Ardath: The Story of a Dead Self Part 42

Just then the Sun stepped royally forth from between the red and gold curtains of the east,--and in that blaze of earth's life-radiance her figure became resplendently invested with vivid rays of roseate l.u.s.tre that far surpa.s.sed the amber s.h.i.+ning of the Orb of day! Awed, dazzled, and utterly overcome, he yet strove to keep his straining eyes steadily upon her,--conscious that her smile still blessed him with its tenderness, ... he made a wild effort to drag himself nearer to her, .

. to touch once more the glittering edge of her robe ... to detain her one little, little moment longer! Ah! how wistfully, how fondly she looked upon him! ... Almost it seemed as if she might, after all, consent to stay! ... He stretched out his arms with a pathetic gesture of love, fear, and soul-pa.s.sionate supplication.

"Edris! ... Edris!".. he cried half despairingly. "Oh, by the strength of thine Angelhood have pity on the weakness of my Manhood!"

Surely she heard, or seemed to hear! ... and yet she gave no answer!

... No sign! ... No promise!--no gesture of farewell! ... only a look of divine, compa.s.sionating, perfect love, . . a look so pure, so penetrating, so true, so rapturous, that flesh and blood could bear the glory of her transfigured Presence no longer,--and blind with the burning effulgence of her beauty, he shut his eyes and covered his face. He knew now, if he had never known it before, what was meant by "an Angel standing in the sun!" [Footnote: Revelation, chap, xix., 17.]

Moreover, he also knew that what Humanity calls "miracles" ARE possible, and DO happen,--and that instead of being violations of the Law of Nature as we understand it, they are but confirmations of that Law in its DEEPER DEPTHS,--depths which, controlled by Spiritual Force alone, have not as yet been sounded by the most searching scientists.

And what is Material Force but the visible manifestation of the Spiritual behind it? ... He who accepts the Material and denies the Spiritual, is in the untenable position of one who admits an Effect and denies a Cause! And if both Spiritual and Material BE accepted, then how can we reasonably dare to set a limit to the manifestations of either the one or the other?

When he at last looked up, Edris had vanished! He was alone, . . alone on the Field of Ardath, ... the field that was "barren" in very truth, now she, his Angel, had been drawn away, as it seemed, into the sunlight, . . absorbed like a paradise-pearl into those rays of life-giving gold that lit and warmed the reddening earth and heaven!

Slowly and dizzily he rose to his feet, and gazed about him in vague bewilderment. He had pa.s.sed ONE NIGHT on the field! One night only! ...

and he felt as though he had lived through years of experience! Now, the VISION was ended, . . Edris, the REALITY, had fled, . . and the World was before him, . . the World, with all the unsatisfying things it grudgingly offers, . . the World in which Al-Kyris had been a "City Magnificent" in the centuries gone,--and in which he, too, had played his part before, and had won fame, to be forgotten as soon as dead!

Fame! ... how he had longed and thirsted for it! ... and what a foolish, undesirable distinction it seemed to him now!

Steadying his thoughts by a few moments of calm reflection, he remembered what he had in charge to do, . . TO REDEEM HIS PAST. To use and expend whatever force was in him for the good, the help, the consolement, and the love of others, ... NOT to benefit himself! This was his task, . . and the very comprehension of it gave him a rush of vigor and virile energy that at once lifted the cloud of love-loneliness from his soul.

"My Edris!" he whispered.. "Thou shalt have no cause to weep for me in Heaven again! ... with G.o.d's help I will win back my lost heritage!"

As he spoke the words his eyes caught a glimpse of something white on the turf where, but a moment since, his Angel-love had stood,--he stooped toward it, . . it was one half-opened bud of the wonderful "Ardath-flowers" that had covered the field in such singular profusion on the previous night when she first appeared. One only! ... might he not gather it?

He hesitated, . . then very gently and reverently broke it off, and tenderly bore it to his lips. What a beautiful blossom it was! ... its fragrance was unlike that of any other flower,--its whiteness was more pure and soft than that of the rarest edelweiss on Alpine snows, and its partially disclosed golden centre had an almost luminous brightness. As he held it in his hand, all sorts of vague, delicious thoughts came sweeping across his brain, ... thoughts that seemed to set themselves to music wild and strange and NEW, and suggestive of the sweetest, n.o.blest influences! A thrill of expectation stirred in him, as of great and good things to be done,--grand changes to be wrought in the complex web of human destiny, brought about by the quickening and development of a pure, unselfish, spiritual force, that might with saving benefit flow into the perplexed and weary intelligence of man; .

