Hugh Walpole

“ Through Pain we reach Power.
"I test you with pain, and as you overcome the pain so do you climb up beside me, who have also overcome it, and we are in time as gods knowing good and evil.... A concrete case, Mr. Harkness. I slash your face with a knife. You are so powerful that you take the pain, twist it in your hand and throw it away. You rise up to me, and suddenly I, who have inflicted the pain on you, love you because you have taken my power over you and used it for your soul's advantage."
"And do I love you because you have slashed my face?" asked Harkness.
Crispin's eyes narrowed. ”

“ As Maradick once had felt the current of love running strong and true through a thousand souls, so Harkness felt it now, and, as with Maradick once, so with Harkness now, it seemed strange that life might not be simply run, that the lion might not lie down with the lamb, that nations might not be for ever at peace the one with another, and that the Grand Millennium might not immediately be at hand. ”

“ Harkness was conscious that Hesther Crispin was pressed, almost crouching, against the corner of the car, and although the stuff of her dress touched him he was aware that she was striving desperately that he should not be aware of her proximity, and then directly after that, of why she was so striving—it was because she was shivering—shivering in little spasms and tremors that shook her from head to foot—and she was wishing that he should not realise this. ”

“ Whatever her experiences of the last month she was pure in heart and soul as some child at her mother's knee. She had her pride, her pluck, her resolve, but also, above all else, her innocent simplicity, her ignorance of all the evil in the world. And as though the most urgent problem of all his life had been solved, he gave the little white gate a push and stepped through it into the open road. ”

“ I've never had any leaning that way, but I take it that the moment that any one crosses the division between sanity and insanity it means that they can control their brain no longer, that they are dominated by some desire or ambition or lust or terror that nothing can stop, no fear of the law, of public shame, of losing social caste. Crispin is mad, and Hesther, whom I love more than anything in this world and the next, is in his hands completely and absolutely. They go abroad to-morrow morning where no one can touch them. ”

“ There was jewelry here that seemed to move with its own independent life before Harkness's eyes—Jaipur enamel of transparent red and green, lovely patterns with thick long strips of enamel on a ground of bright gold, over which, while still soft from the furnace, an open-work pattern of gold had been pressed; large rough turquoises set in silver; Chinese work of carved ivory and jade, cap ornaments exquisitely worked, a cap of a Chinese emperor with its embroidered gold dragon and its crown of pearls. ”

“ Crispin Senior was not "a regular feller" whatever else he might be. There had, too, been one moment towards the end of dinner when a waiter, passing, had jolted the little man's chair. There had been for an instant a glance that Harkness now, in his general survey of the situation, was glad to have caught—a glance that seemed to tear the pale powdered mask away for the moment and to show a living moving visage, something quite other, something the more alive in contrast with its earlier immobility. Once, years before, Harkness had seen in the Naples Aquarium two octopuses. ”

“ Sparks of fire were already scattered across a sky that was smoky with coils of mist as though some giant train had but now thundered through on its journey to Paradise. Little whistles of wind stole about the garden making secret appointments among the trees. Somewhere near to him a fountain was splashing, and behind the lingering liquid sound of it he could hear the merry-go-round and the drum. He cared little about the dance now, but in some fashion he must pass the time until nine-thirty when he would see her friend and learn what he might do. ”

“ Even as the strokes sounded in the air the wide doors of the Town Hall unfolded and a tall stout man, dressed in the cocked hat and the cape and cloak of a Dickensian beadle, appeared. Flaming red they were, and very fine and important he looked as he stood there on the steps, his legs spread, holding his gold staff in his hands. He was attended by several other gentlemen who looked down with benignant approval upon the crowd, and by a drum, a trumpet, and a flute, these last being instruments rather than men. ”

“ He lent forward, tapped Harkness's knee with his hand, staring into his face.
"Different, Mr. Harkness, different. Different...."
And the long draughty room echoed "Different ... different ... different."
"My father beat me one night terribly, beat me so that I could not move for pain. For no reason, simply because, he said, he wished that I should understand life, and first to understand life one must learn to suffer pain, and that then, if one could suffer pain enough, one could be as God—perhaps greater than God.
"It was to that night in the Bloomsbury house that I owe everything. ”

“ Harkness pushed open a door and at once found himself in one of those little hotel drawing-rooms that are so peculiarly British, compounded as they are of ferns and discretion, convention and an untuned piano. In this little room a young man was sitting alone. Harkness knew at once that his search was over. He knew where it was that he had heard the name Dunbar before—this was his young man of the high road, the wandering seaman and the serious appointment, the young man of his expectant charge. ”

