'^^^ '*^''*''^^"' '^ 
 
 (fe IN IRISH CLUB-LIFE ^) 
 
 \ CANON SHEEHAN 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Nixon Griff is 
 
_ Cornell University Library 
 
 PR 5377.S5I6 
 
 The Intellectuals; an experiment In Irish 
 
 3 1924 013 547 926 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013547926 
 
THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
By canon SHEEHAN, D.D. 
 
 Lttke Delmege: A Novel. 
 
 Lisheen: or the Test of the Spirits. A Novel. 
 
 Glenanaar: A Novd of Irish Life. 
 
 The Blindness op Dr. Gray: A Novel of Irish 
 Life. 
 
 Parbrga: a Companion Volume to "Under the 
 Cedars and the Stars." 
 
 Lost Angel op a Rttined Paradise: A Drama 
 of Modern Life. 
 
 The Intellectuals: An Experiment in Irish 
 Club-life. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 AN EXPERIMENT 
 IN IRISH CLUB-LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 CANON SHEEHAN, D.D. 
 
 Author of 
 
 "Ky New Curate," "Luke Delmege," "Glenanaar," 
 
 "The Blindness of Dr. Gray," 
 
 etc., etc. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK 
 
 LONDON, BOMBAY. AND CALCUTTA 
 
 1911 
 
f^^oy^oto 
 
 Copyrightj igiij by 
 Longmans, Gheen, and Ca 
 
 THB • PLIMPTON ■ PRESS 
 
 [W . D - O] 
 NORWOOD ■ MASS • U • S ■ A 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This volume is an attempt to describe a possibility which 
 the author hopes lies latent in the future that is before his 
 coimtry; when, under the influences of wider and more 
 rational systems of education, the barriers of racial and 
 sectarian prejudices may be broken down, and the higher 
 himianities accepted as an integral portion of social and 
 domestic Ufe. It should be superfluous to say that, where so 
 many different and even contradictory opinions on all sub- 
 jects are so freely expressed, it would be quite illogical to 
 identify the author with any class of sentiments. He has 
 endeavoured to make his characters speak and act in con- 
 formity with what may be regarded as their preconceived 
 notions on the different subjects discussed, holding aloof 
 from any partisanship, and seeking only proportion and con- 
 gruity in the action and conversations that are recorded. If 
 it win help to show that there are really no invincible antag- 
 onisms amongst the peoples who make up the commonwealth 
 of Ireland, — no mutual repugnances that may not be 
 removed by freer and kindlier intercourse with each other, 
 he will be sufl&ciently rewarded. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introductory i 
 
 Session First ii 
 
 Session Second 22 
 
 Session Third 31 
 
 Session Fourth 38 
 
 Session Futh . 53 
 
 Session Sixth . 67 
 
 Session Seventh 75 
 
 Session Eighth 84 
 
 Session Ninth 93 
 
 Session Tenth 100 
 
 Session Eleventh 108 
 
 Session Twelfth 117 
 
 Session Thirteenth 126 
 
 Session Fourteenth 135 
 
 Session Fifteenth 142 
 
 Session Sixteenth 151 
 
 Session Seventeenth 160 
 
 Session Eighteenth 167 
 
 Session Nineteenth 177 
 
 Session Twentieth 191 
 
 Session Twenty-First 205 
 
 Session Twenty-Second 216, 
 
 Session Twenty-Therd 230 
 
 Session Twenty-Fourth 243 
 
 Session Twenty-Fifth 251 
 
 Session Twenty-Sixth , 260 
 
 Session Twenty-Seventh 27s 
 
 Session Twenty-Eighth 285 
 
 Session Twenty-Ninth 296 
 
 vii 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Session Thirtieth 307 
 
 Session Thirty-First 317 
 
 Session Thirty-Second 325 
 
 Session Thirty-Third 333 
 
 Session TmRTY-ForatTH 343 
 
 Session Thirty-Fifth 354 
 
 Session Thirty-Sixth 365 
 
 Session Thirty-Seventh 375 
 
THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 "The Sunetoi"* (Club, Society, Association, or whatever 
 other name you may please to add) originated in a manner 
 that might be considered humiliating. In the drawing-room 
 of an able and amiable doctor, and with no one else present 
 but his gifted, if capricious lady, a young priest suddenly 
 asked him, partly as a matter of duty, and partly with the 
 freedom born of an old and well-established friendship, why 
 he declined to become a member of the Catholic Young Men's 
 Society. 
 
 "I think," said the priest, "that our good Catholic laymen 
 of position should lend the sanction of their presence and 
 co-operation to this Society. Look at the Young Men's 
 Christian Association. Every leading Protestant in the parish 
 
 is a member. Dr. C goes down every night to their 
 
 rooms; and Mr. F gives lectures and magic-lantern 
 
 entertainments. And what is more, if a young Protestant 
 lad comes here from England, or Scotland, or Belfast, these 
 gentlemen immediately call upon him, cordially invite him 
 to their homes, make much of him, make him feel at home, 
 and not a pariah amongst his own co-religionists." 
 
 There was a little warmth in the priest's voice. 
 
 The doctor smoked calmly during this monologue; and in 
 the end, and as if about to reply, he blew a great cloud of 
 smoke upwards towards the electric lamp. But he noticed 
 that his wife was about to say something, so he merely re- 
 marked: 
 
 "You were about to say something, my dear?" 
 
 "Not much," said the doctor's wife; "but that I wholly 
 ' ol (rvverol=Th.e Esoterics — The Select. 
 
THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 disapprove of the doctor's joining that Society. But what is 
 a pariah, Father? " 
 
 "An outcast, a leper, one with whom it is not fit to asso- 
 ciate." 
 
 "I should be very sorry to treat any Christian ia such a 
 manner," said the doctor's wife. "But, really, Father," 
 she added sweetly, "there are, and must be, social distinctions. 
 Do you really mean that I should invite to tea, or dinner, 
 every young lad that comes here, without ever considering 
 who he is and what he may be?" 
 
 And the lady looked roimd her pretty drawing-room, as if 
 she already saw her beautiful carpets worn by profane feet. 
 
 "No — o — o!" said the young priest, dubiously. "But 
 I think there is too much aloofness, too much conservatism, 
 too much — well, it is an ugly word, but expressive — too 
 much 'classiness' amongst Catholics. Somehow there is a 
 want of Christian equality amongst them. You are all good 
 and kind and tender towards the poor; but when there's a 
 question of social intercourse, you put everyone, outside a 
 certain and very undefined class, in quarantine." 
 
 "And quite proper," said the doctor's wife. "There must 
 be class-distinctions; otherwise society could not hold to- 
 gether. And, now. Father," she continued, although she 
 grew a little paler beneath the eyes, "I must say that I alto- 
 gether disapprove of such sermons as you preached last Simday. 
 I haven't got one bit of good from Beatrice since." 
 
 "What was it about?" said the yoimg priest, passing his 
 hands dreamily across his forehead, "for I'm sure I forget." 
 
 "Of course," said the lady. "That shows it was not prop- 
 erly prepared. And, really, when clergymen enter the pulpit 
 and attempt to teach the people, they should measure their 
 words. I'm sure I shall never get a bit of good from that 
 girl again." 
 
 "I didn't know you had a daughter named Beatrice," said 
 the priest, looking ia a puzzled manner towards the doctor. 
 
 The doctor shook his head, and said nothing. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 "It is not my daughter," said the lady. " 'Tis my servant; 
 and when clergymen talk about the duties of masters and 
 mistresses towards servants — kindness, forbearance, and 
 all that kind of thing — we know what to expect." 
 
 "I really didn't know you had a young servant named 
 Beatrice," said the priest, lookiag aroimd in a bewildered way. 
 
 There was an ominous silence for a few seconds. Then 
 the doctor said: 
 
 "Did you ever read the 'Autocrat of the Breakfast-table ' ? " 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "Well," he said, holding his pipe at arm's length, and 
 studying it critically, "I think it is in that book, or one of 
 its companion volumes, the author makes a wise remark. 
 He says that nobody minds what clerg5anen do; but if a 
 doctor goes on a public platform, or takes an active part in 
 anything whatever outside the business of his profession, he 
 at once loses his professional reputation and his practice with 
 it. You see, the public will argue in a twofold manner. They 
 will say, this man cannot have many patients when he has 
 time for platform lecturing; or this man cannot be studying 
 his professional subjects when he is always dabbling in Utera- 
 ture and science, and such things. And the public draw 
 away, and the banker's balance goes down to zero. No, 
 Father, it would never do." 
 
 "But, but," said the priest, "Protestant gentlemen do all 
 that, and do not suffer." 
 
 "Quite so," said the doctor. "But you need hardly be 
 told, my dear Father, that Protestants can do what no Catho- 
 lic dare do in this country." 
 
 And there was no answer. 
 
 "Now," said Mrs. Holden, as if she felt she was obliged to 
 make some amende for her feminine criticism on the pulpit, 
 "if we had some little society or meetings, of our own, in 
 our ffwn class, such as we had long ago in dear old Kingstown, 
 it would really help to spend the winter evenings pleasantly; 
 and I'm sure I don't like to see James going so much to that 
 
THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 horrid old club, where they play bridge, poker, and such 
 things." 
 
 "Well, it is a happy coincidence," said the young priest, 
 who was not in the least resentful, "that Mrs. Skelton was 
 just speaking of such little gatherings the other evening." 
 
 "Indeed?" said Mrs. Holden, lifting her eyebrows a little, 
 whilst the doctor shot a warning glance at the speaker. 
 
 "Yes!" said the young priest, imheeding. "There were 
 a few people there; and Mrs. Skelton spoke enthusiastically 
 about the happy times when friends dropped in informally, 
 and brought their music and their mandolines, and a few 
 hours passed away so pleasantly. And a young Englishman 
 (he has just come over as assistant-engineer in the Navy 
 yard) brightened up at once, and wanted then and there to 
 start a Literary and Scientific Association, such as they have, 
 he said, all over England." 
 
 "I'm sure," said Mrs. Holden, with an imperceptible shrug, 
 "that would suit Mrs. Skelton admirably. A — Literary — 
 and — Scientific Society!" 
 
 "Who is this young gentleman?" asked the doctor. 
 
 "Well, I don't know very well," said the priest. "His 
 name is Himt — Reginald Hunt!" 
 
 "Rather a pretty name!" mtirmiured Mrs. Holden. "Is 
 he good-looking?" 
 
 "WeU, that's a branch of the science of aesthetics," said 
 the yoimg priest (it must be admitted, somewhat sarcastically), 
 "with which I'm not well acquainted. But I would say 
 that he is handsome — very pale, clean-cut features, darkish 
 fair hair. He says he's twenty-four. He looks about seven- 
 teen." 
 
 "But is he a gentieman?" said Mrs. Holden. "Because 
 very common people nowadays can pass examinations, and 
 all that, but they may not be suitable for society." 
 
 "Is he a Catholic?" said the doctor, demurely. 
 
 "No. He's Church of England!" 
 
 "There, my dear," said the doctor, turning to his wife. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 "He's a Protestant and an Englishman. What more do you 
 require? " 
 
 Mrs. Holden shot a suspicious glance at her spouse, which 
 he bore unflinchingly. Then she said: 
 
 "But how did Mrs. Skelton come to know him?" 
 
 "I dare say he had some business at the Bank in Cork," 
 said the priest. " He has the reputation of being very wealthy 
 and belonging to some county family in England." 
 
 "There, my dear, what more do you want? " said the doctor. 
 But his good wife sat musing. 
 
 "I think you should call on Mr. Hunt," she said at length. 
 But the doctor shook his head. 
 
 "You were speaking about a Club?" he said to the priest. 
 
 "Yes! He proposed that a few gentlemen should meet 
 once a week in an informal manner — " 
 
 "A few gentlemen?" interjected Mrs. Holden. "Then 
 you exclude all ladies?" 
 
 "The proposal is not mine," said the priest, demurely. 
 "It is Mr. Himt's. Mr. Skelton, indeed, hinted that ladies 
 could never keep the rules." 
 
 "Of course," said the doctor's wife. "That's just like 
 Mr. Skelton. Really, managers of banks and gentlemen 
 who have to do with common people seem to lose all refine- 
 ment." 
 
 "Quite so!" said the doctor. "Priests, for example!" 
 
 "And doctors," said the young priest, laughing. 
 
 "Well, all I know is," said Mrs. Holden, "that if there 
 be no ladies, there will be no club. Or, if there be, it will 
 speedily degenerate into — into — into — something awful! " 
 
 "I was altogether in favour of the ladies," said the priest. 
 "I have always held that they are quite the equals of the 
 sterner sex in intellectual matters, quite their superiors in 
 moral conduct. But the doubt seemed to be whether they 
 could observe some of the rules." 
 
 "Then the whole thing is arranged, and the rules are drawn 
 up? " said Mrs. Holden, with a frown on her white forehead. 
 
THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "Roughly," said the young priest. "They are in a crude, 
 unfinished condition. They will be, in due course, submitted 
 to the members for their final sanction." 
 
 "And, pray, what are the rules which ladies cannot accept, 
 or obey?" 1 
 
 " I take the solemn responsibility of mentioning one, which 
 will be decidedly embarrassing. It runs thus — always, 
 remember, in its initial and raw state: 
 
 'That the material entertaimnent at each house shall be 
 of the simplest description, viz., plain tea, and bread and 
 butter.' 
 
 "Now, that looks easy enough, but it cannot be observed 
 by ladies." 
 
 "Why?" said Mr. Holden, with wide eyes. 
 
 "Because Mrs. Holden has exquisite Sevres china, and 
 will insist upon adding fairy cakes and sandwiches; and 
 Mrs. Skelton has Crown Derby, and will insist upon getting 
 an elaborate menu from the restaurant." 
 
 "Yes!" said Mrs. Holden, musingly. "I believe she doesn't 
 — indeed, she cannot — keep a good cook. But what is the 
 other rule?" 
 
 "'That no comment be permitted on any poem or essay 
 or short story, but that' — " 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Holden, "did you say 
 'poem'? Then, there is to be poetry, and all that kind of 
 thing?" 
 
 "Of course," was the reply. "This is to be a society of 
 select people, who meet together for amusement, instruction, 
 and edification." 
 
 "Then you needn't expect any poetry from me," said the 
 lady. "Fancy! The idea of a woman like me sitting down 
 to write poetry like any chit of sixteen!" 
 
 "You can draw upon past ejfforts, Jennie," said her hus- 
 band. "Don't you remember those lovely lines you wrote 
 to me on my thirty-first birthday? Never mind. Father! 
 Mrs. Holden has a whole portfolio full of verses, and one, at 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 least, has got into print. What's that it was ? White Thorn, 
 or White Hyacinth, or White Something!" 
 
 Mrs. Holden didn't know whether she ought to be pleased 
 or angry with her husband; so she said: 
 
 "You were just remarking. Father, that no comment was 
 to be made; but that — that what?" 
 
 "Oh!" said the priest, reading from his notes. "'But 
 that the Society proceed immediately to music' " 
 
 A little flush of pleasure gathered over the lady's face at 
 the word "music," and she drew the rings up on her finger, 
 as if she were just seated at the piano. She was far and away 
 the most accomplished pianiste in the neighbourhood; and 
 she had a good contralto voice. Mrs. Skelton didn't know 
 B sharp from C flat. 
 
 "That's delightful," she said; "and how long is that part 
 of the programme to continue? " 
 
 "One hour. The arrangement is: — Half-hour for desul- 
 tory conversation and remarks on papers read at last meeting, 
 if anyone can remember them; half -hour for poems and orig- 
 inal compositions; one hour, music and tea!" 
 
 "That's really thoughtful. I must ask down Herr and 
 Madame Baumgarten. They can bring their 'cellos, you 
 know; and perhaps Madame Despard and her clever daughter 
 would come also!" 
 
 "But, my dear Mrs. Holden," said the priest in alarm, 
 "that would never do. This society must do its own work; 
 otherwise we should be washed out and swamped by celeb- 
 rities of every kind " 
 
 "Well, then, who are the members, the actual members?" 
 she said peevishly. "It seems to me that you are very 
 exclusive." 
 
 "First of all, it is quite clear that we must limit the number. 
 I have suggested eight, or, at very most, ten. Beyond that 
 the Society would become unwieldy. Now, let me see! We 
 have Dr. and Mrs. Holden, Mr. and Mrs. Skelton, Mr. 
 Reginald Hvmt, and my humble self. I have been thinking 
 
8 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 of asking down Professor Sedgwick, of the Queen's College. 
 He is a very learned, and what is more important, a very- 
 charming man." 
 
 "There is a shocking preponderance of men," said Mrs. 
 Holden. "Imagine the plight of two ladies in such a crowd. 
 Not but that Mrs. Skelton is masculine enough " 
 
 "Propose any lady of your own acquaintance," interposed 
 the priest, in the interests of charity, it may be presumed, 
 "and I shall guarantee her acceptance. We have at least 
 two vacancies to fill." 
 
 "Well, then, I suggest Miss Hope, Miss Hester Hope. 
 She is a B.A. of the Royal, and looks charming in her hood 
 and gown. The profile in the photograph is good; but I 
 prefer the three-quarter face." 
 
 "Very good! Anyone else?" 
 
 "I think there is now too great a preponderance of Roman 
 Catholics. Why, Mr. Hunt is the only Protestant, except 
 the Professor. That's not fair to him; and I hate this spirit 
 of intolerance amongst Catholics. Really, Protestants are 
 quite as nice, and sometimes much superior. Can you think 
 of anyone, James? " 
 
 But James shook his head. 
 
 "I'll remain a humble member, as you seem to like it, 
 Jennie," he said. "But I disclaim all responsibility for the 
 cast of the play." 
 
 "Well, then, I'll suggest Miss Eraser. She is Scotch, and 
 highly intellectual. Thus we have the three nations — the 
 shamrock, the rose, and the thistle." 
 
 This allusion was so happy, that the two gentlemen clapped 
 their hands gently; and the priest, folding up his note-book, 
 said: 
 
 "It's a good beginning. May it prosper!" 
 
 But the doctor shrugged his shoulders and relit his pipe. 
 He was a horrible sceptic. 
 
 "It will end prematurely," he said, "or else, after weeks of 
 prolonged agony, it will terminate in some horrible catas- 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 trophe — one or two imhappy marriages, at least. How- 
 ever " 
 
 "You're always croaking, James," said his wife. "I 
 should hate to see you around my sick-bed. Everything 
 will go right, you'll find. Father, if you allow me to bring down 
 sometimes Herr Baumgarten or Madame Despard. She's 
 simply perfect with her violin; and my piano has just been 
 tuned to concert pitch. But — you never told us what our 
 Society is to be called. Surely not ' Literary and Scientific ' ? " 
 
 "No!" said the young priest, rising. "I have been casting 
 aroxmd for a title, and I have decided on calling ourselves 
 'The Sunetoi.' 'Synetics' would be the English form, but I 
 prefer to keep the Greek!" 
 
 "And what is 'Sun — Sun — ?'" asked the lady. 
 
 "Oh, well, the doctor will hunt up his Greek diction- 
 ary " 
 
 "For heaven's sake," said the doctor, "tell it at once; if 
 you don't want to have a lunatic on your hands." 
 
 "But you took the gold medal in Greek " 
 
 "Never mind. I couldn't tell the Greek characters now. 
 Tell Jennie what is the infernal thing, and have done with it." 
 
 "Well, really, James," said his wife reprovingly, "you are 
 becoming quite profane. I am sure it is that old Major 
 ReUly who is infecting you with his horrible language. I'm 
 told that every second word is an oath with him." 
 
 "What is — that — word?" said the doctor, keeping down 
 his rising temper. 
 
 "Oh, it means clever people, people of quick understanding 
 and grasp of intellect, you know." 
 
 "I'm sure that's really nice," murmured Mrs. Holden. 
 "And, of course, the common people cannot laugh at us. 
 They won't imderstand, fortunately; and they are becoming 
 horribly sarcastic. Fancy now " 
 
 "I'll see you to the door," said the doctor, as the young 
 priest drew on his gloves. "Say good-night, Jennie!" 
 
 And Mrs. Holden said "good-night!" in a most fascinating 
 
lo THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 manner; and then sat down at the piano, and carefully went 
 over one of Bach's s3anphonies. 
 
 "There! That's what you have put me in for!" said the 
 doctor grimly, as they stood at the door, and the notes of the 
 grand Erard floated down and outwards to the sea. "That 
 
 — thing won't stop, night or day, for a month; and I 
 thought I was done with it for ever!" 
 
 "Cheer up!" said the yoxmg priest. "You'll find we shall 
 have pleasant reunions. By the way, I'm a little disconcerted 
 about what Mrs. Holden said about your new servant. I 
 always prided myself upon knowing every man, woman, and 
 child in my district. Who is this Beatrice? What's her 
 surname? " 
 
 "Ommaney," replied the doctor, looking all around the sky, 
 as if he were searching for a new star. 
 
 "Ommaney? " said the priest, writing the name phonetically 
 in his note-book under the electric arc. 
 
 "Yes! and remember the accent is on the first syllable 
 
 — Om!" 
 
 "Ommaney! Ommaney! What a curious name! Is she 
 English or German?" 
 
 "I should say 'High Dutch,'" said the doctor. "She 
 came to us from Wilton, where she was imder-housemaid." 
 
 "Wilton? Mrs. Seymour's? Why the imder-housemaid 
 there was Bridgie O'Mahony! It couldn't be the same?" 
 
 "Oh, dear no!" replied the doctor. "Bridgie O'Mahony 
 has vanished into space — evasit, erupit — 'gone like the base- 
 less fabric of a vision'; and Beatrice Ommaney has taken her 
 place. Good-night ! " 
 
 "Good-night!" said the young priest; but all along by 
 Eastbourne, and until he put the latch-key in his own door, 
 he was wondering who Beatrice could be. 
 
SESSION FIRST 
 
 It took place, as was right and fitting, in the young priest's, 
 Father Dillon's, house. He was slightly nervous about the 
 experiment, not knowing how such fine people would regard 
 his Uttle minage. But he had no need to be. TH^ came 
 with their hearts full of pity and charity for a ceUbate. They 
 were fully prepared for all kinds of masculine meprises and 
 defects; for the absence of all those little nameless gracious 
 things that mark the presence of a woman's hand. A folding 
 door divided his front parlour with its large windows, that 
 seemed to expand outwards and enfold the vast and beautiful 
 sea-scape, from a back room that served as dining-hall and 
 library, with a perspective of a yard, which was about six 
 feet in breadth and length, and which terminated in a white- 
 washed wall, which, when the sim fell upon it, lighted the dark 
 room as if it were a snow-refraction. But front, illimitable, 
 and rear, obscure and narrow, were now shut out by the heavy 
 curtains, which fell and folded themselves by sheer weight to 
 the ground; and the visitors saw but a beautiful room, break- 
 ing into another, and reduplicated by handsome mirrors, 
 which caught the electric lights and made long vistas far away. 
 There were a few of Finden's engravings on the wall, and one 
 or two Bartolozzis. In a comer, as if not wishing to boast 
 too much of its value, was an oil painting, hardly more than 
 a foot square. Visitors were curious about it. Once in a 
 moment of forgetfulness Father Dillon murmured something 
 to a clerical friend, which seemed to sound like Carlo Dolci. 
 He never heard the end of that remark. It became the 
 torment of his life. 
 
 At eight o'clock, with a punctuality that seemed miraculous 
 in a country where lordly indifference to time and other 
 
12 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 people's convenience is supposed to be a mark of nobility, 
 the Sunetoi assembled. There was just a little formality and 
 freeziness at first, because some of the guests were unknown 
 to the others; and, as it was supposed to be an intellectual 
 gathering, where there might possibly be a clash of intellect, 
 they seemed to be measuring one another like athletes in a 
 ring. Fortunately, Mrs. Holden broke the spell, for after one 
 or two feminine ejaculations about the pretty rooms, she ran 
 her jewelled fingers along the keys of the piano, which lay 
 open, and then placed her music quite close to her chair. 
 
 After a few indifferent remarks. Father Dillon, taking up 
 a pen, and affecting more coolness than he felt, called the 
 muster-roll. All answered. Then, toying with the pen, he 
 said, in that measured manner that conceals a good deal of 
 nervousness: 
 
 "I feel greatly obliged by your prompt and punctual attend- 
 ance, ladies and gentlemen; and, as I have the privilege of 
 inaugurating our first meeting, as well as originating this 
 Society, which I hope will yet be famous, perhaps I may be 
 expected to make a few preliminary remarks, as a prologue to 
 our little drama. I have not the slightest wish to make our 
 little club a mere occasion for amusement, or a happy way of 
 getting rid of that most troublesome thing — tmoccupied 
 time. I wish that it may prove a source of enhghtenment 
 and instruction also; a means of elevating our thoughts above 
 the common level. Hence there will be, there must be, much 
 discussion on all subjects of common interest to educated 
 people — music, the drama, books, science, art, even politics 
 and religion. The only topic that we shall not discuss is prob- 
 ably bimetallism; but, perhaps, Mr. Skelton would cast Ught 
 even there ? " 
 
 "I'm afraid not," said Mr. Skelton, looking a little uneasy. 
 "You see, I am so accustomed to handling three metals, gold, 
 silver and coppers, I could never bring my mind to contem- 
 plate two." 
 
 "That reminds me," said Professor Sedgwick, "of a great 
 
SESSION FIRST 13 
 
 financier, who dealt in millions, but who could not, if he got 
 the world for it, count the change of a shilling." 
 
 "Well, perhaps it reflects no discredit," said Father Dillon 
 continuing. "There are only two men in the United King- 
 dom who were able to master the secret of bimetallism, 
 Mr. Balfour and Archbishop Walsh, of Dublin. The lunatic 
 asylums are filled with those who tried and failed." 
 
 " How horrible ! " murmured Mrs. Holden to Mrs. Skelton. " I 
 didn't know that banking was such a dangerous profession." 
 
 "But, as I was saying," continued Father Dillon, "we must 
 now be prepared to discuss all subjects; and I beg to antici- 
 pate for such discussions the widest tolerance of opinion, and 
 perfect equanimity of temper. There are few who have 
 learned that the first condition of getting on in life, unless we 
 have the genius to sweep through it in a tempest, is to get rid 
 of the idea of our own infallibility. That idea is born with 
 most men. It is an innate idea — a preconception that 
 comes from we know not where. But our first duty is to 
 abandon it. A few years ago, a society like ours, if I may 
 compare great things with little, was formed in London. It 
 was a heterogeneous mixture, consisting of Atheists, Agnos- 
 tics, Catholics, Dissenters, Anglicans. The beginning was 
 not auspicious. At the first meeting, the chairman made 
 observations similar to those I am making now — a general 
 exhortation to gentle toleration of adverse opinion, and a 
 general divestment of the sense of personal inerrancy. 'I'm 
 sure,' said one member, a rather militant one, 'that I shall 
 hear with patience the most opposite opinions to my own; but 
 I shall not stand by and hear such fundamental questions as 
 the existence of God discussed.' 'And I,' said another, 'am 
 the most tolerant of men; but I cannot be expected to bear 
 with equanimity such a novel and gratuitous assumption.' 
 There was the crossing of swords at the beginning; but the 
 belligerents shook hands, and after many years parted from 
 each other with mutual respect and kindliness of feeling. 
 Now, I am hoping that when we wind up the affairs of our 
 
14 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Society, be it soon or in the far future, we shall also part from 
 each other with even more esteem and respect than we have 
 happily brought to this, our inaugural meeting. There is 
 just one word more to say — a corollary of this. I have 
 noticed in recent years the incipience, and even the wide- 
 spread prevalence in Ireland of a habit of speech which I 
 deplore. It is the introduction of French sarcasm, without 
 the redemption of French wit. I see it everywhere. We are 
 become a nation of sneering would-be philosophes. No one 
 speaks seriously. In our newspapers the most shocking and 
 offensive personalities, even to the extent of using ribald nick- 
 names, are introduced; and, strange to say, these papers are 
 bought and read purely for the sake of seeing those stinging 
 personalities. I have seen good men, and men whose pro- 
 fession should place their tone of thought on a higher level, 
 chuckling with laughter over these abominable pasquinades. 
 And the evil habit seems to have crept into all ranks of society, 
 so much so that the young are taught to protect themselves 
 from offence by cultivating the evil talent of saying sharp 
 things, and thus warding off the arrows of forked tongues 
 from themselves. I fear very much, although the evil seems 
 to be of recent growth, that it is really indigenous, and has 
 only now become endemic, for we read of old Irish bards going 
 from house to house of chieftains, and then composing pas- 
 quinades on their hosts if they considered themselves treated 
 with scant hospitaKty. They thus became the terror of the 
 country; and now, tiie newspaper and the witling take the 
 place of the ragged and wandering bard. Life is not taken 
 seriously. The vast and complex interests of humanity are 
 brought under the tongues of the satirist and shrivelled up; 
 and all the sacred emotions that lift man above the 'beasts 
 that tare each other in their slime' are focussed under the 
 burning-glass of stinging criticism, and reduced to bitter ashes 
 in the horrible experiment. The great arts of poetry, music, 
 painting, sculpture, seem to be regarded with much the same 
 tolerant contempt with which people speak of young ladies' 
 
SESSION FIRST 15 
 
 accomplishments. The art of speaking well — I don't mean 
 in public oratorical displays, but in private — the art of enun- 
 ciating distinctly, modulating our voices until they break into 
 music, is called effeminacy and affectation; and so with every- 
 thing else, until the time may come when we shall carry our 
 talents into the sacred places, and bring the vessels of the 
 temple into some satrap's feast." 
 
 There was a slight pause, as the speaker shifted his seat, 
 and looked up some notes. Mrs. Holden took occasion to 
 whisper to Mrs. Skelton: 
 
 "I wonder what does Father Dillon take us for? Did he 
 suppose we were a District Council, or a Board of Guardians ? " 
 
 But Mr. Hunt, with head modestly bent down in an atti- 
 tude of serious attention, said in a very quiet, even tone: 
 
 "I fear, sir, that the Voltairean spirit which you think is 
 creeping into Ireland is not limited to so narrow a sphere. 
 Are there not such papers as Le Rire, the SimpUcissimus of 
 Munich, and now the Asino and Mulo of Rome? I fear that 
 that mocking spirit is not of yesterday. You know there was 
 an Aristophanes and a Plautus; and that ^schylus himself 
 did not escape the parody." 
 
 "Quite so," said the priest, arranging his notes, "but how 
 do these writers rank? Were they the teachers and prophets 
 of their generations; or the buffoons and clowns of the market- 
 place?" 
 
 "True! They do not rank high; but they may have had 
 their uses. There may be evils that cannot be killed but by 
 sarcasm, just as there are parasites that can only be killed 
 with vitriol." 
 
 "Yes, I can understand how that may be, although I should 
 not care myself to be the 'Pied Piper of Hamelin,' kiUing off 
 by profession all the newts and toads and rats of the universe. 
 But, when the whole nation turns away from the serious work 
 of Ufe to vitriol-throwing and rat-catching, I think that 
 deplorable." 
 
 "Somehow," said Miss Fraser, speaking with the slightest 
 
i6 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 touch of a Scotch accent, "ironical literature seems to have 
 had its uses. There were the 'Letters of Junius,' for example, 
 and, surely, Pascal's 'Provinciales' are classics." . 
 
 "I hardly agree with Miss Eraser," said Professor Sedg- 
 wick. "The 'Letters of Junius' are now hardly read, since 
 their authorship seems ascertained; and, whatever was the 
 vogue of the 'Provincial Letters' in their own time, their wit 
 seems to be blunted now, as their premises are proved to have 
 been utterly false and malicious." 
 
 "Is that possible?" asked Miss Eraser, with a sUght look of 
 surprise. "I never heard." 
 
 "There can be no doubtabout it," said the Professor. "As 
 a candid presentment of Catholic, or, as it is called, Jesuitical 
 casuistry, the whole thing is utterly fraudulent. It raised a 
 laugh tlaen; the most patient or the most prejudiced student 
 could hardly stifle a yawn over these letters now. And really 
 it is so with all barbed and malevolent wit. Humour is 
 immortal. The world never tires of it. Wit is ephemeral. 
 It only catches men in their worst mood." 
 
 "I suppose for one that would read a sqmb of Voltaire's," 
 said Miss Hope shyly, from a comer where she was hiding, "a 
 thousand will read Don Quixote. And Don Quixote never 
 hurt a human being; but Voltaire invented the guillotine." 
 
 "But," said Miss Eraser, "I confess myself puzzled. It 
 was only the other day I read in some enthusiastic review that 
 Cardinal Newman was a master of irony, and that he over- 
 whelmed all antagonists by that weapon." 
 
 "I am afraid we are mixing things up," said the Professor, 
 "and confounding wit, hiunour, sarcasm and irony, which 
 differ specifically. But, really. Miss Eraser, it is the old 
 question: whether it is better to build up or pull down, or, 
 to use a rather hackneyed phrase, whether destructive criticism 
 or constructive creation is better for mankind. Perhaps it 
 will put matters in a nutshell if I ask you, as a compatriot 
 of Robert Bums, whether he has done better in 'Holy Willie,' 
 or in ' Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled '? " 
 
SESSION FIRST 17 
 
 Miss Eraser's pale face flushed redly, whether with anger or 
 shame, it would be difl&cult to tell. But she said nothing; and 
 Father Dilllon, promptly interfering, said: 
 
 "Whatever be our opinions about theories, one thing we 
 shall insist upon in practice, and that is: Whilst the fullest 
 discussion will be permitted on our own work, or any subject 
 of transitory interest, anything in the shape of sarcasm, or 
 irony, shall be rigidly excluded. And that is one reason why 
 I have ventured to lay down the rule that we shall not discuss 
 poem or paper sur le champ, but after mature consideration." 
 
 "And now, ladies and gentlemen," he continued, "we have 
 devoted so much time to this initial question, we must push 
 onward. And, as we could not make any other arrangement, 
 I have asked Mr. Hunt to read something for us, before we 
 pass on to the lighter pleasures of the evening." 
 
 And Mr. Hunt, without apology, or pretence of disarming 
 criticism, took a note-book from his pocket, and said: 
 
 "This is one of a series of poems, which I have called 'Fire- 
 side Visitors.' I have placed it on New Year's Eve. It is, 
 of course, purely imaginative." 
 
 The gentlemen crossed their legs; Mrs. Holden looked im- 
 patient, and whispered: "Will it be long?" Mrs. Skelton 
 said in a whisper: "I hope not;" the Professor looked 
 critical; Miss Eraser looked straight at the pale boyish face, 
 which betrayed not the slightest emotion; Miss Hester Hope 
 stared upwards at an engraving named 'The Spirit of the 
 Summit,' and seemed to be engrossed in it, although every 
 sense was alert. She was wondering in what key, high or 
 low, wotild the initial music of their Msthetik-Verein be placed. 
 Very cahnly, and with low, but perfectly modulated intona- 
 tion, Mr. Hunt read: 
 
 iEGINA 
 Lower the lamp, iEgina, and let us look at the fire, 
 Dappling our faces with light or shade, as the flames expire. 
 Looked you for ever thus, a Rembrandt would certainly paint 
 You for a Seville gipsy, or you for a sweet-eyed saint. 
 3 
 
i8 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Looked you for ever thus, and just what the firelight has made — 
 One profile in the crimson, and one in the blackest shade — 
 I at least would consent, for that it symbolled your soul. 
 Which needs to be studied in twain, ere one can interpret the whole. 
 
 Somehow it seems so strange — your face that is turned to me. 
 
 Red as the ruby flame of a sun on a crimson sea. 
 
 Is yet but a half revelation, lacking some secret keys. 
 
 The red and the black are blent, I think, in a Mephistopheles. 
 
 Fie! That's an ugly sKp; I recall the words I have said, 
 Even without the rebuke in that swift turn of your head. 
 Turn back your face, ^gina, and look at the leaping flame. 
 Why do you stare me thus, as if I were to share your blame ? 
 
 Proud you did err, ^Egina, and what is the use of pride ? 
 A leap of the ocean's heart, as it swells the white moon tide; 
 A great round curve that hollows and billows along the shore; 
 A crash on unheeding sands, a foaming sheet, and no more. 
 
 Foam, and fret, and foam, and then it dies on the salt sea-sands, 
 I gather it, and 'tis gone, as a soul from between my hands. 
 And that is the way of pride, and the rage of sinful men — 
 Foam, and fret and foam, and a peace cometh never again. 
 
 Why do you always bend forwards, hands clasped tight on your 
 
 knees. 
 Looking Uke one whom a dream has fled which you cannot seize ? 
 'Tis only children, you know, who read their fate in the flare. 
 Valley and height, an uplifted weight, or its dole to bear. 
 
 Do you know what a weird conceit has just flashed on to my mind? 
 I thought you were dead and lost in the years that have sped behind; 
 Dead and lost in the hollow, where all things living must end. 
 Passed where the living Voice decides — a foe to God, or a friend. 
 
 You were not ruddy and dark, as now, but a vision pale, 
 Sainted and sweet as the spirits that touch the Holy Grail. 
 And all your loveliness, bUnd and speechless, like early dawn. 
 For death is the dawn, ^gina, when the blinds of life are drawn. 
 
SESSION FIRST 19 
 
 But if thou wert pale in death, why comest thou thus to-night, 
 Ruddy and dark as the flames; or the coals in the dimmed firelight? 
 You may deem it a change for the better; but I must candidly own 
 I liked you best in the pallor of Death's white monotone. 
 
 So you won't speak, or tell me the secrets of other Ufe, 
 Me who am sick and weary of a world of pain and strife; 
 Ah, then, go back to your place in the dim eternities; 
 You, Spirits, seem to have lost the mortal's desire to please. 
 
 Lo, you are gone! and there by my fire is a vacant seat; 
 There's not a trace of your shadow — a print of phantom feet. 
 The cinders gUtter and he; the ashes flare and are dead. 
 Perhaps it is all a dream, a vision by fancy fed. 
 
 I never knew you, jEgina; I never heard of your name; 
 I know you never sat there in the light of that ruddy flame. 
 But, somehow to-night the brain lacks blood, and that merry elf, 
 Fancy, is waving her wings, and mixing shadows and self. 
 
 Yet, every vision leaveth a problem that none might solve. 
 While ever the lazy wheels of the human mind revolve. 
 Is it the fancy that's real? the Phantom only the Flesh? 
 That melts like a ghostly snow through the webs of the winter's 
 mesh? 
 
 Steeped in a silver radiance there dreamed a resplendent cloud; 
 Hung on its shining breast the Bird of Night sang long, sang loud; 
 Down went the sun; the silver did fade to an ashen gray; 
 Deep in its dewy grotto the panting Oriole lay. 
 
 Which was the Vision here — the cloud or the dew- winged bird? 
 Was it a dream I saw, or was it an echo I heard ? 
 Did I behold thee, ^Egina, or else some saiot betimes ? 
 There, I have watched too long, too late! Hark to the midnight 
 chimes! 
 
 He folded the paper without a smile, and taking out a note- 
 book, he placed it carefully between the leaves. There was 
 
20 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 deep silence all around, until Father Dillon, bending over the 
 boy, seemed to be asking him some questions in a whisper. 
 Fortvmately, this engaged Mr. Himt's attention, otherwise he 
 would have heard Mrs. Holden's voice asking Mrs. Skelton: 
 
 "Do you understand all that? Do you know I have a 
 feeling that it was not quite proper. Who was this ^gina? 
 And what's an oriole? And how could he address the — the 
 lady if she wasn't there at all? But I suppose we mustn't 
 discuss it. When shall we have tea, I wonder ? " 
 
 To this latter question Father Dillon gave a prompt reply by 
 asking Mrs. Holden to preside at the tea-table in the inner 
 room. And then? Well, then Mrs. Holden sat down, and 
 after a little demur, in which she declared she hadn't opened 
 a piano for some months, and really, one gets out of practice 
 so easily, etc., she astonished her audience by a fugue from 
 this, a symphony from that, and a "study" from some other 
 artist. She rose up in a blaze of triumph, and sat down by 
 her friend, Mrs. Skelton, saying: 
 
 "Really, you cannot expect otherwise in a priest's house, I 
 suppose; but that piano is abominably out of time. I don't 
 think I shall touch it again. Do you notice now, how that 
 D ciphers? She can never sing to such music." 
 
 This was an allusion to Miss Fraser, who was just playing 
 the initial notes of "Bonnie Prince Charlie." Like a true 
 Scotchwoman, she sang the songs of her country. 
 
 And it was beautiful. It was that mighty legend set to 
 music that has gripped the hearts of Scotchmen for centuries, 
 and which, under every aspect of seeming loyalty, will appar- 
 ently never lose its hold upon the race. 
 
 " If I weren't an Irishman, I would wish to be a Scotchman," 
 said Father Dillon, enthusiastically. "The very names of the 
 Scottish clans seem to have a trumpet blast in them; and I 
 think that noble loyalty to a conquered and flying Prince is 
 probably the noblest national trait that I have seen in history. 
 I cannot worship a Napoleon, but I can worship a Due d'En- 
 ghien dying silently and bravely. And I cannot sympathise 
 
SESSION FIRST 21 
 
 with an English king, but with a Scotch fugitive. Is the 
 tradition still alive in Scotland, Miss Eraser?" 
 
 "It is undying," she said, whilst she seemed to try to keep 
 down her own kindled enthusiasm. "We cannot show it; but 
 there are few families in Scotland, outside the manufacturing 
 districts, where Prince Charlie is not worshipped." 
 
 "These are the things that redeem our race," said Father 
 Dillon. "When you grow disgusted at the scullions that bow 
 down before the conqueror and the t3T:ant, it is something 
 to be able to turn to a race that cherishes its very traditions 
 of defeat. Scottish history did not end in CuUoden." 
 
 "It would have recommenced there," said Professor Sedg- 
 wick, "only for an imfortunate Irishman, called SuUivan. It 
 was he put the Macdonalds in the left wing, which they deemed 
 a dishonour, and they refused to fight." 
 
 "Is that so?" said the priest, turning to Miss Eraser in 
 alarm. He had grown quite pale with the shame of the 
 thing. 
 
 "I'm afraid so," she said humbly. "If they had burst 
 into the fray, they would have scattered the Southrons. They 
 were so angry at their own humihation and the perfidy that 
 was practised on them, they hacked and hewed the gorse and 
 heather with their claymores." 
 
 It was unpleasant for the host, who didn't expect the con- 
 versation to take that turn. Mr. Hunt seemed to allow the 
 ghost of a smile to hover around his lips. There were hasty 
 arrangements made for the next meeting, and the first Session 
 was closed. 
 
SESSION SECOND 
 
 Father Dillon was iineasy, and yet he had no cause. 
 What was it to him if a busybody named Sullivan did place 
 a certain Scottish clan in what they deemed a place of dis- 
 honour as far back as the middle of the eighteenth century ? 
 Why should that fact disturb the sleep and digestion of a 
 yoimg priest in the latter years of the nineteenth century? 
 And yet such was the case. The pleasure of that first meeting 
 and its success were marred for him by those few words spoken 
 at the end. He ransacked his library that week, but he had 
 not a single page of history that woidd explain away that 
 untoward event. But he could not let it pass. He would 
 seek further information. 
 
 The second Session was held at Mrs. Skelton's. She was 
 a quiet person, given to much reading. In the beginning of 
 her married hfe, which was very happy, she had made gallant 
 efforts to wean away Robert, her husband, from certain tricks 
 of speech, and habits of life, which she deemed vulgar. But 
 her efforts were a failure. She gave him up; and hencefor- 
 ward was a very happy woman. She had asked for that sec- 
 ond Session, because she was afraid of being overwhelmed by 
 the splendid ambition of the doctor's wife. But she needn't 
 have been afraid. The Villa Rede was a splendid build- 
 ing; and although the manager's salary was limited, his wife 
 had contrived to make his home not only comfortable, but 
 luxurious. 
 
 The Sunetoi were hardly assembled when Father Dillon, 
 exercising his rights as chairman, reopened the discussion 
 where it had terminated the last evening. 
 
 "Do you know, Miss Fraser," he said, "I felt somewhat 
 humiliated to think that it was a fellow-countryman of mine 
 
SESSION SECOND 23 
 
 who spoiled the chances of Prince Charlie at Culloden? Is it 
 quite certain? What could have brought SuUivan there?" 
 
 "I am afraid there is no doubt of the historical fact," said 
 Miss Eraser. "SuUivan was adjutant to the Prince, and had 
 the disposition of the forces at his command. For some reason, 
 hitherto unknown, he removed the Macdonalds from the right 
 wing, the place of honour which the Clan Coila had held in 
 every Scottish army since Bannockburn. They resented it; 
 and in the charge of the Camerons, Stuarts, MacLeans and 
 Erasers, they refused to take apart; and slashed the heather 
 instead of the English enemy. But for that, the Prince would 
 have triumphed, and the history of Scotland have been 
 changed, for the same Highlanders, who had won Falkirk 
 in ten minutes and Prestonpans in iowc minutes, would have 
 routed the English army." 
 
 Miss Eraser seemed to know the history of Scotland. 
 
 "But," she added, with feminine consideration for wounded 
 national feelings, "you must remember as a set-off against 
 this, that the conqueror at CuUoden, the Duke of Cumber- 
 land, had fled before the Irish at Eontenoy." 
 
 "There, you're quits," said Mr. Himt, laughing. "But, 
 alas! for my countrymen, beaten at Eontenoy, and shamed 
 at Culloden, for, I believe, the English army was double 
 that of the Prince in nimibers, and had powerftd artillery 
 besides." 
 
 Father Dillon brightened up, and then began to accuse 
 himself. 
 
 "There is no use in trying to divest oneself of insular 
 prejudices," he said. "I have tried to take large views of 
 things, but my racial pride will break out. Imagine that 
 little incident at Culloden has disturbed my peace of mind 
 for a week." 
 
 "And it is well," said Professor Sedgwick, breaking in. 
 "You can no more divest yourself of the sentiment of race 
 than of your individuality. There is no need for racial 
 antagonism, except perhaps the antagonism of honourable 
 
24 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 emulation. But there is great need for difference of species, 
 mental and physical. Otherwise, we should have a race of 
 hybrids." 
 
 "Quite so," said Mr. Hunt. "And this wotdd be the secret 
 of the world's happiness, if men were wise enough to know it. 
 But you carmot have honourable emulation between the races 
 so long as human nature remains what it is. The ideal 
 condition of human society is that in which there should be 
 mutual co-operation — all classes in the same country, and 
 all races on the same continent, and aU continents in the same 
 world, working together harmoniously for the common wel- 
 fare. If this ideal were, or could be reahsed, you would have 
 the millennitim. War, anarchy, socialism, nihilism, would 
 be heard of no more. You would have the 'Parliament of 
 men, the federation of the world.' And this it was which 
 Christianity foreshadowed. Alas! you can't expel nature. 
 So long as in the natural kingdom, the conditions of natural 
 selection hold, it is quite in vain to preach to the hawk, or 
 the serpent, or the spider; Love one another! So, too, is 
 it vain to suppose that you can realise that happy condition 
 when men will cease from competition, and the strong will 
 forego their privileges and help and succour the weak." 
 
 "One would be prepared for that," said the Professor, 
 "because Nature will break through the crust of principle, 
 which in most men is as thin as pie-crust, and only made to 
 be broken; but, the strange thing is, that the whole world, 
 even good men, seem to abandon the very fiction of prin- 
 ciple in worship of brute strength and success. I think it 
 was Elizabeth Barrett Browning who half-condoned all the 
 brutalities of Napoleon by saying that he had, at least, the 
 talent of making men love him." 
 
 "I wonder was it the man they loved, or their own vanity 
 in the man?" said Miss Hope. 
 
 "That is a profound observation," said the Professor, 
 smiKng. "It brings all human feelings — love, hatred, 
 enthusiasm, patriotism, racial dislikes, religious intolerance — 
 
SESSION SECOND 25 
 
 down to the great, of not the greatest common measure, the 
 inevitable ego." 
 
 Miss Hope looked as if she were not quite sure that this 
 was meant as a compliment, or otherwise; but she bravely 
 continued: 
 
 "You will have noticed that his soldiers' enthusiasm for 
 their General, Consul and Emperor always rose highest after 
 some great victory, in whose glory they shared. In the end, 
 after Moscow, Leipsic, Bautzen, Lutzen, his army abandoned 
 him; and at Fontainebleau his marshals, every one, except 
 Macdonald, urged his abdication. Even Ney swore to the 
 Bourbon king that if Bonaparte came back from Elba he 
 would drag him in an iron cage to the feet of Louis in Paris. 
 Somehow, that does not sound like love — at least, the love 
 that outlasts adversity." 
 
 "And yet," said the Professor, "even that does not shake 
 the original conviction that brute force commands the respect 
 even of excellent Christians, who are bidden to be 'meek and 
 humble of heart.'" 
 
 "In the late plebiscite taken by the Figaro, as to who was 
 France's greatest and best, our Pasteur took first place with a 
 million and a half votes; Napoleon was fifth." 
 
 The speaker was Dr. Holden, who had hitherto been a silent 
 spectator, and therefore was heard with not a little surprise. 
 The sceptic was again heard, when Mr. Hunt said: 
 
 "Only another aspect of the anti-militarism which will 
 plimge France in irretrievable ruin." 
 
 "But she will have become the pioneer of peace," murmured 
 Miss Eraser. 
 
 "To her own detriment," said Mr. Hxmt. "It is bad for 
 nations as well as for individuals, to break away into problems, 
 and refuse to accept facts. Now, France essays to solve the 
 problem of universal brotherhood. It is insoluble. The hard 
 fact is that this planet of ours is the convict-hulk of the imi- 
 verse, wheeling round in the vast ocean of infinity, and dump- 
 ing down the irreclaimable prisoners on some desolate shore 
 
26 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 of fire and horror and everlasting woe. In such a convict- 
 hulk, what can you expect of the prisoners under hatches and 
 behind bars but mutual hate and the grasping of murderous 
 hands?" 
 
 Although he spoke in low, level tones, the words were so 
 awful that they sent a thrill of horror through the audience. 
 Father Dillon, as chairman, looked puzzled as well as shocked. 
 He felt that the little ship of his hopes was already upon the 
 breakers; and he knew that he would have to exercise all 
 his skill as pilot to save her. Clearly, he should at once put 
 down his helm, and steer far away. He turned with a depreca- 
 tory smile towards Mr. Hunt, and said: 
 
 "Let us hear one of your 'Fireside Visitors,' Mr. Himt. 
 'j^gina' was so dehghtful; was it not, Mrs. Holden?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Holden. "I reaUy — did — not 
 quite understand; but I'm sure it was all right, you know!" 
 
 "Mrs. Holden is very kind," said the yoimg poet, with a 
 faint smile, "but I should be presuming very much on the 
 patience of the company if I were to thrust forward my poor 
 little productions in season and out of season. Some of the 
 ladies, I'm sure, will — " 
 
 But the ladies demurred, and Mrs. Skelton said gently, 
 and with that exqmsite air of deference with which Catholics 
 address their Protestant brethren: 
 
 "We have made you our poet-laureate, you know, Mr. 
 Hunt, and we claim a poem, when we like, even without the 
 butt of Malmsey." 
 
 "There, you are not proof against such a compliment," 
 said Father Dillon, eager to get away from an alarming con- 
 troversy. "I assure you '.(Egina' was haimting me since you 
 dismissed her so summarily the last night." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Hunt, with a Kttle shrug of the shoul- 
 ders, "when you draw your ticket in the lottery, you must be 
 satisfied with the blank. If you do not like this, don't blame 
 me! It has the merit of bearing a little on oiu" late conversa- 
 tion. I have called our next visitor Cyno-cephalus." 
 
SESSION SECOND 27 
 
 CYNO-CEPHALUS. {loquitur.) 
 Listen, O Mortal-Immortal! O Beast- Angelic, give ear! 
 When you smnmon the babes of the futiire the ghosts of the past 
 
 appear. 
 Things shall be even as they have been, for though the cycle is vast, 
 Labouring on through the years, it rounds to perfection at last. 
 
 But you see I'm a sort of cynic; and I hke to know the worth 
 Of yoiu: basal proofs that there shall be a novel heaven and earth. 
 Patient I'll measure your words, forecasting the times to be, 
 One note of hope is welcome 'mid the world's sad threnody. 
 
 An optimist, I believe, with a boundless infantine hope, 
 Given times and a time, and a free and unfettered scope. 
 Men will evolve into angels, as the beast has rounded to man, 
 And beyond? It is limitless now. It shall be as when Time began. 
 
 Oh, these are imperial visions, forecasting the things that shall be. 
 Like a poet's dreams, when he saddens behind an infinite sea; 
 And still he beholds in fancy, far beyond the horizon's line, 
 Heaven piled upon Heaven, from base to summit divine. 
 
 Begin. No? Then shall I. 'Tis a bestial world at best. 
 The teeth of the lion in the ox; the fang in the lion's breast; 
 A python coiled round a priest; maidens with pleading hands; 
 And a half-blind tyrant exults over babes crucified on the sands. 
 
 The tumbrils drive o'er the dead. There's a cairn of skulls at a 
 
 feast; 
 And a holocaust of children for a winged Numidian beast; 
 In Carthage, Moloch and Tanit! In Zion, Astarte and Baal! 
 In Egypt, Osiris! And She, of whom no man hath lifted the veil. 
 
 Carnage and lust, and blood! Blood, and carnage and lust! 
 Triumph for those who can; submission for those who must! 
 And the wail of a thrice-damned world, smiting the list'ning stars. 
 And the grin of tortured demons behind their prison bars! 
 
 Oh, you have broken the idols! Lo, the fragments are at our feet! 
 You have lifted the lowly up; and pulled the strong from their 
 seat; 
 
28 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 And war echoes on unto war; the grass that is trampled amain 
 Is trampled again to-morrow, fat with the blood of the slain! 
 
 Ah! But the steamship and wires, and the earth-ball hung like 
 
 a net 
 Of railroads that gleam in the suns that rise, and the suns that set; 
 And the voices and answers that flash beneath where the wild 
 
 seas roll. 
 Like a foam-lashed beast, that unconscious, has been stricken into 
 
 a soul. 
 
 Certes, my friend, your world is lashed in a demon dance. 
 Spinning a wild minuet, like a priest in a hashish trance. 
 And then comes a mad collapse, and thrones are flung upon thrones. 
 And kings are squirming beneath, and a planet in agony groans. 
 
 Ah, but the songs of Sirens? But your Diva sings and sups! 
 What else ? The dreams of poets ? Their dreams are in their cups. 
 For never a poet yet has winged his empyrean flight 
 But in the trance of the poppy — in the opiiun's dread delight. 
 
 What else? The patriot's valour ? He thinks of his price and 
 
 his tools; 
 Of his marble mausoleum, built by some purblind fools. 
 Hark you, my friend, all life is but self, and self, and self — 
 The lust of the eye, and the lust of the flesh, and the lust of power 
 
 and pelf. 
 
 The best of all possible worlds ? Well, this is the grimmest joke, 
 
 The subtlest sarcasm ever the lips of a cynic spoke. 
 
 The best of all possible worlds? And there's only one that is 
 
 worse — 
 Gehenna, where men breathe flame, and every lip curves to a curse. 
 
 Hearkening, a fool would think that life was a raree-show. 
 Instead of a Doomsday book with its "tears, lamentations and 
 
 woe." 
 A May-day game of forfeits, with flowers and a wreathed pole, 
 Not the red and creeping horrors, writ on the prophet's scroll. 
 
SESSION SECOND 29 
 
 Evoe! Evoe! Evoe! and the drunken satyrs reel; 
 
 And a voice in Rama is heard! There's blood on the Roman steel. 
 
 Hark the Vaul Vaul Van! of the scoSers, the tribe that never 
 
 will die, 
 And the Lamma Sabacthani of a God in his agony. 
 
 Yes! I am harking back! and you think it isn't quite fair 
 To judge the beast called man in his foul and primordial lair; 
 Forward, and ever forward, evolving the tjrpe to be, 
 Until he rounds to a seraph. That is our destiny! 
 
 Shall I laugh, or go mad ? Is this a mattoid's dream, or worse ? 
 Is it only the darkness, or pride, involved in the primal curse ? 
 I know no limits are set to human fancy and pride, — 
 The legend for ever renewed of the king and the wild sea-tide. 
 
 "Thus far," said the king, "and no farther!" The tide ran up 
 
 and lapped 
 The kingly feet; and the kingly robes with the bitter brine were 
 
 sapped. 
 "Thus far," saith the priest, " and no farther!" to the ape and 
 
 the tiger in man. 
 But the tiger snarls, and jabbers the ape, just as when time began. 
 
 "Good-night!" My chair was vacant; but a cloud-like radiance 
 
 shone, 
 And a Form from out the Radiance glittered, grew, and was gone. 
 "Three things there are," the spirit said, "which the Cynic's words 
 
 disprove — 
 The voice of the child, the face of the dead, and the soul of the 
 
 Friend you love!" 
 
 There was a sigh of relief in the room. The horror of the 
 thing seemed to culminate as the verses proceeded, until all 
 felt that if the terrible indictment were thus to terminate, it 
 would leave an ache and a void in their minds. The happier 
 ending was a relief. It was a word of hope after a prophecy 
 of despair. 
 
30 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "On my word, Mr. Hunt," said Father Dillon, "your mid- 
 night visitors promise to be unpleasant people. That cynic 
 should have lived with the prophet Jeremias." 
 
 "He is human history," said Mr. Hunt, folding up his paper, 
 and putting it away. "Until you can bum your historical 
 books, and take tradition from the hearts of the people, that 
 vision will return again and again." 
 
 "Take the unpleasant ringing from our ears, Mrs. Holden," 
 said the priest. "And please play nothing classic to-night, for 
 all classic music seems to have some hidden meaning." 
 
 "Ha! there's a subject, Miss Hope, for our next discussion 
 — whether music and poetry shall be didactic or shall only 
 please?" said the Professor. 
 
 But Miss Hope seemed to be absorbed in her own thoughts, 
 and Mrs. Holden whispered to Mrs. Skelton: 
 
 "Did you notice how sigiiiiicantly Mr. Htmt looked toward 
 Hester when he said: 'the soul of the Friend you love'? 
 Take my word, there's a little romance beginning there!" 
 
 Then she went to the piano, and Bob Skelton whispered to 
 the doctor: 
 
 "How long is this kind of thing to go on?" 
 
 "For ever and for ever!" said the doctor lugubriously. 
 
 "Do you know that young man gave me an idea?" said Mr. 
 Skelton. 
 
 The doctor grasped his wrist hysterically. "An idea! 
 Why, Skelton, that's a miracle! Hold it fast, man, won't 
 you; and don't let it sKp." 
 
 "Never fear! I won't startle you at the next meeting, but 
 in a month's time look out!" 
 
 "That's a good fellow. Give us a long shrift, if we have to 
 face it, and — die!" 
 
SESSION THIRD 
 
 Along the Western Road, in the dty of Cork, hidden in 
 trees, and separated from the main thoroughfare by a little 
 garden, where gay tulips and mild narcissi hid in the spring- 
 time, and gorgeous geraniums and begonias flaunted their 
 splendours from Jime to October, was the modest residence 
 of Professor Sedgwick. It was in the immediate vicinity of 
 the Queen's College, where he taught Philology to a limited 
 nimiber of young men; and the storied Lee separated it from 
 the lofty heights of Sunday's Well, crowned by the noble pile 
 of buildings known as St. Vincent's Church and Presbytery. 
 Professor Sedgwick was a bafj^or, and seemed likely to 
 continue so, his human affections being centred on his work, 
 and such intellectual pleasures as were connected with it. 
 He was now in middle age. His thick hair was streaked with 
 gray. His pointed beard was " sable-silvered." His mode of 
 speaking was pleasant, because it was always earnest, and not 
 subdued to that dull monotone of supercilious seriousness 
 which some cultured people affect in our day. His manner 
 was equally earnest and affable, which led unthinking and 
 flippant people to presume a little and take liberties. They 
 generally suffered, and had reason to remember, but not to 
 repeat, the experiment. His Uttle minage was humble, as 
 became a sohtary scholar, but there was no lack of comfort. 
 His fine collection of books supplied elegance. His guests 
 had come up from Queenstown with prompt alacrity. He 
 was greatly pleased. The absence of even one would have 
 hurt him. 
 
 "Look you, Mr. Hunt," he said abruptly, having taken their 
 portfolios from the ladies, and placed them near the piano, 
 "the words of that tragic poem have been haunting me all the 
 week. They followed me everywhere, but especially in my 
 
 31 
 
32 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 class work, where I had to deal with all the horrors of the old 
 Greek drama. Do you know it has struck me more than 
 once that we, in our modern civiKsation, are sweeping around 
 unconsciously to the old Greek spirit, beautifying life as well 
 as we can, but yet mournfully looking out upon the little 
 drama in a tragic and sombre manner?" 
 
 "Why, Professor," said Miss Hope, "I have always under- 
 stood that the Greek spirit was the spirit of joyousness and 
 delight at the very fact of existence — that they had perfect 
 health in body and mind, followed Nature, and enjoyed all 
 the pleasure that children have in living. I also thought 
 that all our modems want is to exchange what they consider 
 the sombre creed of Christianity for the happy naturalness of 
 the Greek ideal, and the worship of the great god. Pan." 
 
 It was the first time Hester Hope ventured on so long a 
 sentence, her remarks hitherto having been very brief, though 
 pointed. But she had been reading about the New Spirit that 
 was creeping in everywhere, and she bitterly resented it. 
 She could conceive nothing grander than the ideals of her own 
 Church, just as she felt that the Church's ethics were the only 
 salvation for bewildered humanity. 
 
 The Professor looked at her wiUi a little surprise. It was a 
 pleased surprise. He felt, like all generous thinkers, that there 
 was some impHed flattery in challenging him about such serious 
 questions on his own ground. 
 
 "That is quite true, Miss Hope," he said. "But our modem 
 hedonists are resting on a false assumption — namely, that 
 the old Greek and Pagan life was essentially a joyous one. 
 I cannot find any trace of it in history, nor in the old Greek 
 writings. In fact, I am led to think that things were then 
 much as they are now. The same pleasures and the same 
 pains; more attention, perhaps, to physical health and beauty, 
 no pity for deformity. But the same evils that are haunting 
 our civilisation dogged the footsteps of the Greek; and the 
 same questions that are tormenting such thinkers as Emer- 
 son, Carlyle, or Herbert Spencer agonised the mind of Plato." 
 
SESSION THIRD 33 
 
 "And they had not our freedom," said Mr. Hunt. 
 
 "No," said the Professor. "Human life was held cheaper 
 then than now; and a man's freedom was at the mercy of 
 an archon, and his life was at the mercy of his slave." 
 
 "Then, you think," said Miss Fraser, "that life is not pro- 
 gressing backwards, as Mr. Himt supposed?" 
 
 "Pardon me. Miss Fraser," said the young man, with the 
 usual smile pla3dng about his lips, "I do not think I ever 
 advanced that opinion." 
 
 "But your poem, or preachment — ?" she said. 
 
 "Was not mine. I put the words in the mouth of a cynic; 
 and I thought I answered them. But, if not, permit me now 
 to say that I believe the great world is moving onwards and 
 upwards; that life was never better or dearer; and that we 
 have no need to envy any of the centuries that have gone 
 into the gulf of eternity. But — I beg pardon," he said, 
 turning to Miss Hope, who seemed anjdous to say some- 
 thing. 
 
 "No, no, no!" she said. "Gk) on, Mr. Hunt. I quite 
 agree so far." 
 
 "I was just about to say that I think we have not the 
 capacity, nor the means, for pleasure enjoyed by the ancient 
 Greeks. They understood life better. They had a glorious 
 climate, types of consummate loveliness before them, and 
 — no dread of death." 
 
 "Nor hope of immortality?" said Father Dillon. 
 
 "True. But the problem of existence did not trouble them 
 as it worries us. Their great men studied it as a thesis, no 
 more. The multitude never looked beyond the grave. This 
 life was enough for them. And social questions they left to 
 their philosophers and rulers. A little bread and olives and 
 the Isthmian games were enough for them. Man was made 
 to live and be happy. That was all!" 
 
 "Why, there's the Wagnerian conception all over again," 
 said the Professor. "Life created for pleasure, and art con- 
 secrated to hedonism — that's all!" 
 
34 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Miss Hope didn't like the tone of the debate. She bit her 
 lips, and murmured, as if speaking to herself: 
 
 "I think we are made for more than pleasure, somehow. At 
 least, I never gratify myself, but I feel dissatisfied." 
 
 "Then," said Mr. Hunt, "are we to conclude. Miss Hope, 
 that you receive no pleasure from our little gatherings; or 
 that, receiving such pleasure, you go away disgusted? " 
 
 The girl flushed up. In a moment she recollected herself, 
 crushed down her Celtic emotion, and said, somewhat coldly: 
 
 "I should never attend these meetings if I didn't hope to 
 receive more profit than pleasure from them." 
 
 Father Dillon looked pleased. It was the expression of 
 his own idea. But the yoimg Englishman, unabashed, said 
 gently: 
 
 "You open up, as usual. Miss Hope, great vistas of thought 
 by one magic word. Now, as someone quoted Richard Wag- 
 ner, — was it myself ? No matter. The sum and source of 
 all his inspiration was that man was made to be happy, and 
 that Art was the handmaiden who was to supply the happi- 
 ness." 
 
 "Quite so!" said Miss Hope. "But this is only repeating 
 the question — Is happiness to be found in mere emotion, and 
 not in the intellect? And, as a corollary, does Art stop there 
 in enkindling that emotion, which is evanescent, and go no 
 further?" 
 
 "That was his idea clearly. I do not say he was right. 
 But I am sure all his Art rested on that presumption." 
 
 "Then, there was nothing didactic in his dramas?" 
 
 "Absolutely nothing! His idea was — the unification of all 
 the arts to please the little god of this planet. And you notice 
 that he summoned all the arts to the aid of music, which, 
 again, was always dramatic. He constructed his own theatre 
 on his own architectural lines, which were really grand; he 
 threw across the stage scenes of surpassing magnificence, 
 absolutely unequalled in ancient or modern times. I do not 
 know how he consulted the sense of taste; but he placed 
 
SESSION THIRD 35 
 
 fountains of perfumed water in his theatre, whose fragrance 
 was only surpassed by their melody." 
 
 "But, then — " Miss Hope interrupted, and then became 
 silent. 
 
 Mr. Hunt waited politely. The others looked at Miss Hope, 
 who was much embarrassed. 
 
 "I was about to say," she continued, "that his whole con- 
 ception of art seems to be very voluptuous and sensual. He 
 must have been a pupil of CJoethe's." 
 
 "That's an excellent guess, or a clever induction," said the 
 Professor admiringly. "But it also relieves Wagner from the 
 charge of being totally a hedonist in his art. For, just as 
 Goethe, in his chief poem, preaches the mighty doctrine of 
 Redemption — the doctrine that seems to lie at the root of 
 all dramatic poetry, so Wagner, in his chief work, also intro- 
 duces that doctrine, and makes it the Leitmotif of the opera." 
 
 "I cannot quite remember," said Mr. Hxmt, humbly. 
 "You refer to?" 
 
 "Parsifal," said the Professor. "You see there, mingled 
 with all kinds of earthly abominations, the doctrine of Divine 
 Redemption or the self-surrender of one soul for the sake of 
 another." 
 
 "Yes, and strange to say," exclaimed Miss Fraser, " the whole 
 drama appears to be an adaptation of the CathoKc Mass. I 
 mean, of course, in its dramatic conception and its ceremonial. 
 I don't know what the central dogma of the Mass is." 
 
 There was a curious silence for a few moments, owing to 
 that sensitiveness — is it morbid? — with which Catholics 
 seem to avoid all questions touching religion. Then Miss 
 Hope said briefly: 
 
 "Redemption! The Priest, the Victim, the Immolation 
 for one who is Beloved!" 
 
 She flushed a little, and was silent. The other co-religionists 
 felt equally embarrassed. Mr. Hunt said: 
 
 "I have never been at a Catholic Mass; but I know it seems 
 to have haunted in some mysterious manner the brains of all 
 
36 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 thinkers. Even Carlyle, who hated Catholicism, with all the 
 venom of his narrow Calvinistic soul, did admit that, amidst 
 all the fluctuations of human history, intellectual, ecclesias- 
 tical, or other, the Mass seemed to be the one thing xmchange- 
 able and enduring." 
 
 "It enters into all poetry," said Miss Hope, who was pleased, 
 yet nervous at the turn the conversation had taken. "In 
 Scott, Coleridge, Shakespeare, Tennyson, — in every poet 
 who has touched the past, and even in Carlyle himself, who 
 was a greater poet than he knew, the Mass seems to come 
 uppermost as the great central drama of humanity." 
 
 "He seemed to think somehow," said Mr. Hunt, "that 
 the modern Mass was not the same as that of the Middle 
 Ages. I think he calls it a simulacrum, or some other choice 
 expletive!" 
 
 "That was his profound ignorance," said the Professor. 
 "There is not the slightest difference between Mass as it is 
 said yonder in St. Vincent's and as it was said in Fountains' 
 or Melrose. But Carlyle was an ignorant man, with a won- 
 derful affectation of omniscience, and a very absurd and con- 
 ceited contempt for everything modern, except — a German 
 trooper!" 
 
 "But Mr. Hunt has also a great contempt for this convict- 
 hulk — " said Miss Hope, maliciously. 
 
 "Now, now, that's unkind," said Reginald Hunt. "I 
 thought I disclaimed all that. But let us turn to music. 
 Father Dillon. May I presume to ask Mrs. Holden or Mrs. 
 Skelton to play something sacred this evening — I mean 
 some piece of Mass-music, Palaestrina, or — ? " 
 
 Mrs. Holden shook her head at Palaestrina, but offered to 
 play the Gloria from Mozart's Twelfth Mass. 
 
 It would be hard to say if this composition gave Mr. Hunt, 
 or Professor Sedgwick, or Miss Fraser, an adequate conception 
 of the solemnity of the Mass, or whether Gounod's Ave Maria, 
 beautiful as it is, which Mrs. Holden sang immediately after, 
 predisposed them to prayer. But, at least, it is certain that 
 
SESSION THIRD 37 
 
 no tears fell into their tea-cups; and that all agreed they had 
 spent a delightful evening. 
 
 As they were going to the train, Mr. Hunt said to Hester 
 Hope: 
 
 "I am much interested in what we have been speaking about 
 this evening. I intend to study 'Parsifal' when I get home. 
 Could you let me have a Catholic prayer-book, or — ?" 
 
 Somehow the connection of "Parsifal" and the Holy Sacri- 
 fice seemed to shock the Catholic sensibihty of the girl. She 
 answered: 
 
 "I can let you have a CathoUc prayer-book, Mr. Hxmt, with 
 pleasure. But please get out of your mind the idea that there 
 is the least affinity between the Mass and 'Parsifal.' The 
 idea is absolutely grotesque, and even profane." 
 
 "Pardon me," he said. "I didn't understand." 
 
SESSION FOURTH 
 
 "Now, Doctor," said Father Dillon, as he flung himself 
 into a deep armchair at Dr. Holden's, where the fourth Ses- 
 sion was being held, "you and Mr. Skelton have done nothing 
 yet for our Uttle conferences. We have no notion of letting 
 you off so easily. Everyone must do something, sing a song, 
 tell a story, or join a debate, or read an original paper, poem 
 or essay." 
 
 "Well, you see, ladies and gentlemen," said Dr. Holden, 
 "I have already explained to Father Dillon that we doctors 
 cannot really become poets, essayists or debaters, without 
 sacrificing the interests of our profession. You see, priests 
 can be anything they like — social reformers, educationists, 
 athletes, mechanical inventors, musical composers, etc., and 
 somehow, it seems to add to their prestige with the faithful. 
 But, if it were known that I wrote a poem, or sang a song, 
 everyone of my patients would go over to Dr. Jones." 
 
 "But, my dear fellow," said Father Dillon, who was very 
 intimate with the doctor (the latter had driven a knife through 
 him once in a merciful way), "we don't want to compromise 
 you with the public. Let us hear something in your own 
 department." 
 
 "Medicine?" shouted the doctor. 
 
 "Certainly," said the priest. "Why should you keep it a 
 secret science, as the alchemists of the Middle Ages? Every- 
 thing is thrown open now. There's no use in your cabalistic 
 signs, or your head-shakings. We shall — we must know all." 
 
 "I suppose," said the doctor, sarcastically, "the ladies are 
 very much interested in the diagnosis and treatment of the 
 gout?" 
 
 They did not seem disposed to admit the impeachment. 
 
 38 
 
SESSION FOURTH 39 
 
 The word seemed to imply middle age and an illicit acquaint- 
 ance with port wine. 
 
 "I am," said the Professor, boldly. "I have a hand- 
 shaking, or rather foot-shaking, acquaintance with the fellow. 
 The ladies may know his first and second cousins, such as 
 neuralgia, sciatica, etc., but I know the fellow himself; and 
 he doesn't improve on acquaintance. It is a long time now, 
 since I got introduced to him. I have been obliged to turn 
 him out of doors a hundred times, but he's an insolent fellow, 
 and persists in returning. There's one consolation about the 
 matter — that he seems to have only rich or distinguished 
 friends. In fact, he seems capable of conferring a patent of 
 hobihty, and he seems on visiting terms with all geniuses." 
 
 "And yet you expelled him? — or tried?" said the doctor. 
 
 "A happy correction!" said the Professor. "I tried. I 
 douched him with cataracts of salicylate of soda; I deluged 
 him with iodide of potassium; I pelted him with all the tab- 
 loids in the patent medicine advertisements throughout the 
 world; I coaxed him with poisonous pastilles; and I bom- 
 barded him with bullets of solurol; but in vain. Back the 
 feUow came, knocked, and had to be admitted. Doctor, I 
 feel sure the profession know nothing about the fellow. I 
 have a theory of my own!" 
 
 "As to your first assertion," said the doctor, in a drawling, 
 but humble manner, "I quite agree with you. The faculty 
 is in complete ignorance of the nature and formation of gout. 
 We can put our finger on the whole of the microbe family — 
 fevers, diphtheria, phthisis, pneumonia — " 
 
 "Has pneumonia a specific microbe?" asked Miss Fraser. 
 "I suffered from it once. I had no idea it was a parasitic 
 disease." 
 
 "It is," said Dr. Holden. "It has its own specific microbe, 
 the pneujno-coccus, shaped Uke an ancient M, or two D's 
 placed back to back. The strange thing is, that in both the 
 milder and more virulent or infectious form of the disease, 
 the microbe remains the same. Why it should be perfectly 
 
40 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 innocuous to all but the patient in one case, and fataUy infec- 
 tious in others, so as even to cause an epidemic, no one has 
 yet ascertained. But, to come back to the doctor's question. 
 No one as yet has discovered the microbe of gout, because 
 — it never existed." 
 
 "And the disease is purely mechanical, or djmamic?" said 
 the Professor. 
 
 "Purely. But you had a theory. Professor?" 
 
 "Yes. I am quite aware it is rash to form one; still more 
 temerarious to explain it — " 
 
 " Go on," said the doctor. "We won't put you on the rack. 
 I won't answer for Father Dillon, if you touch his depart- 
 ment, but I won't burn you at the stake." 
 
 "Well," said the Professor, smiling. "I am aware that I 
 am making myself slightly ridiculous; but, as Father Dillon 
 says, everything is now open to inquisition and experiment. 
 I am quite convinced from the experiments that have been 
 made on this corpus vile of mine, that gout, in its acute form, 
 is the inflammation raised by the excessive vitality and general 
 cussedness of the phagocytes in the blood; in its chronic form 
 of rheumatic deposits it is simply the salts of lime, extracted 
 from the blood by these phagocytes and dropped into the 
 comers of the system when they die." 
 
 The doctor sat up, and began to wrinkle his forehead. The 
 Professor continued: 
 
 "There is a perfect analogy between the formation of sea- 
 shells and limestone, and gouty deposits. The minute animal- 
 culae of the sea extract in some mysterious manner salts of 
 lime from the ocean, build it up into a gorgeous sea-palace, 
 painted with all the tints of the rainbow, weave it and twist 
 it into voluted forms, that mock all human art. Then, the 
 work completed, the little artist dies, and the deserted sea- 
 palace, or sea-shell, is flung on the sands, thence to be ground 
 and converted into lime, thence to build human palaces or 
 cathedrals. Now, exactly in the same way, your phagocyte, 
 a most industrious and militant subject, calmly extracts salts 
 
SESSION FOURTH 41 
 
 of lime from his ocean, that is the swift and turbid currents 
 of the blood that swishes through the canals of the human 
 system, amalgamates them, develops in consequence furious 
 vitality, that is, irritability, sets up inflammation in the sys- 
 tem, which we call acute gout. Then, surfeited with Ume 
 and mischief, he dies, or is killed, the pulp of his little body 
 decomposes and is absorbed, and the little nodule of lime is 
 swept along and dropped into the angles of the system, where 
 the current rims slowly, and is unable to hold these minute 
 particles in solution. These are the gouty nodosities on the 
 fingers, or in the ears — the chalk deposits, which we call 
 rheumatism." 
 
 "Absurd! A tissue of absurdities," said the doctor. 
 "What led you to such a ridiculous assumption?" 
 
 "Doctor!" said Father Dillon, in a warning voice. 
 
 "But it is absurd!" said the doctor. "Where is the need 
 of supposing the intervention of bacteria or animalculae, 
 when we have the dynamic theory of uric acid forming itself 
 in the blood?" 
 
 "What forms uric add?" said the Professor mildly. 
 
 "We don't know," said the doctor. "I admit that." 
 
 "Why is it sometimes acute in its action, and sometimes 
 chronic?" 
 
 "There again! It is owing, of course, to the condition of 
 the patient." 
 
 "Why does colchicum give instantaneous relief from all 
 inflammatory symptoms, whilst it leaves the uric acid, or 
 salts of lime, untouched, or undiminished, in the system?" 
 
 "Is that so?" said the doctor, waiving for the first time his 
 assumption of medical infallibility. 
 
 "It is," said the Professor. "It is easy to imderstand how 
 a poison can act instantaneously on an organism such as I 
 suppose. It is not easy to explain how it can act instanta- 
 neously on dead matter without breaking it up, or dissolving 
 it. But it only shows the unity of things, and how essentially 
 we belong to the universe. It is this same salts of lime that 
 
42 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 agonises my hand, that builds yonder cathedral; just as it is 
 my breath that drives the Etruria across the Atlantic." 
 
 Now, the Sunetoi, as I have said, were very polite, and, as 
 the essence of poUteness is charity, they covered the doctor's 
 angry retreat by a buzz of general conversation. There was 
 a feeUng that the doctor had lost temper, and therefore, the 
 mimic battle. Swiftly, too, he reahsed the same fact; and 
 then came the more humiliating reminder: And in my own 
 house! 
 
 "Professor," he said humbly, "I'll take a note of what you 
 have said. It is highly original. If there's anything in it, 
 the KvSos shall be yoiurs. I'll not aUow any pirate of the pro- 
 fession to claim it. But I fear I've not got my temper under 
 control this week. I've had some sleepless nights." 
 
 "Have you been out during the week?" asked Father Dillon. 
 Priests and doctors have a wonderful sympathy with each 
 other on one subject — the night call. 
 
 "Yes," said the doctor. "In fact I've been away from 
 home; and look! shall I tell it, I wonder?" 
 
 "Certainly," said the Sunetoi. 
 
 "There, I knew the doctor had a story," said Father Dillon. 
 "I knew it by his preoccupation. Out with it, doctor!" 
 
 "I have some doubts whether I ought to teU it in mixed 
 company," said the Doctor. "But we are all friends, and 
 our motto is — Toleration. All right! I'll begin. You can 
 never know the persons of whom I am speaking." 
 
 He reflected for a moment, and then said: 
 
 "I was called away from home by a telegram that lay upon 
 my study table the evening we spent with the Professor. It 
 was from an old college friend. It said briefly: 'Alice in great 
 danger. Come if you possibly can.' It was too late to start 
 then. The night mail had gone out. I packed my port- 
 manteau, put in a few surgical instruments, ordered breakfast 
 at seven, and at eight o'clock I was on my way. The train 
 was slow to MaUow. There I caught a fast train, which sped 
 us on rapidly. At Ballybrophy we stopped, and I changed 
 
SESSION FOURTH 43 
 
 for a side line. It was evening when I reached the little 
 
 station at S . The doctor's trap was waiting for me. 
 
 It was night when we drew up at his house in the village 
 street. 
 
 "I don't know whether any of you have experienced the 
 singular feeling that comes down on one who is visiting a 
 house of sickness, or sorrow, or shame. Instead of the bright, 
 cheery welcome of ordinary times, there is silence and sad 
 faces, and lowered lamps and light footfalls. I confess my 
 heart sank as I entered my friend's house, and was shown into 
 the drawing-room on the left. A lamp — a tall, standard 
 lamp, was lighting, but the wick was lowered, and the light 
 was shaded. Everything was just as she left them — would 
 it be for ever? The music was open on her piano, her work 
 was lying on her writing-desk; her last book was lying open 
 on the table. Everything was neat and sweet, and denoted 
 order and elegance. And she — ? 
 
 "In a few moments my friend came in, and advanced 
 towards me. I wouldn't have known him. We had been 
 students at the 'Queen's' together; we had occupied the same 
 dingy diggings; abused the same old lodging-keeper for steal- 
 ing our bacon and butter; read for economy's sake the same 
 treatises; studied the same old bones; sowed our wild oats 
 together; and then we parted. He had married late in life, 
 and it was only then I met him again after a long separation. 
 His young wife — he was old enough to be her father — was 
 the brightest, cheeriest type of Irish girl I had ever seen. The 
 day of his marriage he had a few white hairs in his hair and 
 beard, but he looked a tj^e of manly strength and beauty. 
 And now — ? I would have passed by without recognition, 
 had I met him in the public street, this gaimt, cadaverous, 
 unkempt, unshaven creature. A week of sorrow had done 
 the work of years. 
 
 "He shook hands silently. I murmured something. He 
 went over, leaned his arm on the mantelpiece, his head on his 
 arm, and sobbed as if his heart would break. I said nothing. 
 
44 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 He calmed down. 'Alice is very bad/ he said. 'Double 
 pneumonia. This is the fifth day. She is awfully weak.' 
 
 '"Any complications?' I asked. 
 
 "'No, a little pleurisy, but nothing else. But the bases of 
 both limgs are engaged.' 
 
 "'Of course you've got nurses?' 
 
 '"Yes! The best I could get down from Dublin. I was 
 
 about to wire for ' (mentioning a great medical swell), 
 
 'but I thought of you.' 
 
 "'I'm complimented, old man,' I said. 'And now, look 
 here! I'm not going to talk nonsense to you about cheering 
 up, etc., but, you know, your wife has one thing which you 
 and I have not, that is, youth and strength. And so long as 
 the heart holds, she is sure to weather through. How did it 
 all happen?' 
 
 "'The usual way. That infernal influenza, of course. She 
 had run down a good deal. Then, Thursday turned out fine. 
 She insisted on my driving her to the country dispensary. It 
 was all right until we turned from Kihneny Cross, where a 
 bitter north wind blew in our faces. That evening there 
 were the usual rigours, and I knew what it was.' 
 
 "'Well, you took it in time, however.' 
 
 "'I did. But — will you have some supper now; or would 
 you like to see Alice first?' 
 
 '"Yes. I shall see her. Then we can talk things over.' 
 
 "He led the way upstairs into her room. The nurse was 
 there. The lamp was brought down very low. I looked at 
 the chart. The temperature had leaped up to 105°, then 
 come down, and was now steady at 103°, running down by 
 two degrees in the morning. Heart pulsations, 120. The 
 poor girl lay perfectiy stiU. She had had no sleep since she 
 took ill; and there was slight dehrium. 
 
 "'Dr. Holden has come to see you, Alice,' her husband 
 whispered. 'Won't you speak to him?' 
 
 "She tried to speak, but her tongue was like a piece of 
 painted wood in her mouth. 
 
SESSION FOURTH 45 
 
 "'I must be very bad,' she whispered. 'I thought I was 
 at home. Could you ask these people to go away? I can't 
 stand their staring at me.' 
 
 "He turned aside, weeping. She continued staring before 
 her. 
 
 "'Will you examine the lungs?' the nurse whispered. 
 
 "'No,' I said. 'You're keeping the poultices on steadily?' 
 
 "'Yes. Every three hours.' 
 
 "'And she's taking nourishment well?' 
 
 "'Yes. All she wants is sleep. The sleepless nights are 
 killing her.' 
 
 "I touched the doctor's arm, and we went downstairs. 
 
 "'There seems no danger as yet,' I said, 'but you must 
 give her some sulfonal to-night. All looks well.' 
 
 "He jumped up in agony. 
 
 "'All's not well!' he cried, walking up and down the room. 
 'There's one thing wanting. How can I ever be forgiven, if 
 anything happens?' 
 
 "I thought this meant something domestic and delicate, 
 and I said nothing. 
 
 "He walked up and down the room in great agitation. 
 Then he stopped suddenly. 
 
 "'Holden,' he said, 'is it too late — I mean, would it do 
 any harm if I called in the priest to see Alice? ' 
 
 "I said, in the usual professional manner: 'Of course, it is 
 not too late. But anything that would excite or disturb her 
 now might have bad consequences.' 
 
 '"That's just what these nurses have been saying from 
 
 the beginning,' he replied. 'And now, am I to stand by, 
 and see her pass out of life without confession or Extreme 
 Unction?' 
 
 "I was never so surprised. He wasn't a bad fellow, but 
 religion wasn't his strong point. And I even knew he was 
 careless about all religious observances. 
 
 "'Alice,' I said, 'has been always, I believe, a good — ' 
 
 "'Grood?' he cried in agony. 'God never created better. 
 
46 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 That's why I am tormented now. I can't bear the thought, 
 the suspicion, that her soul might be lost; and that — that 
 — we might never meet again. And all — my fault, my 
 fault! Say, Holden, shall I send over for Father Hayes? 
 He's only across the way?' 
 
 "I hardly knew what to answer. The patient was delir- 
 ious, yet had intervals of reason, and I knew enough about 
 my religion to understand that she could receive the last 
 sacraments. But, undoubtedly, the visit of a priest would 
 affect her seriously, and the crisis of the malady was at hand. 
 
