Books: Ardath

M >> Marie Corelli >> Ardath

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Such thoughts as these were in his mind now, as he ever and anon
glanced across the glittering table, with its profusion of lights
and flowers, to where his poet-friend sat, slightly leaning back
in his chair, with a certain half-perplexed, half-disappointed
expression on his handsome features, though his eyes brightened
into a smile as he caught Villiers's look, and he gave the
smallest, scarcely perceptible shrug, as who should say, "Is this
your brilliant Duchess?--your witty and cultured society?"

Villiers flashed back an amused, responsive glance, and then
conscientiously strove to pay more attention to the irrepressible
feminine philologist beside him, determining to take her, as he
said to himself, by way of penance for his unremembered sins.
After a while there came one of those extraordinary, sudden rushes
of gabble that often occur at even the stiffest dinner-party,--a
galloping race of tongues, in which nothing really distinct is
heard, but in which each talks to the other as though moved by an
impulse of sheer desperation. This burst of noise was a relief
after the strained murmurs of trite commonplaces that had hitherto
been the order of the hour, and the fair Duchess, somewhat easier
in her mind, turned anew to Alwyn, with greater grace and
gentleness of manner than she had yet shown.

"I am afraid," she said smilingly, "you must find us all very
stupid after your travels abroad? In England we ARE dull,--our
tristesse cannot be denied. But, really, the climate is
responsible,--we want more sunshine. I suppose in the East, where
the sun is so warm and bright, the people are always cheerful?"

"On the contrary, I have found them rather serious and
contemplative than otherwise," returned Alwyn,--"yet their gravity
is certainly of a pleasant, and not of a forbidding type. I don't
myself think the sun has much to do with the disposition of man,
after all,--I fancy his temperament is chiefly moulded by the life
he leads. In the East, for instance, men accept their existence as
a sort of divine command, which they obey cheerfully, yet with a
consciousness of high responsibility:--on the Continent they take
it as a bagatelle, lightly won, lightly lost, hence their
indifferent, almost childish, gayety;--but in Great Britain"--and
he smiled,--"it looks nowadays as if it were viewed very generally
as a personal injury and bore,--a kind of title bestowed without
the necessary money to keep it up! And this money people set
themselves steadily to obtain, with many a weary grunt and groan,
while they are, for the most part, forgetful of anything else life
may have to offer."

"But what IS life without plenty of money?" inquired the Duchess
carelessly--"Surely, not worth the trouble of living!"

Alwyn looked at her steadily, and a swift flush colored her smooth
cheek. She toyed with the magnificent diamond spray at her breast,
and wondered what strange spell was in this man's brilliant gray-
black eyes!--did he guess that she--even she--had sold herself to
the Duc de la Santoisie for the sake of his money and title as
easily and unresistingly as though she were a mere purchasable
animal?

"That is an argument I would rather not enter into," he said
gently--"It would lead us too far. But I am convinced, that
whether dire poverty or great riches be our portion, life,
considered apart from its worldly appendages, is always worth
living, if lived WELL."

"Pray, how can you separate life from its worldly appendages?"--
inquired a satirical-looking gentleman opposite--"Life IS the
world, and the things of the world; when we lose sight of the
world, we lose ourselves,--in short, we die,--and the world is at
an end, and we with it. That's plain practical philosophy."

"Possibly it may he called philosophy"--returned Alwyn--"It is not
Christianity."

"Oh, Christianity!"--and the gentleman gave a portentous sniff of
contempt--"That is a system of faith that is rapidly dying out;
fast falling into contempt!--In fact, with the scientific and
cultured classes, it is already an exploded doctrine."

"Indeed!"--Alwyn's glance swept over him with a faint, cold scorn
--"And what religion do the scientific and cultured classes propose
to invent as a substitute?"

"There's no necessity for any substitute,"--said the gentleman
rather impatiently.. For those who want to believe in something
supernatural, there are plenty of different ideas afloat, Esoteric
Buddhism for example,--and what is called Scientific Religion and
Natural Religion,--any, or all, of these are sufficient to gratify
the imaginative cravings of the majority, till they have been
educated out of imagination altogether:--but, for advanced
thinkers, religion is really not required at all." [Footnote: The
world is indebted to Mr. Andrew Lang for the newest "logical"
explanation of the Religious Instinct in Man:--namely, that the
very idea of God first arose from the terror and amazement of an
ape at the sound of the thunder! So choice and soul-moving a
definition of Deity needs no comment!]

