"Now, I am in a very curious position. I do feel inclined, very much

inclined indeed, to stick permanently to the work; it interests,
amuses, occupies me. I hate the want of occupation. I hate making
occupations for myself, and this provides me with regular work at
stated hours, leaving other stated hours free, and free in the best
way; that is to say, it works the vapours off. My brain feels clear
and steady; I can talk, think, write, read better, in those intervals
than I ever can when all my time is my own, and yet—I must, I
believe, give it up.

"You know I pretend to a kind of familiar; like Socrates, I am
forbidden to do certain things by a kind of distant inward voice—not
conscience, for it is not limited to moral choice. I don't mean to
say I do not or have not disobeyed it, but it is always the worse for
me in the end; it is like taking a short cut in the mountains; you
get to your end in time, but far more tired and shaky than if you had
followed the right road, which started so much to the left among the
pines, and moreover, you get there very much behind your party.

"This time it tells me that I am not equal to the direct
responsibility; that I can not, with my habits of mind and temper,
impress a permanent enough mark upon the lads. It is like beginning a
system of education that is to take, say, thirty years, giving them a
year of it, and then taking to another; you not only lose your year,
but you unfit them for other systems. That is what I should do; my
methods do not prepare them for other normal education; it is only
the beginning of a preparation for what I believe to be a higher and
more complete education, but that wouldn't justify my keeping on.

"I do not believe that I have done any harm; in fact, my theory would
forbid me to think so; but it also informs me that my _rôle_ is
not to be that of a schoolmaster.

"I shall be a poor man, of course; poor, that is, for an independent
gentleman. I wish I were a Fellow of a College at Cambridge; I would
try and be as ideal as Gray in that position."




CHAPTER V


In April he was released from his engagement, and he immediately went
abroad, alone. He travelled through Normandy into Brittany, spending
two months at a little village called Chanteuil, not far from the
Point du Sillon. Here he wandered about mostly alone, dressed in
the roughest possible costume, and allowing his beard to grow. "At
Chanteuil I first learnt how to think, or rather how to converse with
myself as I had before done with other persons; I also found for the
first time that I did not dislike my own company."

In June he went south, sailing from Brest to Bordeaux, and then
descending by land into Spain, where he remained till August. Here he
spent a long time in exploring the table-land between the Asturian
Mountains and the sea, and then from Burgos visiting Madrid, Toledo,
Ciudad, and Seville, and so to Gibraltar. From Gibraltar he sailed
up the south-east coast, and settled himself for another month at a
little village called Benigarcia, about five miles east of Sorrion,
on the river Mijares. In November he sailed by Minorca, starting from
Barcelona, to Sicily, and spent the rest of the year in the north of
Italy, sailing from Sicily to Genoa, and settling at a village called
Riviglio, not very far from Verona. He was obliged to adopt this
plan of settling, as his exchequer was not large. From this place
he visited Venice on foot, and early in the year visited Rome and
Florence, sailing from Ancona in March for Spalatro, and worked up
through Hungary to a little place called Bochnia, on the Vistula,
down which river he went by boat to Königsberg, staying in
Warsaw a few weeks. Once on the Baltic, he hired a fishing-boat, and
spent a month in cruising about, during which time he discovered, or
rather unearthed, an island, which formed the subject of the only
letter he wrote to me during his entire absence.

"Copenhagen, June, 1876.

"My dear Carr,

"I am writing this on board the fishing-smack _Paradys_, which is at
this moment lying in Copenhagen Roads, being myself owner by hire and
supercargo of the same. The first object of my note is to assure you
of my existence, as your letter which was forwarded after me to
Danzig seemed to imply uncertainty on that point, and moreover
expressed a strange solicitude as to my well-being which was by no
means unpleasing to me; then to request you to perform several small
commissions for me....

