A Strange Discovery Part 4

"But in what way does the belief, or want of belief, of an agnostic, prevent an otherwise able man from being a statesman?" I asked.

"No doubt some of the best statesmen living are agnostics; but they are not agnostic agitators. Men who are able to digest and a.s.similate agnostic opinions, are able to initiate those ideas for themselves; and only men who are able to properly digest and a.s.similate such ideas should have them at all."

"Can you," I asked, "state an instance in which what you indicate as premature education of the ma.s.ses in agnostic ideas, might lead to injury to the persons so instructed, or to society at large?"

"Yes, sir, I can. Your ignorant American--the 'cracker' element of the South, your ignorant Italian, and your ignorant Irishman are injured by taking away their religious beliefs. The first of these, when church people, dress neatly, are honorable, and have some upward-tending ambitions; whilst those of them that are infidels are reduced--men and women--to a state of ambitionless inertia and tobacco saturation--if no worse. The two latter are either under religious control, or under secret-society control. If the lower-cla.s.s Irishman or Italian, unendowed with judgment to rightly use the little knowledge he already possesses--to properly interpret his own feelings or guide his own impulses--has not his church with its priestly control, he will have his secret-society with its secret executive control, its bovine fury, and its senseless pertinacity, the poison-bowl and the dagger. For my part, if a man must either seek liberty from ambush, and learn independence through treachery, or else be on his knees before a graven image, suited to his mental calibre--let us keep him on his knees till he can rise to something better than murder. Why, sir, an Irish Republican (a rarity)--an editor, once said to me that some of our Irish emigrants have hair on their teeth when they get to America; and, though I may be wrong, I never see an Italian organ-grinder without first thinking of a dagger between my ribs, and then settling down to a comfortable feeling that if the fellow's a Catholic the confessional stands between me and such a danger. The man who attempts to teach such fellows about complete liberty should be responsible for any consequent acts."

"Still, doctor," I said, "the road to universal knowledge cannot be all smooth. Ground must be broken by somebody. If there is anything in Christianity that bars the way to final freedom of mind for the whole human race, then I myself say, clear away the obstructions--the work cannot begin too soon or continue too vigorously."

"I see nothing in true Christianity but good for the human race--surely you speak only to call out my own views. If there is anything in any church policy or polity which requires reforming, let it be reformed."

"Excuse me, doctor," I said; "but I had thought you yourself an agnostic. Do you not think that if a religion will not bear the test of cold reason, it should be discarded from the lives of men?"

"No, I do not. The human mind is not comprised in intellect alone--it has its moral or emotional side, wholly apart from reason. Religion is not to be reasoned about--it is to be felt. No founder of a religion ever claimed for it a place in man's reason. Now just think for a minute. Let us leave the ignorant, and consider what the best of men are--men who have attained a mental cultivation certainly as great as will ever be possible to the ma.s.ses. Take the very highest society in England and America--to what extent are its members controlled by _reason_, and to what extent by _feeling_ and by the fixed sentiments growing out of feeling? Ratiocination does not influence one of their actions in a million. There is not within my knowledge a single instance where a purely rational conception has been the basis of practice, in opposition to feeling."

"Surely," I said, "you do not mean to say that educated men are not governed in the main by reason?"

"I mean just what I say--that I do not know, in practice, a single instance in which they are so governed in opposition to feeling. Pshaw, pshaw! young man; if we are to compel the acts of practical daily life to conform with a dialectic demonstration of what is best for us--to do only what is in reason best for us--we must simply cease to live, though we do continue to breathe. Even in physics, of what use are logical demonstrations, when the premises are only a foundation more unstable than quicksand--purely provisional?

"Now if these agnostics were truthful--which they try to be; and were consistent--which they are not, they would be in a trying situation.