"Nay, I think we must worship SOMETHING!" retorted Alwyn, a fine
satire in his rich voice, "if it be only SELF!--Self is an
excellent deity!--accommodating, and always ready to excuse sin,--
why should we not build temples, raise altars, and institute
services to the glory and honor of SELF?--Perhaps the time is ripe
for a public proclamation of this creed?--It will be easily
propagated, for the beginnings of it are in the heart of every
man, and need very little fostering!"

His thrilling tone, together with the calm, half-ironical
persuasiveness of his manner, sent a sudden hush down the table.
Every one turned eagerly toward him,--some amused, some wondering,
some admiring, while Villiers felt his heart beating with
uncomfortable quickness,--he hated religious discussions, and
always avoided them, and now here was Alwyn beginning one, and he
the centre of a company of persons who were for the most part
avowed agnostics, to whose opinions his must necessarily be in
direct and absolute opposition! At the same time, he remembered
that those who were sure of their faith never lost their temper
about it,--and as he glanced at his friend's perfectly serene and
coldly smiling countenance, he saw there was no danger of his
letting slip, even for a moment, his admirable power of self-
command. The Duc de la Santoisie, meanwhile, settling his
mustache, and gracefully waving one hand, on which sparkled a
large diamond ring, bent forward a little with a courteous,
deprecatory gesture.

"I think"--he said, in soft, purring accents,--"that my friend,
Dr. Mudley"--here he bowed toward the saturnine looking individual
who had entered into conversation with Alwyn--"takes a very
proper, and indeed a very lofty, view of the whole question. The
moral sense"--and he laid a severely weighty emphasis on these
words,--"the moral sense of each man, if properly trained, is
quite sufficient to guide him through existence, without any such
weakness as reliance on a merely supposititious Deity."

The Duke's French way of speaking English was charming; he gave an
expressive roll to his r's, especially when he said "the moral
sense," that of itself almost carried conviction. His wife smiled
as she heard him, and her smile was not altogether pleasant.
Perhaps she wondered by what criterion of excellence he measured
his own "moral sense," or whether, despite his education and
culture, he had any "moral sense" at all, higher than that of the
pig, who eats to be eaten! But Alwyn spoke, and she listened
intently, finding a singular fascination in the soft and quiet
modulation of his voice, which gave a vaguely delicious suggestion
of music underlying speech.

"To guide people by their moral sense alone"--he said--"you must
first prove plainly to them that the moral sense exists, together
with moral responsibility. You will find this difficult,--as the
virtue implied is intangible, unseeable;--one cannot say of it, lo
here!--or lo there!--it is as complicated and subtle as any other
of the manifestations of pure Spirit. Then you must decide on one
universal standard, or reasonable conception of what 'morality'
is. Again, you are met by a crowd of perplexities,--as every
nation, and every tribe, has a totally different idea of the same
thing. In some countries it is 'moral' to have many wives; in
others, to drown female children; in others, to solemnly roast
one's grandparents for dinner! Supposing, however, that you
succeed, with the aid of all the philosophers, teachers, and
scientists, in drawing up a practical Code of Morality--do you not
think an enormous majority will be found to ask you by whose
authority you set forth this Code?--and by what right you deem it
necessary to enforce it? You may say, 'By the authority of
Knowledge and by the right of Morality'--but since you admit to
there being no spiritual or divine inspiration for your law, you
will be confronted by a legion of opponents who will assure you,
and probably with perfect justice, that their idea of morality is
as good as yours, and their knowledge as excellent,--that your
Code appears to them faulty in many respects, and that, therefore,
they purpose making another one, more suited to their liking.
Thus, out of your one famous Moral System would spring thousands
of others, formed to gratify the various tastes of different
individuals, precisely in the same manner as sects have sprung out
of the wholly unnecessary and foolish human arguments on
Christianity;--only that there would lack the one indestructible,
pure Selfless Example that even the most quarrelsome bigot must
inwardly respect,--namely, Christ Himself. And 'morality' would
remain exactly where it is:--neither better nor worse for all the
trouble taken concerning it. It needs something more than the
'moral' sense to rightly ennoble man,--it needs the SPIRITUAL
sense;--the fostering of the INSTINCTIVE IMMORTAL ASPIRATION OF
THE CREATURE, to make him comprehend the responsibility of his
present life, as a preparation for his higher and better destiny.
The cultured, the scholarly, the ultra-refined, may live well and
uprightly by their 'moral sense,'--if they so choose, provided
they have some great ideal to measure themselves by,--but even
these, without faith in God, may sometimes slip, and fall into
deeper depths of ruin than they dreamed of, when self-centred on
those heights of virtue where they fancied themselves exempt from
danger."

