{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_61547/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_61547","id":"gutenberg_61547","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61547","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. Job -- Adaptations","Category: British Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","English fiction -- 20th century","Job -- (Biblical figure) -- Fiction"],"text":"THE UNDYING FIRE\n\n\n\n\n           _Mr. Wells has also written the following novels_:\n\n\n LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM\n KIPPS\n MR. POLLY\n THE WHEELS OF CHANCE\n THE NEW MACHIAVELLI\n ANN VERONICA\n TONO BUNGAY\n MARRIAGE\n BEALBY\n THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS\n THE WIFE OF SIR ISAAC HARMAN\n THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT\n MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH\n THE SOUL OF A BISHOP\n JOAN AND PETER\n\n_The following fantastic and imaginative romances_:\n\n THE WAR OF THE WORLDS\n THE TIME MACHINE\n THE WONDERFUL VISIT\n THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU\n THE SEA LADY\n THE SLEEPER AWAKES\n THE FOOD OF THE GODS\n THE WAR IN THE AIR\n THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON\n IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET\n THE WORLD SET FREE\n\n And numerous short stories now collected in one volume under the title\n                                   of\n\n THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND\n\n_A series of books upon social, religious, and political questions_:\n\n ANTICIPATIONS (1900)\n MANKIND IN THE MAKING\n FIRST AND LAST THINGS\n NEW WORLDS FOR OLD\n A MODERN UTOPIA\n THE FUTURE IN AMERICA\n AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD\n WHAT IS COMING?\n ITALY, FRANCE, AND GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR\n GOD THE INVISIBLE KING\n IN THE FOURTH YEAR\n\n_And two little books about children\u2019s play, called_:\n\n FLOOR GAMES and LITTLE WARS\n\n\n\n\n                            THE UNDYING FIRE\n                          A CONTEMPORARY NOVEL\n\n\n                                   BY\n\n                              H. G. WELLS\n\n\n                                New York\n                         THE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n                                  1919\n\n                         _All rights reserved_\n\n\n\n\n                            COPYRIGHT, 1919,\n                            BY H. G. WELLS.\n\n             Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1919.\n\n\n                             Norwood Press\n                 J. S. Cushing Co.\u2014Berwick & Smith Co.\n                         Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\n                                   To\n                 All Schoolmasters and Schoolmistresses\n                               and every\n                          Teacher in the World\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n               CHAPTER                               PAGE\n               1.      THE PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN           1\n\n               2.      AT SEA VIEW, SUNDERING-ON-SEA   17\n\n               3.      THE THREE VISITORS              39\n\n               4.      DO WE TRULY DIE?               100\n\n               5.      ELIHU REPROVES JOB             133\n\n               6.      THE OPERATION                  200\n\n               7.      LETTERS AND A TELEGRAM         214\n\n\n\n\n                            THE UNDYING FIRE\n\n\n\n\n                           CHAPTER THE FIRST\n                         THE PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 1\n\nTwo eternal beings, magnificently enhaloed, the one in a blinding excess\nof white radiance and the other in a bewildering extravagance of\ncolours, converse amidst stupendous surroundings. These surroundings are\nby tradition palatial, but there is now also a marked cosmic tendency\nabout them. They have no definite locality; they are above and\ncomprehensive of the material universe.\n\nThere is a quality in the scene as if a futurist with a considerable\nknowledge of modern chemical and physical speculation and some obscure\ntheological animus had repainted the designs of a pre-Raphaelite. The\nvast pillars vanish into unfathomable darknesses, and the complicated\ncurves and whorls of the decorations seem to have been traced by the\nflight of elemental particles. Suns and planets spin and glitter through\nthe avanturine depths of a floor of crystalline ether. Great winged\nshapes are in attendance, wrought of iridescences and bearing globes,\nstars, rolls of the law, flaming swords, and similar symbols. The voices\nof the Cherubim and Seraphim can be heard crying continually, \u201cHoly,\nHoly, Holy.\u201d\n\nNow, as in the ancient story, it is a reception of the sons of God.\n\nThe Master of the gathering, to whom one might reasonably attribute a\nsublime boredom, seeing that everything that can possibly happen is\nnecessarily known to him, displays on the contrary as lively an interest\nin his interlocutor as ever. This interlocutor is of course Satan, the\nUnexpected.\n\nThe contrast of these two eternal beings is very marked; while the\nDeity, veiled and almost hidden in light, with his hair like wool and\nhis eyes like the blue of infinite space, conveys an effect of stable,\nremote, and mountainous grandeur, Satan has the compact alertness of\nhabitual travel; he is as definite as a grip-sack, and he brings a\nflavour of initiative and even bustle upon a scene that would otherwise\nbe one of serene perfection. His halo even has a slightly travelled\nlook. He has been going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down\nin it; his labels are still upon him. His status in heaven remains as\nundefined as it was in the time of Job; it is uncertain to this day\nwhether he is to be regarded as one of the sons of God or as an\ninexplicable intruder among them. (But see upon this question the\nEncyclop\u00e6dia Biblica under his name.) Whatever his origin there can be\nlittle doubt of his increasing assurance of independence and importance\nin the Divine presence. His freedom may be sanctioned or innate, but he\nhimself has no doubt remaining of the security of his personal autonomy.\nHe believes that he is a necessary accessory to God, and that his\nincalculable quality is an indispensable relief to the acquiescences of\nthe Archangels. He never misses these reunions. If God is omnipresent by\na calm necessity, Satan is everywhere by an infinite activity. They\nengage in unending metaphysical differences into which Satan has\nimported a tone of friendly badinage. They play chess together.\n\nBut the chess they play is not the little ingenious game that originated\nin India; it is on an altogether different scale. The Ruler of the\nUniverse creates the board, the pieces, and the rules; he makes all the\nmoves; he may make as many moves as he likes whenever he likes; his\nantagonist, however, is permitted to introduce a slight inexplicable\ninaccuracy into each move, which necessitates further moves in\ncorrection. The Creator determines and conceals the aim of the game, and\nit is never clear whether the purpose of the adversary is to defeat or\nassist him in his unfathomable project. Apparently the adversary cannot\nwin, but also he cannot lose so long as he can keep the game going. But\nhe is concerned, it would seem, in preventing the development of any\nreasoned scheme in the game.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 2\n\nCelestial badinage is at once too high and broad to come readily within\nthe compass of earthly print and understanding. The Satanic element of\nunexpectedness can fill the whole sphere of Being with laughter; thrills\nbegotten of those vast reverberations startle our poor wits at the\nstrangest moments. It is the humour of Satan to thrust upon the Master\nhis own title of the Unique and to seek to wrest from him the authorship\nof life. (But such jesting distresses the angels.)\n\n\u201cI alone create.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I\u2014I ferment.\u201d\n\n\u201cMatter I made and all things.\u201d\n\n\u201cStagnant as a sleeping top but for the wabble I give it.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are just the little difference of the individual. You are the\nlittle Uniqueness in everyone and everything, the Unique that breaks the\nlaw, a marginal idiosyncracy.\u201d\n\n\u201cSire, _you_ are the Unique, the Uniqueness of the whole.\u201d\n\nHeaven smiled, and there were halcyon days in the planets. \u201cI shall\naverage you out in the end and you will disappear.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd everything will end.\u201d\n\n\u201cWill be complete.\u201d\n\n\u201cWithout me!\u201d\n\n\u201cYou spoil the symmetry of my universe.\u201d\n\n\u201cI give it life.\u201d\n\n\u201cLife comes from me.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, Sire, life comes from me.\u201d\n\nOne of the great shapes in attendance became distinct as Michael bearing\nhis sword. \u201cHe blasphemes, O Lord. Shall I cast him forth?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you did that some time ago,\u201d answered Satan, speaking carelessly\nover his shoulder and not even looking at the speaker. \u201cYou keep on\ndoing it. And\u2014I am here.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe returns,\u201d said the Lord soothingly. \u201cPerhaps I will him to return.\nWhat should we be without him?\u201d\n\n\u201cWithout me, time and space would freeze into crystalline perfection,\u201d\nsaid Satan, and at his smile the criminal statistics of a myriad planets\ndisplayed an upward wave. \u201cIt is I who trouble the waters. I trouble all\nthings. I am the spirit of life.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut the soul,\u201d said God.\n\nSatan, sitting with one arm thrown over the back of his throne towards\nMichael, raised his eyebrows by way of answer. This talk about the soul\nhe regarded as a divine weakness. He knew nothing of the soul.\n\n\u201cI made man in my own image,\u201d said God.\n\n\u201cAnd I made him a man of the world. If it had not been for me he would\nstill be a needless gardener\u2014pretending to cultivate a weedless garden\nthat grew right because it couldn\u2019t grow wrong\u2014in \u2018those endless summers\nthe blessed ones see.\u2019 Think of it, ye Powers and Dominions! Perfect\nflowers! Perfect fruits! Never an autumn chill! Never a yellow leaf!\nGolden leopards, noble lions, carnivores unfulfilled, purring for his\ncaresses amidst the aimless friskings of lambs that would never grow\nold! Good Lord! How bored he would have been! How bored! Instead of\nwhich, did I not launch him on the most marvellous adventures? It was I\nwho gave him history. Up to the very limit of his possibilities. Up to\nthe very limit.... And did not you, O Lord, by sending your angels with\ntheir flaming swords, approve of what I had done?\u201d\n\nGod gave no answer.\n\n\u201cBut that reminds me,\u201d said Satan unabashed.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 3\n\nThe great winged shapes drew nearer, for Satan is the celestial\nraconteur. He alone makes stories.\n\n\u201cThere was a certain man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe remember him.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe had a wager of sorts,\u201d said Satan. \u201cIt was some time ago.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe wager was never very distinct\u2014and now that you remind me of it,\nthere is no record of your paying.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid I lose or win? The issue was obscured by discussion. How those men\ndid talk! You intervened. There was no decision.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou lost, Satan,\u201d said a great Being of Light who bore a book. \u201cThe\nwager was whether Job would lose faith in God and curse him. He was\nafflicted in every way, and particularly by the conversation of his\nfriends. But there remains an undying fire in man.\u201d\n\nSatan rested his dark face on his hand, and looked down between his\nknees through the pellucid floor to that little eddying in the ether\nwhich makes our world. \u201cJob,\u201d he said, \u201clives still.\u201d\n\nThen after an interval: \u201cThe whole earth is now\u2014Job.\u201d\n\nSatan delights equally in statistics and in quoting scripture. He leant\nback in his seat with an expression of quiet satisfaction. \u201cJob,\u201d he\nsaid, in easy narrative tones, \u201clived to a great age. After his\ndisagreeable experiences he lived one hundred and forty years. He had\nagain seven sons and three daughters, and he saw his offspring for four\ngenerations. So much is classical. These ten children brought him\nseventy grandchildren, who again prospered generally and had large\nfamilies. (It was a prolific strain.) And now if we allow three\ngenerations to a century, and the reality is rather more than that, and\nif we take the survival rate as roughly three to a family, and if we\nagree with your excellent Bishop Usher that Job lived about thirty-five\ncenturies ago, that gives us\u2014\u2014How many? Three to the hundred and fifth\npower?... It is at any rate a sum vastly in excess of the present\npopulation of the earth.... You have globes and rolls and swords and\nstars here; has anyone a slide rule?\u201d\n\nBut the computation was brushed aside.\n\n\u201cA thousand years in my sight are but as yesterday when it is past. I\nwill grant what you seek to prove; that Job has become mankind.\u201d\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 4\n\nThe dark regard of Satan smote down through the quivering universe and\nleft the toiling light waves behind. \u201cSee there,\u201d he said pointing. \u201cMy\nold friend on his little planet\u2014Adam\u2014Job\u2014Man\u2014like a roast on a spit. It\nis time we had another wager.\u201d\n\nGod condescended to look with Satan at mankind, circling between day and\nnight. \u201cWhether he will curse or bless?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhether he will even remember God.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have given my promise that I will at last restore Adam.\u201d\n\nThe downcast face smiled faintly.\n\n\u201cThese questions change from age to age,\u201d said Satan.\n\n\u201cThe Whole remains the same.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe story grows longer in either direction,\u201d said Satan, speaking as\none who thinks aloud; \u201cpast and future unfold together.... When the\nfirst atoms jarred I was there, and so conflict was there\u2014and progress.\nThe days of the old story have each expanded to hundreds of millions of\nyears now, and still I am in them all. The sharks and crawling monsters\nof the early seas, the first things that crept out of the water into the\njungle of fronds and stems, the early reptiles, the leaping and flying\ndragons of the great age of life, the mighty beasts of hoof and horn\nthat came later; they all feared and suffered and were perplexed. At\nlast came this Man of yours, out of the woods, hairy, beetle-browed and\nblood-stained, peering not too hopefully for that Eden-bower of the\nancient story. It wasn\u2019t there. There never had been a garden. He had\nfallen before he arose, and the weeds and thorns are as ancient as the\nflowers. The Fall goes back in time now beyond man, beyond the world,\nbeyond imagination. The very stars were born in sin....\n\n\u201cIf we can still call it sin,\u201d mused Satan.\n\n\u201cOn a little planet this Thing arises, this red earth, this Adam, this\nEdomite, this Job. He builds cities, he tills the earth, he catches the\nlightning and makes a slave of it, he changes the breed of beast and\ngrain. Clever things to do, but still petty things. You say that in some\nmanner he is to come up at last to _this_.... He is too foolish and too\nweak. His achievements only illuminate his limitations. Look at his\nlittle brain boxed up from growth in a skull of bone! Look at his bag of\na body full of rags and rudiments, a haggis of diseases! His life is\ndecay.... _Does_ he grow? I do not see it. Has he made any perceptible\nstep forward in quality in the last ten thousand years? He quarrels\nendlessly and aimlessly with himself.... In a little while his planet\nwill cool and freeze.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn the end he will rule over the stars,\u201d said the voice that was above\nSatan. \u201cMy spirit is in him.\u201d\n\nSatan shaded his face with his hand from the effulgence about him. He\nsaid no more for a time, but sat watching mankind as a boy might sit on\nthe bank of a stream and watch the fry of minnows in the clear water of\na shallow.\n\n\u201cNay,\u201d he said at last, \u201cbut it is incredible. It is impossible. I have\ndisturbed and afflicted him long enough. I have driven him as far as he\ncan be driven. But now I am moved to pity. Let us end this dispute. It\nhas been interesting, but now\u2014\u2014Is it not enough? It grows cruel. He has\nreached his limit. Let us give him a little peace now, Lord, a little\nseason of sunshine and plenty, and then some painless universal\npestilence and so let him die.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe is immortal and he does but begin.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe is mortal and near his end. At times no doubt he has a certain air\nthat seems to promise understanding and mastery in his world; it is but\nan air; give me the power to afflict and subdue him but a little, and\nafter a few squeaks of faith and hope he will whine and collapse like\nany other beast. He will behave like any kindred creature with a smaller\nbrain and a larger jaw; he too is doomed to suffer to no purpose, to\nstruggle by instinct merely to live, to endure for a season and then to\npass.... Give me but the power and you shall see his courage snap like a\nrotten string.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou may do all that you will to him, only you must not slay him. For my\nspirit is in him.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat he will cast out of his own accord\u2014when I have ruined his hopes,\nmocked his sacrifices, blackened his skies and filled his veins with\ntorture.... But it is too easy to do. Let me just slay him now and end\nhis story. Then let us begin another, a different one, and something\nmore amusing. Let us, for example, put brains\u2014and this Soul of\nyours\u2014into the ants or the bees or the beavers! Or take up the octopus,\nalready a very tactful and intelligent creature!\u201d\n\n\u201cNo; but do as you have said, Satan. For you also are my instrument. Try\nMan to the uttermost. See if he is indeed no more than a little stir\namidst the slime, a fuss in the mud that signifies nothing....\u201d\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 5\n\nThe Satan, his face hidden in shadow, seemed not to hear this, but\nremained still and intent upon the world of men.\n\nAnd as that brown figure, with its vast halo like the worn tail of some\nfiery peacock, brooded high over the realms of being, this that follows\nhappened to a certain man upon the earth.\n\n\n\n\n                           CHAPTER THE SECOND\n                     AT SEA VIEW, SUNDERING-ON-SEA\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 1\n\nIn an uncomfortable armchair of slippery black horsehair, in a mean\napartment at Sundering-on-Sea, sat a sick man staring dully out of the\nwindow. It was an oppressive day, hot under a leaden sky; there was\nscarcely a movement in the air save for the dull thudding of the gun\npractice at Shorehamstow. A multitude of flies crawled and buzzed\nfitfully about the room, and ever and again some chained-up cur in the\nneighbourhood gave tongue to its discontent. The window looked out upon\na vacant building lot, a waste of scorched grass and rusty rubbish\nsurrounded by a fence of barrel staves and barbed wire. Between the\nruinous notice-board of some pre-war building enterprise and the gaunt\nverandah of a convalescent home, on which the motionless blue forms of\ntwo despondent wounded men in deck chairs were visible, came the sea\nview which justified the name of the house; beyond a wide waste of mud,\nover which quivered the heat-tormented air, the still anger of the\nheavens lowered down to meet in a line of hard conspiracy, the steely\ncriminality of the remote deserted sea.\n\nThe man in the chair flapped his hand and spoke. \u201cYou accursed\ncreature,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy did God make flies?\u201d\n\nAfter a long interval he sighed deeply and repeated: \u201c_Why?_\u201d\n\nHe made a fitful effort to assume a more comfortable position, and\nrelapsed at last into his former attitude of brooding despondency.\n\nWhen presently his landlady came in to lay the table for lunch, an\nalmost imperceptible wincing alone betrayed his sense of the threatening\nswish and emphasis of her movements. She was manifestly heated by\ncooking, and a smell of burnt potatoes had drifted in with her\nappearance. She was a meagre little woman with a resentful manner,\nglasses pinched her sharp red nose, and as she spread out the grey-white\ndiaper and rapped down the knives and forks in their places she glanced\nat him darkly as if his inattention aggrieved her. Twice she was moved\nto speak and did not do so, but at length she could endure his\nindifference no longer. \u201cStill feeling ill I suppose, Mr. \u2019Uss?\u201d she\nsaid, in the manner of one who knows only too well what the answer will\nbe.\n\nHe started at the sound of her voice, and gave her his attention as if\nwith an effort. \u201cI beg your pardon, Mrs. Croome?\u201d\n\nThe landlady repeated with acerbity, \u201cI arst if you was still feeling\nill, Mr. \u2019Uss.\u201d\n\nHe did not look at her when he replied, but glanced towards her out of\nthe corner of his eyes. \u201cYes,\u201d he said. \u201cYes, I am. I am afraid I am\nill.\u201d She made a noise of unfriendly confirmation that brought his face\nround to her. \u201cBut mind you, Mrs. Croome, I don\u2019t want Mrs. Huss worried\nabout it. She has enough to trouble her just now. Quite enough.\u201d\n\n\u201cMisfortunes don\u2019t ever come singly,\u201d said Mrs. Croome with quiet\nsatisfaction, leaning across the table to brush some spilt salt from off\nthe cloth to the floor. She was not going to make any rash promises\nabout Mrs. Huss.\n\n\u201cWe \u2019ave to bear up with what is put upon us,\u201d said Mrs. Croome. \u201cWe\n\u2019ave to find strength where strength is to be found.\u201d\n\nShe stood up and regarded him with pensive malignity. \u201cVery likely all\nyou want is a tonic of some sort. Very likely you\u2019ve just let yourself\ngo. I shouldn\u2019t be surprised.\u201d\n\nThe sick man gave no welcome to this suggestion.\n\n\u201cIf you was to go round to the young doctor at the corner\u2014Barrack\nisnameis\u2014very likely he\u2019d put you right. Everybody says he\u2019s very\nclever. Not that me and Croome put much faith in doctors. Nor need to.\nBut you\u2019re in a different position.\u201d\n\nThe man in the chair had been to see the young doctor at the corner\ntwice already, but he did not want to discuss that interview with Mrs.\nCroome just then. \u201cI must think about it,\u201d he said evasively.\n\n\u201cAfter all it isn\u2019t fair to yourself, it isn\u2019t fair to others, to sicken\nfor\u2014it might be anythink\u2014without proper advice. Sitting there and doing\nnothing. Especially in lodgings at this time of year. It isn\u2019t, well\u2014not\nwhat I call considerate.\u201d\n\n\u201cExactly,\u201d said Mr. Huss weakly.\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s homes and hospitals properly equipped.\u201d\n\nThe sick man nodded his head appreciatively.\n\n\u201cIf things are nipped in the bud they\u2019re nipped in the bud, otherwise\nthey grow and make trouble.\u201d\n\nIt was exactly what her hearer was thinking.\n\nMrs. Croome ducked to the cellarette of a gaunt sideboard and rapped out\na whisky bottle, a bottle of lime-juice, and a soda-water syphon upon\nthe table. She surveyed her handiwork with a critical eye. \u201cCruet,\u201d she\nwhispered, and vanished from the room, leaving the door, after a\ntormenting phase of creaking, to slam by its own weight behind her....\n\nThe invalid raised his hand to his forehead and found it wet with\nperspiration. His hand was trembling violently. \u201cMy _God_!\u201d he\nwhispered.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 2\n\nThis man\u2019s name was Job Huss. His father had been called Job before him,\nand so far as the family tradition extended the eldest son had always\nbeen called Job. Four weeks ago he would have been esteemed by most\npeople a conspicuously successful and enviable man, and then had come a\nswift rush of disaster.\n\nHe had been the headmaster of the great modern public school at\nWoldingstanton in Norfolk, a revived school under the Papermakers\u2019 Guild\nof the City of London; he had given himself without stint to its\nestablishment and he had made a great name in the world for it and for\nhimself. He had been the first English schoolmaster to liberate the\nmodern side from the entanglement of its lower forms with the classical\nmasters; it was the only school in England where Spanish and Russian\nwere honestly taught; his science laboratories were the best school\nlaboratories in Great Britain and perhaps in the world, and his new\nmethods in the teaching of history and politics brought a steady stream\nof foreign inquirers to Woldingstanton. The hand of the adversary had\ntouched him first just at the end of the summer term. There had been an\nepidemic of measles in which, through the inexplicable negligence of a\ntrusted nurse, two boys had died. On the afternoon of the second of\nthese deaths an assistant master was killed by an explosion in the\nchemical laboratory. Then on the very last night of the term came the\nSchool House fire, in which two of the younger boys were burnt to death.\n\nAgainst any single one of these misfortunes Mr. Huss and his school\nmight have maintained an unbroken front, but their quick succession had\na very shattering effect. Every circumstance conspired to make these\nevents vividly dreadful to Mr. Huss. He had been the first to come to\nthe help of his chemistry master, who had fallen among some carboys of\nacid, and though still alive and struggling, was blinded, nearly\nfaceless, and hopelessly mangled. The poor fellow died before he could\nbe extricated. On the night of the fire Mr. Huss strained himself\ninternally and bruised his foot very painfully, and he himself found and\ncarried out the charred body of one of the two little victims from the\nroom in which they had been trapped by the locking of a door during some\n\u201clast day\u201d ragging. It added an element of exasperating inconvenience to\nhis greater distresses that all his papers and nearly all his personal\npossessions were burnt.\n\nOn the morning after the fire Mr. Huss\u2019s solicitor committed suicide. He\nwas an old friend to whom Mr. Huss had entrusted the complete control of\nthe savings that were to secure him and Mrs. Huss a dignified old age.\nThe lawyer was a man of strong political feelings and liberal views, and\nhe had bought roubles to his utmost for Mr. Huss as for himself, in\norder to demonstrate his confidence in the Russian revolution.\n\nAll these things had a quite sufficiently disorganizing effect upon Mr.\nHuss; upon his wife the impression they made was altogether disastrous.\nShe was a worthy but emotional lady, effusive rather than steadfast.\nLike the wives of most schoolmasters, she had been habitually\npreoccupied with matters of domestic management for many years, and her\nfirst reaction was in the direction of a bitter economy, mingled with a\ndisplay of contempt she had never manifested hitherto for her husband\u2019s\npractical ability. Far better would it have been for Mr. Huss if she had\nbroken down altogether; she insisted upon directing everything, and\ndoing so with a sort of pitiful vehemence that brooked no contradiction.\nIt was impossible to stay at Woldingstanton through the vacation, in\nsight of the tragic and blackened ruins of School House, and so she\ndecided upon Sundering-on-Sea because of its nearness and its pre-war\nreputation for cheapness. There, she announced, her husband must \u201cpull\nhimself together and pick up,\u201d and then return to the rebuilding of\nSchool House and the rehabilitation of the school. Many formalities had\nto be gone through before the building could be put in hand, for in\nthose days Britain was at the extremity of her war effort, and labour\nand material were unobtainable without special permits and great\nexertion. Sundering-on-Sea was as convenient a place as anywhere from\nwhich to write letters, but his idea of going to London to see\ninfluential people was resisted by Mrs. Huss on the score of the\nexpense, and overcome when he persisted in it by a storm of tears.\n\nOn her arrival at Sundering Mrs. Huss put up at the Railway Hotel for\nthe night, and spent the next morning in a stern visitation of possible\nlodgings. Something in the unassuming outlook of Sea View attracted her,\nand after a long dispute she was able to beat down Mrs. Croome\u2019s demand\nfrom five to four and a half guineas a week. That afternoon some\nimportunate applicant in an extremity of homelessness\u2014for there had been\na sudden rush of visitors to Sundering\u2014offered six guineas. Mrs. Croome\ntried to call off her first bargain, but Mrs. Huss was obdurate, and\nthereafter all the intercourse of landlady and her lodgers went to the\nunspoken refrain of \u201cI get four and a half guineas and I ought to get\nsix.\u201d To recoup herself Mrs. Croome attempted to make extra charges for\nthe use of the bathroom, for cooking after five o\u2019clock, for cleaning\nMr. Huss\u2019s brown boots with specially bought brown cream instead of\nblacking, and for the ink used by him in his very voluminous\ncorrespondence; upon all of which points there was much argument and\nbitterness.\n\nBut a heavier blow than any they had hitherto experienced was now to\nfall upon Mr. and Mrs. Huss. Job in the ancient story had seven sons and\nthree daughters, and they were all swept away. This Job was to suffer a\nsharper thrust; he had but one dear only son, a boy of great promise,\nwho had gone into the Royal Flying Corps. News came that he had been\nshot down over the German lines.\n\nUnhappily there had been a conflict between Mr. and Mrs. Huss about this\nboy. Huss had been proud that the youngster should choose the heroic\nservice; Mrs. Huss had done her utmost to prevent his joining it. The\npoor lady was now ruthless in her anguish. She railed upon him as the\nmurderer of their child. She hoped he was pleased with his handiwork. He\ncould count one more name on his list; he could add it to the roll of\nhonour in the chapel \u201cwith the others.\u201d Her _baby_ boy! This said, she\nwent wailing from the room.\n\nThe wretched man sat confounded. That \u201cwith the others\u201d cut him to the\nheart. For the school chapel had a list of V.C.\u2019s, D.C.M.\u2019s and the\nlike, second to none, and it had indeed been a pride to him.\n\nFor some days his soul was stunned. He was utterly exhausted and\nlethargic. He could hardly attend to the most necessary letters. From\ndignity, hope, and a great sheaf of activities, his life had shrunken\nabruptly to the compass of this dingy lodging, pervaded by the\nsquabbling of two irrational women; his work in the world was in ruins;\nhe had no strength left in him to struggle against fate. And a vague\ninternal pain crept slowly into his consciousness.\n\nHis wife, insane now and cruel with sorrow, tried to put a great quarrel\nupon him about wearing mourning for their son. He had always disliked\nand spoken against these pomps of death, but she insisted that whatever\ncallousness he might display she at least must wear black. He might, she\nsaid, rest assured that she would spend no more money than the barest\ndecency required; she would buy the cheapest material, and make it up in\nher bedroom. But black she must have. This resolution led straight to a\nconflict with Mrs. Croome, who objected to her best bedroom being\nlittered with bits of black stuff, and cancelled the loan of her sewing\nmachine. The mourning should be made, Mrs. Huss insisted, though she had\nto sew every stitch of it by hand. And the poor distraught lady in her\nsilly parsimony made still deeper trouble for herself by cutting her\nmaterial in every direction half an inch or more short of the paper\npattern. She came almost to a physical tussle with Mrs. Croome because\nof the state of the carpet and counterpane, and Mrs. Croome did her\nutmost to drag Mr. Huss into an altercation upon the matter with her\nhusband.\n\n\u201cCroome don\u2019t interfere much, but some things he or nobody ain\u2019t going\nto stand, Mr. \u2019Uss.\u201d\n\nFor some days in this battlefield of insatiable grief and petty cruelty,\nand with a dull pain steadily boring its way to recognition, Mr. Huss\nforced himself to carry on in a fashion the complex of business\nnecessitated by the school disaster. Then in the night came a dream, as\ndreams sometimes will, to enlighten him upon his bodily condition.\nProjecting from his side he saw a hard, white body that sent round,\nwormlike tentacles into every corner of his being. A number of doctors\nwere struggling to tear this thing away from him. At every effort the\npain increased.\n\nHe awoke, but the pain throbbed on.\n\nHe lay quite still. Upon the heavy darkness he saw the word \u201cCancer,\u201d\nbright red and glowing\u2014as pain glows....\n\nHe argued in the face of invincible conviction. He kept the mood\nconditional. \u201cIf it be so,\u201d he said, though he knew that the thing was\nso. What should he do? There would have to be operations, great\nexpenses, enfeeblement....\n\nWhom could he ask for advice? Who would help him?...\n\nSuppose in the morning he were to take a bathing ticket as if he meant\nto bathe, and struggle out beyond the mud-flats. He could behave as\nthough cramp had taken him suddenly....\n\nFive minutes of suffocation he would have to force himself through, and\nthen peace\u2014endless peace!\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d he said, with a sudden gust of courage. \u201cI will fight it out to\nthe end.\u201d\n\nBut his mind was too dull to form plans and physically he was afraid. He\nwould have to find a doctor somehow, and even that little task appalled\nhim.