Coryndon

“ Coryndon knew the full value of working from point to point, but beside this method he placed his own instinct, and his instinct pointed along a different road, a road that might lead nowhere, and yet it called to him as he sat on the side of his bed, as roads with indefinite endings have called men since the beginning of time. ”

“ Coryndon agreed, and conversation flagged again. They crossed the road, turned up the avenue and were lost in the shadows of the trees, coming out again into a white bay of light outside the door.
Everyone, man or woman, who is endowed at birth with a sensitive nature is subject to occasional inrushes of detachment that without warning cut him off from realities for moments or hours, converting everyday matters into the consistency of dream-life. It was through this medium that Coryndon saw Mrs. Wilder when he came into the large upstairs drawing-room. ”

“ Wilder, she was but a cypher in the total, but if he had begged off to-night he would have had to hurt Hartley. Coryndon could never get away from the other man's point of view; it dogged him in great things and in small, and he was obliged to realize Hartley's pleasure in seeing him, and his further pleasure in carrying him off to a house where he himself enjoyed life thoroughly. Coryndon could as easily have disappointed a child, or been cruel to a small, wagging puppy as to Hartley in his present mood. ”

“ Information might be at hand in the safe keeping of his servant Shiraz, but he considered that he must argue his own conclusions apart from anything Shiraz had discovered. Narrowing his eyes and sitting forward on the edge of his bed, he thought out the whole progress of his scheme. Coryndon was an essentially quiet man, but as he thought he struck his hands together and came to a sudden decision.
If life offers a few exciting moments, the man who refuses them is no adventurer, and Coryndon saw a chance for personal skill and definite action. ”

“ Coryndon gave one glance at the sky; the dawn was still far off, but in spite of this he ran up the deserted colonnade and walked quickly down Paradise Street, which was still awake and would be awake for hours. Once clear of the lessening crowd and on to the wharf, he ran again; past the business houses, past the long quarter where the Coringyhis and coolie-folk lived, and, lastly, with a slow, lurking step, to the close vicinity of a house standing alone upon high supports. ”

“ Somewhere in the centre of things actual, Hartley lived his cheerful, happy life, dreaming when he was lonely of the woman who darned his socks and smiled at him. In Coryndon's life there was no woman either visionary or real, and he wondered why he was exempt from these natural dreams of a man. He was very humble about himself. He knew that he was only a tracker, a brain that carried a body, not a healthy animal body that controlled the greater part of a brain. ”

“ He had no way of judging the time that passed, but he guessed that it seemed longer to him than it possibly could have been; when from somewhere far below him, he heard a cry and the noise of several voices, all raised into indistinct clamour.
"More than one man," he thought, as his heart beat quickly. "More than two," he added, in wonder as he strained in the effort of listening.
The noise died out, and one low wail, continuous and plaintive, filled the blank of dark silence. Coryndon felt for his matches, and knelt on the floor, feeling before him with his hands. ”

“ He had dreamed as a boy, and he still dreamed as a man. The subtle beauty of a line of verse led him into visionary habitations as fair as any ever disclosed to poet or artist. He could lose himself utterly in the lights and shadows of a passing day, while he watched for a doomed man at the entrance of a temple, or brooded over painted sores and cried to the rich for alms by a dusty roadside; a very different Coryndon to the Coryndon who looked at Hartley across the white cloth of the round dinner-table. ”

“ Coryndon's eyes were turned to the Pagoda, and he was evidently inattentive.
"It strikes you, doesn't it?" asked Fitzgibbon, in the tones of a gratified showman. "It always does strike people who haven't seen it before." ”

“ He had complete powers of self-control, and his one passion was his love of music, and though he never played for anyone else, men who had come upon him unawares had heard him playing to himself in a way that was as surprising as everything else about Coryndon surprised and astonished. ”

“ The beggar, having followed Leh Shin as far as the opium den, returned along the Colonnade and knocked at the door of the house where Shiraz waited anxiously for his master.
"Is my bath prepared, Shiraz? I must wash before I sleep, and I shall sleep late."
Coryndon was weary. No one who has not watched through hours of strain and suspense knows the utter weariness of mind and body that follows upon the long effort of close attention, and he fell upon his bed in a huddled heap and slept for hour after hour, worn out in brain and body. ”

“ Coryndon said to him. "I leave to-night for Madras, Shiraz, and you with me."
"The end of all things is just, Huzoor," replied the old man, a strange light of reflection in his dim pebble-like eyes. "Is it not written that none may rise so high, or plunge so deep, that he does not follow the hidden path to the hidden end? For like a wind that goes and returns never, or the shadow of a cloud passing over the desert, is the destiny of a man." ”

“ XII SHOWS HOW A MAN MAY CLIMB A HUNDRED STEPS INTO A PASSIONLESS PEACE, AND RETURN AGAIN TO A WORLD OF SMALL TORMENTS
By the end of a week Coryndon had slipped into the ways of Mangadone, slipped in quietly and without causing much comment. He went to the Club with Hartley and made the acquaintance of nearly all his host's friends, and they, in return, gave him the casual notice accorded to a passing stranger who had no part or lot in their lives or interests. Coryndon was very quiet and listened to everything ”

“ He spoke to Hartley, but Heath, who had been talking across the table to Coryndon, lost his place, stumbled and recovered himself with difficulty, and then lapsed into silence. Hartley had a few things to say about Rydal, but chief among them was the astounding fact that he had dodged the police, who were watching the wharves and jetties, and, so far as he knew, the man had never left Mangadone.
"Do you suppose that he got away disguised?"
"Impossible," said Hartley, with decision. "He was a big, fair Englishman with blue eyes. Nothing on earth could have made him look anything else. ”

