rid of that stone,” he said. “It’s dangerous. But you must be quit of it
scientifically.”

I must take it, he told me, to one of the Thames bridges and throw it
into the river at dead low tide.

With the assistance of the almanack we ascertained the exact moment and I
dropped it over. Then I went home with a light heart.

Three months later a man called to see me. He knew, he said, that I was
interested in Oriental curiosities and he had a very remarkable one to
show me. A ruby. It had been dredged up from the Thames and he had heard
of the workman who had found it and had bought it and now gave me the
first offer. It was, of course, _the_ stone. Well, I recognize fate when
I meet it, and I bought it back. Kismet.

But although I was willing still to own it, if such was the notion of
destiny, I was against keeping it at home any more. So I procured a metal
box and wrapped up the jewel and sealed it and locked the box and sealed
that and deposited it at my Bank in the City, where it was placed in one
of the strong rooms. That was only a little while ago.

Last week I had occasion to visit the bank to consult the manager on some
point of business. After we had finished we chatted awhile. Looking round
at the girls at the desks—all called in to take the place of the male
clerks who had gone to the War, and many of them kept on,—I asked him how
they compared in efficiency with the men.

He said that generally they were not so good. They were not so steady and
were liable to nerves and fancies.

“For example,” he said, “it’s impossible to get some of them to go to the
strong room at all, because they say there is a horrible little Hindoo
squatting there and scrabbling on the floor.”

There is no news and here is the poem. You must recover very quickly now,
under the Paragon’s treatment, because the supply of verses is running
short:—

    Oh, Cynicism, let them bleat and sigh,
    Their own hearts hard, belike, and chill as stone;
    Give me the soul that’s tinged with irony,
    For then I know that it has felt and known.

CLI

PATRICIA POWER TO HER SISTER CLEMENCY

DEAREST CLEM,—We have had a visit from your young friend, who is a great
lark. He is coming again. Indeed I believe that if Herself had asked him
to stay he would be here for ever. He thinks there is no country like
Ireland and no part of it like Kerry; which is true enough. We are very
much obliged to you, I’m sure, for sending a male thing to this nunnery.

Herself wants to know if readers to invalid ladies never get a week’s
holiday. She pretends to want to see you. Mr. Barrance says that he
doubts if you can get away before her regular doctor returns. Don’t
forget us.—Your devoted

                                                                      PAT

CLII

RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY

DEAR VERENA, one final word about your money. I have, I think, a really
good suggestion at last; at any rate it is one which I myself, in your
position, should follow. Not only as a valuable gift, but as a well
merited stroke of criticism, it would be a fine thing if you were to
leave the money to the Prime Minister of the day, not for his own use
but to increase the paltry £1200 which is all the money for new Civil
List pensions that this great nation can find every year. Every year the
number of claimants for its miserable little doles is far in excess of
those that can be helped, and the help is therefore of the most meagre,
and often, I should guess, useless kind. A pension of £50 a year to the
widow of this eminent but unfortunate man, £70 to the daughter of that,
and so forth—always “In consideration of his distinguished services to
Science, Literature, Art or to his country” and of “the necessitous
circumstances” of those whom he has left behind. If some of these fifties
could be turned into hundreds it would be an act of benevolence indeed.
What do you say? Alms-houses are excellent, but somehow I feel that this
is better.

Little Mrs. Peters amused me yesterday with one of her remarks. Speaking
of the impending visit of her sister-in-law, she said, “I want to give
her a decent lunch but I don’t want to appear well off. Don’t you think
an old partridge stewed is the thing?”

Here is the poem:—

    We wagered, she for sunshine, I for rain,
      And I should hint sharp practice if I dared;
    For was not she beforehand sure to gain
      Who made the sunshine we together shared?

Meanwhile there is every sign of the coming winter here. Falling leaves
everywhere.—Good night,

                                                                    R. H.

CLIII

VERENA RABY TO RICHARD HAVEN

DEAREST RICHARD,—Forgive me for not answering sooner, but serious things
have been happening.

I am entirely with you about the Civil List. I cannot believe that the
superfluity of the estate could be devoted to any better purpose and I
am arranging it at once. But there is not the urgency that there was,
because _I’m going to get better_. Mr. Field found something pressing
somewhere and removed it and I am already able to stand. Think of that!
He says that all I need now is to get some bracing change of air and lose
the weakness that comes of lying down so long. And to think that once I
was grumbling to you about his coming here at all! We never recognise,
until after, the messengers of the friendly gods. It is really a kind of
miracle and I’m so sorry about dear old Dr. Ferguson, who was always,
although the kindest thing on earth, a little gloomy and pessimistic
about me, and who will, although pleased—because his heart is gold—be
also a little displeased, by the younger man’s triumph—because his heart
is human as well. That is all, to-day, but when I tell you that I am
writing this at my desk in my bedroom—the first letter to any one under
such novel and wonderful conditions—you have got to be very happy and
drink my health. And now I half want not to get well because I shall miss
all my kind friends’ kindnesses and solicitous little acts.—Your very
grateful

                                                                       V.