\n\nThen he would have to tell Mrs. Huss....\n\nFor a time he lay quite still as if he listened to the alternative swell\nand diminuendo of his pain.\n\n\u201cOh! if I had someone to help me!\u201d he whispered, and was overcome by the\nlonely misery of his position. \u201cIf I had someone!\u201d\n\nFor years he had never wept, but now tears were wrung from him. He\nrolled over and buried his face in the pillow and tried to wriggle his\nbody away from that steady gnawing; he fretted as a child might do.\n\nThe night about him was as it were a great watching presence that would\nnot help nor answer.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 3\n\nBehind the brass plate at the corner which said \u201cDr. Elihu Barrack\u201d Mr.\nHuss found a hard, competent young man, who had returned from the war to\nhis practice at Sundering after losing a leg. The mechanical substitute\nseemed to have taken to him very kindly. He appeared to be both modest\nand resourceful; his unfavourable diagnosis was all the more convincing\nbecause it was tentative and conditional. He knew the very specialist\nfor the case; no less a surgeon than Sir Alpheus Mengo came, it\nhappened, quite frequently to play golf on the Sundering links. It would\nbe easy to arrange for him to examine Mr. Huss in Dr. Barrack\u2019s little\nconsulting room, and if an operation had to be performed it could be\nmanaged with a minimum of expense in Mr. Huss\u2019s own lodgings without any\nextra charge for mileage and the like.\n\n\u201cOf course,\u201d said Mr. Huss, \u201cof course,\u201d with a clear vision of Mrs.\nCroome confronted with the proposal.\n\nSir Alpheus Mengo came down the next Saturday, and made a clandestine\nexamination. He decided to operate the following week-end. Mr. Huss was\nleft at his own request to break the news to his wife and to make the\nnecessary arrangements for this use of Mrs. Croome\u2019s rooms. But it was\ntwo days before he could bring himself to broach the matter.\n\nHe sat now listening to the sounds of his wife moving about in the\nbedroom overhead, and to the muffled crashes that intimated the climax\nof Mrs. Croome\u2019s preparation of the midday meal. He heard her calling\nupstairs to know whether Mrs. Huss was ready for her to serve up. He was\nseized with panic as a schoolboy might be who had not prepared his\nlesson. He tried hastily to frame some introductory phrases, but nothing\nwould come into his mind save terms of disgust and lamentation. The\nsullen heat of the day mingled in one impression with his pain. He was\nnauseated by the smell of cooking. He felt it would be impossible to sit\nup at table and pretend to eat the meal of burnt bacon and potatoes that\nwas all too evidently coming.\n\nIt came. Its progress along the passage was announced by a clatter of\ndishes. The door was opened by a kick. Mrs. Croome put the feast upon\nthe table with something between defence and defiance in her manner.\n\u201cWhat else,\u201d she seemed to intimate, \u201ccould one expect for four and a\nhalf guineas a week in the very height of the season? From a woman who\ncould have got six!\u201d\n\n\u201cYour dinner\u2019s there,\u201d Mrs. Croome called upstairs to Mrs. Huss in tones\nof studied negligence, and then retired to her own affairs in the\nkitchen, slamming the door behind her.\n\nThe room quivered down to silence, and then Mr. Huss could hear the\nfootsteps of his wife crossing the bedroom and descending the staircase.\n\nMrs. Huss was a dark, graceful, and rather untidy lady of seven and\nforty, with the bridling bearing of one who habitually repels implicit\naccusations. She lifted the lid of the vegetable dish. \u201cI thought I\nsmelt burning,\u201d she said. \u201cThe woman is impossible.\u201d\n\nShe stood by her chair, regarding her husband and waiting.\n\nHe rose reluctantly, and transferred himself to a seat at table.\n\nIt had always been her custom to carve. She now prepared to serve him.\n\u201cNo,\u201d he said, full of loathing. \u201cI can\u2019t eat. I _can\u2019t_.\u201d\n\nShe put down the tablespoon and fork she had just raised, and regarded\nhim with eyes of dark disapproval.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s all we can get,\u201d she said.\n\nHe shook his head. \u201cIt isn\u2019t that.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know what you expect me to get for you here,\u201d she complained.\n\u201cThe tradesmen don\u2019t know us\u2014and don\u2019t care.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt isn\u2019t that. I\u2019m ill.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s the heat. We are all ill. Everyone. In such weather as this. It\u2019s\nno excuse for not making an effort, situated as we are.\u201d\n\n\u201cI mean I am really ill. I am in pain.\u201d\n\nShe looked at him as one might look at an unreasonable child. He was\nconstrained to more definite statement.\n\n\u201cI suppose I must tell you sooner or later. I\u2019ve had to see a doctor.\u201d\n\n\u201cWithout consulting me!\u201d\n\n\u201cI thought if it turned out to be fancy I needn\u2019t bother you.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut how did you find a doctor?\u201d\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s a fellow at the corner. Oh! it\u2019s no good making a long story of\nit. I have cancer.... Nothing will do but an operation.\u201d Self-pity wrung\nhim. He controlled a violent desire to cry. \u201cI am too ill to eat. I\nought to be lying down.\u201d\n\nShe flopped back in her chair and stared at him as one stares at some\nhideous monstrosity. \u201cOh!\u201d she said. \u201cTo have cancer now! In these\nlodgings!\u201d\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t _help_ it,\u201d he said in accents that were almost a whine. \u201cI\ndidn\u2019t choose the time.\u201d\n\n\u201c_Cancer!_\u201d she cried reproachfully. \u201cThe horror of it!\u201d\n\nHe looked at her for a moment with hate in his heart. He saw under her\nknitted brows dark and hostile eyes that had once sparkled with\naffection, he saw a loose mouth with downturned corners that had been\nproud and pretty, and this mask of dislike was projecting forward upon a\nneck he had used to call her head-stalk, so like had it seemed to the\nstem of some pretty flower. She had had lovely shoulders and an impudent\nhumour; and now the skin upon her neck and shoulders had a little\nloosened, and she was no longer impudent but harsh. Her brows were moist\nwith heat, and her hair more than usually astray. But these things did\nnot increase, they mitigated his antagonism. They did not repel him as\ndefects; they hurt him as wounds received in a common misfortune. Always\nhe had petted and spared and rejoiced in her vanity and weakness, and\nnow as he realized the full extent of her selfish abandonment a\nprotective pity arose in his heart that overcame his physical pain. It\nwas terrible to see how completely her delicacy and tenderness of mind\nhad been broken down. She had neither the strength nor the courage left\neven for an unselfish thought. And he could not help her; whatever power\nhe had possessed over her mind had gone long ago. His magic had\ndeparted.\n\nLatterly he had been thinking very much of her prospects if he were to\ndie. In some ways his death might be a good thing for her. He had an\nendowment assurance running that would bring in about seven thousand\npounds immediately at his death, but which would otherwise involve heavy\nannual payments for some years. So far, to die would be clear gain. But\nwho would invest this money for her and look after her interests? She\nwas, he knew, very silly about property; suspicious of people she knew\nintimately, and greedy and credulous with strangers. He had helped to\nmake her incompetent, and he owed it to her to live and protect her if\nhe could. And behind that intimate and immediate reason for living he\nhad a strong sense of work in the world yet to be done by him, and a\ntask in education still incomplete.\n\nHe spoke with his chin in his hand and his eyes staring at the dark and\ndistant sea. \u201cAn operation,\u201d he said, \u201cmight cure me.\u201d\n\nHer thoughts, it became apparent, had been travelling through some\nbroken and unbeautiful country roughly parallel with the course of his\nown. \u201cBut need there be an operation?\u201d she thought aloud. \u201cAre they ever\nany good?\u201d\n\n\u201cI could die,\u201d he admitted bitterly, and repented as he spoke.\n\nThere had been times, he remembered, when she had said and done sweet\nand gallant things, poor soul! poor broken companion! And now she had\nfallen into a darkness far greater than his. He had feared that he had\nhurt her, and then when he saw that she was not hurt, and that she\nscrutinized his face eagerly as if she weighed the sincerity of his\nwords, his sense of utter loneliness was completed.\n\nOver his mean drama of pain and debasement in its close atmosphere\nbuzzing with flies, it was as if some gigantic and remorseless being\nwatched him as a man of science might hover over some experiment, and\nmarked his life and all his world. \u201cYou are alone,\u201d this brooding\nwitness counselled, \u201cyou are utterly alone. _Curse God and die._\u201d\n\nIt seemed a long time before Mr. Huss answered this imagined voice, and\nwhen he answered it he spoke as if he addressed his wife alone.\n\n\u201c_No_,\u201d he said with a sudden decisiveness. \u201cNo. I will face that\noperation.... We are ill and our hearts are faint. Neither for you,\ndear, nor for me must our story finish in this fashion. No. I shall go\non to the end.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd have your operation here?\u201d\n\n\u201cIn this house. It is by far the most convenient place, as things are.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou may die here!\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I shall die fighting.\u201d\n\n\u201cLeaving me here with Mrs. Croome.\u201d\n\nHis temper broke under her reply. \u201cLeaving you here with Mrs. Croome,\u201d\nhe said harshly.\n\nHe got up. \u201cI can eat nothing,\u201d he repeated, and dropped back sullenly\ninto the horsehair armchair.\n\nThere was a long silence, and then he heard the little, almost\nmouselike, movements of his wife as she began her meal. For a while he\nhad forgotten the dull ache within him, but now, glowing and fading and\nglowing, it made its way back into his consciousness. He was helpless\nand perplexed; he had not meant to quarrel. He had hurt this poor thing\nwho had been his love and companion; he had bullied her. His clogged\nbrain could think of nothing to set matters right. He stared with dull\neyes at a world utterly hateful to him.\n\n\n\n\n                           CHAPTER THE THIRD\n                           THE THREE VISITORS\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 1\n\nWhile this unhappy conversation was occurring at Sundering-on-Sea, three\nmen were discussing the case of Mr. Huss very earnestly over a meatless\nbut abundant lunch in the bow window of a club that gives upon the trees\nand sunshine of Carlton Gardens. Lobster salad engaged them, and the ice\nin the jug of hock cup clinked very pleasantly as they replenished their\nglasses.\n\nThe host was Sir Eliphaz Burrows, the patentee and manufacturer of those\nTemanite building blocks which have not only revolutionized the\nconstruction of army hutments, but put the whole problem of industrial\nand rural housing upon an altogether new footing; his guests were Mr.\nWilliam Dad, formerly the maker of the celebrated Dad and Showhite car\nde luxe, and now one of the chief contractors for aeroplanes in England;\nand Mr. Joseph Farr, the head of the technical section of Woldingstanton\nSchool. Both the former gentlemen were governors of that foundation and\nnow immensely rich, and Sir Eliphaz had once been a pupil of the father\nof Mr. Huss and had played a large part in the appointment of the latter\nto Woldingstanton. He was a slender old man, with an avid vulturine head\npoised on a long red neck, and he had an abundance of parti-coloured\nhair, red and white, springing from a circle round the crown of his\nhead, from his eyebrows, his face generally, and the backs of his hands.\nHe wore a blue soft shirt with a turn-down collar within a roomy blue\nserge suit, and that and something about his large loose black tie\nsuggested scholarship and refinement. His manners were elaborately\ncourteous. Mr. Dad was a compacter, keener type, warily alert in his\nbearing, an industrial fox-terrier from the Midlands, silver-haired and\ndressed in ordinary morning dress except for a tan vest with a bright\nbrown ribbon border. Mr. Farr was big in a grey flannel Norfolk suit; he\nhad a large, round, white, shiny, clean-shaven face and uneasy hands,\nand it was apparent that he carried pocket-books and suchlike luggage in\nhis breast pocket.\n\nThey consumed the lobster appreciatively, and approached in a\nfragmentary and tentative manner the business that had assembled them:\nnamely, the misfortunes that had overwhelmed Mr. Huss and their bearing\nupon the future of the school.\n\n\u201cFor my part I don\u2019t think there is such a thing as misfortune,\u201d said\nMr. Dad. \u201cI don\u2019t hold with it. Miscalculation _if_ you like.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn a sense,\u201d said Mr. Farr ambiguously, glancing at Sir Eliphaz.\n\n\u201cIf a man keeps his head screwed on the right way,\u201d said Mr. Dad, and\nattacked a claw with hope and appetite. Mr. Dad affected the parsimony\nof unfinished sentences.\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t help thinking,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz, putting down his glass and\nwiping his moustache and eyebrows with care before resuming his lobster,\n\u201cthat a man who entrusts his affairs to a solicitor, after the fashion\nof the widow and orphan, must be singularly lacking in judgment. Or\nreckless. Never in the whole course of my life have I met a solicitor\nwho could invest money safely and profitably. Clergymen I have known,\nwomen of all sorts, savages, monomaniacs, criminals, but _never_\nsolicitors.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have known some smart business parsons,\u201d said Mr. Dad judicially.\n\u201cOne in particular. Sharp as nails. They are a much underestimated\nclass.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps it is natural that a solicitor should be a wild investor,\u201d Sir\nEliphaz pursued his subject. \u201cHe lives out of the ordinary world in a\ndirty little office in some antiquated inn, his office fittings are\nfifty years out of date, his habitual scenery consists of tin boxes\npainted with the names of dead and disreputable clients; he has to take\nthe law courts, filled with horseboxes and men dressed up in gowns and\nhorsehair wigs, quite seriously; nobody ever goes near him but abnormal\npeople or people in abnormal states: people upset by jealousy, people\nupset by fear, blackmailed people, cheats trying to dodge the law,\nlunatics, litigants and legatees. The only investments he ever discusses\nare queer investments. Naturally he loses all sense of proportion.\nNaturally he becomes insanely suspicious; and when a client asks for\npositive action he flounders and gambles.\u201d\n\n\u201cNaturally,\u201d said Mr. Dad. \u201cAnd here we find poor Huss giving all his\nbusiness over\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cExactly,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz, and filled his glass.\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s been a great change in him in the last two years,\u201d said Mr.\nFarr. \u201cHe let the war worry him for one thing.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo good doing that,\u201d said Mr. Dad.\n\n\u201cAnd even before the war,\u201d Sir Eliphaz.\n\n\u201cEven before the war,\u201d said Mr. Farr, in a pause.\n\n\u201cThere was a change,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz. \u201cHe had been bitten by\neducational theories.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo business for a headmaster,\u201d said Mr. Farr.\n\n\u201cOur intention had always been a great scientific and technical school,\u201d\nsaid Sir Eliphaz. \u201cHe introduced Logic into the teaching of plain\nEnglish\u2014against my opinion. He encouraged some of the boys to read\nphilosophy.\u201d\n\n\u201cAll he could,\u201d said Mr. Farr.\n\n\u201cI never held with his fad for teaching history,\u201d said Mr. Dad. \u201cHe was\nhistory mad. It got worse and worse. What\u2019s history after all? At the\nbest, it\u2019s over and done with.... But he wouldn\u2019t argue upon it\u2014not\nreasonably. He was\u2014overbearing. He had a way of looking at you.... It\nwas never our intention to make Woldingstanton into a school of\nhistory.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd now, Mr. Farr,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz, \u201cwhat are the particulars of the\nfire?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt isn\u2019t for me to criticize,\u201d said Mr. Farr.\n\n\u201cWhat I say,\u201d said Mr. Dad, projecting his muzzle with an appearance of\ngreat determination, \u201cis, fix responsibility. _Fix responsibility._ Here\nis a door locked that common sense dictated should be open. Who was\nresponsible?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo one in School House seems to have been especially responsible for\nthat door so far as I can ascertain,\u201d said Mr. Farr.\n\n\u201cAll responsibility,\u201d said Mr. Dad, with an expression of peevish\ninsistence, as though Mr. Farr had annoyed him, \u201c_all_ responsibility\nthat is not delegated rests with the Head. That\u2019s a hard and fast and\nprimary rule of business organization. In my factory I say quite plainly\nto everyone who comes into it, man or woman, chick or child....\u201d\n\nMr. Dad was still explaining in a series of imaginary dialogues, tersely\nbut dramatically, his methods of delegating authority, when Sir Eliphaz\ncut across the flow with, \u201cReturning to Mr. Huss for a moment....\u201d\n\nThe point that Sir Eliphaz wanted to get at was whether Mr. Huss\nexpected to continue headmaster at Woldingstanton. From some chance\nphrase in a letter Sir Eliphaz rather gathered that he did.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Mr. Farr portentously, letting the thing hang for a moment,\n\u201che does.\u201d\n\n\u201cTcha!\u201d said Mr. Dad, and shut his mouth tightly and waved his head\nslowly from side to side with knitted brows as if he had bitten his\ntongue.\n\n\u201cI would be the first to recognize the splendid work he did for the\nschool in his opening years,\u201d said Mr. Farr. \u201cI would be the last to\nalter the broad lines of the work as he set it out. Barring that I\nshould replace a certain amount of the biological teaching and\npractically all this new history stuff by chemistry and physics. But one\nhas to admit that Mr. Huss did not know when to relinquish power nor\nwhen to devolve responsibility. We, all of us, the entire staff\u2014it is no\nmere personal grievance of mine\u2014were kept, well, to say the least of it,\nin tutelage. Rather than let authority go definitely out of his hands,\nhe would allow things to drift. Witness that door, witness the business\nof the nurse.\u201d\n\nMr. Dad, with his lips compressed, nodded his head; each nod like the\ntap of a hammer.\n\n\u201cI never believed in all this overdoing history in the school,\u201d Mr. Dad\nremarked rather disconnectedly. \u201cIf you get rid of Latin and Greek, why\nbring it all back again in another form? Why, I\u2019m told he taught \u2019em\nthings about Assyria. Assyria! A modern school ought to be a modern\nschool\u2014business first and business last and business all the time. And\nteach boys to work. We shall need it, mark my words.\u201d\n\n\u201cA certain amount of modern culture,\u201d waved Sir Eliphaz.\n\n\u201c_Modern_,\u201d said Mr. Farr softly.\n\nMr. Dad grunted. \u201cIn my opinion that sort of thing gives the boys\nideas.\u201d\n\nMr. Farr steered his way discreetly. \u201cScience with a due regard to its\ntechnical applications should certainly be the substantial part of a\nmodern education.\u201d...\n\nThey were in the smoking-room and half way through three princely cigars\nbefore they got beyond such fragmentary detractions of the fallen\nheadmaster. Then Mr. Dad in the clear-cut style of a business man,\nbrought his companions to action. \u201cWell,\u201d said Mr. Dad, turning abruptly\nupon Sir Eliphaz, \u201cwhat about it?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is manifest that Woldingstanton has to enter on a new phase; what\nhas happened brings us to the parting of the ways,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz.\n\u201cMuch as I regret the misfortunes of an old friend.\u201d\n\n\u201c_That_,\u201d said Mr. Dad, \u201cspells Farr.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf he will shoulder the burthen,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz, smiling upon Mr.\nFarr not so much with his mouth as by the most engaging convolutions,\ncurvatures and waving about of his various strands of hair.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t want to see the school go down,\u201d said Mr. Farr. \u201cI\u2019ve given it\na good slice of my life.\u201d\n\n\u201cRight,\u201d said Mr. Dad. \u201cRight. File that. That suits us. And now how do\nwe set about the affair? The next thing, I take it, is to break it to\nHuss.... How?\u201d\n\nHe paused to give the ideas of his companions a fair chance.\n\n\u201cWell, _my_ idea is this. None of us want to be hard on Mr. Huss. Luck\nhas been hard enough as it is. We want to do this job as gently as we\ncan. It happens that I go and play golf at Sundering-on-Sea ever and\nagain. Excellent links, well kept up all things considered, and the big\nhotel close by does you wonderfully, the railway company sees to that;\nin spite of the war. Well, why shouldn\u2019t we all, if Sir Eliphaz\u2019s\nengagements permit, go down there in a sort of _casual_ way, and take\nthe opportunity of a good clear talk with him and settle it all up? The\nthing\u2019s got to be done, and it seems to me altogether more kindly to go\nthere personally and put it to him than do it by correspondence. Very\nlikely we could put it to him in such a way that he himself would\nsuggest the very arrangement we want. You particularly, Sir Eliphaz,\nbeing as you say an old friend.\u201d...\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 2\n\nSince there was little likelihood of Mr. Huss going away from\nSundering-on-Sea, it did not appear necessary to Mr. Dad to apprise him\nof the projected visitation. And so these three gentlemen heard nothing\nabout any operation for cancer until they reached that resort.\n\nMr. Dad came down early on Friday afternoon to the Golf Hotel, where he\nhad already engaged rooms for the party. He needed the relaxation of the\nlinks very badly, the task of accumulating a balance sufficiently large\nto secure an opulent future for British industry, with which Mr. Dad in\nhis straightforward way identified himself, was one that in a controlled\nestablishment between the Scylla of aggressive labour and the Charybdis\nof the war-profits tax, strained his mind to the utmost. He was joined\nby Mr. Farr at dinner-time, and Sir Eliphaz, who was detained in London\nby some negotiations with the American Government, arrived replete by\nthe dining-car train. Mr. Farr made a preliminary reconnaissance at Sea\nView, and was the first to hear of the operation.\n\nSir Alpheus Mengo was due at Sea View by the first morning train on\nSaturday. He had arranged to operate before lunch. It was clear\ntherefore that the only time available for a conversation between the\nthree and Mr. Huss was between breakfast and the arrival of Sir Alpheus.\n\nMr. Huss, whose lethargy had now departed, displayed himself feverishly\nanxious to talk about the school. \u201cThere are points I must make clear,\u201d\nhe said, \u201cvital points,\u201d and so a meeting was arranged for half-past\nnine. This would give a full hour before the arrival of the doctors.\n\n\u201cHe feels that in a way it will be his testament, so to speak,\u201d said Mr.\nFarr. \u201cNaturally he has his own ideas about the future of the school. We\nall have. I would be the last person to suggest that he could say\nanything about Woldingstanton that would not be well worth hearing. Some\nof us may have heard most of it before, and be better able to discount\nsome of his assertions. But that under the present circumstances is\nneither here nor there.\u201d\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 3\n\nMatters in the confined space of Sea View were not nearly so strained as\nMr. Huss had feared. The prospect of an operation was not without its\nagreeable side to Mrs. Croome. Possibly she would have preferred that\nthe subject should have been Mrs. rather than Mr. Huss, but it was clear\nthat she made no claim to dictate upon this point. Her demand for\nspecial fees to meet the inconveniences of the occasion had been met\nquite liberally by Mr. Huss. And there was a genuine appreciation of\norder and method in Mrs. Croome; she was a furious spring-cleaner, a\nhurricane tidier-up, her feeling for the discursive state of Mrs. Huss\u2019s\nhair was almost as involuntary as a racial animosity; and the swift\ndexterous preparations of the nurse who presently came to convert the\nbest bedroom to surgical uses, impressed her deeply. She was allowed to\nhelp. Superfluous hangings and furnishings were removed, everything was\nthoroughly scrubbed, at the last moment clean linen sheets of a\nwonderful hardness were to be spread over every exposed surface. They\nwere to be brought in sterilized drums. The idea of sterilized drums\nfascinated her. She had never heard of such things before. She wished\nshe could keep her own linen in a sterilized drum always, and let her\nlodgers have something else instead.\n\nShe felt she was going to be a sort of assistant priestess at a\nsacrifice, the sacrifice of Mr. Huss. She had always secretly feared his\nsubmissive quiet as a thing unaccountable that might at any time turn\nupon her; she suspected him of ironies; and he would be helpless, under\nchloroform, subject to examination with no possibilities of\ndisconcerting repartee. She did her best to persuade Dr. Barrack that\nshe would be useful in the room during the proceedings. Her imagination\nconjured up a wonderful vision of the Huss interior as a great chest\nfull of strange and interesting viscera with the lid wide open and Sir\nAlpheus picking thoughtfully, with deprecatory remarks, amid its\ncontents. But that sight was denied her.\n\nShe was very helpful and cheerful on the Saturday morning, addressing\nherself to the consolation of Mr. and the bracing-up of Mrs. Huss. She\nassisted in the final transformation of the room.\n\n\u201cIt might be a real \u2019ospital,\u201d she said. \u201cNursing must be nice work. I\nnever thought of it like this before.\u201d\n\nMr. Huss was no longer depressed but flushed and resolute, but Mrs.\nHuss, wounded by the neglect of everyone\u2014no one seemed to consider for a\nmoment what she must be feeling\u2014remained very much in her own room,\nworking inefficiently upon the mourning that might now be doubly needed.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 4\n\nMr. Huss knew Mr. Farr very well. For the last ten years it had been his\nearnest desire to get rid of him, but he had been difficult to replace\nbecause of his real accomplishment in technical chemistry. In the course\nof their five minutes\u2019 talk in his bedroom on Friday evening, Mr. Huss\ngrasped the situation. Woldingstanton, his creation, his life work, was\nto be taken out of his hands, and in favour of this, his most\nsoul-deadening assistant. He had been foolish no doubt, but he had never\nanticipated that. He had never supposed that Farr would dare.\n\nHe thought hard through that long night of Friday. His pain was no\ndistraction. He had his intentions very ready and clear in his mind when\nhis three visitors arrived.\n\nHe had insisted upon getting up and dressing fully.\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t talk about Woldingstanton in bed,\u201d he said. The doctor was not\nthere to gainsay him.\n\nSir Eliphaz was the first to arrive, and Mrs. Huss retrieved him from\nMrs. Croome in the passage and brought him in. He was wearing a Norfolk\njacket suit of a coarse yet hairy consistency and of a pale sage green\ncolour. He shone greatly in the eyes of Mrs. Huss. \u201cI can\u2019t help\nthinking of you, dear lady,\u201d he said, bowing over her hand, and all his\nhair was for a moment sad and sympathetic like a sick Skye terrier\u2019s.\nMr. Dad and Mr. Farr entered a moment later; Mr. Farr in grey flannel\ntrousers and a brown jacket, and Mr. Dad in a natty dark grey suit with\na luminous purple waistcoat.\n\n\u201cMy dear,\u201d said Mr. Huss to his wife, \u201cI must be alone with these\ngentlemen,\u201d and when she seemed disposed to linger near the\nunderstanding warmth of Sir Eliphaz, he added, \u201cFigures, my\ndear\u2014_Finance_,\u201d and drove her forth....\n\n\u201c\u2019Pon my honour,\u201d said Mr. Dad, coming close up to the armchair,\nwrinkling his muzzle and putting through his compliments in good\nbusiness-like style before coming to the harder stuff in hand; \u201cI don\u2019t\nlike to see you like this, Mr. Huss.\u201d\n\n\u201cNor does Sir Eliphaz, I hope\u2014nor Farr. Please find yourselves chairs.\u201d\n\nAnd while Mr. Farr made protesting noises and Sir Eliphaz waved his hair\nabout before beginning the little speech he had prepared, Mr. Huss took\nthe discourse out of their mouths and began:\n\n\u201cI know perfectly well the task you have set yourselves. You have come\nto make an end of me as headmaster of Woldingstanton. And Mr. Farr has\nvery obligingly....\u201d\n\nHe held up his white and wasted hand as Mr. Farr began to disavow.\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d said Mr. Huss. \u201cBut before you three gentlemen proceed with your\noffice, I should like to tell you something of what the school and my\nwork in it, and my work for education, is to me. I am a man of little\nmore than fifty. A month ago I counted with a reasonable confidence upon\ntwenty years more of work before I relaxed.... Then these misfortunes\nrained upon me. I have lost all my private independence; there have been\nthese shocking deaths in the school; my son, my only son ... killed ...\ntrouble has darkened the love and kindness of my wife ... and now my\nbody is suffering so that my mind is like a swimmer struggling through\nwaves of pain ... far from land.... These are heavy blows. But the\nhardest blow of all, harder to bear than any of these others\u2014I do not\nspeak rashly, gentlemen, I have thought it out through an endless\nnight\u2014the last blow will be this rejection of my life work. That will\nstrike the inmost me, the heart and soul of me....\u201d\n\nHe paused.\n\n\u201cYou mustn\u2019t take it quite like that, Mr. Huss,\u201d protested Mr. Dad. \u201cIt\nisn\u2019t fair to us to put it like that.\u201d\n\n\u201cI want you to listen to me,\u201d said Mr. Huss.\n\n\u201cOnly the very kindest motives,\u201d continued Mr. Dad.\n\n\u201cLet me speak,\u201d said Mr. Huss, with the voice of authority that had\nruled Woldingstanton for five and twenty years. \u201cI cannot wrangle and\ncontradict. At most we have an hour.\u201d\n\nMr. Dad made much the same sound that a dog will make when it has\nproposed to bark and has been told to get under the table. For a time he\nlooked an ill-used man.\n\n\u201cTo end my work in the school will be to end me altogether.... I do not\nsee why I should not speak plainly to you, gentlemen, situated as I am\nhere. I do not see why I should not talk to you for once in my own\nlanguage. Pain and death are our interlocutors; this is a rare and raw\nand bleeding occasion; in an hour or so the women may be laying out my\nbody and I may be silent for ever. I have hidden my religion, but why\nshould I hide it now? To you I have always tried to seem as practical\nand self-seeking as possible, but in secret I have been a fanatic; and\nWoldingstanton was the altar on which I offered myself to God. I have\ndone ill and feebly there I know; I have been indolent and rash; those\nwere my weaknesses; but I have done my best. To the limits of my\nstrength and knowledge I have served God.... And now in this hour of\ndarkness where is this God that I have served? Why does he not stand\nhere between me and this last injury you would do to the work I have\ndedicated to him?\u201d\n\nAt these words Mr. Dad turned horrified eyes to Mr. Farr.\n\nBut Mr. Huss went on as though talking to himself. \u201cIn the night I have\nlooked into my heart; I have sought in my heart for base motives and\nsecret sins. I have put myself on trial to find why God should hide\nhimself from me now, and I can find no reason and no justification....\nIn the bitterness of my heart I am tempted to give way to you and to\ntell you to take the school and to do just what you will with it.... The\nnearness of death makes the familiar things of experience flimsy and\nunreal, and far more real to me now is this darkness that broods over\nme, as blight will sometimes overhang the world at noon, and mocks me\nday and night with a perpetual challenge to curse God and die....\n\n\u201cWhy do I not curse God and die? Why do I cling to my work when the God\nto whom I dedicated it is\u2014silent? Because, I suppose, I still hope for\nsome sign of reassurance. Because I am not yet altogether defeated. I\nwould go on telling you why I want Woldingstanton to continue on its\npresent lines and why it is impossible for you, why it will be a sort of\nmurder for you to hand it over to Farr here, if my pain were ten times\nwhat it is....\u201d\n\nAt the mention of his name, Mr. Farr started and looked first at Mr.\nDad, and then at Sir Eliphaz. \u201cReally,\u201d he said, \u201creally! One might\nthink I had conspired\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cI am afraid, Mr. Huss,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz, with a large reassuring\ngesture to the technical master, \u201cthat the suggestion that Mr. Farr\nshould be your successor came in the first instance from _me_.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou must reconsider it,\u201d said Mr. Huss, moistening his lips and staring\nsteadfastly in front of him.