The Child of the Dawn - Arthur Christopher Benson (good short books txt) 📗

we began to descend into the valley, through a fine forest country, somewhat like the chestnut-woods of the Apennines. The view was of incomparable beauty and width. I could see a great city far out in the plain, with a river entering it and leaving it, like a ribbon of silver. There were rolling ridges beyond. On the left rose huge, shadowy, snow-clad hills, rising to one tremendous dome of snow.

"Where are you going to take me?" I said to Amroth.

"Never mind," said he; "it's my day and my plan for once. You shall see what you shall see, and it will amuse me to hear your ingenuous conjectures."

We were soon on the outskirts of the city we had seen, which seemed a different kind of place from any I had yet visited. It was built, I perceived, upon an exactly conceived plan, of a stately, classical kind of architecture, with great gateways and colonnades. There were people about, rather silent and serious-looking, soberly clad, who saluted us as we passed, but made no attempt to talk to us. "This is rather a tiresome place, I always think," said Amroth; "but you ought to see it."

We went along the great street and reached a square. I was surprised at the elderly air of all we met. We found ourselves opposite a great building with a dome, like a church. People were going in under the portico, and we went in with them. They treated us as strangers, and made courteous way for us to pass.

Inside, the footfalls fell dumbly upon a great carpeted floor. It was very like a great church, except that there was no altar or sign of worship. At the far end, under an alcove, was a statue of white marble gleaming white, with head and hand uplifted. The whole place had a solemn and noble air. Out of the central nave there opened a series of great vaulted chapels; and I could now see that in each chapel there was a dark figure, in a sort of pulpit, addressing a standing audience. There were names on scrolls over the doors of the light iron-work screens which separated the chapels from the nave, but they were in a language I did not understand.

Amroth stopped at the third of the chapels, and said, "Here, this will do." We came in, and as before there was a courteous notice taken of us. A man in black came forward, and led us to a high seat, like a pew, near the preacher, from which we could survey the crowd. I was struck with their look of weariness combined with intentness.

The lecturer, a young man, had made a pause, but upon our taking our places, he resumed his speech. It was a discourse, as far as I could make out, on the development of poetry; he was speaking of lyrical poetry. I will not here reproduce it. I will only say that anything more acute, delicate, and discriminating, and, I must add, more entirely valueless and pedantic, I do not think I ever heard. It must have required immense and complicated knowledge. He was tracing the development of a certain kind of dramatic lyric, and what surprised me was that he supplied the subtle intellectual connection, the missing links, so to speak, of which there is no earthly record. Let me give a single instance. He was accounting for a rather sudden change of thought in a well-known poet, and he showed that it had been brought about by his making the acquaintance of a certain friend who had introduced him to a new range of subjects, and by his study of certain books. These facts are unrecorded in his published biography, but the analysis of the lecturer, done in a few pointed sentences, not only carried conviction to the mind, but just, so to speak, laid the truth bare. And yet it was all to me incredibly sterile and arid. Not the slightest interest was taken in the emotional or psychological side; it was all purely and exactly scientific. We waited until the end of the address, which was greeted with decorous applause, and the hall was emptied in a moment.

We visited other chapels where the same sort of thing was going on in other subjects. It all produced in me a sort of stupefaction, both at the amazing knowledge involved, and in the essential futility of it all.

Before we left the building we went up to the statue, which represented a female figure, looking upwards, with a pure and delicate beauty of form and gesture that was inexpressibly and coldly lovely.

We went out in silence, which seemed to be the rule of the place.

