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

Love. You, for instance, were, and are, still perfectly free to reject the whole of your experience on the Field of Ardath as a delusion,—nothing would be easier, and, from the world’s point of view, nothing more natural. Faith and Doubt are equally voluntary acts,—the one is the instinct of the immortal Soul, the other the tendency of the perishable Body,—and the Will decides which of the two shall conquer in the end. I know that you are firm in your high and true conviction,—I know also what thoughts are at work in your brain,—you are bending all your energies on the task of trying to instil into the minds of your fellow-men some comprehension of the enlightenment and hope you yourself possess. Ah, you must prepare for disappointment!—for though the times are tending toward strange upheavals and terrors, when the trumpet-voice of an inspired Poet may do enormous good,—

still the name of the wilfully ignorant is Legion,—the age is one of the grossest Mammon worship, and coarsest Atheism,—and the noblest teachings of the noblest teacher, were he even another Shakespeare, must of necessity be but a casting of pearls before swine. Still”—and his rare sweet smile brightened the serene dignity of his features—“fling out the pearls freely all the same,—the swine may grunt at, but cannot rend you,—and a poet’s genius should be like the sunlight, that falls on rich and poor, good and bad, with glorious impartiality! If you can comfort one sorrow, check one sin, or rescue one soul from the widening quicksand of the Atheist world, you have sufficient reason to be devoutly thankful.”

 

By this time their walk had led them imperceptibly to one of the gates of egress from the Park, and Heliobas, pointing to a huge square building opposite, said:

 

“There is the hotel at which I am staying—one of the Americanized monster fabrics in which tired travellers find much splendid show, and little rest! Will you lunch with me?—I am quite alone.”

 

Alwyn gladly assented,—he was most unwilling to part at once from this man, to whom in a measure he felt he owed his present happy and tranquil condition of body and mind; besides, he was curious to find out more about him—to obtain from him, if possible, an entire explanation of the actual tenets and chief characteristics of the system of religious worship he himself practiced and followed. Heliobas seemed to guess his thoughts, for suddenly turning upon him with a quick glance, he observed: “You want to ‘pluck out the heart of my mystery,’ as Hamlet says, do you not, my friend?”—and he smiled—“Well, so you shall, if you can discover aught in me that is not already in yourself! I assure you there is nothing preternatural about me,—my peculiar ‘eccentricity’ consists in steadily adapting myself to the scientific spiritual, as well as scientific material, laws of the Universe. The two sets of laws united make harmony,—hence I find my life harmonious and satisfactory,—this is my ‘abnormal’

condition of mind,—and you are now fully as ‘abnormal’ as I am.

Come, we will discuss our mutual strange non-conformity to the wild world’s custom or caprice over a glass of good wine,—

observe, please, that I am neither a ‘total abstainer’ nor a ‘vegetarian,’ and that I have a curious fashion of being TEMPERATE, and of using all the gifts of beneficent Nature equally, and without prejudice!’ While he spoke, they had crossed the road, and they now entered the vestibule of the hotel, where, declining the hall-porter’s offer of the “lift,” Heliobas ascended the stairs leisurely to the second floor, and ushered his companion into a comfortable private sitting-room.

 

“Fancy men consenting to be drawn up to their apartments like babes in a basket!” he said laughingly, alluding to the “lift”

process—“Upon my word, when I think of the strong people of a past age and compare them with the enervated race of to-day, I feel not only pity, but shame, for the visible degeneration of mankind. Frail nerves, weak hearts, uncertain limbs,—these are common characteristics of the young, nowadays, instead of being as formerly the natural failings of the old. Wear and tear and worry of modern existence?—Oh yes, I know!—but why the wear tear and worry at all? What is it for? Simply for the OVER-GETTING of money. One must live? … certainly,—but one is not bound to live in foolish luxury for the sake of out-flaunting one’s neighbors.

Better to live simply and preserve health, than gain a fortune and be a moping dyspeptic for life. But unless one toils and moils like a beast of burden, one cannot even live simply, some will say! I don’t believe that assertion. The peasants of France live simply, and save,—the peasants of England live wretchedly, and waste! Voila la difference! As with nations, so with individuals, —it is all a question of Will. ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way,’ is a dreadfully trite copybook maxim, but it’s amazingly true all the same. Now let us to the acceptation of these good things,”—this, as a pallid, boyish-looking waiter just then entered the room with the luncheon, and in his bustling to and fro manifested unusual eagerness to make himself agreeable—“I have made excellent friends with this young Ganymede,—he has sworn never to palm off raisin-wine upon me for Chambertin!”

 

The waiter blushed and chuckled as though he were conscious of having gained special new dignity and importance,—and having laid the table, and set the chairs, he departed with a flourishing bow worthy of a prince’s maitred’hotel.

 

“Your name must seem a curious one to these fellows”—observed Alwyn, when he had gone,—“Unusual and even mysterious?”