"Lastly, to tell you of a very curious adventure I met with. Some
weeks ago I was cruising not very far from Danzig, when we sighted a
low wooded island about seven miles off land. I discovered by dint of
arduous questioning, for the lingo of these fellows is very uncouth,
that it was uninhabited, because its owner, a Danish nobleman,
devoted it to the growing of wood for firewood, etc.; a poor
speculation, I should say, as the wind blows very fresh from the sea
and stunts the trees; and also partly because of a bad name attaching
to it, and many horrid superstitions—what, they could not tell me.
It was a curious-looking place, not very large, but with deep
indented bays all round running very far inland, so as to give it
somewhat the shape of a starfish with seven or eight irregular arms;
the woods come down very close to the sea and are mostly fir or
larch. I could see a few trees further inland of a lighter green, but
could not make out to what species they belonged. Between the woods
and the sea there are sands loosely overgrown with that spiky grass
that covers sand-hills, and at the extremity of two of the valleys
a marsh formed by a freshwater spring. The place is frequented by
birds, mostly pigeons, and a good many waterfowl of different kinds.

"We spent a hot oppressive day with very little wind in cruising
leisurely round it as close in shore as we could get. I should guess
that it was about eleven miles round, measuring from the ends of the
promontories. We saw no signs whatever of habitation except the
three or four old boats on props in one of the creeks used by the
woodcutters as cabins when they come. I found out from my men that so
great was the horror of the place, that even smugglers, when hard
pressed, have been known to risk capture rather than put in to the
island; and on my inquiring the cause of these rumours, they gave me
various vague and grotesque stories about dead men and women, and
a figure which sat on the seaward cape and wept, with long hair
drooping all over her; and, worst of all, of two boys, dressed in an
antique dress, whom to see was certain disaster, and to speak with
certain death.

"Toward evening the breeze freshened; and as it was getting dark I
proposed casting anchor in one of the creeks. My men manifested the
greatest alarm; but as the channel is full of shoals and sands
between the island and the mainland (which is at that place very much
deserted), and we were not acquainted with the lie of them, and as
I bound myself by the most solemn promises not to send any of them
ashore, they at last reluctantly consented. However, as none of them
would stir an inch, but crowded together in the most disgusting
proximity into their hole of a cabin, I was left the sole patrol of
the place.

"It was an oppressive evening, and I walked about a long time up and
down, and finally sat down to smoke. The place was curiously silent,
except that every now and then it was broken by those strange
woodland sounds, like smothered cries or groans, seeming to proceed
out of the heart of the wood at a great distance. We lay in a sandy
creek with banks of pines on each side, rising up very black against
the sky, which had that still green enamelled look that it gets on a
very quiet evening. At the far end of the creek was a large marsh
covered with the white cotton rush then in bloom; it caused a strange
glimmering which I could see till it got quite dark. The only other
sound was the wash of the short waves on the sands outside, and the
gurgle and cluck of the water as it crept past the boat and out to
sea.

"Toward midnight I saw a sight that I have never seen before nor
expect to see again. I was surprised to see a light, apparently on
the shore, in the direction of the marsh. It looked exactly like a
lantern carried by a man. It was very indistinct, but wavered about,
always floating about a foot or two from the surface, sometimes
standing still as though he was looking for something on the ground,
and sometimes moving very quickly. It was a will-o'-the-wisp—a
phosphorescent exhalation.

"It was a foul pestilential place, there is no doubt. The mist was
all about us by midnight, and smelt very heavy and cold. I awoke
shivering in the morning, and not feeling by any means as fresh or
vigorous as usual; but nevertheless I determined to explore the
island—singly, if none of the men would accompany me.

"Straight up in front of me, apparently about a mile inland, was a
very marked clump of trees projecting above the other foliage. I had
noticed it several times from the sea the day before. You could see
the red stems clearly above the other trees. It evidently marked a
knoll or rising ground of some kind, and I determined to make that
the object of my journey, and scale, if possible, the trees to get a
bird's-eye view of the place.

