brown corks heaving gently, at regular intervals. Other boats lay
alongside, with their nets adrift; some of the boats were silent, the
men all asleep; from others he heard voices, a sudden laugh, and then
silence. The water was all about him, and the water was friendly, a
great breathing thing, that had him in its arms. He only felt at home
when he was on the water, because the water was so living, and the land
lay like a dead thing, always the same, but for the change of its
coverings. There was in the Bible one of those hard sayings: that in
heaven 'there shall be no more sea.' It was too difficult for him to
understand.
The sea comforted him a little, but he said to himself: 'I do not want
to be dandled to sleep like a child; I want to see the truth.' Had he,
or had he not, among the numberless sins, which he had seen God adding
up in his book, committed the one sin which should never be pardoned? He
did not know what that sin was, but, he argued, my ignorance makes no
difference. If I pick toad-stools for mushrooms, and eat them, I shall
pay the penalty, just the same as if I had eaten them on purpose. The
Bible, it was true, did not tell you, as far as he could discover; but
there must be people who knew. There was the minister, who had a
reference Bible, and knew Hebrew. He would certainly know.
'When we get back to St. Ives,' said Lackland to himself, 'I will go and
see Mr. Curnock; meanwhile the less I think about this the better.' But
there was one thought that he could not put out of his mind. Suppose he
had not sinned the unpardonable sin, had he not sinned so often, and so
deeply, that God ought not to pardon him, if he were really a just
judge, and not swayed, as men are, by a pity which is only one form of
partiality? He had always conceived sternly of God; the Jehovah of the
Old Testament was always before him, a mighty avenger, a God of battles
and judgments, inexorably just. If God was also love, God might forgive
him; he would want to forgive him; but would it be right to accept
mercy, if that mercy lowered his creator in his own eyes? The thought
stung him, raced through him like poison; he could not escape from it.
His old sense of honour towards God came back on him with redoubled
force. If God were just, God would not forgive him. Did he not love God
so much that he would suffer eternal misery, gladly, in order that God
might be just?
When the boats went home with their fish, Lackland had only one thought:
to go and see Mr. Curnock at St. Ives. He walked in from Carbis that
evening, and found the minister alone in his study. Mr. Curnock
respected him; he had gone steadily on, year after year, preaching
whenever he was wanted, and though one or two people had complained that
his sermons were not strictly orthodox, most of the people spoke well of
him; many said that he had helped them. On that night he was very
serious, and he seemed to be hesitating to say all that he had to say.
At last he admitted that it was the text in the Bible which was
troubling him.
Mr. Curnock went up to his shelves and looked along them. 'I know,' he
said, 'that many people have been needlessly disturbed about that
saying. And, as the Bible does not tell us, we cannot be quite certain
what that sin is. But if I can find one or two passages that recur to
me, in some of the people who have written about the Gospels, I think
they will throw some light on the matter.' He took down a big black
book, and turned over the pages. 'Here, for instance: "Not a particular
_act_ of sin but a _state_ of wilful, determined opposition to the Holy
Spirit, is meant." That is very much what I should imagine to be the
truth. But it is a little vague, perhaps?'
'I don't thoroughly see it,' said Lackland. 'The Bible says "blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost."'
'Well now,' said the minister, taking down another book, 'here is a
translation from a Spaniard of the sixteenth century, who has been
called "a Quaker before his time." He puts things quaintly, but I like
him better than the formal people. Let me see: "Whence, considering that
..." No, that doesn't concern us; here it is: "do I come to understand
that a man then sins against the Holy Spirit, when, with mental
malignity he persuades men that the works of the Holy Spirit are the
works of the devil, he being soul-convinced of the contrary." Is that
clear?'
'That's clearer,' said Lackland.
'He goes on, on the next page,' said Mr. Curnock, '"And I understand
that sin against the Holy Ghost that worked in Christ was inexcusable,
for it could not spring save from the most depraved minds, obstinate in
depravity."' Mr. Curnock shut the book, and put it back in its place.
'Now, do you see,' he said, sitting down by the table, 'this awful sin,
such as it is, could not be sinned unconsciously; its very essence is
that it is a deliberate rejection of what we know to be truth. I might
almost say that to sin it, a man must make up his mind that he will do
so.'
