Eden Phillpotts

“ He is not asleep, but on the edge of sleep when he becomes suddenly conscious of physical sensations beyond his experience. He had breathed death, but yet he is not dead. His brain works, and can send a message to his limbs, which are still able to obey. But his hour has come. He leaps from the bed in no suffering, but conscious, perhaps of an oppression, or an unfamiliar odor—we cannot say what. We only know that he feels intense surprise, not pain for in that dying moment his emotions are fixed for ever by the muscles of his face. He needs air and seeks it. ”

“ Believe me, while the new generation is crying forth the new knowledge and glorying in its genius, we of the old guard are sinking into our graves and taking the old knowledge with us. Yet they only rediscover for themselves what we know. Human life is the snake with its tail in its mouth—Nietzsche's eternal recurrence and the commonplaces of our forefathers are echoed on the lips of our children as great discoveries."
Henry Lennox ventured to bring him back to the point.
"What knowledge—what particular branch of information should a man possess, signor, to find out what you have found?" ”

“ No, no, not that, Mary! It's all madness and moonshine! This is delirium; it will kill me! Don't think I believe them, any more than Mannering did, or Henry did. Henry has seen much death; he could not have been deceived. Tom was dead, and your heart told you he was dead. One cannot truly make any mistake in the presence of death; I know that."
Mary was marvellously restrained, despite the fact that she had received this appalling blow and vividly suffered all that it implied.
"I will try to put it out of my mind, father," she said quietly. "But if Mr. Hardcastle is alive, I shall go mad!" ”

“ Let each man and woman be informed of what I do, and let them lift a petition for me, that my work be crowned with success. But let them not assume that to-morrow I shall have anything to impart. The night may be one of peace within, though so stormy without. I may pray till dawn with no knowledge how my prayer prospers, or I may be called to face a being that no human eye has ever seen and lived. These things are hidden from us."
"You are wonderful, and it is heartening to meet with such mighty faith," replied Sir Walter. ”

“ He has not moved with the times any more than I have."
"His eye flashes still, and you know he has claws, but, like a dear old Persian cat, he would never dream of using them."
"I think he would," answered her cousin. "He might spring on anybody—from behind."
"He is, at any rate, too old to understand democracy."
"He understands it only too well," replied Sir Walter. "Like myself, he knows that democracy is only autocracy turned inside out. Human nature isn't constructed to bear any such ideal. It might suit sheep and oxen—not men." ”

“ It was for Michelangelo to make the creations of these artists mere colored bubbles and froth, when seen against the immensity and intellectual grandeur of his future masterpieces in the Sistine. But that was afterwards. We are concerned with the Pope for whom these chairs and this bed were made. Yes, a Pope, my friends—no less a personage than Alexander VI.!"
He waited, like a skilled actor, for the tremendous sensation he expected and deserved. But it did not come. Unhappily for Signor Mannetti's great moment, his words conveyed no particular impression to anybody. ”

“ The mere introduction of human precaution and human weapons would sully faith and make of no avail the only sure means of winning light on this solemn problem. Reason, so employed, would be a hindrance—an actual danger. Only absolute faith can unravel the mystery before us."
"Then, frankly, I tell you that I lack any such absolute faith," declared Sir Walter.
"Do not say that—you libel yourself and are letting a base and material fear cloud your own trust," answered May. "As there is no human reason for what has happened, so no human reason will be found to explain it. ”

“ I loved Mary with all my heart and soul, Tom. She didn't know how much, and probably I didn't either. But that's done, and no man on earth rejoices in her great happiness more than I do. And no man on earth is going to be a better or a truer friend to you and her than, please God, I shall be. But that being so, can't you see the rest? My life ended in a way when the dream of my life ended. I attach no importance to living for itself, and if anything final happened to me it wouldn't leave a blank anywhere. ”

“ It seems improbable that anything I can say will bear upon the case, and I may presently find that I lack the means to serve you, or throw light where all is so profoundly buried in darkness. Yet I am not sure. Small things will often lead to greater, and though the past is unhappily beyond recall, since our Maker Himself cannot undo the work of yesterday, or obliterate events embalmed in vanished time, yet there is always the future; and if we could but read the past aright, which we never can, then the future would prove less of a painful riddle than mankind generally finds it. ”

“ The arms of the Borgia, and the successful experiment with the dog, Prince, proved that I was correct in guessing where the poison lay hidden."
"It is impossible to express my sense of your amazing goodness, or my gratitude, or my admiration for your genius," declared Sir Walter; but the other contradicted him.
"Genius is a great word to which I can lay no claim. I have done nothing at all that you yourself might not have done, given the same knowledge. As for gratitude, if indeed that is not too strong an expression also, you can show gratitude in a very simple manner, dear friend. ”

“ A benevolent autocracy is the ideal government, my friend—the ideal of all supreme thinkers—a Machiavelli, a Nietzsche, a Stendhal, a Gobineau. Liberty and equality are terms mutually destructive, they cannot exist together; for, given liberty, the strong instantly look to it that equality shall perish. And rightly so. Equality is a war cry for fools—a negation of nature, an abortion. The very ants know better. Doubtless you view with considerable distrust the growing spirit of democracy, or what is called by that name? ”

