CHAPTER 27.

 

            HAVING gained a release from the exacting bands of Sophia Bevan, Edmund Noel lost no time in carrying out his engagement. Leaving Linnwood early enough to catch the Bridgewater coach, he was enabled to reach Salisbury by railway on the evening of the same day. A good dinner and night’s rest in the comfortable rooms of the principal hotel, followed by as early a rising as daylight would permit to be available, and Noel was again on the road; but this time on foot, as he wished to be thoroughly independent of man or horse; and to this end he carried with him a supply of provender that would enable him, if needful, to pass the entire day on the -scene of his investigations. He took also a measuring tape and a compass; which he purchased on his way through the town, and his notebook.

 

            The sharp morning air, remains of a stormy night, blew

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freshly in his face as he strode over the springy turf, imparting to him a colour which harmonised well with his graceful and well-grown frame, and his careless happy life; a life containing just so much occupation as kept his mind in healthy exercise by giving him something to think of, something to work at, something to hope for, and nothing to regret.

 

            ‘Surely,’ thought he, as he breasted the keen blast, ‘I am about as happy at this moment as any one has a right to expect to be. Perfect health, and freedom to go where I like, and do as I like, and having at the same time an engrossment of my own selection on which to expend my energies. I cannot imagine anything better aiding one’s self-culture than this review-writing which I have lately taken up, when conscientiously done. It gives one a knowledge of men, a knowledge of things, and a knowledge of books, hardly attainable in any other way. There may be something in what the editor said when he told me that it might be a pity for myself, if not for him, that I am not obliged to write for a living. He does not approve of my wishing to choose my subjects. Yet I cannot bring myself to spend my time on uncongenial work. What I have got now suits me exactly, for it enables me to air my own fancies on a grand subject, and at the same time compels rigid examination. Surely the loveliest of all freedoms is this of the mind. Here can I investigate, and reject or adopt any theory, without reference to anything but the facts, and without feeling in the least degree called on to square it by any authoritative rule whatever. It certainly is a great thing to be independent of party, and careful only for truth. Shall forfeit that independence when I get into public life? I hope not. Yet it is said that individuals can do nothing unbacked by party. Well, at present I imagine others will have to give in to me, if we are to work together. Who is it that speaks of “uncompromising youth”? I see his meaning now.’

 

            And so, communing with himself in highest spirits, Noel at length reaches the Druid’s Circle, where, after placing the editor’s letter and notes upon one of the prostrate masses, and weighting them with stones to keep them from flying away, he takes out his compass and places himself in position to commence his measurements.

 

            The question whether Stonehenge was founded on an astronomical idea, either having reference to the sun, or forming but one of the orbs of a vast planetary system of similar remains,

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or whether it was referable to a worship possibly still older and ruder than that of the heavenly bodies, and thus belonged to a period when men had not yet begun to look for their gods in the skies above them, but were content to adore such powers of nature as they perceived to be ever operating in their midst for life or for death; whether, again, it yielded internal evidence of being so closely allied to other and similar structures in distant lands as to compel a belief in the original unity, or at least the remote intercourse, of mankind: – these were some of the points on which Noel hoped to obtain a light by means of his present investigations.

 

            The subject was a large one, but the details upon which its elaboration depended were minute, and Noel was beginning to despair of making satisfactory observations without the aid of more complex and accurate appliances, when he was startled by a voice dose behind him saying, in a faint and subdued tone, –

 

            ‘I think I can cave you all the trouble you are taking.’

 

            Turning round to the speaker, whose unexpected presence was thus declared, Noel failed to recognise in the haggard travel-stained man before him the stranger whom he and Sophia Bevan had encountered in the lane near Porlock Cottage but two days before, until Maynard spoke again, this time with a slight smile, –

 

            ‘I do not wonder at your not recognising me. Two days and nights in the open air and on the dusty road are apt to disguise one even in this cool England.’

 

            ‘Mr. Maynard!’ exclaimed Noel. ‘Surely you have not walked all the way here from Devonshire?’

