章节正文
ever. They were many men, speakingdivers tongues. He was but one
who obeyed the worldwide impulse. He could smile at the artless
vanity that had blinded him to the import of his earlier visions,
that had made him imagine himself a sole discoverer, a new
Prophet, that had brought him so near to founding a new sect.
Every soldier in the new host was a recruiting sergeant according
to his opportunity.... And none was leader. Only God was
leader....
"The achievement of the Kingdom of God;" this was his calling.
Henceforth this was his business in life....
For a time he indulged in vague dreams of that kingdom of God
on earth of which he would be one of the makers; it was a dream
of a shadowy splendour of cities, of great scientific
achievements, of a universal beauty, of beautiful people living
in the light of God, of a splendid adventure, thrusting out at
last among the stars. But neither his natural bent nor his mental
training inclined him to mechanical or administrative
explicitness. Much more was his dream a vision of men inwardly
ennobled and united in spirit. He saw history growing reasonable
and life visibly noble as mankind realized the divine aim. All
the outward peace and order, the joy of physicalexistence finely
conceived, the mounting power and widening aim were but the
expression and verification of the growth of God within. Then we
would bear children for finer ends than the blood and mud of
battlefields. Life would tower up like a great flame. By faith we
reached forward to that. The vision grew more splendid as it grew
more metaphorical. And the price one paid for that; one gave sham
dignities, false honour, a Levitical righteousness, immediate
peace, one bartered kings and churches for God.... He looked at
the mean, poverty-struck room, he marked the dinginess and
tawdriness of its detail and all the sordid evidences of
ungracious bargaining and grudging service in its appointments.
For all his life now he would have to live in such rooms. He who
had been one of the lucky ones.... Well, men were living in
dug-outs and dying gaily in muddy trenches, they had given limbs
and lives, eyes and the joy of movement, prosperity and pride,
for a smaller cause and a feebler assurance than this that he had
found....
(19)
Presently his thoughts were brought back to his family by the
sounds of Eleanor's return. He heard her key in the outer door;
he heard her move about in the hall and then slip lightly up to
bed. He did not go out to speak to her, and she did not note the
light under his door.
He would talk to her later when this discovery of her own
emotions no longer dominated her mind. He recalled her departing
figure and how she had walked, touching and looking up to her
young mate, and he a little leaning to her....
"God bless them and save them," he said....
He thought of her sisters. They had said but little to his
clumsy explanations. He thought of the years and experience that
they must needs pass through before they could think the fulness
of his present thoughts, and so he tempered his disappointment.
They were a gallant group, he felt. He had to thank Ella and good
fortune that so they were. There was Clementina with her odd
quick combatant sharpness, a harder being than Eleanor, but
nevertheless a finespirited and even more independent. There was
Miriam, indefatigably kind. Phoebe too had a real passion of the
intellect and Daphne an innate disposition to service. But it was
strange how they had taken his proclamation of a conclusive
breach with the church as though it was a command they must, at
least outwardly, obey. He had expected them to be more deeply
shocked; he had thought he would have to argue against objections
and convert them to his views. Their acquiescence was strange.
They were content he should think all this great issue out and
give his results to them. And his wife, well as he knew her, had
surprised him. He thought of her words: "Whither thou goest--"
He was dissatisfied with this unconditional agreement. Why
could not his wife meet God as he had met God? Why must Miriam
put the fantastic question--as though it was not for her to
decide: "Are we still Christians?" And pursuing this thought, why
couldn't Lady Sunderbund set up in religion for herself without
going about the world seeking for a priest and prophet. Were
women Undines who must get their souls from mortal men? And who
was it tempted men to set themselves up as priests? It was the
wife, the disciple, the lover, who was the last, the most fatal
pitfall on the way to God.
He began to pray, still sitting as he prayed.
"Oh God!" he prayed. "Thou who has shown thyself to me, let me
never forget thee again. Save me from forgetfulness. And show
thyself to those I love; show thyself to all mankind. Use me, O
God, use me; but keep my soul alive. Save me from the presumption
of the trusted servant; save me from the vanity of authority....
"And let thy light shine upon all those who are so dear to
me.... Save them from me. Take their dear loyalty...."
He paused. A flushed, childishly miserable face that stared
indignantly through glittering tears, rose before his eyes. He
forgot that he had been addressing God.
"How can I help you, you silly thing?" he said. "I would give
my own soul to know that God had given his peace to you. I could
not do as you wished. And I have hurt you!... You hurt
yourself.... But all the time you would have hampered me and
tempted me--and wasted yourself. It was impossible.... And yet
you are so fine!"
He was struck by another aspect.
"Ella was happy--partly because Lady Sunderbund was hurt and
left desolated...."
"Both of them are still living upon nothings. Living for
nothings. A phantom way of living...."
He stared blankly at the humming blue gas jets amidst the
incandescent asbestos for a space.
"Make them understand," he pleaded, as though he spoke
confidentially of some desirable and reasonable thing to a friend
who sat beside him. "You see it is so hard for them until they
understand. It is easy enough when one understands. Easy--" He
reflected for some moments--" It is as if they could not exist -
- except in relationship to other definite people. I want them
to exist--as now I exist--in relationship to God. Knowing
God...."
