Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later Part 14

"Quite so. Then it will be necessary that the more earnest, careful, patient, self-sacrificing, enquirers after truth should have a good deal of the thief about them, though they are very honest people at the same time. Now what does the man" (who on enquiry my father found to be none other than Mr. Turvey himself) "say about honesty?"

"He says, sir, that honesty does not consist in never stealing, but in knowing how and where it will be safe to do so."

"Remember," said Mr. Turvey to my father, "how necessary it is that we should have a plentiful supply of thieves, if honest men are ever to come by their own."

He spoke with the utmost gravity, evidently quite easy in his mind that his scheme was the only one by which truth could be successfully attained.

"But pray let me have any criticism you may feel inclined to make."

"I have none," said my father. "Your system commends itself to common sense; it is the one adopted in the law courts, and it lies at the very foundation of party government. If your academic bodies can supply the country with a sufficient number of thieves--which I have no doubt they can--there seems no limit to the amount of truth that may be attained.

If, however, I may suggest the only difficulty that occurs to me, it is that academic thieves shew no great alacrity in falling out, but incline rather to back each other up through thick and thin."

"Ah, yes," said Mr. Turvey, "there is that difficulty; nevertheless circ.u.mstances from time to time arise to get them by the ears in spite of themselves. But from whatever point of view you may look at the question, it is obviously better to aim at imperfection than perfection; for if we aim steadily at imperfection, we shall probably get it within a reasonable time, whereas to the end of our days we should never reach perfection. Moreover, from a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right." He then turned to his cla.s.s and said--

"And now tell me what did the Sunchild tell us about G.o.d and Mammon?"

The head-boy answered: "He said that we must serve both, for no man can serve G.o.d well and truly who does not serve Mammon a little also; and no man can serve Mammon effectually unless he serve G.o.d largely at the same time."

"What were his words?"

"He said, 'Cursed be they that say, "Thou shalt not serve G.o.d and Mammon, for it is the whole duty of man to know how to adjust the conflicting claims of these two deities."'"

Here my father interposed. "I knew the Sunchild; and I more than once heard him speak of G.o.d and Mammon. He never varied the form of the words he used, which were to the effect that a man must serve either G.o.d or Mammon, but that he could not serve both."

"Ah!" said Mr. Turvey, "that no doubt was his exoteric teaching, but Professors Hanky and Panky have a.s.sured me most solemnly that his esoteric teaching was as I have given it. By the way, these gentlemen are both, I understand, at Sunch'ston, and I think it quite likely that I shall have a visit from them this afternoon. If you do not know them I should have great pleasure in introducing you to them; I was at Bridgeford with both of them."

"I have had the pleasure of meeting them already," said my father, "and as you are by no means certain that they will come, I will ask you to let me thank you for all that you have been good enough to shew me, and bid you good-afternoon. I have a rather pressing engagement--"

"My dear sir, you must please give me five minutes more. I shall examine the boys in the Musical Bank Catechism." He pointed to one of them and said, "Repeat your duty towards your neighbour."

"My duty towards my neighbour," said the boy, "is to be quite sure that he is not likely to borrow money of me before I let him speak to me at all, and then to have as little to do with him as--"

At this point there was a loud ring at the door bell. "Hanky and Panky come to see me, no doubt," said Mr. Turvey. "I do hope it is so. You must stay and see them."

"My dear sir," said my father, putting his handkerchief up to his face, "I am taken suddenly unwell and must positively leave you." He said this in so peremptory a tone that Mr. Turvey had to yield. My father held his handkerchief to his face as he went through the pa.s.sage and hall, but when the servant opened the door he took it down, for there was no Hanky or Panky--no one, in fact, but a poor, wizened old man who had come, as he did every other Sat.u.r.day afternoon, to wind up the Deformatory clocks.

Nevertheless, he had been scared, and was in a very wicked-fleeth-when-no- man-pursueth frame of mind. He went to his inn, and shut himself up in his room for some time, taking notes of all that had happened to him in the last three days. But even at his inn he no longer felt safe. How did he know but that Hanky and Panky might have driven over from Sunch'ston to see Mr. Turvey, and might put up at this very house? or they might even be going to spend the night here. He did not venture out of his room till after seven by which time he had made rough notes of as much of the foregoing chapters as had come to his knowledge so far. Much of what I have told as nearly as I could in the order in which it happened, he did not learn till later. After giving the merest outline of his interview with Mr. Turvey, he wrote a note as follows:--"I suppose I must have held forth about the greatest happiness of the greatest number, but I had quite forgotten it, though I remember repeatedly quoting my favourite proverb, 'Every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.' To this they have paid no attention."

By seven his panic about Hanky and Panky ended, for if they had not come by this time, they were not likely to do so. Not knowing that they were staying at the Mayor's, he had rather settled it that they would now stroll up to the place where they had left their h.o.a.rd and bring it down as soon as night had fallen. And it is quite possible that they might have found some excuse for doing this, when dinner was over, if their hostess had not undesignedly hindered them by telling them about the Sunchild. When the conversation recorded in the preceding chapter was over, it was too late for them to make any plausible excuse for leaving the house; we may be sure, therefore, that much more had been said than Yram and George were able to remember and report to my father.

