Ardath, Marie Corelli [e ink ebook reader txt] 📗

sing, only to recall to me the lute-like sweetness of her voice,—and at night, when I behold the millions upon millions of stars that are worlds, peopled as they must be with thousands of wonderful living creatures, perhaps as spiritually composed as she, I sometimes find it hard, that out of all the exhaustless types of being that love, serve, and praise God in Heaven, this one fair Spirit,—only this one angel-maiden should not be spared to help and comfort me!

Yes!—I am selfish to the heart’s core, my friend!”—and his eyes darkened with a vague wistfulness and trouble,—“Moreover, I have weakly striven to excuse my selfishness to my own conscience thus:—I have thought that if SHE were vouchsafed to me for the remainder of my days, I might then indeed do lasting good, and leave lasting consolation to the world,—such work might be performed as would stir the most callous souls to life and energy and aspiration,—with HER sweet Presence near me, visibly close and constant, there is no task so difficult that I would not essay and conquer in, for her sake, her service, her greater glory! But ALONE!”—and he gave a slight, hopeless gesture—“Nay,—Christ knows I will do the utmost best I can, but the solitary ways of life are hard!”

 

Heliobas regarded him fixedly.

 

“You SEEM to be alone”—he said presently, after a pause,—“but truly you are not so. You think you are set apart to do your work in solitude,—nevertheless, she whom you love may be near you even while you speak! Still I understand what you mean,—you long to SEE her again,—to realize her tangible form and presence,—well!

—this cannot be until you pass from this earth and adopt HER

nature, . . unless,—unless SHE descends hither, and adopts YOURS!”

 

The last words were uttered slowly and impressively, and Alwyn’s countenance brightened with a sudden irresistible rapture.

 

“That would be impossible!” he said, but his voice trembled, and there was more interrogativeness than assertion in his tone.

 

“Impossible in most cases,—yes”—agreed Heliobas—“but in your specially chosen and privileged estate, I cannot positively say that such a thing might not be.”

 

For one moment a strange, eager brilliancy shone in Alwyn’s eyes, —the next, he set his lips hard, and made a firm gesture of denial.

 

“Do not tempt me, good Heliobas,” he said, with a faint smile—

“Or, rather, do not let me tempt myself! I bear in constant mind what she, my Edris, told me when she left me,—that we should not meet again till after death, unless the longing of my love COMPELLED. Now, if it be true, as I have often thought, that I COULD compel,—by what right dare I use such power, if power I have upon her? She loves me,—I love her,—and by the force of love, such love as ours, . . who knows!—I might perchance persuade her to adopt a while this mean, uneasy vesture of mere mortal life,—and the very innate perception that I MIGHT do so, is the sharpest trial I have to endure. Because if I would thoroughly conquer myself, I must resist this feeling;—nay, I WILL resist it,—for let it cost me what it may, I have sworn that the selfishness of my own personal desire shall never cross or cloud the radiance of her perfect happiness!”

 

“But suppose”—suggested Heliobas quietly, “suppose she were to find an even more complete happiness in making YOU happy?”

 

Alwyn shook his head. “My friend do not let us talk of it!”—he answered—“No joy can be more complete than the joy of Heaven,—

and that in its full blessedness is hers.”

 

“That in its full blessedness is NOT hers,”—declared Heliobas with emphasis—“And, moreover, it can never be hers, while YOU are still an exile and a wanderer! Friend Poet, do you think that even Heaven is wholly happy to one who loves, and whose Beloved is absent?”

 

A tremor shook Alwyn’s nerves,—his eyes glowed as though the inward fire of his soul had lightened them, but his face grew very pale.

 

“No more of this, for God’s sake!” he said passionately. “I must not dream of it,—I dare not! I become the slave of my own imagined rapture,—the coward who falls conquered and trembling before his own desire of delight! Rather let me strive to be glad that she, my angel-love, is so far removed from my unworthiness,—

let her, if she be near me now, read my thoughts, and see in them how dear, how sacred is her fair and glorious memory,—how I would rather endure an eternity of anguish, than make her sad for one brief hour of mortal-counted time!”

 

He was greatly moved,—his voice trembled with the fervor of its own music, and Heliobas looked at him with a grave and very tender smile.

 

“Enough!”—he said gently—“I will speak no further on this subject, which I see affects you deeply. Nevertheless, I would have you remember how, when the Master whom we serve passed through His Agony at Gethsemane, and with all the knowledge of His own power and glory strong upon Him, still in His vast self-abnegation said, ‘Not My will, but Thine be done!’ that then ‘there appeared an Angel unto Him from heaven strengthening Him!’

Think of this,—for every incident in that Divine-Human Life is a hint for ours,—and often it chances that when we reject happiness for the sake of goodness, happiness is suddenly bestowed upon us.

God’s miracles are endless,—God’s blessings exhaustless, . . and the marvels of this wondrous Universe are as nothing, compared to the working of His Sovereign Will for good on the lives of those who serve Him faithfully.”