He paused,--there was a curious stillness in the room,--many eyes
were lowered, and M. le Duc's composure was evidently not quite so
absolute as usual.

"Taken at its best"--he continued--"the world alone is certainly
not worth fighting for;--we see the fact exemplified every day in
the cases of those who, surrounded by all that a fair fortune can
bestow upon them, deliberately hurl themselves out of existence by
their own free will and act,--indeed, suicide is a very general
accompaniment of Agnosticism. And self-slaughter, though it may be
called madness, is far more often the result of intellectual
misery."

"Of course, too much learning breeds brain disease"--remarked Dr.
Mudley sententiously--"but only in weak subjects,--and in my
opinion the weak are better out of the world. We've no room for
them nowadays."

"You say truly, sir,"--replied Alwyn--"we have no room for them,
and no patience! They show themselves feeble, and forthwith the
strong oppress them;--they can hope for little comfort here, and
less help. It is well, therefore, that some of these 'weak' should
still believe in God, since they can certainly pin no faith on the
justice of their fellow-man! But I cannot agree with you that much
learning breeds brain disease. Provided the learning be
accompanied by a belief in the Supreme Wisdom,--provided every
step of study be taken upward toward that Source of all
Knowledge,--one cannot learn too much, since hope increases with
discernment, and on such food the brain grows stronger, healthier,
and more capable of high effort. But dispense with the Spirit of
the Whole, and every movement, though it SEEM forward, is in truth
BACKWARD;--study involves bewilderment,--science becomes a reeling
infinitude of atoms, madly whirling together for no purpose save
death, or, at the best, incessant Change, in which mortal life is
counted as nothing:--and Nature frowns at us, a vast Question, to
which there is no Answer,--an incomprehensible Force, against
which wretched Man, gifted with all manner of splendid and Godlike
capacities, battles forever and forever in vain! This is the
terrible material lesson you would have us learn to-day, the
lesson that maddens pupil and teacher alike, and has not a glimmer
of consolation to offer to any living soul! What a howling
wilderness this world would be if given over entirely to
Materialism!--Scarce a line of division could be drawn between men
and the brute beasts of the field! I consider,--though possibly I
am only one among many of widely differing opinion,--that if you
take the hope of an after-joy and blessedness away from the weary,
perpetually toiling Million, you destroy at one wanton blow their
best, purest, and noblest aspirations. As for the Christian
Religion, I cannot believe that so grand and holy a Symbol is
perishing among us,--we have a monarch whose title is 'Defender of
the Faith,'--we live in an age of civilization which is primarily
the result of that faith,--and if, as this gentleman assures me,"
--and he made a slight, courteous inclination toward his opposite
neighbor--"Christianity is exploded,--then certainly the greatness
of this hitherto great nation is exploding with it! But I do not
think that because a few skeptics uplift their wailing 'All is
vanity' from their self-created desert of Agnosticism, THEREFORE
the majority of men and women are turning renegades from the
simplest, most humane, most unselfish Creed that ever the world
has known. It may be so,--but, at present, I prefer to trust in
the higher spiritual instincts of man at his best, rather than
accept the testimony of the lesser Unbelieving against the greater
Many, whose strength, comfort, patience, and endurance, if these
virtues come not from God, come not at all."

His forcible, incisive manner of speaking, together with his
perfect equanimity and concise clearness of argument, had an
evident effect on those who listened. Here was no rampant fanatic
for particular forms of doctrine or pietism,--here was a man who
stated his opinions calmly, frankly, and with an absolute setting-
forth of facts which could scarcely be denied,--a man, who firmly
grounded himself, made no attempt to force any one's belief, but
who simply took a large view of the whole, and saw, as it were in
a glance, what the world might become without faith in a Divine
Cause and Principle of Creation. And once GRANT this Divine Cause
and Principle to be actually existent, then all other divine and
spiritual things become possible, no matter how IMPOSSIBLE they
seem to dull mortal comprehension.

A brief pause followed his words,--a pause of vague embarrassment.
The Duchess was the first to break it.