 

            ‘Not quite all the way, but enough of it to have escaped bed and almost board too. In fact, I have been living so much in the open air of late in Mexico, doing most of my travelling by night on horseback, that I fear I miscalculated the amount of fuel necessary to keep the engine going while performing the extra labour of walking.’

 

            The significance of his tone and manner suddenly flashed upon Noel. He recalled what he knew of Maynard’s; history, and the circumstances under which they had so lately met and parted. It was clear to him now that, in an access of passion and despair, the poor fellow had travelled day and night since leaving the deserted retreat of his beloved, forgetting even to eat, and had by a wonderful coincidence directed his steps to the same spot that he himself was visiting, and had there passed

(p. 149)

the wild night without food, or shelter save the lea of one of those stones! And now he had returned to his right mind, and was attempting to conceal the shame he felt at the irrational part he had acted.

 

            In an instant Noel had determined upon his course. He would improve his acquaintance with the man of whom he had heard so much, and in whose career he felt more interest than he had allowed Miss Bevan to suppose. So he said, cheerfully, and encouragingly, –

 

            ‘How I should have enjoyed being with you! I came early, intending to pass the greater part of the day here, and make some notes for a paper that I am writing; but I find that I cannot get on as I wished, and was thinking of giving it up and returning. The only question was whether to- carry my intended lunch back with me, or to leave it here for the ghosts of the Druids. By-the-by, you must be ready for some breakfast. Will you do me the favour to eat my now superfluous lunch? I can give you some sherry to wash it down with.’

 

            Maynard fixed a keen glance on his face for a moment, as if to read the spirit in which the welcome offer was made, and then, without further hesitation, accepted it, saying, –

 

            ‘Thanks; and, in return, I will give you the results of my previous visits here. For Stonehenge is an old friend of mine, and has cost me a good many hours of pretty severe work. In fact, I once ––’

 

            ‘Breakfast is ready,’ interrupted Noel, who had now spread his viands on the stone beside which they were standing. ‘When you have demolished these, I shall be glad to receive some instruction.’

 

            So Maynard fell to, and soon the food and the wine began to tell upon his exhausted system. His spirits rose, and he could hardly remain silent until he had finished.

 

            ‘It is very wonderful,’ he said, ‘and somewhat humiliating, to feel the difference made in that noble creature Man by the simple transfer of a few ounces of food from the outside to the inside of his economy.’

 

            ‘Which of the philosophers is it,’ asked Noel, ‘who says that man exists only to move things, and that all the power in the universe can do nothing more than effect a change of position among its particles, so that the only difference between a state of utter chaos and the highest civilisation possible is but a difference of arrangement?’

 

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            ‘He must have been a near relative,’ said Maynard, laughing, ‘of the farmer who estimated the value of a picture by the cost of the colours and the labour of the man for laying them on. What is that you would learn about Stonehenge? Do you know that this stone which, by serving me for a table, has taken its share in the office of renewing my life, is, doubtlessly, the very altar on which multitudes of human lives have been sacrificed? It has waited a long time to make such small amends.’

 

            ‘I cannot do better,’ returned Noel, than tell you the whole story. I wrote a paper for the W–– on ancient worships as indicated by their remains, and the editor, after accepting it, has returned it to me with this letter, which, if you will take the trouble to read it, will show you what I want here. Unfortunately, I have not brought the means of accurate observation, and he has omitted to send me the book of which he makes such warm mention.’

 

            ‘My own book!’ cried James, glancing over the letter as Noel spoke; ‘and I had almost forgotten all about it. This is indeed a pleasant surprise, and the place most appropriate for its occurrence. – And I had begun to wonder what it was that drove me to Stonehenge.’

 

            And overcome by his emotion, he sank back upon the stone, and, pressing his hand upon his forehead, murmured, –

 

            ‘Margaret, Margaret, who knows but that perhaps even these stones may become your bread!’

 

            ‘This is charming,’ exclaimed Noel, with the generous enthusiasm which on occasions gave an irresistible winningness to his manner. ‘And you shall teach me how to review your own book. Its name shall stand at the head of the article as any text; and I don’t care if I have to re-write the whole paper; though I must lose no time in beginning, if I am to do so.’

