{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_60537/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_60537","id":"gutenberg_60537","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60537","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Religious disputations -- Fiction","Short stories, Australian"],"text":"Transcriber's Notes\n\n_Italic_ words in the original text have been marked in this version\nwith underscores.\n\nIn addition to a few minor typographical errors which have been silently\ncorrected, the following changes were made:\n\n\"assymetrical\" changed to \"asymmetrical\" on Page 25.\n\n\"destro\" changed to \"destra\" on Page 226.\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENES AND PORTRAITS\n\n\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                           \"MATRI CARISSIMAE\"\n\n\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENES AND\n                               PORTRAITS\n\n\n                          BY FREDERIC MANNING\n                   AUTHOR OF \"THE VIGIL OF BRUNHILD\"\n\n\n\n\n                                 LONDON\n                   JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.\n                                  1909\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                PREFACE\n\n\nIt is a necessity of the human mind to give everything a name, thus\nrecognising a difference between one thing and another, and recording\nit. Science, which is the highest development of this necessity,\nrecognises, and records systematically, all the facts of experience,\ndistinguishing one from another, by the most minute analysis. The Maoris\neven go so far as bestow on their greenstone clubs, on their _tikis_,\nand on almost every separate article, a distinct name, as if recognising\nan individuality, much as the old myth-makers spoke of the sword\nExcalibur; but the average man is usually very loose in his application\nof terms. Renan in his preface to \"Dialogues Philosophiques\" writes: \"La\ngrande majorit\u00e9 des hommes ... se divise en deux cat\u00e9gories, \u00e0 \u00e9gale\ndistance desquelles il nous semble qu' est la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. 'Ce que vous\ncherchez est trouv\u00e9 depuis longtemps,' disent les orthodoxes de toutes\nles nuances. 'Ce que vous cherchez n'est pas trouvable,' disent les\npositivistes pratiques (les seuls dangereux), les politiques railleurs,\nles ath\u00e9es.\" Having thus differentiated his own position, from that of\neither school, one is a little surprised to find Matthew Arnold saying\nof him, that \"the greatest intellect in France has declared for\nmaterialism.\" One recognises how pernicious the loose application of\nterms may be, and is a little irritated to discover a fine English\ncritic lapsing into the vice, even in an unguarded moment. Really,\nthought, or at least any thought that justifies its existence, is too\nsubtile and fluid a thing to be settled in this off-hand way; and the\napparently childish custom of the Maoris is more scientific, since, at\nleast, it recognises individuality.\n\nTurn away from Renan to Euripides, and consider for a moment the present\nconflict as to whether \"The Bacchae\" is a recantation by Euripides of\nhis supposed rationalistic opinions, or a more aggravated expression of\nthem. It seems impossible that there should be two suppositions, so far\nremoved from each other, about an existing book, in a known language, by\nan author whose style is singularly lucid. \"La chicane s'allonge,\" as\nMontaigne said. We must seek for the truth at an equal distance from\nboth parties. Those who sustain either of the extreme theories are\nequally clear and convincing in their arguments. As each party seems to\nhave a personal interest in the matter, we may be certain that it will\nfind what it is looking for, without much trouble; but they both seem to\nbe striving more often after a reputation for themselves than after the\nreal thought of their author. One ingenious critic even goes so far as\nto assert that Dionysos does not work miracles, but merely hypnotises\nthe chorus into a belief that he has done so, to the great amusement of\nthe audience. Perhaps it is some mental disability which prevents me\nfrom enjoying \"The Bacchae\" as a comedy, but I own I cannot. To Renan\nand to Euripides one might apply the term \u1f00\u03bd\u1f74\u03c1 \u03b4\u03af\u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2. They were both\nequally saturated with the scientific spirit of their age, though\ninclining to the mystic temperament. They were both quickened by a deep\nlove and pity for humanity in all its moods and aspirations. They both\ndelighted keenly in popular legends and the mythology of the\ncountry-side. Both were strongly individual minds, sensitive, reacting\nto every contemporary influence, and yet preserving their peculiar\ndistinction in thought and style. Unbound by any system, moving easily\nin all, they sought by the free exercise of reason and a profound irony\nto cleanse their ages of much perilous stuff; and though Renan was not a\nChristian in the common sense of the word, and though Euripides turned\naway from the gods of his own day, yet each tried to save out of the\nruins of their faiths the subtile and elusive spirit which had informed\nthem; that divine light and inspiration, which is continually expressing\nitself in new figures, and cannot be imprisoned in any vessel of human\nfashioning. \"Anima naturaliter Christiana,\" we can say of each. There\nare in reality only two religions on this little planet, and they\nperhaps begin and end with man. They are: the religion of the humble\nfolk, whose life is a daily communion with natural forces, and a bending\nto them; and the religion of men like Protagoras, Lucretius, and\nMontaigne, a religion of doubt, of tolerance, of agnosticism. Between\nthese two poles is nothing but a dreary waste of formalism, Pharisaism,\n\"perplexed subtleties about Instants, Formalities, Quiddities, and\nRelations,\" all that bewildering of brains which comes from being shut\nup in a narrow system, like an invalid in a poisoned and stifling room.\n\nI think that all the world's greatest men have had this quality of\ndouble-mindedness. Take, for example, the curious paradox of\nEpicureanism, which counsels a temperate pleasure, and yet condemns the\nwhole of life as being merely the pursuit of an unattainable desire;\nreconciling us to life by the prospect of death, and to death by showing\nus the vain efforts and innumerable vexations of life. The same\ndouble-mindedness partly explains for us the difference between the\nSocrates of Plato and the Socrates of Xenophon; though we must not\noverlook the fundamental difference in the biographers. This elusive and\nvarious quality of greatness has not, I think, been sufficiently\nrecognised. There is no more suggestive expression of it than the\ncharacter of Christ as sketched by Oscar Wilde in \"De Profundis,\" which\nmay be supplemented by the masterly delineation of M. Loisy in his\nprolegomena to \"Les Evangiles Synoptiques.\"\n\nIn the following studies, the principal influence is that of Renan;\nthough I profess I cannot gauge its full extent. The discourse of\nProtagoras owes some of its principles to the dialogue \"Certitudes\"; but\nthe pivot, upon which the whole question turns, came directly from a\nstudy of the \"Theaetetus\" and the \"Protagoras,\" so that the debt is\nscarcely perceptible. Protagoras himself practically does not exist for\nus, we can only evoke a shadowy image of him from Plato, for whose\nsomewhat reactionary bias full allowance must be made. The result is a\nvague reflection with blurred outlines, but gracious, and with neither\nthe greed nor the vanity of the other sophists. I do not think that\nRenan's verdicts have influenced my treatment of St Paul. Renan has a\nnatural prejudice against _ce laid petit Juif_, with his Rabbinical\npseudo-science, and his blindness to the beauty of the Greek spirit, his\nscorn of the \"idols,\" and his misconception of what was meant by \"the\nunknown God.\" I do not share this prejudice. I am perfectly willing to\ntake a thing for what it is, and not to grumble at it for not being\nother than it is. The strength of St Paul was like the strength of one\nof Michelangelo's unfinished statues; the idea is emerging from the\nmarble, but it is still veiled, rude, scarred by the chisel, and not yet\nquite free of its material.\n\nMachiavelli said that to renew anything we must return to its origins.\nIt is as true in literature as in life. My aim has been to derive\neverything from the original source; but it is difficult to avoid being\ntouched by contemporary influences. The majority of these, in my case,\nhave been French. I am indebted for the two characteristic letters of\nInnocent III. to Achille Luchaire's admirable history of that Pope,\nwhich he fortunately lived to finish; and to the always fascinating\nGaston Boissier for his various work on Rome. I am under a deep\nobligation to Mr L. Arthur Burd, as are all English students of\nMachiavelli. Finally, I am indebted, more than I can say, to M. l'Abb\u00e9\nHoutin for his interest and encouragement, and to Mr Arthur Galton for\nhis example and conversation.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n                                                     PAGE\n\n                I. THE KING OF URUK                     1\n\n               II. AT THE HOUSE OF EURIPIDES           55\n\n              III. THE FRIEND OF PAUL                  99\n\n               IV. THE JESTERS OF THE LORD            157\n\n                V. AT SAN CASCIANO                    197\n\n               VI. THE PARADISE OF THE DISILLUSIONED  241\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                                                      _TO ARTHUR GALTON_\n\n\n\n\n                                   I\n\n                            THE KING OF URUK\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENES AND PORTRAITS\n\n\n\n\n                                   I\n\n                            THE KING OF URUK\n\n\nWhen Merodach, the King of Uruk, sate down to his meals, he made his\nenemies his foot-stool; for beneath his table he kept an hundred kings,\nwith their thumbs and great toes cut off, as living witnesses of his\npower and clemency. When the crumbs fell from the table of Merodach, the\nKings would feed themselves with two fingers; and when Merodach observed\nhow painful and difficult the operation was, he praised God for having\ngiven thumbs to man.\n\n\"It is by the absence of thumbs,\" he said, \"that we are enabled to\ndiscern their use. We invariably learn the importance of what we lack.\nIf we remove the eyes from a man we deprive him of sight; and\nconsequently we learn that sight is the function of the eyes.\"\n\nThus spake Merodach, for he had a scientific mind, and was curious of\nGod's handiwork; and when he had finished speaking the courtiers\napplauded him.\n\n\"Great is the power of the Great King, and most wonderful is his\nwisdom,\" cried the courtiers; and the King shook out his napkin under\nthe table, shaking the crumbs among his prostrate enemies, for the\napplause was pleasant to him; but from beneath the table came a harsh,\nsarcastic voice.\n\n\"Great is the power of the Great King, and most wonderful is his\nwisdom,\" said the voice; \"but neither from his power nor from his wisdom\ncan he fashion us new thumbs.\"\n\nThen was Merodach angry, and he bade his courtiers seize the speaker and\ndraw him from beneath the table; and the man they drew out was\nShalmaneser, who had been a king among the kings of Chald\u00e6a. And at\nfirst Merodach was of a mind to kill Shalmaneser; but, seeing that his\ncaptive sought for death, his heart relented, and he bade his courtiers\nrestore him to his place beneath the table.\n\n\"My power and my wisdom are great,\" he said; \"since I have so afflicted\nmine enemies that they fear not to tell me the truth.\"\n\nAnd when Merodach had eaten, he rose from the table and went out into\nthe gardens of the terrace where the nightingales were singing; but the\nkings beneath the table smote Shalmaneser sorely upon both cheeks, and\nupon his buttocks, and tore out the hair of his beard; for after that he\nhad spoken, Merodach had shaken out the crumbs from his napkin among\nthem no more, and they had supped poorly.\n\nThen Merodach wandered about in his garden, listening to the song of the\nnightingales who nested there, and smelling the sweet smells of the\nflowers that were odorous in the cool of the evening; and behind him,\nfifty paces, there followed his guards, for he was afraid for his life.\nThe dew fell upon the glazed bricks, gleaming in the moonlight, and hung\nfrom the trees and flowers like little trembling stars. Merodach leaned\nhis arms upon a balustrade and looked over the city which he had builded\non the left bank of the Euphrates, and watched the illuminated barges\nthat went up and down the river, rowing with music upon the waters; and\nhe looked toward the high temples looming into the night, and he thought\nof his glory and was exceeding sad.\n\n\"In a little time I die,\" he said; \"but the city which I have builded\nwill be a witness for me while man survives on the earth.\"\n\nAnd from the barges came the pleasant sound of music, floating through\nthe night, and Merodach regretted that he would have to die, and in a\nlittle while would walk no more through his garden in the cool of the\nevening, listening to the sounds of life, and smelling the sweet breath\nof the flowers.\n\n\"In a little while the race of man will have perished from off the\nearth,\" he said; \"and there will be no memory of me, but the stars will\nshine still above my ruined and tenantless palace.\"\n\nAnd the night-wind, laden with scents and sounds, shook the dew from the\ntrembling leaves, and moved his silken raiment; and Merodach was\novercome with a passion for life.\n\n\"In a little time,\" he thought, \"even the stars will have vanished.\"\n\nAnd from the adjoining gardens of his harem he heard the voices of women\nwaiting to pleasure their lord; and he went in unto them for he feared\nto be alone.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the garden of Merodach's harem, the Queen Parysatis held a feast in\nhonour of her daughter, the Princess Candace, who was eleven years old.\nThe Queen Parysatis lay upon a pile of cushions looking at a tragedy\nthat was being enacted by a company of eunuchs. The Princess Candace was\nstanding beside a deep basin of silver, seventy cubits in diameter,\ncalled the Sea of Silver; and she threw sugar-plums to a troop of little\ngirls, who dived after them, gleaming fish-like in the luminous depths.\nWhen she saw the King, her father, she stopped throwing sugar-plums, and\nthe little girls came out of the water, and sate upon the silver rim,\ntheir wet, naked limbs glimmering in the moonlight. Then the Princess\nCandace did homage before Merodach, bowing down before him and touching\nhis feet; and he stretched forth his hand to her, and led her to a\ncouch, because he loved his children, and she was as beautiful as the\nnew moon before it is a day old.\n\nNow it chanced that at that time the High-priest Bagoas, who was\nHigh-priest of the temple of Bel at Nippur, was in the palace of the\nKing; and Merodach sent for him, desiring him to speak comfortable\ndoctrine and words cheering to the heart; and Bagoas came in unto\nMerodach, and did homage before him, bowing down before him and touching\nhis feet; and there was no one in the cities of Babylonia more powerful\nthan Bagoas, unless it were the King himself.\n\n\"As I walked in the garden in the evening,\" said Merodach, \"I became\nafflicted with a sense of human transience and of the vanity of\ngreatness. In a little time, I said, I shall be but a handful of dust.\nThen I comforted myself with the thought that I should live in the\nmemory of man, through my monuments, while man survives upon the earth;\nbut in a little time man himself disappears, I said, and even the stars\nare lost in darkness.\"\n\nAnd Bagoas smiled.\n\n\"It is true, O King, man cometh upon the earth and rules it for a little\nspace, like a god. In hollow ships, he sails over the pathless sea; and\nhe has mapped out the heavens naming the stars; and he follows the\ncourses of the planets round the sun; and he knoweth the seasons of\nreaping and sowing, by the constellations rising or setting in the sky.\nHis cunning mind has devised screws to draw water up out of the earth,\nand pulleys and levers to uplift masses beyond his strength. He is a\nmaster of populous cities, a weaver of delicate textures, a limner of\nimages in fair colours; he is a tamer of horses, skilled in the\nknowledge of flocks and herds; with hooks he draweth fish out of the\nsea, and with an arrow transfixes a bird on the wing; he fashions the\nmetals in fire, beating the gold and stubborn bronze to his will. He\nunderstands the laws of Nature, and has named the force which draws the\nearth round the sun, and the moon round the earth; but time is his\nmaster, and he cannot find a remedy against death.\"\n\n\"Nor fashion a thumb for man,\" said Merodach.\n\n\"The fear of death is the greatest incitement to live,\" continued\nBagoas. \"It is the goad which incessantly urges us to action. Our desire\nto live, to persist in one form or another, impels us to beget children,\nto overpower the imagination of future ages by the splendour of our\nmonuments and the record of our lives. We seek to stamp our image upon\nour time, and influence our generation by every means in our power. But\neven this is not enough, so we have built ourselves a little world\nbeyond the grave, a little haven beyond the waves of time. We believe\nthat our souls will exist when our bodies have fallen into decay and\nescaped into a thousand different forms of new life, to be woven\neternally on the loom of perpetual change. We believe that death is\nmerely a transition, and that through virtue man is able to scale the\nbrazen ramparts of the city of the gods.\"\n\n\"If he is very good,\" said the Princess Candace.\n\n\"Little Princess,\" said Bagoas, smiling, \"your beauty is like a bright\nrainbow in the sky; the sunlight streaming upon drifting rain. Have you\never considered the personality of man, O King? Everything that has\nexisted in the past exists in the soul of man. In its depths are the\nprimeval monsters, Apsu and Tiamat. In its heights are enthroned the\ngods; action in it is heaped upon action to become habit, and habit upon\nhabit to become character; all that we have seen, all that we have\ntouched, the experience of the senses, the illusions of the brain, the\ndesires of the heart, our ancestors, our companions, our country and\noccupations, all move and work mysteriously in our being. Each has left\nits trace upon the personality of man. Do you seek immortality for\nthese? You will leave them with the world. Seek for yourself before you\nseek for self's immortality. Beneath what you seem to be lies what you\nthink you are, and beneath that again lies what you are indeed.\"\n\n\"Alas,\" cried Queen Parysatis, \"such an immortality is too\nunsubstantial. It is our illusions, our experiences, and our\naspirations, which give a savour to existence. What is the use of\nimmortality if we leave everything we love?\"\n\n\"Mankind, O King,\" answered Bagoas, \"loves its imperfections more than\nits perfections, and values as nothing an immortality which is devoid of\nour human frailties, our pitiful human friendships, our personal\npredilections which we obtusely term our principles.\"\n\n\"It is true,\" said Merodach, \"I die; but that which is mortal of me\nremains upon earth to be a witness for me in the memory of man.\"\n\n\"The whole of recorded time is but a second, a pulsation, in the ages,\"\nanswered Bagoas, \"and the memory of man is the frailest of monuments.\nThe Temple of Bel at Nippur is not two thousand years old; yet its\nbricks are engraven with a dead language, and we know not its builder's\nname. So it will be with thy temples and cities, O King!\"\n\n\"I have said it,\" answered Merodach.\n\n\"Perhaps after thousands of years have lapsed,\" continued Bagoas, \"a\npeasant will find a brick with thy name upon it, and cast it aside, or\ntread it under foot. But even to-day I have met and spoken with a man in\nwhose horoscope it was written that his name would be remembered while\nman exists upon the earth; yet he is naked, and his house is a cabin of\nboughs.\"\n\n\"Was it foreshadowed that he would become King?\" enquired Merodach\nanxiously.\n\n\"No; his inheritance is poverty and pain.\"\n\n\"What is his name?\" enquired the King.\n\n\"His name is Adam,\" answered Bagoas.\n\nThen there was a silence in the garden of the King's harem; and Merodach\nwondered that the memory of one who went naked, and dwelt in a cabin of\nboughs, should outlast the memory of a King before whom the nations\ntrembled, who went clothed in purple and fine linen, and whose palace\nwas built of thirty-five million bricks. But he consoled himself with\nthe thought that eventually even Adam would be forgotten, and the lights\nof Sirius and Aldebaran extinguished.\n\n\"Tell me of Adam,\" he said to Bagoas; and the Princess Candace drew\ncloser to listen.\n\n\"Our life, O King, is a series of accidents,\" said Bagoas. \"A little\nthing is sufficient to divert the whole course of our progress; it has\neven been said by our philosophers that the world itself is an accident,\nand that God is chance. I am inclined to believe, being old-fashioned,\nin Providence; for chance is merely a cause that is imperceptible, and\nif the deflection of atoms falling through space caused the world, that\ndeflection was the result of some feature peculiar to the atoms\nthemselves. I believe that, if the world were formed in this way, the\ncause was inherent in the atoms, and I believe that the progress of each\nman through life is derived from causes inherent in himself. But the\noperations of the human mind are so far removed from our experience, and\nso elusive in themselves, that we cannot explain them otherwise than by\nsaying that Bel, by the hands of his angels, puts into man's mind ideas\nof good or of evil according to the purpose of his inscrutable wisdom.\nThe greater part of man's life is purely spontaneous, sensible rather\nthan reasonable in so far as the majority of our actions do not result\nfrom any reflective process, and hence it is unreasonable to ask a man\nto give reasons for all his acts, as it would be to ask you, O King, to\ngive a reason for your last campaign.\"\n\n\"That was a reason of State,\" said Merodach simply.\n\n\"The reason was the reason of a great King, whose wisdom is as\ninscrutable as the wisdom of Bel,\" answered Bagoas. \"It was a lapse of\nthe mind that led me to Adam; one might say almost an act of Providence,\nor to be scientific, chance. This morning at daybreak I had a desire to\nride abroad, for I had not slept during the night, and the sweetness of\nthe air enticed me into the country. I took a falcon upon my wrist.\nFalconry was a delight of my youth. But I had barely proceeded a mile\nbefore I became preoccupied with my own thoughts. The hares passed me\nunobserved; the doves were free of the air. I was thinking how often man\nhas crept up toward civilisation, and then receded from it again, as the\ntides creep up and recede from the beach; how the light of the world has\npassed from nation to nation, and none have brought it to the goal; how\nman forgets the evils which the last generation had abolished, and\nrushes back upon them to escape from present evils; and it seemed to me\nimpossible that our race could attain to perfection in conditions of\nsuch mutability. We sow our wisdom with full hands. We think that it may\nincrease fifty-fold. Alas! some of our seed falls in marshy places, some\namong stones, some is devoured by the birds of the air, some flourishes\nexceedingly, and is beaten down by storms of hail, or withered by the\nfierce heat; and that which survives and bears fruit is scarcely\nsufficient for the sowing of the field again.\n\n\"Every night a priest of Bel watches the stars; with optic glasses he\nexplores the vast abyss, through which the sun and its choir of planets\njourney toward their fate; and when his mind is troubled by that\ninfinity, his eyes seek thy city, O King, and mankind to him is but a\nlittle heap of withered leaves, which a sudden wind whirls in a circling\ndance. From his tower, O King, he looks upon thy city, which to us, from\nhere, is splendid with a multitude of lights, and murmurous with life.\nHe knows that in the streets the young man is seeking pleasure, that\nwomen are bearing children, that the old are dying. All the wealth and\nmisery of the world are at his feet; and he turns again to that star\nwhich is destined to burn up the world in a tumultuous kiss. What is the\nlust of the young to him; the pangs of child-birth; the bitterness; the\nregret; the anguish of approaching death? A little heap of withered\nleaves suddenly caught up in a windy dance; a little flame, flickering\nere it goes out into darkness.\n\n\"From this spirit of detachment in the philosopher is bred a\ncorresponding spirit of aloofness in the multitude. They see the towers\nof Bel, black against the evening sky, and the watcher to them is but a\nman enamoured of the silence, smitten with madness by the stars; a man\nwhose life is in the future, whose wisdom is but a sure foreknowledge of\ndeath and fate, whose very presence among them is a prophecy of\ncorruption and change; and they ask, well may they ask! what is his\nwisdom worth to us? The days are blue and gold, blue and silver are the\nnights; and the birds are clamorous among the dripping boughs; why\nshould we pause to think of fate? What does his wisdom profit him when\nin a little time he dies, and is equal with us in the dust? The flowers\nbud, blossom, and seed, without thought for the departing year; the\nbirds go delightfully upon the ways of the wind, though the arrows which\nshall bring them to earth are stored in the quiver. Shall we do\notherwise?\n\n\"Truly the worshipper of wisdom is a lonely man. The results which he\nobtains are never the possession of the many. They may excite the\ncuriosity of the few, they may become an affectation with the amateur,\nbut they do not touch the multitude, for to this last that only is good\nwhich is good in its immediate effect. Miserable indeed, the race of man\nseemed to me, O King; content that their mortal ambition should be\nbounded by the limits of a day; seeking only fat pastures and pleasant\nwaters; and careless of the lot of their progeny, whose fate it is to\ncover the whole earth with populous cities, and stream like a river of\nfire, impetuous and consuming, into hidden and desolate places, which\nonly the eyes of the gods have seen as yet. The treasure of wisdom is a\ntreasure which is continually being lost, rediscovered, and lost again.\nIt is like the gold of the miser, hidden in the ground; his son does not\ninherit it, but after many years some labourer turns it up with his\ndeep-driven ploughshare, and the coins ring against the stones, and lie\nwith tarnished brightness on the loose earth of the furrow.\n\n\"A confused murmuring distracted my thought. I seemed to swim back to\nreality out of a world of dreams. At first I thought that I had\napproached a hive of wild bees; but the humming murmuring noise seemed\nsweeter, more bird-like, until I saw that it came indeed from a\nparliament of birds, which had congregated in the boughs of an\napple-tree, warbling there, and rising every now and then into the air,\nwith a great rushing of wings, to wheel above the tree and descend upon\nit again in a thick cloud. I had strayed into a pleasant valley, where\nthe Euphrates flows between level meadows of wild wheat, enclosed, like\nan amphitheatre, by well-wooded hills, which had already taken on the\ntawny and golden tints of autumn.\n\n\"On the lower slopes grew mulberries and oranges; above them, threaded\nwith opulent colouring, plane-trees and sycamores, yellowing oaks, and\nthe beautiful level boughs of dusky cedars, while from all sides came\nthe sound of falling water, chiming and tinkling into little hollows, or\nthundering in cataracts, with a more imperious music, down precipitous\nand rocky glens. The sunlit fields of ripe wheat swayed in the wind like\nan undulating sea; the river gleamed like silver, and many coloured\nlilies grew beside the brimming water, filling the air with a delicate\nperfume. I looked about me in delight. It seemed a place sacred from the\nprofaning feet of man. At the same time, I had a curious sense of being\nwatched; and presently a young man rose out of the wild wheat before me,\nand stood watching me, with an expression of curiosity qualified with\ndistrust.\"\n\nA languid interest was apparent in the faces of his audience.\n\n\"It was Adam,\" said Merodach.\n\n\"At last,\" said Queen Parysatis.\n\n\"It was Adam,\" answered Bagoas, smiling. \"I have attempted, O King, to\ngive you some notion of the thoughts which preoccupied me at my meeting\nwith him. My outlook upon things is historical, and therefore\nnecessarily pessimistic. Adam broke in upon my thoughts as a prophecy, a\npromise. He was in his first manhood, almost still a boy, and\nrepresented, in consequence, an earlier stage of evolution. He seemed in\nfact half child, and half animal. He had the stature of a man; he was\nwell built, muscular, giving one the impression of an immense but\ngraceful strength, of easy movements. His features were handsome, but\nunlike those usual in our country; the nose was a little rapacious, the\nmouth cruel, but his eyes were full of dreams. It was the face of one\nwho looks towards distant horizons, having the immense calm of the\ndesert, and full of a sleeping energy. Youth softened it, and lent it a\ndelicate charm; but in age it will be terrible. And suddenly I heard a\nsullen voice saying: 'This is my garden.'\n\n\"I have noticed in all nomadic peoples, and in small scattered\ncommunities, that however terse the language, and however limited the\nvocabulary, the words are capable of innumerable shades of meaning.\nGesture and modulation lend force and precision to what is said. Perhaps\nthis is why the art of the theatre is always, at its best, the art of a\nna\u00efve and unsophisticated people. Life in town tends to the production\nof a type, and individuality is suppressed; but life in the country,\nwhere the conventions are few and simple, tends to the formation of\ncharacter. The theatric art, among town-dwellers, loses its broad\nsimplicity and that directness of purpose which show man in immediate\ncollision with facts, and is frittered away in mean motives and\nintangible temperaments, substituting for the play of circumstances the\nplay of ideas. It is for the same reason that great empires always\nperish at the heart first; because dwellers in towns become uniform, and\nbeing surrounded by artificial circumstances are seldom brought into\ndirect conflict with facts, but learn to cheat themselves with fine\nphrases and immaterial ideas.\"\n\n\"The good Bagoas is really a little prolix,\" whispered Parysatis to\nMerodach.\n\nBagoas heard the interruption and continued tranquilly:\n\n\"'This is my garden,' said Adam; and his words implied not only that I\nwas an intruder, and that he was a proprietor, but also that the garden\nwas beautiful, and that he was proud of it. I explained that I had lost\nmy way, that I was hungry, that I was tired; and even as I spoke a young\nwoman rose up out of the wheat and looked at me curiously.\n\n\"'We have little,' said Adam.\n\n\"They led me to their cabin of boughs, and brought me food; and they\nwere naked and were not ashamed. They were strangers to the use of fire,\nand my meal consisted of nuts and honey, goat's milk and dates, such\nfood as, our poets say, nourished the people of the golden age. In front\nof their cabin was an apple-tree, similar to the one upon which the\nbirds had congregated, only with golden instead of ruddy fruit. I asked\nAdam if he would give me an apple from it.\n\n\"'The tree is dedicated,' he said; 'and we may not eat of the fruit; it\nis forbidden to us.'\n\n\"'We may not even touch it with our hands,' said the woman, who was\ncalled Eve; and she looked at the fruit covetously.\n\n\"'To what god is it dedicated?' I enquired of them.\n\n\"'It is dedicated to God,' replied Adam simply.\n\n\"And I was surprised that this man, who had so many needs, should have\nonly one god; but very soon I found that his monotheism was but a rude\ncrystallisation of the spiritual forces of earth and air, a kind of\nshamanism, though with the many considered as one. His god was the god\nof fertility, who had caused the earth to put forth grass, and the trees\nto bear fruit, and all things to bring forth after their kind; a god\nwhose voice was heard on the wind of the day, and who breathed into man\nthe breath of life. In his loneliness Adam had told himself stories as\nchildren do, and, as with children, his imagination had laid hold with\nsuch intensity of vision upon these fanciful adventures of his mind that\nhe seemed to live in a little world of his own creating, a land of\nenchantment and of dreams. The wind, the waters, the leaves of the never\nsilent trees, the birds and the beasts of the field, all spoke in what\nwas to him an intelligible voice; and his god was a being not far\nremoved from himself, enjoying, even as Adam himself did, the cool of\nthe day, the blithe air, and the breath of the sweet flowers.\n\n\"'How came it that this particular tree should be forbidden to you?' I\nenquired of them, for I was curious of the spiritual workings of their\nminds.\n\n\"'In the day that we came into this garden,' answered Adam, 'I had a\ndesire to eat of the fruit, and I stretched my hand toward the tree when\nI heard a voice upon the wind, saying: \"In the day that ye eat thereof\nye shall surely die.\"'\n\n\"'It is curious,' I murmured. 'The fruit is wholesome, one would think\nthat to eat thereof would give life rather than death.'\n\n\"'If we ate of the fruit would we not die?' enquired Eve.\n\n\"'If ye ate of it you would know,' I answered, smiling at the simplicity\nof the question; and then I spoke to Adam of other things. I love the\nconversation of the young, O King. It brings back to me the time when I,\ntoo, had illusions, hopes, and ideals. The sole illusions remaining to\nmine old age are the illusion of life, and the hope that where we have\nfailed our children may succeed. Adam believes that all men are\nnaturally good, and that it is society which makes them evil; he does\nnot see that society cannot be different from what it is since it is a\npurely natural development, and that its laws were not made by men, but\nare merely a recognition of certain instincts peculiar to mankind, and\nof the effects which the exercise of these instincts invariably\nproduces. His point of view is that of the individual; and the egoism of\nthe individual is always in conflict with the collective egoism of the\nstate. He believes that men are born equal, and that society loads them\nwith chains. He cannot grasp the seeming paradox that what he imagines\nto be the natural man is really artificial, and that what he imagines to\nbe an artificial society is really the expression of natural laws. Adam\nhimself is not natural, he is kindly and hospitable to strangers, he is\ngentle, and loves his wife, he is practically a monotheist.\n\n\"Every individual is like Adam in this. We are all idealists. All of us\nhave excellent intentions; but the world is so constituted that we can\nnever carry them out. Adam has never been in a great city, but he has\nseen from afar the huge towers of Uruk looming into the night, and they\nare to him in their proud invasion of the sky a symbol of man's\nrebellion against the decrees of God, who fashioned him to be a feeble\ncreature, scratching about upon the surface of the earth, and to draw\nhis whole being from that shallow deposit of productive soil which he\ncultivates laboriously. He considers our temples to be the work of some\ndemonic agency, for he does not think it possible that beings similar to\nhimself should uplift these gigantic masses into the air. Our works of\npride are, therefore, evil to him, since they differ from the works of\nhis native humility; to live like Adam is to live virtuously; and that\nwhich is different from his mode of life is evil.\"\n\nHere Merodach and the Queen Parysatis laughed at the simplicity of Adam,\nand the Princess Candace also laughed because she did not understand why\nthey were amused. Bagoas looked at his audience with a faint tolerant\nsmile.\n\n\"You find Adam's standard of good and evil laughable,\" he said. \"It is\nin fact a little comic, but human, quite human, and quite logical. He\nsays in effect: 'I, Adam, am good; those who differ from me, differ from\nwhat is good, and are consequently evil.' This position, which we find\nso laughable in others, is really common to us all; only, unfortunately,\na sense of humour is a sense which we never apply to ourselves. Who will\ndeny that Adam is wise in limiting his desires to such things as lie\neasily within his reach, if happiness be the end of wisdom? The earth\ngives him of her fulness, the climate of his valley is mild and\ntemperate, snow does not fall there nor is it vexed by winds; the misery\nof his fellows is hidden from him, he is without care for the morrow; in\nlimiting his desires he has extended the possibilities of delight, and\njoy comes to him unexpectedly as if it were a miracle wrought by God.\"\n\n\"A charming life!\" exclaimed the Queen. \"Your barbarians are like\nchildren.\"\n\n\"Yes; they are like children,\" answered Bagoas. \"In fact they still are\nchildren, and so I have treated them. I cast Adam's horoscope, and read\ntherein the wonderful things which the stars ordain for him. In this\nhoroscope I read that Adam is to be the father of a race which shall\nrevolutionise the world; a little obstinate people inhabiting a country\nin the west toward the sea; a people of slaves, outraged and despised,\nyet leavening all the peoples among whom they dwell. It is this race of\nslaves that will pass on the light and wisdom of Chald\u00e6a to nations as\nyet unborn. While thy monuments, O King, are sleeping beneath the\ndrifted sands of the desert, the name of Adam will pass from tongue to\ntongue, and distant peoples will come to think of him as the father of\nthe whole human race. The arts and sciences of Uruk will be forgotten,\nand the world will be duped by a record of events which never happened,\nmyths and legends stolen from surrounding nations and woven into a\ncurious asymmetrical whole, full of contradictions and puerilities.\n\n\"Truly in Adam's horoscope everything is a contradiction. From being the\nhappiest man, he will become the most miserable; after a life spent in\nobscurity he will achieve almost an eternity of fame, and his children,\na race of slaves, will impose their law upon the world for nearly two\nthousand years. It is incredible. Surely my meditation as I rode toward\nhim was not without cause. Our wisdom, the science of Chald\u00e6a, is the\nmiser's gold which shall be lost in the earth, and whatever of us\nsurvives in the memory of man will survive through the children of Adam.\nI told him nothing of this, but prophesied that he would be a wanderer\nuntil his death, at which he smiled.\n\n\"'That may not be,' he said; 'because God has put me into this garden to\ndress it and keep it.'\n\n\"Then the woman filled a bowl with milk and took it over toward the\ntree, and a great bronze serpent came out from the roots of the tree and\ndrank the milk which she offered him; wherefore, in spite of their\nmonotheism, I think that they are of the people who worship snakes and\ntrees, and that the tree was taboo because of the serpent which dwelt in\nits roots.\"\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"It may well be as you say,\" said Merodach, after a silence. \"Still it\nis curious that a monotheist should worship snakes and trees. Perhaps\nhis god is the local djinn; as with the nomadic tribes, the action of\nthe gods is limited to certain territories, and the wandering herds, in\nchanging their pastures, change their gods also. In effect the King is\nthe god. He rules by divine right, he represents the aspirations of his\npeople, and is the visible symbol without which all religions are but\ninarticulate yearnings. You would naturally be interested, as a priest,\nin the religion of Adam; but I am more interested in the fact that a\nnomad should inhabit a garden. It interests me, as a statesman, because\nit represents the beginnings of society. A nomad wanders for two\nreasons; to change his hunting grounds, and to seek fresh pastures. Some\nnomads, especially in countries where the fertility of the soil is\neasily exhausted, plough, sow, reap the harvest, and then depart into a\nnew place; but when fruit-trees are planted the owner remains beside\nthem. Their roots have bound him to the soil. All existing civilisations\nhave arisen through the fact that man gathers the fruit of a tree, and\nnot the tree itself.