Ardath by Marie Corelli (best books to read in life .TXT) 📕

kingdom of Hypharus, whose borders touch ours, the inhabitants, also highly civilized, do count their quantities by a totally different method; and to them two and two are NOT

four, the numbers two and four not being included in their system of figures. Thus,—a Professor from the Colleges of Hypharus could obstinately deny what to us seems the plainest fact known to common-sense,—yet, were I to argue against him I should never persuade him out of his theory,—nor could he move me one jot from mine. And viewed from our differing standpoints, therefore, the first simple multiplication of numbers could never be proved correct beyond all question!”

 

Theos glanced at him in wonder,—the man must be mad, he thought, since surely any one in his senses could see that two objects placed with other two must necessarily make four!

 

“I confess you surprise me greatly, sir!”—he said, and, in spite of himself, a little quiver of laughter shook his voice.. “What I asked was by way of jest,—and I never thought to hear so simple a subject treated with so much profound and almost doubting seriousness! See!”—and he picked up four small stones from the roadway—“Count these one by one, . . how many have you? Surely even a professor from Hypharus could find no more, and no less than four?”

 

Very deliberately, and with unruffled equanimity, the other took the pebbles in his hand, turned them over and over, and finally placed them in a row on the edge of the balustrade near which he stood.

 

“There SEEM to be four, . .” he then observed placidly—“But I would not swear to it,—nor to anything else of which the actuality is only supported by the testimony of my own eyes and sense of touch.”

 

“Good heavens, man!” cried Theos, in amazement,—“But a moment since, you were praising the excellence of Reason, and the progressive system of learning that was to educate human beings into a contempt for the Supernatural and Spiritual, and yet almost in the same breath you tell me you cannot rely on the evidence of your own senses! Was there ever anything more utterly incoherent and irrational!”

 

And he flung the pebbles into the redly flowing river with a gesture of irritation and impatience. The scientist,—if scientist he could be called,—gazed at him abstractedly, and stroked his well-shaven chin with a somewhat dejected air. Presently heaving a deep sigh, he said:

 

“Alas, I have again betrayed myself! … ‘tis my fatal destiny!

Always, by some unlooked-for mischance, I am compelled to avow what most I desire to conceal! Can you not understand, sir,”—and he laid his hand persuasively on Theos’s arm,—“that a Theory may be one thing and one’s own private opinion another? My Theory is my profession,—I live by it! Suppose I resigned it,—well, then I should also have to resign my present position in the Royal Institutional College,—my house, my servants, and my income. I advance the interests of pure Human Reason, because the Age has a tendency to place Reason as the first and highest attribute of Man,—and it would not pay me to pronounce my personal preference for the natural and vastly superior gift of Intellectual Instinct.

I advise my scholars to become atheists, because I perceive they have a positive passion for Atheism, and it is not my business, nor would it be to my advantage to interfere with the declared predilections of my wealthiest patrons. Concerning my own ideas on these matters, they are absolutely NIL, … I have no fixed principles,—because”—and his brows contracted in a puzzled line —“it is entirely out of my ability to fix anything! The whole world of manners and morals is in a state of perpetual ferment and consequent change,—equally restless and mutable is the world of Nature, for at any moment mountains may become plains, and plains mountains,—the dry land may be converted into oceans, and oceans into dry land, and so on forever. In this incessant shifting of the various particles that make up the Universe, how can you expect a man to hold fast to so unstable a thing as an idea! And, respecting the testimony offered by sight and sense, can YOU rely upon such slippery evidence?”

 

Theos moved uneasily,—a slight shiver ran through his veins, and a momentary dizziness seized him, as of one who gazing down from some lofty mountain-peak sees naught below but the white, deceptive blankness of a mist that veils the deeper deathful chasms from his eyes. COULD he rely on sight and sense…DARED he take oath that these frail guides of his intelligence could never be deceived? … Doubtfully he mused on this, while his companion continued:

 

“For example, I look an arm’s length into space, . . my eyes assure me that I behold nothing save empty air,—my touch corroborates the assertion of my eyes,—and yet, . . Science proves to me that every inch of that arm’s length of supposed blank space is filled with thousands of minute living organisms that no human vision shall ever be able to note or examine! Wonder not, therefore, that I decline to express absolute confidence in any fact, however seemingly obvious, such as that two and two are four, and that I prefer to say the blood-red color of this river MAY be caused by an earth-tremor or a land-slip, rather than positively assert that it MUST be so; though I confess that, as far as my knowledge guides me, I incline to the belief that ‘MUST be’ is in this instance the correct term.”

 

He sighed again, and rubbed his nose perplexedly. Theos glanced at him curiously, uncertain whether to laugh at or pity him.

 

“Then the upshot of all your learning, sir, . .” he said, . . “is that one can never be quite certain of anything?”

 

“Exactly so!”—replied the pensive sage with a grave shake of his head,—“Judged by the very finest lines of metaphysical argument, you cannot really be sure whether you behold in me a Person or a Phantasm! You THINK you see me,—I THINK I see you,—but after all it is only an IMPRESSION mutually shared,—an impression which like many another, less distinct, may be entirely erroneous! Ah, my dear young sir!—education is advancing at a very rapid rate, and the art of close analysis is reaching such a pitch of perfection that I believe we shall soon be able logically to prove, not only that we do not actually exist, but moreover that we never have existed! … And herein, as I consider, will be the final triumph of philosophy!”

