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

out of cliques,—and the Press, like many of our other ‘magnificent’ institutions, is working entirely on a wrong system. But who is going to be wise, or strong, or diplomatic enough to reform it? … No one, at present,—and we shall jog along, and read up the details of vice in our dailies and weeklies, till we almost lose the savor of virtue, and till the last degraded end comes of it all, and blatant young America thrones herself on the shores of Britain and sends her eagle screech of conquest echoing over Old World and New.”

 

“Don’t think it, Villiers!” exclaimed Alwyn impetuously.. “There is a mettle in the English that will never be conquered!”

 

Villiers shrugged his shoulders. “We will hope so, my dear boy!”

he said resignedly. “But the ‘mettle’ under bad government, with bad weapons, and more or less untried ships, can scarcely be blamed if it should not be able to resist a tremendous force majeure. Besides, all the Parliaments in the world cannot upset the laws of the universe. If things are false and corrupt, they MUST be swept away,—Nature will not have them,—she will transmute and transform them somehow, no matter at what cost. It is the cry of the old Prophets over again,—‘Because ye have not obeyed God’s Law, therefore shall ye meet with destruction.’

Egoism is certainly NOT God’s Law, and we shall have to return on our imagined progressive steps, and be beaten with rods of affliction, till we understand what His Law IS. It is, for one thing, the wheel that keeps this Universe going—OUR laws are no use whatever in the management of His sublime cosmos! Nations, like individuals, are punished for their own wilful misdeeds—the punishment may be tardy, but sure as death it comes. And I fancy America will be our ‘scourge in the Lord’s hand’—as the Bible hath it. That pretty, dollar-crusted young Republican wants an aristocracy, . . she will engraft it on the old roots here,—in fact, she has already begun to engraft it. It is even on the cards that she may need a Monarchy—if she does, she will plant it..

HERE! Then it will be time for Englishmen to adopt another country, and forget, if they can, their own disgraced nationality.

And yet, if, as Shakespeare says, England were to herself but true,—if she had great statesmen as of yore,—intellectual, earnest, self-abnegating, fearless, unhesitating workers, who would devote themselves heart and soul to her welfare, she might gather, not only her Colonies, but America also, to her knee, as a mother gathers children, and the most magnificent Christian Empire the world has ever seen might rise up, a supreme marvel of civilization and union that would make all other nations wonder and revere. But the selfishness of the day, and the ruling passion of gain, are the fatal obstructions in the path of such a desirable millennium.”

 

He ended abruptly—he had unburdened his mind to one who he knew understood him and sympathized with him, and he turned to the perusal of some letters just received.

 

The two friends were sitting that morning in the breakfast-room,—

a charming little octagonal apartment, looking out on a small, very small garden, which, despite the London atmosphere, looked just now very bright with tastefully arranged parterres of white and yellow crocuses, mingled with the soft blue of the dainty hepatica,—that frank-faced little blossom which seems to express such an honest confidence in the goodness of God’s sky. A few sparrows of dissipated appearance were bathing their sooty plumes in a pool of equally sooty water left in the garden as a token of last night’s rain, and they splashed and twittered and debated and fussed with each other concerning their ablutions, with almost as much importance as could have been displayed by the effeminate Romans of the Augustan era when disporting themselves in their sumptuous Thermae. Alwyn’s eyes rested on them unseeingly,—his thoughts were very far away from all his surroundings. Before his imagination rose a Gehenna-like picture of the world in which he had to live,—the world of fashion and form and usage,—the world he was to try and rouse to a sense of better things. A Promethean task indeed! to fill human life with new symbols of hope,—to set up a white standard of faith amid the swift rushing on and reckless tramping down of desperate battle,—to pour out on all, rich or poor, worthy or unworthy, the divine-born balm of Sympathy, which, when given freely and sincerely from man to man, serves often as a check to vice—a silent, yet all eloquent, rebuke to crime,—and can more easily instill into refractory intelligences things of God and desires for good, than any preacher’s argument, no matter how finely worded. To touch the big, wayward, BETTER heart of Humanity! … could he in very truth do it? … Or was the work too vast for his ability? Tormented by various cross-currents of feeling, he gave vent to a troubled sigh and looked dubiously at his friend.

 

“In such a state of things as you describe, Villiers,” he aid, “what a useless unit I am! A Poet!—who wants me in this age of Sale and Barter? … Is not a producer of poems always considered more or less of a fool nowadays, no matter how much his works may be in fashion for the moment? I am sure, in spite of the success of ‘Nourhalma,’ that the era of poetry has passed; and, moreover, it certainly seems to have given place to the very baldest and most unbeauteous forms of prose! As, for instance, if a book is written which contains what is called ‘poetic prose’ the critics are all ready to denounce it as ‘turgid,’ ‘overladen,’ ‘strained for effect,’ and ‘hysterical sublime.’ Heine’s Reisebilder, which is one of the most exquisite poems in prose ever given to the world, is nearly incomprehensible to the majority of English minds; so much so, indeed, that the English translators in their rendering of it have not only lost the delicate glamour of its fairy-like fancifulness, but have also blunted all the fine points of its dazzling sarcasm and wealth of imagery. It is evident enough that the larger mass of people prefer mediocrity to high excellence, else such a number of merely mediocre works of art would not, and could not, be tolerated. And as long as mediocrity is permitted to hold ground, it is almost an impossibility to do much toward raising the standard of literature. The few who love the best authors are as a mere drop in the ocean of those who not only choose the worst, but who also fail to see any difference between good and bad.”