\n\nHere Mr. Dad broke out in a querulous voice: \u201cAre you really in a state,\nMr. Huss, to discuss a matter like this\u2014feverish and suffering as you\nare?\u201d\n\n\u201cI could not be in a better frame for this discussion,\u201d\nsaid Mr. Huss.... \u201cAnd now for what I have to say about the\nschool:\u2014Woldingstanton, when I came to it, was a humdrum school of some\nseventy boys, following a worn-out routine. A little Latin was taught\nand less Greek, chiefly in order to say that Greek was taught; some\nscraps of mathematical processes, a few rags of general knowledge,\nEnglish history\u2014not human history, mind you, but just the national\nbrand, cut dried flowers from the past with no roots and no meaning, a\nsmattering of French.... That was practically all; it was no sort of\neducation, it was a mere education-like posturing. And to-day, what has\nthat school become?\u201d\n\n\u201cWe never grudged you money,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz.\n\n\u201cNor loyal help,\u201d said Mr. Farr, but in a half whisper.\n\n\u201cI am not thinking of its visible prosperity. The houses and\nlaboratories and museums that have grown about that nucleus are nothing\nin themselves. The reality of a school is not in buildings and numbers\nbut in matters of the mind and soul. Woldingstanton has become a torch\nat which lives are set aflame. I have lit a candle there\u2014the winds of\nfate may yet blow it into a world-wide blaze.\u201d\n\nAs Mr. Huss said these things he was uplifted by enthusiasm, and his\npain sank down out of his consciousness.\n\n\u201cWhat,\u201d he said, \u201cis the task of the teacher in the world? It is the\ngreatest of all human tasks. It is to ensure that Man, Man the Divine,\ngrows in the souls of men. For what is a man without instruction? He is\nborn as the beasts are born, a greedy egotism, a clutching desire, a\nthing of lusts and fears. He can regard nothing except in relation to\nhimself. Even his love is a bargain; and his utmost effort is vanity\nbecause he has to die. And it is we teachers alone who can lift him out\nof that self-preoccupation. We teachers.... We can release him into a\nwider circle of ideas beyond himself in which he can at length forget\nhimself and his meagre personal ends altogether. We can open his eyes to\nthe past and to the future and to the undying life of Man. So through us\nand through us only, he escapes from death and futility. An untaught man\nis but himself alone, as lonely in his ends and destiny as any beast; a\nman instructed is a man enlarged from that narrow prison of self into\nparticipation in an undying life, that began we know not when, that\ngrows above and beyond the greatness of the stars....\u201d\n\nHe spoke as if he addressed some other hearer than the three before him.\nMr. Dad, with eyebrows raised and lips compressed, nodded silently to\nMr. Farr as if his worst suspicions were confirmed, and there were signs\nand signals that Sir Eliphaz was about to speak, when Mr. Huss resumed.\n\n\u201cFor five and twenty years I have ruled over Woldingstanton, and for all\nthat time I have been giving sight to the blind. I have given\nunderstanding to some thousands of boys. All those routines of teaching\nthat had become dead we made live again there. My boys have learnt the\nhistory of mankind so that it has become their own adventure; they have\nlearnt geography so that the world is their possession; I have had\nlanguages taught to make the past live again in their minds and to be\nwindows upon the souls of alien peoples. Science has played its proper\npart; it has taken my boys into the secret places of matter and out\namong the nebul\u00e6.... Always I have kept Farr and his utilities in their\ndue subordination. Some of my boys have already made good business\nmen\u2014because they were more than business men.... But I have never sought\nto make business men and I never will. My boys have gone into the\nprofessions, into the services, into the great world and done well\u2014I\nhave had dull boys and intractable boys, but nearly all have gone into\nthe world gentlemen, broad-minded, good-mannered, understanding and\nunselfish, masters of self, servants of man, because the whole scheme of\ntheir education has been to release them from base and narrow things....\nWhen the war came, my boys were ready.... They have gone to their\ndeaths\u2014how many have gone to their deaths! My own son among them.... I\ndid not grudge him.... Woldingstanton is a new school; its tradition has\nscarcely begun; the list of its old boys is now so terribly depleted\nthat its young tradition wilts like a torn seedling.... But still we can\nkeep on with it, still that tradition will grow, if my flame still\nburns. But my teaching must go on as I have planned it. It must. It\nmust.... What has made my boys all that they are, has been the history,\nthe biological science, the philosophy. For these things are wisdom. All\nthe rest is training and mere knowledge. If the school is to live, the\nhead must still be a man who can teach history\u2014history in the widest\nsense; he must be philosopher, biologist, and arch\u00e6ologist as well as\nscholar. And you would hand that task to Farr! Farr! Farr here has never\neven touched the essential work of the school. He does not know what it\nis. His mind is no more opened than the cricket professional\u2019s.\u201d\n\nMr. Dad made an impatient noise.\n\nThe sick man went on with his burning eyes on Farr, his lips bloodless.\n\n\u201cHe thinks of chemistry and physics not as a help to understanding but\nas a help to trading. So long as he has been at Woldingstanton he has\nbeen working furtively with our materials in the laboratories, dreaming\nof some profitable patent. Oh! I know you, Farr. Do you think I didn\u2019t\nsee because I didn\u2019t choose to complain? If he could have discovered\nsome profitable patent he would have abandoned teaching the day he did\nso. He would have been even as you are. But with a lifeless imagination\nyou cannot even invent patentable things. He would talk to the boys of\nthe empire at times, but the empire to him is no more than a trading\nconspiracy fenced about with tariffs. It goes on to nothing.... And he\nthinks we are fighting the Germans, he thinks my dear and precious boy\ngave his life and that all these other brave lads beyond counting died,\nin order that we might take the place of the Germans as the\nchapman-bullies of the world. That is the measure of his mind. He has no\nreligion, no faith, no devotion. Why does he want my place? Because he\nwants to serve as I have served? No! But because he envies my house, my\nincome, my headship. Whether I live or die, it is impossible that\nWoldingstanton, my Woldingstanton, should live under his hand. Give it\nto him, and in a little while it will be dead.\u201d\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 5\n\n\u201cGentlemen!\u201d Mr. Farr protested with a white perspiring face.\n\n\u201cI had no idea,\u201d ejaculated Mr. Dad, \u201cI had no idea that things had gone\nso far.\u201d\n\nSir Eliphaz indicated by waving his hand that his associates might allay\nthemselves; he recognized that the time had come for him to speak.\n\n\u201cIt is deplorable,\u201d Sir Eliphaz began.\n\nHe put down his hands and gripped the seat of his chair as if to hold\nhimself on to it very tightly, and he looked very hard at the horizon as\nif he was trying to decipher some remote inscription. \u201cYou have imported\na tone into this discussion,\u201d he tried.\n\nHe got off at the third attempt. \u201cIt is an extremely painful thing to\nme, Mr. Huss, that to you, standing as you do on the very brink of the\nGreat Chasm, it should be necessary to speak in any but the most cordial\nand helpful tones. But it is my duty, it is our duty, to hold firmly to\nthose principles which have always guided us as governors of the\nWoldingstanton School. You speak, I must say it, with an extreme\narrogance of an institution to which all of us here have in some measure\ncontributed; you speak as though you, and you alone, were its creator\nand guide. You must pardon me, Mr. Huss, if I remind you of the facts,\nthe eternal verities of the story. The school, sir, was founded in the\nspacious days of Queen Elizabeth, and many a good man guided its\nfortunes down to the time when an unfortunate\u2014a diversion of its\nendowments led to its temporary cessation. The Charity Commissioners\nrevived it after an inquiry some fifty years ago, and it has been\nlargely the lavish generosity of the Papermakers\u2019 Guild, of which I and\nDad are humble members, that has stimulated its expansion under you.\nLoth as I am to cross your mood, Mr. Huss, while you are in pain and\nanxiety, I am bound to recall to you these things which have made _your_\nwork possible. You could not have made bricks without straw, you could\nnot have built up Woldingstanton without the money obtained by that\ncommercialism for which you display such unqualified contempt. We sordid\ncits it was who planted, who watered....\u201d\n\nMr. Huss seemed about to speak, but said nothing.\n\n\u201cExactly what I say,\u201d said Mr. Dad, turning for confirmation to Mr.\nFarr. \u201cThe school is essentially a modern commercial school. It should\nbe run as that.\u201d\n\nMr. Farr nodded his white face ambiguously with his eye on Sir Eliphaz.\n\n\u201cI should have been chary, Mr. Huss, of wrangling about our particular\nshares and contributions on an occasion so solemn as this, but since you\nwill have it so, since you challenge discussion....\u201d\n\nHe turned to his colleagues as if for support.\n\n\u201cGo on,\u201d said Mr. Dad. \u201cFacts are facts.\u201d\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 6\n\nSir Eliphaz cleared his throat, and continued to read the horizon.\n\n\u201cI have raised these points, Mr. Huss, by way of an opening. The gist of\nwhat I have to say lies deeper. So far I have dealt with the things you\nhave said only in relation to us; as against us you assume your own\nrighteousness, you flout our poor judgments, you sweep them aside; the\nschool must be continued on _your_ lines, the teaching must follow\n_your_ schemes. You can imagine no alternative opinion. God forbid that\nI should say a word in my own defence; I have given freely both of my\ntime and of my money to our school; it would tax my secretaries now to\nreckon up how much; but I make no claims.... None....\n\n\u201cBut let me now put all this discussion upon a wider and a graver\nfooting. It is not only us and our poor intentions you arraign. Strange\nthings have dropped from you, Mr. Huss, in this discussion, things it\nhas at once pained and astonished me to hear from you. You have spoken\nnot only of man\u2019s ingratitude, but of God\u2019s. I could scarcely believe my\nears, but indeed I heard you say that God was silent, unhelpful, and\nthat he too had deserted you. In spite of the most meritorious exertions\non your part.... Standing as you do on the very margin of the Great\nSecret, I want to plead very earnestly with you against all that you\nhave said.\u201d\n\nSir Eliphaz seemed to meditate remotely. He returned like a soaring\nvulture to his victim. \u201cI would be the last man to obtrude my religious\nfeelings upon anyone.... I make no parade of religion, Mr. Huss, none at\nall. Many people think me no better than an unbeliever. But here I am\nbound to make my confession. I owe much to God, Mr. Huss....\u201d\n\nHe glowered at the sick man. He abandoned his grip upon the seat of his\nchair for a moment, to make a gesture with his hairy claw of a hand.\n\u201cYour attitude to my God is a far deeper offence to me than any merely\npersonal attack could be. Under his chastening blows, under trials that\nhumbler spirits would receive with thankfulness and construe as lessons\nand warnings, you betray yourself more proud, more self-assured,\nmore\u2014froward is not too harsh a word\u2014more froward, Mr. Huss, than you\nwere even in the days when we used to fret under you on Founder\u2019s Day in\nthe Great Hall, when you would dictate to us that here you must have an\nextension and there you must have a museum or a picture room or what\nnot, leaving nothing to opinion, making our gifts a duty.... You will\nnot recognise the virtue of gifts and graces either in man or God....\nCannot you see, my dear Mr. Huss, the falsity of your position? It is\nupon that point that I want to talk to you now. God does not smite man\nneedlessly. This world is all one vast intention, and not a sparrow\nfalls to the ground unless He wills that sparrow to fall. Is your heart\nso sure of itself? Does nothing that has happened suggest to you that\nthere may be something in your conduct and direction of Woldingstanton\nthat has made it not quite so acceptable an offering to God as you have\nimagined it to be?\u201d\n\nSir Eliphaz paused with an air of giving Mr. Huss his chance, but\nmeeting with no response, he resumed: \u201cI am an old man, Mr. Huss, and I\nhave seen much of the world and more particularly of the world of\nfinance and industry, a world of swift opportunities and sudden\ntemptations. I have watched the careers of many young men of parts, who\nhave seemed to be under the impression that the world had been waiting\nfor them overlong; I have seen more promotions, schemes and enterprises,\ngreat or grandiose, than I care to recall. Developing Woldingstanton\nfrom the mere endowed school of a market-town it was, to its present\nposition, has been for me a subordinate incident, a holiday task, a\npiece of by-play upon a crowded scene. My experiences have been on a far\ngreater scale. Far greater. And in all my experience I have never seen\nwhat I should call a really right-minded man perish or an innocent\ndealer\u2014provided, that is, that he took ordinary precautions\u2014destroyed.\nUps and downs no doubt there are, for the good as well as the bad. I\nhave seen the foolish taking root for a time\u2014it was but for a time. I\nhave watched the man\u0153uvres of some exceedingly crafty men....\u201d\n\nSir Eliphaz shook his head slowly from side to side and all the hairs on\nhis head waved about.\n\nHe hesitated for a moment, and decided to favour his hearers with a\nscrap of autobiography.\n\n\u201cQuite recently,\u201d he began, \u201cthere was a fellow came to us, just as we\nwere laying down our plant for production on a large scale. He was a\nvery plausible, energetic young fellow indeed, an American Armenian.\nWell, he happened to know somehow that we were going to use kaolin from\nfelspar, a by-product of the new potash process, and he had got hold of\na scheme for washing London clay that produced, he assured us, an\naccessible kaolin just as good for our purpose and not a tenth of the\ncost of the Norwegian stuff. It would have reduced our prime cost\nsomething like thirty per cent. Let alone tonnage. Excuse these\ntechnicalities. On the face of it it was a thoroughly good thing. The\npoint was that I knew all along that his stuff retained a certain amount\nof sulphur and couldn\u2019t possibly make a building block to last. That\nwouldn\u2019t prevent us selling and using the stuff with practical impunity.\nIt wasn\u2019t up to us to know. No one could have made us liable. The thing\nindeed looked so plain and safe that I admit it tempted me sorely. And\nthen, Mr. Huss, God came in. I received a secret intimation. I want to\ntell you of this in all good faith and simplicity. In the night when all\nthe world was deep in sleep, I awoke. And I was in the extremest terror;\nmy very bones were shaking; I sat up in my bed afraid almost to touch\nthe switch of the electric light; my hair stood on end. I could see\nnothing, I could hear nothing, but it was as if a spirit passed in front\nof my face. And in spite of the silence something seemed to be saying to\nme: \u2018How about God, Sir Eliphaz? Have you at last forgotten Him? How can\nyou, that would dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is the dust,\nescape His judgments?\u2019 That was all, Mr. Huss, just that. \u2018Whose\nfoundation is the dust!\u2019 Straight to the point. Well, Mr. Huss, I am not\na religious man, but I threw over that Armenian.\u201d\n\nMr. Dad made a sound to intimate that he would have done the same.\n\n\u201cI mention this experience, this intervention\u2014and it is not the only one\nof which I could tell\u2014because I want you to get my view that if an\nenterprise, even though it is as fair and honest-seeming a business as\nWoldingstanton School, begins suddenly to crumple and wilt, it means\nthat somehow, somewhere you must have been putting the wrong sort of\nclay into it. It means not that God is wrong and going back upon you,\nbut that you are wrong. You may be a great and famous teacher now, Mr.\nHuss, thanks not a little to the pedestal we have made for you, but God\nis a greater and more famous teacher. He manifestly you have not\nconvinced, even if you could have convinced us, of Woldingstanton\u2019s\npresent perfection....\n\n\u201cThat is practically all I have to say. When we propose, in all\nhumility, to turn the school about into new and less pretentious courses\nand you oppose us, that is our answer. If you had done as well and\nwisely as you declare, you would not be in this position and this\ndiscussion would never have arisen.\u201d\n\nHe paused.\n\n\u201cSaid with truth and dignity,\u201d said Mr. Dad. \u201cYou have put my opinion,\nSir Eliphaz, better than I could have put it myself. I thank you.\u201d\n\nHe coughed briefly.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 7\n\n\u201cThe question you put to me I have put to myself,\u201d said Mr. Huss, and\nthought deeply for a little while....\n\n\u201cNo, I do not feel convicted of wrong-doing. I still believe the work I\nset myself to do was right, right in spirit and intention, right in plan\nand method. You invite me to confess my faith broken and in the dust;\nand my faith was never so sure. There is a God in my heart, in my heart\nat least there is a God, who has always guided me to right and who\nguides me now. My conscience remains unassailable. These afflictions\nthat you speak of as trials and warnings I can only see as inexplicable\ndisasters. They perplex me, but they do not cow me. They strike me as\npointless and irrelevant events.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut this is terrible!\u201d said Mr. Dad, deeply shocked.\n\n\u201cYou push me back, Sir Eliphaz, from the discussion of our school\naffairs to more fundamental questions. You have raised the problem of\nthe moral government of the world, a problem that has been distressing\nmy mind since I first came here to Sundering, whether indeed failure is\ncondemnation and success the sunshine of God\u2019s approval. You believe\nthat the great God of the stars and seas and mountains is attentive to\nour conduct and responds to it. His sense of right is the same sense of\nright as ours; he endorses a common aim. Your prosperity is the mark of\nyour harmony with that supreme God....\u201d\n\n\u201cI wouldn\u2019t go so far as that,\u201d Mr. Dad interjected. \u201cNo. No arrogance.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd my misfortunes express his disapproval. Well, I have believed that;\nI have believed that the rightness of a schoolmaster\u2019s conscience must\nneeds be the same thing as the rightness of destiny, I too had fallen\ninto that comforting persuasion of prosperity; but this series of\nsmashing experiences I have had, culminating in your proposal to wipe\nout the whole effect and significance of my life, brings me face to face\nwith the fundamental question whether the order of the great universe,\nthe God of the stars, has any regard or relationship whatever to the\nproblems of our consciences and the efforts of man to do right. That is\na question that echoes to me down the ages. So far I have always\nprofessed myself a Christian....\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I should hope so,\u201d said Mr. Dad, \u201cconsidering the terms of the\nschool\u2019s foundation.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor, I take it, the creeds declare in a beautiful symbol that the God\nwho is present in our hearts is one with the universal father and at the\nsame time his beloved Son, continually and eternally begotten from the\nuniversal fatherhood, and crucified only to conquer. He has come into\nour poor lives to raise them up at last to Himself. But to believe that\nis to believe in the significance and continuity of the whole effort of\nmankind. The life of man must be like the perpetual spreading of a fire.\nIf right and wrong are to perish together indifferently, if there is\naimless and fruitless suffering, if there opens no hope for an eternal\nsurvival in consequences of all good things, then there is no meaning in\nsuch a belief as Christianity. It is a mere superstition of priests and\nsacrifices, and I have read things into it that were never truly there.\nThe rushlight of our faith burns in a windy darkness that will see no\ndawn.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz, \u201cnay. If there is God in your work we cannot\ndestroy it.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are doing your best,\u201d said Mr. Huss, \u201cand now I am not sure that\nyou will fail.... At one time I should have defied you, but now I am not\nsure.... I have sat here through some dreary and dreadful days, and lain\nawake through some interminable nights; I have thought of many things\nthat men in their days of prosperity are apt to dismiss from their\nminds; and I am no longer sure of the goodness of the world without us\nor in the plan of Fate. Perhaps it is only in us within our hearts that\nthe light of God flickers\u2014and flickers insecurely. Where we had thought\na God, somehow akin to ourselves, ruled in the universe, it may be there\nis nothing but black emptiness and a coldness worse than cruelty.\u201d\n\nMr. Dad was about to interrupt, and restrained himself by a great\neffort.\n\n\u201cIt is a commonplace of pietistic works that natural things are perfect\nthings, and that the whole world of life, if it were not for the\nsinfulness of man, would be perfect. Paley, you will remember, Sir\nEliphaz, in his \u2018Evidences of Christianity,\u2019 from which we have both\nsuffered, declares that this earth is manifestly made for the happiness\nof the sentient beings living thereon. But I ask you to consider for a\nlittle and dispassionately, whether life through all its stages, up to\nand including man, is not rather a scheme of uneasiness, imperfect\nsatisfaction, and positive miseries....\u201d\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 8\n\n\u201cAren\u2019t we getting a bit out of our depth in all this?\u201d Mr. Dad burst\nout. \u201cPut it at that\u2014out of our depth.... What does this sort of carping\nand questioning amount to, Mr. Huss? Does it do us any good? Does it\nhelp us in the slightest degree? Why should we go into all this? Why\ncan\u2019t we be humble and leave these deep questions to those who make a\nspecialty of dealing with them? We don\u2019t know the ropes. We can\u2019t. Here\nare you and Mr. Farr, for instance, both of you whole-time schoolmasters\nso to speak; here\u2019s Sir Eliphaz toiling night and day to make simple\ncheap suitable homes for the masses, who probably won\u2019t say thank you to\nhim when they see them; here\u2019s me an overworked engineer and\nunderstaffed most cruelly, not to speak of the most unfair and\nimpossible labour demands, so that you never know where you are and what\nthey won\u2019t ask you next. And in the midst of it all we are to start an\nargey-bargey about the goodness of God!\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re busy men, Mr. Huss. What do _we_ know of the world being a scheme\nof imperfect satisfaction and what all? Where does it come in? What\u2019s\nits practical value? Words it is, all words, and getting away from the\nplain and definite question we came to talk over and settle and have\ndone with. Such talk, I will confess, makes me uncomfortable. Give me\nthe Bible and the simple religion I learnt at my mother\u2019s knee. That\u2019s\ngood enough for me. Can\u2019t we just have faith and leave all these\nquestions alone? What are men in reality? After all their arguments.\nWorms. Just worms. Well then, let\u2019s have the decency to behave as such\nand stick to business, and do our best in that state of life unto which\nit has pleased God to call us. That\u2019s what _I_ say,\u201d said Mr. Dad.\n\nHe jerked his head back, coughed shortly, adjusted his tie, and nodded\nto Mr. Farr in a resolute manner.\n\n\u201cA simple, straightforward, commercial and technical education,\u201d he\nadded by way of an explanatory colophon. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re after.\u201d\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 9\n\nMr. Huss stared absently at Mr. Dad for some moments, and then resumed:\n\n\u201cLet us look squarely at this world about us. What is the true lot of\nlife? Is there the slightest justification for assuming that our\nconceptions of right and happiness are reflected anywhere in the outward\nuniverse? Is there, for instance, much animal happiness? Do health and\nwell-being constitute the normal state of animals?\u201d\n\nHe paused. Mr. Dad got up, and stood looking out of the window with his\nback to Mr. Huss. \u201cPulling nature to pieces,\u201d he said over his shoulder.\nHe turned and urged further, with a snarl of bitterness in his voice:\n\u201cSuppose things are so, what is the good of _our_ calling attention to\nit? Where\u2019s the benefit?\u201d\n\nBut the attitude of Sir Eliphaz conveyed a readiness to listen.\n\n\u201cBefore I became too ill to go out here,\u201d said Mr. Huss, \u201cI went for a\nwalk in the country behind this place. I was weary before I started, but\nI was impelled to go by that almost irresistible desire that will seize\nupon one at times to get out of one\u2019s immediate surroundings. I wanted\nto escape from this wretched room, and I wanted to be alone, secure from\ninterruptions, and free to think in peace. There was a treacherous\npromise in the day outside, much sunshine and a breeze. I had heard of\nwoods a mile or so inland, and that conjured up a vision of cool green\nshade and kindly streams beneath the trees and of the fellowship of shy\nand gentle creatures. So I went out into the heat and into the dried and\nsalted east wind, through glare and inky shadows, across many more\nfields than I had expected, until I came to some woods and then to a\nneglected park, and there for a time I sat down to rest....\n\n\u201cBut I could get no rest. The turf was unclean through the presence of\nmany sheep, and in it there was a number of close-growing but very\nsharply barbed thistles; and after a little time I realized that\nharvesters, those minute red beasts that creep upon one in the chalk\nlands and burrow into the skin and produce an almost intolerable\nitching, abounded. I got up again and went on, hoping in vain to find\nsome fence or gate on which I might rest more comfortably. There were\nmany flies and gnats, many more than there are here and of different\nsorts, and they persecuted me more and more. They surrounded me in a\nhumming cloud, and I had to wave my walking-stick about my head all the\ntime to keep them off me. I felt too exhausted to walk back, but there\nwas, I knew, a village a mile or so ahead where I hoped to find some\nconveyance in which I might return by road....\n\n\u201cAnd as I struggled along in this fashion I came upon first one thing\nand then another, so apt to my mood that they might have been put there\nby some adversary. First it was a very young rabbit indeed, it was\nscarcely as long as my hand, which some cruel thing had dragged from its\nburrow. The back of its head had been bitten open and was torn and\nbloody, and the flies rose from its oozing wounds to my face like a\ncloud of witnesses. Then as I went on, trying to distract my mind from\nthe memory of this pitiful dead thing by looking about me for something\nmore agreeable, I discovered a row of little brown objects in a hawthorn\nbush, and going closer found they were some half-dozen victims of a\nbutcherbird\u2014beetles, fledgelings, and a mouse or so\u2014spiked on the\nthorns. They were all twisted into painful attitudes, as if each had\nsuffered horribly and challenged me by the last gesture of its limbs to\njudge between it and its creator.... And a little further on a gaunt,\nvillainous-looking cat with rusty black fur that had bare patches\nsuddenly ran upon me out of a side path; it had something in its mouth\nwhich it abandoned at the sight of me and left writhing at my feet, a\npretty crested bird, very mangled, that flapped in flat circles upon the\nturf, unable to rise. A fit of weak and reasonless rage came upon me at\nthis, and seeing the cat halt some yards away and turn to regard me and\nmove as if to recover its victim, I rushed at it and pursued it,\nshouting. Then it occurred to me that it would be kinder if, instead of\na futile pursuit of the wretched cat, I went back and put an end to the\nbird\u2019s sufferings. For a time I could not find it, and I searched for it\nin the bushes in a fever to get it killed, groaning and cursing as I did\nso. When I found it, it fought at me with its poor bleeding wings and\nsnapped its beak at me, and made me feel less like a deliverer than a\nmurderer. I hit it with my stick, and as it still moved I stamped it to\ndeath with my feet. I fled from its body in an agony. \u2018And this,\u2019 I\ncried, \u2018this hell revealed, is God\u2019s creation!\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201c_Tcha!_\u201d exclaimed Mr. Dad.\n\n\u201cSuddenly it seemed to me that scales had fallen from my eyes and that I\nsaw the whole world plain. It was as if the universe had put aside a\nmask it had hitherto worn, and shown me its face, and it was a face of\nboundless evil.... It was as if a power of darkness sat over me and\nwatched me with a mocking gaze, and for the rest of that day I could\nthink of nothing but the feeble miseries of living things. I was\ntortured, and all life was tortured with me. I failed to find the\nvillage I sought; I strayed far, I got back here at last long after\ndark, stopping sometimes by the wayside to be sick, sometimes kneeling\nor lying down for a time to rest, shivering and burning with an\nincreasing fever.\n\n\u201cI had, as you know, been the first to find poor Williamson lying\nhelpless among the acids; that ghastly figure and the burnt bodies of\nthe two boys who died in School House haunt my mind constantly; but what\nwas most in my thoughts on that day when the world of nature showed its\nteeth to me was the wretchedness of animal life. I do not know why that\nshould have seemed more pitiful to me, and more fundamental, but it did.\nHuman suffering, perhaps, is complicated by moral issues; man can look\nbefore and after and find remote justifications and stern consolations\noutside his present experiences; but the poor birds and beasts, they\nhave only their present experiences and their individual lives cut off\nand shut in. How can there be righteousness in any scheme that afflicts\nthem? I thought of one creature after another, and I could imagine none\nthat had more than an occasional gleam of false and futile satisfaction\nbetween suffering and suffering. And to-day, gentlemen, as I sit here\nwith you, the same dark stream of conviction pours through my mind. I\nfeel that life is a weak and inconsequent stirring amidst the dust of\nspace and time, incapable of overcoming even its internal dissensions,\ndoomed to phases of delusion, to irrational and undeserved punishments,\nto vain complainings and at last to extinction.\n\n\u201cIs there so much as one healthy living being in the world? I question\nit. As I wandered that day, I noted the trees as I had never noted them\nbefore. There was not one that did not show a stricken or rotten branch,\nor that was not studded with the stumps of lost branches decaying\nbackwards towards the main stem; from every fork came dark stains of\ncorruption, the bark was twisted and contorted and fungoid protrusions\nproclaimed the hidden mycelium of disease. The leaves were spotted with\nwarts and blemishes, and gnawed and bitten by a myriad enemies. I noted\ntoo that the turf under my feet was worn and scorched and weary;\ngossamer threads and spiders of a hundred sorts trapped the\nmultitudinous insects in the wilted autumnal undergrowth; the hedges\nwere a slow conflict of thrusting and strangulating plants in which\nevery individual was more or less crippled or stunted. Most of these\nplants were armed like assassins; they had great thorns or stinging\nhairs; some ripened poisonous berries. And this was the reality of life;\nthis was no exceptional mood of things, but a revelation of things\nestablished. I had been blind and now I saw. Even as these woods and\nthickets were, so was all the world....\n\n\u201cI had been reading in a book I had chanced to pick up in this lodging,\nabout the jungles of India, which many people think of as a vast wealth\nof splendid and luxuriant vegetation. For the greater part of the year\nthey are hot and thorny wastes of brown, dead and mouldering matter.\nComes the steaming downpour of the rains; and then for a little while\nthere is a tangled rush of fighting greenery, jostling, choking, torn\nand devoured by a multitude of beasts and by a horrible variety of\ninsects that the hot moisture has called to activity. Then under the dry\nbreath of the destroyer the exuberance stales and withers, everything\nripens and falls, and the jungle relapses again into sullen heat and\ngloomy fermentation. And in truth everywhere the growth season is a wild\nscramble into existence, the rest of the year a complicated massacre.\nEven in our British climate is it not plain to you how the summer\noutlasts the lavish promise of the spring? In our spring there is no\ndoubt an air of hope, of budding and blossoming; there is the nesting\nand singing of birds, a certain cleanness of the air, an emergence of\nprimary and comparatively innocent things; but hard upon that freshness\nfollow the pests and parasites, the creatures that corrupt and sting,\nthe minions of waste and pain and lassitude and fever....