"As I had expected, I could not get a single member of the crew to
accompany me further than the shore, and they were frightened at
that. Two of them, who were very much attached to me, implored
me most earnestly not to go, but seeing that I was bent upon it,
shrugged their shoulders and were silent. The instant I was deposited
with my gun on shore, they turned back to the boat and immured
themselves. I arranged that at twelve o'clock, if I did not return,
they should leave the creek and go round the island within hailing
distance, so as to pick me up at any point. I started along the
shore, skirting the marsh which wound through the pines.

"The first thing that I came upon was a heronry. I had noticed
several of these magnificent birds the day before sailing over the
island, and this creek was evidently their settlement; up they went,
floating away in all directions with a marvellous, almost magical
rapidity and silence of flight. This persuaded me more than anything
else that the island was unfrequented, as they are a very shy bird,
and distrustful of human beings. I then left the stream and struck
straight up into the woods, as nearly as possible toward the clump.

"I put up a few rabbits and a great many pigeons. I also saw an
animal that I believe to have been a wolf, but it retreated with such
rapidity that I lost sight of it among the tree stems. There was very
little undergrowth, as often happens under pines, but the boughs
overhead formed a close screen, and the heat was very oppressive.
After about an hour's walking I emerged on a cliff above the sea,
having mistaken my direction, and crossed the island diagonally. On
getting clear of the trees I could again see the goal of my walk, the
clump, this time a good deal nearer; and now resolutely plunging into
the wood, and keeping always slightly to the right, for I saw that my
bias was to the left, I came at last to a place where I could see the
sides of a mound through the trees rather indistinctly.

"All of a sudden I came to a low wall among the trees, overgrown in
some places, but opposite me almost entirely clear. It was built of
large stones carefully fitted together, like the architecture that I
remembered to have seen called Cyclopean in architectural histories
of Greece. It was easily climbed, and I saw that it surrounded the
mound at the distance of about fifty yards, in an irregular circle.

"The space which intervened between it and the mound was partially
filled with great hewn stones planted all about, some of them lying
on their side, some upright, many of them broken. Going through these
I came upon the mound itself. It was crowned with a group of firs,
which I could see at once to be much older than the surrounding
trees. They were far larger and taller, for the height of the mound
did not entirely account for the extraordinary way in which they
overtopped the rest of the trees. The mound was very steep, and was
apparently constructed of stones built carefully together; but only
very small portions of the masonry were visible, it was so overgrown
and hidden.

"Wandering round it I found a rude flight of steps leading to the
top, also much overgrown. I ascended hastily, and found myself on the
top of a smooth plateau, about fifty by thirty yards, surrounded by
the gigantic firs; but what immediately arrested my attention was a
strange rude altar in the middle, ornamented with uncouth figures and
other ornaments. It was covered with moss at the top, and very much
cracked and splintered in places.

"I concluded at once that I was in the presence of some remains,
probably Druidic in origin, which, owing to the extraordinary
desolation of the spot and the superstition attaching to the island,
had been so long unvisited as to have been forgotten. I could see
that the mound was quite surrounded by the wall, and that it was
evidently a sacred enclosure of some kind.

"And gazing and wondering, the stories attributed to the place seemed
not wholly without cause. There are certain atmospheres, I have
always held, which, as it were, infect one; the very air has caught
some contagion of evil which can not be got rid of. There is a
baneful influence about some places which makes itself felt upon
all sensitive beings who approach. I have felt it on actual
battle-fields, as well as at other places that I have held to be the
scenes of unrecorded, immemorial slaughters; and as I gazed round
it seemed to gather and fall on me here. The very stillness was
appalling, for there was now a good deal of wind blowing from the
sea, as I could tell from the rustling and cracking of the fir boughs
all about, and the sound of the sea on the sand; but here there was
an oppressive heaviness, as if the place was still brooding over the
ancient horror it had seen. And this was succeeded in my mind by a
strange, overpowering, fascinating wonder and speculation as to what
dismal deeds of darkness could have been done in the place; with
whose blood, indeed, whether of innocent sheep and goats, or pleading
men and frightened children, that grim uncouth altar had run and
smoked; whether, in truth, as the ancient tales say, every one of
those gray pillars all about had been set up, and still was based
upon, the mouldering crushed remains of men. The sickening contagion
of the sin of the place grew upon me every moment.