_P.S._—You must not any longer be at the pains of writing to me so
often, and I cannot allow you to be at the expense of Clemency any
more. I am now (alas!) independent of all these kind amenities; and my
dear Nesta goes home to-morrow. I have kept her too long from her home.
I shall feel lost indeed, and am wondering if health is worth such a
breakup.

CLIV

RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY

[_Telegram_]

Although it is forty shillings a bottle I drink champagne to-night.

CLV

RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY

MY DEAR, the news is terrific and I sent you a telegram at once. I am
rejoiced, and yet—what is to become of me now? I had formed habits of
talking to you every day which I greatly prized and now they are to be
broken. The young doctor is certainly a gift from heaven and I should
like his permanent address. As to Miss Power, I have not any intention of
giving her the sack but if she sends in her resignation I must accept it.
I think, however, that you make a mistake in demobilizing the staff so
rapidly. These things are best done by gradations and I, for one, intend
to remain on duty for some little while yet. I hear so many things that
have only half their flavour until they are passed on to you. You will
therefore oblige me by issuing a reprieve in so far as my poor pen is
concerned and allow it to continue in your service. The moral seems to
be: When one is really ill, present one’s regular doctor with a fishing
rod.—Yours ever,

                                                                    R. H.

_P.S._—I was writing about “Father-Love” the other day; and now here are
some lines of a small boy in praise of his mother, which recall the day
of Solomon. The last line—after so many exalted attempts!—is very sweet?

MY MOTHER

    My mother stood in the candlelight,
      With a red rose in her hair,
    And another at her throat.

    Her face is delicately molded,
      With coal black eyes that seem
    To smolder, like fire far into the night.

    Her cheeks are a gorgeous red,
      Her lips curved in a smile
    That seem like the morning dawn itself.

    Her neck is soft and slim
      Like a swan floating down o’er the river.
    I love her, for she is my mother
      And I love no other.

    She shares my joys and sorrows, my mother—
      Her heart is kind and true,
    Her hair is black and glassey,
      I can’t describe my mother’s beauty.

                             EDWARD BLACK.

CLVI

ANTOINETTE ROSSITER TO VERENA RABY

DEAR AUNT VERENA,—Mother asks me to write to say that she has got home
safely. It is heavenly to have her here again. I am so glad you are
getting well. Hazel is going to stay with us a little longer. She has a
friend at Lady Sandys’ who is a champion tennis player. He is teaching
us to juggle. He can keep four balls in the air at once and lay down and
get up with a croquet mallet balanced on his forehead. He is very nice.
He calls us his pupils and we are named Apter and Aptest. Cyril is Apter
and I am Aptest. Lobbie is to be taught too and her name at present is
Apt. Emily comes to us every day. She is now Mrs. Urible and she usually
brings vegetables. Hazel’s friend sings too and Hazel plays for him and
we all dance. He is teaching us the Highland fling. He says I have light
fantastic toes. Hazel is teaching him hesitation which he never knew
before. Mother is fatter. She says it is because she has not had us to
worry her, but as she has had Lobbie it must be your nice things to eat.
It is lovely and enchanting to have her back. I am so glad you are well
again.—Your loving

                                                                     TONY

CLVII

SINCLAIR FERGUSON TO VERENA RABY

DEAR MISS RABY,—I rejoiced to have Mr. Field’s very favourable
report—surprisingly favourable—even though it reflects a little on my
own want of intuition and skill. But I will not develop that theme, for
I too was once young and cleverer than my elders, and yesterday I caught
a twenty-one lb. salmon and the divine glow still warms me and makes me
tolerant to all men. Seriously, my dear friend, this news of your sudden
improvement has relieved me profoundly, for it has been a constant grief
to me to see you so helpless and to be able to do so little.

It is as Field’s _locum_, so far as your own case is concerned, that I
shall consider myself when I return, which will be in about three weeks.
I wonder if he has left me anything in the place to do? I quite expect to
find that old Withers has grown another leg.—I am, yours sincerely,

                                                        SINCLAIR FERGUSON

CLVIII

VERENA RABY TO SINCLAIR FERGUSON

MY DEAR DOCTOR,—Thank you for your very kind letter, so very like you.
Both Mr. Field and I agree that probably the pressure was something new,
a development which could not be foreseen. I would not change my doctor
for any one, and though I am delighted to think of him happy in the
Highlands catching mammoth fish, I hope he will soon return.