Reason shows no advantage to a man in kissing his wife; he has no syllogistic endors.e.m.e.nt for supporting her and the children; in fact, he has no business to have children--all the result of feeling or sentiment, all rubbish, and beneath the intellect of a man who wors.h.i.+ps Pure Reason! And if the demands of man's moral or affectional nature are a reason for such indulgences, then his aspirations to the great primal cause of the known, the unknown, and (to us here and now) unknowable wonders and mysteries of the universe without, and of ourselves within, is also justifiable in reason, and ought not by wit and eloquence to be juggled out of the ingenuous mind. The ma.s.ses are governed by religion, directly and indirectly, to an extent much greater than at first thought appears. The daily life of the agnostic himself is shaped by his Christian heredity and environment. Now our Author furnishes no subst.i.tute for this intuitive demand of being. If reason can supply nothing in place of religion, why not allow those who possess religious conviction to retain so agreeable, and to others beneficial, a belief?--Now right here I can detect the voice of the agnostic agitator--this is his strongest situation, and he simply smiles when you make this opening for him. The voice says, 'Agreeable? Agreeable to burn forever in h.e.l.l? Well, well, my friend--our ideas of pleasure differ.'

This is sophistical twaddle. It is not the Christian that suffers from a fear of h.e.l.l--it is the sinner, through his guilty conscience.

Conscience, conscience; the only barrier between us and h.e.l.l on earth!

Christians are comforted by the thought of a loving Christ--Christians, in my experience, do not suffer."

"Why, sir," I said, "I cannot but wonder that you are not yourself a professed Christian."

"Never mind me, young man.--But here we are on the edge of town. I could, if I wanted to, preach a sermon capable of converting every heathen within sound of my voice. Once, at a camp-meeting, I did preach a sermon; and I tell you, the old people looked mighty sober, and the younger and more susceptible of my auditors covered their faces with their hands and seemed to shake with grief and contrition. But, pshaw, pshaw; people don't go to hear either witty agnostics lecture, or preachers preach, to get something for their brain-boxes to reason about. Believe me "--tapping the volume, still in his hand--"this sort of thing won't make anybody reason. After all, the question is one of swapping off Christ for an Illinois lawyer."

The EIGHTH Chapter

It lacked half an hour of nine o'clock as we drove up before the Loomis House, where I alighted, and ran up to my rooms. I had scarcely more than made a hasty toilet, when Arthur came in. After telling me who had, during my absence, called to see me, and after attending to some trifling wants which I expressed, he shuffled his feet in a style that I had learned to recognize as indicating a desire to say something not within the compa.s.s of our purely business relations.h.i.+p--a liberty which the precedents of our first two days of acquaintances.h.i.+p in connection with later events had solidified into a vested right.

"Well, Arthur?" I said.

"I read the whole book, sir--there it is, on the table. That book just did get me. But what did become of Pym and Peters? And is it true you've found that old soc-doligin' pirate?"

I told him that Peters was found.

"Well, now!" he continued. "I'd like to see the old four-foot-eighter.

But if you love me, tell me what that white curtain reachin' down from the sky was, and what made the ocean bilin' hot? What made them ante-artic n.i.g.g.e.rs so 'fraid of everything white, and what was the hiryglificks on the black marble meant to say? And, most of all, who was the female that stood in the way of the boat? Say--I don't blame anybody--but if Mr. Poe knowed he didn't know these points, what did he get our mouths waterin' for? Did you find out these points yet?"

I explained to him that probably at that very moment Doctor Bainbridge was sitting on the edge of Dirk Peters' cot, drinking in the wonderful story; and that as soon as a certain gentleman had called to see me, I expected to return to Peters' house, and to remain until we knew all.

"Go slow," said Arthur, "and don't fall down on any importing points.

Better take time, and catch everything. I asked Doctor Castleton last night what made that ocean bile; and he said he guessed the mouth of h.e.l.l was down that way, and Satin had just opened the door to air out.

That's him; if it ain't heaven it's got to be h.e.l.l. But how old Peters ever lived this long with Castleton monkeyin' with him is a mighty funny thing.--But who's that?"

A rap had sounded on my door. My caller had arrived.

I did not succeed in getting back to Bainbridge and Peters so soon as I had expected. My business in the town dragged along far into the evening, and it was nine o'clock by the time I was at liberty. At ten o'clock I sent for a conveyance, and was driven to Peters' house, where I arrived just before midnight.

