Books: Ardath

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The gentlemen did not absent themselves long, and with their
appearance from the dining-room the reception of the evening
began. Crowds of people arrived and crammed up the stairs, filling
every corridor and corner, and Alwyn, growing tired of the various
introductions and shaking of hands to which he was submitted,
managed presently to slip away into a conservatory adjoining the
great drawing-room,--a cool, softly lighted place full of
flowering azaleas and rare palms. Here he sat for a while among
the red and white blossoms, listening to the incessant hum of
voices, and wondering what enjoyment human beings could find in
thus herding together en masse, and chattering all at once as
though life depended on chatter, when the rustling of a woman's
dress disturbed his brief solitude. He rose directly, as he saw
his fair hostess approaching him.

"Ah, you have fled away from us, Mr. Alwyn!" she said with a
slight smile--"I do not wonder at it. These receptions are the
bane of one's social existence."

"Then why do you give them?"--asked Alwyn, half laughingly.

"Why? Oh, because it is the fashion, I suppose!" she answered
languidly, leaning against a marble column that supported the
towering frondage of a tropical fern, and toying with her fan,--
"And I, like others, am a slave to fashion. I have escaped for one
moment, but I must go back directly. Mr. Alwyn ..." She
hesitated,--then came straight up to him, and laid her hand upon
his arm--"I want to thank you!"

"To thank me?" he repeated in surprised accents.

"Yes!"--she said steadily--"To thank you for what you have said
to-night. We live in a dreary age, when no one has much faith or
hope, and still less charity,--death is set before us as the final
end of all,--and life as lived by most, people is not only not
worth living, but utterly contemptible! Your clearly expressed
opinions have made me think it is possible to do better,"--her
lips quivered a little, and her breath came and went quickly,--
"and I shall begin to try and find out how this 'better' can be
consummated! Pray do not think me foolish--"

"_I_ think you foolish!" and with gravest courtesy Alwyn raised
her hand, and touched it gently with his lips, then as gently
released it. His action was full of grace,--it implied reverence,
trust, honor,--and the Duchess looked at him with soft, wet eyes
in which a smile still lingered.

"If there were more men like you,"--she said suddenly--"what a
difference it would make to us women! We should be proud to share
the burdens of life with those on whose absolute integrity and
strength we could rely,--but, in these days, we do not rely, so
much as we despise,--we cannot love, so much as we condemn! You
are a Poet,--and for you the world takes ideal colors,--for you
perchance the very heavens have opened;--but remember that the
millions, who, in the present era, are ground down under the heels
of the grimmest necessity, have no such glimpses of God as are
vouchsafed to YOU! They are truly in the darkness and shadow of
death,--they hear no angel music,--they sit in dungeons, howled at
by preachers and teachers who make no actual attempt to lead them
into light and liberty,--while we, the so-called 'upper' classes,
are imprisoned as closely as they, and crushed by intolerable
weights of learning, such as many of us are not fitted to bear.
Those who aspire heavenwards are hurled to earth,--those who of
their own choice cling to death, become so fastened to it, that
even if they wished, they could not rise. Believe me, you will be
sorely disheartened in your efforts toward the highest good,--you
will find most people callous, careless, ignorant, and forever
scoffing at what they do not, and will not, understand,--you had
better leave us to our dust and ashes,"--and a little mirthless
laugh escaped her lips,--"for to pluck us from thence now will
almost need a second visitation of Christ, in whom, if He came, we
should probably not believe! Moreover, you must not forget that we
have read Darwin,--and we are so charmed with our monkey
ancestors, that we are doing our best to imitate them in every
possible way,--in the hope that, with time and patience, we may
resolve ourselves back into the original species!"

With which bitter sarcasm, uttered half mockingly, half in good
earnest, she left him and returned to her guests. Not very long
afterward, he having sought and found Villiers, and suggested to
him that it was time to make a move homeward, approached her in
company with his friend, and bade her farewell.

