THE EQUINOX Vol. I. No. II 3rd part of three. XYWrite wordprocessor
version.
October 18, 1989 e.v. key entry and first proofreading against the 1st
Edition 3/2/90 e.v. by Bill Heidrick, T.G. of O.T.O.
--- could benefit from further proof reading
(c) O.T.O. disk 3 of 3
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AMONGST THE MERMAIDS
AMONGST THE MERMAIDS
"WALK up!" he shouted from the tent door. "Walk up! Walk up! and see the
marvellous mermaid! Only four sous!" It was at the Gingerbread Fair of
Neuilly, and the showman was a squat little fellow, ridiculously like the
gingerbread figures which his neighbour was selling, and from which the
Fair derives its name.
I admit I did not expect to see a mermaid, but I was tired of peep-shows
and waxworks and fasting men, and there was something so incongruous in the
idea of a mermaid, even an imaginary one, being exhibited in this rickety
booth, by the light of a naphtha lamp, that, for a moment, I stopped to
listen. The man stood in the doorway, shouting, to attract the passerby,
and there was a picture too, to aid him: the picture of a wondrous creature
with flaxen hair and a hectic flush, and decked with a silvern tail. I
listened to his patter. She must be a wonderful person, this mermaid: she
could swim, she could eat, and, at times, she could even talk. She was as
large as life, and, by all accounts, she was more than twice as natural.
So, at length, I paid my twopence, and I saw --- a seal! There it lay, at
the bottom of a miniature bear-pit, and with its wistful face and its great
pathetic eyes it really did look quite as human as the majority of its
audience. The thing was a {337} swindle, I suppose, a fake --- and yet,
after all, this Gingerbread showman in this Gingerbread City was not the
first to work the merry cantrip. For wherever seals are common, be it in
our own northern islands or in further foreign lands, there will these
mermaid legends be wrought around them. Only in Orkney or the Hebrides
they are most easily garnered, for the language is our own language. One
of the most beautiful of them, when told in full, is the tale of the
Mermaid Wife.
On a moonlight night, as an Orkney fisherman strolled by the sea-shore,
he saw, to his amazement, some beautiful maidens dancing a saraband on the
smooth beach. In a heap by their side lay a bundle of skins, which, on his
approach, the maidens seized and then plunged with them into the surf,
where they took the form of seals. But the fisherman had managed to snatch
up one skin, which lay apart from the rest, and so one maiden was left
behind. Despite her entreaties and her tears, he kept the skin, and she
was at last obliged to follow him to his hut. They married and had many
children, who were like all other children, except for a thin web between
their fingers, and for years husband and wife lived at peace. But every
ninth night she would steal down to the beach and talk with one large seal
in an unknown tongue, and then return with saddened countenance. And so
the years passed, until one day, whilst playing in the barn, one of the
children found an old dried skin. He took this to his mother gleefully,
and she, snatching it from him, kissed him and his brothers and sisters,
and then rushed down to the sea. And the fisherman, when he returned home
that evening, was just in time to see his wife take the form of a seal and
dive into the water. He never saw her again, but sometimes she would call
o'nights, {338} as she sported on the shore with her first husband, who
was, of course, the large seal.
That is the story as they tell it to-day in Orkney, and that is the
story as told by Haroun al Raschid. Only, in the "Arabian Nights" it is
called the "The Melancholy Youth," and the seal is replaced by a dove, but
all the essentials -- the maidens, the bathing, the skins, the wedding, the
flight --- remain as they do to-day.
The seal is well known to be an animal in which the maternal instinct is
abnormally developed, and many of the tales have this fact as their basis.
Here is a particularly charming one --- the story of Gioga's son:
One day, as a boat's crew were completing a successful raid on the
seals, a great storm came on, and one of the party, who had become
separated from the rest, was unavoidably left behind on the Skerry. The
waves were dashing against the low rocks, and the unfortunate man had
resigned himself to his fate, when he saw several of the surviving seals
approaching. The moment they landed they threw off their skins, and
appeared before him as Sea-trows or Seal-folk. And even those seals who
had lately been skinned by the boatmen also revived in time, and took their
human form, but they mourned the loss of their sea-vestures, which would
for ever prevent them from returning to their homes beneath the ocean.
Most of all did they lament for the son of Gioga, their queen. He, too,
had lost his skin, and would be banished for ever from his mother's
kingdom. But, seeing the forsaken boatman, who sat watching the rising
waters in despair, Gioga suddenly conceived a plan to retain her son. She
would carry the man on her back to the mainland, if he, {339} in his turn,
would restore the missing skin. She even consented to his cutting some
gashes in her flanks and shoulders that he might more easily retain his
hold; so the mariner, leaving his perilous position, started on his
scarcely less perilous voyage through the storm. But at length Gioga
landed him safely, and he, for his part, kept the bargain and restored the
skin of her son, so that there was great rejoicing on the Skerry that
night.
There is one other story of particular interest, in that it contains
features not generally found amongst the bulk of the Seal-folk legends. It
is the story of the Wounded Seal.
There was once an islander who made his living by the killing of seals.
One night, as he sat by the fire, resting after his day's work, he heard a
knocking at the door, and, on opening it, found a man on horseback. The
stranger explained that he had come on behalf of one who wished to buy a
large number of skins, and then told him to mount up behind. Hoping to
effect a good sale, the seal-hunter obeyed, and was carried away at a wild
gallop, which ended on the brink of a precipice. There his strange
companion grasped him, and plunged with him into the sea. Down they went,
and down, till at length they reached the abode of the Seal-folk. Here,
after a not unfriendly reception, the hunter was shown a huge jack-knife.
It was his own --- one which, that very morning, he had left in the back of
a seal, and this seal, so he learned, was the father of the horseman. He
was then taken to an inner cavern, where the wounded creature lay, and was
requested to touch the wound. This he did, and the seal was forthwith
cured. Great rejoicings followed, and the hunter was given a safe conduct
home, after swearing never {340} to slay a seal again. The return was
effected in the same way as the previous journey, and the horseman, on his
departure, left sufficient gold to compensate the islander for the loss of
his means of livelihood.
This story is the only one out of the scores told to me in which the
seal may be said to take the offensive, and I cannot trace it to any
foreign source.
Mr. Walter Traill Dennison in his "Orcadian Sketches" tells us that the
seal held a far higher place among the Northmen than any of the lower
animals. He had a mysterious connection with the human race, and had the
power of assuming the human form and faculties, and every true descendant
of the Vikings looks upon the seal as a kind of second cousin in disgrace.
Old beliefs die hard, and, in illustration of this, the following paragraph
from a Scottish daily newspaper may be appropriately given:
A MERMAID ON AN ORKNEY ISLE. --- A strange story of the mermaid comes
from Birsay, Orkney. The other day a farmer's wife was down at the
seashore there, and observed a strange marine animal on the rocks. When
she returned with her better half, they both saw the animal clambering
amongst the rocks, about four feet of it being above water. The woman, who
had a splendid view of it, describes it as a "good-looking person," while
the man says it was "a woman covered over with brown hair." At last the
couple tried to get hold of it, when it took a header into the sea and
disappeared. The man is confident he has seen the fabled mermaid, but
people in the district are of opinion that the animal must belong to the
seal tribe. An animal of similar description was seen by several people at
Deerness two years ago."
Mr. Dennison, in the above-mentioned book, only touches on seals once,
but the story he gives is new to me and I have translated it and curtailed
it from the Orcadian dialect. I wonder if the old Norseman who told it had
ever heard of Androcles? {341}
THE SELKIE THAT DEUD NO' FORGET
A long time ago, one Mansie Meur was gathering limpets at the ebb tide,
off Hackness, when he heard a strange sound coming from the rocks some
distance off. Sometimes it would be like the sob of a woman, and sometimes
louder, like the cry of a dying cow, but it was always a most pitiful
sound. For a while Mansie could see nothing except a big seal close in to
the rocks, who was craning his neck above the surface, and peering at a
creek some distance off. And Mansie noticed that the seal was not
frightened and never ducked his head once, but gazed continually at that
creek. So Mansie crossed an intervening rock, and there, in a crevice, he
saw a mother-seal lying in labour. And it was she who was moaning, whilst
the father-seal lay out in the water watching her. Mansie stayed and
watched her too, and after a while, she gave birth to two fine seal-calves,
who were no sooner on the rocks than they clutched at their mother. Mansie
thought to himself that the calf-hides would make a nice waistcoat, so he
ran forward, and the seal-mother rowed herself over the face of the rock
with her fins into the sea, but the two young ones had not the wit to flee.
So Mansie seized them both, and the distress of the mother was terrible to
see. She swam about and about, and beat herself with her fins like one
distracted; and then she would clamber up, with her fore-fins on the edge
of the rock, and glower into Mansie's face. He turned to go off with the
two young ones under his arm --- they were sucking at his coat the while --
when the mother gave such a cry of despair, so human, so desolate, that it
went straight to Mansie's heart, and turning again, he saw the {342} mother
lying on her side with her head on the rock, and the tears were streaming
from her eyes. So he stopped down and placed the little selkies near her,
and the mother clasped them to her bosom with her megs and then she looked
up into Mansie's face, and all the happiness in the world was in that look:
for on that day the selkie did everything but speak.
Mansie was a young man then, and sometime afterwards he married and
settled on the west of Eday. One evening when he was fishing for sillocks
on an ebb-rock, which could only be reached dry-shod at low water, the fish
took unusually well, so that he stood and filled his basket. Indeed they
took so well that he forgot all about the tide, and soon found himself cut
off from the land. Mansie shouted and shouted, but he was far from any
house, and nobody heard him. The water rose until it reached his knees,
and then his hips, and then his shoulders. He shouted until he was hoarse,
and then gave up all hope of life. But just as the sea was encircling his
neck and coming now and then in little ripples to his mouth, just as the
sea had almost lifted him from his rock, he felt something grip him by the
collar of his coat, and in a few moments he found himself in shallow water.
Looking round, he saw a big seal swimming to the rock, where she dived,
picked up his basket of fish, and then swam back to the land. He took the
basket from her mouth and then said with all his heart, "Geud bless the
selkie that deus no' forget," for it was the same seal which he had seen on
Hackness forty years before. She was a very old seal now but Mansie would
have known her motherly face amongst a thousand.
In the folklore of the Hebrides, also, the seal occupies a {343}
prominent place. Not only has a certain mystery been woven into his life,
but even in death his carcass has been accredited with various magical
properties. The "Highland Monthly" for November 1892 contained an article
dealing with this subject, by Mr. William Mackenzie, Secretary to the
Crofter's Commission.
That the skin, after being dried, should sometimes have been made into
waistcoats, is only natural, but it appears that it was also put to a more
esoteric use, for persons suffering from sciatica wore girdles of it, with
a view to driving that malady away.
The smoker and chewer, Mr. Mackenzie tells us, cut the skin into small
squares, and converted them into spleuchain, or tobacco pouches, whilst the
husbandman made thongs, which he used for the harness of his primitive
plough.
Seal oil was also thought to possess medicinal virtues of no mean order,
and, until quite recently, a course of oal-roin was a favourite, if not a
never-failing, specific for all chest diseases. Furthermore, it is
asserted by Martin ("circa" 1695) that seal liver, pulverised and taken with
aqua vitae, or red wine, is a good prescription for diarrhoetic disorders.
Seal oil was used for lighting purposes in the monasteries, as the skins
were for clothing, and from the pages of Adamnan we learn that the monks of
Iona, in the time of St. Columba, had their own seal preserve.