"To rid myself of it I applied myself to climb one of the trees to
get a bird's-eye view of the island. This I effected without much
difficulty, and found that it was of the shape, as I have said, of an
irregular five-pointed star. From extremity to extremity, it must be,
I believe, about five miles.

"But now follows the part of my story that I do not profess to
explain. I marked in my mind the nearest path to the sea, which was
to the north-east—the path I actually pursued—and descended; and
then I became aware that the feeling I had experienced before was not
purely physical—that there _was_ a taint of a real kind in the air,
which strangely affected the emotional atmosphere. I felt helpless,
bewildered, sickened. I descended, however, from the platform, and
walked straight, in what I had determined to be the right direction,
when, just as I was about to scale the wall, heartily glad to be out
of the place, I was—not exactly called, for there was no sound—but
most unmistakably ordered to look round. Am I clear? The sensation
produced mentally and emotionally was precisely like the receiving
an imperative order that one has neither power nor inclination to
resist—so strong and sudden that I kept thinking that my name had
been called. In reflecting, however, I am certain that it was not.

"I turned at once, and saw, standing together, close by the platform,
two boys, about twelve years of age I should have said, in a loose
antique dress, of a bluish-white colour, reaching down to the knees,
and girt about the waist, with leather buskins fastened by straps
reaching up the leg; their heads were bare, and their hair, which was
a dark brown, was loose and flowing. I could not clearly distinguish
their faces, but they looked handsome, though desperately frightened.
Accompanying this was an indescribable sense, which I have sometimes
had in dreams, of an overwhelming intense vastness—space-immensity
rushing over one with a terrible power; and at the same time the
feeling of _numbers_, as if I was in the presence of a multitude
of people. All this quite momentary; in an instant I was conscious
of the tall avenues of red stems, with their dark background, and
the heavy silence of the underwood, and nothing more.

"I went as if dazed through the wood, yet unconsciously obeying the
tacit order of my determination, down a steep fully clad with pine
trees, the needles very soft under my feet, till I suddenly came out
of the stifling wood on to golden sands and blue water, and a great
restful wash of air and sunlight.

"I fired my gun as a signal, and wandering on, as if only half awake,
I came out upon another point, and saw the boat lying close below me,
whereupon I fired again, and was taken on board.

"My sensation was one of strange languor and fatigue; certainly no
fright, and very little wonder; rather as if I had been stunned or
charmed by opiates into a kind of waking slumber. I have never felt
anything like it before or since.

"But by morning I was shivering in an ague caught in that
pestilential fever-swamp, and then the fever fiend himself came and
took up his abode with me, and I am now only just convalescent, and
can sun myself on the deck, and read and write a little; but the
illness and the unconsciousness have done as such things often
do—interposed a sort of blank between me and my past life—have
deadened it, as one deadens sound by wool, so that memories no longer
strike on my mind sharp and clear, but swim along hazy and undefined;
and especially is it the case with later memories.

"What was the sight, my dear Carr, that I saw on that hill-top? Was
it nothing but the uneasiness of mind and memory disturbed and
disorganized by the seething of the foul poison-wine, throwing up
pictures and ideas out of their due course, and without subordination
to the master-will? Was it merely the story of those fisher-folk,
half apprehended, and yet evoked and subtly clad with form and shape
by the strange workshop of imagination?

"To all of these I am quite content to say 'Yes.' The sight does not
trouble me, or, indeed, anything but interest me. I am not
superstitious; I am not nervous in the least. Only I can not help
feeling as if, catching, in my weakened state, the hideous leprosy of
the place, I had received into my mind, then less able than usual to
resist, the stamp and impress of some other mind forced to linger
near that spot, and unable to avoid brooding over some haunting
remorseful thought or image of a deed, ever dismally recalling how
he stood in grim silence watching the tears and prayers of the
two soft-faced smooth-limbed Roman boys, kidnapped from some
sunny Italian villa, and carried to that gloomy place—held them
pitilessly on the altar among the other fork-bearded Druids, with
their white robes and glaring eyes—and smote the cruel blow, in
spite of the trembling touch of the young fingers and the piteous
entreaties, as they looked tearfully from side to side in the damp
sunless Golgotha, among the glens of that sinister isle.