I found Peters sleeping soundly, and Bainbridge dozing in a chair. My entrance aroused Bainbridge. He arose, smiling, and was apparently glad to see me. I saw at a glance that he had been successful in obtaining from Peters the secrets of his antarctic voyage. "Well?" I asked.

"The information which I have gained," said Bainbridge, "even could I procure no more, would suffice to explain all those mysteries that Poe hints at as fact, and much that he seems to apprehend with that sixth sense which in the genius approaches a union of clairvoyance and prescience--mysteries of which he does not speak in language sufficiently clear for common comprehension. At all events, I am not disappointed; and more may yet be procured. There remains much of interest, in the way of _minutiae_, which I expect to learn to-morrow. I know now what made that antarctic region more than tropical, and what the white curtain was--and is. I know how the hieroglyphics came in the caverns of black marl. That antarctic country exceeds, in the truly wonderful, anything in the world, old or new, with which I am acquainted, or of which I have heard."

"But is it true? Have you not been listening to fairy tales?--or, rather, to sailor tales?"

"When to-morrow I tell you what I have, hour after hour, with brief rests, drawn from that poor old battered hulk"--he pointed toward Peters' cot--"and when you consider what he is--then say if he is the man, or his sailor friends are the men, to invent such a story. I admit that at times during the day his mind seemed to wander slightly, and that he has the usual faculty of sea-faring men for exaggeration; so that at times I had to employ my best discrimination to enable me to separate the real from the fanciful, that I might retain the true and discard the untrue. He seems to have lived for more than a year in proximity to the South Pole, and his experiences were as marvellous as that country is strangely grand, and its people truly wonderful--Oh, no--nothing on the Gulliver order; the people are not dwarfs or giants, and they have no horses either that talk or that do not talk; no yahoos--nothing in that line. 'Wings?' Oh, no--no flying men or women, no women in gauze, either; everything quite in good taste and genteel.

Just wait, now; you'll hear it all in an orderly way--which I myself did not, however. 'One-eyed?' I told you, just now, that it was all in good taste and genteel. No, no; nothing Homeric--no sheep, and no sirens.

Now, I'm really tired, and you'll not succeed in starting me on a story that'll take six or eight hours to tell, even if we do not stop to discuss matters as we progress. To-morrow, as I before said, we will get from Peters all other possible facts, and no doubt we shall gather further particulars; then we will go to town. I intend to come out here every day till Peters gets better or dies--and I suppose you will not refuse to keep me company. Every evening we will meet in my rooms, or in yours, and I will recite the story in my own way. Now does that satisfy you?"

It satisfied me fully, I said; and then we spread our blankets, and made a night of it on the floor.

The next day Bainbridge spent the forenoon, for the most part, sitting on the edge of Dirk Peters' cot, listening to the old man talk, describe, explain. I walked out, and explored the immediately adjacent country, entertaining myself as best I could. At about two o'clock in the afternoon we started for town, leaving Peters much better than when two days before we had first, together, entered his humble home. We promised to see him the next day; and, in fact, one or both of us returned each day for many succeeding days. That evening Doctor Bainbridge came to my rooms, and began the recitation of Dirk Peters'

story; and that, too, was continued from day to day.

And it is now time that the patient reader should also know the secrets of that far-distant antarctic region--secrets of which Poe himself died in ignorance--save as the genius, the seer, knows the wonders of heaven and earth--sees gems that lie in hidden places, and flowers that bloom obscurely, and feels the mysteries of ocean depths, and all that is so far--or near, so great--or small, that common vision sees it not.

The NINTH Chapter

There may be among my readers some who have never read "The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym," or have so long ago perused that interesting and mysterious conception, that they have forgotten even the outlines of the story. It is the purpose of the present chapter to review a few of the incidents in that narrative, a knowledge of which will add to the clearer understanding of Peters' story.

Those who are familiar with Edgar Allan Poe's admirable and entrancing narrative just mentioned, are aware that it is written in autobiographical form, the facts for the most part being furnished by Pym in the shape of journal or diary entries, which are edited by Mr.