"You have very noble ideas, Mr. Alwyn,"--she said with a faint,
wavering smile--"But I am afraid your conception of things, both
human and divine, is too exalted, and poetically imaginative, to
be applied to our every-day life. We cannot close our ears to the
thunders of science,--we cannot fail to perceive that we mortals
are of as small account in the plan of the Universe as grains of
sand on the seashore. It is very sad that so it should be, and yet
so it is! And concerning Christianity, the poor system has been so
belabored of late with hard blows, that it is almost a wonder it
still breathes. There is no end to the books that have been
written disproving and denouncing it,--moreover, we have had the
subject recently treated in a novel which excites our sympathies
in behalf of a clergyman, who, overwhelmed by scholarship, finds
he can no longer believe in the religion he is required to teach,
and who renounces his living in consequence. The story is in parts
pathetic,--it has had a large circulation,--and numbers of people
who never doubted their Creed before, certainly doubt it now."

Alwyn shrugged his shoulders. "Faith uprooted by a novel!" he
said--"Alas, poor faith! It could never have been well established
at any time, to be so easy of destruction! No book in the world,
whether of fact or fiction, could persuade me either TO or FROM
the consciousness of what my own individual Spirit instinctively
KNOWS. Faith cannot be taught or forced,--neither, if TRUE, can it
be really destroyed,--it is a God-born, God-fostered INTUITION,
immortal as God Himself. The ephemeral theories set forth in books
should not be able to influence it by so much as a hair's
breadth."

"Truth is, however, often conveyed through the medium of
fiction,"--observed Dr. Mudley--"and the novel alluded to was
calculated to disturb the mind, and arouse trouble in the heart of
many an ardent believer. It was written by a woman."

"Nay, then"--said Alwyn quickly, with a darkening flash in his
eyes,--"if women give up faith, let the world prepare for strange
disaster! Good, God-loving women,--women who pray,--women who
hope,--women who inspire men to do the best that is in them,--
these are the safety and glory of nations! When women forget to
kneel,--when women cease to teach their children the 'Our Father,'
by whose grandly simple plea Humanity claims Divinity as its
origin,--then shall we learn what is meant by 'men's hearts
failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are
coming on the earth.' A woman who denies Christ repudiates Him,
who, above all others, made her sex as free and honored as
everywhere in Christendom it IS. He never refused woman's prayer,
--He had patience for her weakness,--pardon for her sins,--and any
book written by woman's hand that does Him the smallest shadow of
wrong is to me as gross an act, as that of one who, loaded with
benefits, scruples not to murder his benefactor!"

The Duchess de la Santoisie moved uneasily,--there was a vibration
in Alwyn's voice that went to her very heart. Strange thoughts
swept cloud-like across her mind,--again she saw in fancy a little
fair, dead child that she had loved,--her only one, on whom she
had spent all the tenderness of which her nature was capable. It
had died at the prettiest age of children,--the age of lisping
speech and softly tottering feet, when a journey from the
protecting background of a wall to outstretched maternal arms
seems fraught with dire peril to the tiny adventurer, and is only
undertaken with the help of much coaxing, sweet laughter, and
still sweeter kisses. She remembered how, in spite of her "free"
opinions, she had found it impossible not to teach her little one
a prayer;--and a sudden mist of tears blurred her sight, as she
recollected the child's last words,--words uttered plaintively in
the death grasp of a cruel fever, "Suffer me.. to come to Thee!"--
A quick sigh escaped her lips,--the diamonds on her breast heaved
restlessly,--lifting her eyes, grown soft with gentle memory, she
encountered those of Alwyn, and again she asked herself, could he
read her thoughts? His steadfast gaze seemed to encompass her, and
absorb in a grave, compassionate earnestness the entire
comprehension of her life. Her husband's polite, mellifluous
accents roused her from this half-reverie.

"I confess I am surprised, Mr. Alwyn,"--he was saying--"that you,
a man of such genius and ability, should be still in the leading
strings of the Church!"

"There is NO Church"--returned Alwyn quietly,--"The world is
waiting for one! The Alpha Beta of Christianity has been learned
and recited more or less badly by the children of men for nearly
two thousand years,--the actual grammar and meaning of the whole
Language has yet to be deciphered. There have been, and are, what
are CALLED Churches,--one especially, which, if it would bravely
discard mere vulgar superstition, and accept, absorb, and use the
discoveries of Science instead, might, and possibly WILL, blossom
into the true, universal, and pure Christian Fabric. Meanwhile, in
the shaking to and fro of things,--the troublous sifting of the
wheat from the chaff,--we must be content to follow by the Way of
the Cross as best we can. Christianity has fallen into disrepute,
probably because of the Self-Renunciation it demands,--for, in
this age, the primal object of each individual is manifestly to
serve Self only. It is a wrong road,--a side-lane that leads
nowhere,--and we shall inevitably have to turn back upon it and
recover the right path--if not now, why then hereafter!"