 

“True enough!” assented Villiers,—“Still the ‘few’ you speak of are worth all the rest. For the ‘few’ Homer wrote,—Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus,—and the ‘few’ are capable of teaching the majority, if they will only set about it rightly. But at present they are setting about it wrongly. All children are taught to read, but no child is guided in WHAT to read. This is like giving a loaded gun to a boy and saying, ‘Shoot away! … No matter in which direction you point your aim, . . shoot yourself if you like, and others too,—anyhow, you’ve GOT the gun!’ Of course there are a few fellows who have occasionally drawn up a list of books as suitable for everybody’s perusal,—but then these lists cannot be taken as true criterions, as they all differ from one another as much as church sects. One would-be instructor in the art of reading says we ought all to study ‘Tom Jones’—now I don’t see the necessity of THAT! And, oddly enough, these lists scarcely ever include the name of a poet,—which is the absurdest mistake ever made. A liberal education in the highest works of poesy is absolutely necessary to the thinking abilities of man. But, Alwyn, YOU need not trouble yourself about what is good for the million and what isn’t, . . whatever you write is sure to be read NOW—

you’ve got the ear of the public,—the ‘fair, large ear’ of the ass’s head which disguises Bottom the Weaver, who frankly says of himself, ‘I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch!’”

 

Alwyn smiled. He was thinking of what his Shadow-Self had said on this very subject—“A book or poem, to be great, and keep its greatness hereafter, must be judged by the natural instinct of PEOPLES. This world-wide decision has never yet been, and never will be, hastened by any amount of written criticism,—it is the responsive beat of the enormous Pulse of Life that thrills through all mankind, high and low, gentle and simple,—its great throbs are slow and solemnly measured, yet if once it answers to a Poet’s touch, that Poet’s name is made glorious forever!” He.. in the character of Sahluma.. had seemed to utter these sentiments many ages ago,—and now the words repeated themselves in his thoughts with a new and deep intensity of meaning.

 

“Of course,” added Villiers suddenly—“you must expect plenty of adverse criticism now, as it is known beyond all doubt that you are alive and able to read what is written concerning you,—but if you once pay attention to critics, you may as well put aside pen altogether, as it is the business of these worthies never to be entirely satisfied with anything. Even Shelley and Byron, in the critical capacity, abused Keats, till the poor, suffering youth, who promised to be greater then either of them, died of a broken heart as much as disease. This sort of injustice will go on to the end of time, or till men become more Christianized than Paul’s version of Christianity has ever yet made them.”

 

Here a knock at the door interrupted the conversation. The servant entered, bringing a note gorgeously crested and coroneted in gold.

Villiers, to whom it was addressed, opened and read it.

 

“What shall we do about this?” he asked, when his man had retired.

“It is an invitation from the Duchess de la Santoisie. She asks us to go and dine with her next week,—a party of twenty—reception afterward. I think we’d better accept,—what do you say?”

 

Alwyn roused himself from his reverie. “Anything to please you, my dear boy!” he answered cheerfully—“But I haven’t the faintest idea who the Duchess de la Santoisie is!”

 

“No? … Well, she’s an Englishwoman who has married a French Duke. He is a delightful old fellow, the pink of courtesy, and the model of perfect egotism. A true Parisian, and of course an atheist,—a very polished atheist, too, with a most charming reliance on his own infallibility. His wife writes novels which have a SLIGHT leaning toward Zolaism,—she is an extremely witty woman sarcastic, and cold-blooded enough to be a female Robespierre, yet, on the whole, amusing as a study of what curious nondescript forms the feminine nature can adopt unto itself, if it chooses. She has an immense respect for GENIUS,—mind, I say genius advisedly, because she really is one of those rare few who cannot endure mediocrity. Everything at her house is the best of its kind, and the people she entertains are the best of theirs.

Her welcome of you will be at any rate a sincerely admiring one,—

and as I think, in spite of your desire for quiet, you will have to show yourself somewhere, it may as well be there.”

 

Alwyn looked dubious, and not at all resigned to the prospect of “showing himself.”

 

“Your description of her does not strike me as particularly attractive,”—he said—“I cannot endure that nineteenth-century hermaphroditic production, a mannish woman.”

 

“Oh but she isn’t altogether mannish,”—declared Villiers, . .

“Besides, I mustn’t forget to add, that she is extremely