 

Alwyn flashed upon him a quick, half-questioning glance, but was silent,—and they walked on together for some minutes without exchanging a word. A few people passed and repassed them,—some little children were playing hide-and-seek behind the trunks of the largest trees,—the air was fresh and invigorating, and the incessant roar of busy traffic outside the Park palings offered a perpetual noisy reminder of the great world that surged around them,—the world of petty aims and transitory pleasures, with which they, filled full of the knowledge of higher and eternal things, had so little in common save sympathy,—sympathy for the wilful wrong-doing of man, and pity for his self-imposed blindness. Presently Heliobas spoke again in his customary light and cheerful tone:

 

“Are you writing anything new just now?” he asked. “Or are you resting from literary labor?”

 

“Well, rest and work are with me very nearly one and the same”—

replied Alwyn,—“I think the most absolutely tiring and exhausting thing in the world would be to have nothing to do. Then I can imagine life becoming indeed a weighty burden! Yes, I am engaged on a new poem, . . it gives me intense pleasure to write it—but whether it will give any one equal pleasure to read it is quite another question.”

 

“Does ‘Zabastes’ still loom on your horizon?” inquired his companion mirthfully—“Or are you still inclined—as in the Past—

to treat him, whether he comes singly or in numbers, as the Poet’s court-jester, and paid fool?”

 

Alwyn laughed lightly. “Perhaps!” he answered, with a sparkle of amusement in his eyes,—“But, really, so far as the wind of criticism goes, I don’t think any author nowadays particularly cares whether it blows fair weather or foul. You see, we all know how it is done,—we can name the clubs and cliques from whence it emanates, and we are fully aware that if one leading man of a ‘set’ gives the starting signal of praise or blame, the rest follow like sheep, without either thought or personal discrimination. Moreover, some of us have met and talked with certain of these magazine and newspaper oracles, and have tested for ourselves the limited extent of their knowledge and the shallowness of their wit. I assure you it often happens that a great author is tried, judged, and condemned by a little casual press-man who, in his very criticism, proves himself ignorant of grammar. Of course, if the public choose to accept such a verdict, why, then, all the worse for the public,—but luckily the majority of men are beginning to learn the ins and outs of the modern critic’s business,—they see his or HER methods (it is a notable fact that women do a great deal of criticism now, they being willing to scribble oracular commonplaces at a cheaper rate of pay than men), so that if a book is condemned, people are dubious, and straight way read it for themselves to see what is in it that excites aversion,—if it is praised, they are still dubious, and generally decide that the critical eulogist must have some personal interest in its sale. It is difficult for an author to WIN his public,—but WHEN won, the critics may applaud or deride as suits their humor, it makes no appreciable difference to his popularity. Now I consider my own present fame was won by chance, —a misconception that, as I know, had its ancient foundation in truth, but that, as far as everybody else is concerned, remains a misconception,—so that I estimate my success at its right value, or rather, let me say, at its proper worthlessness.”

 

And in a few words he related how the leaders of English journalism had judged him dead, and had praised his work chiefly because it was posthumous. “I believe”—he added good-humoredly—

“that if this mistake had not arisen, I should scarcely have been heard of, since I advocate no particular ‘cult’ and belong to no Mutual Admiration Alliance, offensive or defensive. But my supposed untimely decease served me better than the Browning Society serves Browning!”

 

Again he laughed,—Heliobas had listened with a keen and sarcastic enjoyment of the whole story.

 

“Undoubtedly your ‘Zabastes’ was no phantom!”—he observed emphatically—“His was evidently a very real existence, and he must have divided himself from one into several, to sit in judgment again upon you in this present day! History repeats itself,—and unhappily all the injustice, hypocrisy, and inconsistency of man is repeated too,—and out of the multitudes that inhabit the earth, how few will succeed in fulfilling their highest destinies! This is the one bitter drop in the cup of our knowledge,—we can, if we choose, save ourselves,—but we can seldom, if ever, save others!”

 

Alwyn stopped short, his eyes darkening with a swift intensity of feeling.

 

“Why not?”—he asked earnestly—“Must we look on, and see men rushing toward certain misery, without making an effort to turn them hack?—to warn them of the darkness whither they are bound?—

to rescue them before it is too late?”

 

“My friend, we can make the effort, certainly,—and we are bound to make it, because it is our duty,—but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred we shall fail of our persuasion. What can I, or you, or any one, do against the iron force of Free-Will? God Himself will not constrain it,—how then shall we? In the Books of Esdras, which have already been of such use to you, you will find the following significant words: ‘The Most High hath made this world for many, but the world to come for few. As when thou askest the earth, it shall say unto thee that it giveth much mold wherein earthen vessels are made, and but little dust that gold cometh of, even so is the course of this present world. There be many created but FEW shall be saved.’—God elects to be served by CHOICE—and NOT by compulsion; it is His Law that Man shall work out his own immortal destiny,—and nothing can alter this overwhelming Fact.

The sublime Example of Christ was given us as a means to assist us in forming our own conclusions,—but there is no coercion in it,—

only a Divine