"I don't think we shall see you often in society, Mr. Alwyn"--she
said, rather wistfully, as she gave him her hand,--"You are too
much of a Titan among pigmies!"

He flushed and waved aside the remark with a few playful words;
unlike his Former Self, if there was anything in the world he
shrank from, it was flattery, or what seemed like flattery. Once
outside the house he drew a long breath of relief, and glanced
gratefully up at the sky, bright with the glistening multitude of
stars. Thank God, there were worlds in that glorious expanse of
ether peopled with loftier types of being than what is called
Humanity! Villiers looked at him questioningly:

"Tired of your own celebrity, Alwyn?" he asked, taking him by the
arm,--"Are the pleasures of Fame already exhausted?"

Alwyn smiled,--he thought of the fame of Sah-luma, Laureate bard
of Al-kyris!

"Nay, if the dream that I told you of had any meaning at all"--he
replied--"then I enjoyed and exhausted those pleasures long ago!
Perhaps that is the reason why my 'celebrity' seems such a poor
and tame circumstance now. But I was not thinking of myself,--I
was wondering whether, after all, the slight power I have attained
can be of much use to others. I am only one against many."

"Nevertheless, there is an old maxim which says that one hero
makes a thousand"--said Villiers quietly--"And it is an undeniable
fact that the vastest number ever counted, begins at the very
beginning with ONE!"

Alwyn met his smiling, earnest eyes with a quick, responsive light
in his own, and the two friends walked the rest of the way home in
silence.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

HELIOBAS.

Some few days after the Duchess's dinner-party, Alwyn was
strolling one morning through the Park, enjoying to the full the
keen, fresh odors of the Spring,--odors that even in London cannot
altogether lose their sweetness, so long as hyacinths and violets
consent to bloom, and almond-trees to flower, beneath the too
often unpropitious murkiness of city skies. It had been raining,
but now the clouds had rolled off, and the sun shone as brightly
as it ever CAN shine on the English capital, sending sparkles of
gold among the still wet foliage, and reviving the little
crocuses, that had lately tumbled down in heaps on the grass, like
a frightened fairy army put to rout by the onslaught of the recent
shower. A blackbird, whose cheery note suggested melodious
memories drawn from the heart of the quiet country, was whistling
a lively improvisation on the bough of a chestnut-tree, whereof
the brown shining buds were just bursting into leaf,--and Alwyn,
whose every sense was pleasantly attuned to the small, as well as
great, harmonies of nature, paused for a moment to listen to the
luscious piping of the feathered minstrel, that in its own wild
woodland way had as excellent an idea of musical variation as any
Mozart or Chopin. Leaning against one of the park benches, with
his back turned to the main thoroughfare, he did not observe the
approach of a man's tall, stately figure, that, with something of
his own light, easy, swinging step, had followed him rapidly along
for some little distance, and that now halted abruptly within a
pace or two of where he stood,--a man whose fine face and singular
distinction of bearing had caused many a passer-by to stare at him
in vague admiration, and to wonder who such a regal-looking
personage might possibly be. Alwyn, however, absorbed in thought,
saw no one, and was about to resume his onward walk, when
suddenly, as though moved by some instinctive impulse, he turned
sharply around, and in so doing confronted the stranger, who
straightway advanced, lifting his hat and smiling. One amazed
glance,--and then with an ejaculation of wonder, recognition, and
delight, Alwyn sprang forward and grasped his extended hand.

"HELIOBAS!" he exclaimed. "Is it possible YOU are in London!--YOU,
of all men in the world!"

"Even so!"--replied Heliobas gayly--"And why not? Am I
incongruous, and out of keeping with the march of modern
civilization?"

