Marigold A story · OmniClassics

MARIGOLD BY THE SAME AUTHOR ------------------ JEWEL SOWERS A Story Weekly Survey. “An original and intensely interesting novel. We should welcome anything further from the pen of this anonymous writer who has produced a book that any one might be proud to sign.” Sunday Times. “It is permeated with the spirit of adventure, so that one is interested in the characters and their doings. Those who like the marvellous and have no objection to considering the impossible, will find a certain fascination about the story, which they will read to the end.” Glasgow Herald. “The author of this anonymous book need not have hesitated to own it, for it is thoroughly readable, and its artistic merits are very considerable. It is at once a somewhat ambitious allegory and a satire with a fair measure of point and vigour.” Morning Post. “We cannot help noting that the writer has no little power both of description and character drawing, or that the whole book has been most carefully elaborated.” Onlooker. “The author hides her--is it her?--identity under anonymity but has no reason to fear criticism. Though called a ‘novel’ it is a clever parable and deals with the evil of selfishness, and the blessings resulting from works for work’s sake.” T.P.’s Weekly. “There is good writing in this story, which undoubtedly shows imaginative power.” Manchester Guardian. “‘The Jewel Sowers’ is wholly fantastic in its incidents, but its characters are those of our society; and with all the machinery of a fairy tale, the book still belongs to the realms of daily fiction. Appropriately enough the scene is laid in another world, one in which everything is said to be the opposite of the life of this planet. But this is a mere warning that the tale is fantastic; men and women in Lucifram, as the new world is called, are even too much like those on this, and if their powers are strangely superior, their motives are entirely familiar. The book, in fact, is an experiment in fantasy, and none the less pleasant on that account. It is neither an allegory, as are other tales similarly constructed, nor yet a satire, though there are elements of both interwoven with the adventures and the incidents. The anonymous authoress has demanded a wider sphere for the evolution of her characters, and no one who feels the charms of her pleasantly depicted heroine will grudge the novel atmosphere in which she is forced to suffer and to act. The book is lightly written, bright, and entertaining, and almost every character introduced is neatly characterised. Perhaps the best of them is the fairy frog, whose cheerful temper is the result of martyrdom, and who should earn a place among the favourite heroes of the fairy world.” MARIGOLD A Story BY THE AUTHOR OF “JEWEL SOWERS” LONDON GREENING & CO., LTD. 1905 (_All Rights Reserved_) TABLE OF CONTENTS AN INTRODUCTION AN INTERLUDE THE AFTERTHOUGHT CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXII CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIV CHAPTER XXV CHAPTER XXVI CHAPTER XXVII CHAPTER XXVIII CHAPTER XXIX CHAPTER XXX _SCENE_ LUCIFRAM:--_A World of Shadows and contrariness, situate near to Hell--not meant for an indifferent caricature of another sphere_. _PERSONS_ ST ARMAND:--_The voice of one crying in the Spirits’ Wilderness. When undisguised, Plucritus, Prince of Lucifram._ VESTNE:--_His wife_. MARIGOLD:--_Princess of Ellel (an estate in Lucifram). Subsisting of a “reasonable soul” and flesh to correspond._ ALICE:--_A lady’s maid who, amongst other things, had learnt the art of cooking_. TIMOTHY:--_One, not by conversion of the godhead into flesh, but by taking of Childhood into God_. ALPHONSO:--_High Priest of the Golden Serpent_. VESTASIAN:--_The Supreme Disposer of Gifts to those on Lucifram_. MR BARRINGCOURT:--_One of Vestasian’s household_. MARIGOLD AN INTRODUCTION THE PRINCE OF LUCIFRAM Nature, expressionless and even, had obeyed the even rule. Never richest curtain in the hall of richest king fell so softly, in such luxuriance, as this one of dusky night--glittering with diamonds, in the dull, blue flights of space. A million times and more the mute deft slave had drawn the heavy folds, clasped to her ankle-chains, across the spinning world. Tongueless, soulless, brainless, the machine of ordered motion--possessing no heart, knowing no pulse--the world’s great mother--most infinitely small. There over Lucifram, the night descended. The night-winds sang because the angel harps once rustled in the breeze--years since, no doubt. The sound remained, an echo, from which all joyousness had vanished--unutterably sad--and something sweet. And each went his own way, now that the sober light of day had failed--tired or gay. For being contrary, a portion of them never really lived till the sun set, and then like moths at a candle--having some vague notion of the gloriousness of light. There in his great palace, turreted, God-built (before the powers of Hell and Heaven had separated, to play the “Human” game on Lucifram), embowered in trees of Paradise, pearl-glistening fountains, the heaven-taught song of birds, and the deep rocks of Hell on the Planet side leading down by