'I think I see,' said Lackland, staring before him; 'and I was wrong
there, for certain: I never committed that sin. But, all the same, I
don't feel quite clear yet.'
'Why is that?' said the minister.
'Have you never thought, sir,' said Lackland, 'that the only return we
can make to God for his love to us, is to love him more than we love
ourselves?'
'But certainly,' said Mr. Curnock.
'Well,' said Lackland, 'do you see it might be that a good Christian
would think most of saving his own soul.'
'That is his duty,' said Mr. Curnock.
'But are they both true?' said Lackland.
'Both things you have said are perfectly true,' said Mr. Curnock; 'only,
I see no contradiction between them.'
'Thank you, sir,' said Lackland, getting to his feet; 'I'll go and think
it all over; I'm not very ready at thinking, I have to set my mind to
things slowly; and you've given me a good lot to think over. Good-night,
Mr. Curnock.'
'And now, my dear Lackland,' said the minister, as he opened the door of
the house, 'above all, don't worry over a text which none of us are very
sure about. Be certain of one thing, that God's mercy is infinite, and
that he'll bring you through.'
Lackland walked slowly away from the door, along the terrace above the
sea, and then more rapidly, as he came out on the rough path along the
cliff. The wind blew sharply against him; the moon glittered in the sky,
among a multitude of glittering stars; and he heard the sea screaming
and tearing at the pebbles, as he sat down on the edge of the cliff,
just before getting to Carbis Bay, and looked along the uneasy water,
which quivered all over with little waves, hunching themselves up, one
after another, and leaping forward, all in a white froth, as they struck
upon the beach. 'They are like the lives of men,' thought Lackland; 'all
that effort, a struggling onward, a getting to the journey's end: see,
that wave is making for just that old tin can, and it has hit it, and
the can rolls over and remains, and the wave is gone.' He drew his
breath in sharply, drawing up the salt smell of the sea into his
nostrils, and sat there for a long time thinking.
No, he had not committed the sin against the Holy Ghost: God could still
pardon him. But was it right, was it just, that God should pardon him?
One after another of the hard sayings of the Old Testament came into his
mind: it was clearly impossible to fulfil every one of those
obligations; he could but strive towards them, and fail, and fall back
on the mercy of God. At that thought something rose up in him like a
pride on behalf of God, and he said to himself: 'I will never ask God to
stoop in order that I may rise.' As he said the words he looked round
him; the aspect of the place, which he had known all his life, seemed to
change, to become dim, to become mysteriously distinct, and he saw that
he was sitting where he had sat with the evil spirit in his dream. He
got up hastily and went indoors.
Night after night Seaward Lackland went out with the fishing-boats; he
did his share of the work just as usual, took his share of the profits,
slept by day, and sat awake by night; and, to all about him, he was the
same man as before. But an ecstasy was growing up within him which kept
his own ears shut to everything but one interior voice; he was
meditating a great sacrifice; and a great happiness began to inhabit his
soul. 'If God so loved the world,' he repeated, as he had repeated it on
the night of his conversion, 'that he gave his only begotten Son ...' He
brooded over the words, wondering if a mere man could imitate that
supreme surrender. He was only a poor fisherman; the disciples had been
that, and Jesus had called them to leave their fathers and their nets
and follow him. Both his father and mother were dead; no one in the
world depended on him; he was free to give up the world, if he chose,
for God. The thought intoxicated him; he saw nothing but the thought,
like a light beckoning to him in the darkness: perhaps calling him to
destruction. The pride of a vast magnanimity thrilled through him: he
would sin the one sin that God could not pardon, in order that God
should deal with him according to his justice, and not according to his
mercy. He would, as he had dreamed when a child, prefer God's honour to
his own; he would give up heaven in order that God might be worthy of
his own idea of him. I will sin, he said to himself, the sin against the
Holy Ghost, and I will do it for the love of God.
When he had made up his mind, and was full of an exultant inner peace
because of it, he still waited and pondered, not knowing quite how he
would do the thing he had decided to do. It must be done publicly, and
he must suffer for it here, as he was to suffer for it hereafter. It
must be done in Carbis Chapel, when his turn came to preach there.
