Books: Ardath

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"'It is a thousand pities this gifted poet is no more. Splendid as
the work of his youthful genius is, there is no doubt but that,
had he lived, he would have endowed the world anew with an
inheritance of thought worthy of the grandest master-minds.' Well,
when I had fully realized the situation, I began to think to
myself, Shall I enlighten this Sir Oracle of the Press, and tell
him the 'DEAD' author he so enthusiastically eulogizes, is alive
and well, or was so, at any rate, the last time I heard from him?
I debated the question seriously, and, after much cogitation,
decided to leave him, for the present, in ignorance. First of all,
because critics like to consider themselves the wisest men in the
world, and hate to be told anything,--secondly, because I rather
enjoyed the fun. The publisher of 'Nourhalma'--a very excellent
fellow--sent me the critique, and wrote asking me whether it was
true that the author of the poem was really dead, and if not,
whether he should contradict the report. I waited a bit before
answering that letter, and while I waited two more critiques
appeared in two of the most assertively pompous and dictatorial
journals of the day, echoing the eulogies of the Parthenon,
declaring 'this dead poet' worthy 'to rank with the highest of the
Immortals,' and a number of other similar grandiose declarations.
One reviewer took an infinite deal of pains to prove 'that if the
genius of Theos Alwyn had only been spared to England, he must
have infallibly been elected Poet Laureate as soon as the post
became vacant, and that too, without a single dissentient voice,
save such as were raised in envy or malice. But, being dead '--
continued this estimable scribe--'all we can say is that he yet
speaketh, and that "Nourhalma" is a poem of which the literary
world cannot be otherwise than justly proud. Let the tears that we
shed for this gifted singer's untimely decease be mingled with
gratitude for the priceless value of the work his creative genius
has bequeathed to us!'"

Here Villiers paused, his blue eyes sparkling with inward
amusement, and looked at Alwyn, whose face, though perfectly
serene, had now the faintest, softest shadow of a grave pathos
hovering about it.

"By this time," he continued.. "I thought we had had about enough
sport, so I wrote off to the publisher to at once contradict the
erroneous rumor. But now that publisher had HIS story to tell. He
called upon me, and with a blandly persuasive air, said, that as
'Nourhalma' was having an extraordinary sale, was it worth while
to deny the statement of your death just yet? ... He was very
anxious, . . but I was firm, . . and lest he should waver, I wrote
several letters myself to the leading journals, to establish the
certainty, so far as I was aware, of your being in the land of the
living. And then what do you think happened?"

Alwyn met his bright, satirical glance with a look that was half-
questioning, half-wistful, but said nothing.

"It was the most laughable, and at the same time the most
beautifully instructive, lesson ever taught by the whole annals of
journalism! The Press turned round like a weathercock with the
wind, and exhausted every epithet of abuse they could find in the
dictionaries. 'Nourhalma' was a 'poor, ill-conceived work,'--'an
outrage to intellectual perception,'--'a good idea, spoilt in the
treatment; an amazingly obscure attempt at sublimity'--et
cetera, . . but there! you can yourself peruse all the criticisms,
both favorable and adverse, for I have acted the part of the fond
granny to you in the careful cutting out and pasting of everything
I could find written concerning you and your work in a book
devoted to the purpose, . . and I believe I've missed nothing. Mark
you, however, the Parthenon never reversed its judgment, nor did
the other two leading journals of literary opinion,--it wouldn't
do for such bigwigs to confess they had blundered, you know! ...
and the vituperation of the smaller fry was just the other weight
in the balance which made the thing equal. The sale of 'Nourhalma'
grew fast and furious; all expenses were cleared three times over,
and at the present moment the publisher is getting conscientiously
anxious (for some publishers are more conscientious than some
authors will admit!) to hand you over a nice little check for an
amount which is not to be despised in this workaday world, I
assure you!"

"I did not write for money,"--interrupted Alwyn quietly.. "Nor
shall I ever do so."

"Of course not," assented Villiers promptly. "No poet, and indeed
no author whatsoever, who lays claim to a fraction of conscience,
writes for money ONLY. Those with whom money is the first
consideration debase their Art into a coarse huckstering trade,
and are no better than contentious bakers and cheesemongers, who
jostle each other in a vulgar struggle as to which shall sell
perishable goods at the highest profit. None of the lasting works
of the world were written so. Nevertheless, if the public
voluntarily choose to lavish what they can of their best on the
author who imparts to them inspired thoughts and noble teachings,
then that author must not be churlish, or slow to accept the
gratitude implied. I think the most appropriate maxim for a poet
to address to his readers is, 'Freely ye have received, freely
give.'"