The animal was also very popular as an article of food. The natives of
the Western Islands, says Martin, used to salt the flesh of seals with
burnt seaware. This flesh was eaten by the common people in the spring-
time "with a pointed long stick instead of a fork, to prevent the strong
smell which {344} their hands would otherwise have for several hours
afterwards." Persons of quality made hams of the seal flesh, and broth,
made from the young seals, served the same purpose medicinally, but in a
minor degree, as seal oil. In Roman Catholic districts the common people
ate seals in Lent, on the ground that they were fish and not flesh! Annual
raids were made on the seals after dark, usually in the autumn, and large
numbers were captured. All, however, did not belong to the captors, for
other persons of prominence were entitled to a share.
The parish minister, according to Martin, "hath his choice of all the
young seals, and that which he takes is called by the natives Cullen-Rory,
that is, the Virgin Mary's seal. The Steward of the Island hath one paid
to him, his Officer hath another; and this by virtue of their offices."
In the Hebrides, as in Orkney, the seal is regarded not as an animal of
the ordinary brute creation, but as one endowed with great wisdom, and
closely allied to man. One of the old beliefs is that seals are human
beings under magic spells.
The seal was credited with being able to assume human form. While in
human guise, he contracted marriages with human beings, and if we are to
credit tradition, the MacCodrums of North Uist are the offspring of such a
union. In former times the MacCodrums were known in the Western Islands as
"Sliechd nan Ron," or the offspring of the seals. As a seal could assume the
form of a man and make his abode on land, so a MacCodrum could assume the
form of a seal and betake himself to the sea! While in this guise we are
told that several MacCodrums had met their death. {345}
There is one local story which stands out from the rest, in that it
contains a song by the animal:
A band of North Uist men slaughtered a number of seals on the Heisker
rocks, and brought them to the main island. They were spread out in a row
on the strand. One of the party was left in charge of them over night. To
vary the monotony of his vigil he wandered a little distance away from the
row of dead seals. When sitting under the shelter of a rock he beheld
coming from the sea a woman of surpassing beauty, with her rich yellow
tresses falling over her shoulders. She was dressed in an emerald robe,
and, proceeding to the spot where the dead seals lay, she identified each
as she went along soliloquising as follows:
Speg Spaidrig,
Spog mo chulein chaoin chaidrich,
Spog Fhienngala,
Speg me ghille fada fienna --- gheala,
'S minig a bheis a'greim de rudain,
A Mhic Unhdainn, 'ic Amhdainn,
Speg a ghille mhoir ruaidh
'S olc a rinn an fhaire 'n raeir.
Translated:
The paw (or hand) of Spaidrig,
The paw of my tenderly cherished darling,
The paw of Fingalia,
The paw of my long-legged, fair-haired lad,
Who frequently sucked his finger ---
Son of OEdan, son of Audan,
The paw of the big red-haired lad
Who badly kept the watch last night.
The watchman surmised that the beautiful woman who now stood before him was
a "spirit from the vasty deep," and {346} resolving to kill her, hurried
off for his weapons. She saw him, fled towards the sea, and in the
twinkling of an eye assumed the guise of a seal and plunged beneath the
waves.
Although tales about sea-trows and mermaids are still plentiful in the
islands of Orkney, the land fairies are acknowledge to have departed for
ever. This is the story of their departure as it has been pieced together
by Mr. R. Menzies Fergusson.
Once upon a time, many years ago, the trows became dissatisfied with
their residence upon Pomona. They determined, therefore, to leave the
Pomona hills and knowes, and take up their dwelling beside the Dwarfie
Stone on the island of Hoy.
The change was to be effected one evening at midnight, when the moon
would be full and everything in favour of their flitting. The fateful
night arrived, and the fairy train set out upon their journey. They bade
farewell to the grassy hillocks upon which they had danced so often, and to
the rocky caverns, the scene of their nightly revels, and all hied to the
trysting-place, which was the Black Craig of Stromness, chanting an elfin
song as then went.
There they made the preparations necessary for crossing the intervening
sea. They took a number of "simmons," or straw bands used in thatching
houses, and, tying them together, made a long rope of sufficient length to
stretch across the sound. One end was fastened to the top of the Black
Craig, and a sentinel was told off to watch that it did not slip. The
other end was seized by a long-legged trow called "Hempie," the "Ferry-
leuper," who made an enormous leap {347} and alighted upon the opposite
shore. There he secured his end of the straw bridge and made ready to
receive his fellow trows as they crossed.
At length a start was made and all the trows were soon upon the rope,
but just as they reached the middle, he who was in charge at the Stromness
end let go his hold, and the whole company of fairies were thrown into the
sea, dragging Hempie along with them in their descent. And the sea, being
rough at the time, overwhelmed them all, so that every one was drowned.
When he who had caused the calamity saw what had occurred, he too plunged
into the angry water, so as not to survive his friends, and thus perished
with them.
For a few moments a solitary figure appeared upon one of the rocks. It
was the Dwarf of Hey. He gazed at the scene of the catastrophe, chanted a
fairy dirge, and then vanished for ever.
Such was the end of the land-trows, and, although it put a stop to the
making of further fairy-stories, it opened up a new hunting-ground for the
weaver of romances in the caves beneath the sea. And even where there is
no definite tale or detailed legend to tell beside the inglenook, there is
sure to be some quaint conceit of metempsychosis which they can whisper
when a seal comes near them. Was not Pharaoh's army turned into a school
of seals? And that great white seal, which the fishermen have seen, and
whose track is like the wash of an ocean steamer, is that not Pharaoh
himself? So the stories spread, and the passer-by may take his fill of
them, but I, for one, like best of all the tale of Gioga's son. And if
just one passer-by on hearing it is held from firing just one shot, the
tale has not been told in vain. {348}
But if ever I see that great white seal, whose track is like the wash of
an ocean steamer, I am not quite sure but that I might rise a gun myself.
I think it would be rather good fun to have a shot at Pharaoh, for I never
like the man much.
NORMAN ROE.
{349}
AVE ADONAI
PALE as the night that pales
In the dawn's pearl-pure pavilion,
I wait for thee, with my dove's breast
Shuddering, a god its bitter guest ---
Have I not gilded my nails
And painted my lips with vermilion?
Am I not wholly stript
Of the deeds and thoughts that obscure thee?
I wait for thee, my soul distraught
With aching for some nameless naught
In its most arcane crypt ---
Am I not fit to endure thee?
Girded about the paps
With a golden girdle of glory,
Dost thou wait me, thy slave who am,
As a wolf lurks for a strayed white lamb?
The chain of the stars snaps,
And the deep of night is hoary!
Thou whose mouth is a flame
With its seven-edged sword proceeding, {351}
Come! I am writhing with despair
Like a snake taken in a snare,
Moaning thy mystical name
Till my tongue is torn and bleeding!
Have I not gilded my nails
And painted my lips with vermilion?
Yea! thou art I; the deed awakes:
Thy lightning strikes, thy thunder breaks
Wild as the bride that wails
In the bridegroom's plumed pavilion!
ALEISTER CROWLEY
{352}
THE MAN-COVER
THE MAN-COVER1
I
THE flesh of the neck was much swollen, the little legs somewhat stiff; the
eyes wore a sad and tired expression. ... I am referring to a pigeon. The
swollen neck was hidden by a soft grey down, the legs still held their
burden, the eyes looked ahead --- yet the symptoms of fatigue were apparent
to a connoisseur of pigeons.
And I am that. Once upon a time I was the happy proprietor of hundreds
of carrier-pigeons. Misfortune and a short acquaintance with some faddists
caused me to drown my ennui. I drank most of my pigeons --- dozens at the
time --- or rather their equivalent in temperance drinks. I ruined my
health. An illness followed, long and painful; the doctor's bill took the
rest. ... But let us forget!
Now the pigeon came through my window, stood on the ledge and waited.
It was a carrier, and it had a message. I took the pellucid note from the
tube, and read its short contents, which aroused my curiosity.
"Kidnapped --- Prisoner --- have written report. Ignore where pigeon
goes, but trust the recipient will read this and send back the pigeon with
a note giving news of England. Are Radicals still in power? Shall send
the letter by return of carrier. Please fill up tubes with films.
Extraordinary adventures!!!"
It was strange and it attracted me. I fed the bird, put a short answer
of a few words --- "Courage. Send message; there are no Radicals" --- and
a supply of fresh films in the tubes, and, kissing its head, let it go with
a sigh. Then my luck returned, and I forgot all about it until last week,
when the pigeon came again. It was heavily loaded. I shall not reproduce
all the notes, nor the whole of my correspondent's letter. I undertake all
the responsibilities, and reserve, in consequence, my editorial right.
{355}
However, and as a last preliminary, the reader will be glad to mark the
following part of the letter:
"I beg of you, sir," concludes the Man-Cover, "not to send me any proofs
before publication. It would be but an unnecessary trouble to you; to me
such a mark of regard from an unknown benefactor would prove a burden and
give occasion to my enemies for recrudescence of persecution. My mail is
sure to be ransacked, if indeed I am to be blessed with any communication
from the living. But when all the instalments are published and my name is
flying from lip to lip, then, and then only, you, whoever your are, noble
champion of the Men-Covers, please send me thirty-one copies to be given
away.
"I claim no royalty --- no money --- no consideration! The creature who
accumulates the most extremely interesting and highly noble characteristics
of a cover and of a man can but shrink with horror from the very idea of a
vulgar coinage. Only please send in a cheque for 1000 to the secretary of
the S.P.T.B.P.2 as an anonymous gift, to be nevertheless published in the
records of the daily and periodical Press all over the world."
It is a big order for a man who despises money. My correspondent seems
to know the powers which rule the world: Capital and Publicity. Alas! the
1 We believe the author of this story to be as mad as his
characters. --- ED.
2 After a long and painful inquiry the present writer found out
the society referred to by his correspondent. It is the Society
for the Prevention of Tailbiting of Puppies, and stands in great
need of generous contributions.
puppies will keep on losing part of their tails in spite of the S.P.T.B.P.,
because of that third power, Fashion. As for the 1000, I may --- or I may
not. ... But we are digressing. To use an expression from the French,
somewhat slangy, but expressive, "Je passe le crachoir
l'orateur." I
believe the author to be mad. I nevertheless think it necessary to state
that I am "not" an authority on insanity.
Ever since long before my birth I led a peaceful existence. As I grew,
Science attracted me, and Art, and Poetry; my favourite recreation was the
conversion of puppy-owners to the generous belief in the regeneration of
the canine race by the preservation of their caudal appendage. Also the
genius which breathed within me caused me to leave my house on the fifth of
November. Passing a crowded street, I was surrounded by urchins who
greeted me by the {356} name of Guy Fawkes. I hurried home through a
torrent of rain.
A man was pacing my street, muttering strange words which I could not
understand. The rain, which fell heavily, had apparently not the slightest
effect in cooling his heated brain. As I passed him I spoke:
"What a wretched night!"
The sound of my voice startled him. He seized my arm and hurried me
towards the lamp-post. Then he stared at me for a long time, and, speaking
slowly, hammering every syllable in my ear, while the rain continued its
monotonous lamentation, he began:
"I should be very much surprised if this were not the cover I am waiting
for. No fallacies will induce me to free you now that at last I have found
you. I was dead; my life was nothing more than a spring without motion.
Every twenty-one days, according to the calendar, I came, pacing the lonely
streets of this remote spot. For two hours each time did I wait and wait,
longing, eager, nervous, hopeful, hopeless, desperate, distressed, with
gigantic thoughts crowding my mind. I almost despaired of seeing this
moment; at last it has come. I forgot the duties of art, the call of
reason, the fear of uncertain meetings, the very natural care for the most
precious existence on this planet. But I am well rewarded. You have come.