Alwyn looked at him half-bewildered, half-incredulous,--he could
hardly believe his own eyes. It seemed such an altogether amazing
thing to meet this devout and grave Chaldean philosopher, this
mystic monk of the Caucasus, here in the very centre, as it were,
of the world's business, traffic, and pleasure; one might as well
have expected to find a haloed saint in the whirl of a carnival
masquerade! Incongruous? Out of keeping?--Yes, certainly he was,--
for though clad in the plain, conventional garb to which the men
of the present day are doomed by the fiat of commerce and custom,
the splendid dignity and picturesqueness of his fine personal
appearance was by no means abated, and it was just this that
marked him out, and made of him as wonderful a figure in London as
though some god or evangelist should suddenly pass through a
wilderness of chattering apes and screaming vultures.

"But how and when did you come?"--asked Alwyn presently,
recovering from his first glad shock of surprise--"You see how
genuine is my astonishment,--why, I thought you were a perpetually
vowed recluse,--that you never went into the world at all, ..."

"Neither I do"--rejoined Heliobas--"save when strong necessity
demands. But our Order is not so 'inclosed' that, if Duty calls,
we cannot advance to its beckoning, and there are certain times
when both I and those of my fraternity mingle with men in common,
undistinguished from the ordinary inhabitants of cities either by
dress, customs, or manners,--as you see!"--and he laughingly
touched his overcoat, the dark rough cloth of which was relieved
by a broad collar and revers of rich sealskin,--"Would you not
take me for a highly respectable brewer, par example, conscious
that his prowess in the making of beer has entitled him, not only
to an immediate seat in Parliament, but also to a Dukedom in
prospective?"

Alwyn, smiled at the droll inapplicability of this comparison,--
and Heliobas cheerfully continued--"I am on the wing just now,--
bound for Mexico. I had business in London, and arrived here two
days since,--two days more will see me again en voyage. I am glad
to have met you thus by chance, for I did not know your address,
and though I might have obtained that through your publishers, I
hesitated about it, not being quite certain as to whether a letter
or visit from me might be welcome."

"Surely,"--began Alwyn, and then he paused, a flush rising to his
brow as he remembered how obstinately he had doubted and suspected
this man's good faith and intention toward him, and how he had
even received his farewell benediction at Dariel with more
resentment than gratitude.

"Everywhere I hear great things of you, Mr. Alwyn,"--went on
Heliobas gently, taking no notice of his embarrassment--"Your fame
is now indeed unquestionable! With all my heart I congratulate
you, and wish you long life and health to enjoy the triumph of
your genius!"

Alwyn smiled, and turning, fixed his clear, soft eyes full on the
speaker.

"I thank you!" he said simply,--"But, ... you, who have such a
quick instinctive comprehension of the minds and characters of
men,--judge for yourself whether I attach any value to the poor
renown I have won,--renown that I once would have given my very
life to possess!"

As he spoke, he stopped,--they were walking down a quiet side-path
under the wavering shadow of newly bourgeoning beeches, and a
bright shaft of sunshine struck through the delicate foliage
straight on his serene and handsome countenance. Heliobas gave him
a swift, keen, observant glance,--in a moment he noticed what a
marvellous change had been wrought in the man who, but a few
months before, had come to him, a wreck of wasted life,--a wreck
that was not only ready, but willing, to drift into downward
currents and whirlpools of desperate, godless, blank, and hopeless
misery. And now, how completely he was transformed!--Health
colored his cheeks and sparkled in his eyes; health, both of body
and mind, gave that quick brilliancy to his smile, and that easy,
yet powerful poise to his whole figure,--while the supreme
consciousness of the Immortal Spirit within him surrounded him
with the same indescribable fascination and magnetic
attractiveness that distinguished Heliobas himself, even as it
distinguishes all who have in good earnest discovered and accepted
the only true explanation of their individual mystery of being.
One steady, flashing look,--and then Heliobas silently held out
his hand. As silently Alwyn clasped it,--and the two men
understood each other. All constraint was at an end,--and when
they resumed their slow sauntering under the glistening green
branches, they were mutually aware that they now held an almost
equal rank in the hierarchy of spiritual knowledge, strength, and
sympathy.