Old friends are best.—Yours sincerely,

                                                              VERENA RABY

CLIX

LOUISA PARRISH TO VERENA RABY

MY DEAR VERENA,—I was both surprised and delighted to receive your great
news. It removed a heavy burden from my mind, for it has been a grief all
these months to think of you lying there. To be frank, I never expected
you to leave your bed again, and have often said so, and even now I am
fearful that there may be danger of a relapse. There are such things as
false recoveries. But I shall hope for the best. I was embroidering a
counterpane for you with “Resignation” on it (a favourite word with my
dear mother) but I shall not go on with it.—Yours always affectionately,

                                                                   LOUISA

CLX

EVANGELINE BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY

The editor of _The Beguiler, or The Invalid’s Friend_ presents her
compliments to Miss Raby and begs to announce that the last number was
the last. Hurrah!

CLXI

BRYAN FIELD TO SIR SMITHFIELD MARK

DEAR SIR SMITHFIELD,—You have played, all unknowingly, such a leading
part in my recent life that I must tell you the latest development. When
you arranged for me to take over Dr. Ferguson’s patients at Kington, you
did not expect that one of the inmates of Miss Raby’s house was the same
Irish girl whom I found working in the French village where the hospital
was situated to which—through your influence—I was appointed. Having
done so much, although unconsciously, to throw these two people together
again, you will be prepared to hear that they—that is to say, we—are now
engaged to be married. My gratitude to you cannot be expressed in words.
Believe me, yours sincerely,

                                                             BRYAN FIELD.

CLXII

SIR SMITHFIELD MARK TO BRYAN FIELD

MY DEAR FIELD,—I appear to be a very remarkable and meddlesome person,
and your case is yet another reminder of how dangerous it is to be a
human being. However, I cannot consider that any harm, but much the
reverse, has been done this time; although your letter has made me
nervous!

Seriously, my young friend, I congratulate you with all my heart and wish
for you a full measure of professional success and domestic happiness. If
there is anything at any time that I can do for you, let me know; or, no,
on second thoughts don’t let me know—there is clearly no need to! I am,
yours sincerely,

                                                          SMITHFIELD MARK

_P.S._—Don’t talk about gratitude. Go on making remarkable cures, for the
honour of Bart’s. That would be far more pleasing to me than any words.

CLXIII

RICHARD HAVEN TO CLEMENCY POWER

MY DEAR MISS POWER, I enclose a cheque to settle our little account,
and if you notice a discrepancy between the amount which you thought was
owing and that for which it is made out you must devote the difference to
the purchase of a wedding present for Mrs. Bryan Field, who has been such
a boon and a blessing in the house of my friend. I shall never cease to
be thankful that it was you who accepted the post, for I cannot conceive
that even this great world could provide anyone else half so desirable.

May you be very happy with your brilliant husband, and live long, and see
him rise from honour to honour. I am glad you are going to marry so soon,
because then he will be able to play cricket with his sons.—I am, yours
sincerely,

                                                            RICHARD HAVEN

CLXIV

HORACE MUN-BROWN TO VERENA RABY

DEAR AUNT,—The news of Hazel’s engagement has prostrated me and
also filled me with a kind of despair about life in general. That a
lawn-tennis player should, for a permanency, be preferred to a man of
ideas is so essentially wrong that one is left gasping. Lawn-tennis is a
frivolous capering game for a few fine days in summer and then not again
till next year, while ideas go on for ever.

Now that you are so much better again, you will probably be intent upon
spending your superfluity in your own way, but I want you to listen to
one more project of mine. It will show you too how my mind has been
working. You know the old joke about men going out fishing or shooting
and expecting to bring trout or game back to their wives, but, through
want of sport, having to stop at the fishmonger’s or poulterer’s on their
way home? Well, it suddenly occurred to me while I was shaving yesterday
that here is the germ of a very successful business. You know how every
traveller promises his family or his friends that he will bring back
something. If he is going to the East, he generally promises a parrot
or a shawl or a string of amber beads. If he is going to Africa, he
promises, say, ostrich feathers or assegais. But in any case he promises
something and—this is the point—probably forgets, and therefore comes
back empty-handed and is in consequence despised. Now, my idea is that
great emporiums should be stocked and opened somewhere near the points of
disembarkation from abroad. The ships from foreign parts disgorge their
passengers at Liverpool or Southampton or London, and I should establish
a great bazaar close to the harbour at each spot where everything that
had been promised and forgotten could be purchased—parrots, shawls,
beads, ostrich feathers, assegais, everything. The returning traveller
would see it, his face would brighten, he would dash in and buy and be no
longer ashamed or afraid to meet his wife. Don’t you think that a good
notion?