. and cheered, invigorated, and conscious of a circling, widening, ever-present Supreme Power that with all-surrounding love was ever on the side of work done for love's sake, he gently shut the flower within his breast, resolving to carry it with him wheresoever he went as a token and proof of the "signs and wonders" of the Prophet's Field.

And now he prepared to quit the scene of his mystic Vision, in which he had followed with prescient pain the brief, bright career, the useless fame, the evil love-pa.s.sion, and final fate of his Former Self,--and crossing the field with lingering tread, he looked back many times to the fallen block of stone where he had sat when he had first perceived G.o.d's maiden Edris, stepping softly through the bloom. When should he again meet her? Alas! ... not till Death, the beautiful and beneficent Herald of true Liberty, summoned him to those lofty heights of Paradise where she had habitation. Not till then, unless, ... unless, ... and his heart beat with a sudden tumult as he recollected her last words, .

. "UNLESS THE LONGING OF THY LOVE COMPELS!"

Could love COMPEL her, he wondered, to come to him once more while yet he lived on earth? Perhaps! ... and yet if he indeed had such power of love, would it be generous or just to exert it? No! ... for to draw her down from Heaven to Earth seemed to him now a sort of sacrilege,--dearer to him was HER joy than his own! But suppose the possibility of her being actually HAPPY with him in mortal existence, ... suppose that Love, when absolutely pure, unselfishly mutual, helpful, and steadfast, had it in its gift to make even the Sorrowful Star a Heaven in miniature, what then?

He would not trust himself to think of this! ... the mere shadowy suggestion of such supreme delight filled him with a strong pa.s.sion of yearning, to which in his accepted creed of Self-abnegation he dared not yield! Firmly restraining, resisting, and renouncing his own desires, he mentally raised a holy shrine for her in his soul, ... a shrine of pure faith, warm with eternal aspirations and bright with truth, wherein he hallowed the memory of her beauty with a sense of devout, love-like gladness. She was safe.. she was content, . . she blossomed flower-like in the highest gardens of G.o.d where all things fared well;--enough for him to wors.h.i.+p her at a distance, . . to keep the clear reflection of her loveliness in his mind, ... and to live, so that he might deserve to follow and find her when his work on earth was done. Moreover, Heaven to him was no longer a vague, mythical realm, ill-defined by the prosy descriptions of church-preachers,--it was an actual WORLD to which HE was linked,--in which HE had possessions, of which HE was a native, and for the perpetuation and enlargement of whose splendor ALL worlds existed!

Arrived at the boundary of the field, the spot marked by the broken half-buried pillar of red granite Heliobas had mentioned, he paused--thinking dreamily of the words of Esdras, who in answer to his Angel-visitant's inquiry: "Why art thou disquieted?" had replied: "Because thou hast forsaken me, and yet I did according to thy words, and I went into the field, and lo! I have seen and yet see, that I am not able to express." Whereupon the Angel had said, "Stand up manfully and I will advise thee!"

"Stand up manfully!" Yes! ... this is what he, Theos Alwyn, meant to do. He would "stand up manfully" against the howling iconoclasm and atheism of the Age,--he would be Poet henceforth in the true meaning of the word, namely Maker, . . he would MAKE not BREAK the grand ideal hopes and heaven-climbing ambitions of Humanity! ... he would endeavor his utmost best to be that "Hierarch and Pontiff of the world"--as a modern rugged Apostle of Truth has n.o.bly said,--"who Prometheus-like can shape new Symbols and bring new fire from heaven to fix them into the deep, infinite faculties of Man."

