Marigold A story
For his dress. To-night he wears the long black cloak--the robe
invisible which spirits wear--fastened at either shoulder by three
great glowing clasps of ruby-red that shine out danger-signals in the
darkness, below the olive face and sculptured neck. And those strong
hands, white as marble, firm as death--instinct with the beauty of a
great perfection; and then the ruby ring! The powerful talisman that
kings and queens have cried for, statesmen too; and he, indulgent
master, has given them a little sham affair, to stop their tears and
make a seeming happy world, just for appearance’ sake.
There is the picture of the great Prince Plucritus, standing at one of
Hell’s majestic windows--looking across the Silent Forest--looking on
Lucifram. Sheer down below the awful rocks, grey and purple, with the
Spirit paths--none other--by which they come and go.
Behind him home. Now, Mr Scientist, what shall it be? You wouldn’t feel
at home on a golden floor, would you?--A throne’s a trivial, irksome
thing. Harps?--Your ears were never exactly cultivated to appreciate
a tune. Hallelujah?--Such conversation deadens the finer intellect,
and reminds one rather of the braying of an ass--omitting fine
distinctions, certainly.
No--at home the Prince Plucritus is a simple gentleman, with simple
tastes and unchanged fashion. This suite of rooms he dedicates to
Lucifram--not neglecting his estates. Here is his study--his own
simple, homely room. That chair--he’s sat in it over three thousand
years--not bad for household furniture. And that writing-desk was
ready there to record in simple language the first effects of conscious
sin. “How often used it must have been since then!” think you. Ah yes!
and how well it’s stood the test of time!
Out there is his experimenting chamber, for you must know he
dabbles now and then in science, and he has friends who more than
dabble in it. Out there his picture-galleries. All Lucifram’s great
works--toned to the understanding of the gods. The pictures bought
with souls and heart-blood--no trivial affairs--each in itself a
silent history--bearing alike the one inscription “Failure” or
“Success”--judged from the understanding of the gods.
Through there his library--Lucifram’s library, not his own. These being
business quarters. So Publishers, beware! As you send out books, so
they go up to Heaven--down to Hell, mean I--silently, without comment
or criticism.
Over there his music-room--with every tune and song and great composer
immortalised therein--and curious little histories attached to each,
that Lucifram has never heard, and perhaps will never hear. And so all
down the corridor and suite of rooms, with other chambers for every
branch of work worthy being called such, and everything in godlike
order.
AN INTERLUDE
When God made man, we are next given to understand he paused and,
seemingly, he thought. Up to then he somewhat rushed it--the Bible
tells us so--and in the rapid race one thing had been forgotten--Woman.
But the loving God never yet forgot a thing--even German thinkers tell
us that--except the little blue-eyed flower, that gained thereby the
loveliest name that coarser sentiment ignores for something showier.
No, last of all came woman--in orthodox religion, the Afterthought. And
Adam most thoughtfully had chanced upon an extra rib--in the haste, no
doubt, they hadn’t counted them. So Adam slept, and woke to find the
whole world altered. Thus gracefully, unwittingly, the world’s great
sage paid the unconscious compliment--erring too much on the other
side. Man came from dust--woman from flesh and blood and actual bone,
so says the Bible--high in the scale of general development. And for
the privilege, the right of “entry,” how dearly she has paid! Man
never knows--man perhaps will never know. For Eve was made whilst Adam
slept. He should have been awake. Eve was born whilst Adam slept--then
as now. And Eve brought Trouble--the rickety ladder before which
Jacob’s was a child’s toy, and the ladder led to Heaven, and many and
many a time it fell and led to Hell.
Eve, wide-eyed and untutored, except for certain instincts inherited
from man. Eve knowing very little of herself except what man told her;
and he--why, he slept whilst she was born--how should he know? And
all the time has Eve looked up to man, and God has stood aside--the
Afterthought.
And saddest thing of all perhaps--that now the men and women quarrel
on equality--equality of sexes--showing how ineffectual is that common
chord they miscall love. Think of that little vexing word that rankles
in the minds of modern women--the word “Obey.” Think of it. That the
Church itself should be so blind as to set a man where God should be!
The obedience of the Free Spirit is given to God and God alone--who
dares say otherwise? And God’s laws are so simple, kind, and full
of love--a wiping-out of self, the training of a woman’s heart, a
mother’s gentleness and strength. What more would man have? Some
courtesan--polished or otherwise--to trick him when she fawns? To cow
him when her tongue is loose in ribald fury?
Let no woman speak then of the word “obey” insulting her. What if it
does? The word “obey” goes deeper. It strikes at the authority of God,
and has done all the ages down. And now “woman” rises and says, with a
womanly desire to squabble with the man, “I’ll obey man no longer--I’ll
obey myself.” And God stands by--the Afterthought.
So much for Genesis and the Matrimonial Service.
Suppose you and I go our own way and “believe” to please ourselves.
Suppose we think Adam and Eve were two little monkeys--not big
gorillas, they are so very, very plain.