\"\n\nBagoas smiled, and discreetly said nothing.\n\n\"To-morrow I shall visit Adam,\" said Merodach; \"from the unsophisticated\nthere is always much to learn.\"\n\n\"You may be disappointed,\" said Bagoas gently. \"I like the lowly and\nhumble people, and I may have prejudiced you, unwittingly, in Adam's\nfavour. His sincerity may seem to you rude.\"\n\n\"Simplicity of manner is charming,\" answered Merodach. \"I believe that\nall our courtly graces, everything which is implied by the word good\nbreeding, have their roots in the natural instincts of man. Of course,\nthe simple people move more awkwardly in the conventional restraints;\nand good manners, which we wear like jewellery, are with them heavy\nfetters; but I place implicit trust in Adam's natural good taste.\"\n\n\"I should love to see Adam,\" said the Queen Parysatis.\n\n\"But he is naked,\" objected the Princess Candace.\n\n\"We shall bring him some leopard-skins, such as my guards wear,\" said\nMerodach. \"Come to supper.\"\n\nThey moved through a grove of orange-trees towards a great pavilion\nwhere supper was being served. Bagoas left them; and, leaning on a\nbalustrade, he looked over Uruk.\n\n\"Certainly Adam is unfortunate,\" he said.\n\n                                   II\n\nMerodach went forth unto Eden, and with him there went his wives and his\nconcubines, his poets and his pastry-cooks, his falconers, his\nflute-players, and his players upon the viol, his bow-men and his\nspearmen; and the number of those who followed him were ten thousand and\nten, without counting the mule-drivers, and the camel-drivers, and the\ndrivers of elephants. And the noise of their going filled the whole\nland, and a great cloud of dust went up from their feet. Bagoas rode\nwith Merodach upon the King's elephant, whose tusks were studded with\nprecious stones, and who had jewels in his ears, and Bagoas spoke wisely\nunto the King.\n\n\"Man is naturally vain,\" said Bagoas. \"He believes always that he has\nfinally explained the universe, and that nothing remains for him but a\nlife of virtue, and the approbation of a God, who shall exalt him above\nhis fellows. But it seems to me, O King, that all human systems of\nreligion and philosophy have the same nature as the system of a fakir\nwhom I once met in the desert. He told me that the world was supported\nby a pillar of adamant, which was borne by an elephant, who stood upon\nthe back of a tortoise.\"\n\n\"And what supported the tortoise?\" enquired Merodach curiously.\n\n\"When I asked him that question, O King, he answered that it was a holy\nmystery, that the question was blasphemous in itself, and that all\nanswers were equally heretical.\"\n\nThe Queen Parysatis rode with the court poet upon another elephant, and\nthe poet, whose name was Mekerah, made delicate songs for her.\n\n\"The old look upon the stars,\" sang the poet, \"they seek wisdom in the\nheavens; but I look into the eyes of my beloved. What stars are like her\neyes? What wisdom can compare with the wisdom of love?\"\n\n\"You have said the same thing a hundred times,\" complained the Queen.\n\nBut the Princess Candace rode upon a white elephant caparisoned with\ncloth of silver embroidered with pearls. No one rode with her but the\ndriver of the elephant, and she sat under a canopy of silk which was\nshot with the colours that are in the shell of the pearl, and before her\nelephant on a white mule rode her juggler. He rode with his face to the\ntail, and juggled with oranges and a sword; the sword meeting the\noranges in the air divided them neatly into halves, and then again into\nquarters. He was a dwarf, incredibly ugly, hunch-backed, with long\nspidery arms; but the little Princess loved him.\n\n\"Look at me!\" he shrilled in a falsetto voice. \"Look at me, little\nPrincess! Who will say that jugglery is not the supreme art? Verily, it\nis the art of arts! The poet does but juggle with words, yet he does not\npreserve so perfect a rhythm. Mekerah's verses are lame, but mine\noranges do not halt; they dance in the air with the grace of a little\nPrincess who dances in silver slippers before the throne of her father.\nThe High-priest Bagoas juggles with theories; the Great King juggles\nwith the fears and passions of his subjects; the gods juggle with our\npoor world, but I juggle with mine oranges. It is the same thing. Look\nat me, little Princess, look at me!\"\n\nHe swallowed the fragments of oranges as they descended, and then the\nsword.\n\n\"Uzal, you will make yourself sick,\" said Candace, \"and my maids will\nhave to tend you.\"\n\nThe juggler stood on his head and juggled with his feet.\n\n\"Truly, my lord,\" said Bagoas, \"the juggler of the Princess has good\nreason for what he says: in a sense we are all jugglers.\"\n\nBut the King was thinking of other things, and after a moment lifted his\nhead.\n\n\"Have you considered the Princess Candace, how she grows?\" he enquired\nof the High-priest.\n\n\"She is like a flower,\" answered Bagoas. \"She is like a silver lily\nopening its petals to the sun. She grows like a flower that the dew\nfalls upon, and her dreams are like dew.\"\n\n\"A few days ago she was a child, a few days more and she will be a\nwoman. It is time that she were married; but that man whom she marries\nwill be King after that I am dead, and I do not wish to hasten my\ndeath.\"\n\n\"She is young to go down into the cave of Ishtar,\" said Bagoas; \"she\nwould tremble when the last torch was extinguished; she would cry aloud\nwhen her husband came to her out of that darkness. Have you considered\none worthy to be her husband, O King?\"\n\n\"There is no one,\" answered Merodach. \"The children of my wives are all\ngirls, and the sons of my slaves are brawlers; men whose words are\nwind.\"\n\n\"Have you considered the son of thy cousin, Na'amah? He is sixteen years\nold, and has the heart of a lion. He is like a young lion in his first\nstrength. I have been the governor of his childhood, and in his heart\nthere is no guile.\"\n\n\"We shall consider him,\" said Merodach. \"Beyond are the hills of Eden.\"\n\n\"If we follow the course of the river we shall come to Adam's garden.\"\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was mid-day in Eden. The great snake hung in the branches of the\napple-tree, watching Adam and Eve, with dull, malignant eyes\nhalf-closed. He had shed his skin which hung from one of the branches,\nswaying idly in the wind, like a piece of grey ravelled lace; and the\ngreat snake coiled about the trunk shone with renewed splendour, like a\nbronze in which the colours of olive and red are graduated so as to mix\nand flow into each other through imperceptible shades of difference. The\nshadow of some domestic quarrel hung over Adam and Eve; he was moved by\nan ungracious solicitude for her comfort, and she received his\nattentions in offended humility. The snake watched the comedy with\nnarrow eyes; subtilty of enjoyment increasing the malign persistence of\nhis stare.\n\n\"I am unhappy,\" said Eve.\n\n\"It is because we have done wrong,\" said Adam.\n\n\"Let us go out into the desert. I do not like this place. The water is\nnot good; the air is heavy; it is a morass; the home of frogs and the\nabode of scorpions. At night I lie awake, looking through the door of\nour cabin, and I see the moonlight lying upon the water, and I hear a\nchorus of frogs; all night I hear the croaking of the frogs. It will\nmake me mad.\"\n\n\"Last night you crept into my arms and slept like a child,\" said Adam.\n\"You did not stir all night; but I lay awake looking at the moonlight\nand listening to the frogs. They chanted a spell to fill my soul with\nterror, and the moon also was full of evil. Then the whole earth\ndissolved like a dream, and the stars vanished as things that slip\nthrough water; and I seemed to be falling, falling through an endless\nsea of moonlight, falling towards the moon, and beyond the moon there\nwas nothing; but I felt you in mine arms, and I did not dare to move,\nlest you, too, should vanish with the world. This vision was sent to me\nby God that I might learn how unsubstantial is the world, as if it were\nbut the shadow of His thought, a dream within a dream.\"\n\n\"Do not let us talk of it,\" said Eve, trembling. \"Perhaps if I had not\nbeen here you would have fallen into nothing. It was because you held me\nthat you did not fall. This place will make me mad. Why are the leaves\nfalling from the trees?\"\n\n\"I do not know.\"\n\n\"The palm-trees in the desert do not lose their leaves. My heart is sick\nfor the palm-trees in the desert with the little slender moon shining\nabove them, and shining at the bottom of the deep wells. My heart is\nsick for the song of the nightingales. Why have the tops of the\nmountains turned white?\"\n\n\"I do not know,\" answered Adam; \"but once I saw from the desert a range\nof mountains, and their tops were white. They also had trees; but the\nleaves of the trees did not fall. These trees must be dead. Some great\nunhappiness is come upon the world. Last night I was cold.\"\n\n\"The sand of the desert is always warm,\" said Eve.\n\n\"O Eve, I am unhappy,\" said Adam, after a silence; \"I do not know what\nhas come upon the world. Last night when you crept into mine arms I was\ntroubled; never before have I been troubled while you were with me; but\nlast night, when you touched me, I trembled. I was unhappy, and I did\nnot know why I was unhappy; but I feared to lose you, Eve. Though I\ntouched you it seemed that you were far away. You were but a child when\nI first saw you with your mother; and I was twelve years old. It was\nlast moon that we came together again; in the day that the djinns came\ndown from the mountains and slew our kinsfolk. I was pasturing the\nsheep, and as I came back, leading my flock with my pipe, I saw the\ndying embers and the dead bodies. Then you called to me, and we fled\ntogether. Do you remember? That night we slept in the desert. I did not\ntremble when you touched me. You will never leave me, Eve? We are alone\nin the world. There are only ourselves, and the angels and the djinns.\"\n\n\"The djinn who came to us yesterday has made us unhappy,\" said Eve. \"He\nhas withered the trees and made the tops of the mountains white.\"\n\n\"He was not a djinn,\" said Adam; \"he was an angel. He smelt of roses,\nhis raiment was wonderful, he was clothed in glory.\"\n\n\"What is that noise?\" said Eve. \"What is that pillar of cloud that goeth\nup out of the earth?\"\n\nAnd they saw in the distance the army of Merodach, and, being afraid,\nthey fled.\n\n\"It is a pleasant site,\" said Merodach, as the elephants entered the\nvalley; \"the autumnal landscapes have always a certain melancholy which\ncharms me.\"\n\n\"The fallen leaves in the valleys are like fallen light,\" said Mekerah;\n\"that slender birch flamed yellow a moment ago, but, at a touch, went\nout in a shower of sparks.\"\n\n\"It must be delightfully cool in summer,\" said the Queen Parysatis.\n\n\"The best time is the spring,\" said the Princess Candace.\n\n\"The almond and cherry blossom will be out then,\" said Mekerah; \"these\nslopes will be all pink and white, with petals drifting in the wind. The\nhyacinths and daffodils will be out then; and the red flower of Tammuz\nwill fall upon the river.\"\n\n\"I should like to come here in the spring, and go naked, and live in a\ncabin of boughs like Adam,\" said the Princess Candace.\n\nAdam could not be found. Merodach ordered that his men should encircle\nthe whole valley, and drive whatever game there was toward him.\n\n\"In this way, if he is still here we shall find him; and in any case we\nshall have some sport.\"\n\nThen the servants of Merodach drove all the game that was in Eden past\nthe elephant of the Great King; and Merodach pierced the beasts and the\nbirds with his arrows, and the herds of Adam were scattered in the\nwilderness, bleating dispersedly, and the hollow caves answered their\nbleating, while the ewes sought their lambs, and the she-goats the kids\nof the flock. But Adam, the servants of Merodach could not find. Then\nthe slaves erected a pavilion of purple silk, upon which was embroidered\nthe whole story of Ut-Napishtim and the flood; the gods cowering like\ndogs at the fury of Rimmon, while Ishtar cried like a woman in travail,\nand the Anunnaki brought lightnings; and the race of man strewn like\nleaves upon the waters; and the waters like a great host rioting in the\nfury of battle, white-plumed squadrons of angry and tumultuous waves.\nYea, and therein was figured Ut-Napishtim looking from the window of the\nark; and the sending forth of the birds, the sending of the dove, the\nsending of the swallow, and the sending of the raven, who saw the\ndecrease of the waters, and ate, and waded, and croaked, and turned not\nback. And there was embroidered upon it the bow which Ishtar hung in the\nheavens, and the sacrifice which Ut-Napishtim offered unto the gods upon\nthe mountain, setting Adagur vases seven by seven, strewing reeds,\ncedar-wood, and incense before them, so that the gods smelt the goodly\nsavour, and gathered like flies over the sacrifice. The Princess Candace\nwas delighted with the tapestry, which she had never seen before.\nMekerah told her the story, handling the details with rare imagination,\nwhile the Princess ate larks stuffed with cherries. Then she turned\ntoward Bagoas.\n\n\"Priest of Bel,\" she said, \"how long is it since all this trouble came\nupon the world?\"\n\nAnd Bagoas smiled faintly, his smile expressive of many things.\n\n\"It happened, little Princess, in the time when the animals spoke with\nthe tongues of men.\"\n\nBut the Princess found this chronology too vague.\n\n\"When did the animals speak the language of men?\" she enquired.\n\n\"It is all a tale, little Princess. The animals never spoke as men do;\nbut once upon a time the speech of men was like that of animals.\"\n\n\"Then it never happened?\" enquired the Princess regretfully.\n\n\"No; it never happened,\" answered Bagoas.\n\nBut the King was outraged, for he claimed to be descended from\nUt-Napishtim.\n\n\"Candace,\" he said, \"the story is quite true. Gilgamesh builded a ship\nand pitched it within and without, and he took with him Ia-bani, and\nsome chosen comrades, and journeyed over the waters which engirdle the\nearth, and he crossed the river of death, which flows round these waters\nwithout mixing with them, and he landed in the country of the shades.\nThen he dug a trench, and cut the throat of a black bull so that the\nblood flowed into the trench, and the shades flocked to drink of the\nwarm blood; but Gilgamesh drove them from it with his sword until\nUt-Napishtim came to drink of it, and had drank his fill. And of all\nthese who came to drink of it only Ut-Napishtim and his wife had life\nand substance; but all the others were unsubstantial shades. Then\nUt-Napishtim told Gilgamesh all the things which had befallen him in\nthis life, and how that the gods had given him and his wife, alone of\nall human kind, imperishable bodies and immortal youth; but he said it\nwas sad to dwell among the shades, whom he could not touch with his\nhands, and to see loved faces, which, whenever the wind blew, lost their\nremembered contours, and became as wreaths of vapour drifting over the\ndesolate marshes. And he bade Gilgamesh to make haste and get him into\nhis ship again, for that if night found him there, he would become even\nas the shades himself, and his bones would rot by the bitter flood. Then\nGilgamesh made haste into his ship with his companions, and they lifted\nthe creaking sail, and bent to the oars, and departed over the sea. But\nUt-Napishtim stood upon the beach where the waves broke at his feet, and\nhis eyes strained after the vessel; for he was like an exile there, who\nsees a ship bound to his own country, and his heart goes with it. So the\nbody of Ut-Napishtim stood upon the beach, but his heart was with the\nliving offspring of his race; for a long time he stood thus, until the\nship was a mere speck on the waters, while tears blinded his eyes; then\nhe sighed and went back into the shadowy ways of that twilit land.\"\n\nHis audience listened to Merodach with astonishment, his voice was full\nof emotion. He had hurried through the story, careless of whither it led\nhim, like a man blind with grief, who stumbles against all the obstacles\nin his path. When he had finished there was silence.\n\n\"And Gilgamesh,\" he added after a pause, \"wrote all these things in a\nbook, which is preserved in the Temple of Bel at Nippur.\"\n\nHe glanced at Bagoas indignantly as he spoke. Bagoas was eating a dish\nof leverets stewed with rice and prunes; he looked up from his plate,\nand wiped his mouth with a fine napkin.\n\n\"There is preserved in our Temple at Nippur a book which purports to be\nthe work of Gilgamesh,\" he said. \"It is the work of a poet, such a\nhistory as Mekerah might invent for you, which it would be ridiculous to\nconsider as a true and serious narrative of actual events.\"\n\nMekerah caught a malicious glance from the Queen Parysatis, and rose\nangrily.\n\n\"There is, O Priest, a higher truth and a higher seriousness,\" he said.\n\"In the epic of Gilgamesh is enshrined the religious consciousness of\nBabylonia. It is sacred. It is not to be touched. It contains those\ngreat truths which are not a peculiar feature of any one age, but are\ntrue for all time. It was directly inspired by Bel, and shall we set our\npitiful human wisdom above the wisdom of the divine word?\"\n\nBagoas once again wiped his mouth before he began to speak.\n\n\"I deny,\" he said, \"that it has any truth as an historical document. It\nis valuable, historically, as an instance of the narrow limits of human\nknowledge in the age which produced it. That is all its value to the\nhistorian. Its value to the theologian is different. He finds in it the\nfirst concrete expression of man's relation to God, as he understands\nit. The truth may be veiled in a mist of fable and metaphor, but he\nfeels it to be there. At the same time, he gives it an extended sense,\nand interprets it in a larger spirit than that in which it was\noriginally interpreted. It means to us at once something more and\nsomething less than it did to the ancient world; for religion is not a\ndefinite revelation of an eternal truth, but the contemplation of the\nunknown from the sum of man's experience. It is consequently susceptible\nof infinite development and extension, it reacts to every new discovery\nof science; and its chief glory is that it is part of man's daily life.\n\n\"We, the priests of Bel, recognise our sacred books as the\nstarting-point of a living, growing truth; in our hands is the duty of\ninterpreting it, and our interpretation is of the nature of a\ncommentary. We are continually rejecting some details as unsound, and\ndeveloping others to the utmost limits of their power; that is our value\nand duty as an hierarchy: to criticise, to prune, to graft. And if we\nconsider the nature of the books, in which are enshrined those great\nspiritual truths, we see how necessary this work of selection and\nrejection is; for they do not form one inseparable, concrete whole, but\neach has arisen under the impulse of different circumstances, each had\nits own separate development and origin before it became joined on to\nthe main body.\n\n\"Before philosophy came into being men spoke in fables, and their minds,\nnot being able to grasp as yet the significance of abstract ideas, dealt\nexclusively with things and actions. They were curious of the destiny of\nman after death, and they felt the need for some answer, so they\nimagined the hero, the Babylonian semi-divinity, Gilgamesh, setting out\non a ship fashioned by human hands to bring them back the answer which\nthey needed. For us it was the first voyage of man's mind into the\nunknown, the first adventure beyond the realm of actualities, and as\nsuch it demands our reverence. We do not, however, believe either in\nGilgamesh, Ia-bani, or the ship which crossed the river of death. The\nstory is a mere fable, and the actions described in it are only the\nunconscious vehicles of a half-recognised truth, or rather of the germ\nof a new spirit. There is only one form of truth, and one form of\nseriousness.\"\n\nHe drank a little wine.\n\n\"Let us walk in the garden,\" said Merodach.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nMerodach, after a moment's consideration, found that the conclusions of\nBagoas with reference to the epic of Gilgamesh were reasonable, so he\nconversed with the High-priest amiably as they walked by the river. The\nPrincess Candace interrupted the conversation.\n\n\"Yesterday was my birthday, and you have given me no present, now let me\nask one,\" she said.\n\n\"Ask then,\" said Merodach, smiling.\n\n\"Give me this garden to be my garden, and build me a palace where Adam\nhad his cabin of boughs; a little palace of blue porcelain, which I may\nvisit in the spring, and in the hot months of the year, and set at all\nthe entrances into the valley great winged cherubim, that the wandering\ntribes may see that it is a royal palace, and fear to enter.\"\n\n\"So be it,\" said the King; and the Princess went off to inspect the site\nof the new palace.\n\n\"She is discreet, and charming, wise beyond her years,\" said Merodach.\n\"We shall consider the son of Na'amah, my cousin, at Nippur. How is he\ncalled?\"\n\n\"His name is Adamaharon,\" answered Bagoas, smiling; \"and he is even now\non his way to visit me at Uruk, where he has never been. He may turn\naside to hunt. It is his ambition at present to kill a lion, for which\nhe has a permit from the King's huntsman.\"\n\n\"He shall hunt with me,\" said the King; \"but the Princess is still a\nlittle young for marriage.\"\n\nShe, unconscious of her fate, drew close to the cabin of Adam. That part\nof the valley had been deserted by the King's servants, and she was\nalone. She saw the glitter of a spear which lay in the doorway, and then\nthe eyes of a young man watching her.\n\n\"I came for an apple,\" she said, turning toward the tree in the branches\nof which the great snake hung; \"but Adam must have eaten them all.\"\n\n\"There is one at the top of the tree,\" said the boy. \"Look! right at the\ntop.\"\n\n\"It is too high. Perhaps you could knock it down with your spear?\"\n\n\"That would bruise it. I shall climb up and get it for you.\"\n\nHe swung himself up, avoiding the great snake which looked at him\nwarily.\n\n\"Do not go any higher,\" cried the Princess; \"the branch will break, and\nyou will be killed.\"\n\nBut he laughed at her, and climbing higher seized the apple, then the\nbranch did break. She screamed a little.\n\n\"You are bruised instead of the apple,\" she said, as he picked himself\nup.\n\nHe laughed.\n\n\"I have done wonderful things to-day,\" he said. \"At dawn I killed a\nlion; and at eve I got an apple for a Princess.\"\n\n\"But are you not one of the court-pages? I thought you were. Who are you\nto kill lions, which are preserved for the King?\"\n\n\"I am Adamaharon, the son of Na'amah, the cousin of the King.\"\n\nShe offered him the apple, and he bit a large piece out of it.\n\n\"Come and look at the lion's skin,\" he said, and led her into Adam's\ncabin. She felt a curious pleasure in being with him, and listened with\ndelight to the story of how he killed the lion. But they did not talk\nmuch, they seemed to understand each other so well that they had nothing\nto say; and at last they kissed each other.\n\nIt was at that precise moment, when their souls seemed to meet with\ntheir lips that Merodach entered. For a moment he paused, anger falling\nabout him like darkness in which all things writhed, confused. Then he\ndrew his sword. The Princess Candace fell before him and embraced his\nknees; he was lifting the sword to strike her when Bagoas seized his\narm.\n\n\"It is the son of Na'amah,\" he said quickly.\n\nThe King paused, and then lowered his sword slowly. He stared at the\nyoung man in silence, and the young man met his gaze quietly. Then the\nKing let his eyes wander over the other's form, and he saw that the\nyoung man was well-thewed, spare, and muscular, with a beauty to make\nhim desired of the maidens; and his heart softened toward his cousin's\nson.\n\n\"You are Adamaharon,\" he said slowly, as he sheathed his sword. \"I had\nintended to send for you to come unto Uruk, that I might wed you to my\ndaughter. This is the will of the gods, and it is mine, also.\"\n\nThe young man came to him, and bowed down before, touching his feet; and\nMerodach let his hand rest upon the bowed head, caressing the thick\ncurls.\n\n\"A young lion of our race,\" said Merodach exultingly; \"look at the\nyellow mane rippling over the firm neck. A child of my cousin Na'amah. A\nchild of the race of the gods.\"\n\nAnd he embraced Adamaharon kindly, and he raised up Candace and kissed\nher fondly, bidding her go to her mother, and tell her how she had found\na husband in the cabin of Adam. And Candace left them; and as she went\nshe wept, for her fear had given place to joy. Then Adamaharon rose up,\nand stood before the King.\n\n\"I have done wonderful things to-day,\" he said proudly. \"At dawn I slew\na lion; and at eve I kissed the desire of my heart. My mouth is filled\nwith honey.\"\n\n\"It is the will of the gods,\" said Merodach.\n\nThen he began to lead the son of Na'amah toward the river where the\nQueen Parysatis was listening to her daughter's tale; but Bagoas paused\nbefore the apple-tree and looked into the eyes of the great serpent.\n\n\"It is the will of the gods,\" he said, with his ironical smile. \"I am\nbut their minister, the mere instrument of their designs; so what part\nshall I claim in this adventure?\"\n\nThe snake watched him fixedly.\n\n\"The boy is like a son to me,\" said Bagoas. \"He was born to be\nfortunate.\"\n\nAnd then he followed them toward the river, leaving the wise snake\nwreathed in the branches of the fruitless tree.\n\nOn the journey back to Uruk the three royal elephants walked abreast.\nAdamaharon rode with Merodach, Bagoas with the Princess Candace, and the\nQueen Parysatis with her attendant poet. And Adamaharon made delicate\nsongs for his beloved.\n\n\"The old look upon the stars,\" he sang; \"but I look into the eyes of my\nbeloved. What stars are like her eyes? What wisdom can compare with the\nwisdom of love?\"\n\n\"He is a true poet,\" said Parysatis to Mekerah. \"What spirit, what\nfire!\"\n\n\"I have said the same thing an hundred times,\" said Mekerah crossly.\n\n\"Precisely,\" said Parysatis; \"he has said it once, perfectly.\"\n\n\"The kisses of her mouth are sweeter than honey,\" sang Adamaharon; \"more\nfragrant than apples. She has filled me with the joy of morning, and\ngladdened my soul as with wine.\"\n\nBagoas leaned toward the Queen's elephant.\n\n\"Adam said of love that----\"\n\nBut the Queen put a finger on her lips.\n\n\"I do not believe that Adam ever existed,\" she said.\n\nBagoas, looking at Candace, smiled.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut many years afterwards a woman sitting by the door of a hut in the\ndesert, watching the quiet stars quicken as the day died, drew two young\nboys toward her, and told them the story of the garden. Her face was\ntranquil, like the face of one who has grief for a companion; and the\nboys were clothed in goat-skins.\n\n\"And,\" she said, looking into the embers of the fire, \"the man\ncounselled me to eat, saying, if ye eat of the fruit ye shall know.\"\n\nAdam suddenly appeared in the firelight. He had heard the last words.\n\n\"It was the serpent,\" he said suspiciously. \"You always told me it was\nthe serpent.\"\n\nAnd Eve answered quickly, drawing her children closer to her.\n\n\"Yea, it was the serpent! I forgot. It was the serpent!\"\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                                                    _TO MRS SHAKESPEARE_\n\n\n\n\n                                   II\n\n                       AT THE HOUSE OF EURIPIDES\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                   II\n\n                       AT THE HOUSE OF EURIPIDES\n\n\nEuripides ordered the tables to be removed, and then some musicians\nentered, followed by a girl, who danced as Persephone among the flowers\nof Enna. While the guests were admiring the grace of her gestures, and\nthe swift movements of her thin, naked feet, Callias came in with Lysis\nand Antisthenes. They had been unable to come earlier; and after making\ntheir excuses to Euripides, Callias and Antisthenes took a couch close\nby Protagoras, and Lysis went to Socrates. The company included Glaucon,\nHermogenes, Pythodorus, Philip the buffoon, who never missed a feast,\nand Apollodorus, the friend of Socrates. Protagoras had a couch to\nhimself on the right of Euripides, who was also without a companion.\nOthers came in during the evening until the room was very full. When the\ngirl had finished her dance there was a murmur of admiration, and she\nleaned back on the bench, smiling with pleasure, her slim body trembling\nand palpitating beneath its crocus-coloured veils.\n\n\"You are magnificent, Euripides,\" said Socrates. \"You not only feast us\nsumptuously; but you amuse us with dancing and music.\"\n\n\"I am glad that you are amused, Socrates. Why are you so silent\nto-night?\"\n\n\"I feel like one about to be initiated into the mysteries. When there\nare so many older and wiser men than myself present I listen rather than\ntalk. It is more interesting. I wish that I had come with flowers and\nribbons like Lysis, so that I might have occupied myself in making a\ngarland. Are you going to crown Protagoras when he has read his\ndiscourse, Lysis?\"\n\n\"Yes, Socrates; Callias said it would be worthy of a crown.\"\n\n\"Protagoras must be the happiest of men.\" said Socrates. \"He has health,\nriches, and honour from all. I am impatient to hear what he has to say.\"\n\n\"I am old,\" said Protagoras, \"and like to rest a little while after\neating; but I shall not keep you long. In the meantime, why do you not\nhave a discussion with Euripides?\"\n\n\"Well, as you have given me leave to speak, I should like to ask\nEuripides a few questions.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" said Euripides.\n\n\"Do not encourage him,\" shouted Philip. \"If he once begins asking\nquestions we shall not know where we are. He will tell us that\nProtagoras is not Protagoras, and that this banquet is not a banquet.\"\n\n\"Why do you attack me like this, Philip? What harm have I ever done to\nyou?\" said Socrates.\n\n\"Why, ever since you have taken to frequenting the tables of the rich\nyou have done me harm,\" said Philip, with a pretence to excitement. \"At\none time I was always a welcome guest; but since you have come upon the\nscene no one laughs at me. Your talk is all about justice, wisdom, and\nvirtue. What does a poor man like myself know of such things? But these\nare all that amuse the company now; and, if I want a dinner in mine old\nage, I shall have to play the sophist too.\"\n\nPhilip was a great favourite with the company, and his exaggerated\ngestures as he railed at Socrates amused them extremely. He advanced\ninto the middle of the room.\n\n\"Laugh at me as you will,\" he cried; \"it is true. Socrates cannot deny\nit. The more wine a man has now, the more solemn he looks; until\nsometimes I think I have strayed to a funeral instead of to a feast. If\nI chose, I could be the greatest sophist of you all. I should teach you\nnot only the knowledge of good, and truth, and virtue, but the knowledge\nof all things.\"\n\n\"And how would you teach us, Philip?\" said Socrates; \"for this is\nprecisely the knowledge which I have been seeking all my life. By the\ndog of Egypt, if you would teach me this I should ever afterwards obey\nyou in all things. I have always had the greatest respect for you,\nPhilip, but I did not think that philosophy was among your\naccomplishments.\"\n\n\"Do you answer me, Socrates? and I shall prove it to you.\"\n\n\"Willingly,\" said Socrates; \"but I am afraid you are going to make me\nridiculous. I have never pretended to be a sophist, nor, indeed, to know\nanything.\"\n\nPhilip stood in the middle of the room, and the company all leant\nforward, looking at him with amusement.\n\n\"Is knowledge the knowledge of something, or the knowledge of nothing?\"\nhe enquired of Socrates.\n\n\"Of both,\" answered Socrates.\n\n\"You will not escape me that way,\" exclaimed Philip. \"Would you not\nrather say it is the knowledge of something, and the knowledge of not\nknowing other things?\"\n\n\"Very well, Philip.\"\n\n\"Then there is a knowledge of knowing, and a knowledge of not knowing;\nand we know the things we know, and the things we do not know?\"\n\n\"That seems absurd,\" said Socrates.\n\n\"What? Will you go back on the argument, Socrates, and say that\nknowledge is only the knowledge of something?\"\n\n\"Let us try that way then,\" Socrates said.\n\n\"By Zeus, Socrates, that way will do as well as another,\" said Philip;\n\"for if you know something you can distinguish it from other things, can\nyou not?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You can distinguish one thing you know, from another thing you know;\nand both from what you do not know.\"\n\n\"You have made me giddy, Philip. Let me think.\"\n\n\"Well, Socrates, you can distinguish Euripides from Protagoras, can you\nnot? And you can distinguish both these people whom you know, from the\ntyrant Archelaus, whom you do not know?\"\n\n\"Certainly; I must agree to that.\"\n\n\"Then you can distinguish between something you know and something you\ndo not know?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Consider a moment, Socrates. Is it possible for you to know the\ndifference between one thing and another unless you know both things?\"\n\n\"Why, no! I must admit that,\" said Socrates.\n\n\"Then mark where I lead you; for if you know the things you know, you\nmust also know the things you do not know.\"\n\nEvery one was now laughing immoderately; not only at Philip's dialectic,\nbut at his pompous gestures, wherewith he mimicked many well-known\nsophists; blowing out his cheeks, pursing his lips, tapping his head\nsuspiciously, and rubbing his nose.\n\n\"By the dog of Egypt!\" cried Socrates; \"the man has been with\nEuthydemus.\"\n\n\"Euthydemus is a child to me,\" said Philip contemptuously.\n\n\"But, Philip, if I confess I know nothing?\" said Socrates, when the\nlaughter failed a little.\n\n\"Why, then, Socrates, I shall not argue the question with you; though I\ncould easily prove to you that if you knew nothing you would know\neverything.\"\n\n\"Philip, I have always asserted my ignorance. It is my ignorance which\ncauses me to ask questions. And now, as you have proved that you know\neverything, I want to ask you what knowledge is. Can you tell me?\"\n\n\"This talking has made me thirsty, Socrates, and I am going to seek for\ntruth in the wine, where the proverb says it may be found. I shall talk\nno more.\"\n\n\"Well, then, I shall ask my question of Euripides, if you will allow\nme.\"\n\n\"Ask, by all means!\" said Philip; \"but if your questions are to be about\nknowledge and virtue I shall go and sit with the flute-girls, and we\nshall talk of something that we can understand.\"\n\nSocrates settled himself more comfortably upon the couch, and, taking up\none of the ribbons which Lysis had brought, turned it about his fingers.\n\n\"Protagoras is going to tell us whether we can have any knowledge of the\ngods or not,\" he said; \"but let us enquire into their nature, assuming\nthat we know them, for the present. Shall we examine your own conception\nof God, Euripides? It will clear matters up if we are able to say what\nthe gods whom we seek to know are like.\"\n\n\"Very well, Socrates,\" said Euripides.\n\n\"You live at the centre of things, Euripides,\" said Socrates; \"and every\naspect of our modern thought is clearly reflected in your work. This is\none reason why I have always been an admirer of your plays; but it has\nits drawbacks, for sometimes you reflect two distinct and opposed\ntheories, so that your meaning is not quite clear. Your treatment of the\nmyths is, in reality, a criticism of the myths, is it not?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"The dramatist takes a myth as his material, and by working upon it,\ncriticising it, rejecting some features, and developing others, he will\nmake it into a play, and not only does he deal with the myth itself in\nthis way, but he also examines and criticises each character in it,\nusing the same method, so that his play is not only a representation of\nthe myths but a criticism of them as well. Now I have lately been\nreading your Hippolytus again, so that we shall take that as an example.\nThe myth is very simple: Aphrodite wishes to be avenged upon Hippolytus,\nwho neglects her worship in preference for the worship of Artemis; and\nin order to compass the death of the young man she stirs up an unholy\npassion in Ph\u00e6dra. Hippolytus refuses the love of Ph\u00e6dra, and, in\ndespair, she kills herself, leaving a writing behind which accuses\nHippolytus of having forced her. Theseus, discovering this writing,\ncalls down upon Hippolytus one of the three curses which Poseidon has\npromised him to fulfil, and Hippolytus is slain. Then Artemis reveals\nthe truth to Theseus, and before Hippolytus dies Theseus is forgiven by\nhim.\n\n\"This story is full of improbable and supernatural conditions, the\njealousy of Aphrodite, the apparition of Artemis, and the intervention\nof Poseidon. We no longer imagine the gods as beings with the same\npassions as men; but the passions and strife of the gods are the\nessential feature of some myths. Do you think, Euripides, that the\nmakers of myths in the old days simply dragged in the gods, in order to\nexplain any tragedy which was quite inexplicable in itself, and that\nthey attempted to alleviate in this way the sense of waste with which a\ntragedy fills us?\"\n\n\"It seems a plausible supposition, Socrates. If men cannot relate an\nevent to any known cause, they consider it sufficiently explained if it\nbe attributed to a deity.\"\n\n\"And so it happens,\" said Socrates, \"that many evil deeds are attributed\nto the gods; the death of Hippolytus, for instance, to the jealousy of\nAphrodite. Do you think, Euripides, that the makers of myths and the\ncommon people believe that evil is not inherent in the action itself,\nbut depends upon the quality and nature of the agent?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Euripides; \"they imagine that actions are permissible in\ngods which would not be permissible in man; that the gods have a right\nto do evil, since they have the power. On the contrary, I maintain, that\na god is all goodness, and that if he revenged himself on man, or were\nguilty of jealousy and hatred, he would cease, by that fact, to be a\ngod.\"\n\n\"And is it because you hold this opinion that you make the action in\nyour play of Hippolytus, as far as possible, move independently of the\ngods?\"\n\n\"How do you mean, Socrates?