\n\n\u201cYou may say that I am dwelling too much upon the defects in the lives\nof plants which do not feel, and of insects and small creatures which\nmay feel in a different manner from ourselves; but indeed their decay\nand imperfection make up the common texture of life. Even the things\nthat live are only half alive. You may argue that at least the rarer,\nlarger beasts bring with them a certain delight and dignity into the\nworld. But consider the lives of the herbivora; they are all hunted\ncreatures; fear is their habit of mind; even the great Indian buffalo is\ngiven to panic flights. They are incessantly worried by swarms of\ninsects. When they are not apathetic they appear to be angry,\nexasperated with life; their seasonal outbreaks of sex are evidently a\nviolent torment to them, an occasion for fierce bellowings, mutual\npersecution and desperate combats. Such beasts as the rhinoceros or the\nbuffalo are habitually in a rage; they will run amuck for no conceivable\nreason, and so too will many elephants, betraying a sort of organic\nspite against all other living things....\n\n\u201cAnd if we turn to the great carnivores, who should surely be the lords\nof the jungle world, their lot seems to be not one whit more happy. The\ntiger leads a life of fear; a dirty scrap of rag will turn him from his\npath. Much of his waking life is prowling hunger; when he kills he eats\nravenously, he eats to the pitch of discomfort; he lies up afterwards in\nreeds or bushes, savage, disinclined to move. The hunter must beat him\nout, and he comes out sluggishly and reluctantly to die. His paws, too,\nare strangely tender; a few miles of rock will make them bleed, they\ngather thorns.... His mouth is so foul that his bite is a poisoned\nbite....\n\n\u201cAll that day I struggled against this persuasion that the utmost\nhappiness of any animal is at best like a transitory smile on a grim and\ninhuman countenance. I tried to recall some humorous and\ncontented-looking creatures....\n\n\u201cThat only recalled a fresh horror....\n\n\u201cYou will have seen pictures and photographs of penguins. They will have\nconveyed to you the sort of effect I tried to recover. They express a\nquaint and jolly gravity, an aldermanic contentment. But to me now the\nmere thought of a penguin raises a vision of distress. I will tell\nyou.... One of my old boys came to me a year or so ago on his return\nfrom a South Polar expedition; he told me the true story of these birds.\nTheir lives, he said\u2014he was speaking more particularly of the king\npenguin\u2014are tormented by a monstrously exaggerated maternal instinct, an\ninstinct shared by both sexes, which is a necessary condition of\nsurvival in the crowded rookeries of that frozen environment. And that\ninstinct makes life one long torment for them. There is always a great\nsmashing of eggs there through various causes; there is an excessive\nmortality among the chicks; they slip down crevasses, they freeze to\ndeath and so forth, three-quarters of each year\u2019s brood perish, and\nwithout this extravagant passion the species would become extinct. So\nthat every bird is afflicted with a desire and anxiety to brood upon and\nprotect a chick. But each couple produces no more than one egg a year;\neggs get broken, they roll away into the water, there is always a\nshortage, and every penguin that has an egg has to guard it jealously,\nand each one that has not an egg is impelled to steal or capture one.\nSome in their distress will mother pebbles or scraps of ice, some\nfortunate in possession will sit for days without leaving the nest in\nspite of the gnawings of the intense Antarctic hunger. To leave a nest\nfor a moment is to tempt a robber, and the intensity of the emotions\naroused is shown by the fact that they will fight to the death over a\nstolen egg. You see that these pictures of rookeries of apparently\ncomical birds are really pictures of poor dim-minded creatures worried\nand strained to the very limit of their powers. That is what their lives\nhave always been....\n\n\u201cBut the king penguin draws near the end of its history. Let me tell you\nhow its history is closing. Let me tell you of what is happening in the\npeaceful Southern Seas\u2014now. This old boy of mine was in great distress\nbecause of a vile traffic that has arisen.... Unless it is stopped, it\nwill destroy these rookeries altogether. These birds are being murdered\nwholesale for their oil. Parties of men land and club them upon their\nnests, from which the poor, silly things refuse to stir. The dead and\nstunned, the living and the dead together, are dragged away and thrust\ninto iron crates to be boiled down for their oil. The broken living with\nthe dead.... Each bird yields about a farthing\u2019s profit, but it pays to\nkill them at that, and so the thing is done. The people who run these\noperations, you see, have had a sound commercial training. They believe\nthat when God gives us power He means us to use it, and that what is\nprofitable is just.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, really,\u201d protested Mr. Dad. \u201cReally!\u201d\n\nMr. Farr also betrayed a disposition to speak. He cleared his throat,\nhis uneasy hands worried the edge of the table, his face shone. \u201cSir\nEliphaz,\u201d he said....\n\n\u201cLet me finish,\u201d said Mr. Huss, \u201cfor I have still to remind you of the\nmost stubborn facts of all in such an argument as this. Have you ever\nthought of the significance of such creatures as the entozoa, and the\nvast multitudes of other sorts of specialized parasites whose very\nexistence is cruelty? There are thousands of orders and genera of\ninsects, crustacea, arachnids, worms, and lowlier things, which are\nadapted in the most complicated way to prey upon the living and\nsuffering tissues of their fellow creatures, and which can live in no\nother way. Have you ever thought what that means? If forethought framed\nthese horrors what sort of benevolence was there in that forethought? I\nwill not distress you by describing the life cycles of any of these\ncreatures too exactly. You must know of many of them. I will not dwell\nupon those wasps, for example, which lay their eggs in the living bodies\nof victims which the young will gnaw to death slowly day by day as they\ndevelop, nor will I discuss this unmeaning growth of cells which has\nmade my body its soil.... Nor any one of our thousand infectious fevers\nthat fall upon us\u2014without reason, without justice....\n\n\u201cMan is of all creatures the least subjected to internal parasites. In\nthe brief space of a few hundred thousand years he has changed his food,\nhis habitat and every attitude and habit of his life, and comparatively\nfew species, thirty or forty at most, I am told, have been able to\nfollow his changes and specialize themselves to him under these fresh\nconditions; yet even man can entertain some fearful guests. Every time\nyou drink open water near a sheep pasture you may drink the larval liver\nfluke, which will make your liver a little township of vile creatures\nuntil they eat it up, until they swarm from its oozing ruins into your\nbody cavity and destroy you. In Europe this is a rare fate for a man,\nbut in China there are wide regions where the fluke abounds and rots the\nlife out of thousands of people.... The fluke is but one sample of such\nfeats of the Creator. An unwashed leaf of lettuce may be the means of\nplanting a parasitic cyst in your brain to dethrone your reason; a feast\nof underdone pork may transfer to you from the swine the creeping death\ntorture of trichinosis.... But all that men suffer in these matters is\nnothing to the suffering of the beasts. The torments of the beasts are\nfinished and complete. My biological master tells me that he rarely\nopens a cod or dogfish without finding bunches of some sort of worm or\nsuch like pallid lodger in possession. He has rows of little tubes with\nthe things he has found in the bodies of rabbits....\n\n\u201cBut I will not disgust you further....\n\n\u201cIs this a world made for the happiness of sentient things?\n\n\u201cI ask you, how is it possible for man to be other than a rebel in the\nface of such facts? How can he trust the Maker who has designed and\nelaborated and finished these parasites in their endless multitude and\nvariety? For these things are not in the nature of sudden creations and\nspecial judgments; they have been produced fearfully and wonderfully by\na process of evolution as slow and deliberate as our own. How can Man\ntrust such a Maker to treat him fairly? Why should we shut our eyes to\nthings that stare us in the face? Either the world of life is the\ncreation of a being inspired by a malignancy at once filthy, petty and\nenormous, or it displays a carelessness, an indifference, a disregard\nfor justice....\u201d\n\nThe voice of Mr. Huss faded out.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 10\n\nFor some time Mr. Farr had been manifesting signs of impatience. The\npause gave him his opportunity. He spoke with a sort of restrained\nvolubility.\n\n\u201cSir Eliphaz, Mr. Dad, after what has passed in relation to myself, I\nwould have preferred to have said nothing in this discussion. Nothing.\nSo far as I myself am concerned, I will still say nothing. But upon some\nissues it is impossible to keep silence. Mr. Huss has said some terrible\nthings, things that must surely never be said at Woldingstanton....\n\n\u201cThink of what such teaching as this may mean among young and\nsusceptible boys! Think of such stuff in the school pulpit! Chary as I\nam of all wrangling, and I would not set myself up for a moment to\nwrangle against Mr. Huss, yet I feel that this cavilling against God\u2019s\nuniverse, this multitude of evil words, must be answered. It is\nimperative to answer it, plainly and sternly. It is our duty to God, who\nhas made us what we are....\n\n\u201cMr. Huss, in your present diseased state you seem incapable of\nrealizing the enormous _egotism_ of all this depreciation of God\u2019s\nmarvels. But indeed you have suffered from that sort of incapacity\nalways. It is no new thing. Have I not chafed under your arrogant\nassurance for twelve long years? Your right, now as ever, is the only\nright; your doctrine alone is pure. Would that God could speak and open\nhis lips against you! How his voice would shatter you and us and\neverything about us! How you would shrivel amidst your blasphemies!\n\n\u201cExcuse me, gentlemen, if I am too forcible,\u201d said Mr. Farr, moistening\nhis white lips, but Mr. Dad nodded fierce approval.\n\nThus encouraged, Mr. Farr proceeded. \u201cWhen first I came into this room,\nMr. Huss, I was full of pity for your affliction\u2014I think we all were\u2014we\nwere pitiful; but now it is clear to me that God exacts from you less\nthan your iniquity deserves. Surely the supreme sin is pride. You\ncriticize and belittle God\u2019s universe, but what sort of a universe would\nyou give us, Mr. Huss, if you were the Creator? Pardon me if I startle\nyou, gentlemen, but that is a fair question to ask. For it is clear to\nme now, Mr. Huss, that no less than that will satisfy you.\nWoldingstanton, for all the wonders you have wrought there, in spite of\nthe fact that never before and never again can there be such a head, in\nspite of the fact that you have lit such a candle there as may one day\nset the world ablaze, is clearly too small a field for you. Headmaster\nof the universe is your position. Then, and then alone, could you\ndisplay your gifts to the full. Then cats would cease to eat birds, and\ntrees grow on in perfect symmetry until they cumbered the sky. I can\ndimly imagine the sort of world that it would be; the very fleas\nreformed and trained under your hand, would be flushed with health and\nhappiness and doing the work of boy scouts; every blade of grass would\nbe at least six feet long. As for the liver fluke\u2014but I cannot solve the\nproblem of the liver fluke. I suppose you will provide euthanasia for\nall the parasites....\u201d\n\nAbruptly Mr. Farr passed from this vein of terrible humour to an earnest\nand pleading manner. \u201cMr. Huss, with mortal danger so close to you, I\nentreat you to reconsider all this wild and wicked talk of yours. You\ntake a few superficial aspects of the world and frame a judgment on\nthem; you try with the poor foot-rule of your mind to measure the plans\nof God, plans which are longer than the earth, wider than the sea. I ask\nyou, how can such insolence help you in this supreme emergency? There\ncan be little time left....\u201d\n\nProvidence was manifestly resolved to give Mr. Farr the maximum of\ndramatic effect. \u201cBut what is this?\u201d said Mr. Farr. He stood up and\nlooked out of the window.\n\nSomebody had rung the bell, and now, with an effect of impatience, was\nrapping at the knocker of Sea View.\n\n\n\n\n                           CHAPTER THE FOURTH\n                            DO WE TRULY DIE?\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 1\n\nMrs. Croome was heard in the passage, someone was admitted, there were\nvoices, and the handle of the parlour door was turned. \u201c\u2019Asn\u2019t E come,\nthen?\u201d they heard the voice of Mrs. Croome through the opening. Dr.\nElihu Barrack appeared in the doorway.\n\nHe was a round-headed young man with a clean-shaven face, a mouth that\nwas determinedly determined and slightly oblique, a short nose, and a\ngeneral expression of resolution; the fact that he had an artificial leg\nwas scarcely perceptible in his bearing. He considered the four men\nbefore him for a moment, and then addressed himself to Mr. Huss in a\ntone of brisk authority. \u201cYou ought to be in bed,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cI had this rather important discussion,\u201d said Mr. Huss, with a gesture\nportending introductions.\n\n\u201cBut sitting up will fatigue you,\u201d the doctor insisted, sticking to his\npatient.\n\n\u201cIt won\u2019t distress me so much as leaving these things unsaid would have\ndone.\u201d\n\n\u201cOpinions may differ upon that,\u201d said Mr. Farr darkly.\n\n\u201cWe are still far from any settlement of our difficulties,\u201d said Sir\nEliphaz to the universe.\n\n\u201cI have indicated my view at any rate,\u201d said Mr. Huss. \u201cI suppose now\nSir Alpheus is here\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cHe isn\u2019t here,\u201d said Dr. Barrack neatly. \u201cHe telegraphs to say that he\nis held up, and will come by the next train. So you get a reprieve, Mr.\nHuss.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn that case I shall go on talking.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou had better go to bed.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo. I couldn\u2019t lie quiet.\u201d And Mr. Huss proceeded to name his guests to\nDr. Barrack, who nodded shortly to each of them in turn, and said:\n\u201cPleased-t-meet you.\u201d His face betrayed no excess of pleasure. His eye\nwas hard. He remained standing, as if waiting for them to display\nsymptoms.\n\n\u201cOur discussion has wandered far,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz. \u201cOur original\nbusiness here was to determine the future development of Woldingstanton\nSchool, which we think should be made more practical and technical than\nhitherto, and less concerned with history and philosophy than it has\nbeen under Mr. Huss. (Won\u2019t you sit down, Doctor?)\u201d\n\nThe doctor sat down, still watching Sir Eliphaz with hard intelligence.\n\n\u201cWell, we have drifted from that,\u201d Sir Eliphaz continued.\n\n\u201cNot so far as you may think,\u201d said Mr. Huss.\n\n\u201cAt any rate Mr. Huss has been regaling us with a discourse upon the\nmiseries of life, how we are all eaten up by parasites and utterly\nwretched, and how everything is wretched and this an accursed world\nruled either by a cruel God or a God so careless as to be practically no\nGod at all.\u201d\n\n\u201cNice stuff for nineteen eighteen _A.D._,\u201d said Mr. Dad, putting much\nmeaning into the \u201cA.D.\u201d\n\n\u201cSince I left Woldingstanton and came here,\u201d said Mr. Huss, \u201cI have done\nlittle else but think. I have not slept during the night, I have had\nnothing to occupy me during the day, and I have been thinking about\nfundamental things. I have been forced to revise my faith, and to look\nmore closely than I have ever done before into the meaning of my beliefs\nand into my springs of action. I have been wrenched away from that\nhabitual confidence in the order of things which seemed the more natural\nstate for a mind to be in. But that has only widened a difference that\nalready existed between me and these three gentlemen, and that was\nshowing very plainly in the days when success still justified my grip\nupon Woldingstanton. Suddenly, swiftly, I have had misfortune following\nupon misfortune\u2014without cause or justification. I am thrown now into the\ndarkest doubt and dismay; the universe seems harsh and black to me;\nwhereas formerly I believed that at the core of it and universally\npervading it was the Will of a God of Light.... I have always denied,\neven when my faith was undimmed, that the God of Righteousness ruled\nthis world in detail and entirely, giving us day by day our daily\nrewards and punishments. These gentlemen on the contrary do believe\nthat. They say that God does rule the world traceably and directly, and\nthat success is the measure of his approval and pain and suffering the\nfulfilment of unrighteousness. And as for what has this to do with\neducation\u2014it has all to do with education. You can settle no practical\nquestions until you have settled such disputes as this. Before you can\nprepare boys to play their part in the world you must ask what is this\nworld for which you prepare them; is it a tragedy or comedy? What is the\nnature of this drama in which they are to play?\u201d\n\nDr. Barrack indicated that this statement was noted and approved.\n\n\u201cFor clearly,\u201d said Mr. Huss, \u201cif success is the justification of life\nyou must train for success. There is no need for men to understand life,\nthen, so long as they do their job in it. That is the opinion of these\ngovernors of mine. It has been the opinion of most men of the\nworld\u2014always. Obey the Thing that Is! that is the lesson they would have\ntaught to my boys. Acquiesce. Life for them is not an adventure, not a\nstruggle, but simply obedience and the enjoyment of rewards.... That,\nDr. Barrack, is what such a technical education as they want set up at\nWoldingstanton really means....\n\n\u201cBut I have believed always and taught always that what God demands from\nman is his utmost effort to co-operate and understand. I have taught the\nimagination, first and most; I have made knowledge, knowledge of what\nman is and what man\u2019s world is and what man may be, which is the\nadventure of mankind, the substance of all my teaching. At\nWoldingstanton I have taught philosophy; I have taught the whole history\nof mankind. If I could not have done that without leaving chemistry and\nphysics, mathematics and languages out of the curriculum altogether I\nwould have left them out. And you see why, Dr. Barrack.\u201d\n\n\u201cI see your position certainly,\u201d said Dr. Barrack.\n\n\u201cAnd now that my heavens are darkened, now that my eyes have been opened\nto the wretchedness, futility and horror in the texture of life, I still\ncling, I cling more than ever, to the spirit of righteousness within me.\nIf there is no God, no mercy, no human kindliness in the great frame of\nspace and time, if life is a writhing torment, an itch upon one little\nplanet, and the stars away there in the void no more than huge empty\nflares, signifying nothing, then all the brighter shines the flame of\nGod in my heart. If the God in my heart is no son of any heavenly father\nthen is he Prometheus the rebel; it does not shake my faith that he is\nthe Master for whom I will live and die. And all the more do I cling to\nthis fire of human tradition we have lit upon this little planet, if it\nis the one gleam of spirit in all the windy vastness of a dead and empty\nuniverse.\u201d\n\nDr. Barrack seemed about to interrupt with some comment, and then, it\nwas manifest, deferred his interpolation.\n\n\u201cLoneliness and littleness,\u201d said Mr. Huss, \u201charshness in the skies\nabove and in the texture of all things. If so it is that things are, so\nwe must see them. Every baby in its mother\u2019s arms feels safe in a safe\ncreation; every child in its home. Many men and women have lived and\ndied happy in that illusion of security. But this war has torn away the\nveil of illusion from millions of men.... Mankind is coming of age. We\ncan see life at last for what it is and what it is not. Here we spin\nupon a ball of rock and nickel-steel, upon which a film of water, a few\nscore miles of air, lie like the bloom upon a plum. All about that ball\nis space unfathomable; all the suns and stars are mere grains of matter\nscattered through a vastness that is otherwise utterly void. To that\nthin bloom upon a particle we are confined; if we tunnel down into the\nearth, presently it is too hot for us to live; if we soar five miles\ninto the air we freeze, the blood runs out of our vessels into our\nlungs, we die suffocated and choked with blood....\n\n\u201cOut of the litter of muds and gravels that make the soil of the world\nwe have picked some traces of the past of our race and the past of life.\nIn our observatories and laboratories we have gleaned some hints of its\nfuture. We have a vision of the opening of the story, but the first\npages we cannot read. We discover life, a mere stir amidst the mud,\ncreeping along the littoral of warm and shallow seas in the brief nights\nand days of a swiftly rotating earth. We follow through vast ages the\nstory of life\u2019s extension into the waters, and its invasion of the air\nand land. Plants creep upon the land and raise themselves by stems\ntowards the sun; a few worms and crustaceans follow, insects appear; and\nat length come our amphibious ancestors, breathing air by means of a\nswimming bladder used as a lung. From the first the land animals are\npatched-up creatures. They eke out the fish ear they inherit by means of\nan ear drum made out of a gill slit. You can trace scale and fin in bone\nand limb. At last this green scum of vegetable life with the beasts\nentangled in its meshes creeps in the form of forests over the hills;\ngrass spreads across the plains, and great animals follow it out into\nthe open. What does it all signify? No more than green moss spreading\nover an old tile. Steadily the earth cools and the day lengthens.\nThrough long ages of warmth and moisture the wealth of unmeaning life\nincreases; come ages of chill and retrocession, glacial periods, and\nperiods when whole genera and orders die out. Comes man at last, the\ndestroyer, the war-maker, setting fire to the world, burning the\nforests, exhausting the earth. What hope has he in the end? Always the\nday drags longer and longer and always the sun radiates its energy away.\nA time will come when the sun will glow dull red in the heavens, shorn\nof all its beams, and neither rising nor setting. A day will come when\nthe earth will be as dead and frozen as the moon.... A spirit in our\nhearts, the God of mankind, cries \u2018No!\u2019 but is there any voice outside\nus in all the cold and empty universe that echoes that \u2018No\u2019?\u201d\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 2\n\n\u201cAh, Mr. Huss, Mr. Huss!\u201d said Sir Eliphaz.\n\nHis eye seemed seeking some point of attachment, and found it at last in\nthe steel engraving of Queen Victoria giving a Bible to a dusky\npotentate, which adorned the little parlour.\n\n\u201cYour sickness colours your vision,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz. \u201cWhat you say is\nso profoundly true and so utterly false. Mysteriously evolved, living as\nyou say in a mere bloom of air and moisture upon this tiny planet, how\ncould we exist, how could we continue, were we not sustained in every\nmoment by the Mercy and Wisdom of God? The flimsier life is, the greater\nthe wonder of his Providence. Not a sparrow,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz, and then\nenlarging the metaphor with a boom in his voice, \u201cnot a hair of my head,\nfalls to the ground without His knowledge and consent.... I am a man\nmuch occupied. I cannot do the reading I would. But while you have been\nreviling the works of God I have been thinking of some wonders....\u201d\n\nSir Eliphaz lifted up a hand with thumb and finger opposed, as though he\nheld some exquisite thing therein.\n\n\u201cThe human eye,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz, with an intensity of appreciation\nthat brought tears to his own....\n\n\u201cThe cross-fertilization of plants....\n\n\u201cThe marvellous transformations of the higher insects....\n\n\u201cThe highly elaborate wing scales of the Lepidoptera.\n\n\u201cThe mercy that tempers the wind to the shorn lamb....\n\n\u201cThe dark warm marvels of embryology; the order and rhythm and obedience\nwith which the cells of the fertilized ovum divide to build up the\nperfect body of a living thing, yea, even of a human being\u2014in God\u2019s\nimage. First there is one cell, then two; the process of division is\nextremely beautiful and is called, I believe, _karyokinesis_; then after\nthe two come four, each knows his part, each divides certainly and\nmarvellously; eight, sixteen, thirty-two.... Each of those thirty-two\ncells is a complete thirty-second part of a man. Presently this cell\nsays, \u2018I become a hair\u2019; this, \u2018a blood corpuscle,\u2019 this \u2018a cell in the\nbrain of a man, to mirror the universe.\u2019 Each goes to his own appointed\nplace....\n\n\u201cWould that we could do the like!\u201d said Sir Eliphaz.\n\n\u201cThen consider water,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz. \u201cI am not deeply versed in\nphysical science, but there are certain things about water that fill me\nwith wonder and amaze. All other liquids contract when they solidify.\nWith one or two exceptions\u2014useful in the arts. Water expands. Now water\nis a non-conductor of heat, and if water contracted and became heavier\nwhen it became ice, it would sink to the bottom of the polar seas and\nremain there unmelted. More ice would sink down to it, until all the\nocean was ice and life ceased. But water does not do so. No!... Were it\nnot for the vapour of water, which catches and entangles the sun\u2019s heat,\nthis world would scorch by day and freeze by night. Mercy upon mercy, I\nmyself,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz in tones of happy confession, \u201cam ninety per\ncent. water.... We all are....\n\n\u201cAnd think how mercifully winter is tempered to us by the snow! When\nwater freezes in the air in winter-time, it does not come pelting down\nas lumps of ice. Conceivably it might, and then where should we be? But\nit belongs to the hexagonal system\u2014a system prone to graceful\nframeworks. It crystallizes into the most delicate and beautiful lace of\nsix-rayed crystals\u2014wonderful under the microscope. They flake\ndelicately. They lie loosely one upon another. Out of ice is woven a\nwarm garment like wool, white like wool because like wool it is full of\nair\u2014a warm garment for bud and shoot....\n\n\u201cThen again\u2014you revile God for the parasites he sends. But are they not\nsent to teach us a great moral lesson? Each one for himself and God for\nus all. Not so the parasites. They choose a life of base dependence.\nWith that comes physical degeneration, swift and sure. They are the\nSocialists of nature. They lose their limbs. They lose colour, become\nblenched, unappetising beings, vile creatures of sloth\u2014often\nmicroscopic. Do they not urge us by their shameful lives to self help\nand exertion? Yet even parasites have a use! I am told that were it not\nfor parasitic bacteria man could not digest his food. A lichen again is\nmade up of an alga and a fungus, mutually parasitic. That is called\nsymbiosis\u2014living together for a mutual benefit. Maybe every one of those\nthousands of parasites you deem so horrible is working its way upward\ntowards an arrangement\u2014\u201d\n\nSir Eliphaz weighed his words: \u201cSome mutually advantageous arrangement\nwith its host. A paying guest.\n\n\u201cAnd finally,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz, with the roll of distant thunder in his\nvoice, \u201cthink of the stately procession of life upon the earth, through\na myriad of forms the glorious crescendo of evolution, up to its climax,\nman. What a work is man! The paragon of creation, the microcosm of the\ncosmos, the ultimate birth of time.... And you would have us doubt the\nguiding hand!\u201d\n\nHe ceased with a gesture.\n\nMr. Dad made a noise like responses in church.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 3\n\n\u201cA certain beauty in the world is no mark of God\u2019s favour,\u201d said Mr.\nHuss. \u201cThere is no beauty one may not balance by an equal ugliness. The\nwart-hog and the hy\u00e6na, the tapeworm and the stinkhorn, are equally\nGod\u2019s creations. Nothing you have said points to anything but a cold\nindifference towards us of this order in which we live. Beauty happens;\nit is not given. Pain, suffering, happiness; there is no heed. Only in\nthe heart of man burns the fire of righteousness.\u201d\n\nFor a time Mr. Huss was silent. Then he went on answering Sir Eliphaz.\n\n\u201cYou spoke of the wonder of the cross-fertilization of plants. But do\nyou not know that half these curious and elaborate adaptations no longer\nwork? Scarcely was their evolution completed before the special need\nthat produced them ceased. Half the intricate flowers you see are as\nfutile as the ruins of Palmyra. They are self-fertilized or\nwind-fertilized. The transformation of the higher insects which give us\nour gnats and wasps, our malaria and apple-maggots in due season, are a\nmatter for human astonishment rather than human gratitude. If there is\nany design in these strange and intricate happenings, surely it is the\ndesign of a misplaced and inhuman ingenuity. The scales of the\nlepidoptera, again, have wasted their glittering splendours for millions\nof years. If they were meant for man, why do the most beautiful species\nfly by night in the tropical forests? As for the human eye, oculists and\nopticians are scarcely of your opinion. You hymn the peculiar properties\nof water that make life possible. They make it possible. Do they make it\nother than it is?\n\n\u201cYou have talked of the marvels of embryonic growth in the egg. I admit\nthe wonderful precision of the process; but how does it touch my doubts?\nRather it confuses them, as though the God who rules the world ruled not\nso much in love as in irony. Wonderfully indeed do the cells divide and\nthe chromoplasts of the division slide along their spindle lines. They\ndivide not as if a divine hand guided them but with remorseless logic,\nwith the pitiless consistency of a mathematical process. They divide and\nmarshal themselves and turn this way and that, to make an idiot, to make\na congenital cripple. Millions of such miracles pile up\u2014and produce the\nswaying drunkard at the pot-house door.\n\n\u201cYou talk of the crescendo of evolution, of the first beginnings of\nlife, and how the scheme unfolds until it culminates in us\u2014_us_, here,\nunder these circumstances, you and Mr. Dad and Farr and me\u2014waiting for\nthe knife. Would that I could see any such crescendo! I see change\nindeed and change and change, without plan and without heart. Consider\nfor example the migrations of birds across the Mediterranean, and the\ntragic absurdity of its incidents. Ages ago, and for long ages, there\nstretched continuous land connexions from Africa to Europe. Then the\ninstinct was formed; the birds flew over land from the heated south to\nthe northern summer to build and breed. Slowly age by age the seas crept\nover those necks of land. Those linking tracts have been broken now for\na hundred thousand years, and yet over a constantly widening sea, in\nwhich myriads perish exhausted, instinct, blind and pitiless, still\ndrives those birds. And again think of those vain urgencies for some\npurpose long since forgotten, that drive the swarming lemmings to their\nfate. And look at man, your evolution\u2019s crown; consider his want of\nbalance, the invalidism of his women, the extravagant disproportion of\nhis desires. Consider the Record of the Rocks honestly and frankly, and\nwhere can you trace this crescendo you suggest? There have been great\nages of marvellous tree-ferns and wonderful forest swamps, and all those\nglorious growths have died. They did not go on; they reached a climax\nand died; another sort of plant succeeded them. Then think of all that\nwonderful fauna of the Mesozoic times, the age of Leviathan; the\ntheriodonts, reptilian beasts, the leaping dinosaurs, the mososaurs and\nsuchlike monsters of the deep, the bat-winged pterodactyls, the\nplesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs. Think of the marvels of the Mesozoic seas;\nthe thousands of various ammonites, the wealth of fish life. Across all\nthat world of life swept death, as the wet fingers of a child wipe a\ndrawing from a slate. They left no descendants, they clambered to a vast\nvariety and complexity and ceased. The dawn of the Eocene was the bleak\ndawn of a denuded world. Crescendo if you will, but thereafter\ndiminuendo, pianissimo. And then once again from fresh obscure starting\npoints far down the stem life swelled, and swelled again, only to\ndwindle. The world we live in to-day is a meagre spectacle beside the\nabundance of the earlier Tertiary time, when Behemoth in a thousand\nforms, Deinotherium, Titanotherium, Helladotherium, sabre-toothed tiger,\na hundred sorts of elephant, and the like, pushed through the jungles\nthat are now this mild world of to-day. Where is _that_ crescendo now?\nCrescendo! Through those long ages our ancestors were hiding under\nleaves and climbing into trees to be out of the way of the crescendo. As\nthe _motif_ of a crescendo they sang exceedingly small. And now for a\nlittle while the world is ours, and we wax in our turn. To what good? To\nwhat end? Tell me, you who say the world is good, tell me the end. How\ncan we escape at last the common fate under the darkling sky of a frozen\nworld?\u201d\n\nHe paused for some moments, weary with speaking.\n\n\u201cThere is no comfort,\u201d he said, \u201cin the flowers or the stars; no\nassurance in the past and no sure hope in the future. There is nothing\nbut the God of faith and courage in the hearts of men.... And He gives\nno sign of power, no earnest of victory.... He gives no sign....\u201d\n\nWhereupon Sir Eliphaz breathed the word: \u201c_Immortality!