All that is needed is a clever fellow—an ex-P. & O. officer, say, who
knows the world and travellers’ ways—to be put in control, and enough
capital to give the show a real start, and the result would be easy.
Would you not care to invest?—I am, yours sincerely,

                                                         HORACE MUN-BROWN

CLXV

ROY BARRANCE TO HIS SISTER HAZEL

Blow the cymbals, bang the fife, I’m so bucked I don’t know what
to do. I’m engaged to the sweetest creature you ever saw or dreamed
of—Clemency’s sister Pat. You see, Clemency gave me a letter of
introduction to her people, and the fish took such a dislike to me that
one day I got a car and went over to see them. They’ve got a jolly place
not far from Kenmare—the post office is at Sneem—and the old lady, who’s
not old at all and no end of a sport, and her two other daughters,
Patricia and Adela, live there, all among little cows and chickens and
bamboos and tropical plants. You see, the Gulf Stream comes in here and
makes delicate things grow like the very devil. Clemency is a peach, but
you should see Pat, and, even more, you should hear her! Clemency’s voice
laid me out flat enough, but Pat’s is even more disastrous, begorra!
You should hear her say “I will” where you and I and other dull English
people would say “Yes,” or “I will not” when we should say “No,” or “I
won’t.” The word “will” as she says it is like something on a lovely
flute. She’s younger than I am too. I think a husband should be older
than his wife. Clemency was just the other side, you know. Anyway, she
has said “I will” to me, and the old lady is agreeable provided I can
show some signs of responsibility and so I am bucketing back on Sunday to
begin work in earnest and be worthy of her.

It’s wonderful how everything works out for you when you let it. I
go cold when I think of how awful it would be to marry Clemency and
then meet this angel-pet. I should probably have seen her first as a
bridesmaid, and then—but it won’t bear thinking about. The Fates sent
Field down to Kington just in time. I am coming back next week to go
seriously into this motor transport affair that Aunt Verena is helping
to finance for me, and as soon as it gets started I’ll begin to arrange
to marry. No man is worth a damn till he’s married. With Pat to help I
could do what that old Greek johnny was going to do with a fulcrum or
something—move the earth. Cheerio!—Yours,

                                                                      ROY

_P.S._—Why don’t you find some decent fellow, Hazel? There’s nothing like
it.

CLXVI

VERENA RABY TO NICHOLAS DEVOSE

I want you to know that I am going to get well. The new temporary doctor
here has done wonders and I can even totter beside the flower beds again.
It is too much yet to realize, but it is true.—Your friend,

                                                                   SERENA

CLXVII

NICHOLAS DEVOSE TO VERENA RABY

[_Telegram_]

I am so glad. May I come to see you?

                                                                    N. D.

CLXVIII

VERENA RABY TO NICHOLAS DEVOSE

DEAR NICO,—No, please, do not come. After all the years that have
passed, and the eight months and more that I have been thinking
doubly—having so little else to do and believing that life was over—you
must not re-enter my heart. It is sealed against you—at least so long
as you keep away. How I should feel if I saw you, I cannot say; but I
daren’t experiment, nor must you ask. You were to have given me so much;
you took so much; you even, I confess, still hold so much—how dare I then
see you, and even more, how dare I let you see me? You could never bear
the thought of age, of life’s inevitable decline. So many artists cannot:
it is part of the price they pay for their gifts—and no small price too,
for it makes them a little inhuman and to be inhuman in this strange
wonderful world is terrible. No, dear, do not come or again suggest it.
My Nicholas Devose must be as dead as your Serena. The two who would now
meet are strangers and they will be wise to remain so. But my Nicholas—I
have him here and shall never forget him, and over him I often cry a
little.—Your friend,

                                                                   SERENA

CLXIX

SEPTIMUS TRIBE TO VERENA RABY

DEAR VERENA,—Your letter of good news to my poor Letitia has made us
extravagantly happy—or at least it would have done so had any form of
extravagance not become impossible. I am not in the habit of criticising
those in authority; I think it a bad habit to which the facile grumblers,
who form a large majority in this country generally, and particularly in
towns such as this, where most of the residents live on pensions or fixed
incomes, are too prone. None the less, I cannot conceal my chagrin and
surprise that the Government cannot do more towards lowering the cost of
living. Our weekly bills become more formidable every week, without any
apparent reason. Why, for example, should a remote war in Europe increase
the price of butter and eggs? The cows were not belligerents; there were
no casualties in the poultry yards. As for coal, I am in despair, and the
thought that your poor sister may be without the comfort of fires this
winter fills me with a profound melancholy.