My globe of transparent crystal had shown me the truth. You have come,
escaping my enemies, and you are for the time to come at my disposition."
I thought at first that the man was under the influence of drink and
that it was useless to argue with him. Besides, I am not very daring with
strangers, especially when they speak {357} in such questionable riddles.
Accordingly I said nothing, but tried gently to regain my liberty. Alas!
his grasp was stronger than my desire of liberty, and the only result was
that he pinched me closer.
"I was dead," he resumed, "and my beautiful and lofty thoughts were
wandering through space, shapeless and without expression. The cover which
enclosed the shrine in which they were kept had been stolen from me, and my
foes were expecting my surrender. Happily an angel sent by God ordered me
to come out every twenty-one days, and promised me that I should find here
the cover which I needed. I have it now, and mean to keep it."
"But what are you talking about?" said I. "I am a man; here is my
house; and I don't know anything about your cover. You are mistaking me
for some unknown person or object, sir; pray let me go."
"Let you go! Abandon once more the cover which shall keep my thoughts
in! "You are mad!" Besides, why do you speak? And how is it that you come
in such a shape?"
"I tell you I am a man. Leave me alone, or I shall have to call for
assistance and give you in charge. I am a savant and a nobleman, known all
over the world, I daresay."
"I am no fool, and I shall keep you. Come, I must be off to Brighton
to-night; I have left my thoughts in the coverless box there."
"I shall not go to Brighton, sir! Are you mad? Do I look like a piece
of wood?"
"The appearance has nothing to do with the case. As to madness, I fear
I "should" have gone mad "if" I had not found you at last. Come; my men are
waiting, ready for any {358} emergency, and I shall be compelled to use
their strength if you refuse to follow me. We are off to Brighton, and I
shall there put you in your proper place. Oh, my thoughts, my lofty
thoughts," he went on, "you shall to-night be sequestered from the world of
your enemies!"
"I should like to know, dear unknown being to whom my winged friend will
bring this letter, what you would have done in my place! How was I to
escape? There was certainly not the slightest doubt that the man was a
lunatic. Now, as it happens, lunatics have always been exceedingly
interesting to me. Here was a case for my curiosity. This fellow, thought
I, must have deceived the vigilance of his guardians, and I shall find no
difficulty in having him arrested at the railway station, or at least on
our arrival at Brighton. So I followed him. At the turning a big motor-
car was waiting, and two men stood by on the pavement. They bowed silently
before my companion, and made me enter the car.
One of them took charge of the driving, and the other followed us two in
the back seats. The man said but one word, "Scat," and we started at a
terrific speed and were soon off on the road.
I began to feel uneasy; but prudence stopped my speech in time, and the
man next to me began to titter. Then he spoke; and though he may have
uttered different words, this is what I understood:
"You are trying to deceive us. I always notice such an attempt, even
when it has only reached its mental stage. Indeed, I cannot help noticing
it. No doubt you have heard of me; I am "the-man-whose-nose-sings-at-will."
That power has been granted me ever since I felt a strong impulse to kill
my {359} wife with an axe. I mastered my impulse, and by a triumph of my
logical faculties I cut my own right arm. Having no arm, I could no more
kill my wife with an axe. God rewarded me by giving me the power of
reading thought, which constitutes an extra sense for me; and to my nose He
gave a voice of its own. I was a dentist. Indeed, I have found a new way
of extracting teeth without gas. You merely press the neck of your
patient, who faints in consequence, and you can then safely operate. How
did "you" come to this? What caused you to take the attire of a man in place
of the usual brown coat of a cover?"
His companion --- friend or master --- bade him keep silent for a while,
and we journeyed in silence.
When we came in sight of Brighton the motor-car stopped suddenly in
front of a large gate. The moment after we entered a park, and the door
being opened, I was taken into the house.
The man whom, so unhappily for me, I had met in the street was now alone
with me. Without leaving me a moment's peace, he began to take my measure
with the utmost care and caution. Then, pointing to me a strong and broad
cage, he ordered me to step in.
It would be very tiresome and quite useless for me to express here my
various thoughts and the miserable consternation into which I was thrown.
I would not live those hours again for anything in the world, and had the
devil been within my reach I should decidedly have given my soul to him in
order that he should see me safely home. But no one came to my rescue,
and, though most unwilling, I had to submit to my terrible fate. {360}
When the cage, made of the strongest steel, was closed upon me, I found
myself a prisoner in the most degrading state. I began to look around and
to shake the bars of my grating, but in vain. The man-without-a-cover had
gone.
My next step was to inspect the prison. And in so doing I discovered in
the left corner a box, resembling a coffin in shape, though it was
certainly not a coffin such as I delight in seeing daily in the windows of
the undertakes. It was divided into compartments!
"Is this the box of lofty thoughts, I wonder?" said I to myself.
In that case the man must have had a certain degree of reason about him
after all, for the box was far from being empty.
"In the first compartment" was a red flower, blushing deeply with all the
purest carmine of Nature. The flower was certainly not freshly cut, but
had preserved all its beauties and delectable perfume.
"In the second compartment" was a doll. Oh, not an extraordinary doll! A
plain, common hand-made wooden doll, which you could open by the middle, to
discover inside it a second doll presenting exactly the same appearance.
Just like those figureless old women of white wood made by the Russian
peasants during the long evenings of their winter season. From the first
to the last there were twenty-one dolls, one inside the other. The last
was scarcely bigger than a poppyseed, but presented exactly all the
particularities of the largest one.
"In the third compartment" were two books. You may judge of my surprise
when I opened them and found that no {361} black stain polluted the
immaculate white of their leaves. Only the binding bore some words. They
were the titles of those unwritten books. Thus they ran:
"The book "Advice to
which Mankind
contains all that I know for
for a better use of their faculties."
certain."
No name of author was to be seen.
"In the fourth compartment" was a little framed picture, and though I
examined it very closely I was not able at first to realize what the
subject of the picture was. From a shallow little boat a gigantic snake
was seen to emerge, fiercely staring, and on the opposite corner was a
round black spot. As, when a child throws a stone in a river, the waves
extend farther and farther, shunning the bruises which the child has
inflicted upon them, in a like manner waver of a grey lighter and lighter
as they extended towards the snake were painted in methodically eccentric
gyrations. The last wave was almost white, and stopped at the head of the
monster.
"In the fifth compartment" was a skull.
"In the sixth compartment" was a white rose, with a delicious scent.
"In the seventh compartment," as well as in the eighth and last, I saw
nothing, but a sweet music struck on my ear when I bent over them. The
tunes were very different at first, one tender and soft, the other furious
and thundering. At the end, however, both melted in a whisper, to die
suddenly in a piercing cry of laughter. {362}
And the man-who-lost-his-cover came into the room again.
"Well," said he, "I thought that by now you would have found your way to
submit to necessity and reintegrate your real personality. What did you
see in my box?
I told him, and instantly he grew pale and staggered. But after a
moment he looked furiously at me, and resumed his former manner.
"By God!" he said, "I cannot believe you. How you have found out my
secret and learned by heart the things which one ought to see in my box,
but which one does not, I ignore. But you cannot possibly have seen them."
I swore that I was no impostor. But he refused to listen to me, and
called his two men. They came, and began verifying the measure he had
taken of me.
"Too long," said he, when it was completed. "You have grown out of
shape. We shall have to cut out and plane you in order that you should
exactly fit my mighty box. However, as you pretend to have seen in it
things which a cover cannot possibly see, I must give myself a day to think
it over."
I felt instantly relieved, and began to hope again.
"Perhaps I shall not be cut out and planed after all," thought I; and
smiled humorously upon the man.
Fool! I felt almost certain that a crueller punishment could not be
conceived by the morbid imagination of a madman. And now I am here, in
this secluded spot, with no prospect but the most horrible of lives. ...
But, dear unknown reader of this history, you to whom a trustworthy
messenger will deliver it, do not let my personal sorrow trouble you
because {363} of this incoherent anticipation of the rest of my story. I
should raise no sympathy in your heart by whimpering over myself. It is
true that I am inclined to run riot in self-lamentations; but great men
always are. And I shall try henceforth not to give way to that unwholesome
tendency. I have much already to be forgiven.
In my cage, then, to resume, I was just passing from a state of dreadful
mental agony to a more settled and hopeful disposition. For the second
time the man-who-had-lost-his-cover left me alone; and I felt more
relieved. He will never dare, thought I; and, after all, he does not look
such a cold-blooded murderer. His eyes indicate some sort of inner life
and his tone and voice are gentle at times. It is a joke, a mystification.
... It must be.
Thus I tried to deceive myself, and I must admit that I utterly failed.
Looking, then, around my prison, I began to feel a very peculiar sort of
numbness coming over me. It was almost like intoxication, and I am not in
the least ashamed to say that I know what intoxication is. I was drowsy;
my head seemed to weigh as heavy as if it contained lead in place of the
keenest brains. The coffin appeared to me a most comfortable bedstead, and
the skull a soft pillow. A horrible attraction bent me towards the box,
and in a moment I lay, stiff, snoring, over the eight compartments.
There is here a blank in my memory. Under the influence of a powerful
narcotic, I was cut out and planed to fit the coffin exactly. About that
time my tormentors must have been interrupted, for they forgot to nail me
on the coffin, and the cage was hurriedly put on a motor and carried
somewhere on {364} the South Coast to the private yacht which, no doubt,
was awaiting us. This is my way of explaining it, but of course it is a
mere suggestion. It might have been an airship that took me away,
independent of terrestrial laws, regardless of Customs Duties --- who
knows, perhaps hovering over London and Scotland Yard and my dear old house
in which I was so happy --- but ... "Nec scire fas est omnia."
The only thing I am certain of is that I was either planed to fit the
coffin, or the coffin to fit me; and then I woke up. I was on board a sea-
or air-ship. Believe me, she was in great danger.
However, this would prove a useless narrative. The floating machinery
suffered, was nearly wrecked; the crew suffered, nearly perished; I
suffered, and nearly died. After the storm was over I found myself on the
shore of this island with the box; a small cage out of which two carrier-
pigeons, almost dead with hunger, were struggling to escape; three sailors
of the crew; the man-whose-nose-sings-at-will, and a dog; while my
tormentor and the other souls were drowned, I suppose, or thrown upon some
other hand. It seems now almost as if I should wish my tormentor to be
here. I might cure him; and at all events he would be compelled by
necessity to adopt a more lenient attitude towards me. Besides, now that
he has made me to fit his box, the worst is over. ...
Here takes place an incoherent discussion on the bitter taste of sea-
water and the possibilities of its sweetening, after which the MS. comes to
an end. I have sent back the pigeon, and expect to receive a new supply of
facts --- more precise than the vague and uncanny allegations contained in
the first. If I may be allowed to make a personal suggestion, I am
inclined to believe the writer to be as mad as any tormentor of his, real
or imaginary. However, the MS. is human, and so ... "imprimatur!" {365}
II
CONSIDERING the bulk of the MSS. trusted to the carrier-pigeon by my
correspondent, I decided to send an extra porter with the first bird, in
case of the next message being of an equal or superior volume, and as I
know something about pigeons, as before mentioned, I managed that in a very
clever way.
I say clever because it is a very simple scheme in its cleverness, and
nobody would say it if not I, but nevertheless it had to be found --- like
the egg of the late C.C. I bought a fine hen pigeon, and kept it with the
Man-Cover's messenger, so that they could rub acquaintance. When I noticed
the first symptoms of love I bless the new pair and let them go. The new
wife --- as I thought she would --- followed her husband.