“ Wilder, with a smile that was slightly encouraging.
"A man with less temperament," said Coryndon slowly. "Heath lacks a certain commonplace courage, because he feels things too much. He is not altogether honest with himself or his congregation, because he has the protective instinct over-developed. If I had a secret I should feel that it was perfectly safe with Heath." ”

“ Out of the mouth of a man comes his own condemnation: let him prosper who remembers this truth. The value of mystery, the value of silence, and above all things, the supreme value of a tongue that is a servant and not a master; Coryndon considered these values and wondered again at the garrulity of men. Talk, the fluid, ineffectual force that fills the world with noise, that kills illusions and betrays every latent weakness; surely the high gods laughed when they put a tongue in the mouth of man. ”

“ As the daylight faded the lights from the shrines and the small booths grew stronger, and the rising night wind, coming in from the river, rang the silver bells around the spires, filling the whole air with tinkling sound, and the slow-moving crowd around them laughed and joked, like people at a fair. His eyes still full of dreams, Coryndon followed with them, keeping one small packet of amber candles to light in honour of some other Buddha in another shrine.
"Funny devils, these Burmese," remarked the Barrister. "They never clean up anything. ”

“ He put away all thought of Absalom and the other lives connected with the disappearance of the Christian boy, and let his thoughts drift out, drawing in the light and colour of the world outside.
Yesterday has power over to-day; to-morrow even greater power, for to-morrow holds a gift or a whip, and Coryndon knew this, thinking out his little philosophy of life. To be able to handle a situation which may require a strength that is above tact or diplomacy, he knew that all those yesterdays must give their store of gathered strength and knowledge. ”

“ They were ranged up a green slope, two on either side of the brown fretted roof that covered the steep tunnel that led up a flight of more than a hundred steps to the flat plateau, where the golden spire towered high over all, amid a crowd of lesser minarets.
Surrounded by baskets of roses and orchids, little silk-clothed Burmese girls sat on the entrance steps, and sold their wares. Fitzgibbon would have hurried on, but Coryndon, in true tripper fashion, stopped and bought an armful of blossoms. ”

“ Nature alone can do such things. He looked at the far-off trees of the park, green now, to turn into soft blue masses later on when the day waned, and the intrinsic value of blue as colour flitted over his fancy. The music that was part of his nature rippled and sang in obligato to his thoughts, and because he loved music he loved colour and knew the connection between sound and tint. Colour, to its lightest, least value, was music, expressing itself in another way.
Hartley went out with his dog; went softly because he believed his friend slept, and Coryndon did not stir. ”

“ For a while Sir Calidore was wholly mastered by his grief. Yet coming to himself, he considered that Corydon had not seen with his own eyes all that he had told, because he had fled away before the strife had so much as begun; and so hope, which is ever hard to kill in the hearts of men, sprang up within him, and he made a great resolve that he would find her if she yet lived, or avenge her if she had died. He therefore said to Corydon: “Come now, and show me the place where these brigands dwell,” which thing Corydon was at the first unwilling to do ”

“ Oh when, or oh where shall this poor heart have rest?
Since the cold earth lies heavy on Corydon's breast.
Ob! cold are the lips of the youth that I lov'd,
And gone the emotions he glanced from his eye,
And still is that heart which so constantly prov'd
How my presence was dear, as it rose in a sigh.
Oh when, or oh where shall this poor heart have rest?
Since the cold earth lies heavy on Corydon's breast.
And see the pensive form glides lonely near,
With languid eye and melancholy air;
To deep despair a prey, her wandering mind
Starts at the straw, and trembles at the wind. ”

“ When should one yield to desire, and when should one restrain it? To Corydon such questions never came—to her there was no such possibility as excess; she was complete and perfect, and nature told her. If there were temptations and restraints and regrets, they were for Thyrsis; and he had to keep them for his own secret, he could ask no help from her. For he discovered immediately that with his proud imperiousness, he could not endure to have Corydon refuse herself to him. ”

“ CORIANTON, SON OF ALMA. Of Corianton's birth and death we have no record. With his brothers, he is first mentioned in the Book of Mormon at the time of the Zoramite apostasy, when, though young and inexperienced, his father took him on the mission to that people. At this period of his life, Corianton appears to have been afflicted with a failing common to youth — an inordinate estimate of his own strength and wisdom, and an inclination to scepticism, if not to infidelity. He was a doubter of everything except his own supposed abilities. ”

“ In the boarding-house with Corydon lived some elderly ladies, who had a remarkable faculty for divining the evil deeds of other people. They had divined the evil deeds of Corydon and Thyrsis, and one of them was moved to come to Corydon’s mother one day, and warn her lest others should divine them too. And so there was more agony; the discovery was made that Corydon had become a social outcast to all the maids and matrons of the summer population—a girl who went to visit a poet in his lonely cabin, and stayed until unknown hours of the night. ”

“ Can you not realize how all your deficiencies are as nothing to me, in the sight of that one unapproachable perfection? For my Corydon is all devotion and love, and pure, pure, maiden goodness! And there is quite a whole heart full of feeling for you in that, and I wish I had you here to tell you.
XXII. MY CORYDON:
I am coming more and more to realize myself, and what is the single faculty I have been given. I think of a dear clergyman friend I used to have, and I realize what a loving heart is—what it is to delight in a human soul for its own sake, and to be kind to it, fond of it. ”

“ I do not lead our party, I am youngest in it."
"Ah, sir prophet, you are more famous than you know. It was Corianton that we first heard of in Siron; it is he whose eloquence most baffles the Zoramites, and threatens the disruption of their church—believe me, sir, I was charged by my father to bid you come."
Oh, flattery! what man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms! And how those charms are heightened, when flattery falls from beauty's lips! The vanity of Corianton was well pleased with the words of the woman; pride swelled his bosom, and he felt exalted above his brethren. ”