But now he was talking to himself again.
"So far as one can know God," he said presently.
For a while he remained frowning at the fire. Then he bent
forward, turned out the gas, arose with the air of a man who
relinquishes a difficult task. "One is limited," he said. "All
one's ideas must fall within one's limitations. Faith is a sort
of tour de force. A feat of the imagination. For such things as
we are. Naturally--naturally.... One perceives it clearly only
in rare moments.... That alters nothing...."
End
who obeyed the worldwide impulse. He could smile at the artless
vanity that had blinded him to the import of his earlier visions,
that had made him imagine himself a sole discoverer, a new
Prophet, that had brought him so near to founding a new sect.
Every soldier in the new host was a recruiting sergeant according
to his opportunity.... And none was leader. Only God was
leader....
"The achievement of the Kingdom of God;" this was his calling.
Henceforth this was his business in life....
For a time he indulged in vague dreams of that kingdom of God
on earth of which he would be one of the makers; it was a dream
of a shadowy splendour of cities, of great scientific
achievements, of a universal beauty, of beautiful people living
in the light of God, of a splendid adventure, thrusting out at
last among the stars. But neither his natural bent nor his mental
training inclined him to mechanical or administrative
explicitness. Much more was his dream a vision of men inwardly
ennobled and united in spirit. He saw history growing reasonable
and life visibly noble as mankind realized the divine aim. All
the outward peace and order, the joy of physicalexistence finely
conceived, the mounting power and widening aim were but the
expression and verification of the growth of God within. Then we
would bear children for finer ends than the blood and mud of
battlefields. Life would tower up like a great flame. By faith we
reached forward to that. The vision grew more splendid as it grew
more metaphorical. And the price one paid for that; one gave sham
dignities, false honour, a Levitical righteousness, immediate
peace, one bartered kings and churches for God.... He looked at
the mean, poverty-struck room, he marked the dinginess and
tawdriness of its detail and all the sordid evidences of
ungracious bargaining and grudging service in its appointments.
For all his life now he would have to live in such rooms. He who
had been one of the lucky ones.... Well, men were living in
dug-outs and dying gaily in muddy trenches, they had given limbs
and lives, eyes and the joy of movement, prosperity and pride,
for a smaller cause and a feebler assurance than this that he had
found....
(19)
Presently his thoughts were brought back to his family by the
sounds of Eleanor's return. He heard her key in the outer door;
he heard her move about in the hall and then slip lightly up to
bed. He did not go out to speak to her, and she did not note the
light under his door.
He would talk to her later when this discovery of her own
emotions no longer dominated her mind. He recalled her departing
figure and how she had walked, touching and looking up to her
young mate, and he a little leaning to her....
"God bless them and save them," he said....
He thought of her sisters. They had said but little to his
clumsy explanations. He thought of the years and experience that
they must needs pass through before they could think the fulness
of his present thoughts, and so he tempered his disappointment.
They were a gallant group, he felt. He had to thank Ella and good
fortune that so they were. There was Clementina with her odd
quick combatant sharpness, a harder being than Eleanor, but
nevertheless a finespirited and even more independent. There was
Miriam, indefatigably kind. Phoebe too had a real passion of the
intellect and Daphne an innate disposition to service. But it was
strange how they had taken his proclamation of a conclusive
breach with the church as though it was a command they must, at
least outwardly, obey. He had expected them to be more deeply
shocked; he had thought he would have to argue against objections
and convert them to his views. Their acquiescence was strange.
They were content he should think all this great issue out and
give his results to them. And his wife, well as he knew her, had
surprised him. He thought of her words: "Whither thou goest--"
He was dissatisfied with this unconditional agreement. Why
could not his wife meet God as he had met God? Why must Miriam
put the fantastic question--as though it was not for her to
decide: "Are we still Christians?" And pursuing this thought, why
couldn't Lady Sunderbund set up in religion for herself without
going about the world seeking for a priest and prophet. Were
women Undines who must get their souls from mortal men? And who
was it tempted men to set themselves up as priests? It was the
wife, the disciple, the lover, who was the last, the most fatal
pitfall on the way to God.
He began to pray, still sitting as he prayed.
"Oh God!" he prayed. "Thou who has shown thyself to me, let me
never forget thee again. Save me from forgetfulness. And show
thyself to those I love; show thyself to all mankind. Use me, O
God, use me; but keep my soul alive. Save me from the presumption
of the trusted servant; save me from the vanity of authority....
"And let thy light shine upon all those who are so dear to
me.... Save them from me. Take their dear loyalty...."
He paused. A flushed, childishly miserable face that stared
indignantly through glittering tears, rose before his eyes. He
forgot that he had been addressing God.
"How can I help you, you silly thing?" he said. "I would give
my own soul to know that God had given his peace to you. I could
not do as you wished. And I have hurt you!... You hurt
yourself.... But all the time you would have hampered me and
tempted me--and wasted yourself. It was impossible.... And yet
you are so fine!"