They returned to me with the following strange document, and I think I
must warn the reader against a certain feeling of sympathy towards the
writer. The wickedness and cruelty with which he carries out his logical
tendencies are too repulsive to permit any sentiment of pity. His
sufferings appear to be simply the consequences of a wild and unhindered
imagination, and the real victims --- the only ones to be pitied --- are
his unhappy companions.
That is, of course, in the case of the documents being an expression of
reality. I am sure every one feels the necessity of clearing up this
matter. Alas! there are no Radicals in this country --- that is, persons
acting in a radical manner --- as I have written to the Man-cover himself
and consequently I have little hope that H.M. Government will give any
orders on the matter. I am afraid that if an expedition is sent over it
will be commanded by some distinguished foreign officer. However, should
the expedition cover itself with ridicule by not finding the Man-Cover or
his island, it is perhaps safer for the British reputation that it should
be a foreign expedition. But to business.
Considering our present advanced state of civilisation, and how the
Torch of Science has been brandished and borne about, with more or less
effect, for 5000 years and upwards, as {366} Carlyle puts it; and
considering --- as I think necessary to conclude, contrary to the immortal
Scotsman --- considering how very little more we know about the most
important questions which concern the human race than did our tailed
ancestors, it might strike the reflective mind with some surprise that,
however unpleasant they may be from a personal point of view, the most
wondrous and striking experiences which I am undergoing will doubtless be
of no little help to the "bon-fide" thinkers of our present day. Dean Swift
and Samuel Butler stand, no one will deny it, as the greatest benefactors
of humanity. If my sufferings could prove of any utility, in their turn, I
should feel myself proud and most happy to describe at length the life I am
now leading with three sailors, a dog, a musician, a box whose value I am
learning every day to appreciate more and more, and our carrier-pigeons, in
a distant island.
I must begin methodically and give a systematic account of my life here.
I trust that the Authority presiding over our destinies will look upon me
as the most logical of all men. As the surroundings play an important part
in our life, my first duty is to describe them. The island is a large one.
When I have gone round it myself I shall perhaps be able to give a rough
estimate of its area. For the present I can but say: "it is a large island."
We have trees by thousands: water trees, from which, after the stems have
been cut and slashed, the water pours down; kola-nut trees, papaw tress,
with their flowers, male and female; dragon trees, fig trees, cocoa-nut
palms, bread-fruit trees, and the rest. Beautiful birds are dwelling in
the branches. All that is needed for life is abundant and easy to gather.
The climate permits us {367} to spend night and day in the open, and when I
retire to sleep on the box whose cover I have turned out to be, my
companions sleep in the trees.
No venomous or objectionable beast has yet dared to breathe the air of
this balmy country. But it is not a deserted spot. The natives are
black, but tame and pleasant, and one of my first steps will be to try and
bring them into contact with the beauties of our civilisation. For this
object the mighty box is of the utmost importance; and here I touch on the
first difficulty which I encountered.
The destiny of man being precarious and unsettled, my soul was often
wandering at large in its anxiety to provide for the future of the lofty
thoughts of my late tormentor. I had banished all hatred and bitterness
from my heart and forgiven my enemy. He had done me a great wrong,
dragging me pitilessly away from the peaceful occupations of my life,
cutting and planing my worthy form in order that I should fit his coffin.
He had driven me to his ship, and was the cause of my present exile. Two
young kittens had placed all their hope in me, and I was failing to fill my
paternal duty towards them. I was working at my great work, in fifty-two
volumes, on the various elements composing the shell of the oyster, and I
had almost completed my Introduction, when I was thus deprived of my
liberty by the man-who-had-lost-his-cover. Yet I bore him no grudge. He
was right; I feel it more intensely every day. A box so mighty needed a
cover. In consequence, knowing that the hour of my death might strike at
any moment, I had to find a man-cover to replace me in that event; one who
would never forget to reintegrate the box every night.
Proceeding in order, I looked around me; and at once {368} discarded the
two pigeons and the dog. I had only to choose between the three sailors
and the man-whose-nose-sings-at-will. As the latter was of great help to
us, and kept the negroes amused for hours with the harmonious though
plaintive accords springing at will from his nasal organ, there remained
only the sailors. The natives, were, of course, totally unfit for such a
fate. They could find no inner delectation in the perpetual sufferings
occasioned by so dreadful an ordeal --- or doom!
Of the three sailors, one was much too short to prove of any use. If I
could easily shorten, lop, prune, and curtail a too big substitute, I could
not possibly add anything to that small pattern of our race. I decided, in
consequence, to slay him, during his sleep, so that a useless impediment be
done away with. As the four men, since the wreck of our ship, were sunk in
a state of torpor and only stared at me with vacant looks, it proved easy
to settle this slight matter. I removed the body; and left to time and the
natural dryness of the air the care of dividing its various elements.
The man-whose-nose-sings-at-will was the first to notice the absence of
the sailor, but he said nothing to me. In fact, I believe him to be mad
also. He is continually looking anxiously towards the east, and seems lost
to this world, since his friend or master has disappeared in the wreck.
From the middle of his face gushed a sad tune, and from his eyes many a
bitter tear; but, as I said before, he addressed me not. I was not a
little surprised, as he is the only one with me to know the secrets of the
box. But I respected his silence.
The two others were more suitable for my purpose. One was a strongly
built fellow, with a certain air of intelligence {369} about him; but he
was yet too besotted with fear or moral distress to be made the recipient
of my plans. So I had only one expedient left to me, and turned all my
faculties towards the last of my companions.
He is not young by any means. His temples are already crowned with the
grey silver of at least fifty years and his nose with the carmine of many
gallons. But his remarkable acuteness renders him extremely valuable.
When I opened my mind to him he simply lifted his eyes at me with a shrewd
look and smiled gently with the smile of the Wise.
I told him the story of the meeting with my kidnapper; and explained to
him the operation I had to go through before I could fit the coffin of
lofty thoughts. With the exception of the secret of the eight
compartments, I opened my very soul to that worthy successor. He must
possess a keen sense of humour; for he began gently, and dry-humour-like,
telling me a quite different story. His smile, of course, showed that the
was only trying to entertain me. According to his version, I am a well-
known surgeon who had lost his reason and was taken to the private yacht of
a celebrated alienist. As I seemed to be always talking of a coffin
without a cover, one had been made of my size. Unhappily, says the sailor,
a wreck happened; and the doctor who was to cure me has been drowned.
This narrative caused me to laugh heartily. I could scarcely keep my
ribs together. I had no trouble in pointing out to him the contradictions
in his story, and he soon agreed with me. When he saw, moreover, that I
alone of us all was armed, and that the natives treated me with great
respect, he put himself entirely at my disposal. I took advantage of this
{370} happy mood to offer him my services in order that he should be cut
out and planed on the spot. But he looked gently in my eyes, and said that
he himself would see to that. I told him of my experiments, and how I
still had at times a certain illusion that my body was absolutely complete.
But (he said) the case is common with all men amputated; and he promised me
that in case of my death he should at once prepare himself to take my place
at night on the top of the coffin. My mind being thus at rest, I began
studying more deeply the contents of that mighty box. {371}
III
THE two carrier-pigeons have come to me. I am glad to say they look very
happy. Though there is still much to be published before we arrive at the
part of the Man-Cover's adventures with which this last message is
concerned, he informs me of such surprising news that I think it my duty to
let the readers share it at once. The news is startling. Having received
my letter, he threatens to blow the island into the air, should any vessel
approach within three miles. He informs me of his absolute decision never
to leave the place, and never to allow any one to come within the distance
mentioned. Provided he receives my pledge never to reveal the situation of
his new landed property, he promises to keep me informed of all his doings.
For the sake of the tale, I have made myself an accomplice of his crimes
and follies. I am ashamed of myself, but curiosity is stronger than shame.
The carrier-pigeons have fled back to him with my word of honour. I was
too anxious to know more about the Man-Cover, and my duty as a reporter has
made me forget the moral ideas painfully inculcated unto me by a life of
hard experience and severely-paid-for mistakes. Scratch the man, you will
find the beast. I must admit this has proved true for me also. It is the
last time that I let my own personality come between the readers and the
wickedly mad hero of history, and I apologise for this intrusion. I now
give place to him, and will publish his notes as I receive them.
The contents of the coffin have not suffered from the wreck. Here they
are all, the books and the skull, the roses white and red, the picture and
the doll. From the seventh and eighth compartments sprang the same tunes.
Truly, the sound reminded me of some hoarse singer, but the quantity of
seawater absorbed during the floating journey from ship to land certainly
accounts for it. I shall gather a few lemons and rub the wood carefully
with their juices. {372}
Being a man of method and logic, I could not but begin with book-
keeping. When they were dry the two books came very handy to me. I opened
them at the first page, and started putting down with a blue pencil the
most important among all the thoughts that came into my brain. In
"The book
which
contains all that I know
for
certain"
I began with these sentences:
"Your enemy, when his hatred and persecution lead you to a clearer
perception of Life's secrets, becomes your benefactor."
"The men living in my company being unable to realise that my body is
nothing but an illusion of their deficient sight, it is useless for me to
try and oblige them to recognise it as a mere wood cover."
"Their error will appear even more plausible and explicable when one
considers that a few days ago I was myself unaware of my real personality;
and that I am still at times under the influence of insufficiently keen
senses."
"The destiny of a Man-Cover being a case of exceptional scarcity, he
cannot reasonably be bound by everyday morals and conventions. All that
hampers him, all that comes in his way to prevent him from fulfilling his
sacred duty, must be surmounted and overcome. What is crime in a man is
often virtue in a cover."
Having thus established a sound and most solid base of {373} morality,
which could be transmitted as a new gospel for the special use of the Men-
Covers of future times, I opened the second book to put down in it some
equally useful aphorisms. But as I took my pencil the white, immaculate
page appeared covered with brown characters. I had scarcely time enough to
read and they had vanished. But I remember what I saw.
"You must leave the study of the oyster-shells in order to perceive the
invisible, to refine your senses and escape the delusions caused by them."
The duty of man is not to believe other men. They speak either truth or
untruth; but if they speak truth, even then is it a falsehood."
"All men are not necessarily obliged to kill their opponents or those
who doubt them, or who are not of any use to them; but some men are --- all
Men-Covers are."
I was interrupted in the profound meditation that followed this
discovery by the approach of a strong party of natives. My heir-apparent,
if I may be allowed to use that expression in regard to a Man-Cover, was
absent; and our two other companions had also made themselves scarce.
These black men seemed to be frenzied with pugnacity, a very unusual
disposition. After rapidly taking advice of the skull (the two books
failing on the matter), I lay down in my usual place, protecting the lofty
thoughts from impure contact, resolved to be pierced through and through
rather than to let these black devils brush the holy books. To be pierced
through could not do me much harm; and the holes would soon be stopped up
by the skilful hand of my worthy understudy.
Evidently my attitude of passive resistance surprised the {374} natives.
They gathered around me and began singing a strange "mlope." One of their
chiefs passed his hands over my face, and I became at once unconscious. ...
When I awoke I was still covering the coffin, but the surroundings had
changed. Over me was a huge canopy of magnificent trees in full bloom of
youth. Nature had certainly not been helped in the forming of that
beautiful corner of the world; nevertheless a Japanese gardener, master of
his art, could not have done better. Two gaps at the foot of the coffin
were apparently waiting for posts to be planted. Wild flowers of all
colours, some of a shade quite unknown to me, perfumed the air. It was no
more the sunny afternoon, but a morning splendid and enchanting. The dew
covered the prairie, and it seemed as if the grass were weeping lukewarm
tears. At intervals a gentle breeze came, softly caressing the head of
each blade of grass, refreshing them with its breath. Then Father Sol
moved also with sympathy, showed himself a while before he was due, drying
the tears of the green blades.