With a brief silent prayer, he turned away at last, and walked slowly, in the lovely silence of the early Eastern morning, back to the place from whence he had last night wandered,--the Hermitage of Elzear, near the Ruins of Babylon. He soon came in sight of it, and also perceived Elzear himself, stooping over a small plot of ground in front of his dwelling, apparently gathering herbs. When he approached, the old man looked up and smiled, giving him a silent, expressively courteous morning greeting,--by his manner it was evident that he thought his guest had merely been out for an early stroll ere the heat of the day set in. And yet Al-Kyris! ... How real had seemed that dream-existence in that dream-city! The figure of Elzear looked scarcely more substantial than the phantom-forms of Sah-luma, Zephoranim, Khosrul, Zuriel, or Zabastes,--while Lysia's exquisite face and seductive form, Niphrata's pensive beauty, and all the local characteristics of the place, were stamped on the dreamer's memory as faithfully as scenes flashed by the sun on the plates of photography! True, the pictures were perhaps now slightly fading into the similitude of pale negatives, . . but still, would not everything that happened in the ACTUAL world merge into that same undecided dimness with the lapse of time?

He thought so, . . and smiled at the thought, ... the transitory nature of earthly things was a subject for joy to him now,--not regret. With a kindly word or two to his venerable host, he went through the open door of the Hermitage, and entered the little room he had left only a few hours previously. It appeared to him as familiar and UNfamiliar as Al-Kyris itself! ... till raising his eyes he saw the great Crucifix against the wall,--the sacred Symbol whose meaning he had forgotten and hopelessly longed for in his Dream,--and from which, before his visit to the field of Ardath, he had turned with a sense of bitter scorn and proud rejection. But NOW! ... Now he gazed upon it in unspeakable remorse,--in tenderest desire to atone, ... the sweet, grave, patient Eyes of the holy Figure seemed to meet his with a wondrous challenge of love, longing, and most fraternal, sympathetic comprehension of his nature.... he paused, looking, ... and the pre-eminently false words of George Herbert suddenly occurred to him, "Thy Saviour sentenced joy!" O blasphemy! ... SENTENCED joy? Nay!--rather re-created it, and invested it with divine certainties, beyond all temporal change or evanishment! ... Yielding to a swift impulse, he threw himself on his knees, and with clasped hands, leaned his brows against the feet of the sculptured Christ. There he rested in wordless peace,--his whole soul entranced in a divine pa.s.sion of faith, hope, and love ... there with the "Ardath flower" in his breast, he consecrated his life to the Highest Good,--and there in absolute humility, and pure, child-like devotion, he crucified SELF forever!

PART III.--POET AND ANGEL.

"O Golden Hair! ... O Gladness of an Hour Made flesh and blood!"

"Who speaks of glory and the force of love And thou not near, my maiden-minded dove!

With all the coyness, all the beauty sheen Of thy rapt face? A fearless virgin-queen, A queen of peace art thou,--and on thy head The golden light of all thy hair is shed Most nimbus-like, and most suggestive too Of youthful saints enshrined and garlanded."

"Our thoughts are free,--and mine have found at last Their apt solution; and from out the Past There seems to s.h.i.+ne as 'twere a beacon-fire: And all the land is lit with large desire Of lambent glory; all the quivering sea Is big with waves that wait the Morn's decree As I, thy va.s.sal, wait thy beckoning smile Athwart the splendors of my dreams of thee!"

--"A Lover's Litanies."--ERIC MACKAY.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

FRESH LAURELS.

It was a dismal March evening. London lay swathed in a melancholy fog,--a fog too dense to be more than temporarily disturbed even by the sudden gusts of the bitter east wind. Rain fell steadily, sometimes changing to sleet, that drove in sharp showers on the slippery roads and pavements, bewildering the tired horses, and stirring up much irritation in the minds of those ill-fated foot-pa.s.sengers whom business, certainly not pleasure, forced to encounter the inconveniences of the weather. Against one house in particular--an old-fas.h.i.+oned, irregular building situated in a somewhat out-of-the-way but picturesque part of Kensington--the cold, wet blast blew with specially keen ferocity, as though it were angered by the sounds within,--sounds that in truth rather resembled its own cross groaning.