"That is the picture that somehow or other, even in my most material
mood, is evoked by the thought of the place. The rationalist
explanation of the coming fever is far more satisfactory and
scientific; but the other keeps recurring—a curious experience
anyhow.

"If you have nothing to do you might write me a line to Stockholm,
Poste Restante. I am going north to have a look at the ice.
Altogether, what with the East still open before me, I do not expect
to come home for two or three years.

"You are one of the few friends I can rely upon, so I carry about
with me a letter addressed to you; in case of my death you will be
the first to be notified of the fact.

"Ever yours,
"Arthur Hamilton."

I have given this letter in full, because it affords a good example
of Arthur's descriptive style, which always struck me as being vivid
and graphic, and also because this little incident, not by the proof
it itself afforded, but by the turn it gave his thoughts—then rather
rapidly drifting into materialism—was the first step in a kind of
conversion from the purely physical views of life he had been apt to
take. The episode itself, too, is a curious one, and may deserve to
be recorded.




CHAPTER VI


Nothing is more hopelessly wearisome than descriptions of travel;
even George Eliot could not make in her diaries Florence anything but
dull. I shall confine myself to sketching his route, to telling one
incident among the few he told me, and describing his return.

I had no more letters from him; but he has told me that he got to
Spitzbergen, and in a whaler to the edge of the great arctic
ice-field. He sailed to America and crossed it. From San Francisco he
visited Peru and the Amazon, on which river he spent a month. Then he
went to Africa, to what part I do not know, except that he came down
the Nile; and then he wandered through Asia Minor, Persia, and India;
he penetrated a little way into Thibet, and saw China and Japan; he
went up to the mouth of the Siberian rivers, travelling for three
months with a party of gipsies, who taught him many curious things,
such as their own language and freemasonry, the use of simples, the
properties of water, and the strange things that can be done with
even such things as docks and nettles, and other plants which we toss
away as weeds. He told me that in that branch of secret knowledge,
as in all others, there was a vast deal of nonsense but a solid
residuum of truth; and he said, half jestingly, that they had sworn
him a member of their brotherhood, and what was more, he had since
discovered many members of the brotherhood in civilized nations, even
in "kings' houses."

But I must suspend my account for a short time to relate the incident
to which I have just referred. It took place during his stay in
Teheran, while on his way home (1878), a period of about six weeks.
This city is situated in a lovely climate—hot, but not unbearable
for Europeans; houses, horses, and servants are extraordinarily
cheap. The house that Arthur took was situated in large gardens or
pleasure-grounds of the natural wilderness type that one finds in
the East, shrubberies relegated to certain limits, but within those
limits left absolutely to their own device and will, with the
exception of arched and shaded paths cut under the thick intertwined
leafage.

This whole place, with horses at his command, and seven servants,
with the whole expense of boarding, cost him, he has told me,
£40 for the entire six weeks that he was there; for he was very
weary of his rough tramping life, and resolutely determined to
recruit his energies by some deliberate luxury, a recipe far more
useful than the normal Englishman is at all inclined to admit,
thinking, as he does so erroneously, that "overtasking the body is
the best restorative for the overworked mind, and _vice versâ_,"
as Arthur said once, "whereas the two instruments, so to speak, have
but one blade though two handles."

The heat of the day was rather overpowering; that period he usually
spent dozing or reading in the court of the house, which was occupied
by a cool flashing fountain in the centre of an oasis of marble
pavement, streaked and veined. About seven it became cooler, and
then in the light native costume he used to ride leisurely about the
picturesque city or among the delightful houses scattered about in
the outskirts like his own.