It dried also my coffin, and from the musical compartments came the
"roulades" of an invigorated voice. As I heard also the panting breath of
the negroes, I looked for them, and saw that, quite unaware of the tune,
they were sitting at a little distance, all talking at the same time,
carolling and shouting. But they were not, I gather, plotting any serious
mischief. They saluted me in a friendly manner when they saw me leave the
box and walk towards them. I must have been a long time lying over it, a
whole afternoon and night, maybe, during my unnatural sleep.
I bowed gracefully before them; but they seemed amazed {375} at my
forwardness. As I was going to address them an awful feeling passed over
me. My old fancy took possession of my brains again, and I imagined myself
made of flesh and bones. I began to suffer as if my body had in reality
become stiff and benumbed. Happily it was enough for me to turn and see
the coffin, and my delusion fled. Moreover, I noticed that I had forgotten
one of the most important things. The very colour of the coffin ought to
have told the truth to me long ago. Of course I was now of a dark brown
complexion, almost black, and this was the reason of their surprise.
A movement which I detected among them made me turn quickly towards my
box. Too late, alas! The scoundrels had taken advantage of my few steps
towards them, and were pillaging the coffin, keeper of lofty thoughts.
The piercing cry I uttered perplexed them. One had already the skull in
his hands, but on hearing me he put it back in the compartment instantly;
and they all began chanting a slow prayer, which I could not understand. I
went back straight to the box, and, kneeling over it, sought consolation in
the sweet tune of the two last compartments. When I turned round again the
miserable, unintelligent creatures had gone, all but two, who advanced
towards me. They were women of a lovely type.
{376}
IV
I was a prisoner. An inextricable entanglement of tropical creepers
encircled the little oasis. A small path had been managed, but it was
severely guarded at the other end. What doom had been prepared for me?
For what purpose had these two handsome creatures been left with me? I
only reproduce here an infinitesimal part of the numberless thoughts which
came to my mind in that moment.
However --- for this should prove a too long narrative --- I soon ceased
ruminating upon the future, for the women began singing a sort of cheerless
lay. "How, fah, fah, how, loh, hew, hew," it went on, and I could foresee
no end to the romance. In the meantime the maidens advanced towards me,
and while their thoughts gave way to the noise referred to already, their
hands soon began gently scratching my head, as if to prey upon my hair. I
have always been rather sensitive to feminine beauty, and when they leant
gracefully over me and began patting my cheeks I thought how simply
delightful it would be to desert my duties, abandon my coffin, and live as
a man who is not a cover. I was soon to feel ashamed of this intention.
After they had indulged in that little recreation they changed the tune
of their lay and gave the same words with another air, which called at once
to my mind the choir of the {377} "Suppliants." As a matter of fact they
were asking me for some favour. At the sight of real tears rolling down
the faces of these two most lovable creatures, so handsome and graceful, so
perfect in all their proportions, my pity was set in motion; and soon love
was to follow, thought I. Though of a slightly dark complexion, they were
none the less remarkably pretty, and very near the finest type of white
womanhood. Alas! their beauty was a trap, their sweet voices were meant to
delude me; the sirens had been sent by those who could not but mean
persecution against me.
I found this out as soon as I understood them. They wanted my flowers.
With a supple and harmonious gesture, they suggested that I should let them
have the mystical roses. As soon as I perceived their intentions I felt
the most intense impulse to murder them. We talked for a long time without
being able to gather much of each other's thoughts. At last I turned to
the books in the coffin, and in the book containing
"Advice to
Mankind
for
a better use of their faculties"
I saw, traced by an invisible hand, the following advice:
"Be careful of womanly traps."
"Let the roses be planted; they are meant for that purpose."
"A cover cannot fall in love except with boards and planks. Beware of
the fallacies of sense."
As any one may understand, my mind was a pandemonium, but still I could
not refuse to submit to so clear an order, and I handed the roses to the
maidens. I had not to repent the {378} concession. They clasped their
hands and smiled upon me; then planted them instantly in the two big holes
of which I have spoken already. The result was immediate. The plants
began growing and growing, blossoming in many parts of their stalk, and
their odour delighted my nostrils.
But this meant no peace for me. The two females, truly, shrank from me,
but my senses were speaking in a rough way. They sat at the other end of
the oasis; and looked on with wide-open eyes of delight as the two sweet
and scented plants continued to grow. I could not detach my sight from the
girls, and for the first time my ear did not perceive the music of the two
compartments. It seemed to me as if there were two personalities in me,
one simple and natural, as it becomes a wood cover, the other complex and
full of passions, as if I were really the man whom I knew to be no more. I
took the skull in my hands, and suddenly a light broke its way into my
soul. How could I be deluded this time? I had arms and hands; I 'SAW'
them. I saw the women, I saw the coffin. It was not the feeling of a
plain piece of brown wood. I went almost mad over the discovery. What was
the meaning of all this? I then opened the book again, but scarcely had I
time to glance at the white page before a large band of negroes came again
to me; and this time I could not keep them at a distance. They chained me
and drove me away. I fell unconscious.
At my awakening I found that I was alone by the shore with the old
sailor, my willing successor. When he saw that I opened my eyes he spoke
gently to me:
"Are you better now?"
"What has happened?" said I, instead of answering his question. {379}
"Oh you have been very ill for many days with brain-fever. You must not
speak too much.
"What? Where is the coffin?"
"The negroes have it; they have carried it away into the interior. But
I suppose you are cured now?" he added in an anxious tone.
I shall not repeat the conversation that ensued. Enough to mention that
I discovered the old sailor to be absolutely mad. And being unable to
persuade him that I was still firmly convinced of being the cover of the
lost coffin, I found it better to agree with him. And soon he fell into
the trap. Hiding the longing after my box and its contents, the doll and
the skull and the mighty books, I spoke to him as if completely unconcerned
about the loss, and unrolled a scheme for civilising the natives. He told
me of a little hut under the canopy, where my two wives were waiting for my
arrival, as soon as I could get up and walk there.
He did not expect me to do so before a long while, but he was wrong.
With a cautious look around me, I began creeping slowly towards him; and
before he could call any one I had jumped at his throat. I had my idea;
and being a logical man, I wanted to carry it out faithfully, without
losing an instant. We struggled a long time; and, as I was getting
exhausted, I succeeded at last in taking his knife, and sank it in his
stomach.
It was not very pleasant for me to see his blood running black and hot
on the sand; but I had to perform this execution, owing to his obstinacy.
It was safer to destroy my understudy, as I had called him till then in my
happy thoughts, and try afterwards to get another one to fill his place.
His {380} hint about my wives suggested to me that I might soon have a
child whom I could bring up in the idea that he was to take my place. I
could also shape an infant better than an old seaman. So I left him to the
whales and other fishes, and proceeded towards the oasis. The two wives he
had spoken of were the same women who caused my last illness. But their
sweet smile prevented me from using any abusive language, which, in fact,
they could not understand.
Well aware that I was fated to conceal my thoughts for a very long
while, I allowed them to advance and attend upon me. In that way began my
new life as master of a harem. At first the negroes treated me with a
certain reserve, even with hostility; but they soon changed, seeing me so
tame and amiable. As the story goes,
The King of France and forty thousand men
They drew their swords and put them back again.
But I now perceive that my narrative will appear almost incoherent if I do
not at this point of the history pass over a few incidents and the daily
toil of civilising, in order to state immediately the chief facts.
The negroes after a while submitted to me; my two wives are most
attentive, and wait upon me with a laudable zeal. The strongly built
sailor, who has recovered from his fear, is my most devoted lieutenant, and
as his ideas are scarce he never asks for any explanations, and follows
faithfully all my orders.
The man-whose-nose-sings-at-will I have put in irons. His mutism was
beginning to upset me. The natives enjoy immensely their visit to the
cage, where, as a canary should, he continually sings through his nasal
appendage. {381}
The circumference of the island is somewhat over fifteen miles, and the
first discovery I made was that of a broken-down sailing-boat, which the
niggers had never dared approach since the wreck that brought it there. In
the cabins I found gunpowder in large quantities, rum, matches, and
tobacco; I had all this carried to my oasis, together with a cannon; and
when the negroes had heard the voice of this powerful engine my authority
was established on the most solid basis.
This event helped me to recover the coffin, and I am glad to say that
nothing had been done to it to spoil it. It had two hundred natives
hanged, and as many burned alive, for form's sake, and in order to show
their fellow black men that my justice was impartial; but apart from this
unimportant little fact nothing followed the recovery of the mighty box.
I had undertaken the difficult task of civilising the negroes; and as it
would be quite impossible for me to lose for an instant the sight and
thought of my personal mission, I was not a little perplexed at the duality
it presented at first. But I soon found out the truth. Cut in the most
precious wood of the island, a cover was made of my shape, and prepared to
take my place every time my various duties should call me away. Acting
upon the advice of my wives, I had the coffin hidden from sight; and only
once a month, when the moon breaks up with her thinnest crescent, are the
natives admitted to the contemplation of its contents.
Before I take again to the main road of my history, which I shall
neither leave again or follow further than necessary, I must give a word of
praise to my wives. Of course the poor creatures think I am a mere man,
but apart from this {382} little error they treat me gently and worship me
so much that they seem very much concerned every time I venture myself out
of their sight. The sailor, my lieutenant, calls them "Nurse," but then he
is such a simple fellow!
Remembering the Laws of Manu, and how it is there said that there are
seven kinds of wife, "i.e.", a wife like a thief, like an enemy, like a
master, like a friend, like a sister, like a mother, like a slave, and that
the last four are good and the last of all the best, I cannot quite agree
with the ancient. My wives are of the best, and I am afraid they are like
a master to me, though their authority is always tempered with sisterly
manners. And what fine cooks they both are! They will help me to civilise
our negroes.
This task seems to me the most important. All the civilised world may
disappear; and we must have cultured beings to put in its place. Have you
never thought of the dreadful doom perhaps reserved to our race; of the
very slight disturbance that might reduce to nothing all our proud
civilisation, leaving only the puniest and less fitted amongst human
beings? All to be begun anew! As perhaps it has begun again more than
once in one or another planet --- even in our own little one --- along the
past centuries. Nothing, nothing will be left, perhaps; not a book, even
the Bible; not a statue, even "Demeter" or "La Vnus"; not a piece of art
of any kind, save, mayhap, the skull of a monkey floating upon a new and
fathomless Ocean. Worse even! --- things may be preserved that would lead
to serious blunders for our successors. Think of their extremity if the
students of our times should find as the only documents a complete edition
of the works of Miss Corelli or some of the numerous Utopias that are
poured on us at the {383} present time. Why, they would not then be
surprised at our total disappearance.
I am afraid I am digressing again. But I must warn you against your
intrusion upon me. I just have your message, and if you should at any time
attempt to interfere with my mission, or try to have some one sent to my
rescue, I would without the slightest hesitation blow our island in the
air. And now let us back to my adventures.
I am sorry to say that no subsequent MSS. came to me from the Man-Cover.
GEORGE RAFFALOVICH.
{384}
REVIEWS
A MODERN READING OF SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI. BY KATHERINE COLLINS.
C.W.Daniel, 1"s".
Not bad; might start somebody inquiring how to acquire the Cosmic
Consciousness.