 "'Look here, Holden,' he cried, seeing that I was hesitat- 
 ing, 'it comes to this. If Alice dies without sacraments, I 
 shall certainly destroy myself. 'Twill drive me mad!' 
 
 "'This should have been thought of,' I said, 'in the begin- 
 ning of her malady, before her strength had run down. Now, 
 'tis critical enough!' 
 
 "'Of course,' he said. 'And if I were attending a poor 
 devil over there in the bog, I'd say at once — have the priest! 
 But you see, these nurses were too professional; and they 
 were warning, night and day, to avoid excitement, avoid 
 excitement. And now, my God, it may be too late!' 
 
 "'Well, of course, you'll get hauled over the coals,' I 
 said — 
 
 "But he fiercely interrupted me. 
 
 "'Over the coals?' he said. 'I don't care a damn for all 
 the abuse I shall get. What I want is to have her soul saved. 
 If she dies without the priest, I shall certainly lose my reason!' 
 
 " ' Then call him in,' I said. ' What kind of fellow is Hayes? ' 
 
 "'Very good. Very quiet and gentle.' 
 
 "'Call him in, then! I'll coach him up how to approach 
 the patient.'" 
 
 "That Was very good of you," said Father Dillon, inter- 
 fering, "as if a priest didn't know his duty as well as a Doctor! " 
 
 "Yes, my dear man," said Dr. Holden, "but there are 
 priests and priests. Now, a rough, over-zealous, fussy priest 
 might do awful mischief there. But, however. Father Hayes 
 
SESSION FOURTH 47 
 
 was called in. He was a middle-aged, stooped, pale-faced, 
 calm clergyman. The doctor went out for a moment. The 
 priest came over, and shook my hand warmly. 'I have to 
 thank you for this,' he said. 'I've spent an anxious week 
 about this poor lady. I called every day, and hinted very 
 
 broadly that poor Mrs. should have confession at least. 
 
 But they put me off. It is late enough; but I hope aU will 
 be well. Has she retained her senses?' 
 
 "'She wanders a Uttle,' I replied. 'There is lack of blood 
 to the brain, and she becomes slightly delirious at times; but 
 I shall give her a tonic now, and then the brain will act all 
 right.' 
 
 " ' God bless you! ' the poor man said, as if I had any credit 
 for it. 
 
 "AU then was arranged. We injected a little strychnine, 
 which steadied the heart, and when all was right, we sent 
 Father Hayes upstairs. In a few moments the nurse came 
 down. The doctor rushed out. 
 
 " ' How did she receive Father Hayes? Did she know him? ' 
 
 "*0h, yes,' said the nurse, never losing her professional 
 coolness, 'she appeared rather pleased.' 
 
 "'Thank God!' he said, coming in, and closing the door. 
 'I don't care what happens now.' 
 
 "He looked almost young again, 
 
 "'Now, Holden,' he said, just like a schoolboy who has got 
 a holiday, 'tuck in! Here is cold chicken and ham, and 
 tongue. Will you have some tea, or whiskey?' 
 
 " ' I vote for whiskey,' I said. The contagion of the fellow's 
 new-bom delight affected me. 'But do you know, you sur- 
 prise me? I never gave you credit for much religion.' 
 
 "'And you were right,' he said. 'But, somehow, the whole 
 reaUty has flashed upon me now. I'm like the man in the 
 Gospel: " I only know that I was blind, and now I see." You 
 go on with your supper, and I'll tell you all.' 
 
 "He stopped for a moment, as if doubtful whether he was 
 justified in making the revelation. Then he went on: 
 
48 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "'You know me, Holden, better than any one else. You 
 knew me in our college days, and I haven't changed much. 
 I haven't been too bad. Father Hayes finds it hard some- 
 times to get me to the Easter Duty, but I never lost Mass, 
 nor eat meat on Friday. I wasn't irreligious, nor anti-relig- 
 ious, but I was unreligious. Well, when I married, Alice 
 brought me to for a time. I'd do anything for her, even to 
 saying long prayers. But, you know, she was not only pious, 
 but deucedly well-read. She was educated by the Ursulines, 
 and was quite up to date. Well, things went well for a good 
 while. Then, I noticed she began to put awkward questions 
 about biology and all that sort of thing. And I entered into 
 the matter; and, God is my witness, without the least notion 
 of upsetting her faith, and, indeed, without thinking such a 
 thing possible, I often spoke too freely on these matters, and 
 threw out hints that without, in the world, the best thinkers 
 were dead against us, and that, in fact, the mystery of things 
 was insoluble. Gradually, I saw a falling away on her part 
 from her religious practices. She used at first spend an hour 
 or two in the chapel every Saturday, decorating the altar. 
 She gave it up. She used to go to Confession and Commimion 
 every week. She then put it off for a month, and then for 
 months. She was very eager in asking questions about med- 
 ical matters, and sometimes I noticed that certain books, 
 such as Bain's Mind and Body, and these French treatises on 
 Nerve Troubles, were displaced on my shelves. You know, 
 Holden, what a universe of crime and madness these books 
 reveal. Then, I noticed that she sometimes spoke with a 
 little graceful contempt of her old preceptors; and then, after 
 a long time, she began to criticise priests. Now, all this 
 chimed in with my own wretched ideas, and she knew it. 
 And, therefore, I could not chide her. But deep down in my 
 heart I was troubled. If God should send me children, I 
 thought, what kind of training shall their young minds get 
 here? Yet, all that time, she was more winning and lovable 
 than ever. And when she said smart and witty things, but 
 
SESSION FOURTH 49 
 
 slightly profane, I laughed. Bit by bit, I saw every trace of 
 religious feeling wear away. One day I would see a religious 
 picture displaced by some artistic, but semi-pagan photogra- 
 vure. Then, little busts would appear on the mantelpiece, of 
 some modern agnostic. To shorten the narrative, our home 
 had become fin-de-siecle, cultured, advanced, literary, and 
 God had been expelled, when, suddenly, the great gulf yawned 
 beneath our feet. You see it all now. Alice has not been to 
 Confession for more than a year. Her faith has been under- 
 mined. Were she to die in this illness, without making her 
 peace with God, there was only one fate before her. My own 
 poor faith in God, and Hell, and Eternity has woke up, with 
 convulsive remorse. You can understand now what tortures 
 I have endured. All the arguments I have ever read against 
 Christianity, all the doubts I entertained, have been blown 
 away, and the awful truths have risen up from the gulf before 
 me in all their terrible significance. If it pleases God to spare 
 AKce to me, this house will become His Temple again, and for 
 ever.' 
 
 "I went on with the supper, keenly alive, however, to all 
 that he was sajong. He thought he had not been emphatic 
 enough in his self-condemnation, and he added, after a pause: 
 
 "'You know, Holden, what we fellows feel when we lose a 
 case by some bad bungling. It is horrible. But what is that 
 to the conviction that one has destroyed a human soul? 
 Here is the terrible thought that has been haunting me: Alice 
 will die; Alice will be lost to God for ever; you have been the 
 cause of her damnation! Nothing more awful could torment 
 the human mind!' 
 
 "After half-an-hour, the priest came down the stairs, and 
 was shown into the dining-room, where we sat. A placid 
 smile was in his eyes, and hovered aroimd his mouth. He 
 was folding his purple stole around his ritual. He declined 
 all refreshments, and then my friend said: 
 
 "'Well?' 
 
 "'Your wife seems much more at rest and happier,' said 
 5 
 
so THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 the priest. 'I think her recovery will be now very much 
 helped.' 
 
 '"You have done everything?' said the doctor, anxiously. 
 
 "'Everything/ said the priest, smiling. 'There was diffi- 
 culty in getting the poor mouth to take the Viaticum; but 
 we managed.' 
 
 "'And — and she made no objection?' 
 
 "'Not the slightest. She was very grateful.' 
 
 "'Thanks be to the great God!' said the doctor. 
 
 "Then he bent his head down between his knees; and we 
 heard him sobbing, and saw his whole frame shaken by the 
 emotion. 
 
 "Before retiring, we paid a short visit to the sick room. 
 The patient lay back on her pillows, apparently restful and 
 happy. Her husband stole over, bent down, and said some- 
 thing. But the rest will not bear being told. 
 
 "Next morning, her temperature had rim down to 99°. 
 
 "'She had a good night,' said the nurse. 'A little restless, 
 but no deliriiun.' 
 
 "'The sulfonal,' I whispered. 
 
 "'Ye — es!' said the doctor, incredulously. 
 
 "He wished that I should examine the lungs. The conges- 
 tion was beginning to resolve rapidly; the crisis was at hand. 
 If we could keep up her strength, all would be weU. There 
 were three anxious days. Then I felt all danger was past, 
 and came home. I had a letter this morning. I think all is 
 right now. Probably, I shouldn't have told the story, but, 
 you see. Father Dillon would persist. Now, we must have 
 some music." 
 
 During that performance, Mr. Himt, who had been follow- 
 ing the narrative with interest, whispered to Hester Hope: 
 
 "What a magnificently dramatic scene! Ibsen would have 
 constructed a telling tragedy there!" 
 
 He was surprised that Miss Hope took the suggestion rather 
 coldly. He assumed that she had not heard of Ibsen. 
 
 "It is so like, I mean, in the motif that seems to tmderlie 
 
SESSION FOURTH 51 
 
 all Ibsen's dramas — guilt, confession, redemption. All his 
 characters have suffered shipwreck of faith, or morals, or 
 fortune or health, just like these two creations of Dr. 
 Holden's— " 
 
 "But, Mr. Hunt, you are mistaken. What the doctor told 
 is not fiction, but fact. Surely, you don't suppose he invented 
 such a pathetic story?" 
 
 "N'importel" said Mr. Hunt. "Fact or fiction, it is all 
 the same. I only consider it as far as it would contribute to 
 Art — as far as it would permit itself to be dramatised. And 
 really, it seems to me admirably adapted to — scenes! Act 
 
 I. — The young girl in her convent school, or walking the con- 
 vent groimds with the staid and placid sisters; then meeting 
 the grave, middle-aged man, who had had a history. Act 
 
 II. — Her devotion, placing those flowers before the altar, 
 and I presume praying with them, and offering the incense 
 of her heart with the incense of their breath. Act III. — 
 The Revelation — the sceptical causeries between husband 
 and wife, the surreptitious taking and reading of fatal books, 
 the decay of rehgious feeling. The sudden realisation on the 
 husband's part that his wife had lost, or abandoned, her faith. 
 Act IV. — Her sudden illness; his remorse and fear at seeing 
 her soul fluttering above Gehenna; his summoning his friend; 
 the advent of the priest; the crisis. Act V. — Her redemp- 
 tion at the last moment from Death and Hell! Yes! I 
 think I could weave it out into a pretty drama enough — " 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Hunt," said Hester, in agony. "How can you 
 speak lightly of such solenm and awful things? You seem to 
 think that everything is created for Art, as you call it — " 
 
 "Why, certainly," he said, looking at her anxious face in 
 surprise. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Hxmt," she pleaded. "These things are too 
 solemn for such petty purposes. They come to us as a terri- 
 ble and wholesome lesson, bidding us beware, and warning us 
 to regulate our Kves on better lines. They are not childish 
 dramas to be put before the lights for the amusement of a f riv- 
 
52 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 olous people, or to put money into the pocket of an enterpris- 
 ing poet. They are the warnings of the Holy Spirit, and they 
 only are wise who accept them. You see what an impression 
 the circumstances have made on Dr. Holden, who speaks 
 flippantly, but thinks deeply — " 
 
 "You surprise me. I thought the doctor made light of the 
 whole episode." 
 
 "You are far from understanding us, Mr. Hunt," she said 
 kindly. "We don't wear our hearts on our sleeves; and we 
 are often misunderstood." 
 
 "Quite so," he said, after a pause, during which the tink- 
 ling of the piano had ceased. "I look to those httle meetings 
 as at least illuminative of a train of thought to which I have 
 never been accustomed. How near we are to each other, and 
 yet how far!" 
 
SESSION FIFTH 
 
 "'I AM the high-priest of Mammon; I am dictator of the 
 imiverse; I sit in the throne of monarchs; I hold the tassels 
 of the Phrygian cap of Republican liberty. Through my 
 hands passes all the power of earth; I am the aqueduct of all 
 its living waters. I lift my hand, and lo! all the wheels of the 
 world's machinery slowly obey and begin to move; I lift it 
 higher, and wheel and piston, cog and lever, travel swifter 
 and swifter, until the eye sees nought but a vast complexity 
 of motion. My hand falls, and lo! the whirlwind calms down, 
 and gradually all things sink into primitive inertness. I in- 
 spire all tilings, the greatest as well as the basest. The loftiest 
 instincts of humanity are inoperative and paralysed for outer 
 action without my help. It is I that put into force the dreams 
 of saints and philanthropists; it is I that give reaUty to the 
 gorgeous symbols that flash like sunlit cloudland across 
 the visions of poets. Without me, the poet cannot sing; the 
 artist caimot paint; the Apollo or the Moses lies for ever 
 embedded in the quarries of Sicily or Carrara, without hope 
 of incarnation; nor is there resurrection for the dead in the 
 pages of history, and peace to their weeping manes, unless I 
 lift my hand above their cerements, and command them to 
 be embalmed and placed amongst the mummies of the immor- 
 tals. Kings sit in my antechamber; and monarchs are the 
 footstool of my feet. Weeping queens are on my threshold; 
 and princes line the walls of my temples. I am as old as the 
 foundations of the earth, when it was poised above chaos; I 
 walked with the Earth-Child, Man, from his infancy, and 
 accompanied him through all the var3dng phases of childhood, 
 adolescence and manhood. I brought the Gods of Olympus 
 down to earth, and broke up the shields, and blunted the 
 
 S3 
 
54 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 spears of heroes. It was I who hvdlt the temples and altars 
 of the world, and anointed the High Priests of Humanity. 
 And I shall stand over the buried dust of the human race, 
 until the last trump shall sound, and the old order giveth 
 place to the new. Men affect to despise me, whilst they 
 worship me. They abuse me, and adore me. They preach 
 against me, and propitiate me. I stand sponsor over every 
 child that is born; and without me, old Charon will not waft 
 a single soul across his gloomy river. I reverse the motto 
 over the gates of Hell; and above the threshold of my door, I 
 write the legend': ("I won't give you the original, it is a 
 puzzle; but I'll give you the translation:) 
 
 "'All hope, ye mortals, if ye enter here!' 
 "'Also sprach Zaratkustra; So spake Zarathustra; and the 
 world listened and heard.' " 
 
 This strange monologue was uttered in the year of our Lord, 
 1 89-, in the parlour, or drawing-room, of Miss Hester Hope, 
 B.A., and the Speaker was Robert Skelton, manager of the 
 Cork branch of his bank and general mart of commerce. It 
 was spoken without preface, foreword, or introduction, apol- 
 ogy or explanation. The Sunetoi were the listeners; and 
 the listeners were paralysed. Only Mrs. Skelton, startled 
 at the sudden development of her spouse, and not knowing 
 what to make of it, peered at him with an anxious look on her 
 face, as if she had some horrible suspicion about drink. But 
 no ! His face was as calm as if he were humbugging a country 
 customer, or writing a cheque for himself. Then, a deeper 
 shade of anxiety crossed her features, as she concluded that 
 this was the first s)Tnptom of mental degeneration. She 
 looked cautiously around to see how the Sunetoi were taking 
 it. But they were all as solemn as the Olympians on their 
 thrones. Only, once or twice, the Professor shuffled in his 
 chair and shivered a little, when Robert pronounced the word 
 "inoperative" with a strong accent on the "a," and "philan- 
 thropists" with a decided inflection on the "o," when he made 
 
SESSION FIFTH 55 
 
 but one syllable out of "manes," and the "Ch" of "Charon" 
 very soft. Once, Mrs. Skelton became so anxious that she 
 whispered: "Robert!" but that philosopher went on calmly 
 to the end. He then folded his paper, and said: 
 
 "The meaning of all that nonsense is that you can get on 
 somehow without priest, or doctor, or lawyer, or painter, or 
 poet; but you cannot get on without me I" 
 
 It was just then that Father Dillon was seen whispering 
 and signalling to Mr. Skelton across the room. But Robert 
 was so satisfied he did not take the hint. Then the young 
 priest went over, and taking the paper from the hands of the 
 priest of Mammon, he showed him the other side. The secret 
 was out: but Mr. Skelton was undisturbed. 
 
 "No," he said, "I am too old a bird to be caught by chaff. 
 And, besides, I have my directors to consider." 
 
 "It was only the other side of the shield, ladies and gentle- 
 men," said Father Dillon, "of which I had already had a 
 glimpse, and which, I think, in all justice Mr. Skelton should 
 have also shewn." 
 
 "I leave that to the clergy," said Robert, with a malicious 
 grin. "They are always denoimcing this poor old god. Mam- 
 mon, of naine; and yet I cannot see how ever they can get on 
 without him." 
 
 There was a pause of a few seconds, which would not be 
 noticed in English circles, or only considered as a pleasant 
 interlude; but which is very embarrassing among Celts. 
 Then the Professor said: 
 
 "I hardly know any subject on which it is more difficult 
 to form a righteous or honourable opinion. I don't know 
 anything on which such and so many opprobrious epithets 
 have been hurled as upon gold; and yet — " 
 
 "It is what everyone is seeking," said the doctor, "and 
 which no one can do without. 'Tis the root of all ^vil; the 
 arch-demon of the world; the cause of war, civil, internecine 
 — war that ends in Waterloo or Sedan, or war that ends in 
 breaking the kitchen-ware. We are all agreed upon that. 
 
S6 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Yet, not a man out of a million is independent of it. As Mr. 
 Skelton says, it is the beginning and end of all things." 
 
 "I admit," said Father Dillon, "that it is the oil which 
 lubricates the wheels of life, and keq)s them working smoothly, 
 without creaking. But I don't see why I should smear my- 
 self all over with it, like a South-Sea Islander." 
 
 "Yes, but what is the real secret of its fascination?" asked 
 Miss Eraser. "My own countrymen have the reputation of 
 being particularly canny about it; but one would really like 
 to know what the magic consists in. We all agree that gold 
 and silver have no more intrinsic value than the cowries which 
 Samoans or Maoris exchange. Are we really no better than 
 savages? Is a Vanderbilt or a Rockefeller no more to be 
 envied than a dusky chief who carries a belt of seashells or 
 wampvim around his waist?" 
 
 "Not one inch more," said Father Dillon. " Gold is simply 
 a symbol, like the head of an ox on a piece of leather in past 
 times. It is a power that commands certain utilities — 
 nothing more!" 
 
 "Then the importance attributed to it is purely factitious?" 
 said the Professor. 
 
 "Undoubtedly," said the priest. "As I have said, it is a 
 power that can purchase certain commodities, necessaries, 
 pleasures, or luxuries. Its utility ceases there. If I can do 
 without these things, I am just as wealthy as the man who can 
 command them. Or, if I can get these things for nothing, I 
 am just as wealthy as the man that buys them. Is it not so? " 
 
 "Certainly," said the Professor. 
 
 "For example," said Father Dillon, "if I were wealthy, I 
 would have the power of bujdng a diamond ring, a motor car, 
 a carriage and pair, a Vandyke. But, I don't want such 
 things. I am far better without them. So far from being 
 the slightest advantage to me, they would be a decided em- 
 barrassment, a burden and a loss. And, the corresponding 
 wealth would be the same." 
 
 "Yes, but, Father," said Hester Hope, "consider all the 
 
SESSION FIFTH 57 
 
 good you could do, if you had money — all the suffering you 
 could relieve, the hospitals you could build, the educational 
 projects you could advance. I'm sure, if I had money, I'd 
 endow a University, and give poor students the means of 
 advancing in life." 
 
 "Ah, yes!" said the priest. "But we are only considering 
 now why people desire wealth. And I'm afraid, Miss Hope, 
 those philanthropic projects that are haunting your mind 
 are not exactly the temptations which wealth holds forth to 
 the many. You are contemplating wealth as a stewardship, 
 and from our standpoint it is no more. But, if you only con- 
 sider it as a stewardship, and apart from personal advantages, 
 consider what a terrible and burdensome stewardship it is! 
 Imagine what it must be to have the responsibility of disburs- 
 ing millions, of meeting all kinds of demands, foolish and 
 otherwise, of being an object of hatred and envy to multi- 
 tudes, who cannot participate in your good fortune. You are 
 there tied in a piUory with a gag of gold around your neck; 
 and you call on gods and men to liberate you." 
 
 "I'm quite satisfied," said Robert Skelton. "I'll take the 
 gag if you please, Father Dillon." 
 
 "Coming back to the original question," continued Father 
 Dillon, imheeding, "have you ever considered that it is only 
 the lesser and more paltry gifts of Ufe that money can buy? 
 It can only purchase plebeian things — the rags and refuse 
 of the market. It cannot touch the grander and higher things 
 that belong to our nature; nor even the most useful things. 
 It cannot buy health of mind or body; it cannot purchase 
 intellect; it cannot give the poetic, artistic temperament; it 
 cannot negotiate beauty, genius, taste, the aesthetic feeling, 
 the perception of whatever is grand and beautiful in Art or 
 Nature. Think of a multi-millionaire from Chicago entering 
 the studio of a Millais or a Watts, and looking around in a 
 bovine or porcine manner, demanding the price of a portrait, 
 or a s3anbol. He has no more perception of the beauty or the 
 symbolism of that painting than one of his hogs. He has the 
 
S8 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 power to purchase a certain thing which he is unable to appre- 
 ciate from the man who created it and loved it, but is forced 
 by necessity to part with it. Is there any comparison possi- 
 ble between these two men? Is there extant a human being 
 who would rather be Obadiah Hoglarder, Esq., than J. F. 
 MiUais?" 
 
 "Plenty," said Mr. Skelton. "Hundreds, thousands, tens 
 of thousands, himdreds of thousands!" 
 
 "If that be so," continued Father Dillon, "either the educa- 
 tion of the masses is a hopeless failure, or humanity is retro- 
 grading faster than the grimmest of the prophets had foretold." 
 
 "Ha! Rem acu tetigisti," said the Professor, forgetting him- 
 self in the excitement. "The education of the masses is 
 hopelessly neglected. There lies the secret of all modem 
 unrest. The people have never grasped the idea that money, 
 wealth, is the least valuable thing in the world in itself; 
 and that, as Father Dillon says, it can only purchase the baser 
 commodities of hfe. The higher things are beyond its reach." 
 
 "A 'Watts,' or a 'MiUais?'" said Mr. Hunt with a smile. 
 
 "The purchased 'Watts' and 'MiUais' are absolutely use- 
 less to the owner," repHed the Professor. "He is incapable 
 of appreciating them. They simply fiU a vacant spot on his 
 walls." 
 
 "But they are his! and they have an intrinsic value?" 
 said Mr. Hunt. 
 
 "Nothing has value," replied the Professor, "except in so 
 far as it is perceived. AU that your Mr. Hoglarder can feel, 
 or say is, 'That is a "Watts," and that is mine.' The girl 
 who sits at his right hand at dinner, and who could not pur- 
 chase a proof-engraving of the picture, is the real owner for 
 the two or three hours that she sits there, and drinks in aU the 
 symbolic beauty of the painting." 
 
 "And which of the two sensations is the more real?" asked 
 Miss Eraser. "The sensation — this is mine; or the sensa- 
 tion — this is beautiful, sublime, suggestive?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly the latter," said the Professor, who always 
 
SESSION FIFTH 59 
 
 treated Miss Fraser's opinions with great deference. "Even 
 as to duration, you will see the sensation is more valuable. 
 Mr. Hoglarder sees that picture only on the few occasions when 
 he has company, and wants to boast of its possession. At all 
 other times, he would much prefer examining an adipose hog, 
 or totting up his bank account. The girl-artist takes away 
 the picture in her imagination, until it becomes hers; broods 
 over it, recalls every detail of it, until it has stamped itself 
 indelibly on her brain. There it remains, a ' thing of beauty,' 
 not only giving pleasure, but fecund with every noble sugges- 
 tion, that probably will be the germ of a thousand brilliant 
 thoughts and imaginings, and will find their issue in poem, or 
 essay, or paper, commimicating that ideal beauty to others 
 and thus passing on the original glory to mind after mind in 
 endless circles of transition." 
 
 "Hoglarder takes a back seat, Skelton," said the doctor. 
 
 Mr. Skelton shook his head. He was just in the condition 
 of a boy, to whom it is proved that jam is not good. 
 
 "There's another point," said Father Dillon, driving home 
 the truth. "As I ventured to say, the whole artificial esti- 
 mate of wealth is based on the theological phrase — pretio 
 cesUmabilis; that is, the money value of things. Now, that 
 may be an excellent standard for commerce, but it is a paltry 
 standard, if we come to consider the intrinsic value of things. 
 Let me illustrate this by two examples. A few days ago I met 
 a poor woman, a tinker's wife, just outside the town. She 
 had a brood of healthy, handsome, dirty children around her. 
 The youngest, who was particularly smutty, and looked a 
 little washy and dehcate, was in her arms. 'You must find 
 it hard to find bread for all these?' I said. 'Wisha, begor, 
 that's true for your Reverence,' she replied, 'and the times is 
 bad. I have too many of 'em; but sure God sint 'em.' 
 'Wouldn't it be a great relief to you now,' I said, 'to get rid of 
 the responsibility of so many children? I can get the httle 
 girls into an orphanage, and one of the boys.' Her face fell. 
 She moved away. I could see she was not pleased. 'Come 
 
6o THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 now,' I said, 'you have too many children. What would you 
 take for that dirty little beggar in your arms?' 'Not all the 
 money in the Bank of Ireland; nor aU the goold in the Queen's 
 crown!' she said. 'Would I, Jemmy, alanna? etc' There 
 now! That woman was poor, yet richer than the richest 
 banks in the world. The other case was that of a poor 
 labourer, who had just got a new cottage in a former mission 
 of mine. From his front door he had a view of a stretch of 
 country, mountain, vaUey, and woodland forty miles in extent. 
 I was familiar with it under other aspects; but the sudden 
 view from the new standpoint was overwhelming. 'Do you 
 know, John,' I said, 'you have something here for which an 
 American millionaire would give five thousand a year, if he 
 could get it across the Atlantic' 'You're joking, your Rev- 
 erence,' he said, 'or else you know where there's a crock of 
 gold buried.' 'Not at all,' I replied, 'I am speaking of the 
 view of that sublime landscape. That mighty motmtain over 
 there — ' 'Yerra, your Reverence,' he said, 'what good is 
 that ould moimtain? Sure, there's not a blade of grass growin' 
 upon it; and the people haven't left a scraw of turf upon it.' 
 He couldn't see my meaning. He was never taught to see 
 anything except as to its value in money. 'There wor some 
 ladies and gintlemen kem on here,' he said, 'the night before 
 last in wan of them new things, motors, — I think they call 
 them, — an' they stopped jest there. 'Oh, look at that 
 moimtain!' sez wan lady. 'Look at that patch of goold an' 
 purple.' 'An' oh!' sez another, 'look how that cloud rests 
 there. Isn't it — ' somethin' or other, I couldn't make out 
 what she said. An' there they were, codraulin' about that 
 ould mountain, an' thim beeches below there, an' that yalla 
 furze, an' thim thrushes an' things! Do you know, yer Rev- 
 erence, what I do be thinkin' sometimes? I do be thinkin' 
 that some of thim rich people are rather ijioty in theirselves.' 
 Now that poor man had lived for seventy years, and had never 
 seen those things that gave such rapturous pleasure to the 
 educated and refined. He only thought what was the money 
 
SESSION FIFTH 6i 
 
 value of that mountain to the man who owned it; of these 
 farms; of these woods, to those who possessed them. He 
 set no value on what he possessed in that vast area — the 
 usufruct and interest of all that loveliness and beauty." 
 
 "But, if you argue in that way. Father Dillon," said Miss 
 Fraser, "what becomes of the 'magic of property,' of which 
 we hear so much, and the extraordinary power it has of stimu- 
 lating the energies of those who would otherwise take only a 
 languid interest in it? Is there not a quickening and ener- 
 gising power even in the words: 'This is mine?'" 
 
 "Sometimes, and only sometimes," said the priest. "It 
 is well known that many farmers here in Ireland, who were 
 industrious and frugal men whilst they were compelled to pay 
 rent, degenerated into public-house loafers when they became 
 owners of their farms. I know one parish where four of the 
 best farms, bought at very low terms under the Ashbourne 
 Act, had to be sold last year." 
 
 "That is another view," said the Professor. "We have 
 been arguing about the utility or inutility of wealth. We are 
 drifting now into its abuse. There is one point we seem to 
 be forgetting, namely, that wealth, or power, in our days, is 
 not the same as when it was represented by caves of diamonds 
 in the 'Arabian Nights,' or buried treasure, as in 'The Gold 
 Bug.' I mean, it is as absurd to rail against wealth as to rail 
 against the vast reservoirs that supply our cities with pure 
 water. An unthinking man would abuse our Corporations 
 as selfish and brutal for possessing vast acres of sweet pure 
 water, until he was shown how that water was carried through 
 twelve inch, six inch, four inch, one inch pipes through every 
 avenue and street in our cities, until at last it finds its way into 
 the kitchen of the poorest man. No Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, 
 or Carnegie can keep his money hoarded in strong rooms to 
 be shovelled up and handled and turned over, like the miser- 
 hoards of olden time. It must leave their hands and percolate 
 through a thousand channels of distribution." 
 
 "I wish St. Francis would come back to life," said Father 
 
62 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Dillon, "to teach us the value of poverty, and the sweetness 
 of life." 
 
 "He would be put in gaol as a tramp," said the Doctor. 
 "And I, as sanitary ofl&cer, couldn't allow him to wear these 
 clothes." 
 
 "Read 'Era Alberico' for us," said Miss Hope to Mr. Hunt. 
 "It will throw light on that subject." 
 
 The young lady caught herself up in a moment, and blushed 
 furiously. Mrs. Holden whispered to Mrs. Skelton: "I told 
 you so. Isn't it a shame for her, and she knows he is a Pro- 
 testant?" 
 
 "Mr. Hunt was good enough to lend me his album," said 
 Miss Hope, explaining. "I was anxious to see the rest of his 
 midnight visitors, and he sent me the volume. I assure you 
 'Era Alberico' just meets the very points we are discussing." 
 
 "But surely, Miss Hope," said Reginald Hunt, smiling, 
 "you don't think me so vain as to carry around my album, 
 as a conjuror would take his pack of cards, to cheat the senses 
 of my friends?" 
 
 "Very good," said Miss Hope, with some courage. "But 
 a poet laureate should be prepared with an ode or sonnet 
 on commission. However, if — I am presuming too much; 
 but I liked the lines, and I committed them to my note- 
 book. I assure you they are relevant to the subject you are 
 discussing." 
 
 "Well, then," said Father Dillon, "if Mr. Hunt doesn't 
 object, you must recite them for us, Miss Hope." 
 
 "Yes! but I shall bungle and blunder through them," she 
 said. 
 
 "All right! Go ahead! Mr. Hunt can correct you if you 
 fail." 
 
 " 'Pon my word," said the doctor's wife to her friend, "I 
 don't like this at all. I knew something of this kind would 
 turn up. I wonder Eather Dillon doesn't see it." 
 
 "Speak to the doctor about it," said Mrs. Skelton, sotto 
 voce. "And I'll consult Robert. 'Sh! She's beginning." 
 
SESSION FIFTH 63 
 
 And Hester Hope, a little pale with the excitement of the 
 thing, stood up, and stretching forth her arms, as if she was 
 conjuring a ghost, read dramatically: 
 
 FRA ALBERICO 
 
 Just stept down from that canvas! Back to thy canvas again! 
 What dost thou here in thy frock in the ranks of two-legged men? 
 Cowled and gowned, like a Lama, awaiting his half -sodden meat; 
 And there on my polished fender, the hint of thy sandalled feet. 
 
 n 
 Fie, fie, thou monk, come hither, grizzled and worn and wan; 
 Come like a ghostly shadow out of the days that are gone! 
 I hear the rumble of Latin; I scent the pungent peat; 
 I see the choir dim-lighted; and I feel the organ's beat. 
 
 Ill 
 Go back to your picture, friend! You do very well, I hope. 
 To puff an adventurous maltster, or a novel kind of soap. 
 You raise a heretic grin; and the children gasp for breath. 
 Thou, wraith of the horrors saved them by the virgin, Elizabeth! 
 
 IV 
 
 What in the world hast thou in common with modern life? 
 
 Thy peace, and its pain; thy tranquil smile, and its maddened 
 
 strife? 
 What dost thou know of progress, the modern bias and bent. 
 The hoarding pile upon pile — the issues of life well-spent? 
 
 v 
 What? You laboured for Heaven? Avaunt, 'tis a hollow boast! 
 Never heard of paU de fois, or quail upon buttered toast! 
 Nay, you were well content with a little black bread and milk. 
 And probably thought and preached your fustian was better than 
 silk. 
 
64 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 vr 
 You rose in the murk of midnight to chant your litanies, 
 You paused in your work to hearken the meaning of mysteries; 
 You touched the unseen, uplifted your face till the soulfire fell, 
 You drew the Heavens to earth, and your brothers' souls from 
 Hell. 
 
 vn 
 You watched the mists on the mountains, curtained fold upon fold; 
 You mourned the sad simsettings, while the faint sheep-bells tolled; 
 You touched with reverent hand the violet sprung from the sod. 
 And the yellow discs of the daisies spoke to you sweetly of God. 
 
 vni 
 You shared your bread with the beggar; broke for the tramp your 
 
 crust; 
 Bade him never to fail to place in the Father his trust; 
 Went back to your cell and Christ, and washed His feet with your 
 
 tears. 
 Remembered the days of old, and recalled the eternal years. 
 
 IX 
 
 Then o'er your wasted life you mourned, and sadly said, 
 "Earth has no place too lowly for this poor, sinful head;" 
 You thought your pallet too soft; your brethren did implore 
 To lay your pain-racked frame on the barren and ash-strewn floor. 
 
 Profitless work, my friend, profitless waste of Time! 
 Better have bent your head, and hearkened the silvery chime, 
 The musical clank of shekels — finger on c)Tiical nose. 
 Forgotten your eleeisons, and learned the cry: "Old Cloesl" 
 
 XI 
 
 Judged by your wardrobe, my friend, you are not much lacking 
 
 there, 
 Habit of home-spun fustian; tunic of prickly hair. 
 Headgear, a black zucchetto; footgear, to make one freeze. 
 Our folks would blush for the bareness, tho' not for delinquencies. 
 
SESSION FIFTH 65 
 
 xn 
 Come now, be honest for once! Tell us no further lies! 
 You know all now. Were you in the days of your pilgrimage wise? 
 "Ye have the Prophets and Moses." Is that all you have to tell? 
 " Lazarus in God's bosom I Dives buried in Hell ! " 
 
 xin 
 Go back to your canvas, friend. Decidedly, you are de trap. 
 We are Agnostics, that is, we simply don't want to know. 
 And you come here, you ghost of a long dead world, to tell 
 To a nerve-stricken generation all about Heaven and Hell. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Pah! Where's that sal volatile? Better, that Eau de Cologne? 
 We're faint from the smell of the cere-cloth, now that that monk 
 
 has gone. 
 We reaUy are not nervous. The shadows may come and go. 
 But the one we can stirely spare the best is thine — Fra Albericol 
 
 There was a little laugh at the last stanza, and the Professor 
 said: 
 
 "Yes. I suppose the monk is de trap in this our age." 
 
 "By no means, Professor," said Father Dillon. "'Monks 
 and oaks are immortal,' said Montalembert. Monachism, 
 that is, living alone, or in solitude amongst many, is a necessity 
 of our nature. At all times and in all places — from Jeru- 
 salem, from Antioch, from Alexandria, from Rome — men, 
 disgusted with mankind, have fled away to the sands or the 
 mountains, and sought peace." 
 
 "And found it?" said the Professor. 
 
 "Well, yes! So far as peace is attainable in this world," 
 said the priest. 
 
 "But this monk, whom Miss Hope has described," said 
 Miss Fraser, "would be surely an anachronism." 
 
 "Why, there are some thousands scattered here and there 
 in the cities of civilisation," said the priest. 
 
 "But I understood," said Miss Fraser, a little nervously, 
 6 • 
 
66 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "that the monks of to-day were totally unlike the monks who 
 built Fumess and Fountains' Abbeys. At least, my coimtry- 
 man, Carlyle, in 'Past and Present' seems to say so rather 
 broadly." 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Father Dillon, laughing, "Carlyle could see 
 no good in anything in our age. We were all degenerates. 
 But he shouldn't have written about Catholic subjects. He 
 was quite incapable of understanding them." 
 
 "Well," said Miss Eraser, "that is quite intelligible, indeed. 
 But, somehow, I should like to see monks devoting their lives 
 to letters and study. I can imagine how nice it would be to 
 see them over there at Myrtleville or Roche's Point, walking 
 on the cliffs, and exchanging ideas after hours of study." 
 
 "A kind of monastic Sunetoi?" said the priest, laughing. 
 "Why, that is the great objection against some of our religious 
 orders — that they are contemplative and not active, that 
 they devote themselves to the luxury of selfish study and 
 prayer, and are heedless of the wants of humanity. 'Come 
 out,' the objectors say, 'come out and mingle with your 
 fellow-men. Go down into the slums, raise the fallen, help 
 the weak, and acknowledge a brotherhood with your kind.'" 
 
 "That seems reasonable," said Miss Eraser. "What can 
 be said in answer?" 
 
 "Why," said Father Dillon, "you have already supplied 
 the answer. Miss Eraser — at least, the natural and aesthetic 
 aspect of it. There is another aspect, into which we will not 
 enter now." 
 
SESSION SIXTH 
 
 "I HAVE been exercising my imagination," said Mr. Himt 
 to Hester Hope, as they walked slowly up along the hill that 
 led to the modest mansion where Miss Fraser had her rooms, 
 "about that last remark made by Fathet Dillon at our last 
 meeting." 
 
 "I forget," said Miss Hope, to whom the remark was 
 commonplace. 
 
 "We were speaking about monks living apart and devoted 
 to study, and taking no interest in the affairs of human- 
 ity—" 
 
 "Oh, did he say that?" said Miss Hope. 
 
 "Well, I'm not sure of the exact words, but this was implied. 
 We were speaking of certain — well, select ones, who choose 
 to segregate themselves from ordinary htimanity, and give 
 all their time to study and conferential discourses on these 
 studies. This implies an aloofness, an Olympian disdain for 
 ordinary mortals, which, pardon me, I have always considered 
 a crime against humanity." 
 
 "I can never explain," said Miss Hope, "and you could 
 never xmderstand." 
 
 "I shall promise to be a patient pupil," he said, humbly. 
 "I am very young; but not so young as to be unconscious 
 of my need for light." 
 
 "But, you see," said Miss Hope, "this brings us back to 
 religion; and we Catholics have a decided distaste to intro- 
 ducing religion into ordinary conversation." 
 
 "Why, may I ask?" 
 
 "Well, because it seems imbecoming, and because it seems 
 like tampering with the convictions of others, and because 
 it seems like bringing down holy things into the market- 
 place; and because — " 
 
 67 
 
68 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "But can we not discuss the matter as a purely logical 
 or conversational subject, apart altogether from its innate 
 sanctity?" 
 
 "No! That's just what we object to." 
 
 "But suppose a soul is seeking for light — " 
 
 "Then we send him to the Ught-givers." 
 
 "The priests?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He said no more then. But it was the subject that Miss 
 Fraser had adopted for treatment that night in her own home, 
 whither in the order of things the Sunetoi had come. 
 
 "On one point or principle I presume we are agreed," 
 read Miss Fraser, "that is, that each individual is bound to 
 seek after that which is greatest or most perfect. This can- 
 not be called an instinct of nature, because the natural instincts 
 seem to call the other way, and to invite to selfish pleasures 
 or profits, which are not the ideal good. It must come from 
 some intuitive perception of some obscure principle, dimly 
 revealed, and studiously stifled, yet admitted by all, savant 
 or stupid, philosopher or man in the street, to be the most 
 exalted, and at the same time, peremptory duty that falls 
 to the lot of humanity. As I have said, the principle, or 
 intuition, is stifled often. It is never denied. The saint 
 practises it; but the galley slave or convict admits it. Men 
 repudiate it in act; never ex professo, or in words. And that 
 principle is, that it is better to labour for others than for 
 one's self; that it is noble to sacrifice our own interest for 
 our neighbours; and that the culmination of the sacrifice is 
 entire Renunciation. Few attain that height, like Siddartha 
 in 'The Light of Asia;' all are bound to labour for it. And a 
 man's success in life is to be measured, not by what he has 
 succeeded in accomplishing for his own personal well-being, 
 but by what he has succeeded in accomplishing for humanity; 
 and his failure is not to be calculated by his personal reverses, 
 or losses, but by what he has refused to effect for the common 
 weal. As I have said, the mighty privilege of being a bene- 
 
SESSION SIXTH 69 
 
 factor to humanity is reserved for the few. But, the catas- 
 trophe that is irremediable comes only when an individual 
 or a nation repudiates the principle, and declares in the words 
 of the rebels against the Highest Benevolence, '/ will not 
 serve!" Let us picture the oncoming, the preludes, the sjanp- 
 toms that precede such a catastrophe in the individual soul. 
 I believe that, no matter how imperfect our systems of educa- 
 tion may be, particularly in the moral, or ethical training of 
 the yoimg, that first great elementary principle is not often 
 neglected. A greedy child is an abomination. A too- 
 ambitious lad is never popular; and whilst lawful ambition is 
 stimulated by prizes, I think we shall find that the encourage- 
 ment to succeed at the cost of others is always modified by 
 the advice — 'Take your honours meekly!' And, if a boy, 
 conscious of his intellectual supremacy over his class-fellows 
 should, in a moment of heroic self-abnegation, resign his pre- 
 cedency to an inferior competitor, there might be chagrin 
 amongst his friends, but at least, the heroism will be acknowl- 
 edged. I am fully aware that it might also be regarded as an 
 indication of some occult infirmity of character; but, the 
 world is not gone so far wrong that it is unable to under- 
 stand and appreciate the sacrifice. 
 
 "But, as men advance in life, they begin to perceive that 
 the worship of this virtue, self-abnegation, is merely lip-worship; 
 and that when the fires of youth die down, and the colder and 
 more ungenerous light of experience fights up the narrowing 
 avenues of life, there are few who do not perceive that the 
 augurs and prophets are smiUng at each other whilst examin- 
 ing for omens and signs. Yes, alas! too soon the conviction 
 forces itself on the generous mind that to speak of Renuncia- 
 tion is a mere conventionaUsm — a catchword of hypocrisy 
 to most men, whose real fife-principle and battle-cry, sounded 
 deep down in their hearts, of course, and never permitted 
 to rise to the lips, or break into utterance is, verily, 'the race 
 is to the swift and the battle to the strong!' And the com- 
 petitors are many, and the prizes are but few. And he leaps 
 
TO THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 into the arena. He has joined the herd. Sometimes, per- 
 haps, out of the heat and smoke of the struggle he hears, as 
 in a dream, of some deed of self-abnegation and renuncia- 
 tion — of young men abandoning their professions to go 
 down into Whitechapel slums to rescue the fallen, and lift 
 up the trampled. Sometimes a paragraph catches his eye, 
 outside the crowded columns of stocks and shares and sport- 
 ing events in the daily paper, telling of young apostles rising 
 up from the Universities or Lyc&es of the country and going 
 forth to redeem the heathen. There is mayhap a momentary 
 prick of conscience, a momentary pang of regret, and back he 
 plimges into the fight again. Or, he takes up some Evangel 
 of Light — some interpretation of the hidden voice, reads it, 
 weighs it, hearkens to its truth, admits its nobility of phrase 
 and precept. But, he looks around. The mighty world is 
 unheeding. The race is rushing on to the goal. If he pauses, 
 or turns back, all is lost. No time then for great theories, 
 or impracticable gospels. He will ponder over such things, 
 and read them for his children when the trophies are hanging 
 up in his rooms, and he has gained all the material prizes of 
 life. But not now! It won't do to philosophise, but to 
 fight. He must elbow his way onward, or turn his face to 
 the wall, like a whipped child, whilst the world shouts, and 
 his conscience whispers: 'Failure!' — that dread word, 
 that paralyses everything, because it is so misunderstood. 
 Because, if the living principle is not absolutely asphyxiated 
 in the man, notwithstanding aU his triumphs, his fat bank- 
 book, his lands, his fields, his cattle browsing on a thousand 
 hills, his honours thick upon him, he must feel, as he takes 
 up his Times and reads: 
 
 '"Waldron. — In Sierra Leone, of jungle fever, Guy Wal- 
 dron, in the 30th year of his age, missionary.' 
 
 a little pang of compimction; and hear a still, small voice 
 saying: 'This is victory iadeed!' 
 
SESSION SIXTH 71 
 
 "He knew Guy Waldron. He was about to grasp his 
 first great prize in life, a Fellowship in his College, when Guy 
 entered as a freshman. A freshman, verily he was, with the 
 face and the heart of a child. He had come up from some 
 country rectory, where he had been trained by his father in 
 some deep, old-world gospel of Truth and Beauty and gener- 
 osity; by his mother and sisters if? some old-world, trans- 
 scendental love for holiness and purity. His first tutor was 
 the Fellow about-to-be, the Man of tie World whom we are 
 contemplating. He wondered at the boy, at his freshness, 
 his purity, his utter ignorance of life. He was a Dream-Child, 
 seeing wonders ever3r(vhere, everywhere throwing out little 
 jets of admiration and gratitude for all that he was taught 
 and shewn in the new world, where he had been introduced. 
 He was clever, too, eagerly grasping facts and data, and very 
 quick at discerning beauty of form or thought in the classics. 
 He had a distaste for mathematics, and a lack of reasoning 
 power, as if his brain would snap if kept too long on the 
 stretch. But he had a feminine intuition for the graces of 
 style and composition, the moulded phrase, the one word 
 that would fit and express the thought. 'You will easily get 
 the prize for Latin composition,' said his tutor, 'if you work 
 a little harder.' He seemed to work, but failed. His rival, 
 a boy who had a widowed mother, took the prize. 'You 
 failed,' said the tutor. 'Yes, Sir!' 'And you failed because 
 you wished to fail?' said the tutor. The boy was silent. 
 For some days the grave man thought it his solemn duty to 
 warn the boy against such Quixotic chivalry. It was a grave 
 defect of character. It would imperil all the success of life. 
 He thought better of it; and now Guy Waldron, dead of 
 jungle fever in Sierra Leone; and his quondam tutor? — 
 He laid down the paper, and asked himself 'Which is the 
 failure here? ' But he dismissed the thought. He had trained 
 himself to dismiss all such absurd thoughts. He looked 
 around, and saw the splendours that accompanied his descent 
 into the twilight of life. He demanded the world's verdict. 
 
72 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 And the world answered: Verily, thou hast fought well, and 
 the crown is thine! 
 
 "Now, what I say about this man is applicable to the poet, 
 the preacher, the orator, the artist, as well. It is not only the 
 capitalist, who is a colossal failure, though he stands on his 
 money bags, which lift him head and shoulders above the 
 prophets, like Saul; but the poet, who wastes his Divine 
 gift by singing on unworthy subjects, or who sings for gold 
 or praise; and the artist, who sells his dower for dollars, or 
 panders to an imworthy or meretricious taste; or a Era 
 Alberico, who, disgusted with the world, seeks the luxury of 
 solitude, and repudiates the responsibilities, whilst he eman- 
 cipates himself from the cares of Ufe — that come under the lash 
 of my gentle censures, and whom I turn face to the wall, and 
 label ' Failure ! ' Men should be appraised for what they have 
 effected for the good of humanity, and for the motives with 
 which they have wrought that good. Whoever seeks himself 
 or his own good fails. There is but one motive that sancti- 
 fies labour; there is but one work that consecrates the hfe 
 of the individual and makes it something sacred and holy. 
 That motive is, to keep the race from retrogression, and push 
 it forward towards the final evolution. That work is the loos- 
 ing of every energy in thought and action, that urges for- 
 ward the individual, or society in the aggregate, towards the 
 final goal." 
 
 There was a faint murmur of applause, in which Father 
 Dillon and Miss Hope but feebly joined. The doctor looked 
 aggressive. He said: 
 
 "That is all very good, or, as you may say, transcendental. 
 Miss Eraser, but does not every man, who helps himself and 
 his family onward in life — ? " 
 
 "Now, now, doctor," interposed Eather Dillon, seeing a 
 shade of anxiety passing across Miss Eraser's face, "remember 
 our rules. No paper can be discussed imtil our next meeting. 
 But, don't forget your objections. We have many things to 
 discuss, if I mistake not, there." 
 
SESSION SIXTH 73 
 
 The rest of the progranmie was duly gone through, and the 
 guests dispersed. The doctor and Mr. Skelton always went 
 home together. The Professor Ungered behind. Mrs. Holden 
 and Mr. Hunt, Miss Hope, and Mrs. Skelton went, two by 
 two, down the hill. 
 
 I "That's damned rot," said Mr. Skelton. "I wish that 
 lady was in dire want of a hundred pounds. I wonder who 
 would offer it to her, even if she had sacrificed a thousand to 
 the cause of humanity? Humanity, as I understand it, is 
 a beggarly thing at the best. I wish she was behind my 
 counter for a week or two." 
 
 "Or saw my sick-beds," said the doctor. "Of course, it 
 is aU very nice, but it is Utopian, impracticable, for the bulk 
 of people. Poor lady, she's young! I wish I could tell her 
 what I saw on Thursday. An unfortunate poor chap, a sailor, 
 was dying, and before he had succumbed, his brother had all 
 his clothes folded up for easy transportation on the sofa, and 
 his wife had sold his gold watch, which was a present from 
 some American captain." 
 
 "The worst of these things is," said the manager, " that they 
 soften a fellow out a little, and make him unfit for work. 
 Now, the danger is that to-morrow I may make a fool of my- 
 self with some knowing chap that comes for a loan, and whom 
 I ought to refuse poKtely, but resolutely. I'll tell you what. 
 Doc, I'll have to keep to my room to-morrow, and let Randall 
 do the managing in Cork. These things make an impression 
 on you, man, though you know they're absurd." 
 
 "And the chief absurdity is," said the doctor, "that suppose 
 a man were idiot enough to give up his honest work and 
 become one of those madmen, he is sure to get as much abuse 
 as Carnegie. See how Miss Fraser was able to prove that 
 monk — Fra something or other -^ with his sandals and 
 black bread, was just as bad as everybody else." 
 
 "Yes! but hang it, man," said the naanager, "these things 
 make an impression on a fellow somehow. And faith, I'm 
 not prepared to go to the workhouse yet." 
 
74 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Mrs. Holden and Mrs. Skelton said "good-night" at their 
 doors, and Hester Hope and Mr. Hunt walked on towards 
 their respective homes. 
 
 "You agreed with all Miss Fraser said?" the young man 
 murmured in low tones. 
 
 "No," she replied. "There was some truth, but not the 
 whole truth." 
 
 "What, then, is the truth?" he asked. 
 
 "I do not think the service of man is man's highest destiny," 
 she replied. 
 
 "No?" he said, incredulously. "What can possibly be 
 higher?" 
 
 "And furthermore, I do not believe that it can ever afford 
 suflSdent reason for being good." 
 
 "You surprise me," he replied. "Can there be a higher 
 motive than the good of one's fellow-beings? " 
 
 " Certainly," ■ she replied. "As every creature subserves 
 the interests of something higher in the scale of being, Man 
 must have something to serve higher than his own species." 
 
 "Ha!" he gasped. "Then whom can man serve?" 
 
 "God!" she replied, "for whom alone he was made." 
 
 "Impossible!" he said. "You are making the Finite 
 capable of serving the Infinite." 
 
 "And why not?" she replied. "Besides, man is not 
 merely a finite being. In one point he touches infinity." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "In his immortality." 
 
 "These be diflScult and far-reaching theses," he said. 
 "Then this is your secret?" 
 
 "Yes. It lies at the root of all our lives!" 
 
 "I cannot say any more," he said, softly. "I begin to 
 understand what the poet said when he used the words: 
 'Sainted, enskied.'" 
 
 It was perilously near a compliment, and Miss Hope said 
 brusquely "Good-night!" 
 
SESSION SEVENTH 
 
 By degrees, but imperceptibly and unaggressively, the 
 doctor's wife and Mrs. Skelton contrived to make the house 
 in Westboume and the Villa Reale the rendezvous of the 
 Sunetoi. They were so conveniently situated, no hills to 
 mount, no trains to be run for; and the little surroundings 
 were so pleasant, that after some demur all opposition gave 
 way; and it was finally arranged that, except on some special 
 occasions, the doctor's wife and Mrs. Skelton should entertain 
 their guests alternately. 
 
 "You see, my dear," said Mrs. Holden, when the two arch- 
 conspirators were hatching the plot, "Father Dillon has a 
 nice house and everything there is comme ilfaut, but, somehow, 
 I think our Protestant friends are somewhat embarrassed in 
 going there." 
 
 "Quite true, my dear Mrs. Holden," said her friend, "and 
 then it is awkward going to Cork to the Professor's house; 
 and he's a bachelor, and you know — " 
 
 There was a gentle shrug of the shoulders. 
 
 "Quite so," said Mrs. Holden. "Now, poor Mr. Hunt is 
 charming; but really, I don't Uke the idea of going into that 
 draper's house, where he has rooms — " 
 
 "Yes! There seems to be always an odour of hot irons," 
 said Mrs. Skelton. "Poor young man!" 
 
 "I suppose he'll marry Miss Hope some day. Things are 
 looking in that direction," said the doctor's wife. 
 
 "Do you really think so?" gasped Mrs. Skelton. 
 
 "I do. And I'll show you a little secret; but you must 
 promise me not to breathe it to a mortal!" 
 
 Mrs. Skelton made a wry face, as if she were kissing the 
 Testament. 
 
 7S 
 
76 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "Well, then, you remember our last meeting?" 
 
 "Yes, yes!" said the lady, impatiently. 
 
 "You remember we parted at your door?" 
 
 "Yes, yes!" 
 
 "And Mr. Hunt and Miss Hope went on together." 
 
 "So they did. What happened?" 
 
 "Only this. That a boy brought me this little note the 
 following morning. You can read it; but remember your 
 promise ! " 
 
 Mrs. Skelton took the paper, frowned, and put her finger 
 on her lips. She had kissed the book again. Then she read, 
 whilst Mrs. Holden watched her face anxiously. That hand- 
 some face melted into a benevolent smile as she read on — 
 a smile such as that which a gentle teacher would assume 
 if she caught her pupils playing truant. The smile deepened 
 and broadened as she proceeded. When she had ended, she 
 nodded her head twice meaningly, and said, as she handed 
 back the paper: 
 
 "Well, I never!" 
 
 "Now, am I right?" said the doctor's wife triimiphantly. 
 
 "Well, I never! " said Mrs. Skelton. "Who'd have thought 
 it?" 
 
 "Why I saw it all along!" said Mrs. Holden. "It was 
 quite clear from the first moment!" 
 
 "Well, well, well, well!" said Mrs. Skelton. "Wonders 
 will never cease. Do you know, my dear, what I am think- 
 ing?" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Perhaps 'twouldn't be kind," said Mrs. Skelton, doubt- 
 fully, "but it would be a warning. What if you read the 
 paper at the next meeting?" 
 
 "M e c c c ?" said Mrs. Holden, horrified. "Not for the 
 world! And Father Dillon there. You know how he looks 
 sometimes!" 
 
 "Yes, but don't you think 'tis our duty to stop it?" said 
 Mrs. Skelton. "He's a Protestant, you know!" 
 
SESSION SEVENTH 77 
 
 "Of course, but I think he's very respectable; and, after 
 all, wouldn't it be a good thing for Hester? " 
 
 "I don't like it," said Mrs. Skelton. "I'll tell you what 
 you'll do," as a new thought struck her. "Don't read it 
 yourself; but say how you found it, say it reads nicely, 
 though sentimental, and ask some one, the Professor, or 
 some one, to read it." 
 
 "Or Mr. Hunt himself. That's a grand idea." 
 
 "Don't ask Mr. Hunt, because he'd recognize it and put 
 it in his pocket. Ask Miss Hope. We'll have rare fim." 
 
 "But you see 'tis a gentleman that writes, and we must 
 get a gentleman to read it." 
 
 "True! Ah, then, the Professor! I'll watch Hester's face 
 whilst he's reading it, and the truth will out." 
 
 "The very thing. After all, we really must have some 
 amusement. Do you know, my dear, the whole thing is 
 very dry," 
 
 "Miss Fraser was, certainly!" rejoined her friend. "I 
 never heard such nonsense. And she might have left that 
 poor monk alone." 
 
 "Ah, the bigotry will break out always." 
 
 "I'm sure only for your marvellous playing these stances 
 would be intolerable," said Mrs. Skelton. 
 
 Mrs. Holden shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "To tell you the truth, my dear, one of my principal 
 reasons for wishing to have the meetings here at our own 
 houses is the chance of having a decent piano. That ' Grand ' 
 at Father Dillon's is as old as the hills: and the others are 
 only fit for a boarding-school." 
 
 "Now," said Father Dillon, as he seated himself in an 
 easy chair in Mrs. Holden's drawing-room, "acting as self- 
 appointed and permanent chairman of this most interesting 
 Society, I shall gladly accept any comments the members 
 may choose to make on that singularly able and interesting 
 paper read by Miss Fraser at our last meeting." 
 
78 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "Let me say at once," said the Professor, "that I coincide 
 with Miss Eraser's views. I think they embrace all that may 
 be called the elements of the highest ethical teaching." 
 
 "I think these views," said Dr. Holden, "right, but imprac- 
 ticable. They are for the closet, not for the street; for the 
 Church, but not for the marts of the world." 
 
 "But how can you say 'impracticable?' " asked the Pro- 
 fessor, "when Miss Eraser has already quoted cases where 
 her principles were actually reduced to practice? " 
 
 "How many cases?" asked the doctor, drily. 
 
 "Well, not many, indeed. But, of course, Miss Eraser 
 only spoke of the cases that come imder the public eye. 
 How many instances of secret heroism and renunciation the 
 dust and tumult of life conceal, can be known only to the 
 AU-Seeing." 
 
 "Quite true," said the doctor. "But I think you'll admit. 
 Professor, that the vast bulk of humanity is moving on under 
 different impulses. At least, so Mr. Skelton and I think." 
 
 "Yes!" said the Professor. "But all that does not 
 lessen the truth of what Miss Eraser has said. The Divine 
 instinct of self-surrender is there, although men will try to 
 stifle it." 
 
 "That was Just my point," said Miss Eraser. "I cannot 
 deny facts, however I may deplore them. I only place fact 
 against fact, that is, the lofty and avowed intuition of some 
 grand, occult principle on the one hand; and its tadt denial 
 on the other." 
 
 "Yes," said Eather Dillon, breaking in. "However much 
 we may deplore the selfishness of mankind under the fierce 
 competition for existence, little things arise from time to 
 time to show we are not utterly lost. You remember Eather 
 Damien's case, a few years ago. Not one out of a million 
 would or could have followed his example; but the whole 
 world rose up to applaud him for what he had done." 
 
 "When he was dead," said the doctor, cynically, "and had 
 ceased to trouble the world's self-esteem." 
 
SESSION SEVENTH 79 
 
 "Now, now, doctor," said the priest. "That's rather 
 cynical. The poor old world is not so bad, after all." 
 
 "No, so long as you don't tread on its corns," said the 
 doctor. 
 
 "But, look at the inequality of the world's judgments," 
 said Miss Hope, breaking silence. She remembered what 
 had passed between Mr. Hunt and herseK, and was loth to 
 introduce it. But she was driven on by her love of truth. 
 "The same world that lost its head over a Father Damien 
 would bum a Fra Alberico at the stake." 
 
 "It is a slight exaggeration," said the Professor, smiling. 
 "But the world, as you are pleased to call it. Miss Hope, will 
 certainly always recognise deeds of active benevolence, like 
 Father Damien's, but has no patience with praying and fasting 
 monks." 
 
 "Why?" said Miss Hope, simply. 
 
 "Because, as Miss Eraser has so well said, it is higher and 
 nobler to labour for hvunanity than for one's self." 
 
 "There is something higher and nobler than either," said 
 Hester Hope, "and something that embraces both, and 
 sanctifies them." 
 
 Mr. Himt bent forward, and fixed his eyes eagerly on the 
 girl's face. Mrs. Holden gently nudged her neighbour. 
 
 "The question touches the whole range of religious con- 
 troversy," said Miss Hope, modestly, "and I fear it would 
 lead to a long discussion here. But, really, if you analyse 
 all religious differences, you will find they resolve them- 
 selves into the one question: Was man made for himself, 
 or for his fellow-man, or for God? The first idea is the 
 lowest and basest, although the most universally, accepted. 
 The second is somewhat nobler, but is only a half-truth. 
 The third is the whole truth, and the greatest, although but 
 a few chosen souls understand it. But there is the one point 
 where our Church is in direct antagonism to all others. We 
 hold that man is made for God, and God alone, and that 
 everything which detracts from that service or worship is 
 
8o THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 high treason. Humanitarianism in its best form is but the 
 moonlight reflection of that service, and it pales away into 
 insignificance and unworthiness if not consecrated by the 
 higher motive. The service of God is man's first duty. The 
 service of man is a correlative of that duty, or is a mere senti- 
 ment. If the former, it is good and meritorious. If the 
 latter it is a useless and immeaning fad. What do you think 
 constituted the nobleness, the magnificence of Father Damien's 
 sacrifice? " 
 
 She had challenged the Professor with her eyes. That 
 good man looked at her in a bewildered manner. 
 
 "Why, of course, his giving up all the pleasures of home and 
 civilization to become a leper for the sake of lepers," said 
 the Professor. 
 
 "You are quite wrong," she said gravely. "I don't know 
 if Father Damien will ever be canonised. But if he is, it will 
 never be for that." 
 
 "For what then?" said the Professor. 
 
 "For his love of God," the girl said, "and his saintly per- 
 ception of Christ in the leper." 
 
 "We cannot imderstand," said the Professor, looking at 
 Miss Eraser and Mr. Hunt for corroboration. "We under- 
 stand nothing higher than the service of humanity." 
 
 "Then you'd be very much shocked to hear that we think 
 the prevention of one venial sin — a hasty word, a half- 
 involuntary emotion — is more of importance than the 
 building of a thousand miles of railroad." 
 
 "Nonsense!" said the Professor. Then, hastily correcting 
 himself, he said: 
 
 "Pardon the rude expression. Miss Hope, but really, I 
 caimot grasp that." 
 
 "The words are not mine," she said, "they are Cardinal 
 Newman's. He said something more shocking." 
 
 "Indeed?" said the Professor, who was getting a little 
 uneasy under this dialogue. 
 
 "Yes! He said somewhere that it would be more meri- 
 
SESSION SEVENTH 8i 
 
 torious to build a magnificent church to the glory of God, 
 even though a worshipper should never enter there, than a 
 score of asylums or hospitals for wrecked humanity." 
 
 "Then all I can say is," said the Professor, "that I differ 
 toto ctflo from His Eminence. I'd rather subscribe to one 
 ward in a City Hospital than contribute a shilling to the 
 biggest church in Christendom." 
 
 "And you'd pull down aU the churches and build hospitals? " 
 said Miss Hope. 
 
 "At least, I'd strip them of their wealth and splendour, 
 which are waste; and devote them to nobler purposes." 
 
 Miss Hope fell back in her chair, murmuring: "This might 
 have been sold for much, and given to the poor." 
 
 The Professor glared at her for a moment, and Father 
 DiUon, seeing how things were tending, said brusquely: 
 
 "Now, now, Mrs. Holden, the time is up. Let us get back 
 to the Muses, please!" 
 
 "Certainly, Father Dillon," said that lady, gaily. "But, 
 before we proceed to what-you-call him, the Muse of Music, 
 if there be such, let us hear the Muse of Poetry." 
 
 The company looked at the good lady in a bewildered 
 manner, fearing, dreading that she was about to inflict some 
 awful doggerel upon them. She said, however, with a mean- 
 ing smile: 
 
 "Oh, no, I'm not so wicked as that. This is a little thing 
 picked up by a newsboy the last night of our meeting. Would 
 you read it, Father Dillon, or — eh? — the Professor?" 
 
 "'Tis sure to be sentimental," said Father Dillon. "Give 
 it to the Professor!" 
 
 The doctor's wife handed it demurely to the Professor, 
 who adjusted his glasses accordingly. The good lady then 
 sat down, expecting a scene, and fixing her eyes on Hester 
 Hope. 
 
 The Professor himimed a little, got under the electric light, 
 and read: 
 
82 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 WHERE MEN WORSHIP 
 
 I saw you, O my sister, at the Ball, 
 
 A musk rose nestled in your raven hair, 
 
 I saw you sweep the music-haunted hall. 
 
 And you were Queen, and pure, as you were fair. 
 But, sister mine, I did not love you there! 
 
 n 
 
 I saw you, O my sister, on the pier. 
 
 You walked, the empress of that little world, 
 For you, for you alone, that fanfare clear 
 
 From rock to sea, from sea to rock, was hurled. 
 But, sister mine, I did not seek you there. 
 
 rn 
 
 I saw you, my sister, at the sea, 
 
 The night hung low, and silver were the stars, 
 I saw them quiver in mad jealousy — 
 
 Your eyes were mirrored there beneath the bars. 
 But, sister mine, I did not worship there! 
 
 IV 
 
 I saw you, sister, in the crowded room. 
 
 Men followed you for face, or mien, or voice, 
 
 Sudden there shot across the hghts a gloom, 
 And a hand held me, as I cried. Rejoice! 
 Ay, sister mine, I did not glory there. 
 
 I saw you, my sister, by the hearth, 
 
 A flame leaped up, and crimsoned half your face, 
 And rubied, too, the dainty little birth. 
 
 That nestled in your breast with such sweet grace. 
 Ah, sister mine, I think I worshipped there. 
 
SESSION SEVENTH 83 
 
 VI 
 
 I saw you, sister, by the bed of Death, 
 
 Dusk were your robes, and tear-swoln were your eyes, 
 I thought I heard the dead with one last breath 
 
 Bless you, and beckon to the open skies. 
 
 Ah, sister mine, I think I loved you there. 
 
 "That's all," said the Professor. 
 
 There was a deep silence for a few seconds. It soon became 
 painful. Reginald Hunt sat still, his head leaning back 
 against the damask of the chair, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. 
 There were tears in those eyes. 
 
 Hester Hope, pale but composed, looked down at her hands, 
 which were folded in her lap. Miss Eraser shot an inqxiiring 
 glance at the doctor's wife, who was now somewhat embar- 
 rassed, and said in a confused manner: 
 
 "I wonder who wrote it!" 
 
 "Whoever is the happy author," said the Professor mean- 
 ingly, and advancing towards Mrs. Holden with the paper, 
 " I have the honour of restoring it to the lady who gave us such 
 pleasure." 
 
 He was handing the paper to Mrs. Holden, when Reginald 
 Hunt interfered: 
 
 "I fear I must claim it. Professor," he said, "with Mrs. 
 Holden's gracious permission." 
 
 "Oh, certainly," said that lady, who would have wished to 
 be somewhere outside her rooms just then. "I didn't know 
 — I thought — I should have asked — " 
 
 "These Hnes," said Mr. Hunt, smoothing out the paper, 
 "were written some years ago to a sister, my only married 
 sister. I'm so sorry they should have been forced upon your 
 patience. She and her little boy are dead." 
 
 There was no music that evening. 
 
SESSION EIGHTH 
 
 In the solitude of his room, Father Dillon began to feel that 
 certain ominous clouds of mischief were beginning to gather 
 around his little project. He had seen somewhere that it needs 
 only two human beings to create a tragedy, and he realised 
 that in the companionship and interchange of ideas between 
 six or seven persons, widely differing in religion and politics, 
 there was sure to be some friction, which, sooner or later, 
 would lead to the breaking up of a cherished institution. 
 "Rocks ahead," he soliloqmsed. "There is but one way of 
 avoiding them — that is, like the helmsman of the 'Hesperus,' 
 to steer for the open sea." 
 
 "That is," he continued, "we shall, in future, keep clear of 
 the personal element, and hmit ourselves to those subjects 
 where there may be difference of opinion, but no violent senti- 
 ment — -literature, science, music, art, education, etc. Surely 
 we can discuss these matters without heat." 
 
 He then began to think of the last little episode at the for- 
 mer meeting. The picture of that young lad, leaning back in 
 his chair, and staring at the ceiHng, whilst the tears gathered in 
 his eyes; and then his simple words: " She and her little boy 
 are dead!" dissolved and unnerved the young priest, until he 
 suddenly found himself searching for his pocket-handkerchief. 
 And then, just as suddenly, the horrible idea flashed across 
 his mind that Mrs. Holden had some sinister intention in pro- 
 ducing that paper and asking to have it read. He got very 
 indignant; then at once checked himself by the reflection 
 that these things must be. 
 
 "They are the inevitable accidents of life," he thought. 
 "We must tolerate, and — forgive!" 
 
 He looked up the subject for the next meeting. It was a 
 
 84 
 
SESSION EIGHTH 85 
 
 paper on "The Necessity of Maintaining Classical Studies," 
 to be read by the Professor. 
 
 "That, at least, is neutral ground," he thought. "And I 
 shall take right good care that nothing of a personal nature 
 shall intrude there." 
 
 The Professor commenced his argument for the maintenance 
 of the Classics as an essential part in the programme of a 
 liberal education by saying, rather dogmatically: 
 
 "The worst symptom of the degeneracy of our age is the 
 slight that is thrown upon those ancient masterpieces — the 
 Greek and Roman Classics. There are other symptoms of 
 degeneracy, all arising from the same cause — this evil, demo- 
 cratic spirit, which aims at levelling all things upwards by 
 vulgarising whatever is most sacred and reserved and refined; 
 and levelling all things downwards by lowering the standard 
 of education and refinement, until all things meet on a common 
 level of turpitude and vulgarity. In social life this level is 
 touched in the tweed cap, and the drawing-room cigarette; 
 in politics by the introduction of a labourer into the Cabinet; 
 in art by the penny postcard photograph; in poetry by the 
 parody; and in literature by the elimination of the Classics. 
 The 'gentleman' went out with "the silk hat; and the world 
 went into deshabiUe. And just because it is now the fashion to 
 get into easy vmdress, it is also the fashion to repudiate what- 
 ever was formal, or graceful, or reticent and conservative; 
 and hence, they have put the Classics upon the shelf. I know 
 that the excuse takes another form, and a sinister one; but 
 you will find it is the equivalent of what I have alleged. It is 
 said that the age is a practical one; that it seeks not the graces, 
 but the utilities of life; and hence, scientific studies must 
 claim the larger portion of human interest and human labour. 
 Chemistry, mechanics, whatever contributes to make life 
 easier, and to remove its little frictions and obstacles, is what 
 we want. The benefactor of his kind now is the man who 
 can invent a new spedes of foot-warmer for a railway carriage, 
 or a special kind of boot-horn. Vast fortunes are realised by 
 
86 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 the invention of a gutta percha coin-holder, or a new kind of 
 collar-stud. Men build palaces out of pills, and buy motors 
 from petroleum pomade. Whoever contributes to the util- 
 ities of life is a benefactor. " Men do not want to take trouble 
 about anything, and whoever helps them to an easy and use- 
 less life is their friend. All that is gracious, all that is refined, 
 all that is profound or elevating, is relegated to the Kmbo of 
 disused and obsolete trumperies; and whoever is unwise 
 enough to seek to disinter and popularise such things is re- 
 garded as a reactionary and out of date. Hence, our artists 
 have to keep their pictures turned to the wall, until the moth 
 eats them; and our poets have to sell matches at Charing 
 Cross, or hold horses in Piccadilly. And hence, too, is a clas- 
 sical scholar out of date. Were he as learned as Porson, or 
 Doctor Parr, it is all the same. He is not wanted. The day 
 is gone when a man may be made a bishop for his studies on 
 the Greek accent. A good financier, or an architectural botch, 
 would be of more value just now. Why then do I insist on 
 the necessity of a classical education? Why do I set my own 
 opinion, ancient and retrograde, against the bent and bias of 
 the time? Because, ladies and gentlemen, there will be always 
 in this world a certain few who positively refuse to go along 
 with this workaday, practical, utilitarian, but essentially 
 vulgar age; and who still are dreamers enough to believe that 
 the time may come when the Graces may once more revisit 
 the earth, and bring back to a lost and hopelessly vulgarised 
 humanity all that 'sweetness and light' which belonged to 
 those golden periods in human history, when the world passed 
 through a new birth, and came back once more to its inheri- 
 tance. And in the train of the Graces, their eloquent and 
 gracious servitors and hand-maidens, will come the Classics 
 of Greek and Rome, with all their severe beauty, all the music 
 and sweetness of Delphi and Parnassus, all the art and glad- 
 ness of Sabine villa, or Mantuan vineyard. For, see what 
 we have lost. The best thought of the world, outside Reve- 
 lation, is enshrined in the heirlooms of Greece and Rome. 
 
SESSION EIGHTH 87 
 
 When the Hellenes came to Italy, they brought with them all 
 the poetry and philosophy of the East. The last words of 
 human wisdom were said by Plato and the Stagyrite. All 
 that modem sages have been able to do for a thousand years is 
 to put into another and baser form the wisdom of Rome and 
 Athens. Read up your Montaigne, your Montesquieu, your 
 Erasmus and Bacon. They say nothing that was not said of 
 old by the banks of the Tiber and Ilyssus. Do you suppose 
 for a moment that there is a single original idea in Shakspeare 
 or Milton? Not one! The powers of the human mind are 
 limited, and the initial energy which Nature gave to man 
 expired long ago, when the ashes of the ancient poets and 
 philosophers were inurned for burial. But have their modern 
 imitators spoken better than the masters whom they have 
 rifled and despoiled? No! I am no great believer in the 
 magic of form. I like to get at the kernel of a thought; and 
 I care httle for the husks of language. Yet, I admit form, too, 
 has its own advantages. But who will compare the form of 
 the unmusical modern with the grace and music that charmed 
 wild beasts and built cities by their magic? The penny 
 whistle is a poor substitute for the Pipes of Pan; and your 
 greatest melodist, Milton, has in his best lines but the mock 
 thunder of a theatre, compared with the majestic roll of 
 Homer's hexameters. Greek is the language of the gods! 
 Latin is the language of emperors and warriors. Put into 
 English or French the equivalent of iroXu<^Xo«r/3ou) OaXda-cnp, 
 or 8aKpv6ei> yeXao-ao-a, and you will know what I mean. Take 
 from your dictionaries all the words of Greek or Roman origin, 
 and what a poverty-stricken, tatter-de-malion, and Jack 
 o' Bedlam language you will have! Analyse the sonorous 
 verses of your Milton. You will find soimd and sense alike 
 reduplicated as in the Ancients. Where he says: 
 
 Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved, 
 
 Euripides would say in another sense: 
 
 "AXeKTpa Yqpa.(TKov<Tav dw/xei/ata re 
 
88 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Where would you get an equivalent in English to these words 
 of Aristophanes: 
 
 aireipos, aOakaTTioros, curaXi/utvios; 
 
 Shakspeare borrowed the 'prophetic soul' of Hamlet from 
 the ir/od/xavTis Ov/ios of Euripides, and his 'sea of troubles' 
 from the KaKZv ire'Xayos in the Hippolytus} But this is only 
 'breaking a butterfly upon a wheel.' So far as great thoughts 
 put into equivalently noble language are concerned (the idea 
 of Dante in his De Vulgari Eloquio, 'optimis conceptionibus 
 optima loquela convenit'), the ancient classics have no rivals 
 in modem times. The German language comes nearest in its 
 majestic if rugged syllables: but it is longo intervallo. Far 
 behind the splendid imagery, the vast conceptions and the 
 Divine tongues that spoke by the Tiber and the ^gean, come 
 the stuttering, halting, ill-sounding idioms of the moderns. 
 The former is 'a feast of languages.' We have stolen the 
 scraps. 
 
 "But even in its lowest uses, as a matter of mere utility, we 
 must fall back on Greek and Latin. The new ideas that are 
 being forged in the ever-active brains of men need a nomen- 
 clature; and, as if by instinct and imder compulsion, we hark 
 back to Greece and Rome. We dare not talk of a pleasurable 
 life. We call it Hedonism. If we speak of Force, we call it 
 Dynamic or Kinetic. If we speak of children developing the 
 talent for observation or comparison, we call it the Heuristic 
 aptitude. We dare not use the poor, pauper-relative word 
 in Enghsh. It would shrink aside and be ashamed. By a 
 natural tendency we use the kingliest word. But mark our 
 inconsistency and ingratitude. We cast our ancient treasures 
 into the lumber room, and then search them for a label for 
 some beggarly science. We glorify our sciences, but we have 
 to borrow their names from sources which we affect to despise. 
 We kill our kings, and dress ourselves in their tinsels; and we 
 cover our plebeian poverty with the tags and rags which we 
 ' Lowell's " English Poets." 
 
SESSION EIGHTH 89 
 
 have stolen from the mummies in our mausoleums. We have 
 robbed ancient kingdoms of their art treasures, despoiled 
 them of their sculptured trophies, and disinterred the buried 
 splendours of ancient dynasties — to be stared at by a pro- 
 letariat, that drops its H's, and smokes rank tobacco into the 
 face of a Greek god. And then we talk of progress because 
 we have poisoned the air with petrol — and taught our chil- 
 dren to sing: 
 
 Twinkle, twinkle, little star, 
 Now I know well what you are — 
 Fumes of soda, flames of tin, 
 Incandescent hydro-gin. 
 
 Don't smile, ladies and gentlemen! We have sunk very low 
 in the scale of civiUsation, all the lower because we dream we 
 are walking on the summits. But I have a hope that the 
 world will swing round again in some kind of a parabola; 
 that the young will learn reticence, reverence, and a certain 
 chastity of taste that will redeem them from vulgarity. But, 
 the most potent factor in that reformation, which is to give 
 us gentlemen in place of cads, will be a recurrence to that sys- 
 tem of education, on which for eighteen centuries the best 
 minds of the world were trained, and which, combined with 
 native genius, gave us those names and memories that fill and 
 hallow the Pantheons of the world." 
 
 There was a subdued murmur from the Sunetoi, whether 
 of approval or dissent could not be ascertained. It was quite 
 clear that each individual had been hit in some weak point, or 
 had marked off some thesis and assertion as controvertible. 
 Mr. Skelton fidgeted a little imder that allusion to the "tweed 
 cap," which he wore rather ostentatiously, even on Sundays. 
 That little hint, too, about cigarettes in the drawing-room 
 seemed not a Uttle confusing. But no one spoke, until at 
 length Mr. Himt, looking towards Father Dillon, said rather 
 languidly: 
 
 "We may not discuss the paper, I believe?" 
 
go THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "No!" said Father Dillon. "We must keep strictly to our 
 rules. At the next meeting you can say what you please." 
 
 "I hope I am not out of order," said Mr. Hunt, "in deduc- 
 ing a scholium, or sequence, from the paper. I mean the value 
 of language as the spoken mediimi of thought, as an art in 
 itself, little Jieeded nowadays. Mind, I am not now speaking 
 of it in its philological aspect, nor as a means of culture, nor as 
 holding in solution the best thoughts of mankind, but simply 
 as an art, such as music; for, after all, language is music." 
 
 He looked aroimd, as if hoping that this would be contro- 
 verted, so that he would seem not to monopolise the conversa- 
 tion. But there was no challenge. He went on: 
 
 "I had the most violent prejudice at one time against 
 French. I shared Byron's opinion that it was a syncopated, 
 mutilated kind of Latin, excessively nasal and dental, until 
 it gave you the idea of some kind of chatter, such as might 
 be heard in a tropical forest some morning when its animal 
 life had woke up from the night silences. Then, one day, 
 coming up from Paris to Havre, I happened to be seated near 
 a lady, who was conversing with a friend. The voice was not 
 subdued, neither was it loud. The subject was uninteresting, 
 so I closed up the shutters of intellect against the meaning 
 of her words, and I listened, as one would listen to the melo- 
 dious singing of a bird. For that was just what it was. She 
 sang the whole way at intervals, and when we glided into some 
 station, and the accents were more clear and distinct, I confess 
 I had just the same pleasure as if I sat out on a Jime night 
 and heard the chanting of the nightingale. You smile! 
 Well, try the experiment for yourselves. I know you, good 
 Irish, despise such things, and rather pride yourselves on what 
 you call the brogue — " 
 
 "No, no, no, Mr. Hunt," said Father Dillon, "but the truth 
 is, we have a strong prejudice against pretence or affectation 
 of any kind, and we particularly detest the English accent." 
 
 "I cannot really say what is an 'English accent,' " said Mr. 
 Hunt. "But you speak English', do you not?" 
 
SESSION EIGHTH 91 
 
 "Certainly, and we think we speak it more correctly than 
 Englishmen. At least, it is notorious that foreigners can 
 understand us more easily." 
 
 "Quite possible. Just as you would tmderstand the broad 
 patois of a Breton more easily than the cultivated accent of a 
 Parisian. But, to come back! It seems to me highly incon- 
 sistent, and imreasonable, that you should not seek to study 
 and speak the English language in its most perfect form. I 
 can quite imderstand your objecting to speak English, as it 
 is to you a foreign tongue. If you could all agree to speak 
 only Gaelic that would be quite reasonable. But, if you speak 
 English, why not speak it in its best form, i.e., why not 
 approach the very sources where it is pure and undefiled? 
 If you can master the French language you try to speak it as a 
 Parisian. If you wish to speak ItaKan perfectly, you study 
 the Tuscan dialect and the Roman accent. You go to Weimar 
 or Berlin to catch the German intonation. But you are con- 
 tent to speak English whilst repudiating, and even hating, 
 its best and most perfect form. To speak English with an 
 Irish accent is as absurd as to speak the Gaelic like a York- 
 shireman." 
 
 "Then you don't like our Irish accent?" said Miss Hope. 
 
 "I did not say so," said Mr. Hunt, gravely. "In fact, I 
 notice that each individual I meet has his own peculiarity in 
 that respect. Then again, you must remember there is a 
 vast difference between voice and accent. Nature has given 
 to some the sweetest of voices — some deep and rich, like a 
 contralto; some very high and tenuous; some deep; some 
 raucous. What I am contending for is this, not so much the 
 acquisition of accents, which is rather an ambiguous thing, 
 but the cultivation of the voice, which, as I hold it to be 
 music, is capable of infinite training. Go into a crowded 
 drawing-room. You hear the buzz of a hundred voices. 
 You are indifferent or bewildered. You hear one! Instantly 
 you grow interested. It speaks to you individually. You 
 have been waiting for it all these years. You listen! The 
 
92 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 words sink into your heart. You are fascinated. The voice 
 sinks away, and is lost in the buzz of the human hive. But 
 you are not satisfied. You seek it again. Perhaps you will 
 never find it. But you can never forget that voice. It will 
 haunt you to your grave." 
 
 "I suppose," said Father Dillon, "that is why St. John 
 Chrysostom was called the 'golden-mouthed,' and some of our 
 moderns are spoken of as 'silver-tongued.'" 
 
 "Possibly. But I am only concluding that it is an art 
 worth pursuing. The voice is the gift of Nature; the art 
 may be acquired. And I think you will find that the art is 
 hidden, not in accent, but in intonation — " 
 
 "Yes, you're quite right," broke in the Professor. "After 
 all it is the one faculty wherein we differ from the brute 
 creation, and for that reason alone it should be cultivated. 
 And — " 
 
 The Professor looked around slyly, as if he were going to 
 give himself away, and he then said demurely, quoting Mr. 
 Hunt: 
 
 "After all, the 'sweetest sound on earth is the voice of the 
 friend you love.'" 
 
 The meeting broke up in laughter, and Father Dillon felt 
 that he had had another narrow escape. 
 
SESSION NINTH 
 
 There was a curious and marked change at the next meet- 
 ing of the Sunetoi. Instead of the careless, easy, lounging 
 way in which they were used to sit, they affected a little pro- 
 priety that seemed to border closely on stiffness; and their 
 remarks were uttered in a tone of caution and precision so 
 very remarkable that it would have been embarrassing but 
 that it could not be kept up, and it soon thawed away into 
 easy familiarity again. Then it was noticed that the priest, 
 the Professor, and the doctor had brought their silk hats; 
 and Robert Skelton had compromised with a bowler. The 
 ladies were as precise and perfect as usual. There was no 
 need of change there. 
 
 The Professor at once threw down his glove. 
 
 "I should like very much," he said, "to know if any objec- 
 tion has been taken to my paper!" 
 
 There was an ominous silence. The doctor broke in: 
 
 "I read the Classics for six years. I'm blessed if I can 
 conjugate amo to-day." 
 
 "You can't be always young, doctor," said the priest. 
 "You had your day!" 
 
 There was a smile at the doctor's expense. But he was 
 not put out. 
 
 "Joking apart, Father Dillon," he said, "I think all the 
 time I spent at Classics lost. If I had been taught a little 
 French, or German, it would have served me in better stead. 
 I never feel such a thorough fool as when I stand on the deck 
 of a Rhine steamer and hear everyone around conversing; 
 and I — a dmnmy and a fool. I often thought that the man 
 I most envied on earth is the head waiter at a Swiss hotel." 
 
 "The Professor assumes that the language of the dead 
 gods is better than the language of living men," said the priest. 
 
 93 
 
94 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "Go on!" said the Professor, defiantly. 
 
 "I must say it is deucedly iincomfortable," said Robert 
 Skelton, "when a foreign fellow comes in to your office, and 
 talks away his gibberish at you; and you don't know whether 
 he is to give you twenty or twenty-five franc pieces for a 
 pound." 
 
 "And then if you go to an opera," said the doctor's wife, 
 "there you sit, listening to words you don't understand, 
 but trying to look interested and to follow the music." 
 
 There was a pause. The doctor struck in: 
 
 "The fact is. Professor, the age is a practical one; and you 
 and I cannot change it. Now, the first object of Ufe is to 
 live. To live one must have a maintenance. To have a 
 maintenance, one must have a business, or a profession — 
 some kind of calling. And for ninety-nine per cent, of the 
 business callings of to-day science is necessary in some shape 
 or form. The Classics are nowhere." 
 