After another stroll about Fairmead, during which he saw nothing but what on a larger scale he had already seen at Sunch'ston, he returned to his inn at about half-past eight, and ordered supper in a public room that corresponded with the coffee-room of an English hotel.

CHAPTER XIV: MY FATHER MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF MR BALMY, AND WALKS WITH HIM NEXT DAY TO SUNCH'STON

Up to this point, though he had seen enough to shew him the main drift of the great changes that had taken place in Erewhonian opinions, my father had not been able to glean much about the history of the transformation.

He could see that it had all grown out of the supposed miracle of his balloon ascent, and he could understand that the ignorant ma.s.ses had been so astounded by an event so contrary to all their experience, that their faith in experience was utterly routed and demoralised. It a man and a woman might rise from the earth and disappear into the sky, what else might not happen? If they had been wrong in thinking such a thing impossible, in how much else might they not be mistaken also? The ground was shaken under their very feet.

It was not as though the thing had been done in a corner. Hundreds of people had seen the ascent; and even if only a small number had been present, the disappearance of the balloon, of my mother, and of my father himself, would have confirmed their story. My father, then, could understand that a single incontrovertible miracle of the first magnitude should uproot the hedges of caution in the minds of the common people, but he could not understand how such men as Hanky and Panky, who evidently did not believe that there had been any miracle at all, had been led to throw themselves so energetically into a movement so subversive of all their traditions, when, as it seemed to him, if they had held out they might have p.r.i.c.ked the balloon bubble easily enough, and maintained everything _in statu quo_.

How, again, had they converted the King--if they had converted him? The Queen had had full knowledge of all the preparations for the ascent. The King had had everything explained to him. The workmen and workwomen who had made the balloon and the gas could testify that none but natural means had been made use of--means which, if again employed any number of times, would effect a like result. How could it be that when the means of resistance were so ample and so easy, the movement should nevertheless have been irresistible? For had it not been irresistible, was it to be believed that astute men like Hanky and Panky would have let themselves be drawn into it?

What then had been its inner history? My father had so fully determined to make his way back on the following evening, that he saw no chance of getting to know the facts--unless, indeed, he should be able to learn something from Hanky's sermon; he was therefore not sorry to find an elderly gentleman of grave but kindly aspect seated opposite to him when he sat down to supper.

The expression on this man's face was much like that of the early Christians as shewn in the S. Giovanni Laterano bas-reliefs at Rome, and again, though less aggressively self-confident, like that on the faces of those who have joined the Salvation Army. If he had been in England, my father would have set him down as a Swedenborgian; this being impossible, he could only note that the stranger bowed his head, evidently saying a short grace before he began to eat, as my father had always done when he was in Erewhon before. I will not say that my father had never omitted to say grace during the whole of the last twenty years, but he said it now, and unfortunately forgetting himself, he said it in the English language, not loud, but nevertheless audibly.

My father was alarmed at what he had done, but there was no need, for the stranger immediately said, "I hear, sir, that you have the gift of tongues. The Sunchild often mentioned it to us, as having been vouchsafed long since to certain of the people, to whom, for our learning, he saw fit to feign that he belonged. He thus foreshadowed prophetically its manifestation also among ourselves. All which, however, you must know as well as I do. Can you interpret?"

My father was much shocked, but he remembered having frequently spoken of the power of speaking in unknown tongues which was possessed by many of the early Christians, and he also remembered that in times of high religious enthusiasm this power had repeatedly been imparted, or supposed to be imparted, to devout believers in the middle ages. It grated upon him to deceive one who was so obviously sincere, but to avoid immediate discomfiture he fell in with what the stranger had said.

"Alas! sir," said he, "that rarer and more precious gift has been withheld from me; nor can I speak in an unknown tongue, unless as it is borne in upon me at the moment. I could not even repeat the words that have just fallen from me."

"That," replied the stranger, "is almost invariably the case. These illuminations of the spirit are beyond human control. You spoke in so low a tone that I cannot interpret what you have just said, but should you receive a second inspiration later, I shall doubtless be able to interpret it for you. I have been singularly gifted in this respect--more so, perhaps, than any other interpreter in Erewhon."

My father mentally vowed that no second inspiration should be vouchsafed to him, but presently remembering how anxious he was for information on the points touched upon at the beginning of this chapter, and seeing that fortune had sent him the kind of man who would be able to enlighten him, he changed his mind; nothing, he reflected, would be more likely to make the stranger talk freely with him, than the affording him an opportunity for showing off his skill as an interpreter.

Something, therefore, he would say, but what? No one could talk more freely when the train of his thoughts, or the conversation of others, gave him his cue, but when told to say an unattached "something," he could not even think of "How do you do this morning? it is a very fine day;" and the more he cudgelled his brains for "something," the more they gave no response. He could not even converse further with the stranger beyond plain "yes" and "no"; so he went on with his supper, and in thinking of what he was eating and drinking for the moment forgot to ransack his brain. No sooner had he left off ransacking it, than it suggested something--not, indeed, a very brilliant something, but still something. On having grasped it, he laid down his knife and fork, and with the air of one distraught he said--

"My name is Norval, on the Grampian Hills My father feeds his flock--a frugal swain."