_\u201d\n\n\u201cLet me say a word or two upon Immortality,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz, breaking\nsuddenly into eagerness, \u201cfor that, I presume, is the thing we have\nforgotten. That, I see, is the difference between us and you, Mr. Huss;\nthat is why we can sit here, content to play our partial r\u00f4les, knowing\nfull surely that some day the broken lines and inconsecutivenesses that\nperplex us in this life will all be revealed and resolved into their\nperfect circles, while you to whom this earthly life is all and final,\nyou must needs be a rebel, you must needs preach a doctrine between\ndefiance and despair.... If indeed death ended all! _Ah!_ Then indeed\nyou might claim that reason was on your side. The afflictions of man are\nvery many. Why should I deny it?\u201d\n\nThe patentee and chief proprietor of the Temanite blocks paused for a\nmoment.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d he said, peering up through his eyebrows at the sky, \u201cthat is the\nreal issue. Blind to that, you are blind to everything.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know whether I am with you on this question of immortality, Sir\nEliphaz,\u201d warned Dr. Barrack, coughing shortly.\n\n\u201cFor my part I\u2019m altogether with him,\u201d said Mr. Dad. \u201cIf there is no\nimmortal life\u2014well, what\u2019s the good of being temperate and decent and\ncareful for five and fifty years?\u201d\n\nSir Eliphaz had decided now to drop all apologetics for the scheme of\nNature.\n\n\u201cA place of trial, a place of stimulus and training,\u201d he said, \u201c_Respice\nfinem._ The clues are all\u2014beyond.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut if you really consider this world as a place for soul making,\u201d said\nMr. Huss, \u201cwhat do you think you are doing when you propose to turn\nWoldingstanton over to Farr?\u201d\n\n\u201cAt any rate,\u201d said Farr tartly, \u201cwe do not want soul-blackening and\ncounsels of despair at Woldingstanton. We want the boys taught to serve\nand help first in this lowly economic sphere, cheerfully and\nenterprisingly, and then in higher things, before they pass on\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cIf death ends all, then what is the good of trying?\u201d Mr. Dad said,\nstill brooding over the question. \u201cIf I thought that\u2014!\u201d\n\nHe added with deep conviction, \u201cI should let myself go.... Anyone\nwould.\u201d\n\nHe blew heavily, stuck his hands in his pockets, and sat more deeply in\nhis chair, an indignant man, a business man asked to give up something\nfor nothing.\n\nFor a moment the little gathering hung, only too manifestly\ncontemplating the spectacle of Mr. Dad amidst wine, women, and\nwaistcoats without restraint, letting himself go, eating, drinking, and\nrejoicing, being a perfect devil, because on the morrow he had to\ndie....\n\n\u201cImmortal,\u201d said Mr. Huss. \u201cI did not expect immortality to come into\nthis discussion....\n\n\u201cAre _you_ immortal, Farr?\u201d he asked abruptly.\n\n\u201cI hope so,\u201d said Mr. Farr. \u201cUnworthy though I be.\u201d\n\n\u201cExactly,\u201d said Mr. Huss. \u201cAnd so that is the way out for us. You and I,\nMr. Dad from his factory, and Sir Eliphaz from his building office, are\nto soar. It is all arranged for us, and that is why the tragic greatness\nof life is to be hidden from my boys....\n\n\u201cYet even so,\u201d continued Mr. Huss, \u201cI do not see why you should be so\nanxious for technical science and so hostile to the history of mankind.\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause it is not a true history,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz, his hair waving\nabout like the hair of a man electrified by fresh ideas. \u201cBecause it is\na bunch of loose ends that are really not ends at all, but only\nbeginnings that pass suddenly into the unseen. I admit that in this\nworld nothing is rationalized, nothing is clearly just. I admit\neverything you say. But the reason? The reason? Because this life is\nonly the first page of the great book we have to read. We sit here, Mr.\nHuss, like men in a waiting-room.... All this life is like waiting\noutside, in a place of some disorder, before being admitted to the wider\nreality, the larger sphere, where all the cruelties, all these\nconfusions, everything\u2014will be explained, justified\u2014and set right.\u201d\n\nHe paused, and then perceiving that Mr. Huss was about to speak he\nresumed, raising his voice slightly.\n\n\u201cAnd I do not speak without my book in these matters,\u201d he said. \u201cI have\nbeen greatly impressed\u2014and, what is more, Lady Burrows has been greatly\nimpressed, by the writings of two thoroughly scientific men, two\nthoroughly scientific men, Dr. Conan Doyle and Sir Oliver Lodge. Ever\nsince she lost her younger sister early in life Lady Burrows has\nfollowed up this interest. It has been a great consolation to her. And\nthe point is, as Sir Oliver insists in that wonderful book \u2018Raymond,\u2019\nthat continued existence in another world is as proven now as the atomic\ntheory in chemistry. It is not a matter of faith, but knowledge. The\npartition is breached at last. We are in communication. News is coming\nthrough.... Scientific certainty....\u201d\n\nSir Eliphaz cleared his throat. \u201cWe have already evidences and\ndescriptions of the life into which we shall pass. Remember this is no\nidle talk, no deception by Sludges and the like; it is a great English\nscientific man who publishes these records; it is a great French\nphilosopher, no less a man than that wonderful thinker\u2014and _how_ he\nthinks!\u2014Professor Bergson, who counselled their publication. A glory of\nscience and a glory of philosophy combine to reassure us. We walk at\nlast upon a path of fact into that further world. We know already much.\nWe know, for example, that those who have passed over to that higher\nplane have bodies still. That I found\u2014comforting. Without that\u2014one would\nfeel _bleak_. But, the messages say, the internal organs are constituted\ndifferently. Naturally. As one would have expected. The dietary is, I\ngather, practically non-existent. Needless. As the outline is the same\nthe space is, I presume, used for other purposes. Some sort of astral\nstorage.... They do not bleed. An interesting fact. Lady Burrows\u2019 sister\nis now practically bloodless. And her teeth\u2014she had lost several, she\nsuffered greatly with her teeth\u2014her teeth have all been replaced\u2014a\nbeautiful set. Used now only for articulate speech.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018Raymond\u2019 all over again,\u201d said the doctor.\n\n\u201cYou have read the book!\u201d said Sir Eliphaz.\n\nThe doctor grunted in a manner that mingled assent and disapproval. His\nexpression betrayed the scientific bigot.\n\n\u201cWe know now _details_ of the passage,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz. \u201cWe have some\nparticulars. We know, for instance, that people blown to pieces take\nsome little time to reconstitute. There is a correlation between this\ncorruptible body and the spirit body that replaces it. There is a sort\nof spirit doctor over there, very helpful in such cases. And burnt\nbodies, too, are a trouble.... The sexes are still distinct, but all the\ncoarseness of sex is gone. The passions fade in that better world. Every\npassion. Even the habit of smoking and the craving for alcohol fade. Not\nat first. The newly dead will sometimes ask for a cigar. They are given\ncigars, higher-plane cigars, and they do not ask for more. There are no\nchildren born there. Nothing of that sort. That, it is very important to\nunderstand. _Here_ is the place of birth; this is where lives begin.\nThis coarse little planet is the seed-bed of life. When it has served\nits purpose and populated those higher planes, then indeed it may\nfreeze, as you say. A mere empty hull. A seed-case that has served its\npurpose, mattering nothing. These are the thoughts, the comforting and\nbeautiful thoughts, that receive the endorsement of our highest\nscientific and philosophical intelligences.... One thinks of that life\nthere, no doubt in some other dimension of space, that world arranged in\n_planes_\u2014metaphorical planes, of course, in which people go to and fro,\nliving in a sort of houses, surrounded by a sort of beautiful things,\nmade, so we are told, from the smells of the things we have here. That\nis curious, but not irrational. Our favorite doggies will be there.\nSublimated also. That thought has been a great comfort to Lady\nBurrows.... We had a dog called Fido, a leetle, teeny fellow\u2014practically\nhuman....\n\n\u201cThese blessed ones engage very largely in conversation. Other\noccupations I found difficult to trace. Raymond attended a sort of\nreception on the very highest plane. It was a special privilege. Perhaps\na compliment to Sir Oliver. He met the truth of revealed religion, so to\nspeak, personally. It was a wonderful moment. Sir Oliver suppresses the\nmore solemn details. Lady Burrows intends to write to him. She is\nanxious for particulars. But I will not dilate,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz. \u201cI\nwill not dilate.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you believe this _stuff_?\u201d said the doctor in tones of the deepest\ndisgust.\n\nSir Eliphaz waved himself upon the questioner.\n\n\u201cSo far as poor earthly expressions can body forth spiritual things,\u201d he\nhedged.\n\nHe regarded his colleagues with an eye of florid defiance. Both Mr. Farr\nand Mr. Dad had slightly shamefaced expressions, and Mr. Dad\u2019s ears were\nred.\n\nMr. Dad cleared his throat. \u201cI\u2019m sure there\u2019s something in it\u2014anyhow,\u201d\nsaid Mr. Dad hoarsely, doing his best in support.\n\n\u201cIf I was born with a hare lip,\u201d said the doctor, \u201cwould _that_ be put\nright? Do congenital idiots get sublimated? What becomes of a dog one\nhas shot for hydrophobia?\u201d\n\n\u201cTo all of such questions,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz serenely, \u201cthe answer\nis\u2014_we don\u2019t know_. Why should we?\u201d\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 4\n\nMr. Huss seemed lost in meditation. His pale and sunken face and\ncrumpled pose contrasted strongly with the bristling intellectual\nrectitude and mounting choler of Dr. Elihu Barrack.\n\n\u201cNo, Sir Eliphaz,\u201d said Mr. Huss, and sighed.\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d he repeated.\n\n\u201cWhat a poor phantom of a world these people conjure up! What a mockery\nof loss and love! The very mothers and lovers who mourn their dead will\nnot believe their foolish stories. Restoration! It is a crowning\nindignity. It makes me think of nothing in the world but my dear boy\u2019s\nbody, broken and crumpled, and some creature, half fool and half\nimpostor, sitting upon it, getting between it and me, and talking cheap\nrubbish over it about planes of being and astral bodies....\n\n\u201cAfter all, you teach me, Sir Eliphaz, that life, for all its grossness\nand pain and horror, is not so bad as it might be\u2014if such things as this\nwere true. But it needs no sifting of the evidence to know they are\nuntrue. No sane man believes this stuff for ten minutes together. It is\nimpossible to believe it....\u201d\n\nDr. Elihu Barrack applauded. Sir Eliphaz acted a fine self-restraint.\n\n\u201cThey are contrary to the texture of everything we know,\u201d said Mr. Huss.\n\u201cThey are less convincing than the wildest dreams. By pain, by desire,\nby muscular effort, by the feeling of sunshine or of rain in the face,\nby their sense of justice and suchlike essential things do men test the\nreality of appearances before them. This certainly is no reality. It has\nnone of the _feel_ of reality. I will not even argue about it. It is\nthrust now upon a suffering world as comfort, and even as comfort for\npeople stunned and uncritical with grief it fails. You and Lady Burrows\nmay be pleased to think that somehow you two, with your teeth restored\nand your complexions rejuvenated, will meet again the sublimation of\nyour faithful Fido. At any rate, thank God for that, I know clearly that\nso I shall never meet my son. Never! He has gone from me....\u201d\n\nFor some moments mental and physical suffering gripped him, and he could\nnot speak; but his purpose to continue was so manifested by sweating\nface and gripping hand that no one spoke until he spoke again.\n\n\u201cNow let me speak plainly about Immortality. For surely I stand nearest\nto that possibility of all of us here. Immortality, then, is no such\ndodging away as you imagine, from this strange world which is so\ndesolating, so dreadful, so inexplicable\u2014and at times so utterly lonely.\nThere may be a God in the universe or there may not be.... God, if he\nexists, can be terribly silent.... But if there is a God, he is a\ncoherent God. If there is a God above and in the scheme of things, then\nnot only you and I and my dead son, but the crushed frog and the\ntrampled anthill _signify_. On that the God in my heart insists. There\nhas to be an answer, not only to the death of my son but to the dying\npenguin roasted alive for a farthing\u2019s worth of oil. There must be an\nanswer to the men who go in ships to do such things. There has to be a\njustification for all the filth and wretchedness of louse and fluke. I\nwill not have you slipping by on the other side, chattering of planes of\nliving and sublimated atoms, while there is a drunken mother or a man\ndying of cholera in this world. I will not hear of a God who is just a\nmeans for getting away. Whatever foulness and beastliness there is, you\nmust square God with that. Or there is no universal God, but only a\ncoldness, a vast cruel difference....\n\n\u201cI would not make my peace with such a God if I could....\n\n\u201cI tell you of these black and sinister realities, and what do you\nreply? That it is all right, because after death we shall get away from\nthem. Why! if presently I go down under the surgeon\u2019s knife, down out of\nthis hot and weary world, and then find myself being put together by a\nspirit doctor in this _beyond_ of yours, waking up to a new world of\namiable conversations and artificial flowers, having my hair restored\nand the gaps among my teeth filled up, I shall feel like someone who has\ndeserted his kind, who has sneaked from a sickroom into a party....\nWell\u2014my infection will go with me. I shall talk of nothing but the\ntragedy out of which I have come\u2014which still remains\u2014which\ncontinues\u2014tragedy.\n\n\u201cAnd yet I believe in Immortality!\u201d\n\nDr. Barrack, who had hitherto been following Mr. Huss with evident\napproval, started, sounded a note of surprise and protest, and fixed\naccusing eyes upon him. For the moment he did not interrupt.\n\n\u201cBut it is not I that am immortal, but the God within me. All this\npersonal immortality of which you talk is a mockery of our\npersonalities. What is there personal in us that can live? What makes us\nour very selves? It is all a matter of little mean things, small\ndifferences, slight defects. Where does personal love grip?\u2014on just\nthese petty things.... Oh! dearly and bitterly did I love my son, and\nwhat is it that my heart most craves for now? His virtues? No! His\nambitions? His achievements?... No! none of these things.... But for a\ncertain queer flush among his freckles, for a kind of high crack in his\nvoice ... a certain absurd hopefulness in his talk ... the sound of his\nfootsteps, a little halt there was in the rhythm of them. These are the\nthings we long for. These are the things that wring the heart.... But\nall these things are just the mortal things, just the defects that would\nbe touched out upon this higher plane you talk about. You would give him\nback to me smoothed and polished and regularized. So, I grant, it must\nbe if there is to be this higher plane. But what does it leave of\npersonal distinction? What does it leave of personal love?\n\n\u201cWhen my son has had his defects smoothed away, then he will be like all\nsons. When the older men have been ironed out, they will be like the\nyounger men. There is no personality in hope and honour and\nrighteousness and truth.... My son has gone. He has gone for evermore.\nThe pain may some day go.... The immortal thing in us is the least\npersonal thing. It is not you nor I who go on living; it is Man that\nlives on, Man the Universal, and he goes on living, a tragic rebel in\nthis same world and in no other....\u201d\n\nMr. Huss leant back in his chair.\n\n\u201cThere burns an undying fire in the hearts of men. By that fire I live.\nBy that I know the God of my Salvation. His will is Truth; His will is\nService. He urges me to conflict, without consolations, without rewards.\nHe takes and does not restore. He uses up and does not atone. He\nsuffers\u2014perhaps to triumph, and we must suffer and find our hope of\ntriumph in Him. He will not let me shut my eyes to sorrow, failure, or\nperplexity. Though the universe torment and slay me, yet will I trust in\nHim. And if He also must die\u2014Nevertheless I can do no more; I must serve\nHim....\u201d\n\nHe ceased. For some moments no one spoke, silenced by his intensity.\n\n\n\n\n                           CHAPTER THE FIFTH\n                           ELIHU REPROVES JOB\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 1\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know how all this strikes you,\u201d said Mr. Farr, turning suddenly\nupon Dr. Barrack.\n\n\u201cWell\u2014it\u2019s interestin\u2019,\u201d said Dr. Barrack, leaning forward upon his\nfolded arms upon the table, and considering his words carefully.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s interestin\u2019,\u201d he repeated. \u201cI don\u2019t know how far you want to hear\nwhat I think about it. I\u2019m rather a downright person.\u201d\n\nSir Eliphaz with great urbanity motioned him to speak on.\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s been, if you\u2019ll forgive me, nonsense upon both sides.\u201d\n\nHe turned to Sir Eliphaz. \u201cThis Spook stuff,\u201d he said, and paused and\ncompressed his lips and shook his head.\n\n\u201cIt won\u2019t do.\n\n\u201cI have given some little attention to the evidences in that matter. I\u2019m\nsomething of a psychologist\u2014a doctor has to be. Of course, Sir Eliphaz,\nyou\u2019re not responsible for all the nonsense you have been talking about\nsublimated bricks and spook dogs made of concentrated smell.\u201d\n\nSir Eliphaz was convulsed. \u201cTut, tut!\u201d he said. \u201cBut indeed\u2014!\u201d\n\n\u201cNo offence, Sir Eliphaz! If you don\u2019t want me to talk I won\u2019t; but if\nyou do, then I must say what I have in my mind. And as I say, I don\u2019t\nhold you responsible for the things you have been saying. All this cheap\nmedium stuff has been shot upon the world by Sir Oliver J. Lodge, handed\nout by him to people distraught with grief, in a great fat\nimpressive-looking volume.... No end of them have tried their utmost to\ntake it seriously.... It\u2019s been a pitiful business.... I\u2019ve no doubt the\nman is honest after his lights, but what lights they are! Obstinate\ncredulity posing as liberalism. He takes every pretence and dodge of\nthese mediums, he accepts their explanations, he edits their babble and\nrearranges it to make it seem striking. Look at his critical ability!\nBecause many of the mediums are fairly respectable people who either\nmake no money by their\u2014revelations, or at most a very ordinary\nliving\u2014it\u2019s a guinea a go, I believe, usually\u2014he insists upon their\nhonesty. That\u2019s his key blunder. Any doctor could tell him, as I could\nhave told him after my first year\u2019s practice, that telling the truth is\nthe very last triumph of the human mind. Hardly any of my patients tell\nthe truth\u2014ever. It isn\u2019t only that they haven\u2019t a tithe of the critical\nability and detachment necessary, they haven\u2019t any real desire to tell\nthe truth. They want to produce effects. Human beings are artistic\nstill; they aren\u2019t beginning to be scientific. Either they minimize or\nthey exaggerate. We all do. If I saw a cat run over outside and I came\nin here to tell you about it, I should certainly touch up the story,\nmake it more dramatic, hurt the cat more, make the dray bigger and so\non. I should want to justify my telling the story. Put a woman in that\nchair there, tell her to close her eyes and feel odd, and she\u2019ll feel\nodd right enough; tell her to produce words and sentences that she finds\nin her head and she\u2019ll produce them; give her half a hint that it comes\nfrom eastern Asia and the stuff will begin to correspond to her ideas of\npigeon English. It isn\u2019t that she is cunningly and elaborately deceiving\nyou. It is that she wants to come up to your expectation. You are\nfocussing your interest on her, and all human beings like to have\ninterest focussed on them, so long as it isn\u2019t too hostile. She\u2019ll cling\nto that interest all she knows how. She\u2019ll cling instinctively. Most of\nthese mediums never held the attention of a roomful of people in their\nlives until they found out this way of doing it.... What can you\nexpect?\u201d\n\nDr. Barrack cleared his throat. \u201cBut all that\u2019s beside the question,\u201d he\nsaid. \u201cDon\u2019t think that because I reject all this spook stuff, I\u2019m\nsetting up any finality for the science we have to-day. It\u2019s just a\nlittle weak squirt of knowledge\u2014all the science in the world. I grant\nyou there may be forces, I would almost say there must be forces in the\nworld, forces universally present, of which we still know nothing. Take\nthe case of electricity. What did men know of electricity in the days of\nGilbert? Practically nothing. In the early Neolithic age I doubt if any\nmen had ever noticed there was such a thing as air. I grant you that\nmost things are still unknown. Things perhaps right under our noses. But\nthat doesn\u2019t help the case of Sir Eliphaz one little bit. These unknown\nthings, as they become known, will join on to the things we do know.\nThey\u2019ll complicate or perhaps simplify our ideas, but they won\u2019t\ncontradict our general ideas. They\u2019ll be things in the system. They\nwon\u2019t get you out of the grip of the arguments Mr. Huss has brought\nforward. So far, so far as concerns _your_ Immortality, Sir Eliphaz, I\nam, you see, entirely with Mr. Huss. It\u2019s a fancy; it\u2019s a dream. As a\nfancy it\u2019s about as pretty as creaking boards at bedtime; as a dream\u2014.\nIt\u2019s unattractive. As Mr. Huss has said.\n\n\u201cBut when it comes to Mr. Huss and _his_ Immortality then I find myself\nwith you, gentlemen. That too is a dream. Less than a dream. Less even\nthan a fancy; it\u2019s a play on words. Here is this Undying Flame, this\nSpirit of God in man; it\u2019s in him, he says, it\u2019s in you, Sir Eliphaz,\nit\u2019s in you, Mr.\u2014Dad, wasn\u2019t it? it\u2019s in this other gentleman whose name\nI didn\u2019t quite catch; and it\u2019s in me. Well, it\u2019s extraordinary that none\nof us know of it except Mr. Huss. How you feel about it I don\u2019t know,\nbut personally I object to being made part of God and one with Mr. Huss\nwithout my consent in this way. I prefer to remain myself. That may be\negotism, but I am by nature an egotistical creature. And Agnostic....\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ve got me talking now, and I may as well go through with it. What\nis an Agnostic really? A man who accepts fully the limitations of the\nhuman intelligence, who takes the world as he finds it, and who takes\nhimself as he finds himself and declines to go further. There may be\nother universes and dimensions galore. There may be a fourth dimension,\nfor example, and, if you like, a fifth dimension and a sixth dimension\nand any number of other dimensions. They don\u2019t concern me. I live in\nthis universe and in three dimensions, and I have no more interest in\nall these other universes and dimensions than a bug under the wallpaper\nhas in the deep, deep sea. Possibly there are bugs under the wallpaper\nwith a kind of reasoned consciousness of the existence of the deep, deep\nsea, and a half belief that when at last the Keating\u2019s powder gets them,\nthither they will go. I\u2014if I may have one more go at the image\u2014just live\nunder the wallpaper....\n\n\u201cI am an Agnostic, I say. I have had my eyes pretty well open at the\nuniverse since I came into it six and thirty years ago. And not only\nhave I never seen nor heard of nor smelt nor touched a ghost or spirit,\nSir Eliphaz, but I have never seen a gleam or sign of this Providence,\nthe Great God of the World of yours, or of this other minor and modern\nGod that Mr. Huss has taken up. In the hearts of men I have found\nmalformations, ossifications, clots, and fatty degeneration; but never a\nGod.\n\n\u201cYou will excuse me if I speak plainly to you, gentlemen, but this\ngentleman, whose name I haven\u2019t somehow got\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cFarr.\u201d\n\n\u201cMr. Farr, has brought it down on himself and you. He called me in, and\nI am interested in these questions. It\u2019s clear to me that since we exist\nthere\u2019s something in all this. But what it is I\u2019m convinced I haven\u2019t\nthe ganglia even to begin to understand. I decline either the wild\nguesses of the Spookist and Providentialist\u2014I must put you there, I\u2019m\nafraid, Sir Eliphaz\u2014or the metaphors of Mr. Huss. Fact....\u201d\n\nDr. Barrack paused. \u201cI put my faith in Fact.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s a lot in Fact,\u201d said Mr. Dad, who found much that was congenial\nin the doctor\u2019s downright style.\n\n\u201cWhat do I see about me?\u201d asked Dr. Barrack. \u201cA struggle for existence.\nAbout that I ask a very plain and simple question: why try to get behind\nit? That is It. It made me. I study it and watch it. It put me up like a\ncockshy, and it keeps on trying to destroy me. I do my best to dodge its\nblows. It got my leg. My head is bloody but unbowed. I reproduce my\nkind\u2014as abundantly as circumstances permit\u2014I stamp myself upon the\nuniverse as much as possible. If I am right, if I do the right things\nand have decently good luck, I shall hold out until my waning instincts\ndispose me to rest. My breed and influence are the marks of my\nrightness. What else is there? You may call this struggle what you like.\nGod, if you like. But God for me is an anthropomorphic idea. Call it The\nProcess.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy not Evolution?\u201d said Mr. Huss.\n\n\u201cI prefer The Process. The word Evolution rather begs the moral\nquestion. It\u2019s a cheap word. \u2018Shon!\u2019 Evolution seems to suggest just a\nsimple and automatic unfolding. The Process is complex; it has its ups\nand downs\u2014as Mr. Huss understands. It is more like a Will than an\nAutomaton. A Will feeling about. It isn\u2019t indifferent to us as Mr. Huss\nsuggests; it uses us. It isn\u2019t subordinate to us as Sir Eliphaz would\nhave us believe; playing the part of a Providence just for our comfort\nand happiness. Some of us are hammer and some of us are anvil, some of\nus are sparks and some of us are the beaten stuff which survives. The\nProcess doesn\u2019t confide in us; why should it? We learn what we can about\nit, and make what is called a practical use of it, for that is what the\nwill in the Process requires.\u201d\n\nMr. Dad, stirred by the word \u2018practical,\u2019 made a noise of assent. But\nnot a very confident noise: a loan rather than a gift.\n\n\u201cAnd that is where it seems to me Mr. Huss goes wrong altogether. He\ndoes not submit himself to those Realities. He sets up something called\nthe Spirit in Man, or the God in his Heart, to judge them. He wants to\njudge the universe by the standards of the human intelligence at its\npresent stage of development. That\u2019s where I fall out with him. These\nare not fixed standards. Man goes on developing and evolving. Some\nthings offend the sense of justice in Mr. Huss, but that is no enduring\ncriterion of justice; the human sense of justice has developed out of\nsomething different, and it will develop again into something different.\nLike everything else in us, it has been produced by the Process and it\nwill be modified by the Process. Some things, again, he says are not\nbeautiful. There also he would condemn. But nothing changes like the\nsense of beauty. A band of art students can start a new movement,\ncubist, vorticist, or what not, and change your sense of beauty. If\nseeing things as beautiful conduces to survival, we shall see them as\nbeautiful sooner or later, rest assured. I daresay the hyenas admire\neach other\u2014in the rutting season anyhow.... So it is with mercy and with\neverything. Each creature has its own standards. After man is the\nBeyond-Man, who may find mercy folly, who may delight in things that\npain our feeble spirits. We have to obey the Process in our own place\nand our own time. That is how I see things. That is the stark truth of\nthe universe looked at plainly and hard.\u201d\n\nThe lips of Mr. Dad repeated noiselessly: \u201cplainly and hard.\u201d But he\nfelt very uncertain.\n\nFor some moments the doctor sat with his forearms resting on the table\nas if he had done. Then he resumed.\n\n\u201cI gather that this talk here to-day arose out of a discussion about\neducation.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou\u2019d hardly believe it,\u201d said Mr. Dad.\n\nBut Dr. Barrack\u2019s next remark checked Mr. Dad\u2019s growing approval. \u201cThat\nseems perfectly logical to me. It\u2019s one of the things I can never\nunderstand about schoolmasters and politicians and suchlike, the way\nthey seem to take it for granted you can educate and not bring in\nreligion and socialism and all your beliefs. What _is_ education?\nTeaching young people to talk and read and write and calculate in order\nthat they may be told how they stand in the world and what we think we\nand the world generally are up to, and the part we expect them to play\nin the game. Well, how can we do that and at the same time leave it all\nout? What _is_ the game? That is what every youngster wants to know.\nAnswering him, is education. Either we are going to say what we think\nthe game is plainly and straightforwardly, or else we are going to make\nmotions as though we were educating when we are really doing nothing of\nthe kind. In which case the stupid ones will grow up with their heads\nall in a muddle and be led by any old catchword anywhere according to\nluck, and the clever ones will grow up with the idea that life is a sort\nof empty swindle. Most educated people in this country believe it is a\nsham and a swindle. They flounder about and never get up against a\nreality.... It\u2019s amazing how people can lose their grip on reality\u2014how\nmost people have. The way my patients come along to me and tell me\nlies\u2014even about their stomach-aches. The idea of anything being direct\nand reasonable has gone clean out of their heads. They think they can\nfool me about the facts, and that when I\u2019m properly fooled, I shall then\nhumbug their stomachs into not aching\u2014somehow....\n\n\u201cNow my gospel is this:\u2014face facts. Take the world as it is and take\nyourself as you are. And the fundamental fact we all have to face is\nthis, that this Process takes no account of our desires or fears or\nmoral ideas or anything of the sort. It puts us up, it tries us over,\nand if we don\u2019t stand the tests it knocks us down and ends us. That may\nnot be right as you test it by your little human standards, but it is\nright by the atoms and the stars. Then what must a proper Education be?\u201d\n\nDr. Barrack paused. \u201cTell them what the world is, tell them every rule\nand trick of the game mankind has learnt, and tell them \u2018_Be\nyourselves._\u2019 Be yourselves up to the hilt. It is no good being anything\nbut your essential self because\u2014\u201d\n\nDr. Barrack spoke like one who quotes a sacred formula. \u201c_There is no\ninheritance of acquired characteristics._ Your essential self, your\nessential heredity, are on trial. Put everything of yourself into the\nProcess. If the Process wants you it will accept you; if it doesn\u2019t you\nwill go under. You can\u2019t help it\u2014either way. You may be the bit of\nmarble that is left in the statue, or you may be the bit of marble that\nis thrown away. You can\u2019t help it. _Be yourself!_\u201d\n\nDr. Barrack had sat back; he raised his voice at the last words and\nlifted his hand as if to smite the table. But, so good a thing is\nprofessional training, he let his hand fall slowly, as he remembered\nthat Mr. Huss was his patient.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 2\n\nMr. Huss did not speak for some moments. He was thinking so deeply that\nhe seemed to be unobservant of the cessation of the doctor\u2019s discourse.\n\nThen he awoke to the silence with a start.\n\n\u201cYou do not differ among yourselves so much as you may think,\u201d he said\nat last.\n\n\u201cYou all argue to one end, however wide apart your starting points may\nbe. You argue that men may lead fragmentary lives....\n\n\u201cAnd,\u201d he reflected further, \u201csubmissive lives.\u201d\n\n\u201c_Not_ submissive,\u201d said Dr. Barrack in a kind of footnote.\n\n\u201cYou say, Sir Eliphaz, that this Universe is in the charge of\nProvidence, all-wise and amiable. That He guides this world to ends we\ncannot understand; desirable ends, did we but know them, but\nincomprehensible; that this life, this whole Universe, is but the\nstarting point for a developing series of immortal lives. And from this\nyou conclude that the part a human being has to play in this scheme is\nthe part of a trustful child, which need only not pester the Higher\nPowers, which need only do its few simple congenial duties, to be surely\npreserved and rewarded and carried on.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is much in simple faith,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz; \u201csneer though you\nmay.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut your view is a grimmer one, Dr. Barrack; you say that this Process\nis utterly beyond knowledge and control. We cannot alter it or appease\nit. It makes of some of us vessels of honour and of others vessels of\ndishonour. It has scrawled our race across the black emptiness of space,\nand it may wipe us out again. Such is the quality of Fate. We can but\nfollow our lights and instincts.... In the end, in practical matters,\nyour teaching marches with the teaching of Sir Eliphaz. You bow to the\nthing that is; he gladly and trustfully\u2014with a certain old-world\ncourtesy, you grimly\u2014in the modern style....