One evening he was riding in this fashion down a lane running between
high brick walls, fringed with feathery trailing shrubs or gorgeous
red and white flowers, whose fragrance literally streamed into the
evening air, in that delicate dusk when the senses are lulled into
acquiescence, and the mind and emotions become so vivid and lustrous
in their play.

Riding along with his eyes half closed and lost in a delicious
reverie, his horse turned of its own accord to the left, and went for
some distance up an embowered road; Arthur suddenly roused himself
to find that he was passing close to a large sombre house, that had
evidently once been fortified, looming very impressively in the
languorous air; the gate had been opened for some purpose and not
closed again, and he was, in fact, trespassing in some private
grounds.

He checked his horse, looking curiously about him, and was just about
to return when he heard a voice apparently proceeding from the centre
of one of the shrubberies, asking him his business in Persian.
Looking in that direction he managed to distinguish two or three
indistinct figures seated on a low seat on a kind of terrace on his
left.

He rode up, and mustering up the little Persian he possessed,
apologized for his unintentional intrusion, mingling a good deal of
English, as he said, with his rather incoherent explanation.

He was aware that one of the figures disengaged itself from the
group, and coming up close to him, regarded him with some curiosity.
It was a tall man, paler in complexion than the natives are wont to
be, with large dreamy eyes, and an air of indifferent lassitude that
was rather fascinating.

He was amazed to hear, at the conclusion of his lame peroration, a
voice of strange delicacy of intonation proceeding from the figure:
"An Englishman, I presume." The accent was a little affected, but the
speaker was evidently more English than Persian by training: "Not
only English," said Arthur to himself, "but London English of the
best kind."

He confessed his nationality, and, again apologizing, was about to
withdraw, when the stranger courteously invited him to join the
party. "It is very refreshing," he said, "to hear my native tongue
by chance; I can not resist the temptation of begging you to join us
for a little, that I may hear it once more; you will do me a great
kindness if you will accede to my request."

Seeing that the offer was sincere, Arthur dismounted, and walked to
the terrace with the other. The figures rose at their approach, and
Arthur could see that they were two boys of fifteen or sixteen, of
extraordinary beauty and delicacy, and a woman of about thirty-five,
as far as he could judge, evidently their mother.

His host spoke a few words in Persian, the purport of which he could
not catch, and, rapidly presenting him, requested him to be seated,
and produced some cigarettes of a very choice and fragrant kind.

They talked for a long time on general subjects—England, politics,
art, and literature. The stranger seemed well acquainted with
literature and events of a certain date, but not of later departures
in any branch; and finally, Arthur gave a short account of himself
and his wanderings, in which the others appeared most interested.

Before he went back to his house the stranger asked him, with some
earnestness, to return on the following day, which Arthur gladly
accepted. One of the boys conducted him to the gate, speaking a few
English sentences with that delicate and hesitating utterance that
combines with other personal attractions to give an almost unique
charm.

On the following day, and on several others, the invitation was
repeated and accepted. The stranger became more communicative, having
at first consistently maintained a courteous reserve.

The last day of Arthur's stay in his villa he went to see his new
friends. The boys had taken a great fancy to him, and used to wait
for his coming at the gate; but they would never come to his house,
though he asked them more than once. They were not permitted, they
said, to leave their own domain.

On this last evening his host was alone, and after some indifferent
conversation he told Arthur the following story, and made a proposal
which had a strange influence on the rest of his life:

"You may have wondered," he said, "at the cause which brought me
here, and keeps me here. I have often admired your courtesy, which
has made no attempts to discover my antecedents; it is not the usual
characteristic of our nation. If you are disposed to hear, I am
willing to give you a little autobiographical outline, which is a
necessary preface to a request which I am going to make of you."

He then mentioned his name and parentage—facts which I am not at
liberty to repeat. They surprised even Arthur when he heard them;
they surprised me, when he communicated them to me, even more.

