Phyllis of Philistia Part 8

"I shouldn't like to have to define my feelings at a moment's notice."

"One must make a beginning, and then work up gradually to the definition."

"For instance----"

"Well, for instance, there's something that people call realism nowadays."

"My father has his ideas on what's called realism," Phyllis laughed.

"'Realism in painting is the ideal with a smudge.'"

"I should like to hear what you think of it?"

He also laughed sympathetically.

"Oh, I only venture to think that realism is the opposite to reality."

"And, so far as I can gather, your definition is not wanting in breadth--no, nor in accuracy. Sentimentality is the opposite to sentiment."

"That is a point on which we agreed a moment ago. My father says that sentiment is a strong man's concealment of what he feels, while sentimentality is a weak man's expression of what he doesn't feel."

"And the Parthenon audience--you and I--laugh at the latter--that is, because we have practiced some form of athletics. The bicycle has given its _coup de grace_ to sentimentality. That man over there with the head and face like a lion's, and that woman whose face is nature illuminated, have long ago recognized the shallowness of sentimentality--the depths of sentiment. We could not imagine either of them striking a false note.

They have been the teachers of this generation--the generation to which you belong. Great Heavens! to think that for so many years human pa.s.sion should be banished from art, though every line of Shakspere is tremulous with pa.s.sion! Why, the word was absolutely banished; it was regarded as impure."

"I know that--I was at a boarding school. The preceptresses regarded as impure everything that is human."

"Whereas, just the opposite is the case?"

"I didn't say that, Mr. Courtland."

"You could scarcely say it. I am only beginning to think it, and I have lived among savages for years. That man with the lion's face has not feared to deal with pa.s.sion. All actors who have lived since Garrick have never gone further than to ill.u.s.trate pa.s.sion in the hands of a man; but that lion-man, whose stage we are now standing on, shows us not the pa.s.sion in the hands of a man, but the man in the hands of the pa.s.sion. The man who tears the pa.s.sion to tatters is the robustious periwig-pated fellow; the actor, who shows us the man torn in tatters by the pa.s.sion, is the supreme artist. I am no authority on modern literature; but I must confess that I was astonished at the change that a few years have brought about. I was in a proper position for noticing it, having been practically without books for two years."

"Is it a change for the better, do you think, Mr. Courtland?"

"I feel certain that it is for the better. I refer, of course, only to the books of those real investigators--real artists. I refer to the fountain-heads, not to the hydrants laid down by the water companies at the end of about ten miles of foul piping. I don't like the product of the hydrants. I like the springs, and, however natural they may be, I don't find anything impure in them. Why I love the Bible is because it is so very modern."

"You don't think, then, that it is yet obsolete, Mr. Courtland?"

"No book that deals so truly with men and women can ever be obsolete, the fact being that men and women are the same to-day as they were ten thousand years ago, perhaps ten million years ago, though I'm not quite so sure of that. The Bible, and Shakspere, and Rofudingding, a New Guinea poet, who ate men for his dinner when he had a chance, and, when he had finished, sang lyrics that stir the hearts of all his fellow-islanders to this day,--he lived a hundred years ago,--dealt with men and women; that is why all are as impressive to-day as they were when originally composed. Men and women like reading about men and women, and it is becoming understood, nowadays, that the truth about men and women can never be contemptible."

"Ah, but how do we know that it is the truth?"

"Therein the metaphysician must minister to himself. I cannot suggest to you any test of the truth, if you have none with you. Everyone capable of p.r.o.nouncing a judgment on any matter must feel how truthfully the personages in the Bible have been drawn."

"Yes; the Bible is the Word of G.o.d."

"I believe that it is, most certainly. That profound wisdom; that toleration of the weaknesses of men; that sympathy with men, who cannot fathom the mysteries of life, and the struggle for life of all things that love life; that spirit I call G.o.d, and I don't think that a better name has been found for it."

"It--for _it_? You think of G.o.d as merely a force of nature?"

"Just the contrary. G.o.d is the spirit that lives in warfare with nature.

Great Heavens! isn't that the truth of which the whole Bible is the allegory? Nature and nature's laws const.i.tute the Devil. G.o.d is the opposing Force. It is a law of nature to kill off the weak, to crush that which has fallen in the struggle. It is G.o.d who helps the weak--who helps the feeble."

"But merely a force?"

"Oh, I have no private opinion on that part of the question. I am not like that modern philosopher who fancied he had solved the whole problem by spelling G.o.d with a small g. But don't you think that we have gone quite far enough in our exchange of confidence for a first meeting?

You are what the Italians call _simpatica_--that is, more than merely sympathetic. You look at one, and lead one on to confide in you as one does not confide in most girls. You are a thoroughly dangerous young woman, Miss Ayrton, though you are Mrs. Linton's dearest friend. By the way, can you make her confide in you?"

There seemed to be a measure of curiosity, not to say anxiety, in the tone of this inquiry.

"Well, she makes me confide in her. I wonder if that is just the same thing," said Phyllis.

"It's not exactly the same thing," said he. "But it's the proper course for dearest friends to adopt toward each other. For the maintenance of a firm friendship between any two persons, only one should confide; the other should be strictly the confidante. By the way, I wonder what is the average duration of the dearest friendship between two women."

"Why should it have any limits?" said Phyllis gravely. "What is the duration of the friendship between two men?"

"It mostly depends on when the woman makes her appearance," said he, with a laugh.

"Ah! So that----Ah, never mind. Ella was my dearest friend before Mr.

Linton put in an appearance."

"And he was mine before she put in an appearance," said he.

"I didn't know that," said Phyllis.

"There, you see, is my contention borne out," said he. "You are the one who confides; she is the one who receives the confidences, and respects them, I'm sure. I hope that you will do the same, Miss Ayrton. Don't let anyone know that I confided in you all that I think on the subject of the old Adam and the new Eve."

"No one except Ella Linton, and you know that I can keep nothing from her if we are to remain dearest friends. Perhaps she knows already the limits of your belief, Mr. Courtland."

"She does--she does."

At that moment Ella Linton came up with Lord Earlscourt.

"Has Mr. Courtland been telling you all about the bird of paradise?" she asked of Phyllis, while she waved the tail feathers of the loveliest of the birds of paradise before her face.

"The bird?--not the _bird_," laughed Phyllis.

"But the topic was paradise?" Ella joined in the laugh--yes, to some extent.

"I talked of Adam--the old one of that name," said Mr. Courtland.

"And Eve--the new one of that name," said Phyllis.

"Theology is in the air!" cried Ella. "Even the stage of a theater is not free from the taint. It must be the case of Mr. Holland. Where is Mr. Holland, by the way, Lord Earlscourt?"

"I haven't seen him for some time. He must have gone away. I'm not Mr.

Holland's keeper, thank Heaven!" said Lord Earlscourt, with heartfelt devoutness.

"Now you know that everyone holds you accountable for what he has done!"