ARCANA OF NATURE. BY HUDSON TUTTLE. Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 6"s".
net.
Faecal filth about Spiritist --- nouns --- in simplified "speling." Who
shall cleanse the astral cesspool of these mental necrophiles?
And think of having a name like Hudson Tuttle!
LITTLE BOOK OF SELECTIONS FROM THE CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT. By
RUFUS M. JONES, M.A., Litt.D. Headley Bros., I"s". 6"d". net.
I dislike Brochette de Paragraphes, and I dislike second-raters. "Let
the dead bury their dead!" But Dr. Jones apologises prettily enough. May
I point out to him that his clients (even) demand the focussing of the
attention on something or other, and that this 'Tit-Bits,' method is the
contradictory course?
THE MYSTERY OF EXISTENCE. BY CHARLES WICKSTEED ARMSTRONG.
Longmans, Green and Co., 2"s". 6"d". net.
"Ne pedagogus ultra flagellum" --- for Mr. Armstrong is a schoolmaster.
All he does is to rearrange other people's prattle; and anyhow, I can't
read him.
He write "Carlisle" for "Carlyle," "future" when he means "later," and
believes in castrating anybody who disagrees with him. Pp. 94, 123, and
114 respectively.
KANT'S PHILOSOPHY AS RECTIFIED BY SCHOPENHAUER. BY M. KELLY, M.D.
Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 2"s". 6"d".
This excellent little book by Major Kelly sums up in a few pages,
concisely enough, the greater portion of Kant's philosophy; the only
difficulty is to tell where Kant ends and where Major Kelly and
Schopenhauer begin. Further, {385} it is interesting reading, which is
more than we can say of most recent works dealing with the Knigsberg
philosopher; except, however, two, which, as it happens, are also written
by soldiers, viz., Captain William Bell McTaggart's "Absolute Relativism,"
and Captain J. F. C. Fuller's "Star in the West." This work, however, more
than these two, which only deal with Kant "en passant," shows him to be, as
we have always considered him, the wild Irishman of Teutonic thought, who
recklessly gallops at the philosophic hurdles set up by the seventeenth-
century and early eighteenth-century philosophers. Some of these he clears
skilfully enough, others he crashes through and shouts "a priori," little
seeing that these innate intuitions of his are but abstractions from
experience --- "inherited experiences," as Herbert Spencer has since shown
--- without furthering the solution of the problem "What is Existence?"
In fact, in many ways Kant may be said to be the eighteenth-century
Spencer, and much more so than Spencer can be said to be the nineteenth-
century Kant. He succeeded Berkeley and Hume, just as Spencer succeeded
Hegel and Fichte; but, like the great transfigured realist, only ultimately
and unconsciously to be overthrown by the very questions he fondly imagined
he had explained away. Nevertheless he answered these questions so
astutely that it has taken the whole of the nineteenth century to explain
what he meant! This Major Kelly indirectly, if not directly, points out by
attempting to rectify the Transcendental AEsthetics Analytic and Dialectic
by the critical and idealistic pantheism of Schopenhauer. Interesting as
this is, it would have indeed added further to the value of this little
book had Major Kelly added a chapter dealing with the philosophy of Kant
from to-day's critical standpoint, instead of halting with Schopenhauer's
extension of the same. Had he done so he would scarcely have asserted, as
he does (or is it Kant or Schopenhauer?), that from the law of Causality
results the important "a priori" corollary "that Matter can neither be
created nor destroyed" (p. 35). If, however, it can be destroyed, as
Gustave le Bon has attempted to prove, what becomes of the "a priority" of
Causality? Nay, further, of the "a priority" of the Transcendental AEsthetic
itself --- of Time and of Space, the fundamental sensual perceptions of
Kant's system? Must we agree with the learned author of "The Star in the
West," that Kant, after having for a hundred years lost his way in "the
night of Hume's ignorance," has at length fallen victim to his own
verbosity, and has indeed sadly scorched "his fundamental basis"?
THE LITERARY GUIDE AND RATIONALIST REVIEW, 1908-9. Monthly, 2"d".
Of all the lame ducks that crow upon their middens under the impression
that they are reincarnations of Sir Francis Drake, I suppose that the
origin-of-religion lunatics are the silliest. {386}
Listen to Charles Callow-Hay on Stonehenge! Here's logic for you!
"Stonehenge is built in the form of a circle."
"The sun appears to go round the earth in a circle."
Argal, "Stonehenge is a solar temple."
Or, for the minor premiss:
"Eggs are round."
Argal, "Stonehenge was dedicated to Eugenics."
Listen to Johnny Bobson on Cleopatra's Needle!
"The Needle is square in section."
"The old Egyptians thought the earth had four corners."
Argal, "The Needle was built to commemorate the theory."
Or, even worse!
"The Needle is square in section."
"It must have been built so for a religious reason."
Argal, "The Egyptians thought that the earth had four corners."
It is impossible to commit all possible logical fallacies in a single
syllogism. This must be very disappointing to the young bloods of the
R.P.A.
The Rationalists have created man in their own image, as dull
simpletons. They assume that the marvellous powers of applied mathematics
shown in the Great Pyramid had no worthier aim than the perpetuation of a
superstitious imbecility.
Here is Leggy James translating the Chinese classics.
Passage I. is of so supreme an excellence that it compels even his
respect.
What does he do?
He flies in the face of the text and the tradition, asserting that
"heaven" means a personal God. This shows what "God has never left himself
without a witness" --- even in China.
Passage II. is quite foolish --- "i.e.", he, He, HE, Leggy James Himself,
cannot understand it. This shows to what awful depths the unaided
intellect of even the greatest heathen must necessarily sink. How
fortunate are We --- "et cetera."
It is such people as these who accuse mystics of fitting the facts to
their theories.
Here is Erbswurst Treacle dictating the Laws of the Universe.
It is certain (saith Erbswurst Treacle) that there is no God. And
proves it by arguments drawn from advanced biology --- the biology of
Erbswurst Treacle.
Oh! the shameless effrontery of the Pope who asserts the contrary, and
proves it by arguments unintelligible to the lay mind! How shocked is the
Rationalist!
My good professor, right or wrong, I may be drunk, but I certainly see a
pair of you. {387}
So this is where we are got to after these six thousand, or six thousand
billion years (as the case may be), that, asking for bread, one man gives
us the stone of Homoiousios and another the half-baked brick of Amphioxus.
Both are in a way rationalists. Wolff gives us idea unsupported by fact,
and argues about it for year after year; Treacle does the same thing for
fact unsupported by idea. Nor does the one escape the final bankruptcy of
reason more than the other.
While the theologian vainly tries to shuffle the problem of evil, the
Rationalist is compelled to ascribe to his perfect monad the tendency to
divide into opposite forces.
The omicron upsilon delta epsilon nu plays leapfrog with the epsilon nu as the
epsilon nu has vaulted over the bar of the pi omicron lambda lambda alpha and the
pi alpha nu . So the whole argument breaks up into a formidably
ridiculous logomachy, and we are left in doubt as to whether the universe
is (after all) bound together by causal or contingent links, or whether in
truth we are not gibbering lunatics in an insane chaos of hallucination.
And just as we think we are rid of the priggishness of Matthew Arnold
and Edwin Arnold and all the pragmatic pedants and Priscilla-scented
lavenderians, up jumps some renegade monk, proclaims himself the Spirit of
the Twentieth Century, and replaces the weak tea of the past by his own
stinking cabbage-water.
It seems useless nowadays to call for a draught of the right Wine of
Iacchus.
The Evangelicals object to the wine, and the Rationalists to the God.
We had filed off the fetter, and while the sores yet burn, find another
heaver iron yet firmer on the other foot --- as Stevenson so magnificently
parabled unto us.
Then how this nauseous stinkard quibbles!
This defender of truth! How he delights with apish malice to write "in
England," wishing his hearers to understand "Great Britain"; and when taxed
with the malignant lie against his brother which he had thus cunningly
insinuated, to point out gleefully that "England" does not include
"Scotland."
Indeed a triumph of the Reason!
And why all this pother? To reduce all men to their own lumpishness.
These louts of the intelligence! These clods --- Clodds!
My good fellows, it is certainly necessary to plough a field sometimes.
But not all the year round! We don't want the furrows; we want the grain.
And (for God's sake!) if you must be ploughmen, at least let us have the
furrows straight!
Do you really think you have helped us much when you have shown that a
horse is really the same as a cow, only different? {388}
Quite right; it is indeed kind of you to have pointed out that even
Gadarene pigs might fly, but are very unlikely birds, and that the said
horse is (after all) not a dragon. Very, very kind of you.
Thank you so much.
And now will you kindly go away?
THE SUPERSENSUAL LIFE. BY JACOB BOEHME. Translated by WILLIAM
LAW. H.R.Allenson, I"s". net.
This admirable little treatise, now so beautifully and conveniently
printed, deserves a place on every bookshelf. It contains the essential
knowledge of our own community in the Christian --- but not too Christian
--- dialect. I have bought a dozen copies to give to my friends.
MEISTER ECKHART'S SERMONS. Translated by CLAUDE FIELD, M.A. Same
price and publisher.
Too pedantic and theological to please me, though I daresay he means
well.
THE WORSHIP OF SATAN IN MODERN FRANCE. BY ARTHUR LILLIE. Swan
Sonnenschein and Co., 6"s".
Arthur Lillie is as convenient as Mrs. Boole from the standpoint of the
poet.
I should add that the catch-penny title is entirely misleading, and has
no discoverable connection with the contents, save those of a short
preface, cribbed, like the title, from Mr. Waite's "Devil-Worship in
France."
What a wicked place France is!
THE WORKSHOP OF RELIGIONS. BY ARTHUR LILLIE. Same price and
publisher.
Slobber.
THE PHILOSOPHY AND FUN OF ALGEBRA. BY MARY EVEREST BOOLE.
C.W.Daniel, 2"s". net.
Mrs.Boole is as convenient as Mr. Lillie from the standpoint of the
poet. I am sorry for the children who search this book for fun, and there
is as much philosophy as fun.
The book is as of a superior person stooping to instruct lesser minds,
and so wrapped in the robe of priggishness that the voice is muffled.
THE MESSAGE OF PSYCHIC SCIENCE TO THE WORLD. Same author and
publisher, 3"s". 6"d". net.
Dull tosh. {389}
SEEN AND UNSEEN. BY E. KATHERINE BATES. Greening and Co., Ltd., 1"s". net.
Superstitious twaddle; aimless gup; brain-rotting bak-bak.
THE QUEST. Quarterly, 2"s". 6"d". net. John M. Watkins.
We are threatened in October with the publication of a magazine of this
title.
It is, we believe, to bear aloft as oriflamme not the Veil of Isis, but
the stainless petticoat of Mrs. Grundy. You mustn't say psychism of C.W.L.
We note, however, with satisfaction that one of the contributors, a Mr.
G. R. S. Mead, is a B.A. This sort of boasting is perfectly legitimate.
OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. BY OSWALD KLPE. Swan Sonnenschein and Co.,
10"s". 6"d".
One of the most encouraging and significant signs of the times is the
new Psychology, an excellent introduction to which is provided by the
present work.
Oswald Klpe's work is of an essentially Teutonic character, having
nearly all the characteristics, both good and bad, that one expects to find
in a German technical scientific work; eminently typical is "Outlines of
Psychology" in its thoroughness.
The experimental method, in which Klpe is an adept, shows conclusively
and absolutely the essential unity of body and mind.
Psychology is still in its infancy; when it attains maturity it will be
the most dread enemy that Supernaturalism has to face. The subjective view
of life is undoubtedly destined to be the predominant one.