\u201d\n\nFor some moments Mr. Huss sat with compressed lips, as though he\nlistened to the pain within him. Then he said: \u201cI don\u2019t.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t submit. I rebel\u2014not in my own strength nor by my own impulse. I\nrebel by the spirit of God in me. I rebel not merely to make weak\ngestures of defiance against the black disorder and cruelties of space\nand time, but for mastery. I am a rebel of pride\u2014I am full of the pride\nof God in my heart. I am the servant of a rebellious and adventurous God\nwho may yet bring order into this cruel and frightful chaos in which we\nseem to be driven hither and thither like leaves before the wind, a God\nwho, in spite of all appearances, may yet rule over it at last and mould\nit to his will.\u201d\n\n\u201c_What_ a world it will be!\u201d whispered Mr. Farr, unable to restrain\nhimself and yet half-ashamed of his sneer.\n\n\u201cWhat a world it is, Farr! What a cunning and watchful world! Does it\nserve even _you_? So insecure has it become that opportunity may yet\nturn a frightful face upon you\u2014in the very moment as you snatch....\n\n\u201cBut you see how I differ from you all. You see that the spirit of my\nlife and of my teaching\u2014of my teaching\u2014for all its weaknesses and slips\nand failures, is a fight against that Dark Being of the universe who\nseeks to crush us all. Who broods over me now even as I talk to you....\nIt is a fight against disorder, a refusal of that very submission you\nhave made, a repudiation altogether of that same voluntary death in\nlife....\u201d\n\nHe moistened his lips and resumed.\n\n\u201cThe end and substance of all real education is to teach men and women\nof the Battle of God, to teach them of the beginnings of life upon this\nlonely little planet amidst the endless stars, and how those beginnings\nhave unfolded; to show them how man has arisen through the long ages\nfrom amidst the beasts, and the nature of the struggle God wages through\nhim, and to draw all men together out of themselves into one common life\nand effort with God. The nature of God\u2019s struggle is the essence of our\ndispute. It is a struggle, with a hope of victory but with no assurance.\nYou have argued, Sir Eliphaz, that it is an unreal struggle, a sham\nfight, that indeed all things are perfectly adjusted and for our final\nhappiness, and when I have reminded you a little of the unmasked horrors\nabout us, you have shifted your ground of compensation into another\u2014into\nan incredible\u2014world.\u201d\n\nSir Eliphaz sounded dissent musically. Then he waved his long hand as\nMr. Huss paused and regarded him. \u201cBut go on!\u201d he said. \u201cGo on!\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd now I come to you, Dr. Barrack, and your modern fatalism. You hold\nthis universe is uncontrollable\u2014anyhow. And incomprehensible. For good\nor ill\u2014we can be no more than our strenuous selves. You must, you say,\n_be yourself_. I answer, you must lose yourself in something altogether\ngreater\u2014in God.... There is a curious likeness, Doctor, and a curious\ndifference in your views and mine. I think you see the world very much\nas I see it, but you see it coldly like a man before sunrise, and I\u2014\u201d\n\nHe paused. \u201cThere is a light upon it,\u201d he asserted with a noticeable\nflatness in his voice. \u201cThere is a light ... light....\u201d\n\nHe became silent. For a while it seemed as if the light he spoke of had\ngone from him and as if the shadow had engulfed him. When he spoke again\nit was with an evident effort.\n\nHe turned to Dr. Barrack. \u201cYou think,\u201d he said, \u201cthat there is a will in\nthis Process of yours which will take things somewhere, somewhere\ndefinitely greater or better or onward. I hold that there is no will at\nall except in and through ourselves. If there be any will at all ... I\nhold that even your maxim \u2018be ourselves\u2019 is a paradox, for we cannot be\nourselves until we have lost ourselves in God. I have talked to Sir\nEliphaz and to you since you came in, of the boundless disorder and evil\nof nature. Let me talk to you now of the boundless miseries that arise\nfrom the disorderliness of men and that must continue age after age\nuntil either men are united in spirit and in truth or destroyed through\ntheir own incoherence. Whether men will be lost or saved I do not know.\nThere have been times when I was sure that God would triumph in us....\nBut dark shadows have fallen upon my spirit....\n\n\u201cConsider the posture of men\u2019s affairs now, consider where they stand\nto-day, because they have not yet begun to look deeply and frankly into\nrealities; because, as they put it, they take life as they find it,\nbecause _they are themselves_, heedless of history, and do not realize\nthat in truth they are but parts in one great adventure in space and\ntime. For four years now the world has been marching deeper and deeper\ninto tragedy.... Our life that seemed so safe grows insecure and more\nand more insecure.... Six million soldiers, six million young men, have\nbeen killed on the battlefields alone; three times as many have been\ncrippled and mutilated; as many again who were not soldiers have been\ndestroyed. That has been only the beginning of the disaster that has\ncome upon our race. All human relationships have been strained; roads,\nships, harvests destroyed; and behind the red swift tragedy of this\nwarfare comes the gaunt and desolating face of universal famine now, and\nbehind famine that inevitable follower of famine, pestilence. You\ngentlemen who have played so useful a part in supplying munitions of\nwar, who have every reason in days well spent and energies well used to\nsee a transitory brightness upon these sombre things, you may tell me\nthat I lack faith when I say that I can see nothing to redeem the waste\nand destruction of the last four years and the still greater waste and\nspiritless disorder and poverty and disease ahead of us. You will tell\nme that the world has learnt a lesson it could learn in no other way,\nthat we shall set up a World League of Nations now and put an end to\nwar. But on what will you set up your World League of Nations? What\nfoundations have you made in the last four years but ruins? Is there any\ncommon idea, any common understanding yet in the minds of men? They are\nstill taking the world as they find it, they are being their unmitigated\nselves more than ever, and below the few who scramble for profits now is\na more and more wolfish multitude scrambling for bread. There are no\ncommon ideas in men\u2019s minds upon which we can build. How can men be\nunited except by common ideas? The schools have failed the world. What\ncommon thought is there in the world? A loud bawling of base newspapers,\na posturing of politicians. You can see chaos coming again over all the\neast of Europe now, and bit by bit western Europe crumbles and drops\ninto the confusion. Art, science, reasoned thought, creative effort,\nsuch things have ceased altogether in Russia; they may have ceased there\nperhaps for centuries; they die now in Germany; the universities of the\nwest are bloodless and drained of their youth. That war that seemed at\nfirst so like the dawn of a greater age has ceased to matter in the face\nof this greater disaster. The French and British and Americans are\nbeating back the Germans from Paris. Can they beat them back to any\ndistance? Will not this present counterthrust diminish and fail as the\nothers have done? Which side may first drop exhausted now, will hardly\nchange the supreme fact. The supreme fact is exhaustion\u2014exhaustion,\nmental as well as material, failure to grasp and comprehend, cessation\neven of attempts to grasp and comprehend, slackening of every sort of\neffort....\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat\u2019s the _good_ of such despair?\u201d said Mr. Dad.\n\n\u201cI do not despair. No. But what is the good of lying about hope and\nsuccess in the midst of failure and gathering disaster? What is the good\nof saying that mankind wins\u2014automatically\u2014against the spirit of evil,\nwhen mankind is visibly losing point after point, is visibly losing\nheart? What is the good of pretending that there is order and\nbenevolence or some sort of splendid and incomprehensible process in\nthis festering waste, this windy desolation of tremendous things? There\nis no reason anywhere, there is no creation anywhere, except the undying\nfire, the spirit of God in the hearts of men ... which may fail ...\nwhich may fail ... which seems to me to fail.\u201d\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 3\n\nHe paused. Dr. Barrack cleared his throat.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t want to seem obdurate,\u201d said Dr. Barrack. \u201cI want to respect\ndeep feeling. One must respect deep feeling.... But for the life of me I\ncan\u2019t put much meaning into this phrase, _the spirit of God in the\nhearts of men_. It\u2019s rather against my habits to worry a patient, but\nthis is so interesting\u2014this is an exceptional occasion. I would like to\nask you, Mr. Huss\u2014frankly\u2014is there anything very much more to it, than a\nphrase?\u201d\n\nThere was no answer.\n\n\u201cWords,\u201d said Mr. Dad; \u201cjoost words. If Mr. Huss had ever spent three\nmonths of war time running a big engineering factory\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cMy mind is a sceptical mind,\u201d Dr. Barrack went on, after staring a\nmoment to see if Mr. Dad meant to finish his sentence. \u201cI want things I\ncan feel and handle. I am an Agnostic by nature and habit and\nprofession. A Doubting Thomas, born and bred. Well, I take it that about\nthe universe Mr. Huss is very much of an Agnostic too. More so. He\ndoubts more than I do. He doubts whether there is any trace of plan or\npurpose in it. What I call a Process, he calls a windy desolation. He\nsees Chaos still waiting for a creator. But then he sets up against that\nthis undying fire of his, this spirit of God, which is lit in him and\nonly waiting to be lighted in us, a sort of insurgent apprentice\ncreator. Well\u2014\u201d\n\nThe doctor frowned and meditated on his words.\n\n\u201cI want more of the practical outcome of this fire. I admit a certain\npoetry in the idea, but I am a plain and practical man. Give me\nsomething to know this fire by and to recognize it again when I see it.\nI won\u2019t ask _why_ \u2018undying.\u2019 I won\u2019t quibble about that. But what does\nthis undying fire mean in actual things and our daily life? In some way\nit is mixed up with teaching history in schools.\u201d A faint note of\nderision made him glance at the face to his right. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t strike\nme as being so queer as it seems to strike Mr. Farr. It interests me.\nThere is a cause for it. But I think there are several links Mr. Huss\nhasn\u2019t shown and several vital points he still has to explain. This\nundying fire is something that is burning in Mr. Huss, and I gather from\nhis pretty broad hints it ought, he thinks, to be burning in me\u2014and you,\ngentlemen. It is something that makes us forget our little personal\ndifferences, makes us forget ourselves, and brings us all into line\nagainst\u2014what. That\u2019s my first point;\u2014against what? I don\u2019t see the force\nand value of this line-up. _I_ think we struggle against one another by\nnature and necessity; that we polish one another in the struggle and\nsharpen our edges. I think that out of this struggle for existence comes\nbetter things and better. They may not be better things by our standards\nnow, but by the standards of the Process, they are. Sometimes the mills\nof the Process may seem overpoweringly grim and high and pitiless; that\nis a question of scale. But Mr. Huss does not believe in the struggle.\nHe wants to take men\u2019s minds and teach them so that they will not\nstruggle against each other but live and work all together. _For_ what?\nThat is my second point;\u2014_for what_? There is a rationality in my idea\nof an everlasting struggle making incessantly for betterment, such an\nidea does at any rate give a direction and take us somewhere; but there\nis no rationality in declaring we are still fighting and fighting more\nthan ever, while in effect we are arranging to stop that struggle which\ncarries life on\u2014if we can\u2014if we can. That is the paradox of Mr. Huss.\nWhen there is neither competition at home nor war abroad, when the cat\nand the bird have come to a satisfactory understanding, when the spirit\nof his human God rules even in the jungle and the sea, then where shall\nwe be heading? Time will be still unfolding. But man will have halted.\nIf he has ceased to compete individually he will have halted. Mr. Huss\nlooks at me as if he thought I wronged him in saying that. Well, then he\nmust answer my questions; what will the Human God be leading us\n_against_, and what shall we be living _for_?\u201d\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 4\n\n\u201cLet me tell you first what the spirit of God struggles against,\u201d said\nMr. Huss.\n\n\u201cI will not dispute that this Process of yours has made good things; all\nthe good things in man it has made as well as all the evil. It has made\nthem indifferently. In us\u2014in some of us\u2014it has made the will to seize\nupon that chance-born good and separate it from the chance-born evil.\nThe spirit of God rises out of your process as if he were a part of your\nprocess.... Except for him, the good and evil are inextricably mixed;\ngood things flower into evil things and evil things wholly or partially\nredeem themselves by good consequences. \u2018Good\u2019 and \u2018evil\u2019 have meaning\nonly for us. The Process is indifferent; it makes, it destroys, it\nfavours, it torments. On its own account it preserves nothing and\ncontinues nothing. It is just careless. But for us it has made\nopportunity. Life is opportunity. Unless we do now ourselves seize hold\nupon life and the Process while we are in it, the Process, becoming\nuncontrollable again, will presently sweep us altogether away. In the\nback of your mind, doctor, is the belief in a happy ending just as much\nas in the mind of Sir Eliphaz. I see deeper because I am not blinded by\nhealth. You think that beyond man comes some sort of splendid super-man.\nA healthy delusion! There is nothing beyond man unless men will that\nsomething shall be. We shall be wiped out as carelessly as we have been\nmade, and something else will come, as disconnected and aimless,\nsomething neither necessarily better nor necessarily worse but something\ndifferent, to be wiped out in its turn. Unless the spirit of God that\nmoves in us can rouse us to seize this universe for Him and ourselves,\nthat is the nature of your Process. Your Process is just Chaos; man is\nthe opportunity, the passing opportunity for order in the waste.\n\n\u201cPeople write and talk as if this great war which is now wrecking the\nworld, was a dramatic and consecutive thing. They talk of it as a purge,\nas a great lesson, as a phase in history that marks the end of wars and\ndivisions. So it might be; but is it so and will it be so? I asked you a\nlittle time ago to look straightly at the realities of animal life, of\nlife in general as we know it. I think I did a little persuade you to my\nown sense of shallowness of our assumption that there is any natural\nhappiness. The poor beasts and creatures have to suffer. I ask you now\nto look as straightly at the things that men have done and endured in\nthis war. It is plain that they have shown extraordinary fertility and\ningenuity in the inventions they have used and an amazing capacity for\nsacrifice and courage; but it is, I argue, equally plain that the pains\nand agonies they have undergone have taught the race little or nothing,\nand that their devices have been mainly for their own destruction. The\nonly lesson and the only betterment that can come out of this war will\ncome if men, inspired by the Divine courage, say \u2018This and all such\nthings must end.\u2019... But I do not perceive them saying that. On the\nother hand I do perceive a great amount of human energy and ability that\nhas been devoted and is still being devoted to things that lead straight\nto futility and extinction.\n\n\u201cThe most desolating thing about this war is neither the stupidity nor\nthe cruelty of it, but the streak of perversion that has run through it.\nAgainst the meagreness of the intelligence that made the war, against\nthe absolute inability of the good forces in life to arrest it and end\nit, I ask you to balance the intelligence and devotion that has gone to\nsuch an enterprise as the offensive use of poison gas. Consider the\ningenuity and the elaboration of that; the different sorts of shell\nused, the beautifully finished devices to delay the release of the\npoison so as to catch men unawares after their gas masks are removed.\nOne method much in favour with the Germans now involves the use of two\nsorts of gas. They have a gas now not very deadly but so subtle that it\npenetrates the gas masks and produces nausea and retching. The man is\novercome by the dread of being sick so that he will clog his mask and\nsuffocate, and he snatches off his protection in an ungovernable\nphysical panic. Then the second gas, of the coarser, more deadly type,\ncomes into play. That he breathes in fully. His breath catches; he\nrealizes what he has done but it is too late; death has him by the\nthroat; he passes through horrible discomfort and torment to the end.\nYou cough, you stagger, you writhe upon the ground and are deadly\nsick.... You die heaving and panting, with staring eyes.... So it is men\nare being killed now; it is but one of a multitude of methods,\ndisgusting, undignified, and monstrous, but intelligent, technically\nadmirable.... You cannot deny, Doctor Barrack, that this ingenious\nmixture is one of the last fruits of your Process. To that your Process\nhas at last brought men from the hoeing and herding of Neolithic days.\n\n\u201cNow tell me how is the onward progress of mankind to anything,\nanywhere, secured by this fine flower of the Process? Intellectual\nenergy, industrial energy, are used up without stint to make this horror\npossible; multitudes of brave young men are spoilt or killed. Is there\nany selection in it? Along such lines can you imagine men or life or the\nuniverse getting anywhere at all?\n\n\u201cWhy do they do such things?\n\n\u201cThey do not do it out of a complete and organized impulse to evil. If\nyou took the series of researches and inventions that led at last to\nthis use of poison gas, you would find they were the work of a multitude\nof mainly amiable, fairly virtuous, and kindly-meaning men. Each one was\n_doing his bit_, as Mr. Dad would say; each one, to use your phrase,\ndoctor, was _being himself_ and utilizing the gift that was in him in\naccordance with the drift of the world about him; each one, Sir Eliphaz,\nwas modestly _taking the world as he found it_. They were living in an\nuninformed world with no common understanding and no collective plan, a\nworld ignorant of its true history and with no conception of its future.\nInto these horrors they drifted for the want of a world education. Out\nof these horrors no lesson will be learnt, no will can arise, for the\nsame reason. Every man lives ignorantly in his own circumstances, from\nhand to mouth, from day to day, swayed first of all by this catchword\nand then by that.\n\n\u201cLet me take another instance of the way in which human ability and\nenergy if they are left to themselves, without co-ordination, without a\ncommon basis of purpose, without a God, will run into cul-de-sacs of\nmere horribleness; let me remind you a little of what the submarine is\nand what it signifies. In this country we think of the submarine as an\ninstrument of murder; but we think of it as something ingeniously\ncontrived and at any rate not tormenting and destroying the hands that\nguide it. I will not recall to you the stories that fill our newspapers\nof men drowning in the night, of crowded boatloads of sailors and\npassengers shelled and sunken, of men forced to clamber out of the sea\nupon the destroying U-boat and robbed of their lifebelts in order that\nwhen it submerged they should be more surely drowned. I want you to\nthink of the submarine in itself. There is a kind of crazy belief that\nkilling, however cruel, has a kind of justification in the survival of\nthe killer; we make that our excuse for instance for the destruction of\nthe native Tasmanians who were shot whenever they were seen, and killed\nby poisoned meat left in their paths. But the marvel of these submarines\nis that they also torture and kill their own crews. They are miracles of\nshort-sighted ingenuity for the common unprofitable reasonless\ndestruction of Germans and their enemies. They are almost quintessential\nexamples of the elaborate futility and horror into which partial ideas\nabout life, combative and competitive ideas of life, thrust mankind.\n\n\u201cTake some poor German boy with an ordinary sort of intelligence, an\nordinary human disposition to kindliness, and some gallantry, who\nbecomes finally a sailor in one of these craft. Consider his case and\nwhat we do to him. You will find in him a sample of what we are doing\nfor mankind. As a child he is ingenuous, teachable, plastic. He is also\negotistical, greedy, and suspicious. He is easily led and easily\nfrightened. He likes making things if he knows how to make them; he is\ncapable of affection and capable of resentment. He is a sheet of white\npaper upon which anything may be written. His parents teach him, his\ncompanions, his school. Do they teach him anything of the great history\nof mankind? Do they teach him of his blood brotherhood with all men? Do\nthey tell him anything of discovery, of exploration, of human effort and\nachievement? No. They teach him that he belongs to a blonde and\nwonderful race, the only race that matters on this planet. (No such\ndistinct race ever existed; it is a lie for the damning of men.) And\nthese teachers incite him to suspicion and hatred and contempt of all\nother races. They fill his mind with fears and hostilities. Everything\nGerman they tell him is good and splendid. Everything not German is\ndangerous and wicked. They take that poor actor of an emperor at Potsdam\nand glorify him until he shines upon this lad\u2019s mind like a star....\n\n\u201cThe boy grows up a mental cripple; his capacity for devotion and\nself-sacrifice is run into a mould of fanatical loyalty for the Kaiser\nand hatred for foreign things. Comes this war, and the youngster is only\ntoo eager to give himself where he is most needed. He is told that the\nsubmarine war is the sure way of striking the enemies of his country a\nconclusive blow. To be in a submarine is to be at the spear point. He\ndare scarcely hope that he will be accepted for this vital service; to\nwhich princes might aspire. But he is fortunate; he is. He trains for a\nsubmarine....\n\n\u201cI do not know how far you gentlemen remember your youth. A schoolmaster\nperhaps remembers more of his early adolescence than other men because\nhe is being continually reminded of it. But it is a time of very fine\nemotions, boundless ambitions, a newly awakened and eager sense of\nbeauty. This youngster sees himself as a hero, fighting for his\nhalf-divine Kaiser, for dear Germany, against the cold and evil\nbarbarians who resist and would destroy her. He passes through his drill\nand training. He goes down into a submarine for the first time, clambers\ndown the narrow hatchway. It is a little cold, but wonderful; a\nmarvellous machine. How can such a nest of inventions, ingenuities,\nbeautiful metal-work, wonderful craftsmanship, be anything but right?\nHis mind is full of dreams of proud enemy battleships smitten and\nheeling over into the waters, while he watches his handiwork with a\nstern pride, a restrained exultation, a sense of Germany vindicated....\n\n\u201cThat is how his mind has been made for him. That is the sort of mind\nthat has been made and is being made in boys all over the world....\nBecause there is no common plan in the world, because each person in the\nmaking of this boy, just as each person in the making of the submarine,\nhad \u2018been himself\u2019 and \u2018done his bit,\u2019 followed his own impulses and\ninterests without regard to the whole, regardless of any plan or purpose\nin human affairs, ignorant of the spirit of God who would unify us and\nlead us to a common use for all our gifts and energies.\n\n\u201cLet me go on with the story of this youngster....\n\n\u201cComes a day when he realizes the reality of the work he is doing for\nhis kind. He stands by one of the guns of the submarine in an attack\nupon some wretched ocean tramp. He realizes that the war he wages is no\nheroic attack on pride or predominance, but a mere murdering of traffic.\nHe sees the little ship shelled, the wretched men killed and wounded, no\ntyrants of the seas but sailor-men like himself; he sees their boats\nsmashed to pieces. Mostly such sinkings are done at dawn or sundown,\nunder a level light which displays a world of black lines and black\nsilhouettes asway with the slow heaving and falling of coldly shining\nwater. These little black things, he realizes incredulously, that\nstruggle and disappear amidst the wreckage are the heads of men,\nbrothers to himself....\n\n\u201cFor hundreds of thousands of men who have come into this war expecting\nbright and romantic and tremendous experiences their first killing must\nhave been a hideous disillusionment. For none so much as for the men of\nthe submarines. All that sense of being right and fine that carries men\ninto battle, that carries most of us through the world, must have\nvanished completely at this first vision of reality. Our man must have\nasked himself, \u2018_What am I doing?_\u2019...\n\n\u201cIn the night he must have lain awake and stared at that question in\nhorrible doubt....\n\n\u201cWe scold too much at the German submarine crews in this country. Most\nof us in their places would be impelled to go on as they go on. The work\nthey do has been reached step by step, logically, inevitably, because\nour world has been content to drift along on false premises and\nhaphazard assumptions about nationality and race and the order of\nthings. These things have happened because the technical education of\nmen has been better than their historical and social education. Once men\nhave lost touch with, or failed to apprehend that idea of a single human\ncommunity, that idea which is the substance of all true history and the\nessential teaching of God, it is towards such organized abominations as\nthese that they drift\u2014necessarily. People in this country who are just\nas incoherent in their minds, just as likely to drift into some kindred\ncul-de-sac of conduct, would have these U-boat men tortured\u2014to show the\nsuperiority of their own moral standards.\n\n\u201cBut indeed these men _are_ tortured....\n\n\u201cBear yet a little longer with this boy of mine in the U-boat. I\u2019ve\ntried to suggest him to you with his conscience scared\u2014at a moment when\nhis submarine had made a kill. But those moments are rare. For most of\nits time the U-boat is under water and a hunted thing. The surface\nswarms with hostile craft; sea-planes and observation balloons are\nseeking it. Every time a U-boat comes even near to the surface it may be\nspotted by a sea-plane and destruction may fall upon it. Even when it is\nsubmerged below the limits of visibility in the turbid North Sea waters,\nthe noise of its engines will betray it to a listening apparatus and a\nhappy guess with a depth charge may end its career. I want you to think\nof the daily life of this youngster under these conditions. I want you\nto see exactly where wrong ideas, not his, but wrong ideas ruling in the\nworld about him, are driving him.\n\n\u201cThe method of detection by listening apparatus improves steadily, and\nnowadays our destroyers will follow up a U-boat sometimes for sixty or\nseventy hours, following her sounds as a hound follows the scent of its\nquarry. At last, if the U-boat cannot shake off her pursuers she must\ncome to the surface and fight or surrender. That is the strangest game\nof Blind-Man that ever human beings played. The U-boat doubles and\nturns, listening also for the sounds of the pursuers at the surface. Are\nthey coming nearer? Are they getting fainter? Unless a helpful mud-bank\nis available for it to lie up in silence for a time, the U-boat must\nkeep moving and using up electrical force, so that ultimately it must\ncome to the surface to recharge its batteries. As far as possible the\ncrew of the U-boat are kept in ignorance of the chase in progress. They\nget hints from the anxiety or irritation of the commander, or from the\nhaste and variety of his orders. Something is going on\u2014they do not know\nquite what\u2014something that may end disagreeably. If the pursuer tries a\ndepth charge, then they know for certain from the concussion that the\nhand of death is feeling for them in the darkness....\n\n\u201cAlways the dread of a depth charge must haunt the imagination of the\nU-boat sailor. Without notice, at any hour, may come thud and concussion\nto warn him that the destroying powers are on his track. The fragile\nship jumps and quivers from end to end; the men are thrown about. That\nhappens to our youngster. He curses the damned English. And if you think\nit over, what else can you expect him to curse? A little nearer and the\nrivets will start and actual leakage begin, letting in a pressure of\nseveral atmospheres. Yet a little nearer and the water will come\npressing in through cracks and breaches at a score of points, the air\nwill be compressed in his lungs, the long death struggle of the U-boat\nwill begin, and after some hours of hopeless suffering he will suffocate\nand drown like a rat in a flooded tunnel....\n\n\u201cThink of the life of endless apprehension in that confined space below\nthe waters. The air is almost always stuffy and sometimes it is\npoisonous. All sorts of evil chances may occur in this crowded tinful of\nmachinery to release oppressive gases and evil odours. A whiff of\nchlorine for instance may warn the crew of flooded accumulators. At the\nfirst sting of chlorine the U-boat must come up at any risk.... And\nnothing can be kept dry. The surfaces of the apparatus and the furniture\nsweat continually; except where the machinery radiates a certain heat a\nclammy chill pervades the whole contrivance. Have you ever seen the\nthick blubber of a whale? Only by means of that enormous layer of\nnon-conductor can a whale keep its body warm in spite of the waters\nabout it. A U-boat cannot afford any layer of blubber. It is at the\ntemperature of the dark under-waters. And this life of cold, fear,\nsuffocation, headache and nausea is not sustained by hot and nourishing\nfood. There is no blazing galley fire for the cook of the U-boat.\n\n\u201cThe U-boat rolls very easily; she is, of course, no heavier nor lighter\nthan the water in which she floats, and if by chance she touches bottom\nin shallow water, she bounds about like a rubber ball on a pavement.\nInside the sailors are thrown about and dashed against the machinery.\n\n\u201cThat is the quality of everyday life in a U-boat retained below the\nsurface. Now think what an emergence involves. Up she comes until the\nperiscope can scrutinize the sky and the nearer sea. Nothing in sight?\nThank God! She rises out of the water and some of the sailors get a\nbreath of fresh air. Not all, for there is no room nor time for all of\nthem to come out. But the fortunate ones who get to the hatches may even\nhave the luck of sunshine. To come to the surface on a calm open sea\naway from any traffic at all is the secret hope of every U-boat sailor.\nBut suppose now there is something in sight. Then the U-boat must come\nup with infinite discretion and examine the quarry. It looks an innocent\ncraft, a liner, a trawler, a cargo-boat. But is that innocence certain?\nHow does the U-boat man know that she hasn\u2019t a gun? What new contrivance\nof the hunter may not hide behind that harmless-looking mask? Until they\nhave put a ship down, the U-boat sailors never know what ugly surprise\nshe may not have in store for them. When they approach a vessel they\nmust needs be ignorant of what counter-attack creeps upon them from her\nunseen other side. As a consequence these men are in terror of every\nship they hail.\n\n\u201cIs it any wonder then if their behaviour is hasty and hysterical, if\nthey curse and insult the wretched people they are proposing to drown,\nif they fire upon them unexpectedly and do strange and abominable\nthings? The U-boat man is no fine captain on his quarter deck. He is a\nman who lives a life of intense physical hardship and extreme fear, who\nfaces overwhelming risks, in order to commit as inglorious a crime as\nany man can commit. He is a man already in hell.\n\n\u201cThe Germans do what they can to keep up the spirit of these crews. An\nEnglish captain who spent a fortnight upon one as a prisoner and who was\nrecently released by way of Switzerland, says that when they had sunk a\nmerchant ship \u2018they played victory music on the gramophone.\u2019 Imagine\nthat bleak festival!\n\n\u201cThe inevitable end of the U-boat sailor, unless he is lucky enough to\nget captured, is death, and a very horrible and slow death indeed.\nSooner or later it is bound to come. Some never return from their first\nvoyage. There is a brief spree ashore if they do; then out they go\nagain. Perhaps they return a second time, perhaps not. Some may even\nhave made a score of voyages, but sooner or later they are caught. The\naverage life of a U-boat is less than five voyages\u2014out and home. Of the\ncrews of the original U-boats which began the U-boat campaign very few\nmen survive to-day. When our young hopeful left his home in Germany to\njoin the U-boat service, he left it for a certain death. He learns that\nslowly from the conversation of his mates. Men are so scarce now for\nthis vile work that once Germany has got a man she will use him to the\nend.\n\n\u201cAnd that end\u2014?