steepest paths to that “Silent Forest” with its gurgling streams of pain, and heavy foliage, and deadly paths, and unheard sighs, and the low quivering cry of the heart-broken--there in his dusky palace, glittering with light, subdued and softly shaded, lives the great Prince of Lucifram within easy reach of his little serfdom. You see that glistening sheen of mist, silver, and pearl? That is his web--he, the Great Spider--godlike. See how it wraps around the whole great planet! Put your jewelled hand upon that flimsy net; how awkwardly it sticks to the gold intricacies! How awkwardly it sticks--like the blood on Bluebeard’s key--flimsy as driven snow and striking to the bone. Draw your hand away! Ah! laughing innocence, there is no terror--it has chilled and deadened--a powerful anesthetic that makes you brave, even when it sticks--and it does stick so awkwardly. He loves the night. ’Twas he who helped to plan it--before our worlds were made--the master-mind. The “Great Unknown” for certain unbelievers. Such a proud retreat, as only ostrich brain would share with them. Why the Great Unknown? To _know_ it, must you feel it, handle it, decompose it--experiment with it? Oh, sad presumption! There was once a little ant with a very clever brain (for its size), and one day it thought it would like to find out what a man was like--in what respect he differed from an ant. So it went out and crept on to one--quite an ordinary kind of man, with a skin. Experiment No. 1 must be with the mouthpiece, for it had no finer instrument. The man made a vigorous and violent search--his finger and thumb did the rest, for he resented vulgar intrusion. Moral:--No, allow me, you are quite wrong--yet remain good-tempered. I was not measuring God’s superiority by man’s. To return to the Prince Plucritus. He stood by that same window that commands the whole compass of Lucifram--no disfiguring telescope--nothing but beauty round about. And now that the mists of night have settled, and the web is floating like a veil in the light of the moon, steal up an inch or two with me and look. Will you, or won’t you, Monsieur Scientist? Come along with Art, because at South Kensington they’ve linked you both together, like a household word. Hush! The forest is still! Never shudder at its depths! Hush! Hush! Break no twig, but come inside the magic circle, whoever will. See! the ring wheels round like that at Earl’s Court, but with no sound of motion, nor lumbersome effect. Mists and miles are between you and that solitary figure, so there is no sacrilege in that you stare. Mists and miles and the moon! Well, and what is the great Prince like? “No different from a man,” you say. No, no different--and you know why, because a man can’t conceive anything with an intellect more beautiful than himself. It is one of his limitations--and there is wisdom and beauty in it; and Nature hasn’t had a finger in it--only God. So draw a little closer--keep your feet well on the rim, and look through the mists and miles and moonbeams. You see indistinctly? Here is my hand--_now_ is the vision clearer? Look on that perfect head and graceful figure. You perceive he stands full-length by the full-length window, looking on Lucifram with the expression that Lucifram itself has taught him--Serfdom containing possibilities. For those eyes--do you feel their fascination?--full of intellect, full of soul, full of power, and, far away back under the coldness that looks like softness to the inexperienced eye, full of cruelty, and deep-laid plots and plans--by which the master-game is played. Will you take more, or is thus much of the vision quite enough? A little more? Quick! Did you catch that little smile, the delicate contemptuous curve of that fine nostril--the straight commanding line of a strong nose? But is it _kind_? Still for the mouth. One forgives undoubtedly the man who has a sense of humour--the corners of whose mouth can twist a little humorously, just now and then. Look at this Prince of immortality. Do you not see the thin lips, formed like a fine-strung bow on arrow, twisted into a most interested smile? One shapely corner turning up--one, alas! turning down--a little awry, like the mouths of great men often are who copy him--unconsciously, of course. For the pride of that downward droop loves not imitation, though the upward corner winks (if the mouth can wink) at the humour of it. There then, the Prince. And you turn away shivering, and blame the cold moon mists and the night-wafted winds. Blame nothing but that face. Look at it long enough, and you will harden into ice, frozen blood and stony flesh--a death-like monument. The Prince stands full-length, and, though taller and slimmer than men are, he has shoulders that athletes might envy, and artists search in vain. Your women looking at them, however chaste and sober, however work-a-day, would suddenly grow weak, in admiration of so much strength, moulded in God-like beauty. True, he has walked on Lucifram stunted and dwarfed--a joke, a laughable affair--yet, when they saw him, woman-like they loved him all the more--they being contrary, and having the biggest share, the silent share, in the making of the world.