There was a moment's silence. Alwyn resumed his seat in the chair
near the fire, and Villiers, leaning one arm on the mantelpiece,
still stood, looking down upon him.

"Such, my dear fellow," he went on complacently.. "is the history
of the success of 'Nourhalma.' It certainly began with the belief
that you were no longer able to benefit by the eulogy received.--
but all the same that eulogy has been uttered and cannot be
UNuttered. It has led all the lovers of the highest literature to
get the book for themselves, and to prove your actual worth,
independently of press opinions,--and the result is an immense and
steadily widening verdict in your favor. Speaking personally, I
have never read anything that gave me quite so much artistic
pleasure as this poem of yours except 'Hyperion,'--only 'Hyperion'
is distinctly classical, while 'Nourhalma' takes us back into some
hitherto unexplored world of antique paganism, which, though
essentially pagan, is wonderfully full of pure and lofty
sentiment. When did the idea first strike you?"

"A long time ago!" returned Alwyn with a slight, serious smile--"I
assure you it is by no means original!"

Villiers gave him a quick, surprised glance.

"No? Well, it seems to me singularly original!" he said.. "In
fact, one of your critics says you are TOO original! Mind you,
Alwyn, that is a very serious fault in this imitative age!"

Alwyn laughed a little. His thoughts were very busy. Again in
imagination he beheld the burning "Temple of Nagaya" in his Dream
of Al-Kyris,--again he saw himself carrying the corpse of his
FORMER Self through fire and flame,--and again he heard the last
words of the dying Zabastes--"I was the Poet's adverse Critic, and
who but I should write his Eulogy? Save me, if only for the sake
of Sah-luma's future honor!--thou knowest not how warmly, how
generously, how nobly, I can praise the dead!"

True! ... How easy to praise the poor, deaf, stirless clay when
sense and spirit have fled from it forever! No fear to spoil a
corpse by flattery,--the heavily sealed-up eyes can never more
unclose to lighten with glad hope or fond ambition; the quiet
heart cannot leap with gratitude or joy at that "word spoken in
due season" which aids its noblest aspirations to become realized!
The DEAD poet?--Press the cold clods of earth over him, and then
rant above his grave,--tell him how great he was, what infinite
possibilities were displayed in his work, what excellence, what
merit, what subtlety of thought, what grace of style! Rant and
rave!--print reams of acclaiming verbosity, pronounce orations,
raise up statues, mark the house he lived and starved in, with a
laudatory medallion, and print his once-rejected stanzas in every
sort of type and fashion, from the cheap to the costly,--teach the
multitude how worthy he was to be loved, and honored,--and never
fear that he will move from his rigid and chill repose to be happy
for once in his life, and to learn with amazement that the world
he toiled so patiently for is actually learning to be grateful for
his existence! Once dead and buried he can be safely made
glorious,--he cannot affront us either with his superior
intelligence, or make us envy the splendors of his fame!

Some such thoughts as these passed through Alwyn's mind as he
dreamily gazed into the red hollows of the fire, and reconsidered
all that his friend had told him. He had no personal acquaintances
on the press,--no literary club or clique to haul him up into the
top-gallant mast of renown by persistent puffery; he was not
related, even distantly, to any great personage, either statesman,
professor, or divine--he had not the mysterious recommendation of
being a "university man"; none of the many "wheels" within wheels
which are nowadays so frequently set in motion to make up a
momentary literary furore, were his to command,--and yet--the
Parthenon had praised him! ... Wonder of wonders! The Parthenon
was a singularly obtuse journal, which glanced at the whole world
of letters merely through the eyes of three or four men of
distinctly narrow and egotistical opinions, and these three or
four men kept it as much as possible to themselves, using its
columns chiefly for the purpose of admiring one another. As a
consequence of this restricted arrangement, very few outsiders
could expect to be noticed for their work, unless they were in the
"set," or at least had occasionally dined with one of the mystic
Three or Four, . . and so it had chanced that Alwyn's first venture
into literature had been totally disregarded by the Parthenon. In
fact, that first venture, being a small and unobtrusive book, had,
most probably, been thrown into the waste-paper basket, or sold
for a few pence to the second-hand dealer. And now,--now because
he had been imagined DEAD,--the Parthenon's leading critic had
singled him out and held him up for universal admiration!