When we came away from the building we were accosted by a very grave and courteous person, who said that he perceived that we were strangers, and asked if he could be of any service to us, and whether we proposed to make a stay of any duration. Amroth thanked him, and said smilingly that we were only passing through. The gentleman said that it was a pity, because there was much of interest to hear. "In this place," he said with a deprecating gesture, "we grudge every hour that is not devoted to thought." He went on to inquire if we were following any particular line of study, and as our answers were unsatisfactory, he said that we could not do better than begin by attending the school of literature. "I observed," he said, "that you were listening to our Professor, Sylvanus, with attention. He is devoting himself to the development of poetical form. It is a rich subject. It has generally been believed that poets work by a sort of native inspiration, and that the poetic gift is a sort of heightening of temperament. But Sylvanus has proved--I think I may go so far as to say this--that this is all pure fancy, and what is worse, unsound fancy. It is all merely a matter of heredity, and the apparent accidents on which poetical expression depends can be analysed exactly and precisely into the most commonplace and simple elements. It is only a question of proportion. Now we who value clearness of mind above everything, find this a very refreshing thought. The real crown and sum of human achievement, in the intellectual domain, is to see things clearly and exactly, and upon that clearness all progress depends. We have disposed by this time of most illusions; and the same scientific method is being strenuously applied to all other processes of human endeavour. It is even hinted that Sylvanus has practically proved that the imaginative element in literature is purely a taint of barbarism, though he has not yet announced the fact. But many of his class are looking forward to his final lecture on the subject as to a profoundly sensational event, which is likely to set a deep mark upon all our conceptions of literary endeavour. So that," he said with a tolerant smile, gently rubbing his hands together, "our life here is not by any means destitute of the elements of excitement, though we most of us, of course, aim at the acquisition of a serene and philosophic temper. But I must not delay you," he added; "there is much to see and to hear, and you will be welcomed everywhere: and indeed I am myself somewhat closely engaged, though in a subject which is not fraught with such polite emollience. I attend the school of metaphysics, from which we have at last, I hope, eliminated the last traces of that debasing element of psychology, which has so long vitiated the exact study of the subject."

He took himself off with a bow, and I gazed blankly at Amroth. "The conversation of that very polite person," I said, "is like a bad dream! What is this extraordinarily depressing place? Shall I have to undergo a course here?"

"No, my dear boy," said Amroth. "This is rather out of your depth. But I am somewhat disappointed at your view of the situation. Surely these are all very important matters? Your disposition is, I am afraid, incurably frivolous! How could people be more worthily employed than in getting rid of the last traces of intellectual error, and in referring everything to its actual origin? Did not your heart burn within you at his luminous exposition? I had always thought you a boy of intellectual promise."

"Amroth," I said, "I will not be made fun of. This is the most dreadful place I have ever seen or conceived of! It frightens me. The dryness of pure science is terrifying enough, but after all that has a kind of strange beauty, because it deals either with transcendental ideas of mathematical relation, or with the deducing of principle from accumulated facts. But here the object appears to be to eliminate the human element from humanity. I insist upon knowing where you have brought me, and what is going on here."

"Well, then," said Amroth, "I will conceal it from you no longer. This is the paradise of thought, where meagre and spurious philosophers, and all who have submerged life in intellect, have their reward. It _is_, as you say, a very dreary place for children of nature like you and me. But I do not suppose that there is a happier or a busier place in all our dominions. The worst of it is that it is so terribly hard to get out of. It is a blind alley and leads nowhere. Every step has to be retraced. These people have to get a very severe dose of homely life to do them any good; and the worst of it is that they are so entirely virtuous. They have never had the time or the inclination to be anything else. And they are among the most troublesome and undisciplined of all our people. But I see you have had enough; and unless you wish to wait for Professor Sylvanus's sensational pronouncement, we will go elsewhere, and have some other sort of fun. But you must not be so much upset by these things."

"It would kill me," I said, "to hear any more of these lectures, and if I had to listen to much of our polite friend's conversation, I should go out of my mind. I would rather fall into the hands of the cragmen! I would rather have a stand-up fight than be slowly stifled with interesting information. But where do these unhappy people come from?"

"A few come from universities," said Amroth, "but they are not as a rule really learned men. They are more the sort of people who subscribe to libraries, and belong to local literary societies, and go into a good many subjects on their own account. But really learned men are almost always more aware of their ignorance than of their knowledge, and recognise the vitality of life, even if they do not always exhibit it. But come, we are losing time, and we must go further afield."


XXII


We went some considerable distance, after leaving our intellectual friends, through very beautiful wooded country, and as we went we talked with much animation about the intellectual life and its dangers. It had always, I confess, appeared to me a harmless life enough; not very effective, perhaps, and possibly liable to encourage a man in a trivial sort of self-conceit; but I had always looked upon that as an instinctive kind of self-respect, which kept an intellectual person from dwelling too sorely upon the sense of ineffectiveness; as an addiction not more serious in its effects upon character than the practice of playing golf, a thing in which a leisurely person might immerse himself, and cultivate a decent sense