“ Yes, these chairs have speaking faces to me, just as the ceiling over them has a speaking face also. It, too, is copied. History, in fact, breathes its very essence in this home. If I knew more history than I do, then other beautiful things would talk to me as freely as these chairs—and as freely as the trophies of the chase and the tiger skins below no doubt talk to Sir Walter. But are we not all historical—men, women, even children? To exist is to take your place in history, though, as in my case, the fact will not be recorded save in the 'Chronicles' of the everlasting. ”

“ Not to such as they will any answer be vouchsafed, and not to the spirit of materialistic inquiry, either. I speak what I know, and will say more upon the subject at another time."
"You cannot accept this awful thing without resentment or demur, Mr. May?" asked Henry Lennox.
"Who shall demur? Did not even the unenlightened men who formed the coroner's jury declare that Tom passed into another world by the hand of God? Can we question our Creator? I, too, desire as much as any human being can an explanation; what is more, I am far more confident of an explanation than you or any other man. ”

“ Juggling with words never advanced the world's welfare or helped the cause of truth. What, for any practical purpose, does it matter how subjectively true a statement may be if it is objectively false? Life is just as real as I am myself—no more and no less—and all the metaphysical jargon in the world won't prevent my shins from bleeding wet, red blood when I bark them against a stone. ”

“ Mary May always declared that the old Italian won her heart and even awakened something akin to affection before she had known him half an hour. There was a fascination in his admixture of childish simplicity and varied knowledge. None, indeed, could resist his gracious humor and old-world courtesies. The old man could be simple and ingenuous, too; but only when it pleased him so to be; and it was not the second childishness of age, for his intellect remained keen and moved far more swiftly than any at Chadlands. ”

“ To his forthright and simple intelligence, mystery was hateful, and the reflection that his home must for ever hold a profound and appalling mystery often thrust itself upon his thoughts, and even inclined him, in some moods, to see Chadlands no more. Yet a natural longing to return to the old environment, in which he could move with ease and comfort, gradually mastered him, and as the spring advanced he often sighed for Devonshire, yet wondered how he could do so. ”

“ But, believe me, a thousand detectives cannot explain my son's death. I shall return to this subject after the funeral, Sir Walter. But my conviction grows that the reason of these things will never be revealed to the eye of science. To the eye of faith alone we must trust the explanation of what has happened. There are things concealed from the wise and prudent—to be revealed unto babes. ”

“ Henry laughed; his uncle was puzzled.
"You think that is no answer," continued the Italian. "But reason also must have a place in the sun, though we have to hide it in our pocket sometimes. So many great men would not extinguish their light—and had it extinguished for them. A difficult subject. Let us continue to think in compartments. It is safer so. If you are over eighty years old, you love safety. But I love joy and romance also, and is not religion almost the only joy and romance left to us? It is affirmation remember, not negation, that makes the world go round! ”

“ The spirit is willing, but the spirit probably does not know yet what lies in front of it. You are groping—blind, childlike—without a hand to guard and an authority to guide. That is merely to waste time. When you go back to Italy, you must begin at the beginning, if you are in earnest—not at the middle. Only ignorance measures art in terms of skill, for there are no degrees in art. None has transcended Giotto, because technique and draughtsmanship are accidents of time; they lie outside the soul of the matter. Art is in fact a static thing. ”

“ Thus, while Sir Walter still opposed, he was surprised to hear Mary plead on the visitor's behalf, and his nephew support her.
"Signor Mannetti is quite right, father; I am positive of it," she said. "He is right; and because he is right, he is safe."
"Admirably put!" cried the Italian. "There you have the situation in a nutshell, my friends. Trust a clever woman's intuition. I am indeed right. Never was consciousness of right so impressed upon my mind—prone as I am always to doubt my own conclusions. I am, in fact, right because I cannot be wrong. ”

“ Nobody can be positive. We don't know anything about what life really means, and we haven't got the machinery to find out."
"By analogy we can," argued Tom. "Where are you going to draw the line? Life is life, and a sponge is just as much alive as a herring; a nettle is just as much alive as an oak-tree; and an oak-tree is just as much alive as you are. What becomes of its vital spark when you eat an oyster?"
"You wouldn't believe in a life after death at all, then?"
"It's a pure assumption, Henry. ”

“ It must be apparent to everybody that I am, of all men, if not the most involved, at least the most anxious to clear this mystery—that nobody can doubt."
"Then you must conserve your strength and be guided," said Mannering. "I do beg of you to retire now, and insist upon Mary doing the same. Nothing can be gained by the dead, and necessary energy is lost to the living by this irrational vigil. It is far past midnight; I beg you to retire, Sir Walter, and Mary, too. There is nothing that should keep you out of bed, and I urge you to go to it." ”

“ If I erred in the matter of this devoted priest, I shall not question the judgment of my fellow-men upon me."
"Fear nothing of that sort," answered Mannering. "Your fellow-man has no right to judge you, and the law, with all its faults, appreciates logic. Who can question your right to believe that this is a matter outside human knowledge? Your wisdom may be questioned, but not your right. Plenty would have felt the same. When the mind of man finds itself groping in the dark, you will see that, in the huge majority of cases, it falls back upon supernatural explanations for mystery. ”

“ Tom went to his death innocently; this man cannot be absolved so easily. In my case, with my knowledge and faith, the conditions are very different, and I oppose an impregnable barrier between myself and the secret being. I am an old priest, and I go knowing the nature of my task. My weapons are such that a good spirit would applaud them and an evil spirit be powerless against them. Do you not see that the Almighty could never permit one of His creatures—for even the devils also are His—to defeat His own minister or trample on the name of Christ? ”