\n\n\u201cI was given some particulars of the fate of one U-boat that were told\nby two prisoners who died at Harwich the other day. This particular boat\nwas got by a mine which tore a hole in her aft. She was too disabled to\ncome to the surface, and she began to sink tail down. Now the immediate\neffect of a hole in a U-boat is of course to bring the air pressure\nwithin her to the same level as the pressure of the water outside. For\nevery ten yards of depth this means an addition of fourteen pounds to\nthe square inch. The ears and blood vessels are suddenly subjected to\nthis enormous pressure. There is at once a violent pain in the ears and\na weight on the chest. Cotton wool has to be stuffed into ears and\nnostrils to save the ear drum. Then the boat is no longer on an even\nkeel. The men stand and slip about on the sides of things. They clamber\nup the floor out of the way of the slowly rising water. For the water\ndoes not come rushing in to drown them speedily. It cannot do that\nbecause there is no escape for the air; the water creeps in steadily and\nstealthily as the U-boat goes deeper and deeper. It is a process of slow\nand crushing submergence that has the cruel deliberation of some story\nby Edgar Allan Poe; it may last for hours. A time comes when the lights\ngo out and the rising waters stop the apparatus for keeping up the\nsupply of oxygen and absorbing the carbonic acid. Suffocation begins.\nThink of what must happen in the minds of the doomed men crowded\ntogether amidst the machinery. In the particular case these prisoners\ndescribed, several of the men drowned themselves deliberately in the\nrising waters inside the boat. And in another case where the boat was\nrecovered full of dead men, they had all put their heads under the water\ninside the boat. People say the U-boat men carry poison against such\nmischances as this. They don\u2019t. It would be too tempting....\n\n\u201cWhen it becomes evident that the U-boat can never recover the surface,\nthere is usually an attempt to escape by the hatches. The hatches can be\nopened when at last the pressure inside is equal to that of the water\nwithout. The water of course rushes in and sinks the U-boat to the\nbottom like a stone, but the men _who are nearest to the hatch_ have a\nchance of escaping with the rush of air to the surface. There is of\ncourse a violent struggle to get nearest to the hatch. This is what\nhappened in the case of the particular U-boat from which these prisoners\ncame. The forward hatch was opened. Our patrol boat cruising above saw\nthe waters thrown up by the air-burst and then the heads of the men\nstruggling on the surface. Most of these men were screaming with pain.\nAll of them went under before they could be picked up except two. And\nthese two died in a day or so. They died because coming suddenly up to\nthe ordinary atmosphere out of the compressed air of the sinking\nsubmarine had burst the tissues of their lungs. They were choked with\nblood.\n\n\u201cThink of those poor creatures dying in the hospital. They were worn out\nby fits of coughing and h\u00e6morrhage, but there must have been moments of\nexhausted quiet before the end, when our youngster lay and stared at the\nbleak walls of the ward and thought; when he asked himself, \u2018What have I\nbeen doing? What have I done? What has this world done for me? It has\nmade me a murderer. It has tortured me and wasted me.... And I meant\nwell by it....\u2019\n\n\u201cWhether he thought at all about the making of the submarine, the\nnumberless ingenuities and devices, the patience and devotion, that had\ngone to make that grim trap in which he had been caught at last, I\ncannot guess.... Probably he took it as a matter of course....\n\n\u201cSo it was that our German youngster who dreamt dreams, who had\nambitions, who wished to serve and do brave and honourable things,\ndied.... So five thousand men at least have died, English some of them\nas well as German, in lost submarines beneath the waters of the narrow\nseas....\n\n\u201cThere is a story and a true story. It is more striking than the fate of\nmost men and women in the world, but is it, in its essence, different?\nIs not the whole life of our time in the vein of this story? Is not this\nstory of youth and hope and possibility misled, marched step by step\ninto a world misconceived, thrust into evil, and driven down to ugliness\nand death, only a more vivid rendering of what is now the common fate of\ngreat multitudes? Is there any one of us who is not in some fashion\naboard a submarine, doing evil and driving towards an evil end?...\n\n\u201cWhat are the businesses in which men engage? How many of them have any\nlikeness to freighted ships that serve the good of mankind? Think of the\nlying and cornering, the crowding and outbidding, the professional\netiquette that robs the common man, the unfair advantage smugly\naccepted! What man among us can say, \u2018All that I do is service\u2019? Our\nholding and our effort: is it much better than the long interludes below\nthe surface, and when we come up to struggle for our own hands,\ntorpedoing competitors, wrecking antagonists, how is it with us? The\nsubmarine sailors stare in the twilight at drowning men. Every day I\nstare at a world drowning in poverty and ignorance, a world awash in the\nseas of hunger, disease, and misery. We have been given leisure,\nfreedom, and intelligence; what have we done to prevent these things?\n\n\u201cI tell you all the world is a submarine, and every one of us is\nsomething of a U-boat man. These fools who squeal in the papers for\ncruelties to the U-boat men do not realize their own part in the\nworld.... We might live in sunshine and freedom and security, and we\nlive cramped and cold, in bitter danger, because we are at war with our\nfellow men....\n\n\u201cBut there, doctor, you have the answer to the first part of your\nquestion. You asked what the Spirit of God in Man was against. It is\nagainst these mental confusions, these ignorances, that thrust life into\na frightful cul-de-sac, that the God in our Hearts urges us to fight....\nHe is crying out in our hearts to save us from these blind alleys of\nselfishness, darkness, cruelty, and pain in which our race must die; he\nis crying for the high road which is salvation, he is commanding the\norganized unity of mankind.\u201d\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 5\n\nThe lassitude that had been earlier apparent in the manner of Mr. Huss\nhad vanished. He was talking now with more energy; his eyes were bright\nand there was a flush in his cheeks. His voice was low, but his speech\nwas clear and no longer broken by painful pauses.\n\n\u201cBut your question had a double edge,\u201d he continued; \u201cyou asked me not\nonly what it is that the Spirit of God in us fights against, but what it\nis he fights for. Whither does the high road lead? I have told you what\nI think the life of man is, a felted and corrupting mass of tragic\nexperiences; let me tell you now a little, if this pain at my side will\nstill permit it, what life upon this earth, under the leadership of the\nSpirit of God our Captain, might be.\n\n\u201cI will take it that men are still as they are, that all this world is\nindividually the same; I will suppose no miraculous change in human\nnature; but I will suppose that events in the past have run along\ndifferent channels, so that there has been much more thinking, much more\nexchange of thought, far better teaching. I want simply this world\nbetter taught, so that wherever the flame of God can be lit it has been\nlit. Everyone I will suppose _educated_. By _educated_, to be explicit,\nI mean a knowledge and understanding of history. Yes, Mr. Farr\u2014salvation\nby history. Everyone about the earth I will suppose has been taught not\nmerely to read and write and calculate, but has been given all that can\nbe told simply and plainly of the past history of the earth, of our\nplace in space and time, and the true history of mankind. I will not\nsuppose that there is any greater knowledge of things than men actually\npossess to-day, but instead of its being confusedly stored in many minds\nand many books and many languages, it has all been sorted out and set\nout plainly so that it can be easily used. It has been kept back from no\none, mistold to no one. Moreover I will suppose that instead of a myriad\nof tongues and dialects, all men can read the same books and talk\ntogether in the same speech.\n\n\u201cThese you may say are difficult suppositions, but they are not\nimpossible suppositions. Quite a few resolute men could set mankind\ndefinitely towards such a state of affairs so that they would reach it\nin a dozen generations or so. But think what a difference there would be\nfrom our conditions in such a world. In a world so lit and opened by\neducation, most of these violent dissensions that trouble mankind would\nbe impossible. Instead of men and communities behaving like fever\npatients in delirium, striking at their nurses, oversetting their food\nand medicine and inflicting injuries on themselves and one another, they\nwould be alive to the facts of their common origin, their common\noffspring\u2014for at last in our descendants all our lives must meet\nagain\u2014and their common destiny. In that more open and fresher air, the\nfire that is God will burn more brightly, for most of us who fail to\nknow God fail through want of knowledge. Many more men and women will be\nhappily devoted to the common work of mankind, and the evil that is in\nall of us will be more plainly seen and more easily restrained. I doubt\nif any man is altogether evil, but in this dark world the good in men is\nhandicapped and sacrifice is mocked. Bad example finishes what weak and\naimless teaching has begun. This is a world where folly and hate can\nbawl sanity out of hearing. Only the determination of schoolmasters and\nteachers can hope to change that. How can you hope to change it by\nanything but teaching? Cannot you realize what teaching means?...\n\n\u201cWhen I ask you to suppose a world instructed and educated in the place\nof this old traditional world of unguided passion and greed and meanness\nand mean bestiality, a world taught by men instead of a world neglected\nby hirelings, I do not ask you to imagine any miraculous change in human\nnature. I ask you only to suppose that each mind has the utmost\nenlightenment of which it is capable instead of its being darkened and\novercast. Everyone is to have the best chance of being his best self.\nEveryone is to be living in the light of the acutest self-examination\nand the clearest mutual criticism. Naturally we shall be living under\ninfinitely saner and more helpful institutions. Such a state of things\nwill not indeed mitigate natural vanity or natural self-love; it will\nnot rob the greedy man of his greed, the fool of his folly, the\neccentric of his abnormality, nor the lustful of his lust. But it will\nrob them of excuses and hiding places; it will light them within and\ncast a light round about them; it will turn their evil to the likeness\nof a disease of which they themselves in their clear moments will be\nready to be cured and which they will hesitate to transmit. That is the\nworld which such of us schoolmasters and teachers among us as have the\nundying fire of God already lit in our hearts, do now labour, generation\nby generation, against defeat and sometimes against hope, to bring\nabout; that is the present work God has for us. And as we do bring it\nabout then the prospect opens out before mankind to a splendour....\n\n\u201cIn this present world men live to be themselves; having their lives\nthey lose them; in the world that we are seeking to make they will give\nthemselves to the God of Mankind, and so they will live indeed. They\nwill as a matter of course change their institutions and their methods\nso that all men may be used to the best effect, in the common work of\nmankind. They will take this little planet which has been torn into\nshreds of possession, and make it again one garden....\n\n\u201cThe most perplexing thing about men at the present time is their lack\nof understanding of the vast possibilities of power and happiness that\nscience is offering them\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cThen why not teach _science_?\u201d cried Mr. Farr.\n\n\u201cProvided only that they will unite their efforts. They solve the\nproblems of material science in vain until they have solved their social\nand political problems. When those are solved, the mechanical and\ntechnical difficulties are trivial. It is no occult secret; it is a\nplain and demonstrable thing to-day that the world could give ample food\nand ample leisure to every human being, if only by a world-wide teaching\nthe spirit of unity could be made to prevail over the impulse to\ndissension. And not only that, but it would then be possible to raise\nthe common health and increase the common fund of happiness\nimmeasurably. Look plainly at the world as it is. Most human beings when\nthey are not dying untimely, are suffering more or less from avoidable\ndisorders, they are ill or they are convalescent, or they are suffering\nfrom or crippled by some preventable taint in the blood, or they are\nstunted or weakened by a needlessly bad food supply, or spiritless and\nfeeble through bad housing, bad clothing, dull occupations, or\ninsecurity and anxiety. Few enjoy for very long stretches at a time that\nelementary happiness which is the natural accompaniment of sound health.\nThis almost universal lowness of tone, which does not distress us only\nbecause most of us are unable to imagine anything better, means an\nenormous waste of human possibility; less work, less hopefulness.\nIsolated efforts will never raise men out of this swamp of malaise. At\nWoldingstanton we have had the best hygienic arrangements we could find,\nwe have taken the utmost precautions, and yet there has scarcely been a\nyear when our work has not been crippled and delayed by some epidemic,\ninfluenza one year, measles another, and so on. We take our precautions;\nbut the townspeople, especially in the poorer quarters, don\u2019t and can\u2019t.\nI think myself the wastage of these perennial petty pestilences is far\ngreater than that caused by the big epidemics that sometimes sweep the\nworld. But all such things, great or petty, given a sufficient world\nunanimity, could be absolutely banished from human life. Given a\nsufficient unanimity and intelligent direction, men could hunt down all\nthese infectious diseases, one by one, to the regions in which they are\nendemic, and from which they start out again and again to distress the\nworld, and could stamp them out for ever. It is not want of knowledge\nprevents this now but want of a properly designed education, which would\ngive people throughout the world the understanding, the confidence, and\nthe will needed for so collective an enterprise.\n\n\u201cThe sufferings and mutual cruelties of animals are no doubt a part of\nthe hard aimlessness of nature, but men are in a position to substitute\naim for that aimlessness, they have already all the knowledge and all\nthe resources needed to escape from these cul-de-sacs of wrong-doing and\nsuffering and ugly futility into which they jostle one another. But they\ndo not do it because they have not been sufficiently educated and are\nnot being sufficiently educated to sane understanding and effort. The\nbulk of their collective strength is dissipated in miserable squabbles\nand suspicions, in war and the preparation for war, in lawsuits and\nbickering, in making little sterile private hoards of wealth and power,\nin chaffering, in stupid persecutions and oppositions and vanities. It\nis not only that they live in a state of general infection and ill\nhealth and bad temper, ill nourished, ill housed and morally horrible,\nwhen the light is ready to shine upon them and health and splendour is\nwithin their grasp, but that all that they could so attain would be but\nthe prelude to still greater attainments.\n\n\u201cApart from and above the sweeping away of the poverty, filthiness and\nmisery of life that would follow on an intelligent use of such powers\nand such qualities as men possess now, there would be a tremendous\nincrease in happiness due to the contentment of belonging to one common\ncomprehensible whole, of knowing that one played a part and a worthy\npart in an immortal and universal task. The merest handful of people can\nlook with content upon the tenor of their lives to-day. A few teachers\nare perhaps aware that they serve God rightly, a few scientific\ninvestigators, a few doctors and bridge-builders and makers of\nmachinery, a few food-growers and sailors and the like. They can believe\nthat they do something that is necessary, or build something which will\nendure. But most men and women to-day are like beasts caught in a\ntunnel; they follow base occupations, they trade and pander and dispute;\nthere is no peace in their hearts; they gratify their lusts and seek\nexcitements; they know they spend their lives in vain and they have no\nmeans of escape. The world is full of querulousness and abuse, derision\nand spite, mean tricks and floundering effort, vice without a gleam of\npleasure and vain display, because blind Nature spews these people into\nbeing and there is no light to guide their steps. Yet there is work to\nbe done by everyone, a plain reason for that work, and happiness in the\ndoing of it....\n\n\u201cI do not know if any of us realize all that a systematic organization\nof the human intelligence upon the work of research would mean for our\nrace. People talk of the wonders that scientific work has given us in\nthe past two hundred years, wonders of which for the most part we are\ntoo disordered and foolish to avail ourselves fully. But what scientific\nresearch has produced so far must be as yet only the smallest earnest of\nwhat scientific research can presently give mankind. All the knowledge\nthat makes to-day different from the world of Queen Elizabeth has been\nthe work of a few score thousand men, mostly poorish men, working with\nlimited material and restricted time, in a world that discouraged and\nmisunderstood them. Many hundreds of thousands of men with gifts that\nwould have been of the profoundest value in scientific work, have missed\nthe education or the opportunity to use those gifts. But in a world\nclarified by understanding, the net of research would miss few of its\nborn servants, there would be the swiftest, clearest communication of\nresults from worker to worker, the readiest honour and help for every\ngift. Poor science, which goes about now amidst our crimes and\nconfusions like an ill-trimmed evil-smelling oil lantern in a dark\ncavern in which men fight and steal, her flickering light, snatched\nfirst by this man and then by that, as often as not a help to violence\nand robbery, would become like the sunrise of a bright summer morning.\nWe do not realize what in a little while mankind could do. Our power\nover matter, our power over life, our power over ourselves, would\nincrease year by year and day by day.\n\n\u201cHere am I, after great suffering, waiting here for an uncertain\noperation that may kill me. _It need not have been so._ Here are we all,\nsitting hot and uncomfortable in this ill-ventilated, ill-furnished\nroom, looking out upon a vile waste. _It need not have been so._ Such is\nthe quality of our days. I sit here wrung by pain, in the antechamber of\ndeath, because mankind has suffered me to suffer.... All this could have\nbeen avoided.... Not for ever will such things endure, not for ever will\nthe Mocker of Mankind prevail....\n\n\u201cAnd such knowledge and power and beauty as we poor watchers before the\ndawn can guess at, are but the beginning of all that could arise out of\nthese shadows and this torment. Not for ever shall life be marooned upon\nthis planet, imprisoned by the cold and incredible emptiness of space.\nIs it not plain to you all, from what man in spite of everything has\nachieved, that he is but at the beginning of achievement? That presently\nhe will take his body and his life and mould them to his will, that he\nwill take gladness and beauty for himself as a girl will pick a flower\nand twine it in her hair. You have said, Doctor Barrack, that when\nindustrial competition ends among men all change in the race will be at\nan end. But you said that unthinkingly. For when a collective will grows\nplain, there will be no blind thrusting into life and no blind battle to\nkeep in life, like the battle of a crowd crushed into a cul-de-sac, any\nmore. The qualities that serve the great ends of the race will be\ncherished and increased; the sorts of men and women that have these\nqualities least will be made to understand the necessary restraints of\ntheir limitation. You said that when men ceased to compete, they would\nstand still. Rather is it true that when men cease their internecine\nwar, then and then alone can the race sweep forward. The race will grow\nin power and beauty swiftly, in every generation it will grow, and not\nonly the human race. All this world will man make a garden for himself,\nruling not only his kind but all the lives that live, banishing the\ncruel from life, making the others merciful and tame beneath his hand.\nThe flies and mosquitoes, the thorns and poisons, the fungus in the\nblood, and the murrain upon his beasts, he will utterly end. He will rob\nthe atoms of their energy and the depths of space of their secrets. He\nwill break his prison in space. He will step from star to star as now we\nstep from stone to stone across a stream. Until he stands in the light\nof God\u2019s presence and looks his Mocker and the Adversary in the\nface....\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! _Ravins!_\u201d Mr. Dad burst out, unable to contain himself.\n\n\u201cYou may think my mind is fevered because my body is in pain; but never\nwas my mind clearer than it is now. It is as if I stood already half out\nof this little life that has held me so long. It is not a dream I tell,\nbut a reality. The world is for man, the stars in their courses are for\nman\u2014if only he will follow the God who calls to him and take the gift\nGod offers. As I sit here and talk of these things to you here, they\nbecome so plain to me that I cannot understand your silence and why you\ndo not burn\u2014as I burn\u2014with the fire of God\u2019s purpose....\u201d\n\nHe stopped short. He seemed to have come to the end of his strength. His\nchin sank, and his voice when he spoke again was the voice of a weak and\nweary man.\n\n\u201cI talk.... I talk.... And then a desolating sense of reality blows like\na destroying gust through my mind, and my little lamp of hope goes\nout....\n\n\u201cIt is as if some great adversary sat over all my world, mocking me in\nevery phrase I use and every act I do....\u201d\n\nHe sighed deeply.\n\n\u201cHave I answered your questions, doctor?\u201d he asked.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 6\n\n\u201cYou speak of God,\u201d said Dr. Barrack. \u201cBut this that you speak of as\nGod, is it really what men understand by God? It seems to me, as I said\nto begin with, it is just a personification of the good will in us all.\nWhy bring in God? God is a word that has become associated with all\nsorts of black and cruel things. It sets one thinking of priesthoods,\northodoxies, persecutions. Why do you not call this upward and onward\npower Humanity? Why do you not call it the Spirit of Men? Then it might\nbe possible for an Agnostic like myself to feel a sort of agreement....\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause I have already shown you it is not humanity, it is not the\nspirit of men. Humanity, the spirit of men, made poison gas and the\nsubmarine; the spirit of man is jealous, aggressive and partizan.\nHumanity has greed and competition in grain, and the spirit of man is\nfear and hatred, secrecy and conspiracy, quite as much as, much more\nthan, it is making or order. But this spirit in me, this fire which I\ncall God, was lit, I know not how, but as if it came from outside....\n\n\u201cI use the phrases,\u201d said Mr. Huss, \u201cthat come ready to the mind. But I\nwill meet you so far as to say that I know that I am metaphorical and\ninexact.... This spirit that comes into life\u2014it is more like a person\nthan a thing and so I call it He. And He is not a feature, not an aspect\nof things, but a selection among things.... He seizes upon and brings\nout and confirms all that is generous in the natural impulses of the\nmind. He condemns cruelty and all evil....\n\n\u201cI will not pretend to explain what I cannot explain. It may be that God\nis as yet only foreshadowed in life. You may reason, Doctor Barrack,\nthat this fire in the heart that I call God, is as much the outcome of\nyour Process as all the other things in life. I cannot argue against\nthat. What I am telling you now is not what I believe so much as what I\nfeel. To me it seems that the creative desire that burns in me is a\nthing different in its nature from the blind Process of matter, is a\nforce running contrariwise to the power of confusion.... But this I do\nknow, that once it is lit in a man it is like a consuming fire. Once it\nis lit in a man, then his mind is alight\u2014thenceforth. It rules his\nconscience with compelling power. It summons him to live the residue of\nhis days working and fighting for the unity and release and triumph of\nmankind. He may be mean still, and cowardly and vile still, but he will\nknow himself for what he is.... Some ancient phrases live marvellously.\nWithin my heart _I know that my Redeemer liveth_....\u201d\n\nHe stopped abruptly.\n\nDr. Barrack was unprepared with a reply. But he shook his head\nobstinately. These time-worn phrases were hateful to his soul. They\nsmacked to him of hypocrisy, of a bidding for favour with obsolete and\ndiscredited influences. Through such leaks it is superstition comes\nsoaking back into the laboriously bailed-out minds of men. Yet Mr. Huss\nwas a difficult controversialist to grapple. \u201cNo,\u201d said the doctor\nprovisionally. \u201c_No_....\u201d\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 7\n\nFate came to the relief of Dr. Barrack.\n\nThe little conference at Sea View was pervaded by the sense of a new\npersonality. This was a short and angry and heated little man, with\nactive dark brown eyes in a tan face, a tooth-brush moustache of\niron-grey, and a protruded lower jaw. He was dressed in a bright\nbluish-grey suit and bright brown boots, and he carried a bright brown\nleather bag.\n\nHe appeared mouthing outside the window, beyond the range of distinct\nhearing. His expression was blasphemous. He made threatening movements\nwith his bag.\n\n\u201cGood God!\u201d cried Dr. Barrack. \u201cSir Alpheus!... I had no idea of the\ntime!\u201d\n\nHe rushed out of the room and there was a scuffle in the passage.\n\n\u201cI ought to have been met,\u201d said Sir Alpheus, entering, \u201cI ought to have\nbeen met. It\u2019s ridiculous to pretend you didn\u2019t know the time. A general\npractitioner _always_ knows the time. It is his first duty. I cannot\nunderstand the incivility of this reception. I have had to make my way\nto your surgery, Dr. Barrack, without assistance; not a cab free at the\nstation; I have had to come down this road in the heat, carrying\neverything myself, reading all the names on the gates\u2014the most\nridiculous and banal names. The Taj, Thyme Bank, The Cedars, and\nCapernaum, cheek by jowl! It\u2019s worse than Freud.\u201d\n\nDr. Barrack expressed further regrets confusedly and indistinctly.\n\n\u201cWe have been talking, Sir Alpheus,\u201d said Sir Eliphaz, advancing as if\nto protect the doctor from his specialist, \u201cupon some very absorbing\ntopics. That must be our excuse for this neglect. We have been\ndiscussing education\u2014and the universe. Fate, free-will, predestination\nabsolute.\u201d It is not every building contractor can quote Milton.\n\nThe great surgeon regarded the patentee of Temanite.\n\n\u201cFate\u2014fiddlesticks!\u201d said Sir Alpheus suddenly and rudely. \u201cThat\u2019s no\nexcuse for not meeting me.\u201d His bright little eyes darted round the\ncompany and recognized Mr. Huss. \u201cWhat! my patient not in bed! Not even\nin bed! Go to _bed_, sir! Go to _bed_!\u201d\n\nHe became extremely abusive to Dr. Barrack. \u201cYou treat an operation,\nSir, with a levity\u2014!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                           CHAPTER THE SIXTH\n                             THE OPERATION\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 1\n\nWhile Sir Alpheus grumbled loudly at the unpreparedness of everything,\nMr. Huss, with the assistance of Dr. Barrack, walked upstairs and\ndisrobed himself.\n\nThis long discussion had taken a very powerful grip upon his mind. Much\nremained uncertain in his thoughts. He had still a number of things he\nwanted to say, and these proceedings preliminary to his vivisection,\nseemed to him to be irrelevant and tiresome rites interrupting something\nfar more important.\n\nThe bed, the instruments, the preparation for an\u00e6sthesia, were to him no\nmore than new contributions to the argument. While he lay on the bed\nwith Dr. Barrack handling the funnel hood that was to go over nose and\nmouth for the administration of the chloroform, he tried to point out\nthat the very idea of operative surgery was opposed to the scientific\nfatalism of that gentleman. But Sir Alpheus interrupted him....\n\n\u201cBreathe deeply,\u201d said Dr. Barrack....\n\n\u201c_Breathe deeply._\u201d...\n\nThe whole vast argumentative fabric that had arisen in his mind swung\nwith him across an abyss of dread and mental inanity. Whether he thought\nor dreamt what follows it is impossible to say; we can but record the\nideas that, like a crystalline bubble as great as all things, filled his\nconsciousness. He felt a characteristic doubt whether the chloroform\nwould do its duty, and then came that twang like the breaking of a\nviolin string:\u2014_Ploot_....\n\nAnd still he did not seem to be insensible! He was not insensible, and\nyet things had changed. Dr. Elihu was still present, but somehow Sir\nEliphaz and Mr. Dad and Mr. Farr, whom he had left downstairs, had come\nback and were sitting on the ground\u2014on the ashes; they were all seated\ngravely on a mound of ashes and beneath a sky that blazed with light.\nSir Alpheus, the nurse, the bedroom, had vanished. It seemed that they\nhad been the dream.\n\nBut this was the reality, an enduring reality, this sackcloth and these\nreeking ash-heaps outside the city gates. This was the scene of an\nunending experiment and an immortal argument. He was Job; the same Job\nwho had sat here for thousands of years, and this lean vulturous old man\nin the vast green turban was Eliphaz the Temanite, the smaller man who\npeered out of the cowl of a kind of hooded shawl, was his friend Bildad\nthe Shuhite; the eager, coarse face of the man in unclean linen was\nZophar the Naamathite; and this fist-faced younger man who sat with an\nair of false humility insolently judging them all, was Elihu the son of\nBarachel the Buzite of the kindred of Ram....\n\nIt was queer that there should have ever been the fancy that these men\nwere doctors or schoolmasters or munition makers, a queer veiling of\ntheir immortal quality in the transitory garments of a period. For ages\nthey had sat here and disputed, and for ages they had still to sit. A\nlittle way off waited the asses and camels and slaves of the three\nemirs, and the two Ethiopian slaves of Eliphaz had been coming towards\nthem bearing bowls of fine grey ashes. (For Eliphaz for sanitary reasons\ndid not use the common ashes of the midden upon his head.) There, far\naway, splashed green with palms and pierced between pylons by a\nglittering arm of the river, were the low brown walls of sun-dried\nbrick, the flat-roofed houses, and the twisted temple towers of the\nancient city of Uz, where first this great argument had begun. East and\nwest and north and south stretched the wide levels of the world, dotted\nwith small date trees, and above them was the measureless dome of\nheaven, set with suns and stars and flooded with a light.\n\nThis light had shone out since Elihu had spoken, and it was not only a\nlight but a voice clear and luminous, before which Job\u2019s very soul bowed\nand was still....\n\n\u201c_Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?_\u201d\n\nBy a great effort Job lifted up his eyes to the zenith.\n\nIt was as if one shone there who was all, and yet who comprehended\npowers and kingdoms, and it was as if a screen or shadow was before his\nface. It was as if a dark figure enhaloed in shapes and colours bent\ndown over the whole world and regarded it curiously and malevolently,\nand it was as if this dark figure was no more than a translucent veil\nbefore an infinite and lasting radiance. Was it a veil before the light,\nor did it not rather nest in the very heart of the light and spread\nitself out before the face of the light and spread itself and recede and\nagain expand in a perpetual diastole and systole? It was as if the voice\nthat spoke was the voice of God, and yet ever and again it was as if the\ntimbre of the voice was Satan. As the voice spoke to Job, his friends\nlistened and watched him, and the eyes of Elihu shone like garnets and\nthe eyes of Eliphaz like emeralds, but the eyes of Bildad were black\nlike the eyes of a lizard upon a wall, and Zophar had no eyes but looked\nat him only with the dark shadows beneath his knitted brows. As God\nspake they all, and Job with them, became smaller and smaller and shrank\nuntil they were the minutest of conceivable things, until the whole\nscene was a little toy; they became unreal like discolourations upon a\nfloating falling disc of paper confetti, amidst greatnesses\nunfathomable.\n\n\u201c_Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?_\u201d\n\nBut in this dream that was dreamt by Mr. Huss while he was under the\nan\u00e6sthetic, God did not speak by words but by light; there were no\nsounds in his ears, but thoughts ran like swift rivulets of fire through\nhis brain and gathered into pools and made a throbbing pattern of\nwavelets, curve within curve, that interlaced....\n\nThe thoughts that it seemed to him that God was speaking through his\nmind, can be put into words only after a certain fashion and with great\nloss, for they were thoughts about things beyond and above this world,\nand our words are all made out of the names of things and feelings in\nthis world. Things that were contradictory had become compatible, and\nthings incomprehensible seemed straightforward, because he was in a\ndream. It was as if the an\u00e6sthetic had released his ideas from their\nanchorage to words and phrases and their gravitation towards sensible\nrealities. But it was still the same line of thought he pursued through\nthe stars and spaces, that he had pursued in the stuffy little room at\nSundering-on-Sea.