It was some time before his turn came, and he waited with a feverish
impatience. He tried to think out what he should say, but he could not
imagine anything that seemed to him sufficiently 'obstinate in
depravity.' He remembered the phrase, 'when, with mental malignity, he
persuades men that the works of the Holy Spirit are the works of the
devil'; and he tried to work out an argument, at which he shuddered,
which would seem to show Jesus as one working miracles with the help of
Satan. At first he could not put two words together, but gradually the
task became easier; strange arguments came into his head, which seemed
almost plausible to himself; he wondered if it was actually the devil,
for his own ends, helping him. He did not write down a word, though he
was accustomed to write every word of his sermons; every word, as he
thought it, stamped itself in his mind, like a seal pressed into burning
wax.
The night before the Sunday on which he was to preach his last sermon,
he lay in bed trying to sleep, but unable to close his eyes on the
darkness that seemed to palpitate about him. He got out of bed, threw
open the window, and leaned out. The night was quite black, he could see
nothing, but he could hear the waves splashing upon the sand down below
in the bay. A chill wind bit at his face, and made his body shiver. He
shut the window, and lay down in bed again, staring for the dawn. He
felt cold right through to the heart, and he felt horribly alone. By
to-morrow night he would have cut himself adrift; he would be like that
seaweed which the sea was tossing upon the sand, and dragging away from
the sand. For God's sake he would have cast off God, and he had no other
friend. To-morrow he would have none. His resolution never wavered, but
he no longer wished the dawn to come quickly; he would have liked, when
he saw the first light on the window-panes, to have held back the dawn.
He was to preach in the evening, and in the morning he sat in the chapel
and heard the minister from St. Ives telling of the mercy of God. His
text was: 'I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one
sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which
need no repentance.' He spoke of salvation for all; not a word was said
about that one exception. Lackland felt a bitter smile twitching at the
corners of his lips.
At night he made his own tea as usual, and walked up and down the room,
often looking at the clock, until it was time to go across to the
chapel. He saw the people passing his window on their way; some of them
looked in, saw him, and nodded in a friendly manner. He looked again at
the clock; now it was time for him to go, and he went into a corner of
the room, knelt down, and prayed to God for strength to deny him. Then
he walked rapidly across to the chapel.
The chapel was very full, it seemed to him oppressively hot, and he felt
the blood flushing his forehead. Many of the people remembered
afterwards that they had noticed something strange in his manner from
the moment in which he set foot on the steps of the pulpit. They were
quick to recognise the outward signs of a flame lighted within; and they
anticipated a fine sermon. His first prayer was very short, but it was
like a last confession. Each word seemed to live with a sharp, painful
life of its own; the words cried out, and called down heaven for an
answer. The text was a verse out of the twenty-fourth chapter of St.
Matthew: 'Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or
there; believe it not.' It was not the first time he had chosen a
strange text. He began slowly, and with an unusual solemnity. It seemed
to him that they were not understanding him aright. As he went on, his
voice, which had at first been low, grew louder; he spoke as if he were
hurrying through some message which had been laid upon him to deliver;
yet with the calmness of one who has mastered his own fever. He was
speaking the most terrible words they had ever heard, and they were at
first too bewildered even to think. As he went on, they began to look at
one another, wondering if he were mad or they; one or two women near the
door got up quietly and went out; men stirred in their seats; a great
shudder went through the whole congregation. Blasphemies such as they
had never dreamed of filled their ears, dazed their senses; and Seaward
Lackland stood there calmly, like a martyr, one of them said afterwards;
the sweat stood out on his forehead, but he spoke in an even voice: was
it Seaward Lackland or was it the devil who stood there denying God,
denying the Holy Spirit? There were those who looked up at the ceiling
above them, thinking that the roof would fall in and bury them with the
blasphemer. But as heaven did not stir in its own defence, it was for
them to assume the defence of heaven. An old class leader stood up in
his pew, near the communion-rail, and turning his back on the preacher,
said in a loud voice: 'I entreat you all to listen to this man no
longer, but to go instantly home, and pray God Almighty to forgive you
for what you have heard this day.' Lackland stood silent, and every one
in the chapel got up and went quickly out, the old class-leader the
last; and Lackland was left alone in the chapel, standing before the
open Bible in the pulpit. He fell on his knees and covered his face with
his hands: 'O God, forgive me,' he prayed, 'for what I have done for
thee to-day.'