 This seemed conclusive. It only aroused the dormant ire 
 of the Professor. 
 
 "I must take the objections," he said, "in detail. And 
 first of all — the Swiss waiter. That interesting person seems 
 to be 'the glass and mould of fashion and form,' the 'cjoiosure 
 of all eyes:' a kind of Hyperion feeding the satyrs, and excit- 
 ing their imbounded envy. Yet, I venture to ask, does any- 
 one here — do you, doctor, do you. Father Dillon, do you, 
 Skelton, consider that polyglottic Swiss waiter an educated 
 man? Place an Oxford professor at that table in that salon 
 at Interlaken or Chamonix and place that Mezzofanti of a 
 waiter right opposite him. Will anyone in that company, 
 Russ or Briton, Spaniard or Italian, Roman or Greek, maintain 
 that the man of the napkin is the superior in education to 
 that dmnb and silent professor? Or, take those chattering 
 Germans on the deck of a Rhine steamer. I dare say it would 
 be interesting to hear them speak in an intelUgible tongue. 
 But, my dear doctor, spare your self-pity on your own short- 
 comings, and ask yourself: Is what these guttural Teutons 
 
SESSION NINTH 95 
 
 are chattering about worth listening to? Isn't it all about 
 sauerkraut and lager beer; about the price of a sausage, or a 
 poimd of ham? And do you mean to tell me that you would 
 sacrifice all the evenings of your life, which you may spend in 
 commimion with the iimnortals at your fireside, in exchange 
 for a paltry vocabulary, which you can use once or twice in a 
 year with a crowd of tourists on the deck of a steamer; or 
 with the waiter, who is studying under his multitudinous 
 vocables how much backsheesh you will give him, or how he 
 will manage to swell your bill? And you, Madame," he 
 continued, turning to Mrs. Holden, "you regret that you 
 cannot follow the libretto at the Opera! Did you ever study 
 that libretto, or any libretto, at your ease, in your own room? " 
 
 "No — no!" said Mrs. Holden, who was getting rather 
 frightened. 
 
 "Well, I did," said the Professor. "And I can assure you 
 that the united brains of all the Bedlamites in the country 
 could not put so much nonsense into so much space. Be 
 assured, Madame, that you lost nothing by not being able to 
 follow your Tetrazzini or Patti. The good artistes do not 
 follow the meaning themselves." 
 
 "Really, there is something in that," said Mr. Himt, 
 waking up. "The essentials of an opera are voice, action, 
 scenery. The dialogue is secondary." 
 
 "I beg your pardon. Rex," said the Professor. " Secondary? 
 Isn't it absurd? A poor wretched imitation of the ancient 
 Greek choruses. The melody and the voices conceal the 
 nonsense of the favourite songs; but nothing can redeem the 
 utter banality and foolishness -of the dialogue. Do you 
 remember that absurd scene when Parsifal in the second act 
 jumps up from the embraces of Kundry and shouts: 
 
 Amfortas! — 
 
 The wound! — The wound! — 
 Amid my heart it blazes. — 
 The woe-cry! The woe-cry! 
 The shattering woe-cry! 
 
96 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 From deep within me leaps it aloft. 
 
 Oh! — Oh! — 
 
 Thou wretchedest! 
 
 Thou woefullest! 
 The wound, I saw it streaming. — 
 
 Now bleeds it in myself — 
 Here — here! 
 No! No! It is not the wound 
 Shed be its blood in fiery streams! 
 
 Here! Here, the blaze in my heart! 
 
 The yearning, the merciless yearning. 
 That all my senses at once has seized! 
 
 Oh! Pang of Love! 
 How all upheaves and quails and quakes 
 
 In surge of sinful longing! . . . 
 
 Isn't it awful nonsense? But it is really wisdom compared 
 with the Italian. That language does not flow. It jumps. 
 How could the veriest wretch that is taken out to be hanged 
 refrain from laughing if he heard this: 
 
 Perfido! 
 
 Or basti! 
 
 Fermati! 
 E a me sottrarti speri? 
 Vieni! 
 
 Mi lascia! — scostati! 
 Tu sei di Norma sposo. 
 
 Imagine rational beings singing that rifacimento of nonsense 
 strutting around the stage, and gesticulating like madmen." 
 
 The Professor gently mopped his forehead, where the dews 
 were gathering. The Professor was excited. The Suneioi 
 were smiling politely. 
 
 "But I was near forgetting your argument, doctor," said the 
 Professor, suddenly remembering. "How is it that it runs? 
 It cKnches matters of course! Let me see. You can't live 
 without a profession. You can't have a profession, or trade, 
 
SESSION NINTH 97 
 
 or occupation, without science. You can get on anywhere 
 without the Classics." 
 
 The doctor nodded. 
 
 '"Tisn't exactly what I said, but 'twill do!" 
 
 "Very good. It is simply the good old utilitarian argu- 
 ment again; and, on that ground alone, I might meet it with 
 the 'scorn of scorn,' because, whatever else is true or false, one 
 thing is absolutely certain: 'That not by bread alone doth 
 man live!' But, taking existence on its lowest levels, is it 
 quite correct to say that science or a scientific education is 
 absolutely essential to our well-being nowadays, or that it 
 is the only means of that first duty of bread-winning? I 
 doubt it. For example, in this room how many of us hve by 
 science? Probably only one. Take the chief street in our 
 city. How many traders, shopkeepers, merchants, live and 
 thrive by science? Not one, except the chemist. Go into 
 the country. What do your farmers, gardeners, labourers, 
 know of science? NU. Yet, the world is progressing. And 
 even when your wonder-working science comes in, can you 
 see that it is ultimately for the benefit of humanity? It has 
 made life swifter and perhaps easier. But has it prolonged 
 life, and made it more blessed ? Take your own department. 
 You do a great deal for suffering humanity; but was not 
 humanity a thousand times better off, were not men and 
 women healthier, and more human, before you invented all 
 your artificial props and stays for a decaying dvihsation ? — " 
 
 "You are running away with the argument," said the 
 doctor. "Science has met the wants of the age; it has not 
 caused them; and because the wants of the age demand the 
 assistance of science, therefore science is indispensable. Men 
 can live without Classics; they cannot get on now without 
 the aid of science." 
 
 "I'm afraid we're drifting with the tide," said Father 
 
 Dillon, seeing how the Professor was embarrassed. "We've 
 
 got away from the subject of a classical education. After 
 
 all, the great question is, not whether science is more impor- 
 
 8 
 
£8 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 tant than literature, but whether we shall substitute it alto- 
 gether for the good old classical education of the past." 
 
 "Well," said the Professor, recovering himself, "I waive 
 the question of utility. I contend that science may get you 
 bread and cheese, but it takes a classical education to form a 
 gentleman." 
 
 That ominous word fell like a shower of lead on the audience. 
 All saw that it would lead at once to that awful question, 
 which no man has ever solved: What is a gentleman; and 
 there was much danger of friction here, because the Professor 
 was an aristocrat, his great-grandfather having been steward 
 to an earl, and the doctor was a democrat of the purest water, 
 his grand-vmcle having been Sir Ralph Holden, of Holden's 
 Court, Co. Mayo. He had forgotten, or altogether ignored 
 the fact, but his good lady had a more retentive memory. 
 She knew her power, and exercised it mercilessly. She had 
 only to say "Sir Ralph," and she got as many salaams as the 
 Grand Turk. But Mr. Hunt saw the drift of things and the 
 cloud of anxiety gathering on Father Dillon's face, so he raised 
 himself from his lounging attitude, and said in his cold and 
 even accents: 
 
 "I am afraid the question is one that must be solved by the 
 individual, and not by the community. One thing must 
 be said, that the strongest protagonists (I am not including 
 the present company) appear to be on the side of the Classics, 
 whilst science makes up for the defect by its glorious insolence. 
 Personally, I am in favour of the Classics, partly from an 
 old love, and 'auld lang S3me,' partly because I think science 
 is becoming insupportable in its pretensions. I Hke modesty, 
 and I confess to a very culpable desire to take down and level 
 whatever is intolerant and aggressive." 
 
 He paused, and the Professor looked relieved. The doctor 
 was scornfully silent. 
 
 "If it was only to refute the doctor, Mrs. Holden," said 
 Father Dillon, "we must have some intensely classical music 
 to-night. What shall it be? " 
 
SESSION NINTH 99 
 
 "Whatever you please," she said. "Would you like 
 Beethoven's Sonata in B flat, or his Symphony in F? " 
 
 "Very good," said Father Dillon. "We shall have both; 
 it will be the marriage of the classics and at least one — 
 science!" 
 
SESSION TENTH 
 
 "These meetings are disturbing my night's rest," said 
 Reginald Hunt at their next Session. "That last discussion 
 about Classics v. Science kept the wheels of my brain revolv- 
 ing, and I didn't get to bed till after twelve." 
 
 "I hope you had a midnight visitor," said Father Dillon. 
 "Another '^gina?'" 
 
 "No!" said the young man, shaking his head sadly. "It 
 was a different kind of ghost. It was a scientist — Tris- 
 megistus!" 
 
 "Tris — what?" said Mrs. Skelton. "I never heard such 
 a name." 
 
 "Trismegistus," said Mr. Hunt. "It means Thrice- 
 Greatest — a perfect adaptation to the unboimded conceit 
 of the tribe." 
 
 The Professor gently rubbed his hands. He had an able 
 auxiliary. 
 
 "He was in my armchair," continued Mr. Hunt. "I 
 couldn't turn him out. I did the next best thing. I wrote 
 verses on him." 
 
 "Did you read them for him?" said the doctor, turning 
 around sharply. 
 
 "I did." 
 
 "And he remained?" 
 
 "Unto the end, penitent and sorrowful." 
 
 "Then I must say," said the doctor, "ghosts are more 
 amiable personages than we have hitherto imagined." 
 
 "You will be confirmed in that opinion if you have the 
 patience to hear the lines. They are not numerous. May I? " 
 
 "Certainly," said Father Dillon. 
 
 "What great courage these Englishmen have," whispered 
 
SESSION TENTH loi 
 
 Mrs. Skelton to her friend. "I'm sure I should have shrieked 
 out, or fainted." 
 
 '"Sh!" said Mrs. Holden. "'Tis all make-beUeve. He is 
 only inventing an excuse for airing his verses." 
 
 "I wish Father Dillon would let us bring some nice young 
 people here, and let us have a dance, or charades, or something. 
 This thing is awfully tiresome. Look at Robert." 
 
 Robert looked infinitely bored. He came there as a 
 matter of duty, because the priest had invited him as a repre- 
 sentative man. But he sighed for the easy familiarity of his 
 club, and the blessed sight of kings and knaves. He toyed 
 with his watch chain, crossed his legs twenty times, scratched 
 the bald spot on his head, yawned, tried to look serious, 
 and caught himself smiling, to the great embarrassment of his 
 wife, whilst the young Englishman read calmly and coldly: 
 
 TRISMEGISTUS 
 
 Thrice Greatest, can it be you? You have honoured me, Sir, 
 
 to-night. 
 I was just turning over your books in the gleam of the pale twi- 
 
 Hght, 
 And wondering what you were like; what manner of man you were. 
 And there, so silent and still, you sit in my audience-chair. 
 
 Come from the mists and the shadows — the life you did ever 
 
 deny — 
 The "gaseous" life you called it — the ghost of a faith gone by. 
 You said. All ended in death; and lo, you come from afar. 
 Your presence to-night is a proof you are more than the dod or 
 
 the star. 
 
 I grant 'tis a sad confession; but science is ever so sure. 
 Built as it is on the pillars that ever and aye endure — 
 Granite and porph3Ty pillars, kneaded and hammered by fire, 
 And Faith, but the Iris of Hope, when the day and the life expire. 
 
I02 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Can you remember the past — the noondays that ever sped 
 Swift for the thoughts ambitious that harried your weary head; 
 And nights so solemn and still, when over the gleaming glass, 
 Greater or lesser you watched the myths of Creation pass? 
 
 Watched the loves of amoebae, broken, to make new life. 
 Studied the wars of worlds, the winged ephemerae's strife. 
 Delved in the deeps of the earth, horrid with seams and scars. 
 Swallowed the phagocytes, and reeled 'mid the midnight stars. 
 
 But things are changed, you say, have taken another shape. 
 You cannot plummet the sky, nor measure a soul with tape. 
 Dark spaces there are, where never the lantern's yellow rays 
 Can pierce; where the veils are thicker than human hand can 
 raise. 
 
 And so peace cometh at last, the' never so weary the quest. 
 
 The busy brain is asleep there on the churchyard's breast. 
 
 And thou art a shade from the shades, a phantom that sitteth 
 
 nigh. 
 The work of your hand, of your brain, of your life, to condemn 
 
 and decry. 
 
 Well, Trismegistus, you know, I have never been merciless, 
 I am quite too sure of myself to heed a blasphemous guess. 
 And, as you are pleased to come, and turn my audience-chair 
 Into a stool of repentance, you shall not be pilloried there. 
 
 And so your penance is brief; but this I shall bid you do: 
 
 You will haunt the homes of your colleagues, and look them through 
 
 and through; 
 You will draw your ghostly finger athwart the reeking page, 
 And be the Familiar Spirit to many a Sibyl and Sage. 
 
 Whisper: "You cannot know all; for short is the leap of sight. 
 Palsied the touch that feels, feeble the hands that smite; 
 Dull the ear that believes it hears in the midnight blast 
 Nought but the wind-vortices whirling and sweeping past. 
 
SESSION TENTH 103 
 
 "There are more things, Horatio." Well, yes, you know the 
 
 rest. 
 There's no profession of faith like the head sunk deep on the 
 
 breast. 
 Thou art the least, Thrice Greatest! The clarion of morning 
 
 sounds. 
 Back to thy realm. Thrice Greatest! Back to the Spirit-bounds! 
 
 "Well, now," said the doctor, after a painful pause, "I 
 consider that illiberal. After all, to what do we owe all modern 
 progress but to science? " 
 
 "Quite true," said Mr. Hunt. "But it is not the progress 
 of science, but the imperiousness of science we object to. It 
 is the tacit denial of that first principle — that the end of all 
 knowledge is the conviction that we know nothing." 
 
 "We must not labour that question," said the doctor. "It 
 is tattered and mauled beyond all recognition. But what I 
 object to in that — eh? — poem or verses is, the pillorying or 
 attacking of a great man. The title is sarcastic, and, as such, 
 is objectionable. And, after all, say what you like, the history 
 of mankind is the history of great men." 
 
 "Why, doctor," said Father Dillon, "you are turning your 
 back on all your great principles. You — a Democrat, ignor- 
 ing the masses, and pinning your faith in the individual — 
 why, that is a surprise." 
 
 "I'm sure if Sir Ralph — " said Mrs. Holden; but the doctor 
 interrupted his spouse politely, though severely. 
 
 "Jennie, let Sir Ralph rest. He did his work in his own 
 time, and passed. But I am not disloyal to the people or to 
 my principles if I maintain that the whole course and progress 
 of the race is directed to the evolution of its greatest men. 
 The masses seethe and labour and propagate, just as the occult 
 powers of Nature work blindly and silently beneath the 
 ground, until all their efforts culminate in the creation of one 
 flower or fruit above the surface." 
 
 "And I suppose," said the Professor, "that just as these 
 
I04 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 occult and cr3^tic forces know nothing of the beautiful thing 
 they have created, so the world knows nothing of its greatest 
 men." 
 
 "Quite so. They come silently, develop humbly and 
 patiently, cast around them their benign influence, and depart. 
 Sometimes, they exert no influence, but are content with their 
 own greatness, self-involved, self-reliant, and self-contented." 
 
 "I cannot accept either of your two positions, doctor," said 
 Mr. Hunt. "I cannot believe that all the suffering and toil, 
 and upward labouring of the vast masses of mankind have 
 for their object the sudden breaking and flowering of one soul 
 out of millions; neither can I believe that a great soul, such 
 as you contemplate, can exist without exerting a single in- 
 fluence on his kind." 
 
 "Well, then," said the doctor, "what is the end towards 
 which the toiling and labouring masses are tending? I am a 
 democrat, a strong advocate of the theory that, whilst it is 
 quite absurd to pretend that all men are bom equal, or have 
 equal privileges, still there are certain rights common to every 
 unit of humanity, amongst them the absolute liberty of push- 
 ing forward and utilising without coercion or impediment 
 whatever faculties Nature has given him. Hence I contend 
 that it is a crime against not only the individual, but against 
 the race, to impede the development of talent, or deprive a 
 whole people of the means of pushing forward on the onward 
 march towards — " 
 
 But here the doctor paused. He was brought up face to 
 face with the sudden question — What was the end to which 
 the race was tending? But he doubled back, like a wise man. 
 
 "Whilst all that is true, the evolution of all things in Nature 
 proves that she is working out the problem of how to find what 
 is most noble or beautiful in her children. She sits with her 
 face to the wall, on which her models are hanging, and she 
 knows nothing but blindly to imitate that model in the work 
 which lies in her lap. Of course, it is failure after failure, 
 which she flings aside with a certain scorn. And then, one 
 
SESSION TENTH 105 
 
 day, she creates the perfect type, and rests to contemplate 
 her work." 
 
 "And that, too, goes into the dust heap?" said Mr. Hunt. 
 
 "Yes! after it has served its purpose." 
 
 "And that is?" 
 
 "To exist; to prove the fertiUty of Nature; to breathe, live 
 in solitary greatness, self-sufl5cing, xmconsciously beautiful, 
 and then — to pass." 
 
 "Without the sUghtest influence on the world of men?" 
 
 "Not the slightest. I mean, of course, in a vast multitude 
 of cases. Of course, a great poet, a great statesman, cannot 
 exist without influencing his generation. But, if you read 
 history aright, you will see how tenuous and weak such in- 
 fluence has been. You hear of men moulding a nation's 
 destinies and all that. It means nothing — absolutely nothing. 
 Mother Nature creates for her own amusement — just to try 
 if her hand has kept its cuiming; and when she turns out a 
 great being, and finds that he corresponds with her t3Tpe, 
 she is content, and goes on for another space, turning out 
 botches or mediocrities." 
 
 "Ton my word, doctor," said Father Dillon, "you speak 
 like a confirmed materialist. But, fortunately, your words 
 carry their own refutation. I don't know who this Dame 
 Nature is. I have never seen her. You say she works with 
 her face to the wall, and her back turned towards us. But 
 of course, this is all figurative, and poetical, otherwise we 
 should quarrel.- But, to come down to a question we may 
 debate: Do you still hold that the world knows nothing of 
 its greatest men?" 
 
 "Indubitably. Do you mean to tell me that these puppets 
 that strut across the pages of history — your Napoleon, your 
 Shakspeare, your Milton, your Gladstone — are the best work 
 of — let me drop the absurd metaphor about Mother Nature — 
 the Most High? Don't you know that as His Hand hides the 
 diamond in the veldt, and the gold in the quartz of the rock, 
 so he hides all his best and greatest work in human souls?" 
 
io6 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "Of course; now we're coming back to prose and reason," 
 said Father Dillon. "But you cannot hold for a moment, 
 my dear doctor, that meaner or lesser souls are filing 'like 
 rubbish to the void? ' " 
 
 "No, no!" said the doctor, confused. "There we're drift- 
 ing into theology, and I don't want to lose myself there. But 
 I still maintain that great souls are born, live, come to maturity, 
 pass, without the slightest recognition from their fellow-men, 
 and without the slightest influence on humanity." 
 
 "There is a good deal in what the doctor says, Father 
 Dillon," said Hester Hope, "although I had great misgivings 
 about him a few minutes ago. There is no doubt that there 
 are hundreds and thousands of pure and holy souls that are 
 quite unrecognised during their lives, and even after death. 
 We have all known them. And history, or rather literature, 
 records not a few." 
 
 "Ha! quite so," said the Professor, breaking in with his 
 usual enthusiasm. "I have just been reading Stevenson's 
 Letters — you know Robert Louis Stevenson? " 
 
 He had turned towards Miss Fraser. 
 
 "Rather!" she said, with a little shrug of protest at such an 
 absurd question. "We Scotch do not fail to know and appre- 
 ciate our best and wisest men," 
 
 "Quite true, indeed," said the Professor, abashed. "I 
 should have remembered. But, as I was saying, I just read 
 lately in Stevenson's Letters a word of his about a friend — 
 I think his name was Walter Ferrier. He uses the singular 
 expression: 'I never knew a man so superior to himself as 
 Walter.' It struck me as curious; but I think I apprehend 
 the meaning." 
 
 "Probably it means," said Miss Fraser, "that the man 
 didn't do himself justice." 
 
 "Exactly. He never gave of all he was worth. He hid it. 
 And you know the world takes men, not for what they are 
 worth, but just for what value they set on themselves." 
 
 "But isn't that pitiable," said Miss Fraser, "that we should 
 
SESSION TENTH 107 
 
 meet and address in every-day life souls of surpassing worth 
 and never know it? Is this a false humility, or pride, or 
 what?" 
 
 "No," said the doctor, "it is simply the truth — that one 
 infallible mark of genius. All genius is humble, knowing by 
 the force of genius its littleness in the imiverse. And hence 
 you never find a great man putting on the peacock's feathers. 
 Kings of men don't go around with crown and sceptre. They 
 are content to be recognised by their fellow kings. It is only 
 the mountebanks, and their name is legion, that put on gold- 
 tags and tinsel." 
 
 "Yet is it not melancholy that we should not know our 
 masters?" said the Professor. "In that letter of Stevenson 
 about Ferrier he says: 'It makes me rage to think how few 
 knew him, and how many had the chance to sneer at their 
 better.' And is it not galling to see the groundlings and hinds 
 and the whole canaille of humanity jeering and mocking at 
 hidden kings? One does not like to be kicked to death by 
 wild asses. I'm sure, if I could bring myself to believe that 
 I had any worth, I shouldn't mind being judged by my peers. 
 But to be criticised by every schoolboy who is still smarting 
 from the ferule would wear away the patience of Job himself." 
 
 "Ah, you lack the first gift of the gods," said Mr. Hunt, 
 "and the greatest." 
 
 "What is it? " said the Professor. 
 
 "Serenity," was the reply. 
 
SESSION ELEVENTH 
 
 "There was just one feature that reconciled me to the 
 members of the Ancien Regime in France," said Father 
 Dillon, holding up the cup of Sevres china which the doctor 
 had placed in his hands, "and that was their magnificent 
 serenity under the horrors of the Revolution, It is quite 
 impossible to pity them. They brought down the tempest 
 on their heads. But, when it fell; when, day by day, the 
 noblest families in France passed under the axe of the execu- 
 tioner, they went to death with a sangfroid and a dignity that 
 should have commanded the respect of the veriest Jacobin. 
 Yes! Serenity — the calm fronting of horrors and death, 
 is a grand thing. Some historians seem to be of opinion that 
 it was only the king that failed." 
 
 "That's a mistake, or rather a calumny," said the Pro- 
 fessor, warmly. "And it is a calumny that originated with 
 English historians, who like to contrast the calm demeanour 
 of Charles I. with the little scene that preludes the death of 
 Louis XVI. But the truth is, that the French king was buoyed 
 up, even to the last minute, with the hope of a rescue. And he 
 thought that a final appeal to his people would have saved 
 himself and his crown. He was a brave man. He showed it 
 aU through that dismal upheaval." 
 
 "Another case of a great man unrecognised!" said the 
 doctor. "But serenity! — yes, ah! I believe that it is con- 
 sidered a mark of the highest breeding now, that you must 
 be absolutely unemotional." 
 
 "Quite true," said Mrs. Holden, who was now on her own 
 ground. "A perfectly-trained lady or gentleman never 
 exhibits emotion, either of pleasure or pain, but is always 
 cahn and self-possessed." 
 
 io8 
 
SESSION ELEVENTH 109 
 
 "But," said Mr. Skelton, "if I want to laugh, why shouldn't 
 I laugh? And if I want to be angry, why shouldn't I be 
 angry? And if I want to applaud, why shouldn't I applaud? " 
 
 Mrs. Skelton darted an angry look at her spouse. Robert 
 was always giving himself away. She then looked anxiously 
 at the doctor's wife, and caught her smiling. 
 
 "These things," said Mrs. Holden, sweetly, "are for the 
 common people. No lady or gentleman nowadays laughs. 
 It is a fadal distortion that is impleasant. The most one is 
 allowed to do is to smile, and that very gently, I should say 
 languidly." 
 
 "But — it," said the manager, "if a fellow tells a good 
 story that would make the cats laugh, am I to look at him as if 
 my mother-in-law was just dead? And if I hear a good song, 
 or if my partner at a game of whist Hcks the whole table, 
 what harm could there be in saying: 'Bravo, Jack! I never 
 doubted you!'" 
 
 There was some consternation at this sally. Mrs. Skelton 
 looked down at the white hand in her lap, and played with her 
 rings. Miss Hope found it hard to keep back a smile. Mr. 
 Hunt looked at the manager as at a museum curiosity. Father 
 Dillon came to the rescue. 
 
 "It appears not, Robert," he said. "It would never do. 
 It would disrupt society. You see the philosophy of it is 
 this: It is two-fold — moral and physical. From a moral 
 standpoint it has been found that all the troubles of life arise 
 from imrestrained emotions. Anger, hatred, ambition, avarice, 
 gluttony — all these things are simply ebullitions of animal 
 nature; and as such are to be placed under peremptory 
 restraint. To be greedy at dinner, to give way to passion, 
 to cheat at cards, to shout loudly, to slap your knee, to clap 
 your hands in a loud and unpleasant manner — all these are 
 bad form. Isn't that the right word, Mrs. Holden? " 
 
 Mrs. Holden nodded. 
 
 "Now, everything that is 'bad form' must be avoided like 
 the seven deadly sins, and so, if you are told a good story, you 
 
iio THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 must never laugh or applaud, but say, 'Ah!' or, 'How very 
 interesting!' So, too, if you are insulted by some ignorant 
 fellow, it would be 'bad form' to get into a passion, or retort 
 angrily. You should look at him superciliously, and say, 
 'Really, how very amusing!' You see in this way you keep 
 an undisturbed serenity, which is the tradition of the aris- 
 tocracy in every land." 
 
 Robert Skelton was looking at the priest in a puzzled 
 manner. He didn't know whether his good friend was 
 sermonising or jesting. He was on the point of saying some- 
 thing, but Father Dillon went on, blandly: 
 
 "Then, from a physical standpoint, emotionalism is to be 
 deprecated. There's nothing so wearing on the nervous 
 system as strong emotion. Doctor, I'm intruding on your 
 department; but you don't mind?" 
 
 "Not in the least," said the doctor. "We are not a bit 
 jealous of our privileges. Gto ahead!" 
 
 "H'm! I'm not so very sure of that," said the priest. 
 "But I accept the gracious permission. Now, I say that 
 imcurbed or imrestrained emotion has a most ruinous effect 
 on the great life centres of the system. For example, worry, 
 say about an overdue bill, Robert, or the sudden collapse of 
 a debtor, or an unexpected visit from the inspector, seems to 
 affect only the brain. The evil thing travels around with you, 
 and seems to affect only your sleep. But, as a matter of fact, 
 it spoils your digestion, and weakens the walls of the heart. 
 So, too, if you get into a passion. A customer will not meet 
 his bill, or a depositor suddenly takes out his little earnings, 
 and transfers them to a rival bank. You are naturally angry. 
 If you have not acquired the suave manners of good society 
 — of course, I'm only making a supposition — you fume and 
 rage, and perhaps use cuss-words and other emphatic expres- 
 sions. What are you doing? Promoting congestion of the 
 brain, and dilatation of the arteries, with a chance of generating 
 an aneurism, or inducing apoplexy." 
 
 "Go on. Father Dillon," said Mr. Skelton. "I'm with 
 
SESSION ELEVENTH iii 
 
 you so far. But where's the harm in an honest and hearty 
 laugh?" 
 
 "Why, man," said Father Dillon, "laughing is suicidal. It 
 is not only a vulgar contortion and distortion of the features, 
 a horrible and unnecessary exhibition of teeth and gxmis and 
 all the dread apparatus of the mouth, but it imperils life. 
 How often have you heard people say: 'I nearly died laugh- 
 ing.' 'I killed myself with laughing.' The meaning is 
 clearly that if ever you give way to violent and unseemly 
 laughter you are in proximate danger of an untimely and 
 perhaps improvided death." 
 
 "Then, by Jove," said the manager, "I shall have to tell 
 the Major to give up his good stories, because, if your cofl&n 
 was made you'd have to laugh at them." 
 
 "I'm afraid that old Major is a very vulgar man," said Mrs. 
 Skelton. "He really takes too much brandy, and he says 
 rude things." 
 
 "I am afraid," continued Father Dillon, gravely, whilst, 
 however, a meaning smile seemed to play around his mouth, 
 "I cannot convert Mr. Skelton. But, now, to still further 
 exempHfy the subject, if I may intrude upon another sanctuary, 
 that of literature, where our friend, the Professor, is high priest, 
 is it not the case that the very perfection of high hterature is 
 its reticence? If I read aright, every critic seems to say that 
 redimdance, or excess, or extravagance of any kind is the one 
 thing to be deprecated in writing. Every young writer is 
 recommended to be merciless towards his adjectives; isn't 
 that so?" 
 
 He had turned towards the Professor. 
 
 "Quite so. Father Dillon," said the Professor. "Stevenson, 
 whom I quoted before, said somewhere: 'There is but one 
 art — to omit! Oh! if I knew how to omit, I would ask no 
 other knowledge. A man who knew how to omit would make 
 an Iliad of a daily paper.' And really, that is the charm of 
 Stevenson — his reticence, the things he doesn't say." 
 
 "And yet," said Mr. Hunt, now joining in the debate, "how 
 
112 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 does it happen that the one man who is most reticent, who 
 packs a universe of thought into a mere satchel of words, is 
 yet the master of all emotionalism, the magician who plays 
 on the strings of the hiiman heart as if it were a violin?" 
 
 "But is that so?" said the Professor. "Is Shakspeare — 
 of course it is Shakspeare you mean, so very economical of 
 language? Is there no redundancy of metaphor or antithesis 
 there?" 
 
 "Absolutely none," said Mr. Hunt, "Read those 'Son- 
 nets' which are the very reflex of his mind, as they are the 
 masterpieces of his genius. You never cease wondering how 
 any hand can press such vast and beautiful significances imder 
 such slender and apparently inharmonious words. Of course, 
 it bears out Father Dillon's theory, that as reticence and 
 reserve are the indispensable adjimcts of good breeding, so 
 restraint in language — the art of omitting — is the one indis- 
 pensable requisite of a good style. Who was it that said 
 'Woe to the man who has said all that he had to say on any 
 subject?'" 
 
 "And yet you say he is the master of all human emotion," 
 said Father Dillon. "Is there not some inconsistency here?" 
 
 "No," said Mr. Hunt. "It by no means follows that the 
 master of emotion in others should be the victim or slave of 
 such emotions. In fact, the traditional Shakspeare, as you 
 know, is one that was absolutely removed far above aU human 
 feeling. His one characteristic was serenity. That placid 
 bust is the sjmibol of it; and, so far as we can learn anything 
 of his life, he seemed to be impervious to those influences that 
 agitate ordinary humanity." 
 
 "That is, Shakspeare was superior to himself. He was 
 greater than he knew," said Miss Hope. 
 
 "Quite so," said Mr. Hunt. "He never knew the vast 
 extent and orbit of his intellect, nor the grandeur of his work, 
 nor the eternity and universality of his fame." 
 
 "Don't you believe one word of that," said the sceptical 
 doctor. "Every great man knows the extent of his genius. 
 
SESSION ELEVENTH 113 
 
 If the man called Wipiam Shakspeare did not know the 
 greatness of 'Hamlet' then you may be sure he never wrote 
 it." 
 
 "If we are drifting into the Bacon-Shakspeare contro- 
 versy," said Mr. Himt, "I propose that we give it a special 
 night, or series of nights, Attica or otherwise; and that we 
 rank ourselves according to our sympathies, one protagonist 
 on each side." 
 
 "If you do," said Mr. Skelton, "I shall promptly resign." 
 
 He spoke so emphatically, so energetically, that the Sunetoi 
 stared at him in utter amazement. What interest could Bob 
 Skelton have in such a subject? He might have heard of 
 Shakspeare in some "far-off, imhappy time," but surely he 
 never could have been interested in such an erudite and 
 recondite controversy. 
 
 He explained. 
 
 "We have had enough of that infernal business down at the 
 club," he said, "to fill twenty Ixmatic asylimis. There's a 
 half-daft fellow there who has got a bee in his bonnet if ever 
 a man had, and it is Shakspeare and Bacon, and Bacon and 
 Shakspeare from dawn to dark. Every fellow he meets he 
 buttonholes, and bothers him for an hour or two about 
 cryptograms and telegrams, and Ignatius Donnelly, and Mrs. 
 Something-or-other. Say 'Eang' at Nap, and he has a handle 
 of a quotation about King John as long as your arm. Say 
 'Knave,' *Ah!' he says, 'that reminds me of something or 
 other;' and he'll try and persuade you that 'Knave' isn't a 
 
 rogue, but something else. He came in the other night 
 
 in great glee — " 
 
 "Robert," said Mrs. Skelton, in a sad and reproving voice, 
 " I tmderstood you had given up that club since you joined us." 
 
 "And who spoke of a club, my dear? " said Robert, actually 
 on the spur of the moment. "Why, 'tis the tobacco shop 
 on 'The Beach' I'm talking about." 
 
 "Oh!" said Mrs. Skelton. And the Sunetoi smiled. 
 
 "Well," continued Robert, "in he came in great delight. 
 9 
 
114 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 'Victory! Victory!' said he, snapping his fingers. 'I have 
 found out the whole thing. Shakspeare is no more Shak- 
 speare than Ben Jonson. Think of it, man! The fools 
 never saw, all these years, the very clearest proof that it 
 was Bacon wrote Shakspeare. I just stiunbled across it. 
 Here it is!' and he puUed out an old tattered, yellow, dis- 
 reputable thing, and began to read something about bacon- 
 brains and mast, and the Lord knows what." 
 
 Father Dillon looked inquiringly at the Professor. The 
 Professor shook his head. Mr. Skelton was not discomfited. 
 
 "WUl you give me a guarantee. Father Dillon," he said, 
 "on your word of honour as a priest, not to bring up that 
 infernal subject here?" 
 
 "Well, I'm afraid, you know, Robert," said the priest 
 dubiously, "that I cannot promise to suppress any mention of 
 such an interesting subject in such a learned society as ours." 
 
 "Then I resign," said Mr. Skelton. "I can stand a good 
 deal, but I can't stand that. It's bad enough to have to meet 
 this lunatic in the — ah — tobacco shop, but no human brain 
 could hold together if it were brought up here." 
 
 There were sundry appeals to Mr. Skelton to reconsider his 
 resolution, but he was inexorable, and the meeting broke up. 
 
 Robert and the doctor stood on the doorstep of the doctor's 
 house, as the footsteps of the Sunetoi died away. Mrs. Holden 
 and Mrs. Skelton were having a confidential chat upstairs. 
 
 "Look here. Bob," said the doctor, "of course that was a 
 pure invention of yours about that fellow and Shakspeare?" 
 
 "Not a bit of it," said Robert. "Don't you know Marshall, 
 
 that cracked fellow that writes poetry for the Cork ? 
 
 That's him. And, much as I hate him and his poetry, the 
 next time I'll meet him I'll kiss him. I will, by Jove!" 
 
 "That's rather foreign manners," said the doctor. "You 
 mean you'll ask him to have a drink? " 
 
 "I will, and fifty," said Robert. "I'm under everlasting 
 
 obligations to that man, that saved me from that infernal . 
 
 How do you stand it. Doc?" 
 
SESSION ELEVENTH 115 
 
 "Why, 'tis most instructive and interesting," said the doctor. 
 "I'm surprised at a man of your education and refinement, 
 Bob, not to have appreciated such a chance of self-improve- 
 ment!" 
 
 "Self -improvement! Yes! rot! Imagine a lot of 
 
 grown-up men and women maintaining that a fellow mustn't 
 laugh! And I heard that priest laughing so that he could be 
 heard over at Roche's Point!" 
 
 "Ah, yes, but you see he's getting toned down," said the 
 doctor. "He was yo\mg and inexperienced before. He 
 knows better now. You'll never hear him laugh again." 
 
 "Well, thank God, I'm out of it," said Mr. Skelton, stretch- 
 ing hands of freedom towards heaven. "Now for freedom 
 and the Major!" 
 
 Somewhat different were the remarks made by Reginald 
 Hunt, as he walked slowly with Hester Hope up along the 
 terraced street that led to her home. 
 
 "I never dreamed that my little monologue on Trisme- 
 gistus," he said, "would have ended in the Baconian con- 
 troversy. I was illiberal, as the doctor said, but I thought it 
 would please you." 
 
 "Please me?" said Miss Hope. "How? It is very kind of 
 you to think of me, but how can the matter affect me? " 
 
 "Well, you know," he said, "there is a studied antagonism 
 between your Church and these scientists, and I have been 
 trying to express your views rather than my own." 
 
 "Ha!" she said. "And that's the explanation of 'Fra 
 Alberico,' too?" 
 
 "Yes," he replied. "In fact, I have been tr3ring to fathom 
 your opinions — that is, your Church's, and I confess they 
 are profound enough. Now, for example, I cannot under- 
 stand your violent antagonism to science, even from a religious 
 standpoint. Till science woke up the human brain from its 
 torpor, man was the centre of the universe, the heavens a 
 black pall, studded with light points. Now, he has gone forth 
 on the wings of fancy, upheld by solid induction, imto the 
 
ii6 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 remotest limits of being, walked amongst the fire-vortices of 
 space, watched the creation, never-ceasing, never-resting of 
 suns and systems, xmderstood for the first time his own little- 
 ness, and the awful majesty of God." 
 
 The young man took off his hat, and looked around until 
 he saw the Pleiades glittering above his head, and the giant 
 bulk of the hunter, Orion, stretched along the Southern 
 horizon. 
 
 "Yes!" he said. "Science has bade me go forth and 
 measure myself with infinity, and proclaim that I am the 
 greater. First, surprise; then, alarm; then, emotion; then, 
 familiarity; finally, contempt and indifference — these have 
 been my mental experiences. I found that I could measure 
 and weigh and coimt the marvels of space. They cannot 
 measure me!" 
 
 "But," said Miss Hope, "perhaps you misunderstand us, 
 Mr. Himt. Who revealed all this pomp and glory to you?" 
 
 "The one man who emancipated the himian mind — 
 Copernicus. It is the Copernican system that has revealed 
 God to man, and man to himself." 
 
 "And you are aware that Copernicus was a priest of our 
 Church, like Father Dillon, and that he dedicated his great 
 book to the reigning Pope; that he wrote strongly against 
 Luther and his Reformation; and that his own province was 
 the last to throw aside the yoke of the Church? " 
 
 Mr. Hunt was silent. 
 
 "Read up a little now about the 'Starry Galileo and his 
 woes,' and don't take aU your Svmday-school theology and 
 history as the last word to be said on these subjects. Good- 
 night!" 
 
SESSION TWELFTH 
 
 Robert Skelton did not keep his resolution. Somewhat 
 shamefaced, he had to admit to the doctor that he would 
 retiun to the sheepfold. 
 
 "'Tis that little woman," he said. "She wouldn't let me. 
 She's fully convinced that if I go to the club, and into the 
 Major's company, it spells blue ruin." 
 
 "But you do go to the club, don't you?" 
 
 "Of course I do, man. How could I live otherwise? 
 Besides, 'tis a question of business. I want to keep my cus- 
 tomers on my hands. The directors would be angry with me 
 if I gave up that club." 
 
 "I see," said the doctor. "But you're coming back to us." 
 
 " I am," said Robert. " The directors won't mind one night 
 in the week, and there's no use in talking, I couldn't go against 
 that little woman." 
 
 "Why, Mrs. Skelton is one of the meekest, gentlest women 
 I ever knew," said the doctor. 
 
 "Of course she is," said the manager. "Sure, 'tis there 
 the trouble lies. If she were one of your cross, determined, 
 thunder-and-Iightning old termagants, I could fight it out 
 with her. But there is no use in quarrelling with these rabbits. 
 They'll have their way, and that's aU." 
 
 "'Tis just the same in the Bank," he continued. "If a 
 fellow comes in and blusters and blows around, I stand up to 
 him, and bring him to his senses in about five minutes. But 
 if a poor, little, broken-down, smashed-up old derelict comes 
 in, and asks for a biU, of course I refuse point blank. Then 
 the fellow turns away sadly, and looks at his nails. Then, 
 he begins to bite them, and I begin to give way. Then, he 
 takes out a pocket-handkerchief in a half-ashamed kind of 
 
 117 
 
ii8 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 way, as if he was begging your pardon, and blows his nose, and 
 begins to snivel. Ten to one, before the fellow is gone twenty 
 yards I send the porter after him. And that's the way with 
 my wife. She says nothing, but goes around in a dazed, half- 
 sorrowful way, as if I were a lost soul; and, of course, I have 
 to give in. I've gained a point, however." 
 
 "What's that?" said the doctor, curiously. 
 
 " I'm going to bring Marshall. He'll relieve the situation." 
 
 "Marshall? No! The cracked fellow out there at Rush- 
 brooke? Why, he'U set everything topsy-turvy. Father 
 Dillon won't have him!" 
 
 "Oh, but he will. Them's my conditions, and he said I 
 was such a valuable member, and they should so regret losing 
 me that he would made the sacrifice. We'll have some fim 
 now. That's a consolation. By Jove, I'll bring the Major 
 next." 
 
 "But, look here. Bob, that will never do," said the doctor. 
 " 'Twill break up the whole circus. Arid I don't know about 
 the other ladies, but my wife won't go if you can't prove the 
 quarterings, and all the other genealogical traits of this 
 MarshaU." 
 
 "Leave that to me," said Mr. Skelton. "If I haven't all 
 the women at his feet, call me Davy." 
 
 Nevertheless, it was an experiment, for the Sunetoi were not 
 only highborn, but fastidious, and the poet was as careless 
 about his dress as Magliabecchi. What he lacked, however, 
 there, he made up for by a courtliness of manner that was 
 almost embarrassing. 
 
 Father DiUon led off the proceedings of the Twelfth Session. 
 
 "I think," said he, "we would make a fatal mistake if we 
 passed from subject to subject in these our meetings too lightly. 
 It is true of science, and every other subject that can interest 
 the hxmian mind, that it is wiser to let it alone, if we do not 
 penetrate it deeply. It is not of music, or poetry alone it 
 may be said: 
 
 "'Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.' 
 
SESSION TWELFTH iig 
 
 Now, there were a few points touched upon rather lightly at 
 our last meeting which deserve a fuller recognition. For 
 example, looking over old Horace the other evening, I came 
 across two lines — one confirming the theory of reticence or 
 restraint in writing: 
 
 "'Quicquid prsedpies, esto brevis; ut cito dicta 
 Percipiant animi dodles, teneantque fideles; 
 Omne supervacuum pleno de pectore manat.' 
 
 The other line seems to controvert the position taken up by 
 Mr. Himt, namely, that to excite emotion in others an author 
 need not be necessarily subject to such emotions in himself. 
 It runs thus: 
 
 " ' Si vis me flere, dolendum est 
 PrinniTn ipsi tibi; tunc tua me infortunia Icedent,'" 
 
 "I think you'll find, Father Dillon," said Mr. Hunt, "that 
 the entire passage from which you have taken a line refers 
 to the actor on the stage, not to the author in his chamber. 
 There can be no discussion on that point." 
 
 "I must confess," said the doctor, "that I have seen hun- 
 dreds of stage-performances in my time, and although I 
 have often had a hearty laugh at some clown or columbine, 
 I could never shed a tear at so-called tragedy." 
 
 "I suppose," said the Professor, "they didn't observe the 
 proprieties, as laid down in Hamlet's advice to the actors; 
 and which Shakspeare culled from his own experience." 
 
 Robert Skelton smiled at the word "Shakspeare." He 
 thought he saw the great deeps opening up. 
 
 "I — may I — of course, I am only a neophyte, and should 
 be dumb," said Mr. Marshall, in a most humble and depre- 
 catory manner, "but may I make a remark about that last 
 sapient observation? " 
 
 "Certainly, Mr. Marshall," said Father Dillon. "The 
 utmost liberty of discussion is permitted here." 
 
 "The ladies do not object?" said Mr. Marshall, opening 
 
120 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 out his hands, and taking in all the ladies in one elaborate 
 bow. 
 
 "Not at all, go ahead, man," said the doctor, brusquely. 
 
 "Well, if I am not very much mistaken," said Mr. Marshall, 
 still very humbly, "that passage incorporated in Hamlet was 
 — well — let me say borrowed by the illustrious phantom 
 called Shakspeare from a certain Ned Alle3m, an actor. At 
 least, there is extant a letter written by one Peele, a dramatic 
 poet, to our good friend, Marlowe, in which he says that at 
 a merry meeting at the Globe this Ned AUeyn did not scruple 
 to accuse the great William of having built up the passage in 
 Hamlet from various conversations that had passed between 
 them, and wherein the speaker had expressed these ideas. 
 The illustrious Will was furious, but Ben Jonson stepped in, 
 and confirmed the matter by saying: 'This affair needs no 
 contention. You stole it from Ned, no doubt; do not marvel; 
 have you not seen him act times out of number? ' " 
 
 "How very wonderful!" said Father Dillon. 
 
 "How very surprising!" said the Professor. 
 
 "How strange!" said Mrs. Holden, looking dubiously at 
 Mr. Marshall's boots. 
 
 "Who'd have thought it?" said Miss Eraser, looking at the 
 Professor, as if she wished him to challenge the assertion. 
 
 Miss Hope looked at Mr. Himt. He had been trying to take 
 Marshall's measure, and had satisfied himself that he was 
 only a poet, and harmless. 
 
 "The letter," he said at length, "quoted by our friend, is a 
 forgery — one of George Stevens. You will find it in every 
 catalogue of Literary Forgeries." 
 
 Mr. Marshall bent forward, and with his hands on his knees, 
 was staring with all his might at this beardless boy, who had 
 pidled down his castle so easily. 
 
 "Sure?" he said, at length. 
 
 "Quite sure," said Mr. Htmt. "But perhaps Mr. Marshall, 
 as a Shakspearean scholar, would give us his opinion as to the 
 point mooted by Father Dillon, or the doctor's experience. 
 
SESSION TWELFTH 121 
 
 You have witnessed all the plays of Shakspeare, Mr. Marshall, 
 and, I presume, in the hands of, at least, some consummate 
 actors. Have you been ever affected by them?" 
 
 "I suppose I would have been," said Mr. Marshall, "but, 
 you see, I have generally had a chat with the performers in 
 the green-room beforehand. That spoils the illusion. Be- 
 sides, I can always steel myself against such things. I can 
 always argue: 'What is Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba?'" 
 
 "You are fortunate," said Mr. Hunt. "We have now two 
 hardened infidels on our hands — the doctor, by nature; Mr. 
 Marshall, from experience." 
 
 "Why, 'tis from experience I speak, Mr. Hunt," interrupted 
 the doctor. "Or rather, the reasoning that comes from ex- 
 perience. I see there on the stage a man, or woman, who, I 
 know, is paid for that performance. The higher the salary, 
 the greater is my incredulity. I know that that distinguished 
 lady or gentleman dined well an hour ago. I know they have 
 no more interest in that drama than I have in the morning 
 newspaper. I know that they are whispering comical 'asides' 
 to each other during the most tragic scenes. I know that the 
 prompter is just there behind the wings putting the words 
 into their mouths. I know that when the drop-scene falls 
 they will have glorious fun behind the scenes, with the cham- 
 pagne foaming in their hands, whilst silly women are blubber- 
 ing there in front. And, knowing all that, do you think it 
 possible that I can allow myself to be affected by such palpable 
 histrionism? " 
 
 "And yet — ?" said Mr. Hunt, and stopped. 
 
 "I heard a strange story some time ago," said Father Dillon, 
 "which will throw some light on this matter. I do not vouch 
 for its truth. I only tell it as it was mentioned to me. A 
 certain great Shakspearean actor was starring in the American 
 cities some years ago, and during his very brilliant tour from 
 theatre to theatre he happened to be a guest at a dinner table 
 to which the Catholic bishop of the place was also invited. 
 Some discussion, similar to ours, must have arisen, and the 
 
122 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 bishop, like our good doctor, declared that no human mimicry 
 could move him to tears. The artist accepted the challenge, 
 and requested but five minutes' preparation. He then re- 
 turned with a copy of Shakspeare, and merely read the two 
 scenes from King John — the appeal of Constance before the 
 king and the cardinal in Act. III., and the scene between 
 Hubert and Arthur in the fourth Act. The bishop stood the 
 first very well, but he had to rim out of the room before the 
 end of the second reading." 
 
 "Ah! he was an old softy!" said the doctor. "He had no 
 right to take the mitre. Bishops shouldn't be made of such 
 perilous stuff." 
 
 "No one can resist child-poetry," said Miss Hope. "I 
 cannot approve of Swinburne, but I forgive him a good deal 
 of his paganism for the sake of his child-poems. No man 
 ever sang of the sea and the child as he." 
 
 "Then you consider yourself absolutely impervious to 
 emotion?" said Mr. Hunt, addressing the doctor. 
 
 "Oh, no!" said the doctor. "You quite misunderstand 
 me. I've got my own sins, like other people, but I'm not 
 going to cry over imaginary evils. The realities of life touch 
 me sometimes; the imaginary not at all!" 
 
 "This is a little poem," said Mr. Hunt, slowly disengaging 
 his pocket book, and taking out a crumpled note. "It is not 
 my composition, altho' written in a metre which I affect. 
 It has a history, but I prefer to let it speak for itself. Will 
 you be good enough to read it, Doctor?" 
 
 "Oh, no, no!" said the doctor, hastily. "I don't care for 
 poetry, and I'm not a reader. I wouldn't do it justice." 
 
 "Well, Father Dillon?" said Mr. Hunt, looking towards 
 the priest. 
 
 "I'm afraid," said Father DiUon, taking the paper, "that 
 if it is sentimental it is not in my line. I see — no, it would 
 never do for me," he continued, after scanning the first verse. 
 "Perhaps the Professor?" 
 
 But the Professor said he had taken cold coming down in the 
 
SESSION TWELFTH 123 
 
 5.20 p.m. from Cork, and his voice was husky. He added that 
 it would be always prudent to sit with one's back to the engine. 
 
 "Unfortunately," said Mr. Himt, "it is supposed to be 
 spoken by a gentleman, and hence I cannot ask any of the 
 ladies to do us the pleasure." 
 
 "Perhaps Mr. Marshall would make his debut by reading 
 for us," suggested Father DiUon. 
 
 Mr. Hunt seemed to hesitate, but he could not withdraw 
 the invitation. He held the paper towards Mr. Marshall. 
 The latter took it, looked over it in silence for a few minutes, 
 and said: 
 
 "'Tis rather pathetic, I think. I doubt if I can do it 
 justice." 
 
 "Try!" said Mr. Hunt. 
 
 And Mr. Marshall, one hand on his knee, and the other 
 holding the paper aloft beneath the light, read in a deep, soft, 
 baritone voice: 
 
 BABETTE 
 
 I 
 Baby, and Baby, and Baby, hath Heaven lent you to-night 
 Out from its ranks of seraphs to bless an old man's sight? 
 I thought I had said Good-bye! and for ever long ago, 
 When I kissed your cold dead lips, and the gold on your fore- 
 head of snow. 
 
 n 
 Life is a dream, and Death is a Dream in a turbid sleep. 
 He hath given his angels watch and ward over men to keep; 
 And the laughing angels, too, must play with the children of men, 
 Weaving fancies and visions beyond the mortals' ken. 
 
 m 
 Ah! but 'tis tragic play; as witness with you and me, 
 They wove their charms around us, and wrapped us in mystery. 
 And I was dreaming this long while past that you, Babette, were 
 
 dead; 
 As if Death could ever close such eyes, or uncurl the rings on your 
 
 head. 
 
124 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 rv 
 Never! You never died. You were always with me as to-night, 
 When the flames leap up to challenge the starry and lambent light 
 Of eyes that are blue as the violets, washed in the April rains, 
 And the dust of the March is gone; and the sweetness of Spring 
 remains. 
 
 V 
 There, the old trick again! clutching those tiny toes, 
 And asking of deep, dead things which never the wisest knows; 
 Why? and why? and why? 'tis ever with mortals thus — 
 Child of three and century sage — puzzled and curious. 
 
 VI 
 The little shirt falls down, and opens the milk-white neck. 
 Where the golden curls riot, without or order or check. 
 And the sweet blue eyes are wandering, like hoimds on an ardent 
 
 chase 
 From fire to picture, picture to fire, till they rest on my watching 
 
 face. 
 
 vn 
 'Sh! See who's behind you! Baby, 'tis time for bed; 
 Time for the clean, cool sheets, and a rest for a curly head; 
 Don't look aroimd! 'Tis Mamma! And Mamma is very cross! 
 (God! who shall measiure my pain, my sense of the double loss?) 
 
 vm 
 Come, little man, and hide! Here, I will fold you around. 
 'Sh! For Mamma is sharp; she can hear the faintest sotmd; 
 At least from her baby's Ups; the lips she has kissed so oft. 
 While they babbled of baby things, and felt so smooth and so soft. 
 
 IX 
 
 There, curl up in my lap. The night is dreary and long, 
 
 E'en though the sweet, cool dreams come down with the angels' 
 
 song; 
 Curl up those little limbs, and hide the simniest head. 
 There, Mamma! Baby is gone to his nest in his cradle-bed. 
 
SESSION TWELFTH 125 
 
 X 
 
 Am I mad? Or do I dream? Is my brain a-whirl to-night? 
 Is it nought but a vision shadowed on the dark by the red firelight? 
 Gone are mother and babe; and the terrible fact remains 
 Of a lonely room, and a lonely man, and the swish of December 
 rains. 
 
 XI 
 
 Phantoms we are, and phantoms we vainly and ever pursue; 
 No wisest man as yet hath sifted the false from the true; 
 But if the visions that lingered behind my fireside chair — 
 The wraith of a sainted mother, of a Babe with sunlit hair 
 
 xn 
 Are only the play of the spirits that mock the anguish of men. 
 Drawing shadows and lights with alas! too certain a pen; 
 May God give them human hearts, as He gave to His Son, who 
 
 wept 
 For the lonely sisters, and raised the girl from the couch where she 
 
 slept. 
 
 xin 
 I have vowed and ever vowed that I never would forge the chains 
 Of human affection to mine, while ever the breath remains; 
 And I'll keep it for evermore; I'll keep it and never lack 
 The peace that flies the soul, that is stretched on the weary rack 
 
 XIV 
 
 Of a love that is lavished on mortals, and therefore passing and 
 
 frail; 
 I will keep my love for the spirits that are hiding behind the veU. 
 For the love of mortals, though frail, doth snap the strings of my 
 
 heart, 
 I'm a lonely man to-night, for that dream that will never depart! 
 
SESSION THIRTEENTH 
 
 The Professor and Miss Eraser were walking up and down 
 the railway platform, the former waiting for the mail, that 
 was to take him to Cork; the latter waiting for the same train 
 that was to take her to Rushbrooke, where she was then 
 stajdng. 
 
 "It was good of Mr. Hunt," she said, "to lend that poem. 
 It has a history, dearly, and probably a pathetic one." 
 
 "Do you think you could call it poetry?" the professor 
 questioned. 
 
 "That brings up the eternal question, 'What is Poetry?'" 
 she answered. "Only yesterday I read somewhere how much 
 Teimyson admired our Bums, but only his Ijndcal and love 
 pieces, which he called transparent as a dewdrop, bright as a 
 cherry, etc. He carefully excluded his longer and more serious 
 poems, such as the 'Cottar's Saturday Night.' Wordsworth 
 was also an admirer of poor Bobby, but only for his long poems. 
 He thought his songs worthless. And Carlyle considered 
 'Tam o' Shanter' a great epic. But if to be deeply touched 
 is a test of poetry, I confess 'Babette' touched me — and 
 you. Professor!" 
 
 "How sharp you ladies are," he said. "I thought I kept 
 myself absolutely impassive." 
 
 ' ' Yes. But I noticed you shuffing in your chair, and putting 
 your hand to your face," she said. 
 
 " It was kind of Father Dillon to ask poor Marshall to read 
 that poem," said the Professor, anxious to get away from his 
 own personality, "and he read it well. What a magic there 
 is in the human voice!" 
 
 "Have you read any of Mr. Marshall's verses?" she asked. 
 
 "Only the classical poems in blank verse," he replied. 
 
 126 
 
SESSION THIRTEENTH 127 
 
 "What was your opinion of them?" 
 
 "I think if he Uved in England he would rank amongst the 
 very first of the minor poets. The very least I can say of 
 them is that they have caught the very spirit of Greece and 
 Rome." 
 
 "I am ever so pleased to hear you say so," she said. "I 
 have cut them all out and pasted them into a scrap-book. 
 Of course, no one reads them here?" 
 
 "Not one," he replied. "They wouldn't imderstand them. 
 The wonder is that any editor inserts them." 
 
 "Would it not be kind to let Mr. Marshall know what we 
 think?" she said. 
 
 "Yes," he replied, half dubiously. "It is so hard to speak 
 of such things, but — " 
 
 "I shall tell him," she said. "Or, I shaU get Father Dillon 
 — by the way, what a kind, prudent, tactful man he is — to 
 bring hfm out some evening. I won't let Mr. Hunt have all 
 the glory to himself." 
 
 "Take care!" said the Professor. "Poets are very jealous. 
 Here's our train." 
 
 When he opened the carriage door for her at Rushbrooke, 
 she bade him good-night, and said: 
 
 "Perhaps you are right. I shall tell Mr. Marshall what the 
 Professor of Philology in the 'Qtieen's' thinks of his little 
 ephemerae." 
 
 He smiled, and drew back the door gently. 
 
 Mr. Marshall was also the subject of a confidential chat 
 between Mrs. Skelton and the doctor's wife. 
 
 "Do you know, my dear," said the former, "I was very 
 near giving way. It reminded me of poor little Cjril. And 
 I think Robert was affected too. He said we must ask poor 
 Marshall some day to dinner." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Holden, "it was all very sad. I 
 almost forgot his soiled collar. And the doctor said that such 
 things should never be written or read. There's enough of 
 tragedy in real life. But, about dinner, my dear — ahem! " 
 
128 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "I know your objection, dear," said Mrs. Skelton, "but I 
 think we are quite safe. Of course, it would be dreadful to 
 compromise ourselves with anyone we could not well recognise. 
 But I think, notwithstanding all appearances, this Mr. 
 Marshall is all right. Robert — you know managers have to 
 make inqiuries of each other — has foimd out that he is cer- 
 tainly one of the MarshaUs of Marshallstown, one of whom 
 
 married Lord 's daughter. There was a little romance 
 
 about it, and I think some of those writing people brought it 
 into a book — " 
 
 "Ah! I remember," said her friend. "I suppose 'twas 
 that lovely story about Camilla. Wouldn't it be delightful if 
 Mr. Marshall were Camilla's son, or grandson, or even grand- 
 nephew? " 
 
 "All I know is that Robert thinks well of him. He says 
 there's but one life between him and the Marshallstown 
 property." 
 
 "My goodness — only one life?" 
 
 "Only one, and an idiot! And that one is threatened with 
 decline and has to live abroad." 
 
 "Oh, then we must be civil to him. But those dirty nails, 
 and — his cuffs! What kind of a servant does he keep, I 
 wonder." 
 
 "Like all the rest, I suppose. But, in any case, you can't 
 get these poets and geniuses to mind such things as decency 
 and cleanliness. They're always up in the moon, you know." 
 
 "But, look at Mr. Hunt! He's a genius, I know. And he 
 is quite fastidious in his dress." 
 
 "Ah, that's his English training, my dear; they make clean- 
 liness their religion. I wish that our poor Irish would only 
 imitate them. But that seems hopeless." 
 
 "And then, of course, there's Hester. Don't you think 
 that her presence has something to say to it?" 
 
 "I don't know," said Mrs. Skelton. "I think Hester 
 will enter religion." 
 
 "Be a nun? That would be too dreadful, and she drawing 
 
SESSION THIRTEENTH 129 
 
 on that young man with every little wile and artifice. Why, 
 my dear, it would be shameful." 
 
 "Well, well, who Uves will see," said Mrs. Skelton. "But 
 now, my dear, Christmas is close at hand, only a bare ten days. 
 I was thinking of having a house-party on Christmas Night." 
 
 "Oh, and so was I," said Mrs. Holden. 
 
 "And were you going to ask all the members of the — I can 
 never remember that horrid name?" 
 
 "Yes, all! I'm afraid Father Dillon can't come because 
 he is bound to dine with the Bishop, you know. But he may 
 run down afterwards. A clerical dinner must be a stupid thing, 
 and he's so clever!" 
 
 "Then you have issued your invitations?" said Mrs. Skel- 
 ton, who was indignant at having been forestalled. 
 
 "N — ^no, not yet," said the doctor's wife. "I was just 
 thinking over the matter. Could we compromise? There's 
 New Year's Day, for example." 
 
 "Very well, then, I shall leave Christmas to you, dear," 
 said Mrs. Skelton, amiably. 
 
 "Did you see that strange account in the paper yesterday," 
 said the Professor, at the weekly meeting, and addressing the 
 chairman, "of the discovery made by a French savant that 
 this soUd earth of ours oscillates almost like a Uquid, and that 
 its surface rises and falls fully six inches in every twenty-four 
 hours?" 
 
 "I haven't seen it," said Father Dillon. "How strange!" 
 
 "Yes. And another Frenchman, an Abbe, maintains that 
 it is quite a mistake to suppose that this earth is an oblate 
 spheroid flattened at the poles. He says it is pear-shape, 
 the thickest parts being in the northern hemisphere, and the 
 southern hemisphere tapering down towards the South Pole. 
 He seems to think that the conformation of South Africa 
 and South America have a direct bearing on this theory." 
 
 "Have you seen that, Mr. Hunt? " said Father Dillon. "It 
 is interesting, if true." 
 10 
 
I30 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "I haven't seen the statements quoted by the Professor," 
 said that young gentleman, "but — " 
 
 He stopped, and looked around. 
 
 "I hope," he continued, in a deprecatory manner, "it is 
 not too presumptuous for me to say so, but I can hardly 
 regard the discovery of that French savant as something 
 original. The latter discovery by the French Abbe is un- 
 doubtedly subversive of all our ideas as to the structure and 
 shape of the earth, and I should like to see how the theory is 
 proved. But, if you consider for a moment the fact that most 
 probably this globe of ours is a mass of incandescent gas, 
 surroimded by a thin film of solid matter not more than 
 twenty miles in thickness, and that this fiery mass not only 
 swings on its axis with terrific speed, but is carried along 
 through space with appalling swiftness, the wonder is not that 
 its surface oscillates, and dips, and bends, but that it does not 
 fly into fragments every moment." 
 
 "Then you think that our earth, instead of being the solid 
 marble of our boyhood, is rather the elastic india rubber ball? " 
 
 "Undoubtedly. That just puts the matter in its scientific 
 aspect. And you may have noticed that when an india rubber 
 ball has been sped along from a teimis bat or a racket bat 
 it certainly assumes a spheroid form, proving its uniform 
 elasticity." 
 
 "And would this accovmt for our earthquakes?" 
 
 "Of course. You hear now and again of great earth- 
 cataclysms, but the seismographs of the world to-day record 
 earthquakes, or rather earth-splits, every hour of the day." 
 
 "That is, this old earth of ours is cracking and splitting its 
 surface every moment?" 
 
 "Certainly. The surface of the earth is changing every 
 moment, not only through the slow process of geological trans- 
 formations, but by the sudden and violent shocks it receives 
 every moment. You may be quite sure that, were it not for 
 that thick elastic pad, called our atmosphere, this ball of ours 
 
SESSION THIRTEENTH 131 
 
 would either fly to pieces, or blaze out into a meteor, and 
 vanish." ^ 
 
 "But that rising and falling of the earth's surface, and those 
 oscillations," said the Professor. "How is it that we cannot 
 perceive them?" 
 
 "Does a fly in the window-pane of a railway carriage per- 
 ceive the vibrations of the express train, or has he any con- 
 ception of the fact that he is moving and being carried along 
 at a rate of sixty miles an hour? " 
 
 "Of course not," said the Professor. 
 
 "Well, we are the flies, buzzing aroimd a little on that 
 express train called the earth, which speeds along at eighteen 
 miles a second." 
 
 "It makes us very small," said Mrs. Holden, laughing. "If 
 we are only flies, Mr. Hunt, where's the use of — anything? " 
 
 "Ah, yes," said the yoimg man sadly, "where's the use of 
 anything?" 
 
 "Now, Mr. Hunt, I won't have these sighs," said Father 
 Dillon. "We are here to search into everything, to probe 
 everything, to get at the causes of everything; but I don't 
 admit for a moment that we are going to be depressed by 
 our investigations. How is it that the old lines rim: 
 
 "'Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.'" 
 
 "Why, Father Dillon," said Hester Hope, "these, I'm sure, 
 are Mr. Hunt's ideas also. I have heard Mr. Hunt say that 
 it is science, and science alone, that has enlarged our scope of 
 vision, and by revealing the grandeur of the universe has also 
 revealed the nobiUty of man." 
 
 "Quite true," said Mr. Hunt. "I cannot be a recreant to 
 my own opinions. I still say that it is science that has magni- 
 fied the universe, and with it the mind of man, because no 
 matter how great and striking may be the revelations of science 
 the mind mounts beyond them, and makes little of them. 
 Take, for example, modern statistics, which this little inquisi- 
 
132 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 tive being called man has compiled. It sounds quite astonish- 
 ing that the salt in the ocean would make 4,800,000 cubes, 
 each one mile in dimension; or that the rivers of the earth 
 carry 5,000,000,000 tons of solid matter every year to the sea; 
 or that the Mississippi alone carries down past New Orleans 
 98,369,000 tons of dissolved salts every year. Or again, 
 if it be true, as it is, that the sea water contains one grain of 
 gold to every ton of water, it would mean that there are 
 thousands of millions of tons of the yellow metal held in 
 solution by the ocean, the volume of water in the ocean being 
 302,000,000 cubic miles. Yet, when you have heard all this, 
 your imagination leaps beyond it, and you regard it with 
 indifference. Nay, even when we go out beyond this little 
 moth-planet, and begin to measure space, at first the stretch 
 of imagination fatigues us, and then we find that we are equal 
 to it, and then that we are greater." 
 
 "Ah, yes! " said Mr. Marshall, who had been biting his nails 
 all along in impatience about this glorification of science, and 
 who now smiled, as if he were propounding a discovery. 
 "There are some things, however, with which we caimot 
 measure ourselves, and before which we sink down in abject 
 humility, and yet how small they appear — a line of poetry, 
 a flower, an autumn sxmset, a child's face. You remember 
 the lines of Shakspeare: 
 
 "'The singing masons building roofs of gold;' 
 or: 
 
 "'daffodils, 
 That come before the swallow dares, and take 
 The winds of March with beauty.' 
 
 There ! You never cease wondering at these marvels of speech. 
 You cannot measure yourself with these!" 
 
 "And why, Mr. Marshall?" said Mr. Himt, smiling at such 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 "Because," said Mr. Marshall, "you may unravel and dis- 
 cover the operations of science, and reduce them to certain 
 
SESSION THIRTEENTH 133 
 
 laws, such as gravitation, attraction, etc., but you cannot, 
 if you labour for a century, discover the secret that created 
 such lines as these. It evades you, it baffles you; and there- 
 fore, you feel you are not its equal. These are small things, 
 these lines, and I could quote you many more. But they tower 
 above you like the untrodden peaks of the Himalayas. The 
 scientist is a mere digger and delver; the poet is a mystery 
 and divine." 
 
 " Then you hold that a line of poetry is a greater thing than a 
 star like Arcturus, or a Halley's Comet? " said Father Dillon. 
 
 "Undoubtedly," said Mr. Marshall. "And, just in the 
 same way, there may be certain musical passages that are 
 greater even than the genius of their composers, and before 
 which even the mind of a Beethoven has sunk down in amaze- 
 ment. Do you think that Raffaelle, when he finished his 
 Madonna, did not fall down and worship it? You may be 
 sure he did, and you may be sure that when the full splendour 
 and magnificence of that pictured glory burst upon him he 
 knelt down and whispered: 
 
 '"Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, 
 Sad nomini tuo da gloriam.' " 
 
 "I must say," said Mrs. Holden in her severest tone, "that 
 you gentlemen are oblivious of the most ordinary rules of 
 politeness in quoting Latin before ladies. You were the first 
 to offend. Father Dillon, and now Mr. Marshall. Really, it 
 is nearly as bad as whispering in company." 
 
 Father Dillon took the rebuke with his usual serenity, but 
 poor Mr. Marshall was desperately flurried. He was a neo- 
 phyte, and did not understand the mysteries, least of all the 
 mysteries of woman's mind, probably the most cryptic thing 
 on this planet. He blushed furiously, and made a pretty and 
 conciliating speech. Mrs. Holden was for some time inex- 
 orable, then she remembered Lord and the Marshalls of 
 
 Marshallstown, and relented. 
 
 "I believe gentlemen are not permitted to make Latin 
 
134 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 quotations in Parliament nowadays," she said, as if the House 
 of Commons were summoned to support her indignation. 
 
 "There is some reason for that," said Father Dillon. 
 "Three out of every four members would be unable to quote 
 correctly." 
 
 "My! That is strange," said Mrs. Holden. "I heard the 
 House of Commons styled the first gentleman's club in 
 Europe." 
 
 "Always excepting the Army and Navy Club, and the 
 Major, eh, Skelton?" said the doctor. 
 
 "Well, we won't discuss the matter," said Father Dillon. 
 "But to come back for a moment to the thesis before the meet- 
 ing, I should like to ask Mr. Marshall who is to decide what 
 are great lines in literature, because I am not always prepared 
 to bow down and adore the whims of the multitude, or the 
 dicta of the critics. For example, I totally disagree with the 
 opinions which are formed about the world's greatest books." 
 
 "Why, that's the subject of my paper this evening," said 
 Miss Hope. "It is hard to be criticised on the spot, but it is 
 harder to be anticipated." 
 
 And the chairman made the most profuse, apologies, and 
 Miss Hope read her paper, with the title, "What is a Classic?" 
 the purport of which may be gleaned from the discussion at 
 the next Session. 
 
SESSION FOURTEENTH 
 
 "I SUPPOSE," said Father Dillon, opening the next Session, 
 " that it is universally admitted that the highest compliment 
 that can be paid to a book, or a poem, or an essay, is to discuss 
 it. I am not an author, and therefore cannot testify to the 
 pangs and pleasvfres of authorship. But I believe that the 
 most acute suffering that can be inflicted on that deserving 
 class is to receive their work in silence. Hence, the highest 
 compliment we can pay to our members is to discuss their 
 papers, and so I proceed to open the debate, if debate there 
 will be, about Miss Hope's admirable paper. Miss Hope at 
 once defined a 'classic' to be that work which has stood the 
 test of time, and has been consecrated by the verdicts of 
 generation after generation, until now it is niched safely in the 
 great temple of himian hterature. There it is fixed in adamant, 
 and it cannot be deposed any more, and for ever — " 
 
 "But, pardon me for interrupting you," said the Professor, 
 "but I don't think it has been clearly defined who are the 
 judges in each generation, or who are qualified to pass the 
 final verdict. Is this a purely relative matter, hke so many 
 other things, depending on each one's taste or idiosjmcracy, 
 or have the nations agreed on a fixed standard, like the metals 
 of commerce, to test what shall be recognised as sterling 
 literature or otherwise?" ^ 
 
 "I should say so," said Father Dillon. "After all, in this 
 matter we have to fall back upon the experts." 
 
 "And is there no choice allowed?" asked the Professor. 
 
 "Certainly," said the priest. "There is perfect Hberty for 
 everyone to select what pleases himself in literature — " 
 
 "No, no, that's not the point," said the Professor. "Of 
 course, everyone has that individual freedom. But is it 
 
 I3S 
 
136 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 competent for me to say: This book is a classic, because I 
 like it; that book, usually called a classic, is one I thoroughly 
 dislike? Because, to be very candid, and really there is very 
 little candour in the world in this matter of taste, there are 
 many books, styled classics, which I would regard as a thorough 
 penance to have to read, and there are some books, utterly 
 unrecognised, that have been a source of great pleasure and 
 comfort to me; and again, I have had variable tastes during 
 my Kfe, and the books that pleased me in my childhood I 
 could not read in my adolescence; and the books that pleased 
 me in my youth I cannot read now." 
 
 "I don't know whether the Professor's experience is gen- 
 eral," said Father Dillon, looking around inquiringly, "but 
 I suppose in this matter we have to accept the verdict of the 
 public." 
 
 "But, my dear Father Dillon," said the Professor, "what 
 if the public is invariably wrong? For example, George 
 Eliot was styled a ' classic ' in her day. I am told no one reads 
 her now. I have seen her 'Mrs. Poyser' held up as the most 
 perfect example of humour in the Enghsh language. I con- 
 fess I never could see where the humour lay, and I must also 
 confess that I think her the most tiresome writer of modern 
 times. Then, there is Dickens. Once in my youth I was 
 enraptured with everything Dickens wrote. I thought he 
 was the most perfect writer of the two great elements^ in 
 dramatic literature — humour and pathos. Now, if I take 
 him up, I perceive at once that he was a most inartistic writer, 
 because he is redundant and repetitive beyond all patience — 
 witness Mrs. Nickleby and Flora Casby, and a hundred more — 
 because his pathos is artificial — no mature mind will weep 
 over Little Nell or Paul Dombey in these days; and because 
 his humour is burlesque and caricature, not the genuine, 
 delicate humour of a Sterne or a Richter." 
 
 "But, my dear Professor," said Miss Hope, "if I may defend 
 myself, although on my trial, you must remember that I do 
 not consider either George Eliot or Dickens classics. The 
 
SESSION FOURTEENTH 137 
 
 final verdict is not yet given. They are novi homines as yet. 
 We have not enrolled them amongst our nobles." 
 
 "Ah, qmte true, quite true, Miss Hope," said the Professor. 
 "But I am tr3dng to gauge what is the final norm or standard 
 of excellence in literature. Clearly it is not popularity, nor 
 the current taste of one generation, nor individual taste. 
 What, then, is it?" 
 
 "It is, as I have already stated in my paper," said Miss 
 Hope, looking a little piqued at the Professor's persistence, 
 "the concurrence of the public opitiion of generation after 
 generation, until there is no longer room for dissent." 
 
 "Then, if I cannot concur in the verdict of the ages, is it 
 to be concluded that my taste is at fault, or that the general 
 verdict is faulty and misleading? " 
 
 "Well, I can hardly suppose the latter," said Miss Hope, 
 smiling. 
 
 "Because I most certainly do not accept the general verdict 
 on several books that are reputed classics; and on the other 
 hand, I consider many books masterpieces, such as several of 
 the plays of Euripides, which are scorned by so-called critics. 
 I think the French drama, always excepting Moliere, deplo- 
 rable. I think Calderon the greatest European genius after 
 Shakspeare: and I'm not quite sure that I should place him 
 after Shakspeare. I think Goethe's 'Faust' utterly condem- 
 nable, except for the opening prologues. I think the Second 
 Part utterly inexcusable. I could never get beyond the Fourth 
 chapter of 'Don Quixote;' I detest Montaigne; I think the 
 books of Boccaccio and Rabelais should be burned by the 
 common hangman; I had rather read the 'Comus' of Milton 
 than 'Paradise Lost'; I think the 'Faerie Queene' unbear- 
 able, and I should like to see with my own eyes the man who 
 had scrambled through the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' I think 
 'Julius Cassar ' the greatest of Shakspeare's dramas; and I think 
 there are lines in 'Marlowe' that Shakspeare could not have 
 written. I think Sir Thomas Browne the greatest of English 
 essayists. I do not accept the criticisms of Hazlitt — " 
 
138 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "Did you ever read 'Alice in Wonderland?'" said Mrs. 
 Holden. 
 
 There was a slight titter that embarrassed the Professor a 
 little. 
 
 "No," he said, "I cannot say that I did. Once or twice I 
 took up that book in a friend's house, opened a page or two 
 and put it down. I saw enough to convince me that it was 
 possibly the wildest farrago of unlicensed nonsense that ever 
 came forth from the himian brain. And — " 
 
 "The children love that book," said Mrs. Holden. "It 
 was written for children." 
 
 "I was just about to say," said the Professor, "that children 
 declare the book intolerable. I know one little girl who hides 
 it under the sofa pillows whenever she gets the chance." 
 
 "To have it all to herself, I suppose," said Mr. Hunt, 
 smiling. 
 
 "Not at all, but lest her papa or mamma should ask her to 
 take it up and read it for the edification of her brothers and 
 sisters, who equally detest it. In fact, there is a childish 
 conspiracy organised against the book." 
 
 "I think," said Miss Eraser, "that the judgment of a man 
 like Lord Macaulay, who had read and remembered every- 
 thing, and who was acknowledged to be a competent critic, 
 should be regarded as final. At least, I always find it quite 
 pleasant to be directed in my course of reading by some one 
 whose taste is better formed than mine." 
 
 " I have no objection to such a course," said the Professor, 
 "although I should suppose such guidance would be unneces- 
 sary in your case — " 
 
 The Sunetoi smiled, and there was a faint and quite genteel 
 murmur of applause. 
 
 "But," continued the Professor, "the guide should be a 
 safe one, and I don't know, in the whole of my experience of 
 authors, a more imreliable, unsafe, and untrustworthy guide 
 than the aforesaid Lord Macaulay." 
 
 There was a gasp of surprise, but the Professor went on: 
 
SESSION FOURTEENTH 139 
 
 "I always distrust preacher, teacher, or critic who is abso- 
 lutely sure of himself, and who dogmatises in such a manner 
 that he leaves no room for a second opinion. I suppose such 
 dogmatism offends my sense of pride, and I rise up in natural 
 revolt against it. But I find invariably that modest men are 
 right. I remember, and never without a sense of rising indig- 
 nation, aU the bitter and unjust things that were said against 
 young poets in the commencement of the last century, poets 
 that are now enshrined and immortal. And, when I find 
 Macaulay and Matthew Arnold adopting the same tone of 
 infallibiUty, I at once reverse their verdict in my own mind. 
 I conceived an aversion to the 'Vicar of Wakefield' because 
 Macaulay somewhere praises that book, and, if anything 
 could add to my adoring appreciation of Shelley, it is the 
 highly absurd censorship which Matthew Arnold assumes 
 towards that poet and his works. Amongst our writers, I 
 have seen nowhere such just and impartial criticism of our 
 English poets as that of Mr. Lowell; and, of course, in France, 
 Sainte-Beuve remains supreme." 
 
 "You seem to think, Professor," said Mr. Hunt, "that poets 
 are not the best, or most impartial judges of poets." 
 
 "Certainly not. The very best proof of this is that poets 
 are invariably the worst judges of their own work. You will 
 hardly find a single case where the judgment of the poet and 
 the judgment of the public is at one." 
 
 "But could not a poet be an excellent judge of other work 
 than his own, even though he was blind to his own defects, or 
 excellences? " 
 
 "Hardly. In fact, there is always war on Parnassus, 
 and then, there must be bias and prejudice; or there is ex- 
 cessive humility, and then there is warped judgment. Goethe 
 regarded Byron as the meteor-genius of Europe. Byron 
 retorted that Goethe was a demi-god. Neither of them 
 dreamed that the thin, fragile spirit of Shelley was greater 
 than either; neither did Shelley know it himself. Edgar 
 Allan Poe, the first great master of form, foretold the genius 
 
I40 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 of Tennyson from 'Tears, Idle Tears,' but Swinburne can see 
 no good in Emerson, because the latter had not the gift of 
 poetical form. Robert Buchanan turns Wordsworth into 
 prose, and sees in it only the preaching of a revivalist, and 
 Cardinal Newman thinks Crabbe — good heavens! — one of 
 the greatest of moderns." 
 
 "But do you think, Professor, that Cardinal Newman was 
 a poet?" asked Father Dillon, who expected an emphatic 
 aflSrmative, for his enthusiasm about the gr'eat Oratorian was 
 unbounded. 
 
 "Emphatically no!" said the Professor. "I hope I am 
 not wounding any religious susceptibilities — " 
 
 "Oh, no, no, no!" said Father Dillon, who was anxious to 
 smother his mortification, "this is a question not of religion, 
 but of taste." 
 
 "I am of opinion," said the Professor, "that the late 
 Cardinal was too much of a dialectician to be a poet. Except 
 Mr. Gladstone, I do not know of any public man in modem 
 times who had such a talent for using language to conceal 
 thought as your great Oratorian. I don't make this remark 
 in a depreciatory sense, or as implying a lack of perfect candour 
 and honesty. But there is a certain class of intellect that 
 looks all round a subject and studies it from every stand- 
 point, and caimot therefore express a direct opinion. These 
 form the very worst witnesses in a court of justice, and are 
 the despair of lawyers. They are cold reasoners, dialecti- 
 cians, hair splitters. Probably they serve their own purpose 
 in Kfe. But between such logic-choppers and the magnificent 
 idealism of a poet there is a universe that cannot be bridged 
 over. They lack the cestrum, the Divine fury of the inspired 
 singer." 
 
 "I thought 'The Dream of Gerontius' was already recog- 
 nised as a classic," said Father Dillon. "And surely 'Lead 
 Kindly Light' is the most universally popular hymn in the 
 whole world." 
 
 "H)ann, rhythmical prayer, aspiration? Yes. Poem? 
 
SESSION FOURTEENTH 141 
 
 No!" said the Professor. "I am awfully sorry to have to 
 say such things, but there is a tendency in every religious 
 organisation to attribute to its leaders not only their own 
 specific merits, but all other gifts of the Spirit. I think this 
 a mistake. I grant your great Cardinal pre-eminence as 
 preacher, writer, reasoner, historian, but he had not the gift 
 of song, any more than Ruskin or Carlyle. Nature is economi- 
 cal and impartial. She divides her gifts among her children. 
 But we are wandering away from the subject. I think we were 
 discussing the question whether poets can be judges of poets. 
 Now there comes to my mind a curious instance of how poets 
 differ. You are aware that Ben Jonson was a Httle jealous 
 and arrogant, and at one time he wrote an ode in which he 
 threatened to quit the stage — " 
 
 "That's mine! That's mine!" shouted Mr. Marshall, 
 springing up, his eyes blazing, his short fluffy hair standing on 
 end. "How dare you, sir? That's my property. I appeal 
 to Mr. Skelton. Have you not heard me quote that ode, 
 again and again?" 
 
 There was some consternation. Then, a lot of mutual 
 explanations, and at length Father Dillon carried his proposi- 
 tion to adjourn the question to the next Session. 
 
SESSION FIFTEENTH 
 
 It is fortunate that there are still in Ireland a few per- 
 sons who can take life serenely, and pass over its little ruts 
 and hindrances with philosophic calmness. The good young 
 priest who was the presiding genius at these meetings was a 
 great deal concerned about the little scene that took place 
 at the last Session, but he was greatly relieved to find at the 
 next meeting that everything was suave and peaceful, and 
 that Mr. Marshall and the Professor had exchanged confi- 
 dences that led to mutual understanding. 
 
 As if to emphasise the importance of the occasion, Mr. 
 Marshall appeared before the Sunetoi with a high, clean collar, 
 and clean cuffs, a little frayed, however, from the wash and 
 the abrasions of time. He looked a little doubtfully towards 
 the Professor, and the Professor looked at him, as if question- 
 ing which of the two should open the ball. At length Mr. 
 Marshall, with a faint blush spreading over his handsome 
 features, and making the old man beautiful, said: 
 
 "I have again to apologise to the ladies and gentlemen here 
 present, more especially to the ladies, for the very unseemly 
 interruption into which I allowed my feehngs to betray me at 
 our last meeting. It was an ill return for the high compliment 
 of being admitted into such a charming and intellectual 
 circle. I can only promise that it shall not occur again. 
 To explain my — well, undue excitement, I may say that I 
 have been for some years interested in what is called the 
 Shakspeare-Bacon controversy, and I have read up all that 
 is written on that obscure but fascinating subject. I — ah 
 thought (of course, it was an unworthy suspicion) that the 
 Professor, in laying down the principle that a great dialec- 
 tician cannot be a poet, was aiming at my pet theory that 
 
 142 
 
SESSION FIFTEENTH 143 
 
 Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, was verily the chief author 
 of those works which have come down to us under the name of 
 William Shakspeare, for, of course, all the arguments advanced 
 against Cardinal Newman as a poet told with equal severity 
 against Bacon. And then came that allusion to Ben Jonson's 
 ode, which I had hitherto regarded as my own specific dis- 
 covery. How bhnd we are!" said Mr. Marshall, stretching 
 out his hands in a deprecatory manner. "How blind! I was 
 quite sure I had found a something that would close the 
 tremendous controversy for ever. And lo! the Professor 
 quotes the important Odes as a mere war of words between 
 the Elizabethans; and refuses to see in these the practical 
 solution of the great puzzle." 
 
 "I have asked Mr. Marshall," said the Professor, "to be 
 good enough to quote the lines in which he thinks the impor- 
 tant secret is hidden, so that our learned circle may judge for 
 themselves. I am sure that neither Mr. Marshall nor I would 
 care to go beyond the verdict of our Society." 
 
 "Certainly not," said Mr. Marshall. "But I may mention 
 that I have already communicated the important discovery 
 to a well known literary journal, and have received hundreds 
 of letters thanking me for having solved this vexed question 
 for ever." 
 
 The Sunetoi sat up in their chairs, eagerly intent on hearing 
 and discussing this important event in English literature. 
 Robert Skelton, however, was trying to destroy his eyesight 
 for ever in winking at the doctor, who, however, refused to 
 look his way. 
 