\"\n\n\"I mean, Euripides, that your play seems to present two sides: the\naction as it is presented in the original myth, and the action which is\nthe result of your criticism. There are some people who say that if you\nare not content with the myths, you should invent your own stories; but\nthis would defeat your object which is purely critical, and which aims\nat presenting another version of the story. You seem to say to yourself:\nthe myth presents the gods as beings with the same appetites, passions,\nand desires as mortals, and so I shall treat them. They are to you mere\ncharacters in the play, and even subordinate characters at that. You\nintroduce Aphrodite to speak the prologue, and thus, ostensibly\nfollowing the myth, make her responsible for the catastrophe. But at the\nsame time you show that the catastrophe is directly precipitated by the\nhastiness of Theseus; a fatal flaw which he himself recognises, and\nlaments when it is too late. He was over-hasty to use the gift of\nPoseidon, he says; but Hippolytus answers that if he had not used that\nmethod of revenge, he would have found another. Theseus implicitly\nagrees to this, when he says that some lying spirit had blinded him to\nthe truth, and thus the guilt is flung back upon Aphrodite, whom Artemis\npromises to punish by slaying Adonis. In reality, Euripides, the lying\nspirit is not Aphrodite, but Ph\u00e6dra; and you take care that Artemis\nshould point this out. Thus, at every part of the myth where the action\nof the divinities is supposed to be clearly visible, you present us with\nanother version and another cause; and, by this means, not only do you\nmake the development of the plot more plausible, and fill us with\nadmiration for your genius, but ultimately you remove the responsibility\nfrom the gods, by showing that the action of the play is not dependent\nupon them. Aphrodite seems to be only the incarnation of Ph\u00e6dra's\ndesire, and Poseidon of a father's curse. Artemis, it is true, has a\nseparate existence, and is not merely the personification of a mortal\npassion; she exists in order that she may reveal the truth to Theseus,\nand for that purpose, had you not been bound by tradition, the nurse\nwould have done as well. You say, too, in one of the choruses that the\nthought of the gods consoles your grief, and that your hope clings to\nthe belief in a supreme reason; but that when you consider the deeds and\nthe fate of men you are confounded. Do you think, Euripides, that the\nwhole evil of life comes from man alone, and that the gods are not\nimplicated in it?\"\n\nProtagoras smiled. Euripides leaned forward, looking at Socrates with\nbright eyes from beneath his bent brows.\n\n\"The words of the chorus, Socrates, mean that when I consider the\nwretchedness and the doom of men, I doubt the existence of a supreme\nreason, or at least waver in my belief.\"\n\n\"Of course I see that,\" answered Socrates; \"but if you accept the idea\nof a universal mind animating all things, why should the misery and\nwretched conditions of the life of men dissipate this idea? Your play\nshows that it is man's own folly, and not the anger of the gods, that\npunishes him with misfortune. Theseus in ignorance calls down the doom\nof death upon Hippolytus, and thus brings evil upon himself. It is the\nlust of Ph\u00e6dra, and the blind anger of Theseus, which are responsible\nfor the death of the innocent; but is it better to have suffered\nunjustly as Hippolytus suffered, or to die in shame, despised, as Ph\u00e6dra\ndied, or to live as Theseus lived in misery, though forgiven?\"\n\n\"I agree to what you have said of my play,\" answered Euripides, his\nworn, melancholy face illuminated with a smile; \"and I agree, also, that\nit was my purpose to deny that the gods do evil, and to make people\ndissatisfied with the myths. I misunderstood the reason for your use of\nwhat the chorus says about the Supreme Mind; the doings of men seem to\nme to be more the result of the conditions of life than of their own\nwickedness. If men err it is through ignorance; but they suffer quite\nindependently of their deserts. It is through my sympathy with mankind\nthat I am led into doubt. Man struggles all his life with the\nfluctuations and vicissitudes of fortune; his pleasures are but phantoms\nand visions which elude his grasp; the one certainty before him is\ndeath: an unknown terror. Why has he been set among this play of\ncircumstance, over which he has no control, but which whirls him away\nlike a dead leaf upon the ripples and eddies of a river? The best\nhappiness we can find in life is resignation, a folding of the hands, a\nwithdrawal into the interior peace of our own minds, the serene heights\nwhich the Muses inhabit. Those who have gained that sanctuary have at\nleast the happiness which comes from a knowledge of the limitations of\nlife; they have learned to desire little, to delight in natural and\nsimple things, the bright air, the coolness of forests, wind rippling\nthe waves of corn and setting the poplar leaves a-tremble; but, alas!\nbehind even this serenity of mind is the shadow of human suffering. So\nfew are the wise, and so many the miserable! We would not, if we could,\ncut ourselves off from the dumb herd of humanity, with its obscure\nsufferings, its vague desires, its inarticulate and eternal pain.\"\n\n\"I should not ask it of you, Euripides,\" said Socrates gently.\n\nHe had a real love for Euripides, a real admiration for the mind which\nthrough its own tumult and discord had come at last into the possession\nof peace, and to the vision of a clear hope.\n\n\"If mankind with its blind follies makes me doubt the existence of a\nGod,\" continued Euripides, \"its miseries make me believe in one. I am\nnot an enemy of knowledge; I have sought it with diligence all the days\nof my life; but we have other needs. We suffer with one another; there\nis a trouble and perplexity in the world from which we cannot escape,\nand to which we cannot refuse sympathy, pity, and love. Religion does\nnot take into sufficient account the fact, that however diverse are the\nactivities of men, all suffer alike. We have the corporate religious\nunity of the State, and it presents to us the noble and lofty ideas of\nthe Olympian deities. Do you remember, Socrates, the fable which\nProtagoras made for you, describing how at first men had only the arts,\nand warred among themselves until Zeus sent them the gifts of justice\nand reverence?\"\n\n\"Yes; I remember it. I cannot, of course, remember all that Protagoras\nsaid,\" answered Socrates. \"Long speeches puzzle me. But I remember that\nit was beautiful.\"\n\n\"It was at my house,\" said Callias, with some pride.\n\n\"Well, Socrates, it seems to me that justice and reverence were not\nenough. Man needed something more. So the worship of Demeter and\nDionysos was revealed to him. I have sometimes meditated writing a play\nabout Dionysos, the enthusiasm of wine, of poetry, the Deliverer, who\nuplifts the heart of man; or about Demeter, the Earth, the herbage and\nthe ripe corn, through whom we are kin, not only with each other but\nwith the beasts of the field, the cattle grazing in their fat pasture,\nand the young fawn couched among the briars and thickets of the forest.\nThese divinities seem closer to us than the ruler of the sun or the lord\nof the sea. They move gently among us, coming and going with the\nseasons, filling our granaries and wine-jars with their mystical gifts;\ncorn and wine, their very bodies and blood, through which we enter into\na close and intimate communion with them, and become indeed their\nchildren, or even themselves, as when their spirit possesses us\nentirely, and with a wild enthusiasm we range through the wooded hills,\nclothed in spotted fawn-skins, crowned with dark ivy, shaking the\nthyrsus in the air, and leaping to the sound of timbrels and pipes, and\nthe brazen cymbals of the Great Mother.\n\n\"The Olympian divinities have given to man the knowledge of the arts,\nand instilled into him the principles of justice and of reverence; they\nare untouched by the sense of our human mortality.\n\n\"Of old, the poets say, they visited mortals; and coming to a house at\ndusk in the guise of huntsmen or travellers would rest that night to\nshare the evening meal, and at dawn depart again, leaving behind them\nstrange gifts. Now they come among us no more. But these divinities of\nour own delightful earth, how different they are! Our mortality, our\nlabours, and our desires are part of their ritual. They have shown man\nthat he is one with that earth from which he derives his being, and\nwhich receives him again, after the toils and vicissitudes of life, as\nwith the gentle enfolding arms of a mother; and that through it he is\none also with them. They give him, in the recurrence of seed-time and\nharvest, the symbolism of the vine and the vintage, the return of\nSpring, coming with frail, delicate flowers, and troops of swallows, in\nthe first flush of green over the ploughlands, hints and foreshadowings\nof some such resurrection for himself; until death ceases to be a\nnameless terror to him, but is like a little interval of sleep not\nentirely barren of dreams. How natural they are too!\n\n\"We should not be surprised if we met with Demeter, clad in blue\nraiment, in a cornfield, as the dawn was breaking. It would not seem\nstrange to see her, plucking the golden ears, and weaving them into a\ngarland for her head; or resting beside a well of bright water, and\nlooking over the misty fields with quiet, thoughtful eyes. It would not\nseem strange if Dionysos appeared suddenly to us, coming through the\nshadowy woods between the straight stems of the pines, light in his\neyes, and the wind lifting the hair from his cool brow; or to meet him\nleading his troop of delirious worshippers by the banks of Asopus, or up\nthe steep glens of Cith\u00e6ron. If she, Earth, be a mother to us, he is\nlike an elder brother, born of a mortal woman, and so closer to us. It\nis true, Socrates, that the myths dealing with him contain much that is\nrevolting, and are full of tragic and sinister episodes; but behind the\nveil of man's weaving is a figure of singular beauty, wild but gentle; a\ndivinity who promises to the restless and troubled spirit of man joy in\nlife and peace after death.\"\n\nHis words made an impression upon the company. There was silence for the\nmoment.\n\n\"Well, Euripides, I shall not question you any further to-night,\" said\nSocrates. \"We have agreed that the idea of divinity is exclusive of all\nevil; and now Protagoras will probably tell us that the philosophic\nquestion of the present time is not whether the gods are good or evil,\nbut whether they exist at all.\"\n\nProtagoras made no further delay. He had a roll of parchment in his\nhand, but scarcely referred to it. There was a movement among the guests\nas he began, for all were curious to hear what he had to say.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"We cannot know whether the gods exist or do not exist; the matter is\ntoo obscure, and man's life too short. If they exist, it must be in some\nmanner peculiar to themselves, for we cannot find any trace of their\npresence in the world. They are not present to us as objects to be\nperceived by the senses; if they move among us at all it is by stealth,\nand without leaving so much trace as a ship leaves upon the waves. But\nman has always believed that they are close to him, and has come to\nimagine them as haunting every green corner of the earth, each well, and\nwood, and hill, the blue depths of the sea and the wide regions of the\nair. We have a God to preside at our sowing and at our harvest, at our\nsetting-forth and at our home-coming; there are gods of flocks and\nherds, of vineyards and olive groves, of rivers and of the sea. Poetry\nhas peopled the air with them, and given to Aphrodite a team of\nsparrows, and to Hera a team of peacocks, and to grey-eyed Athene an\nowl. Indeed, it is strange, so familiar and frequent are they in our\nthoughts, that we should ever question their existence; yet the moment\nwe seek for any tangible evidence of their presence in the world we are\nat fault, and the more we consider them the more shadowy and elusive\nthey become. The whole notion of divinity is constantly changing in our\nminds, adapting itself to new conditions of life, varying its form as\nour knowledge becomes deeper; but always becoming more spiritual, less\ntangible, until it seems to be nothing but that wandering breath which\nquickens all things into life.\n\n\"At first we imagined the gods as the incarnation of some natural force,\nlike Aphrodite, the foam-born, whom all living creatures obey; or\nDemeter, the Earth-mother, who produces all the fruits and harvests, and\nthe grass and flowers of the field. Stripped of the mystery and beauty\nwith which the poets have clothed them, these are but the conditions of\nman's life, his begetting and sustenance; we must seek behind them for\nthat idea of the supreme reason, who is not only the cause but the end\nof all things, not only the source of existence but the principle from\nwhich spring our notions of truth, of wisdom, of justice, and all those\nideals which reconcile us to life and bid us hope in the ultimate\nrealisation of the good. It is not sufficient for us to find a cause\nfrom which existence is derived, for even if that were laid bare to us\nwe could not find in it our ultimate satisfaction, unless it conformed\nto the idea of divinity, which, as Socrates and Euripides have agreed,\nis exclusive of all elements of evil. Is it possible to have this\nknowledge? There are two insuperable difficulties.\n\n\"The first is in the nature of man's knowledge, which is not constant or\ncommon, but variable and peculiar to each individual. Each man is the\nmeasure of all things. To him, things are what they seem; truth, what he\nthinks true; justice, what he thinks just; good, what he thinks good.\nColdness or heat, light or darkness, colour, sound, smell, touch, taste,\nare all equally matters of opinion. There is no truth external to the\nindividual. The second difficulty is that even if all men had a fixed\nand common standard of truth, we can find no evidence of the action of\nany divinity in the world, no evidence of a supreme reason dominating\nall things. The world seems to obey certain blind and unreasonable laws;\nbut the life of man, the life of all things, outside the mere routine of\ntides and seasons, seems to be subject only to chance: and whether we\nlive or die, our fate is the result of an accident. We are merely the\nidle foam upon the surface of the waves of being; an accident, and not\nthe reason of the waves. Perhaps the whole reason of life is unconcerned\nwith us; having a different aim to what we imagine, we ourselves being\nonly the dust of a sculptor's workshop, the superfluous marble which he\nchips off from the hidden image of his desire.\n\n\"It is certain, that if there be a God he is careless of the fate of\nman. For, if there were a God, since he must be just and good, we should\nfind the prayers of the good man answered, and evil would be punished in\nthe world. As it is the evil men prosper, and the good gain no reward;\nevil and good, what are they but our points of view? It is for this\nreason that we doubt the existence of any but a mechanical cause for the\nuniverse; because we have had no experience of good triumphing in the\nexternal world. Diagoras of Melos, being taken into the Temple of\nPoseidon and shown the offerings dedicated there as memorials of\nanswered prayers and in fulfilment of vows, looked at them with tears:\n'They reckon those who were saved,' he said; 'they forget those who\nperished.' Yes; one is more touched by the thought of what was not hung\nin the temple, than by the sight of what was. We think of the smallness\nof the temple, and of the largeness of the sea.\n\n\"Let us state our position with clearness. We are not concerned with the\nexistence of the gods, but with our knowledge of their existence. It\nwould be equally foolish in us to deny, as to affirm, their existence.\nThere may be a supreme reason acting upon the world, whose ends we\ncannot understand, whose action we cannot comprehend. It may be that the\nworld exists for some other purpose than for the realisation of our own\ndreams. Perhaps we are only the superfluities, the parings of ivory, the\nwinnowed husks from the threshing, by-products in the creation of\nsomething more perfect; and perhaps the confused and obscure sense of an\nideal, which works in us and is at once our desire and our despair, is a\ndim consciousness of the growth of this beauty, a desire and a despair\nof being one with it. But, if we could escape for a moment from the\ntyranny of our own selves, the illusion of our own momentary existence,\nwe might learn to rejoice in the knowledge, that beauty exists, if not\nin us, at least somewhere in the world. If that knowledge were ever\npresent with us, I think that we might be content. Content even to\nsuffer, to realise that everything that ever lived has died for an idea,\nthat all life is a martyrdom; but, alas! we have not even this\nknowledge. Our life is a dream of shadows. Our knowledge is but a focus\nof wandering ideas, burning a moment in a white heat, ere they pass\nagain, diffused widely, into the unknown.\n\n\"The sense of divinity, which moves in us, may be but a hope born of\nthis trouble and perplexity, a desire that at some future time the\nfragments of our being shall be collected again and fashioned into a\nwhole. We cry out that we need not be wasted, to drift forever as dust,\nblind, dumb, and inarticulate, yet with a dim consciousness of a life\nstirring beyond us and alien to us. Let us share in it. Let us have a\nshare in the world's sunlight and the sweet air. We have personified\nthis hope, and given it an extended significance which seems to breathe\nand move in all things. Each individual finds his justification in God;\nand it follows that his God must be merciful, just, and good; but, at\nthe same time, the notions of justice and good are entirely peculiar to\nthe individual. God is thus a realisation of self, a self who triumphs\nand will be justified, even through his misery. The very practice of\nvirtue is an accusation against the gods, an affirmation that if the\ngood perish then God is evil.\n\n\"I am a maker of myths, one who fashions out of perishable things a\nthought which, through its informing truth, exists independently of\ntime. I think of man as of one who is blind, dumb, and without hands.\nSitting alone in this physical darkness a thought comes to him of what\nhis life might have been if he had been born whole; and he imagines\nhimself as a man with hands, a voice, and sight, creating a whole world\nout of his pleasure. This other man, who moves like a creature of light\nthrough the dim passages of his mind, becomes, as it were another self;\nbut through his greater power, a being of joy living eternally, a\nstrong, triumphant, beautiful figure; and consequently external from,\nand different to, the man. And the blind, dumb, handless man, bowing his\nhead in the darkness, says: 'It is God.'\n\n\"For the gods which we have imagined are immortal men, and man a mortal\nGod. They differ from us in nothing but the gladness and eternity of\ntheir actions. They move delightfully on the wings of the wind; through\nthe great tumult of waters their feet are swift and sure; their voices\nhave a music that is like the fierce motion of dancing, yellow flames.\nGod is simply our own selves, made whole, and removed from the devouring\nyears. God is our weakness searching after strength, our blindness,\nthirsting after light; our desire seeking for a voice, and we worship\nhim. We worship him because he is ourselves; but we seek him, always, as\nif conscious of our own weakness and worthlessness, beyond ourselves, in\nthe external world, Our God is hidden in the deeps of the sea; in the\nshadows of the forests; in that blue heaven beyond the stars. He is very\nsubtile, moving on stealthy feet, through unknown ways. We seek him, but\nwe find him not. He is swifter than we are, and when we pursue him he\nflies away into the darkness; and when we cry out that we have lost him\nhe comes close to us again, filling our hearts with a silent sweetness.\nSo it is ever with us; when we seek to clasp him he eludes us; but in\nthe silence of night we imagine that he is not very far away and that a\nlittle thing would suffice to allure him to us, to reveal him to sight.\n\n\"Once in a country of hills and valleys lived a shepherd who called to\nthe nymph Echo, and she answered him from her cave in the hillside with\nhis own voice. Then he girded himself, and taking a staff in his hand\nset out to seek her; and coming to the place whence she had answered\nhim, he called again, and she replied from a higher peak. When he had\ncalled from the next peak he was answered from the valley and descended\ninto its deep forests; and men saw him no more, for he died there, and\nthe beasts devoured him.\n\n\"We also die ere we have found the voice which calls to us from the\nmountains; but it ever lures us forward, calling sometimes from a cave\nquite close to us, and again from a distant peak. We also die, and our\nears hear it no longer; but our children will hear and follow it gladly\nup the steep glens of the windy hills.\"\n\nAs Protagoras finished, he dropped the roll of parchment beside him, and\nmotioned the slave to bring him some wine. Lysis rose from his couch and\nattempted to crown him, when the loud voice of Pythodorus broke in upon\nthe general conversation.\n\n\"What is this that you are applauding?\" he said; \"are you men of Athens\nor foreigners fond only of subtile words? I, for one, shall not praise\nor consent to what has been said by Protagoras here to-night. What has\nhe done but cloak his impiety in smooth phrases and suave periods? Are\nyou willing, through his soft persuasion, to deny that the gods inhabit\nthe wide skies and the hidden regions of the bright sea?\"\n\nA silence fell upon the company. One or two shifted uneasily upon their\ncouches. It was fairly well known that Pythodorus had some personal\ngrudge against Protagoras; but no one had suspected that he would take\nthis opportunity of revenge.\n\n\"You are mistaken, Pythodorus,\" said Euripides. \"Protagoras has only\ndiscussed the question of whether we can have any knowledge of the gods.\nHe carefully disclaimed any intention of denying their existence.\"\n\n\"It is clear to me, Euripides, that Protagoras has denied them,\"\nanswered Pythodorus. \"He claims that if we do not know a thing, the\nthing does not exist. But I shall not argue the question here; I shall\nlay it before the proper judges. An offence against the gods is a crime\nin which the whole city is implicated, and which they must cleanse from\nthemselves. I would have you believe that I am not moved by any personal\nfeeling against Protagoras, but only by a desire that the whole people\nshould not have to expiate, in suffering, the crime of one man. All the\nmisfortunes of Athens have arisen from the spirit of irreverent\nsophistry which is eating her away; and people now seem to think that\nthey may say anything, provided that it be well said.\"\n\nHe spoke in a raucous voice, trying to contain his passion, but with an\nexultant fire in his eyes. Socrates sat up on his couch and rubbed his\nleg.\n\n\"Pythodorus, you are as bad a listener as I am. I can never understand\nthese long speeches. They act like a charm, and I always fall asleep in\nthe middle of them; but before I fell asleep to-night I heard what\nProtagoras said as to his main position, and I think that he was\nlaughing at us. He spoke only in a cautious vein of paradox. While he\nwas pretending one thing, he was proving the opposite. You must not take\nhim very seriously.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Were you awake all the time, Pythodorus?\" said Socrates.\n\n\"Of course. I was listening most attentively.\"\n\n\"Then you will remember that Protagoras said that the gods were not to\nbe found in the external world, but in the hearts of men. We cannot know\nthem, as we know a tree, but we can feel them by us. He seems to hold\nthat we cannot know anything except what we have drawn out of\nourselves.\"\n\nSocrates was attempting to lead the conversation back into quieter\nchannels, but Pythodorus rose.\n\n\"I shall leave you. It is not for me to judge whether Protagoras is\nright or wrong,\" he said.\n\nSome of the guests left with him, through fear, and the rest were\ndismayed. Protagoras, who had not said a word in answer to Pythodorus,\nleaned back on his couch and spoke.\n\n\"Of course, Pythodorus will accuse me,\" he said; \"and I shall be\ncondemned. He is powerful, and in the present condition of things can do\nas he likes. But it would be a shame if we allowed the malice of one\nperson to interrupt our discussion. Let us sit talking until dawn, and\nthen I shall prepare to leave Athens. I expected that he would do me\nwhat injury he could. Shall we have some more wine, Euripides? It is\nprobably our last feast together.\"\n\n\"I am afraid it is,\" said Euripides. \"Yes; let us have some wine. I\nblame myself for what has happened; but I never expected this.\"\n\n\"It would have happened to-morrow if not to-day,\" answered Protagoras.\n\"Do not blame yourself, Euripides. There are, I think, few persons in\nthis room, who will escape from the reaction which is developing in\nAthens. Socrates, of course, will survive it. He follows the traditions\nof religion, but, at the same time, he differs from them. What was that\ncurious paradox you put forward about my teaching, Socrates?\"\n\n\"It was no paradox, Protagoras, but sober, earnest truth. You will never\npersuade me that your intention was to deny the existence of the gods.\"\n\n\"Well, then, let us discuss it. Only our friends are here now. And\nto-morrow I shall be beyond the reach of malice. Can we know the gods,\nSocrates?\"\n\n\"You confuse the two things, because Pythodorus did. Philip has not\ndeserted us. He is sitting there half drunk. Will you argue with him? If\nwith me, answer what I ask. You denied, did you not, that we can find\nany trace of the action of the gods in this world?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And did you not affirm that the gods exist, if they exist at all, in a\nmanner peculiar to themselves.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Without denying the existence of the gods, then, you affirm that we\ncannot know them because we cannot find any trace of their action in the\nlife of man?\"\n\n\"That is what I said,\" answered Protagoras.\n\n\"And you also said that, man being the measure of all things, truth is\nwhat he thinks true; good, what he thinks good. There is no truth\nexternal to the individual. Did you not?\"\n\n\"Yes, Socrates; but I am afraid you are giving a sense to my words which\nthey were not intended to convey.\"\n\n\"That is not my object. I wish merely to examine your thought. You\nincline to cloak it in myths, but you should learn to send truth from\nyou clean and naked, as a trainer sends an athlete into the pal\u00e6stra. If\nI offend you, Protagoras, you must forgive me; but I cannot follow an\nargument which is not direct. Do your words contain my meaning?\"\n\n\"Yes, Socrates.\"\n\n\"Then you deny all truth except what a man draws out of himself?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And a man should not say it is cold. He should say I am cold?\"\n\n\"Yes; all external things are only what we imagine them to be.\"\n\n\"The same, of course, holds good with regard to truth, virtue, and\njustice; these things are equally external to the individual. I think\nthat you have said this before, Protagoras, have you not?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Protagoras.\n\n\"Well, then, let us leave that part of the argument for the present,\"\nsaid Socrates. \"We shall return to it later, as every one agrees to it.\nI wish to ask you another series of questions. If you wished to learn\nthe art of making plays, would you go to a cobbler or to Euripides? To\nEuripides. Very well! But if you wished to learn the art of making\nshoes, would you go to a cobbler, or to a playwright?\"\n\n\"To a cobbler, of course!\"\n\n\"You would choose one skilful rather than a beginner; and in politics,\nalso, you would choose an experienced man, in preference to one who had\nno experience, and in art you would take the finest artist as your\nmaster. Would you not?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"And the same with pastry-cooks, with tillers of the soil and\nvine-dressers; you would choose the person most experienced?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"All this I have learnt from what you said at the beginning of your\ndiscourse. If you wished to learn the arts of politics or of cobbling\nyou would go to a politician or to a cobbler; but if you wished to learn\nthe art of being virtuous, would you go to a vicious or to a virtuous\nman?\"\n\n\"To a virtuous man.\"\n\n\"But why, Protagoras? Is not the test of truth in yourself and not in\nothers?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then you know the truth, and you recognise it when you meet with it?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"But then the truth lies also outside of ourselves. Goodness, wisdom,\nand other excellent things are external to us, and we can only draw them\nout of ourselves? Have you not said that God is a projection of self?\"\n\n\"A stronger self, Socrates.\"\n\n\"Then you recognise a standard of excellence beyond man, and this\nstandard of excellence he draws out of himself; and that only is true\nwhich a man draws out of himself; but at the same time you recognise in\nothers the art of cobbling and of politics.\"\n\n\"These things are only conventional,\" said Protagoras.\n\n\"Why, Protagoras? What is the difference between going as an apprentice\nto a good cobbler and going as an apprentice to a good man?\"\n\n\"Because cobbling is an art that any one may learn, but virtue is\ndifferent.\"\n\n\"Is virtue different from doing good?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"A virtuous person will seek the good; he recognises goodness by his own\nstandard?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"He is the measure of truth, and he chooses a teacher who will show him\na fitting wisdom, as he will choose a cobbler who will make him a\nfitting shoe?\"\n\n\"Socrates, I frankly admit that I am tired of your cobbler.\"\n\n\"But is virtue doing things well or ill?\"\n\n\"Well.\"\n\n\"And the individual judges whether the thing is well or ill done?\"\n\n\"You are still cobbling, Socrates.\"\n\n\"Surely, Protagoras, if truth is drawn entirely out of the individual,\nhe will know virtue better than he will know a shoe. I do not want you\nto say that I am forcing your words into a construction that they will\nnot bear. Your arguments suggest others to me. I am cobbling, you say,\npoint out the patches! You say that there is no truth external to the\nindividual; that if a man feels hot, it is hot; that justice is what he\nthinks just, that he cannot know external things. Surely, then, his\nwhole standard of truth is himself. And if he fashion a God out of his\ninner consciousness, surely God exists more truly than a tree or a shoe\nexists.\"\n\n\"Socrates, my words may bear this expansion. You hold, then, that we may\nhave knowledge of their existence. I am not averse to this belief; but\nto me a God is simply a self, a self freed from our conditions of life.\n\n\"Let us not say that Socrates or Protagoras has triumphed. We have\nsimply got a little closer to the truth.\"\n\n\"God may exist for the individual, Socrates; in the individual\nconsciousness. But the truth lies beyond us. Man's image of a tree is\ntrue, because a tree is.\"\n\n\"The colour, the shape, the texture, are not,\" replied Socrates; \"except\nas the man sees them. Philip was right in saying that if we know one\nthing we know all others. Philip, wake up!\"\n\n\"Socrates, what mischief are you up to now that Pythodorus is gone,\"\nsaid Philip. \"You talk too much. Protagoras said simply that a monkey\nimagines God as a monkey, while a peacock imagines him as a peacock.\"\n\n\"O Philip, what a fool you are! Does a foolish man imagine a foolish\nGod? Does a blind man imagine a blind God?\"\n\n\"Of course not.\"\n\n\"Then, listen, Philip! Does Pythodorus imagine a God who is a nuisance\nto his friends?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Very well, then, some standard exists which is external to the\nindividual, but which he only knows through his inner consciousness. The\noracle at Delphi was right when it said: 'Know thyself. For the more a\nman knows himself, the more he knows God.'\"\n\n\"It is dawn,\" said Lysis.\n\n\"O Socrates, you are the most unbridled and insatiable of all the\nsophists,\" said Protagoras, laughing. \"You have laid a trap for me.\"\n\n\"Why do you accuse me of laying a trap for you? We are not arguing with\nthe sole desire of scoring a point against each other. I do not lay\ntraps for you, as if I were a hunter of men; but I lay traps for truth,\nbeing a hunter of truth, and having no other reason for existence but to\nchase and follow after it wherever it may be hidden.\"\n\n\"We have no more time, Socrates,\" said Protagoras. \"Tell me your own\nopinion of the gods and of the aim of life.\"\n\n\"What can I say to you,\" said Socrates, \"beyond what a prophetess taught\nme? For she said that in our voyage through the world we are being\nreminded constantly of a previous existence, and that when we are\nbrought face to face with beauty or with virtue or with truth, in short\nwherever we are moved to admiration as in contemplating a work of art\nlike the chryselephantine Zeus at Olympia, it is the memory stirring in\nus of the place from which we came; and, further, she asked me if I had\nnever felt an inexplicable sadness mingling with all beauty, as if\nbeauty itself were inseparable from sorrow. 'Yes, Diotima,' I answered,\n'in the presence of beauty we are all sufferers.' 'Then Socrates,' she\nsaid, 'let me tell you that this feeling of sadness in the presence of\nbeauty is in reality a sense of exile; for however deeply we may drink\nof Lethe, the soul will retain some broken memories of the garden of the\ngods. When we meet with beauty in the world it is but a mutilated\nfragment of the divine beauty, but however small or slight it may be in\nitself, it is sufficient to call up into memory the divine beauty; and\nit is then that the sense of exile rushes in upon us like a wave and we\nweep and suffer anguish, and can neither tear ourselves away from the\nbeautiful thing, nor be content with it; but all our being thirsts after\nthe more perfect beauty. But let me warn you, Socrates, that however\nmuch you may be tortured in the presence of the beauty that lies\nscattered through the world, it is your business to collect each tiny\nfragment; and if it be a few bars of music you must build it into a\nsong; if it be a mere tangle of coloured skeins you must weave it into a\ngarment; if it be fragments of gold and ivory you must make them into a\nstatue; if it be beautiful colours you must make them into a picture, or\nbeautiful words then into a poem; and all this time you will suffer and\nbe tortured with desire for the more perfect beauty. But, until you have\ngathered together the broken fragments which are in the world you will\nnot return into the garden of the gods.' 'Then the gods exist?' I\nenquired. 'Certainly the gods exist,' answered Diotima; 'but they exist\nin a manner peculiar to themselves.' She would say nothing more, but\nwhen I questioned her smiled wisely and was silent.\"\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHermogenes met Lysis by the porch of the King Archon near the house of\nCallias.\n\n\"Have you heard the news, Hermogenes,\" said Lysis, \"I have just been\nwith Euripides. Protagoras is drowned. Within sight of Sicily a storm\ncame up and drove the boat on the rocks. The sailors saved themselves by\nswimming; but Protagoras, who could not swim, sat on the prow of the\nboat. They saw him from the beach sitting calmly until the boat split in\ntwo. The waves reached out for him, and in a little time his bruised and\nbattered body was cast up at their feet. As they reached for it it was\nsnatched away by another wave. And so the sea played with him like a cat\nplaying with a mouse. Then he was flung ashore. His face was bloody but\nsmiling.\"\n\n\"It was a judgment of the gods,\" said Hermogenes.\n\n\"So everybody says.\"\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                                                  _TO MRS ALFRED FOWLER_\n\n\n\n\n                                  III\n\n                           THE FRIEND OF PAUL\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                  III\n\n                           THE FRIEND OF PAUL\n\n\nThe house of Serenus lay about four miles from Gades, in a country of\nvines and olives. It was built a little below the ridge of a hill, which\nsheltered it from the north-east winds, and fronted south-west,\noverlooking the Atlantic and a long stretch of the coast-line with its\ninnumerable headlands and curving bays. From the windows in the upper\nstorey Serenus could see this wide expanse of waters, never completely\nthe same, but always restless and troubled, with caprice in sunlight, or\nanger in storms; or, turning to another aspect, the hills and valleys of\nhis own estate; a land of cornfields, vineyards, and olive-yards,\npleasantly diversified by slopes of green upland pasture, and beyond\nthem the wild beauty of mountains with frosty summits and well-timbered\nflanks. The house was surrounded by a garden planted with myrtles and\nplane-trees, with alleys screened from the fierce heat of summer by\ndense boughs of ilex, curving tortuously in labyrinthine windings, or\nrunning perfectly straight until they ended in an arch, the frame, as it\nwere, for some picture of land or sea. The grass by the paths was kept\nmown, but here and there, among thickets of myrtle, grew rank,\nharbouring the green lizards, who slipped out every now and then to bask\nin the sunlight on the marble steps, or on the pedestals of the statues\nof Priapus and the woodland gods.\n\nBeyond the garden, Ceres crowded abundantly into every corner. Half a\nmile away, at the foot of the hill, its red-tiled roofs just showing\nabove the terraced vines, was the house of the farm-bailiff; thither\ncame the tall daughters of the peasantry bringing the offerings of their\nmothers in plaited baskets, pale honey in its wax, young leverets, and\ncapons luscious for cooking. In the yard all the crowd of common poultry\nwandered about, while the tower echoed with the joy of pigeons, answered\nfrom the neighbouring trees by the cooing of ring-doves and white\nturtles. Thither also, on feast-days, or to the humble marriage of one\nof their companions, all the slaves of the estate were bidden, the\nhuntsmen with the herds; and Serenus would sit among them, eating the\nsame fare and drinking the same wine, while much wood burnt to the\nfestal Lares.\n\nAs he grew older, Serenus had come to love the tranquil life at his\ncountry-house, the soft, warm air blowing from off the sea, the noise of\nrippling water and of wind stirring in the leaves. He had arrived at\nthat period of life when a man is content to stand aside and become a\nspectator. In the last few years his hold upon the management of his\nlarge properties had been gradually relaxed, and he had come to rely\nmore and more upon one or two trusted slaves and freedmen; but at\nirregular intervals he would make a journey to all his possessions in\nSpain, visiting Bilbilis where he had iron-fields, and bred horses; a\ndelightful country it was, \"high Bilbilis enriched by arms and horses;\nCaunus austere with snows, and the broken hills of Vadevero, the sweet\ngrove of Botrodus which Pomona loves.\"\n\nHis interests extended in many directions: he was concerned in the mines\nof Spain; he owned a fleet of ships which sailed to Rome, and beyond,\neven to Corinth; his agents followed the army to buy slaves; and he lent\nmoney, though principally for political purposes, to the young\nofficials, half civil and half military, for whom the government of a\nprovince was a means to fortune and imperial favour at Rome. At first\nthis villa in the country had been used only in the hottest months of\nthe year, and the site chosen because there seemed always to be some\nmysterious currents of air flowing about it from the cool hills toward\nthe sea, and because innumerable springs had their sources in the rocks;\nbut gradually there woke in him that living interest in rural pleasures\nand labours, which was always an instinct with the Romans even during\ntheir worst decadence; he became glad at any time to visit it, and drink\nin its mild delicious air in that peaceable garden overlooking the\nmysterious sea.\n\nThe need for leisure grew upon him, and he added a wing to the\noriginally modest house in order that he might transport thither his\nlibraries from Gades; he transported also his Greek statues, his tables\nof citrus wood and ivory, his myrrhine vases; he built a roofed\ncolonnade, pierced with windows on both sides, and with movable\nshutters, so that the weather-side might be closed at will; he devised\nrooms to catch all the winter sun, and rooms shaded by vines which were\ncool through the hottest days; he built sumptuous baths, and a new\ntriclinium, and new guest-chambers; by every window, colonnade, and walk\nhe planted roses and violets to sweeten the air; and he stocked his fish\nponds with rare fish for the table.