I wonder if you could get your friend Mr. Haven to help me to some task.
I know him to be an influential person and I know myself to be capable.
Although over age—not in fact but through a ridiculous rule of the
Civil Service—and therefore disqualified to continue my labours for my
country, I am still sound in mind and body. Indeed my intellect was never
brighter, as many of my Tunbridge Wells friends with whom I am in the
habit of discussing public affairs every day, would, I flatter myself,
assure you. There is I believe a new public functionary called a Censor
of Films. I feel that I could be very useful in such a capacity, if what
is needed is a man of all-round sagacity and some imagination. But I
would leave the nature of the post to your friend.

Such a task might bring in enough extra revenue to make all the
difference to poor Letitia’s life.

Meanwhile I rejoice in your recovery, trusting fervently that there
is nothing illusory about it. Unhappily I have known cases of spinal
trouble improving only to return with more severity; but I intend to
fight against harbouring such fears for you. Letitia would send her love
but she is engaged at the moment in making a fair copy of an address
which I am to deliver at our Social Circle on the credibility of present
evidence on the persistence of our daily life’s routine after death. It
is a labour of love to her, which is fortunate as I cannot afford an
amanuensis. I am,

                       Your affectionate brother,

                                                           SEPTIMUS TRIBE

_P.S._ I wonder if you would care to have my address set up as a
pamphlet for private distribution. Although I am its author, I feel
at liberty to say without presumption that it is a very thorough
presentation of the case both for and against, and every one is
interested in such speculations just now. There is a most worthy little
printer near the Pantiles who deserves encouragement.

CLXX

HORACE MUN-BROWN TO VERENA RABY

(_Two months later_)

DEAR AUNT,—I am deeply gratified to hear that your recovery is complete
and that you have all your old and beneficial activity again.

After so long and costly an illness I am sure that, wealthy as you
are, you would not, in these very expensive times, wish to lose any
opportunity of adding to your fortune; and such an opportunity now
occurs. You have heard of the paper shortage? Owing to the war only a
small proportion of the paper needed for journals and magazines and books
is now being made. The problem then is, how to supply the deficiency? And
it is here that my scheme comes in.

If new paper cannot be manufactured from wood pulp—owing to the scarcity
of labour in the forests—it must be made in other ways. Now the best
of these is from old paper. Now this can be done satisfactorily only
if the printed words on it can be removed; in other words (to be for
a moment scientific) it must be “de-inked.” De-inking is a mysterious
business, but Sybil, who took a course of chemistry at Newnham, has hit
on a process which cannot fail. She has tried it in the kitchen of her
flat with an old copy of the _Nineteenth Century and After_ and found
it perfect. Our plan then is to buy up thousands and thousands of the
largest papers, such as the _Daily Telegraph_ and the _Queen_ and the
_Field_—the paper for each copy of which now probably costs more than the
price it is sold for (this discrepancy being made possible by the wealth
of advertisements)—de-ink them and sell the new paper at a considerable
profit. All that is needed is the capital for the erection of the
de-inking plant. Speed is of course imperative. If you are interested—and
this cannot fail—please telegraph.

Ever since the day when I first met Sybil in the Egyptian Room at the
British Museum my life has been a whirl of joy and intellectual stimulus.
We are both convinced that we lived and loved before, in a previous
existence, and Sybil even goes so far as to believe that as ancient
Egyptians we were instrumental in overcoming a papyrus shortage in the
days of the Ptolemies. Personally I think this a little fanciful, but it
might be true. Who can say? And women have wonderful intuition.

We both long to be united. Lack of pence is our only obstacle.

Please telegraph, dear Aunt Verena, to

                            Yours sincerely,

                                                         HORACE MUN-BROWN

CLXXI

WALTER RABY TO HIS SISTER VERENA

(_Six Months Later_)

DEAR OLD GIRL,—I was surprised to have your long letter. You seem to have
been having a pretty thin time, but I hope you’re all right by now. We
have some fine cattle coming along. Keep fit, it’s the only way. Yours
ever,

