
No easier nor no quicker passed
The impracticable hours.
"'The brooding East with awe beheld
Her impious younger world.
The Roman tempest swelled and swelled,
And on her head was hurled.
"'The East bowed low before the blast,
In patience, deep disdain;
She let the legions thunder past,
And plunged in thought again.'"
The lad had a sympathetic voice; and there was a curious, pathetic
thrill in the tones of it as he went on to describe the result of that
awful musing--the new-born joy awakening in the East--the victorious
West veiling her eagles and snapping her sword before this strange new
worship of the Child--
"And centuries came, and ran their course,
And, unspent all that time,
Still, still went forth that Child's dear force,
And still was at its prime."
But now--in these later days around us!--
"Now he is dead! Far hence He lies
In the lorn Syrian town;
And on his grave, with shining eyes,
The Syrian stars look down."
The great divine wave had spent itself. But were we to sit supinely
by--this was what he asked, though not precisely in these consecutive
words, for sometimes he walked to and fro in his eagerness, and
sometimes he ate a bit of bread, or sat down opposite his friend for the
purpose of better confronting him--to wait for that distant and
mysterious East to send us another revelation? Not so. Let the
proud-spirited and courageous West, that had learned the teachings of
Christianity but never yet applied them--let the powerful West establish
a faith of her own: a faith in the future of humanity itself--a faith in
future of recompense and atonement to the vast multitudes of mankind who
had toiled so long and so grievously--a faith demanding instant action
and endeavor and self-sacrifice from those who would be its first
apostles.
"The complaining millions of men
Darken in labor and pain."
And why should not this Christianity, that had so long been used to gild
the thrones of kings and glorify the ceremonies of priests--that had so
long been monopolized by the rich and the great and the strong, whom its
Founder despised and denounced--why should it not at length come to the
help of those myriads of the poor and the weak and the suffering whose
cry for help had been for so many centuries disregarded? Here was work
for the idle, hope for the hopeless, a faith for them who were perishing
for want of a faith.
"You say all this is vague--a vision--a sentiment?" he said, talking in
the same eager way. "Then that is my fault. I cannot explain it all to
you in a few words. But do not run away with the notion that it is mere
words--a St. Simonian dream of perfectibility, or anything like that. It
is practical; it exists; it is within reach of you. It is a definite
and immense organization; it may be young as yet, but it has courage and
splendid aims; and now, with a great work before it, it is eager for
aid. You yourself, when you see a child run over, or a woman starving of
hunger, or a blind man wanting to cross a street, are you not ready with
your help--the help of your hands or of your purse? Multiply these by
millions, and think of the cry for help that comes from all parts of the
world. If you but knew, you could not resist. I as yet know little--I
only hear the echo of the cry; but my veins are burning; I shall have
the gladness of answering 'Yes,' however little I can do. And after all,
is not that something? For a man to live only for himself is death."
"But you know, Evelyn," said his friend, though he did not quite know
what to answer to all this outburst, "you must be more cautious. Those
benevolent schemes are very noble and very captivating; but sometimes
they are in the hands of rather queer people. And besides, do you quite
know the limits of this big society? I thought you said something about
vindicating the oppressed. Does it include politics?"
"I do not question; I am content to obey," said Lord Evelyn.
"That is not English; unreasoning and blind obedience is mere folly."
"Perhaps so," said the other, somewhat absently; "but I suppose a man
accepts whatever satisfies the craving of his own heart. And--and I
should not like to go alone on this new thing, Brand. Will you not come
some little way with me? If you think I am mistaken, you may turn back;
as for me--well, if it were only a dream, I think I would rather go with
the pilgrims on their hopeless quest than stay with the people who come
out to wonder at them as they go by. You remember--
"'Who is your lady of love, oh ye that pass
Singing? And is it for sorrow of that which was
That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be?
For gladly at once and sadly it seems ye sing.
--Our lady of love by you is unbeholden;
For hands she hath none, nor eyes, nor lips, nor golden
Treasure of hair, nor face nor form; but we
That love, we know her more fair than anything.'"
Yes; he had certainly a pathetic thrill in his voice; but now there was
something else--something strange--in the slow and monotonous cadence
that caught the acute ear of his friend. And again he went on, but
absently, almost as if he were himself listening--
"--Is she a queen, having great gifts to give?
--Yea, these; that whoso hath seen her shall not live
Except he serve her sorrowing, with strange pain,
Travail and bloodshedding and bitterest tears;
And when she bids die he shall surely die.
And he shall leave all things under the sky,
And go forth naked under sun and rain,
And work and wait and watch out all his years."
"Evelyn," said George Brand, suddenly, fixing his keen eyes on his
friend's face, "where have you heard that? Who has taught you? You are
not speaking with your own voice."
"With whose, then?" and a smile came over the pale, calm, beautiful
face, as if he had awakened out of a dream.
"That," said Brand, still regarding him, "was the voice of Natalie
Lind."