 "Let me premise, ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Marshall, 
 "that everything connected with this obscure question is 
 necessarily cryptic and hidden. I suppose to the end of time 
 people wiU discuss the important question, who is the A. H. 
 of the 'Sonnets,' or the 'Dark Ladie.' Hence, if we are to 
 get at the root of the matter, it must be understood that the 
 most we can expect is a hint, a glimpse, a faint suggestion, 
 which, however, may and does reveal the whole truth. If I 
 
144 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 walk down the street, and scent the odour of a vile cigar, 
 I know that some vulgar fellow has passed that way. If I 
 notice the echo, the far-off and dying aura of Eaux de Parme, 
 or Violettes de Chypre, or if I hear on the still air the faint 
 jroiAr-jrou of 'broidered silk, or crepe de Chine, I know that a 
 lady has passed by avec la souplesse de I'osier. So, too, in 
 literature, one gets a hint, a breath, and lo! you know at 
 once what is indicated, as infallibly as if the fact were stated 
 categorically. Now, our good friend, Ben Jonson, was about 
 to leave the stage, sick, I suppose, of the fraud and hypocrisy 
 of the whole thing, and he wrote a farewell ode which one 
 of his contemporaries styles 'A Magisterial Ode,' in which 
 he says: 
 
 "'Come, leave the loathed stage. 
 
 And the more loathsome age; 
 Where pride and impudence (in faction knit) 
 
 Usurp the chair of wit; 
 Inditing and arraigning every day 
 
 Something they call a play. 
 
 Let their fastidious, vaine 
 
 Commission of braine 
 Run on, and rage, sweat, censure and condenm; 
 They were not made for thee — less thou for them. 
 
 " ' Say that thou pourest them wheat, 
 
 And they will acorns eat; 
 'Twere simply fury, still, thyself to waste, 
 
 On such as have no taste! 
 To offer them a surfeit of pure bread, 
 
 Whose appetites are dead! 
 
 No, give them graines their fill, 
 
 Husks, draff, to drink and swill. 
 If they love lees, and leave the lusty wine. 
 Envy them not their palate with the swine.' 
 
 That all this is pointing at the plajrwright, Shakspeare, is 
 shown in the following stanza: 
 
SESSION FIFTEENTH 145 
 
 "'No doubt some mouldy tale 
 
 Like Pericles, and stale 
 As the shrieve's crusts, and nasty as his fish — 
 
 Scraps out of every dish 
 Thrown forth, and rak't into the common tub. 
 
 May keep up the play-club: 
 
 There sweepings do as well 
 
 As the best ordered meale. 
 For who the relish of these guests will fit. 
 Needs set them but the almes-basket of wit.' 
 
 Now, ladies and gentlemen, mark these words, 'mouldy tale 
 Uke Pericles,' 'fish-scraps out of every dish,' 'rak't into the 
 common tub,' 'almes-basket of wit.' Clearly these words 
 signify that the plays, like 'Pericles,' then before the British 
 public, were simply a hotch-potch, a kind of Irish stew, made 
 up of the alms thrown in by all who were anxious to set up the 
 handsome Shakspeare above his cumbrous rival, Ben Jonson. 
 "Well, there was a reply to this rather bitter valedictory, 
 written by one Owen Feltham, which throws a little more 
 light on the subject. In the fourth stanza some remarkable 
 lines occur. Ben alluded to 'plush and velvet men' in his Ode, 
 and in the retort are found the following significant lines: 
 
 "'There are plush who scorn to drudge 
 For stages, yet can judge 
 Not only poets' looser Hnes, but wits, 
 And all their perquisits; 
 A gift as rich as high 
 Is noble poesie; 
 Yet, though in sport it be for kings to play. 
 'Tis next liiechanicks' when it works for pay.' 
 
 Clearly the words 'who scorn to drudge for stages,' 'yet can 
 judge not only poets' looser lines, but wits,' refer to some 
 person far above the position of a mere plajrwright. And 
 again, the words 'though in sport it be for kings to play, 'Tis 
 next mechanicks' when it works for pay' apply to someone 
 
146 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 who ranked with kings, and who was not obliged to labour at 
 the stage for the pay of a mechanic. Feltham, attacking 
 Ben Jonson, did so from the shelter of princes' patronage, and 
 with the armour of Goliath. 
 
 "Finally, there was a rejoinder to this from Randolph, a 
 friend and admirer of Ben Jonson's genius: 
 
 "'Ben, do not leave the stage 
 
 Cause 'tis a loathsome age; 
 For pride and impudence will grow too bold 
 When they shall hear it told 
 
 They frighted thee; stand high, as is thy Cause! 
 
 Their hiss is thy applause; 
 
 More just were thy disdain 
 
 Had they approved thy vein; 
 So thou for them, and they for thee were bom 
 They to incense, and thou as much to scorn.' 
 
 Now mark the second stanza, and compare with the second 
 stanza of the 'Magisterial Ode:' 
 
 " ' Wilt thou engross thy store 
 Of wheat, and pour no more. 
 Because their bacon-brains had such a taste 
 As more delight ia mast — ' 
 
 There is the climax, ladies and gentlemen! You see now that 
 the playwrights who were contending with Ben were using, 
 not their own brains, but the brains of a Bacon, first and 
 greatest of poets, as of philosophers, and were placing in the 
 theatrical mart before an admiring pubUc the works which 
 the great Chancellor disdained to acknowledge." 
 
 Mr. Marshall took out a red cotton handkerchief, and 
 mopped his forehead. There was a suggestion of perfect ease, 
 as well as triumph, in the gesture. The Sunetoi applauded 
 decorously. 
 
 "It must have cost you an enormous amount of labour, 
 Mr. Marshall, to disinter those poems," said Father DiUon, 
 
SESSION FIFTEENTH 147 
 
 admiringly. "Now I consider that that is the most difl&cult 
 feature in authorship and literature — that searching and prob- 
 ing amidst the dust of libraries for long-forgotten poems, and 
 then collating them and comparing them, and drawing impor- 
 tant conclusions from apparently obscure premises." 
 
 " But you have no doubt, you can have no doubt, my dear 
 Father Dillon," said Mr. Marshall, "about the absolutely 
 mathematical proof I have given of the authorship of these 
 plays. Mind, I do not include the 'Sonnets' or the 'Poems' 
 — only the plays." 
 
 "Well," said Father Dillon, diplomatically, "as we arranged 
 in the beginning of this most interesting discussion, I think 
 we shall submit the question to the vote of the members, and 
 I shall reserve my opinion till the last. What do you think, 
 Professor? " 
 
 "I am hardly justified in offering an opinion," said the 
 Professor, with imusual humility, "because I am like a jury- 
 man, who begs to be excused because he has already made up 
 his mind about the guilt of the prisoner. Now, I have never 
 had the slightest doubt that it was the man, William Shak- 
 speare, of Stratford-on-Avon, husband of Anne Hathaway, 
 and afterwards burgher in his native town, who wrote the 
 plays, poems and sonnets that have come down to us iti his 
 name. I have no more doubt about it than I doubt that 
 Ariosto wrote the 'Orlando Furioso,' or Calderon the 'Autos 
 Sacramentales.' " 
 
 "Well then, my dear sir," said Mr. Marshall, with some 
 heat, "you will be pleased to hear that the whole weight of 
 evidence, and, what is more, of deduction, is dead against 
 you. What do you think, Miss Eraser? You are on my side, 
 I know." 
 
 He was so eager, so desperate, that Miss Eraser did not 
 know whether to laugh or be afraid. She compromised with 
 a little smile as she said: 
 
 "I don't think our Bobbie Bums could have written those 
 plays." 
 
148 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 There was a look of blank astomshment on the faces of her 
 hearers. Then Mr. Marshall saw the point. 
 
 "Quite so! Miss Eraser," he said, triumphantly. "And 
 if Bobbie Burns, quite the equal in genius of the deer stealer 
 and poacher of Stratford, and with a better education, could 
 never, even to the wildest imagination of his compatriots and 
 admirers, have written 'Hamlet' or 'Lear,' how can we suppose 
 that the man Shakspeare was the author? That clinches the 
 argiunent. After all, it takes woman's wit and intuition to 
 strike out original arguments. I never heard that comparison 
 before. It is simply admirable. You agree, Miss Hope? " 
 
 Miss Hope was smiling in a rather nervous manner. It 
 was a critical occasion, and it was a question on which she 
 had not quite made up her mind. 
 
 "Really," she said, "I have not been following attentively 
 the argument. I have been thinking rather how we have 
 drifted from the debate on my paper on to another question, 
 whether a great reasoner can be also a great poet, and from 
 that on again to the vexed question: 'Who was Shakspeare?' 
 Of course I know that all discussions of this kind become rather 
 desultory; and perhaps it is just as well they should be so. 
 But I think that important question might be a subject for a 
 special paper — " 
 
 "Ha! I see," said Mr. Marshall, "that Miss Hope is too 
 kind. What do you think, Mr. Hunt?" 
 
 "Ladies first, please," said Mr. Hunt. "I am surprised at 
 you, Mr. Marshall." 
 
 "I stand abashed and corrected," said Mr. Marshall. 
 "Mrs. Holden, I'm sure you are on my side?" 
 
 "Well, really, Mr. Marshall," said that good lady, "I 
 haven't given the subject much attention. My time is so 
 engrossed — and then, I am interested in other matters, you 
 know — " 
 
 "Mrs. Holden is an accomplished musician," said Father 
 Dillon, coming to the lady's rescue. "If you would like to 
 hear ' I know a bank,' or any other lyric of Shakspeare's — I 
 
SESSION FIFTEENTH 149 
 
 mean, of course, that are imputed to Shakspeare — there is 
 no one can render them half so well as Mrs. Holden." 
 
 "You know, Mr. Marshall," said the lady, with a slight 
 pout, "I'm not illiterate, I mean unliterary. I think Uterature 
 is simply lovely, like carnations or sweetwilUam, or — every- 
 thing that is nice, you know; but then — well, you must have 
 time." 
 
 "I quite agree with you. Madam," said Mr. Marshall, "it 
 needs time and training and experience. And it is Just here 
 that this modern world of ours is such an egregious and hope- 
 less failure. It is a pushful, restless, fickle age, eager only to 
 'get through' some certain programme, and have done with 
 it. It does not recognise the tremendous fact that whatever 
 is worth doing is worth doing well; and whatever has to be 
 done well must be done slowly and carefully. Nature is slow 
 in her operations, painfully, laboriously slow. She does noth- 
 ing in a hurry. She is eternal, and can take her own time. 
 But men, probably because they feel their transience, want to 
 cram eternity into an hour, and to grasp the vmiverse with 
 their baby-hands. Hence, we have ill-wrought and unstable 
 work; hence, no culture, no refinement, for culture and refine- 
 ment demand ease and leisure; and there is no room for such 
 things in these hot and hasty days. There is only one race 
 on earth that can do these things, I mean, do the work of life 
 conscientiously and carefully, and that race is the German. 
 They alone have the ancient faculty of being able to build the 
 everlasting pyramid on the shifting sand." 
 
 Mrs. Holden looked surprised, and not a httle puzzled, to 
 find that Mr. Marshall and herself were in thorough accord on 
 such an important matter. She was delighted to find her 
 skeleton-thoughts clothed in such a Directoire dress. 
 
 "Now," continued Mr. Marshall, somewhat excited by his 
 own eloquence, "I suppose not one in ten thousand would 
 dream of searching the whole of Elizabethan Uterature to dis- 
 cover the real key to this vast enigma, and then undertake 
 the labour of collating and comparing these remarkable odes 
 
ISO THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 which I have had the honour of quoting, so as to find their 
 secret significance. We talk so plainly — perhaps I should 
 say in such a banal and literal manner — that we cannot 
 understand that the Elizabethans spoke in charades, and that 
 it was the chief amusement of life to send forth winged words, 
 and get them back again. It was a kind of h'nguistic archery, 
 where everyone sought to hit a certain gold spot with the 
 arrows of language, or rather a kind of tennis, where the ball 
 was tossed from mouth to mouth, and the loser was he who 
 failed in repartee. We know nothing of that art now, when 
 even the art of ordinary decent conversation has fallen into 
 desuetude, but our ignorance explains why it is that we fail 
 to grasp the deep significance of the literature that was con- 
 temporary with, and illustrative of, the Shakspearean drama. 
 I feel that my poor life has not been altogether wasted since, 
 as our good chairman has said, I have given years to the dis- 
 interring of these 'Magisterial Odes,' and commanded them 
 to speak plainly on the ever-interesting problem. But — " 
 Mr. Marshall looked arotmd apologetically, "I have not yet 
 gleaned the opinions of the majority. Mr. Hunt, what do you 
 hold?" 
 
 And Mr. Hunt said rather languidly: 
 
 "I remember seeing these Odes placed in jiixtaposition, but 
 I confess that I could not draw the admirable conclusions in 
 which Mr. Marshall takes such legitimate pride." 
 
 "In juxtaposition?" shrieked Mr. Marshall. "Never, sir! 
 I have not put my ideas and discoveries in print as yet." 
 
 "Then you may spare yourself the trouble," said Mr. Hunt. 
 "You can see them in a very handy and available book called 
 'Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature.'" 
 
SESSION SIXTEENTH 
 
 "Really," said Reginald Hunt to his companion, as they 
 strolled leisurely homeward that evening, "I was pleased to 
 have been able to shut that man up. It was intolerable." 
 
 "Are you still pleased?" said Hester Hope sententiously. 
 
 "Why certainly," he said, "I cannot tolerate pretentious 
 ignorance anywhere; and Mr. Marshall put himself beyond 
 all law." 
 
 "Except one," said Miss Hope. 
 
 He looked at her inquiringly. 
 
 "You woimded the feelings of that poor gentleman in a 
 deadly manner," she said, "and you gained a paltry victory. 
 Was not your vanity gratified at too great a price? " 
 
 He was silent for a few seconds as they walked along. 
 
 "Yes, you are right," he said. "You are always right. 
 It was a mean temptation ; and I yielded to it meanly. But — 
 then — if we are to aUow everything to pass unchallenged, 
 there will be no freedom of discussion; and we shall permit 
 many mistakes and errors to creep in; and the whole thing 
 will be a sham and a mockery." 
 
 "No!" she replied. "It need not become so. Of course, 
 there must be discussion, and contradiction; but it is a great 
 art to be able to discuss, and even contradict, without wrench- 
 ing the nerves of others." 
 
 "Are you not placing charity before truth?" he asked. 
 
 "No," she replied. "I think truth is always first; but 
 do you beheve that the truth cannot be stated without un- 
 kindness? " 
 
 "Well, in the present instance," he said, "I am at a loss to 
 see how." 
 
 "You might have passed it over," she replied. "Remember, 
 you were not challenged for an opinion on these Odes; but as 
 
152 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 to whether these Odes proved his case. It would have been 
 quite easy, if it were necessary, to tell Mr. Marshall privately 
 that these Odes were not quite so difficult of access as he 
 implied. Probably, he would have acknowledged his mistake 
 at our next meeting and gracefully (for with all his imcouth- 
 ness he seems to be a gentleman) given you the credit of 
 undeceiving him." 
 
 "Yes!" he said, "I give up the argument. You are quite 
 right. I must now think of how I shall best make the amende. 
 Will you help me? " 
 
 "You need no help," she said. "You will do what is right." 
 
 And the rebioked and censured man went away happy. 
 
 "I regret very much," said Father Dillon at the opening 
 of the next Session, "that I have to bring against one of our 
 members a charge of something very like prevarication." 
 
 He paused, and Mr. Marshall looked up confused; and a 
 look of anxiety seemed to pass into the eyes and across the 
 forehead of Hester Hope. She had already with woman's 
 pitying sympathy taken the uncouth Mr. Marshall under her 
 protection. 
 
 "At the last meeting, one of our members rather pointedly 
 disclaimed aU taste for literature or hterary subjects. Now, 
 that's not only a personal reflection on this august assembly; 
 but it is a prevarication, an excess of modesty, a repudiation 
 of gifts, which we cannot condone. Have I the consent of 
 the meeting to read this production?" 
 
 There was cordial applause. 
 
 "The title of the poem is: 'White Jasmine.'" 
 
 "James," said Mrs. Holden, flushing scarlet, "how dare 
 you? You opened my portf oho!" 
 
 "No! my dear," said the doctor composedly, "that valu- 
 able paper is mine. You gave it to me on the fifty-first 
 anniversary of our wedding. I thought at first it was I who was 
 the 'dear,' but, thank God, I'm not dead yet!" 
 
 "I object. Father Dillon," said Mrs. Holden. "It is too 
 sacred. 'Twas written to an old school-friend. If I thought — " 
 
SESSION SIXTEENTH 153 
 
 Then Mrs. Holden took out her cambric handkerchief; and 
 the good priest, touched by the gesture, folded up the paper 
 and handed it to her. 
 
 "A thousand pardons," he said. "You are quite right. 
 These things are sacred." 
 
 "It is too late now," she said. "The doctor says it is his 
 property. Let him dispose of it, as he is mean enough to 
 have shown it." 
 
 "Read the paper. Father Dillon," said the doctor quite 
 coolly. "How innocent you young priests are!" 
 
 Father Dillon looked puzzled, staring from husband to 
 wife, whilst the Sunetoi smiled. Then a great hght dawned 
 on him, and without further preface or apology, he read: 
 
 WHITE JASMINE 
 
 I 
 Can you remember, dear, that summer night 
 
 When the soft, purple twilight murmured down, 
 And sank in tranquil silence; and the light 
 
 Gleamed far and wide above the sleeping town? 
 
 n 
 We sat beneath the limes, whose fragrant flowers 
 
 Poured bahn upon the stiU and half-warm air; 
 The young birds stirred within the lilac bowers. 
 
 And all was still and sweet; all sweet and fair. 
 
 in 
 The starry jasmine shone above our head. 
 
 The mUk-white blossoms gleamed against the dusk. 
 And farther forth the swift, but noiseless tread 
 
 Of Night bruised out the roses' heavy musk. 
 
 IV 
 
 Clipped in a soKd square, the laurel hedge 
 Shielded the closely-shaven lawn where you 
 
 Grudged the meek daisy e'en the narrow edge 
 Where in the Spring your favourite violets grew. 
 
154 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 V 
 Yes! you were partial, and you did not like 
 
 Plebeian things, e'en those the poets name 
 Their "darlings." Gentle beauties did not strike 
 
 Your soul or senses into leaping flame. 
 
 VI 
 
 But you did sit quite still that Summer night, 
 And watched in silence the diunb, gleaming sky; 
 
 And now I know you felt the Infinite 
 With all its vast complexities was nigh. 
 
 vn 
 And you were quite content; and the gray dawn 
 
 Brought disappointment, when it broke, and showed 
 The sparkling flowers along the dewy lawn. 
 
 And the swift light along the valley flowed. 
 
 vm 
 And the blue smoke curled up; and now and then 
 
 The voice of man or beast did shrilly break 
 On the sweet silence Nature holds, but when 
 
 The clarion cry of mom shouts. Awake! 
 
 IX 
 
 You did not like those sounds, nor light nor day; 
 
 You craved the dark, the silence, and the night; 
 I did not imderstand how closely lay 
 
 Your life-path and the pathway infinite. 
 
 X 
 
 Now I recall but one reluctant word, 
 A gasp of hope from some too meek despair; 
 
 There was a stifled cry from some far bird, 
 The jasmine dropped one pearl from her hair. 
 
 XI 
 
 You took it up. The milk-white star did shine, 
 You bade me breathe it; and it was then you said: 
 
SESSION SIXTEENTH 155 
 
 "The perfume parts not from its petalled shrine, 
 It bears its fragrance, though we call it dead. 
 
 xn 
 " Even so, the beauty and the sweetness live 
 Long after life. Upgathered with the soul. 
 The force God-given that did ever strive 
 To reach through cloddish earth the appointed goal 
 
 xni 
 "Of every spirit that doth emanate 
 
 From the great centre of all living space, 
 Passes imbroken through the narrow gate. 
 And broadens into flowers of light and grace. 
 
 XIV 
 "Life fleets with the last sob. There is no Death. 
 So surely as the perfume clings to this 
 Frail, starry petal of the scented breath. 
 So life goes out with Death's enchanting kiss." 
 
 XV 
 
 How does it happen that I now recall 
 Thee that art gone beyond my ken and voice? 
 
 Because to-day from opened leaves did fall 
 The perfumed petal of thy midnight choice. 
 
 XVI 
 
 And lol its fragrance was not dead; but all 
 The leaves were hallowed by the subtle scent. 
 
 The slender thing did there and then recall 
 That night which under stars and limes we spent. 
 
 xvn 
 Where art thou now? I know not, but I feel 
 
 That when the Book of Life shall ope for me, 
 I shall rejoice to find its leaves conceal. 
 
 Like this white jasmine, all that is of thee. 
 
156 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "Beautiful!" said Father Dillon, folding the dainty paper, 
 alas! rather frayed and yellowed by the years. 
 
 "Beautiful!" echoed the Sunetoi. 
 
 "Look to your laurels, Mr. Hunt!" said the Professor. 
 "We cannot judge of Mr. Marshall yet!" 
 
 "It would have been a crime to suppress that poem," said 
 Mr. Hirnt gravely. "As the British Government has never 
 yet had the grace to appoint a Lady-Laureate, I shall now 
 resign the myrtle in favour of Mrs. Holden." 
 
 "You shall do nothing of the kind, Mr. Hunt," said the 
 lady, who, however, was evidently pleased. "It is quite 
 absurd to speak so of a school-girl's nonsense-verses." 
 
 "I was going to place a condition, however," said Mr. 
 Hunt. "It is quite evident that there is a story behind that 
 poem. If it does not violate the sacred confidences of friend- 
 ship, perhaps Mrs. Holden would tell us what was the origin 
 of that poem." 
 
 "You will be disappointed," said the doctor's wife. "It is 
 nothing. Just a school-girl freak; and nothing more. Oh, 
 dear! to think that all this fuss should be made about 
 such foolish trifling. I'll never forgive you, James; nor you. 
 Father Dillon." 
 
 "The story! The story!" echoed the Sunetoi. 
 
 "Why, there is no story," cried Mrs. Holden in agony. 
 "It was only that one night at a ball in Cork, I'm afraid to 
 say how many years ago, two of us got tired of the music, 
 and the dancing, and went out sometime after one o'clock 
 into the garden. We had our wraps around us against the 
 night air; and we sat, and talked, and were silent. And then 
 AKne suggested that we should wait and watch for the dawn. 
 'I hate the thought,' she said, ' of going back into that reek- 
 ing atmosphere again. Let us sit here, until the people go 
 away ! ' And so we sat, all night, talking of everything. Aline 
 was always turning the conversation on things above the 
 stars. I wanted to talk about our partners, and the music, 
 and the flowers, and the supper-table. She was rambling 
 
SESSION SIXTEENTH 157 
 
 away about Heaven, and Death; and then, the dawn-wind 
 rose up, and shook the lime, and one little star of the jasmine 
 that was hanging down over the wall fell into her lap; and — 
 and — you know the rest ! " 
 
 "She died?" said someone, in a timid voice. 
 
 "Yes! She was dsdng then; but neither she, nor anyone 
 else, knew it. The whole thing was a foretaste of eternity!" 
 
 "I presume," said Mr. Marshall, "from what you say, that 
 your young friend was perfect and adorable?" 
 
 "There, we mustn't speak of that," said Mrs. Holden. 
 "I'm sorry that the veil should have been lifted so far." 
 
 "Mr. Marshall invariably finds an Iphigenia or a Jephtha's 
 daughter in those whom the gods take early to themselves," 
 said Mr. Himt. "It is a glorious thing to be able to idealise 
 as he does. It was supposed to be the privilege of the young." 
 
 "He could hardly idealise too much in this case," said Mrs. 
 Holden. "If ever a perfect being existed, it was my friend." 
 
 "And it is a noble thing to preserve such friendship during 
 all these years," said the Professor. "No wonder that 
 Cicero should say: 'Except wisdom, I am not sure that the 
 immortal gods have given a greater gift to men.'" 
 
 "And Shakspeare — Bacon, I mean!" said Mr. Marshall. 
 
 "Quite so. And yet, like all great and beautiful things how 
 fragile it is! I often think we expect too much from each 
 other; then there is disappointment, and then the golden 
 cord is snapped." 
 
 "I shoxild rather think," said Mr. Himt, "that most 
 friendships are founded on a sense of equality, and therefore, 
 so easily broken. Because, where there is equality, there is 
 rivalry; where there's rivalry there is envy; and that is the one 
 great solvent. For real friendship, there must be inequaUty. 
 That means reverence on the one hand, and protection on 
 the other. These dispositions stand the test of time." 
 
 "But, my dear Mr. Hunt," said the Professor blandly, 
 "that theory is in direct contradiction to Cicero's, who in the 
 eighth chapter de Amicitia maintains that a sense of benefits 
 
iS8 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 received or conferred is not the real bond of true friendship; 
 but that it has struck its roots deeper down in Nature." 
 
 "I regret, Professor, that I cannot agree with your dis- 
 tinguished friend," said Mr. Hunt. "Believe me, the founda- 
 tion of all friendship, as of everything else that is sacred and 
 holy, is reverence. Now, reverence implies a sense of in- 
 equality and dependence. Break that down, equalise friends, 
 bring both to the same stature, and friendship is at an end. 
 I appeal now to Mrs. Holden to say, whether that beautiful 
 and delicate friendship with her friend, which has survived 
 so many years, was not founded on some sense of reverence 
 and inequahty." 
 
 "You are qmte right, Mr. Hunt," said the lady. "I 
 thought Aline the most perfect being I had ever seen. I was 
 only fit to sit at her feet, and look up into her face." 
 
 "I did not quite expect that adnaission," said Mr. Himt, 
 somewhat embarrassed. "But at least, your humility up- 
 holds my theory. And hence, I derive another conclusion, 
 that the most perfect of all pure friendships is that between 
 man and woman." 
 
 "Yes!" said Father Dillon, with a little shrug, "but it 
 unfortunately always develops into something else." 
 
 "Not always, and not necessarily," said Mr. Hunt, whilst 
 a slight flush now overspread his face, as he felt that all eyes 
 were upon him. . " It is the most unhappy feature of our mod- 
 ern society that this should be supposed. I see nothing im- 
 possible in the idea of two souls, revolving round each other, 
 a planet with its sun, the one taking heat and Hght from the 
 greater being, the greater being diffusing its warmth and 
 radiance and controlling power over the lesser, yet each moving 
 in its own orbit, and never attracted by, or approaching the 
 other. To come down to earth, I remember once at an even- 
 ing party, some yoimg fellows were disposed to revelry; and 
 at the supper table, one, in particular, the greatest amongst 
 them, was making himself painfully remarkable. The others 
 were laughing at his sallies; and even some girls were encour- 
 
SESSION SIXTEENTH 159 
 
 aging him with their smiles and approval. He held a glass of 
 champagne in his hand; and was telling some sparkling story, 
 when someone touched his arm slightly. He looked around 
 and seemed frightened. Then, without a word of explana- 
 tion, he put down his glass and passed out of the room. It 
 was a young girl, who looked pale and composed; but who 
 instantly went on talking as if nothing had happened. There 
 were a hundred conjectures at once of their relationship./ 
 Were they betrothed? None guessed the truth. They wer^ 
 absolutely unrelated. There was no possibility whatever of 
 their ever contracting closer ties. They were friends; andl 
 friends because so dissimilar and unequal. They had walked 
 together, read together. No more. But he had seen enough' 
 to know that she was far above him; and she had seen enough 
 to know that, in some way, he claimed her protection. She 
 gave it, and she became the guardian angel of his life." 
 
 "I do not doubt either the fact, or the explanation," said 
 the sceptical Father Dillon, "but, I fear, the idea is too tran- 
 scendental to become general." 
 
 "And you are quite right," said Mr. Hunt, "but why? 
 Not for the impossibility of the thing in itself; but, because, as 
 we heard before, we have vulgarised everything. The tweed 
 cap, the race-course, the comic journals, the drawing-room 
 slang, the ladies' cigarette, and — bridge, have driven all rever- 
 ence out of social Hfe, and deprived man of his most pleasing 
 illusion, an illusion, however, that is always real, — of the 
 superiority of her who ought to be his angel and his helpmate, 
 but is now becoming his equal, and, therefore, his inferior." 
 
 There was a pause. The flush had died away from Mr. 
 Himt's face, and he was now almost painfully pallid. Then 
 he said suddenly, pointing to Mr. Marshall: 
 
 "Look you, ladies and gentlemen, one poem, like Mr. 
 Marshall's 'Egeria,' would almost save our civilisation. 
 But who reads it? And, of those who read it, how many 
 imderstand it? " 
 
 There was one, at least, who tmderstood what he meant. 
 
SESSION SEVENTEENTH 
 
 "I HAVE taken the liberty of asking Mr. Marshall to give 
 our society his views on the question that sprang up so 
 suddenly at our last meeting," said Father Dillon. "It was 
 Mr. Hunt's complimentary allusion to Mr. Marshall's poem, 
 'Egeria,' that suggested to me the idea. Mr. Marshall has 
 kindly consented; and it would be superfluous on my part 
 to bespeak your earnest attention." 
 
 "Philosophers," said Mr. Marshall, after making a few pref- 
 atory and modest remarks, "sum up the great instincts of our 
 race in two, — preservation and reproduction. They have for- 
 gotten a third — the universal instinct of worship. The two 
 former concern man's life. The latter concerns man's soul, 
 and is the clearest proof of its existence. I hate science, not 
 because it is false; but because it is but a half-truth. And, 
 as *a lie that is half the truth is ever the worst of lies;' so 
 the truth, which is only half-truth, becomes in one sense 
 wholly false. That there are truths, or perhaps I should say 
 facts, beyond the ken of intellect is an admitted doctrine, — 
 never so much admitted as now, when the deeper we penetrate 
 into the abyss of life, the closer and the more recondite does 
 Nature keep its awful secrets. She retreats, as we advance, 
 and gathers up her skirts, lest the very swish of them should 
 reveal her hiding place. There is one, and only one, to whom 
 she reveals herself, and lifts up her veil. And that is her poet. 
 Not that she shows herself in all her terrible and refulgent 
 beauty even to him; but hke some Eastern princess, whilst 
 she keeps the Yashmak closely drawn on certain features 
 of her face, she shows enough to help him to conjecture, in 
 his own reverential way, the rest. Hence, poetry is the inter- 
 pretation of worship, as prayer is its voice. In this exalted 
 
 1 60 
 
SESSION SEVENTEENTH i6i 
 
 sense, you will perceive that nine-tenths of what is called 
 poetry is utterly undeserving of the name. There is no 
 poetry, there can be no poetry, where there is no intuition of 
 Nature's secrets, where there is no worship of such secrets 
 when revealed, and where there is no adequate expression of 
 such worship. Sometimes, there is the jingling and jangling 
 of words as in Southey's 'Lodore' or Edgar AUan Poe's 
 'Bells.' I don't deny the magic and music of words; but 
 words without meaning are no more to me than the clangour 
 of church-bells on a Sabbath morning. Or again, you have 
 the sweet, easy flow of perfect rhythm, with, however, some 
 meaning, so that it is not altogether sound without sense. 
 If that meaning is the penetration of some divine secret, and 
 the worship of such a secret put into worthy language, it is 
 poetry. If it is only moralising, or didacticism, it is a pretty 
 sermon, and no more. For example, probably the most 
 popular lines in the language are those of Gray's 'Elegy.' 
 Everybody knows them. They are more largely quoted from 
 than any other lines outside of Shakspeare. Pilgrims visit the 
 Churchyard, and recite the verses there. Tennyson is reported 
 to have said that it is the one poem in the English language 
 he would wish to have written. And yet, it is not poetry. 
 Nay, it does not contain even one poetic line. On the other 
 hand, Emerson is denied the title of poet because he had not 
 the rhythmic faculty. That may be true. But, he was a 
 profotmd Seer; and when he broke into music, he touched the 
 altitudes where the Peers of Nature and Poesy sit at her 
 eternal banquet. Let me give you one example. I could 
 quote many. This may suffice as an illustration of what I 
 mean: 
 
 " ' I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, 
 Singing at dawn on the alder bough; 
 I brought him home, in his nest, at even; 
 He sings the song, but it cheers not now. 
 For I did not bring home the river and sky; — 
 He sang to my ear — they sang to my eye. 
 
i62 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 The delicate shells lay on the shore; 
 
 The bubbles of the latest wave 
 
 Fresh pearls to their enamel gave; 
 
 And the bellowing of the savage sea 
 
 Greeted their safe escape to me. 
 
 I wiped away the weeds and foam, 
 
 I fetched my sea-bom treasures home; 
 
 But the poor, vmsightly, noisome things 
 
 Had left their beauty on the shore. 
 
 With the sun and the sand and the wUd uproar.' 
 
 Now that is poetry. Why? Because it is a discovery of one 
 of the most beautiful secrets of Nature, — her oneness, her 
 wholeness, her indivisibility. The smallest item in her vast 
 laboratory takes, and gives its loveliness, because it is con- 
 nected with her. Break the contact, and the beauty is lost. 
 The chirp of the sparrow was divine, when the little thing was 
 hidden in the bosom of its mother. It lost its magic when the 
 hand of man removed it from its natural setting. The shells 
 were iridescent and resplendent on the shore, wet with the 
 kisses of the wave. They lost their beauty, when they were 
 transformed to the show-case, or the mantelpiece. There 
 is the first element of poetry — the lifting of the veil on the 
 face of Isis, the discovery of one of her secrets. Then, there 
 is the element of worship — worship of Nature's music in the 
 sparrow's song; worship of Nature's handiwork in the splendid 
 enamel of the shell. Finally, there is the secret and the wor- 
 ship revealed in music, — sweet, rhythndcal lines, culminating 
 in the grand bravura: 
 
 " ' With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.' 
 
 "Now, coming back to our thesis, you will see that woman 
 is Nature's greatest secret. She is the profoimdest of all 
 natural mysteries. Like Nature itself, she is always with us, 
 yet she always eludes us, and evades us. Every analysis of 
 her is a failure. You have often, no doubt, wondered why 
 
SESSION SEVENTEENTH 163 
 
 our great authors have set themselves the task of explaining 
 in some subtle manner this profoundly cryptic nature. You 
 have also wondered that they never succeed. Even our 
 latest and greatest analyst, George Meredith, has failed. 
 The incomprehensible remains the incomprehensible; and 
 just because it is cryptic, we are called upon, by some hidden 
 instinct of our Nature, to worship afar off. Like the bird and 
 the shell, we dare not detach this sublime portion of Nature, 
 and take it home as a toy to be exhibited. The moment 
 we do so, it loses its music and its lustre. It must be a some- 
 thing detached from ourselves, if it is to command our alle- 
 giance. And hence, this Platonic affection of which Mr. Hunt 
 has spoken, remains the highest and holiest demonstration 
 of that instinct that is inseparable from our Nature; that by 
 some kind of reflex action makes us almost Divine; and that 
 draws down upon its votaries the protection, the guidance, 
 and the far-off, unselfish interest of a being, who is hvunan and 
 therefore akin; but who has also the intangible attributes of 
 the spirit-world." 
 
 Mr. Marshall paused, wiped his broad brow, looked around 
 holding his paper open in his hands. The Sunetoi were silent. 
 The Professor and Miss Eraser were turning the thing over 
 in their minds, and seeking to grasp the sequence of the 
 thought. Mrs. Skelton and the doctor's wife looked puzzled, 
 as if they were not quite sure whether they, as married ladies, 
 came within the radius of worship. Robert Skelton whis- 
 pered the doctor: 
 
 "Was I right? I'll brmg the Major now!" 
 
 "That would never do," replied the doctor, sotto voce. 
 "The Major won't drink tea." 
 
 "I'll get him to gulp down one cup for the fun of the thing." 
 
 At last. Father Dillon said, looking at the radiant face of 
 Hester Hope: 
 
 "I'm afraid Coventry Patmore would blaspheme if he were 
 here. What would you do with his House- Angel? " 
 
 "Ha, my dear Mr. Chairman," said Mr. Marshall, stretch- 
 
i64 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 ing out his hand, "you are quite mistaken. Mr. Patmore and 
 I are one. The House- Angel is not dissevered from Nature; 
 nay, she comes closer to the great Mother. She is never closer 
 than when she holds her Babe in her arms. Then she forms 
 one of the twin stars of worship. And, you will notice how, 
 as years advance, the perfervid passions of youth tone away 
 into the Platonic and perfect friendship of which we were 
 speaking; whilst the purely maternal love, absolutely passion- 
 less and unselfish, is the very ideal of that form of friendship, 
 with its correlatives of reverential love and reciprocal pro- 
 tection, of which we were speaking. But, let me illustrate 
 what I mean. You have been at a Ball, — a County or 
 Race Ball, or Subscription Ball? " 
 
 "Never!" said Father Dillon, so emphatically that the 
 Sunetoi smiled. 
 
 "Ha! I quite forgot!" said Mr. Marshall. "Gentlemen of 
 your profession do not frequent Balls. But, you wiU imder- 
 stand." 
 
 Mr. Marshall paused a moment to form his words. Then, 
 he said: 
 
 "The prologue, the overture of a Ball, is verily an act of 
 worship. The temple is the hall. It is decorated. There is 
 a profusion of costly flowers, that show their loveliness in an 
 abashed and modest manner under the fierce searching light 
 of the electric arcs. The air is filled with their perfume. 
 It would be intoxicating; but the pale worshippers, pale with 
 a certain holy dread and reverence, keep a firm grasp on 
 emotion, and will not allow it to break forth in any unseemly 
 or dissipated manner. They are carefully and spotlessly 
 dressed. And lo! their goddesses come. They come, 'in 
 gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,' the daintiest handi- 
 work of Nature. Their votaries bow low before them. They 
 do not touch even their hands, which are covered with soft 
 gloves. On the one hand is beauty, glory, freshness, purity, 
 the song of the bird, the enamelled palace on the shore. On 
 the other hand is worship, as genuine as ever was given to 
 
SESSION SEVENTEENTH 165 
 
 Diana or Minerva. Twelve o'clock, — the worshippers are 
 satiated. They had touched the Wonderful Things in the 
 dance and the whirl of the ball-room; and lo! the satin is 
 stained from the contact, and the pearls are imloosed and 
 lost; andlo! the idols are at their feet. They seek the supper- 
 room. Two A.M. — The worshippers blaspheme. They have 
 now become comedians. The tragic feature is with the idols, 
 whom they have dragged in the dust. Four a.m. — The 
 comedians are half-asleep, and wholly profane in the thick, 
 black, fetid vapours of the smoke-room. And the goddesses? — 
 
 " ' I fetched my sea-born treasures home. 
 But the poor, unsightly, noisome things 
 Had left their beauty on the shore, 
 With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.' " 
 
 "That is very sad," said Father Dillon meditatively. "I 
 thought these meetings were more pleasurable. Is it not 
 strange, then, that young people should be so passionately 
 desirous of these things, where they suffer so much degrada- 
 tion?" 
 
 "Ah, my dear sir!" said Mr. Marshall, "there is Nature's 
 compensation. These young people don't know their dignity, 
 and therefore suffer no conscious loss!" 
 
 "That is still more puzzling," said the priest. "I can 
 hardly imagine the possessors of such transcendent gifts and 
 endowments to be unconscious of their possession." 
 
 "Does the skylark know its song's ravishing beauty, or its 
 own mystery, as it hangs beneath a cloud, or poises itself in 
 the 'golden lightning of the svmken sun?' Does the Uly 
 know that Solomon in aU his glory is not arrayed hke its own 
 modest splendours? Does the violet understand the nature 
 of the volatile oil it exudes and scatters into perfume? No, 
 my dear sir. Nature, in its mighty freaks of fancy, conceals 
 from all its most glorious and enchanting servitors their 
 royal gifts. They are unconscious of their possession. They 
 
i66 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 do not therefore regret their loss. And so with the goddesses 
 of whom I have spoken. It is not for them to admire, but 
 to claim admiration. And they get it, above all, from Nature's 
 high priests, her poets. I could recall a thousand instances. 
 Let me mention one. Did ever a daughter of the gods get 
 such an apotheosis as 'Rose Aylmer' in Landor's hnes: 
 
 '"Ah, what avails the sceptred race, 
 Ah, what the form divine! 
 What every virtue, every grace! 
 Rose Aylmer, all were thine. 
 Rose Aylmer, whom those wakeful eyes 
 May weep, but never see; 
 A night of memories and of sighs 
 I consecrate to thee.' 
 
 And, mark you, it was no passing worship — no childish admi- 
 ration of a toy and then breaking it, and forgetting it. He 
 kept the memory of Rose Aylmer and 'lanthe' sacred to 
 the end. And, mark you, also, there was no trace of what is 
 called 'love' here. It was a purely Platonic attachment, 
 although he calls it the ' torn romance of his youth.' " 
 
 "It is clear, then," said the yoimg priest, "that all that is 
 wanting to make this earth a Paradise, or rather a temple of 
 worship, is that the 'weaker sex,' — what you would call, 
 the 'nobler' sex, should reahse its dignity and its power." 
 
 "Sir," said Mr. Marshall, "you have put into a line the 
 supreme philosophy of life." 
 
SESSION EIGHTEENTH 
 
 "I REALLY must ask Mr. Marshall to our Christmas 
 dimier," said Mrs. Holden to her confidential friend. "He 
 dresses abominably; but he speaks charmingly. I wonder 
 has he an evening suit?" 
 
 "You may be sure he has, my dear," said Mrs. Skelton. 
 "It may be a little shabby; but it won't be noticed imder the 
 electric light. Besides, I shall get Robert to give him a hint." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Holden, toying with her rings in 
 a musing manner. "He does say pretty things; and who 
 knows? he maybe Lord Ormery yet!" 
 
 "Stranger things happen, my dear," said Mrs. Skelton, 
 "and I'm sure he would be grateful for any condescension 
 we may show him now." 
 
 "It's a little risky, however," said her friend. "You 
 know we have to consult appearances. I wonder what would 
 Mrs. Babbage say? She would be sure to hear it. She 
 hears everything from her servants. If we could only find 
 out who calls, or — " 
 
 It was very perplexing. The risks were great. Her 
 natural kindness, and the magic words "Lord Ormery," 
 written in gold along the sky-line of imagination, seemed 
 to justify her plimging into imknown dangers. But on the 
 other hand, there was the terrible risk of losing caste — the 
 possibility of having to meet a freezing question: 
 
 "How very kind of you to have asked that poor man, 
 Mr. Marshall, to dinner! Even the Rector's wife did not 
 venture so far. Was Mrs. Babbage quite right, my dear? 
 Because, really, it is an example of Christian charity we all 
 might imitate." 
 
 This little interchange of comment and advice took place 
 
 167 
 
i68 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 in Mrs. Skelton's drawing-room a few minutes previous to 
 the commencement of the eighteenth Session. It was broken 
 up, by the opening address of the young priest, who said: 
 
 "Before the Professor reads his paper with the title 'The 
 Gaelic language is akin to the Welsh; and both found a single 
 tongue in France and Germany, and further back in the East, 
 before the migration commenced,' a question has been asked, 
 which I think Mr. Marshall alone is privileged to solve. It 
 is 'Where does the work of the scientist end in the interpre- 
 tation of Nature; and where does the vocation of the poet 
 begin?'" 
 
 "The answer is quite simple and prompt," said Mr. Mar- 
 shall. "The scientist never interprets Nature. That is the 
 exclusive privilege of her poets." 
 
 "But, really, you must admit, Mr. Marshall," said the 
 Professor, "that, on your own principles, the scientist de- 
 serves recognition, because he, too, is a revealer of Nature's 
 profoundest secrets." 
 
 "You are confounding Nature, the Mother and Goddess of 
 men, with the earth or sea, or sky, which are only constituent 
 elements, — the hem of her garment, the tiara for her hair, 
 the pearls that gleam in her cestus. In these matters, the 
 scientist is a mere haberdasher or purveyor. He is of no 
 higher grade in the vast Temple of her worshippers than 
 a pew-opener in a parish church." 
 
 "You are incorrigible," said the Professor, turning to 
 Father Dillon. " May I go on? " 
 
 "Just one moment, please," said Mr. Marshall. "I fear 
 I have not made myself quite intelligible. What I mean is 
 this. You may dig and delve, you may break up and analyse, 
 the constituent elements of nature, and yet never reach her 
 slightest secret. Your electricity and hidden ethereal forces, 
 your geological discoveries and sudden revelations of new 
 elements, such as radium, xenon, etc., have no more to do 
 with our knowledge of Nature than the tailor's measurements 
 have to do with a Shakspeare or Goethe. What do I prove, 
 
SESSION EIGHTEENTH 169 
 
 or what do I reveal, when I say that xenon is a rare constituent 
 of the air we breathe, — one part in every 170,000,000? Am 
 I nearer the mark when I discover that helium is quite com- 
 mon, — one part in every 500,000? Does it increase my 
 reverence for the great Mother, when I am told that every 
 cubic mile of river water carries in solution 762,000 tons of 
 dissolved foreign matter? Or, that alimiinium forms eight 
 per cent of the earth's Uthosphere? Why, one genuine hne 
 of poetry is worth all the scraps of information the ingenuity 
 of scientists could accumulate in a thousand years." 
 
 "Well, well," said the Professor impartially, "we'll admit 
 all that. And yet, your Mother Nature treats her pet chil- 
 dren badly. Her poets are generally out of elbows." 
 
 He had hardly said the words, when Mr. Marshall's scanty 
 wardrobe seemed to reproach him. His face, although hard- 
 ened by the daily confronting of one hundred brazen students, 
 became scarlet with shame. He looked around in an em- 
 barrassed manner. Mr. Hunt was smiling at the angry and 
 pained expression on Miss Hope's face. Miss Eraser seemed 
 indifferent. Father Dillon came swiftly to the rescue. 
 
 "It is quite true," he said, "but I fear that Nature is only 
 responsible for their greatness, and therefore, their improvi- 
 dence through contempt of small things. But it is the world's 
 indifference that is exasperating. Just lately, I have been 
 thinking, and not without a pang of shame, that possibly, 
 within the last few years, I was proffered a box of matches for 
 a penny by Francis Thompson at the gates of Charing Cross; 
 and possibly, turned away from him in scorn. Can you con- 
 ceive anything more dreadful? If someone told me it was 
 true, I could never forgive myself." 
 
 "Ah, well they have got their 'apotheosis' after death," 
 said the Professor. "To such immaterial natures, that glory 
 is sufficient." 
 
 "Yes, to them," said Father Dillon. "But what a re- 
 proach to us! If we gave them the charity of our silence, it 
 would not matter so much. But, it sets me wild to see people, 
 
I70 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 that never heard the names of our 'immortals' in life; and, 
 if they had known them, would have scorned them, filling 
 page after page in our magazines with laudatory notices after 
 death. It is a kind of body-snatching, a maimer of making a 
 few wretched pounds by rattling the bones of the dead, that 
 seems to be utterly condemnable. I suppose literary people 
 have to get bread and butter, like ordinary folk; but it is 
 hard that these should be kneaded from the ashes of dead 
 gods." 
 
 "I share your honest indignation, Mr. Chairman," said 
 Mr. Hunt. "The only apology that can be made for the 
 world's neglect is the fact that these noblemen of nature are 
 difl&cult to be found, and, when found, are, for the most part, 
 unapproachable. But, we are tiring the Professor. Perhaps, 
 the Celts and Cymri may throw light on the question." 
 
 "There cannot be a doubt," said the Professor, opening his 
 manuscript, and reading deliberately, and with a certain 
 emphasis, as if he were displeased at the delay, "that there 
 was at one period in human history, ill-defined, but probably 
 5000 years before our era, a vast hegira, or migration of the 
 primitive Aryan race, that occupied the high table-lands of 
 Asia as far as the Indus. The most recent researches seem to 
 confirm the traditional belief that this migration broke itself 
 into two streams of himianity — the one, passing southwards 
 into Egypt, and along the northern shores of Africa, crossing 
 the Straits of Gibraltar, occupjdng Spain, passing thence 
 into Gaul, where again it broke into three branches, one pro- 
 ceeding south to Italy; the other, doubling back towards the 
 East, and occupying the coimtries now marked as Hungary 
 and Transylvania; the third, and most important, proceeding 
 northward, leaving its traces well marked in Brittany, crossing 
 the Chaimel, and occupying the western parts of England, 
 especially Cornwall and Cambria, and finally passing over 
 into Ireland, where the migration reached its terminus, and 
 where the characteristics of the original race have been most 
 carefully preserved. The other branch, we need not follow. 
 
SESSION EIGHTEENTH 171 
 
 Hence, it is quite true that the Irish have a Phenician origin. 
 No doubt, the primitive nomads dwelt in Phenicia. Hence, 
 it is also true, that the direct ancestors of the Irish came from 
 Spain, but not in ships, but overland by way of Gaul and 
 Wales. It is remarkable that this vast locust-swarm of no- 
 mads has left not a single trace of their passage across northern 
 Africa. Clearly, they were not allowed to abide peacefully 
 in those Elysian regions as they were then; but were pushed 
 on rapidly by the mere powerful Semitic races. Probably, 
 this too is the reason why there is scarcely a single point of 
 connection between the Celts and the Hellenes. Some writers, 
 and I think Cardinal Newman amongst them, affect to per- 
 ceive strong racial aflfinities between the Irish and the Greeks, 
 — the same artistic tastes, the same love of eloquence, the 
 same intellectual brightness, and the same cunning; but this 
 is accidental. The nomads took no blood-admixture, and no 
 intellectual or moral infection from the Hellenes. They were 
 driven forward by the hostility of powerful tribes, until the 
 original impetus expired, or they were stopped by the terrestrial 
 limits of an Ultima Thule. It is quite true that there are many 
 Irish words whose similarity to Greek equivalents throws 
 doubt on their originality. Such are the names of animals, — 
 dog, horse, buU, etc. But, I cannot see otherwise much 
 aflSnity. I do not think the Aryans ever dwelt in Greece. 
 The greater preponderance of Latin words in the Irish language 
 must have been derived from the Celtic occupation of Spain 
 and Gaul, although I feel sure that the Celtic migration from 
 these countries must have taken place before the Roman 
 invasion. Irish scholars repudiate with some anger the 
 theory that the Latinised words were introduced into Ireland 
 by the Christian missionaries before and after St. Patrick. 
 Of course, the same authorities will maintain that the Aryan 
 was the original root-language, as the race was the primitive 
 race of mankind; and that, therefore, the 'old Irish,' as it 
 is called, is verily and indeed the pure source and fountain 
 undefiled of all the Indo-European tongues, including Greek 
 
172 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 and Latin. Some colour is lent to this idea by the strange 
 affinity that exists between the two great racial traditions in 
 each country, — its religion and its folk-lore. There can be 
 no doubt that the Druidical worship of ancient Ireland is 
 identically the same as the Fire-worship of the East. Even 
 to the yellow garments of the priests it is identical. Round- 
 towers, or fire-towers, are common to Ireland and Persia. 
 Bel, or Baal, was the national god. It was pure pantheism; 
 and it affords another proof that the Celtic nomads never 
 touched Greece or Rome, because there is a total absence of 
 the polytheism of these nations. The religion of the East 
 and the extreme West is pure monotheism, or Nature-worship. 
 So, too, in folk-lore. Here again the animals play a conspicu- 
 ous part, sometimes and mostly as fearful agents of Nature; 
 but in Christian times tamed down as it were by Franciscan 
 love. There is a very wonderful similarity between the Celtic 
 legend of the Tain-bo, now regarded as the Celtic Iliad, with 
 its two fierce bulls, locked in each other's horns, and fighting 
 around the coasts of Ireland, until the dismembered carcase 
 of the vanquished strews half the hills and valleys of the 
 Island; and the legend of the wonder-working cow, Nandini, 
 as told in the Mahibharata. 
 
 " Once on a time Visvamitra, who was son of Gahdi, King of 
 Kanyakubja, was out hunting, and he came to the hut, or 
 hermitage of Vasishtha, where he was received with all 
 honour, entertained royally, and presented with all manner of 
 precious jewels and dresses, which the Sage obtained from his 
 wonder-working cow, Nandini. The soul of Visvamitra was 
 seized with cupidity at the sight of this magic cow, and all 
 the wonders she effected; and he offered Vasishtha a hundred 
 million cows, or his kingdom, to possess her. The hermit 
 replies that even for his kingdom, he cannot part with the cow. 
 The Visvamitra plainly tells him that he will take the animal 
 by force. 'I am a Kshatriya; thou art a Brahman. Thy 
 functions are austere fervour and sacred study. How can 
 there be any vigour in Brahmans who are calm and self- 
 
SESSION EIGHTEENTH 173 
 
 restrained? Since thou wilt not give me, in exchange for a 
 hundred million cows, that which I desire, I shall not abandon 
 the privilege of my own class. I will carry away the cow by 
 force.' The hermit tells him to do as he pleases. Visvamitra 
 accordingly seizes the cow, she is driven hither and thither 
 with stick and stone, but will not move. The holy man asks 
 her what is he to do. Nandlni complains that he is over- 
 looking the violence to which she is subjected. 'What can 
 I do?' he replies. 'Force is the strength of Kshatriyas, 
 patience that of the Brahmans. Go, if thou pleasest!' She 
 again complains. But the holy man explains that it is all 
 against his wiU. She should remain, if he could keep her. 
 Then the cow assumes a fearful aspect, her eyes glow with 
 fire, she tosses her horns in the air, and routs the whole army of 
 Visvamitra. Being again beaten, she assumes a more terrify- 
 ing aspect, discharges clouds of firebrands from every portion 
 of her sacred body, which instantly spring into armed men; 
 and vast tribes are thereby created which annihilate the 
 armies of the King. The latter, conquered and beaten, sub- 
 mits, and crying out: 'Shame on a Kshatriya's force; it is 
 the force of a Brahman's weakness, that is force indeed,' 
 he resigns his kingdom, and assumes an austere Ufe." 
 
 "There appears here," continued the Professor, "some fore- 
 shadowing of the conflict between Paganism and Christian- 
 ity in ancient Ireland. It is the controversy between Ossian 
 and Patrick in another form. But I am straying from my sub- 
 ject. The original identity of the Irish Celts and the Welsh 
 Csmiri was estabHshed as far back as the commencement of 
 the eighteenth century by Edward Lhuyd, who spent five 
 years making investigations in Wales, Cornwall, Armorica, 
 Scotland; and he comes to the strange conclusion that, 
 though originally springing from the same Aryan stock, the 
 Gaels and the Cymri separated before they left the Continent 
 of Europe. The former were the first to cross the Channel, 
 whence at a later date they were expelled by the Cymri, who, 
 in turn, were driven by the Roman cohorts into the fastnesses 
 
174 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 of Wales and Cornwall. It would be impossible to go deeply 
 into the subject of language here, and to trace afl&nities by 
 comparisons. It is enough to say that, in Ireland, we have 
 names of places that do not belong to the Irish tongue but 
 to the Welsh; and in Wales, we have correspondingly Irish 
 names that are unknown in Welsh. Thus showing that the 
 migratory race took with it certain remnants of an ancient 
 tongue that was common to both races; and that the Welsh 
 were unable to stamp out the lingual traces of the Keltoi who 
 once inhabited their land. But all this is shrouded in diffi- 
 culty, a difficulty which the researches of learned men are 
 making more difficult. They are discovering too many 
 analogies. One cannot see the wood on accoxmt of the trees. 
 I think there are already at least fifty interpretations of the 
 word Eire, or Ireland. The inhabitants will not accept the 
 most honourable Arya-Land, that which proves beyond aU 
 doubt the vast antiqmty and purity of the race. But, it is in 
 the literatures of the two countries we see the strongest resem- 
 blances, whilst each has its own peculiarities. In both, the 
 human imagination takes its wildest ffight. It soars out 
 beyond the narrow Umits in which the Greek fancy was con- 
 fined. It strains after the Infinite. The ancient Euhemerism, 
 that deified heroes, such as Herakles, is here developed in 
 coimtless ways; the powers of Nature are invested with 
 magical energies and possibilities; Time is annihilated, be- 
 cause calculated not by years, but asons; men assume the 
 shape of animals, and animals are endowed with the speech 
 and intelUgence of men. It is all a dream of Hy-Brassil, or 
 Islands of the Blest; a broken reminiscence of Paradise before 
 the FaU. This dreamy spirit, this seeking after illusions, 
 this thirst for the supernatural, and impatience of mere facts 
 and reahties,is certainly a characteristic of the Irish of today. 
 And one writer, who goes more deeply into the hidden reasons 
 and meanings of things, particularly in this question of ethnol- 
 ogy, finds in this hankering after illusion, and suicide of reason, 
 the most potent element in that sad tendency of Celtic 
 
SESSION EIGHTEENTH 175 
 
 nations — to steep the senses in narcotics. One other charac- 
 teristic of Celtic and Cymric legends is their singular refine- 
 ment. They are sad. The Arthurian Idylls are steeped in 
 sadness. But it is a gentle, not a ruthless melancholy. There 
 is no bloodshed, no fierce, sanguinary rites; none of that terrific 
 noise and fury in which the legends of the Nibelungen-lied 
 are enwrapped. Whatever may have been the religious rites 
 of the people, and we must suppose they were Druidical and 
 sanguinary, the folk-lore or legendary literature is quite the 
 contrary. Everything is beautiful, magical, elusive, and 
 illusory — the creation of an imaginative people, who had 
 seen better things, and still aspired after them. Hence, 
 you never meet in the Celtic legends any type of woman- 
 hood which is not exquisitely dehcate and refined. Compare, 
 as E. Renan has compared them, the Kudrun and Krimhilde 
 of the Teutonic legends with the ladies of the Arthurian cycle; 
 and you will see the difference between Valk)nies and the 
 queens of chivalry. This was still more remarkable amongst 
 the Irish, whose ancient legends speak of the gentlest and 
 most spiritual types of womanhood, — types that are yet 
 found in the fairy legends, where Shakspeare's Mab and her 
 following were found; or in the Banshee, the woman who 
 wails over the dead. Nay, even in her ballad-poetry, the 
 same idealisation is evident. Not only is their country 
 represented under the form of a beautiful girl, as Kathleen- 
 ni-Houlakan, or Dark Rosaleen; but even in the seventeenth 
 century ballad-poetry in Erse, and even in the songs that are 
 sxmg at fair and market today amongst the lowest dregs of 
 the populace, woman is always idealised. She is always per- 
 fection. Hence, I conclude, that as there are unquestionably 
 feminine souls in masculine bodies, and Lady Macbeths in 
 female forms, so too with nations. And I think the Irish 
 nation essentially feminine. Whether this can be taken as a 
 compliment or otherwise, I see in Irish tenderness, Irish 
 delicacy, in the poetic and idealistic temperament, and also, 
 in Irish vacillation, and want of balance, symptoms of what 
 
176 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 may be called the feminine temperament. And, probably, 
 this too may account for her strongly pronounced religious 
 idealism. There can be no doubt of her marked individuality, 
 her distinction and separation from the grosser races of the 
 earth. She is not inaptly represented as a woman, seated 
 beneath the Round Tower, the emblem of her origin, with 
 her harp at her feet, emblem of her spirituality, and her wolf- 
 dog, emblem of her hostility towards savage and unbridled 
 lust of empire and power. She is watching the sun, half of 
 whose orb is above the horizon. Whether this is emblematic 
 of her decay, or her resurrection, time alone can tell." 
 
 The conclusion of the paper was received with much 
 applause, Mr. Marshall's face beaming with delight at the 
 confirmation of his pet theories in this short history of his 
 race. 
 
SESSION NINETEENTH 
 
 Father Dillon, as we have seen, was a young man of 
 keen perceptions and intuitions; and he saw that, however 
 academic and harmless the paper read by the Professor might 
 appear, there were streaks of lightning through it; and it was 
 his obvious duty to subdue and extinguish or divert them, if 
 he were to maintain his fundamental purpose of securing 
 peace in his society. Casting around for a lightning con- 
 ductor he struck on Mr. Marshall; and hence, at the opening 
 of the nineteenth Session of the Sunetoi, that gentleman 
 took out a little frayed note-book, and said, with that air of 
 gentle urbanity which characterised him: 
 
 "I had not expected to make my debut before this dis- 
 tinguished society so soon; but I could not refuse the Presi- 
 dent's request; and, as I think it would be hardly respectful 
 to read for you any of my printed verses, I brought here a 
 few Uttle light things, a kind of petits soufflSs which may serve 
 as an entrie to our banquet of tonight. I thought first of 
 reading to you a longer poem, which I have called 'The 
 Temple of Sleep;' but," he added, looking around with a 
 Httle deprecatory smile, "it is a Uttle obscure, and so to speak, 
 mystical. I have a tendency to mysticism, — a fatal ten- 
 dency, indeed, which I have vainly tried to curb. So I shall 
 read, with your permission, a few little trifles, less obscure, 
 and which I have designated 'Fantasies.' You will notice a 
 little resemblance in the triple rhythm to poor Paul Verlaine; 
 but not otherwise. The first I have called: 
 
 NATURA VICTRIX 
 
 He spilt sea-pearls upon the sand; 
 He grasped me in his hollow hand; 
 He said; I am tiiy slave. Command! 
 13 177 
 
178 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 The genii of the sea and sky 
 With every whim of mine comply. 
 They are my slaves. But thine am I. 
 
 I can uncurve the hollow wave, 
 
 And smooth to silk where tempests drave; 
 
 Command me, for I am thy slave. 
 
 But I reluctant said: Nay! Nay! 
 Let Nature hold her ancient sway, 
 And rule her regal waterway. 
 
 For who am I to tempt her so, 
 Despite her, make her tempests blow, 
 Or stem her currents' underflow? 
 
 She knows her bounds; she knows her laws; 
 Nor shall I challenge her because 
 Her fury from her love she draws. 
 
 She rules with right her water-sphere; 
 She kindles love; she kindles fear; 
 iEgle or Nais everywhere. 
 
 He flung the salt sea on the sands; 
 
 He smote me with his hollow hands; 
 
 "Thou slave!" he cried, "go hug thy bands!" 
 
 "The Second Fantasia," said Mr. Marshall, "I have called 
 
 THE GLAIVE 
 
 I drew my sword from out its sheath, 
 I flung the scabbard there beneath, 
 It gUttered on the purple heath. 
 
 And all the elf-Ughts sparkling shone 
 The two-faced, two-edged blade upon. 
 Flashed for a moment and were gone. 
 
SESSION NINETEENTH 179 
 
 And sudden roared a maddened flood, 
 
 I hacked and hewed it as I stood, 
 
 TUl blade and gauntlet both were blood. 
 
 And then it vanished quite, until 
 The flood was but a rippling rill 
 Yearning its sweetness to distil. 
 
 I dipped the blade with just a prayer, 
 I ran it through my streaming hair, 
 But no! the ill-starred stain was there. 
 
 I himg it in our Lady's shrine, 
 
 I begged by Heaven, and Babe divine. 
 
 The brand be cleansed, and yet be mine. 
 
 Ah no! to my half-maddened mind 
 It seemed the more incarnadined, 
 More black for all it left behind. 
 
 I called a little child, and lo! 
 
 I bade him breathe, breathe soft and blow. 
 
 The crimson was a silvered snow. 
 
 I put the brand within its sheath, 
 
 I hung it where the breezes breathe — ■ 
 
 It points to one small grave beneath. 
 
 "The Tliird Fantasie," said Mr. Marshall, — "am I tiring 
 the company? " 
 "No, no, no!" cried the Sunetoi. 
 "The Third Fantasie is called: 
 
 THE SOULLESS 
 
 I saw the sun shine at the Pole; 
 I saw the rivers backward roll; 
 I saw a man without a soul. 
 
i8o THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 And of the three, which was the worst? 
 I shuddered when I saw the first. 
 Feared I the next. The Third I cursed. 
 
 The sun was green; the ice-floes green; 
 And ghastly in the twilight sheen, 
 A white bear capped the dismal scene. 
 
 It mouthed its cub with hot, red lips; 
 The cub was dead. And downward dips 
 The green sun in a black ecUpse. 
 
 And broken, struggling, maddened, swirled, 
 
 In vortices of ruin hurled 
 
 The ice-packs swept a ruined world. 
 
 In the retreat of waters choked 
 A myriad dying monsters croaked; 
 The earth with putrid corpses soaked. 
 
 And yet, I did not curse but when 
 I saw amid the ranks of men 
 What was beyond all human ken. 
 
 A monster possible, — but yet 
 Amidst a myriad fears unmet, 
 A fiend in an idol set. 
 
 A white clay image rudely framed, 
 Amongst God's creatures yet unnamed, 
 A thing by league or law untamed. 
 
 And can it be? and shall it be? 
 Will God forfend the mystery. 
 Lest Earth should burst in agony? 
 
 The polar star still rides on high, 
 
 The river courses now are dry; 
 
 The earth has shuddered; the man is nigh. 
 
SESSION NINETEENTH i8i 
 
 "The Fourth Fantasie is a pretty little experience," said 
 Mr. Marshall. "Of course, you will see it is also allegorical. 
 I have named it 
 
 THE NESTLING 
 
 In the apple-blossoms I hid my face, 
 I never dreamed I could find a trace 
 Of aught but tender and gentle grace 
 
 Of bud and leaf; and the subtle scent 
 Of clove and musk; and a music sent 
 From the stops of some wind-blown instrument. 
 
 But swift sped by a honey-bee, 
 Brown and hairy and gold was he, — 
 A well-fiUed aerial argosy. 
 
 And as he passed, I was swift aware 
 Of a keen, half-angry, sudden stare. 
 Half-righteous wrath, and but half a scare. 
 
 It gleamed from the green nest interweaved 
 In the shade of the branches verdant-leaved, 
 And it said, as verily I believed: 
 
 "Seek as thou wiUest. These are mine. 
 Nought but my love did intertwine 
 This nest from the boughs of the jessamine. 
 
 "And I am God's! This garden fair 
 You say is yours — Yet nowhere here 
 Does your mind or your handiwork appear. 
 
 "Go, therefore, go! nor dare to pry 
 With a silly or sacrilegious eye 
 Behind the veil of my sanctuary." 
 
 And I obeyed. And to this day 
 
 What were the eyes that gleamed so gray, 
 
 Serpent's or bird's I cannot say. 
 
i82 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "Only one more," said Mr. Marshall, eager to go on, yet 
 fearing that he was trespassing. " It is a little longer; but not 
 quite so mystical. I have named it 
 
 THE VOYAGE 
 
 We glide from out the mists of Time, 
 
 Far, far away the fog-bells chime 
 
 Seems through the sounds of seas to climb. 
 
 And farther, farther, farther going, 
 Into the sunset faintly glowing. 
 From Ocean into Ocean flowing. 
 
 Over the seas as smooth as glass. 
 Mirrors unflecked, we swiftly pass. 
 The treasures of the deep amass, 
 
 Not in its ooze of pearls and gold. 
 
 The great, gray seas in their depths enfold. 
 
 Sought in the eld by mariners bold. 
 
 But in glorious day-dreams that ever come. 
 When sky, and sea, and Ups are dumb. 
 And the albatross comes wheeling home, 
 
 And never a sailor turns to mind 
 The long, low line of shore behind, 
 Where dwelt the land-locked humankind. 
 
 Now, in the teeth of a wintry gale. 
 Blind with Ughtning, and cut with hail, 
 For ever and ever we onward sail. 
 
 Or, under the shadowy, tropic line. 
 Shadowless, burnt, we dream and pine. 
 Over pmple seas, under skies benign. 
 
 On the dreamy, level, passionless seas, 
 Uncleft by storm, imkissed by breeze. 
 Unmoved by the night-wind's litanies. 
 
SESSION NINETEENTH 183 
 
 And the great red stars hang trembling down, 
 
 Red as a martyr's ruby crown, 
 
 Or seas that the purple simsets drown. 
 
 But farther, farther, farther going 
 From Ocean imto Ocean flowing, 
 Space and our souls together growing 
 
 Vaster and vaster as on we go 
 
 From shadowless line to the Arctic floe, 
 
 From the blinding sun to the blinding snow 
 
 We break through the far horizon line, 
 With a force half-human, half-divine. 
 And we strain for a far, prophetic sign, 
 
 That our journey ends on a phantom shore 
 Where lisps no wave, and no tempests roar. 
 But there is a silence forevermore. 
 
 For, out of the mists of time we glide, 
 And an ocean gleams on every side. 
 And it is the tranquil eventide. 
 
 Yet a sign comes never. We onward fly 
 Till our soul and God, and our sea and sky. 
 Blend in the night of eternity. 
 
 But when? 
 
 No mortal may ever tell! 
 
 Hark! 
 
 There is the sound of the lighthouse bell! 
 Ere the dusk had vanished, the midnight fell. 
 
 "That is all at present, ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. 
 Marshall. "I fear I have been prolix; and the lines, contain- 
 ing an allegory, are perhaps obscure. But, you know, it 
 would never do for a poet in our age to be too intelligible. 
 The age is self-introspective, self -involved; and we must keep 
 
i84 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 the organ-voices of our poets tuned to the pitch of sentiment 
 that prevails." 
 
 "Quite so," said Father Dillon. "And now, I shall be happy 
 to hear any remarks that may suggest themselves to the 
 members." 
 
 There was an ominous silence; and Father Dillon would 
 have been wise to close the matter there. But he thought it 
 would be uncomplimentary to the Professor, so he said: 
 
 "Mr. Hunt?" 
 
 That young gentleman raised himself a little from his 
 lounging and languid attitude, and said slowly, picking his 
 words: 
 
 "It is impertinent, as well as unwise, for a mere Saxon to 
 intrude his opinions; but, just to set the baU going, may I 
 say that I cannot well perceive how the Gaels or Celts could 
 have incorporated into their language certain Latin words, 
 if the tide of naigration had swept over Spain and Gaul prior 
 to the Roman invasion of these countries? Are we to sup- 
 pose that the Latin tongue was spoken over the Western world 
 before the Roman eagles had conquered it? " 
 
 "And why not?" answered the Professor. "The English 
 language is spoken today by peoples who have never come 
 under English domination; and I am of opinion that so slow 
 was the progress of the great migratory Aryan tribes that they 
 can hardly have planted themselves in Britain and Ireland 
 before the tide of Roman conquest swept the former island." 
 
 "Quite so," said Mr. Htmt. "And to corroborate that 
 view, I have read somewhere, I think it is in the 'Agricola' 
 of Tacitus, that a certain Irish chieftain did come over from 
 his country and invite the Roman conqueror to invade it, 
 promising that one legion would be quite sufficient to reduce 
 the whole island. This argues either a sparse, a very sparse 
 and unsettled population, or a lack of that fighting power 
 which we are accustomed to associate with the race." 
 
 There was a slight touch of Saxon sarcasm in the words. 
 It was quite intangible, and could not be quarrelled with; 
 
SESSION NINETEENTH 185 
 
 but Hester Hope bit her lip in vexation. Alas! there was a 
 hint at perfidy, which history rather confirmed. 
 
 "Strange to say," said Miss Eraser, "our Carlyle always 
 maintained that the Scotch were never Celts, but Norsemen. 
 He could not see a single Celtic characteristic in our country- 
 men." 
 
 "How then explain the language of the Highlands?" asked 
 the Professor. 
 
 "It was imported, he thought, by the Irish monks and 
 missionaries." 
 
 "But how did the Norsemen get there?" said Father Dillon. 
 
 "Again, by migration. They had only to cross the North 
 Sea from Scandinavia." 
 
 "That leads me to ask the Professor another question," 
 said Mr. Hunt. "The paper speaks of the original migra- 
 tories splitting themselves into two streams of humanity. 
 We have followed the one with much interest. Of course, 
 the fate of the other does not come within the scope of the 
 Professor's paper. But I am curious about it." 
 
 "Well," said the Professor, "I have only followed the Aryan 
 Celt; but I believe the theory is, that the other branch of the 
 original stock passed northwards to the west of the Caspian 
 Sea, across the Russian steppes, where again it broke up, one 
 branch spreading south and west, and forming the later 
 Gothic and Teutonic races; the other, moving northwards 
 and occup3dng Denmark and Scandinavia. These were the 
 terrible Norsemen of the tenth and eleventh centuries, who 
 broke loose from their northern fastnesses, and ravaged as 
 pirates all the coasts of Northern Europe." 
 
 "But if these Norsemen," said Mr. Hunt, "and the Ale- 
 manni of Central Europe, were so terrible, not only in their 
 predatory and warlike instincts, but even in their songs and 
 folk-lore, how could they have sprung from the milder Aryan 
 tribes, whose descendants in Armorica and Ireland have 
 been characterised as a 'feminine' race? The expression," 
 Mr. Hunt hastily added, " is not mine." 
 
i86 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "I really must interfere to say," cried Hester Hope, "that 
 I totally object to our people being called 'feminine,' or a 
 'feminine race.' Who has the responsibility of such a 
 term?" 
 
 "A Breton and a Gascon, and therefore twice an Aryan," 
 said the Professor. "You have heard of Ernest Renan?" 
 
 "Rather," she said, with some contempt in her voice. 
 "A word-builder and phrase-maker, who would sacrifice the 
 truth at any moment for the sake of a bon mot." 
 
 "He meant it as a compliment," said the Professor. 
 
 "He should have spoken truth," said Miss Hope. "Surely 
 the race that swept all Europe clean right to the foot of the 
 Alps, where, as was befitting, their King met a godlike death; 
 and the race which the Romans never conquered, and the race 
 which has taken a large share in all the battles of the world; 
 and the race which has given (xenerals 'to half the countries 
 of Europe, cannot be called a feminine race." 
 
 The argument appeared conclusive, especially as it was 
 urged by the earnest voice and the flashing eyes of the speaker. 
 The answer came from an unexpected quarter. 
 
 The doctor, who was a silent man, took little part, although 
 much interest, in those esoteric debates. He surprised the 
 members not a little, therefore, when he broke in upon the 
 debate, and with some heat. 
 
 "You are mistaken, Hester," he said. Hester and the 
 doctor were great friends. "We are not only a feminine 
 race; but we are anciently feminine, that is, we are a pack of 
 old women. If you dislike that expression, let me say, we 
 are a nation of children. We are yet in our childhood, hold- 
 ing on to the apron-strings of anyone who wiU guide us. We 
 have not reached even our adolescence. I saw a specimen 
 of what we are this very day. Some fellows here sent me up 
 to the City as their Delegate to what was called a Conven- 
 tion. I knew what a Convention was. I had experience 
 before. Three or four hundred men are gathered into a 
 hall and seated. They have to listen in silence for three or 
 
SESSION NINETEENTH 187 
 
 four hours to dreary speeches from Members of ParUament 
 and otherwise, — speeches such as Hamlet describes as 
 'words, words, words.' They are told, with every degree 
 of emphasis, that the one thing required in Ireland is 'Unity,' 
 and that 'Dissension' is the evil genius of the race. Then, 
 resolutions are proposed by the gentlemen on the platform, 
 seconded by other gentlemen on the platform, and passed 
 unanimously. And the Convention is at an end. I knew 
 the whole thing would be eminently farcical. But I went. 
 There were about four hundred delegates in the Assembly- 
 Rooms, mostly of the farming class, well-dressed, clean- 
 cut, intelligent fellows, most of them young men, or men of 
 middle age. There was not a gray head amongst them. I 
 noticed here and there some young fellows wearing rosettes, 
 and moving around, gathering little groups, with whom they 
 whispered. These were to be the claqueurs of the convention. 
 Presently, the great ones, the elect, came upon the platform — 
 a few Members of Parliament, several priests, etc., and the 
 proceedings commenced in the usual way. The first resolu- 
 tion, of course, was, 'That we renew our expression of 
 imlimited confidence in our members of Parliament; and 
 reiterate our resolution to maintain the unity and integrity 
 of the Party at any cost.' This was proposed by a lay- 
 delegate, and seconded by a priest. So far all was harmonious. 
 But, when the Chairman, who was also a Member, asked if 
 any delegate had an amendment to propose, a yoimg farmer, 
 sitting close by me, rose and said: 
 
 " ' I object to the resolution, because, as a matter of fact, 
 we don't even know who our Members are — ' 
 
 "But here arose such shouts of 'Turn him out,' 'Chuck 
 him out!' such derisive laughter, such stamping of feet, 
 that there was no gomg further. The young chap held his 
 groimd, however; and, when there was a Uttle breath of silence, 
 he said: 
 
 " ' I have been fifteen years in my district, and I have never 
 seen the face of our Member; nor do I know his name. If — ' 
 
i88 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "Here again pandemonium broke loose, and some of the 
 claqiieurs moved towards the lad to eject him. I thought it 
 time to interpose, and I challenged the Chairman to give the 
 young man a fair chance of being heard. 
 
 " ' Your name, please? ' said the Chairman. 
 
 " ' Dr. James Holden, Delegate for Cove,' I replied. 
 
 " Well, what's in a name? At any rate, I was invited to the 
 platform; but I decHned to go. I renewed my request that 
 the young man be heard. 
 
 '"Well, then,' said the Chairman, somewhat ruffled, 'let 
 him put himself in order by proposing an amendment.' 
 
 " Thus challenged, and quite impromptu, after looking at his 
 notes, the young man said: 
 
 '"I beg to propose that our Members, being our representa- 
 tives, and not our masters, be required to give an annual 
 report to their constituencies of the progress made by the 
 Irish cause in Parliament every year; that this report shall 
 be made during the Parhamentary recess; that it shall be 
 made to a Coimty Convention, which shall be formed by the 
 elective votes of the already elected constituencies, namely, 
 the County Councils, the Rural and District and Urban 
 Councils, and the Boards of Guardians exclusively; that these 
 County Conventions shall alone have the privilege of electing 
 delegates to a National Convention which shall be composed 
 of these County Delegates, selected according to the size 
 and population of each County, and which shall sit in Dublin 
 during one whole week to consiilt with their Members as to 
 the present prospects and future hopes of the nation; and 
 that each County shall not only support its own Members of 
 Parliament, but shall also pay the expenses of its delegates to 
 the National Convention.' 
 
 " The fellow took them so much by surprise that they forgot 
 to shout him down. But, as he folded his paper, there was a 
 yell of inextinguishable laughter, and some fellow said: 
 
 '"And I propose a second amendment, that this fellow be 
 made sole Lord and Supreme Governor of Ireland.' 
 
SESSION NINETEENTH 189 
 
 "The lad remained standing, however, and prepared to 
 speak to his amendment; but there was no longer a chance of 
 being heard. 'Sit down, you fool,' 'Turn him out,' 'Chuck 
 
 him out,' 'Who the d ^1 is this idiot?' echoed on all sides. 
 
 At length, the Chairman arose, and said: 
 
 "'Is it the desire of the Convention that this Delegate be 
 further heard?' 
 
 "There was a furious yell of Noes; and the young man 
 resumed his seat. Not content with this victory, however, 
 some of the young men approached closer, evidently with 
 the intention of violently ejecting the young lad from the 
 Hall. He, however, rose up; and, placing his hand signifi- 
 cantly on his hip-pocket, he said: 
 
 "'You won't Usten to me! Very good. I'm not going to 
 trouble you further. But, the man that touches me does so 
 at his peril.' They drew back. He rose instantly, passed 
 into the aisle, bowed to the Chair, and amidst a storm of hisses 
 and whistlings and catcaUings, he passed unmoved from the 
 Hall. I couldn't stand it. So I rose up, took my hat, and 
 said: 
 
 '"Mr. Chairman, if this deliberative and calmly consulta- 
 tive assemblage is to be taken as an example of what we are 
 to expect in the near future, than may God grant that we 
 shaU never see Home Rule in Ireland, because it would mean 
 the total destruction of the two greatest privileges man 
 possesses — freedom of thought and liberty of speech.' " 
 
 "They didn't assassinate you?" said Bob Skelton. 
 
 "No! They didn't even hiss me. I just heard the Chair- 
 man say, as I passed out the front door: 'Now that these 
 malcontents and factionists are removed, the work of the 
 Convention will proceed in harmony.' But, you see, what 
 an infantine condition we are in. Pay and obey! That's 
 all!" 
 
 "Well, it sounds badly," said Father Dillon. "But there's 
 another view of the question. When a nation is struggling 
 onwards to freedom, the one thing absolutely necessary is 
 
iQo THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 discipline — the sinking of individual opinions, and accepting 
 the verdict of the majority. We are at war, trying to recover 
 our lost inheritance; and in war, the one thing always fatal 
 is indiscipline — the breaking away of detachments from the 
 main army. I think that young man should have been heard, 
 and then, the Convention could reject his absurd proposition." 
 ' "Absurd," cried the doctor. "Where's the absurdity? 
 The amendment was simply to the effect that these Conven- 
 tions should be formed and held in a constitutional manner, 
 not haphazard as now, with not a single elected represent- 
 ative, but a melee of priests, and ministers, land and labour 
 delegates, United Xeague representatives, Hibernians, and 
 ultra-Hibernians — all huddled together Hke sheep in a pen. 
 If the Irish are ever to learn to govern themselves, why not 
 commence now, and take their representatives from those 
 elected by popular suffrage?" 
 
 "Well, you see the whole thing is this, doctor," said Father 
 Dillon, who was very anxious to bring such a discussion to a 
 close. "The country feels that good work has been done by 
 giving our representatives a free hand; and the country is not 
 going to handcuff them now." 
 
 " Of course not. But does the country see that the hands 
 that are loosing its manacles are riveting its fetters? There 
 is little use in shaking ourselves free of England, if we are to 
 be still slaves — without an atom of mental or moral free- 
 dom at home." 
 
 "Look here, Mrs. Holden," said Father Dillon, "would you 
 play the 'Wearing of the Green' or something to soothe your 
 husband's nerves? He's in a bad state." 
 
 And Mrs. Holden played the "March of the Priests" from 
 "Norma." 
 
SESSION TWENTIETH 
 
 This is a misnomer in one sense, inasmuch as it describes 
 Mrs. Holden's Christmas Dinner-Party; and in another 
 sense it is not, because that party did resolve itself into an 
 academic gathering, showing the vast intellectual progress 
 our Sunetoi were making, when the force of ideas could 
 break in even with such marvellous cookery as Mrs. Holden 
 presented to her guests. 
 
 Ah, yes! That good lady did surpass herself that night, 
 when punctually as the great hall clock chimed seven, she led 
 her guests downstairs, and ushered them into the dining- 
 room. It was a pretty scene. The electric lights, softly 
 shaded by hoods of pink silk, made the glass and silver glitter, 
 but not too loudly; red and white camellias showed their 
 shy petals from dainty silver flower vases; and hidden under 
 a soft mass of maidenhair fern, the hlies of the valley poured 
 out, as unnoticed as a poet scatters his verses, their singular 
 yet powerful perfume. All the Sunetoi were present but 
 Miss Eraser, who had to dine with the Scotch family where 
 she was governess; and Father Dillon, who was to dine with 
 the Bishop. With perfect kindness and good taste Mrs. 
 Holden placed Mr. Marshall on her right hand; and Hester 
 Hope next to him. He looked well. His fine massive features, 
 crowned by an aureole of perfectly white hair, gave him the 
 aspect more of a nobleman, than a poet. He was well dressed, 
 for the faint fadings of his dress coat were unobservable. 
 He had a gorgeous shirt front, where one diamond sparkled. 
 But he hadn't had the services of a manicurist. His nails 
 were bitten and irregular, and had not suffered from the brush. 
 That was all the indication left that he was a poet. 
 
 The doctor, sitting at the end of the table with Mrs. 
 
 191 
 
192 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Skelton on his right, seemed preoccupied; and something 
 like the shadow of a frown bent his dark eyebrows downwards. 
 The fact was that he meditated battle, for the Convention 
 was rankling in his mind; and he thought the young priest 
 had effected too successful a retreat at the last meeting. All 
 the guests looked happy. There hovered over them that 
 look of tranquil expectation that always comes from closed 
 shutters and excellent viands. There was one drawback. 
 Instead of her own dainty maids, Mrs. Holden had engaged 
 a gorgeous waiter from the neighbouring hotel. Now, some 
 sensitive natures cannot stand waiters. They appear to be 
 highly, too highly, endowed with what M. Renan calls the 
 critical faculty; and that, whilst apparently absorbed in the 
 duty of attending to the wants of the guests, they are studi- 
 ously observant of all the nameless little gaucheries, which 
 people will commit when they relax a Uttle tmder benign 
 influences. And, if one of those critics has ever so much as 
 handed a plate to a Bishop or a Mayor, it gives him a right 
 to assume a condescending air towards inferior people. 
 However, there was one person present who seemed not to 
 be subject to such hypnotic influences. Bob Skelton ordered 
 that waiter around as if he were a nigger. 
 
 "Hasn't Mr. Skelton great courage," said Hester Hope to 
 Mr. Marshall in a suppressed whisper, "to order such a grand 
 personage around like that? " 
 
 At which Mr. Marshall smiled and said: "I had a friend 
 once who told me, that he was challenged by one of the 
 fraternity, whom he had known under happier circumstances. 
 It was on Patrick's Street, Cork; and the challenge was for 
 a shilling to meet pressing needs. He told me he was as much 
 surprised as if Father Mathew had stepped down from his 
 pedestal and invited him to have a drink." 
 
 Which little remark showed that Mr. Marshall possessed 
 that rare gift amongst the "genus irritabile" — the saving 
 gift of humour. 
 
 Bob Skelton was in his element. Although a popular and 
 
SESSION TWENTIETH 193 
 
 successful manager, he always seemed more at his ease 
 lolling over the side of a yacht, and dropping cigar ashes 
 amongst the fishes, or as now, driving his long carving knife 
 into the plump breast of a turkey. 
 
 "To be perfectly candid, Mrs. Holden," he said, handing 
 a plate to the waiter, " this is the first meeting of the — 'what 
 you call 'em's' that I have enjoyed. I don't care a rap for 
 poetry, beyond a good rattUng song; nor for papers, except 
 bank notes; nor for politics, where every fellow is as big a 
 scovmdrel as every other fellow, and worse. But this is 
 practical work (I'm sending you the hver-wing, Miss Hope. 
 A little celery-sauce?) and honest amusement besides. (Some 
 of the stuflBng? All right.) Because, you know (Bring the 
 champagne here, you sir!), my brain gets addled enough with 
 discount and interest (There, can't you go easy, you have 
 spoiled the table-cloth); and I can't follow (Ha — that's 
 good! Gieseler? no! Moet!) all that hard tinkering at words. 
 (A small leg, Mr. MarshaU? All right !) " 
 
 "Never mind. Bob, you'll come all right yet," said the 
 doctor. "Some day you'll get into Parliament, when the 
 people have some liberty to elect whom they like; and then 
 you'll become Chancellor of the Exchequer." 
 