Well, well! ... after all, Nourhalma WAS a posthumous work,--it
had been written before, ages since, when he, as Sah-luma, had
perished ere he had had time to give it to the world! He had
merely REMEMBERED it.. drawn it forth again, as it were, from the
dim, deep vistas of past deeds;--so those who had reviewed it as
the production of one dead in youth, were right in their judgment,
though they did not know it! ... It was old,--nothing but
repetition,--but now he had something new and true and passionate
to say, . . something that, if God pleased, it should be his to
utter with the clearness and forcibleness common to the Greek
thunderers of yore, who spoke out what was in them, grandly,
simply, and with the fearless majesty of thought that reeked
nothing of opinions. Oh, he would rouse the hearts of men from
paltry greed and covetousness, . . from lust, and hatred, and all
things evil,--no matter if he lost his own life in the effort, he
would still do his utmost best to lift, if only in a small degree,
the deepening weight of self-wrought agony from self-blinded
mankind! Yes! ... he must work to fulfil the commands and deserve
the blessings of Edris!

Edris! ... ah, the memory of her pure angel-loveliness rushed upon
him like a flood of invigorating warmth and light, and when he
looked up from his brief reverie, his countenance, beautiful, and
kindling with inward ardor, affected Villiers strangely,--almost
as a very grand and perfect strain of music might affect and
unsteady one's nerves. The attraction he had always felt for his
poet-friend deepened to quite a fervent intensity of admiration,
but he was not the man to betray his feelings outwardly, and to
shake off his emotion he rushed into speech again.

"By the by, Alwyn, your old acquaintance, Professor Moxall, is
very much 'down' on your book. You know he doesn't write reviews,
except on matters connected with evolutionary phenomena, but I met
him the other day, and he was quite upset about you. 'Too
transcendental'! he said, dismally shaking his bald pate to and
fro--'The whole poem is a vaporous tissue of absurd
impossibilities! Ah dear, dear me! what a terrible falling-off in
a young man of such hopeful ability! I thought he had done with
poetry forever!--I took the greatest pains to prove to him what a
ridiculous pastime it was, and how unworthy to be considered for a
moment seriously as an ART,--and he seemed to understand my
reasoning thoroughly. Indeed he promised to be one of our most
powerful adherents, . . he had an excellent grasp of the material
sciences, and a fine contempt for religion. Why, with such a
quick, analytical brain as his, he might have carried on Darwin's
researches to an extremer point of the origination of species than
has yet been reached! All a ruin, sir! a positive ruin,--a man who
will in cold blood write such lines as these ...

'"Grander is Death than Life, and sweeter far The splendors of the
Infinite Future, than our eyes, Weary with tearful watching, yet
can see"--

condemns himself as a positive lunatic! And young Alwyn too!--he
who had so completely recognized the foolishness and futility of
expecting any other life than this one! Good heavens! ...
"Nourhalma," as I understand it, is a sort of pagan poem--but with
such incredible ideas and sentiments as are expressed in it, the
author might as well go and be a Christian at once!' And with that
he hobbled off, for it was Sunday afternoon, and he was on his way
to St. George's Hall to delight the assembled skeptics, by telling
them in an elaborate lecture what absurd animalculae they all
were!"

Alwyn smiled. There was a soft light in his eyes, an expression of
serene contentment on his face.

"Poor old Moxall!" he said gently--"I am sorry for him! He makes
life very desolate, both for himself and others who accept his
theories. I'm afraid his disappointment in me will have to
continue, . . for as it happens I AM a Christian,--that is, so far
as I can, in my unworthiness, be a follower of a faith so grand,
and pure, and TRUE!"

Villiers started, . . his month opened in sheer astonishment, . . he
could scarcely believe his own ears, and he uttered some sound
between a gasp and an exclamation of incredulity. Alwyn met his
widely wondering gaze with a most sweet and unembarrassed calm.

"How amazed you look!" he observed, half playfully,--"Religion
must be at a very low ebb, if in a so-called Christian country you
are surprised to hear a man openly acknowledge himself a disciple
of the Christian creed!"

There was a brief pause, during which the chiming clock rang out
the hour musically on the stillness. Then Villiers, still in a
state of most profound bewilderment, sat down deliberately in a
chair opposite Alwyn's, and placed one hand familiarly on his
knee.

"Look here, old fellow," he said impressively, "do you really MEAN
it! ... Are you 'going over' to some Church or other?"

Alwyn laughed--his friend's anxiety was so genuine.