"I heard you," exclaimed the stranger, "and I can interpret every word of what you have said, but it would not become me to do so, for you have conveyed to me a message more comforting than I can bring myself to repeat even to him who has conveyed it."

Having said this he bowed his head, and remained for some time wrapped in meditation. My father kept a respectful silence, but after a little time he ventured to say in a low tone, how glad he was to have been the medium through whom a comforting a.s.surance had been conveyed. Presently, on finding himself encouraged to renew the conversation, he threw out a deferential feeler as to the causes that might have induced Mr. Balmy to come to Fairmead. "Perhaps," he said, "you, like myself, have come to these parts in order to see the dedication of the new temple; I could not get a lodging in Sunch'ston, so I walked down here this morning."

This, it seemed, had been Mr. Balmy's own case, except that he had not yet been to Sunch'ston. Having heard that it was full to overflowing, he had determined to pa.s.s the night at Fairmead, and walk over in the morning--starting soon after seven, so as to arrive in good time for the dedication ceremony. When my father heard this, he proposed that they should walk together, to which Mr. Balmy gladly consented; it was therefore arranged that they should go to bed early, breakfast soon after six, and then walk to Sunch'ston. My father then went to his own room, where he again smoked a surrept.i.tious pipe up the chimney.

Next morning the two men breakfasted together, and set out as the clock was striking seven. The day was lovely beyond the power of words, and still fresh--for Fairmead was some 2500 feet above the sea, and the sun did not get above the mountains that overhung it on the east side, till after eight o'clock. Many persons were also starting for Sunch'ston, and there was a procession got up by the Musical Bank Managers of the town, who walked in it, robed in rich dresses of scarlet and white embroidered with much gold thread. There was a banner displaying an open chariot in which the Sunchild and his bride were seated, beaming with smiles, and in att.i.tudes suggesting that they were bowing to people who were below them.

The chariot was, of course, drawn by the four black and white horses of which the reader has already heard, and the balloon had been ignored.

Readers of my father's book will perhaps remember that my mother was not seen at all--she was smuggled into the car of the balloon along with sundry rugs, under which she lay concealed till the balloon had left the earth. All this went for nothing. It has been said that though G.o.d cannot alter the past, historians can; it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.

Painters, my father now realised, can do all that historians can, with even greater effect.

Women headed the procession--the younger ones dressed in white, with veils and chaplets of roses, blue cornflower, and pheasant's eye Narcissus, while the older women were more soberly attired. The Bank Managers and the banner headed the men, who were mostly peasants, but among them were a few who seemed to be of higher rank, and these, for the most part, though by no means all of them, wore their clothes reversed--as I have forgotten to say was done also by Mr. Balmy. Both men and women joined in singing a litany the words of which my father could not catch; the tune was one he had been used to play on his apology for a flute when he was in prison, being, in fact, none other than "Home, Sweet Home."

There was no harmony; they never got beyond the first four bars, but these they must have repeated, my father thought, at least a hundred times between Fairmead and Sunch'ston. "Well," said he to himself, "however little else I may have taught them, I at any rate gave them the diatonic scale."

He now set himself to exploit his fellow-traveller, for they soon got past the procession.

"The greatest miracle," said he, "in connection with this whole matter, has been--so at least it seems to me--not the ascent of the Sunchild with his bride, but the readiness with which the people generally acknowledged its miraculous character. I was one of those that witnessed the ascent, but I saw no signs that the crowd appreciated its significance. They were astounded, but they did not fall down and worship."

"Ah," said the other, "but you forget the long drought and the rain that the Sunchild immediately prevailed on the air-G.o.d to send us. He had announced himself as about to procure it for us; it was on this ground that the King a.s.sented to the preparation of those material means that were necessary before the horses of the sun could attach themselves to the chariot into which the balloon was immediately transformed. Those horses might not be defiled by contact with this gross earth. I too witnessed the ascent; at the moment, I grant you, I saw neither chariot nor horses, and almost all those present shared my own temporary blindness; the whole action from the moment when the balloon left the earth, moved so rapidly, that we were fl.u.s.tered, and hardly knew what it was that we were really seeing. It was not till two or three years later that I found the scene presenting itself to my soul's imaginary sight in the full splendour which was no doubt witnessed, but not apprehended, by my bodily vision."

"There," said my father, "you confirm an opinion that I have long held.--Nothing is so misleading as the testimony of eye-witnesses."

"A spiritual enlightenment from within," returned Mr. Balmy, "is more to be relied on than any merely physical affluence from external objects.

Now, when I shut my eyes, I see the balloon ascend a little way, but almost immediately the heavens open, the horses descend, the balloon is transformed, and the glorious pageant careers onward till it vanishes into the heaven of heavens. Hundreds with whom I have conversed a.s.sure me that their experience has been the same as mine. Has yours been different?"