WHICH IS CHIEFLY CONJUGAL

Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Indice da Obra Atual Anterior: XXV - Say not good night, but in some brighter clime Seguinte: XXVII - Which is Chiefly Conjugal

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CAPÍTULO XXVI

WHICH IS CHIEFLY VEGETARIAN

“HIS was such a noble heart!” said Miss Di, – “had he lived, what great things he might have done!”

“And yet may do, Hertzens Königinn,” replied Fräulein Stern. “Are there no worlds save this one insignificant orb which we name the Earth? Many men receive their education here, but not all of them do their work here also. For we are citizens not only of this world, but of that infinite, eternal, measureless Universe wherein the greatest things are small, and the smallest great. Be sure that nothing is wasted in the Divine Economy.”

They were together in the white panelled boudoir, where not long before, – under the influence of their ascendant star, – Tristan and Adelheid had given themselves to each other. Diana, attired in the deepest mourning, leaned upon the broad marble of the mantelpiece, pressing her hand to her heated eyes and forehead, which were flushed with long weeping, and at her feet sat the beautiful German, upon a low tabouret-stool, somewhat altered since last we saw her, but the change is only from “glory to glory,” for her first womanly sorrow has lifted her a step higher up the angelic ladder; her heart has become the repository of new faiths and aspirations.

Imagine the wonderful contrasts which her perfect form presented as she sat here in the morning sunlight, the dense black dress sweeping round her, unrelieved by ribbon or ornament, the fair colourless face, and crispy yellow braids; the eyes of moving light, like purest crystal cups, filled to the brim with wine of imperial violet. She is no longer spiritual – she is etherial in her heavenly loveliness.

Diana moved her hand and answered with melancholy subduing of her

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usual emphatic manner, “Yet now and then, some one sometimes seems to fail, – or to bring his years to nothing, – seems to be interrupted and cut short by Death!”

“It is only seeming,” answered the younger woman. “Whether men appear to fail or to succeed, whether they remain here or pass away, the Divine Will builds surely up from their broken works and days the boundless purposes of Eternity. Elsewhere our Vivian’s work is to be done – elsewhere the noble spirit will find completion! God will use us all to the uttermost.”

“But so many people have ceased to believe in Immortality, – at least in the popular sense of the word, – spiritual immortality for each human being.”

“Then, meine Königinn, if the popular idea be altogether a myth, what sort of meaning can we attach to the word Justice with its three component elements of Compensation, Retribution and Reward? We know what conditions of circumstance and place surround us here, – we see the good man afflicted and the wicked man flourish, we see the poor ground to the dust and the rich exalted to heaven, we see women oppressed and receiving no help, while their oppressors remain unpunished. Innocent creatures suffer every hour for the greed and follies of others, – (this is Tristan’s favourite theme;–) the world is full of misery, disappointment, and fraudulent dealing, 'the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together.’ And – yet in the midst of such a state of things we have conceived a thing we call Justice, we have established an Ideal of Righteousness. If we can conceive it, it must therefore exist, for we are spirit – brought into bondage indeed, but yet true spirit, the image and likeness of God, – the breath of His being. Surely our idea of justice cannot be supposed to be met and realized by the petty rewardings and chastisements of human laws, so often inadequate, so often misapplied, so often manifestly abused! And, if these are to content us, what becomes of the million virtuous lives lived out with

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patience and courage against the tide of foul persecution, slander, and contempt? Or of the negroes who toiled and suffered before the passing of the Slave Emancipation Bill? Or of the entire race of the brute creation, driven to the death, slaughtered day by day, hunted snared, mangled, in the interests of human appetite, pleasure, convenience and science? To satisfy and fulfil that law of justice which the mind demands as a necessity, the perceptions of Deity are required. To render perfect justice there must be One who sees all things in their whole length, breadth, and height, One who hears all things unerringly, One who knows and appreciates all motives, One who sympathizes with all hearts. And there is no such justice possible here. If then the immortality of spirit be a myth, justice is a mere empty sound without pith or core, and birth, life and death are three hideous evils – saturnine hoaxes, invented to excite the laughter of infernal gods.”