Suppose--no; you are locked in, you _cannot_ get away--suppose,
suppose one day Eve felt weak and not at all well, and, instead of
getting better, she went on day after day. Then Eve would learn what
sadness was--a dull, unintelligible feeling to her, poor little
animal--but still a real one. And Adam, being a good little husband
as monkey husbands go, would feel in his little monkey heart that Eve
was--well, he’d have to scratch his little monkey head because he
hadn’t learnt to talk--not even to say that little tiny word called
“sad.”
Eve’s suffering was the first tiny ray of light on the Dark Path--very
tiny, no doubt, but with a tiny influence of refinement. Man’s thumbs
developed later.
Now listen! Hark! That is thunder cracking over the Silent Forest. See
that forked lightning, like a sword flashed into the dense black night.
What if a tree falls? Listen the poor cramped souls what they pray
for--air--God’s air and light.
Adam and Eve--or, ages long before them, great Darwin’s monkey
species--who dares presume to laugh? Adam and Eve hidden among the
other animals like needles in a haystack--Adam and Eve meaning
_man_.
Who made them? The God of beauty and love? Oh! tear away that veil and
see things as they are. Watch animals--their jealousy, their greed--the
way they prey on one another, the monotonous and soulless day. Many
are beautiful, some most repulsive. Think seriously about them, and
they make you sad--unutterably sad, like their own weird voices in that
strange and universal minor key. You say it is because a curse has come
upon them--that in the first place they were innocent and gentle too.
If it be so, what a disgraceful mull that God omnipotent has made
of His creation--within so short a time everything tainted that once
was good. Could God so err with more than _human_ foolishness?
Could God so err, and pander to the Devil, as, the good books say,
unconsciously He has done? Oh, sacrilegious thought! Who made the
world? The world of Living Things? Who made it? God, I will grant
you--but _which_ God? The God--Gods if you will--of Hell.
And Man--the Animal as other animals, lost like a needle in a
haystack--ugly and soulless. The Animal with possibilities. Now look
on Adam and on Eve, the first gleam of light gained by continuous
suffering, not wounds in a free fight. And though Adam gained thus much
from Eve, he never saw it, but treated her contemptuously--as through
that very suffering and weakness his inferior. And that picture. Think
of it, if you have any time for thought. The long, long ages back--the
wild, illimitable forests, the jungles that obscured the pure blue sky,
the savage, lustful sighs of the great lion, the whining growl of the
sinuous tiger, the gliding, silent serpent, the animals innumerable,
see how they come in phantom form before your eye. The wicked, impish
monkey--most hideous perhaps of all--the subtle master-jest of Hell.
And by the side of it--hidden, almost heartrendingly hidden--its
savage, impish cousin Man--at present unknown--one among many animals.
And look! One day, like Satan into Paradise, came Light--the Spirit
of Light and Purity, with the magnet Heaven’s greatest scientists
had taken years to mould, made to attract the weak spot--in the
Hell-entangled maze. And the weak spot was Eve, and, through Eve, Adam.
And so Eve brought suffering in the world, the real suffering, and
thereby incurred Hell’s displeasure, and was thereby made the slave of
man.
Read Genesis, that little chapter Topsy Turvy, it explains it all.
And what was Hell about to let the other spirits in? It had none of
Heaven’s “man-theorised” omnipotence. It stood to fight the even fight,
by skill and skill alone.
So now you know a little about Eve. Has it tired you? Do you like her
less because she once went about like a little monkey, instead of _à
la_ Milton--I mean a monkey moderate-sized, of course--but they’re
so ugly.
And the spirit has done the rest. The spirit that Professor Drummond,
one of God’s latter-day disciples, has learned plays such a great part
in the world’s sad history.
THE AFTERTHOUGHT
That was of Eve; now follow with your best apologies and look across
the mists and moonbeams and behold a lady fair. For the Prince stood
alone, looking on Lucifram with an expression hardly kind upon his
face, when last you stood within the magic circle. And now you see
behind him a lesser form though tall--a slightly different beauty.
It is the Princess Vestné--bend your head--his wife. Not like him in
sombre black, with the bright blood-stones as an only ornament--she
stands there the personification of light. A diamond crescent of
purest light, as far removed from earth gems as they are from glass,
shines in her silken hair, that dusky rich shade, one of Heaven’s own
hues--Hell’s too, for both in beauty are alike. Then for her face--you
saw that of the Prince quite plainly--would you look on hers? See, that
contemptuous smile of pride has deepened--you may not see so plain--for
Heaven seems quite made up of the male persuasion, but that’s because
the lovelier half--I mean the gentler, tenderer half--is hidden away
from our coarse sight--rarest of rarest visions. Tender and gentle
were the words, and yet, look through this gathering, deepening mist
that blurs the picture. Your impression of that face? Oh, very cold
and proud and cruel, a winsome grace, a silent fascination, that draws
every chord of your spirit towards that princely watching-place.
What music fell upon the forest’s silence! A laugh that the crawling
spirits never heard--hidden under the thick-roofed foliage.
The Princess laughed, and went close up to him, slipping her hand in
his, as loving as a child might be, as simple.
But oh! no, no, she _didn’t_ talk like Milton, because she wasn’t
dressed in stiff brocade, nor in the naked beauty of long curls.
No; the Princess talked (she was admirably well-bred) just as they
talked on Lucifram, because she looked that way, and, as she spoke, she
raised her hands and clasped them lazily behind her head.