 

            ‘Look here,’ said Maynard, rising from his seat, and mounting on the prostrate altar beside the remnants of his meal, where he was joined by Noel; ‘give me your compass, and I will soon show you what Stonehenge means. There is the south, and no arrangement is discoverable here that has any reference to the meridian. But glance along the side of yonder stone, which, though somewhat out of the perpendicular, yet preserves its original relation to the north-eastern horizon, and you will perceive that you are looking along the avenue exactly to the point of sunrise at the summer solstice. A similar arrangement

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is observable in other remains of the kind. And there is reasonable ground for inferring from the position of the astronomical stone in respect to the altar, upon which we are standing, that it was during the period of the sun’s greatest altitude, the summer solstice, that the moment of its rising and appearing through the opening in yonder trilithon which faces the centre of the avenue, was chosen for the offering of what were, too probably, in later ages at least, often human sacrifices. Symbolism was not always idolatry, or worship always sanguinary; though too apt to become so when the priest has superseded the prophet, and conscience is dulled by ritual. My first object in taking up the subject of Stonehenge and its kindred remains was, to ascertain whether ancient science knew aught of the compass and its variations. I thought it would be such a grand thing to prove that the ancients were acquainted, not merely with the compass, but also with its local variations; because a knowledge of the latter involved a vast amount of careful comparison in various and widely separated places, such as could only be made by a people given to missionary enterprise, for purposes either of religion, conquest, or trade.’

 

            ‘They may have known and used the compass,’ said Noel; ‘but I can hardly credit their science with such accuracy as to believe that they knew of its variations.’

 

            ‘Anyhow they had it and followed it,’ returned Maynard; ‘but whether blindly or not, I am by no means positive. The cursus, which lies yonder and forms a secondary part of the scheme, is divided exactly in the middle by the meridian line that runs through Stonehenge, yet it does not accord with the true east and west. It is the same with the other remains in the neighbourhood. And you will remember that the magnet, or loadstone, was called “the stone of Hercules,” and that Hercules was the sun-god of the Phœnicians, his twelve labours allegorising the twelve signs of the zodiac, and that the Phœnicians were almost certainly the first visitors from the Mediterranean to these islands, and that the Druids were their descendants. It was in following up the subject in this way that my interest in the compass became merged in the interest excited by the religious part a the question, and, once upon the track, I did not quit it until I came to the conclusions which I have indicated in my book.’

 

            ‘Can you give me am outline, in brief?’

 

            ‘Certainly; but the details of illustration in proof are

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innumerable. It is impossible to, interpret Stonehenge by Stonehenge alone. You know the form of the remains and the position they occupy with respect to the encircling vallun. Well, going into any old Hindoo city at this day, you find small temples or shrines of precisely the same form, with the addition of a recumbent bull placed in the approach. The bull, as you know, was venerated throughout Egypt and the East as the symbol of fecundity, and gave his name accordingly to one of the constellations. But we must go far back beyond the earliest days of Egyptian history or legend, to account for Stonehenge. I don’t say that it was actually built so long ago, but we must go thither to find the origin of the sect that built it, or of the idea that prompted it. And in thus going back we are rewarded by finding indisputable proofs of the genuineness of the earliest historical records in existence.’

 

            ‘What, Stonehenge in the Bible?’

 

            ‘Yes; to comprehend Stonehenge, we must go to the Hebrew Genesis and the Sanscrit Epics. Collating these, we discover that long, long ago, far up in North-western India, between the sources of the Indus and the Oxus, there dwelt a race, fair-skinned and light-haired, whose blood and ideas have ever since dominated or influenced mankind.’

 

            ‘In the Old World,’ interposed Noel.