                                                                   WALTER

INDEX TO POETRY

                                         PAGE

    Binyon, Laurence,                     128

    Blake, William,                        66

    Browne, William,                       56

    Burns, Robert,                         57

    Colman, George,                        62

    Conklin, Hilda,                       200

    Cory, William,                        253

    De La Mare, Walter,                    89

    Fitzgerald, Edward,                    42

    Galsworthy, John,                     178

    Giles, A. H.,                    152, 156

    Herrick, Robert,                       57

    Hodgson, Ralph,                        77

    Hunt, Leigh,                          173

    Jonson, Ben,                           56

    Kilmer, Joyce,                        221

    Landor, W. S.,               62, 229, 241

    Lang, Andrew,                         147

    Locker-Lampson, Frederick,            200

    Lowell, J. R.,                   193, 261

    Lucas, Winifred,                       41

    Lytton, Robert, Lord,                 103

    Nichols, Bowyer,                 140, 258

    Regnier, the Abbé,                     62

    Stevenson, R. L.,                  57, 62

    Thoreau, H. D.,                       183


have loved you all as a man may, who has, at most, but a bowing
acquaintance with your ladyships. As I recall your starry names, no blush
hinting unmannerliness suspect and unconfessed hits me on the cheek:--
Simonetta, Ilaria, Nenciozza, Bettina; you too, candid Mariota of Prato;
you, flinching little Imola; and you, snuff-taking, wool-carding ancient
lady of the omnibus--scorner of monks, I have kissed your hands, I have at
least given our whole commerce frankly to the world; and I know not how
any shall say we have been closer acquainted than we should. You, tall
Ligurian Simonetta, loved of Sandro, mourned by Giuliano and, for a
seasons by his twisted brother and lord, have done well to utter but one
side of your wild humour? The side a man would take, struck, as your
Sandro was, by a nympholepsy, or, as Lorenzo was, by the rhymer's appetite
for wherewithal to sonnetteer? If I understand you, it was never pique or
a young girl's petulance drove you to Phryne's one justifiable act of
self-assertion. It was honesty. Madonna, or I have read your grey eyes in
vain; it was enthusiasm--that flame of our fire so sacred that though it
play the incendiary there shall be no crime--or where would be now the
"Vas d'elezione"?--nor though it reveal a bystander's grin, any shame at
all. I shall live to tell that story of thine, Lady Simonetta, to thy
honour and my own respect; for, as a poet says,

"There is no holier flame
Than flatters torchwise in a stripling heart,
... a fire from Heaven
To ash the clay of us, and wing the God."

I have seen all memorials of you left behind to be pondered by him who
played Dante to your Beatrice, Sandro the painting poet,--the proud
clearness of you as at the marriage feast of Nastagio degli Onesti; the
melting of the sorrow that wells from you in a tide, where you hold the
book of your overmastering honour and read _Magnificat Anima Mea_
with a sob in your throat; your acquaintance, too, with that grief which
was your own hardening; your sojourn, wan and woebegone as would become
the wife of Moses (maker of jealous gods); all these guises of you, as
well as the presentments of your innocent youth, I have seen and adored.
But I have ever loved you most where you stand a wistful Venus Anadyomenè--
"Una donzella non con uman volto," as Politian confessed; for I know your
heart, Madonna, and see on the sharp edge of your threatened life, Ardour
look back to maiden Reclusion, and on (with a pang of foreboding) to
mockery and evil judgment. Never fear but I brave your story out to the
world ere many days. And if any, with profane leer and tongue in the
cheek, take your sorrow for reproach or your pitifulness for a shame, let
them receive the lash of the whip from one who will trouble to wield it:
_non ragioniam di lor_. For your honourable women I give you Ilaria,
the slim Lucchesan, and my little Bettincina, a child yet with none of the
vaguer surmises of adolescence when it flushes and dawns, but likely
enough, if all prosper, to be no shame to your company. As yet she is
aptest to Donatello's fancy: she will grow to be of a statelier bevy. I
see her in Ghirlandajo's garden, pacing, still-eyed, calm and cold, with
Ginevra de' Benci and Giovanna of the Albizzi, those quiet streets on a
visit to the mother of John Baptist.

Mariota, the hardy wife of the metal-smith, is not for one of your
quality, though the wench is well enough now with her baby on her arm and
the best of her seen by a poet and made enduring. He, like our Bernardo,
had motherhood in such esteem that he held it would ransom a sin. A sin? I
am no casuïst to discuss rewards and punishments; but if Socrates were
rightly informed and sin indeed ignorance, I have no whips for Mariota's
square shoulders. Her baby, I warrant, plucked her from the burning. I am
not so sure but you might find in that girl a responsive spirit, and--is
the saying too hard?--a teacher. Contentment with a few things was never
one of your virtues, madam.