 "No! I have no ambition that way," said Robert. "I 
 suppose I'll get a pension some time or other — enough for 
 myself and the old woman there. Let the kids look out for 
 themselves. And then, a pipe and a glass, and a day now and 
 again reeling out beyond Roche's Point, and I'm content. By 
 the way, James, I thought you expected Willie for Christmas ! " 
 
 "So we did!" said the doctor, a shade of disappointment 
 gathering on his brow. "Mother had a post-card this morn- 
 ing that he missed the train at Salisbury. His ship is in the 
 Solent you know!" 
 
 "He may come yet?" 
 
 "No! he cannot be here before tomorrow now. The girls 
 couldn't come. And, though one would like to see young 
 faces at Christmas-time, I confess I wouldn't care to see 
 14 
 
194 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 them crossing the Channel on such a night as we had on 
 Thursday." 
 
 "How is that little vixen, Sophy? She never sent me a 
 Christmas card this morning; and we had sworn eternal 
 friendship." 
 
 "She is looking forward to being a nun," said the doctor, 
 with a frown. " I suppose she is giving up all Platonic friend- 
 ships." 
 
 "The devil!" said Mr. Skelton, "Sophy a nun! Why that 
 madcap would turn any convent inside out in a week!" 
 
 "Ay, that's the way! They're taking all our best boys 
 and girls from us," said the doctor sadly. He was in a 
 despondent mood this night. "The moment a girl develops 
 a bit of talent, she's at once seized upon and made a nun." 
 
 "I wonder how Miss Hope escaped?" said the Professor, 
 looking over to where the yoxmg lady was tr37ing to eat some 
 dinner, and listen, at the same time, to the poetic platitudes 
 of her neighbour. 
 
 "Perhaps she has not escaped as yet?" said Mrs. Skelton, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 And strange to say, Mr. Reginald Hunt, who had scarcely 
 taken his eyes off his plate since the commencement of dinner, 
 now looked up, and seemed interested. 
 
 "No community would have me," said Hester Hope, thus 
 challenged. "Something more important than talent is 
 required by our Religious Orders!" 
 
 "And what may that be?" said the Professor. "I confess 
 I can't see what is, or can be, more important to a nunnery 
 than a young lady of talent." 
 
 "There is such a thing as sanctity," said Hester Hope. 
 "And such a thing as obedience. Now, I am a little fond of 
 my own way, and that would never do in religion. And I 
 am fond of reading; and that taste would be circumscribed 
 in religion. If I were caught with 'Romeo and Juliet' 
 under my pillow, I would be soon packed home." 
 
 "Dear me!" said the Professor, with a look of astonish- 
 
SESSION TWENTIETH 195 
 
 ment, "how very narrow-minded! Now, I would suppose 
 that 'Romeo and Juliet' would be exactly the book that 
 would catch a yoimg lady's fancy." 
 
 There was a sUghtly irreverent titter at this naive expres- 
 sion on the part of the Professor; and Mr. Marshall, leaning 
 over to Hester Hope, said: 
 
 "What a gulf there is between us! We can never tmder- 
 stand!" 
 
 And Miss Hope touched by the humility of the old man said: 
 
 "True. But the poets leap farthest towards us. They 
 just fall short. Did you ever notice how all your poets seem 
 to yearn after the old times? They never speak of ' Sunday 
 service,' or 'revival meetings;' but they are constantly 
 reverting to the 'fretted choir,' 'the chanting of the monks,' 
 'the Mass-Bell,' 'the Vesper-Hymns,' the peace and 
 contentment of the cloister. From Shakspeare, with his 
 'sacring-bell,' down to Walter Scott, with all his mediaeval- 
 ism, it is the same. There is some glamour about the old 
 religion, which the poets cannot resist. Your Protestantism 
 is rather a prosaic thing, is it not? " 
 
 "Verily, so it is!" said Mr. Marshall. "How could any 
 man write poetry about four bare walls, and the tables of 
 the Ten Commandments?" 
 
 Meanwhile, the same question was agitating the mind of 
 Mr. Reginald Himt. He took up the problem just where the 
 Professor stopped, and said to the doctor: 
 
 "In that matter of a choice of life, is there no question of 
 parental authority? Does not your Church recognise the 
 right of parents to determine their children's futvure? " 
 
 "Of course," said the doctor, in a weary manner, as he 
 put aside some dainties in the after-courses of the dinner. 
 "But, although the Church says, consult your parents, it is 
 only a French compliment. We cannot interfere." 
 
 "But why?" persisted the young man, who seemed to be 
 much interested in the matter. " Cannot you say, I forbid? 
 You must not enter a nunnery. Will you not be obeyed?" 
 
196 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "Of course I will. But then?" said the doctor, who was 
 quite impatient of such a subject. 
 
 "Well then! All is right, is it not? The young lady is 
 emancipated. She has regained her freedom, and has the 
 choice of a happy existence." 
 
 "Good Heavens, man!" said the doctor, in a burst of 
 impatience, "No! Quite the contrary. It would take me a 
 thousand years to explain. You could never understand." 
 
 The young man seemed disappointed, and remained silent. 
 And the conversation began to flag, as it always does, when 
 people begin to toy with grapes and peaches. There were 
 anxious looks towards Mrs. Holden, and that gracious lady 
 arose. As they passed out, Mr. Marshall, protesting that he 
 never smoked, asked permission to accompany the ladies to 
 the drawing-room. 
 
 Somewhere about nine o'clock. Father Dillon, who seemed 
 pleased to be able to rejoin his beloved Sunetoi, burst into the 
 smoking-room. He was in splendid spirits; and his presence 
 seemed to spread a radiance around the room. After a few 
 words of greeting, he addressed the doctor: 
 
 "How did you put down the day. Doc?" 
 
 "Reading," said the doctor, in his gruffest maimer, "read- 
 ing about another public despot and tyrant and autocrat, and 
 private profligate and murderer, whom this d — d world of 
 ours has made an idol of and worships. I was reading Lord 
 Rosebery's Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, the most ineffable 
 scoundrel that the Almighty ever created." 
 
 "Oh, now, now, you are always extreme," said the priest. 
 "Napoleon wasn't exactly a saint, but — " 
 
 "A saint! Good Heavens, man," said the doctor, in a savage 
 mood, "is there any principle left in the world at all? You 
 preach Christianity, and you worship brute force and lust! 
 Was not that Corsican brigand a murderer, sacrificing two 
 million of Frenchmen, not in the cause of freedom, or any other 
 sacred cause, but to gratify his lust of revenge and ambition? 
 Was he not a cheat, a liar, a horrible profligate? Did he not 
 
SESSION TWENTIETH 197 
 
 murder d'Enghien in Vincennes, and Hofer in the Tyrol; 
 and God only knows, how many other victims in private? 
 Did he not command the massacre of four thousand prisoners 
 over there in Syria against all the rights of war and all the 
 privileges of humanity? Did he not command his general to 
 violate the sanctity of the Vatican, and drag out into the 
 snows the poor old Pope? Did he not rob and plunder every 
 church and art-gallery in Italy, to embellish Paris? Was 
 he not cursed, not only by the peoples whom he ravished and 
 enslaved, but by every mother and sister in France? Was 
 there not a chorus of jubilation in every hamlet from Rochelle 
 to the Rhine, when England at last caged the anarch and the 
 despot, and locked him into her island-prison ? And now, a 
 hundred years after he had cursed the world by his presence, 
 here are writers actually disinterring his execrated ashes, and 
 trjdng to build them into a god." 
 
 A dead silence fell upon the gentlemen present at this 
 passionate outburst. Father Dillon eyed the doctor keenly. 
 He had a momentary uncharitable feeling that the doctor 
 had been Christmassing too freely. But that idea was 
 instantly dissipated. 
 
 "Look here. Father Dillon," said the doctor, a little more 
 calmly. "I blame gentlemen of your cloth for all this. The 
 people are for the most part born fools. Anyone can lead 
 them. They grasp at every straw, and follow wherever the 
 winds blow. It is your duty as Christian ministers to steady 
 public opinion, and show the people how to think aright on 
 these and kindred subjects." 
 
 "You want me then to commence a series of lectures on 
 Napoleon Buonaparte?" said Father DiUon, who was getting 
 annoyed, now that he saw that the doctor was by no means 
 alcoholised. "What is Napoleon to us, or we to Napoleon?" 
 
 "You had an exactly similar case here in your own country 
 a few years ago," said the doctor. "History always repeats 
 itself. You had a man, who was no more an Irishman than 
 Napoleon was a Frenchman; you knew him to be unprincipled. 
 
198 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Like the veterans of Napoleon, the people here won the battles 
 of the country, and he snatched the laurels. You gathered 
 forty thousand pounds, and flung them at his feet. You 
 almost turned back upon your religion by flouting the solemn 
 warnings of the Pope to please him. Then, in the supreme 
 moment of victory, when the prize of battle for which you had 
 been contending for six htmdred years was in your hands, he 
 betrayed you and your country for a woman's smiles, and 
 flung you back for another century of slavery. And now, you 
 are raising his statue under the shadow of Father Mathew; 
 and—" 
 
 "You cannot throw mud at the clergy there, doctor," said 
 Father Dillon. "He got little sympathy from us. Person- 
 ally, I think he did enormous good for Ireland. He led us out 
 of the Land of Egypt, and out of the House of Bondage — " 
 
 "And took you back by another route," said the doctor. 
 
 "Well, he failed," said Father Dillon. "But, Irishmen 
 judge generously. They judge a man by his patriotic dispo- 
 sitions, as well as by his aggregate of work." 
 
 "And you actually think, you, an educated man, that 
 Parnell was an Irish Patriot?" 
 
 "Certainly," said Father Dillon. "He didn't belong to 
 our faith; but we don't heed that when a man is a genuine 
 lover of Ireland." 
 
 "He loved Ireland, as much as he loved her priests," said 
 the doctor. "He was no more an Irish patriot than Jona- 
 than Swift. Both were English. There wasn't a drop of 
 Celtic blood in their veins. Both had a score against English- 
 men ; and they sought to repay it. Swift would drag down the 
 throne because he was refused a bishopric; Parnell would sink 
 England in the sea, because he was rusticated from Cambridge. 
 Both conferred some little benefits on Ireland by hating Eng- 
 land. Both had the utmost contempt for Irishmen; and used 
 Ireland merely as a tool of revenge. You know all that." 
 
 "I know," said Father Dillon, "that the morning I saw 
 ParneU's death on the posters, I shed bitter tears." 
 
SESSION TWENTIETH 199 
 
 "Precisely. There's the feminine race again. The hand- 
 kerchief always ready. You and your countrymen want a 
 little iron in your blood, Father Dillon. Believe me, PameU 
 shed no tears, no more than Napoleon. He would see a 
 thousand evictions without a qualm. He saw a thousand 
 Irishmen locked up in gaol without one feeling of anger, until 
 the detective laid his hand on his own shoulder in Morrison's 
 Hotel. So much for his patriotism. As for his aggregate 
 work for Ireland, I tell you it was the people behind Pamell, 
 and not Pamell himself, that won his battles. It was the poor 
 devils that suffered themselves to be flxmg out on the road, 
 that went to gaol, to the plank-bed and the skilly, not to the 
 first-class hotel fare of Kilmainham; it was poor Davitt and 
 O'Brien that won back the land from the stranger. But I 
 would forgive him a good deal but [that he made the Irish a 
 more servile race than ever. You are aware that 'his Mim- 
 bers' dare not speak to him in the House of Commons. Sir 
 Wm. Butler tells us how on one occasion he rode with Pamell 
 through the Glens of Wicklow, and the wretched people 
 gathered at the cross-roads to greet him, cap in hand, of course, 
 and bodies bent to the earth in the chronic attitude of Irish- 
 men. The mighty despot, the new Napoleon, took no more 
 notice of them than if they were dogs. He hated and despised 
 the whole race, priests and people. He used their rude hands 
 to tear down the fabric of English domination; and that was 
 all he cared for them. But, bad as aU that was, what are we 
 to think now, when his asseclm, as the Pope called them, are 
 actually assuming the same lordly airs, and telling us that we 
 dare not use the first natural privilege of himianity, to think 
 and speak independently?" 
 
 "You shouldn't allow that wretched little newspaper article 
 to worry you so much," said Father DiUon, soothingly. "And 
 it is quite useless to try and break down the sense of gratitude 
 towards Pamell. The Napoleonic legend and the Parnell 
 legend will outlast our time." 
 
 "I quite agree with you," said the doctor, more calmly. 
 
200 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "But the day will come, when men 'will rise from out the 
 beast;' and then, they will turn around, and condemn 
 the beast. Some day, some brave man will arise and ask 
 the pertinent question: 
 
 " Suppose that, on the momentous eve of Waterloo, when the 
 news was whispered to the Duke of WelKngton in the Duchess 
 of Richmond's ball-room that Napoleon's legions were sweep- 
 ing up from Quatre-Bras and Ligny, and confronting the 
 British army at Waterloo, — suppose that instead of slipping 
 out quietly as he did, and riding direct to the field of battle, 
 he had remained behind dallying with the fine ladies at the 
 ball; and suppose that, next day, the British army was routed 
 and destroyed, and that Napoleon had marched on, and taken 
 Brussels, and flung back the Uberties of Europe for another 
 fifty years, what would have been the fate of Wellington?" 
 
 "He would have been promptly courtmartialled, degraded, 
 and shot," said Reginald Hvmt, excitedly. 
 
 "But, he had won victory after victory for England?" said 
 the doctor. 
 
 "No matter; he would be shot without appeal, and without 
 mercy, and justly." 
 
 "But he had won Badajoz, Albuera, Vimiera, Saragossa, 
 Conmna?" persisted the doctor, as if arguing against himself. 
 
 "It would have made not the slightest difference; he had 
 sacrificed all." 
 
 "But he had gone on from Sir Arthur to the Marquis of 
 Wellesley, from the Marquis of Wellesley to the Duke of 
 Wellington; and had been voted £150,000 by Parliament? " 
 said the doctor. 
 
 "It would all be forgotten, or rather turned into the furnace 
 of rage against him for his great betrayal. There was not a 
 man in England or in Europe, that wouldn't vote: Death 
 sans phrase I " 
 
 "And they would have been right," said the doctor. "And 
 until we judge the conduct of our 'leaders' with the same 
 Spartan, or martial severity, I mean of course morally, they 
 
SESSION TWENTIETH 201 
 
 will put their heels on our necks, and betray us, as Parnell 
 betrayed us." 
 
 This time Father Dillon was silent. Mr. Hunt took up 
 the argument. 
 
 "The strangest feature in that matter was," he said, "the 
 enthusiasm that tyrant roused in the breasts of Englishmen. 
 It was not only Byron and Hazlitt that worshipped him; but 
 tens of thousands of Englishmen, whose homes and liberties 
 he would have ruthlessly destroyed. And the legend is 
 growing, rather than diminishing. You would not find an 
 Englishman today to say that Wellington was a greater or 
 nobler man than Napoleon." 
 
 " Then you richly deserve that some day, French or German 
 troopers shall stable their horses in Westminster Abbey," 
 said the doctor. "Good Heavens! To think of it. Did 
 not Wellington rout the conquerors of Europe again and 
 again in Spain? Wasn't Soult recalled, because he dared not 
 face him? Was there not a perfectly fair fight at Waterloo, 
 the preponderance of men and metal being with the French? 
 Do the aimals of history, from Herodotus downward, present 
 a nobler spectacle than that Iron Duke, steady, immovable 
 as brass, watching all his generals massacred around him, his 
 regiments reduced to one or two men; and yet holding the 
 field with indomitable perseverance, until the cloud of dust 
 arose on the horizon, and the braggarts and brigands of 
 Europe were finally dispersed? Believe me if Wellington had 
 commanded the magnificent battalions of Austrians, Russians, 
 and Prussians, who fought against Napoleon under incompe- 
 tent generals at Austerlitz, Wagram, Jena, Lutzen, the annals 
 of Europe would have had a different tale to tell." 
 
 "Well, the verdict of the world, even of England, is against 
 you," said Father Dillon. " Napoleon, the bound Prometheus 
 on St. Helena — " 
 
 "For God's sake, stop that, Father Dillon, or we shall 
 quarrel," said the doctor. " ' The bound Prometheus! ' The 
 puny, petulant, querulous little mannikin, complaining, like 
 
202 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 some old maid, of his custards and his wine. A great man 
 is best recognised in adversity. But the most enthusiastic 
 Bonapartist cannot say that his hero was anything but a poor, 
 whimpering, selfish little mortal, railing against everyone and 
 everything, because his bath was not heated, or his omelettes 
 cooked. Some day, believe me — " 
 
 But he was interrupted by an exclamation from Father 
 Dillon, who was facing the door and who now advanced with 
 hand extended to greet a handsome young naval officer who 
 was looking around somewhat uncertainly. 
 
 "Hallo, Willie, this you? We gave you up. A merry 
 Christmas. How are you?" 
 
 And then the boy gravely saluted his father, whose anger 
 against the dead evaporated in face of the living. 
 
 "Have you seen your mother?" he said. 
 
 "Yes, and had a bit of Christmas dinner," the boy said. 
 "Then we thought you were spending too much time here; 
 so I have been despatched to summon you upstairs. The 
 ladies are waiting. But, let me have one cigarette." 
 
 Just before the heated discussion in the smoke-room com- 
 menced, and whilst the hostess and Mrs. Skelton were chatting 
 in the drawing-room about domestic and other affairs, the 
 former sometimes drawing her fingers across the piano-keys, 
 as if warning these white and black magicians that their 
 time was coming, the old poet, seated in an armchair, was 
 eloquently holding forth his views on what he deemed the 
 most sacred of arts to Miss Hope, who was an attentive and 
 sympathetic listener. He had been rhapsodising for half an 
 hour and then he said: 
 
 "They were the greatest, and the most unhappy of human- 
 kind," he said of the poets of all ages and climes. "The 
 greatest, because they alone know the terrible secrets of Isis; 
 the most unhappy, because of that knowledge. The mystery 
 of life lies lightly on the multitude. They eat and drink, 
 marry and are given in marriage; laugh loudly, and cry a 
 little, only a little. They don't understand. They do not 
 
SESSION TWENTIETH 203 
 
 think. They are incapable of thinking. They are busied 
 about surface things, — war, politics, commerce, government, 
 taxes. They know no more than the commonest hind (who 
 studies his pigs and his grass calculating into how much silver 
 he can turn them) of the secrets, the arcana of the Universe. 
 The poet alone stands aloof. He is the priest of Nature. He 
 is a celibate and a solitary. In lonely communings with the 
 great mother she speaks to him in language that no one else 
 can imderstand, in language that he can only feebly interpret. 
 For there never yet was a poet that said or could say all that 
 he meant. Somewhere, sometime, he will find words adequate 
 to his thoughts; but, not here below. And this despair of 
 making himself intelligible it is that makes poets such an 
 imhappy race. Did you ever hear of Kleist ?" 
 
 " No," said Miss Hope. " I cannot remember ever having 
 heard the name." 
 
 "Some day you will. He committed one unpardonable 
 offence — " 
 
 But there was a knocking at the hall-door here, and a dragging 
 of door-bells, that seemed to startle the hostess disagreeably. 
 She drew away her fingers from the piano, and listened anxiously. 
 
 "That's an urgent call for the doctor," she said to her 
 guests. "How disagreeable. They always seem to keep 
 these calls until an unseasonable time. And the doctor is 
 too patient and gentle." 
 
 But no! There was the sound of laughing on the stairs; 
 and, in a moment, the little housemaid, Beatrice Ommaney, 
 opened the door, and said smilingly: 
 
 "Master Willie, Ma'am." 
 
 The happy mother hugged that young officer, who was 
 quite a head and shoulders above her, as if she would dislocate 
 every button on his uniform; and then, she introduced him 
 to the guests with an accent of maternal pride that was 
 feebly concealed. 
 
 "We missed you at dinner," she said, with tears of joy in 
 her eyes. " Why did you disappoint us ?" 
 
204 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 " Never mind, mother. It's a long story. But, look here, 
 I'm as hungry as a hawk. Was there even a turkey-bone 
 left?" 
 
 It appears there was. At least, Beatrice was able to place 
 on the dining-room table, a few minutes later, a fairly sub- 
 stantial relic of the Christmas dinner. The lordly waiter 
 considered that his work was done for that evening. The 
 boy was waited on by his mother, who devoured him with 
 her eyes, as he ate slowly and with evident relish. 
 
 The poet did not resume his monologue to his fair listener. 
 The advent of the young lad seemed to have changed the 
 aspect of things. But before the gentlemen returned to the 
 drawing-room, he said: 
 
 "One observation you made this evening. Miss Hope, is 
 haunting me, — that we poets are nearest of all to an under- 
 standing of the intricate mysteries of your Church. Would 
 you read over at your leisure this little carol, or Christmas 
 canticle; and let me know if it expresses any Catholic truth?" 
 
SESSION TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 These is always a good deal of anxiety after a dinner-party, 
 even of small dimensions. The hostess is anxious to know 
 whether it was a success — whether there were any of those 
 little omissions which, like one false note in singing, imperil 
 the reputation of the artiste. In certain houses, as well as in 
 certain operettas, people expect perfection; the difference be- 
 ing that in the latter they pay well for it; in the former, it is 
 expected gratuitously. In the case of our hostess, however, the 
 anxiety was swallowed up by her pride in her boy. The mid- 
 night chimes had long ceased, when the happy mother, and 
 the father, who had forgotten the very existence of Napoleon 
 and Pamell, his betes-noirs, dismissed the young Ueutenant 
 to his room; and then came back to exchange congratula- 
 tions with each other. Then, the little housemaid, Beatrice 
 Ommaney, could not sleep. In the forefront of the evening's 
 entertainment, she had been appalled and abashed into a kind 
 of reverential awe of the mighty waiter; but, when the latter 
 lay in a prostrate and yet dignified position in the kitchen, 
 and the sudden vision of the young oflScer, with all his gold 
 lace and general splendour burst upon her enraptured vision, 
 she found her worship diverted, but by no means diminished. 
 The wren-boys were knocking at the front-door, when she 
 woke from an uneasy slumber, in which the young ofl&cer, with 
 a plum-pudding in place of his head, was just offering her a 
 bon-bon cracker to be pulled. Our good friend, too, Reginald 
 Hunt, was somewhat uneasy, as he returned home to his dreary 
 lodgings. Those remarks about convents and vocations 
 seemed to distress him greatly; and he found that, owing to 
 the too assiduous attentions of Mr. Marshall, he had not been 
 able to seek or obtain an explanation from Miss Hope. That 
 
 20S 
 
2o6 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 young lady, again (when she reached her room, and found 
 that her faithful servant had left her lamp lighting, and her 
 fire sparkling in her grate), instead of at once seeking repose 
 and saying her prayers, took one or two anxious glances at 
 her face and figure in her long toilet-mirror, and then, after 
 divesting herself of her cloak, she flung a wrapper aroimd her 
 shoulders, and sank into an armchair. There was absolute 
 silence all roimd. She could hear it tingling in her ears; and 
 she gave herself up to a regular orgie of dreamy reflection, 
 partly pleasant, sometimes alarming, yet always sweet because 
 of its very anxiety. She was young, and the face of that boy, 
 fresh from the bufietings of winds and rain, rose up before 
 her. Then, the anxious look which she caught in the face of 
 Reginald Hunt, when cloister-hfe was alluded to, came back 
 to her. She would explain, she thought, on the first oppor- 
 tunity. Then, the fine face of the old gray poet blotted out 
 his younger rivals. She drew the paper he had given her from 
 her bosom, and leaning back towards the lamplight, read: 
 
 THE FLOWER-SPIRITS 
 
 Flower of the Dawn, go by! 
 For thou wilt break and bourgeon into birth 
 Of leafy light along the gladdened earth — 
 The golden guerdon of the air and sky. 
 Flower of the Dawn, go by! 
 
 Flower of the Noon, go past! 
 Thy shining petals covering with a mist 
 Of radiant splendours hill and dale unkissed. 
 And shadowy mountains desolate and vast. 
 Flower of the Noon, go past! 
 
 Flower of the Night, incline 
 Thy starsprent blossoms, silvery and pale, 
 What time the Moon-Queen labours to escale 
 The purpled sky between the fir and pine. 
 Flower of the Night, incline! 
 
SESSION TWENTY-FIRST ^207 
 
 Flower of the Field, depart! 
 The lark is singing to thy fragrant breast, 
 That bends above his hidden, meadowy nest. 
 To thee he pours his deep, melodious heart. 
 Flower of the Field, depart! 
 
 Flower of the Thorn, remain! 
 
 For thy pale leaves are streaked and lined with blood, 
 
 Like that which sprinkled Mary as she stood. 
 
 Her hands enclasped behind the Holy Rood. 
 
 The highest bhss is aye the bliss of Pain. 
 
 Flower of the Thorn, remain! 
 
 "How strange," she thought. "There's not a word about 
 Christmas here, and yet he called the poem a Christmas Carol. 
 Not a word of joy or hope, but a farewell to dawns and night- 
 stars and flowers, — all that is bright and beautiful in the 
 world. And then: 
 
 "'Flower of the Thorn, remam!' 
 
 Thorns that pierce and agonise and bring blood — sjmibols, of 
 course, of anguish and sorrow, and heart-breakings; of hopes 
 disappointed, dreams dissipated, loves grown cold, and all the 
 blessedness of earth vanishing imder darkness and the eclipse 
 of youth and hope. How strange! It is only an old man 
 could write thus. And yet — " 
 
 There seemed to gUmmer out of the past, faintly at first, 
 and then more clearly, certain lessons of her own youth, rather 
 dimly appreciated at the time, for experience had not 
 strengthened reflection; and these grew and waxed strong 
 now, as she held the open paper in her hands, and many a 
 meditation, made in the convent chapel, under the dim 
 lamplight in the cold winter mornings, seemed to wake up in 
 her memory; and pictures of sorrow and shame, of thorn- 
 crowned heads, and bleeding wounds, and hearts pierced 
 through and through with swords of pain, rose up before her, 
 and told her that life was warfare and suffering, and walking 
 
2o8 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 with bleeding feet on sharp stones and up along steep hills. 
 And then, at last, she remembered how the final words of 
 strength and comfort were exactly the words that she had just 
 read in this weird poem: 
 
 "The highest bliss is aye the bliss of Pain." 
 
 She pondered the matter deeply. Then suddenly shuddered 
 as she thought, "Is this prophetic? Can that old man have 
 preconised my future in these words? Have I to suffer in 
 order to reach the highest bliss?" 
 
 She rose up swiftly, and was alarmed to find her Uttle mantel- 
 piece clock just on the stroke of "one." She fell asleep, but 
 the words were murmuring in her brain: 
 
 "Flower of the Thorn, remain!" 
 
 She woke up next morning; and heard her memory mut- 
 tering: 
 
 "Flower of the Thorn, remain!" 
 
 Father Dillon, too, left the guest-house, went home, and 
 threw himself into his armchair with a mind full of anxiety. 
 He was getting afraid of the doctor. He knew his character 
 thoroughly, and regarded him with the deepest respect. He 
 knew his single-mindedness, his absolute sincerity, his intol- 
 erance of a lie, no matter how it disguised itself. He had 
 often laughed at the doctor's brusqueness with the vast 
 number of malades imaginaires who came to consult him. 
 "Give up all this eating and drinking, Madam; live simply, 
 and in the open air!" "There is absolutely nothing wrong 
 with your throat, Madam; absolutely nothing. It is pure 
 imagination. Get a bicycle, and a good strong one, for you 
 are abnormally heavy, and go about a good deal." 
 
 "But, doctor, won't you give me something, — some lini- 
 ment or tonic, to reUeve my throat? " 
 
SESSION TWENTY-FIRST 209 
 
 "Certainly not. Why should I? There's nothing wrong 
 in your throat." 
 
 "But, Dr. always prescribes for me. He is so s3Tn- 
 
 pathetic." 
 
 "Then, Madam, go to Dr. . I can do nothing for 
 
 you." 
 
 And they went to the sleek, S3mipathetic physician, who 
 examined, and shook his head gravely, and ordered divers 
 bottles of cold water slightly flavoured with orange, or spirits 
 of chloroform, and for which the happy chemists charged two 
 and ninepence each, and declared themselves highly honoured 
 by such orders. But the brusque Dr. Holden, who dismissed 
 hypochondriacs simimarily, had often, as the priest knew well, 
 remained up all night with a sick child, who was choking with 
 diphtheria; or with some poor woman, struggling in the 
 agonies of childbirth, where there was no fat fee to be ex- 
 pected — only the consciousness of duty well done and un- 
 recognised. But such men are troublesome. Their veracity 
 is a prickly thing. It stings and draws blood. And, after 
 the doctor's wild diatribes against Napoleon and Pamell, 
 Father Dillon had an uneasy feeling that he might spring 
 an unpleasant controversy any moment on the sacred society, 
 and with fatal results. Not that Father Dillon had any acute 
 feeUngs about the political situation. He thought that here 
 there could be but one doctrine — Unity at any cost! One 
 hideous spectre — disunion! 
 
 It did not tend to compose his nerves, or allay his sus- 
 picions, when at the very next meeting of the Sunetoi, which 
 was held in Mrs. Skelton's drawing-room on New Year's 
 Night, the doctor suddenly and brusquely asked: 
 
 "Is there anything particular before us tonight, Father 
 Dillon?" 
 
 Father Dillon looked around rather helplessly, and rubbed 
 his hand across his forehead, as if to stimulate recollection. 
 
 "I am not quite sure! Did I forget? I think, Professor, 
 I asked you — or was it Miss Eraser? — " 
 
 IS 
 
2IO THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "Not me," said the Professor. 
 
 " My paper is for the next meeting," said Miss Eraser. 
 
 "I must have forgotten — " said Father Dillon, much 
 embarrassed. 
 
 "Never mind!" said the doctor. "What I was just saying 
 at our last meeting was this: Look, I wrote it out. It is 
 important. May I read it? " 
 
 "Certainly," said the Sunetoi. "Certainly," murmured 
 Father Dillon, in a very uncertain tone. 
 
 The doctor, unfolding a great roll of manuscript, read: 
 
 " The greatest misfortune that ever fell upon a nation is, when 
 the people abdicate, and fling aside all their privileges at the 
 dictation of an orator, or a demagogue, or in obedience to a 
 false, though attractive, sophism. The ancients were more 
 tenacious of their rights than the moderns. They had also a 
 keener political sense, — a deeper insight into the principles 
 that make the welfare of nations. And we know how they 
 detested anyone who attempted to infringe on their rights, or 
 whose power was growing and developing through intellectual 
 energy on the one hand and popular acquiescence on the other; 
 or through the more dubious methods of popular bribes, no 
 matter how disguised under aspects of benevolence or philan- 
 thropy. They were jealous of their freedom. They resented 
 the first faintest attempt to limit it, or coerce the popular 
 suffrage. They drove Socrates from Athens; and gave him 
 his goblet of hemlock. Through the hand of Brutus, they 
 checked the ambition of Caesar. No public service, no politi- 
 cal or warlike triumph, no polished periods, or rounded sen- 
 tences; no 'glory of orator, warrior, or song' blinded them to 
 the grave imperilling of their most sacred interests. They 
 gave their great men their due; but bade them keep their 
 place. The people never lost their magisterium — the vast 
 power which Nature and the God of Nature placed in their 
 hands — to be used for their protection; to be sacrificed at 
 their peril. We find the same characteristic in all strong 
 masculine nations. The EngUsh, who, of moderns, most 
 
SESSION TWENTY-FIRST 2n 
 
 closely resemble the sturdy masculine Romans, share their 
 jealousy of great men. Magnificent as were the triumphs of 
 the Dijce of Wellington, we know that, when he entered the 
 political arena, he was soon made to imderstand that the 
 people were as supreme in the hustings and in Parliament as 
 he was upon the field of battle; and the iron shutters, which 
 he had to place before his windows in Apsley House to guard 
 them against the fury of a London mob, reminded him that 
 even his invincible battalions were as powerless as the armies 
 of Sennacherib before the breath of the angel of the Lord. 
 And the same people, ever jealous of their rights, never lease 
 supreme power to either of the political parties who from time 
 to time control the chariot of the State; and the moment 
 Whigs or Tories assume a tone or aspect of ascendancy, that 
 moment they are flung into the cold shade of Opposition by 
 an overwhelming popular vote. Now, the very contrary is 
 observable in the weaker, and feminine races. France, for 
 centuries, accepted the rule of Kings. France allowed itself 
 to be bled white by taxation, from which nobles and princes 
 were exempt. France trembled before the wheel and the axe, 
 wielded by aristocrats and their followers. France mutely 
 accepted the Royal lettres de cachet and silently passed into 
 the Bastille. Then, France, like a woman, flew into hysterics, 
 scolded through her orators, scratched and tore, and bit and 
 cursed and murdered. Then she got tired, and sat down again 
 under a military despot; and saw, with feminine vanity, two 
 millions of her children torn from her breast, and mashed into 
 bloody compost for half the fields of Europe, because she 
 heard the drums beating the Marseillaise, and the madmen 
 shouting, La Gloire. And since then, she is the sport of adven- 
 turers and political desperadoes, of Radicals and Socialists; 
 imtil now, thirty millions of French voters are moved as if they 
 were the puppets in a country theatre, at the voice of some 
 Parisian Jacobin, who probably has not a drop of French 
 blood in his veins. At the last election, in one arrondissement, 
 four hundred dead men voted. The registers, the ballot- 
 
212 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 boxes, the presiding ofl&cers were all in the hands of a Free- 
 mason clique; and the wretched people, sodden and besotted 
 by avarice and selfishness, turned round like Lotus-Eaters, 
 and whimpered to those who would rouse them and save: 
 'Let us alone! What is the price of wheat?' A few weak 
 voices cried: 'Your navy is so much rusty old iron; your 
 army is demoralised; your finances are exhausted; it is only 
 the British fleet that is holding back those terrible Germans 
 from sweeping over your borders, and crumpling you up 
 again like tissue-paper. Arise! awake! or be for ever fallen!' 
 And they turn, and look with their bleared eyes: 'Let us 
 alone. Only reduce the rates!' The end of such a people 
 is not far off." 
 
 "Now," continued the doctor, "we Irish, another Celtic 
 and feminine race, are drifting into exactly the same condition. 
 For the last thirty years, we have abdicated. We have placed 
 our political and moral freedom at the disposal of every party 
 leader who, not by his own prowess, but by the strength and 
 sufferings of the people, had been enabled to gain some paltry 
 success — some fractional part of human liberties, or some 
 reluctant acknowledgment that the most ordinary privileges 
 of civilised peoples have been denied us, but that now it would 
 be incompatible with the Imperial Idea to concede what are 
 our indefeasible rights. Then, the country goes into hysterics. 
 The slave thinks that a link is loosed in his chain; and he 
 leaps with joy only to find that the fetters are still galling his 
 feet, and that their staples are riveted faster than ever in the 
 granite of Imperial supremacy. But he has time to forget 
 his eternal agony in the relief of a moment; and to kiss the 
 feet of the man who, whilst affecting to emancipate the helot 
 from the tyranny of England, has stolen the last shred of the 
 creature's independence, and substituted one despotism for 
 another, or reduplicated it. Hence, the pitiable infatuation 
 that salutes the new master with the cries of 'Our Leader,' 
 'our immortal Leader,' 'our Washington,' 'our uncrowned 
 King,' etc., whilst the slave is peremptorily bidden to the 
 
SESSION TWENTY-FIRST 213 
 
 polling-booths to vote according to his master's dictation, 
 and never to dare either to conceive, or express, one indepen- 
 dent opinion. In every other covmtry in the world, where 
 constitutional Government obtains, the constituencies are 
 the masters; the members, whom they elect, are their servants 
 and representatives. In Ireland, the case is reversed. The 
 Members are the dictators; the constituencies are the obedi- 
 ent and tolerant slaves. In England, the Member of Parlia- 
 ment who would neglect to visit his constituents, at least 
 once a year, and render an account of his stewardship, would 
 be promptly sent about his business. In Ireland, a Member 
 would consider it beneath his dignity to unveil the face of 
 Mokanna, and show himself to his admiring people. In many 
 cities and electoral districts in Ireland, the names of their 
 Members are utterly imknown. The people have a dim idea 
 that someone was elected without opposition at the last 
 upheaval, and that is all. But the idea of any Irish Member 
 going down and consulting his constituents is as remote as 
 the supposition that the Pope should consult a Connemara 
 congregation before issuing an Encyclical. Still further back 
 is the idea that any elector in Ireland should have the right 
 to question or challenge the acts of the Nationalists in Parlia- 
 ment. That's a thing not to be thought of — a stretch of 
 fancy that borders on the incredible, a depth of audacity that 
 is almost sacrilegious. When in one of those lucid intervals 
 that will supervene on even the most atrophied and palsied 
 intellect, some unhappy man dares to criticise or ask a ques- 
 tion in politics, he is instantly sat upon, and cries of 'hydra- 
 headed fanatic,' 'intolerable disruptionist,' echo all round 
 him, and subdue his impertinence into the silent and slavish 
 acquiescence of his countrymen. He feels that he has been 
 a rash and insolent intruder on domains where he never had 
 a right to intrude; and that in exercising the most ordinary 
 privilege of a civilised being, he has contravened the will of 
 the nation, and become a contumacious rebel against the 
 universal opinion, a setter-back of the country for some other 
 
214 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 decades of years. Hence wise men in that wisdom that comes 
 from selfishness and a desire for ignoble ease, prefer to submit 
 tamely to this national disfranchisement, this total extinction 
 of all popular rights, this assertion of undisputed sovereignty 
 over the wills and consciences of four millions of obedient and 
 passive slaves. What is the immediate consequence? The 
 rejection of measures which, if accepted, would have been 
 foimd quite equal in their operation to the most extreme 
 national demand. What is the future consequence? In the 
 event of autonomy being ever granted to Ireland, you will 
 have a people, so unaccustomed to exercise their political 
 privileges, that they will be the sport of every extremist and 
 Socialist; so simken in ignoble ease, that they will allow the 
 most drastic and revolutionary measures to be passed without 
 protest; so incapable of thinking for themselves, that they 
 will willingly place the duty and labour of thinking in the hands 
 of mercenary and unscrupulous deputies; so apathetic and 
 indifferent to the vast issues that he before the nation, the 
 vast interests that are involved, that they wiU see these things 
 disposed of by a gang of revolutionaries sent up from the 
 seething corruption of our towns and cities, and enabled to 
 carry out every nefarious project, because their rule is undis- 
 puted, and their sleeping partners have neither energy to 
 protest, or power to oppose. Yes! the moment a nation is 
 taught to seek its ease, and let others do the thinking, the 
 moment the individuals composing the nation abandon their 
 political rights, and become absorbed in promoting their 
 self-interest, that moment pohtical power passes of necessity 
 into the hands of a few able and designing men; and the 
 country shall never recover its political independence except 
 along the bloody paths of revolution. And thither are we 
 tending so surely as our solar system is moving towards the 
 constellation of Hercules in the Heavens." 
 
 "I have not often troubled you. Father Dillon," said the 
 doctor, folding up his paper, "nor you, ladies and gentlemen, 
 with my lucubrations; but if someone doesn't speak, the very 
 
SESSION TWENTY-FIRST 215 
 
 stones will cry out. And, perhaps, the subject is one that 
 lends itself to debate. If so, I shall be happy to hear any 
 adverse opinions on my paper. The hour runs late tonight. 
 Shall we postpone the discussion, Father Dillon, to our next 
 meeting? " 
 
 "It is the rule," said Father Dillon, and he was glad to be 
 able to quote it. He was getting into troubled waters. 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 Father Dillon looked forward to the next meeting with 
 something like affright. He did not know what might happen . 
 It was quite true that the other members would probably take 
 but an academic interest in the question; and, if they cared 
 to enter on a debate, it would be with the calm indifference 
 with which they would approach any neutral or unexciting 
 subject. He began to wonder why such men as the doctor 
 were born; or, if the nativity of such were inevitable, why 
 they could not look upon life and its issues with philosophic 
 placidity, or at least Saxon stolidity. That paper, clearly, 
 was written at a white heat. The lines and letters flamed 
 with intense passion. The man's faith and convictions 
 were written there almost with his heart's blood. 
 
 "That imfortunate newspaper paragraph," thought Father 
 Dillon. "How little the scribbler, who wrote that squib 
 on the doctor, and probably forgot all about it the next 
 minute, cotild imagine into what a magazine he flung his 
 match!" 
 
 But the inevitable had to be faced; and the yotmg priest 
 could only hope that perhaps the Professor, or Mr. Hunt 
 would take up the subject, and dissolve the dangerous and 
 heated elements in some tepid and harmless platitudes. 
 
 At the meeting, he gently strove to gain time by asking Mr. 
 Marshall to read the long-promised poem: The Palace of 
 Sleep. But Mr. Marshall was not prepared. He then turned 
 to Miss Eraser, and asked her to read her paper. The usual 
 course was to discuss the former paper first. But the doctor 
 did not pretend to notice. He only smiled; and turned in 
 his chair. And Miss Eraser commenced to read: 
 
 "There is a word in common use, when we are dealing with 
 
 2l6 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SECOND 217 
 
 the most momentous question in life, and which, I think, we 
 must discard. That word is Education. Because, the pro- 
 cess designated by the etymological meaning of the word — 
 that of drawing out by exercise the faculties of the yoimg, is 
 one that must be set aside as speedily as possible, if our sys- 
 tems of juvenile training are not to remain the lamentable 
 failures they have hitherto been. In some misty and inde- 
 finable manner we are recognising that we have been working 
 all along on wrong lines. The repeated changes in school- 
 programmes, the substitution of one system for another, 
 which is no sooner adopted than it is superseded, the rather 
 stupid and undecided manner in which educationists try experi- 
 ments on youthful minds, as if no principle were accepted, 
 but Hfe was to be one long tentative issue, — all these things 
 seem to converge towards some revolutionary method, that 
 will supplant all others, and be accepted as the final determi- 
 nation of the question. Now, in this, as in all other question- 
 able or debatable subjects, there is one safe principle that 
 may be followed; and that is, to adapt our methodology to 
 Nature's; to follow her guidance as far as we may. For we 
 are a part of Nature — a constituent in that vast Kosmos, 
 whose operations we alone of all sentient beings can study 
 and wonder at. We are not outside spectators, sitting in the 
 gallery of a theatre, where vast conjuring operations are car- 
 ried on for our amusement. We ourselves are part and parcel 
 of the Universe, subject to its laws, affected by its changes, 
 wondering and speculating about the track of a comet today, 
 or the sudden occultation of a star, whose light was shot from 
 its source three thousand years ago; and then suddenly turn- 
 ing upon ourselves to continue our wonder at the little micro- 
 cosm on this grain of sand in space. But we cannot separate 
 ourselves from- the Universe without. Its laws are our laws; 
 and we must obey them, or perish. Now, if we examine 
 Nature's pedagogic methods, we shall see at once that she 
 commences all her operations with a view to the perpetuity or 
 continuance of a species or a unit. She gives no life without 
 
2i8 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 adequacy of subsistence. She no sooner places the egg than 
 she feeds it. Patiently she waits, never exacting work, 
 except when the tiny organism is perfected. Her business 
 with everything young and unformed is to feed it; and she 
 never demands the exercise of an organ, until it is fitted for 
 its special department by perfected growth and development. 
 And if by accident an organ is suddenly called upon to act 
 without having reached that development, it is instantly 
 atrophied and rendered useless for the remainder of its exist- 
 ence. Following this operation — this instinctive work of 
 Nature, you will perceive at once how fatal is the process 
 which we pursue in the training of our young minds. For, 
 long before the faculties have grown and are become developed, 
 we insist on forcing them into exercises of thought for which 
 they are absolutely unsuited, with the result that growth is 
 checked, the mental organs, called suddenly to act, develop 
 perhaps an lumatural precocity of power, which ends in pre- 
 mature paralysis; and the faculties of the mind, strained at 
 their tenderest and weakest point, never recover their elas- 
 ticity, but remain to the end dull and broken parts in the 
 whole mental mechanism. Hence, we notice that just as 
 athletes seldom live long, because physical nature is forced 
 beyond her capacity, and as youthful mental prodigies develop 
 into middle-age mattoids, so the minds of children, before 
 they have begun to develop certain faculties, are forced to 
 exercise them, with the fatal result that they lose their spring, 
 and become inoperative during after-existence. It is a maxim 
 that children should be taught to walk before they can run; 
 and that even walking may result in deformity. We do not 
 put dumb-bells in babies' fingers; nor Indian clubs into the 
 hands of boys. Such exercise would very soon tell in spinal 
 curvatures and other troubles. And it is Just as unwise to 
 force into unhealthy exercise the mental faculties until they 
 have broadened and deepened into maturity. Again, there 
 are some faculties that come to maturity and demand exercise 
 long before others. In, childhood, the emotional and imagina- 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SECOND 219 
 
 tive faculties have reached maturity and are in full play long 
 before the reasoning powers have awakened. There is hardly 
 on earth a prettier sight than that of a child, wakened from 
 sleep, but not yet risen from its cot or cradle, but revelling in 
 its own fancies, and talking in the unintelligible, but delightful 
 prattle of innocence to the creatures which its fancy has 
 formed. It is not a soliloquy; it is a conversation. The 
 imagination has conjured up all kinds of beautiful beings and 
 things, and it holds converse with them as if they were real. 
 It will go on for hours, chatting and prattling, until someone, 
 nurse or mother, breaks in, and Titania and her elves depart. 
 Some of our educationists think this deplorable; and would 
 substitute for those delightful dreams of childhood some hard 
 mechanical study demanding an attention which the child is 
 imable to give, with the result of a paralysis of the imagination 
 on the one hand, and a premature forcing, on the other, of a 
 faculty that has barely dawned in the mind of the child. 
 Again, the child-mind is emotional; and it appears to be the 
 one occupation of ill-starred pedagogues to check these emo- 
 tions and make children what is called sensible. Yes! you 
 want to train that little girl in what you call ratiocinative 
 processes; and hence you cut open her doll, which she knew 
 to be flesh and blood, like herself, and you prove that it is only 
 a piece of cotton stuffed with sawdust. You have destroyed 
 a world; and given the child a rag. The worst of our own 
 sufferings in life is disillusion. All along through the upward 
 pathway of life we are dropping fancy after fancy, until in 
 middle age we stand bare of every beautiful idea that helped 
 us to soar above the banalities of existence, and bear our crosses 
 at least with equanimity. It is always a painful revelation to 
 find that our beautiful butterfly is after all but a caterpillar; 
 or when youth finds that 
 
 "'her beauty's best attire 
 Was woven still by the snow-white choir.' 
 
 or when 
 
220 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 " 'At last she comes to his hennitage, 
 Like a bird from the woodlands to the cage, 
 And the gay enchantment is undone, 
 A gentle wife, but fairy none.'" 
 
 "Ha!" said Mr. Marshall, breaking in on the reading. 
 "That's mine! That's nay poet! That's my Emerson's 
 'Each and All.'" He was qiiite excited. 
 
 "I wasn't aware," said Miss Eraser, smiling, "that Mr. 
 Marshall had a monopoly of Emerson." 
 
 "True, true," said that gentleman. "I beg a thousand 
 pardons for interrupting. Pray continue, Miss Eraser, pray 
 continue!" 
 
 "But, if this is true," read Miss Eraser, "is it not almost a 
 crime to interfere with the glorious enchantments of child- 
 hood; and, under pretence of developing powers that are yet 
 held in abeyance by Nature, break up the golden dreams, 
 which are the little heritage the child has brought from Heaven. 
 There is a still further, and even more fatal blxmder in our 
 modem educational systems. It is the total elimination of 
 ethical teaching. In very childhood explanations are given 
 of the mysteries of reKgion that are a puzzle to theologians. 
 When the little intellect advances, it is taught that there are 
 terrible controversies raging in the world, and it must do its 
 part. The sweetness of Christian Charity, the glory of Chris- 
 tian Love, the sublime imselfishness of Christian Doctrine, 
 the splendour of Christian and maidenly purity, the dignity 
 of the Christian character, the far-off golden dream of the 
 Christian's final beatitude — all that is noble, all that is pure, 
 all that is holy is kept secret from the young emotional crea- 
 tures at our feet, whose very souls are palpitating with desires 
 as holy as those of the Virgin Apostle, and whose dreams are 
 along the lines of the third heavens, which Paul of Tarsus saw. 
 And then we complain that these young souls develop untruth- 
 fulness and selfishness and perhaps even uncleaimess. How 
 dare we expect otherwise? As you sow so shall you reap. 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SECOND 221 
 
 And when the tares and the cockle show in the wheat, let us 
 not say, an enemy hath done this. We have wrought the 
 mischief ourselves. 
 
 "What then should be done? I answer. Feed the child! 
 Stop exercising its immature faculties, and forcing a culture, 
 which is against the laws of Nature. Give up ideas of draw- 
 ing out and developing the three faculties, memory, will, and 
 understanding. That process will come of itself when the 
 mind is thoroughly nurtured. But what is the mind's food? 
 I answer, intellectually. Ideas; morally, Ideals. The assimi- 
 lation of Ideas is food and exercise together just as the assimi- 
 lation of corporal food exercises the bodily organs without 
 effort. The process must be automatic. Philosophers tell us 
 that all our ideas come from the senses; that there is no such 
 thing as Innate Ideas. The first concept of a child is of a 
 something that is Not — I; the second concept is of space; 
 the third concept is the Ego Itself — self-consciousness — 
 the Dawn of Reason. Now, il; is as important to put healthy 
 ideas into the child-mind, as to put healthy food into its 
 mouth. And it is as important to give it ideas which it can 
 assimilate, as to give it food it can digest. Meat for men; 
 milk for babes. That is, we must give the child the mental 
 pabulum suited to the faculties that are most thoroughly 
 developed. What are these? As I have said, imagination 
 and emotion. I would help a child's imagination, therefore, 
 with just the things it can take in and make its own — fairy 
 tales, the folk-lore of the world, Queen Mab and her attend- 
 ants. Undine, the fisher-maidens of German romance, the 
 snow-images and the forest-fays of Hans Andersen and Grimm. 
 I would show them the fairy tales of Nature, her wonders, 
 surpassing the wildest imagination; and I would teach them 
 to reverence Nature in her external workings, in her miracles, 
 in her marvels, in her design. Then, I would hft their fancies 
 higher towards God; and teach them that it is His Hand that 
 has framed all these glories, and that we, too, are part and 
 parcel of his eternal handiwork. When the child grows older 
 
222 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 I would bring before its young fancy tales of tenderness and 
 beauty, lives of nobleness and self-sacrifice; and I would show 
 it how love is only won by love; and how the world holds in 
 immortal remembrance those who have given their best for 
 high and sacred causes. I would put my Plutarch into the 
 hands of every boy; and feed his mind with wholesome ideas 
 gathered from the great ones of antiquity. Thus, I would 
 train the child to venerate first what is beautiful, then what is 
 noble, lastly, what is most sacred and divine in that Life, that 
 lived for us, has earned for us immortal life and all the fruits 
 we shall earn by forming our conduct on the Divine pattern. 
 And these are the lessons that will abide. In the storm and 
 stress of after-life, when the will is weakening and the memory 
 is losing hold of the pale pictures that were stamped upon it in 
 youth, — a word, a line, from antique poetry or (jospel prose, 
 will awaken the drowsy faculties, and call out again the noble 
 figures that had been impressed upon the wax-tablets of the 
 soul. What brought back from the burning suns of India 
 and Australia so many architects, so many statesmen, so many 
 authors, so many lawyers to the side of that lonely grave, in 
 Rugby Chapel? Why did those bearded men stand with 
 imcovered heads and reverent mien above that flag that cov- 
 ered the dust of the revered dead? Was it Arnold's 'History 
 of Rome?' Was it his lectures on the Classics? No, cer- 
 tainly not. It was the memory of those Simday mornings, 
 when they sat, as boys, there in those self-same benches; lifted 
 up their eyes and saw that grave and reverend figure, heard 
 those lessons of Christian manhness and self-reverence that 
 were to them a staff in the hand through the perils of their 
 earthly pilgrimage. Yes! Feeble woman as I am," continued 
 Miss Eraser, in a voice that was now broken with emotion, 
 "I would pull down with one hand every monument raised 
 by slaves to the despots and tjnrants of the earth; and I would 
 raise with the other pyramids and statues that would immor- 
 taKse the memories of the world's teachers and saints — " 
 "Bravo! Bravo!" said the doctor enthusiastically. "You 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SECOND 223 
 
 would drag down Vend6me Columns and plant a cross amid 
 the ruins of every world-CoUseum! Go on, Miss Eraser. 
 This is refreshing!" 
 
 And Miss Eraser, smiling, continued: 
 
 "Of course, as reason develops, and the faculties of attention 
 and observation wake up and demand appropriate exercise, 
 I would put the yoimg mind through a course of mathematics 
 to enable it to reason accurately, and weigh arguments, 
 and reach conclusions that shall be scientifically correct. 
 Because that mind-sharpening is useful for many reasons; 
 and the habit of mental concentration, that is likely to be 
 dissipated by the desultory and promiscuous reading of after- 
 life, will at least remain powerful enough to check hasty and 
 immature judgments on men and their principles. It will 
 teach them the value and the importance of words, the neces- 
 sity of weighing well our own utterances lest we should deceive; 
 the utterances of others lest they should deceive us. Nothing 
 does more harm than wild unbalanced language; and it is to 
 be specially guarded against in this country, where Celtic 
 fierte supplies eloquence at will, and Celtic irresponsibiUty 
 uses words without grave consideration of their meaning, and 
 of their consequences. You wiU have noticed that all the 
 great philosophers were also great mathematicians. They 
 passed from the abstraction of signs to the abstraction of 
 ideas; but they carried with them that intense precision that 
 was formed by close concentration of mind in a process of 
 reasoning where a moment's distraction would break up the 
 chain of thought, and make an accurate conclusion impossible. 
 And I am of opinion that amongst our greatest writers the 
 one whose style was most fascinating, but whose judgments 
 were most fallible, was the one whose early intellect was not 
 formed in what might be called the ascetic school of pure 
 mathematics. Then, when all is done, when the mind is filled 
 with wholesome and happy ideas; when the soul is raised up 
 to lofty ideals; when the faculties are strengthened and 
 matured, I would place in the hands of the yoimg the literature 
 
224 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 of Greece and Rome, not perhaps for any moral training 
 (although I believe our best thoughts, short of the transcen- 
 dent mysteries of Revelation, are simply reproductions of 
 ancient philosophy), but to complete the perfection of the 
 building with the graces of the peristyle; to work out the com- 
 pletion of science by Art; to superimpose on the solid structure 
 the elegancies that go far towards habituating the mind to 
 those intellectual delights that form in our days, for all but 
 the Epicurean of the club, or the butterfly of fashion, the 
 grand resource against intellectual eimui on the one hand, or 
 mental enfeeblement on the other." 
 
 "Really, Mr. Chairman," said Reginald Hunt, when the 
 polite applause had subsided, "I have begun to think that 
 Miss Eraser and Dr. Holden are in collusion; and have been 
 collaborating these interesting papers, because they seem to 
 run on parallel lines, — Miss Eraser, treating of education in 
 general, and the doctor, of political education. And the 
 parallelism seems closer, because if I have rightly imderstood 
 the doctor's paper, he seems to think his countrymen are still 
 in an infantile condition, politicallyi speaking." 
 
 "Certainly," said the doctor. "By Nature, a shrewd, 
 sharp, clever people, they have been debarred by English 
 governments from all decent education; and by their political 
 leaders from aU chance of developing free and independent 
 opinion. And I am also proud to make my acknowledgments 
 to Miss Eraser for insisting that we shall not bow down the 
 heads of our children before the idols of baseness; nor teach 
 them a certain morality in our schools, and then compel them 
 to worship the personifications of baseness and immorality 
 in public life." 
 
 "I won't challenge that point," said Mr. Hunt. "But if 
 you insist that your coimtrymen have not yet reached even 
 adolescence, not to speak of maturity, is it not reasonable that 
 they should be guided by men of experience and integrity in 
 forming their political ideas? Children are liable to err, if not 
 directed by their seniors in age and education and experience." 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SECOND 225 
 
 The doctor looked staggered for a moment. Out of his own 
 mouth this yoimg man was judging him. But he recovered 
 himself rapidly. 
 
 "True," he said. "But with us it is a question of the blind 
 leading the blind, or rather, of children teaching children; 
 for what poUtical education have our leaders? Your states- 
 men are trained lawyers and diplomatists. They have been 
 brought up in offices, where every day they are brought face 
 to face with all the intricacies of diplomacy and statesmanship. 
 They are taught to read behind the words of public speakers 
 their exact thoughts; and to find out by daily experience that 
 language is only one method of concealing thought. Some 
 of them have been abroad as attacMs at foreign courts, where, 
 even if they had not already lost every trace of honesty, they 
 should be compelled to drop it. They have been dealing with 
 the successors of the Mettemichs and the Bismarcks of Europe. 
 And our statesmen? They have just passed through Univer- 
 sity College and have got a B. A.; or they are strong farmers 
 who know the value of a cow to a hair. But what chance have 
 they in the pohtical arena? Crude and untrained cleverness 
 is no match for trained and perfected diplomacy." 
 
 "Yes, but after all, have you not as leaders of public opinion 
 gentlemen who have not only served their apprenticeship 
 to poHtics, but who have acquired some reputation as 
 orators — ? " 
 
 "Orators!" cried Dr. Holden, interrupting. "Why, there 
 is the curse and bane of our race. We are all orators — stump 
 orators, platform orators, hustings orators, Parliamentary 
 orators. K the Lord would only strike the whole Irish 
 race diunb, as he did the imbelieving High Priest, and not for 
 nine months, but for nine years, perhaps we could reclaim 
 our bogs and fens, and learn to grow something besides 
 potatoes." 
 
 "But really now, doctor," said Father Dillon, "you must 
 admit that we are not wholly unpractical. Everyone says 
 that vast progress has been made these last few years; and 
 16 
 
226 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 when once the chariot is set going, it will get on with increased 
 momentum every year." 
 
 "True, Father Dillon," said the doctor, so mildly that the 
 priest was surprised. "A few things have been done; but, 
 do you ever think what might have been done? You got a 
 glorious Land Act, called the Ashbourne, twenty-five years ago. 
 A few happy tenants purchased under that Act; and are now 
 practically the owners of their property. Then, the people 
 were told. Wait! the landlords are doing too well! Wait! 
 The land will be nationalised, and you shall have your farms 
 for nothing. The people took the advice; and many is the 
 sore heart over it today. Then they got the Wyndham Act. 
 Again they commenced to buy, and fortunately for the coun- 
 try and themselves, a large proportion of Irish tenants have 
 purchased their land. But again they were told that the 
 landlords are too well treated; and again we have had an 
 abortive Land Bill in Parliament; and some 100,000 tenants 
 with their fingers in their mouths are looking over their neigh- 
 bours' ditches, and will have to look for a considerable time, 
 if I read the signs aright. A few years ago, you were offered 
 Home Rule without the name. You were offered control of 
 the entire administration of Ireland, all its great Boards, with 
 an annual outlay of £4,000,000. You rejected it with scorn. 
 A people, politically educated, should and would understand 
 that, in political warfare, every vantage-ground should be 
 seized, from which a further essay could be made. We want 
 everything, or nothing. We shall end with the latter," 
 
 "Yes!" said Mr. Hunt languidly. "But, somehow we are 
 drifting from the point. I cannot still see how you are to 
 manage unless you place absolute confidence in your leaders. 
 Once admit that the people are devoid of political wisdom; 
 and you must necessarily throw the burden of directing them 
 on their leaders. Are your people so backward as you say? " 
 
 "The people are intelligent enough," said the doctor, "but 
 they are kept in a state of pupilage by their masters — " 
 
 "Now, now, doctor, let us be fair," said Father Dillon. 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SECOND 227 
 
 "You know right well that the people have practically no 
 knowledge on political subjects. Take any large parish in 
 Ireland. I don't care where. Take any large town of 8,000 or 
 9,000 or 10,000 inhabitants. How many of these, although 
 prosperous merchants, professional men, etc., could stand on 
 a platform and talk for one quarter-hour on any subject of 
 public interest? How many have studied, or could speak 
 intelligently on Local Government extension; on Education, 
 Primary, Secondary, or University; on the fisheries of Ireland; 
 on the development of the water-power of Ireland; on the 
 utilisation of the peat-bogs of Ireland; on Emigration; or 
 the thousand and one subjects that are clamouring for public 
 attention? How many, do you say? Fifty?" 
 
 The doctor shook his head. 
 
 "Forty?" 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "Thirty? Twenty? Ten? Five?" 
 
 "Perhaps, five," said the doctor. "But, my dear sir, 
 don't you see you are proving my thesis, which is that a highly 
 intelligent race are kept in a state of pupilage by the men 
 who, because they think they have achieved a little success, 
 now arrogate the supreme right of controlling a nation's des- 
 tinies without ever consulting the voice of that nation itself? 
 It is quite true that the nation has had no political education; 
 and naturally indolent, is happy to be relieved of the trouble 
 of thinking. But is this desirable? Is it wise, or prudent, 
 to place supreme and \mquestioned power in the hands of 
 eighty or ninety Members, who, in turn, and for obvious 
 reasons, are mere puppets in the hands of an autocrat, or, at 
 most, of a committee? Even if we admit that our present 
 interests are in safe hands, what about our future? Darigerous 
 elements are seething and foaming all over the world. Do 
 you hope that Ireland is going to remain untouched? Let me 
 suppose that you have obtained your Irish Parliament. Who 
 will be elected thereunto? With the vast masses of the people 
 sunk in political apathy, totally devoid of political training, 
 
228 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 the willing victims of every outrageous demagogue who has 
 got 'the gift of the gab,' do you suppose that it is Con- 
 stitutional 'Moderates' will be elected to your Senate- 
 Houses? No! But the wildest Socialist, the most rampant 
 agitator, — the man who will promise most to the mob, 
 and who will most fiercely denounce property, religion, and 
 decency. You will cry out against it! Too late! TheLotus- 
 Eaters will turn in their potato-patches, and ask: 'Let us 
 alone! What is the price of oats? ' " 
 
 " But this is all wild denimciation," Father Dillon said. He 
 was somewhat nettled at the turn the debate was taking. 
 "It is so easy to criticise, and find fault. But what do you 
 suggest? How can you remedy matters? " 
 
 "It is extremely simple," said the doctor blandly. "I 
 would say to your leaders: Take the people into your confi- 
 dence! Treat them as intelligent beings, not as automatic, 
 penny-in-the-slot voters and subscribers. Let every county 
 have the right of summoning an annual convention, to be 
 composed, not of the tag-rag and bob-tail of every little parish 
 organisation, but by the elected representatives of the already 
 elected Boards and Councils of the County. This is the only 
 popular, because the only elected representation, because it 
 depends absolutely on the already given suffrages of the 
 people. Let your Members meet those delegates, and submit 
 to their judgment the work that has been accomplished during 
 the session. Let there be perfect freedom of discussion, — no 
 bluffing, no violence, but the calm deliberation of thoughtful 
 and honest men. Let these County Conventions select dele- 
 gates for a National Convention, a real Parliament of the 
 Irish people. Two hundred, at most three hundred delegates 
 will suffice. Let these meet their parliamentary leaders in 
 Dublin, not for one hour's or two hours' scrambling, but for 
 three or four days' calm deliberation. The country will pay 
 the expenses. In this manner, you will have the whole of 
 Ireland taking an active interest in politics; you will have the 
 work of your representatives submitted to the critical judg- 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SECOND 229 
 
 ment of the nation; and you will have a body of trained and 
 educated local representatives whose influence on the popular 
 vote at the recurring elections will be wholesome and salutary." 
 
 "You will have something else!" said Father Dillon, who 
 was losing temper rapidly. 
 
 "What?" said the doctor. 
 
 "The New Atlantis," said the priest. 
 
SESSION TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 "Can it be possible," said Reginald Hunt to Miss Hope, 
 as they walked homewards after the last Session, "that 
 your people are such political incapables as has been just 
 described? " 
 
 "You are surprised and disappointed?" she said. 
 
 "Yes, both. I have always understood that your people 
 were particularly shrewd and intelligent; and that they were 
 born politicians. Why, look at America! They seem to 
 control every political organisation there; and these must 
 be necessarily much of the same temperament and training 
 as their coimtrymen at home." 
 
 "How many Irishmen in the Senate?" was the reply. 
 "How many Mayors of Cities are Irish? What chance is 
 there that any descendant of an Irish Catholic shall ever be 
 President of America?" 
 
 "Then you don't think your people wield the large political 
 power and patronage in the States that we have been led to 
 believe? Why, our good countrymen in England are suffering 
 from chronic nightmare on account of the preponderance of 
 the Irish element in American politics." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "Parochial politics? Yes. State politics? No! Our 
 people are in a state of pupilage, as the doctor asserted. 
 I was genuinely angry with the doctor; but I could not 
 contradict him." 
 
 "What did you think of Miss Eraser's paper?" he asked, 
 suddenly changing the subject. 
 
 "I thought it excellent," said Miss Hope. "It is the 
 Herbartian theory slightly modified. But I think it debat- 
 able. Don't you?" 
 
 230 
 
SESSION TWENTY-THIRD 231 
 
 "I thought so," he replied. "Will you take up the debate 
 at our next Session? " 
 
 " No — o ! " she said. " Somehow, I should think it not quite, 
 — well, comme ilfaut. But I may join in." 
 
 "Thanks very much! I should like to hear your views on 
 that matter." 
 
 "Will you try and bring out Mr. Marshall?" she said. 
 "You are both contending for the laurels; and it would be 
 nice if you brought him to the front. Of course, your port- 
 folio is not exhausted; but it would be graceful, would it not, 
 to give the old man priority? " 
 
 The words seemed to plunge Mr. Himt into a reverie. They 
 had reached her door. 
 
 "Yes!" he said. "I shall. It is right because you have 
 wished it; and you have wished it because it is right!" 
 
 Hence, in some marvellous manner, at the next Session of 
 the Sunetoi, Mr. Marshall had his poem in his breast-pocket; 
 and, by a curious coincidence, Father Dillon demanded it. 
 
 "It is rugged," said Mr. Marshall, unfolding his paper. 
 "It is obscure. It is mystical. You will be judges as to 
 whether it is quite unintelligible. You know there are two 
 languages, or dialects almost unintelligible — the prattle of 
 the child and the balbutium of the aged; and both because 
 they are so near eternity, and have caught the trick of its 
 silence. Hearken!" 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF SLEEP 
 
 I entered the Temple of Sleep through the gateway of tears, 
 And no sun was within, and no moon, but a blood-brown twilight; 
 
 And lo! There was silence from sobbing, 
 
 But a fulness of fruitful fears. 
 
 For men were all monsters in motley apparel bedight. 
 
 And the face of a child did stare out from the mane of a lion. 
 
 Yea, the brow of the king of the fearless 
 
 Was a pallid face of affright. 
 
232 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 A maiden came swaying and poised with the grace of a Dian, 
 Her raiment embroidered fell in the sinuous coils of a snake, — 
 
 The snake of the bearer, Ophiuchus, 
 
 Who flees 'fore the face of Orion. 
 
 Their lips parched and parted in simder their anguish did slake 
 From goblets half-fulvid with gold, and half-rubied in flame, 
 
 And their lips from the twain-chas6d goblet 
 
 Their twain-taiated colours did take. 
 
 And fear foUowed fear in the snake-shapes of horror and shame, 
 But only the eye was sore-smitten; and xmtouched was the ear; 
 
 For silent they passed to the silences 
 
 Of the unknown bourn whence they came. 
 
 I think 'twas this dumbness that smote me — this speechlessness 
 
 drear 
 As of Centaurs transfixed into stone, or a sand-covered sphinx, 
 
 Staring far o'er the Umitless desert. 
 
 Void of hope, but as tranquil of fear. 
 
 I felt as you feel 'fore the face of a monster that thinks. 
 
 And reads all your soul with the lamp of a dead, speechless stare; 
 
 Or a fate that in silence your dead Past 
 
 With a future Nemesis links. 
 
 I cried to the silences crowded, in words of despair: 
 
 " Ye forms, which swing slow out of nothing, to nothing do pass, 
 
 Beaten hither and thither on vampire — 
 
 Black wings through the umbered air, 
 
 " Who are ye? Whence go ye? Whence come? Are ye ghosts in 
 
 the glass 
 Of fancy, redundant of shapes, madly-formed, motley-hued, 
 
 Gigantic 'gainst backgrounds of blackness, 
 
 Thimder-bearing, and turbid, and crass? 
 
 " Were ye framed in the throes of a Nature, phrenetic and lewd, 
 Or distorted in madness of mouldings, from some archetype, 
 
 From convulsions of Heaven-scaling Titans, 
 
 In rage of despair, iron-thewed? 
 
SESSION TWENTY-THIRD 233 
 
 "Or, when the full time for unfolding your species was ripe, 
 Did some demi-god blunder, apprentice-like, piece after piece, 
 
 Evolving from natures melodious 
 
 The scream of a rude scrannel-pipe?" 
 
 But around, and around me they hovered, without pause or 
 
 surcease. 
 And blent into shapes, ever-varied, amorphous, and blind; 
 
 As a sylph might xmwind to a blind-worm. 
 
 Or a moth to a Psyche increase. 
 
 And this made it dreadful — this blending of kind with its kind. 
 More dreadful the rapid mutation of beauty to hideousness; 
 
 Can a Lucius look on Lamia, 
 
 Without leaving one quahn behind? 
 
 So I traversed the Temple of Sleep with a certain callousness. 
 As a traveller doses his eyes, and plunges into the night. 
 
 Made brave by a frantic dread of despair. 
 
 And an unsunned hopelessness. 
 
 n 
 And lol on horizons afar a faint, crepuscular light. 
 Trembling and thin Hke a white-fringed wave on a sandy coast. 
 
 When the blind earth is swallowed in darkness. 
 
 And feels how terrific its might! 
 
 And the great white fans of the dawn fluttered their feathered host. 
 Spreading the pliunage of light far down through the breaking skies. 
 
 The golden-hooved horses of Phoebus 
 
 Gleamed far on the skyey coast. 
 
 And farther and farther rearwards, as legions of light arise, 
 The curtains of Night were up gathered, grimy fold upon fold. 
 
 Furled like the canvas of phantom ships 
 
 To ghostly mariners' cries. 
 
 And on every pliune of the dawn-wings, glist'ning in pearls and gold 
 Grew the oval face of a sun, whose ridged circmnference 
 
 Was a winged angehc radiance 
 
 Like a flaming photosphere rolled. 
 
234 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Backward their faces were flung, and glowed with a light intense, 
 Hair far-streaming, but netted, and raiment tightened and drawn, 
 
 Clothed with heavenly graciousness 
 
 And the beauties of lower sense. 
 
 And as ever the mighty orb-worlds swimg to in the lucent dawn, 
 Seraphs uncoiled them from sims, and hung in the golden space, 
 
 Dashed and sprinkled with pearly light 
 
 Like the gems on a dewy lawn. 
 
 And then did I see in my vision the pictured angelic Face, 
 Dreamed by genius and faith in the swift, sweet raptures of 
 thought, — 
 
 The visioned perfection of Heaven, 
 
 The prophetic fate of our race. 
 
 Eyes, unclosed and adoring, with light from far spaces brought. 
 Lips half -parted in silence of worship, or spheral song; 
 
 And a flame on the forehead triumphant 
 
 Like that which Angelico wrought. 
 
 Chiselled and clear-cut faces with the outlines firm and strong. 
 Eyes that gleam in the battle, or sheathe with the film of a dove; 
 
 Search the Cimmerian tunnels of Hell, 
 
 Or shepherd the starry throng. 
 
 Spirit-eyes that are lost in the deserts of tranquil love. 
 Hands that lean on the hilts of weapons that quiver in flame, 
 
 And wings that sweep through Gehennah, 
 
 Or winnow the sun-plains above. 
 
 And arotmd and aroimd me they whirled, till the flaming suns 
 
 became 
 One mighty river of light, torrential in strength and sound, 
 
 Dispersing, uniting, wave upon wave. 
 
 Distinct, but ever the same. 
 
 But, unlike the silences chained, which the lips of the monsters bound. 
 The music of wakened sims, as erst of the Sons of Light 
 
 Broke on the startled dawn-dreamers. 
 
 And shattered the silence profound. 
 
SESSION TWENTY-THIRD 235 
 
 And echoed afar by the spaces revolving in tranquil night, 
 Returned in reverberations, mufHed as heard from afar, 
 
 Afar in the misty spaces where sink 
 
 Mind-magic and searchings of sight. 
 
 I asked, where this sun-river rolled, what omnipotent bar 
 Controlled its volcanic strength, and flung it back into space; 
 
 Or diminished its crested glories from 
 
 A sun to a pale-blue Star. 
 
 And I felt as if someone had whispered: This vast and colossal 
 
 race 
 Of systems, encircles some splendours afar and as yet unseen — 
 
 'Tis the giant parade of shining worlds 
 
 Drawn out 'fore the Godhead's Face. 
 
 And dark is that Face as yet in the wake of a luminous screen, 
 Whilst the universe gUdes in front, marshalled by prophets' rod. 
 
 Through the deep, imchannelled eternities. 
 
 Through grooves in the ether serene. 
 
 How then shall we ever behold It — this Throne of the Hidden 
 
 God? 
 Or uimiesh our sinking souls from the swift and painful strife. 
 
 The onrushing, impetuous forces. 
 
 Reined by the Olympian nod? 
 
 But lo! from the centre where ever the thoughts of wisdom are 
 
 rife 
 I heard: Thou must cease to judge, as erst in the blood-brown air, 
 
 Conjecture and doubt have passed with death, 
 
 And in its deep valleys is Life! 
 
 Ah! then, but that Temple of Sleep; and the forms uncouth and 
 
 fair? 
 And the Faces that swung out of darkness, and unto the dark 
 returned? 
 They are Dreams, They are Dreams 
 
 Of the Death, called Life, 
 And the Phantoms that hover there! 
 
236 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "You see, ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Marshall, with 
 a little deprecatory smile, " it is a little obscure and phantasmal. 
 Of course, there is an explanation; but the commentary would 
 be longer than the poem itself." 
 
 "It must have cost you great labour?" said Mrs. Holden, 
 sympathetically. 
 
 "Ah, my dear Madam — " said Mr. Marshall; and he did 
 not finish the sentence. 
 
 "I understand," said Father Dillon, after a Kttle pause, 
 "that the system of education formulated by Miss Eraser 
 at our last meeting is known as the Herbartian. I believe 
 that Herbart was also the originator of a system of philosophy, 
 which is not generally accepted, or acceptable. We have 
 nothing to say to his philosophical principles; but his educa- 
 tional system is open to discussion. Am I right in supposing 
 that it is the Herbartian system you advocate. Miss Eraser? " 
 
 "Partly," said the lady. "Just one phase of it, perhaps. 
 I should very much like to obtain the views of the Society, 
 at least as far as I have gone." 
 
 "Perhaps, the Professor — ?" said Eather Dillon. 
 
 "On the point which touched my own department," said 
 the Professor, "Miss Eraser and I are in perfect accord. 
 I cannot conceive of a gentlemanly education with the classics 
 left out. I am quite aware that the trend of modern educa- 
 tion, absolutely utiUtarian, just as the trend of our politics 
 is absolutely sodaUstic, is directed towards the elimination of 
 the classics, and the substitution of science. It is certainly 
 singular that the classics should be always associated with 
 elegance, refinement, whatever savours of conservatism and 
 gentle birth and breeding; and that science should be con- 
 nected with ideas of democracy, progress, liberaHsm, and a 
 general loosening of the bonds on which society has hitherto 
 held together. You cannot even imagine a Greek scholar, 
 or a Ciceronian Latinist a democrat; and, although in the 
 Erench Revolution, there was a good deal of affectation about 
 Roman names, or Grecian heroes, the Revolutionists were a 
 
SESSION TWENTY-THIRD 237 
 
 pack of vulgar lawyers and scientists, who knew nothing of 
 the spirit of the ancients. The very word "classics" is 
 synonymous with what has been consecrated and placed on 
 the shelf for ever. It means the very opposite of change, or 
 revolution, or the breaking up of things, or the searching out 
 of new ideals. In a word it is conservatism in the fullest and 
 grandest sense — the conservatism of old ideals and customs; 
 and therefore, the proper study for a gentleman — " 
 
 "Do you really mean. Professor," said the doctor, inter- 
 rupting . rather brusquely, "that a man who is devoted to 
 science cannot be a gentleman?" 
 
 "If you mean, exclusively devoted to science," said the 
 Professor blandly, "I say certainly. Yes! He cannot. The 
 reason is plain. A gentleman is one of refined habits and 
 feelings, sensitive to his own honour and others' comfort, 
 physically unable to do anything coarse or rude. To raise 
 the human mind to that level, ideas, as Miss Eraser so aptly 
 said, are absolutely necessary; and these must be lofty and 
 transcendent ideas, — ideas that lift and raise and elevate 
 above everything sordid, and coarse, and mean. Now, a 
 scientist has to deal not with ideas, but with facts; and facts 
 are vulgar things. He has to deal with stones and minerals 
 and common clay; with offensive and dangerous chemicals; 
 with foul-smelling gases, and all the smut and soot in the 
 laboratories of Nature. He has to vivisect, and examine the 
 palpitating entrails of the lower creation to deduce principles 
 for curing the maladies and general decomposition of the 
 higher. Thus, you see, he is in daily contact with whatever 
 is real, tangible, and humble; and he becomes of necessity 
 realistic in his ideas; and his mind has a tendency to material- 
 ise everything. Hence, all the grand ideas and all the superb 
 visions of the poet, the idealist, the classicist, are foreign 
 to him. In science, he is a realist; in philosophy, a material- 
 ist; in politics, a socialist; in religion, an atheist. Whereas 
 the classic scholar, who has drunk in all the magnificence and 
 sublimity of the ancients: 
 
238 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "'All the glory that was Greece, 
 All the grandeur that was Rome,' 
 
 becomes an idealist in daily life; in politics, a conservative; 
 in philosophy, a subjectivist; in religion, a theist and a 
 Christian." 
 
 "Well, I'm blessed!" said the doctor in a comical manner, 
 that made the Sunetoi smile, but seemed to repudiate argu- 
 ment. And the clever Father Dillon, always fearful of an 
 explosion, said hastily: 
 
 "Very good, now; very good. The Professor has set the 
 ball rolling. We have now one set of views on Miss Eraser's 
 paper from the Professor's standpoint. Of course, there are 
 many others? " 
 
 He looked around inquiringly, and he thought he saw a 
 look as of eager debate on Hester Hope's face. 
 
 "Miss Hope, perhaps — ?" he said. 
 
 And the young lady, looking towards Reginald Hunt in a 
 half -enquiring, half -perplexed manner, said: 
 
 "There is only one point in Miss Eraser's paper which, 
 I think, may be contravened; but virtually, it embraces the 
 whole thesis. I mean that the analogy between the assimila- 
 tion of food and that of ideas is not quite tenable. In the 
 affair of corporal food, the act of assimilation is purely auto- 
 matic; but in the acquisition of ideas, there must be neces- 
 sarily an exercise of mental functions, and hence, a develop- 
 ment of them; and thence, what we call education, a word, 
 which Miss Eraser eschewed. Because if an idea, whether 
 conveyed viva voce, or through a picture, or through a book, 
 is grasped by the infantine mind, it must instantly call into 
 operation the three great faculties, — memory, will, and 
 understanding, that is, if it does not drop dead from the child- 
 mind. It must occupy the will-function, for even in very 
 young children attention is required to grasp an idea, and 
 attention depends on will-power. It must exercise the 
 understanding; otherwise, it is only a vague, nebulous thing, 
 
SESSION TWENTY-THIRD 239 
 
 or merely a verbal form without a mental equivalent. It 
 demands the use of memory, otherwise it is an evanescent 
 picture, a mere cloud-vapour, that changes and dissolves. 
 All this is quite true even of the most elementary forms of 
 education — even of picture-lessons, or fairy tales, or object- 
 lessons. In every case, it seems to me, that if an idea is to 
 be taken in, and digested, as food is, it must instantly call 
 into action the great faculties of the mind. The same thing 
 is true of what is now known as the heuristic method, or the 
 exercise of the heuristic faculty in the child — " 
 
 "You see, doctor," broke in the Professor, "you cannot 
 get on without the Greek. There is no possible equivalent 
 to that word in our language. I beg a thousand pardons for 
 interrupting you. Miss Hope." 
 
 "I was saying that the same principle holds here," continued 
 Miss Hope. "The same faculties are ever and always called 
 into requisition, whether you point out to the child-mind the 
 various objects that may interest it; or allow the child to 
 seek those objects of itself. I think, therefore, the Herbar- 
 tian method adds nothing new to our science of education. 
 It substitutes an involuntary exercise of the mental faculties 
 for a volimtary and professed system. And that is all." 
 
 "At least you must admit. Miss Hope," said the doctor, 
 "that it is perfectly original and novel in placing lofty ideals 
 before the soul of the child. Of course, I have never seen 
 it tested; but I can easily imagine what the moral training of 
 a child would be, if from its earliest years it was habituated 
 to the contemplation and worship of supreme excellence in 
 others. I think that here our English friends (for whom I 
 have no great love otherwise) — " 
 
 Mr. Hunt raised himself gently, bowed, and smiled. 
 
 "Have certainly the whip hand of us. The young English 
 lad is taught all the great deeds of daring and fortitude that 
 have been wrought by his countrymen from Alfred down- 
 wards. Every great name, made illustrious in politics, in 
 science, in art, in Uterature, and above all, in war, has been 
 
240 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 made familiar to him. He burns to emulate these heroes. 
 'A grave in Westminster Abbey,' a place in the British 
 Pantheon, is the one great and final ambition of the English 
 boy, who is worth anything. And, although I hate and detest 
 and abominate every act of conquest and aggression, whether 
 committed by Hun or Goth or Frank or Briton, yet I am 
 prepared to admit that even wars of aggression do call forth 
 many manly qualities, such as bravery, endurance of hard- 
 ships, unselfishness, even the sacrifice of a life for a friend. 
 For example, I think Clive and Hastings were simply free- 
 booters and brigands; but I also think that march of the 
 Cameronian Highlanders to the relief of Lucknow one of the 
 most stirring episodes in history. I don't care much about 
 the British occupation of India; but I think it the most aston- 
 ishing fact in all human history. And, much as I dislike the 
 ordinary Englishman, I candidly admit he has no equal for 
 discipline and fortitude in an emergency. I don't know 
 anything grander than the conduct of the British mariners 
 and sailors on board that troop-ship that foundered off the 
 Isle of Wight some years ago, when not a man would stir to 
 save himself, until every woman and child on board had been 
 got into the boats. Yes! England has a lot to account for; 
 and if nations could be tried in the valley of Jehosaphat, she 
 would have to take a back seat. But, by Jove, to be just, I 
 must say she has noble traditions, and she does well in keeping 
 them before the eyes of her children." 
 
 "Then why not keep the Napoleonic legend before the 
 eyes of young Frenchmen?" said Father Dillon demurely. 
 
 "No!" thundered the doctor. "I'll allow no compromise 
 there. The fellow was not a Frenchman. He was a mere 
 Corsican adventurer and filibusterer. He had not one 
 particle of chivalry in his nature. He was a mathematical 
 prodigy, a scientific butcher. He never did anything great, 
 or generous, or noble. He was a coward at heart. He fainted 
 in the National Assembly, and had to be taken out insensible. 
 When he attempted to strike Admiral Villeneuve after Nelson's 
 
SESSION TWENTY-THIRD 241 
 
 victory over the French fleet, and the Admiral drew his 
 sword, the little great man collapsed. There was one charac- 
 teristic incident in his life. I think it was just at the very 
 close of the Battle of Wagram, or Jena. His cuirassiers, 
 three thousand strong, were passing by at full gallop in a final 
 charge. They cheered, of course. He didn't mind. His 
 thoughts were of butchery always. He made a gesture with 
 his hand, which meant: Stab! Stab! Stab! and then he 
 turned away. It was the blood of the Corsican brigand that 
 spoke." 
 
 "No matter!" said Father Dillon. "But, as I have said, 
 the legend will never die. France will be swallowed up in an 
 earthquake before Napoleon is forgotten. And then Europe 
 will cherish his memory." 
 
 "Of course! of course!" said the doctor, with a disdainful 
 gesture. "The ape and the tiger again! My dear sir, if you 
 were to introduce a prize-fighter, a bruiser into a Chicago 
 theatre, and a St. Francis into a Chicago church, which would 
 command the larger audience? " 
 
 "The world is not quite so degenerate, doctor," said Miss 
 Hope. "You'll find there is always some latent admiration 
 for real greatness, although it may not express itself well." 
 
 "I don't know," replied the doctor. "I cannot see it. 
 The greatest men, the greatest benefactors of the race are 
 nowhere compared with a tyrant. Carlyle is right. It is 
 only brute strength that's worshipped. Who ever heard of 
 such men as Sir Thomas More singled out for the admiration 
 of young boys or young men? " 
 
 "Well, we worship Bruce and Wallace, and Montrose in 
 Scotland," said Miss Eraser, with a smile. 
 
 "And don't you remember, doctor," said Miss Hope, 
 " that pretty Uttle episode at Charles Lamb's house in London, 
 when the best intellects of that age were discussing what 
 honour they would pay the illustrious dead? " 
 
 "I don't remember. I never heard," said the doctor, 
 indifferently. 
 17 
 
242 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "And Charles Lamb said: If Shakspeare were just now 
 to enter this room, we would all stand up. But if Another, 
 whom we shall not name, were to enter, we should all kneel 
 down." 
 
 "I don't remember. I have never heard," murmiu:ed the 
 doctor. "Ah! These were the Sunetoi of their day." 
 
 As they strolled down along the street. Bob Skelton said 
 brusquely: 
 
 "Why are you so hard upon that poor Boney, Doc? Sure 
 he's dead, isn't he? " 
 
 "Because he murdered 5,000 prisoners in cold blood in 
 Palestine," said the doctor. 
 
 "Ah, now! And did he do that?" said Mr. Skelton. 
 
 "Because he filled France with weeping widows and 
 orphans," said the doctor. 
 