Curious short grunts and plaintive cries, interspersed with an occasional pathetic long-drawn whine, suggested dimly the idea that somebody was playing, or trying to play, on a refractory stringed instrument, the well-worn composition known as Raff's "Cavatina." And, in fact, had the vexed wind been able to break through the wall and embody itself into a substantial being, it would have discovered the producer of the half-fierce, half-mournful noise, in the person of the Honorable Frank Villiers, who, with that amazingly serious ardor so often displayed by amateur lovers of music, was persistently endeavoring to combat the difficulties of the violoncello. He adored his big instrument,--the more unmanageable it became in his hands, the more he loved it. Its grumbling complaints at his unskilful touch delighted him,--when he could succeed in awakening a peevish dull sob from its troubled depths, he felt a positive thrill of almost professional triumph,--and he refused to be daunted in his efforts by the frequently barbaric clamor his awkward bowing wrung from the tortured strings. He tried every sort of music, easy and intricate--and his happiest hours were those when, with gla.s.s in eye and brow knitted in anxious scrutiny, he could peer his way through the labyrinth of a sonata or fantasia much too complex for any one but a trained artist, enjoying to the full the mental excitement of the discordant struggle, and comfortably conscious that as his residence was "detached," no obtrusive neighbor could either warn him to desist, or set up an opposition nuisance next door by constant practice on the distressingly over-popular piano. One thing very much in his favor was, that he never manifested any desire to perform in public. No one had ever heard him play, . . he pursued his favorite amus.e.m.e.nt in solitude, and was amply satisfied, if when questioned on the subject of music, he could find an opportunity to say with a conscious-modest air, "MY instrument is the 'cello." That was quite enough self-a.s.sertion for him, . . and if any one ever urged him to display his talent, he would elude the request with such charming grace and diffidence, that many people imagined he must really be a great musical genius who only lacked the necessary insolence and aplomb to make that genius known.

The 'cello apart, Villiers was very generally recognized as a discerning dilettante in most matters artistic. He was an excellent judge of literature, painting, and sculpture, . . his house, though small, was a perfect model of taste in design and adornment, . . he knew where to pick up choice bits of antique furniture, dainty porcelain, bronzes, and wood-carvings, while in the acquisition of rare books he was justly considered a notable connoisseur. His delicate and fastidious instincts were displayed in the very arrangement of his numerous volumes, ... none were placed on such high shelves as to be out of hand reach, . . all were within close touch and ready to command, ranged in low, carved oak cases or on revolving stands, ...

while a few particularly rare editions and first folios were shut in curious little side niches with locked gla.s.s-doors, somewhat resembling small shrines such as are used for the reception of sacred relics. The apartment he called his "den"--where he now sat practising the "Cavatina" for about the two-hundredth time--was perhaps the most fascinating nook in the whole house, inasmuch as it contained a little bit of everything, arranged with that perfect attention to detail which makes each object, small and great, appear not only ornamental, but positively necessary. In one corner a quaint old jar overflowed with the brightness of fresh yellow daffodils; in another a long, tapering Venetian vase held feathery cl.u.s.ters of African gra.s.s and fern, . .

here the medallion of a Greek philosopher or Roman Emperor gleamed whitely against the sombrely painted wall; there a Rembrandt portrait flashed out from the semi-obscure background of some rich, carefully disposed fold of drapery,--while a few admirable casts from the antique lit up the deeper shadows of the room, such as the immortally youthful head of the Apollo Belvedere, the wisely serene countenance of the Pallas Athene that Goethe loved, and the Cupid of Praxiteles.

Judging from his outward appearance only, few would have given Villiers credit for being the man of penetrative and almost cla.s.sic refinement he really was,--he looked far more athletic than aesthetic.

Broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with a round, blunt head firmly set on a full, strong throat, he had, on the whole, a somewhat obstinate and pugilistic air which totally belied his nature. His features, open and ruddy, were, without being handsome, decidedly attractive--the mouth was rather large, yet good-tempered; the eyes bright, blue, and sparklingly suggestive of a native inborn love of humor. There was something fresh and piquant in the very expression of naive bewilderment with which he now adjusted his eyegla.s.s--a wholly unnecessary appendage--and set himself strenuously to examine anew the chords of that extraordinary piece of music which others thought so easy and which he found so puzzling, . . he could manage the simple melody fairly well, but the chords!

"They are the very devil!".. he murmured plaintively, staring at the score, and hitching up his unruly instrument more securely against his knee, . . "Perhaps the bow wants a little rosin."