"Evidently your adventure to the Ruins of Babylon was not
altogether without results!" said Heliobas softly--"Your
appearance indicates happiness,--is your life at last complete?"

"Complete?--No!"--and Alwyn sighed somewhat impatiently--"It
cannot be complete, so long as its best and purest half is
elsewhere! My fame is, as you can guess, a mere ephemera,--a small
vanishing point, in comparison with the higher ambition I have now
in view. Listen,--you know nothing of what happened to me on the
Field of Ardath,--I should have written to you perhaps, but it is
better to speak--I will tell you all as briefly as I can."

And talking in an undertone, with his arm linked through that of
his companion, he related the whole strange story of the
visitation of Edris, the Dream of Al-Kyris, his awakening on the
Prophet's Field at sunrise, and his final renunciation of Self at
the Cross of Christ. Heliobas listened to him in perfect silence,
his eyes alone expressing with what eager interest and attention
he followed every incident of the narrative.

"And now," said Alwyn in conclusion,--"I always try to remember
for my own comfort that I LEFT my dead Self in the burning ruin of
that dream built city of the past,--or SEEMED to leave it, . . and
yet I feel sometimes as if its shadow presence clung to me still!
I look in the mirror and see strange, faint reflections of the
actual personal attributes of the slain Sah-luma,--occasionally
these are so strong and distinctly marked that I turn away in
anger from my own image! Why, I loved that Phantasm of a Poet in
my dream as I must for ages have loved myself to my own utter
undoing!--I admired his work with such extravagant fondness, that,
thinking of it, I blush for shame at my own thus manifest
conceit!--In truth there is only one thing in that pictured
character of his, I can for the present judge myself free from,--
namely, the careless rejection of true love for false,--the wanton
misprisal of a faithful heart, such as Niphrata's, whose fair
child-face even now often flits before my remorseful memory,--and
the evil, sensual passion for a woman whose wickedness was as
evident as her beauty was paramount! I could never understand or
explain this wilful, headstrong weakness in my Shadow-Self--it was
the one circumstance in my vision that seemed to have little to do
with the positive Me in its application,--but now I thoroughly
grasp the meaning of the lesson conveyed, which is that NO MAN
EVER REALLY KNOWS HIMSELF, OR FATHOMS THE DEPTHS OF HIS OWN
POSSIBLE INCONSISTENCIES. And as matters stand with me at the
present time, I am hemmed in on all sides by difficulties,--for
since the modern success of that very anciently composed poem,
'Nourhalma'"--and he smiled--"my friends and acquaintances are
doing their best to make me think as much of myself as if I were,
--well! all that I am NOT. Do what I will, I believe am still an
egoist,--nay, I am sure of it,--for even as regards my heavenly
saint, Edris, I am selfish!"

"How so?" asked Heliobas, with a grave side-glance of admiration
at the thoughtful face and meditative earnest eyes of this poet,
this once bitter and blasphemous skeptic, grown up now to a
majesty of faith that not all the scorn of men or devils could
ever shake again.