"Not I!"--he responded promptly.. "Don't be alarmed, Villiers,--I
am not a 'convert' to any particular set FORM of faith,--what I
care for is the faith itself. One can follow and serve Christ
without any church dogma. He has Himself told us plainly, in words
simple enough for a child to understand, what He would have us to
do, . . and though I, like many others, must regret the absence of a
true Universal Church where the servants of Christ may meet
altogether without a shadow of difference in opinion, and worship
Him as He should be worshipped, still that is no reason why I
should refrain from endeavoring to fulfil, as far as in me lies,
my personal duty toward Him. The fact is, Christianity has never
yet been rightly taught, grasped or comprehended,--moreover, as
long as men seek through it their own worldly advantage, it never
will be,--so that the majority of the people are really as yet
ignorant of its true spiritual meaning, thanks to the quarrels and
differences of sects and preachers. But, notwithstanding the
unhappy position of religion at the present day, I repeat, I am a
Christian, if love for Christ, and implicit belief in Him, can
make me so."

He spoke simply, and without the slightest affectation of reserve.
Villiers was still puzzled.

"I thought, Alwyn," he ventured to say presently with some little
diffidence,--"that you entirely rejected the idea of Christ's
Divinity, as a mere superstition?"

"In dense ignorance of the extent of God's possibilities, I
certainly did so," returned Alwyn quietly,--"But I have had good
reason to see that my own inability to comprehend supernatural
causes was entirely to blame for that rejection. Are we able to
explain all the numerous and complex variations and manifestations
of Matter? No. Then why do we dare to doubt the certainly
conceivable variations and manifestations of Spirit? ... The
doctrine of a purely HUMAN Christ is untenable,--a Creed founded
on that idea alone would make no way with the immortal aspirations
of the soul, . . what link could there be between a mere man like
ourselves and heaven? None whatever,--it needs the DIVINE in
Christ to overleap the darkness of the grave, . . to serve us as the
Symbol of certain Resurrection, to teach us that this life is not
the ALL, but only ONE loop in the chain of existence, . . only ONE
of the 'many mansions' in the Father's House. Human teachers of
high morals there have always been in the world,--Confucius,
Buddha, Zoroaster, Socrates, Plato, . . there is no end to them, and
their teachings have been valuable so far as they went, but even
Plato's majestic arguments in favor of the Immortality of the Soul
fall short of anything sure and graspable. There were so many
prefigurements of what WAS to come, . . just as the sign of the
Cross was used in the Temple of Serapis, and was held in singular
mystic veneration by various tribes of Egyptians, Arabians, and
Indians, ages before Christ came. And now that these
prefigurements have resolved themselves into an actual Divine
Symbol, the doubting world still hesitates, and by this hesitation
paralyzes both its Will and Instinct--so that it fails to cut out
the core of Christianity's true solution, or to learn what Christ
really meant when He said 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,
--no man cometh to the Father but by Me.' Have you ever considered
the particular weight of that word 'MAN' in that text? It is
rightly specified that 'no MAN cometh '--for there are hosts of
other beings, in other universes, who are not of our puny race,
and who do not need to be taught either the way, truth, or life,
as they know all three, and have never lost their knowledge from
the beginning."

His voice quivered a little, and he paused,--Villiers watched him
with a strange sense of ever-deepening fascination and wonder.

"I have lately studied the whole thing carefully,".. he resumed
presently, . . "and I see no reason why we, who call ourselves a
progressive generation, should revert back to the old theory of
Corinthus, who, as early as sixty-seven years after Christ, denied
His Divinity. There is nothing new in the hypothesis--it is no
more original than the doctrine of evolution, which was skilfully
enough handled by Democritus, and probably by many another before
him. Voltaire certainly threshed out the subject exhaustively, . .
and I think Carlyle's address to him on the uselessness of his
work is one of the finest of its kind. Do you remember it?"

Villiers shook his head in the negative, whereupon Alwyn rose, and
glancing along an evidently well-remembered book-shelf, took from
thence "Sartor Resartus"--and turned over the pages quickly.

"Here it is,"--and he read out the following passage.. "'Cease, my
much-respected Herr von Voltaire, . . shut thy sweet voice; for the
task appointed thee seems finished. Sufficiently hast thou
demonstrated this proposition, considerable or otherwise: That the
Mythus of the Christian Religion looks not in the eighteenth
century as it did in the eighth. Alas, were thy six-and-thirty
quartos, and the six-and-thirty thousand other quartos and folios
and flying sheets or reams, printed before and since on the same
subject, all needed to convince us of so little! But what next?
Wilt thou help us to embody the Divine Spirit of that Religion in
a new Mythus, in a new vehicle and vesture, that our Souls,
otherwise too like perishing, may live? What! thou hast no faculty
in that kind? Only a torch for burning and no hammer for building?
Take our thanks then--and thyself away!'"