\n\nBut in spite of the later more sumptuous buildings, and new elegances\nwhich he brought with him, he did not forget that he had come into the\ncountry in order to be with the elementary conditions of life. He felt\nvery near to this earth which furnished him with everything he ate. From\nthe time the wheat was sown until it came upon his table in little\nloaves it had been handled by none except his own slaves. At the\nvintage, he would go out to the wine-press and gaze on the wine-jars, as\nthey were carried into the cellar to stand with the older jars, in which\nmellowed the fragrance of earlier autumns; and day after day, in a\nbroad-brimmed hat and worn military cloak, he would walk down to the\nfarm and listen to the pleasant, familiar noises, the clamour of the\ngeese, the lambs calling to their full mothers, the cooing of the\npigeons in the tower, the murmur of the bees about the populous hives;\nand the children hung shyly about him, for he generally brought them\nsome nuts, and would tempt the wild-eyed things toward him, holding the\nnuts in his open hand, as a man might tempt a bird with crumbs.\n\nHe was still fond of hunting, fond of the deep shadow of the woods, the\nstealthy alertness, the cunning and science of wood-craft, he felt that\nhe could best repel the advance of age by such exercises; but even in\nthe woods perhaps his chief pleasure was in a kind of meditation, a\nconversation with himself, induced by that silence which the sport\nimposed; and, when the boars had been finally driven into the nets and\nslain, he would sit beside them, eating bread which he dipped in wine,\nand writing on his tablets, in a small, fine hand, the thoughts\nsuggested by the day's journey. It seemed to him that the physical\nexercise, the free play of the air on face and limbs, awakened an equal\nvivacity and alertness in the mind; and that Minerva, no less than\nDiana, was a goddess of the deep solitudes. Two Roman officers from\nGades, Sulpicianus Rufus and Marcus Licinius were his usual hunting\ncompanions.\n\nAfter his morning exercise, Serenus was used to take a cold bath, and\nthen sleep for a little while during the heat of the day. Coming from\nhis bath one morning, a little before noon, he found his two friends in\nthe hall.\n\n\"Seneca is dead;\" was the news they brought him.\n\nThen, in one of the libraries, he learned the details.\n\nRufus had been a friend of Seneca, and the story had come direct to him.\nThe three friends were strangely moved. Marcus and Serenus listened in\nsilence as Rufus described the scene at the villa.\n\n\"He asked for his will, that he might make some bequests to his friends;\nbut this was forbidden. Turning then, to his wife and the two friends\nwho were dining with him, he said that since Nero had murdered his\nmother and brother it was not to be expected that he might spare the\ninstructor of his youth. Paulina desired to die with him, and the\nphysician opened the veins of both. But Seneca's blood would not flow,\nand he drank poison; finally, he was carried to a warm bath, and died.\nPaulina's wounds were bound up, by command of Nero, and she still\nlives.\"\n\n\"She is more to be pitied,\" said Serenus. \"What others died?\"\n\nRufus gave their names.\n\n\"Lucan, too!\" exclaimed Serenus. \"Does Gallio still live?\"\n\n\"I have not heard of his death; but it is impossible that he would\nescape.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Serenus; \"Seneca's family is annihilated. It is like the\nworking of Nemesis. We have been the spectators of one of Fate's\ntragedies, which are so rare. It is complete, large, full of irony; and\nSeneca's own words, 'the murderer of his mother and brother would not\nspare the instructor of his youth!' One thinks of them less as Seneca's\nown words, than as the sardonic comment of a later historian. They are\ntoo apt.\"\n\n\"You were not one of Seneca's friends,\" said Rufus.\n\n\"No,\" said Serenus; \"Nero is the direct result of Seneca's teachings. So\nbrutal a voluptuary could hardly issue from any but a Stoic school. It\nis at once raw, crude, and narrow; it coarsens our natural appetites\ninstead of refining them. For Stoicism the human emotions, love and\npity, are but weaknesses, which it denies and attempts to stifle. It is\nvery far from the secret of human sympathy. Nero as a young man had many\nexcellent qualities, which an artistic and delicate training might have\ndeveloped into fine accomplishments: he might have learned the art of\nlife; and instead he has learned only rhetoric, the sort of rhetoric\nthat vitiates every action, and makes our emotions the subject for a\nstage declamation, makes life a mere piece of acting. Yet I must not\nforget, Rufus, that Seneca was your friend. Perhaps he was better than\nhis philosophy; but I have never been able to forgive him either for his\nadulation of Claudius during his life, or his satire upon him after his\ndeath.\"\n\n\"Seneca was un-Roman,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Why do you say that?\" enquired Serenus.\n\n\"All his ideals were un-Roman,\" answered Marcus. \"His notions of the\nbrotherhood and natural equality of man, his unpractical nature and\nsentimentalism, his absolute lack of a grasp upon realities and their\nsignificance, his condemnation of war and of slavery. His life was\ncomposed almost entirely of noble maxims, and of trivial actions.\"\n\n\"He died well,\" said Rufus tersely.\n\n\"A final gesture,\" said Marcus, rubbing his arm. \"We Romans are superbly\nself-conscious. We die in public, with appropriate speeches.\"\n\n\"What you think peculiar to Seneca, his sentimentalism and idealism, are\nreally parts of the present spirit, and common to all schools,\" answered\nSerenus. \"Rome has broken down the ancient national barriers, and given\nto all peoples the notion of humanity as a whole. It is from this cause\nthat the idea of a world-state has its origin. But Rome governs by\nforce; other nations are tributary to her; she has enslaved them; they\nare the base upon which she has raised her grandeur. They feel that they\nare unjustly treated. We have created new conditions. We have shut them\noff from their legitimate activities by refusing to allow them to govern\nthemselves, or to make war upon their neighbours; so that the whole life\nof the Empire is centralised in Rome, and the provinces have become\nstagnant. And from these new conditions has been born a new spirit. Life\nseems too full of suffering; the poor and the oppressed are many, and\nbecause they are so many they are becoming articulate. They would build\na new heaven and a new earth. I learnt of this first at Corinth.\"\n\n\"The whole corruption of the world comes from the Greeks and the Jews,\"\nsaid Rufus contemptuously. \"What is the use of clamouring against life?\nIt is a problem that we must each solve for ourselves, and no theory\nwill help us. If society were wrong, if Rome were wrong, if force were\nwrong, we should not be sitting here in comparative comfort. To talk of\nthe tyranny of the State is nonsense; individual liberty is what each\nman wins for himself, and the State merely offers the most convenient\nmechanism by which it may be gained. As an example we have the growth of\na large class of rich freedmen. The disease, from which we are suffering\nat present, is simply a form of sentimentality. What is morality? What\nis justice? What is good? The only answer is: 'That which law orders.'\"\n\n\"Do you believe in the gods, Rufus?\" enquired Marcus, with amusement.\n\n\"I follow the customs of my forefathers,\" answered Rufus bluntly.\n\n\"The gods are dead,\" said Marcus, still rubbing his arm.\n\n\"They are not dead,\" answered Serenus gently; \"but they have changed\ntheir names. The people will always worship the same Divinity, the Giver\nof rain and good crops and victory in battle, and health in life, and\npeace toward death.\"\n\n\"I never understood Seneca's philosophy; but I loved the man,\" said\nRufus. \"The greater part of him was weakness, but he had strength. He\nwas a good man of business, Serenus.\"\n\n\"He was a clever man, with admirable opportunities,\" answered Serenus.\n\"I am an Epicurean, and Seneca's teaching is not mine. Yet, in some of\nits details his teaching is also Epicurean. With him, philosophy was\nless an affair of the mind than of the imagination, and of good taste;\nit is always the artist, the orator, who is teaching, and his eloquence\nis never quite persuasive, because the artist is never quite persuaded.\nHe belongs to no school, he is an eclectic; and he seeks rather to\ninculcate the practice of virtue than to show what virtue is. He neither\nasks nor answers a question. The vices and weaknesses which he condemned\nin others he had found in himself; his was a subjective, a poetic, a\nromantic mind. And it was precisely for this reason that his disciples\nloved him, because of that emotional and many coloured nature, which saw\nvirtue, the most austere virtue, ever as a god, and found it\nunattainable.\"\n\n\"Yes, that is true,\" said Rufus.\n\n\"But did Seneca believe in the gods, and in the immortality of the\nsoul?\" enquired Marcus.\n\nSerenus smiled.\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered; \"Seneca spent his whole life in seeking for the\ntruth, but the truth for which he sought was one which should be\nagreeable to his own nature. A divinity was necessary to his well-being.\nHe speaks of a loving God, of a God who orders the world aright and\nwhose will we should obey without a murmur; and in consequence his\nhatred for the Epicureans was great. He could not forgive us for showing\nthe gods serene and untroubled in their abode, into which penetrates no\nwhisper of mortal anguish; and for saying that no voice of prayer\ntroubles their endless pleasure, and that without tears or anger they\ngaze at once upon our sorrow and our sin, and are heedless of the hands\nuplifted in supplication from every corner of the earth. Yes; God is\nnecessary to a Stoic. But we Epicureans have called upon the gods and\nthey have not answered us; we have sought them throughout the world and\nhave not found them; neither are they in the seas nor in the skies; we\nhave not seen them destroy the wicked nor protect the innocent; we think\nthat they are not interested in our humble affairs; they are neither our\nmasters nor our creators, but belong to the same order of things as we\ndo, though of a finer and less perishable nature: if, indeed, they exist\nat all.\"\n\n\"Stoicism is a hatred of humanity,\" said Marcus; \"perhaps Epicureanism\nis a love of it. Rufus, do you not think the Epicureans are clever? They\ndo not deny the existence of gods; but they make their gods of such a\ndivinely intangible substance that doubt becomes in itself almost an act\nof worship. It is as if they feared to profane the sanctuary with human\nfeet soiled by the dust of travail.\"\n\n\"I have given you my opinion of philosophy and philosophers,\" said\nRufus. \"Once a man begins to think of the difference between right and\nwrong he is lost, morally and mentally. I studied philosophy in order to\nlearn how to write despatches; and in the short course I took, I\nacquired enough knowledge of the subject to know that good and evil\nbelong to the category of reflex actions, they are spasmodic movements\nover which we have no control. Do I praise my legionaries because they\nare brave? I do, as a matter of fact. It makes an admirable prelude to\nthe imposition of another task. Seneca imagined that men could be\ndisciplined into virtue. It was a great mistake, because discipline is\nnot applicable to the individual, it is only applicable to a crowd. It\nis easy to fill a regiment with courage; but it is impossible to make\none man brave.\"\n\n\"You do not think that it is possible to form individual habits?\" said\nSerenus.\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" answered Rufus; \"it is possible to accustom a man to\nsleep on a hard bed, to deny himself wine or flesh, even in some degree\nto control his temper. But an action is good or bad, only in so far as\nit is a reflex action.\"\n\n\"What you say is very curious,\" said Serenus quickly.\n\n\"In fact Rufus is a complete philosopher,\" said Marcus, laughing. \"I\nshould like to drink a little wine.\"\n\nSerenus struck a sounding-bowl of silver, and a Greek boy entered.\n\n\"Wine,\" said Serenus, and the boy left them. \"Rufus, you have heard of a\nsect of Jews called Christians; do you know their belief?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Rufus contemptuously; \"I only know that it is against the\nJewish religion to pay tribute. I believe that they have no religion;\nthey are contemptuous of all known gods; they will eat no flesh which\nhas been offered in the temples; and they loathe the whole human race: a\nfeeling which, I think, is reciprocated. The Christians seem to be one\nof the numerous sects given over to the practice of a depraved and\nfantastic superstition. The East is full of such monstrous cults.\"\n\nThe Greek boy set wine before them, threw a few grains of incense on a\nbrazier, and departed softly. Marcus drank a white Greek wine; Rufus\npoured himself out a large bowl of Falernian.\n\n\"I take mine with a great deal of water,\" said Serenus; \"because my\nstomach is weak. Alas! sometimes I think it is my stomach which has\ntaught me the virtue of moderation. I have heard a man, who was a\nChristian, speak in almost the identical words of Seneca. The cardinal\npoint of his doctrine was not the Stoic apathy, but the recommendation\nof sympathy, that is the difference between them. Here and there he uses\nthe same phrases and illustrations as Seneca. It shows how widespread\nthe new spirit is.\"\n\n\"Seneca's teaching did not interest me,\" answered Rufus. \"It was the man\nI loved. Though it is long since saw him, I cannot believe that he was\ncontaminated by Judaism.\"\n\nSerenus felt a curious desire to disburden himself.\n\n\"I went a great deal among the Christians once,\" he said softly.\n\nThe two men looked at him for a moment, with that curious expression of\ndistrust which men adopt when another confesses to some social\nindiscretion.\n\n\"It was nearly nine years ago, and perhaps my nature resembled Seneca's\nthen; my philosophy was an affair of the heart. I was seeking for a\nbeauty that is not of this world. It was at Corinth. I met a man named\nPaul.\"\n\n\"All things are possible at Corinth,\" said Rufus. \"Tell us your story,\nSerenus.\"\n\n\"And then we shall stay to dinner,\" said Marcus, as he finished his\nwine.\n\n\"It is a long story,\" said Serenus, smiling. \"I have written it on a\nroll, and shall read it to you. Let us go out into the garden; it is\ncool and pleasant there now. Lysis will bring you what you want. Do you\nremember telling me, Rufus, that Seneca drew you to him by his weakness?\nPaul drew me to him by his strength.\"\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nPassing out of the library through the atrium the friends crossed a\nsmall courtyard enclosed on three sides, and turning sharp to the left\nbegan to climb the slope which sheltered the house. The walk was shaded\nby a thick hedge of ilex, and there were tall, slim cypresses at\nirregular intervals. Leaving the path, they crossed a plot of grass,\nstarry with little flowers, and, passing through a thicket of myrtles,\ncame presently to a semicircular stone seat shaded by beeches which\nstood, eastward, a little way behind it. Falling water tinkled like\nlittle silver bells somewhere close to them; and the leaves made a\npleasant whispering noise. Lysis covered the seat with rugs, and left\nthem. The seat faced westward, overlooking the olive-yards which the\nwinds flushed to silver; and the friends had a magnificent view of the\nAtlantic. In the declining light the distant promontories, blue and\nlemon, seemed to jut out into a bath of liquid colours, as if suspended\nin the vague; and the horizon was indeterminate. A fleet of\nfishing-boats, some miles from the shore, seemed like small, brown moths\nwith motionless wings that had settled upon a flat screen of transparent\nblue gauze, and about them the light gleamed and flickered upon\ninnumerable little dancing waves. It was all blue and green, but so pale\nand silent as to seem a mirage. Marcus, lounging easily upon the wide\nseat, looked over the prospect with unconscious enjoyment. Rufus sat\nwith his chin in his hands.\n\n\"I love to sit here on tranquil evenings,\" said Serenus; \"and listen for\nthe cry of the halcyon, or the heavy plunge of a dolphin, drifting up\nthrough the delicious air from the bay.\"\n\nHe unrolled his manuscript, and presently began to read, in a smooth,\nlow voice:--\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"When Venus rose out of the foam and froth of Ocean it was upon the prow\nof a Ph\u0153nician trader, that carried her into every part of the known\nworld; and when her worship fell away and her votaries became few, the\ncult of Venus Pandemos still flourished at Corinth, and her temples\nthere were served by a thousand priestesses. There she loves to have her\nabiding place, where she can look out upon two seas, and watch the\nsail-winged ships bringing her tribute from distant lands; she is the\nlure, beckoning them over the pathless sea. The port Cenchrea is\nsurrounded by green hills and pine forests, and through the stone-pines\nat dawn the sun sends his first level rays, so that their trunks show\nblack against the gold. The streets are infested with traders of all\nnations; Jews and Syrians swarm there; child courtesans with delicate\nand innocent faces pluck strangers by the sleeve and smile; the quays\nand streets are crowded with the booths of merchants and moneychangers,\nwhose gay awnings striped red or yellow glare vividly in the sunlight;\nand doves are everywhere, fluttering about the streets, fanning the air\nwith a soft pulse of wings, alighting upon awnings and architraves to\npreen their feathers, running swiftly among the passengers on their pink\nfeet and cooing, cooing softly like the young girls who touch men on the\nsleeve, the very gentle, insinuating whisper of Aphrodite.\n\n\"I arrived at Corinth in the beginning of December, and remember well\nthe gaiety, animation, and bustle of the scene as I watched it from the\nsteps of the temple; for a long time I fed my sight upon that busy,\namorous, wholly pleasure-loving crowd, until, at last, the red and\nyellow awnings so hot and vivid even in the winter sunlight, the\nperpetual passing to and fro of men and women, the continual change and\nmotion of colours, and the humming noise, all combined in a curious\nhypnotic effect upon my nerves. What had seemed the very epitome of life\nbecame a mere stage-scene, and then again nothing but the dance of motes\nin a sunbeam.\n\n\"It irritated me and then tired me. I turned from the Temple of Venus\nand sought that of Apollo, where I rested a little time in peace. Then I\nwent to the house of my agent, with whom I was to lodge until I had\ntaken a house for my own use. The man was kindly, but tactless; his\ntedious anxiety to please distracted and irritated me, he was so much at\nmy service that I could find no possible use for him. I said I wished to\nbathe, and my host insisted on coming with me. It was amusing to watch\nhis air of importance as he conducted me through the crowded ways, for\nhe was a notable person in the city, and every other man we met greeted\nus; as we paused a moment before a funeral procession I heard a voice\nsaying: 'That is Serenus, a cousin of Acte's Serenus,' and once again I\nfelt the intolerable stare of curious eyes, that dropped obsequiously\nwhen I met them. After my bath, my host led me to the Prefect's palace,\nfor I had letters to Gallio, and then at last he left me. Gallio\nreceived me charmingly; his manners are those of a man who has known and\nforgotten everything. He begged me to dine, and to stay with him until I\nhad found a house; but I excused myself on the score of business and\nfatigue. He smiled, answered that he would always be glad of my company,\nand I left him.\n\n\"Once again in the streets, that vivid and passionate life appealed to\nme with a new sympathy; I read beneath the superficial gaiety and\nglitter, the human tragedy, the flight of pleasures and the irrevocable\nadvance of death; women passed me in soft murmuring draperies, smiled at\nme languorously and passed on leaving the air tainted with Eastern\nperfumes. I noticed that even as they smiled their eyes were wistful.\nThe delicate winter sunset began. I called a boy to me and asked him to\nguide me to the house of Caius, whom I wished to see personally on some\nbusiness connected with the outfit of my ship. He led me to a house in\nthe Jews' quarter and I tapped at the door. A freedwoman admitted me,\nlooked at me with surprise, and was just going to speak but changed her\nmind and led me toward the doorway of a room whence came a sound of some\none reading. Light fell through the doorway as she drew back the\ncurtain; and she motioned me to enter; but I drew back in astonishment,\nfor a voice was reading aloud these words: 'Though I speak with the\ntongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become sounding\nbrass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have prophecy, and understand\nall mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith so that I\ncould remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And if I give\naway in food all my goods, and though I give my body to be burned, and\nhave not love, it profiteth me nothing.'\n\n\"The grave voice ceased, for the servant had beckoned the reader, and\npresently Caius came toward me. I gave him my orders with reference to\nthe sails and tackling of my ship, and spoke of other ships of mine\nwhich he had refitted for me; and then asked him what author he had been\nreading. For a moment he hesitated, and then answered that he had been\nreading to some friends a letter by Paul, an apostle of Christ. I\nenquired if I might look a little more closely at it as I had been\ninterested in what I heard; and after hesitating again for a moment he\nbrought it me. The scroll half opened in my hands and I read:--\n\n\"For behold your calling, brethren, how that not many wise after the\nflesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called, but God chose the\nfoolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are\nwise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to\nshame the things that are strong; and the base things of the world, and\nthe things that are despised, did God choose, yea, and the things that\nare not, that he might bring to nought the things that are.' Mine eyes\nfollowed the words as the roll opened: 'Howbeit we speak wisdom among\nthe perfect; yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this\nworld, which are coming to nought; but we speak God's wisdom in a\nmystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained\nbefore the worlds unto our glory; which none of the rulers of this world\nknoweth; for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of\nglory.' My sight ran heedlessly over the next few lines until they came\nto these words: 'For I think, God hath set forth us the apostles last of\nall, as men doomed to death; for we are made a spectacle unto the world,\nand to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are\nwise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye have glory but we\nhave dishonour. Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst,\nand are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place; and\nwe toil, working with our own hands; being reviled, we bless; being\npersecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat; we are made as the\nfilth of the world, the off-scouring of things, even until now.... What\nwill ye, shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and a spirit of\nmeekness?'\n\n\"I rolled up the scroll, and gave it back to Caius, saying that I should\nlike to read it all, but that at the moment I had not the time; and I\nsuggested that he should lend it to me. He shook his head, murmuring\nthat it was not his property, that it was only deposited in his house\nfor safe keeping, the convenience of those who wished to consult it; but\nhe offered to let me see it, in his house, at any time that I might\nwish. I said that perhaps I might come again, and went out into the\nstreet. I do not think that I had any intention of coming again; but as\nthe women passed me in the moonlit streets, and the beggar children held\nout their supplicating hands, I seemed to hear the words: 'If I give\naway in food all my goods, and though I give my body to be burned and\nhave not love, it profiteth me nothing.'\n\n\"Yes; I felt it in those streets, where little girls, still children and\ninnocent, aped with a diabolic mimicry the manners and allurements of\nthe women who followed me, followed me with a soft, rippling noise of\ndraperies and odour of cosmetics, like shadows, like ghosts. In the city\nof the goddess of pleasure, I seemed to learn, for the first time, the\nsecret of pain. But beyond and above that sympathy with this drifting\nhelpless mass that is humanity, I felt a curious desire to learn more of\nthe personality of the writer who could write: 'If any man considereth\nhimself wise among you, let him become a fool that he may be wise, and\nthreaten to come among his disputing disciples with a rod.' His humility\nseemed to overpass the bounds of pride, his words were whips, his\ncontempt for argument and disputation burned with a superhuman energy.\nHe seemed to say: 'These are but words, empty sounds. I teach you the\ntruth, accept it humbly; have I not suffered for it, and will you, who\nhave but enjoyed it in peace and plenty, attempt to alter it?'\n\n\"I came back to my lodgings, and the woman who had followed me turned\naway with a sigh.\n\n\"The next ten days I spent on business; and I went a great deal to the\nPrefect's palace where the conversation of Gallio and his friends\ncharmed and delighted me. Gallio saw the world and the Empire drifting\ntoward a complete breakdown. Civilisation, according to him, filled man\nwith desires which he can never gratify; it tended to accentuate the\ndifference between the poor and the rich, and the whole question\nresolved itself for him into a question of politics. The Roman stock was\nperishing, and its place was being taken by a horde of servile races.\nThe people were only being kept in check by a system of doles, and\namused with pageants. The burden of taxation was becoming insufferable.\n\n\"It may last our time,\" he said with a smile; \"but the disease is\nineradicable. A revolution, or a series of great wars, might carry us\nforward for a time. We are suffering from a mortal sickness, growth,\nwhich inevitably brings decay.\"\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt had been arranged that one of my ships should follow three weeks\nafter my departure from Gades; and on my arrival at lazy Naples, I had\nintended to wait for it, consequently I had remained there for three\nweeks and a few days, and the other ship not coming by that time I\ncontinued my voyage to Brundusium. There again I waited, anxious for\nnews, and at last reluctantly put out to sea without it. It arrived at\nCorinth fourteen days after I did, and brought me a letter from my\nnephew, but none from my wife. In an agony of doubt I opened it, and\nread that my wife and child had died of a fever which had afflicted them\na few days after my departure. First my son had died, a boy little more\nthan three years old; and my wife, after lingering some time, followed\nhim. I had moved into my own house, and was alone. Sending a messenger\nto my agent I bade him see to all things; and told him that I wished to\nbe left undisturbed. The words of the Master came to me:\n\n            \"Nam iam non domus accipiet te l\u00e6ta neque uxor\n            Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati\n            Pr\u00e6ripere, et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent.\"\n\nIt seemed to me that the peace and tranquillity of my home, the sole aim\nof my life, having been shrivelled up like unsubstantial things,\nvanished like dreams, life had thrown me, too, aside and left me\nstranded, a piece of wreckage, upon this alien shore. For many days I\nsat alone in my sumptuous house, and the statues of the gods, blithe\nGreek things, which I had bought to furnish it, and for transhipment to\nthe new home which I had meant to make at Rome, smiled at my unavailing\ntears. Then one morning my slaves admitted a young boy to my presence.\n\n\"Caius bids me tell you that Paul is in Corinth,\" he said.\n\n\"I shall go,\" I answered.\n\nAfter he had left me, I repented. Why should I choose to frequent the\nJews and miracle-mongers of Corinth, who swarmed there on the way to\nRome from every part of the East, astrologers, and sellers of\nlove-potions, poisoners, and go-betweens? But the words rose up in my\nmind: \"God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to\nshame them that are wise:\" and I wished to be ashamed. In my weakness\nand grief my hands went forth and groped in the darkness, seeking the\nhands of those who had also suffered, seeking for the little familiar,\ncommon-place things, that twine themselves round our being and are the\nmainstays of life. My abandonment of life in my grief had been so\ncomplete, that but for the message which came to me from Caius, I might\nhave drifted towards self-destruction, merely because of the sullen\ninertia, which followed after the force of the blow had been spent.\nPhilosophy, religion, discipline, every vain convention which we imagine\nmay buttress our will in moments of great spiritual weakness, fell away\nfrom me like garments, and the only thing remaining was a sense of human\nsympathy, a craving for human consolation.\n\nOur master, Epicurus, was a lover of children; he knew, no one better,\ntheir delicate and insinuating ways, the strange unreal world in which\nthey play, their unconsciousness of time; and he seems to have taken\nthem as patterns and exemplars of the life of pleasure, unsuspicious of\nthe future, and forgetful of the past, but living always with a vivid\nintensity, in that little, shut-in pleasure-house of the senses, the\nmoment. As I thought of my child, I remembered all his caresses, the\nsoft touch of his flower-like hands upon my face, and the grave eyes\nthat seemed to keep a wisdom older than the world; and beside that image\nin my dreams stooped another, Drusilla, her hands guiding him to me, she\nwhose whole life was like some attenuated fragrance, difficult of\napprehension, but inexpressibly sweet, her quiet brows with neat bands\nof hair smoothed against the cool flesh; and the love that grew between\nus, first for what she revealed to me, and then for what she hid. When I\nthought of these two brief, beautiful creatures, I seemed to see in them\nthe true fragility of life, as if it were no more than wind in the stops\nof a flute or sweet vibration from the strings of a lyre, aerial,\nelusive, never to be wholly imprisoned in any one form, but wandering,\nvocal, through the whole of creation, illuminating it to one exquisite\nmoment, like light upon hill and sea, and then vanishing, fleeing away\ninto darkness, never to be exactly repeated.\n\nSo to me, sitting apart and outwardly unmoved, there came that fierce\nhunger for things departed, that blind, bitter struggle against the\nunalterable conditions of life.\n\nI hesitated, and delayed to set out on my adventure until well on into\nthe night At last I went. A fresh wind was blowing from the north-west,\nit stung my face and eyes, and I saw that snow lay lightly upon the\nsummit of Acrocorinth, silvery in the moonlight. As I passed into the\nJews' quarter I began to meet little knots and groups of people talking\nwith excited gestures, and I heard rumours of brawls and quarrels; but I\nreached the house of Caius without incident. The same boy who had\nbrought me the message admitted me. He had fine clear-cut features,\ndistinctive of no particular race, though with evidence of Roman blood\nsomewhere. Caius was the son of a freedman I gathered later, and this\nboy was the eldest of his two children, the other being a girl. The boy\ntold me that the meeting was over, but that Caius was with Paul and his\ntravelling companions in an upper chamber; he led the way and I\nfollowed. I felt cold and suspicious, but curious. The boy drew back the\ncurtain, whispered my name, and I went into the warmly-lighted room.\nSeated by the brazier was a thick-set, crook-backed man, ugly and mean,\nwith a small head, much too small for his shoulders, a sallow skin and\nthick beard. As I entered he lifted his face; the eyebrows met above the\nbeaky nose, and he regarded me for a moment in complete silence. The\neyes were piercing, as though full of smouldering fires. They seemed to\nexplore the most secret recesses of my soul; then to grow kinder, as if\nrecognising something in it.\n\n\"Peace be with you, and light, and understanding,\" he said; and as he\nspoke there seemed to me a hesitation and an embarrassment in his\nmanner. I murmured something in reply, at which, perhaps, a slight smile\nbroke about his lips, and he turned away. Caius brought me the\nmanuscript which I had looked at, gave me a chair in a warm corner by a\nlamp, and went back to the others. I began to read. Four men, besides\nCaius, and a woman were gathered at a table by Paul. One of the men was\nholding a pen. Then the voice of Paul broke the silence.\n\n\"For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free\nfrom the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it\nwas weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of\nsinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. That the\nordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the\nflesh, but after the spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind\nthe things of the flesh; but they that are after the spirit, the things\nof the spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the\nspirit is life and peace.... And if Christ is in you, the body is dead\nbecause of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.\"\n\nHolding the manuscript on my knees, I listened. The passion of the\nspeaker seized and held me; he was like one so full of speech as to be\ninarticulate, he seemed to falter through many phrases until he found\nthe right one; he would go on blindly, following the mere impulse of his\nmind, without thought or reason, until at last, as with pain, words came\nto him that seemed to touch the heart, to illuminate hidden places, and\nwhat had gone before was transfused and crystallised by it into a kind\nof rude and imperfect unity. Sometimes after one of these magnificent\nutterances, he would give forth phrase after phrase, that glowed with\nthe heat of his own certainty. \"Who shall separate us from the love of\nChrist? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or\nnakedness, or peril, or the sword?\" He dealt with speech as one dealing\nwith iron in the fire, hammering out the words. \"Nay, in all these\nthings we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am\npersuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,\nnor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor\ndepth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the\nlove of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.\"\n\nHe was persuaded. Seeing that they had forgotten me, I lifted my eyes\nand studied him as he spoke. I saw that his health was bad; the carriage\nof his head seemed epileptic, but bodily health was nothing to him; he\nseemed worn with travel and hunger, misfortune and persecution, yet the\nfire of his speech showed the strength of his conviction; even as, in\nhis words, he seemed to thrust the world away from him for the sake of\nan idea, so, for the sake of an idea he had thrust away his infirmities,\nand pursued his way heedless of obstacles. \"Shall the thing formed say\nto him that formed it. Why didst thou make me thus? Or, hath not the\npotter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a\nvessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?\"\n\nSometimes Paul moved a little, with nervous half-conscious movements; or\nwhile speaking he would stretch his large toil-worn hands over the\nbrazier where the light gleaming through the fingers made them seem more\ndistorted. As a rule he spoke slowly, but when he became dominated by\nhis thought the words hurried, more and more quickly, until the writer\npaused, perplexed, and, not without a slight gesture of impatience\nfollowed by a swifter smile as if of encouragement, Paul would repeat\nhimself; sometimes losing the thread of his discourse. Indeed, from what\nI learned of his life, it seemed that it was his fate to be thwarted and\nhindered by material restrictions, of health, of liberty, of speech. No\nvessel was capable of sustaining the flame that burned in him. I could\nnot understand all that he said, as I knew nothing of what was behind;\nbut here and there his words burnt into my brain.\n\nThe man who had been writing stopped, stretched his cramped fingers; and\nPaul motioned another to his place: \"Abhor that which is evil, cleave to\nthat which is good. In love of the brethren be tenderly affectioned one\nto another.... patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer,\ncommunicating to the necessities of the saints, given to hospitality.\nBless them that persecute you; bless, and curse not. Rejoice with them\nthat rejoice; weep with them that weep.... Be not wise in your own\nconceits. Render unto no man evil for evil.... Let every soul be in\nsubjection to the higher powers: for there is no power but of God; and\nthe powers that be are ordained of God.\" I had sat listening to these\nwords of conviction until I felt numbed, yet I was not satisfied.\n\nPaul also seemed to weary for a minute. The word \"love\" that seemed to\ncontain all their mystical creed fell again from his lips: \"Thou shalt\nlove thy neighbour as thyself; Love worketh no ill to his neighbour;\nLove therefore is the fulfilment of the law; and this knowing the\nseason, that now it is high time for you to awake out of sleep.\"\n\nHe ceased, rose and walked to the window, drew back the curtain, and\nleaned out as if to cool his head. The sky was grey with dawn. From the\nstreets below came drunken voices of men and women, singing ribald\nsongs; and presently I heard the tramp of the armed guard. For a moment\nPaul leaned there.\n\n\"The night is far spent,\" he said, \"and the day is at hand; therefore\nlet us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light.\nLet us walk honestly, as in the day; not in revelling and drunkenness,\nnot in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy. But put ye\non the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil\nthe lusts thereof.\"\n\nHe ceased, drew the curtain to again, and came towards me. Through his\nincredible ugliness there shone a majesty of power, fascinating,\nenchanting, wooing me with its strength and flame-like intensity. His\nhands were cold from the ledge of the window, and as they took mine a\nthrill ran through me. The other men looked at us quietly, as if they\nwere conscious of some crisis, and of some antagonism between us. Paul\nlooked at the manuscript upon my knees, and smiled.\n\n\"What are my words to you?\" he asked.\n\n\"I have also thought of these things,\" I answered him.\n\n\"Yes; it is not the thinking of them that is strange, but what do they\nmean to you? What does our law mean to you? What does our mystery mean\nto you? Nothing. You are given over to vain imaginations, the conceits\nof the mind. You have no humility, no faith. Your great possessions have\nturned your mind. Until the blow fell upon you, you had imagined that\nyou were secure through life. You have put your trust in perishable\nthings, and they have fallen through your fingers like water, like dry\nsand. What have you left sacred in the world? Your wisdom has made a\ndesert about you, a desert where there is no God. What have you to\nhope?\"\n\nIt was as if he mocked me, pitied me, understood me. He made me cold\ntoward him; and at the same time my sorrow flooded me.\n\n\"What is my trouble to you? I can bear it alone,\" I said harshly. \"The\nthings which you have written I have read in our own philosophers.\"\n\n\"You have found nothing else in me which was not in them?