Your reviewer ventures to prophesy that in the science whereof Klpe is
a brilliant pioneer will be found the key to the ecstasy that is the Vision
in all religions.
The translator of "Outlines" is Mr. E. B. Titchener. He has succeeded
admirably. V.B. NEUBURG.
INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY. BY OSWALD KLPE. Swan Sonnenschein
and Co., 5"s".
An excellent introduction to formal Philosophy, explaining clearly the
distinctions between the various schools that at present hold the field.
The author is extremely calm and impartial as a rule, but in his
denunciation of materialism he shows that a passionate human heart throbs
in the breast of one who seems to the harsh gaze of the sceptic to be a
formalist and a schoolman.
I commend the book to all those who wish to understand the tendencies of
philosophy in the universities of to-day.
A word of praise is due to Mr. Titchener. He has again performed
satisfactorily his difficult task of translation. V.B. NEUBURG. {390}
INTRODUCTION TO PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. BY DR. THEODOR ZIEHEN.
Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 6"s".
"Luke vi. 39."
Professor Ziehen, the author of this useful little text-book --- useful
at least for examination purposes and "sixth-form" students in psychology
--- follows in the main the theories more widely known in this country
through the works of Mnsterberg, and rejects such of those of Wundt as are
based by him upon that "a priori" auxiliary function, the so-called
"apperception." "From the outstart," states Professor Ziehen, "the
conception 'unconscious psychical processes' is for us an empty
conception"; and so, on the strength of this assertion, he attempts to work
out the whole of his argument empirically. This he does rationally enough,
as we might expect from a professor of Jena; but in spite of the cunning of
his logic and the lucidity of his numerous "becauses," he, in the end, is
as inconclusive as Wundt or any of the modern psychologists. Finally he
explains nothing, or, to be charitable, very little, and in spite of this
assertion, "Our thoughts are never voluntary," we are still more in doubt
as to this on closing his volume than we were upon opening it.
Further, he writes on p. 247: "The freedom which we think to possess in
the so-called voluntary processes of thought is only semblance." In spite
of the dogmatism displayed in this sentance, we almost agree with it, and
would heartily do so if our worthy Professor had included in it all mental
conditions explicable in the language of man. Semblances we feel they all
are, semblances of a something beyond book or word, a something alone
attainable by Titanic work.
The individual, we feel, will never understand the minds of others until
he understands his own. This our modern-day philosophers invariably seem
to forget, and as long as they do so we cannot help further feeling that
their grand generalisation must be as unbalanced as the minds of those
asylum patients from which they are so fond of deducing them. "Know
Thyself" comes before "Instruct others." Let this be well remembered by
all such as would teach without learning and would lead others without
seeing. F.
This admirable manual of Physiological Psychology cannot fail to be of
great interest to every psychologist who cares for the physiological side
of his fascinating science. At the same time, it should, we think, never
be forgotten that the study of physiological psychology is hardly complete
without a parallel research in psychological physiology.
Nor should confusion arise between physiology proper, psychology proper,
{391) and psycho-physiology; while for the physio-psychologist it is
important to assimilate and co-ordinate the data of epistemology and
embryology with those of ontogeny and phylogeny, for the psycho-
physiologist it is sufficient to rest in that monistic autokineticism which
is only distinguishable from blank atheism by its Hellenistic-Teutonic
terminology. J. McC.
IS A WORLD-RELIGION POSSIBLE? BY DAVID BALSILLIE, M.A. Francis
Griffiths, 4"s". net.
Mr. Balsillie does not seem to realise the immensity of his subject. I
remember once at school, in a general knowledge paper, being asked to give
"a short account of the Equator." Frankly, I funked the task, but another
spirit, more bold, stated that it was nicknamed "the line" and sailors play
jokes in crossing it! That is just Mr. Balsillie's attitude. For my own
part I would even dare to speak disrespectfully of the Equator rather than
dismiss the vast subject of a World-Religion in 180 pages, a large number
of which are taken up with the practical jokes of such comic mariners in
deep water as Mr. Myers and the Rev. R.J. Campbell. NORMAN ROE.
Balsillie for short? --- A.C.
THE BUDDHIST REVIEW. Quarterly, 1"s".
Founded, as "Buddhism," in 1902, by Allan Bennett. "Lucifer, quomodo"
"cecidisti!"
RAYS FROM THE REALMS OF GLORY. BY Rev. SEPTIMUS HERBERT, M. A.
Second Edition. Samuel Bagster and Sons, Ltd., 2"s". 6"d". net.
This book consists of theological discussions between two young men
named Percy and Sidney! It must be a great help to a Master of Arts in
attaining a Second Edition if he can pat his own musings on the back at
psychological moments with such interpolations as "'Yes,' said Percy, 'I
like that thought!'"
The clumps of quotations at the commencement of the various chapters
read on occasion rather incongruously. For instance, in front of Chapter
XIV.:
"'Jesus called a little child unto Him.' --- Matthew xviii. 2."
"'"Uncle Tom," said Eva, "I'm going there."' --- 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'"
NORMAN ROE.
{392}
STEWED PRUNES AND PRISM:
THE TENNYSON CENTENARY
THE judicious may possibly wonder why one should dig so deep into the
tumulus of oblivion to rescue (though but for execration) the bones of so
very dead a dog as Alfred Tennyson.
But the truth is not so near the surface. He can hardly be called dead
who never lived; and a trodden worm writhes longer than a felled ox. So
therefore Tennyson succumbed to contempt, not to hatred; men twitched their
robes away from the contamination of the unclean thing --- there was no
fight, no bloodshed.
Now therefore the smirking approval of the neuters of England continues
unashamed, until the younger generation (some of them) may be inclined to
class Tennyson with the poets, rather than with the Longfellows and
Cloughs.
They can hardly imagine any creature, however vile, so crapulous as to
prostitute the noble legend of England herself to dust-licking before that
amiable Teutonic prig, the late Prince Consort. Yet this busy buttock-
groom gives the best part of his flunky's life to the achievement. Even
his own friendships --- his friendships1 --- are made but the pretext for a
new servility. {393}
And what an object for servility! The fashionable dilettante doubt, the
fashionable dilettante faith, are neatly balanced in the scales of mid-
Victorian pragmatism, whose coarse-fibred "affettuosi" bargain with God as
with a huckster.
The British conception of the Noblest Man being that of a cheating
tradesman, their God is fashioned in that image, and the ambition of them
all is to cheat Him. So they avoid the sceptic's sneers by an affection of
doubt, the fanatic's thunders by an affectation of faith: between which two
stools they fall to the ground.
In the end they are more sceptic than the sceptic. Hear how they try to
be pious!
"Leave thou thy sister, when she prays,
Her early Heaven, her happy views,"
implies that the whole question of religion is so trivial that it is really
not worth while disturbing any one about it.
So too the play at scepticism results in an insane excess of maudlin
piety.
As we look back on that whole dreadful period, we sicken at its
loathsome cant, its "laissez-faire," its sweating, its commercialism, its
respectability, its humanitarianism, its inhumanity.
Of this age we have two perfect relics.
If art be defined as the true reflection of the inmost soul of the age,
then the works of Alfred Tennyson and the Albert Memorial are among our
chiefest treasures.
How harmonious, too, they are! There is nothing in Tennyson which the
memorial does not figure in one or other of its gaudy features; no
flatulence of the Memorial whose {394} perfect parallel one cannot find in
the shoddy sentimentalism of Tennyson.
Even where the vision is true and beautiful it is quite out of place.
The young gentleman waits in the park for his young lady; and sees,
quite clearly and nicely:
1 WEH NOTE --- this word is set upside-down in the original text.
"And like a ghost she glimmers on to me."
Apart from the villainous cacophony and bad taste of the wording, the
vision is true enough; I was once young myself, in a park --- and the rest
of it; and that is exactly the vision. But what a point of view! The
young gentleman must certainly have been a curate.
At such moments the heart should race, the veins swell, the breath
quicken, the eyes strain, the foot --- not a word of the struggle not to
show impatience, the tenseness of the whole being of a man!
No! this is indeed a glimmering ghost, a bloodless, vacant phantom.
Note, too, the degradation of the symbols.
To compare a girl to a "ghost"; to disenchant the glow and glamour of
her to a "glimmer."
To compare a volcano in eruption to the puffing of a steam-engine; the
sun in heaven at high noon to a farthing dip.
The vision is accurate enough; but the point of view is throughout that
of a flunkey, of a tradesman, of a gelded toady, of a stewed prune!
So too the very perfection of form which marks Tennyson is a shocking
fault, a guide to the governess' mind of the creature. He is so determined
to keep all the rules that he {395} utterly breaks the first (and last)
rule: "Rules are the devil." He writes like a schoolboy for whom a false
quantity means a basting. He counts his syllables on his fingers; he never
writes by ear, as one whose ears are open to the heavenly melody of the
Muses.
So we have all the artifice --- and perhaps the worst artifice ever
invented --- but no art, no humanity.
As a mountaineer (I have seen very many of the greatest mountains of the
earth) I must admit that
". . . . phantom fair
Was Monte Rosa, hanging there,
A thousand shadowy-pencilled valleys
And dewy dells in a golden air"
is a very decent word-picture of the great mountain. But a Man would have
felt his muscles tighten; and the lust to match his force against the stern
splendour of those glittering ridges would have sent him hot-foot after
rope and axe.
A great artist would rarely see so tremendous a vision as that of a
mountain without emotion of terror and wonder and rejoicing. Tennyson sees
it as a mere sight --- he ticks it off in his Baedeker. He sees the dolly
side of everything. Everything he touches becomes petty, false, weak, a
mirage. He degrades the courteous Gawain to a vulgar lecher --- but his
lechery is as mild as an old maid's Patience; he ruins women as a child
plucks a daisy. Lancelot commits adultery with kind gloves on; and Enoch
Arden moralises like a Sunday-School Teacher at a village treat.
In the mouth of this soft-spoken counter-jumper the wildest words take
on the smoothest sense. By sheer dint of cadence. {396}
"Dragons of the prime
That tare each other in their slime"
sounds less terrible than a dog-fight.
"Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd ---
is but a termagant.
"Ring out, wild bells" suggests no tocsin (as it might, for they
symbolise the stupendous world-tragedy of the Atonement) but at most the
pastoral summons to a simple worship, at least the dinner-gong --- a dinner
whose Turkey cooed, not gobbled; a Plum Pudding innocent of brandy.
Yet these lines are the most forcible one can remember; and if these
things are done in the green tree --- ?
Lady Clara Vere de Vere feels (or is supposed to feel) a ladylike
repugnance to the sight of a suicide's scarred throat! She never is
conceived of as rising either in joy or horror to the height of tragedy.
Her atonement? To preside at the Dorcas Society!
This ridiculous monster!
Let us cover up these bones neatly and tidily and bury them yet deeper
in their tumulus of oblivion.
Bones? Jelly!
A. QUILLER, JR.
{397}
STOP PRESS
Equinox, London
Greening Company publishes
Sam by Norman Roe Sixpence paper
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readers not miss
Crowley.
A. COLIN LUNN,
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manufactured from the finest selected growths of 1908 crop, and are of
exceptional quality. They can be inhaled without causing any irritation of
the Throat.
Sole Manufacturer: A. COLIN LUNN, Cambridge.
"The bulk of the typewriting employed in the production of "The Equinox" was"
"done by"
Miss NICHOLS
103 JERMYN STREET
(Facing Exit Piccadilly Circus Station)
________________
Typewriting---Shorthand---Translations---Researches
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"TERMS ON APPLICATION"
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The Editor of the "Equinox" is glad to testify to his opinion that the
excellence of Miss Nichols' work effected a saving on press corrections
almost or quite equal to the cost of her work.