As she ceased, the door behind her opened, and Tristan entered the room. Without a word he came forward, kissed Diana’s hand, and dropped himself – Hamlet-fashion – at the feet of his Ophelia, where he remained in one of his usual easy altitudes, resting his elbow on her knee, and gravely caressing his smooth chin with his hand.

“Tristan,” said Miss Di, "where do you come from?”

“I have been in Vivian’s room,” he answered, quietly. “They let me go there now.”

She understood, and sighed.

It was Adelheid who spoke next.

“Tristan, I told you what was his last charge to me. This morning I have obeyed it. Meine Königinn knows all I had to tell.”

Tristan threw his meteoric gaze on Diana’s face.

“Yes,” she said, answering the look,” I know. But Lady Cairnsmuir’s wishes must also be respected. Since she desires the secret to be kept, we will keep it. As to Adelheid’s part of the story, it was not

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altogether new to me, as you, Tristan, must have heard. What she could tell me, as a child, she told me years ago. Then I thought it best to treat the matter lightly and to pretend to her that I believed her tale a mere delusion, for I saw no means of tracing a kinswoman whose very name she had forgotton and whose dwelling-place she did not know. And I still think I acted wisely.”

How sad it is to note the poor Amazon’s hushed voice and downcast, sobered face, – the voice that was wont to be so vivacious, the face that was always so full of nervous play and changeful energy! Poor genial Miss Di is a great pet of mine, and I pity her from my heart of hearts!

Under the transparent skin of Tristan’s cheeks and brow the red colour comes and fades. Then he answers in a dreamy irrelevant way,

“The old Greeks were right, I suspect, in their idea of Fate. Fate – the inexorable, the almighty, the incorruptible – whom no man can wheedle nor thwart, nor elude; Fate, the absolute mistress of gods and men, Fate who holds in her hands the things which Must Be, with whom all events, former, present and to come, are already wrought, and therefore past and unchangeable. Fools that we are to think we make our own careers or shape the courses of others, when we do but fulfil our Destiny! We cannot alter the unalterable, we only do what we must. Folks cry ‘How strangely things come round! – who brought about these queer coincidences? But Fate smiles at the cry – for all these things have been done from the foundation of the world!”

“Ah,” says Adelheid, in a raptured whisper, “how I should like to be where Vivian is, and understand all this more clearly! He sees – perhaps.”

“Perhaps;” echoed Tristan, “but Redemption is no sudden work. It comes slowly, – slowly, through long study and toil, and by much exercise of soul. He said so himself.”

“You believe in Redemption – in Immortality, Tristan?” cries Miss Di with a sudden flash of her old way, and a gleam of eager light in her tear-laden eyes.

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“Believe in them! A thousand times yes! – else why does spirit exist? where is the deliverance from the flesh? I look for the redemption of all spirit. ‘Thou God shalt save both man and beast.”

“Surely,” observed Adelheid, “who can doubt it? ‘The creature also is made subject to Vanity, not by will, but in hope. For the creature itself shall be delivered from the burden of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.’ And this too was the conviction of one who was counted the wisest of Hebrew men and the greatest of eastern princes: ‘Thou lovest all things that are, for they are thine, O Lord, Thou lover of souls, and Thine incorruptible Spirit is in all things!’ ”

“Ah,” said Diana, ”these are good words to hear. I wish the doctrine were more generally and more openly preached. Then, perhaps, people would learn to reverence their cattle and creatures of burden. And you have some good authorities too. Besides Paul, whose words Adelheid cites as an evidence on your side from the pen of at least one man of thought, – besides Solomon, you have Irenæus with you and most of the Greek Fathers. Spirit ought everywhere to be held venerable. Your theory, Tristan, explains half the riddle of the world.”

“Compensation and Development,” said Adelheid, “these are the two ends of the tangled thread. And lmmortality gives scope for the unraveling of the whole skein.”

