MASTER AND DISCIPLE
It was Sunday afternoon in Gray's Inn. The new Disciple sat at the feet
of the Master, her Gamaliel: one does not know exactly the attitude
adopted by a young Rabbi of old, but in this case the disciple sat in a
low chair, her hands folded in her lap, curiously and earnestly watching
the Master as he walked up and down the room preaching and teaching.
'Master,' she asked, 'have you always preached and held these
doctrines?'
'Not always. There was a time when I dwelt in darkness--like the rest of
the world.'
'How did you learn these things? By reading books?'
'No. I discovered them. I worked them out for myself by logic, by
reason, and by observation. Everything good and true must be discovered
by a man for himself.'
'What did you believe in that old time? Was it, with the rest of the
world, the sacredness of Property?'
'Perhaps.' He stood in front of her, laying his right forefinger in his
left forefinger and inclining his head. 'My dear young scholar, one who
believes as I believe, not with half a heart, but wholly, and without
reserve, willingly forgets the time when he was as yet groping blindly
in darkness or walking in artificial light. He wishes to forget that
time. There is no profit in remembering that time. I have so far drilled
and trained myself not to remember that time, that I have in fact clean
forgotten it. I do not remember what I thought or what I said, or with
whom I associated in that time. It is a most blessed forgetfulness. I
daresay I could recover the memory of it if I wished, but the effort
would be painful. Spare me. The recovery of that Part would be
humiliating. Spare me, scholar. Yet, if you wish--if you command----'
'Oh, no, no! Forgive me.' Elsie touched his hand. He took hers and held
it. Was it with a little joy or a little fear that the girl observed the
power she already had over him? 'I would not cause you pain.
Besides--what does it matter?'
'You know, my child, when the monk assumes the tonsure and the triple
cord, he leaves behind him, outside the cell, all the things of the
world--ambition, love, luxury, the pride of the eye--all--all. He
forgets everything. He casts away everything. He abandons
everything--for meditation and prayer. The monk,' added the Sage, 'is a
foolish person, because his meditation advances not the world a whit. I
am like the monk, save that I think for the world instead of myself. And
so, spending days and nights in meditation, I know not what went
before--nor do I care. It is a second birth when the new faith takes you
and holds you together, so that you care for nothing else. Oh,
child!--upon you also this shall come--this obsession--this
possession--so that your spirit shall know of no time but that spent in
the service of the Cause. Nay, I go so far that I forget from day to day
what passed, except when I was actively engaged for the Cause. Yesterday
I was here in the afternoon. You came. We talked. You offered yourself
as my disciple. I remember every word you said. Could I ever forget a
disciple so trustful and so humble? But--before you came. Where was I?
Doubtless here--meditating. But I know not. Then there are things which
one must do to live--breakfast, dinner--of these I remember nothing. Why
should I? It is a great gift and reward to me that I should not remember
unnecessary things--low and common things. Why should I try to do so?
'No--no,' murmured the catechumen, carried away by his earnestness.
'Best forget them. Best live altogether in and for the Cause.' Yet--she
wondered--how was she to bring things home to him unless he could be
made to remember? He was mad one hour and sane the next. How should she
bridge the gulf and make the mad man cross over to _the other side_?
The Master took her hand in his and held it paternally. 'We needed such
a disciple as you,' he went on, slightly bending his head over her.
