Catharine Furze

omen at the Limes were expected to assist. One afternoon, after tea, the room being hot, two or three of the company had gone out into the garden to work. Cat

could match itself against the infinite heaven above. On this particular evening the spire was specially obvious and attractive, for it divided the sunset clouds, standing out black agai

beautiful,

e spire makes

nder

do not know;

calling you by your Christian name

to call me Catharine, but I have no explanation. I could

of saying what I think and feel. I cannot e

lish at times. Mr. Cardew, I should

erly enjoy a thing if I cannot in some measure describ

her description of it. She did not properly even understand his own shortcomings. He could pardon her criticism, so he imagined, if she could be pungent. Mistaken

ust the

not; Mr. Cardew s

me, I am certain, and if he has, why nobody

stness, somewhat unusual with her, with which Mrs. Cardew dwelt upon this subject. We lead our lives apart in close company, with private hopes and fe

took Catharine's hand in hers. "Do you think I could learn how to talk? What I mean is, could I be taught how to say what i

crept round her waist - "I tell you again I have not so many words as you

't you

ld. I never heard anybody

you. Suppose I bring the 'Paradise Lost' out into the garden when we

ody could have persuaded her of the truth of Mr. Cardew's doctrine that the reason why a dog can only bark is that his thoughts are nothing but barks. Mrs. Cardew's appeal, therefore, was of a kind to stir her sympathy; but - had she not heard that Mr. Cardew had observed and praised her? It was nothing - ridiculously nothing; it was his duty to praise and blame the pupils at the Limes; he had complimented Miss Toogood on her Bible history the other day, and on her satisfactory account of

st for Milton. Mrs. Cardew was a bad reader; she had no emphasis, no light and shade, and she missed altogether the rhythm of the verse. To Cat

said anythin

hat have y

to say more; that is where I always am. I can not understand why I

some passage which pa

that the mind can make a heaven

ou not notice the des

ozart, for example - that is to say, for pure art, which is simply beauty, superior to our personality, she did no

able that Milton should have given to music the power to chase do

him, and I told him I did not see how music could mak

id he s

thi

e home. He was told that she was in the garden

ed. "What are you do

ding the first book of the

said, "Fancy an Englishwoman with any pretensions to education not knowing Milton!" and now, when she was doing exactly what she was directed to do, he was vexed. He was annoyed to find he was precisely obey

particularly in tha

of Mrs. Cardew, and was arrested. At last she spoke, but

ic, and we cannot see what Milton means. We cannot see how music

the best intention, but her object was defea

question if he means theological doubt. Doubt in that passage is nearer despondency. It is despondency taking an intellectual form and clothing itself wit

oked straight into Mr. Cardew'

derst

ground, on which they had been fixed. "I

nd of the garden, if you will go an

w lingered

hem good-bye," s

minutes to arrange the details of an important qu

he subject of the 'Para

ow; it seems

all the heroic attitude towards existence. Mark, too, the importance of man in the book. Men and women are not mere bubbles - here for a moment and then gone - but they are actually important, all-important, I may even say, to the Maker of the un

tly at the excited prea

ident. Oh, Miss Furze, to think that your existence and mine are part of the Divine eternal plan, and that without us it would be wrecked! Then there is Satan. Milton has gone

ime in e

attle

aradise Regained.' Is it not a relief to think that the evil thought in you or me is not altogether yours and min

rdew p

ritten anything w

ou the manuscript, but you will please remember that it is anonymous, and that I do not wish the authorship reveal

very kind

sweetest homage which can be offered us is to be ent

er talk with you about Milton, but I do not qu

bout him when you and Mrs. Cardew

lf clearly in company - at any rate, I should not hear your difficulties. You seem to

ould you not fetch her, and cou

side path between the laurels. At that point, the lawn being levelled and raised, there were two stone steps. In descending th

has no liking

ne was

to find anybody in Abchurch who cares anythi

own any particular capacity, and I am ver

could read a book together. This self-imprisonment day after day and self-imposed reticence

bid her good-bye. She felt a distinct and convulsive increase of pressure, and she felt also that she returned it. Suddenly something passed through her brain swif

s. Cardew, who came down the p

: I suppose sh

be pertinent. The accusation of hypocrisy, if we mean lofty assertion, and occasional and even conspicuous moral failure, may be brought against some of the greatest figures in history. But because David sinned with Bathsheba, and even murdered her husband, we need not discredit the sincerity of the Psalms. The ma

ed. It is vexatious that a complicated process in her should be represented by a single act which was transacted in a second. It would have been much more intelligible if it could have written itself in a dramatic conversation extending over two or three pages, but, as the event happened, so it must be recorded. The antagonistic and fiercely combatant forces did so issue in that deed, and the present historian has no intention to attempt an analysis. One thing is clear to him, that the quick stride up the garden path was urged not by any single, easily predominating impulse which had been enabled to annihilate all others. Do not those of us, who have been mercifully prevented from damming ourselves before the whole world, who have succeeded and triumphed - do we not know, know as we know hardly anything else

or Miss Furze. It contained the promised st

he Be

n any sensual pleasure, but his dealings with his favourite authors ended in his own personal emotion, and it was sad to think that the Hermes on which he had spent himself to such a degree should become a mere decoration to a Roman nobleman's villa, valued only because it cost so much, and that nobody who looked at it would ever really care for it. Once, however, he was rewarded. He had finished a Pallas Athene just as the sun went down. He was excited, and after a light sleep he rose very early and went into the studio with the dawn. There stood the statue, severe, grand in the morning twilight, and if there was one thing in the world clear to him, it was that what he saw was no inanimate mineral mass, but something more. It was no mere mineral mass with an outline added. Part of the mind which f