There is a lady whose name has been whispered through my pages, a lady
with whom I must make peace if I can. Had I known her, as Dante did, in
the time of her nine-year excellence and followed her (with an interlude,
to be sure, for Gentucca) through the slippery ways of two lives with much
eating of salt bread, I might have grown into her favour. But I never did
know Monna Beatrice Portinari; and when I met her afterwards as my Lady
Theologia I thought her something imperious and case-hardened. Now here
and there some words of mine (for she has a high stomach) may have given
offence. I have hinted that her court is a slender one in Italy, the
service paid her lip-service; the lowered eyes and bated breath reserved
for her; but for Fede her sister, tears and long kisses and the clinging.
Well! the Casa Cattolica is a broad foundation: I find Francis of Umbria
at the same board with Sicilian Thomas. If I cleave to the one must I
despise the other? Lady Fede has my heart and Lady Dottrina must put aside
the birch if she would share that little kingdom. _Religio habet_,
said Pico; _theologia autem invenit_. Let her find. But she must be
speedy, for I promise her the mood grows on me as I become
_italianato_; and I cannot predict when the other term of the
proposition may be accomplished. For one thing, Lady Theologia, I praise
you not. Sympathy seems to me of the essence, the healing touch an
excellent thing in woman. But you told Virgil,

"Io son fatta da Dio, sua mercè, tale,
Che la vostra miseria non mi tange."

Sympathy, Madonna? And Virgil hopeless! On these terms I had rather gloom
with the good poet (whose fault in your eyes was that he knew in what he
had believed) than freeze with you and Aquinas on your peak of hyaline.
And as I have found you, Donna Beatrice, so in the main have they of whom
I pitch my pipe. Here and there a man of them got exercise for his fingers
in your web; here and there one, as Pico the young Doctor of yellow hair
and nine hundred heresies, touched upon the back of your ivory dais that
he might jump from thence to the poets out beyond you in the Sun. Your
great Dante, too, loved you through all. But, Madonna, he had loved you
before when you were--

Donna pietosa e di novella etade,

and, as became his lordly soul, might never depart from the faith he had
in you. For me, I protest I love Religion your warm-bosomed mate too well
to turn from her; yet I would not on that account grieve her (who treats
you well out of the cup of her abounding charity) by aspersing you. And if
I may not kiss your foot as you would desire, I may bow when I am in the
way with you; not thanking God I am not as you are, but, withal, wishing
you that degree of interest in a really excellent world with which He has
blessed me and my like, the humble fry.

Lastly, to the Spirits which are in the shrines of the cities of Tuscany,
I lift up my hands with the offering of my thin book. To Lucca dove-like
and demure, to Prato, the brown country-girl, to Pisa, winsome maid-of-
honour to the lady of the land, to Pistoja, the ruddy-haired and ample,
and to Siena, the lovely wretch, black-eyed and keen as a hawk; even to
Perugia, the termagant, with a scar on her throat; but chiefest to the
Lady Firenze, the pale Queen crowned with olive--to all of you, adored and
adorable sisters, I offer homage as becomes a postulant, the repentance of
him who has not earned his reward, thanksgiving, and the praise I have not
been able to utter. And I send you, Book, out to those ladies with the
supplication of good Master Cino, schoolman and poet, saying,

E se tu troverai donne gentile,
Ivi girai; chè là ti vo mandare;
E dono a lor d' audienza chiedi.

Poi di a costor: Gittatevi a lor piedi,
E dite, chi vi manda e per che fare,
Udite donne, esti valletti umili.


tradition. This step was taken by the spiritual movement which
assigned to knowledge a certain sphere above which the soul could not
rise by its own efforts, but everything which lay beyond this domain
was made an object of faith which has to be supported by written and
oral tradition and by confidence in its representatives. Thomas
Aquinas, the greatest teacher within the Church (1224-1274), has set
forth this doctrine in his writings in a variety of ways. His main
point is that human knowledge can only attain to that which led
Augustine to self-knowledge, to the certainty of the divine. The
nature of the divine and its relation to the world is given by
revealed theology, which is not accessible to man's own researches and
is, as the substance of faith, superior to all knowledge.