'Among my followers there is earnestness without understanding. They
believe in the good time, but they are impatient. They want revolution,
which is terrific and destroys. I want conviction. There are times when
a great idea flies abroad like the flame through the stubble. But men's
minds must first be so prepared that they are ready for it. The world is
not yet ready for my idea, and I am old, and may die too soon to see the
sudden rise of the mighty flood, when that doctrine shall suddenly
cease in all mankind. We need disciples. Above all, we need women. Why
do women, I wonder, throw themselves away in imitating man, when there
are a thousand things that they can do better than any man? I want
women--young, beautiful, faithful. I can find work for hundreds of
women. Hypatia would be worth to me--to us--far more than he of the
Golden Mouth. Child--your sweet voice, your sweet face, your sweet
eyes--I want them. I will take them and use them--expend them--for the
great Cause. It may be that you will be called upon to become the first
martyr of the Cause. Hypatia was murdered by a raging mob. You will have
against you a mob worse than any of Alexandria. You will have a mob
composed of all those who are rich, and all who want to be rich, and all
the servile crews at their command. Happy girl! You will be torn to
pieces for the cause of humanity. Happy girl! I see the roaring,
shrieking mob. I see your slender figure on the steps--what steps?
Where? I hear your voice, clear and high. You are preaching to them;
they close in round you: you disappear--they have dragged you down: they
trample the life out of you. You are dead--dead--dead--and a name for
ever. And the Cause has had its martyr.'
It was strange. She who had offered herself as a disciple with deception
in her heart, thinking only to watch and wait and spy until she could
see her way plain before her, who knew that she was listening to the
voice and the dreams of a madman. Yet she was carried away: he made her
see the mob: she saw herself dragged down and trampled under their
heels. She shuddered, yet she was exultant: her eyes glowed with a new
light: she murmured: 'Yes--yes. Do with me what you please. I am your
disciple, and I will be your martyr, if you please.'
Great and wonderful is the power of Enthusiasm. You see, it matters
nothing--nothing in the world--what a man has to preach and
teach--whether he advocates Obi, or telepathy, or rapping, or spirits
who hide teacups in coat pockets--it matters nothing that there is
neither common sense nor evidence, nor common reason to back him: if he
only possess the magnetic power, he will create a following: he will
have disciples who will follow him to the death. What is it--this power?
It makes the orator, the poet, the painter, the novelist, the
dramatist: it makes the leader of men: it made the first King, the first
Priest, the first Conqueror.
'Come,' said Mr. Edmund Gray; 'the time passes. I must take you to my
Place.'
They walked out together, Master and Scholar. The man who was mad walked
carelessly and buoyantly, his coat flying open, one hand in his pocket,
the other brandishing his walking-stick, his head thrown back, his face
full of light, and, though his words were sometimes strong, always full
of kindness. Now the sane man, the man of Lincoln's Inn, wore his coat
tightly buttoned, walked with a firm precise step, looked straight
before him, and showed the face of one wholly occupied with his own
thoughts. There was a man who was mad and a man who was sane: and
certainly the madman was the more interesting of the two.
'This place,' said the Master, meaning Gray's Inn, 'is entirely filled
with those who live by and for the defence of Property. They absorb and
devour a vast portion of it while they defend it. No one, you see,
defends it unless he is paid for it. Your country, your family, your
honour--you will defend for nothing; but not another man's Property--no.
For that you must be paid. Every year it becomes more necessary to
defend Property; every year the hordes of mercenaries increase. Here
they are lawyers and lawyers' clerks--a vast multitude. Outside there
are agents, brokers, insurers, financiers--I know not what--all
defending Property. They produce nothing, these armies: they take their
toll: they devour a part of what other people have produced before they
hand on the residue to the man who says it is his Property.'
'Oh!'--but Elsie did not say this aloud--'if these words could only be
heard in Lincoln's Inn! If they could be repeated to a certain lawyer.'
From time to time she looked at him curiously. How if he should suddenly
return to his senses? What would he think? How should she explain? 'Mr.
Dering, you have been off your head. You have been talking the most
blasphemous things about Property. You would never believe that even in
madness you could say such things.' No; he never would believe
it--never. He could not believe it. What if his brother, Sir Samuel,
were to hear those words? Meantime, the Apostle walked along
unconscious, filled with his great Mission. Oh, heavens! that Mr.
Dering--Mr. Dering--should believe he had a Mission!