 "Oh, well, of course, yes! But you know these are the 
 chances of war," said the banker. 
 
 "And he murdered that young Duke without a trial," 
 said the doctor. 
 
 "Ah, well, — but, you must know^ — 'twas diplomatic; 
 and then the young fellow wanted to upset him, you know!" 
 
 "And he plundered all Italy; and brought to Paris all the 
 grandest and finest works of ancient and modern art, stolen 
 from gallery and museum without scruple." 
 
 "Ah, well, but, you know, my dear Doc — these are the 
 spoils of war — spolia opima, isn't that the word? My 
 Latin is rusty. I must give the Professor a commission to 
 rub me up in the classics!" 
 
 "Then he divorced Josephine, and broke her heart!" said 
 the doctor. 
 
 "Incompatibility of temper, I suppose!" said Robert coolly. 
 "After all, wasn't it better, when they couldn't get along? 
 And I'm sure, he wasn't a bad husband." 
 
 "And he robbed a bank in Austria, and — " 
 
 "Robbed a bank?" said Robert. "Oh, the ruffian! Hang- 
 ing was too good for him!" 
 
SESSION TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 "Speaking of Ideals," said Father Dillon, at the next 
 meeting, using his privilege as Chairman to open the debate, 
 "is it not characteristic of our age, and somewhat saddening, 
 that the terrible realism of our novelists gives no chance to 
 the yoimg to see, and understand, what heroism is? I qiiite 
 agree with Miss Fraser, and — and the doctor," he said, 
 somewhat hesitatingly, " that it is absolutely necessary to place 
 grand ideals of virtue and goodness before the minds of 
 children. Hence it is that awe Church is never tired of asking 
 her children to study the Lives of her Saints, in order that 
 they may be tempted to follow such lives even in a far-off 
 and imperfect manner. But, considering the enormous im- 
 portance of the modem novel as a factor in human enlight- 
 enment and progress, I think it is deplorable that our writers 
 seem to have put aside all the old chivalrous models, and 
 given us only the squalid side of humanity in their little 
 'sUcesoflife.'" 
 
 "You would go back then to the romantic school," said 
 Reginald Hunt, — "back to Walter Scott and mediaevalism 
 and the tournament, and chivalry, and all that? " 
 
 "Certainly," said Father Dillon. "I think it deplorable 
 that Walter Scott is no longer read. Such a gallery of noble 
 pictures should not be locked up from mankind." 
 
 "But it is not locked up," said Mr. Hunt. "It is wide 
 open; but no one will go in!" 
 
 "I think this is a sign and a result of our advanced educa- 
 tion," said Miss Hope, timidly. "I do not say whether it is 
 better or worse for humanity that the old spirit of romanticism 
 should have died out. But the advanced critical spirit of the 
 age, questioning all things, and demanding facts, will not brook 
 any longer the dream-pictures of such romanticists as Scott." 
 
 243 
 
244 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "But then," said Father Dillon, "is it quite impossible to 
 give us pictures from real life without revolting details? 
 Admitting, for the sake of argument, that the world, taught 
 scientifically, will not care much for vapour-pictures or 
 ideals, are there no great elements in human nature that can 
 be brought forward and set before the gaze of our young 
 people to make them lift up their eyes and aspire? " 
 
 "No!" said Mr. Hunt. "And for this reason. The age is 
 analytical. It seeks only common elements. It does not 
 wait to know what you may, or can form by combination 
 from these elements. It does not see cumuli, or cirrhi, but 
 only vapour. It does not see suns or nebulae; but only gases 
 in a state of transition from form to form. In society, it 
 strips kings and paladins of their trappings, and shows them 
 in their naked deformity. And it strips humanity of all its 
 glory and dignity, and shows us only the skeleton or the 
 crumbling frame in one shape or other of decomposition and 
 disease." 
 
 "But," said Father Dillon, "admitting all that, admitting 
 that our writers of fiction cannot any longer soar amongst 
 archangels, why should they go down into the mud and slime 
 to seek their pictures? Is it necessary to drag up from all 
 the deeps of human infamy types of humanity to reveal them 
 in all their grossness to the world? Are there no types 
 between the archangel and the beast?" 
 
 "There may be," said Mr. Hunt. "But these are not 
 picturesque in themselves. They are only drab-coloured 
 mediocrities, without the interest that extremes always 
 possess. It is the heroic we want — I mean the public want. 
 And the hero may be Satan or Michael; but it won't have a 
 ' faithful Abdiel.'" 
 
 "I thought the Russian school had redeemed all that," 
 said Miss Eraser. "I know the French school has revelled 
 in naughtiness; but I thought the Russian novelists, eager 
 to raise their fellow-coimtrymen, had put before them mag- 
 nificent ideals." 
 
SESSION TWENTY-FOURTH 245 
 
 Mr. Hunt shook his head. 
 
 "I fear not," he said. "Quite the other way. But it 
 was not their fault. They wrote with a purpose; and that 
 purpose was reformation. They woke up from the sleep of 
 ages — those young giants, and saw the abysses and those 
 who wallowed therein. They had to cry to their fellow- 
 sleepers. Awake! and this could not be done without clangour 
 and tumult. And then when the giant nation began to rouse 
 itself, and rub its eyes, and turn around its hideous bulk, 
 it was necessary to show where, and in what awful depths 
 it had been drawing out its fetid existence. Hence Gogol 
 in his Dead Souls, Tolstoi in all his dread novels, Poushkin, 
 and even TourgeniefE had to draw in real and terrible colours 
 the things they saw and heard; and then hold the lurid picture 
 before the eyes of their fellow-countrymen, and say. Look! 
 That is you!" 
 
 "And probably they were well hated for their trouble," 
 said the doctor. 
 
 "Of course. That goes without saying. They were 
 hated by the powers for stirring up the people to possible 
 rebellion. They were hated by the people for disturbing 
 their ignoble lethargy. From the former they got the prison; 
 and barely escaped Siberia. From the latter they got the 
 brand of treason, because they had the courage to tell their 
 countr5Tnen the truth." 
 
 "But to come back to the original question," said Father 
 Dillon, "I want to know why these writers, instead of holding 
 up lofty ideals and patterns of patriotism before the eyes of 
 the people, as Miss Fraser and the doctor suggest, should 
 have preferred to place before the eyes of their coimtr3anen 
 pictures of degradation and imcomeliness? " 
 
 "There are two excellent reasons for this," said Mr. Hunt. 
 "They had no grand ideals to exhibit, if you mean by ideals 
 great models of excellence and heroism; and if they had such, 
 their countrymen would not imderstand or appreciate them. 
 You have never heard of a Russian Hofer, or a Russian Kos- 
 
246 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 ciousko. The Russian heroes have been of a less celebrated 
 type. They have been the thousands, and tens of thousands, 
 that, unknown and unrecognised, passed into Siberia, and 
 there hid in unknown and dishonoured graves. But these 
 are not dramatic enough for the multitude. They do not 
 stir the blood in human hearts or bring a film to the eye. 
 But, even if the Russians had such heroes as are sung and 
 celebrated in other coimtries, they would not understand. 
 There are times when a nation sinks so low either under the 
 trampling hoof of tyranny, or under the dead weight of 
 materialism, that it is unable to see anji;hing but the mud and 
 slime, into which it is driven. When it sinks thus low, it is 
 quite useless to seek to raise it. If generous hands are 
 stretched towards it, it turns around and bites them." 
 
 "True," said the doctor meaningly. "I guess we ourselves 
 are near enough to the slime and the gutter just now." 
 
 Father Dillon looked angrily towards him; but said nothing. 
 It was needful, above all things, to maintain the equilibrium 
 of the Society. 
 
 "You may remember," went on Mr. Himt in his languid 
 manner, "that scene in 'Virgin Soil,' when Neshdanof full 
 of a passionate desire to raise up the peasantry, broke away 
 from the steady counsels of Solomine, and mounting his 
 telega, got in amongst the peasants, and began to harangue 
 them on their rights, and liberty, and so forth?" 
 
 The question appeared to be addressed to Father Dillon, 
 who was the interrogator; but in reality, it took in the whole 
 assembly. 
 
 The young priest looked embarrassed; but Miss Fraser 
 at once came to his relief. 
 
 "No! we haven't read it. Please tell us." 
 
 "Well, you must read the story for yourselves," said Regi- 
 nald Hunt, "but that episode may be briefly summarised. 
 Neshdanof was a young enthusiast; and, like all young 
 enthusiasts, he was impatient of advice. Solomine, his equal 
 in patriotism, would restrain him; but he would not be 
 
SESSION TWENTY-FOURTH 247 
 
 restrained. He broke away, drove a considerable distance 
 to preach, and scatter seditious leaflets; got in amongst a 
 crowd in a village, stood up in his telega, and shouted: 
 'Brothers!' They stared at him, as if he were insane; 
 but one burly fellow, a blacksmith, seized him, dragged him 
 into a public house, and forced a measure of vodhka down his 
 throat. It nearly suffocated him; but they had no pity and 
 only shouted 'Drink!' He tried to make a furious speech, 
 but they only shouted 'Drink!' Then, as Tourgenieff says: 
 'Red noses flew towards him; dusty heads of hair; sun- 
 burned necks, throats furrowed and scarred. Hairy hands 
 took hold of him.' 'Come, finish your speech!' shouted 
 wild voices. ' Come speak! Day before yesterday, a stranger 
 like you told us lots of things. Go on! you four-legged son of 
 a sea-cook!' But the young dreamer was now too drunk 
 to stand, or speak. They hustled his insensible form into his 
 telega; and his servant, Paul, drove him away from their 
 shouts and jeering laughter. Another patriot, Markelop, 
 pursuing the same mission of elevating and arousing the 
 peasantry, was promptly seized by the latter, hustled around, 
 had his coat torn in shreds, his face and eyes battered beyond 
 recognition; then they tied his hands, and deUvered him 
 to the Governor. His fate was Siberia. Neshdanof's was 
 suicide!" 
 
 He paused. Then said: 
 
 "What room for great ideals there? No! You cannot 
 blame the writers that tell such things of their countrymen. 
 They are Reformers first; and must paint the evils, and get 
 them acknowledged, before the people can realise the necessity 
 of correcting them." 
 
 "I don't know — I cannot agree with you," said Father 
 Dillon. "I have always heard that men are attracted by the 
 positive; repelled by the negative; that they are more touched 
 by representations of nobleness and virtue, than repelled 
 by presentments of vice and squalor. Hence, I still hold, 
 with Miss Eraser, that the right way to educate a people is to 
 
248 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 keep always before their eyes great things. They will easily 
 learn their own degradation by the comparison." 
 
 "No!" said Mr. Hunt. "I regret that I must disagree 
 with you profoundly. A race, or a nation, habituated to 
 serfdom, and all the lamentable consequences serfdom brings 
 with it in its train, — duplicity, cunning, selfishness, equivo- 
 cation, lying, — will simply look at your fine ideals with 
 incredulity, and turn aside. They will dub you a dreamer, 
 an enthusiast, who must exaggerate for Art's sake, and no 
 more. They say: He is a dreamer; let him pass! Or, suppos- 
 ing that, here and there, some young, generous soul is startled 
 into a strange trance of lofty and self-sacrificing sentiment, 
 one of two things must occur. Either that young soul goes 
 forward to martyrdom; or else keeps its new-born fancies 
 under control, and feeds on them in secret, or in secret com- 
 municates them to kindred minds." 
 
 "Well, and would not that be a gain?" said Father Dillon. 
 
 "Certainly. And probably it would be worth the experi- 
 ment. But such souls that can escape the contamination of 
 the esprits ergoteux are few and far between; and the propa- 
 ganda of such esoteric doctrines must be necessarily limited." 
 
 "Even so," persisted Father Dillon. "Why, if only one 
 convert were made in a generation, would it not be a gain?" 
 
 "Of course. But Miss Eraser was speaking, I presimie, of 
 general education. There, idealism is a failure." 
 
 "But," said Miss Hope, "you must remember, Mr. Hunt, 
 that Miss Eraser was speaking of the education of the young. 
 Do you not think that grand heroic ideals would make a 
 lasting impression on such plastic minds?" 
 
 " Certainly, — on the very young, the children. I am quite 
 with Miss Eraser there. But, Eather Dillon was speaking of 
 high ideals in literature, especially in the novel; and I was 
 just reasoning that our generation, for reasons which I 
 specified, do not want these high ideals." 
 
 "Then they should be forced to accept them," said Miss 
 Hope. "A novelist is a teacher — " 
 
SESSION TWENTY-FOURTH 249 
 
 "I beg pardon. Some novelists say no! They disclaim 
 all pretensions of that kind. They say, we are but showmen, 
 entrepreneurs for the amusement of the public. We, therefore, 
 consult the public tastes. If the public want a Brutus or a 
 Coriolanus, we give it the Brutus or Coriolanus. If the public 
 demand a Tarquin, lo! here is Tarquin! It is nothing to us. 
 We give what is required, and nothing else. Now, if the taste 
 of a nation is depraved, or is averse to lofty representations, 
 the showmen must accommodate themselves to that taste, or 
 —fail!" 
 
 "But, if I should deny," said Miss Hope, "that writers are 
 mere showmen; if I should say they are of necessity teachers 
 of the multitude, what answer would they give?" 
 
 "Probably, they would shrug their shoulders, and say they 
 decline the honour of being prophets to a stiff-necked genera- 
 tion, which refused to hear them, and believe." 
 
 "But I would say No! Men are not so indifferent; and 
 supply creates demand. Give the world old chivalrous ideals 
 again — Knights of the Round Table, brave Sir Galahads, 
 who 'reverence their conscience as their King;' and men will 
 worship as of old." 
 
 "Alas!" said the incredulous Mr. Hunt. "I fear they would 
 prefer a Gawain or a Sir Lancelot. But, let us see! You 
 Catholics have all the chivalry of the world enshrined in 
 your Saints' Lives. I presume, of course, that these lives are 
 the daily bread of your multitudes." 
 
 Miss Hope turned away, half in anger, half in sorrow. No 
 one else ventured to reply. 
 
 "Ah!" he said. "I fear somehow that saints and knights 
 rebuke us for our inferiority, and are therefore unpopular. 
 The lower elements of life flatter us with a sense of our supe- 
 riority. That accounts for the popularity of the realistic 
 novel. Besides, although saints and knights are for the most 
 part dead, and hence beyond our envy, they become disagree- 
 able if we are expected to imitate them." 
 
 "Yes," said Father Dillon, " our saints are a constant rebuke 
 
250 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 to our sloth and spiritual mediocrity. Their lives are unpleas- 
 ant reading. They prick us with remorse and despair." 
 
 "That is, if you accept your position," said the doctor, 
 "and have not the courage to imitate them." 
 
 "Quite so," said the priest, rather curtly. 
 
 "And for the same reason," added the doctor, maliciously, 
 "it would be idle to speak of patriotism now, when we have 
 become a nation of jobbers." 
 
 But Father Dillon was consulting Mrs. Holden about her 
 programme, and seemed not to heed. The party broke up 
 into groups of two and threes, whilst Mrs. Holden was sorting 
 her music; and Hester Hope took occasion to say to Mr. Hunt: 
 
 "If all this is true, then fiction has failed; and where are we 
 to seek our ideals?" 
 
 "In art," he said at once. "In music, and painting, and 
 poetry. Not such music as that," he continued, nodding 
 towards the piano. " That is purely imitative and artificial — 
 the music of a mechanical toy, or a gramophone. These people 
 must have the mind of the master who composed it. That 
 is the reason why all instrumental music falls so flat on the 
 ears that the audience try to stifle it by conversation. It is 
 really as absurd to try and play a great piece of music as to 
 try to reproduce a great picture." 
 
 "You'll drive us all to despair," she said. And somehow, 
 the music that evening, although Mrs. Holden's execution 
 was perfect, seemed to pall upon her. Critics destroy many of 
 the illusions, and along with them, many of the pleasures 
 of life. 
 
SESSION TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 Father Dillon called at the house of meeting, which was 
 the doctor's, or rather Mrs. Holden's, about half an hour 
 before the next Session commenced. He bade the little 
 servant, Beatrice, to show him into the doctor's study; and 
 to tell the doctor he wished to see him there. The doctor 
 was not long in obeying the call. He came in smoking, and 
 said cheerily: 
 
 "Nothing wrong, I hope?" 
 
 "No!" said Father Dillon, looking very imeasy, "but do 
 you know I fear we shall quarrel." 
 
 "Quarrel? Who?" said the doctor, looking at the pale 
 face in amazement. 
 
 "Why, — you and I. Now this would be disastrous, 
 because, though we might heal it up in private, we could 
 never bring our Society together again." 
 
 The Doctor puffed violently at his cigar for a few moments; 
 and at last he said : 
 
 "Sit down!" 
 
 The priest sat down. 
 
 "Now, what is it all about?" 
 
 "About your sarcastic and violent remarks on political 
 subjects," said Father Dillon, who was very pale and nervous. 
 "Now, I don't object to any man holding his own opinion; 
 but it is painful for an Irishman in mixed company to have to 
 listen to one long tirade against his coimtry. I wouldn't 
 mind if we were alone; but in the presence of Englishmen — " 
 
 "I know," said the doctor, brightening up. He evidently 
 feared something more serious. "But, my dear Father 
 Dillon, you will please remember that it was you who drew 
 up the programme, and not I. And, you said that politics, 
 and even religion, might be discussed." 
 
 2SI 
 
252 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "That is quite true," said the young priest. "But, I don't 
 think it is right for us to expose our weaknesses so conspicu- 
 ously to strangers." 
 
 "Then you admit there are weaknesses," said the doctor. 
 "I'm glad to hear that you agree with me that our political 
 condition just now is not so rose-coloured as our professional 
 statesmen represent." 
 
 " No, I don't agree with you at all," said the priest. "There 
 will be always room for improvement, of course; but that is 
 no reason why there should be such carping and criticising 
 of public men." 
 
 "I see. You think that a Member of Parliament is such 
 a sacred personage that his words and acts must never be 
 challenged. Is that it?" 
 
 "No. But I think that when our country has delegated 
 to its representatives the difficult task of fighting for its 
 liberties, it is unfair to hamper them in the very thick of the 
 fight by gratuitous and offensive censures on their acts." 
 
 "Then, you think that our politicians will be seriously 
 embarrassed by a few remarks made in a private drawing- 
 room in Queenstown. This is telepathy with a vengeance." 
 
 "No!" said the priest. "But I think these remarks may 
 get abroad; and lead the public into discontent with the 
 present political situation." 
 
 "You don't fear anything of the kind, my dear Father," 
 said the doctor brusquely. " If I cared I could communicate 
 my ideas to the Press, although that, too, is muzzled. But 
 I prefer to leave your friends an open road to perdition; 
 and plenty of rope to hang themselves with. Because, 
 remember, that you may deceive the people today, and to- 
 morrow, and the next day; but you can't deceive the people 
 for ever. But, that's not the point — " 
 
 "No, of course," said Father Dillon. "The point is, that 
 you are hopelessly wrong; and it is hard for one to listen to 
 you patiently." 
 
 "If you mean that I am the deadly foe of absolutism in 
 
SESSION TWENTY-FIFTH 253 
 
 every shape and form, from the autocracy of the Czar down to 
 the furious fanaticism of the village politician, who is prepared 
 to smash the head of any man who disagrees with him, you 
 are right. I stand for perfect freedom of opinion in all civil 
 and political matters. But — do you really mean that no 
 one is permitted to dififer from you at our meetings? Did 
 you not lay down the rule, that the utmost toleration should 
 be observed by the members in every discussion; and the 
 widest latitude of opinion allowed? I judge you by your 
 own words." 
 
 "Most certainly," said Father Dillon. "But, you see, I 
 am an Irish priest; and I am extremely sensitive about 
 everything that can reflect discredit on our coimtry before 
 strangers — " 
 
 "Then you should have excluded political questions from 
 our programme. However, if you like, I shall resign — " 
 
 "Oh, no, no!" said the priest. "That would never do. 
 That would mean the disruption of our whole society." 
 
 "Well, then submit an amendment to the meeting, that 
 politics shall be excluded from our society in future — " 
 
 "That would be worse. It would lead to inquiry as to 
 why and wherefore; and that would be unpleasant, and may 
 tend to dissolve our pleasant little gatherings. If you, my 
 dear doctor, would only — would only — " 
 
 "Hold my tongue? Never, if I feel called upon to speak! 
 I would utter my opinions in the ear of Ireland tomorrow, if 
 I thought I would get a fair chance of being listened to. But 
 here is our dread dilemma — A man is instantly called 'a 
 fanatic,' 'a disturber,' if he tells the truth; if he keeps silent, 
 he is called 'a coward.' But I'm not going to draw down 
 upon me the ungrammatical buffoonery of every idler in Ire- 
 land, who is eaten up with vanity. I will spare the public 
 my opinions; but, I reserve the right of expressing these 
 opinions if demanded." 
 
 "Then, you have no scruple in lowering our unhappy country 
 in the eyes of strangers?" 
 
254 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "Not the slightest, if I keep within the bounds of truth. 
 You underrate the intelligence of these gentlemen. They 
 know right well, and you might have conjectured as much 
 from their conversation, that our faults are not only the faults 
 of every country that is emerging from slavery, but of the en- 
 tire modem world. We Irish are awful fools. We are con- 
 stantly posing before the mirror of our own vanity; and then 
 imagining that the outside world is as interested in our 
 ughness or our comeliness as we ourselves. Why, our prob- 
 lems are world-problems. Our politicians are much of the 
 same kidney as politicians everywhere, and at all times. For 
 example, did you ever hear of Ren6 Bazin? " 
 
 "Of course. He wrote 'The Nun.'" 
 
 "Well, he wrote a good deal besides. Did you ever hear of 
 his book 'La terre qui meurtf" 
 
 "No. What is it?" 
 
 "Why, 'The Land that is dying' — the desertion of the land 
 by the people, and their tendency to flock into cities. We 
 thought that the decay of agriculture was our problem. It 
 is a world-problem. It is the problem of France, Great 
 Britain, America. And, are you aware that Ireland is hardly 
 even a geographical name on the continent? " 
 
 "I've heard so!" said the priest, humbly. 
 
 "Perhaps you also think that the English people are 
 concerned about us; and that our politicians maJce the 
 hearts of Englishmen tremble, and the roofs of Westminster 
 shake?" 
 
 "You're sarcastic. But there can be no doubt that our 
 Members are able to demand, and enforce, the attention of 
 the House of Commons, when they will." 
 
 "Blessed are the innocent!" said the doctor. "Then you 
 don't know that the rising of an Irish Member is the signal for 
 a general stampede to the library, to the tea-room, to the 
 terrace. You have never read in Lord Beaconsfield's letters, 
 that England thinks no more of Ireland than of 'St. Kitts;' 
 and that — Come here!" 
 
SESSION TWENTY-FIFTH 255 
 
 The doctor had gone over and raised the window-blinds. 
 The full moon shone across the channel, dimming the electric 
 lights on Haulbowline and Fort Westmoreland; but the red 
 intermittent flash from the Ughthouse at Roche's Point was 
 clearly visible. 
 
 "Do you see that light? You know it means the harbour's 
 mouth, through which the life-blood of Ireland is slowly 
 welling. Let me tell you a political secret. Every English 
 statesman, Whig or Tory, Liberal or Conservative, legislates 
 for Ireland with his eye on that harbour mouth." 
 
 "You mean—?" 
 
 "Yes, I mean that the lingering hope of every EngUsh 
 statesman is the depletion, the depopulation of Ireland, and 
 the extinction of the race. And these are the men with whom 
 your friends are allied. But come upstairs! I guess they are 
 waiting for us. You needn't be afraid that an amateurish 
 discussion in a drawing-room will very much incommode 
 your political friends." 
 
 The evening's programme was being carried out. 
 
 "We are agreed, I think," said Miss Hester Hope, reading 
 slowly from a very dainty manuscript, " that high ideals are 
 not to be found in the modern novel; and this because of 
 their realism. This suggests the question, whether these 
 ideals are to be discovered in concrete and actual things, or 
 only in the abstract and imaginative creations. Of course, 
 we might have recourse to history for concrete instances of 
 heroism and self-sacrifice, and find there records of individuals 
 whose personal characters and lofty careers almost surpass 
 anything that we could dream of. I doubt, for example, if 
 any poet, epic or other, could fashion out of the threads of 
 his own fancy, such a noble being as Joan of Arc. Our 
 greatest dramatist, we know, failed most miserably in his 
 portrayal, — not, I believe, through racial or political hatred, 
 although he has been accused of this; but only because that 
 simple and sublime maid was beyond the reach even of his 
 magnificent powers, just as she was utterly unintelligible to 
 
2S6 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 her own countryman, Voltaire. But, it must be said, that 
 this, probably, is a solitary instance; and that Joan stands 
 out from the background of history a figure of light, of purity, 
 of heroism, and inspiration which the most daring imagination 
 could not conceive, nor the most plastic hand strike into being 
 in marble or canvas or parchment. History is not prolific 
 of such types. The real, for the most part, is the common- 
 place. We seek the heroic in imagination alone. But, it 
 may be said that, in material Nature, the real is always far 
 beyond its presentments. No painter, not even Turner, has 
 ever caught on his palette the colours of the dawn or sunset; 
 the light that is upon the sea; the frowning majesty of Alpine 
 pinnacles; the glories of an autumnal forest. Here, at least, 
 the Actual is more than the Ideal. Nature is inimitable and 
 triumphant. It is difficult to deny this fact. Yet it may be 
 controverted. It may be argued, for example, that Art is 
 eternal; whilst the aspects of Nature are fleeting; and that 
 you may keep in your portfolio the symbols and expressions 
 of perfect beauty, whilst Nature is shedding her evanescent 
 splendours, even though she is prodigal in their creation. 
 Again, in poetry, it would be difficult to say whether the apple 
 should be given to Nature, or to her poets and interpreters. 
 Who, for example, would say, that Wordsworth's description 
 of the storm in the second Book of 'The Excursion' is not a 
 greater thing than the pompous panorama which he witnessed 
 up there on the Cumberland hills? Or, who would say, that 
 Shelley's description of the combat between the eagle and the 
 serpent in the first Canto of the Revolt of Islam did not 
 surpass the actual aerial duel which probably he witnessed 
 on Alpine or Apennine heights? I am quite sure, if I had seen 
 Sir Bedivere clanking over the rocks with the wounded king 
 on his shoulders, and the mournful barque, with the weeping 
 queens awaiting him; or if I had heard the last tone of sadness, 
 when 'on the mere the wailing died away,' I would not be 
 more deeply impressed than by the mental picture, painted 
 on the retina of the brain by such word-magic. So, too, if 
 
SESSION TWENTY-FIFTH 257 
 
 I have said that even a Turner could never catch certain 
 aspects of the sky at dawn or sundown, which is perfectly 
 true, for we have all seen dawns and sunsets that were im- 
 possible to brush or pen or pencil; nevertheless, it may be 
 said that Turner has given pictures which Nature never gave; 
 one of the few cases where the great mother has been defeated 
 by her own child. I once saw a water-colour sketch of a 
 horrible, dark, moimtain ravine, its rocks black as cobalt, 
 its frowning sides threatening to fall and carry universal 
 destruction with them, an atmosphere dark as midnight; but 
 through an opening, rugged and serrated, there were gUmpses 
 of a smiUt valley, clothed with vegetation, of vast suimy 
 lakes, where aerial castles looked down upon their shadows 
 beneath; of far-away, faintly-pencilled mountains that seemed 
 to melt into the cloud-shadows above them; and I doubt if 
 Nature, even in the hollow recesses of her favourite Himalayas, 
 has ever devised and created such splendour of colour, such 
 bold and insolent daring of invention, such imminence of 
 horror, such far-off perspectives of tranquil beauty, as I saw 
 in that little picture, that was selling for half-a-crown. But 
 I think it is most of all in music that we may seek our highest 
 ideals, and beat Nature hollow. Here, she has no chance 
 with art. Murmurs of waterfalls and nmning brooks, songs 
 of skylarks and nightingales, thunders of shaken forests or 
 avalanches, are nowhere in comparison with the divine 
 music that was struck as if by a plectrum from the souls of 
 Mozart or Beethoven. Hence, I conclude that if we seek high 
 things, lofty ideals and spiritual creations that speak to us of 
 worlds beyond sense and time, art alone can furnish them. 
 And here, imlike fiction, we demand what is noble and digni- 
 fied, rather than what is actual and commonplace. The 
 artist must rise above the level of daily things; and, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously inspired, must soar into regions 
 where the sense can only follow by a kind of faith that such 
 things, if not actual, are at least possible; and, therefore, 
 not beyond the compass of composite beings, such as we are, 
 18 
 
258 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 although they may seem to be the property of spirits, and to 
 exist only in the limitless regions of eternity." 
 
 "I have not," said Miss Hope modestly, "developed these 
 ideas as they should be developed; I have but advanced 
 certain theses as texts for further discussion. How far the 
 inspiration of artists is spontaneous and original, or merely 
 the result of education and the force of circumstances; how 
 far the divine intoxication that drew Paolo and Francesca 
 on the brown air of Hell, or that extracted a Moses from 
 marble, or constructed from a scale of eight notes the raptures 
 of a Chaconne by Handel, or a Rondo by Czerny may be 
 interesting questions for future debate. But, I would wish 
 you to remember that my main thesis is, that, considering 
 the barrenness of modern fiction in high ideals, we must 
 seek these in the kindred arts of poetry and painting and 
 music; in poetry and painting for elevating and ennobling 
 ideas, as well as Uving presentments of them; and in music 
 for those raptures that are inexpressible save in their own 
 language, and which, in tiurn, are the creators of emotions 
 that seem not to belong to our nature, and aspirations after a 
 world of Beauty and Truth, that we should deem xmrealisable, 
 but that its language has floated down to us from some far 
 spaces, where perhaps more intellectual, or more spiritual beings 
 than we find it the daily expression of their wants and desires." 
 
 After a pause, Mr. Hunt said: 
 
 "As we are not at liberty to discuss this interesting paper 
 tonight, may I make a suggestion? It is that at our next 
 meeting each member shall bring a poem, a picture, or a 
 piece of music, original or selected, that will embody the 
 individual's idea of what are the loftiest suggestions in these 
 respective arts? Of course, the selection must be limited. 
 I do not propose an exhibition; but only that each member 
 may present something that will t3^ify to himself or herself 
 the most exalted conceptions, the most inspiring thoughts. 
 For example, Mr. Marshall will bring us a poem — Shall I 
 not say, original?" 
 
SESSION TWENTY-FIFTH 259 
 
 "Yes, yes!" murmured the Sunetoi; "original, and nothing 
 else." 
 
 And Mr. Marshall bowed and blushed. 
 
 "Then," continued Mr. Hunt, "Miss Fraser will bring us, 
 from her well-stocked portfolio, a sketch in water or oils. 
 Mrs. Holden will bring us an improvisation — " 
 
 "Oh, no, no, really I could not," said Mrs. Holden, in 
 evident distress. 
 
 "Well, then, your favourite piece; for I'm sure that will em- 
 body all that we have been sa3dng of suggestiveness in music." 
 
 Mrs. Holden looked anxious, but bowed assent. 
 
 "The Professor will bring us a Greek Ode," said Mr. Hunt. 
 
 "Out of the question," said the Professor. "I couldn't 
 find time. I'm very busy. Besides, as you know, not a man 
 in a million nowadays could write a Greek Ode." 
 
 "Well, then, let us say your translation of your favourite 
 Greek passage?" 
 
 "All right," said the Professor. 
 
 "The doctor," said Mr. Hunt, inquiringly. "What will 
 the doctor bring? " 
 
 "His favourite set of bones," said Bob Skelton. 
 
 "And Mr. Skelton himself?" said Mr. Hunt. 
 
 "Never mind me!" said the manager. "I'll bring you my 
 Ideal, as you call it." 
 
 "And our respected Chairman," said Mr. Hunt, concluding, 
 " will bring us his favourite sermon." 
 
 "Oh, for God's sake, no! Don't ask him!" shouted Bob 
 Skelton. "We have to stand that for three-quarters of an 
 hour every Sunday, sometimes fasting — " 
 
 "For shame, Robert," said his spouse, "and you know that 
 Father Dillon preaches so nicely we are all disappointed when 
 he is away." 
 
 But Robert shrugged his shoulders. He always measured 
 the excellence of a sermon by his watch; and when it went 
 beyond the quarter-hour, Robert shuffled imeasily, and 
 whispered failure. 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 There was some little trepidation at the next meeting of 
 the Sunetoi. The experiment was an unusual one; and some 
 of the members were not too thankful to Mr. Hunt for having 
 proposed it. 
 
 "Why not let well alone?" they whispered to themselves. 
 "We were doing well enough; and here come these transcen- 
 dent theories about Ideals and other things which you cannot 
 grasp, but only guess at in a stupid kind of way. What am I 
 to do? I'm sure I don't know." 
 
 Mr. Marshall was the exception. He was always delighted, 
 happy man, at being called upon to contribute to the pleasure 
 or profit of others. And he exulted, positively exulted, in the 
 composition of a poem. And the harder it seemed to evolve 
 from his inner consciousness, the more his enthusiasm grew, 
 until at last the reluctant Muses had to smile on him. 
 
 "Now, let me see," he said, as he took up his pen, after 
 having donned his dressing-gown and slippers for perfect phys- 
 ical comfort. "Ideals? Yes! High ideals? Yes! Now, what 
 is the highest ideal of life? Let me see. Why, of course, 
 serenity, god-like tranquillity, looking down on the flux and 
 flow of terrestrial things with undisturbed calm, seeing all 
 transitory things through the aspects of eternity. That, of 
 course, should be the ambition of every mortal — to keep his 
 feelings, sensations, passions in a perfect equipoise, not swerv- 
 ing under every gale of passion, or bending under the zephyrs 
 of love — " 
 
 Mr. Marshall paused here. Once or twice he had come 
 imder the influence of the divine insanity, and he knew what 
 it meant. But, he went on in his soliloquy — 
 
 "But keeping always the absolute equilibrium that we may 
 
 260 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SIXTH 261 
 
 suppose exists on Oljonpian heights; although echoes of 
 Olympian laughter sometimes reach us." 
 He bit his pen handle and wrote: 
 
 Fate, wouldst thou give me one great boon at last? 
 I do not ask for large ancestral rights; — 
 The mouldering harvest of a hundred fights, 
 
 Or palsied presents from a bloodless past. 
 
 That which I imprecate thou ever hast 
 
 Locked from pursuers of the low delights, 
 
 But flung to watchers of the sleepless nights, — 
 
 The elect, the apart, as thou hast wisely classed. 
 
 Ere yet my faculties and senses droop 
 
 Beneath the burden of the later years, 
 
 Make me, although to human eyes unseen. 
 One of the separate, and timeless group, 
 
 Who walk with tranquil eye, unfilmed of fears. 
 
 The cold, cloud-summits of the empyrean! 
 
 He read it over many times; then he called his favourite cat, 
 Hypatia, supposed to be of Egyptian origin. He stroked 
 down her thick fur, and she purred softly, looking at him with 
 half-closed eyes. This threw him back into prehistoric times, 
 and he thought of Kheops, Khephren, and Mykerinos, resting 
 in their chairs of porphyry or rose-granite, whilst the long 
 parallel lines of succeeding kings stretched in the dim aisles of 
 Theban temples, facing each other in the twilight, their hands 
 resting on their knees, and their faces moulded into an expres- 
 sion of eternal and unbroken serenity. He contemplated the 
 mind-picture for some time. Then, gently laying Hypatia 
 on the hearth-rug, he took his pen again and wrote: 
 
 One gift, one attribute of gods I claimed. 
 
 And sought by high endeavourings to reach. 
 And stretched vain hands suppliant to beseech. — 
 
 Serenity, the unhuman gift is named — 
 
262 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 I know not whether we, as mortals framed, 
 Must learn the lessons passions ever teach, 
 Or, be content to wrap in human speech 
 
 The word, but not the gift, the gods have claimed. 
 
 If this be so, is there no subtle charm 
 
 For passion? Of defeated gods no cry 
 
 Despairful, as they plunged the abysmal deep? 
 Forth from their whirring wings in swift alarm 
 
 Broke the envenomed warning, and — the lie, 
 
 "Eternal cahn would be eternal sleep!" 
 
 "By Jove," thought Mr. Marshall, "I shall set the Sunetoi 
 by the ears. All other debates shall sink into insignificance 
 if I propose a discussion on that line: 
 
 " 'Eternal calm shall be eternal sleep.' " 
 
 He was merciful, however, when the time came; or, rather, 
 the other papers and pictures drove the thought from his mind. 
 
 Miss Eraser submitted at the outset a water-colour sketch. 
 This she hastily withdrew, after Mr. Marshall had read his 
 introductory poems; and she substituted a double engraving, 
 the lines of which were drawn out with remarkable vividness. 
 It was framed in the form of an album. The first scene was 
 of a world, plunged in the horrors of a frightful cataclysm, 
 earthquakes and tidal waves sweeping over its surface; tem- 
 ples and palaces toppling over in fearful ruin; storms breaking 
 over its mountains; and, carried along in the hurricane which 
 was split with lightning, were two angelic forms, with swords 
 of flame dripping blood over the doomed and agonised earth. 
 The second represented a monk's cell — the wretched pallet, 
 the still more wretched coverlet, the emaciated form, the 
 crucifix; and an angel standing on either side of the couch, 
 swords sheathed, and their faces calmly watching the agonies 
 of the dying man. 
 
 "What is it? What does it represent?" was the question 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SIXTH 263 
 
 asked on every side, as the engravings were passed on from 
 hand to hand. 
 
 "That is the intellectual problem which is to interest us," 
 said Miss Eraser modestly. "Let me say these are only copies 
 from first-proofs taken from an ancient diptych in one of the 
 ancestral homes of my native land." 
 
 "It is really good," said Mr. Hunt. "It meets the require- 
 ments laid down at our last meeting; for it evidently conceals, 
 or half reveals some lofty lesson, or ideal, which it will be the 
 interesting duty of our Society to fully develop. But it needs 
 study. It is cryptic, as many of our old paintings and poems 
 are. Miss Eraser, may I ask you to leave the engraving for 
 inspection on the chiffonier, or on this bracket?" 
 
 " Certainly," she said. 
 
 "Now, Professor!" 
 
 "I know nothing more sublime in ancient poetry," said the 
 Professor, "and nothing so pathetic, so heroic, and therefore 
 so strongly appealing to imagination and sympathy, as 
 the speech of Prometheus in .^Eschylus. This is the loosest 
 paraphrase expressing what I should think would be in the 
 mind of this Proto-Mart}^: of Humanity, rather than an exact 
 reproduction of the original. 
 
 PROMETHEUS 
 
 . Why dost thou tarry, O long-lingering Dawn? 
 How tardily, and with what sluggish ease 
 Night gathereth in long sweeps her ling'ring train, 
 Sown with the pearls of the sad-eyed stars! 
 Sleepless I watched them, as they stared at me, 
 Until their pity pained me, and I drew 
 The curtain of my Uds across their eyes 
 And found in utter darkness my relief. 
 Oh! Phoebus, lash thy leaden-hooved steeds 
 Till they do leap the crest of yonder hill, 
 Aad trample the keen lances of the frost, 
 That stab me in my utter nakedness. 
 
264 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Yet, verily, Night's hands are merdful. 
 
 That cloak me in my shame and nakedness, 
 
 And I shall pray a shelter from thy beams, 
 
 O Phoebus! when thy chariot wheels shall bum 
 
 Into a blinding light the molten sky. 
 
 Oh, boxmdless Night! Oh, quivering Stars, behold! 
 
 Oh, laughing streams, and dimpled Ocean's smiles! 
 
 Oh, all ye powers of earth, and air, and sky, 
 
 And thou, O God of Day, slow travailing. 
 
 Thy tresses shedding the last, lingering drops 
 
 From thy salt seabath through the saffron sky, 
 
 What have I done? I, too, a God farseeing. 
 
 Crippled by gods on this wild, mountain waste, 
 
 Witness the slow procession of the skies. 
 
 But pine in vain for glimpse of warm earth. 
 
 Or heaving sea, or the sad Ught that wakes 
 
 In the deep wells of human, pitying eyes. 
 
 What have I done? I, too, Olympian, 
 
 Made impotent by the rude bar that holds 
 
 Its tyranny across my aching heart, 
 
 And these two iron leeches that absorb 
 
 My blood, and bite the flesh of aching feet. 
 
 Strength, hast thou said it? Force, hast thou revealed 
 
 The anger of Omnipotence, and the wrath 
 
 Of the Immortals, because Immortal, I 
 
 Have filched from out the Treasury of Heaven 
 
 One boon for weak and perishable men ? 
 
 But hark! that soimd that steals upon my ears 
 
 Afar, yet nearing, and again afar, 
 
 A murmur, and a music, and a mystery, 
 
 Like moaning waters 'neath a moonless sky, 
 
 Or low sad thxmder of the waves by night. 
 
 Ha! Not abandoned! Solitude of Kings, 
 
 And silence of lone gods no longer mine. 
 
 Therefore, O Father of the Eternal Gods, 
 
 Thee I defy; for lo! along the waves, 
 
 Breasting their savage and tumultuous wrath, 
 
 Swifter and stronger than Cytherean pards. 
 
 The nymphs, the daughters of the Ocean, come! 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SIXTH 265 
 
 "This is a loose and free translation," said the Professor, 
 "of the opening speech of Prometheus in the ^Eschylean drama. 
 You are aware that iEschylus departs from the popular form 
 of the great legend, which includes other offences against the 
 majesty of Zeus, besides the filching of fire for mortals. In 
 the 'Wisdom of the Ancients,' Lord Bacon gives very elabo- 
 rate details of the creation of man by Prometheus who mixed 
 up clay and particles of other animals in the process. Then 
 came the revelation of the important element of fire, which he 
 brought down to men, having lighted a sheaf of birch-rods 
 at the chariot of the Sun. Instead of thanking him for his 
 beneficence, he is promptly reported to Jupiter. Then came 
 the legend of Pandora, created by Prometheus at the command 
 of Jupiter — Pandora, with her ivory box, which, if opened, 
 would cast all manner of evils on the earth, which Prometheus 
 refused to open, but the lid of which Epimetheus foolishly 
 imcovered. Finally, came the execution and punishment of 
 Prometheus, as narrated in ^Eschylus, his abandonment by 
 man, his temptation by Mercury, his consolation from the 
 n3miphs, his prophecies to lo; and his final emancipation by 
 the hands of Hercules. Lord Bacon draws out very elaborate 
 lessons from the legend; discovering an allegory and parable 
 everywhere, but showing at the same time the exceeding com- 
 plexity and intricate involutions of his own mind. He makes 
 out that Jupiter was pleased with the discontent and perfidy 
 of men, because nothing is so offensive to the celestials as the 
 extolling of human arts and sciences to the prejudice of the 
 divine; and that the gods are pleased only when men are 
 dissatisfied with themselves, their achievements, and their 
 discoveries. Here, he has a rap at his old enemy, Aristotle. 
 'Is not the ignorance and fatality of mankind to be extremely 
 pitied, whilst they remain slaves to the arrogance of a few of 
 their own fellows, and are dotingly fond of that scrap of Gre- 
 cian knowledge, — the Peripatetic philosophy? Certainly 
 the procedure of Empedocles, though furious, but especially 
 that of Democritus, is to be preferred before the confident, 
 
266 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 asstmiing and dogmatical school of Aristotle. And let men be 
 assured, that the fond opinion that they have already acquired 
 enough, is a principal reason why they have acquired so little.' " 
 
 "I confess," said Hester Hope, "that I cannot bear that 
 kind of thing; I mean, destroying the poetic beauty of old and 
 graceful legends, and finding in them nothing but allegories 
 with some little bit of futile philosophy tacked on. Cannot 
 philosophers, like Lord Bacon, leave poetry alone; that is, 
 leave us the beautiful picture, without finding in every line of 
 it some wretched moral? " 
 
 "There now," said the Professor, "Miss Hope opens up 
 that interminable controversy, whether Art shall subsist for 
 its own sake, or shall be ancillary to higher things? We shall 
 not discuss that question now. It would be drifting too far. 
 But, confiming ourselves to my own composition, poor as it is, 
 I should hke to get the opinion of the meeting, whether these 
 lines bespeak the high ideal, of which we have been treating, 
 — whether in fact they are of such a nature, apart altogether 
 from their technical merit or demerit, as to be placed before the 
 young mind as something elevating and transcendental." 
 
 There was silence for some seconds, the question appeared 
 to be so difficult of reply. But Father Dillon, at last, said: 
 
 "I fear we could hardly form an opinion from one reading, 
 my dear Professor. Some of the lines caught my ear and 
 fancy; some escaped both. Would it be too much to ask you 
 to read the lines again?" 
 
 "Certainly not," said the Professor. And he read the lines 
 slowly and carefully again. 
 
 The Sunetoi looked at one another, uncertain which should 
 speak first. 
 
 "I think the lines represent Prometheus as a poor creature," 
 said the doctor in a blunt manner. "He shouldn't have com- 
 plained of such paltry things as heat and cold; and then found 
 comfort in the company of a few mermaidens. Martyrs are 
 above such things. Their strong souls go out beyond them." 
 
 "What think you, Mr. Hunt?" said Father Dillon. 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SIXTH 267 
 
 "I think," said Mr. Hunt, "that ^schylus was trying to 
 show how futile was the anthropomorphic conception of the 
 Gods amongst the ancient Greeks. In that drama, Prome- 
 theus is \veak; and Mercury is ridiculous. The njonphs are 
 all right. He couldn't make them absurd — " 
 
 There was some faint applause and smiles amongst the 
 ladies. 
 
 "But lo is piteous. I never heard what was the interpre- 
 tation of that allegorical gadfly." 
 
 No one answered his questioning looks. 
 
 "But it was something that ^Eschylus made her the mother 
 of Hercules. By the way. Professor, that poem is absolutely 
 original, is it not?" 
 
 "Yes," said the Professor, a little alarmed. "You must 
 remember that I called it a paraphrase, or free translation." 
 
 "Of course. But that line: 
 
 Swifter and stronger than Cytherean pards,' 
 
 reminds me somewhat of Shelley." 
 
 " It is not in Shelley, nor in any other poet that I can remem- 
 ber," said the Professor, somewhat nettled. "Did you ever 
 see that line before, Mr. Marshall?" 
 
 "Never!" said Mr. Marshall. 
 
 But the acute and tactful Chairman, noticing a little rise 
 in the temperature, said: 
 
 "Miss Hope, we await your contribution." 
 
 "I think," said Miss Hope, in her own modest way, "that 
 the highest concept that we should place before the minds 
 of the yoimg is the dualism of life — the fact that we belong to 
 the imiverse, and are part and parcel of its nature and opera- 
 tions; and are still beyond the universe, and greater than all 
 its material creation. I am of opinion that all our irreverence, 
 our sensuous lives, our low gradings come from the unacknowl- 
 edged, but current belief that the imiverse is monistic, and 
 that we are very much the same. Up to the date of the larger 
 revelations of Copernicus and Galileo, man was regarded as 
 
268 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 the sum and end and total finality of creation; and, as such, 
 he made the angels weep. Now under the larger revelations, 
 science has made him a microbe and a parasite, and he sinks 
 down to that level, forgetting that the Indefinitely little is just 
 as important in the scale of Being as the Indefinitely Great. 
 Now, it seems to me that children and youths should be taught 
 that, as an integral part of the material Universe, they must 
 accept their position, harness themselves to the team of uni- 
 versal Nature, obey her laws, fit themselves for her work, and 
 entrain themselves with all the petty and gigantic forces, that 
 are in perpetual operation everjnvhere. Hence, the first 
 lesson to be derived from this fact is that, inasmuch as Nature 
 is a vast mechanism, whose wheels are moving day and night 
 without stop or surcease, the human mind must also under- 
 stand that it has to take part in this gigantic and never-ceasing 
 travail; and be it but the tillage of the soil, or the cleansing 
 of a village street, the work is consecrated and ennobled by 
 reason of the fact that it is part of the eternal and necessary 
 programme of creation. Hence it follows also that work of 
 every kind is noble, because it is part of the Duty of Being. 
 But this is not enough. If we are part of the universe of 
 matter by reason of our corporeal being, we are above and 
 beyond that universe by reason of our spiritual essence — 
 those seminal souls that are planted in us here to be developed, 
 ripened, and foregathered in Eternity. These mysterious 
 essences place us at once out and beyond the jurisdiction of 
 the laws of matter. Time and space, laws of our material 
 being, are no longer laws or categories of our souls. Time 
 and space are conditions of matter. Spirit reaches beyond 
 them, encompasses them, passes away from them in the 
 Immensities and Eternities of immortal beings. The Uni- 
 verse, of which we are but atoms in a material sense, lies now 
 at our feet. We are above it, and beyond it. We can even 
 imagine it, — as our own poets have described, — as fading 
 away into immeasurable nothingness, whilst the immortal 
 spirit wings its way from abyss to abyss of an immensity 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SIXTH 269 
 
 no longer lighted by the tapers of expiring suns, but by the 
 supernal source of all light — the lamps of the City of God. 
 The mind that shrank wearied here below from calculations 
 of the weight and distance and velocity of the innmnerable 
 Sims of space, now looks back and sees but a little star- 
 dust scattered away along the horizons of infinity; and spring- 
 ing forward with a subtlety and swiftness to which sidereal 
 velocities are halting and crippled, it wings its way along the 
 immeasurable immensities; and because it is still finite, it 
 finds its occupation for eternity in seeking after and discover- 
 ing ever fresh and more perfect attributes of Him who alone 
 encompasses Infinity. This is our nature, dual in its essence, 
 insatiable in its aspirations, imperious in its demands, daring 
 as a Titan, tragical in its failures, yet assured of its destiny. 
 For it comes forth, a nuncio from Eternity bearing the sigil of 
 God, and the credentials of the most High; and, after its 
 little mission here, it is recalled to a higher ambassadorship, 
 and then to a final kingship in its eternal home." 
 
 "I think," said Miss Hope, folding her paper, "that if this 
 dualism of our nature were, more frequently, insisted upon, 
 and explained, we should find more reverence amongst our 
 people, and a higher sense of the dignity of being." 
 
 There was a pause; and Mr. Skelton said: 
 
 "I hope Father Dillon will not dare produce a sermon after 
 that. Oh! if the Church would only allow the ladies preach." 
 
 "You would not dare pull out your gold chronometer so 
 often," said Father Dillon, "nor shufiie in your seat, as if you 
 were sitting on a furze-bush. But, Mr. Hunt, what about 
 yomself? You proposed the entertainment; but you mustn't 
 escape." 
 
 "I am quite ashamed to have to confess," said Mr. Hunt, 
 "that my ideas and ideals have been somewhat anticipated 
 by Miss Hope. I have only put into verse what Miss Hope 
 so prettily gave us in prose." 
 
 "I hope tisn't a midnight visitor?" said Mrs. Holden, 
 with a little affected shudder. 
 
270 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "It is, I regret to say," said Mr. Hunt. "A caput mortuum, 
 which I found in my audience-chair." 
 
 "A what?" said Mrs. Holden, looking alarmed. 
 
 "A caput mortuum, or death's head," said Mr. Hunt calmly. 
 
 "How horrible!" said the lady. "Really, Mr. Hunt, I 
 must say your visitors don't appear to be very nice people. 
 A lady with a classical name, some old Pagan goddess, I sup- 
 pose; then, a monk; then, a cjoiical person; then, a baby, 
 and a dead baby! And now, a death's head — skull and 
 cross-bones, and all that, I suppose. How can you make 
 poetry out of that, I wonder?" 
 
 "Well, you must know, my dear Mrs. Holden," said the 
 young man, "I have specially guarded myself against this 
 being called ' poetry. ' I have simply strung certain rhymes 
 together, melodiously or otherwise; and the burden of them 
 is somewhat, and to me embarrassingly, like what Miss Hope 
 has said so prettily. But, may I go on?" 
 
 And the Chairman nodding assent, Mr. Hunt read: 
 
 A DEATH'S HEAD 
 
 I 
 
 Hallo! Old fellow, you? Well, this is a mild siuprise! 
 
 I was dreaming tonight of a poet, with a universe in his eyes. 
 
 And an ivory forehead. But, there's a world in your socketless 
 
 stare. 
 And thanks to those artist-worms, the ivory too is there. 
 
 n 
 
 And, perhaps across the orbits of these two hollow caves. 
 Where now my firelight flickers, as sands 'neath the crimpling 
 
 waves, 
 There swept that endless drama, from the wings of the curtained 
 
 stage. 
 The boy that babbles, the woman who stares, and mumbling and 
 
 toothless age. 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SIXTH 271 
 
 m 
 Well, friend, I'm delighted to see you, despite that hideous grin. 
 You come to be interviewed, of course, and I — where shall I 
 
 begin? 
 For thou, vmfleshed, disrobed, art yet what doth sjrmbolise 
 The end of the creatures that leap to death with a wild surmise. 
 
 IV 
 Thou hollow skull, where murmur the echoes of mysteries. 
 Caught from the limitless Vast — the sounds of eternal seas, 
 Speak and translate that Voice in accents of human speech. 
 And break the silence of bourns, where never our accents reach. 
 
 V 
 "Hodie mihil Cras tibil"^ Ha, these are the words you said. 
 They seem to imply, my friend, that I dread the halls of the dead. 
 I, who am dead and dark, eight hours out of twenty-four. 
 What matters to die as a babe, or tottering reach four-score? 
 
 VI 
 "Hodie mihil Cras tihil " ^ — Good. But if such be the case. 
 Do you think that my spirit is tied to one peg in the tents of space? 
 Nay! I am a Child of the Universe, and at home wherever may 
 
 roll 
 Sims in a starlit space; or the orb of a sister soul. 
 
 vn 
 Pilgrim and Nomad I call every soul that has wandered here, 
 Out of the infinite gladness into this desert drear; 
 Stumbling 'neath one pale star, across a desolate space. 
 Leaden-shod every foot; and a veil upon every face. 
 
 vin 
 And I, like an eagle blind from the blackness of this dark cage, 
 Against the walls of my dungeon, and against my captors rage; 
 Give In'm for home the mountain, where never a foot has trod; 
 Give me for empire, boundless space; give me for comrade, God! 
 1 " Today for me ! Tomorrow for you I " 
 
272 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 IX 
 
 What doth the eagle care for the faces staring around? 
 
 He is dreaming of crags and peaks; of a sky without line or bound; 
 
 And the eyes of men do not scare, if they sprang, as of old, from 
 
 stones, 
 Each but a Uttle carrion-flesh, himg upon carious bones. 
 
 X 
 
 There, you are cackling again! What cynics you death's heads 
 
 are! 
 Two things are for ever mocking us — the grave and the silent star. 
 We stretch our hands to the skies — the universe would clasp. 
 Thunders the day on our coffin. The grave has us in its grasp! 
 
 XI 
 
 Yes, Friend, I know full well, I shall be as you are now. 
 Eyeless the bony sockets; the brown earth on my brow! 
 Can I better things? No. It is wise to be even as we are. 
 Each to his metier. Clod to earth; to the sky, the star! 
 
 xn 
 He who hath fashioned all, hath He not wisely said: 
 " Bend thy back to thy task: and let the dead bury the dead! " 
 Today glides into tomorrow. Tomorrow is but today. 
 What can be wrought in the night and the darkness, who shall 
 
 say? 
 
 xra 
 So, friend, that is your lesson. No dreaming, no doubts, no tears. 
 No far speculations darkened to idle doubts and fears. 
 Go! I shall be as thou. But still, I breathe the upper air. 
 I shall deal with Death when I meet him in his dark and dismal 
 
 lair! 
 
 "Yes!" said the Chairman, after a long pause. "It is 
 certainly much on the same lines as Miss Hope's paper; but 
 somehow not so inspiring and hopeful." 
 
 "How could you expect it? " said Mr. Hunt smiling. "Our 
 judgments are cripples compared with the aerial intuitions of 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SIXTH 273 
 
 our sisters. I have but travestied in epithets of rhyme the 
 higher philosophy which woman alone can teach. As I else- 
 where wrote, these lines, poems, rhythms of mine are but 
 
 "'The sad mutation into vapid verse 
 
 Of Nature's ever-changing sweets and sounds.' " 
 
 "Doctor," said the Chairman, "your contribution, please!" 
 
 " Contribution? To what? " said the doctor. 
 
 "Your little mite into our corbona," said the priest. "Your 
 Ideal?" 
 
 "Mens Sana in cor pore sanol" brusquely replied the doctor. 
 
 "And yours, Mr. Skelton, so long waited for, so long ex- 
 pected?" 
 
 Mr. Skelton took out a pocket-book, unfolded a crumpled 
 paper, and demanded that it should be passed around. 
 
 "That's my Ideal," he said. "And yours too, ladies and 
 gentlemen, with all your high-falutin' prose and poetry." 
 
 It was a note of the Bank of England for one thousand 
 pounds. 
 
 The Chairman handed it back with a slight gesture of 
 disgust. 
 
 "Mr. Marshall, what are you stud37ing that engraving so 
 carefully for? Do you think you have found the enigma?" 
 
 For Mr. Marshall, somewhat impolitely heedless of the last 
 events of the programme, had been watching that engrav- 
 ing of Miss Eraser's with ever-growing interest. He had an 
 old envelope in one hand, and a pencil in the other. Just at 
 the Chairman's challenge he turned round and cried: 
 
 "Eureka! Eureka! One moment, please, Mr. Chairman! 
 One moment's pardon, ladies and gentlemen!" 
 
 A pit5dng smile rippled along the ranks of the Sunetoi, as 
 the old man bent down over his task, and his pencil seemed 
 to fly along the paper. Then, raising his hands, he said with 
 a little deprecatory laugh: 
 
 "That picture was torturing me. I am afraid I have been 
 impolite. But this is the interpretation. Is it not?" 
 19 
 
274 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 And he read: 
 
 Two spirits on the midnight wind-blasts drave, 
 
 Aid swept to earth with broad and falchioned brands, 
 The Ughtning gleaming from their spectral hands 
 
 Showed the red ichor dripping from each glaive. 
 
 An aged monk tossed on his mattress-grave, 
 
 And moaned: There come to me some high commands 
 From the far shores and bourns of spirit-lands 
 
 To lift my feeble voice, and stanmier: Save! 
 
 And lo! the night-winds ceased. The tempest swooned 
 
 Away in silence. And, beside his bed. 
 Their garments by the dawn-wind gently swayed, 
 
 Two spirits stood. One said: "Thou saint, dost wound 
 The heart of Justice, ere its bolts are sped ? 
 But thou shalt be the victim. We've obeyed!" 
 
 The old man looked around and challenged admiration. 
 
 "Do you think that is the interpretation?" said the Pro- 
 fessor, in a chill voice. 
 
 "Certainly," said Mr. Marshall. 
 
 "The old, old, old, ever-recurring idea in all literature of 
 self-sacrifice," murmured Mr. Hunt. 
 
 But Mrs. Holden was looking impatiently towards the 
 Chairman. 
 
 "Ha! he said. "We've kept the best wine to the last. 
 Now, Mrs. Holden, your Ideal!" 
 
 And Mrs. Holden drew up her rings, had her piano-stool 
 raised a little, ran her fingers carelessly along the keys, and 
 then played, as she could play. Fantasia by Busoni after 
 Sebastian Bach. 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 Going home together that night, Mr. Hunt complained of 
 the cold. Then he tried to pass it off by asking Miss Hope 
 abruptly: 
 
 "Did you ever read Goethe's 'Elective Affinities?'" 
 
 "Never!" she said, so firmly, that Mr. Hunt felt he had 
 stumbled badly. 
 
 "Yes!" he said, musingly, after a time, "perhaps — but 
 it occurred to me this evening, when listening to your paper, 
 how curious is the affinity of certain minds, how they seem to 
 move in varied, yet concentric circles." 
 
 "Well, it was strange," she said, "that we fell into the same 
 line of thought. I was conjecturing whether this came from 
 our reading the same books, or whether it is iimate." 
 
 "It is certainly very startling sometimes," he said, "to 
 find, on reading over liie lives of men, whether in literature 
 or otherwise, such singular affinity of thought and feeling with 
 one's own experience. Sometimes, I am almost tempted 
 to believe in metempsychosis, and to think that Mother 
 Nature really finds it impossible to be always original, and 
 has to create fresh souls on ancient models." 
 
 "Of course, you feel that it is nonsense," said his com- 
 panion. "You may say, if you like, that the experiences and 
 sensations of life are Ihnited, and that therefore there is no 
 great wonder at seeing them reproduced." 
 
 "I don't know," he said. "But it is strange that there 
 should be such a singular affinity of thought between two 
 individuals, such as we are, so differently brought up, and 
 with such different prejudices and prepossessions. My, how 
 that wind does cut! It is easterly, is it not? " 
 
 "Yes. I often think how very trying it must be for you 
 to have to cross that Channel in such weather as this." 
 
 27s 
 
£76 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 The Channel was certainly very uninviting and treacherous- 
 looking just then. The tide was rushing out; and the east 
 wind, with its intense and acrid bitterness, was trjdng to 
 push it back, with the result that the water looked choppy 
 and dangerous. 
 
 "Ha! I'm glad to know that I do not face the danger and 
 discomfort quite alone," he said, shivering and drawing the 
 fur collar of his coat about his ears. "It is something to have, 
 if not a 'ministering spirit,' at least a sympathetic friend. 
 I shall not mind it so much now." 
 
 "You have to cross in all weathers?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes! But in the launch there is little danger; and then 
 over there, the office is very comfortable. Coming home at 
 night, such a night as this, is not pleasant." 
 
 "You couldn't get lodgings over there?" she said, betraying 
 her grave solicitude. 
 
 "No. And if I could, I should be deprived of a great deal. 
 I shouldn't like now to have to give up our little meetings." 
 
 "Yes! They are pleasant," she said. "But, you know, 
 you should be careful of your health. It is so dangerous 
 crossing over there; and then, there is always the risk of a 
 sudden chill, when coming out of a heated room." 
 
 He shivered again from head to foot; and she at once held 
 out her hand, and said: 
 
 "Here am I preaching caution to you, and doing exactly 
 the reverse. Do please get home as quick as you can. It is 
 certainly bitterly cold!" 
 
 He shivered, said Good-night! and went away, leaving the 
 girl to apprehend many things, whether he was unwell, whether 
 it was her fault to have kept him there in the cold, whether she 
 had been imprudent in expressing so much solicitude, whether 
 there was an affinity between them, not elective, but con- 
 genital. 
 
 "I should like to know his sister," she said, as she threw 
 aside her furs on the sofa. "How cultivated those English- 
 men are!" 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SEVENTH 277 
 
 Then she took out her paper and read it again very care- 
 fully. It seemed to satisfy her. She murmured : 
 
 "I must ask him to let me have a copy of that poem." 
 
 Just as they assembled for the twenty-seventh Session, 
 the Professor said: 
 
 "Do you know that I, even I, Professor in the Queen's 
 College, Cork, did verily and indeed make a fool of myself 
 the last evening on my return to Cork?" 
 
 The Sunetoi were interested. It is always soothing to 
 hmnan nature to feel that one of our acquaintances has made 
 a fool of himself, especially if he be one that otherwise com- 
 mands our reverence. 
 
 "I was in a second-class compartment," he continued; 
 "the other occupajits were two young ladies. Just as we 
 passed out from the station at Carrigaloe, the idea suddenly 
 struck me, can there be on this earth a more grotesque and 
 utterly absurd and unreasonable attitude than that which is 
 assumed in this coimtry between the educated classes, on 
 account of religious dififerences? I have been chilled, through 
 and through, since I came to Ireland, by the dark, suspicious 
 manner in which Protestants and Catholics seem to approach, 
 in order to repel, each other. Here are people living side by 
 side, kindly in their natures, more or less broadened in their 
 sympathies, eager to help each other in any trial or emergency; 
 yet as socially and intellectually removed from each other as 
 if they were different races, speaking different languages. 
 Then, I just thought, how happy we have been here. Here 
 are three different nationalities represented — each, I presume, 
 with its own traditions, its own sjrmpathies, its religious and 
 political predilections; and yet, during our four months' 
 happy intercourse, not a breath of discord has disturbed our 
 happy meetings. Then, the thought flashed on me that, 
 perhaps, Protestants and Catholics in this coxmtry are much 
 like the two old ladies, whom a mischievous youngster intro- 
 duced to each other as stone-deaf; and who yelled and yelled, 
 until at last one said, sotto voce, 'You're not deaf, are you?' 
 
278 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 and the other, surprised, answered, 'Certainly not. Are 
 you?' and they discovered that a mischievous imp, or impess, 
 had been amusing herself. The thought got hold of my 
 imagination, imtU I laughed and laughed again at the absurd- 
 ity. The two young ladies left the compartment at the junc- 
 tion. For the first time in my Ufe, I was taken for a lunatic. 
 How my yoimg lads in Cork would enjoy the joke, if they 
 could hear it!" 
 
 "I heard something similar a little while ago," said Father 
 DiUon. "I sent up a young lad from this place to Dublin 
 for special lectures in technical science. He was thrown 
 amongst a crowd of students, many of whom were from the 
 North of Ireland. He seemed to take a fancy to one young 
 fellow, whom he made his chum. He was Mac — something 
 or other, and he had an accent as broad as Galway Bay. 
 But they fraternised, and became quite attached to each 
 other. One day, the Mac — said: 'Look here, Murray, 
 you don't mean to say that you are a Roman Catholic?' 
 And Murray said: 'Certainly I am. And you don't mean to 
 say that you are an Orangeman?' And Mac — said: 'I cer- 
 tainly am. But I always thought that Roman Catholics 
 were — ;' and Murray said: 'And I was educated in the 
 belief that all Orangemen were — .' And so the matter 
 ended." 
 
 "It's all ignorance then?" said the Professor. 
 
 "Yes," broke in the doctor, "crass, brutal, stupid ignorance, 
 inflamed by Simday-school teaching, and — orators. Oh!" 
 
 That exclamation was significant; and the Sunetoi laughed. 
 They knew the doctor's pet horror. 
 
 "Yes," said the doctor. "Orators! Hypocrites! Play- 
 actors, who come out there on the platform and hustings, and 
 wrap the senses of trusting fools in a cloud of words, so that 
 they cannot see one ray of solid wisdom or reasoning. Oh! 
 How I would sweep that whole race into perdition! Imagine! 
 Here are a thousand, two thousand, three thousand human 
 souls, weak, vacillating, fickle for the most part, and yet with 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SEVENTH 279 
 
 some dim idea that they will follow the right and just path, 
 if someone will point it out to them. And here comes this 
 fellow, affecting to be their prophet, their teacher; and for a 
 bribe, or some political prejudice, he calmly and deliberately 
 corrupts and debauches these poor, ignorant souls; and instead 
 of pointing out to them the Truth, and the way in which they 
 should walk, he leads them hopelessly astray into the quag- 
 mires and morasses of political or social infidelity. Of course, 
 everyone knows that our people are colour-blind, that is, 
 they cannot see facts. They only see the presentments of 
 those facts reflected from the minds of others. And these 
 others are so debauched by sectarian or political prejudices, 
 and so zealous for their 'side,' that I venture to say truth is 
 almost an impossibility — the whole question becomes one of 
 expediency. I cannot see how the evil is to be extirpated. 
 Education seems only to intensify its balefulness. A Trinity 
 Professor sees in Maynooth only a museum of fossilised 
 mediaevalism. Maynooth retorts by calling Trinity 'the 
 silent sister.' Probably, the Callan battery, invented by 
 an old cassocked saint in MajTxooth, was never heard of in 
 Trinity, although it is well known on the continent. And 
 you may be sure that Judge Webb's 'Veil of Isis' never 
 crossed the boundary walls of Majmooth. It is the same 
 everywhere, the Catholic says of Trinity or the Queen's, — 
 the Protestant says of Ma3mooth or Clongowes, 'Can any- 
 thing good come out of Nazareth?'" 
 
 "Then you consider a reconciliation hopeless?" said the 
 Professor. "And yet we see your refutation here." 
 
 "Hopeless," replied the doctor, skilfully ignoring the latter 
 allusion, "hopeless, imtil our coimtrymen of every denomina- 
 tion, and every political colour, learn above all things to seek 
 for — and having found, to cling with desperation to — the 
 Truth. But this seems an impossibility. Our minds are 
 too agile, too swift, too nimble, too Grecian. We look around 
 a subject. We never look at it. We make the worst witnesses 
 in the world, because we see things in so many different ways. 
 
28o THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 We never see them under the white light of reason or common 
 sense. You say to an individual, or a crowd: 'Look here! 
 This is a fact, plain and indisputable, is it not?' They 
 answer: 'Yerra, of course it is. It is as plain as a pike- 
 staff!' Another comes along, and argues the direct con- 
 trary. In an instant, they go over to him: 'Begor, 'tis 
 your 're right. That fellow was only making a fool of us! ' " 
 
 "Your're a strange people!" said the Professor musingly. 
 
 "Not one whit stranger than the rest of humanity," replied 
 the doctor. "Look at your great English public! It changes 
 every three years, putting the Whigs into power this time; 
 and ejecting them the next time. Look at your politicians, 
 your Cabinet Ministers! Scarcely one of them has not 
 turned his coat, and some twice or thrice. Read the lives of 
 any of your statesmen. You will see them advancing from 
 Radicalism to Liberalism, from Liberalism to Conservatism, 
 by leaps and bounds. The only difference is that you, good 
 Saxons, are slow and heavy in your gyrations; the Celt is 
 more nimble. But, all this brings us back to the maia ques- 
 tion, which has been before us all along — the necessity of 
 first establishing, and then placing before the people, great 
 and just principles and ideals." 
 
 "How?" said the Professor. "How would you convert a 
 nation, if it be so sunken as you say?" 
 
 "Nothing simpler," said the doctor. "And yet, nothing 
 can be more difficult. All mankind, I presume, are agreed 
 that there is a certain code of ethical science, which is as 
 fixed as the laws of the Medes and Persians, no matter how 
 philosophers may argue about motives, causes, or influence. 
 Every man has to be judged by that code. There is no true 
 greatness where its precepts are violated. All moral great- 
 ness comes from their observance." 
 
 "Pardon me," said the Professor, "but may not a man be a 
 great mathematician, a great warrior, a great poet, a great 
 artist, without much moral rectitude? " 
 
 "Yes!" said the doctor, dwelling on the syllable, as if 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SEVENTH 281 
 
 gathering his thoughts together. "But he cannot be a great 
 man. And, if his work in life is of such a nature that he has 
 to deal with laws, or what is called the comity of nations, he 
 cannot be great even there, unless he observes the strictest 
 rules of justice and righteousness. Hence, — no, I withdraw! 
 I am wrong. The word 'mathematician' betrayed me. A 
 man may be a great mathematician without moral rectitude, 
 because I cannot conceive what bearing ethics can have on 
 lines and circles and parallels. But no! He cannot be a great 
 poet, a great warrior, or a great artist without moral 
 principles." 
 
 "But what moral principles had Alexander, or Hannibal, 
 or Napoleon; and yet, they are reputed great?" 
 
 "And wrongly. Why do you never speak of Alaric the 
 Great, or Tamerlane the Great? " 
 
 "Because they were scourges of the human race. They 
 were despots, tyrants!" 
 
 "And what was Alexander? What was Napoleon? Were 
 not these despots? You see how utterly wrong are all our 
 notions of what greatness really is. The savage is in our 
 blood, and in our fancies. We are caught by the glitter and 
 glow of success — by picturesque daring, by a brilliant 
 engagement, a brilliant poem, a brilliant speech. We do 
 not stop to ask, is this man really great, or is it only pinch- 
 beck and meretricious splendour?" 
 
 "You are upsetting the universal verdict of history," 
 said the Professor. "Whatever may be said about your 
 metaphysical views, they are in direct contradiction to the 
 fixed and determinate sentence of mankind on its great per- 
 sonages." 
 
 "Possibly," said the doctor. "But, once separate great- 
 ness from goodness, adore the prize-fighter, worship your 
 B3Tons and Bums, enthrone your Napoleons; and then, — 
 be consistent! Take down that cross, where everything noble 
 and self-sacrificing and sublime is symbolised; and if you 
 don't care to go back to the cats and ibexes of Egypt, put 
 
282 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 the effigies of the ape and tiger on the pediments of your 
 temples." 
 
 "I wish Mr. Hunt were here," said the Professor smiling. 
 "What has kept him away? " 
 
 "He is seriously unwell," said Father Dillon. 
 
 "Unwell? We did not hear?" said the Professor, looking 
 towards the doctor. 
 
 "Yes!" said the latter. "He has an attack of pleuro- 
 pneumonia; and is pretty bad; but I think we'll pull him 
 through. His youth averages a large percentage in his 
 favour." 
 
 "I'm so sorry," said the Professor. "I wouldn't have 
 spoken so flippantly, if I had known that so great a danger 
 was hanging over our yoimg friend. Of course, everything 
 has been done? I need not ask." 
 
 "Everything!" said the doctor, "that we could think of." 
 
 "I think," said the Professor, "I should like to see him, 
 before I return to Cork. May I, doctor? " 
 
 "Certainly," said the doctor. "He is quite conscious." 
 
 "I think," said Father Dillon, "we may adjourn the meet- 
 ing. Your paper on the Greek Digamma will hold. Professor. 
 And I hope Mr. Hunt will be with us, when it is read." 
 
 As they passed out through the long hall, the doctor felt 
 a gentle hand laid on his sleeve, and he heard a whisper: 
 
 "May I say one word with you in private?" 
 
 "Certainly," he said, recognising the voice of Hester Hope. 
 "Come in here." 
 
 He took the girl into his study, switched on the electric 
 light, and placed a chair for her. Then, he saw that she had 
 been weeping; but he appeared not to notice it. 
 
 "You said that Mr. Hunt was now out of danger," she said. 
 
 "No!" he replied bluntly. "I said I thought we could 
 pull him through." 
 
 "Then there is danger?" she said. 
 
 " Of course, there is always danger in such cases. But there 
 are nine chances to one in his favour." 
 
SESSION TWENTY-SEVENTH 283 
 
 "I fear I have to blame myself somewhat," she said, again 
 weeping. "The night of our last meeting, he walked home 
 yrith me; and I fear I kept him standing too long in the cold." 
 
 "Did he complain?" asked the doctor. 
 
 "Yes! he was shivering; and I bade him go home at once." 
 
 "He did not seem miwell here!" 
 
 "But he was. He never complains, you know. But it 
 will be all right, if you say he's out of danger." 
 
 "But, my dear Hester, I cannot say that just yet," replied 
 the doctor. 
 
 "But, you know — you said — there I If anything happens 
 to him, I can never be forgiven." 
 
 "Make your mind easy, my dear," said the good doctor. 
 "I can't say he's out of danger for two or three days; but 
 he has every chance in his favour." 
 
 "I wish I could see him. But — I suppose, it would not 
 do. Has Mrs. Holden been there?" 
 
 "Of course, she has," said the doctor brusquely. "She 
 was going on with some d — d nonsense about propriety and 
 that kind of rot. But I said: 'Look here, Jennie; you are 
 an old woman; you're as good as gold; and you are stifling 
 aU your womanly instincts imder this silliness about society, 
 and all that rot. Go down and see the boy. He is away 
 from his friends; and of course, he feels still we are but 
 strangers.' So she went; and, of course, she is a good,motherly 
 creature, and was able to do lots of little things for him." 
 
 "Then he has no nurses?" said Hester anxiously. 
 
 "Oh, but he has. Two nurses. We got them down from 
 Cork at once. He is all right. Make your mind quite easy." 
 
 "If I only could feel that I wasn't to blame," she said. 
 
 "Tut-tut. I'm ashamed of you; and you a B.A. and all 
 that. I tell you everything is in his favour." 
 
 "If only I coidd see him," she said, in a dreamy, half- 
 conscious maimer. 
 
 "WeU, it would never do tonight," the doctor said. "He 
 usually gets worse at night; and is sometimes delirious — " 
 
284 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 The girl gasped for breath, and turned so white, that the 
 doctor thought she was about to faint. 
 
 "You must know, you silly Hester, that all patients have 
 an increase of temperature at night; and owing to the weak 
 action of the heart, become slightly delirious. It means 
 nothing." 
 
 "If only I weren't to blame," she said. 
 
 "Now, look here," said the doctor. "You meet me here 
 tomorrow morning at ten o'clock. Are you engaged? No. 
 All right. Then meet me here; and we will see Mr. Hunt. 
 But, — be prepared for some change." 
 
 She started again. 
 
 "One word more," she said, detaining him. "You will 
 consider me impertinent. But I am anxious, reaUy anxious 
 about another matter. Oh, dear, how can I say it? " 
 
 " Out with it," he said. " It can't hurt me ! " 
 
 " But, it will. I know it will. But you will forgive me ! " 
 
 "Go on," said the doctor, resignedly. "What a faculty 
 for tantalising you young ladies have!" 
 
 "WeU, what I was going to say was this. I notice — at 
 our meetings, — Father Dillon looking pained sometimes. 
 You know he is very patriotic and good; and sometimes he 
 seems to feel that — that — " 
 
 "I'm going too far," said the doctor. "Of course I am. 
 I must have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
 the truth. Was he speaking to you? " 
 
 " Oh, no, no ! " said the girl. "But he is so good. Couldn't 
 you moderate a little — I mean, say things less brusquely? 
 You know what I mean? " 
 
 "Of course. There! we won't discuss the matter. But 
 the truth never hurts, my dear Hester." 
 
 " Yes ! " she said, like Pilate of old. "But what is truth? " 
 
 Which little saying left the doctor thinking. 
 
SESSION TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 When the doctor and Hester entered the sick-room the 
 following morning, a young lady, somewhat tall, and with a 
 certain stateliness of manner, rose up from her seat near the 
 bed and stood still. 
 
 "The doctor," said the patient feebly, whilst his eyes were 
 fixed upon Hester Hope. And then he whispered, so that he 
 could be heard: 
 
 "My sister, Olive!" 
 
 The sister at once advanced, and shook hands cordially 
 with the doctor, and thanked him for all his great kindness. 
 Then the latter drew Hester forward, although she seemed 
 anxious to shrink away, and said: 
 
 "One of our Club, Miss H\mt! I dare say your brother has 
 mentioned Miss Hope's name to you!" 
 
 There was a formal greeting between the ladies; and Hester 
 stood still, embarrassed, because the doctor had gone over 
 and was reading the chart with the day-nurse. She hardly 
 knew what to do, or say, as she felt the large eyes of the 
 stranger resting on her, and studjdng all her features, until 
 she heard her name called: 
 
 "Hester! Miss Hope!" 
 
 She stooped down towards the patient. He put out his 
 hand. It was as hot as fire in hers. She felt it burning 
 through her glove. 
 
 "I knew you'd come. I was hoping to see you all along." 
 
 She did not know what to reply. She could only look at 
 the hot, pinched face before her, and try to keep back her 
 tears. She dreaded any manifestation of sympathy before 
 this girl, who stood still as a statue by the bedside. The 
 doctor came to her relief. 
 
 28s 
 
286 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "You are much better this morning," he said. "Another 
 day or two, and you will have turned the corner." 
 
 "Will you examine the lungs?" asked the patient feebly. 
 
 "No! Not today! There's no necessity. The conges- 
 tion is rapidly resolving. Be sure to take all the nourish- 
 ment you can easily bear, — stimulants and all. He's a 
 good patient, nurse, is he not? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, " she replied. "He is quite passive in our hands, 
 except that he objects sometimes to the stimulants." 
 
 "Now, my boy," said the doctor, "there must be no 
 mistake here. You must take the whiskey as I ordered it. 
 Remember! Miss Hunt, my wife will be down in the after- 
 noon, and will make all arrangements for your comfort. 
 I hope you had a pleasant run across." 
 
 "Yes!" she said, calmly. "It was a little rough outside 
 Holyhead. Nearing Ireland, we had a better time." 
 
 "That's the first time I ever heard a good word spoken 
 about our Irish climate, or our Irish temper, which are so 
 much alike!" said the doctor. "Now, we must go!" 
 
 The young man seemed to detain Hester's hand in his; and 
 he said: 
 
 "You will come soon again?" 
 
 She looked at the doctor. 
 
 "Yes! when all is well. Just now, you know, you might be 
 tempted to write verses to another midnight visitor. Come 
 along, ^gina!" 
 
 All of which, being Irish-Greek to the stately English 
 girl, she merely looked on, touched the hand of the doctor, 
 and Hester's glove, and sat down again. 
 
 "What icicles these English are!" said the doctor, as he 
 walked rapidly homewards. "They freeze you up by that 
 awful frigidity of theirs; and then, you come to know them, 
 and somehow I, at least, find something genuine in them. 
 After all, there is an element of truth in their nature." 
 
 "I am afraid," said Hester, "that she considered me an 
 intruder. I see the awkwardness of it now. How was she 
 
SESSION TWENTY-EIGHTH 287 
 
 to know that we were merely clubites with some kind of 
 fraternal feeling between us? " 
 
 A remark which made the doctor look into a show-window, 
 where he caught himself reflected as smiling. 
 
 "Well," said the doctor, "I'll tell you what we shall do. 
 I'll propose Miss Hunt as a member at our next meeting; and 
 then she can see us as we are. Meanwhile, she is going to 
 remain with us. It would never do to send her to a hotel. 
 And, as you say, there must be some fraternal feeling between 
 us." 
 
 Hester looked at the doctor; but he was quite grave. 
 
 "Besides," he said, "I apprehend not a little fun from Jennie 
 and herself. It will be as good as a play to see Jennie toying 
 with this icicle; and trying to keep up her Irish dignity, 
 whilst she is melting with kindness and sympathy. She's 
 sure to bring in this unfortunate ancestor of naine, who has 
 been sleeping soundly for fifty years. And then I'll bring in 
 Bob, and set him at her. 'Twill be the rarest fun we ever 
 had." 
 
 "Doctor," said Hester, "do you know I fear you are 
 unkind." 
 
 She didn't mean it; and he knew it. 
 
 "No matter!" he said. "I'm in excellent spirits this morn- 
 ing. Hunt is out of danger!" 
 
 And he was rewarded more amply than if a fat fee were 
 pushed iato his palm, by seeing the look of delight and grati- 
 tude that passed like a sunbeam across her face. 
 
 The next session was a memorable one, and also somewhat 
 exciting, to the Sunetoi. The very presence of a young English 
 girl, with her pallid style of beauty lit up by large and not 
 incurious eyes was quite sufficient to make some nerves tingle. 
 The ladies were anxious to measure and catalogue her; the 
 gentlemen were anxious to be worthily catalogued and meas- 
 ured by her. Probably, Father Dillon was the only indi- 
 vidual who kept his equanimity intact. He had only the 
 abstract interest of the little society in view. 
 