He was the son of an English nobleman of high rank and wealth and
aristocratic traditions, and was reported to be long since dead.
Many people will no doubt remember the shock which the news of the
premature death of this individual, when announced in Europe, made.
It took place at Palermo in 1853. More than that I am not at liberty
to state.

"My reasons for this were as follows," said his host. "I meditated a
retirement from the world of a kind which should be absolute, which
should excite no inquiries, no interest, except a retrospective one.
To have merely disappeared would not have suited my purpose; search
would have been instituted. The connections and influence of my
family would have made such a plan liable to constant disaster. From
Palermo, after superintending the making of my tombstone, I came
straight back here, to a house which I had already prepared for
myself under an anonymous name. I travelled with the utmost secrecy;
I married, as you have seen, a native wife; and from that day to this
I have never beheld a European face but yours. Your arrival was so
unexpected as to shiver resolve and habit; but I have no reason
to regret, as far as I can see, my confidence. I feel that I can
unreservedly trust you.

"You will no doubt wonder as to my aim in executing this hazardous
and Quixotic project. I do not mind telling you now, at this lapse
of time, though I have never before opened my reasons to any one,
because I think that I observe in you traces of that temper which
led me to take the step.

"It seemed to me that Western life had got into a confusion and
complication from which nothing could deliver it. The principles now
incorporated with the very existence of the most influential men in
it seemed to me to be radically erroneous, and the disposition of the
Western mind is of a kind which augments with indefinite rapidity the
strength of any prevalent idea.

"What I mean is this. May I explain by a quotation? A sentence from a
certain review of the poet Coleridge's life and work is as follows:
'Devoted as he was to mystic and ideal contemplation, to abstractions
of mind and spirit, he naturally became untrustworthy in every
relation of life.'

"That represents, in an exaggerated form, the ideal of the Western
mind. They are, though they would not so name themselves, gross
materialists; and the tendency is increasing on them daily and
yearly. Those who protest occasionally against current thought, who
appear like prophets with bitter invective and words of warning on
their lips, are swept away by the tide, and write of trade and
treaties, of wars of principle and convenience. The very divines are
tainted. 'Live your life to the uttermost,' they cry.

"And in the Western mind the tendency once rooted gathers force from
every quarter. As a necessary concomitant of the restless habit, the
enshrining of the 'effective man' in their proudest temples, comes an
extreme deference to other people, a heated straining of the ears to
catch the murmurs of that vague uncertain heart—Public Opinion. And
why? It follows: if it is in this life alone that triumphs must be
won—if on this stage alone the drama is to be played out, and the
time is short—it is that imperious will that you must conciliate;
therefore employ every power to gain the art of so doing.

"So intent are the Westerns on this drama, so wrapped up in the
actors, so anxious to declaim and strut, that they forget to what end
the play exists: they have left the spectators out for whom alone
the scenes are enacted, and who, though apparently so silent and
motionless, are the _raison d'être_ of the whole performance.
The play must and will continue through the ages; but the wise, the
enlightened, beat down, and in one sharp encounter overcome, the
lower desire of being seen and applauded, and are content to sit
and watch—the nobler task.

"For we must remember that it is not the drama itself, tragedy or
comedy, fascinating as it be, that we are here to watch—but the
mind of the Being that animates the whole, can be here descried and
here alone, as in a mirror faintly: it is not only the man who fumes
and paces up and down for a few moments and then is called away; but
the vast Existence behind, that knows what the play means and will
not tell us, and that pushes the players on and off as He will.

"And here we find ourselves, with our tiny and uncertain space of
time bounded by the Infinities at either end, with the huge puzzle
set before us. A method has been invented, is now traditional, of
closing the eyes easily and thoughtlessly to the whole; and we are
content to catch that contagion from our predecessors: we eat and
drink, we work and play, and stifle the restless questioning that
springs up so resolutely in our spaces of solitude here; and what
will it do in the immeasurable hereafter?

"When I lived in England I was for a short time the member of a
professional circle of men engaged on high educational aims. They
held, so far as any teachers can be said to hold, many futures in
their hands. We know that lives teach more than words; and how did
these men set themselves to live?