 

“Why, yes!”—returned Heliobas with a laugh—“It would be judged so, I suppose, if I ever gave it,—but I don’t. It was only in England, and by an Englishman, that I was once, to my utter amazement, addressed as ‘He-ly-oh-bas’—and I was quite alarmed at the sound of it! One would think that most people in these educational days knew the Greek word helios,—and one would also imagine it as easy to say Heliobas as heliograph. But now to avoid mistakes, whenever I touch British territory and come into contact with British tongues, I give my Christian name only, Cassimir—the result of which arrangement is, that I am known in this hotel as Mr. Kasmer! Oh, I don’t mind in the least—why should I?—neither the English nor the Americans ever pronounce foreign names properly. Why I met a newly established young publisher yesterday, who assured me that most of his authors, the female ones especially, are so ignorant of foreign literature that he doubts whether any of them know whether Cervantes was a writer or an ointment!”

 

Alwyn laughed. “I dare say the young publisher may be perfectly right,”—he said—“But all the same he has no business to publish the literary emanations of such ignorance.”

 

“Perhaps not!—but what is he to do, if nothing else is offered to him? He has to keep his occupation going somehow,—from bad he must select the best. He cannot create a great genius—he has to wait till Nature, in the course of events, evolves one from the elements. And in the present general dearth of high ability the publishers are really more sinned against than sinning. They spend large sums, and incur large risks, in launching new ventures on the fickle sea of popular favor, and often their trouble is taken all in vain. It is really the stupid egotism of authors that is the stumbling-block in the way of true literature,—each little scribbler that produces a shilling sensational thinks his or her own work a marvel of genius, and nothing can shake them from their obstinate conviction. If every man or woman, before putting pen to paper, would be sure they had something new, suggestive, symbolical, or beautiful to say, how greatly Art might gain by their labors! Authors who take up arms against publishers en masse, and in every transaction expect to be cheated, are doing themselves irreparable injury—they betray the cloven hoof,—

namely a greed for money—and when once that passion dominates them, down goes their reputation and they with it. It is the old story over again—‘ye cannot serve God and Mammon,’—and all Art is a portion of God,—a descending of the Divine into Humanity.”

 

Alwyn sat for a minute silent and thoughtful. “A descending of the Divine into Humanity!” he repeated slowly—“It seems to me that ‘miracle’ is forever being enacted—and yet … we doubt!”

 

“WE do not doubt—” said Heliobas—“WE know,—we have touched Reality! But see yonder!”—and he pointed through the window to the crowded thoroughfare below—“There are the flying phantoms of life,—the men and women who are God-oblivious, and who are therefore no more actually LIVING than the shadows of Al-Kyris!

They shall pass as a breath and be no more,—and this roaring, trafficking metropolis, this immediate centre of civilization, shall ere long disappear off the surface of the earth, and leave not a stone to mark the spot where once it stood! So have thousands of such cities fallen since this planet was flung into space,—and even so shall thousands still fall. Learning, civilization, science, progress,—these things exist merely for the training and education of a chosen few—and out of many earth centuries and generations of men, shall be won only a very small company of angels! Be glad that you have fathomed the mystery of your own life’s purpose,—for you are now as much a Positive Identity among vanishing spectres, as you were when, on the Field of Ardath, you witnessed and took part in the Mirage of your Past.”

 

CHAPTER XXXVII.

 

A MISSING RECORD.

 

He spoke the last words with deep feeling and earnestness, and Alwyn, meeting his clear, grave, brilliant eyes, was more than ever impressed by the singular dignity and overpowering magnetism of his presence. Remembering how insufficiently he had realized this man’s true worth, when he had first sought him out in his monastic retreat, he was struck by a sudden sense of remorse, and leaning across the table, gently touched his hand.

 

“How greatly I wronged you once, Heliobas!” he said penitently, with a tremor of appeal in his voice—“Forgive me, will you?—

though I shall never forgive myself!”

 

Heliobas smiled, and cordially pressed the extended hand in his own.

 

“Nay, there is nothing to forgive, my friend,” he answered cheerfully—“and nothing to regret. Your doubts of me were very natural,—indeed, viewed by the world’s standard of opinion, much more natural than your present faith, for faith is always a SUPERnatural instinct. Would you be practically sensible according to modern social theories?—then learn to suspect everybody and everything, even your best friend’s good intentions!”

 

He laughed, and the luncheon being concluded, he rose from the table, and taking an easy-chair nearer the window, motioned Alwyn to do the same.

 

“I want to talk to you”—he continued, “We may not meet again for years,—you are entering on a difficult career, and a few hints from one who knows and thoroughly understands your position may possibly be of use to you. In the first place, then, let me ask you, have you told any one, save me, the story of your Ardath adventure?”

 

“One friend only,—my old school comrade, Frank Villiers”—replied Alwyn.

 

“And what does he say about it?”

 

“Oh, he thinks it was a dream from beginning to end,”—and Alwyn smiled a little,—“He believes that I set out on my journey with my brain already heated to an imaginative excess, and that the whole thing, even my Angel’s presence, was a pure delusion of my own overwrought fancy,—a curious and wonderful delusion, but always a delusion.”

 

“He is a very excellent fellow to judge you so leniently”—

observed Heliobas composedly, “Most people would call you mad.”

 

“Mad!” exclaimed Alwyn hotly—“Why, I am