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\nA gloom spread over his face, the light which had illuminated it died\nout, leaving only the smouldering fires of his eyes, which burned dimly.\nHe dropped my hands. The others turned away their eyes and shifted\nuneasily.\n\n\"There is he in whose name I speak. The love of Christ constrained me.\"\n\nI sat frowning, without comprehension.\n\n\"It is not yet time,\" he continued sadly. \"One must have patience,\nexceeding patience. You do not understand what we teach concerning\nChrist, who is the Son of God. Yet you came to us willingly; you, a\nRoman, came and took the hand of a Jew, whose touch, to your fellows, is\ncontamination; and, in my pride I said: Lo! I have triumphed over the\nwisdom of the Gentile. It is through God's grace only that I am called\nto be an apostle to men. It is through his grace alone that you will be\nsaved; for you will come again. Tell me that you will come again.\"\n\n\"I shall come again,\" I said simply; the curious anxiety of his words\ntroubled me vaguely. I felt a profound pity for this man, to whom even a\nstranger was a brother. I rose and took my cloak; as I passed out each\ngave me a salutation, the salutation of peace.\n\nOutside it was dawn. The lupanars were giving up their dead, some\nsailors and devotees of the great goddess were already congregating in\nthe wine-shops. Muffled as I was in my great coarse cloak they suspected\nme of being one of the Roman soldiers, and none spoke to me or offered\nme insult. I did not heed them but passed along the quays, looking at\nAcrocorinth towering like Eryx, that other home of the sea-born and lure\nfor sailors, into the infinite blue of a cloudless sky. Wreaths of\nvapour cloaked its lower reaches, and it seemed like a great dome\nsuspended in the air. On the other side laughed the wide sea in\nmultitudinous ripples of light. It all seemed to reflect some childish\nhalf-conscious gaiety of my soul. My sorrow still lay there, but\ncomforted with human sympathy, and the two mystical gifts of the\nChristians, peace and love.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was only after I had escaped from the enchantment of his presence\nthat I was able to understand the aims and ambitions of Paul, as he\nshowed them in the letter which he had dictated that night, and which\nwas to be copied and sent to all the communities that had come together\nin Greece, Asia and Italy. His aim was principally to abolish the\nrestrictions which hampered conversion into his faith, rites of the\nJews, circumcision, the use of certain meats which they had considered\nunclean, and the huge body of formul\u00e6 and observances, which had grown\nand developed out of casuistry and the old Hebrew law; but beyond and\nabove that he wished them to propitiate the civil power. When he spoke\nof the abolition of the law he meant those rites and ceremonies which\nseemed a profanation of, a bartering with, the divinity. He felt that\nhis mission was not to the Jews alone, but to all the nations of the\nworld. In this he was opposed by the more rigid Christians at Jerusalem,\nwho held that circumcision was necessary, and that only a Jew could be\nsaved. One of the most rigid adherents of this narrower sect was a\nbrother of Christ, who seemed to pass his whole life in the Temple,\npraying and fasting.\n\nPaul was often bitter against this sect. Yet it was out of that same\nkind of formalism that he himself had sprung; and he seldom lost traces\nof it, except in a few isolated moments, when love and indignation burnt\nhim up. I went among these Christians again and again; and each time\nbecame more fascinated by their hidden, gentle lives. A very intimate\ntie bound Caius to Paul, for Paul had initiated him into their\nmysteries, which were, I imagine, the same as in other religions, a\npurification and a mystic meal. Caius was a man of considerable power,\nbut of immense reserve, from whom I learnt very little. Paul was a\nfanatic, impatient of the opposition to his teaching at Jerusalem.\nSometimes in anger he would satirise his opponents and the rite of\ncircumcision with a bitter and sardonic humour. He was honey to those he\nloved, gall to those who withstood him.\n\nThe community in Corinth having fallen back during his absence into a\nmoral laxity, almost excusable considering their environment, he\nwithdrew them from all social intercourse with their fellow-citizens.\nThey obeyed because they loved, but more, because they feared him.\nBefore his conversion he had persecuted the Christians to turn them from\ntheir faith; afterwards he persecuted them to keep them in it. I learned\nthe story of his conversion. It had its origin in the death of one\ncalled Stephen, who had been accused before the Jewish Collegium of\nblasphemy; a frivolous pretext for the punishment of one's opponents\nwhich had obtained everywhere but in Rome.\n\nAs you know, the law of the Empire is that no one shall be punished with\ndeath except by a Roman court, and only when he has been convicted of\nspecified crimes; for the spirit of Roman usage has always been, in the\nwords of Tiberius, that the injuries of the gods are the gods' affair.\nStephen, after an argument with his accusers, suddenly cried out with a\nloud voice: \"Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man\nstanding at the right hand of God.\" With one accord his exasperated\nenemies stripped off their cloaks and laid them at the feet of Paul, who\ntook charge of them; and they stoned Stephen, Paul consenting to his\ndeath.\n\nEven at the time, perhaps, standing aside and taking no part in the\nmurder, Paul's conscience may have reproved him. In any case the\nincident assumed, afterwards, an enormous importance for him. He could\nnot speak of it without emotion. Perhaps also he feared that he might be\naccused to the Roman authorities for his part in the riot. His mind\nbecame abnormally excited.\n\nSome days afterwards he set out for Damascus to bring up some more\nChristians to Jerusalem, to be tried by the same barbarous assembly.\nSuddenly at noon he saw a blinding light, and he fell to the ground. A\nvoice called to him out of the sky. According to some accounts the voice\nuttered a phrase from Euripides: it is hard for thee to kick against the\ngoads. The phrase had passed into current use. However strange it may\nseem that a voice from heaven should have uttered these words, it is\nperfectly natural that Paul should have heard them; he must have heard\nthem before, many times.\n\nBut what goads were meant? The pricks of conscience, perhaps, for his\nshare in the murder of Stephen; some secret remorse, against which he\nhad steeled his heart, in the hope that time and use would cure it. Such\nwas the conversion of Paul. His nature had suffered no change from it;\nhe had merely found a new aim for his life, and the same zeal, which he\nhad used in his persecution of the Christians, he now asserted in their\ncause. To himself this incident of his conversion seemed unnatural,\nmiraculous; but to us it is simple, and easily explained, being merely a\nrepetition of Stephen's vision. As I have already written, he was of\ndelicate health; some nervous, constitutional weakness affected him;\nepilepsy, perhaps, or something akin to it. His accounts of what\nhappened varied; for he seemed to have told the story in different ways\nto different people. In one account, those who were with him heard the\nvoice, but did not see the light; and in another version they saw the\nlight, but did not hear the voice. Paul himself had not known Christ in\nthe flesh. He knew little of him, except that he had been born, had\ngathered about him a group of disciples, had preached, and had died on\nthe cross.\n\nHis mind therefore could fashion no clear image in the vision. He could\nonly see a light and hear familiar words. He himself always treated this\nvision of the risen Master as distinct from the visions which had been\nmanifested to the other disciples, as a purely spiritual manifestation:\n\"and lastly,\" he said, \"He appeared to me as to an abortion.\" What does\nhe mean by this phrase? Does it mean that Paul's spiritual birth was\neffected by violence, prematurely; that it was precipitated by the\nmurder of Stephen? Is it remorse for Stephen's death that forces him to\napply this hideous epithet to himself; or is it a reference to the lack\nof definite, sensible impressions; or to the fact of the lateness of his\nconversion; or merely a scornful reference to his own physical\ndeformities? He was accustomed to speak with a bitter mockery of his\ninfirmities, yet, it seemed also, with a little pride. He mentioned in\nthe letter, which Caius showed me, that he had prayed for the removal of\nsome physical disability, but the prayer had not been granted. The\nfragility of his vision was even used by his opponents, the small sect\npractising poverty at Jerusalem, among whom was the brother of their\nMaster, as a ground for denying his mission. One is almost tempted to\nagree with them. The evidence is vague, the accounts vary. We may wonder\ninto what form these floating legends will crystallise, if the community\nendures and increases; if they will ever form a complete unity, like the\nmyths of Orpheus and Dionysos.\n\nThere are some who imagine that Christianity is but one of the many\nfeatures of the new social movement, which was Gallio's opinion; but I\ncannot think so, for the reason that the Christians believe in the\nrapidly approaching end of the world. They believe that their Master,\nwho was crucified, will return, even before his own generation has\npassed away, to judge the world. It is the cardinal point of their\nteaching. Any definite social reconstruction is consequently outside\ntheir aims; but the organisation of their communities, in so far as it\ncan be called an organisation, resembles rather closely our popular\nfunerary societies, which have always been looked upon with suspicion by\nthe authorities.\n\nPaul's exhortation to his community \"to be in subjection to the higher\npowers,\" was written with the intention of guarding against any outbreak\nwhich might prejudice \"the powers that be, and are ordained of God,\"\nagainst the communities, who seek only to be left to the peace of their\nquiet lives and the practice of their cult. They are a little humble\nfolk for the most part, except where there are Jews among them, and then\narises the question of the tribute money; whether it be lawful to pay\nit? That is the only cause which may put them in conflict with the\nauthorities.\n\nBut there is a graver danger to the friends of Paul. They are for the\nmost part humble artisans, followers of the lowest trades, mendicants,\nand cheap hawkers; despised by all classes, they are at once despised,\nhated, and feared, by the class immediately above them, with whom they\nmust necessarily enter into competition where the dividing line is\nfaint, or barely drawn at all. Beside this natural jealousy of an alien\ncompetition, there is the sense of distrust which the secrecy of their\nlives breeds in the minds of the citizens. People invariably suspect a\nman who leads a retired life, either of some shameful practices, or of a\nguilty past. Yet suspicion and persecution do not suffice to turn this\nlittle community out of the way they have chosen. After the day is over,\nthey meet together, as one family, in some dimly-lit room, and greet\neach other with peace and love. It is time to awake out of sleep, they\nsay; the hour approaches, the Lord cometh. That is their whole life,\nthey have no active part in the great revolutionary social movement of\nslaves and freedom, they sit with folded hands, patiently, awaiting the\ncoming of their Lord, who shall judge the world, and end it.\n\nMoving among them, taking part almost in their daily life, a life\nremoved and hidden from the world, how could I blame them? Their\ncredulity even seemed sacred to me, it was so fragile a thing, of such\ndelicate and exquisite growth, a desire which has lain always close to\nthe heart of man. For me, beyond the flaming walls of the world sit the\ndeathless gods in their quiet seats, peace flooding their hearts; and no\nsound of mortal anguish ascends to them, but they sit ever in their\nhalls shining with silver and glittering with gold, and the lovely lyre\nmakes an immortal music about them, and wine gladdens the feast, and the\nrhythmic motion of the dancing choirs; but for these poor artisans of\nCorinth the god is a companion by the way, they love to speak of him\nunder homely words, he is the vine-dresser, the grafter of olives, the\nsower; he carries into their sordid lives the peace of wide skies and\ntranquil waters, he is the shepherd who tends his flock and leads them\ninto pleasant pastures. Yes, behind Paul, the man of fire, whose life\nwas an odyssey, full of arduous endeavour and storm, was another figure,\na figure of singular beauty, before whom even the fire of Paul's ardour\nflickered and was tamed, the Christ whom man had crucified, and who had\nredeemed man from sin and death. They seemed to have fashioned him out\nof their own weary lives, their blood and tears; he had pity on their\nsuffering, and suffered for them; he had mercy on their sin, and took it\nupon himself, they could bear all for his sake who had borne all for\ntheirs; he had revealed to them sympathy and love.\n\nThe great central points of their teaching meant nothing to me. The\npromise for me was void; but the conditions of the promise, there was\nthe charm. Sometimes I think that if I could have put away from me all\nmy philosophical preoccupations, I would willingly have left everything\nI possessed, for the sake of that peace, that security, that trust in\nsomething outside ourselves, which is infinitely wise, infinitely\nmerciful, infinitely loving. But faith, belief, is not an act of\nvolition, it is the spiritual nature; it is the possession of children\nand of simple folk.\n\nTo those who have looked into the nature of things, who with Epicurus\nsee man as only the momentary grouping together of a substance\nessentially transient and mutable, life itself is the end, a life of\nfine appreciations, retirement, and leisure, and a death that has no\nawakening. We, too, love our neighbour; we, too, have charity toward the\nbruised and broken lives about us; we, too, recommend all men to hide\ntheir lives, to be moderate, to abhor that which is evil and cling to\nthat which is good. We are Christians without Christ.\n\nMy own grief was still with me, but a serene and hopeless resignation\nhad taken the place of despair. The memory of Drusilla and my child\nhaunted my waking moments, and daily thoughts, like vain phantoms\nescaped for a brief moment from the shadowy realm of fabled Proserpina.\nThe past was part of my consciousness; as it is, I suppose of every man.\nI began again to frequent the Prefect's palace, to listen to his mellow\nwisdom which he cloaked in laughing phrase, as we passed easily from one\nsubject to another without exhausting any. Seneca's raillery was dull\nbeside his brother's; Seneca laughed at women and the comedy of manners,\nto Gallio nothing was sacred, not even his philosophic brother. At the\nsame time I still continued to frequent the house of Caius, and the\nsociety of the Christians. It placed me in an anomalous position, and\none day Gallio said laughingly that a friend had accused me of assisting\nat the secret rites and orgies of the Christians, but that he had\nreplied I was more likely to frequent the pretty daughter of Caius. Then\nI remembered the daughter of Caius, a young girl of extraordinary\nbeauty, with a perverse expression, blonde hair, and eyes like a cat,\nthat watched every movement with a stealthy curiosity. She seemed lonely\nand out of place in that house of austere gravity.\n\n\"She is already famous as a beauty,\" said Gallio.\n\n\"I go there on business,\" I said with a smile, and willing to let him\nbelieve what he would; and, I added, after a moment's thought: \"she is\ncharming.\"\n\nGallio laughed, and then changed his tone quickly.\n\n\"I do not advise you to frequent that quarter of our delightful town,\"\nhe said. \"It is the haunt of the worst characters in Corinth, thieves,\nsorcerers, and charlatans inhabit it. Even the house of Caius is not\nfree from suspicion; it is said that some of our ladies go there for\nlove-potions, or for other purposes.\"\n\nI was thinking, and did not reply to the innuendo. Gallio watched me for\na moment curiously, in silence. I did not speak.\n\n\"I have bought a little masterpiece, a painting by Parrhasios of the\ntriumph of Bacchus. Come and see it; it only arrived from Athens this\nmorning.\"\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe next time I visited the house of Caius I spoke to Paul of what\nGallio's suspicions were; a sullen glow filled his eyes.\n\n\"It is no new thing,\" he said; \"on every side we are looked upon with\nsuspicion and distrust; we are poor, and live cheek by jowl with the\nevil things of life, and therefore we are also evil. The rich, and those\nin high places trample upon us; yet we shall be justified.\"\n\nPride filled him.\n\n\"In a little time you go away to Rome, and I to Jerusalem to carry alms\nto the saints there, whom the Jews persecute. We are like two\ntravellers, who have met together in an inn, and spoken of their\ntravels; but at dawn they separate and go their several ways. Shall we\nmeet again? You are not one of us, but perchance God will lead you to\nus. Be humble; put away all vain imaginings of the mind; love all\nthings; suffer all things.\"\n\nHe gazed at me sadly for a time.\n\n\"If you would but close your eyes and put out your hand trustfully, God\nwould lead you through the darkness. You are almost of us; and yet you\nare not of us. There is a barrier which you cannot pass: you cannot\nbelieve.\"\n\nThen, again, after a moment's pause.\n\n\"You must not come here again.\"\n\nHe rose and left me. The last time I saw that small, bald head poised\nupon the huge misshapen shoulder was when they were framed in the\ndoorway; then the curtain fell and he had gone. I sat a little while,\nalmost sorrowful. Then a small, delicate hand was slid into mine, and I\nheard a soft voice whispering:\n\n\"You are going away. Take me with you.\"\n\nIt was the daughter of Caius, she clung to me and gazed appealingly at\nme out of her precocious eyes.\n\n\"Take me away with you,\" she repeated. \"I shall do anything for you;\nonly take me away, take me away. I cannot stay here. It will kill me.\nThey are so good and I am wicked; yes, I am very wicked. Some one told\nme I was beautiful, and it pleased me. I want to go with you. I am\nwicked. I want people to see that I am beautiful....\"\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nSerenus began to roll up his manuscript.\n\n\"It is too dark to read the rest. But now you know the Christians. What\ndo you think of them?\"\n\n\"I think as I have always thought,\" said Rufus; \"all Jews are alike.\nThey are the enemies of the human race; their religion is one of\ndespair, and they do not hope to find salvation in this world. The East\nis the home of all credulity and superstition. Come to dinner and let us\narrange to do something to-morrow. A hunt?\"\n\n\"What happened to the girl?\" enquired Marcus, stretching himself slowly.\n\nSerenus looked over the sea, toward the fishing-boats, each of which\nshowed a light.\n\n\"Go down to the house, both of you, and bathe. I shall follow presently.\nWe shall dine sumptuously to-night; and, yes, to-morrow we shall hunt.\nIt will pass the time.\"\n\nThey left him. For a little while he sat watching the lights out at sea,\nthe spires of mist wreathing above the olives, the dance of fire-flies\nover the sloping lawn. He sat motionless for some time; then he rose,\nand sighed.\n\n\"A little pleasure, and then darkness and silence,\" he said.\n\nHe began to walk slowly toward the house. A path below him echoed with\nthe sound of footsteps and voices; looking through the low branches he\nthought that he discovered in the uncertain light the figure and\nfeatures of Paul, surrounded by the slaves of the household.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                                                  _TO MRS C. B. FAIRFAX_\n\n\n\n\n                                   IV\n\n                        THE JESTERS OF THE LORD\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                   IV\n\n                        THE JESTERS OF THE LORD\n\n\nThe fountain rose into the sunlight singing, broke flowering a moment,\nand fell with a chime of sweetness into the basin. Francis looked at it\nwith delight. The fine mist of spray drifting from it made a little\nrainbow in the court-yard.\n\n\"All things praise the Lord,\" he said; \"but the voice of our sister the\nwater is clearest. She never ceases from her song through the hot day,\nand all night she sings, from evening until dawn.\"\n\nHe gazed at it with the serene pleasure of a child. In the shadow of the\ngreat curtain-wall his companions walked up and down, gesticulating,\nsuddenly vivacious and then as suddenly mute. A little group separated\nfrom the others stood in the arch of the gateway overlooking Rome. Cool,\ndark cypresses showed here and there among the bell-towers and\nfortifications; and over all the broken lines of roof and belfry\nwandered the liquid sunlight, diversifying the colours of the tiles\nthrough a myriad gradations from dusky copper to pale gold, and ending\nnow and again in a sudden angle of deep gloom. Yet Francis saw nothing\nbut the water rising into the clear light.\n\n\"Beautiful thou art, and humble, and chaste, and very precious to us,\"\nhe said. \"Of all God's creatures thou art the most perfect, delighting\nin his service, praising him for the light of the sun, and the sweet\nair, as I praise him for thee, O sister water!\"\n\nHe dipped his hand into the basin, and cool ripples were woven about his\nlong, thin fingers.\n\n\"These also are God's creatures,\" he said; \"the shy fish who come and go\nmysteriously among the stems of the lilies. They move obscurely through\nthe dim ways, and no man wonders at them; yet none of Arthur's knights\nwere arrayed in such golden mail.\"\n\nAnd taking a piece of dry bread, which a beggar had given him, he broke\nit into small crumbs, and strewed them upon the surface of the water;\nand the fish came out from between the stems of the lilies, and nibbled\nat the crumbs as the ripples moved them; but the crust of bread Francis\nate himself, and having eaten he drank a little water out of the palm of\nhis hand, and spoke again.\n\n\"Little fish,\" he said, \"those knights of Arthur's court, who were\nmailed in glittering armour, had each one his lady, whom he served in\nall things; and no one of them meddled with the lady of another, because\nas yet evil had not entered into their hearts; but they went through the\nworld succouring the afflicted, and the innocent, and the oppressed; and\ndoing all manner of wonderful deeds, being valiant men and strong, for\nthe glory of God, and the great honour of the lady whose livery they\nwore. And the ladies, whom they served in all honourable ways, were fair\nand pleasant to look upon, and moreover they were well-clad, having each\nher golden ornaments, and jewels, and kerchiefs of lawn, and fine cloth\nof Ypres; yea! having all things desirable about them, soft raiment, and\ndainty food, and wide houses full of tapestries of Arras, with a gallery\nfor the musicians. But because of the luxury of their lives, and the\nfolly which ever prompts the soul of man to evil, they fell into sin,\nand no virtue remained in them.\n\n\"Little fish, I am a knight of God; and I have chosen for my lady one\nbeyond all mortal women. She hath neither fine raiment, nor gold, nor\njewels; neither a covering for her head, nor shoes for her feet; neither\nland nor castles; nay! not so much as a shelter against the ravening\nbeasts; nor do her serving-men bring her delicate meats in vessels of\ngold and silver, nor do musicians play to her upon viols or psalteries,\nnor hath she any treasure hidden in the ground. She goeth from door to\ndoor, begging her bread through every city of the populous earth; and\nthe porters drive her from the gate with blows; and the children mock\nher in the streets for being old, and lean, and ill-favoured; and the\ndogs snarl at her heels. Yet all these things she endures patiently, nor\ncomplains that men revile her, for God hath put much comfort in her\nheart. I, also, little brother Francis, in my youth reviled her; for it\nwas then my pleasure to live sumptuously, to wear rich apparel, and to\npass my days with music and feasting; but when she revealed herself to\nme I was overcome by her exceeding great beauty, and I lamented that I\nhad not followed after her all my days. Alas! it is the wickedness of\nmen that shows her as a vile and despicable thing; for having nothing\nshe possesses all things. God hath clothed her with virtues more\nprecious than rubies; he hath given her the wide earth and all the\npleasant ways thereof to be her home; he hath commanded the beasts that\nthey do her no hurt: nay! they are serviceable to her and fawn about her\nfeet; and God himself ministers to her, feeding her as he feeds the\nbirds of the air and the fish of the sea, and sweetening her food, so\nthat if it be but a dry crust it savours most excellently to her, even\nas honey and manna in the mouth. Such is the excellence of my Lady\nPoverty, with whom I shall always keep faith in this life. Little fish,\nGod hath given you the cool water to inhabit; and he hath clad you in\ngolden mail, delightful to the eyes of men; and when all the birds and\nbeasts and creeping things entered into the Ark, he preserved you in a\nsafe refuge beneath the tumult of the waters: yea! of all things, which\nwent not in with Noah, he preserved you in your multitudes though all\nelse perished. Little fish, I praise the Lord for you, because he hath\nmade you beautiful, and shown you infinite mercies.\"\n\nBut the fish, having eaten all the crumbs, swam back among the stems of\nthe lilies, and hung poised there in the shadowy waters, with undulating\nmotions, waving their delicate fins, and opening and shutting their\nmouths. Francis considered them for a moment.\n\n\"Little fish,\" he said, \"perchance it is the way that you praise the\nLord, being dumb and without reason; but men, to whom God hath given\nsuch excellent gifts as speech and reason, have turned from him. I would\nthat they also might learn to praise him with great simplicity and joy\nin their hearts.\"\n\nHe looked toward the gateway through which he saw the roofs and towers\nof Rome, the city which had not accepted him, inhospitable, gay, given\nover to the lusts of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, hungering\npassionately after the tangible but transient pleasures of this\ndelightful world; a new Jerusalem, as stubborn and hard-hearted as the\nold, but, like that, too, a chosen city of God, in which he had elected\nto dwell and have his abiding place. Tears suffused his face as he\nlooked at it lying there calm and golden in the sunlight.\n\n\"I have not known how to draw them to me,\" he said. \"Surely they would\nhave followed after me if I had spoken to them more joyfully. A little\nthing delights them, and they will flock to see a dancer, a juggler, a\njester! We must become the jesters of God, amusing the hearts of men and\nleading them toward spiritual joys.\"\n\nA bell struck, and was answered from all the towers of Rome, until the\nair pulsed with vibrations as if with a multitude of beating wings.\nFrancis moved slowly away toward the new buildings of the Lateran. Those\nof his companions who were pacing up and down in the cool shadow of the\nwall suddenly stopped and pointed to him.\n\n\"Look! Look!\" they cried.\n\nSome play of the wind carrying the fine drifting mist over the isolated\nfigure had clothed him for a moment in a glory of radiant colours. The\nsound of the bell still trembling in the air, and the sudden iridescence\nof spray in the sunlight, was to them a revelation. Hearing their voices\nraised Francis went toward them.\n\n\"What is it, my brothers?\" he asked of them.\n\nThey received him almost with adoration.\n\n\"We saw you troubled, and in thought,\" answered Brother Egidio; \"and\nthen, suddenly, as the bells ceased, we saw a glory shine about you, and\nheard a great beating of wings.\"\n\nBut Francis remembering the doubts which had afflicted him a moment\nbefore, cast himself at the feet of Brother Egidio.\n\n\"I command you, in the name of holy obedience, that when I return you\nsay to me: Francis, son of Pietro Bernardone, because of your doubt you\nare contemptible, and in no wise deserving of God's mercy.\"\n\nThen, rising, he went toward the palace with a serene countenance.\n\nHaving watched Francis enter into the palace, the eleven companions\ncontinued to pace up and down in the cool shadow of the wall, and to\ndiscourse to each other upon grave matters.\n\n\"How is it, Brother Bernard,\" said Egidio, \"that astrologers are able to\nforetell all things that will happen to a man in his journey through\nlife?\"\n\n\"It is in this wise,\" said Brother Bernard, who had all the wisdom of\nthe schools, \"the earth is the centre of the universe, which consists of\na number of concentric spheres, all turning, as it were, upon the axle\nof the earth; the first is the sphere of the elements, which is enclosed\nby the sphere of the moon; beyond these, in order, circle the six\nspheres of Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, all\nturning about the earth; the next sphere is that wherein the fixed stars\nare set like jewels, and beyond that is the _Primum Mobile_, whence\nmotion is born and governed. Last of all is the Empyrean, and there in a\nblaze of light God sits enthroned, and all the spheres make a celestial\nmusic about his feet.\n\n\"Now it is from the order and motion of these spheres that astrologers\nget that devilish wisdom whereby they are enabled to foretell the\nfuture. For each one of the spheres is governed by a distinct angelical\ncompany, who influence all things under their control; so that, having\nascertained the nature of such angels as control the sphere of any\nparticular planet, we are enabled to judge of the nature and disposition\nof any mortal born under their influence; thus it happens that those who\nare been under Mercury are of an alert and capricious disposition, and\nmay be given to thieving; while those who are born under Venus are lewd\nand wanton in their motions, given over to the lusts of the flesh; and\nthose influenced by Mars will be great warriors, men of mettle,\nhot-tempered, and quick to shed blood. Moreover, by the conjunctions and\nopposition of planets, by comets and portents in the sky, those skilled\nin the signs are even able to foretell whether a man shall die in his\nyouth with all his sins heavy upon him, or in old age when his flagging\npulses have made him less prone to sin and warned him to repentance; and\nwe may see men, to whom astrologers have predicted a long life, pursuing\na course of infamy well on into their old age, for they know that there\nis time left for repentance, whereby they may yet save their souls. Such\nis the lamentable wisdom, which came to us through the transgression of\nAdam.\"\n\nThey continued in silence a little way, pondering these things; and then\nBernard spoke again.\n\n\"In all things,\" he said, \"we may read the infinite mercies and wisdom\nof God. For even as he has made the earth the centre of the universe, so\nhe has made man the centre of all created things. Round the throne of\nGod are the Seraphim and Cherubim singing His eternal praise, and next\nto them are the Thrones, who carry the orders of God unto the\nDominations. These last are the mighty powers who held back the sun and\nmoon in their courses, at the prayer of Joshua; and they inhabit the\n_Primum Mobile_, whence all the planets are moved from east to west.\nBeneath these, are the Virtues and Powers, ruling the planetary spheres;\nand finally come the three orders of Princedoms, Archangels, and Angels;\nand to each Angel is given the guidance of one soul. Now in this order I\nhave followed the teaching of Dionysius rather than of Gregory, since\nthe former was the pupil of St Paul, and therefore of greater authority.\n\n\"Many rebellious angels, driven out with Lucifer, and the host who\nwrithe in Hell beneath our feet, making the earth tremble, inhabit the\nsphere of the elements, and ride upon all storms, ruling the thunder and\nlightning, and opening the flood-gates, and loosening the tempests of\nhail; and God hath given them power over the wicked to lead them to\ndestruction, but, before the prayers of the holy, their power is only an\nempty noise. How little is the worth of man! Yet all these immortal\nspirits are concerned in his salvation. And God hath set Jerusalem in\nthe centre of earth's habitable hemisphere, so that from there the means\nof salvation might radiate into all countries, and gather up all\npeoples. And yet again is man the centre of created things, for God hath\nmade him lord and master of the earth, and of all the birds and beasts\ntherein; though, indeed, when he fell from Paradise in the person of\nAdam, he decreased in excellence and became subject to sin and death.\"\n\n\"And for how long a time,\" enquired one of the younger brethren, \"was\nAdam in Paradise?\"\n\n\"For little more than six hours,\" answered Bernard, with assurance.\n\n\"It was a very short time,\" said the brother simply.\n\nBut Egidio was troubled; he touched Bernard upon the arm.\n\n\"Beware, little sheep of the Lord,\" he said gently, \"lest thy great\nlearning make thee mad, and turn to pride in thy heart.\"\n\n                                   II\n\nAs the Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo entered the audience, the Pope was\ndictating a letter to his secretary. He spoke in a low, clear voice, so\nclear that it was audible at the end of the long room.\n\n\"Among all the princes of the earth,\" said Innocent, \"we have always\ncherished with a particular affection your own person; and the more so\nsince the kingdom which you have inherited is, by the will of your\npredecessors, subject and tributary to the Roman Church. Therefore\nredeem the promise of your father liberally and without delay. Your\neternal salvation will be the better assured, and there will be added to\nit even such temporal benefits as the apostolic protection is able to\nsecure. In acting otherwise you would offend the Creator. He chastiseth\nthose who do evil unto his Church, but more particularly those who\ndetain unjustly the wealth of St Peter.\"\n\nHe motioned the Cardinal toward him, and taking half a lemon squeezed it\ninto a cup and drank it. He had a youthful but rather fleshy face, at\nonce legal and military in its character. The features were fine, with a\ndistinctly Roman nobility: a long narrow nose, almost straight except\nwhere it jutted slightly from the brows; fine lustrous eyes, set a\nlittle too close together; a small mouth, with thin, rather drooping\nlips, and a double chin. The well-chiselled nostrils dilated sensitively\nfrom time to time, otherwise the whole face was calm, impassive,\nhieratic. He began, without any prelude, to speak to the Cardinal of\ntheir business.\n\n\"I have spoken to many of the cardinals about these penitents of Assisi.\nTheir opinion is that the rule is too severe, and such an ideal beyond\nall human strength.\"\n\n\"Your Holiness, I have also urged this view upon Francis, but, in the\nsimplicity of his heart, he replies that his rule is taken from the\nGospels: 'If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give\nto the poor, and follow me. Take nothing for your journey, neither\nstaff, nor scrip, nor shoes, nor money. If any man will come after me,\nlet him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.' They have\nvowed to follow this ideal of evangelical perfection. How can we\nwithstand them before the world?\"\n\n\"My heart has been moved towards them,\" answered Innocent. \"I do not\nmistrust their piety, nor doubt the grace by which God has confirmed\nthem in their design. They may be steadfast until their death; whereas\nothers coming after may relax the rule, and their weakness become a\nfable in the world.\"\n\n\"I doubt not that the rule will be relaxed,\" answered the Cardinal;\n\"their aim is too vague, too ideal in many ways: complete poverty,\ncomplete obedience, and the preaching of these virtues. And yet, Holy\nFather, I have been drawn to these men. By them I feel that many souls\nshall be led to God.\"\n\n\"You believe that the rule will be relaxed; and yet you say that we\ncannot modify this rule because it consists of definite precepts taken\nfrom the Gospels?\"\n\n\"Your Holiness,\" replied the Cardinal, \"if we say that it is impossible\nfor a man to follow the precepts of Christ, we blaspheme. Time modifies\nall things; and in the meanwhile these men will draw unto themselves a\ngreat deal of popular sentiment. They are willing to give us the most\nabsolute obedience, to be our servants in all things, provided we\napprove their desire to live according to the standard of evangelical\nperfection. Surely we should approve their piety.\"\n\n\"Similar efforts have failed,\" answered Innocent. \"It is two years since\nI approved the mission of Durando d'Huesca, and for those two years the\nbishops have not ceased to complain of his followers. This fraternity\nhas a similar constitution. Both confess the Catholic faith; both desire\nto give all they have to the poor, to live themselves in poverty without\ncare for the morrow, having nothing but their daily bread and a cloak;\nboth are open to receive lay members among them.\"\n\n\"The difference is in the spirit of their founders. Francis is a poet,\"\nanswered the Cardinal. \"He is a troubadour, a vagrant minstrel, whose\nlady is Poverty. His speech is serene, gay, charming. He knows how to\nseize upon simple incidents of daily life, and use them as parables, so\nthat the poor and humble can understand; and all his teaching is full of\na lyrical emotion that is penetrated with the love of all things. He\nburns with the love of God, and this divine flame is so strong in him\nthat it enlightens all the world. There is nothing about him, no bird,\nbeast, fish, or tree, which does not seem to him a part of the choir of\nGod, praising the Lord, and existing entirely for that praise. Beyond\nthese things he is a true son of the Church. These penitents, Holy\nFather, are so simple: they have faith in some spark of divinity hidden\nin the soul of man which may be awakened by a breath; they believe that\nman can be made to see the beauty of holiness, and that once he has\ngrasped and recognised this beauty, as a thing existing in the world\nabout him, he will follow no more after the beauties of fleshly desires.\nHe bears the mockery of those who think him mad with so much patience\nthat they become ashamed. His simplicity draws folk to him.\"\n\n\"All these things are indeed admirable,\" said Innocent in his clear, low\nspeech; \"but alas! how often have the most beautiful ideals led men into\nabominable heresies and destroyed the peace of the Church. Would that\nhis dream might be realised, and that all men might seek their salvation\nthrough poverty and obedience. But to us, most Reverend Father, in our\ncharacter as Supreme Pontiff, there are many responsibilities. We also,\nif we might choose, would choose the one thing necessary; Mary's\nunbounded loving adoration, in preference to Martha's many cares. Yet we\nare content. The divine wisdom hath shown us that here also salvation\nmay be gained. We accept our office with humility, content to be the\nservant of the servants of God. Our function is an ungrateful one, to\nwatch over the welfare of our flock, and guard them not only from their\nenemies but from themselves. Saintly men have been the cause of mischief\nin others, and even the greatest heretics have been men of holy lives.\nIt behoves us, therefore, to keep a strict and unceasing watch upon all\ndoctrines taught to the faithful. We cannot tolerate the teaching and\nexposition of the Gospels by a preaching fraternity partly composed of\nlay members. We cannot tolerate any action independent of the bishops.\nWe must insist that each brother receive the tonsure, and that they\nchoose one from among themselves who will be responsible to us; and\nalso, that none shall preach or direct any mission without the consent\nof the bishop. Yet even now I am doubtful. Perchance this man may be\ndiscouraged. It would be better if they entered some existing Order.