"I want her!"--he replied, and there was a thrill of pathetic
yearning in his voice--"I long for her every moment of the day and
night! It seems, too, as if everything combined to encourage this
craving in me,--this fond, mad desire to draw her down from her
own bright sphere of joy,--down to my arms, my heart, my life!
See!"--and he stopped by a bed of white hyacinths, nodding softly
in the faint breeze--"Even those flowers remind me of her! When I
look up at the blue sky I think of the radiance of her eyes,--they
were the heaven's own color,--when I see light clouds floating
together half gray, half tinted by the sun, they seem to me to
resemble the soft and noiseless garb she wore,--the birds sing,
only to recall to me the lute-like sweetness of her voice,--and at
night, when I behold the millions upon millions of stars that are
worlds, peopled as they must be with thousands of wonderful living
creatures, perhaps as spiritually composed as she, I sometimes
find it hard, that out of all the exhaustless types of being that
love, serve, and praise God in Heaven, this one fair Spirit,--only
this one angel-maiden should not be spared to help and comfort me!
Yes!--I am selfish to the heart's core, my friend!"--and his eyes
darkened with a vague wistfulness and trouble,--"Moreover, I have
weakly striven to excuse my selfishness to my own conscience
thus:--I have thought that if SHE were vouchsafed to me for the
remainder of my days, I might then indeed do lasting good, and
leave lasting consolation to the world,--such work might be
performed as would stir the most callous souls to life and energy
and aspiration,--with HER sweet Presence near me, visibly close
and constant, there is no task so difficult that I would not essay
and conquer in, for her sake, her service, her greater glory! But
ALONE!"--and he gave a slight, hopeless gesture--"Nay,--Christ
knows I will do the utmost best I can, but the solitary ways of
life are hard!"

Heliobas regarded him fixedly.

"You SEEM to be alone"--he said presently, after a pause,--"but
truly you are not so. You think you are set apart to do your work
in solitude,--nevertheless, she whom you love may be near you even
while you speak! Still I understand what you mean,--you long to
SEE her again,--to realize her tangible form and presence,--well!
--this cannot be until you pass from this earth and adopt HER
nature, . . unless,--unless SHE descends hither, and adopts YOURS!"

The last words were uttered slowly and impressively, and Alwyn's
countenance brightened with a sudden irresistible rapture.

"That would be impossible!" he said, but his voice trembled, and
there was more interrogativeness than assertion in his tone.

"Impossible in most cases,--yes"--agreed Heliobas--"but in your
specially chosen and privileged estate, I cannot positively say
that such a thing might not be."

For one moment a strange, eager brilliancy shone in Alwyn's eyes,
--the next, he set his lips hard, and made a firm gesture of
denial.

"Do not tempt me, good Heliobas," he said, with a faint smile--
"Or, rather, do not let me tempt myself! I bear in constant mind
what she, my Edris, told me when she left me,--that we should not
meet again till after death, unless the longing of my love
COMPELLED. Now, if it be true, as I have often thought, that I
COULD compel,--by what right dare I use such power, if power I
have upon her? She loves me,--I love her,--and by the force of
love, such love as ours, . . who knows!--I might perchance persuade
her to adopt a while this mean, uneasy vesture of mere mortal
life,--and the very innate perception that I MIGHT do so, is the
sharpest trial I have to endure. Because if I would thoroughly
conquer myself, I must resist this feeling;--nay, I WILL resist
it,--for let it cost me what it may, I have sworn that the
selfishness of my own personal desire shall never cross or cloud
the radiance of her perfect happiness!"

"But suppose"--suggested Heliobas quietly, "suppose she were to
find an even more complete happiness in making YOU happy?"

Alwyn shook his head. "My friend do not let us talk of it!"--he
answered--"No joy can be more complete than the joy of Heaven,--
and that in its full blessedness is hers."

"That in its full blessedness is NOT hers,"--declared Heliobas
with emphasis--"And, moreover, it can never be hers, while YOU are
still an exile and a wanderer! Friend Poet, do you think that even
Heaven is wholly happy to one who loves, and whose Beloved is
absent?"

A tremor shook Alwyn's nerves,--his eyes glowed as though the
inward fire of his soul had lightened them, but his face grew very
pale.

"No more of this, for God's sake!" he said passionately. "I must
not dream of it,--I dare not! I become the slave of my own
imagined rapture,--the coward who falls conquered and trembling
before his own desire of delight! Rather let me strive to be glad
that she, my angel-love, is so far removed from my unworthiness,--
let her, if she be near me now, read my thoughts, and see in them
how dear, how sacred is her fair and glorious memory,--how I would
rather endure an eternity of anguish, than make her sad for one
brief hour of mortal-counted time!"