* * * * *
From that day Seaward Lackland was an outcast in the village. The mates
with whom he shared the boat and the nets refused to go to sea in his
company, lest they should share a judgment reserved for him, and all be
drowned together. He accepted his fate without protest, and, as one
thing after another slipped out of his hands, made no complaint. When
there was nothing else for him to do, he drove a cart which used to
carry the fish from the boats to the salting-cellars, and afterwards
from the cellars to the railway station, where they were sent in barrels
to the nearest port for Genoa and Leghorn. He was too poor now to live
in his cottage, and housed with some others as poor as himself, in a
half-fallen shanty on the way to Lelant. Even his housemates mocked him,
and held themselves more decent folks than he. It was thought that his
brain had weakened, for he became more and more eccentric in his ways,
and got to talk with himself, for hours together, in a low voice, but
with the gestures of one explaining something to an unseen disputant.
One day as he was racing up the hill by the side of his cart, urging on
the horses, his foot slipped, and he fell under the near wheel, which
had crushed into his breast-bone before the horses could be stopped. He
was carried back, and laid on his ragged bed; and was just able to ask
those about him to fetch the minister from St. Ives. He was not quite
dead when the minister came, and he said 'Amen,' simply, to the prayer
which the minister offered up for him. Then, as he seemed anxious to say
something, the minister stooped down, and, to help him, said: 'Perhaps
you want to tell us why you sinned against God ...' he was going to add,
'and that you repent of it, and hope for salvation,' but the dying man,
in a very faint but ecstatic voice, said: 'Because I loved God more than
I loved myself'; and so died, with a great joy on his face. But the
minister shook his head sorrowfully, not understanding what he meant.
EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF HENRY LUXULYAN.
When Henry Luxulyan died in Venice, a few years ago, he left a written
request that all his papers should be sent to me under seal. He was a
townsman of mine, and that, I think, had been almost the only link
between us, though I had known him from childhood, and we used to meet,
more or less accidentally, and at long intervals, all through his life.
As a boy he had few friends; he did not seek them; and I was never sure
that he looked upon me as in any real sense a friend. It was always
vaguely supposed that he was very clever, and as he took part in no
boyish games, and did not ride, or swim, or even walk much, but seemed
to brood, and linger, and be thinking, it was supposed that he had
interests of his own, and would one day be or do something remarkable.
He was never communicative about anything, but once or twice in later
years, he spoke to me of his historical studies, and I gathered that he
was making researches (for a book, I supposed) into the life of Attila:
a subject remote and gloomy enough, I thought, to be naturally
attractive to him. For some years I lost sight of him altogether, and
then, to my surprise, met him at the house of a German Baron and his
wife, who were settled in London, where they entertained lavishly. It
was the last house at which I had ever expected to meet him; though
indeed the Baroness was a woman of considerable learning, and very
intelligent and sympathetic. I found that he had become her librarian,
and was living in the house. He looked ill and restless. Whenever I
dined at the house, he was always there. I noticed that the Baroness
treated him more like a friend than a librarian; appealing to him on
every occasion as if he had the management of the whole household. I
never had much private talk with him, but he seemed glad to see me, and
referred sometimes, but never very definitely, to his work, which I
encouraged him to persevere with. He seemed almost pathetically alone;
but I remembered that he had never cared to be otherwise. The nervous
restlessness which I had observed in him was more marked every time that
I saw him; and it was with no surprise that I heard he had broken down,
and was in Venice, trying to recover. But it was in Venice that he took
the fever of which he died.