\"\n\nHe paused, drank a little more lemon, and looked keenly at the Cardinal.\n\n\"Bring him to me,\" he said.\n\nThe Cardinal, having led Francis into the room, stood apart in the\nembrasure of a window overlooking the courtyard. Innocent fixed his eyes\nsteadily upon the little poor man of Assisi. Even at their first meeting\nhe had been struck by the youthful, almost childish figure, the small,\nround head, and the pallor of the lean face, illuminated with its large\npatient eyes. It was like watching a timid wild thing approaching him.\nFrancis walked with slow, hesitating steps. His knees and fingers were\ntrembling, his eyes shone with tears, his face was paler than usual, but\na smile wavered upon it. He did not come in fear, but shaken with an\nemotion that was partly hope and partly doubt. He looked toward the\nseated figure in the chair, wearing a high tiara of damascened white\ncloth rising above a simple pointed crown, and a white pallium with red\ncrosses. He hoped for some sign, but the Pope remained inflexible, his\nhands laid upon his knees, his eyes motionless, a figure of impenetrable\nreserve; and Francis could find no word to say. At last he knelt, still\ntrembling, with the tears streaming from his eyes. The Cardinal moved in\nthe window; and the slight noise seemed for a moment to give Francis\nconfidence.\n\n\"Father Pope,\" he began simply; but he could say no more.\n\n\"My son,\" said Innocent at last, moved by the suffering eyes, \"why have\nyou come to us again?\"\n\n\"Father Pope,\" answered Francis in a sweet, almost shrill voice, \"when\nyou sent me from you, you did not bid me not to come again.\"\n\nHe smiled as he spoke, very simply, winningly, a smile that was almost a\ncaress. Some hint of softening in the eyes of the Pope gave him more\nconfidence.\n\n\"Most Holy Father,\" he began again, \"I have come to you once more,\nbecause you have not yet granted my request. You are a great person,\nwhom God has exalted above all men, and I think that perhaps you had not\ntime to listen to me, who am the meanest of God's creatures; so that you\ndid not understand the excellence of that life which the Lord hath\ncommanded us to follow. Or perchance it was that the Lord wished to try\nmy faith, and, lest I was over-confident in myself, to show me that\nwithout his will I am capable of nothing, and to humiliate my pride.\nFather Pope, I think this last is the true reason: for how could you not\nsee the excellence of the way God hath chosen for us, which is a pattern\nof the way the disciples themselves followed?\"\n\nAnd the Pope, having no answer to this candour, sat immobile.\n\n\"It is a little thing that we ask of you,\" continued Francis; \"only that\nyou should approve of our vow to follow a life like that which the\ndisciples led on the shores of the Lake of Galilee.\"\n\n\"My son,\" said Innocent, \"search well your heart. Is it not pride which\nmakes you think that God hath chosen you for this work?\"\n\nAnd Francis lowered his head until it touched the floor.\n\n\"Why,\" continued Innocent, \"should God have chosen you among the\nmultitudes of men?\"\n\nAnd Francis raised his head again.\n\n\"God looked down upon this earth,\" he answered humbly, \"and he explored\nall the ways thereof, and searched into all the souls of men. And in the\nwhole earth he found no man so poor in mind, so mean of stature, so foul\nwith sins, so weak and utterly worthless, as Francis, the son of Pietro\nBernardone; and for that reason he hath chosen me. For if folk see that\none so miserable as I am can be uplifted by the grace of God, they will\nhope again for themselves; and many who are caught in the snares of\nSatan and despair of their salvation will be freed by this means.\"\n\n\"Is it not pride, my son,\" the Pope asked of him after a pause, \"that\nhinders you from accepting the modifications which I suggest in your\nrule?\"\n\n\"I shall reason with you,\" answered Francis; \"tell me one.\"\n\n\"That you should not be entirely without possessions, without a little\nmoney.\"\n\n\"Father Pope,\" answered Francis sweetly, \"if we were possessed of even\nthe meanest things, we should have to protect them; and if we had but a\nfew pence in our scrips there are those so poor that they would covet\nthem and desire to steal them; and if a man come with arms to rob us,\nshould we oppose violence with violence? Yea, and having a little we\nshall not have enough, but each one will seek to have more than his\nbrother, and so shall discord and dissension grow among us. And how,\nhaving sufficient, shall we go among those who have nothing and say to\nthem: 'Brothers, be not cast down, for the wealth of this world is but\ndust and ashes. Seek not after it, but praise God for what he hath given\nyou; life, and this pleasant earth, the song of birds, freedom from\ncare, death, and a treasure in the skies'? Will they not mock at us? Or\nhow shall we go among thieves, hiding our gold in our bosoms, and saying\nto them: 'Brothers, do not so wickedly, that which ye steal is but\ndross, earth digged out of earth; but holiness is fine gold.' Will they\nnot mock at us, saying, 'Holiness is possible with a full belly'? Father\nPope, having no treasure to guard, we shall have no care; and those\namong whom we shall go will not lay violent hands upon us, as thieves\nand impostors.\"\n\nThe Pope hesitated.\n\n\"Will ye live by mendicancy alone? Will no idlers come in with you?\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Francis, \"no man shall be idle. Each one shall work, and\ntheir wage will be their daily bread.\"\n\nHe spoke no more, but knelt, waiting. Innocent had moved. He leant\nforward a little, with bent head and knitted brows, looking fixedly at\nthe curious figure, with the head of a young faun, kneeling before him\nin a coarse stuff cloak, girt with a rope like a halter. He could not\nfathom that serene soul. At last he leaned back in his chair.\n\n\"My son,\" he said, in a gentler voice, \"our task is hard. We have the\ncare and oversight of the whole Church, and all our vigilance is\ndirected to keeping the holy faith, as it has been handed down to us,\none, pure, and universal. My son, God hath poured his grace upon you,\nand distinguished you with gifts of holiness. I am not worthy, there is\nnone less worthy than I, of the charge God has confided to me. Pray for\nme, that I may be enlightened. On every side the Church is being\nmenaced: by subtle and dangerous enemies without, and by schisms and\nheresies within. Therefore it is necessary for me to avoid the\nmultiplication of new fraternities, however sacred and inspired with\ntrue zeal they may be; for each, through the peculiarity of their\nnature, and their particular devotion to one aspect of the religious\nlife, is liable to be cut off from the main body of Holy Church; nay,\neven to become an hindrance, an annoyance, a little sect separated from\nthe communion of the faithful. For all these reasons I can only advise\nyou, as I have before, to join some existing Order.\"\n\nFrancis rose from his knees. He had a sense of being crushed by a cruel\nand superior force. His eyes were dry; but he saw nothing. He turned and\nmoved slowly toward the door. Innocent made a sudden gesture of\ndisappointment. Francis took a few more steps, hesitated, and then\nturned.\n\n\"Father Pope,\" he said, \"there was once in the desert a woman, very poor\nbut beautiful. A great king seeing her beauty desired to take her to\nwife, that by her he might have beautiful children. So it was done; and\nmany children were born to him. And when the children were grown up,\ntheir mother spoke to them, saying: 'My children, you have no reason to\nbe ashamed, for you are the sons of the king; go, therefore, to his\ncourt, and he will give you all things that are necessary to you.' And\nwhen they had arrived, the king admired their beauty, and finding in\nthem his own likeness, he spoke to them, saying: 'Whose sons are ye?'\nAnd when they had answered that they were the sons of a poor woman\ndwelling in the desert, the king embraced them with great joy, crying:\n'Fear not, because you are mine own sons. If strangers eat at my table,\nshall I turn away those who are my lawful children?' And the king\ncommanded the woman that she should send him all the sons whom she had\nborne, in order that he might care for them.\"\n\nHe paused for a moment, and then continued:\n\n\"I am, Holy Father, that poor woman, whom God in his love has deigned to\nmake beautiful, and by whom it has pleased him to have lawful children.\nThe King of kings has told me that he will nourish all the children he\nhas by me, for if he nourishes bastards, how much more should he nourish\nhis lawful children?\"\n\nHe spoke the last words vehemently, standing rigid before Innocent, with\nblazing eyes; and the Pope sat immobile, watching him with inscrutable\ncalm.\n\n\"My son, come here,\" said Innocent at last.\n\nThe Cardinal turned from the window, and looked from one to another with\nequal interest. He was a worldly man, and the mere contact with the\nworld had been sufficient to make him more human than the Pope:\nunconsciously, disinterestedly, he was summing up the characters of the\ntwo men before him. The fact that he was inferior to both fitted him to\njudge them, made him swift to see the flaws and defects in their diverse\ncharacters: Innocent's hard legalism and military instincts; the blithe\nand elusive spirituality of Francis, a nature free as air, too diverse,\ntoo liquid, too impracticable and fleeting, to have any but a momentary\neffect. He smiled at the comedy; it was no more to him. Behind his\ncynicism was a kind of tolerance, a charitable irony, a contemptuous\nlove. The fact that both these men recognised an ideal, and denied the\nmanifold pleasures of life to follow after it, baffled and perplexed\nhim. That ironical attitude from which, within himself, he considered\nthem, was the tribute which small imaginations pay to the great. He was\ncontent to be a spectator, and was willingly amused by the readiness\nwith which each of these men detected the weak spot in the other, while\nremaining blind to his own.\n\nInnocent stretched out his hand to Francis and drew him toward the\nchair. Francis knelt.\n\n\"My son, let us try to understand one another,\" said the Pope amicably,\nas he laid his hand on the other's head. \"How is it possible for us to\navoid seeing in thy courage and perseverance the directing hand of God?\nBe assured that we have been moved solely by our desire to work for the\ngood of the Church, and the welfare of those who follow thee. We would\nnot have thee depart from us with bitterness in thy heart. Listen,\ntherefore, and be content with what we propose. Is not one condition of\nthy rule obedience?\"\n\n\"We shall be obedient to you in all things, save in any abrogation of\nthe rule, for that way was shown to us by the mercy of Christ himself.\"\n\n\"Thou dost yet mistrust us,\" said the Pope, smiling. \"Know, then, that\nthou hast our permission to follow that way of life which has been\nrevealed to you, to practise poverty and the evangelical virtues. Art\nthou content?\"\n\n\"Yea, I am content,\" answered Francis, with a radiant face.\n\n\"But,\" continued Innocent, checking him; \"and herein thou shalt show thy\nfilial obedience to us: thou and thy companions shall receive the\ntonsure at the hands of the Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo, so that\nhenceforth ye may be identified with the Church; and, secondly, ye shall\nchoose one from among you who shall be responsible to us for all; and,\nthirdly, in whatsoever place ye may be, ye shall be subject unto the\nbishop, yielding him the most implicit obedience, and in no wise seeking\nto preach without his leave. Art thou content?\"\n\n\"Yea, I am content,\" answered Francis, \"so that you approve our rule.\"\n\n\"We give thee permission to follow the rule, and to preach to the\npeople,\" said the Pope clearly, \"and if thy fraternity becomes great,\nand many flock to you, then thou shalt come to us again, and we shall\nformally approve thine Order. Meanwhile thou hast the permission. Pray\nfor me, my son, that the Lord may reveal to me the way of righteousness.\nMost Reverend Father, let my secretary be summoned.\"\n\nAs the Cardinal led Francis from the audience, the Pope watched them. He\nsat for some time in thought. The secretary entered, and sitting at the\ntable began to sharpen a new pen. Then Innocent lifted his head. He\ndismissed Francis from his mind as completely as if the little poor man\nhad never existed, and concerned himself with the question of the\nheretical Albigeois, and the case of Count Raymond of Toulouse. The\nCount had on a previous occasion objected to the appointment, as legate,\nof the Abbot of Citeaux, who was notoriously his enemy; and it was now\nthe business of the Pope to console the powerful Abbot for the fact that\nhe could not be the direct representative of the Holy See at the Count's\napproaching trial, nor in the final settlement of the whole question of\nthe Albigeois; and for the appointment in his room of Ma\u00eetre Th\u00e9dise. He\nwas careful to point out that Th\u00e9dise was not a legate, but a mere\ndelegate of the Church.\n\n\"He shall merely execute thy prescriptions,\" he dictated in his low,\nclear voice. \"He shall be thy tool, thy voice, the bait which covers the\nhook of thy sagacity. Raymond is like a sick man, for whom a kindly\nphysician will help to sweeten the bitterness of his medicine; he would\ntake thy remedy more patiently from the hands of another.\"\n\nAnd the secretary's quill scratched busily over the fine parchment.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen the companions of Francis saw him returning to them, they ran to\nmeet him, and seeing from afar the joy that shone upon his face, they\nwere glad and gave thanks to God. And when he had come up to them and\ntold them the conditions which he had agreed to with the Pope, with one\nvoice they chose him for their head, and kneeling before him made a vow\nof obedience. And brother Egidio suddenly remembered the command and\nduty which Francis had laid upon him, and he rose.\n\n\"Francis, son of Pietro Bernardone,\" he said, \"because of thy doubt thou\nart contemptible and in no wise worthy of God's mercy.\"\n\n\"It is true,\" said Francis, kneeling before him, and thanking him. Then\nin a group they left the courtyard, he in the middle and the others\nsurrounding him, and presently one heard no sound but that of the\nfountain singing in the sunlight.\n\n                                  III\n\nIt was with joy that Francis and his companions left Rome. As soon as\nthey had received the tonsure, and prayed together at the shrine of the\nApostles, they set out northward by the Porta Salaria, taking nothing\nfor the journey, neither staff, nor scrip, nor shoes, nor any money; but\ntrusting all things to God, whose children they were. At first they\npassed little farms and inns, and in the distance saw a few flocks and\nshepherds moving slowly over the plains; but in a little while the\nhouses became rare, and the only sounds were from the larks in the\nskies. They had drawn their cowls over their heads to protect them from\nthe fierce sun, and the dust rising from their feet covered them with a\nfine grey powder. But in the gaiety of their hearts they felt none of\nthese things, but were quickened with the joy of their triumph,\nquickened also with the sense that they were returning homeward, to the\nhills of Assisi and the sweet air of their fields. Their eyes followed\nthe larks into the skies, and they felt that their own souls sang like\nthat above the earth.\n\n\"Praised be thou, O Lord, for our brothers the larks,\" said Francis; \"at\ndawn they sing to thee, and at noon and at eve; their blithe singing\ngladdens the heart of man.\"\n\nYet in that vast silence the voices of the larks seemed thin and small.\nThere was no motion in the air except the trembling of the heat, and the\nstraight road they followed stretched far away into the distance.\n\n\"Where shall we sleep to-night?\" said Giovanni.\n\n\"Where God wills,\" answered Francis. \"Our brother the body is a cell,\nand the soul is a monk inhabiting it.\"\n\nTheir faces were thick with dust, and the sweat from their brows traced\nrunnels in it; their lips were parched, and their eyes ached from the\ndazzling light. On all sides lay the great plains, and no trees rose out\nof them.\n\n\"I thirst,\" said Angelo.\n\n\"Perhaps we shall pass a little stream,\" answered Francis. \"Be not cast\ndown. At evening we shall look back on all that we have suffered for our\nLady Poverty, and we shall be glad. It will rejoice us that we have been\ntried, and have not been found unworthy.\"\n\nYet the sun had not declined much from the zenith, and it was long until\nthe evening. Their feet dragged wearily.\n\n\"God hath forsaken us,\" said Giovanni.\n\n\"Cast that thought from thee, my brother,\" said Francis. \"Though we\nperish here in this desert place, God hath not forsaken us. Shall we\nfaint at a little suffering, we who were proud at dawn? Surely we should\nsuffer a little for his sake, who suffered so much for ours.\"\n\nBut they had grown feverish with the heat; they gasped and sobbed,\nswaying like drunken men, muttering as if in a delirium; and a great\nfear covered Francis, as he watched them.\n\n\"My God,\" he prayed silently, yet moving his parched lips, \"if I have\ndone anything accounted worthy in thy sight, grant that I may suffer for\nthese. Let us not perish utterly.\"\n\nThey sank down one by one beside the dusty road, and the fierce heat\nstreamed down on them: one or two muttered, but most of them lay still.\n\n\"My God, why hast thou deserted me?\" prayed Francis in a broken voice.\n\nAnd Egidio, lying delirious upon the ground, looked at him with glazed,\nunrecognising eyes, and muttered to him:\n\n\"Francis, son of Pietro Bernardone, because of thy doubt thou art\ncontemptible, and in no wise worthy of the mercy of God.\"\n\nAnd Francis covered his face with his hands, and lay beside his\ncompanions.\n\n\"If it be thy will, my Lord; if it be thy will.\"\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe felt water sprinkled on his face, and a little wine poured between\nhis lips.\n\n\"Who are you who travel in this wise, through the fierce heat, without\nfood or drink, and half naked? If I had not seen you, and come to your\naid, you would have perished by the wayside.\"\n\nThe bottle was thrust between his lips again, and he swallowed a good\ndraught; as he swum back into consciousness, he heard the voice of\nEgidio:\n\n\"We are penitents from Assisi, who have been to Rome that the Pope might\napprove our rule, and we were returning homeward when the fierce heat\nstruck us down.\"\n\n\"From Rome,\" said the deep mellow voice. \"Then you have been travelling\non foot through the hot noon. It is wonderful that you got so far. But\nfor my wine you would have lain there till the end of time. Art thou\nstronger?\"\n\nThe last words were to Francis, who had opened his eyes.\n\n\"Yea. Thanks to thee,\" answered Francis. \"God will reward thee, my\nbrother.\"\n\n\"Doubtless,\" answered the other. \"But who is to pay me for my wine? You\nbe twelve fools, without a wise man among you.\"\n\nFrancis looking about him saw that most of his companions were sitting\nup eating bread, and looking at him stupidly. All were sick and weary.\nThe stranger who had helped them was a tall young man driving a hooded\nwine-cart. He had a plump, handsome face, magnificent limbs, and a\ngeneral air of well-being.\n\n\"None of us can pay thee,\" answered Francis, \"nay, not even for thy\nwine, which was the least part of thy kindness. Shall we pay thee for\nour lives with our lives? We have given them to God.\"\n\n\"I want no payment,\" said the young man, ashamed. \"See, I shall leave\nyou this other small flask of wine. It hath grown cooler; the sun is\nsinking, and an hour will bring you to Orte. Yea, indeed I see that you\nare saintly livers, yet I have called you fools.\"\n\n\"It is right that you should call us fools, my brother,\" answered\nFrancis. \"We are sinful men, who follow the way which God hath shown us,\nand have no wisdom in worldly things. We are fools for Christ's sake.\nYea, we are the fools of God, and by our folly seek to draw men toward\nhim. But thy kindliness and mercy shown to us, my brother, is a good\ndeed, which like a seed thrown in the ground shall flourish and bear\nfruit. Yea, though thou seest it not. And when thou goest before God at\nthe last, he will take two apples out of his robe, an apple of gold and\nan apple of silver, and he will speak to thee, saying: 'Lo, here is thy\npayment for that thou hast succoured my children on earth; these be the\nfruit of the seed which thou then plantedst.'\"\n\nBut the young man blushed shamefully.\n\n\"Suffer me now to go,\" he said. \"Thou hast made me ashamed. Yet if thou\nshouldst pray for me, pray also for my beloved, who is called Vanna.\"\n\nHe climbed into his cart, and continued on the way they had come, the\nbells tinkling upon his mule. And after a little time, when they were\nrested, they went their own way, with great weariness of body and in\nsilence because they were still dazed and giddy. But coming to Orte,\nthey entered into an ancient ruined tomb, where they determined to abide\nfor that night, and some peasants gave them enough food. Then sitting in\nthe starlight, they praised God for his mercy.\n\n\"Surely,\" said Francis, \"he who succoured us was an angel sent from God,\nfor how else could we have been rescued from death?\"\n\nAnd they marvelled that they had not known him for an angel, and with\ngreat joy they praised God.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"They were twelve fools,\" said the young man to Vanna; \"but for me they\nwould have perished by the roadside.\"\n\n\"God was good to them,\" she answered simply; and again he was ashamed.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                                                    _TO LAURENCE BINYON_\n\n\n\n\n                                   V\n\n                            AT SAN CASCIANO\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                   V\n\n                            AT SAN CASCIANO\n\n\nTaking a pen from the table, he mended it to his own fashion, and wrote:\n\n\"Thomas Cromwell to his most excellent friend, Master William Bates,\ngreeting. I am removed to the farmhouse of La Strada at San Casciano for\na short time, having left Florence on account of the great heat and an\nindisposition of my stomach, caused by a surfeit of raw ham and figs:\nfor it is the custom of this people, when the figs ripen, to make an\nexcursion to their villas, or the farms of their tenants, and having\nbrought with them a number of small hams, smoked and excellently well\nflavoured, which they cut into thin slices, they sit in the shade of a\nfig-tree, and make a great feasting. Messer Frescobaldi carried me to\nsuch a feast at one of his neighbouring villas, and I, whether from the\nnovelty of the dish, which savours deliciously, and is exciting to the\npalate, or from a natural intemperance of appetite, having eaten\nimmoderately of figs and ham, and having drunk a vast quantity of wine,\nwas seized on my return to Florence with violent pains and cramps in the\nstomach, accompanied by much retching and colic. Messer Frescobaldi,\nhaving sent for his physician to come to me, I was blooded eight ounces,\nand am now somewhat recovered, though in much need of rest, and the\ncoolness of the country air.\n\n\"But since I am charged with the execution of your business rather than\nwith the recreation of mine own health, let me say that the matter of\nthe Lucca merchants is settled, on the terms mentioned in the enclosed\ntreaty, and such produce as you require will be sent as occasion offers,\nwhether by France or Antwerp, depending upon the state of the rival\nnations; but in so far as is possible the goods will be shipped at Genoa\nby the Fuggers, and carried thence to Antwerp, to be reladed at your own\ncharge, and carried to your brother at Boston, or on a ship of the\nFuggers' trading with England, in which case they will be delivered to\nyourself at the sign of the Blue Anchor, in Chepeside. The late\nordinances directing that all shrouds shall be made of woollen, and\nforbidding the export of raw wool out of England, and the question of\nthe staple, have caused much ill-feeling against English merchants, both\nat Antwerp and Florence; wherefore I think it would be wise to\ncommission the Fuggers to buy for you, and to colour your goods with\ntheir name, more especially in the Baltic trade. The same offices will,\nat your request, be undertaken by Messer Frescobaldi here and throughout\nItaly, both with the cloth merchants of Florence and the glass workers\nand silk merchants of Venice; but, in matters connected with your trade\nwith the latter town, Messer Frescobaldi demands that you place a sum of\nmoney in his bank, sufficient to cover the charges of the import and the\nexport duty, or, that such moneys as he may advance on your behalf for\nthe payment of these imposts be charged against you at one and a half\nper cent. above the current rate, so that in the one case he hath the\nuse of your money, and in the other a large interest upon his own. You\nwill easily see by the treaty that I have relinquished to him rather the\nshadow than the substance of what he desired; but I do feel it my duty\nto beseech you that in every wise you show him such convenience and fair\ndealing as you may, without hurt to your own prosperity, since by your\nacting in this fashion he will be the less likely to repudiate the\ncontract as a cheat devised for his beguiling.\n\n\"Returning to mine own affairs. I am the guest of one Niccolo\nMachiavelli, an honest and courteous man, with much wit, and knowledge\nof the ancients. He was sometime in the service of the late Republic,\nbut was after suspected, and removed from his office by the Medici\nfaction. Having been racked on a false charge of treason, he retired\nhither, and by a frugal expenditure hath somewhat mended his fortune, so\nthat he is embarrassed neither by the cares of wealth, nor the vexations\nof poverty. At first, however, since a republican and popular government\nconsiders all the citizens to be its servants, as much through their own\nduty as from any hope of a fair remuneration, he, having been able to\nsave little of his pay, was in great straits, so that he was forced to\nrise ere it was light, and spread nets for thrushes and quails,\nsuperintend his idle workmen, and busy himself with a thousand trifling\ncares: wherefore I think it more profitable to serve a tyrant than a\nfree people. He hath now acquired by his own efforts that leisure which\nhis public service and former poverty denied him, so that he can pass\nhis day in pleasant discourse, studying the diverse manners and habits\nof men, or reading in his library, in which he doth greatly delight. The\nlibrary itself, in which I am now writing, is a long, airy room, having\na pleasant aspect toward the south-west; but it overlooks the courtyard,\nand one is continually disturbed through the day by the foolish cackle\nof hens and other farmyard racket. He told me that he chose the room on\nhis first coming hither, whereat his wife made a great clamour\ncomplaining that he had taken for his own uses the one serviceable room\nin the house, which is indeed the truth. She is well looking and I would\nwillingly see more of her; but she is a notable woman, and, as is usual\nwith her sex, occupied all day long by a thousand nothings, whereat I\nthink he is marvellously contented, esteeming himself fortunate in that\nshe differs from the majority of wives, who continually invade the\nprivacy of men, and use our apartments as their own. Set against the\nwalls are great chests of carven and painted wood, which contain his\nmanuscripts and printed books, the Latin poets as well as the historians\nand orators, besides those Italian authors who have gained an eternity\nof fame, more especially Dante Alighieri and Petrarch. Here, among this\nchoice store of what the world hath accounted noble in thought or\naction, we sit far into the night with a flagon of wine between us, and\nsuch entertainment as our own wits provide, relishing in our\nconversation both the _sal nigrum_ of Momus, and the _sal candidum_\nwhich Mercurius gave.\n\n\"At first, seeing the ingenious and subtle mind of my friend, I was at a\nloss to account for his apparent failure in assuring his own fortune;\nbut, knowing him better, I see that his judgment, never at fault in\ndealing with things afar off, may be perplexed and misled when it comes\nto bear upon present affairs; being so great in himself he doth\nsometimes forget of what poor account in Europe are his countrymen\nto-day. He is at present making a series of discourses upon politics,\nwhich he reads in the gardens of Cosimo Rucellai, where the meetings of\nthe Academy are held. It was at one of these meetings, after the company\nhad dispersed, that I first had speech of him; in which traverses,\nthough the chief subject of his discourse is Livy's history of the Roman\nRepublic, he draweth his examples from many sources, and showeth how\nmankind hath always been prone to the same faults, and in like\ncircumstances will always act in a like manner without regard for the\nlessons and warnings of the past.\n\n\"In the intervals of preparing these discourses against their occasions,\nand of refining those which he hath read, he giveth much time and labour\nto the polishing of a little treatise or manual for princes; a work full\nof seasonable matter, which I have read with much profit and agreement,\nfor he reasons not, as the schoolmen use, from some abstract theory of\nthe universe, with which all events must be forced into harmony, but\ngathering together the facts of common experience, he derives from the\nperfect understanding of them the principles of his philosophy;\nwherefore I say that he hath invented a new science, and added a tenth\nmuse to the choir of Apollo. And to show you the satiric nature of the\nman, I must tell you, that having dedicated his treatise of _The Prince_\nto Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici, in the hope of some advancement and\nreward, and being disappointed of this hope, in the dedication of his\n_Discourses_ to Zanobi Buondelmonte and Cosimo Rucellai he says, 'Though\nI have been mistaken on many occasion, yet certainly I have made no\nerror in offering my _Discourses_ to you. For in this I think to have\nshown some gratitude for benefits received, and to have abandoned the\npath habitually trodden by those who make a trade of writing, and whose\ncustom it is to dedicate their works to some prince, to whom, in the\nblindness of their ambition or of their avarice, and in the pouring out\nof their empty flatteries, they attribute all the virtues, instead of\nmaking him blush for his vices. To avoid falling into that vulgar fault\nI have made choice, not indeed of a prince, but of those who merit to be\nprinces.... Moreover, historians give greater praise to Hieron, a plain\ncitizen of Syracuse, than to Perseus, King of Macedonia, for Hieron\nlacked none of the qualities of kingliness, except the name, while\nPerseus had no other than the kingdom.' So doth he think to repay them\nfor their neglect.\n\n\"This satiric quality doth characterise all his writing, whether he be\ndealing with the sacred or the profane; indeed he doth make no\ndifference between the books of Moses and the books of Livy, but treats\nboth in the same way, as the record of past events; and though God\nforbid that I should seem to doubt the truth of Scripture, yet it is my\nopinion that the writings of Moses are not to be apprehended by the\nplain man, being full of mystery and divinity, which only a clerk can\nexpound. Thus, in one place, after enumerating the great law-givers of\nold; Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and the like, he adds: 'And though\nperhaps I ought not to name Moses, he being merely an instrument for\ncarrying out the divine commands, he is still to be admired for those\nqualities which made him worthy to converse with God; but if we consider\nCyrus and the others who have acquired or founded kingdoms, they will\nall be seen to be admirable, and if their actions and the particular\ninstitutions of which they were the authors be studied, they will be\nfound not to differ from those of Moses, though he was instructed by so\ngreat a teacher.'\n\n\"This is either too simple, or too subtile, for men of godly and pious\ndispositions. Indeed, I think that by indulging his delight in irony he\nhath made himself distrusted; for the depravity of human nature is such,\nthat, where two interpretations can be put upon words, mankind will\nordinarily choose the sense which is evil instead of that which is good.\nWitness the following, on ecclesiastical princedoms: 'All the\ndifficulties of ecclesiastical princedoms precede their acquisition: for\nthey are acquired by merit or good fortune, but are maintained without\neither, being upheld by the venerable ordinances of religion, which are\nall of such a nature and efficacy that they secure the authority of\ntheir princes in whatever way they may act or live. These princes alone\nhave territories which they do not defend, and subjects whom they do not\ngovern; yet, though undefended, their territories are not taken from\nthem, nor are their subjects concerned at not being governed or led to\nthink of throwing off their allegiance; nor is it in their power to do\nso. Accordingly these princedoms alone are secure and happy. But\ninasmuch as they are sustained by agencies of a higher nature than the\nmind of man can reach, I forbear to speak of them; for, since they are\nset up and supported by God himself, he would be a rash and presumptuous\nman who should venture to discuss them.' It hath a double edge, and\nthough some may be found to declare the intention innocent, since the\nbook is addressed to a relative of the Pope, I would rather infer from\nthat the greater daring of the author. But lest you yourself, who are\ncurious in such matters, should doubt whether the intention be malicious\nor innocent, I shall explain further his opinions, both in the matter of\nMoses, and in the matter of ecclesiastical princedoms. For in two\ndiscourses at the Rucellai gardens, at which I was present, he returned\nto these subjects, and said: 'In fact no legislator has ever given his\npeople a new body of laws, without alleging the intervention of the\ndivinity; for otherwise they would not have been accepted. It is certain\nthat there exist many benefits of which a wise and prudent man foresees\nthe consequences, but nevertheless of which the evidence is not\nsufficiently striking to convince all minds. To resolve that difficulty\nthe wise man hath recourse to the gods.... The Florentines believe\nthemselves to be neither ignorant nor rude, and, nevertheless, Fra\nGirolamo Savonarola made them believe that he had conversations with\nGod. I do not pretend to decide if he were right or wrong, for one\nshould not speak without respect of so extraordinary a man. I only say,\nthat a great multitude of people believed him, without having seen\nanything supernatural which could justify their belief; but his whole\nlife, his knowledge, and the subject of his discourses, should have been\nenough to make them give credence to his words. One must never be\nastonished at having failed to-day, where others once succeeded; for\nmankind, as I have said in my preface, are born, live, and die,\naccording to the same laws.'\n\n\"And if you, Master Bates, would ask me how it is possible that such\nmatters should be so spoken of, openly, in this country, which licence\nwould not be permitted elsewhere, I shall offer in reply his own words\non ecclesiastical princedoms. For he says: 'Certainly, if religion had\nbeen able to maintain itself as a Christian republic, such as its divine\nfounder had established, the States which professed it would have been\nhappier than they are now. But how is she fallen! and the most striking\nproof of her decadence is to see that the peoples bordering on the\nChurch of Rome, that capital of our religion, are precisely the least\nreligious. If one examines the primitive spirit of her institutions, and\nwhen he sees how far her practice hath departed from them, he might\neasily believe that we are approaching a time of ruin or of retribution.\nAnd, since some assert that the happiness of Italy depends on the Church\nof Rome, I should bring against that Church several reasons which offer\nthemselves to my mind, among which there are two extremely grave, and\nwhich I think, cannot be denied. First, the evil examples of the court\nof Rome have extinguished in this country all devotion and all religion,\nwhich fact carries in its train innumerable inconveniences and\ndisorders; and as, wherever religion reigns one must believe the\nexistence of good, so wherever it hath disappeared one must suppose the\npresence of evil. We owe it then, we other Italians, to the Church and\nto the priests that we are without religion or morals, but we owe them\none other obligation, which is the source of our ruin; it is that the\nChurch has always stirred up, and stirs up incessantly, the division of\nthis unhappy country.'\n\n\"My mind doth see you, sitting, perchance, in your garden, by the dial,\nas is your wont after the business of the day is over, and mocking me,\nthat I have found a new prophet. But, indeed, it doth seem so to me, and\nI am content to sit in his company gleaning the ripe ears of his wisdom.\nAnd if I have out-wearied your patience with my praise of him, whose\nevery word hath the force of a deed, let me remind you of a summer day\nin the garden of your old house at Boston, how we plucked the apricocks\nfrom the espaliers, while you read to me the discourses of Sir Thomas\nMore upon Augustine's _De Civitate Dei_, when, if I did not gape, it was\nbut from politeness and my great respect for yourself. For this man doth\nstand among his countrymen like a giant in a city of pigmies,\noverlooking their petty disputations, and reading the future from the\nmirror of the past. He doth foresee the ruin of the Church, the birth of\nEmpires, the dawn of a new greatness for the world, the emancipation of\nthe peoples from the ecclesiastical tyranny of to-day. He standeth like\none prophetic upon Pisgah. He doth see that the world must be freed from\nthis pestilence of monks. He says: 'Our religion, having shown us the\ntruth and the only way of salvation, hath lessened in our eyes the worth\nof worldly honours.... The ancient religions offered divine honours only\nto those illustrious with worldly glory, such as famous captains, and\nleaders of the Republic; our religion, on the contrary, only sanctifies\nthe humble, and men given to contemplation rather than to an active\nlife; she hath placed the _summum bonum_ in humility, in the contempt\nfor worldly things, and even in abjection; while the pagans made it\nconsist in greatness of soul, in bodily strength, and in all that might\nhelp to make men brave and robust. And if our religion asks us to have\nstrength, it is rather the strength to suffer evils than to do great\nthings. It seems that this new morality has made mankind weaker, and\ngiven the world over as a prey to the wicked.'\n\n\"All these sayings have sunk deep into my mind, as you may well perceive\nby the length of this letter. He hath taught me that, since the\nconditions of life are always the same, a man who hath strength and wit\nmay rise to the same eminence in these days as the heroes of old time\ndid in the past.\n\n\"I have sent to my lord the Cardinal a present of furs, which I pray you\nsee conveyed to him with my humble duty. The cloak of furs is for\nyourself, and the necklace of amber beads for your good lady. Your\nadvice I follow in my way of life; but, my good Will, sometimes I do\nregret the old times, when you and I were younger, and fond of wenches;\nor, perchance, when they were fonder of us. Three things I look forward\nto seeing next Spring: the fresh face of an English country maid, a\nRoyal pageant on the Thames, and a bank of primroses with the rain on\nthem.\"\n\nFolding the paper neatly, he addressed it; and taking a sardonyx gem\nfrom his finger sealed up the edges with four seals. Then returning the\nring to his finger, he considered his small, white, fat hands, pursing\nup his lips, with a curious air of meditative self-satisfaction. Lifting\nup his eyes again, after this pleasant relaxation of the mind, he found\nMachiavelli, who had entered softly so as not to disturb him if he were\nwriting, looking at him with a gently ironic smile; and he started,\nsomewhat annoyed that even for a moment he should have been taken off\nhis guard.