288 THE IN TELLE CTUALS 
 
 "I had thought," said the Professor, after the doctor had 
 introduced his young guest, proposed her formal adoption, 
 and had it unanimously, and with acclamation passed, "to 
 introduce to your notice this evening the intricate question 
 of the Greek Digamma. But on consideration, I remem- 
 bered that this problem was usually a stepping stone to a 
 Bishopric; and as my ambition does not look in that direction, 
 I decided to drop that subject, and take up one more in con- 
 sonance with my own tastes and more in connection with the 
 interesting papers that have been lately read at our meetings. 
 I noticed that there is some consensus of opinion amongst 
 us, that there is a singular lack of careful and critical and 
 consecutive thought in the world of today. The learned 
 doctor seems to think that this defect is most conspicuous 
 in the political life of his own countrymen. But I am of 
 opinion that it is a world-wide evil, permeating all classes of 
 human society, and interfering everywhere with the progress 
 of the species. All those modes of human thought which 
 we consider dangerous and erroneous, such as Anarchism, 
 Nihilism, Socialism; all those furious controversies which 
 inflame the passions of whole nations, such as the controver- 
 sies about the Dreyfus and Ferrer cases; even all our relig- 
 ious and scientific discussions, wherein men differ more deeply 
 than even in political matters — all arise from one cause; that 
 is, illogical and unmethodical ways of thinking. It is more 
 difl&cult than we can imagine to meet a perfectly sane man, 
 by which I mean a man who is capable of stud3dng a question 
 under the cold, white light of reason, apart altogether from the 
 parti-colours that are thrown upon it from the sidelights of 
 passion, or innate or acquired prejudice. Now, we must 
 always remember that thought, opinion, judgment is in each 
 individual nothing but the subjective impression of objective 
 facts. By far the most important question for us, therefore, 
 to solve is, how far that subjective impression in se, and its 
 subjective expression as externated in judgment, or language, 
 is co-ordinate with the external and objective fact that comes 
 
SESSION TWENTY-EIGHTH 289 
 
 under its consciousness. Hence, the first thing to ascertain 
 is, what are the limitations of this intellectual and spiritual 
 faculty; and what are the qualities of the external fact 
 brought under its cognisance. It is quite clear, in the first 
 place, that all intellectual faculties are not alike. There is a 
 difference between the intellect of a Newton and that of an 
 idiot in the public ward of a hospital. There is a difference 
 between a Shakspeare and a mattoid. Both might see the 
 same external facts, and the senses may be equally acute; 
 but how different the brain-impression! And, again, the 
 same brain might view an objective fact in quite a different 
 way, according as it is affected by age, or sickness, or delirium. 
 A little less blood to the brain, and the most perfect mind 
 sees things that never could exist, never did exist. The 
 lesion of one cell will turn a philosopher into a fool. Emerson, 
 that fine genius, addressing a body of young academicians 
 and entrancing them with his views of 'The American 
 Scholar,' was quite a different person from the Emerson who 
 stooped over the coffin, which held the remains of his dearest 
 friend, and murmuring: 'I carmot recollect his name,' was 
 gently borne away. Southey, writing article after article 
 for the Edinburgh Review, and Southey vacantly gazing along 
 his crowded bookshelves, incapable of understanding the 
 titles even of his beloved books, were totally different person- 
 alities. The same may be said of Swift, of Coleridge, of 
 Moore; and in our own days, of Maupassant and Nietzsche. 
 Whatever be thought of the moraUty or immorality of the 
 latter's philosophy, one cannot refuse him the tribute of a 
 tear, as we see him bending over the tiny wavelets on the 
 Adriatic coast, and calling: ButschI Butschl Butsch! to the 
 foam that broke at his feet. And so we find that not only is 
 the capacity of seizing brain impressions different in differ- 
 ent individuals; but, different even in the same individual 
 according as it is modified by age or disease. These, then, 
 are the limitations of our subjective impressions of the external 
 world. But there are also internal limitations of brain-power, 
 20 
 
290 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 which are not a little curious. As a rule, in the normal brain 
 impressions are involuntary; but are at once seized by the 
 grappling-hooks of the brain, and transmuted into thought 
 and emotion by the action of the supreme vsdll, which holds 
 the power of deliberately limiting these operations, and using 
 the subjective impressions according to its choice. Where the 
 will fails to control these impressions, and keep them from 
 breaking forth into external acts or words, we have what is 
 called generically, insanity. But, strange to say, there is an 
 occult faculty in the mind, qmte independent of the will and 
 operating without its cognisance, which is designated sub- 
 cerebration, or secondary action; and where the operations 
 of the brain reach their highest capacity. At first sight, this 
 seems incredible — that brain-power, set in motion from 
 occult and unrecognisable causes, should not only act in com- 
 plete independence of the ordinary motive influence of the will; 
 but that these motions should be recognised as not only supe- 
 rior to the ordinary operations of the cerebral faculties, but as 
 reaching an altitude of mental process, to which the brain, 
 in its ordinary and even in its stimulated operations, is alto- 
 gether miequal. What the inspiring power is; what occult 
 and altogether mysterious force lies behind that ever-active 
 sub-cerebration, and sets it in motion, and directs its opera- 
 tions, in the impenetrable darkness of the cerebral cells, 
 and altogether unknown to the superior faculties, — remains, 
 and will ever remain, a profound secret. All that we know 
 is, that in sleep, or rather in the shadowy twihght that inter- 
 venes between sleep and waking, when the master of the house, 
 the autocratic will, is still boxmd in the chains of slumber, 
 these half -rebellious forces are in full operation, and can pro- 
 duce results that are the despair of the waking faculties, when 
 again under the dominion of the will. Hence, poets have 
 struck out lines, or rather, ideas and words have been sub- 
 mitted and suggested to them by the Ariel of their dreams, 
 that no effort, no whipping up of the waking faculties can 
 ever recall, or rival; and the mathematician has solved 
 
SESSION TWENTY-EIGHTH 291 
 
 problems in the same condition, that remain the despair of 
 his waking hours. Furthermore, this strange and mysterious 
 faculty actually pursues its operations, even while the mills 
 of the brain are going full steam ahead! at the command of 
 the will, and under its direct and voluntary control. Quite 
 independent of this despot, outside the range of his vision, 
 and beyond his control, yea, even when he has his eyes 
 on every faculty, and every faculty is concentrated to the 
 fullest tension on its own work, this mysterious cerebration 
 is quietly carrying on its rebellious operations, and is only 
 cognisable, when it suddenly breaks forth in results, that put 
 the voluntary operations of the brain to shame. A writer has 
 pursued the phantoms of his own creation, and is arranging 
 and rearranging their mutual relations, when suddenly he 
 seems to have come bolt upright against a blank wall, and 
 all the threads of his little narratives fall blankly from his 
 hands. He cannot go a step further. The creative, or cos- 
 mical power, has become paralysed. His httle drama has come 
 to an end. If he be wise, he will draw the curtains here; and 
 huddUng up his phantoms, leave them to themselves, and take 
 up another line of thought, even a fresh creation. It may be 
 that after labouring freely at this new work, perhaps a month, 
 perhaps six months after its commencement, and when all the 
 characters of his former stage had almost passed into obUvion, 
 suddenly the wizard of the brain-caves opens up a fresh 
 avenue of thought; and the blank walls that blocked his 
 former operations fall down and reveal long vistas of life, 
 where the characters of his drama may pursue their destiny 
 to the final scenes, which he had foreseen, but could not reach. 
 So, too, a mathematician pursuing an intricate problem 
 with all his reasoning and imaginative faculties bent on his 
 work, feels himself utterly helpless. He can foregather all his 
 fugitive thoughts, and whip them on to their destined task; 
 but in vain. That problem refuses to be solved. He leaves 
 his desk in despair, and turns aside; and whilst dreaming of 
 other things, lo! in the twinkling of an eyelid, the problem 
 
292 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 has solved itself. Or, he is totting up vast columns of figures, 
 four or five figures deep; and his mind wanders. Mechan- 
 ically, he pursues his task, although his attention has run 
 away from the colxunns before him. But he slips, he mis- 
 calculates a figure; and instinctively, he stops, summons back 
 the vagrant faculty, orders it to its work, and finds that the 
 mysterious monitor, who had cried, Cave I was right. Why 
 do I recall all these things which are the personal experiences 
 of every individual? Because, I wish to show how marvel- 
 lous, how phenomenal are the operations of the mind; and 
 how sense-impressions of external facts or entities may not 
 only differ in themselves, but may be also transmuted into 
 different ideas, according to the powers and faculties of the 
 brain. It is not needful to speak here of external things, nor 
 to enter into the ancient controversy, as to whether the mind, 
 conscious of its sense-impressions, can reach beyond them 
 to the outer world of fact; and whether, if this is possible, 
 it can penetrate beyond the phenomena, and discern the 
 noumena of the material world. I wish to reach rapidly the 
 objection, that if all this be true, certainty about anything, — 
 certainty about our sense-impressions, certainty about the 
 net product of these impressions when worked up and elabo- 
 rated by the mental faculties, conscious and imconscious; 
 certainty about the existence of a world, external to our- 
 selves, can never be obtained. But, here we meet with such 
 a consensus of opinion, that all doubts and objections are 
 stilled and silenced into acquiescence; and we find that 
 reason, and the certainty that comes from reason, are vindi- 
 cated in a manner that seems to be almost mathematically 
 perfect. Hence, mankind are at one, for the experience of 
 mankind is uniform, about certain historic data, so as to 
 exclude all incertitude. So, too, about scientific facts. So, 
 too, about its moral standards of perfection. Just as we say, 
 Mount Everest is the highest mountain peak on the globe; 
 as at a certain place off the coast of Africa or Polynesia, 
 the ocean reaches its greatest depth; as Rome exists, and 
 
SESSION TWENTY-EIGHTH 293 
 
 Babylon did exist, so are we, that is, all mankind, agreed, 
 that the model of all human and Divine perfection was the 
 God-Man, who stood in Judaea nineteen hundred years ago, 
 and left His life and His utterances as the highest standard 
 to which the world could attain. By that life all mental and 
 moral perfection must be judged. It is the criterion of all 
 that is holy and sacred. It is the touchstone of all sterling 
 and imalloyed greatness. But, just as in Nature there 
 may be manifestations of powers, destructive yet magnifi- 
 cent, such as tornadoes, earthquakes, tidal waves, lightning 
 flashes, so there may be amongst men certain characteristics 
 which are striking by reason of their terror or their power, but 
 which are maleficent, and therefore, fall far short of the supreme 
 standard. It is not only the Miltonic conception of Satan, 
 but the theological analysis of Satan, that is magnificent. 
 He is an Archangel, retaining all his tremendous powers of a 
 spiritual and intellectual being, — all his original endowments, 
 even though distorted and warped by malignity, and the 
 dreadful consequences of his fall. He is great, even sublime 
 in his maleficence. But, we should not dream of erecting a 
 statue to him in our public squares, or placing his picture in 
 our temples. And, in the same way, mere intellectual great- 
 ness and force, severed from the moral law, and directed only 
 towards maleficent purposes, should never command the 
 admiration, and never tempt the imitation, of ourselves or 
 the after generations of our race. I thoroughly agree, there- 
 fore, with the doctor, and the other members of our Society, 
 that we must never allow our imaginations to be swept along 
 by an unchastened and unreasonable admiration for what are 
 called 'great men.' But we should have always before us 
 certain principles, a certain unswerving standard of great- 
 ness; and then the faculty of ascertaining the facts, the inner 
 essences of things, and bringing them up to be tested by that 
 standard. This is the only way to get at Truth; it is the 
 only way in which we can conquer the temptation to be led 
 aside by sentiments of personal or political expediency — 
 
294 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 that fatal tendency to compromise, and to lull our judg- 
 ments and our consciences into an ignoble acquiescence with 
 what is comfortable and pleasant, at the sacrifice of principles 
 and personal rectitude. For, as the whole reasoning of Euclid 
 rests on a few basal axioms, so the whole of life, private and 
 public, political and religious and social, depends on a few 
 plain palmary principles, which are revealed, as well as 
 axiomatic. Depart from these, and all the problems of life 
 become insoluble; and the social body becomes a tangled web 
 of anarchism and communism on the one hand, or a military 
 despotism on the other, seeking justification by fallacious 
 and sophistical reasoning, and acknowledging no guidance, 
 but that of the Lord of Misrule." 
 
 "Bravo!" cried the doctor. "That's better than fifty 
 Greek Digammas!" 
 
 "I wish Mr. Hunt were here," said Father Dillon, looking 
 helplessly around. "He always seizes on some point and 
 elucidates it." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Mr. Marshall, bowing in his own chival- 
 rous way towards Miss Hunt, "perhaps. Miss Hunt would 
 flatter the Professor by some gentle criticism? " 
 
 The marble pallor of the girl's cheek seemed to be faintly 
 flushed as she said: 
 
 "I fear it would seem impertinent at my first introduction. 
 The only point that seized hold of my fancy was the remark 
 of the Professor, when he spoke of an author coming bolt 
 upright against a blank wall. I have seen that. I have 
 known authors coming exactly to that point in their work 
 which the Professor describes. But, alas! they could not 
 lay down their pens, and pursue other subjects. For the little 
 children lay sleeping in their cradles; and the old-young 
 mother was patching their garments under the light of a 
 smoky lamp, and beside a fireless hearth; and the weary 
 man was driving a weary brain at the call of the manager 
 through the evening post. And there could be no rest, nor 
 reprieve there, imtil the pen fell from the paralysed fingers, 
 
SESSION TWENTY-EIGHTH 295 
 
 and the tortured nerves found their opiate in death. It is 
 a good thing to be free — free to work, or rest, as one 
 pleases. It is an ill thing to be whipped to one's death by 
 the overseer." 
 
 Miss Hunt had paused. 
 
 And then there was great silence. 
 
SESSION TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 "Wasn't it very forward of that girl to speak out so boldly 
 at a first introduction?" said the doctor's wife that evening 
 when the meeting had broken up, and the guests had departed, 
 and only the favoured Mrs. Skelton had remained behind, 
 by special request, for a little seanchus. 
 
 "It was, my dear," said Mrs. Skelton, "but you know these 
 English are not like us." 
 
 "Of course I like her very much, indeed," said Mrs. Holden. 
 "She is very quiet, and imobtrusive in the house; but very 
 uncommunicative. I was anxious to know something of 
 them, not from curiosity — you know, I am quite above all 
 that; but out of sheer kindness, because you can't do as much 
 for people you don't know as for people you do know." 
 
 "Quite true," said Mrs. Skelton, "quite true, indeed, my 
 dear. And surely, when you were good enough to bring her 
 into your house, and she, a perfect stranger, she should have 
 repaid your kindness." 
 
 Mrs. Holden shot a suspicious glance here at her bosom 
 friend; but the latter did not notice. Her conscience was 
 clear of any subtle and secret motive. 
 
 "But," continued Mrs. Skelton, growing happier all the 
 while, as she, good soul, knew she was giving pleasure, "they 
 must be somebodies. The Admiral called to see Mr. Hunt 
 today." 
 
 The words were simple, and simply spoken, like all the 
 great words of history, from "the die is cast" of the great 
 Caesar, down to "Up, lads, and at them" of Wellington, 
 which, however, are legendary. But, if Mrs. Skelton had 
 said the Archangel Gabriel, or the Man in the Iron Mask, she 
 could not have astonished more, or pleased more, her friend. 
 
 296 
 
SESSION TWENTY-NINTH 297 
 
 "The Admiral?" she cried in an ecstasy of surprise and 
 admiration. "Are you quite sure?" 
 
 And Mrs. Skelton, rising to the importance of the situation, 
 said in a more dramatic manner: 
 
 "Quite sure! my dear. He was in the Club afterwards; 
 and he said he had been to see young Hxmt." 
 
 "But are you quite sure he didn't send his Secretary, or 
 drive up and leave his card?" 
 
 "Well, I'm only giving his own words," said Mrs. Skelton, 
 humbly. "And they were: 'I have just been down to see 
 young Hunt. He has been pulled through right well.' " 
 
 All the time the doctor's good wife had been picturing the 
 wonderful scene to her own imagination. She had seen 
 the two bays, their coats shining like satin; the outriders, 
 the footmen. She saw the Admiral alight, and go up stairs. 
 She heard his words. "Perhaps," she thought, "he may now 
 call here. He surely must have met Miss Hunt; and she 
 must have told him where she was staying." 
 
 Oh, blissful thought! The Admiral's carriage at her door! 
 The passers-by staring! The report carried around Queens- 
 town on the wings of the wind! Perhaps — but this would 
 be too much to expect; yet if the Fates would only be kind 
 enough to contrive that just at that moment Mrs. Babbage 
 should be passing by, — what a consummation of happiness, 
 what a perfection of bliss it would be! 
 
 Meanwhile, the young lady, who was the centre and source 
 of all these radiant dreams, had left the meeting on her way 
 to her brother's rooms to see that all was well for the night. 
 She overtook Miss Hester Hope just at the corner of the 
 square, and said simply: 
 
 "May I walk a little way with you towards home?" 
 
 Hester flushed with pleasure, and then got alarmed and 
 nervous. How could she know what this strange, silent, 
 English girl was going to say. Yet, she had already formed her 
 conception of the character of Olive Hunt. That one remark 
 at the close of the last Session showed a tenderness of feeling 
 
298 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 which was hardly to be expected from so stately an individual. 
 Hester felt assured of this; and, then, there crept into her 
 heart a hope that this might be the beginning of a new and 
 priceless friendship. 
 
 "This is my way," said she, pointing up the hill. "You 
 may not like this steep hill." 
 
 "Oh, I don't mind," said her companion. "Perhaps, there 
 is a short way back to my brother's." 
 
 "There is. I shall show it to you, when we get to the top," 
 said Hester. 
 
 There was a little pause; and then Olive said: 
 
 " I have gathered from Reginald that he has met great and 
 unexpected kindness here. His letters have been very enthu- 
 siastic; and have kept me quite in touch with all your doings 
 here." 
 
 "Yes! He's a great favourite in our little Society. In 
 fact, he is our mainstay and chief help. He is always ready. 
 Every subject seems to come quite easily within his compre- 
 hension." 
 
 "But the whole idea is so novel. It is a most unexpected 
 experience. We could not have believed such a thing possible 
 over there." 
 
 And she pointed with her glove out beyond the seas. 
 
 "It was Father Dillon's idea," Hester said. "I don't know 
 what suggested it to him; but he is very open and broad- 
 minded; and he knew the Professor intimately, and then he 
 drew us all together." 
 
 "He is very handsome," said Olive Hunt, musingly. 
 
 "He is very kind and clever," said Hester Hope. "You 
 see it was an experiment; and apparently a dangerous one. 
 But he has managed by great tact, so far, to keep us in perfect 
 harmony, yet allowing us the most perfect freedom of opinion." 
 
 "But it is this universal and generous kindness towards 
 Reginald in his illness that has touched me so deeply. Every- 
 one is so solicitous, so kind." 
 
 "I suppose it is our Irish way," said Hester Hope. "We 
 
SESSION TWENTY-NINTH 299 
 
 do enjoy a little fun and fighting, when all is going well; but, 
 in the hour of trouble, all is forgotten, but the duty of kind- 
 ness and benevolence." 
 
 "Well, I do hope you will come to see Reginald often," 
 said Miss Hunt, and fortunately it was night, and the merciful 
 darkness covered the blushes of her companion. "He seems 
 to like it; and perhaps, after a little while, your friendship 
 may extend to his sister." 
 
 It was a pretty little speech; and Hester was mute beneath 
 it. Then the stranger said Good-night! and holding Hester's 
 hand in her own, she stooped down and touched her fore- 
 head with her lips. At the next meeting of the Sunetoi, she 
 appeared as frigid and formal as if she had never heard the 
 name of Hester Hope. 
 
 Verily, there seemed a great gap in the little Society since 
 Reginald Hunt had been unwell. His vacant chair, where he 
 lounged, as a Cabinet Minister loimges on the green benches 
 in the House, seemed to emphasise the lonely feeling which 
 his absence caused; and it needed all the strong, masterful 
 instinct of perseverance on the part of the Chairman to keep 
 the Sodety from degenerating into a mere club for gossip or 
 desultory conversation. Of course, the musical element was 
 always assured by the presence of Mrs. Holden, whose reper- 
 toire was inexhaustible; but, it was not so easy to keep the 
 literary element in evidence. He could not press the members 
 too closely, knowing that they all had their own daily avoca- 
 tions, and therefore, but limited time for external work. He 
 mercifully took the laurden of this meeting on himself, with all 
 kinds of polite apologies for the intrusion. 
 
 "The Professor's paper read at the last meeting," he said, 
 "set me thinking, and drove me to my books. This is the 
 great advantage of such papers — their suggestiveness — 
 their power of setting a train of thought ia motion, which 
 needs to be maintained by additional thought gathered from 
 the storehouses of the world's great thinkers. I have con- 
 firmed every statement made by the Professor as to the action 
 
300 THE INTELLECT UALS 
 
 of our sub-intellectualism, or unconscious cerebration; and I 
 have seen one or two remarkable instances quoted, which are 
 at least interesting in themselves. Sir WiUiam Hamilton 
 discovered the method of Quaternions suddenly on the i6th 
 October, 1843, as he was walking towards Dublin with his 
 wife. 'I felt a problem to have been at that moment solved, 
 — an intellectual want relieved, — which had haunted me for at 
 least fifteen years before.' Charlotte Bronte remained some- 
 times for weeks unable to pick up the thread of a story. Then, 
 some morning, thinking of something else, the whole thing 
 would flash upon her mind, and the clear avenues of thought 
 would lie open before her. I believe the instances of this 
 curious operation are very niunerous; and at one time, it was 
 supposed to militate against the standard doctrine of free 
 volition, and to savour of automatism. But I think fuller 
 investigations have proved that these occult operations are 
 also the result of a habit acquired, as all habits are, by repeated 
 exercise of the faculty, which then becomes automatons in 
 itself. This occurs, as we know, in corporal motions, whereby 
 we walk, or write, or ride, without volition. I suppose not 
 one man in a million thinks of the physical act of placing one 
 foot before the other, when he is going to church, or to the 
 bank, or to his place of business. The action is purely autom- 
 atous. The will-power seems to have nothing to do with 
 it. And we know that when walking with a companion, we 
 can carry on several operations at the same time, — speaking, 
 laughing, singing, whilst our limbs are moved in perfect har- 
 mony, of which we are absolutely imconscious. But what is 
 this automatism, but the habit acquired in our childhood by 
 painful falls, and stumbles, by rushing against chairs and ' 
 tables to save ourselves? One philosopher sees a similar 
 analogy in the strange magnetic power, by which, again 
 unconsciously, nay, even against our wills, we are drawn 
 towards some great personality, or feel a predilection for a cer- 
 tain race, or nation, or individual. It is again the automatic 
 action of certain occult faculties in our system, which, having 
 
SESSION TWENTY-NINTH 301 
 
 been acted upon and influenced by principles and emotions in 
 early life, have retained the singular bias or propulsion towards 
 certain things, which at a later period, owing to different influ- 
 ences, we regard almost with aversion. But the question 
 becomes more diflScult when we ask why these occult or dor- 
 mant faculties are so much more powerful than those that are 
 brought under the dominion of consciousness? For that 
 seems to be an admitted fact; and it is confirmed by the 
 experience of those who are addicted to violent stimulants 
 like opium and hashish, which, at certain stages of mental 
 excitement, undoubtedly induce unconsciousness. It is a 
 moot question whether poets, like Coleridge and Shelley, and 
 in our own times, Francis Thompson, could consciously elabo- 
 rate those poems, which are altogether sui generis, and seem 
 to belong to the language of another world. Critics even 
 have hinted that such literature is not quite sane, however 
 exalted and beautiful it might be. But it is a proof, at least, 
 that unconscious cerebration is capable of producing results of 
 which the conscious action of the mental faculties is incapable. 
 "It seems to me to prove that, whilst genius is only another 
 name for mental irritability, on the other hand, repose is 
 absolutely necessary to bring out the powers of the suspended 
 or dormant faculties of the brain. You may have noticed 
 that neurotic patients, whose nerves are weakened by gout, 
 or some other malady, are perfectly able to write a steady 
 hand, to carry a fuU glass of wine to the lips, or perform any 
 other similar duty with ease, when alone, or in the company of 
 friends, when those actions are vinconsciously, or automatically 
 performed. But, let consciousness intervene, let them watch 
 themselves, or deem themselves watched by others; and they 
 are no longer able to control their nerves; The hand shakes, 
 and all the nervous acts are paralysed, wholly or partially. 
 This comes from the fact that in repose, that is whilst the 
 mind keeps aloof, the nerves are capable of carrying on their 
 ordinary work; but consciousness creates nerve tension, 
 which is followed by vibration, just as when a boy pulls the 
 
302 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 end of a string together; and the same power is no longer there. 
 But there is an additional, and a deeper reason for the superi- 
 ority of unconscious action, or automatism, over the conscious 
 stimulation of the brain faculties by the dominant will. It is 
 this. We have seen that this apparently automatic action is 
 the result of habits, long since acquired, but allowed to remain 
 dormant; just like a language, once laboriously learned, and 
 then apparently forgotten, or Uke the habit of swimming or 
 riding, which has been discontinued, but is never really lost. 
 In truth, just as memory in old age, calling on the more recent 
 formations of brain-cells or brain-tissue, fails to elicit impres- 
 sions, although, when the earlier formations are challenged, 
 they respond with activity and instantly produce the impres- 
 sions of childhood and youth; so, these earlier formations, 
 being much more vigorous in their repose or action than the 
 cellular tissues formed in later life, when probable degenera- 
 tion had set in, suddenly respond to some secret caU of Nature; 
 and accompUsh results which are impossible to the later and 
 more debihtated formations. In truth, these sudden and 
 unexpected revelations of hidden strength are simply the 
 manifestation in action of powers that were formed in youth 
 and earlier manhood, and which, notwithstanding the fact 
 that they were hidden away and left inoperative by the sub- 
 sequent cellular formations of brain-substance, never lost 
 their energy or vitality, but sprang into action, and revealed 
 their hidden potencies, when they found that the degenerate 
 cells of the later formative periods had failed to respond to the 
 will, and were unable to do its work. Hence, it may be con- 
 cluded, that, if only we knew by what mysterious summons 
 those earUer and inextinguishable powers could be compelled 
 to yield up their impressions, and exercise their activities, we 
 might say that the brain can never grow old; but would be 
 the last organ in the body that would fail to preserve its vital- 
 ity. Geologists tell us, that we may take away layer after 
 layer on the earth's surface, each but a mass of insensate and 
 inert matter; and at last come down to one, which suddenly 
 
SESSION TWENTY-NINTH 303 
 
 breaks forth in explosions of hidden gases; so stratum after 
 stratum in the human brain may be nothing more than dull 
 cortical, or cellular matter, feebly sensitive and feebly respon- 
 sive; and then, one lying far beneath the surface reveals a 
 sudden and hidden vitaUty, showing that it had kept in reserve 
 all the strength of youth and its virility, whilst the weaker and 
 newer powers formed in a period of degeneracy were irrespon- 
 sive above its head. And hence, too, we know that the great 
 principles of religion and morality, impressed on us in our 
 childhood, are never obUterated. The weaker reasonings of 
 later life have no power over the lessons that were sculptured 
 deep on the tablets of our souls, and there hardened into a 
 permanency that resists all later experiences." 
 
 "I am very pleased," said the Professor, "that Father 
 Dillon's researches have borne out my theories in this abstruse 
 and difficult matter. I do not think that physiologists or 
 psychologists shall ever penetrate thoroughly the mysteries of 
 the brain. In fact, the deeper one goes, the more strange and 
 interesting are its manifestations. Perhaps the very mystery 
 of heredity and atavism can be traced to these occult opera- 
 tions of the brain-centres of which we are speaking. I think 
 naturalists now are of one mind as to the causes of peculiar 
 features in the lower creations, such as the habit of the dog of 
 throwing up dust or earth with his hind feet, or making three 
 roimds before sitting down to rest. 'Hereditary habits' is 
 the expression used to express such phenomena; but the ques- 
 tion arises where do these hereditary habits arise; what is 
 their location, or centres of influence in the animal. And 
 there can be but one answer — in the vaso-motor nerves, 
 radiating from the centres of their impulses in the brain. But 
 again, it may be asked: Whence came such instincts, and how 
 have they been transmitted and localised? And the only 
 answer is: That they have come down from the brain-centres 
 of ancestors, where through necessity or habit, they were 
 formerly localised, and where owing to their extraordinary 
 vitality they subsisted through all changes, climatic and other- 
 
304 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 wise, until finally they emerge with unbroken strength in far- 
 distant, and perhaps even modified grades of the same original 
 species. But I fear we are intruding. Father Dillon, on the 
 doctor's domain. After all, it is the province of the medical 
 man." 
 
 "Not at all," said the doctor. "I am by no means so 
 conservative as all that. I make inroads upon theology 
 myself; and in fact, nowadays all sciences are open to those 
 who care to read. There is but one point where I feel quite 
 competent to speak. It is on that subject of cerebral or mental 
 degeneration; and this is interesting, not only from the med- 
 ical, but from the literary standpoint. How far genius and 
 insanity are akin; how far the successes of a Caesar or a Napo- 
 leon may be accounted for by the fact that they were epilep- 
 tics, is one open to dispute. But from Swift downwards, we 
 have instances of literary geniuses withering from the top, 
 and suffering ia old age that mollities, or as the French call it, 
 amolUssement, which to some seems deplorable, but which to 
 me seems no more painful than second childhood. This 
 malady generally arises from malnutrition of the brain; the 
 malnutrition in turn is derived from arterial degeneration, 
 the loss of elasticity in the arteries, and their gradual crumbling 
 away until they fail to send supplies to the cerebral centres. 
 Again, in a kind of vicious circle, this atheroma, or arterial 
 degeneration arises from weakness in the nerve-centres, which 
 weakness creates the calcareous deposits which are found in 
 atheromatous patients. And, hence, it is concluded that 
 gout, or its sister diseases that produce calcareous degenera- 
 tion, is at the root a nervous disorder, — the neurosis being 
 at the same time its cause and its effect. This is the reason 
 why very few old people are free from tense and tortuous 
 and nodulous arteries. A doctor, seeing such cases, will at 
 once say, Gout! But whence gout? From dyspepsia. And 
 whence dyspepsia? From defect of nerve power. And 
 whence defect of nerve power? From the gradual weakening 
 of the nerve-centres in the brain, which, in turn, are further 
 
SESSION TWENTY-NINTH 305 
 
 debilitated by malnutrition arisiag from defective arterial 
 action. It is never overwork. It is worry, excitability, 
 passion, that are the causes of the wear and tear of the cere- 
 bral tissue, on the one hand; and are themselves, in turn, the 
 consequences of cerebral weakness and irritability." 
 
 "Take care, Mr. Marshall," said Father Dillon, "I believe 
 the composition of one poem uses up more tissue than the 
 writing of an ordinary book." 
 
 No, there had been a great transformation ia the external 
 appearance and general manner of Mr. Marshall since Regi- 
 nald Hunt's illness. Whether it was the sudden apparition of 
 such a gifted and beautiful woman as Olive Hunt, or whether 
 it was that he felt a rival removed and that he now shone a 
 solitary poetical planet in the empyrean, we do not know. 
 The ladies were inclined to the first interpretation; the gentle- 
 men to the second. But one thing was clear. Mr. Marshall 
 was changed. He had tamed down his poetic impulsiveness, 
 and had smoothed out his uncouth, if agreeable mannerisms. 
 He was almost painfully quiet. He was painfully polished. 
 His shirt-front was immaculate. His cuffs were enamelled 
 by careful laundry. A solitaire flashed in the former. Gold 
 links held the latter together. But the patent tops to his 
 boots appeared to be the culmination of an elegance that was 
 so mysterious as to be almost painful. Altogether, there was 
 a transformation. The old gentlemanly traits that are never 
 to be acquired and that can never be lost were there still; but 
 now was added an external lustre, which to some eyes seemed 
 to enhance; to others to detract from his natural elegance of 
 manner. 
 
 Mrs. Skelton had noticed it first; and had whispered to her 
 friend: 
 
 "The idiot is dead!" 
 
 "Idiot? What idiot? " said Mrs. Holden. 
 
 "Between him and the Earldom," said Mrs. Skelton. 
 
 "How do you know?" said her friend, who was beginning 
 to look towards Mr. Marshall with new-born admiration. 
 
3o6 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Imagine, she thought, with that rapidity that runs through the 
 feminine mind in such a crisis, — imagine a Lord, a real live 
 Lord, not only our guest, but our confidential friend ! Avaunt, 
 thou Admiral! A bas, you poor little pinchbeck Knights 
 down from Cork, made by the accident of a Royal Visit! 
 Here is a genuine nobleman, who can trace his blood back six 
 or seven centuries at least! What a glorious privilege to 
 entertain such a person! What a humiliation to Mrs. Babbage 
 and the small herd that stable with her! 
 
 But Mrs. Holden kept these thoughts closely to herself. 
 She shrugged her shoulders, and when Mrs. Skelton answered 
 the last question with the monosyllabic: "Robert!" Mrs. 
 Holden said in an accent that seemed to make little of 
 lordships: 
 
 "I tell you 'tis Olive. I saw his eyes following her the 
 whole evening." 
 
SESSION THIRTIETH 
 
 When Father Dillon at the close of the last Session put an 
 interrogation in the guise of a warning to Mr. Marshall, the 
 latter suddenly flushed up. This was most unusual with 
 him; for he was almost always self-possessed against such 
 a weakness as blushing, even though he had all the untrained 
 impulsiveness of a poet. But he answered promptly: 
 
 "That depends, Mr. Chairman, on what poetry is; and 
 how it is created." 
 
 Which remark gave the tactful and astute Chairman a 
 clue, which he instantly seized, and said: 
 
 "Precisely. Now, Mr. Marshall will give us at our next 
 Session an exact and comprehensive account of how that 
 miracle, called a good poem, is created." 
 
 "Oh, really, Father Dillon, I never expected to be put in 
 for this. I really do not know — that is, I cannot explain — 
 the whole thing is comprised in the words, Poeta nascitur, 
 non fiti" 
 
 "Of course," said Father Dillon. "But what we want 
 to know; and what no one is more competent to teach us 
 than Mr. Marshall, is, not how a poet is created; but how a 
 poet creates his own work." 
 
 "It is difficult," said Mr. Marshall, hesitating; and some- 
 how his glance seemed to stray towards where Olive Hunt 
 was sitting. And that young lady, as if questioned by that 
 glance, said at once, quoting Jean Paul: 
 
 "This singular man, it seems, will not reveal on what moun- 
 tain heights the springs accumulate, which bubble up for him 
 in the valleys." 
 
 It was oracular and strange, and Mrs. Holden drew in her 
 breath and pursed her lips. But Mr. Marshall said: 
 
 307 
 
3o8 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "If the mountains are inaccessible, the poet must be content 
 to watch the Pierian fountain at his feet." 
 
 There was a moment's embarrassing silence. Was it a 
 retort courteous, or uncourteous? Was there a signal-code 
 between these souls so far apart, of which the cypher was 
 known but to themselves? Was there a command, that was 
 disobeyed; a suggestion, that was refused? 
 
 The questions ran rapidly through the minds of some who 
 were present. Then they solved themselves. For Mr. 
 'Marshall said: 
 
 "Yes. Very well. At our next meeting, Father Dillon." 
 
 "What a singular man, and what a singular girl, and what 
 a singular lot we all are," said the Professor to Miss Eraser, 
 as they walked down together to catch the 9:15 train. "The 
 whole thing is too prosaic to be a romance; and then there is 
 no plot, nor even the probability of a denouement. But, it is 
 a revelation." 
 
 "Yes!" she said, meekly. "Do you think it possible that 
 the imagination of a young girl, like Miss Hunt, could be 
 caught by such an old man, as Mr. Marshall? " 
 
 "That's a question which only a woman's heart can answer," 
 he said. "It is just there that we men are all at sea. What 
 do you think? " 
 
 "I think it quite possible," she said. "There seems to be 
 an aflinity somewhere between them. It might be their 
 taste for poetry, or for music. She sings divinely. Poor 
 Mrs. Holden! She is utterly eclipsed. And yet how bravely 
 she carries on beneath such a defeat. But I am pleased that 
 Mr. Marshall has attended to his toilet a little. If Miss 
 Hunt had seen him, as we saw him, her fastidiousness would 
 never recover the shock! He's a dear old man. I hope 
 he'll keep himself free! Good-night. Here is Rushbrooke!" 
 
 There were some contradictions here, which, on reflection, 
 made the Professor smile, as the train sped onward. But 
 that penultimate sentence: "I hope he'll keep himself free," 
 
SESSION THIRTIETH 309 
 
 made him reflect more seriously. Was he touched on a 
 weak point? 
 
 "I have searched and searched," said Mr. Marshall, at 
 the next meeting, after the usual courtesies were exchanged, 
 and solicitous inquiries made after Reginald Hunt, "for an 
 adequate definition of Poetry in all manner of books; but I 
 have not found one that seems satisfactory. I am like the 
 king, who asked Simonides a deeper and a more sacred 
 question; and the philosopher asked for a day's delay; and 
 then another, and then another, and so on without end, 
 impl3dng that the question was unanswerable. This one, 
 which I submit with all deference to our learned Society, seems 
 to me to come nearer a right definition than any I have seen. 
 I define Poetry to be: The attempt of the Conditioned to 
 express the Absolute! I must not offend you by impl3dng 
 that these terms are unknown to you. Their meaning is 
 apparent. We know that ourselves are limited and Condi- 
 tioned by Time and Space, and all the other circumstances 
 of imperfect beings. These limitations suggest, and prove, 
 the illimitable. It is in straining to express that, we break 
 into poetry. Hence, you see, at once, what a vast mass of 
 crude, and commonplace verse I at once exclude. Tried by 
 that touchstone, half the versiculation of the world rings 
 false and hollow; and tried by the same standard there is 
 poetry, Divine poetry in places where it is least to be expected. 
 The ancients, with their anthropomorphic conceptions of 
 their deities, were all poets; for although their deities took 
 on themselves the forms and fashions, the voices and weak- 
 nesses of men, yet they had illimitable gifts — the attributes 
 of the Absolute, — eternity, serenity, immobility, the silence 
 of Olympus, and immortality. The same may be said of the 
 savage, who personifies the elements of Nature, by making 
 gods of them. He is only doing in a crude way what such 
 Nature-Poets as Wordsworth accomplish philosophically and 
 with the adjuncts of metrical verse; — what such a poet as 
 Shelley did, when he personified Love and Grief and Fear. 
 
3IO THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Probably this concept touched its highest expression in Goethe, 
 where he makes this outer universe the garment of the 
 Eternal — the vesture, or outer coverings, ever-changing, 
 never-resting, of that which is permanent and eternal. Some- 
 times, it is said, that Poetry is but the interpretation of the 
 Beautiful. But this we cannot accept. If this were true, 
 we should have to sacrifice the third part of Dante's Commedia, 
 the greater part of Milton, the whole of ^Eschylus, the Trage- 
 dies of Shakspeare. Probably, the most poetic conception of 
 Dante, whilst he was limited to human things, is that picture 
 of Paolo and Francesca, whirled around on the brown air of 
 Hell. You cannot call it beautiful. It is tragic, and pitiful. 
 Yet it is poetic, because it is the suggestion in one concrete 
 form of a something that belongs to the abstract and illimitable, 
 the enduring nature of love, and the adamantine resistance 
 of sacred and inviolable laws. I have said while he was 
 limited to human things, because he alone, amongst the poets, 
 has touched the Divine in a manner which has no parallel 
 except the chapters of the Book of Revelations. Probably 
 the lines of the Paradiso from 
 
 "'El' un dall' altro, come Iri da Iri,' 
 
 to the end of the Canto, denote the high-water mark of poetry. 
 "I dwell on these points with a view of disproving that a 
 mere pretty idea, no matter how melodiously expressed, or a 
 clever simile, or metaphor, or a piece of word-painting, may be 
 poetry in the high sense in which I have defined it. I have 
 seen persons go into ecstasy over a Homeric expression, such 
 as the SaKpvoev ■yeXotrcura in Book VI, Or the onomatopoeic line 
 
 Ai jUEv en ^wov yoov ciKTopa (j) en oik<^' 
 
 but translate the words, and get at their meaning, and what 
 are they but bald prose? I have seen that line of ^schylus: 
 
 cuXivov, aiXivov ciTTC dAAa ro cv viKaro)' 
 
 quoted and requoted as poetic perfection, but change it into 
 
SESSION THIRTIETH 311 
 
 English, and how bald it is! I will go higher and ask whether 
 that admirable Shaksperean line: 
 
 "'The singing masons building roofs of gold' 
 
 is poetry? I admit it is a perfect line. Its symmetry, its 
 beauty, its metaphoric correctness are perfect; but is it in 
 touch with the Absolute? Does it take you out beyond Time 
 and Space, and plant you amidst the Silences and Immensities 
 of the Universe? Hardly. But, when he wrote: 
 
 " ' There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest, 
 But in his motion like an angel sings, 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed Cherubim,' 
 
 he threw his imagination and ours into the ocean of infini- 
 tude. Hence, I conclude that mere pretty conceits, or 
 musical expressions, are not poetry. The kernel of all real 
 poetry must be the Idea. If that is not great, no mere vesture 
 can make it so. Place it on stilts, or give it a tragic mask to 
 carry its tones further and further, it remains not poetry, 
 but vapid verse. I am not denying for a moment the neces- 
 sity of Form, — of metre and of music. It is now indispen- 
 sable, although I am convinced that the higher grades of 
 poetry, such as the Hebrew Psalms, or the Canticle of Canti- 
 cles, or the Book of Job, or the ancient Sagas of the Nations, 
 or Richter amongst the Moderns, contain geniiine and exalted 
 poetry without the adjunct of metre or rhyme. I am speaking 
 rather of modem requirements, just as I would speak of the 
 adaptations of Handel or Mozart to harp or piano. The music 
 may be there; but may not be interpreted. But, undoubtedly 
 the Form is secondary. The Idea is paramount. For you 
 cannot have an interpretation without a something that can 
 be interpreted. Now, to revert to the original question: 
 
 "'How that miracle, called a good poem, is created?' 
 Here one has to distinguish between inspiration and mere 
 art. We know what they mean. The one is the sudden 
 flashing on the spirit of an Idea, novel, startling, beautiful. 
 
312 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 It comes we know not whence. It is as swift as lightning and 
 as unexpected. It is gone in an instant, iinless it is seized, 
 as a camera seizes a lightning flash. And it brings with it 
 its own garment, or interpretation in words. Here there is 
 no trouble, no stretching of the pia mater, no selecting of 
 expressions. The spirit of poesy is generous. She never 
 sends her babe without its swaddling-clothes. Mere art, 
 on the other hand, is laborious and painful; and probably, 
 wears out more brain-tissue in the composition of a single 
 line than is consumed in a mathematical thesis. The differ- 
 ence between the two — the poet who writes under inspira- 
 tion, and the artist, who works out by rule, is just the 
 difference between a Raffaelle, dashing on the stretched canvas 
 the Idea that is burning in his brain; and the artisan, who is 
 laying mosaic from a pattern in his hands on the floor of a 
 sanctuary. In the former case the Idea comes first, and is 
 yearning to be put into execution. In the latter, the pieces 
 are laid, — cubic, triangular, square, piece by piece, bit by 
 bit, fitted in according to a Form, and then the worker stands 
 by to compare. Here the Form comes first; and the Idea 
 is sought and exhibited through the Form. Most modem 
 poetry, except that of Shelley and perhaps Swinburne, is 
 manufactured thus. The matrix or shape is laid down, the 
 words are rhymed, and the Idea is squeezed and forced into 
 that shape. Probably, the most prominent instance of this 
 kind of work is to be found in In Memoriam. Take stanza 
 after stanza; and watch how the rhymes are sought and shaped 
 and fitted. Take this, for example: 
 
 "'Heart-affluence in discursive talk 
 
 From household fountains never dry, 
 The critic clearness of an eye 
 That saw through all the Muses' walk.' 
 
 Now, who ever before heard of the ' Muses' walk? ' Probably, 
 the word 'walk' is the very last word one would think of 
 in connection with the Muses. One could imderstand the 
 
SESSION THIRTIETH 313 
 
 Muses' 'flight,' or the Muses' 'chariot,' or the Muses' 
 'viols,' or any other word, except 'walk.' Now, what 
 happened? The first line is good, — a little obscure, but 
 good. And then — the imagination of the poet ran down 
 along the alphabet, until it struck upon the one word that 
 would rh3rme. He put it down, and filled in the pattern. 
 Hence, you will find on reading the record of his life that he 
 laboured at the refinement and elegance of his verses in a 
 manner that was really intellectual drudgery; and you will 
 also find that his critics, who desire to say the kindest thing 
 of him, place his supreme excellence in having discovered, 
 after painful and laborious searches — the 'word.' Of 
 course, this is a great art, and Tennyson was a great artist. 
 But, although it is the fashion nowadays to say that his 
 genius found its culmination in the volume of 1842, and that 
 whatever he wrote afterwards was artificial and inferior, 
 I cannot agree with that verdict. There are passionate 
 scenes and speeches in the 'Idylls of the King' that are a 
 fair interpretation of other-worlds and Over-Souls; and there 
 are poems, such as 'Vastness' and his last supreme lyric, 
 that mark more than anything else he has written his deep 
 sense of the Absolute. You will notice something similar 
 in B3T:on. We now know that he had to smite his brain 
 with gin and brandy before he struck from its unwilling 
 recesses those sparks of rich rhetoric which have passed under 
 the name of poetry. No poet ever laboured harder at the 
 dreary work of composition. Hence, the occasional bathos 
 that you meet ever3rwhere, as in Wordsworth. Take that 
 fiine lyric, for example, 'The Isles of Greece;' take that 
 stanza: 
 
 "'Ye have the Pjnrrhic dance as yet, 
 Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? 
 Of two such lessons why forget 
 The nobler and the manlier one? ' 
 
 That is perfect. It is rhetoric and not poetry; but the anti- 
 
314 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 thesis and the weight of words expressing it, cannot be equalled. 
 Now, take the concluding lines of the same stanza: 
 
 "'Ye have the letters Cadmus gave; 
 Think you he meant them for a slave? ' 
 
 " Clearly, the poet's diction was at fault here. To be gram- 
 matically correct he should have written: 
 
 " * Think you he meant them for slaves? ' 
 
 " But this would not rhyme. He had to sacrifice grammar 
 to metre and rhythm. And again, there is no fine antithesis 
 here as in the former lines. There is no violent contrast 
 between 'letters' and 'a slave.' He must have heard of 
 such a person as Epictetus surely. But it is only an instance 
 of art, as apart from inspiration. 
 
 "The conclusion is quite manifest. A great poem is not 
 created. It is given. It is the free gratuitous gift of the 
 Muses to some favoured child. They demand no labour in 
 return. Nay even they resent labour. The gift is too precious 
 for human hands to spoil. And they are economic in their 
 gifts. There is no divine largess here. As in Nature, her 
 most precious things, her gold, her diamonds, her amethysts, 
 are rare to be found, and almost infinitesimal in quantity, 
 when found; so, too, the gracious gifts of Poesy are dis- 
 pensed with thrift, and are precious both by reason of their 
 intrinsic value, and their limitations. To one child only were 
 they generous; and he attracted their notice by reason of his 
 artlessness — in his hfe, and in his work. Hence, I believe, 
 that as this truth becomes more fully acknowledged, the 
 thick Anthologies and Beauties, which are so plentiful today 
 will dwindle down in a most rapid progression, until some time 
 we shall find that poetry — the real poetry of the world will 
 be represented by great lines, that will stand out resplendent 
 when the grosser things shall have been washed clean away. 
 Even now, if you speak of poetry in the society of literati, 
 you will find that great lines only are remembered and quoted; 
 
SESSION THIRTIETH 315 
 
 and sometimes, a great word holds in itself, and as it were in 
 solution, some grand idea that lifts us above ourselves, and 
 takes us out into the regions where sense fails, and only the 
 spiritual essence of our mentality survives. Then the Abso- 
 lute, which now draws us out of ourselves into itself, shall be 
 revealed; and poetry shall cease, for vision shall take its 
 place, and need no interpreter. Meanwhile, remember, it 
 is only the tones of perfect poetry that Polyh3rmnia, as she 
 floats above the dull atmosphere of the earth, and bends 
 down to catch its voice, ever pauses to hear; and hearing, 
 takes them with her to prove to the celestials that as Prome- 
 theus stole their fixe for his beloved mortals, so some kind of 
 spirit has cormnvmicated to earth the music of the immortals." 
 
 As the soft, melodious voice of Mr. Marshall dropped into a 
 murmur of self -dispraise, he suddenly raised it again, and said: 
 
 "I feel I have but half-expressed what I mean. The truth 
 is, words are but feeble exponents of the thoughts that surge 
 through the human mind sometimes; and it is, above all, 
 hard to express oneself in this bare and barren prose. I am 
 afraid I may seem pedantic; but I think I have said all this 
 better in one or two brief soimets, which may I read? " 
 
 And all nodding assent, Mr. Marshall read from his notebook: 
 
 Unheard, unechoed by the ears of men, 
 
 There is a music doth appeal to me, 
 
 A chorus of transcendent melody, 
 Like a sea pausing, and coming once again. 
 Oh! that I could with voice, or work, or pen. 
 
 Transfix those rapturous sounds before they flee, 
 
 And keep for ever in my memory 
 Those chords divine beyond all human ken. 
 
 "Look thou on me!" these soul-chords seem to say; 
 "On me! on me!" re-echo all the rest, 
 As for a soul an angel casting lots; 
 And faint and far as at the dose of day, 
 
 Arise like winds from out the bumiag west 
 The music of unutterable thoughts. 
 
3i6 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "That is one," said Mr. Marshall, fumbling sadly with his 
 pocket-book. The other two are sequences: 
 
 Last night I saw an angel's perfect wing 
 
 Vast and resplendent, spread from pole to pole, 
 I marvelled that I never saw the whole 
 
 Celestial spirit in the boundless ring 
 
 Of spaces stretched beyond imagining. 
 
 There is some Fate that ever cheats the soul, 
 Some hidden Hand that deals to us a dole 
 
 Of hinted glories and perfectioning. 
 
 I know that angel's wing was but a swarm 
 Of cirrhous curds from some vast, milky cloud; 
 So teaches science; but the larger faiths 
 Create their own ideals uniform. 
 And still the lonely heart will cry aloud 
 Against those fragments — these too transient wraiths. 
 
 And yet I think a meaning might be sought 
 
 In these half-revelations from on high. 
 
 The palimpsest of the eternal sky 
 Hath secrets in its starred recesses wrought. 
 And all that Science — all that Art has brought 
 
 In their long trains to raise and beautify 
 
 This lower Ufe, are hidden hints to try 
 What loveliness is linked with human thought. 
 
 Each new idea hath its Archetype 
 Of greatness or of beauty throned afar 
 Amid the spacious mansions of the Blest. 
 And when the Time in God's own mind grows ripe, 
 As flower that bursts, or roundings of a star. 
 The form shall fade; the type shall stand confest. 
 
 "I shall say no more. I suppose the paper will be discussed? " 
 "Certainly," said Father Dillon. "And I anticipate an 
 
 interesting, if not a lively discussion." 
 At which Mr. Marshall seemed to look alarmed. 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FIRST 
 
 That evening, Olive Hunt not only accompanied her young 
 and newly-found friend to her home; but for the first time 
 accepted the invitation of the latter to go in and see her 
 pictures, books, etc. 
 
 "I'm so sorry," said Hester, "but mother has to retire 
 rather early. She would be so happy to meet you." 
 
 The drawing-room was prettily, but scantily furnished. 
 There were no valuable things there, neither was anything 
 worthless. There was not a Cuyp, nor a Rousseau on the 
 walls; but there were some delicate etchings of subjects 
 that were known only to the initiated in high art and litera- 
 ture. On one table was a marble statuette of the Madonna, 
 standing on a globe, her feet wreathed round by the serpent 
 and resting on the crescent moon. The other tables were 
 covered with books and magazines. Near the southern 
 window was a pretty rosewood escritoire. Near the fire- 
 place was a piano; and leaning up against the piano were 
 violin and mandolin cases. The fire was burning brightly. 
 Hester turned on the light, and bade her visitor be seated. 
 
 Olive Hunt threw a glance around the room; and, without 
 removing her hat or cloak, sat down. 
 
 " It is a pretty little sanctum," she said. "You work there." 
 
 She had pointed to the writing-desk, near the window. 
 
 "My work is little," said Hester smiling. "I just write 
 my letters there, and no more." 
 
 "You have a view of the harbour from the window?" 
 
 "Yes ! A lovely view. On summer evenings, and on autumn 
 evenings, it is enchanting." 
 
 "You were born here?" 
 
 "Yes. Father was a Commander in the Navy; and was 
 about to get his Captaincy when he died. This is he!" 
 
 317 
 
3i8 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 She took down a faded photograph from the mantelpiece; 
 but faded photographs are calumnious things. 
 
 "Mother has a miniature, which is very much better," 
 she said. "I never saw father. He died abroad." 
 
 There was silence for a few seconds. 
 
 'Father was a coimtr)rman of yours," said Hester. "He 
 was connected some way with the Hopes of Sussex. I believe 
 they are what is called a 'good family.'" 
 
 "You don't know them, then?" said Miss Himt. 
 
 "Oh, no!" said Hester. "I believe mother had one letter 
 of condolence from some people over there; but we have 
 had nothing further." 
 
 "What a singular man Mr. Marshall is," said Olive Hunt, 
 suddenly changing the conversation. 
 
 "So you called him this evening!" said Hester laughing. 
 "You said: This singular man!" 
 
 "Yes! but that was but a quotation. Yet, he is singular, 
 quaint, old-worldish — just the kind of ancient that would 
 catch a fancy like Gwendolen's." 
 
 "I see," said Hester. "You are the only living person 
 that reads ' George Eliot' now." 
 
 "Perhaps! But, will you speak on Mr. Marshall's thesis 
 — strange thesis, I must call it, — at the next Session?" 
 
 Hester gave her shoulders a little shrug. "Hardly. In 
 fact, I never speak except I feel interested at the moment." 
 
 "You mean you don't prepare anything?" 
 
 "Yes! If the discussion awakens any new thought or 
 sympathy, I join in. If not, I am silent." 
 
 "I feel I shall have to speak," said Olive Hunt, as if she 
 were summoned by some superior power to do a determined 
 thing. "I cannot allow all that Mr. Marshall says to pass 
 without comment. Do you think it will pain him? " 
 
 "Not at all!" said Hester. "You are sure to speak gently 
 and S3Tnpathetically; and then, I feel that Mr. Marshall 
 will be flattered by your notice." 
 
 "I cannot allow it pass," said Olive Hunt, as if debating 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FIRST 319 
 
 with herself. "Some things were true; but I feel that some 
 things were open to question. Then, you won't speak?" 
 
 "Unless my Irish temper rises," said Hester, laughing. 
 
 "Is Mr. Marshall Irish?" 
 
 "I believe so. He belongs to a very good family — the 
 Marshalls of Marshallstown." 
 
 "What a strange expression!" said Olive Hunt, as if speak- 
 ing to herself. '"A good family!' I've heard it so often 
 from my kind hostess. She apologises for every little depreca- 
 tory remark by adding: 'But they belong to a very good 
 family.'" 
 
 "It is one of our Irish idioms!" said Hester, laughing. 
 "It does not mean 'good' in the moral sense; but only a 
 certain distinction by reason of descent." 
 
 "Oh! and how many steps or grades must be taken, in order 
 to be entitled to that distinction?" 
 
 "Oh, that depends," said Hester. "Some of our 'good' 
 families can trace themselves back to Cromwell or Elizabeth. 
 Some go back to a successful lawyer or doctor about thirty 
 years ago. Some are successful merchants of yesterday. 
 Some of today. A good deal depends on locality; and a 
 good deal on religious beliefs." 
 
 "You surprise me! You said now that it is not a moral 
 or religious goodness that is meant." 
 
 "Quite true. But it is this way. In this country a Protes- 
 tant is supposed to be always more respectable than a Catholic. 
 Our religion, you must know, is the religion of the kitchen 
 and the poorhouse. And then, locality has a good deal to 
 say to it. For example, a successful tea-merchant, who has 
 amassed say a hundred thousand pounds, remains only a 
 merchant if he continues to live in Cork. But, if he retains 
 his business-house in Cork, and takes a villa down here, he 
 becomes at once a gentleman; and is admitted into society. 
 The sea air has a good deal to say to it." 
 
 "How very strange!" murmured Olive Hunt. "With us, 
 of course, there are distinctions; but, I don't think we draw 
 
320 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 them so sharply. In fact, I think we have more republican 
 tendencies than you Irish." 
 
 "Quite so! We are a royal race, although you may remem- 
 ber that Swift discovered our regal representatives in the 
 coal-porters on the Dublin quays. But I think I have been 
 very self-restrained in not telling you that my father was a 
 Protestant." 
 
 "Ah! And you won't make any comment on Mr. Mar- 
 shaU's paper? " 
 
 "No! I feel hardly competent; and — there is only one 
 life now between Mr. Marshall and an earldom." 
 
 Then Olive Hunt smiled for the first time. She was begin- 
 ning to understand this strange people. 
 
 "I anticipate a full and even a deeply interesting discussion 
 on Mr. Marshall's paper," said Father Dillon at the next 
 meeting of the Sunetoi. "I thought I perceived in that paper 
 some controvertible positions; but I may have been mistaken. 
 Now, ladies first, please! Miss Eraser, would you kindly 
 give us your views? " 
 
 "I confess," said Miss Eraser, "that I felt I dissented from 
 Mr. Marshall from the very beginning of his paper. I do 
 not understand his definition, because I don't know what is 
 meant by the 'Conditioned' and the 'Absolute.' I believe 
 they are philosophical terms; and, though I come from a 
 country of philosophers, I cannot grasp these shadows. And 
 then, if I admit the definition, I at once annihilate our own 
 'puir Bobbie,' and that," said Miss Eraser, with strong 
 emphasis, "I shall never do." 
 
 "And I," said Mrs. Holden, "am quite displeased with 
 Mr. Marshall for depreciating Lord Tennyson — " 
 
 The word "Lord," however, seemed to recall her to her 
 righteous frime of mind; for she said: 
 
 "Of course, I don't care for that old 'In Memoriam.' 
 You couldn't set that to music. It is a funeral dirge. But I 
 have Lord Tennyson's lovely songs here; and by and by I 
 shall convert Mr. Marshall." 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FIRST 321 
 
 The latter gentleman bore these two feathery attacks with 
 smiling equanimity. He knew he could brush them aside 
 with ease. But when Father Dillon called Miss Hope; 
 and Miss Hope resigned in favour of Olive Hunt, Mr. Marshall 
 became serious. He leaned his head in a humble attitude, 
 and his fine, white hair seemed to gleam like silver. But, 
 at the first words of the young lady, he started and grew 
 serious. 
 
 "I also feel it a duty," said Miss Hunt, in a calm, level 
 voice, "to protest againgt that definition, on the grounds 
 that, as Mr. Marshall afterwards explained, it excludes our 
 interpretation of the Beautiful — " 
 
 "Pardon, a thousand pardonsr-for interrupting," said the 
 old man, npw grown very serious, "but I think Miss Hunt 
 has misinterpreted me. No wonder! Because it is so hard to 
 grasp a subtle meaning at one reading. But, what I did say 
 was that I could not accept the definition of poetry as being 
 merely the interpretation of "the Beautiful. I did not exclude 
 the Beautiful; but I gave a definition that took in a wider 
 range." ; 
 
 "Quite so," said Miss Hunt. "But, inasmuch as Mr. 
 Marshall laid great stress on the Idea to be interpreted, may 
 we not hold that the Idea of the Beautiful and the Perfect 
 is alone worthy to be interpreted?" 
 
 "'The Beautiful and the Perfect,'" murmured Mr. Mar- 
 shall, turning over the words in his mind, "'The Beautiful 
 and the Perfect!' Yes. Provided it is the Absolute Beauty 
 and Perfection — not the limited and conditioned." 
 
 "But," said Miss Hunt, "how are we limited and imperfect 
 beings to know, or understand, the Absolute? What is the 
 Absolute?" 
 
 ' ' Ha ! There you open up those mighty avenues of thought, 
 which to us seem to lead nowhere," said Mr. Marshall. "How 
 shall I ever explain? Let me see. All our conceptions of 
 beauty and perfection are purely relative — that is, not 
 only limited and conditioned, but relative. Here comes in 
 
322 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 the theory of the Hegelian contradictory. Every Ego sup- 
 posing a non-Ego, imperfection suggesting perfection; limi- 
 tations, the illimitable; time, eternity, etc. Now, as Miss 
 Hunt so wisely says, we are unable to gauge the immeasurable; 
 to fathom infinity; but it is in the effort to do so that we 
 become ourselves great; it is in the expression of our longing 
 after the infinite, we break into poetry. If we abide with 
 that which is limited and imperfect, and find our final and 
 ultimate happiness there, we may sing; but it will never be 
 the full-throated song, whose 'echoes reach from soul to 
 soul.' We sing; but like the linnet, who enjoyed his feeble 
 little trill, whilst he alone was heard, but is silent with self- 
 disgust, when the nightingale's solemn music breaks above 
 his head, we find our songs pleasing, until some greater singer 
 drowns them in the raptures of eternity. Let me take an 
 instance. You have all heard of Marlowe's 'mighty line.' 
 It deserved the name. He ranks only second to Shakspeare. 
 I do not know if Ben Jonson was referring to his masculine 
 verse in general, or but to one line; but certainly, there is 
 no couplet so frequently quoted, and none that exemplifies 
 his genius half so well as the lines: 
 
 " ' Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, 
 And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? ' 
 
 Here now is an expression of the Beautiful — the most 
 lovely thing of all antiquity — the face of the Grecian Helen. 
 But, will anyone call these lines great poetry? No! It is a 
 fine expression. That is all. So long as a poet reposes his 
 imagination in that which though beautiful is limited, he 
 remains the 'idle singer of an empty day.' He must launch 
 the barque of his imagination on the ocean of infinity before 
 he becomes great." 
 
 "I am afraid you would have to burn a good deal of Shak- 
 speare and Homer, if you were to accept those definitions in 
 reality," said Miss Himt. 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FIRST 323 
 
 "Not so much of Homer," said Mr. Marshall. "But a 
 good deal of Shakspeare is painfully human." 
 
 "It is not a little strange," said Father Dillon, breaking 
 in, "that Mr. Marshall, in defining poetry, should have been 
 teaching us Catholic theology." 
 
 There was quite a stir amongst the Sunetoi at this; and 
 Mr. Marshall looked alarmed. Nothing was further from his 
 mind than theology of any kind, most of all, Catholic theology. 
 
 "It is another instance," said Father Dillon, "of the close 
 kinship of all human branches of knowledge. In saying that 
 we only find great poetry in our attempts to seize and express 
 the Infinite, Mr. Marshall was paraphrasing St. Augustine: 
 'Oh, Beauty, ever ancient, and ever new, too late have I 
 known Thee: too late have I loved Thee!' And that is the 
 cry of every great soul. For example, if I were to ask Mr. 
 Marshall what was the greatest poem he has written, he 
 would answer: The poem I never wrote!" 
 
 Mr. Marshall's face kindled at the little flattery; but Miss 
 Hunt looked puzzled and said: 
 
 "But — but — am I to xmderstand that there is no beauty, 
 no grace, no loveliness on earth that may be worthily and 
 righteously sxmg? What then of our loves: — 
 
 "'The child, the flower, the sunset, and the sea?' 
 
 "Surely these things are beautiful; and may be worthily 
 sung or chaunted even by our most inspired singers?" 
 
 "Yes!" said Mr. Marshall, reluctantly, "but these would 
 not be the organ voices of the world. The full diapason is 
 not heard; the vox humana is feeble, until it chaunts the 
 glory of all archetypal loveliness." 
 
 He was slow to argue thus. His reason was contending 
 with his admiration of the face before him. A lofty, yet lower 
 feeling was whispering to him: 
 
 "Yes! and is not this your archetype?" 
 
 Father Dillon said: 
 
324 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "We go a little farther. We say, that to rest upon the 
 beauty of the creature to the exclusion of the supreme Beauty 
 is — Sin!" 
 
 "Sin?" said Miss Hunt. 
 
 "Sin?" said Miss Eraser. 
 
 The Professor looked the question, and said nothing. 
 
 "This is quite a surprise. Father Dillon," said Miss Hunt. 
 "Then it is sinful to admire a sunset or the sea, or the face 
 of a woman or a child? " 
 
 "No!" he said gravely. The subject was becoming a 
 delicate and deep one. "I spoke of inordinate pleasure. 
 You know our definition of sin is, the turning away from the 
 Creator to His creature. To find the former and to repose 
 in His perfections is our destiny. Whenever we turn aside 
 from Him, Who is the end of our being, we sin! " 
 
 "I cannot imderstand!" said Miss Himt, bewildered. 
 "It is transcendental; but not real!" 
 
 " It is the only reality !" said the priest. " But, I think there 
 is a great deal yet to be debated in Mr. Marshall's paper. 
 We must, I think, postpone the discussion to our next Session. 
 I propose that Mr. Marshall read that interesting, but debat- 
 able paper again tonight, so that we may carry away with 
 us the little pegs whereon to hang our ideas. And then. 
 Miss Hunt — will you play for us again that Rondo? " 
 
 "But you mustn't take any pleasure in my music," she 
 said, mischievously. "It would be sinful." 
 
 There was a laugh at the priest's expense; but he waived 
 it by sajdng: 
 
 "No! no! music is the voice of the Absolute! Is not that 
 so, Mr. Marshall?" 
 
 But Mr. Marshall was silent. He was not going to take 
 the part of a priest against such a lady as Olive Himt. He 
 then read his paper a second time. 
 
SESSION THIRTY-SECOND 
 
 The Professor led off the discussion at the next Session. 
 He had come down chockful of the subject; and was clearly 
 determined to antagonise some of the positions taken up by 
 Mr. Marshall. Was it that the mighty hexameters of Homer, 
 or the iambics of ^schylus were ringing in his ears, and spur- 
 ring him on to do battle for the noblest forms of human speech; 
 or was he going to contest the first position of Mr. Marshall, 
 and deny that human emotion finds its best expression when 
 straining after the Absolute? He was certainly very fidgety 
 during the preliminaries; and when Father Dillon said at 
 length: 
 
 "And now, ladies and gentlemen, we proceed to discuss 
 further the admirable paper read at last meeting, and of which 
 you must have a clear and well-defined recollection!" the 
 Professor at once said: 
 
 "The main contention of Mr. Marshall, that is, his defini- 
 tion of Poetry, has been amiably disputed by the ladies, who 
 evidently resent the idea that we cannot rest or repose in the 
 loveliness of things present, but must always refer that loveli- 
 ness to far-off. Divine things, intelligible, yet undefinable to 
 our imagination. For myself, I admit the grandeur of the 
 idea; although the difficulty of realising it seems to approach 
 impossibility. But I, on a much lower level, cross swords 
 with Mr. Marshall, inasmuch as I have to contravene his 
 thesis, that the idea in poetry is the paramount thing, and the 
 expression of but secondary importance. It is the old con- 
 troversy about the relative merits of matter and form, which 
 commenced with the Stagyrite, and shall end, no one knows 
 when or where. But I contend that the utterance is every- 
 thing; that the 'word' is supreme. For the question at once 
 
 32s 
 
326 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 arises, what is anything worth, until it is uttered? Where 
 was the question of matter, or material things, when the 
 Spirit of God brooded over the face of the deep, and all was 
 Night and Chaos, imtil the Voice said: 'Let there be Light?' 
 Would not that Chaos have lasted for ever, sunk in tumultuous 
 anarchy, until the imperial edict went forth, and Light and 
 Order were evolved from the primeval void? What peopled 
 the firmament with worlds, the earth with its vast variety of 
 creatures, but the Word, the Voice? Allowing that matter 
 was there, without form and void, would it not have remained 
 inorganic and effete for ever, if the Voice had not startled it 
 into form and fecund life? — " 
 
 The Professor paused. Mr. Marshall had muttered some- 
 thing, but at once said: 
 
 " Continue, continue. Professor. I was merely saying that 
 that was the Miltonic conception." 
 
 "And what if it were?" replied the Professor. "Take any 
 theory of Creation you please, you cannot get rid of the Voice. 
 Take any most extreme evolutionary dogma; and you must 
 see that the word that gave form unto matter was super- 
 essential. The creation, therefore, is God's utterance to the 
 ages; and the worlds of his omnipotence echo back his glory: 
 'The heavens are telling the wonders of God; and the firma- 
 ment announces his works. Abyss calls out to abyss in the 
 voice of many waters.' On a lower scale, what is thought, 
 emotion, feeling, — what is the Idea, which Mr. Marshall 
 glorifies so much, what is it all worth, unless and tmtil it is 
 uttered? Emotion? Let this be sacred, holy, chaste — how 
 does it affect our fellow-beings, until it is translated into human 
 speech? Feeling? Let it be kindly, gentle, all-embracing in 
 its fulness; self-sacrificing in its generosity — of what moment 
 is it, if it is stifled by want of utterance? Genius?. What is 
 genius, until it expresses itself, and when it does express itself 
 is not the expression greater in itself, and its manifold results, 
 than the Idea that was hidden away in some convolution of 
 the brain? Phidias stands before a block of marble. An idea 
 
SESSION THIRTY-SECOND 327 
 
 is seething in his mind, and clamouring to be expressed. Call 
 that idea molecular action, or call it inspiration, of what use 
 is its intrinsic grandeur, so long as it is locked up there in the 
 iron safe of the artist's brain? It is of no more use than the 
 hoard of a miser, or a diamond hidden in a mountain wady in 
 Kaffraria. But, unlike the dull mechanic hoard, or the hidden 
 pearl, it is a living thing, and it demands to be released. That 
 can only be effected in one way. The artist seizes his chisel; 
 and after some days of furious striving, lo! an Apollo steps 
 forth from the glistening marble. It is the Form of the Idea, 
 struck into sudden immortality, — the Idea, which would 
 have remained latent for ever, or passed away into the oblivion 
 of utter darkness and nothingness, were not the genius of the 
 artist capable of moulding it into an expression of eternal 
 and unapproachable loveliness. Or, take a Haydn, standing 
 before his organ, or at his desk, with some vast Idea struggling 
 for expression in his mind. Perhaps it was one of those subtle, 
 intangible things that if not suddenly seized woiild evaporate, 
 and be lost; or, perhaps, it is of a vaster and more concrete 
 kind, that demands the full force of genius to express it. Days 
 pass. The hand lies listless on the strings or keys. He 
 touches them; but they do not respond; or respond but faintly 
 to his summons. He abandons the Idea in despair; and 
 apparently, that Idea has sunk beneath the deep waters; 
 when suddenly, one day, one hour, and at a certain minute in 
 that hour, his soul wakens up into active and imperious con- 
 sciousness, his hands smite chords and keys with a certain 
 kind of divine fury; and lo! the Creation is there on the 
 manuscript before him; and needs only to be translated into 
 the human speech of voice or instrument to become a glory 
 and joy unto millions unto the end of time. Who will say 
 here, that that noble Form and Expression of the hidden Idea 
 is not the essence of the thing — its outward utterance, and 
 eternal manifestation so long as music has its power to enthrall 
 the senses and imagination of men? Or a poet, dreaming in 
 that semi-delirium in which the'great poets live, sees great 
 
328 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 images and shapes arising, and crowding along the corridors 
 of his brain. He yearns to seize them, and express them. 
 And behold! His Hymn to Intellectual Beauty is on the paper 
 before him. He has taken the outlines that were steUed 
 feebly on the canvas of the brain, and filled them in, and 
 given them colour, and shape and form in one immortal poem. 
 Yes! The Idea is the suggestion; the Form is its fulfilment. 
 The Idea is the embryo; the Forfti is the perfect man. The 
 Idea is the prompter behind the wings; the Form is the actor 
 on the stage. The Idea is evanescent; the Form is eternal; 
 the Idea is the ant-hill of Time; the Form is the Pjnramid of 
 eternity. Let it be supposed, that, in contradiction of the 
 philosophical sequence, it is the Idea that animates the Form, 
 and gives it Life. On the other hand, it must be conceded 
 that it is the Form that brings forth, and causes the Idea to 
 generate, gives it a specific existence, an extemation which 
 otherwise would be impossible, a beauty which the Idea in 
 its naked truth does not possess. Let me take an illustration 
 of this theory from two lines already quoted, — the lines of 
 Marlowe on the Grecian Helen. We ask ourselves what is 
 the Idea here, and what is its poetical worth. The Idea is: 
 Was it beauty such as Helen's which caused the war with 
 Troy? Nothing could be simpler, nothing more prosaic than 
 this. It is a question that a historian might answer. No one 
 would dream of asking such a question of a poet. But mark 
 the transformation, when the poet's pencil touches the com- 
 monplace : 
 
 " ' Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, 
 And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? ' 
 
 Who will say here, that the Idea is greater than the Form 
 which clothes and transfigures it. 
 
 " Now, so far as mere Form is concerned, Tennyson stands 
 alone in one department. As a scene-painter, he is unequalled. 
 As a purveyor of conceits and antitheses, he cannot compare 
 
SESSION THIRTY-SECOND 329 
 
 with Shakspeare, although he has attempted that form of 
 verse, as in the lyric: 
 
 " ' In love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours.' 
 
 As a builder of mighty phrases, again, he is inferior to Shak- 
 speare; and to Keats. In one page of 'H3^erion,' Keats 
 has more cloud-piercing and high-peaked phrases than in all 
 Tennyson wrote. For example: 
 
 '"she would have ta'en 
 Achilles by the hair, and bent his neck; 
 Or with a finger stayed Ixion's wheel.' 
 
 and this: 
 
 "'There was a listemng fear in her regard. 
 As if calamity had but begun; 
 
 As if the vanward clouds of evil days 
 Had spent their malice, and the sullen roar 
 Was with its stored thunder labouring up.' 
 
 These are, as he says in the same page: 
 
 '"the large utterance of the early Gods!' 
 
 On the other hand, in the mere music of Form alone, Tenny- 
 son stands pre-eminent. No man ever knew so fully the 
 musical value of mere words; and could sing such a pleas- 
 ant song about nothing. The very words of such l3rrics as 
 'Lady Clara Vere de Vere' hatmt one's memory for ever. 
 You cannot exorcise them by admitting their banality. They 
 are like the Operas of which I spoke in my last paper — the 
 Ubretto is absurd; the music is everything. 
 
 " I do not know how far I have carried the meeting with me 
 in these remarks. Probably, they are not the final word on 
 this subject. Let me conclude by sajdng, that if I differ in 
 theory from Mr. Marshall, he must not be offended. Because,/ 
 artist and thinker as he is, he is able to combine matter and 
 
330 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 form in his poems, in a manner that is unique. Miss Eraser 
 has favoured me with her book of 'Literary Cuttings.' The 
 selections are choice, very much more so than are generally 
 found in yotmg ladies' albums; but amongst them the classic 
 pieces by Mr. Marshall are conspicuous; and conspicuous 
 amongst these pieces is the 'Egeria' to which allusion has 
 been already made. May the Poet, like the Emperor, find 
 his ' Egeria ' amongst us ! " 
 
 The Sunetoi forgot all the laws of correct deportment at 
 this compliment; and did actually clap their hands, and say 
 Hear! Hear! 
 
 But the subtle flattery did not wean away Mr. Marshall 
 from his thesis. He had followed the Professor with attention, 
 even taking down notes as the former went along in his airy 
 refutation of the doctrine of the Idea. He now read these 
 notes over rapidly, and said with a httle smile: 
 
 "Permit me to return the compliment to the Professor. 
 It is so pleasant to be able to cross swords smilingly, as in the 
 days of chivalry, — days, which I fear it would be vain to 
 hope, shall ever come back again. But, I must not be diver- 
 ted by sweet words from the task I have set myself of proving 
 still, that in poetry, and in all the arts the Idea is still the 
 root and kernel of all greatness; and that the undue impor- 
 tance which the Professor attaches to Form is unfounded and 
 untenable. For if the expression is everything, and the Idea 
 underlying it is of secondary, or no importance, it would fol- 
 low that the cameos and intaglios of an artist, like Benvenuto 
 Cellini, were as great as a Phidian Apollo, or a Moses by 
 Michael Angelo. For these trifling ornaments were also of 
 perfect form and outline, the highest expression of that Art. 
 It would also follow that a landscape by Claude Lorraine or 
 Tempesta was as great as the Last Judgment on the walls of 
 the Sistine Chapel; or that a portrait by Lawrence or Gains- 
 borough was as great as the Dresden Madonna. In all these 
 cases, I take it liat the form, the expression, the extemation 
 of the Idea is equally perfect. In colour, form, outline, you 
 
SESSION THIRTY-SECOND 331 
 
 cannot say that the artistic elegance of one is surpassed by the 
 artistic excellence of the other. Just as in nature, the rain- 
 bowed sea-palace of the nautilus is as perfect as the rings of 
 Saturn, yet no one would say it was as great or as awe-inspir- 
 ing, so in Art, the tiniest miniature may equal in perfection of 
 form the Transfiguration; one of those little quatrains called 
 vers de socUte may be as perfect as a sonnet by Milton or 
 Shakspeare; a vaudeville may be as perfect as a drama by 
 Calderon; but no one would dream of instituting a compari- 
 son between such things. Where then lies the difference, if 
 the artistic excellence, the form, is equal? Clearly in the 
 Idea. It is the Idea, clothed in perfect Form, that lends its 
 own attribute of grandeur to statue, picture, or poem. It is 
 the perfection of the Idea, flung by the tiny lantern of the 
 brain on canvas or marble or paper, that gives to the Form 
 wherewith it is clothed that significance which we vaguely 
 designate by the name of 'greatness.' And that is the 
 reason why I again insist that it is only by our striving after 
 the Absolute, we can become great; and that it is only by 
 endeavouring to express the Absolute, we can achieve great- 
 ness in any Art. Why is the modern world crying out for 
 *a great poet,' who may rank with the Dii majores of English 
 song? It is utterly disgusted and dissatisfied with your minor 
 poets, with their tinkhng verses and rounded rh3mies, — 
 their drawing-room concetti, and tabloid sonnettes. The Art 
 is perfect. That is undeniable. A Lord de Tabley, or a Le 
 Gallienne, a Father Tabb, or Jean Ingelow can write the 
 daintiest quatrains or the prettiest sentimentalities. But 
 the world, that is, the very narrow and circumscribed world, 
 that criticises without acceptance, and labels poems in a busi- 
 ness-like manner, will not call these poets 'great' in any 
 sense. Hence have we the phrases, 'the spacious . times of 
 great EUzabeth,' 'the organ- voice of Milton,' 'Marlowe's 
 mighty Une,' etc., indicating that the world is clearly desirous 
 of harking back from the puerilities of the present to the 
 great achievements of the past. Believe me, your 'Bells, 
 
332 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Bells, Bells,' and your 'Orianas,' and your 'Lady Clara 
 Vera de Vere' will never meet the aspirations of a race that 
 is lost, but which still retains certain heirlooms and credentials 
 of former greatness. Men may idle away a pleasant hour, or 
 relieve an over-taxed brain by turning over these harmless 
 and musical lines. But it is idle to suppose that they will 
 rest content therewith; or cease to look higher for the stren- 
 uous word and the large Idea that kindle and inflame our 
 worthiest emotions. We are not all lost, just as we say we 
 shall not all die ! And the best proof of it is that in every Art, 
 — not in poetry alone, but in every Art, which symbolises 
 and preaches, we look behind the mechanical symmetry, 
 or colour, or music, to ascertain if there be a something great 
 and holy that is embodied in that outer expression. If that 
 fails, the music of the poem is a zephyr borne away by the 
 next breath; and the form and colour of your picture is but 
 as the shadows that linger before a sun that rises, or after a 
 sun that sets." 
 
 "Clearly, then, Mr. Marshall," said Father Dillon, rising 
 to conclude the Session, you believe that 
 
 '"To have the great poetic heart 
 Is more than all poetic fame.'" 
 
 "Verily, I do," said Mr. Marshall. '"The Voiceless' are 
 after all the larger number, and perhaps among them is 
 foimd many a 'mute, inglorious Milton.' I do not agree 
 with the genial poet who wrote: 
 
 "'Alas! for those who never sing. 
 But die with all their music in them.' 
 
 For, it is. a great privilege, a signet and seal of a noble nature, 
 to have great sentiments, beautifxil ideal pictures, noble 
 thoughts accompanying them through life. These are gods, 
 even though they do not know it. Far down in some new 
 circle of an earthly Inferno are the canaille." 
 
SESSION THIRTY-THIRD 
 
 The full moon of a lovely April night was shining softly on 
 sea and land, when the Sunetoi parted at the doctor's door. 
 They seemed to linger, as if loth to leave, and perhaps the 
 beauty of that matchless harbour, now fully revealed in the 
 moonlight, which made the row of electric arcs across the 
 Channel pale and feeble, detained them a little. And somehow 
 the final words of Mr. Marshall, which survived the voluntary 
 which Mrs. Holden performed as her valedictory and musi- 
 cal Buona-notte, seemed to have brought down upon them a 
 certain solemnity, which struck them silent there on the pave- 
 ment of Eastbourne. The nine o'clock gun from the guard- 
 ship was the first thing to startle them; and the doctor said 
 briskly: 
 
 "Mr. Hrnit, you are not yet quite out of the wood. These 
 night-dews are bad for you. Get home!" 
 
 Reginald Hunt, who was still too infirm to take anything 
 but a languid interest in the proceedings of the Session, pulled 
 his collar around his ears, and started off. His sister lingered, 
 as if she were too absorbed in her thoughts to have heard the 
 doctor's admonition. She then said to Hester: 
 
 "Let us come around by the high road. The night is so 
 very beautiful." 
 
 They had not gone many paces, however, when Mr. Mar- 
 shall, who had walked a little way towards the railway with 
 the Professor and Miss Eraser, overtook them, and said, with 
 his air of chivalry and good-breeding: 
 
 "May I have the pleasure of accompanying you, ladies? 
 Our roads lead in the same direction." 
 
 Yet, strange to say, they found, as they walked along, 
 that they had forgotten their homeward route, and were 
 
 333 
 
334 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 on the high-road towards Whitepoint, where Mr. Marshall 
 lived. For the old man, quite full of his subject, and some- 
 what excited by his own thoughts, and the silent manner 
 in which his final words were accepted, continued in a kind 
 of dithyrambic strain to pour out on his listeners the flood 
 of thoughts that was now ebbing through his brain. 
 
 "Look you," he said, after he had gone over the main points 
 of his argument with the Professor, "there are thoughts here," 
 he took off his hat and passed his hand athwart his forehead, 
 "which I would give worlds to be able to reveal. They burn 
 there all day long; they wake me up at night with their per- 
 sistence. If I could paint, or if I knew the art of music 
 siifficiently to compose, perhaps I could express them. But 
 when you have nothing but 'words, words, words,' as inter- 
 preters of your thoughts, what can one do? Truly, that good 
 clergyman said tonight: The greatest poem is the one I have 
 never written. By the way, how singular it is, that we, belong- 
 ing to a different faith, and brought up in so different a manner, 
 should sit under the baton of a priest, and play our little part 
 in the symphony he has created." 
 
 "Take care, Mr. Marshall," said Miss Hunt, laughing. 
 "Miss Hope, remember, belongs to the Roman faith." 
 
 "Ha! of course. But, you and I, — " 
 
 He stopped, quite embarrassed. 
 
 "Where was I? Oh, yes! I was saying that the greatest 
 poem is that which I have never written, — never could write. 
 It is so. Sometimes, there come surging up along the mind, 
 not only pictures of landscapes that never existed, but dim and 
 shadowy presentments of such transcendent beings, — such 
 majesty of mien, such nobility of carriage, such vast silences 
 all around them, such eloquent expression in their foreheads 
 and eyes, that I think these must be the beings that throng 
 the celestial courts, and are in the cabinets of the King. And 
 sometimes, I picture them as denizens of far-off planets, 
 circling around purple and orange suns, in conditions of spir- 
 itual essence and existence, which our feeble imaginations 
 
SESSION THIRTY-THIRD 335 
 
 cannot realise. For, the sad truth is, that our little planet is 
 a poor thing in space. The Sun, our life-giver, our material 
 god, is but a fourth-rate, or sixth-rate star; and we are pro- 
 portionately little. What manner of beings inhabit these 
 far-off worlds that are circling around Sirius and Aldebaran? 
 How they must surpass us in all material and spiritual loveli- 
 ness! How has the Almighty compounded their natures; 
 and of what ethereal substances are they made? And, above 
 all, what must be their knowledge, their mental powers, their 
 subtlety, their swiftness! What are their ideas of this illimit- 
 able Universe, which to us, poor blindworms of the earth, is 
 such a profound and irritating mystery! How they must cast 
 their awfiil eyes across the oceans of space; and conscious of 
 their own greatness, how they must wonder what manner of 
 creatures inhabit this gross earth, spinning in blind mazes 
 around its pallid Sun! And above all," he cried, sinking his 
 voice to a whisper, "what are their loves, their passions, 
 their emotions? For if Love with us is such a sacred and 
 terrible thing, that it absorbs every faculty, throws us into 
 unimaginable ecstasies, atrophies our reason and paralyses 
 our intellect, what must Love be in those far-off and lustrous 
 and colossal empires of the Lord, where there cannot be any- 
 thing coarse or material, but everything, and in endless and 
 eternal and ubiquitous creation, is spiritual and holy and 
 sublime! Once, I thought that Dor6 had seized the Idea; 
 but, I tore him into shreds. His drawings are but the cari- 
 catures of a comic journal. Then, I studied Fra Angelico; 
 but there too, in those stiff and stony figures, I could not find 
 my Ideals. Then, I leaned on Dante. But, after many years, 
 it dawned upon me that he had seen Hell, but had never seen 
 my suns and planets. I am alone with my dreams now — 
 But, here we are!" he cried suddenly waking up, as the white 
 walls of Whitepoint, made whiter by the white April moon, 
 shone across the narrow strait. "Ladies, won't you come in, 
 and rest? My little minage is poor; but, — no? Well, then, 
 good-night!" 
 
336 . THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 He bowed his silvered head in the moonlight, and turned 
 away. Then, a feeling of compunction seized and tortured 
 him. In his raptures of imagination about the celestials, had 
 he not slighted the Daughters of the Earth? 
 
 And they felt so. Woman is always jealous, where there is 
 a question, or comparison of beauty. You may speak of 
 intellect, of material or spiritual strength, of fancy, of imagi- 
 nation, even of goodness and virtue, and you may make your 
 comparisons ad libitum and she is not touched. But she 
 will suffer no rival, not even the angels, in that department 
 which she has made her own. Perhaps, she is right. Other- 
 wise, why did the Sons of God in the beginning of things seek 
 the Daughters of the Earth? 
 
 Certainly, there were two daughters of this planet, who 
 went home displeased. 
 
 "What a strange man!" said Olive Hunt. "And what a 
 singular rhapsody!" 
 
 "At other times, and under other circumstances," said Miss 
 Hope, "that man, with such an imagination, would be placed 
 under restraint." 
 
 "Yet, I'm quite sorry we did not accept that invitation," 
 said Olive. " I should have liked to see the den in which such 
 a prophet and dreamer lived; and, — I am very curious about 
 that poem. 'Egeria,' is it not?" 
 
 "Yes!" said Hester. "Miss Eraser has it in her portfolio, 
 I believe; but I have never seen it." 
 
 " I should like to see how he imagines a mere woman, after 
 such superb visions of his goddesses! I suppose Egeria was 
 flesh and blood, like us poor mortals. He must have written 
 of such a poor thing with contempt." 
 
 "You'll find not," said Hester, softening out a Uttle, as she 
 perceived that her companion was a little hurt. "You may 
 be sure he came down from the stars. All these poets do. 
 They find things cold up there; and they are glad to get back 
 amongst mortals." 
 
 In such wise did our Daughters of Earth discuss the Dreamer 
 
SESSION THIRTY-THIRD 337 
 
 of the Immortals. And he sat over his fire musing; for the 
 evenings were cold; and, as he dwelt on his dreams, he too 
 shivered a Uttle. 
 
 The paper read by Miss Fraser at the next session, although 
 it seemed irrelevant to the debate on the matter and form of 
 poetry, brought round at its close the kindred discussion that 
 was but suspended at Whitepoint, wheii the old poet doffed 
 his hat, and bade his young companions Good-night! The 
 subject was Persian poetry, which was decidedly Epicurean, 
 with a blend of Eastern mysticism running through it and 
 preserving it from utter sensuality. It was cynical, too, and 
 as uncomplimentary to the weaker sex as an essay by Schopen- 
 hauer; and when Miss Fraser quoted first the famiUar lines: 
 
 "I, too, have a counsel for thee; 0, mark it and keep it. 
 Since I received the same from the Master above — 
 Seek not for faith or for truth in a world of lightminded girls; 
 A thousand suitors reckons this dangerous bride. 
 Cumber thee not for the world; and this my precept forget not 
 'Tis but a toy that a vagabond sweetheart has left us." 
 
 and then: 
 
 "I read on the porch of a palace bold 
 In a purple tablet letters cast, — 
 'A house though a million winters old 
 
 A house of earth comes down at last; 
 Then quarry the stones from the crystal All, 
 And build the Dome that shall not fall.' " 
 
 Miss Hunt said in a piqued, though self-possessed manner: 
 
 "I don't know why it is so; but there seems to be a conspi- 
 racy between poets against us and this lower world, as it is 
 absurdly and unscientifically called. There, your Hafiz or 
 Omar insults the whole sex; and here is Mr. Marshall telUng 
 us to cast our eyes upwards to the Absolute, and dreaming of 
 some celestial houris in Saturn or Uranus that never can, and 
 never did exist. For my part, I am quite satisfied with this 
 23 
 
338 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 old earth of ours; and if good people are not satisfied with 
 us, — well, I pity them!" 
 