 

            ‘Ay, and in the New also; but wait and hear. It is the romance of the world, founded on fact. Their descendants, as they migrated farther and farther from home, carrying with them legends of happy days and of a land of ease and plenty which their ancestors had enjoyed, described for us the Eden, or “circle of delights,” and the golden age of the world, which we to this day refer to the Hindoo Koosh, “the land of Cúsh.” This was the famous Aryan rue, of whose unhappy internal dissensions we probably have an allegorical account in the fatal strife of the first brothers. Though generally nomadic in their habits, they were of a refined and thoughtful disposition, having a conception of deity and of worship due. Their differences seem to have turned upon subjects partly social and partly religious. For we find the agricultural portion of them quarrelling with the pastoral about the estimation in which their respective occupations were held by the Almighty, – the first indication, by the way, of a sentiment of “respectability,” “orthodoxy,” or “caste.”

 

            ‘Well the agriculturists, under the name of Cain, after a

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bloody and fratricidal contest, migrated south, and then eastwards, achieving the conquest of the aboriginal black tribes which inhabited India, according to the Hindoo poems, and building cities to dwell in, according to Genesis. It is not with this division that we are concerned at present, though the land which they occupied contains everywhere to this day remains which are not merely similar to Stonehenge, but which are identical with it. Our business is with those who, probably, long after the expulsion or migration of the Cainites, spread from their original home westwards through Persia until they reached the shores of the Mediterranean, subduing, absorbing, or mingling with the aboriginal populations in their progress. Here was the seat of the most adventurous part of them. They had already founded empires in Persia and on the shores of the Red Sea; and now, as Phœnicians, they sent out expeditions by sea to fight, to trade, to occupy, or to proselytise, over the greater portion of the world. The Pelasgic colonisers of Greece were no other than these. Their religion was originally Brahminical, for they acknowledged the One God while recognising Mm under many representations, and their great priesthood, which thus derives its origin from the very threshold of Paradise, and to one of the orders of which Melchisedek must have belonged, has never been surpassed in the adventurous character of its missionaries, or in its readiness to adapt itself to the people and countries with whom it came into contact. Their rites were many; but the animating principle of them all was one. However they multiplied forms, the various religions which they founded were all based on the unity of human instincts and the - worship of Creative force, which they symbolised variously by such things as the Sun, the Serpent, the Bull, the Ram, the Pillar, the Tree, the Ark, and the Ring or Egg-shaped Oval. Of these, the Sun seems to have been regarded in a great measure as Deity itself; while the others were venerated as symbols of the masculine and feminine forces of nature, by and through which Deity operated. Of course, as Religion became precipitated, as chemists would say, into religious, and unscrupulous men banded themselves into priesthoods for their own selfish purposes, religious rites, from being means of grace, became only means of superstition and depravity. The Jews, urged, somewhat like the Americans of our day, by that force of character which is both a prophecy and its fulfilment, had early in their career a high idea of national destiny. The aspirations

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engendered and nurtured in the struggle for national existence, gradually became transmuted into a kind of higher law, under the domination of which they considered themselves authorised to disregard all the obligations of ordinary humanity in their dealings with their neighbours. Hence their poets and preachers sought to restrain them from following those practices of their neighbours which they perceived to be fatal to any lofty standard of character and attainment. The most debasing of these rites appear to have been those which were performed in honour of the feminine element in nature, which was worshipped under the name of Ashtoreth. It was to her that the “groves” of the Old Testament were erected, and in her honour they sacrificed their children in burnt offerings, and practised the most degrading obscenities. Against this worship, therefore, the loftier minds of the nation directed all their force. They could not but admit that, according to their own sacred writings, the Deity was endowed with a duality of functions, and that, so far, the worship in question had a justifying plea; but such duality, they taught, was to be regarded only as a temporary assumption for a special occasion and purpose, and, this accomplished in the work of creation, thenceforth Jehovah, the primal “He-She,” must be worshipped only in his masculine aspect.