I never knew why he left that strange request that his papers should be
sent to me; nor was there any message among them, or the least
indication of what he wanted me to do with them. Most of them were
concerned with the life of Attila, but there were not three properly
finished chapters; and the mass of fragments, quotations, references,
tentative notes, mutually destructive and unresolved conjectures,
baffled my utmost endeavours, and remained for me, and I fear must
always remain, so much lost labour, like an enigma of which the key is
missing. But in the midst of these papers, thrust as if hurriedly into
one of the bundles, so that the string had cut into the outer leaves of
loose manuscripts, there was a thin book bound in parchment, almost
filled with Luxulyan's close, uneasy writing. It was a journal, many
times begun and relinquished, ending with a date not many days before
his death. Between the pages were two letters, in a woman's handwriting.
I burnt the letters without reading them; then I read the journal.
What I print here is printed with but few omissions; only I have changed
the names, and not left any allusion, as far as I know, to circumstances
which it is likely that any one could easily identify. For the omissions
I make myself wholly responsible; as, indeed, for the printing of the
journal at all. It seems to me a genuine document; odd, disconcerting,
like the man who wrote it; profoundly disconcerting to me, on reading
it, as I discovered the real subterranean being whom I had known, during
his lifetime, only by a few, scarcely perceptible outlines on the
surface. Such as it is, I give it here, reserving till afterwards
something more which I shall have to say by way of comment or epilogue.
* * * * *
April 5.--I have been talking with the doctor to-day, and he tells me
that my nerves are seriously out of order. There, of course, he is quite
right, and he tells me nothing I did not know already. Only, why tell
me? That is just what it does me no good to think about. If I am to keep
in even so shaky an equilibrium as this, which at least might be worse,
it is essential for me to forget there is any danger. What folly, to be
a doctor and honest!
For my part, I was quite frank with him. I told him it was terrible, to
be alone and to think about death every day of one's life. He put out a
soothing hand professionally, and began to say something about 'with
care' and 'I see no reason why,' and so forth; 'no reason why, with
care, you should not live, well----' 'How long,' I interrupted him, as
he hesitated. 'Thirty years, forty years,' he said confidently, 'why
not? I tell you there is no reason why you should not die an old man.'
And he thought he was comforting me! I only said, 'It is horrible.' 'In
heaven's name,' he said, with real amazement, 'what is horrible?' I told
him: this dwindling away, this continual losing of all the forces that
hold one to life, this inevitable encroachment of the other thing, the
darkness; and the uncertainty of it all, except the ending. 'Come now,'
he said, as if he were arguing with a child, 'be reasonable; you don't
expect to live for ever?' 'That is just it,' I said; and then I put it
to him: 'don't you find it horrible to think of?' 'I never think of it,'
he said. 'I have to see to it every day. One accustoms oneself to the
things one sees every day. You brood over it because it is hidden away
from you.'
He said that as if he was saying something fine, courageous, even
intelligent.
I shivered as he spoke so lightly of seeing people die every day, and I
said, 'You think nothing of it!' 'To me,' he said, more seriously, 'it
is the one quite natural thing in the world. One is tired, one lies
down, one sleeps. And even if one isn't conscious of being tired, there
is nothing so good as sleep.' It struck me that he was quoting from
Marcus Aurelius, in a sort of roundabout way, and I let him go on
talking; but when he looked at me and said: 'I have never met any one
before who worried over the thought that he would have to die when he
was seventy, eighty, ninety: how do you know you won't live to be
ninety?' the simplicity of the man struck me as being laughable; a child
could have reasoned better, and I said: 'If I live to be ninety I shall
never have passed a day without thinking about death, and I know that I
am logically right in never losing sight of the only thing in the world
which is of infinite importance. You call it morbid, but what if only I
am wide awake, after all, and you others are walking straight into a pit
with your eyes shut?' It was then that he repeated that my nerves were
seriously out of order. He told me that I must find distraction. In
other words, I must shut my eyes from time to time. Well, there is no
doubt about it. That is what I must try to do. But how?
* * * * *
April 6.--I suppose it is only because I am nervous, and because the
doctor told me I must not live so much by myself, but I am beginning to
think again about Clare, and I had not thought of her for a long time.
When one has lived with a woman, in the same house with her, every day
and every night for three years: think, there are one thousand and
ninety-five days in three years! well, something remains, in the very
look and touch of the furniture, in the treacherous blank of the
mirrors, which forget nothing, and hide so much, something that will
never wholly go; and I must not expect to release my senses, as I have
released my mind and my will, from the power of that woman.