Poe. For such readers it will be but a waste of time to peruse the present chapter, brief though it is. And let me further say to any chance reader of mine who has never had opportunity to enjoy that exciting and edifying work of America's great genius of prose fiction, that he is to be envied the possession of the belated pleasure that awaits him--only a treasured memory of which delight remains to the rest of us.

From my own narrative I shall omit much of description and colloquy which, during its development in 1877, occurred concerning discoveries of a geographical and geological nature, and also many discussions of a character purely philosophical; but no fact shall be discarded. The historian has, in my opinion, no discretionary power concerning the introduction or elimination of facts. His duty is plain, and in the present instance it shall be faithfully performed.

The following presents a very general outline of "The Narrative of A.

Gordon Pym":

In the year 1827, Pym, just verging upon manhood, runs away from his home in the town of Nantucket, on the island of the same name, in companions.h.i.+p with his boy friend, Augustus Barnard, son of the captain of the s.h.i.+p on which they depart. The name of the brig on which they embark is the Grampus, which is starting for a trading voyage in the South Pacific Ocean. Young Barnard secretes Pym in the hold of the brig, to remain hidden until so far from land as to make a return of the runaway impracticable. Pym, hidden amid the freightage of the hold, falls into a prolonged slumber, probably caused by the foul air in that part of the vessel. When the brig is four days at sea, a majority of the crew mutiny; and after killing many of those who have not joined them, Captain Barnard is set adrift in a small boat, without food and with only a jug of water. Young Barnard is permitted to remain on the vessel.

There is a dog that plays a leading part in the mutiny episode by acting as a messenger between Barnard and Pym, who had no other means of communicating.

Next comes a counter mutiny, made necessary to preserve the life of one Peters, a sailor to whom Barnard owes his life. The s.h.i.+p's cook is determined to kill Peters, and is about to accomplish his purpose, when Peters, young Barnard, and a sailor named Parker, who joins the two, devise a plan for overcoming the mutineers of the "cook's party." This they succeeded in doing by, at the right moment, producing from his hiding-place young Pym, who is dressed to resemble a certain murdered sailor whose corpse is still on the brig; and during the fright of the "cook's party," Peters and Parker kill the cook and his followers.

Then the four--Barnard, Pym, Peters, and the sailor Parker--have many thrilling adventures. The brig is finally wrecked in a storm, and only the inverted hull remains above water, to which the four cling for many days. The party is at last rescued by a trading-vessel on its way to discover new lands in the Antarctic Ocean. They reach 83 south lat.i.tude, soon after which a landing is made on an island inhabited by a tribe of strange black people. Here, through a trick of the islanders, the crew lose their lives--all save Pym and Peters. Parker had already died, and in a manner more entertaining to the reader in the perusal than to Parker in the performance; and which, Peters said forty-nine years later, the mere thought of, always made him willing to wait for his supper when he had of necessity to forego a dinner.

Whilst escaping in a small boat from this island, Pym and Peters abduct one of the male natives. Like his fellows, this native is black, even to his teeth; in fact, there is nothing white on the whole island; even the water has its peculiarities. And also like his fellows, he dreads the color _white_; and whenever he sees anything white he becomes almost frenzied or paralyzed with terror. The small boat with its three occupants is carried on an ocean current, to the south. One day Pym, in taking a white handkerchief from his pocket allows the wind to flare it into the face of the black islander, who sinks in convulsions to the bottom of the boat, later moaning (as had moaned the other islanders on seeing white), "Tekeli-li, tekeli-li." He continued to breathe, and no more. The following day the body of a white animal floats by, a body similar to one which they had seen on the beach of the island last visited. Then they see in the south a white curtain, which, after their further progress in its direction, they observe reaches from the sky to the water. The water of the ocean current which is hurrying them along becomes hour by hour warmer, and finally hot. An ash-like material, which seems to melt as it touches the water, falls all around and over them. Gigantic white birds fly from beyond the white curtain, screaming the eternal "Teke-li-li, tekeli-li"--a syllabication that dies away on the lips of the islander as his soul finally, on that last terrible day, leaves his body.