 

            ‘In this view they seem to have followed their ancestors Abraham and Jacob, who, by their erection of pillars, accompanied by certain rites, on various occasions, indicated their views on this point; though the latter, to my mind, is made to express himself ambiguously. The priest, however, was, as usual, too strong for the prophet. Intuitions succumbed to conventions. And there seems to have been a special fascination in the forbidden worship, for the Israelitish population were perpetually relapsing into it in spite of all denunciations, until cured of the failing by the stern discipline of the captivity, and their contact with the more spiritually-minded Chaldæns. The Jews, it has well been said, went into captivity a nation of idolaters, and came out of it a band of Puritans. The worship to which I have been referring associated, as you will have perceived, astronomical and terrestrial phenomena, in their creative, sustaining, and destructive forces. It was doubtless a pure expression of simple reverence, until degraded by designing men who pretended to special powers and information.

 

            Of the most interesting studies a man could take up now would be to trace the contributions respectively made by,

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the fair Aryan and dark Turanian races towards the idea of Deity, and divine worship, as thus exhibited. In Stonehenge we have both. The whole of the worships I have been referring to are indicated in its formation. So deeply rooted in human instinct were these ancient conceptions, that the early Christians, on crystallising their community into a formal Church, found it expedient to avail themselves of the prevailing rituals; and so it came that even the Cross itself was accepted by multitudes on account of its accordance with existing preferences; and our churches are to a certain extent modelled after the shrines of the Hindoos, and those rough temples of the Druids. Draw the two greatest diameters of the vallum, place a tower, with or without a steeple, upon the point of their intersection, that is, in the spot occupied by the pillar in India and the circle of stones here, and point the head to sunrise, and you have a Christian Stonehenge. There is a good deal more, however, to be said about the Cross in this relation, which I will not inflict upon you now. If you will come some day to my rooms at Oxford, I can show you what will leave no doubt on the subject.’

 

            ‘It is a wonderful generalisation,’ observed Noel, ‘and one that seems to shed a flood of light upon the darkest things in man’s history, the origin and signification of his religions.’

 

            ‘Yes, it is more than a mere curious problem to be solved by research, and then given up for some other. Not merely has its study enabled me to attain firm ground of certainty respecting the process of the development of religious belief, while most others are diving into their own inner consciousness for a light that is only to be obtained by a study of the facts of the external world; but, for myself, I can say truly, that I have derived the profoundest satisfaction of my life from thus tracing the gradual growth and ascent of the religious instinct of humanity from the rude animalism of its first conception by the earlier or lower races of men, and its gradual refinement into a lofty spiritualism with the higher, as through the medium of art, morals, or science, through the affections or the imagination, men have learnt to form noble conceptions of the Infinite, and to respect the consistency of the divine Whole.’

 

            ‘And you include the New World in the category?’ asked Noel.

 

            ‘Yes, certainly; though whether the aboriginal races of America were conquered or converted by expeditions crossing the Atlantic from Europe; or by north-easterly migrations across

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Asia to North America, is difficult to determine. Their own traditions favour the latter. But there are evidences that the Atlantic was not always so wide as at present. The vegetation of the Azores and Cape de Verds makes it appear likely that those islands are the summits of a submerged continent, which once occupied at least a great portion of the intervening space. The legend of Atlantis may be a tradition of fact. It was probably such a depression of the region lying south of the Caucasus, including the Black and Caspian seas, that is referred to in the account of the Noachian deluge. The story of the Ark itself accords with the whole theory I have been propounding. For, when water was regarded as the feminine element of things, what could be more natural than to represent the matrix whence all life proceeded, as mi ark floating on the face of the deep? But, however the migration was accomplished, the identity, in all leading characteristics, of Peruvian and Mexican with Egyptian and Asiatic remains, is beyond a doubt. In short, all the religions possible to man are based necessarily upon a combination which it is difficult for the mind to avoid regarding as the chosen process whereby Deity seeks to express itself distinctly to man; or, which is probably the same thing, as the effort of man’s intelligence to refer itself to the Whole of which it is a part.’

 

            ‘So that even uniformity in worship and ideas does not involve unity of race, under such a scheme,’ said Noel.

 

            ‘No; I hold the world to have been inhabited long before the migrations of the Aryans. They were but as the Romano to Europe, or as the British in our day, spreading everywhere and carrying their religion and language with them.’