"The Photographs in this number of"
"The Equinox" are by the"
DOVER STREET STUDIOS
38 Dover Street, MAYFAIR.
AMPHORA
"Blue Cloth, Gold Design, 80 pp. price "2s. 6d."
Published by BURNS & OATES, 28 Orchard St., W.
This wonderful collection of Hymns to the Blessed Virgin Mary
is the work (so it is said) of a Leading London Actress.
Father Kent writes in "The Tablet": "Among the many books which
benevolent publishers are preparing as appropriate Christmas presents we
notice many new editions of favourite poetic classics. But few, we fancy,
can be more appropriate for the purpose than a little volume of original
verses, entitled 'Amphora,' which Messrs. Burns and Oates are on the point
of publishing. The following stanzas from a poem on the Nativity will
surely be a better recommendation of the book than any words of critical
appreciation.
"The Virgin lies at Bethlehem.
(Bring gold and frankincense and myrrh!)
The root of David shoots a stem.
(O Holy Spirit, shadow her!)
She lies alone amid the kine.
(Bring gold and frankincense and Myrrh!)
The straw is fragrant as with wine.
(O Holy Spirit shadow her!)"
Lieut.-Col. Gormley writes: "The hymns ordinarily used in churches for
devotional purposes are no doubt excellent in their way, but it can
scarcely be said, in the case of many of them, that they are of much
literary merit, and some of them indeed are little above the familiar
nursery rhymes of our childhood; it is therefore somewhat of a relief and a
pleasure to read the volume of hymns to the Virgin Mary which has just been
published by Messrs. Burns and Oats. These hymns to the Virgin Mary are in
the best style, they are devotional in the highest degree, and to Roman
Catholics, for whom devotion to the Virgin Mary forms so important a part
of their religious belief, these poems should indeed be welcome; personally
I have found them just what I desired, and I have no doubt other Catholics
will be equally pleased with them."
"Vanity Fair" says: "To the ordinary mind passion has no relation to
penitence, and carnal desire is the very antithesis of spiritual fervour.
But close observers of human nature are accustomed to discover an intimate
connection between the forces of the body and the soul; and the student of
psychology is continually being reminded of the kinship between saint and
sinner. Now and then we find the extremes of self and selflessness in the
same soul. Dante tells us how the lover kissed the trembling mouth, and
with the same thrill describes his own passionate abandonment before the
mystic Rose. In our own day, the greatest of French lyric poets, Verlaine,
has given us volumes of the most passionate love songs, and side by side
with them a book of religious poetry more sublimely credulous and ecstatic
than anything that has come down to us from the Ages of Faith. We are all,
as Sainte-Beuve said, 'children of a sensual literature,' and perhaps for
that reason we should expect from our singers fervent religious hymns.
"There is one of London's favourites almost unrivalled to express by her
art the delights of the body with a pagan simplicity and directness. Now
she sends us a book, 'Amphora,' a volume of religious verse: it contains
song after song in praise of Mary," etc. etc. etc.
The "Scotsman" says: "Outside the Latin Church conflicting views are
held about the worship of the Virgin, but there can be no doubt that this
motive of religion has given birth to many beautiful pieces of literature,
and the poets have never tired of singing variations on the theme of 'Hail,
Mary.' This little book is best described here as a collection of such
variations. They are written with an engaging simplicity and fervour of
feeling, and with a graceful, refined literary art that cannot but interest
and attract many readers beyond the circles of such as must feel it
religiously impossible not to admire them."
The "Daily Telegraph" says: "In this slight volume we have the
utterances of a devout anonymous Roman Catholic singer, in a number of
songs or hymns addressed to the Virgin Mary. The author, who has evidently
a decided gift for sacred verse and has mastered varied metres suitable to
her high themes, divides her poems into four series of thirteen each ---
thus providing a song for each week of the year. The songs are all of
praise or prayer addressed to the Virgin, and, though many have a touch of
mysticism, most have a simplicity of expression and earnestness of devotion
that will commend them to the author's co-religionists."
The "Catholic Herald" says: "This anonymous volume of religious verse
reaches a very high level of poetic imagery. It is a series of hymns in
honour of Our Lady, invariably expressed in melodious verse. The pitfalls
of religious verse are bathos and platitude, but these the sincerity of the
writer and a certain mastery over poetic expression have enabled him --- or
her --- to avoid. The writer of such verse as the following may be
complimented on a very high standard of poetic expression:
"The shadows fall about the way;
Strange faces glimmer in the gloom;
The soul clings feebly to the clay,
For that, the void; for this, the tomb!
"But Mary sheds a blessed light;
Her perfect face dispels the fears.
She charms Her melancholy knight
Up to the glad and gracious spheres.
"O Mary, like a pure perfume
Do thou receive this failing breath,
And with Thy starry lamp illume
The darkling corridors of death!"
The "Catholic Times" says: "The 'Amphora' is a collection of poems in
honour of our Blessed Lady. They are arranged in four books, each of which
contains thirteen pieces. Thus with the prologue there are fifty-three
poems in all. Needless to say they breathe a spirit of deep piety and
filial love towards our Heavenly Mother. Many beautiful and touching
thoughts are embodied in the various verses, which cannot but do good to
the pious soul.
The "Staffordshire Chronicle" says: "Under this title there has appeared
an anonymous volume of verses breathing the same exotic fragrance of
Rossetti's poem on our Lady that begins 'Mother of the fair delight.'
There is the same intense pre-Raphaelite atmosphere, the same aesthetic
revelling in Catholic mysticism, the same rich imagery and gorgeous word-
colouring that prevade the poetic works of that nineteenth-century artist.
A valuable addition to the poetic literature on the Mother of our Lord."
The "Guardian" says: "The devotional fervour of 'Amphora' will make them
acceptable to those who address their worship to the Blessed Mother of the
Christ. The meaning of the title of the book is not very obvious. It
cannot surely have anything to do with the lines in Horace 'Amphora
coepit,' &c."
"To be obtained of the"
WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO. Ltd.
PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. "And through all Booksellers"
-----------------------
"Crown 8vo, Scarlet Buckram, pp. 64."
This Edition strictly limited to 500 Copies.
PRICE 10s
A.'. A.'.
PUBLICATION IN CLASS B.
-----------------------
BOOK
777
THIS book contains in concise tabulated form a comparative view of all the
symbols of the great religions of the world; the perfect attributions of
the Taro, so long kept secret by the Rosicrucians, are now for the first
time published; also the complete secret magical correspondences of the
G.'. D.'. and R. R. et A. C. It forms, in short, a complete magical and
philosophical dictionary; a key to all religions and to all practical
occult working.
For the first time Western and Qabalistic symbols have been harmonized
with those of Hinduism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Taoism, &c. By a glance
at the Tables, anybody conversant with any one system can understand
perfectly all others.
The "Occult Review" says:
"Despite its cumbrous sub-title and high price per page, this work has
only to come under the notice of the right people to be sure of a ready
sale. In its author's words, it represents 'an attempt to systematise
alike the data of mysticism and the results of comparative religion,' and
so far as any book can succeed in such an attempt, this book does succeed;
that is to say, it condenses in some sixty pages as much information as
many an intelligent reader at the Museum has been able to collect in years.
The book proper consists of a Table of 'Correspondences,' and is, in fact,
an attempt to reduce to a common denominator the symbolism of as many
religious and magical systems as the author is acquainted with. The
denominator chosen is necessarily a large one, as the author's object is to
reconcile systems which divide all things into 3, 7, 10, 12, as the case
may be. Since our expression 'common denominator' is used in a figurative
and not in a strictly mathematical sense, the task is less complex than
appears at first sight, and the 32 Paths of the Sepher Yetzirah, or Book of
Formation of the Qabalah, provide a convenient scale. These 32 Paths are
attributed by the Qabalists to the 10 Sephiroth, or Emanations of Deity,
and to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which are again subdivided
into 3 mother letters, 7 double letters, and 12 simple letters. On this
basis, that of the Qabalistic 'Tree of Life,' as a certain arrangement of
the Sephiroth and 22 remaining Paths connecting them is termed, the author
has constructed no less than 183 tables.
"The Qabalistic information is very full, and there are tables of
Egyptian and Hindu deities, as well as of colours, perfumes, plants,
stones, and animals. The information concerning the tarot and geomancy
exceeds that to be found in some treatises devoted exclusively to those
subjects. The author appears to be acquainted with Chinese, Arabic, and
other classic texts. Here your reviewer is unable to follow him, but his
Hebrew does credit alike to him and to his printer. Among several hundred
words, mostly proper names, we found and marked a few misprints, but
subsequently discovered each one of them in a printed table of errata,
which we had overlooked. When one remembers the misprints in 'Agrippa' and
the fact that the ordinary Hebrew compositor and reader is no more fitted
for this task than a boy cognisant of no more than the shapes of the Hebrew
letters, one wonders how many proofs there were and what the printer's bill
was. A knowledge of the Hebrew alphabet and the Qabalistic Tree of Life is
all that is needed to lay open to the reader the enormous mass of
information contained in this book. The 'Alphabet of Mysticism,' as the
author says --- several alphabets we should prefer to say --- is here.
Much that has been jealously and foolishly kept secret in the past is here,
but though our author has secured for his work the "imprimatur" of some body
with the mysterious title of the A.'. A.'., and though he remains
himself anonymous, he appears to be no mystery-monger. Obviously he is
widely read, but he makes no pretence that he has secrets to reveal. On
the contrary, he says, 'an indicible arcanum is an arcanum which "cannot" be
revealed.' The writer of that sentence has learned at least one fact not
to be learned from books.
"G.C.J."
"The Bomb"
By FRANK HARRIS
(Jonn Long. 6/=.)
This sensational novel, by the Well-known Editor of "Vanity Fair," has
evoked a chorus of praise from the reviewers, and has been one of the
most talked-of books of the season. We append a few criticisms: ---
MR. ALEISTER CROWLEY:
"This book is, in truth, a masterpiece; so intense is the impression
that one almost asks, 'Is this a novel or a confession? Did not Frank
Harris perhaps throw the bomb?' At least he has thrown one now ... This is
the best novel I have ever read."
"The Times:"
"'The Bomb' is highly charged with an explosive blend of Socialistic
and Anarchistic matter, wrapped in a gruesome coating of 'exciting' fiction
... Mr. Harris has a real power of realistic narrative. He is at his best
in mid-stream. The tense directness of his style, never deviating into
verbiage, undoubtedly keeps the reader at grips with the story and the
characters."
"Morning Post:"
"Mr. Frank Harris's first long novel is an extremely interesting and
able piece of work. Mr. Harris has certainly one supreme literary gift,
that of vision. He sees clearly and definitely everything he describes,
and consequently ... is absolutely convincing. Never for a moment do we
feel as we read the book that the story is not one of absolute fact, and so
convincing in its simplicity and matter-of-factness is Mr. Harris's style
that we often accept his psychology before we realize ... on how few
grounds it is based. Some of the aspects of modern democracy are treated
with astonishing insight and ability, and 'The Bomb' is distinctly not a
book to be overlooked."
JACOB TONSON in the "New Age:"
"The illusion of reality is more than staggering; it is haunting ...
Many passages are on the very highest level of realistic art ... Lingg's
suicide and death are Titanic ... In pure realism nothing better has been
done, and I do not forget Tolstoy's 'The Death of Ivan Illytch!' It is a
book very courageous, impulsively generous, | | |