He was greatly moved,--his voice trembled with the fervor of its
own music, and Heliobas looked at him with a grave and very tender
smile.

"Enough!"--he said gently--"I will speak no further on this
subject, which I see affects you deeply. Nevertheless, I would
have you remember how, when the Master whom we serve passed
through His Agony at Gethsemane, and with all the knowledge of His
own power and glory strong upon Him, still in His vast self-
abnegation said, 'Not My will, but Thine be done!' that then
'there appeared an Angel unto Him from heaven strengthening Him!'
Think of this,--for every incident in that Divine-Human Life is a
hint for ours,--and often it chances that when we reject happiness
for the sake of goodness, happiness is suddenly bestowed upon us.
God's miracles are endless,--God's blessings exhaustless, . . and
the marvels of this wondrous Universe are as nothing, compared to
the working of His Sovereign Will for good on the lives of those
who serve Him faithfully."

Alwyn flashed upon him a quick, half-questioning glance, but was
silent,--and they walked on together for some minutes without
exchanging a word. A few people passed and repassed them,--some
little children were playing hide-and-seek behind the trunks of
the largest trees,--the air was fresh and invigorating, and the
incessant roar of busy traffic outside the Park palings offered a
perpetual noisy reminder of the great world that surged around
them,--the world of petty aims and transitory pleasures, with
which they, filled full of the knowledge of higher and eternal
things, had so little in common save sympathy,--sympathy for the
wilful wrong-doing of man, and pity for his self-imposed
blindness. Presently Heliobas spoke again in his customary light
and cheerful tone:

"Are you writing anything new just now?" he asked. "Or are you
resting from literary labor?"

"Well, rest and work are with me very nearly one and the same"--
replied Alwyn,--"I think the most absolutely tiring and exhausting
thing in the world would be to have nothing to do. Then I can
imagine life becoming indeed a weighty burden! Yes, I am engaged
on a new poem, . . it gives me intense pleasure to write it--but
whether it will give any one equal pleasure to read it is quite
another question."

"Does 'Zabastes' still loom on your horizon?" inquired his
companion mirthfully--"Or are you still inclined--as in the Past--
to treat him, whether he comes singly or in numbers, as the Poet's
court-jester, and paid fool?"

Alwyn laughed lightly. "Perhaps!" he answered, with a sparkle of
amusement in his eyes,--"But, really, so far as the wind of
criticism goes, I don't think any author nowadays particularly
cares whether it blows fair weather or foul. You see, we all know
how it is done,--we can name the clubs and cliques from whence it
emanates, and we are fully aware that if one leading man of a
'set' gives the starting signal of praise or blame, the rest
follow like sheep, without either thought or personal
discrimination. Moreover, some of us have met and talked with
certain of these magazine and newspaper oracles, and have tested
for ourselves the limited extent of their knowledge and the
shallowness of their wit. I assure you it often happens that a
great author is tried, judged, and condemned by a little casual
press-man who, in his very criticism, proves himself ignorant of
grammar. Of course, if the public choose to accept such a verdict,
why, then, all the worse for the public,--but luckily the majority
of men are beginning to learn the ins and outs of the modern
critic's business,--they see his or HER methods (it is a notable
fact that women do a great deal of criticism now, they being
willing to scribble oracular commonplaces at a cheaper rate of pay
than men), so that if a book is condemned, people are dubious, and
straight way read it for themselves to see what is in it that
excites aversion,--if it is praised, they are still dubious, and
generally decide that the critical eulogist must have some
personal interest in its sale. It is difficult for an author to
WIN his public,--but WHEN won, the critics may applaud or deride
as suits their humor, it makes no appreciable difference to his
popularity. Now I consider my own present fame was won by chance,
--a misconception that, as _I_ know, had its ancient foundation in
truth, but that, as far as everybody else is concerned, remains a
misconception,--so that I estimate my success at its right value,
or rather, let me say, at its proper worthlessness."