“ Harkness, I have devoted my later years to the solution of this problem.
"I feel, if I may say so, without too much arrogance, that I am intending to help poor human nature along the road to a better understanding of life. Poor, muddled human nature. Defeated always by Fear. Yes, Fear. And if they have surmounted Fain and stand with their foot on its body, what remains? It is gone, vanished. I myself am increasing my power every day. First one, then another. First through Pain. ”

“ To-night is the very first time in both our lives that she has begged me to do anything!"
"He stopped for a moment. "By God!" he cried, "if I can't help her to-night I'll finish myself; there'll be nothing left in life for me!"
"We will help her," Harkness said. "Both of us. But go on. Time's advancing. I mustn't miss my appointment."
"No, by Jove, you mustn't," said Dunbar. "Everything hangs on that. Well, to get on. It didn't take me very long to see what Crispin was doing to her father, and one day she went up to see him alone and begged him to be merciful. ”

“ Harkness drew near and, looking at the tender wistfulness of the two old Potter's horses, bravely living out there the last days of their broken forgotten lives, he felt a sudden friendliness to all the world, a reassurance, a comfort.
Those glittering jewelled things had had at their heart a warning, an alarm; but no one, he was suddenly aware, who cared for these prints could be bad. There are no things in the world so kindly, so simple, so warm in their humanity....
The little man was near to him. He put his hand on his knee. ”

“ Harkness pressed his hands tightly together. A little shiver ran, as though it responded to the draught that blew through the room, up and down his body. He was anxious that Crispin should not notice that he was shivering.
"Have you any idea where you will go?" he asked—and his voice sounded strangely unlike his own, as though some third person were in the room and speaking just behind him.
"We have no idea," said Crispin, smiling. "That will depend on many things. On Mrs. Crispin herself of course amongst others. A young wife must not show too complete an independence. ”

“ She has the most honourable loyal character you've ever seen in woman. And she's never been in love—she doesn't know what love is. Those are the two most important things about her. That doesn't mean that she's ignorant of life. There's nothing mean or sordid or disgusting that hasn't come into her experience through her beauty of a father, but she's stood up to it all—until this, this Crispin marriage. The first thing in her life she's funked. ”

“ Men of the sea bronzed with dark hair, flashing eyes, rings on their fingers and bells on their toes; men of the fields, the soil interpenetrated with the very soul of their being, bearded to the eyes, broad-shouldered, broad-buttocked, their Sunday coats flapping over their corduroyed thighs, their rough thick necks moving restlessly in their unaccustomed collars; women of the fair with eyes like black coals ”

“ Omar put it better than Crispin.
"He had also a lot of talk about Power, that if he liked he could have any one in his power, and so could I if I liked. You had only to know other people's weaknesses enough. And more than that. Some stuff about its being good for people to suffer. That the thing that made life interesting and worth while was its intensity, and that life was never so intense as when we were suffering. That, after all, God liked us to suffer. Why shouldn't we be gods? We might be if we only had courage enough. ”

“ Every one was splitting up into little groups, some to look at the fireworks, some to have a last drink together, some to creep off into the dark shadows and there confirm their vows, some to drive home on their carts and waggons to their distant farms, some to sit in their homes for a last chatting about all the news, some to go straight to their beds—the common impulse was over although it would not be forgotten. ”

“ Harkness?" and the draught went whispering on hands and feet round the room, "Do you believe in God, Mr. Harkness?"
"Yes," said Harkness.
"Yes,"said Crispin, in his lovely melodious voice; "but in a good God, a sweet God, a kind beneficent God. That is no God. God is first cruel, terrible, lashing, punishing. Then when He has punished enough, and the victim is in His power, bleeding at His feet, owning Him as Lord and Master, then He bends down and lifts the wounded brow and kisses the torn mouth, and in His heart there is a great and mighty triumph.... ”

“ He was a large, extremely powerful man, given to violent tempers. But, after all, what is insanity? There are cases—many I suppose—where the brain breaks down and is unable to perform any longer its ordinary functions, but in most cases insanity is only the name given by envious persons to those who have strength of character enough to realise their own ideas regardless of public opinion. Such was my father. He cared nothing for public opinion. We led a strange life, he and I, in a big black house in Bloomsbury. ”