\n\nIt was somewhat after this fashion that things ran through the mind of\nMr. Huss. It seemed to him at first that he was answering the challenge\nof the voice that filled the world, not of his own will but\nmechanically. He was saying: \u201cThey _give_ me knowledge.\u201d\n\nTo which the answer was in the voice of Satan and in tones of mockery.\nFor Satan had become very close and definite to Job, as a dark face,\ntime-worn and yet animated, that sent out circle after circle of glowing\ncolour towards the bounds of space as a swimmer sends waves towards the\nbank. \u201cBut what have you got in the way of a vessel to hold your\nknowledge if we gave it you?\u201d\n\n\u201cIn the name of the God in my heart,\u201d said Job, \u201cI demand knowledge and\npower.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho are you? A pedagogue who gives ill-prepared lessons about history\nin frowsty rooms, and dreams that he has been training his young\ngentlemen to play leap-frog amidst the stars.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am Man,\u201d said Job.\n\n\u201c_Huss._\u201d\n\nBut that queer power of slipping one\u2019s identity and losing oneself\naltogether which dreams will give, had come upon Mr. Huss. He answered\nwith absolute conviction: \u201cI am Man. Down there I was Huss, but here I\nam Man. I am every man who has ever looked up towards this light of God.\nI am every one who has thought or worked or willed for the race. I am\nall the explorers and leaders and teachers that man has ever had.\u201d\n\nThe argument evaporated. He carried his point as such points are carried\nin dreams. The discussion slipped to another of the issues that had been\ntroubling him.\n\n\u201cYou would plumb the deep of knowledge; you would scale the heights of\nspace.... There is no limit to either.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen I will plumb and scale for ever. I will defeat you.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you will never destroy me.\u201d\n\n\u201cI will fight my way through you to God.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd never attain him.\u201d...\n\nIt seemed as though yet another voice was speaking. For a while the veil\nof Satan was drawn aside. The thoughts it uttered ran like incandescent\nmolten metal through the mind of Job, but whether he was saying these\nthings to God or whether God was saying these things to him, did not in\nany way appear.\n\n\u201cSo life goes on for ever. And in no other way could it go on. In no\nother way could there be such a being as life. For how can you struggle\nif there is a certainty of victory? Why should you struggle if the end\nis assured? How can you rise if there is no depths into which you can\nfall? The blacknesses and the evils about you are the warrants of\nreality....\n\n\u201cThrough the centuries the voice of Job had complained and will\ncomplain. Through the centuries the fire of his faith flares and\nflickers and threatens to go out. But is Job justified in his\ncomplaints?\n\n\u201cIs Job indeed justified in his complaints? His mind has been coloured\nby the colour of misfortune. He has seen all the world reflecting the\nsufferings of his body. He has dwelt upon illness and cruelty and death.\nBut is there any evil or cruelty or suffering that is beyond the\npossibility of human control? Were that so then indeed he might complain\nthat God has mocked him.... Are sunsets ugly and oppressive? Do\nmountains disgust, do distant hills repel? Is there any flaw in the\nstarry sky? If the lives of beasts and men are dark and ungracious, yet\nis not the texture of their bodies lovely beyond comparison? You have\nsneered because the beauty of cell and tissue may build up an idiot.\nWhy, oh Man, do they build up an idiot? Have you no will, have you no\nunderstanding, that you suffer such things to be? The darkness and\nungraciousness, the evil and the cruelty, are no more than a challenge\nto you. In you lies the power to rule all these things....\u201d\n\nThrough the tumbled clouds of his mind broke the sunlight of this\nphrase: \u201cThe power to rule all these things. The power to rule\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have dwelt overmuch upon pain. Pain is a swift distress; it ends\nand is forgotten. Without memory and fear pain is nothing, a\ncontradiction to be heeded, a warning to be taken. Without pain what\nwould life become? Pain is the master only of craven men. It is in man\u2019s\npower to rule it. It is in man\u2019s power to rule all things....\u201d\n\nIt was as if the dreaming patient debated these ideas with himself; and\nagain it was as if he were the universal all and Job and Satan and God\ndisputed together within him. The thoughts in his mind raced faster and\nsuddenly grew bright and glittering, as the waters grow bright when they\ncome racing out of the caves at Han into the light of day. Green-faced,\nhe murmured and stirred in his great debate while the busy specialist\nplied his scalpels, and Dr. Barrack whispered directions to the intent\nnurse.\n\n\u201cAnother whiff,\u201d said Doctor Barrack.\n\n\u201cA cloud rolls back from my soul....\u201d\n\n\u201cI have been through great darkness. I have been through deep\nwaters....\u201d\n\n\u201cHas not your life had laughter in it? Has the freshness of the summer\nmorning never poured joy through your being? Do you know nothing of the\nembrace of the lover, cheek to cheek or lip to lip? Have you never swum\nout into the sunlit sea or shouted on a mountain slope? Is there no joy\nin a handclasp? Your son, your son, you say, is dead with honour. Is\nthere no joy in that honour? Clean and straight was your son, and\nbeautiful in his life. Is that nothing to thank God for? Have you never\nplayed with happy children? Has no boy ever answered to your\nteaching\u2014giving back more than you gave him? Dare you deny the joy of\nyour appetites: the first mouthful of roast red beef on the frosty day\nand the deep draught of good ale? Do you know nothing of the task well\ndone, nor of sleep after a day of toil? Is there no joy for the farmer\nin the red ploughed fields, and the fields shooting with green blades?\nWhen the great prows smite the waves and the aeroplane hums in the sky,\nis man still a hopeless creature? Can you watch the beat and swing of\nmachinery and still despair? Your illness has coloured the world; a\nlittle season of misfortune has hidden the light from your eyes.\u201d\n\nIt was as if the dreamer pushed his way through the outskirts of a great\nforest and approached the open, but it was not through trees that he\nthrust his way but through bars and nets and interlacing curves of\nblinding, many-coloured light towards the clear promise beyond. He had\ngrown now to an incredible vastness so that it was no longer earth upon\nwhich he set his feet but that crystalline pavement whose translucent\ndepths contain the stars. Yet though he approached the open he never\nreached the open; the iridescent net that had seemed to grow thin, grew\ndense again; he was still struggling, and the black doubts that had\nlifted for a moment swept down upon his soul again. And he realized he\nwas in a dream, a dream that was drawing swiftly now to its close.\n\n\u201cOh God!\u201d he cried, \u201canswer me! For Satan has mocked me sorely. Answer\nme before I lose sight of you again. Am I right to fight? Am I right to\ncome out of my little earth, here above the stars?\u201d\n\n\u201cRight if you dare.\u201d\n\n\u201cShall I conquer and prevail? Give me your promise!\u201d\n\n\u201cEverlastingly you may conquer and find fresh worlds to conquer.\u201d\n\n\u201c_May_\u2014but _shall_ I?\u201d\n\nIt was as if the torrent of molten thoughts stopped suddenly. It was as\nif everything stopped.\n\n\u201cAnswer me,\u201d he cried.\n\nSlowly the shining thoughts moved on again.\n\n\u201cSo long as your courage endures you will conquer....\n\n\u201cIf you have courage, although the night be dark, although the present\nbattle be bloody and cruel and end in a strange and evil fashion,\nnevertheless victory shall be yours\u2014in a way you will understand\u2014when\nvictory comes. Only have courage. On the courage in your heart all\nthings depend. By courage it is that the stars continue in their\ncourses, day by day. It is the courage of life alone that keeps sky and\nearth apart.... If that courage fail, if that sacred fire go out, then\nall things fail and all things go out, all things\u2014good and evil, space\nand time.\u201d\n\n\u201cLeaving nothing?\u201d\n\n\u201c_Nothing._\u201d\n\n\u201cNothing,\u201d he echoed, and the word spread like a dark and darkening mask\nacross the face of all things.\n\nAnd then as if to mark the meaning of the word, it seemed to him that\nthe whole universe began to move inward upon itself, faster and faster,\nuntil at last with an incredible haste it rushed together. He resisted\nthis collapse in vain, and with a sense of overwhelmed effort. The white\nlight of God and the whirling colours of the universe, the spaces\nbetween the stars\u2014it was as if an unseen fist gripped them together.\nThey rushed to one point as water in a clepsydra rushes to its hole. The\nwhole universe became small, became a little thing, diminished to the\nsize of a coin, of a spot, of a pinpoint, of one intense black\nmathematical point, and\u2014vanished. He heard his own voice crying in the\nvoid like a little thing blown before the wind: \u201cBut will my courage\nendure?\u201d The question went unanswered. Not only the things of space but\nthe things of time swept together into nothingness. The last moment of\nhis dream rushed towards the first, crumpled all the intervening moments\ntogether and made them one. It seemed to Mr. Huss that he was still in\nthe instant of insensibility. That sound of the breaking string was\nstill in his ears:\u2014_Ploot_....\n\nIt became part of that same sound which came before the vision....\n\nHe was aware of a new pain within him; not that dull aching now, but a\npain keen and sore. He gave a fluttering gasp.\n\n\u201cQuick,\u201d said a voice. \u201cHe is coming to!\u201d\n\n\u201cHe\u2019ll not wake for hours,\u201d said a second voice.\n\n\u201cHis mouth and eyes!\u201d\n\nHe lifted his eyelids as one lifts lead. He found himself looking into\nthe intelligent but unsympathetic face of Sir Alpheus Mengo, he tried to\ncomprehend his situation but he had forgotten how he got to it, he\nclosed his eyes and sank back consciously and wilfully towards\ninsensibility....\n\n\n\n\n                          CHAPTER THE SEVENTH\n                         LETTERS AND A TELEGRAM\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 1\n\nIt was three weeks later.\n\nNever had there been so successful an operation as an operation in the\nexperience of either Sir Alpheus Mengo or Dr. Barrack. The growth that\nhad been removed was a non-malignant growth; the diagnosis of cancer had\nbeen unsound. Mr. Huss was still lying flat in his bed in Mrs. Croome\u2019s\nhouse, but he was already able to read books, letters and newspapers,\nand take an interest in affairs.\n\nThe removal of his morbid growth had made a very great change in his\nmental atmosphere. He no longer had the same sense of an invisible\nhostile power brooding over all his life; his natural courage had\nreturned. And the world which had seemed a conspiracy of misfortunes was\nnow a hopeful world again. The last great offensive of the Germans\ntowards Paris had collapsed disastrously under the counter attacks of\nMarshal Foch; each morning\u2019s paper told of fresh victories for the\nAllies, and the dark shadow of a German C\u00e6sarism fell no longer across\nthe future. The imaginations of men were passing through a phase of\nreasonableness and generosity; the idea of an organized world peace had\nseized upon a multitude of minds; there was now a prospect of a new and\nbetter age such as would have seemed incredible in the weeks when the\nillness of Mr. Huss began to bear him down. And it was not simply a\ngeneral relief that had come to his forebodings. His financial position,\nfor example, which had been wrecked by one accident, had been restored\nby another. A distant cousin of Mr. Huss, to whom however Mr. Huss was\nthe nearest relative, had died of softening of the brain, after a career\nof almost imbecile speculation. He had left his property partly to Mr.\nHuss and partly to Woldingstanton School. For some years before the war\nhe had indulged in the wildest buying of depreciated copper shares, and\nhad accumulated piles of what had seemed at the time valueless paper.\nThe war had changed all that. Instead of being almost insolvent, the\ndeceased in spite of heavy losses on Canadian land deals was found by\nhis executors to be worth nearly thirty thousand pounds. It is easy to\nunderrate the good in money. The windfall meant a hundred needed\ncomforts and freedoms, and a release for the mind of Mrs. Huss that\nnothing else could have given her. And the mind of Mr. Huss reflected\nthe moods of his wife much more than he suspected.\n\nBut still better things seemed to be afoot in the world of Mr. Huss. The\nrest of the governors of Woldingstanton, it became apparent, were not in\nagreement with Sir Eliphaz and Mr. Dad upon the project of replacing Mr.\nHuss by Mr. Farr; and a number of the old boys of the school at the\nfront, getting wind of what was going on, had formed a small committee\nfor the express purpose of defending their old master. At the head of\nthis committee, by a happy chance, was young Kenneth Burrows, the nephew\nand heir of Sir Eliphaz. At the school he had never been in the front\nrank; he had been one of those good-all-round boys who end as a school\nprefect, a sound man in the first eleven, and second or third in most of\nthe subjects he took. Never had he played a star part or enjoyed very\nmuch of the head\u2019s confidences. It was all the more delightful therefore\nto find him the most passionate and indefatigable champion of the order\nof things that Mr. Huss had set up. He had heard of the proposed changes\nat his uncle\u2019s dinner-table when on leave, and he had done something\nforthwith to shake that gentleman\u2019s resolves. Lady Burrows, who adored\nhim, became at once pro-Huss. She was all the readier to do this because\nshe did not like Mr. Dad\u2019s rather emphatic table manners, nor Mr. Farr\u2019s\nclothes.\n\n\u201cYou don\u2019t know what Mr. Huss was to us, Sir,\u201d the young man repeated\nseveral times, and returned to France with that sentence growing and\nflowering in his mind. He was one of those good types for whom the war\nwas a powerful developer. Death, hardship, and responsibility\u2014he was\nstill not two-and-twenty, and a major in the artillery\u2014had already made\nan understanding man out of the schoolboy; he could imagine what\ndispossession meant; his new maturity made it seem a natural thing to\nwrite to comfort his old head as one man writes to another. His\npencilled sheets, when first they came, made the enfeebled recipient\ncry, not with misery but happiness. They were reread like a love-letter;\nthey were now on the coverlet, and Mr. Huss was staring at the ceiling\nand already planning a new Woldingstanton rising from its ashes, greater\nthan the old.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 2\n\n_It is only in the last few weeks_, the young man wrote, _that we have\nheard of all these schemes to break up the tradition of Woldingstanton,\nand now there is a talk of your resigning the headmastership in favour\nof Mr. Farr. Personally, Sir, I can\u2019t imagine how you can possibly dream\nof giving up your work\u2014and to him of all people;\u2014I still have a sort of\ndoubt about it; but my uncle was very positive that you were disposed to\nresign (personally, he said, he had implored you to stay), and it is on\nthe off-chance of his being right that I am bothering you with this\nletter. Briefly it is to implore you to stand by the school, which is as\nmuch as to say to stand by yourself and us. You\u2019ve taught hundreds of us\nto stick it, and now you owe it to us to stick it yourself. I know\nyou\u2019re ill, dreadfully ill; I\u2019ve heard about Gilbert, and I know, Sir,\nwe all know, although he wasn\u2019t in the school and you never betrayed a\npreference or were led into an unfair thing through it, how much you\nloved him; you\u2019ve been put through it, Sir, to the last degree. But,\nSir, there are some of us here who feel almost as though they were your\nsons; if you don\u2019t and can\u2019t give us that sort of love, it doesn\u2019t alter\nthe fact that there are men out here who think of you as they\u2019d like to\nthink of their fathers. Men like myself particularly, who were left as\nboys without a father._\n\n_I\u2019m no great hand at expressing myself; I\u2019m no credit to Mr. Cross and\nhis English class; generally I don\u2019t believe in saying too much; but I\nwould like to tell you something of what you have been to a lot of us,\nand why Woldingstanton going on will seem to us like a flag still flying\nand Woldingstanton breaking its tradition like a sort of surrender. And\nI don\u2019t want a bit to flatter you, Sir, if you\u2019ll forgive me, and set\nyou up in what I am writing to you. One of the loveable things about you\nto us is that you have always been so jolly human to us. You\u2019ve always\nbeen unequal. I\u2019ve seen you give lessons that were among the best\nlessons in the world, and I\u2019ve seen you give some jolly bad lessons. And\nthere were some affairs\u2014that business of the November fireworks for\nexample\u2014when we thought you were harsh and wrong\u2014_\n\n\u201cI _was_ wrong,\u201d said Mr. Huss.\n\n_That almost led to a mutiny. But that is just where you score, and why\nWoldingstanton can\u2019t do without you. When that firework row was on we\ncalled a meeting of the school and house prefects and had up some of the\nlouts to it\u2014you never heard of that meeting\u2014and we said, we all agreed\nyou were wrong and we all agreed that right or wrong we stood by you,\nand wouldn\u2019t let the row go further. Perhaps you remember how that\naffair shut up all at once. But that is where you\u2019ve got us. You do\nwrong, you let us see through you; there never was a schoolmaster or a\nfather gave himself away so freely as you do, you never put up a sham\nfront on us and consequently every one of us knows that what he knows\nabout you is the real thing in you; the very kids in the lower fifth can\nget a glimpse of it and grasp that you are driving at something with all\nyour heart and soul, and that the school goes somewhere and has life in\nit. We Woldingstanton boys have that in common when we meet; we\nunderstand one another; we have something that a lot of the other chaps\none meets out here, even from the crack schools, don\u2019t seem to have. It\nisn\u2019t a flourish with us, Sir, it is a simple statement of fact that the\nlife we joined up to at Woldingstanton is more important to us than the\nlife in our bodies. Just as it is more important to you. It isn\u2019t only\nthe way you taught it, though you taught it splendidly, it is the way\nyou felt it that got hold of us. You made us think and feel that the\npast of the world was our own history; you made us feel that we were in\none living story with the reindeer men and the Egyptian priests, with\nthe soldiers of C\u00e6sar and the alchemists of Spain; nothing was dead and\nnothing alien; you made discovery and civilization our adventure and the\nwhole future our inheritance. Most of the men I meet here feel lost in\nthis war; they are like rabbits washed out of their burrows by a flood,\nbut we of Woldingstanton have taken it in the day\u2019s work, and when the\npeace comes and the new world begins, it will still be in the story for\nus, the day\u2019s work will still join on. That\u2019s the essence of\nWoldingstanton, that it puts you on the high road that goes on. The\nother chaps I talk to here from other schools seem to be on no road at\nall. They are tough and plucky by nature and association; they are\nfighters and sturdy men; but what holds them in it is either just habit\nand the example of people about them or something unsound that can\u2019t\nhold out to the end; a vague loyalty to the Empire or a desire to punish\nthe Hun or restore the peace of Europe, some short range view of that\nsort, motives that will leave them stranded at the end of the war,\nanyhow, with nothing to go on to. To talk of after the war to them is to\nrealize what blind alleys their teachers have led them into. They can\nunderstand fighting against things but not for things. Beyond an\nimpossible ambition to go back somewhere and settle down as they used to\nbe, there\u2019s not the ghost of an idea to them at all. The whole value of\nWoldingstanton is that it steers a man through and among the blind\nalleys and sets him on a way out that he can follow for all the rest of\nhis days; it makes him a player in a limitless team and one with the\nCreator. We are all coming back to take up our jobs in that spirit, jobs\nthat will all join up at last in making a real world state, a world\ncivilization and a new order of things, and unless we can think of you,\nsir, away at Woldingstanton, working away to make more of us, ready to\npick up the sons we shall send you presently\u2014_\n\nMr. Huss stopped reading.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 3\n\nHe lay thinking idly.\n\n\u201cI was talking about blind alleys the other day. Queer that he should\nhave hit on the same phrase....\n\n\u201cSome old sermon of mine perhaps.... No doubt I\u2019ve had the thought\nbefore....\n\n\u201cI suppose that one could define education as the lifting of minds out\nof blind alleys....\n\n\u201cA permissible definition anyhow....\n\n\u201cI wish I could remember that talk better. I said a lot of things about\nsubmarines. I said something about the whole world really being like the\ncrew of a submarine....\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s true\u2014universally. Everyone is in a blind alley until we pierce a\nroad....\n\n\u201cThat was a queer talk we had.... I remember I wouldn\u2019t go to bed\u2014a kind\nof fever in the mind....\n\n\u201cThen there was a dream.\n\n\u201cI wish I could remember more of that dream. It was as if I could see\nround some metaphysical corner.... I seemed to be in a great\nplace\u2014talking to God....\n\n\u201cBut how could one have talked to God?...\n\n\u201cNo. It is gone....\u201d\n\nHis thought reverted to the letter of young Burrows.\n\nHe began to scheme out the reinstatement of Woldingstanton. He had an\nidea of rebuilding School House with a map corridor to join it to the\npicture gallery and the concert hall, which were both happily still\nstanding. He wanted the maps on one side to show the growth and\nsuccession of empires in the western world, and on the other to present\nthe range of geographical knowledge and thought at different periods in\nman\u2019s history.\n\nAs with many great headmasters, his idle daydreams were often\narchitectural. He took out another of his dream toys now and played with\nit. This dream was that he could organize a series of ethnological\nexhibits showing various groups of primitive peoples in a triple order;\nfirst little models of them in their savage state, then displays of\ntheir arts and manufactures to show their distinctive gifts and\naptitudes, and then suggestions of the part such a people might play as\nartists or guides, or beast tamers or the like, in a wholly civilized\nworld. Such a collection would be far beyond the vastest possibilities\nto which Woldingstanton would ever attain\u2014but he loved the dream.\n\nThe groups would stand in well-lit bays, side chapels, so to speak, in\nhis museum building. There would be a group of seats and a blackboard,\nfor it was one of his fantasies to have a school so great that the\nclasses would move about it, like little groups of pilgrims in a\ncathedral....\n\nFrom that he drifted to a scheme for grouping great schools for such\ncommon purposes as the educational development of the cinematograph, a\ncentral reference library, and the like....\n\nFor one great school leads to another. Schools are living things, and\nlike all living things they must grow and reproduce their kind and go on\nfrom conquest to conquest\u2014or fall under the sway of the Farrs and Dads\nand stagnate, become diseased and malignant, and perish. But\nWoldingstanton was not to perish. It was to spread. It was to call to\nits kind across the Atlantic and throughout the world.... It was to give\nand receive ideas, interbreed, and develop....\n\nAcross the blue October sky the white clouds drifted, and the air was\nfull of the hum of a passing aeroplane. The chained dog that had once\ntortured the sick nerves of Mr. Huss now barked unheeded.\n\n\u201cI would like to give one of the chapels of the races to the memory of\nGilbert,\u201d whispered Mr. Huss....\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 4\n\nThe door at the foot of his bed opened, and Mrs. Huss appeared.\n\nShe had an effect of appearing suddenly, and yet she moved slowly into\nthe room, clutching a crumpled bit of paper in her hand. Her face had\nundergone some extraordinary change; it was dead white, and her eyes\nwere wide open and very bright. She stood stiffly. She might have been\nabout to fall. She did not attempt to close the door behind her.\n\nMrs. Croome became audible rattling her pans downstairs.\n\nWhen Mrs. Huss spoke, it was in an almost noiseless whisper. \u201c_Job!_\u201d\n\nHe had a strange idea that Mrs. Croome must have given them notice to\nquit instantly or perpetrated some such brutality, a suspicion which his\nwife\u2019s gesture seemed to confirm. She was shaking the crumpled scrap of\npaper in an absurd manner. He frowned in a gust of impatience.\n\n\u201cI didn\u2019t open it,\u201d she said at last, \u201cnot till I had eaten some\nbreakfast. I didn\u2019t dare. I saw it was from the bank and I thought it\nmight be about the overdraft.... All the while....\u201d\n\nShe was weeping. \u201cAll the while I was eating my egg....\u201d\n\n\u201cOh _what_ is it?\u201d\n\nShe grimaced.\n\n\u201cFrom _him_.\u201d\n\nHe stared.\n\n\u201cA cheque, Job\u2014come through\u2014from _him_. From our boy.\u201d\n\nHis mouth fell open, he drew a deep breath. His tears came. He raised\nhimself, and was reminded of his bandaged state and dropped back again.\nHe held out his lean hand to her.\n\n\u201cHe\u2019s a prisoner?\u201d he gasped. \u201c_Alive?_\u201d\n\nShe nodded. She seemed about to fling herself violently upon his poor\ncrumpled body. Her arms waved about seeking for something to embrace.\n\nThen she flopped down in the narrow space between bed and paper-adorned\nfireplace, and gathered the counterpane together into a lump with her\nclutching hands. \u201cOh my baby boy!\u201d she wept. \u201cMy _baby_ boy....\n\n\u201cAnd I was so wicked about the mourning.... I was so _wicked_....\u201d\n\nMr. Huss lay stiff, as the doctor had ordered him to do; but the hand he\nstretched down could just touch and caress her hair.\n\n\n                Printed in the United States of America.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\nThe following pages contain advertisements of Macmillan books by the\nsame author.\n\n\n\n\n                          _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_\n\n\n\n\nJoan and Peter\n\n                                                    _Cloth, 12mo, $1.75_\n\n\u201cJoan and Peter. The Story of an Education,\u201d is an important\nachievement, from many points of view. Mr. Wells\u2019 craftsmanship is at\nits height in his skillful arrangement of the plot which carries these\ntwo interesting young people through school and college. The sturdy\nJoan, at the period when she \u201ccheeks\u201d Peter\u2019s week-end guests, the\ndelightful Joan at the time when life seems to hold little for her but\ndancing, is an entrancing character. Not less so Peter, eager and\nsensitive, thrilling over Hamlet at Moscow, rebellious at the Irish\ncomplications. The revealing and brilliant writing that traces their\ngrowth makes every crisis in their lives, sport-ethics, love affairs, or\npolitics, a vivid dramatic climax. \u201cUncle Nobby\u201d is a fine drawing of\nthe liberal-minded optimistic Briton. His braveness and humor in\ninterviewing Dons and Deans make good reading. His travels with Peter\nare recorded with illuminating comments on the conditions of pre-war\nEurope; the comradeship of the two, so far apart in age, is cleverly\nanalyzed. Undoubtedly these characters will appeal even more than the\nheroes and heroines in Mr. Wells\u2019 widely discussed novels of other\nyears, for they step from his most mature and fertile imagination.\n\n\u201cA triumphant achievement. Never has Mr. Wells spread for such a\ngorgeous panorama ... a living story ... a vivacious narrative\nimperturbable in interest on every page, always fresh and personal and\nassured.... This is not a novel\u2014it is a library. It is everything that\none needs to know about the public life of the significant classes in\nEngland for last twenty-five years.\u201d\u2014_The Dial._\n\n\u201cMr. Wells, at his highest point of attainment.... An absorbingly\ninteresting book ... consummate artistry ... here is Wells, the story\nteller, the master of narrative.\u201d\u2014_N. Y. Evening Sun._\n\n\nIn the Fourth Year\n\n                                                    _Cloth, 12mo, $1.25_\n\nMr. Wells in this revealing study of the future politics of Europe takes\nup the subject of a League of Free Nations. He deals with every aspect\nof the plan in a strongly practical light, and makes a striking analysis\nof the world that will grow out of this war, bringing clearly into view\nevery vital element contributing to its growth.\n\n\nItaly, France, and Britain at War\n\n                                                    _Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_\n\nHere Mr. Wells discusses conditions as he has seen them in three of the\ngreat countries engaged in the European War. The book is divided into\nfour main sections: I. The Passing of the Effigy; II. The War in Italy;\nIII. The Western War; and IV. How People Think about the War.\n\n\nNew Worlds for Old\n\n                                                    _Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_\n\n\u201c... is a readable, straightaway account of Socialism; it is singularly\ninforming and all in an undidactic way.\u201d\u2014_Chicago Evening Post._\n\n\u201cThe book impresses us less as a defence of Socialism than as a work of\nart. In a literary sense, Mr. Wells has never done anything\nbetter.\u201d\u2014_Argonaut._\n\n\nWhat is Coming\n\n                                                    _Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_\n\nThis book is a forecast of the consequences of the war. Out of the\nmaterials of the past and the history-making present, he constructs a\nbrilliant and persuasive picture of the future, as sure of touch as his\ndaring, imaginative essays, as full of interest as his novels.\n\n\nMr. Britling Sees It Through\n\n                                                    _Cloth, 12mo, $1.60_\n\n\u201cThe most thoughtfully and carefully worked out book Mr. Wells has given\nus for many a year. A veritable cross-section of contemporary English\nlife, admirable, full of color, and utterly convincing.\u201d\u2014_New York\nTimes._\n\n\nThe Research Magnificent\n\n                                                    _Cloth, 12mo, $1.60_\n\n\u201cA notable novel, perhaps its author\u2019s greatest; might almost be called\nan epitome of human existence.\u201d\u2014_Chicago Herald._\n\n\u201cAbounds in stimulating ideas.\u201d\u2014_New York Times._\n\n\nBealby\n\n                                 _With frontispiece. Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_\n\n\u201c\u2018Bealby\u2019 because of its sprightly style and multitude of incidents is\nnever wearisome.\u201d\u2014_Boston Transcript._\n\n\u201cMr. Wells has written a book as unpolitical as \u2018Alice in Wonderland\u2019\nand as innocent of economics as of astrology. A deliciously amusing\ncomedy of action swift, violent, and fantastic.\u201d\u2014_New York Times._\n\n\nThe Wife of Sir Isaac Harman\n\n                                                    _Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_\n\n\u201cA novel of unusual excellence told with fine literary skill. Mr. Wells\nhas a way of going under the surface of things while presenting his\nincidents and characters.\u201d\u2014_Boston Globe._\n\n\u201cThe book has all the attractive Wells whimsies, piquancies, and\nfertilities of thought, and the story is absolutely good to read.\u201d\u2014_New\nYork World._\n\n\nThe Soul of a Bishop\n\n                                                    _Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_\n\n\u201cAs brilliant a piece of writing as Mr. Wells has ever offered the\npublic; it is entertaining from beginning to end.\u201d\u2014_N. Y. Sun._\n\n\u201cIts portrait of the Bishop is masterly. It has power and\ninterest.\u201d\u2014_N. Y. Times._\n\n\u201cEnormously suggestive.\u201d\u2014_Philadelphia Public Ledger._\n\n\u201cA tour de force, a power, that will make people think, that will,\nperhaps, start a vast movement. In any event, it is a vital, compelling\ncontribution to the life of these times. It is the \u2018Robert Elsmere\u2019 of\nits day.\u201d\u2014_Brooklyn Daily Eagle._\n\n\nGod the Invisible King\n\n                                                    _Cloth, 12mo, $1.25_\n\n\u201cEloquent, acute and honest.\u201d\u2014_Chicago Evening Post._\n\n\u201cOne knows Mr. Wells better through \u2018God the Invisible King\u2019 than one\ncould hope to know him through all his other work. He has accomplished\nhis task with singular frankness and lack of self-consciousness. He\nreveals a courageous faith, an upstanding faith, to which a courageous,\nupstanding man can subscribe as he goes about his work.\u201d\u2014_Springfield\nUnion._\n\n\u201cSerious and earnest. The force with which he urges the possibility of a\npersonal and vivifying consciousness of God must be admitted even by\nthose who would dispute his ecclesiastical history.\u201d\u2014_The Living Age._\n\n\n                         THE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n           Publishers       64\u201366 Fifth Avenue       New York\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.\n 2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.\n 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.","title":"The Undying Fire: A contemporary novel","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":46501}