\n\n\"If you are occupied, Messer, I shall not disturb you. Do not move. I\nhope that you have asked for whatever you may have desired. Marietta\ntells me that you have been busy with your correspondence.\"\n\n\"I have also read a little,\" answered Cromwell.\n\n\"Ah, I see! the _De Monarchia_. I marvel always, Messer, that in spite\nof the overwhelming evidence of human depravity, men are to be found in\nevery age who base their conceptions of the ideal state upon the\nhypothesis that mankind is naturally good.\"\n\n\"It is at least certain that each individual considers himself good,\"\nCromwell said.\n\nA light smile was the only reply. Machiavelli wore a long Florentine\ncloak reaching down to the ankles; loosening it a little he flung the\nends back over the arms of his chair, and stretched his legs. His\nclothes were of the finest Florentine cloth, well-made, but a little\nworn--black and dark green in colour; he wore a collar of fine linen\nfitting close about the neck; his cloak was of brown home-spun. Every\ndetail showed a scrupulous care for his appearance, but also a frugality\nof means. Cromwell, equally sober in his black and tawny, allowed\nhimself little vanities; a gold chain with pendant jewels, and the white\nlawn collar neatly goffered, as also were the wrist-bands.\n\n\"Do you think this treatise a foolish book?\" asked Cromwell bluntly.\n\n\"Dante was great in everything,\" answered Machiavelli. \"He could not\nwrite foolish things; but he could be mistaken in his reasons, and as to\nthe capacity of human nature. His ideal Emperor, his ideal Pope, would\nbe gods, not men. His notion of the Church stripped of its temporal\npossessions is a chimera. As religion exists to-day, asserting its\nprecedence over the State, or even its opposition to the State, it\nsplits society in two, and divides it against itself. The religion of\nthe pagans was merged in patriotism, and before a greater stability in\nsocial affairs is possible, mankind must either return to that ideal, or\nreligion be considered as a matter for every individual to practise as\nhe thinks best.\"\n\nHe spoke with little or no inflection of the voice, resting his chin on\none hand. As he sat always with his head slightly bent, when he looked\nat his companion, with bright eyes under compressed brows, his face had\nan expression of stealthy alertness.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Cromwell; \"if we turn away from Italy, and consider the\nother nations, we find that in every country the Church has an\norganisation, powerful and rich, which the State has to bribe; but since\nthe Church has this organisation, acting directly on the mass of the\npeople, and willing to support the State, in exchange for certain\nprivileges and immunities, our princes find it convenient to govern by\nits help; and since the greater part of government consists of temporary\nexpedients, statesmen will not be led easily to forego this\nconvenience.\"\n\n\"That little book was written when Boniface VIII. sat in the chair of\nPeter. It is simply a protest against the ambition and arrogant\npretensions of the popes. Innocent III. and Gregory VII. could launch\ntheir thunders against kings more or less successfully; but the anger of\nBoniface went out like a flame fallen in water; his selfish lust for\npower led to his complete downfall, and the victory of Philip. But\nPhilip's victory caused a revulsion of feeling in the Pope's favour, so\nthat Dante, though he hath thrust Boniface into Hell, yet calleth him\nChrist's Vicar, and doth compare his sufferings to Christ's Passion.\nEven Philip did not attack him openly, but used covert weapons, Sciarra\nand all the Colonnesi being his secret allies, and carrying with them\nthe gonfalon of the Church; in what he did openly, Philip used\ntraditional means, as summoning a council, and accusing the Pope of\nheresy. Still, I say to you that henceforth the great States will war\ncontinuously against the Church.\"\n\n\"And how should they attack her? Upon what side is the Church to be\nassailed?\"\n\n\"Through the monks. 'The fat bellies of the monks' are become a proverb\nin Europe. Every people itch with the vermin. They have made the\npractice of poverty the most lucrative of trades. Their greed, their\nlewdness, and their obscenity, are the matter of every ballad, and the\nbutt of every wit. And yet they are one of the chief supports of the\nChurch, ever replenishing her treasuries with the offerings of the poor,\nand the fruit of their traffic in pardon and indulgences.\"\n\n\"I have observed,\" said Cromwell, \"that, though kings have often\ndespoiled the monasteries, such depredations have not increased their\npopularity; for, though the people do not defend the property of the\nmonks when it is attacked, after a time the weight of their opinion is\non the side of the Church, and they accuse the officers of the State of\nrapacity and harshness, and the King himself of greed.\"\n\n\"The people are too often ground between the upper and nether\nmill-stones of Church and State,\" said Machiavelli; \"to them both\ntyrannies are equally hateful. And, also, Messer, the plundering of the\nmonasteries hath nearly always been an act of kingly greed, to furnish\nthe material for war and forge the instruments of a harsher tyranny. But\nlet the King make his people his accomplices....\"\n\nHe finished the sentence with a smile.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the other slowly; \"yes.\"\n\nHe considered his soft, white hands, and pondered the matter as if it\nwere an ordinary question of daily business. His fleshy face with a\nbright colour about the cheek-bones, the small, pointed nose, the\nwatchful eyes, revealed nothing; but the mere quietness with which he\nconsidered the question was, in a sense, a revelation. Lifting his eyes\nagain he spoke quietly.\n\n\"I see here,\" he said, turning the pages of the _De Monarchia_, \"that\nDante attributes the great power of the Roman Empire to the direct\naction of the divine providence. The Empire to him is a thing divinely\nordained, and Augustus is the divine monarch.\"\n\n\"One must either attribute all things or nothing to providence,\" said\nMachiavelli. \"It was the opinion of Plutarch that the Romans confessed\ntheir obligations to Fortune by consecrating a great number of temples\nand statues to that goddess. It was to the courage of her soldiers that\nRome owed the Empire, and it was to the wisdom and conduct of her\nadministrators and law-givers that she owed its preservation. If fortune\nor God rule the world, then man hath no remedy against the evils of his\ntime, and his prudence avails him nothing. I am in part inclined to this\nopinion, since every day we see things happen contrary to all human\nexpectation; yet, at the same time, man is in some measure free. What I\nsay, then, is this: that fortune is mistress of little more than half of\nour actions, and man himself is master of all the rest. In all things we\nmay observe the action of certain laws, to which man is subject, but\nwithin the limits of which he hath a certain freedom. So, as a sailor,\nknowing the changes of the tide and wind; how it bloweth from the shore\nat evening, and from the sea at dawn; and knowing also the mysterious\ncurrents in the sea, and the hidden shallows, and the free channels, and\nthe stars by which he is to steer, may bring his venture into port,\nwhere one ignorant of these things would suffer shipwreck, the wise man\njudging of times and opportunities will use caution or courage, as best\nmay serve the occasion. He will prosper most whose mode of acting is\nadapted to the change of times; but no man is found so prudent as to\nknow how to adapt himself to all changes, both because he is naturally\ninclined to follow one course, and because having prospered in it\nhitherto he cannot be persuaded to change. Moreover, fortune is a blind\nand irresistible force, while the divine providence of Dante is mild and\nbeneficent; and though we have instances of fortune we have none of\nprovidence; and to assert that fortune directed the growth of the Roman\nEmpire is to say a childish thing, for fortune creates nothing, it\nrather destroys; but it is man, adapting himself to fortune, who is the\ncreator. Though we may say that fortune doth in a large measure control\nthe works of man, we cannot say that the divine providence hath inspired\nor maintained in power, by its singular favour, any people. But every\npeople succeeds or fails according to its wisdom in dealing with events\nas they occur, and in guarding against all probabilities of mischance.\"\n\nWhile he was speaking, his son, Piero, came into the room with some wine\nfor them, which he put upon the table. He was not unlike his father,\nwith a small, close-cropped head and slightly aquiline nose, but the\nface had the softer outline and delicacy of youth; something in the\nclean-cut features, the thoughtful brows, and firm lips, reminded\nCromwell of a little head of Augustus upon a gem which he had seen at\nRome, but even more, of a small head of Caligula, that debased and\nweaker image of Augustus. Machiavelli smiled, took his son's hand, and\ntalked to him in that spirit of grave banter which is customary with men\nwhen they talk to children, and the boy answered him readily enough,\nwith responsive smiles, and laughingly, but yet a little embarrassed by\nthe presence of their guest. Presently his hand was released, and he\nslipped silently out of the room.\n\n\"It is sad when one thinks of the great empires of the past fallen into\ndecay, and all their work perished, so that nothing of them can be said\nto remain except a shadowy legend and a name.\"\n\n\"Yes, it is sad; but it hath always been so,\" answered Machiavelli.\n\"Everything is subject to change and death. Do you know these lines of\nDante, since you study him?\n\n                \"'_Atene e Lacedemone, che fenno\n                Le antiche leggi, e furon s\u00ec civili,\n                Fecero al viver bene un picciol cenno\n                Verso di te, che fai tanto sottili\n                Provvedimenti, che a mezzo novembre\n                Non giunge quel che tu d'ottobre fili._'\n\n\"They are nothing but a song in our ears. And yet we may comfort\nourselves. For I believe that the world has always been the same and has\nalways contained an equal mass of good and evil, but I believe also that\nthis good and evil passes from one country to another, as we may see by\nthe records of these kingdoms of antiquity, which, as their manners\nchanged, passed from one to the other, but the world itself remained the\nsame. There is only this difference, that whereas first the seat of the\nworld's greatness was at Assyria, whence it passed to the Medes, thence\ninto Persia, until finally it came to Rome and Italy, and though no\nother Empire has followed which has proved lasting, yet now the\ngreatness of the world is diffused through many nations, in which men\nlive in orderly and civil fashion. Everything is subject to change and\nthe vicissitudes of fortune; but passing from change to change all\nthings return more or less to their former state.\"\n\n\"I remember the lines. Tell me, Messer: Dante calleth Virgil his master;\ndo you think the poetry of Dante similar and equal to Virgil?\"\n\nMachiavelli moved a little in his chair.\n\n\"There is a Virgil by your hand, Messer,\" he said. \"Open it. Look at the\nprint and paper; it was printed at Venice. So I like to read that\nsplendid verse. And yet Dante scarcely seems a poet to be read in print.\nI should like to possess his works written in a fine, neat, clerkly\nscript, upon vellum, with little illuminations in the margin, angels in\nvermilion and ultramarine upon a golden ground; initial letters with\nquaint floral devices woven about them, heraldic monsters, the Gryphon\nwith his car, Beatrice walking by the stream in the earthly Paradise. He\nchose Virgil as his master because, to him, Virgil was the sole Roman to\nwhom the prophecy of Christ's coming had been revealed by the divine\nwill; because Virgil himself had pictured the state of man after death;\nand, finally, because Virgil had been the singer of that Empire which\nDante so greatly reverenced. The poetry of Dante has nothing of\nclassical proportion; its unity is simply the unity of a philosophical\nsystem; its progress is like a pageant. But it is full of a sudden\nwilful beauty, a delight in natural things, moments of birdlike music\nwhen he speaks of birds, as in the lines:\n\n                 \"'_Nell'ora che comincie i tristi lai\n                 La rondinella presso alla mattina,\n                 Forse a memoria de' suoi primi guai._'\n\nand when he describes the flight of cranes, or of the lark:\n\n               \"'_Quale allodetta, che in aere si spazia\n               Prima cantando, e poi tace contenta\n               Dell' ultima dolcezza, che la sazia._'\n\nIt is like that delicate work of the illuminators, full of a kind of\nhomeliness, a clear and luminous beauty; but it is not the same thing as\nVirgil's lines:\n\n                                  \"'_.... et bibit ingens\n              Arcus: et e pastu decedens agmine magno\n              Corvorum increpuit densis exercitus alis._'\n\nI do not think that Dante is a lesser poet; but he hath not, and never\ncan have, the same universal appeal. He is terrible, full of swiftness,\nand energy, and hatred; devouring his subject like a flame. No poet hath\nlines so horrible, so inhuman as:\n\n              \"'_due d\u00ec li chiamai poi che fur morti:\n              Poscia, pi\u00f9 che il dolor, pot\u00e8 il digiuno.\n              Quand' ebbe detto ci\u00f2, con gli occhi torti\n              Riprese il teschio misero coi denti,\n              Che furo all' osso, come d'un can, forti._'\n\nIt is an exultation of hatred, a luxury in disgust, a joy in brutal\nvengeance which cannot be paralleled. Turn from it to these lines out of\nthe _Paradiso_:\n\n               \"'_O dolce Amor, che di riso t' ammanti,\n               Quanto parevi ardente in quei flailli,\n               Ch' aveano spirto sol di pensier santi._'\n\nand you have some notion of his wide range from tumult into calm. Will\nyou not drink a little wine?\"\n\n\"This wine is excellent,\" said Cromwell. \"As a rule I find the Italian\nwine a little harsh; but this is suave and of a delicate flavour. You\nare a great lover of poetry, Messer. I see that your volumes of Tibullus\nand Ovid are much worn.\"\n\n\"I carry them out with me when I go fowling, and read them beside the\nsnares.\"\n\n\"I have little time for such pleasures, alas!\" said Cromwell. \"Yet I,\ntoo, have great need of the poets, sometimes. I have read the _Commedia_\nclosely. Tell me, Messer, since you have spoken of Dante's political\nprinciples as enunciated in the _De Monarchia_, did not they suffer a\nchange in the _Commedia_?\"\n\n\"Man's ideals are broken as he hath greater experience of life. Dante,\nlike all enthusiasts, fashioned to his own mind a picture of the ideal\nstate, upon the hypothesis, as I have said before, that all men are\nnaturally good. But if you consider his poem you will find that it is\nnothing but a record of crimes and their punishment, while even the\ncrystal air of heaven is disturbed by denunciations of evil. His notion\nthat the civil power is of God, and that the Church should be subject to\nit, is expressed later with even a more vehement conviction in the\n_Paradiso_, by Justinian, the supreme legist. In the _De Monarchia_ he\nsays: 'Si romanum imperium de jure non fuit, peccatum Adae in Christo\nnon fuit punitum'; and in the _Commedia_ for having withstood the\nEmpire, Brutus with Cassius still howls in Hell, and 'Piangene ancor la\ntrista Cleopatra.' But, after his years of exile and wandering, he seems\nto have surrendered his faith in a kingdom, which should be of this\nworld, and sought for justice and the triumph of the good beyond the\ngrave, as so many others have, likewise; for in the next world we shall\nall be justified. Dante's poem is not like the _\u00c6neid,_ an epic: it is\nan Apocalypse. The companion of his voyage is less the gentle Virgil,\nthe maiden of the maiden city, than some later St John, continuing his\nfulminations from Patmos, judging all nations and condemning them. It is\nonly in rare moments that he can speak a tender language as he does of\nthe Florence of an earlier day, standing in peace, sober, chaste, with\nno houses void of a family; with her nobles in leather jerkins, and\ntheir ladies at the cradle, or the distaff, telling their handmaidens\nthe tales of Troy, and Rome, and Fiesole. Such is the manner of poets:\nto praise times past in preference to the present, and usually without\nreason. A little later, you will hear Peter condemning his successors,\nwho imitate him in that calling which he followed before he followed the\ncall of Christ, rather than in his later life:\n\n              \"'_Non fu nostra intenzion, ch'a destra mano\n              Dei nostri successor parte sedesse,\n              Parte dall' altra del popol cristiano:\n              N\u00e8 che le chiavi, che mi fur concesse\n              Divenisser segnacolo in vessillo,\n              Che contra i battezzati combattessi:\n              N\u00e8 ch' io fossi figura di sigillo\n              Ai privilegi venduti e mendaci._'\n\nEverything in the poem is a condemnation of this world. A sense of\ncomplete isolation has overcome the writer. He stands alone, neither\nGuelf nor Ghibelline, but a party to himself: the first Italian.\"\n\nHe paused, drank a little wine, and smiled tolerantly.\n\n\"I, too, began life in attaching myself to a party; and when my party\nwas expulsed I became a Florentine, and now, having considered all the\ncities of Italy, I am an Italian. But the great mass of my countrymen\nare still as Dante saw them, split up into numerous factions, weak by\ndivisions, a ready prey to any comer.\"\n\nCromwell stroked his chin meditatively and, discreet, said nothing.\n\n\"When our dreams have faded, Messer,\" continued the other, \"we can only\nsit aloof, watching the comedy of life with at best a tolerant contempt,\nbut more often hiding, under a mask of cynicism and sarcasm, the maimed\nheart that is in us.\"\n\nThe other was a little embarrassed, after a moment he spoke quickly.\n\n\"It seems, to my mind, Messer, that Dante's poem hath no progress, no\ndramatic progress; beyond the pedestrian interest of the scenes\ndescribed there is no motion.\"\n\n\"Thought can be dramatic as well as action,\" replied the other; \"but I\nam inclined to agree with you. Consider the poem as a whole system of\nthought starting from 'the master of those who know' and ending in the\nbeatific vision; consider it, next, as a denunciation of all the lusts\nand depravity of the world, typified, and made incarnate in historical\ncharacters: Francesca, voyaging for ever through the dusky air, on a\nwind that seems to symbolise her own passion; Ugolino, turning his\nstrong teeth upon that wretched skull: consider, finally, the little\nilluminations which have made me compare the poem to a missal or a book\nof hours; the terse phrase, the very simplicity of which bites like an\nacid, so keen it is. Then, I think, you will see how various was his\nmind. His poem is like a great life; his words like actions, sometimes\nterrible and inhuman, sometimes like a mother's tenderness with her\nchild.\"\n\nCromwell suddenly broke into a smile.\n\n\"Yes, yes, as you say, Messer, it is a whole system of thought. Nay,\neven more, it is the whole structure of a past age. But how simple! How\nchildish! The people of that time seem to me like a few men gathered\ntogether at night round an open fire; at hand is a cheerful warmth, and\nlight, but a few paces away is the darkness full of terrors, and on the\nborders of darkness are monstrous shadows. They sit crouched about the\nfire, telling idle tales to beguile their fears, thinking that beyond\nthat little glow of radiance is nothing, whereas, at no great distance\nfrom them is such another company round another fire. We have explored\nthe darkness, and now the dawn is beginning.\"\n\n\"_Magnus nascitur ordo_,\" said Machiavelli, smiling. \"How many ages have\nsaid the same thing?\"\n\n\"But it is here. The new order is born. I am no scholar, Messer, but I\nhave heard Dean Colet and Erasmus. The recovery of the Greeks hath let\nknowledge like a light into many dark places; the whole political fabric\nis dissolving, and flowing away into the limbo of dead conceptions. The\nsecular power, which Dante wished, and which you wish, to see\nestablished, is here.\"\n\n\"Yes, it is here,\" answered Machiavelli; \"but what is it going to do?\nMankind is constantly labouring at an unknown task; and, in seeking to\nbe free, doth often but rivet its own fetters more securely.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Take as an example the conflict between the senate and people of Rome.\nMarius having been made the champion of liberty is followed by Sulla the\nmaster of reaction; the fight is long, bitter, and when finally the\npeople triumph they find themselves under the absolute rule of one man.\nNow this results from the fact that men worship the name of freedom,\nrather than the thing itself; those who fight in the cause of liberty\nare fighting for their own establishment in power and, being\nestablished, they seek to protect themselves, and fortify their position\nas the central authority; and, having been raised up by the popular\nvoice, they are stronger than the power which they have supplanted; thus\nit happens that the people warring against their government in the cause\nof liberty do but increase the power which they have aimed to destroy.\nThe present struggle is to rid the State of the interference of the\nChurch: to found greater States. The popes have destroyed Italy by\nplaying off faction against faction, and city against city, in the hope\nthat by this method they might become supreme over all; but having\nintroduced disorder into every town, and destroyed all civic morality,\nthey have also lessened their own power; for these states and cities\nwere the Church's bulwarks against the invader. Now, whatever may be the\nissue of present affairs, the Pope must become subject either to the\nEmperor or to the King of France. This is the nemesis of their policy.\nThe liberty of the State will be achieved, at least in a great measure;\nbut the State being stronger will be more absolute, more tyrannous. The\nsolvent of the new learning, as you call it, will be smiled upon by\nkings, so long as it doth help them to rid themselves of the Pope; but\nit will be repressed the moment that it shows any desire to alter or\nlimit the power of the States.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Cromwell; \"but if they once let in the flood, it will be\ntoo late to think of building a dam.\"\n\n\"When I was a young man I remember to have heard Politian,\" said\nMachiavelli. \"But I think that the enthusiasm which began with Petrarch,\nand continued into my younger days, has died down. It is true that our\nstudies are better organised: we have the academies; but learning in\nItaly at the present day is rather a polite accomplishment than a\nserious business. It hath not penetrated the mass of people. To them,\nthe two bases of the social order are still the Pope and the Emperor, as\nin Dante's day; and they condemn the new learning as tending to\noverthrow these bases, and so destroy the whole fabric of society. The\nmonks point to Erasmus as the cause of the present troubles in Germany.\"\n\n\"Erasmus doth seem to me to be the one wise man,\" answered Cromwell. \"He\nsteereth a middle course, condemning the fanatics on both sides. It is\nhis wish to avoid any tumult, and merely to further the growth of light\nand reason; for he is persuaded the whole evil of the time comes from\nignorance. Colet, such another man, was persecuted with accusations of\nheresy, so that he thought well to withdraw himself from the public eye.\nBut neither of these men desired to overthrow the Papacy or to promote a\nschism; for they thought, if I remember aright, that such methods, with\ntheir incidental violence, would only prejudice the cause they had at\nheart; their aim was to act upon the Church from within, to reform its\nabuses, to root out this pestilent brood of monks, and to promote a\nhealthy growth of lay opinion. To Erasmus the German schismatics are no\nwhit less ignorant or less intolerant than his old enemies the monks,\nand equally entangled in the webs of vain theological sophistries. He\nbelieves that the great influences are secret, and of slow growth,\ngradually penetrating all things; and he seeketh to form a party of\nintellectual men, who shall work within reasonable limits, acting as a\nnew leaven to leaven the whole lump.\"\n\n\"I have little faith in such an influence, except as a preparation for\nthe combat,\" said Machiavelli. \"What I praise in Erasmus is that\nclearness of judgment, which insists that the Bible should be read as\nany other book, that each man should go direct to the source, and fill\nhis own vessel; for by that means they will recognise the chicanery,\nwhich isolates texts and phrases, and distorts their sense. But not by\nany gentle methods will the regeneration of Europe come to pass. There\nis a stir, a commotion of minds, abroad, which is testing the\npretensions of the Church, and rejecting them one by one. The sands are\nshifting beneath the foundations of a structure we thought builded upon\na rock; and though as yet the fabric stands, it showeth great rents. So:\nthe Pope and Emperor remain to the majority the bases of the social\norder, as I have said, and soon it will be perceived by all men that the\nhumanists, in playing with questions of grammar, have trenched upon\nmatters of faith: a crime not serious in itself, but exceedingly grave\nwhen after reflection we learn that it compromises temporalities. Men\nhave not yet clearly seen this danger, though a few, perhaps, have\nsuspected it. And, when the reaction against humanism sets in, upon what\narm will the humanists rely to defend them?\n\n\"They will by that time have created not only a large following, but a\ntemper among the people. I myself, Messer, have great hopes of our young\nKing of England, who hath grown under the influence of men similar to\nErasmus. He hath a royal nature, a dominant will, a power not only of\nmaking his people's aspirations his own, but that supreme gift in a\nruler which can make what is to his own private advantage seem a matter\ntending to further the public good. Though as yet he be not fully tried,\nthis much I will venture to prophesy of him, that no hindrances in the\npath he chooses will prevent him, and that no man in his realm of\nEngland who fails him once will fail him again.\"\n\n\"You are either very fortunate, or very unfortunate, to have such a\nprince,\" said Machiavelli, with a smile. \"But humanism is of recent\ngrowth in your country. It must be followed by reform. And, if your King\nhath that quality of true kingliness, which maketh the aspirations of\nhis people his own, would he withstand reaction?\"\n\n\"I cannot conceive that one of his nurture and character should be found\non any side but that of reform.\"\n\nA light, incredulous smile played upon the other's face.\n\n\"It might be politic,\" he suggested.\n\nBut Cromwell protruded his under-lip obstinately.\n\n\"I cannot conceive the possibility,\" he said.\n\nMachiavelli shrugged his shoulders, leaned back in his chair, and looked\nat his guest over joined finger-tips.\n\n\"He hath written against Luther, but rather for the reasons of Erasmus\nthan for those of the monks,\" said Cromwell slowly. \"It is even\nconceivable that if he once take up the business of reforming the Church\nin England, he may be forced into a more extreme position; I mean into a\ndenial of the Pope's authority, and a position similar to that of the\nfollowers of Luther. In that case, I admit, the war will be between two\nextreme parties; but it would be difficult to say which he would\nsupport, or how far he would be compelled to go. Certain it is to me\nthat he will ally himself with whatever party is likely to serve his own\nends, and will not forsake them until they have gained him what he\nrequires. Then, indeed, he may cast aside the tool, which he hath\nblunted by use, and choose one keener; yet, in reality, he would be but\nsacrificing the show for the substance; and his vicegerent will always\nbe the man who discerns his will and executes it. Thus, his policy will\nbe consistent, though his ministers change; for at times perhaps, since\nthe people always blame those who surround a prince as the abusers of\nhis confidence, he may find it necessary for him to discard, or even to\nsacrifice one, whose sole fault is in the thoroughness with which he\ncarries out the royal will, for often in history we read of the\nsacrifice of a minister in order to lull popular feeling. Witness the\nexample, which you yourself give, in your treatise of _The Prince_;\nwhere you show how Messer Remiro d'Orco, Cesare Borgia having set him\nover Romagna, by the sternness of his measures soon cleansed it of\nevil-doers and reduced it to order, for which his master, fearful lest\nthe harshness of his lieutenant should be attributed to himself,\nrewarded him with axe and block, exposing the severed head in the\nmarket-place of Cesena. Thus, though he had himself commanded the\nseverities which his lieutenant practised, he escaped the odium\nconsequent to them, and was hailed by the people as their deliverer.\"\n\nThey sat for a little time, silent, in the gathering dusk.\n\n\"Still,\" said Cromwell thoughtfully, \"there must be ways of avoiding the\ningratitude of a master: either by the minister imputing to the King\nopenly, and upon every possible occasion, all actions, whether of good\nor evil; or else by his fortifying himself with powerful friendships,\nand seeking in every way to gain the voice of popular favour, so that\nbecoming greater than his master he may withstand him.\"\n\nMachiavelli shifted a little in his chair, and the darkness hid an\nironic smile.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                                                      _TO ALBERT HOUTIN_\n\n\n\n\n                                   VI\n\n                   THE PARADISE OF THE DISILLUSIONED\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                   VI\n\n                   THE PARADISE OF THE DISILLUSIONED\n\n\n\"The final _Vale_!\"\n\nHe spoke, and lay silent. The dim figures in the crowded room seemed to\nslip away from him, his mind ceased to grasp at earthly realities, a\nthick darkness enveloping it and them; but the frail, wasted body still\nclung insatiably to life, and answered the phrases of the litany with\nlong quavering sobs. At last it, too, resigned its hold on life. He\nseemed to see again, for one brief moment, the kneeling cardinals; and\nthen to join some great current of being which swept him away beyond the\nconsciousness of time and space. Gradually another consciousness dawned\non him. Upon the golden brown clouds, which seemed to limit his vision,\nthere was projected suddenly a huge grotesque figure; the shadow of a\nbeing more or less similar to man.\n\n\"Is it a devil come to torment me?\" he wondered incredulously.\n\nAs the shadow advanced it became smaller; he noticed that it seemed to\nhave talons.\n\n\"It is a devil.\"\n\nBut even as he spoke the shadow melted about him, and out of the golden\nmist came a strange-looking man, with a large, ungainly head, gray hair\nin rather long straight wisps, and lively intelligent eyes of a clear\nblue. The figure was absurd, gnome-like, with a pear-shaped stomach. The\nfinger-nails were very long. The stranger bowed, smiling, as he\napproached, and spoke in a pleasant voice.\n\n\"Monsieur, je suis charm\u00e9 de vous voir. Etes-vous, par hazard, de notre\npetite plan\u00e8te terre?\"\n\n\"I am Gioacchino Pecci,\" he answered.\n\nA livelier interest was apparent on the other's face; the smile became\nironical.\n\n\"It is curious,\" he said after a pause. \"It is curious that we should\nhave reached the same paradise. On earth, Your Holiness, I was Ernest\nRenan.\"\n\n\"But is this paradise?\" said Leo uneasily. \"Je n'ai jamais cru----\"\n\n\"It is the paradise of the incredulous,\" answered Renan. \"There are many\nparadises: that state of being which on earth was called hell is the\nparadise of those given over to animal passions. The paradise of the\nascetics is an eternal Shrove Tuesday, with the eternal prospect of an\neternal Ash Wednesday; the case of Tantalus reversed and made\npleasurable. All good Buddhists have attained Nirvana. The righteous\nMahometan is distracted by the charms of innumerable _houris_. We\nEpicureans enjoy that moment which is eternity; and every man is\njustified in his own eyes.\"\n\n\"It is charming,\" said Leo.\n\n\"It is more,\" said Renan; \"it is rational. How puerile is the mortal\nconception of paradise! Man has imagined a place where virtue is\nrewarded and vice punished. He believes in it with a passionate\nconviction, because he is not quite sure. He forgets that virtue must be\ndisinterested, or it ceases to be virtue. If man is capable of a free\nand unhampered choice between vice and virtue, if the distinction\nbetween them be clear and precise, and the reward or punishment entailed\nby the choice definite and finally revealed, mankind, then, is obviously\ndivided into two parts: the astute and the infatuate. One feels\nimmediately that both the reward and the punishment are excessive; or\nelse that vice and virtue have ceased to exist. However, in mortal\nthings there is always an element of doubt, and perhaps the chief glory\nof man is born from it. Our choice is not entirely free, the distinction\nis not absolutely clear, the reward is purely hypothetical.\"\n\n\"Ah, M. Renan,\" said Leo, \"why are you here? You were always a believer\nat heart; one might almost say a scholastic. You invented a system of\ndoubt, as others might a system of faith; even your doubts were\naffirmations. Science with you was only a synonym for God, and round it\nyou constructed an hierarchy of saints and martyrs, a church suffering,\nmilitant, triumphant. Lucian----\"\n\n\"He is here,\" said Renan.\n\n\"Lucian,\" continued Leo, \"imagined the soul of Plato inhabiting a\nparadise constructed after the model of his own Republic. I imagine you\nprojected into that strange future which you announced in your\n_Dialogues Philosophiques_.\"\n\n\"Doubt must be systematic,\" answered Renan; \"but there is no need for\nsystem in religion. The essence of a creed is in its assertions, not in\nits arguments. Its arguments are nearly always a series of\nafter-thoughts, of apologies; its reason is always _\u00e0 priori_; the very\nfact that an argument should be considered necessary is blasphemous and\nheretical. You exaggerate my scholasticism; but there was always in me\nthe nature of a priest, and I could not put away from me my education,\nas I could put off my ecclesiastical dress. I imported the unction of a\npriest into the region of philosophic doubt, and by that means invented\na substitute for faith. Science, in limiting the field of its\nresearches, has increased the mystery which lies beyond. I became, as it\nwere, the priest of an unknown God; and the first article of my creed\nwas, that perhaps he did not exist at all. 'Sois b\u00e9ni pour ton myst\u00e8re,'\nI cried in my _Magnificat_; 'b\u00e9ni pour t'\u00eatre cach\u00e9, b\u00e9ni pour avoir\nreserv\u00e9 la pleine libert\u00e9 de nos c\u0153urs.' The _Dialogues Philosophiques_\nwere written at a time when the whole thought of France was depressed\nand reactionary. They were a play of intelligence upon contemporary\nideas. Progress does not tend to establish a scientific aristocracy at\nthe head of its affairs; science is progressive because it has saturated\nthe commercial classes with its ideals; it has increased production, and\neconomised in by-products. This alliance between democracy and the\nscientific spirit is the unique characteristic of our age. I think,\nmyself, that society is tending to adopt the Chinese model. Kingship,\nthe State, the present conventions of society, may continue to exist in\natrophied and rudimentary forms; but I imagine the whole earth in a few\nthousand years regulated by examinations and trade-unions, with an\neffete mandarinate surviving amid the d\u00e9bris of the ancient order, like\nthe solitary column of Phocas in the Roman Forum, or the teeth in an\nembryonic whale.\"\n\n\"In this paradise,\" said Leo with an elusive smile, \"you have,\ndoubtless, infinite leisure for the discussion of these academic\nquestions.\"\n\n\"Naturally,\" answered Renan; \"and we have a little Academy modelled on\nthe Acad\u00e9mie Fran\u00e7aise. I hope, Monsieur, to have the honour of\nwelcoming you among us, and of replying to your _discours de r\u00e9ception_;\nit is an amiable duty which my colleagues have delegated to me.\nSometimes; it is what remains of my mortal vanity, Monsieur; I imagine\nthat I have some talent in these things.\"\n\nLeo had intended to be ironical; but his own vanity was now flattered.\nOne ambition is always left to those who occupy a throne; it is to be\nconsidered equal with the great.\n\n\"Your response, Monsieur, will be my apotheosis,\" he replied. \"But, tell\nme, are you become a socialist? Your prophecy of the reformation of the\nearth on the Chinese model seems to point that way.\"\n\nRenan smiled.\n\n\"No,\" he said; \"the Chinese are not a socialistic nation. They have not\nthe notion of the State which is peculiar to socialism. But they are a\nnation governed by trades-unions and examining boards; and through the\nsame institutions we may arrive at the same stagnation. Our progress at\npresent seems to follow that direction, because the aim of our\nmaterialistic civilisation is to make everything cheap, food, education,\nstate-offices; and its final effect will be to make men cheap, then we\nshall have large, flat, arid masses of humanity, to whom few luxuries\nwill be possible, and the forms of our civilisation will become\nstereotyped. As it was with Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt, as it is with\nChina, so it will be with us. Evolution is the progress from homogeneity\nto heterogeneity; but the process is not indefinite.\n\n\"After a race or a nation has produced a great number of diverse\npersonalities, it becomes decadent and tends to produce a single type:\nthe process of evolution is arrested, and the race may either lie\ndormant for centuries if like the Chinese it has been prolific and\nexists in sufficient numbers; or, if sparse and scattered like the\nPh\u0153nicians, they may be completely annihilated by their more vigorous\nneighbours. Socialism is neither a remedy nor a disease, but it may be a\nsymptom. No society has been free from socialistic groups. Jerusalem had\nits _ebionim_; there was the eclectic philosophy of Rome under Nero, the\nFlavians, and the Antonines; primitive Christianity was communistic, and\nNeo-Christianity under Joachim of Flora and St Francis was an imitation\nof it. The Jacobins had communistic notions. The poor, the humble, the\noppressed have always been liable to the dreams of millenarism; and the\ndifference between the Maccabean aspiration, which was, according to\nDaniel, to establish the kingdom of God upon earth, and the aspiration\nof Robespierre, who wished 'to found upon earth the empire of wisdom, of\njustice, and of virtue,' is merely the difference of time and place. A\nbeautiful, but intangible vision; a divine inspiration! Like all divine\ninspirations, alas! it is by its nature impracticable. Imagine a sudden\nuprising of the proletariate, a vast social movement, an European\nrevolution. Slowly, after its momentary chaos, a new cohesion would take\neffect. The abstract virtues, from which the movement had had its\nderivation, would become personified in our most popular legislators;\nthe new constitution would include, beside the disadvantages of an\nuntried mechanism, many errors latent in the old patterns which it would\nnecessarily follow; and we should discover, after a series of futile and\nextravagant adventures, that the laws which govern society are\nessentially natural laws, the slow growth of tacit acceptance, and not\nmerely the dusty records of a popular legislating assembly. Mankind does\nnot learn the lesson easily. One revolution engenders another, and\neventually the habit becomes ingrained. The history of mine own country,\nfrom 1789 through the nineteenth century, a history of revolution, of\nthe conflict between ideals and realities, is a signal and a reminder to\nthe nations.