The Master stopped a passing tramcar. 'Let us climb up to the roof,' he
said. 'There we can talk and breathe and look about us, and sometimes we
can listen.'
On the seat in front of them sat two young men, almost boys, talking
together eagerly. Mr. Edmund Gray leaned forward and listened
shamelessly. 'They are two young atheists,' he said. 'They are cursing
religion. There is to be a discussion this evening at Battle Arches
between a Christian and an Atheist, and they are going to assist. They
should be occupied with the question of the day; they can not, because
they, too, are paid defenders of Property. They are lawyers' clerks.
They are poor and they are slaves: all their lives they will be slaves
and they will be poor. Instead of fighting against slavery and poverty,
which they know and feel, they fight against the Unknown and the
Unintelligible. Pity! Pity!'
They passed two great Railway Termini, covering an immense area with
immense buildings.
'Now,' said the Sage, 'there are millions of Property invested in
railways. Whenever the railway servants please, they can destroy all
that Property at a stroke. Perhaps you will live to see this done.'
'But,' said Elsie timidly, 'we must have things carried up and down the
country.'
'Certainly. We shall go carrying things up and down the country, but not
in the interests of Property.'
The tram ran past the stations and under broad railway arches, called
Battle Arches--where the two young atheists got down, eager for the
fray, always renewed every Sunday afternoon, with the display of much
intellectual skill and much ignorance. It is a duel from which both
combatants retire, breathed and flushed, proud of having displayed so
much smartness, both claiming the victory, surrounded by admiring
followers, and neither of them killed, neither of them hurt, neither of
them a bit the worse, and both ready to begin again the following Sunday
with exactly the same attack and exactly the same defence. There are
some institutions--Christianity, the Church of England, the House of
Lords, for instance--which invite and receive perpetual attacks, from
which they emerge without the least hurt, so far as one can perceive. If
they were all abolished to-morrow, what would the spouters do?
The car stopped again, and two girls mounted--two work girls of the
better sort--not, that is to say, the sort which wears an ulster and a
large hat with a flaming feather in it: working-girl dressed quietly and
neatly. They ought to have been cheerful and even gay, for they were
both young, both good-looking, both nicely dressed, and it was Sunday
afternoon, warm and sunny. Yet they were not cheerful at all. One of
them was in a rage royal, and the other, her friend, was in a rage
sympathetic--quite a real rage. They were talking loudly on the kerb
while they waited for the tram: they carried on their conversation as
they climbed the stair: they continued it while they chose a seat, and
before they sat down, without the least regard to those who sat near
them, whether they overheard or wished not to hear--or anything. They
were wholly occupied with themselves and their rage and their narrative.
They neither saw nor heeded anyone else--which is the way that the angry
woman has.
'So I told her--I up and told her, I did. "Yes," I sez, "you and your
fifteen hours a day and overtime," I sez--"and your fines--so as to rob
the poor girls of their money, and your stinkin' little room, as isn't
fit for two, let alone a dozen--and your flarin' gas," I sez, "to choke
us and poison us--and your dinners--yah! your dinners," I sez--"fit for
pigs; and your beast of a husband comin' round with his looks and his
leers"--"You let my husband alone," she sez--"His looks and his leers,"
I sez. "Some day the girls'll take him out and drownd him head first, in
the gutter," I sez. "And a good job too!"'
'You didn't say all that, Liz?' asked the other, admiringly. 'My! What's
she say to that? "Her beast of a husband"? And "his looks and his
leers"? Did you really, Liz, and her that jealous?'
'I did. Oh! I let her have it. For once she did have it. Then I took my
money and I went off.--Never mind what she called me; that don't matter.
She got the truth for once.'
'What do you make of this, disciple?' asked the Master.
'It seems a quarrel between the girl and her employer.'
'These are the makers of Property. They are not the soldiers who defend
it. They are those who create it. The girls are employed by the sweater,
who stands on the lowest rung of the ladder of Property, and steals the
things as fast as they are made.'