He was struck by another aspect.
"Ella was happy--partly because Lady Sunderbund was hurt and
left desolated...."
"Both of them are still living upon nothings. Living for
nothings. A phantom way of living...."
He stared blankly at the humming blue gas jets amidst the
incandescent asbestos for a space.
"Make them understand," he pleaded, as though he spoke
confidentially of some desirable and reasonable thing to a friend
who sat beside him. "You see it is so hard for them until they
understand. It is easy enough when one understands. Easy--" He
reflected for some moments--" It is as if they could not exist -
- except in relationship to other definite people. I want them
to exist--as now I exist--in relationship to God. Knowing
God...."
But now he was talking to himself again.
"So far as one can know God," he said presently.
For a while he remained frowning at the fire. Then he bent
forward, turned out the gas, arose with the air of a man who
relinquishes a difficult task. "One is limited," he said. "All
one's ideas must fall within one's limitations. Faith is a sort
of tour de force. A feat of the imagination. For such things as
we are. Naturally--naturally.... One perceives it clearly only
in rare moments.... That alters nothing...."
End
- impulse [´impʌls]
n.推动(力)；冲动；刺激 (初中英语单词) - import [im´pɔ:t, ´impɔ:t] vt.&n.进口；输入 (初中英语单词)
- achievement [ə´tʃi:vmənt] n.完成；成就，成绩 (初中英语单词)
- universal [,ju:ni´və:səl] a.宇宙的；普遍的 (初中英语单词)
- mechanical [mi´kænikəl] a.机械的；力学的 (初中英语单词)
- vision [´viʒən] n.视觉；想象力；幻影 (初中英语单词)
- divine [di´vain] a.神圣的 v.预言 (初中英语单词)
- physical [´fizikəl] a.物质的；有形的 (初中英语单词)
- existence [ig´zistəns] n.存在；生存；生活 (初中英语单词)
- movement [´mu:vmənt] n.活动；运动；动作 (初中英语单词)
- prosperity [prɔ´speriti] n.繁荣；成功；幸运 (初中英语单词)
- lightly [´laitli] ad.轻微地，稍微 (初中英语单词)
- gallant [´gælənt, gə´lænt] a.英勇的；华丽的 (初中英语单词)
- passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
- disposition [,dispə´ziʃən] n.安排；性情；倾向 (初中英语单词)
- convert [kən´və:t, ´kɔnvə:t] v.转变 n.改变信仰者 (初中英语单词)
- agreement [ə´gri:mənt] n.同意；一致；协议 (初中英语单词)
- priest [pri:st] n.教士；牧师；神父 (初中英语单词)
- prophet [´prɔfit] n.预言家；先知；提倡者 (初中英语单词)
- vanity [´væniti] n.虚荣；自负；空虚 (初中英语单词)
- miserable [´mizərəbəl] a.悲惨的；可怜的 (初中英语单词)
- desirable [di´zaiərəbəl] a.向往的；极好的 (初中英语单词)
- reasonable [´rizənəbəl] a.合理的；有理智的 (初中英语单词)
- definite [´definit] a.确定的，明确的 (初中英语单词)
- imagination [i,mædʒi´neiʃən] n.想象(力) (初中英语单词)
- sergeant [´sɑ:dʒənt] n.警官；军士 (高中英语单词)
- shadowy [´ʃædəui] a.有阴影的；模糊的 (高中英语单词)
- outward [´autwəd] a.外面的 ad.向外 (高中英语单词)
- assurance [ə´ʃuərəns] n.保证；自信；信任 (高中英语单词)
- phoebe [´fi:bi] n.月亮女神 (高中英语单词)
- fantastic [fæn´tæstik] a.奇异的；荒谬的 (高中英语单词)
- mortal [´mɔ:tl] a.致命的 n.凡人 (高中英语单词)
- relationship [ri´leiʃənʃip] n.关系；联系；亲属关系 (高中英语单词)
- sordid [´sɔ:did] a.(指环境等)肮脏的 (英语四级单词)
- touching [´tʌtʃiŋ] a.动人的 prep.提到 (英语四级单词)
- proclamation [,prɔklə´meiʃən] n.宣布；公告；声明 (英语四级单词)
- disciple [di´saipəl] n.门徒，弟子 (英语四级单词)
- amidst [ə´midst] prep.=amid (英语四级单词)
- speaking [´spi:kiŋ] n.说话 a.发言的 (英语六级单词)
- divers [´daivə(:)z] a.&pron.若干个 (英语六级单词)
- righteousness [raitʃəsnis] n.正直；正当；正义 (英语六级单词)
- combatant [´kʌmbətənt] n.战斗员；格斗者 (英语六级单词)
- daphne [´dæfni] n.瑞香 (英语六级单词)
- dissatisfied [´dis,sætis´fækʃən] a.不满的；显出不满的 (英语六级单词)
- forgetfulness [fə´getminɔt] n.健忘 (英语六级单词)
- phantom [´fæntəm] n.幽灵；幻影 a.幻想的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
京公网安备 11011202003401号