 

            ‘It would be a grand task,’ remarked Noel, ‘to separate the remains of the aboriginal tongues from that of their conquerors, and track step by step the progress of the great original migrations ‘

 

            ‘Yes, indeed. Philology is one of the chief sciences of the future whereby we shall learn the history of the past. Language, mythology, religion, and race, are the main indexes, as they constitute the main elements of man’s history. The only thing is to be patient and refuse no evidence, hasten to no conclusion. It is the old folly to assume anything on partial grounds. Thus, men might be of distinct origins and yet utter similar sounds all the world over, owing to their physical resemblance. They might have similarity of religion, without copying

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from one another, owing to their moral conformity, and the identity of phenomena from which their ideal are derived. Or, on the other hand, they might have sprung originally from the same stock, and yet have changed to what they are. The conditions under which they have existed can have varied only as soils and climates vary. The senses of hunger, love, fear, wonder, and the rest, existing alike in kind in all, could not fail to produce manifestations similar to each other. Men everywhere see the same agents employed in the preservation of the species, the same moving forces in the universe. They behold in the sun the same ruler of the year, and lord of the day, the banisher of cold and darkness, and bringer of light, and life, and joy, and all good things. And adoring the same object in the same spirit, what is more probable than that such similar beings should adopt modes of expression more or less resembling each other? Yet, though seeing all this, I have come to an opposite conclusion in respect of Stonehenge and the co-religions of the world. I mention this to show you how necessary it is to anything like an accurate result to take account of evidence from every source, and not to rest one’s faith on any one line of argument, or any one branch of knowledge. The correlation of historical evidences is as important a department of man’s education as the correlation of the sciences. And if you would really help on the sum of our knowledge, you must keep your judgment in arrest, at least until you have consulted all possible sources. It seems to me that the only way in which you can review my book, is by showing the nature of my conclusions and the evidence upon which they rest, and then comparing them with those of others.’

 

            ‘Thanks,’ said Noel, warmly. ‘You help me to correct my natural tendency towards the picturesque and sentimental side of things. But, do you know, that I rather admire the simplicity of the old rituals, which, without any admixture of metaphysics, make nature the index of the Divine, and see, even in its most familiar operations, something to respect and cherish.’

 

            ‘The meaning of life,’ said Maynard, with serious emphasis, ‘is only to be attained through the observation of the phenomena of life. To the very study that you are entering upon I owe it that I am now a sane man instead of an ascetic monk. The mysteries have for me dispelled mystery, and that which was once a dark and hideous nightmare, is now my basis of hope and happiness. Whatever of evil mingled with the ancient

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worships, they at least recognised the divinity of the affections. They have led me to regard that as no true religion, or fitted for man, which ignores the attractions and antagonisms of sex; or which treats the division of humanity into men and women as an accident more or less to be deplored. By Stonehenge the ancients showed that they recognised the dual nature of creative power; and by its companion and neighbour the Abury circles, the nutritive and sustaining power. The Welsh and Hebrew names are one, and Phœnician in origin. Consult your Hebrew lexicon for a comparison between Caer Saidi and its equivalent El Shaddai. The people who invented this rude nomenclature doubtless enjoyed their simple reverence, though unconscious how closely they were following the very first chapters of Genesis.’

 

            ‘Have you any theory as to the age of Stonehenge

 

            ‘Nome it is only the presence of the idea that is to me of consequence. If these be really the “stones of Hengist” the Saxon, as the name seems to indicate, and erected by him in token of the final rout of the Britons, it belongs to the fifth century. The hypothesis certainly receives a negative support from the silence of Roman writers, but I see nothing else in its favour: and the name is just as likely to be taken from the stones hanging, or being supported aloft. All that I really care to show is, that even if the Druids made tree-worship their speciality, and the builders of Stonehenge pillar-worship, their divergency was but that of two sects or schools within the same Church; the Church which existed numberless ages before the Gospel, and of which the fundamental doctrine was that of Humanity in Deity, and the comprehensive symbol “the Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden.” ’

 

 

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