 Miss Hunt did not toss her head, nor sniff the air, as a 
 less dignified person might have done. But she looked very 
 grand and dignified, something like Mabel in "The Falcon." 
 And Mr. Marshall, "made grave by her great beauty," held 
 down his head, humbled and abashed. He had strength 
 enough to murmur: 
 
 "I went beyond Saturn and Uranus; I was thinking of the 
 mighty planets that wheel aroxmd double sims, and take their 
 orange or purple glories from those burning and beautiful 
 centres. It is linniting the Imagination of the Infinite and 
 Transcendent Being we call God to suppose that we are his 
 greatest and noblest work, — we who are so conscious of our 
 own Umitations, that we call ourselves in mock hiuniUty, 
 which, however, is truth, 'worms of the earth.' It is absurd 
 to suppose that man stands at the apex of the created Uni- 
 verse. There can be no Hmit to the imagination, and there- 
 fore, the creative power of the Eternal." 
 
 "Quite so," said Miss Hunt, unappeased, "but for mere 
 mortals and earth-worms such as we are, I think mortals 
 should suffice." 
 
 "Alas, no!" said Mr. Marshall meekly, "and there is the 
 cause of all the earth's imhappiness. If we could rest on earth, 
 and in the love of mortals, all the 'weight of all this imintelli- 
 gible world ' would be lifted. But, because we cannot, because 
 we are always aspiring after higher things, we are imhappy; 
 and when we express our unhappiness, we are poets." 
 
 "Then there is no earthly poetry; no songs of earth's glad- 
 ness and beauty, of sky and sea, and the season's changes; of 
 deeds done for humanity in war or peace, in the battlefield 
 and in the cabinet? Why, you are destroying with one stroke 
 of an evil wand half the beauty and glory of the world." 
 
 Mr. Marshall looked aroimd him in a mournful manner. 
 His fair antagonist was pressing him too closely. He sighed 
 a Uttle and then said: 
 
SESSION THIRTY-THIRD 339 
 
 "Yet, it is strange, is it not? that, although my imagination 
 can invent all manner of monsters, of dire chimeras, of dragon 
 faces and forms, I am utterly unable to conceive any type of 
 loveliness, divine or human, earthly or celestial, except the 
 human face. Let me dream of seraphs. They are human. 
 Of an archangel. He is himian. Let me carry my fancy into 
 the outer worlds of space, and try to people my planets with 
 denizens as far beyond us as we are above the beasts. I cannot 
 even imagine them, except as having the 'human face divine.' 
 If I dream of anything else, I invent a world of monsters. Is 
 this not strange? " 
 
 "Proving," said Miss Hunt, "that the most perfect type of 
 beauty as yet revealed to us is the hiunan type. We cannot 
 even conceive of any other. Of course, we can picture abstrac- 
 tions, — goodness, holiness, meekness, charity. But we can- 
 not picture beauty but imder one form." 
 
 "Which proves?" said Mr. Marshall, looking himibly at 
 his interrogator. 
 
 "That in animated and intelligent beings there is no other," 
 she said. " Of course you have a certain beauty in the flower, 
 in the bird, in the quartz-rock, in the sea-shell, in the dawn 
 and in the stmset. But, as you say, there is not, there cannot 
 be any conception of loveliness in reasoning and intelligent 
 beings, except what is purely human." 
 
 "Perhaps it is because our faculties are limited," said her 
 brother, breaking silence for the first time since his illness. 
 "Our intellects are certainly limited. We cannot measure 
 the boundless ocean of knowledge. Our wills are limited. 
 We cannot resist the most simple laws of Nature. Our memo- 
 ries are limited by age and otherwise. Perhaps too our faculty 
 of imagiaation is limited; and there may be countless forms 
 of surpassing beauty, scattered here and there through the 
 Universe, but of which we cannot form even a rudimentary 
 idea." 
 
 "Then, how can we aspire after such?" said his sister. 
 "You cannot desire the unknown?" 
 
340 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "No! But you can feel the want of such knowledge. There 
 may be vague cravings of unsatisfied desire; a sublime rest- 
 lessness in things that appear and are visible and tangible to us; 
 a divine thirst for waters that are yet unseen in the desert." 
 
 Miss Hunt shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "You are all Celts and dreamers," she said. "This is 
 what Renan meant, when he accounted for all his spiritual 
 vagaries by saying he was a Breton." 
 
 "But Mr. Hunt — your own brother?" exclaimed Hester 
 Hope, laughing. 
 
 "He is lost, too," she said. "He has got into the fairy rath, 
 and he is under the mystic spell of Celticism. I shall run 
 away immediately. There is something in the very atmos- 
 phere that enchants one — I don't mean enchantment in its 
 better sense, but an enchantment of druids and wizards; a 
 kind of old-worldliness and other-worldliness, that makes one 
 shiver and rush back to the light and warmth of the present. 
 Don't you feel so, Professor; oh! I was going to add: and 
 you, Miss Eraser, but I just remember that Miss Eraser too 
 belongs to the Celtic fringe." 
 
 "I suppose," said the Professor, "that I must have come 
 under the enchantment, too; and I really confess that I 
 never go back to England without experiencing a shock of 
 actuality. It is like getting up in the morning after pleasant 
 dreams, when elves and fairies have been dancing on your 
 pillow, and plunging into the dread reality of a cold bath. 
 Certainly, Irish life is a little trying; but it is charming." 
 
 "And I perceive," said Miss Hunt, "that you have all 
 contracted the habit of Irish evasion; because no one will 
 answer me the one question I require to be answered, namely: 
 Why should not we, denizens of this little sphere, find our 
 duties, our delights, our cares and our pleasures here, without 
 dreaming of other things, that are but dreams, and therefore 
 make us unhappy? What do you say, Mr. Marshall?" 
 
 Mr. Marshall had been in a reverie; but he woke up at the 
 words. 
 
SESSION THIRTY-THIRD 341 
 
 "Happy?" he said. "Happy? Is that the aim and end of 
 all existence? It seems not, because it is an end we never 
 attain. Therefore it caimot be ours. And again, happiness and 
 greatness are incompatible. To be great, one must suffer, 
 and try to continue to suffer; and be supremely discontented 
 with his surroundings, and try to break away from them. He 
 cannot succeed; he never will succeed. But the effort enno- 
 bles him. And when he is able to utter his anguish, he is 
 what we call a poet." 
 
 "Well, this is utterly intolerable," said Olive Hunt. "Then 
 I must say that you Irish can never be very great; for so far 
 as I can see, your ordinary folk are as merry as mudlarks — " 
 
 "You never saw our politicians?" said the doctor drily. 
 
 "No! I caimot say that I did," she replied. 
 
 "Ah! 'Tis there you'll perceive the sublime," said the doctor. 
 "Never mind these poets, and philosophers, and dreamers. 
 They are a kind of Irish Buddhists, who are altogether abstrac- 
 ted from this world and dreaming of Nirvana. If you want 
 to see the real, up-to-date, modern Celt, study our politicians. 
 You'll find them nearly as practical as the 'Heathen Chinee.' " 
 
 Father Dillon was glowering at his friend, the doctor; 
 but he kept his unceltic temper admirably in hand. 
 
 "At least," he said, "it must be admitted that we have had 
 an interesting discussion on a difi&cult question. I believe 
 most, — I was going to say, foreigners, but that seems an 
 unkind expression, — I mean, those not of our race, do find 
 us trying at first; and then so amiable that they cannot tear 
 themselves away from us. May we hope that this will be 
 the experience of the latest and happiest accession to our 
 Club; and perhaps, Mr. Marshall will come down from the 
 heights, and write us another 'Princess.'" 
 
 Mr. Marshall smiled, and looked quite happy. Then he said : 
 
 "If I may presume to remind you, Reverend Sir, Miss 
 Himt has not yet discharged the duty of submitting a paper 
 to our meeting. I am sure we shall look forward to such an 
 event with the most pleasant anticipations." 
 
342 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 " Quite true ! " said the priest. "Now, Miss Hunt, you have 
 got the whole range of human knowledge and experience to 
 choose from. And, remember, your paper will be fiercely 
 discussed." 
 "I hope so," she said briefly. "Mr. Marshall is very kind." 
 And Mrs. Holden and Mrs. Skelton had a long debate that 
 night as to whether Olive Hunt was really bent on being 
 Lady Ormery; and whether Mr. Marshall was indifferent, or 
 otherwise. 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FOURTH 
 
 "This paper," said Miss Hunt, opening up a very dainty 
 manuscript, and turning the pages towards the light, "is a 
 protest by a mere Saxon against Celticism; of a modem and 
 a progressivist against reactionaries; of one who believes in 
 the cult of the actual against those who pin their faith to 
 things transcendental and imreal. Let me add, that it is 
 also a protest against the systematic self-deception, which 
 poets and dreamers practice. It was hoped, vainly alas! 
 that our greatest thinker and most practical philosopher, 
 Lord Bacon, had weaned the human mind from its thirst 
 after the vague and ill-defined phantasms created by the Greek 
 imagination. And aided by his great contemporary, Shak- 
 speare, the most human and real of poets, it was thought that 
 the interests of this world, — its poetry, its magic, its beauty, 
 its sublimity, — would have finally centred human thought 
 on its own dwelling-place, and left the planetary and inter- 
 stellar existences, if there be such, to look after themselves. 
 But, unfortimately, human ambition is always overtopping 
 human reason; and there are always poets and priests, who, 
 not content with self-deception, proclaim to the multitude at 
 large. Ye shall be as Gods! I am not now touching on relig- 
 ious questions. I hold fast by Revelation, and place my 
 hopes in the eternal promises. But I feel that this lowering 
 of our human nature by comparing it with imaginary standards 
 of perfection in other planets; this turning, as if with the touch 
 of a Circe's rod, human beings into mere microbes, infesting 
 a littie grain of sand in space; this complete annihilation of 
 whatever makes for man's dignity and importance in the 
 scale of universal being, is neither reUgious, nor reasonable. 
 It overlooks the one important element in reason, as well 
 as in art — the sense of perfect proportion. Allowing that 
 
 343 
 
344 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 our world is but a grain of sand in space compared with 
 colossal suns and systems, still it is a portion of the Universe 
 as well as they. It has its own part, and I think a very 
 beautiful part, to play in the harmonies and economies of 
 Creation. If it has pleased the Ineffable Source of all being 
 to fashion other worlds fairer than ours, that is no reason why 
 our limited faculties for pleasure should roam abroad after 
 what must be for ever no more than phantasms to us. Now 
 this is the vice of Celticism. In the near past, it busied itself 
 in creating fairies, and elves, and ghosts; the former, dancing 
 harmlessly in the moonlight, or plajdng mischievous pranks 
 on human beings; the latter haunting graveyards and old 
 ruins and ancestral castles, making the flesh of old people 
 creep, and little boys' hair stand on end with fright. Now, 
 that you are reluctantly emerging from these superstitions 
 created by the abnormal Celtic imagination, lo! you call 
 upon science to build up for you faery planets in far-off 
 spaces, and you people them with fresh images of your imagina- 
 tion. They are no longer frightful, because they are too far 
 away to hurt; but they are beautiful beyond expression, and 
 they make you discontented and unhappy with such a prosaic 
 thing as this old ball of ours, and such plain and imattractive 
 things as mere men and women. This, I believe, to be the 
 main cause of Celtic despondency and melancholy. It may 
 be very fine and very grand, and it may give you reason to 
 despise such prosaic and matter-of-fact people as the English; 
 but somehow I think those English, Lucretian philosophers 
 as they are, get more out of life than you do; and at least it 
 must be said, they bear life's little troubles with more equanim- 
 ity. It is the same Celtic feature that keeps you so backward, 
 so much in the rear of modern progress. You are the stragglers, 
 helpless, and stumbling and fainting by the way, far, far 
 behind the mighty caravan that is ploughing its way across the 
 desert to the promised land. Whilst the rest of humanity 
 is stretching forwar4, with hopeful eyes and straining energies 
 towards the great goal to which our race is tending, you lag 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FOURTH 345 
 
 behind, feeble-hearted, weak-brained, nursing with a kind of 
 petulance your wrongs and rights, your impossible dreams 
 and hopeless aspirations. You will not hitch on your waggon 
 to the chariots of progress. You come out of your twilight 
 dreams, lumbering up in the rear, and making the world 
 hideous with your loud cries and lamentations. The pio- 
 neers of progress move hopefully onward, guarding the great 
 silence that becomes brave men embarked on a noble quest. 
 Silent they watch the signs of the times, eager to catch every 
 indication that they are on the right track towards the 
 final destiny of the race, and prompt to seize every vantage- 
 point, that will help them onwards to their ultimate destina- 
 tion. They do not see Hy-Brassils or New Atlantides, because 
 they have navigated and sounded and measured every square 
 inch of the great deeps; and if they have seen no visionary 
 islands on their bosom, they have found 'siunmer isles of 
 Eden' lying, concrete and useful facts, beneath tropical 
 climates. They do not cry out and clamour for the world's 
 help. Their help must come from their own strong arms and 
 active brains. They do not seek the world's alms. They 
 would disdain to be considered in need of anyone's help. 
 Strong, self-reliant, masterful, they use up their own energies 
 to the last in seeking the goal of the race; and when these 
 energies are exhausted, they harness to their triumphal 
 car, will they, nill they, the weaker races, and compel them to 
 push or pull up the long heights that lead to the Temple of 
 Victory. They leave you your dreams, your sighs, your 
 tears. They think on the whole that the woman who sits 
 on the wheel, with the trident in her hand, is greater than 
 the Niobe of the nations with her pocket-handkerchief to 
 her eyes. Hence, I conclude, that it would be more dignified 
 on the whole for Celtic peoples to give up their astronomical 
 aspirations, and busy themselves with this sublunary world. 
 After all, the more your men of science penetrate into the 
 awful abysses of Immensity, the more clear it seems to me 
 that the Universe of matter that fills space is nothing more 
 
346 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 than a huge smithy, where some Unseen Hand is forging 
 suns and worlds without end; or rather, a Idnd of colossal 
 battlefield where suns are hurtling countless masses of metal 
 in every direction; and the stars we behold are like the 
 braziers where the artiUery-men of Heaven are lighting their 
 matches to bombard every solid thing that exists in space. 
 Here and there, out of all this dread tumult and collision of 
 giant forces, some beautiful planet like our own shines calmly, 
 as a snowdrop shows its loveliness amidst the hail-storms 
 of March. Why should we turn away from our own sweet- 
 ness and serenity, and beauty, to dream of impossible worlds 
 where the wars of suns and systems are being waged? 
 Let the Vulcans of space forge their thunderbolts, and 
 amuse themselves by hurtling the huge fragments through 
 immensity. For us is our own dear planet, with its dawns 
 and simsets, its majestic oceans and mountains, its sweet 
 solemn rivers and lakes, its flowers and fruits, its brave men 
 and beautiful women, who are greater than the material uni- 
 verse, because they are self-conscious and intelligent beings; 
 and, if the universe fails to know them, it but shows that 
 they are greater, because they have measured its extent, and 
 seen its limitations, whereas to their own progress and power, 
 the blind mechanical vortices of space can place no limit." 
 
 The gentle, firm voice of the girl had ceased its pleadings 
 for mother earth and her daughters against the poets and 
 dreamers of the universe. Because, it was quite clear that 
 all her arguments were prompted by a certain lofty pride, 
 stung to recrimination by the poet's dreams of greater and 
 more beautiful beings. Mr. Marshall who was chiefly indicted, 
 and was really the defendant in the case, had listened with 
 bowed head to the formidable plea for Earth's Daughters 
 against the houris or angels of his dreams. Did he see that 
 behind that formidable indictment there were hurt feelings 
 and wounded pride? The masculine intellect is dull; and 
 seldom seeks the hidden agencies of things. Woman's 
 intuitions are quicker; and, whilst there was a little buzz 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FOURTH 347 
 
 of conversation around the room, Mrs. Holden had an 
 opportunity of saying to Mrs. Skelton, her bosom friend: 
 
 "Did you understand all that fine language, my dear?" 
 
 "No — o — 0!" said Mrs. Skelton, afraid to make the ad- 
 mission. 
 
 "But you understand, my dear, what Miss Olive means?" 
 
 "I — think — so!" said Mrs. Skelton, dubiously. 
 
 "That boy is dying at St. Moritz," said Mrs. Holden. 
 
 "Ah— ah!" said Mrs. Holden. 
 
 "I heard James say that he cannot live now many weeks, 
 or even days." 
 
 "Ah — ah!" said Mrs. Skelton, looking with a kind of angry 
 suspicion at Olive Hunt. 
 
 "And then — some people are ambitious, my dear!" 
 
 "But he is so old," murmured Mrs. Skelton. 
 
 "Old? What girl would care for that, if he can put a coro- 
 net on her head? " 
 
 "Those English are up to everything," said Mrs. Skelton. 
 "I hoped it might be Hester!" 
 
 "She has set her little cap in another direction," said her 
 friend. "But it is all Father Dillon's fault. Why didn't 
 he allow Miss Hunt go away, as she wished? Now, he has 
 trouble on his hands. For, mark me, my dear, Mr. Marshall 
 will never marry our good Olive; and Hester is too good a 
 Catholic to marry Reginald Hunt." 
 
 And in truth, the fair forehead of Father Dillon was wrink- 
 ling itself, where new cares were pressing upwards and down- 
 wards, making and leaving their little furrows. He did not 
 like, by any means, that deadly assault on Celticism made by 
 that fair young Saxon; and he was trsdng to devise some full 
 and final answer to be submitted to the next meeting. Then, 
 he saw that the good doctor had been actually gloating over 
 his miseries, as the sweet, but deadly words came softly from 
 the lips of the young girl. 
 
 "Everybody is leagued against us," he thought, "and now 
 we are leagued against ourselves." '' 
 
348 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 His eye caught the looks of Hester fixed anxiously upon 
 him. She, too, had been deeply pained at what she had 
 heard, for, strange to say, immersed in her own little romance, 
 she had not noticed the tone of personality, — the little, 
 wounded human voice, pleading through Olive Himt's paper. 
 Then she smiled. And Father Dillon smiled back. It 
 roused him to a sense of immediate duty; and he said: 
 
 "We cannot discuss your admirable paper. Miss Hunt. 
 That must be left for our next Session, although I am sure, 
 we are all impatient to speak now, and controvert your views 
 about us poor Celts. But it is just as well that we have time. 
 Otherwise, we might be forging vocal thunderbolts, and 
 hurtling them at one another, a little mimic war down here 
 in the hollows of the universe. Have you brought anything 
 new, our Laureate? Mr. Hunt is barely convalescent. We 
 must not ask him as yet." 
 
 Mr. Marshall woke up as if from a dream, and wearily 
 passed his hand across his forehead. He was evidently 
 perturbed by the paper Miss Hunt had written; and he 
 seemed to have lost that buoyancy and swiftness that usually 
 characterised his movements. 
 
 "These have no bearing," he said, drawing out a pocket- 
 book, and imfolding a paper, "on our present themes, although 
 an ingenious mind could connect them. They were written 
 prior to this Session; and I had other views in my mind. 
 The first is styled a 'Vignette.' It runs thus: 
 
 Grinding of seas on sands, 
 Moaning of winds in the pines, 
 Fading of sunlit sails 
 O'er the horizon lines; 
 Fear-drawn faces of women, 
 Fear-set eyes of men, — 
 This, the vision that's girt 
 In the oval of life, 
 And then ? 
 
 The other refers to Plato. I have called it: 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FOURTH 349 
 
 WISDOM OR POESY 
 
 O wise old man, in whose capacious breast 
 Warm with the wisdom thy great goddess taught, 
 
 Nestled, as if by Fate or Fame impressed, 
 The snowy cygnet by Ariston brought. 
 
 Have its great wings, outstretched from Heaven to Earth, 
 
 Poised in the sun, or bathed in the sea, 
 O'ershadowed thee, the parent of its birth. 
 
 Quenching thy wisdom in its poesy? 
 
 Nay, this were aU immeet! If song upsprings 
 
 From out the lap of wisdom, it must rest 
 On earth, or in the empyrean, its tired wings, 
 
 Although it never know a home or nest. 
 
 And if in the empyrean, some white star 
 
 Enfolds it, as its disembodied soul; 
 But if on earth, it wandereth afar, 
 
 Beating bruised wings against a blind control. 
 
 Sudden it swoops, its world-vast pinions shrunk, 
 
 Falls like a star in the consuming sea; 
 And Plato sober turns from Plato drunk, 
 
 And folds his wings within the lap of thee. 
 
 Someone had asked: "Who was the 'wise old man?' and 
 Mr. Marshall was about to reply, when Bob Skelton 
 entered the room, looking somewhat scared, and yet important. 
 
 "We missed you, Mr. Skelton," said Father Dillon, "and 
 you missed a lesson on practical politics. We'll have to fine 
 you in future, when you come in late." 
 
 "Couldn't help it, Father Dillon," said Mr. Skelton. 
 "A poor chap of ours was in trouble these last few days, and 
 I was getting him off." 
 
 Then, as the grave company, whose motto was "Enlighten- 
 ment," showed by their looks that they were human enough 
 to take an interest in human trouble, he said: 
 
3SO THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "One of these fellows who can never learn sense. And 
 mind you, he was not so young either. He was as bald as 
 myself; and he had been with us a quarter of a century, 
 and would probably have his branch next year, when the 
 devil — I mean, temptation came across him." 
 
 "Speculations?" said the doctor. 
 
 "Yes and no! Not banking speculations — I'd forgive 
 a little of that. We all do it. 'Tis gambling, I know. But 
 Where's the man can refuse to make a few hundreds by saying 
 the little word, Buy? But this fellow went in for cattle- 
 dealing, like a common butcher; and he knew no more about 
 cattle than a cow does about a holiday — " 
 
 Here Robert was interrupted in his easy flow of language 
 by Miss Hunt, who suddenly gave way to a fit of uncon- 
 trollable laughter. She laughed and laughed and laughed till 
 the tears rolled down her cheeks. The rest of the company, 
 more used to Robert's naive way of telling things, saw nothing 
 particularly ludicrous in his manner; but Miss Hunt was 
 growing hysterical, when her brother, half-alarmed, said in a 
 warning maimer: 
 
 "Olive!" 
 
 And then the little tear-shower and April storm grew milder. 
 Only a few drops lingered around his sister's eyes, just like 
 those that hang on bush and grass on a mild wet April evening. 
 
 But Robert continued: 
 
 "As I was saying, this fellow, , knew nothing at all 
 
 about cattle; so he had to consult someone, who gave him 
 not only advice, but a friendly offer to invest his money. 
 Which he did. Then the good man was kind enough to offer 
 
 to keep poor 's cows on his own land for a consideration. 
 
 The consideration was a bill, which was never entered in 
 our books. The cattle were so valuable they would fetch 
 double their price in a few weeks. Then, somehow, a disease 
 broke out amongst the farmer's cows; and strange to say, 
 
 all the cows that died were poor 's; and all the other 
 
 cows recovered. And a few days ago, one of our fellows, an 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FOURTH 351 
 
 Inspector, who can see a hole through a ladder as well as 
 most men — " 
 
 Here Miss Himt was again threatened with another 
 paroxysm; but it passed off in a mild manner. 
 
 "The Inspector," continued the imperturbable Bob, 
 
 "thought he saw a mistake somewhere; and poor was 
 
 suspended. He sent for me that night; and I never saw such 
 a sad case. 'Mr. Skelton,' he said, 'I hope you'll not get 
 into trouble over this.' 'Never mind me, my lad,' I said. 
 'Bob Skelton has weathered rougher weather. But what 
 about yoiurself?' 'I suppose there's nothing for it but 
 arrest and imprisonment,' he replied. 'I have been a d — d 
 ass. I should have known these scoundrels better. But I 
 wouldn't care, except for my wife and — child,' and here 
 the poor chap broke down utterly. I tell you, ladies and 
 gentlemen, who are not yet tied up in the sacred bonds of 
 matrimony, think twice before you put the hand-cuffs on — " 
 
 "For shame, Mr. Skelton!" said Father Dillon. "And 
 your wife at your elbow!" 
 
 And Bob turned around; and to her intense indignation, 
 he saluted his spouse before the company. 
 
 Miss Hunt had another mild attack of hysterics; and Robert 
 continued: 
 
 "Then he said: 'But you'll see my wife. She has more 
 sense than I. Perhaps you'd talk the matter over with 
 her. But — ' he stopped, and whispered, 'The moment the 
 bobby puts his hand there,' he pointed to his shoulder, and 
 then to his right temple, 'all will be over with me.' I 
 abused him and cursed him for a few seconds. Then he went 
 out; and his wife came in. She was a little woman; a tiny 
 little thing; but she had the heart and pluck of Julius Caesar. 
 I never saw anyone like her. She had one himdred pounds 
 of nerve and grit and courage in every square inch of her 
 little body. Ladies and gentlemen — " 
 
 Bob paused and looked around. 
 
 "I withdraw what I said a few minutes ago. I don't 
 
352 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 presume to advise the ladies. But I'd advise every gentle- 
 man present, except poor Father Dillon, who is out of the 
 running, and James and myself, who are already spliced, 
 to get tacked on to some little piece of womanhood, like my 
 friend's wife. She caught on to that poor derelict, threw 
 her hawser across his bows, and towed him away in safety this 
 evening." 
 
 "That won't do," said Father Dillon. "That's too abrupt. 
 Let us hear the whole story, Mr. Skelton!" 
 
 "Well, but there is no story," said Bob. "Me and the 
 little woman put our heads together; and then I said: 'Look 
 
 here! I'll just look up — — -and They are great friends 
 
 of your husband's, I believe.' 'Oh, yes!' she said, 'they've 
 
 often dined with us. Mr. will do anything for poor Fred.' 
 
 'You know,' I said, 'I cannot interfere too much, because 
 I'm in charge.' She understood; and off I went, and for two 
 days I called on every fellow I thought would have any 
 interest with our Directors. The d — 1 a fellow of them 
 
 would budge. 'Poor ,' said one ruffian, who had often 
 
 borrowed money from , 'he was foolish. Many a 
 
 time I told him to get out of the cattle-line. It would ruin 
 him. I can do nothing.' Another scoundrel, who had 
 
 drunk as much champagne at poor 's as would float 
 
 the guardship, shook his head, too. 'He knew 'twould 
 
 always come to this!' he said. ' was extravagant. 
 
 Lived too high. People should live within their means. 
 After all, a bank accountant isn't a lord.' I didn't strike 
 the fellow. They're all alike; and where's the use of figuring 
 
 in the Police-Court? At last, we got away. He 
 
 came down here last Thursday morning, got on board the 
 Adriatic; then, the thought of his little babies came back to 
 him; and he stepped on board the tender, when the captain 
 shouted all ashore! We were at our wits' ends then, — me 
 and the little woman. At last, I struck on the notion of 
 
 seeing old , the solicitor. It was at twelve o'clock last 
 
 night. He came. I told him all. He pulled his long white 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FOURTH 353 
 
 beard, looked around the room; asked a lot of questions, 
 grew suddenly silent, if the maid came in; hummed and 
 hawed and stammered. At last, the little woman lost patience 
 
 and said: 'Mr. , will you not tell us, what are we to do? 
 
 I don't want to see Fred arrested. 'Twould kill him. Is 
 there no help ansrwhere?' And our venerable friend pulled 
 his white beard again, looked around the room, as if he sus- 
 pected detectives were hiding behind the pictures, or up the 
 chimney; and at last, he said, 'I'm afraid, Mrs. , I can- 
 not offer you any advice except — to pray!' 'Twas lucky, 
 because it sent the little woman into a fit of laughing, from 
 which she has not yet recovered. However, we managed to 
 
 get oJGf this evening. And, to tell the truth, I suspect 
 
 the Directors will be as glad as ourselves; because, after all, 
 the sum was not too large; and I am sure, they didn't want to 
 prosecute. But, by every hole in my coat, not a d — d one 
 of these rascals will ever get a penny accomjnodation from me, 
 or ever put his legs under my mahogany again! Remember, 
 Minnie! I'll give you the black list; and not one of these 
 fellows, nor his wife, nor his child, nor his man-servant, nor his 
 maid-servant must enter Bob Skelton's house again." 
 
 24 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FIFTH 
 
 "Now for the Gael versus the Gall — the old feud revived 
 in a new and interesting form," said Father Dillon, smiling 
 and rubbing his hands at the opening of next Session. To say 
 the truth, he was whistling to keep up his courage, because he 
 saw that sooner or later, his friend, the doctor, would be 
 drawn into the vortex of controversy. 
 
 "It is only fair," he continued, "that we should give the 
 Celt first a chance of replying. Mr. Marshall!" 
 
 But Mr. Marshall seemed dispirited, and waived the invi- 
 tation, saying in a low tone of voice: 
 
 "I shall be a patient listener!" 
 
 "And you will break in when you feel interested?" said 
 Father Dillon. 
 
 "I am deeply interested," said the gray old poet. "I shall 
 wait." i 
 
 "Well then," said Father Dillon, looking around in a 
 puzzled manner. "We must carry on the debate. Miss 
 Hope! You remember Miss Hunt's position?" 
 
 "Oh, to be sure," said Hester Hope. "Besides, we have 
 talked it over since, — Miss Hunt and I — " 
 
 "Surely, you are not converted?" said Father Dillon. 
 "That would be high treason!" 
 
 "Oh, not at all," said Hester Hope, laughing. "In fact, 
 I feel I have proved to Miss Hunt that if we are laggards in 
 the race of life by reason of our contempt for its practical 
 issues, we have higher aims and instincts, and these, too, 
 belong to our nature. And, furthermore, I have been saying 
 that whatever is graceful and beautiful in English literature 
 has taken the Celtic tinge of mysticism and melancholy." 
 
 "Very good. Carr3dng the war into the enemies' country. 
 And then?" 
 
 3S4 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FIFTH 355 
 
 "Well, of course, it is the old question of the dualism of 
 our nature revived," said Hester. " If you believe in monism, 
 and our good English friends are all monists — " 
 
 "I protest," said Reginald Hunt. 
 
 "And I," said the Professor. 
 
 "I was going to add — not in theory, but in practice," 
 said Hester. "There is a theoretical belief in the super- 
 natural; but it is regarded as the 'far-off, divine event,' 
 of which the Poet speaks. Now, there's the exact difference 
 between the Gael and the Gall. We believe the supernatural 
 is all aroimd us, that we are immersed in it, surrounded by 
 it; and that it is continually breaking through the thin veil 
 of material existence, and showing itself to us. When it 
 fails to do so, we go half way towards it, and clamour for its 
 manifestation. Hence, all our poetry is redolent of the super- 
 natural; and strange to say, it is becoming more mystical 
 as the years advance." 
 
 "I was about to contradict you, Miss Hope," said Father 
 Dillon. "Because, from my limited knowledge of ancient 
 Irish verse, it is as erotic and sensual as Catullus or Sappho. 
 In fact, it cannot be translated." 
 
 "That refers to what may be called our Middle Age Poetry," 
 said Hester Hope, whilst a faint blush overspread her features 
 at the word "erotic." "I am of opinion that our eighteenth- 
 century poetry was of the type you describe. But the ancient 
 Irish sagas were not only free from that taint; but were 
 highly tinged with all the mysticism and supematuralism of 
 the race. And our latest singers, going back for inspiration 
 to the ancients, have caught their spiritual view of Nature." 
 
 "And tried to found a new religion upon it," said the doctor. 
 
 Father Dillon shivered, as he always did, when the doctor 
 took part in their debates. The doctor's arguments were 
 like the spears of Hector amongst the painted laths of polite 
 controversy. 
 
 "I'm not offering an opinion on the subject-matter of the 
 debate," said the doctor, "but if there be anything that 
 
3S6 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 makes my soul sick it is the sentimentalism of our modem 
 poets. Some of the expressions, the newly-coined words that 
 express this kind of vapid verse, irritate me exceedingly. 
 I never see that word 'mystic' but I am tempted to draw a 
 great blue pencil daub across it. And I am never so disposed 
 to break the second commandment and use profane language 
 as when I stumble across that word 'elusive.' Was there 
 ever such an abominable expression?" 
 
 "You'll find it in Matthew Arnold," said Reginald Hunt, 
 "and he was a purist in language." 
 
 "I'm not objecting to the word so much as to its use and 
 meaning," said the doctor. "And I object in Mo to this 
 mystic poetry with which we are now saturated and sickened, 
 and which is turning us all into a nation of irrational, imthink- 
 ing, and unpractical theorists." 
 
 "Thank you, doctor," said Miss Hunt. "I'm thankful 
 to find one practical Celt on my side." 
 
 "Mind, I'm not a materialist," said the doctor, "either in 
 religion or politics. I know we must keep great ideals before 
 us. But, let us seek those ideals not in imaginary things 
 that never did, or could exist; but in practical every-day 
 life. When an old woman comes to me and says her son 
 or daughter has got a 'blasht,' I know it means a whitlow, 
 or a white swelling. When a farmer's wife talks about 
 'pishogues,' and 'the evil eye,' and the milk that will not 
 produce cream, and the calves dying, I know that it is a 
 specific microbe that has got in through the dirt and the 
 filth of her dairy. And when a poet talks of the spiritual 
 evolution of man, and the individualisation of the spirit in 
 its peregrinations through the infirmaries of the human soul, 
 I say at once: That fellow should give up eating opium, or 
 drinking boiled tea." 
 
 "And so, doctor," said Reginald Hunt with suspicious 
 urbanity, "you would have prescribed a sedative, — or a 
 bromide or a little valerian for Shakespeare when he wrote 
 'Macbetii' and 'Lear?'" 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FIFTH 357 
 
 "He shouldn't have touched these Celtic subjects," said 
 the doctor. "He lost himself, as all men do, who come under 
 the ancient Celtic spell. Now, contrast the massive solidity 
 of his historical plays, their plain, blunt common sense; their 
 brutality, their animahsm, with all the airy nothings of witches, 
 and travelling woods and mad old kings; and you'll see the 
 exact difference between the good roast-beefish sense of 
 England and the truffles and meringues of Celticism. I 
 don't accept Buckle's theory of masterful races; but there's 
 something in it. I tell you you can't bring up a masculine 
 race on milk and water and moonshine; and you can never 
 teach the people to plough the earth whilst gazing at the stars." 
 
 "But may not there be a certain section of the population 
 who can plough the field, and another section who can study 
 the stars?" said Hester Hope. 
 
 "Of course. But with us, all are star-gazers; and the 
 fields are untilled and the sea unswept; whilst we shake our 
 ahns-box in the ears of the world." 
 
 "Mr. Marshall! Mr. Marshall, I have to cry to you out 
 of the depths. Come to our aid. It is your faith we are 
 defending," said Father Dillon. 
 
 And Mr. Marshall, as if awaking from a reverie, raised his 
 head and said: 
 
 "Why labour the question? Has it not been said: Not by 
 bread alone doth man live? Celticism is the cry of the spirit, 
 heard of old in our lonely woods and forests, and along our 
 lakes and meres, until the southern Celticism, called Catholi- 
 cism, breathed upon us, and substituted a more subtle spirit- 
 ualism for its Pagan predecessor, without, however, altogether 
 eliminating the latter. Indeed some think that we are 
 Pagans still; and that we have kept some of its distinctive 
 doctrines, such as the eroticism of the eighteenth century 
 and the fierce passion of revenge of all the centuries, whilst 
 professing the doctrines of the gentle Christ. At least, we 
 may believe that we are still the children of Nature. The 
 Celts may be anything else; but they can never be Positivists. 
 
358 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Things must have a soul, before they can believe in them and 
 love them. Hard facts are the objects of the Celt's impla- 
 cable hatred. He must make poetry out of arithmetic. He 
 accepts your circles and radii and parallel lines in Euclid; 
 but he stretches the parallel lines into infinite space; and 
 he expands your circles imtil they encompass infinity. He 
 would rather believe a poetic lie than a hard truth. 'Tell 
 us a story!' say the children with eager eyes. 'Tell us a 
 story!' says the old man crouching over the red embers of 
 his peat fire. It is the Celtic impulse to get away at any 
 cost from the unendurable present; and to bury the imagina- 
 tion in an ideal past. You will have noticed, too, that the 
 Celtic soul dreads the future. It hates to contemplate it; 
 and when it does stretch its fancy so far, it is with melancholy 
 forebodings. The colour it likes is not the drab, gray colours 
 of the moment, or the sombre atmosphere of the future; 
 but a certain golden aureole, a' nimbus of radiated light, that 
 hangs around its heroes, or its great and immortal historical 
 splendours; or a rainbow of mists and tears that springs from 
 earth to heaven, and is domed above those tender and beauti- 
 ful if pathetic episodes that crowd out the heroic in her past 
 history. You see then how it must idealise. It turns away 
 from a huge six-storied mill in horror; and dwells with melan- 
 choly complacency on some old, tottering ruin hanging 
 above a melancholy lake, or watching itself in the tidal waters 
 of some lonely bight or bay along the Irish coast. It flies 
 from trim parks and gardens and stately forests to seek the 
 heather on a lonely mountain, where one wind-bent tree 
 inclines as if in a kind of worship to the unseen gods that 
 live and are worshipped in solitude. It hates novelty. 
 I doubt if there be a word more detestable in the ears of 
 a true Celt than that ominous word, 'modem progress.' 
 Place a Celtic poet in the dining-room of a first-class hotel 
 in London or Paris; and you have the picture of a miserable 
 man. His place is in a cabin above the wild Atlantic, perched 
 on some promontory in the Blasket Islands, or along the 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FIFTH 359 
 
 natural fortifications of Aran. The Irish you meet abroad are 
 the vulgar, modernised parvenus of the race. The real 
 Celt never travels except under compulsion; and then he 
 carries with him the atmosphere of his own country to 
 breathe, just as he carries the odour of the peat fire in his 
 garments. But his home is the mountain in its deepest defiles 
 and recesses, or some lonely cavern where the sea has bitten 
 into the land on the wild western coasts, and where only the 
 walrus or the penguin come. His music is the lonely dirge of 
 the winds that sweep across moorland, or hiurry up the glaciered 
 ravines of the hills, or rival the deep diapason of the sea, along 
 the tortured seaboard. His literature is written in fire and 
 tears — in the fire and tears of the many martyrdoms of the 
 past, in the fire and tears of many a hard-fought battle in 
 Flanders and Austria and Italy; in the fire and tears of perse- 
 cution; in the fire and tears of conquests, unavailable, alas! 
 for Ireland. To these his face has ever turned. The past is 
 his worship, his religion, his love. He dare not look forward. 
 For what can the future give him? Granted Home Rule, 
 and all that it symbolises, what can a real Celt do with it? 
 It will give him three solid meals a day; a ribald newspaper 
 in the evening; and a glance at Pierrots or a Punch and 
 Judy pantomime in summer. That is all. But what will it 
 take away? Alas! that I should say it, what has the incipient 
 progress we have made already, taken away? Our songs, 
 our poetry, our history. For the wild heather of the mountain, 
 where the eternal silences are only broken by the wailings of 
 the wind; and the solitude is never startled except when a 
 hare leaps timidly from its form, or a pheasant whirrs along 
 the heather, we have given him the filth and vice and disease- 
 laden atmosphere of our slums — the gin-palace — and the 
 rabid politics of the market-place. For the old songs with 
 their Oriental semitones, we have given him the latest music- 
 hall abomination from London; and we have diligently blotted 
 from his memory all the sweet, pure love-songs of his country; 
 all the glorious battle-odes of history; all the lyrics and 
 
36o THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 swan-songs that have no equal in the literature of any other 
 nation. I make no exception in favour of Scotland," con- 
 tinued the old man, turning politely to Miss Eraser, "because 
 many of the sweetest ballads of that nation are Irish in origin; 
 and you know that Robert Tannahill, your Scottish Chatter- 
 ton, did come to Ireland to beg or borrow our Irish airs. Worst 
 of all, we are engaged in disillusioning the Celtic mind. We 
 are bent on weaning him away from all his lovely mind- 
 creations, from his fays and fairies, his little gods and god- 
 desses that haunted and made beautiful every tree and rock 
 and hill in the enchanted land. And lastly, we have killed 
 his poetic instincts by proving to him that where he saw 
 absolute perfection, and broke into genuine poetry in his 
 effort to personify or translate it, there is nothing but what 
 is human and imperfect, and untranslatable into the magic 
 of music and rhythm. Your Philistine, Matthew Arnold, 
 defines poetry as 'the expression of beauty and a human 
 nature perfect on all sides.' Your Coleridge, wizard as 
 he was, defines poetry as ' the best words in their best form.' 
 i^ow far are they from the truth that is patent to every wild 
 Celt in his mountain solitudes! For what are the dominant 
 expressions in these two definitions? In the fiist, the domi- 
 nant word is 'human;' in the second, the dominant expres- 
 sion is 'words.' What a gulf separates these two poets from 
 the mountaineer watching his she-goats on Slieve Mis, and 
 dreaming of mountain spirits and river-gnomes, or commun- 
 ing with the supernatural beings that form his religion and 
 command his worship; or the fisherman in his coracle on 
 the high seas, who sees sunken cities beneath the waves, and 
 spirits beckoning to him from the high escarpments of his 
 rock-bound coast, or hears at eventide the tolling of a mys- 
 terious bell that is rocked at every swing of the tide. Good 
 Heavens!" cried the old man, forgetting himself, "why will 
 you obtrude the unspeakable vulgarities of modem life in 
 such sacrosanct solitudes? Why cannot you leave us alone — 
 alone to live in our beloved silences, far away, far, far away 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FIFTH 361 
 
 from the whirr and tumult of your hells and factories, your 
 weaving and spinning, and gathering and spending? We 
 do not trouble you. Why do you trouble us? The things 
 we love are our realities, although you are ofl&cious enough 
 to try to teach us otherwise. Leave us to our dreams of 
 beauty and holiness while we live. And when we die, let us 
 dream that we pass out to the unknown seas whilst we lie 
 still and solemn in magic and crape-bound barques and are 
 watched over by weeping queens." 
 
 The old poet stopped, and his head sank down on his breast. 
 There was a reverential silence for a few seconds. Then the 
 priest made a sign, and the meeting broke up. 
 
 The old man went home alone. He was sad and dispirited, 
 and a little tired. He felt he was opposing something that 
 was yet dear to him; that his loyalty to his ideas was com- 
 promising him with some human and earthly thing, which 
 yet might possibly become an integral part of his life. Across 
 his moonlight reveries, and blotting out many and most 
 beautiful creations of his fancy, the face of one of Earth's 
 Daughters would pass as in a magic mirror; and he grew 
 disquieted by reason of a new and secret attraction which he 
 felt he could not resist, and which was forcing him into dis- 
 loyalty to all his former loves and ideals. He tried to shake 
 it aside. He deliberately blotted out that face from fancy 
 and memory. He argued, reasoned, and threatened. Can I 
 descend? he thought. Do I not know all? Am I a boy, 
 to be caught by a look, or a thread of hair? Has all my 
 philosophy come to this — that in my old age (the Voice said: 
 "Not so old; you are not sixty yet;" and he stood up, and 
 looked at himself in a mirror) that in my old age, he went on 
 reasoning and arguing, I should so far forget myself as to — ? 
 
 He could not finish the sentence. Then, he suddenly 
 remembered that once before he had passed through a similar 
 agony, and that he wrote it down somewhere. He searched 
 all his manuscripts; and, at length, he found an ordinary 
 school-boy's penny copy-book, in which he had written: 
 
362 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 I knew not earthly Love, because it sped 
 With burnt hair, and shattered wing, and wrecked 
 In face and feature, where it swept direct 
 
 Across my life-path. Then it turned and fled. 
 
 I watched it shuddering down a gloomy path 
 Where grew thick limes, and in a simlit space 
 It turned once more, and stared me in the face, 
 
 With such despair, as but a lost soul hath. 
 
 Then in a sudden gust of blank amaze 
 A dusk came down, and all the world was gray. 
 The poplars shivered all along the way. 
 
 The stars were hidden in a gloomy haze. 
 
 A wind arose and whitened all the trees. 
 And curled the dark face of the running brook, 
 The limes, with perfimied blossoms, sighed and shook 
 
 A useless fragrance in the rifling breeze. 
 
 And my soul sank amid the gathering gloom 
 As if there yawned a wide and open grave 
 Of Hope and Love, and all things else that save 
 
 From present anguish, or eternal doom. 
 
 O fickle heart! O frail and fearful thing! 
 That stops thy beats at every panting breath, 
 And fain would leap into the arms of Death 
 
 At every ghost of thy imagining! 
 
 He smiled, folded the copy-book on the remaining verses, 
 and said, I shall return! 
 
 Reginald and Olive Htmt and Hester Hope went home the 
 same evening together. They, too, were preoccupied. 
 
 "I should like to see those mountains and those seas that 
 have such a fascination for Mr. Marshall," said Olive Hunt. 
 "I have seen all manner of scenery, Alpine and otherwise; but 
 I cannot understand what he means by such witchery as a 
 
SESSION THIRTY-FIFTH 363 
 
 mountain or a lonely bog can have for him. And yet, as 
 he went on in that strange, wistful way he has, I thought I 
 felt some pleasant melancholy stealing over me — a kind of 
 memory of 'old unhappy, far-off things,' which yet had a 
 curious charm. He's a strange man." 
 
 "Take care, OHve," said her brother, laughing. "The 
 spell is coming down on you." 
 
 "What speU? I'm not aware of any spell." 
 
 "The Celtic glamour — the twilight of the gods," he said. 
 ''You have put your foot within the fairy rath, and there is 
 no escape." 
 
 "You're jesting. I'm not aware of any such enchant- 
 ment. But I should like to see for myself the places that 
 have such a weird beauty to a gentleman like Mr. Marshall. 
 Are they very far away?" 
 
 She had addressed Hester Hope. 
 
 "Not at all," said Hester. "You can run down to Kil- 
 larney in a couple of hours." 
 
 "But that's a tourist place, is it not?" said Olive Himt. 
 "I should imagine one could not have much of solitude there." 
 
 "Quite true. But you can break away at once, and get 
 in touch with untamed Nature," said Hester. 
 
 "Then we shall try it. I must see the places that make 
 such poets as Mr. Marshall." 
 
 "Beware," said her brother. "Remember there is no 
 escape once you get within the magic circle. You have 
 gone too far already. Merlin is not dead." 
 
 "Then we must go further," said his sister. "The weather 
 is lovely now; and we have some days unengaged before us. 
 Shall we start to-morrow?" 
 
 "To-morrow?" said her brother, alarmed. 
 
 "Yes, why not?" she said. 
 
 "Will Miss Hope come?" 
 
 "Of course she will. Won't you, Hester? You cannot 
 leave two unsophisticated Saxons to explore your ancestral 
 wilds alone!" 
 
364 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 And Hester agreed, pending her mother's consent. So 
 they were to start for some Celtic highland on the morrow. 
 
 Reginald Hunt was a little dazed at the suddenness. He 
 could only murmur: 
 
 "Merlin is not dead. What will come of it? " 
 
SESSION THIRTY-SIXTH 
 
 They started on that strange quest on the morrow. It is 
 probable that of all the myriads who enter that Kingdom of 
 Kerry, they were the only travellers who sought not scenic 
 beauty so much as the Celtic magic that accompanies it, — 
 the subtle enchantment that steeps the soul in reveries, from 
 which it never again awakens. 
 
 It was only on the third day of their travels, and when, 
 braving the inconveniences that belong to out-of-the-way 
 places, they had plunged into the unknown spaces of the 
 Kingdom, that they began to see and understand a Uttle of 
 what Mr. Marshall had striven by words to interpret. They 
 determined to walk, and to use no vehicle in exploring the hid- 
 den depths of mountain and valley; and thus they were able 
 to pause and dwell on beauties on which the express tourist 
 merely casts a careless glance. The second day they chatted 
 gaily, as they trudged along the splendid roads; laughed and 
 exchanged salutations with carters and tramps, entered lonely 
 cabins where they always had wholesome food and a warm 
 welcome; and put up at night in some village inn. But the 
 third day the solemnity of the moimtains swept down upon 
 them; and, amazed at each other, they were silent. The 
 awful loneliness of those vast ranges, which sometimes shot 
 up in peaks, and sometimes lay prone with breasts open to 
 sun and seawind along the beds of the valleys, crept into 
 their hearts; and it was only now and again the young Eng- 
 lish girl could find speech to say, " Oh! how wonderful! " when, 
 on turning abruptly some corner in a high and hilly road, some 
 vast scene of loveliness burst upon them, and made them stand 
 still in surprise. The deeper they plimged intoTout-of-the- 
 world places, the more they fotmd themselves cast back into 
 ancient and legendary times, when chieftains rose up on white 
 
 36s, 
 
366 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 horses from mountain lakes and called their kernes together; 
 or phantom huntsmen broke across gorse and brake and 
 limestone walls, followed by phantom dogs in pursuit of 
 phantom game. For a curious atmosphere seemed to hang 
 down over the entire country, a strange blue tint that wrapped 
 mountain and mere and sea in one common vesture of loveli- 
 ness, until the whole atmosphere seemed to be steeped in that 
 dreamy twilight that hangs over the Val d'Arno, when the 
 sun has set beyond San Miniato. 
 
 One day, Olive Himt, oppressed by the strange weird scene 
 before them, when they had climbed a sudden summit and 
 the sea shone beneath them, mirroring one black crag of an 
 island that shot like a needle from the deep, sat down upon a 
 rock, and began to cry. Her brother was alarmed, and spoke 
 to her. 
 
 "I have seen it all in a dream," she said, "long, long ago 
 when I was a child. And, then, I saw it again when I read the 
 'Idylls of the King.' Was Tennyson ever here?" 
 
 "He was," said Hester. "He wrote his bugle-song down 
 there below in the Lakes." 
 
 "I thought so. This was the place of Arthur and his 
 Knights. It was up along that river that 
 
 "'the dead. 
 Oared by the dumb, went upward with the flood.' 
 
 I saw the old dumb servitor yesterday in the face of that old 
 fisherman that took us across the lake. I was wondering where 
 I had seen him before, 'winking his eyes, and twisted all his 
 face.' And down there, look, down there, where these women 
 are, with their black shawls around their heads; yes, down 
 there, was the barge and the three queens that took Arthur 
 away to the unknown. Oh, I see it all now! It is wonderful, 
 is it not?" 
 
 But her brother shook his head gravely, and murmured 
 something about uncanny places, and strange spells. 
 
 It is probable that the strange manners of this primitive 
 
SESSION THIRTY-SIXTH 367 
 
 people and their still stranger language had something to do 
 with this enchantment. Olive Himt, relaxing somewhat her 
 cold manner, took the mute glances of admiration that were 
 showered upon her by peasant and wayfarer with pleasure. 
 She studied the strange physiognomy of the people as she 
 studied the features of the landscape. Sometimes, her hand 
 would rush to her portfolio and pencil, to sketch some old 
 gnarled peasant face framed in the door of a mud cabin; and 
 often she caught herself staring and wondering at the Madonna- 
 like faces of the young girls framed in their black snoods — 
 faces, that looked at her half in merriment, half in curiosity, 
 and always with such shy admiration, that she thought she 
 could clasp them in her arms, and kiss them, and call them 
 "sister." And the little children, with deep blue eyes, just 
 the colour of their mountain lakes, before the sun sets, and 
 the long curved fringes of black eyelids that strove to conceal 
 them, were a perpetual wonder to her. And when her shy- 
 ness and their shyness were overcome, and she drew close to 
 this strange people, and heard their soft melodious words and 
 saw the love shining in their eyes, she thought she could never 
 get back to civilisation again. 
 
 "Let us build three tents," she said, "no! two; and we shall 
 stay here for ever. For, it is good for us to be here." 
 
 And her companions did not say, Nay! for once upon a 
 high cliff Hester's foot had stumbled, and Reginald Hunt had 
 caught her hand, as she was falling; and there was a certain 
 look of terror in his eyes that revealed a deeper feeling. 
 
 He had turned away, white with fear — fear of what had 
 almost happened to her, fear of what he knew had happened 
 to himself. 
 
 "It is this Celtic enchantment!" he said. "There is no 
 escape, I fear!" 
 
 And exactly in the same way, a great dread had come down 
 upon the soul of the old man, who had first spoken to them of 
 this Celtic enchantment. The morning after the last Session, 
 two letters lay upon his breakfast table — one from a leading 
 
368 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 London literary Journal, accepting a short poem which he had 
 sent with but faint hopes that it would be accepted. The 
 other was from St. Moritz, from the djdng boy, whose last 
 breath would make himself an Earl in the high rank of the 
 nobility of Great Britain and Ireland. It was a pathetic 
 letter, although it ran through few lines; and it scattered to 
 the winds the little feeling of triumph he had felt on the read- 
 ing of the note accepting his poem. 
 
 " So runs this human hfe of ours," he thought; " this moment 
 in the simlight; the next in gloom." 
 
 But there was one line that made the old man gasp. It 
 ran thus: 
 
 "And then you can put our coronet on some fair young 
 girl, who will bless you!" 
 
 It startled him, for it ran in a line with his thoughts. It 
 dazed him by its impossibility. He wouldn't entertain the 
 thought for a moment. But back it came with frightful per- 
 sistence. He remembered how he had passed through the 
 agony before, and conquered it. He took up his note-book 
 to see how the evil thing had been exorcised, and read: 
 
 Then in the midnight, when the earth was still, 
 And sleeping, and the stars alone awoke; 
 And men lay prone, God's pity to evoke, 
 
 And flowers their feeble incense did distil, ^ 
 
 There came a little voice, so still, so soft, 
 'Twas only like th' awakening of a bird 
 At matin dawn, so faint, so feebly heard, 
 
 Like a faint breath amid the elms aloft. 
 
 It came, it paused, and then it went away; 
 Came once again, a little stronger grown, 
 As a great master thrills to deeper tone 
 
 The keys that 'neath his nervous fingers lay. 
 
 And then it grew articulate. It said : 
 * ' Lo, I am come again ! I stand and bide 
 
SESSION THIRTY-SIXTH 369 
 
 Your waking, tho' you've banished all beside: 
 I come, as comes a voice from out the dead, 
 
 " Dark ages that have vanished. Lo, I come 
 To stay with thee, and never more depart, 
 For I shall build my nest within thy heart, 
 And thou must crush thy heart to strike me dumb. 
 
 " Yes, I am come; and I shall stay and speak 
 Things that enraptiure; things that agonise. 
 And tears will bum thy cheeks ; and in thine eyes 
 Tears, that will globe all joys the heart can seek." 
 
 He remembered it all now. The whole little romance of his 
 youth came back. It seemed so childish, so small, so far 
 away, that he pitied himself for ever even entertaining such 
 a fancy. He laid down his note-book; and went over and 
 unlocked a little drawer in a very ancient bureau, built solidly 
 of old Spanish mahogany. He took out a faded roll of letters. 
 The red tape was now white; and snapped asimder, rotten 
 with age and damp. A thin gold chain, very dirty but un- 
 rusted, hung down. He followed its edge until it terminated 
 in a little locket, which he drew forth, with a trembling hand. 
 He opened the cover, which was engraved with flowers, and 
 saw a little portrait, and a little dark, sunny hair. He sat 
 down, watched, waited, and wept. It was a soul gazing at 
 him from eternity. Then, he wondered all the more how he 
 had resisted the soft pleadings of such a face, and again he 
 read: 
 
 But I awoke; and conscious answered, No ! 
 I cannot see thy Face throughout the night. 
 But memory warns where doth fail the sight; 
 
 Oh, siren voice, oh, siren features, Go! 
 
 Thou, who art ever fated to betray; 
 Thy kiss, Delilah's; and thy silken wiles 
 Wreathed in death-nets; and thy specious smiles 
 
 Harbingers of woe, if I obey, 
 
 25 
 
370 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 Sing thy songs elsewhere; take thy honeyed arts 
 And practise them on those who have not found 
 A wail of death from out th' encircUng bound 
 
 That limits the desires of human hearts! 
 
 And then a wind arose, and smothered speech 
 And drew down silence, and I said: Thou'rt blest! 
 Sleep now, dear soul, and take thy tranquil rest 
 
 Far, far beyond the siren's perilous reach. 
 
 Sail down the gulfs of unencumbered thought. 
 Round the high seas where nothing impious dwells. 
 Only the sweet winds come; and statelier swells 
 
 The pregnant sails in their embraces caught. 
 
 And let no anchor stay the hurrying ship 
 On its vast course towards th' eternal shore. 
 
 Where breaking surges echo, Evermore! 
 Nor Sims, nor moons, behind the horizon dip. 
 
 "Hal" said the old poet, folding up locket and chain, and 
 letters, "I conquered then; and I shall conquer now!" 
 
 Hence the thirty-sixth Session of the Sunetoi was a blank. 
 The young tourists were in the Kerry wilds. Mr. Marshall 
 wrote that he was troubled about his young relative away in 
 Switzerland. The Professor was very busy with the exami- 
 nation-papers for degrees. Mr. Skelton was very busy with 
 his half-yearly accounts. Miss Eraser was busy with her 
 young pupils, who, under the head of "Private Studies," had 
 entered for University Examinations. 
 
 "Well, 'tis our first disappointment," said Father Dillon to 
 the doctor, as they sat together in the latter's study. "I 
 suppose it means the usual relaxation before final dissolution. 
 But, in any case, we were to close next week. And on the 
 whole we haven't done badly." 
 
 "No!" said the doctor, smoking placidly. "In fact, it is 
 a phenomenon in this country of ours, that we have kept 
 
SESSION THIRTY-SIXTH 371 
 
 together so well. I suppose such a thing never happened 
 before." 
 
 "Possibly," said Father Dillon, with a little pride. "Look- 
 ing back now I see that it was a daring attempt. There was 
 one element of success in the secrecy of our meetings and 
 discussions. I suppose, if we had published our little doings, 
 we should have been killed with ridicule." 
 
 "That was quite certain," said the doctor. "But I have 
 an idea, that you would have failed, if Bob hadn't been lucky 
 enough to bring in old Marshall. He was certainly a help." 
 
 "He was. What a quaint and interesting figure. I wonder 
 will he marry Olive Htuit?" 
 
 "He won't," said the doctor. "He may be enamoured of 
 the lady. 'No fool like the old fool;' and age is no proof 
 against such attractions. But he won't marry anyone!" 
 
 "Mrs. Holden thinks otherwise. She's quite sure that 
 Miss Hunt will propose for him herself." 
 
 "Ah! There it is," said the doctor, "Jennie is not above 
 the weaknesses of her sex. But Mr. Marshall won't marry 
 — Lord or Commoner, whatever he becomes, or remains." 
 
 He smoked on in silence for a few minutes. 
 
 "Do you know that though I argued against him at our 
 last meeting, I was arguing against myself, — or rather, my 
 convictions were playing the mischief with my feelings. When 
 he spoke of the mountains and their solitude, and all that, I 
 almost cried. I knew it all, all!" > 
 
 Father Dillon looked at him incredulously. 
 
 "In my young days," calmly continued the doctor, "I 
 knew some of the men of that time. I met Mitchell once, 
 a dark, gloomy, melancholy Beresark, frightfully in earnest, 
 but with a deep strain of poetry running through his character. 
 And I knew John Martin well. These men had one common 
 characteristic — truth. They couldn't lie. There was no 
 such thing as compromise with them. Everything is compro- 
 mise now. Soon, we shall be compromising with old Nick, 
 and making bargains as in the old Irish legends. But," con- 
 
372 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 tinued the doctor, noticing the priest's uneasiness, "what I'm 
 coming to is this. I never go back to the old bogs and fenlands 
 of my native county, but I feel just as old Marshall described. 
 Of course, I'm a practical man, and go in for progress and all 
 that. I like these new labourers' cottages with their slate 
 roofs, the pretty garden in front, the creepers on the walls 
 and all that. But my heart does not soften. The glamour 
 of the past is not around them. But, when I skirt the foot of 
 some awful solitary old mountain up there in Connaught, and 
 see the old white-washed mud cabins, the thatched roofs, the 
 little square of window, I can never help thinking of the lines: 
 
 '"Out from many a mudwall cabin 
 
 Eyes were watching through that night, 
 Many a manly heart was throbbing 
 
 For the blessed warning-light. 
 Murmurs passed along the valleys 
 
 Like the Banshee's lonely croon, 
 And a thousand pikes were flashing 
 
 In the risin' of the moon.' 
 
 I see it all, all. The moonlight streaming along the valley; 
 the big, stalwart figure of Tighe, or Donal or Donough, filling 
 up the door. His little wife behind him, not a bit afraid. 
 The pike, the Croppy pike, leaning against the wall. The 
 little children sleeping in their cots. And then the signal- 
 light flashing across the valley. Out he goes after one fare- 
 well kiss to join his comrades down there by the river. My 
 God! 'twas grand, grand! There were men in these days!" 
 
 He flung his cigar into the fireplace, rose up, stuck his hands 
 in his pockets, and remained for some moments in an attitude 
 of thinking. He then turned to the priest, and said: 
 
 "Yes, Marshall was right. Do you know it struck me before ; 
 but, as a matter of fact, every thoughtful Irishman dreads 
 the future. No one dares say what he expects. If we are 
 to have prosperity, such as the prosperity of England and 
 America, it will be awful and imbearable. The streets of our 
 
SESSION THIRTY-SIXTH 373 
 
 cities are bad enough now. What would they be, if we had 
 money?" 
 
 The priest murmured something about advancing educa- 
 tion. 
 
 "Advancing education? Where is it, and what signs can 
 you see of it? No! 'The unendurable present.' What an 
 expression, and what a truth! And the formidable future! 
 Do you know what I think. Father Dillon? I think you and 
 I will live to see the day, when the Bishops will go, mitre in 
 hand, to beg the aid and protection of the Imperial Parlia- 
 ment — " 
 
 "Absurd," said the priest. "Really, doctor, your imagi- 
 nation nms riot sometimes. You shouldn't yield to such 
 delusions, although they are harmless enough." 
 
 "Unless," continued the doctor, as if he had not heard 
 him, but was moving along the lines of his own thoughts, 
 "you are wise enough to entrain the great Conservative Prot- 
 estant element in the coimtry, and build it into a bulwark 
 against Socialism and Jacobinism." 
 
 "Yes, and put a whip into their hands to lash us with, as 
 they did before," said the priest bitterly. 
 
 "No! That day is gone. But, mark me, if you faU to 
 secure that ally, your Church will suffer." 
 
 "Let us go up-stairs!" said Father Dillon. He felt the 
 doctor was talking lurid poetry imder the Celtic spell. 
 
 "Next Thursday will be our last meeting," he said to Mrs. 
 Holden. "Do you know what I propose? We'll have a 
 grand wind-up over at Church Bay. The trippers haven't 
 commenced to come down as yet; and we'll have the place to 
 ourselves. I'll guarantee the hampers — " 
 
 "You'll do nothing of the kind, Father Dillon," said Mrs. 
 Holden, with her usual sense of hospitality, "that's our depart- 
 ment. You can get the boat, if you like. But suppose it 
 rains?" 
 
 "We must take that chance," he said. "I'll get the Com- 
 missioner's boat — no, by Jove, Mr. Himt will get us a steam- 
 
374 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 launch, and we can run over in half an hour. We'll have 
 lunch at one; then our final and magnificent wind-up of the 
 session; tea at five, and home!" 
 
 But Mrs. Holden's face fell. She could not take her piano 
 on the launch. 
 
 "No!" she said decisively. "The grand finale must be 
 here, where we practically commenced. I'll have supper 
 here, and then — " 
 
 "Of course," said the clever Father Dillon. "I was for- 
 getting. We'll wind up the literary session on the clififs; but 
 the musical session here with a grand vocal and instrumental 
 concert. It will be a worthy termination of a grand term." 
 
 "Let me see," said Mrs. Holden, whose fancy was already 
 busy with details, "I'll want a ham, and a round of beef, and 
 a shoulder of mutton — could we have potatoes boiled over 
 there?" 
 
 "Of course. There's a new Hotel, you know, where we 
 shall have tea." 
 
 "Then an apple-tart, queen-pudding, mince-pies, and fruit 
 and cheese. All right." 
 
 "Don't forget the liquor, Jeimie," said the doctor. 
 
 "And wiU you bring Bridget? " said the priest. 
 
 But Mrs. Holden looked at him angrily. 
 
 "I'll bring my housemaid and cook," she said. 
 
SESSION THIRTY-SEVENTH 
 
 Glorious June weather, a sun in the zenith pouring down 
 his torrid rays, a gentle breeze from the seas that rippled from 
 shore to shore and spent themselves beneath the red, barren 
 cliffs, shorn of every trace of vegetation in order that the big 
 guns in their embrasures might play out at sea without obstruc- 
 tion; a grassy cliff not yet trampled into brown earth by the 
 feet of Sunday trippers — such were the novel surroundings 
 amidst which the Sunetoi held their closing session. The 
 steam-laimch, — the Admiral's, if you please, secured with- 
 out trouble by Reginald Hunt, and which for that reason was 
 greater in Mrs. Holden's eyes than Cleopatra's splendid 
 barge — was more than ample for the accommodation of the 
 members and the servants. They ran across the harbour in 
 less than half an hour, disembarked without accident, had the 
 heavy hampers dragged up the cliff, chose a little hollow for 
 their sjonposium; and, avoiding that miserable quart d'heure 
 before meals which is the most embarrassing time in the exist- 
 ence of us poor mortals, sat down to lunch the moment the 
 hampers were unpacked, and the cloths laid on the soft grass 
 of the cliff. It would take the pen of the poet who made 
 music out of a venison pasty to describe the culinary wonders 
 which Mrs. Holden had provided for her guests. I have not 
 the menu at hand; and I confess I don't like writing a category 
 of victuals, like the head waiter at a seaside hotel. But I 
 may say with impunity that there were three bottles of cham- 
 pagne; and that no empty champagne-bottle went back in 
 the hamper. This does not argue total-abstinence by any 
 means, as we shall see. 
 
 Everyone that has been at a picnic, fete-champitre, or other 
 out-door entertainment, knows that the chief obstacle to 
 human happiness is the difficulty of getting into a comfortable 
 
 37S 
 
376 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 posture. But, as became a clergyman, Father Dillon was on 
 his knees; and it was in that attitude, that he delivered his 
 farewell address. What he said was this: 
 
 "If I were a magician with the power of turning all human 
 things into a kind of poetical Elysium, stripping them of all 
 sordidness and earthiness, and transmuting them into un- 
 alloyed and ethereal perfection, I could not have chosen a 
 happier scene, or more perfect surroundings for our final Ses- 
 sion than have, by a series of delightful coincidences, fallen 
 to our lot today. And surely, this happy meeting is the for- 
 tunate termination, may I say suspension? of such pleasant 
 intellectual moments that I, at least, look back upon them 
 with a kind of regretful pleasure, and not a little pride. I 
 admit, now that we have reached the successful issue of our 
 enterprise, that it was a hazardous one. To bring together 
 members of three different nationalities, and three different 
 and sometimes antagonistic forms of religious belief, to 
 discuss questions that are seldom debated even by cool and 
 self-restrained minds without some heat, seemed one of the 
 rashest experiments that could enter the brain of an enthu- 
 siast. And yet, it has been not a qualified, but a decided suc- 
 cess. We have gone over the entire field of human thought; 
 discussed poetry, philosophy, metaphysics, medicine, educa- 
 tion, religion, and even politics; and we have not had so 
 much as a breeze to ruffle our tempers and make us regret 
 entering on such an engagement. We met for the first time, 
 comparative strangers; we part (temporarily I hope) fast 
 friends. I lay no claim to be considered even a humble con- 
 stituent in this successful venture. I feel so happy that I 
 think it is a positive delight to efface myself, and to rejoice in 
 the consummation of hopes, which, I admit, wavered a little 
 from time to time, but which each day's experience steadied 
 more and more unto the end. Where there has been so much 
 uniform excellence, I dare not particularise. Where there 
 has been such mutual and cordial help, I would think it in- 
 vidious to mark out anyone for special commendation. But I 
 
SESSION THIRTY-SEVENTH 377 
 
 may be permitted to draw a conclusion. I have been always 
 a believer in the essential goodness of mankind. I have felt 
 that the little clouds of misapprehension and prejudice that 
 shade the faces of men from each other and create such violent 
 prejudices might be happily and readily blown away by the 
 simple device of bringing people closer together, and letting 
 them see each other as they are, and not as we sometimes, 
 with traditional bias, suppose them to be. Some of the most 
 charming people I ever met, even outside our own happy 
 coterie, have been English and Scotch. Some of the most 
 beautiful souls I have ever seen do not belong to the religion 
 I profess. None of us, thank God, has a monopoly of good- 
 ness. It is like God's sunshine, everywhere. And I think it 
 is a glorious thing that we are permitted to acknowledge that 
 goodness and that grace, wherever we find it. And, on the 
 other hand, I know nothing more pitiable than the narrow 
 views some people take of life, and the sour misanthropy in 
 which they pass through this world, unloving and unloved, 
 and cherishing a dark and loathsome pride in their alienation 
 from all that is wholesome and sweet in other human lives. 
 Let me hope that broader views and more generous and kindly 
 thoughts may be spread abroad amongst our fellow country- 
 men under the benign influence of education; and that the 
 more we read, and thus grow in sympathy with the master- 
 minds of the world, the more we may grow in mental and 
 moral stature, expanding our ideas until they become com- 
 prehensive enough to embrace a Universe, and our principles 
 imtil they touch the widest hmnan limits of gentle and com- 
 prehensive charity." 
 
 The words were received with gentle applause and aflSrma- 
 tion by the Sunetoi. Mr. Marshall's eyes were fixed on the 
 speaker throughout, as if he were drinking in such words as 
 an answer and revelation to his thoughts. For his alas! was 
 a disturbed and tortured mind. It was the battlefield between 
 reason and feeling; and it was torn in the combat. 
 
 Whenever during a more or less serene and tranquil life, 
 
378^ THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 such disturbances arose, he could always soothe them into 
 silence by what he called "a, dose of astronomy." One mighty 
 fact in that stupendous science, like a little pellet or tabloid of 
 valerian or bromide, stilled the little war within his brain. 
 It revealed the unspeakable littleness and insignificance of 
 things human; and they ceased to torment him. But one 
 cannot escape from oneself so easily. Men caimot change 
 their condition. They must accept, for all they are worth, 
 their own nature and environments; and reason is powerless 
 in the grasp of habit. And, hence, although the facts of the 
 Universe were unchangeable; and every fresh search into its 
 awful secrets revealed its inexhaustible and ever-increasing 
 marvels. Nature would come back to its furrow, and nestle 
 there. He'knew it well. He had experienced it in youth and 
 early manhood. He had it all written down in the little school- 
 boy's copy-book — the struggle, the reasoning, the victory, 
 compromised again and again; and the final defeat. Only 
 that morning, he had read with a certain humiliation these lines: 
 
 Ah! and how frail are these same fraudulent bands 
 
 Of high resolve and holy hope and fear! 
 
 How when the helmsman, Passion, seeks to steer 
 The Ship of Life, the strongest chain expands, 
 
 Stretches its rusty length, protests and breaks, 
 And out upon the seas the unhelmed Ship 
 Rolls in the grasp of mighty waves that dip 
 
 And fall away in seething, snowy flakes. 
 
 True, I dethroned the helmsman and placed 
 A cold experienced Intellect to guide 
 My Ship along the waves from tide to tide, 
 
 And all the map of his sea-journey traced. 
 
 And bade him sail from snow-capped Pole to Pole 
 Of high, cold thoughts, — to shun the tropic seas, 
 To spread his sails to no hot, wanton breeze, 
 
 To keep far out from rock and sandy shoal, 
 
SESSION THIRTY-SEVENTH 379 
 
 To close his ears against all siren songs, 
 And lash his sailors to the iron mast 
 And blindly cut the seas till dangers past, 
 
 Far, far away did moan the treacherous throngs. 
 
 Ah! but how futile. There's a mutinous crew 
 Within each human heart, and all the power 
 Concentred in the Captain of an hour 
 
 Has vanished, like a mist of morning dew. 
 
 Yes! The old poet was flinging up his hands. He was 
 enmeshed; and he knew it. He was humiliated, and yet not 
 displeased. He did not reproach himseK any longer with the 
 taunt, Am I a school-boy? He took hope in the words of the 
 young priest: 
 
 "And our principles till they touch the widest limits of 
 gentle and comprehensive charity." 
 
 The little party broke up. Some strolled upwards to gain 
 the narrow path which woimd around the sea-cliffs, and 
 himg almost perilously above the sea. The doctor and Mrs. 
 Holden and Mrs. Skelton and Father Dillon sought the 
 ease and shelter of the Hotel. Here the gentlemen smoked 
 leisurely; the ladies took out their work; and Father Dillon 
 buried himself in his breviary. 
 
 Looking up after the retreating figures of their companions, 
 they saw how naturally they had divided themselves into 
 three groups. The first were Reginald Hunt and Hester 
 Hope; the second, the tall figures of the Professor and Miss 
 Eraser; the third were Mr. Marshall, walking with bowed 
 head by the side of the stately figure of Olive Hunt. 
 
 "There all things end," said the doctor, "no matter what 
 you may think of your bank notes. Bob!" 
 
 "They can't do without me, though," said Bob. 
 
 "I foretold how all this would end," said the doctor, "in 
 two or three unhappy marriages." 
 
 "Why, unhappy?" said his wife. 
 
 "Didn't I tell you, Father Dillon," said the doctor, unheed- 
 
38o THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 ing his wife's question, and incontinently disturbing the 
 yoimg priest at his prayers, "how all this would end?" 
 
 "Yes, yes, yes!" said Father Dillon, unwilling to lose the 
 thread of his psahns, lest he should have to repeat them again 
 from the beginning, "I know, I know. Masculum etfeminam 
 fecit eosi" 
 
 At which the doctor smiled. 
 
 Then, when the priest had finished his ofl&ce. Bob stood up 
 and said: 
 
 "Look here. Father Dillon; look here. Doc; come down 
 to the beach, and let us be boys again for an hour. We are 
 sworn to take back no empty bottles today!" 
 
 "You mustn't touch the sherry or claret bottles," said the 
 good housewife, Mrs. Holden. "I should have to pay the 
 wine-merchant twopence a piece for them." 
 
 "But the champagne-bottles are no use? are they?" said 
 Bob. 
 
 "No! you can take them; although I don't know what use 
 you can make of them," said Mrs. Holden. 
 
 " Well, come along and you'll see ! " said Bob. They strolled 
 over the grass to where Beatrice and her feUow-servant were 
 tidying things and getting the hampers ready when the launch 
 returned at six o 'clock. 
 
 "These are mine, Bridgie," said Bob, taking up the three 
 champagne bottles. " 'Twasn't bad execution for eleven, with 
 other little trimmings thrown in; though, to tell the truth, 
 I'd rather one drop of John Jameson than the whole of it. 
 But you won't see these three dead men again. We are 
 going to bury them." 
 
 He led the way to the sandy beach, and selected a nice flat 
 rock at a good distance, because, he said, they were to have a 
 full hour's lawful fun; and he didn't wish to have the bottles 
 broken too easily. 
 
 "Axmt Sally?" said the doctor, looking on critically. 
 
 "Exactly," said Robert. "Now all good sportsmen have 
 a chance. Here are the pebbles; there is Aunt Sally; terms 
 
SESSION THIRTY-SEVENTH 381 
 
 of the game, sixpence a piece to the sportsman that kills Aunt 
 Sally. Here goes!" 
 
 His stone flew wide of the mark; and he leaned down with 
 a sense of sudden pain. He had forgotten that ancient com- 
 panion in his right shoulder, and the twinge brought it to 
 memory. 
 
 "Ha!" he said. "I forgot. I thought I was sixteen, 
 instead of sixty. There is a difference, doctor, eh?" 
 
 And he tried to slew round his left hand, and soothe the 
 angry place. 
 
 Father Dillon threw, and smashed the first bottle in 
 smithereens. 
 
 "Sixpence, please," said he, taking up the second bottle, 
 and proceeding to place it. 
 
 "Did he shoot fair. Doc?" said Robert. 
 
 "No," said the doctor. "He threw a boulder, instead of 
 a pebble. He couldn't miss it." 
 
 "He mustn't do it again," said Robert. "'Tis getting 
 d— dhot." 5 
 
 He threw o£E his coat, and revealed shining shirt sleeves, of 
 which his good wife, who was seated near Mrs. Holden, and 
 bending over her work, was justly proud. The other gentle- 
 men followed his example. 
 
 Here then were three genuine sportsmen, in shirt sleeves and 
 bared heads, struggling with all their might to smash sundry 
 bottles. The sun beat down hotly; and, glancing off the thick 
 black hair of the young priest, it turned the bald heads of the 
 doctor and the banker into shining copper-coloured balls. 
 But they heeded not; but yelled, and hurled with all their 
 might; and scolded and protested and quarrelled in the mimic 
 warfare, whilst the thick green bottle stuck as unharmed as if a 
 regiment of raw recruits were firing their magazine rifles at it. 
 
 Yes, they were boys again; and happy, because the secret 
 of all human happiness is to keep the heart of a child through- 
 out the growth and changes of advanced life. They shouted 
 and laughed and cried: 
 
382 THE INTELLECTU.ALS 
 
 "That 'snot fair!" 
 
 "You threw two stones!" 
 
 "Toe the line!" 
 
 "Oh, Father Dillon, you're a disgrace to your cloth!" 
 
 "How can I, when I'm in my shirt sleeves?" 
 
 "Sixpence, please!" 
 
 "Cheatery chin will never win!" 
 
 At last, and with a shout of triumph, the manager smashed 
 the bottle; and just then, a voice rang down from the summit 
 of the cUff : 
 
 "Bravo, Mr. Skelton!" 
 
 And looking up, the three gentlemen saw to their dismay the 
 entire cKff above their heads lined with three rows of heads of 
 men, women, and children, enjoying with a broad grin on every 
 feature the amusement that was provided for them below. 
 
 Father DiUon went over in a sheepish kind of way and put 
 on his coat. He was thinking how would he face his congre- 
 gation next Sunday. He recognised amongst the crowd some 
 of his confraternity. The doctor put on his coat, wondering 
 would he ever get a pa5Tng patient again. The mariager, more 
 of a philosopher than either the man of science or the minister 
 of religion, shouted back to his admirers on the cUff-side: 
 
 "Come down, lads, and have a shy. 'Tis sixpence if you 
 hit the bottle." 
 
 There was a cheer, and several small boys slid down the 
 cliff at imminent danger to their necks. Then the gentlemen 
 retired. The doctor asked his spouse rather petulantly: 
 
 "You saw them, Jennie. Why didn't you warn us?" 
 
 She said it was too good a joke to spoil by any vmdue 
 feminine interference. 
 
 By the time they reached the Hotel, the other members 
 had assembled; and tea was ready. Five o'clock tea! Next 
 after the phosphorus match, the greatest invention of the 
 nineteenth century, I most cordially agree with the late 
 Dean Stanley in thinking that it is by far the most delightful 
 meal of the day. Breakfast is embarrassed by unpleasant 
 
SESSION THIRTY-SEVENTH 383 
 
 letters, and the forthcoming labours of the approaching 
 hours. I can imagine how tiresome must have been the 
 literary breakfasts of the early eighties, even with such a wit 
 as old Samuel Rogers in the chair, and such guests as Southey 
 and Wordsworth. The later poUtical breakfasts given by 
 Gladstone and his contemporaries must have been dull 
 affairs, weighted, as they must have been, with ponderous 
 political speculations, and hampered by physical weariness 
 after last night's debate. Luncheon again is but a pause, a 
 momentary cessation from labour for a hurried repast. And 
 dinner is an elaborate ceremonial, stretching its weary way 
 from eight to eleven o'clock through a series of unnecessary 
 and tiresome courses. But five o'clock tea! The day's work 
 is over practically. There are three hours to dinner. There 
 is no ceremony. The meal is light. You can sit, stand, 
 lounge, or walk about. You can read, write, chat, as you 
 please. Verily, it is the day's golden hour. 
 
 And when, as with our Sunetoi, one is surrounded by friends 
 on the verandah of a country hotel, with the sea at one's feet, 
 brilliant sunshine overhead, and an absence of all care, it 
 seems to be the veritable Elysium of our poets' dreams. 
 
 "Did you ever write a poem, or even a sonnet on five 
 o'clock tea?" said Father Dillon to Mr. Marshall. 
 
 "Never!" said the good gray poet, "but in such pleasant 
 surroundings, and with such a retrospect of the last few 
 months, I confess I consider this moment .the happiest of 
 my existence!" 
 
 The old man looked so happy and was so sincere, that the 
 stmshine seemed to spread itself all around; and the doctor's 
 face, that had been screwed up in annoyance since the events 
 on the beach, began to relax a little. 
 
 "I tell you," whispered Mrs. Holden to her friend, "that 
 he has proposed and been accepted. He'd never look so 
 pleasant otherwise." 
 
 "I wonder did Hester accept Mr. Himt?" whispered back 
 her friend. 
 
384 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 "I doubt it. Hester can wait. Her mother would not 
 listen to such a thing." 
 
 "But, young ladies nowadays have their own way." 
 
 " Of course. I suppose these are some of the troubles before 
 us all. Beatrice, order some fresh tea." 
 
 And Beatrice, who enjoyed the day as well as her superiors, 
 and who had been also speculating on the ever-interesting 
 subject of possible engagements and marriages, tripped away 
 smilingly, and told the cook everything — that the old gentle- 
 man, who was Lord Ordinary, was about to marry the tall 
 handsome English girl; and that the tall, dark man with a tinge 
 of gray in his beard was engaged to the fair, young Scottish 
 Lady; and that Mr. Hunt, the young engineer at Haulbowline, 
 would marry that pretty young girl, Hester Hope, at once; 
 but that she had no fortune. In such wise is history made! 
 
 Suddenly, a white cap peered above the cliff side, and Mrs. 
 Holden said: "My goodness! there are the men of the launch. 
 Can it be six o'clock? " 
 
 But it was. For the Angelus Bell was chiming from the 
 Presentation Convent; and the deep boom of the Cathedral 
 Bell was wafted across the waters; and they should go. Time 
 and tide do not wait, until time and tides shall be no more. 
 Very early the following morning, the doctor was roused 
 by the tinkling of the electric bell in the hall from the deep 
 slumbers in which the fatigues of the previous day had plunged 
 him. He rose instantly, because he knew that to such a 
 summons there was but one answer; and donning his dressing- 
 gown, he flung up his bedroom window, and hailed the driver 
 of the covered car which was drawn up beneath. 
 
 "Mr. Marshall, of Whitepoint, sir, is unwell. His servant 
 says she's afraid you'll not reach him alive." 
 
 The doctor guessed what that message meant; neverthe- 
 less he put some instruments and a little strychnine in his 
 pocket; and in a quarter of an hour, he was standing in the 
 hall of Mr. Marshall's house. The servant opened the door 
 of the little study at the right; and he entered. The shutters 
 
SESSION THIRTY-SEVENTH 385 
 
 were closed; and the electric light was on. This the doctor 
 switched off, and bidding the servant fling open the shutters, 
 and draw the blinds, he approached the figure of the old man 
 seated at his desk. One glance, and one touch on the cold, 
 dead hand, told him all. 
 
 "It is all over," he said, "he has been dead for hours." 
 
 The servant left the room, weeping. 
 
 Then the doctor sat and watched the mute figure before 
 him. One arm lay on the desk; and in the fingers of the right 
 hand, a pen was clutched. The eyes were open but glazed. 
 There was no speculation here. On the desk were three 
 documents. One was a freshly-opened copy of the Athenaum. 
 The torn wrapper was near. The paper had been opened, 
 but had spnmg back into its fold. The doctor gently opened 
 it again; and read on the fourth page the poem, whose accept- 
 ance was such a pleasure to the old poet. The second was 
 a letter. It was dated three days before; and came from 
 St. Moritz. It commenced: 
 
 My Lord: — 
 
 I have to inform you that your cousin — 
 
 The doctor thought he had no right to read further. 
 
 The third was a school-boy's copy-book, in which it was 
 clear Mr. Marshall had been writing, when the summons came. 
 The full glory of a summer morning streamed along the page; 
 and lighted up the words which were written in the neat 
 hand which the dead poet affected, and of which he was not 
 a little proud. It was verse; and the practical doctor had 
 no taste for verse or poetry of any kind. Nevertheless, 
 casting a glance from time to time at the mute figure before 
 him, as if he thought at any moment it might speak, he read: 
 
 I woke from dreams and high resolves, and heard 
 Beside my pillow that same pleading voice, 
 It said : For me with mortals there's no choice 
 
 For all the futile rage within them stirred 
 26 
 
386 THE INTELLECTUALS 
 
 By my insistence. For I cannot cease 
 To advocate the eternal innate worth 
 That lies in Love up from the tiniest birth 
 
 To where seraphic essences increase, 
 
 And grow to perfect stature by my power, 
 For this the Eternal is, and Infinite, 
 That sets no bounds to Love's seraphic flight, 
 
 Nor dwarfs Eternity within an hour. 
 
 So long as voices of the midnight seas 
 Echo in hollow murmurs along the shore 
 Or startle mortals with their strident roar 
 
 And winds wake chaunting dolorous Ktanies, 
 
 So long shall I pursue my fated task, 
 And put in human hearts the loud refrain 
 That never ceases from a voice of pain. 
 
 But sinks into a wail, or fiercely asks 
 
 Some human thing to cling to — some soft hand 
 To press and feel amid tiie utmost stress, — 
 The consciousness of its own nothingness — 
 
 There the words ceased. Clearly the good, old poet had 
 been conquered by the Voice. The "dose of astronomy" 
 had been ineffectual. Some years have gone by; but three 
 questions are still troubling Mrs. Holden: 
 
 ist. Did Mr. Marshall know he was Lord Ormery in the 
 peerage of the United Kingdom that day on the cliffs above 
 Church Bay? 
 
 2d. Did he propose to Olive Hunt? 
 
 3d. Did Olive Hunt accept? 
 
 Three questions, which, unless Miss Olive Hunt chooses to 
 break silence, must remain vmanswered for ever!