The origin of this point of view may be studied in the theology of
John Scotus Erigena, who lived in the ninth century at the court of
Charles the Bald, and who represents a natural transition from the
earliest ideas of Christianity to the ideas of Thomas Aquinas. His
conception of the universe is couched in the spirit of Neo-Platonism.
In his treatise _De Divisione Naturæ_, Erigena has elaborated the
teaching of Dionysius the Areopagite. This teaching started from a God
far above the perishable things of sense, and it derived the world
from Him (_Cf._ p. 208 _et seq._). Man is involved in the
transmutation of all beings into this God, Who finally becomes what He
was from the beginning. Everything falls back again into the Godhead
which has passed through the universal process and has finally become
perfected. But in order to reach this goal man must find the way to
the Logos who was made flesh. In Erigena this thought leads to
another: that what is contained in the writings which give an account
of the Logos leads, when received in faith, to salvation. Reason and
the authority of the Scriptures, faith and knowledge stand on the same
level. The one does not contradict the other, but faith must bring
that to which knowledge never can attain by itself.

The knowledge of the eternal which the ancient Mysteries withheld
from the multitude became, when presented in this way by Christian
thought and feeling, the content of faith, which by its very nature
had to do with something unattainable by mere knowledge. The
conviction of the pre-Christian Mystic was that to him was given
knowledge of the divine, while the people were obliged to have faith
in its expression in images. Christianity came to the conviction that
God has given his wisdom to mankind through revelation, and man
attains through his knowledge an image of this divine revelation. The
wisdom of the Mysteries is a hothouse plant, which is revealed to a
few individuals ripe for it. Christian wisdom is a Mystery revealed as
knowledge to none, but as a content of faith revealed to all. The
standpoint of the Mysteries lived on in Christianity, but in a
different form. All, not only the special individual, were to share in
the truth, but the process was that at a certain point man owned his
inability to penetrate farther by means of knowledge, and thence
ascended to faith. Christianity brought the content of the Mysteries
out of the obscurity of the temple into the clear light of day. The
one Christian movement mentioned led to the idea that this content
must necessarily be retained in the form of faith.

NOTES

  P. 5--To one who has true perception, the "Spirit of Nature"
  speaks powerfully in the facts currently expressed by the
  catchword, "struggle for existence," etc.; but not in the
  opinions which modern science deduces from them. In the first
  statement lies the reason why natural science is attracting more
  and more widespread attention. But it follows from the second
  statement that scientific opinions should not be taken as if they
  necessarily belonged to a knowledge of facts. The possibility of
  being led astray by mere opinion is, in these days, infinitely
  great.

  P. 9--It should not be concluded from these remarks about the
  sources of St. Luke's Gospel, that purely historical research is
  undervalued by the writer of this book. This is not the case.
  Historical research is absolutely justified, but it should not be
  impatient with the method of presentation proceeding from a
  spiritual point of view. It is not considered of importance to
  make various kinds of quotations in this book; but one who is
  willing will be able to see that a really unprejudiced,
  broad-minded judgment will not find anything that is here stated
  to be contrary to what has been actually and historically proved.
  One who will not be broad-minded, but who holds this or that
  theory to be a firmly-established fact, may easily think that
  assertions made in this book are untenable from a scientific point
  of view, and are made without any objective foundation.

  P. 15--It is said above that those whose spiritual eyes are opened
  are able to see into the spiritual world. The conclusion must not
  on this account be drawn that only one who possesses spiritual
  sight is able to form an intelligent opinion about the results
  arrived at by the initiate. Spiritual sight belongs only to the
  investigator. If he afterwards communicates what he has
  discovered, every one can understand it who gives fair play to his
  reason and preserves an unbiassed sense of truth. And such an one
  may also apply the results of research to life and derive
  satisfaction from them without himself having spiritual sight.

  P. 20--"The sinking into the mire" spoken of by Plato must also be
  interpreted in the sense referred to in the last note.

  P. 20--What is said about the impossibility of imparting the
  teaching of the Mysteries has reference to the fact that they
  could not be communicated to those unprepared in the same form in
  which the initiate experienced them; but they were always
  communicated to those outside in such a form as was possible for
  the uninitiated to understand. For instance the myths gave the old
  form, in order to communicate the content of the Mysteries in a
  way that was generally comprehensible.

  P. 88--Everything that relates to knowledge gained through the
  "eyes of the spirit" is called by ancient mysticism "Mantik."
  "Telestik," on the other hand, is the indication of the ways which
  lead to initiation.

  P. 168--"Kabirs," according to ancient mysticism, are beings with
  a consciousness far above the human consciousness of to-day.
  Schelling means that man through initiation ascends to a state of
  consciousness above his present one.

  P. 186--An explanation of the meaning of the number seven may be
  obtained in _An Outline of Occult Science_ (see advt., front
  page).

  P. 187--The meanings of the Apocalyptic signs can only be given
  quite shortly here. Of course, all these things might be much more
  thoroughly explained, but of this the scope of this book does not
  allow.

THE END

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End of Project Gutenberg's Christianity As A Mystical Fact, by Rudolf Steiner