"First, to perform their work with rigid accuracy: I will do them
justice—to do it _perfectly_; but granted that, as speedily as
possible: and, their work over, to amuse themselves—literally: to
play games that they enjoyed with childish keenness, and fill up all
the day with them; to read the papers; to play whist; to smoke in
the sun; to get through a certain amount of general reading for
conversational purposes, and to gossip about one another and their
doings, and talk about their work, in which, it must be confessed,
they were enthusiastically interested, only in a gossipy detailed
way, amassing incident rather than arriving at principles. There
was only one who was engaged in serious work of a kind involving
scientific research, and he forfeited much of his doctrinal and all
his social influence thereby; 'A man should stick to his work,' they
said, 'not pretend to do one thing while he is thinking about
another.'

"A low ideal, faithfully carried out, is the most effective; not
because the high ideal is high, but because so few are capable of
carrying it out; and in that Western world success in aims proposed
is the highest that a man can aspire to.

"And suppose we do make ourselves famous, what then? how do we use
our fame? To make life happier? It might be so, but is it? No, for
ordinary minds the strain is too strong. 'I will gain fame,' the pure
young soul said once, 'as an engine of power, that I may have a
platform where men will listen to me;' but the effort of struggling
thither has been too much, and once arrived there, what is his
object now? merely to remain there, and among the crowd of pushing
selfish figures, that have lost in the fight the very signs of their
humanity, _monstrari digito_, to have the gaze of men, to feel
somebody.

"All this I throw aside, and go straight to God. All around us in
natural things—in the curve of that rose-stem and the passionate
flush of its petals—in those white bells there, looking as if blown
out of veined foam—in the luscious scents that wind and linger
round the garden, He has set, as in a language, the secrets of His
being and ours, of our why and wherefore, if we could but read them.
Like the characters and monuments of a bygone age staring from a
waste of sand or the front of a precipice, these words and phrases
seem to say, not 'There was a king who was mighty, but whose throne
is cut down,' but 'There lives a God who would be all tenderness if
He could, and is more beautiful in His nature than anything you have
ever seen or dreamed of. Win your way to Him, if you can; do not let
Him go till you have His secret. That is a talisman indeed, that
shall shut you in palaces of delight where no torment shall touch
you.'

"And not a selfish paradise. We are but as others, we mystics; it is
only that we take—or rather are led, for it is no will of ours, but
an imperious voice that calls us—the straight and flowery road to
God, pressing through but one hedge of thorns, while you and others
struggle to Him along the dusty road that winds and wanders. But our
paradise would be no paradise if we did not know that our brothers
were coming, coming; the beauty that we behold, sheer ugliness if we
did not believe that you will some day share it too.

"Yes, I am a mystic—have joined the one brotherhood that is eternal
and all-embracing, as young as love and as old as time—the society
that no man suspects till he is close upon it, or hopes to enter till
he finds himself in a moment within the sacred pale. I would that I
could tell you with what different eyes we look on life and death,
God and nature, from this divine vantage-ground on which we stand,
and you would imperil all, run through fire and water, to win it too;
but you must find the way yourself—no man can show it you. If you
enter—and you are destined to enter this side the grave—it will
come when you are least expecting it. In the middle of those that
cry 'Lo, here is Christ and there,' He himself will touch you on the
shoulder, and show you better things than these.

"Oh, if I could only help you there at once—open the door! But my
words would bear other and commoner meanings in your ear; if I opened
the door, you would not see the light. Ay, and I do not wish it; for
every step outside you take is apportioned you; you need them, that
you may appreciate, when you have it, the rest within.

"And now for my request. You need not answer now; you may have a year
to think of it.

"You have seen my two boys. Outwardly they are alike, inwardly very
different—that you could not see.

"The younger will join me soon; he is far advanced upon the way
already, though he little suspects it. I have no fears for him. God
is drawing him.

"But the elder—like as he is in face, form, disposition—will need