His voice had a tremor of pain within it;--he was thinking of the
millions of men and women who were voluntarily wandering astray
into a darkness they did not dream of,--and his heart, the great,
true heart of the Poet, became filled with an indescribable
passion of yearning.

"No wonder," he mused--"no wonder that Christ came hither for the
sake of Love! To rescue, to redeem, to save, to bless! ... O
Divine sympathy for sorrow! If I--a man--can feel such aching pity
for the woes of others, how vast, how limitless, how tender, must
be the pity of God!"

And his eyes softened,--he almost forgot his surroundings. He was
entirely unaware of the various deep and wistful emotions he had
wakened in the hearts of his hearers. There was a great
attractiveness in him that he was not conscious of,--and while all
present certainly felt that he, though among them, was not of
them, they were at the same time curiously moved by an impression
that notwithstanding his being, as it were, set apart from their
ways of existence, his sympathetic influence surrounded them as
resistlessly as a pure atmosphere in which they drew long
refreshing breaths of healthier life.

"I should like,"--suddenly said a bearded individual who was
seated half-way down the table, and who had listened attentively
to everything--"I should like to tell you a few things about
Esoteric Buddhism!--I am sure it is a faith that would suit you
admirably!"

Alwyn smiled, courteously enough. "I shall be happy to hear your
views on the subject, sir," he answered gently--"But I must tell
you that before I left England for the East, I had studied that
theory, together with many others that were offered as substitutes
for Christianity, and I found it totally inadequate to meet the
highest demands of the spiritual intelligence. I may also add,
that I have read carefully all the principal works against
Religion,--from the treatises of the earliest skeptics down to
Voltaire and others of our own day. Moreover, I had, not so very
long ago, rejected the Christian Faith; that I now accept and
adhere to it, is not the result of my merit or attainment,--but
simply the outcome of an undeserved blessing and singularly happy
fortune."

"Pardon me, Mr. Alwyn"--said Madame de la Santoisie with a sweet
smile--"By all the laws of nature I must contradict you there!
Your fame and fortune must needs be the reward of merit,--since
true happiness never comes to the undeserving."

Alwyn made no reply,--inasmuch as to repudiate the idea of
personal merit too warmly is, as such matters are judged nowadays,
suggestive of more conceit than modesty. He skilfully changed the
conversation, and it glided off by degrees into various other
channels,--music, art, science, and the political situation of the
hour. The men and women assembled, as though stimulated and
inspired by some new interest, now strove to appear at their very
best--and the friction of intellect with intellect resulted in
more or less brilliancy of talk, which, for once, was totally free
from the flippant and mocking spirit which usually pervaded the
Santoisie social circle. On all the subjects that came up for
discussion Alwyn proved himself thoroughly at home--and M. le Duc,
sitting in a silence that was most unwonted with him, became
filled with amazement to think that this man, so full of fine
qualities and intellectual abilities, should be actually a
CHRISTIAN!--The thing was quite incongruous, or seemed so to the
ironical wit of the born and bred Parisian,--he tried to consider
it absurd,--even laughable,--but his efforts merely resulted in a
sense of uneasy personal shame. This poet was, at any rate, a
MAN,--he might have posed for a Coriolanus or Marc Antony;--and
there was something supreme about him that could not be SNEERED
DOWN.

The dinner, meanwhile, reached its dessert climax, and the Duchess
rose, giving the customary departing signal to her lady-guests.
Alwyn hastened to open the door for her, and she passed out,
followed by a train of women in rich and rustling costumes, all of
whom, as they swept past the kingly figure that with slightly bent
head and courteous mien thus paid silent homage to their sex, were
conscious of very unusual emotions of respect and reverence. How
would it be, some of them thought, if they were more frequently
brought into contact with such royal and gracious manhood? Would
not love then become indeed a hallowed glory, and marriage a true
sacrament! Was it not possible for men to be the gods of this
world, rather than the devils they so often are? Such were a few
of the questions that flitted dimly through the minds of the
society-fagged fair ones that clustered round the Duchess de la
Santoisie, and eagerly discussed Alwyn's personal beauty and
extraordinary charm of manner.