\"\n\n\"You treat Christianity and Jacobinism as cognate ideas,\" said Leo,\nafter a pause. \"There is surely this distinction between them, that one\nwas almost entirely religious, and the other almost entirely political.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said Renan, with a deprecating smile, \"all religions are\npolitical, just as all politics are religious. Christianity with its\nnotion of mankind as a brotherhood, and the Papacy with its notions of a\nspiritual empire, a suzerainty, over all peoples, have destroyed the\nancient conception of the unity of Church and State. The religion of the\nGreeks was embodied in their laws; and the politics of the Jews, in\ntheir religion. The ideal conception of religion as something quite\ndistinct from the State has proved unworkable, if not disastrous. All\nthe churches have had to smite their mystics with the thunders of\nexcommunication, to extinguish the inward light, to restrain the free\nplay of thought. Even the most primitive form of Christianity, the\nMessianic notion, was purely political. If we are to talk on social\nquestions we cannot separate religion from politics. The distinction\nbetween them is artificial; they are merely the opposite poles of a\nsingle idea.\"\n\n\"Ah, well!\" said Leo, shrugging his shoulders; \"the progress of humanity\nis a chim\u00e6ra if it ends merely in stagnation. These bleak, arid masses\nof mankind living without pleasures in their Chinese frugality, what\nfuture have they before them?\"\n\n\"An awakening,\" said Renan prophetically; \"the Kings of Uruk reigning\nover a decadent civilisation, Sardanapalus foreseeing the stagnation of\nhis people did not dream of a future which they had helped to create.\nThe process of evolution acts in tides; there is a continuous ebb and\nflow; the seed lies hidden in the ground until the wizardry of Spring\ncalls it forth, and rain and sunlight nourishing it into new life, it\nripens for the harvest. Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen. In the\nruined palaces of Nineveh the beasts of the desert bring forth their\nyoung, and the green lizards creep out from the crevices to sun\nthemselves upon a fragment of some boastful inscription; but the music\nwhich echoed in its painted halls, the dancing and the choirs, the great\nprocessions of its Kings, its wisdom and folly, its vain desires and\nfailures, its tears and laughter, these have their being still, they\nmove mysteriously in us, a breath would quicken them into life again, we\ncan rebuild them in moments that seem to have all the profundity of\ntime.\"\n\n\"Poet!\" said Leo, with a smile creasing about his lean jaws. \"The world\ndoes not become socialist, it becomes Chinese; our civilisation tends to\na variety of forms, becomes uniform, and then again becomes diverse in\nendless recurrence. Continue, Monsieur, but let us keep within the\nbounds of our own age. Socialism is a definite political force; and even\nif it do not triumph completely it must create certain new conditions.\nI, myself, have condemned socialism in one of my encyclicals. I have\ndenied the sacred right of insurrection. Human institutions, which we\nmay think have survived their usefulness, are in reality only waiting\nfor their transformation, their character is moulded from outside. We\nmay sometimes fail to understand their mission, or to grasp the reasons\nwhich impel them to follow certain paths, because these reasons are pale\nreflections of some unappreciated causes. The world seems to progress,\nwithin the limits of natural laws, by a series of unforeseen\ndevelopments. The future is latent in us; but the force which impels it\nis hidden.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Renan; \"some internal conscience directs all progress,\nand is the force which impels humanity on its way. This conscience has a\nsecret action long before it finds a voice. Its influence at first is\nsomething subterranean and obscure; its bias is necessarily against the\nofficial creeds, but it moves against them slowly, informing them with\nthe new spirit. I like to find this conscience acting through the poorer\nand humbler classes of the people, the folk who are of the soil, whose\nfaith is something native and spontaneous, whose life and happiness\ndepends upon the sun and rain. It is significant that all the gods were\noriginally agricultural gods, that the history of every nation begins in\nEden. To the artisan, the dweller in towns, whose whole life consists in\nturning out from a machine certain articles of a stereotyped pattern,\nthe universe is simply a piece of mechanism; he is himself merely a\nmachine, or part of a machine, performing a certain number of invariable\nmotions to produce a definite and invariable result. He lacks\ninspiration, he has no vivid knowledge of the great element of chance\nwhich moves, like one of those primitive elemental gods, behind all\nhuman affairs, at times compassionate and friendly to man, at times\nbursting out into a sudden fury of wanton destruction. He demands a\nfixed wage, fixed hours of work, fixed prices for the commodities which\nhe consumes, the certainty of a pension in his old age. In a world of\nfluctuations and vicissitudes he demands absolute security. He is\nconfident that he is going to do great things, that he has already\nworked wonders. With the aid of science and art, which he starves, he is\ngoing to make the earth pleasant and beautiful. He is quite confident\nthat in a few generations he will be born in an incubator, and die,\nwithout pain, of sheer satiety. For him a fantastic assembly of\npoliticians, removable at his own will, represents Providence and the\ndivine wisdom. Is he less absurd than the savages who employ rain-makers\nand witch doctors? I do not think so. Clearly he is not a person from\nwhom we can expect any but the most crude and mechanical readings of\nlife; his vague, restless, childish discontent, that hunger for barren\nand tawdry pleasures which is characteristic of half-educated minds,\nthat lack of intercourse with the great elemental forces of Nature, can\nissue in nothing but his own mental, moral, and physical damnation.\n\n\"For any new readings of life, for any renaissance of art and religion,\nwe must look to the simple folk, who are still close to the breasts of\nEarth: the folk who of old imagined Apollo as a herd in the service of\nAdmetus; who found Demeter sitting by the well, and comforted her; who,\nafter the vintage had been gathered in, took down the grotesque masks,\nwhich they had hung upon the vines to scare the birds and foxes from the\ngrapes, and acted in them, singing the hymns of Dionysos to the music of\npipes and flutes. Poetry, religion, love, the three things which quicken\nlife to new effort, are never far from the soil. The great conventional\nmiddle-classes, even those heretics from Philistia, the followers of\nComte and Marx, the mediocre intelligences whose political principles\nare communist, and whose religious principles are positivist, these have\nlittle influence on the future. Socialism differs from all previous\nUtopian dreams simply because it lacks their vital energy; it is\nmaterial and mechanical where the older ideas were spiritual and\nnatural; it is lacking in a sense of morality, in a sense of beauty, in\na sense of truth. You will not find the conscience of humanity in any of\nthese creeds.\"\n\n\"It seems,\" said Leo, \"that we do not know where we are going.\"\n\n\"You have said that human institutions are only waiting for their\ntransformation,\" Renan replied. \"An institution represents a need. It\nhas been formed by the spontaneous action of the community; but the\nmoment it has been thus constituted it becomes fixed, and ceases to\nrepresent the living, developing forces which deposited it. Christianity\nat first was perfectly fluid; the teaching of Paul was unsystematic,\nlocal, momentary; but Christianity became a religion, not of inspiration\nbut of authority, it crystallised into an hierarchy and perished. In the\nsame way the idyll of St Francis and his companions crystallised into an\norder, and perished. They exist among us as monuments, these\ninstitutions; but the same forces which crystallised them are now\ndissolving them; the moment they cut themselves off from the stream of\nlife they perished. I do not think that the future will differ\nessentially from the past. Socialism is simply the cry of the poor\nagainst the rich. Dives is well-clad and fares sumptuously every day; no\nother crime is alleged against him, but these are sufficient to ensure\nhis damnation. Perhaps the maker of the parable saw some peculiar virtue\nin poverty and suffering, which filled the heart with a spiritual grace,\nand uplifted it with moral fortitude. Perhaps he saw the wealth of Dives\nas poverty, as a lack of spiritual experience.\n\n\"Socialism, however, does not share this view; on the contrary, it\nasserts that wealth is the sole condition of spiritual grace and moral\nfortitude, and it is therefore bent on sharing with Dives the good\nthings of this world. Consequently socialism has against it the two most\ndeeply-rooted of human instincts, the instinct of acquisition and the\nfamily instinct; because it denies the right of possession and the right\nof bequest. How deeply-rooted the notion of property is we can see\nexemplified in France, where the abolition of the right of primogeniture\nhas not had the effect which was expected of it, even the peasants in\ncertain departments having held out against it. But if the power of\nbequest were entirely abolished, would people marry? The object for a\nlegalised relation is gone, and the production of our kind becomes\nsubject to the hazard of personal choice. It is possible that the State\nwould have to intervene and make maternity an honourable profession\nunder its own control, and that Plato's ideal of the State as a\nfoster-mother would be realised. This notion has, I confess, a singular\nattraction for me. The substitution of a stock derived from careful\nselection of parents for our present inferior stock; the careful\nbreeding of an aristocratic caste, appeals to the imagination, as it\nshows the State actually realising what has always been its ideal.\n\n\"I could wish, Monsieur, that the socialists would form themselves into\nmonastic communities, practising the virtues of obedience and, if not\npoverty, the community of goods. Yes; they should found a little Abbey\nof Theleme, and take their whole rule from Rabelais. They would not\npractise celibacy, but eugenics; and the education of their children\nwould be the same as that devised for Gargantua by Ponocrates. So they\nwould increase and multiply, and the whole earth would be filled with\nthe glory of their names. I fear that, unfortunately, the first verse of\nwhat was written above the gate of Theleme would debar many from\nentering. But grant that this Utopia is possible; it is surely no less\npossible than the monastic ideal! And granted that a great aristocratic\ncaste would arise, a dedicated folk, surrounded by the decadent\npopulations of helots and hetairai, and that they would be able to\ngather into their own hands the supreme control of things? what would be\nthe result? They would crystallise into an hierarchy, and perish. They\nwould rule as the priests ruled Egypt, and as the priests ruled medi\u00e6val\nEurope. They would resuscitate the double tyranny of the Church and\nState in one body. The whole progress of the last four hundred years has\nbeen toward individual liberty in thought and word. That ideal would be\nlost.\"\n\n\"I do not see the necessity of such ideals,\" said Leo. \"I object to\nsocialism because it would mean the absolute tyranny of the State, the\ndespotism of a narrow and intolerant bureaucracy, tempered, as at\npresent in Russia, by a more or less indiscriminate system of\nassassination. I have not the same objection to the tyranny of one man.\nA philosopher on the throne, Monsieur, your charming Marcus Aurelius for\ninstance, may rule with wisdom and moderation; but an oligarchy of\nphilosophers, like the Thirty at Athens: hell is naked before them and\ndestruction hath no covering! Such experiments, as you say, infect the\npeople with a lust for revolution. History, the only guide for political\nprophets, shows us that sudden disturbance of the social order breeds a\nwhole series, whether such a disturbance occur among the ancient Greeks,\nor the Romans, or the French. The diverse natures of the peoples, the\ndifferent conditions of the age in which they lived, and of their\npolitical methods do not alter the central fact. Humanity in the lump is\na beast more terrible than any in Revelations.\"\n\n\"Ah, no!\" cried Renan, with a sudden vivacity. \"There is the chief glory\nof the human race. They will sacrifice themselves for an impossible\nideal. None of us can contemplate that great tragedy of the French\nRevolution without feeling cleansed by it. The enthusiasm of the people\nhas a kind of terrible grandeur. In such moments of divine delirium all\nmen assume heroic proportions. We may pity it for its fanaticism; we may\npity it for being so easily duped; but it is impossible to deny its\nmagnificent devotion to an ideal.\"\n\nLeo was unmoved.\n\n\"You consider it a great moral movement, Monsieur?\"\n\n\"Moral because all petty egoisms were obliterated,\" answered Renan. \"Men\nseemed for a moment to become the incarnations of ideas. Oh, on both\nsides. Charlotte Corday, Danton, Madame Roland, Robespierre, Desmoulins,\nLarochejacquelin; each individuality seems to have had its definite\nmission, each seems to have been equally necessary, equally an\ninstrument of justice.\"\n\n\"You have said, Monsieur,\" continued Leo, after a pause, \"that the\nsocialists would revive in one form the twin tyrannies of Church and\nState, and destroy the ideal of individual liberty. You have also said\nthat the ancient conception of Church and State was a unity. Would the\nkind of socialism which you sketch resemble the Greek State?\"\n\n\"No ancient State, not even Athens, extended to its citizens the liberty\nwhich we enjoy,\" answered Renan. \"The State intervened in the private\naffairs of the citizens; and Athens is notorious for having pursued the\nphilosophers with accusations of impiety. The noble conservative\nfamilies and the priesthood combined to stifle the new liberal thought.\nThe State, however, was democratic; the people ruled, decided by their\nvotes the policy of the State, and served on juries, or as judges.\nSocialism condemns democracy: it aspires to govern not by the will of\nthe people, but according to its own interpretation of what it calls\nscientific principles; and it seems that in its application of these\nprinciples, it would be more bigoted and intolerant than the democratic\nState in Greece ever was.\"\n\n\"Nothing then is permanent, which crystallises into an hierarchy, or is\nlimited by an institution,\" said Leo. \"It seems to me that your gospel\nis purely destructive. The whole progress of modern science is marked by\nthe ruins of ancient altars; you have freed mankind from all moral\nobligations in denying that he is a responsible agent, and in showing\nthat he is merely a creature of inherited instincts; you have shown him\nthat his life is no more than a ripple on the water, a sudden stir of\nwind in the leaves, a momentary light in the darkness; you have denied\nthe God that his heart fashioned as a solace to his grief, a lamp to\nguide him; you have taught him to seek for the perishable glories of the\nearth. How will you make him a moral being again?\"\n\nRenan smiled.\n\n\"Our civilisation is not very deep, Monsieur,\" he said. \"There is always\na large inert mass of humanity untouched by the movement of thought.\nFrom them we may expect a new religion, a new morality. We have denied\nand disproved, as you say, so many things, that at last we shall come to\nthe sole reality. We have rendered man's personality vague and\nmysterious, until it seems scarcely to exist except as a point of\ndevelopment; we must seek deeper for his reality. And in any case,\nMonsieur, you overrate the value of reason. In my charming walk through\nlife I had sufficient experience to learn that man is not entirely a\ncreature of reason. There are few people without a conscience. The fault\nof this age is not so much that it is scientific, as that it is\nmechanical and removed from the contemplation of Nature.\"\n\n\"I have sometimes thought,\" said Leo, \"that the principal hope for\nreligion lies in the fact that the lower classes do not think.\"\n\n\"It is true,\" said Renan; \"religion is some hidden consciousness working\ntoward unknown ends. Mankind is not entirely reasonable; it has a\nconscience. We can no more say that this conscience is an artificial\nproduct of society, than we can say that reason is an artificial product\nalso. The curiosity which is so amusing a feature of the intelligence of\ncats and monkeys is an earlier stage of the scientific curiosity; and,\non the other hand, animals have shown gratitude to their masters, and\nthus the rudiments of virtue. Man, in recognising his conscience, has\ndeveloped the abstract virtues of justice, of pity, of unselfishness; it\ndoes not affect the main question that his choice between virtue and\nvice should not be entirely free, nor that the distinction between them\nshould not be always clear. We do not reproach science because it has\nnot yet shown us what course our sun and its train of planets are taking\nin their journey toward a star in Hercules, nor because it has been\nunable, by its study of the rapidity and direction of other solar\nsystems, to give to them an approximate fixity in connection with\nourselves, to draw what would really be a map of the heavens.\n\n\"Oh, Monsieur, man is a naturally moral being, just as he is a naturally\ncurious and scientific being. To him both curiosity and morality are\nnatural needs, and because they are needs they are truths. It is\nimpossible to consider a world which does not act according to a law of\nvirtue, just as it is impossible to consider a world which does not act\nin accordance with the law of gravitation, or, better still, as an\nexample, a species which has not developed in accordance with the law of\nevolution; and just as the scientist finds behind all the fleeting\nappearances and phenomena of the world a basis in matter, so, behind all\nthe phenomena and fleeting appearances of virtue we find a basis in God,\nAnd just as an individual is governed by his conscience in regulating\nhis actions, so humanity as a whole regulates its actions by an appeal\nto some abstract idea of right. Such dramatic crises as the Revolution,\nand the establishment of the Roman Empire, seem equally the result of a\ncertain slow consciousness working toward perfection; or take the growth\nof Christianity, which began obscurely and with a literally subterranean\nmovement, is it not an instance of this blind working toward the light.\nOne cannot outrage the collective conscience of mankind with impunity. A\nsudden outburst of popular resentment like the Revolution, which had\nbeen incubating for at least a century, cannot be considered as a mere\ncaprice; can, indeed, only be considered as a revelation of justice.\nSuch outbursts have a purely negative effect upon human progress;\nprogress is the development of a new spirit, not the destruction of an\nold constitution.\"\n\n\"You offer no constructive policy, beyond the creation of a new spirit.\nSocialism, at least, pretends to one.\"\n\n\"Socialism is a reactionary force,\" answered Renan; \"and all reactions\nare bound to be more constructive than a progressive force. Their\nnatural tendency, as I have already said, is to crystallise in a\ndefinite form. The spirit of progress is, on the contrary, an intangible\nif all-pervading thing. It develops spontaneously in a thousand ways,\nand as it pushes towards the unknown it is impossible for us to predict\nwith any certainty what forms it may assume. Being purely experience,\nand not a creed, it is liable to be extensively modified or even\ncompletely changed by some unforeseen development in any of its parts; a\ndiscovery in any branch of science may react upon all, as the progress\nof pal\u00e6ontology reacted upon history. That is the reason progress seems\nalways to be a purely destructive force. It is only after it has\nescaped, through imperceptible degrees, into a more or less clearly\ndefined new phase, that we can gauge its value as a constructive force\nin the last.\"\n\n\"I see with you, Monsieur, the value of democracy and individual\nliberty,\" said Leo. \"Oh, I am reasonable. The character of a pope is to\nbe found less in the official acts of his reign, than in the temper\nwhich he fosters in the Church. The nature of his office compels him to\nclaim the privileges and exemptions which his predecessors claimed. He\nresigns nothing; but he allows some of his claims to remain in abeyance,\nrefusing to deprive his successors of a power, which, either for reasons\nof expediency, or through personal dislike, he declines to exercise\nhimself. I came to the chair of Peter under disadvantageous\ncircumstances. The Papal States had been lost, and in exchange the\ndoctrine of a vague empire over spiritual things had been proclaimed.\nInfallibility was no new thing; but the enunciation of it as an article\nof faith crystallised a power which would have been of more value, if it\nhad been left indeterminate. I won back much that Pius had lost. I made\nno use of the instruments which he had forged; I discouraged, rather\nthan condemned, the liberal movements within the Church; my policy was\none of insinuation, and, by skilfully leaving certain positions\nundefended, I gained that they should not be assailed. Alas, Monsieur!\nyou smile at this panegyric of myself; but I have left no one behind who\nwould consider it an honourable office to praise me. The encyclical on\nbiblical studies, and the biblical commission, were perhaps my two\nmistakes. The glorification of scholasticism was perhaps a mistake; but\nI rather think it diverted the attention of my flock. However these\nthings may appear in the eyes of the world, my reign was wise,\ntemperate, and resulted in a great increase of power. I recognised\ndemocracy and republican principles. I attempted to win the people. I\nwas defeated by the extremists on mine own side.\"\n\n\"An epitaph, Monsieur, not only on yourself, but on your office.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" answered Leo. \"We do not know. The dead know so little of\nwhat is taking place on Earth.\"\n\n\"On the contrary,\" said Renan, \"voyagers from the Earth are constantly\narriving, and we are kept well advised.\"\n\n\"I can imagine a moderately successful issue to my policy if my\nsuccessor should be a man of tact. Even if institutions be only the\nmonuments of an idea, men must build them; and, in spite of your\nargument, I think a period of authority, at least of a more correct\nbalance between authority and liberty, is setting in. I have still hoped\nfor the papacy. Comtism, some one said, was Catholicism with\nChristianity left out. The qualifying clause is perhaps unnecessary.\nComtism, socialism, internationalism, are all 'Catholic' ideas. To the\nChurch the name of a nation is merely a geographical expression, it\nknows no frontiers, no distinctions of race or language, it has no\npreference for any form of government, being superior to all. The Latin\nlanguage is for it, a universal tongue, which no sane person could\nconsider inferior to Volapuk or Esperanto. The Church, properly\nconstituted, might draw into itself a great deal of this floating\nidealism. We might approximate our ideals. You would say, Monsieur, that\nwe were all equally reactionary.\"\n\n\"All synthetic ideas are,\" said Renan. \"Anarchism is in its essence more\ntruly progressive than socialism, because it is for the individual.\nSocialism implies either that all men are made after the same pattern,\nthat in certain circumstances they will act in a certain manner, or that\nexternal influences, education, and environment, will turn out a uniform\nmodel. It is an error. If education were all-important, the Church would\nnot have lost ground consistently in Catholic Europe, where the Jesuits\nhave had practically the whole of education in their hands for two\ncenturies. If such a machine as the society has failed, though it was\nbacked by the State, and spoke with a quasi-spiritual authority, one\ncannot imagine a State department succeeding. Liberty is the condition\nof development, and education develops, it does not create.\"\n\n\"It is important, however, to control the means of development,\"\nanswered Leo. \"Of course our education would be modern.\"\n\n\"Monsieur, you spoke of an encyclical on biblical studies.\"\n\nRenan's voice was seductive; Leo made a gesture of impatience.\n\n\"It was a mistake,\" he said quickly. \"At certain moments the heads of\nany organisation are liable to be driven into a false position by their\nextreme supporters. My policy was to let things take their course; to\nassimilate what we could of the new spirit, and let the rest die without\nnoise. My condemnation of Americanism was unobtrusive, and I did not\ncondemn the French Liberal priests who were busy with biblical exegesis,\nbecause I saw that attacks on dogma do not interest the mass of people;\nnine Catholics out of ten do not know what they believe in: and if your\nmethods of criticism, Monsieur Renan, had not been advertised by so many\nfanatics, you would have been read almost entirely for the sake of your\nstyle. There is a little man in France now, a little man with the smile\nand features of Voltaire, whose criticism has rendered the work of all\nthose tedious Germans, and your own, quite obsolete. Our good\nUltramontanes wished to persecute him into popularity, and to advertise\nhim by excommunication. They told me he was a heretic. Of course he was.\nAll the Fathers of the Church were heretics. St Paul was a heretic. So\nwas St Augustine. So was St Francis. So were Lamennais, Lacordaire, and\nNewman. But it is a pity that the world should know it. St Paul's\nheterodoxy laid the foundations of the Church. St Augustine's\nheterodoxy, that the sacred writings were not to be taken literally,\nbuilt it up. St Francis's heterodoxy staved off the Reformation for\nthree centuries. Lamennais and Lacordaire in France, Newman in England,\ninfused new life into our veins. Let us point to the names of our sons\nand not to their works.\"\n\nA subtle enjoyment illuminated Renan's face.\n\n\"Monsieur, you were always an enigma to me.\"\n\n\"It is simple,\" said Leo; \"the impregnable rock upon which we build is\nsimply the impregnable ignorance of the majority. Do you think that\nscience can alter or influence the emotions of the plain man? It does\nnot touch him. He prefers to accept blindly a creed which he does not\nunderstand in order that he may devote himself to the business and\npleasures of life. He has no time to pause, to question, to criticise,\nto select. He aims at euthanasia. His doubts, such as he has, are almost\nentirely subconscious; and for the sake of his own peace of mind he will\nattempt to stifle them if they lift their heads. The number of men who\ncan look on life, the whole of life, with a tranquil mind is extremely\nsmall; and even these have their moments of failure, weakness, and\nspiritual lassitude, moments in which life seems a hideous nightmare, in\nwhich the individual, grown morbidly conscious of his own being, sees it\nas no more than an infinitesimal point in the great waste of time and\nspace, the great darkness of eternity, wherein all the worlds at present\nexisting are no more than a shower of sparks.\n\n\"Man, that creature of incredible vanity and innumerable petty egoisms,\nrefuses to consider for very long the melancholy spectacle of a world\nhastening merely towards its death, and carrying with it his whole store\nof spiritual experience, of poems and philosophies, theologics and\nsciences, which his forefathers have created, and his descendants shall\nrenew. Therefore, when I considered the future of religion as an\nindispensable condition of life, and when I imagined further a kind of\nalliance between the proletariate and mine own Church, I based my\ncalculations principally upon the feet that the great majority of men do\nnot think; indeed, that they refuse to think.\n\n\"Creeds may pass away, but the individuality of man changes, if at all,\nonly by imperceptible degrees. Ages of faith and ages of scepticism\nrecur, and give place to each other, with almost the same regularity as\nthe ebb and flow of a tide. The age of Pericles was sceptical, the age\nof C\u00e6sar was sceptical, the ages of Leo X. and Louis XV. were sceptical;\nbut from age to age the peasant has sate by the fire after his day's\nwork, dreaming the same dreams, and hearing nothing of the world's\ndoubt. He is much the same kind of pagan as he always was. He has seized\nupon, in a way we cannot understand, the primitive, elementary\nconditions, which subsist in all religions. You were right, Monsieur, in\ntracing religion to him. He is its source. Perhaps he has never accepted\nChristianity; but Christianity has accepted him. Laborious, innocent,\nstupid, scarcely more human than the cattle, who are literally his\nfoster-brothers, he looks out upon his little world with patient eyes,\nwondering; and he brings us the fruits of the earth and the bread of\nlife.\"\n\n\"I have said with Voltaire,\" murmured Renan, \"that if a God did not\nexist we should have to invent one.\"\n\nOnce again a deep, ironic smile creased about Leo's jaws.\n\n\"You were perhaps right, Monsieur,\" he said; \"but we should prefer not\nto tax your ingenuity. The gods invented by science are always afar off;\nor they sleep, perchance; or they are concerned with their own affairs;\nin any case they do not hear us when we call to them. I consider our\nChurch capable of a larger growth if it will only remain silent on the\nquestion of dogma, which should be left like seed to grow and quicken in\nthe earth. Time will obtain for any dogma a certain measure of tacit\nacceptance, because truth to the majority is merely something which has\nbeen said over and over again. Besides the psychological basis of my\ncalculations, the fact that the majority do not think, there is the\npolitical basis. This has entered into a new phase. In the Middle Ages\nthe Church was allied with the State against the people. Its dogmas were\nenforced by the secular arm. Innocent III. was a kind of suzerain over\nthe princes of Europe. But even here, already, the Church knew upon\noccasion to ally herself with the people, and threaten a king through\nhis own subjects, by releasing a nation from its allegiance, and\ntroubling its internal peace by an interdict.\n\n\"Since my predecessor, the Church has definitely adopted this policy;\nbut with a more subtile and insinuating method. Infallibility relates\nnot only to matters of dogma, but to matters of State, _quoad mores_ as\nwell as _quoad fidem_. You will remember, Monsieur, that Antonelli\naddressed a despatch to the Nuncio at Paris, in which he says: 'The\nChurch has never intended, nor now intends, to exercise any direct and\nabsolute power over the political rights of the State. Having received\nfrom God the lofty mission of guiding men, whether individually or as\ncongregated in society, to a supernatural end, she has by that very fact\nthe authority and the duty to judge concerning the morality and justice\nof all acts, internal and external, in relation to their conformity with\nthe natural and divine law. And as no action, whether it be ordained by\na supreme power, or be freely elicited by an individual, can be exempt\nfrom this character of morality and justice, it so happens that the\njudgment of the Church, though falling directly on the moral of the\nacts, indirectly reaches over everything with which that morality is\nconjoined. But this is not the same thing as to interfere directly in\npolitical affairs.' That direct interference we must avoid.\"\n\nRenan seemed to hesitate before he spoke.\n\n\"It may be,\" he answered, \"as you say, that mankind does not progress,\nbut merely revolves. Sometimes I have thought so. But nothing is\nrepeated in precisely the same way. Neither an individual, nor a\nsociety, is what it imagines itself to be, in its action upon the world.\nThe Church, as it is considered by its adherents, is something totally\ndifferent from the Church as it seems to its directors. Every\nindividual, and every age, examines the gospels in a different light and\nfrom a different standpoint, just as they examine the movement of the\nplanets, the structure of the earth, the conception of kingship, of the\nState, even of that most immediate object the body. The life of St\nFrancis seems to spring quite naturally out of the medi\u00e6val world, with\nits crude cosmogony, its notion of the universe as a huge mechanical toy\nin the hands of God. To such people the story of Joshua commanding the\nsun was not childish; miracles quite as wonderful were part of their\ndaily lives; and the world for them acted not according to fixed\nimmutable laws, but by the direct interposition of a Providence\nsusceptible to the prayers of man. To us it is different. We cannot\nimagine a St Francis appearing in the modern world. The Church, Your\nHoliness, cannot control the new movement, which will either transform\nor destroy it; but in what will you suffer it to be transformed?\n\n\"The evil of infallibility is that it cannot retract, or confess to\nerror. The Pope has been endowed with this fatal gift of infallibility,\na personal charisma, and through it he has become an incarnation of the\nDivine Wisdom, even as the Dalai Lama becomes an incarnation of the\nBuddha. To the historian, the heretical Pope Honorius, condemned equally\nby Councils, and by his successors, is sufficient to disprove your\nclaims. But the Church can triumph over facts of history. What it cannot\ntriumph over is the spirit of the age. You have a large body of\nadherents, who describe themselves as Catholic without knowing what the\nterm implies. You have a smaller, body, whose principal business in life\nseems to lie in reconciling, by innumerable sophistries and subterfuges,\nyour dogmas with the modern world. The smallest body of all is made up\nof those of your adherents, who accept you as the sole fount of truth.\nBut in each of these three sections there is not a solitary individual\nwho accepts your teaching without colouring it with his own ideas. Each\nwill explain a dogma from the point of view of his own prejudices, and\nonly accepts it with a kind of mental reservation. Of course it always\nhas been so. Your peril lies in the rapid exchange of ideas which\ncharacterises modern life, the ease of communication, and the lack of\nany effective machinery for preventing their diffusion. The moment any\ncrisis arises you cease to act as a solid body; and the action of your\nleaders has far less influence upon public opinion than the action of\nyour laity excusing, or justifying, or explaining, the multitudinous\ndiversities which exist among you. If this lay action be not public, it\nis the more insidious. I have noticed that when any important\npronouncement is published from the chair of Peter, your lay apologists\nmake no sign. There is an ominous silence. All are disenchanted. All are\nsuspect. They seem to turn away, silent and troubled, from what they\nimagined to be the ultimate authority, and seek for their justification\nat the tribunal of their private conscience.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" interrupted Leo brusquely, \"I for one do not regret that these\ngentlemen should be made uncomfortable. A lay theologian has no adequate\nreason for existing. It is altogether undesirable that laymen, mere\namateurs, should concern themselves with these things.\"\n\n\"Eh bien!\" said Renan. \"It is entirely owing to the laity that a certain\ntype of converts accrues to your ranks. Liberal Catholicism, though you\nand I know what a vain, chimerical, and ridiculous thing it is, is, as\nit were, the first step. Take Newman's theory of 'development' as an\nexample. Newman is the prophet dearest to the heart of laymen; because,\nin a sense, his works are popular. The Anglican may read him as a\nclassic, and, while enchanted with the magic of that exquisite prose,\nlays himself open to the attacks of a peculiarly subtile and insidious\nmind. A certain temper is created in him. He becomes receptive of\nCatholic ideas, and one watches him progressing more or less\nunconsciously toward Rome, blind to his master's casuistry by reason of\nthe ineffable charm. He is like one implected with a morbid craving for\nsome narcotic drug, gradually increasing the dose as its effect lessens.\nLiberal Catholics are the lures for such. Your Holiness had good reason\nfor saying that the Church had been founded by successive heresies. The\nfirst step to a conversion is always a misunderstanding.\"\n\n\"It is perfectly true,\" said Leo; \"but Liberal Catholicism is finished.\nOnly Newman's hat protects him from censure. The doctrine of development\nceased to have any value after the definition of infallibility. It was\nvaluable as leading up to the definition, but afterwards it became an\nexcuse for the introduction of novelties. Its sole value now is as a\nproselytising medium. But, Monsieur, why do we continue? The Church is\ndissolving; even Christianity itself seems to be dissolving, to take on\na fluid, personal form. That singular body, the Society of Friends,\nalone seems to be untouched by the solvent of criticism. It has nothing\nupon which the solvent may act, no dogmas, no sacraments, no depository\nof tradition, no hierarchical organisation. It recognises only the\ninward spirit, that informing and subtile essence which alone seems\ncapable of interpreting the righteousness of God, a religion of silence,\nand of sudden illumination, a religion of patient hope, of resignation,\nof a tacit understanding.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said Renan, smiling, \"a religion without forms, without\nenthusiasms, is scarcely one to satisfy all men. It is fascinating to\nconsider the future of Christianity. After Catholicism no other form\nwill satisfy the Latins, and if criticism destroys Protestantism with\nits infallible Bible, as it is destroying Catholicism with its\ninfallible Pope, these sophisticated nations will scarcely replace one\nobject of worship by another. You have said that a religion needs an\nuncritical people, a people who do not think; so for any further\ndevelopment we must turn toward a less complete civilisation, to a\nvirgin soil. Perhaps we find this in Russia. I can imagine that dreamy\nand unsophisticated people, who have kept unpolluted through the ages\nthe temperament of wonder, reforming and developing the Greek Church.\nWhen their Revolution comes, whether it be gradual and humane, or a\nviolent upheaval of disastrous passion, the Church will be\nmetamorphosed; the stock only will remain, and new boughs will be\ngrafted upon it. I can imagine a great growth because the field has lain\nfallow for so long, and the modern spirit will scarcely touch it, not\nonly because the new Christianity will be more flexible in itself, but\nalso because the people will have inherited our results without having\nendured our conflicts.\"\n\nThe clouds in front of them suddenly trembled and parted; the figure of\na man appeared.\n\n\"Mocenni!\" exclaimed Leo.\n\nHe rose and went toward the newcomer.\n\n\"Who is Pope?\" he enquired.\n\nAnd the Cardinal Mocenni answered him in ill-humour.\n\n\"Sarto.\"\n\nFor a moment Leo stood, as if doubtful, without speaking.\n\n\"Sarto,\" he said at last incredulously. \"Sarto!\"\n\n\"Well, Monsieur,\" said Renan, \"shall we not continue our discussion on\nthe future of the Church?\"\n\nBut Leo had taken Mocenni's arm, and the pair walked slowly away.\n\n\"Sarto! Sarto!\" Renan heard Leo say again, as the clouds gathered about\nthem; and Renan smiled.\n\n\"It is clear,\" he said, \"that Sarto is not Leo.\"\n\n\n\n\n                                THE END.","title":"Scenes and Portraits","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":56430}