'One of them has been turned out. What will she do? Will she find
another place?'
'I don't know. What becomes of the young? It is a difficult question. No
one knows. Some say this and some say that. We know what becomes of the
old when they are turned out. They die. But as for the young, I know
not. You are young, and you are a woman. Go among the young women who
have been turned out and find for yourself--for the world--what does
become of them.'
They passed an immense churchyard, with an ancient church standing in
the midst--the churchyard now cleared of its headstones and converted
into a beautiful garden, after the modern fashion, in which we have
abandoned the pretence of remembering the dead, and plant flowers and
turf above their graves for the solace of the living. Why not? Let the
nameless dead be remembered by the nameless dead. Their virtues, if they
had any, may live after them in their descendants.
'See,' said Mr. Edmund Gray, moralising. 'Here they lie, those who were
soldiers of Property and those who were slaves of Property. They are
mostly the poor of their parish who lie in that garden. No headstones
mark their grave. They were born: they toiled for others to enjoy: and
they died. Is this the life that men should most desire?'
'Nay,' said the disciple. 'But there must be the strong and weak--clever
and dull: there must be inequalities.'
'Yes, inequalities of gifts. One man is stronger, one is sharper, one is
cleverer than another. Formerly, those gifts were used to make their
possessor richer and more powerful. The strong man got followers and
made slaves. The clever man cheated the dull man out of his land and his
liberty. Henceforth, these gifts will be used for the general good.
Patience! You shall understand all in good time.'
He stopped the tram and they descended.
Lying east of the Hampstead Road and Camden High Street, and bounded on
that side by the canal--the great space occupied by the Midland and
Great Northern Goods Depot, by gas-works, wharfs, and railway
arches--there is a network of streets very little known to any but the
parish clergy. No part of London is less interesting than this district.
It used to be called Somers Town, but I think that the old name has
almost died out. It is about a hundred years old, regarded as a
settlement: it possesses three churches at least, two work-houses, one
almshouse, and three burial-grounds turned into gardens. It is also
cheered by the presence of a coal depot. Many small industries are
carried on in this quarter: there are many lodging-houses: the streets
are rather grimy, the houses are rather shabby, the people are rather
slipshod. They are not criminals: they are, in a way, respectable--that
is to say, tolerably respectable. It is not a picturesque suburb:
dulness reigns: it is a dull, a dull, a dismally dull quarter. There are
children, but they lack mirth: and young girls, but they lack the spring
of youth: one would say that there was a low standard in everything,
even in the brightness of dress: the place looks better in winter than
in summer. To-day, the bright sunshine only made the shabbiness of the
streets more shabby.
'Is your place here?' asked Elsie.
'Yes; it is here.--You wonder why I came here. Because the people here
are not all working-people. Some of them are small employers--those of
whom I spoke--who stand on the lowest rung of the ladder and steal the
things as fast as they are made, and take toll, and hoard up savings.
The working-man is generous and open to others, compared with these
people. I planted my place down in the midst of them. But you shall
see--you shall see.'
It was like a dream. Elsie walked beside her conductor. Yesterday she
made the acquaintance of this man for the first time; she had never seen
him before except in his sane condition; he was a madman--a real
dangerous madman--stark staring mad; he was taking her she knew not
where--to some place among strange people: she walked beside him without
the least fear. She who would have fled before the most harmless
lunatic; and she was going with him as his disciple.
'George,' she said afterwards, 'I do not know how it happened. I could
not choose but go with him. I could not choose but to become his
disciple: he compelled me. I lost my will. I even forgot that he was a
madman: I gave up my reason and all: I followed him, and I believed all
that he told me. How did he get that power? Directly I left him, I
became myself again. I perceived the mad enthusiast. I saw Mr. Dering
caricatured and proclaiming foolishness. But in his presence I was his
servant and his slave.'
* * * * *
'Here we are,' he said. 'This is my Place. Let us go in.'