“True,” quoth her lover, “that appears so to me also. The course of the soul’s changes – the progress of Spirit, is exactly analogous to the progress of material forms; as Darwin expounds it in his Theory of Development. We get finer as we get higher. Here our spirits are clogged with coarse flesh and fibre, we are yet in the finny condition. By-and-by we shall get rid of the fins and scales, and then of the wings and feathers, and then of subsequent higher states in world after world without end.”

“You are renewing the old Asian doctrine of Transmigration, Tristan,” said Diana.

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“A venerable doctrine, too,” answered he. “But the metempsychosis which Pythagoras taught, and which still forms a chief article in the creeds of India and China, relates to this planet only, and assumes that human souls can pass from the bodies of men to those of other creatures on the same earth. That would not be progress, – it would he retrogression. All movement of spirit, I take it, must necessarily be upward and onward. To believe the possibility of the contrary, would be to divide the kingdom of God, and to create a platform for the hypothesis of an eternal Hell, and of the existence of that fictitious malignant Deity – the Christian devil. No, the transmigration of which I speak is a continual ‘passing through’ of the spirit from one manifestation to another – a development, an evolving, which may last out eternity or end perhaps by absorption into Divinity. Here, we are incarnate; passing hence we may become intangible, or perhaps only less gross. But certainly we shall gain by the change attendant on dissolution.”

“What we call dying, then, you hold to be in fact only ceasing to die?” quoth Adelheid.

“Just that. The hard thing is really to live in so cramped and weighted a condition.”

“You are a fowl, then, Tristan, before you have done being a fish!”

Miss Di almost smiled as she made the feeble little joke.

He laughed, and nodded his head.

“Yes, l think I must have nearly finished my scaly course. It disgusts me so sometimes, and I have such a longing to get above the water and breathe the air of heaven instead of inflating my gills with this dense ponderable brine. Yes, my spirit is almost ready for the fledged existence! Ah, where are my wings?” He laughed again and jerked his shoulders with a gay air.

“Let us hope you will be a Bird of Paradise, at least,” says Miss Di.

“I hear them bringing the luncheon! You eat no meat, Tristan, but you

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will find bread, butter, and lentils among the items of our collation – to say nothing of potatoes and fruit.”

“Then I shall do well indeed,” he replied, smiling. “Of all things man can eat, flesh you know is the least nutritious. It is a stimulant – like alcohol; but it is grain diet that makes nerve and sinew. All the world will live as I do, some day. Its best men have lived like me already, eschewing alike rich meats and strong drinks, and making simple pulse and herbs sustain them. Daniel knew the secret – and it enabled him to penetrate the greatest mysteries and to solve the strangest enigmas! John the Baptist, knew it, and it gave him a mighty voice, which will be heard through all the earth for all the ages. And after their examples lived Antony, Hilarion, Martin of Tours, Angustine, Ambrose the Bishop of Milan, John Chrysostom, Benedict, Francis Xavier, Catherine of Sienna, Dominic, Theresa, Bernard the Great, and thousands more, all the great Fathers of the Desert, the Seers of bygone times, and the old religious orders – so fruitful in heroes, martyrs, and workers of miracles; – besides scores of secular philosophers, poets, mathematicians, artists and physicians, Greek, Latin, and German. (1) And in England in our own times look at Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth, who in their most vigorous days were eaters of herbs and drinkers of water only! Read the description of a model feast in the ‘Revolt of Islam.’ It was only when Shelley fell away, like Solomon, through, conjugal solicitations and snares, and reverted to beef, mutton, marriage, and things forbidden, that fate, in her

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divine compassion, saw fit to end a perverted course, and – she drowned him accordingly.”

“Ah?” said Miss Di, seating herself in the chair which Tristan had wheeled for her to the table – “well, almost thou persuadest me to be a – vegetarian!”

NOTES

(244:1) Add to this list the names of S. S. Gregory Nazienzen, Aphratus, Serapion, David of Wales, Genevieve, Columba, Ulric, Charles Borromeo, Philip Neri, Alphonsus Liguori, John Francis Regis, Francis Borgia, Ignatius Loyola and Vincent Ferrer.