himself afterwards. He did not feel conscious of any transgression of a moral law, for no such law was recognised, but he detested himself because he had been drawn into close contact with a miserable wretch simply in order to satisfy a passion, and in the touch of mercenary obscenity there was something horrible to him. It was bitter to him to reflect that, notwithstanding his aversion from it, notwithstanding his philosophy and art, he had been equally powerless with the uttermost fool of a young aristocrat to resist the attraction of the commonest of snares. What were his books and fine pretensions worth if they could not protect him in such ordinary danger? Thus it came to pass that after a fall, when he went back to his work, it was so unreal to him

gends without the exquisite charm and spiritual intention of those of Greece, of bloody stories and obscure disconnected prophecies by shepherds and peasants. Their god was a horror, a boor upon a mountain, wielding thunder and lightning. Aphrodite was perhaps not all that could be wished, but she was divine compared with the savage Jehovah. It was true that a recent Jewish sect professed better things and recognised as their teacher a young malefactor who was executed when Tiberius was emperor. So far, however, as could be made out he was a poor crack-brained demagogue, who dreamed of restoring a native kingdom in Palestine. What made the Jews espec

rence. The somewhat common features of this slave, on the contrary, were lighted up with eagerness: to her there was evidently something in life of consequence - nay, of immense importance. There were few of her betters in Rome to whom anything was of importance. A hymn at that moment was being sung, the words of which Charmides could not catch, and when it was finished an elderly man rose and read what seemed the strangest jargon about justification and sin. The very terms used were in fact unintelligible. The extracts were from a letter addressed to the sect in Rome by one Paul, a disciple of that Jesus who was crucified. After the reading was over came an address, very wild

ll not b

ertain

ad it and return it to me.

uch a service! The confusion of metaphor, the suddenness of transition, the illogical muddles were bad enough, but the chief obstacle to comprehension was that the author's whole scope and purpose, the whole circle of his ideas, were outside Charmides altogether. He was not attracted any more than he was at the me

u read th

nderstand it, and I h

the Lord op

Christ whom

who took upon Himself flesh to redeem us from our sins;

m, save the phrase 'Son of Go

for he recognised her accen

ned to him that, although she was a slave, she was partly

u must know that I cannot comprehend a wor

light which lighteth every man hath brought me into His marvellous light, and now this tha

how it h

id it matter! I had read in my books of the dignity of the soul, but that was a poor weapon with which to fight, and, moreover, sin was not exceeding sinful to me. By God's grace I was brought amongst these Christians

υν yε καχθε?,

ει? οιδεν εξ ο

h, my friend, my friend in Christ, I hope, believe me, Rome will perish, and we shall all perish, not because we are ignorant, but because we have not obeyed His word. But how was I to obey it? Then I heard told the life of Christ the Lord: how God the Father in His infinite pity sent His Son into the world; how He lived amo

informs it with such an intensity of brightness that the eye can scarcely endure it. It was a totally new experience to Charmides, an entire no

esus,' he said at last, timidly; '

t raised from the dead to reign for ever at His Father's right hand? No, keep the letter for a

pocrisy and iniquity. They were fools and blind, but not through defects which would have condemned them in Greece and Rome at that day, but through failings of which Greece and Rome took small account. Charmides pondered and pondered, and saw that this Jew had given a new centre, a new pivot to society. This, then, was the meaning of the world as nearly as it could be said to have a single meaning. Read by the light of the twenty-third chapter, the twenty-fourth chapter was magnificent. 'For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.' Was it not intelligible that He to whom right and wrong were so diverse, to whom their diversity was the one fact for man, should believe that Heaven would proclaim and enforce it? He read more and more, until at last the key was given to him to unlock even that strange mystery, that being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Still it was idle for him to suppose that he could ever call himself a Christian in the sense in which those poor creatures whom he had seen were Christians. Their fantastic delusions, their expectation that any day the sky might open and their Saviour appear in the body, were impossible to him; nor could he share their confidence that once for all their religion alone was capable of regenerating the world. He could not, it is true, avoid the reflection that the point was not whether the Christians were absurd, nor was it even the point whether Christianity was not partly absurd. The re

walked before, with Demariste. She was going as far as his door for the manuscript which he had now copied

of death,' s

o is

spy. I have often seen him

u fear

not Chr

was a love of the soul, of that which was immortal, of God in her; it was a love too, of no mere temporary phenomenon, but of reality outlasting death into eternity. There was

ught it out and gave it to her, and as he stood opposite to her he looked in h

r two,' she said; 'a w

ste, rather a week with thee than a

you die? The spirit may be will

death, if on

ed, not for me, but

and his arms were round her body. Oh, son and da

en he was interrupted by his friend Call

. 'I hear you have consorted with the Jew

, my f

ing of it? You do not mean to say t

beli

ot ashamed to look him in the face?' pointing to the Apol

bis iam quovis

us dictis descis

se on the other side of the street. If I am caught they

Some little pity was felt for him by two or three members of the court, as he was well known in Rome, and one of them condescended to argue with him and to ask

true that you are a pervert, you deserve a heavier pu

d His Cross!' c

e him

e, and the seduced, Charmides. They were marched through the streets of Rome, the crowd jeering them and thronging after them to

,' she said, 'and

and replied, with unsh

were cruelly tortured. Charmides bore his sufferings in silence, but

ng to lift her mangled arm, 'Christ the Lord!

riste. He was able to turn himself towards her and move her ha

the Church. The circumstances were doubtful, and it was