Villiers smiled, and straightened himself in military fashion, as
was his habit when particularly gratified.

"Excellent old Teufelsdrockh!" he murmured sotto-voce--"He had a
rugged method of explaining himself, but it was decisive enough,
in all conscience!"

"Decisive, and to the point,".. assented Alwyn, putting the book
back in its place, and then confronting his friend.--"And he
states precisely what is wanted by the world to-day,--wanted
pressingly, eagerly, . . namely that the 'Divine Spirit' of the
Christian Religion should be set forth in a 'new vehicle and
vesture' to keep pace with the advancing inquiry and scientific
research of man. And truly for this, it need only be expounded
according to its old, pure, primal, spiritual intention, and then,
the more science progresses the more true will it be proved.
Christ distinctly claimed His Divinity, and everywhere gave
manifestations of it. Of course it can be said that these
manifestations rest on TESTIMONY,--and that the 'testimony' was
drawn up afterward and is a spurious invention--but we have no
more proof that it IS spurious than we have of [Footnote: See
Chapter XIII. "In Al-Kyris"--the allusion to "Oruzel."] Homer's
Iliad being a compilation of several writers and not the work of a
Homer at all. Nothing--not even the events of the past week--can
be safely rested on absolute, undiffering testimony, inasmuch as
no two narrators tell the same story alike. But all the same we
HAVE the Iliad,--it cannot be taken from us by any amount of
argument, . . and we have the FRUITS of Christ's gospel, half
obscured as it is, visible among us. Everywhere civilization of a
high and aspiring order has followed Christianity even at the cost
of blood and tears, ..slavery has been abolished, and women lifted
from unspeakable degradation to honor and reverence,--and had men
been more reasonable and self-controlled, the purifying work would
have been done peacefully and without persecution. It was St.
Paul's preaching that upset all the beautiful, pristine simplicity
of the faith,--it is very evident he had no 'calling or election'
such as he pretended, . . I wonder Jeremy Bentham's conclusive book
on the subject is not more universally known. Paul's sermonizing
gave rise to a thousand different shades of opinion and argument,
--and for a mere hair's-breadth of needless discussion, nation has
fought against nation, and man against man, till the very name of
religion has been made a ghastly mockery. That, however, is not
the fault of Christianity, but the fault of those who PROFESS to
follow it, like Paul, while merely following a scheme of their own
personal advantage or convenience, . . and the result of it all is
that at this very moment, there is not a church in Christendom
where Christ's actual commands are really and to the letter
fulfilled."

"Strong!" ejaculated Villiers with a slight smile.. "Mustn't say
that before a clergyman!"

"Why not?" demanded Alwyn.. "Why should not clerics be told, once
and for all, how ill they perform their sacred mission? Look at
the wilderness of spreading Atheism to-day! ... and look at the
multitudes of men and women who are hungering and thirsting for a
greater comprehension of spiritual things than they have hitherto
had!--and yet the preachers trudge drowsily on in the old ruts
they have made for themselves, and give neither sympathy nor heed
to the increasing pain, feverish bewilderment, and positive WANT
of those they profess to guide. Concerning science, too, what is
the good of telling a toiling, more or less suffering race, that
there are eighteen millions of suns in the Milky Way, and that
viewed by the immensity of the Universe, man is nothing but a
small, mean, and perishable insect? Humanity hears the statement
with dull, perplexed brain, and its weight of sorrow is doubled,--
it demands at once, why, if an insect, its insect life should BE
at all, if nothing is to come of it but weariness and woe? The
marvels of scientific discovery offer no solace to the huge
Majority of the Afflicted, unless we point the lesson that the
Soul of Man is destined to live through more than these wonders;
and that the millions of planetary systems in the Milky Way are
but the ALPHA BETA of the sublime Hereafter which is our natural
heritage, if we will but set ourselves earnestly to win it.
Moreover, we should not foolishly imagine that we are to lead good
lives MERELY for the sake of some suggested reward or wages,--no,
--but simply because in practising progressive good we are
equalizing ourselves and placing ourselves in active working
harmony with the whole progressive good of the Creator's plan. We
have no more right to do a deliberately evil thing, than a
musician has a right to spoil a melody by a false note on his
instrument. Why should we willfully JAR God's music, of which we
are a part? I tell you that religion, as taught to-day, is rather
one of custom and fear than love and confidence,--men cower and
propitiate, when they should be full of thankfulness and praise,--
and as for any reserve on these matters, I have none,--in fact, I
fail to see why truth, . . spiritual truth, . . should not be openly
proclaimed now, even as it is sure to be proclaimed hereafter."