This was one of his minor weaknesses,--he would never quite admit that false notes were his own fault. "They COULDN'T be, you know!" he mildly argued, addressing the obtrusive neck of the 'cello, which had a curious, stubborn way of poking itself into his chin, and causing him to wonder how it got there, . . surely the manner in which he held it had nothing to do with this awkward occurrence! "I'm not such a fool as not to understand how to find the right notes, after all my practice!

There's something wrong with the strings,--or the bridge has gone awry,--or"--and this was his last resource--"the bow wants more rosin!"

Thus he hugged himself in deliciously wilful ignorance of his own shortcomings, and shut his ears to the whispered reproaches of musical conscience. Had he been married his wife would no doubt have lost no time in enlightening him,--she would have told him he was a wretched player, that his sc.r.a.pings on the 'cello were enough to drive one mad, and sundry other a.s.surances of the perfectly conjugal type of frankness,--but as it chanced he was a happy bachelor, a free and independent man with more than sufficient means to gratify his particular tastes and whims. He was partner in a steadily prosperous banking concern, and had just enough to do to keep him pleasantly and profitably occupied. Asked why he did not marry, he replied with blunt and almost brutal honesty, that he had never yet met a woman whose conversation he could stand for more than an hour.

"Silly or clever," he said, "they are all possessed of the same infinite tedium. Either they say nothing, or they say everything; they are always at the two extremes, and announce themselves as dunces or blue-stockings. One wants the just medium,--the dainty commingling of simplicity and wisdom that shall yet be pure womanly,--and this is precisely the jewel 'far above rubies' that one cannot find. I've given up the search long ago, and am entirely resigned to my lot. I like women very well--I may say very much--as friends, but to take one on chance as a comrade for life! ... No, thank you!"

Such was his fixed opinion and consequent rejection of matrimony; and for the rest, he studied art and literature and became an authority on both; so much so that on one occasion he kept a goodly number of people away from visiting the Royal Academy Exhibition, he having voted it a "disgrace to Art."

"English artists occupy the last grade in the whole school of painting," he had said indignantly, with that decisive manner of his which somehow or other carried conviction, . . "The very Dutch surpa.s.s them; and instead of trying to raise their standard, each year sees them grovelling in lower depths. The Academy is becoming a mere gallery of portraits, painted to please the caprices of vain men and women, at a thousand or two thousand guineas apiece; ugly portraits, too, woodeny portraits, utterly uninteresting portraits of prosaic n.o.bodies. Who cares to see 'No. 154. Mrs. Flummery in her presentation-dress'..

except Mrs. Flummery's own particular friends? ... or '283. Miss Smox, eldest daughter of Professor A. T. Smox,' or '516. Baines Bryce, Esq.'?

... Who IS Baines Bryce? ... n.o.body ever heard of him before. He may be a retired pork-butcher for all any one knows! Portraits, even of celebrities, are a mistake. Take Algernon Charles Swinburne, for instance, the man who, when left to himself, writes some of the grandest lines in the English language, HE had his portrait in the Academy, and everybody ran away from it, it was such an unutterable hideous disappointment. It was a positive libel of course, . .

Swinburne has fine eyes and a still finer brow, but instead of idealizing the POET in him, the silly artist painted him as if he had no more intellectual distinction than a bill-sticker! ... English art!

... pooh! ... don't speak to me about it! Go to Spain, Italy, Bavaria--see what THEY can do, and then say a Miserere for the sins of the R A's!"

Thus he would talk, and his criticisms carried weight with a tolerably large circle of influential and wealthy persons, who when they called upon him, and saw the perfection of his house and the rarity of his art collections, came at once to the conclusion that it would be wise, as well as advantageous to themselves, to consult him before purchasing pictures, books, statues, or china, so that he occupied the powerful position of being able with a word to start an artist's reputation or depreciate it, as he chose,--a distinction he had not desired, and which was often a source of trouble to him, because there were so few, so very few, whose work he felt he could conscientiously approve and encourage. He was eminently good-natured and sympathetic; he would not give pain to others without being infinitely more pained himself; and yet, for all his amiability, there was a stubborn instinct in him which forbade him to promote, by word or look, the fatal nineteenth century spread of mediocrity. Either a thing must be truly great and capable of being measured by the highest standards, or for him it had no value.