Clara Hopgood Part 18

'I shall ask Cohen to come with us,' said Marshall. 'He has never seen Mazzini and would like to know him.' Cohen accordingly called one Sunday evening, and the party went together to a dull, dark, little house in a shabby street of small shops and furnished apartments. When they knocked at Mazzini's door Marshall asked for Mr --- for, even in England, Mazzini had an a.s.sumed name which was always used when inquiries were made for him. They were shown upstairs into a rather mean room, and found there a man, really about forty, but looking older. He had dark hair growing away from his forehead, dark moustache, dark beard and a singularly serious face.

It was not the face of a conspirator, but that of a saint, although without that just perceptible touch of silliness which spoils the faces of most saints. It was the face of a saint of the Reason, of a man who could be ecstatic for rational ideals, rarest of all endowments. It was the face, too, of one who knew no fear, or, if he knew it, could crush it. He was once concealed by a poor woman whose house was surrounded by Austrian soldiers watching for him. He was determined that she should not be sacrificed, and, having disguised himself a little, walked out into the street in broad daylight, went up to the Austrian sentry, asked for a light for his cigar and escaped. He was cordial in his reception of his visitors, particularly of Clara, Madge and Cohen, whom he had not seen before.

'The English,' he said, after some preliminary conversation, 'are a curious people. As a nation they are what they call practical and have a contempt for ideas, but I have known some Englishmen who have a religious belief in them, a n.o.bler belief than I have found in any other nation. There are English women, also, who have this faith, and one or two are amongst my dearest friends.'

'I never,' said Marshall, 'quite comprehend you on this point. I should say that we know as clearly as most folk what we want, and we mean to have it.'

'That may be, but it is not Justice, as Justice which inspires you.

Those of you who have not enough, desire to have more, that is all.'

'If we are to succeed, we must preach what the people understand.'

'Pardon me, that is just where you and I differ. Whenever any real good is done it is by a crusade; that is to say, the cross must be raised and appeal be made to something ABOVE the people. No system based on rights will stand. Never will society be permanent till it is founded on duty. If we consider our rights exclusively, we extend them over the rights of our neighbours. If the oppressed cla.s.ses had the power to obtain their rights to-morrow, and with the rights came no deeper sense of duty, the new order, for the simple reason that the oppressed are no better than their oppressors, would be just as unstable as that which preceded it.'

'To put it in my own language,' said Madge, 'you believe in G.o.d.'

Mazzini leaned forward and looked earnestly at her.

'My dear young friend, without that belief I should have no other.'

'I should like, though,' said Marshall, 'to see the church which would acknowledge you and Miss Madge, or would admit your G.o.d to be theirs.'

'What is essential,' replied Madge, 'in a belief in G.o.d is absolute loyalty to a principle we know to have authority.'

'It may, perhaps,' said Mazzini, 'be more to me, but you are right, it is a belief in the supremacy and ultimate victory of the conscience.'

'The victory seems distant in Italy now,' said Baruch. 'I do not mean the millennial victory of which you speak, but an approximation to it by the overthrow of tyranny there.'

'You are mistaken; it is far nearer than you imagine.'

'Do you obtain,' said Clara, 'any real help from people here? Do you not find that they merely talk and express what they call their sympathy?'

'I must not say what help I have received; more than words, though, from many.'

'You expect, then,' said Baruch, 'that the Italians will answer your appeal?'

'If I had no faith in the people, I do not see what faith could survive.'

'The people are the persons you meet in the street.'

'A people is not a mere a.s.semblage of uninteresting units, but it is not a phantom. A spirit lives in each nation which is superior to any individual in it. It is this which is the true reality, the nation's purpose and destiny, it is this for which the patriot lives and dies.'

'I suppose,' said Clara, 'you have no difficulty in obtaining volunteers for any dangerous enterprise?'

'None. You would be amazed if I were to tell you how many men and women at this very moment would go to meet certain death if I were to ask them.'

'Women?'

'Oh, yes; and women are of the greatest use, but it is rather difficult to find those who have the necessary qualifications.'

'I suppose you employ them in order to obtain secret information?'

'Yes; amongst the Austrians.'

The party broke up. Baruch manoeuvred to walk with Clara, but Marshall wanted to borrow a book from Mazzini, and she stayed behind for him. Madge was outside in the street, and Baruch could do nothing but go to her. She seemed unwilling to wait, and Baruch and she went slowly homewards, thinking the others would overtake them.

The conversation naturally turned upon Mazzini.

'Although,' said Madge, 'I have never seen him before, I have heard much about him and he makes me sad.'

'Why?'

'Because he has done something worth doing and will do more.'

'But why should that make you sad?'

'I do not think there is anything sadder than to know you are able to do a little good and would like to do it, and yet you are not permitted to do it. Mazzini has a world open to him large enough for the exercise of all his powers.'

'It is worse to have a desire which is intense but not definite, to be continually anxious to do something, you know not what, and always to feel, if any distinct task is offered, your incapability of attempting it.'

'A man, if he has a real desire to be of any service, can generally gratify it to some extent; a woman as a rule cannot, although a woman's enthusiasm is deeper than a man's. You can join Mazzini to- morrow, I suppose, if you like.'

'It is a supposition not quite justifiable, and if I were free to go I could not.'

'Why?'

'I am not fitted for such work; I have not sufficient faith. When I see a flag waving, a doubt always intrudes. Long ago I was forced to the conclusion that I should have to be content with a life which did not extend outside itself.'

'I am sure that many women blunder into the wrong path, not because they are bad, but simply because--if I may say so--they are too good.'

'Maybe you are right. The inability to obtain mere pleasure has not produced the misery which has been begotten of mistaken or baffled self-sacrifice. But do you mean to say that you would like to enlist under Mazzini?'

'No!'

Baruch thought she referred to her child, and he was silent.

'You are a philosopher,' said Madge, after a pause. 'Have you never discovered anything which will enable us to submit to be useless?'

'That is to say, have I discovered a religion? for the core of religion is the relationship of the individual to the whole, the faith that the poorest and meanest of us is a person. That is the real strength of all religions.'

'Well, go on; what do you believe?'

'I can only say it like a creed; I have no demonstration, at least none such as I would venture to put into words. Perhaps the highest of all truths is incapable of demonstration and can only be stated.

Perhaps, also, the statement, at least to some of us, is a sufficient demonstration. I believe that inability to imagine a thing is not a reason for its non-existence. If the infinite is a conclusion which is forced upon me, the fact that I cannot picture it does not disprove it. I believe, also, in thought and the soul, and it is nothing to me that I cannot explain them by attributes belonging to body. That being so, the difficulties which arise from the perpetual and unconscious confusion of the qualities of thought and soul with those of body disappear. Our imagination represents to itself souls like pebbles, and asks itself what count can be kept of a million, but number in such a case is inapplicable. I believe that all thought is a manifestation of the Being, who is One, whom you may call G.o.d if you like, and that, as It never was created, It will never be destroyed.'

'But,' said Madge, interrupting him, 'although you began by warning me not to expect that you would prove anything, you can tell me whether you have any kind of basis for what you say, or whether it is all a dream.'

'You will be surprised, perhaps, to hear that mathematics, which, of course, I had to learn for my own business, have supplied something for a foundation. They lead to ideas which are inconsistent with the notion that the imagination is a measure of all things. Mind, I do not for a moment pretend that I have any theory which explains the universe. It is something, however, to know that the sky is as real as the earth.'

They had now reached Great Ormond Street, and parted. Clara and Marshall were about five minutes behind them. Madge was unusually cheerful when they sat down to supper.