 

“A poor triumph!”—murmured Theos wearily. “What, in such a case, would become of all the nobler sentiments and passions of man,—

love, hope, gratitude, duty, ambition?”

 

“They would be precisely the same as before”—rejoined the other complacently—“Only we should have learned to accept them merely as the means whereby to sustain the IMPRESSION that we live,—an impression which would always be agreeable, however delusive!”

 

Theos shrugged his shoulders. “You possess a peculiarly constituted mind, sir!”—he said—“And I congratulate you on the skill you display in following out a somewhat puzzling investigation to almost its last hand’s-breadth of a conclusion,—

but.. pardon me,—I should scarcely think the discussion of such debatable theories conducive to happiness!”

 

“Happiness!”.. and the scientist smiled scornfully,—“‘Tis a fool’s term, and designates a state of being that can only pertain to foolishness! Show me a perfectly happy man, and I will show you an ignorant witling, light-headed, hardhearted, and of a most powerfully good digestion! Many such there be now wantoning among us, and the head and chief of them all is perhaps the most popular numskull in Al-Kyris, . . the Poet,—bah! … let us say the braying Jack-ass in office,—the laurelled Sahluma!”

 

Theos gave an indignant start,—the hot color flushed his brows, . .

then he restrained himself by an effort.

 

“Control the fashion of your speech, I pray you, sir!” he said, with excessive haughtiness—“The noble Laureate is my friend and host,—I suffer no man to use his name unworthily in my presence!”

 

The sage drew back, and spread out his hands in a pacifying manner.

 

‘Oh, I crave your pardon, good stranger!”—he murmured, with a kind of apologetic satire in his acrid voice,—“I crave it most abjectly! Yet to somewhat excuse the hastiness of my words, I would explain that a contempt for poets and poetry is now universal among persons of profound enlightenment and practical knowledge…”

 

“I am aware of it!” interrupted Theos swiftly and with passion—“I am aware that so-called ‘wise’ men, rooted in narrow prejudice, with a smattering of even narrower logic, presume, out of their immeasurable littleness, to decry and make mock of the truly great, who, thanks to God’s unpurchasable gift of inspiration, can do without the study of books or the teaching of pedants,—who flare through the world flame-winged and full of song, like angels passing heavenward,—and whose voices, rich with music, not only sanctify the by-gone ages, but penetrate with echoing, undying sweetness the ages still to come! Contempt for poets!—Aye, ‘tis common!—the petty, boastful pedagogues of surface learning ever look askance on these kings in exile, these emperors masked, these gods disguised! … but humiliated, condemned, or rejected, they are still the supreme rulers of the human heart,—and a Love-Ode chanted in the Long-Ago by one such fire-lipped minstrel outlasts the history of many kingdoms!”

 

He spoke with rapid, almost unconscious fervor, and as he ended raised one hand with an enthusiastic gesture toward the now brilliant sapphire sky and glowing sun. The scientist looked at him furtively and smiled,—a bland, expostulatory smile.

 

“Oh, you are young!—you must be very young!” he said forbearingly.. “In a little time you will grow out of all this ill-judged fanaticism for an Art, the pursuance of which is really only wasted labor! Think of the absurdity of it!—what can be more foolish than the writing of verse to express or to encourage emotion in the human subject, when the great aim of education at the present day is to carefully eradicate emotion by degrees, till we succeed in completely suppressing it! An outburst of feeling is always vulgar,—the highest culture consists in being impassively equable of temperament, and absolutely indifferent to the attacks of either joy or sorrow. I should be inclined to ask you to consider this matter more seriously, and from the strictly common-sense point of view, did I not know that for you to undertake a course of useful meditation while you remain is Sahluma’s companionship would be impossible, . . quite impossible!

Nevertheless our discourse has been so far interesting, that I shall be happy to meet you again and give you an opportunity for further converse should you desire it, . . ask for the Head Professor of Scientific Positivism, any day in the Strangers’

Court of the Royal Institutional College, and I will at once receive you! My name is Mira-Khabur,—Professor Mira Khabur…at your service!”

 

And laying one hand on his breast he bowed profoundly.

 

“A Professor of Positivism who is himself never positive!”—

observed Theos with a slight smile.

 

“Ah pardon!” returned the other gravely—“On the contrary, I am always positive! … of the UNpositiveness of Positivism!”

 

And with this final vindication of his theories he made another stately obeisance and went his way. Theos looked after his tall, retreating figure half in sadness, half in scorn. This proudly incompetent, learned-ignorant Mira-Khabur was no uncommon character—surely there were many like him!

 

Somewhere in the world,—somewhere in far lands of which the memory was now as indistinct as the outline of receding shores blurred by a falling mist, Theos seemed painfully to call to mind certain cold-blooded casuists he had known, who had attempted to explain away the mysteries of life